 For Authors: July 06, 2016 Issue [#7729] |
  For Authors
This week: The Big Ones Edited by: Jeff  
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"The two most engaging powers of an author are to make
new things familiar, and to make familiar things new."
-- Samuel Johnson
Trivia of the Week: Ever wonder why the New York Times decided to add so many different categories to its traditional Best Seller List? Blame Harry Potter. The series was such a gargantuan seller that the first three books stayed on in the top three hardcover fiction slots without wavering. As the fourth book neared publication, the New York Times became concerned that other books weren't getting the opportunity to be seen because Rowling was dominating the list. So they created a Children's Best Seller list to relegate Rowling's books to. And after dominating that list for years, the New York Times again made a new change and created a separate list for Children's Series Best Sellers, which tracked only the series sales as a whole and not the individual books.
If that's not crazy enough, Publisher's Weekly, who has maintained a list of bestselling novels in the United States for every year dating back 1895, actually removed the Harry Potter books from their annual list entirely. It's been theorized that the books were removed because the series' sales numbers were such an outlier that they were unfairly distorting the growth and decline of the children's book genre from year to year.
On the one hand, some people think this behavior is unfairly punitive toward (after all, her books were a legitimately at the top of the list by the standards these organizations use to measure everyone else). On the other hand, though, there aren't many authors who can claim their books are so successful that they made the publishing industry change the way they report book sales so that other people have a fair shot. 
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THE BIG ONES
With Writing.Com's "Game of Thrones" in full swing, I thought it might be a good time to take a look at what I've taken to calling "The Big Ones," otherwise known as site events that tend to dominate the newsfeeds of your friends and everyone else around the site. In calendar year order, those events usually include activities like "The Quills" each spring, "Game of Thrones" in early summer, the "Wdc 15th Birthday Masquerade Party" at the end of the summer, the official "Writing.Com Party Central 2024!" every September, and the "October Novel Prep Challenge Group" and "NaNoWriMo Write-A-Thon" and other NaNoWriMo activities each October and November.
And those are just the annual events! There are also regular events hosted by large groups that have really impressive turnout, like the monthly review raids by the "WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group" , the semi-annual "The Soundtrackers Group" , and perennially popular activities like the "30-Day Bloggers Group" .
Whenever events like these run on the site, it's important to remember three things:
1. Participation is optional. You don't have to join in an activity that doesn't interest you, even if all your friends are participating. We can sometimes feel pressured by not wanting to let our friends down, but it's entirely okay to opt out of anything that doesn't interest you, and your friends should be respectful of that. If you tell them you aren't interested in participating in " Game of Thrones" , they shouldn't be hitting you up for donations/cheers. If you tell them you're not interested in NaNoWriMo, they shouldn't pressure you into signing up for the " NaNoWriMo Write-A-Thon" .
2. Not everybody is participating. This is a huge online community. While we tend to self-select into smaller groups and those smaller groups may participate in an activity in large numbers, you're still looking at a remarkably small segment of the Writing.Com community that's participating in each activity. Last year's " Wdc 15th Birthday Masquerade Party" had 32 participants. The last round of the " The Soundtrackers Group" had 34. This year's " Game of Thrones" has 68, and last year's " NaNoWriMo Write-A-Thon" had 53. There are literally thousands of members on this site every day, and several hundred online and any given time of the day, around the clock.
3. Other stuff is still going on. There are plenty of other opportunities to participate around Writing.Com when one of these activities is going on. The monthly site contests (July's are " Short Shots: Official WDC Contest" and " Good Deeds Get CASH!" ) run all the time. So do most other regularly-run contests and activities. And independent reading, reviewing, and interaction are always going on!
The purpose of this editorial isn't to bash on these big contests (heck, I run one of them!), and they can be a fantastic way to get involved with the community here on Writing.Com. I personally enjoy the challenge and camaraderie of trying to write a novel every November with a group of friends in the "NaNoWriMo Write-A-Thon" , and the "Wdc 15th Birthday Masquerade Party" is probably the activity I most look forward to every year. But it's also important to note that these activities are entirely optional and there are more than enough opportunities to find something else to do if any one of them doesn't float your boat. I see a lot of newsfeed posts this time of year (and in November) that say things like, "Oh man, I am so sick of Game of Thrones updates" or "I swear, if I see one more thing about NaNoWriMo..." And that's not a healthy view to have of the site or the members of the community that choose to participate in these big events.
If you find yourself a little fatigued by the goings-on of a large site activity, I would strongly recommend finding a way to participate elsewhere. Find a new contest or activity to participate in while the big one is going on. Especially if a lot of that contest or activity's regulars are participating in the big one, the organizer will probably appreciate someone stepping in and keeping interest up while others are preoccupied. And while many of us join groups or activities for the encouragement and incentives that are given out for affiliated reviews and whatnot, there's nothing at all wrong with independently reading and reviewing some items if they catch your interest.
Big "event" type activities are fun for the site because they really encourage a lot of involvement and are a great way to get to meet new members of the site that you might not have previously been acquainted with. But there's also a whole lot of Writing.Com out there for people who aren't interested in a given event, and that's okay too. The important thing is that you continue to enjoy yourself on this site and in this community, in whatever form interests you. Don't be intimidated by big events... jump in and give them a try if they seem like fun. Or don't if they don't. Either way is totally fine!
Until next time,
Jeff
If you're interested in checking out my work:
"Blogocentric Formulations"
"New & Noteworthy Things"
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EXCERPT: Once we’d had breakfast and the obligatory cuppa, checked gear, we packed up and decamped. For some reason, it was easier lifting the bikes back on to the road than it had been hoisting them into the wood the night before, but I guess we were fresher and feeling relatively fit. We knew we’d reach the half-way point well within the day, but what we didn’t know was that the day’s cycling was going to be the hardest section of the route, and by far the most physically demanding.
EXCERPT: Sometimes making friends is easy, sometimes it is difficult, sometimes it just happens. This is a brief story about making one friend. I was an undergraduate. I had hitched across the US, ridden a motorcycle coast to coast, and then from Connecticut to Alaska when the highway was still gravel. What next? Obviously, there was only one answer. That was to go around the world.
EXCERPT: The steady click-clack of wheels sliding over tracks stirs me from my slumber. I blink several times, trying to adjust to my surroundings. A man is sitting across from me, a smirk on his thin lips, as he watches my awakening. Feeling out of sorts, I duck his humored gaze and look out the window. Shrubbery blurs into different shades of green, slipping away as the landscape speeds by. Realization dawns on me, and I turn back to the stranger. I stammer, “Are we on a train?”
EXCERPT: January 1978. The excesses of Christmas on New Year's safely behind us, we were ready for a holiday. Winter in Germany is a grey, damp time. It rarely gets cold, and snow is an event where we lived, at the foot of the Black Forest. All in all, much easier to take than a Canadian winter. Nevertheless, we felt we were ready for a bit of sun and warmth. Spain was the logical choice, but Constance had spent several months there the previous year and I wasn't too keen on the idea either. Somewhere exotic was the answer.
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Feedback from my last newsletter about social media presence ("For Authors Newsletter (June 8, 2016)" ):
marphilheartz writes: "Great information, Jeff. At the recent conference I attended, this was a huge topic. Much of what you wrote about was covered in great detail. I especially liked that you included the posts should not all be "buy my book" posts. In fact, most posts should be for your target audience and not really for yourself. This is the way to build a platform. As you can see, I was quite motivated by what I've been learning. Another thing I learned about was a program called Hootsuite which can post to multiple platforms at one time for you. The free version only allows you to use three at a time, but the pro version allows you to use unlimited social media. Thanks again for an awesome newsletter!!!"
I've dabbled a little with Hootsuite myself and really enjoy the way it integrates so many social media accounts together. Glad someone finally figured out a better way to manage social media profiles rather than one at a time! 
Vaughan Jones - ONE Scribe  writes: "Hi Jeff. Yessir, what you say here is truth. I have become disillusioned at the amount of social media interaction needed to promote one's writing, topics, oneself as a writer, etc. I have thus taken the notion that if my writings, i.e. books and articles, are worth reading they will be found by interested readers. In so doing I have been proven wrong and I will pursue a more disciplined approach to social posting. Thank you."
The great thing about social media is that you can make it something you enjoy. More than anything, audiences just want to feel a connection to an author they enjoy, so finding something that interests you will most likely be of interest to them. Independent author Joanna Penn, for example, writes supernatural action/thrillers set all over the world and gets inspiration from her world travels. The largest segment of her social media following enjoys her posted photos and stories about her experiences traveling... which she's happy to talk about anyway! The key is to find something interesting to you that also interests your audience.
Stan Stanley writes: "Used to follow certain authors on fb/twitter but when I saw they ere only pushing their books the whole time I stopped and turned off notifications, even with authors on some writing groups I belong to, they never take part in discussions or jokes only post when they want to sell their books."
Absolutely. That's one of the problems that a lot of authors have on social media. Yes, the idea is to promote your work, but it's no fun listening to someone or following them around if they're only trying to get you to buy something all the time! That's why it's so important to have a social media presence that focuses on your personality and interests in addition to your work.
Quick-Quill  writes: "To the perfect and those tied to a computer I applaud you all. I just don't have the time to do all that. Maybe if I could more people would buy my book. ....vicious circle Vicious!!!"
There's definitely a give and take involved. Before social media was around, authors struggled with how to get their name out there in a world where the publishers controlled who made it into bookstores. Now that social media is here, authors struggle with their time management between promoting themselves and doing the actual writing itself! 
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