Category: Inspiration and Philosophy

Free is Not a Price and Hope is Not a Business Plan

Posted on by Joel D Canfield

Prepare for a long rambling rant with overtones of self-analysis.

I have written before about using free as a strategy, not a price.

Please, make business decisions based on evidence, a plan, not hoping and wishing.

I’ve read mention of people giving away tens of thousands of digital downloads of their book, and receiving a few dozen reviews and the equivalent of $700 in related sales.

If the effort involved is minimal and the reward is $700, I guess I can see that. I suppose I have to reserve judgment until I have more data.

Yes, I want lots of people to read my books.

What I don’t want is for lots of people to just line up and download my books. It’s not the same thing.

[image: free-get-in-line]

… more … “Free is Not a Price and Hope is Not a Business Plan”

400

Posted on by Joel D Canfield

[image: 400]Post #400.

That’s 400 articles.

144,849 words about writing, indie publishing, and commonsense zero-cost DIY marketing for authors.

Thanks for showing up every week and reading them.

By a wide margin, the most popular post yet has been a list of a bunch of other posts. Seems y’all like things packaged neatly, and I respect that.

What else do you like? What’s been missing? What would make this place so valuable you’d stand in line to pay for my help?

Dreams Are Not Enough

Posted on by Joel D Canfield

[image: dreaming]Seth writes about Harper Lee’s double miracle at The Domino Project. You should read it. I’ll wait.

# # #

I hope you read it or what I write here will make less sense.

Dreaming is wonderful. It’s vital to an artist. No dreams, no art.

Dreaming is not a business plan.

… more … “Dreams Are Not Enough”

Faster Horses II

Posted on by Joel D Canfield

[image: holy-grail-of-author-marketing](Faster Horses was the title of this month’s newsletter. This is more on the same subject.)

“If I’d asked my customers what they wanted, they’d have said ‘Faster horses.'” — Henry Ford (attributed)

When I asked authors what they wanted, the universal response was “Someone to do my marketing for me.”

I’ve been racking my brains pondering a technology automation tool I could create to give struggling authors an effective marketing service they could afford.

Because, y’know, that’s what authors said they wanted.

… more … “Faster Horses II”

When is it Appropriate to Offer Unsolicited Criticism of Someone’s Art?

Posted on by Joel D Canfield

[image: cat-up-a-tree]There’s an old story about a chap who goes on vacation and leaves his dull-witted brother to care for the household.

After a week, he calls home and asks how his cat is faring.

“Cat’s dead,” his brother blurts.

“What? It’s what? That’s no way to tell someone their beloved pet died! Ya gotta work up to it.”

His brother, eager to learn, asks how one might do that.

… more … “When is it Appropriate to Offer Unsolicited Criticism of Someone’s Art?”

Following Every Rabbit Down a Hole: The Endless Search for All the Marketing

Posted on by Joel D Canfield

I started reading an article about how Amazon search really works and why authors need to know this.

I had to look up “lemmatisation” and shortly thereafter my eyes glazed over and I gave up.

[image: this is not that]

Maybe I’m a lazy slacker. Maybe I just want to write and then hope books sell themselves.

Maybe there’s only so much one person can do.

… more … “Following Every Rabbit Down a Hole: The Endless Search for All the Marketing”

Learn to Love Marketing, or Give Your Books Away (or Both)

Posted on by Joel D Canfield

[image: left, right, or middle?]Almost every author I talk to wishes someone else would sell their books for them. The few exceptions are those who, by nature or training, enjoy marketing their books. They’ve learned enough to have a plan and to execute it consistently, persistently.

Even my wife‘s clients, who pay her large sums for social media marketing for their books, engage fully in the process. Those who don’t quickly become frustrated because she isn’t selling their books well enough, not realizing that’s not how it works (despite having that clearly explained at the outset.)

Here’s the good news: if you hate marketing and you don’t want to sell your books, you don’t have to spend another second on marketing.

… more … “Learn to Love Marketing, or Give Your Books Away (or Both)”

Gathering Structural Support

Posted on by Joel D Canfield

I’m gathering resources to create some kind of structure checklist for my writing and wanted to share 3 useful lists and concepts I’ve encountered the past week.

[image: structural support]

… more … “Gathering Structural Support”

In Praise of Robert McKee’s “Story”

Posted on by Joel D Canfield

In the past few years I have started, but not finished:

  1. A coming of age story with a strong musical element
  2. The first mystery in a new series with a rather artistic protagonist
  3. The first mystery in a new series with a female protagonist
  4. A Jeeves & Wooster/P. G. Wodehouse-inspired light comedy with a mysterious twist.

They are unfinished, not because they aren’t good, but because I didn’t know how to make the last 1/3 (or 1/2 or 2/3) as good as what was already written.

Not because I don’t know how to use words. Never been a problem. I was reading at college level when I started Kindergarten back in the Jurassic Era.

What I didn’t know was, once you start building a bridge of story from over here and it spans half the chasm, how do you keep it from collapsing into the ravine until you can make it land over there?

In other words, what is the structure of a story?

… more … “In Praise of Robert McKee’s “Story””

Respect Your Reader’s Intelligence

Posted on by Joel D Canfield

[image: now where are those rutabaga chips?]When someone tells a joke and then explains the punchline, does it make the joke funnier?

When you’ve made a dumb mistake and someone points it out, is that helpful?

I am reminded of of a scene from John Cleese’s brilliant Fawlty Towers where Basil Fawlty reacts to his wife Sybils’ comments: “Perhaps we can get you on Mastermind; next contestant, Sybil Fawlty from Torquay, special category, The Bleedin’ Obvious!”

… more … “Respect Your Reader’s Intelligence”