Another 25 Reasons Your Submissions are Rejected

Some time ago I posted the first 25 reasons. Here are more tips from the Surrey, B.C. Writers Conference. Each year agents and publishers conduct an exercise, where they read aloud the first pages of writers' submissions to see how far they would read before it would be rejected. Here is a list of reasons for rejection, courtesy of Anne Mini, Author!Author! 

26. When the first lines are dialogue, the speaker is not identified.
27. The book opened with a flashback, rather than what was going on now.
28. Too many long asides slowed down the action of an otherwise exciting scene.
29. Descriptive asides pulled the reader out of the conflict of the scene.
30. Overuse of dialogue, in the name of realism.
31. Real life incidents are not always believable.
32. Where’s the conflict?
33. Agent can’t identify with the conflict shown.
34. Confusing.
35. The story is not exciting.
36. The story is boring (yes, they did differentiate between this and the one before it.)
37. The story is corny.
38. Repetition on pg. 1 (!)
39. Too many generalities.
40. The character shown is too average.
41. The stakes are not high enough for the characters.
42. The opening scene is too violent (in the example that generated this response, a baby’s brains were bashed out against a tree).
43. Too gross.
44. There is too much violence to children and/or pets.
45. It is unclear whether the narrator is alive or dead.
 46. The story is written in the second person, which is hard to maintain.
47. The story is written in the first person plural, which is almost as hard to maintain.
48. The narrator speaks directly to the reader (“I should warn you…”), making the story hyper-aware of itself qua story.
49. The narration is in a kid’s voice that does not come across as age-appropriate.
50. An adult book that has a teenage protagonist in the opening scene is often assumed to be YA.

Has anyone received any other reasons for rejection?


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A native Montanan, Heidi M. Thomas now lives in Northwest Washington. Her first novel, Cowgirl Dreams, is based on her grandmother, and the sequel, Follow the Dream, has recently won the national WILLA Award. Heidi has a degree in journalism, a certificate in fiction writing, and is a member of Northwest Independent Editors Guild. She teaches writing and edits, blogs, and is working on the next books in her “Dare to Dream” series.     

Being Social Can Bring Extra Promotion


Are you a big fan of social media? If you spend time on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook or Pinterest, did it occur to you that social media could help authors by leveraging influencers? In other words, other people can help you reach new readers. It's always nice to meet new people or learn something new online, but wouldn't it be nice to have those same people help recommend you and your work to others?

Who Are Influencers?

The very short and precise answer is that they are people who can influence reasonably large numbers of potential customers to consider your book and/or business. If you like long definitions, influencers would be social media users whose opinions other users value, and who may express positive sentiments about your brand.

                                         Learn to F.L.O.P.

All of us do well to learn this technique. It is an acronym meaning to feature and leverage other people. Why would you want to do this? because by featuring them by re-tweeting, or liking a page, they will most likely return the favor to you or be open to the idea of hearing more about your book and spreading it to others. Maybe you can invite those in the social media world to guest post on your blog or offer to interview them. They will be flattered. If they are featured on your site, rest assured they will tell their followers and fans, bringing spotlight to your project.

                                   Provide Valuable Content

Don't be afraid to offer a free gift of some sort to get readers "hooked". Maybe you have a free ebook or an article to give away. if you post this online at social media sites, readers will gobble up the free and interesting content. Often times the content you share will be re-tweeted or shared via email. Either way, your name begins to spread farther and farther in the online world, reaching more readers. With greater exposure comes greater book sales for you.

                                            Make Small Talk

It's important to remember that social media is a two-way street. You cannot simply stand out on the virtual street corner and toot your own horn all day long. You don't want to be viewed as a self-promoter, but rather as an expert that shares valuable content or links. Engage potential readers and fellow authors in simple conversations, sharing tips and the like. For pointers, watch someone on a social media site that has great influence and many followers or fans. Emulate how they interact with others and notice what works well for them. Apply these rules and practice the, remember, it's about give and take.

How to Get Started

Begin to engage people on social media sites. Look for people you respect and focus on dialogue, not self-promotion. If you start out on Twitter, try to engage the same audience on Facebook or another site where you can share deeper content. From there, invite online "friends" to your website or blog where you are distributing an ebook, a free download or free information. After they receive the gift, follow up with information about your new book project. Chances are, they'll be interested and tell others as well. Stay in touch, be friendly and reap the rewards.

There are many benefits to being social. This article briefly highlighted just a few examples and is a compilation of proven tactics for success. If you are interested in making relationships, the sales will follow. The good news is, you won't have to do all the promoting yourself because the people you meet and come to know will start to promote your work for you. Take care and I'll see you online!


RL Taylor is an award-winning fiction author with five novels released to date. His newest writing venture is a series of non-fiction books on style, etiquette and self-improvement for men and women who want to help the men in their life. 
Click here for a free copy of The Gentlemen's Code which Esquire.com featured as recommended reading.


Scenes PLANNING YOUR NEXT STORY: PART 3



Scenes   PLANNING YOUR NEXT STORY: PART 3

So far we’ve discussed discovering the PREMISE for your story. Then you explored the BIG MOMENTS (turning points or plot points) and how they complicated your character’s life then how that affected them, ending with some major problems your character must deal with.

Today we’ll start imagining some scenes in the book.



Every book is similar to a screenplay in that it consists of scenes which move the story along. The scenes must be cohesive, sequential (unless there’s a flashback or flashforward, foreshadowing), essential to the plot movement and end on an upnote to keep the reader wanting more. Generally, a chapter is a scene. 

Sometimes you can have several scenes within one chapter, if they all relate. Just remember to end on a cliffhanger. Keep the reader guessing and intrigued. That’s why a chapter should end with someone about to be in trouble of some sort, or solving something big in the plotline—but in the next chapter.

Just think about the end of every serial show on television—they always show what’s coming next week to keep you coming back. And how do they ALL end for the season? On a cliffhanger, of course.

So, looking at your list of BIG MOMENTS from last month, start with any moment (turning point/plot point) and imagine what scenes might occur within that time-frame of the story. Make sure you cover the and thens and affects you thought of earlier and any more you might come up with.

I always work sequentially, but that’s just me. You can start with any plot point you find interesting or have ideas for and work out from there. It's sometimes helpful to begin at the end and work forward--especially if you know your ending.

Don’t worry about whether or not you will actually USE the scene. Write down just enough to remember the basics of it and move as fast as you can through each plot point. The scenes don’t have to be in any order yet, either. You’re just brainstorming at this point.

Here are my first five scenes when I brainstormed:
1.      Rayna is helping sell bolts of fabric when Peacers arrive and chase her through bazaar. She’s thrown into wagon with other girls. Woman who turned her in is smashed when wagon turns around. (This actually became my entire first chapter with many changes and additions)
2.      Rayna meets Deena and Renee on wagon
3.      Given Suzy’s (name changed) bunk in Gestortium. She has to chase away other ghosts when they realize she can see/hear them
4.      First night Rayna can’t sleep—some girls crying, moaning, snoring
5.      Fascinated by History lessons because never had schooling while others all bored—heard it all growing up normally

I even included flashbacks and premonitions/visions/foreshadowings in my scene brainstorming. I ended up with about twenty written pages of notes.

Next you type them onto a Word document with spaces between. Print them out and cut them up. Finally, you will arrange and rearrange these scenes as you build you chapters. You might even throw some out (I did) or add others as needed (I did).

Once you have them organized, paperclip each stack with sticky notes denoting the chapter number and put them into order.

Next month, the heart, liver, kidneys and brain of the story: Motive, Desire, Goal, Conflict, Theme.

Thanks to K.M. Weiland’s Outlining Your Novel

Rebecca Ryals Russell, a fourth-generation Floridian, was born in Gainesville, grew up in Ft Lauderdale then lived in Orlando and Jacksonville with her Irish husband and four children. Due to the sudden death of Rebecca's mother, they moved to Wellborn, near Lake City, to care for her father, moving into his Victorian home built in 1909. After teaching Middle Graders for fourteen years she retired and began writing the story idea which had been brewing for thirty years.  Within six months she wrote the first three books of each series, YA Seraphym Wars and MG Stardust Warriors. The world she created has generated numerous other story ideas including two current works in progress, SageBorn Chronicles based on various mythologies of the world and aimed at the lower Middle Grade reader and Saving Innocence, another MG series set on Dracwald and involving dragons and Majikals. She is finishing a YA Dystopian Romance which has been a NaNoWriMo project for three years. She loves reading YA Fantasy, Horror and Sci Fi as well as watching movies.  Read more about Rebecca and her WIPs as well as how to buy books in her various series at http://rryalsrussell.com  You may email her at vigorios7@gmail.com



Since When Should We Not Borrow from the Brits?


Something Borrowed, Something British

By Carolyn Howard-Johnson

Alex Williams of The New York Times thinks America Is on a slippery slope to sounding like the Brits.

Though my daughter loves the language spouted by her mentor at UCLA and I have been amused  by some idioms and colloquialisms I've run into over the decades (like "ladder" for a "run" in one's nylons), I can't say I've much noticed.

As proof of this dangerous tendency to copy language that's not understood by any but Americans immersed in our language from the Brits (or worse!, language that shouldn't be adopted), Alex cites:

·        Daniel Gross, an American journalist, who calls Mitt Romney a "bumbling toff."

·        American sci-fi author John Calzi who calls the iPad "a lovely piece of kit.

·        And the use of "fortnight," which I never consider British other than that almost all of the "American" language came from those islands over there near the English Channel.

Williams, in fact, blames New Yorkers for most of these Britishisms and then proceeds to use a whole lot of them—tongue-in-cheek in the British fashion, I'm supposing. They include relatively obnoxious ones like "crikey." But words like "flat" for apartment and "mobile" for cell phone and "holiday" for vacation are hardly new. A "flat" was a "flat" when I lived in New York in something like…oh, forget it. You don't need to know. And though rarely used these ways, we have used "mobile" for "cell phone" and "holiday" for a little vacation for at least a few decades. There are some advantages to being old. It's easy for us to place things in their appropriate decade.

Williams quotes one American editor of the Oxford Dictionary as saying using Britishisms are only "suitable" when there is no American English equivalent, like the word "'twee" for stuff that smacks of Britishness like Laura Ashley dresses. He cautions against using it on the way to the "loo," because he thinks that is "just being pretentious."

Crikey, I'm thinking. Does one have to use a word that most Americans couldn't interpret before being considered "pretentious?" And isn't it awfully British to consider one darn fun word "suitable" when another is just plain "annoying."

I've been speaking English so long I can't be anything but grateful that we "borrowed" it or that they "lent" it to us back in the early days of Plymouth and Jamestown. Besides,I think "'twee" sounds very Alice-in-Wonderlandish. And I'm wondering where we'd be—how much poorer Disney would be—if we hadn't borrowed that masterpiece along with Peter Pan and Alice's literary cousins.
I think most Americans would say, "the cat has been out of the bag for some time and it's way too late to coax it back in."
 

Carolyn Howard-Johnson is the multi award-winning author of The Frugal Editor (http://budurl.com/TheFrugalEditor) and Great Little Last-Minute Editing Tips for Writers: The Ultimate Frugal Booklet for Avoiding Word Trippers and Crafting Gatekeeper-Perfect Copy (http://budurl.com/WordtrippsPB). Learn more about her fiction, poetry, and HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers and retailers at http://HowToDoItFrugally.com.

Writing Math Poems

Santa Claus
Santa Claus (Photo credit: Nuchi Corp)


Writing math poems
 
I started writing poetry to express the usual teen angst and went on to write poetry for family holidays and the like. When I started writing poetry for publication it was about family and personal life. Although My undergraduate major was mathematics and my graduate degree is in computer science, I never even considered writing poetry about mathematics.
 
I did, however, write "Round". Round was sparked by my memory of a discussion in a college physics class about the rate at which a cup of coffee would cool and how the shape of the cup played into it. I didn't love college physics, and this was easily the most memorable thing in the whole course. Another trigger memory from a math class about the sphere having the least surface area per unit volume of any solid figure.
 
So I wrote "Round" and sent it off and it was accepted for publication. A friend read it and pronounced the finest math poem she'd ever read.
 
Huh? This is a math poem? She did manage to convince me, and I wrote a series of math poems. I went looking for books on the history of mathematics, and found mighty slim pickings. One book on the story of counting for kids and one or two fairly serious, heavy tomes for grownups. I did find a few interesting articles online, but not a book of the kind I wanted.
 
Some of the poems have been published, but I have yet to do anything with the collection as a whole.
 
There is, however, still that little voice that says I should take the math poems and use them as the basis for that non-fiction math book for kids I couldn't find.

THIS IS SUCH A MAGICAL CHRISTMAS ADVENTURE YOU...
Round

The sphere
is the perfect
shape

for conserving heat,
providing the least

surface area
per unit
of volume,

thus explaining
why Santa

lives at

the North Pole.


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Article Marketing – Publishing and Optimizing a Blog Post Using Blogger

Writers on the Move's next FREE webinar will be Friday, February 15th at 4PM EST.

Article Marketing – Publishing and Optimizing a Blog Post Using Blogger


Blogging is an essential part of creating and increasing your visibility. It helps put you on the internet’s radar. And, part of blogging is to create engaging, informative, and optimized content in the form of blog posts.

But, simply throwing up a blog post doesn’t ensure the search engine spiders will find and categorize your content. There’s more that has to be done to create search engine optimized content.

That’s what this free screen-sharing webinar is all about.

During the webinar I’ll post an article to the Writers on the Move’s blogsite and tweak it for search engine optimization – all in real time!

And, I’ll show how to find and implement SHARE buttons on Blogger.

While this webinar is focused on Blogger posts, much of the optimization is applicable to WordPress and other services.

So, if you want to make your blog posts more effective and get more ‘bang’ for your online marketing efforts, register today!

To register just click on the link below and fill out the form.

http://www.anymeeting.com/PIID=E952D681884C39

For full details, click on our Workshop Page.

~~~~~
The things we Mom's do. The last webinar I gave, one for the WOW! Women on Writing e-class I'm currently conducting, my daughter's dog was barking and no one was home to take care of her. It was distracting to say the least. So, this time I made my daughter aware of the day and time. She's promised to take the dog out for a while. For those who don't know, my daughter lost her apartment in storm Sandy and she and her dog have been living with me. My daughter's taken over the spare bedroom and her dog has taken over the living room recliner. :)

What's kind of funny is right before Sandy I bought a brand new recumbent bike. Since the storm I haven't been able to get to it - it's in the spare bedroom buried behind and under my daughter's belongings!

~~~~~
Hope to see you at the webinar!

To keep up with writing and marketing information, along with Free webinars, join us in The Writing World (top right top sidebar).

Karen Cioffi
Award-Winning Author, Freelance/Ghostwriter
Author Online Presence Instructor


Create and Build Your Author Online Presence
Karen Cioffi Professional Writing Services


~~~~~

Headlines That Increase Website Traffic and Conversion Rates

 


 Marketing research from MarketingExperiements.com shows that headlines are the most important factor if you are striving to increase website traffic and website conversion rates.

In an experiment, in which various elements of a website were tweaked to determine which would have the greatest impact on conversion, having an effective headline was more important than changing elements of the landing page or shopping cart process. In fact, changing a headline generated 29 percent more leads. That’s close to one-third more leads.

Let me pause a moment though. For those of you who aren’t sure what the term ‘website conversion rates’ is, it’s the ratio of visitors to buyers on your site. So, if you have 100 visitors and only 1 person buys, you have a 1% conversion rate.

Okay, back on track.

While quality and informative content is a must, the headline is kind-of-like the magnet for your website. It’s what will attract the surfer/browser to stop, pay attention, follow what’s going on, and follow the process to opt-in or buy.

As a writer/marketer, you need to have your message focused on what the customer’s interests are. This is especially critical for the headline. You need to craft a headline that will (1) quickly grab a surfer or visitor’s attention and (2) clearly define the WIIFM (what’s in it for me) or the value. If the visitor knows what the benefits are, he’ll be more receptive to ‘following the yellow brick road’ you have in place for conversion.

To increase website traffic and website conversion rates, the most effective headlines are ‘value-centric.’ This relates to number one and two above. You need to ‘hit’ the target customer’s interests and you need to convey the value of opting-in to your mailing list or buying what you’re offering. And, you need to let the visitor know just how significant the benefit/s will be.

An effective title might be: Get Paid to Guest Blog.

In five simple words you’re telling the reader what the benefit is and what’s involved.

“The Value Litmus Test,” an article at ValueCentricSelling.com, explains that along with having the value front and center, you should also provide the ‘timeline.’ This is another factor that will help increase website traffic.

The timeline is the length of time it will take the customer to achieve the benefits. This may not always be applicable to your product or service, but when it is it’s important to include it.

Finally, the headline and offered value must be credible, in other words realistic and actually doable.

Here are two headline examples:

Write an Ebook in 7 Days
How to Get Increased Traffic to Your Website in One Day

The example headlines/titles above each have a value proposition. They’re each promising a benefit and a specific timeline. The writer or marketer must be sure the promises/claims stated are realistic. But, even more than realistic, the value proposition must be believable. If the visitor wonders if it’s really possible, you’ve lost him.

So, breaking it all down, there are four elements to an effective headline that will increase website traffic and increase website conversion rates:

1. Grab the reader’s attention by focusing on his interests
2. Convey the value or benefit of what you’re offering
3. Provide a timeline, if applicable
4. Make sure the headline ‘promise’ is believable and doable

Add these elements to your headlines to generate and increase website traffic that will be receptive to your offers. It will also go a long way in boosting website conversion rates.

Karen Cioffi is an award-winning children’s author and successful children’s ghostwriter/rewriter. She is also the founder and editor-in-chief of Writers on the Move and an author online platform instructor with WOW! Women on Writing.

If you need help with your author platform, check out Karen's e-classes through WOW:
http://www.articlewritingdoctor.com/content-marketing-tools/

 

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