Guest Blogger Julie Farley: It Started With "Dear Diary..."

Reading was my escape as a child.  My parents got a divorce when I was in second grade and I guess I used to get lost in a book to escape my changing family landscape.  I started with E.B. White books, moved onto Beverly Cleary and then Judy Blume.  I devoured each and every book the author had written.  As I got older, I even “borrowed” my mom’s Danielle Steele books when she wasn’t looking.  

I loved living in another world for a short time while I turned the pages.  I loved the feel and smell of a library book and my library card was the coolest thing I ever owned.

In between books, I started to write.  First, it was a lot of simple diary entries like:

     Dear Diary,

     I can’t believe so and so was so mean to me today at recess.  

     I am not walking to school with her tomorrow. 

     Yours, Julie

My issues got bigger as my life went on.  Most of my diaries focused on boys and random crushes.  But they also talked about my dad and my very tenuous relationship with him.  Then I branched out into poetry as my feelings got more complex.  I found as a young girl, words were the only way I could make sense of my life and my feelings.

When I was in ninth grade, my English teacher asked us to write a fairy tale.  It was the only high school writing assignment that I can remember and that I still have.  I wrote and illustrated a tale and received an A++ on it.  My dad kept it and I was lucky enough to find it two and a half years ago when I was going through his things after he died.

 

Finding that fairy tale was the sign that I needed that told me to keep on writing.  My dad was my biggest cheerleader where my writing was concerned.  Our relationship had its ups and downs but we were very close during his last few years.  He made it no secret that I should write.  I think he was giving me one of his dreams that he never saw to fruition but it fit because writing had been my passion for decades already.  

When he died, I started my blog. And I started work on my first novel.  His death unleashed something in me, an honesty I didn’t know existed before.  Writing in a public forum is scary and overwhelming but the rewards have outweighed the drawbacks.   My kids enjoy it…sometimes.  After every crazy thing that takes place in our family, someone says, “Are you going to blog about that Mom?” Chances are pretty high the answer is yes.  

When I published my first book last month, it hurt that my dad would never hold it in his hands.  But I have to believe that he is out there smiling down on me and somehow reading my words.

For more on Julie, check out:

Julie's website HERE

Perfect Mamas Blog HERE

Find Julie on Facebook HERE

Foller her on Twitter @JulieFarley1

Guest Blogger Susan MacNicol: Social Media Is Not A Crock of S***

 Social Media –What the hell is that all about?

This may come as a surprise to some of you, seeing the inordinate amount of time I spend on Facebook, Twitter and elsewhere, but I have to confess that until I had my first book published less than a year ago, I had NEVER been interested in social media. In fact, I thought it was a crock of old s***. 

 

There. I’ve said it. I have outed myself and I don’t care. Gather the townsfolk, pick up those pitchforks, light up those kerosene soaked thingamajigs and burn me at the stake.  Just make sure I’m really dead and passed over or else I will come back to haunt you. Malevolent poltergeists have nothing on me if I decide to make your life a misery. In fact, from some of the comments I’ve heard and eye rolling I’ve seen lately, I have the ability to do this when I’m still alive...Hell, I digress. Back to the wonders of social media.

I was a bit of a Mother Grundy when this topic came up. “What? Go online and talk to people I don’t know? Are you kidding me? Why the hell would I want to waste time doing that? I’d rather poke my eyes out with a blunt stick. ” Yes. *Sighs*. I’m afraid I did say that. And you know what? It’s because I didn’t understand the attraction and the power this medium has to offer in a world that is increasingly heading towards cyber space. One has to keep up with the times.

So when my publisher said to me, ‘Sue, you need to develop an author platform, an author community so readers can find you,’ I gulped, hitched up my trousers and took it like a man. I had no idea even where to start. Sure, I’d had a LinkedIn account, which I managed with some hesitancy, afraid to poke it in case it turned on me like a bear with a sore paw. The few friends I had in there hardly saw me post anything new. I just invited people, built up contacts and did nothing with them.

However- if I hadn’t done this, I would never have found my current publisher. There is a kooky karma to this particular story.  I’ll zip through it a little in short sentences and hope you get the drift. Every word is true.

-Had a fan girl crush on a certain British actor. (Everyone in the world knows who it is, so if you don’t, you’ve been out of touch. But if you really want to know, head over to my website.)

-Stalked (I use that term loosely people, don’t go getting me arrested) the internet and found a few people who were connected loosely to him.

-One of them just happened to be a very talented composer, who’d worked in theatre and as I was writing about film and theatre I thought he would be well placed to help with my research.

-I invited him to ‘LinkIn’ with me. He did –silly blighter. 

-We shared a few emails and conversations and he was really supportive of my writing efforts.

-Then lo and behold, via this connection, suddenly I get a ‘LinkedIn’ invite from a company called Boroughs Publishing Group.

-I accept said invite with alacrity –they want to be linked in with me? Wow. All my dreams have been realised.

-When it came time to submit to a publisher, I immediately thought of them. I did some research, saw they were into what I was writing, sent my MS off- and the rest is now history.

So – it worked. And this I think is the essence of what it’s all about. You need to build connections, network, reach people no matter who or what they are, because one day, who knows what you could do for each other. And that’s another very important part of this equation –it’s a two way street. What you take you need to give back. And that’s hard work. If you keep taking and not giving back, they are all going to finally get really pissed off with you and you’ll find yourself alone.

I like to think I do this. I try and promote and share the work of the people who do it for me. Those who just take, after a while, I ignore them completely. My theory is, if I can the time to do it, so can you. Excuses of no time, sick parrots, cakes flopping in the oven and the plumber coming to visit (I think there’s a real story in that one *winks* J) are no excuse.

 

And in becoming what my publisher now calls with pride ‘a social networking guru’ and being asked to give talks to my local writing circle around the topic, I feel proud of what I’ve achieved. I have made some wonderful cyber friends, too many and too special to mention them all. From two wonderful best- selling US authors, a few inspirational men dealing with demons the rest of us can’t even imagine, a lady who kindly proof read one of my books for the psychology aspects, fellow authors who acted as beta readers, a crazy NZ author and a gal who I recently had the pleasure of meeting for the first time and just random human beings out there who support and guide me every day – I now realise what social networking and media is all about, especially when you are trying to accomplish something like sell your books and get your work out there.

And I do all this without any guarantees of book sales or any specific proof that what I’m doing is working at all (I have my theories but that’s another blog post). The inherent truth is that I don’t think anyone knows whether it works. I like this snippet- 

Man praying:  ‘God, I want to win the lotto. Please, I need a break. 

I have no food, no job, my family have left me and if I could win the lotto, that 

would make such a difference to my life. Please can you hear my prayer?”

Booming voice from on high: “You silly man, if you want to win the lotto, 

you have to buy a bloody ticket!!’

And that’s the crux. If as an author, you don’t do it, you will never have the chance to know if it works. A little like the butterfly in China flapping its wings and affecting global events- the more you’re out there, the better the chances. Randomness is the answer. Sorry if that sounds a bit Zen but I’m a firm believer that the more seeds you sow, the more chance you have reaping something one day when it’s your time.

I’m doing it because without it, I wouldn’t have the experiences mentioned above and made some wonderful contacts and friends. I wouldn’t be writing a book with someone at the moment who has had a life that is stranger than any fiction I could have written. I wouldn’t have become embroiled in worthy causes like helping sex abuse victims, rape victims and championing gay rights. 

So – Facebook, Tweet, Pinterest, Goodreads, Instagram, Flickr, tumblr, Wordpress, Google+, LinkIn away and have fun doing it without expecting your sales to soar overnight. It takes time.

Time is what prevents everything from happening at once. ~John Archibald Wheeler

 

Find Susan's books on AMAZON

www.susanmacnicol.com

Twitter - @SusanMacnicol7

Facebook http://www.facebook.com/susiemax77

Blog http://susanmacnicol.wordpress.com/

www.boroughspublishinggroup.com

Tips for Writing a Book that is Attractive to Movie Producers by Guest Blogger Lisa Grace

Tips for Writing a Book that is Attractive to Movie Producers by Guest Blogger Lisa Grace

Back on May 23rd 2011, I published my first ebook on Amazon. An amazing thing happened. By

September of 2011, I had two movie producers contact me about optioning my angel series. In February of 2012, I signed a deal for Angel in the Shadows, Book 1 (offered free as an ebook)and Angel in the Storm, Book 2 with first right of refusal on Angel in the Ice, Book 3.

The option was immediately exercised and is currently in development through Motion Picture Pro Studios which has been involved with five academy award winning films.

As I was going through the process, I talked to other authors who have optioned their books for films, from major movie deals to Hallmark movies.

These tips are some of the things I learned:

Broad appeal

Your book must appeal to a fairly broad segment of people to get it into theaters. This is one reason romance and teen themes do well. They appeal to broad segments of the population and are relatively cheap to film. The smaller your target market, the smaller your chances.

Certain themes do better among groups of viewers. When a movie producer runs across a film he thinks might make a good movie, they fill out a questionnaire or a synopsis and then hire a research company like http://www.the-numbers.com/
to give them a profitability score on the film. This number helps get investors (producers and studios) on board.

Location, location, location

Sets and locations should be reasonable to re-create. Most movies do not have huge blockbuster budgets. This means the cheaper they can re-create where your scenes are set, the more you open up your project to being considered.

They call this thinking, “man in a box.”

Animation is expensive. Octopus like aliens may knock your book out of consideration, but one with more humanoid ones may keep it in the running.

Generic tornado scenes and such can be purchased as stock footage from companies like Dreamworks, so weather is okay if your characters can stay high and dry for the most part.

Know your market

In this article from the New York Times certain scenes work better in movies than others. For instance one they mention in the article is for horror films: Demons that target people rather than those that are summoned (like by a Ouija Board) do much better on opening day. These details are determining which books now get made into movies.

A Simple Story in Seventy to One Hundred Scenes

Epic sagas are out for your average film maker. The budget just isn’t going to be there. A simple story that can be told in ninety - one hundred and twenty minutes or less, which means around seventy to one hundred scenes is typical. Movies are visual. When you are writing your book, try imagining watching it in your head. I know most of you do.

Plots move forward in two ways, action and dialog. The best is when there is some action with the dialog. Scenery is pretty but three seconds on screen is enough to set it in the viewer’s mind.

Just like everything else, the “art” of film making and turning books into movies is now being heavily influenced by factors that can be measured on a money making scale. So if your hope is to see one of your books turned into a movie, understanding what producers consider might help you achieve your goal.

Lisa Grace 

Angel In The Shadows, Book 1, Angel in the Storm, Book 2 , Angel in the Ice, Book 3 at Amazon.com

The difference between vampires and angels? Angels are real.

Books 1 & 2 are optioned for film, in development now.

AOL's recommended alternative to Twilight series

Follow Lisa on Twitter @LisaGraceBooks