Tag Archives: editing

Being a Career Author. Do you have what it takes? Part 3

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Hello writers and authors! This is the third blog post in this series that is exploring the findings in an author survey conducted by Written Word Media, the company that brings you Freebooksy and Bargainbooksy and other promotional tools.

You can read the intro to this blog series here and read the second part about how much time career authors spend writing here.

The third thing this survey found about these authors is that they invest in professional editing.

hand holding red pen over proofreading text

Editing can be costly and scary, but it’s much needed by every author.

Remember, emerging authors have six books in their catalog, have never made more than 60k in a year, and spend on average 18 hours a week writing.

60kers have 22 books in their catalog, and, on average, spend 28 hours a week writing.

100kers have 28 books in their catalog and spend, on average 32 hours a week writing.

As we can see by the graphic below that accompanied the original survey, all three kinds of authors use a professional editor the most. But when it comes to editing, new authors have it tough. We’re not making money yet, but we never will if we’re not selling a good product.

Marketing-Is-Hard-3-768x494

And while technology makes it easier than ever to find typos (thanks, Grammarly) technology makes it easier for readers to complain. When you read a book on a Kindle, for example, a reader can highlight a typo or mistake and report it.

Crazy, huh?

It stands to reason a well-edited book will earn you more money in the long run. But when you have no money, it’s hard to come up with the fees.

Not to mention, there are different types of editors, and you may not understand what kind you need, and the cost can add up if you need more than one kind.

If you’re a new writer, you may want to invest in a developmental editor. They’ll weigh in on character arcs, character development, plotting, and pacing. Readers aren’t going to like a book with flat characters and plot holes. Learning craft is hard, but you may only need to hire a developmental editor once to steer you on the right path for the rest of your writing career.

A line editor is different. They check facts (does your sun set in the west and rise in the east?), word usage, and syntax. They’ll correct you if you used the word sporadic when you meant erratic. If you’re not good with details, this kind of edit can help you a lot. I still use advice and tips I learned from the people who beta read and edited my earlier books. I used a lot of garbage words and learned how not to echo words in the same sentences and paragraphs.

Proofreading is a quick read through of the book as a last step for typos, missing words, etc. before publication. This is also the cheapest kind of editing.

If you can afford editing, make sure you ask for a sample first. The indie community is full of people charging for services they have no business providing because they don’t know what they’re doing. Be smart. Reedsy offers a list of professional editors, as well as Joanna Penn.

As for me, as I said above, early on I asked for lots of feedback and I took a lot of their advice. My first beta reader, Joshua Edward Smith, gave me invaluable advice that I still use (and I still laugh over some of my mistakes and his comments).

These days, against popular opinion, I do a lot of my own editing. I have nothing in my defense except that so far I’m not making a lot, and it’s hard to justify the expense. I do use beta readers, and they’ll look for typos for me after I run my manuscript through Grammarly.

2019-11-24You could argue I’m not making any money because my books aren’t edited properly. Maybe. But I’ll use this reasoning instead. Remember Alex Newton’s K-lytics report from one of my previous blog posts? I prefer to blame the saturation of the industry. Shh! I don’t spend much on marketing, so I would prefer to think people don’t know my books are out there.

Can you get by without an editor?

That depends on where your skills are with the craft, how much writing you do, how much feedback you listen to and apply. It depends if you can catch all your own typos, or if you know enough to use Grammarly effectively. (Not everything Grammarly flags needs to be fixed, so you can’t trust it blindly.) Usually the answer to those questions is no.

Would I advise a new author to publish without an editor? Nope. There’s no denying a book will sell better with a strong plot, three-dimensional characters, great grammar and punctuation than one without those things. And if you’re a new author, you’re unlikely to catch all those things on your own, or even know what to look for while editing.

You can building a writing career on a bad book, but it will take you longer than if you start strong.

What can you do?

  1. Join a writing group on FB and swap with someone in your genre. Just be careful and have a thick skin. Ideally, you’d want to form relationships with people in those groups before you ask. At least if you’re more than acquaintances they’ll hopefully be kind and actually be helpful. People can be cruel, and some just like to tear others down out of their own self-esteem issues, or they think they’re better than everyone else. You may need to pick through a few people before you find a good match. Twitter is also good if you search #betareader with maybe a hashtag of your genre. There’s been lot of activity on the #writingcommunity hashtag in the past six months or so. Just look for someone who will be willing to give you some real and useful feedback.
  2. Do what you can on your own when it comes to craft and grammar. The cleaner your manuscript when you hand it off, the less time an editor will have to spend on it, and that can cut down on costs. There are a lot of books out there that can help. Two of my most favorite books are James Scott Bell’s VOICE: The Secret Power of Great Writing and Grammar Girl’s Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing. Sit down and read it just like you would any other book. Mignon is funny and very easy to understand. She didn’t write it like a reference book, and you’ll be amazed at what you didn’t know. Another good editing book that everyone at the Santa Barbara Writers Conference I attended a couple years ago said was a must have is Self-Editing for Fiction Writers. How to Edit Yourself into Print. 
  3. Publish on WattPad for feedback. I don’t really condone this, as I feel that if you’re going to use the platform as a publishing site, putting up work only to take it down to publish it elsewhere might not sit well with your readers. On the other hand, I’ve heard from other writers that do this, and it seems to be an acceptable thing. If WattPad has turned into kind of a testing site for books and stories, then I’m not one to say anything. It’s something to consider at least, if you think a plot isn’t working, or you want general feedback overall.
  4. Keep an open mind. When you ask for feedback you need to keep an open mind. I hear some writers say they would never change their plot/characters/POV whatever based on feedback alone, yet they say they’re querying. A book being published without needing edits is almost unheard of, so if you’re querying without an open mind, you’ll never get published and you’re wasting everyone’s time. If you are honest and know that you’re not going to take people’s valid opinions into consideration, you’ll never grow as a writer. There is always room for improvement.

This wraps up the editing portion of the survey. Smart authors get their books edited/apply feedback, and the authors who don’t will deal with the consequences (ie, bad reviews and poor sales).

Next up, the survey asks about book covers and what the three levels of career authors do in that instance.

See you then!

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Editing The Rocky Point Wedding Series. Where I’m at cutting time and cutting the fat from my books.

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These past two weeks have been not so much as hit and miss as totally miss when it comes to the blog. I apologize for that, but this week I’ll try to catch you up on what I’ve been doing!

a rocky point wedding social media graphicYou all know I’ve been writing my Rocky Point Wedding Series.

I tweeted the other day that I was finished the first sweep of editing Book One. I felt like I missed a few important things, so I’m in the middle of editing it again. I’ve lost another 200 words on top of the 2,000 that I lost the first time around, and my final word count for that book will be about 72,500. A far cry from the almost 75,000 words I ended it with, but I think it’s reading a lot better.

In the past my editing schedule has gone like this:

  • Edit on screen. Maybe I do this once, usually do it twice. Not sure. This is where I look for typos, but it’s also where I usually get a rid of a lot of filler that drags the story down. Of course, this is the place to do the biggest changes, and I usually lose a lot of words here.
  • Another sweep on the computer.
  • Print it out. This stage is where I added a lot of the words I took out the first time, only making it sound better. This is where I tackle some syntax issues as well. This is a time-consuming step because after editing on paper, you need to take the time to put them all in the computer file.
  • Have Word read it to me. This step is also very time-consuming, but in the past I felt it was worth it. You can hear how your book sounds, listen for clunky sentences, fix syntax issues and all get a feel for it spoken. I like this step because authors are putting their books into audio a lot more lately, and places like Find A Way Voices through Draft to Digital are scrambling for ways to make this affordable for every author. While Word’s robovoice isn’t 100%, you can still get an idea if a narrator is going to stumble over a paragraph with twenty sentences in it.
  • Then I would proof the paperback proof. This step is pretty awesome too, because your  book is a book then, and it’s easy to spot typos and words like peek, peak, and pique that aren’t caught during editing.
woman using laptop

Photo by Jopwell on Pexels.com

You might be saying that’s a hella lot of editing, and it is. You might also think a person could skip some of this if she hired someone, and you would be right again. I never have, and it’s not a secret I do all my own editing. Sometimes I catch stuff, sometimes I don’t, but I’ve read books that have been pro-edited that have had mistakes. We’re all human, and I do give myself a little slack.

But this kind of editing takes on a whole new meaning when you’re doing four books at the same time, or at least back to back. So I’ve decided to cut out a couple editing steps and I have a proofer lined up who will help me. I’ve decided to take out the printing step, because that’s just a lot of paper, and I’m debating on taking out the listening step. If I don’t, I have to figure out where I want to put it in my schedule. I don’t want to touch it after my proofer gets a hold of it. That’s just asking for trouble.

I don’t like skipping the proofing the proof part because it really is important to read through the book after you’ve gotten it. You catch more than spelling mistakes and typos. Even inconsistencies are easier to spot since you are reading your own book as a reader. How can you not when you’re holding it in your hands?

I went through all that because I did want to touch on one other thing in regards to editing. As you get better writing, plot construction, character arcs, and learning grammar and punctuation (or you should be! listen to your feedback!) your books won’t need as much editing. It feels WEIRD giving up an editing step or two, but as you write, your first drafts will be cleaner, and clinging to editing steps may just be a waste of time.

Be careful that you’re aren’t changing something just to change something. Change something to make it sound better, or you’re just wasting your time.

A great book to read on self-editing is Self-Editing for Fiction Writers, Second Edition: How to Edit Yourself Into Print Subsequent Edition by Renni Browne (Author), Dave King (Contributor). When I went to a writing conference in Santa Barbara a couple years ago, this book was recommended by nearly everyone.

Another good book that will help you edit is Grammar Girl’s Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing (Quick & Dirty Tips) by Mignon Fogarty. Even if you’re going to pay someone to edit or proofread for you, it’s always cheaper to do as much as you can by yourself, this includes knowing where commas go, what a comma splice is, how to correctly us a semi colon, that kind of thing. Little details like that are a KILLER on an editor’s time.

I was going to add a couple other topics to this, but I had no idea going through my editing process for these books would take so long. I’m at almost 1,000 words already, so I will say goodbye for now and fill you on in what I’ve been doing with Amazon Ads later on this week.

What kind of editing do you put your book through? Betas? Yeah. An editor? Proofreader? Nothing?  Let know!

 

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The “As you know, Bob . . .” Syndrome. What it is and why you should stop it.

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as you know bob

I didn’t feel like being on social media last night, and I didn’t feel like writing more. It was a bit of a busy day, and I had felt off all day, too. I got in 2,000 words, and that was fine being I had done 5,000 the day before. Not all my days off can be high-output days, and I realize this as long as I keep moving forward at a pace I’m comfortable with.

Anyway, I decided to hop on my Kindle and see what is out there by way of contemporary romance. Maybe find a another book to read, since I finished my last one, Next Girl to Die by Dea Poirier.

I downloaded a sample of a romantic suspense, and like everything else indie these days in romance, this was written in first person present. But that wasn’t what bothered me. (Okay it did, but I already roared about that in a previous blog post.) What bothered me was that the first scene started as an “As you know, Bob” scene and it gave the book a horrible start.

What is an “As you know, Bob” scene? It’s a scene were characters are sharing information with each other that they already know, but they are talking to fill the reader in.

The dialogue in the scene I read sounded like a biography because one character was telling her best friend all about her boyfriend. This is so unrealistic and implausible. If they are best friends, share everything, and talk on a regular basis like the scene implied, the BFF would already know about her friend’s boyfriend. It was obvious the scene was written to introduce the reader to facts about the boyfriend, and it slowed everything down to a screeching halt. I managed three page “flips” before closing out the book and deleting the sample from my Kindle.

How do you avoid an “As you know, Bob” scene? Here are a few ideas.

  • Ask yourself if the characters already know the information they are talking about. If the answer is yes, then you don’t need the scene, or give them something different to talk about. Dialogue is designed for characters to pass new information on to each other, not go over things they both already know. As a writer how do you know you’re doing this? When you get lazy and your characters start saying things like, “You’re so forgetful! I’ve told you this a thousand times . . .” Or “I don’t know why I have to keep telling you this over and over again . . .” Sure, sometimes we do forget things in real life; sometimes we do need a little reminder here and there. But a girl’s best friend won’t need a refresher course in a current boyfriend.
  • Find a different way to introduce the character.
    It was obvious this scene was to introduce the boyfriend. But instead of a whole dialogue scene about said boyfriend, how about waiting until the boyfriend needs to show up? He’s going to be part of the story, the blurb said so, so why feed us backstory right then? Why write a scene that has a character saying “Well, you know my boyfriend is a multi-millionaire. He started his company from scratch in his mother’s basement and only two years later sold it to Facebook for a hundred million dollars. Now he’s partying all over town and treats me like a queen!” When you could wait and actually have the MC meet him:

    So this was Jasper Hargrove, the famous boyfriend. Self-made millionaire and creme de la creme of Manhattan society. Pictures in the tabloids didn’t do his face justice. He looked like he stepped out of a Hugo Boss photo shoot and smelled just as good.

    Feeding readers information in real time will always sound better.

  • Ask yourself if the information is even needed.
    What you think your readers should know and what your readers actually need to know are two different things. Sometimes the best information is no information. Let your readers fill in the gaps on their own. Do we need to know the boyfriend is a self-made millionaire, or that he created a start up living in his mother’s basement gorging on Doritos and Mountain Dew? Is it enough to say he’s a millionaire?  Sometimes a little mystery can go a long way.
  • If the information is needed, can your reader find out about it in a different way?
    Maybe the MC reads an article about him in the paper, or an industry magazine. Maybe she’s watching TV and a news clip comes up. You don’t need much. The scene that lasted three pages? That could have been condensed into a couple of lines.
  • Read the scene aloud or have Word read it to you and be honest. Does the conversation sound like crap? Does it sound unrealistic? Think of the characters and who they are. The scene might have worked if the friends were getting reacquainted after being apart for years and years. But even then, the boyfriend and the friend were going to be key players in the book. An info dump disguised as dialogue is still an info dump. If there’s not any new information being passed along to either character, if the scene isn’t offering anything new, if it isn’t moving the plot along, then get rid of it. It does take a lot of practice at successfully dropping backstory into a novel, but I’m finding less in this respect is always going to be more.

Thanks for reading!

Have never heard of “Well, you know Bob . . .” Syndrome? Here are a few more articles about it:

The Sneaky Secret Life of “As You Know, Bob…” by K.M. Weiland 

As You Know, Bob: Info dumping in dialogue by Erica Ellis

Do You Have “As You Know, Bob…” Syndrome?–How Writers Can Butcher Dialogue & How to Fix It By Kristen Lamb

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What do you do when you publish a bad book? 5 Ideas.

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Writing tools_ What can you do when you publish a bad book_

As indies, this is bound to happen. Hell, if you’re traditionally published, this can happen too. See my blog post on The Wedding Date.  (Spoiler Alert, I wasn’t impressed.)

As indies, we rush to put out content. Maybe it wasn’t edited the way it should have been, or maybe you didn’t catch a plot hole before you hit Publish. Maybe there’s more telling in there than you thought, or maybe you had some head hopping and you didn’t know you were doing it.

No matter what the issue is, you’re getting bad reviews. People don’t like your book. If you have more than one book out, maybe you feel like it’s not a big deal. But the problem is, if a reader happens along that book–they may not give you another chance to redeem yourself.

bad star reviews

So, what can you do?

  • First, admit your book still needs work. I see lots of people in denial over this. They don’t want to see the truth that their book was published before it was ready. It’s a scary and sad thing to admit. It’s especially heartbreaking when you thought it WAS ready, like The Corner of 1700 Hamilton. I had beta readers. I had an editor. It was as good as I could do at the time. But, now, after writing so many more words and getting better, it wasn’t that great. This can happen to anyone.
  • You can fix it. 
    This presents its own issues with ISBN numbers, and other little things like feeling like you’re ripping off the people who have already purchased it. Time is also a factor because depending on how big of a mess your book is, it could take a few months to rewrite, get it edited again, reformat it, and maybe redo the paperback cover if the number of pages changed. Fixing your book is almost as time-consuming as the launch.
    There is also the ethical question of is it right? Like I said, will you feel like you’re cheating the readers who have paid for your book? What if those reads resulted in bad reviews? Fixing it won’t make those bad reviews go away, and the only thing you can do is add to your blurb on your selling page that your book has been re-edited. This isn’t such a problem if not many people have bought your book, or you caught your mistakes before you started to promote it. This is the ideal scenario, but then you have to ask yourself if you’re going to pull it while you fix it, or hope that no one buys it while it’s in edits.
  • You can unpublish it.
    If your book really sucks, like, it should be hidden in a box under your bed with the dust bunnies and not the plot bunnies, then you can take it down. If you published a paperback, your book will always be there. Goodreads won’t take your books down. Bad books can linger, and there’s nothing you can do about it. I don’t recommend unpublishing. At some point you believed in your book enough to publish it. So deal with the consequences and learn from your mistakes.
  • You can write more books and hope you bury it. 
    If you don’t promote it at all, and never talk about it, there’s a good chance you can bury it. I’ve heard the stat bandied about that 50,000 books are published every month. That’s a lot of books, and it’s not so hard to think that if you never, ever, talk about your book, people will forget you wrote it. In fact, (and I know this to be true) you can soft launch quite a few books and no one will ever know you’re a writer if you don’t say anything.
  • You can leave it alone and start a pen name. 
    Starting over is hard. It means new social media. It means new business cards, new email. It means starting from ground zero. And maybe that’s your thing. Maybe that’s what it takes to feel better, have a fresh start. Lots of people write under different pen names. They abandon series that aren’t working. They want to write in different genres. They have no problem leaving the past behind. They have the time to make a new pen name work–and actually write under that pen name. I listen to  lot of podcasts, and this seems to be quite common. Letting the chips fall where they may and never looking back.
    This certainly is a viable option. If I ever get around to editing my fantasy books, I’ll release those under a pen name. That doesn’t mean I’ll be letting go of my contemporary romance name (which is my real name) but sometimes taking on a different name is smart. Can you do it every time you make a mistake with a book? Probably not. You won’t get anywhere. It’s hard enough as it is to make it under one name consistently putting out quality content. If you keep changing up your names because you keep making mistakes, that’s just wasting time. Time you may not have. As Mark Lefebvre says in The 7 Ps of Publishing, the golden age of Kindle is over. You can’t make a living publishing a couple of books. Making any kind of profit from your writing takes dedication and commitment. It takes consistency and quality work. You have to ask yourself, is the time it takes to let go of that book and start over worth it? Or is it better to take a month and edit the old book, and make it the book it should have been in the first place?

choice

The great thing about being an indie is choice. You have the freedom to do whatever you think is right for your business. And, if presented these choices you feel your book isn’t that bad after all? That is up to you. Promote it. See where it goes. In the scheme of 50,000 books a month, your book really may not be that bad. That’s your choice an author. Take the risk.

This same advice holds true for the authors who are not just publishing but querying. If you’re getting rejection after rejection, or the feedback indicates that your book just isn’t up to par, you have to decide if you want to keep hammering away, fix it, or if you want to put it aside and write something new.

It never ceases to amaze me how many first time authors think their book is wonderful. I was one of them. I learned better, and you will too. It’s what you do with that knowledge that will shape the rest of your career.

A long time ago I  listened to a podcast where the author talked about revamping his series because it wasn’t selling. I was new the indie scene, and I thought that just sounded so wrong. Unfortunately, redoing and rebranding books is an old practice and not just for indies. Traditionally published books have done that for their authors for years. I wrote a pretty in-depth blog post about it, and you can read it here. 

What are your thoughts on redoing books? Worth the time? Or is it better just to forget? Do you still promote your book even though you know it can be better?

For more opinions on what you can do with a bad book check out these links:

https://chrismcmullen.com/2013/09/25/unpublishing-republishing-and-updating-your-book/

https://www.thecreativepenn.com/2015/04/28/changing-book-titles/

https://selfpublishingadvice.org/why-i-unpublished-my-back-catalog/

EL James has written another book! (And why does anyone care?)

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e.l.-james-the-mister-livre

Photo taken from iD Boox. Click here for the article.

There was some big news in the book world last week: EL James has written another book!

50 shades

I heard about it in a few Facebook writing groups I’m in, and Publisher’s Weekly had to mention it in one of the newsletters I subscribe to.

The thing is, I don’t understand why anyone cares, and so passionately, it seems.

Well, I understand. Her 50 Shades of Grey took the romance community by storm and sold a record number of books. The trilogy was turned into movies, which, in turn, made E L James a household name and millionaire. It’s what any indie writer, or any writer, for that matter, dreams of.

el james books

She was a so-called “overnight success” (though her fanfiction of Twilight had been online for free for years prior) and the inventor of what is now called “Mommy porn.”

But why is it such big news that she’s writing again?

Even if you didn’t like 50 Shades of Grey, you have admire a woman who could write a few books that captivated so many people. Regardless of how well, or not well, they were written, James told a great story. If you want to read about what made her trilogy so intriguing, read The Bestseller Code. The authors of that book break down what James did (either purposely or by mistake) that made her books so un-put-down-able.

I didn’t read her books. I bought the trilogy a long time ago from a thrift store, and I flipped through the other two in a Target while my kids looked at toys. But I didn’t buy them.

I did, however LOVE the movies. I own them and rewatch them all the time. And yep, I paid to see them in the theatre. If the movies followed the storylines of the books at all, I can see where people would be intrigued.

But in terms of the indie community, I don’t understand the derision aimed at poor Mrs. James. I mean, if you’re going to roast her over an open flame for the bad writing, what are YOU doing to improve yours?

christian grey had his tools. do you have yours_

I’m glad that EL James has written another book. I’m glad she had the courage after being treated how she was by the writing community (proving once again that writers are not readers. READERS purchased her book, and it was the READERS who lined her bank account.) I’m glad she wasn’t intimidated by her own success.

I think this is an opportunity for writers to support other writers. What can we do to support other writers?

  1. Stop tearing each other down.
    EL James wasn’t fully responsible for her book being what it was. She was a first time author, and her publishing house could have supported the editing process more than it did. Instead they pushed out her book to make use of her popularity online. It paid off, but I’m not denying her book could have been edited better.
  2. Leave positive feedback. 
    Even the most horribly of written books can have positive things you can say about them. And if you feel you can’t be nice about anything, just don’t say anything at all. Sometimes silence really does speak louder than words.
  3. Don’t read outside the genre of your preference.
    The thing that made the most angry were the people who were dissing 50 Shades of Grey weren’t James’s target audience. 50 Shades was a New Adult, possibly Young Adult novel, and if you couldn’t appreciate the book for what it was–Anastasia Steele trying to find her place in the world while falling in love–then the book wasn’t for you to begin with.
  4. Learn from James’s mistakes.
    Instead of laughing at the kind of book 50 Shades is, take a look at what you didn’t like about it, and learn how to avoid those things in your own writing. Did she not pull off 1st person? Too many adverbs? Was her book too wordy? Were there plot holes? (The movies indicate there were.)
  5. But also realize she did SOMETHING right.
    She had to have, otherwise no matter how much marketing she had behind her, her books never would have taken off to the extent they did. What did she do right? She’s a good storyteller. Christian Grey was notably, romantically flawed. He was everything a reader wants in a romance novel hero.
  6. Be careful what you wish for.
    Success comes with people who will be jealous of you, and who will want to cut you down just for the fact you made it and they didn’t. To be ostracized for success isn’t something anyone wishes for. And while James seems to have had all the luck and success in this world, you want people to keep your books on their shelves–not donate them to a thrift store.
    This isn’t the kind of reading nook you want people to build with discarded copies of your books.

    50 shades fort

 

Congratulations to EL James on her release! Let me know if you plan to read it. 🙂

The Mister is on pre-order until April 16, 2019. If you want to preorder it, click here.

Thanks for reading!

 

October through the end of the year goals.Whatever.

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Everyone is doing October/end of year goals, so I thought I would, too.

I don’t have many.

  1. Finish All of Nothing. This includes finishing the editing, writing the blurb, doing the full cover for the paperback, formatting for both Kindle and paperback. Sending it out for betas and hopefully publish by Halloween. It was my target goal from the beginning, with Thanksgiving being the ultimate maximum amount of time I wanted to take. It looks like Halloween is more than doable–at least for the Kindle. Using KDP Print for the paperback takes longer, just for the simple fact ordering and waiting for a proof is a lot more time consuming than it used to be through CreateSpace. If you’re launching a paperback by a certain date, be prepared and give yourself plenty of time for the KDP Print hassle.

    Here’s the working cover I made in Canva. We’ll see if I stick with it.

    allofnothing
    Made with a Canva template and a photo I purchased from CanstockPhoto, it’s a simple cover which I hope conveys the darkness of the story.  No chick lit for this author. 😛

  2. I have 2,000 words into my next book (a beautiful May/December romance that will be a counter to the dark romance I’m editing now) already written, and a few pages longhand that I need to type up. I would at least like to get the handwritten stuff typed up this month. I would love to get the whole thing written and published by March of next year. I have a bookselling summit I’m attending in May, and the more in my backlist, the better.
  3. I did a Happy Book Reviews feature for Wherever He Goes that I am not terribly impressed with. I’ll do a full blog post on how it turned out. But for now, it’s safe to say, don’t waste your money. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
  4. In my other blog post about marketing, I said I was writing a non-fiction book on self-editing. I’m going to be working hard on that in the coming months, and hopefully have that ready to go by no later than this summer. My fiction comes first, and I want my new book to be ready by the summit, but depending on my health (see number 5) I’d like to get the editing how-to book done by June.
  5. I have carpal tunnel and I’ll be going for a nerve test this Thursday. My carpal tunnel runs from my elbows into my neck, shoulder blades, and back. Meaning, I’m in a ton of pain a lot of the time. I let it go too long. I know. And I’m paying for it now. But the truth is, I’ll more than likely be having surgery and the recovery time for both arms will set me back. I know voice-to-text can be a life-saver to some, and I may still be able to blog that way for a bit, but chances are, I won’t be able to work on my fiction for a while. The break is much needed, but not that wanted. We’ll see how it goes.
  6. These are lofty goals when I have a new kitty to play with! My husband moved out, and the kids and I replaced him with a new kitten named Blaze. It wasn’t really like that (LOL) but it’s hard to resist playing with her, or snuggling with her when she’s sleeping. She’ll be a good recovery pal. Here’s a pic:

    blaze
    It’s tough not to share pictures of her all the time, so if you follow me over on Instagram, you can see a lot more of her. 🙂

Those are pretty lofty goals for the next few months, but I’m hoping it’s nothing I can’t get accomplished. All of Nothing is the big item on my plate right now, along with keeping this blog going with indie news and writing tips.

Also, since I will be working on my editing book, if there is anything you struggle with when it comes to self-editing LET ME KNOW! I would love love love to include anything and everything indie writers struggle with.

Happy Fall, Everyone!

book and fall leaves

Editing: What it is, why you need it, and where you can find help.

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Editing your novel can vary in cost. You can pay nothing if you can find someone to swap with, or it can cost you in the thousands if you pay for all the things.

The types of editing vary, too, and it’s wise to figure out what you need before you look for an editor.

Types of editing:

  1. Proofreading. This is a sweep looking for typos. This is probably the cheapest and easiest editing job you can hire out. Even a beta reader could probably do this for you if you give out copies of your final draft.
  2. Line Edits. This goes a lot deeper. These editors look for punctuation, grammar, incorrect word usage, syntax, repetition, subject/verb agreement. If you don’t have a strong grasp of grammar, punctuation, or have a weak vocabulary and you often use an incorrect word, then a line edit is probably mandatory so you don’t look like an ass.
  3. Developmental Editing. Developmental editors read your whole book and make notes on plot holes and incomplete character arcs. They point out pacing, passages that don’t bring anything to the story or doesn’t make sense. If you wrote yourself into a corner and pulled a deus ex machina to get yourself out, they will call you on it. Developmental editors are good for writers who haven’t finished a book and need help getting there, or for a writer who is trying to stretch their writing wings and may need guidance with a more complicated plot. Book coaches or book doulas aren’t exactly the same thing, so research who/what/when/where before you hire anyone.

As an indie, you must decide what kind of editor you need. Because also, as an indie, you aren’t going to be able to afford all three–though some of the big indies who “have made it” pay for a combination of the three because they can.

What’s an indie to do if you can’t/doesn’t want to shell out the cash?

Let’s start with the developmental edit.
Look for places online that offer a critique partner match-up. On Twitter that’s #CPmatch. If you’re part of the #amwriting crowd you could probably just tweet you’re looking for a critique partner for your new novel in your genre. But the problem with this kind of service is the expectation of reciprocation. If you’re not willing to help someone else, don’t bother to look online for someone to help you for free. Expect to pay out. You could pay a beta reader for some feedback, but I doubt they would go as deep as a developmental editor. Betas maybe will give you a sense of what’s working and what’s not–but developmental editors can tell you how to fix your issues. There are also a gazillion writing groups on Facebook. Join a couple and ask if anyone would be willing to work with you. But this kind of situation is the same as Twitter–be prepared to reciprocate in some way in the future. And be prepared to wait. Not everyone will get back to you when you’d like them to.

Join a local writing group. People will be more than happy to tell you what’s wrong with your work. If you can develop a thick skin, and admit you need help, a writing group critique can be valuable. But people have the propensity to be cruel whether online or in person. So if you really need help of this nature, it may behoove you to pay out. At least the editor will be professional about it and actually tell you what you need to know to fix your book. I’ve spoken with people who have gotten such cruel feedback from writing groups they’ve stopped writing. I don’t want this for you.

Can you be your own developmental editor? You may need to write a few books before you can get your plot points, backstory building, saggy middles, and character arcs under control. Read up on plotting and building character arcs. If you want to avoid tons of rewriting and backing yourself into a corner only a deus ex machina could get you out of, then maybe learn to plot out your books. Pantsing is okay if you know where you want to go, but just letting your mind and your characters run wild may open you up to forgotten side characters, saggy middles where no one is doing anything, and plot holes that may take forever to fix.

One of the best ways you can learn developmental editing is to chart out a book you read that you enjoyed. Write out chapter by chapter what happened (mini-cliffhangers), paying special attention to the first part of the book (what drew you in), the middle (what kept the plot moving), the couple chapters toward the end (what made you keep reading to the last page). This is why it’s important to read in your genre. Eventually, you’ll learn the rhythm and feel of your genre and it will show in what you write.

Line editing.
If you really need this kind of help, there aren’t many places you can find this type of editing for free. I line edit, and it’s time-consuming. Pointing out grammar, punctuation, syntax, incorrect word usage, and repetition takes a lot of concentration. I do “look and finds” a lot. “You used ‘walked’ 300 times. ‘Looked’ 250. ‘Saw’ 600.” Whoever line edits for you needs to be able to point out comma splices, tell you when a word like saturated is better than lingered when it comes to a scent (or did you mean smell?). Did you mean waive instead of wave? Waist instead of waste? Or if it’s April second in your novel and you wrote there was a full moon, but at that time of year, the moon would actually have been a quarter? This attention to detail that a line editor gives you cannot be produced for free. It’s just too much work. Did you mean Kleenex or tissue? Because if you’re referring to the brand, you better capitalize it. Same with Jell-O or gelatin. Does your main male character watch sports center or SportsCenter? Because only one of them is correct, and I bet you can see which one it is.

The good news is you can teach yourself a lot. Read grammar books. Self-editing books. You need to train yourself to pay attention to detail. Look up words if you don’t know their exact meanings. The best way to learn is to read a lot of fiction and non-fiction books. In time, you’ll get better. But until then, are you talking about karat, or carat when you describe your FMC’s engagement ring? If you don’t understand, or you don’t know what you don’t know, you’re going to have to find, and probably pay, someone to tell you.

Proofreading.
Proofreading is the cheapest form of editing. Don’t give your book to someone to proofread unless you are done.

Done.

Because when you go through your book fixing things, sometimes you can fix in a mistake right along with it. Your proofreader will be your last set of eyes. So don’t decide to rewrite chapter one after your proofreader has done her job. That wastes everyone’s time.

There are some software programs that can help–but a software program can’t take the place of human eyes, so take their suggestions with a (huge) grain of salt.

Grammarly. Grammarly is okay. But they are comma crazy. They are also hyphen crazy. I stopped running my manuscripts through it. You’re better off knowing your stuff and reading your MS line by line with a ruler. In my experience, no help is better than their help. **I do have Grammarly installed on my laptop, and though I don’t use it for my books anymore, it’s great for blog posts, tweets, and FB posts. I appreciate their assistance when I’m blogging, as for non-fiction, it’s an accurate help.

Hemingway Editor. The Hemingway app gives you a free sample online. Just copy and past part of your manuscript into the program and see if it would be beneficial to you. It’s only $20.00. I have it, but I don’t use it.

ProWriting Aid. I’ve used the free sample online, and it’s similar to Hemingway. They have different levels of pay (per time usage), so see what’s best for you if you like the online sample. My friend Aila loves it and wrote a great blog post about it (but please note the giveaway is over), and she’s an affiliate with them. If you decide to buy the program, I would appreciate it if you bought it from her affiliate link.

If you have trouble with syntax, natural-sounding dialogue or if you have slow areas that affect your pacing, you may want to try having your computer read to you. I love doing this–especially if you ever think you’ll turn your books into audio. The voice isn’t perfect, but it’s better than nothing. Some people read their manuscripts aloud, but because you know what you want it to say, you may miss things.

Here is a list of my favorite editing books:

Writing Deep POV

Self-Editing On a Penny: A Comprehensive Guide

Self-Editing for Fiction Writers, Second Edition: How to Edit Yourself Into Print

VOICE: The Secret Power of Great Writing

Fix Your Damn Book!: A Self-Editing Guide for Authors: How to Painlessly Self-Edit Your Novels & Stories

Mastering Showing and Telling in Your Fiction (Busy Writer’s Guides) (Volume 4)

Structuring Your Novel: Essential Keys for Writing an Outstanding Story

Creating Character Arcs: The Masterful Author’s Guide to Uniting Story Structure (Helping Writers Become Authors) (Volume 7)

That should be enough to get you going. I’ve read all of these and they are my favorites.

If you hire an editor, always be sure to send a sample first. Some editors charge you for this, but if you hire them, they’ll put that fee toward your book. Give them as clean a draft as possible, because if your sample is a mess, they will quote you higher. They’ll think your book will take them a lot of time.

Writers are not always good editors, and editors don’t always make good writers. Writing and editing are different skill sets and they are not inclusive of each other.

Know what you’re getting into before forking out the cash.

Where to look for an editor:

Join Alli, the Alliance for Independent Authors. They have a great list of resources for indies. They take a stance on putting out supremely professional work though, so don’t be surprised if their resources are expensive. Unfortunately, you can’t gain access to their resources without becoming a member.

Joanna Penn makes her resources available for free. But be careful. Someone’s best fit won’t necessarily be yours.

Reedsy. Create an account and you will have their resources at your disposal. Vetted for skill and professionalism, you’ll get what you pay for. They have a lot of different freelancers for the different kinds of editing you’d be interested in.

reedsy editors

Start looking for an editor quite some time before you wish to publish. You’ll be put at the end of the queue. While you wait for them to edit your book, you can work on something else, get your author platform going, go on vacation, what have you. But you won’t be working on your timetable anymore.

I hope this blog post and resources have helped you a bit.

Next up is formatting! Fun times!

Thanks for reading!

How Free is Self-Publishing?

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It costs absolutely nothing to publish a book. Nothing.

free

There are free word processing programs like Google Docs. You can use a library’s internet and computer. Platforms like Draft2Digital and Amazon’s KDP will provide you with some kind of book identification number so you don’t have to buy ISBNs for your books.

All you need to do is write, make a cover in Canva using their free website, use a free for commercial use picture from Pixabay, Pexels, or Unsplash, and you are a published author. All for free.

But when isn’t that a good idea?

Do you know Amazon has over 7 billion books in their Kindle store? And writers publish more every day.

So not only are you competing with everyone you know on Writer Twitter, you are competing with writers who are not on Twitter, big time indies who don’t have much time for social media. You’re competing with traditionally published authors, and those authors range from anywhere between The Big Five to tiny university presses.

You’re competing with writers from the US, Canada, (do you know how many writers I know who live in London, Ontario? A lot!) the UK, Australia, and many other countries.

Over 7 billion books.

Okay. What what is this blog post really about now that I’ve made you feel like crap?

Spending money.

Self-publishing is free.

Until it isn’t.

I do everything myself. For my trilogy, and Wherever He Goes, I wrote them, edited them. I formatted them and did the covers. The orangy hue on the third is my fault. I didn’t have the skill to fix it. It doesn’t look bad on screen, but the paperback could look better. That’s just the way it is, and I accept that.

What can you pay for when you self-publish?

  • Editing
  • Formatting
  • Cover

Those are the three big ones. But we can go further:

  • Beta Readers/Critique Partners/Book Coaches/Book Doulas
  • Blurb writing
  • Reviews/Arc review services like NetGalley
  • Advertising, ie, Facebook ads, Amazon ads, Promotions
  • ISBNs
  • Paperbacks for giveaways
  • Giveaway fees like on Goodreads

No one is saying you have to pay for all of that–or any of it.

It’s up to your discretion how much money you want to pump into your books.

See, this is the problem. No one wants to admit that they publish their books to sell them. Which leads an author not spending one dime on their books.

They are publishing for themselves. I repeat this over and over again like a broken record:

If you only publish for yourself you have no right to complain if your books do not sell.

But if you can admit you want people to pay to read your work then you have to take a hard look at your book.

Is the cover you made yourself doing the job?

Is your blurb up to snuff or is it confusing and off-putting?

Are there typos in the first few pages of the Look Inside?

If you can’t put out quality work yourself, then you’re going to need help.

It’s that simple.

And that difficult because saying you need help is a lot easier than being able to afford said help.

That being said, you can teach yourself how to do these things.

If you just shut down on me, it’s because you don’t want to take the time to learn. That’s okay. I wear clothes every day. That doesn’t mean I want to learn how to sew.

But what I’m trying to tell you is that you must find a happy medium between doing things for yourself and hiring out the help you need to make your book desirable to readers.

Because remember, readers have 7 billion choices.

Listen, my books aren’t pretty. Use the look Inside Feature for any of my books and you’ll see basic formatting. The embellishments are non-existent.

That’s fine. I taught myself enough to get by, and that’s good enough for me.

Readers aren’t going to care if you have fancy chapter headings if your story sucks.

So, being I’ve published a few things, I can suggest where you should put your money–if you have any, or where you should ask for favors from friends–if you have any. Just kidding!

  1. Editing. If you’re a newbie writer, this means a developmental edit as well as a line edit and proofing. Plot holes, flat characters. Developmental editing can be more of a job for a critique partner or someone from your writing group. Ask someone who reads your genre so they have a handle on the tropes and feel for the type of genre your book is in. Once you have a stellar story and a solid look inside sample, you need a good cover.
  2. Cover. Canva.com offers design classes. You need to train your eye and learn what makes a good cover. It can make or break your book. Plus, if you push your book in any way, ads, promos, giveaways, your cover will be the selling point. Look at your genre on Amazon. Look at templates. Try to duplicate them yourself in Canva. You may need to spring for a photo, but that’s not as expensive as you might think. I buy mine on canstockphoto.com for seven dollars apiece. Photos are even cheaper if you buy a credit package.

    A word of warning though. I write romance, and slapping some text onto a smiling couple is a lot different than making a cover for an Urban Fantasy novel. Fantasy, of any kind, requires a certain kind of cover. Negotiating a price with someone on Fiverr is a lot better than publishing a book that does not have an appropriate cover. Your sales will stop before they even start. I’m sorry, but that’s just the way it is.

    Sometimes you can find a pre-made template that’s cheap.

    Sometimes you can even find a photo on a photo site that is already doctored to how you need/want it to be. Set aside hours, days, if not weeks, to click through pictures. I’m barely 20,000 words into my next book and I’m already looking at photos.

  3. Formatting. Formatting for Kindle takes five minutes. All you need to do is set the options in Word so when you upload it into KDP it converts correctly. If you go wide and you use Draft2Digital, you don’t even have to do that. (Smashwords is a different story, and your Word file has to be formatted correctly or it won’t convert through their “meatgrinder” and they won’t publish your book.) Draft2Digital seems easier to work with, but I’m in KDP Select and haven’t used either of those services.

 

What is the cost of self-publishing? It can cost as much or as little as you want to put into it.

Someone opening a business always needs to invest. Paying for services is investing in your book business.

I used to think that I didn’t want to invest in my books because I may never get that money back. But that was incorrect thinking.

If my books are well-written, have a nice cover, and are formatted as to not turn anyone off from reading it, eventually, I will see that money returned to me by way of sales.

My books will be sold for years and years.  As I slowly make a name for myself, my sales will increase. It will take time, but I’m in it for the long haul, and I have patience.

I’ve put money toward my books by way of taking the time to learn how to do things for myself. I read lots of editing books. I read tons of blog posts about what makes a good cover. I’ve practiced making covers. I’ve learned to format my files. It took time. But time is money. I’ll eventually see dividends on the time I invested in my books.

time is money

It’s a personal choice.

This blog post begins a self-publishing series about how you can do most of these things by yourself if you want, and where to look if you don’t. I’ll give you the resources I used to learn and you can decide for yourself if it’s easier for you to hire out, or if you can’t afford it, where you can spend time learning things on your own.

Look for my next blog post about editing resources.

Thanks for reading!

 

My Next Few Weeks

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Vania's AprilMay Plans

Last week I finished Wherever He Goes. At 77,863 words, it’s one of the longest books I’ve written, and I’m very proud of how the story came out.

What does this mean for the next couple months in terms of my writing schedule?

Take a look:

Plot out my next book.
I left a few threads open while I wrote Wherever He Goes, and I need to decide if I want to close them up or write a companion to the book. The companion would be about Aiden’s brother Dylan. I foreshadowed a few things about him, but his story isn’t fully developed in my head yet, so I need to think, do I want to leave the threads loose in case his story comes to me, or tie them off and move on? I’m hoping a solution will come to me while I edit. For now, I have another book I need to plot out that has nothing to do with Wherever He Goes. I want to get most of the bones of that book written down before I forget any of it.

I start edits on Wherever He Goes on April 2nd. My editing process is long and contains many steps, mostly because I edit myself, but mostly because even if I did pass my book on to an editor, I would give them as clean a version as I could. My editing process includes:
Initial read-through. This is where I fix blatant typos and plot holes I noted while writing that I didn’t go back and fix. I’ll fix character discrepancies and repetition. I’ll fix my characters’ overall arcs. As I get to know them, my writing loosens up, so I’ll even out the flow of the story. All this is easier on the screen.
Print it out. I need this step because this is where I put my chapters in (I write without breaking up my book) and make sure the plot makes sense. I have an easier time with this when I can “see” the book laid out in front of me. Often this is when I beef up scenes or take out parts that don’t need to be there.
I listen to my manuscript. I have Word read my book to me. This is where I do line edits, and I pay special attention to dialogue and syntax. One day I’ll do audio for my books, so I pay special attention to this step. This step gets rid of wordiness, and it takes about four to five days to listen to it all.
I proof the proof. You can see a lot of typos and long paragraph blocks that need to be broken up when you read the proof you order from CreateSpace or wherever you publish through. You can find repetition, errors, and there have been times I’ve caught huge consistency issues. Always read your proof as a reader would. Take your time, sip on some coffee, tea, or other beverage (keep it non-alcoholic so you have a clear head). This step takes me about three days. I take my time because this is the last step, and the last time my eyes will be on it.

After I edit, I’ll put in the changes and order another proof to make sure my formatting stays perfect.

I don’t have a pre-order set up for Wherever He Goes, no blog tour set up or anything. I did a successful Freebooksy for my first book in my trilogy, so I know I have readers out there. I’ll do a soft release for this book because I hope I’ll already be a few thousand words into my new book.

I’ll still continue to blog. Lately, I’ve been doing more book reviews on the non-fiction I’ve been reading. I have a lot of time at work and I’ve accumulated a pile of books that could be useful to other indie authors. Plus, it’s content, and I’m horrible at blogging consistently.

I’m going to basically stop doing Twitter giveaways. They are useless. There is too much free stuff out there and they are a waste of money. No offense to the people still doing them–I wish you well. This includes doing a Goodreads giveaway. Until I can know for sure you get the bang for the buck, a promo site like Bargainbooksy may make more sense. And cents.

Summer is a time when things slow down, and people take vacations, do things with their families. I still would like to try to write 1,000 words a day and publish another book by the end of the summer. Trying to stick to a three-book a year schedule may be tough because I have to have a whole book in my head before I start writing. I have bits and pieces of plots bouncing around in my brain, but nothing fully realized yet. So I have this next book to plot out, then I hope something comes to me.

Vania's AprilMay Plans (1)

That’s what I’ll be doing for the next little while. I’m excited to release Wherever He Goes. I have the cover tentatively worked out, and you can see it on my Facebook Author Page.

I don’t have any writing conferences to attend this year–a few things take precedence like my son’s high school graduation. I also have a few things going on I don’t have the liberty to discuss, but I’m going to guess will be very time-consuming.

I also need a couple days to make box sets of Summer Secrets and my Tower City Romance Trilogy. It will be a pain in the butt, but worth it!

I’ll be busy between now and Fall, but I’m looking forward to the challenges!

What are your plans for the next little while?

Happy writing Vania Margene

 

images created with http://www.canva.com

Swearing, Sex, and Drinking . . . What Do Your Characters Do?

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I’ve always appreciated a well-timed, or a well-placed, “Fuck.” Especially when it’s supposed to be funny.

When I was in my lower teens, I read a lot, and I read one book where the character–and for the life of me I can’t remember who it was (I want to say it was Detective J. P. Beaumont, in the detective series by J. A. Jance, but it could have been in any of the books I read back then) who said, “Jesus Christ on a bicycle.” It cracked me up, and to this day, if I hear it, or if I read it, I laugh.

The phrase may be offensive to some, hell, I went to Baptist school as a kid and just for a split second, I was offended too, until my sense of humor won out.

My characters swear, and sometimes they swear a lot. This is a bit unusual, as I don’t swear much, in real life, and a lot of times our characters are us, or pieces of us. My amount of swearing depends on who I’m with. I don’t swear around my kids unless I’m telling them to stop being pissy, a futile plea, that, as they are teenagers. But my sister swears like a truck driver (is this really true?) and when she starts saying the F word, it starts coming out of my mouth, too.

I like to try to make my characters swear for a reason. They’re grumpy, or angry, or I, too, like to use a well-placed swear word for comedic effect. Take this excerpt, for instance, from the book I’m writing now, Wherever He Goes:

When Aiden came out of the bathroom, Kat was studying the cappuccino selections across the store. The gas station sold a huge selection of Monster energy drinks, and just as he opened the door to grab his usual, a low-carb flavor, the bell over the door rang.
“Nobody move!”
In the round fish-lens mirror attached to the wall above the restrooms, Aiden watched a tall figure dressed in black aim a handgun at the older lady staring out the window behind the counter.
Aiden rested his forehead against the chilled glass of the cooler.
“Shit.”

Not everyone wants to read characters swearing though, and sometimes the readers who come across it can take it out on you in a bad review:

swearing review

This is a review for Don’t Run Away, book one in my Tower City Romance Trilogy. Never once did I say I write sweet/inspirational romance. I write contemporary, and that is the category my books are labeled under. I don’t try to fool anyone. A lot, if not most, contemporary romances have some kind of swearing and/or intimacy. In fact, had this reader used the Look Inside feature on Amazon, they would have known right away this book contained sex and swearing, maybe even both at the same time (gasp!). The book is long enough I’m going to assume the first two chapters are available.

I didn’t redo my blurb, per that reviewer’s request, simply for the fact that the category I put it under shouldn’t give a prospective reader any false illusions.

But it did make me wonder why readers are so sensitive, and if writers respond to it, or if they still do their own thing.

I read a Harlequin Blaze not long ago, and the author used the word pussy. It’s not such a big deal in the scheme of things–the series’ name says it all, to my way of thinking. But the person who read the book before me inked out all the words she didn’t agree with. I wish I had taken a picture.

When I think of swear words in content, I think about a lot of programs on the CW. I watched Gossip Girl from beginning to end (the show; I haven’t read the books to compare), and I watched a lot of The Vampire Diaries (also the same, watched the show, didn’t read the books).

The writers of Gossip Girl had a fun time throwing in curse words that weren’t curse words. Blair was forever calling Chuck Bass a Basshole. We know what she meant, but in all the episodes I ever watched, she never, ever, came out and actually called anyone an asshole.

basshole

Another favorite was when people would call Chuck a Motherchucker. This one, too, is pretty self-explanatory.

blair waldorf

Why the creators wanted to keep the show “clean” is beyond me, as all the characters drank like fish–whether they were old enough or not. The same is true for The Vampire Diaries–even though I guess you could say that Stefan and Damon were “old enough” to drink, even while portraying high school students. When you Google “Damon and Stefan drinking” there are a lot of images that come up. I could post pictures all day of them knocking back scotch!

damon drinking

And while Elena starts the show at 17-18, I would assume she turns 21 at some point. But her age doesn’t stop her from having a little fun.

elena drinking

These characters were also having sex, some of it open door, some of it not, but it surprises me that the creators would show, or even imply, underaged sex.

So, underaged sex is . . . not worse than swearing?

What is a reader’s tolerance when it comes to books? I think swearing is natural–you can’t get away from it in real life, and writing a few curse words into your books could crank up the reality factor a notch or two.

Depending on your genre, sex, too, is also natural. A detective in a high-stakes thriller could have sex to take the edge off. Most romances and chick-lit have sex in them, sometimes even funny sex. Erotica has the most sex, of course, and it’s up to the author to submit their books to the proper category when publishing.

My characters drink–probably not as much as they do in The Vampire Diaries, but they like to have a drink now and then. So do I.

Everything in moderation.

It’s a concept the Salvatore brothers didn’t understand, but I guess, there’s nothing else to do in a small town like Mystic Falls.

Taste is subjective, and it’s easy to get freaked out by a poor review, but what an average amount of swearing is to one could be an overuse to another. Contemporary romance is light on sex, but I have yet to read a contemporary romance where the couple didn’t do it at least once.  How graphic the scene turns out to be is up to the author.

I expect swearing, sex, and drinking in the books I read.

How about you?

Happy writing Vania Margene

 

 

 

If you’re interested, the New York Times printed an article about sex, or lack thereof, in current YA. You can read it here.

The fuckety index: how much bad language is allowed in your novel?

For Fuck’s Sake! – The Art Of Swearing And Cursing In Fiction Writing

How to Use Profanity And Other Raw Talk In Your Fiction