Friday, February 15, 2013

Guest Post by Kathleen Shoop-Author of Love and Other Stories

Kathleen Shoop – How to Avoid the Rejection Blues

How to Avoid the Rejection Blues

by Kathleen Shoop

How to Avoid the Rejection Blues—well, once you decide to go indie, you find the type of rejection shifts from agent/editor rejection to reader rejection. It’s hard when readers don’t like your work—actually that’s not as hard as the blanket, “I hate this, it’s the worst, most depressing thing I’ve ever read…” It’s so important to recognize everyone will not like or love or even tolerate your work. That’s what makes all this work. There’s something out there for every reader and dealing with the negatives is just part of the job. Again, I can’t say how glad I am to be able to participate. That’s what matters to me.

Why Book Covers are So Important—A book cover draws readers in, gives them a feel for what the book is about even if the image isn’t a literal representation of the content. A good cover is everything!

Practical Advice for Beginning Fiction (or other genre) Writers—Just write. Don’t worry about it being fantastic. It won’t be—the first draft won’t be. But you have to have a draft in order to mold and shape it. The first draft is akin to an artist formulating her own special clay to shape. Your first draft is your clay—the recipe is complete—after you have your clay you need to actually sculpt, shape, mold…for me that’s the hard part. Just start.

Five Mistakes Writers Make When Querying Publishers

Booksigning Tips to Sell That Book—Pull a theme from your book and create an event around that theme. Yes, you’ll be signing books and that’s great, but make the day enjoyable for readers. With my first book The Last Letter, the tagline was “for every daughter who thought she knew her mother’s story…” And we had a pre-mother’s day signing complete with sets of books, stationery, letter boxes, mother/daughter stuff, relaxation baskets both for sale and for raffle. Find a theme and exploit it!

How I Made My First Sale—I put an ad in Mary Jane’s Magazine and I got an email from a woman who couldn’t wait to read it. She did and she loved it and she became my northeast territory sales person! She gave my book away, asked indie book stores to carry it and was just incredible to me. It was like something straight out of a movie. I will never forget that.

What Inspired Me to Write My Book—

My Publishing Journey or How I Became a Published Author

Why Blogging is Important—I’m not sure blogging itself is important. There are fabulous, wonderful, powerful bloggers who land book deals. But there are many more fabulous writers who stink or are unable to focus energy on blogging. There was a time I thought having a strong blog was important (and it can be for many, many people) but with Facebook and Twitter, I don’t feel the need to spend a lot of time blogging. I LOVE twitter because it’s not a mini-article that I have to proof and suffer over. It’s just fun. I’m probably wrong about this though, because I am not a marketing pro at all, in the least!!!

What Makes the Perfect Book Blog—one that is funny and reveals the true personality of the author…some authors have fantastic reader blogs and they converse with readers about all manner of topics and issues as well as their books. Others have sites more oriented toward writing and they draw an powerful following as well. For me, my blog is used to offer news, invite other writers for interviews, and to be a landing pad for everything related to my work. I don’t use my blog the way awesome bloggers do, but I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE having other writers and bloggers to my blog to talk.

How to be a Good Guest Blogger—Guest blogging is fun. You are exposed to new readers and often can entice them to pick up your work or follow you on Twitter, etc. Be sure to be gracious and have the owner of the blog guide you in what she wants to see in your post. However, if she invited you to her blog she probably understands your perspective, writing style and topics of interest for you.

Why Mentors Are Important I have too many mentors to count—writing mentors, marketing, pr, networking mentors. Even people in other fields who have started their own businesses are my mentors. Just like there’s never a shortage of material to inspire my writing, there’s never a shortage of people I can learn from. And, I return the favor. If someone needs help with any component of publishing I do my best to help them or find the person who can if I can’t. Mentors and mentoring is vital to being successful, I think.

Inside the Mind of the Author—it’s crowded, noisy, crazy…I hate the inside of my head and wish I was more organized and methodical in my writing. The only thing I can say is that I am exceptionally methodical in my dedication to the craft—I just wish the work came out in a packaged, neat form instead of the mess it does!!!