16 Wednesday Oct 2013
Posted in Reading, Writers out in Public
If you’re not subscribed to my blog at http://www.louisecusack.com you might have missed some recent posts there on:
Encouraging grass roots writing (one local council gets it right)
and
Introducing…The Fussy Librarian (who suggests ebooks for you based on your interests and content preferences)
I’d love to hear your comments!
11 Wednesday Sep 2013
Harlequin Enterprises is the biggest publisher of romance in the world, and when their Australian digital-first arm – Escape Publishing – puts out a blog to let writers know how publishers would prefer them to behave, it’s sensible to take notice!
Click on the link below to find out how to interact professionally with a publisher, and note the actions that sabotage a writer’s reputation so you can ensure you’re not doing any of them yourself.
18 Wednesday Jul 2012
Tags
LJ Smith, marketing books, media, press release, roo poo, Shahkara, writers
Welcome to Workshop Wednesday where I invite other writers to share their areas of expertise with you. My second guest is Australian YA urban fantasy writer Cheryse Durrant who has worked as a journalist and sub-editor for 15 years. Here’s a little about Cheryse: My Shahkara MS, a ‘sort of’ Blade meets Xmen read but with a sexy, no-nonsense female warrior, has the public ‘thumbs-up’ from LJ Smith, author of the hugely popular Vampire Diaries. Shahkara is now being considered by two Australian publishers, but I’m still searching for an agent. I live at the beach, just a dragon’s drop from Strawberry Metropolis. My forgetful husband and fractious cat are my almost-willing muses. Almost. Goa’uld-willing.”
Here’s a teaser about Cheryse’s YA Novel, Shahkara:
“There are only two ways to kill a Taloner – chop off its head or rip out its heart.” The dark Taloner warriors feed off human hearts, forcing the exiled Princess Shahkara to journey to Earth to find the Elnara, a death lantern that can wipe out their race in a single blast. Fortunately, Shahkara is half-Taloner and able to fight them at their own speed. Unfortunately, she shares the same heartlust. After meeting Max McCalden, it becomes a lot harder to control her emotions and repress her heart-hungry instincts – not a winning combination when she’s being hunted by a Taloner coven, a serial killer, a secret Celtic society and the police. Many women long for a man’s heart, but is Shahkara’s lust about to prove deadly?
Thanks for that Cheryse. Can’t wait to read that story, and thanks also for giving us some tips on how to market our work – the first being a suggestion that I could change my title of Writers Working with the Media to the far catchier: Dance the Media’s Tango. I like! Tell us more…
Cheryse Durrant: Every author needs a media strategy, however big or small their ambitions and comfort zone. We all know the importance of self-promotion but it’s tough putting yourself out there, especially when most of us would rather sleep with a skunk than stand in the spotlight. Many authors and businesses experience further frustrations after writing and distributing media releases, only to end up with zilch.
The trick in writing a winning release is to ask, What’s in it for the media chiefs and their readers or viewers? News that you have published a book may not be newsworthy to them. Their goal is to increase circulations or ratings by presenting stories that their readers/viewers want. What is it about you or your book that will attract more readers to a newspaper or a blog? How can you dance the media’s tough, tantalising tango?
Step 1: Brainstorm. Find the stories (potential news) hidden inside you and present these “angles” in the most tantalising way. Any piece of your life may become the seed of a news or feature story, if it is interesting enough. Journalists are constantly searching for stories about family, health, injustice and consumerism. Analyse the stories in the media. What is their news value? How can you achieve news value?
Step 2: Once you have identified a strong news angle, write your release so that it fuels the editor’s curiosity. Use the inverted pyramid method (put the most important details in the first two pars – this is often all the editor reads, and submitted articles are chopped from the bottom). Use active voice, strong imagery and memorable quotes. Don’t be flowery. Summarise your news angle with a pithy headline – and include a verb. This will make the headline “active”.
Step 3: Remember your contact details at the bottom of the release.
Step 4: Customise your releases. Find different newsworthy elements about yourself or your life story that may be interesting to different media outlets or their sections, eg, the finance page or weekend magazine. Build a portfolio of different releases, each featuring different angles. Research the media and their market, just as you’d research a publisher. Know their submission requirements.
Step 5: Create a media kit. This should include at least one form media release (that can be sent to any media outlet at a moment’s notice), your bio, a Q&A sheet and some good-quality hi-res photographs (of yourself, your book cover and any other relevant images).
Step 6: Keep your media kit updated and customise the release every time you submit to a new outlet. Keep a record of where and when you submit.
Step 7: Send out media releases early. Outlets aren’t interested in old news.
Dancing to the media’s tune might feel daunting at first but the more you practise, the easier it becomes. There will still be times when you submit a release and it’s not used, but you may be surprised at your results, especially once you’ve perfected these dance steps.
Thanks for that Cheryse! Your media expertise is greatly appreciated. If you’d like to see a sample media release that was jazzed up from “There’s a book signing at Mary Ryan’s” to “This author writes her novels on poo paper” click on the image to your left. And if you have any questions for Cheryse, just post them as comments below. Cheers!
Other Workshop Wednesday topics: Deep Point of View
28 Monday May 2012
Posted in Writers out in Public
Tags
behaviour, doing the work, glamour, gold coast, literary panel, literati, networking, rewards, rock star writers, surfers paradise, wiriters, writers festival
The other 98% of the time you’ll be sitting in front of a computer (see previous post about Doing the Work). But all that hard work reaps rewards, and if you are curious to see what 2 days in the life of an author at a writers festival is like, click over to my For Readers website (louisecusack.com) and see my latest post: Literati – rock-star writers descend on the Gold Coast. We had fun!
08 Wednesday Feb 2012
Posted in The Publishing Industry, Writers out in Public
Tags
blog, books, eBooks, fantasy, lost world, Louise Cusack, publishing, reading, romance, romantic adventures, social networking
I have a new blog with information for my readers at www.louisecusack.com. My Shadow Through Time fantasy trilogy is being re-released this month as eBooks by Pan Macmillan and I’ve blogged on the amazing journey the series has had in the ten years since it was first print published by Simon & Schuster Australia and selected by the Doubleday Book Club as their Editor’s Choice.
If you’re a lover of “romantic adventures in lost worlds” then I invite you to explore the new website and consider subscribing to my blog there.
Happy reading!
Louise Cusack
14 Saturday Jan 2012
Posted in Ramble, Writers out in Public
Tags
book covers, books, eBooks, emotion, fantasy, fantasy romance, publishing, writers, writing
Is there anything more exciting for an author than seeing their book covers for the first time? How about seeing those same books get a second lease on life with brand new covers?
I’m in author-blissland gentle readers because my Shadow Through Time trilogy is about to be re-released as eBooks with shiny new covers which I just adore! Momentum Books have done a sterling job of capturing the heart of the books: romantic fantasy that’s a cross between Alice in Wonderland for grownups and Excalibur. Can’t wait for the launch next month!
13 Sunday Nov 2011
Tags
authenticity, blogging, books, censor, censoring, debate, facebook, goodreaders, google+, social networking, spin, twitter, vs, writers, writing
I was chatting to a girlfriend this morning about authenticity, and we were discussing the challenge of sifting through recommendations on the internet when you’re looking to buy a product. Some are obviously written by genuine customers giving their honest opinion, but some look so effusive you have to wonder if the person or company who’s selling the product has snuck in and posted it themselves, then maybe gone to their opposition’s product and posted a bad review! But wait, it gets worse than that. My girlfriend told me there are people called Reputation Specialists who are paid to go around the internet posting good reviews and comments about their clients.
I mean, really?
For politicians, sure. They need all the spin they can buy. But do businesses and celebrities need to pay someone to blow wind up our (collective) skirts? Whatever happened to earning respect and letting your actions speak for themselves? Colour me naive, but authenticity means something to me. And I have to admit that as a new author I imagined all I needed to do to sell billions of books was write good ones.
Then a little over twelve months ago it became apparent that I also needed to rack up quality time on Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads, Google+ and blogging, because authors are encouraged by their publishers to be ‘visible’ across social networking platforms. And it’s actually beneficial on a couple of levels. Writing is a solitary profession, so social networking helps me feel like part of the online community, plus it keeps my writing muscles toned in short bursts. But after the discussion with my girlfriend this morning, I had to wonder if all my comments and conversations online were also creating ‘spin’?
While I’m blogging and tweeting, am I the authentic ‘Louise’ online that my family and friends know and love, or am I projecting an image – Louise The Author? And if so, is that okay? Is it fine to censor out the occasionally grumpy Louise, the silly Louise, and the overtired-and-might-say-something-she’d-regret Louise? Or should I let those parts of me have just as much social networking time as the rest?
Is self-censorship really just spin-by-omission?
Or are the things we post on our Facebook pages a product in themselves that we tailor to fit the readership, hoping they’ll attract people to our writing? And if so, is that a bad thing? Is it possible to be authentic and offer only part of yourself to the public?
If your answer to that is “Yes,” then I’d like to ask you why we bother to be authentic at all? Why not just create a persona and project that?
I have no answers to these questions. On a good day I try to be just me, like I am today, some insights, some confusion, lots of hope. On other days I don’t think the ‘me’ I’m feeling is good enough to be out in public, so I censor. It’s an imperfect method, but perhaps within that framework I really am being authentic.
Or maybe I’m deluding myself. Would love to hear others comments on this.
23 Sunday Oct 2011
Tags
book launch, books, emotion, family, friends, literature, memory, significance, success, writers, writing
What makes a book launch memorable? Well I’ve been to more than I can readily remember, but the ones that stand out in my memory were the ones where the writer included their family and friends in their celebration (because a book launch is as much about WooHoo! as it is about selling books). I went to a great one last Friday night at Dymocks in Bundaberg. We were helping launch Sandy Curtis‘s new thriller “Fatal Flaw”, and here’s a pic of romance author Helen Lacey and I holding our copies with Sandy – tiny dynamo she is.
While I was lining up to get my copy signed I had the chance to chat to Sandy’s grandson Alex, who was thrilled to be at the signing table, and Sandy’s own mum (great grandma) was seated nearby enjoying the glow of her daughter’s success. It reminded me of my very first book launch a decade ago. My mother is a seamstress and she created a gorgeous black velvet cocktail dress for me because the venue was going to be a recently renovated heritage building in Brisbane city – quite glam. In the lead-up, while I was stressing about invitations and copies arriving on time, she was nervous about what to wear, never having attended a launch before. After checking her dress would be suitable and, it being night-time, whether she’d need gloves, I remember her saying in a tentative voice, “So, a hat?” I’m ashamed to admit that I couldn’t help laughing, or saying, “It’s not mother-of-the-bride, ma!” But she’d never been to a launch before. How would she know? To her it was the glamorous culmination of a decade of my hard solitary labour. For all she knew, there might be paparazzi! Clearly, she knows better now.
I didn’t recognise it at the time, but my family had been endlessly supportive without ever really having a clue about what I was doing, or how all that coffee consumption in a room with the door shut could possibly end up as a real book in a real bookstore tucked between real writers like Michael Crichton and Clive Cussler. For them, the launch was their only window into my career, their only chance to show publicly that despite being astonished, they were proud of me. I’m glad now that I wasn’t so overwhelmed by excitement that I left them out of it. They were all there on the night, acting as hosts, mingling, making people feel relaxed, sharing embarrassing stories about me. But then my family and friends have always been the rock that my stability is based on. When you spend a third of your life inside a world that doesn’t exist, you need to be anchored when you step away from the computer.
Seeing the anchors around Sandy on Friday night reminded me that my own family and friends are still the most important thing in my life, a fact eloquently shared by an Internationally successful author friend who, at the birth of her first child said, “If something happened and I could never write again I’d find solace in my family. But if something happened to my child, I’d find no comfort in my writing.” I can only echo those thoughts, and feel unutterably grateful that I have it all: family, friends and career. But to put that in perspective, when my daughter gave me a scrapbook for Mothers Day the year she moved out (a poignant year for me) I knew I was holding in my hands the most significant and meaningful story I’d ever created. In the ‘brag’ section of my bookcase where my own published novels sit, it holds pride of place.
Society holds some writers up as being ‘special’, imagining their contribution to literature is more important than the children they’ve raised, the parents they’ve lost or the friend’s they’ve loved. But as a writer myself, I know for a fact, the people I love will always be more important than the books I create. I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Having said, that, book launches are one of the few opportunities in our lives where we can celebrate both. And that’s what makes them so memorable.
18 Tuesday Oct 2011
Posted in Ramble, Writers out in Public
Tags
brevity, connection, conventions, debate, enjoyment, facebook, happy, networking, pleasure, social networking, twitter, writers, writing
No need to read to the end. I’ll tell you straight up. I’ve fallen hard for Twitter.
In the brave new world of social networking it’s a bit of a love triangle, with those of us who want to engage with our readers picking our platforms. And I’ll freely admit I stuck with Facebook far longer than I should have. We could have parted company while we were still on civil terms. But I was too “I don’t get Twitter,” to even try it, so I hung around at Facebook with my personal profile and my author page, trying to engage with the tsunami of information (often duplicated) being uploaded by my peeps. I’d sigh when the feed rolled out, daunted by the distinction between ‘top stories’ and the others, which were clearly ‘not top stories’ although I couldn’t work out why. I liked these people. That’s why I’d . . . liked them, so why wasn’t I getting all their stories? Why was my feed top heavy with “popular” people. And who decided who was “popular” anyway?
It was like being back at high school!
Anyway, in the end I just needed some time apart. You know. Not breaking up. Just a break. I had to open a Twitter account sooner or later because all the authors were expected to, but I had no clue that within a fortnight I’d be spellbound. I mean, it’s so quick! There’s no picture-heavy feed to wade through, and every single post is short. Of course, everyone knows that. 140 characters, right? But it’s not until you start interacting inside the format that you realise how awesomely fabulous that brevity is. Refreshing doesn’t begin to describe. I just felt . . . at home. Really. I just relaxed right in. People found me. I found people. It was like being at a convention or a conference where you know “your people” are around somewhere, so you just settle at the bar with a scotch and chat to whoever’s there. They’re sharing pics of their new puppy (and btw, having a new window open for every link is gold), so you can say, “Aw, check those floppy ears,” or if you’re feeling particularly clever you can say “got a bit of a Yoda thing happening there,” or when you want to slap your connections card down you can say “Oh yeah, Tara’s got a puppy like that. You know, Tara Moss. We share the same agent.”
Actually, I have no idea what sort of pet Tara has, but I’m just tossing it in there. Then before you know it someone else comes along, someone you know and then you’re exchanging info on upcoming book launches or who’s had a new cover arrive, or a book deal, and it’s just so relaxed. So cool. So understated. There’s no try-hard thing happening. Well, not after the first fortnight. You’re allowed a few “well I thought it was funny” posts as you settle in. And it’s easy. The set up is intuitive. The posts are quick. The conversations funny. You get to meet people. Really meet them, who they are, what they’re interested in. Not their ‘author’ persona. Just them. Eating raw cookie dough. First swims of summer. Kids birthday parties. Crazy hangovers. Sleepy goodnights. Boring stuff. Funny stuff. Interesting stuff. Insightful stuff.
Real stuff.
I don’t know all the techno details about Twitter. Can recommend Alan Baxter’s blog So you don’t understand Twitter? Read it before you get started. But do. Get started. It’s fun. You’ll love it. And if you follow me (I’m @Louise_Cusack)and sit at the bar I’ll shout you a drink.
Promise!
P.S. Just because Twitter gets the girl, doesn’t mean that Facebook is out in the cold. I’m hanging in there. I know there are readers who love it. But don’t forget Goodreads. It’s AWESOME too.
17 Wednesday Aug 2011
Posted in Writers out in Public
Tags
I’ve just spent five days at the Romance Writers of Australia conference in Melbourne, and thought it was worthwhile blogging about that. I’m sure a lot of folk came away enthused and inspired, but a proportion were also overwhelmed and jangled.
The difference seems to be related to personality, as International guest speaker Bob Mayer pointed out. Introverts tend to become overwhelmed and go home exhausted, whereas we extroverts soak up energy from others and go home tired but also elated and buzzing to get back to work.
The lesson seems to be, if you’re an introvert you need to plan for that. Make sure you have blocks of time to be alone and regroup, even if that means pretending you’re going on a tour and then sneaking off to a coffee shop or park bench to get some peace. You’d need a thick overcoat in Melbourne in August, but luckily for me I’m an extrovert (despite the fact that the MCG was across the road and I was desperate to see the spiritual home of cricket in Australia).
So that settled, what are some of the things all writers should be doing at a conference? Bronwyn Stuart has some great tips here, but these are some of mine:
Learning from the workshops and plenary sessions is a no brainer – and I’m assuming you carefully selected your sessions prior to the day to suit your current needs for industry info or craft. Take a notepad or recording device to keep gems from slipping out of your overstuffed brain. I heard so many great things in the very first session that I was sure I’d never forget – life-changing pearls of wisdom – and luckily I wrote them down because two sessions later I’d forgotten them completely. And add to this, don’t be afraid to change sessions if you learn something that makes you think “Jeez, I need to hear more about that.” I’d imagined one session on digital publishing would be enough to fill me in on developments, but the question of territories in publishing was confusing enough for me to realise I really needed to know more about that before I sold my next book, so I asked and was allowed to change to sessions that suited my changing interests.
Networking. I hear you groaning from here. But it’s part of the deal. You’re wearing a name badge and so is everyone else. You’re in the middle of the common area waiting in the line-up for coffee and someone strikes up a conversation (or if they don’t, you should). Unless you really need ten minutes to clear your brain – in which case you’re better to sneak back up to your room – you should be chatting, and with anyone. Prior to the conference you might decide there are key people you want to introduce yourself to – a published author in your genre, a publisher, an agent, a NYT# best selling author, and by all means do that. But those conversations will be brief because everyone wants to talk to them. In between the “important” conversations you need to make connections with other writers, because you never know who you can help, or who can help you, and if you don’t ask, you don’t get/give. Put faces to names, have a laugh and share the camaraderie. Romance writers are renowned for their generosity and Melbourne didn’t disappoint. It was funny, and heart-warming and hard to leave. I do fantasy now, but I started with romance and I miss those guys. They know how to work hard and how to let their hair down. And so should you.
A note of caution however, you don’t want to be the person who gets so drunk other people discover you on your arse in the lift unable to find your room. I’m not mentioning names, but it happens. Don’t let it be you. A conference is WORK. Don’t confuse ‘relaxation’ with ‘recreation’. It might be called a cocktail party but you’re there to work: to meet people, to exchange information and yeah, to have some good, clean (one glass of wine, not six) fun. And to prove that I did have fun, here’s a photo of me looking like a complete doofus in my Roaring Twenties outfit. Thanks be for dim lights in the ballroom, that’s all I can say!
