Tag: writer

Adventures with Advertising

~ Scott W. Baker ~ Leave a comment

With Godfather Death and the Amazing Diagnostic Machine coming out June 30th, I’ve decided to try to get the word out. That’s harder than it sounds. My social network footprint is tiny. (You finding your way here is a blessing. Glad to have you!) My skill for talking myself up is…questionable at best. So How do I let the world know the greatest steampunk fairytale retelling ever is about to drop from yours truly? (See…that felt weird to say.)

The answer: TikTok

Allegedly.

Not just TikTok, but that has been my primary medium. I’ve poked at a YouTube short and will likely do at least one more before release date. But mostly I’ve been following the advice of Katie Wismer (a.k.a. Katesbookdate) as presented in this video. I’ll give the rundown of my interpretation, but let me start by explaining why I took Katie’s advice over others. (I’ve never spoken to Katie directly, so if she is alerted to my existence via Google Alerts or something: Hi Katie!)

Why This Advice

First off, I have scoured the internet (mostly YouTube) for advice on advertising a new book. And yes, there are a lot of voices out there, many saying similar things: establish a presence on social media, interact with the communities that overlap with potential readers, let people know you have a book coming out, and let people know a bit more about you. That’s four items that sound like A LOT of work. Where do I start? This is going to take how long? You mean I have to talk about myself?

Katie’s advice was titled “The one book marketing strategy you NEED to be doing”. Yeah, a very clickable title for me. She goes on to lay out a strategy that felt manageable. I can do that! She also wasn’t pushing a course to take or anything like that, just an advertising tool that has been successful for her. I’m not putting all my eggs into this basket, but it’s the basket I’m filling the fullest.

What am I doing?

If you didn’t watch Katie’s video already (heck, I linked it twice), I’ll give you my version of her advice. I’m sure I’ve misinterpreted parts and overlooked important nuances, but you can get the full breakdown from her.

  • Make carousels (slide shows) on TikTok. These are images with text.
    • The first slide is a hook/attention grabber
    • The last slide is a direct quote (passage) from the book
      • She seemed to suggest you hint at the excitement without giving too much away
    • Use a trending sound that fits the theme of the book/passage/hook
    • Make sure your profile page does a good job of promoting you and the book. (This is my weak spot; I’ll get to why.)
    • Oh, and make sure you use good hashtags!

This felt like a process I could handle. No fancy equipment to buy or awkward performances required, just post some images with text. So I made some.

Okay, I didn’t follow the recipe perfectly. My carousels have a one-slide hook, the next slide starts a quoited passage, the last slide has the book’s cover.

The first carousel I made had the whole passage on one slide. Depending on the size of your phone and the mightiness of your eyes, that could have been tough to absorb. My next few had the quote spread out over 2-4 slides, their text posted either over faded images or carefully curated around the images.

About half the hooks are the same or very similar with very similar images: a cloaked figure with a metal skull for a head with something along the lines of “When a man who was more metal than flesh entered her father’s shop, her life changed forever.” Others get more thematic to the excerpt/images. One scene takes place at a wedding, so the hook is “What better place for an ambush than a wedding?” You get the idea…

Music choices have been a battle between my preferences and TikTok’s preferences (mostly represented by my 18-year-old offspring). My first choice was George Michael’s “Father Figure” which has been hot on TikTok, though that song seems to accompany a fairly specific trend that has nothing to do with books. (My kid also thinks it might suggest the book is spicier than it is.) I made a couple with songs that had been used in a few thousand posts each. I made sure to swing big with a couple of the songs (uses in the millions and the tag “popular”). I have a mind to make a video or two with sounds that aren’t songs, but I haven’t made that leap yet. Are they helpful? It may still be too early to tell.

Alas, the profile page is the weakest link. Speaking of links…TikTok won’t let you have links to external sites (a.k.a. a link tree) until you have one thousand followers. So I’m only 998 followers away from that goal! Yeah, I’ve had a TikTok account, but I was only consuming until this past week. So right now, potential readers will have to find Godfather Death and the Amazing Diagnostic Machine by searching Amazon or even the whole internet for it. Suddenly, that wordy title is starting to seem like a better idea. (I also think it sounds steampunk-y.) This is why I feel like it was important to end with my cover image.

I don’t know if anyone has chased the book down yet. It doesn’t launch for another 5 days. It’s available for presale on Kindle, but that’s it. Either it’s impossible find out how many preorders there are or I don’t know how to figure it out. I guess the third option is that there have been none, but that would be knowing how many (zero is a perfectly good number, just not preferable in the wallet).

What am I definitely doing wrong?

I may be making several mistakes that I don’t realize, but there’s one I’ve definitely fumbled. Katie say to get a few “burner accounts” to post from as well as your main account. I haven’t done this, mostly because I don’t quite understand what the nature of the account should be. If the profile page is important, then what’s on the profile page of my burner? Some fictional reader that is allegedly posting fan-art for the book? Are they all supposed to be new vids or should these burner accounts be reposting the originals? I couldn’t wrap my head around that, so I haven’t made that leap. I’m 48; this is already a little overwhelming for me.

Am I reaching people?

Not as many as I’d hoped, but maybe more than I legitimately expected.

My first carousel (the one with the whole excerpt on one slide) has the most views and the most likes (261 and 7, respectively). Most of those were in the first couple hours. None of the others have topped 200 views.

The least-viewed is the wedding one, which has a female cover of “In the Air Tonight” that has been used over 100k times. I had expected the most interest in that one. My intention is to make some adjustments to that one and try posting it again (may change the song, but I like the fit). My research has suggested that there are a lot of variables at play for how many people see any given post, so reposting duds is a fair strategy.

These numbers don’t sound like a lot. They are well below the ones Katie cited in her video. I think established accounts have better reach. That’s why I’m not going to throw in the towel just yet. I’m hoping the needle will move by the end of July.

What else have I tried?

I mentioned that I dipped a toe into YouTube. What I really did was post my one outreach video as a Short.

Yes, I did make a video for TikTok that wasn’t a slideshow and wasn’t an ad for the book. This was a “What is Steampunk?” video. Please hold for my great shame: I made the video with PowerPoint.

Hey, I’m a teacher and I am very good with PowerPoint. Use what you know. I promise, my kid has thoroughly skewered me for it.

Anyway, this video analyzes steampunk as both an aesthetic and a literary genre. It’s about a minute. (I had to speed my voice up a little; noticeable but not terrible.) I do need to improve my audio recording skills; there’s a slight echo. The video ends with the book’s title and release date. There is a link to the Kindle preorder in the video description.

So was this little video popular? Not on TikTok. It’s neck-and-neck with my wedding carousel. On YouTube however? Just over 2000 views, 18 likes. (That’s almost 1% like-age…not sure if that’s good…doesn’t sound awesome.)

What’s next?

For now, I’m going to keep working the system. I’ll either pull some more passages from the book or repackage the ones I’ve used with altered hooks, songs, and/or images. Every time one gets 100 views, that’s more eyes (some new, some repeating) that see the book. The repeat views are possibly the most important since I heard somewhere recently (might have been Katie?) that it takes 8 exposures to a stimulus before someone takes action.

I’m also going to experiment with turning some of the carousels into videos (still the slides but they cycle for you). TikTok is a largely passive platform, so maybe it will hit differently. Remember the one video I did post didn’t get many views, but it also didn’t have a viral sound attached. This way I can also hit YouTube with them.

I’ll put some of this on Facebook too. I’m not an Instagrammer, so I’ll avoid that.

Is it worth it?

The labor end of things has been fairly mild (picture hunts were consuming but also fun). Honestly, I’m hoping that being in a niche subgenre like steampunk will help this book along. And If someone is looking through steampunk books and sees a cover they recognize, that could be the difference between them buying my book or someone else’s. Maybe something like this will help get enough of a bump to make a dent on the Amazon top sellers list for steampunk. Or maybe this whole exercise will just help me grow my TikTok footprint enough that the next publication’s ads (and there will be more) will have a little more reach.

Oh, don’t take my word for all this. Make sure you check out Katie Wismer’s video. And please, if anyone here has experience with this kind of advertising that could help me or others, please share it in the comments!

What I Discovered in My Own Bookcase

~ Scott W. Baker ~ 6 Comments

Once my Clarion applications were submitted (maybe a little before), I started hunting books and stories by the instructors for both workshops.  Some of that is covered in my earlier post, Treasures from the Book Cellar.  I bought a collection of John Kessel’s early stuff, Meetings at Infinity, Rudy Rucker’s Software, Kim Stanley Robinson’s first two Mars books, an audiobook of Robert Crais’s The Forgotten Man…  Most of it was used (sorry for not supplying a royalty) so I could still afford to eat those weeks.  Only later did I start sifting through the few short story collections I already own.

John Kessel is everywhere.  I am embarrassed to say I had never paid much attention to his name before writing my application.  He’s in the Year’s Best book I have, he’s in Paragons, he’s in my Best Time Travel Science Fiction of the 20th Century (I think…I don’t remember; I’ll double check when I get home and edit here if I blew it).  I had four or five of his stories just lying around the house.  Still, I’m glad I got his collection.

UPDATE: Yes, Kessel has a story in the time travel book, “The Pure Product”.

I’ve had trouble finding a few authors.  I’m trying to find them on my own instead of hunting them through their websites or Wikipedia entries (though I cheated with Kessel).  I finally stumbled across an Elizabeth Bear story in Strange Horizons’ fiction archives.  I haven’t read it yet, but I’ll get to it this week.  I haven’t found Nalo Hopkinson yet.  I’ll hunt her work more aggressively if I get accepted to CW.

The Clarion (east) crowd has been tougher to find.  I saw the movie based on Holly Black’s and Robert Crais’ work (The Spiderwick Chronicles and Hostage) respectively.  I have verified that my school library has some of Black’s books and I’ll read some if I end up going to San Diego.  (My reading time is getting stretched thin trying to keep up with both!)  Park, Hand, and Lai just don’t seem to cross paths where I am looking.  Again, acceptance to east will get me hunting more aggressively.

I am also trying to keep up with other writers often associated with Clarion.  Knight and Wilhelm are the most obvious pair.  I read Octavia Butler’s Wild Seed a couple years ago, mostly from its recommendation in Orson Scott Card’s How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy.

So my reading is keeping me busy.  I am also working on my females-as-warriors story (tentatively titled “Kree” until I get a better feel for its theme) and checking the web fifty times a day for evidence of Clarion acceptances.  I think it may be time to switch to decaf.

-Oso

Writing Community

~ Scott W. Baker ~ 2 Comments

I have still not heard anything about Clarion or Clarion West.  I have met no writers.  I have not sold any new stories of late.  But somehow I feel like I am starting to become part of a community of writers.

Part of it is the blog connection.  I’m still pretty new at all this and seeing other writers’ blogs and reading them and linking to them and knowing they are dropping by here…it’s all so warm and fuzzy.

Another part is the shared anticipation I am experiencing with all the writers on the CW forums (except Jordan, that show-off  😀  ) as we wait for the phone to ring.  The shared experience of simply applying for the workshop is bonding.  Imagine what the actual workshop will do…

But I am happy with the bonding I am experiencing now.  I feel like I am a writer.  Only a barrel of sales would make me feel more like one.  I’ll get to work on that now.

-Oso

A couple quick odds and ends

~ Scott W. Baker ~ Leave a comment

The neat thing about having a story in the BU slush at Baen’s Bar is the chance to rewrite a story based on the feedback it receives, then just toss it back out there.  I’ve been rewriting “Leech Run” based on some fairly harsh criticism, much more to the point than Critters has ever been.  I am fairly happy with the rewrite except for the one transition paragraph I need to rework to get rid of the lies.  (I didn’t mean to lie, but the story flowed better that way.)  I hope to have the rewrite posted there Monday.

While exploring other writer’s blogs, I discovered a post from someone exclaiming his delight at being selected for the Clarion workshop.  I was a bit dejected seeing as I haven’t heard anything yet and the submission deadline has not quite arrived.  It got me very nervous, twitchy.  Then I reread the post and discovered it was from two years ago.  😐  It felt sheepish.  I hadn’t realized how much I was counting on being accepted.  I may not be and I know it.  I just need to receive my official verdict so I can move on with planning my life…or at least my summer.

That’s all for now.  More soon.

-Oso

The Tough Part

~ Scott W. Baker ~ Leave a comment

I always find it difficult to move on once I finish a story.  I get a big “now what” hanging over me.  Do I go back to an old, incomplete project or press on to a new story.  I refuse to start any new novels until I get one or more finished.  But short stories can be started on a whim.

So what to do?  I have a story, “Thinking Out Loud”, that never sold despite being a very good story.  Looking back, I find that I didn’t really build a protagonist the reader would care about.  It occurred to me to rewrite the story from a different point of view.  It’s a completely different story that way.  I may try toggling back and forth between the old POV and the new one, which turns out to be jumping between an army general and an inmate/test subject.  I think it will be a massive rewrite and am a little overwhelmed by the thought of it.  I keep putting it off.  It might be a good project for Clarion (cross fingers).

As for new projects, I have a few things I’ve brainstormed.  One story about a future society where the females are the warriors.  Lots of ideas as to why the women must fight, who they fight against, and what internal struggles the protag goes through.  I need to develop the characters a bit more, but it’s got steam behind it.  I have another that is basically a superhero-working-for-the-government story that lost all momentum.  I’m not sure I’m ready to pick that one back up.  And of course there’s my young adult SF novel (set on a sub-light colony ship), my military clone novel (probably my strongest idea), my SF comedy novel (hung up on the first major event), my YA fantasy novel (first thing I ever wrote; complete but needs a major rewrite), and my Fultus stories that need to be expanded to novella or novel length.  Whew.  

I may look through my unfinished works and see what grabs me, be it something here or something else.  We’ll see.  I think I agonize more over what to work on than over what to type.  I’ve been in a short story mood with my focus on Clarion, but who knows.  I’ll be sure to post when I make up my mind.  

I think part of my problem with moving on is the pain of waiting to hear the fate of stories in market slush piles.  “Brother Goo” is still in the mail to Cricket.  “Glow Baby” is working its way through editors at Strange Horizons.  “Leech Run” is in the slush at Baen’s Bar, fighting for an opportunity to slip into the Jim Baen’s Universe that way (past critical eyes of readers and editors alike).  I can’t remember ever having three stories in the wind at once.  Chilling.  But I have to keep working.  That’s what a real writer would do.

-Oso

Sent out two

~ Scott W. Baker ~ Leave a comment

I went ahead and sent “Brother Goo” to Cricket today.  Duotrope suggests it will be 3-6 months before I hear back.  I’ll miss that story while it’s gone.  If it gets rejected, I’ll have to strongly consider a rewrite.  I haven’t posted my full version (submitted slimmed down version) to Critters for review, but I will.  There seems to be no rush.

I also posted “Leech Run” to the slush mesage board at Jim Baen’s Universe.  It’s a neat idea, posting stories to a password protected page (so there is no technical publication…same as Critters does) to get comments from readers.  Editors also peek at the stories, requesting rtf files from stories they find particularly promising.  I’m running it through the “Introducing” bracket, basically contending with other writers that haven’t breached pro level markets.  If you are a Baen’s Bar member, you can give it a read and post some comments, especially if they are helpful comments.

At any rate, I’m keeping my top-end stuff out there.  Even a blind fisherman gets a nibble or two, right?

-Oso

Story for Young Readers

~ Scott W. Baker ~ 3 Comments

In a response to an open plea from a youth-oriented SF magazine’s editor, I wrote a story about a boy and the alien that possessed his brother.  Not the most original of ideas, but it was for kids.  As I wrote, new twists on old ideas came to me and found their way to the page.  Now I have two problems.

First, the story is too long for the market that inspired it.  The market caps at 2000 words and this story is just over 2300.  I could probably cut a few hundred words if I wanted to, but I’m pretty sure it would weaken the story.  After all, it’s not the plot that’s special, it’s the relationship between the brothers (even though one of them is not technically there).

Then there’s the other problem: I think this story is too good to start with this particular market.  This market offers only token payment and will have minimal exposure value.  I like the market and the people who run it, but I am trying to establish myself as a professional.

I may try the story in some non-genre youth-oriented publications, maybe Boys’ Life or Cricket.  I need to look up their guidelines first.  I may also try Black Gate (though I think they may be closed to submissions right now) or some other zines that insist their demographic begins with preteens.  It might prove a futile endeavor, but it would be a shame to sell a story for pennies when it might have been worth something.

I’ll probably drop it in the Critters queue while I wait for responses.  I’m having some trouble with the title: “Brother Goo or Why I Threw My Brother in the Ocean” is what I have right now.  Old school “or” format.  Unfortunately I feel like the first sounds like mucus and the second gives away too much.  I may just try “Brother Goo” and see how it is received.  Look at that, I made a decision right here in the middle of my blog and you were here to witness it.  Momentous.

-Oso

UPDATE: I checked out some of those guidelines.  Boys’ Life has a 1500-word limit.  Cricket‘s is 2000.  I went back through the story and trimmed it down to 1990 (the last cut I made was a full paragraph).  I probably could have left a little more in there.  I’ll reread the cut version in a few days, after it’s filtered out of my memory some, then maybe send it to Cricket.  It could still make the rounds of the standard genre magazines, but Analog won’t be likely to touch it.  I’ll probably stick to semi-pro markets outside the youth-oriented zines.  Time will tell how it all works out.

Catching Up on Reading as I Drive

~ Scott W. Baker ~ Leave a comment

Often I hear of urban dwellers using commute time to do their reading: on a train, bus, or subway.  I drive.  There aren’t a lot of options here.  But I still like to spend that time catching up on good books.  Thank heavens for audio books. Let’s face it, listening to a book is not the same as reading it.  It’s a close second, though, particularly an unabridged version.  It can, however, reveal some of your favorite authors’ faults the same way that reading your own work out loud can reveal flaws in your stories.

I have listened to the first five Harry Potter books on tape or disc, though it’s been years.  I wanted to reread them but couldn’t justify the time away from my perpetually growing reading list that I already neglect far too much.  A coworker had the HP audios and I borrowed one.  The performance by Jim Dale is awesome.  His voices are great and his delivery is spot on for the wizarding world.  I consider his performance the industry standard.  If you haven’t heard him, get one of those books and listen.  If I find other books he reads, I may get them just for his voice.  Of course I haven’t gone looking…yet.

More recently I listened to K-PAX by Gene Brewer.  If you’ve seen the movie, you got the gist of the story.  There were differences, but the movie was well done, as was the book.  The novel’s style lends itself well to audio performance.  It was no Jim Dale, but it was good.

nextAt the same time I purchased K-PAX, I bought Michael Crichton’s Next.  Both were in a discount bin at the local bookstore.  I guess I’m about halfway through it.  I’ve never really read Crichton.  I hope his other books are better.  Considering that every version of Next (hardcover, paperback, and audio) were marked way down, I assume it is a sub-par example of his work. It’s extra tough as an audiobook; I keep wanting to flip around to make sure I know which character he’s talking about.  It took five of the thirteen or so discs to get to the main plot.  I’ll keep this example in mind as I write my own novels.

I also bought a book off iTunes, intending to listen on my iPod but it found its home on my school computer.  The book is Dune.  Yes, I am a SF heretic that has never read Frank Herbert’s classic of classics.  I have good reason.  I had a college roommate who watched three different movies EVERY night as he fell asleep: Dune, Waterworld, or The Muppet Movie.  Muppet nights always led to better dreams.  What was more, I married a woman addicted to the David Lynch film.  Just looking at the title sent images of Brad Dourif and Sting.  It was a borderline phobia.

Classic and 100% Sting free.
Classic and 100% Sting free.

Anyway, the audiobook was a safer approach for me.  The book is (obviously) much better than the film, though the movie does color many of my mental images.  I’m glad I’m “reading” it this way.  Numerous voices lend their talent to the presentation.  I just absorb a chapter or two while I grade tests or homework during my planning period.  It’s nice, relaxing, efficient.

I love audio performances.  The new Amazon Kindle 2 reportedly has an automated “read aloud” option.  Not the same.  I don’t know that I could take more than a page of robo-speak.  Reviews I have seen call the Kindle’s vocal technique “serviceable”.  I’m looking for a voice that adds to the telling, not detracts.  Still, as a writer (even one far from audio contracts), I am concerned  what the auto-read will do to audiobook rights.  Will licensing a book to Kindle reduce the value of the audio rights?  Infringe upon previous rights?  There is a fair amount of discussion out there already about this, most writers groups preferring Amazon include an option to block the audio feature.  Sounds like n inexpensive solution to me, especially if it causes problems with the Kindle acquiring key authors.  Maybe Oprah could get behind the writers’ initiative.  Anyway, I love audiobooks and would hate to see anything inhibit their continued production.

-Oso

Good for reading, but do you want it reading to you?
Good for reading, but do you want it reading to you?

Greetings to all my fans: past, present, and especially future.

~ Scott W. Baker ~ 1 Comment

…and then, against all odds, something crawled out of the primordial internet and became Oso’s Blog.

If you found your way here without knowing who I am, good for you.  I currently publish under the name Scott W. Baker.  That being my actual name, it seemed a good choice.  I am toying with the idea of publishing under a nom de plume, or maybe even a pen name, but as yet I am not convinced this would be wise.  For instance, how would the dozens of people who have read my previous stories connect my past works to my current and future works?  If I did adopt a pseudomymn, I have pretty well decided it should be Oso Baker.  It’s a nice combination between my real name and my internet identity.

I guess my first post here should explain the origins of “Oso Muerte” in their entirety.  As so many nerdy nicknames do, it started with a character in a role playing game.  I wanted something tough, but my friends decided the character class I had selected resembled a dead bear.  Being that my character was supposed to be South American, I named him “Dead Bear” in Spanish.  Rather I tried to — it came out Oso Muerte: “bear death”.  Anyway, the character was fun and resembled me in more ways than anyone cares to hear, so the nickname stuck to me, at least with that very specific clique.  Seeing as no one else was absurd enough to use such a name, it became my go-to username for anything online.  Try Googling it, see if anything other than me comes up.  You’ll get my Amazon profile, maybe my MySpace page, maybe a few pages in Spanish about endangered ursines.

Still, the name comes across too Spanish for a pen name, especially considering my considerable ignorance of Spanish or Hispanic cultures.

I have maintained a blog on MySpace for a short time, but that didn’t quite suit my needs.  So I am moving in here at WordPress, growing up and getting a place of my own in the http://www.  I may move those old blog posts over to catch people up on the dizzying pace of my writing career (currently composed mostly of waiting).  Until then, here’s a quick summary of what I’ve been up to:

CLARION!

Don’t get too excited, I am just in the application stage.  Actually I am past the application stage and into the clawing-my-eyes-out-while-I-wait-to-hear-something stage.  But currently my Clarion applications are the foremost issues in my daily writer-life.

For those who do not know, Clarion is THE workshop for budding speculative fiction writers.  It’s a six-week bootcamp taught by five professional writers and one editor, usually award winners and often workshop  graduates themselves.  All other big-time workshops are built off its model.  I have applied to both the American incarnations of Clarion: Clarion West and plain old Clarion (often called Clarion East despite its recent transplant to San Diego).  There are other workshops — Odyssey, Viable Paradise, Orson Scott Card’s Literary Boot Camp — but I can’t bring myself to take serious time away from my wife and two-year-old daughter unless I truly believed the workshop could kick start my career.  Not every Clarionite becomes a pro, but their track record is exceptional.

The story I submitted to Clarion West just earned an Honorable Mention from L. Ron Hubbard’s “Writers of the Future” contest.  A higher placing would have inspired more confidence, but HM tells me I did something right.  A simple rejection from the contest would have discouraged my hopes of attending Clarion.  Still, there are no guarantees until there are guarantees.

I submitted that same story (entitled “Leech Run”) to Clarion East as well as a more recent work (“Glow Baby”), which was inspired by my daughter’s night light.  Both stories were between five and six thousand words, though one was Firefly-esque space opera and the other is more SF invading modern life.  Both these stories are making the rounds through different markets, though I may let “Glow Baby” take a pass at the Writers of the Future contest, too.

As soon as I hear anything about either workshop, I’ll be sure to post the outcome here.  Well, maybe not right away.  First I will have to hyperventilate, tell my wife, dance around the room, call my mother, cry a little, and then I can post here.  Bad news will simply post without fanfare.

I am not basing my career on acceptance or rejection from Clarion (or CW).  I will write come workshop or high water.  But man, I could use the kick in the keyboard these workshops represent.

This blog will not be all about Clarion.  It may not all be about writing or SF, either.  It’s a blog and I’ll throw you whatever scurries though my odd little head.  Right now my head is full of Clarion.  (It has been accused of less savory fillings.)  Come back to see what other stuff I might say.

-Oso