Recommend a How-To to help authors

[oggbashan]

This is a thread for Authors' Hangout people to recommend a posting from the How-To Category that you think might help aspiring or established authors.

To start, here is a recommendation from me, an early and short one from whispersecret: How To Get People To Read Your Story
http://www.literotica.com/s/how-to-get-people-to-read-your-story

It is short and simple advice about the importance of the title of a story.

What would you recommend?

 

[lovecraft68]

This was one that helped me out. My first submission was rejected for the dialogue not being punctuated properly.

http://www.literotica.com/s/how-to-make-characters-talk

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

This is a thread for Authors' Hangout people to recommend a posting from the How-To Category that you think might help aspiring or established authors.

To start, here is a recommendation from me, an early and short one from whispersecret: How To Get People To Read Your Story
http://www.literotica.com/s/how-to-get-people-to-read-your-story

It is short and simple advice about the importance of the title of a story.

What would you recommend?

Title is crucial, and the title must grab the reader and compel them to check things out, like emergency lights and sirens or a scream outside your window at 2AM. I'm experimenting with titles to determine what works best, and the numbers dont lie. An inane title gets 8000 reads, a fire alarm gets 19000.

 

[sr71plt]

Title is crucial, and the title must grab the reader and compel them to check things out, like emergency lights and sirens or a scream outside your window at 2AM. I'm experimenting with titles to determine what works best, and the numbers dont lie. An inane title gets 8000 reads, a fire alarm gets 19000.

It's sort of fun to listen to you reinvent the wheel like you just thought it up yourself now that you've actually begun to write some stories.

 

[lovecraft68]

Title is crucial, and the title must grab the reader and compel them to check things out, like emergency lights and sirens or a scream outside your window at 2AM. I'm experimenting with titles to determine what works best, and the numbers dont lie. An inane title gets 8000 reads, a fire alarm gets 19000.

And if you want 100k just slap mom in the title.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

And if you want 100k just slap mom in the title.

Yepper. I'm gonna use Momma's Boy.

 

[electric1]

Tooting my own horn, here's my essay 9 Steps to Sexier Stories, in which I rip into my biggest pet peeves with stories here and explain how writing can be improved.

 

[sr71plt]

Here are some of mine:

“Dictionary Smarts Can Up Ratings”
(Using the dictionary to improve story quality—U.S. Style.)
http://www.literotica.com/s/dictionary-smarts-can-up-ratings


“End Goal in Writing Erotica”
(Observations on why/how of writing erotica for the Internet.)
http://www.literotica.com/s/end-goaling-in-writing-erotica


“Self-Review for Literotica”
(Honing your story for submission yourself)
http://www.literotica.com/s/self-review-for-literotica


“Some Hows and Whys of E-Publishing”
(Some ideas to consider if you are eyeing e-publishing)
http://www.literotica.com/s/some-whys-and-hows-of-e-publishing

 

[lovecraft68]

“Some Hows and Whys of E-Publishing”
(Some ideas to consider if you are eyeing e-publishing)
http://www.literotica.com/s/some-whys-and-hows-of-e-publishing

Well just to prove I am not beyond, as my av says, giving the devil his due I read this one about two months before I started on Smashwords and got some good tips out of it.

On the note of e-publishing its odd to see how even though this essay is not quite three years old, things have changed quite a bit especially on amazon the last few months.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Tooting my own horn, here's my essay 9 Steps to Sexier Stories, in which I rip into my biggest pet peeves with stories here and explain how writing can be improved.

Good article!

 

[lovecraft68]

Yepper. I'm gonna use Momma's Boy.

Make sure you spell it that way, cause I already have this one!

http://www.literotica.com/s/mamas-boy-1

You would like this one James. Its not the typical vanilla happy fuzzy incest. The father is an abusive drunk and the reader gets a full dose of that. Its why its one of my lower scored cause some real life shit actually happens in it and I have sonny boy dealing with some depressing shit.

 

[sr71plt]

Amazon is changing by the week, it seems (and not in favor of erotica or self-publishing). And no longer is the elephant in the room for erotica publishing.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Make sure you spell it that way, cause I already have this one!

http://www.literotica.com/s/mamas-boy-1

You would like this one James. Its not the typical vanilla happy fuzzy incest. The father is an abusive drunk and the reader gets a full dose of that. Its why its one of my lower scored cause some real life shit actually happens in it and I have sonny boy dealing with some depressing shit.

I'll think of something else but thanks for the heads-up I'll read your story after I post this.

Ha! My worst critics swear I make shit up but I know black bulls stuff spoons inside cunts and feed the cum to the woman. Or the woman has so much cum in her mouth she cant talk and make sense. I saw one today where the woman is talking about how the john is fucking her ass and trying to cut her throat. Its wild out there!

 

[lovecraft68]

Amazon is changing by the week, it seems (and not in favor of erotica or self-publishing). And no longer is the elephant in the room for erotica publishing.

They are basically now bowing to the traditional publishers who at one point refused to touch the e-book market.

The indies filled amazon;s kindle store, but now that the traditional publishers have decided they want all in Amazon is kissing their ass.

They have eliminated the use of search tags meaning no matter what type of erotica one writes it is just under "erotica" so someone looking for a group sex story may have to wade through page after page of daddy stories or what have you.

Without tags authors with no name recognition "indies" are screwed.

My sales decreased almost 50% when they did this.

On the lus side it forced me to spend the time to upload myself into B&N and they ahve been making up the difference, proving that yes, Amazon is no longer the dominant player.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Make sure you spell it that way, cause I already have this one!

http://www.literotica.com/s/mamas-boy-1

You would like this one James. Its not the typical vanilla happy fuzzy incest. The father is an abusive drunk and the reader gets a full dose of that. Its why its one of my lower scored cause some real life shit actually happens in it and I have sonny boy dealing with some depressing shit.

I ran into a real life Julie the other day. Legs up to her sweet ass.

 

[TxRad]

They are basically now bowing to the traditional publishers who at one point refused to touch the e-book market.

The indies filled amazon;s kindle store, but now that the traditional publishers have decided they want all in Amazon is kissing their ass.

They have eliminated the use of search tags meaning no matter what type of erotica one writes it is just under "erotica" so someone looking for a group sex story may have to wade through page after page of daddy stories or what have you.

Without tags authors with no name recognition "indies" are screwed.

My sales decreased almost 50% when they did this.

On the lus side it forced me to spend the time to upload myself into B&N and they ahve been making up the difference, proving that yes, Amazon is no longer the dominant player.

Amazon is covering it's ass. If there is a complaint about story or types of stories they can blame it on the publishing house and sidestep the issue.

Nothing new, just another way of getting what they want.

 

[_Lynn_]

Here are some of mine:

“Some Hows and Whys of E-Publishing”
(Some ideas to consider if you are eyeing e-publishing)
http://www.literotica.com/s/some-whys-and-hows-of-e-publishing

I recognize that one.

 

[sr71plt]

Amazon is covering it's ass. If there is a complaint about story or types of stories they can blame it on the publishing house and sidestep the issue.

Nothing new, just another way of getting what they want.

I think it's more that the traditional houses are now deep into e-booking themselves and Amazon would much rather work with an entity that does most of the vetting and weeding out before Amazon gets it.

With erotica and self-publishers, Amazon is up to its neck with "It's been stolen" copyright claims they have no way of sorting out, absolute schock in much of the content, lots of headaches in getting self-publshers formatted correctly, and a huge number of returns. On returns, they are being dumb about not just saying they won't take returns like other e-distributors do.

There's a logic to it--it may be covering their ass in some ways, but it has understandable logic behind it. Their overall business is so huge that the headaches with serving erotica self- and small-publisher publishing may not be worth it to them, whereas it may be the golden goose to some smaller distributor operations.

 

[TxRad]

I think it's more that the traditional houses are now deep into e-booking themselves and Amazon would much rather work with an entity that does most of the vetting and weeding out before Amazon gets it.

With erotica and self-publishers, Amazon is up to its neck with "It's been stolen" copyright claims they have no way of sorting out, absolute schock in much of the content, lots of headaches in getting self-publshers formatted correctly, and a huge number of returns. On returns, they are being dumb about not just saying they won't take returns like other e-distributors do.

There's a logic to it--it may be covering their ass in some ways, but it has understandable logic behind it. Their overall business is so huge that the headaches with serving erotica self- and small-publisher publishing may not be worth it to them, whereas it may be the golden goose to some smaller distributor operations.

My thought exactly a long time ago. Selena led the way. I'm surprised more didn't follow.

 

[lovecraft68]

Smashwords has been trying to upload to Amazon for a long time. Not sure what the issue was, but they finally got clearance.

They took their top 50 selling titles on their site(and affiliates) so these are books that sell in thousand+ copy a month range for them and put then on Amazon

Their blog reported absolutely dreary sales on amazon, but still very strong sales every where else.

But in addition to them butt kissing the traditional authors (and if they are forced into an answer what Pilot said is most likely the route they will go) they are lagging in general

Understand the kindle was the original e-reader. But now many are reading on their phone or i-pad or tablet. Those come with their own readers like Kobo and apple.

People don;t want two devices any more and kindles are not as popular. The "fire" does a lot more than read e-books, but for the price you can buy a better all around device.

 

[sr71plt]

My thought exactly a long time ago. Selena led the way. I'm surprised more didn't follow.

Selena didn't think up "the way" all by herself. Although one might think that from her PR.

 

[sr71plt]

Kindle is no longer the #1 reader even. Consumer Reports gives that to the Nook.

 

[TxRad]

Selena didn't think up "the way" all by herself. Although one might think that from her PR.

Whether she thought it up by herself or not is not the point. The point is she's the only one who did it.

 

[lovecraft68]

Selena didn't think up "the way" all by herself. Although one might think that from her PR.

In Marvel comics hey day when they revolutionized the comic book industry it was through the work of two men Jack Kirby and Stan Lee.

Kirby was an old fashioned workhorse who just did his job and kept his mouth shut.

Lee was a shameless self promoter who "me'd" people to death.

Now when people talk Marvel its all "Stan lee did that"

 

[lovecraft68]

Whether she thought it up by herself or not is not the point. The point is she's the only one who did it.

But she also, at least at one point, was selling a bunch of stuff on kindle. To a degree she is at their mercy as well. I know she has her own site as well, but the majority of books are purchased on places like Amazon and B&N and other snot "home page web sites"