We were challenged to create one or two line descriptions that summed up each of our books. Challenge accepted!
Blog Archives
Time’s Guardians Cover
Here it is, the cover of Time’s Guardians. The book will be released in Spring 2015. Cover art by Ali Ries.
Two Writers, One Voice, Ten Tips
Everyone wants to know: How do two writers write one story? We described our journey as collaborating authors in So, How Do Two Writers Write As One? However, there must be a lot of writing partners out there for we still get many requests for more information on how to pull off the two authors/one voice trick.
It is difficult to analyze all the nuances of how we work together. A great deal of our success is personality. We, simply put, are a good fit. We also have been at this for a very long time, so each knows the way the other one thinks and what our strengths and weaknesses are. But for those who wish to have a go at writing a book with another, here are ten tips on how to go about it.
1. Be nice to each other.
The Golden Rule of writing together. If you can’t follow this rule, don’t bother because you will never get anywhere. This doesn’t mean that you must agree all the time. Some of our best story ideas came out of disagreements. Just keep the disagreements respectful. No name calling. And no yelling.
2. Be honest.
About yourself. About whether you can work with partner. About whether you even like the way they write. About everything. If you do not like something, say so. If you like something, also say so. (It’s amazing how often that simple but wonderful piece of feedback is overlooked!) So be honest. But don’t be mean.
3. Have weekly meetings.
Even if you are living in the same house, if you have a writing partner, you need to have at least one meeting a week to discuss your work-in-progress, read drafts, ask questions. This helps to keep both writers (if you’ll pardon the pun) on the same page.
4. Know how your book will end.
This is good advice even if you are not writing with a partner. The overall tone of the story should reflect just where the tale is heading. Also, how your characters behave and develop has a direct effect on where they end up. Both writers must be aiming at the same target.
5. Write an outline of the story.
Not every writer works with an outline, but for two writers working on one project an outline is very useful. This doesn’t mean you must rigidly adhere to the script, but having a structure will keep both writers moving in the same general direction.
6. Divide the work...
Discuss beforehand who will write what. Get out the outline (see how useful it is?) and negotiate which sections each writer will tackle. Here it is important to be nice (see tip #1) and to be honest (see tip #2). Know your writing strengths and weaknesses. In our writing, Mary is good at dialogue, Joe at description. We both love action scenes. We keep these things in mind when deciding how to divide the labor.
7. …but don’t be rigid about it.
Dividing the labor does not necessarily mean one writer per chapter. It may mean one scene in a chapter. It may mean you BOTH write the same chapter. This usually results in a blend, taking a piece of each writer’s version of the chapter and melding it into one piece. Remember that mention above about dialogue and description? We often will take a dialogue-dominated scene by Mary and blend it with a description-rich scene by Joe. Presto! A complete chapter.
8. Write separately.
Perhaps there are those who can write comfortably with another writer in the room, but it doesn’t work for us. Invariably, one writer will interrupt the other with a question, idea, or to read a passage from a draft. This can be really annoying. Also, there is nothing more damping to the flow of words than to see someone either typing furiously while you can’t even put together one sentence or to be the one typing furiously while the other is staring our the window not writing at all. (By the way, the old adage is true. A writer IS working when he is staring out the window.) Need to discuss something? See tip #3.
9. Edit each other’s work.
Painful but necessary. A great deal of the merging of two writers into one takes place during the editing process. Remember, positive feedback is just as important as pointing out errors. If your writing partner is particularly good at something or really nailed a scene let him know. And when your partner criticizes your work, try to remain objective. Discuss the critiques, don’t sulk. Use your partner’s suggestions when rewriting. What you rewrite is not set in stone. If it doesn’t work, it doesn’t, but give suggestions a fair try.
10. Have fun.
If you are not enjoying the process, then it simply is not for you. We have a lot of fun collaborating on our books, so the inevitable differences of opinion and stumbling blocks are bearable. Most writers we talk with claim they could never write a story with another person. They dislike sharing creative control, they don’t want another writer editing their work, they feel inhibited about plotting aloud with someone else. So perhaps we should add an eleventh tip…
11. KNOW YOURSELF.
A Five-Star Review for Time’s Warriors
“Anytime I read a series I usually find the first book in the series to be my favorite. This trend does not hold with the Time’s Edge series. Each book written becomes my latest favorite! Each book draws you deeper and deeper into a world of science fiction, adventure and romance. Each book has a mesmerizing quality that makes you long to stay in Time’s Edge and leave the hum drum of the real world behind. The only draw back to each book is that they end and leave you longing for the next one to be written.”
Time’s Warriors Available March 1st
Time’s Warriors, the fifth book in the Time’s Edge series, will be released on March 1st!
Announcing Time’s Rebels
Michael Blayne thought his worries were over. He had resigned from the Galactic Armed Forces, fulfilled the prophecy of the Golden Dragon, and unraveled the secret of the Origin Stone. Now all he wanted was to live quietly with his wife, Kate Weston, in the newly-freed complex called Cilcourt.
Then a messenger appeared at his door.
Within hours, Michael was an outlaw and on the run from the Ratherian army, the Tavon Knights, and agents of the mysterious realm known as Time’s Edge. He quickly learned there was no place in the galaxy where they could not find him and knew from experience that when you cannot run or hide you only have one choice left…
Fight.
Time’s Rebels, the fourth book in the Time’s Edge scifi/fantasy series is now available!
Forgetting How to Use a Book
A very interesting post from journalist David Bauer. He has been reading books all his life, but after only two years of reading on an ipad, he is no longer comfortable reading a book the old-fashioned way.
I find it increasingly uncomfortable to move my eyes from the top of a page to the bottom as I read along. I prefer to keep my focus at roughly the same spot and to move the text rather my eyes.
Read his entire blog here: The Day I Forgot How to Use a Book
Too Much Book Promotion, Not Enough Writing
Oh, the time suck of promoting a book. Facebook. Pinterest. Twitter. Amazon. Etc., etc. etc… Everyone knows the players.
The amount of information on the Internet is infinite. The craving for new information is insatiable. The chances of readers finding a particular author’s information is infinitesimal. (Like all those “I” words?)
Trying to keep up with the changes in Amazon’s algorithms, the constantly shifting rules of all the social media platforms, the newest must-be-there-or-be-square sites is overwhelming. (Bet you thought we were going to say impossible.) All the social media management sites on the Internet do not seem to reduce the time drain of maintaining a social media presence.
The sad truth is we now spend more time promoting than writing.
We’ve read many articles on how to reduce the amount of time spent on social media. We’ve tried management tools such as hootsuite and pingraphy. And they help. A little. However, there is no getting around the fact that even management sites require data input. An entire day can be spent setting up one month’s worth of scheduled tweets, posts and blogs, and no management software can take the place of the genuine interaction that is necessary when responding to comments and messages. Also, different platforms require different input. It would be counter-productive to simply post identical information across all sites. We have followed authors who do that and the constant repetition made us decide to unfollow pretty quickly.
The really worrisome thing is that we have a sneaking feeling that all this time is wasted time. We have not seen a significant correlation between all our social media efforts and sales. Repins, retweets, and shares by the dozens do not seem to turn followers into readers. There are so many authors out there doing the same thing that our additions to the clamor seem like peeing in the ocean. Who is going to notice?
We could have blogged about “How to Successfully Promote Your Book in 10 Easy Steps”. A quick Google search would have provided us with plenty of material. But like the self-help books that try to show the path to enlightenment or the you-can-be-a-millionaire-too titles, the method that works for one person does not work for everyone, or even most folks. After all, how many blogs do we all need saying: Have a Facebook/Pinterest/Twitter/Tumblr page? Post regularly! Interact! Connect! Use a call for action! Be visual! We all know how the game is played by now.
We’re going to keep plugging away at it. We are also going to try to write more and promote less. Just as soon as we get this blog posted.
The Trouble with Free eBooks
Everyone loves to get something for nothing, right? And what is more tempting than going online and cruising through thousands of free ebooks? It’s like a smorgasbord that you don’t have to pay for, a literary heaven.
Well, not exactly. Here’s why:
1. Quantity. There are too many free ebooks. Thousands of titles are available, which means a free ebook no longer stands out in the crowd. A few years ago, this was a great way for a new author to get noticed. But now? “FREE! isn’t special when everyone is doing it” author Kristen Lamb wrote in her blog The Problem with Free. As a tool for authors, it is losing its advantage. As a source for readers, it is overwhelming, and that leads to the second issue:
2. Excess. Many readers do not read the free ebooks they download. The books go into the modern day slush pile called To Be Read. The problem is that most TBR lists contain hundreds of books and why not? They are all free. It doesn’t cost anything to download a book and leave it sitting in electronic limbo. The reader doesn’t lose anything if he never gets to the book. And that brings up:
3. Value. It turns out that most folks do not value something unless they pay for it. Author Dean Fetzer makes this point in his blog Value for Money: “One of the lessons I learned early on about the internet in my previous job – and the world, for that matter – is: users don’t value free stuff as much as things they pay for.” Readers have no investment in a free book and no expectations. Just the opposite, in fact:
4. Perception. A free product is perceived to be a lesser product. Even positive reviews of free books reflect this attitude. When scanning any reviews of free books you invariably find comments such as “Not bad, for free”, “I was surprised that something free was actually readable”, “Enjoyed it but glad I didn’t have to pay for it”. And let’s take a look at the “glad I didn’t have to pay for it” crowd:
5. Addiction. Yes, ebook readers are now hooked on freebies. They have been trained to NOT pay for books. They expect free ebooks, in quantity, in perpetuum. Check out The Digital Reader: Are Free eBooks Killing the Market? for a take on this phenomenon.
Of course, there are authors who have benefited from using the free ebook strategy just as there are readers who devour their electronic books and hunger for more. These authors will argue that giving away free ebooks boosted the sales of their non-free titles. They are the exception now, not the norm. Free promos, if done correctly, can temporarily boost a book’s ranking. Does that translate into sales and reviews? There is heated debate over that but it seems clear that most authors receive only a momentary lift, a blip, so to speak, in the book publishing cosmos.
We have never offered our books for free and have no plans to do so. We want readers who are invested in the story, who want to read our tales so much much they actually pay for them. Authors should set a value on their work. In a race to the bottom, no one wins.
J.M. Dattilo 