What About Romances? - Crunching the Numbers

The economy isn't great, in fact, it's still pretty bad, and though statistics are really only in through 2009 (we've yet to see what 2010 has done) the undeniable fact is that though the economy is still struggling to bounce back from the latest recession, book sales increased slightly in 2009 from 2008.

Why?

Who knows.  Some say it's because the cost of a book is relatively cheap compared to other forms of entertainment out there (does that include playing with a computer game already purchased?).  Others claim its because reading a book offers an escape for readers from tough times (movies already owned on DVD don't accomplish that?) I don't know the why and the 'experts' aren't very convincing, but really, does it matter to the writer? He or she just wants to be read and carve out a career so any reason is a good reason for book sales to climb even a little. In fact, just holding steady right now is a major plus.

In fact, Romance fiction continues to hold the largest share of the consumer market, beating out other categories like Mystery, Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Crime, Horror and others.  

For romance writers the good news is romance fcction (with all it's sub-genres such as Historical, Paranormal, Fantasy, Sci/Fi, Inspirational, Regency, Suspense, Erotic) has, for a long time, been the mainstay of the mass-market paperbacks.

More good news for the romance writer; the genre is gaining a foothold in the Ebook format (which is pretty much exploding about now) as well.  As a mater of fact it went from number 3 position in 2009 and is currrently in number 2 postion for 2010.  The year will have to end to see how that shakes out overall.

So who publishes all those Romances?  Well, the primary publishers are Mira, Berkley, Avon, Little Brown, Pocket, Dell, Grand Central, HQN, Ballantine and Zebra. Tuck that info away in your brain if you're writing or thinking of writing a romance. The best selling 'sub-genres' are Contemporary (series), Contemporary (single title), Paranormal and Historical. But choose one your really enjoy writing, not one that's simply in the 'best-selling' category.

Who is the general audience for the romance writer? Apparently the core of the readership is women between thirty-one and forty-nine - oh, and apparently in a romantic relationship of their own.  And over 90% of romances sold are to women - guess that tidbit isn't too surprising. And obviously those who read specific sub-genres have their interests there.

Another thing to keep in mind is how these readers find out about the books they buy.  Apparently personal websites aren't having too much impact as yet - at least when it comes to generating direct buys.  Mostly it's word of mouth, impulse buying from a book display at a store, generally liking the subject of the book before opening it and perusing the best-seller lists. I haven't seen much about what's hooking them for the Ebooks they purchase, but can only project its similar, but with cyber displays, etc. 

Oh, and in case you're wondering how that translates into dollars, Romance Fiction sold better than one and a third billion dollars worth of books in 2009.  Overall book sales were more than ten billion dollars for the year just past.

So if you're considering writing a romance, go ahead, have at it.  You  never know where it may lead.

Writers Websites Wednesday - brainstorming

Are you into mindmapping to help you brainstorm your next writing project? Heres a free, online mindmapping source.  Works pretty good too! Bubbl.us  Really good for brain play when you get stalled on a story.

Want to UnMuddle Your Writing?

Okay, so shoot me, I got creative with 'UnMuddle", but ponder this. Why do you write (no matter what you write)?

To communicate.

So, tell me, what good is it all if the one you’re trying to communicate with can’t easily understand what’s being said?

Whether the person you're writing to is reading a novel, trying to decipher an instruction manual, perusing a travel magazine or just reading a sales ad, if that person you're writing to finds it difficult to follow along, you’ve lost your reader. The book gets closed. The magazine gets laid aside, the advertising is ignored. That’s where Keep It Simple comes in. You've heard of it. KISS. Keep It Simple Stupid (well without the 'stupid' part, because plainly you aren't).

Writing with clarity is tougher than most folks think who aren't writers so, the simpler the better. That’s not to say you’re to write ‘down’ to your reader. It’s not that other people are stupid (well, not many of them are, and plainly my readers and yours aren’t), it’s just that they’re busy. They’re distracted and let’s face it, nobody, whatever their level of ability, wants to have to stop and decode what they’re reading.  Just don't want to, don't have to. They can move on and that's not good for you, the writer.

The concept applies well to all your writing. Keep sentences and paragraphs short. Don’t you find it off-putting to be confronted by a sheet filled solidly with print and very little white space? Isn’t it easier to follow down a page that offers some breaks? Maybe it’s dialog or shorter paragraphs for fiction. Perhaps it’s sub-headlines in advertising copy. Could be beautiful pictures in travel magazines. All of those help to draw the reader along, into the flow of the written page. Eye candy, whether text or pictorial.

Generally it's best to use easily understood words. Some writers use huge vocabularies and use them well. Other writers use vocabularies which are much smaller. Hemingway fell into the later camp by the way; Steinbeck too seemed to love single syllable words. That’s not to say you should not use colorful words. Simple and colorful are not exclusive of each other.

The key is clarity. Don’t use a hundred-dollar-word when a five-cent edition will do. This is especially true when you aren’t comfortable with that hundred-dollar-word in the first place. When you write what you are comfortable with it will naturally come across clearly - at least the great majority of the time. Write within your comfort zone. Don't think you have to prove anything.

I personally think all of this is a remnant of childhood. Remember children's books with large print and lots of pictures? Remember that first time when you were young and decided to read a ‘young adult’ book without pictures (well, mostly without, maybe there were a few line drawings at chapter beginnings)? Kind of a shock wasn’t it? I think we continue to carry a little bit of that kid along with us through life. A sort of “hey, where’re the pictures?” kind of attitude.

Reading what you’ve written out loud is a great help when you’re trying to keep your writing simple and clean. Remember, you’re not trying to impress your reader with how big a vocabulary you have or how perfect your grammar or how long a sentence you can produce with all the comas, semicolons and exclamation points in the correct places. Nope, that’s not what you’re doing. What you’re doing, is communicating. Telling a story of some kind. Whether fiction, non-fiction, or advertising, the writer is telling a story. And if you can't read one of your sentences aloud without running out of breath, you're in trouble.

So, think in terms of talking to a friend. If you were talking to a friend would you speaking to impress, or would you simply be relaying a story? Think about it. Through your writing you are communicating - be effective you must be understood.

Writers Websites Wednesday - I Write Like

Okay, this one is just for fun. It's called I Write Like and it compares your writing to the greats (and maybe not that great).  All you have to do is paste a few paragraphs of your writing into the box, click on analyze and see who you come up with. 

What's So Great About A Writer Being Invisible?

You should think about being invisible when you write, really you should. 

 

Immediately I hear the distant wails," I don’t want to be invisible! I want to show my own distinctive style, I want to be a really GREAT WRITER and entertain my readers! I want the world to praise ME!"

Well you can go that route, no invisibility for you! But if you do take that course you may miss out on creating the really great story you intend while you’re obsessing with being a ‘great writer.’ The wise writer’s focus is more on clear, crisp sentences that creates pictures for your readers, phrases that evoke emotion, words that touch an empathetic place. So if you've thought about it a moment and have decided you want to try out this "be invisible" thing and have your work take center stage, gather your patience, thoughtfulness, empathy and direction and read on.

First, move your focus away from yourself and what you expect to accomplish, think about your reader and what he or she hopes to get out of your book. How do you get them to that place where they suspend their disbelief and dive head-first into your story, wrapped in the conflicts you’ve created, the worlds you’ve painted and the characters who inhabit them? How to get them to forget about you, become unaware of you until you are really no longer visible and your story and characters are all they perceive?

For starters think about what you learned in your English classes and your Composition classes, then recognize you have to unlearn a great deal of it. As a writer you don’t need to throw your impressive vocabulary in your reader’s faces. Keeping it simple and clear is better. Try not to use alliteration often. Don’t write long, complicated sentences. 19th Century novelists did it, it’s past, get over it. Your goal is not to fill up many pages to pile on long descriptive passages. All of this just serves to put the writer (you) center stage and that’s not really a good place to be.

Don’t stop your reader with a particularly long sentence, detailed phrase or a word they need to run to a dictionary to understand. Mark Twain would slap you, so would Hemingway, and unless I miss my guess, Stephen King as well. Use familiar words and make them count. Instead of vague phrases like “the librarian walked slowly down the aisle with a painful limp,” think more colorfully and concisely. How about, “the librarian hitched her way down the aisle, cane thumping in hollow rhythm.”? Don’t have a character of yours simply ‘eat’, when he or she can, ‘gulp, crunch, slurp or inhale’ the food. And learn to trust your gut instinct and depend on the context of your story. There are times when a more ‘fancy’ word is better. Just don’t constantly search your thesaurus for a replacement for that straight-forward word you began with.

Don’t jerk your reader out of our story with too many things like exclamation marks. This really does just point to the writer as being a bit too lazy to make the sentence exciting enough to get the reader’s attention without punctuation. Or perhaps the writer is just too inexperienced. Either way is not good. Use words to build that excitement, not marks on paper at the end of a sentence. Practice, you can do it.

Beware figures of speech. When you use one you momentarily pull your reader out of the story to consider what you’ve put forth. Forget old, boring ones you’ve heard forever like ‘a stitch in time…’ They don’t belong in your writing or mine at all. If you’re creative enough you may well come up with delightful ones on your own. If you need to, use an old, boring one as a place holder and highlight it in your writing, then come back later and replace it with something sparkling, and new. Something like “I felt like Van Gogh’s ear,” or “the water was cold, almost frozen, swimming through it was like dog-paddling cold oatmeal.” Plainly you can do better – so please do.

Lastly, for the moment, don’t make mistakes in your writing. Your readers pay attention and you’ll hear from them. If you use real places, spell the name correctly. Writing a western (I’ve written a number of them) remember a shotgun doesn’t shoot bullets, it shoots pellets. Chicago is not in Florida. Double-check and then check again. Don’t let this jerk your reader out of the reader’s trance you work so hard to create.

Always remember, it's not about you, it's about your reader.

Writers Websites Wednesday - Fantasy Name Generators

An assortment of fantasy name generators.  Visit The Forge and see what names you can create for your fantasy characters there. You have the choice from several generators, and what they come up with  can really be a hoot. Great ideas, great springboards.

Want to Avoid Things Editors & Agents Hate From the Very First Chapter?

Writing is tough, writing well is even tougher. And at the top of the tough list is writing, while you keep in mind things that might turn off an agent or perhaps an acquisition editor in that very first chapter. Things that could stop your hopes for that book dead in it's tracks.
Then you have to decide, while keeping these things in mind, if something is important enough to your story to go ahead and do it anyway, despite the added risk of rejection.

Convoluted?


Yes.

Reprint in large Print Ed

But what follows below is, in general, a list of ‘don’ts’ for when you’re trying to get past that first hurdle and have your work seriously considered by those who can give the green light to your project. Those things you might waytto know about before you decide to go ahead and do them anyway.


For starters if you're thinking about a prologue, you  might think about skipping it – in general agents hate them and usually they’re just a lazy way to give readers a whole lot of back story that could actually be handled better throughout the novel.  BUT, you may have an excellent reason for a Prologue that doesn't fit into these niches. If you do, have at it. Just remember that magical word "Prologue" may well send chill up the spine of the editor or agent reading it.


Okay, I think we all agree the first chapter has to move quickly and draw the reader in. In General avoid any discussion of the weather here, i.e. “it was a dark and stormy night’. Also avoid lengthy character descriptions such as, “her hair was a silken black, curly and dropped to well below her hips. The color was the perfect contrast to her crystalline, sky blue eyes, large in a heart-shaped face with flawless alabaster skin. Her clothes clung to every voluptuous curve, caressing a hip here, cupping a full breast there, lace accenting the décolletage of her designer dress.” Somebody's head will be spinning after reading all that, unless he or she has fallen asleep.  My advice? Drop it in in small bits and pieces throughout the story instead. Give a tease and a taste, don't bombard your reader. 


In general the opening ‘my name is____’ is a real turn-off. Rarely it works. If you have some compelling reason to do it, hey, it's your book, go ahead. But, be aware, it sends up red flags.


Don’t create a first chapter in which nothing happens. People wandering around, streets getting described, people eating breakfast.  Nothing is worse than just laying background for a first whole chapter. SOMETHING needs to HAPPEN! Physical, emotional - something!


As a general tip, don’t have a lot of adventure and action throughout the first chapter turn out to be a dream. As a reader I find it terribly annoying and there are lots of agents who’ll tell you they hate it too.


Give your heroes and heroines some flaws.  Don’t make them too perfect. Boring. Hey, Indiana Jones was afraid of snakes. Odd Thomas in Dean Koontz's novels has plenty of problems.  They're just more interesting if they have flaws and find ways to overcome them as well as 'suffering' from them.


Don’t get yourself stuck in the ‘information dump’, the feeling that you need to cram in to the first few pages all the information you think the reader needs to know to understand the story. You’ve spent time getting to know your characters, do the reader the courtesy of allowing them to get to know them over time (the course of the book). Let their personalities evolve and be revealed. We don’t need a crash course - and besides, the end of the book is too late anyway.  I've probably stopped reading before then if I can't see the story and backstory unfolding as I go.  Same applies to agents and editors.


Mostly it's just common sense, but sharpening your attention to be focused in on it. Whatever bugs you as the reader will also bug the editor or potential agent. If you're overwhelmed by description, if you feel like you're being spoon-fed information and not discovering it on your own, if nothing is happening and the characters are just going round in circles, you don't want to go down that road as a writer yourself.


Now, all that said, sometimes you need to write with speed and go back and look for these flaws - they aren't always easy to avoid as you write.  That's why so many writers emphasize the rewrite stage as the most important.  You may want to do some of what I've brought to your attention  above. If you do, well, go ahead, I'm not the ultimate authority, no one is.  Sometimes you can make it work, but it is always a very difficult sell.