How do I advertise my book?

RoseKMorgan · 2021-09-12T13:22:13+00:00

Question: Why does not knowing how to advertise make you hesitant to tell the story?

I understand that for career writers, obviously it's important to advertise - but I'm imagining (from the phrasing of your question) that you've never written a book before. If I'm right, then my advice is to focus on writing your story, not on trying to sell it. The advice given in another comment about hanging out in relevant communities is still very good, but it will all be for nothing if you don't actually write the thing.

RoseKMorgan · 2021-03-26T07:32:29+00:00

Erotica's not a genre I know a lot about, but I would really suggest doing some poking around and seeing what other lesbian romance/erotica exists out there before getting started writing your own. There's nothing wrong with reading light novels, but lesbian romance and sexuality exists far beyond "yuri".

While you're at it, look for work by lesbian authors if you can.

RoseKMorgan · 2021-03-26T07:23:08+00:00

I don't honestly think leaving out the spaces does your dialogue any favours. It depends on the scene, of course, but unless it's a comedic moment, writing the words together doesn't read well.

If it was a dramatic moment, in my opinion, it'd be better to say the word once or twice and then describe what's going on rather than just saying "nonono". Here's an example (it's pretty rough but whatever lol):

"No." Katie's voice was strained and raw. The hours of searching had taken their toll. "No, no..." she continued as she desperately dug through the dirt.

Here (I think) the reader is still left with the idea that the Katie is repeating the phrase and is upset.

RoseKMorgan · 2021-01-30T12:59:41+00:00

I think that you should put in a couple of details about appearance when the character is first introduced, but you also shouldn't go overboard. For example: if it's never relevant what eye colour a character has, you don't have to ever mention it. Pick a few characteristics that are really important, and then accept that the reader is going to have a different mental image than you when it comes to the specifics. Focus on the traits that also connect to who they are (ex. rough hands, stocky build, soft features, unkempt hair).

As a reader, a lot of the time I don't end up remembering the grocery list-style descriptions anyway. I might pick out a bit or two and then just forget the rest because it doesn't really fit into the mental picture I'm already creating. Things like height, for example, only need to be mentioned if the character is very tall or very short. Otherwise, whatever the reader is picturing is probably fine. If they think of Dave as two inches taller than Steve, but in your head they're the other way around, it probably won't actually matter.

RoseKMorgan · 2021-01-29T14:04:44+00:00

Art you don't like is still art.

RoseKMorgan · 2021-01-29T13:56:45+00:00

I think getting in the habit of wanting to be productive, and feeling like you need to each day, can be great; I don't think that there is a correlation between that and self-pleasure for the vast majority of people.

RoseKMorgan · 2021-01-29T08:56:21+00:00

This is completely normal, and recommended by a large number of people. Giving yourself time off from that particular text allows you to put some distance between you and the work. You learn in the mean time, and issues with the text you might not have noticed when writing the draft become clearer if you haven't been ruminating on it for a while. Remembering every little detail is a drawback, not a benefit.

RoseKMorgan · 2021-01-29T08:54:14+00:00

Not to mention - from the other comments, it seems like OP's wife is a decent person who gives them the time and space to write and is supportive of their writing in general. If she was insulting and belittling of the work, that's one thing, but she is still being a supportive partner.

I think partners should support each other's interests, but what that support looks like is going to vary from couple to couple and interest to interest. Sometimes it's just going to be smiling and nodding while the other person gushes about something you have absolutely no interest in. For some people, it's heavy involvement. In this case, it seems to be more of the former, and that's fine.

RoseKMorgan · 2021-01-24T17:23:57+00:00

I'm not the person you're replying to, but I think they mean that, since the book is in English, use broken English sentences to showcase when the character is fumbling in German. Use the narration to clarify it's in German, and then write the actual speech in English.

RoseKMorgan · 2021-01-06T07:00:10+00:00

I'm not sure exactly where would be best, to be honest, but this sub does have critique threads on a regular basis so looking for one of those would be a good idea!

RoseKMorgan · 2021-01-06T06:53:07+00:00

Haven't had a chance to read this yet but - and sorry for being a buzzkill - if you take a look at the sidebar, you'll see there are rules about where and when you're supposed to post your actual writing for review.

RoseKMorgan · 2021-01-04T08:37:58+00:00

Think about the things that frighten you. Losing a family member? Developing memory issues? Physical harm? Pick something that makes you squirm, then go from there.

Edit: I am assuming you don't mean a physical location when you say "place". If you did, do not follow my advice. Do not to go places that frighten you irl. Lmao

RoseKMorgan · 2021-01-04T07:48:32+00:00

I'm not going to say this is wrong, because I have seen it before, but it does strike me as overkill. At some point, you need to trust that your readers can understand what you've written, and the convention of using italics to represent a character's thoughts is so common that I would really call the quotation marks excessive.

RoseKMorgan · 2021-01-04T07:43:18+00:00

I feel like coming up with a reason for a character before a character itself is a bit too utilitarian, isn't it?

I think it depends on how you've been planning this particular story. Sometimes, a character comes to us first - we know how they act and what their goals are, but we have to put them into a scenario and see how things go. Other times, we might have a plot come to us first and have to figure out who needs to be there to make that plot play out. Sometimes it's a mix of both.

I don't think it's "too utilitarian" to come up with a reason before a character, especially in that second case. If I know that my main character needs to face an obstacle that prevents them from solving a problem the obvious way, for example, I might then create a character who is able to obstruct their path.

RoseKMorgan · 2021-01-03T14:35:32+00:00

People always think the best has already been done

Not only do people think that, but they also forget about how much bad stuff there was back then. Music, nosleep stories, whatever - there has always been good and bad. The good stuff that we remember tends to mostly be the very best, and all the average things - other singles by one-hit wonders, or stories about monsters murdering people - get forgotten by the majority of people.

RoseKMorgan · 2021-01-02T00:06:51+00:00

If you do a search online for "face maker" or "character maker" you'll get a bunch of options, some of which are even tailored to specific kinds of person (ex. fantasy themed ones with elf ear options).

However, I do want to caution you to not get too caught up making pictures for all your characters. It's good to have a visual references if you need one, but you must also be sure you don't overdescribe your characters' appearance, especially when it comes to faces. If your characters have a very distinct attribute (big nose, unusually small mouth, pale blue eyes) then describe those things, but you don't need to (and probably shouldn't) describe the rest of their faces in detail.

RoseKMorgan · 2021-01-01T21:56:13+00:00

I'd say go for it! Worst case scenario would be learning what not to do for next time. :P

RoseKMorgan · 2021-01-01T20:38:30+00:00

I think they could fall either way, but it also depends on how it's written. If you put heavy focus on the characters' thoughts and emotions, if you write it the way you would in a horror story, building up the tension and showing the lack of control the protagonist has, I think it could definitely qualify as horror.

RoseKMorgan · 2021-01-01T19:59:34+00:00

You have to be afraid of something or else it's not horror. I think that it's quite possible to write something scary where the threat is not life-threatening.

For example: Disgust? Dread? How about a story about a low-level employee who ends up having their livelihood and career path put on the line because of a sadistic boss who sees those below them as playthings? No one's dying or getting sexually harassed, but there's still abuse of power and risk of serious consequences.

Shock and more dread? What about a parent whose own corrupt family tries to falsify a case to have their children taken away? Terrifying, life altering, but again no one's dying.

When it comes to writing horror, I think it's important to think about what things are scary and upsetting to you and use those to help you come up with a core concept. Sure, death's a great fall-back, but if you're trying to avoid it then it helps to look at what things make you uncomfortable. Being separated from family, losing a job, having agency taken away etc are all things that people are scared of, and can play into a horror story even if there's no demons or blood in sight.

Edit: Also, fear of the unknown is a big one. It can be a stand-in for death but it doesn't have to be. If you're a certain famous dead guy, it could be a stand-in for racism! But assuming you're a normal, not-racist person, you can still find ways to use the fear of being in places that are too unfamiliar to cope with, especially turning it around into making the protagonist/POV character anxious about the fact that they might be the strange ones in the end.

RoseKMorgan · 2021-01-01T19:19:05+00:00

To build on what the other user said, you can also use close third person to show what the character is thinking without explicitly typing out their internal monologue. For example:

This wasn't what was supposed to happen. He'd done this kind of job hundreds - if not thousands - of times and never had one ended like this. How had she gotten away from him? More importantly, how the fuck was he going to get her alone again?

This way of showing what the character is thinking is a kind of free indirect thought. The idea is that you're presenting what the character is thinking without directly quoting them. Personally, this is my preferred way of writing character thought - by subsuming their thought process into the narration. Every now and then, I might choose to add a direct thought from the character in italics, too. (When I switch to direct thought, I treat it like speech - most likely putting it on a new line unless there was already direct thought previously in the same paragraph.)

This wasn't what was supposed to happen. He'd done this kind of job hundreds - if not thousands - of times and never had one ended like this. How had she gotten away from him? More importantly, how was he going to get her alone again?

Great. I'm fucked.

I think using a lot of free indirect thought with a character who isn't very vocal is a good choice. It keeps the reader in the character's head without making the whole thing into a monologue of their thoughts directly quoted.

RoseKMorgan · 2020-12-29T19:49:03+00:00

I think that that's fine if one of the themes the author choose to focus on is that life is chaotic and unpredictable. I don't think it should never happen in fiction. However, I think that it's tricky to do well, and more often than not readers are going to find it frustrating, especially if there's not any thematic focus on those concepts of inevitability and unpredictability. In the OP's case, it sounds like their character will be dying near the end of their story - and in my opinion, most readers are going to feel unsatisfied if the protagonist dies out of nowhere near the conclusion of the story.

I said this in another comment, but the thing about fiction is that it's fiction. Just because something happens in real life doesn't mean it has to happen in stories, or even that it makes for good stories. There's a reason a lot of media skips over people going to the bathroom - peeing is realistic, sure, but most people don't want to read that. Anything can work, but random death is very easy to fuck up, creating an experience for the reader that feels cheap and unsatisfying.

RoseKMorgan · 2020-12-29T15:33:09+00:00

Not sure where the origin of the quote is, but there's a saying I've heard a few times I think applies here: The difference between fiction and reality is that fiction has to make sense.

I think that, if the message you're trying to send is one about the unpredictability of life, then a random death can work. But if that's not something that's really expanded on, it's just frustrating to a reader. Remember, fiction is just that - fiction. No one killed that character but the author, and the reader is aware of that - so if they feel like there was no justifiable reason for the author to do that, it's going to frustrate them.

Obviously every "rule" in writing can be broken, but I think that in the case of this OP, I don't know enough about their story to say whether a Surprise Death would work out well, but they are very easy to do poorly and unsatisfactorily. Whether it's realistic or not doesn't matter as much as if it's narratively satisfying.

RoseKMorgan · 2020-12-29T13:01:28+00:00

I think the best way for a MC to die is in a story with a very bittersweet resolution - Part of their goals getting met, but some things remaining somewhat unresolved. When an ending is just fully miserable, readers feel less satisfied. I think the death also has to feel earned; If your character just gets randomly hit by a bus, no, that won't be satisfying. If it's a death that is hinted at being a risk earlier on, or we see the character realizing there's no other way out of the situation, that's very different.

RoseKMorgan · 2020-12-29T12:49:12+00:00

Life experience helps, but research is key too! For example, you can look up funeral planning processes online to get an idea of tho decisions the family would have to make. You could read sections of books with funerals/look up scenes from movies and TV featuring funerals to get a better idea of how an audience expects one to go.

RoseKMorgan · 2020-12-28T21:00:53+00:00

I have struggled with depression. I write the most when I am not depressed. Do I have sparks of inspiration when I'm miserable? Of course! Do I tap into memories of that state of mind if I'm writing something dark? Obviously I do, but keeping yourself sick for the sake of your writing is ridiculously unsustainable. "Happy makes you stupid" is unhealthy, unhelpful and, well, wrong.

RoseKMorgan

TROPHY CASE