Writing & Publishing Links for Dec. 23

How to establish your characters: openings

Why less detail makes more believable characters

How to use historical figures in your novels

Using the bystander effect in your novels

How settings make or break your characters

Why smart characters make dumb mistakes

Five steps to building a believable character arc

Plot holes

Some Tips on Evaluating Literary Contests

Why a Books Subtitle is So Important When it Comes to Book Marketing and Book Publicity

As large publishers increase their expectations of midlist sellers, indie presses see an influx

Publishing Your Own Book (text of interview, audio automatically starts to download)

Bookscan Numbers on Amazon

Who decides titles and cover design?

Advertising That Works?

Comparison Doesn't Work

Importance Of Tracking World Rights

Listing of Royalty Rates

Seven Tips on Building a Following

Pick Your Marketing Strategy

Marketing Your Book

Should I Tweet?

Launching Your Career Via Kindle, the Unpublished

Building Your Career on Kindle, the Published

Reversion of Rights

Contests and eBooks

Nathan Bransford wrote All About Writing Contests.

Rory Maher and Henry Blodget wrote an article at TBI research on eBooks and who's making a profit on them.

Kristin Nelson wrote about a new Random House policy on eBook rights.

Rachelle Gardner wrote about self-publishing.

Romantic Suspense Contest

The gals at Bookends have announced the winner of the women's fiction contest. They are now doing a romantic suspense contest. Go to their blog to read the complete rules and enter. The deadline is tomorrow, April 11th, at 9:00 a.m. EST.

Women's Fiction Contest

The gals at Bookends have announced the winner of the thriller/suspense contest. They are now doing a women's fiction contest. Go to their blog to read the complete rules and enter. The deadline is tomorrow, March 28th, at 9:00 a.m. EST.

Thriller/Suspense Contest

The gals at Bookends have announced the winner of the historical romance contest. They are now doing a thriller/suspense contest (the romantic suspense contest is still to come). Go to their blog to read the complete rules and enter. The deadline is tomorrow, March 20th, at 9:00 a.m. EST.

Historical Romance Contest

The gals at Bookends have announced the winner of the last romance contest. They are now doing a historical romance contest. Go to their blog to read the complete rules and enter. The deadline is tomorrow, March 14th, at 9:00 a.m. EST.

Contemporary Romance Contest

The gals at Bookends have announced the winner of the last romance contest. They are now doing a contemporary romance contest. Go to their blog to read the complete rules and enter. The deadline is tomorrow, March 4th, at 9:00 a.m. EST.

Contests and Awards

Here are two informative links on writing contests and book awards.

Victoria Strauss at Writers Beware! wrote about Evaluating Literary Contests.

Rachel at Novel & Short Story Writer's Market blog wrote about How to win awards.

Another Romance Contest

The gals at Bookends have announced the winner of their fantasy romance contest. They are now doing another romance contest--see their post for the details of what type. Go to their blog to read the complete rules and enter. The deadline is tomorrow, February 26th, at 9:00 a.m. EST

Paranormal/Fantasy Romance Contest

The gals at Bookends are now doing a Paranormal Romance / Romance with Fantasy Elements / Fantasy with Romantic Elements contest. Go to their blog to read the complete rules and enter. The deadline is tomorrow, February 20th, at 9:00 a.m. EST.

Contest for Mystery Writers!

For those who don't regularly read her blog, Jessica Faust (and the other agents at Bookends) are holding a contest for Mystery Writers. Go to their blog for complete rules and explanations. Today's contest is for mystery (traditional and cozy). To quote from their site:

We decided to try several genre-specific competitions of the first 100 words of the work. We’ll be limiting the types of books to the areas that we represent.... Selfishly, it also gives us a very real opportunity to find a potential new client. Seems like a win-win.

We’ll only accept entries that are posted in the comments section of this [Bookends] blog article. No e-mailed entries will be considered.

Include your title and the first 100 words of your book.

The deadline is tomorrow, February 15th, at 9:00 a.m. EST.

The prize....we’ll critique the query letter, synopsis, and first chapter of the winning entry in each genre!

On Contests

Jessica Faust wrote about an agent's view of contest wins on the Bookends blog. There were a lot of informative comments.

Kris Fletcher wrote in the comment's section about why an author might want to do contests. Here's an excerpt of Kris' post:

These were some of the top reasons I found for entering:

1. To get your work in front of a particular agent or editor, especially if that person would be hard to reach otherwise - for example, an editor from a house that does not accept unagented work.

2. To get impartial feedback on a story. Useful both for those without critique groups & those who do have a group, but are afraid they might be too nice (or otherwise) to tell the truth.

3. for the prize. Some contests offer free registration to their conference....

4. For the prestige. There are some contests, such as the Golden Heart, the Maggie, and the Emily (I know only romance), which carry a lot more oomph than others. Those ones can be VERY helpful to mention in a query letter.

5. And sometimes, contests can be the only bit of positive reinforcement you receive. If you're receiving nothing but "I like this, but ..." rejections...well, at times like that, it can be very encouraging to know that a bunch of strangers think your work is totally wonderful.

Kate Douglas wrote:

As a published author, I view contests differently--I enter the RITA, for instance, to get my books in front of judges who might otherwise not be willing to read my edgy, erotic romance. There are a couple of other contests judged by booksellers and librarians--again, I am hoping to expose my writing to new readers in a position to help me further my career. I currently have two of my titles entered in the Lambda Literary Awards contest--in this case, it's to reach a new community of readers. It's not about the win, so much as the exposure.

Angie Fox wrote:

Another thing that was valuable (at least to me), I picked contests where I could attend the awards. For example, the Daphnes are at the RWA nationals every year, so since I was going to be there, I entered. ....there is a high chance the agent/editor judges will also be at the awards. And that’s what happened. As a Daphne finalist, I was not only able to sit next to the agent who judged my category, but when the award packet contained a request for a full, she was right there for me to mention an editor had also requested a full (from a contest the week before). And, in a stroke of blind luck, that editor who made the request also happened to be at the awards.

Christie Craig wrote:

I sold my first book in '94 via a contest. I got my agent...in an indirect way via a contest, and my last sells were also indirectly set off due to some contests.

I'll just back up what everyone else has said by saying... Entering contests is a game. You have to know the rules to make sure you get the most out of it.

I (currently) only know of one valid unpublished writers contest for my genre, but I had no idea that contests could be so valuable if done correctly. Agents so regularly say that contests don't matter much that I hadn't given a second thought about taking the time to enter. Now that I've gotten the other side of the story, I'm more inclined to check some contests out.