In today’s Journal
* Quotes of the Day
* Welcome
* Selling Books Without Self-Promotion
* The Person Who Doesn’t Conform
* Of Interest
* The Numbers
Quotes of the Day
“So! How do you sell books without a single self-promotional tweet, post, or video?” Greer Macallister (Writer Unboxed article in “Of Interest”)
“[A] lot of people have lost respect for the … person who doesn’t conform.” Erykah Badu
Ahem… based on my experience, I suspect Ms. Badu’s comment would be more accurate if she replaced “have lost respect for” with “fear.”
Welcome to recent new subscribers! Glad to have you along.
Selling Books Without Self-Promotion
I took the first quote of the day from an article about self-promotion at Writer Unboxed (via The Passive Voice) this morning.
In the article, the author asked that very intriguing question, but never answered it. Instead, she went on to describe yet one more way to self-promote on social media.
So let me answer the question.
“How do you sell books without a single self-promotional tweet, post, or video?”
The answer really is simple: Write the next book.
You’re a writer, so write.
The more you write, the more your name gets out there, and the more readers discover you and your books.
The Person Who Doesn’t Conform (AKA, your protagonist)
Readers buy books to see what that person who doesn’t conform is going to do next. They read in part to “experience” the protagonist’s boldness and non-conformity safely, vicariously. But they respect the protagonist. They wonder at him, and they respect him.
Orwell’s 1984 springs to mind. The story opens with the protagonist conforming, exactly like everyone else. But fiction needs conflict, and soon enough we see that the character isn’t conforming at all.
Really, that’s the definition of the protagonist in most good fiction: an ordinary person doing extraordinary things in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds. He turns right when everyone else is turning left. He does the unexpected, and hence, a story is born.
“Bob went to work” is not a story.
“On his way to work, Bob took off his wristwatch and dropped it into a storm drain” is a story. Now all you have to do is fill in what happened next.
Talk with you again later.
Of Interest
See “Monday Tips and LOLs” at https://killzoneblog.com/2021/10/monday-giggles.html. Fun.
See “How To Properly Introduce Your Protagonist” at https://killzoneblog.com/2021/10/how-to-properly-introduceyour-protagonist.html.
See “Success Without Self-Promotion” at https://writerunboxed.com/2021/10/04/success-without-self-promotion/.
The Numbers
The Journal…………………………………… 400 words
Writing of WCGN 5: Tentative Title (novel)
Day 1…… XXXX words. Total words to date…… XXXXX
Total fiction words for October……… XXXX
Total fiction words for the year………… 623282
Total nonfiction words for October… 1360
Total nonfiction words for the year…… 167320
Total words for the year (fiction and this blog)…… 790602
Calendar Year 2021 Novels to Date…………………… 13
Calendar Year 2021 Novellas to Date……………… 1
Calendar Year 2021 Short Stories to Date… 3
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………………………………… 66
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)………………………………… 8
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)………………… 217
Short story collections……………………………………………… 31
Disclaimer: In this blog, I provide advice on writing fiction. I advocate a technique called Writing Into the Dark. To be crystal clear, WITD is not “the only way” to write, nor will I ever say it is. However, as I am the only writer who advocates WITD both publicly and regularly, I will continue to do so, among myriad other topics.
For me great example about character that is conforming at first but finally the system itself makes a rebel from him is main character from “The Temple of Golden Pavilion” by Mishima Yukio. About half of novel is just stories from his POV where other characters act, but the closer to end, the more conflict happens – he tries to conform to “formal” rules (like he is teached), but whole system is corrupted and he can’t conform to “unformal” rules.
Also it’s fun to see that same details can repeat in different novels, making totally different effect. Even being written in 1956, some details this novel strongly resembles “One flew over the cuckoo nest” (the POV is a conform who has problems with speaking and used as helper, there’re a rebellious guy loved by simple girls, finally melted by system, and there’re a pure and kind guy who commits suicide because of a love affair). But even the main theme of this stories is very different – in story by Ken Kesey the freedom is saved “by cowboy and Indian”, Mishima Yukio looks even deeper – the system destroys itself, producing loyal people and then trying to corrupt them.