Jozette's Desk

Six Ways to Improve Your Amazon Ratings

Use Amazon to Build Loyalty to YOUR Business, YOUR Book, to YOU

By Carolyn Howard-Johnson

Authors love to talk about book sales and, frankly, I don't.

Marketers and publicists whose goal it is to sell books rarely do well. The goal should be great branding. And we arrive at great branding by understanding and caring for others' needs. And we utilize cross- and viral-promotion to get the word out about how we are going about that.

Still, I thought I'd talk a bit about how Amazon may be used to "Improve Your Amazon Ratings." That, of course, is tantamount to improving your sales. And, as with any great marketing tool, you'll benefit in other ways. 

A drop in any one of the promotion-buckets Amazon offers you can move those Amazon ratings drastically! Here are six ways to do that:

1. Use Listmanias on Amazon and, along with your own book, sprinkle in the titles of your author-friends. If you're a reader, do your favorite authors and your fellow readers a favor and build a Listmania to share books you like. After your Listmania appears, let authors and your fellow readers know you just posted a Listmania. That's a way to make a new promotion friend and keep an old one. In other words, it's good networking. There is a chapter in The Frugal Book Promoter: How to Do What Your Publisher Won't (http://budurl.com/FrugalBkPromo) that tells you how to use this free promotional perk along with a lot of other free tools on Amazon.

2. When you read a book by an author you know (or even one you don't) do yourself and them a favor by adding a review to Amazon. It takes but a minute and YOU and your book get exposed too, especially if you use a promotion-savvy signature. Do follow Amazon's guidelines, though.

3. Tell other people about the books you've just read in your Amazon blog on you Amazon Profile. Another name for this benefit Amazon provides is AuthorConnect ™. An Amazon Profile is a must for authors and it isn't complete without that blog. Even if you aren't an author. It's a great way to let friends know what you want for your birthday! Ask your friends to pass on the word about your profile page. This process is known as viral marketing and it works. If you're interested in what one looks like, please go to mine: http://budurl.com/CarolynsAmazProfile.

4. Flesh out your book's sales page on Amazon. Use the Amapedia (kind of like a Wikipedia) to add info on awards, other publishing you've done or what you might know about a particular book or author (judiciously, of course! In other words, avoid adjectives like fantastic and awesome.)

5. Both authors and readers should add tags to the books you've read. You'll find a place to do that on every book's sales page. I hope readers will pay special attention to the sales pages of books where the publisher or author and enjoy the book pages has taken care of their readers by adding more information to their pages

6. And on every book's sales page is a place where you can add pictures. Authors, publishers and readers are encouraged to do that. You'll find the link to do that under the book cover art. You'll get some ideas on what you can do for fiction my novel's page at http://www.amazon.com/This-Place-Carolyn-Howard-Johnson/dp/1588513521/.   Or check out my "Promote or Perish" picture on The Frugal Book Promoter page. http://budurl.com/FrugalBkPromo.

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Carolyn Howard-Johnson has a Resources for Writers page and a Resources for Readers page on her Web site at www.howtodoitfrugally.com.

Stretching Our Taste In Books

Strengthens Our Craft  

                  By Carolyn Howard-Johnson  

Some of us were English majors. Some not. Some of us thrived on Shakespeare. Some said phooey.   All of us are writers or readers. Regardless of our backgrounds, we’ve all heard that we should read. Authors should at least read books in the genre we write in. Readers should at least try to expand their interests and tastes.  

I’m going to take it a step farther than that. I think we should all also read great books. Classics, if you will. Not necessarily all the time but often enough to inspire us to stretch just a bit, to reach for an important theme or a voice we haven’t tried. Or even to develop a turn of phrase, a metaphor, or a simile. Of course, readers may find a new favorite or new understanding by reading authors who write about the greatest themes of all.  

Newsweek ran a list (http://www.newsweek.com/id/204478) of the greatest books ever written. Their choices may be arguable, but one can not argue with their intent. I thought it might be fun for you to see how many you’ve read. Gauge your relative success on your age. If you’re a senior you may have read more than if you are fifteen. If an English lit major, more (perhaps) than if you majored in engineering.
 
Actually, how many you’ve read is not nearly as important as how many you’re going to read. Or your motivation to set a goal. For the ambitious, how about a resolution to reread one you’ve already read and a pledge to read three more in the next year.  

I hope you'll use my Noble (Not Nobel!) prize list for suggestions, too. It appears every January at MyShelf.com. And my "Back to Literature" columns are archived there, too.  

Back to those goals. For most of us--we busy ones--how about a commitment to read just one of of the books on that list. C’mon. Just one.  

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Carolyn Howard-Johnson is award-winning author of both fiction and nonfiction, a former publicist for a New York PR firm and an instructor for the UCLA Extension renowned Writers' Program. She is an editor with years of publishing and editing experience including national magazines, newspapers and her own poetry and fiction.

Learn more about the author at http://HowToDoItFrugally.com .Her The Frugal Book Promoter: How to Do What Your Publisher Won't (www.budurl.com/FrugalBkPromo)  won USA Book News' best professional book award and the Irwin Award. The Frugal Editor: Put Your Best Book Forward to Avoid Humiliation and Ensure Success (www.budurl.com/TheFrugalEditor ) is top publishing book for USA Book News and Reader Views Literary Award. The Great First Impression Book Proposal: Everything You Need To Know To Sell Your Book in 20 Minutes or Less is also helpful, and only 49 cents on Amazon! www.budurl.com/bookproposalreport 

An Attack on Wordiness: All the Better for Your Query Letter My Dear

By Carolyn Howard-Johnson

As writers, we all know that we should avoid wordiness. The trouble is, we become so used to phrases that clutter our speech and our writing that we often don't realize they need a good edit.

I thought I'd share with you some wordy phrases that can always be shortened, though--on rare occasions--you may not want to do that. An example of such an occasion might be in the dialogue of a character who is prone to wordiness. Very occasionally the wordy phrase might reveal your intent more clearly than the shortened one. It's yours to decide but when you see these phrases in your writing they're clear warnings to take heed:

"The exact same..."  That's redundant, huh? "The same" will do.

"Due to the fact that..."  Substitute "because."

"In need of..." Just "need" will do.

"In addition to..." is a phrase that forces you to repeat something you've already said.

"Used for purposes of..." How about just "Used for..."

"She is a woman who..." can probably be replaced with the woman's name or just plain "she."

"May be in need of..." That one can shortened to "may need."

You may ask, if these little gremlins may litter our speech unnoticed, why worry? Well, they may very well annoy an agent or editor if you use them in a query letter, as an example. These people have been around the publishing yard for a while and will often use wordiness as a determiner: Should they chuck the manuscript or give it a read? I, for one, would prefer not to take that risk.

Mmmmm. "May very well..." in that last paragraph of mine. How about just "may." It's nice to write like we talk. It can even help us reflect our personalities in our work. But that "very well" couldn't add that much to this piece--especially at the risk of ticking off a reader.

I bet you can find others in this post if you look. I'm collecting often-used, wordy phrases. Maybe for a booklet. Maybe for my Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In blog (www.thefrugaleditor.blogspot.com). If you think of any of your own, please let me know. If I include your suggestion, I'll credit you and include the name of your book and a link to your Web site. Find me at HoJoNews  [at]  AOL.  com or www.howtodoitfrugally.com.

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Carolyn Howard-Johnson is the author of The Frugal Book Promoter: How to Do What Your Publisher Won't (www.budurl.com/TheFrugalEditor), winner of USA News Best Book Award and Reader Views Literary Award.

Branding: What Selling Really Is

by Carolyn Howard-Johnson

A modified excerpt from The Frugal Book Promoter: How to Do What Your Publisher Won't

Branding is not advertising, nor publicity, not even general exposure. It is how all of your efforts, working together, coalesce into the public’s perception of who you are, what you do.

Poets and Writers Magazine reports that Riverhead Press, ZZ Packer’s publisher, “Bank(ed) on  . . . .name recognition” when they sent her on a 10-city tour in 2003, something that the press’s publicist maintains is a rare occurrence for a first-time author.

It is unlikely that you will have the name recognition that your publisher or publicist or anyone else can count on when your first book comes out, unless you are already well known in a field and are writing a nonfiction book allied with it. Or unless you’ve been working on that publicity before your publisher or publicist is ready to make such decisions. This is why now is better than later and that’s why your publicity efforts should not be aimed at your book early in the game, but rather at who you are, including your other writing.

One of the pitfalls I fell into even with a general background in PR and experience in another specialized field of publicity (fashion) is that I put my book—my passion—first. One day I realized that I was the one that I should be branding instead of my book. I was putting together a business card on www.vistaprint.com. I’m not very computer savvy and I couldn't get my book cover of This Is the Place to load. I had seen many business cards for real estate professionals that used their photos so I did the same. Then I thought, "Well, it's OK because I won't have to do much redesigning when and if I complete another book." Lightning! Of course I would write another book and that when I thought of my favorite books/authors it was the author's name I remembered first. If that author had written quite a few books -- that I might not be able to name more than one of them.

Even after this flare of clarity, I was reluctant to give up my focus on the names of my book because This Is the Place is a metaphor at several levels. The place is, of course, Utah, my beloved home where I was born and raised. Place refers also to the farm where my protagonist goes to learn more about herself, but it also refers to that singular spot inside each of us where we must go to find the courage to follow our own passion rather than those indicated by others. That’s when I realized that I wouldn’t have to change the name of my Web site for it, too, was a place, the place, in fact, for learning more about me and my books. I since outgrew that Web site (I needed control over adding and deleting my own content!) but it worked for nearly six years.

Some of the most focused companies in the world, like Coca Cola, use several related approaches to branding themselves.(Coke is it! The Real Thing!) Branding is not necessarily an all or nothing proposition. I am working fervently on promoting my passion, a campaign against prejudice of all kinds (gender, race, religion, body type, nationality and on and on), with a literary slant on that. It matters not where my books are set or their names, "The Place" will always be that place inside of each of us that is very much like the place in the person we think we don't like for whatever reason. So a page on my new site will be carry this header.

As it turned out, my second book, Harkening, is not even a novel. Glad I didn't brand myself too narrowly because stationary or business cards that say “novelist” wouldn't fit for that nor would it have fit for The Frugal Book Promoter, or The Frugal Editor.. Again, "novelist" for my chapbook of poetry and "writer" seems too broad, somehow, encompassing everything from a writer of letters or a journalist to a freelance writer. This may seem like nit picking, but, in terms of branding, even one word can be important and an author working on a PR campaign will want to continue to refine her approach.

Here are some aspects of branding you’ll want to consider.          

• Decide what you want your brand to say.

1.      Take into consideration what you might do in the future. Your first book may be a romance but if you choose a red hot image and decide to write a literary book, you will have chosen your brand unwisely

2.      Certainly you’ll want to consider tie-ins to your writing or business career from your prebook days if they will contribute to the picture you are trying to paint.

• Consider general branding as you design your Web site and other promotion materials.
• A look that coordinates your author’s stationery, cards, invoices, your Web site and bookmarks is part of branding. So is your voice mail greeting, your e-mail signature, the look of your instant messaging and more. Wait, however, until just before your book is released to implement most of these efforts.

Hint #1: Once your publisher has firmed up your title you can

begin to think about a banner for the book to be used on Web sites as links and more. If you are not handy with

a computer, try T.C. McMullen’s graphic talents: http://tc_mcmullen.tripod.com/editorialservices/ She is

inexpensive, fast and very good or try Brenda Weeaks, br_we@sbcglobal.net.

Hint #2: You won’t need to have your title to settle on a logo for your stationery, etc. Your logo should fit into your general branding concept. TC can help with that, too.

• Work now on making yourself into an expert based on something related to your book. Choose the broadest brush possible. For me, tolerance is pretty broad. Book promotion is less so but that's OK. It's a niche market.
• When you’re making these decisions, follow your star. It will be easier to follow though on a subject for which you are passionate.
• Don’t be afraid of widening your path. This is akin to building a reputation. You wouldn’t want to be known only as honest among dozens of traits you aspire to.

Hint: This rule changes when your book is about to be published. Then you will want to specifically target the audience and media that will be most receptive to that specific work -- at least for a while -- while still branding yourself.

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Carolyn Howard-Johnson is a multi award-winning novelist and short story writer. She is an instructor for UCLA Extension's Writers' Program and has shared her expertise at venues like San Diego State's world renowned Writers' Conference and Call to Arts! EXPO. She was recently awarded Woman of the Year in Arts and Entertainment by the California Legislature and her city's Ethics award for her work on promoting tolerance. Her nitty gritty how-to book, THE FRUGAL BOOK PROMOTER won USA Book News' Best Professional Book 2004 and THE FRUGAL EDITOR, also a USA Book News winner. She writes a blog (http://www.sizzlingbookfairbooths.blogspot.com  ) that helps authors turn a dull book fair booth into a success and another that was chosen Writer’s Digest 101 Best; it is www.sharingwithwriters.blogspot.com.  Her Web site is: http://www.HowToDoItFrugally.com.

                                              Using "I" As a Conceit  

By Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of The Frugal Editor: Put Your Best Book Forward to Avoid Humiliation and Ensure Success

I don't know when I learned the word "conceited." I was raised in Utah where most of us didn't use "conceit" in the sense of an elaborate or strained metaphor but rather to mean that someone thought they were extra-super special. The little girl across the street who snubbed me because I didn't wear long stockings with garters (which was an immediate tip-off that I was not her kind) was "conceited" rather than prejudiced. The kid who was quick to make a point of how bright he was when I made a mistake was "conceited" rather than arrogant (or insecure). Gawd! I loved the word "conceited." I could apply it to so many situations and avoid learning new vocabulary words.

Of course, in a culture where being extra-super humble was valued, I soon noticed that our English language is, indeed, "conceited."

I'm speaking of the way we capitalize the pronoun "I." None of the other pronouns are capped. So what about this "I," standing tall no matter where you find it in a sentence?

Recently as I tutored students in accent reduction and American culture I noticed that some languages (like Japanese) seem to do quite well without pronouns of any sort. I did a little research. Some languages like Hebrew and Arabic, don't capitalize any of their letters and some, like German, capitalize every darn noun. So, English—a Germanic language at its roots—just carried on the German proclivity for caps.

But the question remained. Why only the "I?" Why not "them" and "you" and all the others. Caroline Winter, a 2008 Fulbright scholar, says "England was where the capital "I" first reared its dotless head . . . .Apparently someone back then decided that just "i" after it had been diminished from the original Germanic 'ich' was not substantial enough to stand alone." It had to do with an artistic approach to fonts. The story goes that long ago in the days of handset type or even teletype machines little sticks and dots standing all alone looked like broken bits of lead or scrappy orphan letters.

Then there is the idea that religion played a part in capitalizing the "I." Rastafarians (and some others, too) think in terms of humankind as being one with God and therefore—one has to presume—it would be rather blasphemous not to capitalize "I" just as one does "God." Capitals, after all, are a way to honor a word or concept.

Which, of course, brings us back to the idea that we speakers of English are just plain "conceited."

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Carolyn Howard-Johnson is an instructor for UCLA Extension's world-renown Writers' Program, and author of the HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers including The Frugal Editor: Put Your Best Book Forward to Avoid Humiliation and Ensure Success. It is a USA Book News award-winner as well as the winner of the Reader View's Literary Award and a finalist in the New Generation Book Awards. She is the recipient of both the California Legislature's Woman of the Year in Arts and Entertainment Award and is a popular speaker and actor. Her website is www.HowToDoItFrugally.com.

Carolyn Howard-Johnson
Website: http://www.HowToDoItFrugally.com
E-mail: HoJoNews@aol.com

Why Editing -- Yes, EDITING -- Is Part of Your Marketing Strategy

Excerpted from the Frugal Editor: Put Your Best Book Forward to Avoid Humiliation and Ensure Success

By Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the HowToDoItFrugally series

(www.HowToDoItFrugally.com)

"Publishers -- even traditional publishers -- do not want to edit anymore; they want to print a 99.9 percent finished product directly from the author. It's a cost-cutting thing. Many publishers can't afford to give your book that attention they once did." ~ Leora Krygier, twice-published literary author reviewed in the likes of Newsweek and featured on Connie Martinson Talks Books.

Just as I was finishing the Frugal Editor: Put Your Best Book Forward to Avoid Humiliation and Ensure Success, Poets & Writers published Peter Selfin's "Confessions of a Cranky Lit-Mag Editor." It was a kind of mini-rant on how authors influence editors negatively with minor (and not-so-minor) errors. He tells of one author who informs him in her cover letter that she has published three stories in the New Yorker and then "blunders into her essay with 'Growing up, there were two types of food in my family.'" He says it "reads like very sloppy editing" and goes on to reject the piece. (By the way, one of my readers with a master's degree could not identify the error here. If you can't, you will be able to by the time you've finished the section in the Frugal Editor where I talk about dangling participles. If you can't wait, use the index in your copy of the Frugal Editor's to find dangling participles to research this serious grammatical error now.)

More important that the exact grammar is the idea that attention to detail and craft counts, and that even experienced writers can flub an opportunity if they don't pay attention to that last great step toward publishing, a good edit. Any author who had recently refreshed her understanding of participles by reading the Frugal Editor would not have dangled hers. At least, not that conspicuously. The second is that a flubbed opportunity like this doesn't say much good about you and, if flubs are made frequently, may brand you as a nonprofessional.

Perfection is not possible. Even Editor Selfin admits he overlooks a mistake or two if the writer's voice captures his interest. With better editing we can guard against humiliation and in the process increase our chances for publication.

Leading a horse to water and other all-wet ideas about editing

In the Frugal Book Promoter I talk about branding. In that book, I felt a need to convince authors that sales, marketing and promotion are not dirty words, that we are participating in these disciplines every day when we brush our teeth and choose the proper clothing for whatever occasions loom on that day's calendar.

I don't need to convince most authors to be cautious about errors. There are so many writers who are so uptight about a typo creeping into their copy that their fear contributes to nightmares or at least to writer's block. Thus, the Frugal Editor: Put Your Best Book Forward to Avoid Humiliation and Ensure Success is an easy sell.

Where my job becomes difficult is in convincing writers that they need an editor--a real editor, an editor with credentials--before they begin to submit. Because I am also Frugal, I recognize that my tendency to avoid spending money for something that will probably be done by someone else anyway may well exist in other writers.

I know that many writers will nod their heads and then attempt the publishing process without an editor, even though they may have had the best intentions when they were agreeing with me.

I am also aware (because I hang out with writers of all kinds) that authors fear the sharp pencil point of an editor. These are usually new writers who are convinced that an editor will make their work into something other than what it is or will change it beyond recognition. I want to assure these writers that a good editor won't do that. A good editor will help a writer find her voice, remain true to it and still move the manuscript from a rough rock to a polished gemstone.

I agree that it is no fun to encounter unexpected flaws in one's book. If I hadn't, I wouldn't have written a book on editing. However, mistakes in a writer's query letters, cover letters and book proposals can be more deadly than those in a manuscript. It is in these documents that editing failures can doom your entire book to failure. You and the quality of your book idea will be judged on these first contacts with agents, publishers, editors, and producers as surely as you would be judged at a board meeting if you left rats' nests in your hair that morning.

In the Frugal Editor I approach the editing process of every document as if it were a manuscript. It is easier to edit the much shorter introductions (queries, cover letters and proposals) that are being sent to the people who have the power to accept or reject your work, but the processes used are approximately the same. It is only a matter of degree between a full manuscript and your one-page query letter. So adapt the guidelines in the Frugal Editor. You, and only you, know where your strengths and weaknesses lie. You will know where to abbreviate or eliminate steps for these shorties, and for more intricate efforts (say an academic thesis) you may want to expand on the processes I suggest. In order to get the best possible results from you initial contact with gatekeepers, you may also want to read Terry Whalin's (www.webmarketingmargic.com/app/?af=615838)  book, Book Proposals That Sell, on writing proposals.

You probably already know that gremlins--very clever guys bent on your destruction--are at work during the entire publishing process. You fight them with a vengeance, with every ounce of writing craft and publishing knowledge that exists in your body. If, however, a typo or grammar error slips through the careful net you cast for them, please don't lose any sleep. It will happen to every writer somewhere along his or her career path. Instead, be patient with yourself. And while you're at it, if you see an error in someone else's work, give the writer (and the publisher!) the benefit of the doubt. It's all about Karma. We're all fighting the same gremlins here.

Many mistakenly use the word editing synonymously with finding typos. I worry that the Frugal Editor may contribute to that notion because it does not address essential elements of the writing craft like character development, setting or structure. Those are topics of their own. Reworking these aspects of writing really constitutes revision, not editing. Many complete books cover each of them thoroughly. For me to attempt to stipulate everything a polished manuscript needs would be impossible in one book. To cover revision topics briefly and then abandon the writer to struggle with incomplete understanding would not be in her or his best interest. Therefore, I merely mention that your final draft should take these writing fundamentals into consideration because I can't assume that all authors will have undertaken revision before they move into editing. So, please, before you begin your editing process, review the larger elements of your craft. Experienced writers can approach this with the expectation that they may need only to fine-tune one or two elements of their books, but even minor learning curves are journeys worth taking. Suggested reading for things like the niceties of dialogue (Writing Dialogue by Tom Chiarella), are included in the appendixes.

I include some grammar guidelines. You can tell these are not meant to be complete. I chose them because they are mistakes that many experienced writers (and editors) miss. I threw in a few of the ones that most writers understand but inadvertently make because when a writer does let them creep into her work, they are more noxious to my editing sensibility than the average error. I expect that when I mention some you already know, it will remind you not to backslide. It may even prompt you to check your references for more advanced information on those subjects.

I want you to learn from the Frugal Editor just as I learned from writing it, but I'd also like you to enjoy the editing challenge, the process itself. Pretend the task before you is a puzzle. It's work. It's detail-oriented work. But it can be fun.  When you're done, please still hire an editor, especially if you are self- or subsidy-publishing. Books like Dee and Brian's The Publishing Primer ( http://www.brianhillanddeepower.com/get-your-book-published.html) can help you with that process. The Frugal Editor will tell you how to find a great editor, one that will work for the betterment of your book, and avoid the scams.

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Carolyn Howard-Johnson is an instructor for UCLA Extension's world-renowned Writers' Program with a class coming up August 1 on campus. She was awarded Woman of the Year in Arts and Entertainment by members of the California Legislature.  The Frugal Editor is second in the HowToDoItFrugally series (www.HowToDoItFrugally.com) after The Frugal Book Promoter: How to Do What Your Publisher Won't, USA Book News' Best Professional Book and winner of the Irwin Award. Learn more at www.HowToDoItFrugally.com

How to Give (and Not Give) Away Books

         By Carolyn Howard-Johnson

Are you giving away books? You should be. And you should be giving away lots. Still, there are ways to give--and not to give.

Here are a few ways giving away books can be beneficial to your book and your writing career:

1. Give to those with loyal following who might mention your book and spread the word -- verbally, in blogs, in newsletters, in their own books (as references), etc.

2. Give to reviewers. Ask first and don't ask your reviewers to buy the book. If someone who has already bought a book offers to do a review consider, sending them a little thank you gift -- something a bit more substantial than a bookmark; perhaps one of your other books. If that isn't within your budget, at least send a nice handwritten thank you note.

3. Give to those who have helped you with your publishing. That would be those you mention in your acknowledgments

4. Anyone kind enough to give you a blurb or endorsement.

5. To contest judges who thought your book (or other work) worth their applause.

6. To those you quote or mention in your book (they are probably well-known in their fields and likely to mention your book to others). For my new launch of A Retailer’s Guide to Frugal In-Store Promotions: How To Increase Profits and Spit in the Eyes of Economic Downturns with Thrifty Events and Sales Techniques I am planning to send the book with a little note explaining the quantity discount I give for those who want to give them as corporate thank you gifts.

With all that said, I don't give books to every friend and relative on my holiday list. I don't relish the idea of giving books to people who are likely to let them sit on the stands near their beds. The idea of writing a book is to share what one has written, right?

Instead invite friends and relatives to your launch. Most will be pleased to support you by buying one or more books.

It is true that most people tend to read books that they really want to read, not necessarily those given to them. And many people don't read these days. It is sad, but true. We are all busy so use your free copy budget judiciously . . . or, um . . . frugally.

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Carolyn Howard-Johnson is the author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books. She also is an instructor for UCLA Extension Writers' Program and is an award-winning novelist and poet. Learn more at www.howtodoitfrugally.com.

Carolyn Howard-Johnson
Website: http://www.HowToDoItFrugally.com
E-mail: HoJoNews@aol.com

Nobody Loves the Passive: A Lesson in Love

by Carolyn Howard-Johnson

Writers of fiction and nonfiction for that matter are told to avoid passive sentences for a variety of reasons. After all, they tend to tug on the forward momentum we are usually after. So a good editor may help you avoid passive constructions by suggesting changes that will make them active. Try doing it with the three examples below.

1. "I was offended by the President's proclamation."

2. "Catherine was being watched."

3. "Catherine was being silly."

Here is your cheat sheet:

For the first you would, of course, make it "The President's proclamation offended me."

For the second, you'll have to provide the intended subject. It might look like this:

"The fuzz watched Catherine."

(So, maybe you'd be more formal (-: and call them "coppers!" )

The third example might throw you a curve.  That's because it isn't a passive sentence. Here's the thing. We tend to assume a construction is passive when we see helper verbs and "ing" words. But these are not always passive indicators. That's one more thing for you to figure out in addition to deciding whether you want to avoid a passive construction anyway.

There are reasons to love the passive. I mean, language develops out of need (among other things). So we sometimes need the passive and when we do, and recognize why we do, we can grow to love it. Here are reasons you might want to intentionally use passive verbs:

1. You want to slow down the movement in a saga sent in the 19th century

2. You're using passive construction as part of a speech pattern used by a particular character.

3. You’re writing political copy and you want to avoid pointing a finger at, say, the FBI because you don’t want to get put on the dreaded US No-Fly list. So instead of saying “The FBI is watching Carolyn.” You say “Carolyn is being watched.” No blame that way.

We need to know how to make verbs active, when to leave them alone, and, yep, when to use them to our advantage. That way we can learn to love them.

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Carolyn Howard-Johnson's first novel, This Is the Place, won eight awards and uses the passive voice liberally because it is set in a slower time, a different culture. An instructor for UCLA Extension's world-renown Writers' Program, her book The Frugal Book Promoter: How to Do What Your Publisher Won't is recommended reading for her classes, and was named USA Book News' "Best Professional Book." It is also an Irwin Award winner. Her second book in the How To Do It Frugally series is The Frugal Editor: Put Your Best Book Forward to Avoid Humiliation and Ensure Success is also a USA Book News award-winner as well as the winner of the Reader View's Literary Award in the publishing category. She is the recipient of both the California Legislature's Woman of the Year in Arts and Entertainment Award. She is a popular speaker and actor. Her website is www.HowToDoItFrugally.com.

Ten Easy Ways to Keep Dialogue Sharp

By Carolyn Howard-Johnson

Author of The Frugal Editor: Put Your Best Book Forward to Avoid Humiliation and Ensure Success

1. Keep it simple. "He said" and "She said" will usually do. Your reader is trained to accept this repetition.

2. Forget you ever heard of strong verbs. Skip the "He yelped" and the "She sighed." They slow your dialogue down. If you feel need them, look at the words and the actual dialogue your character used when he was yelping. Maybe it doesn't reflect the way someone would sound if he yelped.  Maybe if you strengthen the dialogue, you can ditch the overblown tag.

3. When you can, reveal who is saying something by the voice or tone of the dialogue. That way you may be able to skip tags occasionally, especially when you have only two people speaking to one another. Your dialogue will ring truer, too.

4. Avoid having characters use other characters' names. In real life, we don't use people's names in our speech much.  We tend to reserve using names for when we're angry or disapproving or we just met in a room full of people and we're practicing out social skills. Having a character direct her speech to one character or another by using her name is a lazy writer's way of directing dialogue and it will annoy the reader. When a reader is annoyed, she will not be immersed in the story you are trying to tell.

5. Avoid putting internal dialogue in italics. Trust your reader and your own ability to write in a character's point of view. She will know who is thinking the words from the point of view of the narrative.

6. Be cautious about using dialogue to tell something that should be shown. It doesn't help much to transfer telling from the narrator to the dialogue. It just makes the character who is speaking sound long winded. Putting quotation marks around exposition won't draw the reader into the scene or involve him more than if you'd left it part of the narrative.

7. And magic number seven is, don't break up dialogue sequences with long or overly frequent blocks of narrative. One of dialogue's greatest advantages is that it moves a story along.  If a writer inserts too much stage direction, it will lose the forward motion and any tension it is building.

8. Avoid having every character answer a question directly. Some people do that (say a sensitive young girl who has been reared to obey her elders) but many don't. Some veer off with an answer that doesn't follow from the question asked. Some are silent. Some characters do any one of these things as a matter of course. Some do them purposefully, say to avoid fibbing or to change the subject or because they are passive aggressive.

9. Avoid dull dialogue that doesn't help draw better characters or move the action forward. Forcing a reader to hear people introduce themselves to one another without a very good reason to do so is cruel and unusual punishment.

10. Use dialogue to unobtrusive plant a seed of intrigue. If a character brings up a concern that isn't solved immediately, you can heighten the page-turning effect.

For more on writing dialogue check out Tom Chiarella's Writing Dialogue (Writers' Digest) and for more on editing in general from editing query letters to turning unattractive adverbs into metaphoric gold find The Frugal Editor: Put Your Best Book Forward to Avoid Humiliation and Ensure Success (Red Engine Press) on Amazon.

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Carolyn Howard-Johnson is an instructor for the UCLA Extension Writer's Program. The first book in her HowToDoItFrugally Series of books, The Frugal Book Promoter, won USA Book News' Best Professional Book Award and Book Publicists of Southern California's Irwin Award. The second, The Frugal Editor, is also a USA Book News winner. It  includes many editing tips on dialogue, the use of quotation marks and more. Learn more at www.howtodoitfrugally.com .

Two in One Book Marketing

Marketing with Numbers and Six Big No-No's for Dealing with Editors

By Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers

There are three extremely effective ways to get people to read things:

• One is by announcing in the title that it is a list of anywhere from three to twenty. You know, "Three reasons why you should read this newsletter." That kind of thing.

• Another is by keeping things short, which is part of the appeal of lists of ten or seven or even 20! Some successful books list 101 ways to do something.

• For some reason people love to be told what not to do. To punch up a list, as an example, turn it negative.

§          Another is to scare the beejeebies out of people (our government uses this method on us all the time.). To do this you tell your audience what will befall them if they don't take some action.

§          Humor sells. Especially self-effacing humor.

So here are a few things I've been thinking about and, yes, I'm using a combination of the suggestions above:

Six Big No-Nos for Dealing with Editors (and about anyone else!)

1. Don't send instant messages to just anyone. When you decide it is appropriate to send them, ask if they have time for you.

2. Don't send an e-mail signed with one name. Not even if you've already been communicating with someone. Some people get hundreds of e-mails a day and there are a whole lot of "Janes" in the world.

3. Don't send and e-mail without your website URL. What if an editor (or a friend!) needs to know more about you? (You really need lots more than just your name and URL, though. You'll find a section on e-mail signatures in your copy of the Frugal Book Promoter.)

4. Don't write two and three page media releases. One will do. Honest.

5. Don't send attachments to editors—not even editors of little e-newsletters. Many have made it a policy not to risk a virus! Instead paste your information into the e-mail.

6. And the big rule for great public relations. Try not to ask for something without offering something or to take something without giving back. If you can't avoid doing that, at least ask what you can do for your contact at the close of your correspondence.

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Carolyn Howard-Johnson shares her professional experience in marketing and her practical experience in the publishing world with The Frugal Book Promoter: How to Do What Your Publisher Won't and The Frugal Editor: Put Your Best Book Forward to Avoid Humiliation and Ensure Success. Both earned USA Book News best books as well as other awards. Her "The Great First Impression Book Proposal: Everything You Need To Know To Sell Your Book in 20 Minutes or Less," an Amazon short, is also helpful for writers.

Seven Easy Ways to Keep Dialogue Sharp
 
              By Carolyn Howard-Johnson
 
1. Keep it simple. "He said" and "She said" will usually do. Your reader is trained to accept this repetition.

2. Forget you ever heard of strong verbs. Skip the "He yelped" and the "She sighed." They slow your dialogue down. If you feel need them, look at the words—the actual dialogue— your character used when he was yelping. Maybe it doesn’t reflect the way someone would sound if he yelped. Maybe if you strengthen the dialogue, you can ditch the overblown tag.

3. When you can, reveal who is saying something by the voice or tone of the dialogue. That way you may be able to skip tags occasionally, especially when you have only two people speaking to one another. Your dialogue will ring truer, too.

4. Avoid having characters use other characters’ names. In real life, we don’t use people’s names in our speech much. We tend to reserve using names for when we’re angry or disapproving or we just met in a room full of people and we’re practicing out social skills. Having a character direct her speech to one character or another by using her name is a lazy writer’s way of directing dialogue and it will annoy the reader. When a reader is annoyed, she will not be immersed in the story you are trying to tell.

5. Avoid putting internal dialogue in italics. Trust your reader. She will know who is thinking the words from the point of view of the narrative.

6. Be cautious about using dialogue to tell something that should be shown. It doesn’t help much to transfer telling from the narrator to the dialogue. It just makes the character who is speaking sound long winded. Putting quotation marks around exposition won’t draw the reader into the scene or involve him more than if you’d left it part of the narrative.

7. And magic number seven is, don’t break up dialogue sequences with long or overly frequent blocks of narrative. One of dialogue’s greatest advantages is that it moves a story along. If a writer inserts too much stage direction, it will lose the forward motion and any tension it is building. For more on writing dialogue check out Tom Chiarella’s Writing Dialogue (Writers’ Digest) and for more on editing in general— from editing query letters to turning unattractive adverbs into metaphoric gold—find The Frugal Editor: Put Your Best Book
Forward to Avoid Humiliation and Ensure Success on Amazon.

----
Carolyn Howard-Johnson is an instructor for the UCLA Extension Writer's Program. The first book in her HowToDoItFrugally Series of books, The Frugal Book Promoter, won USA Book News' Seven Easy Ways to Keep Dialogue Sharp by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, 478 words 2
Best Professional Book Award and Book Publicists of Southern California's Irwin Award. The second, The Frugal Editor, was just released and includes many editing tips on dialogue, the use of quotation marks and more. Learn more at www.howtodoitfrugally.com .

Wikipedia: Is Getting a Listing Worth the

Trouble?

               by Carolyn Howard-Johnson 

In the Frugal Book Promoter, I recommended that an author enter her own name on Wikipedia. I am rescinding my advice to let Wikipedia know about your successes as an author—at least for emerging authors. At first this kind of exposure seemed like a fun way of being part of an encyclopedia, you know…without having won a Pulitzer. Since that first edition Wikipedia has refined its method of submitting and editing material. I understand that they must have standards for "viability" and "notability" to protect readers from false or inflated information especially because this site operates by letting masses of people contribute; people who do it for no salary. Thus many of its editors may have very little if any "viability" and "notability" of their own.

These editors (lots of them!) can weigh in on about anything they wish. An example is my award for Woman of the Year given by members of the California Legislature. Apparently one of the Wikipedia crew's researchers turned up no verification. I don't know what she was using for her search (the award was for Arts and Entertainment in the year of 2004) but that one Wikipedia watchdog couldn't find verification doesn't mean that it isn't both "viable" and even "notable." Further I have a big chunk of engraved crystal sitting on my coffee table that "verifies" it and I have pictures stowed in a file on my computer of the award being given to me by California Representatives Scott, Liu and Frommer. At Wikipedia many of their "editors" don't ask before they disparage certain entries. Further, one man (or woman's) definition of "viable" and "notable" may be different from another’s.

If you are not so confident that you don't mind if a volunteer expert (vetted or not!) tears into what is posted at Wikipedia about you or your book, you may find the experience counterproductive. In roaming through the site I found bias against the self-published, the small-press published, and any other number of things that may apply to emerging authors. The critic of my biography didn't even much like my honor from the Pasadena Weekly which he dissed because it "appeared to be merely a regional newspaper." Actually it is "merely" a city newspaper in one of the world's largest markets that honored 14 women. One of them was a NASA executive, as I recall. I bet she is as proud of that newspaper's mention as I am. That I am not "notable" enough for Wikipedia may indeed be accurate but I wouldn't want to lead a fellow author into a sticky wicket that they are uncomfortable with.

Just so you know, he title, “Wiki” comes from the Hawaiian word for “fast.” I presume this is because a very speedy way to put together an encyclopedia is to let others do it for you—at the speed of net which is darn near as fast as the speed of light. It's not wrong but being there may not work in favor of forwarding the career of an emerging author. For other kinds of dangers that the Wikipedia model allows (regardless of whether you're playing their game or not!) go to this USA Today report on a malicious entry on John Seigenthaler Sr. who was the assistant to Attorney General Robert Kennedy . Go to http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2005-11-29-wikipedia-edit_x.htm. It's only another reason that I think it may be better not to fool around with them. Some of these "contributors" (more like liable experts) can take great pains to keep themselves anonymous and are often very successful. That's according to a web guru who prefers to remain anonymous himself. Of course, if you already have a page you will be a greater target for the crazies out there than if you aren't there at all.

Hint: If you are doing your marketing well, those who are trying to research you or your work will have no trouble finding the information they need without your having an entry on Wikipedia.

Those who wish to proceed with the Wikipedia exercise may want to use some guidelines provided by Janet Kay Jensen, author of Don't You Marry the Mormon Boys. Keep in mind that because Wikipedia is edited by many volunteer editors, each will have different interpretations of the Wikipedia guidelines to say nothing of individual biases. So I don't pretend that this list is comprehensive but it comes from Janet's experience so it may be helpful.

• You cannot submit your own information. It must be done by someone “objective” who is outside your business organization or publisher or anyone with ties to those organizations. You could prepare the information and then have someone else submit it.
• Don't include anything that has a commercial component to it (such as “click here to purchase” link). However, you publisher's website can be listed as an external link at the bottom of the page.
• Anything that is “cut and pasted” from anything else on the net will be rejected. When Janet quoted a Publishers Weekly review of The Book Lover’s Cookbook, it was cut and pasted (naturally) and therefore rejected. So nothing you use can match anything else on the web.
• Use links to subjects that already have Wikipedia pages. Some churches, most universities, even many other authors have pages. You may even get away with linking to other authors published by your publisher if it is integrally related to you as a writer,
• Using outside links (references not found on Wikipedia) also helps to make the entry stronger. Every link and source will be evaluated for authenticity by Wikipedia editors. They post warnings on pages and take them down if they do not feel their requirements are met.
• Try a “bare bones” entry first. After it is approved, other information can be added.
• Once an editor has jumped on your entry for errors or other problems they see, and you attempt to modify it, the scrutiny becomes intense. If you want to make changes, it’s best to wait a few weeks between entries.
• Newspaper articles seem to be acceptable sources to quote.
• Try to find the entries of other authors or publishers and model your pages against their success
• Because the Wikipedia guidelines use many technical terms you may benefit by having an IT expert process your entry for you. 

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Carolyn is a writer of fiction, poetry and the HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. Each of her five books is a multi award-winner. Her blog, www.sharingwithwriters.blogspot.com was just named 101 Best Websites by Writer's Digest. Learn more at www.howtodoitfrugally.com

On  Gremlins, Making Mistakes and  Compassion      

by Carolyn Howard-Johnson

 
Often times the mistake involves a word that is spelled differently but pronounced the same. And often they do know the difference between the spelling of the two.  It's just that those gremlins that The Frugal Editor is making famous get to us. Maybe we're typing too fast or maybe our brains are in another zone or... but the gremlins will get us -- both you and me. Here's an example of how one got me.

I try to take a poetry class once a year. Because I'm an instructor, UCLA Extension Writers' Program gives me one class a year at no charge. It's one of the perks they offer and a great way for them to be sure that their instructors continue to get educated -- and at least one of us (me) need it. So I finished the first draft of my poem. Checked it (well, OK, checked it perfunctorily). I printed out copies so everyone in class would have a critique copy. Stuck the copies into my tote marked "Poetry," and took off for class. Couldn't be late!

When it was my turn to share my poem for critique, I passed out the copies and began to read. There (in the title!) was the word "peer."  I meant "pier."

"Oh, gawd," I  said. "Make that "pier, p-i-e-r." It was especially awful for me because I am an editor and because I wrote The Frugal Editor. Fine example I had set. What would they think of my abilities? Could I possibly do anything worse to undermine my own credibility?

But here is the most important part. Everyone just nodded and chortled. It can happen to anyone. It can happen to editors, to teachers, to university instructors, to plain-old-everyday writers. The gremlins can hit at any time for any reason. 

I thought maybe you'd like to see the poem.  Here it is (with the spelling right!):

Death by Ferris Wheel at Santa Monica Pier

From her seat in the gondola. A woman who might be me, watches roller
bladers with supple bones and toddlers with careless balloons Far, far down on the pier. She opens the doors -- mini saloon doors of purple -- or
she crawls over acrylic barriers. Either way she hesitates a moment.

The lurch of the wheel as it stops at the top finishes the job. No scream. Even the plane floating a campaign trail of plastic behind it, silent. Soundless waves, too, that far up. She floats as if posing for her close-up, delicate fingers, poised toes, her red sunhat a Frisbee against
sky of pulled taffy clouds on blue. Sea like scallops of Alençon lace below,
sand stretched away toward the Palisades,the smell of sugary churros her last sensation.

 
Carolyn Howard-Johnson ©

By the way, I didn't flunk, either.

The lesson here, Aesop fashion, is that because the gremlins are always at work, people will make mistakes. It will happen to you and it will happen to me. Best not get critical and point fingers. Your day is nigh!

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Carolyn Howard-Johnson edits fiction and poetry, is an instructor for UCLA Extension Writers' Program and the author of The Frugal Editor: Put Your Best Book Forward to Avoid Humiliation and Ensure Success. That book is the winner of USA Book News Best Book in the writing/publishing category for 2007, best book it is category for the Reader Views Literary Award and won the New Generation Indie Best Marketing Campaign award.  Learn more at www.howtodoitfrugally.com

Carolyn Howard-Johnson

Website: http://www.HowToDoItFrugally.com

E-mail: HoJoNews@aol.com