Using Beta Readers for Helpful Feedback

This week, I will be getting my feedback from the Beta readers (who are kind of like a focus group in business). I will likely have to fix things before going to press. The writer’s work is NEVER done, but, at some point, I have to draw the line in the sand, and go with it.

The publication process for this manuscript has been the equivalent of an undergraduate degree. I learned how much I didn’t know about writing, the craft itself, and about pleasing the reader. Bad writing CAN be informative. Fixing bad writing is an education.

The telling of a good tale is far more complex than I imagined when I started this writer’s journey.

Using Obscure Facts in Fiction

Did you know that “If you travel with a lot of cash [governments] just seize it and assume it is illegal. This is commonly called Policing for Profit. They have transformed the drug laws of money laundering into tax evasion claiming anyone with a foreign account not reporting that money is engaged in money laundering and they get to confiscate everything you have and you go to jail for up to 25 years,” says Martin Armstrong, economist.

In my upcoming novel Dead with Envy, similar obscure money laws play an important part in the story.

As an author, I found it fun to do the research because what I discovered was new to me. As a reader, I am equally fascinated when the writer teaches me something I didn’t know.

 

Marketing My Novel, Step 3

The editing and re-writing process involves sharing my manuscript with others for reading and feedback. It’s here that I catch glaring errors that may turn off readers. If I have the hero in my story as a tall blond in chapter one, but a muscular brunette in chapter six, I have a GLARING ERROR.

When a book is written over a long period of time, it is easy to mix-up details. So going over and over the manuscript myself, then passing it on to several other readers to catch mistakes, is a critical step in marketing a novel.

If I have heard one consistent complaint about Indie books, it is this–Indie books lack quality editing. I still may not catch every flaw, but I want to make my best effort to get it right. I owe that to my future readers.

Feedback is also a critical component to creating a good manuscript. I may think I have described seven elves nailing new shingles on the roof clearly and concisely. When I hand the manuscript off to a trained reader, I’ll find out the truth about my assumption.

I love it when my test readers say, “I don’t understand what’s happening here.” It means I have a GLARING ERROR. If my test reader is having trouble following the narrative, my reader who has paid for my book is going to have trouble, too.

Re-writing and editing should improve the manuscript, which in turn improves a reader’s experience with the story. If a reader likes the book, she may recommend it to someone else. That word-of-mouth advertising is the best marketing out there.

Converting Twitter Followers into Readers of Your Books

Quotation from author Jonathan Gunson:

      Converting your Twitter followers into buyers only happens if you interact with them the right way.  Twitter is all about engagement.   You need to become familiar to them, so they feel connected with you and your work, because you both love the same things…  and then they buy your books.

Isn’t this exactly the same sentiment shared here by author and graphic artist Karen Gadient just a few days ago?

The lesson for us is that all social media is exactly that: SOCIAL media. An author is successful in using social media to market books when the author makes the connection to the reader first, then markets as an afterthought or by-product of the personal connection.

It’s a tough balancing act. The emphasis needs to be on making new acquaintances or connections with another human being surrounding shared interests. Otherwise, we abuse our readers. Get pushy with the selling, and we may send our readers to other websites.

Since I will soon have a novel to sell, it’s a personal lesson I need to remember. And if I forget and start selling more than “friending,” please kick me in the seat of the pants rather than silently disappearing.

Using Twitter to Find New Readers for Your Book

Best selling author Jonathan Gunson offers the best advice I found today on using Twitter to find readers. As Gunson says, the technique is “smack your forehead” simple.

After you have read an excerpt of Gunson’s advice below, you will want to see what else he has to offer, so go here:

http://bestsellerlabs.com/how-to-find-readers-on-twitter/

 re-blogged from Jonathan Gunson (with permission)

Readers Can Be Found By Using Twitter Search

The method is to type into Twitter’s search panel certain words and phrases that readers of your fiction genre might be using in their Tweets.  Doing a few of these searches will start to reveal readers of that fiction genre in significant numbers.

Then just go through the search results and follow those readers that you feel belong to your book genre, based on what they say in their Tweets.  Many of them will follow you back.

Here are three suggested search methods: 1:  Search using the names of successful authors in your fiction genre.

This approach finds the readers of successful authors in the same genre as you.

For example, if you’re a YA author, you might search for author “Lemony Snicket”, who writes the hugely popular YA series ‘A Series of Unfortunate Events’.

This search will reveal readers in the YA fiction genre, because many of the Tweets will clearly be from people Tweeting about their “Lemony Snicket” reading experience.

Simply go through the search results and pick out the users who are obviously YA readers in your genre.   Click on the names you like, and their profile will pop up – then click each one to follow them.  (The idea being that many of them will follow you back.)

Note:  When searching, remember to click the “All” link at the top so you can see all the Tweets that include a particular phrase, not just the most popular.

For more on this subject, visit Jonathan Gunson’s website.