marketing - Steven R. Southard (Poseidon's Scribe)

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7 Things I Wish I’d Known When I Started Writing

When you see books for sale online or in stores, do you ever fantasize about seeing your name on the cover as the author? Decades ago, before I began writing fiction, I pictured that and wondered, “how hard can it be?”

At that time, I had a great story idea and estimated I’d achieve bestseller status in a year or two. Many facts about writing remained unknown to me then, things I wish someone had told me. Today, I’ll tell you.

Make Characters Appealing. To Beginner Me, stories consisted of plot. The author just dropped characters in to have things happen to them. Not true. Readers yearn for engaging characters. Give them a protagonist they can love, or hate—just feel strongly about. Many authors come up with characters first, then figure out what happens. An exciting plot might provide a literary sugar rush, but all truly great books showcase memorable characters.

Start Short. These days, novels predominate over short stories. Readers tend to take novelists more seriously. For that reason, beginning writers often tackle a novel first. Beginner Me did that. His unpublished novel sits on my shelf. It served the purpose of getting Beginner Me accustomed to daily writing, and of learning things about the craft. I wish someone had suggested I start with short stories. Some time after I switched to them, I started getting published. You can crank short stories out faster. The submit-reject-submit cycle runs more rapidly. You can establish a readership and move on to novels later.

Accept Long Odds. A few—a very few—inexperienced writers get their first novel or short story accepted early on. Most—a vast majority—pile up many rejections before their first acceptance. You might be one of the few, but odds are, you won’t be.

Understand the Tiers. Those books you see on bestseller lists, on lists of what to read next season, on the top of Amazon’s ‘Featured’ lists, and on the prominent bookstore shelves, have one thing in common. They’re published by one of the ‘Big Five’ publishers based in New York. If your novel gets accepted by one of them, an army of workers will design your book’s cover, arrange for book reviews, publicize your book, put out press releases, and line up interviews for you. If your story or novel gets accepted anywhere else, that army dwindles to one person…you.

Market and Network. Beginner Me thought writers typed up prose while others took care of marketing details. For those few who land contracts with the Big Five, that’s true. The rest of us do our own marketing. You may not see yourself as the glad-handing, back-slapping used car salesman type, but you’re going to have to abandon your introvert comfort zone and learn those skills. It helps to network with other writers to watch and learn from them.

Be Realistic. Beginner Me had heard of writers getting paid advances of thousands of dollars. I’d jot down some words, submit the manuscript, sign a contract, and soon I’d be sailing my yacht to my private island, where I’d have a mansion. Yes, a few authors receive large advance payments, but most writers work a day job. Their writing hobby pays for lunch, once a week.

Get Help. At least Beginner Me knew this one and didn’t have to be told. Others have trod the writing path before you and are willing to share their knowledge. You may read How-to-Write books, take college writing courses, and go to writing conferences. Beginner Me did all of those. You may also attend writing workshops. I got the most help from critique groups. Find whichever type of help works best for you.

I meant this list to inspire you, not discourage you. You may see some items as depressing, but that’s not my intent. If the writing dream burns within you, if your story demands to be written, nothing I say will dissuade you. You’ll take the journey. Best to take it in an informed way, and not learn everything along the way, as did—

Poseidon’s Scribe

September 17, 2023Poseidon's ScribePermalink

8 Valuable Tips for Writer Elevator Pitches

You’ve just met someone new. Once they find out you’re a fiction writer, they might ask, “What do you write?” You have thirty seconds to answer. Go.

These interactions can happen anywhere—at a writers’ conference, at the store, at a bus stop, at a party, and, yes, even in an elevator. Every interaction is a chance to entice a new reader. Or a chance to flub it.

Let’s not flub this. Here are my tips for creating and delivering a masterful elevator pitch.

Plan the pitch. Visualize the interaction. The person will ask you what you write about, but they’re really wondering if you write what they like to read. You’d like them to be a new reader, to buy your books. This is a chance to find out if those different goals intersect. Write down a four or five sentence answer you can deliver in thirty seconds. Rewrite these until they’re interesting, upbeat, and compelling. Remember, you’re answering a question about what you write, not selling a used car.
Rehearse the pitch. Speak your sentences aloud, as if to a new acquaintance. Do this in the mirror. Smile. Make eye contact. Exude confidence and enthusiasm.
Wait for the invitation. When the meeting occurs, don’t launch into your pitch. Let them ask the question, which may occur when they find out you’re a writer. They may not ask, which is a sign they’re not a potential reader.
Speak naturally. Yes, you rehearsed, but don’t let your pitch sound rehearsed. Let your voice tone rise and fall normally, and avoid speaking in monotone. Don’t talk too fast.
Smile and make eye contact. Just like you rehearsed it. The first reason for this is to make your pitch more compelling. There’s a second reason…
Watch for signs of interest. As you’re speaking, watch the person’s eyes for signs of increased interest. If that occurs, alter your pitch to follow up on what you just said that perked their interest.
Be ready for follow-up questions. The person might well ask, “What else have you written?” or “What are you writing now?” or “I like stories about [whatever]. Have you written anything like that?” Of course, the best follow-up question is, “Where can I find out more about your books?”
Make the connection. If they ask for more information, be ready to provide it. You can offer to send an email. You can trade contact information using smartphones. You can mention your author website. You can even provide an author business card.

Soon you’ll be, as they say in the elevator biz, going up. But that’s only if you follow the wise advice of—

Poseidon’s Scribe

July 18, 2021Poseidon's ScribePermalink

10 Traits Writers Need Most

What traits do you need to become a successful fiction writer? Of those, which are most important?

Author Anne R. Allen wrote a blogpost some years ago that inspired this line of thinking for me. She had encountered people who thought talent was necessary, and sufficient. They’d send her their written excerpts and ask, “Do you think I’ve got the talent?”

Anne Allen argued, persuasively, that natural talent might aim you in your life’s direction, but is far less important than skill, or several other traits she cited.

I decided to carry the argument in a different direction. Given the traits she mentioned, could I come up with an ordered list from most important to least important?

Using a technique called pair-wise comparison, I used a matrix to compare each trait against each of the others and added up the scores.

First, let’s define each one in alphabetical order:

Creativity, or Imagination. This wasn’t on Anne R. Allen’s list, but I consider it important. Basically, it’s the ability to come up with new ideas, to invent characters, plots, scene descriptions, etc.

Drive. This is the inner motivation or impulse to write. It’s that determination, that self-discipline, that pushes you to create fictional worlds.

Gratitude. By this, Anne meant the willingness to accept help in the form of negative criticism, particularly comments on your manuscript from beta readers and editors. I would have called it Toughness, or Thick Skin, but we’ll keep with Anne’s term.

Learning. This is the willingness to acquire new writing skills by educating yourself. There are numerous methods, including studying the classics, taking classes, participating in critique groups, and reading books about writing. Choose the method that works for you.

Marketing. This trait measures how well you understand what your readership wants and how well you expose potential readers to your writing. These days, you have to know the market and be willing to advertise yourself.

Observation. Anne called this trait “Listening Skills,” but I sought a one-word description. Writers must watch and listen to people, how they behave, what they say, what facial expressions and gestures they use, what verbal expressions and dialect they employ, etc. Such knowledge will make your characters seem more realistic.

Passion. This describes your love of writing. Although related to Drive, this is more about the pleasure you derive from the act of writing itself.

Persistence. It’s a measure of your willingness and ability to overcome setbacks, to solve problems and move forward, to rise after falling.

Skill. This trait describes the quality of your writing. Anne had much to say about skill, but didn’t include it specifically in her list of traits. She defined ‘talent’ as inborn skill, but believed few people had talent, but most could develop skill. Her post suggested that ‘skill’ was an umbrella term that included all the other traits. I believe skill is independent of all of them, and merely addresses how well you write.

Solitude. Anne called this ‘The Ability to be Alone’ and made it clear that writing is not just for introverts. It’s just that extroverts must leave their comfort zone for a while, since writing is an individual effort.

Obviously, there are inter-relationships and overlaps among these traits. Still, they’re distinct enough that I was able to rate each one in importance against all the others. Below is my subjective list from most important to least:

Creativity
Drive
Passion
Observation
Learning
Skill
Persistence
Gratitude
Marketing
Solitude

As a general pattern, you can see my most important ones are traits that get you started, and the least important (with the exception of Solitude) are traits you develop as a result of having written and submitted your work.

That list may not seem right to you, but it works for—

Poseidon’s Scribe

August 2, 2020Poseidon's ScribePermalink

Telling Readers All About You

How much should your readers know about you? In this age of Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, when everything private is public, is it necessary to reveal every detail?

Before social media and even before the internet, authors were mysterious. Each one seemed like a magical wizard living in some unknown and hidden cave. A publisher would release a book, but readers wouldn’t know anything about the wizard, and publishers wouldn’t tell what they knew.

In those days, you could read the ‘About the Author’ section on the book jacket or an occasional magazine interview, but that was all you knew. The wizards stayed in their caves, typing away.

Times have changed. If you like a particular author, you can find out home town, number of cats owned, shoe size, political leanings, and a description of that writer’s most recent meal. No more wizards; no more mysteries; it turns out authors are just everyday people with an odd tendency to sling words around.

As a writer, you may still choose to remain a digital hermit, invisible to Facebook, a wizard in your cave. But you’d be going against the trend, and against the current guidance.

The web is filled with advice blogs for new authors. You must have a social media presence. Your readers are curious about you, so you must connect with them. Be authentic; show your audience you’re a real person. A few hours spent on social media will help grow your book sales.

Not all authors follow this advice. One of them, Tom Corson-Knowles, recommends writers shun social media entirely. He argues you’ll achieve better sales by writing better books; staying off Twitter will give you more free time to write; and social media is cramping your creativity.

Each writer must take the path that seems right, and be willing to change if that’s not working. As for me, I write these weekly blogposts, post on Twitter and Facebook once a week or so, and sometimes post book reviews on Goodreads. I rarely talk about personal stuff on those platforms.

Although I’d be more comfortable as a mysterious, cave-dwelling wizard, I’m willing to admit things are changing. Almost everyone shares personal details these days, and if I knew I could increase sales by posting a few things, I’d do it.

For now, I’ll reveal one spicy secret. Though I like dogs and (sometimes) cats, there are currently no pets in the home of—

Poseidon’s Scribe

February 2, 2020Poseidon's ScribePermalink

How Do Readers Discover My Books?

Like most writers, I’m curious about how readers come across my books. By what means do they discover them? If I had good information on that, I could focus on the marketing methods that work and abandon those that don’t.

Fortunately, author RJ Scott showed me how to do this. In one blog post, she published the results of a survey of her readers, in which she asked how they found her books.

I decided to do the same thing. I sent out thousands of e-mails to my fans (and acquaintances, and random passers-by) and gathered the responses. I first sorted the valid responses from the spam, advertising, and ugly threats to do me vicious bodily harm.

Then I plotted the data from most responses to least, Pareto chart fashion. Some responses were similar enough that I used slashes ‘/’ to show response variations.

It looks like my presence on Amazon, Goodreads, Facebook, and Twitter is working. There’s a lot to be said for plain ol’ dumb luck, too, apparently.

The most surprising result was the two responses saying readers discovered one of my books while marooned on an island. I’m not sure if that’s two separate instances or two people on the same island. In either case, my campaign of wrapping books in bubble wrap and casting them in the ocean is probably not worth further investment.

It’s nice, too, when readers take the time to fill in the Comments section. That allows me to get beyond the mere data and explore the true reasons readers discover me, and my books. Here are all those comments:

“Your books are great! I can’t understand why they’re so unpopular.”
“You write as well as authors twice your age.”
“Buy ???????? cheap! Have more enjoyable ??? now!” [Comment edited for content]
“I love your book. It’s keeping my kitchen table perfectly level right now.”
“What’s this Comment space for? Am I supposed to type something here?”
“Qwert yui opasd fghjkl zx cvbnm.”
“That’s the last time I go on Amazon with my two-year-old in the room. Their one-click ordering feature is too easy.”

It’s going to be awhile before I do another reader survey, I think.

Just remember, any way is a good way to discover—

Poseidon’s Scribe

March 12, 2017Poseidon's ScribePermalink

8-Fold Approach to Marketing Fiction

You’ve spent innumerable hours all alone writing your book. That’s done; the book is published. All you have to do now is switch personalities, become an extreme extrovert, and market your book. For some, that’s easy and fun. For others, not so much. This post is for those who are confused by, and a bit scared of, marketing their fiction.

Marketing Your Book There’s plenty of advice out there, both online and in excellent books, about marketing your stories. Many websites provide long lists with scores of tasks for you to do. It’s a bit intimidating.

My intent today is not to make marketing easy, but rather to break down the problem into chunks. Specifically, just eight chunks. I encourage you to explore the subject further. Read the long-list blog posts. Read the books. Watch the videos. But go into it knowing you won’t be doing everything they suggest. Nobody does that (because nobody can).

Your marketing campaign will be different from that of all other authors. Uniquely yours. You’ll do the things you can, the things you’re comfortable with. In time, you’ll stop doing the things that don’t work, and you’ll experiment creatively with new things.

What follows is my attempt to organize the marketing process into parts. There’s some overlap between them, because the process is interconnected as an integral whole, all focused on getting readers to buy your books.

Plan the Campaign. Here’s where you do the advance thinking, figuring out your target audience, your approach, and your budget. You’ll study how others have done it. You’ll write out a marketing plan. You’ll consider timing your book launch for maximum effect, and create your launch strategy.

Brand Yourself. In this step, you craft the picture of you that you want potential readers to have. This is about you, not your book, though your book must be a consistent part of the story, or image, that is you. Through your website, social media, author photo, e-mail signature, and practiced elevator speech, you’ll convey your intended brand.

Explode Outward and Reach People. The goal here is to seem to be everywhere your potential fans are. Not in an annoying way, but suddenly they can’t stop noticing you. Wherever they are, you are, on podcasts, at conferences, book signings, social media, e-mail newsletters, interviews, etc.

Think Like a Potential Fan. You need to put yourself into a reader’s place and make it easy to buy your book. Test out all the links and all your promotional material to ensure they aim toward the sale. You want every interested person to be able to buy your book with ease and without frustration.

Tempt Future Readers. Work on your “curb appeal.” Ensure your website, book cover, author photo, book trailer, etc., are irresistible. Run contests, offer coupons, provide giveaways, show free book excerpts, and hand out swag.

Create Buzz. The idea behind this might seem identical to Step 3, but this one is intended to leave others talking about you and your book. This involves book reviews, blog tours, press releases, entering contests, etc.

Maintain Reader Connections. Here we think long-term and work on retaining your fan base, once initially established. Keep contact with loyal readers via newsletters, e-mail social media, etc.

Manage Your Time. As I said earlier, you can’t do it all. You’ll have to budget your time; stop doing what isn’t working; schedule some time for each part of your marketing plan, and balance that with writing your next book.

This is just the start of your marketing journey. Read these excellent posts by Kimberley Grabas and Caitlin Muir for more in-depth information. By grouping the overall process into eight chunks, I hope this post has simplified and de-mystified the marketing game for you.

Oh, yeah. And buy all the books you can find by Steven R. Southard, also known as—

Poseidon’s Scribe

February 21, 2016Poseidon's ScribePermalink

Dividing Your Time

A long time ago, in a writing and publishing galaxy far, far away, authors could write all the time and the publisher would do all the marketing. Not any more. These days, authors must do their own marketing.

But who has time for that?

Dividing time Well, you’d better make time for it. Somehow. Sure, you want to spend your precious time writing and you don’t like marketing. That’s why you became a writer. Still, it turns out that your preferences don’t really enter into this—you must do most of your own marketing (or pay someone to do it for you).

Let’s assume you’re done grumbling about that fact and have reached acceptance. You know you must spend some time marketing, and now it’s just a question of how much.

After all, marketing does consume time. Book marketing activities include blogging, blog tours, author interviews, arranging for reviews, book signings, podcasts, social media, and making promotional videos.

How are you going to balance all that with your writing? Let’s take two extreme examples, those of authors Ty Prighter and Mark Etter.

Ty Prighter wrote all the time. He disdained marketing and refused to devote any time to it. After all, he said, that’s the publisher’s business. Ty believed the more he wrote the better author he’d become; if he became skilled enough, readers would find his books and want more. His books would market themselves.

Mark Etter wrote one book. He got so busy marketing it, he had no time to write another. He enjoyed the social interaction of marketing. Mark discovered which marketing methods worked best for him, and ceased the ineffective ones and focused on those that increased sales.

Which of these authors was more successful? Actually, neither writer practiced a good time management strategy.

It was a long time before readers noticed Ty’s books. He did improve his writing, thanks to the time he spent doing it, but improvement was slow due to the lack of reader feedback. He missed out on a lot of sales he could have had if he’d reached out to readers early.

As for Mark, his book did sell, but some of his readers wanted more. He had no more. Popularity of his one book didn’t rise as high as it might have, had there been a sequel, or at least other books written by that author.

Ty and Mark are fictitious examples, of course. For you, in the real world, it’s going to take a balance. More than that, you’ll have to experiment to find the optimal split of time for you between writing and marketing. You may have to force yourself to do the marketing activities, or you may learn to enjoy them.

I wish I could offer you a numerical percentage of time that has worked for me. However, I’m much closer to the Ty Prighter end of the scale. I don’t spend much time marketing, other than blogging. I do enjoy that, but the effect of blogging on sales of my books has been lackluster. I’m working toward a better balance of marketing and writing time, but it’s difficult.

May the force be with you as you figure out your proper time balance. Once you do, consider sharing your wisdom, and leave a comment for—

Poseidon’s Scribe

December 27, 2015Poseidon's ScribePermalink

Writing and the Black Swan

My question is, once you understand how the Black Swan relates to writing fiction, will you be so dejected that you’ll abandon any idea of becoming an author?

Nassim Nicholas Taleb wrote The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable and it was published in 2007. A statistician, the author was trying to get readers to think about low-probability events and our estimation of their risk.

He defined a black swan event as having three properties: (1) it is very rare, to the point of being almost impossible; (2) it has a huge impact on people, either positively or negatively; and (3) people do not (or cannot) predict it in advance, but after it occurs, everyone sees that it should have been predicted since it was obvious all the time.

By the way, Taleb chose the metaphor of a black swan because most swans are white, and black ones are very rare. In fact, people were convinced that all swans were white, until proven wrong. That’s part of Taleb’s point. If a rare event hasn’t occurred today, or yesterday, or for your entire life, you come to believe it cannot happen. Since black swans have a massive impact when they do occur, there is a huge difference between impossible and improbable.

I read the book about two and a half years ago, but I recall Taleb discussing success in writing as a black swan event. For our purposes, let us define success by the amount of money earned from writing. Success in writing, therefore, is rare, has a huge impact on a few writers, and is difficult to predict in advance but obvious afterward.

Taleb would conclude that if we could compile the relevant accurate statistics, the resulting graph would look like this:

The vast majority of authors earn very little money, while very few earn a large income from writing.

Why is that? I believe Taleb would say that an author’s income is related to the popularity of his or her books. That popularity is determined by readers when they hear about the book, learn that their friends like it, and when they read it and recommend it to others.

People hear about books from various media outlets, so the media plays into book popularity. Luck has a role too, since poorly written books sometimes become bestsellers despite the writing quality.

Let’s say you’re an aspiring author, and let’s assume all the above is true. Does it depress you to know how much the odds are stacked against your success? Does it make you want to give up on your dream?

If you truly are writing for the money, there are things you can do to position yourself for the black swan. You can become really good at marketing; you can seek out (or pay for) media attention. You can practice your writing until you become more skilled at it.

No guarantees come with any of that, but your odds of success will improve a bit. The trouble is, you could strive for years, doing everything right, and still not achieve success because that intangible luck eludes you. That’s disheartening.

Alternatively, you could redefine what success means for you. You could decide you’re not after money, but seeking the pure enjoyment of writing, or the thrill of seeing your name in print. That’s a much more probable event, not a black swan at all.

Still, it’s my hope that the black swan of financial success from writing pays a visit soon, to both you and—

Poseidon’s Scribe

July 12, 2015Poseidon's ScribePermalink

It’s All You, Dave

Remember ‘Dave’ from the Staples™ TV commercial from a few years ago? The guy walked into an office where everyone looked suspiciously like him, and they all greeted each other by saying, “Dave.” The commercial closed with the voiceover saying, “In a small business, it’s all you.”

If you’re a writer these days, you’re much like Dave. After all, in your corporation of one, you fill the following positions:

President. Congratulations! You made it to the top, the big cheese, the high muckety-muck. The company bears your name. You’re praised when it succeeds, and blamed when…well, let’s not focus on that.

Vice President of Purchasing. In days gone by, this job entailed keeping your business furnished with a functional typewriter, paper, pens, a nice desk, and a comfortable chair. Now the job responsibilities have shrunk to ensuring a functional computer and a solid Internet connection.

V.P. of Research & Development. This is one of the best jobs in the company, the department doing all the research for your stories. If you write historical fiction, this is particularly important. It’s so much fun, however, that this job will take over your company if left unchecked.

V.P. of Contracting. You may not be a lawyer, but you’re going to have to know some basics about contracts. Just reading the darn things can be tedious—nothing at all like reading fiction. Once you sign, you’re bound by that agreement.

V.P. of Production. Finally, a fun job. This is the one you signed up for. You manage the mental machinery that takes ideas from the R&D department, plus some coffee, and produces polished prose.

V.P. of Marketing and Sales. Your company won’t promote itself, that’s for sure. If you contract with a big publishing firm, they’ll take care of this, but with smaller publishers or with self-publishing, you’ve got to get your name out there by yourself. You’ve got to work the social media, speak at conferences, arrange book signings, etc.

Chief Financial Officer (CFO). Unless you’ve got someone else handling the books, the ledgers, the taxes for you, it’s up to you. Skill in accounting doesn’t always go hand in hand with skill in writing, so your on-the-job training better not take too long.

V. P. of Customer Service. When your customers (readers) complain about the product, to whom do they turn? You. Although there’s no need to respond to negative reviews, you should respond to comments on your blog posts, and e-mails from readers.

All those fancy job titles lose some luster when they’re combined in one person, and that’s you. However, look at the bright side: decisions get made quickly in your company of one. All those departments see eye-to-eye; they’re on the same page, so to speak. No in-fighting, no hidden agendas, no stabbing in the back.

Unlike the conclusion of the commercial, there is no Easy button to push. Purchasing is the only department Staples™ can help.

However, there are Help buttons, many sources of information to help writers figure out all these specialized jobs. In fact my blog is dedicated to providing that information.

So, ‘Dave,’ get back to work. It’s all you. And I’ll return to my work, too. At my company, it’s all—

Poseidon’s Scribe

February 9, 2014Poseidon's ScribePermalink

The Life Story of a Short Story

Hello. I’m a short story. Since Poseidon’s Scribe never got around to blogging about the whole short story process, he invited me to guest blog today. My title is “Alexander’s Odyssey,” and I was written by Steven R. Southard. My life story is typical of other tales, and might be obvious to many of you, but the steps weren’t clear to Steve when he started.

1. Idea. I started as an idea. You did too, I suppose, but with stories you only need one human with an idea, if you know what I mean. Getting a story idea isn’t as difficult as most believe. Ideas are all around you.

2. Outline. This can take many forms, not just the standard I-A-1-a-(1) type. It can be a mind-map, for example. An outline can keep you focused as you write, but don’t be afraid to deviate from it if the story takes off in a different direction. Steve used an outline for me, but if you don’t want to, just skip this step.

3. Research. You might have to conduct research for your story like Steve did for me. Use the most authoritative sources you can. Steve didn’t include all the researched data when writing me, just a tiny fraction. You might enjoy research, but don’t get stuck at this stage. At some point, enough is enough.

4. First Draft. Steve wrote my first draft fast, without caring about quality. He didn’t even stop to correct typos. He got it all down, the emotions, the drama, and the character interactions.

5. Edit. Steve did several drafts of me where he corrected typos; deleted extraneous stuff; added in foreshadowing, metaphors, similes, and symbolism, etc. Don’t get stuck at this stage either; some stories never even get submitted.

6. Submit. Steve located a suitable market, and had to modify me a bit to conform to the submission guidelines. After much hesitation, he submitted me. These days, you writers have the option of self-publishing us stories, so you could skip this step.

7. Rejection. Actually, I didn’t get rejected the first time, but I know the feeling. I don’t understand why writers take rejection so personally; the editor is rejecting me, not you. Just shake it off and submit your story to some other market. Keep us moving!

8. Accept. I was pretty happy when an anthology editor accepted me, but Steve was positively giddy. I’d never seen him so thrilled and, frankly, the details are embarrassing, so I’ll just move on.

9. Rewrite. The editor suggested Steve change me a bit. He agreed the changes would do me good, and made them. I’ve seen Steve agonize over suggested changes to other stories, though. I’ve even seen him push back against the editor. In the end, they always reach agreement and Steve signs the contracts. I guess he could always refuse and walk away if he wanted.

10. Launch. These days, publishers don’t just publish us, they launch us. It does make me feel like a rocket going off, sort of. Again, Steve seems really happy when a story launches, and again it’s awkward to watch.

11. Market. If I’d been picked up by one of the top publishing houses, they’d spread the word about me. Steve didn’t send me there, so he had to do it. Boy, does he hate that part, though I’ve heard some authors like marketing. Use social media, newsletters, writing conferences—anything to advertise.

12. Read. My favorite step. When a reader buys me and reads me cover to cover, that’s what I live for.

13. Reprint. When the rights to me reverted back to Steve, he submitted me for publication as a reprint. After three rejects, another market accepted me, but asked for significant changes. My reprint version states where and when I was published the first time.