Faith Larson's Blog, page 2

Hello, and welcome back to my blog! Today I’m going to be talking about some simple ways to network with other authors and potential readers.

First, the truth is that if you don’t want to use social media, this is going to be ridiculously hard. I’ve seen people trying to sell their books in front of places like Target, which seems like a good idea because you’re communicating with people face to face, but the fact is that soliciting your book online will not only be received better most of the time, but you will reach more people. So, my tips in this article are really only about online networking at this time.

A good start is making a Twitter, Instagram and Facebook page dedicated to yourself. Sounds vain, right? Well, although you could theoretically make an account solely about your book, it would be annoying for the author and readers to not be able to access information about all of your upcoming books in one easy location.

Now, this is only based on my experience, and many people would argue differently, but I had better luck with Instagram ads than I did with Facebook ads! Not only did my Instagram ads garnish around 200 likes on average for around $5, but I had several follows and comments. Now, with my Facebook ad, I paid $10 for…one like. TO be honest, I don’t personally use my Facebook page very often. The most luck I’ve had with networking has been in Instagram and then Twitter.

What I’ve done with my accounts has been to keep them both professional but ‘real.’ I use a clean looking and well lit profile picture, I mainly post about my book, but I also try to help other authors out. On Twitter, there is a hashtag called #writingcommunity. If you post or like things with that hashtag, you can gain many follows from fellow authors. This can be helpful when you have a question about what direction you should take with your writing or questions about the publishing community, as many other authors are very happy to help out.

On Instagram, maintaining a pleasant looking feed that fits the theme of your writing can be a good idea. For instance, I try to keep my colors on the darker scale, as I’m a horror novelist. Admittingly, I could make it look better though, and I plan to study how to make a cleaner look feed. You might be thinking, who cares about that? The truth is, it’s not necessary, but people just peeking at your profile will be more likely to follow if they know exactly what your content is about.

As for networking, a great thing to do on both Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook, is to reach out to other authors who write things in your genre, and offer to do a free review for a review in return. Essentially, you both send each other a copy of your book, most likely in kindle format, and then post about it on your social media feeds with an honest review. You could also do this with somebody who is not author, in which case you’ll want to search out people who have read books similar to yours. For instance, if I wanted to find somebody to read my novel for free in return for a review and repost, I would search #horrornovel, #bookworm #horrorreview #bookreview, since I am trying to find people who enjoy horror and won’t just take off a star because they don’t like blood.

Lastly, although writing is not a multilevel marketing scheme…the truth is your friends and family are a good place to start. Nobody will buy a book without a review(Unless they’re a brave soul), so word of mouth at the start is a good way to get a few sales up and get the ball rolling. The more reviews I have, the more sales I get, the more reviews I get, and so on…

(Although honestly, sales have been a bit low since I’ve taken a break from marketing…oops) One of the most important things to remember is that your first book will probably not be a constant seller! You need to keep writing and putting more content out, if a reader likes what you wrote, they’re likely to look for more of your work. Don’t disappoint them!

Hopefully these simple starting tips are able to help you map out a good marketing plan. If you’re interested in more writing tips, follow my blog! Or peep my socials, as the cool kids say, on Instagram or Twitter @Idiocyreleased

Have a lovely day!

     “Do what you love, and you’ll never work a day in your life.”

I don’t remember when I first heard this expression, but I know it was when I was young, and it changed my perception entirely. My friends were all interested in what careers would make them the most money, while I wanted to be a…vampire. That didn’t work out. I had big dreams as a young teenager, I wanted to have my own hair salon, run a cat cafe, I even thought about being a tattoo artist. In the end, I realized the unfortunate truth that sometimes, you just need a job, regardless of whether you enjoy it. I enjoy where I work now, but there’s no room for growth unless I spend near a hundred thousand dollars on a college degree.

      For some background, I live in California in the Bay Area. Everyone is competing for the same jobs, so checking Indeed is akin to looking for the table scraps your dog left on the floor. Part time jobs where you have to be on call 24/7, $15 an hour jobs that require a bachelor’s degree, it’s all very discouraging.

     Reality is often disappointing, and I’ve realized that I can’t always work a job I want. I had a stint in retail (my previous article details that more), and I realized that the only way I was going to be able to work a job I want is to create one. I published my first novel at 19 years old, and I waited for the readers to come pouring in. Except…they didn’t. I’ve sold around twenty-three copies since July of last year, which is certainly not a liveable wage, so I took to Google as one does to frantically search up advice:

     Nvl not seling

    Y novel not sell

    Cheap pizza near me

    Help! Why is nobobcdy buying book???

     The universal answer was a discouraging one. Basically, I have to do all of that again. For self published authors in particular, the more books you put out, the more readers find you. It makes sense statistically, but I was hoping for more of a get rich quick scheme. I’m now about a hundred pages into my new horror manuscript, and I’ve realized one very encouraging thing. The more you write, the easier it is to push out new content. Before, I believe it took me almost a year to hit this many pages, and now I’ve done it within a few months. Part of marketing my novels also requires a Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook page, along with my blog right here. It helps to connect with other people struggling out there as I am, working day jobs and working on their ‘hustle’ on the side. Someday, I hope that both my readers and I are able to do what we love, and never work another day in our lives. For now, you can find me liking pictures of people’s dogs and food on Instagram in my search for that famous internet clout. 

     If you’re interested, my debut novel is A Soul Made of Cinders, a horror novel with elements of romance, slasher, and my attempts at humorous dialogue. Sure, looking back, I think I would change things about my novel. It’ll never become a movie or a cult classic. Yet, the next book might be, or the next after that, so I think it would be waste to stop trying as soon as I’ve learned what to do differently. I hope that if you’re an author like me, you don’t get caught up on critic reviews or low sales. The only way to go when you start at rock bottom, is up!

(Sorry, I started on a quote, so I wanted to end on one.)

-Regards, Faith.

    As somebody who worked retail for a year and a half, I can safely say I got out at the last possible moment before my sanity snapped. For context, my first retail job was at a chocolate shop in a mall. For legal purposes because I am about to bash on this shop, we will call it Rookie’s Mountain. I worked there for an entire two days before I quit during training. Sure, I felt like a failure for it, but there were a lot of red flags. However, I didn’t have any unpleasant experiences with customers, although one guy made a show of giving me a large tip but he accidentally put the money in the trash cup instead of the tip jar. After quitting, I applied to a chain petstore and was accepted pretty quickly based on my experience with animals. 

    Thus began my journey of realization, where I came to the conclusion that the average American is very, very dumb. I was actually treated better than my coworkers, since I learned quickly that a chipper and cheerful attitude kept some of the more feral Karens of my heels, but I was still subjected to a delightful show of animal abuse and inability to read signs.

     Here are a few nice examples. A man kept his red slider turtle in a three gallon tank and couldn’t figure out why the water was dirty. A woman kept thirteen goldfish in a ten gallon tank and refused to believe they were dying because of her. A woman yelled at me for telling her that  two goldfish in an unconditioned half a gallon tank would die, and then tried to get me fired. There were more examples, but I don’t feel like reflecting too long and crying in the shower tonight. The point is, retail workers have it rough. The amount of people I came across who refused to believe that they could be wrong about anything was astounding. 

   Retail isn’t all bad. I had several respectful, friendly customers that I do miss talking to. If you feel like the employee in Walmart seems to enjoy talking with you, there’s a good chance she actually does! All of us have favorite regular customers in retail. But, the amount of smooth 

brained, melted crayons for dinner, ego tripping maniacs that you meet is astonishingly high. 

    The point of my article is that there are ways to improve retail, but the only way to do that is from the top down. The customer is often wrong, and management needs to understand that it’s their responsibility to stand up for and defend their employees when they’re being verbally or physically harassed. Also, I find it bizarre how people can demand a service, while simultaneously insulting those who provide it. For instance, Mcdonalds workers and garbage men are usually looked down on, yet the same people who make fun of them will go out for a Mcflurry at 2 am. 

You should always treat others with compassion and understanding, and I find it disturbing that I even have to say that. Props to those who can work retail, but it was a matter of time before I leapt across the register and punched some pompous jerk in the face. For now, I’m going to stick to things that don’t involve constant customer interaction, and leave an extra fat tip for my waitress at Denny’s.

     About two weeks ago, I came up with a good strategy for writing my new manuscript. Every day, I tried to write a page and half, which compared to Steven King’s 10 pages a day is a fairly reasonable goal. So, when I realized that in the last week I haven’t written once, I felt like a failure. Here I am, lucky enough to only work part time outside of the house, and I hadn’t even written a word with my extra hours! The shame I felt kept me from enjoying myself with any other tasks, so I sat down to write with renewed vigor.

     The shame that I felt was unjustified, and if you are another author reading this, you should know that any shame you feel is false guilt. But Faith, you might ask, how can I be an author if I don’t write? That’s not my point, and I still suggest trying to hit a word count every day if possible. However, in the times that we live in, a lot of things feel up in the air. Anxiety, unstability, these are all emotions that we must deal with. 

     It can be difficult when you see friends learn a new language, get in shape, and check things off their bucket list during the extra time Covid19 has given many of us, when all you’ve done is work and sleep. However, you should never feel ashamed for moving at a slower pace than others, as long as you are moving at any speed, even if microscopic.

      Did you walk the dog today? Did you eat a healthy serving of fruits and veggies? There is potential for improving yourself in even the smallest actions, and self care is never something that should be eliminated in the quest for productivity. I don’t support laziness(Although it certainly tries to support me), but sometimes we forget that taking a day off or even a week from things can lead to us returning with a fresh mind.

So, now I try to think of that week I had off as a vacation. I’m back to writing and marketing, and I still dream of eventually breaking into the horror industry. Am I anywhere near that? Hell no. But, everything I do, down to writing this blog article and taking a multivitamin so I don’t die early from scurvy, helps me reach my end goal. In the end, my point is this. Never beat yourself up for falling behind, when you could spend that time moving forward.

Hello my dear readers! I took a slight break from my blog because I realized that I had run out of ideas about what to write! I feel like everything I put on here should be insightful and eye-opening, but I have about as much substance as a mushed piece of white bread so that’s an issue for me.

Then, as I was reading through my new manuscript, I realized something. I am terrible at writing long conversations! The most my characters spoke on average was one sentence, and I never had dialogue that even approached one page. I don’t know about you, but sometimes I can hold an entire conversation on my own, so that didn’t feel very natural to read. While I breezed through my manuscript, I tried to add extra dialogue in to the scenes, and suddenly everything felt more natural. I have an issue with describing most of my scenes and never letting my characters describe for the audience, which is something that I think all authors have issues with in the start. Sometimes, my brain seems to forget that I’m not writing a screenplay.

So, I was left with an issue. How was I going to tell the reader about the backstory of my characters, without launching into a info dump that leaves them bored and restless? In my published horror novel, A Soul Made of Cinders, I decided to do this with a small series of flashbacks, but for my new novel I want to take risks, learn how to write in different styles, and preferably make my characters speak more naturally.

My blood ran cold, a chill crept down my spine as I realized that I had to do what I have crossed the street multiple times to avoid! It was time for me to make my characters speak to each other in long sentences and make small talk. This is an excellent way to build a bond between characters and also to fill periods of time. For instance, in my current novel, the characters have to stand around for awhile as their companions complete their tasks. I was going to use time skips, until I realized that would leave my book feeling deflated and shallow with how many skips there would be. So, I decided to make it realistic, and fill the spaces with small amounts of dialogue, not enough that it gets boring, but you learn more about the characters.

Small talk in books should not be the same as small talk in real life. I don’t have them talk about the weather or share the stores they got their clothing from, but they talk about their jobs, families, what they’re missing out on if they don’t escape. Thus, the reader feels more connected since the information is sort of “coming from the horses mouth” so to speak. Dialogue is a great way of fleshing out scenes instead of having to add more and more to fill up the pages. Too much action, too much going on, and then the reader thinks it’s too much and asks Amazon for a refund.

If you have any tips on writing dialogue, feel free to write them in the comments below. However, an important thing to remember is that what one reader hates, another reader will love. So, in the end, write what you want. It doesn’t matter if it doesn’t appeal to the general public, as long as it appeals to you. There’s more to life than making money, and staying true to what makes you proud of your writing is always going to be more valuable than a dollar bill in the end.

      Greetings, my tiny group of subscribers! Sorry that I haven’t posted in awhile, I took a break for the holiday season. Or, if you’re a new reader tuning in, allow me to quickly introduce myself. My name’s Faith Larson, I published my first horror novel, A Soul Made of Cinders, just a few months ago. I specialize in writing horror/comedy, and unfortunately for me, any other genre falls flat. It’s not that I can’t write anything besides horror, it’s just that frankly, I don’t enjoy it.

     I’ve been a horror fan since I can remember, and I’m not just talking about psychological masterpieces like Hitchcock. No, I love one of the most looked down on horror subgenres, the kind that gets me weird looks when people ask what my favorite movies are. I’m a major fan of cheesy slasher films, things like Halloween, Scream, Friday the Thirteenth(Yes, even Jason Takes Manhattan), and I try to incorporate the feel of an 80’s horror film into my writing.

     The funniest thing to me, is when somebody I know reads my writing, and they try to find a way to compliment it when they absolutely despise horror. I’ve been told my writing was fantastic but they couldn’t sleep that night, that my descriptions were good with no mention of the plot, and other things that would probably make a new author feel discouraged. However, when a horror fan reads my work, they’re usually very excited to talk about it and encourage me to continue on with another novel. 

     I came across a piece of advice once, when I was dejectedly searching Google for ways to increase book sales. The general message that new authors will get is to write what’s popular if they want to sell copies of their book. While this is an undeniably true fact, I want to remind new authors that the entire point of writing is to create a world that you love, and share it with an audience that wants to delve into that world with you. If you write only to appease to a larger audience, in my opinion, the entire point of becoming a fiction author is lost. 

     If I had written a romance, or a mystery, or even a supernatural romance with a weirdly sexy werewolf, I would have sold more copies of my novel, and that’s an undeniable fact. But I don’t write for money, I write because I want to scare people. I want to make an audience laugh, sneer, root for and hate my characters. Money is never the reason a fiction author should pick up a pencil, it should be because they have a world they need to get out of their head. Don’t be discouraged if somebody doesn’t like your book, because they were never the target audience. 

I write because I enjoy my stories. Why do you write?

     When I was young, I had many career aspirations. My first one was a vampire, which didn’t end up happening due to legal and moral issues. The second thing I wanted to be was a detective, although it was mostly due to my first fandom, Nancy Drew. Unfortunately, I had to give up on that one due to my shocking oversight of obvious details. Eventually, I realized I had a passion for writing that had followed me through my life, and I decided why not write a book?

 My father had an ancient chromebook that wasn’t used, so he gave it to me after I asked. I decided to bum off of the wifi at cafes and give this thing a try. The first thing I had to figure out was what genre I wanted to write. I’m terrible at writing romance, as I have the emotional range of a brick, but I decided I wanted to incorporate it in my first novel as a challenge. The main genre that I chose for my book was horror, which I’ve always been a fan of. Another thing about my writing style is that I find it impossible to write seriously, books without occasional comedic dialogue have always come across as dry in my opinion, so I decided to incorporate humor as well. So now, I had to write a romance, horror, comedy for my first novel. Easy!

     I finished my first novel at nineteen, just barely after my birthday. Here, my lack of insight I mentioned earlier came into play. Using a couple beta readers, I thought I could edit the book myself. It went about as well as you’d expect. After submitting to several agents and getting rejected (Potentially because of glaring grammar errors), I decided to self publish it. For those who are interested in self publishing, the keys are that you should purchase an ISBN for print copies, use Canva for cover design if you are creative, and always hire an editor. There is no way around that if you are hoping to make a name for yourself that isn’t tarnished. I wish I had known about that before publishing my novel unedited, as the revision process was tedious, long, and I could not erase a review that mentioned grammar issues afterwards. 

     I used Reedsy to hire an editor with experience in horror after taking my novel off the market temporarily for the final revision. The experience was pleasant and set me back $600. I didn’t hire her for any editing except grammar, since the plot was something I was fine with. It will cost more if you want edits and suggestions for the storyline and potential plot holes. The issue was my sales were completely dead! After submitting my book to several reviewers and not getting a response back, I decided to do something bold. I changed my cover design completely, using a website called PlaceIt. I had to pay for the design, but it was merely pocket change. Suddenly, I started receiving an outpouring of sales. 

     Eventually, the sales died down again for the most part. This is an unfortunate part of self publishing, which no author can get around….you have to do the marketing yourself. I market my novel through social media, occasional instagram ads, and by writing articles on this block right here! Even if you write a fantastic novel, it doesn’t matter if nobody knows about it. Putting yourself out there is scary, but in this day and age self publishing is nearly impossible without social media accounts dedicated to your writing. 

     Another thing that is important to remember is that on average, self published authors make around $500 per book. That’s why it is important that you continue writing and start the next book a few months after your first book, if you’d like to stay relevant and pursue profit. If all you want is to say you published a book and have it available for friends, disregard that. Not everybody is in it for the profit, which is actually quite admirable.

     Here’s the fun part where I self advertise! My first novel is A Soul Made of Cinders, and it is available online where books are sold. I’m running a temporary deal on the kindle copy on Amazon for $1 in the hopes of receiving reviews. Preferably good ones, but constructive criticism is important for authors to grow. It’s about a woman who is feeling trapped in a dead end life, until she is defended from her boyfriend at a halloween party by a stranger. Things start to change as she pursues a friendship and something more from the gothic man, all while a murderous stalker she didn’t know she had grows closer by the second. It borrows from campy slasher stereotypes, while touching into deep topics such as depression, self loathing, and the meaning of evil itself. 

     Thank you for joining me on this blast from the past. I hope my article was able to help you in some way, whether it was with motivation, planning, or wasting time on the toilet. 

-Faith

Yesterday, I was feeling down about how slowly my new manuscript is coming along. When I write, I write separate scenes, so I decided to add together how many pages I had written in total. I discovered that when I stepped back from my writing and really looked at it, that I had written 67 pages in two months! I was far from the twenty pages that I still felt I was at.

As authors, we have a tendency to compare ourselves to others. We hear about people who manage to write ten pages a day and think to ourselves, wow, I wish that was me! When in actuality, we don’t even know if those ten pages are written well, or just churned out in a factory like style with no heart to it. Even if you only write one page a day, or stare at a blank Office document with glazed over eyes and donut crumbs on your chin, you’re still doing something! You’re thinking about it, you’re brainstorming, you’re formulating a plot.

When I walk my dog, I listen to Spotify and imagine scenes of my book playing out as if I’m watching a movie. Then, after I formulate the details, I sit down for two hours and write. No, I don’t write every day. But I think about it, I plan, and that makes my writing more productive than if I had written five pages for the sake of saying I did, and then had to scrap them all because they were uninspired or out of character.

Did you spend time thinking of a title today? Did you decide your main character’s favorite food is Skittles? Congratulations, you made progress! Eventually all of it will come together, and every moment you’ve spent thinking about that novel will become something you can be proud of, and show to your friends. Don’t give up because the process seems intimidating. Truthfully, where there’s a will, there is always a way.

I’m an avid reader, and I’ve written some things. I’m by no means an expert, but through-out the years, I’ve noticed some mistakes authors make that can completely ruin a character for the reader. If you’re just starting out, it would be a good idea to check your character against this list. One thing I do want to say before we start however is that in the end, you should write what you want. I’ve seen some of these “mistakes” play out perfectly fine before.

Writing a character who is perfectly beautiful/handsome without a single flaw. Even if they’re supposed to be the most popular girl in school, everyone has a physical flaw. Any book that describes a character as being “long, leggy, blonde and petite, with the ability to seduce all men” really draws the reader out of the book. Don’t go overboard to the point we think this is an angel from heaven descended into High School.Characters are either good or evil, and are incapable of doing anything else. Okay, so in my horror novel A Soul Made of Cinders, I kind of contradict this. But in general, it’s not a good idea to write a person out to either be perfect or terrible, good people do bad things and vice versa. It will make the characters seem very 2d.Overpowered characters. They always dodge those twenty bullets in a row, run through a crowd of bad guys with their car without a scratch, and they’re still an average joe who goes home to eat dinner with his kids? You can get away with maybe one scene like this, but if you overdue it, the book either takes a seriously supernatural turn, or you can seem like a bad writer.Background characters with no character development. This one is a major pet peeve of mine. Let’s say you have the main character and his two best friends. One only cracks jokes all the time, and the other constantly hits on women, and that’s it! Almost nobody likes characters like that, and if somebody is being written only for filler, you may want to consider scrapping that character entirely.

Again, I would like to mention this is all opinion, and there may be people who disagree, which is fine! Still, this list may be helpful for those who are just starting out in fiction writing. Let me know in the comments below if you have any other suggestions for improving character development.

I’ve always wondered what it was like back in the 1900’s for authors. No Facebook, no phones, just you and your candle lit manuscript, and probably a bad case of radium poisoning. As somebody with no self control, writing in this day and age with all of these distractions is hard! I tell myself I’m going to google a synonym, and then somehow I end up on The Sims Instagram page, two years deep.

So, what gives? What can we do to make sure that we write without using a program like NanoWrimo, which is awesome but discouraging if you fall even 1,000 words behind. The answer, unfortunately, is to not use your phone while writing unless it’s urgent. Something that helps me is listening to Spotify writing playlists that others have made. It’s sort of the background music of your novel, and it can help a scene play out smoothly. Writing Music for Focus is a good playlist for any genre of book, since the songs are all pretty lowkey and calm.

The tip I’ve used to overcome writer’s block and finish my first novel (A Soul Made of Cinders, hint hint) was to write scenes out of order. I know that sounds bad, but hear me out. If you have an outline for your story, it’s possible to write the key points in advance. When you come up with new ideas that change the story, you can tweak the scenes. Then, when you have all of the scenes you’ve thought up written and arranged, you can flesh out the scenes more to make the novel larger without stretching it too far with unnecessary scenes. Keep in mind this doesn’t work for everyone, and a lot of writing teachers would probably disagree with me…But even if you don’t put those scenes in your book, you’ll have overcome writer’s block!

If you have any unconventional ideas for overcoming writer’s block that you’ve used, feel free to share in the comments! Best of luck on your journey, and remember, don’t keep a Facebook tab open while writing!