You’ve heard this before “Publishing is currently undergoing rapid and monumental changes.” That makes it an exciting time to be a writer because there are so many more publishing avenues. From ebooks to POD’s (print on demand) the world is your publishing oyster.
     You can create an ebook and have it up for sale on Amazon within a few hours. You can contract with a POD company and pay minimal set up fees, which means you no longer have to print several thousand copies to keep your price per book within reason. Yes, even children’s full color books can be printed on demand now. Sounds wonderful, rosy, extraordinarily easy. Where do you sign up?
     Whoa! Best to put the breaks on that runaway best seller, you’ll need to acknowledge one simple truth first: Each POD book is “printed AFTER it sells.” Yes sells. That is the one simple truth that hasn’t changed in publishing. For your book to be read in any form, it still needs to be sold. No matter how brilliant your pages read, or how glossily the cover calls, it is not going to sell itself. And neither Amazon, Lulu or any other publishing platform is going to sell it for you. They’ll put it out there, but, alas, it could end up just gathering dust on a cyber bookstore shelf.
If you decide to self publish you must switch your point of view and see it as a product. Then you must educate yourself in online book marketing. Be prepared to devote countless hours to this process. Blogs, tweets and instagrams, won’t increase sales if there are no interested parties on the receiving end.
     I am not trying to discourage self-publishing. I am saying educate yourself first.           Before your publishing date arrives, have a marketing plan ready to launch along with your book. Know who your readers are and who buys for them. Target you audience directly.
     In the past there were many “Vanity Presses” who preyed on naive authors looking for self-publishing help, now, there are “Book Marketers” who sell hundreds of general packages that probably won’t increase your sales. If you want to hit your target market aim your efforts directly at it and keep shooting. You’re a lot more likely to get hits, than shooting (read dollars) aimlessly into cyberspace. You may not have piles of books unopened in your garage, but it will still take an average of 300 sales to break even, so spend your marketing dollars wisely.

I have to admit, that it took more than one failure for me to learn this lesson, and I am still learning from my successes and mistakes. I would love to hear what has worked for you and what hasn’t.

Do take the publishing leap. Do go forward. You can do it.

In the words of Norman Vincent Peale:

Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars.

     P.S. My name is Dawne Knobbe. I run a small press called The Nature Kid along with my two awesome partners Molly Peckels and Svett Bycovec. We specialize in fun Color and Learn books about ocean creatures. We found a marketing niche for our products within the National Parks and we work it. To date we have sold over 45,000 books which can be found in 12 states, and thankfully, they are still swimming out the door:)

                       lol—Be sure to check us out online at thenaturekid.com

I am Queen of the cliche’. I worked in advertising as a Copywriter and Creative Director.  Using snappy sayings and refurbishing cliche’s was a big part of the business, so I am always tempted to use them.  My writers group also knows that I am very good at spotting those sneaky ones and most often suggest rephrasing the line.

But what exactly makes a phrase a cliche’ you ask?

It’s very simple, over-use. In the beginning the expression was probably regarded as clever and unique—so much so that it started getting repeated, and just like the Faberge shampoo commercial …I told to friends about it, and they told to friends and so on and so on and so on! The phrase took on a life of it’s own loosing it’s originality and depth of meaning.  In the words of  French poet Gerard de Nerval: “The first man who compared a woman to a rose was a poet, the second, an imbecile.”

 So why shouldn’t you use cliche’s?

They are no longer interesting or very effective, and of course, they show a lack of originality. Of course ,sometimes they work in dialogue or in special circumstances but, generally your unique descriptions will have far stronger effect on your reader.

 Is it easy to fix cliche’s?

Once you have identified a cliche’ try to change it so your reader will feel what you are trying to express. A thesaurus can help. Look up the action words and try to replace them. Dive into your characters head and choose words she would use from her environment and sense of the world.

 Example:

Cliche’: She avoided Anna like the plague

Instead: She stepped off the path every time she saw Anna coming; the blackberry thorns were a better friend.

 Are you up to the Challenge?

Now you know how to avoid them, let’s have a little fun. Do you have a few favorite cliche’s? Here are a few of mine strung together.

Cliche’s are about as useful as a lead balloon. They bug the heck out of me, so don’t be all talk and no action.You may have to work like a horse to weed them out of your writing, but at the end of the day when the eraser dust has  settled, it was all in a writing days work!

(I showed you mine, now you show me yours.)

I am sitting across the table from 17 year-old Grace in a Vietnamese restaurant.
She’s chewing on a hangnail instead of digging into her pho chicken soup.
“Lets play the portrait game,” I say, hoping it might start her talking. “How about that guy in the corner. Think he’s having a text fight with his girl friend?” I ask.

Grace shifts her eyes over to the man then back to her hangnail. “I’m just glad he’s really there. I’m never sure about the guys lurking in the corners.”

“Still seeing things in the shadows?” I ask.

She drops her hand and her stealth blue eyes freeze in on me. “They don’t stay in the shadows anymore. I can hardly tell the difference unless I bang into them.” She snickers. “Which means I don’t bang into them ‘cause they’re really not there.”

“Have you talked to the doctor about it lately?”

“Yeah. You should be proud. He gave me some meds and I even took them.”

“No change?” I ask.

“They made me feel stunned and I think I slept 20 out of every 24 hours. Does that count as improvement?”

“That sucks.” I pick at my salad. I don’t know what else to say.

Grace picks up her spoon, digs into the broth and slurps up a long strand of the noodles. She’s turned her attention toward the guy in the corner and I am relieved. I learn more about her condition every time we sit down and chat but it’s never an entirely comfortable situation.

Grace is back to chewing her hang nail between furtive glances to the back of the restaurant. “That guy isn’t talking to anyone,” she finally says. “He doesn’t want to look like an idiot with no friends out having lunch by himself.”

“Hey,” I say. “If that’s self-referral then I don’t count for being here at all.”

“No,” she says and her mouth flips into an actual smile. “You’re just some uninteresting character from outside of this book…”

Grace is a character from an Unfinished novel by Mar-lou Elders and myself. Her environment along with her problems and challenges have changed numerous times as the story has evolved, but the nut of who Grace is, has always been there. The more I take her out into the world, the richer her character becomes in the story. Soooo—

Now it’s your turn. You need to know how your character will react in every situation you put him or her in, so take her out for coffee or lunch. Then tell us…What does he order? Does she care who’s around? Is he nervous in public? Have a conversation. I promise your character will take on a whole new depth and I can’t wait to hear what he or she is saying, so be sure to post a paragraph or two here.