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Book Review | Market Like a Boss by Honoree Corder and Ben Hale

Marketing is a huge topic, and a short book like this can only ever scratch the surface even when dealing with the niche of online book marketing. That can be seen as both a weakness as a strength—a weakness in that there is so much How to Market Like a Boss! doesn’t say, but a strength in that it does provide to a quick and easy-to-read introduction to the subject.

Much of the information can be found in other books on book marketing and in greater depth. But there were a few comments and tips I haven’t seen in other books, such as the calculation of the lifetime value of a fiction series reader, or the description of different types of email lists.

One point the authors make strongly which bears repetition is this:

Marketing is highly specific to the brand and the products. What works for one will not necessarily work for another. In short, there is no “one size fits all”.

This, I think, is a mistake many authors make—believing there is only one way to sell books. This is demonstrated y the number of books and training courses from authors proclaiming their way as the one true way with disclaimers in the small print that there is no guarantee of success). It’s refreshing to find two authors who don’t buy into the myth.

This short book is packed with useful advice, and offers a solid end to the series (the previous books were Write Like a Boss! and Publish Like a Boss!). It’s not the most comprehensive book on marketing, but it is worth the investment.

Thanks to the authors for providing a free ebook for review.

Publish Like a Boss

Book Review | Publish Like a Boss! by Honoree Corder and Ben Hale

Publish Like a Boss! by Honoree Corder and Ben Hale is the second book in their joint three-book series.

I read and reviewed the excellent Write Like a Boss! a couple of months ago, and wrote a post sharing Ben Hale’s fascinating (and detailed) editing process. After reading Write Like a Boss!, I was keen to read the rest of the series

Publish Like a Boss! starts by taking readers through the different types of publishing.

They avoid using the pejorative term “vanity publishing”, and instead refer to this as self-publishing. They then use the phrase “indie publishing” to refer to what I (and many others) call self-publishing. This doesn’t necessarily matter, but it is important to understand what they mean by the terms so you don’t get confused.

They go on to share their C’s and Q’s of successful indie publishing (Conistency, Company, Quality, and Quantity). They then provide tips on publishing fiction, publishing non-fiction, and useful resources.

I haven’t yet published a book, but I have spent the last few years observing and educating myself on the changes in the publishing industry, both for my own benefit and for the benefit of my editing clients. Some of the content covered topics I already knew, but which would be useful for someone new to publishing. However, I still picked up several useful tips.

The part I found most helpful was their list of mistakes new author-publishers make:

  • Being cheap
  • Rushing
  • Having no long-term vision
  • Failing to establish a brand
  • Not creating a long-term business plan

I’m guilty of not thinking long-term, so that’s something I need to work on.

It’s a short book and easy to read, but packed full of great advice for the first-time author, like:

If you want professional work, you can either pay with cash or pay with time. Either way, it’s going to cost you.

Overall, a short but useful book, and I’m looking forward to reading the final book in the series: Market Like a Boss!

Thanks to the authors for providing a free ebook for review.

Write Like a Boss

Book Review | Write Like a Boss by Honoree Corder and B Hale

I’m in Sydney this weekend, attending the annual Omega Writer’s Conference. Our venue has wifi, but it’s not great, which means I’m not going to be able to research and post my usual Saturday Best of the Blogs post. Never fear! I’ll be back next week with a double dose of blog links (or you can follow me on Twitter or Facebook—Buffer will kindly be tweeting and posting on my behalf).

Instead of a Best of the Blogs post, I’m sharing a book review, for Write Like a Boss by Honoree Corder and Ben Hale.

Write like a boss? What does that even mean?

Writing like a boss is about being smart.

Write Like a Boss is a short book about what it takes to be a successful writer. It’s got content, but also some great tips for actually doing it—writing, publishing, and marketing. Ben Hale writes fantasy novels, while Honoree Corder writes non-fiction (including books for writers, and books on productivity). This combination works in Write Like a Boss, because they are both able to bring their own particular expertise in writing to the table.

The authors say:

The biggest hallmark of professional writers is not marketing skills or business knowledge, it is consistency … keeping your writing commitment is about threading it into your life.

Easier said than done, which is why Write Like a Boss includes some tips to building that consistency. And doing it today, not tomorrow. They cover mindset, treating writing like a business, and learning the principles of marketing, then move into more detail on actually writing fiction and non-fiction.

In Chapter Four, Ben shares his ten rules of fiction, and his revision process. Each of Ben’s novels currently goes through thirteen drafts (he used to have twenty-four). I found his explanation of each draft hugely helpful, and it’s something I can see myself pointing editing clients towards. Hale uses four sets of outside readers—an alpha reader (for plot and characterisation), a paid editor, beta readers, and a final beta reader.

As a freelance fiction editor, I found it interesting to see where Ben’s paid editor fit in the process.

His editor sees the fifth draft of the book—he goes though the full book another eight times after getting the edited version back. I suspect some of my clients think they’ll be able to get my copyedit back and publish within a couple of weeks. Ben’s process shows why that’s not realistic. It sounds daunting, but I’m sure his process results in a much better book than if he’d skipped some of these steps.

Note that these are Ben’s tips. He’s a multi-published fiction author with a solid writing, revision, and editing process. He’s learned the craft. What he’s sharing here are tips, not a substitute for learning for ourselves (Honoree points out she invested four years in learning before she launched her writing career).

Chapter Five is from Honoree, and she shares her process on writing a non-fiction book. She shares four kinds of non-fiction writer, and four key questions that every non-fiction writer must answer for each book. It’s great stuff.

Write Like a Boss is the first in a series

Publishing Like a Boss and Marketing Like a Boss are both in the works. If they are anything like Write Like a Boss, they will be well worth reading. Recommended for pre-published writers, and those looking for ideas to improve their discipline, motivation, and productivity.

Thanks to the authors for providing a free ebook for review.

What is Your Editing Process?

What Is Your Editing Process? (An #AuthorToolBoxBlogHop Post)

This post is part of the monthly Author Toolbox Blog Hop, organised by Raimey Gallant, with over 40 blogs participating. To find more posts, click here to check out the main page, search #AuthorToolBoxBlogHop on Twitter, or click here to find us on Pinterest.

I’ve recently read Write Like a Boss! by Honoree Corder and Ben Hale. It’s an excellent short book, and I recommend it. If you write fiction, it’s worth the purchase price simply for Chapter Four, where Ben Hale details his personal revision and editing process.

Ben says:

My draft process is thirteen drafts. But it didn’t start our that way. My first book went through twenty-four drafts, and still has errors.

Wow. Just wow.

I have two initial comments about Ben’s editing process:

  1. His process is actually fourteen steps: he doesn’t count his initial detailed outline as a draft. Ben is obviously a plotter, not a pantser. I suspect a pantser would need more drafts.
  2. Ben is an experienced fiction writer. A less experienced writer, who doesn’t know some of the “rules” of fiction, will need more drafts. For example, if you write in third person but don’t know what headhopping is, you’ll probably need one full pass through your manuscript to identify headhopping, and one full draft to fix your point of view. Maybe two.

As a freelance editor, I found it interesting to see where Ben’s copyeditor fit in the process. His copyeditor sees the fifth draft of the book—he goes though the full book another eight times before he publishes, which shows there is more to editing than many authors realize.

So here is an outline of Ben’s editing process with my comments (if you want Ben’s comments, buy the book!).

Draft 0: Outline

Ben write in series, so his outline includes a series outline, outlines for the individual books, and even the chapters. Outlining means he will already know the genre, plot, story arc, characters, theme and the aims for each scene before he starts writing. If you don’t outline, this may mean four to six additional drafts to make sure you’ve nailed these essentials.

A critique partner may help brainstorm some of these plot and character issues at the outline stage.

Draft 1: Finish

The aim here is to get a completed manuscript to edit. If you’re doing NaNoWriMo next month, this is probably what you’re aiming for.

Draft 2: Content

Fill in holes and add detail. I suspect this is where a lot of authors think their work ends. Now they send it to an editor and that’s it, right? Nope.

Draft 3: Alpha Reader

Ben’s alpha readers ignore grammar and typos and focus on the big picture issues: what’s working in terms of the big issues of plot, character, story, and theme, what isn’t working, and what’s missing.

Some authors may work with a critique partner who fills this role. Others may hire an editor to undertake a developmental edit or manuscript assessment.

Draft 4: Character Building

Use comments from the alpha reader to fill out the characters and make them real.

A pantser may need to add another draft in here around plot: filling in the plot holes, and deleting extraneous scenes. After all, you don’t want to pay an editor to edit 3,000 words that don’t drive the plot forward.

Draft 5: Editor

Always submit the best possible draft to your editor. It will help keep the cost down if you’ve already removed the hundreds of adverbs, that’s, very’s, and other overused words, and fixed all the typos you can find. It also means your editor can focus on the things you can’t fix.

Draft 6: Post Editor Partial

Accept or reject minor changes (e.g. spelling and grammar), and undertake sentence-level improvements e.g. adding rhetorical devices, adding fresh descriptions and body language (no “he nodded” or “she shrugged”). If you have no idea what I mean, head on over to Lawson Writer’s Academy and sign up for Deep Editing, Rhetorical Devices, and More.

Draft 7: Post Editor Full

Now the story is free from Track Changes, address any major story issues (like that scene you should have cut and didn’t).

Draft 8: Word Draft

Polishing: checking character names are spelled correctly and consistently, and haven’t been used in other books. Run spell check. Fix the typos and mistakes you introduced in Drafts 6 and 7. Review your editorial letter and make sure you haven’t added back any of the adverbs the editor “suggested” you cut. (Because it wasn’t a suggestion. It was an order.)

You might ask why the editor didn’t catch some of these things. They may have, but they might miss tiny things while they fix big things. Your editor might not know that you called the character Jaime in the last book, but this book calls him Jayme.

It’s also a numbers game. It’s not unusual for me to suggest 10,000 changes in a 100,000 word novel. Even if I’m 99.9% accurate, I’ll still miss 100 changes. And the author might add a few hundred more as they revise and edit. This is why trade published novels go through at least three rounds of editing … and still aren’t perfect.

Draft 9: Beta Readers

Ben suggests at least five beta readers, and they have to be honest. You need your beta readers to find what’s wrong, not gush over how clever you are that you’ve written a whole book all by yourself. Please. You’re not five. Adult up and seek honest critical feedback. (But you don’t have to accept mean feedback. People can be critical without being mean).

How to pick beta readers is probably a whole separate blog post. Like this one from #AuthorToolBoxBlogHop participant JR Creaden: 5 Things To Do Before You Beta Your Book.

Draft 10: Post Beta Reader

Add changes suggested by beta readers.

Draft 11: Vocal Drafts

Reading out loud is a great way of catching sentences that don’t quite make sense, or don’t sound right (especially in dialogue). I’ll often read awkward sentences out loud when I’m editing for other people as a way of finding and fixing a problem.

Draft 12: Final Beta Reader

One final read-through to catch last-minute typos. I think it’s best if this person hasn’t read the full story before (although they may have add early input at Draft 0 or 1). The reason for this suggestion is that we often see the words we think are on the page, not the words which are actually there. For this draft, you want someone who is going to read the words on the page, not fill in the blanks because they’ve already read the story almost as many times as you have.

Draft 13: Final and Format

Fix final typos, format, and add front and back matter (make sure you double check the spelling of any people you thank. It kind of takes away from the buzz of being mentioned if the author spells your name wrong. True story).

This draft process is not for everyone. In fact, it probably only works for me. But hopefully it helps you get a start on your own if you don’t already have one.

This process (or something like it) will be useful for me as a writer. It’s also going to be useful for me as a freelance editor, as it shows clients where Editor-Me falls in the writing and revision process.

As I said, I do recommend Write Like a Boss! It has heaps of great tips for both fiction and non-fiction writers.

Do you have an editing process? What does it look like?

This is the final #AuthorToolBoxBlogHop post for 2017. We figure everyone will be busy with NaNoWriMo in November, and Christmas in December. We’ll be back in January 2018. Meanwhile, I’ll still post every Wednesday (writing or marketing) and Saturday (Best of the Blogs). Well, except for Christmas and New Year.

Meanwhile, check out more #AuthorToolBoxBlogHop posts:

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