I'm going to illustrate this blog post with a simple tale springing from ranch life. This is a true story, obviously, since those are photos. This is The Day Corcovado Learned to Load and Unload from a Trailer. Note that the horse is not freaking out, pitching a fit, or tramping his handlers. No, Corco is doing something more effective. He's adopted The Mule Stance. My mind follows Corco's example as I contemplate rewriting Mogollon.

A while ago, I wrote that I was going to blog about the rewrite, the re-vision, of my draft version of Mogollon, the sequel to my award winning book, Numenon.

That was weeks ago. In that time, we put a Kindle version of Numenon out for 99 cents. Sales went crazy, Numo hit # 1 in Mysticism, and then cruised near the top of the Religious Fiction category.

This was a problem.

Why? Because Numenon is the introduction to the series. It’s got every hook in the world in it to make people want the sequel. It ends with a bang and points the reader dead at  Mogollon, the rewrite of which we are discussing.

Numenon’s readers are already asking for the sequel; some are getting kinda grouchy about it. How long will my readers wait before dumping me entirely?

The book’s first and part of a  second draft is written. All I have to do is open my computer files and wail away, toiling for a really long time to get the manuscript cleaned up as well as I can. Then I have to go through the editorial and proofing process, necessitating months and months of hard work before a publishable version exists.

As owner of an Indie press,  after I do all the above, I get to manage the design and publication process, and then marketing and sales.

I  can’t open the manuscript’s files.  I’d rather do anything than think about the changes  I have to make. I’d as soon dismember my firstborn child as whack away at Mogollon.

DO YOU THINK I’VE GOT WRITERS’ BLOCK?

* * *

An undisclosed amount of time later and the guys have the task in hand. All they have to do is get Corco from where he is into the trailer. All I have to do is get Mogollon into print.

WHAT IS WRITERS’ BLOCK? Essentially, it’s psychological resistance. Usually it involves the writer’s ego: “My work is so important … The world needs my masterpiece. I can’t write. If I can’t write, I’ll die, and the world will be left without my words … What a tragedy.”

I realize that sounds judgmental and mindless of the pain of the condition, but remember that the blocked up person I’m talking about is me. I exhibit almost every causal attitude I’ll discuss below.

The desire to write the Great American (Latvian, Lithuanian, or Other) Novel can shut a writer down: “I have this HUGE idea. Can I possibly express it? Am I big enough? Good enough?” Hand wringing. Angst. Pain. It’s based on an inflated image of one’s importance in the Grand Scheme of Things.

If you regarded finishing your novel the way ranch people regard mucking out the stalls, would it be so hard? So wrenching? Would you stay awake nights because you couldn’t finish the job? No. When writing becomes a job of work, histrionics leave and you can get the thing done.

Writer’s block also can be associated with positive things. Sherman Alexie, the bestselling Native American author, reminds us that success can block you up good. How can you write when your last book was a national bestseller and your publisher is leaning on you for the new one? And grumbling about your contract and the advance you got for the three book deal?

Heart breaking, isn’t it?

Just plain fear is behind a lot of this. Can I do it? Can I bring it across? It’s the terror that arises when one faces in front of a blank screen or empty page. My eyes widen and I suppress a scream  . . .

Real progress: both front hooves are on the ramp. Corco continues to exhibit the Mule Stance. These photos were taken over several hours of intense human-equine power negotiation. Notice the carrot in Barry's hand. Sometimes positive reinforcement doesn't work. Also–Corco had a bath before these pictures were taken. His coat is wet from suds, not sweat. It's the guys who are sweating.

Laziness sometimes lurks behind the inability to finish a tale. Writing a novel is about the hardest kind of authoring imaginable. (Though I think a surgeon friend’s rewrite of his textbook on arthroscopic ankle surgery ranks up there)

You may begin your manuscript and discover that completing it requires the discipline to sit down and bang it out––to sit for days, months, and years. Despite your earth-shaking, sure to be a bestseller idea, your book won’t exist unless you write it down.

“It’s just too  hard … I can’t do it.” Another tragedy.

So you go to a writing group for support and stick around until you hear their feedback to your cherished production. Sometimes this can be bracing in a “pull up your socks” way, and sometimes it can shut down all creativity. Rough editors can do the same.

The rest of humanity, household pets, inanimate objects, and lousy viruses and bacteria can stop a writer’s progress. Life intrudes.

“Marge, there’s a truck in the living room. It just came through the wall.”

Call it resistance or an errant Mack truck, writer’s block is writer’s block. A cure exists. I have written about it: The Ultimate Cure for Writer’s Block. If you get what I say in this article, block will not trouble you, unless it wants to.

* * *

ON THE OTHER HAND, YOU MAY NOT BE ABLE TO FINISH YOUR MANUSCRIPT BECAUSE THE TIME ISN’T RIGHT. You and your book idea might not be cooked enough.

In a revolutionary move, Tony has PICKED UP CORCO'S HOOF and placed it further onto the ramp. Notice that nothing else has changed in the horse's stance. True resistance, perfectly executed. Well done, Corco!

THE PROCESS OF TEACHING CORCOVADO TO LOAD AND UNLOAD ILLUSTRATES THE LESSON IN THIS ARTICLE:

YOU CANNOT MAKE A 1,200 POUND ANIMAL DO ANYTHING. IT HAS TO WANT TO DO IT.

YOU CAN’T MAKE A WRITER SPIT OUT WORDS, EITHER.

WRITER’S BLOCK IS LIKE THE BERLIN WALL:  YOU CAN’T GO AROUND IT, OVER IT, OR UNDER IT AS LONG AS IT’S STANDING AND THE GATES ARE CLOSED.

RECALL THAT THE BERLIN WALL (which some of you may not remember) CAME DOWN WHEN THE TIME WAS RIGHT.

RESISTANCE IS LIKE THAT: It seems like a solid wall, but it’s got invisible cracks. As time passes, doors open, and close. Keep your eye on the wall, and go through when an opening appears. (That means write like crazy when you can.)

WHILE YOU’RE WAITING, DO SOMETHING ELSE.

THINGS TO DO WHILE WAITING FOR AN OPENING IN YOUR RESISTANCE:

READ. You can read all sorts of stuff, including my online magazine,  SPURS MAGAZINE. SPURS is about changing the world, or at least cleaning up some of its nasty bits. I named it SPURS because in life, sometimes you need spurs to get moving. I’ve been writing SPURS since the late 1990s and am about to unleash it in blog form, as soon as I get over my paralysis over rewriting Mogollon.

Advanced training technique: Tony waves his hat while Barry pulls on the lead rope. Corco remains unmoved. Some people resort to offering buckets of carrots and grain at this point. When that doesn't work, they escalate to use of two by fours and longe whips. Nasty. We don't do that. The inter species negotiation process intensifies as and the sun drops on the horizon …

SPURS’ WRITERS’ CORNER. Not only do I have a ‘zine, I’ve got a ‘zine for writers, dealing with topics that writers must manage or go insane. The WRITERS’ CORNER is one of the most popular locations on my web empire. (I’ve got 52 URLs, compadres.)

[Note: If you think Mogollon needs rewriting, SPURS' WRITERS' CORNER needs major surgery. Read it and know it's a draft. I'll rewrite it before I die. Or make it into a blog. Okay?]

SPURS’ WRITERS’ CORNER contains a bunch of articles relevant to writer’s block. These articles walk through the process of writing as experienced by me and many others. (Lots of references & links.) Please allow your browser time to open at the links.

• THE WRITER’S CORNER: INTRODUCTION
• HOW TO START WRITING: SIMPLE. HANDLE THE MESS IN FRONT OF YOU
• DO YOU HAVE TO SUFFER TO WRITE WELL? One of my favorites. Uses Kay Redfield Jamison MD’s writing on bipolar disorder and creativity.
• WRITERS’ TERROR AS OPPOSED TO BLOCK OR DOUBT Getting down to what writers’ really think and feel. You meet my writers’ group and learn how I felt as I wrote my first book.
• THE ULTIMATE CURE FOR WRITER’S BLOCK If this article doesn’t get through your Block, take up golf.

Tony and Barry attempt to FORCE Corco into the trailer. Barry is inside the trailer, pulling hard, while Tony applies muscle at the other end. Does it work? What do you think? You can no more force a horse into a trailer than your brain to kick out the right words. (Note: Do not do what you see above at home. What's shown in the above photo is extremely dangerous and very bad horsemanship. Corco could kill either man if he lunged forward or bolted backwards.)

TO DISTRACT YOURSELF WHEN YOU CAN’T WRITE,  YOU CAN ALSO CLEAN THE HOUSE, ROLLER SKATE, GO TO YOUR SHRINK, BLOG ABOUT YOUR BLOCK, ENTERTAIN YOUR FELLOW WRITERS, OR TAKE A NAP.

MOSTLY, CONTEMPLATE THE SITUATION UNTIL YOU REALIZE THE REAL REASON FOR YOUR BLOCKAGE/STOPPAGE.

WHAT WRITING THIS ARTICLE DID FOR ME WAS MAKE ME REALIZE THAT:

• I’m tired.
• I need a break.
• A real break where I do NOTHING, NADA, ZILCH.
• NO book marketing, planning the next move, scheduling book signings, reading blogs on marketing, sales, the latest Net techniques.
• Take the box of books out of the trunk of the car “just in case.”
  
• I need to stop doing what I’m doing and allow my personal process––my soul, if you will––to call the shots.
• When The Universe wants me to finish Mogollon, I will, and probably pronto.
  

[HERE'S AN EXERCISE: I throw them in all over Stepping Off the Edge, might as well here. Please jot down any images or thoughts that come to you while you read my list, and the rest of the article, including hops to Spurs' Writers' Corner and Spurs Magazine. Take some time and generate your own list of word blockers. Where are you in the process above? I'm not saying that you're worn out, either. Your situation reflects your writing style and process. You may need a kick in the rear.]

MY REAL PROBLEM IS: I’M POOPED.

I’m taking that break, goin’ to Santa Fe for three weeks. Santa Fe, New Mexico, is like catnip to me. Where we stay, there’s no Internet, no phone, no TV, no roads. Just wind and sky and a few snakes.

Tony leads Corcovado out of the trailer. Note how relaxed the horse is. He never had a problem going into or out of a trainer from this day forward.

WHAT DOES CORCO  SAY ABOUT THIS?

About a minute after the previous photo, Corcovado walked into the trailer easily and with no fuss. He’d decided that he wanted to.

When your soul/brain/heart/body/hands decide it’s time to write, you will. You’ll write good stuff, that deserves to see the light of day.

PS. If you liked this article, you will like my book Stepping Off the Edge. It has much more about living the writer’s life, success, triumph, despair, and JOY.

STEPPING OFF THE EDGE on KINDLE– 99 cents for a limited time!

NUMENON on KINDLE––99 cents for a limited time!

Hasta luego, amigos! I’ll write more later! I have a date with a dirt road and cactus.

Numenon, by Sandy Nathan, is a 2009 Nautilus Book Awards Silver Winner!

Sandy Nathan
Winner of the 2009 Silver Nautilus Award for Numenon
The Nautilus Awards are dedicated to “changing the world one book at a time.” The Nautilus Award was established to find and reward distinguished literary contributions to spiritual growth, conscious living, high-level wellness, green values, responsible leadership and positive social change.

By winning a Nautilus Silver Award with her book, Numenon,  author Sandy Nathan joins the ranks of  Deepak Chopra, M.D., Barbara Kingsolver, Thich Nnat Hanh, Jean Houston, PhD., Eckhart Tolle, and His Holiness the Dalai Lama. All are Nautilus Award winners.

Stepping Off the Edge is a wild ride to sacred places. Includes an exclusive interview with Bill Miller, award winning Native musician, artist, & speaker.

Now you can buy the Kindle edition of my award-winning book, Stepping Off the Edge , for 99 cents! The book is offered at this great price for a limited time only. Click here and go to the Kindle store.

The Kindle edition of Stepping Off the Edge is absolutely gorgeous: The Native American themed interior and cover converted to the Kindle format better than I hoped. All of my pen and ink drawings are included and look beautiful.

This is the book that proves spiritual studies do not have to be boring. Stepping Off the Edge is part memoir, part self help, part riding lesson (horses play a big part), and all amazing.

This book was written during a period of my life that I’m glad is over. Though it provided great material and a way of illustrating everything useful I learned earning two master’s degrees and a life of spiritual practice.

Join me as I find my roots in Missouri’s Ozarks, travel to Tennessee to a Native American retreat, and meet Bill Miller, multi-Grammy winning musician and artist. Lots more, including the meaning of the word “fault” to people from California.

STEPPING OFF THE EDGE WON SIX NATIONAL AWARDS!
* 2007 Benjamin Franklin Award Finalist in New Age (Spirituality/Metaphysics)
* Bronze Medal Winner in Self Help, 2007 IPPY Awards
* National Indie Excellence Awards 2007: Finalist in THREE Categories: Memoir, Self Help, & Spirituality.

FROM THE BACK OF THE BOOK:
When Sandy Nathan set out to write a book about her profound experience at the Gathering, a Native American spiritual retreat, little did she know it would guide her to chronicle a life of stepping off the edge. Again and again , she takes the risks needed for her soul’s growth and vividly presents her personal journey––one of growing into the courageous spiritual being she is. Sandy reminds us we all possess spiritual greatness: It is our birthright.

By walking with Sandy along her path we get more than a glimpse of a person. We get a revealing and inspiring view of her life. Her adventure and the understanding she adds as she writes help us use her experience to enhance out own development. This book does much more than tell about a life: It takes us by the hand (or sometimes by the nose) and leads us to the opportunity afforded by spiritual practice. And practice is the key word.

Stepping Off the Edge is alive with information and inspiration. It is a book about doing. It’s more than a book that describes chocolate cake or even one that tells you how to make chocolate cake. It is a book that gets your mouth watering for chocolate cake and then lets you loose in the kitchen stocked with recipes and everything you need to make your own chocolate cake. With fudge frosting. And chocolate chips if you want them.

In this fascinating narrative you will encounter the basics of prayer, meditation, worship, spiritual retreat, and how a life can become dedicated to the pursuit of experiencing the divine. You will even find how to domesticate your mind and make it an ally in your quest for inner knowledge.

It is said that the path to self-awareness is a solitary one. Stepping Off the Edge opens you to the possibility that it can be fun, challenging and rewarding.

Sandy Nathan & Bill Miller at the Gathering Book Signing

WHAT DO THE CRITICS SAY?

“This is a dynamic book. It’s alive with Ms. Nathan’s passion, and her presence is in every line, teaching and learning with you, helping you when you stumble, because she’s stumbled too. It’s rich with energy and meaning.”
- Gerald DiPego, Screenwriter, Phenomenon

“Sandy’s book has got to be one of the most fun to read books about spirituality ever written. She takes the reader along on her adventures with a down to earth approach and style that keeps the reader in touch–with both reality and spirituality. Informative, entertaining, and enlightening.”
Natural Horse Magazine, Volume 8 Issue 5

"It May Be Forever" Cover by Lewis Agrell. I love this cover!

Most of the book contests, like the Benjamin Franklin Awards, IPPYs, Indie Excellence, and all the rest, are closed for the year. The books have been submitted and they’re being judged. Will your book win? Two factors have a very large weight in determining whether you walk away a winner––or get passed up: Your COVER and your TITLE. Today we’re going to talk about book cover design. While it may be late if you’ve got books in competitions this year, you can use what follows for future years.

I’m very pleased to introduce my second guest blogger, Lewis Agrell of The Agrell Group. Lewis and I go back years. He designed promotional materials for my first book, Stepping Off the Edge. I loved what he did and called on him to do the same for Numenon. Lewis designed a one-sheet for Numenon, book marks, and a gorgeous over-sized post card. He also designed the e-book that I’ve been giving out to those who sign up for my email newsletter. And his wife, Kathryn, edited it. What a team!

I think this blog is going to be known as the “get deep into the psychological underpinnings of writing & publication” blog. Irene Watson of Reader Views introduced us to Jungian personality type. I added a bit, and now Lewis is going to introduce concepts that I learned originally in graduate school in counseling.

Knowing these concepts is very important: They’re operating in your buyers’ minds and souls (and yours) whether you know it or not. Better to know it. But don’t worry! Lewis Agrell makes them user friendly!

Lewis has been kind enough to let me illustrate the blog post with some of his covers. And now, here’s Lewis Agrell on book cover design:

WHAT MAKES A GOOD BOOK COVER DESIGN?

In my estimation, the best covers are the ones that are the most beautiful. Billions of dollars are spent every year in advertising, fashion and manufacturing to infuse more and more beauty. Why? Because beauty attracts the eye. That’s why the most beautiful models, actresses, cars, houses and boats cost the most  money. Beauty is a precious, treasured commodity. Beauty has specific qualities. These qualities are harmony, balance, unity, synthesis, and refinement. Designers struggle to make the colors and design elements (fonts, photos, illustrations, and other graphic elements) work in such a way that the greatest beauty is attained.

KILLROD The Cross of Lorraine Murders. Cover by Lewis Agrell. Simple, elegant, & beautiful design employing archetypes––the cross and circle, which also looks like a moon. Love this, too.

Attributes of the Designer

Why are some designers better than others? This is not a simple question to answer. Designers must be trained in the basics of graphic design, particularly color theory. The other qualities that are necessary are:

1. Experience (it helps to have tried many different approaches to design work, and learned what does, and does not, work)
2. Intelligence—reading as much as possible about the industry is very helpful, because it is important to stay current, not only with the latest design movements and techniques, but also the tools of the trade (computers and software).
3. Worldly awareness: it helps to know what is going on in the world, because world events are often reflected in design work. Witness particularly the dynamics of the sixties and the seventies, when many social shifts occurred. Designers and illustrators exploded with new ways of working, as a reflection of the dynamism of the period.
4. Sensitivity. A designer must be sensitive to the material with which he/she is working, as well as to the needs, desires, and expectations of the client.

“As he thinketh…so is he”

An individual’s consciousness can vary tremendously. Wherever a person places the bulk of his attention will indicate the level of awareness. People are generally focused either physically, emotionally, or mentally. It is best for a designer to have as high an awareness level as possible.

Why is this critical?  Because a designer, or any creative person, cannot create beyond his or her level of awareness. When a high level of awareness is attained, that individual also has a connection to the lower levels, having passed through them, at some point in his or her maturation.

For example, a designer who is entirely focused on the physical realm, would not do well with a project focused on matters of the heart. A designer who is swept up in the world of emotions, would not do well with a project that has deep philosophical leanings.

In the mental realm, there are three areas of focus:

• The lowest is the subconscious. Designers focused on this level create work that is very dark and mysterious—perhaps even very ugly and horrifying—and certainly distorted and misshapen. The primary color in their palette is black.
• The next mental level is that of the concrete mind. This is the realm of logic and reasoning. This is the area of scientists and mathematicians. The design solution from an artist focused on this level will be very balanced and harmonious. The Golden Ratio, or Divine Proportion (approximately 1.618) might be very important for a designer on this level of consciousness. Someone who has a mental focus labors very carefully to determine a proper approach, utilizing logic, reasoning and analysis.
• The highest level is known as the superconscious. In this level, symbolism is very important to the designer. Also, the designer will use a palette of very bright, cheerful, and uplifting colors. The keys to identifying designers who work on this level are a) their work reflects a wide variety of creativity or understanding; and b) they generally “know” immediately what the best solution will be for various projects. The “Eureka!” moment is very common for these designers. They will usually have a vivid mental image in mind before a person finishes explaining a concept to them. They think very quickly.

Many designers specialize in one particular area. This is because they have a strong physical, emotional, or mental strength, and design in that area.

"The Money Belt" This is not a "grunge" cover. Great for mass market book. I love this cover: clean, catchy, powerful. Does the job!

The “grunge” look

If beauty is so important, why is there a “grunge” movement? The reason for this may be a temporary backlash to the “perfection” that can be created by computers. A world saturated with the unwavering perfection that computers are capable of creating can become a bit maddening to designers who like to put a more human touch to their work, so designers are fighting against the coldness of computers with “grungy” designs—those that appear as though they are not created from the computer, even thought the computer remains an indispensable tool for production.

This will become overused and will be rejected in time, in the same way that the psychedelic look passed away at some point in the early seventies. Great beauty will always be the sine qua non for designers. Deviations from beauty are only a temporary stylistic meandering. For example, ugliness will never gain a foothold in auto manufacturing because of the importance of high volume sales. When one particular car was created that people thought was not beautiful (the Edsel, 1958), the car sales were dismal. Car manufacturers don’t want a repeat of that noted failure.

What catches the eye besides beauty? Newness and uniqueness. An example of this is reflected in the story of the designer who needed to create a new cereal box to be displayed in grocery stores. He saw that all of the boxes had bright, vibrant colors. So, what did he chose to do? He created a cereal box that was mostly white. This “non-color” stood out from the rest of the boxes on the shelves, gaining that valuable eye-catching quality.

"Mediterranean Madness" Cover by Lewis Agrell. In a genre cover, the designer must give readers what they expect. Wow, and good design.

Genre design

There are genres of books that have a “standard look,” that the buyer expects to see, for example, romance novels. All purchasers of romance novels want to see an image of a very strong, handsome, romantic yet masculine man embracing a beautiful woman on the cover of the book. To deviate from this “formula” is to risk loss of sales.

The same is true with fantasy novels. The buyers want to see a careful rendering of a dragon, or some such fanciful creature. Wouldn’t it be odd to see a biography without a painting or photo of the person about whom the book was written? The challenge for the designer, when dealing with these genres, is not a simple one. He/she must create something similar, yet unique and powerful.

How to pick a designer for your book

The easiest way is to examine the designer’s website and see if there is a style that is similar to what you imagine for your book. If you like what the designer has done, but don’t see something that you are looking for, simply send an email to the designer and ask if he/she has done anything similar to what you have in mind. Very often, the designer will have work that is not on the website.

If you still have doubts about the artist’s ability to create what you want, you can always hire the artist to do a concept sketch. If you are less than happy with the concept sketch, you can then either ask for another sketch, listing your desires, or you can thank the designer for his work (be sure to send a check for the hard work!) and then move on to another designer.

Designing your own cover

Don’t do it. That’s my answer to all writers who want to design their own cover. You have put a lot of energy into your book. You want the cover to reflect as much energy and power as your carefully groomed text. The person who can provide that energy and power is someone who is trained in graphic design.

Graphic designers have spent years, or decades, perfecting their art.Keep in mind that they spend eight hours a day, five days (or more) a week, twelve months a year, year in and year out, working to perfect their craft. They have tried and failed, so they know what doesn’t work. They have succeeded, and their work has been tested in the marketplace.

Simply put, they know what they are doing.

You wouldn’t rewire own your house yourself; you’d hire a professional electrician. The same goes for book cover design: Hire a professional. Sure, it can be expensive, but the extra “oomph” that you get in the professional design may translate into an increase in the number of books sold, simply because people are attracted to and impressed with the cover design! To sell the most books, save your pennies and hire the best graphic designer that you can afford. You’ll be grateful that you did when you see the results.

Please, don’t take my word for it. Talk to authors who have used professional designers to create their covers. You might be surprised by what they say.

"No Sisters Sisters Club", an engaging cover for a Young Adult book.

Lewis Agrell has been an award-winning professional designer and illustrator for thirty years. He worked as the Chief Artist for the New York Times Company at its largest regional newspaper for ten years. He and his wife, Kathryn (a writer/editor) are the principal owners of The Agrell Group, a graphic design/creative writing firm, located in Prescott, Arizona. To contact them: Lagrell@commspeed.net or Kagrell@commspeed.net   Phone: 928.445.7038.

From Sandy Nathan: It’s been a privilege to share Lewis’s thoughts and words with you. Here’s a surprise. You may think that book covers of this quality must be very expensive. Not so. Lewis’s covers––front, back, spine––usually run between $500 and $1,200. You may want to consider him for your next book.

"Shades of Truth" A provocative one piece cover for a mass market book.

With horses, you win the minute you walk into the arena. This is a Matched Pairs Class at the La Bahia Peruvian Horse Show in Watsonville, CA. My husband and I are riding horses that are full brothers––same mom & pop. Except for the extra chrome (white markings) on Azteca, these horses pass for identical. The judge told us after the class, "You won that class the minute you walked into the arena." Your book will win or lose the same way.

Most of the 2009 book contests are closed. The books are and supporting materials are in. The judging is on. The contestants hyperventilate as the countdown continues. Will they be finalists? Actually win?

A nice thing about book contests is that you are an award winner even if you’re “just” a finalist. In the same way that Academy Award nominees get to say, “Academy Award nominee Snelda Grottie” forever, you can say Benjamin Franklin Award Finalist. Being a finalist counts as an award!

I’ve got my book, Numenon: A Tale of Mysticism & Money, in five contests. I’m about to freak out. Should I have entered it in different categories than the ones I entered? Where’s the receipt from that very prestigious competition I took a chance on? I did enter it, didn’t I?

The anxiety will continue for the contestants until the finalists are notified. And longer, until the winner is announced––often at Book Expo America, the largest  book publishing event in North America. This year, BEA is May 28 to 31 in NYC.

It’s a little late for an article about setting your book up to win in 2009 book contests, but I’ve got to do something to fill the time.

I’M SANDY NATHAN. So far, I’ve won eight national awards for my two books. I’ll post a list of my wins at the end of this article.

Less well known is the fact that I also have experience as a book contest judge. My writerly credentials, contest wins, and the fact that I graded papers at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business for 18 spring quarters make me an ideal candidate for judging.

I love it, truly. Brings back memories. I used to work for a top rated Stanford professor along with a jaded team of other smart people. Every year, he gave each of us a FOUR FOOT TALL stack of academic papers to grade OVER THE WEEKEND. Brutal.

I got really good at separating fluff from substance. Fast.  The books presented to me to judge remind me of those wonderful days of the nonstop pursuit of achievement, which I have not left behind.

HOW CAN YOU WIN A BOOK CONTEST?

If you win a book contest, chances are you already know how to win it. Here’s a story: When the Publisher’s Marketing Association (now the Independent Book Publishers’ Association) notified me that my book, Stepping Off the Edge, was a finalist in the 2007 Benjamin Franklin Awards in the New Age/Spirituality category, I boo-hooed. They choose only 3 finalists per category nationwide, one of which would be the winner. This was the first contest I’d entered. My first book.

“Oh, I can’t believe it. I’m so excited. Oh, my God. I’m so grateful. One out of three finalists! I can’t believe it. This is so wonderful!” I walked around our ranch emoting tearfully. Then something happened.

The overarching category of my writing is spiritually––which is based on spiritual or religious experience. That’s because I have spiritual experiences and have had them all my life. In the cacophony of my inner dialogue, one voice stands out. It’s calm, clear, unaffected, and never wrong. I think of it as God. This voice spoke:

“What’s the big deal, Sandy? You’ve been a straight A student most of your life. Why shouldn’t you win? You know what went into that book.” There was a pause and more communication. “Don’t you trust Me to reward you? To notice that you’ve done a good job? Don’t you think I care about you?”

Oops. My tearful gratitude had the smell of a contestant on a TV quiz show flipping out over winning a new refrigerator. It was an unnecessary display of ego and self importance, which also pointed to my lack of faith.

So let’s leave that behind and talk about how to win.

The key is: If you win a book contest, you already know how to set up a winner. It’s a job of work, like mucking out stalls at our ranch.

Just like winning a horse show class.  You win the instant you ride into the arena on a winning horse. Similarly, you win in a book contest the instant the judge looks at the array of books he or she has to judge. Your book has to leap out of the stack of ho-hum contenders and SING. Also tap dance.

HOW DO YOU DO THIS? WITH YOUR BOOK!

1.  HARDBACKS SHOW UP BETTER. You’re a judge.  Thirty or forty books are sitting on a table. You won’t read all of them. You see well-designed hardback with a killer cover. Your eyes and hands gravitate to it. Wow. It’s beautiful. Paper even feels classy. You put the book in the “keeper” pile. Hardbacks have more weight in competition.

Numenon: A Tale of Mysticism & Money. Your cover should hook the viewers' archetypes: The symbol in the middle of my cover is based on the photo of a Shiva Nataraj I own. Not only is the circle an archetype of wholeness, Shiva is revered all over the world. Including by me. Note the high contrast and predominately black cover. This design will dominate pretty near anything.

2. YOUR TITLE AND COVER will make you win or sink you. Do you know how to judge a cover? Lewis Agrell of The Agrell Group, will be a guest blogger with his terrific article on what makes a winning book cover. I’ll post it soon.

For now, let’s rely on phone book ads. Open the yellow page ads in any phone book. Scan the page quickly. Where do your eyes land? Note the ad. Do it again on another page, and another.

In all probability, the ad that draws your attention is SIMPLE. UNCLUTTERED. EITHER BLACK, WHITE, OR MOSTLY EMPTY. The ads that grab your eyeballs and hold them have attained PAGE  DOMINANCE. People hire consultants to create dominant ads for them.

Now go to a book store sale table and look at the books. Which books grab your eyes? Which do you pick up? Buy? A book contest is like that table. Clear, bold, design that dominates the competition will win.

YOUR COVER MUST HAVE AN EMOTIONAL HOOK. THINK ARCHETYPES. Primal images. Something that grabs the inner psychology of your reader/judge.

To win and much more importantly, to be purchased, your book cover AND SPINE must dominate any table and any bookshelf.

3. YOUR TITLE IS REALLY, REALLY IMPORTANT. First off, your title embodies your book’s essence. It is the first word or words the reader sees. It should be engaging, easy to read, evocative, and compelling––it should set the emotional tone for your book. As should the SUBTITLE or TAG LINE (THE ONE LINE DESCRIPTION BELOW THE TITLE.) Also, most of the big catalogs of books will list your book by its TITLE ONLY. Better be memorable. Like Twilight.

4. THE WORDS ON YOUR COVER, FLAPS, AND FIRST FEW PAGES OF YOUR BOOK, YOUR BOOK’S COPY, SHOULD BE UNFORGETTABLE. These words are your prime real estate and are what will make your book succeed. The book contest judge, book store owner, and your buyer will make a decision about your book based on these words––in seconds. You want emotional hooks, ease of reading, and enchantment in these places.

Writing copy is a skill. You can write text like an angel and not be able to pump out a winning tag line. I’ve got an Emmy-nominated screenwriter Laren Bright, the best copy writer I know, preparing an article for this blog. He’ll tell you how to do it.

I say: Hire it done if you can possibly afford it. Copy writing is like writing poetry: You need to be able to produce succinct messages packed with meaning and emotional associations in a tight space.

5. BOOK DESIGN, INTERIOR & EXTERIOR: YOUR BOOK SHOULD LOOK LIKE RANDOM HOUSE PRODUCED IT. NO LESS. We’ve talked about the cover, title, and copy. Every page and every word should be as well designed as your cover. Go to a book store and look at best selling books. Get a copy of the Chicago Manual of Style and memorize the order of pages in a book.

A very important thing to note: NEVER HAVE YOUR TITLE PAGE ON THE LEFT. DO NOT DO THAT. Do your homework. Know the proper order of pages in a book. Know what a half title page is and where it goes. The contest judge will know all about this.

6. SELF PUBLISHING, SMALL PRESSES, THE MAJORS: Some contests are specifically for self published books, by that I mean books put out by the big POD printers like lulu.com, iUniverse, Outskirts Press, BookSurge and the rest. If this is your competition, let your lulu imprint show.

If you’re in open competition, hide it. Some people have real prejudices against self-published books. There’s not as much of a prejudice against author-owned small presses––after all, Benjamin Franklin did it. So did Mark Twain, DH Lawrence and tons of big literary names. If you own and operate a small press, that puts you in a different category, even if your book was printed by CreateSpace or Outskirts Press. Just make sure that nothing about the mass producers shows.

If you take this approach, create a killer logo and press name, and have the book professionally designed and produced, you’ll be in good shape to compete in contests.

I have no prejudice against self-published books. I have a real bone to pick with poorly produced self-published books whose authors don’t respect me––the buying customer and reader––enough to get the thing professionally edited and proofed before offering it for sale. Or stick it in my face and expect me to judge it.

DO NOT PUT YOUR BOOK UP FOR SALE UNTIL IT IS TOP QUALITY IN EVERY WAY. YOU ARE CHEATING YOUR READERS WHEN YOU OFFER SLOPPY WORK.

7. PROFESSIONAL PRODUCTION: The book contest judge may not have time to read all of your book, but he or she will sure sample pages and text. Typos, lousy interior and exterior design, cheap paper, all of it pops out. Hire an editor, copy editor and proofreader. Hire a book designer. Believe it or not, they’re not all super expensive. Look at my blog roll. Some great professionals are listed there.

TEMPLATES: Many of the big POD publishers offer templates for book interiors. These don’t show up well in contests. The text is set too tight, and the margins too small. There’s not enough variety in the overall design. In contests, judges see many books with very similar, standard interiors. If your book is one of thirty in a category, or one of THREE HUNDRED, it has to stand out. Templates won’t do it.

8. PERIPHERALS: YOUR WEB SITE, STATIONERY, & PRESS KIT. You did include those with your entry, didn’t you? I assure you, the winners did. The book contest judges are very likely to check your website, especially if you make it through enough of the hoops to stay in “the good pile” to the end. The “ad-ons” are breakers.

Two books might be ranked about the same, but if one author has an amazing web site and hosts a blog with a bazillion visitors a day providing a vital services to the world––who do you think will win? Ditto if on author provides copies of his book’s terrific reviews, testimonials, and advertising materials in a lovely custom folder. Which book will win?

Oh, yeah. What about the VIDEO FOR YOUR BOOK? Is that linked prominently on your site? Mentioned in your press kit?

9. THE BOOK, AS IN––WHAT’S BETWEEN THE COVERS? In your writing group, you concentrate on the writers’ skills and arts. Word by word, you construct and deconstruct and reconstruct your masterpiece. Ditto working with your editor. Your write, rewrite, have it slashed and burned, and make it rise again. You struggle to express exactly what you want, worry about pacing and plot and characters.

I was in two writing groups for a total of eleven years. I’ve worked with maybe six or seven good, tough editors. The content of your book matters, especially if you want it to sell. If you want word of mouth to propel it. If you want to read it yourself in future years and not be embarrassed by it.

The contest judge or panel of judges isn’t going to read all of your book. They’ll sample it and look at different aspects of it.

Does that mean you can skip the 11 years of writing groups and all those creative writing classes? No. Whatever random page a judge’s eyes fall upon will produce an impression. All the pages have to be good, since you don’t know which one will be read. Know what terms relating to race, ethnicity, or sexual preference are OK to use in modern literary and cultural circles. Get it right.

The curious thing is: Most people writing in academic settings concentrate solely on the quality of their manuscripts. They don’t look at any of the other points noted here, any of which can destroy their chances of winning a book contest or selling. That’s because in the major creative writing and MFA programs, people assume that they will be published by the major publishers.

They haven’t had direct experience of the realities of the publishing industry. Such students often have no idea that to succeed, they may have to set up a small press and learn to do things they never were taught in school. Academic programs may not talk about the recession and cut-backs and literary agents being laid off, either.

The real world can be a big surprise, even if you got your MFA from Iowa.

Producing a book that wins contests is a big job requiring a commitment of time and money. It doesn’t have to be a HUGE commitment of money, but its going to cost something. Before you enter a contest, you should know what you’re up against.

Some of the awards won by Rancho Vilasa. A few of these are my wins. The real victory that comes from athletic competition is a winning of soul, which is transferable to other endeavors. If you can show a horse and win, you can do anything.

To win in a horse show, you need a horse that grabs the judge’s eye the instant he enters the arena. He needs the stamina to look good at the end of a grueling class. For book contest, you need a book that’s set up to win from one end of the judging process to the other. And then into the marketing arena.

That’s it, folks! Happy competing!

Sandy Nathan, award winning author of Numenon & Stepping Off the Edge. I’m a bit burnt out writing about winning. Here are some links to what I’ve won in book contests:

• Numenon: A Tale of Mysticism & Money
• Stepping Off the Edge: Learning & Living Spiritual Practice.

Sandy Nathan, award winning author of Numenon

“I have seen this gaming of Amazon before and take it from it me, it isn’t worth your time. Good writing should float to the top because it’s good writing. I’m sure yours will do that,” Jamis replied to my initial email.

One of the really fun things about my Amazon Bestseller Day was reconnecting with old friends. I emailed my friend, Jamis MacNiven to see if he would be one of my sponsors on my Day. Jamis and his wife, Margaret, own Buck’s of Woodside. Have you heard of Buck’s? How about Woodside?

I used to ride my horse around the Town of Woodside in the 1950s and 60s. This was before Silicon Valley existed and the town became WOODSIDE, home of computer CEOs and Steve Jobs’ guest house. The corner currently occupied by Buck’s was a ham and eggs joint.

Our family lived in Woodside for 14 years. Though it was the 80s by then, the greasy spoon on the corner was based firmly in the 50s. When Jamis and Margaret bought the place and CHANGED IT, the locals howled.

“You’ll lose your existing clientele,” they screamed.

They sure did. Jamis and Margaret made Buck’s Restaurant the Hippest Place on Earth, with decor that has to be the funniest in the galaxy. (Check out the menu on the links above. Hilarious zingers lurk among the salads and desserts.) Given a suitably cool environment, venture capitalists made the place their own and began to write million dollar checks over flapjacks and oatmeal. (Several key scenes in the sequel to the sequel of my book Numenon occur at Buck’s.)

Breakfast at Buck’s is a cultural phenomenon. I’ve been there during the witching hours of 7 to 9 AM. The air crackles with the sound of high IQs being exercised and money being made. You have to have a laptop to get in.  Click here for a video of Jamis explaining it. As Jamis says in the video, “thousands of firms were born from pitches at Buck’s,” including when “Hotmail was founded at Table 15.”

At this point in my development as a red-hot Amazon Bestseller Day creator, I realized that a successful launch had many sides. A big one was gifts. Prizes. Positive reinforcements. Bribes. I had to provide prizes interesting enough that people would flock to buy my book to get them. [Note the oddity of this reasoning. Why wouldn't people just buy my book? Doesn't it  have worth? Someone said to me, "Your book sounds like a must read. Why do all that?" Yeah, but no one was buying it.]

Whatever. Anything coming from Jamis would be interesting; I needed his participation, his wit and style. Most of all, I needed his endorsement of my book and campaign. His prize. I needed his undoubtedly vast email list: As a sponsor, he would email an invitation to his list the morning of the event and catapult me into his world. Need, need, grasp. Gasp.

I was weeks into my preparation by this time. I’d asked for and gotten the enthusiastic participation of great friends. The guys who designed my books and wrote copy for them offered AMAZING GIFTS: A 30% discount on the design of a book’s interior, and an hour’s consultation on the title. “Emotional Pro” Ilene Dillon MSW offered a bushel of self-help tools. One of my friends, a gifted writer, offered first chapters of her romance works (hot stuff). Another friend, Jack Vance, offered part of his book about training horses. (Jack is so cool and such a good horse trainer that if you read his book, you’d buy a horse just to have Jack fix him.) Here’s a link to my “prize page.”

At this point, I didn’t have the benefit of the reading list that I gave you on the first article of this series. (Go back and look at it. Part 1.)  I was working blindly on my own hard-headed and mistaken ideas. Somewhere around this time, I realized that this was a numbers game: Only a small portion of the people receiving emailed invitations to my party would respond. I needed sponsors with high name recognition and huge mailing lists. About the same time, Irene Watson of ReaderViews said (what she may have said earlier): “It’s a numbers game. You have to enlist the people with the big mailing lists.”

Holy moly! I was already approaching the staggering-blindly stage of exhaustion. I was the project––there was no back up team. Not only did I have to solicit the gifts, I had to record them and put them on line. (I did recognize that the sooner people learned of my event, the more likely it was to succeed.) And more, which we will get to in time.) Fortunately, I still couldn’t walk after my ankle-fusion, so sitting at a computer for 14 hour runs was no problem, except for the swelling from my ankle spreading up my leg.

A REALLY BIG DON’T-DO-IT-YOURSELF POINT: GET HELP WITH THIS. GET HELP THAT WILL ACTUALLY COME THROUGH FOR YOU.

My husband pledged to help me and I knew that he would. It’s just that he runs our little family enterprise and it has more important parts than Amazon Parties.

He was out of the game, called away to serve a higher power.

My daughter was going to do a video for Stepping Off the Edge. She’s an amazingly talented artist and web person, ZoeNathan.com, Everything she does is beyond A+ quality. So it was very exciting when a local winery gave Zoe and her sister, Lily Nathan, also an artist, a sisters’ show for December. The opening reception was the Sunday, just two days before my Amazon party! Wow!

The only person busier than an author getting ready for an Amazon Day is an artist getting ready for an art show opening.

Zoe did get the slide show from the Gathering spiritual retreat done, which was the retreat’s contribution to my Day. I owe the book Stepping Off the Edge to the Gathering. The book was born the first time I attended the retreat. Zoe finished the slide show and it is Wow-ser! Over the top. You can look at it through this link: Here’s another link to my “prize page.”

The slide show is done, and I’m sure that whenever I get the video for Stepping Off the Edge and the other one for Numenon, they’ll be prize winners. It didn’t happen for the Amazon Day. Or this writing.

At this time, fearing that the prizes on the prize page weren’t enough, I decided to do up a story I’d written years before for my grandchildren as an e-book. That would be a major party prize. I was ably assisted by Lewis Agrell and his wife, Kathryn. They form The Agrell Group, doing editing, illustration, and book design. Even with great help, adding the e-book to the line up was not a trivial undertaking.

The proverbial donkey’s back was reaching the “it won’t take a toothpick to break me” stage.

When my husband was done with slaying the most immediate dragons,  he was available to  help me. By this time, I was blathering incoherently. He “volunteered” to take over contacting horse people. We’ve been in the Peruvian Paso world for twenty years. I thought folks would love to showcase their horses on my Amazon Day. We’re modern people, we horse lovers. We have videos, downloads, lots of cool things.

I sent around a preliminary e-mail. I am attaching the entire text of my initial email to the secretary of a local Peruvian horse club. I sent similar messages to many other people. A friend, Deborah McCormick PhD, the author of two bestselling books on horses and spirituality and a psychotherapist who leads life-changing retreats involving horses and spirit, called me, wanting to participate. I sent her the “what I need from you” portion of the email below and haven’t heard from her since.

I didn’t know what my unnecessary detail and fussiness was doing. It wasn’t until my husband called an old friend back that we discovered what my OC (obsessive compulsive without the disorder part) had done. Tammy Rimes and William Holzhauer bought my horse, Vistoso. Vistoso is the horse I rode in the famous horse show that resulted in my breakthrough about  WHAT DOES WINNING REALLY MEAN? on my other blog. That horse and horse show are behind this blog.

Tammy and William have created an incredible vineyard and Peruvian Paso ranch near San Diego, Hacienda de las Rosas. Wine and horses? What could be cooler? Tammy wanted to participate in my Amazon day. And then I sent her the e-mail. Silence.

Barry called her and straightened it out. She and William offered a complimentary wine tasting at their San Diego winery or a free bottle of wine, depending on how far the winner was from San Diego. “Your directions blasted her out of the water,” said Barry. Oops.

Sandy Nathan, still the award wining author of Numenon.

IF YOU’RE SMART, KEEP IT SIMPLE.

With that, I’ll close. You can peruse the email below at your peril. I am going to kick back and wait for my books to rise in the Amazon rankings all on their own. I can feel them bubbling up right now.

“Good writing should float to the top because it’s good writing. I’m sure yours will do that,” as Jamis MacNiven said. He also said, “You adventures in fiction are compelling. I will check out chapter and verse.”

Here’s my knock ‘em dead email: [Italics added by me after the fact.]

Dear Debbie, [I wrote to our local Peruvian Paso horse club secretary]

I’m doing an Amazon Bestseller Day on December 9th. That’s one of those things where an author puts together a packet of prizes. If someone buys their book on Amazon on that day, they use the receipt number to key into a special page which lets them download the goodies. I’m hoping to break into the bestseller region with my book, Stepping Off the Edge. It has a Christmas element, which is why I’m doing it now.

The Los Amigos membership can get involved with this in two ways: First, buy the book from Amazon on December 9th. It’s a great Christmas or holiday gift and contains lots about Peruvian Pasos. Hopefully, the newsletter will be out in time to let people know about it. Those who buy on December 9th will win a ton of free prizes.

Here’s a page I put up with some of the prizes that have been offered down so far. I have more to list:
Link to the gifts.

The other way Los Amigos members could get involved is by being my sponsors. All the people giving prizes are sponsors. You can see from the page above, I’ve organized the prizes in terms of prizes for writer/authors, readers right now. I’ll add in the Peruvian community and horse people.

Since Stepping is loaded with horse stories and two or three of its illustrations are Pasos. I am hoping to have a section of prizes about horses––specifically Peruvian Paso horses. Deborah McCormick of 3 Eagles is interested in participating, and we have to call back a bunch of other people this week, including Southern California ranches.

The prizes can be anything downloadable, or something that can be given away by lottery at the end, like a book.

I’ve got about 100,000 people who are going to receive my Amazon Party invitation at this point. I hope the final number of invitations that go out will be many more than that.

Everyone listed on that invitation will have all those people look at their product or ranch. It’s perfect, free publicity.

To be included in my “Party”, a ranch needs something downloadable to be the prize. IT DOESN’T HAVE TO BE NEW! There’s the beauty of it. Many of the people receiving the invitations are new to Pasos. Many of the people on the prize page are using chapters and articles that they’ve already got on their websites as prizes.

So if you’ve got a video, slide show, promotional materials, articles you’ve written for magazines, anything that can be downloaded, you can offer it as a prize. I would not offer a a sales list or video as a prize. Too commercial to start out with. People can ask you about horses once they’ve contacted you.

People can also offer books or discounts on services or individual items that will be raffled off at the end of the day. See my prize page for examples.

If individual ranches want to participate, what I need is a description of the prize and an image: A logo or a photo that captures your ranch so I can write up the ranch and prize like the one on the Prize page above.

Participants also need to have a spot or page on your website where book buyers can download your prize. (This is new info to me.) That way, you capture all the new emails and your email list isn’t shared with anyone else’s. I’ll have more details on that. Apparently it’s easy to do if you have a website and web master/mistress or technically skilled kids like I do. For those who can’t manage this, I’ll be providing a page set up by my web-mistress daughter.

Anyway, that’s the bit of news here. If ranches want to be offer prizes––and I hope they do, I want to blow readers’ minds with the beauty of our horses––I need to get their info and commitment by December 3rd. [That was 6 days after I sent the email.] ASAP is best for me, due to needed to write things up.

December 5th is the “drop dead” date by which the whole thing has to be together and sent to the company setting up the software and invitations.

If you could send an email around with that info right away, ranches and owners could respond to me. We’ll arrange things. If that can’t be done that can’t be done, maybe we could tell everyone about the Party Day on the 9th?

All the best,

Sandy Nathan

[Would you believe that I coached negotiations at the Stanford Graduate School of Business every spring quarter for 18 years? This is not good negotiation. The letter is way too long, and too complicated. And the What I need? These are horse people, not computer people. They may have web sites, but it's unlikely they do them themselves. Call your web master? Sure. How much will that cost? And you want it in 6 days?]

Sandy Nathan, award-winning author of Numenon

I paid for my Amazon Bestseller Launch Day with ReaderViews on November 3, 2008. My Day was December 9th, a month and 6 days later. I was still on crutches after surgery as I leapt into the world of internet marketing.

“Drive traffic to your web site!”

“Drive customers to buy!”

“If you buy my book on February 31st, you will win $3,974,957 worth of prizes. In addition, we will reduce the national debt a trillion bucks!”

Hurrah! Hurrah! Step right up!

The nomenclature and culture of on line marketing grosses me out. It’s been a problem. Before jumping into the fray with this Amazon Bestseller Day, I’d walk around the ranch shaking my head and groaning. Every time I passed our septic tank, my anguish intensified.

I regarded marketing my book as equivalent to taking a dip in the tank.

Barry Nathan drives them dogies!

Where I live, you drive cattle. If you have spent much time riding along staring at the hind ends of cows, you will know “driving” is not a term to apply to your friends or customers.

But many people do. I Googled “drive traffic to website” and got 36,800,000 sites offering to teach me how to do just that.

Having committed to (and paid for) my Amazon Bestseller Day, I contemplated what I wanted for my day. Did I want Stepping Off the Edge: Learning & Living Spiritual Practice to be an Amazon bestseller? Sure, along the lines of books by Liz Gilbert and Stephenie Meyer. A mega bestseller.

Did I think that a book about spiritual practice cruising at the 2,000,000th level would bust into the top ranks? [Marketing tip: Never use the words "spiritual practice" in your book's title or subtitle. People immediately think of Sunday school.] [Caveat to marketing tip: You can use "spiritual practice" if you are His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Thich Nhat Hanh, or St. Teresa of Calcutta.}

I didn't think we'd bust into the bestseller ranks, but I secretly hoped to attain position 738 for twenty minutes or so. That would be lovely.

And I had my own ideas about how I wanted the day to go. I wanted the day to be dignified and beautiful. I wanted my invitations to move people and offer them something of lasting value. I wanted the campaign to take off on its own: I wanted my best friends and acquaintances to jump on board and send my invitations to their friends, and those people to forward it on to the ends of the earth.

I wanted the prizes to be things that people actually would want. I wanted to rise above the sleazy impressions I get from the multitude of Amazon Bestseller Day pitches that hit my inbox. Pitches from strangers about books I'd never buy. My Amazon Day would be meaningful in addition to financially successful.

MARKETING TIP: FORGET YOUR OWN IDEAS.

My first idea was involve those close to me. I thought, "OK. I've got tons of friends who write. Why not give them the chance to show their skills before a wide audience? How about first chapter offerings––or short stories, poems, whatever––as prizes?"

I emailed a number of people, including a writing group I'd attended years ago, and gave them the wondrous chance to participate in my sales event. I also emailed all the people who'd participated in the creation of my two books, some top professionals in a number of fields.

To my great consternation, some people I knew and was close to, and others I thought would jump to be part of my marketing opportunity, didn't reply. I emailed them again, and again, and finally  gave up, broken-hearted.

A lot of people DID respond positively and promised TRULY AMAZING GIFTS.

MARKETING/NEGOTIATION TIP:  EMAIL IS A LOUSY WAY OF NEGOTIATING FOR WHAT YOU WANT––OR EVEN COMMUNICATING THAT YOU WANT IT. IF YOU REALLY WANT SOMETHING, CALL THE PERSON WHO'S GOT IT ON THE TELEPHONE.

I REPEAT: PICK UP THE PHONE AND TALK TO YOUR FRIENDS, ASSOCIATES, MENTORS, OR PERFECT STRANGERS AND TELL THEM WHAT YOU NEED AND HOW TO GET IT TO YOU. EVEN BETTER: GO TO THEM AND MAKE YOUR REQUEST IN PERSON.

AS HUMAN BEINGS, WE ARE MOST EFFECTIVE WHEN OUR BODIES ARE PRESENT, COMMUNICATING FACE TO FACE.

It's much less work to fire off a message to someone and assume your job is done than it is to follow through and make sure the communication was received and understood.

Some really important people are attuned to email communication––or their staffs are. You'll get a response. Others get so much email that they're swamped and miss your message, even though they would gladly help you if they'd gotten it.

Make your pitch on the phone or in person, except make it a request between friends and colleagues instead of a pitch (which sounds like it might come out of a tree: as in sap).

Barry Heading 'em Up!

Have you gotten how rough this process is? It involves CONFRONTING, AND CONFRONTING, AND CONFRONTING. REACHING OUT EFFECTIVELY, DAY AFTER DAY. Getting committed results from people who may not care about your plans at all.

My experience after sixty-some years of observing myself is that I would do anything rather than what’s most effective and what will make me the person I came here to be. (Which other currently popular writers call “Having the Life of your Dreams.”) I do what I should anyway, but not without massive resistance. (That process is the heart of spiritual practice. Doing what you should anyway.)

Other people have noticed how hard it is to follow the good road. Alan Watts, the Zen philosopher, wrote The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are. This book has a 1989 copyright. It’s the #1 seller of the 698 items featured under “Alan Watts,” and sells at the 28,000th level on Amazon, a level that many (including this writer) seek to achieve with new books.

Why does it sell so well? Because what Watts says REALLY HELPS. Its TRUE in the highest sense of the word.

A one sentence synopsis of this book is: Human beings will do ANYTHING rather than look at the truth of who they are and bust out of doing the same thing and expecting a different result. (Some of Alan Watts’ other titles would be far more useful to readers than currently popular self help books. Try The Wisdom of Uncertainty, Become Who You Are, and This Is It.)

I found the Amazon Bestseller Day a massive overload of my weakest links. I’m essentially a hermit with occasional social outbursts. I like to contemplate, write, and think. I like to meditate. I like silence and horses and serenity. I like my computer. I like to draw the images in my head. I don’t like to reach out. I’m not a joiner, networker, or even particularly friendly. I’m a writer.

I was lucky when my OC kicked in.

Don’t know what OC is? It’s the first two thirds of OCD. That stands for obsessive compulsive disorder, portrayed so beautifully by Jack Nicholson in As Good as It Gets.

Seven Habits of Highly Effective People is a very good book, I understand. Habits are definitely part of personal success, but the value of psychopathology is grossly underrated.

“With a little bit of OCD and a little bit of mania, people can go very far,” said a friend who is a psychiatrist. Just a touch of each, not too much.

OC is the obsessive compulsive part without the D, the disorder. People with advanced academic degrees and histories of success tend to have OC. We kick in and kick butt when needed.

Boy, did I need it. We’ll discuss how much next time.

Barry & La Beba moseying along. Don't expect to do much of this if you're planning an Amazon day.

Sandy Nathan, Award winning author of Numenon & Stepping off the Edge

So long for now. I’m sixty three in the photo to the left, 46 up above. Doing this series, I keep thinking about the Beatles’ great song. “Will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I’m sixty-four.”

I hope so.

Sandy

Receive a free e-book when you sign up for my  Email Newsletter

For Email Marketing you can trust

Sandy Nathan, award winning author of Numenon

Amazon Bestseller Days have been around for years. They promise to make your book a bestseller, if only for a day. You “drive” buyers to purchase your book on a specific day by offering them gifts (bribes), thus fooling Amazon’s computers into indicating your book is a bestseller. (Which it is, for a while.)

If you’ve written a book, you’ve  undoubtedly heard success stories stemming from Amazon Party Days. Thousands of books sold. Lotsa, lotsa money made. Literary agents chasing authors down the street; major publishers coming out of the woodwork waving contracts. The tooth fairy setting up permanent residence in the family home.

We’d heard the stories, too. Here’s the Your Shelf Life report on our experience.

In the summer of 2008, my husband and I listened to a teleseminar in which Steve Harrison interviewed Randy Gilbert and Peggy McColl about their Amazon Bestseller Mentoring program. They cited many examples of authors taking unknown books to bestsellerdom in 38 days. Not only did they cite these stories, the authors got on line and, bubbling enthusiasm at almost unbearable levels, lauded Randy and Peggy’s program.

Randy and team were such good sales people, that Barry (my husband) and I were ready to sign up until they got to the bottom line: They wanted around $2,300 to work their magic. But their program guaranteed that it would take your book to the top; you got your money back if it didn’t work.

Even pre-financial market crash, $2,300 was a lot of money.

Our decision was made for us by my right ankle. Its arthritis had been percolating since a skiing accident in the 1960s. During the summer of 2008, the arthritis went bone-on-bone. This feels worse than it sounds. I was scheduled for to have the joint fused on September 15th.

My doctor gave me a stern warning: “Take your recovery very seriously. Your ability to walk the rest of your life depends upon how well you heal.”  No overdoing it, no compulsive working, I was to rest and relax with my foot up.

We scrapped the idea of Randy’s bestseller day and all the other publicity activities we had scheduled for my book, Numenon: A Tale of Mysticism & Money.

The surgery went fine––I felt better immediately afterward than I had before. Even though I was in a wheelchair, I felt pretty spunky.

One thing disturbed my perfect recovery: I could lie in bed and get on-line with my handy laptop. Sales of my two award-winning books plummeted to the 2,000,000th level on Amazon.

No matter that I had a compelling reason to scrap book promotion, seeing my darlings in Amazon’s freezing sub-basement killed me.

At some point in my on-line roving, I discovered ReaderViews, which offers a great number of services for authors. And one of them was an Amazon Launch Day! And they did if for only $275!

Anyone can do the math: $275 was way less than $2,300.

I contacted Irene Watson of Reader Views and we talked about when to do my party day. My first book, Stepping Off the Edge: Learning & Living Spiritual Practice, has a Christmas tie-in that had never been recognized. I wanted to let people know about about the profound experience I had when I finished the book’s manuscript days before Christmas. That meant we had to do the party in early December.

Irene had a couple of December dates left. I grabbed one and went to work.

IF YOU ARE PLANNING AN AMAZON BESTSELLER DAY, YOU HAD BETTER HAVE A MORE COHERENT AND WELL THOUGHT OUT GAME PLAN THAN MINE OR YOU WILL LAND ON YOUR FANNY.

This is a how-to blog illustrated by my personal journey. If you are planning an Amazon Bestseller Day, do this right now:

• Buy Steve Weber’s Plug Your Book: Online Book Marketing for Authors. Immediately go to page 31, which begins the chapter Amazon Bestseller Campaigns. Read this chapter. Okay. Read it again. This is the best book I have seen on Internet book selling. Weber presents hard data on the results of Amazon Bestseller days. A few things he points out: You’ll have to sell 450 books (at $5 profit each) to pay for Randy Gilbert’s program. What’s the probability of doing that? Weber presents data on books plugged with online word of mouth vs. an Amazon bestseller campaign. Conclusion: Books getting their reputation by online word of mouth have steady, long term sales, often over years. Books plugged by bestseller campaigns show erratic sales which can deteriorate after gimmicky sales tactics.
• Buy Brent Sampson’s Sell Your Book on Amazon. I had books for sale on Amazon for years before reading this book. Wasted years. I didn’t do so many things that I should have. Amazon offers you many ways of selling your book and many tricks about how to use its resources that aren’t explained well. Brent explains them in his book. If you’re planning on doing anything on Amazon, you should read this book before you start.
• Buy Brent Sampson’s e-book “10 Steps to an Amazon Bestseller.” This e-book tells you what to go to successfully carry off your Amazon Day. You’ll need this kind of clear, detailed guidance.
• Go to Todd A Fonseca’s blog, Tag My Book on Amazon. Read the whole thing. Sign up and begin tagging. You may discover your book’s Amazon sales ranking increasing amazingly––with no increase in sales. You may not need the Amazon bestseller day.

Okay. That’s it for now. Study the resources above and I’ll tell you more of my story the next time I write. Pulling off an Amazon day is a huge undertaking––be prepared.

Sandy Nathan

All the best,

Sandy Nathan

I’m sixty three in the picture to the left. I was 46 in the picture at the top. Still no nips, tucks, injections or fancy lenses. Success in life is a matter of longevity.  Shelf life. That’s what I’m after.

I’m putting up these picture not to brag about what I look like–-believe me, I never thought I’d look like I do. It’s easy to look good at 25. Ditto 35, 45, and 55. Over 60, you find out what you’re made of.

And that’s the point. The end’s the same for all of us. Shoot for goals that last longer than the flash of a “diamond” in a Cracker Jacks box.

Winning matters. What you win matters more.

SANDY NATHAN Award Winning Author of Stepping Off the Edge & Numenon
We’re talking about shelf life. I was 46 years old when the photo above was taken. That’s really me: No nips and tucks, injections, or fancy lenses. That was then. Time is cruel.

A while ago, something inside was goading me. I felt as though I’d swallowed a granite egg. Large and rough surfaced, it hiccuped every now and then. I was incubating something that threatened to erupt.

I went about my business, responding to my editor’s comments on a manuscript, planning marketing activities, writing new stuff. Worrying about sales rankings and how to be seen among the bazillion writers out there.

My internal load could have stayed with me forever, but, by purest coincidence, an old friend contacted me. She’d been through horrendous life trials, things that you hear about and think, Boy, am I glad that happened to you and not me.

She described her adventures and said, “I kept thinking about that horse show you wrote about where you worked really hard preparing, and you kept losing and losing …”

That could be almost any of them, I thought.

“And then finally, at the end––you won the prize for the best barn in the show!”

Oh, yeah. That one.

I wrote about that horse show on my Rancho Vilasa web site and forgot about it. I went back to that article and read it again. Hmm. Interesting.

It’s about what winning really means. What do we win when we win? I rewrote the article, filling it with details and tons of pictures of horses and people in actual horse show situations. (I live and write on a horse ranch.) I put it on my other blog in its expanded glory. WHAT DOES WINNING REALLY MEAN? Jump on over there and read it. It’s longer than a blog article, more like a book chapter, which it may end up being.

What struck me about this episode was that I wrote the original article ten years ago. My words stayed with my friend for ten years, and came to her when she needed help.

About the time my friend contacted me, I’d just been rejected by another 22 year old literary agent, my national award winning books were churning up the Amazon charts at about the two millionth level, and ten new books about how to sell books had arrived on my doorstep. (Who really makes money with books? Those who tell writers how to succeed.) Not only that, the stock market continued to plunge, banks kept on failing, and we slid into something that was as close to the Great Depression as anything I’ve lived through.

After living the unending round of work that is the life of the small press owner for a few years, I was about to begin searching for an agent in earnest. The prospect made me nauseous. (Sorry, agents. Don’t take it personally.)

I knew traditional publishing wasn’t the solution, either. For one thing, the majors are hit so hard by the recession that I doubt they’ll be signing anybody new. If they do, it will be for peanuts. The agents who have rejected me are likely to be unemployed soon. And even if I did run the gauntlet and manage to get a “real publisher” take one of my books, when its mangled ghost came out in three or four years, in all probability its shelf life would be six months.

That’s reality. If your traditionally published book doesn’t sell like crazy in a maximum of six months, your little darling will be pulped or remaindered. Or, you could get lucky: Google might copy and sell it when its “out of print.” People will read it, but you’ll get nothing from it financially. (This blog is about reality, not positive thinking.)

My friend’s reaction to my old article about winning brought me back to my self. Self. Soul. The internal unease I’d been feeling fled.

Why do I write? To express myself and be of use to other people. What do I want? A “real” book that lasts ten seconds in the market and means nothing, or more?

I  realized what I was after: Shelf life. I realized that some books have a longer shelf life than others.

Independent People by Halldor Laxness

Independent People, an epic saga of independence at any cost, won Icelandic author Halldor Laxness the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1955. That’s 53 years of shelf life. Not bad. This is may all time favorite book.

Other books have pretty good shelf life. Another favorite of mine:

D.H. Lawrence’s John Thomas and Lady Jane.
The second manuscript version of Lawrence’s masterpiece, Lady Chatterley’s Lover,
this book is hard to find, but worth the search. One of my favorite books. Written in 1928, that’s 80 years and counting. It’s still a great read.

Some books have extreme shelf life:

A classic of Hinduism, the Bhagavad Gita is thought to date from between 500 and 200 years BC. Interior Castle, St. Teresa of Avila’s masterful description of the development of the soul was written in 1577. Rumi lived from 1207 to 1273. His ecstatic poetry continues to show us the face of the divine. The Pratyabhijnahrdayam: The Secret of Self-Realization is a foundation text of Kashmir Shaivism. Who knows how old it is? We must add the great books of all the religious traditions to this group: Extreme, Extreme shelf life.
Why? What they say is timeless and valuable to all humanity.

* * *

Am I suggesting that you use one of the books above as your sales model?

No. I’m suggesting that you reach into yourself and produce your story, your deepest offering. I’m suggesting that you and I aim for eternal goals instead of writing something that will earn you a place on the Rite Aid shelves for twenty seconds, if that. You can write in any genre and achieve what I’m suggesting. Books are great because they touch the timeless in us.

I ran these ideas past a friend of mine the other day. She looked at me and said, “You haven’t sold out yet, have you?”

No. I haven’t. I want my writing to have something of value that will help people ten, twenty, thirty years from now. That means aspiring to a higher goal than “I gotta get published.” That means shooting at a different target than those put out by the marketers jamming my inbox with notices of more teleseminars, better ways to sell books, or how to be ten or a hundred times more famous next year.

Make no mistake, that doesn’t mean I’m about wimpy writing or not making money. I like to win more than most––some of those ribbons on the saddle up above are mine. I’m intensely competitive, ranging toward ferocious. But I want to do it in a way that preserves my person and integrity.

If you’re interested in that for yourself, please come back. Keep reading. Say hello in my Comments box. Tell me what you want from your writing life. Tell me your problems and what hangs you up. What shortens your shelf life?

I’m planning all sorts of things here––how to exercises, contests, guest speakers on every topic. I’m an old dog with lots of tricks, not to mention 2 very useful master’s degrees and a few careers. I’m happy. That might be my greatest achievement.

Next time I write, I’ll tell you about my Amazon Bestseller Party. I’ll spill all: How to do it, what happened, what I say now. Was it worth it? You’ll see next time …

Happy trails,

Sandy Nathan in 2008