After

After NaNoWriMo… What?

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After

I was pointedly asked this question today and I felt it apt to speak about it in a blog post so that more people could read my thoughts.

I released my first NaNoWriMo winning novel, Maya’s New Husband, on Amazon Kindle in January 2015. Since then the journey has been fabulous. I feel I do have something of value to add to the question asked to me.

First and foremost, NaNoWriMo is more of a motivational community, or an organization if you might say that. It is a community of supercharged writers (well, not all of them, but most of them are) and they come together to write a novel of their own in the month of November.

The NaNoWriMo challenge is to write 50,000 words in the month of November. If you manage to do that, then you are through. You get the certificate and you can flaunt it to all and sundry.

But, are you ready to release your book yet? No! Definitely not! That’s where it gets a big hazy.

There are people who have not yet published their NaNoWriMo winning drafts that they had written half a decade ago. There could be a host of reasons for that, but if you wish to be a published writer and want to use NaNoWriMo to get that all-important start, then these are the things that you should take care of.

Things to Do after Your NaNoWriMo Month

  1. First and foremost, remember that NaNoWriMo does not write your book. You write it. NaNoWriMo is not responsible for completing your book, much less getting a good book out of you. All those are your responsibilities. Treat NaNoWriMo only as a tool, an aid, to help you get that manuscript out of your head and on paper. If you win it, it plays no more role than that of a doctor helping a woman give birth to her child. That’s it. Nurturing the child is not the doctor’s responsibility.
  2. The second thing is that your novel may not be finished at 50,000 words. So you might need to go beyond the NaNoWriMo month and complete your first draft.
  3. If you win your NaNoWriMo certificate, then along with it, you will get a host of sponsored writing aids at low cost, mostly software, which could help you complete and organize your manuscript. You could make use of that. (I personally didn’t).
  4. When your draft is complete, go back and check it once again. Read it from the start. Weed out all typos and grammatical issues. Tighten up your story. In effect, self-edit your book.
  5. Once that is done, send it to someone you trust who could read it for you and give feedback on it. Do not be stingy about sharing your manuscript and definitely do not be paranoid about someone stealing it. We always value our stories a zillion times more than anyone else does it. These are your beta readers. Once their feedback comes in, use their inputs to make your story better. You need not accept all suggestions, and you definitely shouldn’t, but this gives you an idea about what’s working and what’s not in your story.
  6. Now, send the story to a professional editor. Remember, this is a vital step. You might have been a grammar teacher for thirty years, but editing is not all about grammar and language. It is about plot inconsistencies. It is about story development. It is about flow and readability. There are so many issues. A professional editor, especially who reads your genre, will help you improve your story manifold. Editors have a sort of magic eye. They see the mistakes that others cannot.
  7. If you are self-publishing, hire a professional cover designer. Heard that adage – Do not judge a book by its cover? Well, bury it. All readers, bar none, judge books by new authors by their covers. It is best if you can give a detailed concept to the artist so that they can make it better with their own inputs. Personally, I sit with my cover artist and brainstorm ideas. All authors must do that.
  8. I suppose you have locked in the title by now. If not, then this is perhaps your chance to come in with a great one. Your title should have some zing to it, some factor that makes anyone in the street think about it twice. I’ve been told my first book’s title has that appeal. Maya’s New Husband. Why new? What happened to the old one? That’s the hook right there. In fact, tell the title to a few friends and gauge their reaction, not their words. Are they intrigued? Or are they just putting you on? Be flexible about changing the title if the need arises.
  9. Now, when you get the first three chapters edited by your editor, you can start sending in the query forms to the literary agents. This is if you are looking for traditional publishing. You will also need a synopsis at this time. Make sure you have a wonderful one written. Look at the synopses of other books, great ones, to see how those authors have done it. You will usually get a list of literary agents on the Internet.
  10. You can even send query letters to traditional publishers directly. However, this is not a method that really works. Very few traditional publishers will respond to you without an agent. And if they do, check out their deals. A traditional publisher who is really convinced in your work will ask for the rest of the manuscript, and if that works out too, will offer you an advance on your royalty.
  11. A note here — if anyone asks you money to publish your book, run away from them as much as you can. Or rather push them away from you as much as you can. There are several sharks swimming in the wide ocean of our literary world. Be particularly wary of any vanity publishers who will ask you money to print and “distribute” your books. Print, they will do, distribute, fat chance. You could probably do a better job getting your book printed at a local printer’s outlet and selling it on the Internet via an online sellers’ platform.
  12. If you are self-publishing, great! You have all the control. And when I say self-publishing, I mean SELF-publishing. Not going to the vanity publishers. When you self-publish, you get the book out yourself. You can do that for both eBooks and paperbacks. For eBooks, you could use a service like Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing platform, which has the widest reach by far. For paperback, you could go for any Print On Demand online publisher. And, one more thing — there is a growing demand for mobile publishing nowadays. Books that can be downloaded on apps on smartphones — that’s really growing. Check out these platforms too.

By the time you are done with all this, probably it’s the time for the next year’s NaNoWriMo, and onward for your next publication!

I hope that answers most of the doubts of the person who asked me the question, and of others too. If there are any specific queries, do feel free to contact me on the Comments section here, or on the following:-

Facebook Author Page
Twitter

NaNoWriMo-2014-Winner-Certificate

How I Turned My Debut Novel into an Amazon Bestseller (Part 2 of 3) – NaNoWriMo and Online Book Launch

by with 4 Comments Author ProfileHow I Turned By Debut Novel into an Amazon Bestseller (Part 2 of 3) - NaNoWriMo and Online Book Launch

In my last post, I spoke of how I prepared the ground for the release of my debut novel, Maya’s New Husband. I carry that post forward here, speaking about how I actually wrote the book and conducted the launch events.

  1. I joined NaNoWriMo.org somewhere in August 2014. For people who do not know what NaNoWriMo is, this is a worldwide network of writers who come together especially during the November months each year to write their novels. Founded by Chris Baty, the intention here is to motivate people to write 50,000 words of their manuscript, after which they get a winner’s certificate. So, I became a part of this at the right moment – I say right moment because I was able to do my research on it, prepare the book’s outline, and then I could start writing on November 1 at midnight along with tens of thousands of other writers all over the world.

  2. I was also a part of several Facebook groups about NaNoWriMo, along with the wonderful NaNoWriMo Facebook group and the Indian chapter, Wrimo India, spearheaded by ML Sonia Rao. Being a part of these groups helped me in many ways. First of all, I had immersed myself into an environment where everyone around me was writing. Everyone was sharing excerpts, discussing characters, helping people stuck with their plots, and giving dozens of tips each day that helped me understand what I was supposed to do. And I did.

  3. I completed my 50,000 words on 20 November itself, and then took the remaining days to finish the novel (85000 words). The whole month of December, I edited, proofread, and showed the book to some people I trust for their feedback. I had already been sharing excerpts on my FB groups. And the reports were encouraging to say the least. I was revved up to go ahead and self-publish.NaNoWriMo-2014-Winner-Certificate

  4. I decided against traditional publishing for my first book because of several reasons. I did not want to give away all the rights, for starters. But the most important reason was that I did not want to wait that long to know if I can make it as an author. Yes, I am being frank here. Varun Prabhu, a co-author, helped me immensely in my research. And I was finally set to release the book on Amazon.com (through Kindle Direct Publishing) and make paperbacks available in India through Pothi.

  5. Now I had to take an important call. How would I market my book? I already had a reader-base owing to the excerpts I shared on FB and the short stories I put up on my website as I mentioned in my earlier post. I decided to have an online launch event on Facebook itself, since most of my reader-base was online. I created an FB event, and invited people to attend. But here I make an important note – I never did and never will invite anyone I don’t know, even if they are in my Friends list. I only invited people whom I had interacted with about the book. I guess that’s the reason why I received a positive response. Pro tip: Blind tagging and requests don’t help; they are only detrimental.

  6. I now needed to take my online launch event to a higher scale. So I did something unique, something for which people still continue to invite me to discuss and speak at workshops and seminars. I reached out to some of the popular names in the Indian self-publishing world. My offer was simple – I will promote your books my book’s online launch event (which had a good number of people by now) and you will put in a line for my book. And, let me tell you, each and every author accepted my proposal. Some of them told me later that they accepted it not because of the publicity but because they had read my excerpts and trusted my work, and because my request was worded with great politeness and decency. Another pro tip: Being decent always helps. Even if you are making a request, give people something in return. We are all here with a purpose, and it is unfair to expect anyone to help you if you don’t offer anything in return.Maya Event Announcement

  7. The online launch event, which was held on 3 Jan 2015 was a huge hit! Every author brought some of their readers (I had 12+ authors at the event, including India’s leading self-published author Rasana Atreya) and it was conducted brilliantly by an online media team named Spectral Hues. The presence of Spectral Hues got me a few press releases, a few interviews, and the ball started rolling.

  8. On the first day, I kept my book free to download (through Smashwords as Amazon does not allow that). I got more than 200 downloads on that day, and then the true test began.

  9. The reviews started coming in from the next day itself and it said, in no unclear terms, how they had finished the book in just 5 hours because it was unputdownable! Then more of them followed in the same vein. And I was made. Maya Ebook Praise

  10. The book purchases started from the second day. I did an important thing – make banners of the reviews and share them on online media. This encouraged more people to try out Maya’s New Husband, and that only meant more love for the book. Maya’s New Husband ranked as Hot New Release on the second day of its release on Amazon, and subsequently went on to rule at #1 on Amazon.in (horror), which it continues to do this day though not all the time.

In the meantime, there were several other things I did – like creating a teaser video for the book, creating promo banners, sending the book out for reviews, etc. I am going to speak about this in the next post.

Stay tuned.

How I Turned My Debut Novel into an Amazon Bestseller (Part 1 of 3) – The Groundwork

by How I Turned My Debut Novel into an Amazon Bestseller (Part 1 of 3) - The Groundwork

I released the first eBook version of my book Maya’s New Husband as a self-published author on 3 Jan 2015. It immediately hit the Amazon Hot New Releases charts at #1 the first day itself and then the Amazon India Bestseller list, peaking at #1 several times. In fact, even now, eighteen months after its release, the book continues to be at the top of the Amazon India charts, almost always in the top 10 positions. Even on Goodreads, it has a solid rating of 4 out of 5 stars, and as many as 65 reviews and 130 ratings.

People often ask me what I did to bring my book to this kind of acclaim. Hence I thought I would rather blog about it and keep it here for posterity. So, here goes.

In this first part of this three-part series, I talk about the things I did before actually beginning to write even the first word of my novel. Yes, if you plan to be a recognized author, the groundwork is extremely important.

(Disclaimer: The following strategies worked for me. They may not work for you, or they may. And they do entail a fair amount of work. If you are expecting a magic trick, this is your cue to bail out of this page.)

  1. I created a blog six months before I wrote my first book. You definitely need a website or a blog if you are going public. Once your name is out there, people will want to check you out. That is what the website/blog helps you achieve.

  2. Once the blog was made, I started putting up short stories on it every Friday. I went all out to make these short stories as interesting as possible, working on them over and over again, each word and phrase, till I thought they were ready to go. One thing I would like to say here – at every step of my public writing journey, I have always been conscious of being read by a large number of people, and even judged. I make no mistake about that. I might be bordering on paranoia to be thinking of that at all times, but that paranoia helps me create good stuff.

  3. I made a Facebook author page. I kept, and still keep, this page clean and only about my writing work. I promoted the page on my timeline.

  4. I joined several author groups on Facebook. There are tons of them that are really great. I joined not just national but also international groups, because that’s where the real fun lies. I participated in them with meaningful discussions and contributed with my knowledge of the language and the craft. I helped other aspiring authors with my feedback. It helped me make some good friends.

  5. I made a Twitter account, a Pinterest account, an Indiblogger account, a LinkedIn profile, everything. I may not be active in all of these places, but I do have all those accounts and I try to keep them updated.

  6. I started sharing my free stories on these accounts. But not just like that. I designed cover pages for all my stories. Yes, the visual representation is very important. I cannot stress that enough. A lot of people have told me that they have clicked on my page just because the cover page looked appealing. Knowing that, I design cover pages for even a 1000-word short story.

  7. I shared free stories on Wattpad and Figment. I participated in their swap-stories-for-review exchanges. I got great reviews everywhere. I made sure I posted one story every Friday. A time soon arrived when people started waiting for my stories each Friday. A reader actually told me he expected to see a new story from me each Friday. It made me feel high!

  8. I started talking with people who had already gotten published. I found out about their process, and I did research on publishing houses. I saw how traditional publishing compared with self-publishing. I ruled out vanity publishing entirely because that is only another way of insulting your own work before others do it.

  9. I then began outlining my first novel. This happened around August 2014. I spent a lot of time thinking over it, and I spoke with my family about it. Their encouragement was a huge motivating factor.

  10. Around sometime there, I joined a phenomenon that changed my life. It was www.NaNoWriMo.org. I had joined its unofficial Facebook group earlier and I was also a member of its India page, Wrimo India. And then, when the month of NaNoWriMo 2014 started, my journey as a writer truly began.

In the next part of this series, I shall be talking about how NaNoWriMo helped me emerge as a writer, and how I actually went through the writing process. I shall also be talking about the groundwork I did to launch my book.

Stay tuned.