Jeff Haws

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Jeff Haws

Setting Sales Goals for Your First Novel

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Goals

As I get closer to sending my first novel, “Killing the Immortals,” sailing out into the world, I’m starting to think seriously about what I want to accomplish with it, what sorts of goals to set for myself. The Nobel Prize for Literature would be all right, I guess. There may be a step or two to get through before that, though. Admittedly, I don’t know a lot about the committee that decides those sorts of things, but my assumption is that they’ve got a high-ish bar.

So, we all may want to have incremental goals shy of a Nobel Prize that will give us something to shoot for in the meantime, until fame and fortune come to whisk us away. I think goals are important, but I also think they’re challenging to figure out when you’ve never published a novel before. You can look at all the “The average self-published book sells 250 (or whatever) copies” blog posts you want, but how does that relate to what you’re doing? So many factors are going to impact how many people buy your book and how wide a reception it gets, from its genres to its cover to the blurb you write to the following you’ve built up to how much work you put into marketing the book to whether or not your story/writing sucks. What does “average” even really mean when so many books are haphazardly thrown together with visions of hefty royalty checks, mahogany-decked libraries, and new elbow-patched jackets without considering the insane amount of work and luck it takes to become the next millionaire author? [Read more…] about Setting Sales Goals for Your First Novel

5 Reasons I Love Goodreads (and One I Don’t)

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Goodreads

For those of you who don’t know anything about Goodreads, think of it as the Facebook for book dorks. The site has millions of active members, dedicated to reading — and, many, writing as well. You can add your dorky friends, share what you’re reading — you can see my Goodreads feed and visit my shelf from the sidebar to the right — and see which books are popular among equally nerdy people as yourself. It’s all pretty great, if reading books is your thing. Or, at least, one of your things. And, as someone who falls into that group, here are 5 reasons I love Goodreads (as a reader), along with an extra reason that I don’t. [Read more…] about 5 Reasons I Love Goodreads (and One I Don’t)

Editing Your Novel in 4 Steps

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Editing

Editing your novel is a pain, if you do it right. It just is. If you want to take your novel that next step to being a great book, there’s no real option but to pour your blood, sweat and tears into the editing process. It’s unlikely you can get away with much less.

Case in point: me. It took me six weeks from typing the first word to typing the last word of the first draft of my first novel. I finished it at the end of January. That means the editing process has now taken me almost three months, and the end is not especially near. My ballpark estimate is that it’ll be published sometime in July, but that’s a guess. It could be a bit later or sooner.

That is to say, it’s been three months, and it could easily be three more. Or even a bit more than that. The editing process could take me 5-6 times as long as the writing process did … and that’s not even unusual or a particularly long time for editing. Some people tinker with the damn thing for years.

So, let’s say you’ve gotten your draft back from your editor. It’s covered in red ink or comments on Track Changes. Maybe you also have a document with a summary of the editor’s thoughts. The edits number in the hundreds. It can seem overwhelming. How do you tackle all of this work? Here are four steps you can take to break it into pieces, and use it as a road map to go from a good story to a great book: [Read more…] about Editing Your Novel in 4 Steps

Why Shouldn’t I Hire an Editor for My Novel?

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Perfect-hire-editor

To figure out why you should hire a professional editor for your novel, perhaps we should first look at why you shouldn’t do so. That because, well, it’s not at all cut and dried. Not everybody needs to put forth the effort, legwork and cold, hard cash to hire an editor for their novel. There are good reasons not to, and you might fit that profile. [Read more…] about Why Shouldn’t I Hire an Editor for My Novel?

Do Away with Pesky Villains

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Villains-Joker-Remove

Recently, I was told that you can tell a lot about an author by the villains they write into their stories. Maybe it does say something about you if your villains are always certain archetypes. It might say something about your past, or what your fears are, or the way your twisted little mind works.

When I heard that, though, what I thought about was, as much as I like the bad guy to win, I don’t really like “bad guys” all that much in my stories. That is to say, “bad guys” and “villains” tend to bore me a bit. I prefer a bit more complexity. At the very least, I’d like my antagonist to have some sort of logical basis for what he’s doing. I’d like him or her to be a sympathetic figure in at least some way. I think I crave moral ambiguity in my stories; I like for it to be totally defensible to root for the antagonist to win. [Read more…] about Do Away with Pesky Villains

Are Self-Published Books Any Good?

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Book

Recently, I was asked the question: “Who are some of your favorite self-published authors?” Technically speaking, some people will tell you Mark Twain and Stephen King both self published at least once, but I’m pretty sure those aren’t the answer the person was looking for with this question. They’re wanting to know who my favorite modern self-published authors are, people who few have heard of but are doing great work under the radar — like, ya know, I’d like to be doing quite soon. As a soon-to-be self-published author, you’d think I’d have a good answer for this. But it stumps me.

I’ve read 20 novels since August — I also started several others, but they didn’t hold my interest — and I honestly couldn’t tell you if any of them was self published. That’s the biggest reason I don’t have a good answer to the question. Who are my favorite self-published authors? I don’t really know who’s self published and who’s not. I look at the genre, title, cover, author and summary. If it sounds interesting, I might peek at some reviews. If it checks out, I’ll give it a shot. It never occurs to me to check for a publisher. The only one I know was self published, I only know that because I’m friends with the author. [Read more…] about Are Self-Published Books Any Good?