Getting found on Amazon: a rough guide for beginners

So, you’ve written your book (yay!), had it professionally edited, bought a fabulous cover and now you’re ready to upload it to Amazon. You open up Amazon, look up Romance and . . . wait – there are how many romance books?

Romance is one of the biggest, and biggest earning, categories on Amazon. Each day, hundreds of new titles go up. So, how on earth does a new author get noticed? By getting clever about using categories and keywords. 

One of the biggest mistakes inexperienced authors make is listing their book under ‘Fiction – Romance.’ Unless you’ve got a huge following and can guarantee selling five hundred books a day, choosing this will send your book into virtual oblivion. Your book won’t be seen by anyone who is not specifically looking for it.

Luckily, there are plenty of sub-categories to choose from. It’s worth spending some time sifting through all the possible sub-categories for your novel, because defining your book lessens the competition. You might rank #50781 in Romance, but if you’re in Romance – Paranormal – Angels, you might find yourself at number #198, meaning your chances of being found are much, much better. And, your book will show up in all those three headings, again improving your chances.

Some authors who write to market have cottoned on the few sub-categories that are not so heavily populated. They include this subject in their novels with the sole intention of becoming best sellers in that category. This can absolutely work, but the problem with this method is that sometimes the category is under-represented because no-one’s interested in it. There’s not much value being number 1 in IT Call Centre Office Romances if nobody ever clicks on it.

Tip: keep an eye on categories, as occasionally a new one gets added, and getting in early is obviously an advantage. 

Keywords are another essential tool for rocking those rankings. Amazon recognizes that many of our romance readers are fiercely attached to certain tropes, most of which are easily searchable. You can specify everything from Alpha Male and Arranged Marriage to Secret Baby and Spies. 

The key to keywords is keyword strings. (Sorry if I just blew your mind with that sentence).

Think about how you search for something on search engine. Most of us don’t simply type one or two words. We tend to put them in a string, like this: ‘beach holiday romance’ or ‘Christmas romance small town’.  So again, a little forethought and a little investigation will help. 

Lastly, don’t forget to choose your heat level. A word of warning—be very careful about getting this right. Some readers get very upset by unexpected physical intimacy and will one-star your book without a qualm. If you’re unsure where your book fits, take a look at my post on the subject.

If this all sounds a bit intimidating, try not to worry. With a bit of forethought and savvy, you’ll get your sales happening.

Four Grammar 'Rules' You Can Break

Most of the time, it pays to stick to the rules when you’re writing. You want your reader to get caught up in your story, not get distracted by odd usage or non-standard punctuation. Still, there are some ‘rules’ that can be broken, even should be broken, without annoying your readers.

1.     Never end a sentence with a preposition. This so-called rule caused me a lot of pain at university. Whenever I ran my essays through Word’s spelling and grammar check I’d get all these wriggly lines at the end of sentences. There are more reasons to end a sentence with a preposition than to not. First of all, loads of questions naturally end with prepositions.

“Who are you going with?”

“Where did you get that from?”

Now, I suppose I could write:

“With whom are you going?”

“From where did you get that?”

But unless my character is a very posh 85-year-old, I’ll probably stick with the first version.

Also, English is full of phrasal verbs (combination of a verb and another word) that end with prepositions. A few examples are, sit down, stand up, come in, fill out. There are hundreds! It’s perfectly natural to end some sentences with them.

2.     Don’t use semicolons in fiction. This one’s more of a punctuation thing, but it’s my list so I’m going to let it in. (Oooh, see how I ended my sentence with a preposition??). Anyway, there’s a persistent rumour that readers of popular fiction don’t ‘like’ semicolons. I’m baffled by this, as I don’t think most people have given even a passing thought to the use of semicolons in popular fiction. As long as they’re used sparingly and appropriately, I don’t know why you wouldn’t use them. 

3.     Never split an infinitive. Sometimes you just need to blatantly split an infinitive (did you see what I did there? No? Well, by putting ‘blatantly’ in between ‘to’ and the verb ‘split’, I split the infinitive). It’s not something you should do often, as it tends to lead to the over-use of adverbs, but it can be effective when done well. “To boldly go…” sounds so much better than “To go boldly…” ever would.

4.     Never start a sentence a sentence with a conjunction. But, I want to! Again, this one falls into the ‘use sparingly’ camp. Readers will find it annoying if you do it in every paragraph, so save it for when it will have the most impact. It can be particularly effective in dialogue. Just think, often when you’re presenting an argument you say something, stop, then start again with something like ‘And, by the way,’.

And that, my friends, is the end of my list. It’s time for me to turn my computer off. I’m going to quietly pour a glass of wine and sneak out into my garden. I hope you’ll enjoy breaking the rules; I know I do!

Punctuating Dialogue for Beginners

Punctuating dialogue is one of the more confusing parts of writing your first novel. It’s not something most of us learn at school, and it’s not something we pay a lot of attention to when we’re immersed in a good book.  But don’t worry, follow these tips and you’ll soon nail it.

1.     Learn the difference between dialogue tags and action beats

A dialogue tag is ‘she said’, or ‘he asked’. It’s something you can only do with your voice – so not smiling, grinning, frowning etc. 

Sometimes a dialogue tag is in the middle of a sentence, not at the end. Don’t let this confuse you—the period is still at the end of the complete sentence.

    “I have no idea,” she said, “why you don’t just take the money and run.”

Or, sometimes the tag might be at the beginning of the sentence.

    She heaved herself off the sofa and asked, “Why don’t you just take the money and run?”

Remember – the dialogue tag is part of the same sentence as the dialogue, meaning there can be only one period. 

An action beat is usually separated from the dialogue by a period and is always, well, an action. He barged through the door. He sat down on the step. He rocked the baby. See? 

    “Let’s sit in the garden and have a drink.” He opened the fridge and pulled out two cokes.

Having said that, (yep, always a catch), sometimes action beats can disguise themselves by hiding in the middle of a piece of dialogue. The action beat interrupts the sentence.

    “I think”—she turned to face him—“we could just forget all about it.” 

2.     Start a new line for each speaker but not for each piece of dialogue from the same character.

    “Oh, I don’t know about that.” Celia waved off the compliment and carried the tray back inside. A minute later she was back, propping the door open with her hip as she manouvred the drinks trolley through it. “If you thought that was good, just wait till you’ve tried one of my margaritas.”

We know it’s Celia still talking so we don’t need a new line. Sure, there’s a bit action happening in the middle, but she’s continuing her earlier train of thought. 

    “That’s a nice photo.” Julie gestured to the family portrait on the dresser. She looked around the room, taking in the expensive upholstery and glossy wood. James put his hand on her shoulder. “I like the piano.”

In this is example it looks like it’s probably James speaking, but you can’t be totally sure. It’s distracting for the reader and could pull them out of your scene as they spend a moment working it out. By putting it in a new line you make it clear that it’s him talking and you avoid the need to add a dialogue tag. Have a look below.

    “That’s a nice photo.” Julia gestured to the family portrait on the dresser. She looked around the room, taking in the expensive upholstery and glossy wood. 

    James put his hand on her shoulder. “I like the piano.”

It reads more fluidly and there’s no doubt about who’s talking. 

3.     If two characters are alone and having a conversation, don’t feel like you have to give every line a tag or beat. This helps with the flow of the dialogue and – bonus! – you don’t have to punctuate as much.

Julia perched on the end of the bed, careful not to muss the beautifully arranged coverlet. James settled into the armchair and kicked off his shoes.

Julia asked, “What shall we do first?”

“I don’t know. What do you think?”

“I think we should go down to the bar and have a cocktail.”

“Your wish is my command.” James launched himself out of the chair and attempted a courtly bow.

It reads much more naturally than ending each line with a ‘she said’, or ‘he asked’. Don’t keep it up for too long, though – you don’t want the reader to get lost and have to start counting back. I think six lines is about the maximum. That’s just a gut feeling; not written in stone.

The main thing to remember is that dialogue tags are spoken (said, asked, yelled, whispered etc.) and action beats are physical (grimaced, laughed, smirked, sniffed etc.). 

Happy writing!

Sprint for Success

For most of us, writing a novel is more a marathon than a sprint. The problem is that for many people who want to write, the idea of the marathon is just too intimidating. Writing eighty thousand words is unimaginable. This is why you so often hear, ‘Oh, I’ll write a novel someday, probably when I’m retired and have more time’. For most people, that magical ‘time’ never comes and the novel never gets written.

The idea behind a writing sprint is push away all those time-related obstacles and just write. It doesn’t have to be for long, it doesn’t have to be planned, it doesn’t even have to be any good. Words on the page is the only aim. Once you let go of the idea of having to start at Chapter One, you’ll feel a lot freer.

How to get started

1.     Set a timer. Ten minutes, half an hour, whatever you think you can manage right now. 

2.     Write whatever comes to you. Don’t worry about the structure, don’t worry about where it fits in the overall narrative. Just write.

3.     Don’t edit as you go. Just leave it. 

4.     When the timer goes off, step away from your computer. Perhaps take a quick peek at the word count.

5.     Take a break, then if you have more time, or you’re in the zone, keep going. If not, shut down and walk away.

Think of writing skills like you do your muscles. If you use them, they will develop and your stamina will increase. You might find that after half a dozen of these sprints, you have something resembling a chapter, a character starting to develop, or the outline of a plot.

If you’re looking for inspiration, there are some great websites offering writing prompts for just this sort of exercise. Some even tailor them to the genre you want to write.

For fiction writing, broadly speaking, the two things you want to practise are descriptive and narrative writing, so look for prompts that will help you develop those skills.

Prompts can start a couple of ways. There’s the sentence starter prompt, which can be a great way to warm up your narration skills. They might look something like this:

‘The gates to the mansion loomed in front of her . . .’

‘I opened the door, expecting to see the boxes piled up neatly against the wall. Instead, . . .’

Or, you can look for prompts asking you to describe something, like:

Write about the view from your kitchen window, or the view from your dream kitchen window.

Write about how you felt on your last day of school, or on the first day of a new job.

If you’re looking for daily writing prompts, check out writersdigest.com.

Happy sprinting!

Five Helpful Websites for Would-be Writers

So, you’re thinking about starting out as a freelance writer or an author. Your fingers are poised over the keyboard, you have tons of ideas, but how do you actually get started? Finding some trustworthy, easy to understand resources sounds sensible. But, how do you know what’s good and what’s rubbish? Which of the bounty of resources and ‘sign up now and get a free e-book!’ offers are actually worth your time? Chances are, you’ll spend a lot of time looking only to find a handful worth bookmarking. So, to save you time here’s a list of five reputable websites to help get your freelance writing career underway.

1.     Make a living writing

Make a living writing is one of the web’s most popular websites for freelance writers and bloggers. Carol Tice is a successful writer and blogger who offers practical advice for established and would-be writers and bloggers. Tice is also a ‘den mother’ at the Freelance Writers’ Den, along with fellow writer and blogger Linda Formicelli.

2.     https://www.louiseharnbyproofreader.com/indie-authors.html

Louise Harnby’s website and blog are jam-packed with useful goodies for both writers and editors. Independent authors will find information on everything from how to write dialogue tags to how to get an agent. Louise co-hosts The Editing Podcast, which is a fantastic resource for anyone looking to publish independently.  

3.      Writer’s Digest

A self-described ‘one-stop shop for information, resources and writing community’, this site provides writers of all genres with writing help, exercises and tips for getting published. Part of their stable is the Writer’s Market, a respected online and hardcopy guide to getting published. 

4.     Write to Done

Write to Done is a general writing website, but it has a good freelancing section and offers advice and articles from well-respected writers. Mary Jaksh, Chief Editor, is an experienced writer with both a traditionally published book and an e-book under her belt. She is also a Zen master. Yes, really.

5.     Freelancewriting.com

The scope of this site is enormous. They have articles, contests, forums, tutorials – you name it, it’s there. The advice runs the gamut from writing query letters to getting published to dealing with the business side of freelancing. Do beware of the job listings, though. While they do advertise legitimate jobs, there are tons of dodgy and/or ridiculously low-paid jobs there too.

Want more? Well, off you go then. But while searching, try and keep these tips in mind to make sure you get the cream of the crop.

1.     Good writing websites don’t offer any ‘magic formulas’. 

You know when you see a website that seems too good to be true? “The keys to the magic kingdom can be yours for just $2.99….enter your credit card details here!” While the above websites do sell resources, a lot of the content is free.

2.     The sites’ authors are easily traceable.

Generally, if you can’t easily find who runs the website, or if their credentials are hard to verify, give it a miss. If you’re unsure, try searching the website’s name and adding a keyword such as ‘legitimate’ or ‘scam’.

3.     And finally…

Get writing! Send out that first query letter… and maybe the next success story on one of these websites will be yours.