Tag Archives: book readers

Book Readers Need These 3 Things

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By Denise Turney


Love pour over me website

Book readers need three things when dealing with book writers. Relationships are at the core of each of these three things. As a book writer, if you fail to give book readers these three things, you could fail to gain book sales, disappoint book readers or even lose existing book sales. James Baldwin, J. K. Rowling, John Irvin, Toni Morrison, Jane Austen, August Wilson and Lorraine Hansberry are a few authors who understand the importance of two of these three musts.

Book readers want challenging relationships

To grow your career as a new author, you need to get these three things down early. As a new book author, you need to develop characters that make it easy for book readers to feel like they are in real relationships with their fictional characters. You might not love the storyline. But, if you read Lord of the Rings, you probably couldn’t forget Frodo Baggins, Gandalf or Gollum.

Not a Lord of the Rings fan? Think about your favorite novels. Next, think about one or more characters in those novels that you feel deeply connected to, that you care about. How easy was it to put that novel down, turning away from a character who left a deep impression on you?

Focus on character development

Focus on character development; it’s at the heart of what talented authors do. It’s also why talented novelists keep their characters in periods of uncertainty, cliff hangers, conflict and challenge. Even flawed novel characters have at least one trait that you, the book reader, judge as positive or valuable.

Who can forget Dr. Hyde, Mrs. Henry Lafayette Duobse in To Kill a Mockingbird or the money grubbing businessman in Spiral? Bad characters fuel Tyler Perry’s latest television series, shows like The Haves and Have Nots. Without characters who are struggling with darkness books like Harry Potter, Star Wars and Lord of the Rings might not have intrigued millions of readers.

These inner struggles may remind of us hidden parts of ourselves, parts we long to deny. What is certain is that flawed characters demand our attention. After you start to care about a character, it’s hard to not care what happens to that character. Discovering what happens to a character requires that you keep reading, keep turning pages in a book. Even more, building a book readership demands that you give readers the types of relationships with novel characters that readers not only care about, but relationships that readers will feel, almost as if the fictional encounters are real.

Major characters relating to minor characters

In addition to feeling connected to one or more characters in a novel, book readers want to find value in observing, watching or witnessing exchanges that occur between a main character and minor characters in a novel. It’s a fact. There’s an element of voyeurism in fictional story digesting.

Book readers want to watch their favorite novel characters interact with other characters. After all, it’s those relationships that drive the story. Rarely is it the case that a story’s setting works like a character. Fictional stories where this happened include Castaway, On Golden Pond and Wind River.

J. California Cooper, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Joyce Carol Oates, Alice Walker and Gloria Naylor are among the novelists who are highly skilled at character interaction. These skilled authors make developing great character interactions look easy.

Third thing book readers love

The third element that book readers need to love a story and a novelist’s work might surprise you. Book readers want to enjoy a rewarding relationship with a novel’s author. An author’s relationship with book readers could come through book signings, book readings, cultural festivals that authors serve as panelists or keynote speakers at.

Direct email, holiday greetings, free new book excerpts and question and answer sessions at the end of speaking engagements or radio interviews are other avenues through which an author’s relationship with book readers could develop. These aren’t personal relationships.

Instead, they are artistic relationships that focus on art that writers create. Rewards of these boo reader relationships include the chance for authors to let book readers know what drives a character or why the author had a character perform a specific act.

If book readers and authors do connect during events like book club meetings, book conferences and book signings, readers could gain a fourth relationship. Readers could meet and start friendships with other book lovers.

Thank you for reading my blog. To learn what happens to Raymond, Brenda and the other characters in Love Pour Over Me, hop over to Amazon.com, B&N.com, Ebookit.com, or any other online or offline bookseller and get your copy of Love Pour Over Me today. And again I say – Thank You! Consider Love.

Exposing the truth about writer rejection

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By Denise Turney
Enter the world of a writer. Fuzzy, cloudy thoughts about an impending success that’s most certain to come, millions of book readers finally seeing what great talent the writer has always possessed. A willingness to forego parties, movie nights and long weekend getaways just to have time to finish another novel chapter – it’s a writer’s inner world, a choice a writer makes over and over.

Some writers pour hundreds, even thousands, of dollars into book marketing, steadfastly hoping to get their book in front of larger numbers of people. Add to that the fact that, for a writer, work never ends, ideas, plots, characters and twists surfacing in his or her bright, creative mind at all hours of the day or night.

Is it any wonder that a writer takes it personally, as if an editor or publisher just punched her in the stomach, each time she receives a rejection letter? As if that wasn’t enough, far too many rejection letters that writers receive are ‘canned’.

If a writer looks deeply enough, he could walk away with this glimmer of hope. He could recognize that, perhaps, an incredibly busy editor or publisher didn’t even take the time to read his manuscript. In that case, it’s so what about the rejection letter. Or the writer could come to the conclusion that the rejection letter does no more than group them with the other 99% of writers who submitted a manuscript to the same editor or publisher.

Get enough rejection letters and it’s not surprising for a writer to start doubting that she chose the right profession, perhaps even forcing the writer to conclude that, for her, novel writing will never be more than a hobby, despite fantasies and daydreams that declare just the opposite. After all, according to the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, about 26% of novelists and non-fiction writers only write on a part-time basis.

Of note, 68% of writers are also self-employed. Additionally, the lion’s share of the writers reported on by the Statistics Bureau are non-fiction writers. Newspapers, magazines, radio and television stations, corporations, marketing agencies and public relations firms are types of organizations many of these writers create content for.

Although non-fiction writers don’t generally have to read through a rejection letter the way a novelist does, non-fiction writers (especially those who are self-employed) do deal with job proposal rejection. It’s these points that make it absolutely necessary for a writer to have a tough interior if he plans to stick around long, possibly writing his way into the top 10% of writers, creative artists who earned, on average, more than $109,000 annually as of 2010.

Of course, the highest paid novelists, people like J. K. Rowling, Stephen King, James Patterson, Stephanie Meyer, Danielle Steel and Ken Follett, pull in tens of millions of dollars a year. And, perhaps, it’s these novelists’ tremendous success that lends an air of hope, a belief in their own potential (yet unrealized) success that keeps many lesser known writers churning out one novel after another, laughing at the words printed a on crisp rejection letter.

Thank you for reading my blog. To learn what happens to Raymond, Brenda and the other characters in Love Pour Over Me, hop over to Amazon.com, B&N.com, Ebookit.com, or any other online or offline bookseller and get your copy of Love Pour Over Me today. And again I say – Thank You! Consider Love.

Writing Books and Stories that Touch Readers Deep Within

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By Denise Turney

It’s been said that authentic stories come to writers instead of writers simply sitting down and creating stories we share with book readers. Truth may be that stories that touch readers deep within may actually come from deep within writers. It’s as though these stories speak to us, characters pushing us to tell their stories.

Powerful Emotions Touch Book Readers

Then again, there are stories, like those found in non-fiction books, that come to writers directly from experiences we observe in this physical world. It is then that stories can touch the core of book readers while the stories also keep accurate records of historic events, experiences that create strong, compelling emotions.

Developing stories that move print and electronic book readers requires that writers be honest with themselves, explore their own issues. In fact, it’s not uncommon for novelists to revisit their fiction books and see bits and pieces of their own experiences dispersed amongst the books’ pages. Specific steps book writers can take to engage their reading audience include having book characters write personal letters to their friends, parents or children.

Authors can also have major book characters share personal experiences in their diaries and include some of those diary entries in novels they craft. Raymond Clarke does this in the new book, Love Pour Over Me. Painting pictures to create images of major and minor book characters can also help authors to connect with and get to know their book’s characters more fully, more deeply.

By creating character sketches, authors can find out how old members of their book’s supporting cast should be. Other information that may surface while book writers do character sketches are the hometowns supports cast members should be from, the type of personality characters should have and particular motives major book characters should have.

The more deeply connected book writers are to the characters they create, the easier it can be for writers to flesh characters out for print and digital book readers, making the characters feel real. Another tip book writers may find helpful is to read dialogue and character scenes out loud. Sometimes the ears will catch something the eyes miss or don’t want to acknowledge.

To move book readers deeply, it’s important that writers create book characters readers will genuinely care about. The most talented and technically well crafted writing in the world may not engage readers if characters are flat or unbelievable. By adding strong dialogue, intriguing scenes and strong character motives to stories, book writers may start to develop a readership

Get your copy of “Love Pour Over Me” Now at –

http://www.ebookit.com/books/0000001582/Love-Pour-Over-Me.html

Sources:

Amazon.com – http://www.amazon.com/Love-Pour-Over-Me-ebook/dp/B007MC0Z2C

Barnes & Noble – http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/love-pour-over-me-denise-turney/1109600654

Authors Getting the Most out of Book Blog Tours

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By Denise Turney

The first time I heard the term “blog tour” I thought the person I was communicating with was talking about an online radio tour. Turns out my assumption was only partially accurate.

Meet New Readers on Book Blog Tours

Blog tours can include a blend of written and oral author interviews. They can also include book reviews, with some blog tour hosts posting reviews of your books at retail websites like Amazon.com, Google Books or Barnes & Noble.com. During the early days that your book is on the market these book reviews can be particularly influential, helping book buyers to decide whether or not they want to pay for and read your book.

Then again, for book buyers like me, the reviews might not hold much weight as I decide whether or not to buy and read a book based on excerpts I read. I’ve got to get a feel for the writer’s style, the way the writer works with words, causing them to flow like sweet music.

All said — book reviews certainly don’t hurt.

Other rewards and benefits you can receive as an author conducting book blog tours include, of course, introducing yourself and your books to new readers. This is a key takeaway for authors. After all, if you plan on enjoying a lengthy writing career you want to attract new readers. Blog tours definitely helped me to introduce Raymond Clarke and other main characters in Love Pour Over Me to new book readers.

Additional Book Blog Tour Benefits

As an author, whether you write fiction or nonfiction, when you go on blog tours you can reap additional benefits. Some of these benefits include:

  • Creating relationships with blog owners (make sure you thank blog owners for supporting you before and after your blog tour runs)
  • Opportunities to conduct your first radio interviews
  • Reasons to write and distribute press releases about your new books
  • Chance to have your name, bio and book information listed at several book blogs
  • Additional links tracking into your official book website (helps improve your website’s search engine rankings)
  • Opportunities to answer questions posed by blog visitors

As a tip when scheduling book blog tours, I recommend that you pay no more than $50 to $60 for a four-week blog tour. I paid $50 for a four-week blog tour which put my book, Love Pour Over Me, in front of thousands of book buyers.

To get the most out of your blog tour make sure you create accounts at social media sites like Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter, Google Plus and StumbleUpon. Share your blog interviews with follows at these social media sites. Also be sure to respond to questions hosts and visitors post on your blog tour.

Also, you may be able to attract more followers to your blog tour if you giveaway prizes and/or free copies of your books. If you’re on Good Reads list your blog tour schedule at your Good Reads personal blog and in the Good Reads events section. Invite your Good Reads friends to attend your book blog tour.

Above all – have fun – lots of it! After all, isn’t that why you write? Because you love it!

Thank you for reading my blog. To learn what happens to Raymond, Brenda and the other characters in Love Pour Over Me, hop over to Amazon.com, B&N.com, Ebookit.com and get your copy of Love Pour Over Me today. And again I say – Thank You! Even if you choose not to purchase your copy of Love Pour Over Me today, I encourage you to “consider Love.”

More about Books – Starting on a New Novel

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By Denise Turney

I was almost finished editing Love Pour Over Me when I started writing my next novel. Looking back, I think that’s the way I’ve always managed the creative side of my writing career. The process keeps me from getting too attached to the book I’ve just finished writing. This, in turn, allows me to keep moving forward, ready to receive the next fiction story that surfaces within me.

Writing the first draft of a new book is fun. It’s also the most challenging part, especially considering the fact that I’ve learned how to cut the fat out of a story without feeling like I’m taking blood from myself. Oh, the despair, the dread I felt years ago when it came time to start editing and cutting away at a story I’d spent months laboring to pull together. Although I can’t confirm it, I imagine that most authors struggle with this part of the writing process.

As I’m experiencing with my next book “Gada’s Glory” (working title), I feel exhilarated while I’m creating a new book. It’s so much fun! The process is pure – purely creative. There’s no need to focus on marketing, promotions, etc. during this process. I don’t have to spread the word about a new novel I’m creating because it’s all mine . . . for now.

It’s like being in a laboratory, trying this and that, creating intriguing characters and placing them in challenging and/or rewarding scenes. In time I start rooting for one or more characters and disliking other characters. Amazing how this happens considering the fact that I’m the one who’s creating all of the book’s characters. Oddly, with Love Has Many Faces (sold out) a character I loved (Leslie Fletcher) was absolutely hated and despised by readers. That was a first for me. Leslie made a lot of mistakes, many of which deeply hurt innocent people, but she evolved and awakened by the end of Love Has Many Faces; however, readers were not up for dismissing her prior mistakes.

Which brings me to another point I love about starting on a new novel . . . I love working with emotion! It may well be my biggest payoff as a book author – hearing from readers, especially readers who are emotionally charged about a scene or character. I love when that happens!

Malcolm (Raymond Clarke’s father) is the guy who pulls loads of emotion out of readers in my recently published book, Love Pour Over Me. Unlike Leslie, readers come to see Malcolm differently by the end of Love Pour Over Me. Guess I got a little better at allowing characters to evolve and awaken. That or Leslie struck a nerve in readers and wouldn’t let go.

But that’s me . . . what are your favorite parts of a novel? What makes a story a winner for you, the type of book you simply can’t put down? Is it the plot, dialogue, an intriguing setting . . . Just what is it about a book that keeps you turning the pages?

I’m sure you can tell; the rewards of writing are a plenty! I love to write, to create stories that pull emotion up within readers like you! Gotta tell you, as a reader, you make my life’s work wonderful! Thank you!

Thank you for reading my blog. To learn what happens to Raymond, Brenda and the other characters in Love Pour Over Me, hop over to Amazon.com, B&N.com, Ebookit.com and get your copy of Love Pour Over Me today. And again I say – Thank You!