So begins an article that ran last month in Salon.com. Called, The Future is No Fun: Self-Publishing is the Worst, the piece is actually about the PR side of self-publishing rather than the overall experience.

While promoting any book is hard, it’s true that for self-published authors, it’s infinitely more challenging. But does that really translate into the media wanting no part of you if you’ve self-published? To the point where you might feel like “self publishing is the worst?”

Short answer: Absolutely not. That is, not if you’ve produced a book of professional quality, know what to expect and plan accordingly. So here are a few dos and don’ts to help self-published authors starting out on a promotion journey set expectations and have a positive, satisfying experience:

DO: Accept that you will in all likelihood not land any traditional book reviews.

By traditional, I mean reviews in places like The New York Times, Harpers and other conventional newspapers or magazines, both big and small.

DO: Take advantage, on the other hand, of the indie review programs now offered by Publisher’s Weekly Select, Kirkus Indie Reviews and Clarion.

Over the past few years, these programs have emerged in response to the exploding demand for self-published reviews. Through them, indie authors now have access to professional, publishing industry-vetted reviews for a couple of hundred dollars a pop. Whether the cost is fair or not is another topic altogether, but in the past, only the excruciatingly rare self-published book had even a dim chance of a PW or Kirkus review. Now, a close alternative is available to all.

DO: Plan ahead. Ideally, promotion efforts will begin about 4 months in advance of your publication date, at which point you should have a final, professionally copy-edited Word file of your book in hand. Cover and interior design, as well as the construction of your personal web site, should be underway.

DO: Be prepared to write, write and write. Guest blog posts and bylined articles on news websites are probably the most widespread forms of media exposure for self-published authors. They’re also extremely powerful at generating visibility.

DO: Accept that while you may get interviewed or profiled by some news outlets, you won’t have any luck with the more prestigious ones.

This means that rather than a story or even a mention in The Boston Globe, for example, you’ll be covered by your local Patch, your town’s magazine or possibly a few community newspapers. And rather than your local NPR station, you may land an interview on some of the many Blog Talk Radio shows. But don’t scoff: these can bring fantastic exposure. And depending on your book, you may also get covered by niche magazines (for example, focusing on parenting or travel). The trick is knowing what to offer them.

DON’T: Waste your time or energy trying to get the attention of any of the media outlets that you know you won’t have any luck with. You’ll wind up drained and disappointed. It’s just not worth it.

DON’T: Assume that if you already have a media platform or have already been traditionally published, your self-published book will be an exception in the media’s eyes. It might — but chances are, it won’t. News stories about traditionally-published authors going the indie route (think, Seth Godin) just aren’t…newsy…anymore.

DON’T: Try to do everything yourself. You just can’t. Nobody can.

DON’T: Fall into the anger and disappointment trap that so many authors — self-published or not — get stuck in when they begin to reconcile publicity expectations with reality too late in the game.

This last point is, I suspect, is what happened to the author of The Future is No Fun: Self-Publishing is the Worst. Perhaps he thought that, already traditionally published, he’d get reviewed and covered by the biggies who’d covered him before. Or perhaps he simply wasn’t prepared. He spent a lot of time and energy reaching out – on his own — to The Boston Globe, The Miami Herald, The New York Times Review of Books, The L.A. Times and various other A-list publications. He also pitched himself to NPR’s Weekend Edition and Fresh Air. No wonder he’s frustrated.

On the flip side is the example of one self-published author I recently worked with whose PR campaign was smashingly successful. Alexis Rankin Popik, who wrote and published Kiss Me Over the Garden Gate, was featured in The Hartford Courant, The Hartford Advocate, Sippican Week, South Coast Today and on BookViews by Alan Caruba, who’s a charter member of the National Book Critics Circle. She was interviewed by the online radio show Literary New England. And much, much more.

Most importantly, though, Alexis was genuinely excited, positive and grateful for each new PR development. She knew what to expect, how to roll with the punches when things didn’t work out and how to have fun and spread the word when they did. She planned a glorious launch party. She had a beautiful, professional headshot taken that exudes warmth and delight — contributing, I’m sure, to the loop of positive feedback that made her campaign work out so well.

Which leads me to one last, resounding Do:

DO: Remember that only one thing is certain about any author publicity campaign: It’s a celebration of you and your accomplishment, a way to share it joyfully with whomever you can.

And joy is contagious.

What expectations come to mind when you think of publicizing a self-published book? How about a traditionally published book?

Do you have any experiences to share about promoting your self-published book or reconciling publicity expectations in general with reality?

1. Comment on this post at Writer Unboxed.
2. Join us on Facebook, and find a community of over 3,000 other fiction writers, in a promo-free zone.
3. Follow our Twitter feed.
4. Subscribe to Writer Inboxed, the WU newsletter, filled with exclusive craft and business content, and interviews with premier authors.

photo by Ryan.Berry

I ran into an intriguing editing problem recently. A client had a character who was disguising the fact that she was a woman. What made it tricky was that she was the narrator of a number of scenes, so we had to construct those scenes so as to mislead both the other characters and the readers. You’d be surprised how often gender gets mentioned in interior monologue. The client and I got a lot of practice at avoiding personal pronouns without looking like we were deliberately avoiding personal pronouns.

This started me thinking about the unreliable narrator, a technique that’s shown up in a couple of my favorite books. If, as we discussed last month, writing techniques should be treated as tools, what do you use the unreliable narrator for?

SPOILER ALERT: If you’ve never read Agatha Christie’s The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, go do it now. I’ll wait.

Okay, welcome back.

As you’ve just seen, unreliable narrators are a great way to set up a surprise ending. According to a lot of commentators, Christie’s revelation that the narrator was actually the murderer was a milestone of crime drama and may well have been her masterpiece. She took advantage of the fact that readers naturally assume the narrator is telling them the truth. Writers can also give readers a shock at the end because readers assume that the narrator is alive (Ambrose Bierce’s “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge”), or sane (Chuck Palahniuk’s Fight Club).

To pull off this kind of surprise without alienating your readers, the narrator has to tell the truth, at least technically. One reason the unreliable narrator is hard to write is that you’re using your readers’ assumptions to slip stuff past them that would otherwise raise red flags – like the way my client’s character never uses personal pronouns in interior monologue. Christie’s book works because, at the end, Dr. Sheppard reveals how he described the actual murder without revealing that he was the one committing it. For readers, subtle misdirection is a terrific trick, but outright lying is an insult.

In Death’s Jest Book, Reginald Hill makes use of an unreliable narrator to create dramatic tension. If you haven’t read it, Detective Pascoe receives letters throughout the book from a brilliant ex-convict named Franny Roote, whom Pascoe had once helped convict and who has since been proven innocent. The letters are apparently simple, grateful reports of the literary research Roote is up to now that he’s out of prison. But Pascoe is convinced they are mocking, carefully constructed hints at Roote’s crimes, past and present. Unless Pascoe’s just being paranoid. His growing desperation to decipher who Roote is and what he’s up to is one of the things that drives the story forward. I won’t tell you how that one resolves. Go read it — it’s brilliant.

The most satisfying plot twists not only surprise your readers and change the future course of the story. They also rewrite what your readers have already read. When readers discover that my client’s character has been a woman all along, it rearranges the motives of a few other characters and the meaning of one or two earlier scenes. When Pascoe eventually discovers who Roote really is, it finally lets readers understand what the letters they’ve been reading all along really mean. And the ending of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd essentially rewrites the book from the beginning. That is one reason it’s a masterpiece.

In The Documents in the Case, Dorothy Sayers does even more with this narrative ambiguity over who a character really is. The novel consists of letters, evidence reports, news clippings, and notes by various characters that make up the case file for a possible murder. The various documents paint Margaret Harrison, one of the central characters, as either a cold, heartless adulteress who manipulated her lover into killing her husband or a misguided and misunderstood innocent who accidentally started something that spun out of control. Who she is depends on which narrator you believe, and the tension helps drive the story forward. But in a truly audacious move, Sayers doesn’t resolve the question at the end. She does reveal how the murder was committed and by whom, but readers are left wondering who Margaret Harrison really was. Some of us are wondering still.

Unreliable narrators are most useful in mysteries, where slipping clues past readers is the point – you’ll notice all three examples so far have been mysteries. But in The Catcher in the Rye, J. D. Salinger uses the unreliable narrator for something else entirely — to create empathy between readers and Holden Caulfield. Holden is unreliable not because he is misleading readers but because he is unaware of the depth of his own alienation and how it affects what he sees. Readers feel for him because they know him better than he knows himself.

Regardless of what you use it for, the unreliable narrator puts distance between what your readers are reading and the “reality” happening behind the narrative. Since readers are always aware at some level that fiction isn’t real – disbelief is suspended, not eliminated – giving them this glimpse behind the curtain lets them sink more deeply into the world of your story. It’s tricky to maintain suspension of disbelief at two different levels. But if you can pull it off, it makes for powerful storytelling.

So what are your favorite examples of unreliable narrator? Have you ever used an unreliable narrator yourself? If so, tell us about it.

A lot of people feel Agatha Christie cheated with The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. Do you think so? Or do you know of a case of unreliable narrator that went wrong?

1. Comment on this post at Writer Unboxed.
2. Join us on Facebook, and find a community of over 3,000 other fiction writers, in a promo-free zone.
3. Follow our Twitter feed.
4. Subscribe to Writer Inboxed, the WU newsletter, filled with exclusive craft and business content, and interviews with premier authors.

Though we didn’t speak of it, I could tell my classmates were in a similar state. (Even then, the “code” was to maintain emotional control in front of one another.)

I recall the jostling, the nervous laughter when the elevator doors parted and we were struck by the scent of formaldehyde. (An oddly sweet aroma which lodges at the back of your throat.)

Then we poured into the lab with its harsh fluorescent lights, the blue cards bearing each cadaver’s name, age, and cause of death; the sounds which seemed sharp and outrageously loud in the cold room.

I had many questions as I approached the plastic-draped body.

Would I vomit? Would I learn enough to be worthy of the gift our donor had bestowed upon us? Or would I lose respect for the whole person when focusing on the nitty-gritty of the parts?*

For all the uncertainty of that morning, I never doubted its necessity. I had to acquire certain motor skills. Who better to be my teacher than the willing and generous dead?

Given that understanding, and given that I’d read multiple craft books urging novel dissection as a means to understand the mechanics of fiction, I’m not sure why I resisted as long as I did. However, last winter, after wrestling with the same plotting issue in my novel for months, I became desperate.

I dug out resources, analyzed three favorite books in the genre I write, and found it such a worthwhile investment, I’ll do it again.

Here’s what I learned:

1. Familiarity breeds a lack of critical assessment.

I’d read one book three times and revisited certain scenes in my mind perhaps fifty. Despite that, I had little comprehension about what its author had done to make their work successful, still less about how to replicate their techniques. Nowhere was this more evident than when I looked at the next three points.

2. Better understanding of pacing.

The rhythm of the scenes was different than I recalled, particularly with respect to scene length, which wasn’t necessarily correlated with emotional impact.

3. Better understanding of subplots.

This was what had me particularly stymied: how to interweave subplots and use them to drive the protagonist and antagonistic forces together, both sequentially and then simultaneously at the climax.

4. Better understanding of mechanics at the level of scene.

“Scene” is generally described as a unit of conflict which takes place in real time in one geographic location. It holds its own rhythm and shape. Many writing teachers say it should end on a disaster (setback) or discovery.

After deconstruction, it became easier to spot the structural difference between scenes which were engrossing and necessary, and those which dragged or were downright superfluous. Even better, though I’m a pantster who can’t write an outline to save my life, I’m writing first-draft scenes with better skeletons.

5. Dissection as anti-perfectionism technique.

I’d aimed relatively high in my novel selection: bestsellers, critically regarded books, and books which were precious to me. While I didn’t expect to encounter craft perfection, I was surprised by the quantity of slips or missed opportunities. (For example, an author who wrote mostly in deep third person would have repeated spells of omniscience. Opening or closing sentences lacked oomph. Or long past the novel’s midpoint, when we’re told the reader should have been introduced to all point-of-view characters, they’d parachute in a fresh voice to solve a plot problem.)

But when I cared about the characters and the story, these flaws disappeared. Books don’t have to be perfect to be marvelous.

If you decide to proceed with a plot dissection, I used a personalized amalgamation of techniques described in these references.

• James Scott Bell’s Write Great Fiction—Plot and Structure
• Alexandra Sokoloff’s blog, which is an online goldmine for the details of story structure. Though her focus is cinema, her clarity and demonstration of story breakdown makes this a superb resource. (Check out her Sense and Sensibility post for an example.)

In plot analysis, you’re going to look at the scenic patterns in books you admire, and which share structural similarities with the story you’re trying to write.

Per scene, this is the information I recorded:

• scene number in the book
• chapter
• scene length (page count or percent of ebook)
• setting
• name of the point-of-view character versus their antagonist(s)—I color-coded names for ease
• 1-2 sentence synopsis
• what I liked about the scene
• what fell flat
• symbols or motifs
• subplot involved?—color-coded for ease
• first sentence
• last sentence
• net emotional effect of scene (e.g. disaster, discovery, stakes increased?)
• purpose of scene—I copied Bell’s system of action, reaction, setup, deepening

The Mechanics

• If you tend to be a visual learner or cope well with software, you’d probably do fine with a spreadsheet. (Microsoft Access, Google Drive, etc. ) Each scene will get its own horizontal line.
• Alternatively, you could use virtual index cards in programs like Scrivener (PC or Mac), Storyist (Apple app), or 3” X 5” Index Cards (Apple App)
• While software helps with portability and tidiness, if you’re a kinesthetic learner like me, you’d probably do better to buy a stack of index cards and colored pens. I like being able to write at angles, write down key insights, and get sensory cues to a scene’s relative “depth” in the story.

Now I’d love to hear from you. Have you conducted an extensive plot dissection? If so, what information did you collect? Did you find it a useful exercise?

*No. I’d like to think I made her sacrifice worthwhile. The battle to maintain balance between mystery and mechanics would be an enduring one in my medical career.

1. Comment on this post at Writer Unboxed.
2. Join us on Facebook, and find a community of over 3,000 other fiction writers, in a promo-free zone.
3. Follow our Twitter feed.
4. Subscribe to Writer Inboxed, the WU newsletter, filled with exclusive craft and business content, and interviews with premier authors.

Now you too can practice your craft on this beautiful private Bahamian island. The Salt Cay Writers Retreat invites literary and commercial fiction writers, memoirists, and narrative nonfiction writers (both published and unpublished) to join them for a memorable week of writing and instruction on Salt Cay, October 20th-26th. Half-week registrations are also available.

Imagine a faculty of #1 New York Times bestselling authors, top editors from the most prestigious publishers, and prominent literary agents. Add a sunset dinner cruise, swimming with dolphins as part of the curriculum, and island feasts with local entertainment. Finish with plenty of time to write in a beautiful, secluded, relaxing, and inspiring setting.

With 65 students and 10 faculty members, the Salt Cay Writers Retreat focuses on craft at an MFA level in a non-academic setting.

The first 10 qualified Writer Unboxed readers who apply will save an additional $500 off the full-week early registration discount ($250 off the half-week early registration tuition)!

Just put “Writer Unboxed 2013” under “coupon code” when you fill out the application form. This offer expires when the Writer Unboxed-exclusive spots are filled.

Questions?

Email Salt Cay Writers Retreat administrators Karen Dionne or Christopher Graham at . You may also telephone Chris at 732-267-6449.

Karen and Chris are cofounders of the online writers community Backspace, and have directed the highly respected Backspace Writers Conferences held in New York City for the past 9 years.

* This is a paid advertisement.

1. Comment on this post at Writer Unboxed.
2. Join us on Facebook, and find a community of over 3,000 other fiction writers, in a promo-free zone.
3. Follow our Twitter feed.
4. Subscribe to Writer Inboxed, the WU newsletter, filled with exclusive craft and business content, and interviews with premier authors.

Q: Tell us a little about this new game you’ve created. What’s it about, and why might it appeal to writers in particular?

RR: I call ZiZiT “ze maximum word game” because I think of it as Scrabble on steroids. It utilizes unique two-way two-letter game pieces to create a word game with lots of twists and turns. I don’t know about you, but as a writer word games have always been fun for me.

There’s a social aspect to this venture, too. As any writer who has been edited or critiqued, I know that I don’t know it all nor do I do everything perfectly. So I’ve set up a games website on a blog platform where people can contribute ideas for game play or rules, share their experiences with the games, or even create new games.

And we invite people to add to our list of “zizicizmz,” which are totally bogus words you can play in ZiZiT. An example is ZIZMANIA, a maniacal craving to play ZiZiT chiefly found among the best and brightest people. You, especially, are invited—the zizicizmz page is here.

Q: What inspired this idea in the first place?

RR: Weirdly, it was the apparent failure of an idea for a deck of cards that combines two decks into one with two values on each card. When doing a patent search, it looked like there was a patent that would block my idea (it has turned out that it won’t). So I started thinking of other ways to use the dual-value notion, substituted letters for numbers and face cards, and voila! The new game had even more appeal to me than the card deck.

As a novelist, I’m a “pantser,” and there were aspects of that in creating this game. I invented several “game-changer” pieces—one that lets you play a proper noun, for example. Like some story lines that don’t pan out, there were a couple that simply didn’t work in play-testing, so the game evolved, just like one of my stories.

Q: What made you decide Kickstarter was the way to go for raising funds for this game?

RR: Kickstarter is called “crowd funding” because, well, a crowd of people chip in small amounts to raise the funds needed. It’s different than ordinary financing in that supporters—called “backers” at Kickstarter—don’t invest money in return for interest or stock. They receive what are called “rewards”—in my case, primarily copies of the game, though there are other fun rewards in our project, too.

The results can be significant. One Kickstarter card game project (Critters) designed by a couple had a goal of $2,500 and they raised more than $56,000—I found that to be more than encouraging. Kickstarter is limited to creative projects—art, music, dance, theater, publishing, film, games, research, and more—so it attracts the kind of people who might be interested in my stuff. There are indie publishing projects by writers for their fiction, poetry, comics, and non-fiction.

Q: When will you know if the Kickstarter worked? And if it does, when will the game be available?

RR: Kickstarter requires that you set the time period for the funding effort. Our project ends on Sunday, July 14^th, so we have 28 days to go as of this post. If backers pledge the amount of our goal by then, we receive the funds. If not, then we’ll have gained experience.

If funding succeeds, we will take the first 30 days to refine the games with backer input, and then I figure it will take about 30 to 60 days to produce and ship the games. There’s a lot to do—game pieces to get made, a box to design and have manufactured, a velour drawstring bag to produce to include in the ZiZiT game.

Q: How can people help and/or learn more?

RR: Visit the Kickstarter page and do whatever works for you. And passing it on to as many people as possible. That’s the key—accumulating the “crowd.”

Our games are for anyone who plays Scrabble, dominoes, and card games or is a parent-uncle-aunt-grandparent-relative-friend-teacher of people 7+ and 10+ who do. That’s you, right? Just in case it is, here’s a link to the page. There are links for free “print & play” downloads of sample-size games to give you a taste and to the website if you want to drill down a bit.

Many thanks in advance for your support.

Readers, you can learn more about Ray’s new game, ZiZiT, by following this link — and by watching the video below.

Good luck, Ray!

1. Comment on this post at Writer Unboxed.
2. Join us on Facebook, and find a community of over 3,000 other fiction writers, in a promo-free zone.
3. Follow our Twitter feed.
4. Subscribe to Writer Inboxed, the WU newsletter, filled with exclusive craft and business content, and interviews with premier authors.