Yes, folks, the local fair has been in town.

For a few days each year, the empty lot behind the skating rink transforms into a razzle-dazzle low-scale and dirty festival of noise, cotton candy and empty wallets. Teens dress baggy or skimpily, hooking up all over the place. Children run to and fro, joyfully skipping out of reach of poor parents shouting, “This is the last ride!”

Beauty.

Mid-afternoon, the demolition derby roars to life while firefighter air horns pierce through the gunning of engines and bangs of loud backfires. Farmers scowl at the noise, calming wild-eyed and carefully groomed cows or chattering chickens. The beer tent thrives with inebriated high-schoolers – those still in class and those reminiscing the decades since the good old days.

Ah, the local fair is a fantastic tradition – and a true education in marketing for freelancers. Come one, come all… the show is about to begin.

You’d Better Know How to Hustle

Hustling is the name of the game for both fair carnies and freelancers. Booth and ride carnies have to sell to people walking by – and that’s not easy. They need to attract the attention of people focused on something else, get them to look twice, draw them in, sell them on the fun or the prize, and get them to hand over their money.

The carnies hawk rigged dart tosses, squirt machines, speeding rides, swirling cages, and off-center bowling balls. They need to keep the place bustling and alive. Sound like the freelancing life? You betcha. Replace the games and rides with your services and products – and start hustling.

You’d Better Be Wise to People

Carnies are street-smart. They know just how to get people interested. Two men? Encourage competition and rivalry for the prize. Two women? It’s time to compliment a shirt or some earrings. Parents? The carnies go right for the kill: they market to the kids. Win the kids, win the parents.

They know exactly who they’re talking to, what rings the bell in that person’s mind and what gets the guy or girl to slow down and come over. They know their target market like the back of their hand, honing right in to make the sale – and you should to.

You’d Better Be Willing to Give and Take

Carnies wheel and deal. Anything to lure people in and keep them spending. Three darts for $5. Try a free round. Three tickets for a ride instead of four. Trade in two prizes for a bigger, better one. The discounts and deals are no skin off anyone’s back – a small tradeoff keeps customers happy and hooks them in.

Not only does it hook, them in, but if the carnie plays it right, the people spend more in the end. That’s a trick right there: the longer they stay, the longer they play. That’s key – for the fair and for your freelancing. The carnies made sure people were happy, too. The happier they were, the more chances they’d come back later on.

You’d Better Be Able To Sell

Game carnies sell like crazy. They don’t care about patting someone’s back and making them feel good or empowered. Hell, they have a job to do! They have money to make! They aren’t going to hurt anyone’s feelings, but they also aren’t afraid to pitch their game or ride and influence people over to pay the ticket.

Think about this one: Imagine a fair operated by polite, considerate, gentle and submissively quiet people who never pushed, called or even did anything but smile nicely. Now take a look at how you sell on your site or blog. Yeah. I thought so.

Freelancers don’t need to bark and shout to sell. Carnies don’t either. In fact, during my visit to the fair, I noticed that they’d only call out to people during particularly quiet moments. They were generally pretty polite about selling their games. They watched people for clues, picked up on the subtle triggers and body language, and then they went to work.

You’d Better Be Okay with Persuasion

The carnies aren’t ashamed of themselves or what they sell. They’re there to help people have a good time. That’s their job. Yes, the end result is more money, but the carnies made sure that every customer for every game left smiling, happy and satisfied that the over-priced prize was money well spent.

That, my friends, is persuasion and good customer experience at its purest. It’s amazing to watch the carnies do it, too. They can sell anything to all sorts of different people from all sorts of different lifestyles. They’re good, really good.

Now carnies may not have learned influence, persuasion and manipulation from a course, but they sure do understand that if you can’t persuade someone that what you sell is really great, then you definitely aren’t going to make money.

And they make money. The place thrives. Buzzers go off and lights flash and happy (but broke) people walk away hugging some prize. And the carnies sit call out scores and ‘awws’ and cheer for the people as they collect the coins. They’re real ringmasters at their own show. Everyone wins. No one loses.

The magic? People leave broke, tired, and dirty – but they leave with smiles. And they’ll come back again to do it next year all over again.

Your customers will too – if you play the game right.

Another rockin' post from the Men With Pens! Copyright 2009 - All Rights Reserved

What the Carnies Can Teach You About Freelancing

“You volunteered,” Harry said from the sofa where he’d been leafing through a magazine.

“SHHH!!!” The waving hand said it all. “You’ll wake her up! Goddamned little-…”

“James.” The disapproving look on Harry’s face said more than James’ signal for silence.

“Sorry.” He tried to look repentant. He really did. “You know that saying? ‘I’m an angel when I’m sleeping’?”

“Uh-huh.” Harry leafed through more pages.

“Well, I bet whoever made that t-shirt was this kid’s mother. And I feel sorry for her; I really do.” James flopped down on the sofa and let his head rest on the back of it. “I’m exhausted. Who’d think putting a kid to sleep was so hard?”

Today’s hit is for Pick Nick’s Brain, the site of Nicole Johnson. Here’s what the site looked like when we drove by:

“Pick Nick’s Brain?” Harry blinked at the magazine ad for a baby sleep site. “What’s that got to do with sleeping?”

That’s what we wondered when we landed on the site. We’d been expecting something else – inspiration coaching, a thousand answers to any question… but not a site on helping kids get a good night’s sleep.

Nor will your first time visitors. The saying “pick your brain” typically means teaching and learning, and it’s often associated with business brainstorming. So, landing on a site about better sleep for babies was a real moment of, “Are we in the right place?” And that’s what your visitors will think, too.

The name’s catchy, make no mistake, but if a site name doesn’t seem relevant and tell people what the place is all about before they even get there, the cost is that people may leave.

James peered at the ad. “Baby sleep, baby sleep, baby sleep,” he mumbled to himself. Then he grinned. “You think it’s got something to do with sleeping babies?”

“Oh for pete’s sake,” Harry rolled his eyes, holding back from swatting his partner in crime. “You should call them. You’re no lullaby lord, y’know.”

“Not my fault,” the answer shot back. “I would’ve called, but I didn’t even know they existed.”

That’s a problem with your site. The meta keywords you’ve selected are too vague and need some help. While they’re only a small part of how people find your site, every bit of help counts, with a ton of baby sites out there clamoring for attention and competing with yours.

Try to think of keywords people might type into Google to find your site. “Baby sleep habits,” for example, or “sleep through the night toddler.” If your site has those keywords in the site meta and content, your site has a better chance of showing up in the returns of links the search engine presents.

It’s a better idea to work with keyword phrases that are targeted, specific and relevant. “Sleep through night” is okay – but how many other sites are trying to capture that same traffic? Make it more specific. “Baby sleep through night”, for example.

Another problem with your site meta is the description. This is your first contact with potential visitors, so it’s important to make a good impression. More than that, you want them to be interested enough to click your link to come visit.

You have:

Baby Sleep Help | Toddler Sleep Help | Custom Sleep Help – Pick …
Offers baby sleep and toddler sleep help with free articles and guides and easy to read sleep books with custom baby / toddler sleep consulting services.

That’s a fair description, but you’re speaking to search engines – sleep, baby, sleep, toddler… You need to write for people here, not for Google.

There’s no compelling message. It doesn’t give people any reason to click. It doesn’t tell them why they need it. Sure, they need sleep help. They know that. So what?

Your meta description needs to make people think, “Yes! That’s exactly what I need!” It needs to touch on the benefits of how your site will change lives.

What you need is a description that grabs people right from the start. You’re passionate about what you do, right? Take some of that passion and wake people up. (No pun intended). Get them excited!

How about something like, “Get rid of frustrating, sleepless nights and heartbreaking tears with baby sleep guides and sleep consultations that let you get the rest you need.”

It’s too long, but do you see the difference in the emotional appeal? Punch up your meta description, and make it work for you.

The loud bang startled both men, and they leaped out of their seats, guns in hand and crouched ready to shoot. “What the hell…?” James was wild-eyed, Harry was skittish but the room was silent.

For two seconds. Then the wailing from the room began.

“Great, just great,” James hissed, sliding over to a wall and pressing his back to it while gesturing at Harry with the muzzle of his gun. “Go see what that was. I’ll go shut-… Uh, keep her quiet.”

Harry snuck over to the big living room window, hiding carefully and then showing the tip of his nose while he tried to see what had made the noise. And when he did see, he holstered the gun and sighed.

“It’s alright,” he called out over the crying from the bedroom. “It’s just something that fell.”

Something that fell was right. We didn’t have long to glance at the site before a big opt-in ad blocked our view. That’s irritating and ugly. Visitors don’t even know where they are yet or what the site offers and here’s this big ad falling in their face.

But. And this is a big but… They work. Those pop-ups and drop downs that explode onto the screen really do convert well, so we can’t complain too much about something that’s effective. It’s an ugly ad, though, so if a little sprucing up is possible, it might help… Ah, well. Moving right along.

Harry pushed open the bedroom door and looked in. There was James, softly singing to the now-quietly whimpering child in the bed. “If you wanna get down… down on the ground…coca-…”

“James!”

James looked up, wide-eyed, a hand instinctively reaching to protect the child. “What?”

“What kind of lullaby is that?”

“Oh… sorry. Uh… Hm.” He squinted an eye and thought a bit. “It’s a good song you know.” But not appropriate. Right. More thought followed and his brain found a (thankfully kid-friendly) song as Harry looked around the room, walking quietly.

The room was pretty, very soft and pink. Well, pink is what Harry saw. James had told him the room was white.

And that’s a potential – but not a big – problem for the site. Pale colors aren’t always easily picked up by all monitors, especially common-grade or low-quality ones. People using higher-end monitors would see the shading of the soft pink, but unfortunately, those on affordable options see just white.

Have no fear – the place looks just as nice in white as it does in pink.

Harry admired the colors of the curtains and wall accessories, noting the tasteful browns, color accents and pretty pictures on the wall. He paused at the one of a sleeping child – it must’ve been the girl they were babysitting when she’d been younger. Nice, but…

In our opinion, the most appealing is the main image in the banner of the sleeping child. The other two on the right seem to be a bit… well, extra fluff, and the girl to the far right is clearly photoshopped in. She needs a bit of work around the hair area.

Two children might have been fine, and moving them closer together would help. If you chose the baby on the left and the girl on the right, you’d have a better mental association from birth to childhood.

We like the font choice for the title. Very, very nice. The title itself could be a touch larger – the tagline looks a touch spindly as it is.

The title tags in the navigation could be larger as well. They’re small right now and easy to overlook. With a visitor’s eyes draw to the imagery of the banner and then following the banner path over to the right and down that right side… well, the navigation gets passed over. Making the font size larger will help.

The navigation is clear and easy to use. We know what each title means, and we know ahead of time what we’ll get if we click.

One issue is that it’s not exactly apparent there’s a drop-down menu. Harry hovered over it and discovered it that way. This is easily solved. Change the titles to imply that there’s more if people click, thus encouraging them to come find the dropdowns.

James slowly rose from the bed, inch by inch, careful not to disturb the sleeping child. It seemed to take forever, but finally he’d extracted himself and could walk to the door. That was, if his side of the room hadn’t been so cluttered.

Clutter is a bit of a problem around the sidebar. That top right corner of the page has a lot packed into it, and that’s where the eye keeps going, dragging attention away from the navigation.

But in that right-hand area, there’s so much small text and clutter that it’s hard to focus, so attention gets the hell out of there – fast. And nothing gets read.

And back the eyes come, drawn by the images… and away they glance when there’s too much clutter… and so on, and so forth. It’s very distracting, visually. The Security and Privacy buttons don’t need to be there. Put them in the footer or on the Contact Page .Get them out of your sidebar and reduce the clutter.

The break in the navigation is… well, it bothers us a bit. It’s well done and doesn’t look bad, but at the same time, it’s not really conventional or expected and looks… broken. Our brain keeps saying, “There’s something not right here” and then we tell it, “No, it’s fine.”

You have a really nice RSS button, but it’s detached from the text that tells people what to do with it, and that’s important. The call-to action text and the RSS need to be together. Moving the broken navigation up puts the text nicely beside the RSS and makes it stand out, encouraging sign up.

With the Security buttons gone, your free guide opt-in moves up, which is better. But, then you’d have Free Article Updates and Free Guide one on top of the other. Too much free, too much repetition.

“Get article updates via email!” and “Enter your email and get 5 stress-buster ways to help your child sleep through the night – starting today!” For example. More compelling, different texts, more exciting.

For your privacy policy… You won’t sell our information. But will you give it away? It was the first thought that came to mind the minute we read that, and we won’t be the only people who make that logical leap and conclusion. Change your text

Put your reader chicklet up next to your RSS button to get social proof working for you and encouraging people to sign up. ‘Net-savvy people will know that the chicklet isn’t your RSS readers, though – it’s the number of downloads. However, that’s okay. They’ll assume that if 2,000 people read your newsletter, then you must have LOTS more reading your blog!

Alltop is okay – we’d move it down though because it doesn’t really add much to the site. That would give your ad below it – which is very nice – a spot higher up. The best place to be.

Oops… Here’s another newsletter. Now we’re confused, because the free guide is typically an opt-in to a newsletter, and yet you have a second newsletter. That’s confusing and makes us think it might be the same thing – or might not. Which to choose? Oy, too much decision… and visitors will choose nothing.

That’s not what you want. So how about this? Make an ebook cover banner ad for your Free Tips and put that in the sidebar. People click and download. Move your Newsletter up. Yay. Win. Or, add the five free tips to the newsletter as an extra-value bonus and eliminate one of the opt-ins.

“Sign up for our monthly newsletter and immediately get five ways you can start helping your child sleep through the night.” For example.

“Jeez, does anyone do the cleaning around here?” James had picked up a bunch of stuff off the bedroom floor, and he brought them into the living room, dumping them down in a pile.

“When’s the last time you looked at your own place,” Harry raised an eyebrow.

“What’s wrong with my place?”

“You have kids, right?”

“Yeah.”

“I rest my case,” Harry smirked, thinking of the toys on the floor, the books that weren’t put away and too many dishes in the sink. “Hey, pass me those M&Ms, will you?”

James picked up the dish on the coffee table and handed it over, only to watch Harry pop some in his mouth and spit them back out. “Whassa matter?”

“These aren’t M&Ms.”

No, they’re not. They’re social media buttons and they’re way too tiny. We suggest making them larger and having two rows of two. You could even stylize the buttons to mimic the style of the RSS, making the site more consistent in look and feel.

The Featured Articles section (nice choice of name – stick with that and don’t change it to “blog posts”) could use some of those M&Ms – uh, we mean, bullet points next to each title. Right now, they all mesh and look like a paragraph of text, so our eyes try to read them as such. Oh, and the same goes for the Recent Articles section.

And what’s the little blue and white icon at the bottom for? We mouse over it and the image is labeled, “Breast Feeding”, but it… doesn’t do anything or go anywhere and isn’t clear. Give that icon a job or a reason to be there – clear enough that all readers know what it means – or get rid of it. Add descriptive text, a link… something.

More security buttons at the bottom – no. Too many. Remove them.

One suggestion – if you want to promote your services or sellers, why not have ads and text widgets in the sidebar that show people what you have? Write something enticing, get people to click through.

Also, add a Categories widget to the sidebar – that will help users. Remove it from your drop-down navigation bar.

The TV show was boring, he had no M&Ms, and Harry had ended up leafing the magazine through again. An article that mentioned tips to help kids get to sleep caught his eye, but it ended up being someone’s life story and nothing helpful.

That was something we noticed about the home page. It appeared to be a blog post, but then we saw the welcome and figured it was welcome text and then we realized that no, it really was a post…

Well, we ended up not being sure what it was, so we had a read. We found it was a story about you and your life – but visitors don’t want to hear that. We suggest moving this story text to “About Me” – it’s a good story and tells people why you made this site, but it doesn’t clearly and quickly tell people what this site is about, who it’s for, what they’ll find here and how it will change their life.

In short, your home page content has to be all about “YOU”, the reader.

Also, use shorter text in your content areas, and break it up more with paragraph breaks and clear headers for each section to help guide people.

It’s a bit tough to read the content, too. For one, it’s small. We’re squinting to read, and the chunky text doesn’t help. Two, the font choice appears a bit cramped. Breaking it up with headers will help. Lastly, it’s brown – we don’t suggest black, which may clash with your design, but we do suggest a darker shade of brown for readability.

The clock was ticking, the house was silent and soon the mom would be coming home. To what?

“I can’t do it.” James sighed and lowered his gun. He’d taken aim at the television screen while Harry had gotten ready to bash out a window.

“Good, because I can’t either.” In fact, Harry looked relieved. “Moms don’t deserve bad stuff happening, you know?”

“Okay, yeah, I know, but man, Harry, we’re getting soft, here.” James paced the floor, raking a hand through his hair. “I mean, I don’t want to wake up the kid but come on!”

“Here, here, I have an idea.” He snatched a few things out of a bin nearby and passed them to James. “Found these when I was picking up before. Hurry!”

After the mother had come home, she’d paid the men for their sitting services and waved as they drove off into the dark of night. It had been a long night, and they were such good men – she was glad they’d offered to give her a break.

She walked to the room that held her sleeping daughter – and she froze.

The child clutched a small, toy gun in her hand. And above, taped to the headboard, a blue crayon note delivered the fatal message.

One break is all you get, lady. Bang.

Get your exclusive Men with Pens Drive-by Site Consult and get to know what first-time visitors – and two pairs of expert eyes – see in your site. You’ll learn what’s working – and what isn’t – so that you can make changes to bring more readers, more customers and more of what you want.

Book your drive-by site consult today. Come on. You know you wanna.

Another rockin' post from the Men With Pens! Copyright 2009 - All Rights Reserved

Drive-By Shooting Special: Pick Nick’s Brains

One of the reasons I can do things like this is because I work from home. The other reason is that I don’t have a conscience to speak of.

The point is that I am of the privileged minority that gets to do stuff at home when I feel like taking a break instead of having to hang out by the water cooler trying to drain it quickly so Study McMuscles from Accounting comes by and heft a new bottle into place for me.

If you have a small business, you know there are only so many hours in the day to get things done. You know there are also all sorts of little mindless tasks that you never do that could improve the quality of your business.

Start making better use of that time than hanging out on YouTube watching cats play Parcheesi. (Incidentally, does it ever worry you that there are animals out there who know how to play games you don’t know how to play? It worries me.)

“But I don’t want to work in my spare time!” you say. “I want to hang out and eat potato chips! What’s the fun of working from home if you can’t just screw around when you want to?”

To which I reply, “Oh, my little biscuit. There will be plenty of time to screw around. Wouldn’t your spare time be way more relaxing if you had fewer things on your mind nagging at you because you knew you should be doing them?”

Yes, yes it would. Let’s think about some of them:

Doing Your Own Files

Doing your files means anything from the accounting to sorting your tax receipts from your grocery receipts to putting all the information about each of your clients in a nicely labeled folder decorated with sunflowers and lightning bolts (very avant-garde, that).

Every writer, designer, coach, consultant, hell, MASSEUSE I know has a pile of paperwork they never get around to taking care of. Invariably, this costs them money.

Filing is fairly mindless work, which means you can throw on an episode of your favorite TV show while you’re doing it. You won’t even feel like you’re working. You’ll have nice neat files, and you won’t have to worry that you’ll have to scramble for receipts at tax time and won’t be able to write off that $2,000 bucks for a new computer because you can’t find the slip.

Money and mindlessness! It doesn’t get any better.

Update Your Email and Client List

You have a huge number of people you know you should follow up with. But you don’t. You’ve forgotten. Let’s face it; anyone who sat in your inbox for longer than a week has been given up as a lost cause.

The next time you have a spare hour or two to mess around with, put on some nice rockin’ tunes and go through your inbox.

While you’re at it, figure out some sort of sorting system for your emails. I have a file in my email right now called “Contacts to Follow Up With”, which is grammatically incorrect, but since it’s my email no one cares. Once nicely sorted and perfectly organized, I can manage my email easily, save time better spent elsewhere (like learning Parcheesi) and make money from reminding clients they really do want to work with me.

The next time you have spare time, go through that inbox, make a contact list and throw out a few emails. If only one in ten of those friendly nudges works out, that’s still a huge return on your little time investment.

Go Hunting

Before you hightail it to the nearest gun store, I’m talking about client hunting. Browse around your favorite blogs, websites, and forums. Pick up that stack of magazines and read them over again. Look through the news.

Feels like screwing around, doesn’t it? Well, it is. The difference is that it’s screwing around with a purpose. While you’re re-reading that article on how to get the grout in your tub sparkly white without using chemicals, take note of the products they’re recommending. Go see if that company needs the services you’re selling.

Do the same for interview subjects, companies mentioned as doing good work, or the authors of articles. If you read an article about great marketing and the author owns their own marketing company, see if they need your services. Mention the article. Tell them you like what they do. It works.

There you go. That’s three ways to use your screw-around time without feeling like you’re working. Who’s got more to add?

Another rockin' post from the Men With Pens! Copyright 2009 - All Rights Reserved

Three Ways to Use Your Screw-Around Time to Improve Your Business

A convention (in this case) isn’t a crowded floor in a fancy hall. When speaking of convention in terms of web design, it means using basic signs, symbols and patterns that people recognize quickly. They’re familiar with them and expect to see them.

For example, when a driver see two signs crossed at the corner of an intersection, that person knows the signs usually indicate street names. When the driver sees a red sign, he knows it’s a warning to stop. He’s learned that a dotted yellow line on the highway means you can pass another car if it’s safe and that flashing lights in a rearview mirror means trouble.

We’ve become familiar with certain symbols and know what they mean without having to be told. We expect those yellow lines on roads, red stop signs at the end of streets and street names at intersections.

Without these familiarities, we’re lost. We hesitate at the intersection wondering if it’s safe to keep moving. We search for street signs and get frustrated when we can’t find them.

Driving Around Your Website

Conventions are the same for websites. A few very important conventions have evolved as the Internet developed. We expect to see the site’s name across the top of the page. We expect a navigation bar to be on the left, the right or at the top of the page just above or below the banner. We expect content to take up the bulk of a page and ads to be listed down the side of the site, laid out in a grid.

You could visit a website written in Russian and still be able to navigate because you have some sense of where elements might be – or where they should be.

When you start changing conventions and moving elements to unique places or creating designs that remove familiar buttons, icons and navigation, you’re inviting confusion. A change might strike a new trend or improve a convention, setting a whole new precedence.

Or it might just confuse visitors. They’ll leave.

There’s a problem when you make a change in your design or layout just for the sake of making a change. You’re not paying attention to the reasons that convention worked with people well in the first place.

Can you think of some design or usability conventions used in websites and blogs today? Let’s see how many we can all come up with!

Another rockin' post from the Men With Pens! Copyright 2009 - All Rights Reserved

Don’t Be Creative – Be Conventional

We like to cater to the desires of all types of writers, from fiction to copywriting. (Check out our posts on fiction writing here.)

So when Larry Brooks, an old friend, an ex pro baseball player and most importantly a bestselling novelist, offered to write a series on fiction writing and getting published, I was quite happy to say yes.

Please welcome Larry, and enjoy his first post in the series.

Some really smart people do some really dumb things when writing their first novel – or their tenth, for that matter. They read – at least, they should, if they aspire to write – and because the pros make it look easy, these people believe they can write a novel just as well as published authors. If not better.

It’’s not all that hard. Writing a novel just needs a throat-gripping idea and a couple of months.

Well, Tiger Woods makes his game look easy, too. But the smart people that watch him play wouldn’t dream of entering the U.S. Open qualifier to compete against him and hope to win.

The odds of turning pro as a novelist, of actually publishing a novel, are about the same.

That’s the first of the five things you absolutely need to know before you write a novel. If you know this, if you really get that you need to work hard, be serious and not be remotely cavalier about what it takes to get published, then it can be done.

That’s what the rest of the points are about.

Architecture is More than a Fancy Building

The second thing you need to know before you write a novel is that there is such a thing as story architecture. It’s much more complicated than stringing together a beginning, a middle and a spiffy ending.

Screenwriters have an inflexible story paradigm. The parameters novelists use are much looser and rarely spoken aloud – but you depart from them at you own peril. Publishers aren’t looking to reinvent the novel; they’re expecting a great story told from within accepted parameters.

The Secrets That Get You Published

What are those secret parameters? What is story architecture? It goes like this:

* A set-up with a killer hook
* Character intro with back-story and context
* A sense of place
* Foreshadowing and the establishment of stakes
* The hero’s impending need and inner demons
* The emerging seeds of a subplot
* A major plot point that introduces the story’s antagonistic element
* The definition of the hero’s quest or need
* Scenes that deepen the tension as the hero responds
* Refining the nature of the quest and the elements of its opposition
* A mid-story mind-numbing context shift that changes everything
* The evolution of the hero into a pro-active warrior
* Another significant plot twist that puts all the cards on the table

… followed by a series of scenes that show how the hero is applying what he’s learned to become a catalyst in the story’s oh-so-satisfying conclusion.

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It’s all learnable. It really is. Learn it, master it, and you will publish.

The Six Core Competencies a Novelist Needs

Thirdly, story architecture is only part of one of the six core competencies you need to render at a professional level before your book stands a chance:

Conceptualization

Character

Theme

Plot sequencing

Scene construction

Writing voice

This section is really simple. If you are weak in any one of these six core competencies, you’re dead in the slush pile.

You’d Better Like Baseball If You Want to Write

Fourth, the criteria for a new author is different than for a previously published, name-brand author.

Famous authors trade on their brand; their stories only need to be good enough. That’s where you got the notion you could do just as well in the first place. But don’t be seduced – you have to submit something that is other-worldly original, provocative, powerful and artful. You have to knock it out of the park.

Which cleverly brings us to the fifth point…

Publishers are looking for home runs. Don’t settle for good – go for the fence. Publishers have plenty of good novels from contracted authors. To take a chance on a newbie, they need a story that knocks their socks off in a way you can’t anticipate.

You have no idea how cynical and jaded manuscript readers and editors can be.

To paraphrase Neil Sedaka, breaking in is hard to do. But it happens. And it might as well happen to you. Before it does, you’ll realize that there are far more than five things you need to know before you write your novel.

More like 175 things.

And the most important of them is this: It is worth all the work.

Knocking it Out of the Park is Better than Golf

You can’t cut corners in the novel-writing trade. But if you humble yourself before the immensity of the task, if you search out and master the 175 things you need to know and write your story with passion and courage and art and craft and great hope, you’ll find yourself standing in the aisle at Borders or Chapters.

You’ll be staring your book in the face. You’ll be all choked up and blushing. And you’ll be thankful you took up writing instead of golf.

Because writers experience life in a way others don’t. We’re observers and chroniclers and analysts. We’re players. In the roles we write, we are alive and present. We matter. What we write outlives us.

Which is exactly why it really is worth all the work.

And if none of that is important to you… Well, there’s always caddying.

Larry Brooks offers spring training for writers young and old. Contact him for fiction coaching services or an evaluation of your manuscript – and get published faster. Or, click here visit Larry’s blog.

Another rockin' post from the Men With Pens! Copyright 2009 - All Rights Reserved

Five Things You Absolutely Need to Know Before You Write a Novel

I have often gone browsing for a service or a product, gotten all the way up to the part where I’m supposed to give them money, and backed down. Usually because I realize I can’t afford it just then.

When I do this, it’s not because I want to give this person a hard time. It’s also not because they did anything to put me off. It’s because their advertising worked. I wanted to buy something that I previously had no intention of buying (which is why I didn’t have the money already set aside for it when I started browsing their website). So well played to them for great marketing.

Now. How do they get me to make the purchase?

Sadly, there’s really no way they could get me to make the purchase right then. If I derail from my train of desire-induced shopping, it is because the conductor found out I didn’t have a ticket. If I don’t have the money, I don’t have the money.

However.

Since their advertising is clearly working wonders on me, making me consider selling my TV just to buy the Kool-Aid they’re promising, they do have the opportunity to make me plan on the purchase in the future.

When I want something – a website design, say – I start putting money aside for it. I know approximately what it’s going to cost me, so I save up enough money and then I start putting out queries. They give me a price, I say that’s great, and we do our little exchange-for-goods-dance.

If I haven’t saved the money, your objective is not to make me buy right now, because that’s impossible. Your objective is to make me PLAN to buy in the future.

Which means you have to follow up on my initial interest.

One client of mine only became a client after – wait for it – FOUR years. She always meant to get around to the project, but she never got around to having the funds allocated. She really wanted to work with me, and meanwhile she was sending me lots of other clients, but she was stuck.

So I kept showing up. I sent her an email every month or so, not a sales email (she already knows who I am and how awesome I am) just to say hi. I asked how the project was going, without ever referencing my part in it. I was interested. I was genuinely thrilled when she decided to move forward with it, for her sake.

She told me later that the only reason she was finally able to move forward with the project was that she’d gotten a windfall. And a little later that week, she saw my name in her inbox and thought, “That’s what I’ll spend it on.”

Now then. What do we learn from all this?

If I hadn’t kept showing up, if we hadn’t become acquaintances who sent a brief note back and forth now and then, she would probably have forgotten all about this project in the space of four years. She would have gotten that windfall and spent it on a trip to the Bahamas or a custom-made detail-perfect replica of Han Solo’s costume in the first Star Wars.

I would have been long forgotten.

So follow up. Be interested in your clients. At the very least, it will make them think of you kindly, and you will probably get referrals out of that fact. At the best, they’ll start setting aside money for the service you provide, because they keep remembering that this is something they really want to do.

There are many methods of follow-up. Email is my chosen route, but some people send out newsletters or use the phone. It doesn’t matter how you do it, but it does matter THAT you do it.

Remember that client you had awhile back who said he might have some work for you in the future? Go ask how he’s doing. Don’t ask about the work. Just see how he is. It’s entirely possible that he’s fine, but he’s been needing what you do.

He just needed to be reminded. And that’s your job.

Another rockin' post from the Men With Pens! Copyright 2009 - All Rights Reserved

One Great Reason to Remember the Clients You Never Had

Every book has a beginning and end. Between that beginning and end, there are many highs and lows, chapters, scenes and paragraphs. Each connect with the next, and each should have a transitional flow for a smooth, enjoyable read.

In movies, transitions between scenes are easy. The screen fades to black at just the right moment, and when it lights up again, you’re watching a new scene.

But how do you write transitions in a creative writing RPG? How does your character get from Point A to Point B without boring readers and writers alike with banalities and routines? Can you fade to black? How do you write that transition well?

In a creative writing RPG (or a novel), transitions take more finesse. You need to know what to leave out, what to leave in and how far to jump to get to the next scene. You also need to make sure that the hook you leave at the end of your scene makes people want to know what comes next.

Using Transitions As Punctuation

Transitional scenes are like punctuation. They act as periods, ending the action, or as dashes, giving readers pause. They can leave a question in the reader’s mind, or they can end on an exclamation point so that readers hang onto the edge of their seat, anticipating hungrily for the next scene.

Transitions definitely shouldn’t put readers to sleep, boring them out of their interest in what comes next. Also, transition to a new scene too soon and you leave the reader feeling cheated or even confused.

Your transition needs some structure, and it requires thinking ahead. You have to think about where your character has just been to wrap up your scene, and you have to know where your character needs to be next, so you can make the transition between both scenes a smooth one.

Let’s say two characters are hanging out watching TV on a Friday night. Character A decides they should go out to a bar and Character B agrees.

Think about how much of the upcoming transition you want to show to readers. How much would you enjoy reading scene after scene on the little details, like getting dressed, getting in the car, driving to the local bar, finding a parking space…

You probably wouldn’t enjoy reading that at all, and you probably wouldn’t enjoy writing it either. That’s pretty boring stuff. Unless you have a reason to show any or all of those details to readers, skip the mundane.

However, if some details are integral to the story, show it to the readers. Character B might suddenly wonder whether Character A considers this a date and becomes flustered and nervous, or Character A might be rehearsing the Serious Talk he wants to have on the drive over.

But if the two people just want to go to a bar and have no other thoughts in mind, skip ahead and bring them to the point of opening the bar door or sipping their first drink.

Enter Stage Left, Exit Stage Right

Transitions are much like the turn of a page at the end of a scene in a paperback novel. They should wrap the scene up nicely and give the reader a place to sigh happily and set down the book for the night to come back to it tomorrow, or they should leave the reader with a real cliffhanger so they can’t resist turning that page.

Always leave them wanting more.

So if something exciting is going to happen next, give readers a teaser or a taste. Make them say, “Ooh!” and get them excited to read the next scene. Think about how your favorite TV show wraps up for the night with a real hook and a “Tune in tomorrow…”

You’re screaming, aren’t you. And you’re back tomorrow, eyes glued to the screen.

If you’re aiming for warm fuzzies or a somber wrap up, give readers that too. Write in a way that leaves them with a sigh, or with some emotional response that lingers. “Aw, how sad! I wonder what he’ll do!” Or, “Aw, that’s so sweet…”

When you pick up again, you can get right to the next scene and not worry about the hours that fell in between.

Even individual posts have transitions at the end, right at the point you finish your post and hand the baton to the next player for his or her reply. You need to give them something they can pick up on to continue the flow, an action they can react to.

One of the most common mistakes in transitions is when a player writes, “…and he waited for her reply.” Boooring. Readers know that the character is waiting for a reply – duh.

Find a better way to wrap your scene and pass the baton. Ask a question. “Do you really think we’ll make it?” and leave it there for a cliffhanger that begs for an answer. Or, end with a statement sentence. “He turned his back to her, and put his face in his hands.” Try an action. “The glass flew from his fingers, and smashed against the wall.”

And the reader goes, “Ooh!” and turns the page to see what happens next.

You Are Here

When transitioning between scenes and setting up a new one, choose an interesting point of entry. Someone once said (George Lucas, perhaps?) that it’s sometimes better to start in the middle.

You’re probably thinking, “Huh? Start in the middle? Isn’t that confusing?” Not if you do it right. Go ahead and skip right to the good part. Start just before the point you know something good is going to happen.

If you need to add details, a quick paragraph or two suffices – don’t recount the minutes of the past three hours to set your scene up. Give a few highlights so the reader has a sense of where and when they are, and then dig in.

Writing perfect transitions are a tool in your writing toolbox. They’re just as important as any element of the story and not one to be taken for granted. Good transitions contribute to the anticipation and excitement, and they keep readers turning those pages.

Another rockin' post from the Men With Pens! Copyright 2009 - All Rights Reserved

How to Write Great Transition Scenes

So now what? You might be looking at your blog feeling disheartened and discouraged. Your whole business model revolved around blogging for business, and your home page is full of posts.

Fret not, fair reader. All is not lost. If you’re sitting there wondering what to do with your front-page blog and few sales, the answer is simple:

Change.

That’s the nice thing about blogs and sites built on WordPress. They’re very forgiving and extremely flexible. Even the cheapest, most limiting versions of blogs can get your business back in the spotlight and gently shoo your free stuff back to supporting cast.

Here’s what to do:

Business before Pleasure

You may want to blog for SEO purposes or to show off your smarts, but if the first thing a new visitors sees when he or she lands on your blog is a post, you’ve just created confusion.

A reader might find you through a Twitter link and be happy to come and read your post. But a typical buyer doesn’t come to your blog because of a link he noticed on Twitter.

The typical buyer comes to your site because he was looking for a solution.

When he lands on your site, hoping to find a professional ready to go to work, he’s confused. Is he in the right place? There’s no nice text outlining what you sell and how you can make his life better. No, he finds a post on 7 weird things about you or a rant about a nasty client.

Likely to land the sale? I think not.

So put your business before pleasure. There are many website-blog combo themes that don’t cost much – and some are free. Switch your theme out, make sure your home page clearly and quickly conveys exactly what you do, what you sell and how you’ll rock someone’s world.

The visitor gets exactly what he wants. And if he’s not interested in buying just yet? Then he’ll explore and discover your blog. A customer or a new reader – you win either way.

Who Are You Talking To?

One incredibly common problem is having the wrong audience reading your blog posts. You’re blogging hard and heavy on what you know best to convey credibility to potential clients…

But you end up attracting readers who want to be just like you. They want your tips, your knowledge, your tricks and your brain. Not your services.

These readers won’t hire you. They want to soak up what you know, learn what you do, and then go out and do it better. They want to become the next you, kick your ass and hand it to you on a platter while they scoop up all your clients.

So change your topic focus. Start blogging about related topics that don’t end up putting your brains on the road for the prey birds to pick at. You’ll still get plenty of readers, and you’ll still convey credibility. You’ll also attract more buyers willing to hire you for what you do .

Because they don’t want to learn what you know.

I Can’t SEE You

If you could watch a first-time visitor navigate your site, you’d be amazed. That big ad promoting your book in the sidebar? The person doesn’t even see it. In fact, he doesn’t even see your sidebar. He’s too busy squinting at your banner – the one in bright orange, the one he can’t figure out.

What does that title say? Dunno. Huh.

He’ll move on to your navigation – maybe. Maybe he doesn’t even see the main navigation – the one that has the important stuff, like About, Contact and more importantly, Services.

Maybe your blog post down below is screaming for attention. The title font sure is big enough. So the visitor reads and wonders what this is all about. What site is he on again? He looks up for answers – but there’s that orange banner.

Yuck.

Uncertainty. Confusion. Help? Oh yes, there it is – some links… With puzzling titles. And there are a whole bunch of links. Too many. It’s overwhelming and that just adds to the confusion. To hell with this – CLICK!

Your visitor is gone.

So clean up your site. Make it painfully obvious to anyone what you do and what you sell. Remove the clutter. Get rid of the gadgets. Cut down the long list of links and keep it all succinct. Retitle your posts.

Too many ads? Ditch some. They’re probably not earning you any money anyways. Focus on what does make you money, and get it right in front of a buyer’s eyes.

Move the Furniture Around

While you’re doing some housecleaning on your site, why not consider moving the furniture around for a better flow of traffic?

Consider taking the not-so-necessary out of your navigation. Do you really need all those pages? Got a free download or a cheap seller? Pull it down. Replace it with a page that promotes your services – clearly.

Use your sidebar space and promote yourself. Have some ads for affiliate products that just aren’t working? Put an ad for your own products or services in their place instead. (Yes, that’s where you can put that free download or selling ebook.)

You may want to consider doubling up your navigation, too. It’s nice to have a navigation bar underneath the banner where people expect it to be. But they may not see it just the same, so try listing links to those pages in your sidebar as well – instead of listing blog posts.

Try overhauling your services and copywriting, too. Package things up. Eliminate the fluff. Streamline your process. Clarify what you do, and create a message with more impact.

And once that’s all done… Well, write some great blog posts and start telling people about the cool stuff you do.

Another rockin' post from the Men With Pens! Copyright 2009 - All Rights Reserved

How to Turn Your Blog Into a Business

Editor’s note: Happy Canada Day to all our Canadian friends!

As you know, I’ve been in Ashland for the Shakespeare Festival. Before that, I was in Alameda helping my younger sister celebrate her birthday. Before THAT, I was visiting various friends in Northern and Southern California (two areas that should really be separated by barbed wire and a sign that says “Here There Be Dragons”).

I have been on the road for the last month. On the morning that you read this, I will have just spent my first night back in my own bed. Which is why you probably won’t see me until mid-afternoon, because it’s going to take some artful crowbar application and promises of beignets to get me out of there.

Now, I like my life to be full of travels like this. It’s one of the reasons I became a writer. Widely held knowledge says that writers must be well-stocked with two things: travel and hard liquor. We have no idea what happened with Emily Dickinson, but we must assume that she is a fluke.

Ms. Dickinson has the advantage of me, though. She had a routine. There’s a year in there where she wrote almost 600 poems, which is nearly 2 a day, with only one on Sundays. The lady had some dedication, is what I’m saying. And maybe it was because she stayed put.

It’s hard to develop a routine when you’re on the road. Some of my favored work habits – the magical dry-erase board, the hourglass, the friend who comes over and pokes me with a stick until I produce something – aren’t possible when I’m traveling. So I have to develop new habits and routines, specifically for a schedule that nearly by definition seeks to break with routine.

I’m traveling. The whole point is to break out of my routine. It’s why I love it. Usually, I’m pretty good about setting aside some time in the day to devote to work, even when I’m away from my usual work helpers.

When something happens to throw a monkey wrench in the works, though, I can get seriously off track.

I had a series of car troubles with the friend with whom I’m traveling (yeah, with whom. That’s the fancy-pants grammar we know you all come for. I’m just giving the people what they want). And since I was on vacation, I had completely set aside my work, assuming I could catch up when I was back at home.

This was stupid. The car troubles meant that I had to spend an extra week in Ashland. If I had waited until I returned, I’d have missed so many deadlines that Jamie would be considering selling me for scrap.

But since I was still on the road, I had a hell of a time forcing myself to sit tight and get some work done. Here’s what I finally had to do.

Make Work As Scary As Whatever Travel-Land Throws At You

Here’s what I was thinking the entire time the car was going nuts: this is so much money to be spending on vacation, I didn’t budget for this, did that guy just offer to lube up the chassis? Did he mean that in a dirty way? What’s a chassis?

Here’s what I should have been thinking: the car is going to cost a lot of money, so while they’re working on it, I should settle into a coffee shop and make the money I will need to handle the costs.

Create Substitutes for Your Usual Routines

One of my favorite usual work habits is to put all my work up on a whiteboard so I can see it. I happen to carry a Moleskine notebook as a wallet, because I like to be able to write things down as I think of them. I whipped it out and started making a portable whiteboard list. It’s not nearly as magical, but it’ll do for travel purposes.

Next up: figuring out a travel version of my hourglass. The little one that comes in the Boggle game doesn’t last long enough.

Tell Your Friends to $*#& Off

This is a whole ‘nother post in its own right, but a lot of people simply don’t realize that freelancers need to work. They think, how awesome that you can stop working whenever you want to do something fun, and they never think that you have to START working again at some point. Like, say, later in the day. No no – to them, money just magically appears in your bank account while you wade in the creek.

I’m not saying I wouldn’t go for that job description. I’m just saying it doesn’t actually fit what I do.

So tell them you need to work. Explain it with the same ferocity that they explain their boss has just demanded they work an extra shift. Just because your boss happens to be you doesn’t mean your work is less demanding. Don’t feel guilty about having to work sometimes when you’re on vacation. The fact that you CAN work while on vacation means you get to take more vacations.

Have a Drink

Drinking will not help you be more efficient while traveling. It will, however, mean you have satisfied the secondary requirement of being a writer. Hemingway would be proud.

Another rockin' post from the Men With Pens! Copyright 2009 - All Rights Reserved

Staying On Task While Traveling

You can do just that – by having a great portfolio.

Do You Really Need to Show Off?

Yes, you do. When you operate an online business, you need to provide potential clients with a portfolio of your past work to show your abilities and skills.

A portfolio is the equivalent of a resume or CV. Your resume reflects your experience and work. Often, it represents a lifetime of your achievements.

A portfolio is no different. This is your life’s work now. Your portfolio shows off the best of your best, and it’s a representation of your personality and style.

Without one, you’re all talk. You could promise the client the moon and regale them with the marvelous projects you’ve done, but it’s only bragging if you can’t back it up.

Where Should You Start?

If you’ve been working for a while, you already have the start of a portfolio right under your nose. In fact, you probably have the start of several portfolios.

Yes, several. You could lump all your past projects into one portfolio, but that makes for a sloppy, confusing presentation. Clients don’t know what to look at, and they may choose to view something they don’t need – then they’ll leave.

Think of organizing your portfolio as you’d organize outfits for different occasions. Here are the suits, here are the evening gowns, here are the casual sporty clothes, here are the shoes.

Here are a few types of portfolio sections or pages you may want to consider:

• Web design
• Copywriting
• Print graphics
• Logos
• Sales Letters
• Audio
• Blog posts
• Ebooks
• Animation

I could go on forever, breaking each section down further into specific types of work. Once you start to organize your portfolio, you’ll see just how easy it is – and your clients will see how easy it is to find what they’re looking for, too.

Do You Have Diversity?

Your portfolio is all about you. Within the space of a few minutes, or even seconds, your portfolio says more about you than you could possibly imagine.

No one wants to see the same thing over and over. Take a look at the work you want to put in your portfolio. Will it make you look like you have a diverse set of skills? Does it show off everything you can do?

If you’re a graphic designer, examine the overall impact of the images as a single group. Do the images all look the same? Or, do they represent a wide range of variety? If you’re a writer, is each document the same style? What diversity can you display? Can you add other pieces that show you have multiple skills?

Keep It Sweet and Simple

We all want to show off our flash and bang, but in some cases, it’s just overkill. It distracts from the purpose of showing a client you’re qualified and know what you’re doing.

Most likely, your client is busy. You’re probably not the only freelancer he or she is considering for the job. That person wants a fast look that makes him or her think, “Yes! This is exactly what I need!” Keep your portfolio simple, get to the point, and don’t waste time.

It may be best to have one primary portfolio page with a few of your best projects displayed front and center. Add headlines to tell clients what they’re looking at. If you have a large portfolio, offer a link to another page where visitors can view the whole selection, if they have the time or inclination.

Back it Up with Information

You do good work, great. So what? People examining your portfolio don’t want to know how fantastic you are. They want to know whether you’ll achieve the goal they seek, and they want backup that you’ve already done it for other people.

Show them the results. What did your work accomplish for your past clients? What problem did clients have, and how did you resolve it? If they wanted more sales, how many did your work help achieve? If they wanted more exposure, how did your skills help them attain that?

Remember that people don’t buy great writing or flashy graphics. They buy the future, the results that the writing or images are going to bring. And they want to know how you changed the lives of others before they trust you to change theirs.

Change Is A Good Thing

Your portfolio isn’t a static object that never changes. As you get better, work more and gain experience, your portfolio evolves right along with you.

If you’re brand new at freelancing, create portfolio pieces for yourself and your business. Your business is your client, after all, and the work you do for it is experience. When you’ve built up a client base, start switching out your pieces for client work.

Even after you’ve been working in your field for a while, you still need to keep your portfolio fresh and updated. Go back and weed out the old work. You update your résumé, don’t you? You update your portfolio the same way.

3, 2, 1…Contact!

Whether you present your portfolio in person, mail a disc, send links in an email or show it on the web, make sure your potential client can see your contact information. Nothing loses a sale faster than a client seeing something he or she wants – and having no way to tell you it’s a go.

Can you think of any other tips for a great portfolio? What would you want to see, if you were a potential client looking for the right person for the job?

Another rockin' post from the Men With Pens! Copyright 2009 - All Rights Reserved

How to Get New Clients with Old Work