July 2024

Peschel's Indie Author Compendium Banner

Deus ex machina defined

by • Peschel's Indie Author Compendium

Deus ex machina defined is from the draft of “Peschel’s Indie Author Compendium: Best Practices, Words, Concepts, and Warnings to Help You Write and Market Compelling, Useful, and Entertaining Prose”

(c) 2024 by Bill Peschel

deus ex machina: A plot event that spoons the protagonist out of trouble through coincidence or contrivance. From the Latin phrase “god from the machine” to describe a crane used to lower a character playing a god in ancient Greek plays to rescue a character from trouble.

This definition can also be applied to coincidences. If you’ve written a character into a corner with no way out, it’s easy to use a coincidence to save them. This is a bad idea for several reasons:

1. You’ve deprived the reader of a treat. A hero in trouble is exciting. A hero who uses his wits to get out of trouble is doubly so. A hero who is rescued at the last minute has the effect on the reader of a balloon deflating (with juicy fart noises added).

2. You’ve deprived your hero of a character-defining moment that displays their tools, talents, wit, and style.

So when plotting your story, remember this rule: “Use coincidences to get characters into trouble, not out of trouble.”

Remember the scene in “Pulp Fiction” when Butch Coolidge (Bruce Willis) stops at the intersection and sees Marcellus Wallace (Ving Rhames) step in front of him? Butch had just thrown the fight that Marcellus bet heavily on, and that’s the last person Butch wanted to see. It’s an electric moment.

deus ex machina defined
That’s how you use coincidence to get a character into trouble.

“Peschel’s Indie Author Compendium” will be published by Peschel Press. No release date has been set.

Peschel's Indie Author Compendium Banner

Churn Defined

by • Peschel's Indie Author Compendium

Churn defined defined is from the draft of “Peschel’s Indie Author Compendium: Best Practices, Words, Concepts, and Warnings to Help You Write and Market Compelling, Useful, and Entertaining Prose”

(c) 2024 by Bill Peschel

churn: The process by which authors frequently lose readers and have to replace them with new readers. While some change is natural, authors successful over the long haul increase the core of readers anticipating their next book.

Churn is not good in book publishing, but good in making butter.
Authors who deliver books that are indistinguishable from other books in the same genre find it difficult to retain readers. This requires extensive advertising to lure new readers or draw back old readers. On a chart showing an author’s sales year over year, churn can be identified if sales spike due to a promotion, then return to the original level. The lack of a steady, regular increase overall in sales and readership, even as new books are written, demonstrates the readers have been lured in, are disappointed, and then leave. Another sign of churn is that each book in the series sells noticeably poorer than its predecessor.

“Peschel’s Indie Author Compendium” will be published by Peschel Press. No release date has been set.

book festival best practices banner

Book Festival Best Practices

by • Book-Related Events, Public Persona

Teresa and I were asked for advice for new authors attending an inaugural book festival on how best to behave and market themselves and their books. We came up with this list of book festival best practices that’ll help present the best part of you, impress customers, and maybe lead to a few sales.

We want you, dear authors, to have a successful event, meet a lot of readers, and consider participating in future events that we sponsor.

We asked a friend of the festival for tips on how authors should prepare and present themselves to make the best impression on the visitors. With her husband, she has self-published more than 35 books and has sold books at festivals, craft fairs, library events, and more. She has seen the good, the bad, the sad, and the ugly!

If this is your first book festival, these tips will help you have a better event. Even if you’re an old hand, you may pick up a tip or two.

Ready?

Before the Event

book festival promotion murder as you like it
If the organizer gives you art to promote the event, be sure to use it. (See what I did here?) Murder As You Like It is coming.
* Promote the event! Boost each other’s signals. Post on all your social media platforms and do it often. The more advertising each author does, the more readers will attend and the more likely you are to sell books. If you need more incentive, remember this. If you can’t be bothered to promote the event on all your social media platforms, why should we bother to invite you back next year?

* Rehearse speaking a sentence or two about each book. When a potential reader asks, “What is this book about?” you’ll be ready. Expect to repeat yourself throughout the day but remember: What you’re saying is new to each person you say it to. Don’t sound bored. Keep your energy up.

book festival best practices
Before our first event, Teresa and I set up our table in the living room as a dress rehearsal.
* Decorate your table to make it reader-attractive. That could be a tablecloth, table runners, and table or floor banners. Make a price sign. Use book stands to better display your books.

* Bring plenty of books. If you’re not sure, try at least six copies of each title. If you have a series, bring more copies of the first book; readers like starting a series at the beginning.

* Bring swag. Swag can be bookmarks, business cards, keychains, catalogs, pens with your logo, or fliers. The sky’s the limit depending on what you want to spend. We suggest bookmarks, because they can be given to a visitor after they listen to your pitch and want to move on. Bookmarks are inexpensive advertising.

* What are you going to wear? Your clothes advertise who you are as a writer. Don’t dress like you’re cleaning your garage. If you’ve got brand colors, wear them. Your outfit can reflect your genre: cowboy hat for your western romance, a trench coat for your thrillers, and so on. A distinctive outfit that reinforces your genre will help readers remember you and will give them something to talk about. People judge your books by their covers; they’ll judge you by your clothes too.

Author Laurisa Brandt (hi Laurisa!) from the 2024 Hershey Artsfest.

At the Event

* Arrive early. Give yourself enough time to set up your table and introduce yourself to your fellow authors. This is a great opportunity to share information and build relationships. Take notes on how they present their books. Be inspired by their work.

* Look over the program to see who else is attending. Know where the bathrooms and food trucks are. One way to easily engage with people is to help them with directions. If a person isn’t interested in your books, they may be interested in a fellow author’s books. Tell them!

* Understand that you may not sell a single book. There are no guarantees. Book festivals are advertising, marketing, publicity, and outreach. You’ll connect directly with readers, one on one. If you make one new fan, you’ve succeeded.

* You will handle your own sales. Be ready to make change or use a program like Square on your phone for credit card transactions. Display a price list for your books. You are responsible for any state sales tax so keep track of your sales.

* Put your phone down. This should be obvious, but we’ve seen this many times at events. People walk by your table, see you flicking through Instagram and walk on. Checking your email should be postponed. Calling home? You know your family requirements but try to minimize it. Posting about the event, live, to your social media? A great idea but the guest in front of you is more important. Otherwise, leave the phone alone other than to process credit card sales.

* Don’t be rude to the other authors, event organizers and volunteers, and the guests. If it irritates you to answer the same question for the 15th time, this may not be the place for you. If you offend a guest, you haven’t offended one person and lost one sale. You’ve offended every person they tell about your rudeness. What’s more, you won’t get invited back next year.

* Be ready to meet readers who have never heard of you. Be charming, personable, and prepared to answer their questions. Remember that each person is meeting you for the first time. If they ask about your books, tell them as if it’s the first time you were asked.

* Wait until the end of the event to pack up. If guests arrive in the last twenty minutes, we want them to see every author listed in the program.

* Again, don’t play on your phone and ignore the guests!

* Enjoy the day!

After the Event

* Keep track of your sales. You’ll need to report the income to the IRS, and pay the sales tax on each purchase to the state. Check with the state or your tax preparer. Recording your sales will also give you a better idea of how many books to bring to future events.

* Think about other author displays you saw. How can you improve your own table?

* Think about your pitches to passersby. How can you improve what you say about each of your books?

* Learn from this book festival. What will you change to be better next time? Because there will be a next time!

Peschel's Indie Author Compendium Banner

Banner Blindness Defined

by • Peschel's Indie Author Compendium

Banner Blindness defined is from the draft of “Peschel’s Indie Author Compendium: Best Practices, Words, Concepts, and Warnings to Help You Write and Market Compelling, Useful, and Entertaining Prose”

(c) 2024 by Bill Peschel

Banner Blindness: An advertising word that describes customers who are so used to the shape, location, and/or style of an ad that they no longer see it. Banner blindness can be countered in online advertising by designing ads so they attract the eye through a startling image or color combination, or in the case of social media, by designing an ad so its looks like a person’s post.

Peschel's Indie Author Compendium Banner

Art Over Commerce Defined

by • Peschel's Indie Author Compendium

Art Over Commerce defined is from the draft of “Peschel’s Indie Author Compendium: Best Practices, Words, Concepts, and Warnings to Help You Write and Market Compelling, Useful, and Entertaining Prose”

(c) 2024 by Bill Peschel

Art over commerce: The cause of endless (and fruitless) debate ever since one cave artist saw another cave artist rewarded for his mastodon mural when any fool could see it was derivative of his own much-better work. The question boils down to: Should a creator follow solely her judgment during the creation of a work, or should she consider the audience’s opinion as well?

Louis B Mayer art over commerce defined
Louis B. Mayer (source)
It is this question that inspired Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer to adopt the Latin motto Ars gratia artis (“Art for art’s sake”). This caused George Bernard Shaw, during negotiations over the film rights to his play, to tell MGM’s Louis B. Mayer that “I’m afraid, Mr. Goldwyn, that we shall not ever be able to do business together. You see you’re an artist and care only about art, while I’m only a tradesman and care only about money.”