Baltimore Book Festival Moves in 2019

by • Book-Related Events • Tags:

The Baltimore Book Festival moves to December in 2019, according to an article in the Baltimore Sun.

The festival was moved to combine it with the Light City festival, which was moved from the spring. No specific date has been set as of this time.

At the Career Indie Author, we are pledged to keep you updated on book festivals and book-related events. Every quarter, we review our list to make sure the information is current. We focus on the mid-Atlantic area, but have extended our espionage network to include New York, Tennessee and points west.

Attending these festivals, whether as vendor or participant, is a great way to get to know your literary neighbors and raise your public profile. You can befriend an author in a similar genre, meet media people looking for something to write about, find booksellers who are looking for event ideas, and meet readers who are as passionate about books as you are.

If nothing else, you might something good to read.

https://www.baltimoresun.com/entertainment/arts/bs-fe-festival-dates-20181031-story.html

Lawrence Block Shows Why Authors Need to Know Their Rights

by • Contracts, IP, and Rights • Tags: ,

If you read Kristine Kathryn Rusch’s blog, you know that she emphasizes being very careful about what rights you sign away.

Lawrence Block would agree.

After all, you are creating worlds with your stories. You are creating characters that could last beyond your lifetime. They are unique, the product of a singular mind. They are valuable, and you should treat them that way.

Lawrence Block
Lawrence Block

Publishers and producers know that the products of your imagination are valuable, which is why they try to acquire the rights to them. Authors, not being business-savvy as a rule, think they should sign over everything to get published. Worse, they think they can’t or shouldn’t object, because they fear the offer would be taken away, or that they would look “greedy,” or they fear offending their new “friends.”

This is mistaken thinking, and it can hurt you financially and emotionally.

Anyway, read her advice, starting with her latest post, and I’ll add this story that shows why you should give away nothing you create, no matter how insignificant you think it is.

On Goodreads, Lawrence Block mentioned that a story he wrote, “Bride of Violence, was made into a feature movie and is appearing now on Amazon Prime.

Well and good. Except this was not a story featuring his most popular characters, like Scudder or Bernie Rhodenbarr. It wasn’t a high-paying story. It was something he wrote in 1959 and it was published in “Two-Fisted Detective Stories,” for which he was paid $25.

No one would have thought that a short story would be made into a feature movie 59 years later. You see the trailer on YouTube.

That’s why you hang onto your rights!

bob and carol and ted and alice in bed

Book Cover Design Motifs

by • Book Covers • Tags:

Throughout your life, educating yourself should never stop. That goes double for your writing career. While I’m setting up the Career Indie Author site and working on the book, I’m also paying attention to what other authorities have to say.

Which is why I saved these screenshots. It was a part of one of Mark Dawson’s Self-Publishing Formula seminars Stuart Bache’s cover design course. I thought it was very amusing and instructive to see these book cover tropes and how efficiently they signal the book’s subject matter.

I had saved them to my desktop, so to clear them off, I decided to pass a few of them along to you.

Take the Running Man motif. Dark streets. Concerned man, sometimes accompanied by the second banana. Instantly signals conspiracy, thriller, threats, and the impossibility of finding a taxi in the days before Uber.

book design motifs

The Single Eyeball motif. This is more difficult to parse. Depending on the type and color of the eye, it signals the presence of monsters, aliens, or otherworldly presences. Think thriller, horror, or astigmatism.

book design motif

The Split Legs motif. This you see more on movie posters than books, so you might want to consider this. I remember seeing it first in the post for James Bond’s You Only Live Twice. In Charlotte, N.C., the newspaper had to add a skirt to hide the cheeky woman’s cheeks. What started as provocative for a run-of-the-mill Roger Moore movie has since morphed into a symbol for a sex comedy, usually with a lot less sex or comedy than promised.

book cover design motif

The Face Vandalism motif. Words over the face. Any color, any face, but almost always a serious Oscar-bait story featuring an A-list actor (for the movie poster, see Matt Damon and Nicole Kidman in the photo). I also see it used over Diane Keaton in “What’s the Story Morning Glory?” a semi-serious comedy with Harrison Ford that’s better than I thought the reviewers said. Typography is especially important here, to make the title recognizable instead of implying “Elephant Man” disease.

The Beddy Bye motif. The characters are in bed, facing the viewer. By the gender combination (male / female, male / male, human / animals) instantly signals the genre, and their expressions whether it’s drama or comedy. Usually seen on movie posters (such as “Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice” seen at the top of this post), but why not appropriate it for novels?

The last shot demonstrates how cover designer Stuart Bache creates an original piece of art by combining several elements from photos found on royalty-free sites such as Shutterstock or DepositPhoto. Creating a collage-style cover can be tricky. A look at Lousy Book Covers demonstrates the perils of designs in which the elements are out of scale, badly cropped, or out of focus.

The cover design seminar was incredibly engaging. Even if you don’t want to do your own designs, the full course should give you the knowledge so you can approach a designer and make educated suggestions that will nail your novel’s genre and encourage readers to try your book.

Chuck Wendig tweets

When Should an Author Get Political?

by • Public Persona

It’s a question I wrestle with daily: Should I or shouldn’t I comment on the day’s news?

It’s from my journalism background. After spending a few decades in the industry, it’s second-nature to read news and react to it. I also have a natural interest in politics and government. I was a political science and history major in college before switching to journalism. I’m fascinated by the presidency. I even took a constitutional law course that required me to read and dissect 55 opinions, from Marbury vs. Madison (the ruling that gave the Supreme Court the right to rule on the constitutionality of laws) to Rowe vs. Wade (the pro-abortion ruling).

So, when political news happens, I have an opinion. Should I share it?

In my upcoming book, “Career Indie Author,” I advise authors to think carefully before jumping into any controversial topics. Unless you’re writing books about politics, unless you’re already known for your beliefs, why risk annoying or pissing off at least half your potential readership?

We’ve seen this play out just this past weekend. A writer known for his opinions, was dropped by Disney for what his editor told him were his comments on Twitter.

The wrong way to make the front page of Google.

If you didn’t know anything about this until now, let me characterize this as a Big Deal. It certainly was in the “Star Wars” world, because he has written a trilogy of novels authorized by Disney, was in the middle of writing one comic book mini-series, and had recently been signed to do a second series involving Darth Vader.

In other words, he had been building a nice little corner of his career on Star Wars, and now it’s gone.

So what destroyed his relationship with Disney? Twitter. Specifically, he tweets.

The author doesn’t suffer fools, or those who he perceives are fools (and, yes, there is a difference). His attitude on Twitter is combative. Criticism is met with criticism in return. Questions he doesn’t like results in blocking the questioner. Apparently, he blocks people so frequently that it inspired a satirical T-shirt.

Whether or not you agree with him, the author turned himself into a lightning rod. He’s the drunk in the barroom who dares everyone to come at him. His behavior forces people to take an immediate stand over him, whether to endure his behavior because you agree with his politics, or endure his politics because you admire his behavior.

Note that NONE OF THIS HAS ANYTHING TO DO WITH SELLING BOOKS. It’s all about him.

This is not intelligent.

Here’s the reason why: Espousing political opinions with a side order of abuse gives people a reason not to buy your books. Acting obnoxiously in public may feel good. You may even feel righteous about it.

But it comes at a price. Your public persona becomes more about you as a person, then as a person who writes the books people want to read.

hogarth three jaguars
But don’t take it from me. From M.C.A. Hogarth’s “The Three Jaguars” book. Buy it today!

Who wants to be around that?

This problem is redoubled when, as in his case, you’re working in someone else’s IP. You’re no longer you, you’re also that IP.

Shitting on people publicly and driving away readers while you’re associated with that IP reflects badly on the corporation that owns that IP. This is a very, very bad idea.

Silence Is Not the Only Option

So, wait (I hear you say), does that mean I can’t express myself?

I don’t think so. I think you can say what you think. But you should be careful about the effect your words will have.

If you’re going to be political, be strategic. Pick your fights. Back it up with data. Think of it as a debate. Drop the f-bombs. Don’t be vulgar. Don’t be personal.

Yes, that’s crazy, but it’s crazy-smart. Because right now, with democratic voices flooding social media, you want to stand out. Don’t be just another crazy person people back away from. Don’t parrot something you saw elsewhere. They may be wrong.

Think. Pick your battles. Do your research. Make your words count just as much as they count in your fiction.

If you’re going to make your politics part of your public persona, then how do you want to be looked at? Like a William F. Buckley or a Robert F. Kennedy, a reasoned advocate known for the force of your arguments? Like Michael Moore, a fire-bombing polemicist? Like Dave Barry, who can skewer pretensions and idiocies (if you’re older, insert Art Buchwald).

In this author’s case, not doing so cost him a pretty prominent perch. If he had been more neutral with his critics, he could have continued to write “Star Wars” books.

His attitude also cost him in ways that he’ll never realize. Booksellers who thought about inviting him to do a signing will have second thoughts based on his online behavior. They’ll have second thoughts about promoting his books to their customers. In one bookstore alone, that could cost him a hundred sales, not to mention future sales if that customer becomes a fan.

Personally, I’ve stopped following one author. I had praised his early works and very much enjoyed his writings. Then he got political. He punched people (with words, I mean). Not just politicians, but people who I thought were beneath him. He was punching down, not up.

Even though I agreed with some of his opinions, I came to dread seeing another post from his blog in my feed. Sometimes, it was a fun story, or news of some accomplishment. Then, it’d be a sour, unhappy post that I’d disagree with and that would anger me.

So, I removed his site from my must-read list and have ignored him ever since, and I’ve been happy about that.

So What About Me?

That’s where I’m left, suspected between the Charybdis of being political, and the Scylla of denying my wisdom to the multitudes. I leave comments on a couple of sites I regularly visit. Sometimes, I’ll write a post and then file it away or trash it, so I can get on with my day.

But what I’m trying to do is talk more about what I think are the real issues about the world we live in, like the difference between republic voices and democratic voices. Maybe I’ll continue in that vein, or maybe not. I can also recommend books and movies like “The Big Short,” that can change the way you look at our world.

What I hope I never do is take to Twitter and curse and scream at people. That way lies madness.

local hero riegert lancaster capaldi

Local Hero: The Community as Protagonist

by • Plotting

I’ve been relearning the basics of writing fiction on my way to writing a series of stories and rewriting some older works. This means that I’ve been paying more attention lately to novels and movies, comparing what I’ve learned against what they’ve written.

For example, the Steve Alcorn courses I’ve been taking discuss writing a story as a series of scenes and sequels. Scenes consist of goal, conflict, and disaster, while sequels consist of emotion, thought, decision, followed by action.

Structurally, stories consist of these seven steps. Up to 200 of them in novels, less in short stories.

Is this true? Is this a rule? Do all stories follow this pattern?

No, no, and no. Some writers follow this unconsciously. Some don’t. Sometimes, they’re mixed together. Or, a scene can be followed by a flashback with its own scene and sequel, followed by a sequel of the first scene. A nested scene / sequel.

Another thing we learn is that every story has a protagonist and an antagonist. The protagonist has a character flaw which must be overcome or dealt with to defeat the antagonist to get the happy ending, or not to create the tragedy.

You can see that in “The Sun Also Rises,” a book I have a particular fondness for. Hemingway’s Jake Barnes is in love with Lady Brett Ashley. She loves him, but there are obstacles. Due to a war injury, he can’t have intercourse with her. She also has a flaw in that she’s a party girl, flitting from scene to scene and man to man. By the end of the book, he realizes that he’ll never be able to keep her. He’ll always be a friend, a man she can rely on, but never a lover or a couple. It’s a tragedy in that respect.

Which brings me to “Local Hero,” about which I have to spoil the ending.

Local Hero (SPOILERS)

local hero poster

In the 1983 movie. Peter Riegert plays “Mac” Macintyre, a representative from an American oil company, sent to Scotland to buy a coastal fishing village to build a refinery. It’s a charming, very low-key movie that plays against expectations in several ways. We’re shown that building the refinery requires tearing down the entire village, but instead of objecting, the villagers are happy to sell out. They prefer being millionaires to living a hard life on the Scottish coast.

local hero reigert capaldi beach
“Mac” Macintyre and Danny on the beach.

In fact, the only people who grow to appreciate the beauty and life in the village are the oil company people: Macintyre, Danny (played by a boyishly young Peter Capaldi), and Felix Happer, the billionaire owner of Knox Oil played by Burt Lancaster, an unhappy mogul whose wants to discover a comet and have it named for him. There’s a happy ending, but a complicated one. An old beachcomber whose land has been in the family for 400 years refuses to sell out. Happer flies out to negotiate with him, ends up becoming friends with the beachcomber. Seeing the stars overhead, he decides to relocate the refinery offshore and build an astronomical observatory by the village instead. But Happer changed his mind because he cared about the stars and his ego than the people living there. In fact, the owner of the local hotel grumbles something like “the rich always keep the best bits for themselves.” Worse, he sends Macintyre back to Houston and blames him for the “scheme” of buying up the village.

local hero
Danny and Marina, the biologist/mermaid, admire the stars

Capaldi’s character Danny is a big winner by not only suggesting the observatory idea to the mogul, but wins the affection of the nautical scientist who might or might be a mermaid (one of several magic realism elements in the movie).

As for the villagers, they didn’t get their million-pound payday, but they still have the village, and more work will come in from Happer’s project. In fact, the only person who loses is Macintyre, a lonely man who says a couple times he prefers to negotiate by telex, and who early in the movie is seen talking to co-workers in the same large room by phone. He even tries (and fails) to ask a secretary for a date, despite his boyish good looks and high salary ($80,000 a year, in 1983 dollars!).

At the end of the movie, Macintyre is back in his Houston apartment. He pins on the bulletin board a few photos from his trip, steps onto the balcony, and looks over the grey evening skyline of Houston.

“Local Hero” is a great movie. I define great and so-terrible-they’re-great movies by their ability to stay in the mind long afterwards. They give you something to think and talk about. There are many, many small, sometimes funny touches in “Local Hero,” such as the rabbit subplot, the abusive shrink, the droll innkeeper and his randy wife, the Russian captain. There’s a lot going on, but it’s also a slowly paced movie that wants you to look at the scenery and the characters and think about them.

Now, with regards to the structure, it was when I was apply Alcorn’s lessons that I realized who were the movie’s protagonist and antagonist.

The antagonist was “Mac” Macintyre, the lonely negotiator who has a hard time connecting with people. He wasn’t a villain, but he was directed to perform what pure-souled environmentalists would see as a villainous act.

The protagonist was the village, which stood to gain the world’s wealth but lose its imaginary soul by selling out. After all, atheists tells us there is no soul, so you can’t lose what you don’t have, right?

And this is what surprised me the most. The community was the hero. The Local Hero of the title turned out NOT to be Macintyre, the outsider who becomes an insider and lectures the villagers about what to value most. That’s a trope worthy of TVTropes. The true local hero was Knox, the lifetime resident who valued the beach, his continuity, and his self-worth too much to sell it all for mere money.

Still, you feel for Macintyre. He’s a good man, but an incomplete man. He couldn’t change, and he knows it, and at the end of the film, seeing the village’s phone booth at night, the phone ringing, and you know it’s Mac trying to reconnect the only way he knows how, and your heart breaks a little.

local hero phone booth

You want him to have his happy ever after, if not in the village, at least somewhere. That he can’t, and never will, makes you ache for him. That’s how you make a story worth telling.

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