Writing Biz

by Kimberly A. Cook            (Twitter@ WarriorTales)

Back in the stone age when I was getting my journalism degree in the 1980s, it seemed most students had a fair idea of how to do research. With the Internet, the challenge for many writers is to make sure we double-check our facts and findings with original sources.

First let’s define an original source, because it’s not Google or Bing. An original source means you spoke to the person directly involved to get information or saw the source documents with your own eyes. Legally, the STP rule applies; when considering which document is valid, signed then typed then printed is the order of precedence. In reporter training, if we uncovered particularly sensitive or new information, we had to verify the information with two sources, not one.

For instance, if an astronomer told us the moon was made of green cheese, we better be chatting up NASA and an astronaut or two for additional confirmation. It’s difficult to know exactly who might be posting information online at any given time. The best way to get good research is to find original sources for information. If you read something on a company website, call and verify the information with the company and ask for permission by email if you want to quote the online source.

People who produce blogs, Tweets, YouTube videos and hang photos on Pinterest all have copyright to their work if they created the writing, photo or video. Copyright infringement is a huge issue with creatives since we earn our living from the gray matter between our ears. Some folks and countries don’t recognize this ownership and can quickly find themselves in court running afoul of lawyers.

One way I like to explain copyright is to imagine you built your dog a very fancy dog house. You spent the time to cut out the wood, nail it together, paint it, get the heating pad and carpeting just right. It’s a doggie palace. Your dog loves it. The next day you go out in your backyard and it’s gone. Your neighbor took it for his dog because he thought it was cool and he doesn’t see a problem. “Building” a book or song or photo or video is the same thing; their our dog houses!

The Associated Press Style Book contains an excellent section on media law and copyright infringement. If you publish online you should read it and own a copy. A favorite quote from the media law section says reporters should never use social media “as a reporting shortcut.” That goes for writers looking for information and research online as well.

by Kimberly A. Cook             (Twitter@ WarriorTales)

We writers watch trends and keep our ears open to what is happening around us, but we follow our own stars. Most of the time. A couple of years ago I watched a fascinating tv show profiling a science researcher. He was asked if scientific research drives the business world.

“No,” he replied. “Business drives scientific research. I read the Wall Street Journal every day.” Blew my mind at the time, but it makes sense. Even researchers have to follow the money at some point. So where does this lead us with machines and specialization?

A New York Times article on Feb. 18 by Nick Wingfield opened a glimpse into the vending world future. Wingfield reported how Coinstar, those folks whose machines count your coins at grocery stores for a fee and proud owners of Redbox movie vending, are branching out. 

Coinstar is moving into coffee vending machines. Seems old school, but these are not just any machines; these mechanical baristas grind the beans, brew a fresh cuppa for one dollar and take your credit card. The cup of Joe tastes close to coffee shop liquid, according to Wingfield. So, besides grinding beans, what is Coinstar up to next?

Wingfield reported Redbox sees the writing on the box with online movie watching replacing movie discs, so they have “banded together with Verizon Communications to form a service that combines DVD and streaming movie options.”

With mobile phones, Nook Tablet, Kindle Fire and the iPad2 today, maybe our favorite drink will drop from one of those Coinstar coffee vending machines when we walk past. Our beverage may be followed by a new movie release, the latest e-version Wall Street Journal and our fav author’s latest ebook delivered to our “devices” without lifting a finger. Two out of four of those things are happening today.

Make mine hot cocoa and a romantic comedy to go! Machines rule! But the movies and ereaders still need content providers; or as we’re called by our old school name, writers.

by Kimberly A. Cook                     (Twitter@ WarriorTales)

We writers are sometimes referred to as odd, but I prefer quirky; sounds more French. One quirky tendency I have is to stockpile office supplies. Forget we are in a digital media age, I still enjoy Post-It Notes, medium point purple ink pens, pink paper steno pads and my favorite white-lined writing tablets. Part of this comes from my Army training as a supply sergeant; if you don’t have it now, you won’t have it when you need it.

This supply addiction appears when visiting my local office supply stores. While we writers want to mosey around and bond with the paper clips and new colors of erase pens for the whiteboards, perky sales folk can derail us.  In one such visit a few yeas ago three salespeople in five minutes asked if they could help me find something. All I wanted to do was yell, “I’m just trying to enjoy the office supplies, okay?” Don’t go there anymore.

Being a tactile type, touching the products is great fun. A bright mauve fake snake writing tablet cover can send me into fits of joy. These simple pleasures are part of being a creature who brings worlds out of thin air; sometimes we just need to touch paper, a book or an eraser! Let us be.

Two staples for all writers are ink and paper to print out hard copies and edit our work. (Who hasn’t heard the midnight horror stories at writing conferences about ink and paper emergencies at the worst time?) There is just something about seeing prose in hard copy which makes the edits jump out at me. Scribbling on the manuscript also gives me a feeling of accomplishment. Old school paper also makes editing portable without needing batteries or a charging cord.

The more digital my writing tools become, the more I need hard copies to edit. Perhaps this is old school training or personal preference. Whatever it is, we writers must do what works best for us. Susan Wiggs writes her bestsellers long hand, then makes edits when she types them into the computer. Whatever method works for each writer, that is the best. 

So what’s in your writing supply closet or shelf? Got office supply stories?

by Kimberly A. Cook                      (Twitter@ WarriorTales)

When I first started my writing business back in the dark ages, 1997, I tried to get the domain for my name. Taken. Seems my name is quite common and a photographer in Denver already had the domain.  Curses.  So I named my business Warrior Tales and went about my business life.

About five years ago at the Willamette Writer’s Conference, a speaker suggested aspiring writers keep checking for their name domain. So ten years after the fact I checked and it was available. I snapped it up so fast my URL registrar www.dynadot.com almost caught fire.  So www.kimberlyacook.com was mine. Joy in Whoville!

But how did I settle on using my name in its current configuration? Simple. I went to Amazon.com and checked to see how many Kim Cook authors there were. Plenty. That was my byline with the newspaper, but too many folks thought it was a great name for little girls. How about Kimberly Cook? Still a ton. Kimberly A. Cook took the numbers down to a manageable few. That is the exhaustive marketing research I did to figure out what form of my name to use for my first book and career. 

Flash forward to establishing my blog. Since my company name is now considered an “aged domain,” which means its been online so long it holds first place in Google searches. Who knew I’d be rewarded for staying on course like the ol’ tortoise I am. I decided to use my name as the blog domain to increase my author awareness, I write fiction in addition to non-fiction, and I still need to separate myself  from the gigantic “kim cook pack.”

According to Google, a ton of Kimberly Cooks are high-powered divorce attorneys across the nation, except for me.  When one query told me there were 3,350 Kimberly Cooks on Facebook, I knew I needed to build up my name marketing strategy.  Started my blog this past Fall using WordPress and I redirect my name domain to my blog. Truth in advertising: Okay, I did that after three months of trying to get the blog imported to my web site and having numerous nervous breakdowns. I will be hiring tech elves to figure that out. It would’ve been easier for me to launch the space shuttle. If it was still flying…..

But a funny thing happened on my way to marketing savvy. I like to do exhaustive research about my online profile to test how things are going; I Google myself, with and without quote marks. When I started the blog my name/blog pages came up on page 4 of the Google pages.  Part of this is due to the fact my name has been on my web site for eons and I’ve Tweeted for more than a year, so I wasn’t in the weeds on the search page ranking. Checked back three months later and I am on page one.

How in the heck did that happen? Great news, but how? First I had added my blog posts to my Amazon.com author page and Amazon is the big online gorilla on the block. But I accidently did something else right. I think.

When I was reading about blogging, one person noted it was a good idea to put your byline on each blog post in case someone shared it. Some folks wanted to know who had written a shared post and couldn’t easily figure it out. Since I always had a byline when writing for the newspaper, figured it was the right thing to do. Here’s the dumb luck part; it didn’t dawn on me that everytime I post my name is right there in my byline being scanned by the Google spiders. Duh? 

 I like to think my experience gives authors hope about social media. If you make a plan and just keep at it, it pays off. The old adage about “just show up.” I Tweet three times a week all at once and I blog twice a week. That’s it! Just like writing, you have to persevere and keep at it. You too could be an aged domain! Woo Hoo! Or maybe fly a new space shuttle. I’ve always loved the movie Space Camp……

by Kimberly A. Cook                            (Twitter@ WarriorTales)

Readers voted with their feet and wallets this past shopping weekend and ebooks rule. Two articles titled Apple, Amazon lead big tech Black Friday and a Big sales jump for ‘Cyber Monday’ by David Gross on CNN.com discuss the hot trends.

Perhaps the most interesting parts to me in both articles are the tidbits buried in the body copy. “Apple’s retail stores had their biggest sales day of all time, according to published reports,” plus “Friday was the biggest sales day ever for the line of Kindle e-readers and tablets, with customers buying four times as many of the devices as they did last year, Amazon said.”

No flash in the pan these ebooks, the future is now. Do the ebooks need to be written well? Priced competitively? Marketed? Tell a good story? Yes. But now every author can be their own publisher and cut out the middle folk by going straight to readers. Is it easy? No.  But publishing to a world-wide audience can be done on the Internet.

The CNN articles talked about the rise in the use of phones/mobile devices in shopping, they “accounted for 14.3% of all online retail traffic on Black Friday according to Coremetrics,” wrote Gross. In addition, “more than 7% of the purchases made were on mobile,” devices for Cyber Monday.

Readers are buying items with their phones and reading on their Kindles,  iPads and Nooks. This is not a time to debate paper books versus ebooks; consumers are deciding that conversation.

Authors can either adapt or get left behind. A favorite book I like about change is Who Moved My Cheese by Spencer Johnson, M.D. Authors can whine about the cheese changing (industry technology and process) or we can go embrace the new cheese, (anyone writing applications?). If the New York publishing world was slow to embrace the success of ebooks and still wants to use 1900s methods, even though the cheese has long since left the building, what do writers do now? 

Cheese waits for no writer, so let’s get busy hunting and creating our new cheese industry! Because no matter whether we’re etching on rock walls, setting cold type, or using touch pad screens to write, it’s still the magic of “Once Upon A Time” that makes writer’s and reader’s hearts soar. 

Being big does not mean you can’t still fail because reader dollars will decide. Those of us who are author/publishers have an advantage over the big guys who have old cheese stuffed in their warehouses. A small writing business can change course quickly depending on industry threats. Just ask the goldfinches in my backyard.