Five Strategies to Combat Writer’s Block

We’ve all been there—if a gun were held to your head, you couldn’t write another sentence. Yes, friends and neighbors, we’re talking about writer’s block. The condition so familiar to anyone who has taken pen to paper sounds so trite to those who has never written anything longer than a term paper. To the rest of the world, you’re just making stuff up and how hard can that be? For the person with writer’s block, it’s more akin to running out of gas in Death Valley. There’s a certain amount of panic tinged with desperation when our common malady hits. Those are usually followed by the what ifs? What if I can never write anything ever again? What if I can’t even write a Tweet? What if I can only write about a heroic cat who has a trusty unicorn steed? (No offense intended to those writing in the cat/unicorn fantasy buddy genre.)

Writer’s block is real to us and it sucks. Like remedies for the hiccups, there are scads of “sure-fire methods” to stymie our common foe. The trouble is nothing works for everyone and no two writer’s creative process is the same. The real first step is to jot down some notes when you’re on fire. Those days that ink flows through your veins and your fingers can’t type fast enough to get all of the thoughts out of your head. Make notes on what was unique about that day. Was it a certain time of day? Did you go for a walk that morning? Was there a news story that sparked that over productive writing day? If you make notes long enough for those good writing days, you’ll probably come up with some common denominators. Then when you have writer’s block, introduce those stimuli that have worked in the past.

If you haven’t been taking notes on behaviors that have induced creativity, here are a few things we’ve found that might knock a bout of writer’s block in the metaphorical head: 

1. Do something you hate.

Clean the house, rake leaves, go visit Aunt Hattie (who always tries to give you 20-year-old hard candies that taste like Vick’s VapoRub), or do whatever else you avoid like the plague. While this step might sound counter-intuitive, there is an elegant wisdom in performing a task you loath when faced with mental constipation. The chances are that while you’re carrying out your hated task, your mind will wander to stop you from thinking about the dreaded chore you’ve chosen. So what you’ve really done by “doing something you hate” is tricking yourself into a creative state. The bonus of this strategy is that you’ve probably needed to go see Aunt Hattie and have put it off for far too long. 

2. Get some rest.

There is a certain percentage of people that creatively thrive under fatigue conditions. If this applies to you, just do the exact opposite of the advice in this section. Without citing clinical studies and the age old wisdom of your mother, we all know that a good night’s sleep is a universal cure-all. Sleep gives you a chance to mentally reset, which is exactly what you need when faced with writer’s block. If you’re under a deadline or something else is preventing you from an eight-hour kip, take an hour nap. Thomas Edison supposedly took catnaps throughout the day and night just so he could clear his head and start fresh whenever the awoke. While that might be an apocryphal story, the theory is sound. A little sleep could just hit your creative reset button. 

3. Step away from the blinking cursor.

The taunting cursor is as good a visual symbol for writer’s block as any. The smug little intermittent box or line on your word processor taunts you with every on/off cycle. For all we know, the blinking might actually be sucking the words out of your soul. One thing is sure, get the hell away from the blinky thing. I’ve yet to run across a writer who actually said, “Staring at the cursor for three hours actually gave me an idea.” So close out of your word processor if you value your sanity. 

4. Fall in love.

“I’m writing about 18th century pirates and falling in love has nothing to do with my plotline,” you might be thinking. If you're already married or attached, falling in love again might seem like a horrid idea. Take heart, the falling in love step won’t land you in divorce court or sleeping on a friend’s couch. There’s something inexorably linked with the creative process and matters of the heart. This might possibly be because we want to impress someone with our writing. So if you’ve already fallen in love, do something for that special person in your life that reminds you of when you fell in love. If you’re single, go out there and take a risk on someone that you’ve been thinking about just a little too much. If you’re single and there are no prospects in your life, go to a coffee shop and strike up a conversation with someone you think you can make a connection with. If none of that fits your situation or your comfort zone, call up the friend in the world you love the most. You don’t talk to them enough anyway. At very least, do something nice for someone else, even if you don’t know them. The point here is that, hopefully, love stimulates creativity. In the immortal words of Kid Rock, “Now get in the pit and try to love someone.” 

5. Just say no.

There is always a temptation to enhance one’s creativity with various substances. Alcohol, energy drinks, Twinkies, cat videos on YouTube, or reading someone else’s work should all be no-goes during a bout of writer’s block. Whatever your vice of choice is, you’re already feeling low because you can’t write. Heaping some other unproductive behavior on top of the writer’s block can be disastrous. You’ll end up feeling hollow from the combination of both experiences. It’s also likely that what could have been a short stint of writer’s block will turn into a pity party hamstringing your writing even longer. Not to sound too airy-fairy, but if you’re involved with positive behaviors in trying to combat writer’s block, that same positive energy will help release the boa constrictor squeezing your imagination.


As previously mentioned in this post, there is no magic bullet to cure writer’s block. The only certainty about writer’s block is that it will happen. There’s little reason to get frustrated about something that is a certainty. Writer’s block could be the price one pays for creativity. Another way to look at it is that roadblocks do make a trip more interesting. So if writer’s block didn’t exist, would writing be as rewarding? If there was no internal enemy to face when writing, could one produce quality work? The more one treats writer’s block as an old college friend that wants to crash on your couch when he’s in town, rather than an enemy between our own ear, the better off you’ll be when it strikes.

Follow Grave Distractions Publications on Twitter @GraveDistract, Facebook, Pintrest, or LinkedIn.  

Author Lee DuCote Book Tour

In support of his work, Grave Distractions Publications author Lee DuCote is hitting the road! The author of Fields of Alica and Waterproof will be making a number of appearances to discuss his work and sign books throughout the southern United States. Below is a listing of the event dates we have on hand. Lee will be adding dates and venues as they become available. For up to the minute details on Lee's events, follow him on Facebook, Twitter, Instrgram, or sign up for email alerts from Lee using the form at the bottom of this page. 

Lee DuCote Book Signings and Appearances

• 19 September 2015, 1pm-3pm, at Pages and Palette in Fairhope, Alabama.
• 3 October 2015, 7pm-9pm, at the Jitterbug Coffee in Heber Springs 
• 10 October 2015 11am-1pm at the Barnes and Noble in Shreveport, Louisiana.
• 15 October 2015 noon-2pm, at the Book Mart and Cafe in Starkville, Mississippi.
• 24 October 2015 11am-1pm, at the Nightbird Bookstore in Fayetteville, Arkansas.

For additional information about Lee DuCote, or any of our authors, you can follow Grave Distractions Publications on Twitter @GraveDistract, Facebook, Pintrest, or LinkedIn. 

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Author Tips: Five Things To Do Before Your First Book Is Released

One of the biggest questions we get from first time, and sometimes veteran, authors is, “Is there anything I need to do to prepare for the release of my book?” Of course, this is assuming your book is ready to roll and you feel like you’re sitting on your thumbs waiting for your book to drop. Here are five things any indie author can do before your release date that will help you in marketing and tracking feedback for your book.

1. Google Alerts. This lesser known functions of the all-seeing internet eye that is Google will email you alerts when certain keywords are published online. At a minimum, you should set up Google Alerts for your name and book title. When Google crawls sites that mention your name or book’s title, you’ll get an email with a short description of the page and a link to the mention. We’ve found that this service doesn’t catch 100% of keyword mentions and is limited to when Google’s algorithms crawl web pages. So don’t think that you’re getting up to the minute intelligence on when bloggers or other folks review or mention your book. However, it is a handy tool for following up on promotional opportunities and to find out what the buzz is about your book. Google Alerts is free and requires a Google account to access. You can find out more about Google Alerts at this link.

2. Secure Domain Names. Even if you’re not a web design guru, you should purchase a domain name, if available, for your name and your book’s title. (If your book title is unbearably long, consider some truncated version that anyone wanting more information about your book can easily remember.) In the best case scenario, you should design an author website and a separate website for your book. This will give you two different web platforms to promote your works which means an increased chance of potential readers finding you online. If you’re not web savvy enough to create your own website, securing these domain names will ensure no one else can should you want to create these sites in the future. There’s nothing more frustrating than deciding it’s time to make a website only to find out the domain name you want has been registered by someone else. There are plenty of drop and drag website design platforms (Yola, Wix, and Weebly all are easy to use) that make creating basic websites a simple affair. You should seriously consider spending the time to learn how create, or at very least update, sites using one of these services. One final note on websites, don’t get a free website from your hosting platform that assigns your domain name. This practice doesn’t look professional and your potential readers will think that your writing might not be professional as well.

3. Shore up your social media presence. Just like domain names, if you haven’t signed up for accounts on all the relevant social media sites, get to it. Accounts for you as an author on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, Pinterest, and LinkedIn should be claimed for the same reasons you should be claiming domain names. Even if you never use these platforms, which you should, they will be there if you ever want to take advantage of them. One note on Facebook, you should create an author fan page that is separate from your personal Facebook account. Most of your friends don’t always want to hear about your writing and you might not want your fans knowing about your personal life. If you want to create a fan page for your book as well, that’s great. However, it might be difficult for you to maintain both pages with enough content attract readers to both fan pages.

4. Keep a list of websites or blogs that you frequent. The chances are that if you’re writing on a specific topic, you’re visiting websites or blogs that relate to that topic. Start keeping a list of these websites with links to the webmaster or relevant writers on that site. When your book comes out, send them a press release about your book. If that blog or website has piqued your interest as a writer, they might show you some love by passing along the word about your book. You might also drop the hint to bloggers that you’d be willing to post a guest blog about a topic relevant to their site.

5. Take the time to think about what’s next. Before you start getting reviews on Amazon or see sales figures, plan what you’re next project is going to be. Many first time authors are discouraged by the results of their first book. If you do not take the time to plan your next project now, sans the background noise of your first book’s release, you might be tempted to give up. Insert any platitude you like here: “Rome wasn’t built in a day,” “There is no try, there is only do and not do,” or “Winners never quit and quitters never win” should suffice. Trite as they are, these statements are also true. Having your next project planned out will minimize the chances of never taking to the keyboard again. You have more stories to tell, so get out there and tell them.

Follow Grave Distractions Publications on Twitter @GraveDistract, Facebook, Pintrest, or LinkedIn.

Author Tips: Understanding and Recording Expenses for Federal Income Tax Returns

With the year over half gone, remember when you were doing your 2014 taxes and swore an oath that “next year will be different”? If you did, you’re in good company. While the accounting department at Grave Distractions Publications ban the practice of using shoeboxes for receipts sometime in the not so distant past, we took a good look at our practices over the past tax year. After this fit of introspection, we thought we’d share some of the tools and tips that are sure to help out the writers and freelancers in the coming tax year. Please keep in mind that we’re just giving friendly advice and you are strongly advised to seek the counsel of a licensed tax or accounting professional.

Most people think that you have to get complicated tax programs or amass a vast knowledge of double entry accounting to maintain good records for income tax preparation. Nothing could be farther from the truth. The key to smooth tax preparation is being disciplined about your record keeping. That’s easier said than done, but you have to carve out time on a scheduled periodic basis to keep your books. If you do not spend a little time each week or two making records, you will lose and/or forget information that could reduce your income tax bill.

The key to reducing your debt to Uncle Sam is to claim all of your legitimate business expenses. If you’re an author that hasn’t set up a company for your writing endeavors, or only write part-time and have a day job, you’re probably classified by the IRS as self-employed for your writing efforts. This means that you’re probably mingling your personal finances with your business finances. We strongly suggest opening a separate bank account that your writing income and expenses are deposited and paid from. This will make tracking your cash expenses much easier than trying to break those expenses out from your personal living expenses. If you’re not interested in opening up a separate bank account, try using a single credit card for all of your business expenses. With either method, download your statements every month to a spreadsheet and you have an easy to keep up with expense record.

Understanding what constitutes a legitimate business expense is the second key to claiming every business deduction due to you. Expenses can be classified as either cash or non-cash. Cash expenses are easy to understand. You purchase a good or service that is directly related to your business of generating income through writing. Some examples of cash expenses that could be considered a legitimate business expense are:

• Communications (Skype credit purchased for overseas interviews and cell phone usage. Cell phone usage is a thorny area if you use your cell for both business and personal use. You’ll have to keep a record of how much time you spend on business calls versus personal calls to be able to ascertain what portion of your cell bill is deductible. You might consider a second cell phone for business purposes or a VoIP service that is only used for the writing business to sort business for personal cell phone use.)
• Office supplies (Pens, paper, printer ink, post-it notes, software, etc.)
• Postage (Sending promotional materials, review copies, and contracts.)
• Professional organizations dues (These have to be directly related to the business of writing. If you belong to the Rotary Club, unless you’re writing about the Rotary Club, you couldn’t deduct your membership dues.)
• Professional services (Accounting services, editing, cover design, layout, publicists, and website design / domain names.)
• Promotional copies (Both print and eBook editions of your book sent to reviewers.)
• Reference books and materials (Used for researching a book project. Even if you haven't finished a book in a given tax year, you may be able to claim research materials.)
• Travel (Hotel room and meals for an out-of-town book festivals, book signing, interview, or research. Travel expenses can get hinky in the IRS codes, so check with your accountant on what is allowed.)

Non-cash expenses are a little more difficult to wrap your mind around. These are items that negatively impact the business of writing, but you don’t actually lay out any greenbacks for. Some of these non-cash expenses are:

• Bad debts (Have you been stiffed on payment for an article you wrote or royalties owed to you?)
• Depreciation (This is a whole ball of wax that needs, like everything else in this article, needs to be discussed with your tax professional. Basically, depreciation is an element of the tax code that rewards you for purchasing new durable goods like computers or printers. The mentality is that a durable good loses value over time and, therefore, the expense can be metered out over what the IRS considers the “useable life” of that good. In most cases, it’s better to depreciate out a durable good rather than taking the expense for purchase on the front end. Once again, talk to your accountant about this one...)
• Home office (You can deduct a portion of your rent/mortgage, utilities, property tax, and insurance for a space in your home solely used for business purposes. This is one of those expenses that is a hybrid cash and non-cash expense. Since you’re paying for a home anyway, claiming a home office acts like a non-cash expense. Like depreciation, you need professional guidance on this one. Usually, a home office is linked to a proportion of the square footage in your home your home office takes up. So if you have a 2000 sq. ft. home and your office takes up 200 sq. ft., you can deduct 10% of your rent and utilities for that office. If you overestimate the value of your home office, you’re committing tax fraud. If you underestimate a home office, you’re paying tax dollars you shouldn’t. So be very careful with this classification of expenses.
• Mileage (This has a cash component of gas and vehicle maintenance, but the IRS allows a flat rate for each mile you drive for your business. The rate can change, so check for this year’s rate. You can claim either gas and maintenance or the flat IRS rate. It’s generally better to take the IRS rate and that’s why we’ve considered it a non-cash expense. The IRS has strict record keeping guidelines for mileage, so keep your records to IRS standards. Some places you could claim mileage for is: banking, book signings, driving to meetings with those providing professional services, and post office runs could count as legitimate mileage expenses.)

Talk about all of these expense classifications with your accountant to see what you can and cannot deduct on your federal income tax. Just remember that every dollar you can claim as a legitimate business expense will reduce your gross income and, therefore, will reduce your overall tax bill. Yes, it’s a pain to keep up with all of this. However, trying to make money at writing is hard enough without leaking your hard-won profits to “the man.” Just make sure you’re claiming expenses that are within IRS guidelines, consult an accountant or tax professional, and keep good records. After all that, don’t forget to write!

Follow Grave Distractions Publications on Twitter @GraveDistract, Facebook, Pintrest, or LinkedIn.

Author Tips: Generate Income from Affiliate Partnerships

Anyone who has written a book knows how hard it is to make a buck on their work. One of the problems facing authors is the pervasive thought that “the only way I can make money is by selling my book.” That mindset automatically shuts down the possibility that there might be other ways to generate income from your work. Authors who are successful at generating income view any book project as a small business. If you opened up a retail store, you would tell someone that they were destined for failure if they just sold one item. The book business is no different than retail. Authors must seek out ways to generate multiple streams of income from a single project to reap any financial rewards.

One passive way we’ve found to generate extra income is through affiliate partnerships. An “affiliate partnership,” or sometimes known as an “affinity partnership”, is a term coined by a marketing guru that slightly obfuscates how and what these programs are. Basically, an affiliate partner is someone who advertises a website and is paid on a by the click or a percentage of sales basis. So you’re getting paid for advertising and promoting a specific website. Here’s how these programs generally work. After being approved as an affiliate partner by a website, you are given links, banner ads, or other online tools that are specifically linked to your account. When someone visits your website and clicks on one of those links, you are paid a percentage for anything purchased on that site while their browser is open. (Per click payments are much less common in affiliate partnerships for obvious reasons, but they do exist.) Amazon, Barnes, and Noble, and Book Depositary are all online booksellers with affiliate type partnerships.

Here’s a practical example from the perspective of an author that has an approved affiliate partnership with an online bookseller. On your blog or website you’ve posted a link for your book from a bookseller, A. Someone visits your website and is intrigued by your book and clicks on that link. After reading the description of your book, our visitor decides he / she isn’t interested but does remember he / she was going to buy a copy of Go Set a Watchman. Since that person purchases Harper Lee’s book while he / she has entered the bookseller’s website through your link, you get a percentage of that sale. You’ve made a little money for someone not buying your book. (If you didn’t notice, we inserted an Amazon link in the first reference to Go Set a Watchman. It’s really that easy...)

Of course, you don’t just have to slave affiliate partnership links to your book. Most affiliate partnerships have unique reference codes slaved to your account for any item sold on your partner’s website. So if you’re writing a blog post about a book you’ve referenced in your book, use your affiliate partner link to that book in your post. If you are tweeting about a product you’ve recently seen, use your affiliate partner link in your tweet. Does your affiliate partner have a banner ad for their digital reader? Place that ad on your website and you’ll open another potential for income after someone clicks on the banner ad.

While all of this seems too good to be true, affiliate partnerships do exist and are relatively easy to set up. As with anything in the business world, there are some things to watch out for. First, keep in mind that the percentages you’ll be making on affiliate link sales are relatively small. The going rate is anywhere between 3-6% of the final purchase price. (Commonly these percentages increase with purchase volume.) Secondly, closely review the terms of service for any affiliate partnership you are evaluating. Some of these partners stipulate that you cannot have multiple affiliate partner links on your website. This means that if you’ve signed up as an affiliate partnership with booksellers A and B, you won’t be able to post links to both. Some affiliate partners stipulate that you cannot link to products you are directly selling. This is a bit of a gray area if you have a publisher. Technically the publisher is selling your book and not you. Just be sure to clarify that fine point before entering into an agreement with a vendor who has this stipulation. Finally, you have to keep up with changes websites make in their affiliate partner programs. What was acceptable when you started your partnership will likely change over time. Don’t get caught being in violation of your ToS agreement through ignorance of changes.

More than likely you’re not going to buy that Ferrari you’ve had your eye on with income from affiliate partner links. However, you’re creating a potential stream of income for altering links you’re probably already throwing out into the internet universe. The other benefit is that affiliate partnerships are a “fire and forget” prospect. Once you’ve created and posted a link, it’s always out there with the potential to generate income. Of course the more links(and traffic to your website) you have, the greater your chances of success are.

Follow Grave Distractions Publications on Twitter @GraveDistract, Facebook, Pintrest, or LinkedIn. 

Author Tips: Social Media Ideas and Tools

Even though social media platforms, like Facebook, have done their darnest to limit post views for both fan pages and personal pages to stimulate “boost post” pay services, social media is still a powerful tool for any author. There are a couple of issues that our authors come to us when dealing with their own social media marketing efforts. The first and foremost is, “I just don’t have time to get on Facebook or Twitter” or “I never think about posting anything.” The sad truth is that if you’re using these excuses to duck social media, there’s probably some other reason you’re shying away from social media. Either you aren’t getting enough follows, your posts aren’t being seen by enough people, or you simply don’t feel like you know enough about social media to properly utilize it. If you fall into that category, here are a few tools and tips that are sure to help any author that is struggling with the social media monster.

1. If time or forgetfulness is truly an issue for you, try using a third party client to manage your social media. There are a number of wonderfully useful social media tools out there that allow you to manage all of your social media accounts from one platform. Hootsuite and Social Sprout are two clients that give you the ability to view and post from several different social media platforms all in one place. There are scads of third-party social media clients out there with different functionality and rates (from free to a monthly fee). Do some searching for the functions that will best fit your needs and take one out for a trial.

Many of these platforms also give you the ability to schedule posts. This is probably one of the most powerful tools that any third party client can offer the busy author. (Note, some social media platforms give you the ability to schedule posts. But if you’re looking for an all your social media in one place solution, third party clients are worth utilizing.) The best practice when utilizing scheduled posts is to set aside time each week to load up your social media accounts with posts or tweets. By doing this, you have a week’s worth of basic social media content knocked out at one time, and you don’t have to take time off during your work week scrambling for content. Also, if you have a scheduled interview on a radio show, podcast, or anywhere else you can go ahead and schedule posts / tweets when you confirm the interview. Holidays, birthdays, and anything else that’s set in stone in your world can be scheduled so you can have social media content without remembering to post something on a given day. Don’t make the mistake of thinking scheduled posts are a “fire and forget” option. Interacting with your followers is important as we’ll see in another tip down the line.

2. Unless you’re a sports, religious, or political author—lay off those topics on your author fan pages or Twitter accounts. There’s nothing that starts barroom or dinner table trouble faster than discussing these “big three” topics. Social media is no different in that respect. If you think you’re fostering a following by appealing to a segment of one of the “big three,” you’re turning off twice as many potential followers. Those potential readers or followers who don’t agree with your views on the “big three” probably don’t want to see your rants in their news feeds. They will likely drop you from their social media mix and not buy your book because of your views. If you’re unconvinced about this point, check out the social media feeds of successful companies and you'll find a lack of "big three" topics in their posts.

3. Followers are built with interactions. It’s not enough just to throw tweets or posts out into the electronic universe. You actually have to interact with the people in your social media circles. This means replying to comments, thanking people when they repost or retweet your material, commenting on other people’s posts, reposting follower's content, and generally doing everything you would do at a real life social gathering in the digital world. Keep the conversation going and others will want to take part in it.

4. Yes, you’re an author, but not every social media post as to be about your book(s). Your goal as authors is to promote your book, but no one is interested in following someone who only posts about one topic. If you’re not sure what to post since your writing life takes up a majority of your own thoughts, consider the following: pet pictures, posts about articles you found interesting, a restaurant you’ve visited and really enjoyed, comments on a book you’re currently reading, and pithy posts on trending topics. If you need some help in this area, look at some successful authors’ social media accounts and see what they’re posting about.

5. Have you ever been at a party and seen someone hugging the wall hoping someone would come talk to him/her? Having a social media account and not actively finding other people to follow is like that poor soul at the party. Freely follow other people that you think are interesting or might be interested in what you have to offer. If they don’t follow you back, the world isn’t going to end, and it’s no reflection on you. But most people are kind enough to follow you back after you’ve followed them if they like the content you’re producing.

Part of social media is a straight up numbers game. Most social media posts reach and are read 1-2% of your followers at best. So don’t get discouraged if your posts aren’t getting the likes, retweets, or shares you were hoping for. As you build your social media audience, those things will come. The key here is you have to build an audience. There will be a point if you’re producing content that resonates with your audience, where you will start attracting followers. This won’t happen overnight, and there is always work to be done. So stay positive, intelligent, and witty with your posts... and the world will catch up with you.

Follow Grave Distractions Publications on Twitter @GraveDistract, Facebook, Pintrest, or LinkedIn.

Copyright Issues: The Difference Between a Copyright and a Registered Copyright

So what’s the big deal about registering a copyright for my book? Don’t I have inherent copyright protection when my work is created? These are a couple of questions we commonly get when either publishing works or performing author consulting services and, unfortunately, most authors don’t understand the distinction between copyright and a registered copyright. Here’s the lowdown on the difference between an inherent copyright and a copyright registered with the United States Copyright Office. (Remember that with any copyright issues, you should consult a licensed lawyer who actually knows something about intellectual property. Not all lawyers are familiar with intellectual property, and we certainly aren’t a legal authority and this article is purely informational.)

As a creator of any intellectual property, you do have an inherent copyright for your work. According to the United States Copyright Office, a copyright is:

Copyright, a form of intellectual property law, protects original works of authorship including literary, dramatic, musical, and artistic works, such as poetry, novels, movies, songs, computer software, and architecture. Copyright does not protect facts, ideas, systems, or methods of operation, although it may protect the way these things are expressed. [And] your work is under copyright protection the moment it is created and fixed in a tangible form that it is perceptible either directly or with the aid of a machine or device.

Here’s the rub. When you finish your book, legally it is your work. However, with this “inherent” copyright you cannot sue someone for copyright infringement. You must register your copyright to have standing in a federal court to take legal action against someone who has hijacked your work. Think of your inherent copyright as an old guard dog with no teeth. Your trusted companion will bark at a burglar all he wants, but your guard dog can’t actually do any damage to the would be sneak thief. A registered copyright gives your guard dog a set of sharp metal dentures fit to chomp copyright infringers with Cujo-esque precision.

We would also strongly suggest that you file for a copyright as soon as your manuscript is finished (and by finished we mean independently proofed, edited, and read by disinterred parties) and before you start shopping your book to agents or publishing houses. It’s uncommon, but the unscrupulous out there could steal your work. Another thing to watch out for is anyone what wants to register a copyright under their name or company’s name. Most legitimate publishing houses can register a copyright for you as your agent. This means that the publishing house is simply filing the paperwork on your behalf, and you are the holder of the copyright. Should you agree to have a third party register a copyright under their name, no matter what “they say”, you’ve lost all legal rights to your work.

Registering a copyright can be as cheap as $35, so it’s an inexpensive insurance policy to protect your work. For more information about copyright registration, visit the United States Copyright Office’s website here.

Follow Grave Distractions Publications on Twitter @GraveDistract, Facebook, Pintrest, or LinkedIn. 

Author's Questions: Why Are There Used Copies of My Brand New Book on Amazon and eBay?

One of the many questions we get from both new and veteran authors is, "Why are used my brand new book showing up on places like Amazon and eBay"? It is a little disconcerting to authors that books that have been out a short period of time have listings on secondary markets as "used" or at prices two or three times higher than the publisher's suggested retail. A good example is Ce Cole Dillion's What You Don't Know About Student Loans Can Hurt You. Ce's book was released in April and has already made its way onto the secondary market. You can click on the link above to see the actual listing in a new window.

You'll notice at the time of this posting there are eight new and two used copies of her book for sale on Amazon. Clicking under the used section yields one copy here in the USA and another from a vendor in the United Kingdom. Ce's book is unique in that it deals with student loans here in America, and there's very little market for this type of book overseas because the information isn't applicable to college students in other countries. True to form, we haven't tracked any sales in the United Kingdom for her book. So what gives?

The likelihood is that the edition the United Kingdom vendor is selling isn't actually used. How can this be? Welcome to the wonderful world of the secondary book market. Our definition of a secondary book market is any vendor that's not a traditional book vendor, i.e. online seller like Amazon or a brick and mortar bookstore. One might think of the secondary book market like folks that set up booths at flea markets both physically and digitally speaking. Many of the vendors who sell books as new or used on Amazon are simply setting up shop using the Amazon website sales engine. These secondary vendors generally fulfill orders outside of Amazon's regular supply chain and in some cases traditional brick and mortar stores trying to sell excess stock. Some of these secondary market vendors have wholesale accounts with people like Ingram and Baker & Taylor. These vendors fulfill end user orders by ordering books from legitimate wholesalers then turning around and shipping the book to the end customer. While it almost sounds like a scam, there's nothing improper about doing business this way. One might think of selling books this way as "just in time" inventory control. These vendors usually list everything their particular wholesaler can supply them. Retail prices can vary (from absurdly low to high), but usually secondary market sellers are looking to undercut publisher's list price, make a reduced margin, and make money on an increased margin.

So what's the skinny on selling used books that don't seem to be really used? There is a couple of possibilities there. First, the book isn't really used at all, and it's a ploy to get you to look at the listing. Second, the book really is used, or the vendor ordered one for their operation that was damaged somehow. In either case from an author perspective, there's no real harm in any of the secondary market's practices. Unless someone has ripped off your book and is printing his or her own copies, which is very unlikely unless you're a New York Times best-selling author, these vendors are buying and reselling books through normal supply chains. That means no matter what the vendor's description or practice is, a sale through legitimate wholesalers is still putting money in your pocket.

Follow Grave Distractions Publications on Twitter @GraveDistract, Facebook, Pintrest, or LinkedIn. 

Copyright Issues: Fair Use

As an author or writer, there’s nothing more important in a digital age than protecting your work. Sadly most authors think they understand the basics of copyright law, but actually few have a good grasp of copyright law. Over the next couple of weeks, we’ll be sharing some cosmic truths about copyright law we’ve ferreted out of the system in our time publishing books. These articles will only cover copyright issues in the United States. It’s hard enough to keep up with these issues in the States, let alone the other countries in the world. Also, keep in mind that we’re not offering legal advice, and you should consult a licensed lawyer in your state regarding any intellectual property issues.

The last statement isn’t just something we threw in to legally cover ourselves. If you’re about to embark on any legal proceedings regarding a copyright, you’re going to need an intellectual property Matlock. This is because copyright law is a rather squirrely issue. There are very few actual legal devices that spell out what constitutes copyright infringement.

For example, United States copyright law allows for “fair use” of copyrighted materials. Most authors are vaguely familiar with the concept of fair use and most of us have seen Youtube videos of entire television programs or songs with the statement, “used under fair use.” While posters of copywritten material think there’s some sort of magical loophole in copyright law that says, “if there’s no financial gain to ripping off someone’s content, it’s fair use” or “if I post this material with a fair use statement they can’t touch me.” Nothing could be farther from the truth.

According to Attorney at law and the NOLO website’s Legal Editor, Rich Stim, fair use is:

In its most general sense, a fair use is any copying of copyrighted material done for a limited and “transformative” purpose, such as to comment upon, criticize, or parody a copyrighted work. Such uses can be done without permission from the copyright owner.

In dealing with the written word, fair use is a useful clause in copyright law that allows an author to include quotes from copyrighted material—if the use of that material is transformative in nature. That doesn’t mean that at the beginning of a book’s chapter you can slap a quote from a Guns N’ Roses’ song just because you think it’s cool. This proviso in copyright law is intended for those who are commenting or criticizing a copywritten work. So if you’re reviewing Avengers: Age of Ultron, describing a scene or using a quote from the movie’s dialog is something that could be considered as criticism and transformative. Basically, the public is gaining an additional reward in your commentary by outlining short pieces of the copywritten work. (Thanks again for the clarification Mr. Stim.) Posting the entirety of Avengers: Age of Ultron on Youtube with the description, “I liked it a lot and by the way I consider this fair use,” probably doesn’t meet the standard.

Here’s the rub with fair use and most anything associated with copyright law. United States copyright law doesn’t actually state how much material can be used under fair use and what a hard and fast definition of transformative is. Judges and juries decide what is fair use on a case by case basis. In an extreme example, Mr. Stim could sue us for using his two sentences in this blog post. A judge or jury will have to ascertain if we’re in violation of Mr. Stim’s copyright by using his material. (Here’s to hoping that Mr. Stim will see the use of his quote as us commenting on his work as transformative in enhancing author’s knowledge of the subject.)

The issue of fair use is so thorny that the United States Copyright Office only really comments on court decisions of fair use cases. The Copyright Office maintains an index of cases of this nature to assist lawyers and laypersons in understanding what the courts have interpreted as fair use. The point is; you can never truly be sure that using someone’s copywritten material will be considered fair use by the copyright holder and a court.

So what’s an author to do when you want to quote a short passage from a copywritten work? The best practice is to obtain permission by the copyright holder. While this process can be a pain, it does a couple of things for authors. First, if the copyright holder agrees to your use of his/her materials, you can’t be sued. Second, you can make connections with other authors by asking if you can use their work. Aside from potentially making a new friend, most authors are flattered that you think enough of their work to quote it. That quoted author, in turn, will probably mention your book to their friends or in a social media post. You get the benefit of doing the right thing and possibly helping your marketing efforts in the process.

In the next few weeks, we’ll delve a little deeper into some copyright issues as they pertain to authors. But here’s a good rule of thumb when dealing with fair use: if it belongs to someone else, ask if you can use it.

What to Do If Images Do Not Show Up in a Facebook Post

You’ve just posted a killer blog article or updated a page on your book’s website. After calling Mom to check out your handiwork, the second thing you’re going to do is drop a post on Facebook. You’ve finalized your post’s copy and you insert the link into the Facebook post. You’re horrified to see that the image of your book cover isn’t showing up in your Facebook post.

The above situation happens quite often when we’re posting items on Facebook. Here’s the simple fix. Facebook has a tool that should fix that issue. Head over to Facebook’s Debugger Page. Simply copy and paste your URL into the box and hit the debug button. Through Facebook’s electronic mojo, the URL will be crawled and your image should appear at the bottom of the screen. Then go back and reenter your post with the URL. We’ve never seen a situation where posts have images retroactively added, so the best practice is just to begin again.

Remember that any social media posts with images or video attract more attention than posts without some sort of graphic. If you don’t take the time to debug a URL that’s not showing a graphic, not only will it not show up on your post, it won’t appear on posts of people that share your posting.

Authors, Are You Missing Out on Goodreads, LibraryThing, and Shelfari?

If you thought that writing your book was the “hard part” of creating a successful book, you haven’t really gotten involved with the process of promoting your book. In working with a wide variety of authors in both our traditional publishing and freelance efforts, one of the pervasive thoughts is that a good book will sell itself. While there is an element of truth in that statement, let’s put a little perspective on that statement. There are millions of books listed on Amazon. This estimation is not in the figurative language of Doctor Evil but is based on sales ranking data on Amazon. In looking up a book to check an author’s reference last week, I noticed that this particular text was ranked somewhere in the 2.8 millionth in Amazon’s sales rankings. With 2.8 million books selling better than this text, it’s not a stretch to make the statement there are millions of books on Amazon.

Armed with this knowledge, simply writing a good book with an attractive cover will not assure you successful sales. Aside from hiring a marketing firm that will promote your book, you have to get involved with the process of promotions. One of the easiest, and free, ways to help your book’s coverage is by making use of opportunities at Goodreads, LibraryThing, and Shelfari. If you’re not familiar with these sites, think of them as a Facebook type community for books. Each site is a social network that allows readers to catalog their books, comment on books they’re reading, and engage in group discussions on books or book topics. Each of the three sites also features author pages that will give writers different tools for promoting their works. The biggest selling point for getting involved with these sites is that your efforts are targeted at folks that love books. Unlike posting something on Facebook or Twitter, when you interact with the communities on Goodreads, LibraryThing, and Shelfari you know you’re dealing with people that are passionate about reading.

While Goodreads, LibraryThing, and Shelfari are all different in their approach to handling author accounts, any author would be well-served by claiming and working their author page. Before getting hog wild with the author account features of these sites, take a long look at their individual terms of service (TOS). You can easily get your account suspended for a violation of these site’s TOS. For example, LibraryThing doesn’t allow authors to review their own work. While this seems like a no-brainer, a rookie mistake like that can get you booted from a site.

Without going too deep into the particulars of the three sites, there are some simple steps that will help your book’s visibility on any of these sites.

1.Book data. When Goodreads, LibraryThing, and Shelfari creates a book page, that page is based on listings from Amazon and other online booksellers. A page for any book will generally only have a wireframe listing with the book’s title, description, and cover. However, each of these sites allows users to post extra data about any given book. For example both LibraryThing and Shelfari have data fields for a book’s settings, characters or important persons, and organizations mentioned in the book. If you’re a nonfiction writer, people searching for a historical figure might overlook your book if you don’t take the time to fill in this data. On the fictional end of the pool, some readers like to check out books based in their hometown or favorite vacation spot. If your book’s setting isn’t mentioned in the description, someone living in Chicago looking for Chicago-based books won’t have a chance at finding your book. You get the idea. Since the major function of Goodreads, LibraryThing, and Shelfari is that of a book database, the more information that’s in the database will increase your chances of readers finding your book.

2. Author data. Readers like to know that authors are, for lack of a better term, real. An author’s bio can intrigue a potential reader just as much as a book description. I’m not suggesting creating an exciting or false narrative about yourself to attract readers. Just be sure to mention accurate items in your bio and author data that will create a connection between you and a potential reader. What college did you attend? Are you involved in any organizations or causes? Even listing your hometown might forge a connection with a reader. Just like a book’s setting, there are readers that like to support local authors. These readers aren’t going to know you live across town if you don’t fill in the data.

3. Being social. To get the maximum benefit from being part of the Goodreads, LibraryThing, and Shelfari communities, be social. List your book catalog and being part of the community. Just like any social media platform, the more you openly and honestly engage the members of the community the more the community members will engage with you. Readers, and these sites for that matter, hate spammers so don’t be a creepy “you need to buy my book” author on any of these sites. Just get involved with topics that interest you and the rest will come. If it’s relevant to the discussion, mention your work. If you’re channeling a thread’s conversation for an opportunity to mention your book, you’re a creepy spammy kind of author that will be shunned. So check out each of these sites’ TOS for guidance on what you can and cannot do while being a part of their community.

 

4. Link to these sites. One of the features of Goodreads, LibraryThing, and Shelfari is listing a book in your catalog that you want to read. You can make use of this feature by placing links on your website or blog to each of these site’s page for your book. Let’s say Larry visits your website and thinks your book looks interesting. Chances are that if Larry doesn’t purchase your book right then and there, Larry will forget about your book. Having links to your book’s page on these three sites will give the Larrys of the world a way to remember your book. Other users that are friends with Larry will also be able to see that he would like to read you book and just might check out your book’s page.

Also keep in mind that many publishers do not have access to some of the features afforded to authors on these sites. So if you’re expecting your publisher’s marketing department to magically take care of your author account, you’re probably missing out.

So get out there and be social. You’ll be surprised at what you can learn from interacting with readers and fellow authors on these sites. Just like going to a party, just be yourself and someone will ask you to dance...

How to Embed a Google Book Preview in Your Website or Blogger Post

If you have a cool publisher that utilizes Google Book Preview, did you know that you can embed a sample of your book on just about any website? For those of you not familiar with the program, publishers can upload manuscripts to Google.  Via the power of 10,000 tiny internet elves a book page and preview is created for your title free of charge. The advantages of Google Book Preview is that Google makes the entire text of your book searchable. That means that anyone searching for keywords or phrases found in your book; there’s a chance a link to your book’s preview will come up in the search rankings. Also, within the preview readers can search the entire text of your book for keywords and phrases. Google also provides selling links to your book on the Google hosted preview page. To maximize the chances of converting a preview into a sale, you should add selling links as close to the preview as your layout allows.

Those are the upsides to the Google Book Preview program. The potential downside is that at least 20% of your book is previewed. This percentage can be adjusted up by your publisher, but you agree to a minimum of 20% of your content being shown. This isn’t as much of an issue for fiction writers as it is for their nonfiction compatriots. With fiction, readers can get enough content to see what your writing style is and if the book intrigues them enough to make a purchase. For nonfiction books, anyone doing a research paper can stumble on a relevant passage and cite your work without making a purchase. Our feeling is that if you totally lock down a book’s content, no one will ever buy it. So our evaluation is that the risk of letting content out into the world is worth the reward of finding new readers.

Now that you’re familiar with the program, it’s time to get into the nerdy aspects of embedding a preview into your website. We’re going to use one of our new releases, Hippocrates Wept by William F. Quigley, M.D., as an example piece. Click here to view Hippocrates Wept Google Book page. It should open up in another window so you can switch back and forth as needed. If you want to follow along with another book that’s part of the Google Book Preview program, enter the book’s ISBN-13 or title in the search bar and it should pop up.

The first page you’re looking at is Hippocrates Wept’s base page. If you click on the book’s cover and that will take you to the book’s preview page. On the top bar, you’ll see a number of icons. Click on the icon that looks like a chain link. We’ve circled the icon in the image below.

When you click on the link icon, you’ll see two options: “Paste link in email or IM” and “Embed.” Highlight the code in the embed box and paste it in Word or Notepad so you can work with the code itself. Here’s the code for Hippocrates Wept, it probably won’t show up in one line on your screen because of the spacing of used in code, so just know that the code is between the < and > symbols. <iframe frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="border:0px" src="http://books.google.com/books?id=LgTjBwAAQBAJ&lpg=PP1&pg=PP1&output=embed" width=500 height=500></iframe>

Without getting too geeky into the coding, here’s the concept behind it. The iframe command basically says, “show the full sized contents of one web page on another.” Within the parameters of the iframe command, we can change a few of the options.

The first is frameborder. Changing the 0 to a 1, within the quotation marks will put a default border around the entire preview. The width, color, and style of your preview’s border can be changed by altering the value in the style=”border:0px” portion of the code. We’ve never seen the point in using a border with our website configuration. If you really want a border, you can find out more about the command and border values at this link.

The second is scrolling. This command will place scroll bars within the iframe. Using scroll bars is pretty handy if you don’t have a lot of vertical or horizontal space where you’re placing the preview on your website. The options for the scrolling command are: yes, no, and auto. Yes and no are pretty obvious, and auto will drop in scroll bars if they’re needed given the space you’ve allotted the iframe on your web page. You can find out more about the iframe scrolling command at this link.

Finally, we can change the size of how the preview is displayed on your web page by altering the values under width and height. With a simple iframe command, you can’t shrink the size of the target page. Think of an iframe like you’re looking at the target page through the window of your width and height values. We’ve found that a width of 500 and a height of 700 to 800 will accommodate a full page of your book’s preview. The preview flows one page into another, so you’ll have to play around with both height and width to get the sizing the way you want it.

To give you an idea of how this translates into real life, this code is associated with the preview of Hippocrates Wept on our website.

<iframe frameborder="1" scrolling="auto" style="border:15px" src="http://books.google.com/books?id=LgTjBwAAQBAJ&lpg=PP1&pg=PP1&output=embed" width=500 height=800></iframe>

Now all you have to do is to add the code into your web page. If you’re using a drop and drag elements type of web hosting site (like Yola, Squarespace, or Go Daddy’s Website Tonight) just drop and drag the HTML Code widget where you want the preview on your web page. Then copy and paste the iframe code there and you’re good to go. If you know enough code to code your own website, you didn’t need this tutorial in the first place...

If you’re using Blogger, you’ll have little more coding to deal with. Blogger doesn't really like the iframe command when using Google Book Preview. So you'll have to use the hunk of code below. You can change the height and width of the preview by altering the height and width values towards the bottom of the code. To change the book that is previewed, simple change the ISBN number to which ever book you'd like to show up on your blog. Simply go to the HTML tab on your compose screen and drop your modified code in where you want the preview to show up. The easiest way to do this if you're not very familiar with coding is to look for text within a paragraph. After the code for the paragraph terminates, hit the enter key and paste the code. We've included a couple of <br /> (single line break) codes above and below the preview code to make sure the preview doesn't overlap the text of your blog post. The code below will yield the preview you see in this blog post.

<br />
<br />
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
  <head>
   
    <title>Google Books Embedded Viewer API Example</title>
    <script src="https://www.google.com/jsapi" type="text/javascript"></script>
    <script type="text/javascript">
      google.load("books", "0");

      function initialize() {
        var viewer = new google.books.DefaultViewer(document.getElementById('viewerCanvas'));
        viewer.load('ISBN:9780990868545');
      }

      google.setOnLoadCallback(initialize);
    </script>
  </head>
  <body>
    <div id="viewerCanvas" style="height: 500px; width: 600px;">
</div>
</body>
</html>
<br />
<br />


That’s about it for embedding a Google Book Preview in your website or Blogger post. The preview can be a powerful tool for promoting your book, and we hope you sell a million.