For Writers

3 reasons to consider merchandise when writing your series

March 1, 2018 By K. D. McAdams

Setting is critical to a successful series, make sure your places and organizations feel real enough to have their own merchandise (merch). *Some affiliate links below*

I didn’t watch Gilmore Girls but a while ago I saw this story about the coffee shop featured on the show popping up around the country. It allowed fans to grab a cup of free coffee and in some locations they get a sleeve branded with ‘Lukes Coffee’ to remember the experience. They were mobbed and it was a huge promotional success.

This is the level of fan passion and engagement you should strive for when creating a business or setting in your series.

What to do when you’re behind schedule

February 21, 2018 By K. D. McAdams

Schedules and deadlines are tough when you’re self-managed. You set them yourself and your success is a direct result of your action. So what do you do if you make a promise to readers and then miss a deadline?

I’m just wrapping up step 8 from my 15 step plan for writing a successful series – write your face off. I’ve written 91,000+ words in six weeks, but I’m actually behind schedule. It was my plan to write 95,000 words in four weeks and then take two weeks to revise before sending out to beta readers.

Fortunately I was also sticking with Step 9 of the 15 step plan, Share your progress. When I started writing the series I told my readers about it, gave them the word count targets and estimated release date. Then every Monday I shared an update on the progress and how things were looking for hitting my release date. I didn’t fall behind until week four, when I had my wisdom teeth removed, but I told them the truth and kept updating.

Part of me just wanted to stop doing updates and see if I could catch up and make things work. But that’s a false hope. I knew I wasn’t going to be able to release by the date I set out, unless I sacrificed quality.

So I kept updating my readers, consistently. When I was about ready to make the call and move the date out I told them it was likely and committed to an answer the following week. This Monday was the day I needed to make my decision, and I did.

The release date for They Awake, Book 1 of my new series moved from April 13, 2018 to July 6, 2018. I’m frustrated with myself for missing my deadlines but I think that staying in touch with the readers throughout the process helps them to see a little behind the scenes and keeps them invested in the story.

I’ve also been sharing my shorts, Step 11. I’m going to bundle these up, have them edited and then send a collection of them out to my readers. This is a little thank you for their patience, and hopefully it will whet their whistle for when the book is ready.

Being behind schedule and missing deadlines sucks, but owning it is a huge key to moving on. Instead of getting bogged down with the why or what you’re going to do, communicate the truth and get back to work.

5 Keys to writing a memorable series

February 14, 2018 By K. D. McAdams

The last few weeks I’ve been going through the idea and planning parts of writing a successful series. Those are critical to your success, but in thinking about the series I’ve loved there are five keys to a truly memorable series.

Before you dive in and start adding meat to your outline, take a minute and work on these five areas. These will take your work beyond simply well thought and finished. When you’ve nailed these five keys you’ll have a series that truly engages readers.

Characters – This sounds obvious but bear with me. My first two series had main characters that I put lots of work into. The supporting cast didn’t get nearly as much attention. If you know you are going to be writing a series think through the supporting characters in as much detail as the main character. Really think more about how this team of characters is going to work through the series. Building rich, deep supporting characters gives your readers more than one story to follow along with. In the end you’ve done a good job if some readers are passionate about characters other than the main character.
Conflict – Also obvious, but not really. Of course your story is going to have a main conflict. There is something standing in the way of your protagonist achieving their goal. But there has to be other conflict to make the story real. If all the primary characters get along all the time it will feel contrived. Having conflict between the characters who are working together to achieve a goal creates realism and adds to character depth. Don’t create conflict for the sake of conflict though. Any conflict between your core team should relate to deep character traits and beliefs that these characters hold.
Touch points – This is a layer deeper than setting but relates to the characters environments. In my first two series I did a terrible job of having a touch point for the characters to go back to regularly. Think of this as a physical home base where your characters return to work through new issues and information. It could be a very simple place, but complex enough that your readers will dream about being a fly on the wall there. Not only does a solid touch point give your characters a place to take a break, it allows your readers to catch their breath and think about the events that recently transpired.
Change – Everything must change. Your main character, the world they live in, the antagonist, everything. When you’re writing a series it’s not enough to say the protagonist wants A and in the end they are happy with B. For the Off Earth series my main character was initially focused on earning a life of solitude on Earth. He has a big change coming that involves friendships and interstellar travel. But the world also changes. When the series opens the world is Earth centric. Everyone either lives on Earth or orbits the planet. All the laws, rules and common practices are focused on the planet and everything has that narrow focus. By the end of the series that scope will be blown wide open.
Mystery – It’s good to keep a few things unknown. Even if you are not writing a mystery, you don’t need to dump every fact and detail into the readers lap. Leave some things out of the story so that your reader needs to think and wonder. This doesn’t mean that you should ignore details. If you have situation that works out logically behind the scenes, it’s okay to not craft a way for the protagonist to learn these details. Give the reader enough information to know that someone is working behind the scene’s, but don’t spell it out.

In short, readers are awesome. They are intuitive, creative, and passionate (just like you!).

To create a compelling series you need to feed those reader strengths. When you give your readers and ensemble of rich characters, multiple compelling conflicts, and deep, richly detailed touch points they will stay engaged throughout the series.

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I started work on my new series in October 2017. With my commitment to full time writing I expect to be working on the first three books in this series for 9 months.

Over the coming weeks and months I’ll share with you my thoughts, notes and tips for each step. You can easily follow along by joining my mailing list. In return I’ll send you a copy of my Successful Series Writer Manifesto and a weekly digest of posts.

If you want to see how I’m communicating with readers, hop over to the For Readers section of my site, or sign up for my Sci-Fi mailing list.

5 Steps for growing your series idea

February 1, 2018 By K. D. McAdams

I normally try and post these on Wednesday, but having my wisdom teeth out last week has really thrown me for a loop. Sorry this is late, but I look forward to being back on track next week.

In the last post I shared how I decided my idea was worthy of expanding into a series. Here I’ll go through my process of building enough reference material and ideas to actually form the foundation of a series.

There is a difference between a story idea, a novel idea and a series idea. Some story ideas are great but only have a few thousand words in them. Other stories can naturally grow into a longer work and become a novel. Taking a concept from an idea into a multi-book series requires you to think beyond the traditional steps of planning a book.

Even though I validated my idea and was confident that I had more than one book I didn’t have any concrete thoughts about the story arc or what the characters real journey was going to be.

Having made plenty of mistakes when it came to writing my first two series I wanted to do better planning my new Off Earth series before I jumped in and started writing. The challenge is that you have so many thoughts and ideas floating around in your head, how do you start making sense of them?

Here are five steps to take for expanding your idea into a series.

Think on it. This isn’t as easy as it sounds. When I have a new idea that excites me for a couple of days I want to jump in and start writing. But what happens when you scratch that itch? It’s easy to finish scratching and then forget about it.In my case I started to obsess over what could pose a threat to Earth and force this character to change his goal of living on the planet to saving it. I also thought about back story quite a bit. How did this character end up orbiting Earth, and what was the society and economy like that had him feeling trapped there.
Write on it. Don’t start writing the stories, but write out your thoughts and ideas. This should be a brain dump where every possible character and scenario is spit out onto the page. Spelling doesn’t matter, grammar doesn’t matter, and punctuation is irrelevant. It’s brainstorming 101 and some if the ideas will never make it into your series, but others will become the foundation of your characters and your world.I spent 3 hours on 5 consecutive days brainstorming ideas for the OEI series. Some of them have already been rejected and others have become key elements. After 15 hours of free writing I had plenty of content, conflict and mystery to start coming up with a story arc for the main character and the people living in this world.
Research it. Is anyone else writing about this idea? Are there real world equivalents or parallels to your idea? Even if you’re writing fantasy or science fiction you’ll want elements of reality woven into your characters and your world. Your characters have to be believable no matter what setting you have them in.Doing research will help you to understand what realistic characters look like and how much detail you’ll need to invent if you’re straying from an actual setting. To my surprise I found out that there are companies already working to mine asteroids and manufacture items in space. Their websites are full of inspirational ideas and issues that can cause conflict.You also want to understand other books in this genre. What aspects do readers enjoy or dislike? Never copy another story, but know how your story fits into the genre.
Embrace it. If you’ve gotten this far, this is your idea. Own it and love it. Many times this is the stage when self-doubt starts to creep in. Yeah you’ve thought about the idea and done some free writing, there is a market for it, but…Don’t get stopped by the but. You’re writing this series and you need to be excited about it. I always tell aspiring authors that if they love their idea and write with passion, readers will be able to tell. Dig in for the hard work but get excited about what you are going to create.
Talk about it. Don’t shy away from your idea. I get asked and hear other people ask “What’s going on?” all the time. Tell them! Say I’m writing a new series and I’m really excited about it. Their feedback may not shape your work in major ways, but you never know when a friend or acquaintance will share that one tid-bit of information that puts your story over the top.It’s also a way to start finding readers. You don’t have to sell, but if an acquaintance knows you’re writing and they’re a reader they will ask you how the book is coming. If you keep them posted they may be willing to buy your new release when no one else will. Every sale in the early days helps.

At this stage your story idea is big. It’s ready to get planned and plotted and you need to prepare to shift your focus to actually writing the story in a way that makes sense.

I’ll share a few thoughts on plotting and planning in the next post.

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I started work on my new series in October 2017. With my commitment to full time writing I expect to be working on the first three books in this series for 9 months.

If you want to see how I’m communicating with readers, hop over to the For Readers section of my site, or sign up for my Sci-Fi mailing list..

3 steps for validating your series idea

January 24, 2018 By K. D. McAdams

Coming up with ideas isn’t a challenge for most writers, myself included. The actual challenge is picking a single idea and following through on it. I must have 2 dozen novels started but collecting dust in the cloud because I decided to shift gears to the next great idea.

Deciding what ideas are good enough to pursue as a series is mostly instinct, peppered with a few data points. It can be a tough notion to explain because there is no single item to indicate a great series idea. Almost all of my ideas initially feel like great series concepts. Many of them aren’t.

So how do you validate your idea to see if it’s worthy of planning a series around? In an effort to document how I decided to pursue my Off Earth Industries series, below is is my answer to how I played with the concept to make sure I could develop it into a series.

Start by asking why and what, then become a genre junkie.

I wanted to write about an asteroid miner, so why would a human ever need to land on an asteroid? I knew there were three compelling reasons – power, money, or love – for anyone to do something foolishly risky.

When I played through a few power and love stories they didn’t excite me.

The money angle was different. If the main character was taking this huge risk for money he must have some deeper desire. Any obstacle that would get in the way of him earning the money would also get in the way of him achieving his true goal.

So I played the three why’s game.

Q: Why would this character risk landing on an asteroid?
A: To earn money.

Q: Why did this character need money?
A: To pay off a debt.

Q: Why was it important for this character to pay off a debt?
A: Because he wasn’t allowed on Earth while he carried a debt.

At the start, my main characters driving goal is to be allowed to set foot on Earth. In the beginning, money looks like the primary obstacle to achieving his goal (it’s not).

To see if this idea could stretch beyond one book, I asked what.

Q: What could alter my main characters goal of setting foot on Earth?
A: An alien attack that threatens Earths survival.

So now my main character has to shift his goal from earning money to pay off a debt to some how saving Earth from total destruction. That feels like a pretty momentous change, certainly worthy of more than one or two books.

It also presents a drastic shift in my initial story idea. No longer is this a series about an asteroid miner. To justify my characters goal and struggle there needs to be a complete ecosystem of humans living and working in space. That ecosystem feels strong enough to support a series.

Now that I knew this was turning into an alien invasion series, it was time to head over to Amazon and do some market research. The goal of researching other books in your genre is not to copy them, it’s to understand what readers are enjoying and what concepts they are paying money for. What do the covers look like, how do the blurbs read, what kind of titles do they have? Even if you intend to shock your readers and do something completely different, you need to know how to reach them.

You should try and become a genre-junkie for the sub-genre you are targeting for this series. Whenever you have free time, read reviews, blurbs, list covers you love and generally surf the shelves of this genre.

When researching a sub-genre I like to look at the top twenty paid books and focus on those that are $2.99 or more. These books are popular because of their quality, not due to a price discount or marketing push. In many cases I’ll buy the book and read it, but sometimes if it doesn’t sound appealing I’ll stick to the look inside feature.

It’s important to understand readers expectations and what they’ll be comparing your work to. At some point you’re going to doubt your project and convince yourself it might never sell. Knowing that there are other books in your genre that are doing well can help motivate you to keep going. Your book won’t be the same, but it has the chance to be just as good if you keep writing and working.

In my next post I’m going to talk about how I took this idea and expanded it to come up with the building blocks of a series.

Over the coming weeks and months I’ll share with you my thoughts, notes and tips for each step. You can easily follow along by joining my mailing list. In return I’ll send you a copy of my Successful Series Writer Manifesto and a weekly digest of posts.

If you want to follow along from a readers perspective, you can jump over to that section of my blog, or sign up for my Sci-Fi mailing list.

15 Steps for writing a successful series

January 17, 2018 By K. D. McAdams

After writing and publishing two series with 6 books in each I decided to look at the process and see if there were steps I could take to improve my odds of creating something successful.

One of my biggest issues has been reader engagement while I’m working on a new story. When I’m writing my head is down and I don’t have time to come up with ideas to share with my readers. Traditionally I have not shared anything with my readers until I have a book complete and ready for them to buy. Recent research has shown that readers want 2 main things from authors they like – more content and a peek behind the scenes. I was looking for a way to deliver those two things while I was working on a story. They had to be part of the plan.

In April 2017 I came up with a seed of an idea I thought could be a great series. I was working on finishing another project at the time and resisted the urge to jump in and start writing. In September I was wrapping up my other projects and started to formulate my plan for attacking the new series. Below are the 15 steps I came up with.
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