Indie Author Group

Category: writing

  • Updated! And we’re looking forward! #mondayblogs

    Updated! And we’re looking forward! #mondayblogs

    Hi! Welcome back!
    How do you like the redesign?

    Firstly, the whole team wants to say hi, we’re delighted to have you along and whether you’re new or an old hand, we’ve been honored to serve and work with you to now, and hope that this new phase brings more great stuff!

    The Indie Author Group is eleven, and we’ve redesigned the site, so I thought I’d talk about what you should expect to see going forward. Valerie, myself and the rest of the team have been discussing how to make IAG the one-stop shop that we’d love it to be, and the blog is, in my opinion, an integral part of that (though, I would, I love blogging!). Valerie and I have talked in depth about it though, and we’ve got a pattern we’d like to try, so here goes 😉
    While the site is still being updated, and worked on, we’ve started the new blog up to get started up so that people could access some of the new information available out there. From pre-publishing, all the way through to promotion, we’ll be writing about every aspect of indie author life that we can help you with.

    And with that, we need YOUR help.
    What would you like to see? Not only can you ask questions on the group, but you can ask us to write up content and offer information on the things that might be troubling you. We’ve created some great guides, including how to self-edit, and our ten hour marketing plan (which is due it’s update next week!), so we’re hoping to give you one place to find all the critical information you need to make your career rock!

    Exclusives and more

    Every Friday, there will be at least one exclusive, IAG specific article, that is for our site. These articles will be in series’ or from questions, or a mix of both. We’ll be covering the important stuff that comes up, for now once a week, as an exclusive article. We’ll also be pulling in some of the best blogs, and content written by trusted sources to talk about extras in the community. And we’ll also be putting up more short form answers on TWIRL.

    New stuff!

    We do have some fun new items on the list too. While some are still being worked on and rolled out, we’re delighted to announce that we’ll be running a weekly roundup of our blog posts, other interesting news, and more for authors once week on Fridays.

    Join here! (it’s free, on Substack!)

    Finally, we’ve added a questions form!

    If you’ve got a question or concept or series of articles you’d like us to cover, we’d love to hear from you! Head on over to our form and ask! (or ask on the group, we’ll pick up stuff that we can add to on there too!)

    Next week, we’ll be starting *right* at the beginning – some great ways to get inspiration, and why your first draft doesn’t need to be perfect, it just needs to be drafted!

    See you then!

  • To goal or not to goal?

    To goal or not to goal?

    Hi guys! It’s a whole new year, and we’re planning all sorts of good things for you, but today, I wanted to touch on goals.

    Back to…

    Today seems to be the day for us to all be back at ‘work/writing/life’. The holidays, however, they were, are over and I’m on the fence about whether to goal or not to goal. I do, but I know others on the team don’t, so I thought I’d talk about how I’m organising my year, and if you’d like to share yours in the comments I’d love to hear from you!

    Back to life, back to reality

    Well, sort of. It’s pretty much a well-known fact that I live in a world of my own.  It’s a nice world, if a touch grim sometimes (though, like many people my post-apocalyptic game is way down), but I’m hoping to find my way back to my main world. I’m sure I will, but I’m working really hard on planning books and re-releasing.  I’m in an odd place as a writer – my backlist has completely expired back to me and I can choose to reboot everything, so the options really are endless for me.  But I’m also starting a brand new pen name, so I’ll be working as a new author, and building up from my actual platform too. So, this year, I’ll be sharing a lot of everything that I’m learning.  In fact, this month, I’m starting with newsletters. I do have goals too, but I’m trying hard to actually pin them SMART format.  Tying that to an ROI to boot is really difficult, especially when it’s something that’s not measurable by numbers, but I think if you set goals for yourself, you’ve got to find a way to measure them.

    Planning in my me-time

    The mistake I made last year was not planning some me time – I always told myself that I’d take my time off, but one thing or another came out, and even with everything that’s gone on in the last year – in fact, possibly because of it in some ways – I didn’t really take care of myself properly.  I’ve got meditation apps, and things to help me sleep, and I’ve still completely failed on that front.  Which is the last lesson thing I wanted to touch on – I’ve been seeing people talk about goals in terms of ‘I failed so…’ YOU DID NOT FAIL! (sorry, I didn’t mean to yell, but seriously).
    The dichotomy in the author community is writing *is* lonely, but then again, it isn’t.  We’ve got access to so many communities, but that leaves us open to so much, from poor influences that can throw us off, to seeing people where we want to be and feeling bad, to feeling intimidated and upset when things go badly.  And the thing is, even if we’ve put out lots, won awards, had a good time with people, we always seem to focus on the negative, so if you’re not setting goals, please take one thing from this post, and just think about the good, not the bad.  It’s important to focus on the good, always. That’s how we get through. We’ll be talking about SMART later this week again, and newsletters for the next little while so if you’ve got anything you’d like to share, then hit the comments.  Questions and requests, comments! And welcome to 2021.  No resolutions from me, but I do want to rock it, in any way I can, and know that with the community that IAG is, we can do almost anything. See you Saturday!
  • How the three laws of robotics apply to writing and planning

    How the three laws of robotics apply to writing and planning

    Today is National Sci-Fi day, and while we’re not on Sci-fi this month (that’s later in the year) as our featured support genre, for advice Mondays, I thought I’d share a bit of a thought experiment.

    First though…

    Today would be Issac’s 100th birthday, and there’s little denying the impact he had on the world of sci-fi and writing. But the thing that always stuck with me the most was his three laws of robotics.

    The three laws

    (from Gismodo, who cites his story Runaround)

    1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

    2. A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

    3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

    Issac Asimov

    Later, Asimov added a fourth, or zeroth law, that preceded the others in terms of priority:

    0. A robot may not harm humanity, or, by inaction, allow humanity to come to harm.

    Issac Assimov

    I have many theories on AI, given I’m eventually doing a Ph.D. on it (hence the combined STEM degree now), but I’m not going to address the fallacies and intricacies of why the three laws (and the additional zero law, which is almost the same, but not quite, as law 1) fail and cause problems. If you want to know why there’s a plethora of books out there exploring that and similar issues.

    No, instead, I wanted to talk about how the three laws apply to writing.

    But I’m not a robot…

    As you’re quite right to observe, it’s highly unlikely that you are a robot. You might be, but then, that opens up questions, again, not for a writers’ blog. But when you look at the three laws of robotics and change the context to writing, something interesting happens.

    1. An author may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
      I would argue this is common decency, but when there’s little of each online, it’s a good thing to bear in mind. It goes into a slightly broader concept though.
      While there’s no admonition to not harm our characters (cause we might), there is a duty in every community for the weakest to be cared for by the stronger. Writing is not a zero-sum game, so, if anything, I’d argue the first of the Writer’s three laws is that we need to work to prevent bullying. As we watch the mess with the RWA unfold and look back on Cockygate, I wonder why it isn’t a credo adopted by more.
      Beyond that, it also tells you not to hurt yourself. Planning and self-care are critical.
    2. An author must obey the rules of its community, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
      I think the easiest way to explain this one is 1) Don’t pick on someone for upholding rules on a group, even if you personally think they’re not fair. It’s their group, you agreed and continue to agree when you joined, and to be frank, bullying a moderator is something that we’re going zero tolerance on – and that includes if we *hear* of it from a friend that’s a mod. Beyond that, mob mentality is dangerous online – there’s a difference between defending the downtrodden and forming a lynching mob, and I think this law aptly states that. If an author is unhappy with a review and asks their tribe to retaliate, maybe question the worth of that tribe, and the person leading it?
    3. An author must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
      Ah, you may say, doesn’t that mean if I don’t agree with people, I get to retaliate?
      Nope.
      You need to protect *your own existence*. What Jilly, Bob or Timmy does, as long as it’s not hurting you, isn’t important to you. I’m actually interpreting this one to be ‘don’t compare yourself to others, someone will get hurt’.

    Law 1, Kindness. Law 2, fair play and Law 3, personal obligation. All three make for the best writers and the best communities. Personal obligation does mean sticking up for the rights of others if you’re sure you should, but it also means accepting that you ‘do you’. One of the hardest lessons I learned last year was that if I’m not careful, I will stay away for too long because I have nothing to give. My personal obligation became to me and only me for a while, and that was ok. But I have an obligation to you guys too. So, Law 3…it could also be read as ‘help yourself, help others’.

    I don’t really agree that the zero law exists in the case of writers, but there is one final one I think all writers need to follow.

    Law 4 – An author must ensure that everything they put out reflects the best of their work and the best of them.
    Each and every one of the team knows     it’s hard to get things done in a budget, and we all sacrifice, but we are calling each and every one of our members to consider their reputations this year. Build good things, save and make things to the best of your ability, and only release books when they are professionally edited, covered and formatted. That way, you’re already ahead of a lot of people out there, who might see your example and follow suit (thereby helping you with the second and third laws ;)).

    Yes, I belabored that one a bit, but I’m sure Asimov would forgive me.

    Do you agree with my three laws of writing? What would you add?

    January is National Braille month.
    Check out January’s Posts to see what we’ve covered.
  • Submissions open!

    Submissions open!

    We are now taking guest posts for three of our blogs, and we’d love to see our readers and members join in.  If you’d like to guest post with us, all of the details are here!

    The main rule of submitting to the blogs are that they CANNOT be fluff, no use posts that promote you.  We are very keen to keep the quality of the blog high, therefore all posts should be your original content (we do accept reprints), with links to anything that you’re asserting that is to be backed up.  So, for example, if you say that ‘The Benevolent Dictator says that nothing sells one book like the next book’, it’d be brilliant if you could also link those words to the page (https://twirl.indieauthorgroup.com/selling-books/).  This means people can see where you’re learning from.  Please do not link YOUR OWN blog unless you are an expert – you’ve got your byline at the end for that.

    Main Guidelines

    Aside from no ads, we also ask that people do not use affiliate links.  If you link to Amazon books, we reserve the right to change the links to our own affiliate link, per our privacy guidelines.  We do ask, on the whole that you don’t write articles with Amazon links in if you can avoid it, to avoid issues of this kind.

    If you are linking to your own blog, we do ask that you link to specific posts, and that your own privacy guidelines are up to date.

    Your byline can contain three links – one of which should ideally be a blog, or other site for people to follow you.  We do not allow friend request links from Facebook – you must use a Facebook page.

    Finally, we reserve the right to reject any articles that don’t work for our site, or fits with our guidelines.  Full guidelines are of course listed here.
    Once you’ve read our guidelines, you can submit here.  The blog posts will then be taken to tech or marketing, or posted to the main blog as the team decides is right.
    Please ensure you include your email, your byline and any images when you submit.  We will not respond to return articles if we reject them, but we will of course let you know about accepted articles and your publication date.  If you do not hear back within six weeks of submission, please consider that your article has been rejected.

    We invite people to submit up to three posts.  We know the categories are odd on the form, don’t worry about that, but if we reject all three, we do ask that you look at our guidelines (which are clearly listed in our post here, on the guidelines and at the bottom of the form) and then wait a few months.

    Good luck, we’re really looking forward to seeing your submissions!