177 Search Results for thursdays with amanda
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Continue Reading "Thursdays with Amanda: How to Become a Hybrid Author"Thursdays with Amanda: How to Become a Hybrid Author
Amanda Luedeke is a literary agent with MacGregor Literary. Every Thursday, she posts about growing your author platform. You can follow her on Twitter @amandaluedeke or join her Facebook group to stay current with her wheelings and dealings as an agent. Her author marketing book, The Extroverted Writer, is available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.A couple weeks ago, I shared one of my oddities…whenever I hear “hybrid author” I can’t help but think of the movie Underworld. As silly as the post was, I stand by it 100%. The similarities between hybrid authors and the vampire-werewolf hybrid depicted in the movie are shockingly and hilariously real, folks. Real. Real. Real.
And hybrid authors ARE taking over in a weird sense. They may not be the majority (yet), and all of them certainly aren’t millionaires, but they’re happy. And they’re profitable. And that’s a major WIN, folks. A huge win.
So how do they do it? How do you become this mystical creature? This Hybrid Author?
It looks a bit different for everyone, but for authors who have started on the traditional side and are considering making the leap, here are some thoughts…
HOW TRADITIONAL AUTHORS BECOME HYBRIDS
First, you need an author career with some sort of momentum. Maybe you have a couple books that are contracted or maybe you have releases lined up every six months or every year for the next few years? The logistics don’t matter so much as the fact that you are publishing with a traditional publishing house (one that can and does get books into bookstores) and will continue to do so.
When you have this, here’s how you make the switch…
1. Take a look at your contracts. Look specifically at the Non-Compete clause. You don’t want to end up in a situation where your publisher feels as though your self-pubbed books are competing with
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Continue Reading "Thursdays With Amanda: Lessons from a Bygone Hybrid Author (guest post by Erin Buterbaugh)"
Thursdays With Amanda: Lessons from a Bygone Hybrid Author (guest post by Erin Buterbaugh)
First, let the record show that I thought Amanda’s Underworld/hybrid author analogy last week should win some sort of prize for awesomeness; if you missed it, you should take a moment to scroll down the page five posts or so and catch up on the definition of a hybrid author and his similarity to a vampire/lycan crossbreed. Go ahead, I’ll wait.
Alright, now that everyone’s on the same page— today, I want to look at someone I would argue could be described as the original hybrid author, Charles Dickens, and the lessons hybrid authors of today can take away from his experiences.
Charles Dickens, like many authors (as well as most of the MacGregor Literary agents) began his writing career as a freelance journalist, contributing articles, sketches, and stories to various London newspapers and magazines. When he started writing novels, Dickens of course followed the prescribed formula for success as a novelist and severed all his ties to periodicals, instead devoting his time to finishing his manuscript, polishing his query letter, and securing an agent.
Wait. No, he didn’t.
As you probably already knew, the majority of Charles Dickens’ work was actually first published in serial form in newspapers and literary magazines. What is less commonly known is that Dickens himself was the editor and part-or-full-owner of most of the periodicals that his work appeared in—the man virtually self-published the majority of his novels. Dickens used his position as editor of the magazine Bentley’s Miscellany to serially publish his second novel, Oliver Twist, and when he had a falling-out with the magazine’s owner, Dickens left his position as editor and started another magazine, called Master Humphrey’s Clock, written and edited entirely by himself. When Dickens, for a number of reasons which I refuse to do the correct amount of research to be able to annotate and recount with strict academic accuracy, got tired of Master Humphrey’s
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Continue Reading "Thursdays with Amanda: How the Movie “UNDERWORLD” Perfectly Portrays Today’s Publishing World"
Thursdays with Amanda: How the Movie “UNDERWORLD” Perfectly Portrays Today’s Publishing World
Amanda Luedeke is a literary agent with MacGregor Literary. Every Thursday, she posts about growing your author platform. You can follow her on Twitter @amandaluedeke or join her Facebook group to stay current with her wheelings and dealings as an agent. Her author marketing book, The Extroverted Writer, is available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
Have you seen Underworld?
In this rather awesome and yet equally terrible movie, the vampires and the lycans are at odds (duh). The vampires are snooty and privileged and literally SLEEPING UNDERGROUND while the world passes them by. The lycans, on the other hand, are rule-breakers and thugs. They do what they want and for obvious reasons don’t get along with the vamps.
There is a particularly attractive lycan-hunting vampire girl who is tracking a lowly human that most women my age would know as Ben from Felicity. Ben from Felicity is being followed by lycans, and the hot vamp chick wants to know why. The truth is soon revealed when the lycans bite Ben from Felicity and turn him. By now the hot vampire lady is torn! She has grown to care for Ben from Felicity, and how can she love her enemy?! She eventually decides to get over herself and love him anyway, but then he is once again injured and near death (wimp). She does what she has been warned not to do and bites him, thus making him both vampire and lycan–a creation that is rumored to be stronger than either species. They call him a hybrid. Eventually, he is able to bring about peace between the clans.
So why do I bring this up? Why walk you through the ENTIRE movie premise?
Because it adequately portrays what’s happening in publishing, and every time I hear the term “hybrid author,” I immediately think of Ben from Felicity (and I wanted you to
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Continue Reading "Thursdays with Amanda: Respecting Your Art"
Thursdays with Amanda: Respecting Your Art
Amanda Luedeke is a literary agent with MacGregor Literary. Every Thursday, she posts about growing your author platform. You can follow her on Twitter @amandaluedeke or join her Facebook group to stay current with her wheelings and dealings as an agent. Her author marketing book, The Extroverted Writer, is available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.An old college friend was telling me a story about a potential client he was talking with. This friend of mine does freelance editing and proofing (he proofed my book, The Extroverted Writer), and so he is regularly courting new clients, trying to meet their expectations while also sharing with them the reality of the business.
This particular client of my friend’s was one of those type A, demanding, bull-headed types. You know who I’m talking about…a real-life Miranda Priestly or Bart Bass. Shrewd. Demanding. With no concept or concern for how much work it takes to produce a quality result.
The client had a 58,000-word manuscript that he wanted proofread, but the real kicker was that he wanted the project done in two days. When my friend pushed back and told him that, with a full-time job and other responsibilities on top of his freelancing gig, there was no way he could get it done and done well in that timeframe, the guy refused to accept such an answer. Said something about how it HAD to be ready for publication and how there was NO ROOM FOR AN EXTENSION.
My friend politely turned the project down.
I used to edit and proofread for a publishing company. They’d hand me a fiction manuscript, give me a week’s worth of time, and then a month later a check for a whopping $150 would hit my account. I had gotten the job after hearing that they needed someone to edit and proof for under $200 a pop. I had
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Continue Reading "Thursdays with Amanda: Video Critiques, part 2"
Thursdays with Amanda: Video Critiques, part 2
Amanda Luedeke is a literary agent with MacGregor Literary. Every Thursday, she posts about growing your author platform. You can follow her on Twitter @amandaluedeke or join her Facebook group to stay current with her wheelings and dealings as an agent. Her author marketing book, The Extroverted Writer, is available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.Today, we’re going to take a look at some more author videos (ones that were submitted for critique), and we’ll start by one from The Writing Sisters:
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I like the concept of this one in which the authors really sell themselves while providing plenty of things to look at. It does seem slightly dated with the music and the color of the background, but you know…I think it still does the job.
And what job may that be?
This video is a sort of pitch video. It can be used when trying to secure speaking engagements OR, more importantly, when trying to win over a publishing team. In publishing, we do business with people that we like, and authors should take any chance they can get to make a great impression and win over a publishing house. A video such as this would be played during the pub board meeting. It would help the team feel more connected with the authors, whose book they’re evaluating, and in turn would make them more likely to say ‘yes.’ This video I think would accomplish that, as it does a great job of positioning the authors not only as experts and experienced in their field, but as people who will be really fun to work with. That’s a win-win.
The next video is another pitch video, but this one from a brand new writer who is seeking representation:
I think Jessica did a great job maintaining a professional demeanor while also communicating passionately about her book. Her lines were memorized -
Continue Reading "Thursdays with Amanda: Video Critiques"
Thursdays with Amanda: Video Critiques
Amanda Luedeke is a literary agent with MacGregor Literary. Every Thursday, she posts about growing your author platform. You can follow her on Twitter @amandaluedeke or join her Facebook group to stay current with her wheelings and dealings as an agent. Her author marketing book, The Extroverted Writer, is available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.I’d like to wrap up my series on book videos by taking a look at some videos from readers. These were submitted to me after my call for video submissions last week, and I have the authors’ permission to dissect them online…but still, I promise to be nice!
The first is a publisher-created book trailer from author Elizabeth Ludwig for her Edge of Freedom Series:
So this is a great example of the kind of video that publishers usually produce (though I was informed that Bethany House did NOT produce this particular trailer). It’s well-done, but it’s nothing but vague text, thrilling music, and random video clips. And what’s more is that when everything is put together, it tells a muddled story…Because publishers don’t actually go out and film the clips that are used in trailers (they buy them off of stock sites), you end up with a product that lacks cohesion. Everything looks like it came from something else…and it did. So if you’ve ever watched a book trailer and felt lost or confused, it’s not you. It’s the mixture of all of the various clips that are trying so desperately to come together to tell one story while falling short.
When I watched, it took me awhile to figure out not only where we were, but what time period. The Celtic music and typography narrowed the possibilities. But then you have an almost viking-looking ship (circa 1100s), a shot of a modern-day handgun, medieval-like tavern and horse clips, and finally a shot of the Brooklyn
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Continue Reading "Thursdays with Amanda: Free Video Critique"
Thursdays with Amanda: Free Video Critique
Amanda Luedeke is a literary agent with MacGregor Literary. Every Thursday, she posts about growing your author platform. You can follow her on Twitter @amandaluedeke or join her Facebook group to stay current with her wheelings and dealings as an agent. Her author marketing book, The Extroverted Writer, is available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
Here’s where the rubber meets the road. Here’s where your author, promo, or book video gets put to the test.
We’ve been talking a lot about book trailers and videos lately. We started on this journey by looking at the different types of viral videos. Then, I compared two book trailers, showing how a great, viral-type trailer can increase awareness. Then we looked at the components of a viral video, and lastly, I shared some ideas that would make creating a viral video easier.
Yet, all of this is just speculation. It’s just information.
So let’s look at YOUR videos. I promise to be nice. But I also promise to be honest.
Post the YouTube link to your book trailer/author video/video promo below, and I’ll share my thoughts. What I think was done right, what I think needs work, and maybe even some ideas of how you could recraft it to hit that viral potential that is so droolworthy.
Any takers? Anyone? This is your chance to get my opinion on something for absolutely free!
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LIKE MY MARKETING ADVICE? My book, The Extroverted Writer is now available in print!
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Continue Reading "Thursdays with Amanda: The Cheater’s Way to a Viral Video"
Thursdays with Amanda: The Cheater’s Way to a Viral Video
Amanda Luedeke is a literary agent with MacGregor Literary. Every Thursday, she posts about growing your author platform. You can follow her on Twitter @amandaluedeke or join her Facebook group to stay current with her wheelings and dealings as an agent. Her author marketing book, The Extroverted Writer, is available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.Last week I tried to tackle the components of a viral video…I say “tried” because that’s exactly what it was. An attempt to wrangle something that is so elusive for so many.
But I also promised that there were alternatives to the high-budget, high production suggestions that I made. Now these alternatives aren’t magical, and many of you will still walk away feeling like videos are impossible. And that’ fine! Videos are not necessary to sell books. I think Divergent‘s terrible book trailer proved that. But for those of you who are wanting to give it a go, here are some ideas…
COLLEGE STUDENTS
There’s this site called 99designs. You upload your information and needs and then graphic designers from all over compete for your business. They present their designs and then you can actually have friends vote on their favorites. You then pay the winning designer something like $299 and that’s that. You have your design, and that designer has a bit of cash.
Why can’t we do this with viral videos?!
In college I was part of a number of “videos.” Someone on campus would have a camera and they’d write a script and we’d go out and film. Once I was even co-writer/co-director/co-actor of a video that we entered into the campus film festival! (We won most creative, by the way). My point is COLLEGE KIDS LOVE CREATING VIDEOS. And they’re pretty good at it. Especially if they’re part of a film program.
There are two options here…
THE IN-CLASS ASSIGNMENT
Most professors are
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Continue Reading "Thursdays with Amanda: What Goes In To A Viral Video"
Thursdays with Amanda: What Goes In To A Viral Video
Amanda Luedeke is a literary agent with MacGregor Literary. Every Thursday, she posts about growing your author platform. You can follow her on Twitter @amandaluedeke or join her Facebook group to stay current with her wheelings and dealings as an agent. Her author marketing book, The Extroverted Writer, is available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.We’ve spent the past few weeks talking about viral videos. Last week, we looked at the difference between exciting and…not-so-exciting book trailers. This week, we’re unpacking the “How-to” behind a great video. Now, it’s not rocket science, so if you were expecting a magic formula, I’m sorry to disappoint. But at the same time, I think it’s doable. It’s feasible. Viral videos can be a freak phenomenon for sure, but at the same time there are clear ways to increasing your chances of experiencing that very viralness.
So now that we have a sort of understanding, here’s my list of essentials for a video to go viral:
- Know what you’re selling. Are you peddling a book? An in-store event? A writers conference? Your editing services? Figure out the driving force behind the video. The more specific, the better.
- Choose your emotion. The only reason viral videos get shared and watched is because they cause the viewer to FEEL something. Most viral videos cause laughter. Some are suspenseful and put the viewer in a state of unease. Some, like the Budweiser Puppy Love commercial, create a sense of sadness and, later, warm fuzziness. Consider the type of emotional response you want from your viewers, and while you’re doing that…
- Create your concept. Here’s where your creative juices should come in handy. You’ll want to come up with something unique…something creative that will entertain viewers while highlighting whatever it is you’re selling. Writing a video is no different than writing a novel, really. You’ll want to plan it out
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Continue Reading "Thursdays with Amanda: Divergent vs Miss Peregrine – Book Trailer Edition"
Thursdays with Amanda: Divergent vs Miss Peregrine – Book Trailer Edition
Amanda Luedeke is a literary agent with MacGregor Literary. Every Thursday, she posts about growing your author platform. You can follow her on Twitter @amandaluedeke or join her Facebook group to stay current with her wheelings and dealings as an agent. Her author marketing book, The Extroverted Writer, is available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.Last week, I showed you a bunch of viral videos, and we talked about how most book trailers don’t deliver on a great experience, and then they fail to become even remotely close to viral.
But let’s really dig in here. Let’s really take a look at book trailers and what works and what doesn’t.
DIVERGENT by Veronica Roth was one of the most-read series of the past few years. It’s a dystopian YA story that followed on THE HUNGER GAMES’s coattails (though maybe unintentionally) and now has movies and merch and all that good stuff.
But despite being a smash hit, its book trailer looks like most book trailers. It’s flat. Simple. It does the job, but it doesn’t do the one thing that all viral videos do…it doesn’t cause you to want to talk about it or share it with anyone. Here it is:
On the flip side, we have MISS PEREGRINE’S HOME FOR PECULIAR CHILDREN by Ransom Riggs. This book came from a mid-sized house (instead of the machine that is HarperCollins). It also is a middle grade/YA novel about weird things. But its trailer offers an experience that gets you, the reader, EXCITED about the book:
WOW, am I right?
So here’s how the numbers look…
DIVERGENT has sold a ton of books. Like a bazillion. On Goodreads alone it is rated almost 585,000 times. So a smash hit, for sure.
Its book trailer has been watched 215,000 times since the book released in May 2011. To me, that number is a bit
