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This week: Proper Labels Edited by: Jeff  
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"The two most engaging powers of an author are to make
new things familiar, and to make familiar things new."
-- Samuel Johnson
Trivia of the Week: Although arguably best known for her Arthur C. Clarke Award-winning and Booker Prize-nominated novel The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood is known for a wide variety of contributions to the world of literature, including short stories, poetry, children's books, nonfiction, essays, television scripts, libretti (texts for operas or other long vocal works), and even as the inventor and developer of LongPen, a technology that facilities the remote robotic writing of documents via tablet or PC. LongPen also allows for video and audio conversation between endpoints so an author could, for example, videochat with a fan while signing his or her book remotely from the author's iPad while sitting on a beach half a world away. Pretty cool! 
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| ASIN: B01FST8A90 |
Product Type: Toys & Games
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Amazon's Price: $ 24.95
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PROPER LABELS
Last week, I read a pair of books that ended up drastically different than advertised. One was marketed as a "tense financial thriller" and it ended up being closer to a "financial crime drama," and the other was a "laugh-out-loud, edge-of-your-seat suspense novel" that was really closer to a "procedural thriller with the occasional funny line." The quality of the work notwithstanding, I couldn't help but feel slightly disappointed in both reading choices, even though I thought the former had great characterization and was elegantly written, and the latter was a thoroughly engaging and entertaining read from cover to cover. Both books got me thinking about the importance of properly labeling your writing.
Audience expectations can be a powerful thing, and when you circumvent those expectations (either on purpose or inadvertently), you run the risk of disappointing that audience, or worse, causing them to disengage from the reading experience because they're trying to figure out if they're reading what they thought they'd be reading rather than letting themselves get swept away by the narrative. The second book I read last week (the occasionally-funny thriller) would have actually been one of my favorite books of the year thus far if I hadn't spent so much time going, "Where are all the laugh out loud bits?" interspersed with the occasional, "Okay, that line was pretty great, but this isn't playing out like a comedic story."
When it comes to Writing.Com, we have an embarrassment of riches when it comes to categorizing our work. Not only are we able to classify our work using seven different types of static items (poetry, short stories, articles, prose, essays, fiction, and nonfiction) plus book items, but we are then able to further categorize our work using almost 100 different genre options, of which each item can be labeled with up to three. So while going into a bookstore may relegate you to merely looking in sections that broadly house "Science Fiction" or "Mystery/Thriller" stories, Writing.Com allows you to get specific and label your story as the Inspirational Fantasy Action-Adventure Short Story that it truly is, or even the Western Paranormal Romance that would likely get lost between sections in a brick-and-mortar store setup.
It's always surprising to me when I come across an item on Writing.Com that doesn't take advantage of the ability to label their items so specifically. Some of it, I'm sure can be chalked up to inexperience or unfamiliarity with the website. When you create an item you're only required to pick one genre (and the first choice at the top of the drop-down box is "Other"), so it's not uncommon to see new writers improperly or very generally classify their writing when they could be much more specific. Even more confusing, though, are the items that are completely inaccurate in their details. For example, as I was searching for items to feature in this week's newsletters (I searched for items of the "nonfiction" type), I found the following :
 Clear genre items improperly listed as "Other"
 Poems, despite having a "poetry" type
 Fiction, despite having "short story," "prose," and "fiction" types
What was even more confusing was looking through the list of nonfiction items and seeing sponsored items (i.e. items that someone is paying GPs to especially advertise) for short stories, images, and even contests and fundraisers for activities that are decidedly not about promoting nonfiction. While some of those advertisements are understandable (especially site activities that you're trying to garner interest for, and less popular types like nonfiction are cheaper to advertise in), there's an increased risk that someone will click on the item thinking they're getting nonfiction - since that's the page they're perusing - and end up getting your item, which is decidedly not what they're looking for, and end up disappointed or even upset that the item they read was not as advertised. That could potentially lead to negative feedback, or a negative impression that you, as an author, don't understand your audience or how to market yourself.
In the grand scheme of things, good writing is good writing and it's not a huge deal to have something improperly labeled or not as specifically labeled as it can be. A good short story will still get attention even if someone calls it "prose," and simply deciding to categorize your work as "Thriller/Suspense" without taking it two steps further and finding some other sub-genres isn't going to get an angry mob after you with torches and pitchforks. But it is worth considering how you're marketing your work, and how taking the few extra seconds to add a sub-genre or make sure your item type is accurate can benefit you in terms of setting your work apart from others and finding readers looking specifically for the kind of thing you write.
Whether we're talking about Writing.Com item types and genres, particular fiction categories on Amazon, or the words you put in the synopsis of your material that others will read on a website or dust jacket, I'd encourage you to consider that while the downside to inaccurate labels on your work may be marginal, there is no downside at all to being more accurate.
Until next time,
Jeff
If you're interested in checking out my work:
"Blogocentric Formulations"
"New & Noteworthy Things"
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I encourage you to check out the following items:
EXCERPT: When my husband Bob started working at the grocery store he would come home, feeling depressed. He said the atmosphere in the store was very bad. People would complain all day long about co-workers or other people. So we prayed together about the situation and asked for God’s wisdom.
EXCERPT: Charles laid there, not moving a muscle. His body twitched, jerked, and acted on its own. The machine that were providing him with life support, breathing for him, feeding him, slowing down the pain, and keeping him as comfortable as modern medicine knew how, just droned on and on and on. Everyone, there was waiting, watching, and wondering what to say to one another. Some were even talking with Charles, making their peace. Many were thinking the most horrific thoughts of all, "why couldn't this be me?" Or, "Is this going to be me one day?" They watched. They talked. They prayed.
EXCERPT: Lynn. Lynn is an interesting person. I can't say I know a whole lot about her. I met Lynn one Wednesday night at a church group. I spent the few weeks watching a show called “Warehouse 13.” I bring this up because the first thing when I saw Lynn, my thought was, “She looks a lot like Claudia”. Lynn was carrying two guitars, one in her hand and the other, in a hard case slung over her shoulder. At the time, I was sure her red hair was a dye job. Frankly, I'm still not sure if it's real or not. It seems to have a consistent color and I don't remember ever seeing roots.
EXCERPT: Analogies are tricky things. Their purpose is simple enough—to make difficult concepts simpler. The tricky part is that it is anything but simple to craft the perfect analogy. This is exponentially true in relation to the complexity of the concept to be communicated or, in my case, its proximity to the truth.
EXCERPT: After a two hour delay after SEPTA (Philadelphia public transit) decided to change their trains to holiday schedule last minute, I arrived in New York City via a New Jersey Transit train at Penn Station at roughly 10:35 AM. When I exited the train, I followed the signs that led me to the Metro. I asked some people if there were any places where I could be a Metro card and they all pointed me in the right direction. The Hudson News shop would only take cash and I'm glad I had exactly $19.80 in cash to pay for the card.
EXCERPT: The pack is hunting, one member forging ahead in order to disrupt the herd, his pack mates behind enclosing in on them from both sides. He drives them around a sharp bend and one of the slower ones at the back makes a mistake; splitting from the herd in order to avoid a tree it had not seen coming. The first wolf snatches at its hind legs, eventually landing his claws and teeth upon its rump. His intention to wound and slow the prey down long enough for the pack to complete the kill. In a space of mere seconds ‘Canis lupus’ , the grey wolf, is settling down to eat. These creatures are the stuff of nightmares and warning fairytales but when they are not hunting, they are surprisingly reminiscent of a household pet.
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Feedback from my last newsletter about doing what you want to do:
Patrece ~  writes: "I just wanted to thank you for the information presented in this newsletter. It can be discouraging, for wanna-be authors to get out there, but as you stated, where there is a will, there is a way! It doesn't mean the path will be easy...no, likely the opposite. But if you have faith in yourself, and are prepared to edit and revise your work, then promote not only your writing, but yourself as an author, you just might make it! "
It's all about finding the right platform to get your work out there. 
Quick-Quill  writes: "When I finished my manuscript and wanted to publish it for others to read, I read about self publishing. I bought books self-published. I learned that just because you can (self-publish) it doesn't mean you should. After reading a number of these books and seeing the woefully bad writing, poorly planned lay out and generally the over use of common mistakes, I knew I didn't want to be bunched with those. I found an indie publisher. I learned from my mistakes, but I'm glad I did. Its still a better product than I first wrote. the only bad part of my book is the proof reading. I don't think I will use them with my next book.  "
Self-publishing is tough because don't have all the in-house benefits (marketing department, editors, graphic designers, etc.) that you get with a traditional publishing house, so you're forced to either pay for those services yourself, do them yourself, or do without them. Unfortunately, a lot of people choose to do without them (or aren't nearly as good as they think they are) and it shows. 
zazzatron submitted item: "Invalid Item"
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Feedback from a previous newsletter about writing in multiple genres:
anabear38 writes: "I don't think that cross-over readers matter. If you have one book that is one genre, and another book that is another genre, and they're both popular, why does it matter if the same people are reading them? Different people like different things, but that doesn't mean you have to confine yourself to one genre. All it means is that you have a bigger variety of fans."
There are some people who think that diversified genres mean a much smaller segment of each one, plus the increased difficulty of readers happening across your work because it's scattered across various sections of a bookstore or website. I totally agree with your point of "If they're both popular, why does it matter?" Of course, that's a big "if." Writing two things in two different genres that are both popular enough to make the author a household name is no small feat. 
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| ASIN: B000FC0SIM |
Product Type: Kindle Store
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Amazon's Price: $ 12.99
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For Authors: August 05, 2015 Issue [#7142]
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