Do literary awards help your fiction writing career? After starting my writing career in 1992 and my editing and publishing career in 1996, I can firmly say yes. Literary awards improve public awareness of your book and increase book sales.

The reason award winning books sell more is the award is a powerful third party (independent) endorsement. When someone with no financial interest in a book goes out of their way to read it and honor it, the public takes notice. This is the same reason why book reviews have more impact than an expensive advertising campaign.

Now that said, it does takes time, effort and usually at the very least a little money (if not more) to place your book in the running for an award. Almost any award. You should plan this cost into your promotional and marketing efforts for the book.

If you’re interested in going in this direction, step one is do some Internet research to find all the different award competitions to which you might be able to submit your work. There are always the big name competitions in your genre. Everyone knows these and they’re easy to find. But, there are also many smaller awards out there given sometimes by quite unlikely sources.

Do not make the mistake of either overlooking, or underestimating, these awards. Any official notice, praise or singling-out of your work, no matter what the source has the potential to increase book sales (you know the old adage — there’s no such thing as bad publicity).

Step two is to pay whatever small entrance fee might be connected to the award you’re going after. This should only be done, however, if you get the sense that the award is genuine, or at least respected. There are competitions out there which are merely set up to rake in entrance fees. Oh, someone will win the award, but there isn’t quite the same amount of prestige attached to such an “honor.”

Step three, of course, is to send a copy of the book or e-book to the panel of judges.

For example: My publishing company published a military science fiction anthology entitled Breach the Hull in 2007. That was the first year we started publishing e-book versions of most titles. The editor and his wife, Mike McPhail and Danielle Ackley-McPhail, found an e-book literary award online and decided to enter the book’s Microsoft Glassbook e-book version. It was a good call on their part — Breach the Hull won the 2007 Dream Realm Award for best e-book anthology! Sales of the title have steadily increased as the publicity from the award has spread across the Internet and genre conventions.

Of course, winning is just the beginning. Once you have the award in hand, then you want to display (with all the bells and whistles you can manage) the logo of the contest on your websites and provide it to interviewers in the media as well. Create a cardboard stand up of the book cover and award logo to take with you to conventions. Something plastered with the words “Winner of the So & So Award!” Mention the fact that the book won the award on every panel you are a part of at conventions. Let the world know about the award at every reasonable opportunity.

Second example: In 2008, Marietta Publishing published the follow up book to the Amazon best-selling Bad-Ass Faeries. The second book in the series is titled Bad-Ass Faeries 2: Just Plain Bad. One of the four editors is Danielle Ackley-McPhail. She decided to enter the e-book version in a literary award contest. In March of 2009, it was announced that Bad-Ass Faeries 2 had won the 2009 Eppie Award for best e-book anthology! (Eppie Awards go by the year the award is awarded, not the year of publication.)

Danielle and Mike are using the internet to track down what is waiting out there for all authors and small press editors and publishers. Winning the awards means all the hard work they put into writing their stories and putting together their anthologies has now paid off in a bigger way, but they had to do the work to find the competitions. These opportunities don’t come knocking even the much-talked-about one time on your door.

You have to go find them.

The bottom line is, plan ahead to enter your books in literary award contests. They will help publicize your title and improve your book sales. It certainly does not hurt to have a few awards on your resume as an author, either.

Trust us.

As predicted and discussed earlier in this blog, it’s looking more evident every day that the future of book retailing does not include large square footage brick and mortar bookstores. We predicted chain bookstores would mutate into smaller café type locations where you would shop for a book online and then order it and that it would then be physically printed in the backroom of the café in less than twenty minutes while you sipped your cup o’joe. Well, we were proven correct much sooner than even we thought it would happen.

Lightning Source in LaVergne, Tennessee is the largest print-on-demand printer in the world. It is also a subsidiary of Ingram Book Group which is the world’s largest book wholesaler. Lightning Source (LSI) is an Ingram Content company which focuses on increasing book sales for publishers with technological innovations and low cost and minimum risk “just in time” printing and distribution systems. On April 16, 2009 LSI announced the launch of the Espresso Book Machine (EBM) in conjunction with On Demand Books.

On Demand Books, LLC is the owner of the Espresso Book Machine and was founded in 2003 by Jason Epstein, a renowned inventor with a sixty year track record in the book business. The Espresso Book Machine was named the best invention of 2007 by Time Magazine. For more information on this company go to www.ondemandbooks.com and read more articles by Newsweek, The New York Times, Fortune, and more from CNN and NPR.

This pilot program between Lightning Source and On Demand Books will literally change the way people buy printed books and even e-books. What this new system entails is you literally buying an e-book and downloading it to your iPod, PDA, laptop computer as a Microsoft Glassbook file from Ingram’s online catalog, or you ordering a book to be printed on demand in the back room through the Espresso Book Machine.

Believe it or not, the EBM prints, binds and trims perfect bound paperback books on demand at the point of sale. What this means is the end of large, space-wasting, inventory-storing mega-book stores. It is, after all, much easier to put ATM-sized Espresso Book Machines all over the place than it is to build large over-sized book stores. This amazing new innovation will make shopping for books and buying books much more convenient. Not to mention the novelty of having a book printed immediately and put in your hands hot off the press! No more dog-earred pages, no more fingerprints, broken spines, coffee stains or other signs of previous prospective buyers left behind on your book. Each copy is brand new.

Already planned point-of-sale locations for EBM’s include bookstores and libraries for starters. Coffee shops, cafes, universities, and retailers such as Walmart and Target will quickly come on board as well. About 85,000 titles will be available through EBM’s beginning in May of 2009. Publishers that are participating in the pilot program include John Wiley & Sons, Hachette Book Group, McGraw-Hill, Simon & Schuster, Clements Publishing, Cosimo, E-Reads, Bibliolife, Information Age Publishing, Macmillan, University of California Press and W.W. Norton. In approximately six months the EBM retailing channel will be available to all publishers that use print-on-demand services through Lightning Source.

We predict this new in-store print-on-demand model will have a rapid and positive impact on book sales globally. For struggling publishers and retailers the EBM channel collapses the book supply chain, boosts backlist title sales, matches supply with demand, eliminates returns and powers new, high growth sales channels. This is a major leap forward for the publishing world that will definitely impact authors in a number of ways — all of them positive.

During tough economic times it is important to increase your personal productivity so that you can make more money to survive. For us writers the facts are straightforward — the more products you produce, the more passive income you create. Passive income is the most desirable type of income because you do not have to get up and go to work every day to earn it. Royalties are the way writers are paid passive income by our publishers. Once you have written the book you continue to make money while you move on to write more books. If you get a pile of books in print, you will make more money. (I am using books as the generic term for books, e-books, magazines, e-zines, newsletters, comic books, screenplays, articles, columns, etc.)

What does it take to become super productive as a fiction writer? Getting your mind to buy into the value of your time is the first step. Calculate how much your time is worth per hour presently and then decide what you want your time to be worth per hour in the near future. When you break your income down to the hour you start to value your time more and it helps to keep you on track to your goals.

Focusing your mind on your current writing project and pushing yourself to write faster and faster each day is another mental tool to help increase your productivity. Avoid distractions during your work time. Control what you are doing with your time. Get up at the same time every day and block out eight hours of writing time. (I refer to this as golden time!) Do not answer the phone or emails during this golden time. I only allow phone calls during evening hours or I may return a call during my lunch break. Occasionally, I take a break to make a business call that must be made during weekday business hours. In exchange for the time I work late. Finally focus on finishing your writing project. Endless revisions do not make you money. Work with editors, copy editors, and publishers to sharpen your product and get other points of view.

Use technology to increase your productivity. I highly recommend the Apple I-Phone and the Apple MacIntosh notebook computer. For writers these two tools create a virtual office that is totally portable. The I-phone has an I-Pod, calendar planner, wireless Internet connection with full email capabilities, text messaging, a large enough screen to comfortably read an e-book on and much more built into one phone. The MacIntosh is much less vulnerable to computer viruses and it is much easier to use than a PC. This ease of use increases your productivity.

Exercise with your family or friends in order to spend quality time with them, while you take care of your health. This will make workouts fun. Use a business to do list and a personal to do list to keep you on track. If you increase your hourly writing word count, you are giving yourself a raise. It really is great to be in control of your productivity and being your own boss. Being a fiction writer is a dream come true. Value your dream time every day by being more productive.

In order to get published you have to stand out in the crowd. This is a must. Never tell people that you want to be, say, the next Stephen King. Why not? Because until King is dead, you ain’t got a job, pal! So, unless you’re content with sitting back and reading the literary guild obituaries, you might want to try a different tact, and that is developing your own clear, distinct writing style.

A writer’s style is created when a writer finally finds their own unique voice on paper. It takes some work to uncover your style, but it is well worth the journey. Let’s see what you might be able to do to create a style all your own.

First, you need practice. Lots of it. You can’t discover your own unique way of doing anything without putting some effort into it. You need to write, and to write every day. Of course, you’re first instinct is to shout back how busy you are, how little time you have, how precious each moment is … blahblahblah.

Shut up.

C.J. Here: I am reminded of my favorite cartoon ever from the New Yorker. Cocktail party, two men speaking to one another. The speaker, eager, bright-eyed, innocent. The listener, bored, leaning against the wall, wearing sunglasses. The speaker says: “A writer, huh? Gee, I always wished I had the time to write.”

No one has the time to write. No one is born with extra minutes in the day to devote to putting things down on paper. You find the time, you make it. You cut out the unnecessary, the distracting, the useless. You get down to the work of becoming the greatest literary voice of your age. Or you let someone else do it. Period. That’s all she wrote.

Bruce & C.J. Here: You will need to establish a regular daily time to sit down and write. Like an athlete practicing their sport, a writer must practice their craft often to become great. Your mind runs like a computer can quickly program itself to be full of ideas at the time of your writing session every day. Trust yourself to rise to the occassion.

The second step is to read widely in your genre of choice. A writer learns writing techniques from other writers as they read. This exposes you to different writing styles and allows you to pick and choose what you think are the most effective methods of writing. And, understand that we’re not talking theft here. This is an exercise for your subconscious, not your conscious mind.

For example: reading a James Bond novel by Ian Fleming would expose you to his tight, highly detailed style of writing. Fleming’s approach to the craft was designed to take you into the lifestyle of a spy that is licensed to kill. Even normal things like eating a meal or driving a car are not done in typical fashion by such a person. The simple act of reading a Fleming novel could be that key to helping you better understand that characters are defined by many things, their upbringing, surroundings, racial identity, and their jobs, just to name a few.

In the fantasy genre, David Eddings is one of the acknowledged masters at moving a story forward through dialogue. He’s one of the very best. Kevin J. Anderson, the highest paid science fiction writer in the world, tells tales on a grandious scale, and he is capable of doing so in the Star Wars or Dune series, as well as his own universes. Stephen King claims he doesn’t outlines his novels (C.J. here: I have to believe him, I don’t outline anything, either), but allows the characters to lead the twists and turns of the plot. King is a master of creating believable characters. Dean Koontz is the master of hooking a reader in with a first paragraph that leaves you dying for more — to the point where most folks find it very hard to put down a Koontz novel.

Practice writing through the five senses (taste, smell, touch, hearing, and sight) of your characters to create a complete reading experience. Go into their minds. Show the audience what they’re thinking. Use metaphors and similes artfully to paint incredible descriptions with words. Push yourself to be different in your word choices. Write short, powerful sentences to build tension in a scene.

We could go on and on, but the point is made. All of the above tips might be just what you are looking for, or they might be absolutely wrong for you. You’re the only one who can decide. They were provided only as springboards, ways for you to experiment in the hopes of finding your way toward creating your own unique style of writing.

Reading the giants of your genre never hurts. Study their styles to see what makes them great. If nothing else, it’s a better way to pass an afternoon than drugs or television.

Honest.

If you’re anything like us, then you’ve heard writers complaining for years about the demise of markets for short stories. Now, all right, yes, it is true that the heyday of hundreds of printed fiction magazines is over. Only the very strongest such as Space & Time Magazine have survived, but I strongly disagree that there is a lack of demand for shorter works of fiction.

Remember this truest of facts … nothing disappears without being replaced by something else. That’s evolution, dudes.

The novel still outsells single author short story collections and multiple author anthologies in printed form, just as always. But a savvy writer realizes that short stories (5,000 words or less) and novellas (5,001 to 59,999 words) appeal to more multi-media markets for fiction than the novel. For those who haven’t noticed, we are living in a multi-media age, one that seems to become a bit more “multi” with every passing day. In order to sell more short fiction you have to think in terms of appealing to editors in other mediums that might be willing to use your fiction.

To create top selling short stories a writer needs to think of a short story in terms of an episode. Write a series of short stories using the same universe and main characters. And, despite the popular notion to the contrary, these stories do not need to be written in chronological order. Unless, of course, you were thinking that Robert E. Howard’s Conan wasn’t a popular character.

What working in a chronological progression does allow you is, at the end of a group of, say fifteen to twenty short stories, is to create a very exciting book that can be published as a “novel.” By way of personal example, we did this with our forthcoming “novel,” Where Angels Fear. We first sold the stories to many different magazines, websites, and anthologies. Then we wrote more unpublished stories to fill out the story arc and sold them as one complete work of art — one with a beginning, middle and end. Just like any other novel. Each short story or novella appears as a titled chapter, leading to that most wonderful of situations, selling the same short story twice.

Episodic fiction can also be sold as a comic book series. You have to rewrite the short stories as comic book scripts, but then you could sell the short stories to a book publisher as a comic book tie-in. C.J. did this with his hit Moonstone Books comic Lai Wan, Tales of the Dreamwalker, which is now an anthology from Marietta Publishing as well as a comic book series.

Also: don’t forget the very popular Manga publishing companies and the best selling graphic novels that dominate the comic industry today. Any novella you’ve done is most likely the perfect length for a graphic novel.

Television producers are always on the lockout for new TV series, as well. Short stories or novellas can be rewritten as screenplays for television. Author Wendy Webb wrote a series of comedy mystery novellas for Marietta Publishing (Last Resort, Bee Movie, and Mean Cuisine). Each is subtitled “A Beluga Stein Mystery.” Wendy sold these to Fox TV as a series. Talk about selling something twice!

A good long novella is the perfect length to convert to a movie screenplay. Novels are actually too long for the standard two-hour movie.

Another point to consider is the fact that the gaming industry is now bigger than the movie industry. Like Hollywood, they are always in need of talented writers to create role playing games and video games. Most of the larger hit games have book series to tie-in the game and inspire game masters. Many game tie-in book publishing companies are actually owned by the game companies such as Chaosium, Black Library and Lucas Books. Gaming companies publish short stories, novellas, and novels depending upon the game. Two great examples of bestselling gaming book series are Halo and Warhammer.

The bottom line is to think outside the box of print media. In many ways, it is actually easier today to start a writing career than ever before, thanks to the never-before availability of Internet publishers. Their online magazines may be just the ticket to the building of both your credits and writing skills. Then you will be ready to submit stories to the cream of the online crop — Baen’s Universe and Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show.

You have to start somewhere. The “where” is not important.

Getting started is.