Drawing Inspiration from Music and Brains

It’s not really a secret that listening to music can get you into a mood. Writers draw on that mood, and on the related emotions, to make our stories more memorable and effective. I think most writers have a playlist of some sort.

I do a lot of my writing by walking and thinking. Yes, this is work time. It’s just how my brain operates. When I’m walking and thinking and writing, I pipe music into my ear holes. Playlists match particular characters and scenes and feelings. Angela was AC/DC’s Back in Black album. Kellen was “Desperado” by The Eagles. Mari and Heron each had a playlist, but when they were fighting together against the world, they were “Read My Mind” by The Killers. Chloe is a lot of Def Leppard and Dollyrots, and intimate scenes almost always lean heavily on the music of Prince (well I mean, duh).

But when I sit down to actually put words on a screen, music no longer works for me. I need to get out of the song’s story and into my story, deep in my own brain. For that particular sorcery, I use a phone app called Brainwave Binaural.

The app works by starting a wave in one ear and finishing it in the other, sort of forcing the brain in the middle to match its mood. I use the Concentration setting for editing and Euphoria for drafting, but if you use this app, you’ll need to find your own personal sweet spot, the setting combo that drops you right into go mode.

Which is what I really love about this app: I sit down, plug in, and am instantly in the writing zone. If I don’t have Brainwave on, it takes me maybe 15 minutes to get into a writing groove.

So that’s my playlist advice: a lot of classic rock n’ roll and a brain-control app. (Brain control, not mind control. No matter what kind of speculation you’re writing.)

Sing Me A Song & I'll Tell You A Story

I listen to music...all the time. When I need to sink into a mood, I have a playlist for that. When I'm not connecting with a situational mindset of a character, I have a song, an album, or an artist to get me there. When I need to drown outside noise, I have a smart-station for that. When my dog's losing her mind due to a storm, there's music for that too.

As I'm working my way through the fifth book in the Immortal Spy series here's what's in my Top 5 Playlists queue:

1. Pain is Necessary Mix: Dommin, Godsmack, 3 Days Grace, Metallica, Theatre of Tragedy, Shinedown, BVB, etc.
2. Blues Guitars & Grit: Joe Bonamassa, Beth Hart, Johnny Lang, Kenney Wayne Shepherd, Koko Taylor, Memphis Mille, Muddy Waters, BB King, John Lee Hooker, etc.
3. The Bogeyman Cometh (Opera's Bass/Baritones) Mix: Bryn Terfel, Thomas Hampson, Rene Pepe, Sam Ramey, and more.
4. Women Have Had Enough Of Your Shit Mix: Halestorm, Dorothy, Heart, Joan Jett, In This Moment, Gin Wigmore, ZZ Ward, The Pretty Reckless, Aretha, Ella, Janis, Tina, Stevie, etc.
5. We're All 12 with Dirty Minds (Classic Rock): Meat Loaf, Aerosmith, Def Leppard, Mötley Crüe, AC/DC, Alice Cooper, Bon Jovi, Cinderella, Van Halen, etc.

Play me a song....

SO, much like our Jeffe, I don't have playlists. I prefer silence when I'm writing. That said I love a good soundtrack. I sometimes write to music to work past the problem of other people's noise.

When I was living back in Georgia in a communal sort of environment brought on by circumstance, my brother-in-law, in his passive-aggressive fury, would play video games while I was trying to write. He would play them very loudly and then play them loud enough to shake the walls. I would ignore that with music until we reached the stage where the bass shook my chest, then I would walk over to the next room where he was playing and offer to ram his speakers when the sun didn't shine if he continued at that volume. good times, good times.

So, yes, sometimes music, And when I am working out scenes and stories in my head there is always music.

I have listened to every type of music but it's often soundtracks.

The Sopranos soundtrack, volume one was very handy. Still is.

SONGS ABOUT JANE by Maroon Five was the music of choice for the entire marathon stint of writing BLOOD RED.

Bladerunner's soundtrack by Vangelis is definitely high on the list,

Everything by Hosier compiled into a playlist works wonderfully for me.

now and then a bout of Disturbed's first album goes a long way,

And then there's Norah Jones (I love that woman's voice) to soothe me when I'm feeling the need to calm down after a stressful day.

There are no guarantees as to what will work for me, but now and then Music hath Charms....

Jeffe's Musical Inspiration

A little tease of the LONEN'S REIGN cover, which we'll be revealing in my newsletter sometime in the next 24-48 hours. If you want to subscribe, the link is here. 

Our topic at the SFF Seven is what playlist or poetry we use for inspiration. Longtime followers of mine know that I don't have playlists for my books. I prefer silence when I write. Maybe some birdsong, but I don't even like classical music to play.

When I first started out, yes, I used music - especially movie soundtracks like The Mission and Master & Commander - but I changed over time. Silence allows me to immerse the flow of writing and forget the real world.

That said, some songs really do resonate with me. They capture a feeling in music that I'd love to convey in words. This song is one of them. I particularly love this rendition, as Kristin Chenoweth and Idina Menzel bring to it their long friendship and all the years that have passed and strengthened the ties between them. You know that, just like Galinda and Elphaba, Kristin and Idina have had conflict over the years of working together. Recognizing that friendship can survive conflict and come out the other side has incredible emotional resonance.


 

A Collection of Thoughts on Reviews, Author Branding and More

Our topic this week is whether reviews do any good, which also segued into marketing, branding and the long game as an author. WHEW!

OK, first to reviews. I very much appreciate every reader and book blogger who takes the time to review books. That’s a wonderful thing to do! I think reviews are the readers’ experience with the book and as such not really meant for me as the author per se.  When I’m in reader mode, reviews help me decide whether to try a book or not…as an author, I have to say I’m writing the stories I want to tell and I’m not going to be influenced by something I might read in a review of a previous book. The reader is totally entitled to their opinion and their thoughts might help someone else decide to try the book or not…but writers gonna write and my Muse dictates which book I write and how the plot goes.

I write what I want to read and can’t find enough of, be it ancient Egyptian paranormal romance or scifi romance. Or even fantasy romance, which reminds me,  I really need to write the next book in that series!

What REALLY helps an author nowadays in word of mouth, which yes, has been around since medieval days or before LOL. Nothing new under the sun.

 If one reader tells another reader and they tell two readers etc. etc. (or posts on Facebook or does a recommendation on Goodreads or BookBub) then the Sky is The Limit. Not so long ago an author I admire told her readers on FB how much she loved my scifi romance Badari Warriors series and wow, I really saw an upswing that week in people buying the first book of the series to see for themselves and I was so grateful…plus wildly pleased that someone I had such a high opinion of as an author actually liked my book.

As far as branding, I write action adventure with romance, no matter what time frame and which world the story is set in. If you buy a ‘Veronica Scott’ book, that’s what you will get. I’m pretty consistent.  Branding-wise, I emphasized the scifi romance because that was where my strongest sales were and enjoyed quite a few opportunities to blog and do interviews (of other SFR authors and scifi-related TV actors), which further strengthened the identification of name and genre. Science fiction is genuinely my first love, going all the way back to when I was a kid reading my first Andre Norton novel (which alas lacked romance). If I had infinite time, I’d write all three genres equally but my career path has skewed mostly to the SFR.

Marketing. I am not a whiz at that. Running thousands of ads and doing A/B testing to see what works and tweaking that and…not for me. I was pretty good at Amazon ads for a while until they changed their whole algorithm AGAIN. I do a newsletter when I have a new release…I occasionally buy an ad somewhere else or once in a blue moon luck out and get a Book Bub ad. Remember that word of mouth thing I mentioned above? Yeah, that’s my best hope. I put out what I feel are good books, professionally edited and hope readers will enjoy them enough to want to read more of them and tell their friends.

I'd love to have a really savvy PR person who'd take all of that marketing stuff off my hands and run ads in every medium and get me on talk shows and....oh, but that requires BIG BUCKS. Which my little indie publisher me budget doesn't run to.

Long game? ABSOLUTELY! The indie publishing world has its ups and downs and even a solid backlist like the one I have doesn’t always do as well as a person might hope, but I love writing my stories, I love sharing my stories, and I have no plans to stop.

Besides, you never know when the next book might turn into an astronomical hit! (I can dream – that’s a strategy, right?)

Hiccups in the publishing world come and go but I’ve been published since 2012 now and I’m really happy with how many books I have released (closing in on 30), with the fun I’ve had and the amazing authors and readers I’ve ‘met’, either in person or online.

All stock photos from DepositPhoto.

The Greatest Gift

Since the internet is for gratuitous cat photos, here's yours for the day. Let it be noted that the kittens are now six months old. They are eight pounds and still growing. Yesterday, they took down the shower curtain and the rod in the guest bath. I spend a lot of my time sprinting from one end of the house to the other, squirt bottle in hand, yelling, "Don't you dare!" at some rambunctious kitten offender. They're slowly learning manners. Slowly.

Which brings us to the topic of reviews. If you've had cats before, my paragraph above reminded you what it's like to have young, untrained cats in the house. If you haven't had cats before, it should have given you a glimpse into the reality that having kittens isn't all cute and cuddles. There's destruction and mayhem. Either you're okay with that or you aren't. The point of my paragraph, and the point of a book review, is to help you decide whether having kittens, or reading a particular book, is right for you.

I feel like book reviews live in this weird in-between state. While they help an author beyond measure, reviews aren't really for the author. They're for other readers to help them decide whether my writing and my stories are going to work for them. 

Very likely everyone's seen classes taught by any number of people promising you can make your book a best seller on Amazon if only you get enough reviews the day your book comes out. While I didn't take one of those classes, I figured what the heck. Lemme give this a try. I offered a free review copy of a book to a group of my readers. I kept my list to 25 people. I got those 25 reviews. What did this do for me? It got me in trouble with Amazon because the 'Zon really, really hates review copies. They really, really hate reviews that show up from readers who did not purchase the book on Amazon, even though advance reader copies are a standard in the industry. The experiment did provide a brief sales bump for the book, but I don't know that it actually helped other readers. Here's the rub. The people who read and reviewed for me are people who specifically like my writing and my weird bent on story. My stuff works for them. Their reviews are lovely and ego boosting and I adore every single one of these people. But if you were new to my work and wanted to look through reviews to find out that my stories can be a bit complicated and strange, those first 25 might not have done that job. 

So I'm not likely to solicit reviews like that again. Lesson learned. I adore my readers and if they're moved to review my work, brilliant. I will weep tears of joy, but no more dabbling in a realm that should remain the sole domain of readers. I will 100% send review copies into the world and where readers leave reviews will be THEIR business, not mine, not the 'Zon's. 

Are reviews worth anything then? Absolutely. They are worth the reviewer's weight in gold, every single one, whether the review is five stars or one star. Because they help other readers find me. And that is the greatest gift, ever.

Why reviews are the most valuable thing ever

If you're here looking for marketing insight or information about how reviews affect sales or branding or  anything regarding the business part of writing, my fellow SFF Seven folks have got you covered. Just keep reading this week and you'll soak up all the wisdom.

But you won't get much biz wisdom from me. My only thought nugget regarding reviews is THANK YOU. 

Thank you to the people who read my book and said something nice about it. 

Thank you even more to people who read both my books and left reviews for them -- you are my madstone in a very bitey biz.

Thank you to the people who read my books, found something they disliked, and then left a review so that other people who dislike that dislikable thing won't dive into the book and then get disappointed.

Thank you to the people who bought my book and didn't finish it but left a review saying why they DNF'd and at what point. I'm pretty sure you aren't the only reader who was bored or turned off at that spot, and being a reader is like being a writer: it's valuable to know when we aren't alone.

Thank you to that one dude on Goodreads who made some assumptions about my personal sexual promiscuity and relationship with my parents. I'm ... sure leaving that review helped you work through some stuff.

All this to say that yes, reviews are worth it. They are worth your time because they remind me that all this work, all this effort and care and hope and incantation I put into a story is being received. I've shouted my existence into the stars, and someone has replied.

Yes, I heard you and loved your message, you might have said. 

Yes, I heard you and think you're full of crap, you also possibly said. 

Yes, I heard you and you aren't alone, you always, definitely said.

And that has value.

Reviews: Don't Confuse Marketing with Sales

I'm loving the topic this week of "Reviews: Are they worth it?" Mostly because I keep hearing Missy Elliot, and now I want to put my thing down, flip it, and reverse it. (I'm sure if I did, I'd pull my back and break my hip.)

As readers, it likely comes as no surprise that authors are under pressure to amass reviews on leading retail sites and in reader communities (eg, Reddit and Goodreads). Whether it's in hopes of improving our odds at being discovered through word-of-mouth or triggering algorithms to have our book(s) surface at the top of search results, we're all eager to make that next sale. Our great fear is that someone will happen across our book, see it has no reviews, assume it's horribly written, thus not buy it.

Of course, our worst nightmare is that we'll get reviews, but they're mostly negative. 

That's enough to send us rocking in the corner, sucking our thumbs. 

It is too easy to lose sight of reviews being a marketing tool. Marketing not Sales. Big difference. Marketing = Spaghetti Against the Wall. Sales = Revenue. Marketing trends are ever-changing. The current fad is reader-reviews (ten years ago, the trend was blogging). There are many authors who give away their book for free trying to hit a magical and moving target number of reviews that the elusive "they" have defined as being effective. Note: It's a different goal from those authors who list "first in series free" in hopes of enticing new readers to pay full price for the rest of the books in the series. Still marketing, but repeat customer is the goal there not reviews (though reviews are still nice).

Bless the readers who post reviews. We love you. Really. 

So, to the question of the week, "are reviews worth it;" the answer is "depends on the size of the ulcer you're giving yourself trying to gather them." It's okay to ask for reviews, just don't let it become your primary marketing message. Put a "please review" reminder at the end of your book, put it in your newsletter as a footnote, post it monthly-ish on your social media feeds. However, never lose sight of SALES being your primary goal.

As many of us have said over the eight years this blog has been around, the best thing you can do to drive sales is Write the Next Book. Building your backlist is like stocking your store with inventory. The more items you have available, the more opportunity you have to make money.