Author: Paula

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Social media not necessary to be BC bestseller

My partner’s new book – West Coast Wrecks & Other Maritime Tales – is on the BC Bestseller list!

And he didn’t use any so­cial me­dia to get it there. That’s right, no Facebook, no Twitter, no LinkedIn and no blog. Rick (James) doesn’t even have a website.

So, how did he ac­com­plish this?

Well, it’s a great book to be­gin with. In twenty-one chapters he ex­plores fas­cin­at­ing tales of ship­wrecks, shares the stor­ies of some unique coastal char­ac­ters and de­tails oth­er note­worthy events in BC mari­time history.

West Coast Wrecks a BC bestseller.

The cov­er, a com­mis­sioned paint­ing by Peter Rindlisbacher de­pict­ing the wreck of the Geo. S Wright, is stun­ning. And the book is Harbour Publishing’s Raincoast Chronicles 21.

Raincoast Chronicles have been pop­u­lar col­lect­or items since Howard White pub­lished the first one 39 years ago. But still, West Coast Wrecks had only been out two weeks when it made the BC Bestseller list and hadn’t re­ceived any pub­li­city yet.

So, what’s Rick’s secret? He worked his way onto the best­seller list the old-fash­ioned way.

By chance he happened to be in Victoria soon after the book came out. He vis­ited every book store he could think of, in­tro­duced him­self and offered to sign cop­ies of West Coast Wrecks.

As a res­ult, many book­stores put ‘Signed by Author’ stick­ers on the front cov­er and moved the book to a more prom­in­ent dis­play loc­a­tion. Rick re­peated the pro­cess when he re­turned home to Courtenay.

Isn’t it thought-pro­vok­ing to dis­cov­er that amidst all the so­cial me­dia hype, a little en­thu­si­asm and leg­work, coupled with a friendly man­ner can have such an impact?

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One author’s secrets to success

Jim round­ing Cape Froward, the south­ern­most tip of con­tin­ent­al South America, in the ves­sel Chonos, January 2005. Photo by John Rosborough.

Jim Delgado’s af­fable, dy­nam­ic and al­ways do­ing some­thing cool.

As a mari­time ar­chae­olo­gist, he ex­plores old wrecks world-wide and was among the first to dive the Titanic. He was ex­ec­ut­ive dir­ect­or of the Vancouver Maritime Museum for 15 years and hos­ted the pop­u­lar TV show, The Sea Hunters, for five.

He’s cur­rently dir­ect­or of the Maritime Heritage Program for the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, as well as be­ing pres­id­ent of the Institute of Nautical Archaeology. He teaches at uni­ver­sit­ies, con­trib­utes to schol­arly and aca­dem­ic journ­als and pro­motes mari­time preservation.

Oh yeah, he also writes books. More than 33 of them at last count. Khubilai  Khan’s Lost Fleet: In Search of a Legendary Armada won the James Deetz Award in  January. The same month Nuclear Dawn: The Atomic Bomb from the Manhattan Project to the Cold War won the Choice Award for Outstanding Academic Title.

Delgado’s new­est book, Silent Killers: Submarines and  Underwater Warfare was re­leased in June. And the next one, Iron, Pearls and  Gunpowder: The Incredible Saga of a Lost American Civil War Submarine, is already underway.

So how does he man­age to do all this and have a life? I asked Jim and this is what he said:

1. I don’t need much sleep.

2. I have a quiet, private of­fice and my wife screens all my calls.

3. I use all my travel time, in air­ports and on the plane, to work.

There’s not much any­one can do about the amount of sleep they  need. But most people can ar­range their work space so dis­trac­tions and  in­ter­rup­tions are kept to a minimum.

And when trav­el­ling, what bet­ter way to si­lence the overly chatty per­son sit­ting next to you, than flip­ping open your laptop or note book and an­noun­cing, ‘I have to work now.’

If you’re really ser­i­ous about writ­ing, you won’t wait for time to write. You’ll make time.

 

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The worst part of writing a book

I really like writ­ing books but there’s one part I hate. And it sneaks up on me every time.

After hav­ing sev­er­al books pub­lished, you’d think I’d learn. But nope, there seems to be a big blank spot in my memory about writ­ing a non­fic­tion book.

It’s an ugly, nasty, teeth-gnash­ing phase so no won­der I for­get it. In fact, the only time I think about it, is when I’m right in the middle of it. Which is where I am right now.

I refer to it as the @#$*! stage of writ­ing a book. Some folks call it the first draft.

No, this is­n’t me. But this is how I of­ten feel when I’m in the @#&%! stage of writ­ing a book.

This is where I have to take all my re­search and put it into some sort of co­hes­ive or­der. That means de­cid­ing what goes in what chapter – and worst of all – de­cid­ing what’s in­cluded and what gets left out.

I know from past ex­per­i­ence that in­triguing facts and fas­cin­at­ing an­ec­dotes will be cut due to the con­straints of space and in the in­terests of flow. I can deal with that. It’s just all the de­cisions I need to make right now. Hours are spent star­ing at the com­puter screen, shift­ing text here and there and mut­ter­ing away. By the end of the day I swear my brain is sweating.

Sometimes I think of this stage of a book like go­ing for a long walk in a forest. There are many trails to take, each of­fer­ing dif­fer­ent ex­per­i­ences, some more ex­cit­ing or chal­len­ging than others.

On rough days I liken it to climb­ing a rock face. Concentrating and know­ing where to put my feet and hands (or facts and an­ec­dotes) is crit­ic­al. At times the top of the moun­tain seems im­possibly far away.

Once in a while I won­der why the heck I’m do­ing this. But a glance down tells me I’m closer to the top than the bot­tom. And I know when I reach the sum­mit, I’ll for­get all about the @#$*! stage of writ­ing a book again.

So I keep climb­ing. Writing my book one chapter, one para­graph, one word at a time.

 

 

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Secrets to being a successful writer

James Lee Burke. Photo by Robert Clark
The re­wards of be­ing a suc­cess­ful writer are ob­vi­ous. Completing an art­icle, short story or book brings a huge sense of per­son­al sat­is­fac­tion. And see­ing your work in print cre­ates its own ad­ren­aline rush.

Then there’s the fame factor, no less en­joy­able even if it is just the “big fish in a small pond” vari­ety. And, of course, there’s the pos­sib­il­ity of fin­an­cial gain.

But have you ever thought about what it takes to be a suc­cess­ful writer? A cer­tain amount of writ­ing skill is ne­ces­sary and even more im­port­ant is a good story idea.

However, when you get right down to it, I sus­pect one of the most crit­ic­al ele­ment of suc­cess is persistence…and a thick skin.

That’s right, the old say­ing, “Writing is 99 per cent per­spir­a­tion and 1 per cent in­spir­a­tion,” is really true.

And even if you’re a dis­cip­lined, ded­ic­ated writer, you need a sys­tem for sub­mit­ting your work and deal­ing with rejection.

Award-win­ning au­thor James Lee Burke is one of my fa­vour­ite writers. As well as telling a good story, he cre­ates a vivid sense of the land­scape and the people that in­hab­it it. And his char­ac­ters pos­sess a depth and com­plex­ity not soon forgotten.

Burke, now 75, had his first short story pub­lished in a col­lege magazine when he was in his 20s. By the time he was 34, he was the au­thor of three suc­cess­ful novels.

Then came a long, dry patch. Burke didn’t stop writ­ing; he just couldn’t get published.

So he de­veloped a meth­od for deal­ing with his grow­ing stack of re­jec­tions. When a short story was re­turned, he gave him­self 36 hours to get it back in cir­cu­la­tion. He’s used that pro­ced­ure for 45 years. “If you keep your story at home, you’re en­sured to lose,” he wrote in a 2002 New York Times article.

Burke fol­lows the same philo­sophy when it comes to books. His fourth nov­el, The Lost Get Back Boogie, was pub­lished in 1986.

After it had been re­jec­ted 110 times.

James Lee Burke’s fourth novel.
“I’d pub­lished three nov­els in New York then went 13 years without a hard­back pub­lic­a­tion,” Burke wrote. “That many re­jec­tions is sup­posedly some kind of re­cord in the industry.” 
 
Not long after it was pub­lished, The Lost Get Back Boogie was nom­in­ated for a Pulitzer Prize.  Since then Burke’s had an ad­di­tion­al 26 nov­els published.

So now, whenev­er some­thing I’ve writ­ten gets re­jec­ted I tell my­self to “Burke it.” Just turn it around and get it back out there. Because, hey…you nev­er know.