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Writer’s Digest just accepted and agreed to publish my fourth article in their magazine, which reaches about 70,000 subscribers across the country.

My new article will appear in the May/June issue, specifically in the regular IndieLab column that follows trends in the self-publishing business. This article focuses on three simple strategies for marketing your book, drawing from my own experience as both a senior marketing consultant for a Fortune 100 company and an award-winning author of The Black Lens novel. Here’s a brief summary:

Many authors who self-publish focus more on publishing their book than they do promoting it. While the reasons vary, some have no clue where to start. Others don’t want to waste hundreds to thousands of dollars on marketing that may not result in any sales. But probably most of us would just prefer to sit back, write, and hope the book sells itself.

All those reasons make sense. Yet unless you hit the publishing lottery, your book won’t sell itself because you’re competing against millions of others. That’s why—assuming you want to sell copies to more than just family and friends—you must build a strategic marketing plan for your story.

While that may sound daunting, this article will demystify the complex world of marketing by breaking it down into three simple strategies for promoting your book. Drawing from my own experience as both an award-winning author and senior marketing consultant for a Fortune 100 company, I will teach you the fundamentals of earned, owned, and paid strategies. You will learn how to earn free publicity for your book (earned), promote it through the channels you control (owned), and pay to increase that exposure even further through digital media (paid). 

Writer’s Digest published my first article in 2019 about how to craft the perfect media pitch, my second article in 2020 about how to create successful book media kits, and my third article in the 100th anniversary edition of their magazine about how to research like a reporter.

Take the next step

Learn more at christopherstollar.com, buy a copy of The Black Lens on Amazon, or book me as a speaker.

Writer’s Digest University just invited me to teach my first writing webinar. Titled How to Research Your Novel like a Reporter, this class will provide writers with best practices from the three years of research I conducted for my award-winning debut novel The Black Lens. Here’s a brief overview of the webinar, which Writer’s Digest Magazine also published a related article about last year in their 100th anniversary issue.

About the webinar

Too many fiction writers start their stories without any research. And those who do some research barely scratch the surface, sticking to what they can find on Google or watch on TV. This unique session will teach you how to interview actual sources and research primary documents that can enrich your stories, whether you’re working on a crime thriller, a cozy mystery, or even science fiction that involves new technologies.

As a former reporter with a master’s degree in journalism, Christopher will share with you best practices from the three years of research he conducted for his award-winning debut novel. He’ll also show you how that research helped convince more than a dozen media outlets to publish stories about his book—and how you can do the same.

What you’ll learn

• What research is—and is not
• Why you should research
• How to research, especially through interviews, exposure, and travel
• Common pitfalls to avoid when researching
• How to incorporate research into your story
• Key resources for research

Who should attend

• Writers who want to understand more of the value behind research
• Writers who want to learn how to research
• Writers who want to get techniques for conducting interviews
• Writers who want to incorporate travel into their research
• Writers who want to see how they can weave research into their novel
• Writers who need additional resources for conducting research
• Writers who want to avoid common research mistakes

Register for my webinar, buy a copy of my book on Amazon, or book me as a speaker.

It’s not too late to register for the virtual Writer’s Digest Conference, where I will be speaking alongside Chris Bohjalian, Nicole Blades, and more than a dozen other incredible storytellers.

This is my fourth year speaking at the conference, which is normally held in New York City. I will be discussing my experience crowd-funding The Black Lens and plans for my new novel, Real Girl, which my agent is currently pitching to publishers. Here’s a brief summary of my presentation:

How to Crowd-Fund Your Book and Connect It to a Cause

Two of the biggest challenges for new authors who want to self-publish is a lack of exposure and funds to pay for hiring professional editors. That can cost hundreds to thousands of dollars, depending on the level of quality you want. If planned well, a crowdfunding campaign can provide you both the funds and built-in exposure you need to launch your career and connect it to a cause readers care about. This class is taught by an award-winning author who convinced more than 70 donors to pledge $3,694 on Kickstarter to bring his debut novel about the important social justice cause of human trafficking to life—surpassing the original goal by 48 percent. It will teach you the fundamentals of planning a crowdfunding campaign, relying on those donors as readers for reviews, and connecting your book to a cause regardless of whether you write fiction or nonfiction.

I am also writing a related article about crowd-funding for the November/December publication of Writer’s Digest, which reaches roughly 70,000 subscribers across the country. The magazine published my first article in 2019 about how to craft the perfect media pitch, my second article in 2020 about how to create successful book media kits, and my third article in the 100th anniversary edition last November/December about how to research like a reporter.

Learn more

Register now for the  Writer’s Digest Annual Conference, buy a copy of The Black Lens, or book me as a speaker.

For the fourth year, Writer’s Digest has invited me to speak at their Annual Conference in New York City.

This time I will be talking about my experience crowd-funding The Black Lens and building a strategic marketing plan for my new novel, Real Girl, which my agent is currently pitching to publishers. Here’s a brief summary of my two main presentations:

How to Crowd-Fund Your Book and Connect It to a Cause

Two of the biggest challenges for new authors who want to self-publish is a lack of exposure and funds to pay for hiring professional editors. That can cost hundreds to thousands of dollars, depending on the level of quality you want. If planned well, a crowdfunding campaign can provide you both the funds and built-in exposure you need to launch your career and connect it to a cause readers care about. This class is taught by an award-winning author who convinced more than 70 donors to pledge $3,694 on Kickstarter to bring his debut novel about the important social justice cause of human trafficking to life—surpassing the original goal by 48 percent. It will teach you the fundamentals of planning a crowdfunding campaign, relying on those donors as readers for reviews, and connecting your book to a cause regardless of whether you write fiction or nonfiction.

How to Build a Strategic Marketing and Public Relations Plan for Your Book

Many authors who self-publish spend more time focusing on publishing their book than they do promoting it. But if you want to sell copies to more than just family and friends, you need to build a strategic marketing and public relations plan for your book. Taught by both an award-winning author and marketer for a Fortune 100 company, this class will give you the fundamentals of earned, owned and paid marketing strategies. You will learn how to pitch your book to the news media (earned), promote it through all of your channels (owned), and pay to increase your exposure through digital media (paid).

Writer’s Digest also asked me to author a related article about crowd-funding for their November/December publication, which reaches roughly 70,000 subscribers across the country. The magazine published my first article in 2019 about how to craft the perfect media pitch, my second article in 2020 about how to create successful book media kits, and my third article in the 100th anniversary edition last November/December about how to research like a reporter.

Take the Next Step

Learn more about the Writer’s Digest Annual Conference, buy a copy of The Black Lens, or book me as a speaker.

Since the summer, literary agent Paula Munier has been working hard to pitch my new novel to traditional publishers based in New York City. Publishing is always a long process. And yet this past year has proved extra hard as editors are working from home while also juggling so many other responsibilities like everyone else during a global pandemic.

But Paula is a senior agent at Talcott Notch Literary, a veteran agency that has an impressive list of bestsellers with the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today and Amazon. She has worked at Talcott since 2012 and is also a USA Today-bestselling author of the Mercy Carr Mystery series.

Not surprisingly, Paula has already received numerous bites for REAL GIRL from well-known editors who are currently reading my full science fiction thriller about a lifelike robot who tries to escape from an augmented reality competition where people can hunt and kill her for sport. One editor Paula pitched recently requested a synopsis—one of the hardest materials to write. Like a good movie trailer, synopses must distill hundreds of pages down to just one or two that make people want to learn more.

Thanks to the help of publishing expert Jane Friedman, I submitted a powerful synopsis of my main plot and characters that Jane edited through her professional consulting services. Jane was the second editor I hired to review my materials for REAL GIRL. I also received some incredible feedback from a professional developmental editor with Writer’s Digest 2nd Draft critique service. The editor assessed my full manuscript, which he described as “Ex Machina/Blade Runner atmospheric science fiction with a Pygmalion twist.”

“This is one of the best unpublished manuscripts I have ever read,” that editor wrote. “This is a science-fiction novel with a lot of heart in addition to the action. It has a strong female character and a man who becomes a better person as a result of his relationship with her—even though she isn’t a ‘real girl.’ This should appeal to everyone who enjoyed Ready Player One plus those who enjoy a coherent future world populated with empathetic and realistic characters.”

Working with these professional editors and a literary agent like Paula is a dream come true for me. Fingers crossed that 2021 proves to be the year we sell REAL GIRL to a publishing house!

Writer’s Digest just published my third article in the 100th anniversary edition of their magazine, which reaches about 70,000 subscribers across the country. The magazine also published my first article last year about how to craft the perfect media pitch and my second article in April about how to create successful book media kits.

My new article appeared in the November/December issue, specifically in the regular IndieLab column that follows trends in the self-publishing business. This article focuses on my experience conducting journalistic research for both The Black Lens and my upcoming novel, Real Girl, which my agent is currently pitching to publishers. Here’s the full story:

How to Research Like a Reporter

Too many writers start their stories without any research. Even those who do a little “research” barely scratch the surface, sticking to what they can Google. While the reasons vary, some authors find the word itself intimidating. Others assume research only applies to scholarly nonfiction works or autobiographies. But many writers don’t even know where to begin, especially when they’re still trying to figure out the direction of their story.

This can lead to a lack of focus that grinds the story—and ultimately readers—to a halt. Research can help give you that focus to guide the story, because it opens your eyes to those little details that will immerse readers in your world and propel them from beginning to end. This column will teach you how to research like a reporter so you can enrich your stories, whether you’re writing fiction or nonfiction.

Why You Should Research

Research grounds writing in reality. Every story must be believable—even the most speculative work—and research helps readers feel immersed in the world you have created for them. That is essential for nonfiction, but even crime thrillers and sci-fi novels need to remain grounded. Lisa Gardner, a No. 1 New York Times bestselling thriller novelist, says that “Research should meld seamlessly with the tightly woven fabric of your fictional world, giving the reader a satisfying feeling of being simultaneously swept away, while remaining anchored to a world they know and understand.”

Three Ways to Research

Research can involve many strategies, but here are three of the most helpful:

• Interviews: Start by identifying the people who know about your subject the best, then ask them the seven main questions of any good story: who, what, when, where, how, why, and so what? For my crime thriller The Black Lens, I interviewed survivors of human trafficking, along with police officers and social workers who try to help them. For my sci-fi thriller Real Girl, I spent hours talking with cybersecurity experts, virtual reality coders, and even manufacturers of artificially intelligent robots. Each interview took my fictional story to a whole new level of reality.
• Exposure: Personal exposure helps your readers focus on the five senses that are sometimes missing from books. Start by reflecting on your genre. If you are writing historical fiction, tour old sites and read ancient records. Maybe you’re drafting a mystery that involves a murder by shooting but have never fired a gun in your life; sign up for a gun class and learn what it feels like to load, discharge, and clean your weapon.
• Travel: It doesn’t matter if you are writing a young adult novel or an autobiography—every story needs a strong sense of place. Travel remains almost one guaranteed way to give your story that sense of place, but it doesn’t have to be an expensive trip overseas. For The Black Lens, I drove to some of the grittiest streets of my own city to see how social workers help sex trafficking victims at night. For Real Girl, I flew to another state to tour a manufacturing center of lifelike robots that people can interact with through virtual reality. Think about where you could go to make your story even more real, immersive, and ultimately believable.

How to Use Research

Whatever you do, don’t dump research into your story through blocks of text with technical jargon that explain everything. Show, don’t tell. Weave your research in methodically throughout your plot, characters, and setting, remembering that less is more. Always ask yourself: Does this information advance the story, or just show off how much you learned?

“A writer cannot do too much research, though sometimes it is a mistake to try and cram too much of what you learned into your novel,” says George R.R. Martin, bestselling author of A Song of Ice and Fire series, which was adapted into HBO’s Game of Thrones. “Research gives you a foundation to build on, but in the end it’s only the story that matters.”

Take the Next Step

Learn more about my research for The Black Lens here, buy a copy on Amazon, or book me as a speaker.