The Amazon Chart for…

By Susan Reichert, Editor-in-Chief, Southern Writers Magazine

The Top 20 Most Sold & Most Read Books of the Week is a chart Amazon does to rank books according to number of copies sold, pre-ordered and read on their subscription program.

What I want to bring attention to is the number of books, from one author, that appear in the week of April 14^th. The author is, J. K. Rowling. She has seven books on the list. Five of the seven books have been on the Top 20 most sold and read over a hundred weeks.

The first book she wrote, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (1997), was an unparalleled success. The novels in the series have topped bestseller lists, won numerous awards, and translated into over sixty languages. It is reported the series has become the biggest sellers in the history of children’s writings.

The question is, who will be the next author to write a book that will begat a series and turn it into one of the biggest sellers? It could be you. Yes, even you.

I feel quite sure, J. K. Rowling, never dreamed her first book she wrote would become not only the success it was but would mushroom in to a series of best sellers and garner awards after awards let alone, made into movies.

It all started with her deciding to just start writing, where she was. Isn’t that the crux of any beginning? To just start.

Don’t allow starting to write to intimidate you. Remember, not starting, kills the writing.

Don’t make it hard, just relax and let your mind begin from wherever it is. You can even tell yourself; I will put down on paper whatever my mind thinks and do this for one minute – two minutes . . . you set the amount of time. After that amount of time, if you still have things to put on paper, continue to write. When you do stop, relax and feel good you accomplished the hard part, beginning. (The words written do not have to even make sense. What is important is that you started.)

Now that you rested, start the process again, let the words in your mind pour on to the page.

The part we are sometimes afraid of is the “getting started”. The what if’s and the buts, set aside for now, just relax and get to know what words, what thoughts, what ideas are playing around in your head.

You may have the next best-selling book of all time.

What You Can Learn From J.K. Rowling's Website, Pottermore

By Annette Cole Mastron, Communications Director for Southern Writers Magazine

Last week the media, Facebook, and the internet in general were all abuzz about the book that started the Harry Potter book series turned 20 years old. My life was different then. I was raising children and began reading the books to my young children the summer of 1997. They loved being read the adventure of the young wizard. 

We attended Harry Potter events in our area surrounding each book release. These were held at midnight with themed events. It was obviously fun for the kids but as an adult, I loved every minute. Watching kids crack open a book and begin reading it while sitting on the floor was amazing. These books changed many non-reading children into readers. As an adult I loved them, too. 

What J.K, Rowling did was unusual. She created books read by both children and adults. Twenty years ago we did not have smart phones. Today, we have a computer in every smart phone which means as an author your website needs to draw readers into your world of words. 

For the twenty year celebration Facebook developed an "Easter egg" which "magically" highlights words all Harry Potter readers know in various colors. When you click on the colored word a magical wand appears and sprinkle lightning bolts of "magic" across the page and then disappear. It is interactive and fun. See below the posting letting FB users copy to their own FB pages. 

"Celebrate the 20th anniversary of the publication of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. For a limited time, when you type in the names of the four houses they will change color to match their house colors. So, Slytherin turns green, Hufflepuff turns yellow, Ravenclaw turns blue, and Gryffindor turns red. Additionally, if you type in the words “Harry Potter,” that will turn red as well, because Harry is in House Gryffindor."

After posting and helping others "find the magic" I decided to go over to the website created by author, JKRowling. It had been a while since I had been to Pottermore and has it changed. WoW. It is very interactive like a good author website should be. A reader is drawn into the website by being sorted into one of the four houses at Hogwart House and also a reader can test to find his own patronus (personal magical guardian.) as a fan of Rowling's books you could spend hours on the website and not see it all. 

When developing your own website remember your readers want to be drawn into your books world. Each new book you need to update your website so readers keep coming back. 

An important goal and really the purpose of your author website is to draw your readers into your website. Make them want to go through every link on your website by creating items that will be of interest to them. Then update with new features and announce on all your social media links. You may not have the resources of Ms. Rowling but with a little ingenuity you can create a website readers will want to read. 

What have you done to draw readers to your website?

Winning the Powerball in Tennessee

By Annette Cole Mastron, Communications Director for Southern Writers Magazine 

"Winner winner...chicken dinner." Yes, that's right, I won in the biggest lottery jackpot ever in the U.S. Powerball. My win was a whopping $8, just enough to buy a chicken dinner from World Famous Gus's Fried Chicken in Memphis, TN.

The Powerball lottery on January 12, 2016 was approximately 1.6 billion dollars. There were three winners of the big jackpot. Lisa and John Robinson were the first winners to publicly announce their win. They live in a town of 6000 folks in Munford, TN just north of Memphis. The Robinsons said they agreed to appear on NBC's Today Show prior to claiming their winnings on advice of their lawyer, Joe Townsend. The day was a whirlwind for the couple. They appeared on The Today Show, flying by charter jet from Memphis to NYC. After the Today Show appearance, they flew from NYC to Nashville to claim their winnings. From Nashville, they flew back to Memphis where a limousine whisk them away. They had a private tour of Elvis's home, Graceland. The Graceland tour was shown on NBC's Today Show on Monday. I'm happy for this couple and wish them well. I hope they are able to retreat back to their former lives and enjoy their winnings. Unfortunately, because of the publicity it seems that may be hard for them to do.

As authors, we work in relative obscurity. Once published, we have to get the word out about our books. It requires authors to become actively public on social media. An author may participate in tv and radio interviews, book signings and maybe even an appearance on NBC's Today Show. So how do you keep your private life private? The trick is being able to retreat from the public eye to resume your life as you write your next book.

The lessons to learn from these TN lottery winners is to be cautious with what you share as an author. The Robinsons had a personal social media presence and it was still viewable when they appeared on The Today Show. They were candid in their interview about were they worked, lived, shopped for groceries and attended church. Their home was seen on local news both tv and in print. It is my hope they now have security in place to help them manage any unwanted contact from the public.

Author J. K. Rowling moved her family to a Scottish estate, Killiechassie midway through the famed Harry Potter seven-book series. She authored four of the Potter books in this home. She has sold that estate and now resides in a 17th century mansion commonly referred to by Edinburgh locals as "the fortress Rowling." 

Rowling seems to have found the balance of protecting her private life and maintaining contact with her fans via her interactive website, Pottermore. Her website is geared to entertain her fans without the need to make her private life public. Something to consider before your book becomes the next big thing. 

What are your thoughts? 

Writing, Procrastination and Agatha Christie

By Annette Cole Mastron, Communications Director for Southern Writers Magazine

“Write even if you don’t want to, don’t much like what you are writing, and aren’t writing particularly well.” -Agatha Christie 

Dame Agatha said a mouthful in that statement. My issue is never that I can't write. I'm mentally knocking on my head because thankful I've never had writer's block. My issue is procrastination.

How about you, can you identify?

I write better under a deadline. A good thing since I'm always on a deadline with my job at Southern Writers Magazine but throw in a couple of independent writing projects and life, well my procrastination seems to kick into overdrive. For me it works as a huge motivation to get super focused. 

First, I block out time to accomplish the writing goal. That means no chores or distractions. If you write to music by all means put it on. For this project, I popped in a familiar Miss Marple movie for inspiration.

Second, fight the edit gnome in you on the first draft. Get the words on paper then and only then edit. 

Third, block enough time to edit on a different day that you write your first draft. Fresh eyes find all the edits needed. 

Fourth, once edited have courage and hit the send button. 

In words borrowed from J. K. Rowling, "Mischief Managed."

You may be curious my project was a short story of 1800 words for an anthology book. The working title "Dinner With..." I blocked out this past Sunday afternoon and wrote my story, 3500 words. I purposely overwrote the story so the 2nd draft had plenty of room for reduction of words that come with most edits. 

My fictitious dinner subject is with Agatha Christie. She wrote over 88 mystery novels. She remains the most successful mystery writer of all time. 

Who wouldn't want to have dinner with the Dame of best selling Mysteries?