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    Who's Buying Which Popular Short Fiction Now, & What Are They Paying?: How to Write, Customize, & Sell Tales Online or on Paper
    Who's Buying Which Popular Short Fiction Now, & What Are They Paying?: How to Write, Customize, & Sell Tales Online or on Paper
    Who's Buying Which Popular Short Fiction Now, & What Are They Paying?: How to Write, Customize, & Sell Tales Online or on Paper
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    Who's Buying Which Popular Short Fiction Now, & What Are They Paying?: How to Write, Customize, & Sell Tales Online or on Paper

    By Anne Hart

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    About this ebook

    Online booksellers are rapidly becoming online publishers. Sell your short fiction or nonfiction to the newest markets.

    Anyone who publishes your compiled short stories, novels, or nonfiction is looking for more opportunities to market your work. If you have published your stories or nonfiction with a mainstream or print-on-demand publisher, that firm cooperates with online booksellers.

    They probably want to leverage serial rights opportunities with your short stories, articles, or nonfiction excerpts from your books. After publication, you need to drive people to online booksellers' Web sites and your own to create visibility.

    The revolution is in virtual book tours and online marketing with booksellers. Another hidden market is short story publishing rights' auctions online to create visibility. You sell your writing as you'd sell a product at one of the online auctions.

    Long before finding any publisher or after the "face-out shelf life" of your book is over, sell or pre-sell your creations online. Offer short stories or articles to the public for a small fee to download.

    The music and movie industry do it. So can you. Online booksellers already are famous for a targeted community of readers that buy online.

    That's only one hint of hidden markets for authors that want to be well-paid for short stories or brief nonfiction. Here's how to write, customize, and market precisely what these merchants want. Here's how to pose the least financial risk to them.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisheriUniverse
    Release dateSep 20, 2007
    ISBN9781532000225
    Who's Buying Which Popular Short Fiction Now, & What Are They Paying?: How to Write, Customize, & Sell Tales Online or on Paper
    Author

    Anne Hart

    Popular author, writing educator, creativity enhancement specialist, and journalist, Anne Hart has written 82 published books (22 of them novels) including short stories, plays, and lyrics. She holds a graduate degree and is a member of the American Society of Journalists and Authors and Mensa.

    Read more from Anne Hart

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      Book preview

      Who's Buying Which Popular Short Fiction Now, & What Are They Paying? - Anne Hart

      9781532000225_epubcover.jpg

      Who’s Buying Which Popular

      Short Fiction Now,

      & What Are They Paying?

      How to Write, Customize,

      & Sell Tales Online or On Paper

      Anne Hart

      ASJA Press

      New York Lincoln Shanghai

      Contents

      Introduction

      Part One How to Write and Market Salable Fiction

      Part Two How to Promote Your Salable Fiction

      Part Three

      Story #1 So Let’s Have The Story, The Baghdad Reporter Asked Impatiently.

      Story #2 Folklore of Wisdom

      Story #3 The Antikythera Device

      Story #4 The Incendiary Client

      Story #5 Bihar, Tarkhan of the Khazari*

      Writers’ Associations

      Bibliographies for Writers, Teachers of Writing, and Creative Writing Therapists

      Who’s Buying Which Popular Short Fiction Now, & What Are They Paying?

      How to Write, Customize, & Sell Tales Online or On Paper

      Copyright © 2007 by Anne Hart

      All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

      ASJA Press

      an imprint of iUniverse, Inc.

      iUniverse

      2021 Pine Lake Road, Suite 100

      Lincoln, NE 68512

      www.iuniverse.com

      1-800-Authors (1-800-288-4677)

      Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any Web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid.

      The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

      ISBN: 978-0-595-47252-9

      ISBN: 978-1-5320-0022-5 (ebook)

      Introduction

      New Ways to Market Your Short Stories Online

      Online booksellers are rapidly becoming online publishers. Here’s how to write precisely want they want. Sell your short fiction or nonfiction to the newest markets. Writers of short stories and nonfiction articles are going digital, perhaps following in the footsteps of online journalists. There’s even an organization for online journalists called The Online News Association at: http://www.journalists.org/. For short fiction writers who traditionally sold to the print magazines, many have found alternative markets opening for online short story writing as markets keep changing for fiction in print. The old traditional standbys are still there, but the numbers of writers of short stories keep increasing. Some have moved into writing scripts for computer games, instructional materials.

      Others have branched out into writing genre novels or scripts, but another dimension of short story writing markets have burgeoned. It’s the online booksellers marketing short stories and brief nonfiction online. And it’s the writers offering short stories for sale on their own Web sites. Let’s look at the booksellers online offering digital short works for sale.

      Just as the online digital music industry began to offer songs to download for 99 cents or so per song, so has the online booksellers began to sell digital short stories and nonfiction on their Web sites for a small fee. In the case of Amazon.com’s Amazon Shorts offerings, at the time this book goes to press, the short works of fiction or nonfiction sell for 49 cents each at the Amazon Short’s Web site.

      Writers are now selling their short stories for a small fee online. The authors who are unpublished either work independently, offering their work on their own or others’ various Web sites or, if published, submit to the sites of one of the online book sellers offering the work of published authors. One example is Amazon Shorts features that offer previously unpublished short-form digital literature for sale exclusively at Amazon.com.

      If you are already a published author and Amazon.com is already carrying one of your books, then as an author, you can submit for consideration your fiction and nonfiction pieces on a wide variety of topics. Your short stories of 2,000 to 10,000 words if unpublished at the time can be offered. But you must wait six months after acceptance by Amazon Shorts before you can publish your short stories in hard (paper) copy with a publisher.

      Amazon Shorts would have exclusive rights for six months. You keep the publishing rights after that time and you keep your copyright. You also can publish your unpublished nonfiction as well digitally. Amazon Shorts sells your writing if it meets their specifications. If accepted, your writing is then available in a digital format only for just $0.49 for each story or article you submit that’s accepted. The purpose of selling your writing digitally (online) with an online bookseller is a great way for authors to maintain a more direct and frequent communication with their readers as well as promote their backlist.

      According to Amazon.com’s Web site, "In order to be eligible for participation you must be a published author with at least one book currently for sale on Amazon.com. If you are an agent, author, publisher, or editor, and you would like to be considered for inclusion in this program, please contact them at amazon-shorts@amazon.com." You can also promote your writing at your own Web site and drive traffic to your short stories or nonfiction by joining the Amazon.com Associates Program. For further information, view the Amazon.com Web site.

      Benefits to Authors of Selling your Short Stories or Nonfiction Online

      When will you start answering questions from your readers at your Web site to improve your visibility and platform of increased visibility beyond your field of expertise? You can choose to offer your short stories or nonfiction for sale on your own Web site for a few cents, emulating the online music industry that has been offering single songs or musical tunes for sale for 99 cents or so. That’s great as long as you can drive traffic to your Web site or Blog. If you don’t get many people coming to your site and can’t find a way to improve ‘hits,’ then you might consider putting your short stories on an online bookseller’s Web site.

      As a writer of short fiction, you want foremost a powerful marketing tool. You want to promote your backlist of short stories. It’s especially good for self-published and print-on-demand published authors of short story collections. For example, on your Web site, you can create an author profile page with your biography, projects, photo, or other information and keep your visibility in the public’s eye. It’s part of your platform of visibility with expertise. If you aren’t getting enough traffic at your Web site and you have a published book already on Amazon.Com, have your work considered to be included in the Amazon Shorts program.

      Your goal is visibility. How else can you promote your writing between projects? You can dialogue with readers. By selling your short stories on your own Web site, you can start a question-and-answer forum to answer readers’ questions about your expertise or topics in your writing. You need to communicate and connect with readers of your short stories in order to sell your work. The online booksellers such as the Amazon Shorts program and any others, including your own Web site, have a goal of introducing your work to readers who have never heard of you as an author.

      Most of all, new outlets to sell short fiction and nonfiction are coming into existence, copying the success of the online digital music sales market that offers a download of songs for a small price. Web sites also offer movies to download for a price. Short stories offered by booksellers online in a digital format followed the new media trend. Perhaps, the merging and/or closing of some magazines to fiction and the opening of new niche type of publications helped move digital short story sales into availability.

      What Publishers Think of Selling Your Short Fiction Online

      Look at the publisher’s side. Anyone who publishes your compiled short stories, novels, or nonfiction is looking for more opportunities to market your work. If you have published your stories or nonfiction with a print-on-demand publisher, that publisher probably wants to leverage serial rights opportunities with your short stories or nonfiction excerpt from your books. If you have published with a mainstream publisher, more books might sell if excerpts from your book could be serialized in a print magazine. But with all the competition out there, expanded markets are needed. Now, with digital serialization of your book online—or excerpts from it, or updates and expanded new material that didn’t get into your print book, now online as a way to freshen your book.... Well, publishers might be interested. And so would self-published authors.

      Look at pre-publication. Before you launch your book in the media and with a publisher, write short stories or articles to boost the pre-orders for your book by timing your short stories exactly at the same time that a publisher launches your book publicity events (or you self-publish).

      Then, after publication (called post-publication), you need to drive people to a Web site to create visibility. If you can’t have a display rack with your books in a bookstore, then try virtual book tours and online marketing to create visibility. Long after the shelf life of your book is over, long after the so-called marketing window of time called the face-out shelf life in the publishing industry has passed its prime, you can sell your writing online by offering short stories or articles for a small fee to download.

      Not all writers have Web sites that can offer a work of short fiction for a few cents. So you can make use of the online booksellers’ sites for digital downloads of your short stories or brief nonfiction. More people might buy a 2,000 to 10,000 word story or article for a small price, a few cents to sample you as an unknown (or famous) writer before they pay $20 or so for your finished book. What online booksellers offer is visibility. They already are famous for a targeted community of readers that buy their books online.

      Are You Writing to Readers’ Mega-Tastes and Mega-Senses?

      People often read with their mega-senses—taste, mood, touch, texture, timbre, vision, insight, foresight, hindsight, well-being, kinesthetic, audio, and healing levels. If your published book is one of millions offered by online booksellers, how will the readers know about your book?

      One way is through reviews and discussions of your book in one of the online bookseller’s forums. But that approach is subject to the whims and opinions of readers. Anyone can post almost any opinion about your book online without even reading your book. You need a tool that lets your writing speak for itself. That would be a short story as a sample of what your writing feels like. Or you might write a nonfiction article that represents your style, platform, or an additional field of expertise.

      With a bookseller such as the Amazon.com’s Amazon Shorts program or any other online bookseller offering similar programs, the readers already are predisposed to buying books, perhaps your books. How many of your books were sold through which online bookseller? Have you looked at your book sales reports from your publisher to see who the wholesale buyers of your paperback books were?

      Your goal is to use online sales of your short stories a tool for interaction and cooperation between you as an author and any reader worldwide. View Amazon Connect at:

      You need to showcase your writing online, have a profile page, and be in a directory of authors to maintain visibility. AmazonConnect gives artist blogs prime placement on their AmazonConnect Directory Web site. View the site at:

      You keep up your visibility and platform by posting messages to your AmazonConnect blog. Now, you don’t have to write for only one online bookseller’s site. If one bookseller requires that you give that site exclusivity to your work for six months, do so. But your other writing can go on other online bookseller’s Web sites to create more visibility as long as you do not duplicate your material. And you can have an online booksellers’ site of your own for your books or short stories.

      You Can Auction Your Writing Online

      Another way to sell your writing of short fiction and other short materials, including courseware and learning materials is to hold an online auction in the eBay style and auction off the publishing rights to your writing. Auction sites such as eBay and online sales sites such as Craig’s List and the many other online Web sites selling all types of products could serve as a market for you to sell your short stories.

      Either auction off your writing—the publishing rights to your work or a one-time only publishing right, or rent your writing. You can send clients or buyers the printed out, bound self-published paper copy of your work or let them download the work. Another possibility is to make audio books of your writing and sell them as CDs or DVDs.

      Turn Your Short Stories into Audio Books

      If you have compiled an anthology of short stories, written a compilation of your own work, or have finished writing a book, turn it into an audio book. Read your book in half-hour segments on a CD or DVD or create a disc as an MP3 audio file (or video reading). Audio recordings are more popular than video for books because they can be saved to iPods and other mobile devices and listened to while in transit, driving, or exercising. Sell your audio books on various auction or sales sites online.

      Are Online Booksellers Becoming Online Publishers?

      The point is to look what has evolved. Online booksellers are becoming online publishers. Research whether mainstream brick and mortar bookstores also are becoming publishers. The line between bookseller and publisher is blurring. Why? Print-on demand-publishers also successfully sell your books online. They have been doing so for the past few years.

      You see more print magazines going out of business whereas some print-on-demand publishers are so successful they have bought out other print-on-demand publishers and are expanding. Your main tool of visibility, platform, and expertise, is to use this expanding, but still hidden market. Make your short stories or articles available online for a small fee. Someone as important as your readers could notice.

      Could you picture yourself sitting in an urban subway station or food court mall hawking your paper copy short stories for two dollars? Think of the cost to you for paper, printer cartridge ink, and binding expenses—and intimidation from the law if you don’t have a vendor license to sell in the subways.

      Picture a warehouse full of your books. Now think of people all over the world instantly downloading your short stories for a fee from either your Web site or from the site of a digital online bookseller, publisher, or other online marketing communications business. What if readers bought your story online in the same way that they would download a movie, a specific song, or an instrumental music or dramatic performance as a fee-for-story service?

      Not only are digital short stories available online, but a variety of niche and specialized paper copy publications are opening just as magazines using fiction in the past are buying less fiction future. The markets are coming full circle with hidden passages opening new dimensions to how you will market your creative writing—short stories, nonfiction, small booklets with romance novels sold in supermarket impulse racks, or other ways to think outside the box and market your work. Another burgeoning field is the creativity enhancement assessment market modeled after the employment personality questionnaire.

      #

      Creativity Questionnaires—Writing Creativity Behavioral Preferences

      This test also appears in my paperback book titled 30+ Brain-Exercising Creative Coach Businesses to Open: How to Use Writing, Music, Drama & Art Therapy Techniques for Healing, Anne Hart, M.A. ASJA Press, Jan. 2007. (Reprinted with author’s permission—I’m the author). Also see this writing creativity enhancement assessment online at the Blog site at: http://creativityquestionnaires.blogspot.com/.

      CREATIVE WRITING EMPLOYMENT PERSONALITY PREFERENCE ASSESSMENT

      If you’re an expressive arts therapist—creative writing, bibliotherapy, dance, drama, art, music, movement . you are tech support specializing in behavior, critical thinking, emotional response, actions, and reactions in relation to various personality preferences, attitudes, traits, and aptitudes. If you’re a writing coach or a coach-consultant in any of the arts, your clients call you when they have problems with their product or manuscript. You can work face-to-face or online or through interactive multimedia correspondence.

      You spend your day talking to professionals that ask you to solve problems or resolve conflicts in a tangible object—a script, music score, or design. As a therapist, your tech support role emphasizes behavior. Sometimes the behavior and the product are one.

      If you talk to people having a bad day, will you have a bad day, too? Here’s one sample of my creative writing preference and aptitude classifier assessments to take yourself and to offer to your clients. Design your own to fit your particular requirements as a coach, consultant, or therapist.

      Take the Howling Wolf’s Scribe Creative Writing Preference Classifier

      ©2007 by Anne Hart

      Are you best-suited to be a digital interactive or ethnographic story writer, a nonfiction writer, or a mystery writer using historic themes? Do you think like a fiction writer? Take the writing style preference classifier and find out how you approach your favorite writing style using Zabeyko’s facts and acts.

      Which genre is for you—interactive, traditional, creative nonfiction, fiction, decisive or investigative? Would you rather write for readers that need to interact with their own story endings or plot branches? Which style best fits you? What’s your writing profile?

      Take this ancient echoes writing genre interest classifier and see the various ways in which way you can be more creative. Do you prefer to write investigative, logical nonfiction or imaginative fiction—or a mixture of both? There are 35 questions—seven questions for each of the five pairs. There are 10 choices.

      #

      The Choices:

      Grounded or Verve

      Rational or Enthusiastic

      Decisive or Investigative

      Loner or Outgoing

      Traditional or Change-Driven

      Writer’s Creativity Style Preference Classifier

      Use the clues to inspire your own creativity in writing historic or mystery fiction. You are a mystery writer working on an interactive audio book of stories with clues for the Web about a scribe and music composer prodigy, Zabeyko, who lives and works in Wolkowysk (Howling Wolf), White Russia (now Belarus) near Bialystok of 1812, in the ancient Grodno province the time Napoleon visited. Zabeyko’s father, Kutkowski, has unending adventures trying to track down the person who gifted the multilingual musical prodigy child, Zabeyko, with a golden scholarship to study musical performance far away in Venice.

      Zabeyko, son of a Tatar prince, is the young, adopted son of the famous Baltic wolf tamer, Polotskay Kutkowski. Surrounding the area is a forest known historically for its howling wolves. In Kutkowski’s gentle hands, the wolves sing opera as they stand on the rooftops of light-reflecting gingerbread-type houses in the midst of snowy winters and, tall, fresh-scented pine trees.

      It’s December, and the holidays are being celebrated among Wolkowysk’s diverse and expanding population. The nation has just fallen back again under Russian rule.

      When music prodigy, Zabeyko mysteriously disappears from his music tutor, Azarello, in Vienna when he was supposed to be studying music with that tutor in Venice, you as the mystery writer and scribe are in a race against time to save Zabeyko’s teenaged fiancee, Jadwiga, from being forced into an unwilling marriage with Zabeyko’s first childhood music tutor and male nanny, Jagello of the Zamkover forest. Jagello told Zabyeko’s father that his son, probably murdered by river bandits, is buried in Vienna on lands owned by the music tutor from Venice who has fled to family in Vienna.

      You are hired as the scribe and investigator, much like an early investigative journalist who must follow clues and solve the mystery for his step father, Polotskay Kutkowski. But there is another famous wolf tamer in town. Your ‘avatar’name is Efrosinia.

      It is Jagello, who owns a competing traveling circus. Both Kutkowski and Jagello are wealthy land owners who compete in their circus acts, and both own equally prosperous traveling circuses.

      Jagello is determined to become the greatest wolf tamer of them all in his traveling circus by marrying the wealthy Jadwiga. How will you write this interactive story, according to your writing style preferences?

      Clues

      The leading character is Napoleon’s greatest enemy of the howling wolf forest, a wise, older woman, Efrosinia, the scribe and healer who knows exactly which plants will heal and nurse the villagers back to health. Efrosinia, the scribe and healer is rightly named after Efrosinia Polatskaya, a patron saint (who took a new name, Pradslava) of the land now called Belarus. You are now Efrosinia.

      As a leading character, Efrosinia is a woman of 1812 fortunate enough to have inherited wealth from an ancestral line of architects. She grew up as a friend to the Kutkowski extended family. This character, Efrosinia, is your alter ego and takes on your own personality as she solves problems or crimes using her healing touch.

      1. To write your story, would you prefer to

      a. go to the Belarus archives in order to have translated two letters sent by Zabeyko’s teenage fiancée, Jadwiga to the 1812 ruler of Wolkowysk asking to send her a new fiancé (down-to-earth) or

      b. dig deeper and find out the connections between the two documents, reading fear between the lines and noting the reluctance Zabeyko’s fiancée expresses in being forced to marry her servant, the tutor, Jagello? (verve)

      a. ☐

      b. ☐

      2. Would you be more interested in researching history and writing about

      a. the closeness or distance of the relationships that surfaced between the Belarus farmers, Baltic Lithuanians, Russians, and the Poles (enthusiastic) or

      b. analyze the business deals and diplomatic events between these equal powers to see who was winning the race to becoming the superpower of the century? (rational)

      a. ☐

      b. ☐

      3. Are you more interested in the fact that

      a. Zabeyko’s teenage fiancée, Jadwiga wrote all her letters in Swedish, not in the Belarus (White Russian) dialect (down-to-earth) or

      b. Zabeyko’s father, Polotskay Kutkowski, was so hated after his death because he worshipped the spirits inhabiting pine trees, that his face was scratched off all his monuments and wall friezes in his traveling circus? (verve)

      a. ☐

      b. ☐

      4. Would you rather write about

      a. Zabeyko being adopted, sent as a gift from a Tatar trader during his step father’s festival celebrating the birth of his 12th son (enthusiastic) or

      b. the mystery of why Zabeyko turned up buried in Budapest (never reaching Venice) near his music teacher’s land with both the Tatar horse amulet, a tamga, on his neck and a cobra twisted into music notes on his headstone? (rational)?

      a. ☐

      b. ☐

      5. You are Jadwiga. Would you rather

      a. exercise your right as a fiancée to claim Zabeyko’s unmarried Tatar brother, Prince Atil (enthusiastic) or

      b. marry Zabeyko’s male nanny, Jagello because it’s only right and fair to restore a Tatar prince in hiding from his throne even while he dwells in Wolkowysk, as he works with equally brilliant Jadwiga? (rational)

      a. ☐

      b. ☐

      6. Zabeyko’s fiancée wrote to her father-in-law to send her another of his sons for marriage to her. As a writer of her life story, would you rather

      a. create a laundry list of princes either Tatar, Russian, Polish, Lithuanian, or of Wolkowysk, that she must interview and screen in a dating game (down-to-earth) or

      b. create a story where she rides 1,000 miles across the forests and steppes to run away from Zabeyko’s tutor, Jagello after he forces her to marry him. Finding herself childless, she then studies design disguised as a 14-year old boy. But growing wiser and older, she travels in disguise along the Silk Road to study architecture where she meets her true soul mate and business partner. (verve)

      a. ☐

      b. ☐

      7. Are you more interested in ending your story with

      a. Jagello marrying Zabeyko’s fiancée, Jadwiga, then quickly getting rid of Jadwiga as Jagello marries Zabeyko’s adoptive grandmother, Pradislava, for her land and property as his second wife, so that you have closure and an ending for your story (decisive) or

      b. would you rather let your story remain open for serialization, since Zabeyko’s fiancee is never heard from again and disappears just like Zabeyko did after Jagello marries her and then marries his adoptive grandmother, Pradislava. The fate of Zabeyko’s fiancee after marrying Zabeyko’s tutor, Jagello is not recorded in history. (investigative)

      a. ☐

      b. ☐

      8. If you were a Tatar prince living in a foreign land, would you prefer to

      a. decide immediately to obey the diverse European nobles of Wolkowysk and leave Tataristan to marry Jadwiga of the howling wolf forests because duty required it, knowing you’ll probably be killed when you arrive by the same person who killed Zabeyko, (decisive) or

      b. stall for time as long as possible, waiting for validated information to arrive regarding the diplomatic climate between Tatars and Russians? (investigative).

      a. ☐

      b. ☐

      9. You are Zabeyko, a Tatar prince adopted in infancy by a wealthy Belarus owner of many traveling circus acts. You have been given as a gift from the Tatar king to the Baltic Tribes because his wife had six daughters and no sons. If you were Zabeyko, would you

      a. speak in the Tatar tongue in front of your Slavic tutor, thereby possibly inflaming the nationalism in him (investigative) or

      b. plan and organize methodically to have a whole line of people close to you from your own Tataristan rather than from the Slavic lands in which you were raised?

      (decisive)

      a. ☐

      b. ☐

      10. Would you rather write about

      a. terms of the treaty between Tatars and the Slavs based on the facts provided by records (down-to-earth) or

      b. the theories set in motion when Jagello marries Jadwiga and soon after, she disappears, just like her financee, Zabeyko, and Jabello then marries Zabeyko’s mother? (verve)

      a. ☐

      b. ☐

      11. Do you like writing about

      a. enigmas or puzzles set in motion by symbols on intimate funerary equipment in a mystery novel (rational) or

      b. why no other Tatar royalty emblem after Zabeyko’s life span ever again appeared on a medallion with a horse tamga inscribed in scrimshaw ivory with a vulture? (enthusiastic)

      a. ☐

      b. ☐

      12. A tag line shows the mood/emotion in the voice—how a character speaks or acts. Are you more interested in

      a. compiling, counting, and indexing citations or quotes from how-to books for writers (down-to-earth) or

      b. compiling tag lines that explain in fiction dialogue the specific behaviors or gestures such as, Yes, he replied timorously.? (verve)

      a. ☐

      b. ☐

      13. Would you rather write

      a. dialog (enthusiastic) or

      b. description? (rational)

      a. ☐

      b. ☐

      14. To publicize your writing, would you rather

      a. give spectacular presentations or shows without preparation or prior notice (investigative) or

      b. have to prepare a long time in advance to speak or perform? (decisive)

      a. ☐

      b. ☐

      15. If you were Jadwiga, would you prefer to

      a. receive warnings well in advance and without surprises that Jagello is planning to get rid of you and marry your would-be mother-in-law (adoptive grandmother of Zabeyko) so you could conveniently disappear (decisive) or

      b. adapt to last-moment changes by never getting down to your last man or your last coin? (investigative)

      a. ☐

      b. ☐

      16. As a scribe, artist, and poet in Wolkowysk when Napoleon visited, would you

      a. feel constrained by Zabeyko’s time schedules and deadlines (investigative) or

      b. set realistic timetables and juggle priorities? (decisive)

      a. ☐

      b. ☐

      17. As Zabeyko’s widow, do you feel bound to

      a. go with social custom, do the activities itemized on the social calendar, and marry your dead husband’s unmarried brother because it’s organized according to a plan (decisive) or

      b. go with the flow of the relationship, deal with issues as they arise, make no commitments or assumptions about what’s the right thing to do because time changes plans? (investigative)

      a. ☐

      b. ☐

      18. You’re the Tatar prince reading Jadwiga’s, desperate letter. Is your reply to Jadwiga more likely to be

      a. one brief, concise, and to the point letter (rational) or

      b. one sociable, friendly, empathetic and time-consuming letter? (enthusiastic)

      a. ☐

      b. ☐

      19. You’re the Tatar prince and music prodigy, Zabeyko, adopted and re-named by Belarus step-parents. You’re contemplating who wants more to replace you with a local noble. You make a list of

      a. the pros and cons of each person close to you (rational) or

      b. varied comments from friends and relatives on what they say behind your back regarding how your influence them and what they want from you. (enthusiastic)

      a. ☐

      b. ☐

      20. You’re the scribe trying to solve Zabeyko’s murder in Vienna when he was supposed to be studying music in Venice. Would you rather investigate

      a. the tried and true facts about Jagello (down-to-earth) or

      b. want to see what’s in the overall picture before you fill in the clues? (verve)

      a. ☐

      b. ☐

      21.You’re a scribe painting Zabeyko’s tomb shortly after his demise and you

      a. seldom make errors of detail when looking for clues such as taking notice of Jagello’s wedding present to the young, healthy Jadwiga—her freshly inscribed coffin. (down-to-earth) or

      b. prefer more innovative work like writing secret love poems to Jadwiga disguised as prayers and watching for Zabeyko’s ghost to escape through the eight-inch square hole you cut in his headstone. (verve)

      a. ☐

      b. ☐

      22. As a scribe in 1812 Wolkowysk, you become

      a. tired when you work alone all day in a dimly torchlit room (outgoing) or

      b. tired when Zabeyko interrupts your concentration on your work to demand that you greet and entertain his guests all evening at banquets. (loner).

      a. ☐

      b. ☐

      23. When Jadwiga asks you as a scribe to write love poems for her that she can send to Zabeyko, you

      a. create the ideas for your poems by long discussions with her (outgoing) or

      b. prefer to be alone when you reach deep down inside your spirit to listen to what your soul entities tell you as the only resource for writing metaphors. (loner)

      a. ☐

      b. ☐

      24. You travel to Venice and Vienna investigating the death of Zabeyko and prefer to

      a. question many different foreigners and locals at boisterous celebrations in different languages (outgoing) or

      b. disregard outside events and look inside the family history/genealogy inscriptions for the culprit. (loner)

      a. ☐

      b. ☐

      25. Zabeyko, at age nine asks you to develop ideas for him about how to act when writing music. You prefer to develop ideas through

      a. reflection, meditation, and prayer (loner) or

      b. discussions and interviews among Zabeyko’s playmates on what makes Zabeyko laugh. (outgoing)

      a. ☐

      b. ☐

      26. As a scribe you are

      a. rarely cautious about the family position of those with whom you socialize as long as they are kind, righteous people who do good deeds (outgoing) or

      b. seeking one person with power to raise you from scribe to noble, if only the richest noble in Wolkowysk would ask your advice. (loner)

      a. ☐

      b. ☐

      27. You are a designer and builder of palaces. A rich noble asks you to carve a name for yourself on his palace door that’s a special representation of its builder. Would you

      a. inscribe the word that means ‘remote’ (loner) or

      b. choose a special name for yourself that means, He who shares time easily with many foreigners? (outgoing)

      a. ☐

      b. ☐

      28. As an early 19th century scribe, do you work better when you

      a. spend your day off daydreaming where no one can see you (loner) or

      b. spend your free time training teams of apprentice scribes? (outgoing)

      a. ☐

      b. ☐

      29. If you discovered a new land, would you build your cities upon

      a. your wise elders’ principles as they always have worked well before (traditional) or

      b. unfamiliar cargo that traders brought from afar? (change-driven)

      a. ☐

      b. ☐

      30. Do you depict your ruler’s victories on a stone column exactly as

      a. surviving witnesses from both sides recounted the events (change-driven) or

      b. only the ruler wants people to see? (traditional)

      a. ☐

      b. ☐

      31. If you’re self-motivated, would you avoid learning from your overseer because

      a. your overseer doesn’t keep up with the times (change-driven) or

      b. your overseer doesn’t let you follow in your father’s footsteps? (traditional)

      a. ☐

      b. ☐

      32. Would you prefer to

      a. train scribes because your father taught you how to do it well (traditional) or

      b. move quickly from one project to another forever? (change-driven)

      a. ☐

      b. ☐

      33. Do you feel like an outsider when

      a. you think more about the future than about current chores (change-driven) or

      b. invaders replace your forefathers’ familiar foods with unfamiliar cuisine? (traditional)

      a. ☐

      b. ☐

      34. Do you quickly

      a. solve problems for those inside when you’re coming from outside (change-driven) or

      b. refuse to spend your treasures to develop new ideas that might fail? (traditional)

      a. ☐

      b. ☐

      35. Would you rather listen to and learn from philosophers that

      a. predict a future in which old habits are replaced with new ones (change-driven) or

      b. are only interested in experiencing one day at a time? (traditional)

      a. ☐

      b. ☐

      Self-Scoring the Test

      Add up the number of answers for each of the following ten writing style traits for the 36 questions. There are seven questions for each group. The ten categories are made up of five opposite pairs.

      Down-to-earth Verve

      Rational Enthusiastic

      Decisive Investigative

      Loner Outgoing

      Traditional Change-Driven

      Then put the numbers for each answer next to the categories. See the same self-scored test and results below.

      1. Total Down-to-earth 6. Total Verve

      2. Total Rational 7. Total Enthusiastic

      3. Total Decisive 8. Total Investigative

      4. Total Loner 9. Total Outgoing

      5. Total Traditional 10. Total Change-Driven

      To get your score, you’re only adding up the number of answers for each of the 10 categories (five pairs) above. See the sample self-scored test below. Note that there are seven questions for each of the five pairs (or 10 designations). There are 35 questions. Seven questions times five categories equal 35 questions. Keep the number of questions you design for each category equal.

      #

      Here is a Sample Self-Scored Assessment with Answers

      Take the Howling Wolf’s Scribe Creative Writing Preference Classifier

      ©2007 by Anne Hart

      Are you best-suited to be a digital interactive or ethnographic story writer, a nonfiction writer, or a mystery writer using historic themes? Do you think like a fiction writer? Take the writing style preference classifier and find out how you approach your favorite writing style using Zabeyko’s facts and acts.

      Which genre is for you—interactive, traditional, creative nonfiction, fiction, decisive or investigative? Would you rather write for readers that need to interact with their own story endings or plot branches? Which style best fits you? What’s your writing profile?

      Take this ancient echoes writing genre interest classifier and see the various ways in which way you can be more creative. Do you prefer to write investigative, logical nonfiction or imaginative fiction—or a mixture of both? There are 35 questions—seven questions for each of the five pairs. There are 10 choices.

      The 10 Choices:

      The Choices: Key Words of Opposite Personality Preferences:

      #

      Grounded or Verve

      Rational or Enthusiastic

      Decisive or Investigative

      Loner or Outgoing

      Traditional or Change-Driven

      #

      Sample Scores

      Total Down-to-earth 0 Total Verve 5

      Total Rational 0 Total Enthusiastic 7

      Total Decisive 0 Total Investigative 7

      Total Loner 4 Total Outgoing 3

      Total Traditional 2 Total Change-Driven 5

      In the already self-scored sample assessment that follows, the four highest numbers of answers are enthusiastic, investigative, imaginative loner. Choose the highest numbers first as having the most importance (or weight) in your writing style preference. Therefore, your own creative writing style and the way you plot your character’s actions, interests, and goals (for fiction writing and specifically mystery writing) is an enthusiastic investigative vivacious (verve-with-imagination) loner. Your five personality letters would be: E I V L C. (Scramble the letters to make a word to remember, the name Clive, in this case.)

      Note that there is a tie between C and V. Both have a score of’5’. However, since ‘V’ (verve) which signifies vivacious imagination with gusto competes with ‘C’ being change-driven, the ‘verve’ in the vivacious personality wracked with creative imagination would wither in a traditional corporation that emphasizes routinely running a tight ship. Traditional firms seek to imitate successful corporations of the past that worked well and still work. They don’t need to be fixed often unless they make noise.

      Instead, the dominantly change-driven creative individual would flourish better with

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