How Not to use a Press Release

How did a press release titled “Promiscuous men more likely to rape” become a news story, “Women who dress provocatively more likely to be raped”?

According to the Daily Telegraph, women who are dressed provocatively, are flirtatious and drunk or a combination of any are more likely to be raped.  Yet the research actually showed that how women dressed and behaved had no statistically significant effect and men were actually more likely to coerce sober women into sex.

Moreover, Sophia Shaw, an MSc student at Leicester University, was surprised to be referred to as an expert scientist in the Daily Telegraph.  The research was towards her dissertation.  She complained to the paper that their version placed all the blame on women which was definitely not her intention at all.

The real story is that 101 men aged between 18 and 70 were asked how they would respond in various scenarios with a woman, varying how the woman was dressed, how sober she was, how assertive she was and how many sexual partners she had had.  The results found that men with more sexual experience were more likely to coerce a woman into sex.  The findings were discussed at an academic conference, where it was clear the research was not finished and the findings were very preliminary.

There are also flaws, which both the Daily Telegraph and the original press release fail to mention, chiefly that 101 men of such a broad age range is a very small, unrepresentative sample.  The survey relied on the men’s replies only and people, especially when surveyed about their love lives, tend to be economical with the truth.  The survey did not take into account that the men may have behaved differently when playing the same scenarios whilst under the influence of drink.

The survey is valid as initial research which indicates further areas to study.  But why did the British Psychological Society see fit to turn unpublished, unfinished research into a press release?  Following up the story, Ben Goldacre, had to personally phone the student because he couldn’t read the research for himself.

There are two major fails here.  Firstly the British Psychological Society should not be issuing press releases of initial research.  Secondly, journalists should not be twisting any such press release into a story that fits their own agenda, especially when that agenda seeks to lay all the blame for rape with women.

Shouldn’t Writers be Creative about Bad Reviews?

Once upon a time Richard Ford picked up a pistol and shot a book by a reviewer, Alice Hoffman, who’d been lukewarm about “The Sportswriter”.

Fast forward 23 years to 2009 and Alice Hoffman tweets another critic’s email and phone number urging fans to give that critic their views on snarky reviews, accusing the critic of being a “moron”.

Within days Alain de Botton posts a comment on Caleb Crain’s blog, “I will hate you till the day I die and wish you nothing but ill will in every career move you make.”  A comment more suited to the playground than someone who turns 40 in December.

He also commented, “You have killed my book in the United States, nothing short of that.  So that’s two years of work down the drain in one miserable 900 word review.”  Really?  Even the New York Times has that much influence?

Apparently Alain de Botton didn’t expect his comments to reach a “large audience”.  “I think a writer should respond to a critic within a relatively private arena.  I don’t believe in writing letters to the newspaper.  I do believe in writing, on occasion, to the critics directly.  I used to believe that posting a message on a writer’s website counted as part of this semi-private communication.”

In other words the writer doesn’t regret what he said, just that it reached a larger audience than he intended.  Anyone following the row over MPs expenses in the UK would find that position eerily familiar: MPs were only too quick to suggest that claims for luxury items were within the rules with the implication that their only regret was to be found out because they hadn’t expected the electorate to react so negatively.

The most disappointing this about both responses is their lack of creatively.  Writers are creative.  At least they are if they are any good as writers.  Imagine if Richard Ford’s wife had videoed him shooting Alice Hoffman’s book and posted on somewhere like YouTube.  Wouldn’t that have gone viral and attracted a greater audience than the original review?  Far better than resorting to playground insults.

Related Articles

Review: read on before you react

Can a Bad Review End a Writing Career

Should Writers read Reviews of their Writing

“The Last Patriot” Brad Thor (Simon and Schuster) – novel review

This is the 12^th Scot Harvath novel but the first time I’ve met him and his author Brad Thor.  In “The Last Patriot” Scot, a former Navy SEAL and counter-terrorism agent, and his girlfriend Tracy are in Paris enjoying some time together as Tracy recuperates after having had a bomb blow up on her.  She’s suffering headaches but hiding them from Scot.  From a quiet cafe, Scott notices a man pop open the locks on a Peugeot and move it down the street.  A Mercedes parks in the Peugeot’s place.  Scot and Tracy leave the cafe, but stand aside to let someone pass.  As they do so, Scot notices the Mercedes driver, now standing on the pavement at the end of the block, check a photograph and press a remote device.  Scot pushes the man they stood aside to let pass back into the cafe and lies on top of him as the car bomb is detonated.  In confusion after the bomb going off, the man disappears but not before Scot gets his wallet and learns the man is Dr Anthony Nichols.

Tracy and Scot trace Dr Anthony Nichols back to his hotel room.  Interrogating him, Scot learns Dr Nichols is working for the President officially as an archivist, unofficially with specific regard to the Jefferson archive particularly Jefferson’s studies of the Koran to help him learn more about the pirates off the Barbary coast who believed killing non Muslims was justified and discovered there was a last revelation of Mohammed which is not in the Koran, and is in Paris to collect a rare book, an edition of “Don Quixote” that belonged to Thomas Jefferson believed to be notated with a code that will unlock the last revelation.  Scot uses contacts to take Dr Nichols and Tracy to a safe house, reluctantly Scot agrees to help the professor who clearly has not been trained to cope with being the target of a professional terrorist.  Scot meets with the book dealer, but both are held at gunpoint and escorted towards the book fair exit.  As they approach the exit, the gunman uses Scot as a shield to shoot police.  Scot takes advantage of the gunman’s distraction to escape with the dealer.  The dealer helps them through an alternative exit.  Through the dealer they learn the book is held in a mosque in one of the dodgier areas of Paris.

Meanwhile man is arrested in a park in Washington for the apparent murder of his apparent lover Nura Khalifa, niece of Dr Khalifa.  Dr Khalifa was studying papers, believed to be from the Koran, found at an archaeological dig in Yemen.  Nura Khalifa is a reluctant member of Foundation on American Islamic Relations (FAIR) and the man believes he was recruited as a NOC into the FBI to infiltrate FAIR under a mission called Glass Canyon.  As soon as the man starts talking about NOCs and the FBI, the police are only too happy to hand him over to the CIA.  The CIA are sceptical at first but then the man mentions top secret project and, pulling through the project files, a CIA Agent comes across a record that doesn’t make sense.  A Matthew Dodds is listed as killed in action, remains not found but there is no evidence that he was killed so he should have been listed as missing in action.  The CIA agent starts investigating.

It then becomes a race.  Can Scot and Dr Nichols unlock the code and get to the last revelation before the terrorists who are hell-bent on murdering anyone involved and destroying any evidence pointing to a last revelation?  Tracy is hospitalised and treated in intensive care for swelling on her brain and Scot needs answers before the French police arrest her as they are convinced she and Scot are somehow connected with the car bombing and the shooting at the book fair.  Action moves from France to the States as it becomes apparent that Glass Canyon was set up by FAIR to infiltrate itself to weed out weaker members and the man arrested in Washington was actually reporting to the missing CIA agent who faked his own death and converted to Islam after his wife and child were killed.  The pace picks up, the body count mounts – noticeably Scot only kills in self-defence but the FAIR terrorists kill indiscriminately – and the plot holds up as it moves towards its denouement. 

Brad Thor is careful to differentiate between the majority of peaceful Muslims and the extremists in the fictional FAIR.  The last revelation of Mohammed doesn’t exist, although Brad Thor makes the concept credible, and then contents hinted at rather than fully revealed.   And the moment of author vanity when it’s revealed Scot’s treasured gun has ‘Thor’ engraved on it is forgivable. 

Less forgivable is the moment of author intrusion at the end of the prologue where Nura Khalifa’s contact meets her in the park and Brad Thor feels obliged to tell the reader “had he been paying attention… he might have had time to react to the two men who sprang from the shadows.”  I don’t want to be told, I want to know what it felt like for Andrew whose attention was on Nura to suddenly be grabbed and overpowered.  The author intrusion pulls away the suspense and detracts from the scene.  But it wouldn’t make me hesitate to pick up another Brad Thor novel.

The novel-as-screenplay approach, where the initial chapters show brief shots of new characters and it doesn’t really get going until we catch up with Scot and Tracy in Paris, works very well here because the underlying novel is strong and holds the story well.  Brad Thor’s writing is very visual.  It’s rare we hear anything other than the explosions, alarms, gunshots or dialogue, or have smells described – a non smelling mosque, Paris without the scent of coffee and crepes, no musty paper and wood smells at the book fair – this storyteller’s in a hurry to get on with the plot.

Simon and Schuster’s website is here, but it’s still telling me I need to upgrade my browser to IE7 or later when I’m using IE8 so I still can’t ’see’ the site.

“Blogging Blueprint” Glen Allsopp review of a free download

Free download that comes in three sections: Glen Allsopp’s blogging success story, how you can do it and personal insights. Glen started out with a desire to create a website for DJs as an on-line meeting place and promoted it on related sites and via word of mouth to create a real community. Encouraged, Glen put his knowledge and expertise into blogging and created PluginID, which has landed him a dream job, has 3103 subscribers and 85000 page views per month.

Having established his authority, Glen then turns to outlining how you could do it. He does warn that less than 1% of bloggers make a liveable income and it’s better to focus on a blog as a means to an end (promotion) rather than an end in itself (income) with any income from blogging supplementing a real income earnt elsewhere. Glen talks about finding a passion you can communicate rather than picking a popular subject and forcing yourself to write about it. That’s not to say you can’t blog about a popular subject, but make sure you feel engaged and passionate because that will be reflected in your writing. Forced writing about a topic that doesn’t engage you will translate into a dreary blog that won’t attract readers or income. I’m in complete agreement with him that blogs should be about readers: write for readers not search engines or with the aim of attracting income. If readers aren’t your primary focus, you’d struggle to get ranked and struggle to earn from blogging.

Once you’ve got your niche, Glen Allsopp covers branding, selecting a domain, hosting, traffic, search engine optimisation, commenting, guest blogs and social media in a friendly, non overly-technical way. Glen’s a fan of pared down, focused writing which makes his blueprint easy to read. He does labour the point about his love of WordPress. I like WordPress, but I think trying out various blogging platforms and finding one you’re comfortable with is fine, so long as you do actually try WordPress.

In the third section, Glenn passes on some personal insights into how he became successful. He suggests consistency – keep true to your voice and passion and don’t change for the sake of following the latest big idea if you know it’s not for you. That holds for writing as well as blogging. Build a reputation so you build backlinks which will help you dominate search results. Use analytics wisely and provide insane value.

Overall “Blogging Blueprint” is a solid introduction to the basics of blogging for beginners and a good reminder for those with some experience of blogging. There are no startling new ideas for instant success, but then there is no instant success, as writers are well aware.

“Blogging Blueprint” is available as a free download here.

Basic Search Engine Optimisation for Writers

Search Engine Optimisation is making your site or blog easier for search engines to find and hence easier for web users to find so more readers for your site.

Be wary of anyone calling themselves an SEO Consultant because anyone can call themselves an SEO Consultant. There are no qualifications you can check out and no regulatory body authorising SEO consultants. Take the same approach you would in selecting a mortgage or a car: get at least three quotes, do your research (after all if someone offering search engine optimisation services can’t rank well in Google, they’re not going to get your site ranking well either) and avoid anyone who boasts they can get to you #1 ranking in Google. Only Google can decide who gets top ranking and as they change how they rank sites to keep ahead of spammers, what works today may not work so well tomorrow and may not work at all in six months’ time.

But good basics will always stand the test of time and will always help you rank well. Here’s an introductory list of good search engine optimisation practices for writers:-

1. Clean Design
Logical site structure and clean, non bloated code make it easy for search engines to ‘read’ your site and get what it’s about. If you’re hiring web designer, check they comply with World Wide Web Consortium guidelines – this is good practice so generally web designers will. Most off-the-web packages such as WordPress, Joomal, Drupal, Typepad, Blogger generally do.

Most writers’ sites using a home page which introduces the site and them, and pages for books, biography, news, events or similar. Each page is broken down into further subsections eg Books will have a page for each book. It’s a good, logical structure
template to follow.

2. One Page or Post per Topic

Good writers do this by default: don’t ramble, focus. Your book page should be about your book, your news page, your news. Your blog articles should be crisp, clean, succinct and focused. You do this anyway: you’re a writer.

In search engine optimisation terms, a page is built around keywords or the words that browsers are likely to type into a search engine to find the page or article you’re writing. Search engine optimisation consultants will then research those keywords to find variants that people also use in searches, eg someone looking for “writing tips” might also look for “advice on writing”, “getting published”, “sending to an agent”, “submitting manuscripts”. The search engine optimisation consultant would then suggest including pages on the variant terms to boost the writing advice site’s chances of being found by search engines.

3. Titles
On a blog a good descriptive post title wins over vague, ironic, clever titles every time. On a website, a good title tag on every page will focus on what the page is about and be branded, eg “Poet Emma Lee” is better than “Writer Emma Lee” or “Emma Lee Writer and Poet”. Good writing practice is so useful.

4. Alt tags for Pictures
Search engines can’t ‘see’ pictures and rely on the alt tag to describe what the picture is so “book cover for poetry collection Yellow Torchlight and the Blues by Emma Lee” is better than “book cover”. Text browsers can’t ‘see’ pictures and rely on the alt tag to describe what the picture is. So it’s good practice to have descriptive alt tags. And, if you’re in the UK, you may fall foul of the Disability Discrimination Act if your site can’t be read by text browsers which tend to be used by people with visual impairments.

5. Fresh Content
Just as you know that a site that hasn’t been updated since 2000 isn’t going to have any current, useful information on it, so do search engines. If you’re developing as a writer, update your site as you publish a new book, do a new reading, give workshops, etc. If you’re writing a blog, update it.

6. Duplicate Content
You don’t like reading the same poem in several magazines. You don’t like reading a book that’s practically the same as a book by your favourite author. Search Engines don’t like seeing the same page or article on different websites.

Don’t be tempted to stick the content on your website’s biography page on your publisher’s site. Take care when categorising blog articles and try and stick to one category per post as some search engines will read one article with two categories as two articles.

If you are blogging about a piece of industry news, offer an insight and commentary so you’re not simply repeating news announced elsewhere. This also offers value to your readers and is good practice. If you submit to article directories – don’t stop, search engines know what these are and they’re not going to harm your rankings.

7. Linking
Not all links are created equal. Generally it’s about balance, relevance and authority.

Outgoing Links
A site that doesn’t link out looks suspicious, so link to your publisher and link blog posts to other sites where relevant but don’t link for the sake of it.

Internal Links
Linking from one page within a site to another page on that site is good: it makes the site look less like several sheets of paper with no binding and more like a book. But keep links relevant. If you’ve written a blog post on publishing poems, can you link to any posts on the same topic? If you’re reviewing a thriller, have you also go other thriller reviews you could link to?

Anchor text is the text used in a link so an incoming link using anchor text “Emma Lee’s informative blog for poets and writers” is great, “click here” is as good as useless. Think carefully about the words used when creating links and try to avoid using the same anchor text every time as it diminishes the value of the link.

Incoming Links
Incoming links from relevant, authority sites are the gold standard. Incoming links from spam sites, link farms or badly-designed sites will harm you and you may even be penalised by having your site excluded from search engine results pages simply by association. Keep an eye on who is linking to you.

Mutually beneficial links, eg a link from a writer in your niche where you link back to that writer, are fine. Linking to the local pet shop simply because you’re both in the same city, isn’t going to benefit either of you. Save that for a blog post on how beneficial your pet is to your writing.

Paid Links
Don’t go there. A paid link that’s labelled as such (like an advertorial label on an advert that looks like copy)isn’t a problem but won’t help your search engine optimisation. But a paid link that’s not labelled could result in a search engine results page penalty.

Link Requests
Any link request that dictates what anchor text to use and helpfully gives you html code to copy and paste into your site, send straight to the delete bin.

As when selecting where to hold a reading, which bookstore to do a book signing in, which writers’ group to join, who you want to be friends with, be cautious about accepting link requests. Links from fans, writers, publishers are all great.

Encouraging Links
Off-line networking assists on-line networking. Make sure your website and/or blog is included on your promotional material. Go to readings by other writers as well as giving readings.

Best of all, write good content that others will want to link to.
You’ll know that the phrase ‘good practice’ cropped up more than once. Essentially search engine optimisation is good practice and complements good writing practice. It is good practice to have a website that’s easy to find, easy to follow and navigate round and accessible.
Like writing, there’s no overnight success in search engine optimisation, but good basics and having your website and/or blog search engine optimised will mean that when your latest book is an overnight success, your sites are ready to complement that and help those readers that made your book a success find you and buy your other books.
Search engine optimisation is one aspect of search marketing and I’ve not even attempted to cover other aspects of search marketing such as pay per click and/or social media marketing – that’s probably worth several more posts.

The Longshot Katie Kitamura (Simon and Schuster) – novel review

Cal and his trainer Riley drive to Mexico for a rematch that could make or break Cal’s boxing career. They drive down three days early to give Cal a chance to acclimatise to Mexican heat and Katie Kitamura chance to explore that combination of the tedium of waiting and preparation and the build-up and hype of the match.

Katie Kitamura’s spare, muscular prose does well to capture the minutiae of training, the pre-match atmosphere and boredom of cheap, crummy hotel rooms. Style-wise she alludes to Cormac McCarthy or Harry Crews although without the latter’s dark humour. Here, as Cal is led up to the ring,

The canvas was so white it was blinding. For a moment he didn’t see anything but the ring. The people around fell silent. They fell out of focus. He looked at the ring. The fuzziness left the picture. He could see now. In an instant it had become clear. He stepped off the runway and walked around the ring. He climbed through the ropes. Then the noise came back.

Without giving away the ending, it does go out with a whimper. We see Riley’s reaction but not Cal’s – other than being totally stunned by the fight – which feels like an omission. Although not one that would stop me reading Katie Kitamura again.

“Continental Shelf” Fred D’Aguiar (Carcanet) – Poetry Review

There’s an elegiac feel to this collection and not just because of the sequence “Elegies”.  The opening section of “Continental Shelf”revisits Fred D’Aguiar’s Guyanese childhood with the benefit of memory and maturity layering the poems with sensual detail.  The poems aren’t as energetic as previously but better for their measured tone.

Fred D’Aguiar teaches at Virginia Tech State University, where one student killed 32 people before turning his gun on himself on 16 April 2007.  “Elegies” is a sequence that explores that event, “While those sirens keep building a wedding cake of sound./ I know there is more. I slice open the door to my office/ To find the decorated girl gone and no one else around.// I zoom back to the Web for any news of what’s going on/ In my immediate vicinity, since I cannot trust the song// And dance of my senses. Then I hear a loudspeaker/ Asking everyone to remain indoors and stay away/ From windows and I know for sure it’s a shooter…” as someone on campus but not directly caught up in the action, relying on web news to keep up with events. 

The sequence also picks up the aftermath, that meandering feeling of the world being very different yet ordinary life having to continue as staff have to teach grief-stricken students whilst mourning and thinking about whether they should have picked up any early warning signs and preventing the tragedy occurring, “…The whole story remains ever present,// Charts and ever changing feeling/ for events of that Poetry Month Monday./ Imagine a trowel smoothing concrete// Adding to those layers and smoothing/ A thicker and thicker wall, well, that’s how/ The lyric builds meaning in a deepening circle,// Except the concrete never dries/ And the worker with that trowel never dies.”

Fred D’Aguiar writes of grief compassionately and with respect, “…If you bury a child the rest of your life/ Spoils even though you live it as best/ As you can and never let on to others.// When I touched you in a loving way/ I fought off pictures of our children/ Dead before their time, dead before us:// When we hugged I left no room for air/ Other than hers exhaled into my face.”  He doesn’t intrude on the feelings of others but records unsentimentally and demonstrating his poetic strengths.

Resources for Writers

Having now written several articles on getting poems published, common faults in short stories, vanity presses, choosing writers’s groups, creative writing courses, etc, I’ve created a Resources for Writers page which lists all writing tips and advice articles with links to make them easier to find.

Please leave a comment if there’s a subject you’d like to see covered or an article I’ve not listed that you would like to see listed.

“Freedom is Work” Miserylab (Carbon Neutral Digital) – music review

miserylab are back with a trade mark guitar tune weaving around mellow vocals and a catchy drum beat: pop with a parallel tension that brings you back for further listening as the deceptively simple sound conceals its complexity. 

The lyrics echo the complexity of sound. TV news is an easy target for satire and miserylab point out in television, “fear is the news here begins television makes it real television is how to feel who to hate what’s to blame”, that only bad news sells and TV has ceased to be a tool but become an end as if ‘being on TV’ is a talent in itself, which of course it isn’t.  The sleeve note points out that “there have been 153 deaths related to acts of terrorism in England since the term was introduced in 1798.  each year in England 350 deaths are related to hypothermia”, yet we fear the former because the latter don’t make the news.  Porl King’s love of ironic wordplay comes to the fore in making a bomb, the title deliberately ambiguous, particularly in the lyrical phrase “they fool the world they rule the world they are making a bomb… …they are making a killing they are making a bomb”.  Compassion shows in way things are “somewhere a child cups its hands weak from crying somewhere a child makes demands wants something buying…”

Vital, vibrant and great value.  Buy it.

Oxford Professor of Poetry

It’s a nice job: half a dozen lectures over a couple of years and it’s just been awarded to Ruth Padel, first woman to hold the post.  Coming soon after news of Carol Ann Duffy’s appointment as Poet Laureate, is 2009 a good year for women in poetry? 

Sadly, all isn’t quite as it seems.  Three poets were nominated for the Oxford Professor of Poetry, Derek Walcott, Ruth Padel and Arvind Mehrotra.  However, a dossier containing a alleged sexual harassment complaint made against Derek Walcott in 1982 was distributed amongst eligible voters.  Derek Walcott decided to withdraw.  I don’t know what was in the dossier but discussion on the complaint suggests that a student recorded a personal experience in a poem and Derek Walcott was asking her about how she’d described the situation.  The student become uncomfortable.  Derek Walcott’s choice of words to a naive student who hadn’t realised that once you write and share a poem about a personal experience, it ceases to be personal and becomes a shared, public poem and how you express that experience is important.

Despite Derek Walcott’s withdrawal, Oxford refused to extend the vote deadline or allow an alternative nomination.  Ruth Padel and Arvind Mehrotra did not step down.  There was no suggestion that either poet was involved in the dossier.  It has since been revealed that the distributor was John Walsh, Ruth Padel’s former lover.

Does it matter?  Outside the hallowed halls of academia, not much.  However, Oxford students have learnt that it doesn’t matter about the standard of your writing or your poetic talent, after all Derek Walcott is a Nobel Prize-winner; just how much influence you have.  Does that matter?  I’d suggest it does.

Update: Ruth Padel has since resigned as Oxford Professor of Poetry.