Learn Without Going

Last week on my post about Why Conferences Cost So Much, I said I’d post more this week about conferences. Today, I’m blogging about how to learn from a conference without even going.

Why do writers go to conferences? Of course, there can be a lot of reasons, but the two top ones are: to meet agents and to learn about writing.

Let’s start with Learning About Writing. If that’s your goal, you’ll be hitting as many of the workshops, panels, and classes as you can. If you go. But if you don’t, there are ways to learn. First off, check the schedule and mark the events you would love to attend if you could go. Then find out if the conference will be selling tapes. You can pick up one or two tapes for a whole lot less than paying for the full conference. Another idea is to check out the instructor or workshop leader. It won’t cost you anything to visit their website. They may be teaching in your area in the future. They may have a page or more of free articles you can read. They may have a blog where you could get daily information.

Now, how about if you would be going to the conference in order to Meet Agents. You can find out about them without being there. Go to the conference website. More than likely, the site lists the agents and editors who are scheduled to attend. Most sites will do more than that. They’ll have bio of each person, along with a link to the agent’s website and what genres they are looking for. Score! Check out this page which lists the agents who came to last weekend’s Writers’ League of Texas conference. Conferences do that, especially if they’ll be offering one-on-ones with the agents. They do it so attendees will know who they want to sign up with for a pitch session. But you, even if you’re not going to the conference, can have access to this information.

Sure, there are other reasons to go to a conference - networking, meeting the big name authors, getting autographs, and on and on. But there’s a lot to gain even not going to a conference.

What? Me Lie?

Alan W. Davidson of Conversations from Land’s Edge tagged me with the I Never Tell a Lie meme. Problem is, Alan, I actually don’t lie. Never. I get caught ‘cause I’m no good at it.

Here’s the “rules” of the meme:

Sometimes you can learn more about a person by what they don’t tell you. Sometimes you can learn a lot from the things they just make up. If you are tagged with this Meme, lie to me. Then tag 7 other folks (one for each deadly sin) and hope they can lie.

But since I don’t lie, I’m going to answer the questions truthfully, then pass it on to people I know who could lie with a straight face and never get caught. Here goes:

Pride: What is your biggest contribution to the world?
My Master’s degree is in Speech Communication with a specialization in Oral Interpretation. Just after graduation I was hired by Columbia University to teach. While there, I took on, as a special project, a young man who had many problems talking in public. He stuttered, raced through his speeches, was too shy to look at his audience and spoke in a monotone. A political science major who hoped to advance in international relations, he desperately needed my help. I sacrificed hours of free time I could have spent at my favorite pub, The Mighty Ivy. But it was worth it to see him grow. It was with complete delight that I read this man’s acknowledgment of my efforts in his book, Yes We Can.

Envy: What do your coworkers wish they had which is yours?
My ability to drink an entire Coke in one swallow. I can open the bottle, gulp it down, and have the empty bottle back on the table in 14 seconds. Comes from my years as a mermaid doing underwater picnics.

Gluttony: What did you eat last night?
Jalapeños. Although that’s really not all that unusual. In Texas, jalapenos are a staple in everyone’s diet. I love to add them (seeded) on top of my cereal, but last night I made Jalapeno Poppers -- jalapenos stuffed with cream cheese, piquin pepper seeds and wrapped in bacon, then baked in the oven - 350 degrees for 30 minutes.

Lust: What really lights your fire?
Chickens. I’m not lying. Chickens. Have you seen that chicken at football games? He can dance - and he has a trigger you don’t want to mess with. He will attack players, fans, other mascots, anyone who looks at him wrong. Yeah. Chickens.

Anger: What is the last thing that really pissed you off?
My next door neighbor. She went all holier-than-thou on me. Wagging her finger, tsk-tsking, carrying on like she was some kinda saint. Excuuuse me! Who hasn’t slipped their left-over chicken skin and fat and dog poop in someone else’s garbage can? I mean, come on, that stuff can really smell up your own can. It wasn’t like it was gonna stink up the whole neighborhood; she keeps her can inside. Jimminee, if you don’t want my trash, put a better lock on the church’s back door.

Greed: Name something you keep from others.
Water. Here in central Texas we’re in a major drought. Huge. No rain in forever. Hotter than hell (I should know, I think I’m going there after my Anger answer). The lakes around here are way low - Lake Travis is down so low, islands have appeared. Truth is, I’ve been hording water. I built an underground tunnel from my house to Lake Travis and have been siphoning water. I have my own lake in my backyard. I call it Lake MeMeMe.

Sloth: What's the laziest thing you've ever done?
I once went 32 days without bathing. Seriously. Bathing is so time consuming. Plus, there was a month-long marathon of Dennis the Menace on TMZ, non-stop, 24/7. Could not miss any of that! I was pretty crusty after that (cheetos, jalapeños and Coke are not the best diet), so when the marathon was over, I went down to the local car wash and walked through. Man, that big blow dryer at the end is fast! Plus, by carrying my clothes over my head, I got the washing done at the same time.

I’m going to tag 4 people (too lazy to do 7 -- see my Sloth answer). I’m tagging Marvin Wilson of The Old Silly’s Free Spirit Blog (yes, I tagged him last week with the Friendship meme, but I think he would be especially good with this one), Mary Gordon Spence of Finding Magic in the Mundane, Maryann Miller of It’s Not All Gravy, and Carol Kilgore of Under the Tiki Hut.

Make sure you visit their blogs and tell them they’ve been tagged. They’ll probably lie and deny they know me when in fact we’re first cousins, twice removed. And while you're zipping around, stop by The Blood-Red Pencil. I'm blogging over there today about things you can do to avoid writer's block.

Visual Writing Prompt 6-28-09

Today, we’re talking stereotypes. We all use them, even though we’re admonished not to. You write an old woman into your book and she’s slumped over, walking slowly. You describe a young boy and he’s skipping rocks in a lake or teasing a girl as a way of getting her attention. And we shouldn’t use stereotypes. Or should we?

Is there a place and time for stereotypes? Could it be that sometimes stereotypes are used because they accurately portray a group of people or things? Or is it that, even if that’s true, you should try to make your characters different from the norm so they stand out in the readers’ minds? Or… should that be reserved for your main characters so they stand out from your backdrop of stereotypical secondary characters? Or… I could go on and on with different scenarios.

But my question is, what do you do? Do you work at flavoring each character with something different and unique? Do you keep some characters “normal” with looks and behavior that are “everyman” so that readers can identify with them and so they don’t detract from your main characters?

If your protagonist walked into a house or apartment they’d never been in before and the first thing they saw was a wall clock - a black cat, tail swinging back and forth and eyes clicking left and right with each second that ticked by - what would that tell the reader (and the protagonist) about the owner of the house or apartment? Would their first assumption prove to be right?

Here’s a picture of a wedding ring quilt on a bed. Put it in your book. Whose bed is it on? Is that person old, young, male, female? Did they make the quilt? If not, who did? Was the room painted and designed around the quilt…or was the quilt added because it fit the room? Is it in the master bedroom or a guest room? Was it a wedding gift for a young couple? An older couple? Was it made by a great aunt and it’s an heirloom? If you put this quilt in your book, what would you do with it - and why?

A Moral Clause in Publishing?

An article in USA Today caught me by surprise. I had not considered there might be a moral clause, either written or understood, in a publishing contract. Although, I don’t know why it hadn’t occurred to me since it would make sense not to publish a book if the author were found to be, say, a mass-murderer.

But, my surprise aside, the idea that Kate Gosselin’s publisher might consider nixing her book on cooking for the family because she and her husband are now divorcing seems a bit knee-jerky. And let me state here that I have never seen Jon & Kate Plus 8 - we can’t get cable where I live.

Tim Penning, assistant professor of communications at Grand Valley State University in Michigan, said the publisher is probably going to need to hold off.

"It would be a fine line for them to try to sell this book with the kind of revelations that have happened," said Penning, who teaches public relations. "I think the public generally understands that it was a good idea, but times have changed.”

According to the USA Today article, “The 240-page hardcover is expected to feature Kate Gosselin's nutritious recipes, advice on "how to craft family traditions that create happy memories," and "meaningful mealtime blessings…"

Seems to me, those things are just as important, if not more so, for divorced families.

What This Editor Does

This past Tuesday, I wrote a post called Build An Editor. In it, I asked what you, as a writer, wanted in or expected of an editor. A lot of you wrote interesting, detailed comments. Most seemed to agree they wanted an editor to do it all, but not totally change their words. You wanted an editor to catch big and small mistakes - change small mistakes but leave comments or suggestions on big ones. And just about everyone seemed to want an editor to work with them so that they would grow as a writer and learn from their mistakes. And you wanted an editor to stay with you from first edit through query letter.

Some of you who’ve been visiting Straight From Hel for a while know the kind of work I do. If not, you can link over and read a back and forth Q&A between me and author Sylvia Dickey Smith. Plus, I have a page on my website about my editing services.

But…I did say in the Build An Editor post that I would tell you about what I do as an editor. And I’ll say upfront that I don’t think I’m all that different from other editors.

When I get a manuscript, I begin reading. I tend to read about 20 pages, then take a break, then continue. Unlike some editors who make no edits on the first read-through, I do mark things and make comments. I try to catch the smallest things, like two spaces between sentences instead of one, medium things like sentences that don’t make sense, and big things like a character who has no arc. Small things like spacing or repeated words, I’ll change. A beginning that’s too slow, I comment on and sometimes give suggestions as to how it could start or where in the manuscript the book really should begin.

When I finish the manuscript, I set it aside for at least a day, then I begin another read-through. I do three read-throughs before I send it back to the author.

Although I’ve never had an author ask for their money back, I never cash their check until the manuscript is sent back to them.

Cashing the check does not mean the partnership is over, as far as I’m concerned. I’m considering that writer as “my author,” just as I hope they consider me “their editor.”

If she works on areas where I noted problems and wants me to look at it again, I do. If he does a big rewrite and wants to send the entire revised manuscript back for another read, I will. If she gets it polished and is ready to start querying, she can send me the query letter. I’ve discussed possible agents with some of my authors. Some have called with follow-up questions. A lot have hired me for their second or third book.

But as I said earlier, I don’t think I’m all that different from other editors. If you’re looking for someone to work with you on your book, do some research and then talk to your top 3 or 4 choices. Find someone you’re compatible with and who will do what you need them to do. Look at it as a long-term relationship and find someone you can work with over the long haul.

Why do Conferences Cost So Much?

I’ve been asked this question quite a bit lately -- partly because summer is the season for writing conferences and partly because I used to be the Executive Director of the Writers’ League of Texas which puts on the biggest agents conference in central Texas (perhaps in the southwest).

I resigned as E.D. in 2005 and WLT’s Agents conference, like most conferences, has been going up in registration cost. And people wonder why.

The basic reason is that it’s expensive to put on a conference. WLT’s conference brings in a lot of agents and editors. I believe I counted 19 this year. I have no idea of the current arrangements, but when I was E.D., we did not pay the agents and editors anything. But we did cover the air flight or travel expenses. And the hotel. And their lunch on Saturday, and dinner Friday and Saturday nights. Speakers usually weren’t paid, exceptions being a big name who came in from far away. Each year, WLT’s conference gets bigger, with more speakers, more attendees. That means WLT has to pay for bigger rooms or more rooms for the workshops, a larger room for the Saturday lunch with more waitstaff to serve and clean up. More coffee, juice and pastries for the two mornings and more cookies and drinks for the afternoon break for attendees. More agents mean more attendees equals a bigger room to hold pitch sessions. Bigger conference means more volunteers, who don’t get paid, but may be comped for lunch. Exciting conference with more agents mean more of the Board members expect to have dinner with the agents on Friday evening and to come to the conference, comped. More people, bigger evening receptions with more food, more bar staff and wait persons to be paid, bigger room.

The list goes on and on. Plus WLT, like any organization putting on a conference, aims to make a profit. But wait, you say. WLT is a non-profit. They’re not supposed to make a profit. Au contraire. They are. They have to in order to support all the other programs they do year round, pay staff and operating bills, provide scholarships, etc.

And that’s why conferences cost so much.

But there’s a way to reap some of the benefits of a conference without even going and without paying anything. I’ll talk about that next week.

Friendship Blog Award

Lisa Logan of Writing In My Wildest Dreams awarded me the Friendship Blog Award. Lisa has a great blog. When you click over, you’re taken to a warning of Adult Content. For a long time, I stopped and didn’t go any further. When I finally clicked to enter, I found it not at all “adult.” Rarely is there anything deserving of the warning, so don’t let it stop you from visiting. She’s an expert on Feng Shui and dream analysis. I’ve adopted her as my therapist (=;-O)

About the award:

Blogs that receive the Let’s Be Friends Award are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers. Deliver this award to eight bloggers.

I'd hereby like to deliver this award to the following exceedingly charming, friendly bloggers:

Karen Walker of Karen…following the whispers
Karen is open and always willing to share herself with those of us who stop by.

Stacy S. Jensen of Stacy Writes
Stacy speaks her mind and always entertains.

Lauri Kubuitsile of Thoughts from Botswana
With each post, Lauri takes me to her world which is quite different from mine.

Marvin Wilson of The Old Silly’s Free Spirit Blog
Marvin has probably received about every award there is, but he still deserves an award for friendship, plus he’s still smiling even though his blog got eaten and he had to start over.

Hagelrat of Unbound
Not only is Hagelrat not a rat, she’s a great friend of writers. Check out her blog which is full of book reviews!

Angie Ledbetter of Gumbo Writer
Angie does the unexpected. One day she’s talking about Dr. Phil then the next she’s giving out a recipe for Peach Cobble, complete with pictures, and somehow relating it to writing.

Jane Kennedy Sutton of Jane’s Ride
What’s not to love about someone who, in the same post, can blog about a horror book written entirely on toilet paper and a spray fragrance called Smell of Books that comes in New Book Smell, Scents of Sensibility, Classic Musty, Crunchy Bacon and Eau You Have Cats?

Julie Lomoe of Julie Lomoe’s Musings Mysterioso
If you’re having a bad day, just click over and look at the picture at the top of her blog. It’ll calm you down. Then read a post or two, maybe the one titled, “Norman Mailer Admired My Chest…”

I leave it up to each of these great bloggers to pass on the Let’s Be Friends Award - or not. But I do hope that every person who stops by Straight From Hel today will visit these wonderful people and make some new friends.

Build An Editor

If you could build your own editor, what would you create? I’m asking because I’d like to know what you would want done by a freelance editor.

Are you mostly looking for a line edit? Do you want someone who looks at the overall arc of your book? Time continuity? Plot mishaps?

Do you want someone who makes the changes and sends it back to you? Do you look for someone who will edit and leave the decision of whether to accept or reject those edits up to you? Do you want an editor to comment and tell you why s/he recommends something be changed?

Do you look for an editor who catches small things like two spaces between sentences instead of one? Do you want someone who is rigid and says, never do this? Or would you prefer an editor who says, this is not the way it’s done, but you can still do it your way as long as you’re consistent?

Do you want an editor who will edit the book then get out of your way? Do you prefer an editor who’s available from editing to querying?

What are you looking for when you hire an editor? And, if you say, everything - I want everything - then are you willing to pay for it?

Later this week, I’ll tell you what kind of editing I do.

Has RWA Taken a Wrong Turn?

Deidre Knight, owner of The Knight Agency, wrote a call for change. It’s mostly addressed to the Romance Writers of America. No matter what genre you write, though, her letter is worth reading.

She, along with a lot of writers, feel the RWA has taken a wrong turn by not supporting ebook authors.

RWA’s current stance on e-books is that a publisher must offer at least a $1,000 advance in order to qualify for legitimacy.

You may think that this stance keeps out only those who self-publish, but it affects a lot of writers.

HarperStudio has created an initiative whereby authors will forego advances and traditional royalties in favor of a fifty-fifty profit share. No advance, no returns, and a larger share of royalties… perhaps RWA will soon feel the need to denounce HarperCollins.

Ms. Knight goes point by point, countering RWA.

I say this to counter RWA’s claim that e-publishers do not invest in or take risks on their authors because they don’t pay advances. In short, RWA dismisses e-publishers’ validity, despite the fact that they pay four times as much in royalties, simply based on the timing of their payments….

Meanwhile, let’s talk about RWA’s position that e-published authors who make more than $1,000 in royalties are a rare exception. As an agent, I have seen a fair number of statements for clients writing for Ellora’s Cave and Samhain. The majority of these writers have passed that $1,000 benchmark within the first few months….

Not only did I sell digitally published authors to houses such as Random House, Penguin Putnam and Harlequin, but their e-readership followed them to print, launching them with a huge built in advantage in such a tough market.

These are only snippets of what she said. Be sure to link over to the full article to read all of it.

Visual Writing Prompt: 6-21-09

Today’s prompt is about seeing things in a different light.

Sometimes, in order to see things differently, we have to step outside of ourselves. We’re five-foot-seven, but our character is six-foot-seven. He sees things differently. We have to try to put ourselves at his height and see what he sees.

Sometimes it’s not so much the level at which the character sees, but what her focus would be. I could look at a room and see things like the lamp shade color or the dust on the coffee table or the artful arrangement of the furniture. A child could look at the same room and see the toy tucked under the coffee table.

It could be a matter of perception. One person enters a room and notices the warmth of the red walls. Another perceives the red as cold and foreboding.

As a writer, you have to “be” your characters. You have to know how they think and see what they see. I have a friend who’s a lifelong fan of the Texas Aggies. He hates orange (University of Texas). Even his girlfriend knows not to wear orange or anything even remotely related to the color. (And in case you’re wondering, he’s a sweetheart in all other aspects.)

You also have to consider the time of day. A woman who enters her empty house at three in the afternoon may feel differently than when she enters that empty house at midnight. It’s not just women. We all see things differently in bright light than we do in dark or waning light.

Take this picture as an example. What do you see in this picture I took a couple of years ago while in South Carolina as the sun was setting? What do you think you don’t see that you would see in the bright daylight?

The Tale of the Phone

I had a phone. The same cell phone - for years. It flipped open. Didn’t take pictures. Couldn’t play music. Had no apps that I knew of. It rang and it took voice mail.

Last weekend I couldn’t find it. Looked everywhere. It had disappeared. My son asked if I’d checked my purse. I told him, yes, several times - I had just changed purses so I knew it wasn’t there. So I checked in the couch cushions where I had dumped out the old purse. Nada. Then, with a knot forming in my stomach, I went upstairs to check the purse I had been using before changing. There it was, in its little Velcro side pocket. The side pocket of the purse I had tossed in the washing machine then into the dryer.

Let’s all bow our heads and say goodbye to the cell phone -- dead, but quite clean and shiny.

I now have an iPhone. Do you know why they call it that? Because it’s smart. If it could talk, it would say, I phone. U dumb.

I’ve figured out how to answer and how to make a call. I think I could check voice mail. I managed to get on the net and went to email - made the mistake of clicking yes to “download mail.” I even maneuvered my way and was able to send a text message and learned my fingers are too big. They kept hitting the wrong letters. I could have hand delivered the message to North Carolina in the time it took me to type. But that’s okay. I’ll never find my way back there anyway.

My son is still on the “family plan” with me, so while I was at the phone store, I asked if we needed to up our unlimited call minutes. She checked. We’re on the 700 minutes free plan. Then she checked last month’s bill and found that between the two of us we’d used 657 minutes. 651 of them were his. 6 were mine. Guess to make this iPhone worthwhile I’d better learn how to use the camera.

So, folks, when you’re writing, keep in mind that not everybody instinctively knows how to use an iPhone or and iPod or an iSpy. I think that’s the realm of the young. They’re fearless. You hand them an iPhone and they’ll start poking buttons and changing settings. I, on the other hand, now wish I’d drawn out a map of the buttons I pushed to get to text messaging. I might send another one, just to up my used minutes. I’m shooting for 10 this month.

Meager Book Signings

If you have a book signing/talk at a store and five people show up (a homeless guy, your best friend, and a woman with two kids), is it total waste of your time?

Depends on what you did with the situation. Maybe you drove 200 miles to get to the store and sold only one or two books. That's not fun and you spent more than you made, for sure.
But it's still not necessarily a bust.

Book signings are not just about book sales and/or attendance.

They are also about meeting booksellers and Community Relations Managers (those people who set up such events).

Even if you didn't draw a crowd or sell many books, they may book you again if...you got to know them, helped with the mailing list to promote the event, were polite and pleasant, offered to sign stock, sent promotional materials ahead of time, and let them know you appreciated the work they did on your behalf, no matter the results of those efforts.

Maybe someone in the store will even turn your books face out or write an in-store recommendation and hang it on the shelf in front of your books. Maybe they'll hand-sell it when a customer asks for a recommendation in your genre.

Maybe they'll give you the contact information for a sister store in another city. Or maybe they have recommendations for local places you could contact about teaching a workshop or events where you could sit in on a panel at a conference.

On some events (maybe even a lot) you may lose money and time and patience. But you can still make it a winning situation.

Author Fran Cannon Slayton

Growing up in Virginia, Fran Cannon Slayton was active in sports and band. In college, she kept up with the sports, in addition to majoring in Psychology and Religious Studies. She took a break from school to work on Capitol Hill and get married, then went back to the University of Virginia to get her law degree. After law school Fran became a prosecutor, specializing in child sex abuse cases, and then went on to become a legal publisher and mild-mannered title insurance agency owner. Then she became a mom and settled down - NOT. In addition to writing, she’s a part-time singer/trumpet player in a rock and roll cover band.

Just as she excelled in high school and college, she’s blowing the critics away with her young adult book, When the Whistle Blows. Kirkus not only gave it a starred review, they called it, “An unassuming masterpiece.” Well, you can’t get much better than that, unless you also get a starred review from School Library Journal, which she did. To top it off, this month’s School Library Journal did an article about her and When the Whistle Blows.

I’m so happy to have Fran here today and she’s agreed to answer a few questions of mine - and yours, so post them in the Comments section.

Welcome Fran Cannon Slayton

Helen: How did you go from pogo stick hopper to the Junior Olympics in fencing to working on Capitol Hill to law school to mom/author/singer/trumpet player in a rock and roll band?

Fran: Actually, the answer to this is relatively easy: I followed my heart. I’ve always felt it’s important to do what you are interested in, what you enjoy, and what tugs at your soul. As a second grader, pogo stick hopping tugged at my soul. I wanted to hop 1,000 times without falling, so I kept at it and finally made it!

The same is true with my writing. I try to follow what tugs at my soul - what truly interests me. I don’t look at the market very much. I try to look inside myself instead. I’m happier that way. And I think my work product is better as a result.

Helen: With all that you do, when and how do you find time to write?

Fran: Well, this summer with my five-year-old home I will have very little time for writing. But that’s okay because I’ll be doing a lot of traveling to promote my book. During the school year, I generally try to write for a couple of hours a day. I do better when I have a schedule, but honestly, my schedule varies. Sometimes I’ll write in the morning, sometimes in the afternoon, sometimes in the evening. It’s not a very scientific process for me.

But even when my writing time is truncated, I am always thinking about writing. Stories brew inside me for a long time before they come out. Writing is more than just putting words on paper. It’s also about thinking things through, dreaming, wondering. I have to say, it’s pretty awesome to have job requirements like that!

Helen: You have a beautiful and extensive site with information for readers, teachers, librarians, media and more. How long did it take you to gather all this material together?

Fran: Thank you! I’m proud of my website because I made it myself on my Mac. It took me a long time to put it together. Probably a good 80 hours at least. But it’s a work in progress. I update and rearrange periodically. I have to admit I find web design to be fun, but it takes a lot of time that I don’t always have these days.

Helen: It looks like you have a lot of events planned for When the Whistle Blows. How are you fitting marketing into your already full schedule?

Fran: I planned my book tour very early, which I would recommend as a good strategy to anyone with a book coming out. It allowed me to get events set on my calendar a good number of months ahead of time, and then my schedule just had to adjust around what is already set. It think that made it easier than trying to squeeze things in at the last minute.

The support of my family has also been extremely important. They have been flexible and mobile and willing to do whatever is necessary (within reason) to help me to get my book out there into the world. You only have a first book once in your life. We are all very excited about it and are trying to give it our best shot! And we realize that the scheduling issues won’t last forever, at least with the same amount of intensity. Some people plan their vacations around professional baseball stadiums; this summer we are planning our vacation around independent bookstores!

Helen: Tell us a bit about When the Whistle Blows.

Fran: When the Whistle Blows is a coming of age novel about Jimmy Cannon, a boy who is growing up in the 1940’s as the son of a B&O Railroad foreman. He loves trains and has many adventures as he tries to better understand his cantankerous old man, whom Jimmy discovers is a member of a secret society.

The novel is structured as a series of short stories, each taking place exactly one year apart on All Hallows’ Eve, which is Jimmy’s father’s birthday. It is about father-son relationships, loss, economic change, and the meaning of home. But mostly, it is about a boy’s adventures as he goes from the ages of 12 to 18 in his journey to manhood.

I was inspired to write the book by my father, who has always told me stories about his childhood growing up in Rowlesburg, West Virginia in the 1940s. He really was the son of a B&O Railroad foreman, and many of the adventures that Jimmy has in the book are based on my dad’s true stories.

Thank you so much, Fran.

If you didn’t catch her YouTube video when I posted it earlier this week, drop by YouTube and watch. But before you run off to do that, ask a question or leave a comment for Fran.

A Contest for Memoir Writers

If you write memoir or like to write personal stories, here’s a competition for you.

Story Circle Network hosts the (10th annual) Susan Wittig Albert LifeWriting Competition.

This year's topic focuses on overcoming obstacles

In each life there are obstacles to be overcome. Sometimes we get caught up in the overwhelming fear that we just can't do it. Sometimes we may feel as though we are not equipped to handle what sits before us. But, once the obstacle has been tackled, we can look back and see that we did face that obstacle, we chose our path and we were able to overcome -- sometimes much to our own surprise.

Write about a time when you were faced with what you just knew was too much for you to overcome - a time when you felt totally ill-equipped to handle what life had thrown your way. Write about the ways in which you approached the situation, the fears you had to deal with, the twists and turns that you had to make to come to a resolution of the situation. Write about how and when you first realized that you did, indeed, have what was necessary to overcome your particular hurdle. Write about how doing so changed your life. Be sure to include what you learned about yourself along the way.

You must be a dues-paying member of Story Circle Network to enter. But you can join online, if you’re not.

There is a $20 entry fee.

To be eligible, your entry must be unpublished (we define a "published" piece as one that has been reviewed and accepted by an editor).

Awards: One prize of $75, one prize of $50, and two prizes of $25 each. Winning stories will be published in a special section of the September Story Circle Journal and will be featured on the SCN's award-winning website. Upon the judges' recommendation, other entries may be published in later issues of the Journal and in other SCN print or on-line publications.

Deadline is July 1, 2009

When the Whistle Blows

Fran Cannon Slayton is the author of the week here on Straight From Hel. On Thursday, she’ll be stopping by for a Q&A - and she’ll also be featured in my newsletter for writers, Doing It Write.

Today, I’m introducing you to her.

Fran, who grew up in Virginia, might be called an “over achiever.” In high school, she lettered in four varsity sports - soccer, basketball, softball and field hockey. In college, she went to the Junior Olympics in fencing and still managed to graduate Phi Beta Kappa with a double distinguished major in Psychology and Religious Studies. After marrying her college sweetheart, she went to law school at her alma mater, the University of Virginia. There, she played on six different softball teams in one semester.

Oh, in case you forgot in the midst of all that, she’s a published author who’s getting rave reviews for her book, When the Whistle Blows.

Here’s the STARRED Review from School Library Journal:
Gr 6-10–Linked stories set on seven consecutive All Hallows’ Eves, from 1943 through 1949, relate Jimmy Cannon’s teenage years in Rowlesburg, WV. Central to his story are his two older brothers, his friends, and especially his father, a formidable figure in a long succession of Cannon men who have worked for the B&O railroad. Why then, does Dad insist that Jimmy must not follow in his own footsteps? And what is his father’s role in the secretive and mysterious “Society” of local men? This is nostalgia done right, as Jimmy describes the high jinks, the championship football game, the risks and rewards of his part-time job, and other significant events that shape his love for his small hometown at a time and place when the railroad was the town. Telling details and gentle humor help set the scene and reveal a great deal about these characters and their lives. The nature, membership, and duties of “The Society” slowly come to the fore as events transpire that sharpen Jimmy’s perceptions and provide him with the insights to consider the possibility of an unknown and very different future than the one he had always imagined. A polished paean to a bygone time and place.–Joel Shoemaker, South East Junior High School, Iowa City, IA

Watch this video of Fran talking about When the Whistle Blows, then be sure to come back this Thursday to read her answers to my grilling, er, questions.

Free Virtual Tour

A friend of mine, Stephanie Barko, who is a literary publicist, is giving away a free virtual tour. She specializes in books having to do with the American West, but she’s opening this up to nonfiction and historical fiction both.

Here’s what she says:

Win a FREE VIRTUAL TOUR for your latest nonfiction or historical fiction title.
Eligible titles will have release dates between 9/15/08 & 7/15/09 and be available in print format.

To enter, email below information to
steffercat@austin.rr.com
no later than 7/15/09:

- Author’s name, address, phone # & URL
- Book’s title, release date, genre, publisher, editor, # pages, & price/format
- Name of site or newsletter from which you learned of this contest

Winner will be notified on 7/16/09 by
Stephanie Barko, Literary Publicist.
www.authorsassistant.com/Barko.htm

Winning title will be toured Fall ’09.
Entrant information will not be sold or shared.

So, if you fit the guidelines and are interested in having a professional work with you on a virtual book tour, here’s your chance.

Visual Writing Prompt: 6-14-09

Let’s say you were writing a book about Texas or New Mexico or one of those hot desert states in the southwest. Well, let’s stop right there and say neither Texas nor New Mexico is all hot and desert-y. But I digress.

You’re writing a scene set in a hot part of Texas, which, admittedly, is most of the state. The sun is rising. Your character is looking into the sun over the tops of cacti and succulents.

What does your character see? Envision it in your head. Does he see a prickly pear cactus, hundreds of needles sticking up like a green porcupine? Does she see a tall succulent, almost the size of a tree? What is its trunk like? Smooth, criss-crossed? Does it have leaves like a palm tree? Or spine needles like a cactus?

In a way, all of this is a trick. If your character is looking into the sun, he’s not gonna be able to see much detail of anything. Here is the view I have from my office window each morning as the sun rises.


On the other hand, it’s not a trick at all. It’s a reminder that the details are important. Even if the main detail is the lack of details in what the character can see.

Koontz Unveiled

I’m not a rabid Dean Koontz fan, but I’ve read him. I remember years ago, dissecting one of his books so I could see how he put it together. But until I read this article in USA Today, I’d not heard much about his life.

The article talks about his childhood, but if you want to know the full story, he’s come out with a nonfiction book called A Big Little Life that tells the tale of his “difficult, impoverished childhood.” That’s only one of three books he has coming out this summer. The man is a writing whiz.

His book that is just out, Relentless, sounds like a fun, possibly scary for writers, read:

… Relentless, a thrill-a-minute nail-biter about a sociopathic book critic who's trying to kill a best-selling author (Bantam).

A Koontz stat I didn’t know is:

In his 40-year career he has sold as many novels as J.K. Rowling, the world's wealthiest author: an astounding 400 million worldwide. And that number, says publisher Bantam, is growing by 17% a year.

Those figures seem even more astounding when you consider Koontz is not big on promotion for his books:

"The whole American celebrity fascination kind of creeps me out," says Koontz, who has never done a national book tour, hasn't done a TV interview since the 1990s and has done few book signings in the past few decades.”

It’s fun to read about his new house - it’s 24,000 square feet. It’s also nice to read that he has donated millions to CCI - Canine Companions for Independence.

If you want to read about a best-selling author who doesn’t know how to do email, hasn’t flown in 30 years, sends 4,000 handwritten letters to fans each year, and tries to read every one of the approximately 20,000 fan letters he receives annually, then check out the USA Today article.

Is Australia the Future?

If you’re older than 20, you probably remember the war of music downloaders vs. the music artists. Writers are now having problems with digital books -- both in getting their books sold in that form and in keeping their books from being copied and given away or sold without any of the money coming back to the author.

Australia seems to be experiencing big problems in this area. The Sydney Morning Herald recently had an article called “Authors Ready to Throw the Book at Online Pirates.”

Feel like reading Australian author Colleen McCullough's Thorn Birds, but don't want to pay for a copy?

Then just hop onto a site like Wattpad.com and the book is available free as an electronic download. While this might be a bonus for readers, it is a disaster for authors, who get no royalties from the downloads.”

The article goes into the recent battle between Google, who wants to digitize every book, and authors, who want to be paid for their work.

Under the settlement Google agreed to establish an independent "Book Rights Registry" which will provide revenue from sales and advertising to authors and publishers who agree to digitise their books. Publishers and authors are now in the process of opting in or out of the Google settlement.

The executive director of the Australian Society of Authors, Jeremy Fisher, said the Google settlement was an important acknowledgement that authors owned the copyright. But there is still seething resentment about the way Google has gone about digitising copyright material without permission.

There’s also talk about Scribd, a start-up that started as a document-sharing website and has morphed into a vanity publisher.

Until now it has been the most popular of document-sharing sites, allowing authors to upload chapters of their books, power points or research reports, in the same way as people can upload video to YouTube.

But it now plans to set up a new store to allow authors to publish their works and set their own price, in an arrangement that will allow authors to keep 80 per cent of the revenue.

My guess is that most authors would welcome the 80% revenue of Scribd and the 60% of Google. But I don’t know of any authors willing to have their work given away for free.

A Shark in my Mailbox

Last night I went to the mailbox (I go at night as I walk the dog) and found a book inside. I hadn’t ordered a book.

But I got one. From Robert Fate, author of the Baby Shark series.

You gotta admire a guy who’ll send an Internet friend an ARC of his latest book when he knows that person is not a professional reviewer. She’s just a reader who really loves Baby Shark (and for all you men out there, my husband likes the series as much as I do).

This is the fourth in the series. The other titles are:
Baby Shark
Baby Shark’s Beaumont Blues
Baby Shark’s High Plains Redemption
And now: Baby Shark’s Jugglers at the Border

Here’s the back cover blurb:

October 1958 -- When Otis Millett’s estranged wife, Dixie Logan aka The Dallas Firecracker, as she was known on the Texas striptease circuit, is murdered, it spurs a manhunt that pairs Kristin and Otis with Lt. Carl Lynch, a straight-arrow homicide detective with the Fort Worth PD.

This blending of by-the-book and fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants investigative styles brings Kristin way too close to a ruthless cop-killing gang of bank robbers and their boss, a dreamy maniac who lives with his mother and hears voices.

The question that endangers Kristin’s life and leads to a chase from Fort Worth to New Mexico is where did Dixie hide the bank heist loot?

Hold on tight -- once again bad men learn too late they should have taken Baby Shark seriously.

I’ll post a review of Baby Shark’s Jugglers at the Border when I finish reading it. But to hold you until then (and maybe even entice you to order Fate’s books), here’s a few reviews the Baby Shark series has received -- and these are from reviewers who know a good book when they read one:

“Pool shark-turned-PI Kristin Van Dijk, could give Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer a run for his money in the toughness department.”
-- Publishers Weekly

“Love her or hate her, everyone knows Baby Shark is lethal. A highly diverting series.
-- Kirkus - Starred Review

“For those who love the no-frills, first person, hard-boiled style, this series is a delight.”
-- Elliott Swanson - Booklist

Here’s what I say: Thank you Bob.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, Baby Shark is calling my name.

Why Write Books

“Why Write Books” is the title of a Forbes article by Elisabeth Eaves. The article is fairly long, but well worth reading. Eaves sums up the recent New York Book Expo America, as well as the current publishing industry. She doesn’t believe the publishing industry is dying, but she does admit it’s changing.

Publishers will automatically make new books available in a digital format, suitable for the Kindle or other e-readers--though mid-list authors may have to ask, or arm wrestle, publishers into digitizing their older books.

She does, however, admit the industry has problems.

Meanwhile publishing, for better or worse, has had no discernible system beyond trying to do what has worked before. Spooky Dracula novel sold well last year? Throw a million-dollar advance at the author of a spooky gargoyle novel this year. Books about pets and atheism are flying off the shelves? Get one about atheistic pets.

Her conclusion?

In short, book-writing is a worse-than-ever means to a livelihood, and mass-market renown is disappearing as a concept, fractioning into a million niches. Ultimately the only good reason to write books remains what it probably always was: The compulsion to try to entertain, persuade or make meaning is irresistible, and the process absorbs you like nothing else. If it doesn't, there's no reason to bother.

A Book Reviewer Rants

Instead of “rants,” I was gonna use the *b* word, but didn’t want a parental warning slapped on Straight From Hel. Besides, what this book reviewer does is instructive.

Clay Kallam of the Mercury News goes off about how readers can’t judge a book by its cost and how publishers send ARCs to the wrong reviewers. The article is a rather fun read.

Here’s a bit about his complaint that some series books aren’t worth the price or the author’s advance:

This month's example is "The Dark Volume" (Bantam, $26, 508 pages), the next installment in Gordon Dahlquist's "The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters" series. But for that $26, readers don't get any sort of resolution, and in fact, in the grand tradition of Robert Jordan, at the end of the 508 turgid pages, not much has happened at all. Sure, some minor characters bit the dust, and Dahlquist delivered lots of sound and fury, but a reader who skipped this one entirely (after reading the first effort, which was one book in hardback and two in softcover) would be able to jump right into the next volume without need of a synopsis.

Even worse, there might not even be a next volume …

For this, Dahlquist got $2 million?

And here’s a taste of his complaints about the books he’s sent to review:

I'm not claiming that book reviewers have a huge impact on sales, but given the limited means by which publishers can reach readers, it would seem to me that spending a couple minutes making sure the right books went to the right reviewers would make sense. But instead, I get sent loads of books about vampires (despite informing publicists I have no interest in bloodsucking immortals) and lots of horror (which is not now and has never been science fiction or fantasy).

It’s an interesting article. Read it to find out exactly what Kallam thinks is wrong with both The Dark Volume and The Revolution Business.

That Yellow Book

This is probably only peripherally related to books, but it caught my eye. That yellow book most of us grew up with, the Yellow Pages, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

The Denver Business Journal actually started off their article about this with:

CEO Dave Swanson says that no one could have foreseen the series of events that led to the tattered Yellow Pages publisher filing Friday for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection …

Seriously? No one? That’s because they didn’t talk to me. I could’ve told them.

I haven’t opened a Yellow Pages in years. Shoot, I don’t think I’ve opened the white pages in over a year.

I, like umpteen million other people, use the Internet.

You’d think Swanson might have suspected something.

… the company has been hit with double-digit drops in advertising revenue caused by Internet competition and the recession.

“I wish it would have turned out differently,” Swanson said. “No one could have put this into their economic modeling.”

No one? Seriously?

How about you? Could you have predicted this?

Visual Writing Prompt 6-7-09

When you write, keep perspective in mind. Specifically, I’m thinking of your characters’ perspectives.

At 5’9”, I’m the shortest in my family. Everyone is taller. I call on one of them to get things off the top shelf or to reach into the far recesses of a cabinet. They see things I can’t (without a stool).

Our dog is small. She’s so old now, she doesn’t see much. But when she did, she saw primarily ankles and dirt on the floor.

Someone who’s very tall sees the tops of people’s heads.

A child sees belly buttons and toys on low shelves.

Someone in a wheelchair sees curbs and gravel walkways instead of paved ones. Curbs and walkways that the rest of us traverse without a second thought.

Give the perspectives of your characters some thought. What would they see? What would they notice? What would they miss?

Here’s a reminder of perspective.

Wait a Minute!

I read the following press release in Entertainment Weekly yesterday and closed my hanging jaw long enough to say, “Wait a minute.”

Rubina Ali, who played the youngest Latika in Slumdog Millionaire, will be publishing a book about her life, according to the AP. Called Slumgirl Dreaming: My Journey to the Stars, the book will be published on July 16th by Transworld Publishers in Britain and Random House Children's Books in the U.S. It will tell the story of the 9-year-old's life in the Mumbai slum in which she has spent her life and her trip to the Oscars this year. All royalties will go to Ali and the French medical-aid charity, Medecins du Monde.

First of all, she’s 9, can probably barely write. Nine puts her around third grade. Apparently she not only writes, she can write quickly since it’s coming out next month.

Second of all, she’s only 9. How much of a life story does she have to tell?

Third of all, she was found in the slums of Mumbai, but is giving some of the royalties to a charity? I mean, that’s generous, but my guess is she and her family could use every penny of the royalties.

Seriously, though, no matter what the PR piece says, she’s not writing this book herself. So who is? Will it be a children’s book? Will it have an adult’s voice since an adult is most likely writing it?

But wait! There’s an answer to my question. Not only can Rubina write. She can write for children and for adults.

Bookseller reported:

Slumgirl Dreaming: My Journey to the Stars will be published simultaneously in adult and children's editions …

I think it’s clear that someone else is writing the book. That’s not a big deal. She’s nine, after all. But why does no one say that? Why isn’t the actual writer getting any credit? Are the publishers thinking people will think she took up a red crayon and penned her life story? Do they think her story will mean less if they admit there was a ghost writer or a writer for hire?

Slower Than a Turtle

Do you ever feel like you’re slower than a turtle to catch onto things? I had that feeling yesterday.

I’m working on the third non-fiction book for TSTC Publishing so I do a lot of online research. I’m also a book consultant so I do a lot of online research on agents and publishers - and looking up of terms or things that writers use in their manuscripts. I also edit for companies, which can mean more online research. And I’ve taken on creating and maintaining a third website.

In other words, I do a lot of googling. I do general google research. I google publishing news through the “news” search option on Google.

Yesterday was a duh moment. I discovered Google has the option of searching books.

Books.

There are so many ways to search - News, Images, Web, Maps, Shopping… But I found if I click “more,” there are even more ways to search -- Group, Scholar, Finance, Blogs …. and Books.

Wow. You can search for more than just a particular author. Enter a search term and see what you come up with.

Have you clicked on the “more” to see what other searches you can do via Google?

Stephanie Dickison: A Lesson in Writing

Stephanie Dickison wears so many hats, she should open her own haberdashery. She’s published hundreds of non-fiction pieces, including articles, interviews, essays, columns, profiles, features and reviews. As a journalist, essayist and cultural critic, she’s written numerous articles for magazines and newspapers. She’s a restaurant and food critic, as well as Co-Editor of Pan Magazine, and the new columnist for The Writer Magazine. She’s contributed essays to many books, including Facts on File Companion to the American Novel and Compendium of 20th Century Novelists and Novels. And to top that off, her book about her career as pop culture, book, music and restaurant critic is now available from ECW Press. You can find The 30-Second Commute: A Non Fiction Comedy About Writing and Working From Home at bookstores or on Amazon.

While all that should be enough to do for three people, it wasn’t enough for Stephanie. She’s here today to tell us what threw her for a loop - so much so that she changed her writing life.

Welcome Stephanie Dickison!

Knocked Off My Feet: A Lesson in Writing
Copyright (c) Stephanie Dickison 2008

A couple of weeks ago, I found out I didn't get into a writers-editors conference I had applied for.

It wasn't due to the fact it was full, but because I wasn't qualified enough.

Whoa.

As a writer and journalist, I have had my fair share of blows, knocks, criticisms and flat out complaints over the last decade, but I certainly didn't expect this.

It turns out that I don't have enough "national" clips, so the people who are already in national magazines are getting the access to the people behind the magazines, becoming a face that the editor can now recognize and thus getting more and more work, while I continue to query blindly.

All the work I had done in this last year especially, never mind the decade before it - celebrity interviews and cover stories, feature articles on a variety of topics and a book coming out about my career as a pop culture, book, music and restaurant critic - apparently, it wasn't enough.

I couldn't have foreseen how it would affect me.

Normally I bounce back fairly quickly from such losses, but this really got to me. While other journalists and writers I knew and followed were getting feature stories for thousands of dollars, I was struggling to hang out to the few assignments I had and trying to break into markets outside of my reach – and country.

Two weeks later, I found myself getting up early and not turning off my laptop until just this side of midnight. I spent all day querying and writing with fierceness that I hadn't felt before. I was submitting to magazines that I had previously left alone. Suddenly my apparent lack of experience, skills and/or knowledge in any department or topic was left behind in my sheer determination to keep my head down and forge ahead of this setback.

I felt like if I gave up now, what have I been doing with the last 10 years of my life? What would I do instead?

I have always written for the love, not the money, which is why I have been able to write all of these years – I took all of those piddly assignments that “serious” writers talk of not being worth their time, not paying enough, not being “big enough.”

Funny, because now I have enough material for a book and have been a pop culture, book, music and restaurant critic, not to mention a lifestyle and pop culture writer for the past decade. I have written for hundreds of magazines, newspapers, journals and websites and contributed to several nonfiction books and encyclopedias. I write in all areas of travel, home, food, beauty, fashion, technology design and style and really enjoy the research and learning that goes into writing each piece.

It’s now 4 weeks after I was told I wasn’t good enough or qualified enough to go to the conference. I am using the money originally allotted for the conference for a 3-day trip to New York City, my favourite city in the world. This is all the vacation I can afford, so I’m going to soak up every minute of it!

In the meantime, I have been querying and writing like crazy. So much so, that for the first time in my career, I have had daily deadlines for a week at a time, and recently evenly hourly deadlines. I wasn’t sure I could keep up the pace, but I have discovered that I have stamina when it comes to writing – If you need it in an hour, I can get it to you in an hour. I don’t know how I do it, even after having done it. I just will it and type until the time runs out.

What this has proven to me is that I can get new work (for awhile there, I was feeling like I was stagnating, doing the same ol’ work). And I can do a lot of it. More than I ever thought was humanly possible.

I know that some people like working in many drafts, crafting sentences and really pondering over their subjects. Me, I like to get right into it and get it out polished and ready, but quickly, like a newspaper reporter.

And in the last couple of weeks, that has come in handy. I did 11 feature articles in 10 days for one magazine, while juggling 6 assignments for other magazines.

I got accepted to be a contributing writer with one place while being asked to be a columnist at another. I got into 6 new (for me) magazines in a month and have applied to about 40 more.

I may have been told I wasn’t enough by the conference folks, but I feel like by this time next year, they’d have to be crazy not to accept me.

And for me, that’s saying a lot.

Thank you, Stephanie.

You can catch Stephanie on her blog, Got The Knack, where she reviews fun stuff. Samples of her writing can be found on her website. And remember to look for her new book, The 30-Second Commute: A Non Fiction Comedy About Writing and Working From Home.

But before you link away, leave a comment or question for Stephanie.

IPPY Awards

The 2009 IPPY Awards have been announced. The IPPY Awards are given out by the Independent Publishing Industry.

For 26 years our mission at Independent Publisher has been to recognize and encourage the work of publishers who exhibit the courage and creativity necessary to take chances, break new ground, and bring about change, not only to the world of publishing, but to our society. These medalists were chosen from our regular entries for exemplifying this daring spirit.

There are 12 awards in all. I’ve listed 7 here:

Independent Spirit Award:
Gold: America according to Connor Gifford, by Connor Gifford and Victoria Harris (Hargrave Press)

Independent Voice Award:
Gold: Lust and Cashmere, by A.E. Simns (The Green Lantern Press)

Most Original Concept:
Gold: The Oxford Project, photographs by Peter Feldstein; text by Stephen G. Bloom (Welcome Books)
Silver: Attachments, by Anne-Marie Cottenet Dannenberg (Aava Books Co.)

Most Outstanding Design:
Gold: Paris Icons, by Leslie J. Little; photography by James P. Scholz; design and typography by Justine Tucker Art and Design (Icon Images)
Silver: The Chinese Dream: A Society Under Construction, by Neville Mars and Adrian Hornsby (010 Publishers)

Story Teller of the Year:
Gold: Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas, for Flight of the Hummingbird: A Parable for the Environment, by Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas with Wangari Maathai and His Holiness the Dalai Lama (Greystone Books)
Silver: Franklin A. (Bull Tail) Scout, for Grandfather’s Bedtime Stories: Three Traditional Sioux Folktales, by Franklin A. (Bull Tail) Scout; illustrated by Jim Yellowhawk (Peg Sperlich Publishing)

Most Inspirational to Youth:
Gold: Another Sad Mad Glad Book, by Chuck Stump & Jim Strawn (Four Dolphins)
Silver: Have You Ever Noticed? An A-Z Look at Feelings and Actions, by Ray Ali and Rudy Ambtman with Elaine Ali and Zobida Ambtman

Most Life-Changing:
Gold: Hands At Work - Portraits & Profiles of People Who Work with Their Hands, photography by Summer Moon Scriver; stories by Iris Graville (Heron Moon Press)

Although not an IPPY winner (yet), author Stephanie Dickison will be here tomorrow to talk about happened in her life that changed her and charged her up - how she took a rejection and turned it into a published book. Hope you’ll stop by and read her story and ask questions.

He Wanted to Do What?

The Twitter world was agog with BEA, as in BookExpo America. Tweeters in attendance kept the Internet world up on what was going on, who was being seen, and what was being said. The media, both last week and over the weekend, reported on the panels and what the publishers were saying and doing. Apparently one big thread throughout the Expo was e-books. The New York Times reported:

There were the panels: “Giving It Away: When Free eBooks Make Sense and When They Don’t,” “Red Hot Readers: Market Adoption of Mobile eReading Devices” and “Jumping Off a Cliff: How Publishers Can Succeed Online Where Others Failed.”

In a way, it seems the publishing world is unsure how to feel about ebooks. Publishers originally weren’t too happy about them, and, it would seem, some still aren’t.

Tina Brown … kick-started a discussion with the chief executives of four New York publishing houses by asking if they were shocked when Amazon.com began charging $9.99 for e-books — “that paltry, pitiful sum.”

Authors seem to want to be in ebook form, although most seem to still covet being in print also.

So far e-books represent 1 to 3 percent of total book sales. But they make up the fastest growing part of the industry, and publishers, authors and booksellers have no idea just how big they will become and how they might affect profits and reading habits in the future.

It would appear that a few authors are dead set against ebooks and ereaders.

At a panel of authors speaking mainly to independent booksellers, Sherman Alexie, the National Book Award-winning author of “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian,” said he refused to allow his novels to be made available in digital form. He called the expensive reading devices “elitist” and declared that when he saw a woman sitting on the plane with a Kindle on his flight to New York, “I wanted to hit her.”

He wanted to hit her? Because she was reading a book on her Kindle?

Seriously?

Don’t AssUMe

On Saturday, I did a post on Using Research in Your Book. That post focused on not dumping all your research in the book, no matter how long it took you to do or how much space you used up on your computer storing it all. Especially if that book is fiction.

Today, I’m telling you to do your research. Clearly, if you’re writing about a process or equipment you know nothing about, you’re going to have to research. We’re not all born with a knowledge of guns and their kickback or how to use them. Some of us have never been in a strip club. Some have never ridden in a subway. And, yet, one or more of those things (and others) may be used or done by a character. So you have to research.

Sometimes you even have to research things you know. Or think you know. It’s better not to assume you know.

Here’s an example. From me. It’s something I knew. I did not have to research my theory because I knew it.

My husband and I went to the Dallas area to visit a friend (Bobby). We stayed at his house. In the morning, he and my husband went to play golf (on the course where said friend lives). I slept in. (Nice.) When I got up, I moseyed into the kitchen and turned on the coffee pot. Then I stood in the kitchen, sipped coffee, and watched the golfers on the green at the back of the house. Some were clearly good golfers. Some not, but no one hooked the ball through the window. (Also nice.) I wondered whether I’d spot my husband and Bobby. Then, lo and behold, I did. There they were, on the green, with two other golfers. Bobby turned and waved at me and motioned for me to come out.

Now, that’s not the end of my story, but it’s enough to tell you that I should have done some research. I had made an assumption. A wrong assumption.

I AssUMed that since the golfers were outside in the bright sunlight and I was in the darkened kitchen, I could see them and they could not see me. I AssUMed wrong.

Not only was I wrong, I was in my pajama shirt. Cup halfway to my mouth. Quietly backing up behind a kitchen counter.

Sometimes even what you know needs to be verified.