Higher Royalties on Kindle

Amazon is the leading seller of e-books and it’s hoping to make sure no one else catches up. Last week, Amazon made two announcements. One, it would offer higher royalty payments for authors who use the Kindle platform to publish, and two, it’s releasing new software that lets electronic game developers format their latest creation for sale on the Kindle platform.

Their new royalty structure goes into effect on June 30. According to Internet Retailer, this new structure:

will pay authors a commission of 70% of a book’s list price, minus the net delivery cost. Amazon says authors typically get a 25% commission today on e-books from major publishers. Delivery costs will be based on file size and priced at 15 cents per megabyte...

According to Amazon:

“On an $8.99 book an author could make $3.15 on the standard option and $6.25 with the new 70% option.” The new royalty schedule is double Amazon’s current royalty rate of 35%...

There are a few stipulations.

To qualify for the 70% royalty, an author must price an e-book between $2.99 and $9.99 and the list price must be at least 20% below the lowest list price for a paper copy of the book. The title must also be available for sale in all geographic areas where the author or publisher has rights, Amazon says.

Amazon hopes the move will mean they capture a bigger share of the market. This move isn’t altruistic, but it does mean more profit for authors. From a writer’s POV, that’s a good thing.

Promises to Keep by D.L. Larson

This week I finished reading Promises to Keep, D.L. Larson’s second in her historical series centered around members of the Douglas family. Midwest Book Review called Promises to Keep an “Excellent read!”

I actually read the series out of order. I first read the second book in the series, Promises My Love. Then I read Promises to Keep. I enjoyed both and you could read them out of order, as I did, without feeling discombobulated. I would recommend you read them in order, though, since the two books have a good flow from one to the other.

In Promises to Keep, Larson interweaves two families. Annie Douglas struggles to raise her children while trying to hold onto her marriage to Joe who spends way too much time at the saloon gambling. Joe’s sister, Christine, is married to Francis Frailey. They have the picture-perfect marriage with a son and a beautiful house. But Francis has dark secrets that could destroy their love.

The underlying question is, can love really conquer all or are some problems so big and deepset that they can’t overcome?

Promises to Keep will draw you into the lives and emotions of these two families. Larson doesn’t back off of showing you the darkness that can haunt a child long into adulthood. She can also draw you into the goodness in a character shunned by proper society. She makes you care about these people.

I enjoyed Promises to Keep and would recommend it, especially if you like historical fiction with strong characters.
~~~
FTC Disclaimer:
Since I’m not a professional reviewer, I consider this a recommendation. I liked the book. If someone from the FTC reads this post and decides to buy the book, I think they’ll like it, too. I was not paid to do the recommendation. The author did not ask me to write a review. The only thing she wrote when she autographed the book was “Enjoy!” … which I did.

A Tale of Two Authors

Author Matilda Butler is here today to take us along on the journey of two authors, each wanting to follow a different publishing path. She starts the tale here with some informative statistics and the 6 paths to publication. Then she links you to Part 2 of this great post.

Matilda is the co-author of Rosie’s Daughters: The “First Woman To” Generation Tells Its Story. She’s also a writing coach and helps women tell their life stories in her classes on women’s memoir writing. She has published more than 50 articles about women, contributed chapters to published books about women in education and work, co-authored the award-winning book Women and the Mass Media and co-edited the book Knowledge Utilization Systems.

Welcome, Matilda.

A Tale of Two Authors, Part 1

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times; it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness; it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity; it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness; it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair; we had everything before us, we had nothing before us...”

Ask authors and most would agree that Charles Dickens’ words could just as well characterize the Publishing Revolution as the French Revolution. Even “Off with their heads!” as pronounced by the Queen in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is only slightly too strong of a characterization of today’s publishing environment.

Publishing Revolution in Progress.

Yes, writing is only one of the concerns of authors. Publishing is the other major issue whether this means getting a few copies for family and friends or reaching the bestseller list. If you’ve been following Straight from Hel this week, you already know that Helen Ginger is moderating a publishing panel at Story Circle Network’s Stories from the Heart Conference in Austin next week, February 5 - February 7. I hope many reading this blog are getting ready to pack their bags and head to Texas. If you haven’t signed up, there’s still time. But whether you are or aren’t, if you’re a writer you’re concerned about the state of publishing. And yes, sometimes publishing seems like it is its own nation-state, definitely a foreign country to many.

I’m fortunate to be on Helen’s panel, and she asked the panelists to write a guest blog on her site to discuss some of the publishing issues as we see them. I’m doubly honored.

I thought one way to approach this topic of Getting Published would be to look at two authors to see how they are reacting to this Publishing Revolution because just like the French Revolution, it’s possible to lose your head if you don’t act wisely.

But first, let’s do a round up of a few recent events and statistics. I’ll list the item, and you decide whether this is good news (the best of times) or bad news (the worse of times):

1. There are almost 200,000 new book titles published each year.

2. 80 percent of all books sales flow through the coffers of just five companies -- Random House, Time Warner, Disney, Viacom/CBS and Rupert Murdock’s News.

3. The six biggest publishing conglomerates are: Random House, Penguin Putnam, HarperCollins, Holtzbrinck, Time Warner, Simon & Schuster.

4. In November of last year, book sales increased by 10.9 percent and were up almost 5 percent for the year.

5. Between 8000 and 11,000 new publishing companies are created each year.

6. 27 percent of Americans didn’t read a book (2007). [So much for thinking “everyone” wants to read my book.]

7. 913 popular, copyrighted books were illegally downloaded 9 million times during the final months of 2009.

8. Trade e-book sales were up almost 200 percent between November 2008 and November 2009 (approximately $18 million for November 2009).

9. The self-publishing industry is estimated to grow about 30 percent per year.

10. AuthorHouse published approximately 1 of every 20 new US books in 2008.

Wow. That’s a lot to take in. What does all this mean? Like everyone else, I’m not sure. I do know that the publishing industry is in a turmoil right now. Established publishers are closing their doors or merging at the same time that new publishing companies are being founded. Bricks and mortar bookstores are going out the business at the same time that Internet book sales are soaring. Paper costs as well as shipping costs are soaring at the same time that electronic delivery of digital books is coming into its own.

Publishing Options.

What’s an author to do? This is a big topic and one that Kendra Bonnett and I will be exploring all year in our weekly blogs about Book Business over on our Women’s Memoirs website. In this post, I want to explore the various options open to an author and consider the tale of two authors.

Here’s my list of six options. Someone else will have a slightly different list, but I hope these are useful distinctions:

1. Traditionally, authors have looked toward the big corporate publishers. There was a time when you could meet an editor at one of these houses or even send a book proposal that would be reviewed. That was before you “had to have an agent” to represent you. Many of these big publishers have now been gobbled up by even larger corporations. It’s getting harder to get in the door, but not impossible. Because these companies need to keep an eye on the bottom line, they are certainly less likely to take a new untested author unless she brings something special. These days that frequently means more than a strong manuscript. It also means an audience, a following that will buy your book.

2. Just down in size are medium-sized independent publishers. This is the group I used to know quit well. I say “used to know” because many of them are gone. It’s hard to even find their ghosts on the Internet. Because I had good relationships with several of these publishers, I went looking for them a few years ago. I wanted to see if they’d be interested in a book idea I had. They are just gone with no trace left behind. There continue to be some of of these medium-sized independents, but many were bought out when publishing had its own bubble and everyone wanted to buy publishers.

3. Academic publishers are another avenue for writers. They have good credentials and are able to get to certain markets. They are usually wonderful to work with. Unfortunately, their business model means they will price your book too high for the typical reader.

4. Small independent publishers are gaining in stature. Because they are small, they take an active interest in their authors. Many of these are regional or focus on a specific niche. If you can find the right one, and there are many more “right” ones in this pond than in the other publishing ponds, you are likely to develop a good relationship and be pleased with the outcome. Don’t look for big advances although some offer small ones. You’ll still need to bring your willingness to market your book. We always recommend that authors explore the option of these smaller independent publishers before they consider self-publishing.

5. Self-Publishing is an option that doesn’t require an agent, doesn’t require much up-front money, but does require due-diligence. There are a number of companies in this category, and some have strong track records while others do not. Some make it easy to have your book on Amazon at a discounted price while others don’t. Some offer flexibility in the price you charge while others don’t. If you want your book out sooner, if you know your marketplace, if you want control over the look of your book, then you may find this to be a good option. There is absolutely nothing wrong or inferior with this option. We only recommend exploring the smaller independents first because they usually have more to offer you -- an existing catalog, a customer base, an active website for promoting your book, suggestions for how you can market your book, etc.

6. Becoming your own publisher. This is the ultimate in self-publishing and not for everyone. You can set up your own publishing company for your own book or books. You could even join with several other interested authors and create a single publishing company that will bring out all your books. This means you need to be willing to learn the basics of publishing -- buying your own ISBNs, finding a print-on-demand company (POD) that will print your books even one at a time or in small numbers, determining distribution channels, etc. These can all be learned. The Internet is a wonderful source of information and practical advice. Not for the faint of heart, but this option assures complete control and the possibility of the greatest revenue. Remember, I said “possibility.”

A Tale of Two Authors.

Okay. Where are we? We have a publishing revolution afoot. We have more options for authors than ever before. What is realistic to expect, and what’s likely to happen? Kendra and I provide coaching to authors and talk with even more authors. Needless to say, we’ve heard a lot of stories. To conclude this post, I’m going to aggregate some of the stories we know into two author profiles. Then, if you’d like to follow me over to our Women’s Memoirs website, I’ll share a real-life tale of two authors. One squanders her opportunities while the other is making good choices and still learning.

Composite Author #1: Let’s call her Abigail. Her story is short and not-so-sweet. She met with me while I was serving on the Ask-A-Pro session at a writers’ conference. She wanted my advice on how to find a publisher. I started by asking her to describe the audience for her book. She replied, “Everyone.” I said, “No, really. Who do you see reading your book? Who will find it of interest?” She repeated, “Everyone.” I said, “Do you mean six year olds? Men in their nineties?” Finally, we worked out a likely target audience for her memoir. Then I began to talk about the realities of publishing in order to determine what types of marketing she was willing to do. She said, “I don’t want to do anything. I want a publisher to do it all. I’ve done my part. I wrote it.”

Well, you get the point. To the best of my knowledge she has never gotten her book published. If you were a publisher would you want to take on her book?

Composite Author #2: We’ll call her Joanne. She began writing her memoir three years ago. At first, she worked on her own, but then joined a writing group. Sharing exposed her to new ideas about her writing and helped her start to think about the readers for her book. At the suggestion of one of the group’s members, she started a blog. The blog gives Joanne an opportunity to relate some of her stories. She has many and can’t possibly put them all in the book. She considers these her out takes and gladly shares them. In the process, she’s building an audience for her writing. It is still small, but it is a start. She’s now on FaceBook and has just converted from a personal page to a professional page. In the future, this means she can be more open about promoting her book. It’s on her list to begin building a presence on Twitter. She has limited time for social networking so she’s trying to do a good job with a few rather than spreading herself too thin. Her book? It’s almost finished. She is currently looking for an editor in order to give it the final polish it needs. During that time, she’ll devote more energy to her blogging and to building an audience. She’s realistic about how much marketing she’ll need to do. She knows she won’t make much money, but thinks she can build a place for her book so that she’ll have success.

Conclusion. I started with a Tale of Two Cities and Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. The first of these depicts the power of the peasants and the second suggests the power of the monarchy. As we begin the second decade of the new millennium, we see evidence of both of these models. Authors have more power in the form of more options today than we have ever had. Even more options are on their way, including multimedia books for Apple’s just announced iPad that will generate opportunities for new creativity and new business models. At the same time, a few publishers still hold considerable power in the marketplace.

At this point, authors need to be informed and find the best options for them.

Hope you’ll join me for A Tale of Two Authors, Part 2 where I’ll share stories of two authors we know.

Thank you Matilda.

You can find Matilda Butler over on Women’s Memoirs, of course. And also on FaceBook and the site Rosie’s Daughters. Please leave a comment or a question for Matilda before you link over to read Part 2 of this great post.

Laurie Wagner Buyer

Laurie Wagner Buyer is joining us today to talk about how she came to be involved with Story Circle Network. Laurie is an award-winning novelist and poet. Her works include Across the High Divide, Side Canyons, Spring’s Edge and When I Came West. Although she hasn’t always been a Texas girl, she is now.

Welcome, Laurie.

A Nurturing Organization

Story Circle Network intrigued me the first time I heard about the organization some years ago, but they were based in Austin and I was living in the Rocky Mountain West. Then a generous-hearted woman named Susan Albert Wittig reviewed my memoir, Spring’s Edge: A Ranch Wife’s Chronicles (University of New Mexico Press) for SCN and I paid attention again. I knew that SCN and I would cross paths at some point, though I didn’t know I would have to move to Texas for that to happen.

SCN was the one writer’s group that I knew about in the hill country area where my singer/songwriter husband and I made our new home. I kept the file card with the SCN contact information in my desk drawer for some months and then one day, hungry for contact with other women and other writers, I brought up the website and feasted my eyes on all the grand things SCN members were doing. And, best of all, the annual conference was coming up.

I emailed Susan and she encouraged me to submit a proposal to present a workshop. I wasn’t selected for that role, but I was asked to be part of the “Getting Published” panel. This, at last, was my chance to meet this wonderful group of encouraging and nurturing women, all of whom were dedicated to telling women’s stories.

I’m truly excited to be involved with SCN and I can’t wait to meet everyone at the Wyndham on February 5th. I’ll be bringing my newest release, another memoir titled When I Came West (University of Oklahoma Press), which took five years from pitch to publication to create. I’m anxious to share what I have learned about various types of publishing—including local and regional, university, national, independent, self-publishing and the newest rage, e-books.


Thank you, Laurie.

In addition to her memoir and books, Laurie Wagner Buyer also has three collections of poetry: Glass-eyed Paint in the Rain, Red Colt Canyon and Across the High Divide, which won the Western Writers of America Spur Award in Poetry and was named a Willa Cather Literary Award Finalist. Laurie has received many awards for her work.

As Laurie said, you can catch her at the fifth national Story Circle Network Conference in Austin, Texas, on February 5th. I’m moderating the Getting Published panel and am looking forward to meeting her. You’ll also find her on GoodReads. Even if you can’t come to the conference, you get to meet her here today and ask questions or just say “hi.”

Don’t Drown in Anonymity

Today, I’m happy to host award-winning author Kendra Bonnett on Straight From Hel. Kendra has written more than 150 magazine articles and written, edited or ghostwritten seven books, including An IBM Guide to Doing Business on the Internet (McGraw-Hill, 2000). In addition to being a writer, Kendra is an editor and marketing executive, with over 25 years experience helping to sell books, magazines, hardware, software and business-to-business services. She recently co-authored another award-winning book, Rosie’s Daughters: The “First Woman To” Generation Tells Its Story. A 2008 IPPY Book Award winner, Rosie’s Daughters is a collective memoir of women born during WWII.

Please help me welcome Kendra Bonnett.

You Don’t Have to Drown of Anonymity in a Sea of Memoirs

Helen, Story Circle Network’s conference is fast approaching. In anticipation of that and because I’ll be on your “Getting Published” panel, today I get to appear Straight from Hel. What an honor.

While perusing the Internet last weekend, I came across an article in the Los Angeles Times book section entitled, “Will GOP Race for Governor Kick Off on the Bookshelves?” Apparently both Republican front-runners in the governor’s race, Meg Whitman and Steve Poizner, have new books out…just in time for Californians to read before they vote in the June primary.

Yes, the memoir (actually Whitman’s book combines elements of memoir with lessons in leadership) is certainly a hot marketing tool for pols these days. But they’re not the only ones cranking out personal stories. Ben Yagoda, author of the new book Memoir: A History, writing for The Daily Beast website, decries the “Celebrity Memoir Glut.” His list of recent and soon-to-be-published memoirs is staggering.

But it is beyond the pale of celebrity-political breast baring where the exciting work is being written. These are the inspiring, insightful, teachable, slice-of-life books that ordinary people are writing about their very real lives and experiences. Through memoirs, they share their horrors, fill us with hope, encourage us to endure and make us think.

Without celebrity status, however, the average memoir writer is challenged to break through all the noise and competition. The question is obvious: How do you get your book noticed when everyone is writing memoirs and publishers lack the promotional budget to give each book a big introduction?

The answer, of course, is marketing. While there isn’t room to create a full marketing strategy here, I’d like to suggest a three-pronged approach that may help you craft your plan.

1) Make a Local Splash
Book tours were once the norm, but today the high cost of travel and the relatively low turnout at most book signings is a formula that doesn’t compute. But that’s not to say that the public forum is gone completely. To borrow from the Green movement, your best bet is to Act Locally.

It’s all about leverage. You have a community network of friends and acquaintances upon which to draw. This should get you coverage in local papers, an opportunity to speak at libraries and schools throughout the county, and a chance to get in front of community groups and local chapters of national organizations. Retailers in your town also might sponsor a book-signing event and promote it to their customers. Let’s say you’ve written a story about your life, and because you love clothes, you decided to organize your chapters around 12 favorite dresses—each with a story to tell. You might get a local women’s clothier to host an evening of reading and shopping.

Whatever opportunity you generate at home, just remember that if you do well, you might just find that your reputation has grown beyond the borders of your city or county. Your grassroots strategy might just earn you national exposure.

2) Create a Joint Venture—the Ultimate Leverage
I’m not talking about a contractual agreement but rather a temporary and informal joining of forces to share expertise and/or assets for mutual benefit. In other words, if you’ve got good content and someone else has access to people who represent your ideal audience (market), then work together and share the profits.

Such relationships will cost you a small percentage of your proceeds but you’re building a reader base, and that’s your real asset. Furthermore, if you take book orders directly through your website, you’ll be building a database. The next time, you can go out to these people directly and keep all the profits.

To give you an idea of how this might work, let’s say you have written a memoir about your Junior Year Abroad experience in Rome that turned into a lifetime love affair with Italy. Talk with your college’s endowment program about promoting your book to alumnae. In exchange for access to the school’s list, you offer to donate $5 for each book purchased through your website.

3) Take Advantage of all That the Internet Has to Offer
When one window is shut, somewhere else a door opens. To many writers, the Internet has been that door just as publishers have been slamming their windows closed. The breeze blowing through that open door is of hurricane proportions. Through the Internet, you have the opportunity to reach readers across the country and around the world.

But where do you start? The truth is, you can spend years trying to figure out how to build a presence online. I’m going to give you strategy and a set of tactics to get you started. It’s far from comprehensive, but I think it will help focus your planning. It’s too long to post here, so follow this link to Women’s Memoirs and the second half of my post.

Thank you Kendra for such an informative post!

Everybody, while you’re over on Women’s Memoirs reading her post on building an online presence, be sure you also read Kendra’s bio. She’s worked with or interviewed everyone from Secretary of the Treasury William E. Simon to President Gerald Ford. Today, though, she’s here, so be sure to say hi or ask questions.

The Joy and the Power

Today, author Linda C. Wisniewski is visiting with us. Linda writes for the Bucks County Herald and teaches memoir classes for Bucks County Community College. She’s a regional representative of the International Womens Writing Guild and a board member of the Story Circle Network. She is also the author of Off Kilter: A Woman's Journey to Peace With Scoliosis, Her Mother, and Her Polish Heritage.

Welcome, Linda.

The Joy and the Power

This week marks the halfway point in a six week memoirs class I’m teaching at a local retirement facility. I’ve been teaching these classes for over seven years now, and there’s no lack of interest among the older folks here in Bucks County, PA.

I don’t know who gets more out of my classes, me or the students. Depending on the venue, they are frail, working class, or highly educated and well-to-do. They come to class on scooters, pushing walkers, leaning on canes, or bouncing along in sneakers. My inspiration is a 93 year old tiny birdlike woman who stopped to apologize for not taking my class a second time. “I saw you on the schedule,” she said, “but I’m just too busy.” She went on her way, on her own two feet, no walker, no cane.

Most of these people come to class because they want to record their life stories for their children and grandchildren. They soon discover that writing can be fun, and that their creativity is alive and well. We do two writing exercises in each two hour class session, followed by feedback from other students. It’s always a tough job for me to get them back after they’ve started talking to each other about their stories.

When I discovered James Pennebaker’s research on the physical benefits of writing, I shared it with my students. Clinical studies show an increased level of immune fighting T-cells in the blood, lower blood pressure and heart rate, and increased breathing capacity when people wrote about emotional subjects. Now I’m beginning to wonder if some of these benefits come to the instructor, as well. I know I sure feel better after a couple of hours helping senior citizens “open up.”

Here are a few highlights from my class. A woman born in India wrote about Gandhi’s assassination in language that reminded me of news reports when President Kennedy was shot. A World War II vet who wrote dry, general pages about his service until the day he was able to hone in on a specific day and one Pacific island, nailing the description so well I felt I was there.

On February 6th, I’ll be presenting a workshop on Writing Our Cultural Traditions and serving on a panel about Getting Published at Stories from the Heart in Austin, TX. Writing about my life in short essays, making them longer, then linking them together into my book, Off Kilter, was a learning exercise that changed my life, enabling me to see the patterns I was living and to course correct before it was too late. Teaching others to do the same with the stories of their lives continues to energize me in ways I never imagined at the start. That’s the joy and the power of memoir!

Thank you Linda!

Linda C.Wisniewski lives in Bucks County, PA. Her credits include the Christian Science Monitor, the Philadelphia Inquirer, Massage, The Quilter, The Rose and Thorn, two Cup of Comfort anthologies and literary magazines both print and online. If you’re attending the Story Circle Network Conference in Austin the weekend of February 5th and 6th, be sure to find her and tell her hello.

Story Circle Network Conference

Next Friday, Stories from the Heart V (Fifth National Women’s Memoir Conference) starts. If you write memoir, have contemplated writing a story of your life, or wonder how you would go about writing such a story, this is the conference for you. I hope you’re signed up. If you are, come by and see me. You can catch me Friday the 5th. I along with other authors and presenters will be doing heart-to-heart coaching from 10 in the morning until noon. You can go online and see the subjects each coach will be covering. I will be available for questions on Blogging and Tweeting, Conducting in-person interviews, and Targeting your interview questions. Most of the coaches are already totally booked. Not mine. I think I should have come up with catchier topics, like how to snap a whip with one flick of the wrist.

Then, on Saturday, I’ll be moderating a panel on Getting Published. What that means is I’ll introduce five fabulous memoir authors who will talk about getting published, then I’ll sit back with my whip in case a fight breaks out. Kidding. There will be no fights; everyone fears my whip.

The most exciting news is that this week, I’m going to introduce you to four of the panelists on the Getting Published panel. Here’s the lineup:

Tuesday: Susan Tweit -- her memoir, Walking Nature Home, has been called "lovely, brave, inspiring" and "a must read." She's the author of eleven other books that draw on her life experiences in one way or another, along with hundreds of articles and essays for magazines and newspapers ranging from Fine Gardening and Popular Mechanics to Audubon and the Los Angeles Times.

Wednesday: Kendra Bonnett, one half of the Women's Memoirs team and is co-author of the new book teaching the Writing Alchemy method (available early 2010 and free with pre-conference workshop registration). When not writing, she teaches and coaches writers. As a marketing executive versed in new technology techniques, she also helps writers build successful marketing and publishing strategies.

Thursday: Laurie Wagner Buyer, author of four collections of poetry, Glass-eyed Paint in the Rain, Red Colt Canyon, Across the High Divide, and Infinite Possibilities: A Haiku Journal, a novel, Side Canyons, and a memoir, Spring's Edge: A Ranch Wife's Chronicles. Another memoir, When I Came West, is forthcoming in January 2010.

Friday: Matilda Butler, the other half of Women's Memoirs, is co-author of the collective memoir Rosie's Daughters: The "First Woman To" Generation Tells Its Story, which received a 2008 IPPY national book award. She teaches and coaches writers and is co-author of the new book on Writing Alchemy (available early 2010 and included with pre-conference workshop registration).

This week will provide great opportunity for you to ask questions of some wonderful memoir writers or to read their posts and start thinking about whether you have a story inside to tell. So come back each day. Seriously, come back and visit. Don’t make me get out my whip.

Swimming with the Swans: A Mermaid Tale

I’m back again with the third installment of The Mermaid Tales. As a mermaid, I swam with fish, clowns, other mermaids, pigs, ducks and swans.

Okay, I hear all of you oohing, swans, they’re so pretty. And they are. You see them floating like white clouds, long necks dipping for a sip of cool water as they swim along. So beautiful. So peaceful.

Clearly you have never been a mermaid. Swans are mean little buggers, maybe not intentionally, but I tell you, the mermaids did not like the swans.

During one part of the show called the Picnic, the mermaids would swim out from the volcano and use their air hoses to raise the lily pads. The lily pads, once upright, were about ten to fifteen feet tall.

Then each of us would sit on a lily pad, wave at the audience in the submarine, and take off our face masks (so they could see our lovely faces). Keep in mind that when you take off your face mask under water, you can’t see squat. And that’s when the swans would come. Silently paddling, watching us from above. (Can you hear the shark music?)

Now, I don’t know whether they were looking for fish or worms or algae or what, but they loved to settle in above us, reach down their long necks and try to rip the floating hair right out of our skulls.

We’re trying not scream (yes, you can scream underwater), keep our face mask on our lap, hold onto the picnic bag and the air hose, and smile. All while ducking and trying to stop our hair from floating upward to within reach of the swans.

Now, I like swans, just not above me.

Management eventually moved the swans out to the river.

And my hair eventually grew back.

Blogging Awards

L. Diane Wolfe, of Spunk on a Stick’s Tips, recently gave me two awards. Both of them are very special to me.

First, she passed on to me the Circle of Friends Award. If you know Diane, you know her series of YA books is called the Circle of Friends series, yet she didn’t create this award. Needless to say, she was quite excited to receive it and I am just as happy that she passed it on to me.

The rules state I must pass it on to five other special friends.

I only know the ones that Diane awarded it to, so if you’ve already received this, forgive me, but know I give it to you because I do consider you special friends. I’d like to pass the Circle of Friends Award to:

1. Miriam S. Foster

2. Watery Tart

3. Alex J. Cavanaugh

4. Mason Canyon

5. Paul D. Brazill

Diane also gave me The Blogger Buddies Award (another gorgeous award - I’m envious of the artists who create these). There doesn’t seem to be rules to this one. Diane passed it on to people she felt helped her get her blog started. I’m going to pass it on to new bloggers, in hopes of helping them meet new friends who will help grow their blog.


1. Karen Casey Fitzjerrell

2. Terri Schexnayder

3. Cold as Heaven

Thank you, Diane, for both awards. And thank you to all who visit Straight From Hel. You are my Blogger Buddies within this wonderful Circle of Friends.

Reading Your Expresso

Interesting news from Jason Boog over on GalleyCat. Remember the Expresso machine? Been a while since we talked about the machine that prints books super fast, since all the talk in the news world focuses on e-books lately. But here’s a boost for the Expresso Machine.

Xerox Corporation has teamed up with On Demand Books, the company that makes the Expresso Book Machine.

In the new partnership, the Xerox 4112 and the Espresso Book Machine will be marketed and sold together--capable of creating a new book in minutes with "the capacity to print more than 40,000 paperback books per year."

What this means is that:

On Demand will now have the considerable resources of Xerox at its disposal, in terms of a sales force and a trusted name in the business of copying things fast ... There are only 21 stores and libraries that currently have the machines, but through this agreement, you can bet you'll see more of them--On Demand hopes to get 80 machines in the world by the end of 2011."

We’ve all been wondering when and if the Expresso Book Machine would ever take off. This looks to be a promising union.

Diane Fanning's in the House

Diane Fanning is an author of both true crime and mystery. She didn’t start off writing books, though. In college, she majored in chemistry, a passion from her high school days (that's her to the left). She later wrote for radio and television and an advertising agency. She’s earned over 70 Addy Awards for her work. When she moved to Texas, she began working in non-profit, including a ten year stint as the Executive Director of Another Way Texas Shares and serving three terms on the State Advisory Committee for the State Employee Charitable Campaign. In 2001, the National Association for Choice in Giving awarded her the Freedom Fighter Award.

Her true crime, Written in Blood, was nominated for the Edgar Allen Poe award and she was featured on 20/20 and 48 Hours. She still writes true crime, but is also now writing multiple mystery series. You can find her on her website, where you can also see a video of her on CBSNewsOnline talking about her work on Mommy’s Little Girl. Or look for her on the blog, Women In Crime Ink, and follow Diane on Twitter.

No Apologies Needed

I often receive apologies from readers for purchasing one of my books at a marked down price. Typically, these messages concern a paperback bought at WalMart at a markdown or a hardcover book pre-ordered on line. They want my forgiveness for diminishing my royalty payment because it was bought on impulse, without thinking or because they simply couldn’t find the book elsewhere.

But, apologies are not needed. I’m delighted they got a bargain. I’m pleased that they saved money. It something I like to do and more power to them all. To prove I mean what I’m saying, I’ll let all of you in on a money-saver.

Right now, if you pre-order a copy of my third Lucinda Pierce book, MISTAKEN IDENTITY, from either Amazon or Barnes & Noble on line, you’ll save more than $9 off the cover price. The book is scheduled for release in February in the UK and in May here in the states. If the past is any indication, the price will probably go up after the UK release. Or in that trite old phrase: “Buy now and save.”

Why am I so cavalier about readers paying less for my books? For one simple reason, with both my true crime with St. Martin’s Press and my fiction with Severn House, my publishers pay me royalties based on a percentage of the cover price. This practice is an industry standard—not universal but very typical.

Who, then, loses money on this deal? It’s not the author or the publisher. It is the bookseller. Although there are exceptions, booksellers typically pay the publisher 60% of the cover price. If they decide that they can sell more books by cutting the price, they are cutting into their profits for each individual book, with the hope that the volume of sales will make up for that shortfall.

There are times, however, where I do not receive a percentage of the cover price and my cut is based on the publisher’s actual sales price. That situation has arisen for me several times with St. Martin’s Press. However, in order to make that deal, St. Martin’s needs to have my authorization. And I have granted permission, every time.

I am certain my approval sounds counter-intuitive. Why would possess an author to willingly accept lower royalties? For me, it was international sales. In order to gain readership of my true crime books in foreign countries, I have to get them on the shelves. No books equals no sales equals no royalties. As Billy Preston sang, “Nothing from nothing is nothing.”

I and the publisher make this decision to compensate for the money spent to send the books overseas. Paper is a heavy commodity, making shipping costs high. For books by an author who is not well known in a particular country, the added expense forces sellers to mark-up the book to a price that would scare away most potential purchasers.

To make it possible and profitable to these book dealers, St. Martin’s Press agrees to sell at a price that is less than 45% of what is printed on the cover. I agree to accept a royalty percentage of that lower purchase price and the foreign seller agrees to pay in advance and not make any returns. As a result, I get some money that I wouldn’t have otherwise and, in addition, I get paid for that sale in my next royalty check with nothing held back for possible returns in the future—as is common practice with most sales. As a direct result, I have built up a reader base in South Africa, Australia, the UK and elsewhere.

So don’t worry about taking advantage of bargains on my account. Just go out and buy books—the more the better. Read more. Build your library quicker. Give gifts to family and friends. Just buy books wherever you find them.

I and my fellow authors thank you from the tips of our busy fingers to the bottoms of our hearts!

Thank you, Diane!

Diane’s a prolific writer. You may wonder what someone who investigates murders and crimes, interviews serial killers, and publishes about two books each year is like. I can tell you firsthand she’s open-hearted and a good friend.

Diane will be dropping by today, so leave her a “howdy” or a question.

Writing Query Letters

If you want to learn to write winning query letters (and by winning I mean ones that will catch an agent’s eye), start following a blog called QueryShark.

Janet Reid, an agent at FinePrint Literary Management, reviews query letters that readers send in (and by “review” I mean, and I’m quoting her, “eviscerate.”) You send them in; she, with no punches pulled, tells you what you’re doing wrong. Okay, she rips them apart.

She does occasionally come across a winning query and she links to those in her sidebar.

It’s definitely a blog to read for research on writing or improving your own query letter. I wouldn’t recommend submitting to QueryShark until you’ve read and understood her eviscerations and have worked and re-worked your query, then had others read and critique. And then, submit only if you have a thick skin.

Ding-Dong The Slush is Dead

According to The Wall Street Journal, and folks they talked to, the Slush Pile is dead.

We all recognized that your chance of getting “found” in the slush pile was small, but it was a tiny candle of hope. Now most publishers (not counting small, regional or university presses) won’t read anything that doesn’t go through an agent, not even book proposals.

Part of the reason is that publishers were getting so many over the transom manuscripts, they were spending too much money hiring reader to cull through them. Part of the reason is also publishers having to fight plagiarism suits. Now you have to find an agent to represent you and be the go-between between you and a publishing house.

But today, writing talent isn't necessarily enough. It helps to have a big-media affiliation, or be effective on TV....

"These days, you need to deliver not just the manuscript but the audience," says Mr. Levine. "More and more, the mantra in publishing is 'Ask not what your publisher can do for you, ask what you can do for your publisher.'"

The article gives 5 pieces of advice in this era of the dead or dying slush pile:

1. Find an agent who's hungry—and "monetize."
2. Don't be a barista waiting for someone to stumble upon your genius.
3. Find another way in
4. Contests!
5. And buck up.

Are any of you still submitting directly to a publisher? Are you getting responses? Or does it feel like tossing paper into a black hole?

Get Back Up

Are there any among us who haven't had self-doubts? Is there anyone who is elated to get rejection after rejection? Haven't most of us, at one time or another, questioned this career of writing?

Self-doubt and even depression are normal. Some of us get down after finishing a novel. It may take a while to get started on the next one. We may have periods when we think, "Why in the world am I doing this?" And, certainly, we can have ambivalent feelings about querying. If you're querying agents or editors, it means you've accomplished something and you're ready to move onto the next step. You anticipate replies as you walk to the mail box. And you feel that knot in your stomach as you read the rejection. (And sometimes the elation of the acceptance or check.)

Writers have to handle more than just rejection, though. We have critique partners who disassemble our work, readers who complain about errors or research mistakes, editors who insist on inane changes, bookstores that forget to stock our book or just won't. We tend to work alone at our computers or typewriters. Sometimes our progress seems so slow, we wonder if there's any forward movement at all.

But every time you get "down" or suspect that you must be a second-rate hack or you would be published (or be a best-selling author or at the top of your editor's list or whatever), remember that these feelings will pass. Do something to soothe your spirit.

But do NOT beat yourself up. There are plenty of people out there willing to do that for you. Some of them even enjoy doing it. (Try to cut those people out of your life, or at least limit your contact with them.)

I repeat, don't beat yourself up. We're in a business where we have to live with bad news. But, very rarely, are those rejections directed at your personally. Your article didn't fit that magazine -- but that's not a dig at you as a person. The agent thought your synopsis was a pile of warm spit. Yeah, it hurts. But it's not the end of the world. And in the scheme of your life, it's not a major event -- unless you let it be.

If you take a cat-o-nine-tails and start beating on yourself, you weaken your resolve, you put dents into your armor of confidence, you hurt your inner spirit. Sure, after a rejection, you can take a little down time to recover, but use that time to learn, grow, do something enjoyable, focus on some neglected aspect of your life. Okay, so you're a little down. But if you start kicking yourself while you're down, it'll only be harder to get back up.

One Lovely Blog

Thank you to Jemi Fraser for awarding me The One Lovely Blog Award. Actually, she gave her awardees a choice between the Honest Scrap Award and the One Lovely Blog Award, and, honestly, I’m not terribly scrappy, so I chose the lovely award.

Kidding aside, I really appreciate the recognition. Coming from Jemi, who has a wonderful blog, this is an honor.

I’m supposed to tell ten true facts about myself. I’ve been blogging since 2006. Is there anything y’all don’t know about me? Let’s see…

1. I get cold easily. The heater’s working, yet I sit in jeans, socks, long sleeve shirt and wrapped in a blanket. I miss the 100+ temps of the summer.

2. I worked two jobs in high school, one in a bank and the other at the local Dairy Treat.

3. If I could go back to college, I’d study less and party more.

4. I hate to spend money.

5. I would love to be able to paint. My husband’s family is full of painters - his mother, his sister Vivian, his aunt…all wonderful painters. Within the last month, his sister sent us two of hers. The latest one is an oil painting of a field of bluebonnets.

6. I love to travel and will get to do a little this year.

7. We used to get cable TV. Now we live where we can’t get cable. I don’t miss it.

8. I’ve been married more years than I was single.

9. I wasn’t born in a hospital.

10. I attended a weekend writing workshop with Sol Stein. He took one of his hardbacks, tore it in half, inscribed the back half and gave it to me.

There it is, ten things about me. I’ve received and passed on this award before, so I’m not sure who has received it and who hasn’t. It’s a beautiful award and a fun way to learn about each other. I hereby award it to:

Meredith Rae Morgan at Fictional Life

Mason Canyon at Thoughts in Progress

Susan Gourley/Kelley at Susan Says

I also hope you’ll visit Jemi’s blog and tell her hi.

Click and Use

Here’s a suggestion for writers – carry a camera with you. You never know when you’ll come across something you’ll want to use in your book. Maybe a house that would be perfect as a restaurant in the small town where your book is set. Maybe a conglomeration of conflicting road signs all on one post. Maybe a wonderful river banked by large draping trees where your characters could sit for a picnic.

What brought this to mind was that yesterday I plugged my camera into my computer in order to transfer the pictures. I discovered it’d been a long time since I’d done this “housework.” Two pictures were of the sky with a small white dot against the blue. Huh? Took me a few minutes to remember back to when a neighbor emailed saying the shuttle would be flying directly overhead in about ten minutes. I had grabbed my camera and raced outside. And, there it was. I got two pics before it disappeared. Then the pictures sat in my camera.

Seeing them reminded me of what a thrill it had been to see the shuttle. And it made me think of the different ways a writer could use a camera to keep track of ideas inspired by our surroundings or to have a physical reminder of some image or place we might want to use in the future.

If you don’t want to lug a camera in your purse or pocket, consider putting a disposal camera in the glove compartment or suitcase. Once you print the pictures or put them on your computer, label them as to date and place. That way, if you want, you can go back to do more research.

A picture may be worth a thousand words, but a picture can also inspire those words.

Re-Reading

How many of you have favorite books you re-read many times? Maybe a childhood favorite that every few years you drag off the shelf and read again. Maybe a new book that was so different and interesting, you revisit it to make sure you didn’t miss any fabulous tidbits or ideas.

My husband will do that with movies. I might watch a movie at the theatre and later rent the DVD to watch. My husband likes to buy DVDs so he can watch movies over and over. He’ll pick something like The Bourne Identity and watch it, then watch it again a month or so later and then … again and again. I can’t do that. About the only movie I can tolerate more than perhaps twice is Jumping Jack Flash, my favorite, although I haven’t seen that in years.

My daughter gave my husband, one Christmas, a full season of the TV show 24. He’s a huge fan of that show. He watches it every week and if he’s out of town, I have to tape it for him. He’s seen them all. But that didn’t stop him from beginning a 24 marathon the day after Christmas.

We’re not even on the same wavelength when it comes to some TV shows. He likes 24, obviously. I like The Good Wife. But, oddly, we tend to like the same books. We’re both into Lee Child and are working our way through the series.

I don’t see myself re-reading the Child books, but I do occasionally re-read a book in order to study the structure or skeleton of the writing.

Honestly, I don’t re-read many books. I’m usually ready to move on to something new. What about you?

The Year 2016 According to Robb

Thought I’d take you back to Bradley Robb’s series, The History of Publishing 2010-2020. Today, we look at his “history” of book publishing in the year 2016.

Here are some snippets from his post:

By 2016, the number of micropublishers measured in the low thousands, with lines frequently blurring between publishers….

Independent authors who found moderate levels of success were frequently approached by micropubs. The deals offered were frequently the exact opposite of those of a decade earlier. The micropublisher frequently kept only 15% to 25% of revenue with the remainder going to the author….

In an interview, Jason Bellari, the CEO of Treescape, a micropublisher featuring elf-driven fantasy books explained the business plan. “We now what our readers want, and we provide it for them. Yeah, we might only make fifty cents on every Living Book we sell, but we gain a wealth of knowledge….

The specificity Bellari spoke of was a range of options: in person events, movies, and other media-cross-overs. But the standard example of a value-add option was the hardcover….

2016 can be looked at as a return to serial storytelling.

In Robb’s history of the future series, this seems to be the year authors come into some power. Click over and read the entire post.

One Begets the Other

Did you know Bronte is cool again? She is. Thanks to Stephenie Meyer, according to SouthCoast Today. Bella Swan, the protagonist of Meyer’s Twilight series reads Emily Bronte books… and, therefore, millions of young girls who identify with Bella read Bronte.

According to the article author, the Twilight success has inspired some clever book-jacket parodies on the web, “including a cover of Bram Stoker's "Dracula," announcing, "Inspired by Twilight!" and — my favorite — a copy of Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Scarlet Letter," advertising "The Same Color as Blood!"”

Bella is not the only character to inspire reading. Are you a fan of the TV show, “Lost”?

There are quite a few book clubs dedicated to reading the books mentioned in "Lost," including an online club at barnesandnoble.com.

Did you know there are 81 books mentioned in the “Lostipedia”?

"The Book of Laws," by Manu; "A Brief History of Time," by Stephen Hawking; "The Brothers Karamazov," by Fyodor Dostoevsky; "Caravan of Dreams," by Idries Shah; "Carrie," by Stephen King; "Catch 22," by Joseph Heller; "The Coalwood Way," by Homer Hickam; "Dark Horse," by Tami Hoag; "Dirty Work," by Stuart Woods, "Everything that Rises Must Converge," by Flannery O'Connor, "Fahrenheit 451," by Ray Bradbury; "The Fountainhead," by Ayn Rand, "High Hand," by Gary Phillips, "Lancelot," by Walter Percy, "Laughter in the Dark," by Vladimir Nabokov, and "Watership Down," by Gary Adams.

I bet you’ve read one or two of them. But would you read them just because your favorite character read them?

YA Lit Ambassador

Did you know there’s a National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature? I didn’t, but perhaps that’s because I don’t write YA and my kids are beyond that age group or maybe because it’s a fairly new position. I found out about this position when I read a Seattle Times article.

The outgoing NAYPL is Jon Scieszka, who wrote the Caldecott Honor book, The Stinky Cheese Man, and also writes the Time Warp Trio series. He held the position for two years. During his tenure, he “traveled to 33 states and visited 274 schools, libraries, bookstores, conferences and festivals.”

He now has passed on the position as Ambassador to Katherine Paterson, winner of two Newbery Medals. Bridge to Terebithia is one of her most beloved books, although it is also “the eighth-most-challenged book of the 1990s, according to the American Library Association.”

As the first National Ambassador for Young People's Literature, Scieszka focused on reaching reluctant readers, especially boys. Paterson says her platform will be "read for your life" and she's hoping to highlight the importance of families reading together.

The position of National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature was created by the Library of Congress' Center for the Book and the Children's Book Council's Every Child a Reader program.

Even though I don’t write YA, this still sounds like a position to covet.

Independents are Hanging In

Not talking politics here. We’re talking bookstores, of course. KARE11, the local CBS channel in Minneapolis - St. Paul ran a story about 3 independent bookstores struggling to stay afloat.

As Kyle Porter, author of the online story, said:

Independent bookstores are closing all over the country.

The good news is that two in this Minnesota area are still alive. The Bookcase is the oldest independent bookstore in the Twin Cities. One reason it survives is because it’s next to one of the first original Caribou Coffee shops. They also offer a wider selection than most other stores. (On a side note, I thought it funny that earlier this month The Bookcase hosted the author of “How Starbucks Saved My Life.”)

Uncle Hugo’s and Uncle Edgar’s in Minneapolis specializes in Mystery and Science Fiction novels. The owner admits it’s tough, but they, too, hang in by having a huge selection: around 10,000 volumes.

Besides having a large selection, both stores give a lot of personal service to their clients.

I, personally, like independents. They tend to know their books. It’s been my experience that if I go into an independent and ask for an author or a protagonist or a book similar to some other series they take me to the bookshelves and offer suggestions - rather than boot up the store computer.