No Room for Mediocrity

GalleyCat has an interesting post on literary agent Bridget Wagner, who has been a foreign rights agent at both The Sagalyn Agency and Random House India. She’s now head of her own agency called The Wagner Agency.

As to mediocrity, she says:

I only go after writing that really wows me, and that I know will wow publishers. I think there's far less room for mediocrity now, publishers can't afford to take a chance

We’ve been talking platforms lately. Here’s what she says on that:

As for authors, developing a platform and selling your own book is more important than ever. Take advantage of every contact and opportunity and encourage your publisher to try new things, like Google's TV commercial system, etc.

As to e-books, she says:

Readers want HC books, but they are also asking for paperback, audio and now e-book versions…. If we listen to the readers and tap this new technology, the marketplace could be more profitable and more exciting than ever.

So what does she think editors are looking for?

I think editors are looking for game changing books -- truly brilliant innovators that see the world (business, science, politics, history, etc) in a new way and who can tell stories in the process. And, they're looking for authors with built-in media connections.

Link over to GalleyCat to read the full article and hear everything agent Bridget Wagner has to say, as well as how to submit to her and what she’s looking for.

Book Covers

How important is the cover of your book?

Personally, I think it’s very important. I certainly look at covers before I buy a book. I also look at the back cover blurb, the opening page and a random page within the book.

But I admit that the cover can push me one way or the other when it comes to buying the book.

A friend of mine, Bill Wheeless, sent a link to Abe Books’s “50 Iconic Book Covers.”

They’re mostly covers from older books. I’m not sure some of them are compelling enough to work in today’s world, but it’s interesting to see what Abe Books feels has stood the test of time among book covers.

Link over and see what you think.

Facebook Woes

There’s been quite a bit in the news lately about Facebook and privacy. Facebook has 400 million active users. Yep, you read that right - four hundred million active users.

Bit by bit, as Facebook works to monetize (make money) off those users, it’s stripping away users’ privacy, exposing more and more of their information.

Some Facebook users are up in arms and pledging to leave Facebook. Recently on the site QuitFacebookDay.com, 11,000 people committed to quit Facebook. Clearly, 11,000 out of 400 million is a drop in an ocean, but the unrest seems to be growing.

Some people join Facebook to connect with family and friends. Some, like a lot of authors, join to promote themselves and their books. I’ve only been on a short time and am still trying to get the hang of it. Frankly, if I’d heard all the controversy about privacy, I might not have signed up. But it is another tool for writers to market themselves and their writing.

If you are one of the people unhappy with what you thought were your private information and pictures being used by Facebook to make money and you want to quit…how do you do that?
 
Here’s an article on CNN Tech that tells you exactly how to remove yourself from Facebook. The article by Elinor Mills is called “How to delete, deactivate your Facebook account.” It also explains the difference between deleting and deactivating an account and gives lots of links to find more information on the goings-on at Facebook.

Any of you upset with Facebook’s use of your private info?

Selling Your Brand

We’ve talked here about building your platform as an author. This is especially important if you write nonfiction, but it’s becoming more important for fiction writers.

I came across a blog on building your brand. It’s not for writers specifically, but the information can be applied to writers. A post this month, in particular, is one that you as a writer can relate to. The blog is called Personal Branding Blog and the post I’m talking about is “Why it Takes More than Information to Write a Brand-Building Book.”

Writing a brand-building book would be especially helpful for a nonfiction author, but even for a fiction author, if you want to create a “brand” for yourself, you can write a nonfiction book on that brand and sell it at book signings and speaking engagements - and not only make money, but increase your recognition and exposure. If you’re not sure about this, check out L. Diane Wolfe who writes YA fiction, but has branded herself as Spunk on a Stick and has five books in her Circle of Friends series -- as well as her nonfiction book, “Overcoming Obstacles with Spunk! The Keys to Leadership and Goal-Setting."

If you’re thinking of writing a nonfiction book to build your brand, the article lists 7 characteristics of successful nonfiction books: Empathy, Perspective, Organization, Titles, Blog, Commitment, and Discipline. Click over to the article to read author Roger Parker’s full explanation of each characteristic.

Other than Diane, any of you have nonfiction books you’ve written which are helping you brand yourself?

Winning Contests, Part II

Stephanie Barko is a Literary Publicist. She works with adult authors of nonfiction and historical fiction. Some of her clients are 2009 Spur Award Winner John Nesbitt, 2008 Southwest Book Award Winner Paul Cool, Christy & 2008 Willa Award Winner Jane Kirkpatrick, and 2008 Book of the Year Winner Sandra Worth.

Stephanie offered to follow up her February post, Contests and Authors, with today’s post on entering contests to not just analyze your social networking strategy, but to learn to use it to promote yourself and your books.

Welcome Literary Publicist Stephanie Barko.

Winning Contests, Part II

 On February 23 of this year, Straight from Hel posted my article about entering contests as a promotional tool for writers and authors, which you responded to with 28 comments.

Today I’d like to revisit the topic with a special focus on a particular aspect of winning contests. Lately it has become popular among contest sponsors to use the contest as a vehicle to create incoming traffic to the sponsoring website. If you enter a contest that requires a popular vote prior to the editorial judging phase, then those votes are being used to create web traffic for the sponsor. This is a highly effective device on the part of the sponsor because they benefit from everyone who enters the contest, regardless of whether players ever pay an entry fee or submit an entry.

If you have a significant opt-in list, and/or Facebook and Twitter following, there is no reason why you cannot win a writing contest that requires a popular vote. All you need to do is motivate your following to vote.

Who & How To Ask for Votes

The first people you want to ask to vote for you are those who are hardest to reach and those who are the least computer literate because they will need the most lead time to complete your request. The last people you want to ask are the ones you can instant message and Tweet.

Anyone you regularly pay money to is fair game and anyone who owes you a favor is low hanging fruit. If you know someone gregarious who works in an office, you may be able to motivate them to get their entire office to vote for you.

During the last few hours of a contest, there is typically a flurry of activity to rack up votes. This is when you begin to understand the value of Facebook Chat, where you can ambush your Friends and provide them a link to vote for you. You may want to offer incentives for people to drop what they’re doing and vote for you, like copies of books you’ve already read or any freebies you have lying around. You can check the fine print in your contest, but it’s not likely that you will find language which prohibits reasonable incentivizing to gain votes.

Make sure that you thank every person who votes for you. Offer to vote for them and return the favor. You may want to ask your voters to ask their following to vote for you, (especially their Twitter following on the last night of the contest).

Why Voting is Important 


In contests like this, voting is the ante for making your piece eligible for editorial judging. It may be the top ten vote getters, for instance, that will be judged. All the rest of the players are just driving traffic to the sponsor’s website, so read the rules and know what the sponsor will be doing with your friends’ contact information.

Entering a voting contest will show you where the strengths and holes are in your social networking matrix. You will learn the value of the social sphere in your marketing mix and each platform’s unique capabilities. You may already be a good writer when you enter this type of contest, but to win it you will become as good at social media as you are at writing.

Thank you Stephanie.

Although Stephanie has many award winning clients, she also works with traditional publishers and their authors, small presses, and recently published authors. You can visit Stephanie at Authors' Assistant or at the blog, The Author's Assistant.

You can also ask her questions here today. Just leave a note or a question in the Comments section.

Win Your Platform

 Earlier this year, literary publicist Stephanie Barko visited Straight From Hel to talk about Contests and Authors. She focused on how entering writing contests can help authors promote themselves and establish a platform.

She’ll be back tomorrow to finish out this two-part series. Now that you know how a contest can help you, she’s going to tell you how you can win those all-important contests, especially the ones that are won or lost through popular votes.

Stephanie specializes in working with adult authors of nonfiction and historical fiction, but her advice applies to all writers, no matter the genre. Having contest wins on your resume not only show your writing skills, they can demonstrate that you have a platform that includes followers who will buy your books.

We’ve talked here on SFH about building a platform through social networking. So, come back tomorrow with questions about author platforms and contests. Stephanie has a BBA in Marketing from the University of Texas at Austin. You can find out more about Stephanie Barko, Literary Publicist, at http://www.authorsassistant.com/Barko.htm and/or
http://www.theauthorsassistant.blogspot.com.

The Unexpected

Is it believable to hit your protagonist with the unexpected? But then, aren’t all protagonists hit with something they don’t expect? They’re attacked physically or verbally. He gets hit by a bus. She is attacked in her apartment. Something happens that they didn’t expect. And then the plot moves in a new direction.

Is there a point where the unexpected becomes unbelievable? Can it be too unexpected or so out of the blue that your readers won’t believe and will consider it contrived by the writer? But things in real life can come so out of the blue that they feel wrong - and yet they’re real.

I have two trips planned in the next two months. One to Lake Tahoe and one to Washington D.C. Hotel reservations made. Airplane reservations made and paid for. Dates marked off on the calendar. Conference registrations paid, plans made.

And yet…the unexpected happened. Yesterday I got summoned for Jury Service in Federal Court. For two months. I’ve been given the date and time to report and instructions that I must call in every Friday for those two months. Each Friday when I call in I will receive my reporting instructions.

I’ve been hit with the unexpected. If this were a book, then I, the protagonist, would find her future changed. She’d be on a jury where a jurist was bribed. She’d be on a jury where the accused escapes and takes her hostage. The case would involve millions of dollars paid to a crooked politician and she is the key to him being found guilty or innocent and she has a moral dilemma. She falls in love with a fellow jurist and when their tryst is found out, a scandal ensues.

But to make the unexpected work, you have to lay the groundwork. The protagonist would have received the notice of the possibility of being summoned (and not forgotten about it since it was months ago, the way I did). Giving up whatever has to be given up would need to be a true sacrifice (trust me, it is, although it's not life threatening). Then something would have to happen as a result of the unexpected. (I’m hoping that won’t happen in my case.)

The unexpected can be fun. Or not. It changes things. It will. And the protagonist copes. Because she doesn’t have a choice. And, thus, the plot veers off and moves forward.

Speaking of unexpected...yesterday I passed the Sunshine Award to five wonderful bloggers. I unexpectedly combined two of those bloggers. It should have gone to 6 bloggers. The two I mixed up were Cheryl Eklund and Saira Cee. If you have time, link over and tell them "hi" - you can even mention what a dunce I am. (Not that that is unexpected.)

Let the Sun Shine

Patricia Stoltey gave me the Sunshine Award. Patricia is a sweetie and her blog is informative, conversational, and fun to read. She’s also the author of the Desert Hedge Murders series.

If I understand it right, this award is passed on to followers who bring a ray of sunshine to your blog. That would include everyone who follows and/or comments here on Straight From Hel! I thought I’d pass it on to five new followers of Straight From Hel.

1. Julie Musil - Julie is the author of both fiction and nonfiction and her blog is informative, encouraging and sometimes quite funny.

2. Nancy Julien Kopp - Nancy’s blog is called Writer Granny’s World. She blogs about things in her life, as well as writing and books.

3. Yvonne Osborne - In Yvonne’s blog, The Organic Writer, she posts poetry, pieces about writing and even tells us about her garden.

4. Cheryl Eklund - Cheryl signs each post on her blog, A Writer’s Journey, with the name Saira Cee. She’s a new blogger so stop by and read her words about writing and what inspires her.

5. Inside the Shrink is the blog of a psychologist who posts on a variety of subjects from writing to religion to emotions and what she calls Psychobabble.

So, check out these five bloggers and say hi to them. I hope you’ll find one or two or five you want to follow.

Book Review: Bride of the Living Dead

Peggy Elam of Pearlson Press sent me a copy of Bride of the Living Dead by Lynne Murray. Now, before you peg this, based on the title, as a mystery suspense or horror, I’ll tell you that it’s neither. It’s a romantic comedy. On the front of the pink cover is the phrase: “Jane Austen meets the Marx Brothers.”

Here’s the back cover blurb:

Big, beautiful and rebellious, film critic Daria MacClellan is most comfortable in a monster movie poster T-shirt and blue jeans. Yet when family drama hijacks her engagement, she’s trapped into a formal wedding with her perfectionist, anorexic sister planning the whole thing. Daria adores her fiancé, but her wedding seems to be spiraling into a horror film. Will the spectre of a picture perfect wedding turn her into the Bride of the Living Dead?

Author Lynne Murray has a fresh voice that will draw you into Daria’s life. Daria’s family and friends are unique and different, yet at the same time you’ll swear they could be your family, extended family and crazy college pals. You’ll be happy you don’t have Daria’s life, even as you envy her spunk, self-confidence, friends, and love of life (and her family, extended family and crazy pals).

It doesn’t matter whether you’re young, old, skinny or not-so-skinny, out-going or shy, you’ll get along with Daria and she’ll put you on the wedding invitation list. If they can pull off this wedding, it’ll make a great video, maybe even a movie. Luckily or maybe not so luckily, Daria’s friend is a videographer and is taping every little detail, the bad, the good and the relatives.

If you’re a fan of romantic comedies, you’ll probably like Bride of the Living Dead by Lynne Murray. In fact, you might want to pick up a copy and read it, then come back here to talk to Lynne. She’ll be on Straight From Hel on June 17th.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
FTC Disclaimer: Peggy Elam sent this book without a request for a review, although I’m sure she hoped for one. I, however, felt no obligation to write one, but write one I did. She did include a note to let me know this was an ARC and therefore had a few errors which had been corrected in the final version. ARC errors don’t bother me. I skim right over them when I read for pleasure, and this was a novel I read with pleasure.

Script Writing

Do you write scripts, or are maybe thinking about it? Here’s a few snippets from an article called: Writing and Selling Your Spec Screenplay

“If you have writing samples, that’s excellent. Something you should know is people don’t write spec scripts in animation. We don’t need a script. We’ll just buy your idea. It’s a very narrow target at DreamWorks Animation, Sony animation, and Disney animation because we’re trying to make blockbusters. We’re trying to do something that hasn’t been done before, but that appeals to children and adults.” [DreamWorks Animation How to Train Your Dragon co-producer Karen Foster, who’s worked as a development exec at DreamWorks Animation and at Disney.]

“One remarkable improvement now is the addition of online marketing places like InkTip where smaller projects seem to be hooking up more easily. It doesn’t lessen the need for a good agent but gives beginners more of a chance.” [Tron screenwriter and co-producer Bonnie MacBird]

“I try to figure out what the market is too saturated with and avoid those types of movies.” [writer-producer Sascha Rothchild]

Link over to read the full article.

Anybody writing a script - or perhaps thinking of converting your novel to a movie script?

Advice from a New Writer

Holly Robinson, over on The Huffington Post, had some good advice for her fellow writers. She calls it “helpful tips about book flogging.”

1. Move Post Online Lurking

No matter what your online comfort, it's time to quit lurking on other people's blogs and facebook pages. Blast yourself into the blogosphere.

2. Be a Blurb Slut

Google the agents and editors of other writers and grovel. Ask friends of friends of friends and grovel some more.

3. Do Not Snort on National Public Radio

Sandra Bullock can snort and make it seem sexy. Not all of us have that gift.

4. Bookstore Readings Don't Sell Many Books, But Do Them Anyway

Do bookstore readings on your own - it's fun and a great way to connect.

5. Ignore the Siren Call of Amazon

Amazon numbers fluctuate every hour and only tell you how you're doing relative to other books. THESE ARE NOT REAL SALES FIGURES.

6. Contact Book Clubs

Although these clubs are often small - maybe a dozen people at most, usually women - they offer a chance for you to get important feedback from readers and will make you truly believe that what you do is worthwhile.

7. Even When Your Publicist Quits, You Can't

Publicizing a book successfully is a lot like writing: all you need is staying power and a willingness to try anything.

I’ve only given you little snippets of what she had to say, so click over and read the full article.

Of these 7 tips, which one is your favorite?

Publishing Ground Zero

 I’m happy to introduce you to Scott Nicholson, author of The Red Church, Drummer Boy, The Skull Ring, Burial to Follow, Ashes, The First, and Flowers. He's also edited the freebie writing manual Write Good or Die and works as a freelance editor and journalist in North Carolina.

Scott operates a freelance editing business (and has recently joined the blogging editors on The Blood-Red Pencil) and started the digital publishing company Haunted Computer Books. You can find out more about him on his website or on his blog, Haunted Computer Books.

Welcome Scott.

Publishing Ground Zero

I did it. I crawled across broken glass and barbed wire and the blood of my fallen comrades to the base of the Ivory Tower, knocked on the gate, and a hand reached out with a slip of paper that said "Yes."

After 400 rejection slips, I had sold a paperback. Life was good, I was an alternate selection of the Mystery Guild Book Club, my novel THE RED CHURCH had an amazing sell-through of nearly 90 percent, and the publisher quickly typed up a contract for two more books. The next book had barely hit the shelves when a three-book contract was proffered.

Shortly before that three-book contract kicked in, I made the sinking realization that the publisher was letting my early books go out of print--while they were still publishing me! For that and other reasons, I amicably parted ways with the publisher, left my agent, and spent a couple of years working on new novels, screenplays, and comic books. When I was ready to crawl back to the Ivory Tower, I found much had changed in seven years. Now not only did industry professionals take six months or more to respond, they often didn’t bother to reply at all.

After I got back the rights to my first novel, I wasted a year figuring out what to do with it while I waited for agents to bother not replying. I’d followed the developments of the Kindle, but I was still too shellshocked from my industry indoctrination to seriously consider self-publishing. Every professional writing organization I’d ever been in had a list of “approved publishers,” and you couldn’t call yourself a “professional” unless you sold a book to someone on the list. It didn’t matter that some of the publishers on the list might only pay a $500 advance.

Since nothing else was in imminent danger of happening, I figured I'd test the waters and loaded up The Red Church e-book for Kindle. To my delight, readers found it and not only was the "free money" welcome, the opportunity to reach new readers pleased me greatly. I put up some story collections, and then a couple of original novels, figuring I could always write more.

I never dreamed I’d self-publish, much less release an original novel. I had to step out on the tightrope and realize no one—agent, publisher, or another writer—was going to save me. If I wanted a career, I’d have to risk it. I believed.

The mere act of taking action rejuvenated my writing, put control and outcome back in my hands, and opened an entire new world. The only limit to my growth is my ability to connect with an audience and please it. If readers like the work, they buy it and I write more books. Shortly after that second novel was released, I was contacted by an agent, and hopefully I will be releasing paper books through New York again. In the meantime, I am trying to get back the rights to my out-of-print novels. Sometimes it feels like seeing that Ivory Tower was the worst thing that ever happened to my writing career. Not only is this new era good for writers, but it's also the launch of many small supporting industries, such as editing, graphic design, formatting, and the coming transmedia need for HTML coders developing interactive books.

You are competing with New York if you take this route, but the traditional industry's competitive advantages are rapidly evaporating: getting your books on store shelves, paying you fair advances, and offering you prestige and promotion through association. I am not worried that some of my peers may not consider me a "professional" because of some arbitrary guidelines crafted 10 years ago. I did that, and it was hard but it wasn't special. Right now, with a good designer and years of experience as a freelance editor, I feel more professional than New York, because I can craft a product and marketing vision that serves my goals. Publishers have goals that only rarely align with the author's. They also take the bulk of your book's proceeds, which is one of their main goals. Publishers are great at what they do, but make sure it's not something you can't do yourself. As the e-book and print-on-demand revolution continues, the only thing the publisher can do better than you is lose money.

Thank you Scott!

Scott not only writes novels, he writes comics, poetry, non-fiction magazine articles and stories. As you can tell, he knows about the e-publishing world. Feel free to ask questions about publishing e-books, his journey to multi-published, award-winning author, or whatever is on your mind. He’ll be stopping by today.

I’ll start it off with this:
Scott, the idea of publishing my own e-book is intimidating. In the beginning, as you learned, how difficult was it? Should authors today work to publish their own or turn to a niche company like yours for help?

Haunted Computer Books

I know it’s not Halloween, but I titled this post Haunted Computer Books because that’s the name of tomorrow’s guest blogger’s digital publishing company. It's also the name of Scott Nicholson's blog about his e-books and things going on in the publishing world.

You can also check Scott’s website to find out about his seven novels, 60 short stories, poetry and non-fiction magazine articles. His first novel The Red Church was a Stoker Award finalist and an alternate selection of the Mystery Guild. In 1999, he won the grand prize in the international Writers of the Future contest and was first runner-up for the Darrell Award. And to top all that off, he’s an inaugural member of the Killer Thriller Band.

Tomorrow, he’s coming by Straight From Hel to talk about his publishing journey from the lows to the highs to the lows to his own company. And he’ll stop in to answer questions, so come back and meet Scott Nicholson, author, freelance editor, and journalist.

Another Blog to Book

InventorSpot had a piece on another case where a blog became so popular that literary agents swarmed to represent a book by the blogger based on the blog.

The blogger: Neil Pasricha

The blog: 1000awesomethings.com

The topic: little things we savor

The book: The Book of Awesome

The book’s description: "a high five for humanity and big celebration of life's little moment," The Book of Awesome reminds us that the best things in life are truly free.

At what point did the agents come after Pasricha to compile his book of simple, brilliant things? When the blog hit 13 million page-views.

Anybody getting close to being swarmed?

What Do Editors Want?

Earlier this month, GalleyCat did an interview with Jean V. Naggar, president of the Jean V. Naggar Literary Agency. Here are some things I took from the interview.

What she looks for from authors:

Authors need to offer their best work, to be ready to revise, and to trust that they have put their work in good hands. Having a job on the side can also provide a guarantee of more food variety, and they should keep counting the pennies, also keeping up a steady constant presence in all social networking areas, twittering and tweeting, helping themselves to get the word out about their books with energy and resourcefulness.

What editors want in a manuscript:

Editors are looking for fresh original material in perfect condition. Dramatic pace, writing quality, and clarity of thought trumps any particular trend, and my recommendation to writers today is to listen to their agent if the agent is requesting that more work be done before showing a manuscript to editors. Editors today are heavily bound up in meetings and other requirements, and showing them a strong national platform and a manuscript that is almost ready for the printer is the best way to get their attention.

Click over to read the full interview, including how her agency likes to be approached and what her particular pet peeve is.

Barbara Burnett Smith Aspiring Writers Event

If you live in the central Texas area (or even if you live farther away), you’re invited to come to the Sixth Annual Barbara Burnett Smith Aspiring Writers Event to have fun and meet other writers.

Sylvia Dickey Smith will receive The Sage Award from the Barbara Burnett Smith Mentoring Authors Foundation. The Sage Award is presented to an author who exemplifies Barbara's spirit of inspiration, support and mentoring.  Sylvia will give the Keynote Speech.

Dave Ciambrone, Jaime Roton, Joan Upton Hall and Val Taylor will present "A Mystery in Four Parts".  Last year's "A Mystery in Four Parts" had bodies on doorsteps, foghorns on Lake Travis and the practicing of heaving bosoms.

"A Mystery in Four Parts" will be followed by 'Best Worst First Lines of a Mystery', featuring the Sage Award winner. Last year’s winner Micqui Miller glowered, fought and knocked herself out--not to mention that she was delectable, decapitated and dead in multitudinous and multifarious ways. Only the Shadow knows what lies in store for Sylvia.

'Best Worst First Lines' also serves to introduce our Mentor Authors and Aspiring Writers. 

Refreshments will be provided by Starbucks Coffee and Dream Bakery.

So, stop by for fun, dreamy goods, authors galore, and….it’s all free. It starts at 2 p.m. at the Barnes & Noble located at the southeast corner of Loop 360 and Bee Cave Road, Westlake.  

Entering to Win Big

Robert McCrum, in the Guardian, talks about how authors are becoming powerhouses, not through reviews, but through prizes.

Literary prizes are not only cultural thermometers, reflecting the zeitgeist, but also have the power to propel unknown writers into the limelight in a way that used to derive from book reviews, now sadly diminished in authority and significance.

The example he uses, Miguel Syjuco, is an expat Filipino from Manila who moved to Montreal. He spent years getting rejected by both literary agents and publishers. Then Syjuco entered his then-unpublished novel for the Man Asian literary prize. And won. It also won the Palanca Awards that same year, 2008. Now he’s on a promotional tour in the U.S.

The Asian Booker was amenable to unpublished entries in 2008. Unfortunately, it no longer is.

Do you know of prestigious awards that are open to unpublished authors? Ones that could propel a writer’s career to another level? Do you enter those contests?

Keep Your Day Job

Julie Barer has opened her own agency, Barer Literacy. In an interview on Galley Cat, she talks about her agency and what she represents, e-books, and how to pitch her.

Here are a few snippets from the interview:

For me, it's about more than just making the deal, or getting the most money, it's about the author's career.

This means helping get the work in the best editorial shape before it goes out on submission, finding the right editor and the best house for each individual project, and working with the author on every step of the publication process from jacket copy and website development to publicity, social marketing, paperback publication and beyond.

The smaller my list, the better able I am to help my clients work with their publicity and marketing departments to ensure that their books are published as successfully as possible.

… the harder you work with your publisher to promote the book by publishing stories or nonfiction essays to raise your profile, by blogging and keeping your website active, by thinking outside of the box in terms of marketing and publicity, the better your book will do.

Barer represents fiction and loves historical fiction and international fiction. (She also loves karaoke.)

Barer had many years of experience before she opened her own agency. When you query, are you put off by a new agency? Or do you look, not at the agency as a whole, but at the individual agent you’re querying?

Invisible Lines

Today, I’m posting over on The Blood-Red Pencil.  My topic today is How To: Remove Section Breaks.

If you’re having trouble with blank lines showing up in your manuscript and trying to delete or backspace doesn’t get rid of them, then you may be having a problem with pesky Section Breaks. In today’s post, I tell you how to get rid of them.

I invite you to link over and read and comment. And if you have a How To problem with your manuscript, leave a question in the comments section and if I can figure out the answer, I’ll post it in my next How To column.

A Publisher Weighs In

A Business Insider article on HarperCollins’ Debbie Stier caught my eye. She weighs in on Publishing in 2010. She was an Associate Publisher for HarperStudio, then the plug got pulled on that operation. Now she’s an Editor-At-Large, yet still enthusiastic about the future. She sees a place for both e-books and print books. She’s also a believer in authors knowing how to promote themselves. Like other publishers, she’s embracing social media.

She gets a lot of her own information through social networking and bloggers.

In the future, some authors will tweet, blog, and make video, but Stier is quick to point out that you can’t make authors into someone they’re not.

“Gary [Vanderchuk]would be the first to tell you, you know, 'Use what medium is most native and comfortable for you.' So if you're not comfortable on video, don't do video if you're comfortable with words,” she said.

“I do believe that the internet is the ultimate engine behind 'the cream will rise,' because, you know, we were talking about word of mouth before. If something's not great, then it's not gonna rise. The people will speak.”

For most of us, “word of mouth” has always been the way to sell. We’re just using different and more mouths now.

Openings

In-between other things, I’ve been working on editing my own work. Today, since I’ve been working on openings, I thought I’d share the opening of a manuscript of mine. Here it is:

Oliver sat back on his haunches and watched the sleeping woman. He'd been in this position for close to an hour, mesmerized by her, memorizing her. Brown hair, heavy and separated by sweat, draped across her flushed cheeks. Her mouth hung open as she drew air in trembling gasps. Body curled into a ball, she clasped long fingers beneath her chin. A chain attached to her left ankle stretched across her bare buttocks and fastened to the metal anchor plate on the wall behind her.

She released a long sigh, then inhaled with a low whimper. Her hands twitched, fingers fluttering like dry leaves in a hot breeze. She stirred from her sleep. Finally.

Oliver reached behind his back and touched the knife sheathed in his belt.

Is it suspenseful? I hope it sets that tone since it is, after all, a suspense book.

That's an important point to remember. What kind of book are you writing? Humorous? Suspense? Cozy? Romance? An opening has to do so much: hook the reader, set the tone, establish the plot, introduce characters, maybe even drop clues or foreshadow the climax.

This is not the original opening. It’s been re-written several times. And may be again.

The opening is important. It may be the most important part of your manuscript when it comes to getting an agent or an editor. It could determine whether your book gets bought or left on the shelf. But, on the other hand, don't spend your life trying to create the perfect beginning. Write it. Then go on with the rest of the story. Then go back and edit. It’s important not to get stuck in one part of the book. You have to keep moving forward.

If you don't get the story written, then a fabulous first page doesn't mean much, does it?

Going Home

You can go back, but it’s never the same.

I spent the first ten years of my life in a small house in Smyrna, Georgia. After that, my mother moved us to Texas and I’ve been here since. My father lived in that house for many years afterward. I went back inside once or twice, the last time years ago when my next older sister and I went out there to take care of my father. After we got him out of the hospital, we arranged for him to come to Texas to live near us.

At that time, I was an adult looking back at her childhood home. I was floored by how different it looked through grown up eyes. I knew the house was small, but now I realized it was really small. As a child, I had taken it for granted. As an adult, I admired that Dad had built by hand part of it, and how small it must have been before he added on that part.

When I was very young, my mother didn’t sit me or my sisters down in front of the TV. We were sent outside to play in the woods next to our home. I remember running through the trees, entertaining myself, for hours. And yet, when I went back, I saw how small and sparse those “woods” were. At the time, they had been, in my eyes, huge – a forest to play in. Knowing they weren’t didn’t alter my memories or emotions, but it did show me how perspective changes as we age.

I wrote about those woods and that house, letting them be seen through the eyes of a young girl, then showing the change in perspective when the girl returned home as a woman.

On a more recent cross-the-south trip my husband and I took, I re-visited that house. The changes this time around were even bigger – and final.

My husband and I were in South Carolina and the next day we were scheduled to fly out of Atlanta. Try as we might, we couldn’t get back to Atlanta before dark. Smyrna had changed so radically, we ended up having to get a map just to find the area. Once we got close, though, I easily directed him where to turn. That surprised me since it had been so long since my last visit and I had been very young when I actually lived there.

We turned up the street and there was the little house. Except it wasn’t the little house I lived in. The last time I’d seen it, my father still lived there so it was as I remembered it. Now other people lived there. Even the street number had changed.

Because the new people had lights on, I could see the changes. It looked like they’d done some remodeling, enlarging it a little on the side that Dad had added on. The giant holly bush was gone. The driveway had been paved. Siding was up.

The woods were still there. No one had built in that area. I wondered why not, but was glad to see them still there. The area behind my old house, where there used to be a drive-in theatre, looked dark. The rest of the neighborhood seemed welcoming. Still small houses, but well-kept. Before getting there, I half-expected to see bigger homes, the area gentrified or McSized. It’s probably coming.

We sat in the car in front of the house for a while, then I directed him to my old elementary school, about a mile from the house. It, too, had changed. No longer a small building; it was now a complex. I doubt kids still walk to school as we did. That quiet road is now a fast-moving thoroughfare.

It was very different seeing it this time – this last time, I expect. Before that, when we went to get my father, it was still my home. Now it’s someone else’s home. It’s been altered physically, not just by the passing of time and maturation of the child.

It’s something to remember when you’re writing a scene where a person goes home again. Things change not just with time and alterations, but because of perspective, emotions and attachment people and characters have toward the “thing.”

You can go back. But it’s not back to your past. It’s back to someone else’s future. 

It’s All in the Details

There are so many things to think about when you're writing a book--plot, characters, POV, opening hooks, chapter hooks, dialogue, narrative, show-don't tell, and on and on. Well, here's one more--the mood of the story.

I'm not talking genre, like romance, mystery, horror, suspense, etc. A Romance can be eerie and gothic. Horror can be humorous. A Thriller can be tongue-in-cheek. By mood, I'm talking atmosphere of the book.

Think about the atmosphere you want to create for the plot, the characters, the setting. Then establish that mood through your use of details, the way you put words and sentences together, your use of the senses.

A character walks down a long hallway, dark and quiet. A clock sounds. Is it the deep bass bonging of a grandfather clock? Or is it the shrill clucking of a coo-coo clock?

The setting of a scene is a lawyer's office. How do you, as the writer, furnish the room? Big, heavy furniture; lots of wood; a Tiffany desk lamp? Is that all? Or is there, hidden among the knick-knacks, a worn-leather book on ancient incantations? One thing that throws the scene, the atmosphere, off-kilter.

Your character goes to church. What kind of church is it? You can't just say it's a big fancy church--you have to show us. And what you show us about this church sets the mood. Do we see the long pews, the floor-to-ceiling stained glass windows? Do we see a rubber duckie floating in the baptismal tank? Is the choir dressed in royal blue with white collars, or ill-fitting faded purple robes? Does conversation come to a deadly stop when a certain character enters? Does a cell phone ring during the sermon and we see a head of curly brown hair slide down in the pew?

Details, details.

Make them count.

Looking for Another eReader?

If you’ve tired of hearing about the Nook or the iPad or the Kindle and want to hear about a-no-ther eReader, then slip over to ZDNet, where Matthew Miller gives you the rundown on the new Alex eReader.

He does an excellent job of telling you what he liked and didn’t like and gives you all the details, right down to the specifications. He also has pictures and a video.

Maybe you’ve decided not to get an eReader. We (and when I say we, I mean my husband) have the iPad. He loves it. I’m trying not to love it since I know I’ll rarely get to use it. I’ve already asked for one for Christmas. If you’re still on the market for an eReader, check out Miller’s article. Which eReader are you coveting? If you’re not on the market anymore, which one do you have?

Another eBook Store

We’ve got the iBook, BandN online, Amazon and other e-bookstores. Now comes Google Editions. Don’t get me wrong, I like Google. It’s my primary search engine. I have multiple gmail accounts. But I’m just a tad tired of folks not playing together.

According to PCWorld, Google Editions is supposed to be different:

E-books will be universal in that users can access them from any Web-connected device, and roughly 500,000 titles will be available at launch. Online books are cached once you've loaded them, so they can also be viewed offline.

Google is playing nice with publishers, too.

Publishers will get 63 percent of the revenue from book sales and Google takes the rest.

But so far, according to the article, some questions haven’t been addressed. Like, if you order through Google Editions, how will the books look on your Kindle or Nook? Will Google Editions books have the same features when you read them on your iPad?

And, I’m wondering, if you can purchase Google Editions books for your iPad or Kindle or Nook, how easy will it be? These guys are not playing nice with each other - because they want to be the guy who survives in the end. I can’t blame them, but while they fight it out, the readers are taking some hits.

We’re still early in the growth of ebooks and ereaders. What would you like to see?

Here and There

I’m here right now, typing this, “talking” to you. I’ll be here as I post this on Blogger.

Then…I’m there. Depending on when you read this, I’m either on a plane or in a car or in a hotel. I’m off to Albuquerque, New Mexico, for a conference. Unfortunately, not a writing or publishing conference. The good news is that since it’s not, I’ll have time to write and blog and edit.

Here’s what’s happening with me on those three subjects.

Blogging - I try to focus on writing and publishing (that includes hosting authors or others who talk about those subjects). Occasionally, I veer off (like today), but not often.

Writing - I’m currently ripping apart an old manuscript. It languished for a long time before my head accepted that it needed to be torn up, rearranged, cut, added to, and resurrected. I’ve done the torn up, cut and rearranged phases. I’m in the “added to” phase right now. Then I’ll probably rinse and repeat.

Editing - I have a client who has a fabulous manuscript. We’re already been through editing. She now has two agents who want the full manuscript, so she’s sent it back to me for a quick read-through. I’m doing that now. I’ve read the manuscript probably five times now and I still love it.

So, that’s me. If you live between central Texas and Albuquerque and a chill tickles up your spine this morning, that’s me, waving.

What are you doing today? Anything writing-related?

Clues In Plain Sight

A different kind of book came out this past weekend. It’s called The Clock Without a Face. I haven’t seen it, but it’s described as “a house-shaped board book chock full of mystery, humor and stunning artwork.” That sounds good. But what will probably have people snatching it up is that, according to SFGate, “there are also clues that point to 12 emerald-encrusted numbers buried across the country.”

As readers follow the adventure, they'll pick up clues leading them to the real-life location of the numbers.
"We wanted to have all these different entry points to the book," Horowitz said. "You can read it just as a whodunit. You can read it as this weird art book. You can read it as this interior design book or as this puzzle book or as this buried-treasure book."

What do you think? Useless gimmick? Or an incentive to buy?

Magic in Self-Publishing

According to Wicked Local, a local Sandwich (that’s a town) author is about to come out with her fourth children’s book. The Little Cape Cod Witch Cookbook was the first, followed by The Cape Cod Witch and the Legend of the Pirate. The author, J. Bean Palmer (Annie to her friends), wrote the series for her granddaughter.

She decided that no first-time author would get published by a big house, so she did it herself, hiring an illustrator to do the pictures. The books feature easy, healthy recipes. She’s now thinking of a series for her new grandson “about an orphaned boy on a distant planet who’s kidnapped by a group of space pirates.” No mention of recipes for him.

So far she’s sold 3,000 copies of her books.

The part that surprised me? Her books are available at bookstores throughout the Cape.

That’s it. No Amazon. No B&N.com. No website URL. Just bookstores and tea shops and a museum and an inn and “other bookstores throughout the Cape.” Unless the article just failed to mention all the online places the books are for sale, she’s missing a huge audience.

The moral of this story is, if you’re gonna cook up a book, make it easy to buy. Don't y'all agree?

Art Imitates Life

When we write, we strive to create real people. Not story characters, but people that live and breathe, cry and laugh, hate and love. They have lives that feel real to the reader. And yet…they don’t live and breathe and as authors we have to limit what they do.

Oh, they can kill people. They can have sex. They can go to faraway lands. But they have some limits.

Try writing a scene where twenty characters carry on a conversation, yelling over each other, interrupting each other, leaving, coming back, switching subjects mid-sentence. That happens in real life, but it’s awfully difficult to write it and not lose the reader.

Even fewer people, say eight sitting around a dinner table laughing and trading stories, is difficult to maintain. With that many people talking in real life, you end up sometimes listening to one person, sometimes breaking up into two or three simultaneous conversations, and sometimes trying to keep up with two stories at once.

That makes for lively dinner talk. I’ve found, though, that it doesn’t work so well in a book. When you’re writing a scene with multiple characters, having that many people interacting is too confusing. More than about three people talking together is too many. If it’s a play, a movie or a TV show, you can do more characters – the audience can see and identify easily who’s talking. In a book, it’s either confusing or boring with constant tags to identify the speakers.

I might call this a general rule, but like all rules, there are exceptions. There are ways around a limited pool of three speakers. You could have three talking at a table or football game, long enough to establish who they are in the readers’ minds, then have one or two more come into the conversation, then exit. You could have six or eight at a dinner table, but have them broken up into three or four conversations, each going on separately with the main character focusing in on one interaction.

Fiction may imitate or mimic real life, but it’s not an exact copy. What’s you “limit” on the number of characters in one conversation? How do you handle more than three speakers at one time?

Publishing as a Business

I stumbled upon a very long and interesting article over on Knowledge@Wharton. I thought I’d share a few highlights with you and the link so you can jump over and read the full Q&A. The title, What Does the Drooping Book Business Need? How About a Jolt of Expresso?, would lead you to believe it’s about The Expresso machine. It does touch on that, but it covers a wide range of information.

It’s a multi-person discussion and here are some snippets:

Eventually all the content in the world will be digitized and available everywhere in the world in that format. It will be downloaded in one way or another -- either to be read online or to be printed in book form by Espresso or similar devices. [Jason Epstein]

Books will be cheaper; more [money] will go to the author; and the publisher will get a better break. But those are the ultimate effects; there will be a lot of static between now and then. [Jason Epstein]

Word-of-mouth has always been the best way to sell a book -- and the web represents the word-of-mouth medium in spades. There's never been anything like it. [Dane Neller]

There's much too much overhead and complexity. There's too much unnecessary management. Lawyers get in the way of everything. That can't last. Digitization I think will inevitably have to replace it. [Epstein]

As I said, it’s a long piece, but very interesting. So, feel free to leap over and make it your Sunday read.

One opinion is that print books will not disappear, which is good news for most of us who love to hold the physical book. But there does seem to be a consensus that digitalization is the future and it will result in bigger profits for both the writer and the publisher.

What do you think? With more and more writers self-publishing, can publishers remain king of the publishing hill?

31 Books and Counting

James Lee Burke will publish his 31st book this summer. Thirty-one books, to me, is a lot, even though I know there are authors who’ve done more. Burke has a very interesting writing history, though, and that history was discussed recently in a Daily Comet article.

He started his first book when he was 20 and finished it at age 26. He got a six-column banner headline in The New York Times. And yet, there was a time, from 1972 to 1985, in those young years when he could not get a book in hardback for 13 years.

His novel "The Lost Get-Back Boogie" was rejected 111 times over nine years.

"During those years, I don't know how many short stories and novels I wrote. Nobody would touch me with a dung fork. I couldn't sell ice cream in hell," Burke said.

He ended this desert period by being nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.

He wasn’t sitting at home crying all those years. He was still writing. He was also out working all kinds of jobs to feed his family. He hung in there, writing in the morning, afternoon and even at night.

"I aim for 1,000 words a day. If I can get 750, I feel good about it. I rewrite that every morning. And that's what I do. If I stay with that schedule and I don't take any days off, and for many, many years, I haven't — for decades — I can produce one book that I consider a literary book a year," Burke said. "Writing is a continuum. An artist is always involved in it."

He’s been rejected plenty of times in his career. How does he handle it?

Never leave a story at home more than 36 hours. I've followed that rule for the past 53 years. Nothing stays home longer than 36 hours.

In other words, if you get rejected, send it back out. If you follow his plan, then you’ve got a day and a half to make any changes you feel you need to do in the query or synopsis or full manuscript, then get it back out there to an agent or editor. And no matter how many times you are rejected, don’t give up and keep writing.

When it comes to writing, what are your personal rules?