A Plan–Man!

Has anyone ever told you to get beyond being a hobbyist you must begin thinking like a professional? Many writers don’t think beyond hobbyists until they try to be published and many don’t move beyond this point even then.

When you are writing do you think also about writing a business plan? I doubt that the business part of writing even entered your mind. Just getting words on paper is what occupies most who start out writing a novel.

Your writing will never move beyond being a hobby until you begin thinking like a business person and to do that you’ll need a business plan. Too much trouble you say; too involved. I just want to be published. I don’t want to go that far. I just want to see my book in print, just hold it in my hand.

Fine. There’s an easy way to do that. Contact a printer in your local area and have a copy printed up. In fact, they can probably do that for you at Staples.

If Publishing Advice is Yesterday’s advice, Keep it to Youself.

OMG, I just got a query letter from a guy who says he does nothing before checking the Absolute Write board. Wow! Yet when we give advice it’s ignored, overlooked or deleted. Wow again! For those of you who don’t know what Absolute Write is, you’re much better off not knowing.

Let’s dwell on this a money. Seems the average new writer on this board is still looking for an agent to represent them and launch their publishing career. Why? Because they get their advice from supposed publishing experts who are the board’s voice. Ahem. Just a little research off of Absolute Write and onto Amazon shows that these so –called experts haven’t published much since the 1990’s.

I hate to burst bubbles here, but publishing is not, I repeat, NOT the same as it was in the 1990’s. How do I know this? I became as a literary agent in 1999 and ran, according to Absolute Write, a very successful literary agency. Oh, you say, what made you leave? That’s very simple: Publishing is not the same as in the 1990’s. If you have to ask what’s different, then maybe you need to stay on Absolute Write.

Are Writers’ Conferences For You?

From my comment on Write Me A Book John blog yesterday, it seems many who also commented there are against attending writers’ conferences. Information can be enlightening, so in this post, I’m going to report on what’s good and bad about writers’ conferences from the perspective of someone who has attended over 40 of them.

To clarify, I’m not an eccentric millionaire but was invited in the capacity of literary agent, manuscript consultant, and workshop facilitator. Also, to alleviate writer’s cramp, I’ll be referring to writers’ conferences from now on simply as just conferences.

What’s good about conferences? First of all, there are usually classes on a variety of subjects of interest to writers of all stripes. Most of these classes are taught by publishing professionals, including literary agents, editors, movie producers, marketing experts, and published authors. The variety and depth of these classes depends on the location and size of the conference and who is teaching the classes. The reason I mention this is the obvious—the closer to New York City a conference is held, the more major publishing house editors and big name agents will be in attendance. Why? Big houses and agencies can’t afford to have all their staff at a far-away conference. Close to NYC conferences eliminate this factor. Makes sense, right?

One of the biggest advantages of attending a conference, besides the classes offered, are the consults. A consult is where you sit down for a ten-minute chat with an agent or editor and give him or her an overview of your project. (Caution: There’s usually an additional cost involved here, with the money going to the conference organization.)

Many authors complain about gatekeepers. Conferences are places where those gates open wide. For instance, if you do well in your pitch session with one of these pros, and they like what they hear, you get an invitation to send them some, if not all, of your work–more on how to do this in another post.

Agents and editors attend conferences looking for that next best-seller. If an editor requests your work at a conference, you bypass the need for an agent, as most major publishers will not accept unsolicited queries. Unsolicited means that they won’t accept anything unless they request it from an agent (or you, but this means you already know the editor).

One bad thing about conferences is the cost to attend. The costs, again, vary depending on the size of the conference and its location. For instance, if you have to fly to a conference, flight and hotel costs must be added in. If you live close and can drive back and forth, this naturally eliminates those costs.

Most conference attendance/registration fees run $200 to $400 for the entire conference, again depending on location and size. Add in airfare, meals, and hotel costs, and a conference can easily cost over a thousand dollars; whereas, if a writer lives within driving distance, many of these costs can be reduced or even eliminated. If you drive, you have no hotel costs, plus you can choose to attend for one or two days instead of the whole conference.

Usually, for a Friday, Saturday, Sunday conference, Saturday might be the best day to attend. Most conferences list their activities online, so it’s very easy to select the best day, or days, to attend that will allow you to do what you want to do while there.

One advantage not always mentioned is the opportunity to enter a conference writing contest. These contests usually use agents or editors to evaluate the top writers in each category. If your work happens to make it into the final rounds and gets placed in the top three places, there’s a chance this agent or editor might offer representation or a contract. I have judged these contests in the past and have picked up clients from the winners. Entry costs for contests vary, and, again, writer organizations use these funds to support other activities that will benefit their writers.

There’s also usually an awards banquet held in the middle of the conference. Attendance to this is not mandatory. If you didn’t enter you work in a conference’s writing contest, you can eliminate this banquet to cut down on costs.

One of the biggest reasons for attending conferences is getting known. This is only an advantage, however, if you’re a marketing dynamo the likes of J. A. Konrath. If you’re shy and withdrawn, most of this advantage is lost to you. Even if you like people, skipping some of the functions like meals and the banquet remove the opportunity chat with a publishing professional. Also, at conferences there’s usually social gatherings, which are places to get one-to-one time with an agent or editor in a more informal setting.

For the most part, conferences are what the individual makes them. They can be boring or give the individual writer‘s career a big boost. It’s difficult for a writer to connect directly with publishing industry professionals. Conferences are about the only way to do this.

By the way, someone mentioned BEA. BEA is not a writer’s conference but rather a place for publishers to display their upcoming titles and a place for agents to sell rights.

Reading, Righting, and Rithmatic

We at Martin Brown Publishers firmly believe a free people must be able to read, write and freely disseminate knowledge. While there’s no shame in being illiterate, today’s world can be very difficult to navigate without those skills. One of the smartest men I’ve known couldn’t read. He did well in life—sixty years ago. Today, circumstances that allowed him to function without reading and writing skills no longer exist. The time has passed when a smart man could make a decent living with only his hands. Today, hands must know how to read and write to use a keyboard of some sort.

Look around you. Look how dependent we are on machines. We have smart phones, computers, the Internet and GPS systems. Robots put things together where in the past hands, arms and muscle did those tasks. People didn’t have to think the same way we do now to do their jobs.

These days, we have to be able to read and write to function. How many of us never shop for material goods anywhere but online? How many of us could function without our daily Facebook, Twitter, or Google+ hit? How many could get by without checking our e-mail, text messages, or our friends’ latest selfie?

How in this 21^st century can someone do anything without being literate? How can we remain free without knowledge?

It blows my mind how much I use my eyes reading this or that during any given day. Yes, I’m a publisher and reading is part of what I do, professionally. But even beyond that, I read to learn what’s going on in my neighborhood, state, nation and in the world.

I very seldom watch television anymore unless I’m streaming video. I, like most people these days, get my news from social networks or from online reading. Yes, some of what I read is pure bull—has anyone watched Fox News? As thinking humans, we have to learn to distinguish fact from fiction. We need to separate pure rhetorical bias from political agenda. We need to be literate enough to realize that news-casters are highly paid entertainers; that many times they report on things that aren’t factual but are designed to boost ratings. We’re getting better at it, but only if we read from many different sources. And, my goodness, doesn’t the Internet give us that?

I’ve had the pleasure of living through almost eight decades of change. During this time, I’ve seen some great things happening around me. But I wonder how it might have been if I had never learned to read, write and aggregate what I see and hear. Life is so good because reading and writing keeps my mind fresh. I thank human genius and ingenuity for all these wonders. Reading and writing and thinking made it all possible.

Where the Rubber Meets the Road

Okay, I promised I would answer with my version of Write Me a Book John’s post entitled Writers Privilege is a Real Thing posted on his blog on July 16, 2014.

“Anyway, the point that I’m making is that if you read blogs on WordPress or even op-eds written by authors there is a constant theme…the publishing industry doesn’t give us a chance to succeed. That agents and publishers have gone beyond the point of acting as gatekeepers to keep average or below average writing out of the traditional publishing world.” —John Guillen

I disagree with John’s premise that … the publishing industry doesn’t give us a chance to succeed. These days the only thing holding anyone back is their own lack of imagination, knowledge, and initiative. If publication is all you want then the fact is anyone can be published. All you have to do is write it and KDP Amazon, Barnes and Noble’s Nook Press, Kobo Book’s and Smashwords will publish it and distribute it for you. They’ll take a raw Word document for gosh sakes. The average writer not only gets a book but also gets distribution directly to readers all over the world—something unheard of only a few short years ago.

There are no gatekeepers anymore. In fact the gates are wide open. There’s nothing holding anyone back. Possibly there’s is a lack of awareness that Kindle Direct Publishing, Nook Press, Kobo, and Smashwords exist. For those who are unaware, a Google search is like a transporter beam into the 21^st century. There are even places to create paperback books and audio tape—Createspace and Lightening Source.

All of the above mentioned publishing sources are royalty paying distributors. All a writer has to do is read the uploading instructions, send your stuff, sit back and let the royalties roll in.

Well it’s not quite that easy—nothing actually is. Beside sending stuff, you have to do what all writers hate, whether they’re published by a major or do it themselves. MARKETING!!! Sit on your butt and wait and big rolls of nothing will come rolling in.

But I’ve gotten ahead of myself. Let’s go back to where we were.

I believe what is being griped about is securing an agent with the hopes of getting a fat advance and being rich and famous. Yes, that part is still extremely difficult. What makes it difficult is you have to have something of value to sell. By value I’m not talking about a plain Jane book here. Anyone can write one of those. Agents, editors, and publishers are not even going to look at something that has no value and then give you huge buck for what amounts to nothing but words on paper. Value means huge entertainment value—enough value that big name movie producers craps their pants. So much value that big five publishers start bidding wars over your book. That’s value.

For some really good information on publishing follow J. A. Konrath’s A Newbies Guide to Publishing. Joe Konrath has been around publishing as a multi-published author for many years. More than that, he knows most of those who make getting big advances possible.

I agree with John when he says the odds of getting published by a big five, large advance paying publisher is less than 1% — way less There are a number of reasons why accomplishing this feat is so difficult. On the other side of the coin, however, even if a writer is lucky enough to get that big contract, will he or she be successful?

There’s much, much more to this game than just writing a book. Part of what it takes to be successful in this business is knowing what to do at each step in the process. Here are a few facts to get you started from a gatekeeper.

. Agents are never 100% successful.

. Advances are loans.

. Loans have to be paid back before success is even possible.

. If you don’t know what the hell you’re doing, there’s a better than average chance your book is going to fail to generate enough royalties to pay out your advance.

. If the advance isn’t paid out, there won’t be another contract.

. Getting published, getting an agent, getting a publisher, getting an advance and being published by a major house is only the beginning. The work really begins when the contract is signed and it never stops after that.

. If an NFL player never plays, he won’t see another contract. You have to be in the game to have a chance to win and being in the game is where WORK really begins.

Fiction Books; the Tides of Change

While patrolling J. A. Konrath’s blog, I clicked a link that took me back to when he was just starting out in publishing, circa 2004.

 What was great about this older post was it revealed how much things have changed in our publishing world since 2004. Kindle, iPad, Nook, Kobo Readers—none were in vogue in 2004. Amazon, at that time, did not rule the book-buying world and it was assumed that self-publishing digitally was something losers did.

Successful authors, back then, were published by the majors and were still signing their print books in big box bookstores. Borders Books and Barnes and Noble were still king.

 To show how different things were then, Joe mentions doing book signings at Waldenbooks in his post. A kind of the sign of the times thing is that K-mart was booming, and because of that it had enough capital to buy Waldenbooks. All went well with this until a few years later when everything changed.

 Not only was ink and paper expensive, but publishing’s whole business model was becoming unwieldy. Many blame the shift on Amazon and its Kindle E-reader, but Apple was also poised to introduce the iPad, so one or the other would have fostered needed change. Whichever it was, the beginning of the end for big box bookstores was inevitable. Although some have survived, Waldenbooks and Borders did not.

On July 18, 2011, Borders Group filed for liquidation to close all of its remaining Waldenbooks and other stores. Liquidation commenced on July 22, 2011.

 Change is difficult. Many in this new world of publishing still deny that anything has changed. Take a trip to the writer boards and you’ll see many there who still believe that book signings are the way to go. Many there still believe that July 2011 never happened. Probably many still believe authors still do signings at Waldenbooks or Borders. Change is hard, especially when change happens so fast.

 Although the world of publishing has undergone dramatic change in these past 10 years, there is still good news. What I also pulled from Joe Konrath’s historical post are these few simple truths that will never change, including:
“Invest in your writing career as if it were stock. Investing in yourself and your writing does (2) things:

 (1) It compounds your publisher’s efforts in establishing your brand.

 (2) It shows your publisher that you’re willing to invest your own time and money into building a career.

 The single most important thing an author must do is to make sure their publisher is happy. That means earning out your advance, being gracious and easy to work with, and making an effort to promote and market your author name as well as your wonderful book(s).

 Some promotional opportunities are ads, reviews, library talks, conferences, conventions, internet marketing, snail mail campaigns and website contests. Also, meeting your reader fan face to face can make the difference.

 Necessity is the mother of invention, and authors need to find better ways to sell their books, or else they won’t last long in this business.

Learn all you can about publishing. Not only from the outside, but from the inside as well.
You’re a consumer, as well as a writer. What makes you buy a book? Figure that out, and concentrate your efforts on reproducing that effect for other consumers.” – J. A. Konrath

This was a great post. Thank you, Joe Konrath, for this trip down memory lane.

Whiskey, Very Large

Do you enjoy cozy mysteries? If you do, you might be interested in the release from Martin Brown Publishers of the 7th in the Whiskey Mattimoe Mystery Series. This one, entitled Whiskey, Large, captures Whiskey Mattimoe in the final stages of her pregnancy. This will be her and Jeb’s first child. As the title suggests, Whiskey is very large, having put 60 pounds on her normal tall skinny frame during her pregnancy. As she says, she can’t do anything without being uncomfortably.

As with most of the books in this series, this on contains dogs. Not just one dog but many. It’s also hilarious and of course there’s a murder to be solved, Whiskey’s on the case, but this time she’s not her agile self. Before I give too much away, be on the lookout for this one on Amazon very soon. Pick up a copy in E-book or print. You won’t regret it.

 

Fiction Books: How to Write Winning a Query Letter

I’m seeking an agent or publisher, what’s one of the most common ways to contact one? One of the best ways is to attend a writer’s conference. But a less expense approach is to write a query letter.

A query letter is an introduction, and, as such, tends to be short and to the point. Okay, I got it. So how do I write one?

Start where all letters begin, with a salutation. Queries lean toward the business letter format but, unlike a business letter, do not begin your query with Dear Sir or Madam or Dear Agent or Editor. To be most effective you want target your query. Don’t just throw it to the wind and hope it lands on the right person’s desk. Call it flattery, buttering up or whatever, but always use the agent, editor, or publisher’s name. Google can help you find this information. If you’re querying an agency or publishing house with many agents or editors, search out the person who handles what you write and direct your query to him or her. A little respect never hurts, so also use that person’s last name: Dear Mr. or Ms. (last name).

Open with a sentence that captures interest. Examples: What would you do if you were a teen girl and fell in love with a vampire? OR In the future, reality TV has turned deadly and one young girl finds she has no choice but to fight to the death to save her sister.

The next paragraph contains the reason you’re querying. (I’m writing to introduce my 60,000 word, romantic suspense novel entitled, The Lost Kitten.

The next paragraph contains your jacket blurb. Yes, you must have a jacket blurb so quit whining like a little girl and write one. Read the backs of paperback novels or look on Amazon under Books for examples of jacket blurbs.

Jacket blurbs are a short—very short— overview of your novel. Think about the back of a print book. Can’t put much there, can you? That’s why they must be short. Caution: Don’t give away the ending!

The last paragraph contains your contact info and any pertinent information that might help promote your work. If you’re published, list the title or titles, who published it or them, and when (date). Have celebrity or a following? Prove it. Include Web site address, Twitter address, Blog address, Facebook address, etc.

Your signature.

That’s it, you’re done. The main goal of a query letter is to get a request for more—usually a request for some or all of the work. The key is to be short and compact. An agent or publisher isn’t going to read beyond the first page, so anything beyond a page is a wasted effort. The queries main objective is to generate interest. Good luck!!

Love is Rare

It’s rare, as an acquisitions editor, that I find a raw manuscript that is completely publishable shape. Most of what I see is stories that are not going anyplace and those that are headed somewhere need help before their authors can visualize what they could be.

My job is like a treasure hunt. I know, sooner or later, if I don’t get discouraged, if I persevere, there will be that rare occurrence when a diamond or a golden nugget arrives at my desk, a wonderfully original story that needs very little help. At this Stage was one of those stories.

It’s unusual that I can finish a manuscript in a single sitting. That’s because my reading is also an analysis of the story. Many times I can’t finish a manuscript because its author puts too many roadblocks and detours in the way. It’s with great sadness that I have to put these types of stories aside.

I started reading At This Stage early one morning and by late evening I was still reading. I don’t remember lunch. I might not have eaten lunch. Couldn’t say if I ate lunch. I don’t remember. I do remember rushing through supper though and my wife getting concerned because I was absent-mindedly stuffing food in my mouth, and I love food. She said, after I finished the book, that she had never seen me so involved. The bad, or maybe good part, depending on which side of this you’re on, was each time I tried tell my wife about this wonderful story, tears would come and I couldn’t finish.

Even when I was readying At This Stage for publication, I would tear up when reading certain passages. Love is such a bitch mistress. These two people, Jackson and Kaitlyn, seem to be so meant for each other and yet there is so much to overcome. If they get together, it could mean a lifetime of regret, but if they stay apart, both will be miserable…or will they?

I’m not going to give away more because I want you to read and to enjoy every morsel of this delicious new adult romance for yourself.

If you love to read how true love begins or if you love a romance you can sink your teeth into or if you love sadness and joy, you must read At This Stage.       

Mystery Book Reader

Imagine you’re a reader and let’s assume you adore mysteries—not only adore them but devour them. You can’t get enough of them. So here you are, a lover of mysteries, what’s the easiest way to go about finding enough good mysteries to satisfy your hunger? Do you drive across town and search the stacks for a mystery that might quench your thirst? Or, do you do what more and more readers are doing and search the Internet for a good mystery?

Good is relative. There are millions of books being produced annually and probably hundreds of thousands of them are mysteries. Since anyone can publish these days, the odds are pretty even that most are going to be written by beginners. Some beginners can spin a fairly good story, but chances are that most self-published mysteries are not going to satisfy the above average mystery reader.

So what is a reader to do? If you are an E-book reader, my advice is to do an Amazon search on mysteries. Amazing what you can find here. As a wonderful bonus, many of the mysteries listed in your search are free and, not only that, most have been reviewed by those who have read and ranked them. Believe me; this beats those bad old days of blindly searching a big box bookstore stacks. Most readers back then settled for big name authors to be assured of not getting burnt too badly. Now, because of Amazon searches and reviews, you can try out a new author and, in many cases, find a good mystery read. As a bonus, if you don’t enjoy it, delete and try another. You can do this because they are FREE.