Tag Archives: getting published

February 5, 2015 · 4:23 pm

I’m in Like Flint

I’ve just been reading Becky Lerner’s The Forest for the Trees: An Editor’s Advice to Writers. At least in the first few chapters, Lerner, a poet-turned-editor-turned-agent (and I gather still all of these things), offers advice at one end of a continuum I’ve noticed. Hers is what I would call a “soft” book for writers: strong on inspiration, on the emotional landscape of writing, on how you’ll know if you’re really meant to write and how to persevere through the cold winter of a writer’s disenchantment. At the other end of the continuum: books like Michael Larson’s book on non-fiction proposals, which I downloaded for help writing my proposal for Survive College Writing (a future bestseller currently interred in a massive data dump of all the things I want to say to the students I saw struggle so hard). Larson is in the “how-to” school; this is what you do and this is what it should look like, down to how long paragraphs should be. Quit yer belly-achin’ and just get going. What’s so damn hard?

In the middle I’d place Susan Rabiner’s Thinking Like Your Editor: How to Write Great Serious Nonfiction and Get It Published. This claims to be a how-to, but there’s a good amount of inspiration here–for example, she maintains that if you’re passionate about your topic, your heart will beat through your prose. But there’s also some of that hard-headed get-on-with=it spirit: All the passion in the world won’t help if you don’t do these X or Y Most Important Things.

Reading Lerner, I find myself thinking about the many conferences I’ve attended over the years. Lerner tells ms, forget about writing the next X or Y; forget about “Marley and Me meets ET.” Write what you’re obsessive about, what haunts you. Write the book that’s your book. Thus far, the implication is that if anything is going to sell and hit, that’s the book that will.

The real question is, where’s that line between “what we’ve seen before” and “we don’t know what the heck it is”? Lerner will presumably tell me if I’ve just gone too far, according to one of the Amazon reviews. I will await the event.

If I were in the inspiration queue–I’m not exactly; I know I’ll always write–I would find some solace in sentences like these from Lerner:

“It takes a certain kind of person to understand and cope with rejection as an appraisal instead of a judgment.” (See this post for another take on criticism of our work.)

“[T]he degree of one’s perseverance is the best predictor of success.”

I value information about what’s not working more than ever, and God knows, I persevere.

 

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January 28, 2015 · 7:48 pm

Update from 1/27!

I’ve revised to add some new more information about Gail Strickland’s book, Night of Pan. Check out her site. I hope she will visit soon for a blog interview about bringing her book to publication.

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January 27, 2015 · 1:48 pm

Writers’ Conference VII: Post-Coda

I promised to report on the fates of my colleagues at the conference I attended a few years ago.

I obviously don’t know all their stories. Emails began to circulate, friendly requests for updates. Not everyone responded. I did not.

Now that I’m contemplating creating (from scratch) a “platform” for the non-fiction book I’m working on (tentatively titled Survive College Writing: What No One Will Tell You about Your First-Year Writing Class), I realize that not becoming part of that somewhat nostalgic network was a missed opportunity. At the time, it seemed clear to me that my job had hustled any real involvement in my personal projects right off the stage. So I withdrew, sat silent, packed away the emotional energy I wanted to invest in writing in hopes it would ferment in its dark corner. I think it has. I get up ready to write every day.

So with regard to the fate of my colleagues at the conference, all I have to go on is that flurry of emails. About ten people took part.

Of those few, up to the last email I received, only one had found a commercial publisher for the book she pitched at the conference. Gail Strickland found a small press (Curiosity Quills Press) that publishes the kind of book she has written and offers her the kind of support she hoped for. Her book, a YA historical fantasy titled Night of Pan can be pre-ordered through her Web site. I’m hoping Gail will give a blog interview about her experiences taking her book through from idea to promotion; if so, I’ll post the date.

The most impressive of the several self-publishing stories is that of one of the attendees who perfected his pitch (not about zombies) and scored a review from Publishers Weekly Select. John J. Kelley’s The Fallen Snow is worth a look–and I especially admire the attention his hard work at promotion has garnered. He’s gotten wonderful reviews! With his permission, I’ve posted his very informative account of the PW Select process here.

Another attendee ended up self-publishing a cookbook based on her expertise at gardening and raising bees. At last account she was still at work on her fiction.

John found the conference helpful in expanding his options for his work. I am still thinking about what I learned, including what I knew before and how the conference changed what I thought I knew. Even so much later (nearly three years), I still have much to process. I think that will take another post.

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January 16, 2015 · 2:55 pm

Writers’ Conference Saga: Pre-Coda

My abortive meeting with my assigned editor took place on the penultimate afternoon of the conference. The next morning we were to finish up in a group summary meeting with Our Leader.

For some reason I can’t recall, I was eager to meet with him one more time. I made my way to the conference site before daylight in order to be at the front of the line. Along with a woman with whom I had been friendly, I managed to get a slot at the table as we ate breakfast in a crowded coffee shop. What in the world did I want from him at that point? To salvage something from the ruins of my experience (“Is it time travel? Reincarnation? Oh, wait, he must be already dead!”)? To pitch my other book? Who knows.

I do remember that he rewrote my friend’s pitch, ad hoc, in one breath, and that, were I a fan of such topics, I would have found his version immeasurably better. She still had her meeting ahead of her. So she faced the day armed with his words.

I remember as well talking about my other book, my “Sarah” book. He began excitedly weaving a resolution to the deep personal crisis Sarah faces, one that in my formulation would carry her through three books, each with its own sub-crisis and plot. I said, “That sounds like something to consider for the third book.”

“Oh, no,” he responded. “That’s the first book!”

I have already written the first book. I said, “I write my own books, thanks.”

I don’t recall that he took offense at this. Perhaps he secretly did.

Our final meeting consisted of congratulations for all those (most) who had been invited to submit manuscripts to major New York houses. This fortunate group included my friend, who was now supposed to write the book she had been given. I think he generously pretended that I had been given permission to send along my Sarah book. Then he said something I didn’t expect.

“I worry,” he said, “that you’ll all send in your stuff before it’s ready. Don’t do that. Make sure it’s ready.”

My perhaps ungenerous translation: “My business is running these workshops. I have to be able to say that publications come out of them. Most of you have no manuscripts, just ideas. Most of you have never produced anything like a book-length manuscript. You don’t actually know what you’re getting into. Please, some of you, take the time to write something that won’t waste these editors’ time.”

I find myself thinking about several things, remembering this comment. We were apparently selected to attend, to have the chance to meet with REAL EDITORS, on the basis of a one-page synopsis and a bio. Such application materials gave us the chance to make a preliminary pitch and gave the conference planners a chance to verify that we could actually construct reasonable English prose. But I wonder: is that enough? Are you really ready to write a book if you can sell an idea?

I have learned enough about my writing process to know, that for me, the answer is an emphatic NO. For me, there is nothing so demoralizing as knowing that the book isn’t working but that I must deliver. Write a draft. Share the draft with a conscientious critique group. Yes, it takes more time, with no more guarantees of eventual attention from an agent or publisher than if I had simply mailed off the first chapter and a treatment. But it makes the process rewarding. I can write a book that has a chance of working. Not being a genius, and not having a formula, for me, that is feat enough.

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November 18, 2014 · 2:26 pm

On Having to Write about Vampires (and Alien Sex)

Apropos of my narrative about being categorized with the vampires and aliens at the most recent conference I went to, here’s a piece from today’s New Republic online newsletter in which a writer of memoirs, Stephen Akey, laments the apparent impossibility of selling anything that by comparison must be considered bletheringly unmarketable. What most resonates for me in this piece is what he tells us about “platform”: agents, gatekeepers to publication, asking “What type of platform do you have for speaking about the issues in your book?” “What is your access to the media or to major experts in your field?”

Because my current project is nonfiction, I’m particularly sensitive to the purported need for a “platform.” I’m fortunate in that I do have access to some “experts” in  my field (and at times have passed for one myself), but I’ve been asked the same question about works of fiction. Yes, I’m sure it would be easier to sell a novel by Regis Philbin than one by one of us unknowns, at least (possibly, since Mr. Philbin might well be a stellar wordsmith) until it gets read.

But I’m not a carpenter by birth or trade, and labor as I will to build something akin to a sound platform, I’m imagining ending up with something more akin to a three-legged seesaw. I’m reminded of an admonition I found somewhere–wish I could tell you where: “Less tweeting, more writing.” Yet, I am rather enjoying picking up my HTML book and envisioning the Web site on which I will advertise and sell my otherwise doomed works of fiction. It will be vibrant, informative, interactive, irresistible. If only I could figure out how to add a background layer to my new logo in GIMP. . . .

Stop reading blogs and get back to work, you.

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October 15, 2014 · 12:59 pm

Paying for It: Story I

For “book doctor” services, I mean.

I apologize for this long post. This story turned out to take a long time to tell. I apologize as well for what may be my most carping posts, as I have disastrous encounters to report. So you may want to wait for a sunnier discussion. On the other hand, yet again, you may find my mistakes instructive—even though they do tend to fall into the category of “what was she thinking?” if I do say so myself.

At least in each case I wasn’t out more money than I could afford at the time. And I did go into each with the attitude that the money was all I really had to lose.

The first episode occurred when King of the Roses was in its pre-agent, pre-St. Martin’s state: stacks of boxes of typed-upon sheets, not quite as imposing as the purported five feet of manuscript that constituted the original draft of Gone with the Wind, but nothing you could tote in a shopping bag, either. I was very young (excuse).

I met this man at the conference my local university regularly hosted (now defunct, sadly—it was a wonderful conference). I don’t recall exactly how we made contact; I must have approached him after his session. I don’t remember exactly how much I paid, but it would have been less than $500. Of him, I can say this: he was conscientious. He did what he said he’d do, in a timely manner. He read the whole book and regularly sent me sections festooned with comments. Recently, in the process of dumping piles upon piles of old rough drafts, I came across the pages he had edited. I set them in the “save even though you know better” stack, to look back at one day. Did anything he told me help me? Possibly. Good advice, in whatever form, is worth reviewing. It’s so hard to come by.

The bait was his assurance that, once we had chiseled the book into shape, he would put me in touch with the New York editors with whom he had professional relationships. Who wouldn’t spend $500 on that?

What rises to the top, probably flushed out by the memories of what finally happened, are not deep, global insights that would eventually make that book publishable; no, they were idiosyncrasies that left me about where I’d started, still wondering whether my ambitious plot (yeah, they’re all ambitious, more’s the pity) was working and what to do if it wasn’t.

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August 1, 2013 · 11:13 am

The Next Thing I Learned

They don’t promote your book.

Nowadays, that seems like the kind of thing I should have known. With as much information as is available online, I assume everyone now knows that publishers no longer do any serious promotion unless you’re a celebrity. But I was truly naive.

Of course, they hadn’t paid me very much and didn’t have much to try to recover. In fact, they sold my book to their affiliate in England and made back the advance instantly. Moral: make them give you a couple of million in advance money, and then they’ll worry about getting it back.

They asked me for lists of famous people I knew who would read my book and write blurbs for it. I gave them lists of famous people, but I didn’t know any of them. They did send the book out for review. The reviews were extremely strong. They got it into some libraries. But that was the extent of it on their end. Maybe there were efforts I never heard about or saw.

I contacted local bookstores and got the book on the shelf in a couple of them. But I learned about bookstores. Your book–my book–wasn’t going to appear in Barnes & Noble or Borders or any of the bookstores then extant unless it had $$$$ behind it in advertising. Since it was a hardback (and they never sold the paperback), it didn’t appear on any drugstore shelves. I was advised to make the rounds of all the bookstores and find out who the book reps were and make friends with them and sell them on my book, so they would push it to the independent bookstores.

This is all so far away from the kind of person I was (still am) comfortable being that my efforts in this direction fell way short of a lick, let alone a promise. Self-promotion has never been easy for me. It’s why I can’t really pitch well. Besides, I was still working, making about 8K a year (a sum not as bad then as it would be now), and the idea of driving all over the country glad-handing book reps felt like something that wouldn’t happen unless I had a personality transplant. My agents and my editor both said, “Let go of it. Get on with the next book.” (I think today that translates into “Less tweeting, more writing.”)

At a few conferences I’ve been to, when the resident agents learn that you’ve been previously published, they ask for sales figures on your books. The idea seems to be that if you weren’t writing bestsellers then, you never will. KOTR sold, as best I can tell, about 20,000 copies. Not sure if this includes the later Bantam paperback. I have begun to think that I am almost better off not to tell some of these people that I ever was published. Let them think they’ve “discovered” me.

That is if I truly want to work with someone like that.

I have slowly come to believe that the ongoing changes in publishing are for the better. At least now you go in knowing that if anybody’s going to market, it will be you. I have read mixed reports and have mixed feelings about the various gung-ho marketing schemes people recommend, so I don’t know which will work for me. At least I also know now that I will not be getting the 2 million in advance and so that worry is off my mind. What a relief.

 

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July 20, 2013 · 5:29 pm

How I Got Here, Next Step: The Plot Develops Lumps as It Thickens

I’ve tried to recall the problems that kept my 700-page ms. from getting snapped up for a hefty advance. I suspect it had to do with “700-page ms.” It was clear that the book was going to take work to get in shape. It takes a special editor to want to put in that kind of work. Out of the blue one day, that special editor called me.

L and J had sent him my 700 pages. He couldn’t wait to get going on them. His first instructions: change the ending. No argument, just do it. His second: cut 200 pages.

I use this account in my classes, even expository writing classes. He was going to publish my book. I said, “Yes, sir.”

So how do you know when to say “Yes, sir” or “Yes, ma’am” and when to argue? Lord help me, I don’t know. I do know that in that case, I had no choice. First novel, major publisher, erudite editor who said he “pulled all-nighters” with my book and who wrote me 30-page letters exploring its strengths and pushing me to think about its weaknesses: in fact, he was a teacher of the art of writing commercially viable fiction, and I wish I had known enough to practice everything I learned from him.

He said something along the lines of (I have the actual letter with the exact quote in my university office) “There’s enough wonderfulness here for four books. We need to decide which of the four is the best and save all the rest for some other time.” He said, “I’m going to show you how to tighten by doing the first 40 pages for you. Then I want you to follow my example on the rest.” I show those pages, with those big slash marks across whole pages, to my students. I show them my own slash marks, following his example. He said, “If a scene’s just repeating the work you’ve already done somewhere else and telling readers what they already know, get rid of it.” He showed me how to give scenes and dialogue their own internal life, what screenwriters call “beats.” I learned how to find the lines that carried the weight and slice out the shaky bridges between them.

I can’t tell you how much better that book became.

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December 2, 2012 · 7:14 pm

Quick point

J and L made so little money off me that I am truly glad they even took the time to do what they did. They made 15%. I assure you they did not retire on that. I owe them much. I just wish I had called on them more and perhaps more insistently. I think I could have learned a great deal that I did not. I think they could have saved me some heartache if I had just asked.

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November 4, 2012 · 10:44 am

Brave souls

So J and L had a 700-page manuscript to deal with.

Admittedly their investment was small–from the writer’s point of view, anyway. They had to pay whatever it cost them (before email and Facebook) to get it to publishers. They had to “talk it up” at lunches in New York, but I assume that my book was one of many they pitched. I guess they spent some time on the phone, but not, I also assume, long distance. They had to read it, of course, in order to decide they wanted to invest even this much. So these were their losses if the book did not sell.

Mine? I didn’t figure those. As far as I was concerned, I was going to write it anyway, whether it ever sold or not. I suppose I should have calculated opportunity costs. Could I have become a millionaire if I had invested all those hours in learning to beat the stock market or in becoming much sooner what I eventually became, a university professor? (Of course I would have been a biologist if I had planned better, not a writing teacher. Moms, don’t let your babies teach writing. . . .) But all I wanted to do was ride horses and write. Two guaranteed ways not to make money. But I have never regretted writing that book. Or riding horses. But that’s another story.

J and L said, we don’t like to edit. We don’t want to impose our views on what the editor will want, when you get one. At the time, that seemed smart. For that book, it probably was. But later, I wished I could have relied on them more as strong, knowledgeable readers. I have come to see readers willing to plow through and respond to drafts as essential to any writer’s attempts to find a market. Now I am hungry for the simplest chance to talk to someone about my work.

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