Authors labor long and hard over a book, and once it’s been written and published, the next part takes a bit more work: promoting it. One of the best ways to entice readers is through offering excerpts.  

The Great American Novel

I won’t touch on how to pick the right excerpt from your book today. Instead, I’d like to show you a technical tip for posting them in a readable fashion. Fonts and special characters can cause real problems, especially when transferring them into email to send to a group.

Have you ever come across an excerpt that looks like this:
&*%$He loves her&*%$ it&*%$s obvious.&*%$

 It should read: “He loves her; it’s obvious.”

How easy was it to read that in the first sample above? Imagine an entire page like that! How long would you read before giving up and going to the next one?

When posting excerpts or quotes on a group message or bulletin board such as Yahoo! Groups, the service strips out curly quotes – the kind that curl one way in front and the other way in back. Many email programs replace these with the ascii code for that command.

A font that readers don’t possess can cause the same thing. For example, something frilly and fancy like a handwritten-looking font changes to courier with all the codes as above.

When posting, use Arial, Times, or Times New Roman, and turn off the curly quotes feature on your word processor. This will ensure your excerpts and posts come out readable and clear. I’m sure they look lovely on your computer, but how will they look online?

If you have questions or problems with posts, feel free to share them. If I can answer them, I will. If I can’t, I’ll do my best to find out from someone else. When you leave a comment, it will trigger a notice via my email, and I’ll drop in as soon as possible to post a response.

OK, the writing itself isn’t a team effort but writing for publication most certainly is a team effort.  Let me tell you about my team:

Sapphire Blue Publishing

My publisher took a chance on me.  My first manuscript was rough and needed an immense amount of work but they saw something in it and chose to work with me.

Line Editor

My manuscript was assigned a line editor and we did several rounds of edits.  She’d point out issues, I’d either correct the issues ow we’d discuss why I felt they were important to the story.  Together we refined my original manuscript.

Copy Editor

Once line edits were completed to our mutual satisfaction, the manuscript was assigned to a copy editor who graciously pointed out where I started four paragraphs with the same word or scrambled my timeline.  Details like that can ruin the experience for a reader.

Cover Artist

Sapphire Blue Publishing has a specific cover artist who creates all their covers.  Kendra Egert is the woman responsible for my covers and likely a good portion of my sales.  I’ve seen bad covers but never from Kendra.

Reviewers

Reviewers don’t get paid for their work (and they usually buy the books they review) but their service to the publishing industry is invaluable.  Without reviewers, most readers would never hear about our books.  They can make the difference between a book that sells and one that bombs.

Other Authors

For a career that is, for the most part, solitary, we do a great deal of leaning on each other.  Other authors read our books, review them, help us promote them and even allow us to guest blog on their websites.  This level of cooperation is unheard of in other career fields.

The Reader

Like the proverbal tree in the woods, if a novel were published but nobody read it, would it still be a novel?  Writers would be lost without readers and publishers, editors and cover artists wouldn’t work.

So, you see, the writing itself is done as a solitary endeavor but writing for publication is a team sport.

Personally, I am grateful to be on such a fantastic team.

For more information about me and my team, please visit my website at www.LisaPietsch.com.

Khyff and Mehfawni

NarrAy, Senth, and the Harbinger

No, this isn’t about time travel, alternate reality (although maybe… hmmm), or bringing someone back to life via CPR. It’s about a book. Writers often think of their books as their children, and if that’s so, then I gave birth to a 108k word eBook yesterday. For the second time with the same book.

Re-releases are when a book goes out of print at publisher A, and you sell the rights to publisher B for a reprint. In my case, I had two books of a planned trilogy at publisher A, and wanted to finally write the third book.

Because publisher B had acquired the rights of “first refusal” or “first look” for any books set in my fictional Tarthian Empire, and those other two books were in the same setting, I had to give them the opportunity to to see book three.

What did that entail? This is where it gets sticky. First, I had to submit the two books to publisher B (Loose Id) to let them decide if they wanted to give the entire trilogy a new home. I also had to provide a brief synopsis of book three. Then, just like in pregnancy, I waited while things developed. Once publisher B said yes, they’d like to offer me a contract for the books, I came to step two.

This meant contacting publisher A and requesting they take the first two books out of print. Since they are ebooks, it was simply a matter of removing files from their server. I had long since passed my contract end date, so there was no issue with honoring contracts. They (Liquid Silver Books) have always been wonderful to work with, and within two weeks after contacting them, they had removed the books and advised their distributors that the books were no longer available.

So far so good. What I discovered was that since the first book had also been available in print, some places still offered the original version with original cover as a used book. That meant that the title was out there as a different version. I scoured the internet (no easy task) and found every place I could where the ebooks had been distributed but had not yet been taken down. The print books which had been offered as used copies turned out to be completely out of my hands. As of today, there are two copies of the original (and shorter) version of the book available at Amazon. The kicker? The seller wants close to $95 apiece for them. While I’m flattered, I doubt they will sell at that price.

During this time, I wrote another book for publisher B that was in a different series, and also edited the first two books they’d contracted to fit their house style, changing a few things such as increasing length on the first, and decreasing it on the second. During one three-week period when two separate manuscripts were due, I spent eighteen hour days working. For a week afterward, I couldn’t even hold the mouse, let alone click it! ^_^

However, book two is now out and I’ve just been told that book one is going into print in October. I’m thrilled that it’s turning out so well. It was a lot of work, but in the end, it was worth it. Even if it does feel like I gave birth twice.

Remember, if you plan to reprint or re-release a book, it’s like giving birth, including the long pregnancy and waiting beforehand. But once they are out there in the world, the pride is even greater the second time.

*****
Links for the new, heavily edited and re-released (and to my mind, much better) versions:

Antonello Brothers 1: At the Mercy of Her Pleasure (a Tarthian Empire Book)
Loose Id http://www.loose-id.com/At-the-Mercy-of-Her-Pleasure.aspx
ISBN 978-1-60737-552-4
Genre: Science Fiction Romance, Erotic Romance, Action Adventure, Younger Hero Older Heroine

Antonello Brothers 2: For Women Only (a Tarthian Empire Book)
Loose Id http://www.loose-id.com/For-Women-Only.aspx
ISBN 978-1-60737-435-0
Genre: Science Fiction Romance, Erotic Romance, Action Adventure, Interracial/Interspecies

You can watch a trailer for each of these books here: http://kayelleallen.com/trailers.html

The Agency model

I’ve been sorting through all that’s happening with digital books and a term keeps popping up:  The Agency model.  Do you know what it means?

In essence, we’re changing the face of bookselling.

A brick and mortar bookstore is a consignment store.  Publishers pitch books to the bookbuyers for these stores.  They order a certain amount.  Note the key word is order, not buy.  They rack books, prioritizing space according to discounts from the publisher.

When a book sells, then the bookstore pays the publisher.  If the book doesn’t sell, the hardcover is returned (doubling shipping costs, which is on the publisher) and the paperback is recycled.  Not an efficient way to run a business but if you study the history of how this evolved, it was the best that could be developed.  In the 19^th Century.

Also:  while the publisher lists a suggested retail price, the store gets to determine the actual price.  Thus Costco, bringing in pallet loads of books, cuts the price down to a very low profit margin, preferring volume to make up for lower profit.  However, they all pay the publisher the same amount for the book (minus promotional discounts)

The agency model for digital books is very different.  Here, the publisher sets the final cost of the book.  The platform through which the book is sold—Amazon, Kobo, Smashwords, whatever—will take a percentage of the price.

Think about the implications of this.

I’ve heard it said this is similar to the way the military turned cavalry into armor units in the first half of the 20^th Century and as someone with a background in the military. I think it’s an apt metaphor.  The mission is the same:  sells books.  The medium is different.  Faster, more difficult to maintain, and requiring a different type of expertise.

There’s something to remember about armor though: it is never supposed to go into combat alone.  In the same way, I think the fact you have a good book and understanding of the new face of publishing, you need a combined arms team.  You need your tech people, your promoters, your editors, your sales force, etc.  In essence, everything a traditional publisher has always done.  But it’s all happening a LOT faster.

I saw JA Konrath signed a deal direct with Amazon.  Several things to note about that:

1.  He got rejected by every traditional publisher he sent the mss to.  So no matter how much he champions ‘doing it yourself’, he tried traditional first.  PW reports his sales were tanking on his last couple of paperbacks– that’s common when a publisher doesn’t support a series.

2.  His gleeful response is what I consider in poor taste.  First, he was at best, a midlist author in traditional publishing.  I didn’t see him hit any bestseller lists.  Maybe the bottom line is he couldn’t cut it?  So he’s trying something different.  More power to him.  But to denigrate traditional publishing which did give him his start, is burning some bridges.  I almost wonder if part of the rejections from NY was a recognition of his stand that traditional publishing is dead.  If it’s dead, why try it?

3.  We’ve also been wondering how many copies of his own books he bought on Kindle in order to generate his sales rankings that got him started.  This is a dirty little secret in publishing, but there are authors who buy their own books in bulk in order to generate standing on bestseller lists and in order to get linked and promoed.  So full disclosure is an issue.

I still think traditional publishing is the way to go even as we hit 20 titles at Who Dares Wins Publishing.

However, we are in the initial phases of putting together an anthology for Romantic Military fiction for Who Dares Wins publishing.  Shorts, less than 5,000 words.  The key is good writing and the author’s willingness to promote it.  And, big and, all profits will benefit the Special Operations Warrior Foundation which sends the children of Special Operators who die to college.  I’ll be querying some ‘big name’ writers reference this soon, but we’re also open to those have a good short in the genre and can promote on social media.

Also at WDWPUB, we changed the covers on Bodyguard of Lies and Lost Girls to see if they would generate more sales.  Should be interesting.  All of this is so new, you have to try different things.

I’m just about done with my first draft of The Long Gray Line: Duty.  Once that’s in place, I’m focusing on some more original works for WDWPUB.  Exciting times.

Publishing is definitely in the throes of change.  Wild Ride came out several weeks ago, made the NY Times list out the gate, but I also have picked up a vibe of change.  A lot of uncertainty.

The iBookstore is making deals with the larger publishers but it’s uncertain what the parameters for the rest of us is going to be.  The iPad is out to mixed reviews, but overall they seem to be positive.  I sense it’s really a beta test for something coming down the line.

And what is coming down the line?  Michael Wolff who runs Newswer, an aggregate web site—and if you don’t know what that is, it is part of the future—had an article in the recent Vanity Fair about the Internet’s next big thing.  In essence, he boils it down to several paths and I’ll try to boil it down for you, the writer.  Even if you are going traditional publishing, it still affects you both in terms of eBooks and in terms of marketing.

There are several possible next big things:

Platform Theory:  This means someone is going to buy up most of the platforms out there and control the internet.  Ie buy Facebook, Google, etc.  Or those companies will buy each other.  Other players are Apple with the iPad and iPhone.  Up to now, no one has really been able to ‘control’ the net because the technology has been changing.  However, the technology of the Internet itself, is now relatively stable.  So it’s coming down to a war between Google’s control  of web-page-based Search and Facebook’s command of social media.  This concept might not evolve because it’s kind of Cold War.  As if someone could take over the internet.  But what if someone did?

Publishers are latching onto this in order to control the flow of books.  It’s why they are negotiating with Amazon and Apple over pricing and distribution.

Digital behavior theory:  the old way of doing business was hierarchical from creator of media to users.  Now, it’s flat on the internet with cheap production and few barriers between creator and user.  Kindle is a good example of that.  Who Dares Wins Publishing now has 14 books up on Kindle.  Our sales are doubling every month and we are moving onto more and more platforms.  We’ve just started getting our first sales in Europe.

The danger of this path is that no one is really controlling quality—other than users—and people are getting manipulated into working for free.  I know writers who contributed to local ezines and got paid—now they are doing it for free.  Because if they don’t get the byline, someone else will.

Some of this goes to what I mentioned in a post last month:  people are actually more creative when working for the art rather than money.  Which is fine and well, but art can’t feed you.  Think of all the energy people put into some of those Youtbube videos?  Yet, they really don’t get paid for them.  I’ve had over 9,000 hits on my Special Forces video on Youtube, but I’m not sure if it’s done anything for me.  This theory also says web pages are already out of date as they are passive.  The Internet is not a product, a production, etc.  It is our collective expressiveness.

The Pay-As-You-Go theory:  Since the hierarchy is now flat, revenue is also almost flat, so some people want to get back to basics.  They want to get ad costs up and also get sponsors for various media.  Can you see an ad for deodorant inside your next book?  Maybe.  Product placement also might be key here.  Will the NY Times start charging since their internet ads are not producing enough revenue?  I’m seeing more and more ads getting layered onto sites such as NY Times and Sports Illustrated and CNN.  I kind of like what Hulu does– you HAVE to watch the 30 second spots, but it’s only 30 seconds and they time it down for you.  I can live with that.  How can we do ads with books?

The magical machine theory:  Aka the iPhone.  Blackberry isn’t doing too hot lately.  The Kindle is still doing well, but everyone keeps talking about it not being backlit and black and white.  On the flip side, complaints about the iPad are smudges on the pad, etc.  Will there be ONE machine that will be our eReader, cell phone, laptop, media center, etc?  If one machine dominates, start thinking about ATTs deal with Apple over the iPhone.  And Kindle vs. MacMillan.  The maker of the machine might control our media.

And you want to know what’s really going to drive all this?  Sex.  It was the only thing that consistently made money on the Internet and people aren’t going to change.  Think Skype Sex.  What about Facebook buying Skype?  What about cats and dogs living together?  Sorry, couldn’t help it.  But the woman who cuts my hair was telling me about talking to her daughter in Costa Rica on Skype the other day– and she said she’s basically computer illiterate, but was able to download the program, plug in a small camera, etc. all pretty easily.

Will any or all of these theories happen?  Who knows.  But as a writer, you need to look at all four and examine the advantages and disadvantages of each.

Seven Things to Avoid in Writing

Everyone writes books about how to write. You can find books on characters, plotting, grammar, and even how to murder. So there’s no point in me telling you about that stuff. So here’s what I’ve learned to avoid in order to write efficiently. Follow these important “do not’s” and you will be on your way to finishing that manuscript!

1. Do not let your cat sit on your keyboard. I can’t speak for all cats, but I can tell you that mine cannot write. She’s great at abstract poetry though. She once wrote “qwsssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss.” Doesn’t that speak to you? However, she also removes the keys from my keyboard. I can still type without the keys, as long as I remember what they were. Who remembers where that squiggly line used in Spanish words is without looking? I might need that, and the cat probably stole it.

2. Do not become an aerospace engineer. I mean this in the kindest way because I have engineers in my family. I tried AeroE, as we called it, in college. But let’s face it: anyone who would be interested in the gear ratio of an ultralight airplane is unlikely to write the next bestseller. Especially if you write romantic suspense like I do. This does not sound like a scene I’d want to read:

“Check out the gear ratio on my ultralight,” says Steve, the hero, flexing his gears.

Jane, the heroine replies, “Ooo. Your gear ratio is so sexy.”

3. Do not have a paying job. Fine, you may have one if you are Nora Roberts. She has made writing a profitable career choice. But you? You are an artiste, a creative soul, yet unpaid. Working sucks the soul out of you. Who needs money? When you work, you are too tired to write. After a day on the job, my energy level is only high enough to let my fingers crawl over the remote keys, or find the pizza delivery guy’s phone number. Let’s not get into staring at a screen for another three or four hours, when that’s what you did all day (unless it was trying to keep your eyes open during a marathon PowerPoint meeting).

4. Do not celebrate holidays. Right around Halloween, when the Christmas carols start playing in the department stores, you must be strong and resist the urge to shop, write cards, and make seasonal treats. It takes hours, days and weeks to do all these things. It’s like having another job, and you already have one: writing. Short holidays, like St. Patrick’s Day are okay, because it doesn’t take long to recover from a hangover.

5. Do not have children. I love children, I have two myself. But if you sit down to write and they’re home, it’s as if you made cookies. They instantly gather around. “When’s dinner?” or “Can my ‘screamo’ band practice here tonight?” is slightly better than one of them flipping on the TV, which happens to be showing your favorite romantic comedy, Pretty Woman. So, of course, I—I mean, you—must watch it. There went two hours of writing time down the drain. So maybe you should not have children or a TV.

6. The corollary to number 9: Do not have a husband. Okay, you can have a husband, but he can’t be at home anytime you’re writing. He’ll have to work opposite hours. Because as soon as you start writing, he will need to discuss some very important household thing. “Do you think we need more of that carpet cleaning stuff? You know, the kind that cleans up dog barf?” And whatever you do, don’t let him ask you to help with outdoor work. There is no such thing as a “15 minute” job when your husband is involved. Eight hours later, sunburned and exhausted, you will collapse in front of the TV. (Hopefully Pretty Woman will be on and you’ll kill two wasting events at once.) I’m sure there’s an equivalent to this for guys. It likely involves shoe shopping.

7. Do not eat or work out. These two things are paired because if you eat, you need to work out; and if you work out, you need to eat. Eliminate them both. Working out requires going to a gym and sweating. Eating involves shopping, preparing and sitting around the table with family, who do not want to talk about your latest romantic scene. In fact, if one of the family members is your college-age daughter, she doesn’t even want to read your books because she wants to maintain the illusion that she was created in a vacuum, not by her parents doing…well, you know.

Having friends is also another thing that interrupts writers. But, good grief, giving up friends crosses the fine line between being professional, and just being plain crazy.

I’m sure other writers can add to these important rules. What advice do you have?

At eighteen, I wrote my first novel. It was 400 pages of rambling that would probably never have seen the light of day, excerpt for the fact that I kept thinking about it. In fact, I thought about it for eighteen years. But that was all I did. Think. I had heard that making it “big” didn’t happen once you were over 40, so at 36 I decided to start trying in earnest. I paid an agent to read my entirely re-written book. Now – a disclaimer here – you should Never Ever pay an agent to read your work, but I didn’t know that then.

It came back with some broad comments about relating to today’s events and not using words the reader wasn’t likely to understand, such as “caff” for caffeine=coffee. It wasn’t till later that I met someone else who had also paid this person and discovered that he knew nothing about writing Science Fiction or how people who read it enjoy being dumped right into the middle of society and have to figure out what’s going on from context. He had turned out to be a scammer, and I was glad I’d dumped most of his comments and used only a few that made true sense.

However, by this time, I was close to 40. Terrified of being over the publishable hill, and fretting I would never make it. One day I was in a store and picked up a Romance book (which at that time, I never read because they were too formulaic). But I noticed the author was gray-haired and not a twenty-something or even a thirty-something. I started grabbing books at random and reading about the authors. All of them were women, averaging between 25 and 60. I remember thinking “Sixty! OMG that is so old!” Remember now, I was still on the going up side of the proverbial hill.

So I decided to look into writing Romance, because the biggest criticism of my SciFi was that it was too “touchy-feely”. I was told that SciFi was written to appeal to men. That was another whack in the head for me. “For men?” I checked the mirror. Yep, female. My mother loved SciFi. My sisters did. I had girlfriends who loved it. So why did publishers think it was “For men?”

I decided Right Then And There to ignore the you’re-too-old philosopy, and the SciFi-is-for-men stereotype and write what I wanted to write. I spent several years creating a background for my writing, building a universe that would enable to me to play in any part of the galaxy I wanted. I found a quote by Oliver Wendell Holmes: “Don’t die with the music still in you.” For me, it was the “books still in me.”

Reading everything I could find on how to write, what to do, where to go, how to “get your name out there” helped me persevere. I submitted two short stories; both were rejected but returned with critiques. I once said I’d never been rejected, but I’d completely spaced those when I said it. One of those two stories later won Honorable Mention in a Reader’s Digest national contest, and was in the top 100 of over 1000 entries, at #33. I felt vindicated. I was 40.

It took me a few years to get over my fear of rejection, my fear of success, and my tendency to say “I’ll write a book once ______.” (fill in the blank) We bought a house, my daughter got married, and my youngest son was in high school. Within a few years, I’d have an empty nest. Then what excuse would I have for not writing?

I joined an online critique group in Dec 2003 http://groups.yahoo.com/group/para-rom-crit-2/ and began submitting chapters of a book. There, I had the honor of meeting Barbara Karmazin, a published writer of truly alien SciFi Romance. Once she saw I’d listen to her advice, she mentored me, and boy did I ever listen. She introduced me to her publisher, Liquid Silver Books, and by April, I had sold my first book. I was 53 that year. I’ve been writing for six years now. So, far from being old at 60 (which I will be in 2011) I am just beginning my career. I feel more alive and vital than I have at any prior point, other than when my children were small. (I had all three within four years and was constantly on the go.)

 

The Nizamrak Building by Jamin Allen

assisting diploma at 60, next year. Oh, one more little detail, not completely off topic. To honor my friend Barbara Karmazin (may she live forever) I named the central point in many of my stories The Nizamrak Building. It’s her last name backward. Here’s a picture of it drawn by my artistic son, Jamin. Three of his pictures were entered in the P&E Reader’s Poll this year and all three ended up in the top 10. This was #six.

It’s never too late to start being who you want to be.

Captain NarrAy Jorlan, Senth Antonello, and ... the Harbinger

Something I learned about marketing myself and my books is to never make the reader have to look for me. In our instant society we snap our fingers at the microwave and say “hurry up!” LOL Whenever I email anyone or post online, I always have links to books or chats, or whatever I’m discussing. Readers like to click on a link and find things without hunting for them.

I just did a twelve-day treasure hunt with my Edge of Peril group (20 hard core fans) and they absolutely loved finding the details. Everyone who took part in the quiz at the end got the questions 100% right. They are already hooked, and enjoyed the search. New readers might do that for a contest, but if you send them to your home page and they have to click and hunt through tabs to find the book you’re promoting, you may lose them by the second or third click. Remember, writing is our lifeblood, but it’s also a business.

On my Romance Lives Forever group, I host author chats several times a month. You wouldn’t believe how many post an excerpt and give only the name of the book. No publisher info, no author name (their email isn’t always Suzy-Author-Jones, but may be (making one up) spudchef4835, or their husband’s name because they haven’t made an email for their pen name – providing no clue who they are. Some don’t provide links to their books, either. This is like telling a buyer you have a house for sale in Chicago, and expecting them to hunt it down. *buzzer sounds*

I give the reader everything they need to make a decision and find my book. I have higher sales, and when people hit those pages they find exactly what I want them to find.

Here’s a sample I created for the book that came out this week *dances* at Loose Id. I paste this only at the end of promo excerpts.

Antonello Brothers 1: At the Mercy of Her Pleasure (a Tarthian Empire
Book)
Available at Loose Id
http://www.loose-id.com/At-the-Mercy-of-Her-Pleasure.aspx
ISBN 978-1-60737-552-4
Format: ebook in multiple formats
Genre: Erotic Science Fiction Romance, Action Adventure, Younger Hero
Older Heroine
Heat level: R=explicit sex
Editor: Heather Hollis
Cover Artist: Anne Cain
Warnings: This book is a substantially re-edited, revised edition previously released by another publisher, and contains explicit sexual content, graphic language, and situations that some readers may find objectionable: Anal play, dubious consent, menage (m/f/m), reference to rape offscreen.
Author website: http://kayelleallen.com
Author email: kayelle @ kayelleallen .com

I sign my name, give my tag, and links to important places such as another book, my yahoo group, or my blog.

The purpose of hanging out on groups is not *only* to chit chat, though that’s important. Readers are often impulse buyers. That’s why bookstores put genres together, so people interested in one author will find others who write the same thing, and pick up more books. Prepare your readers for that impulse buy. Never just sign your name. Readers will become accustomed to seeing your signature and recognize you by it. It’s not vanity to use a full signature, and it’s not mercenary. It’s business.

When I first started writing, my fabulous mentor Candace Irvin said go to the bookstore and figure out what you’re like. You need to know the market before you can start to see where you fit.

So I went. I read Joann Ross, Cindy Gerard, Suzanne Brockmann, Marliss Melton and others. I read Robyn Carr after Roxanne St Claire said maybe you’re more like her. After all, I’ve got military heroes, I’ve got to be like one of these great ladies, right?

Oh how wrong I was. Here’s the problem and its not one I’m sure I can overcome. I’m not romantic suspense. So my War’s Darkest Series is not like Suzanne Brockmann’s Seal Team series where there’s a cast of eight or so strapping men to pick a story from. None of my characters are Special Operations Forces.

My characters are also not prior military like Robyn Carr’s heros, who have all gotten out and headed up country to Virgin River, hoping to find a new life away from their military experiences. My guys are the Everyman, my women spouses, nurses and warriors themselves. No Special Forces, Navy Seals or Black Ops. Just regular soldiers, fighting the good fight.

So my books don’t fit. They aren’t small town based like Robyn’s and they’re not suspense like Joann, Cindy or Suzanne. In short, there’s nothing out there that I can compare to because everyone has either written prior military characters or Navy Seals.

When I wrote military romance in a query letter, little did I know I was speaking in code for romantic suspense. When agents are reading it, they’re looking for suspense. Fast pacing, action, action, romance, action. And that’s not what I wrote. I wrote a character based, contemporary romance with men and women who are all still in the military. I wrote books that were not suspense except that by putting military in the query, I was telling agents that’s what they were.

I screwed myself, apparently. I feel like when I sent out this last round of queries, I should have put in big bold letters, THIS IS NOT ROMANTIC SUSPENSE. I don’t know that it would have helped. I’m reasonably certain there are other issues in my current WIP but I’m also reasonably certain that the main problem agents are seeing is that they’re reading for romantic suspense and putting the book down when it doesn’t live up their expectations, wrong or not.

So, bluntly, I think I’m screwed. How do you pitch a book that doesn’t fit into a nice neat genre? Especially in this market? You can pitch to your hearts content but if you can’t get past the gatekeepers, you can’t get sold. I’m not complaining about agents, mind you. I’m simply stating that I think I pitched my books wrong to the fabulous agents who asked for the full manuscript and ultimately passed with great comments.

So that’s the end of this, for now. I’m revising once more because I’ve got a song in my head that is making me work on this book, even though I’m pretty sure it’s a dead end. I’ve learned a lot, but the one thing I don’t know how to fix is how to query the next project correctly. Maybe I’ll put in the query: this is not suspense.

Maybe not.

Jessica Scott writes for PBS POV Regarding War and is hard at work on her next novel. She recently returned from Iraq with the First Cavalry Division. You can read about her adventures in publishing and the Army at her blog http://www.jessicascott.net/blog

We are the new kids on the block and we have attitude but we back it up with years of inside information collected from both sides of the publishing table. Our sole purpose is to introduce books that make a statement with their unique voice, strong plot lines, and complex, well developed characters. At Accomplice Press our excellence shines through in the tiny details and this produces polished literary works.

After doing extensive research we know what the readers want and we are going to give it to them without worrying about selling millions of copies out of some mammoth warehouse. We are an independent, boutique style publisher and our focus is on the skilled authors and their target audiences, you the readers. The Partners at AP have decided to launch a series of specialty lines to answer the growing demand for something innovative and new. Curvalicious is our first endeavor and it will be a romance line spotlighting plus-size heroines but their size will not be the focus of the plot line. As publishers and women we feel that there are countless romance lovers who don’t see real life females, like themselves, portrayed in the books they read. We plan to change that with this specialty romance series.

Curvalicious women are voluptuous, beautiful, strong, sexy and intelligent. These inspirational main characters will always get the man of their dreams without losing weight or changing who they are on the outside. Romance is all about fantasy; our stories will keep the home fires burning even on the coldest night of the year. We are offering two different heat levels for our reader’s pleasure. Curvalicious Sweet is romance with sweet or sensual love scenes, but no explicit language or sex and Curvalicious Spicy is erotic romance containing explicit language and sex scenes. The stories will be available in e-book format with periodic print anthologies.

Accomplice Press is shaking up the publishing world one book at a time and you can be part of the revolution. We are holding a Curvalicious writing competition which began on Valentine’s Day and ends at midnight on May 14, 2010. We’ll be accepting stories for both Sweet and Spicy heat levels and on May 28, 2010 two winning entries will be contracted to be published in ebook format. The top three submissions of each category will also be included in the first Curvalicious print anthology. The specific guidelines for Sweet and Spicy submissions, word count and formatting requirements are all available at our website accomplicepress.com. All contest entries must be sent to curvecontest@accomplicepress.com. We are also holding an “open call” to all authors, so this is the perfect time to submit that manuscript you have written. Just remember Accomplice Press is NOT a self-publishing company.

It is an exciting time at Accomplice Press and we will be releasing more lines as the year progresses. There will be Silver Sirens, which will be romance about female characters over the age of 40, a Young Adult line called Fierce and a line dedicated to “men in Uniform”. Please check out accomplicepress.com for more information. Also we will be attending Romconinc.com in Denver this July, please look for us there.

Good luck authors!
Karen Jones
Public Relations Manager for Accomplice Press