My first publisher told me that it takes 3-5 years to make a name for yourself and become recognized in your niche of the industry. Rather than fall out with discouragement, I sat down and sketched out ideas to help me reach that goal.

Here are two key things that have helped me so far in establishing my writing career:

1. Have a plan
2. Stick to the plan

Sailboat on Blue Water

Don’t worry that you can’t jump in and handle a yacht right away. It’s okay to learn how to sail on a small boat. Spend this time laying out a plan, studying what others do, and making inroads where you can. When you are ready, you’ll have a strong foundation from which to set sail.

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.

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 military has its own form of double speak, often using acronyms. When I was in the Navy, I found a book of slang terms and official Navy terms that included common acronyms. The book’s name? NavAbrDic. o_O

Corporate spin may be as insidious as a butcher shop advertising that they’re donating to an animal rights group. What’s wrong with that? If we can’t tell, perhaps we are too used to hearing this kind of speak.

I found a fun site when researching this subject. Here are two examples they provide of the “real meaning” behind some of the finest coporate spin.

Key Enabler
The person that will get all of the credit on a project.

Outside the Box
Creativity. Those that do think outside the box are generally considered rabble-rousers and trouble-makers. While verbally encouraged, your reward for thinking outside the box may be a pink slip party.

Have you ever been to http://despair.com and checked out some of their posters? They are a delight to read, with great lines that motivate through demotivational words.

Here’s one called Motivation. 

This is corporate speak used to change your mind about what is being said. The poster tells you that you are a loser, but makes you think twice about simply accepting that definition. It also makes you laugh. Check out their site for more terrific posters. Fair warning — they’re addictive!

How do we, as writers, avoid double speak and cliches? At the end of the day, when all is said and done, it’s simply a matter of not using the same old thing day in and day out, except in this case, it’s meant in an entirely different way, and for a radically different purpose.

There. How was that?

Starting late in this case doesn’t mean posting a blog at 11am instead of the usual 12:01a, it means starting late in life. You see this book cover? This book was released when I was fifty-three, and has been completely re-edited, new scenes added, and is out again now that I’m fifty-eight.  The hero is barely out of his teens, but it doesn’t matter. Even his heroine is older than he is. *wink*

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.

What’s a writer to do?  Well, the way to go is still traditional publishing.  Latest book just came out this past week:  Wild Ride and we just found out yesterday it hit the NY Times list on its first week, which is nice.  But there are other options. So here’s an example of something we created just two months ago from nothing.

What is Who Dares Wins Publishing?

An independent Flex Publishing company specializing in military fiction and non-fiction, and narrative military non-fiction, especially authors who have rights reversion on their backlist. We consider new authors in Special Operations fiction and those interested in writing episodes for one of our series.

We publish Series Special Operations fiction and Military Science Fiction falling under the “season” and “episode” model.  Series fiction premieres with a pilot at approximately 20K word count with each additional episode at 10k word count.  We have established Series Lines and are looking to increase series options for our readers.

We want to give authors the opportunity to publish their backlist in both ebook and POD form without the cost and time intensive of creating and preparing manuscripts for upload and conversions to various ebook formats and ebook readers.  We provide our authors with cover art and will create a Print on Demand book that will be distributed on websites such as Amazon and Barnes and Noble and available via Ingram to brick and mortar bookstores.  Also, the author can purchase trade paperback versions of their book to hand-sell at discount, with us handling the orders and shipping.  We charge no fees and work with you to earn a profit via royalties.  If you don’t make a profit, we don’t.

Flex Publishing:  Authors are the producer of the product.  Readers are the consumer of the product.  Who Dares Wins Publishing offers a non-traditional option for authors to get their work to the readers.  The key is to build synergy in the brand among all the authors, each helping the others.  The bottom line that will make Flex Publishing a success is TEAM-WORK.  Authors who write similar material working together to promote each other.

As the publishing world undergoes some major growing pains, many authors are feeling the crunch and in many cases, being pushed right out of publishing.  Traditional publishers want authors to become a brand in themselves.  Many big names have, but most authors are struggling to even find a single slot on a bookshelf.  The day of the advance is coming to an end for many mid-list authors and nearly impossible for the new author.

Technology has provided readers with new options for enjoying the written word.  However, traditional publishers have not embraced the new technology and while the publishers are trying to figure out how to save their crumbling empire, reader demands are changing and it’s the readers who authors need to reach.

Who Dares Wins Publishing has been created with authors and readers in mind.  Our goal is to connect our author with their readers.  We realize we can’t compete with the Big NY houses as we don’t have their distribution abilities.  However, the distribution channels are quickly changing as well.  More and more readers today are buying their books differently as well as reading them differently.  Amazon is an online store.  There is no Amazon on your street corner, yet Amazon is one of the leaders in both the physical book market and the ebook market.  Barnes and Noble might be in your town, but with the addition of Fictionwise (ebook online store recently purchased by Barnes and Noble) and Barnes and Noble’s new ebook reader The Nook, even their sales are changing, leaning toward online sales.  The introduction of the iPad and Apple’s online digital bookstore will do for publishing what iTunes did for music.

Who Dares Wins Publishing currently cannot get physical books into your local bookstore unless they are ordered via Ingram (Lightning Press- a pull rather than push system).  However, we can get out POD’s to the major on-line bookstores and make ebooks available through major on-line ebook stores and support each ereader.  Ultimately, we want to get our books to our readers.

Anyway.  I predict a lot of similar start-ups in publishing across an area of areas.  I believe military has a better chance at succeeding because we know the value of working as a team.

Also, my new book Warrior Writer: From Writer to Published Author just came out and I’m really happy with it.  I recommend everyone who wants to write, start putting together their own writing book.  Just write down everything you know right now and then keep adding to it.  A similar concept is to write a book using your blog.  We invest a lot of time into blogging, if you can find an interesting topic reference your platform, schedule out the blog like chapters.  Just a thought.

www.WhoDaresWinsPublishing.com

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.

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

]]> http://romancerollcall.com/2010/03/21/when-you-query-the-wrong-book/feed/ 1 http://romancerollcall.com/2010/03/11/advice-for-rwa-national-first-timers/ http://romancerollcall.com/2010/03/11/advice-for-rwa-national-first-timers/#comments Thu, 11 Mar 2010 15:46:00 +0000 ajbrower http://romancerollcall.com/?p=286 Last year I was the newbie to the Romance Writers of America National Conference. So now that I know what I didn’t then, I’m going to help you figure out a plan of attack for attending. Answer a few questions, do a little web browsing, and you’ll have a strategic plan of attack worthy of any military assault!

Why are you going? This basic question is your objective, what you hope to achieve by hanging out with 3,000 other authors. Are you going because you’re having trouble writing and need advice? Do you want to meet agents to see if there’s one out there for you? Or are you there to pick up free signed books? I think of RWA in terms of three levels: improving your writing (novice), getting your book published (intermediate), or becoming a business professional (professional). You can target more than one area, but focus will help you get the most out of RWA.

Who do you want to meet? Networking is an essential part of national. Whether you’re meeting with your local chapter, meeting your editor for the first time, or trying to find out what the key to Nora Roberts’ success is, you should have a mental list of people you want to contact. Plan or arrange to meet them at the workshops they’re presenting, at one of the meals that comes in your package price, or during book signings. However, no stalking or gawking please! You won’t look professional, and this is, foremost, a business conference.

What do you want to take away? Takeaways are both physical and mental. Free books, pens, bookmarkers, and notepads are some of the physical items you can pick up in the Goody Room. Use these for ideas of how you can market your book, or to give away to readers and other authors back home. Many workshop presenters will have handouts. Take copious notes on those that benefit you most. The major publishers will have signings, their authors autographing free books for all who wait in the lines. Besides the obvious books for reading, you can also give these away for personal or chapter promotion. As for your mental takeaways, the workshops will give you much to think about and help your writing business, and the inspirational and humbling speeches given by the speakers may give you that psychological boost to get your writing to the next step.

Using the answers you’ve given to the questions above, you’re ready for what we military types call a course of action (COA). You may have more than one COA, which is fine. You’ll need to refine your plan on arrival. Get on the RWA website early. You can start downloading handouts off the conference page to see which workshops you’ll want to attend. They fall into several categories: career, craft, research, chat, special (tends toward the philosophical/insprirational), publishing, writer’s life, and Publisher’s Spotlights. Shortly before the conference, RWA will upload the entire schedule. This is when the real work begins.

I used the Outlook calendar feature next, but you can simply write on a day planner if that’s your preference. Write down all the workshops and events you’re interested in and when they are. Why? Because you will change your mind about which ones you want to attend as the day goes by. Maybe one workshop gave you what you wanted and going to another similar one would be a waste of time. Or maybe you met someone who is attending a different workshop, but is turning out to be your best resource (or just fun to hang with). But since you have a backup plan, no need to read the entire catalog you’re given at registration.

If you’re directionally challenged, you’ll want to study the hotel map as well. Though there’s plenty of time between workshops, you don’t want to get lost trying to get to one that is standing-room only and end up trying to listen over the crowd squeezing in at the door.

If your goal is to snag an agent or editor, don’t miss your opportunity to sign up for appointments. Last year RWA posted a table of editors and agents and what they were looking for. Print this out—because they don’t have copies at the conference. Although you’ll only be given one agent/editor appointment, be prepared to hit up all agents and editors you’re interested in. You are allowed to sit in the waiting area for appointments, and if someone doesn’t show up, you can step into their slot. But do your research. It does little good to pitch your 150,000-word paranormal romantic saga to Harlequin.

Because you’re a first-timer, be sure to mark that on your registration. You’ll get a sticker for your badge saying “Newcomer.” This is an open invitation for agents, editors, authors and veteran attendees to strike up a conversation with you. Be prepared to talk about what you write and be proud of your status!

A good attack plan will help you reach your objective, and of course, result in that happily-ever-after ending we all strive for!

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