Business
Please welcome guest Jenny Milchman to Writer Unboxed! Jenny’s short fiction has been published and reviewed online and her novel of literary suspense is currently on submission. She’s the founder of the series Writing Matters, which draws authors and publishing folk from as far away as Seattle to standing-room-only events at a local independent bookstore in Montclair, N.J. Last year she began Take Your Child to a Bookstore Day, a holiday that quickly went viral, enlisting over 80 booksellers in 30 states.
She also teaches for New York Writers Workshop, and led a workshop in February called “I Wrote a Book…Now What? 10 Things You Need to Know to Get Published.” She graciously offered to share some of the questions asked in that class with WU readers–along with her answers. Take it away, Jenny.
“I Wrote a Book…Then What?” A Follow-up
As WU readers may (or of course, may not) remember, last Sunday I led a workshop on writing called I Wrote a Book, Now What? 10 Things You Need to Know to Get Published. With many thanks due to Therese and Kathleen, I am back today to share with you some of the topics we discussed.
So without further ado [queue David Letterman voice] here are the Top 5 Questions asked by emerging writers seeking publication during this changing time in publishing.
#5
Q: What’s the difference between a pitch and a query letter?
A: If you consider a pitch to be something like the flap copy that will go on your novel’s book jacket, then a pitch certainly belongs *in* a query letter. But a query also contains other ingredients, such as why you’re querying this particular agent, some biographical details, where your book would be positioned in the marketplace or comparable titles, and your credentials (if important) or qualifications (if relevant).
#4
Q: If so-called cold querying can work to get an agent, why would a writers conference be worth the money?
Read MoreOne of the most common questions authors get is this: “How much of your book did your editor make you change?” (Sometimes it’s “agent” instead of “editor”, but the question is the same.) And there are unspoken questions behind the spoken one: how much did you give up? How much of your vision did you sacrifice? How much of your book isn’t yours anymore?
If someone asks, “How much did they make you change?” I answer with the truth: “Nothing. They didn’t make me change one thing.”
Did my agent have suggestions that shaped the book? Absolutely. Did my editor? Oh yes. (I assure you, the new old saw that “editors don’t edit anymore” is very, very much a myth.) Is it a better book because of their involvement? No doubt whatsoever in my mind. They picked out weaknesses and issues. They found slow sections, rushed sections, dead-end plotlines, opportunities for higher emotional stakes. They asked pointed questions: have you thought about this? What’s the reason this scene is here? What about if X were Y and Y were Z? They found ways they thought the book could be better, and trusted me to figure out how, exactly, to make that happen.
But there was an earlier stage in the process too, and I remember it well. There were several agents interested in representing The Kitchen Daughter, and when I was trying to make my decision, I talked to them about their vision for the book, to see if it squared up with mine. And more than one agent said, “I love the ghosts, I love the food, but — do you think you could get rid of the Asperger’s?”
Read MoreTherese here, with a brief reminder that the WU Original Analogy Contest ends tonight at midnight EST. Enter, enter! Take it away, Jane.
During my teaching this quarter, a theme that’s coming up again and again is the either/or fallacy. This fallacy occurs when we divide the world into black and white, and don’t allow for other options.
As humans, we have a crazy predilection for thinking in this way. Us versus them. New versus old. Print versus electronic. Zero-sum games.
When I speak at writing conferences, I fall prey to this thinking myself. For instance, I start to see the field in terms of writers who are resistant to marketing/promotion versus those who embrace it.
I did this just recently at the Writer’s Digest Conference. I jotted a note to myself saying: There are 2 categories of writers!
Category 1: For these writers, it’s all about the work, the writing. The reading. The art and the craft. Story is paramount. The writing speaks for itself. It’s not the job of the writer to market—that’s not what he’s good at. He writes (dammit!).
Category 2: These writers market and promote before the work is even good enough to be published. They’re focused on getting known, maybe because they’ve been told that’s what they must do. They’re after readers because it’s been hammered into them that it’s about community, relationships, connections. (Meaningful ones, dammit!)
Why would I categorize like this?
Read MoreTherese here. Today’s guest is debut novelist, Eleanor Brown, author of The Weird Sisters, which just released this past week. It’s a book about three sisters, named by their lyrical father after Shakespearean characters, who love each other but don’t like each other very much, who have wounds to lick and secrets to bury when they return home after their mother is taken ill. I stumbled upon the first paragraph of this book online and have to share:
We came home because we were failures. We wouldn’t admit that, of course, not at first, not to ourselves, and certainly not to anyone else. We said we came home because our mother was ill, because we needed a break, a momentary pause before setting off for the Next Big Thing. But the truth was, we had failed, and rather than let anyone else know, we crafted careful excuses and alibis, and wrapped them around ourselves like a cloak to keep out the cold truth. The first stage: denial.
Fantastic voice, no?
The Weird Sisters has just been well reviewed in The New York Times, was chosen by Amazon as their January “best of the month” book, and was picked by Barnes and Noble for their Discover Great New Writers program. Not only that, Eleanor is near and dear to one near and dear to us; she is partner to former WU contributor and author J.C. Hutchins. We’re thrilled she’s with us today to talk about the importance of starting small. Welcome, Eleanor!
Start Small
When I decided to turn my writing hobby into a writing career, one of the first roadblocks I stumbled across was the dreaded query letter. And, more specifically, the list of previously published work I was supposed to include in said query letter.
“But I’m just starting out!” I cried. “I don’t have any publishing credits!”
“We won’t publish you without any publishing credits!” the cold, cruel publishing industry replied, and then went back to stomping on my dreams and mocking my outfit.
Well, not really. But that’s what it felt like.
It seemed like a vicious circle – in order to get published, I needed to be able to include a list of places where I’d been previously published. But I wouldn’t have a list of places where I’d been previously published unless someone would publish me in the first place.
I do not quote Cathy lightly when I say, “ACK!”
Here’s how I solved that dilemma:
Read MoreBefore I get into the meat of my post, you’ll remember that aspiring author Dale Mayer wrote a guest post for Writer Unboxed in mid-December, describing her rush to create an online presence because she’d recently become a finalist in Brava’s Writing with the Stars contest. We’re pleased to tell you that she’s moved on to another round, and is now in the top 4. Congratulations, Dale! If you’d like to check out the contest and vote, please visit the Brava’s Writing with the Stars contest page.
We’ve lamented many times on WU the disappearance of the independent bookstore (as contributor Brunonia Barry has chronicled). Corporate bookstores are also feeling the pinch, and as is happening in many communities across the US, I’ll lose my local Borders in 2011. Which sucks because my local indie bookstore is long gone, so Borders has taken the place of my neighborhood bookly nook.
As you can imagine, my family traffics in a healthy amount of books. We spent a lot of time in that Borders, an oasis of civility in mass market consumerism that is the American mall. My daughter attended storytimes; I’ve met fellow authors in their café, browsed for hours and bought more than I should have. Borders cards were our gift of choice. Once that Borders goes, the only bookstores left are a university bookstore that caters to students and faculty – like my kid wants to thumb through literary mags and textbooks – and a Barnes & Noble all the way across town. Our family won’t have a space to hang out and browse, buy unwisely, fritter away the afternoon. I’ve lost a place to hold a booksigning.
The digital age continues to rack up casualties (and yes, I’m well aware that authors might benefit the most from this shift ). The irony is that book sales are on the rise (finally!) in the U.S.
Read MoreIf you’re joining us today, this is Part 2 of my interview with author Kim Richardson. She’s sharing the knowledge gained in writing her memoir, The Unbreakable Child, which recounts how she survived both a decade of abuse at the hands of — and a successful lawsuit against — the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth.
If you missed it, Part 1 features one of the most arduous struggles to publication I’ve yet encountered. Today’s interview will focus on life after publication.
My own feelings about Kim’s book are captured in this review:
“The Unbreakable Child is an act of courage, a book that insists on the primacy of justice, no matter how long the delay. Kim Michele Richardson, an author determined to give traumatic memories a rightful meaning, is one indestructible woman.” —Jason Berry, author, Vows of Silence
Jan: I’m fascinated by how an author’s writing life has a relationship to their greater place in the world. Your activism hasn’t been limited to helping survivors of clerical abuse. Can you say more?
Kim: My family and I have always found a way to reach out and get involved in our community. We love working for Habitat for Humanity. And many years ago, I founded a reading club for elementary students which quickly grew and morphed into a learning club focusing on culture and social understanding and growth. I’ve implemented and designed successful programs to help homeless shelters — programs which were purposely blueprinted to teach students about servicing — giving back to their communities. And on any given day, I’m working with and am available to victims and survivors of any type of abuse. It is a wonderful catharsis to minimize one’s own problems when you’re able to reach out to another and give unconditionally.
Some might think that both the topicality and sensational subject matter in your memoir would guarantee you a place in the spotlight. However, I know you to be tireless in your efforts at promotion. Can you tell our readers what you’ve done, and which measures you’ve found to be the most helpful?
Read More
These days, getting and staying published requires a larger skill-set than understanding point of view, plot and character. Rather, most would say it requires grit, determination and tolerance for life in the public eye. When I look for models of writers who possess those traits, I think of Kim Michele Richardson, author of The Unbreakable Child.
Kim is a survivor of child abuse. In 2004 she entered the office of William F. McMurry and embarked on a lawsuit against the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth at the St. Thomas St. Vincent Orphanage in Kentucky. Though it took years, she and forty-four other plaintiffs triumphed. They received the first-ever monetary settlement paid by Roman Catholic nuns in the United States to victims of institutional abuse in an orphanage.
But Kim didn’t stop there. She wrote a memoir — one which bears a near-perfect score on its Amazon page and a starred review from Booklist. The latter said the following: “Richardson’s candid accounts are chilling, and the strength she shows — with a very supportive husband at her side — is inspiring. Remarkably, she did not abandon the Church and in fact sends her children to Catholic schools. Hers is a beautifully told story about strength and an enduring faith that can lead but one place: to forgiveness.”
Although you need to understand the basis of her book to understand why I’m asking Kim the questions below, our interview focus is not about religious or political issues. Writer Unboxed seeks to empower the fiction writer. Kim has unique experiences that I believe speak to that mission statement.
Jan: Welcome, Kim! We’re glad to have you here.
Kim: Thank you and your readers for having me!
Kim, why did you begin to write The Unbreakable Child?
Read More
Sarah Woodbury asked: I’d like to see an assessment from an agent, published author, and an editor about what happened in 2009-2010 in the publishing world. I’ve heard some amazing things (30% of employees laid off, advances down 50%, sales down a similar amount, publishing houses not buying books at all for months at a time, reprinting older books rather than buying new ones) and I’d like to know what’s true and what’s not.
This is an excellent question, but also difficult to answer definitively. For most publishing companies and agencies (and authors!), this information is considered a competitive advantage, so few are willing to outline specifics, especially when related to a decline.
The other difficulty is that you’ll get a diversity of answers based on who you ask, what their category or genre is, and how long they’ve been in the business.
For example, consider the 4 different answers given to me by 4 literary agents, earlier this year, on the topic of lower advances:
Wendy Keller: “It’s horribly true that advances are down and so are the number of books publishers are buying. Dramatically.”
Paige Wheeler: “Personally, I haven’t found [advances] shrinking, but for the midlist author, they certainly aren’t growing. I think publishers are being more selective, and their offers are more in line with their enthusiasm for a project. That stated, I find I’ve had to explain to my midlist authors to prepare for a decrease in advances for subsequent books if the first few books didn’t make a huge splash. We’re working harder to grow these authors and develop bigger book ideas.”
Read MoreI’ve been crazed lately as I finish the draft of my second novel, but I’m happy to be here today to answer questions from Bree and Allison_I.write.horror.
Bree asked: Say you are midway through your first draft when you realize that a major story element needs to be changed. You could keep writing until the draft is finished and then change things in the second draft. Or you could stop, back up and rewrite what you have so far. What do you do? Why do you make that choice?
For me there’s only one way to go. Stop. Revise. Then continue.
Why? Because it’s only after story is put into the hands of our characters throughout the actual writing process—not the imagined writing process—that the story progresses authentically.
Let me beef that idea up a bit.
Major story elements are foundational; they are the goals, motivations, conflicts, and turning points that lie at the heart of our work and propel it forward. Some people might be able to make a note on a major story change and keep going (e.g. “Hero has actually been with the party all along and not alone in Minnetonka. Revise later.”), but I’ve found time and again that the story won’t unfold properly until and unless it’s written. Really written. This is because characters and story often evolve past a concept or plot point in a way I didn’t anticipate, and that changes what will follow in the manuscript.
For example, maybe a character tells me they’re not going to act like X; they’re going straight for Y. Maybe they tell me fine, they’ll act like X but they’re going to have to say something about Z, which isn’t something I wanted them to address for another two chapters, but I realize if I muzzle them I disrespect that character’s personality. Maybe a secret is revealed—to me, the writer—that changes the way I view the character, or the way the characters respond to one another in future scenes.
I won’t know until I write it.
All that said, I absolutely will leave myself a note (or two hundred) about small-scale story adjustments to consider as I work through a draft. Making every one of those changes as I progress would be crazy making–especially since I’ll change my mind about at least half of them by the time I reach The End.
Allison asked: How do you learn to ‘hold your horses’ and adjust to how long it takes from writing a MS to seeing it in book form? How do we, in other words, ‘mind the gap’ between the time we’d LIKE it to take, and how long it actually takes?
Read MorePlease welcome historical romance novelist Gretchen Craig to WU today. Gretchen is the award winning author of Always and Forever and Ever My Love, both set among the Creoles and Cajuns of early Louisiana. Her new book Crimson Sky takes place in the mesas and canyons of northern New Mexico. Gretchen took matters into her own hands when her publisher decided to pass on her current novel, and we thought her journey would be of interest to WU readers. Enjoy!
Would you ever self-publish one of your novels? Self e-publish? A year ago I’d have said no. Didn’t self-publishing imply your manuscript wasn’t good enough for the big leagues? Hadn’t I picked up a few self-published novels and found them sub-par in terms of craft and depth?
You know what I’m going to say next: alternative publishing is taking off like rockets. The stigma is going going and nearly gone. So I’ve just self-published an ebook, Crimson Sky, and I have hopes of reaching every reader of historical novels in the known universe.
How did I, a traditionally-published author, come to this decision?
Read MorePlease welcome aspiring author Dale Mayer to Writer Unboxed. Dale recently became a finalist in Brava’s Writing with the Stars contest, but was left scrambling when she realized the contest organizers required her to have a platform: a website and blog at the very least. Dale kicked herself for a few minutes–why hadn’t she done this before?
A solid platform can take years to establish, but it all has to start somewhere. Dale worked like mad to create the beginnings of a multi-dimensional platform that would serve her contest needs–and the future needs of her career. How did she do it? She’s here to tell us. (And, psst, tomorrow she’ll find out if she’s moved on to the next round in Brava’s contest. I’m sure she wouldn’t mind some crossed fingers.) Take it away, Dale.
In the spotlight – overnight!
Is there ever a good time to have the media spotlight turned your way? If you’re a movie star, then yes! I’m not a Hollywood type, but the spotlight found me anyway. Me –of the stagnant website I hadn’t looked at since it went up three years ago. Me –who didn’t know what Twitter was and thought Facebook was for school kids. Me –who thought promo wasn’t something you needed to think about until AFTER you were published.
And then I ended up as a Finalist in Brava’s Writing with the Stars contest and had to create a marketing platform – almost overnight. This contest determines the winner through challenges and rounds of voting. That means readers need to know about the contestants in order to vote. How? Through their platform.
I had a lot of learning to do and all of it was out of my comfort zone. But I did it. Here’s my platform as it exists today. Like anything good, it’s dynamic and will grow as my career grows.
Read MoreEditor and friend of WU Dave King (co-author of the must-have book for writers, Self-Editing for Fiction Writers, Second Edition: How to Edit Yourself Into Print) emailed recently to say:
I’ve just become aware of a couple of new sins in the publishing world that writers need to know about. I know a lot of writers get so frustrated with traditional publishing that they have to go somewhere, so they turn to vanity presses and self-publishing. And the people waiting to prey on them seem to be evolving new methods.
I’ve written and attached a warning for your readers. Is there somewhere you could post it on Writer Unboxed?
Of course, we said. Here’s Dave’s piece:
A former client recently told me he’d just published with a small press to very good reviews. I was surprised since I had flagged some serious problems with his manuscript, and he said he had published it without changing a word. I looked into his situation and discovered two new publishing sins.
One is the back-door vanity press. Instead of asking for money up front like traditional vanities, these imprints only publish your novel if you promise to buy a certain number of copies yourself. This keeps them from being labeled as vanities by many of the websites that warn writers about scams. Two websites that caught this one are Writer Beware (https://accrispin.blogspot.com/2009/10/question-you-dont-want-your-publisher.html) and Preditors and Editors (https://pred-ed.com/peba.htm). Back-door vanities make enough profit selling to their own writers, so they don’t have to bother selling to the public.
Then there are the review mills.
Read MoreAs some of you know, I recently left my career in publishing for a career in academia, teaching e-media majors at the University of Cincinnati.
Of the many lessons I learned working at a corporate publishing house, here are the three I’m thankful for that you should know too.
1. Wordsmithing takes you only so far; at some point, you write to sell.
In the 1990s, I wrote my first proposals for pub board. (Pub board is where books are approved for publication.)
I was painstaking in how I crafted these proposals, revisiting every word. I took hard copies to my boss, the editorial director, and he would mark it up for further revision, to make it more persuasive.
It took me years to learn how to write a proposal that didn’t require a lot of revision. I was too concerned with how I was expressing things rather than what I was expressing. Until the board was convinced by the what, the how didn’t matter.
Writers, and especially novelists, fall in love with their words. They want to perfect their craft. All well and good. But at some point, you must pay attention to whether your efforts are actually improving your chances at selling or publishing the work, assuming that’s your goal.
The paradox of the writing life, though, is that sometimes how something is done is so unique and compelling that it doesn’t matter if the what is considered unmarketable or unpublishable.
There’s no way to know for sure if this applies to your work.
2. Being more descriptive and more explanatory doesn’t mean you’re more persuasive or effective.
Read MoreI submit this for your consideration: Expand and improve your media vocabulary. It might positively impact your career now, and certainly will in the future.
I define “media vocabulary” as the various media one uses to tell resonant stories. Since most readers of this blog are authors, I reckon we’re fluent in the vocabulary of text-based storytelling. But how many of us have more than a pedestrian consumer’s knowledge of other media such as video, audio, photography, or graphic design? How many of us use those media in our stories?
Based on anecdotal and professional experience, I believe in my marrow that now is the time for talespinners to get savvy with several storytelling media. Within years, I expect we’ll see an explosive rise of enhanced ebooks, app-based fiction and transmedia narratives that will leverage technologies and trends that have already become mainstream.
Fret not, hand-wringing wordherding purists: These multimedia — or as I sometimes call them, “mergemedia” — stories will never replace a printed book or text-only ebook. But publishers will soon get into the enhanced narrative business in a big way, and will keenly quest for stories that organically incorporate disparate media into cohesive, resonant narratives.
And who better than you to deliver that very thing? You’ll be a hot tamale, on the front lines of a business trend that’ll reinvent the way audiences experience stories.
Few authors are prepared for this dramatic storytelling shift. I’m blessed to say I’m one of them. I recently co-wrote a novel that included tangible artifacts that came with the book — real-life, convincing items such as IDs, business cards, family photos and more. These artifacts had clues hidden within them. When readers combined clues in the novel’s text with clues in the artifacts, they could experience more of the story in other media: audio phone messages, fake character blogs, websites of locales mentioned in the book, and more. They learned aspects of the story my novel’s hero never discovered — including a beyond-the-book twist ending.
Read More
