Writer in Residence

We've moved!

2011-11-13T08:30:00.000-08:00

You can move with us!

The original need to separate this blog from my main blog was due to technical issues; my blog wasn't designed to handle lots of different categories and was not easy to sort.
However, I have a new site design and have moved "Writer in Residence" there. Just look for the category, "Author Clinic."
I hope that you will continue to join me there!

www.kristadball.com

Field-Tested Marketing: Twitter and Facebook

2011-10-10T22:11:00.000-07:00

Field-Tested Marketing is a new series focusing on my own experiences replicating common marketing advice seen on writing forums and in marketing books.

The Advice: Provide a daily link to your book on Twitter and Facebook. Try doing it several times a day, to ensure that you cover all of your followers who visit Twitter at different times.

In action: I've discovered two issues with this approach. First, I stop following people only send out links to their books, especially if it is several times a day. It gets even more annoying when it's just the same tag line over and over. It doesn't make me want to read the book, when it's being repeated so many times.

I used to follow a person who only talked about how many sales they'd made that day and link saying "let's make it a round dozen" or whatever. I don't mind the occasional tweet like this. But daily? No thanks. And worse, many other Tweeters started talking about the person in code, making fun of them. I don't want to be that person!

The exception to this is when there is a special promotion or contest happening. In those cases, such as Read an Ebook Week, I expect to see a lot more links going on around social networking sites. Oftentimes, these tweets and facebook messages contain sale information, free codes, and specials. These are time-sensitive events, so it makes complete sense to have them tweeted often.

The interesting thing that I've found is that people tend to retweet or share these special events far more frequently than the general "buy my stuff" messages.

I tweet a link to one of my books whenever I think about it: once or twice a week, on average. I have an Amazon Affiliates account, as I use it frequently on ebook review site. The side benefit to this is having very easy "Share" links available to me for Amazon pages. I generally use this buttons to share my book link, plus include a special message.

I personally see Twitter as a chance to chat with people, like a chat channel. A Facebook fan page has a great potential as a modified forum. I love asking research questions, opinions, and generally silliness on my Facebook page.

Bottom line: Many of the people who follow me on social media have either purchased my work. Others have stated that it isn't either in their genre of interest, or don't like to read ebooks (and are waiting for the print copy); they stay because I entertain them.

Yet, whenever I do my occasional new release or sale link, all of these folks retweet or share my links to their followers. I've gained several new follows this way, which helps spread name recognition and word-of-mouth potential.

My Recommendation: Do link your work a couple times a week, or whenever you remember. New releases, sales, and contests are short-term enough to allow for much more frequent linkage. Try changing up the book titles and the tag lines you use.

And remember: social media is about being social, not about bombarding people with commercials.

What are your thoughts? Agree or disagree?

Krista D. Ball is a Canadian science fiction and fantasy author. She's currently hiding from necromancers. Better safe than undead.

5 Tips If You Can't Afford an Editor

2011-09-18T12:28:00.000-07:00

Last week, I caused a little stir on my personal blog with "I ain't your beta reader." I firmly believe that a person's best work needs to be put forward when they self-publish with a price tag attached. Now, if a product is free, I figure all bets are off. After all, you've giving it away. It's when you ask for someone's money that I feel quality needs to be at the forefront.

The most common retort I got to this post was, "I can't afford an editor." That's a legitimate statement. Editors can run you a lot of money, especially if your writing isn't up to a basic level. Another comment, equally legitimate, is, "I did the best I could." But, what if your best still isn't good enough?

I worked as a slush reader for a small Canadian publisher, as well as for a speculative fiction magazine. I've seen a lot of different submissions, from funny short stories to epic sword and sorcery tomes. Why did so many get the no vote from me? Simply put, they are boring.

The largest issue I see with new writers is that they don't understand that editing means a lot more than just typos and removing excess words. When people are told they need to edit their work, they check for typos. When told they need to tighten their writing, they do the 10% rule (remove 10% of the overall word count) or do the one-word-a-line method (removing one word per line on the screen). Those do help, but they don't address the underlying issues of plot holes, dull dialogue, boring characters, and non-existent setting.

At this point, many writers intent on self-publishing (or, already have and can't figure out why they aren't selling) get frustrated and throw up their hands. "I know I have these problems, I don't know how to fix them, and I can't afford an editor!" There's still hope for you to get your manuscript in better shape.

Read two writing books. You need a beginner one to teach you writing basics, and one to help you with editing. I recommend "Edit Your Book in a Month" by Eliza Knight and "You Can Write a Novel" by James V. Smith, Jr. I also recommend reading this blog by post Ilona Andrews, which explains the concept of Show not Tell better than any resource on the internet today.

These books won't teach you everything, nor will they explain why things are the way they are (i.e. why "had" isn't a bad word when writing past perfect...and what the hell is past perfect?!?!), but they will get you a good distance.
Find a writing group. This can be as small or as big as you need. What's important is that none of these people are related to you or your friend in any way, shape, or form. Many people say that they've ran manuscripts by friends and family, who loved their story. Families and friends are notorious for saying this. We all like to think our family is telling us the truth, but they generally aren't. Assume yours is protecting your feelings.

A writing group can help identify your weak areas. It's helpful to get one that is around your own skill level. Online groups work well for this to start with. You build up friendships and networks and eventually can graduate away from needing a lot of feedback and just trusting one or two people.
Find a beta reader. After a while, you won't need a group to help you with your work. If you work to address your manuscript's issues, you'll quickly find that a group critique no longer works for you. Instead, one to two sets of eyes will be more than enough. This should be someone around your skill level, so that you can reciprocate critiques on their manuscripts.
Exchange services for an edit. Perhaps another friend is going to self-publish, so exchange editing services with each other. You won't catch everything, but it will help ensure a cleaner manuscript.
Hire a proofreader. A full editor is a lot more money than a proofreader. If you've taken the steps above, you will have a cleaner manuscript than when you first starter. A proofreader is usually half the price of a content editor, but they can still help with a lot of your grammar challenges. I personally use Faith at Have Faith Proofreading.

A proofreader will not comment on your pacing, character, and plot issues, but they will get rid of the typos, grammar issues, and those other issues that can kill a manuscript right out of the gate.

Also, there is always the publishing industry itself. It is difficult to get published. However, if you can't afford an editor or a proofreader, can't seem to mesh with a writing group, and have read all of the books, perhaps try submitting a few short stories out to magazines and ezines. (A great list can be found on Duotrope).

Many give personal rejections, so you can get some feedback as to what's wrong. Many times, you'll sell your story, make a little cash, and get your rights back to self-publish it later on (sometimes, the same year...sometimes, right away).

Publishing isn't easy. While places like Smashwords and Amazon makes it easy to press "publish" these days, that doesn't actually make the process any less easy. To be taken seriously, you still need to put your best work forward.

Challenging Traditional Formats: Collaborative Worldbuilding

2011-08-31T20:11:00.000-07:00

I'm speaking with Eileen Bell today about her new collaborative project, The 10th Circle. I attended their announcement party a couple of weeks ago and was fascinated by both the story and the format concept. I asked Eileen to explain how this project came about.

How did "The 10th Circle Project" start? Ryan McFadden and I were bored.

We started talking about an idea Ryan had, earlier in the year. "We come up with a place and an event," he said. "And everybody writes different stories about it. Could be fun."

He was right. It did sound like fun. We started talking about where this place could be, and what type of event we'd like to write about. We decided on two cities, called Hope and Glory. Of course these two cities hated each other, and had for 60 years or more. Think pre-unification Germany. And the event? It was a project developed by the two mayors to bring their cities together developing a cheap, plentiful source of power. Geothermal power. But we all know good intentions pave the road to Hell.

We'd had good luck winding a framing story through the novellas we'd written for our last project, and decided we could use the same format. T'hat's how Harry Stafford, our down-on-his-luck cop from the City of Hope, was born. He was chasing a serial killer, you see, and crashed through the border that separated The City of Hope from the City of Glory. That was a huge no-no. And then there was this earthquake...

We saw that it could be more than an anthology – it could be a whole series. A series of ten, to be exact. The stories could be any length, and could either be complete in themselves, or serialized. We also saw a pretty tight timeline – publishing a new book every two months. Ebooks with website tie-ins seemed the way to go. We approached Billie Milholland and Randy McCharles, to see if they'd be interested. They were. And then, the whole idea really took off.

"The 10th Circle Project" (www.the10thcircle.com) launches today!

Eileen Bell lives in Edmonton, Alberta. She won the 2010 Aurora award for her novella 'Pawns Dreaming of Roses' in the Women of the Apocalypse collection. When she's not writing, she's living a fine life in a round house with her husband and her daughter's cranky cat. You can follow her exploits at www.eileenbell.com .

Choosing a Small Press (part 3/3)

2011-08-20T09:20:00.000-07:00

Douglas Smith and I sat down to talk about short stories and publishing with a small, Canadian press. Doug offers so much information and insight in his answers, that I've decided to break them up over three days.

Today is Day 3. Click here for Thursday's "Publishing a Short Story Collection" and here for yesterday's "The Road to Small Press."

Krista's question: What are three things that people need to consider before going with a small press?

First is reputation. If you're considering a small press, check out their authors and contact at least three of them. Ask them about their experience with the press. How involved were they in the publishing process? Did they get cover input? What about the quality of the editing and copyediting? What about promotion? Where were they reviewed? Scan the awards ballots and see which presses are showing up regularly. And check out some of their books, especially their covers, and their author list. Any big names on their list? Would you like to be included on that list, or have you not heard of anyone that they publish?

Second is distribution. See my comments above. For the time being, print distribution into bricks and mortar bookstores is still very important. So you will want to understand exactly what distribution deals the press has to get your book into bookstores. And I'd include their business model in this as well. Do they only do limited print runs? Do they do paperback editions (cheaper for readers) or only hardcover? Do they produce ebook editions?

Third is the degree of authorial involvement in the publishing process. I mention some of this under the first point, but if you're considering a publisher, then they should be able to tell you how much you'll be involved with key decisions in the process, especially the cover.

Notice that I didn't mention money. I'm not saying that the money isn't important, but I'd suggest that you worry less over an advance and instead ensure that you understand their royalty structure, especially for the eBooks. And most importantly, make sure that you understand what rights you are licensing and are comfortable with how and when those rights revert to you.

Okay, I'm way beyond just "three things," but I have to mention another key option that any writer with a backlist of short stories needs to consider in 2011, and that is self-publishing a collection as an ebook or even as a POD book plus ebook. I haven't done an e-collection yet, but I have put up most of my backlist as individual ebook short stories, available through all the big e-tailers and now also on my own web site. I can easily put out an ebook collection of just my fantasy stories, or my SF stories, or only my Heroka stories. It's all under my control.

It would take too much space to discuss indie publishing here, but it's become fairly simple to self-publish a book, whether it is a collection or a novel. If you want to know more about that world, I would strongly recommend Kris Rusch's "Business Rusch" blog series and Dean Wesley Smith's "Think Like a Publisher" blog series.

Krista, I hope that this has been of some interest and help to any writer out there who is considering publishing a collection. Thanks for the invitation to be on your blog again.

Doug is an award-winning Toronto-based author of speculative fiction, with over 150 short story sales in thirty countries and two dozen languages, including appearances in Amazing Stories,Weird Tales, InterZone, The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror, Baen's Universe, Postscripts,On Spec, The Third Alternative, Cicada, and anthologies from Penguin, DAW, and others.

His newest collection, Chimerascope (ChiZine Publications, 2010), is currently a finalist for the 2011 Aurora Award. His first collection, Impossibilia (PS Publishing), was a finalist for the 2009 Aurora Award.

Doug was a finalist for the international John W. Campbell Award for best new writer, and has twice won Canada's Aurora Award. A short film based on his story "By Her Hand, She Draws You Down" toured festivals in North America and internationally in 2010 and 2011, winning several awards.

His website is www.smithwriter.com and he tweets at twitter.com/dougsmithwriter.

The Road to Small Press: Douglas Smith (Part 2/3)

2011-08-19T10:21:00.000-07:00

Today is Day 2. Click here for yesterday's "Publishing a Short Story Collection."

****

Question: Did you go the agent route? Why or why not.

For a collection? Nope. No need to and no advantage in doing so. Since I wasn't targeting the big NYC houses, an agent wouldn't have done me any good. I could research the small presses as well as they could, and could submit to those directly myself. Even if I had foolishly tried to target the big publishers, an agent wouldn't have been interested in trying to market a collection. They know collections don't sell, and a collection would get an incredibly small advance compared to a novel, even a first novel. So from an agent's point of view, that translates into a lot of work with no chance of success and for very little pay even if they could sell it. From my point of view, an agent was not going to do anything for me with a small press that I couldn't do better myself.

Question: What are the top 3 best things about a small press?

Well, for the two presses I worked with, I could list more than three. But most of my points would come down to retaining an involvement and degree of control over your book. With both collections, I had input on who should write the introduction, the stories to include, the order of their appearance, editing and copy-editing, promotion, etc..

And on the cover, which is just not heard of in big publishing. For PS, Pete had Fernando Molinari do the cover, and he asked me what I wanted. Because it was a collection with only three stories (albeit novelettes), I told him that I'd like to incorporate something from each story: a wolf in a dark forest, the particular van Gogh painting, and a carnival. I didn’t think that (a) he'd listen, or (b) could pull off such a list as an integrated piece of art, but he did an amazing job (you can see the final cover here. There's also a very creepy carnival seen through the trees on the back cover that you can't see here).

Prior to that, PS had actually communicated with the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC to try to get the rights to use a copy of Van Gogh's "Bouquet of Flowers in a Vase" painting for the cover (since it was the lead story in the collection). PS's discussion with the museum went on for some time, but finally fell through when the MMoA would only agree provided there was nothing else on the cover but the painting--i.e., no title, no author's name, nothing!! So that's when we turned to Fernando. But can you imagine any big publisher going to those lengths to work with an author on a cover? Nope. With big publishing, you take what you're given (check out this recent blog by Kristine Kathryn Rusch to see a horrible cover that a big publisher gave one of her books, and the cover she put on when she recently reissued and self-published the book. It's about halfway down the blog, but the blog is a good read as well, as are all her blog entries).

With ChiZine for Chimerascope, Erik Mohr did the cover. Erik does all the CZP covers, and they are all uniformly amazing. He's like CZP's secret weapon. Erik's up for an Aurora this year for best artist for his CZP work, and if anyone votes in the Auroras, you should give Erik your vote. He has also done almost all of my ebook covers for me. With Chimerascope, Erik did an initial cover for me, which was gorgeous, but which to me said "SF." Since my collection is a mix of fantasy, SF, and horror--and since my first two novels will be urban fantasy--I wanted something that didn't look purely science fiction. So he promptly came back with another design, which we went with as the final cover for Chimerascope.

Secondly, I'd list quality and attention. In both cases, both PS and CZP produce beautiful books and take great pride in doing so. This is more than just a business to them--it's something they love doing. And because they're small, you get more personal attention. They like and respect their authors, and it shows.

Thirdly, especially for CZP, I'd list promotion and profile that the book received. Chimerascope was reviewed in Publishers Weekly, Booklist, Library Journal, Quill and Quire, and ever so many more, all without effort on my part. I added some review sources based on my own list, but I'd never been reviewed in all of those places before. In addition, thanks in part to CZP promotion, Chimerascope made the final ballot for the 2011 CBC Bookies Award for best collection. It is also on the 2011 Aurora Award final ballot and (much to my surprise) is one of the five finalists for the 2011 Sunburst Award, Canada's juried speculative fiction award.

I'd also mention that all of the good things I've listed about PS and CZP were often what was missing when I talked to other authors about their bad experiences with small presses. So, basically, do your homework before selecting a small press.

I'd add a fourth item for CZP, which I mentioned earlier. Their business model includes trade paperbacks, not just limited run hardcovers, and most importantly, that they have distribution deals in Canada, the US, and the UK.

Small presses have also, generally, been quicker to both embrace and establish ebook editions. CZP added ebook editions early on, and thanks to urging by myself and another author, PS recently added ebooks too (which I think is a great idea and supplements their business model, without competing with their print books. A collector will still want the numbered print version, but ebooks open up the market for PS to capture other readers who just want to read the stories.)

Doug is an award-winning Toronto-based author of speculative fiction, with over 150 short story sales in thirty countries and two dozen languages, including appearances in Amazing Stories,Weird Tales, InterZone, The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror, Baen's Universe, Postscripts,On Spec, The Third Alternative, Cicada, and anthologies from Penguin, DAW, and others.

His newest collection, Chimerascope (ChiZine Publications, 2010), is currently a finalist for the 2011 Aurora Award. His first collection, Impossibilia (PS Publishing), was a finalist for the 2009 Aurora Award.
Doug was a finalist for the international John W. Campbell Award for best new writer, and has twice won Canada's Aurora Award. A short film based on his story "By Her Hand, She Draws You Down" toured festivals in North America and internationally in 2010 and 2011, winning several awards.
His website is www.smithwriter.com and he tweets at twitter.com/dougsmithwriter.

Publishing a Short Story Collection

2011-08-18T09:50:00.000-07:00

****

Krista's first question: In Chimerascope, most of the stories were at least nominated for Aurora Awards and one was a winner. With a strong list of credits like that, why did you choose to go with a small Canadian press like ChiZine?

True, the stories in Chimerascope have a lot of award credentials. "Scream Angel" won the Aurora, while another nine of the sixteen stories were Aurora finalists. "By Her Hand, She Draws You Down" was also a Best New Horror selection, and several more received honourable mentions in the Year's Best Fantasy & Horror. I could talk similar numbers for my first collection, Impossibilia, which had another Aurora winner ("Spirit Dance") and an Aurora finalist in its three-novelette line-up.

But if I pick up any collection, I'd expect to see award credits for the stories. A collection is supposed to represent an author's best work. But unfortunately, regardless of awards, a "big" publisher will simply not be interested in publishing a collection, unless you are a Name (which I'm not). The strategy for how an author should market a collection changed from when I started writing to when I was ready to market Impossibilia in 2008. And it's changed again since I published Chimerascope just last year, thanks to eBooks and indie publishing options.

When I started writing short stories in the late nineties, the traditional route for a new writer was to build a name in short fiction, then sell a novel to a NYC publisher, and then have that publisher put out your collection once you'd had a few novels out.

That strategy had disappeared by the time I decided to market my first collection in 2007, for a number of reasons. First, collections have never sold as well as novels, and with publishing downturns, it had become even harder to sell a collection to the big NYC houses, even if you were already with them.

Robert J. Sawyer, the multi-award-winning Canadian SF writer and a mentor of mine, pointed out another issue to me at that time. If you sold a collection after you'd had a couple of novels out, the sales dip in the collection would hurt the orders for your next novel, since the chain buyers didn't differentiate between novels and collections. The well-known UK anthologist, Steven Jones, also advised me that a collection was becoming a way for short fiction writers to raise their profile with publishers to help when they were marketing their first novel.

So taking all those points together, my strategy switched completely from the old model of novels first, and a collection later with a big house, to an approach of selling a collection ahead of my first novel and focusing on a reputable small press to do that.

That meant that I needed to decide on which small press for my first collection. I started talking to writer friends who had done collections in the past couple of years regarding who they went with and why, and most importantly, what their experience had been with that small press. This proved to be a critical but depressing step, since it caused me to cross several small presses off my list. I didn't find many happy campers.

I also reviewed the recent awards lists, looking for small presses that showed up regularly. Steve Jones had recommended PS Publishing (UK), and I noted that they were getting a lot of award appearances and positive press. I did some more research, hearing only good things about them. They seemed to be the most prestigious small genre press around. I also knew Nick Gevers, one of their editors, and knew that he liked my work.

So I pitched Pete Crowther (publisher and owner) a full collection. And quickly received a very polite thanks but no thanks. Well, I knew it had been a long shot. I figured that was it, but then I received an email a few days later from PS, offering me, instead of a full collection, a mini-collection of 25-30k words in their "Showcase" series, a brand new line intended to "highlight genre fiction's best up-and-coming writers" (their words, not mine). I said yes (actually, more like "YES!!"), and in 2008, Impossibilia was published, much to my delight. Unlike most collections, Pete wanted new material, but I wanted to include my story "Spirit Dance," upon which my first novel is based. So we compromised, and Impossibilia contains two new novelettes and "Spirit Dance." The collection picked up two Aurora nominations, one for best long form and one for best story ("Bouquet of Flowers in a Vase, by Van Gogh" -- more on that and the Impossibilia cover later).

A year later, I decided to try pitching a full-length collection again. Although I was completely happy with the job that PS had done with Impossibilia, I wanted my second collection to be more widely available, including a paperback edition (this was late 2008, so ebooks weren't quite the obvious other option yet). The PS business model aims at collectors and the book as a physical artefact: very high quality production, hardcover and jacketed hardcover editions only, limited print runs of numbered, signed editions--but no retail distribution (beyond being able to order via Amazon).

As I was considering my options, Brett Savory and Sandra Kasturi of Chiarascuro Magazine fame, announced that they were starting ChiZine Publications. Brett and Sandra have been friends of mine for years, and I had high regard for their editorial taste and publishing industry acumen, as well as the early list of authors they had lined up. In addition, they were expecting to have retail bookstore distribution in Canada and the US very soon (they did, and added the UK and eBook editions as well). Plus their model would focus on larger print runs of trade paperbacks for the bookstores (in addition to limited edition hardcovers based on pre-orders only). So I pitched them a full collection. Chimerascope came out in early 2010, and I've been 100% happy with the result. I provide more details on working with both PS and CZP in my answer to the third question below.

Doug is an award-winning Toronto-based author of speculative fiction, with over 150 short story sales in thirty countries and two dozen languages, including appearances in Amazing Stories,Weird Tales, InterZone, The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror, Baen's Universe, Postscripts,On Spec, The Third Alternative, Cicada, and anthologies from Penguin, DAW, and others.

His newest collection, Chimerascope (ChiZine Publications, 2010), is currently a finalist for the 2011 Aurora Award. His first collection, Impossibilia (PS Publishing), was a finalist for the 2009 Aurora Award.
Doug was a finalist for the international John W. Campbell Award for best new writer, and has twice won Canada's Aurora Award. A short film based on his story "By Her Hand, She Draws You Down" toured festivals in North America and internationally in 2010 and 2011, winning several awards.
His website is www.smithwriter.com and he tweets at twitter.com/dougsmithwriter.

Getting started: Reading Between the Lines

2011-08-16T19:41:00.000-07:00

"I'm a new writer. How do I get started in publishing?"

If you attend any writer's convention, or even a fan convention with published authors, the above is the most common question you will hear. I can't blame them for asking them question; I sure asked it (and still ask it). After all, shouldn't a twenty of thirty times published author be able to offer a career path to follow?

The problem is that a newbie's career path (and I'm counting myself in this category, too) is often very different from someone with the clout of dozens of contracts spanning several decades. For one thing, publishing has changed. The stepping stones of yesterday are not today's stepping stones.

Does that mean we can't learn from the experts? Not at all! Their experiences and careers offer substantial knowledge and should always be listened to with an open mind. They have the numbers and experience to back up what they say. However, just as you should listen, you shouldn't also just take one person's career advice blindly. Copying another person's path might not work for you.

Get a blockbuster agent, get a blockbuster publisher, and get a blockbuster contract.

I don't know many people who'd turn down this option. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this advice.

Except...

What happens if you don't want an agent? Or, if you write regionally-focused books? Or, if you want to self-publish while doing trade publishing? Or, you want to write for another publisher at the same time? Or, you write more niche than general? Or if you want to write long novellas and not novels? Or, or, or...

The choices one person makes for their career may not be the best option for you. Instead, ask people what choices they've made in their careers, the things they've enjoyed and regretted, and then consider which of those points are important to you. What you want out of your career may not resemble another.

Write short stories before writing a novel.

This advice is most common in the literary, science fiction, and fantasy genres and it's solid. Learning to convey a single message in three thousand words is tough work. You can learn a lot from the submission process, learn to grow a thick skin, learn to deal with rejections, learn to work with editors, and have something to put on your query letters when you submit your novel.

But...

What if you don't like short stories? Not everyone does. Not everyone is good at it, either. Short fiction is a different style of writing than novel writing, just like screenwriting is a different form all together. It requires a different set of literary skills. Many people learn to write both. But, some don't...or aren't interested in learning.

Also, there was a time when writers had to build up their career in the fiction magazines. These days, it's less important. Not everyone reads the short story magazines and, sadly, there aren't as many as there used to be. Most don't pay that well, either. (To give you an idea, I've never earned more than 2 cents a word selling short stories to fiction magazines. Yet, I've made 17 cents a word selling fiction to non-fiction magazines...but those opportunities are even more rare).

If you love short fiction or want to cut your teeth on something smaller, write short fiction. If you hate short stories, don't torture yourself.

Don't self-publish until you know what you are doing.

Followed closely by...

Self-publish everything and learn as you go.

Depending upon who you ask, you will get lists upon lists of why you should or shouldn't self-publish. Go to Website #1 and they'll tell you how self-publishing is the next thing to godliness. Go to Website #2 and they'll tell you self-publishing is the next thing to Satanic worship. If you are really lucky, Website #3 will have both sides fighting it out.

Sigh.

To make the decision on which publishing path to take, look at all of the opinions available for a project. There is the agent/big publisher route, the large publisher route with no agent option, the small press route, the micro press route, the regional press option, the epublisher route...oh, and the self-publish option.

Yet, if you listen to the internet, you'll only hear about two options: an agent and self-publishing. Take your time and look at what is involved on all sides. Then, make a decision. You can even make different decisions for each project. What works for one might not work for another.

The important thing here is to look at your project, look at the options, and make the best business decision for your work and sanity. What works for Big Named Author 001 might work for you. Then again, it might ruin your sanity and leave you weeping in a corner. Research. Ask questions. Make intelligent decisions.

Easy, right? ;)

Publishing With a Small Press

2011-08-02T17:18:00.001-07:00

Getting your work published has never been easy. For a period of time it got progressively harder as many of the mid-sized presses were purchased by the bigger ones in an industry consolidation.

Happily, the entrepreneurial spirit is strong in the writing community and a wealth of small and indie presses have sprung up. That does mean that the quality of work has diminished. Just that there is a bigger market than ever for good work.

I have had the pleasure of meeting and speaking at length with several publishers from these smaller presses. Some of the conversations have come at conventions and others through my “Get Published” podcast.

What they have all told me has left me very encouraged. In essence, an author can get his or her book published in paper format and/or eFormat and have the same level of distribution (or virtually so) as the big presses.

There is, perhaps, a higher level of involvement for the author with a smaller press; the author might have more say in things like title, cover art and so on. In my opinion, that’s a very good thing. Where you might suffer a little (note I said, “little”) is in the actual promotion of your book.

Even there the difference is not so big between the big and small press. Unless you are an a-list author (Grisham, Rowling, King), chances are good that you will have to take a lot of the promotional duties into your own hands.

That’s why, when I first started showing my book around, I focused on the smaller presses. I wanted to have the experience of seeing my creation go from manuscript to published book. I wanted to have more say in how it will be presented to the world.

It’s not that I’m a control freak. Far from it. I simply wanted to grow my understanding of the industry from the inside and work my way out. That way, when big six presses start knocking on my door (can you say, “Optimistic”, anyone?), I will be better positioned to make the most of the opportunity. That is, assuming that going with a big press is even a good option at that point.

How has it been so far? My publisher has been great. She has always been available when I had a question. It is taking a while to get the book finished, but publishing is slow no matter the size of the publisher. I’ve also had some creative input for the cover too. And, my publisher has even been helpful with the book I’m planning to self-publish.

It is a partnership for us. If I’m successful with the self-published book, it will help the other and vice-versa.

I strongly recommend any writer to go with the smaller press. The experience has been fantastic for me.

Michell Plested is a writer, blogger and podcaster. His first book, “The Mystery of Lake Chulala, An Outcast Club Mystery”, is due out in September, 2011 as a self-published book and eBook and his first contracted novel, “Mik Murdoch, Boy Superhero” is scheduled for release in Spring 2012 from Five Rivers Publishing.

His podcasts include “Get Published” a podcast about writing (available on iTunes) and “GalaxyBillies” a science fiction comedy (available on iTunes and Podiobooks.com).

Estate Planning

2011-07-31T21:11:00.000-07:00

Editor Robert Runte is sharing an important reminder for us authors: we need a will.

One topic that most writer's advice columns never get around to addressing, but which is fairly crucial, is estate planning. Yes, I know, you are immortal and are never going to get sick, let alone die, but let us for the sake of argument talk about a couple of simple steps to save one's family a fair bit of trouble, and to perhaps ensure one's literary immortality.

The Will

First, write a will. No one likes to think about wills much, and certainly don't feel it's something they need to address today...sometime in the indefinite future will be fine, they think. But, stuff happens. So, right now, make an actual appointment to draw up a will. And then, in addition to the usual content, put in a couple of clauses outlining who gets the literary property, and what they should do with it.

There are four issues here: (a) who gets the royalties (if any) from the work; (b) who has artistic control over one's published work; (c) what is to be done with any unfinished manuscripts that are left lying around after one is gone; and (d) what is to be done with one's online presence.

The simplest approach, of course, is simply to leave the estate up to a single executor, but the individual charged as executor for dealing with the regular sort of assets, may not be the best person to look after one's literary legacy. It is not uncommon, for example, for an executor to quickly glance at the current revenues for a title and conclude that it is valueless...missing that commercial or not, what happens to the book still matters to the deceased. One may, therefore, wish to designate a specific individual (and a backup, just in case one's first choice was in the same car accident that took you out) to manage one's manuscripts/publications. Choose a collaborator, or a sympathetic colleague, or a trusted editor, or even a dedicated fan, who understands one's work and one's preferences (e.g., editing the Christian references out of Narnia to reach a wider, modern audience would not be acceptable!) and can manage one's life's work as closely as possible to one's own wishes. Of course, that fan or collaborator may well be one's spouse or close relative, and so the general executor, in which case, great; but if not, it is perfectly okay to appoint someone else -- who "gets" one's genre or vision-- to manage one's literary legacy, even while still directing the royalties to one's dependents.

The crucial factor is to put in writing who is responsible for what, because otherwise, one's literary friends and royalty-hungry relatives could be at odds for years over every little detail. One has only to look at the long and bitter dispute between the girlfriend/collaborator and the family over the literary estate of Stieg Larsson to see just how bad these conflicts can get in the absence of a proper will. Or, just as undesirable, one's books could be left to languish as an uninterested executor fails to promote them or even keep them in print.

My advice would be to leave all one's literary work to be managed by a single literary executor, rather than designating specific titles to specific individuals. For one thing, specifying titles would require frequent updates to one's will as one finishes additional manuscripts (an unnecessary expensive, as well as a nuisance); for another, there may be opportunities for omnibus editions or reprint series or e-re-releases or etc., that require package deals that could be fatally stalled if the holder of one or other copyright demurs. Appointing a singe literary manager also facilitates determining which unfinished manuscripts should be finished, by whom, and how and when published; decisions that one can't really make in advance, since by definition, one cannot know how things are going to evolve after one's death.... (The exception here is if one is absolutely certain that one doesn't want anyone else tampering with one's manuscripts, in which case one could simply order unfinished manuscripts left as is. I would strongly advise against ordering unfinished work destroyed, however.)

Similarly, the literary executor should be empowered to take down, close off, or maintain one's various online activities. If one's books are selling well, it may be sensible to maintain Facebook, Twitter, blog, webpage etc. presence, though hopefully making it clear that the author is deceased and the reader is now dealing with the executor, speaking on the author's behalf. On the other hand, if the executor is closing up the estate, being able to take down all one's sites can be very important -- particularly if one's last post was a rant, and not necessarily how one wishes to be remembered.

Of course, one needs to check with the person(s) one is thinking of designating as one's literary executor to ensure that they are able and willing to take on this responsibility, before assigning them in one's will.

The Access

Second, having drawn up a will, put a copy somewhere where people can find it! Lawyer's offices and bank safety deposit boxes sound sensible, until one realizes one's survivors may not know the name of one's lawyer, or be able to gain access to the safety deposit box without a copy of the will appointing them executor, which is in the safety deposit box -- an astonishing catch 22. So leaving a duplicate in an envelope in one's desk drawer makes a lot of sense.

Further, it may be useful to have a list of one's online passwords in the same envelope, so that various social networking sites can be immediately updated. This is particularly important if one is self-publishing, as orders, queries, complaints and so on must be addressed, or at least the explanation posted, so that customers are not left hanging, or fans left to speculate.

The Publisher

Third, with the emergence of many indie publishers, one should be alert to the possibility that even the best intentioned micropublisher could suffer a sudden mishap or illness that could leave one's book tied up in limbo for years. At a minimum, one must ensure that any contract signed includes a revision clause, such that if the book is out of print for more than 1 year, the rights revert to the author. Similarly, it doesn't hurt to inquire about the publisher's estate planning, especially when dealing with one-person operations. If the publisher passes away, who is going to take over? Anyone? Someone that could be trusted to take the same care with cover art, editing, marketing, and so on? Even if there appears to be a half dozen individuals involved in the press, if the owner passes without a will, the other members may be powerless to carry on. So ask. (Asking may even trigger them to develop a will and contingency plan!)

And while on the topic, if one is self-publishing, one needs to make provisions for having someone take over and manage one's inventory in the event of illness or mishap. A week's delay while one is abed with the flu will go unremarked; but any extensive illness or absence could create devastatingly ill will if no one is responding to queries, filling orders, or addressing complaints. So, I strongly recommend that along with a will, all self-publishing authors should draw up a contingency plan.

Just saying!

My first time was a fluke: My First Published Story by Ada Hoffmann

2011-07-26T12:03:00.000-07:00

My first time was a fluke. There, I said it.
Actually, my first three times were flukes. Three acceptances in three months, all for stories on their first submission, which is just not supposed to happen, even with small press. Then nothing for eight months, and not because I wasn’t trying. They don’t tell you about this in “how to be a writer” lectures. They don't say that there are flukey good times and flukey bad times, and all you can do is work hard, keep improving, and keep some perspective.
They also don’t tell you, at least not often, that flukes happen for a reason.
I did a lot of research when I was starting out. I looked on sites like Ralan and Duotrope, made notes, and read the submission guidelines. All of them. To get a feel for what was out there, I guess, or maybe I’m just compulsive at times.
Some places have really short guidelines. “Write a science fiction story. Put it in standard manuscript format. Email it to us. The end.” And some places have guidelines longer than their actual stories. Expanded Horizons is the latter. They explain at length exactly what they want: Strong female characters. Racial diversity. LGBT (and asexual) characters. I could go on – they cover a lot of topics – but you get the idea.
And then there was a category I didn’t expect.
“We want to create a story-telling venue for those with rare and unusual sensitivities and awarenesses. Uncommon sensitivities and awarenesses (sometimes called psi, intuition, etc.) are a popular theme in speculative fiction. We aim to... show such people in a realistic and respectful manner, to publish stories that feature such characters in their normal lives. We look for stories which are not primarily “about” these awarenesses and abilities, or even about them at all.”
What a cool idea, I thought. I knew what they were talking about, but it had never occurred to me before to use it in a story that way.
So I tossed around the idea of a psi character in a story not “about” psi. It’s not the only idea that went into the story, of course. But what came out – after due diligence, editing, and a trip to a writer’s group – was “The Chartreuse Monster”.
Expanded Horizons seemed like the right first choice. I almost thought I wouldn’t get in; I worried that the female protagonist was too passive, for instance. But I steeled myself, said it was worth a try, and sent it in.
This is where the fluke happens. Unknown to me at the time, the editor of Expanded Horizons had been craving exactly the kind of story I’d just written, and had been in a state of despair because no one was sending in psi stories that actually fit the guidelines. Unknown to me at the time, I’d gotten it right. I had no way of knowing this at all. Well, except for the part where they said so on their web site.
I got the fastest acceptance ever.
I don’t have much to say after that. It was a great first time. We talked about the subject matter, made some minimal edits, I got paid, and the story went up online. My family and friends were impressed. I was happy. So, it all went well.
I guess I didn’t learn any lessons, overall, that aren’t the basic platitudes you get from everybody. Guidelines matter; read ‘em closely. Know the field and know where you’re submitting. Be open to new ideas. Write what people will want to buy.
Then be prepared for flukes, and don't let them get to your head.

Avoiding the (blogging) Pretentious Label

2011-07-17T15:02:00.000-07:00

This is an excerpt from my new writing reference book, No More Blank Screen: Blogging Ideas for Fiction Authors.

There is one bit of advice that I'd like to pass on to all bloggers, but especially unpublished ones who discuss the business of writing and publishing. It is really important to blog about what you know.

Many new writers start out blogging about their path to publication. They share their ups and downs, pass along helpful websites, and the writing tips they've picked up along the way. All of these ideas produce great blog articles and bring readers to your site.

Problems arise when the blog becomes a teaching tool by a writer with nearly no publishing or writing experience. Published authors may be turned off by advice from someone with no actual knowledge on their subject manner. Even worse, you could be passing along incorrect information and leading people down the wrong path.

Not sure what I mean?

Let's say Bob is an unpublished writer who is working on his first fantasy novel. He's stumbled upon a way to ramp up the tension in his first chapter. Here are two potential blog posts from Bob:

Example #1

You wouldn't believe what happened today! I finally figured out how to ramp up my tension in Chapter 1. What a difference. Here's a quick summary of what worked for me. Have you tried something similar?

Example #2

When you write fantasy, you need to remember the importance of conflict and tension in your first chapter. Here are some steps on how to do it properly so that you can catch the eye of an agent.

See the difference? In the first example, the author's voice is coming through, celebrating a breakthrough in his writing. In the second example, the information appears to come from the author's own experience. He's teaching us, even though Bob can't honestly say if his steps will help catch an agent's eye because he hasn't even finished a novel!

Personal experience? People love it. Teaching without any experience? You get a bit of a reputation for talking about things you don't actually know. It makes it harder in the future for people to take your actual knowledge seriously.

So, how do you avoid the pretentious label? Quite simple, really. Blog about what you know. If you don’t know something, blog about how you don’t know or how you don’t understand a particular thing. In fact, people generally will respect you more for admitting that you don't know. As a bonus, readers may comment and give their advice and opinions. Instant dialogue!

Bottom line: Write what you know. Everything else falls into place.

Writing Short Fiction: An interview with Douglas Smith

2011-07-10T09:28:00.000-07:00

I'm so happy to have Doug Smith with me. His short story collection, Chimerascope (reviewed here), has been one of my favourite reads of 2011.

Is the short form your favourite to write, or did you just fall into that?

When I started to write fiction in the late 90's with the goal of being published, I intentionally started with short stories, for three key reasons. First, the standard advice at that time was that short fiction was the best way to "break in" as a speculative fiction writer and to build a reputation with sales and awards. Secondly, I thought that it was the best way to learn the craft. Short stories allow a writer to learn different techniques and to try different approaches from one story to another that the novel form doesn't (or rather, that would take longer to do over multiple novels). And finally, quite frankly, when I started, I had no idea whether I'd ever be able to sell anything that I wrote, so I figured I'd rather invest the time in writing a few short stories and trying to sell them than in writing and marketing a novel. It just seemed like a smaller hill to climb at the time to find out if I could sell my fiction.

All that being said, I love short stories, both to read and to write, and will (I hope) always continue to write them. At this point, though, I'm expecting that I will spend most of my writing time on novels. I'm marketing my first novel, and am working on my second.

You have two short fiction collections out right now. How does an author choose when to do a collection?

The old approach used to be that a writer would start with short fiction, and then move to novels, and once they had a name and a few novels published, they would publish a collection, typically via the same publisher that did their novels. The problem is that collections do not sell well, and you won't see too many collections from major publishers, even for their own novelists, unless that author is a Neil Gaiman or Stephen King. So collections are now often published by smaller presses.

About 2007, I was looking into the possibility of a collection. I had enough short stories published at that point to make up a full collection (eighty to a hundred thousand words, and most of those stories were either award winners, finalists, or had been in a "Best of..." anthology. I talked to Robert J. Sawyer, the award-winning Canadian SF author, about this idea, and also to Stephen Jones, the well-known anthologist from the UK, and both advised that more authors were putting out collections with smaller presses before they had a novel published, as a way to raise their profile with bigger publishers when they were marketing their first novel. Stephen also recommended PS Publishing in the UK, which is owned by Pete Crowther.

So I did my research and found PS to be very highly regarded. I approached Pete about a full collection, which he politely declined. But he proposed doing a smaller collection as part of PS's new "Showcase" series, designed to highlight (in their words) "up and coming new writers." This was to be a smaller (and therefore, cheaper and lower risk to PS) collection of about thirty thousand words. The other change was that Pete wanted new stories, not ones that had been previously published.

We compromised on that point. I wrote two new novelettes for the collection, "Bouquet of Flowers in a Vase, by van Gogh" (which was a finalist for the Aurora in 2009) and "Going Down to Lucky Town" (which began my Springsteen-inspired stories). Pete then agreed to include a previously published story "Spirit Dance" in the collection, as I was finishing my first novel, which is based in the world of that story, and I wanted to have that story in print and available. That collection was entitled Impossibilia, and was also a finalist for the Aurora in 2009.

Then in 2009, a pair of writer friends, Sandra Kasturi and Brett Savory, decided to begin their own small press in Toronto. ChiZine Publications grew out of the already established online zine, Chiaroscuro. I had a lot of confidence in both their editorial tastes and their publishing smarts, so I pitched a full collection to them. I also liked their proposed publishing model. I was very happy with the job that PS Publishing did on the collection, but their model is based on limited print runs, signed, numbered, hardcover editions, with no retail distribution and no paperback editions.

ChiZine does limited hardcover, but based on pre-orders only (which limits their risk), and also does a trade paperback edition. Plus they had already lined up retail distribution in Canada and the US, with the UK shortly thereafter. I was delighted when they accepted the proposal, which led to my second collection, Chimerascope, which is currently a finalist on the 2011 Aurora ballot, and includes an Aurora winner, eight Aurora finalists, and a Best New Horror selection.

As a writer, what has been your most successful techniques/processes/whatever the word is to help you write so many speculative shorts?

Just write. Seriously, I always struggle trying to describe my "technique" or approach to the creative side of writing. The marketing side, on the other hand, I can describe (see below for some tips). But as to how I craft a story, it varies every time. Roger Zelazny (one of my all-time favourite writers) once said that story ideas come to him in one of three forms: a character, an idea, or an image. I've probably had my share of all three being the genesis of some story, but I know that I can never begin to write a story until I know the character(s) who will be involved and through whose eyes (and head and heart) I will be telling the story. Because it's their story, not mine, if it's going to be any good. Once I know my characters, I can start to write the words.

One thing that I do that I've been told by other writers is unusual is that I tend to not write stories sequentially. I will often write scenes out of order, and have on several stories, written the final scene first. Beyond that, I can't give much advice on the creative side beyond write, write, and write. Writing is a craft. I'm always amazed by how many beginning writers expect to be selling at professional levels right out of the gate.

If you were just taking up hockey (forgive a Canadian for a favourite metaphor) and had never laced up skates before, you wouldn't expect to be playing for an NHL team in your first year. And yet, many beginners seem to think that they should be accepted as a Wayne Gretzky of the writing world before they've even learned their craft. Learning to write well takes time and effort. So write, write, write. And read, too. If you don't read widely and constantly, you will never be a writer.

As a reader, what do you look for in short fiction?

Great characters, which is difficult to find in the short form. But if I can't believe the character and feel that they are a real, fully formed creature with a back-story and goals and problems, then the setting and the idea and the world don't matter to me. All those are important in speculative fiction, but they are part of the story, and to me, you can only tell a story properly through the characters.

Do the works of others influence where your ideas take you?

Not written works, although I did publish an early story, "The Boys Are Back in Town," which was my attempt to write a Roger Zelazny-esque story. Once you've written enough, you develop your own style. That being said, I've started writing short stories that are inspired in some way by the songs of Bruce Springsteen. "Going Down to Lucky Town" and "Radio Nowhere" have already been published (and now available as eBooks), and I have at least another half dozen kicking around in my head or in the early stages of crafting. My dream would be to one day publish a collection of Springsteen-inspired stories with an intro by the Boss himself. Springsteen is a storyteller and a poet, creating vivid characters and achingly memorable situations in just a three-minute song. It's worthwhile for any writer to study some of his ballads.

What advice would you give an unpublished writer trying to break into short stories?

Never give up. Never surrender. No, wait--that was Galaxy Quest. Well, it's still good advice. Publishing is a numbers game. The writer who has the most stories submitted to the most markets is going to have the best chance of being published. Write the best story you can, and then get it in the mail (or email). Then write the next story and get it out there, too.

When you get a rejection (and you will), the very best reaction is to immediately send that story out to your next target market. Don't let rejections get you down. Yeah, that's easy to say, but I'll give you a couple of data points. At one time, the most money I've ever made on a short story ("The Boys Are Back in Town" mentioned above, to Cicada in the US at 25 cents a word) came on a story that had been bounced twenty-four times. And I sold a story to a pro anthology last year, a story that I'd written in my first year of writing and that had been previously rejected sixty-five times. So write well, write a lot of stories, and keep them all out at markets until they sell. But read my answer to the next question too.

What is your opinion on unpaid or very low paying markets? Do you have a firm rule (“I never work for under 2 cents a word”) or do you play it by ear for each market and/or piece?

I have a very clear and strict set of rules on marketing my short fiction. Other writers can follow their own rules, but these are mine:

1. Always start with the top markets. "Top" here can mean anything you like, but to me, it means markets that (a) pay professional rates, and/or (b) have a good reputation (they'll look good on your resume), and/or (c) publish stories that consistently show up on the major award lists. If you don't know how to find speculative fiction markets, check out www.ralan.com.

2. Work your way down your list of top markets until you hit the bottom. You can define bottom however you like, but for me it's when I've run out of markets that match the criteria in #1.

3. Once you run out of top markets, hold the story (which does not mean give up on it) until a themed anthology comes out that pays pro rates and that fits your story. Themed anthos by definition narrow your competition if you fit their theme. If you've written a zombie cat story (no, I don't want to read it, thank you), then you have a much better chance of selling that to a zombie antho or a cat antho, or (gods forbid) a Zombie Cats from Space antho (and yes, just wait--there will be such an antho. Probably already has been).

And once you sell a story (actually, you never sell a story -- you just license a particular set of rights for a period of time) and the rights revert to you, you can then sell second rights to that story. I'm going to be starting a series on marketing short fiction on my blog over the summer, and I'll be dealing with all of this in a lot more detail in that series.

All about Doug

"Doug Smith is, quite simply, the finest short-story writer Canada has ever produced in the science fiction and fantasy genres, and he's also the most prolific. His stories are a treasure trove of riches that will touch your heart while making you think."

—Robert J. Sawyer, Hugo Award-winning author of Hominids

Doug is an award-winning Toronto-based author of speculative fiction, with over 150 short story sales in thirty countries and two dozen languages, including appearances in Amazing Stories, Weird Tales, InterZone, The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror, Baen's Universe, Postscripts, On Spec, The Third Alternative, Cicada, and anthologies from Penguin, DAW, and others.

His newest collection, Chimerascope (ChiZine Publications, 2010), is currently a finalist for the 2011 Aurora Award. His first collection, Impossibilia (PS Publishing), was a finalist for the 2009 Aurora Award.
Doug was a finalist for the international John W. Campbell Award for best new writer, and has twice won Canada's Aurora Award. A short film based on his story "By Her Hand, She Draws You Down" toured festivals in North America and internationally in 2010 and 2011, winning several awards.
His website is www.smithwriter.com and he tweets at twitter.com/dougsmithwriter.

My First Time (Publishing) - Josh

2011-07-02T18:20:00.000-07:00

On my First:
I recall with remarkable clarity the day the Fed-Ex truck arrived bearing several cardboard cartons for me. Each had the word Druids stenciled on the side. Some 15 years had passed since Barb Galler-Smith and I began the process which ultimately became the Druids trilogy, and this was the moment when the reality of it actually hit me -- like a linebacker on steroids with a score to settle. I'd sold short stories to magazines and anthologies, but this was the first time I'd ever seen my name on the front cover of a book. A real, live, honest-to-Gawd NOVEL! So, how did I celebrate? How did I show the world I'd overcome all the silly slings and arrows and petty crap that usually deep-sixes a nascent writing career? I wept.

--Josh

Breaking into Pro Short Fiction Markets: Susan Forest

2011-07-01T01:33:00.000-07:00

In my experience, I can't emphasize enough how important pro short fiction is, when breaking into the SF writing world. Why? Because it's possible. Even top markets will take unknown writers. It's not "Who do you know?" it's "How good is your writing?" So you have to write a great story. But what else?

For years I'd been told to read the market I was submitting to. Never did it, never sold anything. But when I did take this advice, I started selling. Why? Well, I had a clearer idea of the kind of story that market was looking for. Also, I think I unconsciously set my standards higher.

Rob Sawyer says, submit to top markets. His reasoning is, if you expect yourself to be at the top of the market, you'll live up to your own expectation. And . . . if a story doesn't sell, you still have secondary markets to try.

Scott Bakker gave me another tip: note when a publication gets a new editor--they want to discover their own new talent. Scott might've meant book publishers, but it worked for me in short fiction.

You've heard this before, but it's true: a rejected story might not be a rejected story if the editor gives you critique. I sold several stories that I re-submitted to the same editor after a rejection, once the editor's concerns were addressed.

Again, keep your stories in the mail! Keep a chart showing which market has rejected each of your stories, where that story is now, and which market you think it'll be suitable for next. They don't sell if they aren't out there.

Cover letter? What if you don't have any sales yet? My first cover letters listed the professionals I'd worked with. If you get a chance to sign up for a workshop at Renovation, for instance, put in your cover letter, "I worked with Author X." And remember: keep the letter short and professional.

Networking: At a worldcon party, a writer said to me: "write something short and funny for Analog." And you know? He was right. Both my Analog stories fit that description.

So, yeah. These are a few things that have worked for me, but I'm sure I'm only scratching the surface. I love forums like this because I'm always looking for new tips as well. So, give: what tips have worked for you?

2009 Prix Aurora Award finalist ("Back," Analog, June 2008), Susan Forest works as a fiction editor for Edge. Her stories have appeared in Analog, Asimov's, OnSpec, AE Science Fiction Review and Tesseracts. Catch her at www.speculative-fiction.ca.

Short Stories: Working with Fiction Magazines

2011-06-26T10:57:00.000-07:00

I have Karl Johanson, editor with Neo-Opsis Science Fiction Magazine, to talk about the challenges he sees when writers submit their fiction.

1. What is the biggest mistake new writers make when they edit a short story?

For me, sending out a sexist or racist story is the biggest mistake. I don't mean a story which includes racist or sexists characters, but one where the *point* of the story is the racism or sexism. We get stories submitted from all over the world, but a fair percentage of the stories we get from one country in particular, make the erroneous point that all women are evil and that when a man does something evil, it’s because a woman influenced him to be that way. Rather shocking for the 21st century.

2. What are the most common editing issues you see?

If a story has italic text in part, it is common to submit the story with the italicized text marked with an underscore at the beginning and end of the text. (I'm told this had something to do with the way manual typesetting worked.) I have to manually convert all the relevant text to italics, so I'd just a soon people submit any stories to Neo-opsis with the italicized text already italicized (especially if there's a lot of it).

3. There is a misconception amongst some new writers about the role of an editor. What can someone expect when their story or novel is accepted for publication?

That the story won’t be in print the next day: ) Some publishers will do some promotion for your story or book, but remember that the writer can promote as well.

4. If an author has a dispute with their editor, what is the best way to deal with it? (i.e. editor wants to change something significant, author doesn’t want to...let’s say make a gay character straight, change the ending of a story, etc.)

Don't make it about egos. Be respectful and treat it like any other negotiation. Explain why you don't want the changes, and listen and understand the editor's reasons for requesting the changes. See if a compromise is possible. Know what you're willing to change and what you aren't. Don't be angry if you and the editor can't come to an agreement. Shake hands, then send the story to another publisher.

I've only asked writers to ok changes (other than fixing typos or changing to Canadian spelling, etc.) a few times. In each case it was a science or technical flaw. To avoid conflict, I spelled out what I thought the problem was, and told them I was interested in publishing the story, pending the change. For example, if the writer has people using a chemical fueled Saturn V rocket to explore Neptune's moons, I'll want that adjusted before I'd want to publish it (assuming I like the story otherwise). By spelling out the changes I want, *before* making an agreement to publish, I avoid a conflict. If the writer agrees, good and we publish it. If the author doesn't agree, good and we don't publish it.

Breaking into Short Fiction Magazines: A Discussion with Stephanie Ann Johanson

2011-06-25T06:22:00.000-07:00

I'm really happy to have the Neo-opsis Science Fiction Magazine duo Stephanie and Karl to discuss the short story market. Today, Stephanie covers breaking into the fiction magazine market. Tomorrow, Karl will discuss the submission and editing side of things.

Stephanie, can you tell me a little about Neo-opsis and how it's evolved?

If you have ever taken a business course, you know that it is important to have a good elevator speech. An elevator speech is something short that lets you describe your company or product to someone you meet riding an elevator, or waiting in line. I don't think I have ever got that elevator speech down pat, because in my experience everyone wants different information, but let me give it a try.

Neo-opsis Science Fiction Magazine is entertainment first. Karl Johanson and I started Neo-opsis Science Fiction Magazine in 2003, with the idea that we wanted to do something creative. Karl and I have been lifelong fans of science fiction, and we thought it would be good to give something back, and create a magazine that would be an outlet for science fiction and fantasy short story writers, and hopefully science fiction and fantasy artists as well. We don't have as much illustration as I would like, but as the magazine grows we hope to include more and more. Karl and I choose stories that entertain first, and we love the ones that sneak up on you and make you think second.

Karl writes the editorial and science articles for the magazine. He has that unusual way of coming at things, that binds everything in humor, so much so that you often done realize that you are learning as you read. Neo-opsis also runs a few reviews in every issue, and science and science fiction news. Neo-opsis Science Fiction Magazine has won the Aurora Award in 2007 and 2009 in the category Best Work in English: Other. We have also been a finalist for the Aurora every year since 2004.

What are the basics that every author needs to remember when submitting their fiction?

Be sure to read the guidelines for each publisher before you submit any work. In your cover letter, don't tell the publisher you have never before been published, or this is the first time you are submitting your work, or you have submitted this work to so many publishers and none of them were interested. Publishers get a lot submissions, and if you give them a reason to assume you work isn't worth their time, then your work may end up at the bottom of a long reading list, or worse it might just get a quick reject after only being skimmed through.

Don't tell the publisher how old you are, unless for some reason they request that information in their guidelines. They don't need to know how old you are, because if you tell them you are young, then some won't think you are experienced enough. If you tell them you are old, then they might not think you are up-to-date with the times. Let your story do the talking. Let the story sell itself.

So, is it really necessary for writers to read short stories to learn how to write them?

That is an interesting question. Since I am not a writer, I have to come at it from the mind of an artist and a reader, I'm not sure as a writer that it is absolutely necessary to read short stories. There are a great many things you can learn from short stories, as there are with poems, fewer words, yet often with more meaning. A novel may have the luxury of taking its time, filling in back story, describing the setting, smelling the roses, before it gets down into its plot. A short story has to be more direct, everything has to click from the start, or the reader may just move on to the next short story in the magazine. If you can learn style from reading it, if you can recognize how an author has pulled you in and made you forget that you are looking at words on a page, then you will learn a lot from reading short works of fiction. If you get lost in the story and don't know how you got there, then you may need more study before you will learn from just reading.

What are the common reasons submissions are rejection at your magazine?

I could say that the most common reason for saying 'no' is that the stories don't fit our needs, but that wouldn't be a helpful answer. Since 2003, the start of Neo-opsis Science Fiction Magazine, I have read 5927 submissions. We have accepted for publishing about 160, so there are a lot of rejections.

Without generalizations I'm not sure could accurately say what the most common reason is for a rejection. Some of the rejections are because the work is so full of English or grammar errors that it impossible to understand the story. Some of the rejections are because the story is not science fiction or fantasy, and while I do sometimes pass on submissions that are other genre, those stories have to be exceptionally good. Sometimes it seems that we get a lot of stories that don't seem complete, and sometimes those stories are really just a chapter or two from the writers novel in progress. Most chapters, don't stand well as complete short stories. There are times when I am sending a rejection, because the story is just like one we have already published.

Another reason for a rejection is if the story is just too long, but perhaps the most common reason for a rejection is that the story didn't pull me in. If I am read a story and my mind starts thinking about paperclips, or if there is milk in the fridge, and that is not what the story is about, well then the story has probably lost me and will likely get a rejection.

Do you ever give personal replies or do you just do form rejections?

I try to provide feedback when I am rejecting a story, because just getting a "no thank you" gives the writer nothing to go on. But that said, I don't always have useful feedback to give. Sometimes all I have is that the story is not the best fit for Neo-opsis. The reason its not a good fit may be a style or a feeling. If a story pulls me in, but doesn't fit for some reason or other, then I usually have feedback to give, but when getting feedback the writer should always remember that the feedback is opinion. The next publisher may have completely different ideas about the story.

How can an author submit to Neo-opsis?

If you want to submit to Neo-opsis, you should first check the Neo-opsis guidelines. The guidelines can be found online at www.neo-opsis.ca/guidelines. Currently Neo-opsis is closed to new submissions. The next submission period is set for September 1, 2011 to November 30, 2011.

Keeping Your Work: Be Writing Group Savvy

2011-06-19T10:49:00.000-07:00

Today, I have Alyx discussing posting your fiction online for critiques. I have loved my online author communities and believe the critiques I've received have helped me to become published. However, like Alyx, I'm really concerned by the large amount of openly posted fiction that I've seeing online asking for critiques.

I personally recommend only ever sharing your work in password-protected, small communities. I currently work within a small online writing group that is invite-only. Even when I belonged to a large community, I only posted my work within the invite-only private areas with just a few people at a time.

Keeping Your Work, by Alyx J Shaw

I’m going to address an issue that is becoming more prevalent in recent years, and one that is an easily-avoidable and innocent-looking trap that can cost a new author a story. I’m talking about on-line author’s communities.

The idea behind these groups is a good one and is something I actually approve of. Someone sets up a moderated community, usually in a place like Live Journal or Dreamwidth, new unpublished authors join, and together they support one another, discuss their work, show stories in progress for feed-back, exchange ideas, and form a place in which to nurture each other in the hopes of being the next J K Rowling or Stephen King. It’s a great idea, but there is one very sad and obvious flaw in this – namely some people cannot be trusted with a burned-out match, let alone your work.

Posting any work in a community such as a writer's group or in Live Journal is simply not a wise idea, as I personally learned the hard way. The community “mods” may have the very best of intentions and would never steal from you, but they do not live in the heads of their members. All it takes is one jackass with a severe case of Entitlement to copy and paste your stuff and it is gone.

“F-Locking”, which is using tools provided in on-line journals to limit who has access to your work, is a good idea, but not 100% either. All it takes is one well-intentioned friend who just wants to share the uber-awesome thing you wrote with their BFF, who then bounces it to someone else, who bounces it to another buddy, who bounces it to that guy they sorta know in English Lit and guess what - all your hard work has someone else's name on it.

People do not have to be bad to help someone steal from you. They don't even have to intend to do it in order to help someone else steal it. But none of us are in control of other people, and it is hard enough to know who to trust in the real world, let alone the internet where that nice lady you chat with daily could easily be a convicted felon working you for your credit card number. So just keep your original fiction private. It’s your work. You put in the time and effort and research. Do not lose it because of an innocent mistake. On-line author’s communities are great places to learn and meet other people in your shoes, but never post anything you have even the slightest intention of publishing. It might end up in somebody else’s portfolio.

Bio: Alyx J Shaw is an irritable rantaholic who enjoys writing, making medieval honey wine, smoking, tarantulas, (not smoking tarantulas) and raising strange and toxic plants. She has been a practicing Wiccan for ten years, and is one of the few people in Vancouver, British Columbia who actually enjoys the rain

Complete list of published works can be found here: http://www.torquerebooks.com/index.php?manufacturers_id=17&zenid=af5937f77847d710607f63f954f6f0cd&main_page=index

"Why Did You Go Small Press" with Eileen Kernaghan

2011-06-12T10:39:00.001-07:00

1. Why did you go with a small press? Thistledown Press, for example, is based in Saskatoon; a long way away from the glitz New York publishers. Why go close to home?

Long story! Actually, I did start out, back in the early eighties, with one of those glitzy New York publishers. My three Grey Isles novels from Ace won awards and got good reviews, and the first two at least had decent sales. But then came the Great SF/Fantasy Slump of the mid-eighties, when way too many books were published, sales plunged, and a lot of writing careers went into the doldrums, mine included. Although by then I had an agent, she couldn’t interest any of those New York publishers in my fourth adult novel (Winter on the Plain of Ghosts) She sent the manuscript around a few times, and as agents do these days, gave up and let it sit on the shelf.

So what to do? Well, I thought, New York isn't the world. There's England -- but English publishers were going through a major economic crisis. And then there’s Canada.

At that time, very few Canadian publishers were interested in adult fantasy and science fiction. But a lot of Canadian presses, particularly the smaller literary ones, were publishing young adult fiction -- and that included fantasy. I decided to make a minor career adjustment. I switched from adult historical fantasy to YA historical fantasy, abandoned hopes of becoming the next Anne McCaffrey, and looked for a publisher close to home.

My first YA was Dance of the Snow Dragon, about the travels of a young Buddhist monk in a magical version of 18th century Bhutan. Thistledown Press had accepted a short story excerpted from the book for a YA anthology, and that in turn led to their accepting the novel.

2. What benefits have you enjoyed since having your books go with a small press?

First off, I’d say the quality of the editing. I’ve worked with amazing editors for my four Thistledown books – all of them are writers themselves, and I think that’s one reason their editing is so astute, and so sympathetic. They understood the book that I wanted to write, and helped me to make it the best it could possibly be. You don’t as a rule get anything like that kind of close attention from a Big NewYork genre publisher. There’s a real sense, with a smaller publisher like Thistledown, that you’re part of a team, with everyone cheering you on – not, as in New York, a tiny cog in an enormous machine.

Smaller Canadian publishers are more likely to support your career while you gain exposure and build your sales with subsequent books. As once upon a time, all publishers did. Nowadays those big genre publishers give you one chance – if your first book, or your first series, fails to live up to expectations, you’re out.

I’ve had the luxury of deciding the kind of book I want to write, and taking a long time to write it. Thistledown believes in letting a book build in popularity over a period of time, and they won’t publish a book by the same author more than once every two years.

Literary press books are nearly always issued as trade paperbacks, and for whatever reason, trade paperbacks have more cachet than the humble mass market format. They’re more likely to be reviewed, and considered for awards. They’re generally found on library shelves rather than revolving racks, and they tend to linger longer in bookstores.

Traditionally, trades don’t get their covers ripped off to be sent back to the publisher for refund while their insides are pulped (though I’m told that these days, sadly, that can happen).

And then there’s the question of staying in print. The average bookstore shelf-life for a mass market US paperback is not much more than a month. After that, unless it sells well enough to go into reprints, it vanishes from sight. Thistledown’s trade paperbacks stay in print practically forever. Even my 1995 book still sells a few copies now and again.

And then there’s the boost to the literary ego that comes with being a Canlit author. I’ll get round to that in a minute.

3. If there was one challenge or thing to consider before going the small press route, what would you say it is?

Small press advances are low, or non-existent. Do you need immediate writing income to support yourself and your family, or can you wait for your sales to build over the long term?

Small presses have small promotion budgets. You won’t be getting colour ads in Locus or Quill & Quire, and you won’t be going on author tours unless you organize and fund them yourself. (Though in fairness, big New York publishers don’t spend much on their midlist authors either.) Are you ready to arrange your own launches and readings spend endless hours doing online promotion, introduce yourself in person to local booksellers – and be prepared for blank stares from clerks who’ve clearly never heard of you? Are you prepared to do author signings in deserted malls, and interviews with local reporters who haven’t read your books? (Though come to think of it, didn’t I do all that – except for the online stuff – for my Ace Books?)

4. You're in a unique situation because you have had books with a small press, as well as a large one (ACE). What was the main difference between them? Or, did you even notice?

Oh, I’ve noticed! There are the differences I’ve already mentioned, like the quality of editing, and the personal connection with the publisher. But beyond that:

Back in the mid-eighties when my second novel came out as a mass market paperback from Ace Books, the Vancouver Sun did a full page spread profiling three local genre writers. a mystery writer, who said she turned out a new book every six weeks; a writer of romance novels, and myself, representing genre fantasy. The headline read: “Paperback writers: a look at the unsung and unpretentious foot soldiers of fiction.”

And Books in Canada’s very succinct review of Journey to Aprilioth said “I don’t like books about elves. (What elves? There are no elves in my books!)

Fast forward to 2004, to The Alchemist’s Daughter – a YA published as a trade paperback by a prestigious Canadian literary press with Canada Council support. It received a long and glowing review in Books in Canada (with no mention of non-existent elves) and was shortlisted for several book awards.

Same writer, same style, same genre (historical fantasy) but a different critical perception. I’d made the jump from paperback foot soldier to Canlit Author.

5. And, the dreaded money question. How does it compare?

The advances -- Big New York Publisher vs Canadian Small Press -- were in no way comparable. However, that's not the whole equation. If I add up the earnings from my small press novels over the life of the books, it comes pretty close to what I received from Ace for the three Grey Isles books. With the BNYP you get the money up front, but that's likely all you'll get, because few books earn out their advance. With the small press, provided the book sells, you get it in dribs and drabs over a period of years. Obviously, unless you have other sources of income, that makes it hard to buy groceries.

Bio:

The settings of Eileen Kernaghan’s eight historical fantasy novels range from the prehistoric Indus Valley to 18th Century Bhutan and Victorian England. Her most recent YA/teen novel, Wild Talent: a Novel of the Supernatural, set in London and Paris, 1888-89, was shortlisted for a 2009 Sunburst Award.

Review of "Becoming an Indie Author"

2011-06-03T20:52:00.000-07:00

I found Smart Self-Publishing exceptionally helpful. The title is deceptive, because I think it even has some decent advice for people planning to submit to publishers, those already published, and those are just aren't sure.

Winters takes a "stop the whining" attitude and it is thoroughly refreshing. She doesn't try coddling authors and doesn't waste the reader's time giving pep talks. Instead, she outlines the work involved and the choices you the author need to make. She tells her own experiences and choices, and shares her mistakes and lessons.

It's a must read if you aren't sure about self-publishing or if you know you want to and don't know how to start. I'd also recommend it for anyone interested in self-publishing their backlist or who has been for a while but are still struggling with the business end of things.

At $3.95 (Amazon price), it's a sweet deal.

Engagement: Interaction between authors and readers

2011-05-17T20:25:00.000-07:00

Engagement. It’s what everyone wants, right? Comments and retweets and all the rest of it. Maybe. In fact, I find it harder to promote myself as a writer in the social-media era than I did in the days when one put up a no-feedback website in hand-coded HTML and didn’t need to worry about how many comments it attracted. My personal blog, Reality Skimming, still functions as an announcement list and online repository of facts and web links, attracting one comment every few months if I’m lucky.

So it clearly isn’t the magic of being me that accounts for my success at snagging comments on the Clarion Blog with my weekly Writer’s Craft feature. I get an average of 15 comments per post, most of them within 48 hours of the post going up each Monday morning. Posts that exceed 20 comments or that continue to collect new comments days or even weeks later are the best performers. I particularly like it when mini-conversations break out, because it isn’t just about numbers. The tone of the input is friendly, even when contributors disagree with each other. I am happy with 20 comments and would get happier up to 50 or so, but beyond that I think the experience would start to lose its intimacy.

So much for the “what” of the Writer’s Craft on the Clarion Blog. Here’s the how. It’s almost embarrassingly easy. I’m a writer. I asked myself what inspired me to comment on other people’s blogs and what worked best for me in writers groups after the critiquing is done and people sat around basking in the positive energy of a shared love not always appreciated by non-writers. All good friends swallow their pride and hand out congrats to the success stories in the group when accolades are due them, but writers don’t just want to hear about how other writers “done good”. We’re creative, thinking, typing, talking people. So I wanted to strike upon a formula that would open up the conversation.

Since I’m no saint, and I wanted to have fun, too, I model the kind of talk I want by leveraging my own work and experience as raw material. But the approach is always “here’s my example, what’s yours?” And I really want to know. I like writers. They are infinitely variable and fascinating. I like to see what they think about each other, too, and take part in the discussion as a fellow participant once it starts to roll. I facilitate, rather than set an agenda, and enjoy the outcome. Which really shouldn’t surprise me because I have always been a better facilitator, moderator or MC than a pundit. I loved to teach, during the twenty years I did a lot of that, but even then what I liked best was those times when students became people.

I set up the Writer’s Craft as a way to make the acquaintance of other writers and find out about them. In the process, I intend to promote them as well as myself and to make anyone who drops by feel the “coffee shop” vibe. I often e-mail someone whose post catches my interest to ask him or her to guest-post on the Writer’s Craft. I struck on that habit the same way I did on the basic formula: I asked myself what I liked best. And I like to be asked to contribute to something because someone has noticed me. That’s why I surf to the homepages of the writers who post to the blog, and when an idea results I ask the writer if he or she would be willing to write up a post about it. Sometimes I just post a comment to the writer’s blog, and sometimes I just browse and leave, due to a failure of my own imagination that particular hour.

I can’t promise writers who participate on the Writer’s Craft that their sales will go up or their web presence will intensify – but I’d genuinely like to think this might happen. What I can promise is that published, unpublished or however the gray zone is defined these days, I will provide a writer-friendly environment where they will meet other writers, their participation will be valued, and we’ll work with the real stuff of writing. If it works, it’s because it’s the sort of blog I’d like to take part in. And I must admit, in conclusion, that the Writer’s Craft has been a revelation to me about how to enjoy social media because until I discovered I could be myself instead of needing to turn into something I can never be, the whole thing felt like a hostile sea of “me, me, look at me” in which any venture I could enjoy taking part in was doomed to be laughable. I would like to thank each and every contributor to the Writer’s Craft for making me feel good about being me, with them.

If you write SF, drop by and tell us about it some Monday.

Lynda Williams is the author of the ten-novel Okal Rel Saga published by Edge Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing and editor of the Okal Rel Legacies series from Absolute XPress. She holds two masters degrees, has taught at the college and university level, won awards in digital innovation, and now works as an educational development consultant for BCIT.

Surviving Collaborative Writing

2011-04-28T20:56:00.000-07:00

Writing isn't always alone...

Today we have Josh, one half of the Josh Langston and Barbara Galler-Smith writing combo for "Druids" and its sequel, "Captives." Josh will be talking about the ups and downs of writing in a pair.

Why did we choose to join forces?
It seemed like a good idea at the time. We discovered, in the process of writing a dreadful short story and a mildly entertaining novella, that we had complimentary strengths. Barb is a wiz at setting; I have a flair for dialog. Barb has an excellent knowledge of Celtic history; writing plots comes easily to me.

Together, we had most of the ingredients needed to put together a novel worthy of one's time out by the pool or under an umbrella at the beach. We started with the back story for the novella we'd just finished. A few years later we had four complete manuscripts. (One of which has nothing to do with Druids.)

What is the key to our success?
Aside from anything Oprah might provide, a successful novel requires at least three things:

1) A good story.
2) A good publisher.
3) Fabulous distribution.

(and the Oprah folks have completely ignored my calls).

How do we break up the work?
All four of our books began with a discussion of the story in its most general terms. We then developed an outline which laid out all the basics. We then expanded the basic outline into a detailed and quite specific plan which listed, by scene, what was to be accomplished, what the reader needed to learn, whose point of view is used, and why the scene was essential.

Roadmap in hand, we took turns writing the first drafts of each scene. Drafts were sent back and forth for corrections, improvements, and/or clarifications. Sometimes we sent them back and forth just for spite, but over time we learned that didn't accomplish much. Eventually we reached a point where we were too exhausted to argue any more and then deemed the work "done."

(Bio thoughts: My nickname is "Josh." My wife, my family, and the IRS know my given name. I'm okay with keeping it at that. I have committed several different professions in my life, among them: public speaking, fund raising, power tool repair, computer programming, business analysis, and cab driving -- though not necessarily in that order. I am married to a beautiful and imminently patient woman who loves me anyway. We have two great children, two uber-great grandchildren, and two mutts who think they're children. We spoil whomever and wherever it's apropos.)

Write Better Epic Fantasy Now

2011-04-19T07:36:00.000-07:00

I was once a slush reader for a SFF magazine and also for a small Canadian press. I saw a lot of epic fantasy. There were the 350k tomes and the cheesy sword and sorcery short stories. Epic fantasy can be a hard sell these days. Many readers are tired of the same ol' that's out there. They want something fresh.

Where is your epic fantasy set? A large amount of epic fantasy is written in a quasi-medieval European or Britain. If your book is in this setting, what distinguishes it from all of the others on the market today? Likewise, some writers are moving their fantasy to an Asian setting. Again, what is setting yours apart?

If you have a made-up setting, does your culture logically evolve from the setting? How about the religion? Clothing choices?

Is your story sexist? There are two parts to this question. First, your story may be sexist on purpose. You might want to create a world were women aren't able to fight in wars or hold positions of authority. That's fine. The question is how do you address this issue. Do you have women exercising great power from within their own spheres? Do you have women pushing the boundaries whenever possible? Do you have women supporting the status quo? Or, is the only rebel against the system the lone female archer mercenary who drinks and swears and sleeps around?

Second, look at your cast. Are all of your female characters in positions of minor importance to the plot? Do you have any major female characters? Do you force your women into arranged marriages, even though this isn't a standard cultural action for your world? Do women always have to be rescued by men? Do your women know nothing about midwifery, including abortion? Are women raped because they were objects of lust and the men couldn't control themselves?

Do you have Stuff People Skip? Tolkien may have written pages of description but that does not mean today's writers have that luxury. Literature is fluid, ever changing. Many of today's readers aren't interested in pages of description where every single item in a room is described. It becomes "stuff people skip." Many epic fantasy tomes that I saw in the slush were that way because of the unnecessary description.

Are you trying to write another Lord of the Rings? Tolkien already wrote it, sorry. Same goes for anything by Terry Brooks or Robert Jordan.

Does everyone believe in the same faith in your book? One world religion? How does that work? Likewise, is everyone atheist? So, no one believes in something other? Again, how did that come about?

Does your magic system have consequences? Do you even have a set system? What prevents people from using magic all of the time? Can your plot pass the "cell phone" test? (cell phone test is "can this be prevented if the main character carried a cell phone." In fantasy, it's "can this be prevented if the main character uses their magic?")

These are just a few tips to help you look at your manuscript objectively. Please share some other things that people should be on the watch for in fantasy!

Successful Cross-Genre Writing

2011-04-10T10:32:00.000-07:00

I'm happy to have Lorina Stephens visiting with us today to discuss cross-genre writing. She is an author, editor, and publisher. Her publishing house, Five Rivers Chapmanry, is an independent micro-publisher of fiction and non-fiction, giving voice to new and established Canadian authors. Five Rivers is committed to bringing publishing back to uncompromising personal editors where it belongs, rather than focus-group marketing.

In the previous century, as publishers gained control of sales and marketing, greater restrictions were placed upon the creative freedom of a writer. If your last hit was an historical naval fiction, your next work had better closely follow that subject. Or if you wrote hard science fiction, don’t blur the borders by writing an epic high fantasy. And worse, don’t, under any circumstances, write a book that might further muddy the waters by being a bit historical and a bit fantasy. Retailers have to know exactly where to shelve those books.

Introduce to that established publishing model the evolution of the past decade. It’s now ridiculously easy for any writer to create, publish, distribute and market their work. And because much of that independently published work rarely occupies shelf space beside the latest releases from the Big Six, the restrictions of how to categorize that work fall away.

And thus the growth of cross-genre writing.

As a writer, the concept of blurring the lines of categorization isn’t something new; first and foremost I want to tell a good story. Both of my novels, Shadow Song, and From Mountains of Ice, cross the boundaries of categories, both sitting between historical and fantasy fiction.

As a publisher, I look to cross-genre writing favourably, as it’s often from such creative minds that a new, fresh lens appears on a familiar topic.

But how to write cross-genre successfully? I’m not for a moment going to propose a ‘how-to’ lesson, partly because I don’t subscribe to formulae for good writing, and one of the reasons I personally abhor how-to books, whether they be on painting or finding your inner goddess.

What I look for, as a publisher, in a cross-genre novel is a seamless transition between the credible and incredible, and as a result an easy flow that shuts off a reader’s disbelief. I am particularly keen about blurring the lines between cultural, historical and fantasy fiction.

If you’re writing about a pseudo-historical place or era, getting your details accurate is vitally important. If your character is in period dress, be sure you understand all the restrictions and ramifications of that dress, from a man’s footed hose and points, to a woman’s chemise and corset. Domestic technologies, forms of currency, pre-existing economic and political groups and alignments – all of these factors require research in order for your story to have the ring of truth. Do that, and then when you introduce some sort of time-travel or psychic ability, there will be a richness and veracity to what you’ve created that will render your reader helpless to your story-telling ability, and turn that cynical and tired acquisition editor into a believer and business partner.

Of course, while infusing your work with this minute detail, it’s important to remember your characters are the vehicle and voice for your story, and so stopping the action to give an inventory of goods isn’t wise. Whatever you’re describing should be part of the tight focus of your character and necessary to the advancement of the plot, a fact true not just of cross-genre writing, but any good writing.

Recommended reading for excellent cross-genre writing:

The Blind Assassin, Margaret Atwood

The Satanic Verses, Salman Rushdie

Lions of Al-Rassan, Guy Gavriel Kay

The Winter King, Bernard Cornwell

I Write Weird Fiction

2011-04-06T15:24:00.000-07:00

I'm happy to have Canadian author Claude Lalumière. He's the author of Objects of Worship and The Door to Lost Pages. Also, he's the co-creator of Lost Myths. On a personal note, Claude has a glorious sense of humour. I once reviewed his story in Evolve: Vampire Stories of the New Undead and commented that it was a mistake reading it before supper. He laughed, which was exactly the response I had hoped for.

I write weird fiction.

What does that mean?

Do I write within the genre sometimes called "weird fiction"? What is that, anyway? Trying to define a genre is the stuff of bar fights. I don't want to get into fisticuffs here, so let's just say that my publisher, ChiZine Publications, where my work certainly feels very much at home, describes its books as "weird, surreal, subtle, and disturbing." That could also describe my love life, but let's stick with the writing. Much less messy.

Or does it mean that my fiction is strange? A Goodreads review of my first book said, "Objects of Worship is a collection of 12 short stories. Describing them as strange would be an understatement ... Oddly, the strangeness is somewhat intensified by not being strange to the characters." That last comment ("not being strange to the characters") is important.

What most people consider normal is, to me, profoundly strange, alienating, and disturbing.

Normal is suffering some of kind of bizarre neurosis that causes a belief in a god or gods and, worse, a willingness to kill and/or die in the name of that neurosis. Normal is sexually mutilating children and celebrating it. Normal is ignoring and being complicit in the suffering of animals in factory farms. Normal is continuing to love one's blood kin, regardless of psychological or physical abuse. Normal is limiting someone's rights, even maybe hating them, because of their sexual preferences, gender, language, or ethnicity. Normal is ignoring the systematic destruction of the planet that gives us life in order to perpetuate the obsolete dreams of capitalism. I could go on for pages and pages about what normal is.

All those things that are considered normal? For me, that's the stuff of nightmares. Waking up in the middle of the night and screaming your head off -- those kinds of nightmares.

People often remark that my fiction can be dark and macabre, but I don't see it that way. The way I see it, I'm striving for utopia. I'm shining a beacon that there's hope. That beyond all that numbing, nightmarish normality, there's a potential world of beautiful strangeness where even the most oddball weirdo can feel at home.

But the journey ... yeah, the journey can be dark. The obstacles are macabre and merciless, cruel and relentless. And I don't shy away from portraying the obstacles.

One of the ways I counter the hegemonic oppression of normative society is by presenting strangeness -- the strangeness of my characters, of their worldview, of their environment, of their emotions -- as commonplace, by presenting that strangeness without acknowledging that the way my characters behave, who they are, how they live in the world are anything but normal -- just not the normal most people are used to. Other normals. Different normals. Weirder normals. Non-normative normals.

I fear that, for me, consensus normal will never cease being strange, estranging, and even terrifying. So I make up my own normals.

I write weird fiction, because the various subgenres of the fantastic encourage taking a step back from consensus reality, allow me, as a writer, more so than any other genre, to question every aspect of what is considered normal.

I write weird fiction because I'm trying to reconcile the world with my utopian dreams, and the disconnect between those perspectives is where the weirdness happens.

I write weird fiction because it beats waking up in the middle of the night screaming my head off.

Also, and this is not to be undervalued, I write weird fiction because it's fun.

Five Things to Remember When Writing Romance

2011-04-01T10:34:00.000-07:00

Only five? I better make it the five things I need to remember when writing a romance. Maybe I need to start with – what is a romance? The story of two (or more) people (or vampires, shifters, angels, faeries, bookends etc) who meet, fall apart and then come back together for the happy ever after – or the happy for now at the very least.

1. The first meeting of the hero and heroine has to be something that resonates with the reader. It has to grip by the heart, by the lungs, by the--every bit of them you can get at. It has to make them gasp or laugh or sigh. If they don’t see that the characters are meant to be together from the start– even if you later drive them apart moments later-- then they won’t fall in love with them and carry on reading. One of my books starts with the hero pulling a splinter out of the heroine’s backside. Another has a werewolf falling down a hole and landing on a starving vampire. One of my favorite starts is in a book by Susan Elizabeth Phillips where the bride is getting married and forgets the groom’s name.

2. Make the hero and the heroine flawed. We all love bad boys and most heroes have a dark side but I like my heroines to have faults too. I’m sorry – but I just don’t get the kickass, I’m better than you heroines who waltz through stories with their sassy attitude and perfect everything. I probably make my characters too flawed but I like my heroine to NEED the hero. Doesn’t mean she has to be subservient, just that she’s someone the reader will identify with. And the guys? They have to be larger than life, good-looking (even with that odd scar or too), strong alpha males. The head turning sort, the ones that we all go – yum – to. I don’t mind if they’re nasty tempered, sulky, silent or sarcastic, so long as there is something about them that makes them vulnerable and capable of love with the right woman. I know a lot of writers plot out the characters carefully before starting to write. I don’t. I let the characters develop with the story. It works better for me that way but its just personal preference.

3. Plot matters too! Since I outlined above the basics of a romance as-- two meet, fall in love, fall apart and then come back together – what plot is needed other than that, you might cry. There’s not much that hasn’t been done in romance so you have to make your characters interesting enough and different enough to carry the basic plot. Which is why having them flawed helps. Conflict comes into this. I absolutely believe you have to create a strong reason for them to be kept apart – either through their own mistakes or failings, or through the actions of others. Strong conflict keeps readers turning pages and drives the story forward.

4. Humor. I want to read it and I want to write it. I love snappy dialogue. I love men who’re funny and women who give back as good as they get. I want readers to want the hero for themselves and to see themselves as the heroine. I hope readers laugh out loud at some parts of my books. This links to the desire to be entertaining. The whole point of reading anything fictional, let alone romance, is that it takes you away from your ordinary life. It lets you forget for a while that dishes need to be washed, ironing needs to be done, dog needs to be let out – excuse me a minute…so the stories and characters have to transport the reader to another world where everything will – see the next point…..

5. end Happy Ever After. All my stories are HEA. Not for me, the happy for now. I want my hero and heroine together and looking forward to what life is going to bring them. I want their lives to be happy because I want readers to believe that can happen for them too. I know plenty of great love stories end with hero or heroine or both dead – not mine. Ever.

6. Yes, I know I said five but how can I miss out –SEX. The level of sex in a romance can vary from sweet to full on erotic. I’ve noticed a tendency for ALL romances to have more detailed sex in them these days, just less than in an erotic romance and not so varied. Even thrillers and suspense novels seem to insert the obligatory scene or two. It’s hard to please all tastes over the amount of sex in a book. Too much for some, not enough for others. But the golden rule for me is that the story must stand without the sex, that the plot is complex enough, the characters interesting enough to carry the story and make people sigh when it ends.

www.barbaraelsborg.com

www.barbaraelsborg.blogspot.com

The Editor is Not Your Enemy: Part 2

2011-03-29T15:48:00.000-07:00

Development editing vs Copy Editing

Once a manuscript has been identified as one of interest, it has to go for copy and/or development editing. The exact structure of the process varies publisher to publisher: In some companies, junior editors handoff manuscripts they nominate as promising to more senior editors. In others, the same editor works to develop whatever manuscripts they have identified from the slushpile, social contacts at conventions, or soliciting manuscripts from authors (perhaps based on the author's work for smaller presses). In smaller presses, the acquisition, development, and copy editor are often all the same person, sometimes just the publisher him/herself. Whatever the particular structure, the process is always the same: a promising manuscript is identified; the editor identifies weaknesses, or areas that could be explored further, and asks for changes; and finally the manuscript is copy edited.

There is always some development editing. One may have polished a manuscript to flawless perfection, but that is largely irrelevant to the process, for two reasons:

First, the author's definition of perfection probably has something to do with the quality and integrity of the work; the editor's definition is as likely to be focused on marketability. Sure that allusion is brilliant, funny, and exactly what that character would say in that moment, but it's over the heads of the mass-market audience and therefore a threat to future sales. It is the editor's job to raise the possibility of making the work more accessible. Sure the hero needs to die tragically in the last scene -- but that decision precludes a sequel, and marketing costs could be better amortized over a trilogy -- or even better, a series -- than a stand-alone novel. And American audiences in particular, prefer happy endings.

Which is, I hasten to clarify, not to suggest that all editors are philistines -- quite the contrary in my experience. Just that their job is to help the author reach as large an audience as possible, and that minor adjustments can sometimes make a big difference in sales. There is probably no threat to the integrity of the work in changing "boot" to "trunk" and "torch" to "flashlight", to sell a British author to American audiences; but authors may justifiably balk at changing a gay character to straight, or a Black character to white to pander to the prejudices of the lowest common denominator of the American mass market.

Authors may have lots of horror stories of changes demanded by editors [my personal favorite is the Canadian screenwriter who was asked if he would mind adapting his biography of a serial killer into a musical]; but for every author story, I can cite ten even more ridiculous accounts of authors unwilling to change a single word or comma in their far-from-perfect manuscripts. Authors, by definition, are too close to their own work to be able to spot the flaws in their manuscript. Development editors approach the manuscript with fresh eyes, and easily spot the lapses in logic, the sudden slowdowns in pacing, the out-of-character actions, and so on, that an author cannot. In the vast majority of cases, the editor is correct when identifying problematic areas of the current draft, though there may well be alternatives to their suggested fixes. Every suggested change is likely negotiable, but the author has to be willing to change -- or to walk away from the deal.

It is true that not all editors are equally good, or equally appropriate for any given manuscript; finding the right editor to partner with is an important element in the successful development of any book. If one starts from the assumption, however, that the editor is the enemy and all their suggestions 'tampering', then the potential benefits of a successful working partnership are at risk, and the work likely impoverished thereby. Instead, start from the assumption that one's manuscript -- like all manuscripts -- could benefit from a second set of eyes, and that the editor appointed by the publisher is the most suitable for manuscripts of that sort. The careers of everyone involved is dependent on getting it right, so they really are trying to help; and not part of an international conspiracy to block or undermine new authors.

Second, editors are going to ask for changes because -- well, because they are editors. Playwrights understand that no matter how brilliant the words they put on paper, how detailed their stage directions, the play's director is going to have a major impact on the interpretation that audiences ultimately see. So it is with editors. This is not to suggest that editors will insist on making changes where none are needed, but simply that authors -- particularly beginning authors -- should start from the understanding that this is a partnership, and so allow some space for input from their (senior) partner.

Three important observations here: Just as it is to be expected that one's editor will suggest or demand certain changes, it is natural that one's first reaction to these revisions is to have a minor meltdown. I have yet to receive something back from an editor that I didn't (initially) regard as ridiculous suggestions that would undermine the entire point of the piece. I always begin by complaining to my wife and colleagues about the morons with whom I have to contend; if, that is, I can get a word in edgewise, as they complain about their editors and referees in turn. That's all just a normal part of the process. Because, let's face it, we are all of us really lazy and absolutely hate having to do revisions. Just once I would like an editor to tell me, "Hey, that was perfect! I can't think of a single thing to change!" but it is never going to happen.

Usually, about the fifth time I read the comments through I start to grudgingly confess that there is maybe the remote possibility that this or that suggestion might in fact have identified something that could be worked on a bit. As the deadline approaches, I roll up my sleeves and actually try to rewrite the offending passage, a struggle that requires me to throw out my previously written words: an act in my mind akin to abandoning a child. In the end, however, as I rewrite this bit or that from the new perspective of the 'mistaken reading' by editor or referees, I come to realize that the new version is actually quite an improvement. Indeed, having completed the new draft, I generally wince when I look back at the previous version, and shake my head to think I ever felt it ready to go out.

So the key here is: NEVER EVER respond to editorial suggestions the same day (probably not even the same week) as one receives them. One needs time to absorb what the editor is actually saying, to work through the emotionality of even this partial rejection, and to start seeing the possibilities arising out of the editor's feedback. That first day, one should simply acknowledge receipt of the comments and promise to attend to them in the immediate future. That's it. If some comments need to be resisted, resist them later when one is calmer; and one has already made the other x number of suggested changes -- which demonstrates that one is open to change, is reasonable, flexible, and merely raising the possibility that perhaps -- in this one instance -- there may be good reason to go another route than with the editor's recommendation. Such an approach is far more likely to be successful than the incoherent rant that is likely one's initial, instinctual response.

The second point here is that one needs to choose one's battles carefully. Sometimes one needs to say 'no' to development editors (or agents and publishers) if the changes they are insisting on are inappropriate -- the recent controversies over authors being asked to change characters from gay to straight or black to white come to mind. Most publishers would not hold these principled refusals against the author, though they may well chose (for purely commercial reasons) not to continue with publication of that particular manuscript. On the other hand, authors who endlessly debate every little change, who refuse to budge on any suggested revision, quickly acquire the reputation as "difficult to work with". And then one's career is over. With hundreds of equally competent manuscripts vying for the six or eight available slots in an imprint's monthly publishing schedule, there is no need for a publisher to invest time and effort in a difficult or unresponsive author. Eventually, even megastars like Charlie Sheen get fired if they are sufficiently. One may even win the battles over a particular manuscript, but then lose the war if the publisher decides not to bother accepting future submissions.

If one feels the need to retain complete and utter control over every aspect of one's writing, the only viable solution is to self-publish; with the obvious perils that without development editing, one's ego may quickly out distance one's competence.

Third, developmental editing is an iterative process. One submits the initial manuscript; the editor provides detailed feedback; one resubmits with the required revisions, and perhaps the occasional argument why this or that suggested change is better some other way; and the editor re-edits the revisions. My experience is that a polished first submission requires at least two, and usually three rounds of suggestions and rewrites. Other manuscripts have sometimes taken as many as six, though that does start to get tedious for both sides.

Again, it is important to view this as the editor working to make the manuscript as strong as it can be, rather than an obstruction. The goal here is to produce the best book possible, not just to get published. If getting published were the goal, one could self-publish and be done with it.

Note too, that it is important to make one's revisions on the same copy as the editor. These days, that usually means using "Track Changes" in Word, though some houses I'm told still prefer hard copy. The editor needs to see that the suggested comments have been addressed -- either that the change as been made, or the author has provided reasons why the change is being resisted. It is not uncommon (and often quite interesting) to get a dialog going over this or that revision as comments go back and forth over two or three iterations. Sending a 'clean' copy back with all your changes, on the other hand, will likely drive your editor crazy as s/he has to reread the entire manuscript again, with a copy of the original next to it to compare line by tedious line, just to ensure that all the suggested edits have been attended to, and whether the revisions were successful.

Copy Editing

Once the final draft of the manuscript is approved, it goes for copy-editing. There would be little point copy-editing the initial draft, as whole sections are likely to disappear and entirely new sections appear during development, so no one is going to pay $60 an hour to keep re-copy editing the same manuscript. Copy editors catch typos, spelling and grammar errors, inconsistencies, and so on. It is a highly technical skill, takes a certain (admittedly anal) personality, and is often underrated. A typical example: I used 'global change' to change a character in one of my stories, but unknowingly had Word set to "changes from here down" rather than "all document" so that a minor character was one name in the first scene, and a different name four scenes later. Which, understandably, caused some confusion until caught by the copy editor.

The need for copy-editing is obvious; less obvious is that copyediting is not a substitute for development editing. Beginning authors who arrange to have their manuscripts 'edited' before submitting to a publisher, or self-publishing, need to be clear on whether they are hiring a copy editor or a development editor. Freelance development editors (often marketing themselves as "writing coaches") can often be very helpful in identifying problem areas; over-coming writer's block; pushing authors to go deeper, to up their game; and turning initial drafts into submission-ready drafts. Copy editors can help authors avoid embarrassing typos, but it is not their job to tamper with the manuscript's content. Knowing which service one is contracting for is therefore crucial.

Trends

Finally, there are a couple of trends in publishing that should be noted here. First, publishers at all levels are doing a lot less editing than they used to. Most of the major players let go between 30-40% of their remaining editorial staff during the recent recession, and there is no reason to expect any of them to rehire in the future. The heavy concentration of publishing into a very few houses has created a situation where there are so many authors submitting to the same six surviving SF imprints, for example, that the majors can simply take the top 1% that need almost no development, and reject the rest. Indeed, very few publishers these days have the patience to develop new talent, and simply do not accept unsolicited manuscripts. Instead, the slushpile has largely been outsourced to agents, who perforce have taken on the role of development editor. That even makes a kind of sense, given that most of the new agents on the market (and therefore the ones willing to accept new clients) are the very editors recently laid off from the major publishing houses. Same people doing the same job, the difference being that now their salaries are being paid by the writers, rather than by the publishers....

Second, copy-editing has been partially eliminated as a step by the change from hot lead typesetting to digital. Certainly, many small presses (and almost all self-publishers) simply take the author's digital submission and run it through a software package to turn it into the printed book. Given the expectation that authors will have already run spell and grammar checks on the document, the need to pay someone $60 a hour to go through checking for minor glitches is now sometimes seen as redundant. This is a wrong idea, of course, as is obvious whenever one runs across a book that hasn't benefitted from the attention of a good copy editor.

The Editor is Not Your Enemy (Part 1)

2011-03-27T20:32:00.000-07:00

I'm tickled to have Dr. Robert Runte visiting us and doing two guest posts on the different kinds of editors in the fiction world. Robert is an associate professor at the University of Lethbridge. As an academic, editor, reviewer, and organizer, Robert has been actively promoting Canadian SF for over 30 years. He was a founding Director of NonCon, Context^89,, and SF Canada; and has served on the Boards of the Edmonton Science Fiction and Comic Arts Society, On Spec Magazine, Tesseract Books, and The Writers Guild of Alberta. In addition to dozens of conference papers, journal articles, book chapters, and a half dozen entries in theEncyclopedia of Literature in Canada , Robert has edited over 150 issues of various SF newsletters.

The Editor is Not Your Enemy

There is a great deal of confusion out there about the role of editors.

Part of the problem is that the same label is applied to three very different roles/processes: development editors, acquisition editors, and copy editors.

Acquisition Editors

When beginning writers think of editors, they usually focus on acquisition editors, the people who decide whether their book or story will be accepted for publication. As gatekeepers to the promised land of publication, it is easy to cast acquisition editors in the role of bad guy: the foul demons who fail to recognize our genius and arbitrarily reject our work, sometimes with cruel comments about the inadequacies of our manuscript.

That is, of course, a completely wrong-headed view of things. Acquisition editors serve three important functions for new authors:

First, they keep new authors from embarrassing themselves by publishing prematurely. One of the biggest flaws with the new self-publishing models is that it is impossible to know when one’s manuscript is ready to go to press. All authors are, by definition, too close to their own work to be objective about this, and are either too self-critical (refusing to ever let go) or too self-generous (running with a first or third draft of the ten that may be required). Without an editor to tell one 'no', there is a real danger of going to press before the manuscript’s full potential has been achieved --which is unfair to the book the manuscript might have become; unfair to readers who are not getting the book it could have been; and worst of all, not fair to the writer one may become. Without exception, every successful self-published author to whom I have spoken has, looking back, identified some fundamental flaw they wish they had caught before their books went to press.

Or to make the same point from a slightly different perspective: In the good old days, acquisition editors stopped newbies from publishing until they were ready, which usually happened about book five. I've interviewed over 100 successful authors, and in all but a few cases, it was their fifth book that finally got published. This is an obvious manifestation of K. Anders Ericsson's 10,000-hour rule: to master any significant skill requires about 10,000 hours of concentrated effort. The problem today is, having written those first four 'practice' novels -- and having a circle of (unqualified) friends and relatives telling one how good the books are -- it is very tempting to self-publish what should remain unpublished practice novels.

The problem in both scenarios is that one doesn’t get a second chance for a first impression: readers (and reviewers) who feel that one’s first novel bites, will shy away from any future titles. An awful lot of self-published writers looking back at their earlier work come to realize, not only how far they have grown since, but how much their writing career has been undermined by association with manuscripts that should never have been allowed to go public. One’s name is one’s brand: one cannot afford to allow it to be placed at risk.

Second, acquisition editors know their particular markets. If they say 'no', it may simply mean one is targeting the wrong market. Or, as sometimes happens, that even if one’s book is brilliant, it may not be commercial. Don't shoot the messenger just because the answer isn't what one was hoping for. The acquisition editor is still doing the writer a favour, by identifying that this publisher is not the right venue for this book. One needs to find the right audience for one’s book to succeed, and if that means asking a series of acquisition editors for directions, one shouldn’t be too disappointed if they simply say theirs is not the correct on-ramp for where one wants to go.

(Insert here standard lecture about researching markets before submitting -- it never ceases to amaze me that so many manuscripts that show up in the wrong slush piles. Why submit a horror manuscript to an SF publisher that states right on their website that they don't publish horror? Why submit an American SF novel to a specialty CanLit publisher? Waste of everybody's time and energy. If one is constantly getting the 'not for us' form letter, better check again that the right markets are being targeted.)

Third, acquisition editor's rejection letters actually provide a great deal of useful information, if one knows how to interpret them.

A form letter rejection means one is not yet within the ballpark, either because one is submitting to the wrong publisher, or because the work is not yet up to standard. Sorry, but again, don't shoot the messenger.

Occasionally, when an author's work shows promise, an acquisition editor will write a few words of encouragement, or point out one or two flaws that are keeping the author in the slush pile. This is an act of generosity, because every second spent writing a comment represents extra, unpaid labour for an overworked, highly stressed editor who could save him/herself a lot of effort simply by sticking to the boilerplate. Consequently, the more detailed the comments, the greater the implicit compliment -- that the editor believes the author shows enough promise to be worth the investment -- even if the comments themselves appear quite negative.

If an acquisitions editor scribbles, "Not for us, but try us again" in the margin of the rejection slip, that's very a positive sign. One is within hailing distance of being accepted, but the editor already had too many time travel stories that month, or the story just didn't quite work for them, but they still saw something they liked. Put that magazine or publisher at the top of the list for next time: put some time and energy into researching the current issue / recent releases from that publisher to write something specifically targeted to that market. But one should only send one's very best work as a follow up to such a nibble -- do not make the beginner mistake of immediately shipping off everything in one's bottom drawer, especially if any of those manuscripts has already garnered a few rejections elsewhere.

Longer comments are worthy of close examination. At first glance, the hastily scribbled comments of an acquisition editor may appear confusing, off target, or just plain stupid. Yes, the editor wrote "didn't like the snake on page 25" when one doesn't happen to have any snakes on page 25, or elsewhere. It doesn't mean, as one often hears asserted, that the editor didn't even read the manuscript, or that they got the pages interleaved with someone else's draft. Far more likely, the editor was referring to the character of the brother-in-law and is trying to tell the author that she thought the characterization too obviously evil, or some such. Scribbling a quick (in their mind, helpful,) comment on a rejected manuscript, acquisition editors often express themselves poorly. They literally cannot afford to take the time to make precise, thoughtful comments, unless an offer is on the table to buy the book. But careful examination of the confusing, oracle-like pronouncements of these acquisition editors can be useful in identifying problematic areas of the manuscript.

Note, however, that any solution suggested by an acquisition editor in the 68 seconds they had to devote to the problem is probably wrong. Editing out the snake of the brother-in-law character won’t work because, as the author knows all too well, the story needs the brother-in-law in the second half of the book, whereas the acquisition editor stopped reading at page 25. If the problem had an obvious and simple solution, the author would likely already have done it that way. But armed with the knowledge of where the acquisition editor fell out of the story, stopped reading, or had some significant problem with the text, is itself a huge help. Even when the specific comment or advice seems stupid, 99% of the time, careful examination will reveal that something was wrong with the passage/character/etc. In my experience, whenever I have fixed the problem that I identified after the wrong-headed mumblings of an editor directed me to a particular aspect of the manuscript, they always say, "Yes, that's exactly what I meant! This revision is way better!" even though I didn't actually address whatever the specifics of their original complaint was.

Of course, acquisition editors don't always say 'no'. They make their careers by discovering talented authors and advocating for their nominees within the company. When those authors produce for the company, the editor moves up in the organization. So they are highly motivated to help (marketable) new authors get published. Once they have a manuscript they feel they can work with, they either change to development editor mode, or (if the work is flawless) pass it on to a copy editor.

Tuesday: Copy editors and development editors

The Novel Process: Research to Submit

2011-03-12T21:15:00.000-08:00

I'm very pleased to have Canadian speculative fiction author Derryl Murphy share with us his particular process for editing his own work. Napier’s Bones is Derryl’s first novel, and third book, after the collection Wasps at the Speed of Sound and the novella Cast a Cold Eye, co-written with William Shunn. When time and children allow, he works on his next novel.

The Novel Process: Research to Submit

In writing (and finishing, and rewriting, and so on) Napier’s Bones, I realize now that the work involved in editing the novel unfolded into a seemingly never-ending series of stages. Now, your mileage may vary, but it seems to me that these stages will probably come close to what most authors experience. Allow me to lay them out for you:

1. The Research Stage

This strikes me as the least certain fit, as it all depends on how much the writer has to deal with doing actual work leading up to writing the novel, work that doesn’t (at least directly) relate to coming up with a plot. But for those of us who write SF/F, this is a pretty common stage, for instance in researching the latest cutting-edge science, or, in the case of Napier’s Bones, all sorts of aspects of history, from the sublime to the outright bizarre.

Sitting beside me as I write this is the notebook I took with me to Scotland and London, filled with notes from that trip. There are quotes from John Napier, gathered during visits to libraries, quotes from others about Napier or about Napier’s bones themselves, descriptions of a wide variety of possible locations for scenes in the novel, sketches of a couple of those locations (where photographs were not allowed), and all sorts of little tidbits that I thought might fit into the story. And of course, the vast majority of this research never saw the light of day. One of the first things a writer has to learn is that, no matter how bleedingly cool a chunk of info might be, now matter how many mountains you climbed and oceans you swam to get that nifty bit of trivia, there are going to be times when you have to sit down and ruthlessly slice it out of your book.

Think of a novel as a body, and the ideas that populate that body as the cells that contribute to its growth. Sometimes those cells of ideas will become something akin to cancer, and allowed to grow unchecked their presence will pretty soon swallow the book whole and defeat the author’s attempts to create a work that not only passes the Wow test, but more importantly the Readability test. And so some ideas never even make it into the first draft, while others will be removed by the author during the writing process, and yet more will get the boot after hopefully polite suggestions from editors or agents or fellow authors who’ve been nice enough to read the manuscript.

I don’t quote from Napier’s letter on his secret military inventions, I don’t mention the Panacea Society of Bedford, the White Horse of Uffington, nor the Standing Stones and Linear Graveyard of Kilmartin. And sometimes some research can disappear at one point and then suddenly be repurposed in a way never imagined. Therefore, my time spent at Rosslyn Chapel shows up not at all in the book, and the tour I took that told me all about the “secret history” of the chapel, ley lines of the area, and Pictish rings, rears its head in the unlikeliest of spots.

2. During Writing

There are authors who write everything first, and then sit down and go through everything with a weather eye, doing all their edits only after completing the first draft. I am not one of those authors.

Instead, I tend to edit as I write. Sometimes I’ll pile through pages and pages without worrying about it, and then leave it to the next day, and sometimes I’ll have to stop after only two or three sentences and tinker as new thoughts and ideas spring to mind. But always, before I can start afresh each day, I have to go back and re-read and edit my work. Where I’ve had to develop some self control is in not wanting to go back and start from the very beginning each day. This would be something of a fierce time delay tactic when I’m up in the tens of thousands of words, as you might well imagine.

This method lends itself to a rather free flow sort of plotting, of course. I find that my characters often run off and do things I never intended of them, and so that synopsis I’m working from soon finds itself the victim of on-the-fly editing as well.

3. Finished Draft

Not the final draft, mind, just the finished one. Now that I have 75K words committed to screen and/or paper, the last of which is “END,” it’s time to go over things with the attention to detail that comes with the detachment of not having to think about the story as I go.

It’s best to give yourself a little bit of a window before you jump into this, a few days or even a week or two. And then, read it out loud to yourself. You’ve probably heard this before, and it is a truth; tripping over words while reading them aloud is a better way of finding the problems than reading them in your head, where the mind can play tricks and fill in blanks that you don’t realize are there. Take notes if you want, any time something stands out as a little odd, not ringing the bell of the plot you had initially laid out. It doesn’t mean anything is wrong, but it’s a good way to catch out any corners you may have painted yourself into.

4. Other People

Now it’s time to hand it off to people you trust. In my case, this consisted of a few friends who are also authors, as well as my father. Keep in mind that other writers, like people in the Real World, can sometimes be busy, and so you may not get a timely response, or even an in-depth response. But if you have enough people out there who are willing to run through it for you, most of the bases should be covered. Also remember that you don’t have to take everything suggested as gospel. If a suggested edit doesn’t cut it for you, ignore it and move on.

The authors I approach are busy people, with writing careers of their own. At this point I tend to go to people who have more publication credits than when I was working with a writer’s group, but that’s often the nature of the beast. If you are writing and involved in the community then you probably will find a cohort in a similar position to you. As time goes on some will fly past you, some will coast along at your pace, and some will be left behind.

5. Editors and Agents

By this time I had probably done the equivalent of four or five rewrites on Napier’s Bones, and I was lucky enough to find an editor at a major publishing house who wanted the book. He and I sat and had lunch at a con and discussed some possible changes, and then that was followed up by an email. I did all of that, and I think it made the book a lot stronger, but then the hopeful sale (always tentative) fell through. I tinkered a little more with the novel, and eventually found an agent who also had some excellent suggestions, which meant more rewriting.

As usually happens, though, me still not being a client of this agent meant that responses were very slow in coming, and so when Sandra Kasturi of CZP approached me about the book, I said Yes. Considering this was an idea that had been cooking since the early ‘90s, and a novel whose first draft had been finished in 2003, I figured it was now or never, and happily jumped in with both feet.

6. Final Process

With ChiZine, as with any proper publisher, there were still edits to be done. Sandra read the book, loved it, but had requests. There were still holes I needed to fill, clarifications I needed to make, and clunky sentences I needed to smooth over. Working from quite detailed notes Sandra had sent me I once again dove into the novel, and once again came out the other end with a better story.

And then we still weren’t finished! By this time there were copyedits to be done. The manuscript was sent back to me, in electronic version, marked up with suggested changes for sentences, misspellings, problems in continuity, or just ways of making things a little clearer. I could accept or reject a change (for instance, one quotation spells the word “matters” with three Ts - “mattters” - because that came from a hand-written, primary source from the late 16th century, and I wanted to keep that), or else I could see the suggested change but substitute one of my own that I thought worked better.

This part went back and forth two or three times, and when it was done we finally had a book that was ready to go. I read through a PDF of the version that was to go to the printer, one last go to catch any possible mistakes, and then signed off on it and it became a real live book.

Are you ready for the punch line? My wife just finished reading it, and found a mistake. And so it goes.

Tips for Hiring an Editor

2011-03-02T12:10:00.000-08:00

I met Marie Dees a few years ago through an online writing group and we've kept in touch. She's written romance, mysteries, and erotica. She posts snippets from her work on Sundays on her blog - www.mariedees.com - which are always fun and steamy! On top of her impressive fiction list, Marie also works as a freelance editor for publishing houses.

I’ve told Krista that I’m going to be snarky and perhaps downright bitchy in this article. But I’m doing it to save someone some money and perhaps some grief. Why? Because I recently sat through yet another writing group where I had to tell a writer that his work has basic problems with an uncontrolled point of view, rampant tag line abuse and lethargic pacing. Problems an editor can help with, you say?

Well, in this case the writer has already paid an editor to help him with the work. What I saw was the edited work. But you know what, that’s not uncommon anymore. I see it over and over again. Someone with a background in journalism or non-fiction decides to pimp themselves out as an editor for works of fiction or as a book coach or a writing guru. They make promises like “if I edit your book when it’s accepted, the publisher won’t have to send it through editing.”

So, let’s set some overall expectations.

- No editor hired by an author can guarantee a book will be accepted by an agent or publisher.

- Hiring a freelance editor for your work does not mean that it will skip the editing process when it reaches the publisher.

- Even if accepted by a publisher, your book may not bring in a large enough advance to cover the fees some editors charge.

- If your book is good enough to interest a publisher, they will provide you with an editor at no cost to you.

Got all that?

Now consider this:

I’ve heard editors explain that they don’t edit for story consistency, plot development or basic accuracy of the information. In other words, they proof-read. Which is useful, but only if done after someone edits for plot, consistency and accuracy, not before. And now I’m seeing editors actually create their own publishing sites so that if their editing isn’t good enough to land a publisher, they can provide self-publishing assistance for you. All for a fee that the author pays.

Still want to hire an editor? I’m not going to tell you it won’t help. But remember that there is no single definition of what an editor does and hiring an editor without clear expectations and requirements can be an expensive exercise in futility.

If you’re looking for someone to read through your manuscript for spelling and grammar mistakes, you might just want a proofreader. Proofreading is a valuable asset to any writer, but simple proofreading should cost far less than hiring a full editor. In fact, often members of writing groups will proofread for each other for free. Or are you expecting the editor to go through your story and offer story development advice? Have you considered joining a critique group? Because they may be able to help you with that free of charge.

Now, if you’ve tried to above – I always like to try free help first, and feel you still need an editor, what should you look for? Simple. You want an editor with direct and proven success in your genre. And success doesn’t mean they’ve edited a lot of self-published books. Ask for references. Can this editor provide names of the authors, titles of books and names of the publishers the author published with? If so, contact some of the authors. Find out if they were satisfied. I’ve been told by authors that they paid large sums to editors and still found issues in their work that the editor didn’t address.

Know what you expect from the editor. Put together a list of the issues you’d like to see the editor address. Yes, this means you have to be a strong enough writer to know where your potential problems lie. Remember, just plopping a manuscript down and saying “fix everything” gives an editor a chance to charge you for “everything.”

Do a test run with a chapter or two. Some editors will do this for free or for a nominal charge. But don’t just look at that sample on your own. Take it to a writing group, critique group or writing friend. Present it to them and get their feedback. Are they able to find technical problems in the edited work? Now, those technical problems may be the writer’s problems, not the editor’s mistakes. But a good editor should still address them.

Also, keep in mind that the process an editor with a publishing house follows for a book is not to give the book a single editing pass and return it to the author corrected. An editor with publishing house will first review the book for story, plot and structure. They’ll return the manuscript to the author with requests for changes. The author tackles the rewrites. Then the editor reviews the changes. The book goes back and forth this way until the editor and author are both satisfied with it. Then it goes to the proofreader who checks again for spelling and grammatical errors. Then back to the writer again for approval of the final copy. A publisher invests the time for several editing passes in each book because it is seldom feasible to make a book publication ready in a single editing round. Are you hiring an editor who will work through multiple rounds of edits?

And always remember -- at the end of the day, the author is responsible for the quality of the manuscript. Not the editor.

Getting out of the slush pile

2011-02-25T07:46:00.000-08:00

(or at least get closer to the top)

Please welcome Elaine Corvidae. When Elaine isn't crushing the dreams of aspiring authors, she writes science fiction and fantasy novels, including the award-winning Shadow Fae series. She lives near Charlotte, NC, with several cats and a very patient husband.

First of all, there’s no foolproof method for getting an acceptance from either an editor or an agent. Everyone is different; the very things that one editor doesn’t like about your manuscript may be the same things that another editor loves. However, there are ways to make sure your submission actually gets read—and ways to ensure that it won’t.

Like it or not, publishing is a business. Professionalism counts. Treat your submission with the same care and air of professionalism you would give to preparing your resume or interviewing for a job.

I’ve done slush reading for two different publishers. Below are a short list of the most common mistakes that I noticed.

1. Follow the damn instructions

Every publisher or agent has submission guidelines, probably listed right there on their website. Follow them.

Why? Because these aren’t just guidelines—they’re also a test to see if you’re capable of following basic instructions. If you can't even do something as simple as attaching the first three chapters as a .rtf document, what will you be like to work with in edits? Or when it comes time to fill out the tax forms the IRS requires from every publisher? Or any of the other things that require the author to work with their agent/editor? Your submission package is a critical first impression—don’t make it a bad one.

2. Don’t be crazy

Keep your cover letter short and sweet. Only include the information requested in the submission guidelines, or that is otherwise directly relevant to the work you are submitting. Do not tell me about how God told you to be a writer, your astrological sign, your collection of Elvis memorabilia, or that time aliens kidnapped you.

For all that is holy, do not open your query with an insult to the person/publisher/agency/publishing industry. Yes, this really happens.

3. Polish your work before you submit

Okay, so you’ve followed the instructions and written a nice, grammatically-correct, typo-free query letter. At this point, and only this point, the slush reader will now turn to your novel and start reading. And, as much as I hate to say it, it’s usually obvious within the first five pages as to whether or not the submission needs to be rejected or recommended for a full read.

Why? Because it’s usually clear right away if the writer took the time to polish his or her manuscript...or didn’t. I know you’re excited to get your baby out into the world, but submitting the manuscript before it’s ready isn’t doing it or you any favors. My saddest duty as a slush reader was to make a comment along the lines of “intriguing book, but it’s just not quite ready for prime time.”

“But Elaine!” you may be saying, “That’s what editors are for!”

Um, no. Editors aren’t there to teach you the basics of writing or to fill the role of critique partner. The cleaner and better your manuscript is, the more likely it is to get bumped up to the next level.

4. Don’t be crazy, part deux

You’ve submitted according to the guidelines, you’ve written a solid query letter, and you’ve done your absolute best to polish your manuscript, and you still get rejected. Ouch. It hurts—trust me, I know from experience.

But—repeat after me—“It isn’t personal.” It is not a rejection of you. It may not even reflect on your manuscript—maybe you got rejected because the publisher already had a vampire dragon romance on the schedule, and didn’t want to put out another until next year.

The professional thing to do is to get back up, dust yourself off, and move on. The insane thing to do is send the editor/agent who rejected you a nasty note, telling them how sorry they’ll be that they rejected you when you’re the next JK Rowling making a billion dollars. This will only reconfirm that they didn’t want to work with you, because you’re batshit crazy.

Don’t vent your spleen on your blog/facebook page/twitter feed, either. It’s fine to say you’ve gotten a rejection. It isn’t fine to say “Publisher Y rejected my brilliant manuscript because they suck, and all their books are crap, and they wouldn’t know art if it was shoved up their bums!” Most agents and publishers have Google alerts for their names, and they communicate with one another. Don’t burn your bridges.

In conclusion, be an artiste when you’re creating your work, but be a professional when you submit. Follow these simple guidelines, and you’ll be ahead of probably 75% of the submissions that came across my virtual desk when I was wading through slush. Yes, really.

Should I blog about my rejections?

2011-02-18T15:35:00.000-08:00

Short answer: No.
Long answer: Hell, no.

In the last month, I've been seeing an increasing number of unpublished writers posting about their rejections. Some are giving a quick "rejection" tweet so vague as you aren't sure if they are talking about a book or a dinner invitation. Those don't bother me. However, others are blogging about their rejections. Still others are posting their rejection letters and ripping the rejectors to shreds. This really bothers me.

As authors, we have an odd obsession with how many rejections successful novels received before making it. It's the standard support advice given in writing circles. "JK Rowling was rejected umpteen dozen times and look at her now!" And while that is true, it's just as likely that you are being rejected because your story isn't up to par yet.

Rejection letters come in various forms. There's the standard form rejection:

Thank you for submitting. Your writing is really good, but this didn't work for me. However, this business is very subjective, so don't give up.

Then there's the personal rejection:

I enjoy the concept of this novel, but I found that I couldn't relate to your main character. Her actions were not consistent with a woman of her age.

Believe it or not, both rejections tell you a lot. When I see a blog about how a manuscript has received 26 form rejections in the last month, I immediately wonder if you're submitting to the correct markets for your work, the correct agents, and if you are following the guidelines. Is it your query letter? Have you tried a gimmick or to be cutesy in the query? (Remember - this is a job application. Treat it with professionalism).

And, you might be getting these rejections because of the one thing no one seems to want to address - the writing itself.

This is a tough one when you get a lot of form rejections because you don't even know what is wrong with a manuscript. Your writing circles have given you lots of praise and you might have even become a bit of an online superstar on places like Twitter, Facebook, your blog, and the dozens of online writing groups out there. Everyone says how great your work is and how yours is so much better than theirs. This might be true, but that doesn't mean that it's at the publishable stage yet.

If you've gotten a few personal rejections and a lot of form ones, there is a problem with your manuscript. Push aside all that praise and glory you've been basking in. Read the personal rejections. Look back over comments made by your worse critics. Don't have any critics? Go and fine one. They are out there. Don't dismiss what they say. Examine what they are saying against the rejections.

Which brings us back - what's so wrong about blogging about your rejections? It's an announcement that you aren't good enough. Everything I've mentioned is what goes through my mind as someone who was a slush reader for a small publisher, and as an intern for a small magazine. That's what goes through my mind when I see your blog. Imagine what goes through a potential agent's mind or an acquisitions editor's mind. It's not worth looking lazy, whiny, or unprofessional. Publishing is a business. Writing can be an art; publishing can not.

Talk about the rejection process after you get a contract, not before.

What's on tap?

2011-02-15T20:35:00.000-08:00

Over the next several months, we've going to cover several themes. Here's the rundown:

Mar - Editing (from all sides of the fence)
Apr - Genre writing
May - Internet savvy
June - Short Fiction
July - My first time (publishing)
August - Is a small press right for me?

I already have a fabulous line up of authors, editors, and publishers to share their wisdom. Have a topic you want covered? Have a theme idea? Feel free to either post in the comments or drop me an email - kristadball@gmail.com.

Do you consider yourself well read?

2011-02-06T20:04:00.000-08:00

On yet another Twitter event conversation, a number of new writers talked about how they didn't read much these days. Or, that they aren't much of readers in general. One comment that really stuck out for me was along the lines of "I'm writing urban fantasy. I've never read that genre before but my story demands to be this!"

I'd like to say that it's a rare, isolated case, but I'm starting to discover that it isn't. Many new writers writing and submitting short fiction to magazines, never having read a short story since high school. Too many don't know that there are small presses out there and that there is a lot between NY Big Houses (tm) and self-publishing on Amazon and Smashwords. (If they read small presses, they'd know).

I'm not well read in the best sellers and big named authors, I admit. A lot of those books haven't appealed to me, though I've picked up a Patricia Briggs and a Charlene Harris book to give them a try. I often like smaller press, smaller named authors, or just oddball stuff (I love Star Trek novels, for example).

I also don't read in one genre. I generally go through phases, where I pick up a dozen SF novels and not read SF for a couple of years because I've moved on to fantasy, then mysteries, then romance, etc... I also don't read when I'm really entrenched in a writing project. However, when I need to recharge my batteries, I pick up a novel.

Need a little help getting started? Here's a little reading challenge that I've been doing this year:

1. Alternate reading female and male authors

2. Read a subgenre that you haven't read before or not recently

3. Alternate reading books published by small presses and big publishing houses

4. Read an author that lives in your province (or, state, territory, etc).

5. Read a fiction magazine

6. Read an anthology or short story collection

7. Read a book published in my country (I'm Canadian) or in other countries not the US (since most of what I buy is American-written and published)

Do you consider yourself well read? What are you reading right now?

5 Tips to Help You Edit Better

2011-02-03T22:00:00.000-08:00

I occasionally participate in a few Twitter author chats. Just before Christmas, there was a rather heated debate over the definition of editing vs revising. I generally use the term editing; it's just a personal preference. However, editing or revising or whatever else you wish to call it, needs to be more than simply checking for typos and grammatical errors.

*Blink* Editing isn't just reading the sentences, word by word, and making sure everything is all pretty and smooth? That is a step in the process, yes. However, I've discovered that there are many steps before that particular phase. Some of us do these steps without thinking, but I have found that it's a good idea to at least have them in mind during the entire editing process.

1. Does my plot flow in a smooth and logical manner?

I read one particular manuscript seven times when I'd first started writing seriously and felt it was near perfect by the end. Yes, I know, that should have been my first clue it was really bad. I submitted to a reader who, after three chapters, pointed out a plot hole larger than the one in the ozone layer.

I take to scribbling down the major plot points on paper or, for particularly complex stories, on Post-It Notes on my wall. I let it sit for a couple of days and then review. I challenge each and every step.

2. Are my characters real?

This covers a few points. Are their actions consistent with their personalities? Are they likable, flawed, deliciously hateful (but your reader will cheer them on)? Does your main character carry the story, or do people and circumstances drag your character around?

3. Is my setting well developed, but not too developed?

Do you explain your setting? Grab a scene mid-book and evaluate it for the five senses, along with things like body language and physical reaction to situations. Can you smell your scene? What tactical surfaces are there?

On the other side, if you have paragraphs and paragraphs describing entire rooms, you may have swung to writing a grocery list of items. See if your characters are interacting with these items. Are your characters telling us their impressions of the scenes or are you, the author?

4. Is my dialogue natural?

Dialogue is a tricky one because it can easily get turned into "As you know, Bob" moments. Instead, I find the best dialogue to read is the kind where people interact the way that I'd expect them to behave as real people...minus the boring parts of day-to-day dialogue, of course!

Likewise, do your characters all speak the same? One way I avoid this is to make the main character the standard of my story. Then, as I introduce a new character, I think about how they will appear next to the main. Will they be more educated? Less? Do they come from a different area? Is he a child whose learning to read? Is she an old woman who likes to tell dirty jokes? All of these things help me ensure that the dialogue is (I hope) never boring.

5. Is this the story I wanted to tell?

This is one that I constantly have to keep in mind. It's really easy to be sucked into writing what is trendy, popular, or what I think people want to read.

I look at the world in a way that no one else does. Your perspective of the world is very different from mine. When we write, I believe we need to write the world that we see, not the world we think others see. Sure, there are guidelines to follow and certain skills that you must develop. However, the core essence of your story should be for your perspective on the world.

Let me give you an example. About two years ago, I started a SF story called "Road to Hell." I kept trying to make it the way I thought pro magazine markets would want it. Only, it never worked. It never rang true, not for one moment. I eventually scrapped it and turned it into a novel. Then, I made the critical decision to turn my main character into a marriage lesbian. I often worried that I should make her straight, or have her a single lesbian, because "married" and "wife" brought out some interesting reactions amongst the beta readers.

Today, I signed a contract for "Road to Hell," complete with my marriage lesbian main character.

After all that, there is still grammar, structure, and proofreading. However, once I started keeping those major points in mind, I discovered my manuscripts got better and sold faster.

What editing tips do you use?

Welcome to "Writer in Residence"

2011-01-31T21:34:00.001-08:00

Anyone else frustrated with all of the advice out there for new writers? Don't worry if you are. You aren't alone. It's hard enough to get started in the scary world of publishing, let alone dealing with all of the advice that's on the internet.

So, what makes this place different? Well, the advice here will only come from the experience of published authors. I'm a working small-press author and I'll have plenty of guests from other small and mid-sized presses. We're going to talk about the writing life, the writing business, and try to offer you enough information that you can make the best decisions for your own career.

Have a topic suggestion? Feel free to contact Krista at kristadball (at) gmail (dot) com.

So sit back and enjoy!