The Write Stuff

Preparing to Pitch Your Manuscript

2009-04-14T12:36:00.000-07:00

This isn't exactly a how-to on crafting query letters, but these two blog entries here and here will help you get a real feel for your story so that you can condense it down to one sentence (what they call a log line in the film business) in order to introduce your pitch and give a framework for expanding upon it. This is something you will definitely need if you intend to pitch to agents and/or editors at writers conferences. It also keeps you from being stumped when anyone you may meet asks you to describe your book.

Additionally, while this procedure is outlined for developing a good pitch, I believe we can greatly improve our query letters by following this same exercise. Why do I think this? Because it was recommended by a well-known agent (the same one who hosts the QueryShark blog).

In fact, this Editorrent blog is so useful that I've decided to add it to my links.

More on Twitter

2009-04-09T11:21:00.000-07:00

If you're like me and still trying to navigate your way around Twitter, click here to be taken to the Twitter blog. Lots of questions are answered there and you get to see how the network is developing. They even have a search engine on the site now that allows you to enter a particular word and see all the "tweets" that mention that word.

Social Networking Etiquette with Agents

2009-04-07T14:27:00.000-07:00

Given all the new social networking sites, just how should writers contact, or not contact, literary agents on Facebook and Twitter?

The Guide to Literary AGents Editor's Blog has posted a very helpful response here. Click for the full scoop, but here are the basic guidelines:

FACEBOOK
1. Even if you met an agent at a writer's conference, they probably still won't accept you as a friend on Facebook. But you can try. Just don't repeat the effort if you're rebuffed. They keep this site for family and personal friends and, perhaps, their already signed authors.

2. Don't query an agent through Facebook (or any other social networking site)

3. If an agent does befriend you on Facebook, then use that opportunity to learn more about him/her to better prepare your query and pitch... but don't query and pitch on Facebook.

TWITTER
1. This is a network for writers to FOLLOW agents, not interact with them. Use it to learn more about the agents you're following.

2. Why is this important? As a writer, it's in your best interest to be plugged into many social groups. It allows you to have a lot of friends, a lot of contacts, a lot of potential book buyers.

Query Letter Critique

2009-04-06T09:39:00.000-07:00

One agent has very helpfully set up a blog (click on my title above to see it) on which she publishes submitted query letters and then critiques them for all to see. It is most helpful to see what doesn't work in a query and she even allows critiqued queries to be resubmitted once after editing. Now if only an agent would start posting the queries which worked! (The only place I've seen any such examples are in books about how to write a query letter to pitch your book.)

In any case, here are her guidelines:

HOW QUERY SHARK WORKS

Send a query letter to the Shark.
It might get posted and critiqued.
It might not.
You'll know when it gets posted.

You can send a revised query letter after the critique. You MUST include the post number for it to be posted and critiqued as well (it's in the subject line.)

FICTION ONLY.
Queries for non-fiction or memoir will get tossed back into the boat.

To send work to the shark: email your query letter to janet@fineprintlit.com

NO attachments of course. Agents don't accept attachments in query letters generally.

You MUST put Query Shark in the subject line to have it be considered for the blog.

Not all queries will be critiqued.

Your chance to be critiqued improves if you aren't making the same mistakes the Shark has ranted about commented on previously. To make new and fresh mistakes, carefully read the query letters and comments already posted.

Life is Twitterful!

2009-04-04T21:40:00.000-07:00

Well, I've gotten things going on Twitter but I have the feeling the learning curve on this site will be a good bit longer than it was on Facebook! Right now I'm "following" 15 different pages (people I know, people I wish I knew, and some media sources) and I've got 5 followers. I haven't quite figured out how to put it on my phone yet, but then I'm getting a new phone next month (an iPhone...Yay!) so I'd better wait on that anyway. There's also an option to insert a Twitter widget on my blog, so I believe I'll try that tomorrow.

Very few people I know are on Twitter...I guess it's still too new for my crowd. But tomorrow I'm going to check for any of the other LDS authors with whom I'm becoming acquainted. Perhaps they're more into this new trend.

In any case, I have a whole host of writers and agents to seek out on this social network and that search will begin Monday! I've cleared up my uberblogging situation, so I believe I'm ready to attack the 21-day plan as scheduled.

Tips on Marketing a Self-Published Book

2009-04-02T13:02:00.000-07:00

I got the following tips from my BookSurge Publishing Consultant to help me develop a habit of self-marketing (particularly online). The thing to remember is that it takes approximately 21 days of repetition to form a habit, so it's important to take the following 7 steps every day for 21 days:

1. Give one book away to a charity, friend, or organization (the book should be signed by you and include all your online contact information, as well as a handwritten invitation to review the book on Amazon).

2. Write an entry for your blog (if you don't yet have a blog set up, then you should certainly get one going).

3. Follow 10 people on Twitter (if you haven't yet signed up for Twitter, then you should do so).

4. Find 1 person to send a Facebook Friend request to (yes, you need to be on Facebook too).

5. Update your Twitter and Facebook accounts with a link to your new blog entry.

6. Find a blog on http://www.blogcatalog.com that is relevant to your book's genre or subject matter and place their link on your blog and try to contact the blog owner.

7. Reach out to another author and offer them the opportunity to write about their book for your blog.

Now, while I am on Facebook and have a blog (in fact, I have too many blogs...I need to consolidate), I haven't yet signed up for Twitter so that I can begin this 21-day experiment. My other problem is that I refuse to do any of this on Sundays, so I'm not sure how that will affect the experiment. In any case, I plan on signing up for Twitter and getting my blog consolidation issue taken care of over the next few days so that I can begin this self-marketing strategy on Monday. After all, I plan on sharing these tips in a panel discussion on self-publishing at an upcoming writers conference, and how can I recommend something I have not tried myself?

I'll do my best to track my progress here for the benefit of any readers.

Where Is Publishing Headed?

2008-09-26T13:03:00.000-07:00

With the big publishing houses losing more and more money, while companies like Amazon gain a greater share of book revenue, what lies in the cards for publishing as a business?

Having just published my own first novel THE RECKONING as a POD through BookSurge, I found the comments made in response to this New York Times Magazine article every bit as interesting as the article itself.

My own take: Big publishers are going to have to embrace, at the very least, the concept of offering their books in POD form, so as not to lose so much money on returned merchandise...and they're going to have to rein in the kinds of advances they've been offering. I wonder if somehow Authors will begin to be offered in a kind of draft lottery (as in the NBA and NFL), so as to be able to control the auction-style bidding wars between publishing houses? Something to think about.

What is this stuff called "English?"

2008-08-14T13:05:00.000-07:00

There are moments when, if I think about a word a little too long, then it just doesn't seem right to me. It seems foreign. (Of course, that's not hard to imagine since so many of our English words are foreign derivatives.) But, really, our whole language doesn't make a lot of sense, as this anonymous writer pointed out:

Asylum for the Verbally Insane

Author unknown

We'll begin with a box, and the plural is boxes,
But the plural of ox becomes oxen, not oxes.
One fowl is a goose, but two are called geese,
Yet the plural of moose should never be meese.
You may find a lone mouse or a nest full of mice,
Yet the plural of house is houses, not hice.

If the plural of man is always called men,
Why shouldn't the plural of pan be called pen?
If I speak of my foot and show you my feet,
And I give you a boot, would a pair be called beet?
If one is a tooth and a whole set are teeth,
Why shouldn't the plural of booth be called beeth?

Then one may be that, and three would be those,
Yet hat in the plural would never be hose,
And the plural of cat is cats, not cose.
We speak of a brother and also of brethren,
But though we say mother, we never say methren.
Then the masculine pronouns are he, his and him,
But imagine the feminine: she, shis and shim!

Let's face it -English is a crazy language.
There is no egg in eggplant nor ham in hamburger;
neither apple nor pine in pineapple.
English muffins weren't invented in England .
We take English for granted, but if we explore its paradoxes, we find that
quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square,
and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.

And why is it that writers write but fingers don't fing,
grocers don't groce and hammers don't ham?

If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught?
If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?
Sometimes I think all the folks who grew up speaking English should be
committed to an asylum for the verbally insane.
In what other language do people
recite at a play a nd pla y at a recital?
We ship by truck but send cargo by ship.
We have noses that run and feet that smell.
We park in a driveway and drive in a parkway.
And how can a slim chance and a fat chance be the
same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites?

You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house
can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill in a form by filling it out,
and in which an alarm goes off by going on.

And, in closing, if Father is Pop, how come Mother's not Mop?

I think that's a very valid question. Maybe I should bone up on my Italian and start writing in that language.

Starting Fresh

2008-07-21T17:35:00.000-07:00

Since I'm preparing for the publication of my first novel, I thought it was high time I updated this site. I'm going to be posting articles, advice, and quotations here that relate to my daily efforts to write and get published. I'll begin with a bit of humor, revolving around rejection letters.

Here's my favorite rejection letter of all time (it wasn't addressed to me...I just came across it somewhere):

Rejection Letter from a Chinese Magazine--

"We have read your manuscript with boundless delight. If we were to publish your paper, it would be impossible for us to publish any work of a lower standard. And as it is unthinkable that, in the next thousand years, we shall see its equal, we are, to our regret, compelled to return your divine composition, and to beg you a thousand times to overlook our shortsightedness and timidity."

Now that's a rejection I could swallow more easily. Leave it to the Chinese to be magnanimous even when turning you down.