I admit it, my blog here is neglected, but right now it's for a good reason. I've been writing, hard. I just have not had the chance to get here and throw down a post, because I've been trying to get my next eBook polished, and I've been trying to get my new WIP completed and ready for the cold weather query blitz. Oh, and I've started a totally new and different non-fiction project about my personal battles which many of you know about. Those of you who don't will...err...have to buy the book... :)
Of course, now that my WIP finally has an ending, it needs to be meticulously re-drafted. It's at 65k words now and that's pretty high for me for a just completed draft, I'm probably looking at close to 85k words which is about 10k above my usual cadence. It's a really fun book, I think it's my best work yet. But it might end up taking a back seat for a while so I can get my next eBook published. The problem there is that my free editor cannot do it, so I need another pair of editing eyes and I have to pay for it...ugh... I hate shelling out money but I hate even more trying to find a good editor. I know there are tons of great ones out there but some are so expensive. I know in most cases you get what you pay for.
My new non-fiction project is still in preliminary stages, I've written an outline but I need to read a few similar books to get some ideas on how to round it into shape. I've never attempted something so far removed from fiction, but so far it's been a smooth transition. Since I was a journalist for a long time it's not a real far stretch to write a memoir-type piece. It is basically like reporting on myself.
So I hope all my fellow writers are getting ready for query season, because I would not want it to be easy for me to snag that great agent. I like competition and...wait a second, what the hell am I saying? On second thought, none of you should send out queries, yeah that's it... in fact you should all stop writing and take up toothpick sculpture, try and go pro with that. I hear toothpick sculpture agents are wide open and seeking clients.
I hope all of you made it through Hurricane Irene unscathed. Here in Upstate NY we had a lot of rain and some heavy winds, we lost power for about 5-hours. But other than that we were okay. My friends down in NJ and NYC had it a bit worse, they had some serious floods and damage to property. So I hope all of you out there are safe and sound.
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
Thursday, July 14, 2011
Re-Thinking the .99 cent eBook
I used to side with the folks who thought a .99-cent eBook was a bad idea. I used to think we as writers were selling out, selling our hard work short and giving it away. But over the past few months I've slowly started changing my tune.
When I first released The Sweet Sixteenth back in April, I wanted to put it for sale for .99-cents, but after a conversation with a real published author, I decided against it. I learned that real authors were basically pissed off at the .99-cent eBook by independent authors because they were hurting their own sales and dragging down the level of pricing for eBooks in general. I saw that opinion echoed in several websites so I decided against making my book a .99-cent choice.
Now here were are only a few months later, and some of those very authors who were against it, are now doing it. I don't know what happened exactly, maybe it was the old "If I can't beat them join them" reason, I don't know.
I do agree that perhaps you should not debut an eBook at .99-cents, because then you leave no room to drop the price later. My plan was to drop the price of my first book, when my second eBook was out, which should be soon. But I've decided to drop the price right now, for several reasons, not the least of which is that the facts show that .99-cent eBook outsell their $2.99 counterparts by a score of 2-to-1. You make less per book, but you sell more books at the lower prices so it's something each author has to decide with each book.
The other reason is that so many authors are doing it, there is no point in taking some sort of stand anymore, to preserve some level of expected compensation for intellectual property. It is what it is, we are in a crazy time with these eBooks and the learning curves are very fluid and twisting all over the place. Everyone is making up their own rules as they go along and there is nothing wrong with that. And since no one is following any of the traditional rules, or even most of the new ones we are making up as we go along, I guess we can just pretty much do what we want and hope for the best. So in a sense, the only rule... there are no rules.
When I first released The Sweet Sixteenth back in April, I wanted to put it for sale for .99-cents, but after a conversation with a real published author, I decided against it. I learned that real authors were basically pissed off at the .99-cent eBook by independent authors because they were hurting their own sales and dragging down the level of pricing for eBooks in general. I saw that opinion echoed in several websites so I decided against making my book a .99-cent choice.
Now here were are only a few months later, and some of those very authors who were against it, are now doing it. I don't know what happened exactly, maybe it was the old "If I can't beat them join them" reason, I don't know.
I do agree that perhaps you should not debut an eBook at .99-cents, because then you leave no room to drop the price later. My plan was to drop the price of my first book, when my second eBook was out, which should be soon. But I've decided to drop the price right now, for several reasons, not the least of which is that the facts show that .99-cent eBook outsell their $2.99 counterparts by a score of 2-to-1. You make less per book, but you sell more books at the lower prices so it's something each author has to decide with each book.
The other reason is that so many authors are doing it, there is no point in taking some sort of stand anymore, to preserve some level of expected compensation for intellectual property. It is what it is, we are in a crazy time with these eBooks and the learning curves are very fluid and twisting all over the place. Everyone is making up their own rules as they go along and there is nothing wrong with that. And since no one is following any of the traditional rules, or even most of the new ones we are making up as we go along, I guess we can just pretty much do what we want and hope for the best. So in a sense, the only rule... there are no rules.
Sunday, June 12, 2011
Writing Can Be Fun
Writing can be fun; we all know it or we would not be doing it. But it can also be about as pleasurable as sticking a No.2 pencil in your ear until it bumps into the gray matter inside your skull.
I think the creation part is what is fun, creating worlds, fleshing out characters, pouring your emotions and thoughts onto the page, that’s the fun stuff. But then when all that is done, the real work starts. Maybe someday I will be like those famous writers who just come up with the idea and pawn the hard work off on someone else. Of course, doing that is the easy way out.
After the experience of putting The Sweet Sixteenth on sale as an eBook, I decided that I wanted to do it again. So I put my current WIP on hold and went back to a story I finished last year. After rereading it, I decided it needed a rewrite if I was going to actually put it out into the world. It was a good story, but I had a couple agents tell me it was just too dark. Was it too dark, or, was I just presenting it that way? It is a dark concept, but it’s really not a dark story. Certainly it has dark moments. Either way I could see it needed something, and none of my beta readers could really help.
I was not sure what to do with the story; it was too good to go into the scrap heap, so I did the un-fun thing. I rewrote the entire story and put in the paranormal twist I wanted to in the beginning. I resisted the urge because at the time the concept did not seem to fall into place, it seemed like a paranormal twist was secondary to the story. Then during the first rewrite a new twist came to me and everything fell into place.
The problem is that the rewrite that was supposed to take a couple weeks has turned into a couple months and growing. Sculpting all those old storylines to fit a new twist can be maddening. Nevertheless, I could take any short cuts. The new rewrite was so significant the title no longer even worked, so that was another obstacle to tackle. I’m not really good at titles, if I had to do it all over again I’d probably change the title of almost everything I’ve written over the years.
So now, Revenge of The Taken is almost ready for it’s eBook journey. My point to this ramble is that the hard work part of writing, can sometimes lead back to the fun part of writing. It has been a lot of run doing what I thought was going to be a hassle. If I never put in the hours on this story, and plunged through the hard part, it would have never gotten to this point and I might have given up on it altogether.
Writing can be fun, but also hard work; when the two come together it really illustrates why we all keep doing it.
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Kindle for Joplin
Last week severe thunderstorms knocked out power to our house in Upstate New York. We were without electricity for several days. During that time a lot of things were a hassle. The things we take for granted like running water, are very hard to live without. For the last two days of the ordeal we were lucky enough to have someone who could lend us a generator, which (just in time) saved a lot of food in our freezer that would have ended up in the garbage.
The only thing we lost, besides a couple showers, was a gallon of milk, some eggs, and a few other already questionable items from our crisper. It was hardly a disaster situation. Nevertheless, it got me thinking about the people of Joplin, Missouri. They didn’t just lose power, running water, and a gallon of milk. They lost entire neighborhoods, entire families in some cases, and entirely too much to even imagine.
My wife and I wanted to find some way to give what we could, but I've been unemployed since February, we have nothing extra to give out of pocket. I decided that the only real way to give back was through my writing. I thought if we could somehow harness the power of Kindle, we could help a little. After consulting a few sources, it seemed that 50% was the magic number.
So, for the foreseeable future, I will be giving 50% of each Kindle eBook I sell to the Greater Kansas City Community Foundation’s Joplin Relief Fund. It’s not much, but it’s what I can do. At the very least I hope it inspires other authors to do the same. Not necessarily to the same fund, since there are many in the USA that have been clobbered by wicked storms this year, but perhaps they can pick their own cause and give what they can. If you don’t want to give 50% just give 25%, every bit can help.
A few good people have already donated to the cause and I thank you. These are hard times for everyone economically; donations to all charity across the board are down. If you don’t want to buy my book, but still want to donate, click the link to the fund above and have at it. They have a form you just fill it out. For just $2.99 you can get THE SWEET SIXTEENTH, an action-laced romantic thriller for your Kindle, and give $1.50 to help those that with so little left.
The only thing we lost, besides a couple showers, was a gallon of milk, some eggs, and a few other already questionable items from our crisper. It was hardly a disaster situation. Nevertheless, it got me thinking about the people of Joplin, Missouri. They didn’t just lose power, running water, and a gallon of milk. They lost entire neighborhoods, entire families in some cases, and entirely too much to even imagine.
My wife and I wanted to find some way to give what we could, but I've been unemployed since February, we have nothing extra to give out of pocket. I decided that the only real way to give back was through my writing. I thought if we could somehow harness the power of Kindle, we could help a little. After consulting a few sources, it seemed that 50% was the magic number.
So, for the foreseeable future, I will be giving 50% of each Kindle eBook I sell to the Greater Kansas City Community Foundation’s Joplin Relief Fund. It’s not much, but it’s what I can do. At the very least I hope it inspires other authors to do the same. Not necessarily to the same fund, since there are many in the USA that have been clobbered by wicked storms this year, but perhaps they can pick their own cause and give what they can. If you don’t want to give 50% just give 25%, every bit can help.
A few good people have already donated to the cause and I thank you. These are hard times for everyone economically; donations to all charity across the board are down. If you don’t want to buy my book, but still want to donate, click the link to the fund above and have at it. They have a form you just fill it out. For just $2.99 you can get THE SWEET SIXTEENTH, an action-laced romantic thriller for your Kindle, and give $1.50 to help those that with so little left.
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Momma Got Kindle
My 61 year old mother got a Kindle for Christmas. The idea appealed to her somewhat, she thought perhaps she would use it on occasion when she traveled. Now, my mother is not a techno dummy (her son does have a degree in computer science) but she still uses a desktop. She does not Facebook or Twitter, nor will she ever. She did not even have WiFi in her house.
Without WiFi, your Kindle needs to be hooked up to the PC and the books uploaded. That's a few more steps than most people will do on a whim. Of course, that's where I came in. As it turned out, she had a WiFi DSL router in her house supplied by her ISP. So naturally I hacked into the router and enabled the wireless. Then I quickly set of the WiFi on the Kindle and about a million books became a finger push away.
The next time I went to my mother's house, she sent me away with a shopping bag of about fifteen books. My mother has always been a reading machine, devouring books at a rapid rate, and leaving the leftovers to me. I'm usually about ten books behind her at a given moment, so there is always a pile of books for me to read around the house. But since the Kindle, I've been deluged with books. But that looks like the end of the line. I doubt my mother will ever buy another paperback again.
At first I looked at this as a sign of The Coming of Gozer, but it is so easy for people to buy an eBook with this device, they can't help themselves. It's not just easy, it's convenient to the point of books becoming an impulse item once again. Years ago, I remember as a kid supermarkets used to put books on the impulse racks. Over the years they seemed to have been replaced by candy and magazines. But at least where I grew up in New Jersey, books used to be on many of those racks. Most of them were romance novels, but some were thrillers and other genres. I imagine there are places where that still is the norm, but I don't see it often. In most cases markets and drug stores have a book section, but that is usually where the books stay. If you do not seek them out they won't find you.
With the Kindle, it's even easier than an impulse item. You type in a name, or a genre or whatever you want and zap, an 80,000 word novel is in your hand. It's so intuitive it's ridiculous.
I've heard people say these devices are the best thing to happen to authors since the printing press. Right now it is so cheap and easy to buy a book, it may effectively destroy the "second hand" book market. It occurred to me that many of the books my mother used to buy were used books. An author makes no money on a used book. I know in theory said buyer is supposed to then go buy a new book by that author. I agree that's valid on some level. However, the reality is that might not happen either. In which case the author was nothing but a pimp for the store.
Of course, stories of accidental discovery ... "I found this book on the beach and it changed my life" ...will not really have an equal in the eBook world. But on the flip side, authors will sell more directly. People like my mother will take a chance on an unknown author because it's so damn easy to do it. And why not? It didn't cost any gas to get it, it was only $2.99, and if it sucks you can delete it.The Kindle user sees little downside in buying a book they might have otherwise passed on. So authors will benefit in ways they might not have in traditional paperback, even if we lose some of the paper perks.
It's a weird new world and I guess we have to roll with it. We are not going to stop this snowball from gathering speed so we either get out of the way, or we jump into the icy cluster and hang on until it explodes into something else. It was my mother's reaction to Kindle that convinced me to eBook The Sweet Sixteenth - I wanted to learn the eBook process first hand before I was scrambling to catch up. Because if my mother can abandon paperbacks, anyone can, and everyone will.
Without WiFi, your Kindle needs to be hooked up to the PC and the books uploaded. That's a few more steps than most people will do on a whim. Of course, that's where I came in. As it turned out, she had a WiFi DSL router in her house supplied by her ISP. So naturally I hacked into the router and enabled the wireless. Then I quickly set of the WiFi on the Kindle and about a million books became a finger push away.
The next time I went to my mother's house, she sent me away with a shopping bag of about fifteen books. My mother has always been a reading machine, devouring books at a rapid rate, and leaving the leftovers to me. I'm usually about ten books behind her at a given moment, so there is always a pile of books for me to read around the house. But since the Kindle, I've been deluged with books. But that looks like the end of the line. I doubt my mother will ever buy another paperback again.
At first I looked at this as a sign of The Coming of Gozer, but it is so easy for people to buy an eBook with this device, they can't help themselves. It's not just easy, it's convenient to the point of books becoming an impulse item once again. Years ago, I remember as a kid supermarkets used to put books on the impulse racks. Over the years they seemed to have been replaced by candy and magazines. But at least where I grew up in New Jersey, books used to be on many of those racks. Most of them were romance novels, but some were thrillers and other genres. I imagine there are places where that still is the norm, but I don't see it often. In most cases markets and drug stores have a book section, but that is usually where the books stay. If you do not seek them out they won't find you.
With the Kindle, it's even easier than an impulse item. You type in a name, or a genre or whatever you want and zap, an 80,000 word novel is in your hand. It's so intuitive it's ridiculous.
I've heard people say these devices are the best thing to happen to authors since the printing press. Right now it is so cheap and easy to buy a book, it may effectively destroy the "second hand" book market. It occurred to me that many of the books my mother used to buy were used books. An author makes no money on a used book. I know in theory said buyer is supposed to then go buy a new book by that author. I agree that's valid on some level. However, the reality is that might not happen either. In which case the author was nothing but a pimp for the store.
Of course, stories of accidental discovery ... "I found this book on the beach and it changed my life" ...will not really have an equal in the eBook world. But on the flip side, authors will sell more directly. People like my mother will take a chance on an unknown author because it's so damn easy to do it. And why not? It didn't cost any gas to get it, it was only $2.99, and if it sucks you can delete it.The Kindle user sees little downside in buying a book they might have otherwise passed on. So authors will benefit in ways they might not have in traditional paperback, even if we lose some of the paper perks.
It's a weird new world and I guess we have to roll with it. We are not going to stop this snowball from gathering speed so we either get out of the way, or we jump into the icy cluster and hang on until it explodes into something else. It was my mother's reaction to Kindle that convinced me to eBook The Sweet Sixteenth - I wanted to learn the eBook process first hand before I was scrambling to catch up. Because if my mother can abandon paperbacks, anyone can, and everyone will.
Friday, May 6, 2011
Wasting The Day Away
Like many writers, I write every single day. I usually work on something in my current WIP, either editing or adding, but usually something. Today, I did nothing. I did not work on my current WIP, and I did not edit my current shopper. I guess sometimes we all have to step back and take a day off. Thanks to things like blogs and chat forums, we can still write these days even when we don't write.
Sometimes you just need to unplug from everything technology, at least I do. Maybe my age is showing. My niece is 23, and she has not been "unplugged" a single day in the past decade from what I can tell. Some piece of technology has been fused to her hand as long as I can recall... That reminds me of a book by my friend Kari Lee Townsend.
My point is (do I have a point here?) that today was not one of those days I needed to unplug from technology, I just needed to unplug from the intensity of crafting a story. Sometimes my brain needs to get out of character and back to me. I guess sometimes all that head-hopping should lead back to your own head.
So today I did just that. I hopped in my own head for a while, just long enough to remember why I'm a writer. I forget how exhausting it is to be in my own head. Because in your own head the real world comes screaming back. All the insanity that faces us daily on the news can be overwhelming, escaping into the written word is hard work but it's also fun. Which makes it even harder to understand why I wasted the day.
I guess the brain wants what it wants, and today it wanted mindless anti-stimulation. I guess I'll just have to make up for it this weekend.
Sometimes you just need to unplug from everything technology, at least I do. Maybe my age is showing. My niece is 23, and she has not been "unplugged" a single day in the past decade from what I can tell. Some piece of technology has been fused to her hand as long as I can recall... That reminds me of a book by my friend Kari Lee Townsend.
My point is (do I have a point here?) that today was not one of those days I needed to unplug from technology, I just needed to unplug from the intensity of crafting a story. Sometimes my brain needs to get out of character and back to me. I guess sometimes all that head-hopping should lead back to your own head.
So today I did just that. I hopped in my own head for a while, just long enough to remember why I'm a writer. I forget how exhausting it is to be in my own head. Because in your own head the real world comes screaming back. All the insanity that faces us daily on the news can be overwhelming, escaping into the written word is hard work but it's also fun. Which makes it even harder to understand why I wasted the day.
I guess the brain wants what it wants, and today it wanted mindless anti-stimulation. I guess I'll just have to make up for it this weekend.
Thursday, May 5, 2011
Everyone can write. Right? Alright.
Writing is a hard thing to do well, we all know that. Some of us were just born with the gift, some of us worked hard to develop it, and some of us have done both. But the one common denominator is hard work. Talent will only get you so far, as is the case with anything you choose to tackle in life. Even the most talented among us have to work hard to craft a novel.
What makes writing unique, is that when you tell people you are a writer, many of them will blurt out how they themselves want to write a book. When I tell people I'm a musician, that I play guitar and sing, they never say "Oh I'm going to write a song and sell it." Why is that?
I guess the reason is that with writing, we all learn it growing up. We don't all learn how to play music or sing. The barrier to entry is far lower with writing because essentially, everyone can write to some extent. Telling stories on the other hand, that is not something everyone can do.
Writing a novel of 60,000 or 80,000 words is far more complex than whim writers want to believe. Of all the "non writer" people I've run into over the years who said "I want to write a book" not a single one of them has done it. A few have tried and quit after about 30,000 words but most never get that far. I used to know a guy who claimed to be a hardcore Sci-Fi writer. He wrote a 120,000 word story, sent it out to two agents, got an unflattering rejection from one, and that was the end of it. I don't know where that writer is today but he's never published anything. I don't even know if he's still writing.
I'm working on my seventh novel length story and that's nothing compared to some writers. Of those seven, only two have ever been shopped to agents. One of those is The Sweet Sixteenth that ended up as my pilot eBook program, the other is being rewritten. The rest of them are junk, practice, good old trunk novels. The point is writing one book is not even enough in most cases. You have to write many before you finally "get it" and rejection is going to come along the way.
Thick skin and determination are just as important as talent in this game. Rejection does suck, no two ways about it. But if you don't get back on the bike, you will never learn to ride. You have to be able to crash, get up, wipe off the blood and/or push your brains back into your skull cavity, and move on. You also might want to leave your teeth on the ground after the first crash, because they will get kicked in again. Just be like a professional hockey player and get your teeth fixed after you retire.
What makes writing unique, is that when you tell people you are a writer, many of them will blurt out how they themselves want to write a book. When I tell people I'm a musician, that I play guitar and sing, they never say "Oh I'm going to write a song and sell it." Why is that?
I guess the reason is that with writing, we all learn it growing up. We don't all learn how to play music or sing. The barrier to entry is far lower with writing because essentially, everyone can write to some extent. Telling stories on the other hand, that is not something everyone can do.
Writing a novel of 60,000 or 80,000 words is far more complex than whim writers want to believe. Of all the "non writer" people I've run into over the years who said "I want to write a book" not a single one of them has done it. A few have tried and quit after about 30,000 words but most never get that far. I used to know a guy who claimed to be a hardcore Sci-Fi writer. He wrote a 120,000 word story, sent it out to two agents, got an unflattering rejection from one, and that was the end of it. I don't know where that writer is today but he's never published anything. I don't even know if he's still writing.
I'm working on my seventh novel length story and that's nothing compared to some writers. Of those seven, only two have ever been shopped to agents. One of those is The Sweet Sixteenth that ended up as my pilot eBook program, the other is being rewritten. The rest of them are junk, practice, good old trunk novels. The point is writing one book is not even enough in most cases. You have to write many before you finally "get it" and rejection is going to come along the way.
Thick skin and determination are just as important as talent in this game. Rejection does suck, no two ways about it. But if you don't get back on the bike, you will never learn to ride. You have to be able to crash, get up, wipe off the blood and/or push your brains back into your skull cavity, and move on. You also might want to leave your teeth on the ground after the first crash, because they will get kicked in again. Just be like a professional hockey player and get your teeth fixed after you retire.
Monday, April 25, 2011
ePub - what I've learned so far
I debated a lot before deciding to ePub The Sweet Sixteenth. I spent many hours trying to make the story the best it could be. Among those 70,000 words there is probably a mistake or two, but it happens. I've even seen mistakes in professionally printed books by top authors. The nice thing about an eBook, is that if a mistake is found it can be corrected. For instance, someone who bought my book pointed out a mistake/typo in chapter 7, I fixed it and uploaded a new version. So anyone who buys it from here on out will get a new version without that mistake. That's the good part because sometimes uploading can jumble things.
I'm now two weeks into my eBook experience, and so far it has been very good. For me, it was not about making money, so anything I make is just extra. It seems that a lot of first time ePubbers are looking for a quick score. I guess maybe I'm not among that group. I'm under no illusions that I'm going to sell 100,000 copies, I'm shooting for 90 copies, one for each agent that rejected my query on The Sweet Sixteenth, not to make any sort of point just for the heck of it. It just seemed like a good number.
The main reason I decided to go eBookin' was because I could. Five years ago, The Sweet Sixteenth would be just another "trunk novel" sitting on my hard drive, or burned to a CD (remember those?) or sitting on a flash drive. Obviously, I like the story, but I can admit it's not anything so Earth shaking or original. Even though I shopped the book at 85,000 words, and it's now at 70,000, it would still be likely be rejected based on the fact that serial killers chasing a woman for odd reasons has been done...to death...
With the option of eBookin' now, I just cannot see any point to letting a story rot on my hard drive. Unless I think it sucks. I have a lot of trunk novels that will never make it to eBook, but The Sweet Sixteenth was not one of them. There is something fun and quirky about the characters and their story, and I wanted people to enjoy it. I'm still debating dropping the price, I really resisted the $0.99 cent deal, maybe I'll meet in the middle and drop it to $1.99.
Overall, so far I can't complain. The feedback has been positive, and I'm working on my next eBook. What I've learned so far is that eBookin' is a controversial topic among writers and agents. It seems like no one can really make up their minds about how it's all going to effect the future of writing. When I first asked an agent if ePub was a good idea, I was told "no way" because then no agent or publisher will ever touch that title again, even if in the future it becomes a viable sale. But now that stance has totally changed, and they are willing to consider ePub works that have sold, and/or titles that have been professionally presented.
No one seems to know exactly what to expect from all this. Which was my main reason for getting involved. At this point I figured nothing ventured, nothing gained. I can't learn things from the outside, I must dig in and get my hands dirty. So I am... how much money I make is irrelevant to how much I learn from this experience.
I'm now two weeks into my eBook experience, and so far it has been very good. For me, it was not about making money, so anything I make is just extra. It seems that a lot of first time ePubbers are looking for a quick score. I guess maybe I'm not among that group. I'm under no illusions that I'm going to sell 100,000 copies, I'm shooting for 90 copies, one for each agent that rejected my query on The Sweet Sixteenth, not to make any sort of point just for the heck of it. It just seemed like a good number.
The main reason I decided to go eBookin' was because I could. Five years ago, The Sweet Sixteenth would be just another "trunk novel" sitting on my hard drive, or burned to a CD (remember those?) or sitting on a flash drive. Obviously, I like the story, but I can admit it's not anything so Earth shaking or original. Even though I shopped the book at 85,000 words, and it's now at 70,000, it would still be likely be rejected based on the fact that serial killers chasing a woman for odd reasons has been done...to death...
With the option of eBookin' now, I just cannot see any point to letting a story rot on my hard drive. Unless I think it sucks. I have a lot of trunk novels that will never make it to eBook, but The Sweet Sixteenth was not one of them. There is something fun and quirky about the characters and their story, and I wanted people to enjoy it. I'm still debating dropping the price, I really resisted the $0.99 cent deal, maybe I'll meet in the middle and drop it to $1.99.
Overall, so far I can't complain. The feedback has been positive, and I'm working on my next eBook. What I've learned so far is that eBookin' is a controversial topic among writers and agents. It seems like no one can really make up their minds about how it's all going to effect the future of writing. When I first asked an agent if ePub was a good idea, I was told "no way" because then no agent or publisher will ever touch that title again, even if in the future it becomes a viable sale. But now that stance has totally changed, and they are willing to consider ePub works that have sold, and/or titles that have been professionally presented.
No one seems to know exactly what to expect from all this. Which was my main reason for getting involved. At this point I figured nothing ventured, nothing gained. I can't learn things from the outside, I must dig in and get my hands dirty. So I am... how much money I make is irrelevant to how much I learn from this experience.
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
eBook not a Free book
The publishing world is changing so fast, that people's heads are spinning right off their shoulders and rocketing into the clouds. One of the major complaints and controversy points seems to be pricing. I talked to a lot of writers and did a ton of research when it came to pricing my new eBook The Sweet Sixteenth. What I learned is that this is a touchy subject for many writers, especially those who are already established.
When I first decided to go all eBook, I did not do it for any other reason than to get into the game. The way the eReader revolution is taking off, you'd have to be silly not to embrace it on some level. My mother is an avid reader, for Christmas she got a Kindle, and she assured me she will never buy another print book again. That was enough for me, I decided not to waste another second. So I went through my old manuscripts and picked one that I felt good about being my pilot program.
My initial plan, was to make The Sweet Sixteenth lean and mean and offer it for $0.99 cents. After all, that's what most unknown writers were doing. But then I started hearing from other writers how the $0.99 books are not good, and in fact, are bad for the future of ePublishing. Many established writers were complaining that they were losing sales to unknown authors because in this economy, cheap sells...simple as that. There is no doubt that .99-cent books are almost double selling those priced higher. Which is great for someone like me who is trying to get their name out there. But, there is also that old adage that you get what you pay for, and anyone willing to sell their hard work for only $0.99 cents is selling their work short.
I don't want to get into a whole economics rant, but the whole supply versus demand does not really exist in the ePub world. A print book costs money to print, ship, store and sell, so there is always a finite supply in some instance. In ePub, once the book is uploaded, it's always there, probably forever. There is no loss of supply, so their is no elasticity in demand. Also there is almost no overhead for the publisher. It costs Amazon KDP pennies a year to host your eBook, so anything they sell is profit. With that in mind the cost can be lower.
There is, however, a point on the economic scale where you can be priced too cheap. And for any full length novel, $0.99 cents is too cheap. We as writers cannot make our intellectual property so cheap that it becomes worthless. For a 20,000 word novella, perhaps $0.99 cents is something to consider, but when you reach novel length you have to resist the urge to treat your work like a flier stapled to a phone pole. I understand the urge to "get your name out there", trust me I do. I would love nothing more than everyone to have a copy of The Sweet Sixteenth because that would raise my odds of reaching people who love the story and my writing. But I can't give it away for free, I just can't. So I did what any writer would do, I looked at what the real pros were asking, and I cut it in half. $2.99 is the most popular price on several digital publishing mediums for unknown authors. I don't want to undercut those other authors and I won't.
The reality is that people will pay $2.99 if they want to read the book. Sure maybe once you get above the $5.00 mark, people will pass by the unknown author and pay the $5.99 or $7.99 that an established author can get for their eBook. But don't sell yourself short in trying to get your name out there. If you want to sell it cheaper, offer coupons or rebates, but don't set the initial price so low that people will think it's junk. Your novel should not be sold on par with a dollar store back scratching device.
When I first decided to go all eBook, I did not do it for any other reason than to get into the game. The way the eReader revolution is taking off, you'd have to be silly not to embrace it on some level. My mother is an avid reader, for Christmas she got a Kindle, and she assured me she will never buy another print book again. That was enough for me, I decided not to waste another second. So I went through my old manuscripts and picked one that I felt good about being my pilot program.
My initial plan, was to make The Sweet Sixteenth lean and mean and offer it for $0.99 cents. After all, that's what most unknown writers were doing. But then I started hearing from other writers how the $0.99 books are not good, and in fact, are bad for the future of ePublishing. Many established writers were complaining that they were losing sales to unknown authors because in this economy, cheap sells...simple as that. There is no doubt that .99-cent books are almost double selling those priced higher. Which is great for someone like me who is trying to get their name out there. But, there is also that old adage that you get what you pay for, and anyone willing to sell their hard work for only $0.99 cents is selling their work short.
I don't want to get into a whole economics rant, but the whole supply versus demand does not really exist in the ePub world. A print book costs money to print, ship, store and sell, so there is always a finite supply in some instance. In ePub, once the book is uploaded, it's always there, probably forever. There is no loss of supply, so their is no elasticity in demand. Also there is almost no overhead for the publisher. It costs Amazon KDP pennies a year to host your eBook, so anything they sell is profit. With that in mind the cost can be lower.
There is, however, a point on the economic scale where you can be priced too cheap. And for any full length novel, $0.99 cents is too cheap. We as writers cannot make our intellectual property so cheap that it becomes worthless. For a 20,000 word novella, perhaps $0.99 cents is something to consider, but when you reach novel length you have to resist the urge to treat your work like a flier stapled to a phone pole. I understand the urge to "get your name out there", trust me I do. I would love nothing more than everyone to have a copy of The Sweet Sixteenth because that would raise my odds of reaching people who love the story and my writing. But I can't give it away for free, I just can't. So I did what any writer would do, I looked at what the real pros were asking, and I cut it in half. $2.99 is the most popular price on several digital publishing mediums for unknown authors. I don't want to undercut those other authors and I won't.
The reality is that people will pay $2.99 if they want to read the book. Sure maybe once you get above the $5.00 mark, people will pass by the unknown author and pay the $5.99 or $7.99 that an established author can get for their eBook. But don't sell yourself short in trying to get your name out there. If you want to sell it cheaper, offer coupons or rebates, but don't set the initial price so low that people will think it's junk. Your novel should not be sold on par with a dollar store back scratching device.
Friday, April 15, 2011
eBook on the loose
After a few days of wrestling with formatting issues and such, I finally got The Sweet Sixteenth up on Smashwords for sale. The Amazon version is still being worked out, but it should be available in a few more days. In comparison, so far, Smashwords seems to be the faster service, but it also requires a bit more formatting.
For Smashwords, the less formatting you have the better. They offer your book in so many different formats including Nook, iPad, Kindle, Sony Reader, PDF, HTML and even Java. For me it was not such a huge problem because I write in very basic formatting. I don't use different paragraph setting, I like everything uniform. The only real problem I had, was that I had page numbers on my document, and they are no good for Smashwords. For some reason removing them did not work, as Smashwords was still reading the page numbers as text boxes, so I had to go nuclear and blow out all formatting.
Smashwords and Amazon both require you to use page breaks, and not multiple returns to set paragraph spacing. So if you are doing that five returns after a paragraph deal, get out of the habit and use page breaks for Word.
The cover art is another animal... but it is the more simple process because you can upload another image easily enough. If you don't have any graphic arts experience it might bode well to hire someone, even if it's just a college kid. It will make a difference to have a good cover that catches the eye, just like in print books.
All in all, it's been a fun experience so far. If I actually sell anything that will be another story...err...blog post.
For Smashwords, the less formatting you have the better. They offer your book in so many different formats including Nook, iPad, Kindle, Sony Reader, PDF, HTML and even Java. For me it was not such a huge problem because I write in very basic formatting. I don't use different paragraph setting, I like everything uniform. The only real problem I had, was that I had page numbers on my document, and they are no good for Smashwords. For some reason removing them did not work, as Smashwords was still reading the page numbers as text boxes, so I had to go nuclear and blow out all formatting.
Smashwords and Amazon both require you to use page breaks, and not multiple returns to set paragraph spacing. So if you are doing that five returns after a paragraph deal, get out of the habit and use page breaks for Word.
The cover art is another animal... but it is the more simple process because you can upload another image easily enough. If you don't have any graphic arts experience it might bode well to hire someone, even if it's just a college kid. It will make a difference to have a good cover that catches the eye, just like in print books.
All in all, it's been a fun experience so far. If I actually sell anything that will be another story...err...blog post.
Monday, March 28, 2011
eBooks - The time is now...or...maybe not.
It seems that everyone is publishing their own book these days. It is a golden opportunity for authors to make money and become the master of their own material. Something just taking space on your laptop can help introduce people to your work. You don't need to be validated by an agent or a publisher, you can write your own ticket. Sure, that sounds wonderful...perhaps...too wonderful. There is a reason we need agents.
If you're already a published novelist, publishing your own eBook is fairly risk free. And many great authors are doing it right now with great success. They already know what it takes to get a book ready for the public. But those of us looking to jump into the fray and not unravel, had better be careful. So far most of the books and excerpts I've read from those who are self publishing their first novel...well...not good. In almost every case the writing was either poor, or the story was confusing and incomprehensible at times. It was almost shocking how bad some of the writing was. It was not even "blog worthy" writing.
If you are going to self publish, make sure the writing is not filled with mistakes that Microsoft Word would strike. You need a great story of course, but more important than that, you need to eliminate basic mistakes. Here are a few of the big things I've noticed in the few works I've read.
Passive Voice
Go through your work and weed out all the passive voice. Once in a while sure, but you cannot have every sentence filled with passive voice. If you have it more than ten times in the entire novel, it's probably too much. Passive voice does not drive the story and can lead to choppy writing.
Watch your POV
If the reader cannot follow your point of view, it's a problem. Don't get me wrong, I love to head-hop. I get bored writing from the POV of the same character all the time, so I will often head-hop right in scene. But you have to be aware you are doing it, and you have to give the reader the tools to follow along. You have to distinguish that you are now writing from another character's head. If you can't do it well (and it can be tricky) don't do it at all, stick to one POV per scene.
When in doubt, take it out
You have to be brutal, you have to chop words and scenes. You have to ask yourself, "does this advance the story?" and if the answer is "no" you need to dump it. There is nothing worse than a story filled with useless details that neither develop character nor push the story along. These are things an agent, publisher or professional editor would catch. But I've noticed that self publishers leave a lot of it in. Probably because they like it, and hey, I understand. But you since you are acting as writer, agent, editor, and publisher, you need to put on those other hats and be brutally honest with your work. Don't keep things you like, just because you like them. If the story does not need it, cut it out.
Edit - Edit - Edit
You have to edit your work really strictly. Turn on every rule in MS_Word and listen to them. They are not the be-all-end-all and there are times you have to override. But the reality is that you are not going to catch everything yourself, it's hard to catch everything among 60,000 or 80,000 words. But the extended rules in most word processing software will get you more than 80% of the way there. I was shocked to see such basic grammar mistakes in the self published eBooks I read. Poor spelling and incomplete sentences, no commas where one should etc... Those things will turn off the reader quickly. A good story and developed characters are essential yes, but amateur mistakes will kill all of that. It's too easy to delete an eBook. There is no recycling involved.
The story has to make sense. The stakes have to make sense, even if you stretch reality. Some of the things I've read seem to be tossed together just to try and sell something on Amazon. If you are serious about being a writer, don't treat your work like something you are putting up on Facebook or You Tube. Treat it like something that you would want to see on a book shelf in printed form. Just because it's an eBook does not mean people will forgive mistakes.
That takes time, a lot of time and effort. Writing is hard work, it's not meant to be easy. We writers are at a disadvantage compared to other creative endeavors. As a musician, I know what it takes to make good music, and that's hard work too. The difference is that you can throw up a "rough" version of a song on You Tube and have people fall in love with it. They call it "raw" or "earthy" and they forgive small mistakes because the energy of a live performance can carry through. But you cannot put a "rough" version of your manuscript for sale on Amazon or Smashwords, and hope people are going to fall in love with it because it's "raw"... they are going to delete it from their Kindle and never tell anyone about it.
If you're already a published novelist, publishing your own eBook is fairly risk free. And many great authors are doing it right now with great success. They already know what it takes to get a book ready for the public. But those of us looking to jump into the fray and not unravel, had better be careful. So far most of the books and excerpts I've read from those who are self publishing their first novel...well...not good. In almost every case the writing was either poor, or the story was confusing and incomprehensible at times. It was almost shocking how bad some of the writing was. It was not even "blog worthy" writing.
If you are going to self publish, make sure the writing is not filled with mistakes that Microsoft Word would strike. You need a great story of course, but more important than that, you need to eliminate basic mistakes. Here are a few of the big things I've noticed in the few works I've read.
Passive Voice
Go through your work and weed out all the passive voice. Once in a while sure, but you cannot have every sentence filled with passive voice. If you have it more than ten times in the entire novel, it's probably too much. Passive voice does not drive the story and can lead to choppy writing.
Watch your POV
If the reader cannot follow your point of view, it's a problem. Don't get me wrong, I love to head-hop. I get bored writing from the POV of the same character all the time, so I will often head-hop right in scene. But you have to be aware you are doing it, and you have to give the reader the tools to follow along. You have to distinguish that you are now writing from another character's head. If you can't do it well (and it can be tricky) don't do it at all, stick to one POV per scene.
When in doubt, take it out
You have to be brutal, you have to chop words and scenes. You have to ask yourself, "does this advance the story?" and if the answer is "no" you need to dump it. There is nothing worse than a story filled with useless details that neither develop character nor push the story along. These are things an agent, publisher or professional editor would catch. But I've noticed that self publishers leave a lot of it in. Probably because they like it, and hey, I understand. But you since you are acting as writer, agent, editor, and publisher, you need to put on those other hats and be brutally honest with your work. Don't keep things you like, just because you like them. If the story does not need it, cut it out.
Edit - Edit - Edit
You have to edit your work really strictly. Turn on every rule in MS_Word and listen to them. They are not the be-all-end-all and there are times you have to override. But the reality is that you are not going to catch everything yourself, it's hard to catch everything among 60,000 or 80,000 words. But the extended rules in most word processing software will get you more than 80% of the way there. I was shocked to see such basic grammar mistakes in the self published eBooks I read. Poor spelling and incomplete sentences, no commas where one should etc... Those things will turn off the reader quickly. A good story and developed characters are essential yes, but amateur mistakes will kill all of that. It's too easy to delete an eBook. There is no recycling involved.
The story has to make sense. The stakes have to make sense, even if you stretch reality. Some of the things I've read seem to be tossed together just to try and sell something on Amazon. If you are serious about being a writer, don't treat your work like something you are putting up on Facebook or You Tube. Treat it like something that you would want to see on a book shelf in printed form. Just because it's an eBook does not mean people will forgive mistakes.
That takes time, a lot of time and effort. Writing is hard work, it's not meant to be easy. We writers are at a disadvantage compared to other creative endeavors. As a musician, I know what it takes to make good music, and that's hard work too. The difference is that you can throw up a "rough" version of a song on You Tube and have people fall in love with it. They call it "raw" or "earthy" and they forgive small mistakes because the energy of a live performance can carry through. But you cannot put a "rough" version of your manuscript for sale on Amazon or Smashwords, and hope people are going to fall in love with it because it's "raw"... they are going to delete it from their Kindle and never tell anyone about it.
Saturday, March 5, 2011
The Final Rejection?
Yesterday THE SWEET SIXTEENTH took its final hit of rejection from another agent. It was the final query that was out there with any hope left. It would seem that this final nail is going to lock down the lid on the coffin of TSS, but it's not.
In this modern age of media sharing, the word "dead" when it comes to works of fiction never really applies anymore. In the old days of writing, a trunk novel was just that... a book that would be put in a trunk to never see the light of day again. Trust me, I have four of them. But those four books were really nothing but practice, along with the countless short stories I have in the two dozen or so notebooks stuffed into the closet of my music room. None of those stories are worth time or effort. That is not the case with TSS. I believe this novel should be read by those who are so inclined. Those few that have already read it liked it enough to make me not trunk it.
Exactly what I'm going to do with it, I'm still in the process of deciding, but I'm leaning towards publishing it as an eBook for the Kindle with Amazon. I have been communicating with other authors who've done this, and for the most part the process is painless. Some of the writers I've spoken to have had really good luck with sales, others have said it ends up like a vanity press effort where only their friends and families bothered to buy.
My only concern, is that if I put it for sale on Amazon, in a way it does kill the book. That is the irony in all this. Most publishers seem to indicate that they will never be interested in a self-published eBook for future publication. So you take a risk in doing an eBook if you feel a publisher might take a chance in the future. But that's the thing with novels. Just because an agent rejects it, does not mean that he or she would reject it every time. Most of the rejections I got for TSS were positive, and indicated that they were just not in the market for that story, at that time. But I've heard many stories of writers selling books two years later that were rejected by everyone the first time around. So it's not impossible to imagine that some agent down the road might be interested... then again maybe not... but either way I don't have to decide now.
In this modern age of media sharing, the word "dead" when it comes to works of fiction never really applies anymore. In the old days of writing, a trunk novel was just that... a book that would be put in a trunk to never see the light of day again. Trust me, I have four of them. But those four books were really nothing but practice, along with the countless short stories I have in the two dozen or so notebooks stuffed into the closet of my music room. None of those stories are worth time or effort. That is not the case with TSS. I believe this novel should be read by those who are so inclined. Those few that have already read it liked it enough to make me not trunk it.
Exactly what I'm going to do with it, I'm still in the process of deciding, but I'm leaning towards publishing it as an eBook for the Kindle with Amazon. I have been communicating with other authors who've done this, and for the most part the process is painless. Some of the writers I've spoken to have had really good luck with sales, others have said it ends up like a vanity press effort where only their friends and families bothered to buy.
My only concern, is that if I put it for sale on Amazon, in a way it does kill the book. That is the irony in all this. Most publishers seem to indicate that they will never be interested in a self-published eBook for future publication. So you take a risk in doing an eBook if you feel a publisher might take a chance in the future. But that's the thing with novels. Just because an agent rejects it, does not mean that he or she would reject it every time. Most of the rejections I got for TSS were positive, and indicated that they were just not in the market for that story, at that time. But I've heard many stories of writers selling books two years later that were rejected by everyone the first time around. So it's not impossible to imagine that some agent down the road might be interested... then again maybe not... but either way I don't have to decide now.
Friday, February 25, 2011
The Dreary Query
The hardest thing about getting published so far for me has been hooking an agent. Now there is a common belief among the Un-Published that you don't need an agent, that you just write your book and submit it to a publisher and yadda-yadda-yadda a big fat check shows up at your door.
Sure that might happen on occasion, but you have a better chance of winning the lottery. I don't have that kind of luck. So I've been going the agent route. It took me a year of sending query letters to agents for THE SWEET SIXTEENTH to learn anything about querying. No matter how much I read about the subject, I was still making mistakes.
Since I started to send out queries for HUMBLE WALKER, I was pretty confident that I had gotten it right. But sadly I was still making the same mistakes. I had a great query (or so I thought) that conveyed the tone of the book and the overall story. A few agents passed right off the hop which I expected. But then something hit me while reading The Query Shark's blog. The "voice" of the query was all wrong, it was too dark. It was as if an announcer was reading the query, and not the voice of any character from the novel. Lucky for me I only burned about five agents with this query.
Once I got the voice right (I hope) I sent the query to two agents. Shockingly, I got two rejections, on the same day they were sent. That was a strange thing, and it made me think there was something wrong with the query right off the bat. So I started doing more research, and it hit me. In an effort to show some color in the character's personality, I used the word "bitch" to describe another character. Dumb move. I could not believe I did it. It was something I read before and must have forgotten.
We will see how the new query works. I've sent it out to five more agents but have not heard back from any yet. Meanwhile I've continued to refine it for the next five agent burst.
Sure that might happen on occasion, but you have a better chance of winning the lottery. I don't have that kind of luck. So I've been going the agent route. It took me a year of sending query letters to agents for THE SWEET SIXTEENTH to learn anything about querying. No matter how much I read about the subject, I was still making mistakes.
Since I started to send out queries for HUMBLE WALKER, I was pretty confident that I had gotten it right. But sadly I was still making the same mistakes. I had a great query (or so I thought) that conveyed the tone of the book and the overall story. A few agents passed right off the hop which I expected. But then something hit me while reading The Query Shark's blog. The "voice" of the query was all wrong, it was too dark. It was as if an announcer was reading the query, and not the voice of any character from the novel. Lucky for me I only burned about five agents with this query.
Once I got the voice right (I hope) I sent the query to two agents. Shockingly, I got two rejections, on the same day they were sent. That was a strange thing, and it made me think there was something wrong with the query right off the bat. So I started doing more research, and it hit me. In an effort to show some color in the character's personality, I used the word "bitch" to describe another character. Dumb move. I could not believe I did it. It was something I read before and must have forgotten.
We will see how the new query works. I've sent it out to five more agents but have not heard back from any yet. Meanwhile I've continued to refine it for the next five agent burst.
New Year Sleeve
As of 2011, I am going to start documenting some of my adventures in publishing, or rather, un-publishing... I thought it might serve someone else well. Maybe I could pass an experience along that could help someone else even farther below me on the ladder. Because usually when I tell someone I've written books, they tell me they always wanted to write a book. I always say, you should. The only thing stopping you, is you. As mobile as laptops are these days you can write anywhere. People have written books in the slips of time we used to waste in passing, because now they have a medium in their hands.
The hard thing is not writing the book, the hard thing is writing the book, knowing it might never see the world. You're basically telling stories to yourself. This is fine; because that's the way it should be. If you go to your computer and assume you're writing a book for the masses, saying that you're going to write a masterwork of commercial fiction that will be a movie in three years… well… frankly your book is going to suck.
You need to write what you would want to read. I will not write about vampires because I don't read about them. I would have no idea how to appeal to people who want to live in that world of the bloodless neck chewers, and sensual lips peeling back to reveal dangerous fangs... If you want that stuff you go to a professional like Maggie Shayne. Because you would spot me as a fraud right away.
What I like are impossible stories, things that could happen to anyone but might be just slightly askew. I like action and fast-paced danger where life and death are struggling against each other. I like books that twist and threaten to take an unexpected turn. I like endearing characters that you'd want to hang out with, and characters that you want to feed to a hungry wood chipper. I don't like books that bog down in detail. I write books that I would like to read. Not everyone is going to like them, but I like them. And you should do the same thing. If you like paranormal, write that. Don't write something that is "in demand" or hot just to try and get in on a trend. That is a sure fire path to a bad novel. If you would not buy it yourself, don't write it.
Write for yourself, because at some point you're going to have to "keep writing" … That was something that published authors always said to me, and it took me a long time to fully understand. What they said was keep writing, but that sounds obvious to anyone who want to write. But what they were really saying was keep writing after you've been rejected. Keep writing more stories, new stories, just keep writing and cultivating ideas.
I'm currently writing my seventh full length novel between 60,000 and 111,000 words. The first four were practice and they will never see the light of day, nor should they, because they suck. I don't even want to read them so I don't expect anyone else would. But when number five was shopped to agents and rejected across the board, it was a slap to the face. It took me a while to admit the story was just too "run of the mill" on the surface. Although it has some unexpected twists and great characters, that is hard to sell in a query. So I've moved on to the query stage of the next novel, and I've moved on to writing another story. I've kept writing and cultivating ideas, I will keep writing because that is the only way I can get better, and maybe get lucky.
After you've written the book, that's when the work starts. That will be your next lesson. You will read thousands of words telling you how to write that great query. All over the Internet, you will find tons of pages covering this topic. You will even get bad advice from people. My only advice here is to read, read...and read some more. Read what agents are looking for in their submission process, and read everything you can. The query is no easy task and for me (and most other writers I've talked to) it does not come natural like writing the story. It is a learning process in and of itself.
Imagine trying to catch a fish. You put some bait on the hook and your toss out your line. But now imagine that the fish are so over fed that they cannot eat any more food. Even if they really like the bait, the fish are just too damn full to take another bite. Your food will have to be so good that the fish will be willing to risk vomit after eating your bait. And even if you find a hungry fish, your query had better be good. What makes the query so hard, is drilling down into your novel to find that hook.You have to find the hook before you can bait the hook. That is not as easy as it sounds. It's hard to crunch 80,000 words into a 250 word description that really captures what it is you're trying to say in the story.
The hard thing is not writing the book, the hard thing is writing the book, knowing it might never see the world. You're basically telling stories to yourself. This is fine; because that's the way it should be. If you go to your computer and assume you're writing a book for the masses, saying that you're going to write a masterwork of commercial fiction that will be a movie in three years… well… frankly your book is going to suck.
You need to write what you would want to read. I will not write about vampires because I don't read about them. I would have no idea how to appeal to people who want to live in that world of the bloodless neck chewers, and sensual lips peeling back to reveal dangerous fangs... If you want that stuff you go to a professional like Maggie Shayne. Because you would spot me as a fraud right away.
What I like are impossible stories, things that could happen to anyone but might be just slightly askew. I like action and fast-paced danger where life and death are struggling against each other. I like books that twist and threaten to take an unexpected turn. I like endearing characters that you'd want to hang out with, and characters that you want to feed to a hungry wood chipper. I don't like books that bog down in detail. I write books that I would like to read. Not everyone is going to like them, but I like them. And you should do the same thing. If you like paranormal, write that. Don't write something that is "in demand" or hot just to try and get in on a trend. That is a sure fire path to a bad novel. If you would not buy it yourself, don't write it.
Write for yourself, because at some point you're going to have to "keep writing" … That was something that published authors always said to me, and it took me a long time to fully understand. What they said was keep writing, but that sounds obvious to anyone who want to write. But what they were really saying was keep writing after you've been rejected. Keep writing more stories, new stories, just keep writing and cultivating ideas.
I'm currently writing my seventh full length novel between 60,000 and 111,000 words. The first four were practice and they will never see the light of day, nor should they, because they suck. I don't even want to read them so I don't expect anyone else would. But when number five was shopped to agents and rejected across the board, it was a slap to the face. It took me a while to admit the story was just too "run of the mill" on the surface. Although it has some unexpected twists and great characters, that is hard to sell in a query. So I've moved on to the query stage of the next novel, and I've moved on to writing another story. I've kept writing and cultivating ideas, I will keep writing because that is the only way I can get better, and maybe get lucky.
After you've written the book, that's when the work starts. That will be your next lesson. You will read thousands of words telling you how to write that great query. All over the Internet, you will find tons of pages covering this topic. You will even get bad advice from people. My only advice here is to read, read...and read some more. Read what agents are looking for in their submission process, and read everything you can. The query is no easy task and for me (and most other writers I've talked to) it does not come natural like writing the story. It is a learning process in and of itself.
Imagine trying to catch a fish. You put some bait on the hook and your toss out your line. But now imagine that the fish are so over fed that they cannot eat any more food. Even if they really like the bait, the fish are just too damn full to take another bite. Your food will have to be so good that the fish will be willing to risk vomit after eating your bait. And even if you find a hungry fish, your query had better be good. What makes the query so hard, is drilling down into your novel to find that hook.You have to find the hook before you can bait the hook. That is not as easy as it sounds. It's hard to crunch 80,000 words into a 250 word description that really captures what it is you're trying to say in the story.
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