Archive for the ‘Publishing’ Category
Write Nekkid
May 6th, 2010 by Mary DeMuthI’m reading one of those stark books (like Kite Runner) where the author writes pretty darned nekkid. What I mean by that is spare, harsh, in-your-face prose, the kind that evokes emotion and curiosity. The book? A recommendation by Mark Bertrand called The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien. Hear some of his prose:
“For the most part they carried themselves with poise, a kind of dignity. Now and then, however, there were times of panic, when they squealed or wanted to squeal but couldn’t, when they twitched and made moaning sounds and covered their heads and said Dear Jesus and flopped around on the earth and fired their weapons blindly and cringed and sobbed and begged for the noise to stop and went wild and make stupid promises to themselves and to God and to their mothers and fathers, hoping not to die.” (p. 19).
Beautiful, ain’t it?
When I first started writing, I resembled young Anne of Green Gables (which my young daughter mispronounced and called Anne with Green Bagels). Full of pomp and circumstance, my writing flowered its way through sentences and paragraphs. Adjectives and adverbs were my trusted friends. But worse than that was a weird pompousness that came through, like I was touting my English major, thank you very much. It reminded me of that poetry you read and go “huh?” afterward. Great, effusive words strung together that had very little meaning.
I balked at editorial correction too, thinking myself high and mighty, a wielder of words.
But, as the years wore on, I realized great writing isn’t the stuff of prettification. It’s not full of bright lipstick and rouge. It’s natural, stark, raw. I started concocting sentences that evoked emotion, that kept rich in its description of place, but spare in its contrivance of human emotion.
Ew. Now I just read that last paragraph and it sounds a bit hoity toity. Maybe I’ll always have Anne and her green New York rolls lurking inside.
Even so, I want to write nekkid. To grab my reader and thrust her into the lives of my characters. I want my prose to serve the story, not detract from it. I think it’s working. To prove it, I’ll paste two snippets, one from my first novel (not published) and another from a newer novel (not published). See if you can tell the difference:
Sample one:
When Augusta finished washing the last jelly jar, the sun burst through the mist, and the lake water danced as it did every time the fog dissipated. To call its lifting a miracle might be an exaggeration, but she called it that anyway. Sometimes the house stayed shrouded until suppertime, other days it evaporated all at once. Sometimes it dissipated in tendrils, wild and inconsistent, leaving the valley resembling Grandma Ellsworth’s silvered hair. Today the retreating curtain of fog revealed the fields beyond the lake, their softness in stark contrast to the lake’s prismatic dance.
Sample two:
“We can go up,” he said. “Let’s take the stairs.”
“Why not the elevator?”
“Don’t you remember?”
“Refresh my memory.”
“We kissed there once . . . in our pajamas.”
My memories hung on a broken charm bracelet. Some charms suffered from inefficient clasps, dropping along the streets of life, never to be returned. Some broke apart, like the tiny hind leg of a horse that’d never trot again. Some blackened thanks to time’s tarnish. Yet others remained pristine, happy silver clasped securely to the chain. This memory was like none of those. This was a forgotten charm, one so crammed in between broken and happy charms that I’d forgotten it. Rediscovered, its brilliance startled me.
***
How about you? Can you see transformation in your writing? Are you moving from flowery to nekkid? Or the other way? As you’ve matured, how has your prose altered? Are your stories simpler or more complex? I’m curious.
****
You can find Mary here, here and here.
The Prayer and Paradox Marketing Strategy
April 13th, 2010 by Mary DeMuth I included this picture as perspective, to remind myself about this crazy beautiful world we live in, to ground myself in people, not products.
A while back, I asked via Twitter and Facebook this question:
How do you balance blessing the Kingdom of God with marketing your wares? Is there such a thing?
Here are the responses:
- A constant and careful balancing act.
- The question implies you can’t do both at the same time; I’d check that
assumption. It’s more of a healthy tension than opposite objectives. - That’s one thing I get nervous about. Whew.
- I keep asking and asking myself (and praying)…am I promoting the Lord
or me?…am I seeking glory or giving it to Him? …Am I marketing
myself or temporal stuff or seeking to draw all men to Him. If He’s not
in it…I don’t want it.
It’s a tension/balancing act authors face. I don’t know if I’ve balanced well (maybe I’ve camped more in the tension camp. My shoulders would say so.)
Marketing reminds me of a painful analogy my husband and I heard when we were raising support to be church planters in France. It went something like this: “Picture a long gravel driveway and you at the beginning of it. To raise support, your job is to simply (ha!) turn over every piece of gravel as you make your way to the house. There will be five rocks with a red X on the back. Find those, and you’ve found your support.”
But here’s the ironic thing. We started with that sort of “turn over every rock” strategy. What did it get us? Lots of fatigue, frustration, and frayed nerves. What did work? Prayer and paradox. Prayer because we’d get to the end of our support raising ro
pes and give up, asking God again for direction. He’d give it. We’d follow it. And often more support would come through His counterintuitive plan. Paradox because it was NEVER how we would think it would go. We’d ask wealthy folks to join us financially, and they wouldn’t. We’d ask poor seminary students who gladly sacrificed what little they had to help us gt to France.
How does this relate to marketing?
Perhaps our strategy should be Prayer and Paradox. And in that, we’ll kill two birds (marketing our books, advancing the kingdom of God) with one stone (trusting and obeying).
Prayer:
- Truly commit your marketing adventures to prayer. Ask God to direct your steps. To guide your blogging. To smile upon your facebook status.
- Pray for others in the industry. It’s been a rough year.
- Pray God would bless your competition.
- Pray that the Lord would specifically show you which social media (if any) is right for you. Some folks shouldn’t twitter. Some shouldn’t blog. Don’t give into the temptation to do everything. Seek Him first.
- Seek the Lord’s heart for your books in the first place. Ask about ways you can bless folks with your words.
- Before embarking on a new initiative, ask God to check your motives, to sift your heart.
- Seek God and HIs kingdomas you think about marketing. How can you combine promoting your book with highlighting the plight of the world? How can your book selling somehow positively impact someone in need? (Giving away books to prisoners may help word of mouth, but also help folks who need Jesus-y words, for example.)
Paradox:
- Understand that your great plans might come to naught–by God’s design. Not to frustrate you per se, but to redirect you. I once sent hundreds of newsletters highlighting my speaking ministry. It cost a lot of time and money. I received this many requests to speak: ZERO. What did I learn? For me (and it’s unique to eachperson), I was to rely on the Lord to bring the engagements. And how did He do that? Exclusively through relationship and word of mouth.
- Perhaps the scope of your book or speaking topic is smaller but deeper than you expected. I spoke on national radio on a well-known program about Building the Christian Family You Never Had. The book has had moderate sales. But when I shared my story of abuse, I received an email from a mom who had adopted a sibling group. All the girls had been sexually abused. They listened to my story. The youngest said to her eldest sister, “Why did that lady (me) have to go through all that terrible stuff?” The eldest answered, “I don’t know, but I’m pretty sure it’s so she could get through it and then help girls like us.” Those comments changed my life. If I wrote that book for those girls, it was worth it.
- I remember sending my novels to celebrities. What came out of it? A big, fat nothing. Like a celebrity even has time to read my book! But the best things have happened marketing wise when I’ve sent my books to folks without a big name. I’ve met some pretty cool champions of my work who’ve sold way more copies than Angelina Jolie.
I doubt I have it all figured out. Do any of us? (And if you do, feel free to leave a comment and let us know! 
) But I do know I am much more relaxed and peaceful when I pray and I welcome/invite paradox into my marketing efforts.
Find me here:
http://www.marydemuth.com
http://www.twitter.com/mdemuth
http://www.thewritingspa.com
http://blog.myfamilysecrets.org
Two plots, one book?
April 6th, 2010 by J A HeinleinThe BelieversPress blog features Q & A sessions with the experts we work with, answering questions that you’ve asked. Have a question? Click the link in the sidebar to submit it!
Gail asked:
I have written a contemporary novel with two plots that merge. Though I prefer the book under one cover, I could separate it under two titles, Springtime in Savannah with 82,500 words and Sunsets Over St. Augustine with 63,000 words. What is your opinion?
Jay Heinlein, Publishing & Book Marketing Professional, answered:
First of all CONGRATS on finishing your novel(s)! You have reached a milestone that many are still just hoping to achieve… now a new work begins.
As far as Marketability goes: I definitely support the idea of separating your work into two volumes.
- if only one volume, you would have to massively edit and prune away what is likely to be some “very good stuff” – important components of your work that your readers would be denied.
- most agents agree/would advise that 100k words is the upper limit for a debut novel,
- the optimum debut novel is likely in the 80k and under range. You are right on the mark — in the right word count range with each of the two volumes.
- The average page count should be somewhere between 250-400 pages.
Leave the long “omni-bus” treatises to the well-established or the exceptions such as Michener and Tolstoy!
- The two volumes create more opportunity to gain traction in the marketplace and show that you are not a “one-hit wonder.”
- If a royalty publisher is your ultimate aim, they will like this as well.
- Novelists are successful because they gain followings and your hard-earned readers/followers will want more…
In the past, multiple volumes were released strategically in stages… the second release timing was scheduled to be available “just as the readers were getting hungry again.”
- Also, in the trade distribution models i.e. bookstores – traditional bookselling channels, there are always limited marketing resources and a highly competitive environment for seasonal promotions and shelf-placement opportunities.
- One at a time was better in that model.
However, in the new “direct access” model, one can become quite successful in directly reaching a “tribe of followers/readers”…
- And, you can do so having never been on a book-shelf and without the high risk perils of the current rapidly changing retail environment.
- In the new model, you are not encumbered by the “seasonal windows” of the “old” traditional bookselling/promotional model and two can be better than one.
Keys to a Stand-Out Nonfiction Proposal
April 1st, 2010 by Barb LillandThe BelieversPress blog features Q & A sessions with the experts we work with, answering questions that you’ve asked. Have a question? Send it to info@believerspress.com and we’ll get you an answer!
You asked:
“I’ve written a nonfiction proposal. What can I do to stand out from the crowd?”
A unique benefit of writing nonfiction is that in most cases you need not write the entire manuscript before submitting a proposal to agents and publishers. However, keep in mind that writing the proposal may be just as difficult! A quality nonfiction proposal focuses on selling yourself and your idea. Like a successful advertisement, the nonfiction proposal should highlight your “product” in such as way as to leave a lasting impression on the reader.
There are numerous guidelines available that will walk you through the physical proposal (cover letter, summary, table of contents, etc.). If you need help with that step, here are a few links to help you get started: http://pages.prodigy.net/jimcypher/proposal.htm; http://www.ehow.com/how_2085531_write-non-fiction-book-proposal.html. (Editor’s note: Mary DeMuth has a great Nonfiction Book Proposal Tutorial eBook available for $25.)
What you may not find on the web are the specific elements an editor and agent are hoping to see when they open up your proposal. In my years as an acquisitions editor, I saw my share of the good, the bad, and the don’t-even-open. Here are some insider tips on how to keep yours in the good—if not excellent—category. First step? Take off your writer’s hat and put on your marketing hat. Second step? Concentrate on including these three keys in your proposal:
1) Subject: You may have a great idea, but if it is not timely and unique, you may not have a book.
a) Your idea needs to be timely. Have there been frequent news articles written on this topic? Have you written a magazine or newspaper article on the subject? Is it a cultural shift, a hot social issue, a current felt-need among a specific age group, or a topic the church is just beginning to address? If so, include one or two news pieces (particularly any you have written) as examples of the timeliness of your topic.
b) Your book needs to be unique. Are there a number of bestselling books on this topic, but yours takes a distinctive approach that will allow it to stand out from the market? Does your personal experience or career give you special insight into this subject? If you were writing the back cover copy of your book, how would you sell this idea as a unique approach with specific take-away value for the reader?
2) Platform: Your qualifications and current audience are often what makes or breaks a book deal.
a) What are your qualifications for tackling this topic? I’m not referring to a degree from an elite college—nice, but it won’t get you a book deal. More crucial is what you are doing now to advance your ideas. Have you written a number of articles on this topic? Do you teach extensively on this (or a similar) subject in your workplace, church, or community? Do you have a website, a popular blog? In today’s market, publishers want an author who comes with a history of successful self-promotion—trust me, those are the writers who get a book deal.
b) What audience have you already gathered? If you maintain a website, how many hits has it received? Do you regularly blog on this topic? How many followers do you have? If you have written articles on the topic, what kind of response did the magazine receive following its publication? How many people typically attend your teaching seminars? Include specific numbers. Remember, if your book proposal entices the acquisitions editor, he or she then has to “sell” it to the editorial board. Make the editor’s job easy by including details about the platform you have already established.
3) Market: Your book’s category and competition are critical to its success.
a) Into what category will your book be shelved? You may feel your book is unique and better than other books in the marketplace, but the fact is your book will sit on the shelf alongside similar books. Know the specific category, do your homework, and don’t be afraid to address it in your proposal.
b) What competition will your book face? I’ve known authors who hoped that by not mentioning the competition, they could trick the editor into thinking the market was wide open on their topic. Not going to happen. Know the competition, and detail how your book is better. You may want to list the top three books in the category along with their sales numbers or bestseller standing. Remember, the editor may have acquired one of those successful titles: tell him or her why yours is exceptional, why it is a good follow-up in the wake of that other book, and/or why your book will appeal to a broader audience.
Beyond just selling a good idea, your book proposal needs to address the timeliness and uniqueness of the subject, your established platform, and the current temperature of the market. Touch on those three keys in your cover letter, and follow with more specific details on the ensuing pages. The result? A top-notch proposal guaranteed to stand out from the crowd.
Timing your book release
March 30th, 2010 by Andrew MackayThe BelieversPress blog features Q & A sessions with the experts we work with, answering questions that you’ve asked. Have a question? Send it to info@believerspress.com and we’ll get you an answer!
You asked:
My book is scheduled to arrive from the printer next week… when should I schedule my release date?
Getting ready to launch your independently published book is exciting. You’ll want to rush. But, there’s no more important time to your marketing plan than the lead up to the official launch. There are reasons that big publishers start their marketing push long before the book is scheduled to become available to retailers and customers.
Jonathan Acuff, writer of the popular blog Stuff Christians Like, just launched his book, published by Zondervan. You should read his launch day post. More than that, though, you should read backward through his archive and see the various things he did to generate pre-orders for his book. Jon wrote guest posts for any blog that would have him. He ran giveaways (including eReaders, the new Apple iPad, several mp3 players, and a MacBook pro). As a result, he’s trended well on Amazon, listed first in several categories, and created a lot of buzz for his book.
How does that help him? Well, as a result of the buzz and the preorders, bookstores will be more likely to a) stock it, and b) stock it in larger numbers. More importantly, the readership was primed for the release — they’d been waiting for it. When they finally received their pre-order (or went to a store to buy it), they probably rushed to read it. They likely told their friends about it.
The model can (and should, I think) scale down. Maybe you only have 100 readers waiting for your book. What a great opportunity to get them talking! You could send out “early release” copies to them. People like an exclusive. You could ask those of them who have any sort of platform (blog, reading group, church library) to write / distribute a review. You can get positive feedback for your own website. You can build your Amazon preorders, so that Amazon will stock your book in greater numbers.
Make a marketing plan. Make it for 4 weeks, 6 weeks, 8 weeks. Talk about your book. Build the anticipation you can where you can. Then launch your book!
Most authors have been waiting for years to launch their book to the public. Another month or two of waiting now won’t hurt — especially if you use it well!
The Future of Publishing (according to Penguin)
March 18th, 2010 by Nick CiskeRead the story behind this video at The Future of Publishing post on Penguin’s site.
A Quality Book is…
March 18th, 2010 by Jeff GerkeAs a part of our Q & A sessions with the experts we work with, we’ll be asking several experts a broader question, like this one. If you have a question for the experts, ask it here and we’ll get you an answer!
We asked:
What characterizes a quality book?
A quality (Christian) book is a book that accomplishes its intended purpose, is written well, edited well, copyedited well, and laid out in an excellent typeset. It’s a book with an attractive, appropriate cover. It’s a book that has been made with quality craftsmanship and materials. It’s a book that is priced appropriately. It’s a book with a theologically sound Christian message. And of course it’s a book that God can use to work His purposes. In the end, a quality Christian book is one that finds its way into the hands of the person or people who need it. And I believe God takes care of that.
7 More Mistakes to Avoid and Book Recommendations
March 10th, 2010 by Mary DeMuth
Here are my final seven mistakes to avoid. I hope this four-part series proved helpful as you strove to deepen and clean up your writing.
1. Mundane Prose. We don’t need to hear the mundane parts of a character’s day, or hear his mundane speech.
Example
John ate breakfast. He wiped his mouth, then slurped down some coffee. He put on his fedora, then slipped on his galoshes. He opened the front door, shut it, then opened the car door, heading to work.
John ate a quick breakfast, then headed to work.
2. MRU problems. Motivation Reaction Units (See Techniques of the Selling Writer, by Dwight V. Swain for a full explanation.) Please read this article: Writing the Perfect Scene.
3. Lack of emotional depth. In novel writing, we need to see the depth of a character’s inner landscape, which includes his/her emotional state. A reader needs to relate to the character. Some ways to create emotional depth: Shove the reader into the character’s head in the midst of a highly emotional/painful/surprising scene; show the character’s reaction to a dilemma; or show the character physically react to some disheartening news.
4. Word Choice. Sometimes a word isn’t the right one. If I write WC in the margin, it means you need to rethink the word you chose.
5. Wrong Word. Other times, you simply use the incorrect word. Consider:
Affect (a verb meaning “to influence”)
Effect (a noun meaning “result”—used as a verb when you mean “bring about” or “accomplish”)
Example: Lisle wanted to effect a change on her college campus so she smiled at every person she passed.
Correct: The effect of her perfume affected me for hours in the form of a splitting headache.
6. Nouns in Apposition. If the person you reference is one of a kind, you separate with commas. (Apposition means placed beside. The noun in apposition, called an appositive, identifies or explains the noun or pronoun that precedes it.)
Examples
Incorrect:
My wife Esther is the best cook on the planet. (Unless you live in biblical times or you’re a fugitive from Federal Agents, you have only one wife.)
Solved: My wife, Esther, is the best cook on the planet.
Correct: My friend Rebecca sent me a rather lengthy e-mail. (If Rebecca is one of many friends, this is correct. If she is the only friend, you need commas before /after her name.)
7. Avoid –ing. Overuse weighs down prose. When you finish a piece, search for “ing” and see how you’ve used—or misused—it.
Example
Awkward and wordy: Families were purchasing . . .
Correct: Families purchased . . .
Book Recommendations:
- Eats, Shoots and Leaves by Lynn Truss
- Techniques of the Selling Writer by Dwight Swain
- The Complete Guide to Writing and Selling the Christian Novel by Penelope Stokes (the chapter on POV is worth it—the best way I’ve seen it presented.)
- The First Five Pages by Noah Lukeman
- Self-Editing for Fiction Writers by Renni Brown and Dave King
- Scene and Structure by Jack M. Bickam
- The Novelist’s Essential Guide to Crafting Scenes by Raymond Obstfeld
- On Writing by Stephen King
Writing the Perfect Scene
10 More Common New Writer Mistakes to Avoid
February 12th, 2010 by Mary DeMuthFor those of you who love lists, here’s another list of ten common mistakes I see writers make when they come through The Writing Spa. Check and see if you make these mistakes too. And if you do, choose to make 2010 the year you change the way you write.
1 Starting the story too late. When I wrote my first novel, it took me 90 pages to get to the inciting moment. I believed I needed to tell all the backstory first. Not true. When I rewrote the beginning, I cut the first 90 pages, rewrote the beginning to have the inciting moment first. Then, I shared both beginnings with a critique group and asked which one had more emotional impact. Everyone said the second one. Start your story when it starts.
2 Lack of passion. If you’re not wild about your subject, it shows. Write from your passion and your words will have punch.
3 Overuse of had. When recounting something in the past, use “had” once, then keep the rest in straight past tense. Otherwise, you’ll clutter up your prose, make it gunky.
4 Too many modifiers. Use a better noun instead of a weak one that needs an adjective. Use a stronger verb instead of one that leans on an adverb for help.
5 Misplaced modifier: An adjectival (modifies a noun) or adverbial (modifies a verb) placed in an awkward spot—usually far from the word or phrase it modifies.
Misplaced: I learned how to tie-dye t-shirts on the radio.
Correct: I heard on the radio how to tie-dye t-shirts.
6 Punctuation and Formatting Errors:
- Punctuation within quotes. This is a proper ellipses: . . . (dot space, dot space, dot space)
- Use an em dash in a sentence: Bob ran his business to the ground—right after he alienated his wife and children.
To create the elusive, continuous-line, em dash: Type as usual, but when you want to make the em dash, type two hyphens in a row and simply continue typing the next word. As soon as you hit the “space” key after you complete that next word, the computer automatically turns the two hyphens into the correctly formatted “em dash.” (The funny thing is, the computer can’t NOT do this action automatically.)
Incorrect (but the “old” method on a manual typewriter): I left my favorite baking dish–a wedding present from Aunt Jackie–at the church potluck dinner yesterday evening.
Incorrect (a symbol, actually an “en” dash): I left my favorite baking dish – a wedding present from Aunt Jackie – at the church potluck dinner yesterday evening.
Correct: I left my favorite baking dish—a wedding present from Aunt Jackie—at the church potluck dinner yesterday evening.
- Don’t use ALL CAPS.
- When writing a title, italicize it, don’t underline.
- Don’t hit enter twice when you start a new paragraph.
- It’s no longer five spaces when you indent; use the Tab key instead.
- 11 or 12 point font, preferably Times New Roman.
- One inch margins all around.
- Use exclamation points sparingly. You don’t want to be the writer who cried Wolf!
7 Pronoun/Antecedent Problems. Be sure your pronouns agree with the words they’re replacing. A writer makes a mistake when her pronouns don’t match.
8 No Parallel Structure. When listing things in a series, be sure the structure of the first words in each series are parallel.
Example: The cat dodged the ball, ate a mouse, and is sleeping now.
Correct: The cat dodged the ball, ate a mouse, then fell asleep.
9 Dangling Participles. When you have a participle (-ing word) followed by a comma as a phrase (dependent clause), the word following the comma should be the one the phrase modifies. Example: Crashing outside, I jumped when I heard the thunder. Crashing outside, the thunder made me jump.
10 Purple Speaker Tags. When you attribute dialog to someone, refrain from using purple speaker tags. Said works best most of the time. Or creating the dialog with beats (sentences of action) works better, too.
Example: “Herb, you irritate me!” she exclaimed vehemently.
Solved: She stomped her tiny feet. “Herb, you irritate me!”
Janet Reid offers some rejection statistics
January 5th, 2010 by Nick CiskeJanet Reid, literary agent at FinePrint Literary Management recently kept track of how she responded to 124 novels. It’s a fascinating look at the current market for novels:
Periodically I’ve posted tallies of my replies to incoming query letters. After one of those posts I realized that it might be interesting to keep tabs on what happens when I request a full. I started keeping notes sometime this summer. Between that date and today, I requested 124 full novels.
Here’s what happened:
Just plain not good enough: 21 (a novel needs to be in the 99th percentile-these were closer to 90%–not bad, but not good enough)
Good premise, but the rest of the novel didn’t hold up: 11
Not compelling or vivid, or focused; no plot/tension: 10
…
Read the rest at her blog.
Bonus:
She also has a list of items that will get you an instant rejection from her (and likely other agents): How to Make Sure Your Query Is Instantly Rejected
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