News and notices from the writing trenches #14…
#88: The January issue of eFiction is now available for download from Amazon…or you can read the individual stories throughout the month on their website. An up and coming eZine for short story writers and readers! Congrats to Doug and his editorial staff for selecting another set of good short stories….
#89: A new issue of Mini-Reviews will follow this one of News and Notices: Baldacci, Land, Eisler, and Castle—all thriller or mystery writers, but….
#90: Look for my review tomorrow of William Brown’s Amongst My Enemies…a good read with historical nuances and moral ambiguity….
#91: I’m putting the finishing touches on Sing a Samba Galactica (sequel to Survivors of the Chaos) and Angels Need Not Apply (sequel to The Midas Bomb). Coming real soon! I’m also outlining a new YA novel (NOT a sequel to The Secret Lab, still at $0.99)—this will take longer.
#92: You might already know that I’m not a wild fan of writers’ conferences. You’re supposed to attend them and find your agent who will make you the next number one on the NY Times bestseller list. Sure….
I’m ambivalent about contests, in fact. Writer’s Digest, Dan Poynter, and the IPPY people have contests for self-pubbed books. While you probably have a better chance at winning the Power Ball lottery, my hesitation about entering is two-fold: (1) the cost is often comparable with the formatting of an eBook—I think that’s a better place to spend my money; and (2) if any of my readers have been lucky enough to win, what have they received in return?
For #2, do you know if anyone has actually bought your book because you won a prize? Do the organizers of the contest provide any publicists’ services for you once you’ve won? I’m curious, but it seems like all these contests border on being scams perpetrated on hopeful and/or gullible authors. The entry fees probably add up very fast and make someone (not the authors, for sure) a heap of money….
#93: Are you a literary agent? Whatcha doing these days? Do you still look for new authors? Or, do you just move those MS from the “sure bets,” those “proven authors” who have already written popular books (i.e. exceeded their advances)? Do you automatically turn away anyone who dared to self-publish or hasn’t been accepted before by a legacy publisher? I’m sure writers who have had some degree of self-pub success have stopped looking for an agent. I’d like to know how you, the agent, are re-inventing your job. Tough times to be out of work, but please don’t become a writer…I have enough competition and I’m not even trying to make money!
#94: One possible job for agents looking for work is editing. The present situation? It’s expensive. If there were more editors out there, the fees would go down, making writers everywhere happy. I’m not talking about something I or my word processor can do (although it’s interesting how many authors fail at self-editing and don’t pay attention to things a word processor will catch). I’m referring to plot suggestions, character development, stilted dialog, POV, etc, things an agent might know about because he or she has an MFA or some other professional writing degree, things that often slap a writer down in a review after it’s too late to change anything. Of course, I might not incorporate editing suggestions along these lines, but I certainly would consider them.
As a reviewer, I know it’s easy to catch the obvious stuff, but that’s all editors usually catch. They don’t catch the hard stuff because it’s hard—it requires them to think too much. They want to cash that check in a hurry and move on to the next poor sap. Editing is like any other job—if you have a good work ethic, you will do it well. If you do it well and have reasonable prices, you will be in demand.
#95: Same goes for publicists. Most writers (me included) know very little about marketing (hey, I’m learning). Most services are too expensive, though, so the more people that offer them, the lower the prices will become. Agents might provide a service here too. However, during the years I spent looking for an agent, I was not able to accumulate any evidence that shows any of them really knows this stuff either (my sampling group was large, probably larger than those used by most political pollsters), so maybe this is a bad suggestion.
#96: The last three items lead up to the question: What’s with www.indiependents.org? On the surface, this website seems to correspond to a club (hence the .org) of indie authors banding together like Robin Hood’s merry men and women to do battle against the evil Sheriff of Nottingham, the legacy publishing establishment. However, one of the membership requirements is that your book be professionally edited and proofread.
Considering my above experiences, I’m suspicious. The digital revolution in publishing means anyone—and I mean anyone—can author and release a book. The final product might be crap, but are we willing to put constraints on the process? I come close to doing everything myself—I don’t like organizations to put conditions on membership. Any writers out there have experience with these folks. Beyond throwing your books up on a website, do they do anything for the self-pubbed author? Please let me know in comments to this post if you know anything about this website.
In libris libertas…
