Fiction Scribe

I wasn’t really planning on doing a ‘What I’m Reading’ post this week, but I’ve come across so many good and interesting posts that I can’t help myself. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do.

*My lovely friend Susan at West of Mars is having a bit of Thursday Thirteen block, so stop by and say hello. She doesn’t bite, but I would keep an eye on Trevor.

*Paperback Writer (can you tell I’ve become a big fan recently?) put up a post I love called The Seven Deadly Writing Sins. And no, it’s not like the other ones you’ve seen that have things like, “dialogue tag addiction.”

*Ecataromance has put up a lovely post welcoming new visitors that is filled with links to interesting things on site and so on. As they say, they are “pro ebook, pro romance” so you should check them out - especially if you are interested in those areas.

*There is a great post by author Marta Stephens at Murder by 4 called Grammar Made Easy… Believe me, it’s not quite what you’re thinking.

*The awesomely awesome (she gives away books every Monday!) Katrina Stronoff has guest posted at Happy Endings with excellent thoughts on figuring out your characters’ motivations. This could very well be exactly the advice I’ve been needing lately…

*Rather than mentioning a specific post, this is a link to a blog: The Intern There is absolutely no way I can put it better than she does:

“THE INTERN is the unpaid toiler on the publishing house floor, licking stamps, reading slush, and copy-editing your train-wreck of a manuscript (for free) because the “real” copyeditor is down with the genital crabs. THE INTERN wears mismatched socks, clunky glasses, the same shirt she wears every day and jeans she found in the dumpster. No bra—bras are expensive, and THE INTERN is unpaid. THE INTERN sees all, hears all—the tense phone calls, the well-oiled editorial meetings at which your manuscript is used as a receptacle for pretzel crumbs, the wheeling, dealing, and long hours of apathy that make publishing publishing. THE INTERN knows everything about—your ambitions, your secret shames. She knows you pee in the shower. Basically, THE INTERN has you dialed.

And—lucky you—THE INTERN is about to tell you everything she knows.”

Enjoy!

I haven’t had nearly as much time as I would have liked over the past few weeks to keep up with bloggers, blogs and blogging, but I am trying my best. I have come across a few gems I would like to share with you…

*Bookends, LLC has a must read post filled with publishing industry terms you’d do well to familiarize yourself with. Beyond that, you should have a browse around the blog anyway. It is filled with a lot of fantastic posts.

*14 Posts on Writing and Blogging from Get Paid to Write Online. While the post strays into posts about freelancing - which I don’t touch on often here - there is still a lot of information great information there.

*I have been working on romance novellas lately, and I found an older post but a great one from Redlines and Deadlines. Your heroine might be TSTL (Too Stupid to Live) if…

*Author Sandi Kahn Shelton is making me completely jealous by posting about the writing workshops she hosts in her own home.

*EREC - Erotic Romance E-Publisher Comparison shares the news that Mundania Press has acquired ebook ‘veteran’ company Hard Shell. (Probably a post only of interest to those who keep up with e-publishing.)

*Miguel from Wisdom and Life has a lovely post called 5 Rules for School Homework that I found quite useful for my usually cluttered writer-ly brain.

That is all for the moment. Of course, if you know of any posts you find valuable around the internet that you think I should read, feel free to leave me the link. I’m sure there are thousands of great websites I have never seen before that readers have.

EREC – the blog to be reading if you are you are interested in erotic romance e-publishing – posted about the New Non-Erotic Romance Epublisher Desert Breeze and I couldn’t help but be amused.

While the topic of this post isn’t quite technically true – Desert Breeze is setting out to be a non-erotic romance publisher and is managing to insult erotic romance authors – you can’t quite help but laugh.

The quote (also quoted on EREC) from Desert Breeze that gets me (as an amateur erotic romance writer) feeling all warm and fuzzy inside is:

“We want to bring back classic romance storytelling without excessive sex to bog down and hide the true element of the story — Love.”

Because sex and love don’t really ever go together.

To give them the benefit of the doubt, I know what they are trying to say – at least, what I hope they are trying to say. Even so, haven’t they read any good erotic romance? Have they only been reading ‘paperback porn’ which has only one mission: get people nekkid and having sex?

Apparently they have if they feel there has been a “saturation of the market with sex-based storytelling and the decline in quality of the actual novels.”

Ouch.

Given that they’re all playing in the romance genre sandbox, you’d think they could put forth their non-erotic romance stance without spitting on the sand castles of the erotic romance members of their social group.

After two years of being closed to new submissions, Beth is announcing that Filbert Publishing will open for a very limited number of new submissions as of January 1.

First, a little about Filbert Publishing:

1. Filbert Publishing is small. By design. If you’re looking for a publishing house with hundreds of fellow authors, this isn’t your place. We’ve never worked with more than 15 authors at a time. I may be willing to make room for 20 if their project’s right. But we’re small.

2. When you work with us, you’ll receive one on one attention. Got a question? When you’re one of our authors, you can e-mail me at any time. Got an urgent question? Give me a call during regular business hours.

3. Filbert Publishing is considered a traditional publishing company. This means our authors do not pay fees of any kind. No set up fees. No hosting fees. Nothing. We don’t chase after authors, we do not advertise for submissions. When we open to submissions, we make a couple announcements, then we’re done until next time. It’s been two years since we last opened submissions to anyone other than our existing author family. Filbert Publishing finances its operations by selling books, not through author fees.

4. Once you’re a Filbert Publishing author, we’re always open to your submissions. If you have another project you’d like us to consider, just give me a call.

5. If you join our little group, you will be paid four times a year. We do not withhold any earnings in anticipated returns because we list all titles as non-returnable. While we’ve heard a non-returnable policy can affect brick and mortar bookstore sales, we haven’t really noticed a negative affect from this move. You get paid a flat royalty based on the retail price of your book. And yes, if you purchase bulk books, you’ll receive a hefty discount as well.

6. We will send out a set number of review copies to larger websites and a number of snail mail reviewers.

7. All our books are available through Ingram, B&T, online and offline bookstores.

8. We are very choosy about the authors we work with. Our guidelines are strict and we rarely stray from them. You can find out more about the guidelines in a bit.

9. We’ll give your book as good a run as we can. However, if you don’t sell any copies for a set period of time, you will lose your contract. Don’t worry. We understand economics. We also understand how tough it can be to build a readership. We’re patient. But we do expect regular marketing activities. After all, if you’re building a writing career, why wouldn’t you continue to work on building a readership?

Does this sound good to you? Check out the Filbert Publishing website for more details on what they are looking for.

*Note from JM: They are not currently a fiction publisher, but not all fiction writers write only fiction…

By Maya Richard

Suppose you’ve written the next great American novel, and it’s just sitting on your desk at home. Even if you’ve gotten rave reviews from friends and colleagues, there is still a long process that one must follow in order to get the book published. The writing world, like most other industries, is all about connections; finding the right literary agent can make or break the distribution of your book.

For every author who makes it through the clutter and publishes a best seller, there are hundreds more who never see their work in print. The good news is that independent authors have more avenues for distribution than ever before, and working with a well qualified agent can help one obtain distribution in the digital realm and beyond.

Even if you believe that your manuscript is in final form, chances are that it’s not ready to go directly to market. A professional agent to can help you edit the book and re-structure the novel into a form that will help it find an audience among top publishers. Ideally, you should have friends read through the work before approaching an agent, so that you can make revisions and get it in the best possible shape before submitting it for consideration. Getting the attention of a top agent will require you to have a quality product. as well as a successful track record of publishing fiction; submit short stories to literary magazines and journals, so that you can become a published author in advance of pursuing publication for a larger novel.

Literary agents are, above all, service professionals who are looking to close deals. Look for an agent who has a solid track record, as indicated in the trade newsletter Publisher’s
Marketplace. Do background research on agents who seem to be a good fit for your particular genre, and write a custom, hand written introductory letter, along with a copy of your manuscript. Make sure to provide a synopsis of the work, so that you can grab the attention of the agent, who, most likely, comes across dozens of proposals ever single day. Often times, agents will want to send back a copy with edits, so enclose a pre-paid return envelope, along with your complete contact information. While it’s okay to follow-up after sending a manuscript, don’t necessarily expect a response from every agent you contact, and expect to work hard to find the right connections.

Networking will, above all, be the best route to developing lasting connections with literary agents. Make every effort to reach out to fellow authors for introductions to agents, as well as attending industry events in your area. You can find information from resources such as the Association of American Publishers as well as publications such as Book Wire. By following the advice from published authors and following the publishing industry closely, you can begin to cultivate a career and craft your manuscript to maximize your chances of success.

Maya Richard is a freelance writer who enjoys writing both fiction and non fiction. Currently she is writing about high speed internet .

In a surprise turn of events, Lou Aronica, one half of the new publishing company The Story Plant, has decided to join us here at Fiction Scribe. He will be talking about himself, his partner Peter Miller, their publishing company The Story Plant and much more. Please join me in welcoming him to Fiction Scribe.

I’d like to thank Fiction Scribe for allowing me this forum over the past few days. It’s a thrilling and terrifying time for us as we launch The Story Plant. We don’t have a huge margin for error, but we have a list of books of which we are very proud and endless enthusiasm for creating a great next-generation publisher.

I already told you about our first two books, Sienna Skyy’s American Quest (www.americanquestbook.com) and Jonathan Javitt’s Capitol Reflections (www.capitolreflections.com). We’re taking a little time after these first two books to ramp up our spring list. Then, we’re going to present three new writers, all of whom we think will have long, successful careers and will connect strongly with readers.

James LePore writes atmospheric, intelligent novels of suspense with sensational characters. We will publish his first novel, A World I Never Made, in April, but you’ll be able to get a taste for his writing in the coming months as we release three of his short stories related to the novel on the web.

Laurel Dewey writes gritty, unforgiving mysteries with a tremendous level of humanity. Her series character, Jane Perry is a one-of-a-kind figure both vulnerable and impenetrable. Her first novel, Protector came from a small press and received rhapsodic reader comments (you can read some of them at www.laureldewey.com). We’ll publish Protector in mass market in May and then Laurel’s new Jane Perry novel, Redemption in June.

Emily Sue Harvey loves stories of renewal and revival. She believes strongly in the human spirit’s ability to heal itself and grow from its trials. In fact, she’s recently launched a website dedicated to such true stories, www.renewalstories.com. In July, we’ll publish her first novel, Song of Renewal, a beautiful little novel about three people who must discover who they really are when they face tragedy.

Our role as publisher of these books is to help the writers find their audiences and to grow those audiences with each successive book. As our program develops, I hope we’ll come to be known as innovators. I’ll be very interested in hearing your thoughts about what we’re doing.

In a surprise turn of events, Lou Aronica, one half of the new publishing company The Story Plant, has decided to join us here at Fiction Scribe. He will be talking about himself, his partner Peter Miller, their publishing company The Story Plant and much more. Please join me in welcoming him to Fiction Scribe.

The fascinating thing about coming back to publishing after nine years away is that you get to see all of the changes to the inner workings in one shot. What’s intriguing is that not much has changed – everything has just gotten harder. There are fewer accounts to sell to, fewer ways to draw attention to your books at the point of sale, and, marginally, fewer consumers.

This is especially true for a publisher focused on fiction. The fiction market was never easy, but there always seemed to be some baseline for any book released by a major publisher. Publishers could certainly lose money publishing a novel (especially if they overpaid for the rights or overspent on marketing), but they had to make a lot of mistakes to have an outright flop. That’s not true any longer.

More and more novels are selling fewer and fewer copies now. This has led publishers and booksellers to believe that they need to focus their attention on a select number of novels, either guaranteed bestsellers or “blockbusters” by new writers. The former makes perfect sense; the latter is very scary because consumers tend to come to new writers slowly and tend not to buy these books in their first few weeks on sale. When these potential blockbusters fail, they advance the notion that consumers don’t care about new fiction.

My sense is that fiction consumers are waiting for a redefinition of their relationship with publishers. They’re asking for new ways to get to know writers before they pay to read them. In many ways, this is similar to what has happened in the music industry. Big record companies and big music stores became increasingly focused on promoting a limited number of acts. The consumer either wasn’t impressed by this selection or didn’t get enough time to become familiar with the artists.

Then the web made it easier to sample new artists (and yes, steal their music, if you were of a mind to do so) and a new generation of musicians began to develop followings. These followings didn’t necessarily make them platinum sellers, but it gave them a foundation upon which they could grow.

The web obviously affords writers and publishers a similar opportunity. We’re still at the nascent stages here. This isn’t as simple as posting a portion of a novel online and having everyone show up. Readers expect a different relationship with the writers they admire than music fans expect with theirs.

I think many of the successful novelists to emerge in the future will be the result of a long pre-release courtship between writer and readership. This is a complex process that involves many intermediaries. It requires both publishers and writers to re-think the timing of the publishing process and the level of participation required.

Everything is harder now for novelists and their publishers than it was nine years ago. My feeling, though, is that we’re on the verge of something that might not make conditions easier, but will make them better.

In a surprise turn of events, Lou Aronica, one half of the new publishing company The Story Plant, has decided to join us here at Fiction Scribe. He will be talking about himself, his partner Peter Miller, their publishing company The Story Plant and much more. Please join me in welcoming him to Fiction Scribe.

In yesterday’s post, I talked about the new publishing house I started with Peter Miller, The Story Plant. Right now, we’re only publishing fiction. Why? For the same reason people try to climb Everest, I suppose. Fiction (especially fiction by new writers) is much more difficult to publish than nonfiction is, but we truly believe we have a feel for it, and we genuinely love great commercial storytelling.

We’re going to keep the house small. Our plans right now are to grow to a dozen new titles (along with paperback reprints of the previous year’s titles) by 2010. I think we’re likely to stay at that level, because I don’t think we can do the kind of careful publishing we’re trying to do if we get larger than that. Such a small list means we’re going to be ridiculously picky about what we acquire.

What we’re looking for, first and foremost, is fiction the moves us emotionally. We want books with great characters and relationships. Storytelling is important, but storytelling without relatable characters is empty. We want every book on the Story Plant list to include characters that readers can make an emotional connection with (even when that connection is not a positive one).

Beyond that, we’re looking for writers committed to writing for their audience and doing so at least once a year. Consistency is critical in author development. As a writer, I completely understand the desire to follow one’s muse. I encourage that, as long as a writer has multiple outlets for his or her work.

However, if you write a contemporary fantasy one time, an international thriller the next, an historical romance after that, and then a cozy mystery, and you do all of this under one name, you’ll have an extraordinarily hard time finding a loyal readership. This is not to suggest in any way that a writer needs to write the same book repeatedly to be successful. What a writer needs to do is deliver similar experiences from book to book.

As I’m writing this, Nicholas Sparks is #1 on the New York Times hardcover fiction bestseller list. His books range in their stories, but they are all romantic, they are all highly emotional, and they all feature interesting male protagonists.

Beyond that, The Story Plant is looking for well-written fiction that has the potential to sell overseas and in Hollywood. That, I realize, is a very broad description; intentionally so. We have a model for the kinds of writers we want on our list. My guess, though, is that the books themselves will surprise us and we wouldn’t have it any other way.

In a surprise turn of events, Lou Aronica, one half of the new publishing company The Story Plant, has decided to join us here at Fiction Scribe. He will be talking about himself, his partner Peter Miller, their publishing company The Story Plant and much more. Please join me in welcoming him to Fiction Scribe.

First, I would like to thank JM for inviting me to do a little series of posts over the next few days about my new publishing house, The Story Plant.

I’ve been in the publishing business a very long time, starting as an assistant in the Managing Editorial department at Bantam in 1979. I started my first imprint, the science fiction and fantasy line Bantam Spectra, in 1984 and I went on to become Deputy Publisher of Bantam and then Publisher of Berkley and Avon before leaving that side of the business in 1999. Since then, I have been writing (two novels and eight works of nonfiction) and running an editorial development company, The Fiction Studio.

But publishing always called to me. Sometimes it called to me when a publisher failed to do something on one of my books that I thought made excellent publishing sense. Sometimes it called to me when I visited a publishing house and got the buzz of being involved in an exciting project (special thanks to the people at Viking for the way they’re treating The Element, coming from Sir Ken Robinson and me in January).

Mostly, though, publishing called to me because it was part of my DNA. I loved working with writers, editing manuscripts, developing long-term publishing plans, and figuring out the best way to package and market a writer. I could do pieces of this with my writing and with The Fiction Studio, but I couldn’t do all of it.

My partner Peter Miller and I decided to start a small but ambitious independent publishing house because we felt we could offer something that most publishers weren’t offering – a home for commercial novelists who were looking to develop their audiences over a number of books.

Publishing commercial fiction is a roll of the dice and most publishers have understandably scaled back on this and approach new authors a book at a time. This is a prudent strategy, but our feeling is that it makes it exponentially harder for a writer to develop momentum. Therefore, we built The Story Plant’s publishing model around the concept of starting each writer on our list with a multi-book publishing plan.

We do everything we do for our books, from our editorial planning to our marketing planning, with an eye toward developing an audience for the writer over time. I’ve had a great deal of experience with this over the years and I think it is the best way to build a new company.

Our first two books have just gone on sale. American Quest by Sienna Skyy (www.americanquestbook.com) is a contemporary fantasy with big themes and great characters. Capitol Reflections by Jonathan Javitt (www.capitolreflections.com) is a medical thriller by a Washington insider who knows his material and has built a thrilling scenario around very real medical facts. We have five more books scheduled for the spring. Our goal is to get to a dozen hardcovers (along with reprints of the previous year’s hardcovers) by 2010. I’ll tell you more about it tomorrow.