by Lehua Parker | Apr 10, 2013 | The Business of Writing
I’m a book and movie junkie. I gobble them up like potato chips. Triple movie marathons on a Friday night? Check. Stay up all night reading a book? Double-check.
And that’s just in the last week.
People who love stories often debate which medium told a particular story best—the film or the book. Most of the time if a story starts out as a book and transitions into a movie, the book’s better. However, I can think of a few movies, Forrest Gump, Gone with the Wind, The Silence of the Lambs, and Jaws, where I thought the film was better than the book, the exceptions, perhaps, that prove the rule.
You can’t really talk about books that started out as movies, then came out as books. They are a travesty of nature. Name one that worked better than the movie.
Told ya.
Whenever I go to a film based on a book I’ve loved, there’s always that moment of dread, the same moment that occurs when I’m about to meet an old friend I haven’t seen for years. How much have they changed? How much have I changed? Will we still connect?
It’s the kind of tension that you can cut with a butter knife—easiest to do when you have it in your hand ready to carve out a chunk of butter in preparation of sticking it in a cup and nuking it so you can pour the melted goodness over your freshly popped bowl of corn.
Yeah, even when we’re talking about stories, it’s still about the food.
Some of this year’s film offerings are based on well-known novels: Ender’s Game, The Great Gatsby, The Wizard of Oz, The Host, Catching Fire, and The Hobbit to name a few. Which are you looking forward to? Any you dread seeing on the silver screen?
by Lehua Parker | Apr 3, 2013 | The Business of Writing
Once you’ve gotten a query letter past an editor or two and a manuscript to publication, other writers want to know the secret to your success. I was recently asked to give advice to people working on query letters. Based on the query letters we workshopped, it seems that unpublished writers often confuse a query letter with a book synopsis or resume. While I don’t pretend to be an expert on query letters, here are a few things I try to keep in mind.
1) When seeking representation or publishing the first series of gatekeepers you need to get through are not the target audience for your book. You have to speak their language, which can be quite different from the language, style, and tone you use with your potential reader. I think of it as red vs. white flags. The more white flags you can wave in their faces, the higher your chances of going on. Save the complex critical analysis of your literary themes for author interviews and conference talks. For a query, think of your manuscript in terms of a 30 second movie ad on TV rather than a three minute theatrical trailer.
2) While editors wax poetic about the craft of writing, the art of storytelling, and the next great American novel, in a query letter they aren’t looking for the next Pulitzer Prize, but a reason to look at the manuscript. Their goal is to sell books at a profit. Speak to the banker, not the muse or awards committee.
3) Writers generally think the purpose of a query letter is to sell a manuscript; it’s really much more. It’s selling you as an author. It takes at least one and sometimes two or more years from acquisition to print. Publishers want to know if they can work with you through the process. The theory here is that a good editor can always fix a book, but no one can fix a difficult author.
Some points along this vein:
- Can you follow directions, i.e. give them what they asked for in three paragraphs: hook, micro-synopsis, writer’s bio?
- Do you know your audience? The idea is that good authors can identify their target audience readily—as well as have the ability to explain why their book will appeal to this reader and not that reader wandering over there in the cookbook section.
- Is it clear to the editor how your book is similar to and different from other successful titles in your genre? Also, does the editor believe you know this information?
- How familiar are you with your market? Do you seem to have a grasp of what’s considered publishable in terms of length, style, theme, and hook?
- Are you marketable? Your query letter gives potential editors a lot of clues about whether you can speak intelligently about writing and books and can build an audience. If an editor is interested, he/she will check out your Facebook, Twitter, and blog posts to get a better feel for you as an author long before they read word one of the manuscript.
Final tip: as an author have some public social media in place before sending out query letters. Your friends-only Facebook account showcasing your debauched college days or public Pinterest boards of kittens and cupcake recipes don’t count. At the very least, start a public fan page on Facebook and create a blog using a free service like WordPress and post a couple of things for editors to find if they look. The time to build a social network platform begins the moment you think, “Hmmm. This is pretty good. Wonder if anyone else would be interested in it?”
I admit, that’s a lot to cover in a one page letter. These are my opinions; what are some of yours? What do you think successful query letters have in common?
by Lehua Parker | Mar 27, 2013 | The Business of Writing
One of the great things about being a writer today is having choices about how your story gets into the hands of a reader. It’s also one of the toughest and most confusing. When writers ask me what’s the best way to publish a book, I have to tell them that the answer isn’t one-size fits all. It depends on your ambitions, reasons for writing, and how you define success. Someone who sees publishing as business first, art second, is going to make very different choices than someone who writes for writing’s sake. I believe every writer needs an overall plan; I think of it as a business plan, but it doesn’t need to be as formal or in-depth as something you’d create for a bank loan.
The following are questions I encourage every poor soul silly enough to ask me for writing advice to answer for themselves. Take the time to ponder and answer honestly because the your responses will determine the direction you take in everything from a query letter to a final edit. The key here is that there are no right or wrong answers, only honest ones with no judgment intended.
Questions to Ask Yourself
- Why are you seeking publication? Is it to share a message, make money, fame, personal accomplishment, hold a book in your hand, or some other driving force? Why is it important to publish?
- When will you be happy as an author? NY Times Bestseller list? 5,000 copies sold? Your book on the shelf in the local library? What defines success to you?
- Who are you writing for? Yourself? A small group of like-minded people? Intellectuals? Mass-market thriller readers? Your family and friends? Other writers or literary enthusiasts?
- What are you willing to do to make your book successful? Extreme rewrites to get almost 200,000 words to 80,000-90,000? Commit to spending hours of valuable writing time building a social network platform instead of writing novels? Attend professional development meetings? Network with other publishing influencers and pundits? Stand in a mall for five hours a week at a cart with your book on it? Sit at a table in a book store every Saturday and talk to people as they come by? Drive to stores with your books in the trunk?
- How much control do you want to have over your books? How to do feel about changing what you think is the story to what an editor says will sell? Is it really art or business to you?
Something else to remember is that these answers aren’t set in stone; they can change as you and your experience as an author changes. You can even have a different business plan for each work you write. But have a plan.
What are your thoughts? What kinds of things do you consider when you look at something you’ve written?
by Lehua Parker | Mar 19, 2013 | Blog Tours, Guest Posts, & Interviews, Jolly Fish Press Titles & Authors, MG/YA Fiction
This guest post comes from Berk Washburn, one half of the Brothers Washburn, authors of the Dimensions in Death Series. (I reviewed their book Pitch Green–you can see it here.) I asked the guys what it was like to collaborate with a brother. This was Berk’s response.
Please don’t get me wrong. My brother doesn’t need a keeper, though sometimes my wife says that I do, and if he did need a keeper, he has a bunch of sisters who would be happy to take the job. We have 7 sisters who have been trying to keep us out of trouble for a long time. We are two of 9 sons (16 children total) who grew up in the Mojave desert near Death Valley. Our father was a dentist, who built up a practice in Trona, California, a small mining town. While we were growing up, he was the only dentist in town. As the good citizens of Trona mined the minerals of Searles Valley, Dad mined their teeth.
When, in turn, Andy and I went off to college, we left the desert and never looked backed. We thought we were done with Trona forever, but couldn’t have been more wrong. For about 35 years, I was a business lawyer working for international commercial finance companies in Ohio, Michigan and Colorado. For about 25 years, Andy was a trial practice lawyer working in Southern California. While we have kept our law licenses current, we are now writing fiction full time. Though some would say that’s what we did as lawyers, this is different.
As lawyers, we were always solving other people’s problems. After we each moved to Colorado, we talked for some time about starting a business together where we only had to solve our own problems. We both have many years of formal writing experience, and we have always been story tellers, first to our siblings, then to our own children (I have 8 kids and Andy has 6 kids), and now to our grandkids (who are increasing exponentially in number). Scary stories have always been a family specialty. A few years ago, I started writing a young adult science fiction series, so when Andy also tried his hand at writing fiction, it didn’t take long for us to come together as The Brothers Washburn on a young adult horror series. The tale is of course set in Trona, California, which is the perfect setting for a horror series.
As a child, Andy loved Dr. Seuss, then later, A Collection of Short Stories, by O. Henry was a favorite. As a teenager, he was fascinated with The Illustrated Man, by Bradbury. Growing up, I was on the lookout for anything by Edgar Rice Burroughs, and as a teenager, I was always searching for new and interesting sci-fi writers. It is no surprise, then, that we are currently writing both a YA horror series as well as a separate YA sci-fi series. We find that once we start telling a horror or sci-fi story, the bounds of the story are limited only by our own creativity and imagination–though everything we write has to be grandchild approved.
As brothers, we get along well, and have a healthy level of mutual self-respect, so we can freely share ideas and challenge each other without worrying about egos. We are more creative when we are bouncing ideas off each other and discussing a general storyline, but we actually write separately, and then confer later on what we have been doing. Though we sometimes disagree on specific wording, there is usually some friendly give and take as we consider alternatives, and then we can agree quickly on the final wording. We both appreciate the different perspective and skills that the other brings to the joint process.
In key ways, we are different in how we approach a story. Andy used to be a planner (a habit he got from writing like an attorney), but in fiction writing, he no longer likes to plan ahead. He likes to develop his characters, and then let them take the story wherever it is going to go. On the other hand, I am definitely still a planner. I am always making lists and outlines, not only for the current story, but for future stories as well.
In addition, Andy doesn’t like having other people around him when he is writing, especially when he is creating new material. There is no real reason for this, just sometimes people bug him. In my case, I have to organize my surrounding work environment. Once everything around me is in order, then I can detach from the world and write.
If Andy hits a tough spot in the story development, it is almost always because of outside distractions. If he can get rid of the distractions around him, he can keep writing. If I hit a tough spot, I don’t try to force it. I stop, leave the house, pick up some fast food, and then I can come back refreshed and ready to move the story forward. I find that fresh ideas just come naturally when I’m eating–Chipotle is always good.
Background research is important to both of us in two areas: theoretical science and local Trona geography. This series is an ongoing horror story based on principals of science rather than on demons, devils or magical creatures, so some understanding of the extremes of scientific theory is necessary and fun. But, Dimensions in Death is not a science fiction series with a few scary scenes. It is horror, suspense and fright in a fast pace narrative with a little science by way of explanation, sprinkled on for spice, as the truth is gradually discovered by our heroes in the story. Separately, the local geography in the story plays a critical role in setting the mood of the tale. Trona, California is a real place in this world located in a desolate region of the Mojave Desert by Death Valley, and we try to keep the series settings as real as possible.
The general outline for Pitch Green came together one evening in November of 2010. We were attending a writer’s seminar together in Manhattan and listening to panel discussions by top literary agents. As we rode the subway from one end-of-the-line stop across town to the opposite end-of-the-line stop, and then back again, we mapped out the basic elements we would need to expand a favorite childhood scary story into a full-length novel. Andy wrote the first rough draft, and then I took it over to edit and expand the tale. In the writing of the first book, the ground work was laid for both the sequels and the prequels of that series.
In Pitch Green, we meet two teenagers, Camm and Cal, who are destined by their wit, pluck and luck (not always good) to become the balancing force in this world against predators that keep showing up around an old mansion, which is apparently something more than just a mansion. Our heroes must make a stand against the mansion’s guardians, any visitors who might want to come through the mansion in search of easy prey, and the forces of the U.S. Federal Government, who are using the mansion to access unlimited natural resources. Camm is the brains, Cal is the muscle and together they make a formidable team when they decide to work together. They are joined by an FBI agent, Special Agent Linda Allen, who is smart, resourceful and not easily intimidated by those protecting the government’s secrets.
In this first book of the Dimensions in Death series, our heroes are introduced to the mansion and an other-worldly guardian while being hurled from one scene of horror to the next. They barely have time to catch their breath or scratch the surface of what is happening, and they do not understand the nature of what they are really facing. Though their intentions are good, by the end of the first book, they have left a doorway wide open and unguarded. Pitch Green is the opening act of a long and complex tale in which Camm, Cal and Agent Allen will be explorers in the dimensions in death.
Thanks for stopping by! Pitch Green is available as a hardback and eBook from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, iTunes, and wherever fine books are sold.
Connect with The Brothers Washburn
Blog: http://thebrotherswashburn.blogspot.com/
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/TheBrothersWashburn
Twitter: @BrosWashburn
by Lehua Parker | Mar 13, 2013 | Adult Fiction, Blog Tours, Guest Posts, & Interviews, Jolly Fish Press Titles & Authors
Liesel Hill’s debut novel, Persistence of Vision, is available! At the tail end of her blog tour, I asked her about her experience. These were her thoughts.
Thanks so much for having me here today, Lehua! As my first blog tour, spreading word of my debut novel, Persistence of Vision, draws to a close, I find myself reflecting on it a great deal. Have I learned lessons? Oh, you betcha. Some good (the questions interviewers ask can give you new insight into your own story) and bad ones (not all bloggers are as dependable as you’d hope) but overall, I’m happy to say that I’ve had a great experience and have a positive outlook for future tours.
I thought today I’d share a few pearls of wisdom I’ve gleaned along the way.
1) Reminder emails are your friends! If you have a ridiculously long tour (more than a month long) many people will probably forget about their tour stop. As much as I wish all people were meticulous as I am about dates and record-keeping, people are human and even I let things slip through my fingers sometimes. Wake up to reminders.
2) Brainstorm a list of things to guest post about and don’t agree to more guest posts than you can come up with. Otherwise, you’ll end up writing quite a few guest posts on the same subject. Also, don’t agree to more than a handful of author interviews unless you know the questions are unique beforehand. Otherwise, you will also end up answering a lot of the same questions. In short, you get to know yourself VERY well. 😀
3) A little kindness and common courtesy, especially where bloggers hosting you are concerned goes a long way. ‘Nuff said.
4) When you’re feeling bogged down by writing, reading, editing, blog tour posts and regular posts, and dozens of emails every morning, well, dark chocolate can really perk you up.
So, if you ever find yourself embarking on a long, intimidating blog tour, make sure to prepare for lots of (friendly and tasteful) reminder emails, a plethora of blogging ideas, an awesome attitude, and plenty of endorphin-inducing sweets.
A special thank you to Lehua and all those who’ve been so helpful to me on my first blog tour. You’ll never know how much I appreciate it. Here’s to debut novels and the lengths we go to to get them read. Cheers!
Persistence of Vision, Book 1 of Interchron, written by Liesel K. Hill and published by Tate Publishing is available in paperback and eBook. Click here for the link.
Connect with Liesel
Blog: http://lkhill.blogspot.com/
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/LieselKHill?ref=ts&fref=ts
Twitter: @lkhillbooks
by Lehua Parker | Feb 26, 2013 | Adult Fiction, Blog Tours, Guest Posts, & Interviews, Jolly Fish Press Titles & Authors, The Business of Writing
This week’s blog is an interview with debut author Adrienne Monson whose book Dissension, Book 1 in The Blood Inheritance Trilogy, was published by Jolly Fish Press on Feb. 23, 2013. It’s available at Barnes & Noble, Amazon, and other fine bookstores.
Okay, Adrienne, let’s start with the tough questions. If you knew you were going to be stranded on a tropical island a la Survivor, which five books would you sneak in your backpack and which five essentials would you kick out to bring them?
This is a tough one, because I’d want to take five different series with me, not just five books. So after thoughtful consideration, I guess I’d go with the following:
- Ender’s Shadow, by Orson Scott Card
- Ransom, by Julie Garwood
- Pale Demon, by Kim Harrison
- The China Bride, by Mary Jo Putney
- Knife of Dreams, by Robert Jordan
As for essentials I’d replace them with, that’s also tough because it depends on what you consider essentials. So here’s what I consider essentials I could live without in order to enjoy a great book:
- Makeup (Who cares if you’re stranded on an island anyway, right?)
- Floss (I’m sure I can figure out a way to make leaves into string or something.)
- Hair accessories (As long as I have a brush, I don’t need anything else.)
- Phone (I doubt I’ll get reception anyway)
- Extra shirts (I’ll just wash the one I’m wearing.)
Yeah, make-up would be the first thing to go for me, too. It’s a great day when I don’t have to put mascara on! Also, thanks for recommendations; there are a couple of books on your list I haven’t read yet that must be awesome. Now if I could only get stranded somewhere with books and chocolate and no cell phone…
With all the many hats you wear—Mom and wife being just two of them—how do you find the time to write?
Don’t remind me! It’s definitely something you have to MAKE time for. If you’re waiting for free time to fall into your lap, it won’t. But I utilize sleeping time. My kids have an early bed time, so I do most of my work then. I also have a fabulous husband that’s more than willing to take the kids out for an hour or two while I’m trying to meet deadlines. But mostly, I just stay up later than the rest of my family to write. Yes, I lose sleep and am looking forward to the day when my youngest will go to school, but I make it work. 🙂
I’m a night owl, too. Do you work on one writing project at a time or do you have several irons in the fire?
I try (try!) to stay focused on the one that needs to be turned into the publisher next, but if I get ideas for my next WIP, I will definitely take the time to write notes on that novel so I don’t forget.
Vampires vs. Sharks. Who’d win the smackdown? No, seriously, our series both have a dark side. How do you tap into your inner blood sucker?
Gotta say vampires, here, Lehua! But I am biased. 😉 This question is ironic to me because I am a fun, upbeat kind of woman. I am good at thinking positively and don’t really like watching gory movies. However, I obviously have a dark side that emerges when I’m writing. If you’ve read my short stories on my website, you would think I’m seriously twisted. And, I guess I am – my darkness just comes out in an artistic way. As far as how I tap into that, I don’t really. It just rises to the surface as I write. Sometimes, I even disturb myself to the point that I need to watch a comedy after I’ve written a particularly dark scene. (Don’t worry readers, I’m not graphic in my writing or anything, but in my head, I see all the gory details.)
Reminds me of a story I once read about a man who made gruesome art, but was kind. Villagers complained about his art, so he starting making cherubs and became really mean. Maybe we’re letting our inner demons out through our books!
Dissension, Book 1 of the Blood Inheritance Trilogy, was published Feb. 23, 2013. Books 2 and 3 are titled Defiance and Deliverance. What can we look forward to in book 2?
I really don’t want to give much away. I will tell you that both Leisha and Samantha experience a little bit of romance and that they figure out where the prophecy child is. There’s still plenty of action scenes that I hope will keep you turning the pages. That’s all I will give. The rest, you must find out yourself. 🙂
Arrgh! And for me patience is not a virtue! Sure you won’t take a bribe? No? You’re really going to make me wait for book 2? Sigh.
Thanks for stopping by, Adrienne. Now get back to writing!
Adrienne Monson, winner of the 2009 Oquirrh’s Writer’s Contest and the Utah RWA’s Great Beginnings, has immersed herself in different kinds of fiction since a young age. She lives in Utah with her husband and two kids, whom she loves with all her heart. She loves Zumba, kickboxing, and weightlifting. She also enjoys yummy foods, so she won’t look like a workout guru.
Keep up to date with Adrienne’s events and writing:
Blog: http://www.adriennemonson.com/
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/adriennemonson
Twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/adriennemonson
Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6584385.Adrienne_Monson
To read my review of Dissension, click here.
