Another new publishing path?

In this ever-changing world of becoming a published author, it seems there's never a shortage of new terminology to keep up on.

The newest craze is hybrid publishing. Okay, it's not really a new craze. It's actually just another term for a craze we've been talking about all along - anything that is not traditional publishing, or self-publishing.  

Brian Klems of Writers Digest says, "Hybrid publishing is not a term all publishers or authors in this space use; other terms that describe this type of publishing include 'author-assisted publishing, independent publishing, partnership publishing, co-publishing, and entrepreneurial publishing.' Hybrid publishing is the umbrella term."

Brooke Warner publisher of She Writes Press, president of Warner Coaching Inc., and author of Green Light Your Book, says, "For people who like to think in black-and-white terms, the hybrid publishing and self-publishing space upends their sense of order. Without hybrid, there are just traditional publishing and self-publishing. Black and White. You get paid to publish or you pay to get published. The hybrid publishing space is not for black-and-white thinkers. 


Click here to read Brooke's full article.  

You can't have peas tomorrow.

Plant. Cultivate. Harvest.

It’s spring – a time of planting and growing. A time that just happens to line up with another

rejection letter on my book. It’s been four months and just over 50% of the publishers, and agents that I've sent my manuscript to have sent back “thanks, but no thanks” letters.

Since I am not one to dwell on bad news, all I can do is take what I've learned over the last year and add it to the story that, five years from now will accompany my success – a story that will be much stronger because it’s full of hard work and heartache.

After all, we all know that every story needs a middle. “Once upon a time there was a girl who had instant success.” Is neither compelling, inspirational, nor realistic. The problem is in this world of instant gratification we often forget that the middle is the most important part. Anything worth doing is worth doing well – and that means that we cannot skip the all important step of cultivation.

• No one would expect that a seed planted on Monday would give you peas on Tuesday – you have to wait.
• No one expects to walk into a fancy restaurant, order steak and lobster and have it on the table within five minutes.
• No one expects a five year old to enter Kindergarten in September and graduate from high school the following May.

So why do we think that everything we want in life should happen now? 

• I need to send a letter from Chicago to someone in New York. Pony express is long gone and the train just isn't fast enough. (enter air mail, 1920 via USPS) 
• I need to talk to someone right now – someone who doesn’t live in my house (enter the “long range” telephone around 1876) 
• It’s January, I need oranges, but I live in Canada. (enter the food trucking industry) I have food, but it's cold (enter the microwave, 1946) I don’t want to make dinner but I need to eat now! (Enter the fast food industry.) 
• I need to know where my friends are now! (Enter Facebook.) I need to know what Kim Kardashian is thinking at this moment (enter Twitter)…

Clearly we've been working towards this point of instant gratification for hundreds of years – and more so in the last 60 years than ever before. But now that it’s here, is it possible that we've lost sight of the benefits of patience and hard work? Of having goals and working towards them for years instead of minutes? 

You can’t have peas tomorrow if you plant them today and any story worth telling has a middle. 

The middle is the best part 

Today is your "middle." Enjoy it, learn from it, and when you get to the end, look back on it with pride.

Co-Publishing

To Publish Together. 

The options that exist for getting your book out into the world are growing.

let's review:

There is the modern way of self publishing – there are many companies to choose from, you are responsible for all of your own illustrations, editing, marketing, but you retain 100% of the rights to your book. Usually digital only or printed on demand (when an order comes in, a book is printed and shipped)

There is the traditional way of submitting your manuscript to an agent. That agent represents your book and often prefers to work with a separate illustrator. They take control of the editing and layout and work with you to strengthen the plot and rework any sections that may need to be refined. For that, they take a cut of sales. They may or may not help with marketing efforts depending on the agency.

There is the less traditional way, but still very selective way of submitting your manuscript to a publisher directly.  Similar to working with an agent, they work with you on editing, layout and plot structure. There is less marketing and and in most cases, they take less of a smaller portion of the sales. The large majority of publishers choose to only work with agents. That vastly limits the options of publishers that you can submit a manuscript to directly.

And the one I most recently ran into, co-publishing. I’ll get back to this in a bit… but first, a story.

At the end of 2014 I buried myself in research and narrowed down a list of publishers in the US that might be a good fit. The publishing agency had to be:

• Willing to look at unagented submissions (I do not have an agent after all)
• looking for beginning chapter books (such is my current manuscript)
• open to topic content with elements of fantasy mixed with the struggles of youthfulness. (Pumpkin Lou is both fantasy and a kid) 

 

I came up with a list of eight.

So before Christmas, I sent out my eight manuscripts – some via email, some via snail mail, but all with very specific (and very different) submission guidelines.

Six days later, I got an email from Renaissance House. 

“We like your manuscript, we feel it has a lot of promise, we want to work with you, but…” 

I know I was excited too!

“… we aren't accepting new projects at this time. However our co-publishing partner is http://laredopublishing.com/ . Would you be interested in working with them?”

Still exciting. 

"Perhaps." I told them… let me ask a million questions and see where this ends up.

I learned that co-publishing is supposedly the best of both worlds – you get the control of your story and the fast turnaround time of self-publishing.  But you also get a professional editor, layout and graphics department, and possibly illustrator depending on the type of book you are publishing.

All for the low, low price of…?  Well in this case it was $2400

You do still have to be accepted by a publisher, so not every Random Joe off the street has this option. But at the same time, publishers can clearly be less picky about who they are selecting because there’s not quite as much time or effort at stake like there is for traditionally published books.

The question that I never got a clear answer to is that of “Returnability”.

What is returnability? Great question.  Let’s say you are Barns and Noble - book store giant. You have thousands of new books at your fingertips every day. How do you possibly narrow down which ones to put on your shelves?  One quick way to shorten the list is the “Returnability Guarantee.” If the book you choose does not fly off your shelves at break neck speed, those books need to be returned to the publisher ASAP. You are wasting useful shelf space!

This means that if the books cannot be returned, Barns and Noble will not risk putting them on their shelves. Or any other large books store for that matter. They may offer them online – because they don’t have to keep track of any physical stock - but that's the best you'll ever do.

With self-publishing, the publisher does not ever want books back. They are not in the business of helping their authors get books sold, so they do not care if your book flops. You can often pay extra for the option, but it’s usually a lot extra. From what I can gather co-publishing falls into the same non-returnability category.  This may not be true of all contracts, but if you find yourself with a co-publishing offer, you now at least know to ask the question.

Needless to say, I turned down the offer from Renaissance House. I have set my standards high and refuse to give in just quite yet. 

It’s coming up on one year since I first submitted the picture book manuscript of this same story. It has gone through major revisions, lengthened by about 9000 words and changed titles twice. 

I have learned a lot, and when I do finally get this book published, it will definitely be because of hard work and perseverance.  And that in itself makes for a good story – and hopefully an interesting blog.

Thanks for reading!

Jay Z and Dr Seuss

A few weeks ago my fairly eloquent five-year-old was babbling away nonsense word after nonsense word. All of a sudden, my almost two-year-old was repeating every nonsense word she heard. The two of them were having a great time. Harmless enough right? My first reaction was to shout out something like:

      "We only use real words in this house. How is your little sister going to learn the right words for things if she only hears babble?"

OR

     "Only babies use babble words - are you a baby?" 

But before I could spout out a single brilliant word of parenting frustration, my husband cut in.

"Only Jay Z was able to make millions off of nonsense words.  Do you think you're Jay Z?" 

For those of you who may not remember this gem:
        H to the izzo-O V to the izz-A
        Fo' sheezy my neezy keep my arms so freezy
                                    -Jay Z

yup. made him millions. 

Of course my daughter had no idea what her father was talking about and went back to singing her nonsense song, but it got me to thinking. Is there something to the nonsense words in life? 

Dr Seuss definitely thought so.  

     Did you ever have the feeling there's a WASKET in your BASKET? 
     Or a NUREAU in your BUREAU?
     Or a WOSET in your CLOSET? 
     Sometimes I feel quite CERTAIN there's a JERTAIN in the CURTAIN. 
     Sometimes I have a feeling there's a ZLOCK behind the CLOCK. 
     And that ZELF up on the SHELF! I have talked to him myself. 
                                   -Dr. Seuss  from There's a Wocket in my Pocket.



I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living, it's a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope. Which what I do, and that enables you to laugh at life's realities. 
-Dr. Seuss


My personal favorite is definitely the tweetle beetles. 

And shockingly enough, I am not the first person to ask this question. Here's a great blog post about how nonsense language helps increase reading comprehension. If you don't want to read the entire (very intersting) post, here's a bit stolen from the middle:

...The point is that creating nonsense words in verse is FUN while being an excellent exercise in language, sentence structure and comprehension. This is particularly important as kids are developing vocabulary and comprehension skills.  So often, when they come to words they can't read or don't quite recognize, readers can use context to help them.  This is the power of playing with nonsense words.  By understanding how the location of a word in a sentence can tell readers if it is an action, a name, a description can help them better figure out its meaning.  Nonsense can be used to teach kids the power of context, rhyme, alliteration, and sentence structure. 
It also makes language learning more fun and less intimidating.

The #1 thing that is great about made up language:

Read that last sentence again - it makes language more fun and less intimidating. 

Let's face it - language is hard. It's so unfortunate that something so necessary is so much work to learn. I would love to speak ten languages, but let's be honest. That sounds like a lot of work so I probably never will. 

The #2 thing that is great about made up language:

 For all you writers out there, nonsense words can help build the world that your

characters live in. Just think of Harry Potter - how many made up words, names, sports, etc. are included in the crazy world of Hogwarts?  I would guess thousands.
These words help help define the magical space that is not initially familiar to readers. But once defined, you are transported into that world and part of the "secret club" that is Hogwarts. 

Or Star Trek - anyone out there speak Klingon? Yeah, that's not a real language... or at least it didn't start out as a real language.

Language created for a fantasy world can help break your reader out of their daily reality and into the "reality" of your story. It helps your readers accept the otherwise unexplained.

Still not buying it? Consider the made up words to be a foreign language. There are thousands

of books that use foreign words throughout a text to help bring the reader into the country or time that the story takes place in.  These are not made up words, but are still initially unfamiliar to the reader and serve the same purpose as the made up words of the wizarding-world.  
Shakespeare did it, and so does Dora the Explorer.

So I guess the lesson here is: babble away my child, babble away!

How are you creative?

Just over a decade ago I went in for a job interview. In the end it was down to me and one other person who I knew was far more qualified. Although I would have loved to work for this organization, I did not have high hopes. I'm convinced this fact alone made the interview

more relaxing than it probably should have been. I walked out feeling great about the conversation I had just had with a couple of higher-ups except for one less-than-shining moment.  They asked the best question that I have ever been asked in an interview. A question that I believe tells you volumes about a person and how they view themselves. If we all asked each other this question on a first date, we'd save so much time trying to figure out if we were compatible or not... okay, maybe that's a little extreme, but you see where I"m going with this...

Unfortunately I'd fail at my own quiz because even after a decade, I still don't have a good answer. 

Q: How are you creative? 

If you're first reaction is, "I'm not.", you are wrong.  Everyone Is Creative. 

Some people are artistically creative; they draw, they paint, they sculpt.
Some people are musically creative; they play, they sing, they dance.  
Some people are creative with words; they are writers, they are public speakers.

 
Those are the obvious ones.

I'm pretty sure my answer in the interview consisted of something along the lines of, 
      "I am very visual. um, I am kind of an artist, I guess. I can take colors and put them together... Oh and also I am a creative problem solver."  
I should have ended the statement with something like, "Was that the right answer? are you happy? did I do a good job? can I call my mommy now and ask her to tell me I did a good job?"   

Not the most eloquent moment of my life to be sure. 

As the years go on, and the more people I meet, the more I realize that the world needs creativity of all kinds.  
Some people are the most creative child care givers I have ever met. As a mother, I really, really (really, really) love those people. I know stay-at-home moms who teach and occupy their children 365 days a year AND they love it.  I will be very honest here and tell you that as much as I love my kids, I am a better person because I leave them at daycare every day. I am NOT that kind of creative.

Some people are creative with electrical innovations.  I work with some incredibly smart people who could spend 10-12+ hours a day tinkering with electrical bits and pieces trying to turn them into the next big thing that will make us all a ton of money and put our kids through college. I am NOT that kind of creative.

Some people are creative people-people. I know salesmen, for example who can talk anyone into buying anything. They know how to read people, how people think, how they reason and then, those salesmen present a creative and surprisingly personal sales pitch.  I am NOT that kind of creative.

My suggestion to each of you is to figure out how you are creative and use that to your advantage in life. 
A wise man once said, "If you are going to be a dig ditcher, be the best dig ditcher you can be!"  
And although that's not exactly the message I'm trying to get across here, it is still relevant. 

Find something you are good at, find something you love, and do it to your full potential. This however is not a self help blog. 
                      So writing junkies (whoever you may be) 
                                                                     how does this pertain to you? 
Well, the easy answer is, you are a writer. You are creative with words. Once you acknowledge that you are a writer (often easier said than done), you're there! Nice work. 

Feel free to call it a day, go buy yourself something nice. 

Another possible answer is: when you are creating your characters, consider how THEY are creative. If they are creative problem solvers, use that to help resolve physical conflict. (Think Macgyver, a toothpick, a green banana, and half a fanny-pack.) 

If they are creative people-readers, use that to build and break relationships. (Think Frank Underwood manipulating the world to get what he wants.)

If they are creative artists, use that to help inspire other characters to be more artistic, well rounded people (or dogs, or monkeys, or trolls... whoever your characters may be.) 

My point is: creativity is a powerful personality trait that often goes un-analyzed. 

Unfortunately, a decade later I have yet to come up with an answer for myself that I am personally happy with.  Maybe I'll make that a New-Year's resolution for 2016.  (2015 is already booked with things like, exercise more and be more patient.)

Good luck recognizing your personal creativity!

Thanks for reading

Take a look, it's in a book...

...a Reading Rainbow!

Like most American kids growing up in the 80s, my family had a TV in our house that was on most evenings after school. In my house however, there was no cable. Ever. My parents were very diligent about monitoring what we watched and, this may come as a shock to some of you, but that meant no PeeWee’s Playhouse and no Simpsons - oh the horror! 

What it did mean however was a lot of PBS. 
There was Sesame Street, there was Mr. Rogers Neighborhood… do you remember Square One?  By far one of my favorites.

And then there was Reading Rainbow.

I knew every episode by heart. I could have taken LeVar Burton’s job with an instant’s notice – assuming I would only be reenacting existing episodes. As a kid I spent hours a week in the library, but my world of books and reading was only magnified by Reading Rainbow.  I cannot imagine what life changing effect it had on kids who weren't as lucky as I was to have such a magical library just a short bike ride away.

Over the course of my childhood I'm sure I checked out every single book that was available for ages 0-14...twice. When my dad and I discovered that there were huge holes in the Nancy Drew offerings, we decided that our only option was to buy the missing books, read them cover to cover several times and then donate them so no other kid in my hometown would ever have to go through the nightmare of not having a full collection of Nancy Drew at their fingertips.



Here's a fun bit of history. Reading Rainbow started on my first birthday – June 6th 1983 – and ran until November of 2006 (23 years! Wow!) And although it is no longer on PBS, Reading Rainbow continues on through an app created by LeVar Burton. And in the future we can expect a web-based library of Reading Rainbow books and videos organized as a KickStarter Project by your friend and mine, LeVar Burton. Although the average Joe will have to pay for a subscription, the plan is that many underprivileged class rooms will have the option of a cost-free subscription. Once again, helping the kids who need it most.  Read more about it here:

During this May's Children's Book Week celebrations, LeVar Burton was honored by the Children's Book Council with the Impact Award for children's literature. 

"We are honored to present this year’s award to LeVar Burton in recognition of his longstanding commitment to connecting children and books and for promoting the joy of reading through the Reading Rainbow television series and the Reading Rainbow app". Much deserved, Congratulations Mr. Burton!

In one interview Burton says, "There is no system that can imprison you or dominate you with darkness or ignorance if you have the capacity to read..."   That's so true, the more you know, the more questions you are able to ask and the more answers you are able to comprehend. Think back to the days pre-internet. What did you do when you had a question about something? Your options were Encyclopedia Britannica or the Library.  Now you can Google anything from almost anywhere! I know I am a lot smarter now that I have Google in my back pocket all the time. There's so many crazy little facts that I never would have learned without Google. Did you know that a giraffe does not have a voice box? 

Old McDonald Had a Farm E-I-E-I-O. and on that farm he had a giraffe with a .... and a.... here a.... there a.... everywhere a.... Silence.  Complete silence. 

Am I a better person because I have random fun facts in my head about giraffes? Probably not. But now let's relate the same idea to, well, anything else. Politics, health care, the legal system. The world would be such a better place if we could all read and more importantly, comprehend what we are reading. We could all argue and debate intelligently. We could make better informed decisions we could question authority with some intelligence. It's a REVOLUTION!!!

I'm getting a bit long winded, I'll wrap this up. 

Congratulations to one of my role models, LeVar Burton. Your successes are much deserved. 

Here's hoping another generation can be exposed to a new era of Reading Rainbow.

And now, here’s an episode of Mathnet for all of you fellow PBS watchers from the 80s.

Indie Publishing - again...

I know, talking about this is verging on beating a dead horse... what a horrible expression that is.  I appologize.  Try 2: Talking about this is verging on being redundant and loosing the couple of loyal readers I have. (Hi husband, hi Mom!)

      (Note to self: look up origin of horrible expressions such as the horse thing and include in a future blog.)

Indie vs Traditional Publishing

Here’s a link to another view on traditional vs indie publishing.  This is a hot topic right now, and I think it's definitely worthwhile to read another perspective on it.

Dear Nathan Bransford, thank you once again for supplying a great blog post that I can pass on to my loyal readers. 

Hello loyal readers! (i.e. my husband and mother).

The conference I recently attended this was a topic that dominated the break-out sessions. The masses tended to lean towards self-publishing and for reasons mentioned in a previous post, I’m a little surprised. see post here

I fully understand that there are thousands of great writers out there who have little to no luck getting their books published, and to that I say, great! You now have an alternative – I’m so glad there is a way to get your art out there and share it with the world. You are the exception to the rule.

I maintain that traditional publishing has great advantages over indie. Especially for you first and second time writers who are very very green to the business (just like me)

Whether you agree with me or not, I suggest reading the article. Who knows, you may learn something. 

All Good Things in One Place

This week I'm taking a break from the "Top Five" to discuss a few things that have become much more important over that past month.
There is a writers conference coming to town and in preparation, I decided to brush up on what getting a book published actually involves. 

Let me tell you, it's no small task.  The learning curve on this one has been unexpectedly gimongous.   To demonstrate my point I have include some pictures of other huge, giant and enormous things. 

And now, so all you other aspiring authors don't have to scour the interwebs like I did, here is a collection of very helpful information. 

All good things in one place

Number the first:

The difference between self publishing (or indie publishing) and traditional publishing.

The simple answer is this. With self publishing, you pay a publisher up front to put your book together for you. You get exactly what you pay for (and nothing more).  Depending on the company you hire to publish your book, you may have extra options available (for purchase) such as paperback and hard cover, full color or black and white, help with marketing, etc. It is generally your job to market your own book: setup your own radio interviews, schedule your own book signings, make your own school visits, hire your own marching bands, design your own parade floats...  (i.e. - more money up front and more work). 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-publishing

     So what are the benefits?  
Royalties are higher. The timeline to publish is MUCH (much, much) faster. And the big one - You own your own materials. There are no contracts, and no obligations. This seems to work great for authors who have already made a name for themselves. Or actors who have decided to moonlight as authors.

http://www.amazon.com/John-Lithgow/e/B001ILMA0S

http://www.jamieleecurtisbooks.com/

With traditional publishing, a publisher decides they love your book and works with you to mold it into what they want it to be (hopefully without compromising your story). You pay nothing up front, but it takes months or years of putting yourself out there, sending letters, asking (begging) someone to give you a chance and publish what you know is going to be the next Harry, I mean Larry Potter. 

The benefits: you pay nothing up front and someone else deals with the marketing end of the industry. You get to focus on writing or illustrating, and still have time for your day job. 

Luckily, there are people that can help you with this tough journey to greatness, they are called agents.  These agents know the industry inside and out. They know which of the thousands of publishers are looking for a romance, meets sci-fy, meets teen vampire thriller picture book for ages 13-47. 

Two:

Why you might want to hire an agent:
     See previous paragraph. 
They are awesome and once you prove yourself and find one you love, you'll be besties forever. (or so I assume.) After self publishing my first book, I've decided to go this longer, more difficult, and seemingly more profitable direction. 

http://blog.nathanbransford.com/2009/09/what-do-literary-agents-do.html

Two-B

finding the right agent

Google has served me fairly well, but is very time consuming.  It's shocking I know, but it seems that the more people you talk to, the more conferences you go to, the more classes you take, the more you learn. There are agents hiding in the woodwork and they will reveal themselves once you know where to look.  

The problem is, only 2% (not a real number) are actually looking for the book that you are trying to sell.  However, the biggest waste of your time is sending book proposals (i.e. query letters - see section "not to B".) to agents who do not represent what you are trying to sell. 

Not to B

writing a query letter

This is where I'm at today. I have query letters written to each of the two agents that I will be approaching next month - yes, customize your query letters.  You are trying to sell your book and yourself.  You need to prove that you are not only serious about the industry, but that you can write.  

     You have one chance to prove all of this: your query letter. 

A query letter is an agents first glimpse into if you can write. This may come as a shock, but not everyone who wants to write a book, can actually form a complete sentence. 

For a good PG-13 rated laugh, click here.  

There are dozens of sample query letters out on the internet. But I will once again direct you to one of my favorite bloggers/authors, Nathan Bransford (i.e. Vicky)

http://blog.nathanbransford.com/2010/08/how-to-write-query-letter.html

I'll let you know in a couple of months if this advice gets me anywhere. 

(wish me luck!)

More you say? You got it: here for your reference is an ongoing post by the Writer's Digest with examples of successful query letters. 

http://www.writersdigest.com/editor-blogs/guide-to-literary-agents/successful-queries

Third:

pitching to an agent

(not this kind of pitching)

This may be the hardest most intimidating part of getting your book published. If you have the chance to pitch your book, live, to a real agent sitting in front of you, you should absolutely take the chance. I figure it's harder to reject someone who is sitting directly in front of you, so you already have that going for you before you even open your mouth. 
The problem is, we are writers (not actors) for a reason. The best advice I have gotten so far is that passion is contagious.  If you are passionate about what you have written (and finished), if you really know your characters and your story inside out, If you are dreaming about the future adventures of your characters and cannot wait to tell others about your book, then you already have half the battle won. Your passion will be infectious and even if you stumble over every other word, the agent will see that this is something you believe in and have put a lot of thought into. People (even agents) want to be involved in a good thing.  Your honest passion for your story will make it hard for them to say no.  And that is great for you. 
YouTube is full of great examples of how to pitch to a literary agent, and this is one area that behooves you to do some actual interwebs research.

To get you started however, here are two more helpful website I found on the topic. 
  
http://thewritelife.com/tips-for-pitching-a-literary-agent-at-a-writers-conference/

http://www.writing-world.com/publish/pitch.shtml

And a few more helpful things:

Two things that I had a hard time finding reliable data on were word count and page count. I figured there had to be industry conventions that were followed and if I didn't figure it out and tried to pitch a book that turned out to be waaaay outside the realm of reality, I'd get laughed at and rejected and have no idea why. So, to save the rest of you from certain embarrassment, here's what I have found. 

Word count:  
Picture books average 1000 words, though many are shorter. 
Easy readers for ages five to nine are 50-2500 words depending on level of reader and publisher.
Chapter books or short novels for ages seven to ten run between 10,000 - 12,000 words. 
Middle grade novels for ages eight to twelve come in between 20,000-25,000 words and 
Young adult novels round off the pile at 35,000-45,000 words. 

http://www.writing-world.com/children/backes1.shtml   (this is another extremely helpful website that falls into the helpful tips and tricks section of this blog.) 

Page count

The best resource I found on page count and layout was on a this website:

Tara's website is also one of 2013's top 10 blogs for writers.  (see link below for the full list)

These graphics are in fact stolen directly from Tara's website - so thank you Tara for being so helpful!

And finally, the 2013 top 10 blogs for writers to follow.  Every one is worth checking out at least once. http://writetodone.com/top-10-blogs-for-writers/

Next time I'll get back to the Top Five with "What is your main message".  Here I'll give you the first glimpse at my current plot and some of the issues that I am encountering along the way.