Michael Lynes's Blog, page 3
April 17, 2015
Amazon Lottery!
We are sponsoring a lottery on Amazon! Enter to win a free copy of There is a Reaper - delivered direct to your door by Amazon.
Click here: https://giveaway.amazon.com/p/ff3008e... to enter!
M&M
Click here: https://giveaway.amazon.com/p/ff3008e... to enter!
M&M
April 14, 2015
Goodreads Giveaway! - Followup
Just checked the shipping status...
I am pleased to report that (according to the USPS) 29 of the 30 winners have already received their copies of There is a Reaper!
We have already had four winners begin reading their copy and two of them have posted stellar reviews!
Only one winner located in Las Vegas is still waiting for delivery. If you (and you know who you are :-) ) are still waiting please contact me and I can send you the latest tracking information so you can trace the progress of your book.
Best,
M&M
I am pleased to report that (according to the USPS) 29 of the 30 winners have already received their copies of There is a Reaper!
We have already had four winners begin reading their copy and two of them have posted stellar reviews!
Only one winner located in Las Vegas is still waiting for delivery. If you (and you know who you are :-) ) are still waiting please contact me and I can send you the latest tracking information so you can trace the progress of your book.
Best,
M&M
April 8, 2015
LookInside!
Woo hoo!
Amazon finally posted the LookInside listing for There is a Reaper! (took them long enough :-)
Check it out here http://www.amazon.com/There-Reaper-Lo...
M&M
Amazon finally posted the LookInside listing for There is a Reaper! (took them long enough :-)
Check it out here http://www.amazon.com/There-Reaper-Lo...
M&M
April 7, 2015
Giveaway deliveries
Giveaway deliveries have already arrived for some of the closer winners!
Please let us know if anyone has not received their delivery by Friday and we will check your tracking and confirm e shipment status!
Best M&M
Please let us know if anyone has not received their delivery by Friday and we will check your tracking and confirm e shipment status!
Best M&M
April 4, 2015
Christopher's FB Page
We have spent a good deal of time collecting pictures of Chris and of the folks who helped us during his struggle on his facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/thereisareaper
We post new information about There is a Reaper as well as contributions from our followers, fans and family.
Enjoy!
M&M
We post new information about There is a Reaper as well as contributions from our followers, fans and family.
Enjoy!
M&M
April 3, 2015
Goodreads Giveaway!
Our goodreads giveaway was a huge success, with over 300 people entering to win one of 30 copies of There is a Reaper we had set aside as prizes!
The giveaway has ended and the lucky winners have been selected by the goodreads staff. We just finished packing up the books and they will be going out via Media-Mail today or tomorrow.
I know Christoper's story will evoke tears but there is also a lot of joy, even in the depths of treatment we always found time for laughter and play...
I hope you like it - please feel free to comment here once you receive the book!
M&M
The giveaway has ended and the lucky winners have been selected by the goodreads staff. We just finished packing up the books and they will be going out via Media-Mail today or tomorrow.
I know Christoper's story will evoke tears but there is also a lot of joy, even in the depths of treatment we always found time for laughter and play...
I hope you like it - please feel free to comment here once you receive the book!
M&M
March 29, 2015
New IAN Member!
We've just added There is a Reaper to the IAN (Independent Author Network) website. You can see our profile there at http://www.independentauthornetwork.c...
March 19, 2015
There is a Reaper – Creation…
Almost three years ago I first sat down in front of my computer in my office, driven to somehow find a way to honor the memory and life of my son Christopher Aaron. I thought I would write a few words, something to try and capture some of the memories, some of his spirit, before they became too far removed from memory and distorted by time. I sat there, really just lost, and unable to find a way to begin. Touching back into those memories was like opening a long shut door, reentering a place of fear and failure and pain that I was not sure I would be able to handle.
I typed a few words, and discarded them. And then I typed a few more, with the same result.
I realized that, in order to tell this story I would have to face my fear, and my failure. My fear of the pain that this re-exploration would dredge up. My failure to prevent or find some way to cure him of his deadly affliction. These two overarching forces combined to hold me impotent.
In all likelihood, left to my own preferences, this project would have been abandoned, stillborn…but there was a third force.
Chris…
As I sat there, blank page before me, paralyzed by my own doubt, my own fear, my selfish, craven indulgence….it was Chris, clear and sharp and powerful, who appeared in my mind’s eye. I realized that he wanted his story told, that it needed to be out there.
The feeling had grown, imperceptibly…a wish, then a whisper then a calling and now an unfulfilled duty.
When Chris had become sick, we were consumed in combating his disease. When he lost his battle we were shattered by his death. He knew that we needed time, to heal, for the wounds to knit and scar, for his memory to become a story rather than a source of heart-bursting agony… He had given us that time, but now he was calling me, back to myself and to my unfulfilled duty.
I owed him this – and my debt was due.
I nodded my head, silently signing my unspoken contract...
There were many false starts, and many, many days when I laid aside my task, exhausted by the anguish and emptied of tears. Despite all, the promise I made to Chris and to myself that day drove me onward. The story, Chris’s testimony and epitaph, the memorial of his life here and the start of his life eternal is now complete, and I fervently pray that it satisfies my debt and honors his memory.
Thank you Chris, for pushing me to complete this work…
I hope you like it.
I typed a few words, and discarded them. And then I typed a few more, with the same result.
I realized that, in order to tell this story I would have to face my fear, and my failure. My fear of the pain that this re-exploration would dredge up. My failure to prevent or find some way to cure him of his deadly affliction. These two overarching forces combined to hold me impotent.
In all likelihood, left to my own preferences, this project would have been abandoned, stillborn…but there was a third force.
Chris…
As I sat there, blank page before me, paralyzed by my own doubt, my own fear, my selfish, craven indulgence….it was Chris, clear and sharp and powerful, who appeared in my mind’s eye. I realized that he wanted his story told, that it needed to be out there.
The feeling had grown, imperceptibly…a wish, then a whisper then a calling and now an unfulfilled duty.
When Chris had become sick, we were consumed in combating his disease. When he lost his battle we were shattered by his death. He knew that we needed time, to heal, for the wounds to knit and scar, for his memory to become a story rather than a source of heart-bursting agony… He had given us that time, but now he was calling me, back to myself and to my unfulfilled duty.
I owed him this – and my debt was due.
I nodded my head, silently signing my unspoken contract...
There were many false starts, and many, many days when I laid aside my task, exhausted by the anguish and emptied of tears. Despite all, the promise I made to Chris and to myself that day drove me onward. The story, Chris’s testimony and epitaph, the memorial of his life here and the start of his life eternal is now complete, and I fervently pray that it satisfies my debt and honors his memory.
Thank you Chris, for pushing me to complete this work…
I hope you like it.
The Publishing Process...
There is a Reaper is our first published work.
Both Margaret and I have been actively writing for many years, Margaret’s efforts mainly consist of revelatory and philosophical essays. She has also written about alternative medical practices, using energy flows and ‘chi’ as well as holistic healing techniques and meditation.
My essays have mostly been technical, including many white-papers and internally published papers for research and more academic audiences. I have always had a consuming interest in story craft, being both a voracious reader as well as a provider of critical writing advice to others. I possess a good command of the mechanics of writing, able to use the written word to convey my ideas and concepts succinctly and clearly.
These skills were important, and both our experiences stood us in good stead thru the process of writing Christopher’s story, but they were hardly equal to the scale of the effort.
There is a Reaper was more than 135,000 words in manuscript…over 500 pages. It is a substantial work, especially for a first time author. Once written, we were faced with the daunting challenge of forming the text into an actual book, a container that would honor the content within and give pleasure to the potential reader.
Barry Sheinkoph of BookShapers was our godsend.
Margaret had met Barry and his wife Eugenia years before. I had met them also, once or twice, and frankly though Margaret had told me that Barry was in the publishing business I initially did not even think of bringing the project to him.
When I had ‘finished’ with my MS, (so I thought), I started to cast around and do some online research to find out how to get a book published. I spent a lot of time on many different ‘author’ sites, reading blog posts on the correct way(s) to get a work published; each new set of sure-fire rules promptly contradicting the last. After wading thru this morass for a few nights it became clear that there were three main options:
The first general approach was to contact a series of publishers, in essence ‘pitching’ the MS to them in the hope that they would be willing to publish the work of an unknown author based on the strength of the story alone.
The second was to submit the work to various book agents and agencies, looking to acquire their support. The idea was to find an agent or agency that would become an advocate for me and for There is a Reaper – connecting us with editors, a publisher and possibly even assisting with the marketing of our work.
The third avenue, and to my mind the least desirable, was self-publishing. In essence this would mean contracting with a printer and having your work put into book form on your own dime. There were many ‘vanity’ print houses that would take your MS and basically have it printed and bound for a fee. This seemed to me then to be one step above having a few copies run off at Staples. I was sure that this was not the correct way to go.
So I began the process to try and get a publisher interested in the work. Together, Margaret and I wrote a ‘pitch’ letter describing ‘There is a Reaper’ in brief. Along with this we selected a couple of example chapters from the finished MS; some publishers wanted to see the work, others only wanted a short synopsis to begin. I searched for publishers who I thought would be right for the special type of memoir we had created. With high hopes we sent out emails, and submitted letters and copies of excerpts of the MS.
The response was, to say the least, underwhelming….
Undaunted – we pivoted to our second potential venue, securing an Agent to represent us. I spent a few more hours/days working up and researching a list of potential literary agents. Each agent or agency had different specialties, and sub-specialties. Some were interested in mysteries, some in dramas, still others in fiction etc. I sifted thru the list, looking for agents who would consider non-fiction memoirs, an encouragingly long list. Again I went to each agency website, they all had different requirements on how to submit, one wanted PDF’s, another excerpts directly in the body of an email (making the except look horrendous by the way), still another wanted physical media (!) – needless to say we skipped that one.
All of them had variations of the evaluation process. Some said they would look at the work and get back with in a few days. Others said that they needed a month or more, still others gave no fixed time with the stern admonition to “under no circumstances contact us directly to enquire about the status of your evaluation” – lest we incur instant disqualification.
So we submitted, first to five agents, then ten and I think in the end almost 30 different agencies. With each submission we had high hopes, and with each new response we received these hopes dimmed. All of the replies were uniformly polite, and almost all praised the quality of our writing and the significance of the work as a whole, BUT….none of them were willing to take any risk with an unknown author and a large work. We were stumped.
After receiving several weeks’ worth of rejection letters I thought that perhaps I was just not engaging the ‘right’ sort of agency. After all I was basically picking these targets at random, doing internet searches and ‘cold’ submissions. One evening it came to my mind that one of Margaret’s friends, Barry something-or-other, had some connections to the publishing world.
We talked about it, “Oh…you mean Barry Sheinkoph… Eugenia’s husband…”, she replied, “Barry teaches creative writing and I think he does some publishing work. You should contact him and see if he knows a good literary agent or agency that we can send your book to...”
So I asked her for his contact info and drafted a short email. I described There is a Reaper in brief and told him we had been looking for an agent to take us on. I ended my note with a request. Did he know of any literary agents who might be willing to help?
I really did not expect too much. After all of the rejection letters I figured that Barry’s reply might be just another reject…Polite, encouraging and yadda-yadda-yadda.
Boy, was I ever wrong.
Barry turned our whole process upside down. He asked me one key question – “Why?...Why do think you need an agent? What you need is an editor…”
So…Barry became our editor and the published book, There is a Reaper, which will be released to the world in just a few short weeks, is in large part due to his skill and dedication in working with us on its creation.
Thru judicious cutting, Barry helped us focus our prose and crystalize our vision. The MS we started with was a gem in the rough, and his was the master touch that brought its clear and sparkling facets to view. I am very proud of the writing that both Margaret and I did, but I am grateful and not at all ashamed to say that without him, publishing Christopher’s story might never have been more than a dream.
Thank you Barry…
Both Margaret and I have been actively writing for many years, Margaret’s efforts mainly consist of revelatory and philosophical essays. She has also written about alternative medical practices, using energy flows and ‘chi’ as well as holistic healing techniques and meditation.
My essays have mostly been technical, including many white-papers and internally published papers for research and more academic audiences. I have always had a consuming interest in story craft, being both a voracious reader as well as a provider of critical writing advice to others. I possess a good command of the mechanics of writing, able to use the written word to convey my ideas and concepts succinctly and clearly.
These skills were important, and both our experiences stood us in good stead thru the process of writing Christopher’s story, but they were hardly equal to the scale of the effort.
There is a Reaper was more than 135,000 words in manuscript…over 500 pages. It is a substantial work, especially for a first time author. Once written, we were faced with the daunting challenge of forming the text into an actual book, a container that would honor the content within and give pleasure to the potential reader.
Barry Sheinkoph of BookShapers was our godsend.
Margaret had met Barry and his wife Eugenia years before. I had met them also, once or twice, and frankly though Margaret had told me that Barry was in the publishing business I initially did not even think of bringing the project to him.
When I had ‘finished’ with my MS, (so I thought), I started to cast around and do some online research to find out how to get a book published. I spent a lot of time on many different ‘author’ sites, reading blog posts on the correct way(s) to get a work published; each new set of sure-fire rules promptly contradicting the last. After wading thru this morass for a few nights it became clear that there were three main options:
The first general approach was to contact a series of publishers, in essence ‘pitching’ the MS to them in the hope that they would be willing to publish the work of an unknown author based on the strength of the story alone.
The second was to submit the work to various book agents and agencies, looking to acquire their support. The idea was to find an agent or agency that would become an advocate for me and for There is a Reaper – connecting us with editors, a publisher and possibly even assisting with the marketing of our work.
The third avenue, and to my mind the least desirable, was self-publishing. In essence this would mean contracting with a printer and having your work put into book form on your own dime. There were many ‘vanity’ print houses that would take your MS and basically have it printed and bound for a fee. This seemed to me then to be one step above having a few copies run off at Staples. I was sure that this was not the correct way to go.
So I began the process to try and get a publisher interested in the work. Together, Margaret and I wrote a ‘pitch’ letter describing ‘There is a Reaper’ in brief. Along with this we selected a couple of example chapters from the finished MS; some publishers wanted to see the work, others only wanted a short synopsis to begin. I searched for publishers who I thought would be right for the special type of memoir we had created. With high hopes we sent out emails, and submitted letters and copies of excerpts of the MS.
The response was, to say the least, underwhelming….
Undaunted – we pivoted to our second potential venue, securing an Agent to represent us. I spent a few more hours/days working up and researching a list of potential literary agents. Each agent or agency had different specialties, and sub-specialties. Some were interested in mysteries, some in dramas, still others in fiction etc. I sifted thru the list, looking for agents who would consider non-fiction memoirs, an encouragingly long list. Again I went to each agency website, they all had different requirements on how to submit, one wanted PDF’s, another excerpts directly in the body of an email (making the except look horrendous by the way), still another wanted physical media (!) – needless to say we skipped that one.
All of them had variations of the evaluation process. Some said they would look at the work and get back with in a few days. Others said that they needed a month or more, still others gave no fixed time with the stern admonition to “under no circumstances contact us directly to enquire about the status of your evaluation” – lest we incur instant disqualification.
So we submitted, first to five agents, then ten and I think in the end almost 30 different agencies. With each submission we had high hopes, and with each new response we received these hopes dimmed. All of the replies were uniformly polite, and almost all praised the quality of our writing and the significance of the work as a whole, BUT….none of them were willing to take any risk with an unknown author and a large work. We were stumped.
After receiving several weeks’ worth of rejection letters I thought that perhaps I was just not engaging the ‘right’ sort of agency. After all I was basically picking these targets at random, doing internet searches and ‘cold’ submissions. One evening it came to my mind that one of Margaret’s friends, Barry something-or-other, had some connections to the publishing world.
We talked about it, “Oh…you mean Barry Sheinkoph… Eugenia’s husband…”, she replied, “Barry teaches creative writing and I think he does some publishing work. You should contact him and see if he knows a good literary agent or agency that we can send your book to...”
So I asked her for his contact info and drafted a short email. I described There is a Reaper in brief and told him we had been looking for an agent to take us on. I ended my note with a request. Did he know of any literary agents who might be willing to help?
I really did not expect too much. After all of the rejection letters I figured that Barry’s reply might be just another reject…Polite, encouraging and yadda-yadda-yadda.
Boy, was I ever wrong.
Barry turned our whole process upside down. He asked me one key question – “Why?...Why do think you need an agent? What you need is an editor…”
So…Barry became our editor and the published book, There is a Reaper, which will be released to the world in just a few short weeks, is in large part due to his skill and dedication in working with us on its creation.
Thru judicious cutting, Barry helped us focus our prose and crystalize our vision. The MS we started with was a gem in the rough, and his was the master touch that brought its clear and sparkling facets to view. I am very proud of the writing that both Margaret and I did, but I am grateful and not at all ashamed to say that without him, publishing Christopher’s story might never have been more than a dream.
Thank you Barry…
