Stephen Kozeniewski's Blog, page 58
August 26, 2015
The Complex Ecosystem of a Single Book (Graphic Form)
I thought I might squeeze a little more juice out of Monday's post with a couple of infographics.
Here's what a single book looks like in the traditional publishing model. (Click or open in a new window to enlarge.) Obviously this flow isn't completely accurate, because for instance some readers will get to the book before reviewers and the publisher's marketing staff may still be doing work after the book is produced, etc.
Note the money flows from the readers to the booksellers to the publisher. The publisher pays the bookbinders, editors, cover artist, marketing personnel, agent, and author. The agent obviously pays their own staff, and you'll note that in this model no money flows from the author (unless he has a personal staff.) Remember that any agent or publisher who asks an author for money is a scam artist.
It's also interesting to note just how many people involved in this process don't get paid period. Libraries are obviously supported by the public and don't get money from book sales. Reviewers for the most part don't get paid (although if they do it would be by the publisher or author.) Professional organizations are supported by dues-paying members. For the most part, beta readers, critique groups, and other authors are involved in the process out of love.
And just to be clear, here's what this would look like in the self-publishing world. The main difference, you'll note, is that the publisher and the agent are cut out. Pay goes directly from the bookseller to the author, who then pays for marketing, editing, cover design, etc. I pondered representing the real danger of self publishing by cutting back seriously on the number of readers. But the truth is, a self-published author has the potential to reach as many readers as a traditionally published author, so in a sense the pool is the same. Many self-published authors make more than they would have through traditional publishing, because of how this process is streamlined. But this is more the exception than the norm.
Key
Green crayon - money flow
Black - producing the manuscript
Tan - representing the manuscript
Red - publishing the manuscript
Blue - producing and distributing the book
Orange - promoting the book
Purple - terminal
Here's what a single book looks like in the traditional publishing model. (Click or open in a new window to enlarge.) Obviously this flow isn't completely accurate, because for instance some readers will get to the book before reviewers and the publisher's marketing staff may still be doing work after the book is produced, etc.
Note the money flows from the readers to the booksellers to the publisher. The publisher pays the bookbinders, editors, cover artist, marketing personnel, agent, and author. The agent obviously pays their own staff, and you'll note that in this model no money flows from the author (unless he has a personal staff.) Remember that any agent or publisher who asks an author for money is a scam artist.
It's also interesting to note just how many people involved in this process don't get paid period. Libraries are obviously supported by the public and don't get money from book sales. Reviewers for the most part don't get paid (although if they do it would be by the publisher or author.) Professional organizations are supported by dues-paying members. For the most part, beta readers, critique groups, and other authors are involved in the process out of love.
And just to be clear, here's what this would look like in the self-publishing world. The main difference, you'll note, is that the publisher and the agent are cut out. Pay goes directly from the bookseller to the author, who then pays for marketing, editing, cover design, etc. I pondered representing the real danger of self publishing by cutting back seriously on the number of readers. But the truth is, a self-published author has the potential to reach as many readers as a traditionally published author, so in a sense the pool is the same. Many self-published authors make more than they would have through traditional publishing, because of how this process is streamlined. But this is more the exception than the norm.
Key
Green crayon - money flow
Black - producing the manuscript
Tan - representing the manuscript
Red - publishing the manuscript
Blue - producing and distributing the book
Orange - promoting the book
Purple - terminal
August 24, 2015
The Complex Ecosystem of a Single Book
I've spoken on numerous occasions about how the publishing industry is a community or an ecosystem, but it occurs to me I've never really broken down what this means. So today let's take a look at exactly how many people go into making a single book.
1.) Author (1-2) - So the author writes the book. Fair enough. They're doing the bulk of the heavy lifting of bringing an idea to life. Sometimes two co-authors work in concert to produce a book. It's exceedingly rare to see more than two collaborators outside of an anthology.
2.) Author's Support Staff (Business) (0-3?) - At a certain level of wealth and/or fame an author will be able to afford to hire employees. I'm not especially familiar with this part of the business, but I do know a few authors who have personal assistants. I'd be surprised if even a Stephen King-level author needs more than a person or two to answer the phone, manage their schedule, etc., but as I said, I'm not particularly familiar with this part of the business.
3.) Author's Support (Personal) (1-10?) - That being said, authors require support and will get it from friends and family. To be frank, in many cases the only reason you are able to read a book is because an author's spouse or other loved one is the breadwinner of the family and supports them financially. But even if the author also works a day job, they will still require emotional support.
4.) Critique Group (0-10) - Some authors find value in a formal critique group. A critique group is basically as large as you want it to be, and you can exchange chapters or (occasionally) whole manuscripts for review.
5.) Beta Readers (1-4) - With few exceptions, most authors use beta readers (also occasionally called alpha readers) which is a trusted reader, possibly another author, who will point out major issues in a first draft of a manuscript.
6.) Literary Agent (0-1) - Many authors end up choosing the traditional publishing route. In this case, they will have a single agent who represents their interests and sells their books to publishers.
7.) Agency Staff (0-5) - Even though an author generally only has one agent, agents don't do all the work of their agency. Sub-agents sell foreign, audio, film, and television rights. Assistants and interns sift through the slush. If you got an agent, it's probably because of the efforts of one of these unsung heroes.
8.) Editor (1-3) - The role of the editor is to correct a book's issues before it is published. There may also have been an acquiring editor whose role was essentially to agree to take on the book with the publishing house. A book can go through multiple rounds of editing, variously referred to as content, line, proofreading, and a variety of other terms. Sometimes as many as 5 people will review your book before it's published.
9.) Cover Artist (1) - I didn't really get into this with #6 above, but you're really a buffoon if you think you can edit your own work or make your own covers. The cover artist is the person either the author pays if self-publishing or the publisher pays (or possibly keeps on staff.)
10.) Marketing Staff (0-12?) - Self-publishers can hire marketing professionals in the form of publicists, blog tour coordinators, and the like. Large publishers can have whole departments dedicated to this (although whether your book will get any love from marketing is another matter.)
11.) Publisher's Business Staff (0-hundreds) - Then, of course, there's the rest of the publisher's staff. Secretaries, accountants, web developers, interns, lawyers, operation staff, and all the other people who make any business hum. A small publisher might only have a dozen employees, or in the odd case, just one. A major publisher will have hundreds, maybe thousands, though not all working on your book, of course.
12.) Bookbinders and Distributors (?) - In the post-Amazon world it's easy to think of books as just showing up at your door. But, believe it or not, even if you're self-published and go entirely through CreateSpace, there's a staff who physically produces your books and ships them out the door to whoever orders them. In the more traditional world, there are staffs in binderies who distribute books to booksellers and then pulp the remainders. Actually, the pulping might be a whole separate process, I'm not even sure. This whole aspect of the industry is something I'm woefully uneducated on. If you're involved in the actual book production process, please chime in in the comments!
13.) Booksellers (1-thousands) - Again, this could be as "simple" as Amazon - but bearing in mind that Amazon has hundreds of thousands of employees - or as complex as a whole legion of big-name bookstores like Barnes and Noble, Books-A-Million, and so forth, as well as small independent bookstores and even places like Wal-Mart or airport news vendors where books are sold.
14.) Librarians and Library Staff (0-thousands) - Typically after the regular booksellers, but sometimes at the same time, libraries will acquire books, either by purchase or donation. Of course, if you make no effort to end up in libraries you never will.
15.) Reviewers (0-∞, probably around 50-100) - Reviewers, both professional and amateur, are critical to a book's success. Publishers may pay for reviews through magazines and services like Kirkus. Alternatively, publishing staff or authors themselves can reach out to reviewers everywhere along the scale from "mass market magazine or newspaper" to "guy with an Amazon account." Many amateur reviewers have followings on their blogs to rival the mass media of yesteryear, so this whole process is kind of a crap shoot.
16.) Other Authors (0-dozens) - Once you've become part of the publishing world, it's easy for an author to reach out to peers, and relatively easy to reach out to successful authors. Other authors will become some of your best champions, both in honing your skill and promoting your work, as well as the ordinary business of friendship. Authors who don't become part of the community flail. Authors who do will often flourish. It's not strictly accurate to say writing is an apprenticeship system, but there is a major element of seasoned authors helping newbies, who in turn help future newbies because they were helped once upon a time.
17.) Professional Organizations and Awards Juries (0-hundreds) - Professional guilds, unions, and associations exist for virtually every genre and type of writer. Such groups range from little more than fraternal backslapping clubs to indispensable sources of insurance, professional contacts, legal counsel, and other services. There's nothing quite comparable in the book world, but union membership is a de facto requirement for professional screenwriters. Organizations like the HWA, RWA, and SFWA also often sponsor industry awards, and while largely made up of authors and volunteers, some of these groups have paid staff as well.
18.) Readers (0-∞, completely impossible to predict) - The final and most important part of the publishing ecosystem is the reader. It could be just mom. It could be an audience of millions. There's really no way to tell, or, honestly, to predict. (If there were, every book would be a bestseller.) Without readers shelling out a few bucks for a book, nobody else gets paid. Not the booksellers, not the publishers, not the agents, and certainly not the author. So yay for you, because if you're reading this, you're the most important person in the world to me: a fan or potential fan.
***
So, there you have it. What often seems like the work of an individual will actually go through anywhere from half a dozen to hundreds of hands before it's complete.
What do you think? Anything I missed? Anything I completely bungled? Any more thoughts on one of the groups I described?
1.) Author (1-2) - So the author writes the book. Fair enough. They're doing the bulk of the heavy lifting of bringing an idea to life. Sometimes two co-authors work in concert to produce a book. It's exceedingly rare to see more than two collaborators outside of an anthology.
2.) Author's Support Staff (Business) (0-3?) - At a certain level of wealth and/or fame an author will be able to afford to hire employees. I'm not especially familiar with this part of the business, but I do know a few authors who have personal assistants. I'd be surprised if even a Stephen King-level author needs more than a person or two to answer the phone, manage their schedule, etc., but as I said, I'm not particularly familiar with this part of the business.
3.) Author's Support (Personal) (1-10?) - That being said, authors require support and will get it from friends and family. To be frank, in many cases the only reason you are able to read a book is because an author's spouse or other loved one is the breadwinner of the family and supports them financially. But even if the author also works a day job, they will still require emotional support.
4.) Critique Group (0-10) - Some authors find value in a formal critique group. A critique group is basically as large as you want it to be, and you can exchange chapters or (occasionally) whole manuscripts for review.
5.) Beta Readers (1-4) - With few exceptions, most authors use beta readers (also occasionally called alpha readers) which is a trusted reader, possibly another author, who will point out major issues in a first draft of a manuscript.
6.) Literary Agent (0-1) - Many authors end up choosing the traditional publishing route. In this case, they will have a single agent who represents their interests and sells their books to publishers.
7.) Agency Staff (0-5) - Even though an author generally only has one agent, agents don't do all the work of their agency. Sub-agents sell foreign, audio, film, and television rights. Assistants and interns sift through the slush. If you got an agent, it's probably because of the efforts of one of these unsung heroes.
8.) Editor (1-3) - The role of the editor is to correct a book's issues before it is published. There may also have been an acquiring editor whose role was essentially to agree to take on the book with the publishing house. A book can go through multiple rounds of editing, variously referred to as content, line, proofreading, and a variety of other terms. Sometimes as many as 5 people will review your book before it's published.
9.) Cover Artist (1) - I didn't really get into this with #6 above, but you're really a buffoon if you think you can edit your own work or make your own covers. The cover artist is the person either the author pays if self-publishing or the publisher pays (or possibly keeps on staff.)
10.) Marketing Staff (0-12?) - Self-publishers can hire marketing professionals in the form of publicists, blog tour coordinators, and the like. Large publishers can have whole departments dedicated to this (although whether your book will get any love from marketing is another matter.)
11.) Publisher's Business Staff (0-hundreds) - Then, of course, there's the rest of the publisher's staff. Secretaries, accountants, web developers, interns, lawyers, operation staff, and all the other people who make any business hum. A small publisher might only have a dozen employees, or in the odd case, just one. A major publisher will have hundreds, maybe thousands, though not all working on your book, of course.
12.) Bookbinders and Distributors (?) - In the post-Amazon world it's easy to think of books as just showing up at your door. But, believe it or not, even if you're self-published and go entirely through CreateSpace, there's a staff who physically produces your books and ships them out the door to whoever orders them. In the more traditional world, there are staffs in binderies who distribute books to booksellers and then pulp the remainders. Actually, the pulping might be a whole separate process, I'm not even sure. This whole aspect of the industry is something I'm woefully uneducated on. If you're involved in the actual book production process, please chime in in the comments!
13.) Booksellers (1-thousands) - Again, this could be as "simple" as Amazon - but bearing in mind that Amazon has hundreds of thousands of employees - or as complex as a whole legion of big-name bookstores like Barnes and Noble, Books-A-Million, and so forth, as well as small independent bookstores and even places like Wal-Mart or airport news vendors where books are sold.
14.) Librarians and Library Staff (0-thousands) - Typically after the regular booksellers, but sometimes at the same time, libraries will acquire books, either by purchase or donation. Of course, if you make no effort to end up in libraries you never will.
15.) Reviewers (0-∞, probably around 50-100) - Reviewers, both professional and amateur, are critical to a book's success. Publishers may pay for reviews through magazines and services like Kirkus. Alternatively, publishing staff or authors themselves can reach out to reviewers everywhere along the scale from "mass market magazine or newspaper" to "guy with an Amazon account." Many amateur reviewers have followings on their blogs to rival the mass media of yesteryear, so this whole process is kind of a crap shoot.
16.) Other Authors (0-dozens) - Once you've become part of the publishing world, it's easy for an author to reach out to peers, and relatively easy to reach out to successful authors. Other authors will become some of your best champions, both in honing your skill and promoting your work, as well as the ordinary business of friendship. Authors who don't become part of the community flail. Authors who do will often flourish. It's not strictly accurate to say writing is an apprenticeship system, but there is a major element of seasoned authors helping newbies, who in turn help future newbies because they were helped once upon a time.
17.) Professional Organizations and Awards Juries (0-hundreds) - Professional guilds, unions, and associations exist for virtually every genre and type of writer. Such groups range from little more than fraternal backslapping clubs to indispensable sources of insurance, professional contacts, legal counsel, and other services. There's nothing quite comparable in the book world, but union membership is a de facto requirement for professional screenwriters. Organizations like the HWA, RWA, and SFWA also often sponsor industry awards, and while largely made up of authors and volunteers, some of these groups have paid staff as well.
18.) Readers (0-∞, completely impossible to predict) - The final and most important part of the publishing ecosystem is the reader. It could be just mom. It could be an audience of millions. There's really no way to tell, or, honestly, to predict. (If there were, every book would be a bestseller.) Without readers shelling out a few bucks for a book, nobody else gets paid. Not the booksellers, not the publishers, not the agents, and certainly not the author. So yay for you, because if you're reading this, you're the most important person in the world to me: a fan or potential fan.
***
So, there you have it. What often seems like the work of an individual will actually go through anywhere from half a dozen to hundreds of hands before it's complete.
What do you think? Anything I missed? Anything I completely bungled? Any more thoughts on one of the groups I described?
August 21, 2015
Parity
When I was in college, a French politician came to speak at our school. I wish I could remember her name, but, oh, well, them's the ravages of age for you.
She came to speak to us about the then recently passed Parity Laws in France. I won't pretend to be familiar with the French political system, but it has something to do with ensuring that in every list of candidates, 50% are male and 50% are female. Apparently at the time France had some rather dismal levels of female representation in government so they legislated a solution.
In any case, I remember the speaker addressed the concerns of her critics. She said (and obviously I'm paraphrasing here) something like:
"Well, people ask me if giving this much opportunity to women won't hurt men. And I say, well, no, it's not a pro-women law. It's a parity law. If we ever get to the point where there's 60% or 70% of the government made up of women, then this same law will swing the pendulum back in the opposite direction for men. It's parity. 50/50."
I found myself thinking about this speech again for the first time in years a few days ago. A good friend of mine was apparently sitting having a private conversation with another woman about the #yesallwomen movement, which I've discussed in a little more depth here and here. And wouldn't you know it? A guy - a stranger, mind you - decided to jump in and tell my friend that #notallmen were like that, and, oh, yeah, she only thought that way because she was a misandrist.
Luckily, my friend is not thin-skinned and the irony of a real-life mansplainer jumping into the middle of a private discussion was not lost on her friends and family, so we all had a good chuckle about it and, I assume, are none the worse for wear. But ever since this incident the word "misandry" has been running through my head and what makes it different from misogyny.
And the answer is simple.
Parity.
I've been affected by misandry precisely - and, I'm digging deep into my past to come up with this number - zero times in my life. I've never lost a job because I'm a man. I've never been scared to go somewhere because I'm a man. I've never walked into a bar or a social setting and been made to feel unwelcome because I'm a man. And I wasn't exaggerating at the beginning of this paragraph, I have wracked my brain for days to try to come up with an example of a time I've been discriminated against because of my gender.
There's just...nothing meaningful I can come up with. I just don't really run into genuine misandry all that much. It's so odd, in fact, that it seems noteworthy. One of my wife's relatives is a man-hater. Maybe a couple of people I've ever run across. Ever. And that's about it.
And, yeah, I know, it's a terrible idea to use anecdotal evidence or personal experience to back anything up. Because somebody else can easily jump into the comments and say, "I've suffered misandry and here's an example so nyah!" Well, okay. I'm pretty sure we can come up with isolated heres and theres. But statistically what is the effect of misandry on the average American man? How many court cases are there about this? How much of an issue is it really?
The answer is not much of one. And that's the point. Discrimination against women is institutional, ingrained, and widespread. It happens all the time, every day, to every woman. That's the whole point of the #yesallwomen movement. If misandry and misogyny affected men and women equally - if 50% of men were discriminated against and 50% of women - then I would say, "Hell, yeah, let's fight this together, men are victims, too!"
But we ain't. Not in that way. Because the world is wide and seven billion of us live on it now and we have 10,000 years or so of recorded history, pretty much everything that could possibly happen has happened. If you go scrounging you'll be able to find examples of men being discriminated against and that sort of thing. But doing that and then declaring that sexism is a two-edged knife is missing the point.
Parity.
I think, in a way, false equivalencies are one of the most poisonous intrusions into helpful discourse that exists today. Feminism is an obvious example, but discussions of racism are also rife with this problem.
"Black lives matter" is a statement of principle, an assertion against institutional racism and head-turning that preponderantly affects one segment of the population.
"All lives matter" is a platitude, an empty slogan about as helpful and meaningful to our great, ongoing national conversation about race as "Cranberries are delicious." But more importantly, it's a chickenshit way of asserting that "White lives matter" - which is really just a chickenshit way of asserting that "White lives matter more than black lives." But even the sort of racists who believe this know better than to say it out loud.
But the point is still there. "Black lives matter." This is not taken as a given by our society. Therefore it needs to be positively asserted. "White lives matter." Yes, but that's not really an issue, is it? Because there's no parity. Racism is disproportionately used as a weapon against the black population of this country. And, yes, I know there was that "genocide" against white farmers in South Africa and you could probably find a wacky here-or-there story about a white guy who got fired because his black boss was racist or something, but these are not fair examples because there is no parity.
Not even close. Not even remotely goddamned close. Not even Don Adams squeaking, "Missed it by thaaaaat much" close. It's comparing goddamned apples and octopuses.
I'm going to make one more comparison and then that'll be it. (Although I could go on all day, it's not good for my blood pressure.) Pretty much ever since Obergefell and Hodges (well, since always, but it's gone into hyperdrive since then) there's a certain segment of Chicken Littles who have decided that gay marriage means Christians are being discriminated against in this country. And they even manage to pull out the odd example, like a baker who was sued for not making a wedding cake, or a county clerk who was sued for not issuing marriage licenses, both cases supposedly because of the defendants profound faiths.
And even if I take these sad sack tales at face value (which I don't, because they're both bullshit) I still have to think to myself, "Gosh, those two Christians paid a small financial penalty for their faith because it conflicted with the law. Of course, most gays have to live in pretty much constant fear of discrimination and ridicule at best and being beaten up, 'fag-dragged' behind a truck, and murdered at worst. So I'm not sure that there's necessarily parity there."
She came to speak to us about the then recently passed Parity Laws in France. I won't pretend to be familiar with the French political system, but it has something to do with ensuring that in every list of candidates, 50% are male and 50% are female. Apparently at the time France had some rather dismal levels of female representation in government so they legislated a solution.
In any case, I remember the speaker addressed the concerns of her critics. She said (and obviously I'm paraphrasing here) something like:
"Well, people ask me if giving this much opportunity to women won't hurt men. And I say, well, no, it's not a pro-women law. It's a parity law. If we ever get to the point where there's 60% or 70% of the government made up of women, then this same law will swing the pendulum back in the opposite direction for men. It's parity. 50/50."
I found myself thinking about this speech again for the first time in years a few days ago. A good friend of mine was apparently sitting having a private conversation with another woman about the #yesallwomen movement, which I've discussed in a little more depth here and here. And wouldn't you know it? A guy - a stranger, mind you - decided to jump in and tell my friend that #notallmen were like that, and, oh, yeah, she only thought that way because she was a misandrist.
Luckily, my friend is not thin-skinned and the irony of a real-life mansplainer jumping into the middle of a private discussion was not lost on her friends and family, so we all had a good chuckle about it and, I assume, are none the worse for wear. But ever since this incident the word "misandry" has been running through my head and what makes it different from misogyny.
And the answer is simple.
Parity.
I've been affected by misandry precisely - and, I'm digging deep into my past to come up with this number - zero times in my life. I've never lost a job because I'm a man. I've never been scared to go somewhere because I'm a man. I've never walked into a bar or a social setting and been made to feel unwelcome because I'm a man. And I wasn't exaggerating at the beginning of this paragraph, I have wracked my brain for days to try to come up with an example of a time I've been discriminated against because of my gender.
There's just...nothing meaningful I can come up with. I just don't really run into genuine misandry all that much. It's so odd, in fact, that it seems noteworthy. One of my wife's relatives is a man-hater. Maybe a couple of people I've ever run across. Ever. And that's about it.
And, yeah, I know, it's a terrible idea to use anecdotal evidence or personal experience to back anything up. Because somebody else can easily jump into the comments and say, "I've suffered misandry and here's an example so nyah!" Well, okay. I'm pretty sure we can come up with isolated heres and theres. But statistically what is the effect of misandry on the average American man? How many court cases are there about this? How much of an issue is it really?
The answer is not much of one. And that's the point. Discrimination against women is institutional, ingrained, and widespread. It happens all the time, every day, to every woman. That's the whole point of the #yesallwomen movement. If misandry and misogyny affected men and women equally - if 50% of men were discriminated against and 50% of women - then I would say, "Hell, yeah, let's fight this together, men are victims, too!"
But we ain't. Not in that way. Because the world is wide and seven billion of us live on it now and we have 10,000 years or so of recorded history, pretty much everything that could possibly happen has happened. If you go scrounging you'll be able to find examples of men being discriminated against and that sort of thing. But doing that and then declaring that sexism is a two-edged knife is missing the point.
Parity.
I think, in a way, false equivalencies are one of the most poisonous intrusions into helpful discourse that exists today. Feminism is an obvious example, but discussions of racism are also rife with this problem.
"Black lives matter" is a statement of principle, an assertion against institutional racism and head-turning that preponderantly affects one segment of the population.
"All lives matter" is a platitude, an empty slogan about as helpful and meaningful to our great, ongoing national conversation about race as "Cranberries are delicious." But more importantly, it's a chickenshit way of asserting that "White lives matter" - which is really just a chickenshit way of asserting that "White lives matter more than black lives." But even the sort of racists who believe this know better than to say it out loud.
But the point is still there. "Black lives matter." This is not taken as a given by our society. Therefore it needs to be positively asserted. "White lives matter." Yes, but that's not really an issue, is it? Because there's no parity. Racism is disproportionately used as a weapon against the black population of this country. And, yes, I know there was that "genocide" against white farmers in South Africa and you could probably find a wacky here-or-there story about a white guy who got fired because his black boss was racist or something, but these are not fair examples because there is no parity.
Not even close. Not even remotely goddamned close. Not even Don Adams squeaking, "Missed it by thaaaaat much" close. It's comparing goddamned apples and octopuses.
I'm going to make one more comparison and then that'll be it. (Although I could go on all day, it's not good for my blood pressure.) Pretty much ever since Obergefell and Hodges (well, since always, but it's gone into hyperdrive since then) there's a certain segment of Chicken Littles who have decided that gay marriage means Christians are being discriminated against in this country. And they even manage to pull out the odd example, like a baker who was sued for not making a wedding cake, or a county clerk who was sued for not issuing marriage licenses, both cases supposedly because of the defendants profound faiths.
And even if I take these sad sack tales at face value (which I don't, because they're both bullshit) I still have to think to myself, "Gosh, those two Christians paid a small financial penalty for their faith because it conflicted with the law. Of course, most gays have to live in pretty much constant fear of discrimination and ridicule at best and being beaten up, 'fag-dragged' behind a truck, and murdered at worst. So I'm not sure that there's necessarily parity there."
August 19, 2015
Reader Mailbag #1: Questions On Prologues and Writer's Block
Well, would you believe that after last week's post when I mentioned never having been asked a question for the blog before, I actually received an e-mail today with a couple of questions? Of course, the two phenomena are completely unrelated, as these questions came from a con-goer and I had to ask her if I could post them on the blog, but NEVERTHELESS I stand by my initial statement that if you want me to answer questions for you, much like a monkey dancing for an organ grinder, all you have to do is send them my way.
So today's mailbag contained a couple of questions about prologues and one about writer's block from future bestseller Steph Cassidy. Let's dig in!
1.) Are prologues a good thing to have, especially for a first novel?
I hope this doesn't wreck up your day, but the short answer is "no." Agents (I'm typically going to say "agents" but I mean small publishers as well) have turned very much against prologues in the past few years. It may have to do with their business practices, since they typically ask for the first three chapters of a manuscript and would naturally get pissed when the whole first "chapter" is unrelated to anything else. It may also just have to do with broad publishing trends, but almost universally agents are recommending no prologues, especially for debut novels.
That being said, I have snuck a stealth prologue or two into a submission by just calling it "Chapter One." If you have your heart dead set on some kind of prologue, I recommend doing this at a minimum. But generally speaking, I would avoid the prologue. And when you respond that people like George R.R. Martin use prologues with deadly efficiency (which, personally, I agree with) the agent's response will be, "Let's worry about that when you're as popular as George R.R. Martin."
2.) What makes a good prologue?
As I said, I wouldn't use a prologue if you're trying to jump into the business. Maybe keep that particular tool in your rucksack until you're a little better established.
Maybe it's best to think of it this way: an agent is not so much looking for an excuse to take you on, they're looking for an excuse to reject you. So if you misspelled their name? That's an excuse. If your query was 275 words and they said keep it to 250? That's an excuse. If you used a prologue and they said not to? That's an excuse. It's not to say that if your work is heartbreakingly gorgeous, they won't ignore all the excuses. But the way you want to think of it is, you want to nail everything in your query package so that the agent has no excuse for rejecting you, and really has to seriously consider you. Is a prologue an absolute deal-breaker? No, probably not. But it is an excuse if they're looking for one.
That being said, if you feel a prologue is absolutely integral to your plot and there's no way around it, I would just say make it your best, punchiest, sharpest writing. Make it the best writing in the whole book. (The goal is to hook your reader, right? And you only have the first five pages to do that anyway, if you're lucky.) End with a cliffhanger so that the reader feels compelled to keep reading. Maybe as best you can make it really clear how the prologue synchs up with the rest of the book as quickly as possible. Avoid the sort of obscure prologue that only makes sense when you've finished the last chapter of the book.
3.) How long/short should a prologue be?
The glib answer to any question like this is "as long as it needs to be." That being said, agents typically request the first three chapters or ten thousand words. So the expectation is that an average chapter in an average book, everything else in the universe being equal, is about 3500 words. As a craftsman: 3500 words is something to shoot for. As an artist: make your chapters as long as they need to be.
4.) How does one overcome writer's block?
I'm going to reference two great geniuses in my field for this one.
a.) First, Brian Keene (who is a lovely person and my personal hero and you should buy all of his books) said that when he had writer's block he went back to re-read the classics of his genre (horror) and remind himself why he wanted to do this in the first place. And as soon as he re-read Richard Laymon he realized he had a Laymon-style novel in him and wrote CASTAWAYS. But generally speaking, reading as a writer will open up new thought processes and make you re-think pieces of craft that will get you itching to write again. Like, "That little trick Laymon pulled? I'll bet I could pull that!" sort of thing.
b.) Second, Chuck Wendig (who I don't know personally, so I don't care whether you support him or not, but he seems like a nice guy) once said that any jerkoff can write 300 words a day. I can't remember this exact blogpost but I remember it was a very clever trap. He just outlined with simple numbers and said, "Look, if you write 300 words a day, at the end of a year that's over 100,000 words, which is a full-length novel. So to be a professional author writing a novel a year, you just need to write 300 words a day."
To put that in perspective, this entire e-mail (so far) is about 750 words. The answer to this question (so far) is about 250. So if you can write two to three paragraphs a day, you can be a career novelist. When Chuck threw down this gauntlet, I furrowed my brow and decided to see if he was right. And so I set out to write 500 words a day. And I realized that what he had done was told us to sprinkle salt on a bird's tail.
See, there's an old wives' tale that if you can sprinkle salt on a bird's tail it won't be able to fly away and you can catch it. The joke, of course, is that if you can be stealthy enough to get close enough to a bird to sprinkle salt on it's tail, you can just reach out and grab it. When I sat down to write 500 (or, as he originally suggest, 300) words a day, I realized I couldn't STOP at 500 words. The whole trick was getting your butt in a chair every day and writing. And if you've had a terrible, shitty, no-good, awful, very bad day, and you have to force yourself to get to 500, well, you'll still have a novel in a year. But more likely than not you'll find yourself cranking out a few thousand words a day. I finished a full novel in about three months using that method, and I wrote Wendig to thank him for the suggestion.
So today's mailbag contained a couple of questions about prologues and one about writer's block from future bestseller Steph Cassidy. Let's dig in!
1.) Are prologues a good thing to have, especially for a first novel?
I hope this doesn't wreck up your day, but the short answer is "no." Agents (I'm typically going to say "agents" but I mean small publishers as well) have turned very much against prologues in the past few years. It may have to do with their business practices, since they typically ask for the first three chapters of a manuscript and would naturally get pissed when the whole first "chapter" is unrelated to anything else. It may also just have to do with broad publishing trends, but almost universally agents are recommending no prologues, especially for debut novels.
That being said, I have snuck a stealth prologue or two into a submission by just calling it "Chapter One." If you have your heart dead set on some kind of prologue, I recommend doing this at a minimum. But generally speaking, I would avoid the prologue. And when you respond that people like George R.R. Martin use prologues with deadly efficiency (which, personally, I agree with) the agent's response will be, "Let's worry about that when you're as popular as George R.R. Martin."
2.) What makes a good prologue?
As I said, I wouldn't use a prologue if you're trying to jump into the business. Maybe keep that particular tool in your rucksack until you're a little better established.
Maybe it's best to think of it this way: an agent is not so much looking for an excuse to take you on, they're looking for an excuse to reject you. So if you misspelled their name? That's an excuse. If your query was 275 words and they said keep it to 250? That's an excuse. If you used a prologue and they said not to? That's an excuse. It's not to say that if your work is heartbreakingly gorgeous, they won't ignore all the excuses. But the way you want to think of it is, you want to nail everything in your query package so that the agent has no excuse for rejecting you, and really has to seriously consider you. Is a prologue an absolute deal-breaker? No, probably not. But it is an excuse if they're looking for one.
That being said, if you feel a prologue is absolutely integral to your plot and there's no way around it, I would just say make it your best, punchiest, sharpest writing. Make it the best writing in the whole book. (The goal is to hook your reader, right? And you only have the first five pages to do that anyway, if you're lucky.) End with a cliffhanger so that the reader feels compelled to keep reading. Maybe as best you can make it really clear how the prologue synchs up with the rest of the book as quickly as possible. Avoid the sort of obscure prologue that only makes sense when you've finished the last chapter of the book.
3.) How long/short should a prologue be?
The glib answer to any question like this is "as long as it needs to be." That being said, agents typically request the first three chapters or ten thousand words. So the expectation is that an average chapter in an average book, everything else in the universe being equal, is about 3500 words. As a craftsman: 3500 words is something to shoot for. As an artist: make your chapters as long as they need to be.
4.) How does one overcome writer's block?
I'm going to reference two great geniuses in my field for this one.
a.) First, Brian Keene (who is a lovely person and my personal hero and you should buy all of his books) said that when he had writer's block he went back to re-read the classics of his genre (horror) and remind himself why he wanted to do this in the first place. And as soon as he re-read Richard Laymon he realized he had a Laymon-style novel in him and wrote CASTAWAYS. But generally speaking, reading as a writer will open up new thought processes and make you re-think pieces of craft that will get you itching to write again. Like, "That little trick Laymon pulled? I'll bet I could pull that!" sort of thing.
b.) Second, Chuck Wendig (who I don't know personally, so I don't care whether you support him or not, but he seems like a nice guy) once said that any jerkoff can write 300 words a day. I can't remember this exact blogpost but I remember it was a very clever trap. He just outlined with simple numbers and said, "Look, if you write 300 words a day, at the end of a year that's over 100,000 words, which is a full-length novel. So to be a professional author writing a novel a year, you just need to write 300 words a day."
To put that in perspective, this entire e-mail (so far) is about 750 words. The answer to this question (so far) is about 250. So if you can write two to three paragraphs a day, you can be a career novelist. When Chuck threw down this gauntlet, I furrowed my brow and decided to see if he was right. And so I set out to write 500 words a day. And I realized that what he had done was told us to sprinkle salt on a bird's tail.
See, there's an old wives' tale that if you can sprinkle salt on a bird's tail it won't be able to fly away and you can catch it. The joke, of course, is that if you can be stealthy enough to get close enough to a bird to sprinkle salt on it's tail, you can just reach out and grab it. When I sat down to write 500 (or, as he originally suggest, 300) words a day, I realized I couldn't STOP at 500 words. The whole trick was getting your butt in a chair every day and writing. And if you've had a terrible, shitty, no-good, awful, very bad day, and you have to force yourself to get to 500, well, you'll still have a novel in a year. But more likely than not you'll find yourself cranking out a few thousand words a day. I finished a full novel in about three months using that method, and I wrote Wendig to thank him for the suggestion.
August 17, 2015
Can't Get Enough of Me?
Did you know that I'm reviewing "The Strain" this season over on our good friend The Bookie Monster's site? I'm testing the waters on this a bit...aside from the occasional book I've never tried my hand at reviewing before. I did ask for a job at the avclub once, and never heard back. Of course, I didn't have any writing credits at that point so I can't exactly fault them for not hiring a rando off the street.
But anyway, just in case you've missed it, you can read SO MUCH MORE of my opinions on shit by checking out my BM articles,too:
Episode 1
Episode 2
Episode 3
Episode 4
Episode 5
But anyway, just in case you've missed it, you can read SO MUCH MORE of my opinions on shit by checking out my BM articles,too:
Episode 1
Episode 2
Episode 3
Episode 4
Episode 5
August 14, 2015
On Reviewing Books You Hate
Janet Reid had an interesting question in her mailbag last week. (By the way, I don't think I've ever gotten a reader question before, but feel free to contact me if you want me to address something on the blog.) Aaaaanyway, Janet received a rather lengthy e-mail with a fairly specific problem, so she addressed that pretty directly, and it's worth a read. But it did strike me that this is a topic which might be worth a broad stroke approach, too.
So, as I've often pointed out, being an author means being part of a community. Like any community we have our Reggies from the Archie comics and our Franks from "M*A*S*H" and even our Barney Fifes, but it's a community nonetheless. You notice no matter how exasperating Frank or Eeyore or whoever got, when it came down to the community vs. the outside world, the rest of the gang never excluded them.
I don't know why I got into that. Look, the literary world is really an ecosystem. Everybody knows everybody and every writer starts out as a reader and every reviewer aspires to be a writer. A lot of publishing is predicated on favor-swapping, as well as paying it forward, which I've covered in other posts. But what this all boils down to is that at some point in your career you will be asked to read a crappy book.
I don't think it matters if you're J.K. Rowling or if you're Crazy Eddie in the tin foil hat, you will be asked to read a book, and you will feel obligated to do so, and it will be crappy.
Imagine, for instance, that a reviewer who has bought, read, reviewed, and shared all eight of my extant books came to me and admitted they wrote under a pen name and asked me to review one of their books. Or imagine one of the authors who I go to conventions with and who literally sit there for days at a time and sell my book to strangers
So, as I've often pointed out, being an author means being part of a community. Like any community we have our Reggies from the Archie comics and our Franks from "M*A*S*H" and even our Barney Fifes, but it's a community nonetheless. You notice no matter how exasperating Frank or Eeyore or whoever got, when it came down to the community vs. the outside world, the rest of the gang never excluded them.
I don't know why I got into that. Look, the literary world is really an ecosystem. Everybody knows everybody and every writer starts out as a reader and every reviewer aspires to be a writer. A lot of publishing is predicated on favor-swapping, as well as paying it forward, which I've covered in other posts. But what this all boils down to is that at some point in your career you will be asked to read a crappy book.
I don't think it matters if you're J.K. Rowling or if you're Crazy Eddie in the tin foil hat, you will be asked to read a book, and you will feel obligated to do so, and it will be crappy.
Imagine, for instance, that a reviewer who has bought, read, reviewed, and shared all eight of my extant books came to me and admitted they wrote under a pen name and asked me to review one of their books. Or imagine one of the authors who I go to conventions with and who literally sit there for days at a time and sell my book to strangers
August 12, 2015
Types of Reviews
HAWM, friends and blogketeers! Today I thought I'd do something a little bit different. I'm by no means an expert on reviews, but I have received a few of them at this point, (and even written a few) enough so that I've noticed trends in reviewing styles. Let's look at a few.
The Basic Review
Description: From an author's perspective, this is the ideal review. A random person read the book and felt moved to consign their genuine thoughts to posterity.
Example: "I really liked this book. It wasn't the greatest book I ever read, but it had tension. Jimmy was my favorite character. I think if this author writes something else, I'll probably check it out."
The Overly Effusive Review
Description: Let's not mince words here: authors love having their egos stroked, and a good review can be a day-maker (sometimes even a week-maker.) And then sometimes it gets weird...
Example: "When I say this author is God, I mean it. And that's coming from a devout Christian. I sincerely believe he may be Jesus reborn. I have never read words of this heart-wrenching beauty, and to see so many in a row all in one place just makes my bosom heave with agony that I hadn't read them before now. I hope to meet this author one day and give him the sloppy blowjob he deserves."
The Scorcher
Description: Effusive reviews can get a little...weird. That being said, I'd generally rather receive one of those than an absolute scorcher. Sometimes a person doesn't just dislike the words you wrote on a page. Sometimes they wish you had been aborted in utero. And, yeah, they really do get that harsh sometimes.
Example: "This book is a total trainwreck. The author is obviously a misogynist/racist and/or member of a minority group/political party/religion which I will imply is awful without really clarifying why. He needs to give up writing, and maybe try something he might be good at, like gathering up pigshit without gloves. I wish I could award zero stars, because this festering pile of rancid dog cum deserves it, if not worse."
The Semi-Review
Description: It sort of seems like someone sat down to write a review, but then gave up midway through. This sort of review will be marked by lack of capitalization, sentence fragments, and incomplete thoughts.
Example: "good book."
The Damn Novel-In-It's-Own-Right
Description: A sentence fragment can be a little unsatisfying. Then, on the other hand, you have someone who clearly has too much time on their hands. I have a friend who (no shit) received a combination Scorcher/DNIIOR. It was about nine single-spaced pages, carefully ripping apart every scene in the book.
Example: "Let's take a look at page one. Here we have seven paragraphs which...hold on, I should probably back up. First of all, my degree is in psychology, so that should probably give you an idea of where I'm coming from. Well, I say 'degree,' but the truth is I never completed my matriculation. That's not a reason to look down on me, you know. Plenty of successful people never went to college. Just off the top of my head I can think of Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, and Mark Cuban. And in my case, this was the eighties and kind of a different time. Reagan had just been elected president, disco was on the downswing, and the market was bullish. Oh, I remember it like it was yesterday...[truncated due to space limitations.]"
The Nonsense Review
Description: This reviewer was clearly deranged. It seems they read your book, but otherwise it would be difficult to establish a clear connection between them and reality. Their criteria for evaluation are...let's just say, confusing.
Example: "Sure, there were zombies, but no mention of Donald Trump? I mean, what's going on here? We live in this world where wet is down and up is left and I mean, I love the book, there were hardly any typos, except that one on p. 94 which mixed up 'their' and 'there,' but do you really think that lacking cow is going to moo moo moo your way back into the farmstead? Three stars. Minus two points because you know why."
The Sleight-of-Hand Review
Description: The reviewer clearly has ulterior motives. Sometimes the review sites catch these and delete them. Sometimes they slip through anyway. Maybe the reviewer casually mentions somewhere to buy cheap Ray-Bans. Maybe they e-mail you (this actually happened to me once) and ask for a quid pro quo review on their own book based on their unasked-for review which clearly went no further than glancing at the cover.
Example: "This book was great. I especially liked the scene set in Barcelona. If you'd like to learn more about finding cheap hotel rooms in Barcelona, you can check out my blog at..."
***
What about you? Get any weird/awesome/extreme review styles you'd like to share?
The Basic Review
Description: From an author's perspective, this is the ideal review. A random person read the book and felt moved to consign their genuine thoughts to posterity.
Example: "I really liked this book. It wasn't the greatest book I ever read, but it had tension. Jimmy was my favorite character. I think if this author writes something else, I'll probably check it out."
The Overly Effusive Review
Description: Let's not mince words here: authors love having their egos stroked, and a good review can be a day-maker (sometimes even a week-maker.) And then sometimes it gets weird...
Example: "When I say this author is God, I mean it. And that's coming from a devout Christian. I sincerely believe he may be Jesus reborn. I have never read words of this heart-wrenching beauty, and to see so many in a row all in one place just makes my bosom heave with agony that I hadn't read them before now. I hope to meet this author one day and give him the sloppy blowjob he deserves."
The Scorcher
Description: Effusive reviews can get a little...weird. That being said, I'd generally rather receive one of those than an absolute scorcher. Sometimes a person doesn't just dislike the words you wrote on a page. Sometimes they wish you had been aborted in utero. And, yeah, they really do get that harsh sometimes.
Example: "This book is a total trainwreck. The author is obviously a misogynist/racist and/or member of a minority group/political party/religion which I will imply is awful without really clarifying why. He needs to give up writing, and maybe try something he might be good at, like gathering up pigshit without gloves. I wish I could award zero stars, because this festering pile of rancid dog cum deserves it, if not worse."
The Semi-Review
Description: It sort of seems like someone sat down to write a review, but then gave up midway through. This sort of review will be marked by lack of capitalization, sentence fragments, and incomplete thoughts.
Example: "good book."
The Damn Novel-In-It's-Own-Right
Description: A sentence fragment can be a little unsatisfying. Then, on the other hand, you have someone who clearly has too much time on their hands. I have a friend who (no shit) received a combination Scorcher/DNIIOR. It was about nine single-spaced pages, carefully ripping apart every scene in the book.
Example: "Let's take a look at page one. Here we have seven paragraphs which...hold on, I should probably back up. First of all, my degree is in psychology, so that should probably give you an idea of where I'm coming from. Well, I say 'degree,' but the truth is I never completed my matriculation. That's not a reason to look down on me, you know. Plenty of successful people never went to college. Just off the top of my head I can think of Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, and Mark Cuban. And in my case, this was the eighties and kind of a different time. Reagan had just been elected president, disco was on the downswing, and the market was bullish. Oh, I remember it like it was yesterday...[truncated due to space limitations.]"
The Nonsense Review
Description: This reviewer was clearly deranged. It seems they read your book, but otherwise it would be difficult to establish a clear connection between them and reality. Their criteria for evaluation are...let's just say, confusing.
Example: "Sure, there were zombies, but no mention of Donald Trump? I mean, what's going on here? We live in this world where wet is down and up is left and I mean, I love the book, there were hardly any typos, except that one on p. 94 which mixed up 'their' and 'there,' but do you really think that lacking cow is going to moo moo moo your way back into the farmstead? Three stars. Minus two points because you know why."
The Sleight-of-Hand Review
Description: The reviewer clearly has ulterior motives. Sometimes the review sites catch these and delete them. Sometimes they slip through anyway. Maybe the reviewer casually mentions somewhere to buy cheap Ray-Bans. Maybe they e-mail you (this actually happened to me once) and ask for a quid pro quo review on their own book based on their unasked-for review which clearly went no further than glancing at the cover.
Example: "This book was great. I especially liked the scene set in Barcelona. If you'd like to learn more about finding cheap hotel rooms in Barcelona, you can check out my blog at..."
***
What about you? Get any weird/awesome/extreme review styles you'd like to share?
August 10, 2015
The Scale of Overratedness
If you spend any period of time on the internet, you'll find people unnecessarily excited about truly undeserving things. Usually this amounts to a cat video which you can simply scroll past, but what about the times when you're just not sure whether something is worth your time to look at/discuss/experience or not?
Never fear, gentle reader, Manuscripts Burn is here with the solution! I hereby present to you a helpful scale by which to measure how overrated something is:
As you can see, this scale is based on 1 full Amy Schumer and is divided into one hundred equal units or "centiSchumers." Now in the future you can easily mark how overrated something you or someone else is sharing by simply commenting "0 centiSchumers" (Louie C.K.) or "50 centiSchumers" ("The Boondock Saints.")
0 - Johnny Cash: Since his death the Man in Black has been overhyped, overexposed, and has been the victim of more fair weather fans since his death than you can shake a Ring of Fire at. And he absolutely delivers in every regard. A genuine icon who led a hardscrabble life, a veteran with a social conscience and the music to put everyone else in their place.
25 - "Doctor Who": I've been a "Doctor Who" diehard since 2005, well before most of you Tennant fans clambered aboard the bandwagon, so I say this with all the love in the world: Shut. The fuck. Up. About it.
40 - Norman Reedus: Norman Reedus actually seems like a nice guy, and not a terrible actor. His portrayal of Daryl Dixon in "The Walking Dead" TV show - a character who didn't appear in the comics - was actually kind of a breath of fresh air. The rest of it is hot air.
60 - Bacon: When deep-fried to a crisp, this garbage part of the pig makes an acceptable garnish. The fact that there is now bacon-flavored vodka is a result of the meat industry astroturfing a campaign to raise the price of pork bellies. And you fell for it.
75 - Key and Peele: Basically, they're the Amy Schumers of comedy.
90 - "Firefly": This marginally serviceable network TV show was cancelled 13 years ago. Fans whined about it enough to get a movie. Now the internet is riddled with moaning and rending of stupid orange hats.
100 - Amy Schumer: I actually watched Amy Schumer's 2012 comedy special. It was kinda funny, I guess. Now she's on the cover of "Glamour" and there seems to be an entire cottage industry dedicated to shoving her down the public's throat. Maybe we could just let that happen organically, you know? Or maybe not.
***
You can even test it out right now if you like. How overrated was this post? Let me know with a numerical mark and a point of comparison in the comments below!
Never fear, gentle reader, Manuscripts Burn is here with the solution! I hereby present to you a helpful scale by which to measure how overrated something is:
As you can see, this scale is based on 1 full Amy Schumer and is divided into one hundred equal units or "centiSchumers." Now in the future you can easily mark how overrated something you or someone else is sharing by simply commenting "0 centiSchumers" (Louie C.K.) or "50 centiSchumers" ("The Boondock Saints.")
0 - Johnny Cash: Since his death the Man in Black has been overhyped, overexposed, and has been the victim of more fair weather fans since his death than you can shake a Ring of Fire at. And he absolutely delivers in every regard. A genuine icon who led a hardscrabble life, a veteran with a social conscience and the music to put everyone else in their place.
25 - "Doctor Who": I've been a "Doctor Who" diehard since 2005, well before most of you Tennant fans clambered aboard the bandwagon, so I say this with all the love in the world: Shut. The fuck. Up. About it.
40 - Norman Reedus: Norman Reedus actually seems like a nice guy, and not a terrible actor. His portrayal of Daryl Dixon in "The Walking Dead" TV show - a character who didn't appear in the comics - was actually kind of a breath of fresh air. The rest of it is hot air.
60 - Bacon: When deep-fried to a crisp, this garbage part of the pig makes an acceptable garnish. The fact that there is now bacon-flavored vodka is a result of the meat industry astroturfing a campaign to raise the price of pork bellies. And you fell for it.
75 - Key and Peele: Basically, they're the Amy Schumers of comedy.
90 - "Firefly": This marginally serviceable network TV show was cancelled 13 years ago. Fans whined about it enough to get a movie. Now the internet is riddled with moaning and rending of stupid orange hats.
100 - Amy Schumer: I actually watched Amy Schumer's 2012 comedy special. It was kinda funny, I guess. Now she's on the cover of "Glamour" and there seems to be an entire cottage industry dedicated to shoving her down the public's throat. Maybe we could just let that happen organically, you know? Or maybe not.
***
You can even test it out right now if you like. How overrated was this post? Let me know with a numerical mark and a point of comparison in the comments below!
August 7, 2015
Shore Leave 37!
Oh, hai guys! I'm going to be at Shore Leave 37 all this weekend! If you live in the Baltimore area, why not swing on by? Legendary sci-fi author Mary Fan and I will be in the Dealer's Room all weekend, except for when we're speaking at panels. So come on out, get a book, get a signature, chat us up, whatever you want. Hope to see you there!
Dates:
Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, August 7-9
Location:
The Hunt Valley Inn
245 Shawan Rd., Hunt Valley, MD 21031
Panels:
Friday 4:00 pm, Derby Room - "Writing Groups and Beta Readers: How to Give and Receive Criticism"
Saturday 12:00 noon, Derby Room - "Publishing: The Good, The Bad, and The Indie"
Saturday 2:00 pm, Derby Room - "Generations Geek: Families and Fandom"
Saturday 3:00 pm, Salon E - "Military fiction vs. Real Military Life"
Saturday 5:00 pm, Chase Room - "Brave New Girls"
Sunday 10:00 am - "Canon or Not: Tie-Ins’ Relation to Source Material"
Sunday 2:00 pm, Salon E - "Switching It Up: Writing Different Kinds of Books"
August 5, 2015
New Release: DEVIL'S POCKET by John Dixon
Big congrats go out to our good friend (and one of my favorite people in the world) John Dixon on the release of DEVIL'S POCKET, the sequel to his Bram Stoker Award winning debut novel PHOENIX ISLAND! Get out there and support John because I know if you don't he can kick your ass. DEVIL'S POCKET is available via:
Amazon
Barnes and Noble
GooglePlay
And make sure to tell your friends about it on Goodreads!
