Kevis’s Comments (group member since Jul 22, 2009)

Kevis’s comments from the I'm Trying to Get a Book Published! group.

Mizla,

And I consider myself lucky to get to read the stories you write. The fun thing about sharing our writing with each other is that not only do you get to have the pleasure of knowing that others are reading your works. But your readers, in this case, me, get to enter your world through the words you shape and form into your writing.

I enjoyed your work a lot and learned a great deal from you as I do other writers. Believe it or not, there are things you can do with a word that I cannot. The way you express yourself through your writing is uniquely yours. There is only one person in the world with your voice and experience. You. That's what makes reading your writing so much fun. Regardless of whatever flaws may or may not exist, reading your work is the closest thing another person will ever get to knowing your soul. Keep up the great work. :)

It's funny you should ask that, Brigid. I am very tough on myself and other authors about character names. Nothing jars you out of a story quicker than reading a story that features characters with unconvincing names. To paraphrase Orson Scott Card, can you imagine if Dracula was called Cuthbert? How menacing is that?

As I think some of you are starting to learn, I am a perfectionist and believe that it is important to create character names that are not only believable, but beautiful as well. In fact, I think character names should give you a feeling for who they are.

I try to create character names that sound exactly as though they are based in reality. In other words, even though they are exotic, my character names are phonetically sound because I use linguistic structures to help create them.

For instance, in The Legend of Witch Bane most of the characters have Germanic/Norse/Anglo-Saxon/Celtic sounding names. In fact, some of my character names are taken directly from mythology or history. Names like "Rhiannon", and "Elva" are actual Celtic names. "Anyr" is Slavic in nature, while Kòdobos is a Greek sounding name. This helps to create a cultural identity for my characters or at least a cultural frame of reference for my readers.

However, I don't just drop names randomly into my story because they sound cool. I actually have invented my own languages to create a template for what kinds of names certain characters should get.

I am a bit eccentric about character names, so I don't expect everyone to go as far as I do to name their characters. But it sure doesn't hurt to make certain that your characters have names that seem to have some basis in reality. I don't know about the rest of you, but I hate reading about characters with names like XXXZZzzzzyssxss, LOL.

Hey, Archer. Glad to see you here!

Hi Archer,

This sure is an interesting group. Always a surprise around every corner. Hope all is well!

Victoria wrote: "Again, follow your instincts..."

Very sage advice. Although I concede to the point that there is a mailing expense involved with some literary agencies, many authors have been cheated out of their money through disreputable agents under the guise of mailing expense. Even in that matter discretion is advised. The point is if something doesn't feel right, you should not send any money to an agent (for any reason at all) until you know exactly how that money is going to be spent. In this case, the cost of mailing material would be the only acceptable expense. But again, even that should be scrutinized to the very last detail.

I would love it if you guys could take a look at my book trailers for The Legend of Witch Bane and let me know what you think of them. Feel free to add your comments to the trailers so that I can read them. Thanks!

http://www.goodreads.com/videos/list_...

Victoria wrote: "NEVER EVER pay an agent to edit or do anything other than mail stuff for you!!! EVER. If they ask for money for editing, I don't care how professional they sound, they are scam artists. Check out P..."

Which is exactly why I didn't bother with WL. Any literary agent worth his or her salt is going to find a way to get the author's work edited. The fact that they have their own team of editors who work for a fee is a red flag.

It is interesting to note that when I visited their newly redesigned website, there is no mention of them taking author's manuscripts to power lunches, which is the traditional way books are sold to publishers. This information was not posted when they chose to represent my book. Another red flag IMHO.

I disagree with Victoria on one point. You shouldn't be paying an agent to mail anything for you either. Plenty of disreputable agents are scamming authors out of money that way too.

Hi Mizla,

Nice to meet you. Will check out your writing.

I guess it's time for me to chime in. My book The Legend of Witch Bane was accepted by this agency for representation. However it was under their children's books division (WL Children's Agency). My contract expired with them a couple of months ago.

As it goes, the reason why nothing ever came of our partnership is because I didn't give them the green light to shop my book around. For the most part they were very professional and seemed to be what they claimed to be. My only reservation came from the fact that they wanted me to have my book edited. However, I have already spent over $1500 between 2 different editors on my book and was reluctant to shell out more money to have my book edited for a 3rd time. WL Agency has their own team of editors who can do the job, but the cost to have them perform a 3rd edit on my book was more than I could bear at the time.

Had I went ahead and gotten my book professionally for a 3rd time, they would likely have started to shop my book around. Or at least that was the promise made to me.

If you want to know my honest opinion, I am not sure what to think about WL. On one hand, they were professional when dealing with me. On the other hand, they did not bother to invest the time to edit my book for me. If an agency is so confident in an author's work, why wouldn't they invest the resources to have the book edited? Worse, why did they allow my contract to expire without ever contacting me to see if I was still interested in having them represent my work?

According to WL, they don't get paid until a book deal is signed with a publisher. So it was my responsibility to pay to have my book edited. But this is the same case with all agents. No legitimate agent will accept money from an author until a book deal is signed after which they take their percentage of the royalties earned from book sales.

This was the only real red flag that I noticed with WL. I chose not to proceed with them until I can learn more about what reputable agents do to support the authors they represent.

I cannot tell you guys whether or not you should submit your work to WL. Just bear in mind that if they do decide to represent your work, once you sign a contract with them, you can no longer submit your work to anyone else until the term of the contract expires.

Very strange. The last time I spoke with Annie was right before I asked you about why I couldn't find her thread. She was supposed to send me a copy of her book to read. Then I never heard from her again.

What happened to Annie?

Kitty Kat,

I am deeply interested in history and in particular World War 2 and the Holocaust. There isn't enough material posted here to make an informed judgment about your work. So all I can say is that I have enjoyed what I read so far and can't wait to see more.

My name is Kevis Hendrickson, author of The Legend of Witch Bane and Rogue Hunter. Since I've been critiquing the work of everyone else in this group, it's only fair that I share my writing with you all as well. Anyone interested in checking out my work can visit my author profile:

http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/...

Enjoy.

Thanks, Brigid. It will help us all out a lot.

Sagey,

Trust me. I am not the one to get involved in internet wars. It would be a total waste of my precious time. I would love to see you and everyone else in this group succeed. To be frank, if anyone here is the loser it's me. You might have written a wonderful story. Sadly, I haven't had the opportunity to find out because of the poor presentation of your story.

Every time I upload any of my writing to GoodReads, I spend as long as it takes to make it presentable. Most people are like me, they prefer quality over quantity. One well written (and presented) chapter from you will be better received than 20 hastily copied and pasted ones.

I do look forward to reading your work. Even though I must admit, if I were in your place, once I had read my previous post, I would have gone back and fixed my mistake rather than challenge the merit of the post, which up to the last time I checked you still have not.

Sagey,

You are not the only person whose work I've had problems reading. My comment was meant to address the group, not single out any one person. But since you have brought this subject up, I'll give you my response.

My eyesight isn't what it used to be. Too many hours spent looking at a computer screen has taken its toll on my vision. Even so I have read several works so far from other writers in this group and most of them have issues that need to be addressed. The writers whose works I have read are no different than you in the fact that after copying and pasting their writing, they have to go back and make it presentable.

However, you simply copied and pasted your writing without making even the least effort to separate your paragraphs. To me, that's being lazy. I understand that you are seeking advice about your work. I also am sympathetic to the fact that you may not be good at spelling or catching typos. I would have gladly worked my way through all of that to help you catch your errors if you had made the effort to at least space out your paragraphs. To me, that says that you don't care about your work or your readers.

My words may come off harsh in this post, but trust me if you plan to make your writing public, you will face far worse and unforgiving critics than myself. The public can be brutal and it's your responsiblity to make certain that you have enough pride in your work to make it look as presentable as possible. Once that is done, it will make it easier for people to be willing to take precious minutes out of their life to read your work.

I am still willing to read your work, but you need to help me help you. You can start by doing what the other writers here, including myself have done, and make our work presentable for it to be critiqued. Truth be told, it doesn't even require much time. But it does take effort. If you want me, or anyone else for that matter, to make the effort to read your story, you should also make the effort to make us want to read it.

Brigid,

I have a question. I'm trying to figure out whether or not it is a technical glitch, but whenever I go to the writer's folder I cannot see all of the writers in the group. Earlier, I was trying to find Kirilee's thread and couldn't do so until she bumped it up to the top of the folder with a post. Now I am trying to find Annie's thread and cannot do so. At this point I can only see a maximum of 15 threads, but there are more than that. Are you or anyone else having this problem?

I'll check them out as soon as I can. But I'll be sure to let you know how it goes. :)

The first chapter definitely fits being a prologue. You're already on the right track. Good luck. Talk to you later.

Kirilee,

From what I have read, you have the makings of a good story. But my efforts here have only been to point out to you a serious flaw that prevented me from enjoying your story. Had the main plot been obvious from the start of your book and the scenes in your sample chapters reinforced that point your story would have had clarity and meaning. Both of these elements are essential to making sure that when a reader like me comes along that I can follow your story without going wondering why it doesn't make sense to me. I am, however, glad to hear that you are revising your plot. Anything that you do to make your stories better is a plus. ;)