Hairballs, Hiccoughs, and Howdies by Linda S. Glaz

Hairballs and hiccoughs? What does that have to do with my WIP?

Have you ever read a script? It’s bare bones. Basics. Just the facts, ma’am.

There’s very little in a script to let the readers know that life is happening. Oh, certainly, you have the dialogue and enough direction to give you a skeletal idea of what is taking place, but do you have the hairballs that life brings up? With a script, that takes an expert actor and/or director.

The difference between a script and a novel is life: sights, sounds, tastes, and smells. These are all the things that bring your novel to life. If you have a story with a cat playing a part, does the cat gets hairballs? Do you smell her nasty canned cat food at some point? Is there a litter box that smells so bad it makes you gag?

All of the senses should come into play in either a good or bad way at some point in your book. Because that’s life. Do you have a character who always says “Howdy” rather than “Good day” or “Hello”? And is there a specific reason why is does this? Does it add to or take away from your story?

The senses can do both. They can move the story forward, or bring it to a screeching halt. Would you want to share the smell of a litter box in a romantic moment of your novel? Or would it be a wonderful and terrible find for your antagonist as he creeps through the house? And how might that tie in with how he’s discovered before he murders the family? Or perhaps a loud hiccough at an inopportune moment.

You, as the author, have the same responsibility with your novel that an actor and director have with a script. You need to make the story come alive for your reader. He or she can only see, feel, taste, smell, and hear what you allow them to. They are rather at your mercy, and if none of these senses come alive for the reader, you are left with a bland story.

Try throwing in some hairballs, hiccoughs, and howdies and see how your story develops.

It’s Writers’ Conference Season, by Jim Hart

  

If you haven’t noticed, it’s writers’ conference season! If you have never attended a writers’ conference, I hope this inspires you to seek one out to attend.

Here are just a few reasons for attending a writers’ conference:

1) Access to industry professionals

There are numerous opportunities to meet with editors, agents and published authors. The opportunity to network and establish connections and relationships will prove to be of great value. Most writers’ conferences afford you the chance to meet one-on-one with agents and editors to present your proposal and ask questions.

2) Classes and workshops

You will find classes and presentations tailored for just about every phase of your writing life – from the ‘just getting started’ to the ‘seasoned veteran author’. You’ll discover classes and workshops that offer instruction in the many facets of the craft of writing, how to build and strengthen your author platform, current trends in publishing and so much more.

3) Fellowship with like-minded people

Writing can be a solitary endeavor. It’s a good thing to have an opportunity to be in the company of others who share your passion for writing, even if for just a day or two. For those in the Christian writing community the time to fellowship with others is very precious.

4) Energizing!

Or exhausting – or both! You will come away from a good conference with a renewed and refreshed vision for your writing goals.

5) Provide an edge

The knowledge that you come away with from a writers’ conference is invaluable. Today it’s so vital that you know as much as possible about the publishing industry. A growing knowledge of this business helps you to not just be competitive, but to also prioritize, set the right goals and continue taking the strongest steps in your writing life. This knowledge can help you from making poor and un-informed decisions regarding your writing and what is needed for you to be published.

Writers’ conferences come in all sizes, from small one day events to large ones that cover several days. But no matter the size of the conference you attend, you will always find something of value. A couple of years ago I had the chance to attend a small one day conference, in a small town, and the keynote speaker was the publisher of a small publishing house. But the information that he shared on the craft of writing was huge and the few dozen that attended more than got their money’s worth that day.

Here are just two things that will help you prepare for a conference:

1) Do your homework

When considering a writers’ conference look carefully at their curriculum and faculty. Target the classes and appointments that you want to take advantage of.

When deciding on the agents and editors with whom you wish to make an appointment, make sure that what you write matches what they are looking for. If you see that they are not looking at romantic suspense, it’s not a good idea to go ahead and pitch your romantic suspense anyway. Know who is looking for what before you even arrive at the conference.

Let me stress how important it is to be fully prepared for an appointment with an agent or editor. In most cases you will only have 15 minutes, and those minutes go by surprisingly quick. Be ready to ask specific questions.

Also note if an agent or editor prefers to see a paper proposal, or one on a flash drive. Traveling can make it difficult to collect printed proposals to take back to the office. For me, electronic proposals are just easier to deal with. Which leads to the next point:

2) Get your one-sheets, proposals and business cards ready

I can’t over emphasis how important it is to be prepared with a great proposal and one-sheets. If you have not already done this, find resources that will help you prepare your proposal. It will be worth it.

Sometimes an agent or editor is willing to take a one-sheet from a writer who was unable to schedule an appointment with them.

I’ve had writers come to an appointment who did not have a proposal, for various legitimate reasons. But they came prepared with questions! And most of the time they were the right questions and hopefully they left with new information to help them in their writing journey.

If you’ve been able to attend writer’s conferences, what have you found to be of the most value?

It's Not My Job to Sell Your Book by Terry Burns

What? I thought that WAS the agent’s job.

It can be, but I tell my group that I believe it is OUR job to sell their book, not just mine. I tell them it is a team effort. The clients that I have that are more successful are participating in the process.

It begins before they are ever clients. They place a proposal in my hands that I can see using to sell the project. I can never write a proposal to represent a project as good as the author can write it because I can’t possibly know it as well as they do. 

Once I do accept a client I put them in an online support group that is only open to my clients and those who work with me. It is a friendly, nurturing body. There are two levels of participation, very active, praying for one another and sharing information and support, or simply being in the part of the group that gets the regular updates, announcements of contracts and releases of books by clients, allowing them to know what everyone in the client group is doing and what the marketplace is doing. So they continue to be part of the team effort through support and encouragement of one another.

Clients play a role in the information process. They go to conferences that I may or may not attend, and they are proactive pitching their book. The goal for them is to make a personal contact and get a submission invited that I can follow up on. Sure, I’m doing the same thing, but the more contacts that are made the better the odds. They serve as information gatherers. They gather and report back on any information they run across whether it seems to affect them or not. If it doesn’t affect them it may affect someone else in the group and that client may find out something to reciprocate with.

They read. There’s no way I can read a lot of books in all of the different categories that my clients write in so I encourage them to read in the genre they are writing in. They will find out things that way such as how the books are doing, who is publishing them and maybe even who the editor was. 

I mentioned my clients support one another. This is particularly the case after one publishes. They all talk about it on the social networks helping create a buzz. They interview each other on blogs and share marketing tips. Not that the number of sales represented just within the group is significant but they do tend to buy and read each other’s books.

They continue to write. They don’t just put a project in my hands and sit around obsessing over it, worrying over the length of time it takes to hear back on submissions. They continue to be aware of possible avenues we could pursue with it, but they get on with their next project. I encourage them to keep an idea file so they always have something new to work on.

Books tend to be seasonal. It is not uncommon after spending all the time to get one written that the demand is just not there. Maybe it has been overdone and people who were looking for just that type of book now not so much. Often people’s first books are not the first ones to make it into print. Career writers see books get set back until they come back in season again. Successful writers always have more in the pipeline.

Clients can also help by building their platform. In non-fiction platform is probably as important if not MORE important than the content itself. It is more and more important in fiction as well. Publishers know what they are going to do to market the book, but they want to know how proactive the author is going to be in the process and what connections they have to groups of people who might be potential buyers.

An author who waits until they have a book to promote to start building a website, start a speaking schedule, doing social networking, and other avenues of building visibility and buzz is way behind the curve. A book can run its season in a matter of months without such visibility and buzz to propel it forward. In other words, it could be through before the author is making any progress getting their platform established. That’s why the existence of that visibility NOW is so important to an editor in making an acquisition decision and it should be well demonstrated on the project proposal.

Moral support is no small item, and it seems to mean more when it is client to client instead of just me reassuring a writer. We do have to keep in mind what’s happening in the marketplace as we wait anxiously. It isn't about the quality of the writing, it is about the fit to the market. I like to use the illustration of the skit they used to do at the end of the old comedy show Laugh In where writers kept popping out of windows delivering lines, then another window would open and it'd be something else. That's the publishing industry. The trick is to get the manuscript in the right window at the exact time it is open. At any point in time maybe it only fits one place. It's a miracle we ever make that connection, much less as often as we do. 
 

How about the non-proactive client? I’m still doing everything I can to sell their project, but without the team effort they don’t have as much going for them. Plus, if I am sitting around running through my publishing databases trying to find submission opportunities and a lead comes in where someone else has had a meeting or a contact with an editor and managed to get a submission invited, guess which one I do first? That’s a no-brainer. That personal contact has to be followed up on while it is still fresh in the editor’s mind.

All of the things that I have mentioned above that proactive authors do to advance their cause are missing with the client that just sits and waits for me to do it all for them. It’ll get done, but not as quickly as it gets done for those who are heavily involved.

Words Can Build You Up by Diana Flegal

This past Saturday, the day before Mothers Day, Hartline client and dear friend Margie Houmes was killed in a head on collision. Margie was a woman that impacted every one she met. Her passion was tangible. No one could resist her joy or deny her vibrant faith was very real to her. She made us all hungry for the same. Her prayers brought down heaven and I was changed by them.

Margie was a writer. Her bible study on Ruth is right now sitting on several publishers virtual desks. Knowing others were interested in what she had to say made her happy.  

A popular song sung by Hawk Nelson came to mind when I was thinking about Margie this morning. It is a song about the importance of our words. It goes, “words can build you up, words can break you down”. (Please listen to the youtube here).

Margie lived to encourage and her words “lifted us to places we’ve never been”.

I struggled to write a tribute for her. Then I decided to use a few of her words.

Margie shared with so many:

When dreams die …unimaginable restoration is still on the horizon.

Margie listened to everyone’s story and then offered this when some asked:

            Is there a way out? Can good things—or a good life-- ever come my way? The answer is a resounding yes. There is hope... the same God who restored Ruth and Naomi has made a way—for you!  

Her mission was to help women learn their value and worth through a revelation of God’s kindness - knowing His devotion to exalt them would liberate women to make godly choices and walk into their destiny.

Last week Margie sent me a powerful prayer. Here is just a portion of it:  

Dear Diana,

I have really had you on my heart...even during the night. The Lord will finish what He began. … Do not lose heart, only look to Jesus. … That is all you need to do...look at Jesus...at His goodness...at His faithfulness. He is wonderful. He loves you. He loves your son.

I love you,

Margie

I am just one of the many blessed by her encouraging life. She will be missed but what an example of how to live out our faith. Let’s all step up and speak life to those we meet as Margie did. Our words have power. And life is fleeting.

Thank you for keeping her family and friends in your prayers. She is sorely missed.

Other Writers’ Success by Andy Scheer

How do you view other writers in your genre: competitors? colleagues? supporters?

Would you view them the same way if your own publication and sales depended on their success?

Steve had been writing for a dozen years while holding down a full-time job. After one unpublished legal thriller, he moved to a genre he loved: an international thriller that blended action, history, secrets, and conspiracy.

But since the end of the Cold War, publishers considered the genre dead. “If you were John Le Carre, Ken Follett, Robert Ludlum, or Clive Cussler, you were fine,” Steve says. “But if you were ... trying to break into that genre, you could forget it.”

Then another writer, a few years ahead of Steve, got lucky. Dan had been published three times, but without spectacular results. But for book number four, he proposed something usual. Doubleday bought it—and thought it had the potential to go far.

Steve says, “Everyone looked at it and said, ‘You know, this is a little different. It’s action, history, secrets, conspiracy, international settings.’ Guess what I was writing? That’s exactly what I’d been writing all those years.”

With the hope that Dan’s book might open a new niche, Ballantine took a chance and offered Steve Berry a contract for The Amber Room—after his previous novels had received more than eighty rejections.

Dan’s book didn’t disappoint. “When The Da Vinci Code was published,” Berry says, “it just went through the roof. ... It brought the international suspense thriller genre back to life. And I got a break. I was in the right place at the right time at the right moment on the 86th time—when Mark Tavanti, senior editor of Ballantine Books, was looking for something to go with The Da Vinci Code.”

The Da Vinci Code “brought a genre back to life,” Berry says, “and introduced readers to a lot of writers they would otherwise never have seen or gotten a chance to read.”

What about you? If you keep hearing that nobody is interested in your genre, consider praying for another writer’s success.