Twenty-dollar Proposals by Andy Scheer

I groaned when my wife brought me the Express Mail envelope.

Without opening it, I was nearly certain the sender had wasted his money. He'd gone to a lot of work, a considerable expense, and also made more work for me. Not a win-win situation.

Inside I found a neatly done cover letter, a brief proposal, and a fifty-page fiction sample. Without reading it, I was nearly certain I'd soon be sending him a rejection. What a shame.

By simple arithmetic, any writer contacting an agent for the first time has the odds stacked against him. Agents receive far more proposals from potential clients than they can possibly represent.

The work of deciding whether to decline becomes easier if the writer proposes something in a genre outside my expertise. Or if the sample chapters are laced with material I find offensive.

But in this case, the writer simply hadn't paid attention to the information on the Hartline website that four of the agency's five agents “accept ONLY e-mail submissions.” So I was expecting the proposal wouldn't cover — at least in any depth — the required information. It didn't.

Not surprisingly, the fiction style didn't impress me. The prose felt flabby—loaded with telling and double attributions (both a tag and a beat) for every line of dialogue, plus funky punctuation. I didn't enjoy spelling out my major reasons why I thought the piece was not yet ready for publication, but I felt the writer deserved at least some return for his twenty-dollar investment.

I just wish he had invested his postage money in a book from Writer's Digest, learned more about the craft, then emailed me a proposal — for free.

Why do you write? by Linda S. Glaz

FAME!

FORTUNE!

FUN!

What are you seeking when you sit down to write?

Do you write because you have to like you have to breathe?

Because you long for the day when a printed book arrives in

the mail with your name on it?

(I know, that sounds awesome...)

There's no right or wrong, no good or bad, but

what prompts you to sit behind a computer,

sometimes for hours and hours pounding away at the keys?

I've been told by a few wonderful folks it's to promote

God's kingdom and then I read a few of the stories.

OUCH! They promoted everything but...

And that's okay, just say you're writing to write.

Or to make money, or to have people see your name in print.

Whatever drives you.

A couple years ago when I was fairly new to inspirational novels,

I reviewed one by a (Christian) author.

I hoped she might be slightly outside the box,

as I love edgy fiction, but edgy in my world, and

edgy in hers...hmmm.

Big difference.

My world of edgy doesn't include enough

"private" scenes to make a porn star happy.

YIKES!

And it did. Needless to say,

I didn't finish that particular review.

What I'm trying perhaps not all that well to say is,

just because something has a particular label doesn't make it so.

Believe me, I learned the hard way, red face and all.

I'm rambling here a bit, so I'm gonna sign off, but think

about it...why do you write?

And are you able to admit to yourself, to others, to your readers,

why you began in the first place? And why you keep going...

About the New 2013 YouTube Layout Design by Jennifer Hudson Taylor

YouTube has been experimenting with a new layout design that they have just made available for everyone. I have not yet converted my personal channel, but I have converted Upon the Rock Publicist.

Here is my initial assessment 
The new layout is more pleasing to the eye and visual as one would expect a video channel to be, but the functionality in creating and customizing it could be better.

For this reason, I want to share my experience to better prepare you when you get ready to change your YouTube channel over to the new design. Once you know the pros and cons, you can be thinking about how to design your header, how to position it, and which video to feature. These details will matter. I've used screen shots below to give you an idea of what I'm talking about.

When you decide to switch over, go to YouTube One channel. Click the blue button, Get the New Design. The next thing you will be asked to do is upload your Channel Art. The overall dimensions must be 2120 x 1193 pixels. It will not allow you to upload an image smaller than this, so be sure to design your art to these specifications.

Once you upload your Channel Art, YouTube will show you how your image appears across multiple platforms. (See Below) Here is where things get a little confusing and frustrating. They provide a blue button at the bottom of the screen that says Adjust the Crop. It opens another screen showing a transparent box over the image with four retangle corners. It gives every impression that you CAN crop the image, or move the rectangle over your preferred area, but it doesn't budge. I tested it on both my laptop and a desktop. Same result.

Whatever image you choose, know that it must be full size, but concentrate on the center rectangle horizontal piece of the design. Just know that if you're image is setup at 2120 x 1193 pixels, there is no cropping or adjusting it. I don't even know why they have that button there. It's a false impression of customization. For a better understanding of these dimensions, go to the Channel Art Guidelines.

As a result, I managed to get the main part of my banner image showing, but only the bottom portion of the earth. The positive thing about this layout is that YouTube provides live links to your website, blog and a few social media links on top of this main image in the bottom right corner. Below is what it now looks like until I change it again. You will be allowed to choose a video you want to feature. Some people are choosing their most recent video, while others are creating a video that explains who they are, what they do, and what their channel is all about.

To the right of the featured video are smaller thumbnails of your most recent activity, such as videos you've watched, liked or uploaded. Below that are horizontal thumbnails of your various playlists.

Have fun creating your new YouTube channel design and making the most of it. Feel free to post your comments or questions. What are your thoughts about YouTube's latest design?

Meet you in Georgetown, Texas? by Terry Burns

I will be at the CenTex Chapter of ACFW doing a full-day seminar  on April 20, from 8:30 am to 3 pm in Georgetown Texas, outside of Austin.


In this type of workshop I'll actually be doing a series of workshops, each hour changing to a different topic. Each section will be very question and answer driven to insure we get to the topics that each attendee would like addressed. We'll discuss the submission and publication process and give writers an inside look at how their proposal can rise to the top of an agent or publisher's desk.


The Centex Chapter meets the third Saturday of each month at Chapel on the Hill, 401 Westinghouse Road, Georgetown TX. Visitors are invited to attend and may attend two local meetings without joining the national organization.

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Registration includes breakfast, lunch, and handouts. For more information, registration form, and agenda, visit http://www.centexacfw.com/.

Focus and Discipline by Diana Flegal

No horse gets any where until he is harnessed. No life ever grows great until it is focused, dedicated, disciplined.  Harry Emerson Fosdick 

Has discipline or lack of it played a key role in your writing journey?

How and what have you learned along the way that might benefit others.

What words of wisdom were shared with you by a parent or mentor that you reckon back to even now?


(Photo of Spring in Asheville North Carolina)

Detergents and Character Lists by Andy Scheer

Those were the first two topics in the “Hints from Heloise” column that appeared a week ago in my morning newspaper.

I scanned the first, about whether you can use new “HE” (high efficiency) detergent in older top-loaders. Turns out you can—but you shouldn't put old-style detergent in the high efficiency front-loaders. Standard stuff for Heloise.

But the next item wasn't. “A.M. in Ohio” wrote this:

Dear Heloise: I read a lot. I list the characters and their reason for being there as they are introduced. This way, it's easier to keep track of them as they reappear. It works for me.

I can't imagine such a scenario. (Granted, I can't imagine following most hints people send to Heloise.) But are books really published with such generic characters that a reader needs to keep a scorecard?

For years in the Thick-Skinned Manuscript Clinics at the Writing for the Soul conference, Jerry B. Jenkins has advised novelists not to give two major characters a name that begins with the same letter.

An upcoming Writer's Digest book on fiction I just finished editing advises that each line of dialogue should be character-specific. Meaning that if you tried to put one character's words into another's mouth, it would sound out of character. As a test, she suggests this:

Compose a line of dialogue for each POV character in your story. Use language only that viewpoint character would say—but no speaker tags. Show your work to someone who knows your story to see if she can identify who is speaking.

Yes, this writer suggests making a character chart like A.M. suggests, but only to help you plan the story—and to see if you can streamline the cast by combining several character's roles into one.

Maybe if more writers followed that advice, A.M. in Ohio could have more time for charting detergents.

Five-Star Reviews! By Linda S. Glaz

Here you go; something we all want. Five-star reviews for our books. But what do readers think when they see all fives on a review? Or a review that is amazing and awesome, but so vague, one has to wonder whether or not the reviewer actually read the title.

Readers will probably think Mom and sis did a lot of reviews.

And we want more than that, right? We don’t ask for someone’s opinion so that they can tell us what we want to hear.

I’ve noticed in the inspirational community, we truly encourage each other. A multi-pubbed author might offer to read a work and help a newbie on their way. I have to think that makes our community a very special one. No, I don’t to think it; I know it. I see the acts of kindness every day in many ways. Client A who has been waiting ten years to get a contract will help Client B, who just signed with me, and gets offered a two-book deal at a much-coveted house, to get his or her edits ready in time. Client B might then go on to help Client A clean up her proposal, her last chapters, whatever it takes to get her novel ready.

However, and this is an issue that stands out to me as a negative within the community, when asked for a review, too many of us, and most of us have done it, will give a review that should probably be a 4-star review, five stars. Why? There’s no one answer, but my gut tells me that it’s because we are an encouraging bunch. We don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings.

It’s not hurting feelings, it’s being honest. The author learns from constructive criticism, or should. We all should. Just having smoke blown up our tights doesn’t help us to grow as writers. Crit partners start us out, and reviewing readers keep us going.

I did have to laugh over the review of one book I read. The reviewer praised the author up and down, and then gave her a three. Really? How did that happen? The reviewer complained that there was a “religious” thread in the book. IT WAS LOVE INSPIRED! Really, what did she expect? But the fact was, she tried to let her true feelings be known, silly as that comment was. The truth is what teaches us, nurtures us, guides us.

What type of reviews do you do? Have you seen? Have you endured???