Good Rejections

Wow. My fastest rejection ever. 
Yesterday, with high hopes, I sent (emailed) a manuscript to an agent who had come several times to talk with our local SCBWI group. This morning I woke up to a rejection. 
Fastest. Time. Ever.
The nicest thing about it was that she actually responded instead of simply deleting my email and leaving me hanging. I appreciate that.

Last week I got another good rejection. 
What was it?
It was a hand written letter from an editor.  

We writers appreciate people in the business who go that extra step to Let Us Know what's happening.  

So you want to be published - self-publish?

Be very careful who you self publish your manuscript with and avoid anything connected with Author Solutions.  
Who should you avoid? 
 Check out this article - the list is humongous with many different names, but every one of them makes their money by selling authors down the river without a paddle. Hmmm. That should say - they charge an arm and a leg, promising everything and actually following through with nothing.

One statistic stands out.
This company has ONE person trying to calculate royalties to 180,000 writers. Just one person.  No wonder royalties are late or never paid at all. Contrast this ONE person with "732 sales reps with aggressive quotas to sell worthless crap to potential authors - like “web optimized” press releases for $1,299, YouTube advertising packages for $4,099, and Hollywood pitching services for $17,999."

Many, many people are suing them for not fulfilling the promises in their contracts.

If you really want to be published - before you pay to have your book published or commit to any publisher,  check out  these resources:
Writer Beware website
Writer Beware blog
It's on Facebook, too - here.
Absolute Write also has a Writer Beware page

And remember - money flows to the author. Not away from the author.  
You shouldn't have to pay for the editing and book production, and do all the publicity and marketing and shipping of books (from the boxes and boxes in your garage). That's the publisher's job.  It's your job to write.  
If you are doing all this other stuff, when are you going to have time to write your next book?

My Indoor and Outdoor Offices

When I lived in Maryland, this was my office. (picture to the left.) There was barely enough room to turn around in, but just enough room for bookcases all around me, a filing cabinet behind me, plus desks in front and behind me. Most of my books were written (and revised. and revised again) here.


Now that I live on the west coast, THIS is my office. (see picture to the right.)
 Well, actually the floor plan of this condo said it was supposed to be the dining room - but I needed an office space more.

Yes, you can see that I've expanded from one filing cabinet to three. And the bookcases? They are all over the house.



 When I want a break nowadays , I can go to the beach. It's good for exercise. Good for blowing cobwebs out of your mind, and sometimes you find groups building sandcastles!

What's your office like?

Where do you go to think?

Say NO to Free

I've written several posts about the problems with self-publishing and the problems with places that say they edit your work and publish it as long as you pay them ooodles of money, but actually only copyedit your work and fall down on the marketing side of the business. (Vanity presses -- avoid them. Money should flow to the author, not away from.)

But what about places that ask you to do stuff for them for free?
Stephen Silver says, "Say NO to Free!"
Often,you'll discover that they expect you give up the rights to anything you post or send to them.
He's talking about artists and art, but there are "free" places for writers that do the very same thing.

What about doing talks or school visits for free?  Here's info about that, too.

Writing for a living

Without going into whether or not you actually CAN earn a living with your writing, much-pubhished author Marion Dane Bauer has written a blog post (on her blog, Just Thinking) about HOW to organize your life when you write for a living. Click on over.  Words to think about.
wo

The Golden Age of Publishing wasn't what you thought it was

Janni Simner has been thinking about all to gloom and doom and all the comments about: "It's the End of Publishing as We Know It."

She says that, "Right NOW has been the moment everything has been falling apart -- for the entire two decades I've been writing professionally!"

Go read her blog, Desert Dispatches, and discover that you haven't missed the Good Old Days of publishing, because exciting things are happening with publishing right now.

(Meanwhile I'll go back to working on my Income Tax expense spreadsheet.)
-wo

Into the Mail it goes

I'm putting a submission together.
Do I have all the pieces?

Cover letter? Check
List of publications and awards? Check
Synopsis? Check
manuscript? Check
Chapter Notes and sources? Check
A sample of the man's writing? Check
Timeline? check
Bibliography of sources used? Check
Suggested reading? Check

Deep Breath....
Address Envelope.
ooops, Enclose #10 envelope for S.A.S.E. (Love those Forever Stamps)

Go to bed and mail this thing in the morning.
-wendieO

What's happening this week?

This past Wednesday the library was closed for Veteran's Day.
I spent the day this way:

1. Researching agents, again. Made note of some and actually sent a picture book manuscript to one.

2. Digging through papers to find all the legal stuff we'd have to bring to the post office on Saturday to get a passport for granddaughter number 2. (The family she's living with is going on a cruise next March.) Discovering that several items were not in my files. Contacting the other family to see if they had the right papers. They were missing some, too. Between the two families, we came up with all the right papers and brought them to the post office today. All the adults who had joint legal custody of our granddaughter had to be there to sign her papers in front of the post office representative.

All this searching resulted in two bags of papers headed to recycling. In another day or two, I hope to winnow my piles of paper down and fill another couple of recycling bags.

3. Plus -- did a little revising of another picture book -- which might be turning into a short middle grade book.

After the signing today, granddaughter number 2 came home with us to have an overnight with granddaughter number 1. She was eager to see her sister play soccer. But with the pouring rain soaking the playing fields this week, there was no soccer today. However, granddaughter number 2 will be able to watch granddaughter number 1 play soccer tomorrow before she has to return to her family. Unfortunately, it's at noon so we'll have to skip church. Both granddaughter love going to the church meeting together and sitting at the meditation circle afterwards.

(added later, on Sunday) Darn. Soccer cancelled again. And this was to be their last game, so no more soccer for the 9-year-old. Soon she'll begin gymnastics as her Saturday sport. We went to church instead, where the kids met for Sunday School outside on the picnic grounds in the warm, 60 degree sunshine.

Oh -- and we survived Friday the 13th with no problems. How was your Friday the 13th?
-wendieO

Real publishers pay you

it's happened again.
I'm with a group of writers and one of them proudly states -- "My book has been accepted by PublishAmerica!"

All I can do is cringe. Again and again that publisher's name comes up among beginning writers. Oh,(they say), it's so difficult to get published by the main publishers, but PublishAmerica accepted me. Well, honey -- they accept most everything sent to them. (Even tho they say they don't.) I think I heard that they even accepted a manuscript for a novel that a group of writers wrote using all the worst examples of writing they knew.

Is it so difficult to research bad publishers?
Okay, here's Writer Beware’s "Two Thumbs Down" Publishers List. And one specifically about Publish America's tactics here. Once you've read that information, do go to the Writer's Beware webpage (a link to it is on that blog) and read why.
(Scroll down to the link on that page that will zip you to The Great PublishAmerica Hoax)

I've kinda given up trying to explain to writers why publishing with a bad publisher is worse than not getting published at all. Writers using these publishers just don't want to hear it.

Besides the fact that Money should Flow TO the writer -- writers should NOT pay anything to the publisher -- these bad publishers also do not fulfill the promises they make. Some of them get sued by writers who have discovered what normal publishers actually do.

If you are just writing a book so that you can say that you have a "published" book, and you don't care if anyone buys it and reads it, and you don't care if you find that you have lost money on the deal, then I guess it doesn't matter who prints your book. (Don't ask me about the person who spent $20,000 to get her picture book published. I don't think she'll ever earn her money back on that.)

Most professional writers treat writing as a business. Writers have a product -- their writing. They tell a good story or present nonfiction in an interesting way. Publishers pay them for the right to publish and distribute their product. Writers get an advance when the book is accepted and royalties as long as it is in print. Writers work with the editor to make it the very best book possible. They work with the marketing department to promote the book.

Many writers earn a living at this. Money flows to the writer. Many others use this as a second job, keeping their day job.

-WendieO