On Self-Publishing Packages: Intro

by falconesse Posted on November 27, 2012

Some days I feel like a broken record. Or a line from Needful Things (“You’ve been here before.”) Or maybe I’m a Cylon: All of this has happened before; all of this will happen again.

Today the news is about a Big N* publisher making a deal with a big self-publishing outfit. Other commercial publishers have done similar things in the past, and it won’t surprise me if more do it in the future.

Thing is, even without Big N relationships, these big ol’ give-us-money-and-we’ll-make-you-an-author outfits really aren’t great deals for writers. Since it’s almost time for my yearly Don’t Submit/Self-Publish Your NaNo Project Yet post, this is fairly timely. Thing is, there’s a lot to unpack when it comes to self-pub packages, so rather than one long-ass post, I’m going to do this in bite-sized chunks, examining the various aspects and offers that some of the most popular ones have on their menus.

A few quick hits, for you TL;DR types:

  • Watch the wording. “You might get noticed by Someone Important at a Big N company” is not the same as “Big N publishers will read your book.” Unless you’re selling in the tens of thousands, or you’re famous, or you’re related to someone famous (or infamous), or you have a huge platform to exploit, it remains unlikely you’ll be plucked from the masses. Not many editors and agents watch the sales figures of vanity presses looking for new clients.
  • “We’ll make People at Big N aware of our top sellers” is similarly vague. It could mean someone runs a monthly report and forwards it on to an intern, who will promptly delete it. But hey, someone there was “made aware!”
  • Beware the “editorial” packages. The lowest level is generally a critique of your first chapter. If you have good, honest beta readers and crit partners, you’re probably not going to get much out of this. (If you don’t have honest beta readers and crit partners, why not? The internet is rife with good communities for writers.) For higher level edits — line and content — you’ll be paying by the word, and it adds up fast.
  • Beware, too, the publicity and PR packages. They’re going to send out 500 press releases? Sending them out does not guarantee publication. Most unsolicited “local man writes book” press releases get deleted unread. They’ll provide you with business cards, bookmarks, and posters? So can your local copy shop, and probably for much cheaper.
  • Thinking it’s worthwhile to shell out several hundred dollars to be reviewed in a professional industry magazine? First, that does not guarantee a good review. They might tear your book to shreds. Be ready for that. Chances are it’s not going into Kirkus Reviews itself, next to books from the Big N. More likely, that review goes into the magazine they dedicate to self-published books only.
  • That make-your-book-returnable deal doesn’t guarantee you placement in bookstores. Being up on Edelweiss is nice and all (though you’ll have to pay to get on there and pay to stay there), but if no sales reps are pointing those catalogs out to booksellers, are they going to even look in them? And, how do they even order the books if they’re interested? Who’s going to pick up those orders from Edelweiss and feed them to the order department? (This is as much a note to myself to explain how Edelweiss works…)
  • Even if you only pay for the basic, no-frills, no add-ons package, you will have to sell many, many copies to recoup your investment. The average self-published book sells no more than 200 copies. Ever. (We’re talking print here, not e, but I don’t expect the numbers to be much better once I’ve done some research on that.)

Cheaper, better options exist to get your book out there if you don’t want to go with a commercial publisher.  Packagers can make their services sound good, but in the end you’re overpaying for services you can either do yourself or hire out. Other times, you’re throwing good money at options whose return on investment is… *does the math* roughly fuck-all — most of which will only serve to annoy journalists and booksellers.

I’ll go more in-depth into each of those points over the next few weeks, but if there’s something you’d like me to touch upon, sing out in the comments!

 

*Since we went from Big Six to Big Five and may soon be the Big Four, I’m just going to use a variable from here on out. Okay? Okay.

Posted in books, writing | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

There’s Room for Everyone in the Nerd House

by falconesse Posted on November 14, 2012

Yesterday was apparently some weird sort of internet Groundhog Day, since I must have shouted “HOW ARE WE STILL TALKING ABOUT THIS?” at my monitor three or four times. I was going to froth about a terrible New York Times article that.. asked questions about publishing it didn’t bother answering (and got a lot of things wrong along the way, because that’s what happens when you let someone who knows a lot about the economy of widgets write about the book industry, but that’s another post ahem.)

I was derailed from that particular clusterfuck by this one. If you don’t want to clicky, the short version is a (white, hetero, presumably cisgendered) male comic book artist wrote a facebook screed saying women who dress up in sexy cosplay outfits aren’t real nerds and should GTFO of his comic book conventions. Because they’d never give the shy, awkward (male!) comic book geeks in attendance the time of day if they met on the street. And they don’t really know enough about nerdy things to be there. And stuff.

(And it seems that while that was going on, someone else in the industry stepped in it, too. On the same topic. Yeesh.)

Look. We already went over this shit in July. Scalzi, as usual, knocked it out of the park with his response.

But clearly we can’t have nice things, like, oh, women in what has been predominantly a male community, because some dude doesn’t get to sleep with them? I guess? And if he does, they’re whores and should go home? I don’t even

Gather ’round, nerds, and let’s talk a bit about cosplayers, sexy geeks, and inclusion. Auntie Falconesse is going to throw some quick pointers at you.

First of all there is no base-level requirement for a person to be a nerd. Someone’s passionate enough about a thing that they consider themselves a nerd? Bam. They don’t have to have a stack of comics this tall to ride the roller coaster. They don’t have to take a quiz about Golden Age comics, or speak passable Klingon. They’ve never watched any sf television before but they’re digging Fringe like whoa? Invite them the hell in.

I present to you a relevant XKCD comic:

Replace “Diet Coke and Mentos” with your favorite nerdy passion.

So very many of my geeky passions came from people saying “You haven’t seen/read X? HANG ON WE HAVE TO FIX THIS.”

I might not have started watching Doctor Who if it weren’t for Marty doing just that the first time we met. “Let me put on the first episode; you’ll love it.”

I might not have seen Firefly if my friends Dale and Erik hadn’t said “Hold on, we have it with us!” and pulled the DVD set out of their trunk in a movie theatre parking lot.

I might not have read Sandman if a friend hadn’t made a reference to “Dream of a Thousand Cats” and, at my questioning look, dropped every trade paperback into my lap.

My to-read pile grew exponentially at Viable Paradise, every time someone said, “You haven’t read that? Oh my god, you have to.” (Hello, Nine Princes in Amber. I see you there.)

Any of those people might have scoffed at me and told me I was doing it wrong, that clearly I had to hand in my nerd card, chisel my name off of the wall of geeks, and shoo-fly. But they didn’t. Not a one. Because the more people who share their passion for those things, the better.

Which is a long-winded way of saying, if you find one of the ten thousand, share with them.

Next: a person in a cosplay outfit — even and especially a revealing one — is either already part of the nerd community, or would like to be included in it. Maybe their particular nerdy passion is recreating those outfits. Maybe that Batgirl over there rented her costume for the weekend because her partner wanted to go as Batman and their kid wanted to go as Robin, but the fact she’s dressing up to enjoy the experience with her family doesn’t mean you get to tell her she doesn’t belong. Maybe she’s never read a comic in her life, but something about that image inspired her to dress up. In public. In a roomful or hotelful of people she doesn’t know. 

You don’t get to police cosplayer’s bodies or experiences. Harris and Manning are partly upset because some cosplayers, or sexy nerds, or whatever, get attention. And some of those people enjoy that attention, which is somehow even more offensive to them. If a person goes to a con, dresses up in a way that shows a lot of skin, and likes the attention they get, that’s no one else’s fucking business. What I get out of a con doesn’t have to be what you get out of a con doesn’t have to be what he or she gets out of a con.

The problem comes in when people stop treating those fans — and yes, they’re fans — as human beings and start acting like they’re sex objects. Here’s a tip: Cosplayers aren’t there for YOU. No, really. Do they want people to notice their costumes? Possibly! Especially if they’ve put a lot of work into it. But you’re not the reason they’re dressed up. They’re doing it because they like the character, or they like making costumes, or their group of friends decided to go as the Avengers, so they joined in. The costume is about the cosplayer, not about the people looking at the cosplayer.

Which also means you don’t get to judge a cosplayer’s appearance. Surprise! Not all fans have supermodel bodies. You see that bullshit in Harris’ screed about women who “think” they’re pretty, or who are “con-hot?” We call that missing the fucking point. And policing their bodies and clothing choices. The only thing that’s gross here is Harris’ attitude.

If you can only talk to her breasts, kindly grow the fuck up. Remember how she’s not there for you? That includes “she’s not there for you to maybe fuck.” If you treat every woman at a con as a potential date, or are angry at any who aren’t receptive to your overtures, the problem isn’t with the women. Just saying.

Couple more things:

Don’t assume that cosplayer = clueless about fandoms. If she’s dressed as Wonder Woman, there’s a good possibility it’s because she really likes Wonder Woman. If you’re striking up a conversation with her, and you go in with the attitude of “Well, I’ll teach the little lady a thing or two about comics,” you might want to check that.

Following on that, if it turns out she isn’t familiar with whatever fandom you’re looking to chat about, don’t mansplain, don’t condescend, don’t talk to her like she’s a child or your potential future lifemate. You want to talk about geeky things you’re passionate about, talk about why you’re passionate about them. If she needs clarification, she’ll ask. If she’s interested. Which leads to…

Know when to disengage, or when she’s looking to do so, and end the conversation. If she’s not interested, that’s okay. Don’t corner her. She might simply have no interest in your particular fandom. That’s the keen thing about geek culture: we can all like different things.

Now can we please be done with this whole “who is allowed to be a geek” thing? Please?

I have publishing industry shit to rant about, after all.

Posted in feminism, geekery | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments

NaNo Away!

by falconesse Posted on November 1, 2012

First off, I ought to say I’m not doing the breakneck sprint to 50,000 words this year. I’ve peeked at my profile on the NaNoWriMo website, ghosted around the forums a bit, and side-eyed some projects, but I have other stuff that needs taking care of this November, and I know I won’t cross that finish line.

It doesn’t mean I won’t spend the month writing, though, or that I’m not cheering for you lot who are already, what hundreds or thousands of words in?

Still, some scattershot thoughts on the Month of Many Words. Use ‘em or discard ‘em as you see fit.

Some NaNo-ish posts from years past:

Things to keep in mind while the fingers are flying:

  • Falling behind isn’t losing. Did you write stuff? Every day? Most days? Several days of the week? Good! Keep going. If you have a few unproductive days, pick up that pencil, put your butt back in that chair, and get back to the project.
  • Winning isn’t the same as being done.Finishing is great. Finishing is awesome.Sit back and revel in that feeling of accomplishment. Then realize you need to break out the red pen, tear that bad cat apart, and put it back together to make it even better.
  • 50,000 words does not quite a novel make. Did you cross the 50,000 word line? Sweet! Understand, though, that unless you’re writing middle grade or for a specific subset of the romance genre, your book’s around 25,000 words short of what most professional organizations (SFWA, HWA, MWA) consider novel length.
  • Padding really isn’t your friend… Extra adjectives. Extra names. No pronouns! One character asks a question, the other completely restates it before answering. No contractions! Sandwiches made in excruciating detail. Typing out someone counting all the way to one hundred in a game of hide-and-seek. Grocery lists. This is all stuff you’re likely going to cut in December. Why waste your time on it now?
  • …unless the padding helps you figure shit out about the world. Which means, guess what, you’re probably not actually padding. It’s perfectly okay to write a scene you’ll never keep in the final novel if it helps you figure out character/setting/plot. By all means, if you can describe making a peanut butter sandwich in a way that reveals something about the character making it, do it.But if all you’re putting on the page is the step-by-excruciating-step of an ordinary character making a mundane gorram sandwich so you can get to 1667 and call it a day, put on the brakes and reconsider:What would this characterdo in this scene that makes it noteworthy?Would a princess make her sandwich differently than a stable boy? Would someone who’s just been asked to the prom make it differently than the guy who just got dumped? You bet. Show that.
  • Take risks. If you can’t fuck around with character, setting, style, and structure during NaNo, well hell, when can you? Not sure you can pull a particular thing off? Give it a try! Is witty banter your weak spot? Practice makes perfect. If you hate the result, no one ever has to see.
  • Have fun. If the project becomes a slog, you’re more likely to put it down and walk away. When you hit one of those walls, move on to a scene or a character that excites you. It’s okay, you can come back to the other later.
  • Don’t measure yourself against other NaNo-ers. I guarantee you right now, ten hours in, someone has “won” already. That person is not your competition. Your participating friends are not your competition. Some days they’ll write more than you; some days you’ll write more than them. Don’t gloat at each other.
  • We’re all in this together. Encourage your fellow NaNo-ers. Give your friends pep talks. Ask for them if you need one yourself. Propose writing sprints and coffee breaks, and when one of you wails about how everything on the page is dreadful, dreadful, DREADFUL! be ready with sympathy. And a kick in the pants to get writing again.
  • December 1st isn’t the end. Sure, it’s the end of NaNoWriMo. However, if you want to be a writer, you don’t get to put your pen down for the next 335 days. Keep writing. Maybe not at NaNo’s lightning pace, but hey, you’ve started a habit. Find the parts that worked well for you during the month and keep doing those things. Do you like writing in the mornings? Continue setting your alarm early. Found a favorite spot in the house to put words on paper? Claim it going forward. For fifteen minutes a day. An hour. Every Sunday afternoon.

Writing is hard. Writing is work. You can do this.

And if you need a pep talk or a kick in the ass, ping me.

Posted in writing | Tagged , , | 3 Comments

This Other Eden

by falconesse Posted on October 18, 2012

One afternoon between lectures at Viable Paradise — maybe to get our blood sugar up, or because chocolate is tasty, or because sharing is nice — Jim Macdonald passed around a bag of Dove Promises.  If you’ve never had one, not only are they delicious, but each candy has an inspirational saying inside the wrapper.

I’d forgotten about those until I smoothed out my square of foil. Mine read:

You are exactly where you are supposed to be.

And I teared up.

Seems silly, I suppose; sappy and overly-sentimental, that a chunk of mass-produced chocolate with a saying that appears on, what, 25% of the wrappers, got me all sniffly?

But the inner voice of Imposter Syndrome gets awfully shouty, and even though I was in a room full of kindred spirits, and even though by that point I’d had people say nice things about my writing, and even though I knew that every single person in that room (including me!) was there because the instructors thought we deserved to be, I worried.

I was learning scads and scads of things, recognizing some pitfalls in my own writing, gleaning techniques I didn’t know I didn’t know. Still, I was afraid I wasn’t good enough.

It wasn’t that little square of tinfoil that got me over it, not really, though it might have opened the door for the realization. A catalyst for epiphany, if you will.

I was in a room full of writers, of readers, of book people. The same fears I have when I put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard echo theirs: that what I produce will be dreadful, dreadful, DREADFUL! Or the plot tomatoes I plant will wither on their vines. I don’t mean only myself and the other students: the writers in the room whose publication credits would fill pages feel that way, too.

And they keep writing.

I mean, we knew this, I suppose. I’ve hollered “Writers write!” at my screen before when seeing people on the internets wail about how haaaard it is and they can’t possibly. I’ve hollered it at myself. You write through the dreadfuls, through the I-can’t and the I-sucks. Still, the moments of affirmation, if I’ve been there. In fact, here I still am, were reassuring and revelatory.

In addition to a week of writing, there was Shakespeare and Scurvy Cure, and music and conversation late into the night. I’ve discovered I really, really need to practice my gorram guitar more, and that my Richard Thompson collection — which I once thought was decent — needs expanding.

We saw the Pleiades and the Milky Way, and hundreds more stars that are so often obscured by the glare of cities and civilzation. I feel a bit like Viable Paradise did the same for my writing — took me far enough away from the distracting lights of self-doubt and I’m a hack that I could look at my work and see the things I’ve been missing: what I do well, what I can do better.

Pardon me, I have constellations to form.

Posted in writing | Tagged , | 8 Comments

Z-Virus, Day 2

by falconesse Posted on October 7, 2012

Well, we made it through the night.

Slept in shifts, not that anyone’s going to really shamble their way up our street. Thing is, we’re on an ambulance route, so every time one went screaming by, we waited. Because you know how it goes in movies. “Oh, look Sally! We’re saved!” Then there’s a crash, and Johnny and Sally have to outrun the monsters after all.

Didn’t happen here, thank whatever cosmic deity’s listening (though if one is? What the hell? Zombies?) Still, every sound that we couldn’t place had us trembling.

I hear the ferries are still running. This might make us candidates for the Darwin Award, but we’re going to give it a try. Martha’s Vineyard ought to be fairly isolated, and who better than a workshop full of spec-fic writers to know how to fight these things?

So. Good booze packed. And swords. Now we just need to avoid, y’know, the walking dead between here and Woods Hole.

Luck to you all.

Posted in writing | Tagged | Leave a comment

Z-Virus?

by falconesse Posted on October 6, 2012

Seemed like a lot of people were sniffling and coughing on the train last night, but I chalked it up to early fall colds. You know, the ones that get everyone phlegmy and hacking because they refuse to let summer go, head out without jackets and stand shivering on the sidewalk outside the bar. Then they come to work the next day, of course, and infect the office. Rrgh.

Anyway. We stayed on the other end of the train. I’m off to Viable Paradise tomorrow, and it’s not nice to greet your new writerly friends with a whopping case of plague.

I got up early today. Have a million and six things to do before I head out tomorrow. The supermarket’s usually a ghost town at this hour, but it was oddly hopping. Bottled water? Cleaned out. Bread aisle? Empty except for a few sad loaves. Good thing I got the sourdough starter, uh, started. I can make my own.

At least there wasn’t a run on Nabisco Chocolate Wafer Cookies. I’m thinking mid-week icebox cake.

Or I was, anyway.

Braved the lines. My fellow shoppers were in an odd state: bit too cheery, some of them, others so panicky-looking I thought a flash mob robbery was about to break out. Usually, you stand in a line six people deep, and the person behind gets so close they might as well ride piggy-back. As if crowding the person in front of them gets them checked out faster.

Today? I had my personal space. Didn’t even need to daydream about throwing an elbow. (I did anyway. The dude behind me was on his cell phone, and now I know way too much about his last doctor’s visit. Ugh.)

When I got in the car, NPR was talking about the Z-Virus. People coming down with flu-like symptoms fast. Couple dead, all the regular cautions about what to do during flu season. It’s like H1N1 all over again, but the way the reporters were talking, all I can think is Trips, baby, Captain Trips. Maybe I’ll crack open my copy dog-eared copy of The Stand and give it a reread.

Except, uh. The reporter also said something about the dead cases being special.

I think he said they were getting back up.

Shit.

Looks like I”ll be cracking open Feed instead. Shaun and George Mason’ll know what to do.

Because I think the “Z” in “Z-virus” might just stand for “zombie.”

Update, 10:30AM:

Well, there it is. Someone finally said the Z-word on the air. It took them long enough — so long I’d started wondering if maybe they weren’t allowed to say it. I mean, freedom of speech and freedom of the press and all, but, well. That only goes so far.

And it wasn’t even an anchor that said it. The man-on-the-scene reporter was out on the street with these shambling, drooling, used-to-be-people (this dude’s probably not getting an Emmy anytime soon, so it seems he’s aiming for a Darwin Award instead.)

Anyway, they’re out there, and this reporter is obviously new to the whole zombie thing, because he has neither stick nor crowbar nor gun. All he has to shove up into the faces of the infected is his mic, and well. That’s not so much with the bludgeoning. It’s not even the kind that has the station’s logon boxed below the top. At least you could maybe try using the sharp corners on that.

He goes up to the closest one, which seemed pretty interested in meeting him gnawing on him, too, and you can faintly hear the camera guy going, “Joe? Joe?”

Then it was teeth and screaming and wet crunching all the way down.

Props to the camera guy, though. He didn’t run at first. He did, however, scream “Jesus fuck, they’re zombies!” loud enough that Joe’s mic picked it up over the, uh. Dying.

It wasn’t until Joe got up with his eyes all glazed over that the camera guy dropped his equipment and got the fuck out of there.

Now it’s on infinite loop on every network, most of the gore blurred out or tastefully edited. They cut away just as Joe gets bitten, then fade back in on those filmy eyes. I suppose they’re snipping the part where he’s actually dead for FCC regulations or something. Which means they’re counting him as alive again after.

They also bleep out the f-bomb in the cameraman’s exclamation.

It opened the floodgates, though. Now every anchor on every network is saying it’s a zombie outbreak in the same breath as they mention the Z-virus.

I think most of us had that figured out already.

Update: 11:45 pm

You can’t tell me someone didn’t start this intentionally. Too many outbreaks in too many places. Saw a few in town — we went for one last booze run because fuck it. If the apocalypse is happening, we’re drinking fancy bourbon at the end. And if we make it through, hey, fancy antiseptic, right?

We’ve taken Greg’s swords down from the wall above my computer. I always wondered why he insisted on getting blades that could actually survive a swing at something when they were supposed to be decorative. Not that, y’know, either of us really know how to wield them, but hey.

I grabbed the crowbar out of the garage, too. Just in case.

Not even midnight, and I’m counting the seconds ’til daybreak.

(This post is part of the Zombie Apocalypse 2012 project. There is no actual Z-Virus. I still plan on making an icebox cake at Viable Paradise. Click the banner above to see links to more members of the Zombie Squad, or follow the #zombieapoc2012 hashtag on Twitter!)

Posted in writing | Tagged | 1 Comment

Ten

by falconesse Posted on October 5, 2012

Ten years ago, I watched the skies to see if they’d pour down rain or sun.

Ten years ago, I forgot the headpiece and veil, and my dad had to drive them up to the hairdressers’ for me. (He brought me coffee, too, because he knows me.)

Ten years ago, I saw the seamstress’ work meant the bra peeked over the top of my wedding dress, so I snipped the stitches and went without.

Ten years ago, one of us (probably me) forgot the rings, and Greg had to run home and get them.

Ten years ago, the skies cleared.

Ten years ago, family and friends gathered in my parents’ garage-turned-barn to celebrate with us.

Ten years ago, the justice of the peace told a very sweet story about our courtship that bore little resemblance to the ones we’d actually shared with him. Some of the wedding photos show us giving each other who the hell is he talking about? looks.

Ten years ago, we laughed during our vows. And maybe cried a little, too.

Ten years ago, we danced to “WWOZ,” and made our guests sing a love song if they wanted us to kiss for the crowd. His mom came prepared with a list in case anyone needed inspiration.

Ten years ago, we said “I do,” and we did and we have and we are and we will.

I love you, Greg. Happy anniversary.

 

Posted in family | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Opportunity Isn’t Always Knocking

by falconesse Posted on October 1, 2012

The setting: A regional booksellers’ trade show, at which sales reps from publishers of all sizes show off the books for the upcoming season to local booksellers.

The players:
Sales rep, as mentioned above;
an author, signing some of his books;
an unpublished writer, hoping to network.

AUTHOR sits at a table, surrounded by piles of his books.  He clearly has a small line of booksellers to whom he is talking.  He is constantly taking books from the piles, putting his John Hancock on the title page, and handing them to the booksellers.  This repeated action should be a clue that he’s an author, not an employee of the publishing house.

(However, in case there’s any lingering confusion, he is also wearing a name badge that is a different color than the ones worn by publisher-attendees.  Publisher badges are in turn a different color than bookseller/librarian badges.  Keep this in mind.)

UNPUBLISHED WRITER wanders over to table, pretending to look at the books on display, but more obviously waiting until the line dies down.  She stands directly in front of the author, waiting to get his attention.

UNPUBLISHED WRITER, to AUTHOR:  Hello, how are you?

AUTHOR:  Very well, thank you.  Would you like me to sign a copy of my book for you?

UW:  Oh, um, no thank you.  Do you publish gardening books?

AUTHOR, baffled-but-gracious:  I’m sorry, I don’t know the answer to that, but this lady would.  (AUTHOR gestures kindly to SALES REP.)

SALES REP:  We do have some gardening titles.  I can show you–

UW, still to AUTHOR, ignoring SALES REP:  I’ve written this book on backyard gardens, you see.

AUTHOR, politely:  Oh, that’s… lovely.  Good for you!

UW, still to AUTHOR:  So I was wondering which imprints you have that publish gardening books.

AUTHOR, gesturing once more to SALES REP:  I honestly wouldn’t know.  I’m just here to sign books, but this lady can tell you.

SALES REP, trying to rescue author:  Our imprints are X, Y and Z, but they don’t put out many gardening books.  However, we distribute for A, B and C, who do.  I can show you their catalog.

UW, finally acknowledging SALES REP:  Are you an editor?

SALES REP:  No, I sell books to booksellers.

UW:  Oh.  (Looks hopefully back at AUTHOR, who has mercifully been engaged by a bookseller.)  Are there any editors here?

SALES REP:  No ma’am.  It’s mostly sales reps that come to regional shows.

UW, deflating:  Oh. (Walks away without a thank you or even a goodbye.)

 

I knew what this person was after as soon as she came up to our table.  Her body language had a certain determination to it, and something in the way she made eye contact set off my “we’re about to be pitched” alarms.

I’ve been doing this for ten years.  Not a show has gone by where we haven’t been approached by a hopeful author.  Why this woman insisted on continuing to ask questions of the author rather than the person who quite clearly works for the publisher, I’m not sure.  I suppose the author looked more… editorial than I do. But had I been an editor, she sure wouldn’t have been earning any brownie points with that dismissal.

Many writerly places online suggest that you always be ready to pitch, just in case you have that random experience of bumping into someone who can get your foot in the door.  Writers are encouraged to attend local conventions, too, where agents and editors might be lurking.  A lot of those functions are specifically geared towards (or at the very least, welcome) new writers.  If you look at the schedule and see panels dedicated to honing your pitches and query letters, or if the guest list posted online features agents and editors whose bios say “So-and-so is looking for…” then you’re in the right place to pitch.

But not every book industry event is geared towards networking.  Put another way, it’s not always about what’s up-and-coming.  Sometimes it’s about what’s coming right now.

If you’re attending an industry gathering that is NOT specifically tuned for writers: 

Learn the purpose of the event.  For example, the situation above happened at a trade show.  A trade show is a place where sales representatives connect with their booksellers.  They showcase the upcoming season’s books, highlighting can’t-miss titles and hidden gems on their lists.  Booksellers often have a day or two worth of workshops and panels on the business of bookselling.  While I’m sure that someone, somewhere, has a story of how they got published by making a connection at a regional fall show, it’s not the event’s primary function.

Or say you scored an invite to a launch party for someone else’s book.  That’s great!  A launch party is pretty much what it sounds like:  an evening of WOOHOO, THIS NEW AWESOME BOOK IS OUT!  Keep in mind that the focus of that particular night will be — rightfully — on the author of the shiny new book.

Know WHO will be attending.  At a trade show, in addition to sales reps and authors, you might find a few publicists or marketing people in attendance.  Editors generally don’t come to trade shows, though it’s not unheard of.  However, if they’re present, it’s probably because one of their authors is making an appearance.  They’re going to focus on that person.  If you do bump into an editor, it is probably not a great time to pitch — they’re working, and not on finding new talent.

A launch party will have a mish-mash of people:  the book’s editor, the publicist, marketing people.  Possibly a sales rep from the area.  The author’s agent.  Local booksellers.  Book bloggers.  Reviewers.  The author’s friends and family.  Again, this night is about that particular author.  You might indeed find yourself next to an editor or agent while at the cheese tray or in line for the bar.  If you strike up a conversation, remember that the party celebrates their success, too, in bringing the book into print.  Know something about the author or the title and say something nice about it before you bring up your own stuff.

Be interested.  Notice that I didn’t say “be interesting” — sure, you want people to like you, but the sparkliest personality in the world does jack and shit if you demonstrate you can’t be arsed about why the other guests are there.

No matter what kind of event you’re at, if the focus is on something other than you-the-writer, be enthusiastic about that thing.

I’m not saying you should wave pompoms around and declare your undying love for typefaces (“I want to have Helvetica’s babies!”)  But if you’re a guest at someone else’s housewarming party, you don’t start every conversation with how awesome your own house is while the host is giving a tour, do you?

Participate in conversations, or if you truly have no idea what your fellow party-goers are talking about, listen politely.  And attentively — people notice when your eyes have glazed over.

Ask questions/make comments that aren’t designed to lead into your own stuff. If you’re spending most of your time analyzing the conversation for good segues into your own work, stop.  Go back to the part where you listen politely.

Let’s set a guideline, shall we? You might — if it’s an honest-to-baby-Jesus appropriate moment, and the point is relevant – mention your work once during the conversation: “Oh, you ride horses? I was doing some research into Seabiscuit’s bloodline, and found this Really Cool Fact.” You could say you were doing the research “for a book,” but honestly, the carrot has been dangled at this point. If the person you’re conversing with asks why you were researching thoroughbred bloodlines, by all means, say you’re writing a book.

But if they don’t reach for that carrot, if they don’t start following your breadcrumb trail, if the scent of your delicious apple-and-conversation pie doesn’t lead them to your windowsill, drop it. Do not keep hinting. Do not keep finding ways to work in more mentions.

It’s a fair bet that they know what you’re trying to get them to ask. If they don’t spit out that golden question, respect that maybe, just maybe, they would like to take a night off from being pitched.

If the angels sing and “What is your book about?” comes flowing forth from their lips, you’re still not in the clear. Try out your one-liner (“It’s a historical romance about a farrier and a horse thief.”)

Then watch their response. I don’t mean you ought to stare at them and scrutinize their every move. That’s creepy. But be honest with yourself: does the person you’re talking to seem genuinely interested? Or are they trying to steer the topic to something else?

Here’s another thing: if I’ve been talking to you for ten minutes, thinking you’re engaging me sincerely because we share an interest, then, wham, you go into elevator pitch mode, I’m going to feel used. Like you’ve only been pretending to give a shit so you can get something out of me.

It can be hard to gauge this. I know. What I’m aiming for here is, be ready to talk about your book in normal conversation. But be ready to stop talking about your book, too.

Connect, don’t network.  Chances are, you won’t be the first writer who has encountered an editor or agent out in the wild and attempted a pitch.  As you can see from above, it’s not restricted to agents and editors, either.  Some people hear “I work for a publisher” and their brain jumps right to OMFG THIS IS MY BIG CHANCE.

It happened to me at a friend’s wedding:  the significant other of my friend’s friend came marching up to me, gave me a firm, practiced handshake, and said, “You’re the one who works in publishing, right?”

I said yes, that’s true.  I told her what I do, hoping to pre-empt the inevitable.  I even said something like, “I don’t touch the editorial or acquisitions side of the business.” But she didn’t even hear it; she was so busy gearing up to hit me with the premise of her YA novel.  All attempts I made to steer the conversation towards How to Get an Agent were met with blank eyes and an oh-that’s-nice grin.

It was an awkward few minutes during which she waited for me to say “Oh hey, why don’t I bring that back to the editors?  Matter of fact, why don’t I email it to them RIGHT NOW?” and during which I said nothing of the sort.

I thanked baby zombie Jesus when I learned we’d be sitting at separate tables.

Thing is, when we’re treated like nothing more than your potential big break, we notice.  Consider that it might be better to spend an evening talking about books you loved, or your favorite bookstore, or the library you spent your childhood in.  Then, if you’ve been invited to contact the editor or agent later on, you’ll be remembered as the person who spent an evening talking to them like another human being rather than “the one who wanted to cram a manuscript in my cordon bleu.”

Posted in work, writing | 2 Comments

Brain Melting, Send Pie

by falconesse Posted on September 24, 2012

I’m ten kinds of exhausted right now. The last few months have been travel, travel, and more travel, and the end isn’t quite in sight.

They’ve been good trips, mind you, all things I’ve been excited to do or see or participate in, and the trips coming up are just as shiny. (Holy shit, Viable Paradise in less than two weeks holy shit).

It has, however, wrought some havoc on my writing time. For the last couple of months, especially since returning from WorldCon, I was cramming for last week’s work trip like I was back in college. I’m okay with this, I mean, it’s my job, and the cramming boils down to “I read a lot of books and thought about how to help my bookstores get excited for them.” Like I said in my last update, POOR ME.

Still, brains are fried. I’ve tinkered and poked at a few projects, but I’ve only added maybe a thousand words or so to The Fire Children in the last month, and that bothers me.  In my head, I know I was making a choice to put the day job first (y’know, the one that pays the bills and keeps me caffeinated), and it was the right thing to do.

I did contribute to a bit of nerdery, using some of my down-time from studying to write a few scenes for the Wildfire Riders’ story Forgebreaking. Yep, my WoW guild collaborated on what turned out to be a novella, and I have to say it turned out pretty damned good. We have a damned talented bunch of writers there, and I’m honored to get to work alongside them.

Writing Threnn’s bits for that rejuvenated me somewhat, in the sense of okay, yes, I can still put nose to grindstone and do this. On the other hand, it left me wishing that all my stories came as easily as that one did.

Then, of course, I realized what was going on. I’ve been playing these characters for seven years. That’s how long I’ve been in their heads, figuring out what makes them tick, how they’d react to different situations, what’s in-character for them, what’s out. With The Fire Children, I’m still early on in the story. I’m not entirely in Yulla’s headspace yet, and some of the worldbuilding is incomplete.

This happened with Gid.

This happened with Night Owls.

Eventually, sitting down to write for Yulla will be like visiting a friend. But I’m not there yet, not quite. The seeds of the story have been in my mind for nearly two years, but I only started watering them a few months ago. I also need to remember that this is a first draft. It’s okay to bounce around a bit, to skip ahead to a scene that’s vivid in my head and fill back in later. (Or figure out if I even need to fill back in.)

So, writing updatery:

Active Projects:

The Fire Children — see musings above.
Adrift — my VP submission. I keep eyeing it askance.

Still on the Horizon:

Gavrick’s Brood — I’m backburnering this one for now. I still really like the story, but there are a few issues with it I’m not quite ready to untangle just yet.
“Wolves”
“The Desert in Fimbulwinter”
“The Reunion Tour of Billy James and the Flamethrowers, or How Billy Got the Band Back Together”

Onward into fall!

Posted in writing | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Worldcon Report

by falconesse Posted on September 7, 2012

I’ve started and stalled and started on this a few times. Trying to capture five days of awesome into a pithy post is not at all easy. The words vacillate between eeeee I had such a great time eeeee and plodding recappery which, on re-read, translates as “…but you probably had to be there.”

So, rather than a synopsis of the weekend (somewhere around here is a whiny writer post which is essentially, “Synopses: hrrrrk“), a brief round of thank-yous:

To the Tricycle of Awesome — Marty, Shannon, and Von, who bookended my trip with great food and stellar company. Thank you for making time for me. I wish, as ever, that Chicago and Boston were closer.

To Sarah Goslee, who hosted the Viable Paradise party, and to all the VP grads who offered advice and encouragement: thank you for making this newbie feel welcome. And to Dawn and Kellan, my fellow 16-ers, hello! I’m so glad we got to meet, and I can’t wait to read your work.

To all the panelists who shared their experiences and interests and passions with rooms full of fans, thank you.

To Seanan McGuire, for a fan-fucking-tastic concert. I went to Worldcon expecting to come home with armloads of books (okay, I did that, too), but I also left with a lot of new music: Vixy and Tony’s Thirteen! Amy McNally’s Hazardous Fiddle! I’ve had “The Sealskin and the Story and the Sky” in my head for days, and that’s a fine earworm to have.

To Cally from the Making Light fluorosphere, who sat beside me at the Hugos and talked about books and blogs and fannish things. I was excited to be in the ballroom for the awards, and the experience was made even better by your company.

To Chuck Wendig, Stephen Blackmoore, and Adam Christopher, who invited me along with them into the London 2014 party, and when the clamor got too loud and jostly, down to the bar (wtf, last call at not-even-1AM, wtf.) Gracious gents, smart conversation, all of whom have books out you ought to be reading.

To Devi Pillai and Susan Barnes from Orbit, who work their asses off publishing excellent sf/f, and whom I finally ran into late-late-late Sunday night/earlyMonday morning. My job is all the more awesome because I get to sell the books they acquire and edit –  including the upcoming Shambling Guide to New York City by Mur Lafferty (who, because I couldn’t quite hear Devi, got an earful of squee when I was introduced. Next time I will be more eloquent than, “Oh, shit! Mur! Hi!” Probably. Maybe.)

I’m sure there are wonderful people I’m forgetting to mention. I have blog posts a-brewing based on some of the discussions had over the weekend, so that’s where I’ll talk a bit about panels I went to and the thoughts they got me thinking.

And of course, thanks to Greg, who met my (late) train at South Station and had coffee waiting for me. I had a hell of a lot of fun, but it’s good to be home.

Posted in books, travel, writing | Tagged , , | 1 Comment