For you writers who don’t get David Farland’s Daily Kick in the Pants, he just pointed to this must read blog entry by Janet Reid, literary agent. It relates what exactly it might mean when you get an agent rejection.
SFWA has asked M.C.A. Hogarth to head up the new self-publishing committee. Hogarth posted about this and asks:
So here’s my question for those of you who self-publish, either entirely or as a hybrid author: what services would you look for in a professional organization? What would make you say, “Wow, that’s worth $90 a year, sign me up?”
I applaud SFWA’s move. And the many good things SFWA has done in the past. However, as an indie and SFWA member, here’s what would interest me: Business.
That’s with a big B.
That means . . .
Distribution into brick and mortar venues. So indie authors can get on the Ingram’s catalog. Big whoop. The retailer still has to order. If SFWA was able to facilitate the sales function in some way, that alone would be worth it.
One idea is a SFWA catalog of vetted work. I don’t know how you’d vet. Maybe some certain sales and revenue level. And revenue would have to be part of it. Brick and Mortar isn’t going to be interested in stocking the person who “sold” 50,000 units but only made $300 because 99% of them were free downloads.
You might also consider the back lists of authors with work that was once published that has been brought back indie style. So a catalog of that includes new stuff and a section for the back list. Quality and popular indie work.
BTW, this catalog would ALSO go to libraries.
Education in cover design AND art direction. Maybe adding this to an awards category chosen NOT by the general membership but art pros.
The Nebulas recognize author’s who sell. But what about recognizing those who are author-publishers, what about recognizing and celebrating quality and achievement in the key elements of publishing?
Education in Marketing that has actually been tested and shows positive ROI. Not a bunch of articles about bookmarks and conventions. Real ROI.
Interior formatting. Principles. Awards.
News. What’s new on the indie front. New markets etc.
Selling foreign rights as an indie with and without an agent.
What about an award like RWA’s Golden Heart, but for indie books? Or make indies more inclusive in the Nebulas.
A vendor forum where folks who provide services to indie authors (editors, artists, etc) can be listed and rated, GoodReads style, but only by SFWA members.
And two things I have submitted to SFWA before as a trad pub author.
Education and discussion of contracts and contract terms. What’s current. What’s alarming. I get more off of Kris Rusch’s blog than the professional organization I belong to. I should be giving my $90 bucks to Kris. What the heck?
Education and discussion of current contract rates. Same as above. For a professional organization to not have data on current rates for novels is a real head-scratcher.
How is it that Tobias Buckell can run a survey, but it never occurs to SFWA to survey and publish annual numbers?
How is it that Brenda Hiatt, the romance writer who does an annual “Show Me The Money” and “Indie Earnings” report, provides more info on Tor advances than SFWA? Romance writers are better organized than any writing group on the planet, but do they need to spank us in our own house?
These last two are no-brainers.
This is a trade organization. These types of things would be a HUGE help.
You want to meet editors and agents. But how? Where?
Writing Excuses recently held a great podcast listing the types of events aspiring authors might want to attend–conventions, conferences, workshops, expos, etc. But knowing the types still doesn’t tell you which events to go to.
If you’re looking to meet editors and agents, here’s a way to figure out precisely which events you should attend.
1. Instead of taking a random scatter-shot approach, get some laser precision. Do this by first identifying the specific editors and agents you’re interested in. Then find out which events they’re going to attend. Forget all the other events–these are the ones you want to go to.
These folks will often post their schedule on their websites. The workshops, conferences, and conventions will also often post guest lists. You can also query the agency or publisher itself and ask which cons so-and-so will attend (just contact the receptionist, you don’t need or want to contact the editor or agent specifically).
Now even if you don’t know exactly who you’re interested in, you can still narrow down your focus. Event X might at least have some agents or editors attending (even if they’re not in your genre) while event Y does not. So go and see if you can’t get tips from those agents or editors
2. Research each of the events. Some provide meetings with editors, some provide pitch sessions, some will require you to track the person down. Select the events that look the most promising to you.
3. If you feel a bit nervous or shy, develop a short script for what you’ll say and how you’ll approach these folks. Or make a list of potential talking points. Run it by some friends and other writers to make sure you don’t sound robotic, dweebish, pushy, or pleading.
You have to remember that agents and editors are looking for new talent constantly. If they don’t find new talent, their income stream soon dies. They want and expect people to find them. They WANT to talk to YOU. They just want to be approached in a friendly and business like way.
So you have your script, talking points, and plans and will probably end up deviating from them. However, just having that in your head when you go to the con and approach the person you want to talk to (even if it’s only two sentences) can go a long way to calming your nerves.
4. Attend the con and make adjustments to your plan as necessary.
5. Don’t miss unplanned opportunities. Writing is sometimes a lonely business. When I go to cons I have folks I want to meet and catch up on. But I also make sure I engage other con goers. I smile, I say hello, I ask things like “so are you here as a writer or a fanboy?” or “what did you think about panel?” or “Your Klingon ridge is looking mighty today.” We chat.
I do it because I learn a lot from others and its just plain interesting. And sometimes you make an acquaintance that can develop into a working relationship. For example, I met Larry Correia (new author with Baen) at a local con I just attended. He had a fascinating story about his breaking in. We chatted for a while. There was no ulterior business/network motive. Just a great conversation. A month or so later a business opportunity arose and I thought of Larry. He’s now going on tour with me and Dave Farland this fall.
Be flexible. I’ve been invited and have invited others to go do lunch or dinner. And those have always been great chats. And sometimes business ops have arisen later because of them. But even if they hadn’t, it just makes the experience so much better. Good conversation is its own reward.
6. If all of this is too scary, bring back up. Get a friend or family member to go with you. 🙂
And if you stumble a bit, maybe stutter, maybe even feel like you’ve made a fool of yourself, do not stress. It’s to be expected the first few times. No big deal. Most poeple are shy and will either give you a break or be so worried themselves they won’t notice. With a few tries you’ll learn. If yo do make a fool of yourself, the good thing is that editors and agents meet so many people that your face will soon be forgotten, and you’ll be able to reboot and approach them next year with a clean slate (just remember to not wear the same belly dancing costume).
Of course, this doesn’t tell you what to do and not to do when approaching these folks. But as far as deciding where to go, this is one method that works.
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Added 7/31/09
SFWA has some great articles on conventions and networking by Diana Rowland.
Aspiring writers, Jim C. Hines is starting to release the results of his how did you break in survey. Go read it!!
For those that struggle with plotting your novels, you can now watch The Secret to Making Plotting Easier.
It’s a recording of the hour-long lecture of goodness I delivered to an audience of over 140 writers at Life, The Universe and Everything last week.
I’m happy to report that when it was over, a number of those in audience gushed quite profusely about how helpful it was.
Enjoy!
I want you to think about Ed Smylie, who helped save the Apollo 13 astronauts with his duct tape contraption. What if the authorities had come to Ed, but instead of saying, “Look, we need to fit the round CO2 scrubbers into the holes for the square ones,” they’d said, “We want you to do something; it involves thinking.”
Ed would have blinked. Waited. “Yeah?”
“That’s it. Something. A lot is riding on this.” And then maybe they urged him on with a significant wave of their hands.
Can you see Ed at this point?
“Sure.” He’d say. “I’ll get right on that.” Then he’d wonder who put these guys up to this practical joke.
Do you see how impossible it is when you frame things that way?
To come up with solutions, you have to have a clue about what it is you’re trying to do. Even if it’s just a rough idea. It doesn’t matter if you’re trying to fix a space ship, roast hotdogs, or write a story.
Once we have a rough idea of what we want to accomplish, the mind automatically kicks into gear to perform its wonders. Until we do that, we’re going to be like Ed in the example above—staring at a blank wall, wondering if our superiors aren’t a bit cuckoo.
So what are we trying to do?
Think about your reader. Is it a woman? A teen? A crazy dude? Do you remember my book tour with Larry Correia in 2009 and the guy who, during a booksigning / doughnut party at a Phoenix Barnes & Noble, proclaimed my book to be true? Aliens really were eating our souls and enslaving humanity. They were lizards living in the hollow portion of the earth.
The point is: what are your readers hoping your story provides them? In fact, since you’re the first audience, what do YOU want from your stories? Why do you read?
I want you to write down five stories you really like. Movies, TV shows, novels, short stories, plays—I don’t care the genre or type. Just write down five. Do it now. Here are five random stories I like.
This is going to be a powerful exercise for you. It was for me the first time I did it in a class on interior design.
A few years ago, Lovely Wife and I were building a house. We wanted to make our living space sing. We wanted our surroundings to make us happy, but we didn’t quite know how to go about doing that. So we took a class on interior design, hoping to learn the principles involved.
Except when we showed up in the first session and saw the many different design styles, it overwhelmed us. Some styles were ethnic (Southwestern, Asian, French, Gothic, Pygmy), some philosophical or religious (Zen, Feng Shui), many were artistic (Modern, Arts & Craft, Minimalist, Art Deco, College Room Mate ), a lot were mixtures. Some were about making statements and creating moods, some about practicality (here’s a taste of those styles). How in the world were we going to learn this?
Luckily, we had a very perceptive teacher. She knew that most of us were there, not to learn all the styles, but to decorate our own houses. So in our second session, she brought dozens of home magazines. She spread them out on the tables we were sitting at and told us we would go through the magazines. When we found a picture or image we liked, we were to rip that page out and put it in our personal stack. So for about 45 minutes we looked and ripped and looked and ripped. Lovely Wife and I each ended up with a pile of a few dozen pictures.
Then the teacher told us to spread our pictures out in front of us and look for things that the images had in common. Colors, features, design elements.
I spread my pictures out. Lovely Wife spread out hers. And it was like magic. Boom! Right there in front of us. I loved arches and eyebrow windows. Loved dark blues and purples mixed with creams and whites. Loved the color of blond wheat and a navy blue sky. I loved wood. Loved Arts & Craft with a few tweaks.
Lovely Wife’s pile was equally revealing.
The teacher then said, “This is your personal style. This is what’s going to make you happy.” She told us that when designing the rooms in our house, that we should think about their function and merge them with these elements. And if any of us were to work with clients, we’d do something similar with them and find out their wants and likes.
With our styles now beginning to be fleshed out, Lovely Wife and I went to work. Some of her elements and colors overlapped mine. Some didn’t, like her idea of sleeping bliss: a bed with sheer red drapes hanging from some lamp shade contraption in the middle.
I told her I didn’t know if I could keep my man card and sleep in that bed. She decided I should keep my man card, but said she couldn’t sleep in a plain-walled zen room. We compromised. She got textured red on the walls. I got a bed without too many frills. We came up with designs for our spaces that did what we wanted them to do.
But we couldn’t have done this if we hadn’t identified what we were after.
So I’ve adapted that visual art technique used in the design class for our purposes. It’s just as powerful with literary arts. Which is why I want you to write down five stories.
I want you to take a moment and identify what you’re after, in a big picture general way.
I can’t do this for you.
You and I are different. Just like Lovely Wife and I are different. While our tastes may overlap in some places, they’re going to diverge. You don’t want to write my stories. You want to write YOURS.
So write down five stories. Then write down what you really enjoyed, over all, about each of those five stories. You might do this on five pieces of paper. What did you enjoy with each of the main story elements—character, setting, problem, plot, and text? What kind of an experience did they give you? What drew you to them in the first place?
You don’t need to go all crazy detailed on me with this and do a twenty page report. Just hit the highlights. The stuff that will fit on one page without writing in four point font.
When you finish that, step back and look at all five pieces of paper side by side. What common elements do you see? Circle them.
This is your style. This is what, in general, you’re going for.
If you found the exercise insightful, do five more stories. Ten is such a nice number.
I’m going to predict that 99% of the things you identify have to do with what the story did to you. The stories made you laugh, smile, scream, want to fall in love again. They made you curious or jealous or feel some type of desire (be a Ninja king, strong, beautiful). Maybe they gave you insight. Maybe they affected you so profoundly that it changed, if even in a small way, how you decided to live your life.
Stories–the ones people pay money for; the ones people stay up until four a.m. reading with a flashlight; the ones people tell their friends about–make people feel things.
A while back I wrote about this in three parts. I believe the things you’ll read in those short posts, if you don’t know them already, will change how you think about stories. They did for me. And it all begins with lipstick.
Okay, I hope at this point you are getting a general idea of why readers pay money to read the stories we create. Why YOU pay money and spend countless hours reading what others write.
This is the first step in being able to produce on purpose, not on accident. This is the first step to becoming the Ed Smylie of fiction—understanding what you, as a writer, are trying to do.
This week, keep your eyes open. Notice what stories do to you. Notice how you feel about different characters and plots. If you feel like taking it farther, notice the effect of different beginnings and ends of novels, chapters, or scenes. Notice the effect of different ways authors describe characters, places, and actions.
Of course, while knowing these general objectives is critical, it’s not enough. You need to know what you’re reaching for with the current story, the current characters, the current plot. How do you translate all this general stuff to the specifics of the story in front of you? Do you have to define everything up front? And what if you don’t know what you want in the current project anyway? What if you are clueless and have nothing but a handful of random ideas that for some reason are generating electrical sparks? What do you do then?
In the next post, I’ll talk more about those questions and where the how-to’s fit into all of this, and then we’ll get into the principles of invention.
For more in this series, see How to Get and Develop Story Ideas
Orson Card has just announced the dates and location for this year’s literary boot camp. This one is in North Carolina. Card usually usually holds a session in the west every other year. But here’s the deal: east or west, if you are a new writer, this is THE workshop to attend. It is hands-down THE best workshop I have ever attended.
If you want to learn how to write fiction from one of the masters, you will apply (the boot camp is limited to 12 people) and then do whatever it takes to attend if you’re selected. The two day writing class is also great. I don’t know that I would spend hundreds of dollars to fly in for that, but I would and did spend hundreds to attend the boot camp (way back in ye year 2002).
For more information, go here: http://www.hatrack.com/misc/bootcamp2014/
