Author Janci Patterson Goes Indie

ByJohn Brown

Everythings Fine by Janci PattersonI met Janci Patterson a few years ago when she was shopping her book Chasing the Skip to NY publishers. It’s about a girl named Ricki. Her mother flakes and runs off,  and so Ricki goes to live with her estranged Dad who happens to be a bounty hunter. I was hooked right there. But it gets better. Ricki gets to ride along and help and, wouldn’t you know it, develops a crush on a guy the dad is chasing.

I loved the premise. Traditional publisher Henry Holt loved it too and thought Janci had done a great job telling the tale, so they made her an offer that Janci accepted. It was published in 2012.

Sounds like a match made in heaven, right?

Well, Janci just released another book called Everything’s Fine, a mystery about a girl named Kira. Her best friend commits suicide immediately after her first date with her longtime crush, Bradley Johansen. Kira’s devastated and wondering why. She’s sure the answers are in her friend’s journal. As she searches for it she quickly learns she’s not the only one who wants that journal. Someone else is trying to keep the secrets the journal contains hidden.

Another great premise. And this book won the Utah Art’s Council award for Best Young Adult Novel. Clearly, Janci can tell a story. But Janci didn’t take this one to NY.

She’s publishing it as an indie.

Here are her own words explaining what helped convince her going indie was doable.

A Paradigm Shift

For years I refused to think about self-publishing. This wasn’t because of the stigma, honestly, but because of all the work I watched my self-publisher friends put into creating, shipping, and marketing their books. I couldn’t do that! I told myself. I wanted to be a writer, not a publisher.

When it became obvious to me that self-publishing was the next logical step in my career, I was terrified. Having published with a big publisher, I wasn’t willing to skip steps in the publishing process–it was my editor’s keen eye and the rounds of revision we did together that transformed CHASING THE SKIP from a messy dJanci Patterson - Chasing-the-Skip-webraft into a product I was proud of. I wanted to be just as proud of my independent work, and for that, I knew I’d need help.

I knew just enough about book and cover design to know that I couldn’t slap them together on my own and expect them to be instantly good. But when I did the math on what I’d have to pay an editor and a book designer and a cover designer to put out even one book (let alone the several I have waiting), I knew that I couldn’t afford it. Self-publishing felt even more impossible than selling books in New York–I knew how I wanted to do it, but I didn’t have the resources.

So it was with this trapped feeling that I attended the Precision Editing Group’s workshop on indie publishing last fall. The workshop was packed with great information, but the thing that impacted me the most was a presentation by Heather Horrocks. She was talking about the importance of editors, and as a side comment, said something to the effect of, “yes, all my books have now been edited, but when I first got started, I didn’t have an editor because I couldn’t afford it.”

It’s not my intention to suggest that editing isn’t important, because it is. But that one sentence blew my mind. I’d been working with the New York publishing paradigm for fourteen years. And in that world, there are very few ways to be published. You query agents. You send books to publishers. You do your very best to follow all of the guidelines and to do everything perfectly right, hoping to minimize the barriers that stand between you and success as a writer.

But this self-publishing thing was a whole different game. I sat in the audience at the workshop, stunned. That was the moment when I finally realized this truth: there are as many ways to publish as there are people who are publishing. There is no one right way to do it. There are so many things you can do that can help you succeed. It’s better to do something than nothing, because nothing is never the road to success. Even if that means you’re doing it wrong.

So when I got home, I made a list of my assets. Forget about what I lacked. Forget about what I didn’t know. What did I know how to do? What resources did I have access to? And, most importantly, who could I ask for help?

If you’re looking to self-publish, I’d suggest that you do the same. Because here’s the thing–your list of assets is going to be uniquely yours. You have a unique set of skills; you know a unique network of people. You don’t need to worry about who and what you don’t know. Instead, focus on what you do have, what you can do. If you’ve been writing for years, you probably have some book-related skills. If you’re part of a community of writers to which you regularly contribute, you probably have some friends who you’ve helped in the past, or can help in the present, who would be motivated to help you out in return. Start from there, and you can pick up the rest as you go along.

In the end, I did have my book edited (repeatedly!) and my cover designed by a graphic designer. I was able to do that because I had friends who believe in me who were willing to enter into financial agreements that didn’t involve them getting paid in full upfront. I wouldn’t have thought to work out those arrangements when I was focused on doing things right–it was only when I opened my vision to look at what was possible that I began to envision what shape my own unique path might take.

Each path to publication is different, not only for each writer, but also for each book. With all the options available to us, it’s not enough to focus on our feet, doing only the next “right” step. Opportunity is everywhere. Focus on what you have, and even if you don’t win the jackpot on the first try, at least you’ll be playing the game.

 

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  • Stonefather by Orson Scott Card

    ByJohn Brown

    stonefather_72dpi“When Runnel was born, he was given a water name even though there had never been a wetwizard in the family.

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    But now, in the village o Farzibeck, wetnames were given because the mother was fond of a nearby brooklet or because the father had a freind with such a name.”

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    This isn’t a full novel, but a novella of 112 pages. However, the Subterranean Press edition has a glorious cover and ink illustrations inside. More importantly, the story tells a tale that’s full of wonder, humor, and a number of delightful characters. It reminded me of the best of Card’s Hatrack books. But, of course, this world is very different. It’s strange, and I was happy to explore it with Runnel as my guide. Take an hour to read this. You won’t be disappointed. Then you can look forward, as I do, to the first of the Mithermage novels based on this world.

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    The average American reads 17 books per year

    ByJohn Brown

    Americans and Reading

    The Pew Research Center has just published their findings on reading in America. It’s called “The Rise of E-reading“. There’s a LOT of fascinating information in the report. Here’s a taste:

    1. Americans 18 and older read on average 17 books each year. 19% say they don’t read any books at all. Only 5% say they read more than 50.
    2. Fewer Americans are reading books now than in 1978.
    3. 64% of respondents said they find the books they read from recommendations from family members, friends, or co-workers.
    4. The average reader of e-books read 24 books (the mean number) in the past 12 months; the average non-e-book consumer read an average of 15.

    Building an Audience

    I also want to recommend this week’s post by Kris Rusch on Audience. She has a number of interesting things to say about the dream of being a best seller and building an audience. The money quote comes as she refers to a post by Tracy Hickman:

    “The point here is that you do not have to feel as though you are in competition with the entire world. You don’t NEED the entire world to be a successful writer. What you need is an audience—just enough of an audience, mind you—who reads your words, is changed by them and wants to come back for more.”

    An audience. More importantly, an audience that reads and “is changed by” your words. Not an audience who loves them, not even an audience who likes them. An audience who is changed by them, and because of that experience, “wants to come back for more.”

    Simple. Important. Usually forgotten.

    She talks about lots more. Read the whole thing.

    My thoughts?

    First, there’s no need for authors or readers to worry about wading through “crap.”

    According to Pew, readers only read 15 or 24 books a year on average.  That’s not a lot of books.

    More importantly, it takes about 3 seconds to get a lead for a good book.  You hear something from a friend or family member, you look at the USA Today best sellers list, you browse a few books at a store or online, you read a blog and suddenly you’ve found a book. 

    Readers fill up their book reading slots much more quickly than they can ever empty them.  That’s why we all have years of reading in our queues.

    It doesn’t matter that there are millions of other books out there, a good majority of which might have been written by monkeys. There’s no need for authors to worry that readers will have to wade through a mountain of crap to find a good book. They don’t need to because they have leads for good books coming out their ears.

    Second, people purchase books that friends, family, and co-workers love.

    Which means that when you deliver a great experience to one person, it’s going to ripple out. It’s probably not going to be linear. It’s probably going to ripple out like viruses do into different population pockets. Or seeds do into different environments. It will run through one pocket, make a jump to one or more others, or it may not jump at all. Some pockets are big, some are small.

    The way to keep a virus going is to release it in a lot of places where it’s likely to thrive or in places that a lot of people travel through. And as Kris points out, writing is all about repeat business–making sure you have a stream of good product (something I hope to rectify with my own writing this year).

    Bottom line: the best way to build your writing business is to simply write the best book you can, and keep them coming.

    Third, the market is BIG. 

    If you read Rusch’s and Hickman’s articles, you’ll see that even the mega sellers only reach a fraction of those who read. This is reinforced by the statement made by Thomas McCormack, former CEO of St. Martin’s that you can read here. So just because 100,000 people read one book doesn’t mean 100,000 others won’t read mine.  

    Moreover, e-books and online shopping are broadening distribution. Brick and mortar stores only have so many slots for books. Every 8-12 weeks they rotate the old books out (like 12 weeks is old) and replace them with the new ones, unless, of course, your book is selling very well and gets “modeled” at the store.  The point is: when you only display a few books at a time, those books will get bigger sales numbers. This happens because there isn’t anything else to purchase.

    But you don’t have that limitation with e-books and online shopping. Nothing rotates out of the store. Sure, things rotate on and off the best seller lists. But the books are always there. With an ever growing selection, there won’t be as many mega sellers.  Publishers Weekly discusses this trend in their 2011 Facts & Figures articles, which list best-seller numbers (make sure you click through to the Trade Paperback article as well). The same thing has happened with TV station viewership with the explosion of channels, DVDs, and online streaming. Same thing happened with music.

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  • Hey, I live in Washington and I’m an Idiot

    ByJohn Brown

    I’m sick of politicians who are more worried about votes, Republican or Democrat, than actually doing what needs to be done. Sick of these fools buying votes with Federal programs for everything from farm subsidies to gelatin wrestling.

    When someone runs for office, does an idiot switch get flipped? “Vote for me, I’ll spend like there’s no tomorrow. Cause look, honey, I got this magical piece of Uncle Sam plastic. It doesn’t cost anything. And when the bill comes, we’ll just tax all the rich folks to pay for it, and send government agents to put them in jail if they don’t. Or we’ll print money and make it all worth nothing. Or, better yet, we’ll just use the funds we set aside for social security.  It would be dumb to just save and invest that money we’re taking from people for their retirements. I mean, it’s just sitting there earning interest. Besides, we’ll set it all up like Amway with downlines and circles, and the rising generation will just be taxed out of their brains to pay for it.  And that will be someone else’s problem anyway. See the pretty money, honey. See it? Vote for me.”

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    Here’s what we need. It’s not rocket science.

    1. A balanced budget ammendment to prevent our super smart and caring representatives in Washington from continually spending what they don’t have.

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    Edit 6/7/11: Besides, Paul Ryan, here’s Tim Pawlenty with some ideas on how to accomplish it.  I’m looking forward to seeing the ideas Romney and the other presidential candidates put forth.

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  • What you need as a storyteller

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    Instead, Card asked us to simply provide a report of what he called the three grunts a reader makes when things aren’t working–where it was boring, unclear, or didn’t ring true.

    We were to provide a report of our reader reaction, including parts that really entertained or interested us. NOTHING more.

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    And a few I disagree with. She is quite forceful about writers not acting as first readers. I think that’s bunk. And she says as much in the comments. If a writer can give a reader response instead of a critique, that’s as helpful as a non-writer giving a reader response. I also disagree that you have to toss something and start over if it doesn’t work. If it’s fundamentally broken, sure. But many times a small adjustment gets you back on track.  Finally, yes, a story has to be surprising. At the same time, you had better deliver the type of experience you promise your reader. And that’s all defined by genre. You can’t promise your readers a thriller and deliver a romance. That only leads to irritated readers. I believe you have to consider your audience. But these are all quibbles. The article is great.

    BTW, please note I used “storyteller” in the title. I did that on purpose. More and more, I find I’m not interested in writing. “Writing” doesn’t seem to convey what I’m after. However, I am interested in telling cracking stories.

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  • Interview with Author Kelly Barnhill

    ByJohn Brown

    Kelly Barnhill is a writer, teacher and Mom from Minneapolis. Her fiction has appeared in Postscripts, Weird Tales, Clarkesworld and other publications. She’s also published a number of high-interest science books for children. They have wonderful titles like Sewers and the Rats That Love Them, Blood-Sucking, Man-Eating Monsters, Sick, Nasty Medical Practices, and The Wee Book of Pee.  She states that “I’ve had like nine million jobs before this, including being a janitor, a park ranger, a wildland firefighter and a bartender (among others).” Kelly’s first novel, The Mostly True Story of Jack, will be published this year. I had the opportunity to interview her about the book and writing, and have to say I had a delightful time. Enjoy!

    * 

    JB: I have to start by saying I love the title of your book. It raises all sorts of questions in my mind. Was that part of the inspiration of the story or was it something you had to arrive at after a lot of hard work?

    KB: On the first question: Oh my. Titles. This title is the culmination of a whole lot of blood, sweat and tears. Okay, that’s not entirely true. Neither blood nor sweat, just tears – mine specifically. This book was originally called The Boy Without A Face, then Jack Be Quick, then The Curious Face in the Cornfield, then Uprooted, then the House at the Far Edge of Town, then the A Child of Earth and Magic, then…..oh lord, I can hardly remember. 

    The thing is, I typically don’t have a problem naming pieces. The title usually comes when I’ve untangled the first knot of text and the beating heart of the story is just starting to assert itself. This time, not so much. I was stymied from the beginning. I asked my kids their opinions, my agent, my agent’s assistant, every editor I’ve ever heard of. I asked my students, my Sunday School kids, kids on the block, kids at the park. 

    But that’s the thing when you have a title that doesn’t work – no amount of wanting it to be right will make it right. So I was bound to struggle and I was bound to hate – well, everything – because I just hadn’t hit on the right one yet. Until I did. And the fussing stopped (much to the great joy of everyone involved).

    JB: (laughing) That’s hilarious. I can see the desperate author hounding some kid on a swing. Of course, it shows persistence. And I’m betting it isn’t just a title that’s defied you. Have you run into plot or character snags that have been especially troublesome? If so, what do you do as a writer, how do you approach that?

    KB: Oh, clearly. I am one of those authors who does absolutely no planning before starting a project. Instead, I’ll get a little knot of text stuck in my head (usually when I’m out for a run) – something pleasing to the ear or gentle in the mind’s eye. And then I spend a whole lot of time figuring out the story behind it. What that means is that when I begin, I typically don’t know what exactly I’m writing. Is this a short story? A novel? A children’s book? A poem? It takes me a while to figure that out.

    Insane, you might say. Absolutely barking mad, you might mutter.

    Well, obviously, says I. But it’s fun.

    Anyway, I did a lot of select-all-deletes over the course of this novel (sometimes, deletes to the tune of 300 pages), retaining the characters, retaining the little bright spots that I managed to scrawl onto some note cards, but recomposing largely from memory, and re-engaging with the story in a fresh, new place.

    It’s a process I can’t really recommend. Except that I do. Whole-heartedly. There’s something thrilling about entering into a manuscript that doesn’t have any mistakes in it yet. Of course, it typically doesn’t have any words in it either at that point, but never mind.

    Along the way I’ve had to remove some fairly major characters, which forced me to completely re-imagine and recompose the book (again), but as I did so, the story was better, the writing was better, and I learned a lot doing it. So, I don’t like to call them “snags”. I like to call them “learning opportunities”. (Okay, fine, I also call them “throw-my-computer-in-the-creek-while-shouting-obscenities moments” but that’s not very nice to talk about.)

    JB: Kelly, I have to say, to find a simmering joy in the dreaded select-all-delete (folks, she’s wild, WILD!) Although I will say that starting a new project is always a thrill for me as well. So maybe we’re not too far apart, although I do enjoy my planning. So, what was the knot of text that started this story? Is it even there anymore? And how did it develop into the fantastic magic that’s at the heart of the tale? (Folks, as an aside, I have to tell you that the magic in this book is unlike anything I’ve read.)

    KB: Okay, you asked for it. Here is the original page. I’ll make the letters green, just because:

    Outside the house, a girl stood on the darkening street looking up. Her hands were shoved deep in the pockets of her ratty cut-offs, and her red-brown curls struggled out of the long braid that hung down the length of her back. Her bike lay on its side on the ground, the front wheel still slowly spinning around and around, until it finally stopped.

    Two boys walked slowly down the quiet street, their sneakered feet scarcely whispering against the pavement. One boy wore a bright orange seed cap over his even brighter blonde hair. He smiled at the girl as they approached. The other boy was very tall and he walked with a limp. Half of his face was obscured in a red knot of scars that bloomed over his skin like roses. He kept his eyes on the ground and did not speak. He never spoke. Both boys stood next to the girl. The boy with the cap tilted his chin towards the attic.

    “That kid get in today?” he asked, his eyes on the silhouette of the stranger in the window.

    “Yep,” the girl said.

    “Think he knows?” He turned to face the girl. His face, handsome and tan from so much time out of doors, shone in the last weak rays of the orange and pink sky.

    “How could he?” she asked. She reached over to the boy on her left, who was taller than her, though his pronounced slouch made it difficult to tell. She put her arm around his shoulder, and he, in turn, laid his face, bad side down, good side up, on hers. Only when they stood like this, could people see that they were brother and sister. “But he will,” she said.

    I wrote this while on a positively lovely run through Fort Snelling State Park in Minnesota. Well, that’s not exactly true. I thought it while I was running. I wrote it when I got home. But that’s how a lot of stories start for me – a bit of fluff twists into a thread and thickens to a cord and winds into a knot. And then I have a hell of a time figuring out where the thing leads.

    Now, that actually wasn’t everything that led me to JACK. There was another bit that I can’t find anywhere that was a conversation between a kid and his mom as they drove in a rental car towards a farm house in Iowa, where the kid would be staying while his parents worked through the details of their divorce. I didn’t realize that the kids on the street would occupy the same story as the kid in the car. Indeed, I had no idea that the kids on the street were talking about the kid in the car. I also had no idea that I was writing a book with magic in it either. That was a surprise.

    But to answer your earlier question, neither the conversation nor the bit about the kids looking at the house are in the book anymore, though little images and descriptions have drifted into the later drafts and taken root. That’s the magic of revisions – every cut is necessary, and every cut hurts, but something new always grows. And sometimes the bits of your novel that once were broken and wobbly and weak transform into some very pretty bits of fiction. It’s the transformation that gets us every time – or me, anyway. Honestly, it’s why I keep coming back to the page: I like change.

    And as far as the magic at the heart of the story – I can’t really say. I think that the magic was simply there, waiting for me to find it. Everything I know about the strange history of that town, the terrible events that happened in the past and the necessity for Jack and his friends to set things right – I only discovered those things by accident. I discovered them because I cared about Jack, and cared about his loneliness and his lack of place, and I wanted to understand him. (And yes, I totally get it that he’s not real, but in the end that doesn’t really matter, does it? I’m a mother, and a child in need is a child in need.)

    (Did I even answer your question? Why is it that every question sends me tumbling in all directions? I think I might be a dreadful interviewee. Maybe you should ask me easier questions. Like about darning socks.)

    JB: (laughing) You’re a wonderful interviewee. I love these answers. And I think my readers will appreciate very much what you’ve shared. In fact, I’m betting they’d want me to keep asking questions for quite some time, but I’ll limit myself to two more. First, the prose of your book has a flow to it. I haven’t pinpointed what it’s doing yet (I have noticed some parallelisms), but the prose is compelling. Just picks you up and carries you along. Is that flow important to you? Do you labor over it, or is it just something you enjoy, maybe seek out in other authors, and, therefore, seems to come naturally? Tell us your thoughts on this.

    KB: Oh, John, I am so glad you asked me this question! (Also, that you noticed, because I worked really hard on it!)

    Let me back up before answering that, though, because I think it’s really hard to separate how a writer builds text and uses words from how they think. There are people on earth – lots of them – who are visual thinkers. I am not one of them. In fact, I am not a visual thinker at all. Even now, when my house is quiet and my kids are at school, it is difficult for me to call up a mental image of their faces – but the texture and timbre of their voices is with me all the time. And it’s always been like that for me as a reader – I’m much more attracted to books with a strong aural sensibility. I like prose that is rhythmic and rich. I think language works best when it is a sensual experience – not just in what it evokes (though that’s clearly important) but how it feels in the mouth, how it feels in the ear.

    Now I think part of the reason for this is that, as a little girl, I was a delayed reader. And when I started reading, I was stuck in the bottom group (they never tell you you’re in the bottom group, but oh! As children we know. We know!). This is not to say I wasn’t experiencing and engaging with stories. Every night my dad read to us – first the Grimm stories, then Narnia, then Tolkein, then Dickens. I also had a little fisher-price record player (that I bought at a garage sale with my own money, so of course I thought it was awesome) and a bunch of dramatized books on records – Treasure Island, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Watership Down, Call it Courage, Anne of Green Gables, and some others that I can’t remember.I would listen to those things so often that my siblings threatened to throw my record player out the window. So I’d lock myself in the closet and listen some more. And even now, I love stories out loud. My husband and I read to one another every night, I read to my kids, and I read my own work out loud as I revise, over and over and over again.

    My book sounds the way it does because I’ve read that thing out loud, cover to cover, approximately nine million times. Actually, that might be a conservative estimate. I want my stories to feel like a whisper on the skin, an insistent voice that you can’t shake. Now, mind you, I’ll probably never actually reach that goal, but it’s good having a target, anyway.

    JB: Wow. That’s lovely. You know, I’m not a style over substance guy, but I like sound. I’m attracted to prose that sings, even if it’s softly. This seems to be what you’re suggesting you look for. Not prose that necessarily stands up and shouts for people to look at it. But prose that, well, as you said, is a whisper on the skin. Oh, there’s a whole interview right there. In fact, I think, if you’ll agree, I’m going to have you back, maybe around the time Jack comes out to discuss that. In the meantime, I see you have a whole bunch of projects slated to come out. The Final Exile of the Insect King is another killer title. But Iron Hearted Violet is the one coming out next after Jack. Tells us about that one or anything else you think readers should know about. And since Jack is a ways off, tell us which of your published stories you’d suggest readers try while they’re waiting. I see a whole bunch you’ve linked to on your site.

    KB: Thanks John! This has been really fun, and I’d love to pop back over to your corner of the internets around launch-time (August 2! Mark your calendars!).

    Anyone who is interested in reading any of my fiction online can head over to my blog for a list of links (www.kellybarnhill.com). And any of you who are interested in buying some pretty cool collections could check out Sybil’s Garage #7, which has my story “The Dead Boy’s Last Poem” or Apex’s recent anthology Dark Faith, which has my story “Hush”. Another story that I feel pretty good about  is called “The Taxidermist’s Other Wife”, which appeared on Clarkesworld in December. That particular story came from an experience I had up in northern Minnesota (about ten miles south of the Canadian border), when I was teaching a fiction workshop to a bunch of hockey-playing high school seniors. One boy was telling me that it took him over an hour each way to get from home to school and back again. He said he’d been doing that for the last six years, ever since his town closed down the school. I asked him if all the kids in his town had to make the same kind of crazy commute, and he said, “Those of us who’re left, sure. There’s not many of us anymore. You kill the school, you kill the town. Everyone knows that.” The idea that the lifeblood of a town is bound up in its school  – and indeed, that a town can be killed, stuck with me, and transformed into an odd, mournful little piece. There is a deep love as well as a devastating sorrow that binds the people of my beautiful (and very cold) state to the land that surrounds them – and I feel that this story is the closest I’ve ever come to actually pinning those twin emotions down onto the page. 

    As for Iron-Hearted Violet  – that has been a devilishly tricky book to write, but I’m pretty happy with it. How to describe it? Hmmm. It’s the story of a girl who unwittingly releases an imprisoned, wicked god, and must sacrifice all that she knows and all that she loves in order to stop it from enslaving her – and every – world. There are banned stories and dragons with missing hearts and a grieving girl and  friendship and a magic book and sleeping gods and a multitude of universes gathering in great foamy waves and crashing against the shore. Mostly, getting the language and tone just right was incredibly tricky, and I went through something like a million drafts, so for me to say that I’m feeling happy with it is a pretty big deal.

    JB: Well, that gives us all some great things to try out. I’m personally looking forward to Jack.

    *

    John Sez: now there is someone who just loves to write. I love her sense of adventure in discovering the story and her willingness to generate a lot of stuff to get to the final story. And the sound of her prose. Not that all books have to have this, but it is nice. Furthermore, Kelly was just enjoyable to talk to. That fun voice comes out in her blog. She’s going to be someone to watch. In the meantime, for the rest of us, it’s back to work.  

    LINKS

    Kelly Barnhill’s website

    Codex Author Blog Tour 2011

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