Sunday, November 26, 2006
Try Typing – With a Typewriter!
I spent some time this past week going over a manuscript that I wrote last spring when I received a fellowship to a dune shack on Cape Cod – a shack that was equipped with neither electricity nor running water. So to write, I had to either work longhand – which has its physical limitations – or type. On a typewriter.
I chose to type.
I bought a wonderful little Smith-Corona Corsair on eBay, a small aqua machine that I remembered – very vaguely – from my undergraduate days. I took it with me to the dune shack and thought about what I was going to write and then started working.
And an amazing thing happened.
There is something intrinsically pure about a typewriter: you don't use it to check email, or surf the Web, or create a spreadsheet. All you can do with a typewriter is WRITE. It has a smell that I had quite forgotten, but breathing it in was like coming home. I experienced something that I had also forgotten: the pleasure of actually seeing and holding what one has accomplished in a day, pulling one page after another out of the typewriter. Pages and pages of work that you can stack, touch, count – concrete evidence of time well spent.
They’re not expensive. Here’s my tip this week: try it. Buy yourself a typewriter and give it a try. Have your own small dune shack experience: stay away from the computer for a day. And write. Don’t stop to look anything up. Don’t stop to check your email. Just write.
You may be surprised at what you’ll find. And then you’ll be … beyond the elements of style!
Jeannette Cézanne
Customline Wordware Inc.
I chose to type.
I bought a wonderful little Smith-Corona Corsair on eBay, a small aqua machine that I remembered – very vaguely – from my undergraduate days. I took it with me to the dune shack and thought about what I was going to write and then started working.
And an amazing thing happened.
There is something intrinsically pure about a typewriter: you don't use it to check email, or surf the Web, or create a spreadsheet. All you can do with a typewriter is WRITE. It has a smell that I had quite forgotten, but breathing it in was like coming home. I experienced something that I had also forgotten: the pleasure of actually seeing and holding what one has accomplished in a day, pulling one page after another out of the typewriter. Pages and pages of work that you can stack, touch, count – concrete evidence of time well spent.
They’re not expensive. Here’s my tip this week: try it. Buy yourself a typewriter and give it a try. Have your own small dune shack experience: stay away from the computer for a day. And write. Don’t stop to look anything up. Don’t stop to check your email. Just write.
You may be surprised at what you’ll find. And then you’ll be … beyond the elements of style!
Jeannette Cézanne
Customline Wordware Inc.
Saturday, November 18, 2006
Getting Published the Old-Fashioned Way
What are my chances of having my book published by a traditional publisher?
I have to be honest with you here: it looks hard, and it’s even harder than it looks. Everyone who has written a book feels as though they’ve done their job and now it’s time to sit back and wait for the bidding as the book is auctioned off to a major publisher.
Reality is very different.
There are three ways of getting published in the conventional sense of the word (although stay tuned: more are emerging): traditional publishing, self-publishing, and using a subsidy publisher; and each uses a different method. Today I’m just going to look at the traditional publishing route.
How is it done?
• Submitting your work directly to a publisher. This is known as “over the transom,” since manuscripts used to be tossed into an editor’s office in precisely that manner. There are resources available to help you, notably Writers Digest Books’ Writers Market and Information Today’s Literary Market Place. These books will tell you exactly what each publisher is looking for, and what each publisher wants in the way of contact (query letter, book proposal, entire manuscript, etc.).
• Sending your work to a publisher through a referral. While an agent or a publisher might be willing to accept a recommendation from someone they know and respect (author, MFA professor, the editor of a literary journal, etc.), it is not proper etiquette for you to contact someone who does not already know you in order to ask for a referral. Unless such a person has already indicated interest in your work, this is probably not the route to take.
• Having your book accepted by an agent who will then submit it to publishers on your behalf and for a percentage of the book’s sales.
Some publishers will only work with agents. Why? Because it makes their job easier. The agent can match projects with specific editors, decide if something is publishable as is or if it needs more work, and provide some feedback to the author.
Publishers, on the other hand, will rarely offer feedback. Frustrating as this is, it’s simply not practicable to tell hundreds of authors a day why their manuscripts are being rejected. In general, what you will receive is a form letter telling you that your manuscript does not meet the publisher’s current needs, and wishing you the best of luck elsewhere. Most of the time, you won’t know if it was rejected because it wasn’t “good enough” – whatever that might mean – or because the editor was having a bad day. The end result, sadly, is the same.
Perseverance pays off. So does working and reworking your manuscript. Sometimes putting it aside for a year (as it makes the rounds of publishers and gets rejected every few months) can be useful: if you look at it again with fresh eyes there’s a good chance you’ll find ways of improving it.
Many, many well-known authors have known rejection. (If you don’t believe this to be true, take a look at André Bernard’s Rotten Rejections, a sampling of which is available here: http://www.writersservices.com/mag/m_rejection.htm ) And the odds are stacked against today’s author even more than in the past: no longer can an acquisitions editor make the decision to purchase a manuscript alone. These days, a whole team – including representatives of the publisher’s marketing department – decide on the project’s financial viability. A rejection may therefore have nothing to do with the literary value of any work.
I wish the news were better. I wish that all of my company’s clients could get published easily and painlessly. I just want everyone to be prepared for a long journey and a possible negative outcome.
It has been said that only 400 people in the United States make their livings entirely on the proceeds from their books.
In other words – no matter how good you are, don’t quit your day job quite yet. And then you’ll be… beyond the elements of style!
Jeannette Cézanne
Customline Wordware, Inc.
I have to be honest with you here: it looks hard, and it’s even harder than it looks. Everyone who has written a book feels as though they’ve done their job and now it’s time to sit back and wait for the bidding as the book is auctioned off to a major publisher.
Reality is very different.
There are three ways of getting published in the conventional sense of the word (although stay tuned: more are emerging): traditional publishing, self-publishing, and using a subsidy publisher; and each uses a different method. Today I’m just going to look at the traditional publishing route.
How is it done?
• Submitting your work directly to a publisher. This is known as “over the transom,” since manuscripts used to be tossed into an editor’s office in precisely that manner. There are resources available to help you, notably Writers Digest Books’ Writers Market and Information Today’s Literary Market Place. These books will tell you exactly what each publisher is looking for, and what each publisher wants in the way of contact (query letter, book proposal, entire manuscript, etc.).
• Sending your work to a publisher through a referral. While an agent or a publisher might be willing to accept a recommendation from someone they know and respect (author, MFA professor, the editor of a literary journal, etc.), it is not proper etiquette for you to contact someone who does not already know you in order to ask for a referral. Unless such a person has already indicated interest in your work, this is probably not the route to take.
• Having your book accepted by an agent who will then submit it to publishers on your behalf and for a percentage of the book’s sales.
Some publishers will only work with agents. Why? Because it makes their job easier. The agent can match projects with specific editors, decide if something is publishable as is or if it needs more work, and provide some feedback to the author.
Publishers, on the other hand, will rarely offer feedback. Frustrating as this is, it’s simply not practicable to tell hundreds of authors a day why their manuscripts are being rejected. In general, what you will receive is a form letter telling you that your manuscript does not meet the publisher’s current needs, and wishing you the best of luck elsewhere. Most of the time, you won’t know if it was rejected because it wasn’t “good enough” – whatever that might mean – or because the editor was having a bad day. The end result, sadly, is the same.
Perseverance pays off. So does working and reworking your manuscript. Sometimes putting it aside for a year (as it makes the rounds of publishers and gets rejected every few months) can be useful: if you look at it again with fresh eyes there’s a good chance you’ll find ways of improving it.
Many, many well-known authors have known rejection. (If you don’t believe this to be true, take a look at André Bernard’s Rotten Rejections, a sampling of which is available here: http://www.writersservices.com/mag/m_rejection.htm ) And the odds are stacked against today’s author even more than in the past: no longer can an acquisitions editor make the decision to purchase a manuscript alone. These days, a whole team – including representatives of the publisher’s marketing department – decide on the project’s financial viability. A rejection may therefore have nothing to do with the literary value of any work.
I wish the news were better. I wish that all of my company’s clients could get published easily and painlessly. I just want everyone to be prepared for a long journey and a possible negative outcome.
It has been said that only 400 people in the United States make their livings entirely on the proceeds from their books.
In other words – no matter how good you are, don’t quit your day job quite yet. And then you’ll be… beyond the elements of style!
Jeannette Cézanne
Customline Wordware, Inc.
Monday, November 13, 2006
amazon.com shorts program
I was writing some publicity tips this past weekend for a group of authors who have been working on a series together, and it occurred to me that recycling those comments here might be useful to those of you who do have a book out there already.
Once you have a book listed with amazon.com, you are permitted to submit to the amazon "short" program. These are short pieces that can be downloaded for .49 each.
Since amazon collects a hefty percentage of that princely sum, they're *not* a way to make money; but what they *are* is a way to keep your name in the public eye. It's especially helpful if you write something that is along the same lines as the other book(s) you have on the market (think of it as the chapter you meant to write, but didn't!).
Being qualified to submit does not mean that your piece will be automatically accepted; there's still a triage process, and authors are rejected ... usually those who have not taken the time to study the craft of writing. So read and follow all the submission guidelines,and make it your best, most polished writing, as there is no "amazon editor" there who will help you. You can check out some of them at http://tinyurl.com/y4opqx --- just browse and see what's there and where something you could write might fit. You may wish to purchase one or two in your subject area to see what they're like.
Jeannette Cézanne
Customline Wordware, Inc.
Once you have a book listed with amazon.com, you are permitted to submit to the amazon "short" program. These are short pieces that can be downloaded for .49 each.
Since amazon collects a hefty percentage of that princely sum, they're *not* a way to make money; but what they *are* is a way to keep your name in the public eye. It's especially helpful if you write something that is along the same lines as the other book(s) you have on the market (think of it as the chapter you meant to write, but didn't!).
Being qualified to submit does not mean that your piece will be automatically accepted; there's still a triage process, and authors are rejected ... usually those who have not taken the time to study the craft of writing. So read and follow all the submission guidelines,and make it your best, most polished writing, as there is no "amazon editor" there who will help you. You can check out some of them at http://tinyurl.com/y4opqx --- just browse and see what's there and where something you could write might fit. You may wish to purchase one or two in your subject area to see what they're like.
Jeannette Cézanne
Customline Wordware, Inc.
Labels: books, publicity, shorts
Sunday, November 05, 2006
Trailers are for Books, Too!
Here's the latest news you can use: while books have been being made into movies for a long time, it seems that now they're heading straight to ... YouTube!
In this article in Sunday's LA Times, staff writer Dawn Chmielewski talks about the most recent in the blurring of the lines between media as "Author Michael Connelly adapted the first chapter of his new murder mystery, Echo Park, into a 10-minute film for YouTube and other online video sites in an attempt to attract readers."
The whole story is here: http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-vidbooks4nov04,1,3109023.story?coll=la-headlines-business
Doing film trailers for books is becoming more and more popular. A few weeks ago one of my guests on my radio show, an independent publisher, noted that she's been using trailers successfully for over a year now. Over on the Murder Must Advertise online group, trailers are constantly being discussed as a perfect medium for promoting mystery books in particular (doing the same for science fiction, for example, might be somewhat problematic for a whole lot of reasons).
While the doomsayers continue to predict the end of literature as we know it, it's good to see other media being used at the service of literature. Does it really matter, after all, how someone finds your book ... as long as they do? Maybe book trailers are, in fact, beyond the elements of style!
Jeannette Cézanne
Customline Wordware, Inc.
In this article in Sunday's LA Times, staff writer Dawn Chmielewski talks about the most recent in the blurring of the lines between media as "Author Michael Connelly adapted the first chapter of his new murder mystery, Echo Park, into a 10-minute film for YouTube and other online video sites in an attempt to attract readers."
The whole story is here: http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-vidbooks4nov04,1,3109023.story?coll=la-headlines-business
Doing film trailers for books is becoming more and more popular. A few weeks ago one of my guests on my radio show, an independent publisher, noted that she's been using trailers successfully for over a year now. Over on the Murder Must Advertise online group, trailers are constantly being discussed as a perfect medium for promoting mystery books in particular (doing the same for science fiction, for example, might be somewhat problematic for a whole lot of reasons).
While the doomsayers continue to predict the end of literature as we know it, it's good to see other media being used at the service of literature. Does it really matter, after all, how someone finds your book ... as long as they do? Maybe book trailers are, in fact, beyond the elements of style!
Jeannette Cézanne
Customline Wordware, Inc.
