I’ve been to 17 or 18 national conferences.  Here’s my best of the best tips:

Try not to check into the hotel the Wednesday of the mass booksigning.  Long Line city!!!!  If you do, make the best of it and make a new friend.  In fact, it’s likely that you will be stuck in a line at some point during the conference, so take the opportunity to make a friend.

Take business cards.

Before the conference, study the workshop brochure and make a special note of the workshops you most want to attend.  Make a schedule for yourself with an alternative workshop if the first one doesn’t deliver, but be flexible. 

There is little wisdom in the advice “We can sleep when we’re dead.”  I know that national conference is like a giant candy store, but the truth is you need to plan for some downtime.  You’ll be in better shape to absorb all the good stuff if you take a break (nap).

Try to meet at least one or two new people.

Editor Appointments:

If you’ve completed a manuscript, scheduling an appointment with an editor is one of the most important things you can do for yourself and your career.  I consider the editor appointment the best bang for your conference money buck.

Study the line for which you want to write.  Read some of the books edited by the editor with whom you’re meeting.

If you don’t want to pitch, ask questions instead.  Suggested questions:  What recent acquisition has really excited you?  What do you love about it?  What’s your dream submission?  What are you sick to death of seeing?  What do you feel isn’t working?  What is your turnaround time?   After those questions, give the editor your card and say “I’ve written a book for (name of editor’s publisher).  May I send it to you?”  I have NEVER been refused.

Come and say hello to me at the Literacy Bookfair and drop into the Brainstorming Workshop Rhonda Pollero and I will be presenting.  We will not only be dispensing gold nuggets of information, we will also solve problems and hold drawing for giveaways.  What’s not to love?!

Xo,

Leanne Banks

www.leannebanks.com 

It's conference month for various writers.  Thrillerfest kicks off in New York City this Wednesday.  At the end of July on the 30th, Romance Writers of America holds its annual conference in San Francisco.  (I'm going, as are most of the other Babes and I can't wait!)

I don't know about the thriller writers, but we romance writers go full tilt at the national conference every year.  Workshops start early in the day and the publisher parties and cocktail lounge gab fests run late. 

 As a friend once told me, "We won't trash the hotel, but we will close the bar."

Publisher spotlights, author chats, editor/agent appointments, book giveaways, annual general meeting.  Wow, what an itinerary.

It can be a little intimidating for a first timer.  Hell, it can intimidate anybody unless you're a confirmed extrovert.    If you counted up all of the conferences attended over the years by all of the Babes, I'm sure the number would run into dozens and dozens.  We're veterans, for sure, so this week we're offering up tips for making the most, or at the very least surviving, your conference experience.  Even if you never plan to attend a writing related event, the hints should serve you well at almost any professional gathering.

You're going to meet a lot of people at a conference.  This is a good thing.  Writers can be pretty entertaining conversationalists.  You can also network like crazy and make a lot of terrific contacts on all levels -- editors, agents, other writers, potential readers, someone to design your website or help you with promotion. 

There are endless opportunities to make a memorable impression.

It's your job to make sure that people remember you with a smile and not a groan and exaggerated eye-roll.

Here's my number one tip:  Be friendly and be nice.

You'd think that would go without saying, but I've seen people behave with almost complete lack of manners and common sense.

Greet people politely.  Engage strangers in conversation.  If you see someone who needs a hand, offer to help.  Invite someone to join your table at lunch.  Hold the elevator for the person rushing to get in. 

Don't bulldoze through a crowd of people to launch into conversation with a big name author, even if she is your number favorite of all time.  Those people have as much right as you to stand there and you might just have knocked the author's mother, editor, agent and two best friends on their butts.

Don't cut in front of people waiting in line at one of the free book giveaways.

Don't talk about yourself as if you are the most talented author to walk the earth since Nora Roberts.  Nora doesn't talk about herself that way, so you have no business doing so.

Don't trash another author's book while you're sitting at the bar, or anywhere for that matter.  The person next to you might be her editor, critique partner, or good friend, and she just read your name on your name tag and commited it to memory.

Don't complain about your publishing house, editor or agent at the bar either.  If you aren't yet published, don't complain that this or that editor or agent just can't appreciate your talent and that's why he/she didn't sign you.  Trust me, the complaining will come back to bite you on your butt.

This is a professional conference.  You're supposed to be a professional.  Act like one.  That's a given.  Act like the nice, pleasant, friendly person you are.  That's a plus.

Enjoy yourself!

This week we’ve been discussing hidden talents and skills. I don’t know about you, but I’ve gotten kick out of reading the other Babes confessions. It will be hard for me to look at Traci now without envisioning her spitting watermelon seeds.

I have to say, where artistic talent is concerned, I’ve been blessed. I’ve made my living for more than thirty years as a professional entertainer. I can sing, dance, act, choreograph, write and direct. I didn’t go to school for any of it. Mostly it comes naturally and is honed by watching and learning from peers. It’s the other side of my brain that was gypped. I am the living opposite of Rhonda. No memory. No skill with gadgets and gizmos. Why can’t I have it all?   No, wait. I could do without Mary’s talent for killing flies with a ballpoint pen. Ick.

Anyway, as far as hidden talents go, I can’t think of any.  I do however have a bizarre talent for NOT being able to screw on a cap or lid properly. That extends to NOT being able to open a package (like a potato chip bag or cereal box) without mangling it.

Check any bottle in my house. The laundry detergent, the seltzer water bottle, the peanut butter jar. If the lid is screwed on crooked, I was the last one to use it. Ditto on the various mangled box-tops and the broken zip-locks on the deli bags. My husband continually comments on this bizarre quirk. How do you do that? How can you NOT screw the lid on straight? How can you destroy every package?

I honestly don’t know. It’s a gift.          

Nothing, Nada…nope.

 
I even asked my family, and at first, they thought I was asking for a character in a novel.    At my age, I should know this.  I possess no natural, as in born with, talent.  Hidden or otherwise.

Dance?  No, and when I try, its not pretty.

Sing?  Used to.  But smoked and ruined my voice.  Now I sound like Bonnie Raitt and off key.  And musical instruments shudder and refuse to cooperate in my hands.  Some just run.

My son just reminded me that I can build a fire, without lighter fluid and it ignites every time.  With some people, that might be kinda scary.

I can make jewelry, a skill, not a talent and learned from a book.  Add candles, paint ceramics and you get the idea. 

Oh-oh!  I can faux finish walls... wait, learned that from a book too.  I garden, and can grow flowers, food, herbs, know plant names and requirements for outside … all learned from a book.  Inside plants?  Not so fortunate.

My memory stinks except when it comes to history I've researched for novels, or my interest of the year, archaeology.  

So   ... I guess that means any talent I have was learned from a book.  

Ya know, I'm good with that.

Happy Independence Day!!

AMY

Happy Fourth of July everbody!!!  I'm a Yankee Doodle Dandy, oh I'm a Yankee Doodle Boy...

or not

Hidden talent…I wish I had one.  I am not a fly killer – not with magazines OR ball point pens, lol. I can’t play the piano, not even Chopsticks.  I don’t have a memory that retains every single detail and I don’t have pinching toes.

The Babes are a talented bunch, obviously, lol. I can’t wait to see what Amy and Beth can do!

I’m racking my brain trying to think of something I can do just so that I don’t get kicked off the Babes Blog <g>  I can curl my tongue, but I can’t tie a knot in a cherry stem – which is a totally cool skill.  I can read super fast, but the next day I won’t remember the heroine’s name (unless the book really captured my interest), and I can recite the top ten ten zombie movies of all time, with my favorite, Shaun of the Dead, as number one - but who really cares about that?  I can’t bike, or rollerblade without falling over.

I can barely walk.

Oh my GOD.

I have no talent.

Call me Ms. Mediocrity, 2008.  Whose idea was this blog, anyway???

Wait -  I can spit a watermelon seed pretty far…and I once won a blue ribbon for fastest crabwalk. I’m pretty handy with a hot glue gun and duct tape (don’t ask) and if I need to I can make fifty cheese quesadillas in under an hour.

Digging deep here…digging…I have it!

I ALWAYS win the prize for creating the most words out of a scramble at a wedding or baby shower –

Whew. I realize that it’s not as interesting as fly killing or instant recall, but it’s better than nothing, lol. 

Hey!!come and visit me today at www.fictionscribe.com - this is the last of the interviews I've done for pump up your book promotions - what a whirlwind month

Traci

Unlike Rhon, I do not remember everything. In fact, I seem to have a (not so hidden) talent for FORGETTING things. Truly, I have a brain like a sieve. I don't know if my mom took weird drugs when I was in the womb, or if her two pack a day cigarette habit deprived me of oxygen in my budding fetal state.

Perhaps my memory issues are my own fault.   Suffice it to say that I have them. So if you think that you somehow offended me at a conference, no worries--because even if you did (and I'm pretty hard to offend) then chances are that I don't recall it.

Apart from my talent for forgetting things, I have a strange hidden talent: prehensile toes. Possibly God intended for me to be born a primate but then changed His mind suddenly. Anyway, I can pick things up with my toes and I can pinch people with my toes.

Unfortunately I have never fully developed my toe skills and so I cannot play the piano or the guitar a la pied, as they might say in France. (?) Hey, I'd so much rather be in France (or pretty much anywhere else) than be working on the revisions for my current manuscript!

Usually I have the hidden talent of being able to back away from my work and deconstruct it objectively. That talent is not only passively hidden right now, but actively hiding. And it won't come out no matter how much I try to beg/bribe/badger it.

Really, I'm trying to see the forest but the trees are in the way and all the branches on them are poking out my eyeballs and all the creatures hidden in the branches are laughing at me. Which brings us back almost full circle to the hidden talent of prehensile toes: they aid greatly in climbing trees. I need to get a view of this forest/manuscript from the highest possible vantage point so that I can . . . er . . . look down upon it.

Wait. I'm already doing that and thinking it's a mess, so forget it.

See, I told you I forget things! And that, readers (if you're still there, scratching your head and trying to follow my demented logic) is truly coming full circle on this topic. Please keep in mind that I have never claimed to be a linear thinker and have a great Thursday and 4th of July! Karen

p.s. I am completely sober. Really.

It actually is my memory.  With the noted exception of proper nouns (I can’t remember names to save my life) I can remember just about anything.  It’s a talent and a curse.  People hate it when you use their own words to buttress a point.  But all in all, it comes in pretty handy most of the time.  While I can’t do math, I can recite the Social Security Numbers of every member of my family.  I can read or hear something once and it stays with me.  I don’t know why.  I remember silly stuff - a few weeks ago I learned that only 1 animal other than humans can carry leprosy.  Now, a normal, mentally healthy person would forget that odd fact since the only arena where that tidbit might come in handy is on Double Jeopardy.   Me?  I keep thinking about how I could work it into a book since it amused me.

The technical name is eidetic memory.  (see another fact you didn’t need to know).  So just to make this fun, let’s play stupid crap Rhonda stores in her brain:  (NO CHEATING! & no Googling)

1.  What is it impossible to do with your eyes closed?

2. What fish can blink with both eyes?

3. How many ways were there to make change for a US Dollar?

4. What staple food product is an ingredient on dynamite?

5. The longest one-syllable word in the English Language is . . .

Answers:

1. sneeze

2. A shark

3. 293

4. Peanut Butter

5.  Screeched

Oh, and that animal that can carry leprosy?  The Armadillo.

Happy writing, Rhonda

My hidden talent…

Not nearly as fun as Mary’s.   Waaaahhhh.  I’m so jealous.  I’m all about murdering insects that enter my home.  However, because I cannot kill flies with a ballpoint pen, I’m usually forced to do things like smash them with a magazine, usually spreading their guts all over a window.  My husband doesn’t approve.  I have terrible aim even with a magazine.lol   It may be messy, but I eventually get the job done.

That’s not my hidden talent.  My hidden talent is that I can play both parts of “Heart and Soul” AND both parts of “Chopstix” on the piano at the same time.  A Bach Two-Part Invention would have impressed my piano teacher far more, but I was pleased that I could play both parts of these elementary, yet popular pieces by myself.  My sister Janie was my inspiration.  She taught herself to do both and when I saw that she could do it, I wanted to do it too.

Off topic, wish me luck.  My daughter is getting married in less than 3 weeks!  The countdown begins!!!

Quote for the day from a voice mail I heard.  “I hope you CREATE a wonderful day.”  What a COOL idea, to CREATE our own wonderful day!  Go for it!

Xoxo,

Leanne Banks

www.leannebanks.com  

Considering that my summer guilty pleasure America’s Got Talent kicked off its third season a couple of weeks ago, discussing our own hidden talents and secret skills is a great topic for the Babes this week.

I don’t think I have more than a speck of any performing talent.  I’m proud to be a member of Heather Graham’s (The fabulous bestselling author, not the acting ingénue) Slush Pile Players, and have portrayed a winged monkey, a pirate oracle, a wild west bordello madam and a voo doo queen, but I’m not giving up my day job or my writing career to audition for Broadway any life soon.  I also don’t sing particularly well, dance with any tremendous grace, or juggle to save my life. 

Can’t play a mime either because I could never shut up for that long.

Ok, so you won’t see me auditioning for America’s Got Talent this or any other season.

That doesn’t mean I don’t have some other hidden talent or secret skill.  As a matter of fact, I do.  I discovered it quite by chance many, many years ago while in college.

I can kill a fly with a ball point pen. 

Seriously, I’m a veritable dead-eye markswoman.  Lethal to flies with my chosen weapon.

How did this come about? I hear you ask.

Well, I was sitting in a lecture hall in college while a particularly boring professor droned on and on and on.  A fly buzzed around the rows of students and suddenly settled on my knee.

Boredom can be the wellspring for innovation.

With the heel of my hand resting on my leg, behind the insect, I gripped my Bic firmly at the tip, then used the other index finger to draw back the opposite end.  (The plastic has just enough give to bend a little bit without cracking.)  I held my breath, let go of the end and, THWAP!  I nailed the fly with a direct hit and its little, black corpse took off for a final flight.

Thankfully, it did not land in a classmate’s hair.

Sure, it could have been a fluke, but a few weeks later, in yet another boring lecture, another fly infiltrated my territory.

THWAP!  Score:  Mary-2; Flies-0.

Now, don’t think I turned into some fly-killing vigilante.  If they don’t bother me, I don’t attack them.  However, I have, on occasion, demonstrated the technique to others.

Last semester, my older nephew called to share that he’d employed the method during one of his college lectures. 

Good to know the talent branched out on the family tree.

This week we’re talking about Myths in Publishing.  My fellow Babes have covered this topic enormously well, opening even my seasoned eyes to a few misconceptions. Or perhaps I should say my eyes were opened to some bad behavior due to misconceptions.  Some of you have really been stiffed for dinners and drinks by other writers because they thought you made tons of money? That would be rude even if you did make tons of money.  I always feel a little awkward even if the person I’m with insists on picking up the bill.  I can’t imagine just assuming they’re going to pay my way.  Wow.  I could spend this entire post commenting on several of the other myths previously busted by the Babes, but instead, I’ll address one of my own.

The hardest part of a publishing career is getting your first book published.

MYTH!

True, getting your first book published (at least for the majority) is tough.  Really tough. It took me nine years and several rejections from both publishers and agents, before I sold my first book—and that was to a small publisher. It took three more years and six published books before I sold to a major NYC publisher.  Once upon a time, I, too, believed that the hardest part was getting my foot in the door. But in truth, it’s even more of a challenge to keep your foot in that door.    

A year or so ago, I read a blog post where an un-pubbed writer blasted a pubbed writer for whining about a deadline.  At least she’s got a deadline. Inferring the pubbed writer was ungrateful for her good fortune.  Not true.  I’m sure the pubbed writer was extremely grateful to be under contract. But being under contract means being under pressure to produce an entertaining tale on the clock. Before you’re published, you can take all the time in the world to create your masterpiece. Once you sign a contract, you’re under the gun to write and turn in a story on an agreed upon delivery date. These days, publishers are pushing authors to write a minimum of two books a year.  That’s six months to write a 90,000-100,000 book. Only it’s not really six months, because you spend part of that time promoting your current or upcoming release. Also, once you turn in that contracted book, you’ll be getting it back several times—revisions, line edits, galleys. Which means you’ll have to stop work on the next contracted to book to address the previously written book in various production phases—each phase having its own deadline. On top off all of that a published author needs to maintain a website, a blog, and is advised to participate in various social networks and self-promotion ventures.

So, yeah.  There’s a major time crunch. And yes, sometimes we whine about the pressure and lack of time. I know I do. That doesn’t mean I’m ungrateful, it means I’m human.

In addition to all the above, which entails a boatload of dedication and hard work, once that contract is over, you have to start all over again. You have to pitch a story to the publisher and hope they’ll buy it. Just because they bought the first and second book, doesn’t guarantee they’ll buy the next.  Maybe sales on the first two didn’t meet their expectations. Maybe the sub-genre you’re writing is no longer hot.

Bottom line, no matter how many books you have published, you’ll be forced to prove yourself and talent time and again. In my humble opinion, it doesn’t get easier, it gets harder. Fine by me. I’m up for the challenge. Although that doesn’t mean I won’t whine a little now and then. Remember, I’m human.          

Words to write, Myths to shatter...

On my web site, I break a few myths, but I think a lot of the ones that bug us come from newer writers.  The ones who feel that since they’ve published one book, they know it all.  Let me tell you first hand, it ain’t so.  I’m writing book 36 and *I* don’t know it all.  I’ve been orphaned, multi-rejected, (I think I hold the record for have 7 different stories rejected in a single day) and yes, years ago I did the stupid stuff new writers do, but I learned and listened--and heeded.  Quickly.

So think of all this weeks posts as grains of advice in the ever-widening storehouse of knowledge we writers acquire.

That said, I started writing with historical romance.  It’s still my first love and I’ll make my way back there someday, but I have a definite button for that.

If you’re writing an historical novel, be accurate.  The writer who does not do the research in a particular era does not care about her readership because they know their history.  I have 16 different dictionaries and hundreds of research books specifically geared to the details of historical research.  For the avid historical reader, the mistakes jump out.  For me, I’ll close the book.  So if you write words like muffins or sugar in 12^th century, you’ve proven to me you don’t care enough to make it a truly historical journey for the reader.  If you commit to writing historical, you must commit to getting the historical facts right.  Now in fiction, there are no limits and nothing is illegal, but go read Bernard Cromwell, Kathleen Woodiwiss, Connie Brockway (or even me) and you’ll understand why it makes a difference.

Asking for cover quotes.  This is for my famous friends who are asked, and I’ve seen authors put on the spot.  Quote requests must go through an agent or editor.  Never, never ask an author face to face because A) they may have never read your work.  B) Won’t offer a thing till they do.  C ) They may not care for your work and turning you down in a bar at a conference is uncomfortable and unprofessional.  D) Their names go with that quote and the book had better be good because it’s their reputation stamped on that cover too.

Assuming the published authors are loaded.  I cannot tell you how many times Maureen Child, Rhonda, Cherry Adair, and I have been royally stiffed for cab rides, drinks, even dinner by unpublished or new writers in the last years.  I kid you not.  RWA Members wonder why published stay aloof?  This is why (and the gossip mills)  We try to be nice and its suddenly open season at conferences sometimes.  Published does not mean pots o’ gold.  Pay your own way, no matter what.  There’s an old Marine Corps saying, “Never assume because it makes an ASS out of U and ME.  =)

Give away books.  Excluding my parents, that’s one thing I do not do.  I’m well past the excitement of a novel published, and this is my livelihood.  I’ll direct you to the nearest books store, though in my town, I’ve never seen a copy of my books on the shelves.  A novel represents about six months of a writer’s life.  Would you give that much work away? 

Ditto with Rhon on its not my job to you get published.  I sold my first books while living 6,000 miles outside the USA.  Anything is possible if you learn, study, learn some more.  We all did (and still do)  Time to earn your stripes on your own.  You’ll be a better writer for it.

Workshops given by very newly published.  Other than, ‘this is what it was like for me to this road’ seminars, it's not cost effective for RWA national conf.   Now, I’m turning on the way-back machine to my first conference and thinking like an unpub here.  National conference is expensive and after saving, then laying out that kind of cash, (and for me, 36 hours on a jet to get there) I want the seasoned, the best of the best teaching me, not someone who is at my level.  I’m not saying you shouldn’t have your chance, just get some experience.  I’d written 12 books before I gave a workshop.  When the workshop committee turns down workshops by well-established, knowledgable writers, then give teaching slots to writer with little experience, I wonder what are they thinking?  To me, that isn’t enough bang for all those conference bucks.  Think I’m wrong?  Then ask yourself…. who do you think you’ll learn more from, Nora Roberts or Suzie first-sale? 

With regard to PRO, editors and agents don’t think it makes a difference, and frankly, I  see no point in it.  You’ve submitted and been rejected, just like the rest of us.  Its part of a writer’s career.  It does not warrant a pin and special status.  Put on the big girl panties, and deal with it.  I just don’t get the logic in broadcasting what is nearly a daily happening for the rest of us. 

This leads me to what I refer to as The Cumbiyah syndrome.  This falls on RWA and some of its members should understand that it’s not the responsibility of RWA to make every unpublished writer feel good about their struggle to sell.  Tons of information is at your disposal, more than it was 10 years ago.  Use it.  Don’t ask for a door to be opened for you, when you haven’t even knocked.  It’s an insult.  Members forget that RWA is the only writer organization with unpublished in its ranks.   With MWA, ITW, AGA, SFW, etc., you have to prove your sales to join, and the dues are higher.  But the benefits are better.  Yet when the published members of RWA want any benefit, we usually have to pay for it out of our own pockets, plus the dues.  So what’s up with that?

My work is done here.

Have a good weekend… and if you want to whine back, feel free.

There is only one way to write.  No.

                                    There is only one way to plot.  No.

                                    You aren't a writer if you aren't published.  Big No.

That's all, lol.  Now I am off to celebrate my hubby's 42nd birthday!   Woo, hoo Greg!!

We are going to see Wanted with Angelina Jolie, and then I am taking my husband to Amazonia, a brazillian steak house, where he can eat all of the meat he can hold!  It comes grilled, broiled, baked, roasted and kebabed - a man's meat dream, lolol

happy friday!
Traci

Where do I get started with this topic? It's so vast!

Mary, Leanne and Rhon have already addressed many of the popular myths that dog fiction writers, but there's one in particular that I'll harp on today. And that is the very amusing idea that you don't have to clean up your work before you submit it to a publishing house. How many times have I (tactfully, even sweetly) flogged an aspiring author for leaving typos, dangling participles and sloppy phrasing in a manuscript that she plans to submit?

Thousands.

And the response I often get is this one: "But that's what an editor is for."

MYTH! MYTH! MYTH! MYTH! MYTH!

Here's the reality: in a fiction market that's tighter than Scrooge's fist, an editor isn't going to read past your first page if she finds misspellings, typos, word repetion or dangling participles. Leaving errors like that in your manuscript is like showing up to a job interview with bed-head and mismatched shoes. It's like opening your mouth to say hello and exhibiting a large spinach leaf between your front teeth, or reeking of booze.

Let me spell it out: you're not going to get the job.

None of us are perfect writers (and I'm sure there's someone out there who'll be happy to rip out a page from one of my books, highlight an error and mail it to me) but you've got to minimize your goofs. And if you know you can't spell, if you know that you won the Most Likely to Dangle a Participle Award in high school English class, if you think that punctuation is for other people--then for God's sake, please hire someone to proof your work for you before you submit it.

Yes, publishers do have copy edit people. Yes, their job is to clean up awkward phrasing and other errors. But you're never going to get to those copy editors if you can't get your work reasonably clean in the first place so that an editor can get through it to make sense of your story.

Okay, that was pretty basic. But now I'll say something that might surprise you. "Cleaning up your work" applies just as much to brilliant but over-complicated writers. Writers who aren't making grammatical or spelling errors but who craft seventy-two word sentences that are calculated to make the ghosts of Tolstoy, Hardy and Joyce weep.

NEWS FLASH: you may be a fantastic writer with an MFA in Literary Snootology from a university miles beyond the Ivy Leage . . . but if you're trying to get published in today's commercial fiction market then you'd better streamline and simplify your work. You'd better find a marketing hook. And you'd better reign in any vestiges of a colossal ego. (Trust me on this: I'm the daughter of a literary critic who was published by Princeton Press. My background was more hindrance than help!)

So if there's one statement I never want to hear again as long as I live, it's: "Why should I labor over these petty issues? That's what an editor is for." I'm going to open up an industrial-size can of good, old-fashioned Texas Whoop Ass on the next aspiring author to say those words to me. Whether a writer ignores grammar, punctuation or spelling out of laziness, ignorance or stylized pretentiousness doesn't matter. If you approach a New York editor thinking that you're e. e. cummings, chances are she'll tell you to get going--and fast.

And that's my Myth Buster. Happy Thursday, Karen

I have a whole list of mythical irritants, but I’ll try to keep my rants to a minimum . . .

Myth #1: It is not, I repeat not, within my power to get your manuscript sold.  I may recommend a writer to my editor or agent, but that’s only after I’ve read their work.  I’m not willing to give up the few chits I have in my publishing world on someone who still needs to hone her craft.  Even if I sing the praises of an unpublished author (which I have done exactly 3 times in 15 years), I’m not n editor, I can’t get buy your book.

Myth #2:  You don’t need an agent before you’ve finished a manuscript if you have no publishing history.  Those days are long gone my friends.  An agent can’t sell a thing until it is finished.  And just as an FYI, I had to write a big hunk of my first Finley book because I was changing genres, etc.  So worry about the agent thing when you have something to give to your agent.

Myth #3:  Those words you wrote are too perfect to change.  If you keep getting the same feedback, it’s you, not them.  Whatever it is you are trying to convey to the reader isn’t clearly on the page.

Myth #4: Winning the Golden Heart™ will get you published.  Really?  Then how come there’s a group called The Golden Network – all GH finalists and/or winner who never sold?  Enter for the personal gratification but don’t fool yourself into believing a win is an automatic win.  BTW, go look at the list of past RITA™ winners and count how many you’ve never heard of since.  Is it good to enter?  Sure, so long as you know going in that it won’t do anything for your career save for give you a pat on the back and a cute pin.

Myth #4: Earning ‘PRO’ status means something.  Well, I guess it does if you count dibs on the editor/agent appointments at nationals and yet another cute pin.  Editors and agents laugh at ‘PRO’ status because it says only one thing to them – you’ve proven you failed.  That’s right, they know the criteria and generally think of it as the “I failed algebra but had perfect attendance” designation.  Hell, if she was over eighteen, my daughter could get PRO status.  Bottom line is, you can’t be more unpublished than someone else.  If it floats your boat to have external recognition and a cute pin, then go for it.

Myth #5: “I enjoyed your book so much I’ve been passing it along to all my friends.”  This is a kiss and a slap situation.  You got kissed because she liked your book, and then slapped when she passed it around instead of recommending that her friends buy their very own copy.  Authors get paid on books sold, not books passed around. 

I could go on and on, but then I’d spill over to Traci’s Day.

In honor of our topic for the week, publishing mythblasters, I've decided to give a little pop quiz to test your knowledge about the publishing business.  Answer true or false to each of these.

1.Most authors have control over the covers of their books.

2.Most authors have control over the titles of their books.

3.Authors write the back cover copy for their books.

4.Most authors possess college degrees in English.

5.Once a book is approved, the author's work is done.

6.Editors frequently fly from New York to their authors' homes to urge them to finish a book under contract.

7.An author's individual self-promotion efforts generally amount to peeing in the ocean.

8.Authors of hardcover books are paid more for their books.

9.Authors of longer books are paid more for their books than are authors of shorter books.

Okay, done with your answers?

1.HAHAHAHAHA!  Most authors do not have control of their covers.  In most contracts, the author is granted input on the cover, but the publisher gets final approval.  Usually, it's only the big name, big money authors who get final approval of the cover.

2.Again False.  The title of a book is considered a marketing tool.  Therefore, the final title of a book can be decided in a committee meeting of editors and marketing.  An author can suggest a title that may be used, but ultimately, it's up to the publisher.

3.Back cover copy is like a title.  It's a marketing tool, so it may not describe the book in the same way an author would choose to describe it.  In fact, sometimes the person who writes the back cover copy has only read PART of the book, so it may not even be accurate.

4.Most authors have not earned college degrees in English. First, a writer needs to be able to tell an interesting story.  Authors come to the keyboard from all kinds of backgrounds with a common drive to express and share a story.

5.Oh, I wish.  Once a book is accepted by the publisher, copy edits are done on the manuscript.  The copy edited manuscript is sent to the author for author comments, revisions, corrections.  After that, the book is type-set into page proofs of how the book will actually look when it is printed.  The page proofs/galleys are sent to the author for further corrections. 

6.I've never heard of this happening in real life and I know some authors who make really big bucks.  Editors will send emails and make phone calls to find out if a writer has finished a book.  Editors will call agents.  After a time, editors will get the legal department involved, but I have never heard of an editor travelling to an author's home to collect a book.  I won't say it has never happened.  I'll just say it's not likely.

7.An author's individual self-promotion efforts generally amount to peeing in the ocean.  Alas, yes.  The most effective book promotion is done from the publisher though co-op (paying for where your book is placed in the store and providing incentives -- coupons, etc...).  There are exceptions to this, but they are few.

8. Authors of hardcover books make more money than authors of paperbacks.  Not necessarily true.  Because of the price difference, there is an opportunity to earn more money with hardcovers, and there's also the opportunity to re-market the book in paperback after its first publication.  Paperback books, in particularly genre paperbacks, however, often have a larger built-in sales volume.

9.  Longer books make more money than shorter books.  Not so.  We are not paid by the word.  Many series romance authors who also write mainstream report that their series books earn more than their mainstream books.  If a mainstream hits the New York Times bestseller list or the USA Today bestseller list, it's fair to say that book will probably do better than most series romance books.

All this business stuff can muddle an author's mind.  So much is beyond our control.  I've learned and continue to learn that the best thing I can focus on is writing the best book I can write. 

"When in doubt, dance."

xo,

Leanne Banks

www.leannebanks.com