Essays Assistance » writing books

How To Get A New York Publisher

Essays — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 19:13:10 +0000

When you look at the numbers, it’s clear that the New York publishing scene is a tough nut to crack. The reality is that with 83% of Americans wanting to write a book, the competition for a publisher’s attention is steep. So what’s an author to do? Well, if your attempts for finding a traditional publisher aren’t bringing any results, maybe it’s time to think like a publisher, instead of an author.

Writing a book is the easy part, and while publishers look at writing style and voice, there’s a whole lot more that goes into a successful book than just how well it’s written. When it comes to success, a publisher looks at this much differently than an author does. Truth be told, a publisher gauges a book’s potential success largely by the author.

Now don’t misunderstand me, there’s market consideration as well, but the author’s “salability” is looked at very closely. What we refer to as a “platform” is something all authors need to have, regardless of their target market. A platform is not who you know, but who knows you. It’s your area of influence. A platform can be any of the following:

• Your business

• Your fan base

• Speaking gigs you have coming up

• Your email list of potential buyers (i.e. fans)

• Your website (if your site is drawing traffic and capturing email addresses)

• How well you’re known in your market

If you’re new to the book world (meaning this is your first book) you may not have a single item on the above list in your vault of marketing tools. That’s okay. Now’s the time to build them.

The next piece of this is to write for a market. Over the years I’ve seen countless authors write a book on something for which there is no market. They believe their book will create the market. This won’t happen. Ever. First, if you’re self-publishing a book you probably don’t have the funds available to you to “create” a market even if you wanted to. You may respond to this by saying, “Yeah, but new markets are created every day.” And yes, this is true; what’s also true is that while it may seem that these are “new” markets, they were in fact already existing but, perhaps, untapped. Finding these markets can cost you a fortune in consumer research, advertising, product/book placement, etc.

When a company like Coca-Cola decides to put out a brand new product, you can bet that millions of dollars has gone into this prior to the launch. When authors come to me and say, “I have a great idea and it’s never been done before,” I suspect there’s a reason why, a publisher will too. Now, let’s say that you’ve done the research, you’ve spent years working in this arena and you know there are readers out there. Millions of them. If this is the case then I’d suggest you show up armed with your (current) research and data.

The ability to self-publish your book has (thankfully) brought a number of books to the attention of a traditional publisher that might have otherwise gone overlooked. Why? Because publishers like what other people like. If you have a book that you’ve self-published and it’s done well, a publisher might consider this for commercial access as well. By “commercial” I mean consumer, trade paperback, mass market. The key is to keep a close eye on the track record of the book and document your success. This form of documentation will later become the resume you use to entice a publisher into considering your book.

I was talking to an author the other day who had a great idea. He had a hard time getting a traditional publisher interested in his book, so he self-published with the intent of getting a major house to publish him. With that he mind he solicited referral letters from bookstores. Why bookstores? Because if you can get a bookstore excited about your book and tell publishers it “flew off the shelves,” you’ll be a step closer to piquing a publisher’s interest. Why? Well many (if not all) publishers will solicit advice from booksellers on the sales potential of a book they’re considering. They do this because they know that the bookseller is front and center with the consumer every day. They see what sells and what doesn’t. Having a bookstore (preferably several) in your corner could be a tremendous thing for your future and the future of your book.

And finally, let’s be realistic. With 500 books published each day in the U.S., the competition is fierce for gaining the buyer’s attention. Your book is your resume and because of this, it needs to be letter perfect. You should never wait for a traditional publisher to come along and “polish” your book, it should be gleaming with perfection. Yes, there are always things you’ll want to change after it’s published, but having a book that’s edited with a cover that sparkles will not only get you noticed by a publisher, but by your reader as well. And in the end, it’s the reader we must reach. Once you do, the world will beat a path to your door.

Ten Ways To Use Video To Sell More Books

Essays — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 01:16:57 +0000

When it comes to convincing a reader to buy, sometimes there’s nothing more compelling than a good sales pitch. Yes, you can have excellent back copy, a stunning cover, but nothing makes a reader morph into a buyer quicker than a hefty pitch that pushes every single hot button (and even a few they didn’t know they had). Video as a means to promote a book is a great sales pitch, but only if it’s done right. What do I mean by “done right”?

With all the talk today about using video to promote your book, it’s easy to get caught up in a YouTube-driven world. It’s a great idea certainly but there’s one catch: you’ve got to make your viewer feel something. An example of this is a recent video posted to Yahoo videos (it also landed on YouTube) about a contestant (Paul Potts) on Britain’s Got Talent. While not an author (yet) the video shows us clearly what we mean by emotion. Don’t believe me? Take a look for yourself.

.youtube.com/watch?v=exyJ2CSfrHo

The video became so popular (almost overnight) that within a few days it made it to the U.S. and into the hands of millions of viewers. Why? Well, let’s think about this. If you’ve ever watched an episode of American Idol or a version of the program you know that the most favored contestants are the underdogs, the ones who just show up and blow the judges away. That’s the biggest emotional hot button on any of these types of shows and that’s why the Paul Potts video made such an impact online. Of course he had talent, but talent in the absence of a true underdog factor wouldn’t have made this video as successful as it was.

In fact, not only that but every major media outlet is clamoring for an interview with Paul. He’s become a sensation. The video gave him exposure to people globally and it tapped into an emotion – but more than that, it tapped into the right emotion. That is key. If the Paul Potts video had been scary, or disturbing, or flat out boring, who would have cared? So if you’re considering doing a book video for your own tome, don’t sell yourself short by just “telling the story,” do it in such a way that grabs your reader, engages them and hits them right in their emotional hot buttons. Know the triggers your audience responds to and incorporate that into your video.

Check out this video that MonkeyCMedia did for a book we worked on: .redhotinternetpublicity.com/trailers/engaged.html

Here are some ways to make the most of your video:

1) Have you been YouTube’d? If you haven’t this is the #1 place to load your book video.

2) Put your video on your own website, don’t let a single visitor land on your site without getting the “touch and feel” of your book.

3) Send a sample of your book video to every media contact you pitch. Never let a press kit leave your office without a disc.

4) Got a social networking page? If you do (and you should) add the clip or a link to it on the page.

5) When you pitch the media, don’t forget to insert a link to the trailer in your email. Don’t send it as an attachment; chances are an overaggressive spam filter will have it for lunch.

6) Blog about it every chance you get. No, I’m not talking about repeating a blog over and over but blog on what success you’ve had thanks to your video. And oh, yes, add a link to the book video too.

7) Trying to get a signing but have been unsuccessful? Let your book speak for itself, literally. Drop off a copy of your book trailer to an as-yet-unconvinced bookstore person and I can almost bet you’ll get a signing in the store.

Ready for your close-up? There’s no quicker way to a potential producer’s heart than through his eyes and ears. Seeing a book come to life can sometimes be a great way to sell someone on the concept of turning your book into a movie.

9) If you’re doing a signing bring the book video to show while you’re signing books. I’ve known authors who’ve done this and they sold almost twice as many books. The video really pulls in readers!

10) Just like you can tell a book by its cover, you can often tell a book video by its packaging. Get your CD cover professionally printed, don’t skim on the first impression! In fact, why not have your video burned to a business card size cd that you can pop into the card slot of a presentation folder?

Freefall – A Writing Method

Essays — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 19:11:44 +0000

In January, 2005, six months before Kensington bought Passion, I took a writing course. A friend introduced me to a writing technique called Freefall.

Rather than my trying to explain what she told me, I will quote directly from the Freefall website:

FREEFALL is the technique of writing from the larger Self, beyond reach of the ego and its censors. . . .FREEFALL invokes the courage to fall without a parachute, into the words as they come, into the thoughts before they have fully formed in the mind, into the unplanned structures that take shape, without prompting, to contain them. . . . The moment when someone shifts into that deeper level is unmistakable. Everyone can hear it. As a result, in Coleridge’s phrase, “the wheels catch fire from their own motion.”

At the time, I had the push to do more than I had before, but I didn’t know what. I bought the domain name pfkozak.com in November, 2004, without a clue about what I would do with it. Being the trusting, and intuitive, soul that I am, I pay attention to these nudges as they come. The nudge to do Freefall actually felt more like a knock upside the head.

Group participation has never been my favorite thing. In fact, I avoid it whenever possible. I’m a loner, always have been. My imagination is much better company than I’ve found most people to be. The Freefall workshop required I spend three days in a very big, very old house with about a dozen other people (I don’t remember the exact head count!). I balked. But between the persistence of my friend, who happened to be one of the workshop sponsors, and my own inner head knocking from the universe at large, I caved. I said I would do it.

As luck, and the ever present synchronicity in my life, would have it, on January 22nd, 2005, New York had a blizzard. When the storm hit, we were already at the house. Effectively, the universe conspired to keep me there all weekend. We were snowed in! It’s probably a good thing. Otherwise, I may well have jumped ship.

The schedule seemed simple enough, get up, get dressed, have breakfast and write. We were not supposed to talk during that time. Staying silent sustained an inward focus, which facilitated the Freefall writing process. When we wrote, we were not to correct errors or go back and reread what we’d done. We were supposed to Freefall and not look back.

We wrote for several hours before breaking for lunch. Part of Freefall is the group dynamic critiquing the work. Our teacher and workshop leader, Barbara Turner-Vesselago, read selected pieces aloud during the afternoon. She never revealed who wrote each story. Then the group would comment on the work.

The point of the Freefall process is to break through internal barriers to get to what is hidden beyond the conscious mind. For me, this meant facing inhibitions about putting myself out there I didn’t know I had. The protective walls are torn down. If, in fact, the point of the exercise required I reveal who I am, then I had my work cut out for me.

Now, what happens when someone says, “Don’t think about a blue cow?” The first thing that pops into your head is a blue cow, right? Well, when we were instructed to step aside and let the inner voice speak, my blue cow popped into my head. I had hidden my intuition and psychic experiences from everyone except my closest friends. As I sat with my laptop in a house full of strangers, what started to come up and out were those experiences.

I panicked! There is no question that had we not been snowed in, I would have taken the first train home. But I couldn’t get to the train station. We were hip deep in snow! I took a deep breath and tried to calm down. I literally had to talk myself off of a psychological ledge. What’s the worst thing that could happen? They could think I’m crazy, or even worse, laugh at me!

Somewhere, from a place so deep I can’t define what it is, I started to type. I told my story. I wrote things no one except my husband knew. I typed until I had to stop.

When Barbara read my piece, I waited for the inevitable judgment from the group. Much to my utter astonishment, no one laughed, no one thought me crazy and no one ridiculed me. The comments were positive, and even complimentary. I couldn’t believe it! I had just revealed my deepest hidden secret to a group of strangers, and nothing bad had happened. In that moment, my fear burst like a soap bubble.

I don’t think I’ve ever spent a more utterly miserable weekend in my life! I know I’ve never spent a more important one! At the time, I had no way of knowing that six months later, I would sell my first book.

I frequently use the Freefall technique I learned that weekend in my writing. Allowing what’s hidden underneath to bubble to the surface has proven invaluable to me. I expect that’s how I will finish Take Me There. I will Freefall the end of the book.

The fear I broke through on that snowbound weekend has had deeper implications in my life. I am less fearful overall. I certainly wouldn’t be doing this blog if not for Freefall. I would be too inhibited and afraid to talk about myself this openly. Freefall isn’t for everybody, but it sure worked for me.

Where Do You Find The Time?

Essays — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 23:26:53 +0000

I am often asked, “How do you it? Where do you find the time to work a full time job and also write books?” The answer is simple. I make the time. However simple the answer might be, actually doing it can be quite difficult.

I get up at 5:15 every morning. The first thing I do is turn on my computer, and log into my office. I am the network administrator for an international shipping company. That means I have to make sure everything is working properly before anyone else logs into the system. I do what I need to do there, and then I exercise. Yes, that’s right, sit-ups, touching my toes (which I can still do!) buttock tucks, the whole nine yards. After that, I get myself ready for work.

Without fail, I meditate before I have breakfast. I credit my meditation practice with training me to have the concentration I need to write. After I eat, I leave for work.

I put in a full day, doing what network administrators do. Computers are my life at the office. I do anything and everything that needs to be done to keep an office of more than fifty people running smoothly. We also have international users that remotely log into our network. Part of my job is to make sure they are connecting properly, too.

Once I get home, I have some dinner. Then, I start my writing workday. Weekday evenings, I try to put in a few hours at the computer before going to bed. If I need help shifting out of the problems of my workday, I use music. I have a Bose Sound Machine and wireless headphones that help me shut out the world and get into my writing space. I reread a page or two of what I last wrote and hope that the next line will come. It usually does.

The lion’s share of the writing happens on weekends. I usually spend at least twelve hours on Saturday and Sunday at my computer. Sometimes, it can be longer. On Monday morning, the cycle starts over again. Oh, yes, I took a week’s vacation to work on Take Me There. I had an April 15th deadline.

I lost some ground last February when I got the flu and couldn’t write if my life depended on it! I had a fever of 103.4, the highest fever of my adult life! To catch up, I put in nine consecutive twelve to fifteen hour days working on my manuscript. I only stopped to go back to work on Monday, and to do the blogging week for Romantic Inks. Come Saturday, I will be back in the harness.

Now comes the real question! How do I do it? As I’m writing this, I’m thinking no one is going to believe I keep this schedule. But I do. I’ve been doing it for almost two years now, since I signed my first contract with Kensington. Once I hit the two year mark in June, I will have written three novels and two novellas budgeting my time as I do. I haven’t missed a deadline yet, not even when my mother passed away last June. I came home from the funeral with page proofs waiting for Sins and Secrets. I plunged in, read and corrected them.

There is a single driving force behind how I manage this. I am a writer. That is different than being an author. Being an author is an occupation. Being a writer is a vocation.

The intangible something inside that compels me to write is not at all comfortable. The words don’t start in my mind. They seem to well up from my chest. Sometimes it feels like an alien is about to burst out. I fully expect one day Sigourney Weaver will show up in her Ripley costume, gun in hand, ready to take me out!

No matter how tired I am, and trust me, I do get tired, I have to write. The alien inside me needs to be appeased, or it will eat me alive! I am amused by the number of people who have said to me that someday, they’re going to write a book. The only way to write a book is to sit down and do it! Procrastination does not a novel make. It doesn’t matter if it’s a blank page, or a white screen from Microsoft Word on a monitor, it has to be filled with words. Those words are the writer’s responsibility. No one is going to do it for you. You have to do it yourself.

Of course, along with the fire that burns in the heart of a writer, there also has to be technical skill. To become a published author, you have to not only want to write, you have to be able to write. It astonishes me at times when I meet people who can’t put three sentences together in a coherent paragraph and expect to get published. The competition is extraordinary. You have to be good to get published. Period! End of story!

Talent notwithstanding, you have to also be willing to do what I’m doing. There aren’t many published authors these days who can make a living wage writing. Certainly, I’m not one of them, at least not yet. That’s why I get up at 5:15 everyday. I have to pay my bills.

So, to finally answer the question I’ve been asked so many times, that’s how I do it. My way isn’t for everyone. But it’s working for me. I have the books to prove it!

How Much Money Is Enough: Thoughts From Conduct In Question, The First In The Osgoode Trilogy

Essays — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 21:57:08 +0000

Ever had your moral convictions put to the test? Most of us think we know what we’d do in any given situation. But do we really? Maybe another unknown part of us surfaces and takes over&ndashleaving us in a confusion of questions. But the deed is done and we cannot take it back.

This is the predicament, Harry Jenkins, protagonist/lawyer of The Osgoode Trilogy finds himself in, at the beginning of the first novel, Conduct in Question. Harry longs for freedom and love, but has been trapped under his senior partner’s thumb and in a dead marriage for years. He’s always been certain of his own moral convictions, but when his partner drops dead in the office, Harry is free to make his own mistakes.

He and his wife Laura often argue about money.

&ndasha topic fraught with land mines. Her hardened face floated up in his mind.

“Law practice is more than just making money,” Harry had insisted.

“Of course!” she said in wearily impatient tones. “But it certainly doesn’t hurt to set the right value on your services.”

“So I’m not making enough. Is that it?”

“No. But if you didn’t get so personally involved with your clients, maybe you’d do better.”

Harry was astonished. “So I care too much about them? I care about what I’m doing?”… “Clients trust me! I’ve earned that. I can’t turn around and fleece them.”

Although not satisfied with life, Harry&ndash

had learned his lessons well. He had kept his part of the bargain. But where was his reward? Flashy cars and grandiose houses were the supposed perks of his profession. His Ford was surrounded by Audis. Playing by the rules had not gotten him far. Of course, he wasn’t poor. Laura and he were comfortable. Yet, there was a yearning, a sense that the time for making real money was passing. But it wasn’t just the money. A dull emptiness nagged at his spirit.

And so, he is ripe for the picking! Almost immediately, he is swept into a massive money-laundering scheme by the enigmatic Mr. Chin &ndash land developer &ndash thereby putting him in direct conflict with his oldest and wealthiest client, Marjorie Deighton. With Albert Chin’s huge retainer check for work to be done, Harry senses something is amiss. When he deposits the check in the bank, the manager demands he make a payment on his deceased partner’s very substantial and overdue bank loan. Otherwise, he will freeze the Chin money. In a dilemma, Harry is forced to use the Chin retainer to make a payment.

Harry was scrupulous about client funds, and would fret if the bookkeeper missed a penny. Snatching up his check book, he saw in his mind the bright and trusting faces of a hundred clients. He saw those faces turn gray in disbelief when he uncapped his pen.

Petty triumph gleamed in Mudhali’s eyes.

Despite years of circumspection and care, Harry was driven by a new and reckless fury. Either he made a payment, or the bank would freeze his accounts. Mudhali had nailed him to the wall.

Like most of us, Harry is good at justifying his actions.

Albert Chin had said that money was no problem, and after all, there was lots of work in preparing those offers. He would search the titles to the properties, do the corporate searches, and prepare six offers and submit them. Surely that would add up to twenty-five grand. Besides, Chin would not have given him such a munificent retainer had he not expected a sizable bill. And Harry knew that he was not the only lawyer guilty of such an infraction.

What does Harry do? After all, he may be our hero, but he’s a pretty human guy. Despite his instincts and better judgment, he turns a blind eye to obvious signs of danger and accepts Mr. Chin’s gifts.

Harry withdrew two first-class tickets for flights and a voucher for a three-night stay in a luxury suite in Nassau. “The Atlantis Resort,” he whispered. Shimmering blue waters danced before his mind’s eye.

After a moment, he said, “This is more than kind of you, sir, but&ndash”

Mr. Chin held up his hand. “Please. The conglomerate wishes to express its gratitude for your most timely service. We know you have made room for us in your busy schedule.”

“But surely not. The retainer is very substantial, and…” He fingered the brochure, which featured a photograph of sunny beaches and gently lapping water.

And so, much of Conduct in Question is about Harry trying to extricate himself from the clutches of Mr. Chin. But Harry has lots of other problems to contend with when he comes face to face with the nature of evil in tracking down the Florist, a sadistic killer with an artistic flair who believes he is called to judge the worthiness of his victims. But that story is for another day!

The Write And Wrong Way To Promote Your Book

Essays — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 22:12:56 +0000

Did you know that if you’re marketing your book to sell books, you may be marketing for all the wrong reasons? Why? Well frankly, marketing a book to make sales will rarely ring the cash register; in fact, most of the time it amounts to what I call the “anti-sale,” the sale that always seems to elude you.

If you’re looking at your last 12 months of marketing and wondering what went wrong, ask yourself one question: “What was the driving force behind my book marketing choices?”

In a recent coaching session an author told me: “I spent $30,000 on advertising and I don’t know why I haven’t sold a single book.” Why did the author advertise? Because she thought it would sell books. Now you might think that $30k is extreme, and perhaps it is, but she isn’t the only one. Most of the topics of conversation during coaching calls, consultations or classes I teach are: “I’ve spent all this money and done all this work, what am I doing wrong?” What you’re doing wrong is selling the book and not the message or the benefits. In other words, you’re marketing your books for all the wrong reasons.

It’s not that dissimilar from scheduling a slew of book signings because you think you “have to” or because you’re hoping to sell scads of books. If you hate doing them, and they’re not working, why bother?

Let’s take a look at the example of our $30k author more closely. She had a book about child rearing, she was a noted speaker, a child psychologist and was quoted extensively in the media. The odd thing was, when you walked into her office her book was no where to be found. “I don’t want to be boastful about my book.” She said, “I think selling my book to my patients is unethical.” Well, perhaps she’s right, but still, she was missing the point. The point was that she had her buyers in front of her all the time and yet she overlooked them in search of the almighty book sale.

In fact, I found out later that she wasn’t even selling her book at her speaking sessions. Why? Because she thought the ad space she bought would be enough to carry the momentum of the book. When we finally broke down her marketing campaign and her options, she realized that she could sell thousands of copies of her book and it wouldn’t cost her a dime. She had at her disposal hungry buyers she wasn’t even tapping into.

So are you missing your buyers? What piece of your campaign have you overlooked in an attempt to “sell” your book? To distill this even further, let’s go through an exercise together to help unearth some marketing opportunities you might be overlooking. When you do this exercise I want you to remove the notion of book sales from your vernacular, what I mean is I want you to start looking at your efforts through a different lens:

On a separate sheet of paper, list all the marketing that you’ve done for your book. This may take a while, but seeing it all on paper will be helpful. List everything, even the minutiae.

Now that you have your list, let’s take a hard look at it. First off, I want you to cross off the marketing you’ve done that has just been a total waste of your time.

Next, go through and star everything that worked really well. Remember, by “really well,” I don’t mean book sales, although that could have been a result of your efforts; I mean star the items you really enjoyed doing that seemed to get you great feedback.

What you have left will be a list of mediocre things, marketing ideas you tried that did reasonably well (at least enough so you didn’t feel you needed to cross them off with the first batch). Take a hard look at the starred items, what do you see? Quite possibly you see a list of things that a) you loved doing, and b) that sold you some books despite the fact that you didn’t think it would.

Now let’s expand on that starred list. For example, if you have “book events” on this list, how can you expand this?

Next, I want you to make a list of the items you’re missing. If you are brainstorming an expansion of your star list these missing pieces might be self-evident or they may require some additional brainstorming.

The idea behind this exercise is to become very clear on what’s working and what isn’t and to focus on the stuff you love doing. Generally the stuff you love is dialed directly into your audience. And if you love it, you’ll probably do more of it, and hopefully this will lead you to book sales.

In author coaching I’ve found that we often set aside the stuff we love because we think book marketing should be hard. Let me tell you, it doesn’t have to be. And if you’re doing stuff that’s hard, you’re probably marketing for all the wrong reasons, anyway.

In a recent interview, media darling Rachael Ray cited that for years she did only local media. She would do cooking show after cooking show, often losing money on each one (when you factored in her time, gas, supplies, etc.). So why did she keep doing it? Because she loved it and because it’s what she wanted to do. Now, of course, she’s on everything from your local cross-town bus to any and all kitchen supplies. I’m not saying that her way of marketing is a recipe for success. Certainly, it worked for her, but the bigger message is that when you do what you love, you’ll keep at it, and that’s the key. Whatever you do, you must love it, and you must do a lot of it.

This coming year can be a revelation for your campaign if you take the time to figure out what worked, what didn’t, and what you’d love to do more of. Do it because you love it, and the sales will follow. You can bank on it!

Small Wonders: The Power Of Independent Publishers And Invertebrate Creatures

Essays — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 17:13:43 +0000

Over the course of the past decade, authors and readers alike have been heard to utter a collective groan of dismay as the once elite publishing industry continues to resemble the multiplex tripe factory of Hollywood, churning out one cookie cutter product after another.

This situation would be funny (considering the supreme cultural snobbery most New York-based editors feel for their moviemaking brethren on the opposite coast) were it not for the fact that each new conglomeration in publishing has a chilling effect on both the quantity and quality of new books released.

This law of diminishing returns is frightful in its implications. With every major publisher looking to balance out its annual loss leaders with one big Potter-esque mega-hit, it’s inevitable that midlist authors are all but ignored. What chance do aspiring voices have in this environment, particularly those who seek to produce works of bold innovation?

Though the situation looks bleak, there is one very bright silver lining. The recent emergence of independent publishers has brought to light many excellent books that would have otherwise languished in obscurity. A prime example of this happy trend is Borderlands Press. Since 19989, publisher (and prolific award-winning author in his own right) Thomas F. Monteleone has been putting out deluxe limited edition releases of works by some of the biggest names in genre and horror fiction. Starting in 2007, Monteleone decided it was time to broaden his horizons with a new line of trade paperback originals.

Having already released Virgin by esteemed horror scribe F. Paul Wilson earlier in the year, Borderlands is now offering a wildly original collection of three new stories in one volume. Fables From the Mud by Erik Quisling is already being hailed as an instant cult classic that will rank along with “Jonathan Livingston Seagull” and the collected works of Shel Silverstein.

Applying robust humor and a decidedly philosophical approach to some of life’s greatest mysteries, Quisling introduces us to three extraordinary invertebrate heroes: the Angry Clam, Glen the Ant, and Julius Gunther Weems the Warrior Worm. Page by page, Fables From the Mud dazzles readers with the gripping stories of these three small wonders. Though at first glance it may appear to have the simplicity of a children’s book, be forewarned this is one tome that packs a king-sized wallop.

Hilarious and thought-provoking by turns, Fables is sure to challenge even the heartiest of readers. It is a book to cherish long after you’ve finished it for the first (of many) times.

Meanwhile, Thomas Monteleone continues to push ahead with his ambitious trade paperback line. In late October, Borderlands Press releases his own novel, Serpentine, and January of 2008 will see the release of Crimson Orgy, the much-anticipated debut novel by Austin Williams. As long as Monteleone and other trailblazing publishers of his ilk keep promoting quality fiction from talented new voices, book lovers across America can feel confident there will always be something interesting to read outside the narrow parameters of what the elite publishing industry deems “commercial.”

Compassion

Essays — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 19:16:39 +0000

I never considered myself a particularly spiritual, or for that matter, a religious person. But I’ve found that in writing The Osgoode Trilogy, particularly the third, A Trial of One, that compassion has become very strong theme which runs through all three novels.

I just found this quote from Thomas Aquinas &ndash “I would rather feel compassion than know the meaning of it.” Surely, this must be the difference between the understanding of the head and the heart.

In the first novel in the trilogy, Conduct in Question, we have a man dubbed by the media as the “The Florist” who is a serial killer &ndash so named because he tries to capture the easy flow of the line of the master painter, Matisse, in his carvings on his victims. He is a sadistic killer with an artistic bent.

You may feel [as I do] that the world has plenty of novels with serial killers and so, rather than detailing his rampages, I wanted to add some provocatively human touches to the character of the “Florist.” More than anything else, he wants to experience the emotion of compassion.

When he speaks to his mother, who is long since dead, he says in frustration &ndash “I know what the word compassion mean, mother, but what does it feel like?”

As the story nears its conclusion, the “Florist” gets his wish &ndasha fleeting sense of compassion. About to murder his next victim, John, who is a truly simple soul &ndash the church caretaker &ndash the “Florist” is overcome with a compassionate sense and decides to spare him.

When the Florist silently stepped into the room, a strange sensation passed over him. Was this what Mother spoke of? As if disoriented, he stopped and shook his head. Was this compassion?

“It’s you!” said John, his smile radiating a sweetness the Florist had never seen before. He saw the muscles of the huge man flex; John’s damp white shirt was matted to his skin. He saw the thinning but baby-fine hair, neatly combed in place. Suddenly he saw the simple man as more than an obstacle in his path. He thought that life could not have been easy for such an imbecile. He should be spared. Mother would be proud of his act of compassion.

In Final Paradox, our hero, Harry Jenkins learns that compassion means stepping into another’s shoes and understanding what it feels like. Easy to say &ndash hard to do! When Harry was eight, his father withdrew from almost all contact with his family after the death of Anna, his daughter &ndashHarry’s sister. Now, years later, while his father is in surgery for a brain aneurysm, Harry waits in the Quiet Room trying to understand how his father could have abandoned him as a child.

At the very moment of his asking, Harry gets his answer as he witnesses the following played out before him.

Harry caught his breath. An unearthly wailing came from the hallway. The door to the Quiet Room flew open. A tall, bony woman, wearing a mauve dress and yellow shawl, clung desperately to the arms of two men. One was old and hunched and the other muscular and attentive.

The florescent lighting illuminated the woman’s face raw with agony.

“No! No!” As if possessed, she shook violently and her voice slid up octaves. “By the blood of Christ, no!” Clasping her hands to her ears, she began to moan, her eyes ricocheting about the room.

She screamed at the ceiling. “Why have you cursed me? He cannot be taken so soon.”

Harry pressed his hands against his face. With all his heart, he wanted to pray. He had just witnessed the unholy wrenching of the spirit at the loss of a child, caused by blind hatred. As he touched the tears on his face, he began to understand. “God forgive me,” he whispered. “I have known nothing! My father died along with Anna. I did nothing to help.”

And that’s exactly where Harry begins to understand his father and compassion &ndash by actually experiencing his pain and loss. True, you may study compassion and quote clever sayings about it, but if you never feel another’s pain and suffering in your heart and your gut, as if it were your very own, you do not know what it is.

Do you think some people are naturally more compassionate?

In A Trial of One, Harry’s beloved, Natasha has her own struggles with compassion. She is forced to choose between two people she loves &ndash Harry and her friend Sheila. Natasha recollects a conversation, years back, between her mother, Renee, and her Aunt Mila. The boss has demanded that Renee sleep with him so she can advance in the business.

“Oh, Renee! You poor kid!”

After a long silence, her mother said softly, “Once we’d done it, his eyes looked so sad and ashamed, like being him just wore him down.”

Mila was aghast. “You felt sorry for him?”

“No, not really. But I can see how loneliness can make you crazy.” Afterwards, we talked a bit, sitting on the bed in the motel. He was living all alone there because his wife had run off with the kids.”

Natasha’s compassionate nature makes choosing between Harry and Sheila so difficult for her. Hurt and angry, Sheila has betrayed Natasha who now considers her next step as she wanders the beach.

Natasha turned and walked slowly past the riot of weeds and up to the cottage. Soon she would drive back to the city. She knew Harry was her passion, the one who had awakened her to herself. But she still heard Sheila’s cry &ndash one of all humanity &ndash because it hurts! Sheila’s pain, from fear of loss, was a pain shared by the whole world. She did not reach it by reason, but she knew there was only one thing she could do &ndash act with love, care, and compassion.

Talking about love and compassion… having to decide between two people who love her, [Harry and Sheila] Natasha must find that balance between passion and compassion. Easy to say: hard to do!

How Long Is Too Long To Market A Book?

Essays — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 02:03:14 +0000

So how long is too long to market a book? According to some studies (both formal and informal) marketing (and seeing the results in the form of book sales) can take anywhere from six months to two years, it all depends on what you want to get out of it.

Ideally though, you should plan to market your book ongoing — if, that is, being an author is a career choice and not a hobby. If it’s a hobby then don’t put any more time into it than you have to, or you might not choose to market it at all. For some, having the finished book is sufficient. But generally authors don’t write and publish a book just to see it “done;” they publish it to further dreams of seeing their careers flourish. If that’s the case then your marketing plan should last as long as your career does and hopefully, that’s a really long time.

But how long should you stick to marketing one book before moving onto the next? The answer depends on a lot of things. Topic, for one, will often drive the wheels of a campaign and it’s often said that the best way to market your first book is with your second and third and forth and well, you get the idea. But now comes the most challenging question: if you’re extending a marketing campaign beyond what you originally had on your marketing outline, what on earth will you do to promote it?

If your book is new and your promotional wheels are just hitting full steam the answer to how you might promote your book should be easy. But if it’s a year down the road and you feel you’ve done everything you can do to market your book you might be asking yourself: what’s next? This is a great time to assess what you’ve done, what’s worked and what hasn’t. It’s often in our nature to stare at a closed door begging for it to open, but if the doors you’re knocking on still aren’t opening, then perhaps it’s time to move on to marketing items better suited to your book.

By this I mean that when you go through and evaluate all you’ve done, it might be easy to say, “You know, I spent a lot of time on this and it’s still not doing anything for me, I’ll think I’ll invest more time on it and see what happens.” This might seem like a good idea. Certainly the folks at Oprah might not want to hear from you the first 20 times you pitched but on 21, you could strike gold. The likelihood is, however, that you’re just barking up the wrong tree and need to move onto greener pastures.

For example, let’s say you’ve done some speaking engagements in the past year and every time you do them you get tons of new sign-ups for your newsletter, you sell lots of books and best of all, you get asked back! So why don’t you do more of them? Well, probably because the rest of your book marketing is taking up so much time that you’re unable to devote as much time to this as you can. Now you’re in a perfect position. Why? Because you can dump the stuff that’s not working so well and focus on the things that are working well, like your speaking engagements. The same is true for media, if you get a lot of it when you’re pitching it, then why not pitch more?

For many of us, deciding what to do and when to do it can be confusing, but after you’ve spent months doing everything you’ve ever read or heard about, the obvious successes start to clarify themselves and then, what you need to do becomes crystal clear.

If you’ve only got one book to promote, here are a few tips that might help extend the life of a campaign and give you more ways to market:

* Creating spin-off products: special reports, eBooks and audio product are a all a great way to get some additional mileage out of your book. Creating products that lead to a product line can help leverage more sales. Often when consumers buy one product in a line, they’ll buy all of them.

* Speaking events: speaking on your book’s topic can really lengthen a campaign. By setting up speaking engagements you’re getting the message out there on your book, selling books to the audience and keeping the wheels on your campaign turning.

* Gather your evergreens: an “evergreen” is a topic that’s consistently viable from year to year. This means that if you have a news peg on the topic of Labor Day, you can trot this pitch out year after year and the media will love it. Understanding and building these evergreens into your campaign will greatly help extend your marketing campaign.

* Updating your book: with the exception of fiction, most books could stand a refresher every so often. For some books it’s yearly, while others can wait a bit longer. The updated version is a great way to capture additional promotion. I update my books yearly and provided that I’ve added new content (and not just changed a few URL’s) I will re-promote each of these as they come out — just like I would a new title.

The Appeal Of Older Men

Essays — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 17:48:34 +0000

While mulling over what to talk about in my last blog, my husband had a suggestion I found irresistible! More joking than serious, he said, “Why don’t you talk about the sex appeal of older men, and call it ‘Who’s Your Daddy’?”

He never thought I would take him seriously. Well, as you can see, I did. By older, I am specifically talking about men past fifty. Yes, I have an eye for young stud puppets, cut and lean sex machines! But many of those to die for men look that way to attract other men. Although nice to ogle, it’s rather like pressing your nose against the candy store window. Drooling over the goodies is as far as you get.

The rugged virility I am talking about in older men I know about first hand. Working in the shipping industry as long as I have, I know sailors. These are not Navy sailors, they are Merchant Mariners. They have spent a good part of their lives on commercial ships, sailing all over the world. Once they came ashore, they continued to work with ships in a variety of roles.

Because of the requirements of my job, I have to travel occasionally. I have been to Singapore, Tokyo, Copenhagen, Barcelona and Norway. In all of these places, I have met sailors. I’ve talked to them, drank with them and been accepted by them. They’ve told me stories that have made me laugh until the tears ran. In fact, I’m writing an anthology called Hello, Sailor which will be released sometime in 2008. It is a collection of three novellas based upon the stories I’ve been told by my sailor friends.

These men are career mariners. They are strong individuals, free wheeling, opinionated, wickedly funny, and sexy. Most of all &ndash God bless them &ndash they LOVE women! You might be surprised to hear that they not only love women, they respect women. Of course they tell dirty jokes! They’re sailors after all. But whenever I have socialized with them, individually or in a group, I am treated with such courtesy it borders on gallantry. Not even my husband (don’t tell him I said this!) is as courteous and mannerly as they are.

They aren’t pretty boys. Far from it. They carry themselves with an aura of masculinity that can only be achieved with years of self sufficiency. Being a sailor is not an easy life. Hard work and hard living show on their faces, rugged character etched in every line. Perhaps they wouldn’t be considered classically handsome. They are nonetheless attractive in their manliness, maturity and individuality.

In our youth oriented culture, it is a refreshing reminder to know that sex appeal doesn’t diminish as the birthday candles increase. Both men and women remain sexual beings for as long as the fire burns inside. I have every intention of keeping my fire stoked for many more years. I think my sailor friends feel the same way.

As a final note, the piece below eloquently summarizes how I feel about my life, and my writing.

In 1981, Lena Horne did a one woman Broadway show called “Lena Horne &ndash The Lady and her Music.” In the show, she referred to herself as a late bloomer. I find I am appreciating her comment more now than I ever have before.

Early in the show, she sang her signature song “Stormy Weather”, much like she sang it in the movie. Late in the show’s second half, she announced her next number by saying ‘’I had to grow into this song.’’

And then what does she do? She sings ‘’Stormy Weather’’ all over again. Only this time she sings it as if she had just grown into it, as if she had never sung it before. The words poured out of her, with a gospel fervor that covered her, and the audience, with sweat and tears.

I am growing into my song as Lena did hers, learning to sing it all over again, in a new way, with a new perspective. Who knew it could be this good!

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