Social Media Doesn't Do You Any Good If No One Knows You're There

If you decide to open a Twitter account or a Facebook account with the intent of building your brand, then you need to let people know you're there. Add in your signature line a link to one or both and make sure to cross reference your accounts on your blog, your website, and in your book's bio. You aren't going to build a social network if no one can find you.

Jessica

Workshop Wednesday

By repeated request we've started Workshop Wednesday. It will definitely play out through 2011, and beyond that we'll just have to see. We've received well over 200 queries at this point, but we are choosing at random, so don't be afraid to participate as per the guidelines in our original post.

For anyone wanting to comment, we ask that you comment in a polite and respectful manner, and we ask that you be as constructive as possible. If you can be useful to the brave souls who submitted their query and comment on the query, that's great. Please keep any anonymous tirades on publishing or other snarky comments to yourself. This is and should remain an open and safe forum for people to put themselves and their queries out there so that everyone can learn. I'm leaving comments open and open to anonymous posters, as I always have; don't make me feel the need to change that policy.

And for those who have never "met" Query Shark, get over there and do that. She's the originator of the query critique, the queen, if you will.


Dear BookEnds Query Workshop,

Kudos to the author who actually got the spelling of BookEnds correct. That's rare.


Victor Bartleby will do anything to get his novel published. He’ll even start writing it.

Yep. LOL here. Of course you hit a soft spot for me because you're writing about publishing, but this was great.


Forty and newly divorced, Victor is facing down an identity crisis. He is, he realizes, desperately afraid of reaching the end of his life without having made a mark on the world. His legacy will be – must be – his novel, the fictionalized account of his childhood friendship with Darren Vigo, the rock star who changed the world and died of an overdose at the height of his fame.

Unfortunately you lose me for a number of reasons here. The biggest is that I thought there was a bigger reason that Victor wasn't writing the novel, and it turns out he just isn't writing it. I feel manipulated. You came up with a great hooky line to grab the reader's attention, you used it, but it really only has a little bit to do with your story (at least as far as I can tell). More important, though, the story at this point feels very blah. Some guy who is having a midlife crisis and decides to write a book. Nothing spectacular about that (at least in my world).


As his writing gathers pace, so the relationships with those around him break down, and in their place grows an unhealthy obsession with a New York author who is topping the bestseller list with his own debut novel. And the more Victor writes, the more he is willing to sacrifice in pursuit of his dream.

This is it. This is closer. This is where your query really needs to go. Dump most of the paragraph before this and make this the focus of your query, but actually show us the crux of the story. What I really want to know about, because it's what I assume your book is really about, is this obsession he has and how it's slowly destroying his life. How this obsession relates to your first line about starting to write his novel. That's what's going to bring this query home.


Semi-Autobiographical Debut is a work of literary fiction, complete at 85,000 words.

This is fine. I don't love your title. I don't think it's horrible, but it needs a little oomph.


I have a BA in English Literature from the University of York, and an MA in Feature Film Production from Goldsmiths College, London. Susan Fletcher, writer of Eve Green (winner, 2004 Whitbread First Novel Award) has described my writing as “lively, credible, witty, contemporary.”

This is good. It's all fine.


Thank you for your time and consideration.




Jessica

Ellery Adams Bares All

Ellery Adams
A Deadly Cliche
Publisher: Berkley
Pub date: March 2011
Agent: Jessica Faust


(Click to Buy)


Author web sites: www.elleryadamsmysteries.com and
www.cozychicksblog.com



I’ve received enough emails lately to make me realize that folks are fascinated by what constitutes a writer’s life. I decided to reveal the naked truth from my perspective using the uncompromising language of numbers.

Please keep in mind that these statistics are only a reflection of my work. Me, little ole mid-list cozy mystery author, but I hope they fill in some of the blanks.

Number of books I’ll have published by the end of 2011 — 15

Number of author names I’ve used or will use — 4 (Ellery Adams, J. B. Stanley, Jennifer Stanley, and I’m ½ of Lucy Arlington)

Average page count per book — 300
Average word count per book — 87,000

Number of publishers I’ve written for — 3

Average number of series I’m writing at once – 3

Average advance received from publisher — $6,000 per book
Average amount paid for large print or foreign rights — $500 or $1000

Average amount of advance spent on promotion — 25% of advance

Average money my publishers give me for promotion — 0

Average time it takes me to write a completed draft — 6 months

Average positive emails I receive per week from readers — 6

Average negative emails I receive per week — 1 (These are usually to point out a typo or to complain about a character’s conduct)

Number of personal copies I receive of each title — 50

Time it took me to sign with an agent — 5 months
Time it took my agent (Jessica Faust) to sell my first series — 2 months

Average number of conferences I attend per year — 3

Average number of library talks per year — 2

Average number of times I check my sales ranking on Amazon per day — 5

My writing income based on my 2010 tax return — $18,000

Days per year I work — 360 (This is not an exaggeration. I consider promotion work, and unless I am sick or am forced to be away from a computer, I find time every day to write, edit, promote, or research.)

Age I knew I wanted to become a writer — 7

Number of canceled series — 2 (the Molly Appleby collectible series and the Hope Street Church series)

Number of new series debuting in 2012 – 2 (The Charmed Pie Shoppe mysteries by Ellery Adams and The Novel Idea Literary Agency series by Lucy Arlington)

Series I’m planning to continue as ebooks only — 2

Current income from my sole ebook title (uploaded in March) — $250

Times I’d trade this life for another — Every time one of my books is released and fails to make the NYT list. And then I get over myself and go right back to work.

Did I miss anything? Not strip things down enough? Go ahead and ask me a question. I’ll tell you anything and you’ll get the bare bones truth.


Ellery Adams is the national bestselling author of the Books by the Bay mysteries. Her most recent title, A Deadly Cliche, was released in March. Her next book, The Last Word, comes out in December. For more info, visit www.elleryadamsmysteries.com.

Book Buying Behavior: What Purchased

I've enjoyed this series of posts this is third in the group and comes directly from questions and feedback on the previous ones. This data comes from PubTrack (the consumer market research arm of Bowker) who recently released their 2010-2011 Book Buying Report. It collected buying behavior from 40,000 unique U.S. book buying men, women, and teens. The sample represents more than 96,000 unique book purchases and 65,000 shopping occasions.

The other two posts are:

• Book Buying Behavior: Where Purchased

• Discoverability: Authors responsibility in finding book buyers

A number of commenters asked if this was only for print books or if it included ebook sales as well. Well here is the graph on "what" was bought and the ebooks were a small per percentage of this particular group.

Now of course hardcovers cost a lot of money and ebooks, in general, are a lot less expensive so when working on quantities the numbers look better but still it is a small percentage:



Someone else mentioned a question on genres and I'll post that in the tomorrows post. Any other questions related to this survey?

LOL

I call this recurring post LOL because they are things that usually make us LOL or respond "LOL" when we share the details via email or IM. The truth, though, is that I should call it "sigh with exasperation" at times. Because while it will make us laugh, it sometimes also makes us sigh or even feel a little sad. Anyway, I do like to share these tidbits with you because I do think that they can sometimes make us chuckle.

In a recent rejection email I suggested the author might want to work on a stronger query, that had it been a little stronger I might have requested the material rather than rejected. The author emailed back to say that unless I have specific advice I should stick to a form reject.

An oldie but goodie: Back in the day when we used to accept unsolicited proposals via snail mail (before email submissions), an author sent us an unsolicited full manuscript with no SASE. Our policy was to record all submissions, but if there was no SASE we didn't reply. The SASE was listed in our guidelines as a requirement. Some time later I received an email from the author asking for feedback on her submission. When I replied that I didn't have enough of a memory to give an opinion, but I did know we passed, her response was, "Well, thanks for absolutely NOTHING then! You didn't even show me the courtesy of an email or phone call. It may make no difference to you, but I will not be recommending you to anyone in the future." A phone call? Really?

In response to a rejection letter I sent: Jessica: You remain rejected. Bad business lady.

Another response to a rejection letter: When people you know die do you send form letters to their funeral?

Jessica

Book Buying Behavior: Where Purchased

Yesterday, I did a post that used some data from the 2010-2011 PubIt Book Consumer report. A number of comments questioned where the sales from this survey occurred. Well, ask and you shall receive.

To refresh your memory, the report in general comes from PubTrack (the consumer market research arm of Bowker) who recently released their 2010-2011 Book Buying Report. It collected buying behavior from 40,000 unique U.S. book buying men, women, and teens. The sample represents more than 96,000 unique book purchases and 65,000 shopping occasions. Here is what their study said about how where the purchases occurred:


My take on this data:

• As Ridan's business model is based on E-Commerce purchases, I'm pleased that this venue was the largest percentage of the sales.
  
  
• I'm not sure what "Non Traditional" means. I guess if I had the full report it would explain this category in more detail. I'm going to try and find out.
  


• I'm going to be watching the numbers for supermarket, warehouse clubs and mass merchandisers. With the collapse of Borders and the continuing problems at Barnes and Noble I have some concern that if these venues disappear so too will the mid-list shrink. Supermarket, warehouse and mm focus on the big-name cheap paperback books and growth here will be somewhat disturbing for a large number of authors.
  
  
• Large chains were still selling well during this report. It will be VERY interesting to see what this will be in the next report.
  


• It will also be interesting to see what happens with Independents as the large chains continue to close stores.

So there you go, all in all I think the survey did a good job of getting a nice "cross section" of book buyers. Any predictions going forward?

Discoverability: Authors responsibility in finding book buyers

As I mentioned there where two aspects at BEA that were talked about over and over again and they were:

• Author Platform
• Discoverability
  

I've contended in many posts in the past that the platform, is not only important, but in today's environment where readers want to connect with their authors, but essential. One look at what Pottermore and you can see the importance of this connection.

Not surprising there was a lot of gnashing of teeth at BEA about author discoverability. Many espoused that bookstores were essential as that is how readers have traditionally found authors – by browsing the shelves. Others pointed out that discoverability becomes more difficult online where hundreds of thousands of books make it impossible for readers to find what they are looking for. They made it sound impossible for an author to be found due to the vast number of competing titles.

PubTrack (the consumer market research arm of Bowker) recently released their 2010-2011 Book Buying Report. It collected buying behavior from 40,000 unique U.S. book buying men, women, and teens. The sample represents more than 96,000 unique book purchases and 65,000 shopping occasions. Here is what their study said about how readers become aware of a book:


What I find most remarkable here is that 33% revolves around author loyalty (liked the author or because it was a series). Co-op placement still plays a fairly large role but not nearly as large as the publishers at BEA seemed to indicate. I’m surprised that Word of mouth (friend/relative recommend) didn’t score higher and that Online avenues such as book reviews and online retailer book recommendations also seemed negligible.

Primary reason, is important but I think the buying decision is rather complicated and actually involves many of the above simultaneously. In marketing I learned that it takes multiple exposures of someone’s product to get them to buy. The first time they hear about it, the information goes in one ear and out the other. After three or four mentions they start paying attention, and by six or nine mentions, they actually decide whether to buy or not. So I suspect that seeing a review on a blog, then hearing from a friend that they liked the book, then finally seeing the book in the “also bought” when cruising Amazon for a new read all contribute.
What this tells me is that there are a few things authors have to focus on.

• Writing well – word-of-mouth, like the author, part of a series all come into play only if the story is compelling – those three categories add up to 41% which is almost 60% of all the reported methods.
  
  
• Write a series – whether you are doing romance, science fiction, fantasy, thrillers people like reading series. Think about this carefully before you start a single “one-off” book
  
  
• You need to “make a name for yourself”. Which again harkens back to multiple books and building a platform. The prolific writer has always, and will always, have an advantage over those that write slowly. If it takes you ten years to put out your first book, this may not be the profession for you.
  
  
• If you are published traditionally (sold through book stores) your publisher’s marketing efforts are probably focused on corporate buyers (the people who stock the stores and buy for libraries). If they believe in you enough to give you co-op dollars (providing you a more visible bookstore presence) then you’ll be one of the fortunate few and this should indeed give you a boost.
  

In many ways, my take away from this is platform and discoverability are directly related. If you work on building your platform, then discoverability becomes as simple as letting your fan base know that a new title is out. If you have a publisher, they can help you with discoverability, but ultimately, you can’t control what they do and don’t do. Successful authors rely on themselves to get noticed. The efforts of your publisher are not under your control and should not be looked upon as the exclusive means of promotion. Think of those activities as nice “value add” but realize that no one cares about the success of your book like you do, and you need to be an active participant to have the best chance at success.

Five Blogs Every Author Should be Reading

Today's post will have to be a quick one as I have TONS of stuff to get done today and it is so easy to get distracted with

• Rowling's announcement
• Locke breaking 1 million ebooks (and his great How to book on the subject)
• New AAP numbers showing continued decline in print.

For those that have been with my blog for a while you no doubt noticed that it went through a major rework recently. And I've been meaning to point out some aspects about the redesign most notably the Resources Page. I suggest you look at this site from time to time as I'll be adding content that I find relevant here.

Anyway...I wanted to point to a few sites that I read on a regular basis and give you some ideas why.

• Konrath's blog: Especially important for those who are considering self-publishing. I know many people are put off by Joe's "style". He is opinionated to be sure, but he's also more often than not right. Joe has passion, intelligence, and a ton of experience in the publishing industry and is worth listening to. You may not agree with everything he says (sometimes I don't) but you should at least "hear" his message and decide for yourself. If nothing else, his site is worth visiting for the comments section which brings in great minds from multiple perspectives - I post there often ;-)
  
  
• The Passive Voice: Good for authors in all paths of publishing (self, small, big-six). I don't know who this "man behind the curtain is but he's one smart cookie. While he no longer practices law he's in the process of "collecting" contracts and he dissects various clauses and points out pitfalls. If you are have been given a contract to sign with any publisher - search his entire site and read EVERYTHING he writes on the subject - then take that information into your negotiations. He also stays abreast of recent changes in the publishing industry and I find he has great insight on what changes could signal.
  
  
• Kristine Kathryn Rusch Business Rusch: It's hard to know exactly where to begin here because she has SO MUCH fantastic information and it's well worth the time and effort to read through past posts and try to keep up with future ones. If I had one complaint it is that she sometimes is a bit "long winded" but once you get to the point she's trying to make it is almost always a great one. I would start here and work your way through them. If you're not familiar with her site you'll be thanking me for this advice.
  
  
• Dean Wesley Smith: Interestingly Kristine Rush's husband and I'm sure like Michael and I they spend a lot of time discussing what's going on in the industry. Again a site to look to both going forward and looking back as, like Konrath, Dean has a lot of "real world" experience. He's currently updating his "Killing the Sacred Cows" which is well worth the time. Again I don't agree with everything he says - but you should "listen" and see what resonates for you.
  
  
• David Gaughran: I first met David on the forum "which shall not be named" and saw him as one of the rational voices there. Not surprisingly he's been put through the wringer and has been attacked on several occasions. I applaud his tenacity at "fighting the good fight" especially since some of us can no longer participate. David is new to publishing but is a very quick learner and, like me, is keeping his finger on the pulse of the publishing industry. As I mentioned he is relatively new and doesn't have the experience of say Konrath, Smith, or even myself but the way he is approaching publishing is spot on and I expect to see great things from him.
  

There you have it. Five blogs that I watch regularly and have learned a ton from. I'm hoping that some will consider mine as a sixth in that category but since you are already here - I suspect you feel the same.

Alone in the Classroom - Elizabeth Hay

I approached this book with some mixed feelings. I read Late Nights on Air, Hay's last book, after it won the Giller back in 2007 and I was not overwhelmingly impressed. The last third of it was exciting (when the group goes on the canoe trip, for those of you who have read it), but I found the first 2/3 of the book slow-going, muddled, and hard to get attached to any of the characters.

Reading this book, I could hardly believe that it was the same author. The writing style was very crisp, the story moved along, and it was the sort of book that I didn't want to put down.

One of the things that I loved about this book is that it is being told by Anne, and we see things as Anne sees them, and we learn things as Anne learns them. It is truly a first-person narrative where there is no all-knowing presence giving hints as to what is to come. (Though like N icola, I did have trouble at times, remember who the "I" was that was telling the story, especially when jumping between different generations and stories.). There were a lot of layers to this story, however in the end they all came together to tell the story of a family. I could compare it to an onion, with all of the layers making up the whole, except that I don't like onions and I did like this story!

What are some of these plot layers? There is Connie, a teacher in rural Saskatchewan in 1929, struggling to teach a student with dyslexia who is gifted in other area and struggling with a creepy principal who may or may not have "interfered" with a 13-year-old student. Then in 1937, Connie is a reporter covering the murder of a young girl in the Ottawa Valley, where her life ends up linked with Anne's when her brother meets and marries a young woman who become Anne's parents (ie Connie is Anne's paternal aunt). Anne also tells us the story of her own life, and then ends with telling the story of her mother's family and of her mother, growing up with a domineering mother (Anne's grandmother). My overall impression is that Anne had to approach family history indirectly through her Aunt's story before she could get up the courage to examine her own story and the story of her direct ancestors.

But more than the plot itself (in fact I found the plot annoying at times, with implied significance to certain events fizzling out to nothing - though isn't that the way real life goes at times?), I loved seeing how all of these layers and generations and characters came together to make a whole story. This story could have been told chronologically, beginning with Anne's maternal family and their carpentry business in the Ottawa Valley intersecting with Anne's paternal family struggling in the Saskatchewan prairie; but that would have been much less interesting.

4 good books in a row (and the one that I'm reading now is interesting too) - I'm on a roll!

Has anyone else read this book? What did you think? How would you compare it to Late Nights on Air?

Author Speed Date

The idea of speed dating is that you get 10 minutes to sit down with a prospective date and get to know them. In that spirit, we present Author Speed Date. A quick 10 minutes for you to get to know some of our clients. Today we'd like you to meet Laura Alden.

BookEnds Author Speed Date

Name (the one you’re published under): Laura Alden

Speed date Bio (one or two lines): Village clerk by day, mystery writer by night, voracious reader at all times.

Web Link: www.lauraalden.com

Next Book, pub date: Foul Play at the PTA, July 2011

Agent: Jessica Faust

About Me

Real Name or Pseudonym: Laura Alden (pseudonym), Janet Koch (what my mom calls me).

Currently Reading: Worth Dying For by Lee Child

Next on Your Reading List: Leap of Faith, Queen Noor’s memoir

Facebook or Twitter (include account name): Facebook as Laura Alden

Three authors living or dead you would want to have dinner with: Laurie R. King, Emily Dickinson, John McPhee.

Jet-setter or armchair traveler: If the checkbook is healthy, jet-setter. If the checkbook is flat, armchairs are just fine.

Glass ½ full or ½ empty: Depends on what’s in the glass!

Tea or Coffee: Tea

Live to write or Write to live: Started out as writing to live, now I live to write.

About My Writing

When (time of day) I write: Whenever I have an open ten minutes.

Writing soundtrack: Windham Hill-type music. Can’t listen to anything vocal; I stop writing and start listening.

Character Inspirations: Every person I meet. (Heh heh heh.)

Plot Inspirations: Almost any news article I read.

Setting Inspirations: Wherever I happen to be, and anywhere I’ve ever wanted to travel. (This includes time travel :)

Plotter (carefully plot books) or Pantser (write from the seat of my pants): A former pantser, I now depend on my outline to help me meet deadlines.

What I believe in...

One of the most rewarding things I get out of doing this blog is the spirit of sharing of great ideas and insight from the people who come here. Today's post comes to you compliments of Suzanne Adair, author of Paper Woman, The Black Smith's Daughter, and Camp Follower, all nicely priced at $3.99 for the kindle. In the comments to one of my recent posts Suzanne pointed me to the a great TED Video by Simon Sinek. For those of you who are not familiar with TED - it is a FANTASTIC site. TED provides, "Riveting talks by remarkable people, free to the world". I think of TED as better than any MBA program on the face of the planet - and it costs nothing. I encourage you to make a regular practice of viewing a TED video - even if its only once a week.

So below is the video that Suzanne linked to me. It is WELL worth watching - so get a cup of coffee and enjoy it before reading on.

Wasn't that inspirational? That's just a single sampling of TED there's lots more just like where this came from.

Simon's talk and John Locke's book both solidified for me things that I was doing at a subconscious level. They have provided me with "ah-ha" moments and I wanted to take a moment today to share them with you.

It's not bragging, simply stating a fact, that both Michael's writing and Ridan Publishing are doing phenomenally well. While taking the dog for a walk yesterday I was remarking to Michael that I finally got some movement going on Leslie Ann Moore's Griffin's Daughter series (which she truly deserves it as she is a gifted writer). This makes me four for four as Nathan Lowell (Recently #2 Science Fiction Best Seller and poised to cross 10,000 books this month), Marshall Thomas (who sold 17,000 books last month and may crack 20,000 this month), and Michael (who has eclipsed my six-figure salary and made it so I can work on Ridan full time) are making more money than most traditionally published authors.

Recently I've been approached by podcasters and bloggers wanting to interview me and by writing conventions that have asked me to be a guest speaker at their events . Next week I'm going to be interviewed for an article in the Huffington Post. I just signed, Joe Haldeman, a science fiction grand master to bring his classic The Forever War to ebooks and have a number of high profile authors coming to me (one is a thriller writer who received over half a million dollars for a 3-book deal overseas) to publish their books.

Why is all this happening? It's because Ridan is truly doing something revolutionary and to understand what that is I have to tell you a bit about my company. When I wrote the Ridan contract Michael and I sat down and looked at all the things he hated about the AMI contract (his original small press publisher) and threw them out the window. Here are some key points of the Ridan contract.

• The Author gets 70% Ridan keeps 30%. After all the author spent months or years writing the book - our contributions of editing, layout, cover design, and marketing are not worth 75% - 92% which is what traditional publishers take.
  
  
• We only take rights for what we use - that means ebook and print books. The author maintains all foreign language, movie, graphic novels, merchandising, on and on. Most contracts pay the publisher a percentage of subsidiary rights because they had the brains to see the value in an author's work first and now want a "piece of the action".
  
  
• We don't have an option clause - If you don't know what an option clause it is basically the right to get an exclusive "first crack" at any other books written by the author. While on the surface of things this doesn't hurt to be in a contract, it is also not necessary and puts a limitation on the author that should exist. If the author likes what I'm doing he's going to present me with his next book anyway...why do I need to "contractually require" him to?
  
  
• The author has a voice in marketing decisions such as price, cover design, title, distribution channels, etc. If we can't agree on these things, and Ridan feels that they can't be successful with the book under the conditions the author desires, we simply end the contract and the rights revert to the author.
  
  
• An author is not "required" to perform marketing as a term of the contract. Do we hope that the author will? Sure. Will we do marketing regardless of whether they do? Absolutely. Does this seem strange that I even bring this up? No - most contracts have language that put the publisher in control of the author in this regard. - A topic for another post someday.
  
  
• The authors sole responsibility is to deliver a manuscript and approve the work that is produced. All other aspects of production: editing, cover design, layout, ebook formatting is the responsibility of Ridan and paid for out of our cut.
  
  
• Money flows to the author. Again this should be obvious but there are a lot of "creative" publishing arrangements running around these days that require "investment" by both "interested parties". The authors investment is the time to create the work - period.
  
  
• The contract is for the work we are acquiring only. The author is free to write as many books, in whatever time frame they desire, and put them on the market any way they wish without asking our permission to do so. -- You might think this is a given in any contract but then you've probably not seen some of the standard language - again a topic for another day.
  
  
• Our contracts end. Most publishing contracts have terms of "the life of the copyright which means until 70 years after the author dies". Now most don't last that long as authors go out of print, but with ebooks and POD a publisher can keep an author "in print" indefinitely. All Ridan contracts have a term of three years, although that term is really moot because of the next point.
  
  
• A Ridan author can leave anytime they want. If New York comes knocking, or they think they would be better off self-publishing, or they want to switch to another press. All they have to do is tell me, and I'll take their books off the market and send them a nullification agreement proving the rights are theirs again. (So far no Ridan author has ever asked to make use of this clause).

To say it's an unusual document is an understatement. Only those that have had a publishing contract in the past can truly understand the significance of ours. Yes, I'd call it "author friendly." The Ridan contract is the outward representation of what I believe in...

• Authors deserve to make a living wage doing what they love
  
  
• An authors contribution to the project is far more valuable then that of the publishers
  
  
• Ridan is more interested in the authors success then their own. They can continue to pursue their dream of "big-six publishing" and if they get called up to the majors we rejoice with them and are glad that we played a part.
  
  
• The publisher should take what they eat and eat what they take (i.e. don't gobble up all the rights just so someone else can't have them)
  
  
• The publisher should be confident in their ability to make a project successful such that they shouldn't be concerned about competition from my author. In fact, if my author puts out other works it will be a win-win as more books = more ambassadors and readers will likely buy both.
  
  
• If the author is dissatisfied with the job the publisher is doing on their behalf, they should have the right to fire them.

So there you have it...Ridan's "why."

Our "how" is through ebooks and print on demand which keeps our costs low and enables us to be profitable almost from day one and produce a product that is competitively priced. We aggressively market our authors, keep abreast of developments in the industry, and adjust in order to maximize author's earning potential within the confines of ensuring that the readers (who make it all possible) receive value.

Our "what" is hours of enjoyment at a fair price by providing engaging books by talented storytellers. We are neither the cheapest nor the most expensive. But select a price that is fair to both the reader and the writer. We'll never put out an inferior product because we value the loyalty of the readers who have come to trust the quality of the talent handpicked by Ridan.

There you have it. My why, how and what. I encourage you to start thinking inside out and what yours are combined with Locke's loyalty marketing its a winning combination.

More proof that publishing is changing....forever!

For those that are not up on the recent J.K. Rowling's announcement about Pottermore here's the video straight from her:

This will be yet another revolution in publishing. To have a site (and here's the important part) that is controlled by the author who has exclusive rights to electronic distribution is MAJOR!!

Rowling's won't have to share distribution fees with Amazon or Barnes and Noble. She'll not have to compete with other books - everyone who comes to the site is there to buy. She'll provide access to intellectual property that no one but she owns. It's brilliant and something that only someone with the clout of Rowlings could pull off but expect to see a lot more of this from authors who receive a popular following.

From a business perspective, she has a lot of partners helping in this and some are big players: Sony, Scholastic, and even Warner Brothers as they apparently own the copyright on the Harry Potter Characters (when did that happen??)

Since the ebooks have never been published I suspect that Scholastic did not have the rights to them. After all the series started when ebooks were still in their infancy and no contracts at that time could have predicted what was to become. But I suspect, that a non-compete clause has prevented her from selling, or releasing for herself the ebooks rights as well. So they were basically in limbo with neither party able to do anything about it.

A press release issued by Scholastic indicates they will be getting a "royalty" from the ebooks published so my guess is Rowlings had to "pay" to get out of the non-compete by offering them a piece of the action. I also noted that all digital rights (including audio) are now in her control so she also probably paid a pretty penny for that but in the long rung well worth it to have complete control of her digital rights.

I'll be watching Pottermore's developments with great interest, it might just be a blue print for others to follow. After watching the video, all I could do was channel Ron Wesley with a awed, "That's bloody brilliant" comment.

Word Count in an epub world

My question is perhaps a bit premature, but do you think the proliferation of e-books and e-readers will affect the idea of what constitutes standard word counts for mainstream fiction? In other words, will word count be rendered less relevant (or even irrelevant) once the cost of paper gets tossed aside by the new technology?

I don't think your question is premature at all, but very relevant. I think that in some respects word count won't matter anymore, but I think in others it will and should. In other words, if we reach the point where paper books no longer exist, then I think to a huge extent word count will be almost irrelevant. Let's face it, you won't be facing paper costs, which is one of the biggest reasons many claim word counts are what they are.

And while certainly the production costs play a role in word count, there's another hidden truth about why word counts are what they are. Because that's about what it takes to write that type of book. In other words, while 150,000 words might work for an epic fantasy with dozens of characters and complicated plot lines, in a cozy mystery it usually just means the author has overwritten the book. Sometimes word count guidelines are more about keeping a book tight and strong than they are about how much it costs to produce.

Now, before you start jumping up and down and pointing out examples of books that broke the mold, that's true, books will always be able to break the mold. That's why we have guidelines and not rules, but I think word count ranges (because they are ranges) are probably here to stay. Humans by nature want guidelines, we want something to give us direction, and word count does that. It helps you to have a sense of when you should stop and when you might have overdone it. I also think readers have expectations for books, and while they are willing to go that extra mile for a book with rave reviews or by an author they love, typically they like books that fit into an expected time frame. In other words, I know I can read a certain type of book in one night and would be disappointed if suddenly it took three.

Jessica

Workshop Wednesday

By repeated request we've started Workshop Wednesday. It will definitely play out through 2011, and beyond that we'll just have to see. We've received well over 200 queries at this point, but we are choosing at random, so don't be afraid to participate as per the guidelines in our original post.

For anyone wanting to comment, we ask that you comment in a polite and respectful manner, and we ask that you be as constructive as possible. If you can be useful to the brave souls who submitted their query and comment on the query, that's great. Please keep any anonymous tirades on publishing or other snarky comments to yourself. This is and should remain an open and safe forum for people to put themselves and their queries out there so that everyone can learn. I'm leaving comments open and open to anonymous posters, as I always have; don't make me feel the need to change that policy.

And for those who have never "met" Query Shark, get over there and do that. She's the originator of the query critique, the queen, if you will.

Dear Ms. Faust,

A firefly is a curious thing. A casual glance shows a tiny flying bug that glows in the humid summer nights of the South but there’s more to that twinkle. Blinking patterns flash in different intervals and wavelengths. For the firefly, each illumination tells a story.

I love this opening so much that my usual chatter about indents and email style vs. letter style is forgotten. You grabbed me with this right away, and do you want to know why? It's the voice. There's such a lovely, Southern rhythm and flavor to this and I knew this was set in the South before you even told me. You grabbed me with this. I loved it, plain and simple.


That’s how Adeline Stewart sees everyone around her; every feeling and emotion played out in swirling colors and flowing movements. These colorful auras tell their story. Even death shows itself with its violent black clouds and waves of nausea. Adeline is all alone with her secret, careful not to stand out in her small southern town. But all secrets come out eventually. The only problem is there’s someone out there who thinks she should take her secret to the grave.

This query is not necessarily full of "don'ts," but I would suspect that if it were turned over to a query critique group it would be ripped apart for all of the things it doesn't do, all of the "rules" it doesn't follow. The biggest being that it doesn't really tell me anything about the plot. That being said, I like it a lot.

The voice in this comes through beautifully and I get from the first line of this second paragraph that it's YA. I did have to read the last paragraph to confirm, since I thought maybe it was going to be women's fiction, but I got what you were doing here. Your voice made that clear.


WATCHING FIREFLIES is young adult paranormal novel complete at 78,000 words. My manuscript was a finalist in the Santa Fe Writers Project contest. The judge was Pulitzer prize-winner Robert Olen Butler. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Great ending. Adding the contest mention is smart. It shows me that others have recognized your work and that you are actively out working on your writing and learning about publishing.

There's no question I would request this and I imagine I'm not the only one. Bravo!


Sincerely,



Jessica

Stark Raviing Fans Revisted -- a must read for all authors

A while ago I wrote a post about Stark Raving Fans. While "recommendations" are important in many business: restaurants, lawyers, financial advisers, etc it is especially important for authors. The only thing that will make you a true success as an author is word-of-mouth. You can't make a living wage off of sales generated directly through your marketing efforts. The shear volume of books you have to sell makes it impossible. What you need is to touch a few people deeply enough that they become Stark Raving Fans and let them be ambassadors for your books. It is only after people start recommending your books to their friends and loved ones.

The first step in making Stark Raving Fans is to write a great book. One that when people get done they smile and say to themselves...wow now that was worth reading!

The second step in making Start Raving Fans is to write another great book...and another...and another. It's very hard to make a living off a single book. Once you have Stark Raving Fans they want to read everything you write. They are hungry...they get mad when they see you blogging and not writing. Many people say that the best marketing you can do is write the next book and I agree.

I had a whole bunch of ideas about how to cultivate Stark Raving Fans. I've been mulling them over in my mind trying to determine exactly how to present the material in the best way possible...but then something happened. Someone else did all that I wanted to and more.

Yesterday, John Locke's newest book, "How I Sold 1 Millon ebooks in 5 Months". I bought it because I was curious and was expecting to be highly disappointed. After all, I KNEW how John Locke did it:

• He wrote a lot of "pretty good books"
• He priced them at rock bottom prices $0.99
• He was in the right place at the right time books ready to read in Oct/Nov 2010

So I bought it expecting to see a lot of "rah-rah" about the benefits of $0.99 and being a prolific writer. What I got was a concise, well structured secret for making Stark Raving Fans.

John is going to sell a ton of this how to books. He's going to get rich off of it...and he deserves every penny. The reason he'll make so much money on this books is because he's going to have a ton of people like me, people who are already evangelizing how to make writing for a living possible proclaiming from the mountain tops what I'm going to say now... BUY HIS BOOK! Read it. Follow his advice. If you do, I know you'll be a success.

Reading it you can see the genius that is John and that his rise to fame is not, as Joe Konrath might suggest, because he got "lucky". It's also not because of my original assumption that he wrote a ton of good books and priced them at $0.99. It is because he understand the concept of Stark Raving Fans and has a developed a technique to find and grow them.

You'll see at the core of John's "system" is writing blogs that showcase you as a writer. That gives a piece of yourself to your readers. To touch people...make them like you...make them want to help you make a success. John gives a few examples and as I read them I couldn't help but notice that many of Michael's blogs fall into that category. He was following John's system without evening knowing that such a system existed.

I'm going to give you a homework assignment...

1. Read John's book (it is short and easy to get through)
   
2. Read these two blogs by Michael
3. Write your own blog (take your time - take several days)
4. Post me a link
   
   

I'm going to collect and post all the links. Then ask each of you to do one more thing to complete your homework assignment. Choose one of the posts that you liked the best and tweet share it with your own followers.

Here are my first submissions:

• Michael J. Sullivan: In the beginning
• Michael J. Sullivan: Song of bias and prejudice

Now go. Do yourself a favor and if you learn nothing else from this blog take to heart the importance of creating Stark Raving Fans and listen to John who said it better than I ever could.

Negotiation

It's a bit ironic that I came across Katheyrn Rusch's articles on negotiation last night since I finally concluded negotiations with Michael's big-six contract about a week ago. The process was an excruciating one which had me in moments of great despair on several occasions because I saw tremendous potential but was pretty sure all my efforts were an exercise in futility.

At the heart of the matter was "industry standard" clauses that most authors don't blink at but scared me to death as they could have substantial impact on Michael's income and potentially destroy his writing career as a whole. Let me make it perfectly clear that I don't think Michael's publisher is evil or trying to destroy him. They are doing is trying to protect their interests. After all they are making a HUGE investment in Michael's writing and they want to provide safeguards that they have as much control as possible. Control = power = maximum flexibility.

The problem is that Michael abhors being controlled. Yes, I know you can say that of just about anyone but Michael takes it to an extreme. When you combine that fact with a large corporate infrastructure that doesn't like changing standard language that hundreds of authors have agreed to...well you can see why I thought it was an exercise in futility.

The chasm between the two positions was monumental and after 3 months and I'm sure some significant hair loss from Michael's agent we've finally reached an agreement that can be signed. I feel bad for Michael's agent. She understood on an intellectual level our desires, but also knows "how the business works" and what was completely off the table.

So getting back to my point of today's post...Negotiation. I'm pretty happy with how it all came out in the end, but like making sausages, you really don't want to see what goes on behind the scenes as it is not very pretty. I found that when reading Kristine Kathryn Rusch's advice I did exactly what she mentioned, although I didn't know that at the time. So the interest of not having others having to stumble their way through it here is what she said that I found to be sage words of wisdom. You can read the whole post here. But in summary the six important things to remember are:

1. Know What You Want.
2. Ask
3. Be Prepared to Walk Away.
4. Stay Calm.
   
5. Never Reveal Your Entire Hand.
   
6. Don’t Flip-Flop.

Kathryn has five more posts on negotiation which I have not read but if any of them are half as good as the first one then they should be highly recommended. I'll be reading and commenting on them in a future post.

Meeting an Agent at a Conference

Will you be presenting any workshops at the RWA conference this summer?

If I saw you there and if (Big BIG IF) I had the confidance to approach you, can you give any do's and don'ts? (I imagine squeeling and pointing are a big no no.)

Can you recommend an opening line we could offer you to get the dialogue going?


Unfortunately I was not chosen to present workshops this year, which is a bummer for me because I LOVE presenting workshops. However, I will be at RWA and wandering around the hotel, and I always look forward to meeting authors, readers, and other industry professionals.

Here are some of my tips on how to approach agents, editors, or even other authors in a conference setting.

1. Do introduce yourself. Remember, we're all people too and love meeting authors, fans, readers, and generally other people. There's nothing to be nervous about.

2. Don't interrupt a conversation, especially if the agent, author, etc., is sitting down clearly talking with someone. Recently I was at a conference where people regularly came up to interrupt agent/author meetings. It was shocking really. One woman even wanted to sit at the table with us and became angry when we explained we were having a meeting.

3. Do feel free to wait for the agent to finish the conversation.

4. Don't hover. If you choose to wait, wait far, far back. Sit at another table or move to the side, but don't stand and stare. Just be patient.

5. Do just walk up and introduce yourself. Say hello, ask how the conference is going, discuss the author's latest release, or your favorite book. Discuss the agent's most recent blog post or a client you're a fan of. Or just ask how the conference is going.

6. Don't pitch. You can make a lot more headway by just talking to an agent, having a conversation, than you can pitching. At the end ask if the agent would mind if you send your material, but don't turn every introduction into a pitch. It starts to make us feel like machines and we like being people.

7. Do have fun. Because that's what it's all about.


Jessica

Sunshine Deals and Amazon Million Club

As you all can see I'm extremely busy at the moment, and hence not posting. But one of the things I've been doing is analyzing data from the Sunshine Deals (600+ low priced books that ran during the first half of this month. I'll be posting a full analysis at some point but here are some quick notes:

• The promotion was a huge success for the participating publishers - 24 titles went from relative obscurity to breaking the top 100
  
  
• The Sunshine Deals completely changed the make up of the Top 100 as a whole. Usually there are a number of slots occupied by games and periodicals but during the promotion 98% were books. The ratio restored directly after the promotion ended.
  
  
• Indie staples were displaced. John Locke typically had 6 -8 titles in the top 100 but all were displaced during the promotion as readers flocked to buy the newly reduced books. The promotion kicked all 10 of John Locke's titles out of the top 100 and none of them have returned (though his new "how I sold 1 million copies is #3 on the Movers and Shakers list (was 18,039 yesterday and is 51 today) Amanda Hocking's books were pretty much "out of" the top 100 when the promotion hit and is showing similar rankings as Locke (around 105 - 500)
  
  
• The number of Sunshine titles on the list since the promotion (25, 21, 8, 7, 6, 6)
  
  
• The ratio of Sunshine by price was: 10 - $0.99, 7-$1.99, 7- $2.99 (42%, 29%, 29%)
  
  
• Directly after the promotion all books restored to their original price: 2 - under $5, 10 - $5.01 - $8.99, 12 - $9.00-$9.99 (8%, 42%, 50%)
  
  
• 5 days after the end of the promotion 33% of titles reduced their price (1 - $0.99, 3-$1.99, 1-$2.99, 3- $7.69-$9.34)

I'll be doing a more complete accounting later - but this gives you some data to mull over in the meantime.

It was announced today that John Locke became the first indie to reach the 1,000,000 sales mark. He's only the 9th author to do this. I'm going to be reading his book on the subject and blogging about it here - But the secret isn't that hard - write a ton of good books and price them all at $0.99 ;-) Personally I think he left a ton of money on the table and should have raised the price on some of his books but that's just my opinion.

Authors in the 1,000,000+ club:

• Stieg Larsson
• James Patterson
• Nora Roberts
• Charlaine Harris
• Lee Child
• Suzanne Collins
• Michael Connelly
• John Locke
  

Well that's all for now - as I said I'm very busy at the moment but I wanted to get out a quick post.

Lauren Is Open for Submissions

Hi, everybody! I’m Lauren Ruth, the newest addition to BookEnds, and I’d like to take a moment to introduce myself to all of you faithful blog readers. I began my publishing career ages ago (okay, so it was really just a couple of years ago) at Simon & Schuster, where I was an editorial intern. Then, after interning at BookEnds, I was hired as a full-time literary assistant. I’ve been reading queries for a long time, but now I’m officially announcing that I’m open to submissions. I look forward to working with authors to build their careers and their voices, and to fine-tuning the brands and skills they already have. The following are the genres in which I’m interested:

In fiction:

• Literary fiction (the love of my life)
• Romance (all subgenres, but I’m particularly interested in erotic, historical, or paranormal—or any combination thereof!)
• Women’s fiction
• Chick lit
• Young Adult
• Middle grade
• Mystery, (all subgenres, but especially cozies . . . I am, after all, working at BookEnds!)
• Science Fiction/Fantasy
• Historical fiction
• Steampunk

In nonfiction:

• Memoir
• Parenting and family
• Relationships
• Food and lifestyle
• Business
• Popular science
• Popular culture
• Popular psychology

If your book falls under any of the above genres, please take a look at the submission guidelines on BookEnds’ website to learn how to query me. I’m looking forward to hearing from you!

Lauren
Lruth@bookends-inc.com

Thought for the Day

Just as you shouldn't use neon, or any, colored paper in professional snail mail correspondence (e.g., query letters), you shouldn't use fancy email backgrounds when sending equeries.

I don't want pink backgrounds, pretty clouds, or lined notebook paper in my emails. Keep it simple, please.

Jessica

The Growth of Authors

I used to keep a file in my emails called "Author Beware"; typically these were emails I received back from authors condemning me for my rejection letters, insulting my abilities, accusing me of theft, etc. I haven't added to that file in a long time, not because I don't feel a need for it, but because I don't get that many accusatory emails anymore.

I'm often asked if I think my blog has made a difference with writers, and while I'd love to take all the credit, there's no way I can. Blogs like mine, Miss Snark, Nathan Bransford, Janet Reid, Kristin Nelson, Moon Rat, Dystel & Goderich, Pimp My Novel, Rachelle Gardner, etc., etc., as well as Twitter and writing groups have collectively made a difference. Query letters are better every day, stronger and more concise, professionalism has gone up tenfold and, frankly, this is all making my job harder.

When I go through my queries looking to reject those that are easy to reject—obviously not ready for publication—there aren't as many as there used to be and, because queries are stronger, it's easier for me to request material, harder to reject.

So kudos to you authors for making our lives harder by doing research and paying attention to what we're saying.

Jessica

Looking at the Publishing Industry

Last night I was a guest on Dead Robots Podcast where I talked about the recent changes in the publishing industry. In particular some of the things I covered:

• Observations from BEA (Book Expo America)
• Amazon's recent moves into the publishing
• The digitization of books providing for more titles to be released
• Banning at Absolute Write
• How author's passions work against them from a business perspective
• Major authors approaching Ridan for publication
• Changes in contracts due to new opportunities for authors
• Building a platform through social networking done correctly

I love doing Podcasts as it is SO much faster than typing up blog posts. The time flew by and we only scratched the surface so they are going to have me back in two weeks. Between now and then, Dead Robots is going to be collecting questions to ask me during the next session. So if you have questions or are interested in my opinions on anything publishing related - leave a comment or send an email to: show@deadrobotssocie​ty.com and I'll be back on June 30th to answer them.

One more announcement, for those in and around the Washington DC area, my next seminar on Marketing your Book will be held at the Arlington Public Library (short walk from the Balston Metro on the Orange line) on July 9th at 2:00 pm. I hope to see you there.

Workshop Wednesday

By repeated request we've started Workshop Wednesday. It will definitely play out through 2011, and beyond that we'll just have to see. We've received well over 200 queries at this point, but we are choosing at random, so don't be afraid to participate as per the guidelines in our original post.

For anyone wanting to comment, we ask that you comment in a polite and respectful manner, and we ask that you be as constructive as possible. If you can be useful to the brave souls who submitted their query and comment on the query, that's great. Please keep any anonymous tirades on publishing or other snarky comments to yourself. This is and should remain an open and safe forum for people to put themselves and their queries out there so that everyone can learn. I'm leaving comments open and open to anonymous posters, as I always have; don't make me feel the need to change that policy.

And for those who have never "met" Query Shark, get over there and do that. She's the originator of the query critique, the queen, if you will.


What’s a girl supposed to do when she sends the wrong man to another universe for the sins of his twin brother? When Karen was asked by an ageless being, Malin, to use her new found talents to rid the world of some unsavory characters, he soon found that the wealthy orphan was used to doing things her own way.

The trouble with query critiques is that it's a critique. In other words, many times the critique you're getting is far more critical than I would be if simply reading the query. Of course, sometimes I will be as critical when reading as I would in a critique, so it never hurts to be thorough.

One of the things that bugs me about this query right off the bat (though I didn't reproduce it here) is that it's double-spaced and indented. I know that's not a big deal, but we read email differently than we read snail mail. We like to have as much of an email as possible fit into a screen, and formatting for email is different than formatting for snail mail. Therefore, single space with double spaces between paragraphs is best. It simply reads better.

I prefer some sort of salutation at the beginning of the letter. It eases me into things and helps me know you're addressing me. That being said, it's not a big deal if you don't include it.

Okay, into the actual query . . .

Blech. Opening the query with a question. Some say this is the death knell. I don't think that's truly the case, but it does bug me. What if I don't care what a girl is to do? And frankly, I'm not sure I do. I also don't like the phrase "what's a girl to do." This is funny coming from the queen of cliches, but cliches in the query make me feel that the author is not as inventive or imaginative as she should be.

Beyond all of that, though, the real concern with this opening paragraph is that it doesn't make any sense. It's completely disconnected. You open with a question about what a girl is to do, but don't touch on that, and then you introduce us to some fellow named Malin and I don't see how that connects to the question or how doing things her own way connects to anything else. My best advice is to dump this entire paragraph and start over, or, maybe you don't need it at all.


Karen, and identical twins, Paul and Phillip have made their separate ways to the City, where life has deteriorated under the rule of Grand, a psychotic gang leader and the Mayor, ambitious and amoral. Phillip gets a job working with orphaned boys rescued from the streets; Paul tries to hook up with Grand because he senses they are disturbingly alike.

I'm not understanding the connection between these characters and the connection between this paragraph and the first one. Are Karen and these twins connected? Does it matter at all that they're identical? You keep saying that, but I don't know why it matters? They make their way to the City from where, for what, what is this City? And if they aren't connected (these people), why would you lump them together in the same sentence? And in the end, I don't think this paragraph matters. It all feels like backstory to me and none of it feels important. So far I've read two paragraphs and I still have no clue what your story is about.


Malin oversees that a balance between positive and negative energy is maintained in multiple universes. He recruits and directs human partners to help achieve his objective. He contacts Karen, revealing that she has inherited an unusual ability to transform energy, and asks for her help in sending Paul and Grand to the Plains, to live out the remainder of their lives in an arid purgatory of a universe that receives the outcasts from all the universes under Malin’s control. In the act of transferring Grand and Paul, she accidentally sends Phillip to the Plains too.

Again, this paragraph feels disconnected from the rest. It feels to me like you are trying too hard to tell me about everyone instead of focusing on the hook or high point of the story, the key conflict.

You start the entire query with Karen sending the wrong twin back, and then you take three paragraphs to get to that. Skip the backstory and get to the heart of the book.

So does Karen know Paul and who is Grand? Sorry, I had to look back to see that. Why the two of them?

It seems to me that we finally get to the point here. It seems that the entire book is about the fact that Karen sends the wrong twin away by accident. If that's the case, I'm not sure we need to know who Grand or Malin are. Could you just focus on the fact that Karen has special powers and lives in a certain type of world, she's charged with sending a man away for whatever reason, but when she learns she's sent the wrong fella then what happens . . .


Karen is distraught at condemning a good man to an existence of isolation and alienation and urges Malin to improve his lot. In desperation she enters The Plain against Malin’s warning that she won’t be able to return.

So the biggest problem is that she's distraught? My immediate concern is that you don't have a big enough conflict in the book. If the only thing to be worried about is Karen's feelings, that doesn't seem like enough.


She manages to return Phillip to their world and eventually Malin figures out a way for her to return also, but only after Karen starts to have feelings for Paul. Thus a triangle is created between Karen and the twins as she struggles to decide between the two men and the two universes.

This sounds to me like the end of the story and not something we need to worry about in the query. This is fine for the synopsis.

However, if you opt to keep it in, it doesn't sound that interesting. Like you've tossed this in at the end. Why does Malin care if she comes back? I'm totally confused.

In the human world, the books deal with topical issues such as drugs, joblessness, sexual slavery and political graft, in a hypothetical city; those relegated to live out their existence in the Plains have their own challenges, particularly when the boundaries between worlds are blurred.

This is one of my pet peeves in query letters. I do not care what issues your book deals with. No one reads fiction because they want to read about social issues. People love it when they learn something or can identify with something in a book, but no one picks up a book and buys it because it deals with social issues, and no back cover describes the social issues in a book.

In other words, this paragraph adds nothing to your query. Just delete it.


I’ve been a writer all my life, but never tried to publish. This story has been rattling around in my head for fifteen years; Karen became very real to me and I decided I wanted to share her adventures. I am a former senior vice president with a Wall Street firm; a long time small business owner; women’s health activist and fund raiser for breast cancer research; and a blogger on economic issues and writing.

Delete the first two sentences. All too often I hear from people who have been "writers all their lives." It just makes me wonder what took you so long. I also don't care that the book has been rattling around in your head. It concerns me, actually, that maybe you're too entrenched in it. I think the last sentence about your experience, maybe less the semicolons, is fine.


The first book, The Energy Collector is 95,000 words; the second is 65,000 words; and I have an outline and about 30,000 words completed of a third book. I have written each of them to stand on their own merits.

I'm only worried about the book you're pitching, which, by the way, has a great title. How come I couldn't see how that title played into the book?


I am not a serial submitter, but I have queried several other agents who haven’t responded. Maybe I’m not patient enough.

I don't like this at all. It's fine to see that you're querying other agents, but I don't like the fact that you're basically criticizing yourself.


Thank you for your consideration,

One thing you did do here that I didn't include was add your phone number and town under your name. I liked that. It's great to include that contact option.

Overall this query is way too long, and not because it's long in length, but because you ramble about various pieces of the book, but haven't really told me anything about the story. I worry that your book does the same thing. Most important, though, I don't see that this book is special enough or different enough from anything else.


Jessica

Marketing Tip: bitly - A great tool for tracking interest

I'm really rushed today, but I wanted to get a quick post out. In my re-worked portion of the site is a "Resources Tab". I'll be going over each of these resources in the future but for today I want to discuss one that I can do quickly.....bitly.

This site does two things:

• Takes a long URL and makes it shorter
• Tracks clicks to that shortened URL

I suggest that every time you make a link and in particular:

• When tweeting
• As a signature in a blog comment
• As a signature in a forum

That you first make it a bitly link.

It's very simple to use, and like most great things on the Internet is 100% free. Basically you paste your long URL in a box - and it returns you a short URL. As people click on the link, bitly records this information. By watching bitly hits you can see who is interested in what topics.

As I mentioned, I'm rushed today so I'll post on the kinds of results you get from using bitly in a future post. But for now, do the following:

1. Sign up for bitly.
2. Take the URL for this post and make a bitly out of it.
3. Tweet about this post and include the bitly link.

I'll report back in a few days what the results were.

Author Speed Date

The idea of speed dating is that you get 10 minutes to sit down with a prospective date and get to know them. In that spirit, we present Author Speed Date. A quick 10 minutes for you to get to know some of our clients. Today we'd like you to meet Sally MacKenzie.

BookEnds Author Speed Date

Name (the one you’re published under): Sally MacKenzie

Speed date Bio: Sally is the USA Today bestselling author of the funny, hot, Regency-set Naked Nobility series for Kensington Zebra. She’s a graduate of the University of Notre Dame (first class of women), Cornell Law School dropout (no JD, but an MRS ;)), former federal regulation writer (Ketchup as a vegetable anyone?), recovering parent volunteer (four sons!), and current Masters swimmer (middle of the pool—more a turtle than a hare).

Web Link: www.SallyMacKenzie.net and her somewhat sporadic blog, http://sallymackenzie.blogspot.com/

Next book, pub date: The Naked King, June 7, 2011

Agent: Jessica Faust

About Me

Real Name or Pseudonym: Sally MacKenzie

Currently Reading: Tiger Eye by Marjorie M. Liu and The Age of Wonder by Richard Holmes

Next on Your Reading List: My TBR pile is mountainous but probably My One and Only by Kristan Higgins and The Complete Servant by Samuel & Sarah Adams

Facebook: www.facebook.com/pages/Sally-MacKenzie/144131384814
Twitter: @Sally_MacKenzie

Three authors living or dead you would want to have dinner with: Jane Austen, Georgette Heyer, and Christopher Hibbert, who was the coeditor of The London Encyclopaedia and the author of many other books, including a biography of King George IV

Jet-setter or armchair traveler: Armchair traveler—have you ever tried to travel with four little boys? However, now that they’re grown, we’re getting out a bit more.

Glass ½ full or ½ empty: Sort of depends what’s in the glass.

Tea or Coffee: Two cups of Maxwell House International Suisse Mocha—one in the morning and one after lunch—and gallons of decaf tea, usually Bigelow’s Spiced Chai with milk. (Yes, I am a creature of habit.)

Live to write or Write to live: Write to live. I find writing lets me explore feelings and relationships and think about things in a way I don’t when I’m not writing. It helps focus me . . . when things are going well. But if we’re talking about making a living, let me just say I’m very glad no one’s next meal depends on my writing income.

About My Writing

When (time of day) I write: Daily, but the time of day varies depending on what else is on my schedule. Exercise is a priority, so on days I go to the gym, I start writing later in the morning. Days I swim at night, I try to write first thing. I’m happiest when I get some solid work done in the morning, but, sadly, some days I write morning, afternoon, and night to get three “good” hours in or five pages, my daily goal.

Writing soundtrack: While in theory I like the idea of writing to music—seems like music might act like Pavlov’s bell on dogs and get me down to work immediately—I actually write in silence.

Character Inspirations: With the Naked series, many of my characters are friends or siblings of characters in earlier books, so I get inspiration for them from musing about their families, occupations or avocations, and life experiences. And I suspect there’s a little bit of me in all of them, even the villains.

Plot Inspirations: My characters lead me where they want to go.

Setting Inspirations: Since I write Regencies—and even as a reader, I wasn’t a fan of exotic Regency settings—I stick pretty much to London (1816-1821) or the English countryside and great houses. Until last September, I hadn’t been to England since I backpacked through with my best friend the summer after our senior year of high school, which was, ahem, a few years ago. So I rely heavily on the Internet and a stack of reference books.

Plotter (carefully plot books) or Pantser (write from the seat of my pants): To my surprise, I’m pretty much a pantser.

Stark Raving Fans

I’m a stark raving fan of Spokes Bike Shop in Vienna, VA. If you ever in the need for anything biking related and are even within 20 miles of Vienna – stop by this shop. After just one visit you’ll know why I feel this way. Why am I blogging about this? Because I want each of you to think about what you can do to make those who read your books stark raving fans. That is after all, the only way a book succeeds…it’s called word of mouth and it is the only true path to success.

I want to share my most recent experience at Spokes. On Friday afternoon, Michael and I were traveling by bike to Washington D.C. to the Sculpture Garden of the American History of Art. Each Friday, they have Jazz concerts there and you set under the trees near a fountain, listening to music and munching on whatever snacks you bring and have some drinks (They have great Sangria there). On my way I was hit by a car. All in all it could have been much worse. It’s only Monday and I’m already “mostly recovered” – I think I bruised a rib which has been the biggest discomfort, but most of it was just a lot of bruising and scrapes and road burn etc.

While I was in pretty good shape, the same could not be said about my bike. The front wheel no longer resembled anything circular or in a single plane, the chain derailer rubbed against the gears. The brakes were at a 45 degree angle, the handle bars were pointed in the wrong direction and the back tire was out of alignment. I was mentally calculating the costs, but more disappointed about the potential “downtime” as I figured t would take a week or two to bring the bike back to the living.

We hopped on the Metro, and Michael rode home to bring the car and we carried the bike to Vienna. I walked back to the service area where three technicians were working on other bikes and just watching them I could see the degree of skill in how they practiced their craft. When I showed up, battered as I was they were immediately interested in how I was doing. I asked if they rented bikes, so I could have a loaner while they worked on mine and while they did not, one of them immediately took the mangled wheel I was holding and went to work removing the tube/tire and putting it on a replacement. When Michael showed up a few minutes later, another technician put it up and started examining the other damage.

I had a phone call with an author scheduled for 4:00 so I went outside to discuss that with them and in short order Michael came out of the store with my fully restored bike. I steadied myself as I asked the question I dreaded…well how much? Michael laughed…he told me the new wheel rim was $44 and as for the labor…they gave him a long list of things they did and then told him it was on the house. I had bought the bike from the store only a few months earlier and they felt bad that I had gotten hurt.

The moral of this story is I’ll be a customer with them for life and what’s even more important…I felt this way even before this incident. I felt this way because every interaction I had with them was one of professionalism (employing the highest skill in their work) , a true interest in what they did (they are bike enthusiasts), a genuine concern for me (helping me pick a bike based on my biking habits). I’ve never found ANYONE there that is just “going through the motions”.

I’ll write a bit in the future about techniques I’ve used to help make stark raving fans. But I wanted to get this out today so you all could share some of your insights and experiences that I could incorporate into the next post on the subject. And as I said…if you’re near Vienna VA and need anything bike related – please be sure and stop by. You’ll be glad you did.