What Do You Bring To the Table?

Independent presses have a lot to offer today's aspiring authors. The slush pile is smaller and the chance for an unknown, untried author to get a contract is greater. Unlike large publishing houses, there's still very personal interaction between editors and writers. Unlike self-pubbed books, the publishing house takes care of cover art, lay-out, printing and distribution. Authors are nurtured and a bond builds between the author and publisher.

What most authors fail to realize is that they are expected to don the hat of promoter once the ink has dried on the paper. The job's not finished when THE END is typed on the last page of the novel. In fact, the hard work has just begun.

Anyone aspiring to a career in publishing cannot be blind to all the posts and forums talking about book marketing. It's the #1 topic discussed today. Yet, when the long-awaited novel is finally on the shelf, there it sits. Why? Because authors are unprepared or unwilling to dirty their hands in selling the book to the public. Isn't that someone else's responsibility?

Depending upon the contract, the average amount a publishing house gets is less than $2 profit per book sold. It takes the sale of approximately 200 books before a small outfit sees any profit on a title. That covers production cost, plus Amazon gets their cut and the author gets royalties. Industry stats say the average book will sell about 500 copies. Nobody is out to get rich, but in order to keep producing more books, money has to come from somewhere.

Independent houses exist only when authors and publishers work side by side to do book promotion. I would be more inclined to recommend to my publisher a well-written book backed by an enthusiastic marketer over a great novel written by a prima donna who has no interest or intention to sell.

Holidays and Heresies

As I discard the last of the Halloween candy (I thought of donating it, but who needs donated candy?), I found myself thinking about holidays and ancient heresies.  Though we live in a modern world, we keep old pagan notions closer at hand that most of us are aware of.  

Halloween was not always Halloween.  The Christian holiday of All Hallows Eve began as the Celtic festival of Samhain.  Throughout Ireland and Scotland, bonfires were lit to mark the moment when the membrane between the world of the living and the world of the dead was at its thinnest, and the souls of all those who died during the year could pass through.  

When the coming of Christianity, the good Celts were not keen to give up their traditions, so the holiday was reassigned, made a Christian holiday.  But it’s still Samhain deep down.

The Spring festivals honoring the fertility goddess Eostre were similarly re-imagined. The Saxons would invoke Eostre using the egg as a symbol of birth and renewal.  Often depicted with a rabbit at her side, Eostre moved into Britannia with the Anglo-Saxon invasion, finding a fertile new home.  

But converting pagans is never light work, and the cults of Eostre were not going to give up their long-held traditions and beliefs.  The Christians had little choice but to allow the worship to continue, so they created Easter, modifying the name only slightly, and reassigning it a Christian meaning.

Perhaps the toughest pagan holiday to dislodge was Saturnalia, the wine-fueled orgiastic festival that gave praise to Saturn, the Roman god of agriculture.  The Christians were just going to have to find something else to do with December 25.

Not to be forgotten, Saturn still lives on in our western concept of time - we honor him at the end of each week with his own day - Saturday.  

Lest the gods of the Vikings feel left out, the most powerful among them, Odin, gets his due every Odin’sday or Wednesday as we pronounce it.  Odin’s wife, the goddess Frigg, gets her due on Friggjardar, or Friday.

So as the grocery stores stuff away their Halloween wares, briefly replacing them with Thanksgiving themes, before the arrival of Santa Claus (a pagan Icelandic figure who rode an eight-legged horse named Sleipnir, for whom children left food by the chimney), I’ll be thinking of what to get my wife for Christmas.  

I still have time.  Besides, it’s only Thursday (Thors-day, named for the Norse god of thunder, the mighty Thor.)

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Just do it

“Just do it” has been Nike’s slogan since 1988.  I never understood the meaning of it until a few years ago.  You see, like so many others, I had been waiting for the perfect time to accomplish my lifelong dream of sharing the stories that floated around my head with the world.

I often hear people say, “When I retire, I will travel the world… I will write a memoir, I will publish that story.  When I get enough money I will…. (Fill in the blank).  But what if you never live to retirement?  Or what if you are in poor health at the time or just too poor because your nest egg got eroded?

For years I was one of those people.  From a child, my dream was to be a writer and share my stories with the world.  But I knew there was no financial security in writing or guarantees of any kind.  So for many years I followed a more secure path and concentrated on securing an education.  I would write and publish after I finished college… after I finished graduate school… after I got my career up and running….

But nine years ago, before I completed graduate school complications during childbirth almost robbed me of that opportunity.  Preeclampsia had me hospitalized with blood pressure so high I was almost blind.  After delivering prematurely (the only cure for preeclampsia), a spinal headache that went undiagnosed for days put me on the brink.

When I recovered, I looked back at how close I’d come to losing my life.  I realized had I died in childbirth, not only would I not have enjoyed the wonders of motherhood, by my stories would have died with me.  I made the decision to share my stories with the world.  My new motto:  Nike’s slogan, “Just do it.”

While on maternity leave I wrote my first full length novel and tried to publish it.  After many, many, many, many rejections from publishers, I stopped pushing that book and wrote another. Finally, six years after my new motto, I was able to accomplish the dream of sharing my stories with the world.  My book was published.

I know many aspiring authors are sitting on the fence doing the same thing that I did: they are waiting for the right time.  Or they are waiting for the right inspiration.  Guess what?  That time, that inspiration may never come.  “Carpe Diem”, “There’s no time like the present”, “procrastination is the thief of time” “tomorrow may never come” are just a few clichés I can think of to throw at you.  Instead, I’ll just go with Nike’s slogan.  Stop waiting for the perfect time, “Just do it.”

What the muse wants...

I began work on a new manuscript a couple months ago.  I've plotted it out, written my outline, done my character sketches, assembled pictures for my picture board, even ordered the cover.  And now I'm almost at 10,000 wds but, in the last week or two, work has stalled.  My output is nowhere near the 1,000 wds. per day I usually aim for.  What, you wonder, is the problem?

Simple.  Earlier this year I started turning over an idea for a new story, a mystery that deals with some of the issues of human smuggling and drug trafficking with which the Caribbean struggles.  I collected articles, roved through countless reports put out by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, and suchlike but I couldn't figure out the angle I wanted to take, who my characters would be or how the plot would unfold so I turned to the other story, a women's fiction.

Then, for some reason, the crime story began to come together a couple weeks ago.  In my free time I rifle through the articles I downloaded and watch YouTube clips of U.S. Customs intercepting traffickers.  Slowly, slowly, the story has taken form.  And, in the last few days, I've taken to waking up with it on my mind.  I know the names of the characters.  I know what they want.  I can see them. 

My instincts say I must drop the women's fiction, for now, at least, and work on the mystery instead.  It's the one my muse clearly wants written and if I don't get it down now, maybe it will all go wrong and when I finally turn to it, my muse will have weakened, maybe died altogether and the story will be a husk.  So far, I've resisted.  I power up the computer and begin working on the other story because it's the one I've already started and I must be disciplined.  But writing isn't like that, is it?  What the muse wants, the muse gets.  I think I'm going to have to try working on two manuscripts simultaneously.  This will be new to me but we'll see how it goes.  Any tips, anyone?

Remembering Dee!

One month ago today, 10/5/12, our dear fellow author, Dee Stewart, a.k.a. Miranda Parker, passed away. Today, her family, friends, readers and author buddies are remembering her by going Red and changing our FB profile pics in honor of her life and her commitment to the American Heart Association. We are posting the association logo, the Go Red image, pictures of us wearing red, or any photo that each feels best reflects their best way to remind all of us to not forget Dee's struggle with heart disease, and also with lupus, and her beautiful spirit that touched so many lives, and the life of her young daughter. So today, my post on NovelSpaces is also in honor of Dee! R.I.P. gorgeous soul - heaven sent you and heaven called you home to God's comforting arms, no more pain!

No sacrifices to volcanoes involved

The other day I went to Port City Java to write. Yes, I do have a home office, with bookshelves covering one wall and a comfortable chair. But sometimes I go to Port City Java to write. On days when I think there's a real danger I'll take a nap, for example. Or days when sitting alone in an empty house typing gets on my nerves.

The PCJ on Racine has several small tables, a couple of sitting areas separated by a big sheet of glass with water running down it I think is supposed to be a fountain, and one long, narrow table that seats twelve for study groups from nearby UNCW (or any other groups for that matter). One end of this table butts up against the wall, and my spot for writing is the last seat, right against the wall, facing toward the windows (which I can't really see because of that sheet-of-glass-with-water thing). I don't really want to look out the windows, I face them to keep the glare off my screen. If someone else is in 'my' spot, I'll take up station on the same side of the long table but two seats over.
Before I get my coffee I set up my camp. Power cord in outlet; backup flash drive plugged into USB slot; big honking studio can headphones jacked in; wireless mouse turned on; notes, reference materials, pad with pen laid out; baseball cap on keyboard.
Then I get my coffee. Twelve ounces of the lightest brew they have in a house ceramic mug with two packs of raw sugar.
Back in my chair I fire up the laptop; confirm I turned the mouse on (I hate the touch pad); put on my cap with the brim pulled low so all I can see are my screen and keyboard; settle my really too large but they were a gift from my son headphones over my ears; launch Pandora; and consider what I'm going to write.

I can write without the mouse. I can write without the headphones, though with my ADD it's hard to filter out conversations around me. I can write without the baseball cap, though it's even harder to ignore the world when I can see it. I can certainly write without the coffee, which usually goes cold at my elbow. I can even write when I've forgotten my reference materials, using AAAAA and BBBBB as placeholders for names or factoids I'm not sure of. Without the power cord I can write for two hours and fifteen minutes. Heck, I can even write without the computer – wrote with pen and paper for years before I could afford one (all the baristas are students, I can always borrow a pen and paper). And I know I look like a fussy old man puttering around getting everything just so before I sit down. So why do it?

Because all that nerdy flutter is my tea ceremony, my centering ritual to focus my mind and settle myself so that I can write. The word ritual can conjure images of chanting monks, or priestesses carving the air with silver knives, or cups of blood, or ancient figures muttering over smoldering herbs and bubbling cauldrons. (No, wait; that last one's me cooking.) But the truth is many of us have little rituals; things we do as part of dealing with the world around us or the world inside our heads. Most of us never notice our rituals; but we do feel 'off' or annoyed when they're missing.
I write 20-30% more words per hour at Port City Java when I've performed the camping ritual. Annoying as I may be to everyone else in the coffee shop, I'm not going to stop anytime soon.

What about you? Do you have any rituals – any patterns of behavior you find yourself repeating before settling down to work?

Inspiration

 

Two days ago my thirteen year old niece told me she was writing a book. She asked me to take a look at it, and of course I agreed. She’s writing it on one of those websites geared toward young writers like her. Miss Literati is a fun place for teens who love to read and want to write. So I went to read her story. I somehow skipped her profile, but today I read it and she mentioned me as one of her inspirations. I was touched, and so proud of her. She’s written five chapters of her vampire teenager story. Ahem, Stephanie Meyer is actually her biggest inspiration. I know this because a few weeks ago she held her breath after asking me, “Have you met Stephanie Meyer?” Sadly of course I to tell her that I hadn’t. She accepted the disappointment that I couldn’t provide an intro with grace.

I like to think I played a small part in her wonderful creativity and inspiration first; even though Stephanie Meyer has eclipsed Aunt Lynn. I bought her a beautiful poetry book when she was three. By age four her parents thought she could read. You see  they read it to her at bedtime every night for months (she insisted because she loved it so). Then she began reading along, or so they thought. Actually she had memorized the poems, all of them. As they turned each page she recognize the pictures and recited the appropriate poem. I called her Baby Einstein from then on. Now she wants to be a writer, lawyer and chef (she cooks very well). My books have adult content, so Jasmine is still too young to read any of them. Yet she told me at age eight, “I hope to follow in your footsteps”.

Reading and books changes lives. What we do as authors matters more than we know. So if you have the chance to talk to kids about books and writing, take it. You may plant seeds that give them big dreams. If you give to charities, choose a literacy program for adults and one that puts books into the hands of kids. I’ll bet each of us can cite at least one instance in which someone said, “You inspired me!” If you haven’t, don’t assume you haven’t because sometimes we plant seeds but never see the mighty oaks that result.

Here is one wonderful effort to put books in the hands of African children: Worldreader

Lynn
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