How Do I Keep Going?: Publishing

            So my last post was sort of meant to tap into the creative side of us that we sometimes think is nonexistent. Well, what happens when you have an idea you're willing to finish and publish? That's a fairly large goal to tackle.

Quite honestly, I think publishing is so daunting, because most of us have no idea what that truly entails—what’s the best way to go about it? How long does it take? Is it worth it? What do I have to do to actually get published in the first place? I don’t think many of us have an easy time answering these questions, because not only does publishing morph and change so much, but no one really tells us anything definite or helpful. Go ahead and Google all there is to know about publishing, and you’ll find a lot of blogs like mine that share what works for them. Go to a bookstore—they’ve got shelves of advice on writing and publishing that any dummy should understand.

As an English major, I thought I would learn this sort of stuff in my classes, but it was always fairly vague and condensed. I actually learned a lot about publishing as an Editing minor. Makes sense—I want to work in the business that you are trying to impress. Lucky for me, getting a scope of both sides of the process not only helps me to be a better editor, but it helps me to be a better writer.

So don’t feel daunted about the process until you actually know how it functions. Knowing the process on a rough-sketch basis will help you set deadlines for when you want to finally finish your project and feel super-mega accomplished and pleased with yourself.  

The Acquisition Process

I can give you the basics of this process because that’s what I’ve learned the most as an intern. Acquisitions is the part of the publishing process where a manuscript is found, evaluated, and accepted or rejected.

            Generally, you have to impress an acquisitions editor. This person is the head of a team of editors, so it’s not just some intern like me—they know their particular genre and what sells. They generally get lots of submissions and they go through them and decide which ones they like and then they contact those authors to set up a contract. Bet you already knew that, right?

            Well, there are a few things that can tip the scale on what an acquisitions editor will like and not like. Generally, when I’ve done this as an intern, I had a sheet of paper where I basically judge the manuscripts based on how marketable the idea is (is it trending well right now? Is it fresh and interesting?) and how well they can write. If these two things are going for you, chances are someone will pick up your idea and give you a call. If your idea is too boring, already done (and failed), or not marketable, generally it’s a no. If your writing still needs polishing, chances are that isn’t the direct turn-off because editors will still work with it, but if it’s just horrendous or not quite good enough for them, they might suggest that you resubmit after some careful editing and reworking.

            If your manuscript is rejected, I sincerely hope they tell you why. Generally that’s what I am asked to do when I draft a rejection letter. And I should mention that as an intern, my work is still evaluated by my supervisor, so your work isn’t in the hands of a complete moron, okay. But I know I wouldn’t like to wait three months just to get a “no,” so I at least try to give a clear reason why it was rejected, and addition suggestions to improve the manuscript. You can take these suggestions or comments for what it’s worth.

            I mentioned that it takes months to hear back from a publishing house. Why does it take so long? Well, honestly, most places might give you a guess-stimation as to how long the process is. In the meantime, the slush pile is huge and it takes a while to actually get to your manuscript. Also, once the editor gets to your manuscript and likes it, that isn’t enough. Generally they pick out promising manuscripts and go through them first. He or she normally presents it to the rest of the team, and ultimately to the publisher. The editor might really like your manuscript and the publisher might be the one that turns it down.

            So that’s a lot of what goes on while you’re patiently, or not-so-patiently waiting for your letter. All I can say is editors work like crazy and try their hardest to get everything done as soon as possible. The acquisitions editor is either looking for new manuscripts to sign on or they’re overseeing the projects that have already been accepted—that’s a buttload of reading!

            So how does this information actually help you get published? Once you know a bit about what editors do, you can start to discover what it is they look for in a manuscript and you’ll know how to deliver your manuscript in the most positive light. 

Make Yourself Look Good

            How do you stand out amongst thousands of manuscripts? Here are some major tips that will only help you out. Trust me. Even as an intern, I can already tell what’s a diamond in the rough and what’s just a whole lotta rough.

Social Media Woohoo! Finally a valid excuse to be on Pinterest for hours! Seriously, Leute, use social media to push your project forward. Use a blog, Pinterest, Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and anything else you can think of to find followers. There’s a difference though—these profiles are not personal ones, per say—they are your “author” profiles. Use them to introduce yourself to the world that you are an author with lots of ideas.

When you can show a publishing company that you have 4,000 followers, to them, that translates to 4,000 people buying your book. They can see that you are serious enough about your work that you’re already trying to do your own marketing. Authors don’t realize that they have to play a pivotal part of marketing no matter if they publish with a publishing house or self-publish. It’s just the nature of the beast.

Start putting yourself out there on the internet now, even if you only have sparks of ideas for a book. You need all the time you can get to build up your online presence. I’m not full of advice on how to use social media—just use it. There’s also lots of books and blog posts out there already on how to use the internet to propel your business or projects.

Know What the Market is Craving Briefly, yes, the publishing company isn’t all about fulfilling your dreams to be a published author—they want to sell books that people will buy and read. Go to their websites and they will tell you what kinds of manuscripts they are looking for. I’m not saying you have to write on another topic that doesn’t interest you, but at least look at the list of what they are not interested in selling. You don’t want to be surprised when they say, “There isn’t a place in the market for your manuscript at this time.” Look at what’s popular in your genre, what seems to sell, then when you pitch it in your cover letter, show how your book will fit into this popular vein of writing—but also how yours is still unique from the other top sellers. Showing at least a hint of understanding about the market and your genre will help you project your ideas better, and prove to the publisher that your manuscript has a place on the shelf.

Beef Up the Manuscript What do you say to people when they say, “So what’s your book about?” Most of the time, I think to myself in response, “Where do I begin to explain my genius?” Am I right? Well, you do have to give a brief synopsis of your book in a cover letter (the internet has tons of tutorials on how to craft a cover letter), but generally, you should let your manuscript do the talking, not solely the cover letter. I get some pretty snotty cover letters where the authors makes it sound like they just mailed in God’s gift to editors when it’s really not. So this means: when you submit a manuscript, submit as much as you can, or the whole thing so the editor can have a better sense of your book and who you are as an author.

Sometimes people only send in the cover letter and a table of contents. They do this so they don’t have to send in hundreds of pages for someone to read and reject. In the digital age, this isn’t a problem anymore. But when you send in only a cover letter, it puts the editor in a tough situation, because they don’t have a clear idea of how the writing is. A lot of submissions that are just letters have a higher risk of getting rejected. When I have the full manuscript, I can see the author’s storyline or thesis laid out and I know how they really intend on unfolding their ideas.

For first-time authors, make yourself look good by submitting as much as you can—plus give an idea of how long the final product should be and when you expect to be done. If you already have a finished product, the editors can get right to work on refining your work and getting it to press. If they have to wait for you to finish by setting extra deadlines for you, it could bring a lot of stress and anxiety for you especially. But I mention all of this, so you get a better idea of what each option for you could mean so there’s no surprises.

Spruce, Cut, Refine, Polish Editors rarely find a manuscript that in its first form is lush with fabulous writing. When they find one of such caliber, it catches their eye and their hope in humanity is restored. Granted, they take on manuscripts, knowing that they will hardly ever run across anything that is completely prepared for press. That’s why they have a job—to make your manuscript the best it can be. Well, why not make your manuscript stand out by sending in a polished, edited copy? Well of course you would do such a thing! An author of your stature would laugh at the idea of sending in a first draft. What I’m talking about is consider having someone else edit it for you before sending it to the publishing company.

Likely candidates could be college students that are working towards an editing minor. They are trained to be like the editors you are trying to impress. And generally, if they’re college students or barely graduating, they will either help without pay (to build up clientele or their portfolio), or very modest rates.

You can also hire a literary agent. This is also a super great idea if you want a very wide audience. Generally, because they will not only edit your work, but they will help you with the marketing/promoting. They are licensed advocates for your work. If they send in your manuscript to a company, the editors will definitely put your work further ahead in the slush pile, because someone else is putting their reputation on the line for your manuscript. That speaks volumes. You can learn more about literary agents and how to find one with a simple Google search. You do have to pay them for their services, but it’ll be worth it if your manuscript gets published with tons of readers.

I am one of those Editing minors and I will be graduating in April, so I’ve had a lot of experience with editing and this whole process. I’m not really trying to use this whole post to stroke my ego, but if you are looking for editing help, I am available and willing to help wherever I can with your projects. You can comment below and we can get started.

Feel better? Take a deep breath. You were meant to be a writer, and now you at least have some tools to make that a reality. Reply back to this post with questions and comments!

Where Do I Even Start?

I have a feeling that around this January or even February time, it's this time where everyone wants to start something. You know what I'm talking about--it's time to start that workout regiment, or learn how to be certified in a skill, or for most of us--we want to finally write that book.

I'm totally with you there--writing a complete book has been on my Resolutions lists since I started the habit of making these lists. It's probably why I'm not totally sold on making a list like that since I obviously don't take them seriously enough.

Well, I don't think I can help you on the wanting-to-start-a-workout-habit (but I'm all ears if you know of anything that works!) but I think you and I can work together to get our rears in gear to get some books out there.

So what if you want to write a book, but don't even have an idea? Coming up with an idea is super easy, and can be fairly inspiring and exciting if you're passionate about the subject, but sticking with it to "The End" is what get most writers in a bind.

I actually had a friend of mine ask me, "Where do you get your inspiration from? How do you find creative ideas to write about?" That's a fairly good question, and I didn't even realize that I had an answer, because I always feel void of creativity.

I told him that the best way to be a writer is to be a d*** good reader. The swear is just for flair, but you get my point. Avid readers make the best writers, because if you know what you like to read, or what the public likes to read, then chances are you know what to deliver. You know you'll be working on a project that can go somewhere.

That's for any kind of genre, not just fiction or fantasy. You don't have to sell fiction or fantasy to make it in the market. For example, I work as an intern for Cedar Fort and I work with nonfiction. I thought I wouldn't particularly enjoy the things that I'm reading, but I changed my ways. I believe everyone has a marketable skill. To me, that means that you know something that I don't, and chances are, you could write about this skill or experience that you had that will be interesting to other people. We all have a bucket list of hobbies to tag onto our daily lives or things we want to try. You might be that person that can act as a Segway between the kernel of knowledge and the audience.

So maybe the best kick-start advice I can give is believe that there's a book in you that needs to be written and read. Some don't ever come into being because the creator doesn't believe in it enough.

But back to the reader thing: avid readers ask questions. You don't have to be an English major to  know what a crappy ending looks like. Any kind of reader can appreciate a well-rounded character that doesn't fit in a stereotype box or does really cool things. As a reader, there are certain things that irk me, and most of them have to do with clichés. So when I sit in front of my laptop and I want to write something, I generally find myself writing characters or plots that reflect what I've learned from other writers. I explore the possibilities of creating a fictional character that could be mistaken for real life. Isn't writing sort of a way to study life in general? I take what I like and what I don't like and it affects my writing style so my book stands out from the other books.


For example, I'm not a fan of a main character that seems to "have it all." You know, the character that seems to outshine everyone and the other characters are just "side kicks," right? So for my books, I try to make my main character more "human"--because I believe that we're all the heroes of our own stories, but we learn things from other people and that's what makes us who we are.

If you still feel like you don't have a decent starting point, or you're just not "creative" enough, pick up any writing prompt book and just start writing everyday. I know, that's a lot of hoopla coming from me (didn't you enjoy my suffering and pity posts during NaNoWriMo?) but I did that for a Creative Writing class, and I found things that I found interesting enough to write about. You could write for thirty minutes answering a question or exploring something, and it could blossom into a full-length story. Prompts help you explore what you think about certain things about people, life, or yourself.

This could be getting fairly long, but in the next post, I'll share what I know about acquisitions, or that tricky step of getting people to actually sell your stuff. Again, this is a learning process for me, too, so I'm no expert, but if I can pass along what I learn to help others, by all means, hear me out.

A blog post I'd like to write:

 

A bad habit I'm going to break: stop being anal about things I can't change

A new skill I'd like to learn: alter clothing

A person I hope to be more like: Christ

A good deed I'm going to do: when I think of something nice about someone, I'm going to say that thing to them--immediately!

A place I'd like to visit: Oregon

A book I'd like to read: the entire Sherlock Holmes collection

A letter I'm going to write: query letters to publishers!

A new food I'd like to try: anything Indian or spicy

I'm going to do better at: keeping my goals



I know this image says 2013, but what will you do in 2014 to make it a real spectacular year?

Editing: Your New Best Friend

Hello all!

Sorry I haven't had much to say since last post, but I had to take care of some finals midway through the month, and I also prescribed myself some serious relaxation time with the family. Gotta love Christmas and the holiday season in general!!

So in light of all the essays I had to write (one of them was twenty pages, holy heck) and the after-Nano November writing I've fleshed out, I stumbled on some advice for every writer's problem: How do you properly edit your own writing?

I know you've all thought about this, especially those of you writing essays and get them back with lots of grammatical issues circled that you should've caught. I know I certainly have, because when I am ready to start sending out my work to other publishing companies, I don't want them to think I submitted a retarded first draft!

I stumbled upon a LinkedIn group chat about the subject, and one girl in particular offered some great advice.

1. For one thing, try to at least ask someone else to read it over. Having someone else willingly and intelligently read your work is priceless! Ask them to look for specific problems other critics have noticed in your work. Are you a comma splice queen like me? Do you confuse tenses of your verbs? Are you worried about the flow of the piece overall? If they're really nice or efficient, they will definitely bring up enough issues for you to tackle. The more, the better, right? TAKE THEIR ADVICE. Especially if you hire a professional. They know the rules enough that your work will look and sound professional. 

2. When you're writing, leave it alone for the day and then go to edit it. If you finished a chapter, look at it a day later and you will be able to find inconsistencies that you wouldn't have found earlier. Maybe the pace is off, or the dialog needs to go in another direction. Maybe there's a better way to make your point in an essay. Make the changes, or leave notes for yourself in track changes for bigger issues that you want to get to later (HALLELUJAH AMEN THANK YOU to whoever invented track changes in MS Word).

3. When editing, don't try to polish everything at once. That means, read through your work look JUST for grammatical issues, sentence-by-sentence and ignore everything else. Then go through for spelling. THEN, read through paragraph-by-paragraph to ensure that everything is flowing well. Sometimes we tend to ramble and we want to check that what's there on the page is necessary, especially for essays! At this point, you might want to move paragraphs around and double-check topic sentences of each paragraph to ensure they match the rest of the paragraph. If you are writing a novel, make sure that loose-ends are tied!

4. If you're editing your own writing, read backwards. You heard me. You've probably read it over five times and you think you can't find anything else that could possibly be considered a mistake. Take a complete section of your writing, like a chapter or sub-topic and start from the last sentence. Read just that sentence and look for all those grammatical issues you know you have trouble with. One it's improved, move to the second-to-last sentence and repeat until you're done with the section. You're not looking for the big idea here, just issues on a sentence level. Your writing will look different this way and you won't be able to gloss over things.

Anyway, hopefully these points help. You probably won't catch every tiny little thing, but if you're serious about good, quality writing, you'll produce the best writing you possibly can. Consider these points depending on your project and their deadlines.

Good luck with your 2014 projects! It's a new year to reach those writing goals! 

Recovery

word count: 50,285
page count: 85

Oh my gosh, that's a true statement all right! Yup, I managed to succeed in this year's NaNoWriMo challenge. I apologize for those of you who were wondering where the heck I disappeared off to once November drew to a close. As some of you know, it's already a bit stressful trying to write a novel's first draft during the busiest month of the college semester. Sooo, once November ended, I picked up the pace to keep up with my studies.

But here's the story:

Over the entire month of November, I ended each day questioning myself, "Why are you doing this, anyway? The book won't be done, anyway, plus you have so many other things that deserve your attention. What's the point?" I'm glad I didn't give in, even though there were days where the words didn't come and I wasn't focused on the plot or characters at all. But on the last day of November, I found myself sliding across the finishing line! For those reasonably skeptical folks out there, you're probably like, "So how do they even know that you wrote all those words anyway?" Well, they have a word counter thing and to validate your manuscript, you copy & paste your work and their word count is apparently different from the word count used in Microsoft Word, because they thought I was 100 words or so behind! That didn't stop me, so on the last day, I wrote almost 300 extra words so that I could satisfy the word count. And it felt great! My brainchild and I survived!

 So what's next you ask? Well, even though I won the challenge, I probably won't use any of the "winnings"—that being all the various resources where I can self-publish my novel in e-book format. I don't want to give out a first draft of ANYTHING I write, and the novel itself still isn't done, believe it or not. I have this great relationship between two characters that spans over a few years and I want to make it seem real rather than a "So we just met, wanna get together?" type of thing.

 It's not the end of the world; I won in many ways, because I have a new novel which I didn't have a month ago, and I pretty much proved to myself that any excuses I make up about not having enough time to read or write for pleasure are just bogus. So I hope to be able to still right every day—maybe not the same intensity—but I'll get somewhere with this project and my other project that has taken me years to get about 300 pages fleshed out.

 If anything, take my advice when I say: if you have a goal or a hobby, if it's that important to you, than it deserves your time and efforts. I always think "Oh, I'll have time to write over the summer or during the holidays" but I don't get as much done as I hoped I would and I always think that I'm too busy or stressed to write during school. Everyone has their own way of prioritizing their lives and how they use their precious time, but if you have a goal, it's important enough. That means not always listening to others who think that you should spend more time with studies or work or something. It's not like I didn't go to classes or finish my school work for the sake of this novel—ugh, my parents would kill me—but I made sure I had two solid hours each day to write and I found ways to get everything done. It just happens; you get smarter about your planning and prioritizing and everything falls into place.

 So if you're a writer and time doesn't seem to be on your side—try to make it work, anyway. You really get better at it every day, and taking time to think about your project and what you want to say is really beneficial.

 So write on, people, write on.

Plot Twist

Word Count: 40,266
Page Count: 73

You probably never saw this coming, but today I managed to write 2,200 words. It's great news for me, because this entire month I have been perpetually behind by 1,500 words and lately it has whittled down to just about nothing. My fiancé just told me to bulldoze through the 300 words that I needed to catch up today, but my brain was acting all lethargic and constipated. By that point, I wasn't even half-way through the words I needed to write for today.

Well, it just goes to show--this NaNoWriMo project is possible to achieve when you're lost in a scene that just writes itself; I don't have to be extra wordy just to make the count, it just comes.

I hope that happens for you, fellow writers! If you're stuck somewhere in a narrative, but that on hold--what scene are you really wanting to write? Is it the climax? Is it meeting a new character? Is it the ending? If it's about to explode if you don't do something with it, forget working chronologically and get your words out so they can finally have some life.

Only a week left! Here comes 10,000 ish more words!

introducing you to the madness

Word Count: 30,586

Page Count: 56

Would you like to know what I’m actually writing about? I suppose I can wonder the same thing! Today is day twenty of the NaNoWriMo challenge, and I thought today’s better than never to tell you about the story that’s been on my mind all month.

I am writing a modernized fairytale. Before you roll your eyes at such a cliché move to make, I’m sure you haven’t actually heard of this fairytale: "The Wild Swans."

Thanks to my Danish heritage, I have an obsession for anything Danish—H.C. Andersen being top of my list. He’s the one who wrote “The Little Mermaid,” “The Ugly Duckling,” and “The Snow Queen.” Did you actually know that Disney’s new movie Frozen is based off of that story? You better read up before you go see it.

But back to this NaNo nonsense. I really liked this story, but like many other fairytales, I thought a lot of crucial details were missing. Here’s an excerpt of my book where my main character, Lotte, summarizes the story for you:

"Once upon a time, there was a beautiful little princess and she had seven—or was it eleven?—older brothers. Her mother of course died, and so she got a new one, an evil stepmother that didn’t like her brood of stepchildren. So much in fact, she turned the strapping young lads into swans and turned the little princess out—which sounds nice compared to almost killing her in a bathtub.

The little beautiful princess sure was sad, and all she wanted to do was save her older brothers. In a few dreams, she found out that in order to save her band of brothers, she had to sew them shirts out of the prickliest nettles growing in the woods and she couldn’t talk. How she got the dreams, I have no idea, but she of course went right to work on a project that took her years on years to accomplish.

And what happens to this quiet little teenager in the woods? Why, the king happens to ride by, and thinks she’s so beautiful, that he whisks her away to his handsome castle and she becomes his bride. Some first date, huh?

Well to make a quaint story short, the archbishop thinks she’s a witch, so she is sentenced to burn at the stake—and she obviously can’t vouch for herself; one word spoken would kill her swan brothers. Just in time before the flames rise up, a bunch of swans swoop down (the swans obviously the princes in disguise) and the little princess throws the shirts up at them, and they try the prickly shirts on for size and poof! they become princes again and the curse is broken! The princess is innocent and she gets to still be queen. The end."

For the non-snarky version of the story, click here. 

So how do I possibly write a modernized fairytale about a princess who sews little nettle shirts for her swan brothers? With lots and lots of imagination, no doubt.

Like my main character, Lotte, when I read this story, I wanted to know all the in-between details. Like, how do you fall in love with someone who can’t talk? And I mean, did the princess know how to write or anything? How was the king able to love a person he met in the forest without even being able to ask her name?

I decided to put those details in myself through a modern retelling of this story. Liselotte (Lotte) Nielsen starts out as a high school senior and she gets out of a complicated relationship with Chris, her ex. She breaks up with him because she’s tired of feeling like he’s being overly manipulative and condescending. He’s obviously not happy with that, but Lotte doesn’t expect that he would curse her for it.

The curse goes something like this: if she says a word, laughs, or even scoffs, her brothers grow feathers. And it hurts. She’s worried that if she talks too much something very weird will happen to them, so she stops talking so she doesn’t cause harm or discomfort for her five (yes count ‘em) brothers.

Throughout the book, she has to come to terms with the fact that Chris somehow has magic and she pretends that she lost her voice from an accident instead of telling people what really happened.

But she’s not about to spend the rest of her life writing little messages on her whiteboard. Her brothers help her figure out how to free them of the curse for good and in the meantime, Lotte goes off to college and tries to live without her voice. She takes it a step further and learns sign language so she can at least express herself somehow. During that time of learning ASL, she meets Dan* who’s in her class . . . and you’ll just have to find out the rest of it, of course!

I’ve had this idea for a couple of years now and it’s exciting to finally put it all down. Hopefully it fills 50,000 words! Anyway, have a great week and read up on some great fairytales.

 

*I’m still on the fence as to whether or not I like that name.