Small Press FAQ

2018 Goal Update
* Chapters left to revise: 1 (so close!)
* Books read: 15
* Words on LIBRARIUM: 1678/? (5000 maximum)

Last week, I signed my latest publishing contract, so I can officially announce that my story, THE LADY OR THE DAGGER will be included in the MATA HARI: THE EYE OF DAWN anthology coming soon from Pro Se Productions.

More details as they arrive

THE LADY OR THE DAGGER marks my third contract with a small press (and a fourth is on the way), so while I wouldn't call publishing old hat for me yet, I think I can reasonably be considered experienced in the realm of working with small presses. I sometimes get questions from other writers considering submitting work or pitches to small presses. Everyone's questions are different, but there are a few topics that come up pretty regularly. So, consider this my Small Press FAQ.

Contracts

Every press is going to have a different contract boilerplate, but there are a few things that you should be sure are present in your contract:

• Rights: print, electronic, and (if applicable) audio. The contract to clarify what type of rights the publisher is seeking. Usually, this is going to be first rights for the various media, meaning that the publisher is the only one that can produce the work until the contract expires or after a specific period of time dictated by the publisher (when this will occur varies based on publisher, but most will not ask for "life of the work" rights--they'll establish rights for a number of years with the option for continuing and renegotiating). This section should also spell out what rights the author retains--things like copyright, which the author should always retain.

• Publisher obligations: things like the publisher's responsibilities regarding cover art, editing, binding, marketing, and other aspects of production. This part spells out what the publisher is going to do for you. Do they have in-house artists and designers that they contract for cover art? How many editing passes are they willing to do with an individual work? What is their timeline for publication (this will usually be framed as a tentative timeline--sometimes things come up that slow the process)? To what degree will the publisher aid in marketing the work?

• Royalties: the percentage of sales that go back to the author--how much money you make per unit sold. This is not the same thing as an advance, but I'll get into that later. This will usually be presented as a percentage of the profit. Sometimes the publisher will offer a percentage of every unit sold; sometimes they'll specify that the royalties are a percentage of the profits. The only real difference is that one delays payment until production cost is met. This section should also spell out when  and how payment will be received.

• Buyout and Cancellation terms: if either party wants to exit the contract, what is the procedure for doing so? This will spell out what is expected of the author if they want to get out of the contract. Usually, this will involve some kind of payment to offset the cost the publisher took on in production. It should set up what you get to keep--can you use the cover art that was created, for instance? Likewise, this section will spell out under what conditions the publisher can exit the contract. Things like failure to produce the manuscript in a timely manner may be listed as cause for the publisher to revoke the contract.

• Miscellaneous: There are some other odds and ends that may be present in some contracts. For shorter fiction, there might be clauses about the publisher's ability to include the work in other collections. Most will spell out what non-royalty goodies the author gets--things like free or reduced-price copies of the work--or what expectations there are regarding conferences and author events.

Small Press vs. Traditional Publishing

 One of the main things I get asked about working with small presses is how does it compare to traditional publishing with big house publishers. There's only so much I can answer about this, honestly, since I haven't published anything with a major publisher, but there are a few comparisons to make.

• Agents: While small presses allow authors to submit their work for themselves, larger publishing houses often require that work be submitted via a literary agent. There are some exceptions: Tor, for instance, allows unagented submissions. Most major publishers, though won't take submissions direct from an author. Not everyone is interested in signing with a literary agent. If you don't want to go through the querying process and seek out an agent, then small presses will probably work better for you. Or, if you want to build up your resume to make yourself more appealing to an agent, you might consider working with small presses first.

• Advances vs. Royalties: Small presses usually don't offer advances. The author makes money based on sales without getting any payment upfront. This is because small presses usually don't have the funds to risk on advance payments. Major presses, though, offer advances of varying sizes based on how well they think the work will sell. The author gets to keep the advance even if the book doesn't meet sales expectations, but no royalties are earned until the sales cover the production costs and the amount of the advance. Major publishers can do this because they will typically have a few books that will be major sellers--think like a tentpole blockbuster from a movie studio that covers its own cost as well as the cost of a few smaller, less profitable movies. Small presses are less likely to have those runaway bestsellers, so they prefer to pay out as sales roll in.

• Distribution: Where will your book be on shelves? Small presses tend to lean more on digital platforms. Usually, you'll be able to find your book through online retailers--Amazon, Smashwords, etc. Sometimes you'll be able to find your work on the online versions of some of the big box stores. What's less likely to happen, unless your sales are fantastic, is for you to see your book on physical shelves in major retailers. Small presses typically don't have the power to make deals with major retailers. Major publishers, though, do. Publishing through a large house drastically increases the likelihood of your book being available in chain bookstores, where it's a little easier for potential readers to stumble across it.

• Marketing: With small presses, the weight of marketing falls largely on the author's shoulders. Marketing is expensive, and there's usually not enough money for small presses to pay for major marketing campaigns for each book, though they will frequently offer resources that authors can make use of to market themselves and their books--lists of events, group ad buys, and the like. Major publishers don't always throw a ton of money at marketing for each book, but there's generally more money available for marketing. The author still bears significant responsibility for advertising their own work, but the major publishing house is still a powerful ally to have in the author's corner.

Small Presses vs. Self-Publishing

Most of what small presses vs. self-publishing boils down to is the question of how much of the work the author wants to do or is able to do themselves. Small presses offer aid in cover design, formatting, editing and some help in the arenas of marketing and distribution. With self-publishing, the author takes on all the work and all of the expense of preparing, publishing, and selling a book. That's a lot to take on, and the monetary cost can get pretty high pretty quickly. But the author also gets all of the money from the sales. If the sales are high enough, they might make more money than they would with a publishing contract. Whether self-publishing works better than publishing with small presses is really a matter of cost-benefit analysis on the author's part.

Navigating publishing is complicated no matter which path you take, but I hope this post has answered some questions for those trying to decide which method will work best for their writing.

Light at the End

November turned out to be productive, but not as productive as I wanted. The novella is finished--or at least the first draft has been turned in to the publisher. The Downtown Writers anthology is out (you can get it here; proceeds go to the library). Revisions on Project 2016 are moving along, though it's slower going than I'd like. I plan to have revisions finished by the end of the year so that I can start querying again in January.

And also get started on my next manuscript. As much as I love Project 2016, I am ready for a change of pace.

This means I have quite a bit of work ahead of me. We're talking roughly three weeks to complete revisions on thirteen chapters, some of which have to be rewritten from scratch. Which means that I won't be able to devote the time to write the type of lengthy process posts that are the main content for this blog.

I'm not going completely silent, though. I'll take the weekends of Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve off, but there will be new posts the next two weeks.

It's December, which means the time is right for some year-end wrap-ups. Next week, I'll write about my five favorite reads of 2017. I had the chance to do a lot more reading this year than last and read things by authors I'd never read before, so I'm looking forward to delving into what books stole my heart this year and why.

After that, I'll have a post about my year in writing. There were some pretty big moments for me this year. Hopefully, I'll be able to announce some upcoming work. Even outside of publication, this was a big year for me as a writer. I did some good work, took some new chances, and became part of a larger writing community in ways I really hadn't been brave enough to before. I'll be looking back over what successes I had and trying to pin down the areas where I still need improvement.

For now, though, I have to get back to the grind. After all, the year's not over yet, and there's still so much to do.

Radio Silence

November is my least favorite month of the year. The days get shorter, so my mood loses its buoyancy. End-of-semester fatigue drags me down. A few painful anniversaries steal my energy.

In spite of all that, November is usually my most productive writing month. One of my coping mechanisms is to throw myself into work. This isn't always healthy, necessarily, but it does let me get shit done. And I'm in a position now where I really need to get shit done.

I'm a little behind on my writing goals for the year. I wanted to have my contract novella wrapped up by now. I wanted to be through revisions for the first book of project 2016. I wanted to be well on my way to a completed first draft of my next manuscript. I'm not there yet on any of those goals.

Not being where I want to be always gets my imposter syndrome working overtime, telling me that I'm not where I need to be--that I'll never be where I need to be.

It's easy to forget that I was here last year, too: behind on my goals, floundering to finish the fist draft of a project for myself and to get the work done on projects for other people.

I've managed before. I'll be able to manage again.

But it will mean have to rearrange my priorities.

This blog is important to me. It represents my personal commitment to my writing--a promise that I'm going to treat writing as a job, as a commitment rather than just working "when I feel like it." It's also the longest I've ever blogged with any kind of regularity. This weekly commitment is part of how I've kept my writing work habitual.

I'm at a point right now, though, where I need to use the time I spend on this blog doing other things. I love writing these posts, but I'm not gonna get paid if I don't finish my projects.

So, Practice and Procrastination is going to go silent for a while. Not long--hopefully only through the month of November, but possibly until the end of the semester in the middle of December.

I've still got a couple of interviews and guest posts pending. If those come along during my break, I'll get them posted. Otherwise, I've got to be in the writing/editing cave until I get the work done.

If you start to really miss me during the break, you can always find me elsewhere on the internet. My website will still be updated with appearances and announcements (I've got a couple of projects that should be seeing the light of day in the next few months), I'll pop by the Facebook page and Twitter now and then, and you can find some updates (and lots of cat and dog pictures) on my instagram.

Thanks for sticking with me. See you in December.

Anthology

Coming soon! An anthology of retellings of Grimms' Fairytales.

I've mentioned before that I've been participating in a local writers' group. In the past few months, we've been working on a story anthology. This anthology is due for release by the end of the year and will be available for purchase via Amazon and the Huntsville-Madison County Public Library.

Proceeds from this anthology will benefit the Huntsville-Madison County Public Library. There will be a release even in conjunction with the library's NaNoWriMo events, so watch this space for details!

My short story, "Red Snow, PI" is included in the anthology, so if you want to read more of my work and help a local library, this is a great opportunity.

Author Interview with Bria Lexor

This week's interview is with YA author Bria Lexor, whose Gargoyle Redemption trilogy has just released.

·         Tell us a little about yourself.

I am a YA Urban Fantasy Author and my Series: The Gargoyle Redemption Trilogy released on September 25^th!

·         What type of books/stories do you write?

I have written about vampires, gargoyle shifters, aliens, Angels and Fallen Angels, a game book, and a female wrestling book so far.

·         What does the start of a project look like for you? (Where do your ideas come from, what prep work do you do before starting a new project, any writing rituals, planner or pantser, etc.?)

I write down all the names of characters I want to use and the story outline. My ideas come from whatever pops into my head at that particular moment in time and I write it down before I forget it. I start writing the book after I get the characters into place as I picture them in my mind. No, I just sit at the computer and start writing away.

·         What did your path to publication look like?

It’s a hot mess! I have found the worst publishers who are out there, excluding a couple. It’s been a struggle for me to have to refind my audience after signing with Foundations, LLC, who is amazing by the way! I’m hoping this time around my books will finally reach the right audience and will be on the Best Sellers list one day soon!

·         Is there anything that you’ve learned through the process that you wish you’d known at the beginning?

Gosh yes! Not to sign with any publisher who is super pushy and ends up treating you badly to the point where doing what I love isn’t fun anymore.

·         Do you have any tips/tricks/resources you’d like to share with other writers?

Just keep writing and you will find the right publisher for your work one day. Never give up on that!

·         What part of the writing process do you find most exciting?

Starting a new series is always exciting for me because I have fresh characters to show everyone who reads and enjoys my work in the future. It’s an awesome feeling inside!

·         What part of the writing process do you find most challenging?

Right now it has to be making a grid for my new series. I just haven’t figured out why I can’t do something so easy. That is challenging for me.

·         Any new work from you we should be watching for?

Absolutely! I have 4 new book series to look for in the future: My Fallen Angels series, my Sports Fiction series, My Alien series and my Game book series are all going to be unique and fresh from me!

·         What’s one piece of advice you’d give new writers?

Keep writing. No matter how long it takes to finish writing that first book, keep at it. You will get there. I promise.

Thanks, Bria! If you want to find Bria, check these links:

Bria's Website

on Facebook

on Twitter

on Tumblr

on Instagram

Bria's blog

You can find Bria's work here. Be sure to check her out.

Change

It has been a bad week.

Between the spouse getting injured at work, one of the cars breaking down and both of us getting sick back to back, it's been hard to get any momentum on anything.

And that's not even mentioning the worst part of the week.

We lost our sweet old man, Rascal, on Tuesday.

I adopted Rascal back in 1998, so to say that losing him was like losing a child (or I guess really a sibling--I was only 10 when we took him home) isn't an exaggeration. Adjusting to his absence over the past few days has been difficult for everyone in my house--people and animals.

So I guess it's not surprising that I've not been able to devote much head space to my work. My as-yet-unannouncable project has languished since Monday, and I haven't put in any serious work on revisions or on the new novel.

But I have tried to engage with the writerly part of myself at least a little each day.

I'm terrified of my writing ability atrophying--which is not something that's likely to happen in the space of a week, but I'm really good at panic. Even if I can't do "real" work (and by "real" I just mean work that will eventually see print), I feel like I need to do something.

Writing is in many ways a source of comfort for me, though when I'm neck-deep in deadlines and obligations, it can stop feeling that way. I had to shift my focus this week. I couldn't write for anyone else. I was too far in my own head and too stuck in my own feelings. So I did something different: I wrote just for me.

I spent a little more time in the world of Project 2016--I've lived with those characters and that world long enough that visiting them is a little like going home. I worked on some simple revisions for a short story for my writing group. I played around with some different styles, just to see what happened.

Self-care can take a lot of different forms, but I'm glad that, even though I didn't write what I needed to, I still had the chance to get in that creative space. It wasn't as happy as it could have been, but it was, in its own way, a comfort.

That being said, I really have to get back on my contract work. My writing time for the next several weeks is going to have to be focused on meeting those obligations. Which puts me in a bit of a pickle as far as this blog is concerned. Much as I like writing these posts, the time I spend on them will, for a while, need to be devoted to other things.

But I don't want to leave you out in the cold, so I've come up with a plan. Over the next several weeks, I'll be posting a series of interviews and guest post by other authors. You'll still be getting a weekly post, but it won't be one of my rambles. I'm pretty excited about the people I've got lined up, so I hope you'll come back and check out their posts.

Thanks for sticking with me. See you on the other side of the deadlines.

SMOKE GETS IN YOUR EYES now available!

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Helen revels in the pulsing nightlife in her home city of New Orleans. She has a fashionable look, a bootlegger boyfriend, and a city full of speakeasies to explore. She also has an older sister who staunchly opposes Helen's involvement in the city's shady underground.

On one eventful night, Helen discovers that her sister is neck deep in her boyfriend's business and that her boyfriend is less than happy with her sister's work. When a threat to her sister's life is revealed, Helen takes action, planning to take down her boyfriend's organization one man at a time.

Win or lose, taking down some of the most powerful bootleggers in the city will change Helen's life forever. She stands to gain much, but what will she lose?

SMOKE GETS IN YOUR EYES by A. S. Crowder. From Pro Se Productions.

Featuring an evocative cover and logo design by David Foster and digital formatting by Antonino Lo Iacono and Marzia Marina, SMOKE GETS IN YOUR EYES is available now at Amazon for only 99 cents at https://www.amazon.com/Smoke-Gets-Your-Eyes-Crowder-ebook/dp/B01N9WBCYO/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1492023375&sr=8-1&keywords=Smoke+Gets+In+Your+Eyes+crowder.  

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Writers' Conference

This week, I took a big step in furthering my writing career.

I signed up for my first writers' conference.

I've been to conventions before, of course, places where indie authors host panels on different aspects of writing and publishing (self-publishing and small press publishing, usually) and sell their wares.

These experiences have certainly been valuable, but more often than not, the people I've met at conventions are in the same place I am. They've been writing for years. They've sold a few pieces to presses of various sizes, usually on the smaller end of the spectrum. They aren't agented, usually--in fact, I think I've only met one author with an agent at a convention. I've made some good connections at these events, and they're how I first heard of my two current publishers.

But as far as making the transition from being an indie author selling to small presses to deals with larger publishers that won't review a submission from an unagented author, conventions haven't given me what I need.

I've written in the past about my attempts to get an agent so far, where my struggles and successes have been and what I've learned from the process. I've been largely self-educating through this process. I look up articles on how to pitch, I dig through lists of agents trying to find ones who represent my genre and who sound like they might be on the same wavelength as I am. I peruse Manuscript Wish List and I keep up with the Writer's Digest blog looking for new ideas of people to query and tips on refining my pitches.

I've been doing what I can, but what I really want, what I think I need, is guidance. A chance to talk with the people on the other end--to the agents and editors I'm trying to get my work in front of. I want a chance to hear what they themselves have to say and to ask questions, maybe even to sit one-on-one and talk about my pitch, specifically.

There are meetings all over the country that offer opportunities like this--writers' conferences (conferences, not conventions--one's focused more on the craft where the other is a little more sales and entertainment oriented) and writers' workshops hosted by agents and editors that offer panels on querying and critiques and short sit-downs with agents.

But these events tend to end up where there are communities to support them--which tends to translate to larger cities or places that tend to draw a lot of tourists and conventions (and so tend to have better infrastructure for dealing with the influx of people). Which is fine.

Unless you can't afford to travel and live in places that aren't exactly hot spots for convention hosting. Most of these meetings have been out of my price range and too far out of town for me to reasonably make the trip.

So I was pretty excited when the Alabama Writers Workshop was announced. It's close enough to me that I can get to it and, because it's a slightly smaller meeting, it's price tag isn't as big. And it happened to coincide with a pay increase (also a workload increase, but that's another story).

I signed up. I paid my registration fee. I dropped the extra money to get a one-on-one with one of the agents that will be there. Now I've got a little less than a week to iron out my verbal pitch, print copies of my first page for review, do more background research on the agent I'm meeting, and figure out what specific questions I'm going to focus on finding answers to.

I'm not anticipating that I'll walk out of the convention next week with a manuscript request (though wouldn't that be awesome?). But I hope I'll at least leave with a better sense of where I am and what work I need to do to get my project out into the world at the level that I want. I don't know what exactly the experience will bring, but I'm looking forward to it.

And I imagine I'll tell you all about it next week.

Short and Sweet

The short story pitch I wrote about in last week's post got picked up, which means that I get to put together the story for an anthology to be released later in the year.

After spending 2016 working on novels, I'm excited to get to work on some short fiction again. As much as I love longer projects, there's something refreshing about writing a short piece.

I think part of the fun of short fiction is the ability to stretch myself stylistically. When I'm working on a novel, I'm focused on telling the story in the long run. I want to keep my style consistent, to keep the character's voices steady and distinct. I've got to make sure that I'm keeping track of all of the aspects of the world--to make sure that I don't negate on page 200 something that happened on page 50.

Some of these concerns are still present in short fiction. Keeping character voices consistent and making sure that the logic of the world flows well are always important. But since the project's length is more manageable, I feel more able to experiment.

I wouldn't at this point, for instance, try to write an entire novel in present tense. But I did just that with the last short story I wrote--just to see how that change in tense changed how the story felt. I wouldn't try to keep every sentence as short as I could when working on a novel, but I might do that to manipulate the pacing in a short story.

Part of it is a time commitment. It usually takes me about three to four weeks to knock out a draft of a short story (and by short story, I mean something under 15,000 words--usually between 7 and 10,000). Outside of the pace I write at during NaNoWriMo--a pace which is not sustainable--the first draft of a novel can take between 6 months and a year. With a short story, I can tell more quickly if something that I'm trying doesn't work for the whole project, and even large-scale overhauls are easier to manage. It takes a lot less time to rework 10,000 words than 80,000.

There's also the fact that there is, in general, less information to keep up with and a shorter stretch of time during which I have to manage it. Short fiction has fewer characters, fewer story beats, fewer subplots. Since there's less information that I have to keep up with, there's less likelihood that I'm going to forget something important if I play around with my writing style.

Novel writing is where I make use of every tool in my arsenal. Short fiction is where I play around with and learn to use new tools.

I'm not sure what experimenting I'll do with this new project, but I'm excited to start playing around with something new and to see what new tool I manage to figure out for the next long project.

The Wind Up

Right now, pitching is my life.

I'm still working on revisions for bits and pieces of what was formerly Project 2016 (I guess I'll need to give it a new name now), but I've by and large moved on to the querying process. For now, at least. Depending on how this round of submissions goes, I might end up back at the drawing board.

Queries are among the hardest things to write (the hardest thing is the synopsis, but that's a post for another day). It's hard to take 75,000 to 85,000 words and boil it down to a single eye-catching paragraph. You've got to introduce the protagonists. You've got to lay out the stakes. You've got to convince the agent/editor/publisher that your story is something special--something worth the financial risk. But you can't give away the ending. You can't reveal the twists and turns. Your Chekov's Gunsmen and their guns have to stay concealed.

The idea is that your query should read rather like the back cover copy you see on the books you find in a bookstore. Just enough information to set up a reader's expectations and to pique their interest without tilting the bean can too far.

This has been sort of a trial and error process for me. The early queries for Evin were terrible. As far as queries to agents went, I don't think I ever made it out of the slush pile. The rejections that I got were polite, but they were form letters.

By the time I sent a query to Evin's publisher, Foundations Books, I had figured out some of my missteps. I wouldn't call the final query I sent out sparkling--at least not by the standards I would use to judge myself today, nearly a year after the fact--but it was successful.

The queries for Delphinus have been considerably better. I've still gotten rejections, but they've been more helpful--more specific. Whatever I've done in the query has been enough to get people to read through the sample pages and respond directly to what they've seen there.

I'm still working on getting better at my written pitches in the only way that I know how: by pitching projects. By the time this post goes up (I'm writing in advance--part of my get-back-on-track-time-management plan), I should have heard back on the latest one. This time, I'm proposing the story I want to write to a publisher. It seems like that should be easier, since you haven't written a work that's locked you in to anything yet, but it was just as frustrating and complicated as any I've written.

And all of this is without even getting into spoken pitches--so-called elevator pitches, because they ideally take no longer to run through than a short elevator ride. Narrowing down to a paragraph or so is difficult. Trying to sum up a novel in a few sentences (I think something like 35 words is about the length people tend to shoot for) is Herculean. I don't yet have a strategy for making these better--most of my talking about my projects is me waving my arms and word-vomming at my writing group partner. It's possible that the Twitter Pitch Parties that happen every few months might be the best tool for this--maybe I'll try tooling around with that a little.

Pitching's part of the process that I'm not great at (though, honestly, there are times when I'm not particularly good at any parts of the process), but I'm hoping that through time and effort, I'll improve. The evidence seems to point that way so far. Until I  make it, I'll just consider these earlier efforts the wind up.

Wrap It Up

Well, 2016 was certainly a hell of a ride.

In a lot of ways, this past year was not a great one for me. I lost a great many idols and inspirations. I saw the appalling reversal of trends that I thought couldn't help but continue to march forward. I went through a semester of teaching that turned out to be more complicated and difficult than the last few have been. I had to find ways to cope with anxiety and depression without the aid of the healthcare system--which frequently meant not coping very well at all.

Let's just say it's been a rough one.

But, in spite of all of that, 2016 might have been the best year ever as far as my writing is concerned.

I don't say that to romanticize suffering in the way that some might. Sure, struggle can sometimes lead to the creation of great art, but it's really hard to create art when you're so deep in a pit of depression that a managing to get up and get a shower feels like a feat worthy of an Olympic medal. This glamorized image of the suffering artist is a problem in a lot of ways, and I could go one about the issues for hours, but that's for another day. What I mean is that, despite (despite and not because of) the difficulties I faced this year, I still managed to do.

I've mentioned before that one of my (many) stumbling blocks with writing has been momentum. I'll come up with an idea, steam ahead for a while, and then lose interest or stop making the time to work. Projects not only got moved to the back burner, but taken off of the stove all together and shoved into the back corner of the freezer.

That didn't happen this year. I committed to setting aside time for my writing work. I got shit done, and it felt pretty glorious. When I look at the list of achievements for 2016, it's actually pretty impressive.

1. I finished the polishes on Evin
2. Evin got published--my first ever published novel
3. Had semi-regular writing group meetings
4. I re-outlined and redrafted Delphinus
5. And outlined and drafted its prequel
6. I finished two rounds of revisions on Delphinus
7. According to my Magic Spreadsheet count, I wrote almost 150,000 words
8. I managed to keep up with this blog for most of the year (and I'm notoriously bad about abandoning blogs)

And most of that was in the back half of the year. 

So, yeah. As far as writing goes, 2016 was one for the books. But I don't want to rest on my laurels. I don't want this to be the one productive year that I get.

I've been thinking about what I want for my writing career, such as it is, and what I can do in 2017 to keep the momentum and to get closer to my dreams for my writing.

I'm compiling a list of goals for this year. I'm sure the list will change as the months go by, but I wanted to share some of what I plan to do to keep myself on track this year. Maybe these goals are relevant to you, too.

1. Finish the next round of edits for Delphinus and send it back out to test readers
2. Attend at least one writing conference and try to do some in-person pitching
3. Continue writing group meetings and participate in more local writer events
4. Do author events--a couple of signings are already in the works, but I want to make it to at least one convention in 2017 as well
5. Send out more queries in batches of four. Review the manuscript and responses after rejections to determine if there are patterns in how agents/editors are responding
6. Do round one revisions on the prequel and get it sent to beta readers
7. Outline trilogy's third book
8. Draft trilogy's third book
9. Finish drafts of two short stories
10. Continue regular blog posts

I've got my work cut out for me this year, but I've also already made progress on a few of these goals.

As difficult as 2016 was, it was the turning of a new leaf for me as far as my writing goes. I have high hopes for 2017.

In the meantime, I have work to do.

Happy New Year.
 

The "It" Factor

By the time I had figured out that Project 2016 was part of a larger project, I had already sent out a handful of queries. Most of them had gotten responses before I went back to work, but a couple were still outstanding.

I went ahead and got back to writing because, for one thing, I needed to keep myself busy and stay in the habit of working and, for another, I didn't want to hang all my hopes on this version of Project 2016 being the one that got picked up.

It's been long enough that I'd actually forgotten about all but one outstanding query (as an aside, those auto-response receipts are a godsend as far as keeping up with who has what and where). I've been working on other things, and the emails I sent back in early October are fuzzy.

So I was surprised this week when I found a response from an agent in my email.

Before anyone gets too excited, the email wasn't a manuscript request. It was a rejection. The sixth for this project so far.

I'm not generally bothered by rejections. What makes good fiction is pretty subjective, and sometimes your work just isn't someone's style. Frankly, you don't want someone who isn't one hundred percent about your work to represent it. And I'm not bothered by the number of rejections. Harry Potter was famously rejected a dozen times before it found a home. All manner of famous authors have seen rejections--Orwell, Faulkner, Stein, L'Engle, Alcott, Christie, Joyce--the list goes on. I've heard authors talk about seeing upwards of 50 rejections before finding the right match (though, I'll admit--I'm not sure I'd still be unbothered by rejections at that point).

The responses I've received from the people I've queried, thought they haven't been what I wanted, have all been kind and helpful. None of them have made me feel like I'm wasting my time with this project. In fact, from the way some of the rejections have been worded, I think I might have come pretty close to success once or twice--phrases like "excited by the query" and "interested in the premise," stuff that suggests that, if nothing else, there was something that gave the reader pause or piqued interest.

And that's great--it's really, really great. It means there's something in the story that people are into.

But it's also so frustrating that I want to pull my hair out.

In addition to these more promising statements, the emails I've gotten have mostly included some variation of "I didn't fall in love with it the way I need to to represent it."

Again, in the long run, that's a good thing for me to know. Whoever is going to champion my book needs to love it at least as much as I do. If someone can't reach that level of enthusiasm, they won't be able to fight for it. And my work not being someone's cup of tea is no big thing--there are plenty of books that are great that I'm just not that into. It happens.

None of this experience is abnormal. But it has left me asking questions.

What's the "it" factor? What makes someone fall in love with a book? What might my book be missing?

Obviously, there's not a hard-and-fast answer to any of those questions. What makes a person fall in love with a book is going to depend on the reader. The "it" factor can be anything from a particularly compelling character to a detailed and expansive world with thorough lore, to a timely conflict or the introduction of a fascinating piece of technology. My book may not be missing anything--or it may be missing a lot.

The process is a roller coaster. People have joked that being an artist is simultaneously feeling absolute narcissism and crippling self-doubt. That doesn't seem far off the mark. This question of what makes people fall in love with a book (which is really me asking "why aren't people falling in love with my book?" if I'm being honest) has got me on a bit of a downswing. But it's temporary. It always is. And at least I know that there is something worth keeping in this project.

I've still got two queries out. I have no idea what to expect from them, but I do have a plan for what I need to do next, which is about the best I can ask for.

I'll be taking next week off from the blog for the holiday. The blog will be back January 1 with a 2016 recap and, if there's news, updates.

Happy holidays, folks. Thanks for reading.

Evin Trailer

The blog remains on hiatus until the end of NaNoWriMo (I'm about 45,000 words into my 80,000 word project), but I wanted to go ahead and share the new Evin book trailer. Check it out below.

Remember, you can buy a copy of Evin through the following links:
Amazon US: http://amzn.to/2bH2pNC
Amazon UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Evin-S-Cr…/…/B01JUT8H56/ref=sr_1_1…
Amazon CA: https://www.amazon.ca/Evin-S-Crowd…/…/B01JUT8H56/ref=sr_1_1…
Amazon AU: https://www.amazon.com.au/Evin-S-Crowder-ebook/…/ref=sr_1_1…
Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/662274 
Barnes and Noble (Paperback and Hardcover only): http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/evin-as-crowder/1124279713…
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31387704-evin

PitMad

Project 2016 has been through four readers and roughly three drafts, and I am about ready to call the revisions done. The current draft is back with my writing group partner for one more once over, but the opening pages are about a polished as they are gonna get, so it's time to start the submissions process.

I'll spend the next few weeks discussing how I've handled this process in the past and what I'm doing/how things are progressing with Project 2016. Most of what I'm going to do with Project 2016 is going to follow a more traditional approach--querying agents and sending submissions to publishers directly.

But this week, I tried something I hadn't tried before, and I thought it'd be worth looking at.

This past Thursday, I participated in my first ever Twitter Pitch Party.

These events are a relatively new alternative (or supplement, really--seems like most of the folks who participate also go the slush pile route) to the traditional querying process. The idea is that you tweet a short pitch for your manuscript with the appropriate hashtag. If an agent or editor favorites your pitch tweet, it's an invitation to send them a submission. This means that your submission gets moved to the top of the pile. It doesn't guarantee that you'll snag representation for your manuscript, but it lets you go into the next phase with better cards in your hand.

There are several of these events. The particular event that I took part in last week was PitMad, a quarterly event involving agents, editors, and some publishers. It's a twelve hour event--Thursday's was 8AM to 8PM EDT. You can pitch multiple projects, but you only get three tweets per project. A favorite from an agent, editor, or publisher is a request for a submission of the manuscript you pitched.

Since this was my first time doing this event, it was more learning experience than anything. I made my three pitches. Honestly, I'm not sure I did it well, but I didn't come up empty, and that's something. I wanted to show what my pitches were--to do sort of a postmortem on my PitMad work.

(Yes, you'll see my Twitter handle in these pictures; yes, you're welcome to follow me on Twitter, but that is where I talk about politics, so if that's gonna bug you, maybe stick to the blog and the Facebook page.)

Coming up with a pitch that expresses the charms of a 300-ish page manuscript in less than 140 characters is super difficult. My biggest mistake with this was not starting on my pitches earlier. I drafted three pitches a day and a half before the event. That may seem like plenty of time, but it meant that I didn't have a chance to have anyone else take a look at my pitches to see how effective they were. There wasn't as much time to rework and revise.

I don't feel like my pitches were particularly great. That said, I didn't exactly come up empty: I got one favorite on a pitch from a publisher. But more about that later.

I tweeted three pitches--one in the morning, one around lunchtime, and one just before the event ended.

My first pitch:

This one didn't get any hits. I thought the comparison was pretty strong, but it didn't leave a lot of room for details about the story itself--which I feel like you probably need in order to justify the comparison.

The hashtags, in case you were wondering, are the PitMad event tag, the age group tag (na for New Adult), and the genre tag (spf for speculative fiction).

Pitch number two:

This was the only successful pitch I had, and even then its success was limited. Without the comparison, I was able to introduce the main character's name and set up the exposition of the story, which might have been why this one got the favorite.

Pitch three:

Nothing on this one, either, but I did manage to work in some more specifics about the manuscript. I changed the age tag to Young Adult (my main character starts the story at 16 and is 18 by the end of it, so I'm in a little bit of a grey area there). I don't know if leaving the tag as it was would have made a difference, but that's something to keep in mind for next time.

All in all, maybe not a strong as it could have been, but it was definitely a learning experience.

My first big piece of advice to anyone considering participating in the next PitMad or similar event is pretty simple: be prepared. If I'd taken more time to prep my pitches, I think I would have been able to court more response.

The second big piece of advice I have is to do your research and know what you're looking for in an agent/editor/publisher. The thing with these events is that there's not a lot of vetting when it comes to who's able to favorite pitches. The draw of someone that wants to look at your manuscript is powerful, but you're not under any obligation to send a submission to someone just because they favorited your pitch.

I got one hit--from a publisher, not an agent or editor--so I did my research. I looked at the company's website, I looked at writer forums, and I looked at my list of goals.

For Project 2016, I want to go further than I did with Evin. While publishing Evin has been an excellent experience and I would happily recommend my publisher to anyone looking to put out a first book, I feel like I'm ready to take new steps. I'm not interested in digital-only publishing--ideally, I'd like to see Project 2016 on shelves in retailers and not just available for online ordering. What I really want is an agent, someone in a better position than I am to negotiate bigger deals for my work.

Bearing all these things in mind, I looked at what the publisher could offer. I've decided to pass on submitting. They seem like a fine outfit, but they don't line up with my goals.

So PitMad was sort of a mixed bag for me--I didn't come up empty, per se, but I'm not going to see any submissions from it. Still, the event was a good experience, and, depending on how things go with my querying over the next few weeks, I'll likely participate in other events like this again.

If you're interested in trying an event like this, here's a list of other similar events:
Pitch America (focuses on Latinx voices)
Hot Summer's Cool Pitchfest
Pitch Slam
DVPit (coming up in October)
Nightmare on Query Street
AdPit and KidPit (in November)