The Elusive Real Book – The Boon of Being a Genre Author
January 29th, 2012 § 9 Comments
Inspired by a similar post by J.W. Manus, found here.
Okay. By a show of hands, how many people reading this blog write genre fiction? Or, basically, anything that doesn’t fall into the umbrella of contemporary literary fiction? Very good. Now how many of you have heard the phrase, “Why don’t you write a real book? No one wants to read [the genre you write].”
You know, your sales figures beg to differ by the simple fact that they exist, but we all know that saying about opinions and body orifices.
Let me be the first to admit that I don’t normally read romance novels or “chick lit”. I’ve yet to find a single chick-lit novel that I don’t put down within the first ten minutes because the writing doesn’t grab me or the plot is so formulaic that Hollywood had made a killing off it. I like historic fiction with romance elements – I very much enjoy Philippa Gregory’s writing style – but modern romance fiction? Honestly, no. My mother reads it, and I tried to, but I found it, again, formulaic and somewhat flat. I do not like it.
Does it mean I don’t consider romance a real genre? No. Absolutely not. It is a genre every bit as real as anything else, but it’s just not something I like to read on a regular basis. If someone recommends me a book, I”ll give it a shot, but if I don’t like it, I’ll let the person recommending it know.
Now, you know I write sci-fi. Now, I also read it on a fairly regular basis, because some of the authors who had asked me to read their NaNoWriMo novels are brilliant. Kevin O. McLaughlin’s books are beyond good. I found a great vampire fiction novelist in S.R. Torris, whose book is both gripping in its suspense and very thorough in its research. And, of course, I write mine. And I heard it all. “Why don’t you go write a real book?” “Who wants to read about that?” “Why didn’t you do X, Y, and Z in the first book? Now no one will want to read 2 or 3.” “Why are you self-published? It’s not a ‘real’ book.”
Ladies and gents, let me drop a little truth on you. It may be a little unexpected, but I think that it’s something that you have to hear. Ready?
There’s no such thing as a “real book” because all books, regardless of their quality or genre, are real by the simple virtue of having been written.
I mean, let’s face it. We don’t have zombie books on the shelf, right?
Going back to my old post, Stigmas in Self-Publishing, I will reiterate that most qualifications for a real book are bunk. The distinction of whether or not a book is actually good – that is so subjective that one person’s, “Don’t waste your time writing this trash and write some real books” is about as relevant as the buzzing of a mosquito, and just like a mosquito, it can get squashed pretty damn fast. I find books interesting based on the plot and the quality of writing, and sometimes, one outbalances the other. Caroline B. Cooney, the YA author, had written a few books that I thought were brilliant because of their plot. But there was one book, the title of which I don’t remember, where I found the plot to be very lacking, and unusual for Cooney. But I read it, and enjoyed it. Why? Because Cooney’s style is addictive. I can re-read her brand of YA at 26 and be just as engrossed as I was when I was 15. However, J.R.R. Tolkien and the Lord of the Rings? I tried reading it. Believe me, I did. But the books were not well-written at all, at least in my opinion, and I put them down – never to pick them back up again.
The distinction of one genre being somehow “better” than another is, in my personal opinion, imaginary. I know it’s in human nature for people to judge, but there’s a massive difference between judging on merit (Is the book written well? Can I conceivably read more by the same author?) and judging on something that’s simply the person’s opinion about genre, which is so very often based on complete inexperience with the genre. If you hadn’t read urban fantasy, or steampunk, or romance, or horror – how do you know that you don’t like it? And most people believe, rather erroneously, that the lack of exposure gives them the right to dictate the superiority of one genre above the other, as though the authors of said genre genuinely give half a whit about their opinion or their imagined superiority complex.
Fact is, every genre has its following, and for as long as there’s a following, there will be authors willing to provide material. It doesn’t devalue the genre one way or the other or make it less than any other genre out there.
But what about all those chestnuts that we authors hear? Well, I do have a couple of comebacks, and yes, I use them often.
“Why don’t you write about X or Y?” – Why can’t you write it, if you think you know how?
“Science fiction (or some other genre) isn’t real!” – Please inform Barnes & Noble, then, then because they have a whole mess of that genre in stock…and it’s selling.
“Self-published authors don’t write real books!” – So those things on my bookshelf are zombies? (yes, I used that, more than once. Goes over like a lead balloon, but…)
And most importantly? Keep writing. You know your story, and you know how to tell that story.
K.G.
And so it begins…ABNA 2012
January 24th, 2012 § 2 Comments
Late last night, between rampant coughing and inability to sleep because of said coughing, I entered the 2012 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Awards.
The beautiful thing about self-publishing is that you have the freedom to enter those sorts of competitions. Per the rules, your manuscript cannot be shopped around to publishers while it’s tied up in ABNA, and I will admit that while I’m lukewarm towards the idea of trad pub in general, the thought of a $15,000 advance and a contract is a very, very good thought to entertain. It won’t make me quit my day job, but the post-tax amount of that 15K is a very, very welcome thing for my finances.
I’m also thinking about entering the Beach Book Festival, which is run by the same individual who had once hosted the Nashville Book Festival, wherein I had once received an honorable mention with Book 1. I would love to see how Books 2 and 3 do in that mix.
Now, a comment in a prior post had brought up that, if I have little chance at winning ABNA (which is true), and that I am not a big fan of Penguin (also true), then why bother entering? Myself personally, I enter because 1. it’s fun to try your hand at a contest now and again, 2. whether it’s Penguin or any other of the Big Six, it’s an advance.
The thing is, knowing what I have been learning about book copyright, I’m starting to wonder if the contract that will be offered by Penguin can be amended. I am very glad that I had taken business law in college, and I want to be sure that if – and it’s a pretty major if - such a contract is offered to me, I know what to look for and how to phrase certain things to safeguard my ability to reclaim the rights to my work in the event that this goes south. Because so many authors who have gone trad-pub and want to go self find themselves caught up in a contractual mess because of a fine-print clause or two. Or ten.
Apart from the contract, I have a few thoughts on the review process. As I learned the hard way in 2010, the reviewers pick the books at random. While I see the benefit in it – if someone who’s not typically into a genre is grabbed by the excerpt well enough, then that does give a point to the overall quality of the book – some great work goes by the wayside only because the reviewer doesn’t like the genre, and rejects the book for that reason. Case in point, both of my reviews of Book 1 in 2010, where neither reviewer was a fantasy/sci-fi fan. Okay, I understand – not everyone’s cup of tea. First reviewer admitted it, and I’m happy with that. Second review still makes me laugh. I get it, you don’t dig the genre, but if that’s the case, why not make like the first reviewer and just admit it as opposed to comparing me to things who had zero influence on my writing? (Still don’t watch BSG…lol)
But hey, them’s the breaks. Not my first barbecue.
At this point, though, it’s just fun for me to enter. I’ve had readers come back to me and bug me about the storyline because I’ve got quite a soft spot for writing cliffhangers, and that makes me happy. I have a dedicated audience. If I get a contract and an advance, that’s icing on a cake that I’ve been baking since 2009.
So. I will find out on February 23rd if I’m in or not. Until then, I will relax and keep plugging at the prelim edit/rewrite of Book 4. Soon to receive some more cover art too. :)
K.G.
PS: the first story of the soon-to-be-anthology is out on Smashwords.
When You Just Have To (Re)Write
January 13th, 2012 Comments Off
My editor and I have a very cool arrangement for how we overhaul my books. She gets a PDF of a chapter, opens it up, rips it into shreds via the markup and highlight tools, then tosses it back to me. Then I pull that PDF side-by-side with its Word-document twin and work it over per her instructions. Some instructions I follow, others I discuss with her. Sometimes, I overhaul it so completely that I have to re-send the entire chapter back to her.
It’s incredibly effective. It’s also the style of editing that I had adopted for my own business clients as well.
The thing is, though, is that I fillet my work before it ever goes to Gayle, and thus, am several chapters ahead. As it so happens, this way I get to see where my book had gone into, and what I have to do to make it an effective story. Gayle gets the refined draft, hardly ever the rough one. This way, I can also correct storyline inconsistencies before the story ever gets to the editor’s desk.
Usually, it’s a pretty smooth process, albeit time-consuming and eye-crossing, like most editing tends to be.
And then you have moments like I had recently, wherein you continue to edit, and then come to the realization that pretty much the entire second half of the book needs a full-scale consistency overhaul, a.k.a. a massive content edit. Or, better put, a rewrite.
…egad.
Rewrites are a funny thing. They’re definitely a step above a conventional copyedit, and are a very necessary thing in most cases. I have said it before and I will reiterate myself: a first draft is a first draft only. Few times, if ever at all, does an author get the novel right on the first go. Chances are, the first go is not the best book in the world, and it is often full of plot holes, bad grammar, and underdeveloped storylines.
Surprise rewrites of the breed that mine had happened to be are a completely different animal, though. They just happen after you had edited through a good portion of your first draft, and are feeling that you can clock through the rest of the manuscript without a major overhaul. It kind of creeps up and bops you over the head, and then you’re surprised and wondering how you can possibly overhaul this much.
You know what the answer to that is? Slowly, and without discarding what you have already.
Granted, I’ve done it before when, upon the initial re-read, the first half of Book 1 had struck me as so cliche that I couldn’t keep it in the book. I’m talking a full-scale I cannot believe I wrote that sort of moment. Thus, I spent the better part of three years rewriting it. It was an interesting deal; I had to work mostly from scratch on that first half, but the scenes that were already there had given root to what it had ended up becoming. For the most part, though, I was writing the entire beginning half all over again.
With Book 4, though, the content is all there, and even in the current state, the action ramps up and cools off at just the right pace. The thing is…it’s a series. And considering that, 1) this would wrap up the first arc, and 2) the second arc is already mostly written, the main purpose of this overhaul is to make it all cohesive. My task is to both wrap up all the loose ends from Books 1-3, and springboard the plot properly into the next arc. Book 5 is its own little set of adventures, and the beautiful thing about Book 5 is, when laid out in Scrivener, all those plot holes hidden in the wall of text that’s usually the end result of novel-writing in Word are suddenly as obvious as spotlights.
This is the approach that I would recommend for attempting the Surprise Rewrite:
- Read the remainder of your story. By this time, it had already sat around for a while, and after you’ve already started the edit, you have a pretty clear idea of where this story is going to go. If you have a look at the rest of your story with your editing framework in mind, you suddenly end up viewing your writing in a much more critical frame of mind.
- Take notes, and lots of ‘em. Whether Post-Its are your poison, the Notes feature on Scrivener had struck your fancy, or you like OneNote from MS Office, you have to take notes. Make them as detailed as you like, but make sure that you will be able to understand them two months after you take them.
- Go slowly. Scene-by-scene, paragraph-by-paragraph, it matters little how you do it, but make sure that you take as much time as possible. As I’ve said before, editing a mass amount of text at the same time can and will make your eyes cross. You can and will get lost in your own story. If you have to rewrite or insert a scene, make sure that that’s all you do for a given block of time. It will, without fail, take you a lot of time to get done this way, but your story quality will be glad for it.
- If you’re straight-out rewriting chunks of your story from scratch, don’t discard the original portions. Don’t. They won’t come in useful just for nostalgia moments, but for future inspiration as well. As I learned the old-fashioned way, you literally have no idea where your next story idea will be coming from. Copy-paste your discarded segments into a separate file, and store it somewhere in your archives. When you have writer’s block some months – if not years – from today, have a read. You never know.
As it is, I have inadvertently started the overhaul earlier today. I touched back onto a couple of points in Book 3 and realized that if I wanted to have a turning point for one of my characters, then that was the perfect way to engineer it. It may cost me half of a dialogue to do it, but it’ll be pretty great.
As far as deadlines, I’ve had a small chat with Ragan Whiteside, a hell of a talent on the flute and a great fan of my books, and realized that, realistically, there was no way to get this done early. So, with that said, the deadline for the release of Book 4 is…my 27th birthday, May 13th, 2012.
I think it’ll be a hell of a way to celebrate.
K.G.
This is a rare political post.
January 11th, 2012 § 4 Comments
(edited for tiny wording correction)
It had to happen. Seriously, with some of the things I’m seeing in the news – and why I resumed watching the news, my blood pressure and I have no idea – if I don’t say something about it, I risk losing my mind completely.
Now look: Obama had caved on several issues important issues, and that was disappointing. But on quite a good lot of them, he had stood firm. He started the Iraq pullout. He got Osama bin Laden. As soon as he had taken office, he had made it clear that he was a pro-choice president and reversed some abortion restrictions that Bush had enacted. He started the progress of, and right now, under that healthcare law, people can actually at least start to get medical care. Hell, even the job market is starting to show signs of life again.
We all know that the Republicans are not okay with what Obama is doing. Actually, no: that’s the biggest understatement of this year, and the year’s only 10 days in. To say that they’re virulently opposed everything that he’s doing – and I mean everything – would be approaching a decent description, but some of the behaviors I’m seeing aren’t even classified as infantile. There’s such a disconnect from reality with those people that I started to question their sanity. They literally have no idea what life is like outside their comfortable bubbles of McMansions, private flights, campaigns, expensive restaurants, etc.
As a preliminary note. I’m glad that Michelle Bachmann is no longer in the race. That woman heeds to return to high school to repeat US History, and maybe then I’ll believe that she has two brain cells to rub together.
And yeah, the Republican party had departed from any sense of conservative and went right into stark raving bat-guano insane. Let me break this down candidate-by-candidate, at least the ones who have even a fighting chance at the nomination.
—
Newt Gingrich.
Let’s say it bluntly: he is a complete fucking bastard. I mean, truly. I cannot believe some of the things that had come out of his mouth before, and I’m confident that no one forgot when he had served his wife while she was dying from cancer. What sort of a sociopath does that, I’ll never know, and I have studied sociopaths for years.
This idiot said that he would go to the NAACP convention to discuss the importance of paychecks vs. food stamps and pulls out the “I have black friends, so I’m not racist!” defense. Look, it’s the same effect as someone who’s homophobic touting that they “have gay friends” – sorry, not buying it, and if those people knew your views, they would lose you as a friend, double-time. I’m pretty sure that if Colin Powell had been on hand when those things were said, then he would punch Newt so hard that the jaw would have to be replaced. If there is anything that anyone on public assistance had ever fought against, it was the infamous welfare-queen stereotype perpetuated by Ronald Reagan, a stereotype that is blatantly false, and the absolute last thing anyone wants is to be patronizingly explained why one should want one and not the other. Here’s a hint: no one who is on food stamps wants to be in the situation that requires them to be on food stamps.
Also, I have to ask…why does he assume that welfare recipients are necessarily black? Racial bias, hello there, long time no see. /spit. And recent stats actually turn that little bias on its head.
I’ve also not forgotten his attempt to blame the recession on the unemployed, which I’ve filleted on this blog last year. Again and with feeling: no one who is unemployed wants to be.
Also, his verbalizations on gay marriage make my blood boil. So, per him, gay married couples are only friends. So that thing that they do in the bedroom that the government is mandated to stay out of under Lawrence & Garner v. Texas (2003) is..? Yeah. Last time I checked, the Supreme Court had made it abundantly clear that the government doesn’t belong in people’s bedrooms. Considering Newt’s divorce, I severely doubt that this man has room to open his mouth about marriages, period.
–
Ron Paul
Corporatist lackey, but this one doesn’t even make any effort to hide it. One of his popular stances is to eliminate the minimum wage. I’m sorry, what the fuck? Seriously. Are we looking for a comeback of the conditions of the Industrial Revolution era? Just because the people who had survived that time aren’t alive anymore doesn’t mean that it never happened.
He would also absolutely love to eliminate the EPA. Uh, okay…but let’s not forget that fracking is behind the recent spike in Ohio earthquakes. Funny how that never made the news.
Oh, and he wanted to eliminate OSHA. Required reading: The Jungle by Upton Sinclair. That book inspired the actual formation of FDA and OSHA, and had also put Teddy Roosevelt, an avid hunter, off meat for some time. I think someone had skipped that in high school English.
Don’t click here if you don’t want your blood to boil with his take on the Civil Rights act. Fair warning.
Also, he went on to say that Social Security is unconstitutional. So to pay into my own safety net is unconstitutional? But it wasn’t unconstitutional when the little money that I paid into Social Security goes out as a government loan/bailout. Gee, funny how that works.
–
Mitt Romney
Ah, Mittens. The guy who freely admits that he enjoys firing people, and we all know that he was so gung-ho for blocking the extension of unemployment benefits that he wouldn’t have given a damn for a government shutdown.
Also: Bain Capital had bankrupted one-quarter of the companies that it had invested in. Bain would leverage them with debt, then walk away with profits, while the company would crash and burn. In the world of business, this is known as a parasite. This isn’t free enterprise. This is leeching. I loathe leeches. Moreover, Bain Capital had received a bailout. So in other words, not only did he leech off other people’s money, but he leeched off the taxpayers’ money as well.
I also have zero tolerance for bullshit artists who can’t even keep up their own lies. European society and safety nets create more poverty? How? By actually taking care of their citizens? And how many people die in France because they couldn’t get to the doctor in time to catch that lethal cancer? Zero. Shock, horror, people there are taken care of! And oh, the Netherlands are closing their prisons because there’s not enough criminals. Of course, European society is soooo awful.
And I just found out about the dog incident. Intro to Criminal Justice class: the first identifier of a sociopath is harming animals. No person who will do harm to an animal should ever come to the White House, point blank. Do you want to know what animal abusers grow into? No? Good, you don’t want to know.
–
Rick Santorum
First of all, Google what “Santorum” means. Let the jokes write themselves.
Now consider that this guy is a full-scale hypocrite.
He’s so anti-abortion that he is keen on criminalizing the process altogether. But never mind the fact that his own wife had to have a procedure done to save her life that classifies as “partial birth abortion” (a total fallacy of a term, just FYI; either it’s a birth or it’s an abortion). So the only moral abortion is the one in his family? So that mother of three kids who can’t afford to become a mother of four, or a teenage girl who doesn’t want to birth her uncle’s baby is an amoral harlot who should be in prison, but his wife is scot-free? Sorry. Can’t have it both ways.
The fact that he and his wife had brought the deceased fetus home to dress it up, sleep with it, and to have the kids say goodbye to it is, I’m sorry, sick. While I know that people grieve differently, and that it’s definitely normal to want to, say, photograph in the event of a child death, there is no reason to traumatize the children with it. If this was any other family, social services would be called immediately. No exception here, but oh wait, he’s a politician.
A complete racist, to boot, and spouting about Obama’s “elitism” for wanting all kids to go to college. While I’m not a fan of forced attendance, I find Obama’s sentiment admirable, because a lot of the high-school grads who want to go to a good school are unable to because they can’t afford it. And about cutting welfare as a Christian value? Now look, I’m an evil, amoral atheist and all, but I’m damn sure that the Bible made it abundantly clear to give to the poor, not the other way around. Just this thing called reading comprehension talking.
—
Oh, there’s more.
First of all, last time I checked, death threats are illegal. I don’t give a damn if you’re using the Bible to do it, it’s still a death threat. I would love for some men in suits with stern faces to knock on this guy’s door.
Secondly, about Michelle, and making the slur an immediate follow-up to the fauxpology. WHAT. You can’t even apologize for the fact that you acted like an asshole without making yourself look like an even bigger asshole?
Thirdly, Bush had spent more time on vacation in his first two years than Obama in his entire term, and you don’t see people bitching about that, do you? What about all the Republicans who had used the taxpayers’ dollars to send to their mistresses? Gay escorts? Oh, I have a long memory, believe you me, and it seems like every scandal involving a prostitute or a closet has to do with a Republican. Jim McGreevey seems to be the only normal person in politics who had come out of the closet in the past two decades.
I will make no bones of it: the Republican Party candidates are insane. Stark-raving, bat-guano, no functioning firing synapses in cranium insane. They will do absolutely anything to make sure that their financial gain will remain secured and that their equally rich friends will continue to have money to hand over to them, never mind where that money comes from. The environment, poor people’s backs, safety net money – doesn’t matter who gets hurt by their greed, they will keep pushing until they’re making like Scrooge McDuck and taking a swim in the treasury, while everyone and everything else be damned. Doesn’t matter that the climate is changing, doesn’t matter that there is an increase in natural disasters, as long as the treasury is full, right?
I have no idea when this sort of callous, sociopathic disregard for the outside world became the norm, but I am sickened to the core that those people are 1. on a national platform, and 2. broadcasting their virulent misogyny, racism, homophobia, and greed for the world to see with little to no repercussion. It wasn’t too long ago when expressing that sort of rhetoric would be warrant enough to get you torn to shreds in every medium, and quoting a Bible verse that Kansas Republican had quoted in regards to Pres. Obama would be cause for a visit from gentlemen with stern faces and crisp suits.
Really. Is the racism of the GOP so pervasive and virulent that, when the first black President had taken office, that it suddenly became par for the course for all the middle-aged white men who never got over the Civil Rights Act to spew out their verbal diarrhea?
Because really, that’s all I’m seeing here in the GOP primaries. A bunch of middle-aged white men who never got over the 1950s, who got rich and want to stay that way at the cost of anyone and anything. Bankrupt Social Security so that the elderly will have nowhere to go? Cut the minimum wage for a return into the sweatshops of the Industrial Revolution? Whatever works, right?
I find it disgusting. And I find it even more disgusting that they’re calling themselves Christian. I’m sorry, no. I’ve read the New Testament, and you can’t convince me one whit that Jesus had thought even anything remotely like those people. I can only wonder what he would say/do if he were around to see this sort of mess. Bloody hell, I’m not a Christian, and I have more compassion in my toe than those people have collectively.
–
For the record? I’m a progressive liberal and unashamed of it, and absolutely refuse to vote for any candidate less educated and intelligent than myself. I am not party-affiliated, nor will I ever be. I am pro-choice, pro-regulation, pro-union, pro-Net Neutrality, pro-social safety nets, and pro-universal healthcare. And I will not hide that for a split second.
I also don’t post about politics very often, but this had gotten to me to the degree that my blood pressure had been spiking whenever I would turn on the news, and that means that it has to come out somewhere.
I don’t post political stuff often, and I hope that it’s the last time I will for a while. But really, enough is too much.
K.G.
Jump In With Both Feet
January 8th, 2012 Comments Off
The more I think about what I’m doing lately, the more my logical side is forcing me to ask the crucial question of, “Woman, are you planning to sleep?!”
Uh…not really?
And yeah, the lack of sleep is starting to make my short-term memory go off-kilter, which blows.
However! This year had started with some very exciting things, and I have been delighted to wrap up an edit for a client, do two new graphic designs for another two, and am kicking off the photo sessions with Big Bad Voodoo Daddy at BB King’s tomorrow. Hotdamn, swing in the city! I feel all sorts of glamorous, even though I’m not quite ready… and yes, I’m breaking out the pencil skirt for this one. For those of you who know me, you guys know I’d rather keep my yoga pants on 24-7…but hey, swing music in BB King’s demands it.
…Now that the good stuff is out of the way…
I find myself gravitating more and more towards photography. In fact, I’m finding that a lot of my writing had become more visual, so to speak, and having been previously described as cinematic in my writing, I’m wondering if that’s the direction that I need to pursue in further endeavors. I briefly mentioned wanting to screenplay The Index Series, and I think I am going to get brave and do it. The only problem is, of course, is that I have no idea how the film industry works. A lot to learn and dig into, and if there’s a producer in this world who’s willing to take a shot and make this series something awesome…well, if it’ll help me finally have my own apartment, I’m game for it.
There’s a lot on the menu travel-wise, and what better way to start the year than DC? Yes, the capital. I’m going to see Cheikh N’Doye, a bassist, whose special guests include Lao Tizer, Karen Briggs, and Chieli Minucci. My camera and I are ready, and I’ll get into town early enough to do some sightseeing, and get out of there midday Sunday.
However, all that being what it is, I will be keeping my money very close to the vest for the time being. I’m not in good shape, and I know it. Tax time will be kind, but just enough to fill the stopgap; the real rescue will be coming to me in the form of overtime. By then, though, I will have the coveted Newport Beach tickets.
This is the thing with Newport: I will buy out the room, if I can handle it. If people want to share with me, fabulous – just reimburse me the costs. I will also get to CA early, rent a car, and hit the road…why? Because there are people and places to visit. I can’t wait to see San Diego.
My traveling will likely be limited, and I want to make sure that I will save up enough to not make CapJazz a misadventure any more than what it has been financially in the past. This time, I want to actually finish this year at zero revolving debt, if possible, while doing all the traveling I can.
But I will see to getting out of town often. NY is great, but life outside of NY is even better.
K.G.
Say it loud…and it’ll work.
January 5th, 2012 Comments Off
This came up in a conversation with a fellow author, and a discussion in WriMore International on Facebook.
A writer had posted a simple statement: please tell me I’m not the only one arguing with fictional characters. And I answer, “By no means whatsoever.” What I also say is that sometimes, saying something aloud, or reading something aloud, would help you see exactly where the errors are.
Now, let’s extrapolate why, for a moment.
How many of you, my fellow writers, have tried to edit a heap of text on your own? If it’s past a certain amount, your eyes begin to cross. That is where you overlook certain things, and that is when a test reader would later come to you and say, “This reads awkwardly” or “This dialogue could be better.”
Whether or not you will have such feedback, or have received it already, there is much to be said for actually speaking in order to work through a scene. For one, you’re paying attention, and two, your involvement with your own characters is a little bit deeper if you’re actually listening, rather than just reading.
Come on, if you’ve ever yelled at the TV or movie screen, you know what I mean. You don’t yell at the TV out of nowhere; you do it because you’re in it, and you’re in it up to your neck.
Writing is something that carries a certain peculiar sort of actor-observer bias. Think about the yelling at the TV or movie screen. You get so absorbed into the story that you want to somehow reach the characters, because you know that there’s something that they’re not noticing. You feel what they feel, you feel as though you are caught in the situation right along with them, but there is still a fourth wall, so to speak, which separates the viewer from the character.
With authors, take the same sort of emotional involvement in the story, and remove the fourth wall, and add in the actor-observer bias.
While I technically shouldn’t use that term, I can find no better words to describe it. The author is in a very unique position: he or she is watching the characters interact, is writing out their interaction, and at the same time, is wanting to write or do something that comes from the knee-jerk reflex to tell the character, “NO! Do NOT do this! Not a good idea!” – even though the character must do this for the sake of the story turning out to plan.
I would often say this about my own books, and I’m sure that many people will tell you the same thing: the character tell the story for me. Character-driven stories involve quite a lot of frequent yelling at the computer screen, especially in the editing phase, wherein the author finds that the characters did a phenomenal stupid…or ten. But most importantly, it involves reading aloud.
Yes, your roommate, husband,wife, kid, dog, or cat may think you’re a little off your rocker, but know this: your eyes may not be able to tell what’s off in the scene, but your ears don’t generally hear a story being read. You’re cued in, and paying more attention. As such, whatever sounds off to you, whether you’re acting out your own character dialogue or are trying to get your scenery and phrasing together, then I can promise you, it will be better if you actually speak your story than just read and try to make sense of it. Because, as Book 1 had taught me the hard way, it is fully possible to burn out via your own story.
K.G.
Wrapping Up the Year
December 28th, 2011 § 1 Comment
Today is interesting, so far. It finally got a little colder, my new eyeglasses are ready (because LivingSocial is awesome and six years of contact lens wear does tend to spoil the love a little), and it is also seventeen years since my blood family and I, myself being only nine years old at the time, touched down in a Tower Air jet into JFK Airport.
Now, it’s 17 years later, and while the flight is a highly blurred memory of time long past, this is usually when I think back on the year and look forward to the champagne toast to kick off the next one.
This year, I:
- Went to CA for the first time.
- Got my business registered and opened
- Got my photography on
- Published Book 3
- Right about quadrupled my readership…I kid you not; all the relentless Marketing 101 I’ve been teaching myself has been paying off big-time…and thank you all for sticking with this ramble-fest!
So, what’s on my agenda next year? Mind you this: I don’t exactly make resolutions. I just do. I keep a list, and cross it off. Call it an annual version of a bucket list, if you will.
My agenda iiiissss….
1. Get back into dance class. My teacher is back the first week of January. Hello there, hip scarf, I missed thee.
2. Get my SmugMug on. People have asked me about prints before, and I think this will be an awesome way to have a formal portfolio.
3. Get my Lens Collection on. The Sigma telephoto is not enough, ladies and gents. Lady wants a Nikkor 18-200mm, which is about $800. Lady also requires a 12-24mm wide-angle. And lady is definitely lusting after the 800mm super-telephoto lenses, but the lottery will have to preempt that purchase…
4. Release Book 4 and engage in a heavy marketing push. Self-explanatory. I want the books to work for me, after I spent the time working on them.
5. Contract more. Once again, despite Tax Season looming, I’m open to commissions for design. Book covers? Ad campaigns? Coaching on Marketing 101? Photo shoot? Bring it on!
And most importantly…
6. Enjoy everything around me just a little bit more. :)
But you guys know that.
Much love, and a happy New Year to all, in advance.
K.G.
Best Music Moments of 2011
December 17th, 2011 Comments Off
You guys know what I mean.
If you don’t, then I’ll say it point blank: I love jazz. I love contemporary jazz, specifically. I chase it, I photograph it, and I travel with it.
I’ll be honest, this year had gotten more than a little bit madcap as far as traveling was concerned. I had gone to California, Philly, Texas, of course the Caribbean – and the destinations change year to year. And all of this had been in the name of my music.
I can’t really think of the best moments of 2011 and pick just the one that stands out the most. Especially now, in my hotel room in Connecticut, preparing for another show tomorrow night, I’m raking my mind over the moments of 2011 in the key of jazz.
1. Newport Beach Jazz Fest - my first time attending, my first time meeting my friends from across the country, and my first time seeing the sheer, unbridled enthusiasm with which California embraces its contemp jazz.
2. Dave Brubeck, without a mic, at the Note - let’s put aside for a moment that this was Dave Brubeck, the legend of jazz. This was the first time, in my three years of coming to the Note, that I have ever heard the entire club go silent when Dave was about to speak. There was reverence in the room that night.
3. Boney James at BB King’s - how long has it been since James had been in NYC? Answer: too damn long.
4. Joey Sommerville, Oli Silk, and Matt Marshak at the Houndstooth - I think the Houndstooth Jazz series had become the smaller, NYC version of a jazz festival (an ongoing one, at that), but this show in particular was a party, start to finish. Joey turned out the swag, the funk, and the salsa.
5. Acoustic Alchemy at the Iridium - another great contemporary jazz sound that hadn’t been around NYC for a long while, and if there is ever a piece of auditory magic, it’s The Beautiful Game. Fred White takes the signature Acoustic Alchemy sound and makes a hypnotic tapestry out of it in live show.
Not to mention, Steve Cole came back to Houndstooth, and Peter White did the Elvis at BB King’s – and I have photos to prove it!!!)… Just so many great moments, most of them spent with the people that I am delighted to call my friends.
I look forward to 2012. A lot.
I’ll leave you with a photo that I’ve snapped of Mindi Abair at BB King’s last week. I took it during Silent Night, and it surprised me. I did not retouch the photo in any way, and although I could up the contrast a bit…no. I like it exactly the way it is.
A very merry Christmas to those who celebrate it, and a great winter season and New Year’s to those who do not.
K.G.
Copyright (c) KG Creative Enterprises
The Great Publishing Debate Info Post.
December 13th, 2011 § 4 Comments
You knew this was going to happen, one way or the next. The essay of self versus traditional publishing.
Mind you, this is for info purposes only. I have people reading this blog who know exactly what I’m talking about, and just as many people who go, “Whaaaa? What does that mean?” This is for both, really.
In the wake of the brouhaha that had trailed the past week with the Book Country stuff, my banker, who is an all-around cool dude, handed over the Wall Street Journal to me, with this article on the front page. This is about Darcie Chan’s journey to become a self-published author – and a best-selling one at that.
And you know what, considering that WSJ’s last article was on Book Country, I like this article. It presents a great example of what happens when you 1. get off the beaten path to find your own way and 2. work hard at it.
Especially with the advance of the Kindle, there is an ongoing debate as far as which method of publishing is better: traditional, via the brick-and-mortar publishing houses, or self-publication. Bear in mind that the majority of publishing houses do e-book publication in any case, but that the e-market is still only 15% of all books sold.
Which is still millions on millions of books.
This is the thing: traditional publishing and self-publishing have very little difference, but for one major factor: instead of the publishing house vetting the work and making sure that it’s market-ready, self-publishing puts every bit of work associated with making a book work is on the author.
You may know, either by virtue of common sense, that a book has its stages in the journey from brain to paper:
1. Concept
2. Writing
3. Revision
4. Publication
The first two stages don’t depend on the method of publication. The third one is a pretty standard step, because it is VERY rare that someone will release a book in any form without going over it first. The fourth one varies.
With traditional publication, you have the following as #4:
1. Research
Look, if my past series of posts about Book Country and Gayle’s blog in general don’t teach you, then I will say it again, and will accent with a book to the head until it sinks in: do. your. research. You cannot query an agent if they don’t represent your genre. You need to know which publication will print your short story and pay you, versus one who will not pay you a dime and will print only for the sake of it. You need to know the royalty percentages, what’s normal for which publishing house, and you need to know the language used in publishing contracts so that you know exactly where your copyright will be going. You are absolutely required to have the knowledge of the business before you go into it. Otherwise, you’re asking to become the victim of a scam. There are many “agencies” looking to profiteer off authors, just like there are vanity presses posing as legit publishing houses (Publish America being the best example). There are websites such as AbsoluteWrite, Preditors and Editors, Writers Beware, to name a few. Read them egregiously, but also learn and research in your own right so that you know when and if an article by any of those sites is full of it.
2. Query
You don’t just walk into a publishing house and hand in your manuscript. If only it could be so easy; but then there would be a small mob scene outside of the publishing house headquarters in NYC. You query an agent to take your book. In other words, write a letter that, in one paragraph, sums up why the agent should represent your book and shop it around to publishers. If the agent requires you to send a segment of your book – send in a segment of your book. Make sure everything follows guidelines.
Of course, then you cross your fingers, and repeat the prior until someone says yes. Because you will, without a doubt, get rejected.
But, supposing you get an agent, then you also have to wait to get a contract with a publishing house. Supposing get that, then you have to:
3. Edit, Edit, Edit.
Chances are, the publishing house has an entire editing department. Someone will gut through your book for plot and structure, someone else will gut your story for grammar. You edit, and you edit egregiously. This is in addition to whatever editing that you may have done in Step #3. What you may feel is a sufficient story may not be sufficient for the editing department. Is your plot going into a direction they’re not comfortable with? That may also be the case.
I will now proceed to state an unpleasant truth: a book is chosen by an agent or a publishing house not because of how well it’s written, nor because of the genre. Though both of those play into it, the primary reason for you lucking out and being chosen in tradition publication is invariably because of potential of sales. Because the publishing house will take the bulk of your royalty to cover the production costs, and the agent will take a cut as well, the publication relies on volume to survive. The real question in the publishing house is always “how much money can this book make?” first.
Also keep in mind that there is a lot to be said about copyright. The publishers claim the rights to your work for a certain amount of time, usually numbered in the years. This is what lets them sell on your behalf, and claim a cut of royalty for printing and distribution.
4. Go along
The publishing house already has the marketing plan laid out. You have to now go along with it. This means be interviewed, often. Book tours, which are much more work than what you may think. And if they hadn’t established an online presence for you, then it’s on you to do so.
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That stated, there are three main lists in the publishing house. The first one is the infamous slush pile. Manuscripts end up there, get plucked out once in a while, but mostly, they gather dust. Since there are e-submissions now, the easy way to explain it would be File 13. You guys know what I mean. It is RARE that a manuscript gets plucked out of the slush pile to land on the bookshelves.
The second one is the best-seller list. This is self-explanatory. This is a list of books that had sold exceptionally well. This is a list of books that have sold very well. EVERYONE knows who the author is. David Baldacci makes his living on that list, same for James Patterson (though I much prefer Baldacci; he keeps a nice pacing going). They have made their agents and publishing houses very wealthy. This is the list that everyone craves to be on, but few actually make it.
Then there’s the mid-list. Those are the books that you see, usually, in the shelves at Barnes & Noble. They are selling, but not as well as people have expected. They keep the bills paid, but they don’t do anywhere near as well as the best-sellers. The publisher releases them, hoping that they would do well, but when they do not, the lights are turned off. Those books will probably trudge along, but never meet expectations.
The mid-list is enormous for every publisher. If a book isn’t going to sell out quickly within its first printing, or the second and the third, then you can likely expect that they will be mid-listed. And that is normal. Not everyone can write a best-seller, and just because a story has sold well enough to hit the best-seller list doesn’t necessarily mean it’s good. Just like a mid-list story or a slush pile story can be absolutely fantastic, but it was not given a long enough chance to reach its audience or, as in the case of the slush pile, not given a chance at all.
Now, this is not a quick process. You are looking at anywhere from 18 to 30 months – yes, months - from you initial acceptance by an agent to seeing your actual book in stores. However, the trade-off is that the legwork of marketing, printing, distribution, etc. is not on your hands.
Self-publication is a double-edged sword. The good side of that sword is that it takes all the wait, the bulk of the royalty going to the publisher, and the gamut of query-rejection-query cycle, and slices it out of the picture. Generally, a self-pub author also keeps all the rights to their work. The bad news is…all the legwork, and I mean all the legwork, is squarely on the author’s shoulders.
This gets hairy in a hurry.
As you may have seen from my earlier posts, there are multiple avenues for self-publication. Some paid, some unpaid. And there is a massive difference between vanity press and self-publication, contrary to whoever says otherwise. The key words are up front. A vanity press takes money up front, and you are also likely to hand over your rights, because there may be a hidden clause in the contract about first publication rights. Legitimate self-publishing options do not take your rights, and the paid services are optional.
However, you have to keep in mind that everything needs to be done by the author. And I mean everything.
I’m sure I’ve blogged about it multiple times before, but editing has to be one of the banes of a self-published author’s existence. It’s necessary for any sort of a publishing medium, but the self-published author does not have a team of editors waiting to gut out the book. Either (s)he hires someone to do so – which is an expense out of pocket not for publication itself, to note - or does it on his/her own. This is a painstaking process as it is, made doubly more difficult by the actor-observer bias, and made even more difficult by the fact that there is no advance from the publisher that could at least ease financial matters for the author. The cover design also needs to be done in-house, and unless the author is also handy with the Adobe Creative Suite, then that’s something else to consider.
The thing is, self-publishers illustrate on a very regular basis that they are able to adapt. They edit, re-edit, and if they need to learn Photoshop in order to create the cover that they want, then they step up and get to work. But they’re doing this work, and yes, even set up to pay expenses before it goes to publication, in order to put out a quality product.
Let me pause right there and, again, refer to my prior entries on Book Country and vanity presses. Vanity presses’ up-front charge is for use of its publishing services. Editing is usually not included on that list of services, and although a vanity press may distribute – may, not for a fact – you cannot get out of ponying up the money. In the case of self-publication, expenses do come up. However, those are optional expenses. The author has the option of doing the work in-house; learn the ins and outs of publication, limit marketing only to online, and otherwise avoid paying money. However, because it’s squarely on the author, expenses do crop up – in leading the product towards the publication process.
The self-pub process itself, though, is easy. No, really, it is. It doesn’t take much effort to click Upload. That is not difficult. The formatting guides for Kindle and Nook, even the style guide for Smashwords, are very easy to follow. And all of those are avenues for major distributors; Smashwords pushes out their books to iTunes Books, Kobo, and Sony E-Reader markets. And they are free.
The costs in print self-publications vary because, again, there are vanity presses, and then there are print-on-demand presses. The difference, again, is money up front. Also, the difference is copyright. I cannot tell you how important it is for an author to read their fine print and find out whether their publication method will involve ownership of copyright for X number of years. I can’t tell you how important it is to do research. And know this: typically, a POD press will not hold your copyright. CreateSpace is a typical example of of a good print-on-demand press: all they do is print and distribute. There is only one cost associated as a byway of publication, and that is the proof. However, if you have a free code – which is given out pretty routinely through NaNoWriMo, ABNA, and other contests – then that cost is eliminated.
You may say, “AHA! There is a cost up front!!!” at this, but let me point out that you are not paying the market price for a book in buying the proof. You’re reimbursing CreateSpace for the raw materials used in producing the proof. Ink, paper – all of that costs money. After approval and publication, CreateSpace will take its cut from the sale for the exact same thing.
Oh, and honestly, $5-10 bucks for a proof as opposed to $100+ up front? Seriously, which one would you rather pay? Again, this is not a fee up front just to use the press. It’s the cost of raw materials that are used in production, at production cost.
The services offered by a print-on-demand press outside of the basic printing and distribution services are, in fact, paid. Again, they are optional. The author doesn’t have to have a gut-through by the editing service for $300. Nor does the author have to use their professional cover design service. There are very nice-looking templates in CreateSpace that allow the author to design a professional-caliber cover and use his or her own images. While the $40 – note the number here – is not required, it does list the book at Barnes & Noble, and the Amazon outlets around the world, whereas basic distribution to Amazon.com is free and included in the CreateSpace service.
The contrast as far as press goes would be iUniverse. They do all the work for you, much like a regular publishing house, however – it costs money. You are paying them for work performed on your behalf. They print your book, unload, distribute, and that is both time spent by their professionals in the one-on-one time that they give the author and raw materials in printing your books. However, their cheapest package is in the $600 range, with the best and all-inclusive going into four figures. Bonus is that you may get your books as hardcover as well as paperback.
Let’s once again go back to one simple fact: while the bulk of self-published work out there is e-sales, e-sales are still, at the most, only 20% of the market. The mass-market paperback is not going anywhere anytime soon. People like the feel of the book in their hands, they appreciate work by previously published authors, or they may go for a particular publishing brand. If there is a good self-pub print, and it develops a following, it will do every bit as well as a trad-pub print, and at a greater benefit to the author.
Okay. I think I’ve rambled enough. Next post on this topic, whenever that would be, is on the stigmas in self-pub, and some myth-busting. Fun stuff!
K.G.
