Nouveau

            I like to think I’m pretty open-minded, and that I can embrace new ideas. But there is still something to be said for tradition. But after many attempts to preserve tradition, after many attempts to modify into something new but hold onto the spirit of the old, it’s time to do something radical.

Looking at Self-Publishing with a New Eye

            I’ve never been disdainful of self-publishing. I know it can work for many people, but I have been more standoffish with it for a number of reasons. Foremost, I like agents. They’re good people. They’re knowledgeable. They shoulder a lot of work for writers, and they know how to navigate the potential hazards. I still want one.

            But other aspects of self-publishing are not as daunting as they used to be. The idea of self-marketing and promotion isn’t as scary as it once was, thanks in large part to a marketing book more about marketing business than books (of course, the writer is the business when it comes to self-publishing, so it still works).

            So I’m beginning to entertain the idea again, but one thing still holds me back: time. Marketing one’s self as a self-published author takes an immense amount of time, and time is ever a luxury, especially with a small business emerging.

            I think I’m going to continue networking for a little longer while polishing some of my books, and test the waters again. I’ll reassess after that.

Genre Dancing

            What’s in a genre? I could go Shakespearean with the rose thing, but this really is a serious question. How are they defined? Where do the lines blur? There has been a rash of genre combinations and crossovers lately. Whole new sections have risen in bookstores, claiming space from other genres. Other genres subdivide like cells undergoing meiosis.

Romance spawns off Dark Romance, or is it Paranormal Romance? Still others lump those in with Urban Fantasy, itself an offshoot of Fantasy, but now there is Epic Fantasy, which was originally simply Fantasy. And then Contemporary Fantasy. Does that include Urban Fantasy? Are the related?

            Where’s a Venn diagram of book genres when you need one?

            And let’s not get started on the young adult versions of all of these.

            Is it any wonder that trying to pick a genre to submit to an agent can become a headache?

Aimless

            Writing is a hard business. A lot of the time there is no guidance or direction on what to do to break into the business. The advice is generic most of the time such as “write a great story,” but that’s entirely subjective. Rejections are even less helpful with their language designed to cool writers out, and that’s just when we get them. More often than not, anymore, the only rejection we receive is no reply, which is completely unhelpful in every way.

            Still, I love writing. I want to be a writer. So I press on.

            I’m willing to take up alternate tactics. If I can’t do a surgical strike to break into the business, I’ll carpet bomb. A nicer way to say it is to say I’m diversifying. I’ll crank out many different stories until something makes it through the defensive lines.

Targeting

            The publishing genres are tricky business. The standard genres aren’t so much of a problem. Romance, mystery, and science fiction aren’t that hard. It’s when we get into specific sub-genres and even cross-genres that it gets tricky. What’s the difference between urban fantasy and paranormal? Is an urban fantasy the same as a paranormal romance?  What about mystery and urban fantasy? Mystery and epic fantasy? Mystery and science fiction?

            Each genre comes with specific expectations of story, too, and what one person reads as one genre, another would say that it doesn’t belong in that genre.

            I have a couple of series that are clearly defined in their genres. But one, the one I believe to be my best, seems to be slipping through the definitions and can’t quite capture the right agent audience. I think, though, that it’s been my error, and I need to change my targeting towards a more specific genre, one that more correctly resonates with the heart of the story.

Time Sink

            Ask any teacher what the hardest part of teaching is, and the answer that is most often number one is grading. It takes time. Loads of it. And for someone who teaches writing, there are no real shortcuts. I must read that essay and make comments on it. Computers can’t go it alone. It’s times like this that I wish to use a few choice colorful metaphors towards other departments for using Scantron tests that can be graded in the blink of an eye.

            The temptation is to knuckle under and simplify the grading structure to allow me to more rapidly mark a score. And it’s not like I can’t evaluate a piece of writing on the quick. I’m a fast enough and astute enough reader that I can quickly determine the grade an essay should get. It’s the explanations that take time. It’s pointing out the mistakes and how to correct them that eat up my time.

            There are definitely times where I would like to adopt the habit of literary agents to simply stop reading and reject what has been submitted to me with the same level of explanation that agents give. It would be so tempting to dash off a quick form letter to a student with the explanation that “I just didn’t fall in love with the essay.”

Rat Pack of Writing and Publishing

            After watching the Biography.com video on Bogey, it occurs to me that something similar might be underway with regards to publishing. The self-publishing venues and the decline of many authors’ sentiments towards the publishing industry might make for a revolution of sorts.

            Bogey and his pack began a subtle power shift away from the studio executives, and I wonder, if to survive, publishers might have to shift more power towards authors and agents, incorporating them in more of the decisions instead of simply handing it down from above. The ease of digital self-publishing might be enough to force the industry to change its ways, which are largely unaltered for over 200 years (or more).

            I don’t know how the publishing industry will change (or maybe it won’t), but I could well see a Rat Pack emerging to contest the status quo, especially with the likes of Google, Apple, and Amazon pushing for change.

Conference Tips

Crimebake was a massive success for me personally. Not only did I get to hang out with writers and participate in workshops in a genre I love, I made some great friends, learned a lot, and made great contacts in the publishing world.
So here are my tips for a successful writer’s conference:
1. Stay loose. Yes, there are going to be some great workshops, but you shouldn’t plan on going to all of them or feel constrained to stay in one that isn’t working out for you. Go find a different workshop, go to the bar, get in a conversation with people.
2. Two Follows on one. Go to the bar. This really should be mandatory, especially if you’re wanting to make contacts in publishing. Agents and editors hang out with one another in the bar. They’re not writers, so they don’t get much from some of the workshops, aside from the ones they run.
3. Hang out with people. Everyone is there to meet someone else, so join a conversation. You don’t want to take over, but there’s nothing wrong with hanging out and at least getting recognized.
4. Be you. Don’t try to impress people. Don’t try to be what you think people want you to be or what you should be. The friends I made at this conference were because I was my usual obnoxious, sarcastic self. There’s a group for you in the conference.
I could probably go on and on, but really that’s the essence of it. Enjoy yourself and make friends. Don’t stress about finding an agent and getting published.

Modes

When the semester begins, (even before that, really) teacher mode kicks in. My focus is on teaching, setting up classes, preparing assignments, and the dreaded grading. I still write. I've been trying very hard to make sure that writer mode stays on no matter what else is going on, but publishing mode, the part of me that is trying to find an agent and get published, gets pushed way into the background. There are, after all, only so many hours in the day. Sorting through the web, looking through the Writer's Market, following agents on Twitter, ends up being a lot of work. And it's work that I can do, but when teaching comes, I have to shift focus.
The only regret, and the thing I want to work on, is being able to switch modes more effortlessly. If I can figure out a way to go from teaching to publishing with less effort, I think I could fit at least a little of it into my semester.
Even then, publishing mode ends up encompassing a lot of smaller modes, like teaching does. Queries, social media, conferences, and the like are all parts of that mode, but require their own separate skills. Writing the book is the easy part of becoming a writer. But then, getting a degree is the easy part to being a teacher.

Interactive Fiction

     I've been experimenting with interactive fiction, the earliest pioneer of the computer game that used text, and runs, as Sheldon Cooper put it, "on the world's most powerful graphics chip: imagination."
      I'm glad to discover that interactive fiction never died out. There is quite the thriving community behind it. Their resources have made it very easy to repatriate to this oft-forgotten medium. I've been interested in using IF (as they abbreviate it) for teaching purposes, but now I have to consider the future of the publishing industry.
      The iPad has kind of kickstarted a revolution in reading by integrating media files and links into their books for a richer experience, and the old Choose Your Own Adventure style books are making a comeback through digital means. However, interactive fiction is finding its way to devices as well with interpreters that can run on any platform, including ereaders like Kindle. Interactive fiction is perfect for such a platform. The e-ink screens don't need to display complicated, moving graphics, and a keyboard (either a touch-enabled or physical keyboard) for input makes interaction simple.
      I'm really excited to think that interactive fiction could make a resurgence, where games emphasize story and imagination over raw graphics processing and special effects.
      Those wanting to know more about interactive fiction can check out the Interactive Fiction Archive and Inform 7.

Agents Rule

     I recently delivered a workshop to a bunch of creative writing students at the college I work for about how to get published---I still feel odd about it seeing as I have not yet been published. Yet. Yet. In this workshop I I somewhat surprised myself by devoting ~90% of it to the priority and importance of obtaining an agent.*
     Now, I don't know anyone personally who has an agent. My personal contacts in the publishing world would not impress anyone (I do hope to change this). I do, however, know people in a local writing group who are all about the self-publishing. They sit there and encourage me to do it, too. "Release your novel online via your blog. Put it up through Amazon. You'll get numbers and eventually you'll attract an agent and a publisher. Meanwhile you'll get your writing out there. Record your own audiobooks and distribute them." For some it's a siren lure. It's not for me.
     I think I know just enough about the publishing world to know I don't know nearly enough, but that's fine. Agents do. I'm a writer, and while some people think they can and should do it all, I don't. I know where my strengths and my talents lie, and I will play to those. I will work on honing my craft, coming up with new stories, characters, and worlds instead of split my efforts. I know that I'll obtain an agent some day, and get to see my books on the shelves of the Big Box Bookstores.

*I received no money by agents for this post, and no agents were harmed in the making of this blog post.

D-Day Approaches.

     D-Day approaches. By this I mean I think I've reworked my query sufficiently to send out among the sharks, er, agents. I've been working on this thing for awhile, and I think I've got it. It's much shorter than my original query, which is a plus. Hopefully I'll get some bites on this one. And I need to get this out because the semester is going to start moving into high gear, and I don't want to end up in December without having sent queries out.
     D-Day approaches, and I'm excited and terrified.

That Thing

     I remember watching the agent and editor panel at Desert Dreams 2010. A lot of very respected agents and editors sat up there. It was intimidating, and also very exciting. Hearing them field questions, and what their answers were seemed to plug a lot of the gaps for me as a prospective client. I remember one idea in particular.
     I don't remember the exact question, something about cross over genres. Specifically it had to do with urban fantasy (which really made me pay attention). And I remember The Janet Reid and Miriam Kriss answered this one by talking about protagonists that do some sort of investigation (cop, PI, reporter, etc.) but also has a thing. A paranormal thing that puts a twist on the rest of it. It makes sense. Anita Blake is an animator, Rachel Morgan is a witch, Harry Dresden is a wizard, Chris Knight was a vampire, and the list goes on. The thing is important, too. It's pretty much the hook for the whole book. It's what sets the character apart from others of this type. If the thing is fresh and original, it can really take off.
     I've got a thing. Rather, Matt Allen has a thing, as my scant few readers know. I think it's a pretty fantastic thing, too. But the problem is that the full impact of the thing takes a little thought. It's not immediately apparent. It's easy to get a rudimentary understanding, but the full impact is a little more subtle, and can even provoke a "that's it?" or a "so what?" response before the full weight sets in. So I'm struggling to come up with that hook which both conveys the fundamental understanding, and the full impact, all while making it interesting.

Goldilocks

     This weekend brought a lot of query revisions, and it got me thinking about a classic fairy tail. I know that a lot of getting an agent to jump at a query is a measure of being "just right", which is more a question of knowing it when you see it, but what about on the writing side of queries? As the writer, it's up to me to try and figure out that fit from my end. I got a lot of questions from various forum people regarding my query, usually questions asking for more and more detail, yet that seems to fly in the face of what queries are supposed to be. This leaves me with several questions.
     How much detail is necessary? How much is the right amount to know, and how much is too much? An even better question, though is the detail being asked for still necessary if the answer is uninteresting? Is it better to have that bit of mystery in a query, that unanswered question, than to give the answer that falls flat? Lastly, at what level do I write at for an agent. It's my understanding that agents representing certain works are more or less experts in their genres. Should I expect them to get certain conventions of the genre? If I spell out every last thing am I insulting their intelligence? Do I ignore what many other writers (most not in my genre) have said about my query and go with my gut?

Forbidden topics

     As a teacher, I've seen my fair share of essays on topics that I don't want to deal with any longer. I've even known teachers to create a list of banned topics such as abortion and capital punishment. I think it's mostly because students all say the same thing over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. Without a new take, a new, fresh perspective, I'm tired of it. Yet I haven't created a banned list yet. Emphasis on yet. I find myself leaning in that direction, though, as I will groan after just a few lines because I can already tell that there's nothing new to read.
     I've seen a few agents post about how they're tired of certain stories. Vampires readily come to mind as I've seen agents post on those a time or two, and I understand that agent inboxes are clogged to the RAM with queries for them. I'm sure there are others, so I wonder, and ask (politely of course) what topics make agents groan even within the genres they accept? Also, would it be possible for a fresh, new perspective on such a topic to grab an agent, or is it too late by the second line of the query?

Self-publishing

     This one just seemed to pop up all at once for me. There's a lot of people asking me to go and self-publish. "It's the wave of the future" and it would get me out there and making money on my books instead of wasting time trying to get an agent. The artistic integrity of my book would be maintained that way as well, allowing me complete control over the whole thing, right down to the cover.
     Yes, it is a siren song. Complete control, and seeing my words out there among the people ready to be snapped up by a ready populace. And of course that would just be the beginning! Agents and publishers would realize how awesome my abilities are after sales go through the roof, and they would clamor to me, and I would make them fight in a gladiatorial arena, presiding over them like Caesar, until only the survivor remained. My money is on The Janet Reid (AKA The Query Shark). I would then reign as Supreme Emperor Author over the NYT bestselling list, putting to shame the likes of King and Patterson.
     Hey, if I'm going to dream, I'm going to dream big. I am a writer, after all.
     But that's all that is, or at least the odds of it happenning are approximately the same as winning three lotteries simultaneously while surviving several lightning strikes.
     Squared.
     More than that, there's a reason why agents and publishers exist. Aside from the editorial input, they know what sells. They know the market as well as anyone can know the market, which is pretty darned impressive. And that's just the tip of the iceberg! Agents do things the likes of which I cannot fathom! Nor do I want to (my comment is in there somewhere. Keep looking!). I have enough headaches being a writer, and I can only imagine it will become more intense when there are writing deadlines to balance along with my mundane existence. The hassles of trying to do the work of an agent while self-publishing a book and writing others is just insane. At least for me. Others who have the knack, have at it!
     More than that, I know my writing skills, and I know my ego (Pause for those comments regarding my massive ego) and I know that my writing isn't perfect. It's just not. I know it's not. I think I'm a really good writer, but even the likes of Thomas Jefferson needed people to read over his stuff and edit! I need agents and editors to take a look at my stuff and help me make it even better, and yes, it can always be better.
     More than that, know that the gatekeepers are there for a reason, and that if I move to self-publishing, I may not have the chops to handle agents, editors, and publishers. It's a hard, unforgiving business, and if I don't have the patience and determination to make sure my book is the best I can possibly be, and to navigate those treacherous waters (ooo, another shark reference), then what agent or publisher would want to pick me up? I've read the blogs of several agents regarding self-publishing, and they all cite these just a few of the reasons to avoid self-publishing. I could go on, but I'm not writing this to slam self-publishing, merely to say, it's not for me.
     Sure, I'm going to rack up a log of battle scars and shark bites before this is done, but I'm going to make it. I'm going to see my books sitting on shelves, and I'll be able to tell the war stories of what I went through to make it.
     Greatly exaggerated, of course. I'm a writer.

Hired Gun and Publishing?

     In my not so glamorous life, I am an adjunct instructor at local comm colleges. I get paid for doing something I like to do, and something I think I'm pretty good at doing, so I can't won't complain too much. The students always seem to drive me nuts during the semester, but what job doesn't come with some kind of annoying people to work with?
     But recently I've been in the mad rush to sign statements regarding the terms of my teaching, and it got me thinking. I am an employee who can not be hired back at any time, with no reason given. More than that, there are 1,001 reason why my classes could be taken away from me (okay, so that's hyperbolic, but creative license and literary reference). Just today, my teaching schedule pretty much upended itself. Fortunately I ended up with just as many classes as I started with, but there was a time when it looked like I might only have one class to teach, which means almost no moolah for moi. Not a good place to be what with those things known as bills.
     Back to the philosophical part. I have found that the terms of employment are remarkably one sided, with very little leverage on my side of the equation, except one. I can go wherever I want. Since the colleges have no feelings of loyalty to me, I should have none for them. At any moment I could be left with no classes to teach from one particular school even if I gave them my undying oath of fealty, but they wouldn't hesitate to cut me loose. In the end it becomes something of a free for all with those offering the best deal for me getting my services, not unlike a hired gun.
     That's exactly what I feel like, too. These schools have the best deal for me, so I go to them with no promise or expectation of the future, and it begins again. I inherently feel wrong about the idea, as I think that loyalty should be rewarded. After seeing that it is not, though, that idea is out the window. It is what is, and as adjuncts are becoming more popular, I imagine it will continue to be this way. So I will be the hired gun.
     But it's also given me thoughts about the publishing industry, or, rather, questions. I don't know much about the whole biz as I've not been published, and there is always the matter of the people behind the curtain, but I have to wonder is the publishing industry like this. It is so cutthroat and business-oriented that writers are the hired guns of the publishing world? It seems like agents and publishers have quite a bit of loyalty (hence why they are so selective about representation and manuscripts) but that's me looking from the outside through smudge binoculars. Can any industry people shed some light on this? Is there loyalty in the publishing world? Or is it a free-for all hired gun scenario?

Pen Names?

     I've been thinking about pen names for awhile, and while I think I've come to a decision, I'm still uncertain. Shakespeare of course has his famous line "What's in a name? that which we call a rose / By any other name would smell as sweet" (R&J II:ii [by the by, Juliet had all the best lines in that play. Romeo was a wuss]). And in this information age, it's not like people would not find out who I am, so is it better to use a name which might sell better, or to be me (or not to be me, that is the)? I know not for certain, though lean towards mine own name (Blame Shakespeare for my linguistic style slipping).
     In the past I leaned towards a pen name because I didn't believe my own name sounded flashy enough to garner attention, but now I'm believing that using my own name might be more beneficial, particularly in efforts to gain representation. If I put myself out there under my pen name, then various bloggers and twitterers will not recognize the name of some unassuming querier, but if I use my real name, there might be a spark of recognition. More than that, I've been considering my placement on bookshelves, and have come to realize that I would receive placement next to the revered, vaunted man who dared to describe humanity as "Mostly harmless".
     So, I shall put it out there to ask commenters (of which there are almost none), is a pen name better to use than a real name? I'll put a poll up to make voting convenient, and probably leave it up a week.

The ebook is not ready

     The ebook is not ready. There's no denying that the ebook is something that everyone wants to work, but it's not there yet. There are a lot of problems with ebooks that people are struggling to figure out how to answer.
     Tops on my list is the format. Ebooks have a variety of formats, and have for years. There's no doubt in my mind that a few more formats will emerge in the near future, too, as more and more people are struggling to get into the ebook market. The leaders of the pack thus far: Kindle and Nook. Amazon and Barnes & Noble have the majority of the market with their excellent devices, but the difficulty with formats remains. Both formats are proprietary. It's necessary to own each device in order to read their books. Even given that software applications emerge for various computers, phones, and tablets, this means that ebook libraries will be kept separate, making for an inconvenience at the last, and a burden at most as people will have to own multiple devices to get the ebook experience they truly want.
     Ebooks need an open, unified format in order to work. Mp3s proved just how great a unifying format can be. There are dozens of mp3 players on the market, and those devices that attempted a more restrictive format quickly found that the mp3 was king of audio formats. After more than ten years the mp3 is still king despite the emergence of "better" formats. Mp3s are small, portable, and have a good quality for what they do. Certainly they don't represent a full orchestra with accuracy, but they convey a music experience that is excellent and portable.
     Ebook formats, well, don't really have an advantage over one another. They display text on a screen, formatting the screen to the text. There's really not much to it, yet all ebook readers have a format they favor over another, and it's difficult for consumers as there's simply too much confusion about what works on what. For the vast majority, reading should be an activity that has no confusion. Grab a book, open, and read. The end. Having to deal with issues of what book format is compatible with which device is a hassle best left skipped.
     The hardware is another issue. While I could go into interface issues, and the process of buying books via the reader, I consider those less important. I'm talking about reading. I played around with a Nook and Sony eReader (a disadvantage of the Kindle is there's no place to actually demonstrate it to the public) and found that the time it took to load a book and turn pages was exceptionally slow. When in the throes of a good book, I don't want to wait 15, 10, or even 5 seconds for a page to load properly. I want to spend that time reading. Nor do I want to wait up a minute for a book to load after I select it from my library. I may not have a minute. If I want to get in a quick reading, I don't want to spend my time waiting for the book to load instead of reading the book.
     Navigation, too, becomes a large issue. It's impossible to search through ebooks with any kind of speed. In a regular book, I can flip through dozens of pages in less than a second. Quickly scan, then keep searching through to find the section I want. Trying to skim just a few pages through an ebook was sheer torture for me. I couldn't even get through the table of contents to the book proper in less than a minute, even after the book itself loaded. Ebook readers need to have an instantaneous refresh to allow something closer to the present experience of reading a book.
     Pricing is another point a little tough to swallow at present. A book is something tangible. It has a shape, presence, and weight. Paying the same for an ebook as a print book is hard to swallow since there's none of those things to the electronic format. Essentially data is being bought. Not even a program, just data. The book can't have the same cost as a print book as, wel, there's no print. The physical substance of a book, a good portion of a book's cost by publishing accounts, is missing, so how can the cost be the same? Personally, I'm one of those that likes to buy the cd then rip the music to my media player. I like to have the physical back up at hand for whatever reason the digital format doesn't work. It's impossible to do that with books (well, not unless someone has a scanner and a lot of free time on their hands). Given the choice of the physical media, or a piece of data for the same cost, I will go for the actual book. Ideally I would like to see a bundle pack where consumers can buy the book, and for a few (2-3) dollars more, they get the ebook as well whether downloadable or on physical media such as a miniature optical disc or flash card.
     These are just a few of the problems that plague the ebook format. There are many otres, but I'm sure that these are the problems that will keep it relegated to a curiosity instead of taking its place as a full-fledge option to replace (or supplement) physical books.

What Happened to Short Stories?

     A volume of Ray Bradbury short stories stared up at me, begging me to pick it up and look at it, so I did. Over 100 stories in one volume. Now, I'm a bit of a sucker for ye olde tyme science fiction short stories, probably because I teach a class usingthem. I've got a volume of Asimov's stories, and love it. Bradbury is a natrual extension, but it got me thinking (which is always a bad sign) what happened to short stories?
     Now, I know they haven't disappeared completely, and in some respects they're making a resurgence. I see volumes of multi-author anthologies in the bookstore, which is great. Glad to see them, but that's not really what I'm talking about. What happened to the wealth of short stories that authors would produce? In the days of yore (ie the golden age of science fiction, mostly) pulp magazines churned out stories all the time. These were the tools of authors to get themselves published back then, but that doesn't seem to be the way it works, now. Now it's the novel that is king.
     I think, though, that these short stories were great not just for publication, but for the authors to hone their craft and to give them breadth. I'm not sure writers now appreciate the shorter form of the story. The sweeping epics and multi-part series have taken over writing, which is great. I love series; I love epic-length books. I also love short stories. There are times when only a short story will do.
     It's more than that, though. Short stories are a great way to practice story-telling, and to get out those stories that don't require epic length. I've written quite a few short stories in order to tell the tales I need to, and like to think that they blend into my novels, enhancing the mythology and world I've created. I have other short stories in the works, though, and hopes at becoming a prolific writer of the form (as well as novels, of course) and perhaps see my own name on the shelf on not just novels, but a volume of my own short stories.
     But I would like to know the feelings of others regarding short stories. Have they fallen into decline? Are they coming back? Are they a useful tool for other writers? What do agents and publishers think of them?