How to Choose a Writer’s Conference

PJ here, happy to be on the East coast and back in my own bed…ahhhh. After doing this writing thing for a while, I’ve been to quite a few writer’s conferences, and I wanted to share my experience on how to choose the “right” conference for you. If you belong to RWA or a similar writer’s organization, you probably get inundated with lots of options. Here are a few things to think about.

Location/Accommodations: Check out the hotel venue and make sure the location is some place you’d like to stay for a few days. A bad night’s sleep, disappointing food, or poor quality hospitality can really put a damper on your stay. It’s worth visiting the hotel’s website and checking out their reviews. Make plans for car rental and recreational activities ahead of time so you don’t get there with hopes of visiting a locale on your “down time” only to find that you can’t get a car rental on short notice or the place you want to visit is closed. Although you are going for business, one of the perks of traveling is enjoying the sights along the way. Also, check to see what is around your hotel. Are there local restaurants and shopping within walking distance? Is there a gym? An indoor pool? Are you next to a train yard, airport, or in a bad section of the city? Some of these things may not be important to you, but if they are, make sure you know what you are paying for ahead of time. Scope out your hotel and surrounding area on Google maps.

Price: Is it affordable and worth the money for what you are getting? Are meals included? Are the speakers well known and knowledgeable? Is it worth your time, money, and effort? Remember to consider your loss of income while you’re away from your day job, and factor in any accrued costs such as wardrobe, entertainment, and additional travel fees (taxis, trains, buses etc.). Remember to save all receipts for tax purposes.

Focus of conference: Does the conference offer workshops that will help you further your career goals? If you are a newer writer, make sure there are craft workshops geared to what you’d like to learn. If you are seeking publication, are there opportunities to meet with agents and editors to pitch your story? Agent and editor panels offer a great opportunity to ask questions, find out what they are looking for, and hear the latest about the industry from publishing professionals. If you are a published author, do they offer promotion, marketing, and business oriented workshops? Interested in self-pubbing? Do they offer the most updated information available in this rapidly growing and changing aspect of the industry? If you are participating in a book signing, how successful have previous years been and how many readers can you expect to see? Shipping books is expensive, so ask for clear answers about realistic expectations. My experience is that print books don’t sell all that well at conferences and I rarely recoup the cost of shipping. I can see e-books being the way to go for future signings.

Networking: Conferences are a wonderful place to meet like-minded individuals and make professional contacts that you might never have the chance to meet otherwise. Don’t stalk the agents and editors but research them and know who you’d like to make a connection with. Make the effort to sit next to them at lunch or dinner (or in the bar). Be ready to talk intelligently about your work. Be prepared with a SHORT pitch of your WIP. Create a one or two sentence summary (log line) of what your story is about. The most common question asked at conferences is “What do you write?” The second most common question is “What is your story about?” Have an answer memorized and ready, and confidently smile as you give them your brief spiel. Don’t monopolize their time, but use the time wisely. If you get tongue tied and start rambling or their eyes begin to glaze over, stop talking and ask them a question about something unrelated. Where are you from? Are you a writer, too? Do you love baseball, zumba, pole dancing? Something that will put you at ease and take the heat off of you until you can collect yourself and get comfortable enough not to sound like an idiot. These are just people, but they are professionals and are there to FIND YOU! Respect their time, but don’t let your fear stop you from putting yourself out there.

Quality Speakers: I cannot stress this enough. Do some research on the speakers. What are their publishing/professional credentials? Just because they are there, doesn’t mean they are interesting, entertaining, or an expert in their field. Have they done this workshop before? How many times? Ask around to other writers and check out the websites of your presenters. If they don’t have a professional website that is engaging and informative, it might be an indicator that they aren’t all that well organized.

Organization: If you’ve ever participated in organizing a conference, you know about the gazillion moving parts and the army of people it takes to put on a seamless production. Of course there are always things that go wrong or details that get missed, but overall, organizers want it to be a good experience for everyone and they want attendees to return year after year to support the effort. If they don’t return e-mails, or answer your questions clearly up front, chances are the conference won’t be much better organized than the individuals running it. Conferences are generally a way for organizations to make money to support writers and their endeavors, so organizers (who are all volunteers, so be patient and kind to these people) are invested in making your conference experience successful. If there are suggestions you have for improvements, be sure to share them with conference organizers.

Image courtesy of Petr Kratochvil http://www.publicdomainpictures.net/view-image.php?image=3421&picture=apples-and-pears

And last but not least, Food: You might have to contact the conference organizers for this information, but it’s worth asking about the menu ahead of time. If you have dietary restrictions or just want to make sure that some healthy selections are available, it’s worth the added effort to ensure that your needs are known ahead of time. You also have the option of doing a bit of shopping when you get settled in and stocking your hotel room refrigerator (make sure one is available in your room when you book your reservation) with fruit, yogurt, water, etc. so you can avoid the breakfast buffets that offer all those yummy bagels, pastries, muffins, and such. Will there be adequate chocolate selection at breaks? Just sayin’.

Unlocked Secret: Do your research, guys. There are enough choices for quality conferences around the country and your educational dollars are valuable, so make them count and get the most of your experience.

I hope to see you all at the RWA National convention in Atlanta this summer. It’s shaping up to be a fabulous time!

Any other tips for our readers to help them find a quality conference? What has been your favorite conference experience? Any funny experiences you’d like to share from the “trenches”?

Glossophobia – Fear of Public Speaking by Katy Lee

Hello, Katy Lee here. Due to a speaking event I am attending this weekend, I decided to share my thoughts on public speaking again. Enjoy!

Writing is an isolated venture, except if you want to keep the lights on. For someone who wants to make a living as an author, stepping out to sell your work requires finesse in the art of public speaking. For an introvert, such as me, the idea of pitching to editors and agents to sell my work, triggers panic to set in. The concept of building a platform to gain readership means talking to people. Sometimes one-on-one. Sometimes on a stage. The point I am making here, though, is there comes a time when writing is no longer sequestered.

Are you ready to start talking?

Glossophobia, or the fear of public speaking, is remarkably common. In fact, some experts estimate that as much as 75% of the population has some level of anxiety when it comes to this. There are some people who fear it more than death, but most are able to control this fear to get the job done.

Many writers believe they have chosen a career that allows them to avoid public speaking. They think speaking jobs are in the corporate world or in sales. Or perhaps they think standing up in front of a group is found only in a classroom, teaching, or on a stage, acting. But things could not be further from the truth.

Agents and editors want to hear the excitement about your stories right from your mouth. If you have an opportunity to meet a literary professional face-to-face, you need to be ready to shine. Also, readers want to know you personally. With the social networks available now, this task is easier than ever, but chances for more intimate settings like a speaking event will help you connect with more people. Relationship building will give you a platform to succeed.

Now, I could tell you to get over your fears and get up there and start talking, but I’ve been in your shoes and know that’s not possible. Your fear is real. For me, prayer was my first step. As in inspirational writer, I firmly believe God has given me these stories to tell, and so I told Him if I was going to do this, then I would need His help in relieving some of this fear. And as always He came through.

Opportunities presented themselves to me where I could learn coping skills for stepping out and opening up. Leadership classes such as Toastmasters were taken. I was then offered the children’s ministry director position for my church – speaking to children. Now there’s a scary task. But I did it, and little by little my fear went away. My fumbling over words lessened. My voice got louder, and I stood straighter. Yay God!

But about a year ago, I was invited to speak to a group of women at a monthly Aglow meeting. At first I said, “No, I could never do that. Children were one thing, but adults? Never.” But in the end I did end up accepting the invitation. Since then I have been invited to speak all over New England. It has been an amazing adventure.

The Unlocked Secret: God does not want us to fear anything. In fact, His Word tells us, He did not give us a spirit of fear, but of power, love and a sound mind. (2 Timothy 1:7) And I don’t know about you, but if it’s not from Him, then I don’t want it. So goodbye fear, and let’s talk.

Question: Do you suffer with a little bit of Glossophobia, too? How do you overcome it?

Inspirational Fiction Authors: Enter the IRCA or the TBL!

Hello, Katy Lee here with a contest opportunity for all you Inspy Authors. Perhaps, though you wonder why you should enter your book. Well, because the Inspirational Reader’s Choice Award is a unique contest. The judges for the IRCA are readers of Christian fiction, but are not involved in the publishing industry. They are readers ONLY.

Chip MacGregor of MacGegor Literary Agency interviewed Nancy J. Farrier, the contest coordinator this week. (For the complete interview, check out Mr. MacGregor’s Blog here.) But here are a few reasons Nancy says the IRCA can help you as an author.

“The past thirteen years I have coordinated the IRCA. I read many comments from the judges. Comments that we promised to keep private, but are often so exciting I want to send them to the author as encouragement. I’ll share a few of those comments anonymously below:

Tremendously wonderful read!…I had to have [the author’s] other books, so I ran out and bought them.

…I would definitely recommend this book and will be looking into other books by the author…

New author for me to read, but I will look for more of her books.

As a published author, think of the possibilities for reaching new readers if you entered the Inspirational Reader’s Choice Award. Fans this excited would love telling everyone else about your book.”

Thanks, Nancy! And those are great reasons to enter!

Now, maybe you’re not published yet. Not to worry! The RWA Faith, Hope, and Love Chapter also offers the Touched by Love contest, open to unpublished writers. Check it out here.

And to enter the IRCA click here.

Don’t wait though. Deadline is March 1, 2013!

The Unlocked Secret: Contests can give a writer the boost they need to reach a wider audience, whether it be an editor for an unpubbed writer, or a new reader for an author. It will be worth your time and money to enter. So even if the TBL or IRCA isn’t for you, search out the contests that match your genre. Find the contest that will get your work into the desired hands that will increase your audience. You can’t go wrong! And good luck!

 

The Unlocked Secret of the Niche Market.

So what is Niche Marketing? Wickepedia says, “A niche market is the subset of the market on which a specific product is focusing.” Really, Wickie? Who wrote that? Is that the best you’ve got? Of course they go on to explain further with words like demographics, market shares, and some other marketing terms and examples that didn’t do much to help me figure out how to define where my books might land on the book shelves.

The first question a professional marketer asks is, “Who is your target audience?” Truly understanding this question is probably the number one best marketing tool a writer can have. We’d all like to say, “everyone, of course.” And while that may be sort of true that many different demographics might enjoy your book, it’s more likely and infinitely easier to reach a smaller group of readers specifically interested in your genre, subject matter, and characters. Think “low lying fruit.”

Targeting “your” readers may be easier if your book falls into a specific genre. If you’ve written a cozy mystery about a librarian who is a quilter turned amateur sleuth, you might consider marketing your book to librarians and quilters, a pretty small “niche” market that might be easier than trying to reach “everyone.” This is why agents and editors want to know what “genre” you are writing. So they can determine the marketability of your book based on their experience with that particular readership and their understanding of where the market is currently trending. Women 30-55 years old are the greatest book-buying demographic that marketers are competing for. Publishing houses are trying to meet that supply. So sending a query for your “Sci-fi/ Historical, Inspirational/ Regency might be a tough sell.

The problem for many authors is that our stories don’t always fall into one genre. Diana Gabaldon had difficulty getting OUTLANDER published at first because she couldn’t clearly define it as a romance, a historical, a science fiction/fantasy, or a time travel novel. Of course it’s all of those, but it was so fabulously written that some smarty-pants publisher decided that they would take a chance and market the book to readers across multiple genres, essentially including “everyone,” and the series took off.

It worked out well for her, but most of us aren’t so lucky. In most cases, if your book falls outside of a specific proven market, agents and editors don’t want to touch it. Most of my rejection letters a few years back were because my manuscripts didn’t “fit the market.”

Now that I’m self-publishing, I see their dilemma. When I put my books up on Amazon, BN, and Smashwords, I have to pick categories that best describe them so that they are listed where my target audience would find them (good old search engine optimization-SEO). The frustrating part is that the choices are limited to the old model of publishing and haven’t caught up with new trends. “Teen/YA fiction” refers to books with protagonists ages 14-17 and are a subcategory of “children’s fiction”. But the books coming out these days for teens are arguably for a much more mature audience, and the demographic isn’t so clear-cut. Ideally, they should be much more delineated. There should be choices that would target older teens and adults who enjoy reading about that all-important transition from teen life to adult experiences. I had no idea when I chose my categories that some sites would lump my books into “Children’s fiction” because I labeled it a YA. They aren’t likely to find a readership there!

So what’s a writer to do? Well, you can choose to write for a particular market, ie; cozy mystery, romantic suspense, thriller, or romantic comedy. This is a very viable approach and is the most likely road to becoming traditionally published if you do your research and watch what’s selling and who’s selling it, and target your agent/editor query appropriately. But if you consistently find your stories falling into “genre no-man’s land,” you can join the new age of genre-bending authors who have literally created new markets by taking risks and writing what they want to write, self-publishing, and then finding their readers by focusing on certain niche markets and using that SEO to their advantage.

Whether traditional or indie-published, when it comes time to market your books and find your readership, look at who your target audience really is. Be creative and look at it from all angles and try different approaches. If you aren’t reaching readers by promoting the book to one segment of the population, try another. My book ON THIN ICE could be marketed to ice skaters, teens who become pregnant, sufferers of eating disorders, or teens experiencing the grief of losing a parent. Over time, I can market this book to several different niche markets, keeping it relevant as long as I can keep reaching new readers and targeting new niche audiences who might not otherwise have found the book. That’s why SEO is so important. And why creating whole new genres may be the best way for your target audience to find you.

For instance, I’ve been promoting HEAVEN IS FOR HEROES as a “Contemporary YA Romance.” But the story deals with the tragedies of war, overcoming loss, and the determination of one seventeen year old girl to find the truth—pretty mature themes that 14-17 year-old readers wouldn’t necessarily be looking to read about. Because of the protagonist’s age, the book falls into the YA market, but our hero is a nineteen-year-old Marine Veteran struggling with a difficult recovery, which changes the demographic for this story. Because the focus of the book is a tenuous teen romance with the underlying plot of a family’s search for peace in time of war, HIFH will appeal to adult readers as well as older young adults, but listed as a YA, it may never reach those adults who might enjoy the book.

The hero’s age and the subject matter make it fit more appropriately into the New Adult genre—a relatively new niche market targeting 19-23 year-old readers previously forced to read “teen” novels or jump right into “adult” romances. This segment of readers wants more than the typical high school experience, but they may not be ready for the white-picket-fence-via-total-abandonment-to-love-and-sex that rules the adult romance world. They are looking for relatable characters faced with real life issues that they themselves might be facing; such as leaving home, going off to college, or dealing with friends coming back from war.

Filled with moments of poignant reality, hard lessons, and the angst and sexual tension of first love, HIFH combines family drama and the relationship between childhood sweethearts, Jordie Dunn and Alex Cooper, who must overcome some pretty “grown-up” obstacles to find their way to a hopefully ever after ending.In Savage Cinderella, Brinn is eighteen and Justin is twenty-three. Add the subject matter and this book clearly falls into the New Adult category rather than YA. I might have tried marketing my books as Mainstream fiction and put them up against books from authors like Nicolas Sparks and Jodi Piccoult, but that would again put me in a very large pool with some very big fish, and without publisher backing, it’s tough to swim in that pond. Literary fiction is an even tougher sell than genre fiction.

With many of today’s YA books fitting more appropriately into the New Adult category, this niche market is catching on. Entangled Publishing, St. Martin’s Press and I believe even Harlequin Teen are adding New Adult titles to their acquisitions. Publishers are finally willing to recognize that yes, college students do read for pleasure in their limited time, and that they want more of what the New YA market has to offer. There are loads of twenty-something’s looking for books that go beyond the teen dramas focused on high school but who still want stories that deal with all of those wonderful (and hideous) firsts. Many of my readers fit into this category. If I had to guess, my average reader is between 19 and 33. That’s a pretty big demographic, but by listing my books as YA, I’m potentially focusing on the wrong group of readers. I don’t want to misrepresent the books by having them listed in the “Contemporary Romance” section either, since they definitely have a younger voice and reader expectation is important to consider.

Re-branding my work might take a bit of time and effort, but if it means reaching my target audience, I owe it to my books…and my readers to give it a shot.

Have you thought about who your target audience is, and what niche markets you might be missing?

Trust Your Story

Tuesday’s Scribe, PJ Sharon here. Have you ever been writing along, minding your plot and meeting your daily word count, only to have your character take you “off track”? Do you catch yourself swearing at your characters and asking them, “Where the *&%*@# are you taking me?” Well, let me tell you…I’ve learned to let them have their way—at least on the first draft. Let me explain why.

After several manuscripts and three or four published novels, I’m finally beginning to trust my internal process. It seems that my unconscious mind knows a lot more about my characters than my conscious mind does and if I let the story evolve organically—rather than trying to control every word that lands on the page—some miraculous things happen. Characters take me to the most interesting places, and if I go along for the ride, there is usually some grand reason they needed to go there. A piece of the puzzle is found, a character flaw is brought to light, or an opportunity for character growth presents itself.

When I wrote ON THIN ICE a few years ago, Penny’s story unfolded and jumped onto the page with such abandon, it seemed as if it was writing itself. I hadn’t planned on all the twists and turns that her story would take, but as it developed and each thread wove itself into her character arc, I had no choice but to follow and see how everything came together in the end. Amazingly, her journey turned out to be profoundly complex and beautiful. Of course, my problem was then trying to sell a story that had multiple subplots and more drama than a season of Dallas.

I had several published authors, a few agents, and even a couple of editors tell me the same thing…get rid of at least two—preferably three—of the subplots. I was told “One teenager could not possibly deal with all of these issues and one or two is enough for any one book if you want to explore them in depth.” So I tried to unravel my plot to remove some of the “unnecessary” subplots. The problem was that I couldn’t. I struggled for several months trying to make the story “marketable” by choosing one story line and then bleeding all over the page for 250 pages. I couldn’t make it work. Deconstructing the story seemed like an impossible task without it losing that special something that made it unique and authentic. Worse, was that it felt like I wasn’t being true to my character. Penny needed to go through all the trials and tribulations she endured in order to become the person she was at the end of the story. It was her journey—not mine—and I didn’t feel right about robbing her of any of the experiences that made her who she was.

Ultimately, I shelved the story and began writing Heaven Is For Heroes, which turned out to be a much more “marketable” story, but by that time, I had decided that the kind of stories I wanted to write were likely not going to fit into a specific mold and that I wasn’t willing to have a traditional publisher “brand” me (ouch!) and put me in a “box” (NO…Not the box!). Enter—Indie publishing.

One of the many things that drew me to Indie pubbing was the freedom to be true to the creative process and write what is in my heart. I’m convinced that there are readers for every well-written book—even if/especially if—it fits outside the box. Why should readers be fed only stories that publishers have deemed saleable? As it turns out, many Indie authors are finding great success because they are taking risks and writing something different. The upsurge in the “New Adult” market proves that readers of all ages want something new–stories that bridge the gap between YA and adult romance–stories about what happens when young adults are faced with real life issues that push them into adulthood.

Although I’ve learned to rein in my characters a bit before they take me too far off course or lead me into some corner I can’t get out of, I’ve also learned to trust my story to take me where my characters need to go to become who they are meant to be—even if it takes me places I never dreamt I’d go. I’ve gotten better at plotting and planning rather than flying by the seat of my pants, but the real joy in writing for me is when my characters take over and lead me on an adventure greater than my mind could have imagined.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart if you’ve already read the book. I greatly appreciate all honest reviews. If you haven’t yet left a review and would like to do so, you can click on the Amazon link below and write a brief line or two about what you liked/or didn’t like about the book. This helps other readers find books that might appeal to them and helps us authors reach new readers. 

So what did you think? Was it too much drama for one book, or did it somehow all work together to make a worthwhile and unique story?

If you haven’t read ON THIN ICE, you have one final opportunity to download it for FREE from Amazon this weekend. I won’t be renewing my KDP Select contract, so this is the last time it will be offered as a FREE download for the foreseeable future. It will be available Saturday through Monday, January 26-28^th in honor of National Skating month and the US Figure Skating Championships taking place this week.

Bookmark this page and stop back this weekend to download your FREE Kindle copy from Amazon

Although Penny’s dream of Olympic Gold is derailed by life’s cruel twists of fate, she learns what all fierce competitors learn…follow your heart, and never give up.

2013 Writers Conferences

I’ve only ever been to two writer’s conferences. They both were put on by my local RWA chapter (CTRWA). I usually like to be a worker bee on conference day, so I tend to miss all the great work shops and networking that a lot of other people might enjoy on conference day. This year I plan to change that. (I got a book coming out in August!) Of course I’m going to be working my own chapter’s conference but this year I plan to attend some others.

In the past one of the major reasons I didn’t attend other conferences was the cost. RWA’s National conference was way WAY out of my budget. The registration fee alone is more than my car payment and my electricity bill combined. Even local conferences can be expensive. Besides the registration fees, they require travel and sometimes a stay overnight in a hotel. For a lot of us that is just not feasible.

BUT I think it is important for writers to attend conferences. I know a few writers who have snagged agents and or book deals from the pitch sessions. It’s a chance to meet other writers, to make friendships,to get your name out there, to learn from other writers. And if you don’t have a fear of public speaking, to teach writers some of the things you know by giving a workshop.

This year I have set money aside just so I can go to a couple of conferences. (Goodbye very sexy expensive Isabella Cole lace up booties. I’ll be with you in my dreams.)

I’m still an extreme newbie to this whole writing thing and I know I’ve got a lot to learn.  So I’ve been looking at some of the conferences.  The New England Chapter of the RWA is hosting their conference April 26-27 in Massachusetts. The price is $219 if you register before March 1st. They’ve got some pretty big names attending. If you want to check it out here’s the link.  http://necrwa.org/blog1/conference/  Plus my friends TL Costa and Peter Andrews will be there giving workshops.

Then there is the Backspace Writer’s conference  May 23-25, 2013 with agent extraordinaire Donald Mass giving a workshop. This conference seems less romance friendly than some others but still valuable to attend. The early bird price is $595. The regular is $720. Plus it’s in NYC which means expensive hotel rooms.  But if you got the cash to spare…   http://www.backspacewritersconference.com/

Then there is the mother of all Romance conferences. RWA’s annual conference, which I’m planning to attend, will be held July 12-20 in Atlanta. The cost? $450 if you register early. $500 if you don’t. I hear this conference is an absolute blast and besides all the networking opportunities you really learn about the romance industry. So I plan to go and will be convincing my friends to save their pennies so I won’t have to go alone. http://www.rwa.org/p/cm/ld/fid=559

(Goodbye pretty Michael Kors handbag. Maybe I’ll see you in another life.)

So today I need to know from you all, what conferences have you attended? Which are the most beneficial  Which are the most fun? Which are the most cost effective? And which ones are you planning to attend? Maybe I’ll see you there.

Adventures in Query-Land

Hi, there, Scribe fans. Suze here. By now you’ve probably read Sugar’s post from a few days ago about the process she went through over the last year, ultimately culminating in her getting a fab agent and an even fabber three-book deal. (Click here to read it). Since I’m in the same spot she was a year ago, querying and hoping to land an agent and sell my manuscript, I thought I’d give you a run-down on how things are working for me.

Despite the fact that I completed this manuscript a couple of years ago, I was never satisfied with the opening chapters and so I only submitted it a couple of places, and was summarily rejected. After rewriting Chapter One about eight times and tightening up my timeline this past summer, I finally had it where I thought it was marketable. I wrote a query letter and a synopsis, fixed them both with the help of colleagues/friends, and finally began the query process in earnest in September. As one of my favorite rerun detectives, Adrian Monk, might say, here’s what happened.

September – Queried seven agents/editors (two of these were requests from a conference). Two requests for partials.

October – Queried three agents. Two requests for fulls. Two form rejections. One rejection on a partial, but a very nice one (bummer! She liked it overall, loved aspects of it, but she just didn’t love it enough).

November – Queried four agents. Felt like I needed to get some energy moving on stagnant requests, so embarked on closet-cleaning and clutter-clearing in an effort to feng shui my writing career. Unfortunately, this did not have the desired results: Received one rejection on a full because she wasn’t representing my genre, but suggested I submit to another agent in the office. Then received one rejection on a partial because she wasn’t representing my genre, but she “loved my voice” and would be interested in a YA or contemporary if I ever wrote one of those. 

December – Queried three digital-first presses. One rejection on a full, but she did have nice things to say. Depressed! I really wanted that one.  One form rejection. Two requests for fulls.

So the three-month tally is:

• 17 submissions
• 7 rejections (none of them mean!)
• 2 partials still out there (not counting the partials that were sent pursuant to agents’ submission guidelines)
• 2 fulls still out there
• 6 queries that have not been acted on one way or another

Kathryn Stockett’s The Help was reportedly rejected 60 times. Harry Potter was rejected by 12 publishing houses. I’m not in the depths of despair yet!

Where are you in your writing journey? Where do you want to be?

End of Year Check Up…

Hi there, Sugar here. 2012 is almost over and I hope it was a good year for you. I hope you accomplished the things you wanted to. Writing-wise I accomplished a lot. Writing-wise it was a pretty awesome year for me. But it was a long year full of ups and downs and roller coaster emotions. Most of you know that I managed to snag a three book deal  with  St. Martin’s Press. In hindsight it seemed like everything happened so fast but when I was living it everything seemed to go excruciatingly slow. Here’s what my past year looked like.

December 2011

Started querying. Mostly rejections. One request for a full.

January 2012

Rejections, rejections, rejections. One more request for a full. One request for a partial.

February 2012

Rejections on partial. Rejections of queries. Some cursing. One request for a full. Two partial requests.

March 2012

Querying fatigue setting in. More rejections on queries and on partial. One request for a full. Two rejections for partials. Waiting for word back on the then four full manuscripts I had out.

April 2012

Rethinking this whole being a writer thing. I was tired of waiting. I was tired of rejections. The doubt monster had me in a nasty choke hold. One more request for a full. One offer of representation. Another offer of representation. SQUEEEEEE!

May 2012

Agent ,who I ADORE, asked me to cut down my manuscript from 100,000 words to 90,000 to make it more sell-able. (Grumble, grumble.) I went out on submission to the ‘BIG  6′ and romance giant Harlequin. Got my first rejection ON MY BIRTHDAY! Got two more rejections. Starting rethinking this whole being a writer thing again.

June 2012

I got a surprise offer from a smaller but still kick-ass publisher. Screamed like an idiot when I got off the phone with my agent. Two days later I got two offers from two of the ‘Big 6′ and was informed that I would be going to auction the next day. Was in shock. Was shaking. Was also at work when I found out. Kids in my class thought I was having a stroke. St. Martin’s Press (Macmillan) offered me a three book deal. I actually met my editor at CTRWA’s Fiction Fest long before I even thought about writing my book. It must have been fate because I don’t remember a single other editor that was there that year beside her.

July 2012

Contract negotiations. PM announcement.

August 2012

Contract negotiations

September 2012

Edits arrive. Rethinking this whole being a writer thing again. Contract negotiations finally finished!

October 2012 

Book 2 was due. Edits for book 1 due. Super hard. Super proud when I finished both of those things.

November 2012

MUST WRITE BOOK 3. Advance check came! Advance check went! But no more student loans!!!!!!!!! (Do you have any idea how expensive college is?)

December 2012

GOT A RELEASE DATE!!!!!!! Dangerous Curves Ahead will hit shelves on August 27, 2013.

Got my author photos taken. Probably a bad idea right after Thanksgiving, but they came out pretty good.

Tackled this whole social media thing. Amazon author page. Check.

Website updated again. Now it looks kinda professional. http://www.sugarjamison.com/

Got my Facebook page done. Please like me!

Got my cover art! Check back here soon for reveal.

Oh an I won my very first award!

Phew… That was a very long year. What did yours look like?

Me with the very prestigious MARGARITA!

Things Writers Shouldn’t Do… Part 1

Most writers are intelligent people. I mean, it takes a lot of concentration and thought to sit down and put 80,000 words on page, to have a story with a beginning, middle and end, to have a work that makes sense. In fact writing is one of those things everybody seems to want to do, but few people can do. A lot of people sit down and start books but so few people ever finish them. Because it’s hard.

So if you are one of those writers who actually finishes a book, pat yourself on the back. You deserve it. You’re ahead of millions of other people. We all get excited when we type THE END. We all have dreams of taking the publishing world by storm. Of getting our books out there for the world to see and many of us will jump through hoops to make that dream happen. But lately I have been noticing some seemingly smart people do some very stupid things in order to get their books on the shelves.

So I’ve compiled a list, (I do love a list.), of thing you should never ever do when trying to get published.

1. Query an agent on Twitter. Of course unless they ask you to.

I was going through my agent’s Twitter feed and I noticed a writer who pitched her book in one line and followed it up with the question, “Can we talk?” My agent is always polite and professional and directed the woman to the agency’s website with a link. Which I thought was nice. But curiosity got the best of me and I clicked on the pitcher’s name to see that she had tweeted the same message to about twenty other agents. Some responded politely, like my agent did, most ignored. A couple of agents said please follow the rules and submit the correct way, to which the pitcher responded, “Can you send me the link to your website?” (Nutso!)

But one agent was kind enough to give her advice. He basically said that part of a writer’s job is to do their research and find the agent that is best suited to their projects. He also went on to say that agents only want to work with sane, reasonable people and mass tweeting a pitch was not going to work in her favor. I agreed.

I went through query hell. I had to research and look at website after website and make sure I was following all the submission guidelines. And believe me it’s soul sucking and depressing and anxiety producing but once you get the agent at the end it’s a badge of honor. I was almost prouder of getting an agent than I was a book deal. (Weird, I know.) But my point is; following the rules works. Especially if you want to go the agent route to publishing.

2. Act crazy at a pitch session. 

I had the pleasure of over seeing the pitch sessions at my chapter’s conference. I love that job because I’m a people watcher and seeing the dozens of writers go in and out of the room all day was like a gift from the writing gods.

There was one writer who was asking the agents and editors when their birthdays were and all kinds of creepy personal questions. (Don’t do that. Don’t ever do that!) I could see the horrified expressions of the A/E’s faces as the woman jotted notes about them in her note book.

There was also another writer who talked about how great everybody thought her book was and that all her friends and family thought it should be published. (Don’t do that either. It makes you sound really unprofessional and delusional.)

There was a writer who didn’t wear a bra, but I already blogged about that and most of you know how I feel about that one.

3. Be crazy and show up at the publisher’s office asking if they got a chance to read your manuscript.

This happened to my editor recently. OMG and WTF! Who in their right mind does that? You could be perfectly sane, but the nice people at the publishing company don’t know that. They’ll think you’re crazy and have the security people escort you out.

4. Call an agent or an editor and ask them why they didn’t like your book. 

Sometimes they’ll be nice enough to offer you feedback, but many times they won’t and that’s all part of the business. Don’t be a nut and call them (As a rule you should probably never call an agent, unless they are your agent.), even emailing to ask why is crossing the line with some agents and editors. Remember agents don’t spend their days just answering query letters and reading manuscripts. They are busy working on behalf of their established clients. Sometimes they just don’t have time to respond personally. Plus by doing that you are ruining your chance with other agents. They talk to each other. The publishing world is not so big. You don’t want to be the crazy writer that everyone avoids.

That’s it for part one. Check in next week to see what I add to the list. What are some things you think writers shouldn’t do.

Waitin’ On A Dream

Hey, all, Suze here. Great to see you again!

Some of you may know that I’ve finally, after a mind-boggling amount of agonizing, started querying agents and editors about my first manuscript, now titled Rest In Greece. (It’s a fun adventure/mystery set in a Greek restaurant in the Thousand Islands area of New York State.) I finally got the first few chapters to a point where I was satisfied they weren’t total doo-doo, had a serviceable synopsis (thanks to the awesome assistance of my sister Scribes and other CTRWA goddesses), and a decent query letter.

So now I’ve got queries out to a bunch of agents and have had requests for a couple of fulls and several partials. And I’m waiting.

And waiting.

Oh, I know this process takes time. Agents and editors have crazy numbers of emails to sift through. And when they do request whatever number of pages, they have to find time to read them, decide on them, and then respond yea or nay.

So what’s a writer to do in the meantime? Well, intellectually I know I should be writing the next book. Makes perfect sense. And I’m working on it, although not at the pace I’d envisioned. But here’s what I’m doing more of:

1. Obsessively checking e-mails on computer for responses. Yes? No? I’m even hunting through my spam folder and reading Cialis ads (not clicking on links, of course!) in case some agent has a quirky sense of humor and has hidden her/his response in such an unlikely place and wants to reward me for my ingenuity and mystery-solving skills by offering me a contract.
2. Obsessively checking smart phone for reponses, in case, somehow, a response shows up there but not on the computer.
3. Obsessively researching the next round of agents to target, assuming Plan A (immediate acceptance and adulation!) does not come to fruition.
4. Obsessively searching for ever-more-beautiful photos of Joe Manganiello–it’s research, I swear!
5. Obsessively cleaning closets and drawers and organizing workspace. Because of feng shui and all that. I’ve been through every cupboard in my kitchen and thrown out tons of crap (including a full trashbag of unused plastic stuff). Next step: sorting through clothes for entire family and making donations.
6. Obsessively checking horoscopes and online oracle sites (click here — you’ll thank me), hoping for a definitive answer to the most important questions: who, when, and how much?

So, keep me company. What do you do while you’re waiting?