The Book Market and Agents

Thursday, June 25th

“When I’m dead, I hope it may be said: his sins were scarlet, but his books were read.” – Hilaire Belloc

Marketing

Lots and lots of information, but again, the highlights:

• editors never focus on the positive reviews, but only negatives. This is what affects future sales.
• #’s of books sold: 70% is non-fiction, 30% fiction
• 48% of fiction categorized as romance
• Market breakdown: Amazon – 30%, B&N – 20% Border’s – 10%, independent bookstores – 10%, and the remainder divided between big boxstores/regional chainstores.
• Only 6-12 people nationwide decide what you read/what’s out there.
• Window/aisle displays in bookstores are bought and paid for by publishers
• No one knows what makes a book a bestseller.
• Do your research: look at similar books to see who publishes what you write.

The writer’s conference runs from March through October. It’s a good way to better your work, pitch to agents/editors, and to make contacts. Each genre offers an annual conference.

We all start as unpublished; we all start with the same blank page.

The key information to take away from here is not only do you need to think about what you write, but also be cognizant of the marketing you will be presenting to; it is, after all, an industry, and you need both your creative cap and workplace hat to sell your work.

Friday, June 26th

Getting an Agent

• The AAR is a great place to start looking, but is by no means mandatory.
• Never accept an agent who charges reading fees.
• You need to establish some sort of business relationship with your agent, and make sure it stays business, even if you’re fond of each other.
• Author’s Guild is worth being a member to.
  

Most of our information came from a handout, so I didn't write too many notes; there's a plethora of good information about agents; use your sleuth skills to deduce who's on your shortlist to contact.

Now that our two weeks away from the real world have gone by, I have to slip back into a routine. I know that part of working on my novel is intellectualizing, but I want to write. I just hope I don’t have to rewrite 3,276 times.

I mean, geez, that’s what a synopsis is for.

Synopsis

Wednesday, June 24th

Synopsis Day! I could tell how much all three of us looked forward to the day; we all champed at the bit, and the class was extremely informative.

Ok, a synopsis. They help:

- Discover plot holes/what doesn’t work.
- Discover if subplots are needed for either word count or story.
- Helps identify elements needed for research.
- If something doesn’t work plausibly (i.e., a plot corner), go back and fix.
Note: don’t use coincidence to fix this – too contrived.
- This doesn’t include character corners. These can be written out of; a plot corner cannot.
- Majority of novel still won’t be known despite it being written, so no loss of creativity is involved.
- A synopsis is part of the proposal – so you might as well write it now instead of later!
- When you’re new, it’s used to sell your first novel. When you’re established, it’s used to sell a piece before it’s written.
- It helps with chronology.

Important: a synopsis isn’t written in stone. If you write it and the story goes down a different path, you revise the synopsis.

I realize a lot of people dislike writing a synopsis, but after having written DT, I wish I'd used a synopsis - it would have made all of the problems I didn't realize all the way through clear. Especially with a mystery, there are certain expectations and it's particularly easy to utilize a synopsis. I'm going to use synopsis from now on with future novels. The worst that happens, even if I end up hating it, is I only waste an hour or two - well worth it when you consider it takes about a year/year and a half to complete a novel (And that's if you're plugging along steadily!).

And honestly, I'd rather rewrite a 3k long document rather than my novel everytime I realize something needs to be revised - then you can follow the change to its logical conclusion.

Here's the other thing - the standard for a synopsis to a publisher is 1 single-spaced page per 10k words. I realize many agents aske for a much shorter one, but if you have a 8 page document, you can pare it down to three pages. This all goes back to scale and scope. Each differently sized document that agents request can always be distilled from what you have; it's far more difficult to look at you 90k novel and go "Shit, how do I get three pages out of this?"

I have a second writer’s class I take on Wednesday nights; we did an exercise about detailed descriptions using eyesight only (I liked our other senses work more, but this was useful), and we called about scale – what size we use when describing something; the difference being based on the focus of the writing. We then had to write to both a 50 sentence and 7 word sentence about our life. My seven word sentence:

“No Mom, I don’t like Kansas.”

Backstory

Tuesday, June 23^rd

Today we talked about backstory in class. Our teacher said it’s one of the most boring classes we have, but the reality is she has to talk about the boring stuff so we can write the exciting stuff. Otherwise all you got is a big steaming pile of poo.

One of the points we hit on today is backstory needs to be released through controlled, small active events within the story. My favorite phrase: “We don’t need a long, musing story bit about the character.” This reminded me of the romance writer’s dilemma (I want to credit Donald Maas with this story). Romance writers often bemoan how their sales don’t climb the charts, but many of them, when faced with a character’s dilemma, sit their characters down and muse over tea. And then they wonder why they can’t break out or up in their genre.

I think the talk about backstory is incredibly useful; it’s a point that I drove home to myself with my very first attempt at writing my novel; woof. You can talk about backstory until the cows come home, but it’s another case where the proof is in the pudding. I think my biggest problem isn’t being convinced to take huge chunks in, but practicing weaving small bits in. So many things that we do in writing take time; I feel glad that it doesn’t make me feel exhausted thinking about all of the writing work, but rather I’m becoming more focused and excited again.

Making a Character Sheet/Plotting

Wednesday, June 17th

Today we did my favorite exercise to date. I’ve added it to my tool arsenal for future works. It’s a character quick fact sheet, consisting of the victim, villain, primary suspect, and hero. You can use this tool for more than mysteries.

We talked about clichés, and the differences in who-dun-it versus how-dun-it. I’d never realized there was a how-dun-it; it’s one of those things you don’t consider until someone points out the obvious to you. I think that’s what CSI (both the show and the books) falls under.

I’ve learned a lot about what’s good and not good for an author to do watching the afternoon talks. I assumed somewhere in my illogical brain that talking about writing is next to writing for writers, and that this would transfer into many fascinating afternoon talks. I’d forgotten that as much as we all love writing, it doesn’t mean we’re all speakers. Another lesson learned.

I went home and looked around for the police citizen’s academy; they’ve got one for St. Louis County. Success!


Thursday, June 18th

Today’s talk in class focused on plotting. Lots of points hit home with me, and I had a ton of highlight marks scattered throughout my notebook. One of the things I wanted to take out of this class, besides a bit of inspiration to get me back in the grind, is to get me back to remembering the basics of writing. I’ve worked hard the past two years pumping my fiction skills up - part mechanic and part business – and sometimes you get lost in the whirl of it all. This has helped remind me of what’s important, and where to cut the crap.

Some of my favorite points that stuck out today:

- A synopsis is key to determining whether a plot is a plot, or an idea that will fizzle throughout.
- No matter how many books you write, we all start at the same place.
- “What if” are the two most important words in writer’s arsenal.
- When you add a sub-plot, it must be resolved well ahead of the main plot, or else the main plot loses its drama.
- In endings, your protagonist must choose between two alternative courses of action that force them to make a decision.
- Hope/fear = suspense

One thing that we talked about today reminded me of something funny shared with me by other fantasy writers. We talked about the importance of pacing and how characters need a chance to breathe as well as the readers.

In fantasy writing, there’s a tendency to stretch the impossible, and I don’t mean by magical means. There’s a Fantasy Novelist’s Exam you can use to check and make sure you’re not guilty of stupid tropes within the fantasy genre. My favorite, #56, is: “Does anybody in your novel fight for two hours straight in full plate armor, then ride a horse for four hours, then delicately make love to a willing barmaid all in the same day?”

New from the Super Secret Writer's Workshop

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-crackle- Things have been busy and I've just managed to escape. My apologies for the delayed response, but I can only give eyewitness accounts. Handouts will commence as soon as I find access to a scanner.



Monday, June 15th

The first day of our writing institute. I can’t really call it a conference; workshop is a better term. The keynote speaker, John Dalton, was fabulous. I don’t usually have a need for an inspirational speech from a writer; I figure I make my own inspiration whenever I sit my butt in the seat. His website has a wonderful story that, if you're feeling a bit down about getting the novel done, is a great read. However, having started my new position in OT has made things a little hectic as I figure out my job. I’ve been so tired for the past three weeks that my usual work ethic has gone down the tubes. This is my chance to recharge and think.

John Dalton's Contrary Writer's Rules, as mentioned in his keynote speech:

1) It takes time to develop your work.
2) You can learn a lot from workshops, but you have to learn the most important ideas on your own.
3) Books are often boring.
4) The best writers are all nerds.
5) There's cause for hope.

In class we focused on the writing industry and making writing a career as a whole. We talked about how non-fiction is a great way to break into the writing field and establish contacts while making cash. It also teaches a writer about marketing, focus groups, and forces a writer to learn how to research.

Important distinction:
*Non-fiction talks about fact.
*Fiction uses lies to tell the truth.

I enjoyed the reinforcement about research, as it’s hard to remember that you can only fake so much in fiction. Don't be afraid to talk to experts in a field to get an accurate account of how things are done in the field. Right now, as I started rereading my police procedural book, I’m trying to figure out how much I can “bend” without outright breaking rules in my novel.

I love research. :o) -crackle-

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