Interview With Samhain Editor

Maybe you've decided your Magnum Opus should go the e-book route. You've exhausted yourself by going through a ton of agents and/or print publishers, and you really think it's good enough for publication somewhere (as long as it's not a vanity press).

If you're going the e-book route and have a romance or fantasy novel, you could do a lot worse than to go with Samhain Publishing. Yes, they also do print books, but you'll have to check the website to see what their policy is on that; you might have to sell x number of e-books in order for that to happen.

The interview with the editor of Samhain, Angela James, is here. It's a few months old, but it's relevant, in that Ms. James lets you in on (briefly, anyway) what editors do, and how (hint, hint) she was Samhain to expand beyond the romance genre (into SF, for example).

Might be worth your while to send your novel there, once they reopen to submissions (darn it, they closed it down pretty quickly - they must've received a ton in the last few days, alas).

~Nancy Beck

Who Said Being Dead Means Anything?

Death, apparently, doesn't mean you can't come out with new books. Check out this article in the New York Times about Robert Ludlum, who died in 2000.

Something to look forward to from heaven (or the other place), if your brand is wanted by the public.

I found it interesting; if people are willing to pay for the books, why not?

His heirs must be quite happy.

~Nancy

James Frey

The James Frey controversy never seems to end. Nan Talese, who published Frey's "memoir," defended the "truth" about the memoir, saying something along the lines that she'd handle it the same way.

She heaps a bunch of stuff on Oprah, yadda, yadda, yadda.

I guess bad publicity is better than no publicity at all (to quote Mae West).

Forging ahead...

~Nancy

Poison Study - A Review

Mira, 416 pages

This is the debut book from Ms. Snyder, which came out in 2005 (I don't do hardbacks ;-)).

Yelena is saved from the noose by Valek; according to the Code of Behavior (set up by the military, headed by the Commander, that took over from a magically-influenced king), she is in line instead to become the new food taster for the Commander.

If she wants it. Now, the problem is that she's been taken out of the dungeons. Yelena's been in the dungeons for months and months for killing the son of one of the district generals, Brazell. That a murderer (and Yelena doesn't shy away from saying, yes, she did it) is offered leniency doesn't sit well with some people in the head military district. (Brazell's son tortured the hell out of her, which is the obvious reason she attacked him; but this isn't a widely-known fact at the beginning.)

But what will keep Yelena in line, from escaping to the south, to Sitia, where all the magicians fled to when the military took over? Valek tells Yelena about Butterfly's Dust, a poison that stays in the system for a full day. And, of course, unless she hangs around for the antidote...

I bought this on impulse in Wal-Mart (of all places!), and I found it a very good read. It's in first person, which is exactly the right POV for this story. We get to see and hear how Yelena copes with being a food taster...and then eventually branching out to learn other things in her spare time. There's also a bit of romance; just the right amount, I thought, without being overly gooey.

This is a story about a strong woman who has to come to grips with her past, has to re-find her soul, and allows herself to be liked and loved. It might sound somewhat trite or overdone, but I was drawn in by Ms. Snyder's writing style: I could feel Yelena's nervousness and other emotions.

IMO, quite well done. Now I'll just have to pick up the sequel, to see what becomes of Yelena!

ETA/UPDATE, 2007 August: I just contacted the author, and she said the pback version is due out next month (that is, September 2007). And I picked it up. Now I just have to figure out when to read it, as my TBR pile grows ever bigger.

~Nancy Beck

Does Your Query Need Fresh Eyes?

You've sent out your query half-a-dozen different times, and still you get nothing but rejections.

You scratch your head, revise it, revise it, revise it, send it out again...and still no takers.

Now you're ready to pull out your hair or spit or something.

Why not send it over to Evil Editor's blog? Although the post in question was probably from a week or so ago, I'm sure he's probably still looking for queries to rip to...er, I mean, dissect.

If you think you can handle a tad of sarcasm and humor, not to mention letting all and sundry see your attempt at a query letter (and believe me, I understand how tough those things are; I've tried my hand at it just for the hell of it a few months ago, and came away with a friggin' headache), then give Evil Editor a try. He and posters crit opening chapters (the first 150 words or so, anyway), and I've actually done that.

That was fun, even though quite a few people ripped it wide open. What made it bearable was the funny contination after those 150 words; I laughed for several days after that. In fact, it still brings a smile to face, just thinking about it. (And, yes, I do have the original Novel Deviations book at home; no way was I going to pass up a "publishing credit" [hah hah] and some good-natured humor to boot.)

Okay, maybe you don't want your baby to be seen in that way? You might also want to try Absolute Writer's Water Cooler, specifically, the Share Your Work part of the forum. (When you try to access it, you'll see the password; I won't post it here).

Sometimes a few pairs of fresh eyes is what you need to get back on track, and hopefully get those agents interested in your ms.

Any other sites, besides the obvious online crit sites, that'll help with query letters?

~Nancy

Spam From Agents

You go to your email address and find something you don't remember soliciting. It's from a "world class" literary agency (check out this Writer Beware blog post) called May Writers' Group.

You investigate, wondering who the heck these people are. The things that make you go, "hmm":

• Website is on a free host
• AOHell, I mean, AOL email address
  

A free host plus AOL email address. They want to keep it on the cheap, so they go with a free host. Not very professional. AOL? I can see using this (despite my vehement opinions against AOL), if the agent(s) worked as an agent elsewhere and is setting up his/her own shop. But as soon they started getting sales, I'd find something else (and just use a Yahoo or Gmail address as a back up).

Unfortunately, this particular "agency" doesn't offer up anything in the way of agent qualifications. Where did she last work? Did she place any books? With what publisher did she place those books? Nothing is forthcoming, at least so far.

The lesson to be learned: An unsolicited, generic email from an agency isn't worth your time. The agent is either clueless or wanting to separate you from your hard-earned money. Hit the delete key!

~Nancy

For Those of Us Lucky to Have An Agent...

...but have decided to make said agent a former agent, here's a link to how to talk (or not talk) about your former agent (from Kristin Nelson's blog).

Verrrry interesting, as Arte Johnson used to say on the TV show Laugh-In. I thought one of the comments was quite good and worth repeating - Be professional. After you've invested so much time, sweat, toil, and tears (to paraphrase Winston Churchill) into your Magnum Opus, getting an agent (a good, legit one) to rep your book is a dream come true.

But we need to take a step back and look at this dream in a business-like way: No easy feat, especially if we've been sending out queries and partials for what seems like eons. Sometimes, though, what looks like a good fit turns out to be anything but that. Well, Ms. Nelson has provided a little something for us to consider in case we decide to move on to another agent.

And check out the comments to the post, too. One poster provides a list of what to do to say bye-bye to your agent. Good stuff, but here's hoping none of us wannabes have to use that list!

~Nancy

Five Rules For Effective Writing

I found this interesting post on another blog, Pick the Brain. In case you didn't bother to click on the link, it's called George Orwell's 5 Rules For Effective Writing. It talks about imprecise language, and for those of us who want to be pubbed writers, this is something we need to avoid.

Orwell wrote an essay back in 1946, Politics and the English Language, and the person who writes this blog has nicely summarized what Orwell wrote. One in particular was quite funny (Hemingway being criticized by Faulkner for Hemingway's limited word choice):

Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words? He thinks I don’t know the ten-dollar words. I know them all right. But there are older and simpler and better words, and those are the ones I use.

Wow, two masters dishing it out! But I agree with Hemingway: Why use a bigger, longer word when a shorter one will do?

I think all five rules (plus the bonus 6th one, about breaking such rules) are something all of us should try to remember.

~Nancy

Click For a Good Cause

My sister-in-law sent me a link to a site where you can click on a button to help out animals in need. After several days of clicking the button (they get matching proceeds from sponsors for every click), my brain finally defogged and realized that the same site also has a literacy site.

The idea is that for every click on the red literacy button, a poor kid somewhere will discover the magic of books. There's nothing else to do except to click the red button, and with the matching proceeds, the sponsors get free books into the hands of kids.

You might also want to click on the animal rescue button and the breast cancer button (which helps fund free mammograms) located at the same site.

The literacy site is here.

~Nancy