Spoiled Expectations?

The Read ... almost wasn't a read due to spoiled expectations.  Picked up Allyson James' Stormwalker  with high expectations without looking at it because the Dark Wyrm  http://tinyurl.com/2eacf3o gave it a thumbs up.  Then, I opened the first page to the not-so-hook:  "It was already dark by the time I zoomed out of the mountains, heading east toward the desserts, and the town of Magellan."  So?  Not until that last third of page two did what I consider a real hook appeared -- nasty mama.  All in all, the first chapter was stuffed with back story which almost made me throw it on the trade pile.

[My infernal, internal editor would have started the book somewhere in the middle of Chapter 1.] 

Beginning with Chapter 2, I found the book well constructed with two interesting story arcs:  1) the book's arc about finding a missing young woman and 2) a possible series arc about controlling nasty-goddess mama.   First third introduces an appealing cast of characters while dealing with the discovery of a dead body.  Second third complicates the situations of the first third highlighted by a hard-hitting surprise about the love-interest.  Third third gave a very nice resolution with the main character growing up a bit.  -- If only I could do it half so well.  [I still think my openings are better than this one, especially after my new critiquer tore into Britt.]

Web Notes ... 1st Turning Point caught my attention the longest among the blogs again with a post by Judith Laik on Promo Primer for the Unpublished.  Lots of good basic info which I'm mostly ignoring.  Primer for the Unpublished  I definitely need to go back and study it.

If you haven't noticed, you might check out the Nashville Relief Auction:  http://dothewritethingfornashville.blogspot.com

Janet Reid offered a critique that I drooled over, but it was already up to $750 when I first looked at it.  Personally, I'd love to pay Janet Reid to rip apart even a part of one of my manuscripts.  I do have a bid in, but it sure is hard to find it among all the good offers.  Check them out.  You can find many offers of professional critiques by authors and agents -- if you're ready for them.

Progress ...  Squeezing in revising first three chapters of Britt while working on Voices.

Trivia ...  The sun shown for Mother's Day ... and there were lots more vendors at the Farmer's Market.  [A good snickerdoodles!]  Also found a Dorothy Gilmore book, used, at the lunch-coffee-bookstore.

Self-Publishing or a New Strategy for Marketing?

My muse stomped all over my lap/chest during my cat-and-coffee sessions the last couple days as I wondered about marketing books ...  Self-publishing isn't my bag.  (Too much work.  Hey, people, you have to be the whole publishing house ... in spite of the promises of vanity presses.)  Self-publishing can be the way to go, but most people don't have the skill set ... or inclination ... to make a success of it.  The problem:  there're no neat boxes.  Authors, irregardless of their publishers, must promote their books whether they want to or not  -- if they want to sell more than 10 copies -- so they become a de facto part of the marketing department even if the department ignores them.

Why these thoughts?  My brain is  revolving around what e-publisher I should submit Mariah to next, now that I withdrew it from the place that had it almost a year and didn't reply to my status queries.  

If I manage to sell something/anything, I'm expecting the publisher to have a marketing template of some sort to help me help them market my "minimum opus".  Question:  If you can't trust a publisher to answer your legitimate questions, how can you trust them to help you make your book a success.  [It's a test, sort of like comparing the vanity press ads in the New York Times Book Reviews with the ads by major publishers.  Which do you think is more effective?]

Then, on my blog roll Deborah Schneider on 1st Turning Point mentions the Expresso Book Machine, a POD publishing deal that lets book stores print a copy of a title as needed.  Link.  Fast service for the customer.  Low upfront costs for the book store.  My mind ran riot with the possibilities with the first thought was self-publishers gained a way to more easily get their books into stores.

Then, with my brain [or the cat] jumping all over the placem I kept thinking of writers who go with e-publishers.  Why are they mostly limited to Amazon.com and their publisher sites?  What if lots of books stores had an POD center, and e-authors formed alliances around the country to get their group's authors into regional stores.  The logistics would be interesting to say the least ... but I love the possibilities.  Maybe, it might increase the cash flow of independent book stores.

The Read ...  Now for something different, Sandra Dallas' Whiter than Snow.  Dallas is a Colorado writer who has a fascination with Rocky Mountain gold mining towns.  (She also wrote Prayers for Sale.)  I think the books fall into the category of woman's fiction and explore the nature of hardship and healing.  Even her books not set in the Rockies explore those themes.

This is a best-selling author ... but forget action packed chapters.  Dallas  tells her tale with a chapter devoted to each of the characters involved in the tragedy as she explores the ways of the heart.  The hooks are magnificent:

1)  Opening sentence:  "No one knew what triggered the Swandyke avalanche that began at exactly 4:10 P. M. on April 20, 1920."

2) Last sentence of the first chapter:  "Four of the children survived."

Progress ... Am dithering.  Maybe to some effect.  Got the last chapter of Emma rewritten and overcame my inclination for having her flip her grandmother off.  [Not a nice thing for a tween to do.]

Still am managing to revise a couple chapters of Kaffy Anne a week ... in spite of everything.  Seem to have a fetish about characters with black curly hair though.  [Mine isn't ...  wasn't, even when I was young.]

Mariah's on the front burner again, but I don't know what I'm going to do.  Someone with any sense would call Dark Solstice a trunk-novel and shelve her.

Trivia ... Have become a part of an ill friend's transportation network.  Seems like there are more cruel diseases out there now days than when I was a kid ... or are people just living longer with them?

PS.  Seems I'm spending a lot more time watching my retirement portfolio after yesterday.  Fortunately, the anemic thing wasn't drained too badly.

Resisting the Query Itch

Queries ...  Queries ...  Of course, I've been studying how to write effective queries ...  I've got the query itch.  With three manuscripts in the hopper, I want to query.  Long to query.  --  So, I have every unpublished, unagented writer's problem (with a completed manuscript).  To query or not to query.

Last week, I thought writing a hooking query was my major problem.  After listening to a couple critique partners, I'm worried more about whether my manuscripts are up to snuff.  (Britt and Emma)

Writing an effective query seems simple enough.  Here, I'll give the "stage" to my guru-in-chief, Janet Reid ... an agent who doesn't represent what I write (dang it).  Here's the link to her guidelines:  http://tinyurl.com/2djd38m

Every other, agent I remember repeats Reid's theme ... if not the specifics. Agent Rachelle Gardner , a very nice person I've met thanks to the Northern Colorado Writers and who also doesn't represent what I write, offers some pointed comments on why an agent wouldn't want to bite on your wonderful, maybe glorious query.  http://tinyurl.com/28z76hm  [Though yesterday, Reid did extend a fin offering a temptation to query even if you think your manuscript is inappropriate.]

Now, I'll tell you a secret in case you didn't read Rachelle's post.  You can write the most glorious query in the world.  If the agent you send it do doesn't represent the genre of the book or hates horses (or whatever), you'll get a form rejection.  Sounds self-evident, but from the agent blogs -- inappropriate submissions happen all too often.  Maybe incompetent submissions more often. 

[I now have only three queries out there -- for Emma.  The rejections should more or less land by June -- one's one of those "if you don't hear from us, it's a rejection." types.  I don't see why if agents can automatically acknowledge the receipt of a query -- they couldn't sent an automatic "Your project isn't for us".

The Read ... Well, I now know what all the comment was about when I finally got to the end of Changes by Jim Butcher.  No spoilers here.  I'll just say the action gallops along to the end with a little rumination about doing the right thing.  A lot of loose ends were tied up ... but huge dangling questions left Dresden simmering.  My disappointment, Mab didn't appear at the end to tell Dresden what she thought about her new Winter Knight's adventure.

One thing I noticed in this book, Butcher is still promoting the Codex Alera series.  I don't know what it's doing nationally, but I don't think it's doing too well where I live.  Two used book stores didn't take the two books I had in trade.  (I more or less just skimmed the books.)  The Friends of the Library gets them to do whatever with.

Trivia ... Pat Stoltey, a friend from the Northern Colorado Writers, gifted me with a BFF Blogger award.  Only I don't know what to do with it.  Maybe, I'll have to go to the office after the chiropractor's to find out.  Must thank her though.  Her mention got me a couple new followers, I think.

Queries and Changes

Progress ... The queries in the back of my mind jumped to the front over the weekend -- like it's time to refine my approach to queries.  Spent a whole evening sorting through the stale queries I had hanging out there.  (About six for three books.)  By the time I organized them, cleaned them up and set up a new tracking system, I had three left ... one for a book submission which I'll probably withdraw. 

Actually, I'm thinking of not sending out anymore queries for a while.  Found a new critique partner (I hope.) who caught stuff my other valiant critiquers hadn't.  (Believe me, they found plenty wrong.)  -- Guess I don't have the craft stuff firmly internalized yet.

One thing, I'll be pickier about who I send my queries to.  No more general fantasy agents.  Now, I'm looking for agents who do both middle grade and young adult with a strong interest in fantasy (not necessarily just paranormal).  It narrows my options so I really do need to limit the number of queries I send out there,or I'd quickly exhaust the possibilities.

If you are looking for some in-depth info about agents -- beyond the summaries at Agent Query and Query Tracker (etc), you might look at Casey McCormick's blog Literary Rambles.   Click Here.

Of course, there's Publisher's Marketplace too, but they charge.  I'm still an amateur and don't feel I can justify the cost.

Sterling Reading Advice ... The Sunday New York Times Magazine had an interview with Charlaine Harris, "Once Bitten" where she gives her take on vampires.  I liked her writing advice: "For any writers at all, read everything you can and then put your butt in the chair and write.  That's all there is to it."

I really wish it were so.  All I can think of is the joke about the guy who wrote a class paper:  "Pop pop, poppity pop pop ..."

The Read ...  Jim Butcher keeps moving Harry Dresden from one disaster to another conflagration.  Old and new characters appear ... giving him a smidgen of help while digging him deeper into a hole.   As usual, I love the way he depicts characters through their actions and dialog.  His vampire-hired assassins are a hoot in the way he gets the dialog to indicate their weird mental processes.  I don't know if Butcher was a student of Edward Sapir or Benjamin Whorf, but ...  [I'll reserve that discussion for when I find myself among a bunch of anthropologists.]

Did I mention the action?  During the transition (about half way through) from setting up the problem facing Dresden to delaying Dresden so can't reach the villains in time to prevent his daughter's sacrifice -- he's being chased by these weird  assassins, mentioned above, who fire bomb his basement apartment.  The problem:  Dresden is faced with the problem of saving his cat and the elderly people who occupy the other apartments in the burning building -- with the hurt/broken(?) back he had retreated to his apartment to treat.  By the time he rescues the elderly occupants and gets taken to a safe-house, Dresden is treated for his back only to face a different assassin.  --  All in about 20 pages or so.

Thought I'd just throw in a couple lines, out of context, that had me laughing out loud.
1)  "Wizards don't giggle," I said, hardly able to speak.  "This is a cackling."  [Note the adverb and to-be word, anyone?]
2)  Sanya's eyes danced, though his face was sober.  "You are a drug dealer (pizza).  To tiny fairies.  Shame."

I've noticed another interesting difference in this book -- rather long, for Butcher, existential commentaries about religion, values, change, and other important stuff I don't remember in the previous books.

Trivia ... Went to the Farmer's Market in the cold.  Bought all sorts of good stuff -- kettle corn, snickerdoodles, apple strudel.  Hey, I didn't say healthy.