Interview with Stephen King

Lewis Black on Writing

Warning: Adult Language/Mature Viewers Only

LMAO! Lewis Black kills me.

Advice on Writing a Book

Guest Blog: Book Publishing 2009- Twist, Turns & Possibilities

Book Publishing 2009- Twist, Turns & Possibilities
By Cheryl Pickett
http://www.publishinganswers.com
Click here

Many writers dream of writing a book someday. In years past, the process was fairly simple. Write the book, or at least have a strong start, propose it to an agent or publisher and there was a decent chance your dream could come true. Fast forward to 2009 however, and you'll quickly discover a very different set of circumstances. The traditional publishing industry has more turns and detours than a mountain road, and there are so many other choices that even researching what to do can become mind-boggling in a matter of moments.

So what's a would-be author to do? Move forward, but take it slow and steady. Here are three tips to help you navigate that twisting road on your way to making your dreams a reality.

1. Make a Plan:
My favorite analogy for this strategy is to think of making decisions about publishing a book like taking a trip. If you want to take a trip, one of the first things you need to do is decide where you're going; if you don't know where you're going, the rest of the decisions are tough, if not impossible to make.

The same goes with deciding when are the best time and the best way to get your book into the world. Whether you're just starting to write or you have a complete project, take time out to consider key points like: Why this topic or story now? Is writing this book going to be for fun or part of a business? What do you want your book to accomplish for you?

2. Understand Your Audience:
Not that long ago, if you said you wrote a book, people would have expected to look in a bookstore if they wanted to buy it. Obviously, this is far from the case now. Besides being able to order print books everywhere from Wal-Mart to Amazon, books are now delivered in audio and digital formats. Beyond that, digital formats may be read on a computer on your desk, on your laptop or on your phone and still others are willing to carry an e-reader like a favorite novel.

Now more than ever, it is important to know what your audience wants. Once you have a good idea as to what that is, you can do your best to give it to them. When you both meet at the same place, you have a better chance at selling what you write either to a publisher or directly to your reader.

3. Understand Your Options
One of the benefits of the Internet is getting almost any information you want in a matter of a few keystrokes. It is truly an advantage compared to older research methods. However, when it comes to choosing a publishing option, a handful of quick searches will not suffice.

For example, if you type something like "publish a book" into the search engines, you'll undoubtedly find a lot of POD/fee-based publishers will top the list. To the uneducated, these companies may look the same as commercial publishers. They also often make their process very tempting; make a reasonable investment in your project and you'll have a book in no time.

If you don't realize this is not the same as being published traditionally, but traditional is what you're expecting, you're likely headed for a big disappointment. On the other hand, if you've done your homework thoroughly, you are clear on the options and you know how to filter through the information you gather, you'll find the journey to published is much smoother.

As I stated in the beginning, the publishing industry is going through a world of change right now. The good news is that even though there are new twists and turns almost daily, it is still very possible to get where you want to go. Make a roadmap, get directions as needed and enjoy the journey.

Cheryl Pickett has been a freelance writer for almost a decade. Her new book, Publishing Possibilities: 8 Steps to Understanding Your Options & Choosing the Best Path for Your Book, helps authors publish with less stress and more success. Find out more about the book and Cheryl's other services at http://www.publishinganswers.com.

Guest Blog: 5 Questions with Kaza Kingsley

5 Questions with Kaza Kingsley
By Maria Schneider
http://editorunleashed.com/
Click here

Kaza Kingsley has the kind of success story that writers aspire to.

The author of the Erec Rex YA fantasy series, Kingsley self-published the first two books in her series, sold 30,000 books, and recently landed an amazing eight book deal with Simon & Schuster. They’re re-releasing her first two books in paperback this April and her third book, Erec Rex: The Search for Truth, will be released by Simon & Schuster in hardcover this summer.

Here, Kingsley answers five questions and shares her advice for other authors who are interested in publishing on their own.

1. How did you learn so much about publishing your own book?

It wasn’t easy! You have to know what your limitations are before you start a big project like publishing, both with time and financially. Once you determine that, then your pathway will become more clear. Like most artistic ventures, it helps to have a good vision of the end product that you want to produce. Going with a self-publishing service may be right for you if you don’t plan on reaching out to the mass market with your product, and you don’t have a lot of time on your hands. But if you really want to plunge in all the way, the sky (and your own imagination) is the limit on what you can do!

When I originally put out the first Erec Rex book, I personally used about every piece of information that was available to me. There are some great books on publishing available at most bookstores, and they are a great place to start. Also, look online for more good and free advice! There is no “one source” that will tell you everything that you need to know. It’s a learning process, and hopefully a fun ride as well. It was for me!

2. Is it difficult to find the time to promote and tend to the business details when you’re committed to writing a book a year?

Yes! You would think that a year is more than enough time to write a book, but with all of the pre-planning that goes in as well as the actual writing time, there is not much left over for everything else. Book promotion itself can be a full time job! Each author has their own favorite ways to promote, and it’s best to concentrate on those, whether it’s more of a web presence or live interaction with readers. Unfortunately you have to prioritize because there isn’t time to do it all!

3. I know you’ve done other writing in the past—short stories, etc. Any thoughts of doing other kinds of writing now, or have you found your genre in YA fantasy?

I am always thinking of other projects that I want to do—but at the same time I love where I’m at now! Writing Erec Rex has been the most fulfilling thing I have ever done. And now that it’s receiving international recognition I’m beside myself!
What I will probably do is a small project when I’m done writing Book Four, which I am working on now. Then take time out to do school visits, fantasy conventions, and meet readers. It’s a crazy life, going from being alone in a room, writing, to really being out there. But it’s fun!

4. Do you enjoy the promotional aspects required of an author or would you rather be writing?

You know, I really do like that side of things. Not all authors do. But for me, coming face to face with readers, and hearing from them in emails and online, is one of the best rewards of writing. It’s also such a nice break for me to get out and around a lot of people after being holed away writing for so long!

5. Why did you decide to go the traditional publishing route after successfully publishing and selling more than 30,000 books on your own?

It wasn’t always the plan. As long as my books were getting out and read I was happy. But after a point I realized that they could go a lot further with a large publisher. I contacted a new agent—my agent at Writers House had left—and he sold my series in an eight book deal to Simon and Schuster. Which was really cool, and pretty unusual! I’m so happy to have ended up there. It’s a fantastic group, and it has been so much fun to have a team of people as excited about the series as I am!

Authors@Google: Bob Woodward

Random House Prevails in Battle for Diane Keaton's Memoir

Random House Prevails in Battle for Diane Keaton's Memoir
by Leon Neyfakh
http://www.observer.com

A long competition over Diane Keaton’s memoir, which compelled some of New York’s busiest editors and publishers to clear their schedules last week and fly to Los Angeles to meet the actress, drew to a close Friday night.

The winner—sorry HarperCollins, Ecco, and Little, Brown—was the flagship imprint of Random House. David Ebershoff, who has edited Norman Mailer, Gary Shteyngart, and Charles Bock, will work with Ms. Keaton, who intends to write the book herself instead of using a ghostwriter.

William Morris agent Bill Clegg, who sold Ms. Keaton's book and presided over the meetings, said last Monday that Ms. Keaton's book "could be an enduring book about mothers and daughters and the choices that women of her generation and her mother’s could make and did."

Mr. Clegg, who took final offers for Ms. Keaton’s book after the publishers pursuing it came back from Los Angles late last week, declined to comment on the deal this morning.


Read the rest of the story:
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10 Surefire Ways to Get Your Book Proposal Rejected

10 Surefire Ways to Get Your Book Proposal Rejected
By Patricia L. Fry

Every hopeful author who has conducted even minimal research into the publishing process knows the term book proposal. And most authors shudder at the thought of writing one. I did when I was just starting out in this business. As soon as I realized that publishing IS a business, however, I understood the importance of writing a book proposal. A book is a product, after all, and a book proposal is a business plan for that book.

But what if you’ve written a book proposal and, still, you’ve been rejected by eighty-five publishers? Maybe you need to take a second look at that proposal. Perhaps you’ve committed one or more author’s deadly sins.

Following are some of the most common mistakes perpetuated by hopeful authors today. Avoid these ten mistakes and you have a tremendously greater chance of landing a publisher for your perfect project.

1: Do not tell the publisher his business. In other words, don’t say, "You really must add this book to your list if you hope to be successful." Or "This book will make you rich." Rather than putting the hard sell on the publisher, demonstrate your manuscript’s worth through a well-organized book proposal.

2: Don’t threaten the publisher. It will do you no good to say, "If you don’t buy my book, I will kill myself." Or "You’re missing the book of the century if you pass on this one." Instead, provide him with pertinent details that clearly demonstrate the value of your book project.

3: Don’t claim that your book contains no mistakes. Have you ever picked up a book that had no mistakes? I don’t think it is humanly (or even mechanically) possible to produce a book without a mistake. And from what I’m told by publishers, many authors who claim to have hired a professional editor for their books, have been taken for a ride. So make sure that you hire a reputable editor before submitting your book proposal or manuscript to a publisher or agent. Strive for perfection and hope for the best.

4: Avoid saying that everyone will buy your book. Statements such as this serve to demonstrate your amateur status. You may hope that everyone will buy your book, but this is an unrealistic expectation. A publisher will be more impressed by an author who has done his homework and is quite clear as to the segment of the population who is likely to purchase a book of this sort.

5: Don’t claim that this is the only book of its kind. This, too, implies that you’re an amateur. A well-organized book proposal includes a competitive analysis of books similar to the one you propose. The purpose of this section is to demonstrate a need for your book. If there is nothing to compare it with, how will you convince the publisher of its worth? If you can’t find other books just like it, dig deeper, my friend. Evaluate popular books from the same category and point out the similarities and the differences. Publishers want facts and figures not wishful thinking.

6: Do not state that this is the only book you’ll ever write. Publishers prefer working with authors who are likely to produce more than one good book. If your book is successful and you are a pleasure to work with, the publisher would just as soon accept another book from you than someone unknown to him.

7: Don’t reveal that you’ve been working on the book for the last 25 years. There is nothing impressive in the fact that you have not been able to complete a 12-month project in over two decades.

8: Do not try to bribe the publisher. Unless you can offer the publisher an impressively large sum of money or a vacation home in the Bahamas, don’t bother to entice his favor through bribery.

9: Don’t contract with an unprofessional, unqualified agent. A bad agent is worse than no agent at all. What is a bad agent? One who charges you for her services, who either sends your manuscript to publishers who are inappropriate for the project or doesn’t send it out at all and who does not maintain reasonable communication with you. Choose an agent who is appropriate for your project and who is sanctioned by the Association of Author’s Representatives (www.aar-online.com).

10: Never try to write a book without first writing a book proposal. I tell people that the first step to writing a book is to write a book proposal. Without a book proposal, you are at risk of using the wrong slant for your book and/or writing for the wrong audience.

Your excellent, honest, thoroughly researched book proposal is your key to success. Publishers today are more interested in the marketability of your project than your writing skill. They need you to identify your target audience and explain how to reach them. They want to know about your competition. A well-organized, complete book proposal will help to sell a publisher on your project.

Writing a book proposal is not a walk in the park. But once you’ve completed it, you can go take that walk in the park. If you avoid the ten mistakes listed above, you may not have time to take a walk because you’ll be too busy showing off copies of your new book.

Patricia Fry is the author of 25 published books, including, The Right Way to Write, Publish and Sell Your Book and The Author’s Repair Kit. She is also the president of SPAWN (Small Publishers, Artists and Writers Network, www.spawn.org).

Visit her publishing blog at:

http://www.matilijapress.com/publishingblog/
Click here

Ms. Fry’s free guide to writing a Post-Publication Book Proposal can be requested by emailing her at:

PLFry620@yahoo.com

Demystifying Literary Agents

Seven Essential Points on Literary Agents
By Jill Nagle
Reprinted by permission from author

(An excerpt from the no-longer-for-sale e-book, “How to Find A Literary Agent Who Can Sell Your Book for Top Dollar.”)

As an aspiring author, you may have heard, “if your work is really good, you can get an agent. Getting the work into shape is the hard part. If you get the work into shape, the right agent will follow.” Is it really that simple? Well, yes and no.

The seven essential points below prepare you for what to expect when seeking an agent, or literary representative.

Point 1: Fiction or nonfiction? Differences in approach

As a novelist, or fiction writer, you need to complete your whole book, format it properly, and find an agent who specializes in selling novels. If you write nonfiction (self-help, how-to, memoir), forget about writing the whole book, unless you want to self-publish. Instead, write your book proposal.

A book proposal is like a business plan for your book. Its job is to convince the publisher to part with money so you can get paid to write your book.

In either case, to minimize your chances of rejection, you’ll need to have your proposal or manuscript polished before approaching an agent.

Point 2: That someone calls themselves an agent says nothing about what they can do for you

Some things haven’t changed in the century since the first literary agent was born. Today, anyone can still hang out a shingle and say they’re an agent—many people do. Not all agents are effective, ethical, or even sell any books.

Jill’s Guerilla Caveat
Don’t settle for just any agent. Agents vary tremendously in their effectiveness and in what they sell well. Get your proposal (for nonfiction writers) or manuscript (for novelists) into tip-top shape, then go for the agent who has a proven track record selling work similar to your own.

Point 3: Membership in the Association of Author’s Representatives (United States) indicates that the agent has agreed to abide by the AAR’s code of ethics

This professional guild for agents requires, among other things, that an agent:

* has sold at least ten literary properties (i.e. books) in the eighteen months prior to application for membership; and
* does not charge any fees for reading or evaluating authors’ work.

However, not every legitimate US agent belongs to the AAR. Many extremely successful agents opt out of AAR membership. A comparable agency called the Association of Author’s Agents operates in Britain.

Point 4: Legitimate agents earn their living by selling to legitimate publishers the rights to publish authors’ books

In return for writing your book and granting a legitimate publisher the rights to print it, the publisher gives you, the author, a percentage of whatever the book makes, otherwise known as a “royalty.” In return for brokering the deal and acting as your advocate, you in turn give your agent a percentage (usually 15 per cent) of this royalty.

This is how legitimate agents make their money. They pick good literary prospects for the publishers to consider, who rely on them to reduce the time and energy it would otherwise take to wade through the enormous amount of submissions the publishers receive.

Publishers know the legitimate agent’s living depends on being able to separate the wheat from the chaff, so they tend to look more seriously at submissions from reputable agents.

To reiterate, legitimate agents get paid through commissions on book rights only, period. If an agent charges you any money, except a small fee for expenses (and many people believe agents shouldn’t charge authors even for those; they should simply be considered the cost of doing business), they have little incentive to sell books.

Successful agents use a well-established network of relationships with editors in legitimate publishing houses. They know the right editors to call for the particular projects that come their way. They don’t have time to do anything but sell book rights, because selling book rights is how they make their money.

Aside from selling the rights to publish your book in your own country, many other possibilities exist for making money from your book both within your own country and abroad. These include translating the book and selling it overseas, making an audio recording of the book, or having the book used as the basis for a movie. The legal permission to do these things is called foreign rights, subsidiary rights and options, respectively.

To help you make the most money possible from your book, your agent should be able to negotiate for the subsidiary and foreign rights to remain with you, and then work either on their own or with someone else, to help you sell and make yet more money on sales from those rights.

Jill’s Guerilla Caveat
Apart from those agents who are simply mediocre, watch out for scammers – there are plenty! Apart from trusting your gut, and not paying an agent, avoid any agent who:

* insists you hire a particular editorial or consulting service (this is different from making a referral, or even better, two or three referrals and letting you interview them and make up your own mind);
* refers you to a publisher who wants to charge you money;
* suggests representing multiple works of yours simultaneously (unless they have a really good reason for thinking this is a good idea).

Agents who profit from upfront fees for reading or handling manuscripts, who affiliate themselves financially with editorial, coaching or publishing services, or who claim to need your money for any other purpose probably aren’t selling the rights to your book for a living.

Why should they, when aspiring writers who don’t know any better are kind enough to bankroll their other enterprises?

Point 5: At their best, agents advocate for author interests, and earn their commissions by:

* using their inside information, reputations and well-oiled relationships with editors to approach just the right publishers for your book – especially the increasing number of those publishers who won’t take un-agented submissions;
* applying their contractual and negotiating expertise to garnering higher advances, more rights and a lot of other stuff you might not be aware of;
* helping you refine both the form and content of your book so that it appeals to the publishers they plan to approach;
* intervening on your behalf if you get into a disagreement with the publisher;
* assisting you with making long-term decisions about sequels, options, subsidiary rights, next steps and other aspects of your career.

Point 6: Agents reject 99 per cent of all material that comes their way

The best and most reliable way to up your odds of getting published is to a) research your market, b) know and communicate to the agent via a perfect query letter how your work fits in with and stands out from others in its class, c) deliver an original, well-written, impeccably formatted manuscript or proposal, then d) choose an agent who is obviously interested in and has a record of selling work like yours. Read that again.

Point 7: Don’t initiate contact with a phone call – really. Approach an agent with a query letter instead

Unless you are famous (and even then), approach an agent with a query letter. A query letter introduces you and your book idea, and invites the agent to see your book proposal or manuscript.

Don’t email unless the agent specifically states somewhere in print or on the internet that they welcome email queries. Also, don’t call with general questions about their qualifications.

Agents who haven’t expressed interest in representing your work generally will not consent to have you interview them unless you’re a journalist calling to give them publicity.

Once an agent has expressed interest in your work, you can and should ask questions of them, then take up to a week (or longer, by mutual agreement) to decide whether to accept their offer of representation.

If you’ve read this far, congratulations—you now have a solid introduction to agents, a crucial piece of the mainstream publishing world. However, as you might guess, finding exactly the right agent for your work, so you can beat those 99 per cent rejection odds, takes a bit more effort.

Jill Nagle, an author as well as a writing coach and consultant, has been helping writers get published for over a decade.

Editing John Updike

The Fadeaway
by Roger Angell
The New Yorker

Colleagues for more than half a century, writer-editor partners for more than half that time, John Updike and I were close at a fixed distance—he at home north of Boston, I in my New Yorker office near Bryant Park—but spoke voluminously by telephone, by manuscripts and galley proofs, and also via his typed, cheerful two-and-a-half-by-five-and-a-half white postcards that bore his pale-blue name and address hand-stamped in the northwest corner. Now and then he would turn up at the office, startling me once again with his height and his tweeds, that major nose, and his bright eyes and up-bent smile; he spoke in a light half whisper and, near the end of each visit, somehow withdrew a little, growing more private and less visible even before he turned away. The fadeaway, as I came to think of it, may have had to do with his exile from his own writing that day, while travelling; the spacious writing part of him was held to one side when not engaged, kept ready for its engrossing daily stint back home. Informally august, he stayed young after his hair turned white, but the additions of fame and a vast work now made him seem Colonial, ready for the portrait on a postage stamp.

A similar sense of shift and distracting clarity often overtook a reader in one of Updike’s stories when an ordinary enough event or small-town American scene—a slight earthquake, a 5.4 on the Richter scale, awakening a man at home in bed in the early morning; a mother on her way to work in the nineteen-thirties running for a streetcar in Pennsylvania; a man in his late fifties outside his living room in the winter finding the moons of Jupiter with his new home telescope—slides to another breadth and meaning in the space of a sentence or two. This is what Updike has had in mind for us all along. He invites us into his story and walks us easily along; all is recognizable and reassuringly alive, but then—we’ve had no warning—we’re seized with a flooding fresh knowledge, in the same fashion that sadness or some ancient night remembrance can sometimes take us in its teeth. Updike was in his twenties and thirties when most of his seventeen stories about the Maples were being written, but his expert and unpatronizing account of a suburban marriage—husband and wife, neighbors and kids, meals and affairs and politics and anxiety—also carried this double view. There’s something terrifying about it all, because these young people, parents and children alike, are such beginners, not ready for so much life.

Updike’s writing is light and springy, the tone unforced; often happiness is almost in view, despite age or disappointments. He is not mawkish or insistently gloomy. Death is frequently mentioned but for the time being is postponed. Time itself is bendable in these stories; the characters are aware of themselves at many stages. This is Updike country: intelligent and Eastern, mostly Protestant, more or less moneyed. We understand and read on, and then—and then a middle-aged married man named Fanshawe remembers how he had “ceased to fear death—or, so to say, to grasp it”—at the moment when he first slept with a woman named Lorna Kramer. Or the young father, Richard Maple, at the end of a day when he and his wife, Joan, have been explaining to their young children that they are going to separate and try living apart for the summer, ending their marriage at least for now, is telling the news to his teen-age son, in bed and just home from a rock concert, and the teary boy stops him with a word: “Why?” He has forgotten why. Or that young woman from the past—Updike’s mother without a doubt, but seen this time as the mother of a man named Joey in a long 1990 story, “A Sandstone Farmhouse”—“running to catch the trolley, the world of the thirties shabby and solid around her, the porches, the blue midsummer hydrangeas, this tiny well-dressed figure in her diminishing pocket of time, her future unknown, her death, her farm, far from her mind.”

Updike’s sentences are fresh-painted. In all his writing, critical or fictional or reportorial, he is a fabulous noticer and expander; he’s invented HD. So armed, he felt free from the start to take up and engage with all that lay within the range of his attention and put it down on paper. He had never to my knowledge written about sports when, on a morning in late September, 1960, he was stood up by a woman in Boston with whom he had an assignation and instead went to Fenway Park to see the Red Sox, in the final home game of Ted Williams’s career. Ted hit a home run in his last at-bat, and Updike came home and wrote “Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu” and sent it off to the magazine: the most celebrated baseball piece ever. The text grew not just out of the event but from Updike’s youthful attachment to the Splendid Splinter; when he decided to leave New York and The New Yorker, in 1957, and move his young family to the suburbs, he chose Boston, as he later explained, in part to be closer to Ted Williams. My own baseball writing was still two years away when I first read “Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu,” and though it took me a while to become aware of it, John had already supplied my tone, while also seeming to invite me to try for a good sentence now and then, down the line, like the one he slips in when Williams fails to doff his cap after circling the bases in the wake of that homer: “Gods do not answer letters.”

Read the entire story at:

http://www.newyorker.com/talk/2009/02/09/090209ta_talk_angell
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New York Writers Workshop's Non-Fiction Pitch Conference/Feb. 13-15

New York Writers Workshop's Non-Fiction Pitch Conference

w/editors from Scribner's, Rodale, Viking, Penguin, Random House, Simon & Schuster, and others.

Friday, February 13 - Sunday 15, 2009
Ripley-Grier Studios, 16th Floor
520 8th Avenue (btw 36th & 37th St's)
New York, NY

http://www.newyorkwritersworkshop.com/
Click here

Interview with Stephen King

Lewis Black on His Publisher

Lewis Black on Writing a Book

What are your favorite writing things?

What are your favorite writing books?

What are your favorite pieces of writing advice?

What are your favorite writing resource sites?

What are your favorite writing sites?

What are your favorite writing blogs?

What are your favorite quotes about writing?

What are your favorite writing groups?

Can't wait to see the answers!

Thanks so much,

Mike

Bookings: 5 Great Writing Books

5 Writing Books I'd Strongly Recommend

The Writer’s Handbook
A must-have compendium resource with the names, addresses, phone numbers, editors, online sites, email addresses, etc., of countless publications and publishing houses, covering all genres; also includes, among many other things, some wonderful articles about the art, craft, and business of writing. This book is especially close to my heart, since my how-to article about freelance writing, “Keep in Writing Shape,” was featured in the 2004 edition.

The Writer’s Market
A must-have compendium resource with the names, addresses, phone numbers, editors, online sites, email addresses, etc., of countless publications and publishing houses; also includes, among many other things, some wonderful articles about the art, craft, and business of writing.

[Other important books in this family are the specialty ones: Novel & Short Story Writer’s Market, Guide to Literary Agents, Children’s Writer’s and Illustrator’s Market, Poet’s Market, and Writer’s Market Deluxe Edition.]

Stephen King on Writing by Stephen King
I can’t say enough about this part-memoir, part instructional book: funny, poignant, inspirational, and loaded with awesome advice about the writing craft. The section entitled “Toolbox” is alone worth the price of the book. “The job of fiction,” writes King, arguably the greatest horror author ever, “is to find the truth inside the story's web of lies.” A true classic for anyone serious about writing and the writing life.

The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr. & E.B. White
This is the granddaddy of writing books, the best book of its kind pound-for-pound of all time. Originally written in 1959, this slim volume began as a self-published work by Cornell English professor William Strunk; After Strunk’s death, one of his students, E.B. White, revised and revived it. It’s known in many literary circles as “the little book.”

Screenplay: The Foundations of Screenwriting by Syd Field
This step-by-step guide from concept to finished script was written in 1979 and is, arguably, the best book ever on how to write a screenplay. It’s helpful not only to aspiring screenwriters, however, but to fiction writers as well.