Short and Sweet

Words: they say a picture is worth a thousand of them.  Fair enough, but I think sometimes the exact opposite is true.  Sometimes nothing can portray emotion as well as a few simple words.  Consider the shortest story Ernest Hemingway ever wrote.  As legend has it, he was once challenged to write a story in only six words.  The result, as many know, is one of the most poignant, touching stories ever written.  Hemingway himself is rumored to consider it his finest story ever:

For sale: baby shoes, never worn.

Wow.  Adding more words wouldn't add anything else to that story.  It wouldn't heighten the pain, the loss, one feels when reading that.  More verbiage wouldn't add to the broken heart you know the mother, the whole family, suffered.  Six words is enough to know they moved on, but only out of necessity.  Six words is exactly enough to convey a punch to the gut.

Ernest Hemingway, © Penn State

I think Hemingway would have scoffed at those who say 140 characters isn't enough to adequately express oneself on Twitter. I think he would have loved Twitter. I'd have followed him for sure.  He was a master at saying exactly what he meant, and only that.

There's something to be said about brevity.  It's partly why literary agents want only a one-page query.  It's why we are told to hone, tighten, shorten, to turn the whole story into a synopsis.  To create a few-paragraph back cover blurb, and then take that blurb and shorten it into an elevator pitch.  Literary agent Rachelle Gardner has some excellent advice on creating elevator pitches.  Author David B. Coe shows us how to pare a blurb down, trim it to the bare essentials, leaving nothing but a concise pitch line.

These are things every author needs to do, if nothing more than the ability they lend to edit the story itself, and make every word count.  Kurt Vonnegut's advice on the matter was, "Every sentence must do one of two things, either reveal character or advance the plot."  Elmore Leonard's was a little simpler: "I try to leave out the parts that people skip."

It isn't easy, but then again, no one who's written anything worth a damn ever said it was.

Cooking up a Good Story

*** Warning: the following post contains a lot of gratuitous food porn! ***

The other day I was perusing Twitter, trying valiantly not to get sucked in for too long while taking a break from editing, when I saw a few tweets by literary agent Victoria Marini ‏ (@LitAgentMarini), comparing book revisions to baking cookies.  She's one of many literary agents I follow, and often has great advice.  This is what she said:

"Revision is not just addressing some comments in the margin. It's a lengthy, pensive process in which you look at your WHOLE work again.  If you baked cookies and I said 'they're too light,' you wouldn't just add flour to the same left over dough. You'd make a new batch!  Most of the recipe would stay the same, but you'd need to revisit the whole process to get the new batch right."

Great advice!

Magic Marshmallow Crescent Puffs (with wholesome nutritious filberts). © Ryan Schierling

And it got me thinking, which is rarely a good idea.  It also got me hungry, which is never a good idea, but we'll get to that later on.  Anyway, so many parallels between cooking and writing raced through my mind at reading that, I decided to share them here.  Enjoy.  And wipe that drool from your bottom lip.

Sweet potato fries w/ gravy and over-easy egg. © Julie Munroe

Don't leave it in the oven too long.  Nobody likes that hunk of meat that's been baking for an hour too long, and they certainly won't like your overcooked novel.  It's overdone, dry, and nasty.  If it drags on and on, it's going to bog down, and your readers will put it down at some point.  And if it's dragged on long enough, they're not going to pick it back up because it isn't interesting anymore.  It doesn't matter if you have complex, flawed, and interesting characters, or if your plot is wildly unpredictable and original, if it drags on too long, readers will lose interest.  Cut it, trim it, season it, and pull it out of the oven at precisely the right time.  Do it right, and you have a mouthwatering dish that readers won't be able to put down until they scrape the last crumbs and morsels from the plate.

Sauerbraten, with semmelknodel and rotkohl. © Ryan Schierling

Know the proper measurements.  A dash is not a tablespoon.  A pinch will not suffice when the recipe calls for a cup.  There are limits, but you can get away with adding more or less of something, or using a suitable substitute.  To a point.  Similarly, an author can usually get away with an extra 20,000 words in an epic fantasy or science fiction story because of the world building, but when writing young adult, there is a much shorter word-count constraint to work with.  There are general word count boundaries that are accepted by most in the industry, and they vary by genre.  Words are not like bacon; they're like onions.  There is a limit on the amount you can add to a story and still keep it palatable.  Know the boundaries for the genre you're writing, and the lengths a literary agency or publishing house accepts; they're not always the same.

Root vegetable-creamed linguini with bacon and parsley. © Ryan Schierling

Use the right ingredients.  There have been many great pieces of advice on creating realistic, believable characters, such as this helpful blog post by literary agent Vickie Motter (@Vickie_Motter).  Thing is, you have to put in the ingredients best suited to the dish (or character) you're creating.  If you're making steak in an upscale New York restaurant, you're not going to use a low grade chuck or round cut.  Conversely, if you're going for the flavors and textures of a greasy soup kitchen meal, you're not going to use cuts of Filet Mignon or Châteaubriand.  It doesn't matter what you're making, but you have to use the ingredients that give it exactly the flavor, smell, and texture you're looking for.  The ingredients for tacos come in a wide variety of shapes and tastes, but in the end, they still make tacos.

Crock pot chicken tinga tacos. © Ryan Schierling

Create a brand and cater to that specific consumer base.  In a similar thought to the one above, a customer must be able to associate a specific product with a producer.  People go to In-N-Out Burger, expecting delicious, no-frills burgers 'n fries, and that's what they find there.  People buy a William Gibson novel expecting edgy, futuristic science fiction, and that's what he delivers.  We want to get what we expect.  If we don't know what to expect from something, we're more hesitant, especially if obtaining it costs us our hard-earned money.  Creating a brand, and sticking to it, allows readers to readily identify whether or not they'll be interested in the book.  And a brand can't be a smorgasbord.  Trying to please all of the people all of the time never really works, especially with readers.  It's possible to write in several genres, especially if they're closely related, but many authors who switch genres, or write in more than one, do so under a different pseudonym for a reason.

Now I give you everything. © Ryan Schierling

Understand and cater to known tastes.  There's a reason why certain foods are paired with specific beers and wines: the flavors work well together, complement each other.  The same principle applies to books.  There is a reason why things fall into categories like genres and sub-genres, and why those genres are standard lengths, with standard elements in them.  A strong female main character works well in women's fiction.  A larger-than-life hero works well in fantasy and stories with heavily action-oriented plots.  For the same reasons lemon and rosemary go well with baked salmon, ornery dwarfs and mysterious elves go well with high fantasy.  It just works.  You don't always have to stick with the tried and true, as you'll see below, but stereotypes and standards exist for a reason.  Understanding that will help you create an original story that still falls with the bounds of consumer taste.

Cedar-planked Alaskan King salmon, ready for some heat. © Ryan Schierling

Stick with a recipe.  People also want to know what they're getting when they buy something.  If people are in the mood for prawns or crayfish, they're not going to look in the steak section of the menu to find it, and if they're in the mood for science fiction, they're not going to browse through romance books looking for it.  Understanding elements common to the genre you're writing and sticking with them will create an identifiable, quantifiable work, something that can easily find its proper place on a bookshelf.  If you identify your story as "more of a literary science fiction mystery, but with elements of romance and chick lit", a publisher is going to have a devil of a time finding a place on a bookshelf for it.  And guess what - if they can't find a place for it on the shelf, readers won't find it there either.

Crawdads, no. Crayfish, no. Crawfish, yes. Pot pie. © Ryan Schierling

Experiment, but do so correctly.  Although I'm quite the adventurous foodie, I'm not an especially good cook.  I experiment far too much, and usually my creations (using that term loosely here) end up mangled and often garbage-bound.  Luckily I don't have to be.  The wife is a supremely talented cook, and we eat quite well in the House of Dalar.  It's good to push the envelope, though, try things a little outside the box.  That's what gives us those new, exciting, discoveries that suddenly become the next big trend everyone tries frantically to copy before it becomes old.  That's a great thing in both writing and food.  But you gotta do it right.  You can't just add ingredients without knowing what they'll do to a dish, and you can't play around with story elements, grammar, and perspective without knowing what you're doing either.  A little tweak, a dash of daring, and suddenly your creation is refreshingly new and original.  You can play around with a baked potato, but the main ingredient is still going to be a potato.

Potato pavé w/ bison Texas red chili and smoked cheddar. © Ryan Schierling

Phew, that's a lot of food porn.  You had forewarning.  And now you're hungry; I know I am.  I'm going to saunter down to the kitchen to wrangle up something to eat.  And you can saunter on over to Foie Gras Hot Dog and find the recipes where all these wonderful photos came from.  It's run by my friends Julie and Ryan, a couple of great cooks, and adventurous foodies themselves.  You can also follow them on Twitter (@FoieGrasHotDog).

Papaquiles (the imaginary friend of chilaquiles). © Ryan Schierling

By the way, one of their uniquely crafted recipes - Papaquiles - is being served by the Today Food crew's food truck at this year's SXSW Music Festival in Austin, Texas, which starts today and runs through March 18th.  If you're in the area, be sure to check it out!

Grilled peach cobbler. © Ryan Schierling

Oh, and dessert.  Can't forget dessert.

Query Hell

Back to the obligatory pit of author despair known as Query Hell.  In other words, everything is back to normal.

Except for me, it's not really all that hellish anymore.  I've done it too long.  I've been at this game, off and on, for the better part of several decades.  To put it in perspective, when I submitted my very first short story to a magazine, skinny ties, pastels, and leg warmers were in style - everybody wanted to look like they'd come straight off Miami Vice.  The publishing world looked much different than it does today, mainly because of the online accessibility of information to authors.

Back in the day, I'd get out my well-worn Writer's Market guide and pour over it 'til I was half blind.  After compiling a number of submission-worthy candidates, I'd carefully print out the material I'd polished and crafted, stick it carefully inside a Manila envelope with an S.A.S.E., and take my submissions down to the post office.  Then I'd go back to writing, and one by one, the rejections would trickle in.  It was always an adventure getting the mail, wondering if that would be the day I'd find an actual acceptance.  I usually didn't, and became quite calloused to getting rejections.  I filed 'em all away, collecting them like trophies, keeping the giant stack like some badge of honor.  I figure I have well in excess of a couple hundred now.  I did get an acceptance finally, got the galleys and everything.  And then nothing.  Don't know if the magazine abruptly folded or what, but that's the way it goes sometimes.

Of course, there were times, jetting around the world courtesy of Uncle Sam, that this just wasn't possible.  It's hard to mail submissions out and collect rejection slips if you're not home.  Long hiatuses from the submissions game have been pretty much the norm.

And things have gotten much easier with the advent of e-mail submissions.  A whole lot easier!  I never query via regular mail now.  I have no reason to.  Yes, there are still agents out there who do not accept e-queries, but at this point in time, wouldn't you be a little hesitant of an agent who hasn't caught up with technology enough to operate that way?  Hell, a lot of agents accept only e-queries.

It's far easier, too.  There's tons of information on agents out there.  What they're looking for, how to query them, what to include, pretty much anything an author would want to know.  It's a lot quicker, too.  No complicated envelope, S.A.S.E., trip to the post office, and waiting on the postman.  Just zip it off and watch your e-mail.  You already do anyway.  Now there's more time for writing.

Except that there's not.  That time has been replaced by blogging, and tweeting, and all the other endless forms of social media out there.  Most agents want an author to have a good online presence.  They want to see the author is engaged himself, has worked to market himself as much as possible already.  It makes their job all that much easier.

Looking back, things haven't gotten any easier, but I've gotten better at it.  The one thing that jumps out at me right away is how much better I understand the publishing industry.  Publishing Separate Worlds was a tremendous learning exercise for me.  This blog has been too, especially with all the research I've put into the Literary Agents tab and sidebar.  I know better how to find what I'm looking for, and how to write better what they're looking for.

So it's back to the trenches for now, writing, editing, pouring over submission guidelines and then trying not to mix 'em up with I send the queries out.  It's still frustrating at times, but I've gotten as jaded to rejections as literary agents are to bad queries, so it's all cool.  And hey, it's not personal, it's the way things are.

Aaaaaand I'm Spent!

As of midnight tonight, National Novel Writing Month comes to a close.  For some, it eases out with the pop of a champagne cork, as they celebrate 50,000+ words spilled out into a manuscript in less than thirty days.  For some, it clangs shut like a steel safe door on fingers not quite ready to let it close.  For those belonging to the former, congratulations!  For those in the latter, hey, next year contains the month of November too.

Champagne, © Chris Chapman

Writing that quickly isn't for everyone, but it's an exhilarating experience.  I've never personally participated in NaNoWriMo, but I have cranked out the requisite amount of words before.  76,000 words for a complete novel in 26 days flat.  It was quite the rush.  I was on a roll.  And I didn't stop until the novel was finished.

Agatha Christie Books, © Eric Huang

Not everyone can write that fast.  A number of authors were renowned for writing slow.  J.R.R. Tolkien took twelve years to write the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and didn't publish it until 17 years after The Hobbit was published.  Some authors, like Agatha Christie, could crank out a novel in a couple of weeks.  That's pretty fast for anyone, even if you're cranking out formulaic serials.  Getting pen to paper, or in today's digital age, getting pixels to word document, isn't easy.  It takes dedication, no matter how long it takes you.

Agatha Christie, © Eric Huang

So once you finish cramming in those last few thousand words, take a moment to congratulate yourselves and reflect on your accomplishment, no matter how many words you've written, even if it's Day 29, and you have 47,000 words to go.  Allow yourselves to feel like Agatha Christie for a day.

And then let it sit.  Don't send it off to a literary agent right away - ask any of them - they'll tell you the same thing.  It's going to be a long time, and several more edits, before that baby is ready for prime time.  No novel is ready after a single pass.  Hell, a lot of them aren't ready after several.  Even when you've edited it until you think it's completely perfect, it will get hacked to pieces by agents and editors and béta readers.  But that's a good thing, trust me!  After getting Separate Worlds back from my editor recently, I was shown firsthand just how much another set of eyes can do for a story.

You're full of enthusiasm now, and you can hardly wait to share your masterpiece with the world.  They'll see it all in due time.  For now, let it rest a bit, take a break, and get involved with another project.

Trunk it!

Trunk, © Brian Ford

No, not that one.  This one!

Steamer Trunk, © Justin Masterson

And once again, congrats on a job well done.

Exciting Times to be a Writer!

The world of books as we know it has turned upside down.  For those living under a rock lately, Borders is officially done.  Barnes and Noble, while not done (yet), has been in trouble very recently.  Unless they turn their strategy around, they could well be following in Borders' footsteps.  Regardless of what happens, the fall of Borders is seen as a boon to Barnes and Noble.  For now.  Folks have been saying Barnes and Noble did it right, while Borders did it wrong, but that too can change quickly.  Especially for a struggling company that received an artificial shot in the arm for business.

Further shake-ups could be likely.  Books-A-Million tried to buy out the inventory for 30 of those Borders stores, but couldn't do it in the end.  More buy-outs or attempted buy-outs will probably happen.  In the end, it will be death by attrition and survival of those who adapt to the changing times the quickest.

Some are bemoaning the future of reading, that it's the death of new writing for some reason.  Whatever will we do if we don't have books?  Well, it's never going to be that bleak.  Books have been here to stay since their inception.  Their form may change, and the opportunities for writing them may ebb and flow, but they'll remain as strong as ever.  People may lament the fact that e-books don't give them that same special feeling that "real" books do, but it's not about feelings.  It's about numbers.  And the bottom line for publishers involves numbers, not feelings.

Enough bad news.  Remember, I said it was exciting times to be a writer, and I truly believe that.  The shake-ups have only begun to begin and there's more than we could ever imagine just around the corner.

We've already seen figures for the first half of this year, and digital books are going through the roof while other forms are in decline.  The comparison between the two shows just how fast the digital revolution is happening in the world of books.

E-books are here in a big way, and they're here to stay.  Self-publishing was once looked at as nothing more than an ego-boosting outlet for hopeless hacks but is now a viable option with e-books.  More and more agencies, such as BookEnds, LLC, are coming to terms with self-publishing, and are forming strategies to adopt it into their business plan.

And many more new opportunities are springing up - new, interesting forms of publishing that until a few short years ago were completely unheard of.  One such example is University of Michigan's foray into digital publishing by serializing two novels for free on Facebook.  Interesting concept.  Whether it will take off into something viable is not really something I care to debate.  The fact that it is happening, and adding to the shake-up of the publishing world is the important part.

For a talented writer, there is always a market.  Yes, it's always going to be tough.  There will always be competition for publication and readership.  There will always be naysayers and holdouts to whatever has been tradition.  But there will always be those on the cutting edge of the industry.  Authors would do well to be a part of that.  After all, it's their future.  Our future.  And I'm happy I'm a part of it.

The Future of Querying

I just had a random thought, inspired partly by author and former literary agent Nathan Bradsford's recent post on query critiques.  It got me wondering, with the recent surge of query critiques, how will that affect the query process in the long run?

Let me explain.  Starting few years ago and continuing today, we have seen the emergence of the query critique, with agents such as Janet Reid critiquing them with Query Shark and her main blog, BookEnds, LLC's agents doing the Workshop Wednesday posts, Kristin Nelson posting advice in Pub Rants.  The list goes on and on.  I could post more, but you get the idea.

The good news is there's plenty of advice - solid, real advice from those in the industry - we struggling authors can find and use.  Unless you're this guy, you probably have a pretty good idea on how to structure a decent query.  Bad news is, so does everybody else out there.  This means that aside from the folks who just aren't ready to begin querying yet, you're competing on a pretty even playing field with queries.  I'm going to go out on a limb and say the majority of queries over the next few years will be formatted correctly, spell-checked, and contain at least a semblance of personalization and professionalism.

Now I've seen a recent post from an agent who ranted there were plenty of chuckleheads out there still throwing astoundingly awful queries out there, but for the life of me, I can't find it again.  I wanted to link it here, because it's a good read.  Oh well.

I think though, in spite of the fact that some people just aren't going to get it right, the majority of authors will continue to hone and fine tune their queries to the point where the queries will be a good deal better than the actual manuscript.  I think that while it'll make agents' jobs much easier to a point, by culling out the obvious bad ones, it'll make it a lot tougher by masking some of the bad ones with good queries.  And I don't know how many of the bad ones will be that much more obvious than before.  Bad writing is bad writing, and a failure to follow submission guidelines has always been a huge strike against anyone doing it.  The fact that there is more contrast between bad and good queries today doesn't make it any easier than it already was to discard the bad ones.

Of course, that's just my musings.  I could be wrong.  I don't know.  I write about the future; I don't predict it.  But I think this push by agents to educate authors on how to write a proper query will certainly affect a resonant change in the way the query business is done.  Couple that with the changing face of e-publishing, and we have the makings of a giant shift ahead.

Playing the Devil's Advocate

I just wrote a post contemplating the benefits of self-publishing e-books against sticking with the more traditional methods of finding an agent, getting a contract with a publishing company and eventually seeing the book in print.  I'm still considering it, but I'm not entirely sold either, and the reason is that doing things the traditional way does have its advantages.  Big advantages.

First, as author and former agent Nathan Bransford writes, traditional publishers bring a lot to the table that the author simply can't do himself.  They provide editing and copyediting, and both are invaluable to a writer.  One of the quickest things that will turn me off a book, especially one written by an unknown author is a slew of typos, bad writing, and poor editing.  You don't want that as a new author.  You need every advantage you can to sell your books.  Well established authors will sell millions of copies just based on the fact they are who they are.  Stephen King sells books based on name recognition alone.  Jonathan Dalar, with the possible exception of a handful of friends and family, does not.

Another thing publishers provide is professional design, printing, and packaging.  They make the book look pretty - prettier than I'd be able to do as an author, or at least without spending the family fortune, however much that may be.  They have these services in house, as part of their standard package of doing business.  It's all part of the process, not something I'd have to figure out on my own and hope I got it at least semi-right.

Publicity is yet another area that publishers are well versed in.  They use their own already well established vehicles of marketing to push your book.  They help set up the tours and reviews and all the other work necessary to get your book out there, stuff that usually resides well below the radar to the average reader.  They're the ones who buy space on that highly visible rack right inside the door of the bookstore that you see when you walk in.  They're who determines which books get put on the end caps of the shelves, at visible eye-level locations, or stuffed spine out along with the rest of the books.

And speaking of those bookstores, the publisher is the one who gets your book into the stores.  Most bookstores, and virtually all the larger ones, will not even consider stocking a self-published book, no matter how well it's doing.  The publishing companies have a long, well established track record with them, the bookstores know they're going to get good titles when they buy their books, and there is far less to gamble on doing business with them than with an unproven author on his own.  The previously unpublished author who's going it himself can't begin to compete with a similar author who's backed by Simon & Schuster or the Penguin Group.

This doesn't even cover the advance.  As I said in my previous post, you can earn a lot more of a percentage with royalties doing it yourself.  And selling enough books, you can earn above and beyond that advance by a lot more than with the 15% traditional methods offer.  But that's the catch.  You've got to sell those books.  And $10,000 advance from the publisher is money you don't have to give back, no matter if you only sell a handful of books.  That's pretty damn enticing.

As I've said, self-publishers can break into the market in a big way, as evidenced by Amanda Hocking and others.  It's an incredible long shot though, and it still took a lot of hard work and a ton of luck.  To sell a lot of novels, you have to have several things going for you.  You have to have a lot of exposure to people likely to buy your books.  You have to create a large, growing audience of dedicated readers - people who will go out and buy your next book just because your name is on the front cover.  You have to be not only a great writer, but a great marketer as well.

There has been some very interesting news along these lines recently.  The poster child for indie publishing, Amanda Hocking herself, just signed with St. Martin's Press.  That's right, she's switching to traditional publishing when she had already made a solid name for herself (and a lot of money) by publishing on her own.  And doing almost the exact opposite, author Barry Eisler, who has been quite successful publishing the traditional ways, tuns down a $500,000 advance to self-publish.  Yes.  A five followed by five zeros.  What to make of this?  Which one is right?  As David Gaughran explains better than I could, each appears to be making the right decision for themselves.  For more on this subject, author Tracy Marchini weighs in, guest blogging for Nathan Bransford.

But where does that leave me?  What's the best option for me?  Sadly, I have no $500,000 advance to turn down and try my hand at self-publishing.  I also don't have the massive success in the indie market to garner such attention from the large publishing houses.  I'm starting from the bottom here, and it's a long, tough road.  In spite of the odds, traditional publishing may indeed be the best way to go.  They just have so much to offer, it's hard to overlook it all.  We'll see.

The fact of the matter is that times, they are a-changin', and nobody knows exactly how.  No matter what the future holds, it's important for us authors to get in on the change because it's our future too.  Like my old granddad said, "I dunno where we're goin', but there's no sense bein' late!"

Why do I write?

I've been asked that many times before, and the answer's easy.  Almost too easy.  Because I have to.  I have stories that simply have to be told, have to be written down.  But certain changes and shifts in the publishing industry have me questioning myself in this regard.

Why would I question my need to write, though, no matter what's going on in the industry?  Well, the answer isn't easily definable, but I'll give it a shot.  The short version is that it shifts focus from the writing to the end product, or at least it seems to for me.  It's caused me to look longer and harder at different schools of thought regarding publishing, and how it affects the author.

Which brings me back to why I write.  If it simply needs to be written down, then problem solved.  Done that!  Many times.  I have amassed quite a large amount of written work over the past several decades, and I've seen huge improvements in both style and storytelling ability.  And if it were just that, I'd be content to keep tapping them out on my computer for my own enjoyment.  Just to get them out of my head and into print.

But there's more to it than simply getting them out of my head.  I'd like to see them published.  I'd like others to read them as well.  That's the other side of things, the part of me that wants to sell a million copies and see my name plastered high on the New York Times Bestseller list.  That would be simply incredible!

But truth be told, that's a pretty tall order.  More along the lines of a pipe dream.  It can happen.  Relatively obscure debut authors broke through huge, such as Sara Gruen with Water for Elephants.  The Harry Potter series also turned into quite the empire for J.K. Rowling.  It's been done before and will certainly be done again.  It certainly isn't the norm, which means that reality is probably somewhere in between these two extremes.

So, with the shift to digital, things get a little muddled for an author struggling to break through in today's market.  As it stands, they say there's about a two percent shot at making it the traditional way, and that's pretty much at the 'getting an agent' level.  To get an idea of the odds, Jennifer Jackson, of the Donald Maass Literary Agency keeps up with the odds in her blog with the 'letters from the query wars' posts.  Check them out; they're shockingly educational on how amazingly hard it is to really get a reputable agent.  And those odds are pretty similar throughout the industry, in case you're wondering if it's just her.  Suzie Townsend of FinePrint Literary Management posted her stats for 2010.  According to her colleague Janet Reid, 10 new clients from 5530 queries is 'a lot'.

Which brings us full circle again to self-publishing.  I've been against it from the start.  Vanity or subsidy publishing, that is.  I've even written about it here on the blog.  It's a cop out.  Taking the easy road.  And those who know me know I generally don't take the easy road for, well, anything in life.  I'm a die-hard Seahawks fan for pity's sake.  That ought to tell you something about me taking the hard road.

But there's more to it than that.  Author David Gaughran recently wrote a very interesting piece on his blog on the market's shift toward digital, titled Why Traditional Publishers Will Go The Way Of Travel Agents.  Seriously, who uses travel agents anymore when you can book your own vacation online through any number of sites and tweak your vacation however you'd like to yourself?  I know I don't.  And he thinks the giant industry of publishing is headed that way too?  No one knows for sure, but thing is, he's probably right, and that is a gigantic paradigm shift for everyone involved.

E-book sales are rapidly growing.  According to the Association of American Publishers, e-books outranked all other categories of trade publishing this last February.  E-book sales accounted for $90.3 million for the month, or a 202% increase from their sales a year ago.  And although adult paperback and hardcover still rank number one and number two overall, e-book sales have risen dramatically to date.  Every indication is that digital is the wave of the future, and that future is now.  Every day we see more and more authors, such as fellow author Carolyn Arnold, going this way instead of the traditional route.

Another reason e-books are a good fit for authors is the percentages they earn in relation to traditional royalties.  The industry standard for royalties from a traditional publishing house is 15%.  This normally includes a $5,000.00 to $10,000.00 advance against those royalties the author keeps no matter how many books sell.  That's a tidy sum for an author just starting out, and compared to shelling out his own money to get a book published, being offered ten grand instead seems to be a no-brainer.

But e-books can earn far higher royalty percentages for an author.  After all, there are no huge publishing costs to cover, and in fact, the publisher is completely taken out of the picture.  At a rate of 70% royalties from Amazon, selling a book for less money than via traditional publishing will net the author far more far quicker.  That tidy advance that seemed so tempting a moment ago suddenly pales in comparison, especially when you figure that once that advance sum has been reached (by selling fewer books), you're still earning 70% per book instead of 15%.

However, the one big advantage the publishing industry has over do-it-yourselfers is professionalism.  After all, they're the professionals in the business.  They provide the badly needed editorial process, they handle the book's ISBN and formal copyright issues, the cover, the distribution, marketing, and a lot of other great services which contribute to the book's success.

But much of that can still be done by the author, if he puts enough time, effort and attention to detail into things.  Attention to detail is the bread and butter of the military, and I'm pretty sure that with twenty years of experience with it, I could probably figure out how to do it correctly.  There would be up-front money involved, certainly.  To come up with a professional quality cover, invest in proper editing and layout, and such would certainly cost.  And to a reader, that's usually really all it takes.  When was the last time you bought a book based on who published it?  Did you even notice the publisher?  Or did you look at the cover, the title, the back cover blurb and over all appearance of the book's quality?  My guess is it was the latter.

So if an author can accomplish this without going the traditional route, it stands to reason he'd be about as successful on his own.  Maybe more so, maybe less.  But where do you draw the line with success?  Is it the New York Times Bestseller list or bust?  Or is a modest run of 5,000 to 10,000 books good enough?  A person can cripple their odds of getting picked up by a reputable New York literary agency by churning out a self-published book that sells four hundred copies.  After all, if you don't spend the time and effort, or your work is just so shoddy, that you have to publish it yourself, how is that going to be a selling point to an agent?  It has in fact, the exact opposite effect, and with good reason.

5,000 to 10,000 copies in print, however, is a modest success, and is a credential worth mentioning to an agent the next time around.  At that many copies, you've done better than many folks who went the traditional route and simply didn't sell through their advance.  And you probably have a much better chance of getting picked up than they do, because publishers are leery of giving a second chance to someone who didn't come through the first time.

So it all boils down to doing it right, no matter how that is.  I'm still sending queries out, still trying my hand at the traditional methods, but I can't help but look at the alternatives, especially when they seem to be the immediate future of my industry.  The reasons I write have a lot to do with the methods I chose, and may well influence a change in how I approach things.  Stay tuned, folks, it's going to get pretty interesting!

Finding a Literary Agent

Finding the right agent is a complicated and intimidating process.  In fact, finding any agent at all is hard.  There are a limited number of agents out there, still fewer credible and capable agents, and by the time you've pared them down to those who actually accept manuscripts of your genre, the list is probably much shorter than your average grocery list.

So how do you do it?  How do you find an agent?  More importantly how do you find one who is competent enough to market your work correctly, connected enough to sell it, and scrupulous enough to trust with what you've poured your heart and soul into for who knows how long?

Research and hard work are the keys to a solid approach at this.  It takes time and energy and a lot of hard work, probably almost as much hard work as you've put into writing your novel.

The first key to finding an agent is organization.  Like anything else, organizational skills are a vital part of the search for an agent.  Since you're highly unlikely to find an agent with the first query you send out, you have to track your submissions carefully to avoid sending multiple queries for the same manuscript to agents who have already passed, research the right agents, and not duplicate efforts.

Keep a detailed log of your submissions in whatever format is easiest for you to use and maintain.  Whether it's a database, a spreadsheet or a word document, populate it with the pertinent details of your submissions.  Include dates queries were sent, the agency sent to, the specific agent and the contact information for them.  I also include details on the response, whether there was no response after a set amount of time, a personal rejection or a request for more.  I file all of this by each individual title I send out and maintain it meticulously and often.

Since I now query exclusively via e-mail, I have separate folders in my e-mail for queries, bites, and related correspondence, and I keep every e-mail for my reference.  If I need to see specifics on how an agent responded back, I have it.  I have also kept every rejection I've ever gotten via snail mail as well.  I have a large folder with each one inside, in case I have to reference them too.  Chances are, I probably won't need to reference them all, but I have them in case I do.

The next step is learning to write a killer query, one that will catch the attention of the agent you're targeting and land you that request for the full manuscript.  Study advice from agents regarding queries.  Find out what works for them and what doesn't.  Your goal isn't to make a perfectly constructed query for query's sake, it's to sell your writing and your novel.  Agent Query has some advice on writing better queries.  They have a forum showcasing queries that actually worked.  Chuck Sambuchino also has good advice on writing queries.  Query Shark, as I've mentioned before, is one of the better places to see query analysis in action.  It's better because you can see them broken down and critiqued as they improve with subsequent iterations.  Study the queries posted there for what works and why it works.  You'll notice that a few of the queries that break the rules are the ones that entice you to read the book the most.  You'll notice that most of the ones who follow the rules, however, are effective as well.

As a general rule of thumb, you have approximately 250 words to interest your target audience enough to want to read more.  If they want to read more, they'll ask for more, and that is exactly the point of a query letter.

Some tips:

• Do trim your query to as close to 250 words as possible.  If can't get the job done in that amount of words, you're doing it wrong.
• Do craft an opening hook that encourages them to find out more.  A good place to research this is the back cover blurbs of similar novels in your local bookstores.
• Do write a polite, professional query.  It's still a form of business letter to a professional in the field, and it's your venue to sell yourself as a professional they want to work with.
• Don't ramble about your personal life or how really great your novel is.  Agents stress time and again the best way to get them to read more is to show, not tell them how great it is.
• Don't try to include too much in your query.  It's best not to try and stuff every character and subplot into it.  You haven't got the room.  Include the essentials.
• Don't open with passive voice, rambling run-on sentences, or rhetorical questions.  Agents are evaluating not just the content of your novel, but your writing talent and style as well.

Writing the synopsis is the next step.  You'll need one for many of the agents you query.  A synopsis is not about writing style, although it shows through in one.  It's about the basic, bare bones plot of your novel, and whether it has the elements needed to be successful.

A synopsis should generally be two to three pages, but must cover the essentials of the novel.  If it runs a little longer, you should be fine.  Agents don't read synopses for the reading pleasure or to get a feel for your writing.  They read them to understand where the plot goes, how conflict is resolved, and the motivation behind character action.

Author Nathan Bransford has some tips on synopsis writing, as does Marg Gilks of Writing-World.com.  Other examples can be found by doing a little more research yourself.  Very few authors like to write synopses, but they are a vital part of marketing your work.

Some tips:

• Do write the synopsis in omniscient form, regardless of how the manuscript is written.
• Do use a synopsis for showing the logical progression of the novel from beginning to end.
• Do note the key points of conflict and resolution in the manuscript.  Present the stakes present for your characters and their motivation and basis for the decisions they make.
• Don't leave the agent guessing how the novel ends.  Save the suspense for the readers.  The agent has to know how it ends to know whether it's going to sell or not.
• Don't include too many details which detract from the main plot of the story.  While they may be important to your story, if they are not part of the basic plot or key subplots, they do not belong in the synopsis.

Once you have your system in place and know how to write and refine queries and synopses, it's time to research agents.  Most agents belong to a literary agency, and most agencies maintain websites.  Sift through their website with a fine-toothed comb to determine what they want, how they do business, what types of books they sell, and any other information that will help you determine a good fit.  Looking at an agent's client list will give you a good idea whether they'll be open to marketing your manuscript, or whether they're not into that particular genre or type of work.

Once you've found an agent who has compatible needs in a reputable agency, you need to branch out to other sources of information on them.  Vet them through sites like Publishers Marketplace and Query Tracker.  Visit Preditors and Editors to make sure they're not running a scam or conducting bad business practices.  Find out if the agent you're interested in has a separate website from the agency's website.  Do they blog or twitter?  A large number of agents now do both.  Check these sites immediately before you send them a query, as their needs can change.  They can also shut down for submissions while on vacation, a hiatus from work or other reasons.  It does you no good to send your query to an agent who isn't in the market for manuscripts, so it is in your best interest to do your research thoroughly.

Check and double check the agent's submission guidelines.  They're not there simply to look good.  They're there to tell you as an author exactly how they want their submissions.  They'll tell you what genres they'll consider, what they're specifically not in the market for, what's hot that they're looking for more of at the moment, and how to correctly format and send the material.  Do they accept e-mail or snail mail?  Both?  Do they have a submissions form on the website?  Do they want just a query?  The first five, ten, or even fifty pages of the manuscript?  A synopsis?  Generally it's a combination of all of the above, and maybe other specific requests.  Find out exactly what they want and give it to them exactly the way they want it.

The vast majority of agents do not even open, let alone consider e-mail with any attachments.  They want to see the requested material pasted into the body of the e-mail.  They need your contact information - name, address, phone, e-mail - but they do not want to see it up front.  Put it at the end of your letter.  It's there when they need it, but not in the way.

Once you're sure you're ready to send everything out, compose the e-mail and send it back to yourself.  Open it and make sure it looks correctly.  Send it in plain text, to avoid any instances where the HTML does not get translated correctly in the agent's e-mail program.  Send it again to yourself.  And again.  Read it out loud and continue to tweak what doesn't sound right.  Once you've gotten exactly what you want back a couple of times, you're ready to send it to the agent.  Send it and file it in your query tracking system.

Now that you've sent it out, you start all over again.  Rethink your query and edit it further.  Find another agent, vet them and send out another query to them.  Do that multiple times to multiple agents.  Querying multiple agents at the same time is perfectly acceptable, and even encouraged.  This is not the same as simultaneous submissions, which is when you send the same manuscript to be read and considered by multiple agents at the same time.  You're not going to get your manuscript into nearly enough hands if you query one agent at a time every once in a while.

Be methodical in your research and precise in your submissions.  Get it right the first time.  And the second, and third and however many more times you have to send it out before you sell it.  Remember, you're not only selling a product, you're selling yourself as an author, one who will be able to produce more novels in the future.  Doing it the right way will increase your chances of success.

Timing a Manuscript Submission

Much has been said about submitting a manuscript to a literary agent or publisher, but I've seen less written about the timing of a submission.  Obviously the best time to submit is when your manuscript is fully edited and polished to the best of your ability.  That is not what I'm talking about here.  I'm referring to timing a particular genre to a point in time when its chances of being picked up are the highest.

We've seen the incredible boom of zombies and vampires, especially young adult vampires, recently.  The market is teeming with those books now.  Even a few years ago there were far less of this type of book than now.  Agents actively look for certain hot topics because that is what sells at the moment.  It's their job to time a publication to catch the wave of public popularity.  These types of books may or may not interest you, but they're what is selling at the moment.

But when there is a lag time of at least a year, and usually much longer between the submission of a novel and publication, how does one gauge what's going to sell when submitting a manuscript?  When the lag between finding the perfect idea, writing the first draft, editing, editing, editing, submitting it, and finally getting published is far longer than that, it's almost impossible to predict.  An author would have to be precognitive almost a decade into the future to get it absolutely correct.

One of the ways to deal with this is to have a few different titles ready to go.  If you have for example, a horror story, a paranormal love story and a science fiction romp all ready to go, you'll have your bases covered better than if you have only a single novel.  After studying the market and needs of agents, you'd soon realize your horror novel just might have to be shelved while you actively market your paranormal work because that is what is currently selling.  And when, in a few years, horror explodes back into the spotlight, you'll be ready for that too.

The best way to time a manuscript publication however, is to do your research.  Don't settle for the first or second agent that lines up with your genre and call it good.  Study what agents are currently accepting.  Find out what they've been selling.  Find out what genres their client authors are writing and what titles are forthcoming.  Look as far into the future of the industry as you can.  This helps you catch market trends early on and allows you to get in on them while they're booming.

Submitting a novel is tricky business.  There is so much to be put into it in order to find an agent and actually get your book into print.  Obviously delivering a finely tuned query that introduces a polished and well crafted novel helps, but it's important to study all the different factors that influence what works and what doesn't.  I feel it takes almost as much time and effort crafting a query, synopsis and studying the market for a submission as it does to write the first draft.  Authors tend to concentrate more on the writing and less on the marketing aspects of being an author, and thus tend to present a submission which is less appealing than it could be.

Once the novel is written, it's time for the hard part of being an author.  It's time to really sit down and do your research.  You've done the research needed to set a believable and colorful plot.  You've studied how to craft your words to say what you're trying to express.  Now you have to put in an equal amount of work studying how to market your novel and get it onto bookshelves and e-readers around the world.  It's not an easy task, but knowing what is selling and what gives your novel the best shot at success is a great first step.