Getting Started on Twitter: A Quick Guide for Kid/YA Writers

by Mitali Perkins

Newbie to Twitter? Writing books for kids or young adults? Here are five easy steps to jumpstart your use of Twitter:

1. Join.

I recommend using a real name if possible. Or a pen name if you use one. It's your brand, right?

2. Personalize.

Write a snappy 160 character bio. Link to a website or blog. Use a photo of your real head. If published, upload a .jpg of your most recent book as your background. Don't tile if it gets headachey. If not published, upload a .jpg of something bookish, artsy, or representative of you, either from your own photos or something you find via Creative Commons.

3. Tweet.

Your first 140-character message will be what people see, so make it good. In fact, try to make every tweet good. Your writing is the best ad for your writing, and Twitter is a fabulous showcase. So don't say, "Oh, here I am on Twitter!" or something equally inane. Be witty, pithy, or sweet, but let this first tweet display a bit of who you are. Or who you want us to think you are, anyway.

4. Follow.

Start by following a few of the most active and informative Kid/YA people on twitter: @gregpincus, @inkyelbows, and @taralazar (additions? share them in the comments). They all post tips and links galore. Or track these five chats related to the industry: #askagent, #pubtip, #followreader, #writechat, and #kidlitchat. Consult Debbie Ridpath Oni's list of the best chats on twitter related to writing.

5. Learn the rules.

You communicate on Twitter in seven ways.

• Tweet by composing messages that are 140 characters long. Better still, make them shorter in case somebody wants to forward your tweet along.
  
  
• Reply to somebody else's tweet, so that your tweet starts with @mitaliperkins blah blah blah. People who follow you will only see this tweet if they follow you and the person to whom you're replying. Putting a "." before "@" in a reply beginning with someone's twitter name (.@mitaliperkins blah blah blah) lets all your followers see that reply instead of only those who follow both you and the person you're answering.
  
  
• Re-tweet interesting stuff. If you quote someone exactly, start with RT @mitaliperkins blah blah blah. If you paraphrase, say it your way and then end with (via @mitaliperkins).
  
  
• Direct message somebody, or DM. This is only seen by the recipient. You may only DM people who actually follow you, not everybody you follow.
  
  
• Link to a web page or blog in your tweet. Shorten these links using bit.ly. I recommend signing up for an account as their statistics will tell you which of the links you've shared are the most popular or helpful. Feed links to your own blog posts using twitterfeed.
  
  
• Hashtag to participate in a chat, topical discussion, or conference. If you were at the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators National Conference in LA last month, for example, you'd tweet something related to the conference and end it with #scbwi09. You can even invent your own hashtag. Don't worry too much about this one, you'll get the hang of hashtags soon enough (along with other twitter extras).

Check your Twitter home page once a week, once a day, once an hour, whatever suits your fancy and schedule. Don't feel like you have to read it all nor respond to everything. Dip your toes in every now and then, read and tweet when you can, and you'll find this venture both fun and professionally enriching. I promise. Questions? Tweet them to me @mitaliperkins.

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I was born Mitali Bose in Kolkata (Calcutta), India, and always tried to live up to my name—which means “friendly” in the Bangla language. I had to! Because my family moved so much, it was the only way I could make new friends.

By the time I was 11, I'd lived in Ghana, Cameroon, London, New York and Mexico before settling in California just in time for middle school. Yep, I was the new kid again, in seventh grade, the year everybody barely makes it through.

My biggest lifeline during those early years was story. Books were my rock, my stability, my safe place as I navigated the border between California suburbia and the Bengali culture of my traditional home.

After studying political science at Stanford and public policy at U.C. Berkeley, I taught in middle school, high school and college. When I began to write fiction, my protagonists were often—not surprisingly—strong female characters trying to bridge different cultures.

Backspace Seminar FAQ #2

Since there are no formal pitch sessions at the Backspace November Agent-Author Seminars, what opportunities will there be to talk to agents about my project?

Formal pitch sessions are a staple at most writers’ conferences. However, in planning our Backspace events, we discovered that agents hate conducting pitch sessions almost as much as authors dread doing them. In fact, many of the agents we’ve talked to are happy to sit on a panel or conduct a workshop, but decline to participate in formal pitch sessions.

The purpose of the Backspace November Agent-Author Seminars is to educate authors about the realities of the business in order to help them break in at the major publishers, and to help them connect with agents. Two days of agent panels and agent workshops give authors the opportunity to learn from and meet with a variety of agents who represent fiction and non-fiction works in all different genres, and to ask questions specific to their interests and concerns.

That’s why we’ve built so much free time into the program. The full fifteen minutes between panels allows plenty of opportunity for seminar registrants to talk to agents. Many of the agents will also be available during the noon hour, and during the afternoon mixers. Remember, agents attend conferences because they want to help authors. They’re looking for new talent, and welcome the chance to hear about your work.

Instead of a tense, angst-filled pitch session where it’s difficult for all but the most confident authors to put their best foot forward, an interesting, relaxed, enjoyable conversation leaves a much more positive impression. And even if authors don’t get the chance to mention their project, the pleasant conversation gives the author a point of reference when sending a formal query letter to the agent’s office after the seminar is over.

The Backspace Agent-Author Seminar is two days of agent panels, workshops, and small-group meetings in the heart of the publishing world with ONLY literary agents on the program!

Thursday, November 5 - Query Letter Day (details on the Agenda page)

Friday, November 6 - Opening Pages Day (details on the Agenda page)

REGISTER for one day, or both!

Jeff Kleinman (Folio Literary Management) • Paige Wheeler (Folio Literary Management) • Jennifer DeChiara (Jennifer DeChiara Literary Agency) • Colleen Lindsay (FinePrint Literary Agency) • Elizabeth Evans (Reece Halsey Literary Agency) • Emmanuelle Alspaugh (Judith Erlich Agency) • Stephany Evans (FinePrint Literary Agency) • Gina Panettieri (Talcott Notch Literary) • Laney Katz Becker (Folio Literary Management) • Diana Fox (Fox Literary) • Jason Allen Ashlock (Movable Type Literary Group) • Joanna Stampfel-Volpe (Nancy Coffey Literary & Media Representation) • Scott Hoffman (Folio Literary Management) • Michelle Brower (Wendy Sherman Associates) • Daniela Rapp (Editor, St. Martin's Press) • Matthew Mahoney (Ralph M. Vicinanza Ltd.) • Holly Root (Scott Waxman Agency) • Jennie Dunham (Dunham Literary, LLC) • Alexandra Machinist (Linda Chester Agency) • Miriam Kriss (Irene Goodman Agency • Janet Reid (FinePrint Literary Management) • Lois Winston (Ashley Grayson Literary Agency) • Paul Cirone (Molly Friedrich Agency) • J.L. Stermer (Donald Maass Literary Agency)

In Real Life

By Amy Sue Nathan

I’ve always been a little envious of writers who hobnob with other writers, meeting over lattes to talk about publishing or chatting around someone’s kitchen table about characters, point-of-view and word count. Having real life friends who speak-a-my-language was just dream for a long time.

It’s too much effort to explain what I do to other moms in the carpool lane, or to describe my aspirations when I bump into a friend in the grocery story. It has downright exhausted me in the past because I don’t want to write their life story or co-write their great idea. I don’t much care that their second-cousin used to write for the hometown rag - and I don’t like advice — like the time someone suggested I contact “that woman who used to edit Cosmopolitan" so that I could write for her. Yes, indeedy. So, I don’t bother. I know there are many writers who do the same thing. They’d rather say they dig ditches or crunch numbers (both admirable trades) than admit, in mixed company, that they are writers.

My writer friendships are online and long-distance. I read scores of writer, editor and agent blogs and correspond with generous published authors. My critique partner is someone I met online years ago, grew with and grew to understand. I introduced her to Backspace, and that has become something else that we share. But, she’s in Rhode Island, which at last geographic check, was nowhere near my tiny Chicago suburb. I treasured the connections I made, but it was no substitute for knowing writers in real life. Or so I imagined.

Like the rebel I am (or aspire to be) I posted something akin to a personal ad on Backspace looking for Chicago area writers who wanted an IRL writer friend. With over 900 members, you’d think there would be a few wouldn’t you? There was one.

But it only takes one, doesn’t it?

Much to our mutual surprise, we lived just 30 minutes away by train — and after a casual yet thorough email screening, we determined we were at the same “level” of writing with perhaps different areas of expertise but overlapping interests. I’ll admit (and she knows this) I was relieved that she was a little older than me instead of a little younger.
When we met, we talked for about four hours. The second time it was about two and a half hours. Both times there was a lot of head nodding, ample laughing and a little welcome advice. That’s when we decided to exchange manuscripts when the time is right — and to meet for lunch once-a-month or as our schedules allowed.

As of today, we’ve been friends for about a year. We alternate who takes the train to whom. I’ve celebrated her birthday and danced at her wedding. She sends me listings for writing gigs, I point her toward interesting blog posts. We banter via email– but save certain stories, experiences and questions for "next time".

Because some things are just better in real life.

*****

Amy is a freelance writer published in The New York Times Online, The Chicago Tribune, Chicago Parent, The Huffington Post, Washington Post Online and in more than twenty regional parenting magazines and literary journals nationwide. Her writing has also been included in the anthologies A Cup of Comfort for New Mothers and Six Sentences, Volume 2. Amy blogs about writing at AmySueNathan.com and about life behind the picket fence at Suburban Kvetch. Amy is also a freelance editor, helping her clients polish essays, short stories and manuscripts.

Backspace Seminar FAQ #1

Do I need to have a finished manuscript to register for the Backspace Agent-Author Seminar?

Like all our Backspace events, the Agent-Author Seminar offers access to agents so that authors can talk about their project, get a feel for the agents' personalities and interests, and learn from the agents' cumulative knowledge and experience. We offer workshops, not pitch sessions, which means that while an author can get their work in front of agents, if the agents feel it's not yet ready (or if your opus is not quite finished), authors haven't burned any bridges. The agents know that based on what authors learn at the conference, they might want to take another pass through their manuscript before they submit it. So while ideally, authors will be coming to the seminar with a finished manuscript in hand, they can still connect with agents and learn from their feedback, even if their work is not quite finished.

The Backspace Agent-Author Seminar is two days of agent panels, workshops, and small-group meetings in the heart of the publishing world with ONLY literary agents on the program!

Thursday, November 5 - Query Letter Day (details on the Agenda page)

Friday, November 6 - Opening Pages Day (details on the Agenda page)

REGISTER for one day, or both!

Jeff Kleinman (Folio Literary Management) • Paige Wheeler (Folio Literary Management) • Jennifer DeChiara (Jennifer DeChiara Literary Agency) • Colleen Lindsay (FinePrint Literary Agency) • Elizabeth Evans (Reece Halsey Literary Agency) • Emmanuelle Alspaugh (Judith Erlich Agency) • Stephany Evans (FinePrint Literary Agency) • Gina Panettieri (Talcott Notch Literary) • Laney Katz Becker (Folio Literary Management) • Diana Fox (Fox Literary) • Jason Allen Ashlock (Movable Type Literary Group) • Joanna Stampfel-Volpe (Nancy Coffey Literary & Media Representation) • Elisabeth Weed (Weed Literary) • Scott Hoffman (Folio Literary Management) • Michelle Brower (Wendy Sherman Associates) • Daniela Rapp (Editor, St. Martin's Press) • Matthew Mahoney (Ralph M. Vicinanza Ltd.) • Holly Root (Scott Waxman Agency) • Jennie Dunham (Dunham Literary, LLC) • Alexandra Machinist (Linda Chester Agency) • Miriam Kriss (Irene Goodman Agency • Janet Reid (FinePrint Literary Management) • Lois Winston (Ashley Grayson Literary Agency) • Paul Cirone (Molly Friedrich Agency) • J.L. Stermer (Donald Maass Literary Agency)

Can a novel change the world?

by Karen Dionne

I don't mean DaVinci Code or Harry Potter change, though there's no denying those novels' influence. They've redefined the term "blockbuster," spawned countless knock-offs, created a new sub-genre, even added words to the popular lexicon.

I'm also not referring to Booker or Pulitzer Prize-winning fiction destined to be discussed and dissected by literature students for decades.

I'm talking real-world change. The kind of change that affects people's lives in demonstrable, tangible ways. Meaningful, food-on-the table change that addresses a critical and very real global problem, such as the lack of clean drinking water.

Every day, more than a billion people have no choice but to consume contaminated water. A child dies every 15 seconds because of it. 2.7 billion people live in areas with inadequate sanitation, with 40-60 million deaths per year the result.

Contaminated drinking water is the issue at the heart of my environmental thriller Freezing Point. The story features a concerned environmentalist who thinks he can alleviate the world's fresh water crisis by melting Antarctic icebergs into drinking water. Instead, his lack of understanding of the polar environment coupled with corporate greed creates an even bigger problem that ultimately threatens the entire planet.

Disillusioned, he abandons the corporate world and goes to work for the WaterLife Foundation, a non-profit organization that focuses on providing clean water and sanitation for underserved communities around the world.

The novel, of course, is fiction. But the WaterLife Foundation is real. In my author's notes, I direct readers toward this worthy non-profit. I discovered the organization while researching the novel, and was particularly taken with the way WaterLife targets villages and peri-urban communities with chronic water and sanitation issues - areas that are overlooked by emergency aid organizations because they're not experiencing a catastrophic situation, yet which actually represent the greatest need.

A typical WaterLife project is the one in Bapa, Camaroon, which includes a rehabilitated well, pump, and water reservoir for a health center serving 3,500 people.

3,500 might seem a drop in the bucket compared to the suffering billions. But these aren't just statistics, these are people: 3,500 very real people with hopes and dreams of long life and health and happiness - and the right to basic human services most of us take for granted.

Likewise, compared to hardworking environmental groups and documentaries like An Inconvenient Truth, my novel's potential for social change is small. And the story wasn't written to educate; it was written to entertain.

Yet all writers hope their words will make a difference. If my readers come away with a greater understanding of the world's water crisis and are moved to action, the story's reach might - just might - extend beyond the page. A reviewer observed that Freezing Point's "ingenious plot, genuine characters, superlative writing and nail-biting suspense will change the way you look at a bottle of water." Another said, "The storyline is chilling, and the reader can't help but become educated about the earth's fresh water resources."

Earth's fresh water situation is critical. Uneven distribution, pollution, abuse of the aquifer - serious scientists around the globe are sounding the warning. By incorporating their concerns into the storyline, I hope my novel shines a small spotlight on a very big problem.

For more about the WaterLife Foundation, visit www.waterlife.org.

Also see Michael Specter's analysis of the global water crisis "The Last Drop," as published in The New Yorker, October 23, 2006

Photo by Antony Funnell / AusAID

This essay originally appeared on The Huffington Post

Karen Dionne is the author of Freezing Point (October 2008, Berkley), a thriller Douglas Preston called "a ripper of a story," with other rave endorsements from David Morrell, John Lescroart, and many others. Her next novel, Boiling Point, will be published by Berkley in October 2010. For more information about her, go to www.karendionne.net.

An Interview With Therese Walsh

If you haven't heard of Therese Walsh, you soon will. Our good friend, fellow Backspace member, and co-founder of Writer Unboxed, Therese's debut novel, The Last Will of Moira Leahy, is set for release on October 13th. Of course, you can pre-order your copy today.

Therese was kind enough to sit down with us for a quick interview, and provide a brief synopsis of her debut:

When Maeve Leahy lost her twin sister, Moira, to tragedy nearly a decade ago, she buried her adventurous spirit to become a workaholic professor of languages instead. Until one night at an auction when she wins something that reminds her of her carefree, piratical youth: a Javanese dagger called a keris. Days later, a book is nailed to her office door, followed by anonymous notes, one inviting her to Rome to learn more about the blade. Soon, she’ll learn that nothing can be taken at face value—including the face she’s been presenting to the world—and that the keris might play a role in slicing away her many self-protective layers, once and for all.

Q: After signing that publishing contract, what's been the biggest surprise, good or bad? Was there anything you didn’t expect to happen that happened, or maybe even expected to happen that didn’t?

TW: The biggest surprise might’ve been that I continued to see growth in myself as a writer even after the deal came through for The Last Will of Moira Leahy. My editor, Sarah Knight, was always pushing me to push myself—to create fresh descriptions and ax anything trite, for example. Another surprise was just how arduous the editing process would be. I’m not complaining (now that it’s over, ha!), but it required hardcore dedication to give back the 110% that my editor had also given to the manuscript.

Q: How did you find your agent?

TW: Part research, part kismet. My manuscript wasn’t easy to categorize--women’s fiction/family saga melded with touches of mystery, psychological suspense and romance. The real wildcard component was the mythical realism, though, so I subscribed to Publishers Marketplace to learn who’d sold stories with a touch of the supernatural. While searching through book sales, I recognized Allison Winn Scotch’s novel, Time of My Life. Though Allison is one of our monthly contributors at Writer Unboxed, her novel’s publication was still 3-4 months out at that point and I hadn’t yet read a synopsis. Bingo. Time of My Life was women’s fiction with a touch of the supernatural. Agent: Elisabeth Weed. I emailed Allison and asked about her agent. She mentioned that Elisabeth had just had a baby, but said she’d be happy to feel her out for me. Later, she emailed to say that Elisabeth would be interested in reading a query. The query led to a request for a partial, then the full, and then an offer of representation.

Q: Outlines, outlines, outlines...whenever I attend a writing conference, or an author's booksigning, it seems someone always asks, "Do you outline before you start writing the book?" So, did you find yourself outlining The Last Will of Moira Leahy, or did you dive right in and start writing?

TW: I started writing The Last Will in 2002, if you can believe, and it’s had several incarnations since then. I bumbled my way through my first draft sans outline, chucked the entire thing, then started over. After I had to toss large quantities of my work again when the storyline went astray, I decided to try an outline. Honestly, it took some of the fun out of writing for me, but things did proceed much more smoothly after that!

Q: In addition to outlines, writers always seem to be fascinated with the other processes of writing and creating a book. Did you set a schedule and say, "I'm going to write x amount of words, or x amount of pages, everyday?" Did you write at a certain time everyday, or certain days every week. Or, would you put yourself in that spontaneous category, of sort of writing when the inspiration hits?

TW: When I’m actively writing, I’ll sit myself down to work nearly everyday, but unless I’m in The Zone, the words come slowly—maybe I’ll get a page or two. When I’m in The Zone, I can write very quickly and will invest every spare moment into nurturing the manuscript.

Q: Who are your favorite authors? If I sat next to you on a plane, or spread my blanket beside yours on the beach, which authors would I most likely catch you reading?

TW: I’m not dedicated so much to authors as I am to types of books. I love beautiful language and/or super creative plotlines (e.g. Audrey Niffenegger’s Time Traveler’s Wife; Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime, Keith Donohue’s The Stolen Child).

Q: What’s in store for your second novel? Anything you can share, or is it still under wraps?

TW: The second book will also be women’s fiction melded with mystery, psychological suspense, family saga, love story elements and mythical realism. It’ll take place entirely in West Virginia, as the characters travel the state on foot.

Q: Now that your book is out, do you have any regrets? Is there anything in the book you wish you included, or even wish that you hadn't?

TW: No regrets. Could the book be better? Always; I’ve learned you can edit a book forever. But when you open the pages of The Last Will, you’ll be looking at the culmination of six years worth of work and writerly growth, and a representation of the very best I had to offer.

Q: What was the most interesting thing you learned while writing this book?

TW: That the muse knows things I do not, and I have to trust her.

Q: What is one piece of advice you would give to the soon-to-be-published author?

TW: Perseverance is key—not only the perseverance to keep writing when you’re not sure you’re good enough or that your book will ever sell, but the perseverance to keep studying your craft. Learn, work, repeat. The road might be longer than you think, but you’ll reach your destination if you keep on keeping on.

*****

Therese Walsh's debut novel, The Last Will of Moira Leahy, will be published on October 13th, 2009 by Shaye Areheart books (Random House). She’s currently hard at work on her second novel—another story about self-discovery, acceptance and magical journeys—at her home in upstate New York.

Therese is the co-founder of Writer Unboxed, a blog for writers about the craft and business of genre fiction. Before turning to fiction, she was a researcher and writer for Prevention magazine, and then a freelance writer. She’s had hundreds of articles on nutrition and fitness published in consumer magazines and online.

She has a master's degree in psychology. Aside from writing, Therese’s favorite things include music, art, crab legs, Whose Line is it Anyway?, dark chocolate, photography, unique movies and novels, people watching, strong Irish tea, and spending time with her husband, two kids and their bouncy Jack Russell.

The Writer as Entrepreneur

by Barry Eisler

(from the Backspace Book Promotion Network)

All writers think of what they do as an art. Smart writers understand that writing is also a business. Really smart writers see themselves also as entrepreneurs.

As a veteran of both a Silicon Valley technology law firm and a Valley start-up, I've known people who labored for years late at night and on weekends to create a new product while holding down a full-time day job; who, when the prototype was ready, found a venture capitalist to help make the prototype commercial-grade, validate the product by attaching the venture capitalist's imprimatur to it, and introduce the entrepreneur to prospective customers; who then started a real company and learned to run it, creating new products and selling them to new customers in new markets.

You can learn a lot by applying this classic technology entrepreneur model to what writers do. The writer labors alone for years creating the first cut of a manuscript (product). When the manuscript is ready, the writer finds an agent (venture capitalist), who invests not money, but time in helping the writer re-write and otherwise tune up the manuscript. When the manuscript is more ready, the agent introduces the author to publishers (customers), with the agent's imprimatur helping to get the publishers to take notice. The publisher buys the book; the author quits his day job, and thereafter devotes himself to his new business - writing new books (creating new products) to sell to his original publisher (the original customer) and to new ones (foreign sales and subsidiary rights).

In technology, the closest analogue to the writer's business model is the so-called fabless semiconductor company. Big semiconductor companies like Intel run multi-billion dollar fabrication plants to manufacture their chips. But there is also a smaller breed of chip company that doesn't run the fabs, and instead only designs chips and then licenses the design to the Intels of the world for subsequent manufacture, distribution, and sale. These fabless companies create nothing but intangible intellectual property (copyright, patent, trademark, trade secret). Their business is licensing that intangible property to someone else. Likewise the writer: the product you sell to your publisher isn't really a book, but rather the underlying copyright in that book. The publisher then prints the books, markets them, and sells them.

From this model, several important points emerge:

First, creation of the product (writing the book) is only the first step. You are now running a company (albeit a sole proprietorship), and your company is responsible not only for creating the product, but also for marketing, branding, and selling it. Yes, other people will be involved in these efforts (see below), but the ultimate consequences of success or failure will be yours alone. Run your company accordingly.

Second, although in various ways your and your editor's interests are aligned (you both make more money from a better book), and although your editor might also become your friend, the most fundamental aspect of the writer/editor relationship is that of salesman/customer. Never lose sight of the fact that your editor is your customer. Before anything else can happen, your editor must decide whether to buy, and how much to pay for, the product (copyright in a book) that you are trying to sell him. Do you feel that your manuscript is weak, but that once you show it to your editor, she'll help you make it better? Maybe she will. But, in any other industry, would you show your customer a product that you didn't feel was ready? Bear in mind, "ready" doesn't mean perfect; it means good enough to accomplish your objective, which in this case is a sizeable advance; the editor's enthusiasm sufficient to infect the publishing house (no corporate customer makes a buying decision alone, and you have to remember that not just your editor, but the entire publishing house, is your customer); the customer's ongoing impression that you are professional and can be trusted to turn in nothing but similarly "ready" products in the future.

It bears mentioning here that, unlike your editor, who is your customer, your agent is more like your partner. Your editor is buying something from you. When he does, you and your agent will make money the same way (by dividing revenues, commonly 85/15). This financial dynamic puts you and your agent on the same side of the negotiating table. But even here, as in all partnerships, the principals will stay together only so long as they each believe it is in their interests to do so. Accordingly, the points in the paragraph above bear thinking about in relation to your agent, as well.

Third, strictly speaking, readers are not your customers. They are not even your publisher's customers. They might not even be your publisher's customer's customers: Putnam sells to Ingram, who sells to Barnes & Noble, who (finally) sells to a reader. There are many layers of distribution, marketing, and sales between you and what is known in the software business as the end-user - the reader. Obviously, this doesn't mean the reader is unimportant to you; the reader is still your indirect customer, and if readers stop buying, so will everyone else in the customer chain. But it does mean that your marketing efforts should be directed, to the extent possible, at all levels of the customer chain. Almost all writers know they should market to readers; author websites are a good example of this type of effort. But how many writers recognize, too, that they need to market to their publishers? Does Dell Computer want to know that Intel is investing in chip R&D? Of course it wants to, and Intel markets not just to end-users (computer customers), but to the Dells of the world, too. Similarly, you should keep your publisher apprised of your own R&D efforts: conferences you attend, connections you make, ads you take out, media coverage, etc. When your customer sees you investing in yourself, your customer will be confident that she ought to invest in you, too.

It all comes down to this: as an entrepreneur, you have a unusual degree of control over your business future. That is to say, you are unusually responsible for that future. Some people find this degree of responsibility intimidating, and this is one reason entrepreneurs are rare. But if you believe in yourself and you know what you're doing, what could be more comforting than knowing that you are in charge of the course of events? All that's needed is the right roadmap, and I hope the points above will provide a good start.

(You can read more excellent articles for writers at Barry's website.)

---------------

After graduating from Cornell Law School, Barry Eisler spent three years in a covert position with the CIA's Directorate of Operations, then worked as a technology lawyer and startup executive in Silicon Valley and Japan, earning his black belt at the Kodokan International Judo Center. Eisler's thrillers have won the Barry Award and the Gumshoe Award for Best Thriller of the Year, have been included in numerous "Best Of" lists, and have been translated into nearly twenty languages. The first book in Eisler's assassin John Rain series, Rain Fall, has been made into a movie starring Gary Oldman that was released by Sony Pictures in April 2009.

All my Exes: thoughts on book promotion

by Rachel Brady

Exciting.
Exhausting.
Expensive.

Those are my exes. They represent my early impressions of book promotion, and I have a lot to learn.

I've heard authors say that once they begin to promote one book, it's tough to find the time to write the next one. This observation has turned out to be spot on. In the evenings lately, when I'd normally be writing, I've spent an inordinate amount of time e-mailing people I've never met, setting up dates, tracking down phone numbers, following up on ideas, figuring out ad placement, designing those ads, seeking advice, looking for cheap flights, and generally stressing out.

I want to approach the bookstore folks (and in my case, drop zone folks) with the lead-in, "So sorry to bother you. I'm really an engineer and I don't know what's going on here, but I'm trying to figure out how to promote this book," but I resist doing this. The researcher I work for at my day job always drills into me that nothing we want should be approached apologetically. Have confidence!

Yes. Confidence and a fat wallet.

Until now, the only ads I've ever placed have been classifieds. Like . . . to sell an old washing machine. Maybe a $15 ad. Real ads, that are not classifieds, are crazy-expensive. Think $15 with a few exponents. Enough said about that.

The other thing, maybe the hardest for me, is that it's really important to me that everybody likes me. I know that is foolhardy but I try to be a nice person and I hate to ask for anything. Maybe I'll ask you for a french fry, but usually not for favors. Promoting a book feels like going around cyberspace asking a lot of people who don't know me to do nice things for me for no reason. Awkward.

It's a learning experience. The original challenge was finding time to write amidst my family and career responsibilities. The new challenge is adding a publicity element into the mix. I'm seeking the new balance. This is just like parenting: once you find something that works, the kids change it up on you. And in writing, once I found a rhythm, the business end of publishing changed my rhythm.

It's a good problem to have, and I'm not complaining. Just whining a very little bit.

*****

I'm originally from Dayton, Ohio, but now live near Houston, Texas, where I'm an engineer in a research lab at NASA's Johnson Space Center. I've worked for the space program for ten years and before that I did a brief stint in accident reconstruction. Science and engineering are close to my heart, but I also love the escapism that fiction offers, which is probably why I started writing.

Like moms everywhere, I spend a good portion of every day taxiing short people to games and lessons, going over spelling words, mediating spats, and engaging in general tomfoolery. My kids are funny, smart, and three of my greatest joys, but they can also make an impressive mess in nothing flat. Motherhood is definitely the toughest job I'll ever love.

I do a variety of local runs, bike rides, and triathlons for fun. When it's time to relax, I grab a book, practice the guitar, or surf the Internet. My personal Holy Grail is finding a perfect balance between work, family, hobbies, and writing, but for now I'm still searching. I talk about it all on my blog, Write It Anyway. Stop by and tell me your tricks for keeping all your balls in the air.

Soothing and Challenging Words I loved this week: The Backspace Writers Conference

by Randy Susan Meyers (Originally posted on June 1st, 2009)

Don't Miss Out! This may be your last chance in '09 to meet face-to-face with top literary agents in a fun, relaxed environment. The Backspace Agent-Author Conference (Nov. 5th & 6th) features small-group workshops with agents, agent panels and more! 24 top literary agents on the program including Colleen Lindsay, Janet Reid, Jeff Kleinman, Scott Hoffman, Holly Root, Miriam Kriss, Paige Wheeler and Paul Cirone.

We think the Backspace conferences offer the best opportunity to meet with, and learn from, the agents you need to get your book published. But don't take our word for it! Here's Randy Meyers' take on the May 2009 conference.

I’ve been to more than a few writing conferences, and except for the (unnamed) one, where the men-in-charge engendered every competitive activity possible (except perhaps writing in the snow with their god-given equipment—but this may have come up since I attended) I’ve taken something from each one.

Of course, my ultimate loyalty must belong to The Muse and The Marketplace Conference, run by my beloved Grub Street Writer’s Center in Boston. I live in Boston, have belonged to Grub Streets number one best writing workshops ever, and teach seminars for Grub Street. Their most recent conference ranked as the ultimate experience in being challenged (thank you Ann Patchett,) and being offered wisdom (bless you, Joan Wickersham) wit (still laughing, Rakesh Satyal) and acumen (wow, Hank Philippi Ryan!)

However, as the Muse is cosmic, and The Backspace Writing Conference is intimate, I can laud Backspace without danger of dissing Grub Street.

Backspace, with 200 attendees, is the most intimate conference I’ve attended. The size and the supportive atmosphere engendered by Karen Dionne and Chris Graham, founders of Backspace, The Writers Place (a wonderful online writer’s community) allowed this sometimes shy attendee to speak at length with well-known presenters about their work and my own (to be published in January) book. Their kindness in offering help and their genuine excitement at the upcoming publication of my debut novel (note to self: pretend I am on Oprah and hold up virtual book, The Murderer’s Daughters) overwhelmed me.

Highlights (for me) included book reviewer-writers Clea Simon (latest book, Probable Claws, Caroline Leavitt (most recent book, Girls in Trouble), and Sarah Weinman’s, well known blogger (generous, honest, humble, inside-scoop presentation on the process of book reviewing (who knew that the galleys they get from publishers include the book’s advertising budgets!)

Agent Jeff Kleinman and editor Julia Pastore opened eyes with an interactive presentation (laced with perfect NYC humor) of how books are sold to editorial boards, followed by Kleinman and Karen Dionne (author of FREEZING POINT, speaking openly along with agent Jenny Bent and Liz Rosenberg (author of HOME REPAIR) about the agent-client relationship.

Jocelyn and Gloria Kelly and Meghan Hall of and Kelly and Hall Literary Publicity spoke wisely and passionately on publicity—that topic so worrisome to all writers, and took into account those who cannot afford publicists, and thus included the do-it-yourself approach in their presentation.

Author, John Searles (most recent book, Boy Still Missing) was hysterical, touching, and encouraging for all the yearning writers in the room. NYT bestselling author, Joseph Finder (soon coming out, Vanished) offered insight that seemed to come from a true desire to offer hope along with his experience.

I could go on, but, as I advise myself repeatedly, books don’t write themselves. Time to return to my novel-in-progress

My advice to writers: if you seek support, wisdom, information, jolts of reality, and hope, attend both the Muse and the Marketplace and the Backstreet Conference in 2010.

*****

The dark drama of Randy Susan Meyers' debut novel is informed by her years of work with batterers, domestic violence victims, and at-risk youth impacted by family violence. Randy Susan Meyers’ short stories have been published in the Fog City Review, Perigee: Publication for the Arts, and the Grub Street Free Press.

In Brooklyn, where Randy was born and raised, her local library was close enough to visit daily and she walked there from the time she figured out the route. In many ways, she was raised by books, each adding to her sense of who she could be in this world. Some marked her for horror. Reading In Cold Blood at too tender an age assured that she’d never stay alone in a country house. Others, like Heidi by Johanna Spyri, made her worship her grandfather even more.

Some taught her faith in the future. A Tree Grows In Brooklyn by Betty Smith was the only bible Randy ever owned, her personal talisman of hopefulness. Each time she read it, she was struck anew by how this author knew so much and dared to write it. Randy now lives in Boston with her husband and is the mother of two grown daughters. She teaches writing seminars at the Grub Street Writers’ Center in Boston.

Tips for Time Management for Authors

by Angela Wilson

One of the biggest complaints I hear from authors is lack of time to do it all.

Blogging, finding Facebook friends, Tweeting, surfing Ning for new networks, keeping abreast of new social media trends, attending critique group sessions, sending out e-mail newsletters, doing book signings, holding Web site contests...

And then, you have to WRITE.

Thing is, you don't have to do it all. You just have to do what works best for you. Too many times, authors overwhelm themselves as they try to keep up with marketing trends and pressures from others in publishing who are now on the social media bandwagon. They also don't plan accordingly once they find promotional gigs that work.

Check out the tips below to help you better manage your marketing time. Be sure to leave your tips for time management in the comments for other authors struggling with this issue.

Market My Novel Tips for Author Time Management:

• Create a blog editorial calendar. Many authors have a hard time figuring out what the blog about. Plan to entertain your readers, share bits and pieces about writing your work - with a few sneak peeks when you can, your cover art and talk about life in general. An editorial calendar will help you stay on target with consistent content - which is key to blog success.

• Look outside social media for promotions. As you know, Market My Novel is a huge proponent of social media for free or low-cost publicity. However, sometimes you need to get offline, get some sunshine and actually meet real people. For some authors, this is even better than networking online. For example, some authors like to speak in public - and are quite good at it. Not only can they promote their books at events, but they can also get paid to speak. Make a list of activities you like to do offline and research their potential for networking.

• Limit social media networks. There are hundreds of networks online that beckon to your marketing sensibilities. There is also a lot of pressure from agents, editors, publishers and other authors to join them. Play around with different networks to find the ones that work for you. Then, close the accounts that are not working and focus your efforts on those that show a return on your time investment. The number of social networks you end up and the time you put into them will be different for every author, so don't try to keep up with Joneses.

• Make friends with the time clock. Use your kitchen timer to keep yourself on a rigid marketing timetable. That way, your tasks don't absorb valuable writing time.

• Make writing your No. 1 priority. Marketing will do you no good if you don't have more content for your fans to read. That means that producing needs to me your first priority. Marketing is always secondary - until your book hits bookstore shelves. When this happens, plan to make marketing your priority for at least two months before you switch your schedule back to a writing focus. This will help you touch base with fans, new readers and reviewers during critical sales times.

The trick to time management is to not only find the formula that integrates well into your writing and family life, but to develop a strategy that targets your fans with each event and online activity. Once you have that plan, creating a workable marketing schedule will be a piece of cake.

Social media diva Angela Wilson loves to write paranormal fiction, drink tea and walk at park trails. She blogs about marketing strategy for authors at the St. Louis Book Marketing Examiner and Market My Novel, which offers a detailed list of blogs that interview authors and review books. She is also the editor of Pop Syndicate's Book Addict blog. You can find her everyday on Twitter, talking writing, social networking, politics and life. She is owned by cats who are determined to keep her single and leave hairballs on her printed manuscripts.

How many copies must a book sell to be considered a success?

by Noah Lukeman

"I would be curious what it means to 'sell poorly' at a major house. Isn't this subject to interpretation? Okay, we can all agree that selling 500 or 1000 books from a major house means that a book did poorly. But a first novel by a first-time author except in some rare cases) isn't going to sell 50,000 copies anyway, so what kinds of numbers do big houses expect? And how do those numbers change depending on the genre?" --J.L. Powers

This is a sophisticated question, and to answer it thoroughly will require a sophisticated response, one which first takes a step back and educates you on the mechanics and realities of how book sales truly work.

To begin with, one must know precisely what they speak of when they say “copies sold.” That term is used too loosely, often by authors who don’t truly know what it means, and as a result, publishing professionals are skeptical of any declaration of how many copies a book sold until they’ve have a chance to review all of the information for themselves. To accurately gauge book sales, the publishing professional needs to actually know four factors: 1) the number of copies printed; 2) the number of copies shipped; 3) the number of copies returned; and 4) the format of the book. For example, a publisher can print 100,000 copies of a book, but might only get bookstore orders for 10,000 copies, and thus only actually ship 10,000 copies. This would leave 90,000 copies sitting in the warehouse, and would be a disastrous (and extreme) scenario for a book publisher. A more likely scenario is that a publisher prints 15,000 copies and ships 10,000 of them to start. Thus, to begin with, we have the (important) difference between copies printed and copies actually shipped.

Further complicating matters, bookstores retain the right to return unsold copies of books to publishers, and these “returns” start to trickle back within a few months after a book ships. (Nearly every book suffers from returns, and the average return rate for a book is approximately 25%. This is why publishers will hold back money due you at royalty time, as a “reserve against returns.”) Within 6 to 12 months of a book’s shipping, most returns will have come in, so it usually takes at least 9 months from the time a book is published to know how many copies the book “netted.” If a publisher prints 15,000 copies of a book and ships 10,000 copies, and six months later 8,000 copies are returned, then that book has only netted 2,000 copies. That is the real number. In this scenario, an author might unknowingly boast that his book sold 15,000 copies (based on the print run) or 10,000 copies (based on the copies shipped), but in reality, after returns, his book has only “sold” 2,000 copies. It is all about the net.

Finally, to complete the picture, a publishing professional must also know the format of the book. A book might be published as a $50 coffee table book, or a $25 hardcover, or a $14 trade paperback, or a $7 mass market. If a book sold 2,000 copies at $50 or at $7, that makes a huge difference. 30,000 copies sold of a hardcover, for example, could be a huge success for a publisher, while 30,000 copies sold of a mass market edition might amount to a huge loss. So getting a complete picture of what a book truly “sold” is all about the net and the format.

Additionally, many books are published in multiple editions—often first as a hardcover, then a year later as a paperback—and it may be that a book only sold only 2,000 hardcover copies, but later sold 60,000 trade paperbacks. So to get an accurate picture of how many copies any book “sold,” one must tally up and take into account all of the editions of that book.

Now that you know what it means to accurately talk about how many copies a book truly “sold” from a publishing professional’s perspective, let’s look at some actual numbers.

We would all love to have that magic number, to know that, for example, 14,000 copies is the number you need to assure success and a life of future book deals. It is only natural that any author, after being published, would want to know how many copies he or she would need to sell in order to be considered a success. Yet if you ask your editor or agent this question, it is quite likely that they will hesitate in giving you a response. It is easy to gauge if a book is a huge failure, selling only 100 copies, or if it is a huge success, selling 100,000 hardcovers—but what if it falls into that gray area? What if it sells 7,000 hardcovers? Or 11,000 trade paperbacks? Indeed, this is one of the hardest questions for any publishing professional to answer. Most won’t even try to answer it, for fear of quoting a wrong number, or simply because even they don’t know how. That said, let me attempt to give you an answer here.

The most important factor in considering whether a book is a success is comparing the size of the advance to the number of copies sold. If a publisher paid a $3,000 advance and netted 10,000 hardcovers, then that book was a success. If a publisher paid a $200,000 advance for that same book, then those same number of copies amount to a failure.

Interestingly, for this very reason, some agents could argue that it is best not to negotiate too large of an advance for an author, thus assuring that the author will always be profitable for their publisher and will thus publish as many books as possible—and thus have more chances to land a major hit. These agents would reason that the author will make up the money on the backend, through royalties. Other agents could argue that what is most important is landing the largest advance possible—whether or not their author lands a subsequent book deal—since the majority of books won’t earn back their advance anyway.

All of this still begs the question: if you sold 7,000 hardcovers or 11,000 trade paperbacks and have to go out and find a new publisher for a subsequent book, would that sales record be sufficient to impress? What is the actual number of copies that will assure success? Here are some real numbers:

Most debut literary story collections net approximately 2,000 hardcover copies. Most literary first novels net between 3,000 and 7,000 hardcover copies. Most commercial first novels net between 5,000 and 10,000 hardcover copies. Non-fiction is genre specific, so one would have to take into account whether one were dealing with relationships, parenting, dieting, health, business, history, memoir—or whatever the genre—before one could offer approximations. That said, netting at least 20,000 hardcovers in any genre will usually be enough to make any publisher pay serious attention to your next book.

This is not to say that if one sold only 2,500 hardcover copies of a literary first novel that he is a dismal failure, or that if one sold 7,500 hardcovers of a literary first novel that he is guaranteed a subsequent book deal. Again, publishers will look at the whole picture when making a decision, including the number of copies you sold relative to the publisher and to the advance paid. If you sold 7,500 hardcovers after a $200,000 marketing campaign, it will not bode well; and if you netted 2,500 hardcovers after being published by a tiny press with no reviews or publicity, then that may bode well.

To further complicate matters, the concept and quality of the writing at hand might just make all of these numbers irrelevant. If a publisher falls in love with your new concept, he may very well want to buy your next book, even if your previous book sold miserably. I recall a situation where I had an author who didn’t earn back his $15,000 advance with one publisher, yet I sold his new proposal to a new publisher for a $200,000 advance because they loved the new concept so much. Conversely, you can sell a ton of copies and not land a subsequent book deal if no one likes your new concept, or if they don’t feel your writing is of the quality that it was in the past. I have seen situations like these, as well.

Obviously, if you are selling 100,000 hardcovers, you have little to worry about. Excluding that, there really is no magic number that will guarantee you a life of successful publishing. As I discuss at length in my book How to Land (and Keep) a Literary Agent, there will be always be so many factors taken into account, in addition to past sales figures, when trying to land a new book deal, including timing, the current market, and personal, subjective taste. Unfortunately, even selling well will not necessarily assure you a solid future in this precarious business; yet the good news is that selling poorly will not necessarily seal your fate either.

The most important thing for you, as an author, is to try not to pay attention to any of this, to keep writing, to keep querying, and to never, ever give up—whether it’s after one book, or after ten.



Noah Lukeman is President of Lukeman Literary Management Ltd, which he founded in 1996. His clients include winners of the Pulitzer Prize, American Book Award, Pushcart Prize, finalists for the National Book Award, multiple New York Times bestsellers, major celebrities, and faculty of universities ranging from Harvard to Stanford. Mr. Lukeman is also author of several books on the craft of writing, including The First Five Pages (Simon & Schuster), The Plot Thickens (St. Martins Press) and A Dash of Style: (W.W. Norton). He has also authored two e-books: How to Write a Great Query Letter, which he gives away for free as a way of giving back to the writing community, and How to Land (and Keep) a Literary Agent. He has made available over 100 pages of free advice for authors from all his books, which you can read on his site. Mr. Lukeman has been a guest speaker on the subjects of writing and publishing at numerous forums, including The Juilliard School, the Wallace Stegner writing program at Stanford University and the Writers Digest Panel at Book Expo America. He earned his B.A. with High Honors in English and Creative Writing from Brandeis University, cum laude.

• Follow Lukeman on Twitter
• How to Write a Great Query Letter (free e-book)
• How to Land (and Keep) a Literary Agent
• Lukeman Literary Management Ltd

Neil Gaiman has more books than you do.

And I thought I had a lot of books! (photo courtesy of Shelfari)



More photos at Shelfari.

Backspace in Writer's Digest Magazine!

Here's a sneak preview from the October Writer's Digest Magazine - check out this fabulous two-page spread! Be sure to pick up your copy when the magazine hits the newsstands September 15!

You can also read the full interview with co-founders Christopher Graham and Karen Dionne on Writer's Digest's website.

The BUZZ YOUR BOOK Online Class

Backspace is proud to announce we'll be hosting MJ Rose's VERY popular "Buzz Your Book" online class.

The BUZZ YOUR BOOK Online Class

With international bestselling author M.J. ROSE

Cost: $745.00 (includes eBook)

Prerequisites: have email and world-wide web access, ability to navigate the Internet
Course length: Six weeks

Limited to 25 people.

January 11th to February 19th, 2010

Instructor: M.J. Rose

HOW THE CLASSES WORK:

When you sign up, your email receipt will contain the date when your class begins.

On the Friday before the class begins, you will get an orientation email with more information.

A new lecture and assignment is sent to all students every Monday during the run of the class. Students participate at their leisure, anytime that week, via email. We know how busy everybody is, which is why we don't make everybody come to a certain webpage at a certain time on that day.

All students correspond directly with the instructor during the course of the class. But, you can always email chrisg@bksp.orgThis e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it if you're having any difficulties.

REGISTER HERE

About The Class:

+ Create a Marketing/PR Plan for Your Book.

+ Work One on One with M.J. Rose for six weeks.

+ Class includes an individual forty-five minute phone session.

***This class includes a special lecture by Matt Baldacci - VP, director of Marketing and Publishing operations at St. Martin's Press- plus a week of Q&As with him!***

This isn't a theoretical course. M.J works one on one with each student on his/her marketing plan. Over the six weeks, you’ll learn how to write a buzz line, figure out who your market it and unique ways to reach them.

At the beginning of the session each student will get a workbook. Every week you’ll get an email with a reading assignment in the book, plus a lecture plus homework. (Sound like fun yet? Don't worry, it is.)

Each student works at his/her own pace and one on one with Rose.

By the end of the class all the completed assignments will together make up a customized marketing plan for your book and your book only.

BRAINSTORMING LIVE

In email and over the phone, Rose will brainstorm with each student to come up with ideas students can do on their own as well as some to take to his/her publisher.

Included in the class are up to the date techno ideas like how to use blogs, podcasts, and virtual book tours as well as traditional media ideas.

To date authors from McCadam Cage, Simon & Schuster, Bantam, Doubleday, Time Warner, Hyperion, Ballantine, Penguin, & SMP have already taken this class as well as publicists and editors from Tor, Wylie and Simon & Schuster. (While the class is designed for authors, since it is one on one it can be easily tailored for publicists.)

The class was created in 2003 by M.J. Rose (www.mjrose.com) and Douglas Clegg (www.douglasclegg.com), novelists, are co-founders of Pigeonhole Press and co-authors of Buzz Your Book.

Rose has put into practice everything she teaches and has been on the Today Show, Fox News, Diane Rehms, BookSpan TV, Jim Leher Newshour, CNN as well as in the New York Times, Time Magazine, Newsweek, the Boston Globe and Forbes. She is the international bestselling author of five novels, an Anthony Award Nominee, Connecticut Book Award nominee and her work has appeared in Wired, Oprah, Poets & Writers and numerous anthologies.

Testimonials

What previous students have said about the class:

"The best thing I did on behalf of my novel was take M.J. Rose's Buzz Your Book class. She's sheer genius. It's hard for me to imagine having done it without her."
--Joshua Henkin, MATRIMONY (Pantheon Oct 2007)

I took this class as well and can't recommend it highly enough!
Michelle Moran, author of Nefertiti (2007) and Cleopatra's Daughter (2009)


MJ Rose’s Buzz Your Book class is terrific. With her help, I learned how to supplement my publisher's marketing efforts by coming up with publicity ideas for my book they hadn't even thought of. I got more mileage for my money by taking a class that taught me how to publicize my book creatively myself, than I did from the money I spent on publicists - in large part because I can apply what I learned to subsequent books. – Karen Dionne (FREEZING POINT, Berkley 2008) www.karendionne.net

“Among the many tools Buzz Your Book provides, I found several especially helpful: learning to view one's book from a marketing perspective, creating the one-line buzz, and joining an on-line community. This latter option -- becoming active in an on line community -- has been one of the most successful of my efforts, providing me with large group of new contacts anxious to read and recommend my book. And I must not forget the person-to-person conversation with MJ Rose that helped to tailor the Buzz program toward a literary memoir.” --Beryl Singleton Bissell, The Scent of God: A Memoir, Counterpoint April 2006

"TAKE THIS COURSE - You won't regret it. Somebody's Daughter has appeared in PEOPLE and ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY, has gone into its second printing, and has even been spotted "out front" in many bookstores including the chains. I had formerly been jealous of peers who had $10-$30K to spend on independent publicists, but I think I got a lot more, and at a fraction of the price." -- Marie Myung-Ok Leee, Somebody's Daughter: A Novel, Beacon Press

"M. J. Rose is the best resource I know of for writers who want to make their book stand out from among the thousands of titles published every year." M. E. Rabb, author of Missing Persons (Penguin Books for Young Readers, 2004)

READ MORE

About M.J. Rose

M.J. Rose, is the international bestselling author of 10 novels; Lip Service, In Fidelity, Flesh Tones, Sheet Music, Lying in Bed, The Halo Effect, The Delilah Complex, The Venus Fix, The Reincarnationist, and The Memorist.

Rose is also the co-author with Angela Adair Hoy of How to Publish and Promote Online, and with Doug Clegg of Buzz Your Book.

She is a founding member and board member of International Thriller Writers and the founder of the first marketing company for authors: AuthorBuzz.com. She runs two popular blogs; Buzz, Balls & Hype and Backstory.

Getting published has been an adventure for Rose who self-published Lip Service late in 1998 after several traditional publishers turned it down. Editors had loved it, but didn't know how to position it or market it since it didn't fit into any one genre.

Frustrated, but curious and convinced that there was a readership for her work, she set up a web site where readers could download her book for $9.95 and began to seriously market the novel on the Internet.

After selling over 2500 copies (in both electronic and trade paper format) Lip Service became the first e-book and the first self-published novel chosen by the LiteraryGuild/Doubleday Book Club as well as being the first e-book to go on to be published by a mainstream New York publishing house.

Rose has been profiled in Time magazine, Forbes, The New York Times, Business 2.0, Working Woman, Newsweek and New York Magazine.

Rose has appeared on The Today Show, Fox News, The Jim Lehrer NewsHour, and features on her have appeared in dozens of magazines and newspapers in the U.S. and abroad, including USAToday, Stern, L'Official, Poets and Writers and Publishers Weekly.

Rose graduated from Syracuse University and spent the '80s in advertising. She was the Creative Director of Rosenfeld Sirowitz and Lawson and she has a commercial in the Museum of Modern Art in NYC.

She lives in Connecticut with Doug Scofield, a composer, and their very spoiled dog, Winka.

What Do You Have To Lose?

by Lillian Cauldwell

Ever hear of that phrase, "You've got nothing to lose"? They're right. You don't have anything to lose because you're not putting your best foot forward. You're not taking any chances with your writing, placing in a contest, submissions to an ezine or regular magazine or even submitting your query letter, synopsis, and bio of yourself to an agent or a book publisher.

What does this sentence really mean? More importantly, what does this sentence really mean to you and how do you overcome such a seemingly minimal responsibility.

For one thing, you lose more if you don't submit. I know what I'm talking about. My first alternate history book was released this August by Publish America. How are sales your going to ask? Let me tell you, "Sales are not good." Why, you ask? The reason bring after only receiving two book reviews for my book and three national chain bookstores refused to carry my book or promote me in a book signing, I queitly withdrew from the fray. You can't do that if you're a serious writer or what book publishers and agents call, professional writers.

I consider myself a professional writer. After moaning and groaning and kicking myself in my posterior, a mid-list writer, Jacqueline Lichtenberg, told me to get off my butt and promote myself.

"What do you have to lose?"

My big loses were: branding my name, getting my book noticed, getting me noticed, and letting the world know about my achievements. How, you may ask? I'll tell you; this is what I finally did.

I created a newsletter; This-n-That that provides additional information and tips to writers who want to enhance their writing careers. Simegen.com hosts my mailing list for this list. Secondly, I joined www.authorsden.com and put up my webpage with general information, filling in their forms, transferred the rest of me and my books to their online site where people visit your web and learn some interesting things about you. A website! Aha! Did something explode into your brain with sparklies and colored lights?

Thirdly, I involved myself in several writers' groups on-line, joined one or two writer's organizations, submitted articles to my author's den website, put them in my newssletter or sent them out to writer's ezines and normal magazines. People are hungry and thirsty for FREE information on the many ins and outs of writing.

I wrote science fiction, fantasy, and speculative short stories and submitted them to other websites, to online ezines, at my author's den website and submitted them to www.simegen.com charitable donation site, Simecenter, where readers can download them for a contribution to a charity. I submitted one short story, "Lottery," to www.sffworld.com and it was accepted for their December issue on-line. I had my first ezine credit. I submitted to another fantasy short story to Playboy Magazine, "Mask, A Modern Fairy Tale" and six poems to The Atlantic Review.

What did I have to lose?

I am resubmitting my first nonfiction, book, "Teenagers! A Bewildered Parent's Guide" to publishers and agents who do reprints of books that are no longer contracted with their previous publisher and they reprint them.

Poetry was another niche that I found I was quite good at. I submitted them to several prestigious magazines.

What do I have to lose?

The answer is still, NOTHING, of course.

When you reach a time in your life when something hits you squarely in the face, the first thought that might come to you should be: What do I have to lose? And, the answer facing you squarely should be, "nothing." Send that short story out. You might be surprised and the magazine will accept it, return it with good rejection advice or the editor might scribble a note telling you to resubmit it when its corrected. The possibilities are endless.

What do you have to lose? You know that answer by now. I shouldn't have to shout it.

Send out review letters asking Publisher's Weekly, Midwest Book Review, The New York T imes Review, or The Los Angeles Book Review to review your book. Again, you might be surprised, and one of them might review your book and give you a five star rating. It could happen, you know.

Or get yourself interviewed on radio, TV, internet; what do you have to lose? You might actually be invited for that interview. You might talk to a national host where 80,0000 people are listening to you. Luck... or is it? What do you have to lose?

Life is funny. It can take you completely unaware sometimes, but if you don't try, if you don't put out your best foot forward, if you don't take the chance, how will you ever know if you're a clunker or a flyer?

"When you come across this sentence, "What do you have to lose?" Remember, one thing. It's not the reward that counts (although it does make one glow), but it's the work and effort you put into it that makes you should out loud, "I've got to try or no one will know about me or my titles, except me, myself, and I.

*****

Ms. Lillian Cauldwell is an active author of three fiction books, former disc jocky, radio host and is now the President & CEO of her radio station, PIVTR: Passionate Internet Voices Radio) www.internetvoicesradio.com.

Lillian lives in Ann Arbor, MI. She's a graduate of Hartford College For Women, a two-year school in Hartford, CT (1971). Ms. Cauldwell attended the University of New Hampshire for her junior year and majored in Speech Pathology and Audiology.

Lillian Cauldwell had her first nonfiction book published in 1996, 'Teenagers! A Bewildered Parent's Guide' by Silvercat Publishing. Atrium ranked it number ten in its top newly published books, and the book went into a second printing.

In 2003, Lillian wrote a historical science fiction book, 'Sacred Honor,' which was published by a Print On Demand Publisher. Between 1996 and 2003, Ms. Cauldwell wrote short stories and had them published by Simegen.com for their Do A Good Deed Charitable Section. Ms. Cauldwell spends her time writing, doing Book Reviews, Mentoring high school students in learning how to write, and owns and operates an Internet talk radio station, Passionate Internet Voices Talk Radio, Inc.