Meet you at the ranch?

The ranch would be the CLASS Christian Writers Conference at the Ghost Ranch, October 31-November 4 in Abiquiu New Mexico (just North of Santa Fe). It's a great conference and there is still time to take advantage of the price before it goes up October 1. Saundra and I will be there and we would love to have you join us. It's a great place to learn, write, fellowship, and just have some time in a beautiful place to listen to God's direction for your writing. 

The picture shown here is one Saundra took of me there as are the ones on my web page and facebook page. 


Saundra (and mom before she passed on) does love to go to the ghost ranch with me. Not only is it awesome scenery, but it's a remote setting where you can really get in touch with your writing and in touch with God. I’ve gone to it for 14-15 years now. Including going when it was in Glorieta and if you have ever read the writing testimony that is on my website (http://www.terryburns.net/Testimony.htm ), this conference is where that experience happened.  

One plus for new writers is the fact that you can leave the conference as a published writer. During the conference attendees have the chance to work with a talented writer, an editor or an agent to write a story or item for inclusion in an anthology that will be produced following the conference. It's a great writing experience and does produce a good writing credit.

There are no televisions or other diversions at the ranch so that produces a relaxed environment with fellowship not only with the other writers but with the agents and editors that are there. That is unparallelled networking opportunities. 

If you'd like to know more, you can find the information at classeminars.org 

Hope we get the chance to meet you there.

What do I need to do to start writing?

What do I need to learn before I can begin to write?

Nothing! Sit down and write.

I say that and people look at me like I just came here from Mars. There are rules, there are formatting issues, there is structure to be learned, there are things to learn about how a story is supposed to develop. There are a TON of things to learn.

This stuff is not writing. These things are editing. Good books are not created by writing, good books are created by good editing. But guess what? You can’t edit a book that is not underway. Chances are if you sit in writing workshops or take a writing class, or any of these things and have not at least started trying to write, the things you hear will not make a lot of sense. You won’t know the questions you need to ask. Once you start writing then you begin to see what you need to learn and the questions you need to ask.

I don’t think I’ve ever had a book-signing where people haven’t come up and said “I’ve always wanted to write a book.” I always respond, “So why haven’t you?”

If you want to write, sit down and do it. Why take classes or get training if you find out you don’t like doing it? Or if you find out you really have nothing to say or don’t have stories that you feel compelled to tell. That’s the starting point, imagination, the desire to do it. And that can’t be taught to you, that has to be something that is already in you.

I’m not knocking writing courses and workshops and writer’s groups. Success is virtually impossible without using these things to move forward once you are started. They will help you develop once you are underway. But if you want to write, quit reading this blog right now and get out a sheet of paper or open a blank page in your word processor and open your mind to what you have on your heart and your mind that you want to say.

The way to start writing . . . is to start writing.

Do I only represent Christian Writers?

Well now, that's a good question.

I'm not sure, because I don't ask people about their faith in the submission process. I suspect since people can clearly see that this is a Christian agency (even though we do work in the secular market as well) that they would probably be comfortable with that if they were going to submit to us.

But I don't ask.

I do know one thing, an atheist or non-Christians might be decidedly uncomfortable in my client group. You see, I require all clients to be in a private online group which gives me the ability to contact them all at once. The group offers three options, priority messages only (I'm the only one that can send a priority message), on digest, and on full access where they can talk directly not only with me but with other clients as well.

I do watch what the group talks about and do participate, maybe more than I should. Once the group was set up another interesting aspect came out. They turned out to be an amazing group of prayer warriors who genuinely care for each other and pray for one another with great effectiveness.

See why I think a non-believer would probably not be comfortable in the group?

Then there is the fact that I am drawn to content that has a good faith message. Yes, that narrows the possible places it can be submitted but that is after all why I decided to start doing this. Will I represent something that does not have faith content in it? Sure, we need good family entertainment as well as Christian books. Saying that you can tell I don't park my beliefs and morals at the door even if I am doing general market books.

My mother has passed on now, but she is still my measuring stick for projects. If it is something that would have offended my mother then it isn't something I want my name associated with. It's a measuring stick that I'm comfortable with and I don't mind if people shake their head and say I'm giving up sales. Of course I am, but they aren't sales I want to make. There are plenty of agents that do those, they don't need me doing it.

But I'm taking the long road around the mountain answering the question. Do I only represent Christian authors? Probably. Is it intentional? No, I just think all of my clients are Christians, and whether I actually ask someone or not, that is who I am likely to end up with.

a sample chapter online

My client group is discussing the in’s and out’s of putting the first chapter (or more) of their work in progress online. Work that is put online for a critique group such as our own ‘crit room’ or any restricted access forum is not considered published, but any work that is put online and is accessible by the general public IS considered published. Some of these sites have a major number of followers, maybe even more than a printed version would sell to.

Why would an author want to do this with an unpublished work anyway? The usual justification is hoping an agent or editor would run across it, like it, and contact them asking for more. This has happened, but it is very rare. For the most part agents and editors have enough to wade through without going online searching for more. A majority of agents and editors won’t even go online searching when someone gives them links to material instead of providing it in a proposal as requested, but that’s a different topic. I believe the potential of ruling a work out by publishing it online outweighs any potential on accidentally interesting an agent or editor in the work.

As to the weight any particular publisher would give to material that has been published online, that varies from paying no attention to it to having it rule the project out for them. It would probably depend on how much of the work had been put up. For some publishers if any at all has been put up they don’t much like it.

My own opinion is that I don’t like to put any work online until it is contracted for publishing and even then after consulting the publisher. Some would not want it to be done at all unless they do it themselves and others have rules about how it can be done. I believe they feel there is no point in courting a potential problem when they have plenty of submissions by people who have not made their work public. Most if not all of them who wouldn’t mind restrict it to a maximum of one chapter.

It can make a difference if a work is entered in contests. In contests the judges are sent the contest material without the author’s name attached. If the work has been published online WITH the author’s name attached it can contaminate the judges pool for the work. Many contests will not accept a work if that has happened.

How about blogs or social media? Publishers used to pay little attention to them, but that isn’t the case any more. Audiences for these now go up into the thousands and most publishers consider them a significant marketing tool. The number one sales tool for a book is name identification or “buzz” and having a strong online presence is a major way of doing that, hopefully beginning long before there is a book to promote.

Let’s talk about nonfiction. It used to be that non-fiction books were much easier to sell to a publisher than fiction. Not so much these days, and I believe the reason for that is just what you are talking about, the amount of material that is online for free. If someone pitches me a project and I know all of their research was done online I know all of the material in their book is available for free. It may still have value to a potential buyer since that research has been done and all of the material assembled in a logical order . . . or it may not. There is no telling which way a publisher would come down on that question.

Is an author who has a regular blog now considered ‘published?’ Actually, yes, and the degree of the publishing credit would depend on the number of regular followers. We can look at it like this, a blog with a couple of hundred followers would be like having a writing credit of writing something like a church newsletter. One of my clients has a twitter account with over 40,000 followers. That is the equivalent of being a regular columnist in a small magazine.

The bottom line is that online publishing has changed or evolved in the past few years and many aspects of it are looked upon in quite a different manner. But then that’s the only constant in the publishing industry . . . change.

Getting Away

We talk about the need to find writing time, carving it out from a crowded schedule. For those of us who are immersed in it 10-12 hours a day six days a week occassionally we need to figure out how to get away for a while. We just did exactly that. We went directly from working a great conference at Estes Park Colorado (Colorado Christian Writers Conference) to drive to Seattle and catch a cruise to Alaska. That put us on the road for nearly a month.

Saundra wanted to see the country, not fly over it, she wanted a road trip. We surely did that, counting the 2000 miles of the cruise we covered nearly 6500 miles on the trip. We watched Old Faithful blow its top and were trapped in the middle of a herd of a couple thousand buffalo at Yellowstone as they surrounded us going to their bedding ground for the night. One passed so close she could reach out and touch him. She got a great picture.

The Grand Teton mountains were amazing.

We really enjoyed the cruise, with ports of call in at Skagway, Ketchican and Juno on Alaska then on to Victoria British Columbia.

We saw whales and Eagles but the cherry on top was the Butchart Gardens in Victoria. Saundra got to spend a half day in a special class with a professional photographer. On the return trip we went down the Pacific Ocean shoreline, saw miles and mile of HUGE redwood trees and spent a day in San Francisco riding cable cars, photographing the Golden Gate Bridge and eating at Fisherman's Wharf.

We had a compromise. I didn't work, but I did have my laptop and downloaded my email each day to keep from getting so many that it shut my server down. OK, maybe I did handle a couple of emergency items, but for the most part I left it to do when I got back.

It was good to relax, to decompress, and even the hassle of having to dig through all that was waiting when I went back to work was definitely worth it. We all need that sometime.

I've talked about this before. If an author is comfortable representing themselves, comfortable with the process of negotiating contracts, has the contacts with publishers etc, then maybe it is not necessary. Some of my western writing friends have sold to those publishers that publish westerns during their whole career. They feel no need to have an agent now.

One person pitched me to be his agent, but after listening to it I asked him if the main reason he wanted the book was to sell it at the seminars he gives around the country and he said yes. I asked if he saw the book also selling well in bookstores and he said he doubted it, that it really needed to be the companion book to his presentation. So then I asked why he wanted to give me 15% of it if he was going to do all that? And why he wanted a large publisher and give them a larger percentage when he could self publish and make all that money himself. He didn't need an agent.

But for the most part a person pitching publishers themselves need to restrict that activity to smaller houses that are comfortable working directly with the author. Most larger houses require an agent. They know we are going to go through several hundred submissions a month looking for the projects we will submit. That's several hundred submissions they won't have to go through so that is why they have gone to dealing with agents only. Sometimes if the author meets them at a conference the editor will invite a submission but chances are if they are a house that say 'agent only' the house themselves will help get an agent involved if they find they have interest in a project. Those are no-brainers for us of course.

So writers get an agent to represent them to the publisher, to handle the negotiations, to be a buffer for them to the publisher if problems arise. When we send a submission we are in essence putting our stamp on it which makes it something of an endorsement. In addition we are in essence selling a client our contacts. All agents have contacts in common, but we all have contacts that are different as well. We don't sell books to publishing houses, we sell to editors that we have established relationships with. Personal tastes enter into this. I have an editor that so far I have never failed to sell her a project I have decided is a fit for her. Our tastes are that similar. There are other editors that have connected on deals because the project appealed to both of us. Of course, I also have a couple of other editors that are very good friends of mine but we have never connected on a project. Our tastes are very dissimilar.

On occasion I realize I have used all of my contacts to no avail for a client. In such a case I have gotten with the client and released them from their contract to allow them to get with a different agent with a different set of contacts who might could get their book placed for them. I have had new clients come to me after being with another agent for the same reason.

Finding the right agent is a bit like dating. I'm looking for projects that are well written, where the content of the project appeals to me, and where I think it is a good fit for the contacts that I have. The potential client is looking to see if they are comfortable with me as a person and they too are interested in seeing if I seem to be operating in areas that would be a fit for their project. A good fit means a good working relationship.

The Nefarious e-Book Situation

I just came from the Writing for the Soul Conference in Denver. It’s always an awesome conference although attendance was down a little this year probably because of the rising costs we all face these days. Thanks, Washington.


At the conference several agents and editors sat around and talked about changes in the industry which of course centered on the emergence of the e-book. A lot of things came out of this discussion but the overall consensus was not how to work with the situation as it now exists, but the fact that it is a fluid situation and will continue to change as technology evolves.


What does that mean? The Kindle is king right now, driven by price point and the position that Amazon is commanding in the e-book market. Will that continue? Those in the discussion felt it depends on the evolving technology. There was a feeling that the current e-books are a first generation and the situation is up for grabs as the next generation arrives. The next generation is thought to be more like the i-Pad with expanded capabilities and features. So why isn’t the i-Pad leading the pack now? A majority of e-readers are being given as gifts and the difference between the price point of e-readers and the i-Pad is making that decision. But electronics tend to come down as production increases so that may change, and/or existing e-readers may evolve to close that gap.


More and more writers are deciding to go straight to Kindle with their book. I noticed back when I first started getting submissions from some who had taken that course and (though I felt like I knew the answer) I surveyed over 200 editors to see what their position would be on receiving such a submission. It was as I expected and over 70% said they weren’t interested in a submission on a book that had already been published, including Kindle. Some did say they might look at it if the sales were significant enough, but the Kindle version had to be withdrawn first as they required the e-book rights to be in the contract. So at present those who go straight to Kindle are giving up print possibilities to do so. We may expect to see some changes there as well, but who knows when?


This may be a factor in smaller conference attendance right now as well. Newer writers that don’t see the need to go improve their craft, who don’t see the need to network with agents and editors if they are going to go straight to e-book and spending the money they would have spent going to the conference getting the e-book out. I believe those who may be making this choice will soon realize they are making a strategic mistake. Most will not make the money that way that they would make with both print AND e-book, and with publisher support behind them. However, some are making enough money on just the e-book sales. Ironically, if they are having that kind of sales, some publisher will be interested. In publishing the success of a few that defy the odds and make it big always drive the dreams of those who want to do the same.


Still, nothing is as constant as change and this emerging technology is fascinating to watch. For example those in the industry know that women buy a majority of the books and that has strongly influenced acquisitions. But with e-book readers it is proving to be gender-neutral. What? Yes, as many women buying e-books as men. This will of necessity change the mix in what will be published.

I just saw a study report that had several other interesting facts: that there was no disparity between regions of the country, that urban book buyers bought more than rural ones, and while retirees say they have more time to read, the fully employed buy more e-books. That’s interesting.


The bottom line with the discussion was that we are not seeing the crest of the e-book revolution and change will be the order of the day. Are print books on the way out? No, there are still far too many who like a print book in their hands for that to happen any time soon. But it is a really interesting time to be involved in the publishing industry.

A Numbers Guy

No, I’ve never thought of myself as a numbers guy. I had to throw my self on the mercy of the instructor to pass statistics so I could graduate college. But this morning I was noticing I seem to collect a lot of numbers, numbers that tell me things.

I noticed it when I entered my response to a submission into a log. I always put down key information in that log for future reference so I know if someone resubmits without my asking for it or if they are someone who has submitted to me before, or a number of other things. I also put down the word count if they give it but less than half provide that. It should be part of any query letter or proposal along with the genre, but it often isn’t.

At any rate, when I started the log I set that column to total at the bottom just for grins. I just looked and on this current log I have had over 103 MILLION words submitted to me from over 2700 submissions. I don’t read all of them, of course. Like most if not all agents and editors, I quit reading if I reach the point where I realize it just isn’t a fit for the markets that I’m presently working in. But still, that is an enormous amount of words and the number is probably 30% higher than that. Amazing.

Another number I get asked a lot is the percentage that I’m taking to represent. Out of this 2700 I’ve selected 75 clients (have 62 right now) and at present have 226 proposals out. Most of my clients have more than one project available. This is not the number for the agency, this is just for me and other agents at Hartline have as much or more I’m sure. I’m also sure there are agents who carry a much bigger workload than I do. Still, that means I’ve taken a little better than 8% of what has been sent to me.

What other numbers jump out at me? I’ve gotten a little better than half of my clients published, about 90 books, and I’m usually up in the top ten of agents getting debut authors started on the list over at Publishers Marketplace. That number means I need to get more clients who are not just getting started, but it also reflects my desire to help new writers get started. I’ve been an agent for about four years, but the first couple of years were pretty much learning experiences and getting things in progress that would take a while to come to fruition.

More numbers? There are numbers at the bottom of my web page with the counter registering over three million hits with more than 465 thousand unique visitors. The visitors have come from 115 different countries. If a few years ago you had told me some old cowboy over in West Texas would have people from this many countries dropping by to look at my stuff I would have thought you were nuts.

Maybe the numbers that are most critical are the ones at my bank and they could stand to be better, but between my writing and my activity as an agent I get to do this full time, and make a living at it. And I’m getting to do what I love.

The numbers that mean the most to me are one beautiful wife, five kids, ten grand-kids and one great-grandson on the way. And most important, my faith number would be the number three representing the Trinity. My faith is very important to me and it is part and parcel of everything I do in every aspect of my life.

Hmm, for somebody that is not a numbers guy I seem to collect and pay a lot of attention to them. Maybe I should have worked harder in that stats class.

From the Heart (Hart)

The Hartline Literary Agency has a new blog entitled "From the Heart." All four of the Hartline agents, Owner and principal agent Joyce Hart, Tamela Hancock Murray, Diana Flegal and myself will share the writing chores. The blog is at http://hartlineliteraryagency.blogspot.com/

Our intent is to give regularly changing content on subjects that will be interesting to you so you will subscribe and receive it every time a new blog is posted. We do hope you will post questions in the comment section or send them direct to one of us and we'll do our best to answer them. We're going to post interviews with our clients and announce upcoming books. We're going to be posting writing tips and talk about things that are happening in the publishing industry.

Mostly we want to talk about things that interest YOU. The only way we can do that is if you give us feedback, so subscribe to the blog today and give us your comments and suggestions.

The follower function is new and we have it on the Hartline blog. I'm going to add it to this blog as well but it makes it look a little funny to have no followers on a blog that has been around this long so I'd really appreciate any of you becoming followers.

Word Count

It can be confusing. It can depend on the genre, on the publisher, on how much you have published, whether it is mass market mainstream paperback or hardback, on a lot of things. There are some general guidelines that can help: a writer selling their first book maybe 85-100,000 words is what a lot of publishers look for (again depending on genre). Why?

Has to do with investment in the book. Lets say a publisher is asking for 90k and we’ve got a manuscript that’s 135k and no publishing history. Every 10k we are over that submission guideline represents a 10% increase in production costs give or take. The more it is over the less likely they are to want to do it for an unproven writer. Always good to start with those submission guidelines.

Here are some other very general guidelines:

Chapter book (6-8 yr) 5-25,000 words
Middle Reader (8-12) 25-40,000 words
Young Adult (12-18) 40-75,000 words
(middle reader and YA kids like to read about characters a couple of years older than they are)
Novelette – 7,500–20,000 words
Novella 20-30,000 words
Short Contemporary 50,000-60,000 words
Long Contemporary 70,000-80,000 words
Mass Market paperback (western, SF, Fantasy, etc) 75-90,000 words
Short Historical /Mainstream 90-100,000 words
Romance novel 90-100,000 words
Long Historical/ Mainstream 108,000-120,000

Then there is another factor, a number of the mainstream houses still want the word count figured on how many pages it is times 250 words per page. Most of the Christian houses have gone to actual word processor count.

Confused yet? How about it depends on how much dialogue and white space is in the book? What? In discussion with some writer friends who have hundreds of books in print they confide that they are more interested in how many pages they are sending to the publisher. Maybe the contract for that mass market paperback calls for delivering 50,000 words (western) which using the 250 per page word count would be a 200 page manuscript. But they write a lot of dialogue in them. In that case maybe they are turning in a 200 page book that only has 40k words, but it is still a 200 page book.

That’s why they call them guidelines, a lot of factors can enter into it. But as a general rule a new writer can find it very difficult to sell a book that is too large or too small per the guidelines the publisher is looking for. These guidelines are set up to produce the size book they want to produce, and it is generally a size they know their readers want to buy.

You will note I said very difficult, not impossible. Harry Potter was a huge book for an unproven writer but you know what it did. Prayer of Jabez was a tiny little thing and it knocked the doors off too. Anything is possible, but I have to say I’m not a gambler, you’re not likely to find me in Vegas putting my money on the line. Still, I understand playing the odds and writing a book defying those odds hoping to be that one in who knows how many thousands that prove to be the exception even though it does not fit the criteria will most of the time be a study in futility.

A writing lesson from the movies

So many writers think they are through when they write the story. Actually that's when crafting the story should begin. Like a director of a movie that takes all the raw scenes that he's shot and goes into the cutting room to weave them into a movie, the writer takes the raw chapters and starts working on the pacing and the flow, engaging the reader here and picking up the pace there. This is where the writer moves scenes to push a reader at the end of a chapter into the next one, watching to see that the story doesn't slow down at a point to where the reader loses interest.

As an agent, I get over a thousand submissions a year of people wanting me to represent their work, and this is probably the greatest failing in them. The author may have a pretty good story concept, but it just doesn’t flow, it doesn’t guide the reader through it. In fact, most of them fail to get the reader off the very first page.

First page? Yes, a major portion of rejections occur right at that point, I call it the “Barnes and Noble test.” If we want to learn how manuscripts are rejected, we just need to sit in a bookstore for a while and watch the patrons. They pick up a book, read the back cover and the first page, maybe sample a little more, but those two are all that we can count on. They keep doing this until one of them pushes them off that first page and down into the book. When that happens they will usually carry it to the checkout stand.

Editors know this and judge them the same way. We can have the greatest story in the world, but if we don’t get them off that first page, it doesn’t matter. This is part of putting on that director hat and directing the book after we get the basic story written. Did you ever hear somebody tell a joke that was hilarious, then later hear someone else tell the joke using the exact same words and it bombs? The difference is delivery, the pacing and flow, knowing the timing necessary to get the laugh. George Burns told the same old tired jokes for 50 years but they were always funny, because his timing and delivery were impeccable.

We know we have to take off the writer’s hat and put on the editor’s hat to clean up a story once it is written, but that is grammar, copyediting and formatting. Too few writers change the hat the third time to put on that director’s hat, go into the cutting room and think of nothing but how to make their story flow so it pulls the readers in and then subtly guides them through it. More writers need to be doing that – no, actually, I believe all writers need to take that step.