See you at the conference?

Soon it will be time to head over to Marshall Texas to East Texas Baptist University for the East Texas Christian Writer's Conference. I've gone to this conference for a number of years and I love it.

Set on the shady, peaceful campus of ETBU it is an economical conference packed with lots of content and excellent presenters. The dates are October 26th and 27th, starting right after lunch on Friday and ending up about 5 pm on Saturday. The keynote speaker Friday evening will be James Watkins speaking on "I have a dream!"

I'm going to be talking about the difference in writing to reach the nonbeliever. Christian readers and nonbelievers look for different things in a book, Christians want a lot of faith content and they want it right from the get-go. But the very thing that they are looking for will cause a non-believer to put the book down. Many who say they are writing a 'crossover book' are actually writing a book that will not have enough faith content to satisfy the Christian publishers but with too much such content for the secular publishers. They end up in the 'no man's land' in between where neither want the book. A true crossover book is written for one market or the other but written in such a way that it manages to cross over to the other.

I'm also going to talk about how to develop a writer's persona. Many people are simply too shy to meet with editors and agents to pitch, or to do promotion or interviews, or the other activities a writer must do to be successful. There is a way to develop a writer's persona and pretty much hide behind it to do what we need to do. Others are about as shy as a chain saw but they are uncomfortable in such writing situations because they don't know how to present themselves as a writer. These are the totally opposite ends of the spectrum, but for both as well as all of the degrees in between, the answer is learning how to determine how we need to present ourselves as a writer and to project ourselves that way.

Finally, my third session will be a "look behind the curtain." I'll be talking about editor and agent pet peeves. Participants will hear a lot of things from a survey that Hartline agent Linda Glaz and I conducted, things that turn an agent or editor off. But there are also peeves that authors have about agents and editors as well, that sword cuts both ways. Those in the class will have the opportunity to unburden themselves with some of the things that bother them as well.

The conference is a short but content-packed event that people are sure to enjoy and sure to feel they really got their money's worth. Hope to see you there.

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.

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.

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.

Interview with Client Tammy Barley

Continuing in my series of featuring clients and their new titles, today I talk to Tammy Barley about her new title Love's Rescue From Whitaker House:

Tammy, your new "Love's Rescue" has gotten off to a terrific launch and isgoing into a second printing in only a month. You have to be ecstatic aboutthat. It's the first book in a three book "Sierra Chronicles" series fromWhitaker House. Tell us about them:

I am ecstatic about that, and just as ecstatic to see that Love’s Rescue was recently #11 on ChristianBook.com’s historical fiction best seller list—hugely exciting. Even better are the wonderful comments and reviews I’ve received from readers, that they felt they were right there in the story, in the Sierra Nevadas, in 1863 (and best of all—countless readers have said they can’t wait for the next book)! Yes, it’s very exciting. Here are a few quick blurbs about Love’s Rescue and the next two books:

Book One: Love’s Rescue
A Dividing Conflict
In 1863, the War Between the States is dividing more than a nation. To escape the conflict, Jessica Hale and her family flee their Kentucky home and head for Nevada Territory. Her brother, Ambrose, committed to the Confederates, rejoins his Kentucky militia and is disowned by his father. But the worst is yet to come.

A Heroic Kidnapper
When Unionists presume the family to be Confederate sympathizers, they set a devastating fire to their home. All alone and then “kidnapped” by cattleman Jake Bennett, Jessica is taken to a ranch deep in the Sierra Nevada wilderness. Can she overcome her resentment toward Jake for failing to save her family?

The Depths of Love
When Jake launches a plan to help Jessica’s brother escape from prison camp, she sees him for the honest, good-hearted Christian man that he is and now knows the depth of his love for her. Through the lingering smoke and smoldering ashes from her ruined home and murdered family, will Jessica see a future with Jake?

Book Two: Hope's Promise
Jake and Jessica Bennett learn there was more to her parents’ deaths than they knew, and both the ranch and Jessica are in danger. Now they must quickly find the murderer . . . and discover for themselves how far they will go for love.

Book Three: Faith's Reward
Jake and Jessica are expecting a child while their hope of surviving land redistribution laws grows dim. Worse, Jessica’s inheritance has disappeared from the bank, and turns up in the hands of a man funding Union sympathizers in a personal war against Southerners. To stop it Jessica must confront her greatest fear, and Jake will be forced to risk the lives of Jessica and their unborn child.

You had quite a book launch, can you tell us about it?

LOL—Quite a book launch it was!

I worked a few angles with the book launch to bring about the most benefit possible with the event. First, my church, which has a K-8 school, is struggling financially. So several weeks before the launch, I spoke to the congregation—in an 1863 blue calico hoop skirt like my main character wears—and told them I wanted to throw the 19th century book launch at the church as a means to draw more people to the church and school, and hopefully help it financially.

So several members helped to throw an unforgettable event, and contributed a hundred or more 19th century antiques related to the various settings and characters in the book—cowboy, Civil War, Western Indians, the Shaker people—and in addition I provided interactive displays to reflect the characters and their daily life. I met folks and signed books in 1863 costume at a turn-of-the-century rolltop desk. My daughter, in prairie costume, demonstrated traditional Paiute basket weaving and invited folks to smell smudge sticks and healing teas from Sierran plants and trees and to guess whether the dried bundles were juniper, cedar, sage, sweetgrass, Douglas fir, and so on. One of my sons wore cowboy attire and demonstrated cowboy leather braiding and invited folks to handle various pelts and guess the animals—rabbit, river otter, red squirrel, coyote, raccoon, buffalo. My other son dressed as a cowboy-turned-Civil War soldier since his namesake did exactly that in the book, and manned the Civil War trivia display and the Shaker display. Women served homemade lemonade, cookies, and fudge brownies. Of everyone who came, about a dozen were unchurched or did not attend church regularly, but who enjoyed historical fiction.

The second angle I worked was to benefit The Hope Children’s Mission in beautiful Catemaco, Veracruz, Mexico that I support, and the president and vice president of the mission were on hand to chat with folks.So I finished the day 200 books lighter, and a number of people who bought books read them within a day or two and liked them so much that I had to make a special trip to church to sell them more; they want to give copies to family and friends as gifts. One of the guests also invited me to be guest speaker at a biannual country club fundraiser for women who need assistance to go to college to become teachers, which I’ll be doing in December.

Are you working on anything besides delivering the series?

I also work as a ghostwriter and editor and assist with fiction, biographies, and business and self-help books. It’s been a doubly exciting time for me, because one of my clients, John Wolfram, was the first Navy UDT/SEAL in the water to rescue Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins after their first, historic moonwalk. Since the nation just celebrated the 40th anniversary of the moon landing, John was interviewed by Fox News, CBS, The Weather Channel, and many other networks and newspapers, and a radio interview of him aired from more than 640 K-Love Radio station affiliates across the U.S., spotlighting his book, Splashdown: The Rescue of a Navy Frogman, which I assisted with. John is now a world missionary, so it’s great to see how God is touching lives through Christian books.

Aside from that and continuing work on The Sierra Chronicles, I’m also planning my next historical fiction series.

What is the best writing advice you've ever gotten? The worst?

Best: Write what you love, and your books will find their audience.

Worst: Do everything your way no matter what agents or publishers say (I instantly disregarded this “advice”). Fact: the publishing industry has standards for a purpose; following them gives you the greatest chance for success.

What would you like to use this opportunity to say to people?

One—Believe, and you will achieve.

Two—As a promotion to introduce readers to Love’s Rescue, I’m sponsoring a vacation giveaway—Read Love’s Rescue for a chance to win a one-week western guest ranch resort vacation for two to the Rocky Mountains of Colorado! (For details and to enter, visit http://www.tammybarley.com/Bookshelf.html.) The drawing is Valentine’s Day 2010.

Unbelievably, though about 1000 copies of Love’s Rescue are selling each week, only thirty—30—people have remembered to enter to win the vacation to date—a one-week all-inclusive mountain resort vacation for two. That means each entrant’s odds of winning are 1 in 30 (not one in 30,000; 1 in 30). Anyone want to win a vacation of a lifetime?

From Birth to Five

Today we're going to interview Brenda Nixon, client and author of the Birth to Five Book:

Brenda, your The Birth to Five Book is doing very well in the market and we’ve presently marketing your discipline book tentatively titled "Difficult to Discipline?-success strategies for getting your kid to mind." I know your primary focus is on speaking and promotion, but what are you working on next?

Thanks for your comments and observations about The Birth to Five Book. As a mom, conference speaker, freelance writer, author, and media guest expert on parenting, I'm always working on something, Terry. This week, I've prepared my Speaking Agreement and vitae for an Iowa hospital event, written my Discipline Tip sent to subscribers, written a blog entry for my co-authored "A Scrapbook of Christmas" Firsts, finalized plans to be a writers conference keynote, and submitted four stories to book compilations plus worked on my internet presence and networking through facebook and twitter. All that was besides getting my college-age daughter ready to return for her senior year and helping my other daughter who is desperately looking for a RN job. And I still feel behind . . . What's on the horizon for my writing career? I hope to continue promoting and see strong sales with my parenting title and get more book proposals written.

You’ve been really active doing interviews and programs and all types of promotion, what are you presenting programs on and to whom? How can people find out more about the programs you offer?

Quick answer: go to the "Where's Brenda?" page at http://www.brendanixon.com/. Most of my speaking and interviews are listed. If people want to find out more about my parenting topics or my education and experience they can find it on my website.

What is the best writing advice you have ever received? The worst?

Oh my, probably the best - and most often quoted - advice is to connect with other writers. The writing life can be lonely; if you want to remain fresh, enthused, and improve, you must connect with other industry professionals through online writers groups, critique groups, and at writers conferences. Hmm, I don't know if I recognize the worst writing advice. I've received bad reviews, bad rejections and bad treatment from others but can't say there's any advice on how to write that is off the chart.

What would you like to use this opportunity to say to people?

Write about what you know! If you know about child development and parenting and God has given you the gift of encouragement, then write from that vein. If you know airplanes and are a seasoned pilot, then write about that. Your passion and experience qualifies you to write on a given topic; going to writers conferences and improving your wordsmith skills will help get your work published. You'll hear other professionals tell you to stretch - get out of your comfort zone - and that is good advice when you're an experienced writer. But to begin your career, write fromyour heart's passion. Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings wrote many works; some accepted and many rejected. But after she moved to a ruralFlorida hamlet where she experienced a strong passion for the land and the people, she wrote her best works: Cross Creek and The Yearling.

Thank you Brenda, and readers if you would like to automatically know when there is a new posting follow this link http://cowboymusing.blogspot.com/ ( in a new browser window so it doesn't open in this box ) to the main blogspot site and become a follower. This is a new function offered by blogspot and I am just beginning to accumulate followers.

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.

meet mystery writer Donn Taylor

Today we're going to visit with client and I'm proud to say my good friend Donn Taylor

Donn, your mystery "Rhapsody in Red" and your poetry book "Dust and Diamond" are both doing well in the marketplace, and we're working on marketing
the sequel and trying to get a reprint deal for your earlier work, "The Lazarus File." What are people liking about "Rhapsody"? What are they saying?

Almost every comment has been positive. Readers like the characters--the widower professor plagued by musical hallucinations, the feisty female professor of comparative religion, the sometimes-surprising secondary characters like MRS. Blossom Harlow. People have commented favorably on the novel's light satire of political correctness and the small-college scene, and they like the ironic encounters between the professor and the school administration. Quite a few have commented on the mystery's climax and the wrap-up chapter. I've been pleasantly surprised by people I don't know e-mailing to ask when the sequel comes out.

What's next in the pipeline from you?

I've just completed a historical novel set in 1948, when America was trying to restore normalcy after WW II but worrying about early stages of the Cold War. That's the setting, but the story turns on how a small town too proud of its own virtues deals with its first murder. I'm working on a sequel to that one, with a third book possibly taking those characters through America's entrance to the Korean War. I'm also doing the early work for a second sequel to "Rhapsody."

You do programs at writing conferences, what are you presenting on and how do program people find out more?

I teach workshops on poetry writing. They cover the elements that make poetry different from prose, how to get started writing poetry, how to make your poetry different from most of what's being written, and some of the unique special effects poetry can achieve. I also do one-on-one poetry critiques at conferences. Descriptions of my classes are can be found in the Faculty and Workshops link at http://www.blueridgeconference.com/. My Web site, http://www.donntaylor.com/, contains examples of my poetry as well as sample chapters of "Lazarus" and "Rhapsody." Interested parties can contact me via e-mail, donn@donntaylor.com.

What's the best piece of writing advice you ever got? The worst?

Best: That's an easy one: LEARN THE CRAFT. The hard part is figuring out what parts of it I don't yet know. From my college teaching days I had no problem with the mechanics of writing. But in changing from academic and technical writing into fiction writing, I had to learn the theory of structuring scenes and entire novels. Then I had to practice until I could make the theory work. And as Cec Murphy says, we must never stop learning. There's another barrier of ignorance I'm trying to break through now, but I'd better not name it.

Worst: That's easy, too: the idea that "It's all subjective." Not so, and the statement is all the more false because it's partly true. There are some subjective elements, such as an editor's judgment of whether a particular subject will sell to the readers. But to enlarge the subjective factors into the whole picture is to create an excuse for failure--an excuse not to get better. Craftsmanship is not subjective, and sloppy writing won't be rejected on an editor's subjective judgment because the poor craftsmanship will stop it before the content gets evaluated.

Anything you'd like to take advantage of this opportunity to say?

I like novels that temper suspense and pathos with humor. That technique worked well for Shakespeare, and I'm surprised more of us don't imitate him in practicing it. And C.S. Lewis was all too correct in saying that the hardest thing to portray in any art is simple goodness. Nevertheless, we need to put in the necessary effort and the ingenuity. If we don't, our writing ends up overbalanced in the other direction. I only hope I can actually practice what I preach.

Thank you, Donn, great answers. I encourage readers to sign up for a rss feed to automatically get this blog as it alternates between introductions and advice from my clients, answers to writing and agent questions people ask, new book releases. and a variety of other topics.

Saint's Roost

It was the year 2000 when I wrote my first inspirational fiction, a book titled “To Keep a Promise.” It came about because mother was on me to write a book with a female protagonist. We had a place out at Greenbelt Lake near Clarendon Texas and much of the writing for the book was done out there. In the process I became fascinated by the history of Clarendon and that history combined with mom’s request formulated where the book would go.

The town was fascinating. Established by a group of ministers right in the middle of wild and wooly cow country, and flanked by the wide open towns of old Tascosa, and the town of Mobettie standing outside of Fort Elliott. Where most frontier towns built around a saloon, the first building in Clarendon was a frame building that was a combination church and school structure. As a matter of fact, no saloons, drinking, gambling or ladies of the evening were even allowed in the town which is the reason that the town was nicknamed “Saint’s Roost” by other residents of the Texas Panhandle.

Fascinating, right? All town property sold with the codicil that no liquor would ever be sold on the premises. The little community was founded as a Methodist colony by Reverend L. H. Carhart, a retired Methodist minister. It was started at the mouth of Carroll Creek on the Salt Fork of the Red River, the town named for the Reverend's wife, Clara. Carhart had been a pastor in Dallas and Sherman. Then he discovered land could be bought for $100 a section through the medium of railroad script. With the help of a wealthy brother-in-law, he established the colony and a cattle ranch. Clarendon had been advertised back east as 'Paradise on Earth.' Carhart even ventured as far away as London to promote it, which is one reason a lot of ranches in the Panhandle ended up established with British ownership and capital.

When I started work on the book the town itself became a character that rivaled those that would carry the story. The history in the book is accurate, save some small adjustments in the dates to make the story work better, and many of the characters are actual residents of the community. The book was put out by The Fiction Works, and my good friend Ray Hoy. This company is known for amazing audiobooks that they do with a cast of characters, music, sound effects, the works. To Keep a Promise was to be one of the first titles as they branched out into print. They bought the equipment, set up shop, but were unable to make the print operation work to their satisfaction and the book was stranded after a painfully small print run. Ray went back to doing just the audiobooks. At the same time it received great reviews, was a finalist for the Eppie Award and for the Willa Award given by the Women Writing the West. In short it was a good book, too good to be stranded with a print run that sold out within a couple of months.

Fast forward to the present. I occasionally pitched the book trying to interest someone in a reprint over the years without success. Reprinting a book is really hard even with great sales numbers. Getting someone to understand why a book could be good and have so few sales because so few were printed was something else. Kim Moore over at Harvest House got it, and loved it. She had me to do a major rewrite adding 30,000 words to the project, but couldn’t sell her vision in committee.

It happens. But I loved the book and wouldn’t give up. Enter Lee Emory over at Mountainview Press. She got it too. A smaller Press with a wonderful reputation she thought this was just her kind of project and what had happened to the book in the past was simply prologue. There were too many similar titles with the word promise in them, so the book took on the name of the town that spawned it and became “Saint’s Roost.”

It has gone through several cycles of editing and the galleys have been proofed. It’s ready to go into production. This book is such a fun read and carries the most powerful faith content of anything I’ve ever written, I just couldn’t be more pleased for it to get a fair shot at the market. The people that hang out over here are going to love it! Stay tuned. When it is ready to release, I’m going to talk about it again and tell you about the story itself. And I’ll give a couple of copies away.

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.

Cowboys Don't Cry

Billy Coffey is a guest blogger over at http://www.bustlesandspurs.com/ today and his posting spoke right to me. I've spent my whole life working with and around cowboys and they have as a rule raised concealing expression of emotion to an art form. Yet most I have known do feel and feel deeply and when they do break past the barrier to express emotion it is always honest and strong even if understated.

This is true for a lot of men I have known in all sorts of avocations who struggle to maintain the facade of the strong, reliable man they have been taught to be.

My post there (that was just before his) spoke about getting a chance to experience what it might have been like to live in those days. Those were good times. I got a question from it asking if that was that was the extent of my cowboy background or if I had ever worked as one. In essence that asked if I was all hat and no cattle.

I’ve never owned or lived on a ranch but I worked as a day hand from the time I was in high school up until I moved to the big city and couldn’t do it any more. Even after that I’d get out and do it when I could. I did a book of cowboy poetry many years back and I spoke to the question of my cowboy credentials this way:

Am I a cowboy? Well, I don’t live on a farm or a ranch, but I’ve worked on ‘em and lived in West Texas most of my life. I’ve plowed and fixed fence and worked cows. I’ve eat dirt, been rained on and kept going in 100 degree heat without a breath of wind to cool my brow. I managed a rodeo and I’ve watched cowboys play. Been up on a bull and know how long 8 seconds can really be.

Am I a cowboy? Being a cowboy is more than wearing boots and a hat. It’s even more than doing the job. It’s something down in you that makes you go on after others have quit because it’s what you’re out there for. It’s working hard and playing hard and holding up your end. It’s doing what’s right, not because of laws or because you’re told to, but just because it’s by gosh what’s right!

Am I a cowboy? That’s not for me to say. But I’d like to think so.

They're calling it Black Wednesday

Yesterday I mentioned that I was keeping the “publishing and the economy” article updated at my website, and I am. Yesterday I kept having to go back and update it and re-load it when I read in Michael Hyatt’s blog that Thomas Nelson was cutting 54 people, 10% of its work force. It was followed by a statement from Becky Saletan that she had been axed at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt along with an “undisclosed number of employees.”

Then came news that Simon and Schuster was laying off 35 people which is 2% of their workforce and Random House let a number of top people go and announced a restructuring that will include disbanding the DoubleDay Publishing group. To top the day off Borders stock went under a dollar. If it stays that way for three months they have to do a stock consolidation.

Black Wednesday. It comes on the heels of a report at the end of November that the economy has taken the largest drop in consumer spending in 28 years. While “Black Friday” did modestly better than anticipated retailers still are very concerned over the remainder of the Christmas shopping season. Historically this shopping makes up a major share of a business’s profits for the entire year.

Still, unless further bad news continues to come in, the majority of those publishers that I talked to forecasted belt tightening, cost cutting measures (hopefully not more layoffs), lower advances and slower acquisitions. I’ll continue to monitor all of the resources I have for further changes of direction. If you don’t have time to monitor this for yourself, I make changes immediately as I get them at my website: http://www.terryburns.net/Publishing_and_the_Economy.htm