Writers' Newsletter
Issue #256
July 2024
|
Did You Know This?
By G. Miki Hayden
Instructor at Writer's Digest University online and private writing coach
firstwriter.com – Monday June 17, 2024
I was thinking about what to tell you from my many years of being in this writing game. Maybe you know a few of the following, or maybe not.
You need a Kindle, though perhaps you already have one. Good. This is important. I bought mine so many years ago I don’t remember the version and I need a new exterior cover. Oh well. The great thing is that these devices last and last.
I recall people in the old days saying they preferred books they could hold in their hands. Forget that. I recently asked for a copy of James Clavell’s Shogun from the New York Public Library. I received it more quickly than a book is generally sent when requested. I brought it back two days later and downloaded Part One on Amazon. The print version was too heavy and awkward to read. I spend about forty minutes a day reading when doing my various leg exercises while lying on the floor. I’m on Part Two now at the total cost of eighteen dollars for both parts and am making good use of my time.
Buying books for your Kindle isn’t just about ease of use, either. Generally, the reason is that Kindle books are not simply cheaper, but can be enormously inexpensive if you read in any particular genre. I’ve downloaded a few listed on BookBub or Read Freely to read later. I’ve gotten to be so…err…thrifty that I won’t pay more than zero dollars or ninety-nine cents for a book. Except for authors whose names you might know that go for maybe a dollar ninety-nine, nothing distinguishes the books—the blurbs make them all sound like hot sellers. The best writing online comes in book descriptions. Not only do the novels appear to be must reads, the basic plots of many sound similar. Scary? Yes.
At any rate, writers all have Kindles now. If your publisher gives you a Kindle version of the book (usually a mobi), you can send it to people you know, looking for reviews. Will those you ask give you reviews? Generally not, even if they told you they’ll review or even liked the book—or said they did. Why not? Busy? Lazy? Illiterate in terms of writing a review? You’ll have to ask them.
How many agents should you query? Quite a few. My recent client was shocked to hear that writers with a book to offer are querying more than a hundred agents to start. To start. If you believe in your book, try the Association of American Literary Agents and click on Find an Agent. Choose your genre. Should you keep a list of agents you queried? I did. Yet that doesn’t do much good since most don’t respond to queries. But at least you can keep a numbers count so you know you’re doing the right thing.
Be aware that agents (and editors) are looking for novels that are unique, and at the same time pretty much like everything that has gone before. Which? Both simultaneously. I worked with a writer recently and told him that agents will want to know other titles similar to his, and they want to know what his audience is. Silence. You have to be able to answer both questions.
This means the novel shouldn’t be too esoteric or unreadable. That would seem logical, wouldn’t it? No, because we become fixated on whatever project we’re working on. Please don’t go by what sold in the 1950s, the 1960s, the 1970s, and so on. Those books already sold and they aren’t selling anymore. Try small press for your book of the 1750s. A micropress may well publish some of the above.
You have to go agent by agent in querying since they all have different requirements for queries they will review. Make sure you have a well-polished query letter and a one-page or shorter summary. You might have to fill out a form to query particular agents. Be aware that most won’t respond, so keep on going for as many you have time for in a week. Three or four a week perhaps, or more if you have the motivation. Good luck.
Oh, also, even agents aren’t making much money these days and if they are, it’s from a very few authors who are selling well. But still the agents are hopeful, yet spending most of their time on authors who are already earning for them. If your book blows them away, they might actually take you on.
Write reviews and blurbs for people as part of promotion for your own book. Everyone wants to have their name out there, and if and when you have a book in print yourself, you want to spread your name around. Having reviews in credible or minor publications isn’t as easy as it used to be. Years ago I had a rave review in The New York Times and was listed on their Summer Reading List. That was exciting and helped a little but not a lot. I subsequently sold a few of this book and sold to Japan for a translation. I didn’t quit my day job.
Few publications review these days and publicity is the author’s chore. You have to work at it and pay for it, whatever “it” is. We pay with reciprocity as well as dollars. Don’t pay too much as paid-for listings mostly put your book in with hundreds of others, though seeing your cover on an email list does make you feel somewhat encouraged.
To promote, you can volunteer for local panels if you belong to a writer’s group of some kind; go to conferences and try to be appointed to a panel. If invited, do interviews with blogs, start your own blog or newsletters, and write for publications and run ads. Repeat.
Do you write well? You may have been told you do. You think you do. Maybe you don’t. I’ve been teaching for about twenty-five years, and many of my students have a Master’s degree from universities well known for their writing programs and are people who have a couple of novels in print. Their writing may have highlights, and these writers seem dedicated, but their writing is weak in spots. Over my many years of teaching, I have rarely found even talented writers whose writing is flawless.
Be open to writing better. Few are, Most of my students who write somewhat well want to stick to what they’re used to, without improvement. They have little recognition of the competition out there—the reason we query so many agents. Don’t be that person. I can say that, but in my twelve-week class (for instance), I find that up to assignment twelve, and no doubt beyond, students will not make changes in glitches I carefully point out to them. I think the problem is a brain malfunction. Eat more fruits and vegetables, guys. Be reborn with a better brain.
Here are two areas in which I often see no writer movement.
Avoid repeats. We all repeat words and word sounds in close vicinity. Why? Just because. Never mind why. Learn to catch the repeats. Repeats create weak and uninspired writing. We ALL repeat words and word sounds. Edit, edit, edit. Catch the overuse. Have first readers and even pay proofreaders. Find a talented editor. Ask how long the person has been editing. Don’t hire someone who doesn’t have long years of experience. They aren’t yet seasoned.
Weak sentence starts. We rarely have to start a sentence with “There were…” “There was…” or an undefined “It.” Use words with at least a little bit of weight, and better than that, use an explicit phrase. “The rumble in the park resulted in several injuries, sending three of the boys to the hospital, and one of those to surgery for a cracked skull.” Don’t describe the fight and then say: “It sent three of the boys to the hospital.” Raise up the level of your writing.
Finally, I want to say that an outline isn’t magic. Choosing incident x over incident y in the story doesn’t really matter. Write interestingly and the specific events you choose to write about won’t count so much. Write about characters with depth but that readers can identify with in their humanness, even if they’re frogs from another planet. Explore new ground, but keep the characters in a realm we can understand.
Read my books out last fall and this spring for examples of protagonists you can identify with: Rescued, Re-Live, and Dry Bones. Buy my Writing the Mystery and The Naked Writer for lots more take-home writing advice.
Your friend, miki
About the Author
G. Miki Hayden is a short story Edgar winner. She teaches a mystery writing and a thriller writing and other writing classes at Writer's Digest online university. The third edition of her Writing the Mystery is available through Amazon and other good bookshops. She is also the author of The Naked Writer, a comprehensive, easy-to-read style and composition guide for all levels of writers.
Miki's most recent novel out is Dry Bones, a police procedural from Down & Out Books. The New York Times gave her Pacific Empire a rave and listed it on that year's Summer Reading List. Miki is a short story Edgar winner for "The Maids," about the poisoning of French slave holders in
"Holder, Oklahoma Senior Police Officer Aaron Clement is out for justice above all, even if he irritates the local hierarchy. Hayden in Dry Bones gives us nothing-barred investigation and plenty of nitty-gritty police procedure—which makes for a real page turner." — Marianna Ramondetta, author of The Barber from Palermo
International Copyright RegistrationRegister your copyright online for instant copyright protection in more than 160 different countries worldwide. |
News |
Some of this month's news for writers from around the web.
Hounded out of my job in publishing
crowdjustice.com – Monday July 15, 2024
Who am I, and what's the story?
My name is Ursula Doyle, and I have worked in book publishing for more than thirty years. Since 2008 I have worked at Hachette UK, one of the UK’s leading publishing groups, first at its Virago imprint (a sub-brand of the publisher) before setting up my own imprint, Fleet, in 2016. Fleet publishes a wide range of fiction and nonfiction, and Fleet authors have between them won numerous awards, including four Pulitzers.
In 2020 I published Kathleen Stock’s influential book on sex and gender, Material Girls. Since then, I have been a target for abuse by colleagues in the book industry, who have used social media to accuse me of - among other things - bigotry, prejudice, transphobia and hatred, often tagging in my employer, Hachette, and Hachette’s Pride network.
Hachette have done nothing to protect me, and have created a hostile working environment for me and anyone else who shares my views. When two of Fleet's authors complained that my views were transphobic, the company agreed to move paperback editions of the authors' books away from the imprint to another part of the business, damaging my reputation both inside and outside the company. I became ill with stress and associated conditions, and finally resigned. I am bringing a claim of discrimination on the grounds of my gender-critical belief (sometimes known as 'sex realism'), and of sex discrimination.
Writers' Handbook 2024 - Out Now!
|
Digital Audio Up 15 Percent: A 23-Percent Jump YTD
publishingperspectives.com – Saturday July 20, 2024
In its May 2024 StatShot report released this morning (July 18), the Association of American Publishers (AAP) cites total revenues across all categories up 10.8 percent over May 2023, at US$1.1 billion.
Year-to-date revenues, the AAP reports, were up 5.5 percent, at US$5.2 billion for the first five months of the year.
For a second month, the United States’ book publishing industry—as assessed by the StatShot program—shows a significant boost. The analysis shows total gross sales increasing 5 percent, with net sales rising 11 percent, according to the report’s authors.
The trade itself—the commercial books industry and the part of the international business most closely followed by Publishing Perspectives—saw gross sales of 9 percent, but because of a 31-percent decrease in returns, that gross-sales figure jumped to 31 percent. Hardback and paperback formats in the trade saw increases of 21 percent and 17 percent, respectively, in net sales, boosting the year-to-date trade net sales to 5 percent.
United Agents' Kat Aitken and Seren Adams launch new agency Lexington Literary
thebookseller.com – Wednesday July 17, 2024
Kat Aitken and Seren Adams have left United Agents after nine years to found new agency, Lexington Literary.
The agency will be looking for new writers of bold and emotive literary and upmarket fiction, narrative non-fiction with a strong hook, and general non-fiction by experts and academics.
Their clients include Caleb Azumah Nelson, winner of the 2024 Dylan Thomas Prize and bestselling author of Open Water and Small Worlds (Viking), #Merky Books Prize-winning debut novelist William Rayfet Hunter, Granta Best Young British Novelist Lauren Aimee Curtis, and forthcoming debut novelist Róisín Lanigan.
In non-fiction, Lexington Literary represents Forward Prize-shortlisted Ralf Webb, academic Orlando Reade, and Fitzcarraldo Essay Prize shortlistees Asa Seresin and Benoît Loiseau, among others.
| Click here for the rest of this month's news > |
Listings |
A selection of the new listings added to firstwriter.com this month.
New Literary Agent Listing: Kendall Berdinsky
firstwriter.com – Monday July 8, 2024
Interested in seeing upmarket romance, book club fiction, psychological thrillers, and narrative nonfiction. Overall, she is looking for work from underrepresented communities with new stories to tell.
New Literary Agent Listing: Steph Thwaites
firstwriter.com – Monday June 17, 2024
Represents a broad range of writers from debut authors to literary estates, number one and Sunday Times bestselling authors and prize winners writing quality commercial fiction and non-fiction, short stories, YA novels and middle grade fiction. She is currently seeking commercial fiction, thrillers, book-group fiction, romantic comedy and family dramas.
| Click here for more of this month's new listings > |
Articles |
Some of this month's articles for writers from around the web.
J K Rowling and the magic of her writing ‘shed’
spearswms.com – Tuesday July 16, 2024
Authors have traditionally been seen as 'gardeners' or 'architects' but J K Rowling puts forward a new metaphor for the writing process
‘Are you an architect or a gardener?’ That has become one of my go-to questions for authors of fiction. The framing is that of the fantasy writer George R R Martin, who says that all writers fall into one of the two categories: architects plan meticulously and know exactly how the story is going to be shaped before they write a single sentence. Gardeners just drop a seed in the ground, water it, and wait to see how it’s going to grow.
You might be surprised by how many literary writers are architects – William Boyd always knows exactly how his story is going to end – and how many genre writers (whose twisty plots might seem to imply a bit of planning) are gardeners. Maybe the most successful thriller writer in the language, Lee Child, absolutely makes it up as he goes along, and refuses on principle to go back and tinker with the story: if he writes himself into what looks like a dead-end in the plot, he enjoys the challenge of writing himself out of it. I once heard (though I can’t vouch for it) that Agatha Christie used to wait until the closing pages of the book before deciding who the murderer was.
E M Forster, who liked to complain that his characters got out of hand and told him what to do: gardener. Vladimir Nabokov, asked whether he shared Forster’s struggles with unruly characters, responded with magnificent hauteur: ‘My knowledge of Mr Forster’s works is limited to one novel, which I dislike; and anyway, it was not he who fathered that trite little whimsy about characters getting out of hand […] My characters are galley slaves.’ Architect, then.
Why so few men take up the pen
thecritic.co.uk – Sunday July 14, 2024
With publishing now such a female-dominated industry, it’s no surprise that there are so few men writing fiction
I’ve just finished a very unusual book: Caledonian Road by Andrew O’Hagan. Its themes, characters and the author’s style of writing are all exceptionally good but that’s not why this book is unusual. It’s more because it’s a new and critically acclaimed work of literary fiction written by a man.
If you’ve seen the inside of any bookshop in the last few years, you’ll know how rare this has become. The vast majority of new fiction and its most praised and promoted authors are female. And yet the principal reason for this is seldom discussed.
So let’s discuss it, shall we? Let’s bring the elephant into the room. The publishing industry is suffering from a damaging gender imbalance. According to a recent UK publishers’ survey, 83 per cent of marketing, 92 per cent of publicity and 78 per cent of editorial staff in Britain’s publishing industry are female. Taking an average of those three figures suggests an industry whose employees are 84 per cent female.
Writing Suspenseful Scenes: Techniques for Keeping Readers on the Edge of Their Seats
rollingstone.com – Saturday July 13, 2024
IN THE REALM of literature, few elements captivate readers quite like a masterfully crafted suspenseful scene. It’s the literary equivalent of a roller coaster ride — heart-pounding, palm-sweating and utterly addictive. But what techniques do authors employ to create these nail-biting moments that keep readers glued to the page? Let’s delve into the world of literary suspense and uncover the secrets behind keeping readers on the edge of their seats.
At its core, suspense is about the art of withholding information. Like a skilled magician, authors must constantly misdirect, hint and tease. The real magic happens in the reader’s mind as they attempt to piece together the puzzle. Pacing plays a crucial role in this dance between revelation and concealment. The key is to provide just enough information to keep readers hooked, but not so much that they can predict what’s coming next.
One technique that many suspense writers swear by is the slow burn. This involves gradually increasing tension throughout a scene or chapter, ratcheting up the stakes bit by bit until the reader is practically squirming with anticipation. Think of it as slowly turning up the heat on a pot of water. You start with a simmer, then gradually increase the temperature. By the time you reach the boiling point, the reader is fully invested and desperate to know what happens next.
| Click here for the rest of this month's articles > |
About |
Information about this newsletter and the firstwriter.com site.
Resources for writers
Go to firstwriter.com for the following invaluable resources for writers:
Advertise
To advertise on this newsletter for as little as $30 / £20 click here
Submit
To submit articles, news items, press releases, or any other items of interest to writers, click here
This newsletter has been compiled by firstwriter.com and is protected by copyright. It may not be copied, forwarded, or otherwise distributed in whole or in part without firstwriter.com's written consent.
While every effort is made to ensure that all information contained within this newsletter is accurate, readers are reminded that this information is provided only as a list of potential leads that the reader should follow up with his or her own investigations. Unless otherwise stated, firstwriter.com is not associated with and does not endorse, recommend, or provide any assurances relating to any of the organisations, events, persons or promotions contained within this newsletter, and cannot be held responsible for any loss incurred due to actions taken in relation to information provided. Inclusion does not constitute recommendation.
Please do not reply to this email. The address from which this has been sent is not capable of receiving emails and sending an email to it may cause your subscription to stop. If you have any queries or require any assistance please contact us by going to https://www.firstwriter.com/contact_us.shtml
© firstwriter.com 2024