Here's a query...

Today I wanted to share my query letter with you. I've made a major revision on this story, thanks to an agent's suggestion, and I'm getting ready to send out some query letters. I know we all hate the old query letter, but any suggestions would be appreciated. Here's where we are so far.

Dear Agent:

People disappear in the bayou. And that’s exactly what thirteen-year-old Robin Sherwood needs to do — before her Uncle Conrad snips her toes off with his trusty rusty garden nippers. Forget tetanus. Getting to the bayou is going to be a real challenge if that happens.

When her parents’ private plane disappears in the swamp, Robin’s uncle moves in as trustee of the multi-million dollar Sherwood Estate. It doesn’t take long for Robin to figure out there’s something not quite right about Uncle Conrad — besides having a metal claw where his left hand used to be. But his obsession with The Lone Ranger and the fact that he knows every episode by number? That’s just weird.

Weird changes to crazy when he explains the bizarre game he has planned — a game that will leave Robin dead and Uncle Conrad the sole heir to the Sherwood fortune. In order to escape his devious plan and its deadly consequences, the bayou may be Robin’s only chance. It’s a risky choice, but becoming alligator bait seems a lot less terrifying right now than what’s waiting for her in the cellar.

LOST IN THE BAYOU is a 46,000-word upper MG thriller. It comes complete with a younger brother, a rusty lunchbox, and little bag of blueberries. I would be happy to send the full manuscript for your consideration.

Thank you, and I look forward to your reply.

Sharing Your Work

Today I'm going to list a couple of sites that I've found very helpful and exciting. Both of them can provide you, the writer, with a good vehicle for sharing your work and getting feedback and encouragement.

The first site is called Authonomy. It's sponsored by Harper Collins. Here's how it works:

You upload your book, or however much of it you wish to upload. Readers (I'm guessing most of them are also writers) judge what you've submitted and either put it on their "bookshelf," add it to their "watchlist," or "back it." There's some type of mysterious mathematical process that takes place behind the scenes that moves your book ranking up or down based on the reader responses. If your submission does well, it will move to the "editor's desk" where Harper Collins agents take a look. I'm not familiar with the complex details of how things actually work, but it's been fun watching the progress of my beloved Star Wishes. In fact, I've enjoyed it so much that I just uploaded a few chapters from Cannibal Island. It's especially encouraging to read the comments from the reviewers.

The other site is called WeBook. It works a little differently, but it seems to be based on the same principle of popularity among readers. I'll mention first off that there's a $3.95 fee for submission at the WeBook site. If that's not a problem, the area you want to go to is called PageToFame. The first round involves uploading your hook (like your one-sentence pitch), plus the first 250 words (or less, depending on where 250 words ends up.) The whole idea is to hook the reader. (Remember our drawn out discussions on that in the past?)

Readers rate the submissions. It's random, and there's no way to send your friends to the site to give you good ratings. It's the luck of the draw as to what excerpts come up for rating. If you do well, you move to the second round, where you go from 250 words to submitting a five-page sample. The same rating process takes place and, eventually, you may be asked to submit the entire manuscript. Many agents (most of whom you're probably familiar with) have volunteered to work with writers on this site.

Check both sites out and see what you think. You might enjoy the excitement of watching your work move up in the rankings on both sites. As always, any comments are always welcome here. Feel free to chime in below.

Give up? No way.

Since last posting on this blog, I've received a nice email from Linda at The McVeigh Agency on Death in the Bayou. It wasn't quite right for them. That's fine, and I'm dealing with it. We've all learned that rejections are not personal attacks on our writing ability, and one size does not necessarily fit all. Besides, there are still a couple of partials and at least two fulls out to other agents. So, hope remains that one of those agents will find enough interest to offer representation. What about you? We'd love to hear your story and your current situation in the submission game.

I'm sure you're wondering what I plan on doing if the other submissions wind up with the same result? Funny you should ask. I've been thinking lately about turning my attention and efforts into an even better novel that's waiting to be written. It's getting anxious, actually. I may just let it sit on the back burner and simmer a bit for a few months. In November, Nanowrimo is coming up again. If you've never been involved with that program, you should check it out this year. Don't put it off any longer.

That's about it for this time. Leave a comment and tell us what's going on in your writing career. We'd love to hear about it.

On quitting

We've all been there. We write, we revise, we query, we get the email rejection. At some point we finally admit that we've been kidding ourselves and that we actually suck at writing. Even though we don't think that's true. We think about giving up. But, as writers, we can't. Because we love writing.

I wanted to pass along a GREAT POST from Jodie Meadows that says the whole thing a lot better than I can. Check it out.

Wow! It's been a while.

One of the main problems with alien abduction is that you lose all sense of time. Relatively speaking. My apologies for being gone so long, but there was a great deal the aliens wanted to show me. I'm not at liberty to discuss any of it now, but perhaps in the future I'll spill a few of the beans. Maybe I won't, though. Perhaps I'll save it for my next middle grade adventure. We'll see.

Seriously, though, in my trip through the universe, I've been searching for publishers who accept manuscripts directly from writers. Directly from writers translates to writers without an agent. I've discovered there are a lot of indie publishers who do this. Most of the ones I've found specialize in the romance genre, erotica, general fiction, and non-fiction. Here's a GREAT SITE, with bunches and bunches of indie publishers listed. It has info on the genres they publish as well as links to their websites. You may want to bookmark it.

In the children's and young adult arena, I've only found one so far: Milkweed Editions. So if juvenile fiction is your cuppa tea, you might wish to check them out. You can submit your manuscript online, quick and easy, with the form on their site. I actually decided to upload STAR WISHES to see what their response would be.

As always, if you find a publisher you're interested in contacting, be sure to check the Preditors and Editors site first just to check things out and make certain who you're dealing with. I'm confident there are readers out there who are aware of other indie publishers. If you're one of those readers, feel free to add any info in the comment section below. I'm sure other readers would be appreciative. So, comment away.

Young Writers – Listen up and pay attention!

Once upon a time there was a publishing company. A company that was somehow associated with the Wrigley fortune. A company known as Medallion Press.

From what I’ve read, they are somewhat new as publishing companies go (4 years), but appear to be reputable. Absolute Write has a long THREAD about them going back to July 2006. According to Victoria Strauss, the quality of their product is reportedly good, although their marketing activities are a bit weak. So, a little good, a little bad. But here's the newsworthy part of this story: Medallion has announced that they will be venturing into unfamiliar territory with the launch of a new line of fiction and nonfiction for young adult readers ages 13-18. The new line is called Ya-Ya.

The cleverness of the name becomes obvious when you understand what it is: The products of this new line are not only intended for teen readers — the titles in the imprint will actually be written by teen authors. Helen Rosburg, Medallion’s publisher, wants to provide a platform for young adults to tell their stories to others in their age range.

At first blush it sounds like a novel idea. But let's think about it. When you consider an 80,000-word manuscript written by an inexperienced writer, the potential for significant revisions and editing seem overwhelming. Naturally, it will probably be done by experienced editors — experienced adult editors. So what is Medallion going to end up with? I'm thinking the finished book isn't going to be significantly different from a novel written by an adult writer. Of course, they could always utilize teen editors to keep things fresh and true to the original feel without adult intervention. Provided they can find experienced teen editors. It should be interesting to see how this idea plays out and what they end up with.

But the plot thickens! (Don’t you love a thickening plot?) There’s more to it. Do you recall our recent posts regarding agents and the value they bring to the party? Well, here’s an opportunity for a neophyte writer to venture boldly into negotiations with the publisher and take their chances on their own. I'm not certain how that's going to work either if the writer is under legal age to sign a contract.

Medallion is currently accepting submissions for its new Ya-Ya line. The guidelines are posted on the company’s Website. No announcement has been made at this time regarding how many Ya-Ya titles are planned each year or when the first book will be released. I'd be willing to wager that the first book's release date will be after December 21, 2012. Medallion may be hoping that the Mayan calendar is correct and they won't have to bring this idea to its ultimate conclusion.

But the Mayas could be wrong. So, if you're a teen writer, check out the Medallion site. Polish up your query letter. And send your work to them (according to the instruction on their site) if you'd like it considered for their new Ya-Ya line. He who hesitates is lost. This could be your golden opportunity!

Book Publishing

Since we have been talking about the future of publishing and the always-available-option of self-publishing, I thought we might dig a little deeper into that subject and take a look at the journey your darling manuscript takes when you hand it over to a traditional publishing house. Although a lot of the steps involved in traditional publishing can be eliminated if you decide to self-publish, some of them need to be included in order to produce the highest quality product that will compete favorably with a traditionally printed book.

The processes and procedures listed below are merely an overview. Typically, there are additional steps and many more people involved (sometimes gumming up things more than helping), but the steps listed are closely related to similar steps required in self-publishing. So, let’s send your middle grade fiction manuscript off to the traditional publisher and follow it through the major production phases.

We’re striving for perfection, and long before the pages of your book are printed, there are several steps required to make certain it’s perfect in every way. During that metamorphosis from manuscript draft to print-ready copy, your work must undergo some severe scrutiny and modification before the ink hits the paper. Here’s a typical flow that your work might take before your words get into your reader’s hands.

Developmental Editing (Recommended for Self-publishers, too.)
You’ve given the publisher the best you have to offer. It’s been edited to death and read to pieces by your beta readers. Everything has been corrected and altered until it’s as perfect as you can make it. But it’s not ready to print yet. It’s now in the publisher’s control, and developmental editing is the first step. This involves making certain the concept and scope of the book are properly developed for the intended audience. It also involves checking the plotting and the way the elements of the book are arranged so the story unfolds for the reader in the right manner with no plot holes and no consistency and flow issues. Self-publishers who make use of this type of editing will hire freelance editors to help with the development of their project.

Copy Editing (Recommended for Self-publishers, too.)
When the developmental editor and the author have finished organizing the manuscript during the developmental editing phase, it will pass on to a copy editor. A copy editor is like a Buzz Lightyear version of an uber spellcheck program - with a turbocharger. This editor will peruse the manuscript, line by line and word by word. Nothing escapes their laser vision. Copy editors have an excellent familiarity with the English language, vocabulary, and usage. Their job is to examine the manuscript, paying particular attention to correcting any errors involving punctuation, capitalization, spelling, grammar, usage, consistency, style, formatting, ambiguity, and any other areas that require correcting. If your infinitives are split or your participles are dangling, they will catch it. They are the final word in accuracy and perfection. When the copy editor’s work is finished, the manuscript goes back to the author for clarification or approval, and the revisions are edited into the manuscript.

Production Editing
The manuscript’s next stop is the production editor. Typically performing the role of a project manager, this person schedules the project and tracks its progress. They typically assign the book designers, illustrators, proofreaders and other professionals needed to produce the book. This is the stage in which the overall format of the book is determined, along with the typography, folio style (page numbers), and any other repeating graphic elements. In addition, the production editor may be responsible for requesting estimates from printers or print brokers for the print production and bindery processes.

Proofreading (Recommended for Self-publishers, too.)
The last stage in the editorial process is proofreading. In addition to checking for typographical errors, the proofreaders are also watching for inconsistent line, word or page spacing, improper word breaks, widows and orphans, page numbers, and correct abbreviations and acronyms.

Print Ready
After the final proofing and correction of any errors, the book is ready to go to press.

Self-publishing
Obviously, if you decide to self-publish, you won’t need to utilize all of the human resources listed, although the services of a good developmental editor, copy editor and proofreader would be money well spent prior to publishing.

Regardless of the direction you take, be sure to investigate the legitimacy of any individual or organization you deal with in your journey toward publication. Here is a great site that provides a valuable service to writers in steering them away from those who might take advantage of them. WRITER BEWARE.