[My friend would] like to know the steps and how to self-publish.

It varies. There are a lot of ways to self-pub. The route most people seem to be taking is on their own through Kindle, Smashwords, Nook etc. But that is more for novels than it is for picture books. Also, it’s an ebook form, not hard copy. Right now there are picture books in ebook format, but I don’t think it’s caught on just yet. But she can also self-publish through a print on demand company or purchase book packaging options. The downfall is the upfront costs of some of these methods. Have her google print on demand publishers to start with.

She’s wondering if she would get more of a profit if she self-publishes instead of going through an agent.

It’s a crap shoot. It’s tough to find an agent for a picture book, usually you can deal directly with publishing houses. The good part of going this route is that a professional editor helps with the book, making the book more marketable and improves the writing quality of the piece. A book with many poor reviews doesn’t sell, so having a good editor is crucial. If she does her own artwork for the book (or has a friend do it) and the work is too amateur, the publishing house will provide a professional artist for her book. The cut will be 50/50, if I’m not mistaken. (Note: I do not advise anyone to find an artist for their picture book. Publishers have in-house artists. I’ve been told by an editor at a major publishing house that they prefer to have an unknown author work with a well-known artist or a well-known author with an unknown artist…although a well-known artist and well-known author is the biggest win-win for the house.)
On the other side of the coin, it takes two years or longer for a picture book to hit the bookstore shelves so you might think of it as self-publishing can put it out there sooner. Plus, picture books are hard to sell to traditional publishing houses. They have to be top of the game. If she found an agent for the work, she’d receive an advance most likely, but 15% of the sale goes to the agent. HOWEVER traditional publishing houses have a good reputation and she will have a tough time selling a self-pubbed book to a library, and bookstores generally won’t sell them at all (except as ebooks). So potential sales go down the drain.

She’s wondering how long the process takes to self-publish.

This also varies on if you use print on demand, publishing packages, or go the ebook route (which can be as short as a day).

She’d also like to know if it would be possible for her to get the rights to her story.

Again, this depends on what type of self-pubbing she goes with. Have her read her contract over carefully. A literary lawyer is a good idea, too. I believe with ebooks the rights belong to the author, but have her really look into that.

If you had guidelines about how to self-publish, I think it would be good for her so she can start the process and learn about it.

Okay, she should start by picking up books on self-publishing. I like The Indie Author Guide, although some of the information is already outdated what with the ebook boom. Still, it explains all the different ways she can go, plus how to design her cover and market the book.

My advice is three-fold. First, if she can attend a children’s writers conference it would be beneficial. They often have editors and agents to pitch work to, as well as something called “first pages” where editors critique the first page of authors’ work. Sometimes you can pay a second fee and have a private ten minute consultation with an author, agent or editor in your exact field. I’ve done this and it’s worth every penny spent. (Google children’s writers conferences and also have her check out SCBWI.org.) Also, if she isn’t in a picture book critique group, she needs to find one. Third, she should try traditional publishing houses and/or agents before going the self-pub route in my opinion. It’s the only way to get her work on a store bookshelf, plus if she’s worried about money and the value of her story, that’s the best way to go. Most authors make very little starting out no matter what, but a traditional publishing house can help build an author’s career.

There you have it. My advice. If anyone has any other advice to add or disagrees with me, I’d love to hear. Shoot me an email or comment on this post.

My story is titled “Hamster, Vietnam War and Me,” and let me give you a little insight into the story.

Years ago I attended a writer’s conference. During a writing workshop, an author had us visualize something true that happened to us as children, and sketch it onto paper. I was elated. After all, sometimes spontaneously writing a story can be challenging, especially when one is worried they’ll have to share said story. But drawing something? Ha! No problemo.  (Did I mention I draw very well?)

As I stared at my blank piece of paper, I realized I still had the same problem I had when sitting in front of the computer with a blank word doc. What story should I tell?

I finally decided to share a tale about the time I was awakened by a kitten tugging on my bedspread. I remember glancing out the window, thinking maybe it managed to squeeze in through the screen somehow  (despite living in a second floor apartment). Turned out that my parents’ friend Terry Robinson had showed up in the night, bringing a cat and kittens with him. Pets weren’t allowed in the apartment complex, so my sister and I went gaga over our furry visitors.

After sharing the story behind my picture, the author (and I apologize–I can’t remember her name) told me I should consider using my memory in a story.

Really? Hmm.

And so, the idea percolated in my head until I finally had the motivation to use it. The story plot itself is purely fiction, although the protagonist is named after my sister. This story is my shout-out to her. But the events in the story only graze across the surface of my own life. I changed the cats to hamsters, and hope I don’t offend cat lovers everywhere because I declined to place them in my story. But it’s for the best. Honestly.

Oh, and in case you’re wondering, you can read my story in the March/April 2012 issue of CICADA. I can’t wait!

First off, a pitiful excuse. When I started off looking for agents, I had no clue what I was doing. I thought I did. I thought, in fact, I knew everything. I’d read books, you know. But books don’t tell you everything. After all, those authors did things the correct way, thus the reason you are reading their book. So, in my defense, it wasn’t complete ignorance. It was simply learning the ropes. I figured I’d give you, my faithful reader, the tips I wished I’d been given.

When I began my search for an agent to represent my work, it was the days of snail-mail. Email queries were uncommon. I sent off five queries at a time. The rejections trickled in. Here’s what I did right: I looked up the agents in Jeff Herman’s Guide to Book Publishers, Editors, and Literary Agents. How I studied that book! I marked agents who might be a good fit with slices of Post-It notes. (Since those days, Post-It Brand notes invented it’s own Page Markers. I buy them buy the bunch.) Then I carefully selected whom to query. My queries themselves were all right. Nothing to rave about, mind you. But all right. So at least I’m not embarrassed about that.

When email queries became popular, I decided to try it. After all, what is better than saving myself a few bucks and getting my queries into agents’ hands? Only ice cream with marshmallow topping is better, I tell you. (Feel free to disagree. But I digress.) Unfortunately, what I didn’t realize is that response time is much quicker via email. I assumed I had a good month before I’d get a response. So I pitched a new novel, one I hadn’t edited yet. It was still in its infant stage, a whiny little draft.

I received rejections within the hour. Amazed, I wondered if perhaps I should get going on that editing. Sure enough, I received a response that day requesting the synopsis and first three chapters. A day after I sent that out, the agent requested the full manuscript.

Damnation.

A 12-hour marathon ensued. I enlisted the help of my mother, an English major. We exhausted ourselves getting that draft presentable. This brings me to Tip#1: Make sure your novel is complete, edits and all, before querying an agent.

Here is the other thing I did wrong. This is the same agent, by the way, so I’m not leaping into new territory here. I didn’t read the submission guidelines on-line that said they weren’t taking on unpublished authors. I got lucky this time. He requested my work anyway. Maybe he was feeling generous. Maybe he wasn’t overly busy at the time. But if you are going to query an agent, and I’ll make this Tip #2: Check out their Agency’s website and see if they are taking new, unpublished authors.

Here is the worst of this, and I’m loath to even mention it. Okay. Here it goes. When I queried this same agent, I made an assumption I should not have made. I used the title Ms. And it turned out this agent was male. It was a unisex name, but an uncommon one for males. So, yes, I wrote Dear Ms. Agent. And if that wasn’t bad enough, in the heading I wrote: Query for Ms. Agent.

This agent must have been used to that, though, because he kindly sent me two websites that showed photographs of him. It was a very subtle way of letting me know. I think my face turned seven shades of pink that day. Tip #3: Do a lot of research on the agent. Find pictures if you can. Make sure you have the gender correct. Don’t assume!

Okay, here is the other mistake I made…with the same agent. (Poor, poor guy.) He asked for a 30-day exclusive, and I happily gave it to him. Fool that I was, I couldn’t query anyone else. After all, this was an exclusive. Thirty days passed, and I heard nothing. Tip #4: No exclusives! At least not ones that last a month.

But even after the 30 days expired, I decided to be kind and wait still…without querying anyone else. When I finally emailed him to see what was going on, he wrote back he still hadn’t had time to read my manuscript. So (and this is so stupid I want to bury my head in my desk chair) I waited without querying anyone else! Dumb, dumb, dumb. Tip #5: Even if you are waiting for a response from your favorite agent in the whole wide world, keep querying!

It gets worse. So much worse.

This poor, sweet man, who didn’t take on unpublished authors and whom I’d mistaken for a female received a phone call from me. And I hung up. Yes. You heard me.

Okay, let me backtrack.

I’d been upset that I hadn’t heard back from this agent regarding my work and it had been months. When I attended a writing conference, paying extra moolah to have my next novel critiqued by a well-known author, I broke down and told her my tale (minus the embarrassing bits), and she recommended calling him. “Only because he requested the manuscript,” she said.

So I gathered up my nerve, found the phone number of his agency, and made the call. Except it didn’t sound like an agency office. It sounded like someone’s home answering machine, so I thought perhaps either I’d called his home instead, or called the wrong number. So I hung up and tried to decide what to do next.

I’d forgotten people had Caller ID.

So my phone rang, and when I picked it up, it was him. I felt a little faint, and everything I wanted to say evaporated out of my head, and I might have squeaked, I don’t know, but suddenly we were having a conversation and I felt weak and anxious yet thrilled at the same time…

Tip #6: Get Caller ID. And leave phone messages, even if you aren’t positive you’ve reached the right number. Although, honestly, you shouldn’t be calling an agent anyway unless they’ve asked you to do so. Really.

So this poor, lovely, dear man was very gracious. He said his readers had read my first three chapters and liked it. But my synopsis sucked. (“That’s me!” I quipped happily. “My synopses suck!” As if I was gleeful about this. Dumb, dumb, dumb.) Still, he was too busy to read it himself, but he would try. Yes, he would try.

Tip #7: Don’t act happy to hear that anything you write sucks.

Well, long story short, it never happened. I moved on. And wrote more novels. When I finally found the right agent for me, I had learned some valuable lessons.

So, faithful reader, please don’t make the mistakes I made. I’m not proud, and it rivals the embarrassment of the time I called the fire department thinking I had a gas leak, only to discover the odor emanated from my son’s diaper. I’m still trying to get the several shades of pink out of my cheeks from that mistake.

First of all, let me say that I support authors who self-publish. I purchase their work. I read it. I may not read the entire book, but I will read as much as I can before putting down the story forever. But also realize I’ve done this with traditionally published work as well. Sometimes a book that has garnered great reviews and has been greatly touted by its publisher does nothing but bore me. All art is subjective.

But I do tend to have a more difficult time with self-published work. Why? Because it usually needs a ton of work to get it to a level where I can thoroughly enjoy it. Much of what I’ve found has been simple grammatical errors. (For example–this is the wrong way to write a sentence: “I think it looks darling,” she smiled. You cannot smile a sentence. You can say a sentence, you can even exclaim these words, though I wouldn’t too often. But it should be written: “I think it looks darling.” She smiled.)

Disclaimer: I am not perfect. I will make glaring errors, probably even in my posts. Maybe even in this one. But I am not trying to sell my blog posts. I am trying to educate, not make a profit. So finding an editor to go over my blog would be counterproductive. But if you are selling your work, you should pay an editor to line edit it! Or at the very least, ask a friend who knows her grammar (such as an English teacher) to go through it with eagle eyes. I cannot stand reading work that throws me out of the story because the author cannot construct a proper sentence. So cease and desist already, folks! Get yourself an editor.

Next up on my list of dislikes: male characters that have a feminine POV because the woman writing the character does not understand how different men are from women. Men and women have biological and psychological differences, and if you don’t agree, reverse the genders in your story and tell me if it still works for you. Trust me, your reader will not find your characters believable if they aren’t developed enough in the proper gender.

Example:

Terry slipped an arm around Chris. “I think you know what I want, Babe.”

Chris chuckled. “Oh I know, all right. You want a piece of me. But you should’ve thought about that while we were waiting in line at Macy’s. Tapping your foot and complaining isn’t exactly a turn-on.”

Terry gave an impish grin. “You’re cute when you’re mad, you know.”

“You’re just plain mad,” Chris said, shoving Terry playfully.

Tell me, who was the female and who was the male? Reverse the roles to read it the other way. Does it sound  strange to you?  If so, then you can see how important gender roles are. Still, in so many self-published novels, the guys sound…well…like women. They think like women. Act like women. I’m not asking you to have your men be brutes. But they aren’t going to be sizing up people the same way. I guarantee you a man is not going to look at a women’s clothes and think: The yellow gabardine fabric of her jacket clashed with her silky crimson lipstick.Yet, that’s exactly the kind of thing I’ve been reading in the self-pubbed books. Most men do not know the name of fabrics, much less care about them. If you want to create a male character that does this, better give us good reason for why he’s knows about this type of thing. And why he would care.

These are just a few reasons why I have trouble getting through a self-published book. Again, it’s not every self-pubbed book. I’ve read many that are well-written, but it seems to be the majority. I worry that readers’ standards will drop if these points aren’t taken care of. So please, consider finding an editor. If not for my own reading pleasure, but for mankind’s.

I will still support your endeavors. But I won’t pick up your second book if I couldn’t get through the first.

If there’s a better way to be humbled, I don’t know what it is.

Anyhow, it was a middle grade novel featuring two eleven-year-old girls and right away he let me know that these girls sounded exactly the same…and not only that, they didn’t sound like children.

My jaw thudded to my lap. Didn’t sound like children? Didn’t have unique voices? Yikes!

It forever changed the way I wrote my books. Could I have learned this a different way, maybe by reading how-to-write-4-kids books or maybe in critique groups with my peers? Maybe. But coming from  a respected agent with his thumb on the pulse of publishing, his words carried heavy weight.

I admit it depressed me at first. Not because I began to question my skills as a writer…I was well aware of being a work in progress. But because I’d spent so long perfecting the manuscript, and now I had to revise the Whole. Entire. Thing.

Blah.

After the critique, the agent asked if I had any other novels I was working on. I admitted I’d written five, but hadn’t tried to get them published. It was his turn to drop his jaw. “Why not?” he asked.

Now, I might have been naive, but I wasn’t clueless. I knew each of those novels needed work. A lot of work. “They’re just practice,” I admitted. And it was true. I enjoyed writing each one of them. Spent many anti-social hours editing them. But I knew they weren’t “there” yet, and I wasn’t going to waste my time and an agent’s time sharing them.

And that is why I highly recommend attending a writer’s conference and forking over the extra $30-$50 to have an editor, author, or agent give feedback on your writing. You can ask him or her questions in the allotted time you’re given (generally 10-20 minutes). You can discuss your other projects. You can address problems your having with your work. Take advantage of this time with a knowledgeable professional. It is worth every dime, I assure you.

If you come out of the meeting feeling frustrated or upset, consider what you have learned at the meeting. Did you not agree with the feedback? Sleep on it for a few nights. Research the advice the agent/editor/author gave you. If they felt your voice was weak, start googling “voice.” (And take a look at what I’ve had to say about it here on this blog.) If they said there wasn’t enough conflict, start sifting through similar books in the same genre to find how the author handled their story’s conflict.  In other words: be proactive. Doing something productive will make you feel better. And you just may find your mentor was correct…at least a smidgeon.

If you come out of the meeting feeling motivated, as I did, pat yourself on the back and then start working on finding how to fix the problems in your novel.

I put that novel away and started working on others that day, but I have taken the agent’s advice to heart, and my work since then has been much stronger. The money I spent? Worth it. You may wish to take a chance and do the same. You may want to bring some tape to hold your jaw in place, though.

So what do we need publishing houses for?

I know people fed up with traditional presses, citing receiving many rejections over what they deem is quality writing, or admonishing the long period of waiting between acceptance and getting their books on the bookshelf. Plus I’ve heard grumbling over agent and publishing fees that “might have” been theirs had they avoided going the long route of submitting. After all, they argue, we’re doing all the marketing ourselves anyway.

So what is a writer to do?

Here’s my take. E-publishing is definitely a valid way to go. But it’s similar to an agent or editor slush pile. Someone has to find it to read it, and if it isn’t well done, the reader will put down the book and not bother reading anything else you write. Ever. (Although an agent or editor might give you a second chance someday.)

In all honesty, too many e-book writers put out material that isn’t very good.  Traditional publishing houses have knowledgeable editors. Editors that can turn a good book into a great book. If you have a long way to go with writing, they will turn you down. This may mean you aren’t ready to share your work with the world yet. It could be a pretty decent benchmark of where you stand as a writer.

But they also may turn you down if they feel you won’t make them enough money. After all, publishing is a business. Physical books cost money to make. And your editor needs to be paid for his or her time and service.

So it may have nothing to do with skill as much as marketability. This is why I’m happy e-books are out there and anyone can publish through them. But this may change publishing as we know it.

As readers, we’ll have to muddle through the bad writing to find the well done books. Eventually people may become wary of self-published work and search for books published by established, well-known imprints.

Or, readers may tolerate poor writing. Perhaps not even realize the craftsmanship is missing. Will this “dumb down” America? Will our standards of literature change?

Only time will tell. But until then, I applaud the efforts of those e-publishing, but respect those sticking to traditional publishing as well.

Yes, you heard me correctly. Sure, you may be thrilled with a sentence you’ve written. It has pizazz! It has symbolism! It has the mark of a creative mind!

But then someone points out that it has no place in the storyline.

It slowly dawns on you (and by “slowly” I mean it may take a few days to settle in) that your critiquer is correct. Although it’s an awesome sentence–perhaps the best you’ve ever written–it doesn’t add to the story. In fact, it may even take the reader out of the story, it’s so profound.

Delete sentence. And sob.

But first? Copy and paste it into your “word dump” file. You do have one, don’t you? The place where you keep all those phrases that you love but can’t keep? You know, those babies? Because good writers don’t really kill their babies. No. They send them to a foster home in the hopes someday they’ll be adopted.

In the meantime, you will return to your work, cutting and pluming as if the piece is an unruly bush that needs trimming before the neighbor’s complain. Yes, there are mixed metaphors in my post. Another problem for writers.

This is why I am going to start up a new blog for those desperate to understand how to revise and trim. I call it “Revision 411,” and the link is here: http://revision411.wordpress.com/

I will have it up and running soon.

Help is here. And hopefully all your babies will be adopted soon.

This was the case today. I’m enjoying The Writer’s Chronicle (September 2011 issue), the first issue I’ve ever read.  Jona Colson wrote an interview with Mark Doty. If you’ve never heard of Mak Doty, you’re not alone. I don’t read much poetry, and he’s a poet. But he’s also written memoirs and non-fiction essays. Basically, from what I gathered between the interview and looking up his work on Amazon.com, he’s a literary super-genius.

Gotta love him.

What really opened my eyes in the interview,  was the question Colson posed about sentimental writing. Colson wanted to know how a writer can avoid it. Doty began his answer with his definition of sentimental writing, that it’s when “…the writer feels more than the reader does” (p. 28). When the writer becomes wrapped up in his own emotion, he can’t find the right way to express himself. (I’m using “him” to refer to the writer, but obviously I could just as easily be using “her.” Do not flog me for using the masculine pronoun!)

I understand this. I recall several times in writing groups when a writer reads his work and halts because his voice breaks. He struggles with his story, and the audience aches for him, this emotion wrung forth from reliving his words. But otherwise we, the audience, remain untouched. We don’t feel  emotion from his prose, only his own response to his writing. In fact, had he read it out loud without the cracking voice, the stilted narrative, we would not feel anything at all from the words.

Doty explains that we need to detach ourselves from our work. Think about the words, the phrases. I’d like to add that if there are any cliches written into the piece at all, we won’t be touched.  Cliches don’t work because they don’t hold meaning to us anymore. If you are going for a vein, you must use a sharper knife. Dull ones won’t make a clear enough cut.

Doty goes on to explain that there is a second type of sentimental writing. The “sweetened version of reality” (p. 29). We give a piece of ourselves, but it’s not deepened. Not enriched. Like those love poems that don’t go beyond the true emotion. You know what I mean. “I love you, your golden hair, your sparkling smile, the way you look at me.” May be true in one sense, but what about probing deeper? “My heart wraps around you like a vine, struggling, choking, the need pure but physical.” Okay, you can tell I’m no poet, but see the difference? Who is the narrator? What does he truly feel? How is the love? One-sided? Which example shows that more clearly?

Consider you own work. Is there a way to express emotion deeper? Make it resonate for the reader? If you blubber when reading it, have someone else read it. Watch the audiences’ reactions. If they’re shedding tears, you may have gotten through. But if they stare out dully, it’s time to go back and study how to make the piece stronger.

This interview was a great article. I suggest you take a look at it if you haven’t already. You may also wish to take a look at Doty’s work. Click on this link to see what he’s written:

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=ntt_athr_dp_sr_pop_1?_encoding=UTF8&sort=relevancerank&search-alias=books&field-author=Mark%20Doty

The instructor is super-energetic. Obviously of Mensa intelligence. Wants us all to *gulp* participate in class. This is a critical thinking class, which appears to mean I must spend more time analyzing literature than taking care of my young. I guess we’ll be reading a different book every week. But–yay!–one will be The Hunger Games. Which, by the way, I’m 3/4 of the way through the last book and think the first one is better than books two and three.

I am scared to death of this class, but I assume that’s a good thing. I haven’t been challenged like this in a long time. Maybe it will encourage me to break out of my safe little box and start writing something of great importance.

Or maybe I’ll run screaming from the classroom in frustration.

It could go either way.