My blog has moved!

My apologies if you have been looking for me or my posts here.

I guess my Blogger blog feels like an abandoned puppy, but I never meant it that way! 

Anyway, some months ago I moved my blog so I can host it myself instead of relying on Blogger. To read any further posts by me, go to:

http://www.honeylocustpress.com/serendipity/

No time to read the guidelines?

As the editor of an ezine that publishes crime fiction, as well as the owner of a small-press publishing company, I'm constantly getting queries and submissions from people who would like to have their story or book published.

Of course, I WANT submissions!  I'm a publisher, after all.  There have been a couple of occasions when submissions were thin on the ground, and I despaired of having enough stories for an issue of the ezine.

But recently I received an email submission for the ezine from someone and I was puzzled.  The email had two flash pieces in it, both in a single attached document.  The writer had not included in the email:

• a cover note of any kind
• the author's name
• the titles of the story
• any prior publishing credits
• any idea of what the stories were about
• an indication of which issue the stories were for (as each issue is themed, I need to know this as it is not always obvious and it helps me to read with an eye toward the theme)

ALL those things are stated clearly in the Submission Guidelines, as being required for a submission. I read the stories anyway, as they were flash and therefore short.  They had absolutely no relevance to my ezine at all, much less to any theme.

So, I wrote back to the individual about the stories.  In my email, I asked if the writer had read the guidelines as to how to submit and what was required in the submission.  I also had the temerity to ask him if he had even read one issue of the ezine, to see what the contents are like.

Here is his unedited response: 

"Thanks for looking Tony, this is my first adventure into the world of flash fiction and such and I'm getting battered around a bit. It seems editors in fiction are a different breed. I run 4 publisher sites so I know some of what you go through. But working full time self employed, writing, publishing others doesn't allow for a word to word reading of all guidelines-if I did-I'd go broke since seldom do writers get paid."

Now, this individual claims to run four "publisher sites." What that means, I'm not sure, unless he has some sort of business where he publishes work for others, apparently non-fiction since we fiction editors "are a different breed." I wrote non-fiction for years, and you know, non-fiction editors want you to follow the guidelines, too. In fact, most are notably pickier than fiction editors!

But he doesn't want to read the guidelines and submit according to them. If he didn't have time to read the guidelines, I can almost guarantee that he didn't read any of the sample copies that are available. Of course, without reading the guidelines, his statement about writers seldom getting paid is sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy, isn't it?  I mean, if you submit and don't follow the guidelines, you probably won't get accepted and therefore won't get paid.

What makes people think that they can throw work out there into the world of editors, willy-nilly and without paying attention to guidelines, and survive as a writer? Sure, someone will accept the work on occasion, but isn't it much more intelligent and efficient to target things appropriately? Sure, you can cast your bread upon the waters. But you better be willing to waste a lot of loaves if you do it that way.

Honestly, it just seems stupid to do things the way this person did. If you disagree, please let me know! I'd love to hear about it.

Paying to Be (not See) the Show

On an online discussion group I frequent, there has been some discussion about the relative value (to authors) of attending conferences and conventions. I like them, and I attend them when I can, but the cost of transportation,and the rising cost of attendance at such events has greatly curtailed my attendance for the near future.

One person in the group, who is both an author and a minister, said he was disturbed by the idea of being invited to be a presenter or on a panel at such a gathering, and then being told, "Oh, by the way, you have to pay registration just like everyone else." He compared it to being a visiting or stand-in minister at another church, and not being reimbursed for his expenses, or perhaps even being asked to pay to be there.

In my mind, it's a reasonable statement and I hear you, Reverend! 

I was invited to moderate a panel at a particular crime fiction con last year and was excited about it even though it was going to cost me airfare, hotel and incidentals. I was discussing this with someone else who had attended, and presented, at that conference before, and she asked me about my registration fee. I was surprised, as I thought, as a part of the "attractions" as it were, I wouldn't need to pay a registration fee.  SURPRISE! I was wrong.

I opted not to moderate that panel nor to attend the con.  The registration would have added about $150 to my cost of attendance, but that was not really the point. In large part it was the idea that I had not been told up front that I had to pay registration, even though I was going to be a presenter.  The person to whom I spoke at the con (the organizer) was surprised at my reaction, as though that was the way it is all over.

It's NOT that way all over, and it shouldn't be that way at any con that is well established.  Sure, I understand small cons can't afford to pay the expenses of their presenters or panelists, nor sometimes even their registration fees. (Though why this should be a problem, I'm not sure. A registration fee at a small con usually doesn't purchase any tangibles, so there is no loss as far as I can see.) But large cons such as BoucherCon or LCC are large enough, and cost enough, that they should be able to pay their presenters' registration fees, if not also an honorarium of some sort.  If they can't, maybe they should reexamine whether or not they are popular enough to even continue.

Yes, go ahead and splutter your outrage.  It's alright with me.  It's amazing how often I hear the phrase, "The money must always flow TO the writer," as though it were directly from some sacred tome, yet these cons (who usually disdainfully sneer at authors who stoop to self- or subsidy publish because of the direction of cash flow), don't see it that way when the money is flowing FROM them and TO the writers who are part of the attraction of the con in the first place.

I mean, think about it: if it's a fan convention, the reason the fans are there is to meet, hear, schmooze with and otherwise interact with authors.  If there were no authors present, there would be no fans attending.

If it's a writer's conference, the attendees are there to learn something FROM the authors, editors and agents who are there presenting and on panels.  Again, if those presenters weren't there, the attendees would not swarm the place simply because it's being held in a nice hotel.

In either case, the attraction is primarily because of the presenters.  Why, then, should they have to pay for the privilege of attracting attendees to pay to hear and meet them?  I'm really puzzled by the economics of this!

I haven't seen any sort of event where, with a substantial audience, the entertainers pay to be part of the show (well, unless they have a chance at winning a sizable jackpot, as in a rodeo!)

Someone objected to my statements by saying that "No cons of any kind pay registration fees or expenses for presenters!"

I beg to differ—in the last couple of years I have presented at seven different cons.  Three were for fans, and in no case did I have to pay a registration fee.  Instead, I received free registration and free meals during my attendance.  I had to pay my own transportation  costs, but at least part of the cost was covered.

Four of them were cons for writers, and at two (within driving distance) I had my parking fees reimbursed and did not have to pay registration.  The other two paid my registration, provided me with a nice hotel room and meals and paid a nice stipend to pay for transportation and incidentals.

So, I KNOW it happens.  And it's funny that it doesn't happen with mystery cons, because when I was in a different line of work (computer software) I attended cons quite often, both as an ordinary attendee and as a speaker/presenter.  NEVER when I was a presenter or speaker did I have to pay my registration fee, and most of the time I had my transportation covered.  I certainly don't expect all this generosity from every writing con (for writers or fans) but I don't expect the other extreme, either.

What do you think? Is the laborer worthy of his (or her) hire?

The Ethics and Morality of Writing About Evil

On another list to which I belong, we have been having a rather heated debate about the way some crime fiction has evolved over the last few years.  One person, Sandra Parshall, noted that she felt that fiction she identified as "torture porn" had taken over a segment of the crime fiction genre.  There were some people who agreed with her, and some who vigorously denied this statement.  

But the discussion 

went from there to the idea of censorship, 

and then to the desirability of writing sympathetically about evil characters, so they come across as evil good guys.  One of the examples that was batted back and forth was the book about the character Dexter, as in Darkly Dreaming Dexter.

My take on it?  I am not for censorship, within reason.  I believe that the market will naturally select those books that are written about things people want to read about, and the others will fall by the wayside.

HOWEVER... just because one has the legal right to write about something, doesn't mean it's a good thing to do so.  Let's explore that.

If you don't know who Dexter is, here's a capsule summary: Dexter is a sociopathic individual, a vivisectionist whose father was a policeman.  His father, recognizing his son's tendencies, guided him into a position where his natural proclivities about blood could be of use (as a blood spatter tech in a crime lab).  Dexter also, however, sees that a lot of bad guys get off on technicalities and walk, so he carefully stalks these people and kills them by dissecting them... while they are alive.

Now, granted, we want Justice to be done.  And we also know that the Law and Justice are sometimes diametrically opposed.  But is it good for a character in a book or television show to be portrayed sympathetically when he (or she) is patently Doing Evil in the pursuit of Doing Good?  And to take it further, is it a good thing to portray torture graphically in a book or show, simply because that torture is supposed to balance the scales of justice?

Why is the torture, maiming and killing of people for the pleasure of an individual considered to be worth writing about with a positive slant?  And make no mistake—Dexter enjoys his work.  He rhapsodizes, for example, over finding a severed arm at a murder site, where there is not one trace of blood.  You can almost see him drooling, panting with jealousy and admiration for the criminal's ability to work so cleanly.

Let me ask you this: what if, instead of a sociopathic vivisectionist, this person were a violently rabid racist who hates Jews?  Would we still paint him so sympathetically when he hunts down a Jewish criminal who happened to slip through the net of the law, and tortures him or her to death?  Or suppose he were homophobic instead of a racist... could we empathize with him then?

The point I'm trying to make is, we have drawn some sort of imaginary and arbitrary line that says "This heinous behavior is acceptable, even admirable," but I doubt we would accept it if that same character crossed the PC (political correctness) boundary.

I was a drug and alcohol counselor for a while, and I know how cocaine acts on the brain.  It pushed the user up to a new level of high by creating artificial levels of endorphins.  But the problem is, when the user comes down from that high, their normal endorphin threshold has been raised and what was a high before is now closer to normal.  It takes more endorphins to cross that line into actual enjoyment, for the user to feel "normal" so the user takes more cocaine the next time, and the cycle repeats.  After a while, the usual levels of endorphins created by something like a beautiful sunset, or even sex, don't cut it any more.

I have a feeling it's becoming that way for many people with violence, torture and terror in literature.  Readers have become so accustomed to these things by constantly increasing levels of exposure, that it takes more and more to raise even a normal level of adrenaline and horripilation... just like the cocaine addict.

For my part, I feel like it's socially immoral and irresponsible to contribute to that problem.  I am not asking for censorship by any central authority.  But it would be good to see more responsible writing instead of pandering to the baser instincts, and more talented writing instead of titillation.

What do you think? 

Amazon and ethics

Well, if you are a writer, a publisher or just someone who keeps up with the news in the bookselling world, you know about all the brouhaha that has arisen about Amazon's decision to put the thumbscrews to publishers who use POD (print-on-demand) technology.

To use a well-worn expression, a lot of people are up in arms.  People are shouting, "Monopoly! Restraint of trade!" and marching around Amazon blowing trumpets, waiting for the walls to fall down.  Sad to say, I don't think it's going to happen.

I'm not a lawyer, and I don't play one on TV, although I have played a judge on the stage.  But to me, there is no evidence that Amazon has created a monopoly--after all, there still are other online booksellers such as Barnes and Noble or Powell's.  And as to restraint of trade--well, they don't say you can't sell on Amazon, but rather that you must follow their particular rules in order to have the most-desired selling method.  Even if you don't follow those rules, your books will still appear if carried by third-party sellers.  It all appears to this non-lawyer that what they are doing is perfectly legal.

Moral?  Ethical?  

The problem is, many things that are absolutely, 100% legal are immoral or unethical.  For example, it's legal to arrest a handicapped woman who parks in a handicapped space, with a handicapped sticker on her car... because it's a RESERVED handicapped space.   Or as a security guard in a Target store, you can legally be fired because you quietly and without fuss stop a minor from stealing liquor from the store.

That being said, Amazon has a legal right to run it's business as it sees fit, within reason.  It's the same as with Microsoft (who, we all know, has fought their own battles regarding market share and unfair practices.)  Of course, now I own two Macs instead of two Windows machines, and get along just fine, thanks!

I am not a pundit of the publishing industry.  But to me, there's something inherently wrong in using your muscle to squeeze more money out of companies and individuals, just because you can.  It's not about business--it's about what is right, and what is wrong. 

Just be honest, Mr. Bezos: it's all about the money and the control.  This way, you can either make money twice on a book if it's printed through BookSurge (once for printing and once for selling it), or you can force publishers to kowtow to you and give you a bigger discount than the brick-and-mortar stores will get, so you can undersell them and put more of them out of business. 

My father, a man I greatly respect and admire, said to me once, "I'd rather an honest thief held a gun to my head and took my wallet, than someone steal from me by manipulating the rules.  At least then it's all out in the open."

Like I said, it's probably legal.  The decision on that has yet to be made.  My opinion?  It's unethical, and bad business in the long run.  But what do I know?  

Rain again

The last time I posted, I talked about rain.  I also talked about how we (or rather our goats) were expecting a kid.  Well, it has been raining again, and we also have that kid now!

Sadie was born on February 29, 2008.  (It rained that day here, too.)  Here's a picture of her not long after she was born.

She's growing quickly and is about three times that size now.

It rained last night, too, and stormed pretty heavily.  But that didn't stop people from coming out to see, hear and meet the delightful Susan Gregg Gilmore, author of LOOKING FOR SALVATION AT THE DAIRY QUEEN.  Susan and her husband were guests at the Harris Arts Center in nearby Calhoun, GA.  Susan told us all about her journey to being an author, and how LOOKING FOR SALVATION came to be born. She also gave a brief reading, answered questions and signed copies of her book for her fans. I bought a copy and although I haven't had time to dig too deeply in, I'm charmed by what I've read thus far.

 

Here is a picture of Susan with Gray Bridges, the Program Coordinator at the Harris Arts Center.  (Gray is the one wearing glasses.) 

Rain, Rain...

Yeah,  I know, I know... it's been a while.

It's raining here as I type.  In fact, after last year's drought, this has been an amazingly damp winter.  I'm not complaining, mind!  I'm glad of it.  Last year's drought contributed to the burnout of our well pump and therefore to the unplanned expenditure of a couple thousand bucks.  But I digress.

Actually, I like rain.  Rain somehow seems to make me more creative.  As I sit and listen to the rain falling on the roof, beating on the window, and pattering on the deck, it relaxes me.  And it changes enough not to become really monotonous--like a constantly varying source of white noise.  

While I sat here this morning, I've gotten three new ideas for stories and made a few notes on each one.  I've worked on a video teaser for a client.  And, I haven't had to beat my Muse with a club to make it happen.  (Good thing, too, because sometimes she takes it away from me and returns the favor.)

On the home agricultural front, our Boer doe, Hazel, is quite pregnant.  It seems Teddy, the buck, managed to convince her of his good intentions and, well, the natural thing occurred. We're expecting her to deliver her kid(s) in late February or early March.  It's a very cool thing, and I'm only hoping that Lara will not be at work when it happens.  After all, she's the nurse, I'm not.  But if I'm here on my own, I'll do the best I can.  We have a "kidding kit" all prepared and in a safe, easily accessible place.

Yes,  I do talk about the mundane, non-writerly things here.  But you see, it's the mundane parts of life that give ideas for stories.  The truth is, if a novel only includes the exciting bits of a protagonist's life, I find it boring.  Give me some of his or her day-to-day events.  Tell me what he had for breakfast before going out and getting shot at.  Tell me the name of her hairdresser and beauty salon, the one she's walking out of as she witnesses a hit-and-run accident.  Make the life of the character real, so I can connect better with him or her.  

Maybe that's why I have a hard time connecting with so many of the shows on TV lately.  I simply can't imagine being that person... I can't put myself into his or her shoes, perhaps because I have no idea what sort of shoes he or she actually wears.

Make some small helpings of real life part of the meal that is your book.  It will make it all the more appetizing for the reader.

Another market sadly passes...

I know it's been a while since I've posted here. I've been focused on a couple of projects, as well as posting a lot on my OTHER blog, Pressed for Answers.

But I wanted to address the recent demise of a paying market, Great Mystery and Suspense. An email announcing the end of publication of GM&S magazine was recently sent out by its publisher, Vicki Lipira. I've spoken with Vicki several times about her magazine, and in fact have had two stories published in her quarterly, small-format mag.

Vicki and her husband, Mike, had a dream of a print magazine for mystery and suspense fiction, but with a difference: "wholesome" stories, with no overt sex, no bad language, no unnecessary blood and gore. It's an unusual way of looking at stories which may contain murder, violence, theft, drugs and other things normally considered to be unwholesome. But I understood, as I have tried to establish similar standards for my own online 'zine, Crime and Suspense.

The authors published in the pages of GM&S were a diverse lot: myself, B J Bourg, Barry Baldwin, Patricia Terrell, Simon Wood, Stephen D. Rogers, Tom Purcell, and many others. She also ran non-fiction articles such as an interview with Carol Higgins Clark by Charlotte Adelsperger, and the occasional poem. In short, even though she published many authors whose names may be new or unknown to you, Vicki also published many better-known and very experienced authors. The stories ran the gamut from traditional and PI mysteries to cozies to supernatural/crime crossover stories. You could always find something to enjoy in an issue of Great Mystery and Suspense.

But having a dream doesn't always mean it will come true. Reality intrudes, sometimes all too harshly. Vicki and her husband, Mike, were more than generous when paying authors for their work. Authors were paid $50 for longer pieces, $25 for shorter ones. The zine was 64 pages plus a cover, so that meant 11 or 12 pieces per issue, probably averaging around $475 paid out to authors, per issue.

They were generous to others, too. GM&S ran public-service advertisements for missing children. The last page was always a list of links to other places of interest to crime fiction readers, including competing ezines, publishers, organizations, etc. My ezine was listed there, as was my publishing house, and Vicki never asked us for a dime. She did it out of courtesy and a desire to help fellow authors and publishers.

But there were no paying ads in the magazine that I ever saw, even though her rates were very reasonable. The truth is, I was just about to put in an advertisement when Vicki contacted me about the possibility of the ezine shutting down in the near future. But "just about to" from one advertiser is not going to save the boat from sinking.

The proliferation of "free" content on so many online sites has made it difficult for those who charge a fee to make a go of it. We have become so accustomed to so many free things (freeware, free information, free sites, free this and that) that we often balk at paying, even when the price is reasonable and the product is desirable. "I can get that same sort of thing for free at [you fill in the blank here.]" I think it's an American thing that is growing, perhaps, along with the idea of super-sizing everything for a few pennies more.

Just a couple of weeks ago I was signing books at the Fall Festival in Calhoun, Georgia, and a couple of ladies came up to my table to look at my books. They looked at the front covers, read the back cover, flipped through the books and seemed on the verge of buying. One of them asked me "How much are your books?" The books they were looking at were $8.95 each, perfect-bound books, and I told them the price.

One of the women looked scandalized and put the book down with a decided thud. "I can get a big, thick book for that much!" she said. (My books were about 200 pages and 230 pages, respectively.)

I just smiled and bit my tongue, thinking at the same time, "Yes, and you can get a FREE copy of the telephone directory, which is MUCH thicker, but you wouldn't enjoy reading it."

But back to the demise of Great Mystery and Suspense... Those of you who only borrow magazines from others or read them in the library, please consider: that magazine is not going to stay in existence without subscribers or buyers.

I'm not saying that subscribers pay for the production of the magazine. Far from it: a mag like Great Mystery and Suspense costs about $2.25 to print and $1.60 send out, and it was only $25 to subscribe for the four quarterly issues, including postage. When you consider that many large-format magazines are published monthly, in full-color, and only charge $22 per year for subscribers, you might wonder about that. But I have a big listing of magazine markets in front of me, and it tells a lot about each mag. Some are not honest enough to release their advertising percentages, but here are some that do: Field and Stream: 112 pages, 32% advertising; Fate: 128 pages, 15% advertising; Brides: 186 pages, 50% advertising; Playgirl: 96 pages, 30% advertising.

The more advertisers a magazine is able to attract, the more cheaply they can sell their subscriptions. They know that it's not subscribers who pay the bills--it's the ads. But lest I be misunderstood, though subscribers themselves are not the life-or-death of a magazine, circulation IS! For example, Inside Kung Fu (130 pages, 65% advertising!!) has a subscription base that is only 15% of its total circulation of 110,000! The rest are sold through newsstands and bookstores. But it IS circulation--110,000 printed, published copies, placed out there and available for the public to peruse and purchase. That circulation figure is what impresses advertisers, and why Inside Kung Fu is able to sell so much advertising space, even with a small subscription base. They probably don't really care very much how many of their copies in bookstores actually get sold, because as long as they can report that big circulation number, they can sell a lot of ad space, and that's what pays the bills.

A small, relatively-new magazine like GM&S doesn't have as much of a chance of selling ad space. After all, nobody much knows about them. They're an unknown quantity. I believe GM&S was only carried in one or two bookstores, so that part of the circulation figure was depressed, and I'm willing to bet that they had 100 subscribers or less--not because they were not a good magazine (because they WERE) but because (1) people had not heard of them and (2) there are so many sources of "free" crime, suspense and mystery stories on the 'Net, "why pay for them?" It's the same old saw that Mom's used to tell their daughters in the Fifties: "Honey, why would he buy the cow when he can get the milk for free?"

Let's put the numbers together for a moment:

• Four issues a year
• Average of $475 per issue for stories, so $1900 a year to authors
• Printing costs for 200 copies per issue (to fulfill 100 subscribers and have some for one-off sales): minimum of $450 per issue, so that's another $1800 annually
• Cost of sending out 100 copies (postage and such) $160 per quarter, so that's $640 annually

That adds up to about $4340 per year in expenses. It doesn't include the cost of the website, hosting, etc., which has to happen.

• Income from subscriptions: $2600
• Income from advertisers: $0 (that I could see)
• Net income from another fifty copies of each issue sold as one-offs:$107.50 per quarter, or $430 per year

All that adds up to $3030 annual revenue. We're still in the red by over $1,300 annually, and that doesn't include the website and other operating expenses (phone, electricity, etc.) which would take us even deeper into the hole. Even if we only printed 100 copies to fulfill the subscribers' needs, it would reduce the expenses by $900 a year... but also reduce the income by $430 a year, so that's a net gain of only $470.

Now, don't get the idea that I'm criticizing Vicki and Mike for what they tried to do. They were troopers for sticking it out as long as they did, in my estimation. The truth is, though, as a new venue with very few people who knew about them and a low circulation, it was very hard to convince advertisers to pay for space. And Vicki was so generous with payments to authors from the outset that the little bit of money coming in from magazine sales just bled away.

In retrospect, they might have done better to

• pay lower fees to authors for the first year
  
• try to line up advertisers from day one
• work on getting their mag into places like coffee shops and bookstores as well as relying on subscriptions, even if they didn't make any money on the retail sales, because it would all count as circulation.

But it's easy to sit to one side and observe like I'm doing here. I don't disagree with their decision to stop publishing. I think they did the best thing they could do, under the circumstances. I think they have a strong grasp of the First Law of Holes: When you find yourself in a hole, stop digging!

But I'm going to miss Great Mystery and Suspense.

Writing creatively--a job?

This posting will probably annoy a few authors. That's OK. I've never been known for my tact. And don't forget that I'm an author, too.

There have been a few discussions I've seen lately in different venues, both in print and online, that have me scratching my head. While writing of fiction may be an author's livelihood, it is not in any way comparable to a "job."

We (authors) all like to think of writing as a creative endeavor, as artistic as singing or painting or acting... yet when it comes right down to it, we often seem to wish to deny the most universal rule of artistic endeavors: the pay is usually slim, irregular and slow to arrive.

I hear authors who say, "My work is not for free! I don't write anything for anyone unless I get paid. The money must flow TO the writer, not away."

Hogwash.

I've never met a musician who was paid for every gig they performed, especially when they were in the early stages of their careers. They play for free, for food, for the beer... in other words, just to get their music out in front of people.

Actors almost invariably start out doing unpaid amateur theatrical work--little theater, community playhouses, etc. Painters usually have to beg for a place to hang their work in the beginning so they have a chance to get noticed and possibly get commissioned to do a work, or sell a piece of their work. The same goes for sculptors, weavers, and other artists. If they're good enough, and lucky enough, and in the right places at the right times--they eventually achieve some measure of success. What is it about writers that makes us think we have a RIGHT to be paid for everything we manage to publish, or to think we have a RIGHT to a regular income?

Sure, we do have to turn a business-like eye on things and count the cost of promotion, of doing business. It only makes sense. The publisher and bookseller must do the same thing, unfortunately, and that is often where the conflict comes into play. But to think that we as writers of stories deserve a regular paycheck of some sort, or have a right to be paid for our work, is ludicrous. Gauguin didn't have a right to be paid for his paintings, nor did Van Gogh. No artist has a right to be paid for his or her work unless it is work done for hire. Michelangelo was paid for his work in the Sistine Chapel because it was done on commission for Pope Julius II, and even then they argued about it.

It is impossible to draw an equivalency comparison between what an author does and what a textile worker does, or a plumber, printer or even a bookstore clerk. These people are working at the behest of and for the convenience of others, producing a product or providing a service for which there is a demand. As writers, we create something which WE feel a need to create. We pour ourselves into it and then try to find someone else who will value it at least as much as we do. Sometimes that doesn't happen. So, we give up or we rewrite it or we start a new story... but the process is repetitive: we still have to find someone else who wants out story and will (we hope!) pay us for it and publish it.

Brutal honesty time here: If you want a regular paycheck for your work, get out of writing unless you want to do work for hire. If you feel you must be a writer, then be a technical writer, copywriter or journalist, and write what someone else tells you to write so you can be paid a regular wage.

But if you want to be an author of creative works, free to write what you wish when you wish, then stop griping about how much money you make and about how much it costs you to make the money you DO make. You chose to be a writer. You chose to abandon sensible ways of making a living such as being a carpenter, firefighter or test pilot.

Understand: I'm not saying that we shouldn't be paid what we are TOLD we will be paid. I'm not saying that a publisher has the right to withhold royalties from an author or ignore contractual obligations. All I'm saying is, when we are in a creative career field, our possibility of income is a very nebulous thing, depending much upon the vagaries of public opinion. A writer is a lot like an inventor, week after week creating new devices he or she thinks will be the Next Big Thing. But if consumers aren't interested, or the inventor can't find a manufacturer, no matter how wonderful an idea may be it won't make any money. Being a writer, like being an inventor, is no way to have a regular paycheck.

Well, the description DOES say occasional...

Life has been full, and something has to take a back-burner position, ergo this delayed posting.

But I recently received such a ... ummm... well... unique? Yeah, that's it. I recently received a rather unique query letter for a story to be published in my ezine, Crime and Suspense. In the interest of aiding all you writers with high hopes of being published, I'm going to put it here, in all its unvarnished glory, with the exception of changing the names/emails to protect the privacy of the poor wight.

Here we go:
____________________

Mr. X. Xxxxxxxx word count

Post Office Box XXX

Davenport, XX #####

XXXXXXXXX@yahoo.com

'Dear Editor,

Please consider my submission for your publication.

Thank you,

Mr. X. Xxxxxxxx'

ABOVE IS WHAT I'VE BEEN SENDING TO PUBLISHERS. I DON'T LIKE QUERIES, BIOS, NOR COVER LETTERS . I AM NOT INTERESTED IN CULTIVATING RELATIONSHIPS WITH EDITORS, PUBLISHERS , NOR THE PUBLIC. I DON'T WRITE WHAT'S SELLING NOWADAYS; I WRITE SATIRICAL STORIES WITH SUBTLE ALEGORICAL IMPLICATIONS. I'M EITHER A TRUE GENIOUS OR A DAMNED FOOL. I LIKE THREE PEOPLE ON THE PLANET AND YOU MAKE FOUR IF YOU WANT TO DO SOME BUSINESS.

X. XXXXXXXX

___________________

Now, let me address this on a couple of levels. First of all, there was no submission attached, although it does say that the writer would like me to consider his submission, and there is a space for "word count" although there are no numbers.

Secondly, although arrogance might work for some people, when they have a reason to be arrogant, this didn't. A person who types IN ALL CAPS, and can spell neither "genius" nor "allegorical" properly, has no reasons for arrogance, at least as a writer.

Thirdly, this individual either didn't bother to read the submission guidelines, or thought they didn't apply to him. That is NEVER a way to get on the good side of an editor.

Fourthly, when I rejected his initial query email and pointed out that (1) he hadn't included a submission and (2) he didn't follow the guidelines, he became abusive and wrote back to me with homophobic insults. Now, I'm not gay, and I'm not saying that it's insulting to BE gay, but when someone comes back with expressions like "you are so stupid, gayboy," it's obvious that the writer is attempting, however lamely, to be insulting.

That author is now filtered immediately into my email trash. It's obvious that I have not increased his count of "People I Like" to four.

Lesson to be learned from all this: If you are a writer seeking to be published in some market or venue, read the guidelines and follow them in your submissions. And DON'T TYPE IN ALL CAPS WITH MISSSSPELINGS AND BAD GRAMMAR, or become abusive when the editor rejects your work. The writing/publishing world is a relatively small one, and getting a reputation as a jerk or someone who is hard to work with is a quick way to reduce your chances of being published anywhere.

The "One Drop of Blood Rule" and Publishing

Beginning in pre-colonial times in America and extending into the mid-twentieth century, there existed the One-Drop Rule. (There may in fact still be people who hold it to be true, but the majority of Americans do not think that way any more.)

What is the One-Drop Rule?

Well, if you didn't visit the link above, here's the short and bitter version: A person who had even "one drop" of sub-Saharan or Native American blood mixed in with their "otherwise pure" Western European blood was considered to be of sub-Saharan or Native American ancestry. For example, a person who had one black ancestor 8 generations back, with everyone else in the family being Caucasian, would still have been considered black.

The unfairness of this is not in titling someone "black" or "Indian" when they are a larger proportion white. Many people who have been so-titled are quite proud of that, and that's just fine. The unfairness is in regarding someone of such mixed ancestry to be somehow inferior, no matter what. We know that black people, Arabic people, Semitic people, Native American people, Oriental people and Western European people are all human. They are all equal in the eyes of God, or in the eyes of the Universe if you prefer. Why is this inferiority assumed, whether the person is of completely sub-Saharan ancestry, or is fifteen-sixteenths Caucasian? It's a fallacy, an error and abominable for any intelligent person to think that way.

"OK, Tony... thanks for the ethics and eugenics lecture. Now, what does this have to do with publishing??"

I'm glad you asked.

We who are in the writing and publishing biz all know what a subsidy publisher is. A subsidy publisher, for whatever reason (limited market, niche, specialized book, etc.) does not take the risk for a published book but rather asks the author to foot the bill and only handles the more mundane matters of formatting, editing (sometimes), page layout, cover design (again, sometimes), printing and distribution. Many people will lump vanity presses and subsidy presses together, and that's their choice, but in my mind the vanity press will print ANYTHING by ANYONE (see PublishAmerica's record for a good example), and the subsidy press is more selective. That's a personal differentiation, however, and may not be held by everyone.

Subsidy presses have a valid place in the book business. They serve very well for the following sorts of projects:

• Specialized training books
  
• Textbooks
  
• Reference books with a very narrow market
• Genealogies, family histories and other books where the market is likely to be very small
• Books intended as gifts
• Books used as part of a lecture or speaking tour
• Books meant to be sold exclusively by the author, either directly or by mail/Internet
• Where the author's main goal is to have the book published to use for some esoteric purpose other than selling through bookstores

My company, Wolfmont Publishing, and its secondary imprint, Honey Locust Press, occasionally do subsidy publishing for selected authors. I'm not ashamed of that. I have turned down many more manuscripts than I have accepted; the manuscript may have been "unsavory" or pornographic, it may have been racist or full of hate, it may have been litigation-inspiring (you'd be amazed what some people think you can get away with printing!!) or it may simply have been so badly written I didn't want to wrangle with the author about all the editing that needed to be done.

As I stated above, I think subsidy publishing has a very valid and legitimate place in the book business. I've published a book of poetry that was intended as a gift for the poet's relatives, in memory of the poet's late son. I've published a book of radio plays (definitely a niche market!), where the author planned to be the primary seller from his website. I've published a book written by a minister that is a history of the translation of the King James Bible, used as a reference and for a course taught at a seminary. Again, this is a pretty narrow market. (Although, it was released less than a month ago and has sold almost 250 copies thus far--he did a signing today and sold over 25 at that signing.)

All of these were situations where the authors would have been hard-pressed to find a traditional, commercial publisher to take on the venture. (I would say it would be impossible, but you NEVER KNOW.) In all these situations, the authors were pleased with the results. Where is the harm in such a thing?

Oh. I did cooperatively-publish an anthology, where the seven authors each kicked in $50 (along with me), and in the fifteen months since the book's release the authors have each received almost $500 in royalties, with more to come. That's not a bad return on the $50 investment and the 4,200 words maximum they wrote for the anthology.

Commercially, I have published:
UNDER A RAGING MOON, a novel by Frank Zafiro
BY THE CHIMNEY WITH CARE, an anthology which raised $1,365 for Toys for Tots
FOOLS RUSH IN, a novel by Sunny Frazier
CRIME AND SUSPENSE ANTHOLOGY I by various authors
BLINDED BY DARKNESS, a novel by Tony Burton
A WICKED GOOD PLAY, a novel by Tony Burton

"Ummmm... Tony, we STILL don't know how this is tied to the One-Drop Rule!!"

OK, OK... I'm getting to it! Recently, a friend of mine was looking at a site known for making sweeping pronouncements about the advisability of using certain publishers. (I won't name them here because I don't want to give them any more press than they already get.) Personally, I've always taken their recommendations with a grain of salt because of the arrogance with which these judgments are posted, and because all it takes is one sour customer for the axe to fall.

She told me that Wolfmont Publishing is listed there as "a subsidy publisher." Now, while I don't find that subsidy publishers are bad people inherently or that subsidy publishing is an Evil Thing, I do know that many authors are looking for a commercial publisher. So, I wrote the people in charge of this web site. I gave them the same information I just posted above, and suggested that, since the majority of my work is commercial/traditional publishing, that I simply be listed as "a book publisher."

Here is the response:
"Writers have a right to know that you also subsidy publish. While a subsidy publisher can also publish commercially, ************** is of the opinion that the subsidy description must take precedence."

Hence, my reference to the One-Drop Rule.

I have written to the person who administers the site and asked them to consider listing the fact that I publish both commercially and via subsidy. We'll see what the response is. Until then, I suppose as long as I have one drop of subsidy, I'm a subsidy press.


"We shall overcome..."
(come on, sing with me!)

The Sexual Politics of Writing and Publication

I've heard a lot of hot air blowing around lately about the lack of fairness in the crime/suspense/mystery writing arena(s), with regard to gender. I'm all for being fair. Heck, I'm a member of the Sisters In Crime, for crying out loud! But maybe it's not all about gender.

Here are my opinions, for what they are worth:

(1) If you write crime/mystery/suspense, you CHOSE to write it. Therefore, if you think the competition from the "other side" is too intense, maybe you need to write something else. The thing is, men have been writing this stuff for longer than women have; it only makes sense that there are more of them represented. It's logical, even if it isn't "fair." I have yet to see, in my over fifty years, any worthwhile endeavor that is always and inherently "fair." Even Life is not, and it was devised by a Higher Power than any human.

(2) Conversely, if I went into the romance genre, where women are the predominant writers, I would have no recourse to whine and moan about the competition being overloaded with women. There again, women have been the major writers of romance fiction for years and years. It would be patently stupid of me to gripe about men not being adequately represented.

(3) I'm not so foolish as to think that no bias exists. Sure it does. But it's not unique to Crime/Mystery/Suspense writing. Bias exists, in one form or another, in every form of endeavor and/or competition. Chess teams don't get the kind of financial backing that basketball teams do, and women's basketball teams don't usually get the kind of financial backing that the men's basketball teams do. Kids in inner-city schools don't get the same breaks that the kids in suburban schools get. All else being equal, white men usually have a harder time getting a small business loan than white women do, and ethnic women usually have an easier time getting a small business loan than white women do. (Remember, I said “all else being equal.”)

Get a grip. Write. Write your very VERY best. Submit, and submit it again if it gets rejected. Polish it, put it in an envelope and kiss it goodbye as you submit it once more.

Then go sit down and write something else. But don't waste your energy worrying about why someone else gets a better chance than you do.

And to view the results of a recent poll on the topic of "Author Gender versus Genre" in the crime, mystery and suspense fields of fiction, go HERE.

Ye Gads!

You know, it's a lucky thing for many people that I am neither God nor even a powerful demigod. About two weeks ago my main computer was attacked by a trojan/virus, and it has wreaked havoc and ruination. Ticked me off, too, which is why it's good for those who write such things that I don't have the power to blast them out of existence in manner messy and painful.

Read and be forewarned...

For over a year, I used F-Secure, a fantastic antivirus program and firewall. One of the best I've ever known, truth be told. But it's only available as a download from the creators, at least in this country. My subscription was about to run out, so I was in Office Depot one day in late May and a salesperson says to me (as I ruminated in the software aisle), "You should try the Norton 360! It's on sale, and it's a great deal!"

Since I was in imminent need of AV protection, and the Norton 360 product seemed to have a lot of features—plus, hey, isn't it okay to trust Peter Norton??—I decided to purchase the product and install it. Installation went smoothly and the software seemed to work. It also had a firewall and automatic backup facilities... very slick and integrated.

After about a week, my computer started to slow down for no apparent reason. Then, the browser would seemingly open of its own accord, popping up to screens inviting me to search for great deals on a new car, or to find a soul mate, or to buy some sort of antivirus software that I had never heard of. I wouldn't even be accessing the Internet, and this would happen!

So, I ran a forced scan with Norton 360 and guess what? It found a virus! It also told me that it couldn't remove this virus, that I needed to contact the Norton mothership for help.

I contacted them and after being in queue for some time, managed to hook up with Amit. Amit required several explanations of the problem, but eventually he understood. And eventually he also told me that it was beyond his power to help me: I needed to be in touch with the Virus Removal Team!

He transferred me to the VRT (don't you love acronyms!?) and after being in queue again for some time, I managed to hook up with Pradesh. I explained.... once more in painful detail... the problem to Pradesh. After he repeated my sentences back to me a few times, the following dialogue took place:

Pradesh: Ah, Mr. Burton, we can remove that virus and get you going again!

Me: Wonderful! Let's get started.

Pradesh: Sure, Mr. Burton. All I need from you is your credit card number and...

Me: Excuse me?!? I just bought this less than two weeks ago and it's not working! I'm within my support period, correct?

Pradesh: Mr. Burton, I understand that you are upset, but do not worry, we can get rid of that virus for you and educate you on how not to acquire another one. But this is a paid consultation.

Me: And how much will it cost?

Pradesh: Mr. Burton, it will be $99.95 for me to take control of your computer, clean out the virus and educate you on how to avoid this in the future.

Me: But I just bought and installed your product. I have not had a virus or trojan to get into my system for over a year and within two weeks of installing Norton 360 my life is hell! And you are telling me, since your software FAILED to protect me sufficiently, you have to charge me $99.95 to remove the virus that YOUR software allowed to infect the computer in the first place?? That's *&%$@#@!!

Pradesh: Mr. Burton, I understand you are upset. But this is the best I can offer you.

Me: Well, Mr. Pradesh, the best I can offer you is to say NO and tell everyone I know about how lousy this software is, and how much like an old-time protection racket your virus removal service is. *click*


The manager of the Office Depot, Bobby, was very nice. When I went in and told him what happened, he agreed with me that it was *&%$@#@ for them to want to charge me like that and he promptly refunded my money, while recommending a better product. He also told me that if I had asked HIM instead of the sales clerk on the floor that day, he would have told me not to waste my money on Norton because it was worthless and primarily just window-dressing.

BUT! Although that part of the story is now happier, the agony continued. Remember I said that the Norton 360 was supposed to be backing things up for me? Well, it did back up... a few things. It did NOT successfully back up the .PST files from Outlook which I told it to back up. It did NOT back up my postage records from my shipping software. I managed to lose about a months worth of recent email and about 30% of my address book. I have a BIG address book, so that's a lot of names and addresses. Luckily I had manually backed up some of my Outlook PSTs from before I bought the Norton 360, and was able to recover at least that data. But all my postage log, with names, dates, amounts spent on postage, etc., disappeared.

Sooooo... I am out of the cyber-ICU, but I'm still in Recovery. I have a new, better antivirus program, and am running Spyware Doctor as well as SpyBot S&D

I hope to have much less worry about such issues in the future, anyway, since I recently ordered an iMac from Apple, and it is supposed to arrive sometime on June 29. According to all the people I have talked to, the Mac has only a very few viruses that attack it... compared to the over 114,000 that are lusting to get into a Windows-based PC.

Now all I have to do is learn how to use a new type of computer, and buy a lot of replacement software in their Mac versions.

No-Fee Writing Contest on Crime and Suspense!

I guess I am remiss in announcing this, but there is still plenty of time before the deadline.

The "Austin Camacho Beltway Crime Writing Contest" is now in progress at Crime and Suspense ezine. It's a NO-FEE contest (Woo-Hoo!!) but has some neat prizes. My good buddy Austin Camacho, author of (among other things) the Hannibal Jones mystery series and the Stark & O'Brien adventure series, has contributed a full signed set of his Hannibal Jones books for first prize, as well as two more signed Hannibal Jones books for second prize and a copy of the Crime and Suspense Anthology I with his story signed for third prize.

The deadline for submission is June 15th, at midnight eastern time. For full details on word count, theme, etc., go to the Crime and Suspense web site and click on the link for the contest.

To blurb or not to blurb...

It's funny, but the discussion of blurbs: how to get them, whether you need them, when to give them and how honest to be, came up on two discussion lists I frequent in the last couple of weeks. I have to admit I got a little verbose about the subject, but I think the observations are sound, so I'm going to repeat them here. If you have a comment or something to say on the subject, please feel free to tell me!

And even though I request blurbs, and will give them if asked AND if I can honestly do so, I really dislike them.

I dislike them because they are, in many ways, an imposition on the author being asked for one and I hate imposing on an already-busy person. Should she be honest? Should she be "over the top" complimentary? Does she really have the TIME to read the book so she can give an honest blurb. I know I won't give a blurb unless I have read the entire book, though I do know a few people who will quickly scan the book. One person told me she reads the first two chapters the middle chapter and the last two chapters, whether blurbing or reviewing. (No, I won't reveal the name!)

I read of one mid-list author who said he receives between 15 and 20 books a WEEK asking him for a blurb, and he simply can't do it. How do you decide, if you have this kind of blurb-request traffic???

I also dislike them because they are so very, very subjective and say as much about the blurber as they do about the book. Does the fact that Stephen King loved a book mean I will love it? Does a ravingly positive blurb by an author I detest mean I will also detest this new book by someone else??

I know one very well-known A-list author who has told me point-blank that he DOES NOT read anyone else's work in the crime genre, or for that matter, very much fiction at all. His reason was that he didn't want to have his own voice affected by the voice of another author. But, since that is so, I now hold any blurb written by that man to be very suspect. Did he read it or not? Was he lying to me then, or lying to the reader now?

I had one book blurbed before, where I knew that the blurber, even though very complimentary, had not read the book very thoroughly. She made a very distinct factual error in the blurb. This person admitted later that she had not read the book through, but had skimmed it and with her permission, I changed that part of her blurb.

If I look at the 3,000-plus books on my shelves, I notice that books published in the sixties to mid-seventies had hardly anything on the back cover, other than perhaps a quote from a major review venue: NYT, the Chicago Tribune, whatever, and usually about a prior book. Then comments from other sources started appearing in the late seventies and eighties, until now you can't find a book without a blurb containing lots of stars and exclamation points unless the poor soul is blighted enough to not know anyone who will write one!

I wish they weren't needed. I wish we could have a synopsis of the book on the back cover, with perhaps a pithy quote about a previous work from some review venue and maybe some information about the author. But, the reality is that they are a necessary evil, so I will continue to ask for them and to give them when I can. I simply fear the the curse of "blurb inflation" will become so bad that they are ALL meaningless, whether accurate or not, because no one will know which ones to trust.

A Garden Party of Authors

This past Sunday I was privileged to be a part of the Heflin, Alabama, Garden Party of Authors. Heflin is a small town, with under 2,000 inhabitants... yet they managed to pull together ten authors from a variety of locations in the Southeast, and assembled about 70 people who were willing to pay for a ticket to have (a DELICIOUS) luncheon and spend five minutes with each of the ten authors.

I was made to feel very, very welcome and had the opportunity to meet some wonderful people as well as seeing again some people I already knew. Clara Cavender organized this event, the second one they have held, and she did a grand job!

One of the really unique things that happened there, had to do with the mayor. The mayor, the Hon. Anna L. Berry, is also the head of the Heflin Arts Council. She was there to greet us, and went so far as to give each author a key to the city of Heflin! I'm fifty years old, and this is my first municipal key, ever! It's a big, heavy brass key with a nice golden tassel hanging from it... and of course, since I write crime and mystery stories, I hefted it in my hand with an eye toward its potential use as a murder weapon. (Just kidding, Mayor Berry! Really!!)

On a mercenary note, I was able to sell and sign some books, including some to the Heflin Library, which I hope serves to introduce more people to my work!

Great weekend, all around.

Writing contests, and the vagaries of setting them up

I try to hold a writing contest every so often through my ezine, Crime and Suspense. I've held two thus far this year, and plan on having at least one or two more. The prizes have been nice, but... I didn't feel the excitement from the entrants, you know?

So, I set up a survey to ask people who read the Crime and Suspense ezine what they would like to see in a contest... what would encourage them to enter, that sort of thing.

But why hold a survey? Why not just go ahead and hold a contest? Darn the torpedoes and full speed ahead!!

History...
Last year, I set up a contest called the Publish Me! contest. The entrants would submit the first two chapters of their magnum opus and pay an entry fee of $30. Two judges (well-known published authors in the genre) would read and score the submissions. The winner would get his/her story published by my publishing company, cover designed, 100 marketing postcards and fifty copies of the book (up to 300 pages), and have their book set up for distribution through Ingram and Baker & Taylor. The second and third place winners could have their books, if they wanted, set up as ebooks and marketed on the Wolfmont Publishing web site.

If you've never run a contest similar to this, you may not understand the costs: the judges have to be paid SOMETHING. There's the cost of the cover design, the postcards, the book setup and printing, the catalog listing, etc., etc. People expressed interest and sounded excited... but when I started the contest, only five people entered. Since I needed at least fifteen people to break even, it simply wasn't financially feasible to finish the contest!

Thankfully, I had given that caveat to each entrant; to wit, if I didn't have fifteen entries by a certain date that I would refund their money to them. Even with that, however, it bothered me to have to start a contest and then disappoint the entrants like that. So, I'm doing a miniature "feasibility study" to see if it's worth it to try a contest with bigger prizes again.

I'm curious... why are people so averse to paying to enter a contest with a significant prize? I don't understand the logic that says, "Prizes must not cost anything because the contest holder is giving them away!" And I've had more than a couple of people say to me, "Oh, reputable contests don't charge fees!" Excuse me? Writer's Digest isn't reputable? Glimmer Train? The Writer magazine? Byline magazine?

It's a little amusing, if sad, to see a respondent say to me, "I don't enter contests with fees" or "Charge $5 for the entry fee," yet also say to me in response to what a judge should receive for judging the contest, "A fee of $150" or "A $100 honorarium." And from where should that fee or honorarium be derived?

I know... there ARE people who run so-called contests which are scams to take your money. Thing is, I have yet to make any money on a contest I have run. In fact, with the last three or four contests I've held, the awards have been least partially out of my pocket and without payment of entry fees. Warner Brothers was nice enough to contribute some t-shirts, hats and posters, but some people don't get very excited about prizes like that so I threw in some Amazon gift certificates of my own.


"But money must always flow TO the writer, not away!" Oh, Lord, would that it were so!! Let's see... editors' fees, promotional bookmarks and postcards, writing courses, signing trips where the cost of transportation and lodging is over $400 and the total profit from books sold is less than $50, the cost of mailing out review copies that may never get reviewed, trips to writer cons and fan cons, buying ink and toner cartridges and paper... it ALL Costs Money! It makes as much sense as saying "Money must always flow to the employee, not away!" What about cost of training for the job? Taxes? Paying for benefits? Paying for parking and/or commuting? There are costs associated with EVERY form of moneymaking, whether it is writing, being a nurse or working in a factory. To say that every attempt to make money with writing should be free of risk of my OWN money is foolish in the extreme, and limits me tremendously.

I'm not at all attacking anyone, and especially anyone who simply can't budget an entry fee. I've been where money was tight before, where I wondered where my next tank of gas would come from... so I understand that. But for those who think that no opportunity to make money or gain recognition should cost the author money... it simply isn't reality. The costs are there, whether we choose to acknowledge them or not.

Yes, there are free contests, and God bless the people who hold or sponsor them. I hold them myself pretty regularly, and God bless me, too! But when people are lackadaisical about entering because the prizes are small, token prizes, yet are not willing to put their money where their writing is to take a shot at a larger prize, I have no sympathy.

*** If you think your writing is good enough to win, then why is it a risk to spend $5 or $10?

*** If you don't think you have a good chance of winning, then why are you entering at all?

Have faith in your writing, and be willing to back up your beliefs with an entry fee once in a while.

Book signings and signed books

I'll be signing books and meeting some very nice people at the Moveable Feast of Authors in Heflin, Alabama on April 29. If you happen to be anywhere around Heflin on that Sunday, please drop by and see me!

Also, I will be at the Calhoun-Gordon County Library in Calhoun, Georgia on May 5, during the "More Than a Taste of Calhoun" festival. I'll be reading from my books and signing books there, as well. Again, I'd love to see any of you!

Finally, if you have purchased one of my two novels (Blinded by Darkness or A Wicked Good Play) in a location where you couldn't get it signed by me, here's your chance! Drop by my personal web site and fill out the form telling me what books you purchased, etc., and submit it. I'll sign a signature book plate and drop it in the mail to you just as quickly as I can! Such a deal, huh?

Launching, contest winners and such

The last time I posted, I mentioned that Jem and Scout (the two recently-hatched additions to our Finch family) had not left the nest. Well, about three days ago all of their parents' twitterings must have had an effect, because they are now out of the nest and flying about on their own. Of course, this necessitated getting a bigger cage. Even though finches are small, four of them in a tiny cage is not a good situation!

The guineas we moved have settled in well, too, laying quite a few eggs. We added a nesting box to their pen, to encourage them to get "broody" and hatch the eggs, but so far the maternal instincts of the hens have been poor. So, we've been eating guinea-egg omelets and using guinea eggs in the pancakes and cornbread. They taste fine, but let me tell you—the shells are doggone hard! I had to whack one three times on the countertop tonight to crack it, and I don't mean a light tap. Sounded like hitting a cueball on the formica top.

The recent Southern Gone Wrong writing contest (inspired by Cathy Pickens's books) at the Crime and Suspense ezine (my baby!) has just finished up, and the winners were selected by vox populi. If you'd like to read the winners, or in fact any of the entrants' stories, just drop by the Crime and Suspense site. There's a link on the main page there. The first and second place winners each will receive a signed copy of a Cathy Pickens book, and the two third place winners (a tie) are getting a copy of BODIES WE'VE BURIED, a book about the national CSI training school and their procedures.

I will have more contests in the coming months, and would love to have your story as an entry. The last three writing contests have been "no fee" contests, and I like to keep them that way whenever possible. Of course, that often means I must rely, as Blanche DuBois, "upon the kindness of strangers" for prizes and so forth. Hey, the ezine has no subscription fee and comes out monthly, rain or shine!

Drop by and read the stories in the contest, take a look at the previous month's issue, download an old-fashioned radio drama, and maybe even subscribe. Like I said, it's a freebie.

Spring Book Show 2007 and other craziness

Not necessarily in order of occurrence...

This weekend I was a presenter and attendee at the Spring Book Show 2007 in Atlanta, GA. I enjoyed myself there, and gained a view of the book publishing and selling world that was very vague to me before now.

By the way, did you know that (according to a speaker there), there were over 170,000 new titles published in the United States last year? Yep. One hundred seventy THOUSAND new titles. Sort of makes the inner eye of the mind go all unfocused, doesn't it? If you are a writer, your Great New Book last year was competing for attention... and shelf space in the store... and the consumer's dollar... against about 169,999 other new books.

If you are a publisher, you had to be SUPER-selective about which titles you chose to risk money publishing, because money spent on books that don't sell, either TO the store or once they get IN the store, is wasted money.

The Spring Book Show is all about the Remainders and Returns market. It is where books that didn't sell, either from the publisher or from the retailer, get "recycled" in an effort to try to make some money, somehow, for someone. I saw a LOT of dealers there, and none of the book dealers were selling single books. The closest thing I saw to a retail sale was a dealer who allowed you to buy a minimum of three of a title, but your order had to be $100 or more. So you either bought three VERY, VERY expensive books, or three copies each of nine or ten books, because a lot of books were selling for $1, $2, or a little more. One dealer had a minimum $1000 order from any single FOB point. I tell you, it was a little bit overwhelming.

Books were being sold by case lots, by "Gaylord" box full and in numbers that literally went into the hundreds of thousands, for one buyer.

What was I doing there?

I was teaching at a seminar being held on Friday and Saturday, and my presentation was on "The Trials and Tribulations of Starting a Publishing Business." Most appropriate, I think. I sold a couple of books, too, though that wasn't my main reason for being there.

Other recent events for me:

If you've read much of my blog, you know Dear Wife and I are working on creating a haven on a little over 16 acres of land in the mountains of North Georgia. I finally had the time to rent the equipment to dig the trenches for all the water lines we have to run for the orchard and garden beds. The bloody thing weighed 6,000 pounds. Here's a picture:

And since the guineas were sitting right where the trench needed to go, Dear Wife and I ended up moving the guineas, pen and all, to a new location. I had to strap the little guinea house to the front of the trencher to move it, since it was so heavy. Oh, and the eight guineas were inside it when we moved it, too. They really didn't like that aspect of it, I don't think.

But they are now in their new location and seem to be very happy there.

Speaking of birds, we also have some little zebra finches who live in the house with us. In a cage, not loose! Atticus and Arabella are their names. But actually, we have more than that now! About two weeks ago, two of their eggs hatched and we now have two MORE in the Finch family, Jem and Scout.

Like the recent movie, Failure to Launch, Atticus and Arabella seem to have some problems getting their little ones to leave the nest. The babies are almost as big as their parents, but have yet to poke even a single feather outside their woven-twig nursery. I believe Atticus is getting annoyed with this, too, because he has taken to sitting on the door of the next and rather angrily twittering at them. I can just imagine what he is saying: "Get outta there! What do you think, all we want to do is to chew up seeds, bring them in here and upchuck them for you?? Get up, find a job, you little freeloaders!!" But they sit there in silence, their black, beady eyes shining up out of the nest. I think Atticus has taken to drink. I found a tiny, empty bottle of Four Roses at the bottom of their cage.


Have a great weekend!

Tony