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

Bookmark success! PrintPlace comes through

Well, folks, I have to give PrintPlace credit: after a true dramedy of errors, they came through with flying colors.

The order from PrintPlace came to my house, and I opened it up. The bookmarks looked pretty good on first inspection, but then I noticed that one of the graphic elements was missing. It was a minor thing, so I decided not to worry about it. But then I counted how many bookmarks they shipped me. I ordered 2000. I received about 720. THAT wouldn't do!

I called Nic back, and spoke with him about it. Strangely enough, although he was surprised about the missing graphic element, the shortage didn't surprise him. It seems he had received almost twenty calls that same morning from other people whose orders were shorted, so he was going to go down to the production floor and give a lesson in Basic Counting to the people running the presses!

Nice guy that he is, he set up a new order for me, told me to resubmit my artwork and make sure the graphic element was there, and he's have them printed (all 2000 of them) and shipped to me posthaste. No extra charges.

The order arrived Wednesday of this week, and I'm very pleased. All the bookmarks were there, and the artwork looked just as it did when I sent it. In fact, I'm so pleased, I ordered some more stuff from them the same day.

I figure, everybody makes mistakes. But only a good businessperson stands up and takes responsibility to make good on the mistake.

My take, anyway.

Tony

The Bookmark Saga

Things are looking up! The day after I filed a complaint about The Print Place with the BBB in Arlington, TX, I received a phone call from their customer service manager, Nic.

What it came down to was this:

1. He was very sorry for what happened
2. The person who had taken the order, pretended to be a "Director" and generally messed me over had been fired
3. I wasn't the only person to complain about said former employee
4. I was right—their online template HAD BEEN screwed up, and they were in the process of fixing it
5. They would refund my money if I wanted
   

Nic and I had a conversation about things, very amicably. I agreed to try their service by resending the graphics to him once more, and I ordered the bookmarks. They are refunding the amount of money I paid to them that is not applied to the order. The bookmarks should arrive by March 1, and when they do, I'll let everyone here know about their quality.

I'm really glad I'm not going to have to fill out the fraud report form that my credit card company sent to me, because it's a pain in the tuchas.

Tony Burton
Check out Blinded By Darkness and A Wicked Good Play

Bookmark refund? NOT!!

Well, The Print Place has yet to refund any money to me. I called the representative, Corey McGrath, last week, one week after faxing them the refund request form he sent to me.

I asked him about the status of the refund, since I checked my credit card account daily and had seen no refunds. (It's pretty interesting that they can CHARGE my card within minutes, but somehow it's a lot more difficult to give me BACK the money they took from me.) He sounded surprised that the refund had not yet been issued, and asked for a callback number so he could call me back that day (Thursday) with an answer.

It's Tuesday, and still no refund has hit my credit card, and I have yet to hear from Mr. McGrath. I went to the BBB website for their city (Arlington, TX) and found that they already had a complaint file established.

Wow, WHAT a SURPRISE! (Do you hear the sarcasm in that??)





Anyway, I filed a complaint with the BBB Online, and later today I'll be calling my credit card company to get THOSE wheels in motion. I have also emailed Mr. McGrath about his failure to honor his word.

We'll see what happens. Over $120 is at stake, as well as this company's veracity and reputation.