Post #167 April 29 2019

“Handling Rejections”

You get a letter in the mail or an email: “Thanks for letting us review your story.  Unfortunately, we feel it is not quite right for us.  Good luck in the future.”  Or words to this effect.  Congratulations.  You’ve just been rejected.  It’s an occupational hazard for every writer who puts his or her work out for consideration.

Nowadays, much of my work is published online so I don’t have to deal with rejections, just the ever-shifting daily download numbers.  But I still write short stories and novelettes that I try to place with print publications.  And from them: lots and lots of rejections.

How should a writer deal with this?

Emma Bowd, on the website writersandartists.co.uk has this to say about rejection letters:

(My editor) used to tell me that being a writer is like being a farmer – you work for many years on a product (without income) and then, when it’s time to go to market, you literally do not know if there is going to be a glut of your product or no demand at all.

She also wisely said that the book would “end up where it’s meant to be” – and painful as it was, I completely agree with this. It is so wonderful to be with a publisher that completely ‘gets’ my work and is so very supportive of me. 

So the message is, keep going and believe in your work. Always revisit your manuscript after a rejection letter and take what positive feedback you can from it and tweak accordingly. A manuscript is an evolving entity. And you are the only person in charge of its destiny.

All good advice, especially the part about learning from each rejection whatever you can and tweaking accordingly.

Many years ago, I submitted a story to the old OMNI magazine.  The science fiction editor sent me an interesting rejection.  He liked my writing and suggested that I had the makings of a decent novel but needed to change the focus from one of character relationships to the hard science at the core of the story.  I didn’t (and still don’t) fully agree with this assessment but he was honestly trying to put me in a position of future commercial success.  By the way, this basic story has become the nucleus of a new science fiction novel that will appear in 2020, entitled Monument.  Look for it.

Writers can’t take rejection letters personally…of course, that’s easier said than done, if you put any real effort into your work.  It can’t be personal.  The editor doesn’t know you.  They know only the work.  Some editors have informed that my work or my story was a very good story, polished, engaging, well-written, just not quite what the publication was looking for at that time.  Editors always say study the publication first.  Read copies.  That way you’ll know what they’re looking for.  And that makes sense.

I have recently finished a science fiction short story entitled “The Rain Queen of K-World.”  It hasn’t been sent around yet; I’m collecting feedback from fellow writers and friends whose opinions I value.  I have made changes based on this feedback, so hopefully the story is better for it.  Soon, I’ll send this story out and see what happens.

I’ll leave you with some Do’s and Don’ts about handling rejection.  This from author J.T. Ellison and her website jtellison.com:

Do – Give yourself permission to be upset when a rejection comes. If a piece of chocolate or an ice cream cone will make you feel better, then have it. Enjoy a drink with friends. Be social.

Don’t – Comfort yourself with destructive behaviors, like going out on the town and ending up blowing in a tube. It’s just a rejection letter, not the end of the world.

Do – Go for a walk.

Don’t – Burn your manuscript, shred your notes, and delete all the files on your computer. Seriously.

Do – Take a day off from writing and read a book.

Don’t – Call all your friends and tell them you’ve decided not to be a writer anymore.

Do – Step away from the computer for a few hours, allow yourself a break from the cycle.

Don’t – Call the originator of your rejection to ask why they didn’t like your project. Really, that’s just not a good idea.

The next post to The Word Shed comes on May 6, 2019.  In this post, I’ll go back to the question all writers get all the time: “Where do you get all those crazy ideas?”

See you then.

Phil B.

 

 

 

 

Post #166 April 22 2019

“Downloads and Agents”

I just uploaded Episode 3 of my new Time Jumpers series.  Since I started uploading on February 1, this series has garnered 285 downloads, so it seems to be off to a decent start.  Every week, I update my download statistics.  Here’s the latest:

Downloads since I first went online (2014) = 25,351

Downloads this year (1-1-19 to 4-15-19) = 6761

Downloads last week (4-8-19 to 4-15-19) = 792

Average downloads per day (1-1-19 to 4-15-19) = 64 per day

The numbers seem pretty good.  The lady who leads the writers critique group I’m in has suggested, as have others, that with these numbers, it’s time for me to look for an agent.

Which leads me to today’s topic: Why agents?  What are the pros and cons of having an agent?

The web site Literary-agents.com has a nice list which helps answer this question.

Pros:

1. Agents know who to send your book to
2. More publishers will review your book
3. Publishers will take your work more seriously
4. You’ll get better contract terms
5. Your agent will troubleshoot any problems
6. Your agent might bring in extra book ideas or deals
    
   Cons:

1. You have to share control
2. Agents get commissions
3. You have to wait…be patient
    
   Another website, Nathanielfree.com adds these:
    
   Pros:
    

1. Agents have industry contacts
2. Agents have industry experience
3. They protect your rights

Cons:

1. There’s no guarantee an agent can get you published
2. It’s an extra step in the process
3. The wrong agent can actually hurt your career
    
   For five years, I have been publishing online through Smashwords.com.  While it’s true that I have set all my online work to free, my downloads numbers are now over 25,000.  Also, since I’m putting everything online these days, I don’t actually have a manuscript I can shop around to agents at the moment.
    
   My personal opinion is that I should take a different tack before I go agent-shopping.  My writer friends are also telling me I should start putting prices on my uploaded titles.  I originally did that with Smashwords several years ago and it worked okay for awhile, but my downloads started to plateau off.  Smashwords makes many recommendations for their authors and one of them is to lower your prices or set all titles to free, if downloads are flat, and see what happens.  I did that two years ago and my downloads took off.  They’ve stayed high ever since and my writer friends tell me it’s probably because I am developing a small readership base, which was always a key goal of mine.  This course of action seems to be the best choice for me.
    
   So, I won’t put prices on any title that is currently free or anything else I upload this year…mainly the rest of the Time Jumpers series.  However, next year, I have resolved to put a small price (maybe $1.99 or so) on anything new that I upload.
    
   Then I’ll see how dedicated my readers really are.
    
   The next post to The Word Shed (April 29) will deal with something all writers deal with…handling rejections.
    
   See you then.
    
   Phil B.
    
    

Post #165 April 15, 2019

“Making Up New Words: Why, When and How?”

One of the joys (and responsibilities) of every writer, especially storytellers in fiction, is making up new words.  This is especially prevalent in science fiction and fantasy…think of Harry Potter and muggles as an example.  In order to bring this off effectively, writers should adhere to some commonsense practices, so as not to drive their readers away or leave them scratching their heads.

1.  Why make up a new word?
    
   Writers make up new words for several reasons.  One is to drive home a point or to emphasize something.  One of my favorite examples comes again from the world of Harry Potter.  In London, when young Harry has to shop for brooms and wands, Hagrid takes him to a place called Diagon Alley…see the play on the word ‘diagonally’?  What’s being emphasized here is that this is a different kind of place, but somehow related to normal human places.  It’s a place of witches and warlocks and magic.  Diagonal means an at angle to, or slightly out of whack or off-kilter.  In one of my Time Jumpers stories, I’ve got a moon called Outtawhack.  The name emphasizes that it’s a place that’s just a little out of the ordinary.
    
   Another reason to make up a new word is to display or reveal character.  In my Farpool stories, I use a plot device called an echopod.  Among other things, it’s a sort of translation device.  Often, when something said by a Seomish person can’t be translated, or they’re very emotional about something, the echopod translates it as “Kkkqquuuqq—”  Seems like a nonsense syllable.  But in context, I’m trying to have all these consonants illustrate something like annoyance, or disgust, or confusion.  Not really a word, but you get the idea.
    
   A third reason to make up a word is to show details of setting, perhaps in the local language of its inhabitants.  In my Farpool stories, I often refer to tribal (kel) homes by their city names: Ponk’t, Omt’or, Sk’ort, where these habitat names are intended to be read and sound like something a marine creature would utter.  If I did my job right, such names would add to their reader’s sense that this is truly an alien (and marine) world.
    
2. When to make up a new word?
    
   Writers should not make up a new word when a normal word will do, unless some local color is needed.  See above.  Or maybe you want to inject a little realism into the story.  In a short story I recently wrote (not yet published), entitled ‘The Rain Queen of K-World,” I give the time frame of the story as 2 ½ C-79 (month of Half-Crescent, Midtober, 2779CE). In doing this, I wanted to convey that the people of K-World keep time a little differently from us.  They’re humans, like us, but they live on a world orbiting another sun.  The normal conventions of human timekeeping don’t apply there.  I used the word ‘Midtober’ to give a sense of alien-ness but not too much to put off a reader.  It gives the reader a sense of being grounded but also a sense that things are little different here. 
    
   Obviously, you can get carried away with this.  A little goes a long way, when making up new words.  I once read (or tried to read) Anthony Burgess’ A Clockwork Orange, which is filled with futuristic English criminal and gang slang.  It was difficult to get through…too many new words.
    
3. How to make up new words?
    
   Any new word you concoct has to sound right.  It needs to be pronounceable, at some level.  This was an issue I faced in The Farpool Stories, where I had actually made up the rudiments of a full language.  The tribal leader of a given clan was called the Metah, short for Metahshooklet.  I implied that this was translated as ‘The One Who Gives Love,’ indicating that the Seomish were sort of promiscuous sexually.  Say what you want about the pronounceability of the word, but I was consistent in how I used it.
    
   One way to make up new words and have them be understood is to ensure that the meaning is clear in context.  J.K. Rowling does this well in the Harry Potter stories.  Here, she is mostly dealing with slight variations in the English language, like Diagon Alley. 
    
   Or in my Farpool Stories, the name of the oceanic planet is Seome, which I derived from the words ‘sea’ and ‘home’.  The word sounds like what it is.  Another example from the same stories is ‘seamother.’  What’s a seamother?  It’s dragon-like beast, a fearsome carnivorous creature, but the very words ‘sea and ‘mother’ convey something opposite.  The context is negative here.  That tells you a little about the Seomish people, that they both fear and venerate this creature at the same time.
    
   Any time you make up a new word, pay attention to etymology…how words came to be.  Another example from Harry Potter: Harry’s nemesis at the Hogwarts school is a fellow Draco Malfoy.  I love that last name…trying saying it: mal…foy.  See the etymology?  It’s derived from many English words that have bad connotations: mal-function, mal-ware, malign, mal-feasance.  The name alone tells you, in a sort of subconscious way, that Draco is bad news.
    
   Making up new words is at the same time a right, a privilege and a responsibility for any writer.  But you shouldn’t do it without some care for how it will be perceived, how it will be read by your readers.  Done right, making up new words can add a powerful new dimension to your story, resonating with readers below their level of consciousness.  And that always makes a great story.

   
   

   The next post to The Word Shed comes on April 22.
   
4.  
   See you then.
    
   Phil B.  
    
    
    
    
    
    

Post #164 April 8 2019

“Promoting Yourself as a Writer”

Many of the posts I’ve made to this blog over the last few years have been related to the mechanics of writing and storytelling. But to be a real success as a modern author in today’s hyper-chaotic literary marketplace, you have to network, promote and market yourself and your ‘brand.’  This is something that doesn’t always come naturally to many writers, who are often disposed to be somewhat loners and introspective, though not all of course.   But I’m that way.

I want to spend the next few posts looking at ways we wordsmiths can dive into the modern world of commercial writer promotion and networking and make our brands better known and successful.

Toward that end, I’ve come up with five ways we can do this.

1. Start a blog, like The Word Shed.  I started this blog back in late 2015.  Now it’s early 2019.  Creating and managing a blog is an easy way to make yourself known and approachable to potential readers.  Engaging with your readers is really what it’s all about these days…understanding what they like, what they don’t like, answering their questions, arguing about details and plots and characters, etc.  Your blog should steadily encourage others to post and as the blog manager, you should try to answer as many of these posts as possible.  Running a blog is like creating and nurturing a little ecosystem of readers who read and write each other, all gathered around an interest in following and supporting you as an author.   This is a potentially rich source of readers and growing your readership is what every author should be aiming for.  I’ve seen my own grow since 2014, when my work first appeared online, to almost 24,000 downloads.
2. Build and maintain an effective web site.  This is one area where I could improve. I do have an author’ website.  It’s at http://philbosshardt.wix.com/philip-bosshardt.  But it needs updating badly as it doesn’t show but a quarter of my work.  A good author’s website should offer a nonstop library-bookstore of all the author’s available work.  Mike Shatzkin, of Digital Book World, offers this checklist:
    
   – List of all the author’s books, listed chronologically and by series
   – Landing page for each book, including the cover, a description, reviews, excerpts, links to retail sites and other important metadata that would help readers discover the title and decide to buy
   – Contact page so readers can easily send an email and get a response
   – Email capture
   – Social media buttons, so readers can easily sign up to follow the author on Twitter, etc.
   – Calendar with upcoming publication dates and scheduled public appearances
   – Page with links to articles and reviews by the author, as well as references to the author on blogs and in the press
   In addition to these things on an author website, Shatzkin recommends that authors all should have:
   – Up-to-date Amazon author page
   – Google Plus page (which is crucial for effective search engine optimization strategy)
   – Twitter and Facebook (optional)
    
   Seems like a lot of work but I believe it’s worth it, to give your readers a place to browse your work and make selections…and most important, to keep them coming back wanting more.
3. Join a writer’s group, or a critique group.  I did this last year and it was a great decision.  To hang out with people who loves books and writing and who are slaving away on their own projects, to give and take constructive criticism and tips and suggestions and pointers, is priceless.  It makes you realize you’re really not alone in what can be a lonely occupation.  Moreover, it’s a great way to network and meet people.  The group I’m in meets once a week, every Wednesday and we are always doing some kind of writing and bringing something current to read.  My group keeps me on my toes and doesn’t let me lag behind or slack off.
4. Attend writers’ conferences and conventions.  Yet another way to meet and network.  Plus they can be just plain fun.  This may require travel, and so incurs the cost and time involved in that.  But done expeditiously, with proper expectations, conferences and conventions can be a great outlet for your creative juices and may well inspire you with new ideas and new friends.  Writers are actually human beings and have social needs just like everybody.  Some of the best conventions are genre-related, like Mystery Writers of America or Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers and their World Cons. 
5. Write reviews.  In my own work, I’ve seen spikes in my downloads after recent reviews, spikes even in works not being reviewed.  Good reviews and ratings are priceless but even bad reviews make your work noticed and notice is what it’s all about.  Readers’ attention is a limited resource and it’s getting harder and harder to capture your share of that.  Writing and receiving reviews (for Goodreads and others; there are dozens, if not more) is a great way to achieve notice, even notoriety.  You may well find that your willingness to review another writer’s work can translate into others’ willingness to do the same…quid pro quo.

 

Networking and promoting your author brand is essential in today’s literary marketplace and anything you can do along the lines of my five suggestions will help gain you the notice and the readers that we all want.

The next post to The Word Shed comes on April 15, 2019.

See you then.

Phil B.