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Much of my summer is spent selling books. We go to conventions, contact bookstores, set up book signings and Christmas promotions. From mid-May through August, I spend more time out of my office than I do in it. In fact, I’ve already clocked over 3,000 miles in May.

The problem with traveling is that sometimes I hit a motel without wireless internet. (Yes, those behind-the-times locations do still exist.) No internet = no e-mail and no blogging. Then, when I get back to the office, there’s the mountain of catch-up work to do before I take off for the next trip.

Therefore, I apologize in advance for a sporadic posting to this site. Please don’t think I’ve forgotten your questions. I haven’t–and I promise I will get to them. I will post daily when I’m in town and when my work schedule allows it, so check back often. But for the summer, if I miss a few days here and there, please be understanding.

(BTW–I have been amazed at the response to this blog. I very much appreciate all the kind and wonderful e-mailed comments I’ve been getting. I also enjoy reading your opinions on what I have posted–whether you agree or disagree. I’m sure other readers of this blog would love reading your comments and opinions as much as I do. I encourage all of you to consider posting comments and opinions in the comments trails, and e-mailing questions to me.)

Manuscripts are rejected for a variety of reasons–only one of which is the quality of the writing. Although grammar mistakes, tired, confusing and/or unbelieveable plots, stale dialogue, flat characters, and plain old boring are the more common reasons manuscripts are rejected, there are plenty of other reasons you might be rejected that have nothing to do with your skill as a wordsmith. I’ve listed a few of them here (in no specific order).

• It’s not in our niche. We just don’t publish [insert your genre here].

• We’ve filled our schedule. Believe it or not, publishers do not have money trees out behind the warehouse. If we can only fit 5 or 50 or 500 books in our budget, and your manuscript is number 6 or 51 or 501, we have to reject.

• We don’t think we can sell it. You may have written a masterpiece, but if there’s a glut in the market for that topic or that genre just isn’t selling well at the moment, we will probably reject.

• Your treatment doesn’t fit the market. This is an LDS market and some treatments will not fly here. If your murder mystery is too bloody, your romance too explicit, your fictionalized history takes too many liberties with the accepted version of the story (example: biblical stories or events from early Church history), then we won’t publish it.

• Your topic is contrary to LDS doctrine. I shouldn’t have to explain this one, but based upon some submissions I’ve received, apparently it’s not as obvious as I think it is. When you submit to an LDS pubisher, your manuscript must support LDS beliefs. You wouldn’t expect a Catholic publisher to accept a manuscript proclaiming the pope to be a polygamist or a Christian publisher to accept a manuscript proclaiming Christ to be a myth, would you?

• We have recently accepted/published another book with a similar plot or theme.

Regardless of the reason, rejection can be disheartening, but don’t let it stop you. There is hope behind every rejection.

If you’re rejected due to writing quality, keep writing. Writing is a skill. The more you practice, the better you will get. I believe that there is no manuscript that is so bad it can’t be fixed with enough time, patience and rewrites. I also believe there is no such thing as a wasted effort. Even if you choose to scrap your original manuscript (or your first dozen manuscripts) and start on something entirely different, the process of writing those first unpublishable works is invaluable.

If you’re rejected due to one of the reasons listed above, keep submitting. Submit that manuscript to other publishers, as many as you can. Submit new manuscripts to publishers who’ve rejected you before. Eventually, you will find that serendipitous moment when the manuscript you’ve submitted fits the needs of the publisher you’ve submitted it to. And that makes it all worth the effort.

Traditional publishing is changing and we (publishers, authors, editors, agents, bookstores, libraries, teachers–in short, anyone who creates or peddles the written word) need to change with it or we will be left behind in the dust. One significant change that every author should know about and plan to use is Web Marketing.

Web marketing is a wonderful tool. It’s one of the least expensive ways to market and promote yourself as a writer and to let people all over the world know about your books. Every author should have at least one website with their writing name as the URL. If you write under several pen names, create a website for each one. If possible, create a unique website for each of your books with the title as the URL. The more ways that people can find you and your books, the better.

Websites are great, but you can’t just slap up a one pager and hope that will do the trick. You need to create reasons for readers to visit your site, over and over. E-newsletters, daily blogs, contests, prizes, freebies, interactive activities–the sky is the limit. Spend a little time surfing the web for ideas. Google some of your favorite authors and see what they’re doing. Which sites make you stop and look? Which ones did you bookmark and why? Which ones will you probably not visit again? Make a list of ideas and then brainstorm ways to make them your own and use them on your site.

As a publisher, I spend part of nearly every work day looking for new and exciting ways to promote my authors and their books. Finding good promotional ideas is part of my job, and it’s part of your job too. Here’s a link to an article on Web Marketing for Writers to get you started. (Note: I am NOT promoting this site, this company or their services. Just this one article.)

Here are links to a few LDS authors who are using some of these web marketing ideas, chosen from a completely random sampling of about 40 LDS author websites.** I’ve decided to give them “Webbie” awards.

HONORABLE MENTION “WEBBIES”

“Webbie” for Promotion of New Release:
Robison Wells (the two sites promoting his upcoming release: The Unknown Patriot and Trial of the Century)

“Webbie” for Free Give-Aways & Contests:
Shirley Bahlmann (free e-book)
Julie Coulter Bellon (contests)

“Webbie” for Great Visuals & Other Cool Stuff:
James Dashner (great visuals and music)
Jeffrey Savage (contests, newsletter, “secrets”, “cool stuff”–makes you want to click on the link)

“Webbie” for ‘I Might As Well Earn Money While I’m Doing This’:
Julie Wright (google ads earn you money)

OVER ALL RUNNER-UP “WEBBIE”
Lisa J. Peck (e-news, interlinked websites for CTR Club books, Escaping the Shadows, Surviving Abuse, Mothers of the Prophets series)

FIRST PLACE “WEBBIE”
Rachel Nunes (very interactive & has everything I’ve mentioned as being good ideas for a website)

**Obviously, I have not visited every single LDS author’s website, nor do I intend to. This was a completely random sampling gleaned from various author forums and support sites. If you think you do a great job of web marketing and you are not on this very short list, feel free to add your link in the comments trail.

If I get a lot of comments and links on this post, maybe we’ll do it again in a few months, and you can nominate sites for me to go look at.

Nobody I know writes full-time. Even those who write as their formal occupation must still deal with non-writing demands on their time. I liked this post on finding time to write. If you haven’t read it, check it out.

Had a complaint about blog displaying improperly on a Mac. Apparently blogspot is working on support for Safari and other Mac based web browsers, but it’s not here yet. Sorry. Had I known that before I started this blog, I may have chosen another host.

If anyone knows of anything I can do to jiggle the settings and/or code that will make this site display better on a Mac, please e-mail instructions.
Thanks.

Also, just curious, what is considered an average number of copies of my book that the publisher will print? And do I get any of those copies free? Or do I have to go to the store to buy them like everyone else?

Like word count, this depends upon the type of book. It also depends on things like how confident your publisher is that it will sell well, how much money they have to invest in your project, how energetic you are about marketing and promoting your book, how many pre-release orders they get, how the industry is doing, whether they print in the USA or overseas, which way the wind is blowing that morning and whether or not they’ve had a recent fight with their spouse. (Oh, no. Strike those last two.)

For the LDS market, an initial print run on a new book/author is 2,500—5,000 copies, although this does vary between companies. If you’re a big name (like a prophet), the first print run is probably closer to 10,000, maybe more. If your initial print run sells through quickly (in the first 3 months), then the next print run could be much higher.

Most companies will give the author a certain number of free copies, then allow you to purchase additional copies at a wholesale price, which you can give away or sell yourself. The terms and conditions for purchasing and reselling your own titles are usually spelled out in your contract. You should never have to go buy your book at the store.

[Sorry for not posting last night. I got distracted by American Idol.]

Received a letter that asked several questions all in one. I’m going to break it up into chunks for easier reading.

I’m working on my first novel and I was wondering if there is a
minimum/maximum word or page count that I should aim for? If my novel is too short or too long, will that cause it to be rejected?

Word count is secondary to the quality of writing, but it is important.

The average length of a book depends on what you’re writing. A children’s novel is 20,000 to 40,000. YA or middle grades are 40,000 to 60,000. Adult fiction is 70,000+. These are the general rules of thumb, but they are not hard and fast. As we’ve seen with Harry Potter, if the story is captivating enough, you can go longer–but probably not on a first book. Sometimes you can go shorter, but then you get into the psychology of price vs perceived value.

For first novels, I recommend sticking close to the averages if you can. A word count outside of the averages will not necessarily produce an automatic rejection, but the quality of your writing, the freshness of your story must be able to support a deviation from the norm.

As to figuring word count: Unless your publisher tells you to do so, do not figure word count based on your software word counter. Format your page according to industry standards (see post on formatting) and then figure you have an average of 250 words per page. Multiply that by the number of pages and that is your word count.

Hi there, I just happened upon your very creative and humorous blog. (Thank you. I’m blushing right now.) Of course you realize, what I’m doing right now is wracking my brain to try and figure out if you’re someone I know. How anonymous are you remaining? Any hints? Maybe even a “Yes, ‘Beulah’, you know me” or a “No, ‘Beulah’, you don’t know me?”

No hints.

I have made comments in public forums like this before and I have a couple of friends who blog in a “professional” capacity. And what happens is, it becomes a mess at work. Blog readers call you at work and want to argue with you over some comment you made. It drains away my work time.

My job is to find new authors and publish them; not to spend 10-20 minutes on the phone arguing over the fine points of the SASE or the finer points of e-queries vs snail mail. As a representative of my company, I can’t really tell these callers to shut up and go away. That would be mean and rude–and reflect poorly on the company I am with. But spending a lot of trivial time on the phone also wastes company time.

Now, YOU would never call me over something this trivial. YOU would only call if you were submitting a manuscript, or inviting me to a conference, or wanting to bribe me with lunch or chocolate. But past experience has taught me that not everyone attends to these professional niceties. So I choose to protect myself (and the company) with this cloak of anonymity, even though it means I may miss out on the lunch and chocolates.

Yea! Your manuscript is done and ready to start the submissions process.

Well, all but one little part in chapter X, that is. It’s not quite right and it’s bugging you, but you don’t know what to do about it. You’ve worked and reworked it, taken it out, put it back in, moved it around–nothing helps. Even your mom and your best friend and your cousin who teaches English in high school don’t know what to do with it.

So you send it in anyway, hoping the editor will catch it and fix it, because you’ve tried and you can’t. Besides, most editors think they have to change something just to prove they’re the boss, right? Even if you submitted a perfect manuscript, they’d change SOMETHING, so if you leave this part as it is, they can change it and feel like they’ve earned their salary, and maybe they’ll leave the rest of your stuff alone.

I know these thoughts run through your head. When on the writing side of the street, I certainly thought them. Even now when I know better, I find myself nodding and laughing in agreement when another author expresses these sentiments.

I understand that you’re impatient to get your manuscript out. And I know it’s frustrating to keep hitting a brick wall trying to fix problem areas. But I’d like to encourage you to keep trying. Even if it means putting your book away for a few weeks, or even a few months, and coming back to it later. Or, if you’re lucky enough to be in a good writers group, have them brainstorm with you. But don’t submit yet.

Eventually you will be able to fix the problem. I know you have the ability to fix it by the simple fact that it bothers you; you notice the problem area exists. If it wasn’t within your skill level to fix it, you would be blissfully unaware that there was a problem to begin with. Let it rest. Give it time. Work on something else awhile. Then come back to it. Somewhere in the deep recesses of your creativity, there is a solution and you will find it.

And the reality is, if you send the manuscript in with a problem spot, the editor will most likely write “Fix this” in the margin and send it back to you. If there are too many problem spots, they’ll just send it back.

And trust me. If I received a perfect manuscript, I would feel no need to change anything just for the sake of changing it. I’d be doing the Snoopy dance and singing the hallelujah chorus because my profit margin just went up!

There are so many wonderful LDS writer blogs and websites out there that I could not possibly link to all of them here. So for now, to have your blog/forum/website on my links list, it has to be a site that is PRIMARILY for support and/or education for LDS writers; not simply an author’s slice of life, or even his/her daily experiences as an author. It also needs to be kept current and posted to on a regular basis.

If you’d like to be linked here, e-mail your site address to me.

P.S. All links will be listed alphabetically. I don’t want anyone accusing me of favoritism. (Although, favoritism has gotten a really bad rap. Every choice we make in life is based on favoritism of some sort…)

P.P.S. If you’d like to put a link to me on your blog, have at it. And thanks.

Received several “edgy” submissions lately. All were rejected because I’m a “mainstream” LDS publisher.

If you want to save yourself time, expense and grief over rejection, here is a clue: Check out what the publisher has published in the past. If they’ve NEVER published in your genre, chances are you won’t get accepted.

The only exception to this might be a very small publishing house. Maybe they haven’t published fiction yet, but are willing to look at it. Maybe they’ve only published romance, but would be willing to look at fantasy. If this is the case, you can usually find another clue…

Check the submission guidelines on their website. Most will have a list of what they do and don’t accept, what they’re looking for, what they give preference too, etc.

Or a short phone conversation with the receptionist, “I’ve noticed you’ve only published pioneer fiction. Is your company thinking of expanding into other genres..?” (If they say no, politely thank them and hang up. Don’t argue with the receptionist who has absolutely no power to change policy. And don’t even think of arguing with the editor or the president of the company, who if they wanted to change their policy would have already done so.)

And if they say “mainstream LDS publisher” or “we want manuscripts that are supportive of LDS principles and beliefs” or other wording of that sort, then do NOT send them an expose (why won’t this do accents?) on Joseph Smith or a treatise on early Church doctrine that has been hushed up. Sorry, it’s not going to fly.

Reminds me of a postcard I used to have on my fridge, “Never try to teach a pig to sing. It wastes your time and it annoys the pig.” Not that publishers are pigs. And not that we don’t sing. But you get the idea.

I had to reject yet another manuscript that had LDS people having magical, mystical experiences.

You just cannot mix the two and have your book sell in the LDS market. Mormons cannot wield magic. They cannot meet up with aliens or be whisked off to a fantasy world. And you just cannot have them dealing with talking animals who pop in and out of existence in one scene, and then have them (the people, not the animals) being baptised in the next. It doesn’t fit in our belief structure.

If you want to write fantasy, then write fantasy. Leave the Church out of it. If you want to write a conversion story, write that–but the character’s conversion cannot be based upon a fantastic experience.

Well, okay, maybe if you have time travelling teens who go back to the days of the Book of Mormon, (or vice versa) but even that is a stretch for me.

Yea! The judge ruled. Dan Brown did not infringe on copyright when he wrote The Da Vinci Code. Publishers everywhere are dancing in the streets tonight.

So here’s something. They said on the news this morning that Dan Brown has made $400 million dollars on that book. And the movie hasn’t come out yet.

$400 million! That’s just obscene. And it’s not even his best book. I’ve read all four and I liked Angels and Demons best.

$400 million. And while he’s a good writer, he’s not the best in the world. His plots are pretty good, but after you’ve read two of his books, you know who the bad guy is going to be. (He must have father issues or something.)

$400 million.And the publisher has made more than that. So figure they pay him 20% (which is absurdly high, but he might have been able to negotiate it after he hit the $5 million mark). That means they earned…well, I can’t do math that high.

So let’s say they spent another 30% on expenses (production, marketing, sales, support staff, etc.) That means they still netted $800 million.

Well, maybe not. Because they could have done a 50/50 on foreign rights, book club, and stuff like that. Okay, so let’s say they ended up at only $600 million.

$600 million. Someone send me a Da Vinci Code fast! Actually, I’m not greedy. I’ll take a book that only does 1% of that.

If you get a chance to pitch an agent or editor at a writers conference, here are some great tips.

Pitch Perfect