Tag Archives: author

Road to Publication #5: The Marketing Plan

Posted on June 11, 2012 | 50 comments

Today I received one of those big-scary presents from my publisher.  The Marketing Plan.

I don’t know if this calls for a squee or and EEEK!

I was a little surprised by the magnitude of it.  Everyone says writing the novel is the easy part.  Now’s the time for the work.  And this isn’t something you can’t put off.  Anything you do wrong (or right) now can affect how your novel sells.

I have a 20 week marketing plan leading right up until the release date of December 3rd.  20 weeks equates to 50 pages of reading.  Did anyone else just cringe?

The good news is a lot of this I have done already, or have already planned to do and it is on my schedule.  The bad news is, there is a lot of stuff that I haven’t done, and some of it is scary.

It’s time to plow ahead.  The good news is that I can draw on experiences of others, and I am not floundering in the dark.

Keep your fingers crossed!

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The Road to Publication #4: Meeting Other Authors

Posted on June 4, 2012 | 18 comments

When the gads of information started coming in from my publisher, one of the “neat little perks” was the key to the background of J. Taylor Publishing’s Website.

No… not the part where I can re-program it, silly… the password protected part.  Grooving around there, I found a forum… and low and behold I saw “Welcome new Author Jennifer M. Eaton”

Hmmmm… 

Of course I opened it up, and there was an email string of all the other JTP authors congratulating me and welcoming me on-board.  [[Grins]]

It’s pretty neat, having informal conversations with authors whose novels I have read.  I’m also getting to know the other authors in the anthology pretty well:  (Lynda R. Young, Kelly Said, Terri Rochenski, and Jenny Keller Ford (Who I already knew) not to mention Headline Author J.A. Belfield.

Getting to know them is nice, since we are all “in the same boat” at the same time, struggling against exactly the same deadlines to get our anthology out on time.

Right now, most of us have done the required final author edit on our manuscripts and handed them in for review by the J. Taylor editors.  I can’t wait for the flurry of chatter when the editors’ comments come back.

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The Art of Procrastination: Isn’t Writing Still Fun?

Posted on June 2, 2012 | 58 comments

I did something for the first time the other day.  I procrastinated.

Now, I’m not talking about the laundry, or doing the dishes—I procrastinated about writing.

Editing to be more exact.

Believe it or not, I have NEVER procrastinated before when it had to do with writing.  Never Ever.  Writing was always my escape.  What better way to get away from the world than with characters that I love.

So here I am, vacuuming, and actually shaving the dog (which I had been procrastinating over for three months.)  Now, I’m not talking about a little procrastination.  This dog was on the grooming table for a full two hours straight.  (No, she does not look like the same dog anymore.)

And it was all because I didn’t want to edit.  So, why is that?

I think it is because I have a list of things from the publisher to make sure that are not in my novel.  I think it is because I need to dig in and perfect it.  But wasn’t it perfect already?

Well yes, and no.  There’s nothing like pasting your novel into a manuscript analyzer if you want to make yourself run and hide.

By now, yes, I have started editing.  I am fixing and sculpting, and despite my initial hesitation, LAST WINTER RED is actually getting better.

Hmmmm.  Maybe these publishers actually know what they are talking about 🙂

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Posted in General Writing Tips, Senseless Ranting

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The Road to Publication #1: The Contract

Posted on May 14, 2012 | 22 comments

Wow, did I TOTALLY not expect to be writing a heading like that so early this year.

This will be a series of posts, but it will most-likely not be weekly.  Honestly, I don’t know everything that’s involved yet, or how often I’ll even have anything I can tell you.

Why am I writing this?

I realize that I am in a position of extreme interest to most of you.  As always, my mistakes, or my good fortune in this case, are an open book for you all to learn from.

To start with… the contract.  Wow.  Nothing makes things more real than seven scary pages filled with very serious sounding words like “Breach” “Grant” “Term” and “Indemnification”

Yikes!

Luckily enough for me, part of my day job is reading contracts, so this wasn’t as scary as it could have been.  I would highly suggest that if you DON’T have a background in contracts, or have a clear understanding of the publishing business, to bring your contract to a lawyer to get it explained.

Luckily for me, J.Taylor is a great publisher.  Their contract is concise and fair, and there are things in there to protect me and my family, as well as them.  Everything that I wanted was already there in the contract.  Whew!

Be prepared that there is a lot of negative stuff in the contract.  This is because the document is made to protect both sides if something “bad” happens.  It can be a little daunting to read all the stuff that can go wrong, but don’t worry.  This is just part of business, and is standard for almost any kind of business agreement.

What I really liked is J.Taylor Publishing softened the blow of the contract with a pretty “Welcome packet” wonderfully written with an air of excitement outlining some of the things that they will expect of me, and all of the great services that they offer.

After all I have heard about publishers dropping marketing in the lap of the author, leaving them to flounder on their own, I am tickled to find out that My publisher will be creating a marketing plan, and will do everything in their power to make sure the work is a success.

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Writing to a Deadline Part 14: Publisher response

Posted on May 8, 2012 | 27 comments

Holy cow!

I submitted my manuscript at 11:30 PM last night, and when I got home from work, there was a response that hit may mailbox at Noon!!!

Okay.  Deep breath.  Open the email.

“The revision was great. You did a fine job incorporating our feedback and adjusting the story to a simpler, more defined and well written product.”

Woa… hold on.  This is my first submission to a publisher.  Aren’t they supposed to belittle me and tear me to bits?  Did a publisher just call my work “great”?  Did a publisher just call my story “well written”?

Last words are “We’ll be in touch soon regarding final selections.”

Okay… we are back in “wait” mode.  I can deal with that.  I am just so tickled that I might actually be actually in the running—I can’t stand it.

I find a stream of emails from my writing buddy.  She’s been having an email conversation with the publisher all day.  They wanted more revisions done to hers.  They want to know if she’d be willing to revise further, to some pretty stringent specifications.

My heart sinks.  They went back and forth with her several times.  Someone there likes her submission enough that they want it really polished.  What does that mean for mine?  Was mine a form email that everyone gets?

They told her that they have eight submissions that they are currently considering, and only 5 slots in the anthology.

Am I one of the eight?  She obviously is.

I hop over to Scribophile, and another girl in my Scrib Group got a response that they liked her changes as well, and they were waiting to make a decision… The wording she used in her post made it sound like her response was almost word for word identical to mine.

What does that mean?  Did we both get the generic “nice” response?  Is that a bad thing, or are we both in the top eight?

Your mind goes crazy.  I swear.

I know, I know, there is not a dern thing I can do but wait… and have a few quiet conversations with the Guy Upstairs.

I put a heck of a lot of work into this over the last month.

At first, it was just a challenge to myself.

Now, it’s something I want so bad I can taste it.

Deep breath… and the wait begins.  Again.

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Don’t Stay Up Too Late: A Public Service Announcement

Posted on May 6, 2012 | 7 comments

Ugh.  I feel like poop.

I had this policy that sleep was optional if there was not enough time in the day to do what was necessary to finish this manuscript on time.

Trust me.  Sleep is not optional.

I highly recommend that NO ONE stay up until 2:30 in the morning three days in a row.

It’s just not healthy.

I feel like I am walking around in a bubble, like there is a hum all around me.  Is there a force field around the house?  ERGH I feel weird.  My ears are ringing.

Believe me; I could not get a straight thought out right now even if I wanted to.  There’s no way I could write another line or read another word of this manuscript.

My Mom always said to get enough sleep.  I always tell my kids to get enough sleep.  I didn’t follow my own advice, and here I am.

When writing to a deadline, remember to schedule in time for sleep.

Going to bed now.

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Posted in General Writing Tips

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How do you feel about your Facebook page?

Posted on May 5, 2012 | 18 comments

I admit, I am behind the times.  Facebook is not my friend.

I cannot use my knowledge of HTML to make it do what I want.  I can’t make it be what I want it to be.

Yes, I have a Facebook page.  No, I don’t really take care of it, and it shows.  As a yet to be published author, I have nothing definitive to promote, other than www.jennifermeaton.com, which I think I do reasonably well. (Proof is in the pudding… you’re reading this, aren’t cha?)

I’m just not really sold on Facebook’s value.

Why do I bring this up?

When I recently submitted my manuscript to a publisher, they asked a lot of questions relating to my “marketing value/expertise”.   One of them was the link to my Facebook page.  Ugh.

It was required, so of course I gave it to them, but this is the one part of my submission that I am not proud of.

Here is my pitiful Facebook page Author page – interactive page

Does anyone have a Facebook page that I can copy they are proud of?  I’d love to see it.  Mine is sorely lacking.

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Writing to a Deadline Part 10: Rewrite and Beta Blast

Posted on April 23, 2012 | 7 comments

If you’re just hopping into the insanity that is my writing life, check out my previous “Writing to a Deadline” posts or this won’t make sense.

Okay… fixed that climax.  Yeah!  I did it.  Oh no!  Now I am at 10,280 words!

That’s a whole page over!  Ugh!

Edit madness:  Extra word here, extra word there.  Unnecessary clause?  Can I tighten that dialog a little?  Does this person need to smile?  Is that dialog tag necessary?

Okay, I’m done.  Right?  Am I?   ARRRHGHHHH!

Beta Blast!  Call in the two people who the story really seemed to resonate with (Don’t bother with the person who didn’t seem to get it from the beginning)

Sorry, guys… I know it’s a lot to ask… but I need it back in two days.

Wait….  Wait….  Wait….  Tear a fingernail off.  Wait….  Water the plants… again.  Groom the dog… again (not that she’s complaining.)

Then the panic moment happens.  Through a writer’s group, I find out that someone submitted, and got a positive response.  Not an acceptance, but a request to make changes and re-submit through private channels.

Oh No!  There is a possibility that they will close for submissions if they fill all five slots.

It’s okay… take a deep breath.  I decided that I need to submit NOW, even though there are two weeks left until the deadline.

My two betas came back with minor changes.  Of course, while I was waiting I made changes of my own, so I pleaded for one more read.  Yeah, I can be annoying that way.

My worst writing nightmare is that all of these people call in the favor at the same time while I am up against a deadline of my own ***gack***

Okay… their responses come back.

Remove that comma, change that word…

Easy fixes.

Slow and steady.

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Book Review of The P.U.R.E. by Claire Gillian

Posted on April 19, 2012 | 25 comments

When I was offered a free advance copy of The P.U.R.E. from its publisher, I almost passed.  I am not a mystery fan.  I prefer something with lots of action and explosions.  But I figured, what the heck, it’s free.

So, I sat down one day and began reading what I expected to be a dull, boring drama.

Boy, was I in for a surprise.

Once again, I will use the Oreo Cookie Concept for reviewing:  Start with the crunchy goodness, dig into the squishy bad, and then end on a crunchy good note.

This one was a little tricky for me.

.

To start, were there any explosions?  No?  Sorry, but she loses a cookie there. (Yeah, I know that’s not fair, but it’s my rating system.  Get over it.)

What POV was it written in?  First Person “I”.  What?  UGH!  I hate first person!  Lose another cookie.

Okay, let’s not worry… She is still in “I liked it” range with three cookies.

Claire Gillian did an amazing job intertwining the overall mystery plot with the “Girl falling for the guy at the office” plot.  Not being a mystery fan, I actually gravitated more toward the romance aspect initially, but Ms. Gillian quickly sucked me in to her overall world of corporate Hell.

The best part about this book is the really defined main characters.  I totally believed them, and living in a cubicle myself for the last twenty years, I can totally relate to the inter-office politics.

Personally, I believe the realism of the characterization comes from the excellent POV writing.  I’m not a fan of first person because normally I find it confining.  Not so here.

So, Ms. Gillian, I am giving you your cookie back for POV.  This is probably the best First Person POV I have ever read.  You are back up to four out of five cookies.

The creamy filling… the bad stuff

This is going to sound uber-critical of me, but I just couldn’t leave this section blank.  After all, no one is perfect.  I have to admit, that I really needed to rack my brain over faults in The P.U.R.E.  So, after much more in-depth pondering than a normal person would do…here you have it:

There were a lot of characters in the office environment.  I got confused with who was who.  Even in the ending scenes, I wasn’t sure who was who.  This didn’t really bother me, though, because frankly, it just didn’t matter at that point.  (In a good way—I was so absorbed I didn’t even stop to think about it.) –not subtracting a cookie for this

This is something I feel like I need to mention, although it breaks my heart to do it.  I caught a few typos.  Ugh.  Okay… remember I am looking for something bad to say, because this novel was so dern good… so there!  I found three punctuation typos.

Since I had an advance copy, I let them know about the typos, hoping they could fix them.  I don’t know if they did.  The problem with a typo is that I stopped reading.  I flipped my Kindle in all different directions to read it different ways to see if it was really a typo.  This is a problem because I am no longer reading the story.  I lost the scene.  You never want your reader to stumble in the middle of a scene.

I need to subtract at least a bite out of a cookie for that.  I will happily remove the bite if the typos are fixed in the next revise.

Ending on a crunchy good note:

Once in a while, an author surprises me by breaking the rules.  I would like to give super-big kudos to Claire Gillian for not ignoring the subject of condoms.  They are always used, and when the romantic leads didn’t have one, they didn’t have sex.

GOOD FOR YOU CLAIRE GILLIAN!!!!!

The two characters even had a conversation about STDs and birth control.  For myself, having lost a cousin to a sexually transmitted disease, I have to nod in appreciation to the author.  This is the first time I have read anything that didn’t ignore that detail/concern like it didn’t exist.

For this, Ms. Gillian, I am giving you an extra cookie just because.  Thank you for being socially conscious, while keeping it romantic and real.  This totally makes up for the lack of explosions. (And I have to admit there was a high action scene that I thoroughly enjoyed that made up for it a little as well.)

Final cookie count?  Four and three-quarters of a cookie, and I will happily make it a five cookie review if the typos are fixed.

I was thinking this over, and wondering where I would place this novel on my “best of” scale.  I cringe to say it since this is a mystery novel, but the P.U.R.E. firmly has a place in the top five novels I have ever read.

I highly recommend all authors to read The P.U.R.E. and concentrate on Claire Jillian’s characterization, and her voice.  I have large chunks of text highlighted to go back and analyze to learn from how she presented it.  The writing is crisp, clean, and easy to read.  Not only will you be enjoying a great novel, but I think all authors could learn a lesson or two from her great writing style.

Am I now a mystery fan?  No, not at all.

Would I buy another Claire Gillian novel?  Yes, absolutely.  I wouldn’t hesitate for a single second.

Buy The P.U.R.E. at Amazon.com

Buy The P.U.R.E. at Barnes and noble

Note: Barnes and Noble has it on sale for $11.46 in paperback right now.  Digital is $4.99 on both sites.

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My First Face to Face Critique Group

Posted on April 18, 2012 | 22 comments

Believe it or not, up until today I had never been part of a face-to-face critique group.

There weren’t any around me, and I didn’t want to travel all the way into the city and pay $30 for parking.

I had thought of starting my own, but hesitated because of the work involved with being a moderator.  Then, luckily enough, a friend of mine started one ½ hour from me.  She was so nervous, and very happy when I signed up… THe old strength in friendly numbers thing.

In retrospect, we discussed a few mistakes, one of which was opening it up to ANYONE who was interested.  She was trying to be nice, but it was frustrating to get there after critiquing ten pages of 4 other authors, and only having two other people show up. (The moderator, myself, and another participant)

It worked out fine, but I wasted valuable time reading and critiquing twenty pages for two people who will never see my comments,  — and if you know me… 20 pages equals about 90 comments. I am very thorough.  Also, I won’t see what they did for me (if they ever even read mine in the first place)

In retrospect, we discussed only opening up the critique sessions to established members of our writing group (which is 300 members strong).  This way, we can be sure the people are already invested, and not just “fly by night”.

What WAS good was that the three of us who came were serious.  We critiqued each other’s work, and since we had an extra hour, chatted further about each piece than we would have been able to under normal circumstances. (If the other two showed up)

I was particularly tickled that they both asked for the rest of my work (Last Winter Red) because they liked it so much they wanted to see what happened.  Everyone needs a little ego-boost now and then 🙂

Did they come up with anything my beta-army didn’t?  Yeah, a few things.  Every set of eyes notices something different.  What was cool was that I could talk to them about it.  The only problem with on-line beta partners is that you have to email back questions, and sometimes that’s hard.  Here, we just chatted it over.

Probably— if I knew who the people were, and I could trust that they would show up.  I believe that the more opinions you get, the better your work will be… and someone may just see one word that is wrong that everyone else read over.

Also, I love getting out and chatting with other writers.  I love helping people develop.  There are so many people out there with great ideas, they just need help formulating them in a marketable way.

I was there once (a novice), and it was not too long ago.  Someone helped me.  Okay, a lot of people helped me.  Gosh, I was bad… but my ideas were good.  Now that I know a little bit about writing, it’s my turn to share the wealth.

That’s not to say that I don’t make the same silly mistakes all the time.  I am nowhere near arrogant enough to say I don’t need my beta-readers.  I am just to the point where I know what they mean when they think something is not right.  I can look at their comments, hit myself in the head, and I know EXACTLY how to fix it.

Other writers taught me how to do that.

Now, I can give that knowledge back to others.

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