Tag Archives: fire in the woods

The development of a writer: Are you getting any better?

Posted on October 2, 2015 | 6 comments

I just had a realization that has me bashing my head against my keyboard.

I think I might be a better writer now, then I was a year ago.

How did I come to this epiphany?

Ashes Teaser postponedAs some of you have noticed, Ashes in the Sky is late. Ashes, Book Two in the Fire in the Woods Series, is now (I think) on its third editor (Maybe the fourth. I’m losing count.)

This is both good, and bad.  It’s good, because I am getting extra eyes on the book, and each of the umpteenth editing rounds I do, the book gets infinitely stronger. (It’s not the editing rounds that are making it late by the way. Publishing is a fickle business. “Things” happen.)

So what’s got bugs in my bonnet?

Ashes1I jut started my final (I hope) round of edits before the proofread. Since this has been through SO MANY editing rounds, the novel should be pretty near perfect, right?

It’s not.

I’ve already gone through the entire manuscript and accepted, rejected, or revised according to the editor’s suggestions. The hard part is over.

Today, I started reading from page one, giving one final check before the proofread.

Here is where the banging my head part comes in.

I’m stunned at how many changes I am making, and I’ve only gotten through the first fifty pages of so.

I see things I didn’t see before. I am finding sentences that could be stronger. I’m replacing lazy verbs with robust ones. I’m finding paragraphs that don’t read quite right, and making them flow. And I even found a scene that had to be completely re-organized to make it make sense chronologically.

Could it be that I am incredibly picky and hard on myself?

PKO_0005301Well, yes. If you’ve been hanging out here for a while, you already know that is true. But I think the BIG difference is that I finished this novel November 2, 2014. That is almost a year ago, and since then I have completed two more novels. You always hear that practice makes you better. I think this is the case here.

Now that have two more novel’s worth of experience under the keys on my keyboard, and I am unwilling to let ASHES go to press when it’s not as perfect as I can get it.

Will it ever be perfect?

No, of course not, but I’m working darn hard to make sure it lives up to who I am now as a writer, and not who I was a year ago.

This kinda makes me nervous to think that I have three more novels that I completed BEFORE the contract offer for this series that I left on the back-burner to edit and submit another day. I shiver to think about the editing of those. I might have to set them aside as learning experiences.

Or maybe use them as 80,000 word detailed outlines, and start over from scratch.

Has this happened to you? Do you see yourself developing the more you write? Try reading something you wrote a long time ago, and let me know what you see.

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Flames longFlames longFlames longFire in the Woods Cover

You can find Fire in the Woods at all these awesome bookish places!

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Book Depository | Kobo | Chapters Indigo! | iBooks

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Newsletters. Are they really worth all the effort? Part 1

Posted on September 21, 2015 | 7 comments

The big buzz out there in marketing land right now is newsletters.

I’ve heard of newsletters before. I even have a newsletter signup in my sidebar, but I haven’t really promoted it on my blog. After all, you read me here every week. Why would you want to get my newsletter?

BullyAdmission of guilt: The truth is that even though I had a sign-up, I hadn’t actually ever written a newsletter – so I wasn’t all that worried about it.

Anyway, a few months ago a friend of mine linked me in to a group of sci-fi authors that were joining forces for a massive newsletter promotion. I figured for an entry fee of $10, the worst that could happen was I’d lose ten bucks. And the best thing that could happen was I’d sell a few books, or one of my wonderful 15 newsletter subscribers might win one of the three Kindle Fires or the gift cards they were giving away. So I joined up.

And then the learning process began.

Before the promotion went out, I did something I’d never done before. I felt bad that I only had 15 subscribers to add to the “pool” that would be getting this massive promotion. (Some of the authors had thousands—one had 22,000 subscribers. Crazy)

Anyway, I wanted to pull my weight, so I got on my biggest fan-based social media (Instagram) and announced I had a newsletter if anyone wanted to sign up.

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Imagine my surprise when 50 people signed up over the weekend. Say what? That was score number one that I could have achieved at any time I wanted. I just had no idea that anyone would even be interested!

That, in of itself, was worth the $10.00! I only wish I’d known sooner!

So take away number one is that it doesn’t hurt to ask. You might be surprised how many people might actually be interested in hearing from you in a newsletter.

I’m going to split this into two post so I don’t take too much of your time, but you might find the rest of this story very interesting. I know I did!

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Flames longFlames longFlames longFire in the Woods Cover

You can find Fire in the Woods at all these awesome bookish places!

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Book Depository | Kobo | Chapters Indigo! | iBooks

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Alien Lineup

Catch up with me on social media!

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Posted in Author Advice, Biggest Mistakes New Writers Make

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Fire in the Woods is up for an award!

Posted on September 11, 2015 | 13 comments

Guess what?

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Fire in the Woods is up for the TRR Reader’s Choice award!

I’m so excited I can’t stand it!

We’ve already moved into round two, and we need your vote to move into the next (and final) round which is the judging round.

If anyone would like to help push Fire in the Woods into the final judging round, you can click on this link:

http://www.theromancereviews.com/viewbooks.php?bookid=18830

You will need to log in, but you can do this simply by linking up with your Facebook, Google, Yahoo, or other social medial account with one click of your mouse.

If you are logged in when you visit the site from this link, you can simply hit the “Nominate this book” button, or you can click on the red “Book Voting” button at the top of the page.

Fire in the Woods is in the “Young Adult” category, which is the last category in a very long listing, so you can scroll all the way to the bottom, and then find the book alphabetically under that category. All you need to do is click on “Nominate this book”.

Thanks so much for voting and/or your positive vibes!

You guys totally rock!

You can find Fire in the Woods at all these awesome bookish places!   Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Book Depository | Kobo | Chapters Indigo! | iBooks

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Posted in Marketing Madness

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Fulfilling your contract: So, what is an “option book” anyway?

Posted on June 26, 2015 | 11 comments

For the past two weeks I have been working on the “option book” as required by my contract.

What is an option book?

My contract with Month9Books was for a three book series with an option for the fourth.  That means I agreed to write three complete novels. (Already done. Yay!) Once those are done, the publisher has the “option” to request a fourth book.

The next step in the process for me was to provide a summary for the fourth book (This will vary by publisher and by author/book. I have friends who have been asked for outlines, first chapters, first fifty pages, etc.)

So, in my mind, I figured they just wanted a rough idea of what I had in mind. After all, they have three books from me already, right? They are familiar with my writing style.

So what I did was write out a rough, fairly detailed outline.  This is very similar to how I would start any book … just hitting on the key points, figuring I would fill in all the “holes” as I write (Which is my normal process.)

Since I had two large signing events back to back weekends before this was due, I shot it off two weeks early so I could check something off my to-do list.  Yay! I felt accomplished!

Imagine my surprise when the next morning I got an email from Month9Books, asking for a phone meeting that same day.

Yikes!

Well… I found out that I hadn’t quite done my summary right. What they were looking for was a complete, highly detailed summary so they would know, without a shadow of a doubt, that this would be a book they would want to contract even before I had written it.

So then started the conversation … Why did this happen?  What about this? Did you realize that this part contradicts that part? What does this scene even look like? Why? Who? Which? Huh? Etc, Etc, Etc…

As humiliating as this sounds, I found it incredibly useful.  My editor was able to see problems in the manuscript before I had even written it. (This is the kind of stuff my beta readers would see later and I would have to fix) She asked questions that got my wheels turning, and we came up with ideas together to strengthen scenes before they were even written, and come up with a few that weren’t even there yet.

Now I have pages and pages of notes to strengthen my story.  Total score.

Due to the extremely intricate nature of the book I am proposing, my next step is to submit a detailed timeline. Since a few things happen at the same time, she needs to see how the timelines run together, and how they intersect.  I have one month to do this.

This is a lot harder to do this that it might seem, since the book isn’t even written yet. Like I said earlier, I usually plot only major points in the story, and then I write each day trying to get my characters to that point.  A lot of my ideas come “on the fly”. Coming up with them when I’m not completely engrossed in the story?  Really, really hard.

Think GirlBut what this exercise is forcing me to do, is to really THINK about the story scenes, and how they interrelate.  I am finding that I need another scene here, another there. There is not enough time for this scene in this spot. I need to move it over here… and so on. I am really glad they asked for this exercise, because there is a lot to this story, and as she told me, “We need to nail this or it will bite us.” Nope, don’t wanna be bitten.

So, that’s what I’m working on at the moment. Once this is done, if they take the option, it will be interesting to see if this extremely detailed timeline, summary, and subsequent notes from our phone meeting help me to write faster, of if they will stifle my creative mojo.

How detailed a plan do you come up with before you start writing?

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The Big Announcement! Fire in the Woods by Jennifer M. Eaton has been picked up for National Distribution by Barnes and Noble!

Posted on June 19, 2015 | 30 comments

Barnes and Noble

Omigosh! Can you believe it? Let’s say it again!

Fire in the Woods by Jennifer M. Eaton has been picked up for National Distribution by Barnes and Noble!

Whaaaaat  

I know! I can’t believe it either!

Cell phone ohA few weeks ago I told you I was sitting in my car, staring at an email, crying. Well, this was the news. PKO_0001147I had to let it sink in. And frankly, I wanted to be absolutely sure before I said anything. I mean, they could still change their minds, right? Well, last week my book started showing up in stores in New York City, and I couldn’t be happier. I found out when a fan sent me this lovely photo.

Thank you, thank you, thank you, from the bottom of my heart to Georgia McBride the Month9Books sales team for pitching my book to the biggest bookseller in the USA! AAAAAAAAA! I still can’t believe it! Wahoooo! I’m so stinking excited I can’t stand it. If you find Fire in the Woods in a store, please send me pictures. I can’t wait to see one in person! cropped-fire-banner-final2.pngcropped-website-1-1-logo.jpg

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A tiny fish swimming in a pond filled with dino-sized fish. A recap of BookCon. (With pictures!)

Posted on June 12, 2015 | 6 comments

It is almost a week now since BookCon. It seems like a dream. Like it didn’t happen.

I realize most of you probably have not been to BookCon, so let me try to paint a picture. While I expected it to be “big” and I expected there to be lines… Well, let’s just say being prepared, and then actually experiencing it are two very different things.

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One of my big take-aways:

The Star Wars Panel - the only one I could get in to

The Star Wars Panel – the only one I could get in to

Reading IS NOT DEAD. And to many people, authors are better than rock stars. Book fans will wait in line for an hour in the morning to get a ticket for the privilege to stand in line again a half hour before an afternoon event, just to hear their favorite author speak.

(This would also entail getting to the venue before it opens, and standing in line to be one of the first people through the door) They will also show up an hour early to get a wrist band or ticket to secure their place in line so their favorite author can sign their books.

And people were signing. And signing. And signing.

"Backstage" during my interview with BookTuber Ginger Reads Lainey

“Backstage” in the press area during my interview with BookTuber Ginger Reads Lainey

It was hard, at times, to walk through the event because everywhere you turned there were lines wrapped around the booths (I didn’t think to take pics of the lines. I wish I did.)

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Readers flocking to the Simon and Schuster booth

Booths ranged from the small one-table displays with banners (Where I was) to huge structures that felt like walking into a building all its own, complete with sitting areas inside.

And thousands of readers were in those booths.

It was pretty cool to think that all these people loved books enough that they traveled, some coming from huge distances, and paid $35.00 to get into an event showing books, and only books.

So, how did my signing go?

Being a teeny weeny guppy in a pond filled with gold-plated mackerel, I think I did pretty well. There were some pretty big names signing at the same time I did, but people still came (Thanks!)

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There’s Miss Jennifer taking care of the selling. Good thing. I was waaay too nervous

I had the lovely Jennifer Million from Month9Books beside me selling books, and the three outgoing ladies holding up my book and waving people in. (Annie Cosby, Sophie, and Lindsay Leggett: You guys rocked it!)

I met a lot of readers who had contacted me through social media after they read Fire in the Woods. Some came with their books for me to sign, and others picked up second copies so they could have signed ones. I would say that 50% of the books I signed were people who had already heard of Fire in the Woods, and the other 50% were walk-ups.

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There’s the Lovely Annie near the back of the line, holding a book in the air and waving people in line. Her shoulders must have been on fire!

 

When I first got there, the Month9Book Squad plumped down about twenty books in front of me. About 30 minutes into the signing I was down to three books and they re-loaded the table. I’m not sure how many books I signed, but I would guess 30 or so during my 45 minute time slot.

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Right before they reloaded the table with books

 

Not too shabby.

My lines were definitely not starting a traffic jam, but I was pretty stoked when I looked up a few times to see people waiting.

Boocon with fan

This girl was adorable. She came up to the booth while there was no one there, looked at the back cover copy of Fire in the Woods, and asked her dad if she could buy it. I signed her book for her, and about ten minutes later she came running back and asked for a picture. I wish I could remember her name!

Shout out to all the parents dropping money on books for their kids. Kudos to you for supporting a healthy reading habit!

Bookcon5All in all, I’d say it was a great day. I had the opportunity to meet fans, and hopefully introduced the book to new fans.

As a newly published author, I took in the lines waiting for fiction superstars with a sense of awe. I’ve always been motivated and driven, but now … well, now I’m even more so.

Bookcon3Now I’m looking to increasing my catalog and broadening my reach. The only difference between us guppies and the gold-plated mackerel is number of books and numbers of readers.

I already have a very well received book. Now I need to get that book into more hands. How am I going to do that?  Yeah… I’m working on it.

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BookCon – The book lover’s event to end all book lover’s events

Posted on May 29, 2015 | 4 comments

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BookCon. If you haven’t heard of it, take a moment to try and fathom 10,000 people converging on one convention center for two days with the sole purpose of meeting authors, listening to authors speak, and taking in panels on all things related to books.

BookCon Crowd

It’s book mania!

If anyone told me a year ago that I would be signing books at an event this big, I would have laughed uncontrollably. Especially since this time last year I was still querying Fire in the Woods.

Omigosh, I really was still querying! I’m shaking my head. What an insane year this has been!

So, yes, believe it or not, little old me will be there with some of the biggest authors in the world, signing books and meeting fans. (And maybe fangirling a little myself)

Part of me still can’t believe it. It will probably sink in when I get there, complete with a panic attack. Don’t worry, Hubbs is coming with me to give me oxygen.

Soooo, if any of you are coming to New York this weekend, I’d love it if you could stop and say hi! I will be signing FIRE IN THE WOODS at 1:00-1:45 at booth 2579 (The Month9Books booth)

 

 

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Gah! So much going on!

Posted on May 22, 2015 | 5 comments

 

What

Omigosh! I have so much going on I totally forgot to post today!

I’m finishing up second round edits on ASHES IN THE SKY, and writing up a formal outline for book four of FIRE IN THE WOODS to submit to Month9Books.

I should know by June 30th whether or not my publisher wants to pick up a fourth book in the series (She chews her nails)

Some big things are coming up.

Saturday, May 23 at 2:00 at Doylestown Books in Doylestown, PA I am going to be part of a huge YA Fantasy book signing event!

This is going to be the first big event I have had the opportunity to be a part of as a Month9Books author. Doylestown Books is quite a hot spot for authors. They’ve hosted some pretty big names so I’m thrilled to be a part of this event.

So exciting!

 

And next weekend is something so huge I still can’t quite get my mind around it. I’ll fill you in on that one in a few days.

Hope everyone is having a wonderful and productive writing week!

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Lesson Twenty-Nine from a Manuscript Red Line: How’s your synopsis?

Posted on May 18, 2015 | 8 comments

Side note: This is a repost from February of 2012. At that time, I was finishing a novel that I had spent several years on. I smile when I read things I had to say about that story, realizing that I have written six (yes, six) novels since then, and three novellas. I would never have believed that was possible four years ago when I wrote this.  –Just crazy.

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The publisher talked a lot about the synopsis in the closing comments of the Red-line.  I found this really strange, but I thought it had merit to mention it.

For an intro into where these tips are coming from, please see my post: A Full Manuscript Rejection, or a Gold Mine?  You can also click “Rant Worthy Topics” in my right navigation bar.  Choose “Gold Mine Manuscript” to see all the lessons to date.

The reason I found this strange, was because they’ve already read the manuscript.  They’ve already made comments, and asked for it to be re-submitted.  Why are they even talking about the synopsis?

What it seemed like to me (being an optimist) is that they were actually being helpful.  They probably knew that there was a chance that the author may not make all the changes to their satisfaction, and that she might submit to other avenues.  They were nice enough to point out problems with the synopsis that might help her if she sent it somewhere else.

(Honestly, after reading all their synopsis critiques, I was wondering why they even asked for a “full” in the first place.  I guess you never know.)

So, this is what they said…

They went through a laundry list of what the story “is not”.

It is not about this, it is not about that either.  (Quoting what was mentioned in the synopsis)

It is not a character study on the main character.

The quest is not fleshed out…

These are some of the comments.  I am guessing they are saying that the synopsis was too in-depth and talked about the side plots in the story.

I can totally understand this.  It took me months of writing and digging and cutting and beta-bashing until I finally realized what my story is about…

Magellan Talbot has to save the world.  Too bad he doesn’t know it.

Boom.  Done.  Now, there is a lot of other stuff going on that is SUPER important and makes the story unique, but you wouldn’t believe how hard it was for me to boil it down to the above.  I kept getting bogged down by the details.  The crux of the story is simple.

To save the world he has to save the Goddess.
To save the goddess he needs to fight for her.
To fight for her, he needs to find the Rapier.
To find the Rapier, he needs to remember his dreams…
The catch?  He can never remember his dreams.
Or anything else about who he really is.

There is also a lot of other stuff going on.  There is a love story, and a jealous brother trying to kill  Magellan… but simplicity is the key for the synopsis… I need to use only the elements that draw the story forward that are closely attached to Magellan saving the Goddess.

The publisher’s next comment in the Gold Mine Manuscript was “If the story is about saving (the alternate world) then that’s your focus and everything that happens in the story needs to lead to that point.  And the synopsis needs to be focused on all the activities that happen to get to that point.  Tie in every character that is introduced to get there as well as why and how (the MC) is the true key… build that up and show how that’s important.  Show us through actions and scenes that push the story forward.”

After reading this, I think I may have edited my own summary down too far.  I bought it down to the bare bones of the fewest characters involved that draw the main plot line forward.  And I also think I centered on the WRONG plotline.  My current synopsis is straight and to the point, but it is more centered on the jealous brother… which is important, but not the center.  I also took out Harris, who is probably equally as important in the novel as Magellan is.

Honestly, I am just not qualified to give anyone advice on a Summary.  I am just as lost as the rest of you.  I have helped out others with suggestions, because sometimes it is easier to have someone else boil down your story for you.  The best I can do is give you the exact quote that the publisher wrote for the Gold Mine Manuscript. (above)

Read their comment over carefully, and do your best with it.  And… when you get lost… remember that you have friends in the blogosphere who are always willing to help.

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Wow. Just wow 

Posted on May 15, 2015 | 11 comments

Something happened last night that blew my mind. I sat in my car, staring at the email, crying. 
Don’t worry. They were happy tears. 
There are many steps in a writer’s journey. And while I always “hoped” certain things would happen, deep down, I never really expected them to.

I’m not sure what I can share yet, but I wanted to let you guys know : anything can happen.  (especially when you are backed by a publisher that works hard to support their authors and grow their brand)

Have a wonderful weekend!

😊😘😊😘😊😘😊😘😊😘

Jennifer M.Eaton 

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