The 2012 Olympics and the Loneliness of the Long Distance Writer

Watching the previews of the 2012 Summer Olympics made me realize how very much alone we, as writers are in own field of dreams. Each athlete has personal stories to tell about coaches, teammates, family, friends and sometimes entire towns cheering them on.

When they had doubts, when they fell on the ice, or landed in a pile of snow, numerous supporters were ready at a moments notice to help them back on their feet. And when they were finally in the arena, thousands of spectators watched, cheered and applauded their every achievement as well as felt their anguish when they didn’t quite make it to the finish line.

Yet, in our own “Wide Wide World of Writing”, the only “applause” we hear is from our fingers hitting the keyboard. Our biggest motivator is the blinking cursor on a blank screen “screaming” at us to KEEP GOING. Writing is a passion unlike any other. It comes from deep within, and has few rewards on the other side. The road is rifted with obstacles, and laden with the hazzards of rejection. Most of our friends and family members can’t possibly understand that our burning desire to create the “perfect” sentence is just as strong as any gymnist’s quest to nail the “perfect” dismount. Yet, we press on. Alone.

We watch an athlete practice for the great event and can feel their struggle. We see the “thrill of victory” and “the agony of defeat” as the camera zooms in on their faces at the end of a competition. The “team” hugs each other in triumph, or consoles each other through tragedy. It is a magnificent show of physical ability, strength and endurance, as they go for the gold, the trophy, the championship ring.

No one else can “feel” the enormous weight of a writer’s block, or the pressure of a looming deadline. And no one but a writer knows the absolute, total thrill when, after hours of mental aguish, we find the one word that makes us literally jump up from our chair and yell “YES!” Usually, to an empty room.

The world revolves around athletes. From the youngest to the professional, families work their schedules around practices and games. Laundry, dishes and other household chores are for the “less talented” members of the family. If one of them happens to be a writer, it’s their world that constantly gets interrupted. (Pause here while I take the laundry out of the dryer).

Team pictures line the walls in an athlete’s home along with trophies, medals and other awards of achievement. And while it is true that the writing profession does have its own established awards, you won’t find many trophies for writers displayed inside glass cases in local high schools or colleges.

Writing is not a competitive sport, (although I know some writers who might disagree). For most of us who started down this road, either by choice or by chance, we chose to walk it, initially, alone. But on the way, something miraculous occurred. We meet other writers who wear similar scars of repeated rejections, and bruises from scathing reviews, and yet somehow found the strength to continue the journey.

We find “comrades in arms” through writing organizations, or meet many faceless friends on-line, who offer support and encouragement. And with each new writer we meet, we begin to feel not quite so alone as we did when we started the journey.

Not everyone can be an Olympic Athlete and in spite of what many people think, not everyone can be a writer. We may never be on the pitcher’s mound in Yankee Stadium, but we can write a great story about an athlete who is. We may never sign a multi-million dollar product endorsement contract, but we can create a dynamite thirty second commercial spot. We may never stand on a podium and receive a gold medal, but we will always be there writing the script for the announcer who tells the world of their achievement.

Even if we don’t perform for thousands of cheering fans, we will always have this one fact to keep us going: Civilization will still exist without the Olympics, the Super Bowl or the World Series. But without writers…

The E-Book Royalty Mess: An Interim Fix

From the Authors Guild – A perspective on what REALLY happens in the real world of e-publishing. It’s not a pretty sight:

Negotiating a publishing contract is frequently contentious, but authors have long been able to take comfort in this: once the contract is signed, the interests of the author and the publisher are largely aligned. If the publisher works to maximize its revenues, it will necessarily work to maximize the author’s royalties. This is the heart of the traditional bargain, whereby the author licenses the publisher long-term, exclusive book rights in the world’s largest book market in exchange for an advance and the promise of diligently working to the joint benefit of author and publisher.

Now, for the first time, publishers have strong incentives to work against the author’s interests.

Read the entire post

Keep Your Eyes On The Road to Publishing Riches

There is a card posted on my computer which persistently asks: “Is what I’m doing right now taking me closer to or further away from my goal?” It’s an inspiration, and a curse. As a writer, the path to that goal on the “Road to Riches” is not always clearly marked. And many times, we find ourselves heading in the wrong direction.

I have a bumper sticker on the back of my car which reads: “I’d rather be writing”. Of course, if anyone sees it, it means I’m doing anything but. Until recently, many other authors have been reading this message as my car sat in various parking lots while I attended writer’s clubs and association meetings in an effort to publicize and sell my books.

When I first began on this very bumpy “Road to Riches”, I joined every writer’s club I could find, locally, nationally and in cyber-space. My membership cards filled my wallet, replacing the cash which I had spent on dues.

I joined SPAWN, the Small Publishers, Authors and Writers Network. The organization threw “mixer” parties, we “networked” like crazy and I met a number of creative writers, but never sold a single book.

I joined a local writer’s organization and spent one Tuesday a month listening to a barrage of publishing “experts” who knew less than I did about current trends. They were paid a hefty fee, which was a good thing, because without too many exceptions, no one in attendance purchased a single copy of their book. Not from them, or from the thousands of other authors whose works lined the shelves of Borders, where the group met.

I joined the National Writers Union and attended several meetings where we discussed legal issues of copyright laws, but very little on sales and marketing. I’m also a card-carrying member of the Author’s Guild, the International Women Writers Guild, the National Association of Women Writers and the National League of American Pen Women. All excellent sources of information, support and motivation, but little sales potential.

The “road” was slowly approaching a dead end, so I turned off at the next exit and attended a dinner meeting of the Southern California Book Publicist Association. Thinking it was the perfect opportunity to make some great contacts or, at the very least, learn more about marketing and promotion of books. I drove through Los Angeles rush hour traffic, which is any hour on the 101 freeway, paid twenty-five dollars for an unappetizing dinner and started introducing myself to members whom I assumed were publicists.

Much to my surprise, everyone I met was an author. Not a publicist in sight. On the table was a huge display of books, all non-fiction and all for sale. And not a single book sold. Although I did enjoy the guest speaker, somehow I knew Shelly Berman wasn’t going to help sell my novel anymore than the ten people at my table, each of whom were asking me for help in promoting them. I did manage to sell one copy of my novel to some guy who asked for my phone number! I wrote it in the book and charged him for it. Whatever works.

In cyber space, promotional opportunities for authors are abundant. There are numerous promotional sites for authors, all promising to help increase sales: for a fee of course. But, there are also free web-rings and e-groups which are designed specifically for authors to promote themselves. The problem is that most of these sites are directed to other authors!

I’ve spent hours updating my own web site with author’s rings, author’s support groups and links to almost fifty web sites worldwide. This month alone, I’ve received over 2,000 “hits” and glowing e-mails on what a great site I have, but no deposits into my PayPal account!*

I’ve met some wonderful, talented writers from my association with these groups, but I’ve yet to sell more than a few copies of either “Red Wine For Breakfast” or “First Class Male. Yet, at the last book festival I attended, I sold ten copies of each in less than an hour! (If you’d like to read how I accomplished this, please read last month’s column.)

After all the time, effort and energy I’ve spent over the past two years, on-line and off, one thing finally became perfectly clear: authors don’t buy other author’s books!

Author’s write. We’d rather be writing, as my now faded bumper sticker proclaims, than anything else, including reading. But we also need to find other ways to sell our works than to rely on other authors. We need to find readers! And we need to steer the groups and associations we belong to onto the road that reaches our readership and doesn’t veer off into a ditch.

To totally ruin J.F.K’s famous line, “Ask not what you can do for your association, ask what your association can do for you!” If members of your group are only interested in dinner and a show (speaker) rather than helping each other reach out to the reading public, you’re wasting your time. It should be mandatory that anyone who joins a writer’s group must not only purchase a copy of everyone’s books, but sell at least 10 copies to their friends. That’s networking! Anything less is taking us away from, not bringing us toward, our goal. To sell books!

As authors, we must turn off the easy, well paved road with other authors and take the dusty trail towards uncharted territory: readers!

There Are No Shortcuts on the Road To Publishing Riches

The term “overnight” success, especially in publishing, has taken on a whole knew meaning since the onset of Print-On-Demand and Ebook industry a little over one year ago. Writers saw this new “Electronic Publishing Revolution” as a way to avoid painstaking submissions and endless rejection letters while seeing their works in print and available to the reading public.

“Overnight” almost everyone who could pick up a pen and write a check, could also pick up a pen, write a book, and become a “published” author. And, with over 30,000 titles from one POD company alone, it seems that almost everyone did.

At the start of this new industry, Print-On-Demand publisher iUniverse promoted a few select authors in book review sections of major newspapers. Although the quotes were meant to entice new authors, their implication was the opposite. One of the first quotes was of a woman standing with her arms folded under the words “iUniverse saw something in me no one else did, a successful author.” The implication being that she had been rejected by everyone in the publishing industry, and if she could get published, anyone could…for $99.00.

Promises of seeing their novel on the bookstore shelf, fans lining up for a signed copy, their name on the New York Times Best Seller list, and, dare I say, a guest spot on Oprah’s book club had hundreds of writers submitting their life’s dream to the one place they knew couldn’t and wouldn’t reject them, as long as their manuscript was accompanied by a signed contract and a signed check.

The content wasn’t important. POD was a quick, easy and fast way to go from day-job Joe, to “published author”.

With dreams of becoming the next Stephen King, or Danielle Steele, wide-eyed POD authors with their just-off-the- press novel in hand, walked into book stores expecting to be greeted with open arms. Instead, what they found more often than not was a closed and locked door.

“Overnight” bookstore owners, both large and small were inundated with requests from unknown authors for booksigning events. What had once been a dream, quickly turned into a nightmare as store after store began to refuse to stock POD titles. Barnes and Nobel, once in partnership with iUniverse.com, recently issued a new policy for all stores not to host events with POD authors. Mainstream writers organizations such as the Authors Guild and Romance Writers Association will not recognize POD or ebook authors as qualified for membership. Newspaper book reviewers won’t touch a POD publication, and most independent book stores refuse to host a POD author event. Bookstore owners, especially small independents would rather dedicate their resources for known authors who have gone the more traditional route and have a large publishing house stamp of approval. (The traditional publishers also take returns, one thing POD’s do not)

Any successful author knows that “overnight” success takes years of hard work. Hosting book signing events nationwide and having fans line up around the block for autographed copies of your book may be your end goal, but unless you’re willing to pay your dues to get there, it’s not going to happen. Unfortunately, there are many POD authors who expect to be treated as if they had. It doesn’t and it shouldn’t work that way. If you wish to be treated like a professional, you first must learn everything you can about the profession, especially now when the competition is fierce.

POD is a totally different process from traditional publishing, and any writer who chooses the POD route for publication should understand that they are not going to be treated as if they were a traditional author, not without a great deal of hard work and even harder effort. If you wish to be treated as a professional author, you must begin to act like one. This means do your homework before approaching anyone to promote your book.

Having your title listed on Amazon.com and a variety of on-line bookstores is only the beginning. The kind of exposure you’ll need to create the necessary buzz about your book is going to require almost as much time and energy as it took for you to write it, maybe more.

The Internet has hundreds of web sites dedicated to POD authors. Start with is your POD publisher, they usually have the best reference material available. Join several POD egroups, especially the ones that are specific to your genre. Ask other authors what methods they use to promote and market their books and learn how to use these techniques to boost your book sales. There are several very good articles right here on the Amazing Authors Showcase, and they also have their own egroup and web ring available at no charge.

If you have the finances, hire a professional public relations firm, but be sure they have good knowledge of the Internet as well as enthusiasm for your book. But don’t fool yourself into thinking just because you wrote a book, agents and publishers will be beating down your door.

The POD industry is both a blessing and a curse. With thousands of titles being published at an alarming rate, getting your book noticed is going to be a long journey and there are no short cuts. For authors who believe otherwise, the road leads to nothing but a disappointing dead end.

Running Out of Gas on the Road to Publishing Riches

There have been numerous articles written about writer’s block- that horrific time in our lives when our “Muse” takes a vacation and all creativity comes to a screeching halt. Web sites abound on the subject, with many experts giving their opinions on the causes and solutions, most of which we’ve all heard before. But the topic of this article is not about this well known malady, but a more serious affliction: writer’s stall.

What happens when we run out of gas on the “Road To Publishing Riches”?

With every two steps forward we take as writers, it seems we get pushed back three. It’s hard not to get discouraged and harder still to continue writing when the odds are being stacked higher and higher against us.

In this day of electronic publishing, it only takes a small investment to become a “published” author. iUniverse, Xlibris and a host of other print-on-demand publishers opened the door to hundreds of hopeful writers eager to see their years of hard work finally appear on bookstore shelves. But the door was quickly slammed shut as store after store refused entry to these “vanity press” titles.

Organizations such as the National Writers Union and the Authors Guild have been fighting the legal battle over reproduction rights for years, taking our case all the way to the Supreme Court. Yes, we won the battle, but now it appears we may have lost the war as magazines now demand we give up all rights, including electronic ones, or they won’t buy our submissions.

And it’s not any easier on authors. Once that first book is in your hands, the hard work of promotion and marketing is left almost totally up to you. Unless you’re a Stephen King, Anne Rice or another “name” author, getting your book into stores or attracting public attention is an exhausting effort, with most of the effort returning zero results. It’s become a viscous cycle of frustration. In order to make it onto the bookstore shelves, you need to be a “name”, but you can’t make a name for yourself unless you’re on the bookstore shelves!

Once your book is published the road becomes laden with even more detours and obstacles. You send your novel to fifteen reviewers and no one responds. You hold book signing events and only three people attend, two of whom are your family and the other one wants information on finding an agent for their novel. You receive excellent newspaper, radio and cable television coverage, but sales are still under 100 for the month. And as you stare at a blank screen and an obnoxious blinking cursor at three in the morning, you begin to ask yourself: is it all worth it?

Bookstores are covered with titles from authors who have written ten, twenty or more novels and you can’t even begin the first sentence of the first chapter of your second one. The plot is in your head, the characters, the story, every detail mapped out perfectly. Yet it remains trapped for months while distractions always seem to get in the way, and you begin to wonder if you will ever be able to free it onto the written page. And if you do, will it be as good as the last one or will anyone read it, or will it too be stuck in the traffic jam on the “Road To Riches”?

Then you read about some infamous political figure who just signed a multi-million-dollar book contract and you’re thinking “I’m sleeping with the wrong Bill.” (Providing your partner’s name is Bill!) And you start having doubts that your writing is any good. Was it just a case of temporary insanity that caused you to sit at the computer for hours writing and re-writing page after page of a story no one may ever read?

Self-doubt begins to creep in, as the money begins to drain out. Hours spent working on a web site hundreds of people read, but no one hits the “donate $1.00 per story” to help sustain. Cyber pats on the back and accolades from around the world feel good, but they don’t pay the monthly access fee. So, the column slips by another month. You miss the deadline on the short story contest you were going to enter and all you have to show for your next novel is the title. Your engine is stalled, your gas tank is empty and there you sit. Stranded. Alone on a deserted highway on a very lonely road without a cell phone or an emergency flare, you start to question why you began this journey in the first place.

Then a minor miracle happens. A voice in distant cyber space “yells” at you to get off your butt and send three chapters of your novel by Thursday or else. After helping your teenager with an essay, she calls from college to tell you you’re not a good writer, you’re a great writer. Your daughter locks you in your office and won’t let you out until you’ve finished the column. The local university calls to tell you five people signed up for your class. Your e-box is filled with mail from readers saying how much they enjoyed your latest contribution to their Association newsletter. A magazine editor you highly respect asks you to interview a very “interesting” author who spends an hour and a half reminding you why you started on this journey. Not for the fame, not for the riches, but for the sheer joy of the ride.

And you discover there’s just enough gas left in the tank to start the engine. Just enough to begin the journey again, no matter where it leads. In spite of the hazards, in spite of the road blocks and in spite of the occasional stall on the “Road to Riches”, there isn’t any other road you’d rather be on, because writing isn’t what we do, it’s who we are.

And we love it!

The Olympics and the Loneliness of the Long Distance Writer

Watching the previews of the 2012 Summer Olympics made me realize how very much alone we, as writers are in own field of dreams. Each athlete has personal stories to tell about coaches, teammates, family, friends and sometimes entire towns cheering them on.

When they had doubts, when they fell on the ice, or landed in a pile of snow, numerous supporters were ready at a moments notice to help them back on their feet. And when they were finally in the arena, thousands of spectators watched, cheered and applauded their every achievement as well as felt their anguish when they didn’t quite make it to the finish line.

Yet, in our own “Wide Wide World of Writing”, the only “applause” we hear is from our fingers hitting the keyboard. Our biggest motivator is the blinking cursor on a blank screen “screaming” at us to KEEP GOING. Writing is a passion unlike any other. It comes from deep within, and has few rewards on the other side. The road is rifted with obstacles, and laden with the hazzards of rejection. Most of our friends and family members can’t possibly understand that our burning desire to create the “perfect” sentence is just as strong as any skater’s quest to nail the “perfect” triple axle. Yet, we press on. Alone.

We watch an athlete practice for the great event and can feel their struggle. We see the “thrill of victory” and “the agony of defeat” as the camera zooms in on their faces at the end of a competition. The “team” hugs each other in triumph, or consoles each other through tragedy. It is a magnificent show of physical ability, strength and endurance, as they go for the gold, the trophy, the championship ring.

No one else can “feel” the enormous weight of a writer’s block, or the pressure of a looming deadline. And no one but a writer knows the absolute, total thrill when, after hours of mental aguish, we find the one word that makes us literally jump up from our chair and yell “YES!” Usually, to an empty room.

The world revolves around athletes. From the youngest to the professional, families work their schedules around practices and games. Laundry, dishes and other household chores are for the “less talented” members of the family. If one of them happens to be a writer, it’s their world that constantly gets interrupted. (Pause here while I take the laundry out of the dryer).

Team pictures line the walls in an athlete’s home along with trophies, medals and other awards of achievement. And while it is true that the writing profession does have its own established awards, you won’t find many trophies for writers displayed inside glass cases in local high schools or colleges.

Writing is not a competitive sport, (although I know some writers who might disagree). For most of us who started down this road, either by choice or by chance, we chose to walk it, initially, alone. But on the way, something miraculous occurred. We meet other writers who wear similar scars of repeated rejections, and bruises from scathing reviews, and yet somehow found the strength to continue the journey.

We find “comrades in arms” through writing organizations, or meet many faceless friends on-line, who offer support and encouragement. And with each new writer we meet, we begin to feel not quite so alone as we did when we started the journey.

Not everyone can be an Olympic Athlete and in spite of what many people think, not everyone can be a writer. We may never be on the pitcher’s mound in Yankee Stadium, but we can write a great story about an athlete who is. We may never sign a multi-million dollar product endorsement contract, but we can create a dynamite thirty second commercial spot. We may never stand on a podium and receive a gold medal, but we will always be there writing the script for the announcer who tells the world of their achievement.

Even if we don’t perform for thousands of cheering fans, we will always have this one fact to keep us going: Civilization will still exist without the Olympics, the Super Bowl or the World Series. But without writers…

“Overnight” Success Takes About 10 Years

The writer’s road is paved with pot holes and detours. Unless you’re a well-established author, a celebrity, or a politician, where publishing houses beat down your door with offers of huge contracts and advances, most writers are simply doing our best to just keep going.

I spent eight years writing my first novel “Red Wine For Breakfast”. It was never my intention to publish the book, it was only an exercise to help me deal with the untimely death of my best friend. I thought it was a decent story, so I printed it in booklet form on my lasejet and took it to a printer who bound it with a plastic comb. I gave it to some friends, who agreed the book was pretty good and convinced me that I should try to have it published.

That was in 1996, long before the explosion of the Electronic Revolution, and Print On Demand publishing. After sending it out to a few literary agents, I was very excited to receive letters of acceptance from several. Until I read the last paragraph which recommended that I first hire a “Book Doctor” to made some edits, and then they would consider representation. My initial excitement turned to suspicion when I received six letters from different agent, all with the exact same recommendation. After a bit of internet checking, I discovered these acceptance letters were part of a kick-back scam.

I was then approached by a woman who had read my book and wanted to option it for a movie. I was thrilled. Press releases were sent, events were organized, but she never signed the contract agreement for payment. The only similarities between my book and the script was the title, the names of the characters and the setting. The person who wrote the script had changed everything else, so I cancelled the option, took my book and what was left of my dream, and walked away.

Soon after, I signed with iUniverse, one of the very first POD’s in the publishing business. They promised that their titles would be in every Barnes and Noble store, we could host book signing events and be a “published author”. For only $99. I was the featured author at several of these events, but in time book stores became inundated with “published” authors, and stopped scheduling iUniverse authors.

Then, I received an email from another author who was going to start his own publishing company. He not only wanted to re-publish Red Wine For Breakfast, but would create a new cover, along with my new Pen Name, and also publish my second novel First Class Male.

I was thrilled. I scheduled a huge book party at a local hotel, invited friends and the media to attend and everything was set for the new release;

September 15, 2001.

The books were grounded, along with every other airline, and never made it to my event.

In 2006, he published Journey To Dimension Nine, a collection of erotica short stories. The cover was perfect, the book went up on Amazon.com. And not a single one was sold. I then received an e-mail from a new independent publisher who was starting an erotica sub-section for his company, had read my book, and wanted to publish it under his new section.

He sent me a contract. I sent him the files. Again, I was elated. Again, I was disappointed.

The publishing date was to be June of 2009, then July, then August. Yesterday, I received an email saying that his entire venture was going to have to be pushed back until January of 2010…or later, if at all.

Throughout these highs and lows of my writing career, I never gave up. A few months ago, I received an email from another publisher who was interested in “Red Wine For Breakfast”. I called her, we talked for over an hour. She sent the contracts, I sent the files. We worked to exhaustion over the past few months going over the manuscript line by line to produce an excellent novel that everyone is very proud.

The scheduled release date is September 15.

I’ve always said that “overnight success” takes about ten years. It’s been a very long, very bumpy road since 1999 when I started this journey, but now I’m on my third novel with many more to go. No one said this trip would be easy, but success, real success, never is.