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On dreams and a thoughtful article from @The_Millions

Posted on November 8, 2011
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Welcome to Autumn (our front window)

There are dreams and then there are Dreams. Of the former…I’ve been having really strange ones lately. Like mini-movies that may or may not actually include me in it (do other people have dreams they aren’t in or is it just me?). The kind where you wake up, heart racing, wondering what happens next. And then bummed because you’ve woken up and you’ll never know now.

I have stories that have started out that way (kinda like Stephenie Meyer, I know, but *not* at the same time…mine have never had sparkly vampires in them) and some of them might even turn into full-fledged novels one day. Though in the light of day, things that make sense in the dream-world, don’t always hold up well under scrutiny. Chimpanzee wearing a purple-striped bikini and eating an ice cream cone while standing on a rolling ball? Um, maybe not.

I often tend to dream really crazy dreams when I’m working on  a book. They don’t necessarily have anything to do with the book (Ask Me, for instance, definitely has no chimpanzees in it). Maybe they are just a by-product of your imagination working over time. After all, sometimes thorny plot issues have a way of solving themselves in those midnight hours.

As for Dreams with a big D…I’ve been wondering what mine really is now. Once upon a time, my Dream was to be a published author. And I am (since 2008! Whoo!). Was it a dream come true? Well, not totally (not that I’d trade it for the world! But no matter what you think it will be like, it’s not it). And while I’d love to have a Big Dream like hitting the NYT’s Bestseller list, I don’t really want that to be my Dream, you know? I’d like something, well, bigger. More meaningful and less commercial-y feeling.

What is it? I dunno yet.

What’s your dream? (don’t worry, I’m not going to co-opt it. Well, unless it’s really good…)

In writing-ish-ness, I’m still working on Ask Me. Need to finish it up in the next month before the holidays really kick in and The Max is off from school. Some days it is really flowing. Other days…pulling teeth, dude, pulling teeth. I like the story though. And the main character, Aria, even though I know I’m about to make her life really, really miserable.

On Cat Girl’s Day Off, the copy edit is all done and the galleys are about to come to me for a final review (maybe today or tomorrow! Ack!). The ARC cover has been settled on (love it). Only disappointing note is that I came up with a too-late-to-use title idea. But hey, if I get to write a sequel, I’ve got a great title for it now. So that’s something.

It was just so perfect. Sigh. My editor liked it too, but it was too late since the sales people have been out since September with sell sheets.

And in Sucks to Be Me third book-ish news…honestly, I really still don’t know what to do there. I do so love it that you guys email me and leave comments every week asking about the status. I am just so leery of self-publishing (though I don’t see that I have a choice in the matter if I want to get it out there). And the first two books are still selling (and have apparently reached far away places like Malaysia–thanks, Dylan, for the picture of my books in a store there!). I was reading this article on The Millions and it really rings true to me.

Though the idea of getting funding through Kickstarter is appealing to me and it looks like there are writers who have successfully done this (and then I could use that money to actually produce a physical copy of the book, not just an eBook, which is something I’d really like to do). Of course, if I did that I’d have to come up with some really cool things for backers…*thinks* Basically, the Kickstarter funding would replace the advance I would normally get from a publisher and cover some advertising and production costs. I have to look into that. It has definite possibilities. If anyone has any ideas related to that, I’m all ears. I don’t think (at least, not how things stand currently in publishing) that I want to normally self publish stuff…I like having a publisher to do the grunt work so I can concentrate more on the writing-y bit. But it may work for a third Sucks to Be Me book.

But first I have to finish Ask Me.

As a bonus for actually reading this long rambling blog post and getting this far, here’s a snippet that has not yet been worked into the book (but will be soon…though it may not survive exactly as written below…):

“Will?” I called again, louder this time. I stood by his car and switched my flashlight off to save the battery I had left. It wasn’t fair that I couldn’t ask myself questions and get answers. I tried it, even though I knew it wouldn’t work. It never had before. “Where is Will?” I said, feeling silly.

“Here.” He came up behind me, putting his hands on my shoulders and leaning forward. “Right here.” I could feel his breath on my right ear. I turned around and found myself nose to nose with him, literally. I backed up, but his car was in the way.

“Hi,” I said, suddenly wondering how my breath was. I hadn’t anticipated being quite this close to him. I swallowed and resisted the urge to lick my lips. Only girls in movies did that.

[ 5 Replies ]

On sharing and being me…

Posted on September 28, 2011
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I’ve decided to be a bit more, well…me. At least, I’m going to try. It’s quite hard, you see.

Let me explain.

Back before I was a PUBLISHED author (and yes, you should read that in a big booming voice, because that’s how it feels to you before you’re published), I had a blog. In fact, you could call me an early adopter. I’d had a blog for years. The majority of those posts have actually been imported into this blog now (under the category My Old Writing/Personal Blog — it’s all from when I lived in Kentucky and Florida and was writing but not published).

I was interesting (some of the time). Funny, even (not always intentionally). Random people I didn’t know read my blog. But most of all, I was me, warts and all (I don’t literally mean warts, because that would be kind of gross–no offense to anyone who actually has warts or anything–I mean it in a metaphorical kind of way…and here I’ve figured out I should probably just have skipped the warts thing entirely. Oh well.). I didn’t sugarcoat things (much). When I was feeling ambivalent or scared or excited or whatever, that was how I posted. Nowadays, there’s the pressure to put up a good front. We’re not supposed to talk about the bad things (oooooh scary shivers). We’re supposed to put a positive spin on things. We’re not supposed to piss anyone off.

So when I had to share with fans that (some of whom write me on a daily or weekly basis) that my old publisher would not be publishing any more Sucks to Be Me books, I had to do it in as positive a way as possible when, if I’m being honest, I feel really sucky and miserable about it (don’t get me wrong, I love my editor and I don’t blame her at all…it comes down to business decisions and publishing is a business. And they’ve gone back to just publishing their core D&D stuff.). And when I talk about possibly releasing the third book in serialized eBook format myself, I’ve tried not to let on how much that really terrifies me and worries me that it will be a complete waste of time, even if it would make some diehard fans really happy.

Or, on the flip side, when talking about the new book I’m working on, I’m supposed to keep it all close to the vest and not let out too many details. So I’ve talked about my Sekrit Project or the dark thing I’m working on rather than actually coming out and saying, hey, I’m working on a new book. My working title is Ask Me. It’s quite dark, but I’m pretty excited about it. It’s got a girl heroine who starts out really kind of paralyzed by her situation and her otherworldly abilities and it’s got a couple of hunky guys, each of whom may or may not be a murderer. It’s got some funny moments, but mostly it’s dark. I kinda worry that it’s different than what my fans are expecting, but on the other hand, it may open doors to me because, honestly, it’s got a really good hook and could probably be considered really commercial. There’s one big publisher potentially interested in it already based just on the hook alone which, yeah, I didn’t actually share just now, but that’s because even though I’ve decided to share more, I do have to keep some things back and this is the big wild and wooly Internet.

So. Anyway.

I really am going to try and be much more me. There may be more sentence fragments and there’s definitely an excellent chance there will be a plethora of parentheses.

Feel free to ask me any questions. I’d love to answer ‘em. You know, in the spirit of openness and whatnot.

 

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Query Letters (The original Sucks to Be Me queries…)

Posted on January 7, 2010
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So some people have asked me to post up my original query letter for Sucks to Be Me. It’s kind of interesting to see them now, honestly. I hadn’t read them in a while. I’m actually going to post up two different examples (each letter I sent out was a little different, depending on who I was sending it to). These are both from physical snail mail correspondence (I can’t get to my e-mail queries at the moment due to switching laptops).

Here’s one that was to an agent and was more or less a “cold call” — I didn’t know them, hadn’t met them, and didn’t have any personal connection to draw upon. If I did have a connection to draw upon (like being a recommendation from an author I knew, etc., I would have included it as the first paragraph.

Oh, and the title of the book originally (as you can see below), was This Bites. Lots of things have changed since then (total word count, Mina’s age, the number of pageviews YABC gets, you name it. This was back in 2005.)

——————————————————–

Dear [Agent Name]:

“So, I know what you’re going to say. ‘Mina, don’t be silly. Your parents don’t really want you dead.’ But, see, that’s where you’re wrong. Dead wrong. My parents are vampires and now…now, I have to figure out if I want to be a bloodsucker too and continue the family tradition. So don’t tell me you’ve got issues. I’ve got issues.”

Right before her eighteenth birthday, Mina is given an unexpected decision: to suck or not to suck? What to do when you’ve got bigger things to worry about, like finding true love (or at least ‘true like’), finding a date for Prom, and finding yourself? Complicated by required vampire lessons (Geez, vampire homework? What next?) and field trips, love triangles (or is that squares?), and a sardonic but lovable uncle, Mina manages to find some meaning in it all and work out for herself what’s right for her, fangs or no fangs.

This Bites is a completed 57,000 word young adult novel targeted towards readers of Meg Cabot, Daniel Ehrenhaft (his comments so far on my novel, after reading the first few chapters: “You have something really cool here!”), and Sarah Mlynowski. Told in the first person, the tone is light, sarcastic, and comic (similar to the snarkiness of Lulu Dark) — this is no blood and guts vampire novel. Two additional books in the series are planned: This Bites: France Sucks (Mina visits France as a Student Vampire Ambassador, despite the fact she can’t speak French) and This Bites: Vampire U (Mina goes to Vampire college).

You might know me best as my alter-ego, the Young Adult Books Goddess from Young Adult Books Central (www.yabookscentral.com), one of the leading YA lit sites on the Internet with over 160,000 pageviews a month. I have been a reviewer of YA books since 1998 and I specialized in children’s and adolescent literature in college. I regularly work with authors, publishers, and publicists in the genre and consider myself a well-read, if exhausted, individual (I receive approximately 200 – 300 books to review a year).

Per your guidelines, I have enclosed the first 10 pages of my manuscript and an SASE. I look forward to hearing from you. I can be reached via e-mail at kim@yabookscentral.com or via telephone at (xxx) xxx-xxxx.

———————————————
This one was to my eventual editor. I had a personal introduction in that an author I knew had mentioned that her editor at Mirrorstone was looking for paranormal YA novels. She had mentioned me to her editor via e-mail and this is the follow up letter that I sent.
You’ll notice I’d changed the title and I mentioned it in the letter, which was clunky, but hey.
——————————————–

Dear [Wonderful Editor]:

[Name of Friend] had mentioned to me that Mirrorstone is currently looking for supernatural YA and that, after she had mentioned my novel to you, you had indicated interest in seeing it. I apologize for taking so long to send it; the ms. was out with an agent at the time.

To Suck or Not to Suck (When Blood is the Question) is a completed 57,000 word young adult manuscript targeted towards readers of Meg Cabot, Daniel Ehrenhaft (his comment, after reading the first few chapters: “You have something really cool here!”), and Sarah Mlynowski (who calls it “fun,” with a great concept). Told in the first person, the tone is light, sarcastic, and comic — this is no blood and guts vampire novel. Two additional books in the series are planned: France Sucks (Mina visits France as a Student Vampire Ambassador, despite the fact she can’t speak French) and Vampire U (Mina goes to Vampire college).

I feel I should mention that the ms. was originally called This Bites (that was the title Dan and Sarah read it under), but I re-titled it after a number of similar titles were released (thankfully, none have the same plot).

You might know me best as my alter-ego, the Young Adult Books Goddess from Young Adult Books Central (www.yabookscentral.com), one of the leading YA lit sites on the Internet with over 225,000 pageviews a month. I have been a reviewer of YA books since 1998 and I specialized in children’s and adolescent literature in college. I regularly work with authors, publishers (including Mirrorstone), and publicists in the genre and consider myself a well-read, if exhausted, individual (I receive approximately 200 – 300 books to review a year).

As [Friend] instructed, I have enclosed the first three chapters of my novel as well as a synopsis. If you need any further information, please let me know. I can be reached at any time via email at kim@yabookscentral.com or on the phone at (xxx) xxx-xxxx.

Thank you for your consideration. I look forward to hearing your thoughts.

—————————————–

They aren’t perfect queries and they break some of the “rules” that you always see out there. But they ultimately worked for me. Most of the agents I sent it to did ask to see the manuscript. There was another follow-up letter after this to my eventual editor where she asked me for my take on how it would fit into the market.

Anyway, any questions, comments, whatever, feel free to post :-) Hope this helps someone!

[ 11 Replies ]

What's best to start with… a single novel, short stories, or a series?

Posted on January 7, 2010
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I got this question posted to my Challenge:

One question I had was when trying to get published what is the best approach, take one finished novel in or make a bunch of short stories or both? Or perhaps an entire book series would be best?

I thought I’d answer it here as the answer’d be kind of long for a comment thread.

First off, let me once again say that this is just my own opinion. And we all know that saying about opinions…at any rate, if you troll around on the web, you’re sure to find more opinions on this.

Personally, based on my own experiences and from what I’ve gleaned from agents and editors, it’s best for first timers to start out with a completed (polished as much as possible) manuscript that stands on its own, even if it is part of a projected series.

Why? Well, as a first timer, they have no idea whether or not your book is going to sell. So they don’t necessarily want to commit to an entire series. I’ve even heard that you shouldn’t even mention that your book is the first in a series, even if it is is, in your query. I totally broke that rule in mine, though I kept the mention brief and stressed that the book stood alone (if anyone wants me to post my query up, just ask). When my publisher did decide to take a chance on me, they included an option in the contract for follow up books, but bought the book as a standalone. I understand that is pretty common (though we’ve all heard about the exceptions).

So, what about short stories? I’ve definitely heard of a lot of people breaking in through the short story market and it is an excellent way to hone your skills (good short stories are TOUGH). But…the short story market is shrinking all the time. Magazines and websites close up every day it seems (iz sad) and the pay for short stories is really, really tiny. I’ve made as little as $10 on a short story before (and yes, that was in a print magazine). Anthologies of short stories don’t tend to sell that well (from what I understand) unless there are some big name headliners on it. So, in short, not an easy way to break in.

Personally, I’ve also found that the time spent on short stories and marketing them is better spent for me on a longer book. But your mileage may vary.

So…next I probably ought to blog about my thoughts on what’s best to follow up with, eh? I’m working on that now. :-)

[ 8 Replies ]

Thanks for all the names!!

Posted on August 1, 2009
by

Thank you everybody who entered the Name a Character contest! What a bunch of great names! I’ll be picking out a winner soon and posting it here. I think I’ve actually got enough names now for the next few books! :-)  I just have to think about the character I need to name and see which one fits him best. That’s harder than it sounds, believe it or not.

Here’s a tidbit for you (if you’re interested) — I always try to name a character or two in my books for people I know in real life. In book two, there’s a character named after my nephew. And a teacher named after one of my teachers in high school and a principal too. In the first book, there’s a character (Johann Gutter) named after a guy I worked with (he was a nice guy (though his first name is different) and the character is a good guy too, though a minor one – I don’t think I’d ever name a “bad” character after someone I knew; they might get mad at me!). Otherwise, I try to name them something that has to do with their character (haha, the character of the character…).

I know some names I’ll never be able to use because they hold some kind of association for me (though they wouldn’t necessarily have the same meaning for everyone else). Shoot, I don’t think I could ever use my own name, for instance.

How about you guys — what name could you never use?

[ 13 Replies ]

So, how much money do writers make anyway?

Posted on April 20, 2009
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Win an iPad 2!

(Updated May 2011)

I get asked this question a lot. Actually, I get asked “So, have you made your first million yet?” a lot (the answer to that is no, not even close!). I think it must be all the news stories about JK Rowling and Stephenie Meyer and those celebs who write books and get 6 figure or multi-million dollar advances (I wish).

A New York Times bestselling author (her sixth book debuted at #19 on the mass market list) has posted up her earnings on the book and just (Nov 09) posted up another follow up royalty statement (you should read both of them to get the whole picture–and also the comments). It’s a great blog post and gives you an idea of what authors *really* earn on their books.

Keep in mind that I’m a YA author and that we tend to get smaller advances (much! — my first advance was nowhere near $50,000.00. — though also keep in mind that an advance is just that…an advance against the royalties your book will earn…kind of a pay me now or pay me later kind of thing…) YA books also don’t tend to have nearly as large a print run (especially first timers like me). I think my first print run was around 20,000 (and honestly, I’m not exactly sure…those royalty statements are hard to read!).

As you read that, you should also keep in mind that she’s talking about ONE book and it’s a mass market paperback. To really get an idea of what your potential income is, you need to consider that you’ll (hopefully) get to the point where you have more than one book in print, that your earnings will be very different on a hardback vs. a paperback vs. a mass market paperback, and that even one book can generate multiple revenue streams (foreign language editions, eBooks, Kindle, audio books, etc.). So just looking at numbers for ONE book in ONE format really only gives you the tip of the iceberg.

So anyway, read on and see what you think. I bet it will surprise a lot of you!

There are some other things you should know too (so many people stumble upon this post according to the logs, I figured I’d clarify things some more):

  • Most publishing houses send out royalty checks twice a year. Some send them out quarterly. Advances, though, are generally paid upon contract signing & delivery (1/2 on one, 1/2 on the other), though sometimes this can be split into three payments. It all depends on your contract.
  • Depending on your contract, you can earn additional money off of a single book by selling to foreign publishers and audio book publishers. Each of those sales is like a new contract with new terms. For instance, I’ve also sold the Spanish, Czech, French and Croatian rights to Sucks to Be Me. However, you have to take out foreign taxes and what not. It also takes a while for all of the contracts to go through and for the books to actually come out. You can also sell movie/tv rights. NOTE: when I say the foreign rights can take a looooong time to pan out, I’m serious. 
  • If you can write a few books a year (and sell them!), you can make a decent living as an author. As long as a book is in print and selling it is generating income for you (albeit 2 to 4 times a year when most people get paid every two weeks). But if you’re a one book a year or less author, it would have to sell a boatload of copies for you to live off of it. Seriously. A boatload. Like Queen Mary sized. Ellen Hopkins made an excellent point — it makes a huge difference whether or not we’re talking hardback sales vs. mass market paperback sales. The numbers are different. She’s generally a one book a year author and does pretty well — though she also sells quite a few books now that she’s built up a following. :)   There’s also a difference between trade paperbacks and mass market paperbacks. This article from the NY Times covers it well. And all of it, of course, depends on what’s in your contract — i.e. what percentage the author gets and whether it is off of the cover price or (essentially) the publisher’s price (sorry, I forget the exact term).
  • The author gets a small percent of the total price of a book. Me, I got something around a $1 per hardback sold on my first book. It varies completely by contract (and is a good reason to have an agent since that’s the stuff they negotiate). The publisher also  gets a percent, though I’m not sure exactly what % that is (I imagine it varies with every book and every publisher). Everyone has a piece of the pie (distributors too).
  • If you have an agent (which I do now, but didn’t for the first book), they also take a %.

So basically…money is not a reason to write. Or rather, it shouldn’t be “the” reason. You write because you have stories to tell. Because it is something you love to do. Because you can’t imagine not doing it. You don’t write because you think you’re going to be the next Stephen King or J. K. Rowling or Stephenie Meyer.

Update: And read this post by Author/Agent Mandy Hubbard. That really breaks it down for you. Though keep in mind that epublishing is changing the marketplace in many ways. Everything I’ve talked about here is so-called “traditional” publishing. I really can’t comment on those writers that have gone the solely epublished route as I haven’t done that myself.

[ 122 Replies ]

So, how did Stephenie Meyer's name wind up in Sucks to Be Me?

Posted on October 4, 2008
by

Someone asked if I decided to write a book about vampires after reading Twilight. And if you’ve read Sucks to Be Me or the first chapter excerpt, you might have noticed there’s a reference to Stephenie Meyer in there. :-)

Well, I actually wrote this book in 2005 before Twilight came out in October of that year. The first draft obviously didn’t mention Stephenie Meyer back then, since it was before anyone had even heard of Edward and Bella and the Cullens and Jacob. The reference at that point was actually to Anne Rice. But by the time I sold the book and was working on the revisions with my editor, Twilight was huge and my editor brought up the good point that Anne Rice was really more of an adult author and would most teens have heard of her nowadays? So we decided to change the reference to Stephenie Meyer instead. I hope she doesn’t mind (not even sure if she knows, honestly), since it was definitely meant as a mark of respect regarding her place in pop culture. :-)

Now, as for why I decided to write a book about vampires…in a way, I really didn’t. I was even working on another book at the time. But I’d recently read this YA vampire book (that I won’t name) that had all these references to Dracula (which I’ve studied like a bazillion times) and it got so much stuff wrong. I was annoyed. And late one night the first line of STBM came in my head and I got up and wrote it down. And then wrote up the first couple of paragraphs. And then I went to bed.

I figured that was it, but when I got up the next day, I had more of Mina in my head and (in the immortal words of John Lee Hooker) it had to come out. I still haven’t finished the other fantasy I was working on, but maybe I’ll work on it after the sequel to STBM is done. :-) So that’s the long and short of it, more or less.

[ 20 Replies ]

Mailed!

Posted on September 27, 2008
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I mailed a bunch of the prizes off today, so winners start checking your mailboxes early next week! I still have 2 more to mail (including one where I haven’t heard back from the winner yet) and an author to follow up with (that was going to mail out the book directly), so if you don’t get your prize soon, don’t fret yet!

In other news, I’ve been working on the sequel to Sucks to Be Me. Kinda slogging along, but it’s getting there. My biggest problem right now is making sure I don’t go back and fix the stuff that I know needs fixing. I need to just get through the first draft and be done with it!

I do need to go back and re-work my outline too. I’m hoping to get that done tomorrow. I’ve changed a lot of things around — but only in my head. I need to write down the skeleton again before I get off track.

[ 10 Replies ]

Day 14 Winner: Carrie Harris (and other news)

Posted on September 16, 2008
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The Day 14 winner of the “surprise prize” is Carrie Harris! Congrats! Once Carrie chooses which prize she wants from the choices I sent her, I’ll update this post.

UPDATE: Carrie chose a signed copy of Sucks to Be Me :-)

And if you haven’t already, don’t forget to enter the Grand Prize Contest! Keep the names comin’!

In other news, I picked up some fun vampire stuff today to make up some little “vampire goodie bags” to give away at the Teen Read Week event I’m doing in October. :-) Kinda lucky that it’s getting close to Halloween. You can find all kinds of cool stuff now. And in even more “other news” I’ve gotten a bit of writing in on the sequel. Not as much as I would like, but getting there. Friday was actually a pretty good day — I got in about 1,300 words.

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My first YABC review!

Posted on May 9, 2008
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Yay! My first YABC review has been posted (by Brenda, who was one of the ARC winners). And she liked it! Double Yay!

I’m just excited to have my first review of my book on my website. :-) Can you tell?

And in writing news…I had a little epiphany this morning on a new way to open up the second novel that will tie it better to the first one. The opening was okay before, but I think this will make it better :-) And I’ve been modifying the outline…had some new thoughts, especially about George…he wasn’t in the original outline enough and I really like him, especially his sense of humor. So I’m happy about that.

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And the winners are…

Posted on April 17, 2008
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I had to use a random contest picker, there were so many great entries from all of you (prospective) readers out there! It would have been way too hard to pick and choose. So, without further ado, the following are the winners of the Sucks to Be Me ARC giveaway (and do please note that there are 11 winners…I got in some extra ARCs from the publisher!)!

  • Jocelyn Pearce
  • Lauren Becker
  • Brenda Ball
  • Kristi Diehm
  • Angie Lindell
  • Dixie McCarty
  • Samantha & Rachael Stein (Samantha especially wanted to win a copy so she could give it to her sister…isn’t that sweet??)
  • Amber Gibson
  • Tracee Gleichner
  • Dominique Cheung
  • Nabila Chatur

I “know” many of you from YABC, so glad to see you here! It’s like hanging out with old friends. ;-)

So, winners, look in your email for details.

And thanks also to the vampire review blogs that contacted me…look for your ARC from my publisher in the mail!

I hope everyone enjoys the book as much as I enjoyed writing it…now if I could just get little Max to sleep long enough that I could work on my next book!

[ 4 Replies ]

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