Ten Tips for Submitting Your Material

by Annette Gisby

1) Have a query letter and synopsis that piques the publisher's interest. At this stage, your synopsis should be one page at the maximum. Don't give a list of all the characters or all the plot points, you just want to engage their interest, not give them the whole book.

2) Make sure your best writing goes into those first three sample chapters which you enclose with your query. If your best writing starts in chapter four, start the book in chapter four.

3) Don't start your novel with a weather report. A lot of writers do, but you want your book to stand out from the crowd. Hook them from the first line. I know people who refuse to even consider buying books which start with weather reports.

4) You don't necessarily need a professional editor at this stage, but do get at least one other person to read your manuscript to catch any glaring errors.

5) If you're sending three sample chapters, have a hook at the end of each chapter, and especially chapter three, so they'll want to read more. If the publisher/editor wants to read the rest, it makes sense that readers/book buyers will as well.

6) Get used to singing the praises of your book. Why should they pick yours? What's so special about it that they will want to publish it? What are you offering them that's unique or different?

7) Include any details of short stories, articles in newspapers or magazines, even the web if your work has been selected. Don't list your own web page as a writing credit.

8) If you're sending out your manuscript as hard copy, print it on white paper, double spaced with generous margins. Don't send the copy you've spilled coffee on, and don't send off your only copy either.

9) A lot of books on writing tell you to research the market before you actually write the book, but that has never worked for me. The market changes too rapidly to gauge what will be popular when your book is ready. Write what you want to read, if you're bored writing it, readers will be bored reading it.

10) And finally, "Never give up, never surrender!" (With apologies to Galaxy Quest!)

By T.C. McMullen

"TAKE ME TO THE MOVIES"
by Glenda Ivey

TAKE ME TO THE MOVIES!

TAKE ME TO THE MOVIES!

TAKE ME TO THE MOVIES!

TAKE ME TO THE MOVIES!

So, my fellow authors, please — don’t just give me words.

TAKE ME TO THE MOVIES!

By Anna Marie Fritz

I was strolling through several garden-landscape centers, perusing the marvels of hybridization, visualizing the finished flower garden of my dreams. At one center, a lovely arch was enveloped with climbing roses that had bloomed early; putting me in mind of a painting I had seen in one of the women’s magazines. In this painting, done by an artist called "the master of light", a quaint cottage beamed a golden glow from each window, even though it was daytime, and no householder in their right mind would have had candles lit.

Anyway, this cottage was covered with ivy and fronted with hollyhocks and a blue flower called "kiss me over the trash barrel". The stucco abode had a beautiful stone chimney that rose up out of an apricot morning mist. No smoke rose from the chimney in the painting. At least the householder (and, or the artist) had that much sense, because it was June, after all, and even in Wisconsin (where I imagined the cottage to be) there should have been at least no snow in the month of June.

In a corner of the painting, a calico kitten was chasing a butterfly that was just out of reach, and a snow-white gazebo sported a shawl of deep red climber roses. Sand-hued flagstone, precisely laid, formed an inviting path from gazebo to front door, or the other way around, whichever way you were headed. Not a single footprint or fingerprint any place on this spotless scene, not even from the cat. "Idyllic," I said to a husband who wasn’t looking at the painting. I gently nudged him with the garden hoe, and he then looked at the painting under discussion.

"I want a garden just like this," I said. "After years of slaving away inside the house, I think I deserve one."

"What…another dust mop?" he said, snickering. After the icicles I sent his way from my brown eyes melted, he added: "That kind of garden costs money to put together, and we don’t have it. I’m still paying for last year’s barbecue grill that we didn’t even get to use because it had only half the parts mentioned in the instruction sheet." Another snicker, and then: "Besides…I don’t have the time to fool around in the yard trying to build a park."

"You don’t have to fool around building anything," I said, arms crossed like a determined warrior. "I’ll build it myself."

The snicker shook the hoe in my hand. "Yup…go right ahead. Waste your time by cobbling up one of those monstrosities you generously label a ‘project.’ But…you will do it without using my tools, or expecting me to take time out of one of my projects to help you rectify the mess you made out of yours.

No romance. I said: "Don’t worry, Einstein. I will use the nails I saved from the last construction I successfully accomplished, along with the leftover lumber, and my own box of tools."

Let me get a word in here about my tools. They consist of a small handsaw that was last sharpened about the time of the Civil War, which began when I suggested I could build a fireplace in the living room. There is a hammer, whose head needs constant rapping to stay on (just like mine), a set of screwdrivers that have seen better days (when Noah used them to finish his boat), and a retractable tape measure that pulls out to 32 inches and stays there forever. So---all right--- I’m not a professional carpenter. Well, neither can he bake a rhubarb pie, so there.

As soon as he was off to work the following week, I began my real "garden of light", trying to copy, as closely as possible, the scene from the painting in the women’s magazine.

Since I was low on lumber (the kindling box was about empty), my "gazebo" turned out to be little more than a wooden bench with lath sides and top. I guess you’d call that an arbor, instead, eh? I drove nails (on which to hang flower baskets), into the lath on both sides, and then bent them over where they stuck through in all the places they shouldn’t have. Three coats of white paint hid the nails pretty good; especially where it sort of ran over, leaving bumps of paint that you couldn’t distinguish from the bent nail bumps.

I hung the baskets, then stepped back (onto a board with a rusty nail sticking out of it), to survey my finished carpentry. Anyone passing by could see that I was the sole construction agent here, as I was wearing my official sweatshirt that read: "I came, I sawed, I cussed it."

The next part of the project was to build a fence around two thirds of the planted area, using boards I had saved from when I built a chicken coop that I had to take apart because it did not measure up to legal specifications. My husband's. The boards were about a half inch thick, and I discovered to my dismay that the rusty nails in my carpentry bucket were too short by about the thickness of a piece of salami (which I used as a measuring tool, when it fell out of the sandwich I was eating at break time). This is okay though, these short nails, as I have a fail-proof method for making them work. See…I only use soft lumber…like pine or basswood. I drive the nails into it as hard as I can, until there is a deep dent in the wood, and they reach the other piece of wood intended for them. Then I fill the ugly holes with putty, paint over the whole works, and none is the wiser, except me…although hubby will argue that point.

The garden completed, in two days less than it took old Noah to build that boat, I walked about twenty paces away from it, and perused my labor. The idyllic copy of that artist’s painting was missing only a few things here and there. For one thing, in my real garden, my real cat wasn’t chasing a butterfly, mostly because my real cat never goes outside. He was sitting in an open bathroom window, yowling his head off for the day’s food that Frank Lloyd Wrong failed to dish out for him.

Our "cottage" was not bathed in an ethereal apricot light, but was, instead "grayed out," by smoke from the 50 gallon barrel I was burning garbage in. Rain began falling heavily onto the newly dug ground. It was supposed to be clear and sunny today, according to our weatherman Dizzy Falsecast.

I sat down on the wet garden bench, beneath a trellis devoid of Scarlet Climbers, because I hadn’t planted them as yet, so how could they grow and climb, dummy? The laths were covered with mud splatters instead. So much for the "snow white", thingy in the artist’s picture.

I had intended to have all the wood scraps, rusty nails, empty paint buckets cleaned away before hubby returned from work, but time got away from me when I went in the house to nap for a few hours.

When I woke up, there was a note on the kitchen table. It read: "My nerves seem to be more shaky than usual. Gone to Nome."

Now what in the world do you suppose brought that on?

Oh well--- I am an optimist---this will give me more time to write in peace and quiet.

Building a Fan Club

by Kristie Leigh Maguire

Getting Started

Frequency of Release

Success

Advice

I always include a free gift for my fans. For instance, I have several free ebooks that the members can download as my gift to them for being my loyal fans. Currently I am offering Musings: Authors Do It Write!, Cooking By The Book, Now We’re Cooking! 43 Authors in the Kitchen and NUW Roads Traveled. I have been a participant in each of these books.

© 2002 by Kristie Leigh Maguire

The Character Quiz
By Annette Gisby
 

Are your characters coming across as one or two dimensional? Do you need to give them a bit more depth? Then try this fun quiz to see what you really know about them!

What does your character prefer?
a) A long soak in the tub filled with bubble bath and bath oils.
b) A quick invigorating shower, they haven't time for baths.
c) A wash in a basin of water, they have no plumbing in their house.
d) Wash? What's that?

What is their favorite food?
a) Chocolate
b) Lasagna
c) Apple pie and ice cream
d) They don't eat.

What's their favorite exercise?
a) Walking the dog
b) Jogging
c) Working out at the gym
d) Exercise? What exercise?

What's their favorite type of TV program?
a) The X-files
b) The Simpson’s
c) ER
d) They don't watch TV.

What sort of family do they have?
a) Mum, Dad, brothers and sisters.
b) Orphaned at a young age, only child.
c) Parents are divorced, custody struggle.
d) They are an alien and have no concept of family.

What would be a great date for your character?
a) A meal in a fancy restaurant followed by the ballet.
b) A walk in the woods with a picnic.
c) Sailing and then relaxing on a deserted beach.
d) Fast food restaurant and then bowling.

What would they do if they found money in the street?
a) Hand it in to the nearest police station.
b) Take it home, but feel guilty and then give it to the police.
c) Take it home and spend it on themselves, no guilt.
d) Take it home and spend it on a good cause.

What would they dress as on Halloween?
a) A prince/princess
b) A witch or wizard
c) Character from a TV show
d) Character from a book.

What's their favorite sound?
a) Birds in the morning.
b) Waves crashing against rocks.
c) Whale songs.
d) The sound of money as it jangles in their pocket.

What would be their ideal holiday?
a) Skiing in the Swiss Alps.
b) A murder-mystery break
c) Traveling on the Orient Express to Venice
d) Staying in a haunted castle where they can dress up in costume.

Hopefully this article has given you some starting points for your own characters. Let them come alive and you will have readers begging for more.

*****************************
Annette Gisby is the author of Silent Screams, Drowning Rapunzel, Shadows of the Rose and Writing the Dream. Visit her website for more details:
www.annettegisby.n3.net

Time Spans in Writing
By Kam Ruble

In rare cases, some writers wish to cover a lengthy time span when writing their book. Using ‘writer’s privilege’ is quite acceptable. However, if you want your work to be more accurate, sounding more like non-fiction, here are two helpful hints. This idea will also apply to non-fiction to keep your writing dates accurate.

For years, I have always kept one calendar or appointment book at the end of each year. I keep appointments, birthdays, anniversary dates, and other impertinent dates on them. At the end of each year, I copy the important dates that I need to remember on to a new calendar or into a new appointment book. Then I file the old one with that year’s important papers. This is just an old habit, but one that has recently paid off.

In our recent book, my husband and I wanted to cover a span of eight years, including some references back to the 1940’s. We could have written out a time suitable for our story, but that would have been very time consuming. Instead, I dug out all the saved calendars, made several copies, and wrote in our story line time. This method also proves to be a great outline for your story.

These calendars not only made our story line easier to follow, but it also gave it realism. For example, in one chapter we mention the start of a New Year—year and day. If someone wanted to be petty, who, unfortunately, some readers can be, they would find our story line right on the mark.

This idea will also come in handy for short time spans, helping you remember if you’re on writing a chapter and it’s the same day or night, or an event a week past the previous chapters. If you get confused, just imagine what it will do to your readers.

When you make copies, keep several copies in your files for future writing. When we have completed a book, we place those calendar pages in our files along with our manuscripts for future reference. Who knows, you may want to write a series. In which case, you will want to make sure you have your time span calendar.

Also, get yourself a Perpetual Calendar. Most stationary shops sell them. If not, go to http://my.execpc.com/~mikeber/calendar.html, enter the year you want, and make yourself a printout. 

Happy writing,
Kam Ruble, published author

Writing from the Heart
By C. Robert Cales
Writers are not born, regardless of what someone might tell you. If your karma was right you might have been born with a boundless imagination like I was, but becoming a writer takes a lot of hard work and dedication. Giving writing advice is a tricky thing because everything doesn't always work for everybody, but there is, I believe, two universal truths.

Write from the heart. Find your passion in life and write. I knew I wanted to write and I knew my passion well, but it took me a long time to put the two together. The urge to write hit me when I was about sixteen, but my passion manifested itself much earlier at the tender age of seven.

That summer when I was seven my mother started bowling on a Wednesday afternoon women's league. We only had one car so my dad and I tagged along to avoid being stranded at home. Just hanging out in a bowling alley for three hours can get pretty boring, especially if you're too young to drink beer, so I asked if we could see a movie since The Ohio Theater was just across the street. He agreed and we started spending our Wednesday afternoons in the theater. We watched a lot of movies that summer, but there's only one I remember. That fateful afternoon the offering was Dracula Has Risen from the Grave with Christopher Lee in the starring role.

For a seven-year-old the movie was pretty intense especially when a vampire was slain using the old stake in the heart trick. In light of the carnage I witnessed that afternoon it's quite amusing when I think of what finally popped my cork. Sunrise was approaching and Doctor Van Helsing and a couple of cronies were waiting for a vampire to return to the crypt, stakes and crucifixes at the ready. I'd already seen a couple of these creatures dispatched, so I knew what was coming and I was ready. This particular vampire was a female who had apparently lived in a village with strange burial customs. She was buried wearing a long nightgown made of flimsy material and, of course, terrorizing the village without the benefit of a costume change. In the infamous scene, she was running through the graveyard with her arms extended outward like wings. Long tenuous trails from the sleeves of her nightgown were flowing behind her and that was the straw that broke the camel's back. I was so unnerved by that vision that I made my dad take me out of the theater before the movie ended.

Yeah, I chickened out, but an amazing thing happened once I got outside in the warm sunshine. That was when I realized that getting scared out of your wits wasn't all that bad. That's when I fell in love with horror movies. I grew up watching everything starring Boris Karloff, Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing and Lon Chaney.

The urge to write hit me when I was about sixteen. I wanted to be a writer, but I was completely clueless as to what I wanted to write. I dabbled in Science Fiction and I went through a political phase, but nothing was really clicking. I spent a lot of time describing scenes the way an artist might sketch something, but the subjects were images conjured up by my imagination without the benefit of a plot. I was getting better at putting words together to create pictures, but I still had no direction.

By that time, I had watched every horror movie ever made, but the movie studios were doing the same thing over and over. Everything was a remake of Dracula or Frankenstein or another werewolf movie and I was really getting disgusted. I wanted new stuff and I wasn't getting it. Then the day of destiny came for me.

I don't remember the name of the movie, but it was another huge disappointment. As I was leaving the theater, a thought struck me like a thunderbolt. I could do that good. At that very moment, a great three-way collision occurred between my imagination, my love of horror and my desire to write. I still didn't have a story, but I knew which direction I was headed. I was about to write from my heart and I had no intentions of producing another vampire story or ghost tale. I was going to write something different, something new, something the world had never seen before.

Devil Glass didn't start out as a novel; it started as a short story. I kept rewriting the story because I was unhappy with the emotional impact. The last revision was sixty-eight pages and I still wasn't happy. That's when it finally hit me that I needed more character development to obtain the emotional impact I wanted. I knew then that the story was going to be a novel.

Writing a novel was quite an undertaking for someone who had never been published, but I was writing from my heart. I was driven by an insane desire to give something back to the world of Horror, something completely original.

Read the masters of your chosen genre. By the time I committed myself to writing the novel I had already shifted to books to cool my unquenchable thirst for the dark side.

I met Stephen King when I found a copy of Salem's Lot at the grocery store. I was deeply affected by his style and decided that his story telling prowess really hit the spot. I didn't know I was studying, I thought I was being entertained. So, once again, I fell unconsciously into another golden rule of writing.

I met Anne Rice through Tom Cruise and Brad Pit when I watched Interview with a Vampire. I was captured by the story, but later when I read Memnock the Devil I was mystified by her writing style (yes, I read the vampire chronicles completely out of order). So, it was nothing but blind luck that pulled me into the works of two great masters of Horror. And again, I didn't know I was studying, but I was. Not only was I studying, I was establishing my standards. Throughout the writing of my novel, I was comparing my work to the established standards of Stephen King and Anne Rice. Let me make a side bar note here. Sometimes the material you study tells you what not to do in your own work.

I consider Stephen and Anne to be polar opposites in the genre, but at times they both exhaust me with unnecessary detail, just in different ways. So when you study your masters don't be afraid to have issues with what they do. You won't change them, but you can temper your own style.

Writing Devil Glass was a tremendous learning experience for me because I wanted it to be the perfect story, but that perfection took years because I was teaching myself to write. It took years of honing my skill before I was truly ready to show my readers what my imagination was showing me.

Clearly, I stumbled along the path to becoming a writer and I was lucky enough to trip over what I consider to be two great truths of successful writing. Beyond these truths, there is just one recommendation that I'll make for a fledgling writer on his or her journey. Stephen King wrote two non-fiction books. The first, Danse Macabre could be a college textbook on writing horror. My recommendation for the young writer struggling to develop his or her craft is the other book, On Writing. The book is a fascinating study of writing with lessons that will apply, regardless of the chosen genre.
 ###

Pick Your Pace
by T.C. McMullen

The topic of pace caught my undivided attention the day I received my first manuscript back from editing.  The editor commended me on a story well done but still had quite a few suggestions.  One of the biggest problems pointed out to me was misused pace.  Where tension should have been high, I, for some reason, wrote lengthy and wordy sentences, effectively screeching the action to a whip-lashing halt.  When knives are flying and fists are pounding, shouldn't it all be written descriptively to the very last minute bruise?

*******************************
T.C. McMullen is the author of "Whispers of Insanity" and "Gone Before Dawn"
Web Site: http://tc_mcmullen.tripod.com/

Getting Your Books Into Bookstores
By Mary Emma Allen

You've written a book, it's been published, and now you hold it in your hands. How do you promote and sell it? How do you get it into book and gift stores and other places?

If you've self-published or gone the Publish on Demand (POD) route, you must do most of the promotion yourself. Even if you've been published by the traditional royalty publisher, you're generally expected to undertake some promoting.

Some sales may result from your web site and other online book sites.  However, the majority of books still are sold in bookstores. How do you go about attracting book stores?

One Author's Promotion

Kathleen Walls, author of Georgia's Ghostly Getaways and Kudzu, both published by Global Authors Publications, has been successful in getting her book into stores throughout Georgia and arranging book events. Since Georgia's Ghostly Getaways is about Georgia, and Kathleen lives there, she's concentrating on regional book stores, gift shops, and places mentioned in the book.

These two books Kathleen is currently promoting are regional, so she concentrates her efforts on the areas they're about. Georgia's Ghostly Getaways has special appeal to anyone interested in ghosts and Georgia. Kudzu, although fictional, also is located in that region.

Thus, at present, Kathleen's main concentration is on book stores, gift shops, museums, and tourist centers in that state. Information about what Kathleen's doing will help authors with their regional books and their other books.

Books Have Unique Appeal

Kathleen contributes the appeal of both Georgia's Ghostly Getaways and Kudzu to the fact that they are well researched. Georgia's Ghostly Getaways has new material not included in other "ghost" books. Also this book contains help for the traveler concerning places to visit, stay and dine, as well as ghost stories.

Kudzu, although it's fiction, has background material that is very authentic to the Appalachian area. "I have included customs and traditions brought to the mountains by the Scotch and Irish settlers," said Kathleen.

Finding Book Store Markets

* Kathleen has found gift shops and smaller book shops very receptive. "I drive into a town and head for the historic and tourist section. Those shops are looking for something unique to appeal to visitors in their town."

* In some smaller towns, she often offers the shop an exclusive. She makes it clear she won't sell to other stores in the town although those stores might purchase the book from a distributor like Ingram.

* Kathleen also has gotten her book into many local museums because Georgia's Ghostly Getaways mentions their place or describes a ghost there. For instance, the mannequin in antebellum wedding dress from the Marietta Museum of History (the historic house where the Great Train Chase began) is on her cover. Of course this made the book appealing to the museum staff.