Category: Getting Published

Marketing: The Writer’s Hidden Profession

Posted C. LaVielle5 CommentsPosted in Getting Published, Writing

After years of denial I have come to recognize this sad and bitter truth: Writers must market their books if they want them to sell. They must do this even if HarperCollins is their publisher. The better an author is at marketing, the more books he or she will sell. As I was scrolling down my latest Willamette Writers newsletter I came upon Tonya Macalino’s ad for her book marketing workshop at Jacobsen’s Books & More, a cozy independent bookstore in Hillsboro, Oregon. OK, I told myself, bite the bullet. You’ve gotta learn how to do this. It was a cold, foggy morning on Main Street when I pushed open the bookstore door balancing a latte that was too hot to handle on my notebook. Tina, the owner of Jacobsen’s Books & More, escorted me past rows of books to the back of the bookstore. The books kept calling to me, but I ignored them and settled down at a table with several other middle-aged… Read More »

Rethinking My Strategy

Posted C. LaVielle6 CommentsPosted in Getting Published, The Hero's Journey, Writing, Young Adult Fantasy

I just received the final rejection letter from my last batch of queries. It was my forty fourth. So why don’t agents and publishers want it? There are several possibilities:  The writing isn’t good enough. Since I’ve never published anything before or won any writing contests, this was a big concern for me. However, my editor, Jessica Morrell, says I’m as good as or better than most of the writers she works with (she works with several best selling authors) and that Forging the Blade (old title: The Remaking of Molly Adair) is a publishable book.  The pitch isn’t good enough. The pitch is a quick description of your book. It says, in a few short paragraphs, what the story is about, why someone would want to read it, and why you are the best person to tell the story. It is even more difficult to write than the book itself. I’ve taken several pitch classes and written and rewritten it at least… Read More »

Willamette Writers Conference, 2011

Posted C. LaVielle6 CommentsPosted in Getting Published, Young Adult Fantasy

I got good news and bad news at this year’s conference. The good news was that Miriam Kriss, an agent with Irene Goodman Literary Agency, asked to see a synopsis and the first ten pages of Forging the Blade. She was the only agent I pitched to because I’d already pitched to all the other agents there that were looking for YA fantasy. The bad news also came from Miriam Kriss. After carefully listening to my pitch she said:  You’re book isn’t really young adult fantasy because you’re main character doesn’t have the same concerns and problems that young adults have and she spends most of her time with adults.  Your book is high fantasy, which doesn’t sell as well as urban fantasy.  Your second book should never be a sequel to your first book (mine is), because if you don’t sell your first book, or if it sells poorly, you’ll never be able to sell your second book. Ah well, maybe… Read More »

Summer in Words, 2011

Posted C. LaVielle4 CommentsPosted in Getting Published

When I arrived at the Hallmark Inn & Resort last Friday the receptionist looked at me in that particular way that tells an experienced traveler that they’ve screwed up your reservations. Rats, I said to myself, mimicking Molly Adair, my main character. And then I asked myself, What Would Molly Do? If Molly felt as desperate as I did at that moment, she just might have clobbered the receptionist with her practice stick. Fortunately for the woman, whose look had darkened even further, I’m not Molly. I smiled sweetly and waited for the verdict. Several minutes and many key tappings later she informed me that I was supposed to have arrived on Thursday and was scheduled to leave on Saturday. They’d already rented my room for Saturday. “Why would I do that?” I asked. “The conference goes until Sunday.” “I’ve found you another room,” she continued. “We won’t charge you for the upgrade. It has an ocean view, Jacuzzi, and fireplace.” Yes! The conference was… Read More »

What Does Drawing Snowflakes Have to do with Writing Novels?

Posted C. LaVielle8 CommentsPosted in Getting Published

Last Tuesday I went to the monthly Willamette Writers meeting at The Old Church in downtown Portland, Oregon. The Speaker was Randy Ingermanson, software engineer, novelist and author of Writing Fiction for Dummies. Over 26,000 people read his on-line advanced writers zine. He was there to talk about how drawing a snowflake is like designing a novel. Here’s a very abbreviated version of The Snowflake Method: *When you are ready to begin writing, think of one sentence of that describes your novel. The closer to fifteen words you can make it the better. For example: A sailor barely escapes drowning when the great white whale his demented captain is chasing smashes the ship. Moby Dick, Herman Melville or A grieving fifteen-year-old girl falls into a parallel universe and becomes a warrior mage. Forging the Blade (my book, new title) *Write a one-paragraph description of the plot. Use five sentences. The first sentence sets up the story, the second describes the first conflict point, the second… Read More »

Three Bits of Advice from a Pro

Posted C. LaVielle2 CommentsPosted in Getting Published, Young Adult Fantasy

The opening chapters of The Remaking needed something. I wasn’t quite sure what it was, but they weren’t ready to send out to agents. The best thing for me to do when I get stuck like this is talk to another writer, so I invited Kris out for a lunch of gourmet grilled cheese sandwiches. We watched the weather do what it always does in Portland in late May—dither about raining and then raining. We also talked about my manuscript. Because she is my friend as well as an English teacher and a writer, she listened to me as I drowned my sorrows in Coke and cholesterol and rambled on about the plot’s back-story. When I was all done she said:  You need to include more of that back story right up front so I have a better understanding of your character. By golly, I thought, she’s right. Figuring out how much back-story to include is tricky. The reader doesn’t want to wade through… Read More »

The Fry Graph—No, You Won’t Find It in a Cookbook!

Posted C. LaVielle2 CommentsPosted in Getting Published, Young Adult Fantasy

When my friend, Kris, who teaches English and Writing at a community college, critiqued the first few chapters of my manuscript, one of the first things she did was analyze them using the Fry Graph readability formula. Unfortunately this formula doesn’t tell an author how much his readers will enjoy his writing, but it does calculate how easy or difficult his writing is to read. The Fry Graph result is a grade level. If the analysis result is 6.4, that means that most sixth graders would be able to read it. It counts the number of syllables and sentences in a hundred-word writing sample, and plots words vs. syllables on a graph. The more syllables and the fewer sentences there are, the higher the grade level. It’s best to use descriptive or narrative parts of a piece of fiction, not dialogue. The analysis is simple. This is how to do it. So that’s great, you say, but what good is it? Edward Fry developed the… Read More »

Wish Me Luck!

Posted C. LaVielle6 CommentsPosted in Getting Published, Synchronicity, Young Adult Fantasy

The rewrite of the first few chapters is complete. After several back and forth e-mails of suggestions on her part and revisions on mine, Jessica, my editor, says it’s “in good shape.” She wanted me to tighten it a bit more, and I tried, I really did, but I was only able to pare it down by a sentence here and there. She doesn’t like the title either. She says it needs to be more active and let the reader know that this is a fantasy. I’ve thought about shortening it to The Remaking, or possibly Forging the Blade. I also had Kris, a friend who teaches English and Writing at a community college, take a look at it. She critiqued the manuscript in a totally different way than Jessica. As an English teacher, she mostly looked at sentence structure and length and word usage. And because she’s only read the first three chapters she was able to give me a viewpoint of someone who’s… Read More »

Two of the Worst Things That Could Happen Just Happened (Continued)

Posted C. LaVielle12 CommentsPosted in Getting Published, Major arcana, Synchronicity, Tarot, Young Adult Fantasy

Thing 2: A few days after I got The Letter I went to the library to find a book to read. I was too lazy to check my list of books that I need to read, I just wanted something to relax and entertain. It would be nice to be able to to say that a sense of foreboding settled over me as I approached the New Books rack, but it didn’t. I just picked a likely looking book, The Last Days of Madame Rey, skimmed the blurb, and checked it out. It was several days before I got a chance to sit down and begin reading it. The prologue was titled “The Fool”. Oh good, I thought, a book with a tarot theme. When I got to the first chapter and it was titled “The Magician: I began to panic. I looked ahead. Sure enough, the second chapter was “The High Priestess” and the third was “The Empress”. To my horror, A.W. Hill, the… Read More »