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We all love to turn to inspirational advice when we feel like we just cannot go on down our chosen path.  One of the most common such pieces of advice is that quitters never win, and winners never quit.  It sounds real great!  It pumps you up!  It gives you the motivation to plow ahead!

The truth is that inspirational phrases like this are half truths.  Yes, quitters  never win because they give up before they do so.  And yes, winners never have quit because they have won.  But there is an important caveat to this old saying that is missing.  That caveat is that by not quitting doesn’t mean you will win. Read more…

Ok, so I have been thinking about my “plan” for moving forward as I seek to get my work published.  My wife and I are currently on Chapter 13 of the live read edit for Under the Darkened Moon, and I have given myself a deadline of the end of September to have it, and the edits that come from it, done.  Boom, put it to bed.  It will be, by that point, as polished as it is going to get without the cost of professional editing.*

I am going to start the process of querying literary agents at that point.  I will be doing batches of 10 at a time and give each batch two or three weeks to reply before I send out the next round.  Some agents, I realize, don’t work that fast, but I figure it will give some nice overlap moving forward.  Oh, and BTW, if you are a literary agent and would like to see my work before I start querying, then by all means drop me a line to get at the top of the list!  I love it when people show initiative!  It’s a trait that I highly admire in people! Read more…

I don’t know about anyone else, but I am really frustrated by the category Young Adult, aka YA, in fiction. I swear, if you ask ten different people to define “young adult” you get ten different answers.

The basis is usually the same and the actual definition is that the story must appeal to a teenage audience and be marketed towards them. But then things diverge quickly from there. Some people claim that the main characters themselves must been teenagers (i.e. Young Adults). Some people claim that the characters don’t need to teenagers, but that they must deal with the problems teens face. Some claim that it is ONLY a distinction in how the book is marketed, i.e. to Young Adults as previously stated. Some people even claim that a story being written in cinema style third person omniscient POV makes a story YA.

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Ever notice that you can say a bad movie was a bad movie, but you cannot even call a mediocre book mediocre? If you’ve ever posted an opinion online about such things, you certainly have!

It is a weird quirk of the universe I suppose. Talk about how the recent remake of Conan was poor or how John Carter just didn’t do it for you, and you can get a lot of nods of agreement. People might disagree with you, but they don’t get violently angry about it and start calling you names.

But dare to not rate The Hunger Games (the book not the movie) as anything less than five stars or talk about what you found fault with another novel you recently invested time in, not saying you hated it, jus that you didn’t “love” it, and people jump down your throat. Read more…

My buddy Terence has the good advice of the day. So, what is a writer to do when a literary agent tells you your work isn’t a “good fit”?

“Query another agent. ‘Not a good fit’ is usually code for, I don’t rep this kind of story, or don’t know who to pitch it to, or that their roster of authors is already full.”

This was in response to me last night asking about various strategies and how to go about querying.

My friend Dan is a literary agent.  Unfortunately, he and his agency don’t deal with Fantasy novels so he cannot accept my manuscript.  But he has given me some names and suggestions about who I should submit my novel to and has given me great advice on my novel Under the Darkened Moon to help me out along the way.  But none of his advice has been as valuable or helpful as this:

“You hear about how 95% to 99% of all manuscripts are rejected right?  Well, I don’t know that you should have to worry about the odds being that high against you.  First of all, you have two things going for you that those 95% to 99% don’t have!  First is that you have written one heck of a manuscript for being a first time author.  I am very impressed with it.  Secondly is that you are going to make sure that you submit your manuscript to the right people!  I know you are because we have talked about this.

See, those there are the two reasons why so many books get rejected.  They are either not submitted to agents or publishers who deal with the material the author is writting about or what is submitted are horribly written first or rought drafts with zero thought put into them.  Plus, remember this please, that high rejection rate includes all the rejections of every manuscript sent to every potential agent or publisher.  You submit to 99 times and are rejected by all 99 then you are at 100% rejection rate.  But when you submit to the 100th and are accepted you are in that 1%.

I really hate how people in my industry try scaring off new authors with daunting figures that makes getting published look like an insurmountable moutain.  It is hard.  But when people put the time in they can be rewarded.  Now go and submit!  I am not saying you will get offers and ink a deal.  However I do deeply feel that anyone who rejects your manuscript is going to wish they hadn’t.”

This kind of encouragement makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.