The Writing Workshop

Get Published!: eHarlequin & Submitting to Places That Want You

It's the harsh reality of being a writer that unless you're a celebrity (not even in your own field but the Hollywood-type), it's really difficult to get anything published. And that includes getting the attention of literary magazines and online journals, too.

In today's publishing world, sometimes it's important to go where new writers are actually wanted. When applying to literary agents, you'll often find that they don't want to talk to you, unless you've already been published by someone else or unless they talk to you first. This is what they mean by "No unsolicited submissions". (And yes, they really mean no. Just cause it's good doesn't mean they care.) And even when you do submit to the ones who accept submissions, it's often a six month process before you even get a polite rejection notice in the mail.

So, for now, if you're at the beginning of your writing career, go to places where they actually want you. Last week, I suggested a writing a romance short story, and here's why: romance sells bigger and better than any other genre.

One of the world's largest and most profitable independent publishers is Harlequin. Harlequin is of course known for its series of grocery story romances - from their sweetly told cowboy stories to the erotic danger of their Harlequin Blaze line (Raunchy!). Harlequin broke the genre mold  by generating lines of books that were similar in style and tone, so that readers knew exactly what type of book they were getting under each banner.

And of all the publishers, I still think Harlequin made the best transition ever into e-publishing. They took their old branding and recommitted it online, allowing that each series now produces new stories monthly or even weekly in ebook form! (I heard a rumor that one line is nearly daily and that's just insane, since they wouldn't be doing it if it wasn't profitable. But I don't watch Harlequin's publishing schedule close enough to know if there's truth to this rumor.)

So what is the point of all this? In essence, go where the money is, because a publisher who publishes that much material needs to be constantly buying. Also, Harlequin will take submissions directly from their authors - there's no need for an agent. As far as commercial fiction goes, they're probably the largest publisher to do this. This will save you lots of time and money.

If you're as good of a writer as you think are, you should be able to write a wonderful romance story. They're formulaic, and Harlequin's submission guides will tell you exactly what you need to know. Read several of their books first to get a feel and then give it a go. You might even enjoy it.

You could be a published author, published by one of the most respected publishers in the biz, by next fall (or even earlier) if you do it right. And you have a far better shot of this than ever getting published in Atlantic Magazine or even The Kenyon Review.

BookExpo America Recap

BookExpo America (mostly commonly called BEA) is one of the world's largest publishing conventions. Publishers, booksellers, distributors, PR firms, librarians, and other book people gather in New York City every late spring to address the status of the book publishing industry.

As a writer, it's important to know what's going on the industry as a whole, since you know, that's really what is going to determine if your book ever hits the market. And when it does, whether or not your baby will be successful. Being a good writer is only 1 part of the equation, in reality.

A few of the stories that caught my eye from this year's BEA:

• Google held a panel discussion to discuss, well, Google. The internet giant has really screwed large segments of the book publishing industry with their copyright infringing online library Google Books. From the report from BEA, publishers are still weary of the whole thing.
• Every writer needs to have a platform and in the days of the internet, the easiest platform to create is online through blogging and other social media. Library Journal, the library world's most prominent news source, discusses a panel about driving user engagement between readers and industry people, like authors or in this case, libraries (it's all good info that I'm planning on stealing for this website).
• Publishers held a "Great Debate" hosted by the Independent Book Publishers Association (IBPA) to discuss the status of traditional publishers and whether or not they will survive the ebook boom. The general consensus was that yes, it would. Rather hilariously, though, the majority of the people in the debate were traditional book publishers.
• Here's a Publishers Weekly recap of the books that everyone was talking about and a few favorites from the publishers themselves. Amazingly, not of all them picked books from their own companies.

All in all, the BEA is considered one of the most important publishing events in the world. Surprisingly, it's mostly done by the businessside of things - very few authors attend regularly and most of those that do work in the publishing field as their day jobs. If you want to find out more about BEA (or to sign up for next year), here's their website.

Writing Prompt: The Romance Novel

This prompt is basically for anyone who is not a romance writer.

Write a short story in the style of a romance novel.

If you don't know how, you can travel to Harlequin's website, where they have a nice list of submission guidelines for their imprints. Remember that the goal here is epic romance, but romances aren't the generic, repetitive missives they used to be.

You can choose from paranormal romance, teen romance, historial romance, contemporary romance, spy romance, or even erotica! The only main characteristic that really defines romance in today's publishing world is that they tend to be written in the third person, follow only one main character, and the main character and the main love interest get together in a satisfactory way in the end. No Romeo and Juliet here, people.

Lambda Literary Award Winners Announced

The Lambda Literary Award winners were announced in New York City this week, and Entertainment Weekly has a breakdown of the event and the winners.

The Award is called a Lammy and is awarded for excellence in LGBTQ book publishing. For a literary award, it covers a lot of ground, from academic studies to erotica. Lambda Literary is considered the most prominent LGBTQ group in book publishing and this award is their top honor.

I'm frankly all for book awards of any kind. I don't care what it's for, but giving away awards brings the spotlight on more great books, so that more people can realize those books are out there. Especially in the days of the internet, it's so easy to find award-winning books like these. At right, for example, is the well-reviewed Secret Historian by Justin Spring, which won the Gay Memoir/Biography award, and I was pleased to see that Another Country: Queer Anti-Urbanism by Scott Herring tied to win for LGBT Studies, since I worked on that book while I was working at NYU Press.

The Pioneer Award was awarded to Edward Albee, three time Pulitizer Prinze winner and playwright (you've probably heard of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?), who proclaimed that he was not, in fact, a gay writer but a writer who happened to be gay. I tend to find this type of utterances annoying, as it demeans all types of writers in my eyes. We are who we are. We write what we write. We either find success or we don't, especially in these days of accessible and semi-respectable self-publishing.

In summation, awards for writers covering certain topics are great (I think the same thing for romance book awards or African-American book awards), but what's not great is when the writers box themselves into those same roles. Simply accepting or acknowledging the fact you're a gay writer doesn't mean you can't also be a sci-fi writer, a Christian writer, or an experimental writer. Your branding is all up to what you write and publish (although, I admit, that's a bit idealistic, I know).

You can learn more about Lambda Literary at their website.

Writing Prompt: A Life in Birth & Death

How much of who we are comes from who our parents are? How much of who we are comes from the way we are remembered when we are gone?

In this prompt, one that I'm particularly excited about, your main character will hardly even appear and there's only going to be two scenes. The first will be one involving the birth of the main character and the second involving the character's death.

Write the lifestory of a character by showing two scenes: the character's birth and their death.

The point here is to learn how to tell the reader a lot of information about a character, without allowing it to actually happen to the character in question. In other words, this prompt is all about using indirect characterization.

Also, to make the prompt better, you can interpret birth and death as you see fit. If you want to write the character's conception and their funeral, then that still fills the mold of what the prompt is after. This is a creative one, so don't be afraid to stretch!

Good Grammar: Possessive Pronouns

Pronouns, as we know from past Good Grammars, are words that replace nouns. They simplify language and also stop it from being so dang repititive. They are some of the most commonly used words in the English language.

And just as nouns can be possessive (Shirley's boyfriend, the dog's chew toy, the class's field trip), pronouns can show possession, too. The simplest possessive pronouns are those act that as straight replacements for their antecedents. Grammatically, there is no difference between either set of words.

• Shirley's boyfriend = her boyfriend.
• The dog's chew toy = its chew toy.
• The class's field trip = their field trip.

These pronouns are as follows: my, your, his, her, its, our, and their.

There is, however, a second set of possessive pronouns. These pronouns take the place of not only the original possessive but the noun that is possessed. These pronouns are used to still show possession but avoid repeating even more words. For example (pronouns in italics):

• Shirley's boyfriend is cute. Too bad he's hers.
• My little sister likes to play with my toys, but they're mine.
• The new team's plan to stop the bomb from exploding should work. Theirs is the only trick we have left.

These pronouns are as follows: mine, yours, his, hers, its, ours, and theirs.

Just remember, though, that possessive pronouns need an antecedent to refer back to.

A New Nook & A New Kobo. And No, They Don't Have Ads.

Perhaps in response to the even cheaper Kindle with Special Offers or because they wanted to get it out there before Borders bites the dust, Kobo has announced a new Kobo e-reader, this one with a touchscreen, for $130. 

Kobo is Borders' Canadian e-reader partner and developer, which would have spelled certain doom for the brand, if it hadn't already been picked up in several other major retail outlets. Unfortunately, these outlets are all Canadian. There's  a promise, but no official word, of the US store invasion. Their current reader has also had its price dropped down to $99.

Not to be outdone, Barnes and Noble announced today that they too have a new e-reader: the smaller, cheaper Nook. This Nook is $139 and is lighter than its predecessor. It can hold a 1,000 books and appears to be completely black and white. It is also smaller than previous readers, being only six inches (about the size of a mass market paperback, really). The full color version with apps is still $249, but the original Nook price is $119 now, which I believe is less than it used to be.

Overall, just as many predicted, the price of e-readers is falling and is falling rather rapidly. As the technology improves, there is going to be more variety to the type of e-readers available, as well, as shown here. Kobo, Nook, and Kindle (Amazon's brand) are the three most popular e-readers (unless you count non-book tablets like the iPad)  and all of their new designs have something different to them. This diversication will only help the e-reading market continue to grow, as readers figure out what they like.

Sadly, this is just going to make it harder for Borders to survive. Even with Kobo's support, I don't think the megastore will be able to survive the continual growth of e-readers. I have a feeling, though, that we'll also continue to see changes in Barnes & Noble (who is doing decently well, thanks to profits from the Nook) as the e-readers begin their invasion of non-bookstores, like Best Buy, Wal-Mart, and Verizion outlets.

Writing Prompt: The Love Hexagon

Often, our romantic entanglements are much more complicated than a simple meet cute, date, marriage, white picket fence, and kids. In real life, people are often dating more than one person at a time, accidently fall in love with someone else, or have open relationships.

In today's prompt, create a love hexagon or some rather random shape by focusing on multiple protaganists.

Write a serious love story about three different people, by overlapping each character's dating patterns and relationships.

You can have a couple as two points of a love triangle (in other words, our main couple is both dating someone else) or you can have three people who are all on the market, dating everyone cute within a fifty mile radius (with some overlapping results, of course).

The goal, though, is to not make judgments on how the characters live their lifes. Americans might have a Puritanical strain in them when it comes to sex and dating and Hollywood might have filled our heads with happily-ever-afters but for this prompt to work, you have to allow your characters to be as real as possible, without imposing harsh critiques along the way. If you do so, you'll alienate your reader by giving away a bias towards your characters.

You can have the bias but you don't want to sound preachy. Instead, show it through the character's end fates.