Ethical Dilemma

I belong to two writers' groups. I often ask my peers to read my efforts, or listen when we meet and read aloud. I listen to my peers' efforts as well. It's an honor to share and be asked to review material.

Recently, one member asked me to read the first section of a novel he's been working on, like, forever. I agreed. I have now reread his material twice. It has some errors -- grammatical, word usage, sentence style, typos. I struggled with the dilemma: Do I correct everything or let the writer's unique voice come through? Do I just fix the obvious typos and incorrect word choce?

The voice is not semi-literate. It's just very different.

Any suggestions?

Submissions and Queries

For the past few days, I've been polishing prose to send stories into various local and national contests. I grabbed the Spic 'n Span, Pledge, and Roget's Thesaurus to get the different pieces into the right shape. Two went north, one when to a contest in Virginia, one went out west to get a tan.

And while I was on a roll, I also polished my query letter and slipped it into e-mails to three more agents. I felt strong and focused. And since I had put my hands in the Allstate Madonna, I was invincible.

And then Stephen Pastis took on agents in his daily comic strip, Pearls Before Swine. The day of the first panel brought a form rejection from an agent. So much for the Allstate Madonna.

Onward to waiting to hear if any of my spring submissions to contests won anything. Onward to continuing to polish my prose. Onward to sending off query letters.

After all, nothing ventured, nothing sprained.

Publishing Alternatives

Like many unpublished writers, I research ways to get published. The traditional one is to send out query letters, find an agent, have her find an editor who takes the book to a publisher, who agrees to publish and market the book. That can take years. I mean years. Not one or two, but ten or more. Nearly every major bestseller has a story behind it of the author collecting rejection after rejection before finally "hitting it big."

Other ways are to use vanity publishers, small presses, print on demand, subsidized publishing, and more. If you read the statistics, it is true that alternative publishing surpassed traditional publishing in the number of titles last year. But dig deeper, and you find that statistics can always be spun to tell a story. It just might not be the story for you.

When you add up the number of titles and the number of books sold (for those few "transparent" alternative publishers), you get between 50 and 150 copies per title. And except for the small press, few if any of these alternative publishers take returns, provide marketing, or placement in book stores. Small presses often do take returns, may provide limited marketing, but rely on the author to gain placement in bookstores.

I looked into Lulu.com. A best seller is 500 copies. One of my friends has published five titles with Lulu.com. And he has purchased five copies each. No other sales. Why? He publishes specialized cookbooks for his family -- one per year for Christmas.

Everyone should be aware of the pitfalls of alternative publishing. With no marketing, you should expect no sales. If you have a strong platform, and a strong marketing plan, you might do all right. It all depends on the numbers you want to hit.

Sometimes an author starts with print on demand, for example, sells upwards of 1500 copies, does her own marketing, and develops a readership and demand for future works. At that point, the author is moving into the realm of a small press, even though she is not printing anything physically. My friend Sally Roseveare sold nearly 2000 copies of a novel set at Smith Mountain Lake. Her second novel is due out in July. With such a readership, she should be moving a lot of "product" in the next few months.

One last point. Anyone going the alternative publishing route should pay close attention to costs. Amazon is promoting its Booksurge program. A 75,000-word book starts at $4,599. At least that was the cost on Friday.

Bottom line: There are no right answers in publishing. The best advice I've received is to do thorough research before jumping onto one band wagon or another.

And one observation: Didja ever think that some books should not be published?

Keeping One's Voice

It's hard enough to capture your own voice on paper. It's harder yet to defend it when well-meaning readers tell you to change so much of what you wrote. Add in the books on the market and it's enough to make the most well-intentioned writer run screaming for the nearest exit.

I've read tons of books about writing. Everything from Stephen King's On Writing to Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird to Natalie Goldburg's Writing Down the Bones. All these work in your initial drafts -- which all of us should and do keep private.

There comes a day, however, when you want someone else's opinion. With my current
work, I thought I was done, after five revisions, over a year ago. Then I asked half a dozen friends, both in my Lake Writers group and outside, to read the opus. I would have been better off if I had put on a diaper and ranted like Opus. Instead, I got back copies marked up for grammar (thanks to the three of you who took the time to find every typo and grammo) and five with major revision suggestions. Everything from changing the narrator to writing in a different voice to using a different point of view. I read each set of comments, set them all aside for a while, and let my friends' words ferment in the old brain stem.

What eventually emerged was the realization that some of my readers were right -- the book had to be rewritten. A rewrite is harder than the initial draft. And then come the inevitable edits of the rewritten manuscript. Finally, when you think you've "got it," you put it out to half a dozen readers, three from the original set who were kind enough to offer go suffer through another draft, three "virgins" sacrificing our friendship in the pursuit of honesty.

Two very loud -- and not incorrect -- sets of comments were: 1) if I were writing this, I would do it this way and 2) you need more drama.

If I took the first comment literally, I would be writing like a Southern red neck. If I took the second comment literally, I would change the novel to a screenplay. Both had elements of how to improve the manuscript.

And now I am in what must be the final tuning and tweaking before getting feedback from agents. (That does not include form rejections, one of which arrived this morning.) I will continue querying with the last -- or latest -- rewrite and see what happens. Until then, I'll make very few changes. Certainly not wholesale changes.

On a different topic, did anyone see the Bookshelf article on POD topping traditional publishing in 2008 for the first time. Could be a sign of things to come. Could be that there are so few traditional editors, agents and publishers that people who believe in their work turn to self-promotion. Not yet time to revisit my marketing plan, but I do have one -- and it's a doozy.

Alternative Publishing

I went to a discussion on Monday on the pros and cons of self publishing, sponsored by the Valley Writers Chapter of Virginia Writers Club. Four members all had self-published, with varying degrees of success. The general consensus was that self-publishing works if you have something of local interest (Sally Roseavere's novel is set at Smith Mountain Lake), is non-fiction (memoir by Rodney Franklin and history by Jim Morrison) or humor (Becky Mushko). No one is getting rich slowly this way, but their words are being read.

One prevailing theme was how involved a writer has to be in marketing his/her book. (To avoid this awkward construction, I will use "her" as the collective noun.) Hand selling at readings, out of the trunk of a car, or through local book stores and gift shops moves a few books. Not enough to garner interest from an agent, however.

I didn't hear anyone talk about alternative publishing and alternative marketing. I would love comments about these topics:

Publishing to electronic books, i.e., Kindle

Podcasting to attract listenership

Using social networks, i.e., LinkedIn, Plaxo

Using FaceBook, Twitter, MySpace, etc.

I have nearly 4000 personal contacts on one of the social networks. When I posted a note that I was reading a particular book on marketing, my friend noticed a definite blip in sales.

How else can we market our books? What are your experiences?

Genre Confusion

This has been a week of extraordinary writing-related events. From beginning with that discussion on last Saturday by Rex Bowman to the completion and reading of two new short pieces, I'd say the week was productive. And very, very emotional. (I know, never use "very." Never, never use "very, very." So what.)

I wrote a thank you essay for my cousin for a treasured gift. I used the essay to explain why the gift meant so much and why I would take care of it always. I don't know what to do with it. Perhaps enter it in an essay contest some time along the way.

And then I wrote a piece that defies genres. Called Three Weeks, it's either an essay or a poem. I realize it's odd not to know which genre Three Weeks belongs to. Visually, it looks like a free-form poem. Orally, it reads like a short essay, but for the heartbeat of the refrain. I still don't know which it is.

I asked my dear friend Donna Knox to do a cold read of the piece at Valley Writers Thursday night. Once we finished snuffling back tears, no one in the group could fit it into a genre. I took it with me to Lake Writers Friday morning but had no intention of reading until Jim Morrison asked if I had it with me. Another friend, Rodney Franklin, did me the honor of reading ot. Again, none of the writers in Lake Writers could definitively say to which genre it belonged.

Maybe the heartbeat of the refrain and the subject were enough. Maybe it doesn't need to belong to a genre. I know the emotions it evokes are real. That's enough for me.

I think it would be enough for my dear mother. It is about the last three weeks of her life. I hope I did her proud. Happy 87th birthday to the original Mini Mommy.

Writing Tips from Rex Bowman

On Saturday, May 2, Virginia Writers Club hosted a discussion on writing with Rex Bowman at the Westlake Library at Smith Mountain Lake. Rex is a recently dismissed reporter from the Richmond Times-Dispatch. (Forget the fact that Rex has been nominated twice (!) for the Pulitzer Prize. He still got the axe with T-D downsized its staff. Little do they know what they lost.)

Rex is the author of Blue Ridge Chronicles. He follows the lead of such great storytellers as Ernie Pyle, John Steinbeck with Travels with Charlie, and William Least Heat Moon with Blue Highways. Rex talked about writing. What he dubs his "great truths" reinforce what most of us who write try to achieve. In no particular order, here are some of the truths he discussed.

Landscapes don't become interesting until you put people in them. How many of us have read lengthy descriptions of landscapes, places, interiors, and have fallen asleep because nothing is happening??

Write about ordinary people. I'd add, write about ordinary people in original settings. I don't want stream of consciousness or gritty reality (Herman got up, peed, brushed his teeth, made toast and coffee -- well, you get the idea. Do write about ordinary people doing extraordinary things.

Spend time listening to people. Everyone has a story. Listen carefully. Stories are material. Use what you hear shamelessly, but fictionalize the names, situations, etc. After all, you don't want your friends to say, "Hey, you're writing about me!" They will anyway, if the portrait is flattering. If it isn't, you don't want to be sued.

Use your own voice. It's what makes you unique. At the same time, let reflections of other voices come through. You can channel these other voices without losing the purity of your own.

Be a storyteller, not a writer. Enough said. If the story isn't compelling, no one will read it.

Use sensory details. This is a little more difficult. It's nearly impossible to describe a smell, but it's possible to use that smell to evoke emotion. Think the madeleine and Proust, but don't go on for pages about the smell of a cookie and the memories it brings to Proust's character.

The quality of language has to match the subject matter. This is esoteric. Imagine a thriller written by Jane Austen. It wouldn't work. Imagine a steamy romance written by Tom Clancy. It too wouldn't work.

Overall, the meeting was excellent and well attended. I captured pictures for the local papers. Not all will make it into the paper, however. Keith, I did not send this along!