Worry Or Work

Quote for the Week

Dale Carnegie said: "If you can't sleep, then get up and do something instead of lying there worrying. It's the worry that gets you, not the lack of sleep."

This explains why I'm up at all hours of the night working on something or other.

Takeaway Truth

Working at night instead of worrying may leave you yawning the next day, but you do get a lot accomplished. Or, at least I like to think so.

Hint Fiction Inspires Contract Discussion

Here's a tidbit about the changing face of fiction that I intended to pass on back in August, but I was dealing with my daughter's health issues full time then. Perhaps you've already heard about this, but I find it really interesting.

In the fall of 2010, W.W. Norton plans to publish an anthology of Hint Fiction.
Hint Fiction?

That's a story of 25 words or less that suggests a more complex, and, therefore, a more in depth, story. Their premise is that a 25 word or less story can have as much impact as a much longer story.

Premise

The anthology is supposed to have between 100 and 150 stories. (Let's see 150 X 25 words = 3,750 words, or the equivalent of about 15 double spaced manuscript pages. Hmmm. Wonder if the price will be representative of an average short story, if such a piece of writing were, by some miracle, to find its way into print in book form in today's world.

Contest

Norton held a contest for submissions back in August. They said: "We want your best work." They even offered to pay $25 per story for World and Audio rights. Now, if this were freelance writing, $1.00 per word would be a lovely fee for a project. However, this is for a book project that will probably garner quite a bit of interest simply because of its premise.

Inspired Discussion

What a perfect opportunity to point out contract differences and what they mean to writers. All the facts below are imaginary, but they illustrate the point.

Doing The Math

So that $1.00 per word doesn't sound so good for a book that will probably sell for at least 10.00, depending on its format, Worldwide. Flat rate contracts with all rights granted to the publisher means the writers get no royalties or residuals if you're used to the entertainment business speak. That smarts when a book may sell at least 20,000 copies.

Even a meager royalty contract usually grants at least 4% royalty to the author. $10.00 X 20,000 copies X 4% = $8,000.00. Divided among 150 authors means each author would get about $53.00. Gee, double isn't much more. Is it worth the bother?

It is because royalty contracts cover the future. Writers once planned on royalties for long term income and retirement.

The better contract is not because the author may make another 25 bucks. The better contract means that the author stands to keep earning. There's no telling how many books might sell nor how many more may sell in the coming years if the publisher keeps the book in print. I know writers who are making royalties on books published years ago.

True, these publisher-created projects rarely result in royalties for the authors, but this is an example for you to see the importance of royalty contracts. One can dream, can't one?

Takeaway Truth

Professional writers know the business of writing as well as how to craft plot points. Learn the business so you'll know what's a good deal for you.

Thomas Nelson Opens Vanity Press

A publishing company that charges writers to publish their books is a vanity press. In today's world, it's more polite to call them self-publishers. Now, I'm the first to admit that some books, my mom's memoir Memory Lane, for example, are suited for self-publishing because they're books that fit a very narrow niche.

Duh

The real news is that Thomas Nelson has found a new profit center according to the newsletter from Shelf Awareness a couple of days ago. I suffered a severe eye-rolling attack of Duh! when I read about Thomas Nelson Inc. launching West Bow Press, "an imprint whose books will be designed, published and distributed by Author Solutions Inc., the country's largest self-publisher."

The piece went on to say that Thomas Nelson wouldn't be editing manuscripts, but that they would monitor sales to identify potential big sellers. Michael Hyatt, Thomas Nelson's CEO, said: "There's no question we think this will generate revenue."

That last statement brought out the DUH and more eye rolling so I had to take to the keyboard.

New Profit Center

So a respected publishing house is going to launch a vanity press because they've figured out that people will pay big bucks to get their book published? This is just another profit center for a corporation, not a public service designed to bring legitimacy to vanity, or self, publishing as Kevin Weiss, CEO of Author Solutions, suggests in his statement about the partnership: "What this will do is to put the stamp of approval on self-publishing."

Soapbox Time

There is no stamp of approval needed for self-publishing if one uses this publishing process to publish a book that simply won't get picked up by a royalty paying publisher no matter how well-written it is. Again, my mom's memoir is an example. It's well-written, I saw to that, and packaged well, but I didn't think any publisher would be interested in the reflections of small town life during the Roaring Twenties and Great Depression by a non-famous person.

Narrow niche nonfiction books fit the self-publishing model well. At CreateSpace, the self-publisher I used, books like computer programming guides, vegan guides, and other esoteric content books do quite well. Even my mom's book has sold nearly 100 copies with no promotion. (I suspect popular history buffs have found it a treasure.)

Vanity?

Vanity publishing gets the sneer when writers whose manuscripts, usually fiction, are so mundane, boring, and/or poorly written that no publisher will plunk down money to publish it. It amounts to a question of quality. I've seen a lot of self-published books, and I'm forced to say that most of them are mediocre at best and embarrassing at worst.

Takeaway Truth

Mastering the narrative skills and writing thousands of words in an effort to get good enough to write something worth publishing has far more to do with claiming the title author than possessing the money to pay a publisher to print your manuscript.

There are no short cuts on the road to success, regardless of the career involved.

Correction

Dan Poynter, author of The Self-Publishing Manual, pointed out in Comments that my terminology was mistated (sic). He said: A publisher that takes money to publish your book is a vanity press. An author who invests in typesetting and printing is a self-publisher. A vanity press is not a "self". (sic) Please do not use the terms interchangably (sic).

He's correct. In some parts above, I do use vanity press and self-publisher in a shorthand way to mean that which is opposite a traditional royalty-paying publisher. For that, I apologize. Where you see me use the terms, as if a printing company and a person who is self publishing are identical entities, instead think vanity press and one who self-publishes.

You may find yourself wondering what the difference is between a writer who pays a vanity press to produce a book and a writer who self-publishes a book by paying a company for various editorial tasks and for printing the end result. Is there a difference? I guess that's a blog post for another day.

(If this is now as clear as mud, my job here is done I suppose. *g*)

CounterSpy Will Win You Over

I abhor those websites that offer software to scan your computer for spyware, but, then when it's found, they want you to pay a huge fee to download the software to get rid of the PC poison. That's why I think CounterSpy, Antispyware Software from Sunbelt Software is head and shoulders above the competition.

No Coercion Necessary

SunbeltSoftware.com gives you a free trial of the software, and if spyware is found, you can remove it without first paying. They believe in their product so intensely that they don't have to resort to extortion to get you to buy it. They know that once you've used it, you'll want to buy it. It's that good.

Rest Of The Story

And why shouldn't it be? Sunbelt Software is the creator of VIPRE, what I think is one of the best anti-virus softwares. I should know because I did a lot of research into the subject.

Back at the beginning of summer, I was retained to write about VIPRE, their innovative antivirus. I was so impressed with the product that I immediately purchased it for the new laptop I bought in June. CounterSpy is award winning, and it's the little brother of VIPRE. Best of all, you can get a site license for a very small fee, and I mean small, to cover every computer in your home. As soon as each of my Norton contracts expire, I'll be changing over to Sunbelt's product.

Visit Website

You can buy online, Chat Live if you have questions, read their daily list of Top Computer Threats, learn what's In The News, and even make suggestions for improvement with Feature Request. What's not to love?

Takeaway Truth

Make a better mousetrap, or, in this case, anti-spyware, and the world will beat a path to your door.

Jennifer Schuett Triumphs

It was all over the local news last night at 10:00. The man who sexually assaulted Jennifer Schuett 19 years ago then slit her throat and tossed her onto a fire ant mound has been arrested. Jennifer survived that, worked with a police artist after the attack, and, today, has the peace of knowing that the man has been caught. Read Harvey Rice's article and see photos at the Houston Chronicle website.

This heartless pedophile/rapist is Dennis Earl Bradford, now 40 and living in North Little Rock, Arkansas. You may recall that I posted the police sketch of him on the website. The photo is eerily similar to the 1990 driver's license photo of Bradford, a welder who is married and the father of 2 children and step father of 3 adult children.

Round Of Applause

Thanks and congratulations to Dickinson, TX, Police Detective Tim Cromie and FBI Special Agent Richard Rennison of the bureau's Texas City, TX, office for keeping their promise to Jennifer that they would never give up. To them, this was never a cold case file. When DNA technology testing had advanced sufficiently, they submitted the man's blue tee shirt and underwear found wrapped around Jennifer's pink shorts, shirt, and white underwear near where she'd been dumped.

Though the clothing had been sent to the FBI lab at Quantico, VA, last year, the backlog of work at the lab delayed testing until last month. They ran the results through the FBI database, and, not surprisingly, got a hit. The sample from Jennifer's attack matched the sample from Bradford after he was arrested in 1997 and convicted for the abduction and rape of a woman from a nightclub in Hot Springs, AR.

How Many More

Guess what? He also slit that woman's throat. Convicted, he was sentenced to 12 years but served only 4 before gaining parole. I wonder if there are other girls or women out there who weren't lucky enough to survive his disposal methods. Are there missing girls or women that can be tied to him?

What's really scary is to think that when he did this to Jennifer, he was only 21. Apparently, he lived near the apartment complex from which she was abducted. Was she his first victim after he'd spent years building up to that by committing lesser crimes that went unnoticed?

Let Your Voices Be Heard

Contact your elected officials. There must be a better way to identify these predators, and there must be more accountability for them once they enter the system. I mean, he was incarcerated for what I think is a heinous crime - kidnap, rape and attempted murder by cutting a woman's throat - so why was he deemed no threat and given early release?

Strength

We should all take a lesson from Jennifer Schuett and refuse to be victims. I'm grateful that she had the courage to step forward and give a face to her ordeal, and that made her, not a victim, but, in her words, "victorious." With her attacker's arrest, she's truly victorious.

Takeaway Truth

We writers always hear that persistence pays off. Most of us have the Calvin Coolidge quotation about persistence memorized. I'm glad that Detective Tim Cromie and Special Agent Richard Rennison embody the persistence Coolidge talked about. They never gave up. Never. Never. Thanks, guys.

(Cross-posted on Joan Slings Words.)

Hit The Wall

Eleven days ago I posted to Sling Words. Then, nothing but silence. I hit the wall of life and crumpled for a bit. Why? Well, that's a long story.

Long Story, Not So Short Version

This has been one godawful year. I won't even go into the stressful event that kicked off the year lest you think we live under a black cloud.

The climax, or so I thought, came in June with our daughter's orthopedic surgery. That was an ordeal on her, being made helpless and completely dependent on us until she was allowed up on crutches.

July brought complications from her enforced non-mobility in the form of a blood clot in her leg. I learned to love the hospital staff.

August brought the ordeal of watching her struggle to resume her teaching position wherein she fought the pain each day of working without the support of crutches, with only the boot to protect her precious reconstructed foot.

Finally, she was out of the boot and in physical therapy. For almost a month, we had a nearly normal life. She was able to resume driving so I was relieved of chauffeur duty. We were counting the days until she could walk without limping and the pain, still a 7 on a 10 scale, had disappeared.

What Happened

We've tried to pin it down when the accident happened, but we don't know if it was when she lost her balance and lurched onto her right foot with sudden force or whether it was the next day when she was walking outside and stepped in a slight depression in the ground.

The end result was sharp pain. The next few days the pain grew in intensity so we immediately went to her surgeon. The news was devastating. One of the bone grafts in her foot had fractured.

I Confess

For the first time in my life, I could not control my emotions. I broke down and cried in the doctor's office. She has been through so much, as have I and my husband. I would prefer all this physical agony be mine. I could bear it better than having it happen to her.

Prayers Needed

So, she's back in the boot. Her school district granted her an exception to teach on crutches. She's going to try to work despite the pain, now a full blown 11 on a 10 scale! In three weeks, she gets another X-ray. We're praying of course that the bone graft will have begun to heal again with new bone growing into and around it.

Short Version

Sometimes life sucks so bad that you have to withdraw, curl into a fetal position, and weep until you feel you can face life again.

Takeaway Truth

It's like that old Scots proverb: "I'll lay me down and bleed a while, and then I'll fight again."

Book Cover Art Contest

Today is the opening day for entries to the 2009 Judge A Book By Its Cover Contest, sponsored by Houston Bay Area Romance Writers of America.

Eligibility: Book published in 2009

Deadline: Entries must be received by January 15, 2010

Entry Fee: $15

Entry Requirements: The cover of your book or novella published by a traditional house, ePublisher, POD or self-published during 2009.

Entry Format: Electronic files (JPG or GIF) only

Categories: Contemporary Series, Single Title/Mainstream, Historical, Romantic Suspense, Sci-Fi/Fantasy/Paranormal, Sexiest Cover

Judges: Booksellers in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, New Zealand and Australia

Grand Prize: Winners will be featured in a full-page color ad on the inside front cover of the April Romance Writers Report, the magazine of Romance Writers of America.

For more information, an entry form and rules, visit Houston Bay Area RWA or email Leslie Marshman judgeabook at hbarwa dot com.

Takeaway Truth

If you're proud of your cover art, show it off.