Author Archives: Guy Anthony De Marco

Avoiding Publishing Conflicts

Business Conflict Guy Anthony De Marco 2 Comments

A few years ago, the blogosphere was all atwitter concerning the story of Mandy DeGeit, a new author who discovered the story she submitted to an anthology wasn’t the same as the story that was published under her name. The “editor” had added in minor items like a suggestion of a rape, animal abuse, changing an ungendered character to a boy, and even introducing spelling errors on the title. Heavyweights like Neil Gaiman and Jonathan Maberry waded in to give their take on the carnage.

Authors who have been around the block a time or two have watched these kinds of publishers come and go, watching the cycle repeat itself every so often. Just like the emails that proclaim you’ve inherited a few million dollars from an unknown relative who lived in Nigeria, these scams and otherwise questionable practices keep resurfacing to ensnare the unwary.

The way to protect yourself and avoid unnecessary conflict is to take the time to do a thorough background check of your potential publisher. In order to do this you have to separate your ego from your business instinct. Receiving an email from a publisher that says they want to publish your story is a heady experience. You’ve bled yourself dry, spending untold hours crafting your novel. It sure would be nice to receive some compensation by seeing your name on a cover. The problem is it can end up costing you time, money, your novel, and even your reputation.

There are several well-known websites you should visit when you’re interested in a publisher. AbsoluteWrite is a good place to start (http://absolutewrite.com/forums/index.php). Their forums are full of first-hand experience when dealing with most publishers, both good and bad. There are cases where a well-respected publisher lost their way, such as Dorchester/Leisure. If the forum threads span multiple pages, make sure you read the last two or three to see what’s new with a publisher. If you see one or two complaints, but otherwise positive feedback, that publisher is a decent candidate for your novel.

Once your visit to the AbsoluteWrite water cooler is complete, stop by the Writer Beware blogs (http://www.sfwa.org/for-authors/writer-beware/). This project is a public service offered by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA). They don’t pull punches, and they do their best to give as much detail as possible. The blogs and forums are filled with experience for you to gather and consider.

Our next stop is Predators and Editors (http://pred-ed.com/). This website contains so much information about bad presses that they’ve been sued several times. Additionally, they have whole sections on similar topics, including agents, magazines and organizations.

Just to be thorough, you can always visit the Better Business Bureau (www.bbb.org) and Ripoff Report (www.ripoffreport.com) to see if there are business complaints unrelated to authors. Things to watch for include complaints that books were not received and complaints of unpaid bills from suppliers.

After digesting these sources, and assuming you still wish to continue researching, I personally recommend doing a couple of custom Google searches.

+“QuestionablePressName” +(sucks|scam|warning)

The above search string should return any pages that have your potential publisher and the words “suck” or “scam” or “warning”.

At this point, you’re either putting stamps on a manuscript package or thanking your lucky stars that you avoided a scam. Hopefully it’s the former, and you’re on your way to not only being published, but being published well.

About the Author:DeMarco_Web-5963

Guy Anthony De Marco is a speculative fiction author; a Graphic Novel Bram Stoker Award®; winner of the HWA Silver Hammer Award; a prolific short story and flash fiction crafter; a novelist; an invisible man with superhero powers; a game writer (Sojourner Tales modules, Interface Zero 2.0 core team, D&D modules); and a coffee addict. One of these is false.
A writer since 1977, Guy is a member of the following organizations: SFWA, WWA, SFPA, IAMTW, ASCAP, RMFW, NCW, HWA. He hopes to collect the rest of the letters of the alphabet one day. Additional information can be found at Wikipedia, GuyAndTonya.com, and GuyAnthonyDeMarco.com.

Write What You Know

Craft & Skills Guy Anthony De Marco 2 Comments

One of the most mentioned writing rule is to write what you know. It’s also one of the most misunderstood rules for authors.

If writers were to follow this rule blindly, whole genres would be swept from the literary world. Science Fiction? Since there’s no way to accurately predict the future at this time, nobody could write novels like Dune or the Foundation series. Fantasy? Magic doesn’t exist in this plane of existence, so Harry Potter and Game of Thrones are gone. Mysteries would only be written by law enforcement personnel and thrillers would be penned by spies (who would then lose their jobs because people would know what they did when they went to a book signing.)

A better way to look at this “rule” is to write what you can extrapolate, learn, or research, and to do it as accurately as possible.

If you’re writing a weird western tale, you need to be reasonably accurate. Having someone draw a semi-automatic pistol with a 13 round clip during a gunfight will not go over well with the western crowd, unless you’ve already established the story as a time-travel or alternate history version. You’d have to understand the weapons of the period. If a character in 1844 drew his Colt Dragoon Revolver, you’d lose some of your readers who know Dragoons were used by civilians from 1848-1860. It took me less than two minutes to research that firearm by looking at Wikipedia for “old west guns”, then picking one from the list at the bottom.

Now let’s turn our attention to a less “concrete” situation — having a character lose a family member. If you are fortunate enough to have never dealt with the death of a loved one, it’s difficult to imagine the hurt and loss. Trying to write about something so personal in a manner that will evoke emotion from your readers is a tricky thing to do when you have never experienced it in real life.

So, how can you “write what you know” when you really don’t know? Try one of these possibilities:

  • Read. Pick up a book that you’ve read before if it has a similar incident and you remember it as an emotional story. Analyze how they evoked different emotions and incorporate some of the techniques in your novel.
  • Talk. Find someone who’s willing to talk to you about how it felt to lose a loved one.
  • Be resourceful. Use your imagination to convince yourself you’ve lost the most important person in your life. You’ll be able to understand some of the feelings that your characters are going through.

Another angle folks take on the “write what you know” rule is to stick with writing only one genre. Poppycock, in my opinion. Experiment and write in different genres. Break that rule, and break it often. By expanding your writing abilities, and bringing different skillsets to bear, all of your stories will be more interesting.

Go dabble in horror, then ramp up the tension with a spy novel. Whatever you like to read, give yourself the opportunity to try writing it. Start with short stories, and if you end up enjoying the genre, dig in and write a novel. Even if there are stories you don’t normally read, such as historical novels or romance, try picking up some of them and give it a chance. You might find a new way to make your money disappear at the bookstore. At the very least, you can pick up some writing chops and add in better romantic elements into your military sci-fi novels.

So go ahead. Break this rule. Nobody will know, and I promise not to tell anyone unless you write a runaway bestselling novel.

About the Author:DeMarco_Web-5963

Guy Anthony De Marco is a speculative fiction author; a Graphic Novel Bram Stoker Award®; winner of the HWA Silver Hammer Award; a prolific short story and flash fiction crafter; a novelist; an invisible man with superhero powers; a game writer (Sojourner Tales modules, Interface Zero 2.0 core team, D&D modules); and a coffee addict. One of these is false.
A writer since 1977, Guy is a member of the following organizations: SFWA, WWA, SFPA, IAMTW, ASCAP, RMFW, NCW, HWA. He hopes to collect the rest of the letters of the alphabet one day. Additional information can be found at Wikipedia, GuyAndTonya.com, and GuyAnthonyDeMarco.com.

Resolve to Resolve…

Guest Posts Guy Anthony De Marco The Writing Life 1 Comment

A guest post by Guy Anthony DeMarco.

With the holiday season in full swing, many folks decide to make a resolution for the upcoming New Year. With this in mind, here are several ideas to consider for 2015.

  1. Resolve to Write.

Sometimes it seems silly to tell writers that they should write. Too many of them finish a big project, such as a novel, and spend far too much time tweaking, publishing, and promoting their book. Yes, these are important details, but the majority of your time should be spent writing your next book. If you have only four hours to devote to writing a day, three and a half should be spent on writing. As Dean Wesley Smith said, be a writer (one who writes) versus be an author (one who has written). The best way to be noticed is to have a large assortment of items for sale. Each book is a hook on a line. If you have one hook in the water, you may catch a fish. If you have twenty hooks in the water, the odds are a fish will notice one of those juicy worms and you’ll be dining on fish tonight.

  1. Resolve to Complete Projects.

If you’re like me, you have dozens of half-finished projects that are taking up space on your hard drive. Make a decision to pick some of them and get them completed and in the marketplace. If you decide to take on a project, resolve to get it done, barring emergencies or medical disasters. A half-written project of 20K words is wasteful, so go over it, replot if necessary, and get it out the virtual front door.

  1. Resolve to Learn About Writing.

There are quite a few blogs and websites that can keep you in touch with what’s happening in the marketplace. Ralan’s and Duotrope can help you spot markets that are open for submissions. Joe Konrath, The Passive Guy, and Hugh Howey have excellent blogs concerning self-publishing. Local conventions usually have a writing track, so bring a notepad and take notes. If you’re new to the Fictorians, go through the archives and see what catches your attention. Buy a book or three about writing, then actually read them. If you write off of the top of your head (aka a Pantser) or go through great troubles to plot out every detail of your story (aka an Plotter/Outliner), take some time to try out the other method. I personally find it’s easier to be a Pantser when writing short stories and flash fiction, but for a complex story or a novel, being an Outliner comes in handy.

  1. Resolve to Learn About the Business of Writing.

This is a big resolution, and it will certainly take some time over 2015 to complete. The good thing is it can be easily done if you nibble on the elephant, one bite at a time.

Probably the easiest way to cover this resolution is to attend a seminar or workshop dealing with the business side of writing and publishing. The aforementioned Dean Wesley Smith conducts workshops on the west coast with his brilliant wife Krisine Kathryn Rusch. Kevin J. Anderson and Rebecca Moesta run a seminar on the writing and publishing business each year in Colorado Springs, Colorado, called the Superstars Writing Seminar. The date for next year is February 5-7, 2015, and will feature Kevin, Rebecca, Jody Lynn Nye, James Artimus Owen, Eric Flint, Toni Weisskopf, and a host of additional top authors and editors. They cover everything you could ever wish to learn from award-winning professionals.

There are dozens of books on the business side of writing. While anyone can write a book and publish it, make sure the author has extensive experience before commiting to reading an advice-centric book. Dave Farland has several excellent books (not to mention an excellent free blog), and Wordfire Press in particular has a wide variety of business advice books.

  1. Resolve to Learn About Copyrights.

This is a smaller resolution, one which every writer should know. There are plenty of folks who give bad advice on copyrights because they’re only parroting what they heard—and they heard it from someone who also didn’t have a clue.

In my opinion, the best book on copyrights is published by Nolo Press. It’s a longish book, but you will know exactly what a copyright is when you’re done. It would be a safe bet that you’d learn something new—something that contradicts what you believed for a long time—when you learn about what a copyright is and is not. For example, many new authors are convinced that copyrights cover ideas. They don’t—they only cover the execution of an idea, such as a finished book.

Take the time to learn how to be a professional writer and author. Not only will it help you avoid the pitfalls on your career path, but it will make your journey more enjoyable.

 

About the Author:DeMarco_Web-5963

Guy Anthony De Marco is a speculative fiction author; a Graphic Novel Bram Stoker Award®; winner of the HWA Silver Hammer Award; a prolific short story and flash fiction crafter; a novelist; an invisible man with superhero powers; a game writer (Sojourner Tales modules, Interface Zero 2.0 core team, D&D modules); and a coffee addict. One of these is false.
A writer since 1977, Guy is a member of the following organizations: SFWA, WWA, SFPA, IAMTW, ASCAP, RMFW, NCW, HWA. He hopes to collect the rest of the letters of the alphabet one day. Additional information can be found at Wikipedia, GuyAndTonya.com, and GuyAnthonyDeMarco.com.

Pass It On

Guest Posts Guy Anthony De Marco Motivation The Writing Life 1 Comment

A guest post by Guy Anthony De Marco

Every so often, I travel out to a new convention with my talented and lovely wife, Tonya. We normally drive our commercial van so we can transport our stock, shelving, banners, and boxes of books for authorly friends who are flying out. Tonya and I discuss plots, books, business, and have a grand time.

The first “new” con this year was RadCon in Pasco, Washington. This trip featured me singing 1980’s hits in my Arnold Schwarzenegger accent. You haven’t really experienced Culture Club’s “Do You Really Want to Hurt Me” until you’ve heard Arnie belting it out. I drove the 16-hour trip straight through with a couple of stops for fuel (body and vehicle), and to torture my poor wife’s eardrums.

Radcon supports a local project that has some of their guests traveling to local schools to talk to students. Elizabeth Vann-Clark, the con-chair, asked me to speak to the children at Chief Joseph Middle School in Richmond because of my technology background. Since I used to teach information technology at a couple of colleges, I agreed without hesitation. Elizabeth noted that many students don’t have an opportunity to discuss technology-based careers, which is why she started the program.

I met with the technology teacher, who introduced me and a fellow Radcon author to his classes. Most of the questions dealt with technology, but about a quarter were questions concerning writing genre fiction. The most popular question, with several follow-ups, was “How much money do you make?” and “How much money do you have?” I was a little more forthcoming about what I earned, noting the technology field was supporting my family while I worked on my novels and stories. I also noted that I travel around the country, going to conventions and talking with new or potential authors.

The experience was a positive one, and should I be invited back, I would be quite happy to visit the school again.

Writing is usually a solitary endeavor, but it doesn’t have to be. Commiserating a rejection with fellow authors or answering questions for folks just getting into writing at a convention can be a very rewarding experience. Don’t shut yourself out by locking yourself in your office space. Interacting can not only help others, but it can help you when you’re working on a new project. Some questions may actually jog your brain into gear, firing up the virtual muse in your head.

One of the best stories I tell along this line came from an experience at OSFest. A group of Denver-based authors, including Fictorian contributor Quincy J. Allen, traveled to Omaha for the first time. The author track was a new addition, and there were a group of attendees who were just starting the path to publication. One of them was Sarah Whittaker, who showed up to almost all of our panels. We also chatted with her outside of panels during the con, and Quincy and I told her she should have something published by the next OSFest convention.

The following year, we saw Sarah with her new novel, The Raggedyman, available in print and ebook. I have to admit, I was quite proud that she followed through. I made sure to buy a signed print copy from her. Watching someone you helped succeed, no matter how small you think your contribution was, will always give you a smile.

I’m sure there were folks who encouraged or mentored you, formally or otherwise. It’s time you paid that gift forward.

 

About the Author:DeMarco_Web-5963

Guy Anthony De Marco is a speculative fiction author; a Graphic Novel Bram Stoker Award®; winner of the HWA Silver Hammer Award; a prolific short story and flash fiction crafter; a novelist; an invisible man with superhero powers; a game writer (Sojourner Tales modules, Interface Zero 2.0 core team, D&D modules); and a coffee addict. One of these is false.
A writer since 1977, Guy is a member of the following organizations: SFWA, WWA, SFPA, IAMTW, ASCAP, RMFW, NCW, HWA. He hopes to collect the rest of the letters of the alphabet one day. Additional information can be found at Wikipedia, GuyAndTonya.com, and GuyAnthonyDeMarco.com.