Category Archives: Networking

A interview post with Jen Greyson.

I think it’s safe to assume most authors would jump at the chance to work with the publisher behind Fifty Shades of Grey, one of the most successful book titles of the past few years. For author Jen Greyson, this was the dream scenario—and it came true! I had an opportunity recently to sit down and ask Jen a few questions about her experience working with the publisher. Read on, and come back tomorrow to hear the rest of the story.

EB: First of all, Jen, could tell us about your first book?

JG: Lightning Rider is about Evy Rivera, the first female time traveler, but she has no idea that she comes from a long line of lightning riders—travelers who use lightning to cross dimensional chess boards and affect history. In fact, none of her living family knows. Their mentors lost them about six decades ago, but they haven’t been looking for a girl… because there’s never been one. Evy’s a badass, complete with lightning bullwhips and an attitude to match. Her first historical alteration takes her back to ancient Spain where her fate tangles with a Roman warrior set on conquering northern Spain. Together they must work to defeat a legendary man in order for Spain to fall. The Roman teaches her how to handle her lightning and there’s more electricity between the two of them than any of her weapons. Her mentors don’t always tell her the truth and Evy has to figure out the hidden agendas before she unmakes the wrong history. (The sequel, Shadow Boxer, is also available.)

EB: How did you attract the attention of your publisher?

JR: After E.L. James landed her seven figure deal with Random House for Fifty Shades, I went looking for the publisher that made it happen. I found the tiny Australian house, The Writer’s Coffee Shop, and send my manuscript in. They loved it and I was really excited to learn the marketing techniques they used to make Fifty Shades a household name.

EB: Talk about the initial contract you received from them, and your initial reaction to it.

JR: The initial contract was surprisingly simple and didn’t have a lot of the clauses I’d heard horror stories about. They asked things that I didn’t agree with and because I’d attended a Superstars Writing Seminar and read a lot of Kris Rusch’s blog, I knew that I could push back on the terms that needed adjusting. But I was also willing to give up some things in order to gain their marketing team.

EB: What did you do next?

JR: I consulted with my mentors about several of the terms and they suggested some new ones to include. I already had a list from reading How to Be Your Own Literary Agent and Kris’s blogs/books, but knew that the negotiation process was critical and I needed to ask for everything I wanted in the first swing to begin the back and forth. Because they were an Australian house, their paperback prices were super high, so we did an ebook only deal. The negotiations were all handled via email with some back and forth. In the end, I was happy with the final terms and it was a fair negotiation with lots of back and forth.

EB: How difficult overall was it to negotiate these clauses? A lot of people believe that first-time authors have no leverage and therefore can’t negotiate much of any significance. How does your experience stack up against that?

JR: I was under that myth too! And honestly, had I not gone to Superstars just a few months before, I’d have signed the original contract. I had my eyes opened at that seminar and really understood the positioning I had and was then in a mental place that I treated it like any other negotiation/business deal I’d have done in the non-publishing world.

In my experience, I was able to ask for what I wanted, and for the most part, got everything I asked for. The publishers were willing to negotiate nearly all the points I wanted. There were also a few that I had to willingly give up, so it was a typical business transaction where each side met in the middle.

I was working with a very small boutique/indie publisher. I would imagine every publisher handles things differently, so my experience may differ vastly from what someone might find with a different house.

Even with this publisher, the negotiations for book two did not go as smoothly, and I ultimately did not accept their second contract because I didn’t feel the terms where acceptable. We negotiated for a couple months and couldn’t come to an agreement… so even with the same author, same publisher, the experiences were vastly different.

Come back tomorrow for the interview’s conclusion.

Guest Bio:
From the moment she decided on a degree in Equestrian Studies, Jen Greyson’s life has been one unscripted adventure after another. Leaving the cowboy state of Wyoming to train show horses in France, Switzerland, and Germany, she’s lived life without much of a plan, but always a book in her suitcase. Now a wife and mom to two young boys, she relies on her adventurous, passionate characters to be the risk-takers. Jen also writes university courses and corporate training material when she’s not enjoying the wilds of the west via wakeboard or snowmobile.

Never Stop Learning

January 30, 2014

Leigh Galbreath

Classes & Seminars Conventions Craft & Skills Goals Leigh Galbreath Life Philosophies Making Progress as a Writer Motivation Teaching The Writing Life Writing Tools No Comments

I don’t think I can count the number of times I’ve heard people say that some aspect of writing couldn’t be taught. My personal favorite is that you can learn all the technique you want, but you’re either born with the ability to tell a good story, or you’re not. That you can’t learn how to tell a good story.

I personally think that the people who espouse these ideas have either spent entirely too much time dealing with writers who aren’t willing to put the work in, or we’re all a little confused on what, if any, difference there is between technique and telling a good story.

Writing is a craft, after all, and no one’s born a master of any craft.

Of course, we will probably never be utterly fantastic at every aspect of the writing craft. Some have fantastic world-building but a slow plot. Others great characters but not enough setting. Stephanie Meyer, for instance, has long been derided on her writing style, and has even admitted herself that she’s not the best writer, but she’s does a hell of a job weaving emotion into every scene and tugging the heart strings of her readers—which is exactly what her readers want.

The point being, just because you’re not the greatest at something doesn’t mean you’re not a good enough writer to be published. At the same time, ignoring your weaknesses because “it can’t be taught” is a total cop-out, in my opinion.

Like most everyone here, I dream for that day when I’m going about my usual day, doing something boring and what-not, only to happen upon someone reading a book with my name on it. I feel the despair that I’m not quite there yet and hear the clock ticking away the time that means there’s one more day I haven’t achieved my dream. And yes, I’m a realist. I know a good portion of that is fear of putting my work out there, but I also know I’ve still got some serious weaknesses that I need to address.

When I was a teenager, I had a choir instructor who explained that he taught people who were tone-deaf how to sing. It’s in understanding the real root of the problem that allows something like that to happen. With the tone-deaf people, they had to learn how the notes related to each other to be able to figure out how to go from one correct note to another correct note without wandering off, so to speak.

With writing, I think, it’s much the same. If you understand what the real problem is, you can fix it. You just might have to look a bit harder and be a little more creative to get the results you’re looking for.

My personal demon at the moment is plot structure. Something’s always escaped me about how to put one event before another and have it work to engage the reader, move the story forward, and still service the characters.

As a discovery writer, I lean toward minimal effort spent on deep planning before writing. Unfortunately, I’ve been struggling with a few stories that I have come to realize really need to be plotted before I start writing in earnest. So, recently I decided to dedicate a good portion of this year in workshops and classes specifically geared toward pre-writing. Currently, I’m doing David Farland’s online prewriting class at mystorydoctor.com, and while it has done a fantastic job in helping me learn how to plan a novel before I write it, it incidentally opened my eyes as why plot structure has always eluded me.

For me, there was one exercise in particular that helped me figure out what the real problem was. The idea was to establish circularity between characters in opposition to each other, by writing out how each character reacts to the actions of the other. This forced me to find the cause and effect of the conflict…and suddenly I know how my plot is supposed to work and how the sub-plots interact with it. Suddenly, I get it.

So, that’s my goal for this year, to focus on becoming a better writer by taking my weakness and working to learn how to get better at it.

I refuse to believe that there are things I can’t learn. The only thing I was born with was a love of stories. The writing portion is a work in progress.

Superstars Writing Seminar – worth attending again

January 29, 2014

Frank Morin

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Superstars Writing Seminar will be held February 6–8 in Colorado Springs, CO. It is the premier seminar on the business of writing, period. I attended the first seminar, held in 2010 in Pasadena, CA, and I’m eagerly anticipating attending again this year.

I’m not the only alumni of the seminar to sign up for another year, and honestly I would have loved to have gone last year. This Fictorians group was formed from alumni of the Superstars seminar, and members have begun publishing and making their mark as writers. In the near future, we’ll only see that trend increasing, thanks in part to knowledge gained through Superstars.

You may ask yourself why we’re so eager to spend the hundreds of dollars required to invest in another seminar when we learned so much the last time we went.

It’s precisely because we learned so much last time.

This seminar is different than any other writer’s seminar I know of. It’s taught by bestselling authors, top editors, and publishers, but more than that what makes this seminar stand apart is the content. This is a crash course in the business of writing, where successful writing professionals share what they do and how they manage their career. For writers who are serious about their writing career, be they newbie authors who have yet to complete their first novel, or published writers looking to reach the next level, this seminar imparts a wealth of information that I have not found anywhere else.

You can view a high level description of the curriculum here which includes contracts, agents, indie publishing, traditional publishing, intellectual properties, and much more.

The seminar in 2010 was a career-changing experience for me. I arrived as an eager, wannabe writer with lots of enthusiasm and one manuscript completed. I left even more energized and armed with the knowledge I needed to move into the next stage of my career as a writer. Given the constantly moving target which is publishing these days, the specifics of what is taught each year is adjusted accordingly, so I expect this year’s content to be different from what I saw just four years ago.

What I learned four years ago is still fresh in my mind. Some favorite memories include Brandon Sanderson relating how he landed his first agent; Kevin J. Anderson’s popcorn theory; Eric Flint’s detailed discussion of contracts; and the discussion of how prolific an author really needs to be to succeed.

On top of the top-rate content, this seminar provides other fantastic benefits. Not only did we form the Fictorians from alumni of the seminars, but the instructors have remained available and engaged with the group. We have a private Facebook group where we can all post questions and comments and get advice or feedback from each other and from the instructors. The networking benefits of the seminar are proving an invaluable long-term benefit.

This year I approach the seminar from a slightly different point. I have four novels completed, with four more in various stages of outlining, one novel e-published and an agent working on deals with others. This time I have different needs, and I fully expect to gain the knowledge I need to make even greater strides forward in my career.

So is Superstars worth attending again?

Absolutely.

If you’ve never heard of Superstars, check it out. I guarantee it’s worth the investment.

Leave the Spock Ears at Home: World Fantasy Convention

January 22, 2014

Gregory D. Little

Business Conventions Gregory D. Little Publishing The Writing Life No Comments

I’d wager a guess that most of our readers are neither independently wealthy nor possessing of vast amounts of free time. I’d also venture that most of you know by now the importance of networking in your burgeoning writing career. The old phrase “It’s not always what you know, but who you know” may be a massive cliche, but there’s a reason for that: it’s true.

So we know we need to show up at conventions, meet our fellow authors and hopefully get some editors and agents interested in our manuscripts. But for the reasons I mentioned above, we can’t just go to every convention that trundles up on the calendar. What’s an aspiring writer to do? What is the convention that gives you the greatest proverbial bang for your literal buck?

For you science fiction and fantasy writers out there, I humbly submit the answer: World Fantasy Convention. I like to think of it as Worldcon’s business-focused little brother. Whereas Worldcon is a fan-oriented event also attended by professionals in the writing industry, World Fantasy is all business. You won’t find anyone wandering around in cosplay there (so as the title says, leave your Spock ears at home), just writers, editors and agents who are interested in networking. Old friends and business contacts are caught up with, new friends and business contacts are made and through it all new opportunities are generated.

World Fantasy 2012 was my first convention and it was just what I was looking for. The afternoon I arrived (the day before the convention started) I met urban fantasy author Kat Richardson in the hotel elevator, and she was kind enough to introduce me around to her circle. I chatted with Pat Rothfuss prior to his panel. At the mass signing I ran into and chatted with epic fantasy author Scott Bakker. I talked with Norm Sherman, editor of Drabblecast, Mass Effect writer and author of The Palace Job Patrick Weekes, and lest I forget, I met a certain Evan Braun, author and blogger for Fictorians, an encounter that ultimately led to the post you are reading now. Make no mistake, this is the highest density of industry professionals you are likely to find at any convention. If you are looking for a convention to maximize your opportunities for career advancement, World Fantasy Convention is where you need to be.

Now, some tips:

-This con should be all about socializing. If you aren’t in a panel, you should probably be hanging out around the hotel bar. People will congregate there day and night. Even if you aren’t a drinker, the bar is the central hub of socialization for the con. If not the bar, find the hospitality suite and if not the suite, find the dealer room.

-Make an effort to figure out where and when the various parties will be held. They are thrown by publishers, sometimes to promote a new book release, sometimes just as a social event. A lot of times they aren’t advertised, so you may need to know someone who knows, so here’s where your people skills come into play. Be a pleasant person that people enjoy spending time with, and they shouldn’t be reluctant to fill you in on the details.

-Maintain good situational awareness. Just because people are at the con in a business mindset doesn’t mean they want to talk 24/7. If you see that agent you’ve been anxious to meet off by themselves but they appear to be busy checking their email, leave them be. The last thing you want is to make a poor first impression and be memorable for all the wrong reasons.

-Likewise, pay attention in panels if you’re looking for conversational icebreakers. If you’re shy like me, finding an excuse for starting a conversation is the hardest part. If you have something to lead off with, like “I really enjoyed your urban fantasy panel today,” that can make things a lot easier.

-Convince some of your writing friends to go with you. Writers tend to be shy, so you can all psyche each other up into approaching people who might otherwise intimidate you.

-Lastly, remember to relax and try to enjoy yourself. There’s no reason you can’t have fun and do your career some good at the same time.

This year’s World Fantasy Convention is in Crystal City, VA (I know the link says Washington, D.C., but any native Virginian will scoff at that) from November 6th – 9th. If you decide to come and see me wandering around looking shell-shocked, feel free to say hi!