Tag Archives: Guy Anthony De Marco

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:

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

March 4, 2015

Guy Anthony De Marco

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:

Resolve to Resolve…

December 9, 2014

Guy Anthony De Marco

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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:

Moderating the Fear & Loathing Panel

October 9, 2014

fictorians

Business Conventions Guest Posts Guy Anthony De Marco 2 Comments

A guest post by Guy Anthony De Marco.

I’ve always enjoyed going to conventions. After getting back into writing professionally following a 20-year hiatus, I decided to see if I could get on a couple of panels at my local cons. It looked like a lot of fun, and since I was used to talking in front of people due to my time in the college teaching trenches, I thought I could at the very least be entertaining.

The first convention I approached was already booked, but the programming chairwoman noted there was one panel on H.P. Lovecraft that only had two people on it. She graciously invited me to participate, and I accepted after I sent in my credentials.

Around this time, my son expressed an interest in going to a convention, so I invited him along. I was quite sure he would enjoy himself.

Unfortunately, at this point the villain made his entrance. This antagonist was dressed in the suit and tie of the convention chairman.

The two folks who were already on the panel were the Guest of Honor and an author I personally admired. I sat through a couple of panels with my son, parked in the front row. He enjoyed most of the panels, as did I. When it was almost time for my panel to start, I started to stand up.

The con chairman walked up to the front table and said (on an open mike to a packed room full of fans and attendees) that there was someone “that nobody had ever heard of who wants to be on the panel. He won some award from a small pro organization and nobody has read his stuff. Do you want this nobody to sit on the panel?”

I was taken aback, and my son was too.

“If he bothers to show up, we’ll see if he’s just a wanna-be and sort him out,” the panelists said.

I sat down in shock. The panel went on for only twenty minutes before it fizzled out and they ended it. Most of it was a bashing session by the Guest of Honor. They never even got around totalking about things like how much Lovecraft valued his friend, Algernon Blackwood, or his formative years before he became a writer. I had actually put in hours of research, looking for stuff that the average reader might not know.

My son was very angry as to how I was treated. He doesn’t attend conventions anymore.

At this point in our story, I was full of doubt, fear, and yes, even loathing when it came to being on panels. It’s only natural to feel despondent at getting rejected, particularly in front of a room full of strangers. In some ways, it’s the same set of feelings that convince some writers to give up writing after their first rejection by an editor. I could have just shriveled up and hid under a rock. For my sake, and to set a good example for my son, I decided to swallow those negative feelings and applied to be on some panels at MileHiCon in Denver.

This time, even though they did not know who I was or what I wrote, they treated me well and placed me on a couple of panels. The experience was night-and-day different. My son didn’t attend, since he had decided conventions were not worth the effort. Too bad, because I think he would’ve enjoyed attending MileHiCon. The panels went very well, and the programming chairwoman said she heard positive feedback. Ever since then, I’ve been invited back every year to sit on panels.

So, what’s my bottom line? You are going to have setbacks in your career as an author. You will have times where you are treated like dirt. You very well may feel unworthy because of someone who disrespects you—sometimes in front of a huge audience.

You can duck your head and decide not to stick your neck out, or you can give it another try. As long as you act professionally and avoid any negativity originating from your camp, you have an excellent chance that your second “debut” will be the one you remember fondly. I ended up becoming fast friends with several of the local authors from those panels, including frequentFictorians contributor Quincy J. Allen.

Trust me, it’s worth the effort.

Guy Anthony De Marco Bio:

Guy Anthony De Marco is a speculative fiction author; a Graphic Novel Bram Stoker Award^® finalist; 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.