What’s in a name?

November 29, 2008

I remember being in grade school and how on the first day of school the teacher would always call me by my first name – Mary – because she assumed everyone goes by their first name. I’m an oddity. Go figure. I’d go through a whole week of correcting her until she remembered that I answer to Lynn. I even tried going by Mary for about two hours, but it freaked me out.

These days I pretty much answer to anything. For instance, the beagle just snorts at me, and I know that she’s calling to me to get her another tequila-drenched chewie bone. My distributor calls me Lynnie every now and then, but we’re friends, so that’s ok. Anyone else calling me Lynnie loses a limb. I answer to “Hey,” “Uh,” “M’am” – even though that makes me feel ancient, or “Sweet Cheeks.” HOWEVER, if you’re querying me, only my name will work.

I’m not Ms. Einsteller, Rogers, Caplan, Foray, or Darla, so these names shouldn’t be gracing the salutation of a query letter meant for my eyes.

It’s like going on a date with a guy who just broke up with his girlfriend of five years, and he keeps calling you Janice, and your name is Lucy. Geez, get me Snarkie’s clue gun already.

Please, dear authors, if you’re sending out queries en masse, then make sure you use the editor’s correct name. It makes us cranky.

And while I’m talking oh-so-briefly about sending out en masse query letters, may I just inject that this is a bad idea? Most houses have particular criteria, and it’s a reeeal good idea to highlight those elements that will get that particular house all goosey about reading your work. We’re personal journeys, for instance. But another house may be looking for left-handed lawyers who can recite the Preamble backwards. Highlight those points so you scratch our personal itches. It’s the stuff that makes us say, “Oh yeah, this is for me!”

‘Scuse me, the beagle just snorted. That’s my cue…off for more tequila.
-Mary

2 Comments | query | Permalink
Posted by lynnpricewrites

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone

November 26, 2008

2 Comments | Uncategorized | Permalink
Posted by lynnpricewrites

Houghton Mifflin freezes new book acquisitions

November 25, 2008

The industry is in for a tough year or so. We have all experienced record returns over the past year, forcing many indie publishers to actually write checks to their distributors for thousands of in-the-red dollars. Many have closed their doors. The returns have been so bad that there is now a bigger voice about returns are killing the industry.

So it came as a real surprise to read about Houghton Mifflin’s decision to freeze all new book acquisitions. Small indie presses can put a small moratorium on new acquisitions and come through just fine because the indies don’t have as large a share in terms of shelf space. The big guys, however, must retain new acquisitions in order to keep their shelf space share. It’s no surprise that fewer books are being sold; sales tracked by the Association of American Publishers fell 2% in September at $1.06 billion and were down by 1.5 for the year.

In short, any publisher with a brain is being very careful about their cash outlay. It’s tougher for the big guys because they need huge sales in order to keep their financial machine running. The big guys have also been slower to react to a changing economy because they enjoy the lion’s share of the sales. But nothing lasts forever, and changes in this industry are happening. It’s the smart ones who learn to adapt and evolve.

Personally, I’m thrilled to be a small indie press because it takes far less to keep us viable. We’re able to publish quality books and remain in business. My heart goes out to any publisher who is having a hard time because the idea of not being able to bring new work to the marketplace can only mean one thing; people aren’t reading anymore. And that is a crime.

5 Comments | Houghton Mifflin, publishing | Permalink
Posted by lynnpricewrites

Is your manuscript on life support?

November 24, 2008

That is one of the toughest questions to ask and even harder to answer. You’ve sent your manuscript out for query and received enough rejections to wallpaper your attic, and you’re wondering if anyone will ever be interested.

When is it time to retire the work?

Unfortunately that’s a question that no one can answer for you. I’ve seen manuscripts floating around for so long that the author forgot they’d submitted it to me a several years earlier and submitted again. I realize authors are hoping for that Cinderella story where their manuscript gets published after years of trying. After all, it only takes one editor to believe in it, right?

But at some point the author has to consider the work possibly has no future and would be better off sitting in a desk drawer. It’s not that it’s being abandoned; you’re taking all the lessons you learned from writing it in order to write a better, more marketable story. I’ve seen numerous writers put so much time and energy into a dying manuscript that they become disenchanted with the submission process and their own writing. Some quit writing altogether. What they don’t realize is that the submission process may be sending them a very important message. It may not be that their writing is bad, but that this particular manuscript simply isn’t publishable.

It’s hard to see authors receive crits and lots of feedback go back and retool the work until it’s a shadow of its former self, all in a desperate attempt to resurrect what can’t be given new life. It’s like the time I tried to fit into my favorite black slinky dress after having my third child. It just wasn’t happening. Not then, not ever. No matter how hard I sucked in my post pregnant gut and wiggled around like a python on crack, that dress wasn’t going anywhere. I had to finally admit defeat. Sadly, there are many manuscripts where I feel the same way.

I don’t know of many authors who struck gold on their first try. Every successful author has three or four manuscripts sitting in their file cabinets, and each of those shelved manuscripts were stepping stones for their eventual success.

No one can tell you when it’s time to hang it up. Our writing comes from our hearts and souls, and it’s achingly hard to have the objectivity to appreciate when our stories are on life support.

How can you know when it’s time to bury a manuscript?

  • Look at your writing objectively instead of through rose-colored glasses
  • Listen to the critiques and beta reader feedback
  • Put your manuscript away in a desk for at least a month, then go back and read it and the crits with fresh eyes
  • Consider the hundreds of rejections as an insightful message
  • Trust your head, not your heart

And if the black dress doesn’t fit, put it away and go buy a new one.

3 Comments | writing | Permalink
Posted by lynnpricewrites

Interview with a character

November 23, 2008

So we were gabbing the finer points story structure, be they character driven or plot driven. Some genres, like espionage/political intrigue are almost always plot driven, and character development is kept to a minimum – just enough to keep the reader concerned about the character’s welfare. Others, like mainstream, have a heavier hand in character development. Anyhoo, Victory piped up and said, “every writer should interview their character before they begin writing their story.”

I dropped my chicken finger and had one of those d’oh! moments. It reminded me of a manuscript I’d just finished reading. The story was pretty good, but the character development was all wrong. It wasn’t that the character wasn’t developed, but rather that the character reacted all wrong for the way the author had written her. He would have been in much better territory had he interviewed her beforehand.

Here are some of the questions Victory recommends you ask your characters:

  • What are you struggling to achieve?
  • What are your goals (could be different)?
  • What obstacles/people are preventing or frustrating you in getting what you want?What are you most afraid of?
  • Do you have any dilemmas–two things you want at the same time but which are mutually exclusive? An example of this would be that you really want to eat that box of Twinkies but need to lose twenty-five pounds so you’ll fit into that slinky black dress you bought for the Christmas party.
  • What happened in your childhood that changed your personality for life?
  • If any of these questions don’t apply to the character, let them tell you.

Regardless of how schizoid it all makes me feel, I can’t help but feel this is a cool revelation. Well, that, and I discovered the restaurant serves excellent onion soup.

1 Comment | character development | Permalink
Posted by lynnpricewrites

LyNe2WriMo

November 21, 2008

I can’t go to a writer’s blog without everyone discussing their NaNoWriMo experiences and comparing their daily word count like dieters counting calories. I feel left out. It’s like the time I was in 7th grade, and the chorale teacher suggested that my talents lie elsewhere. Just who is she kidding? No one could belt out Janis* Joplin’s “Take a Piece of My Heart” better than I. So while my friends got to spend fifth period eating doughnuts, goofing off, and learning some perfunctory songs for the Easter assembly, I took pottery and damn near blew up the kiln.

NaNoWritMo is literary smelling salts. It awakens the writer to commit to belting out a story that’s been churning inside for too long. It’s catnip for the underperforming and overwhelmed. That would be me.

I thought about joining NaNoWritMo during a 7th grade flashback because I thought it would give me the chance to finish my second novel. But then I realized that it would take time away from finishing my Tackle Box book. Now that would incur the wrath of just about everyone in my professional life; my distributor, the sales teams, my editor, and I won’t even go into what hubby would say. So here I sit blogging when I should be writing.

So I’ve decided to start LyNe2WriMo. It’s alternate therapy for those writers who say, “Yeah, yeah, I know I have a deadline, pass me the box of Twinkies, willya?” This is a group who has every intention of lighting the literary candle under their backsides when the mood is right and work doesn’t threaten to swallow them whole. They’ll work long into the wee hours of the morning, not stopping to sleep or eat because they have a king-sized itch that is finally going to get scratched. And just like the more famous and wonderful counterpart, LyNe2WriMo will create work that isn’t much more than first draft material, but by golly, it’s freaking written. And that’s the point of joining.

We’ll all compare notes about our lack of sleep and how long it took for anyone at our workplace to notice we’ve quasi dropped the ball. (Note to any of my authors reading this, I’m on top of things. Really. Honest. That, too, would incur the wrath of many)


So while LyNe2WriMo isn’t smelling salts, I’d like to think of it as more of The Little Engine That Could…I think I can, I think I can.

Ah, forget it; I have a perfectly good margarita staring me in the face. I’ll write tomorrow.

*Thank you, R.J. Yes, I’m an idiot.

9 Comments | writing | Permalink
Posted by lynnpricewrites

Do my shoes match?

November 20, 2008

Ok, so Janet Reid wrote about the article in Publisher’s Weekly first, but this is something that does bug me – and that is the brilliant cover letter that sings from the mountain tops and the subsequent dismal writing that invites comments of “don’t give up your day job.” I’m not as brilliant as Stephen Barbara (author of the article) because I never put two and two together. How, sez I staring at my secretary, the unreliable beagle, can such a terrific query letter accompany such dribble? These shoes don’t match. It’s like the author is wearing a Ferragamo on one foot and an Addias cross-trainer on the other.

For once, the unreliable beagle makes sense and informs me that authors understand the query letter can result agents and editors asking for pages. You’re always yammering on about the query letter is the auhor’s business card, she sez, the meet and greet, the Great Yoda, to a story, so what did you expect?

No, no, no, I argue, threatening to clip her toenails, don’t authors realize that they’re simply putting off the inevitible? The query letter may get their pinkie finger in the door, but it’s the writing I’m after. If it bites, then it’s a major buh-bye. Why on earth would anyone take a short cut and nab successful query letters off the internet? Don’t they realize that it doesn’t match the tone and style of their writing? Don’t they realize mismatched shoes does nothing but prolong their inevitable rejection? Argh! How I detest short cuts and subversion.

The beagle continues attacking her designer chewie bone instead of filing contracts. You set the tone by talking about the all-important query letter, she mumbles.

Yeah, but that was with the idea the author would actually write their own!

She claims it’s all my fault. Bitch.

3 Comments | query | Permalink
Posted by lynnpricewrites

Twinkies for all

November 18, 2008

Oh happy happy, joy joy day. I shall never be without a Twinkie again…though what he does at the end is pure, unadulterated sacrilege.

Leave a Comment » | twinkies | Permalink
Posted by lynnpricewrites

Vanity – big hopes, wrong idea

November 17, 2008

For the third time in a week, I’ve rejected an author who published with a vanity press with the intent of attracting a trade publisher. This one is literally hot off the press, so the author is in the mode of “get ‘em while they’re hot.” Problem is, it won’t be hot, and may never even reach lukewarm. Authors who use POD and vanity with this intent are a lot like buying a brand new car; the minute you drive it off the lot, it depreciates by thousands of dollars. The longer you drive it around town, the price dips even lower.


If trade publishers are the prospective customer, then it’s safe to say that we want a new car, not the used one advertised as being “just like new” in the newspaper. There is nothing new about them. Since experience tells us savvy authors don’t take the vanity route, this means the vanity books tend to require heavy editing and major rewrites – more than the average “car.” Why waste the time when there are more polished works floating around?


As I’ve said in past posts, previously published books have a literary footprint, and it’s really hard to erase them. I’ve seen cases where three active versions of a single title exist in the online databases because the vanity didn’t notify Bowker of the new out of print status. Needless to say, this creates huge confusion for the customer. Additionally, once a book hits the internet, it feeds out to thousands of sites, and it’s impossible to erase those as well. Why would I want to compete with that? I want a new car.


All authors believe their books are great and will sell, but the vanity author tends to have zero idea about how to promote their works. Most vanity authors want the trade publishers’ superior editing capabilities. Problem is, this isn’t a selling feature that will excite me. Effective selling says, “what can I do for you?” – meaning me. And you do that by sending us a fabulous story that’s polished and strong. We are not the Great Benevolent Society and don’t pick up charity cases in order to help perfect their editing. We need great books that customers will buy. That’s how we stay in business.


Obviously these authors are very new to the industry and have committed the same mistake thousands of others before them have done, and that is thinking a vanity press publication is a stepping stone to bigger success.

I hate this part of my job because I see too much of it. Authors’ dreams sink, and vanity presses bank accounts soar. Damn, damn, damn. Makes me all the more anxious to get The Writer’s Essential Tackle Box out on the shelves. If you really believe your work is good, then honor it by treating it like a new car.

2 Comments | vanity | Permalink
Posted by lynnpricewrites

The Double Standard

November 14, 2008

“If Joe and Jane Big Selling Author can do it, why can’t I?”

The reason you can’t do it is because you aren’t Joe and Jane Big Selling Author. “It” refers to breaking certain writing rules that does not transcend to mere mortals. Many writers derive their inspiration and writing patterns from those established authors whom they admire. My personal writing hero, for instance, is John Lescroart. I patterned my dialog after his, and nearly died a happy death when one of my distributor’s sales reps caught the similarities. My enthralled demise came when John himself told me, “us dialogers have to stick together.” Anything for you, John.

But John gets away with things that I can’t. He can switch POVs faster than my daughter’s hair color, and he never gets dinged for it. Same goes for his use of adverbs. John’s plots are amazing, he’s an internationally famous writer who makes millions, so he can pretty much do what he wants, and I’ll still love him and read every one of his books.

Why can’t I get away with these infractions? Because my editors would nail me to the wall, for starters because they know as well as I that reviewers would toss the book across the room and invite me to learn the rules of writing. This happens every single day, and many of those manuscripts cross my desk and those of my cohorts.

Emulation is a good thing to a point. Reading a lot of books helps writers understand pacing, flow, character development, keeping the fluff to a minimum in order to concentrate on the plot. But reading well known authors can also teach some bad habits as well. The following comments came from replies to critiques I’d made on rejected manuscripts.

“Even though the general rules of writing say to keep semicolons to a minimum in fiction, I saw a ton of semicolons in XXX’s novel. I thought it was okay for me to use them, too.”

This is always a bit of a nail biter for me because I’m basically saying, “Yes, do as I say, not as they do.” This is tough on new writers. Whom do they believe? This author makes millions and is allowed to dress up like a pink poodle, howl a the moon, and use as many semicolons as he wants.

“I saw a novel filled with adverbs, and the rules say to keep adverbs to a minimum.”

That author makes millions and is allowed to dress up like a pink poodle, howl a the moon, and …ok, see the pattern?

Just because you have read books where authors break these generally accepted rules doesn’t mean anyone can pull this off. This is murky water territory because new writers aren’t usually experienced enough to know how and when to break the rules and still have a viable work. I made the comment on an author’s work I rejected that they would do well to lighten their manuscript of 85% of their adverbs because it made for lazy writing. Yet I have other authors whose works are filled with adverbs, and the writing is still brilliant. They are experienced enough to know that adverbs can create a tell vs. show problem and work around it. I have an author whose mid-scene POV switches were called by Kirkus as being some of the best writing they’d seen in a long time. So it can be done….if you know how.

“Screw the ‘rules,’ Price. There should be no rules in writing other than grammar and such.”

If you can convince nearly all the agents and editors of this, then I will gladly march into my local Mexican joint and belt out a hearty rendition of Frank Sinatra’s “My Way” with a margarita on my head. The argument for insisting no such rules should exist is fruitless if you’re running up against a body of the publishing industry who disagrees with you.

Remember that the idea is to never give an agent or editor a reason to reject you other than the writing or story isn’t for them. It’s my opinion that new writers who are tempted to ignore these general rules of thumb are playing with fire because it is so easy to label the work as being pedestrian. Learn the techniques of writing and gain some experience so you know exactly how and when to break the rules.

2 Comments | double standard, writing rules | Permalink
Posted by lynnpricewrites

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