To #FF or not to #FF is thy question (maybe I should just #WW).

  I come to a Twitter quandary and must decide how to handle thy madness.

  What is thy madness?

  My follower list has grown and if I #FF everyone I believe tweet’s good information, it would do the opposite of what I am trying to accomplish and push people away.  Since Twitter is still a growing community and we are all still learning its abilities for us as writers, I will try this week to #WW just the writers and #FF the non-writers.

  Unfortunately, my writer list is growing faster than the non-writers (which is what I wanted) so we shall see if this idea will eliminate losing connections to other writers.  My entire purpose of Tweeting is connecting with the writing community and sharing our crazy experiences.  So far it is working….

Sigh, if things backfire.  

Oh if you want a great Twitter Do’s/Don’ts take a look at Roni Loren’s Blog:

http://fictiongroupie.blogspot.com/2010/11/twelve-ways-to-scare-away-twitter.html

By the way, she is part of the Crazy People I follow. :) 

Same gig, different requirements.

  I am disappointed.  No, very disappointed.  I had a small window this afternoon around lunch to begin my "Query Bonanza" to the selected few.  I began with all the hopes and dreams on getting out 25 within that hour.  Oh how wrong I truly was on this concept.  I finished only 10!  How could this possibly be since I have fine tuned my query with the wording I wanted and just had to add the Dear such and such.  You would not believe it but every single query I sent was different than the last.  Each agent desired something different with the synopsis or the chapters wanted or the bio or just the query alone.

  How could the same job require so different techniques.  I guess in the agent world it really comes down to personal preference and how they determine what is a good fit for them.  I get this but drastically underestimated what it would take to get the "bonanza" off the ground.  I now have a folder called Query and it currently contains 10 different possibilities on what an agent may want or need.  I am still in amazement I created 10 different ways to sell a book.

  No worries I am ready for the next 10. 

  Me thinks.....

My life wrapped in a Query.

  Here it is my life's work wrapped in a Query letter.  It seems a bit sad really to have all of this hard work and effort down to a couple of paragraphs and a single page.  I begin my first wave tonight but struggling to come up with a second wave (another 25 agents) since many agents do not carry the Fantasy genre.  I am also narrowing my search down to those that will take an email Query since I would find it hard to work with anyone who does not use technology. 

     "I am about to send you into a new fantasy adventure called EVERWING.  This 130,000 word story introduces a new creature forged forth from a unique blend of Elvin heritage and Eagle kind, creating the race called Masu¨ra.  These Masu¨ra differ little from their Elvish brethren except they possess wings on their backs and talons for feet.

       EVERWING, a historical adventure, brings us along with a young royal Masu¨ra named Gavee who discovers his understanding between right and wrong differs from his clans.  He finds himself torn between what he was trained to become and what he feels in his heart to be right.  This first book sends us into the Masu¨ra world and how Gavee answers the question on how he follows his heart versus the demands from his family.

      EVERWING is just the beginning for Gavee and his travels.  Our adventurer is sent into the struggles of his region and forced to watch one Masu¨ra, his brother, destroy a thousand year alliance and send his world into war.  EVERWING captivates you into a wonderful far away world of exciting and memorable characters with each having their own story to tell.  This is my first book which kicks off the series of eight.

       Now a little about myself, I have been wrapped inside the fantasy world since receiving my first Dungeon&Dragons book many ages ago and find my imagination overflowing with stories and ideas wrapped deep in magical lands.  I found myself creating and placing these short stories on paper for others to enjoy.  These short stories allowed me to perfect my art and turn them into a novel series called THE SAGA OF EVERWING.

       I am inviting you along on my journey in creating EVERWING a household name and look forward to hearing from you soon.  I hope you enjoy."

Short and sweet but to the point, I believe. Happy writing! 

How would you like to be addressed?

  I am gathering what I call the magic 50.  This magic 50 ties into the last post I made about querying 50 agents by Thanksgiving.  I am carefully perusing the agent listings out at P&E, 1000literary Agents and Publishers Marketplace to pick the chosen ones. There are many other sites carrying agent lists but found these three are pretty reliable and I am familiar with them.  So back to my point.....I came across an agent who is accepting queries and important enough, email queries that has the following information within their website and it confuses me a little.

"We also do not respond to emails that are not addressed to us personally (i.e.: we will NOT respond to: "Dear Agent", "Dear Editor", "Dear ***** Agency" or "Hi" etc.)"

  I understand this point of view BBBUUUTTT the different agent profiles are not listed anywhere giving me no names nor who accepts what genre.  If I sent it snail mail, which is another option, they request the same respect so either way I have no idea who I am sending it to in order to fulfill their request. :)  I take this as a sign stating they are not part of the chosen few.

  It is also amazing that I still come across many agents who do not accept email queries.  For me, as a technical person, they are immediately removed from my list.  Why kill a tree for someone to say no and throw it in the trash, ending the cycle in a dumpster.  In today's age, everyone should participate in the electronic phenomenon we call email.

Well wish me luck and once I said out my first batch of 25 you will be certain I will post my query letter along with many other things on my mind.

Time to hit the street again

I took a small hiatus from querying agents so I could spend more time focusing on some marketing ideas and more writing.  Now that I have finished what I wanted to accomplish it is time to hit the streets.  I am completing the agent list now and intend to hit up those just waiting for my manuscript. :)  You know who you are so stop being so bashful.  I figured a good round number like 50 should do me well on my first swing of things.  I have never sent this many prior so it shall be a somewhat interesting return.  I will keep you abreast of how it goes and what the answers are as they are returned (or not returned).

It feels like I am about to jump off a very high diving board into a pool that is still being filled...a.k.a they just turned on the water. :|

But wait, maybe I should end this on a positive note.  I am about to find the one person who is willing to take my work and present it.  They are so lucky. :)

Tweet your Friday Followers.

  I started something new last week on Twitter and found it an interesting event.  I actually participated in the #FF or “Friday Follows” by listing out everyone following me.  I have been watching many others do this and in fact, may participate in the #WW or “Writer Wednesdays”.  How did I do this you may be asking?  How do I grab everyone following and send out a massive tweet or series of tweets?

   Well, there is no magical way except patience and the use of copy/paste.  I copied the names into a document and created a line similar to below.  Yep!  It took me a while to structure this but I figured out a scheme and once I hit a rhythm it became pretty easy.  I created a document called Twitter Followers and placed it in my marketing directory since to me Twitter is nothing but marketing.  Here is an example of a few lines and yes these are real people following me and I, in turn, am following them.

Writers to #FF: @Sandra_Gulland @EmperorFranzen @JRobinsonAuthor @LornaSuzuki @ninatypewriter @jamesrollins

  I have also created a line for those that are not writers and are friends with their own business or followers who also tweet good information.  To me this key, I really use Twitter as a pot to grab great ideas, new techniques or tricks and information about the writing world so if your info is what I need I will follow you. 

#FF: @STLconciergeGuy @gregeales @RossPR @Tekwani

  Remember you may only have 140 characters (this includes spaces) so you will need to adjust each line accordingly. I would create the line, copy it into a “Tweet feed” and it would tell you if it falls within the Twitter magic number.  This led to having 15 individual groupings to copy/past into Twitter and will make future tweets easy to handle. 

  Why would I do this???  Good question since it took a lot of work and I have few followers compared to most tweeters.  The answer lies within the numbers! When I sent this out my follower list contained 180 names BUT after it contains 197.  I gained 17 more people following by a simple process.  It may seem like a small victory but if I do this twice a week and average 15 – 20 people each time this is an additional 40 people a week.  Average this through the entire year you are talking roughly an additional 2100 people I would never have had prior to putting together this list.

  One thing….do not forgot the new people who came along after you send your initial sweep.  Each time a person follows me I get an email and I do not delete this email until this person is added to my twitter follower list.  I want to make sure I miss no one because this could lead to a domino affect of losing followers.  

  Now the key to this success is how many will eventually buy my series and become a fan? :) 

  Still working this statistic!  Happy Writing!

The Writing Industries Upgrade X.x

  I feel like I have been sucked into the start of the writing industries latest and greatest upgrade where the Internet and access to books or e-books are changing it forever.  The writing world has done a few other big upgrades through the years, but often it appeared to be in a controlled manner.  This time around, the upgrade has not been tested, evaluated or “approved” by the current industry and this makes this industry angry.  It is why I give the upgrade not a number but letters indicating the unknown.

  

  The e-book debate about how much should be charged is a stickler because many traditional publishers are charging the same or in some cases, more for the e-book.  It makes little sense to me since it cost them nothing to provide a document that is saved on a computer somewhere.  On a computer they already probably had in the first place.  Example, I charge $6 a copy because my publisher has made this a mandatory minimum even though I pay a yearly charge for them to host it on a server somewhere.  They are double dipping by charging my customers again for this availability.  I call foul to this practice and I am working to fix it.

 

  Another practice, which has turned the sour heads of the traditional world and many, many of its writers, is the “self published” author or “self published” works.  I chuckle at being scoffed because of this notion since prior to the last industry upgrade all authors were self published.  It was not until the publishing world realized they could control the masses and the price point on its items did they than quickly “banish” the self published writer.  It did this banishment by raising the so called few and placing them on a pedestal and announcing these are your real authors; not them over there. Oh and they quietly started raising their prices.  I believe Dr. Seuss and his book “The Sneetches” fill this idea fully.

  But here we are today and in what some call the “Wild Wild West”, the www or Internet.  It has given everyone access to everything.  No longer do you need a mass amount of money and industry pull to enter this playing field.  It has unleashed and given us the ability to read GREAT works that in the old way would have never left the writers notepad.  How sad.

  Someone said the other day they only follow established authors.  I wonder what established means to them?  To me, established means one who has been working in a field of work for a period of time and has come to an understanding of their subject due to their length and involvement in their work.  I have been part of the writing community and doing my writing thing for the past 5 years, selling roughly 300 books without even trying.  Does this make me established or poor because it is only 300 books?  I consider it awesome because I sold one.  I feel established because I work on my craft every day along with the business side of things and have been for these past 5 years.  I understand what makes it tick and what makes it angry. :)

  So my rant today is telling everyone to watch and learn right now.  Learn by following.  Learn by reading.  Learn by participating.  Be a part of the X.x and you will be welcomed with open arms by this writer.

Edit me one more time pleeaassee.....

Oh yeah I hear both manuscripts calling me everyday when I go to write:

"Edit me.  No, edit me.  Me!  No ME!”

So when should you go back and do the dirty deed aka "editing the older work"?  When ever possible!  Yep, I fit my old stuff in with my monthly editing schedule and do the dirty dance continuous with this previous work.  I consider myself a serious writer (I say this with a slight giggle but I really do) and like any professional, a schedule is a MUST.  I have a monthly schedule which is broken into sections:  Create Me, Editing Brain Hour, Review It and Eat Pudding.  Okay maybe the last one is not officially on the calendar but I guarantee it is in the plans and is not missed. :)

The Create Me hour is my day to just write and write and write.  I turn off everything and sit down and allow my characters to follow the so-called outline and create the story they live in.  It is such a release and I find my bliss with each moment.  I also miss it when the time is gone and want to live in it ALWAYS.  But alas, I have creditors who wish to be paid so I must venture into the real world and deal with it too.

The Editing Brain Hour is just it, time to edit.  Time for the spell check, grammar check, bad word check and time line check.  It is my time to get in deep with the story and make it pretty.  This time period does NOT necessarily mean editing in Book 3 (this being the current manuscript I am writing now) but often I will take a chapter or three from Book 1 and edit.  And yes, sometimes I feel a little queasy wondering if I am just wasting my time with this whole passion of mine when I am finished.  I hate thinking I have done a wonderful writing job to find out I missed something simple.  UGH.  I also edit the other writing ventures I am looped into such as the comic books and video games.  It is a writer’s life.
   

Review It is my nights where I sit with the “outline” (I use “” because this outline does not follow a traditional rule of thumb) and take a look at where the characters have decided to bring the story.  I enjoy these night just as much as Create Me because my mind tunnels its way into the future and new ideas often “light bulb” their way in.

So remember your old work and make sure you give it some love often for it will only improve what you will be writing tomorrow.  And oh yeah, save some time for pudding because pudding…well, it’s just plain good.

Good Luck NaNoWriMo…

  I wish everyone in the NaNoWriMo community good luck this month in their challenge.  I have a few friends participating and I know how difficult the pace can be when you hold a day time gig that is not writing nor at home.  Keep the gentle sprint of 2k words a day and success shall be yours.  Oh yeah 2k a day is a great challenge to anyone who does this as a side event in their lives.  I wanted to participate this year but I must keep with my own calendar and it did not chime with it.  I have marked next November and want to do it next year.

I think all writers should participate in this exercise and not for practice but to show one self you can do this thing.  Oh and if you do write full time, the writing you do for this full time gig does not count.  It must be separate and on its own record just for NaNoWriMo.  Oh by the way, if you do have a wonderful writing day gig, congratulations.  Enjoy each letter. 

What is my average a day??  1K but often only 600. :(

If you are wondering what the heck NaNoWriMo is just look a the Crazies I follow and select National Novel Writing Month.  It will explain it better than I could ever.