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VILLAGE OF BONES A Kindle Monthly Deal Through September 2017

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News Flash: Amazon.com has chosen The Village of Bones to be one of its Kindle Monthly Deals for September 2017. CLICK HERE before October 1 to buy a Kindle copy of The Village of Bones for only $1.99.

The Village of Bones: Sabalah’s Tale

Written as a Prequel to Mary’s best-selling Earthsong Series, The Village of Bones is now the first novel in the series. (The Earthsong novels in chronological order are: The Village of Bones: Sabalah’s Tale, The Year the Horses Came, The Horses at the Gate, and The Fires of Spring.  )

hi res b of v front cover March 21 2016

“Mary Mackey’s The Village of Bones, gives us the vivid adventures of The Clan of the Cave Bear, the magic of The Mists of Avalon and Lord of the Rings, and the beauty of Avatar. Filled with the belief that love drives out fear, it contains stunning twists that will leave you wanting more.”
            Dorothy Hearst, author of the Wolf Chronicles

A perilous journey, a stunning prophecy, a dangerous love that could destroy humankind: In 4386 B.C., a young priestess named Sabalah conceives a magical child with a mysterious stranger named Arash. Sabalah names the child Marrah. This child will save the Goddess-worshiping people of Europe from marauding nomad invaders called Beastmen, but only if her mother can keep her alive long enough to grow up. Warned by the Goddess in a vision of the coming invasion, Sabalah flees west with Arash to save her baby daughter, only to discover that she is running into the arms of her worst enemies. In the dark forests of northern Europe, other human-like species left over from the Ice Age still exist. 

 

How to Archive Your Literary Papers

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Earthsong SeriesA few months ago, I packed up six drafts of my recently published novel The Village of Bones and sent them to Smith College along with thirty-eight boxes of other materials that span my writing career. I have been saving these materials for well over forty years; and after fifteen years of inventive procrastination, I finally gotten around to archiving them. The result is that I now have a clean basement (who knew the floor was made of concrete?) and the Sophia Smith Special Collections Library in Northampton, Massachusetts has my Literary Papers.

What are “Literary Papers?” Well, “The Mary Mackey Papers,” as Smith calls them, include among other things: copies of all the foreign and English language editions of my novels and collections of poetry; multiple handwritten drafts of my works; copies of every magazine with my written work; fliers for most of the readings and lectures I’ve done; photographs of me from age two to the present; literary correspondence from famous writers like Yevgeny Yevtushenko and Marge Piercy, and less well known writers who should be better known; posters almost too big to mail, and chapbooks so small that if you gasped, you might inhale them.

Smith even asked me to send them my juvenilia, a term for the things I wrote when I was a child; so I have had the fun of finding my first novel (a science fiction piece written when I was nine about a little girl who outwits alien robots) and my first collection of poetry (handwritten on lined paper when I was eleven).

As you can see, “archiving” your literary papers means much more than simply placing copies of your books in a library. A university archive is like a safe or a time capsule. Smith is going to put every scrap of my materials in a specially constructed part of the Special Collections Library where they will be preserved in a climate-controlled environment and protected from insects and mold, not to mention floods, fires, mudslides, and earthquakes. Thus, The Mary Mackey Papers will be available to the general public, students, and scholars of the future for all eternity, or at least until climate change makes the human race extinct.

I want to encourage every woman writer reading this to think about archiving her literary papers. (Actually every male writer should too, but that’s another issue.) Please don’t think: “There’s no use my trying to find a place to archive my work. I’m not important enough. No one will want my papers.” Almost every woman I’ve told about the archiving process has said this, including famous poets and best-selling novelists. On the other hand, when I mention archiving to male writers they tend to say: “That’s a great idea. Of course my work should be preserved for posterity.” Or sometimes: “I don’t think anyone will want my papers, but I’ll give it a try. All they can do is say ‘no.’”

The men are right. If you contact an institution about archiving your papers, the worst they can say is: “No, we can’t take them.” But if you don’t try, your work may end up in a dumpster. You need to archive your papers now, while you are alive and can made all the important decisions. Don’t leave archiving your papers to your heirs or they may dump your old love letters in with the rest, and you may end up being known to future generations as “Snookums.”

So how do you go about archiving your papers? Well, that depends. If you are younger, you probably don’t have much. In fact, everything you have may be in digital form, so you need to begin printing some of it out. Not all of it, but a few drafts, important emails, etc. You should also start saving fliers from the readings you do. And don’t throw away those poems you wrote when you were nine. Keats kept his early poems. Keep yours.

If you are over fifty (or already very well-known), you need to make a general list of what you have and estimate how much room it takes up. Then you need to find out which libraries, universities, or museums already collect the kinds of things you have.

Next, you need to send a brief email to places you think might be interested in archiving your papers. Introduce yourself, describe the highlights of your collection and its significance, attach a very brief bio, and ask them if they are interested in seeing more. My initial email was three paragraphs, sent out with the subject line “Interested in a literary collection?”

Archiving your papers is particularly important right now. Literary correspondences are occurring in emails; drafts of novels and poems are being stored in the Cloud; news of readings are coming via MailChimp. According to the archivists I have spoken to, the life of digital material is about five years. Then bit rot sets in, and the files are no longer readable.

In other words, the entire literary life of the twenty-first century is being written on water. Let’s see that it’s written in stone.

If you do archive your papers, that is to say if you place them in a climate-controlled environment in a university or museum archive, I have a present for you: I have created A Guide To Women Writers’ Archives on my website. Send me your information, and I will put you up there with Mary Shelley, Margaret Atwood, Jane Austen, and Maya Angelou.

woman reading a book in a library

Mary Mackey is a bestselling author who has written seven volumes of poetry including Sugar Zone winner of the 2012 PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Award for Literary Excellence. She is also the author of fourteen novels some of which have appeared on The New York Times and San Francisco Chronicle Bestseller Lists. For more information about Mary’s books, including her recently published novel, The Village of Bones, please visit her website.

This article was originally posted on the Women’s National Book Association, San Francisco Chapter, website. To see it in its original context CLICK HERE.

Online Creative Writing Classes Pros and Cons

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Novelist and Master Teacher Elizabeth Stark Discusses The Pros and Cons of Online Creative Writing Classes

Elizabeth Stark PowersMary Mackey: Welcome to People Who Make Books Happen, Elizabeth. It’s a pleasure to have you here to talk about online Creative Writing classes, a topic that’s of increasing interest to anyone who is teaching creative writing or considering taking a creative writing class. Could you please start by telling us about your background? For example, how long have you been teaching creative writing online?

Elizabeth Stark: I actually taught an online memoir class for the New York Gotham Writers Workshop around 1999/2000. Online teaching was not a familiar format at the time, and the course was conducted without video or audio—just posting. It turned out to be powerfully moving and surprisingly intimate. The group was very diverse. We had a WWII vet and a teenager, and we all felt that learning this way flipped the anonymity of New York City inside out. Seven years ago when I started coaching and editing writers again after my kids were born, my partner Angie set me up online, and she and I been evolving our course as the technology evolves But that surprising intimacy remains.

Mary: What on-line creative writing courses are you currently teaching?

Elizabeth: This term I am teaching a Book-in-a-Year course where students are writing all the key scenes in the structure of a story—for memoir or fiction–using published models such as The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao and Americanah, and memoirs such as Wild.

I also just wrapped up a year-long revision course called Book Launch: Revision where we read one person’s entire manuscript each month and met via video to discuss it at length. This structure creates a powerful community of readers and writers.

Mary: What do you have coming up in the future?

Elizabeth: I’ll be starting another Book Launch: Revision course in the fall which will be a workshop for entire manuscripts. I’ll also be teaching another Writing Studio where students actually write in class.

Mary:  Have you ever taught creative courses in a face-to-face setting?

Elizabeth: I have taught at colleges and universities and in living rooms and coffee shops. I love this kind of teaching, too—but the two forms of teaching are less different than you’d think. Right now, I drive weekly to Berkeley to teach an ongoing class whose students are very attached (as am I) to our in-person meetings.

Mary: What advantages are there to teaching online vs teaching face-to-face?

Elizabeth: Online classes allow people to enroll who would otherwise not be able to work with me because they live far away or have young children in the home or for some other reason. Teaching online also cuts out the commute for everyone. You are getting direct support, inspiration and mentorship right at your writing desk. How dreamy is that? You open to the blank page, and there is a published author calling you by name and telling you that you can do this. I think it is important for students to feel part of a community of fellow writers who want them to succeed. I am able to record each and every class, so if students have to miss, they can make it up. That’s something that at present real time face-to-face teaching can’t offer.

Mary: What disadvantages are there to teaching online courses?

Elizabeth: With the current technology—and I know it’s changing all the time—there isn’t a way to pair people up to read to each other or do other small group exercises. And there isn’t the same chance for before- and after-class socializing. In my classes, I try to address this by encouraging online conversations outside of class. My students get to know one another, sometimes traveling long distances to meet in person.

Mary: What technologies do you use to teach your online courses?

Elizabeth: Currently we use Google Hangouts, Facebook, our own web site and email.

Mary: What happens in an on-line creative writing course? What should students expect?

Elizabeth: It’s pretty similar to face-to-face in that everybody can see everybody else. Whoever is speaking pops up on the big screen, and the rest of us appear in little Brady-Bunch squares below. Individuals may always mute themselves so we cannot hear if kids are crying or phones are ringing. They can even turn off the camera. In short, there’s a lot of flexibility.

In my classes, we start with a check in and a short, focused coaching session for each writer. So many issues overlap: finding time to write, making decisions about the structure of a scene or a whole book, tackling revision, finding the heart and time to submit. We celebrate rejections, because the students most successfully published are often those with the most rejections to report. Rejection means you are on the path to getting published.

Mary: What happens in your craft classes?

Elizabeth In the craft classes after check in, we write using as inspiration examples I cull from a wide range of published work. Everyone has the chance to read what they have written aloud and receive encouragement and direction. Students often post their praise of each other in the course “chat section.”

Mary: How about Workshop classes? What happens in them?

Elizabeth: An online Workshop class functions much as it does in person. It is a a casual but rigorous conversation about the manuscript at hand, which we’ve all read carefully ahead of time. We start with praise and end with praise. Over the years, my students and I have noticed that the writer can forget the work has any redeeming value if the constructive criticism isn’t accompanied by a specific reminder of what works. The writer waits to speak until the end.

Later, we’ll each email our notes to the writer. I email my notes to everyone, as there is much to be gained from seeing the detailed edit of a work you’ve read closely. I also create a checklist of lessons that students can apply to their own writing, because it’s often easier to see these lessons when they are taken from another person’s manuscript rather than one’s own.

We conclude all our classes by setting public writing goals to spur us on. I keep my online classes very small and participatory. Six students, eight students. They run like seminars.

Mary: What do you enjoy most about teaching these online creative writing classes?

Elizabeth: I love the quality of students who’ve been drawn to them. They are almost invariably really talented, serious writers who are also warm, mutually supportive, and encouraging. The conversations are smart and invigorating. Personally, I love the community that we’ve all built together.

Mary: Do you think online classes will ever replace face-to-face classes? Should they?

Elizabeth: In the not too distant past, there was a big panic about e-books replacing print, and that seems to be leveling off. This is not an exact parallel, but I do think that e-learning and in-person learning can and should co-exist. It’s wonderful to be in a room full of writers, but it can be a miracle to look up from childcare, house-cleaning, a desk job or just the isolation of the page, and find a row of smiling faces waiting in your computer to discuss your work, cheer you on, and urge you to write.

Mary: What tips can you give someone who is planning to teach creative writing online? For example, is there an ideal class size?

Elizabeth: I prefer small class sizes because I want to hear from everybody, every time. From a sheer business/ profit stand point, this may not be the most effective model, but I am first a reader, a writer and a teacher, and the intimacy and connection forged in a small class is invaluable. An online platform can serve as a lecture hall as easily as it can serve as a close circle, but personal accountability and a chance to know one another individually helps us all stay on track.

That said, one could teach through Google Hangouts and YouTube to a very wide audience. For example, Angie and I are launching a podcast that we record through Google Hangouts with an audience of our students watching on YouTube, and they love that, too. There are many possibilities.

Mary: What should a student look for when considering an online creative writing course?

Elizabeth: My big concern about online teaching is that a lot of the teachers are no more qualified than their students to be at the helm of the class. Look for teachers who have publications and degrees. Then look to the student community—do they love the world of the online course? Are they finding success and creative productivity and joy? My own students are writing strong work and publishing it. I find that tremendously exciting, because it means that what we are doing together is working.

Mary: I know you do both videos and podcasts of your classes. Could you please leave us with some urls so we can take a look at them?

Elizabeth: At present the videos of most of the classes are only for the current students, but the podcast of conversations with writers and other story creatives and industry professionals will be available after June 15. I’ll give you the link to update then if I may. I also offer a free course on professionally editing your own work, called Fearless and Finished, which is available at http://BookWritingWorld.com. And if you get on my mailing list, I’ll send you inspiration, tips and other information about free courses. Finally, Angie and I will be launching a more independent Book-in-a-Year online course later this year.

Mary: Thank you for telling all of this valuable information, Elizabeth.

Elizabeth: Thank you so much, Mary! You are wonderful!!

Elizabeth Stark (aka Elizabeth Stark Powers)  is the author of the novel  Shy Girl  (FSG, Seal Press) and co-director and co-writer of several short films, including  FtF: Female to Femme  and  Little Mutinies  (both distributed by Frameline Film Distribution). She has an M.F.A. from Columbia University in Creative Writing. Currently the lead coach and teacher at the Book Writing World, she’s taught writing and literature at UCSC, Pratt Institute, the Peralta Colleges and Hobart & William Smith Colleges. In fall 2010, she was the Distinguished Fiction Writer at St. Mary’s College in Orinda. She ’ s developing an online course to complete a masterfully crafted book in a year at http://BookinaYear.com

Join this  People Who Make Books Happen conversation with Elizabeth Stark. You are warmly invited to leave a comment. People Who Make Books Happen is where the experts hang out.

For writing advice; course syllabi; resources for Women’s Studies, Women’s Visionary Fiction, Women’s Visionary Film, Women’s Visionary Poetry, and Advanced Composition and more free information about writing and teaching, you are invited to visit my Educators Page.

How To Write a Non-Fiction Book Proposal

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photo_michael_larsenInterview with Agent Michael Larsen: How to Write A  Non-Fiction Book Proposal That Will Sell Your Book

Michael Larsen co-founded Larsen-Pomada Literary Agents in San Francisco in 1972 with his partner Elizabeth Pomada. Members of AAR (the Association of Authors’ Representatives, Inc.), Michael  and Elizabeth have sold hundreds of books to more than 100 publishers and imprints.

Mary: Welcome to my People Who Make Books Happen Interview Series, Michael. Could you please start by telling us why a writer needs a proposal to sell a nonfiction book?

Michael: A proposal is a business plan that has to convince publishers to invest in a book.

Mary: Why not just send an agent or publisher a brief cover letter and the completed manuscript?

Michael: A cover letter won’t provide all of the information publishers need, and unless it’s a memoir, they don’t need or want to see a whole manuscript. They just want to see enough to feel excited about the writer’s ability to turn in a salable manuscript and promote the book.

Mary: Do you need to write a proposal to self-publish a nonfiction book? What would be the point of doing that?

Michael: Writers are free to write and publish their books any way they want. They don’t have to write a proposal if they are going to self-publish. But doing a proposal enables writers to test their commitment to writing and promoting the book. It also helps them align their literary and publishing goals: what they want to write and how successful they want their book to be. Getting feedback from knowledgeable readers will help them make sure they’re on the right track. If writers want to write a memoir for their families, they don’t need a proposal. If they have ambitious goals, a proposal is proof of concept and a commitment test.

Mary: As an agent, are you willing to consider nonfiction book ideas that come to you without a proposal?

Michael: The only time to approach agents or editors is when a writer has something ready to sell. Once a proposal for a promotion-driven book is ready, I ask for just the author’s platform–the writer’s continuing visibility online and off, on the subject with potential buyers- and a promotion plan. They will tell me whether I can excite a New York house about a book. For a prose-driven book, it’s all about the read, how well writers can tell a story. But platform and promotion will still be important to big publishers

Mary: Again, in your role as an agent, how do you use a proposal when you are selling a nonfiction book to publishers?

Michael: After we find out if editors are interested, I do a multiple submission to the best editors at the best houses for the book and the author.

Mary: How long should a nonfiction book proposal be?

Michael: Proposals usually range from 35 to 50 pages.

Mary: What are the major parts of a nonfiction book proposal?  For example, should it have a title page?

Michael: A proposal begins with a title page followed by a table of contents page listing the parts of the proposal and the pages on which they begin. The three parts of a proposal are the Overview, The Outline, and the Sample Chapter. Narrative, prose-driven books will need two or more chapters.

Mary: Let’s take those parts of a nonfiction book proposal one by one. First, what’s the aim of the Overview?

Mary: The goals of the Overview are to prove you have a salable idea and the ability to write and promote it. I list the parts of the Overview in a particular order, but they are building blocks that writers can arrange in whatever order that will help them sell their book most effectively.

Mary: Could you give us a list of the essential things that should be in the Overview and tell us what order they should be  in?

Michael: Here’s my list of essentials:

•    The opening hook–ideally a paragraph that will most excite editors about the subject: a fact, anecdote, opening paragraph, or a recommendation by someone who will impress editors.

•    The book hook:  
    * The title and selling handle, up to fifteen words of selling copy about the book.
    (Optional) If credentials will significantly help sell the book, before the title, add an introductory phrase describing them. For example: “Based on an article in x / y years of research / y years as a z, [title of book]…”
    * The book(s) or author(s) the writer is using as a model for the book
    * The estimated (or actual) length of the manuscript and when the writer will deliver it
    * The book’s benefits (optional)
    * Special features: e.g. illustrations, design elements, back matter (optional)
    * Information about a self-published edition (optional)

•    Markets: List the kinds of readers and retailers, organizations, or institutions that will be interested in the book. Include the size of each group and other information to show the writers knows the audience and how to write the book for those readers. Other possible markets: schools, businesses, and subsidiary-rights markets such as film and foreign rights.

•    Platform: A list in descending order of importance of whatever will impress editors about the writer’s visibility to potential readers. Online, this may include numbers for subscribers to a blog, website visitors, your contacts on social networks, and online articles you’ve published.
    Offline, your platform may include the number of articles you’ve had published in print media, as well as the number of talks you give each year, the number of people you give them to, where you give them, and your media exposure. For promotion-driven books, a platform is essential for big and midsize houses.

•    Bio: Up to a page about yourself with information that isn’t in your platform, starting with the most impressive, relevant information. To increase the impact of your proposal, include a link to a video version, up to two minutes long, of you giving the strongest information from the proposal with as much passion as you can.  

•    Promotion: A plan that begins: “To promote the book, the author will:…” followed by a bulleted list in descending order of impressiveness of what you will do to promote your book, online and off, during its launch window and after. Start each part of the list with a verb and use impressive numbers, if possible. Publishers won’t expect big plans from novelists and memoirists, and the smaller the house you’ll be happy with, the less important your plan and platform are.

Mary: You’ve noted that including information about the book’s benefits, special features such as design elements and back matter, and information about a self-published edition are “optional.” Are there times when you should not include these three things?

Michael: Writers should include anything that will help sell the book. Nonfiction encompasses a wide range of books, so the information you provide has to make sense for the kind of book you’re writing. Memoirs don’t usually have back matter. Cite successful books you love as models for your book.

Mary: I’ve heard many publishers say than any manuscript that comes to them with an already-designed cover is the mark of an amateur.  

Michael: Not if it’s a cover worthy of a New York house. Most published books don’t have the best covers because publishers don’t have the resources to create the best possible cover for every book. A professionally done cover design can be the first page of the proposal. It will help sell a book, and even if it’s not used, it will give the publisher something to improve on. Writers will need a cover designer and feedback from knowledgeable people such as booksellers to make sure a design is worth submitting. Every word in a proposal is either helping or hurting the chances of  selling it. This is also true for a cover design.

Mary: Are you required to reveal that the book has already been self-published if you are looking for a commercial publisher?

Michael: Writers should tell publishers if their book has been published, include quotes from reviews and sales information, if they will help sell the book. If the book is good enough to sell, send it along with just the first part of the proposal.

If the book won’t impress editors or you want to change it significantly, just send the proposal and mention the self-published edition.

Mary: Should you say “this will make a great movie” if you don’t have a movie deal in the works, or does that sound like wishful thinking combined with unrealistic bragging?

Michael: The latter.

Mary: Is it true that publishers these days will not even look at work by writers who don’t have a substantial online and offline platform?  

Michael: A promotion plan shows how authors will use their platform to help sell books. Big houses want authors who can do as much as possible to promote their book; it’s not as important for small and some midsized houses. Publishers won’t expect authors of memoirs to have big platform; the success of a how-to book depends on the author’s continuing visibility, online and off.

Mary: Is there any magic number of people you need to be in contact with to make the grade?

Michael: No, but the more the better. Books are ready for the world before the world is ready for them. The challenge is to maximize the value of your book before you sell or publish it by building your platform and communities of people to help you, and test-market your book in as many ways as you can.

Mary:  You suggest a video version of your query letter. How important is this and why does it appear in the Bio section of the Overview?

Michael: It’s not essential but it can make the difference. Publishers want to know how well writers come across in the media, and how effectively they can speak about their book. If a proposal is salable, a link to an effective one-to-two minute video of an author describing his/her passion for the book gives editors another reason to say’ yes.’ The proposal should also include links to videos of the author speaking or doing interviews, if they’re available. Video is huge and using it is essential if you want to be a successful writer.

Mary: Won’t making a video cost a lot of money?

Michael: Publishers won’t expect a professional video. A phone, camera, or tablet is fine, but, like the proposal, the writing and the execution of the video must have the impact writers want for them. Writers should get feedback on the text and the presentation of it to make sure the video is worth including.

Mary: Are there things you might put in the Overview section of your proposal that are not essential—that is to say optional—but well worth considering?

Michael: If writers can get a foreword and cover quotes from people whose names and/or positions will help sell the book in fifty states two years from now, they should name them.

If writers want to write follow-up books that will help sell the book they’re proposing, they should mention up to three books in descending order of their commercial appeal. If they find an idea for a series of books that will sell each other and that they will enjoy writing and promoting, they can create a career out of it.

Mary: In describing competitive books, you advise writers to use “phrases starting with a verb.” Could you please give us an example?

Michael: In balancing a competitive book’s strengths and weaknesses, you could write: “Covers x, y, and z; fails to include a, b, c.”

Mary: You’ve noted that the Mission Statement is optional. If you use a Mission Statement, should it go in the Overview?

Michael: A mission statement should be the last part of the Overview.

Mary: Do you send a cover letter as well as a proposal or is the proposal the cover letter?

Michael: First you research agents’ or publishers’ websites to find out how to contact them. Then you send them what they request. A query letter is often the first step. If agents or publishers want to see the proposal, send it along with the query letter, changed to mention that you’re sending the proposal.

Mary: Now that you’ve given us a thorough explanation of the Overview, let’s move on to the second section of a non-fiction book proposal: the Outline. Could you please describe the Outline to us and tell us what should be in it?

Michael: The outline has to prove that the author has a book’s worth of information and knows the most effective way to present it. The first page of the A page called “Table of Contents” listing the chapters and the back matter. Then one to three present-tense paragraphs about every chapter, using outline verbs like describe, explain, and discuss. For an informational book, you can use a bulleted, self-explanatory list of the information in the chapter.

Mary: Finally, we come to the last section: the Sample Chapter. How long should it be and what should it aim to do?

Michael: Editors vary but at big houses, they usually want to see about ten percent of the text. For example, a representative chapter of a how-to book—twenty to twenty-five pages–is enough.

Mary: Should you always use the first chapter as your Sample Chapter or can you include a chapter from some other part of your book? Does the Sample Chapter need to be the actual chapter as it will appear in the book, or can you shorten it, edit it, or make it more able to stand-alone?

Michael: The first chapter of a promotion-driven book should be the most exciting chapter in the book. It should be a brochure for the book, the book in a chapter, so that if all readers finish is that chapter (which happens often), they will have the essence of the book. If the first chapter excites them enough, they’ll want to keep reading.

The Overview for a how-to book will explain what the book is, so editors don’t have to read it again as a sample chapter. That’s why writers should use the strongest, representative how-to chapter they can for a sample chapter, with the illustrations for it, if the book will have them.

Prose-driven books like memoirs should read like novels. How compelling the first chapter, even the first page, is determines whether readers go on to the next chapter. Editors often want to see the first three chapters. My partner Elizabeth asks for the best three chapters. Writers should follow the guidelines on agents’ and publishers’ websites.

Every word is an audition for the next word. So writers have to:

•    Read as many competing books as possible so they’ll have at least one book and author to cite as a model for their book and their career
•    Write as many drafts as it takes to make every word count
•    Get feedback from as many knowledgeable readers as they can
That is the holy trinity of salable prose.

Now is the one of best times ever to be a writer. There are more subjects to write about, more ways to promote and profit from books, and three billion readers on the Web alone which is the next frontier for writers. English is the international language of culture and commerce, so there’s a world of readers out there who want to be enlightened and entertained.

Onward and upward!

Michael Larsen loves helping writers, and is always eager to find nonfiction writers with ideas, writing ability, a platform, and a promotion plan for books with social, esthetic, or practical value. He also has a consulting service for nonfiction writers. Besides being the co-founder of Larsen-Pomada Literary Agents, he is the author of How to Write a Book Proposal and How to Get a Literary Agent, and co-author of Guerrilla Marketing for Writers: 100 Weapons for Selling Your Work. He has also created a downloadable proposal template, which is available at www.thebookdesigner.com. He is co-director of the San Francisco Writers Conference and the San Francisco Writing for Change Conference.

Dear Readers: You are warmly invited to join this conversation about People Who Make Books Happen, ask Michael Larsen questions, or leave a comment. See the other interviews in this series for information about How To Get An Agent, How To Design A Book Cover That Sells Books,  Helping Independent Bookstores Survive and Thrive, Three Great Reasons To Still Print On Paper, Designing Websites For Writers, Best-selling author Ellen Sussman on Surviving Rejection, and more. This is where the experts hang out.

And remember to come back next month to read the another great interview in the People Who Make Books Happen  series.

 

Mary Mackey Helps Goodreads Launch Ask The Author Program

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Mary Mackey Is Now Answering Readers’ Questions at Goodreads.com

question marksGoodreads.com has just launched Ask The Author, a program which allows readers to ask direct questions and get direct, personal answers from their favorite authors. Mary Mackey has accepted Goodreads’ invitation to participate in Ask The Author and is now answering questions about her novels and poetry as well as general questions about the craft of writing, the joy of  reading books you can hold in your hands, the digital revolution in publishing, how to get an agent, and other topics her readers are interested in discussing with her. She is also inviting readers to ask her questions about her new Blog Interview Series People Who Make Books Happen. Ask her a question by going to her Goodreads Author Profile Page and scrolling down to Ask The Author.

Other authors who are helping  Goodreads launch Ask The Author include: Isabel Allende, Margaret Atwood, Dan Brown, Michael Cunningham, James McBride, Ayelet Waldman, Anne Lamott, Frances Mayes, Michael Pollan, Jeff Kinney, Hugh Howey, Richelle Mead, and Kevin J. Anderson.

To ask Mary question, visit her author’s profile page by clicking here (or use the search box at the top of the Goodreads site to search for “Mary Mackey.”) Scroll down her Goodreads author profile, and you will see a space called Ask the Author. You can also select “More answers from…” to view all of the questions Mary has answered in the past. When Mary answers your question, the question and answer will appear on her profile as well as in the newsfeeds of Mary’s followers, and you will be notified on your Goodreads homepage and by email.

Mary Mackey at the San Francisco Writers Conference

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San Francisco Writers ConferenceAs part of the San Francisco Writers Conference, Mary Mackey will be appearing on two panels to discuss  the nature and future of poetry. February 14, 2014: 2:00 to 2:45: Are Poets Better Off Now Than 200 Years Ago? (the answer may surprise you). 5:00 – 5:45 Cross Training: Using Poetry to Empower Your Prose.  With writers Chris Robley, Cedar Sigo, Brian Felsen, Aya de Leon, Richard Loranger, and Andy Jones. PLACE: Mark Hopkins Hotel, 999 California Street, San Francisco, CA 94108.

How Digital Publishing Has Changed Authors’ Lives

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Digital Publishing, ebooksDigital Publishing has changed author’s lives more than any other innovation in publishing made during the course of my forty year career as a novelist and poet.
Some of these changes have been breath-takingly positive; some have been so negative they’ve made me fear for the future of literature.

To know how digital publishing has changed author’s lives, you have to know what those lives were like before digital publishing came into existence.  My own story is fairly typical. My first novel, Immersion, was written on a typewriter and published in 1972 on a photo offset press housed in a garage in San Lorenzo which was attached to the home of Alta Gerrey, founder of Shameless Hussy Press. Publicity was done by duplicating fliers on a mimeograph machine, relying on word-of-mouth, persuading sympathetic bookstore owners like Fred Cody of Cody’s Books in Berkeley to stock our books, and doing readings from them at independent bookstores, which at the time were numerous and thriving. By 1974 Immersion was out of print. Over the years the first edition became so rare and so hard to find that I could rarely afford to buy a copy.

Over the next four decades, I had twelve more novels published by major publishers including Doubleday, Penguin, HarperSanFrancisco, Putnam and Simon & Schuster. They were translated into twelve foreign languages. Some made the New York Times and San Francisco Chronicle Bestseller Lists. One alone sold more than a million copies

            In 2012, my agent Barbara Lowenstein, who had preserved the electronic rights to my novels, negotiated a package deal with amazon.com and vook.com. That summer  Immersion came out as an e-book readable in all formats as did eight of the thirteen novels I had had published since 1972. At the same time, my most recent collection of poetry Sugar Zone, which had just won the 2012 PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Award for Literary Excellence, came out as an e-book. To top things off, most of these books also became available in Audible editions.

Since my two most recent novels, The Notorious Mrs. Winton and The Widow’s War already existed as e-books, this meant that for the first time since the early 70’s all my work, except for a few early small press poetry books, was back in print and accessible to anyone with a smart phone, pad, e-reader, or computer.

            In Spring 2013, The Authors Guild put Immersion back in print in paperback in POD, which meant that thanks to scanning and digitizing, it, plus a number of my other novels including one of my bestsellers The Year The Horses Came, now existed in the physical world as well as in cyberspace.

            This was great. It was amazing. It was like a resurrection of the dead. Novels used to go out of print within six months to a year even if they sold well. For example, Simon & Schuster  very quickly allowed my New York Times bestseller A Grand Passion, which had sold well over a million copies, to go out of print.

When a book went out of print, you’d get this depressing letter from your publisher that said something like: “Dear Ms. Mackey, Your novel McCarthy’s List is about to be sent to New Jersey to be pulped? Care to buy a few copies before we throw it into the kettle?” You’d buy some copies to save your book from destruction and live with the boxes in your basement for decades because no one who wanted to read your books knew you had them or had a clue how to buy them from you.

But when my books were digitized all that changed. In theory my novels and poetry will never go out of print. People will always be able to buy them easily with just a click. My new audience of potential readers is vast. People all over the world are buying my books, and I’m actually making money on them these days in the form of regular royalties.

All of this changed my life as an author in profoundly positive ways, but there was also a downside. For most of my career my books had been publicized by what is now called event-based publicity. This meant that I spent two or three years writing a novel and about four to six months publicizing a work immediately after publication.  

The methods of event-based publicity may seem primitive when viewed from 2013, but at the time they were highly effective. Your publisher did most of your publicity for you. You were assigned a publicist who sent your book out to reviewers, created advertising copy for it, scheduled readings for you in bookstores, sent you on books tours, booked TV and radio appearances for you, set up lectures for you at universities and conferences, bought your plane tickets, and assigned an “escort” to drive you around from appearance to appearance.

Some publicity campaigns cast a wider net, some book tours were more grand than others, some went on longer, but in any case an author was expected to do almost nothing but pack a suitcase, catch planes, show up on time, and do what the publicist had scheduled her to do. The best part of this model was that it left writers a lot of quiet, undisturbed time to write.

All that has changed profoundly. There is a new model. As I noted in an earlier post, in the past few years, we have rapidly moved from the era of event-based publicity to the era of perpetual publicity. This means that since no book ever goes out of print, there is never a time when an author who wants her books read can justify retreating into his or her study and severing contact with the outside world.

Publishers are doing do much less publicity for authors these days, and even when they assign a publicists, those publicists only work for a short time on the old event-based model even though the need is perpetual.

In effect, authors are now expected to be their own publicists 24/7, and that’s not a job many authors are good at. People who write books are often people who treasure long bouts of silence where imagination can flourish. At writer’s colonies this trait is so well known that some of the colonies have people tiptoe up and quietly leave a lunch basket outside a writer’s studio so he or she won’t be disturbed.

Authors are now expected to create attractive websites, blog, post frequently on Facebook, Tweet, keep up a lively email and online conversation with their readers, set up their own readings, interviews, and other public appearances, keep their cell phones on at all times, not to mention book their own airline tickets.  Both established and first-time authors are required to demonstrate that they have a large on-line Platform of readers, fans, and followers.

Many authors I know, young and old, complain these days of being distracted constantly by the Internet and all the tasks they need to do to keep their perpetually in-print books perpetually in the public eye. They complain that writing on-line is keeping them from writing their books; they feel as if they have taken on another job at least as demanding as the job of writing. They mourn the lack of down time, the lack of peace and quiet, the lack of imaginative space that isn’t interrupted multiple times daily. Those old enough to remember, miss the many independent book stores that used to host readings and the staff  reviewers who used to be employed by all major newspapers to review books.  And everyone is getting nervous about book piracy.

In short, the lives of authors now contain many more wonderful possibilities and many more problems and distractions than anyone could have imagined back when books were printed on paper.  

(In June 2013 at Litquake’s Digilit Conference I was on a  panel entitled How Digital Publishing Has Changed Authors Lives moderated by journalist/author Denise Sullivan.  Other members of the panel included Chris Colin, David Ewing Duncan, and Keth Devlin.)

 

Three Great Reasons To Still Print On Paper

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Interview with Catamaran Literary Magazine editor Zack Rogow

Zack_Rogow_headshotWelcome to the People Who Make Books Happen Interview Series. Zack Rogow is the author, editor, or translator of twenty books or plays including his most recent collection of poetry My Mother and the Ceiling Dancers. He is currently Poetry Editor of Catamaran Literary Reader, a new quarterly literary and arts magazine based in Santa Cruz California that is print on paper only. We are going to talk to Zack about why there are still great reasons to print on paper.

Mary: Could you please describe Catamaran for us and give us a history of the founding of the magazine? Who had the original idea to publish Catamaran?

Zack: Catamaran is the brainchild of Catherine Segurson who also serves as editor-in chief. Catherine is doubly talented as both a writer and a visual artist, so she has a great set of talents to pick art for the magazine as well as provide an overall vision for the writing. For each issue, Catherine pulls together the parts to create a suite of articles and artwork connected by themes and by the season in which that particular issue of the magazine is published.

Mary: In the spirit of full disclosure, I have to admit that my poem “Onça Pintanda/Painted Tiger” appears in the Fall 2013 issue of Catamaran. What else is in the Fall issue?

Catamaran Fall Issue 2013Zack:  Poems by fourteen poets including Wendell Berry and Billy Collins; fiction by seven writers including Mary Doria Russell; nonfiction by eight authors including Wendell Berry again along with Milton Obenzinger and Deb Liggett, and multiple pieces of art work by thirteen amazing artists like Ruo Li and Poppy De Garmo.

Mary: That’s quite an impressive roll call. One thing that struck me the most about the current issue is how beautiful it looks. The paper is heavy and textured; the colors are vivid; the font is beautiful.  In short, the magazine is beautifully designed. Obviously, given the proliferation of e-books and on-line publication, the decision to put out Catamaran as print on paper only was a carefully considered decision. Can you tell us your three favorite things about printing on paper?

Zack: My favorite things about publications that are actually printed are: One, print publications are real objects that exist in the world like a beautifully glazed pot or a ripe peach. They aren’t just a bunch of pixels. They have a substance and a presence that makes your home warmer. Two, I enjoy the physical sensation of turning pages, leafing through a publication and holding the printed page in my hands. I find it soothing. And three, there is a sense of permanence around a printed publication. It can’t be erased or lost as easily as a computer file. You can store it and be surprised to find it again years later. It doesn’t require a certain software or hardware to read it.

Mary: How commercially viable is a print on paper literary magazine these days?

Zack: Contrary to what you might imagine, the demand is actually increasing for high end, niche, specialty magazines. Print occupies 80% of the market, digital only 20%. Big commercial print magazines have declined because big advertising dollars have been redirected to the Internet, but this doesn’t really relate to the special literary magazine sector. As Catherine Segurson says: “Build it and they will come.”

Mary: Where can people buy copies of Catamaran?

Zack: They can subscribe by going to the  Catamaran website. The magazine is also widely distributed in North America by Disticor Magazine Distribution, Source, MSolutions, and Ingram so it can also be found in bookstores.

Mary: Will there be any readings to launch the Fall Issue of Catamaran?

Zack: Yes. Catamaran’s First Year Anniversary will be celebrated on Friday, November 1, at 6:00 pm at the Santa Cruz Institute of Contemporary Art.  There will also be a reading by some of the writers in the Fall Issue in Capitola on Friday November 8, 7:00 pm at Capitola Book Cafe. You can check out the Catamaran website for more information about upcoming events.

Mary: Before we go, tell us about your new chapbook Voices Carved From Obsidian.

Zack: It’s a booklet with four poems about favorite singers of mine: Sarah Vaughan, Ella Fitzgerald, Curtis Mayfield, and Billie Holiday. Each crafted booklet had a hand silk-screened cover and is sewn in a figure-eight stitch to bind it, all done by the amazing publisher of Deconstructed Artichoke Press, Nicole Thompson. I chose those four poets because I adore their music, but I also wanted to write about their lives and what fascinating stories they lived. Acting as Poetry Editor of Catamaran has given me a chance to find out what’s happening in the larger literary community while still pursuing my own work.

Mary: What are you looking for as Poetry Editor?

Zack: I’m looking for work both by writers whose careers I’ve followed and admired over the years and new writers I’ve never heard of or writers people recommend to me. It’s surprising how much of the poetry we’ve published has come over the transom through the submissions interface on our website. Good writers have found the magazine and have responded to the themes in it.

Mary: Thanks, Zack. It’s been a pleasure talking to you.

 Zack Rogow’s poems have appeared in a variety of magazines from American Poetry Review to ZYZZYVA.  He is the editor of an anthology of U.S. poetry, The Face of Poetry, which was the culmination of his 9 years of presenting national poets at the Lunch Poems Reading Series at UC Berkeley.  He currently teaches at two graduate writing programs:  the low-residency MFA at the University of Alaska, Anchorage, and the MFA at California College of the Arts.  He has an MA in English from City College, City University of New York, and a BA in English from Yale University.  Zack’s new chapbook Voices Carved from Obsidian will be available from Deconstructed Artichoke Press in Winter 2014. To obtain copies before that date, please contact Zack by email at zrogow@berkeley.edu

Dear Readers: Join this conversation about People Who Make Books Happen. You are warmly invited to ask Zack questions or leave a comment. See the other interviews in this series for information about How To Get An Agent, How To Design A Book Cover That Sells Books, and more. This is where the experts hang out.

How The Job of Perpetual Publicity Keeps Writers From Writing

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pile of iPhonesPerpetual publicity is a new, overwhelming job that may be leading  to an epidemic of writer’s block, and most American writers have little or no idea what to do about it.  In the past, newly released books were publicized by what is now called “event-based publicity.” This meant that an author spent two or three years writing a book and about four to six months publicizing it immediately after its release. The best part of this model was that it left writers a lot of quiet, undisturbed time to write.

All that has changed profoundly. In the past few years thanks to the digital revolution and the explosive growth of social media, we have moved from the era of “event-based publicity” to the era of “perpetual publicity.” This means that since no book ever goes out of print, there is never a time when authors who want their books read can justify retreating into their studies and severing contact with the outside world.

To make matters even more complicated, traditional print publishers are doing less publicity for their authors these days. Even when they do assign publicists to a recently released book, those publicists only work for a short time on the old event-based model even though the need for publicity is now perpetual.  In effect, authors are now expected to be their own publicists 24/7, and perpetual publicity is not a job many authors are good at. People who write books are often people who treasure long bouts of silence where imagination can flourish.

Recently a well-known writer friend of mine, justifiably famous for the beauty, complexity, and originality of his novels, complained that he had turned into an “answerer of emails.”  “That’s all I do these days,” he said. “Sit at my computer and hit “Reply,” or guest blog, or Tweet, or update my website, or post something new on my Facebook Fan Page. I not only don’t have time to write my novels; I don’t even have time to think.”

Even writers who are completely comfortable with social media and enjoy all the interaction admit that perpetual publicity is a major distraction since it’s so much easier to answer email or blog or update a Facebook page than fill a blank screen with words.

As time passes, will writers adjust to this new state of affairs? Will they learn how to balance the demands of perpetual publicity with creativity? Will they someday come to embrace it as the price they have to pay for having their work perpetually available?  It’s too soon to tell.

Come back soon to The Writer’s Journey Blog for more discussion about how the Digital Revolution is changing Writers’ Lives.