The Writers Network News March 2011 Issue http://ezezine.com
March 2011 Issue
The Writers Network News
No Rules; Just Write!
Editor: Bobbie Christmas
Contents copyright 2011, Bobbie Christmas
No portion of this newsletter can be used without permission; however,
you may forward the newsletter in its entirety to anyone who may be
interested in subscribing.
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Zebra Communications: We help you write in style, so you increase your
chances of success. We write, edit, and evaluate fiction and nonfiction
manuscripts, book proposals, query letters, synopses, reports, and
articles. We are a top-rated Better Business Bureau Accredited
Business.
Zebra Communications
230 Deerchase Drive, Suite B
Woodstock, GA 30188
770/924-0528
http://zebraeditor.com/
Follow my "Write In Style" creative-writing blog at
http://bobbiechristmas.blogspot.com/
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Welcome to this issue of The Writers Network News
In This Issue
One: From the editor’s desk – The Pain of Submission
Two: Ask the Book Doctor – About Pronouns, Prologues, Prefaces,
Forewords, Introductions, History Books, and Publishers that Contact
You First
Three: This Month’s Writing Tip from Bobbie Christmas – Avoid
Briticisms
Four: Subjects of Interest to Writers
Five: Contests, Agents, and Markets
Six: Creative Writing Assignment – Who’s a Whazzit
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To view current and past issues of The Writers Network News, go to
http://tinyurl.com/c4otf6.
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[Note: Some links may include “tiny url” with the help of
www.tinyurl.com, which takes long Web addresses and converts them to
short ones.]
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Writer’s quote of the day
"Effort fully releases its reward only after a person refuses to quit."
–Napoleon Hill
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One: From the editor’s desk — The Pain of Submission
Dear Fellow Writers:
We writers love to write, but oh, the pain of preparing our babies for
submission to agents and publishers! We have to stop being writers and
turn into other people. First we become researchers. We have to
research every potential market thoroughly, so we can be sure we’re
sending it to the right place. We then turn into clerks or secretaries,
pulling together files and information each individual agent or
publisher requests, printing or e-mailing it, and tracking our
submissions. Next we turn into therapists, if our submissions get
ignored or rejected, and we have to reassure ourselves that we
ourselves weren’t rejected, just our manuscripts. We must also be
coaches, pushing ourselves to keep submitting our work, despite all the
paperwork, details, pain, and heartbreak.
Yesterday I spent hours updating my latest book proposal and revising
the sample chapters. I then printed out the whole package, all
forty-seven pages of it, only to discover that both places where I had
wanted to submit the proposal took submissions only over the Internet,
and one took submissions only through its website. Why does every darn
potential market or agent want something that differs from all the
other potential markets or agents? Every package has to be revamped to
fit the place where I’m sending it, which adds even more hours and
misery to the submission process.
I have nothing to prove my theory, but I believe that each agent and
publisher sets out to create a unique submission process intentionally,
so they can easily reject noncompliant submissions without reading
them. I do know that some agents look for absolutely any reason to
reject a manuscript, thereby whittling down the stack of submissions
they have to seriously consider. For that reason every submission must
be the result of careful research and meticulous preparation. I cannot
throw together a mass mailing of any kind.
As in any job, the part that’s the least interesting becomes the most
tedious, but if I performed only the part of writing that is fun, my
work would never get published.
Meanwhile, I have a full printed submission ready, if any other agents
I investigate actually want a full printed proposal and sample
chapters, but by the time I locate another agent worthy of handling my
precious child, I’ll probably have revised both the proposal and the
sample chapters several more times, and even this printout will be
obsolete.
Maybe I’ve uncovered the reason why the process is called “submission.”
We have to submit to cruel punishment and grueling detail. We have to
cave to the demands of agents and publishers. We must surrender our
ego, abandon our self-esteem, grovel before the gods of publishing, but
if we’re willing to submit truly and completely, in the end we might
receive absolution—and a publishing contract.
In 2003 I worked the system and sold Write In Style, so I feel certain
I can win again with my new project, my first collection of memoirs.
I’ve sold individual memoirs to various publications, so I feel
confident I can sell the collection as a book. If you’ve considered
writing and selling your memoirs, sign up for my upcoming seminar,
WRITE YOUR MEMOIRS FOR FUN AND PROFIT, to be held in my home Saturday,
April 30, 2011. For more information, see the section on Subjects of
Interest to Writers.
One more note: Write In Style, my award-winning book on creative
writing, is officially out of print, and used copies are selling for as
much as $89 on Amazon. While they last, however, you can still buy one
of the few remaining copies at the original price of $12.95. To
purchase, go to http://zebraeditor.com/book_write_in_style.shtml.
Hurry! Supplies are dwindling!
Yours in writing,
Bobbie Christmas (Bobbie@zebraeditor.com or bzebra@aol.com )
Author of Write In Style (Union Square Publishing), owner of Zebra
Communications, and director of The Writers Network
If someone forwarded this newsletter to you, please sign up to get your
own copy. Simply go to www.zebraeditor.com, click on “Free Newsletter,”
and follow the prompts. I never share your address or send out spam.
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Two: Ask the Book Doctor — About Pronouns, Prologues, Prefaces,
Forewords, Introductions, History Books, and Publishers that Contact
You First
By Bobbie Christmas
Q: When is it correct to use “their” instead of constantly using “his
and her?”
Example 1: Anyone at any age can learn to use their intuition.
Example 2: Cultural symbols differ for each person because of their
backgrounds.
Example 3: She and he need to find their own musical instrument.
A: It is correct to use “their” only when it refers to a plural, so one
way to avoid overusing “his or her” and other such wordy phrases is to
make the noun plural, so the pronoun can be plural. Another way is to
recast the sentence. Here are some potential rewrites of the examples
you sent:
Example 1: Anyone at any age can learn to use intuition.
Example 2: Because of differing backgrounds, everyone has differing
cultural symbols.
Example 3: All musicians need to find their own musical instruments.
Q: Explain prologue, preface, foreword, and introduction. What are the
differences?
A: A prologue precedes a work of fiction (a novel) and gives backstory,
setting, or prior events leading up to the main story.
A preface or introduction precedes a work of nonfiction. The difference
between a preface and an introduction is slight, in that both are
written by the author to introduce the book and explain how it came
about, but a preface often closes with acknowledgments of those who
assisted with the book.
A foreword, however, which also precedes a work of nonfiction, is
written by someone other than the author of the book. The foreword
should precede the preface or introduction.
It’s fine to have a foreword and introduction or a foreword and
preface, but not a preface and an introduction.
Q: How can I make my history book more interesting? Can you comment on
interpretive sense for historical writing?
A: History books become interesting when they relate interesting
stories and show the interplay between personalities, countries,
cultures, and times. Contrast and conflict add interest to writing of
any kind. To show that conflict and contrast, the author might
personally interpret events, use conflicting historical “facts,” rely
on the opinions of others in the same era, or even use the opinions or
interpretations of historians today, especially in light of the
outcome. Anytime you can resurrect actual dialogue or quotations, that,
too, aids readers in understanding and enjoying the content. In other
words, writing that shows, rather than tells, engages readers, and
writing that tells, rather than shows, lectures to the reader.
Q: I’m being bombarded with info from [name of publisher and marketing
company deleted]. Are they the true scam that they seem to be? They
send e-mails, and if you respond, someone replies to you almost
instantly. They claim to have a thousand authors that they’ve
published. I would greatly appreciate it if you'd give me your
thoughts, even though I know in advance what you’re going to say.
A: First, when a publisher contacts you (and especially if it
“bombards” you) before you contact it, a big red warning flag should go
up, unless you already have a best-selling book on the market. Next,
when a publisher also claims to be a marketing firm, a red flag should
rise, because no traditional publisher makes such a claim, even if some
publishers do help with marketing. Next, when a publisher makes claims
regarding the number of authors they’ve published, another red flag
should rise. Traditional publishers do not make such claims; they may
refer to best-selling authors and titles in their catalog, but they
don’t speak in terms of the number of authors they publish.
Yet another giant red flag went up for me when I researched the firm
and found nothing on the Internet about the company. Any respectable
business has a presence on the Internet.
Indeed, when any company responds instantly with great eagerness, it
has something to sell you, not something to give you, and if a
traditional, respectable publisher likes your book, it sends you money
in advance of publishing your book; it never asks you for money or
sells you any services.
You knew all those things, though, because you said you knew what I was
going to say, but thank you for letting me say it.
Send your questions to the Book Doctor Bobbie Christmas at
Bobbie@zebraeditor.com.
Would you like to read or save the Ask the Book Doctor column as a
clear PDF file? Now you can! See
http://zebraeditor.com/files/ask_the_book_doctor.pdf. The newest column
is posted around the first of each month.
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Three: This Month’s Writing Tip from Bobbie Christmas – Avoid
Briticisms
American writers often lean on British terminology or spelling without
realizing it, but if we are going to be serious writers of fiction and
nonfiction, we must stick to American spelling and terminology for
American audiences and British for British audiences. Below are some
Briticisms I have edited out of American manuscripts:
Amidst (use amid)
Amongst (use among)
Towards (use toward)
Humour (use humor)
Unbeknownst (use unbeknown or unknown)
Acknowledgement (use acknowledgment)
Judgement (use judgment)
Use my Find and Refine Method to locate any of the above words in your
manuscript and repair them. Type “amidst” into the Find function of
your word-processing program, go to Replace, and on the Replace With
line, type “amid,” hit Replace All, and the job is done. Be sure,
however, that the capitalization is correct, if the word appears at the
beginning of a sentence. After you have refined one word, go to the
next one on the list and follow the same procedure.
For more opportunities for improvement, buy one of the few remaining
copies of Write In Style (Union Square Publishing) by going to
http://zebraeditor.com/book_write_in_style.shtml.
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Four: Subjects of interest to writers
WRITE YOUR MEMOIRS FOR FUN AND PROFIT
Saturday, April 30, 2011
1:00 – 5:00
$109
Home of Bobbie Christmas
230 Deerchase Drive, Woodstock, Georgia, 30188
You may simply want to write your memoirs for your family, but what if
you wrote them in such a way that you could also sell them to
publishers? Would you mind the added money and notoriety? Of course
not.
In this workshop you’ll uncover:
• Where to start and how to plan your memoir
• What publishers look for in a memoir
• Why you don’t have to be famous to sell your memoirs
• What type of publishers buy memoirs and how to find them
• How to write memoirs that people want to read
• How to write from the heart—the most creative, simple way to
write
• What is vital to a memoir and what is not
• What to delete to make your memoirs more powerful
In addition to spending her entire career as an editor and writer,
Bobbie Christmas has sold personal memoirs to publishers such as John
Wiley & Sons, Adams Media, St. Martin’s Press, and others.
This seminar will take place in the workshop space in the home of
Bobbie Christmas, and space is limited. Act now to reserve your seat,
because her seminars sell out early.
ADDED BONUS: Every attendee will receive a FREE copy of Bobbie’s latest
book, Ask the Book Doctor: How to Beat the Competition and Sell Your
Writing, a $14.98 value.
Attendance is by prepaid reservation only. Mail your check for $109 to
Bobbie Christmas, 230 Deerchase Drive, Woodstock, Georgia, 30188 today
or call 770-924-0528 with Visa, MasterCard, or Discover Card
information. You can use www.PayPal.com and send the funds to
Bobbie@zebraeditor.com.
Coming in from out of town? E-mail me at Bobbie@zebraeditor.com for
information on nearby accommodations.
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From The Chicago Manual of Style website Q & A this month:
Q. My question is about the use of “you” versus “your” in a participial
phrase. Which is correct: “I appreciate you helping keep the house
clean” or “I appreciate your helping keep the house clean”? A little
ghost from grade-school grammar tells me it is the latter, but I can’t
find anything in CMOS that addresses this (although I’m sure it’s there
and I’ve simply missed it).
A. Your little ghost is right: “your” is the better choice here. CMOS
7.26 discusses the possessive followed by a gerund.
For more CMOS Q & A, see
http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/CMS_FAQ/new/new_questions01.html.
Chicago Manual of Style
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Purge Your Prose of Problems
A Book Doctor’s Desk Reference, Fourth Edition
Save thousands of dollars by editing your own book!
This proprietary desk reference book is not available in stores.
Written in easy-to-understand language, the information covers all you
need to know to plow through the maze of the editing phase: grammar,
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characterization, dialogue, Chicago Style, formatting a manuscript, and
much more. Spiral binder lies flat for easy use. You can also save
shipping costs PLUS instantly get Purge Your Prose of Problems as an
e-book with clickable links and bookmarks that zip you directly to any
subject.
To save thousands of dollars by editing your own book, order Purge Your
Prose of Problems today at http://tinyurl.com/4ptjnr.
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Who Buys Mysteries?
On January 11, Sisters in Crime released the results of a collaborative
study on the mystery book buyer. The study was designed to provide an
overview of the mystery/crime fiction book-buying landscape, with
information on who buys mystery books, what they buy, where they buy
their books, and why they buy them.
The survey is based on publishing industry data gathered by R.R.
Bowker’s book sales analysis division, PubTrack. A full report on the
research, titled “The Mystery Book Consumer in the Digital Age,” is
available at http://tinyurl.com/4jo7uyb.
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Ask the Book Doctor: How to Beat the Competition and Sell Your Writing
answers many of the questions you wish you could ask an editing expert.
Whether you write books, short stories, articles, reports, or anything
else, learn more about how to write, edit, and sell your work.
Paperback: $14.95 plus $4.99 S & H (total: $19.94 US) E-book: $8.95, no
S & H, with almost instant delivery. You’ll save almost $10 by buying
the e-book! To order either, go to http://tinyurl.com/lexp7n.
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Phaidon Press to Triple Children's Book List
Phaidon Press has announced that it plans to increase its current list
of children's book titles to thirty by 2012. Phaidon is also launching
an activity series in which individual authors and artists will create
interactive picture books for older children. (The Bookseller) See
submission information under Contests, Agents, and Markets,
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Write In Style: Using Your Word Processor and Other Techniques to
Improve Your Writing by Bobbie Christmas teaches the Find and Refine
Method ™ to locate words and phrases you can delete, upgrade or rewrite
to power up your prose. Bobbie Christmas reveals secrets only a book
doctor could know. First Place winner of the Royal Palm Award for
education, Best in Division (Georgia Author of the Year Awards), and
Finalist in USABookNews Best Books 2005. Available at
http://zebraeditor.com/book_write_in_style.shtml. Hurry! Supplies are
dwindling!
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China market for foreign book rights developing rapidly
In 2005, fewer than 10,000 foreign book titles were sold to China. By
2008, according to the General Administration of Press and Publication,
more than 15,700 foreign titles were bought by Chinese publishing
companies, including more than 4,000 from the United States. Among the
more popular U.S. titles in China are Dan Brown’s The DaVinci Code,
with two million copies in print, and Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite
Runner, with 800,000 copies in print.
Novels sell in China for the equivalent of US $3 - $5.40. According to
the New York Times, the biggest agency selling rights to mainland China
is the Big Apple agency. It represents publishers and imprints from
around the world seeking to sell book title rights to the more than
1,000 publishers in China. It generally receives a 10 percent cut on
deals.
The agency said it sealed more than 2,000 contracts in 2009 and
expected that number to increase this year. Big Apple recently resold
Chinese rights to J.D. Salinger's Catcher in the Rye for more than
$200,000.
From Southern Review of Books
(http://www.anvilpub.net/southern_review_of_books.htm)
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Free Tools for Writers from Bobbie Christmas and Zebra Communications
Order PDF reports on correct manuscript format, how to form and run a
critique circle, how to identify weak writing and repair it,
self-publishing versus traditional publishing, and much more. Sixteen
reports are available, and the list keeps growing. Go to
http://zebraeditor.com/free_reports.shtml. Newest report: How to choose
the correct editor for your manuscript. Surprise! It may not be me.
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Keep up with Bobbie’s activities on Twitter:
http:twitter.com/BookDoctor4u
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Five: Contests, Agents, and Markets
Dan Poynter’s Global E-book Awards
Imagine your e-book winning an award and
- Being authorized to put an award “sticker” on your e-book cover,
website and promotion materials.
- Getting buoyant feedback from judges with experience in your category
of book.
- A free listing in Publishing Poynters Marketplace offering review
copies for reviews in prestigious e-book dealers’ sites such as
Amazon.com, Barnes&Noble.com, and others.
- Being honored at an award ceremony in gorgeous Santa Barbara.
Media coverage for your book and you.
Your e-book must have been released anytime before July 1, 2011.
Application deadline: June 30, 2011 (midnight Pacific Time). Award
ceremony in Santa Barbara: Saturday, August 20, 2011. See
http://awardsforebooks.com/ for details.
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PHAIDON PRESS
180 Varick St.
Suite 1420
New York NY 10014
Phone: (212)652-5400
Fax: (212)652-5410
E-mail: enquiries@phaidon.com
Website: www.phaidon.com
Phaidon Press is the world's leading publisher of books on the visual
arts, with offices in London, Paris, Berlin, Barcelona, Milan, New
York, and Tokyo. Their books are recognized worldwide for the highest
quality of content, design, and production. They cover everything from
art, architecture, photography, design, performing arts, decorative
arts, contemporary culture, fashion, film, travel, cookery, and
children's books.
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African American Review
African American Review (AAR), a refereed journal, publishes critical
essays on African American literature, film, fine and performing arts,
and culture generally; interviews; “Forgotten Manuscripts” features;
poetry; fiction; bibliographies; and book reviews.
AAR uses a web-based submission and review system, Manuscript FastTrack
(http://aar.expressacademic.org). Authors must submit all manuscripts
electronically. Please prepare them in accordance with the most recent
edition of the MLA Style Manual, which requires the use of intratextual
documentation and mandates the inclusion of works cited list at the
manuscript's end. Articles that do not follow MLA style are subject to
immediate rejection. For full guidelines see
http://aar.slu.edu/submsinf.html.
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Damnation Books specializes in dark writing: horror, dark fantasy,
thrillers, science fiction and erotica (in dark settings). All our
books are available in e-book and digital formats. Novels and novellas
also are released as trade paperbacks.
We accept unsolicited submissions. Multiple submissions are fine, so
long as you keep us informed of the book’s status and let us know
immediately should it be sold elsewhere. Turnaround time is currently
four to six weeks. Please don’t inquire until that length of time has
passed.
Word lengths:
Novellas 10,001 to 60,000
Novels 60,001 to 120,000
Novellas and novel length works are royalty based at 40% net. We are
unable to pay advances at this time. We ask for worldwide electronic,
worldwide digital and North American print rights for a five year
period from the date of release. There will NEVER be any fees charged
to authors for being published by us. Reprints are fine so long as the
work is out of print in any format anywhere and you have full rights
returned to you. Yes, we will ask for proof if we offer you a contract.
A release letter or e-mail will do at that time.
Our preferred method of payment is through PayPal. We pay quarterly.
E-books will be sold through our website and a number of e-book vendors
in multiple formats. For full guidelines see
http://www.damnationbooks.com/submissions.php.
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Six: Creative Writing Assignment – Who’s a Whazzit?
Many writers forget to be careful about using personal pronouns. For
clarity, most personal pronouns (such as he, she, it, they, them, his,
hers, theirs, him, her, and their) should refer to the last stated
noun. For example, in the following sentence, the personal pronoun,
her, refers to the person named Sandy: Sandy liked to wear flowers in
her hair. That sentence has clear writing.
If we’re not careful, though, we can write awkward, incorrect, and
sometimes even funny sentences by not being careful with our pronouns.
Look at this example: Tom puzzled Harry. He often got angry for no
clear reason. In this case, readers may be confused about who the
pronoun “he” refers to. Harry is the last stated name, and because
pronouns usually refer to the last stated noun, it appears that Harry
got angry for no clear reason. The writer, however, meant to say that
Tom got angry for no clear reason. Can you see how pronouns can confuse
readers, if not used carefully? To clarify the statement, the writer
might recast the statement this way: Harry’s friend Tom often got angry
for no clear reason, which puzzled Harry. Writers must never be afraid
to completely rewrite a sentence, if it is not clear to readers.
For this exercise, write a short story using the following personal
pronouns, always being careful to state the person or object first,
before using a pronoun to refer to it.
He
She
It
Them
Hers
Theirs
Him
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Do YOU have news for The Writers Network News? Please send it in the
body copy, not an attachment, to Bobbie@zebraeditor.com. Deadline: The
15th of each month.
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Send a copy of this newsletter to all your writing friends. Tell them
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clicking on “Free Newsletter.”
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With the exception of Zebra Communications, information in this
newsletter is not to be construed as an endorsement. Be sure to
research all information and study every stipulation before you accept
assignments, spend money, or sell your work.
The Writers Network News– a newsletter for writers everywhere. No fees.
No officers. “No Rules; Just Write!”
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