Guest blogging

I haven't been on this blog much lately (sorry about that) but I have done two recent guest posts. Over at the Osprey Publishing blog I did a post on military history and wargaming in Spain. This was an addition to a post I did here on Midlist Writer about the Madrid Book Fair.

I've also done a post over on Genre Author about a medieval revolver and hand grenade I came across in the Pitt-Rivers Museum in Oxford. I've previously been a guest at A.J. Walker's blog when I wrote about the accuracy of medieval handgonnes. This is, of course, all related to my book on Medieval Handgonnes, which continues to be a bestseller for Osprey and me personally. Nothing like have the first book on a subject to encourage sales!

Five things I learned at Clarion: Science Fiction writers speak out

Clarion Writers' Workshop for fantasy and science fiction writers has launched many careers, including that of friend and fellow Madrid writer Sue Burke. Sue has had many short stories and poems published in top magazines like Asimov's and Interzone, and recently signed her first book contract with Edge. Clarion asked alumni to list five things they learned from the workshop. Here's what Sue had to say.

"Established in 1968, the Clarion Writers' Workshop is the oldest workshop of its kind and is widely recognized as a premier proving and training ground for aspiring writers of fantasy and science fiction. I attended in 1996, and James Patrick Kelly, one of my writers-in-residence, has challenged alumni to write about the five things we learned at Clarion to encourage applicants. Here are mine:

1. How to critique. I'm still using Maureen F. McHugh's format in my local critique group. As a corollary, why to critique: Because seeing how to strengthen someone else's work is a fast way to learn how to strengthen your own work.

2. Only one miracle per story, and the first sentence should point to it.

3. The person (or thing) that hurts the most is usually the best perspective for a story.

4. Landscape reflects character, and different characters will experience the same setting differently.

5. The first draft may have everything you need, but you might need to change it all. A good time to outline of your story might be after the first draft to identify these changes."

Some very good advice from a very good writer. You can read what other writers learned here. And don't forget to check out Sue's excellent blog! Clarion is accepting applications until March 1 for Clarion 2011.

[Photo courtesy user AdamBMorgan via Wikimedia Commons]

I'm interviewed on "Live Your Life Well"

Andy Hayes, managing editor of the excellent travel blog Live Your Life Well, has interviewed me about my twin loves of history and travel as part of his ongoing Travel Experiences Interviews. Hop on over there to hear me blather on about ancient monuments and achieving dangerous childhood dreams. Make sure to poke around the rest of the site too for other neat articles including one on candy around the world and a very cool piece on visiting Peshawar.

So what does the above photo have to do with all of this? Well, nothing really, but it brings back good memories of traveling in Somaliland. This guy is an Oromo, an Ethiopian people, but he works in the Somaliland capital Hargeisa as a street vendor making tasty samosas. So. . .an Ethiopian cooking Indian food in Somaliland for a Canadian??? That sort of randomness is one of the things I love about travel!

Looking back on this week's posts I notice that there's been a lot of self-puffery. So let me puff someone else for a change, fellow Madrid writer Sue Burke, who just had a short story published on Daily Science Fiction called Zero Hour. Check it out. It's only 900 words so you can take a look while the boss isn't paying attention.

Queen of the Midlist: Interview with Kathryn Meyer Griffith

Today we're suspending our usual Monday installment of Websites for Writers to interview longtime midlister Kathryn Meyer Griffith. Her latest horror novel, A Time of Demons, is just out from Damnation Books today. Websites for Writers will be back next week.

You've been a published author for 26 years. How have you seen the market change for midlist authors in that time?
Boy, have I seen it change! When I first started sending out manuscripts (in the days of the dinosaurs), typed on an electric typewriter with lots of spots of White-Out and then carefully stacked into copy paper boxes that I’d send expensively by snail-mail with self-stamped and addressed return manila envelopes also inside, it’d take anywhere from eight to twelve months to get an answer from a publisher; and then we’d go back and forth for another couple months before they’d give me a contract. Then I waited up to a year or more for it to hit the bookshelves and another year after that before I got a royalty statement. They’d take money off the top for returns. Never could figure out those darn royalty statements! Ech. I think of this every time I hit the send button and rocket my computerized manuscript right to my publisher or editor or when I get the edits in a neat file for me to use Track Changes on. No muss, no fuss. It’s so much easier now and I save all that postage, too.

And years ago the midlist author was respected, even courted by their publisher. I remember on my first Zebra book in 1991, VAMPIRE BLOOD, my editor found out my husband loved another of their author’s work (William Johnstone) and just to be nice he sent us the whole paperback series (14 books!) so my husband could have them. Sheesh. What editor would do that now for a midlist author? None. Truth is I don’t think there is a midlist anymore or midlist authors. They’ve gone the way of the dodo bird. Which is why I’ve published my last three (soon to be five) novels with E & paperback publishers. The bigger publishers don’t want you unless you’re a bestseller now. They don’t want to really edit your books or take any time to promote or build your career. It makes it truly hard to get published and make real money at it anymore. (As if I ever did! My best financial payouts were my Leisure and Zebra days from 1984-1994 and so far I haven’t come near those totals again. Maybe someday after all the E & paperback books for my older novels – *see below – come out I will.)

In recent years you've shifted more towards ebooks. What spurred that decision?
As I said, it’s really difficult to get published with the big guys anymore…even me…and I have 13 books to my name and more coming. I don’t know what the big guys want anymore but it isn’t me. In 2007, on a lark sort of, dejected and ready to give up writing forever, I decided to send a book, EGYPTIAN HEART, (that had been turned down by every big publisher in the galaxy) to THE WILD ROSE PRESS, a new E & paperback publisher who were really kind to me. Really loved the book. I knew the book needed a good editing and after their editor got done with it (she did a detailed, fantastic job, too, I thought) I felt it was a much better book. The cover, surprisingly, was beautiful and they’d actually asked for my input for it and on everything else, editing and all, during the editing process. Unheard of from my experiences with Zebra, Leisure and Avalon Books (my previous publishers that I did two hardcover murder mysteries for).

I remember my first novel from Leisure in 1984, EVIL STALKS THE NIGHT, was edited by some male editor and I never even saw the book during editing until it was printed and in my hands after the release date. The editor did a terrible job all in all and had actually put in three pages of his own without consulting me! They were awful and my readers to this day ask me about them!

And the covers of my Leisure and Zebra books were completely out of my hands. They made a cover for you and if it was horrible or you hated it…too bad. A few of my books, I felt, had awful covers. BLOOD FORGE. 1989. Yeck! THE LAST VAMPIRE. 1992. Awful! My experience so far with five e-books, on the other hand, have been, on the whole, excellent. I love my covers for EGYPTIAN HEART, BEFORE THE END: A Time of Demons and THE WOMAN IN CRIMSON. But the cover artist worked with me on each of them. They wanted what I envisioned on the cover. Amazing. Can’t wait to see all the new covers of all my older books that are being re-released in E & paperbacks.

So far there hasn’t been a lot of money in my e-books…but I see, feel, a change coming. Three years ago being e-published was looked down on from the publishing industry; now I think it’s beginning to become more respectable. All those little greedy machines out there clamoring for food! E-READS told me that this last year alone they’ve seen a 200-300% rise in their sales and they’re still rising! I’m catching the wave.

Tell us a bit about your two upcoming releases.
From DAMNATION BOOKS: BEFORE THE END: A Time of Demons (new) out May 31, 2010. THE WOMAN IN CRIMSON (new) in September 2010 from ETERNAL PRESS.

BEFORE THE END: A Time of Demons is an apocalyptic saga about traveling brother and sister musicians, Cassandra and Johnny Graystone, and their friends, who must fight evil demons, with the help of angels, in the end days (sort of like the Left Behind series or Buffy The Vampire Slayer). The sister is developing supernatural powers to aid them in the final war as they seek out and convince others with similar powers to join them.

THE WOMAN IN CRIMSON, a contemporary vampire novel, is about Willowwind, a beautiful Civil War era bed and breakfast, run by a loving couple, Adrian and Caroline Stone. It’s also haunted by a long dead Civil War era vampiress who was once a witch, Lilith, who believes the man, Adrian, is her reincarnated soldier/lover Jedidiah, and she’ll do anything to have him, body-heart-and soul, for her own again. But Adrian’s wife, Caroline, along with the help of a psychic and the ghost of her dead father, will do anything to make sure that doesn’t happen.

I also have three e & paperback books available from THE WILD ROSE PRESS….more romantic but still spooky. EGYPTIAN HEART. WINTER’S JOURNEY. THE ICE BRIDGE. And two ghostly short stories, Don’t Look Back, Agnes and In this House.

And the rereleases: THE HEART OF THE ROSE in November 2010 from ETERNAL PRESS. THE LAST VAMPIRE in Oct. 2010…THE CALLING in March 2011…BLOOD FORGE in June 2011 and EVIL STALKS THE NIGHT in September 2011 from DAMNATION BOOKS. E-READS is going to bring out VAMPIRE BLOOD and WITCHES again by the end of 2010 or so they say; no real publication dates yet on those two and they’ve had them since October of last year (and they’re charging me a hefty set-up fee for both while DB and EP don’t charge a penny…I won’t fall for that again). Imagine…ESTN came out from Leisure 26 years ago. Whew. I’m sooo happy they’re all coming out again. I’ve worked really hard to get them all reborn.

What attracts you to write about the paranormal?
It’s what I’ve always loved to read. I recall one day when I was about ten or eleven years old and my grade school class had ordered hardcover books through The Weekly Reader (anyone remember those?) and I had ordered a book on ghosts; no longer remember the name or who it was by. I think it was short stories, though. I can still recall the shivery thrill when the cardboard boxes came in and the class opened them and our teacher distributed the books to the ones who’d bought them. I was in heaven!

Then…my beloved grandmother Mary Fehrt, the first real storyteller I ever knew, used to have my brothers and sisters and I (there were seven of us and we were poor) sit around in her barely lit basement when we spent the weekends (two or three of us at a time) and she’d tell us spooky stories. We also would watch Spook Spectacular with her over root beer floats or home-made ice cream sundaes. She’s the one who told me never to gaze into a mirror in a darkened room because something scary would be in them. And that’s when my love of horror began. But I love and write traditional supernatural horror…the kind about ghosts, vampires and eerie things that go bump in the night. I rely on the characters not gore, sex or curse words. Probably that’s why I’ve never become famous. Ha, ha. Thing is, I also write murder mysteries, romantic horror and time travel. Even once did an historical romance (The Heart of the Rose, 1985)…but it was about a woman perceived to be a witch in 15^th century England during the time of Edward the Fourth. Go figure. No matter what I write a ghost, a vampire or a witch sneaks in somehow.

You've had 14 novels published. How has your writing developed in the course of all those projects?
Now that’s a really hard question as I’ve been writing for 39 years and published for 26 of them. Mainly, I don’t use as many adjectives.  Not as much flowery prose. More dialogue. More show not tell. And my great age has enabled me to write from somewhere else deeper inside myself. I’ve seen, felt more. Oh, yeah, the computer as compared to that darn old typewriter has really helped. I can rewrite so easily. Hey, I taught myself to type (I was an artist, you know, not someone who thought I’d ever need typing – I could kick myself now!). I still type with two fingers. Thank goodness my new publisher could scan in all those old books because they don’t exist on a computer or memory stick anywhere and, hey, I’d be two-fingered typing from now to doomsday. Some of those oldies are close to 400 pages each.

Where can we find you online?

Actually, I have ten social websites and now one official website so I won’t bore everyone with all of them. Here are the best of the lot where you can learn all you’ll ever want to know about me (and perhaps way more than you’d care to):

http://www.myspace.com/kathrynmeyergriffith See all my new covers and self-made book trailers; some with my singer/songwriter brother Jim Meyer’s original songs!

http://www.bebo.com/kathrynmeyerG See all my new covers and self-made book trailers; some with my singer/songwriter brother Jim Meyer’s original songs!
http://kathrynmeyergriffith.intuitwebsites.com/

http://www.authorsden.com/kathrynmeyergriffith

My e-mail: rdgriff (at) htc (dot) net E-mail me…I love feedback!

And Sean, it’s been nice of you to let me ramble on…nice to be here. Signing out, Kathryn Meyer Griffith The Queen of the midlist writers.

Corín Tellado, 1926-2009

Last year I wrote about Corín Tellado, Spain's most popular romance writer. She became big in the Sixties and was as notable for her output (averaging sixty titles a year) as for the fact that she was an independent, successful woman in a country that had yet to break from it's machista past. Today it's been reported that she has died.

While I have never read one of Tellado's works, I have to admire her output and contribution to Spanish pop culture. With a total of about 4,000 titles and 400 million sales, she was an institution, still writing up to the day of her death. El País reported she was the second most read author in Spanish after Cervantes. Good job, Ms. Tellado!

Promotional Opportunities For Your Blog

Hi everyone,

I’m looking to connect my blogs with others that cover the same subjects, so I’m planning several blog promotions for the coming weeks. Four are for writing blogs, and another is for travel blogs.

1: WRITING GOALS FOR 2008. Post your writing goals for the past year on your blog. How many did you make? Did your goals change over the year? Did you get some unexpected work? Once you’ve posted, send me a link and I’ll mention it on my blog. For a sample of what I’m looking for, here were my goals.

2: WRITING GOALS FOR 2009: What are your goals for 2009? Post about them and send me a link.

3. SUCCESS STORY FOR 2008: What was your biggest success story? Post about it and send me a link. Or if you’ve already posted about it, tell me. This is a way to promote yourself and get people to read your old posts (always a challenge for bloggers).

4. BEST WRITING ADVICE OF THE YEAR: What was the best writing advice you heard all year? Post about it and send me the link. If it’s on someone else’s blog or website, send me a link to that. I’m sure they’d appreciate it.

5. BEST TRAVEL POST: If you have a travel blog, I’d like to link to your favorite travel post of the year. Maybe it was about a trip you went on, or that perfect photo you took, or a cool postcard you received. My favorite post from my own blog is about the day I didn’t see a yeti in the Himalayas.

Deadline for all of these is January 10. Email me at seansontheweb (at) yahoo (dot) com. I’ll start posting them a few at a time over several days. Hopefully I’ll be able to drive some traffic to your site from my writing blog, midlistwriter.blogspot.com and my travel blog, grizzledoldtraveler.blogspot.com

So what do I get out of this? Well, I’ll learn about some cool new blogs, and hopefully people will return the favor and mention my blog when I post about theirs. The blogosphere is all about connections.

Guest Article: My Virtual Book Tour

If you've been reading my blog for a while, you'll recognize Angela K. Nickerson, who passed through here a while back during her virtual book tour. The VBT has become a handy tool for promoting an author's work, and today she shares her experiences.

My first book, A Journey into Michelangelo’s Rome (Roaring Forties Press: 2008), hit bookstores without fanfare, hurrah, or splash. In fact, though my local Borders said it had one copy in stock, I never had that pleasure of standing in front of it to admire it. They lost it in the stockroom. Needless to say, my publishing house, like so many out there, produces lovely travel books on a very low budget leaving little room for publicity.

So, like many Midlisters, I have been doing most of my own publicity work, and I have learned a great deal along the way. And because I am not a trust fund baby with millions to burn, I have had to do it all on the cheap. Thank heavens for the Virtual Book Tour!

In September, 2007 the New York Times ran an article profiling Amy Cohen and her blog book tour. I happened to be in the last editing throes on Michelangelo’s Rome at that point, and I read the article knowing that my publicity reality would be similar. Ms. Cohen’s publisher, Hyperion, set up her blog tour, but it was clear that I would have to do my own. So, once the manuscript was put to bed, I started researching. Those long months between sending the book off to the printer and seeing it in my hands for the first time were filled with internet searches and hours and hours of reading.

The idea of a virtual book tour (VBT) is relatively new, and there are several people claiming to have invented the idea, but it really all boils down to one thing: an author blogs for different sites in an effort to drive interest and sales. That sounds pretty simple, but in reality it is much more complicated.

First, I developed a list of blogs and sites to target. In fact, I broke that list down into three groups. I decided that I would have three weeklong mini-tours—one in April, one in May, and the final in June. I targeted different kinds of sites in each month hoping to build some momentum from week to week.

Once I had my list developed, I enlisted some help. One of the sites I hoped to target had some very specific advice for authors: have a publicist do the asking. This site indicated that it would not even consider requests from authors themselves. Fortunately I have a friend who was willing to do a little PR work for me for free, so I took her up on her offer. I supplied her with the list of sites to approach and the accompanying materials, she sent the emails and helped me create a schedule.

One of the critical elements of a VBT is exclusivity: each day should be devoted to only one site. And then you must send readers to that particular site. A VBT, when done right, is mutually beneficial. You reach new readers at each new stop, but ideally you direct readers from your own blog or other writing venues to their sites, too, thus boosting their readership. I kept a schedule at my own website and updated my blog each day with links and teasers sending my readers to the sites where I was appearing. I am also a Red Room author, so I kept my blog and calendar at Red Room updated as well.

Having something different and original to say at each stop is also important so that readers will follow you from one site to the next. The easy thing to do is to deliver the same answer every time the question arises, “How did you get into travel writing?” And while the answer is essentially the same, I tried to vary the response as much as possible.

In the end my VBT has been a lot of work, but it has been totally worth it! I’ve been a guest blogger on so many great sites (20-some in all), and I’ve been able to write posts about a wide range of topics. High Culture on a Low Budget asked me to create a playlist for A Journey into Michelangelo's Rome which you can now buy on iTunes. I did a Micro Travel-Writing Workshop for the readers at Nerd’s Eye View. Europe a la Carte in England invited me to do a live chat. And I did several interviews including with the Traveling Mamas (who also did a book giveaway), Blissful Travel, and Write to Travel (out of New Zealand).

I don’t have the budget to go leave the continent to promote the book. And my in-person appearances are all self-funded, so this is a cheap way to connect with readers all over the world. And while I love to meet my readers face-to-face, I’ve had some wonderful opportunities to interact in different and exciting ways while making my way around the blogosphere.

Many thanks to all of you—including Midlist Writer—who have hosted me on my VBT. Rest assured: I am excited to return the favor!

Writing Success Story: First Person Queer Wins the 20th Lambda Literary Award

Friend and fellow Madrileño writer Lawrence Schimel has edited dozens of anthologies and won numerous awards. A week ago an anthology he co-edited with Richard Labonté, First Person Queer, won the 20th Lambda Literary Award for Best Anthology. This book is a collection of essays on all aspects of gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender life and was published last year by Arsenal Pulp Press. Today Lawrence shares with us how he got to where he is today.

"I began writing primarily for themed anthologies rather than magazines, and pretty quickly gained a little bit of a reputation for writing very short pieces (which are always easier for an editor to find room for) that fit the theme (you'd be surprised how few writers actually do submit work that is relevant). I also got to know many of my fellow contributors, both at conventions and online, so I began pitching ideas for my own anthologies, primarily to publishers who already knew me because they'd published work of mine already in anthologies edited by others.

"I'd published a story under my own name in the anthology Dark Angels: Lesbian Vampire Stories edited by Pam Keesey, and when I met the publishers of Cleis at a convention they remarked that it was the first time they'd read a story written by a man which felt like it had been written by a lesbian. At the time, I'd been editing a number of gay male erotica anthologies under a pseudonym, and many of my most reliable contributors were women who wrote under male pseudonyms, but it was much rarer for men to be writing lesbian material, and I suggested an anthology on the subject, of each side writing from the other point of view, and they liked the idea, and that conversation become Switch Hitters: Lesbians Write Gay Male Erotica and Gay Men Write Lesbian Erotica. I asked Carol Queen, a writer I knew and whose work I admired, to co-edit it and she said yes and since the publisher had been interested in working with her for a while, everyone was happy. Carol and I went on to edit a companion anthology of non-fiction personal essays, PoMoSexuals: Challenging Assumptions About Gender and Sexuality, also for Cleis, which also won a Lambda Literary Award back in 1998.

"In the sci-fi field, I had appeared in a few dozen DAW anthologies, starting with my first professional sale to Marion Zimmer Bradley's Sword & Sorceress series. But many of the anthologies had been co-edited by Martin H. Greenberg, and since we had a working relationship already, I pitched him with a few ideas in the DAW model, and he liked them and pitched them to DAW, and since they were familiar with both Marty's and my work, they accepted Tarot Fantastic and Camelot Fantastic (and we did an extra non-Tarot-specific anthology The Fortune Tellers, too, as a spin-off from Tarot Fantastic).

"Pitching an anthology is always a tricky thing, especially for someone with little or no track record, because you need to get commitments from authors (if not actual pieces) before you can get a commitment from a publisher... But of course, most authors with enough reputation to interest a publisher are busy with confirmed projects, so they can't take the time to write something on spec... So it's a sort of catch-22, you need the one to get the commitment from the other and vice versa.

"In my case, since I am primarily an author, even though I have edited many anthologies and have won awards for my anthologies, I fell into anthologizing through the back door as it were, and I'd already built up a reputation as a writer beforehand through the numerous anthologies my own writing appeared in. I'd sold to 21 anthologies by the time I turned 21 and to 44 anthologies by the time I turned 22... so by the time I sold my first anthology a few years later, I'd already appeared in well over 50 anthologies. I don't write as often for anthologies any longer, since I'm often too busy with my own books, but my work has now appeared in over 200 anthologies."

Writing Success Story: Angela Nickerson Combines Art and Guidebook Writing

The guidebook industry is changing. A lot of travelers carry a general guidebook and one that's more specialized in region or subject. This new niche for travel writing is being explored by Roaring Forties Press in their new ArtPlace series, which looks at a city or region through the works of its greatest artist.

One of their titles is A Journey into Michelangelo's Rome, written by first-time author Angela K. Nickerson. Today, Nickerson talks with us about her writing success.

"Greetings, fellow Midlisters! Sean has graciously asked me to regale you with the story of my modest beginnings as a Midlist writer, and I am happy to oblige.

"My literary life began modestly. When I was a student, I loved to write. And I truly loved research. I also loved to travel, a passion ignited early (I blogged about my first European trip here). However, I really didn’t translate that into a career path. In my mind writers worked at newspapers or wrote fiction or poetry. I knew that I didn’t have the news bug. I was not prepared to be a starving novelist (kudos to you guys!). And there are even fewer jobs for poets. So, I became a teacher – and my students did a lot of research!

"However, teaching others to write just didn’t satisfy my own desire to write. I found myself doing more and more journaling and fantasizing about 'becoming' a writer. In reality I already was. I was writing all the time. I just wasn’t earning any money doing it.

"Over the course of a few years I transitioned out of the physical classroom (though I still teach writing privately) and started with small, local publications. I ended up with a column in a monthly magazine as well as several other publications that regularly featured my work…and then I got a book deal.

"I came upon a call for proposals. Roaring Forties Press had begun a new series of books, the ArtPlace books, and they were looking for writers. Immediately I knew that Michelangelo and Rome (both of which I know very well) would be the perfect fit. I wrote the book proposal, and it took about a year to hammer out the details and sign a contract. But now, three years later, the book is on the shelves!

"My journey has been a very slow one. And I am impatient to support myself completely as a writer. That is coming, but I do still have a 'day job.' My goal is to be able to write full time within a few more years, but it is more likely that we will be able to live on my husband’s income than on what I make as a writer (remember: I don’t really want to be a starving novelist).

"The untold story, though, is that once a midlist book is out, the REAL work begins. In the middle of the pack, money for promoting the book itself is scarce. So, those of us without reviews in the New York Times and banners in the windows at Borders are faced with a lot to do if we want our returns to be low and our precious work to stay off the remainders table.

"I am now engaged in full-time promotion of my book (in addition to my 'day job'). It is exhausting and gratifying and exciting and exasperating all at once. I am blogging (Just Go!) and guest blogging, writing articles, keeping my website current, doing readings and giving talks… and I love it! After all, I love Rome. I love Michelangelo. And the teacher in me can talk or write about both all day long.

"But the next book is also percolating, and I miss the solitude of research and writing and the complete immersion in another place and time. It is just about time to get back to the library again…"

I'll be posting a review of A Journey into Michelangelo's Rome along with some of Angela's stunning photographs, on my other blog, Grizzled Old Traveler, on June 12. Also, don't forget to check out Angela's website.

Writing Success Story: Lise Hull Takes The Castle Genre By Storm

I've always had a fondness for castles, so I've been very interested in following the career of Lise Hull, who makes them the focus of her writing and has a website dedicated to British castles. She's done very well at taking a popular niche topic and making it her own, publishing several books. She's gotten so well known, in fact, that publishers now come to her. As she tells it:

"I began writing as a way to share my passion for castles and for Wales. My initial foray into the publishing world came with a column I suggested for Ninnau, the North American Welsh Newspaper, titled 'Wales, Off the Beaten Track', in which I featured lesser-known castles and other sites I had visited along with my personal photos. From there, I decided to expand my writing into a career and began studying what was involved in becoming a freelancer, how to search for markets to sell my stuff to, and how to do a proper query letter.I also took some online courses to educate myself on this process.In addition to selling articles to various publications, I became a staff writer for Renaissance Magazine and the Wales Correspondent for Museums Journal, through which I made numerous contacts in the museums and heritage fields in Wales and England. I looked for publications that fit with my interests and expertise, and queried them. In time, I had gained enough experience and visibility to take tentative steps into the book publishing world. Not only did I make successful proposals to publishers but I also received requests from publishers to write books for them, and I was able to publish my dream books as a result.

For me, the key has been to seek out publishers who have gaps in their lists that I can fill with the type of writing I want to do, on castles and other subjects. These are not necessarily the biggest and most renowned publishers, but those whose interests mesh with mine. Thus far, I have not felt the need to use an agent to sell my work. I have also established a network of colleagues, both in the castles and heritage fields and in the writing profession. I have been given tips on which publishers to pitch to and have been able to open doors for colleagues as well.

There is no one, best way to get your foot in the door. It takes a lot of work, persistence, and research. I am happy to say that the process has proved interesting, rewarding, and enjoyable (most of the time). Along the way, I have been fortunate to meet some of my "idols" in the castle studies and British heritage fields, and have made some fine friends in the world of writing."

Writing Success Story: Sue Burke Lands a Story in Asimov's

Fellow speculative fiction writer and critique partner Sue Burke has a short story in the March issue of Asimov's Science Fiction magazine, one of the biggest markets for sf. A graduate of the famous Clarion Writer's Workshop, she's a hard worker and doesn't pull any punches in her critiques. About her success she says:

"On the same day that you asked me to participate on your blog, I got my fourth rejection so far that week. And it was only Tuesday. I recently had a story published in Asimov's, my first sale to that magazine. It was the twenty-fifth story I had sent to it.

I want to believe that I owe what success I've had to superior writing skills and a fertile imagination. Quality sells better than crap, obviously. But I know that thick-headed blind persistence has been at least as important. I've seen too many writers with extraordinary works who don't send them out. These writers, doomed to failure, simply can't stand rejection.

But I have come to see rejection as proof that I'm doing the right thing. I can't control what editors do, but I can control what I do. I can give them ample opportunities to buy my stuff. Four rejections in a week? Not bad, since it was only Tuesday. I sent them all back out immediately."

Sue has an important combination of traits for a writer--talent, persistence, good work ethic, thick skin, and a healthy dose of reality. Keep on writing, Sue!

Writing Success Story: Minnette Meador gets two books in print

Minnette Meador, a fellow writer I know through the Fantasy Writing Yahoo group, has recently gotten two books signed up for print. The first, pictured above, is the fantasy novel Starsight, published by the small press Stonegarden Publishing. It's already available. Her historical romance, The Centurion and the Queen, was originally going to come out as an ebook with Resplendence Publishing, but will now also be released in print, although the cover and exact publication date are not yet available.

While I got my start in the midlists, starting in the small presses is an equally viable career move, especially for novelists. Minnette is working in two highly popular genres, fantasy and romance. In fact, half of all fiction sales in North America are romance. Too bad I'm not a very romantic guy! Here's hoping Minnette will leapfrog straight over this midlist writer and land a major deal. She says of her writing success:

"When I first completed Starsight, I really wasn't certain in which direction to go. I had sent it out to a few large publishers, but was not getting anywhere. I did research on publishing with smaller houses and decided that might be a way to go. Piers Anthony, a man who I highly respect and admire, had a website called HiPiers where he honestly rated the milliard of POD, e-book, and other small publishers available out there, with warnings, ravings, or reviews for each. In the list was a small publisher from California called StoneGarden.netPublishing. I joined their forum, got to know the other authors, the publisher, and the readers.

After reading through their communications, I decided to submit Starsight and it was accepted a few weeks later. I am very comfortable with the decision and StoneGarden has been
incredibly supportive and helpful in getting me started.

Some people have asked me why I went with a small publisher; Piers has some wonderful advice in his column about this and I took it to heart. Honestly, I have an incredible amount to learn about the industry; how to sell my books, how to edit, how to promote, etc. I thought starting out small would be a great opportunity to learn what I needed and then apply it to other books. In the past year, I've been extremely fortunate to have three of my books accepted
for publication and one short story added to an anthology. Whether I am with a small or large publisher, I still have to promote my own books. I can't think of a better way of learning how to do that than jumping in with both feet. Now I feel I'm a little wiser and more prepared for any publishing experience I may encounter."