More good news from my dear friend, Rain Chapman, she received word from a local newspaper that they will be publishing her short stories this summer. You can check out her blog at http://rainchapman.blogspot.com to read what she has to say. And while you’re there drop her a little note to say ‘hi’.
As I move through the process of establishing a blog, my purpose here is becoming clearer. I want to share some things I’ve learned about writing and, hopefully later on, publishing. I also want to help others promote their sites and work as well. If you have a venture you’re working on that you’d like to share, whether it’s writing related or not, let me know. While I will be focusing most of my efforts on writing related topics, I welcome others too. You never know what will happen with ideas collide.
Stuff about writing I’ve learned (or not)
OK, when I first started visiting blogs on agents, editors and writing websites, I ran into people using a lot of acronyms or initials when referring to something. I tried googling some of these things to figure out what they were, but usually ran into a dead end. A return to the blog, digging through previous posts and getting out my decoder ring most times would reveal what the acronyms or initials meant.
Here are the ones I’ve learned so far—
GMC—Goal, Motivation, Conflict
MC—Main Character
MS—Manuscript
POV—Point Of View
SPAG—Spelling, Punctuation And Grammar
WIP—Work In Progress
These are ones I’ve seen frequently. Are there others you’ve come across? Please share them.
Stuff about the future of publishing…
I’ve been reading lots of stuff on line about the future of publishing; one rather provocative post caught my attention. Randy Ingermanson has a very interesting point of view on the future of publishing and e-book (electronic book) vs. p-book (printed book) and the future of publishing in general. Here’s a link to the latest edition of his e-zine - http://www.advancedfictionwriting.com/ezine/2010/AFW_Ezine_2010-07-06.txt
Sign up for his free e-zine, if you feel so inclined, while you’re there. Randy shares a lot of great information. His e-zine this week sure got my brain to churning and that has led me to think of several opportunities I had not considered before.
One is the idea of making my books e-books, marketing on-line and establishing a reader base while I continue to learn and write with the end result being the possibility of p-books. Randy digs deep into this idea and his thoughts make a lot of sense.
The other idea is another Randy points out, the growing need for graphic designers for all these e-books, because people still want a pretty cover whether it’s electronic or printed. So now I’m toying with the idea of not only establishing a website focused on writing, but also developing one to offer graphic design, as that is what I have 30+ years of experience doing. So all of this is rattling around in my head along with the need to get my next book started, but not before final revisions are done on book number two. Whew, and I wonder why I have no time.
Making myself memorable (I hope)…
I told you last week I’d share my idea for making myself memorable (hopefully in a good way) when I meet with the editor from Harlequin Mills Boon at the RWA conference. The idea actually came from my conversation with my cousin KC. He told me about an artist who always sent her queries in purple or green or pink envelopes. When he was looking for the type of artwork she created, he could quickly lay his hands on her work because of the bright colored envelopes. Well, I won’t be taking any envelopes full of stuff to the conference with me—just a little aside for those who’ve never attended a conference, you NEVER take manuscripts with you. You prepare your pitch and if the editor or agent asks for synopsis or a partial ms, you e-mail or send it to them AFTER the conference. They don’t want to schlep tons of stuff around with them any more than you would, so don’t bring it, but do send it if they ask. OK, done with my long aside—but I will be taking some lovely purple business cards. I’ve decided to have one of my poems printed on the back, rather than a blurb about my book. The way I see it is if they like the poem, then they might be interested in seeing the rest of my work AND it might just set me apart from the crowd. I’m hoping the purple helps with that too, and a business card takes up hardly any room in a suitcase. Yeah, I know the other side of that argument, it’s small and could easily get lost, but maybe, just maybe it will make an impression before it does.
Well, I’ve rambled on long enough. I have company coming this evening and the house needs to be straightened up.
Love to hear any thoughts you might have.
Until next week…
ttfn
No comments:
Post a Comment