Brace Yourselves: #PItmad is Coming

That's right all you literary hopefuls, #pitmad is just around the corner! But what exactly is #pitmad, and how do you participate? I thought I'd give you a run down and suggestions while I also furiously scribble out pitches for the event. 

#Pitmad is a quarterly pitch party where writers tweet a 280-character pitch for their finished manuscripts. Agents and editors will be scouring twitter and liking/favoring tweeted pitches that catch their attention. If they like your tweet, that means they want you to query your book to them. Yes, this is a real thing. People have landed agents and editors this way! 

Some things to keep in mind: 

• Make sure your manuscript is complete. This event is for people who are ready to query their books (query letter, manuscript, synopsis and all). If you can't participate on December 6th (8am-8pm EST), don't worry! The next one is March 7th. 

• Don't favorite other friends' tweets, because that's how agents communicate with the authors. If you want to support your friend, retweet their post! 

• Include #pitmad and an age category to help the agents better find your work. 

• You can pitch more than one manuscript, but each manuscript only gets three pitches for the whole day, so space them out. 

• If an agent or editor likes your tweet, make sure to research them to ensure it's someone you want to represent you. 

For more information, check the official website. 

But what is a pitch, you might ask? It's basically a summary of your story in 280 characters. That's right, that huge manuscript you wrote? You need to tell us the most important things about it in a sentence or two. 

And you thought writing a synopsis was hard. 

Writing the perfect pitch can seem impossible, which is why you should check out Amelie Zhao's blog post How to Write a Killer Twitter Pitch. She gives excellent examples of pitches that caught an agent's attention, including her own during #dvpitch. 

A few tips to keep in mind are: 

• Introduce a protagonist and antagonist.

• Explain what's at stake. 

• Add in what makes your pitch/story unique. 

• Show your personality. 

• Think of comps, or books that are similar to yours to show you know what kind of audience your book will attract. 

• Test your pitch out on other people. 

Amelie breaks this down into even more detail, but this list can help you get started. Also, don't get discouraged if you don't get chosen. Thousands of people are pitching at the same time, and agents have to sift through everyone. That's why it's so important to make your pitch unique and eye-catching (and I don't mean by using images). 

If you're doing #pitmad, give a shout out below, and feel free to practice your pitch! 

Good luck and happy writing! 

Traditional Publishing 101

Ever since finishing two of my books, I've had to ask the tough question of whether I want to go indie or traditional with publishing. Well, I don't like making decisions, so I decided to be a hybrid. While I'm indie publishing The Purple Door District in December, I'm also trying to go the traditional route with my other book Dragon Steal. 

But what does it take to publish a book traditionally? I had a friend ask me this question recently, so I thought I'd toss up my own thoughts on the whole process. Keep in mind, this is just based on what I've learned through my own journey and studies. If you have advice about publishing, feel free to post it down below. 

Warning! This is going to be a longer topic. I originally wrote this for The Writers’ Rooms, and I’ve expanded upon it for my readers here.

Pros and Cons of Traditional Publishing

• They know their stuff. Traditional publishers are in the business, so they know how to get the job done. They have a team of people who can do all the little fiddly bits (covers, back matter, editing, marketing, legalese, rights, taxes…) so you don’t have to do it on your own. It saves you a huge headache. 

• Legitimacy. Because of the gatekeepers, people know that if a book is good enough to be published traditionally there’s a certain expectation of quality--or at least of whatever quality the publishing house is known for. (Note: this does not mean that indie publishing is not legitimate. There's still a stigma against self-publishing, but it's dissipating day by day).  

• Marketing. You don't have to do your marketing alone! A team will help you, though you will still be expected to market your story somewhat. 

• But… They take whatever they think is marketable. This can mean a distinct lack of freedom for your writing, since they’re less likely to take “risky” work.

• But… Publishers are ultimately in it for the money, and will drop writers for the slightest reasons. Even well-established, upper-mid-range authors will find themselves struggling sometimes. Or, a publishing house could drop an author partway through their series and battle over the legal rights of the original books. 

• But...It takes FOREVER to publish your book. For YA, sometimes a book that’s acquired doesn’t come out for two years. By then, the hot market could have moved on and you'll have missed your "hot topic" window. 

First Step: Query Letter, Pitch, and Synopsis

• Query Letter: This is essentially a sales pitch to an agent to get them interested in your book. It’s a brief piece that describes the story, provides word count, relates the book to other familiar genres/books, and gives a little background about the author. This is often one of the hardest things to write asides from your story. Make sure you find a good guideline example to follow and adhere to anything an agent requests in the query letter. You can check out my blog post all about writing query letters here. 

• Pitch: The pitch is your elevator speech. You want to wow the agent, editor, publisher with a 5-second pitch, 30-second pitch, or 1-minute pitch. Think of it as 1 sentence, 2 sentences, and a paragraph about your story. Throw in something unique that is going to catch the listener’s attention. A great way to get practice is by participating in pitmad on twitter, which happens quarterly. You put your pitch on twitter at the same time agents and publishers are looking for the "next best thing." If they like your tweet (or contact you directly), it means they're interested in your piece! The next one is on December 6th, so get those pitches ready! 

• Synopsis: Your synopsis is basically a long summary of your story. In about two pages, double spaced, you have to introduce the agent to your protagonists, antagonists, your world, your plot, and everything that's unique about the story. This includes (gasp) the ending! They want to hear it in your voice, not just a simple retelling. This piece is vital, because it may make your break your chance at getting to talk to an agent. If you're interested, I can write a blog post about constructing a synopsis. Let me know below! 

Additional Resources:  

Tactful Ways to Say Awkward Things in Your Query Letter, Medium.com

The 10 Dos and Don’ts of Writing a Query Letter, Writer’s Digest

7 Tips for Pitching to an Agent or Editor at a Conference, Writer’s Digest

Step Two: Finding an Agent/Publisher/Editor

• Research: Look for Agents who are requesting your genre. One easy way to do this is to find out the agents of some of your favorite books that are similar to yours. Books like “Guide to Literary Agents 2018” can help you not only find agents, but develop your query letter too. Don’t just query to a random agent. They need to be looking for the thing you’re selling. You can also check out Query Tracker to see what agents are looking for. Once you do find an agent, model your sample chapters, query, and pitch to their standards. Also, by no means should an agent ask for money up front (but we'll get into that in the red flags section). 

• Response: Response time can take a very long time, even 6-months to a year. You can query to multiple agents, but if an agent accepts you, you’re responsible for letting other inquiring agents know that you’ve accepted an offer. Typically, if an agent is interested, they’ll request a few chapters or the full copy of your book. Query Tracker is great with indicating response time for agents as well. 

• Rejection: Everyone is going to get rejected at least once. J.K. Rowling was rejected by multiple agents before she found one. If a rejection says something more than, “I’m not interested,” consider that a success, because it means the agent thought enough about the story to write you a longer response. If you want a better idea what it means to receive rejections, take a look at my blog post here. It might help you out a bit. 

• Acceptance: When an agent accepts your piece, it’s up to the agent to take the book to an editor and a publisher. She will try to sell the book to a publisher through an act called acquiring. Once a publishing house accepts it, the agent, publishing house, and editors will work with you to perfect your book. Keep in mind, an editor may require heavy changes to your book, so be open minded.

Additional Resources:

Guide to Literary Agents, Writer’s Digest

Step Three: Contracts

• Contracts: A book contract is a legal-binding agreement between the author and the book publisher that outlines rights, obligations, and money earned. In a traditional agreement, the author retains the copyright and the publisher purchases the right to distribute the book in many forms (paper/ebook/audio, etc). The contract is usually dictated by the the literary agent on behalf of the author. Make sure you get everything on paper and you retain the rights to your book.

Things to Consider About Contracts

• Rights: How long do they keep rights to publish your book? Is it for a year or several? Will they relinquish the rights to your book if their company goes down?

• Series: Is your contract for a single book? Is it for a series? Will they reprint your previous books when the new series comes out? Do they have the right to cancel the contract halfway through the series?

• Non-Compete Clause: This clause says that the author can’t write another book with the same subject or name during the life of the contract. While this may not matter to you, it’s something to keep in mind.

Additional Resources:

What is a Book Contract?, The Balance

Five Publishing Contracts Red Flags, Alina Popescu Writer

Red Flags in Traditional Publishing

• Contract Publisher Retains Rights: Sometimes when a publishing company likes the idea of your book, and has had a similar one already suggested, they may ask you to write the piece, but all rights remain with the publishing company. If you’re more interested in royalties than having your name credited to you, this is fine, but if you want to retain rights to the book, this is something to watch out for during the contract phase.

• Publisher Requires Money to Publish Book: Back away. You should not have to pay the publisher to publish your book. You should receive royalties, and you will work with a literary agent to figure that out.

• Literary Agent Who Charges Upfront: Literary agents do not receive payment until the book is published. They will receive a portion of the book sales.

• Promised Publication: Some websites will promise to publish poetry, books, essays, etc. if they’re submitted to the site. These are generally not places you want to submit your work to. While they might, indeed, publish it, they will ask you to pay for a physical copy of the piece and will publish it to other locations.

• Agent/Artist/Editor Problems: Sometimes the relationship between the author and the agent, artist, or editor does not work. Authors have pulled back from agents before because either the agent failed to uphold their end, or the relationship just was not positive. Some artists who design covers may not have the author’s best interest in mind and may produce work that does not jive with the book. On the flip side, an author may express distaste in a book cover that the artist created (I'm looking at you Terry Goodkind), but the publisher will print the book anyway. And sometimes authors and editors bump heads. Do what’s best for you and your book.

After that, you will work with the marketing team to get your book out in bookstores and in libraries. You'll set up tour dates to do readings and signings. Interviews both online and on television will become your new best friends. But keep in mind, the marketing team won't do all of the marketing. You'll have to do some of it yourself. For more tips on marketing, check out my post here. 

Like I said, this was going to be a long one. Hopefully it'll help get you started on your path to publishing your book. And if you're going to try out for pitmad, let me know! I'd love to cheer you on. 

Happy writing! 

Marketing 101

After months of writing blog posts, I've come to realize that many authors agree on one thing; they hate marketing their books. I can understand why. Marketing isn't an easy job. You spend all of your time and energy writing an amazing book, and still there's so much work to do after that to ensure that your baby makes it into the world. 

I'm by no means an expert when it comes to marketing, but I've learned a few tricks through my own experiences and also reading articles/blogs from experts in the field. I would definitely suggest looking into Jenn DePaula of Mixtus Media. She's actually running a sale on her Book Marketing Foundations class. Also, check out Alexa Bigwarfe from Write. Publish, Sell who also provides valuable information and courses in marketing.

• Build a Community: Whether this is through social media, readings and signings, conventions, or gushing over a book, make connections with writers and readers in your genre. Building connections helps open you to other opportunities in the literary world, like signings you never heard about. It's also just nice to make new friends. Try to focus on those in your genre because they will be the people you sell to later. It's better to have a smaller group of interested people than a large group of followers who won't take a second look at your book. 

• Social Media: As much as some people hate it, social media is important. It's how your readers get to know you. You can share information about your story or your everyday life. Keep in mind, you don't have to do all social venues. Pick the ones that work well for you. Maybe update a blog every week, or keep a twitter account active. Don't try to do everything, otherwise you might become overwhelmed. Just make sure people have a place to find you, buy your book, and learn more about you. Readers want to feel connected with the author. 

• Author Website: Going along with social media, you want to be able to market your book through an author website. You can get one for free through Wordpress, or you can spend a little money on it through sites like squarespace. Here's mine for example.  Make it unique. Make it you. The best thing about this is you can store all of your social media links, your appearances, your purchase links, etc in one location. And if working on a lot of social media platforms is too daunting, this is a good place to focus your attention. 

• Author Signings: As much as we would like to stay behind the computer screen, it's important to participate in author signings. An author named Alexandra Penn says she sells most of her books through in-person signings. To prepare for it, have your elevator pitch ready. Know how to explain your book in 30 seconds or two sentences so you can keep the people engaged. Decorate your table to make it eye catching. Also, consider holding raffles or special sales at in-person signings. It might attract more attention. 

• Swag: Seriously, people love swag. Bookmarks especially tend to go over well with people because they have a dual use. Character stickers, postcards, small journals, key chains, etc. All of these things can be used to promote your book. You can either make the items yourself or enlist others to help you like Sarah Cunningham who made a lot of my swag.

• Press Releases: When your book is about to come out (or even if it is out), it doesn't  hurt to write a press release and send it in to your local newspaper, radio show, or tv station. Contact your local newspaper company (or go on their website) to find out where to send a press release. 

• Interviews: Look for authors or bloggers who are hosting interviews of other authors. This is your chance to talk about your book and introduce yourself to your readers. If you have a book coming out, make sure you get some interviews out around that same time. I host author interviews on my own website here. 

These are just a few ideas to get you started. If you have any marketing tips, please feel free to post them down below! 

Cheers!

Erin

Pride

Today was a milestone in my life. I arrived home and found a package waiting for me in the mail. 

It was the proof of my book. 

Emotions flooded through me. Excitement. Fear. Anxiety. Pride. I've spent so many months writing, revising, and preparing this book for publication, I just didn't know how it would turn out. I could open the box and find a beauty or a beast. What if I hated it? What if it didn't live up to my expectations? What if I screwed up the formatting? What if...

I think the smile here says how I feel. 

This has been quite the journey, and though it's nowhere near over, getting this far has been an adventure in and of itself. I decided in June that I was going to publish The Purple District. I'd been posting it on Patreon for about 7 months at that point, and I realized that the book could actually go on the market.  I knew it would be a lot of work to edit, proofread, format, market, etc, but I didn't realize just how crazy things would get, and how fast that time would fly. Nor did I realize how it would impact me mentally. 

Most people don't know what goes on behind the scenes when an author creates a book. You see their marketing strategies and the final products, but not the struggles along the way, or the self-doubt. I pride myself on being a pretty honest and open person, and I'm not lying when I say that there were several times I wanted to quit the book. I cried, I screamed, I threw my hands up in the air and said, "why bother? It's never going to be good enough." I went through the typical thing all authors do; I thought my work was trash and didn't deserve to see the light of day. My editors and beta readers said otherwise, of course, and that gave me the courage to keep going. 

But deep down, there was another fear. For the first time I was going to put a big part of myself out there to be read, reviewed, judged, enjoyed, hated, whatever the feelings might be. Part of me didn't feel like I deserved the honor of having a published book. Part of me felt like I was ready to take on the responsibility. Today? I'm just proud to be able to hold the book in my hands and realize that I made this. I didn't do it alone, of course, but I had the strength and courage to see the book through. 

It's a surreal feeling. I almost don't believe that I'm holding the book in my hands. Sure, there are flaws and there are things I need to fix, but I'm one step closer to being a published author. This opens the door to literary events, conventions, readings, and signings. I'm terrified to launch into this new world, but I crave it as well. Failure is always gnawing at the back of my mind. What if I mess up? What if I don't do enough? What if I just...fail? 

I guess in the end, it doesn't matter because look how far I've come. Even if people hate it or it doesn't sell well, I still did it. I still put in the time, effort, love, tears, and dedication to produce this piece of work, and that in itself is an accomplishment and something I should take pride in. 

I guess I want people to remember to take a moment and feel pride in themselves and their work. Whether you're just starting, you've created short stories, written full novels, or published your books, you're all authors. You all have dedication to the craft. Be proud of that. Look at your work and realize, "I did this." It doesn't matter how big or how small it is. You still created it. Hold on to that feeling so that you can go back to it when you have moments of self doubt. And remember, you're not alone. We all struggle with it and we all wonder, "Am I good enough?" 

I think you are. Keep writing, keep creating, and keep shining. Be proud of yourself, because I'm proud of you. 

And like I say on my dedication page, to anyone who feels alone or needs a community...welcome to the District. 

The Purple Door District: Behind the Scenes

The world of The Purple Door District started out as the stubborn brainchild of AE Kellar and myself. We have spent years writing together, researching, brainstorming, and developing characters and rules governing our parahumans and worlds. Our main series, Fates and Furies, is still in production but occurs in the same urban fantasy setting.

But let me backtrack a little.

AE Kellar and I met each other on a Redwall roleplaying site when I was still in high school. We had a mutual interest in the book series by Brian Jacques, obviously, and the forums gave us the opportunity to create our own characters, be they cat in AE’s case, or a silver-striped red squirrel named SilverRose Brighteye. Some of you may recognize my NaNo name.

For those unfamiliar with roleplaying on forums, basically one person writes out a few paragraphs of a scene with their character, someone responds, and the two people (or more) write back and forth to create an adventure. Redwall provided the world for us; we just had to worry about the characters and plot.

We wrote together for years, developing characters and immersing ourselves in the world. Eventually, we sought after a change and started roleplaying on an urban fantasy website that has long since closed. That’s when we realized that we might have found our niche. We took our characters, built a world, and ran with it, rping back and forth most nights. We’d alternate taking point on a plotline and naturally switch to the next person.

Unless we both brainfarted, in which case we just started up a new plotline.

Years of writing produced thousands of pages of writing (I’m not joking, AE took a picture of the pile of paper). Eventually, we realized we wanted to do something with it, and thus Fates and Furies was born. But in order to fully create the series, we had to know more about our world.

When we started to design the District, I latched onto it and suddenly had ideas blossoming in my head about creating one in Chicago (I grew up around the area). Plus, as a birdmom of seven feathered kids, it gave me the chance to professionally write about a werebird, even if I still get the side eye. With AE’s blessing, I wrote The Purple Door District to introduce you to our insanity.

But what about the PDD struck a chord in me? It was the community. I loved this idea that people of different talents, appearances, and strengths could come together to protect one another. A lot of urban/paranormal fantasies focus on the battle between werewolves and vampires or different magical groups. It was nice to think that there was a neutral ground where everyone could get along under the direction of The Violet Marshall. With the way the country is going today, I felt it was important to show that it’s possible for a mixing pot of people to actually come together peacefully. I chose Chicago specifically because I knew I could create a diverse cast. Even more characters will appear in The Purple Door District Book 2.

Community plays a huge role in my life. I help bring writers together through The Writers’ Rooms, a non-profit corporation that focuses on providing a free, safe environment for writers no matter their background, income, experience, gender, etc. And I work with The Iowa Writers’ House which also supports writers through workshops, lectures, and bicultural fellowship. In the writing world, I firmly believe that the only way we can succeed is if we support one another. Rising Tide, as Brian K Morris calls it.

Even through the book production, I reached out to the community for help. I asked Oni Algarra and Gabriella Bujdoso to create art for the book, indie artists who post on deviantart and instagram respectively. My cover artist is a Fiverr creator named Les. Sara Cunningham used her marketing magic to create sand jars and postcards for my book. Amanda Bouma taught me how to make jewelry so I could develop Bianca’s necklace. Leona Bushman, a fellow urban fantasy writer, guided me through editing my book and polishing it for publication. Alexandra Penn helped me format the book and was one of my main supporters who gave me the courage to publish the book. And my wonderful proofreaders, Shakyra Dunn and AE made sure the book was ready to go. I couldn’t have done this without my community, and I’m excited to support them just as they supported me. That’s partially why I created the Indiegogo campaign. I wanted to help give back to them.

As of November 5th, The Purple Door District is available for pre-order on amazon. There are no words I can use to convey my pride, joy, and hint of terror at having my book out there (I think I used up all my words in the manuscript haha). I do know that, had it not been for AE, I never would have been able to create such an immersive world.

We jokingly say that AE is the brain and I’m the heart, but I think it’s very true. While AE fills our books with well-researched facts and logic, I add feeling, creativity, and literary flare. I couldn’t have done it without my walking encyclopedia. All you see in The Purple Door District exists because of our love for storytelling and our incessant need to get fewer than 8 hours of sleep a night.

Keep an eye out. Fates and Furies is on the horizon.

And thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for all of your support during this crazy and amazing journey.

Welcome to the District.