Category: Writing

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Reviewers and Endorsers and Influencers, Oh My!

You didn’t really think those book reviews in the New York Times or the major newspaper in your home town just appeared on their own, did you? Publishers provide advance review copies (ARCs) of  books to the reviewers at these papers. Multiply that by hundreds of publications, from large ones such as Library Journal to smaller or specialized ones such as The Suspense Zone and you see the magnitude of the process. There’s a good bit of decision-making in sending out ARCs to reviewers. But one good review at a major site can result in the sales of hundreds of books. Each publisher has a long list of potential reviewers. It’s the job of the marketing department to match each book with appropriate sites to receive ARCs.

As for endorsers, these are the people who write one- and two-line squibs that appear on the cover or just inside book. For example, the hope is that you’re more likely to buy my novel if you look at the back cover and see that a respected author said, “Lethal Remedy is the perfect cure for boredom: a first-rate medical thriller with humor, engaging characters, and realism that only a seasoned doctor could bring to the story.”

Who lines up endorsers? It varies. Authors, agent, publishers all participate in the process, and it varies with each of them. In my case, I personally contact all my possible endorsers. I make the following stipulations: if they agree, they’ll be sent an ARC with a view to endorsement if they have the time, can read the book, and truly endorse it. So far, the only negative responders have been those with time crunches due to their own writing deadlines.
Then what is an influencer? These are people whom you hope will read the book, like it, and tell others. They’re people with large blog followings. They’re church and public librarians. They’re the heads of book clubs. The list can be huge, but again economics rears its ugly head, so distribution of ARCs to influencers must be limited. I sweat bullets over the list I turn in with each book, knowing that I’ve probably forgotten some important people.

Writing the novel is just the first step. Then you hope to get an agent and eventually a contract. After that comes the editing process. Is that all? No, now you have to think about ARCs and endorsers. The fun never stops, does it?

***

Richard L. Mabry, MD, is the author of the Prescription For Trouble series of medical thrillers. His latest novel is Lethal Remedy. He also serves the ACFW as Vice-President. You can learn more about him at his website and follow him on his blog.

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My First Rejection: the Twenty Year Ache

I received my first manuscript request in fourth grade.

My teacher invited me and another student to write a short story. The prize for the winning submission was breathtaking: a trip to a young writer’s workshop, where we would learn from real writers and hobnob with kids who, like me, dreamed secret stories deep in our young hearts.

For a ten year old, this was a once in a lifetime opportunity. I poured myself into my story, sparing no imaginative fancy. I don’t remember many details, only that it featured talking animals, a charging knight, and puppy love romance. I thought it was spectacular, one of a kind. I submitted my story and waited for the happy news.

A few days later, the teacher called me to her desk. Her soft, sympathetic voice set my knees to trembling. Why did she sound sad? Didn’t she have good news to deliver? “I’m sorry,” she said.  She’d chosen the other student’s story, a vignette about a visit to grandma’s house.

Oh, that rejection hurt. I cast green eyes at the winner and felt sick the day he attended the workshop. While he worked with grown-up writers, I solved math problems and filled out worksheets, just like every other school day.

If I’d been a stronger, more self-assured child, I might have pondered that grandma story. I might have learned the first adage of beginning writers: “write what you know”. I might have considered the fact that readers can relate to a visit to grandma’s, but no one can relate to talking ducks, fanciful knights, and puppy love. . .all in a single-page story.

I might have, but I didn’t. Instead, my young writer’s heart sported a big, throbbing bruise. But I didn’t talk about my writing, not to anyone.  So I came to my own conclusion: I wasn’t good enough. And that was that.

I couldn’t stop writing, though. I wrote poems and journal entries, short stories and personal narratives. I wrote frantically, then tore my words to shreds. Sometime I tucked my writing under my bed or in pages of childhood books, never to be seen again, even by me.

Meanwhile, I learned to deliver what my teachers wanted. An essay with a topic sentence and three paragraphs? Done. A summary of The Grapes of Wrath? Done. I earned good grades, but protected my writer’s heart with layers of bricks and barbed wire constructed from that fourth grade rejection.

I protected too dearly, and finally stopped writing all together. For twenty years I wrote nothing but grocery lists until, a few years ago, the writing exploded out of me with all the force of a long-dormant volcano.

Predictably, I still face rejection on this road to publication. But I don’t hide my words or tear them up anymore. I expect the hurt of rejection. I even embrace it, if I can. Because I understand now: the best stories come from bruised and throbbing hearts that don’t hide, don’t shred, and refuse to give up.

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The Tough Critique

My best friend of more than 30 years was one of the first people to read a draft of my manuscript. I packaged all 299 pages in an envelope, mailed them 1,500 miles to her home and then chewed my nails ragged while I waited for her response.

I stalled for what I considered the proper amount of time. And then finally I couldn’t bear it any longer. I picked up the phone and dialed her number.

“Soooo…what did you think?” I blurted when she answered. I tried not to sound desperate and sweaty. “Do you like the book? Have you finished it? What do you think so far? Seriously, you can tell me the truth. I mean it!”

I waited.

Silence lay heavy, like a suffocating blanket suddenly strewn over the vast plains between us .

“Well…” She hesitated. A dull ache began to gnaw in the pit of my stomach.

“Well…to be honest, I, um, I put it down, and I’m having trouble picking it back up again,” she offered quietly.

“What? What?! Are you kidding me? You’re having trouble picking it back up again? What does that mean? Are you saying my book is boring or something?! What, like Reader’s Digest boring? Like Henry James boring? Like iphone manual boring?!”

I didn’t actually say those things aloud, of course. My actual response went more like this:

“Okay.”

 Deep, shaky exhale.

“Okay, so tell me more. What exactly is the problem? Can you be more specific? Which part is bogging you down? Does it go awry at any particular point, or is the whole thing giving you trouble?”

During that difficult conversation I learned that Andrea had enjoyed a lot of the manuscript, especially the anecdotes, which comprised the meat of the memoir. But when she got to the sections that delved into Biblical instruction, she lost interest.

I give her credit for her honesty and courage. Although Andrea knew exactly how important this writing endeavor was to me and exactly how insecure and fearful I was, she told the hard truth because she knew in the long run that it was important that I hear it. (Granted, she could have phrased it a bit more delicately. Then again, I did hound her like a salivating Saint Bernard). 

But I admit, it was a hard truth to swallow. And even though we had a fruitful and constructive conversation, and she didn’t deem the whole book an abysmal failure, when I got off the phone that afternoon I felt a weight on my chest like a stack of crumbling bricks. What’s more, I didn’t take her advice – I made none of the changes she suggested.

The funny thing was, in the end, she was right.

A year later, when I paid a professional editor to review my manuscript, guess what he advised? That’s right: he suggested I cut all the instructional sections woven into the book because they “interrupted the flow of the story.” And later, when Rachelle Gardner accepted me as  client, she admitted that the book wouldn’t have appealed to her, had it included all the Biblical analysis and instruction.

Andrea had been spot-on in her observations, and she had been honest, courageous and diplomatic in her critique. The real problem was that I simply hadn’t been ready to listen.

Let’s chat:  How do you decide who critiques early drafts of your writing? Have you ever received a negative critique from a friend? How do you balance a critiquer’s opinion with your own ideas? How do you know when you are ready to have your writing critiqued?

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The honest stain of truth

Professor looked like Jabba the Hut, jowls of  flesh hanging over the collar of his shirt. He watched, smirking, as fellow co-eds and I jockeyed for seats around the long conference table, Professor’s preferred room arrangement for this, our first college creative writing class.

Until I met Professor, I could always count on my writing to please teachers and professors. But assignment after assignment came back with haphazard red-pen scratches. I imagined Professor held my paper for a brief moment before tossing it aside.

Professor enjoyed two things: making students cry and picking favorites. I landed in the first group, and was left out of the second like a scrawny girl in a middle school dodge ball gym class.

The class favorites wrote about sex, of course, and they wrote about it often. Though I lamented my mediocre scores, I refused to write about something so sacred just for him.

One fateful morning, my alarm clock malfunctioned and I was late for Professor’s class. When I arrived, he stopped class and laid into me with a barrage of insults. On and on he spat about how lazy, irresponsible and stupid I was, daring to enter his class late. Too hurt to hold back tears but too proud to leave, I stayed for the whole class.

My notebook was a soggy mess.

That day, I resolved to please Professor–if not shock the hell out of him–with my writing.

And I did.

I wrote a short story full of violence and deceit, sex and betrayal, blood and fine champagne.

The story disgusted me.

Professor loved it.

I hated Professor for a long time after that.

Years later, I realized my sordid short story paralleled scars of abuse from my childhood. The rage I felt toward Professor was a pivotal breakthrough from flowery, Pollyannic prose, and the beginning of my journey of writing hard, writing real and learning to write well.

I can’t say I agree with Professors tactics.

But I think I understand, now, what he was trying to do.

See, good writing involves daring to go to deep and frightening places. Like John Coffey–the man who breathed light and life into dead things in The Green Mile–hearts come alive when we breathe into still and long-forgotten places.

Words become life when writers allow the pen to pull them places no one else wants to go.

Like leper colonies, places in the soul exist where fear hangs like shadows, veiling what we don’t understand and shielding us from disease and pain. And yet, the only way to be real and alive is to allow the pen to touch diseased and painful places.

It is the unsought job of the writer to burst through the gates of leper colonies . . . to run to those who are bandaged and losing limbs . . . to embrace those who smell like rotting flesh . . . and to caress touch-starved hearts until they stop trembling and maybe, just maybe, believe in life again.

Good writers learn to distinguish the honest stain of truth from pencil scratches on paper.

Good writers learn the events in life which enslave us are ultimately the ones which set us free.

Good writers endure hours–even days–of depression that come when the pen finds fragile, tender places.

Good writers touch ugly, diseased places, in order to touch ugly, diseased places of others.

Good writers allow the pen to pull them.

To set even one person free.

What about you? How have you learned to write more deeply? Has a person, teacher, mentor or friend influenced the deep, true pull of your pen? Do you believe words have the power to set people free?

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Writers — Develop a thick skin!

Do you remember how you felt the first time you confessed to someone that you wanted to be or was a writer? Did you heart pound and your palms sweat? Mine did.

Develop a thick skin if you want to be a writer.

Becoming a published author almost seemed too lofty a goal for little old me to aspire to. What would people think? Would they laugh at me? Scorn me? Ask me why I thought I could ever be successful?

When you made your proclamation saying you were an aspiring writer did the words tumble out in a torrent of excitement or did you choke them out, fearful that one day you would be forced to eat them, a bitter morsel?

Chances are, after a while your friends and family get onboard with your plans and even inquired about your progress or encouraged your efforts. And that’s a good thing. Because after you’ve overcome that initial fear of telling others you want to be published, you actually have to put your work out there for critique and for submission, and then you really need to toughen up and not let the barbs of critiques or the arrows of rejection take you down—at least not if you want to be successful.

Take heart. Be brave. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Find a quote or a verse of scripture that will speak encouragement to you. I know some writers who have inspirational quotes tacked up in their writing area or committed to heart. Bible Gateway or Quote Garden are good places to find words of emotional sustenance. This verse kept me writing and writing.

When you first expose your writing for someone to look over, be brave and be humble. Just because you arranged words together on a line, doesn’t mean that you’re going to get the next big literary prize—not even if your mother/spouse/best friend/child says so.

Putting your work out there for critique requires you to be humble enough to take suggestions and comments. One thing I’ve discovered is that you can’t defend your work. When I hear someone who submitted work for critique begin to defend or explain their work, then I know they’re still pretty green. They don’t want anyone to change a word or tweak a sentence. But the truth is, when your work is finally published, you won’t be able to sit alongside your reader and explain every scene. If your first readers don’t understand what you’re trying to say, then rewrite it.

Sometimes it’s hard to receive a critique, but it doesn’t kill you. You’ll be okay, the sun will still shine, and you’ll still be loved and respected by those who care for you. Our agent Rachelle Gardner wrote down her thoughts about being thick skinned on her blog. Take a look, be encouraged.

It’s difficult to hear negative words about the story you labored over. If you’re frustrated, that’s okay. Take a walk, call a friend, and write more words. Just keep moving forward. But don’t be too discouraged, there are always (or there should be) good points raised during a critique.

Becoming published won’t happen if you don’t work at it. Remember, some people dream of success, while others actually do the work to accomplish success. So write on!

What advice do you have to overcome the pain of critique/rejection?

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Say what? — Writing believable dialogue

Whether you write fiction or non-fiction, good dialogue is essential to the success of your work. Either the dialogue will draw the reader into the scene, or it will bore the reader—and as a result, she may choose to close your book without finishing it.

Know that good dialogue in books does not correlate to real-life speech. When you stop in the grocery store to have a few words with a neighbor the conversation is usually small talk. It doesn’t have to mean much except that you value the person enough to spend a few minutes chatting. But in fiction (and in non-fiction), dialogue exists to enhance characterization, support the mood, convey emotion, and control the pace of the story.

The first rule of dialogue is to avoid dialogue ping-pong. People don’t speak logically, and sometimes it’s more effective to answer a statement or a question with a question.

The following examples illustrate dialogue ping-pong and interesting pull-you-into-the-story dialogue:

Suzanne slipped into the seat across from Angela. The cool vinyl chilled her thighs as she scooted to the middle of the booth.

“Thanks for joining me, Suzanne.”

“You’re welcome. How have you been?”

“I’ve been fine, thank you. And you?”

“I’ve been better, thanks.”

Angela picked up the red menu. “What are you going to order?”

“I’ve heard the turkey sandwich is delicious.”

***

Suzanne slipped into the seat across from Angela. The cool vinyl chilled her thighs as she scooted to the middle of the booth.

“Thanks for joining me, Suzanna.”

“Did I have a choice?”

Angela slid the menu across the Formica table and flipped it open. “It was an absolute stroke of luck that I ran into Crystal at the flea market last weekend. If not, I would have never heard about your situation.”

Suzanne gazed down at the greasy menu. “I may just order tea.”

“I’ve heard the gazpacho is delicious.” Angela cocked her head. “And like revenge, it’s a dish best served cold.”

Good dialogue develops and establishes characters. Characters need to speak differently from one another. Give your characters a verbal tic—“Ya, know.” Have one character refer to dad as Dad and another call him Pops. Consider that characters may have different vocabularies with different people. A polished lawyer will speak one way in court, but when he goes home to the bayou, he’d speak differently.

Dialogue describes conflict, setting, and characters. Rather than writing, Angela was the kind of woman you couldn’t trust, have one of your characters say, “Look out for Angela. That girl will stab you in the back and then accuse you of carrying a concealed weapon.” Also consider that what is not said in dialogue is just as important as what is said.

Dialogue can control the pace of the story. To speed up the story, use short sentences with few action beats. This will give you a lot of white space on the page and create a feeling of fast motion. To slow down the pace of a story, put action beats, thoughts, or description into the story.

Avoid using dialogue as an information dump: “Edward, I know you’re sensitive about people questioning your motives because of that incident that happened to you in high school when the principal misunderstood why you were leaving the campus early.”

Dialogue is more than a way to express your character’s words—it’s a way to express the world you’re inviting your readers to enter. And as long as you can write good dialogue, your chances of being published will increase!

I don’t pretend to be a dialogue know-it-all, so please share some of your tips and advice on writing good dialogue. Don’t be shy, what are they?

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Besides Using Google, How Can I Do Research for My Book?

Research Tools for Fiction and Non-fiction Writers

The majority of writers know how to use the Internet when they need to investigate a topic. Most of us pop onto a search engine like Google, bing, or Yahoo! Search and type our subject of interest into the search box.

But let’s say you are researching a term like “cancer.” Thousands of sites are going to show up. Some may offer helpful material, but many of the links are going to be useless. You may get scams and offers of miracle cures all mixed in with legitimate websites.

So how do you sort through all the extraneous material to get to the good stuff?

Here’s a simple trick I always use: Type the words “site: edu” after the term you are searching. (Don’t use quotation marks.) Inside your browser it’s going to look like this:

cancer site: edu

Now, the first websites that are going to be listed have been sifted through an educational institution. You are much more likely to find helpful material for your writing.

I write about self-care, so let’s say I have a question in my mind like, “I wonder how listening to music benefits cancer patients?”

Once again I could Google my question, but how will I know if the answers are valid? Maybe someone wrote them on a blog post without verifying the facts. Wouldn’t it be nice to know that the answers have been studied scientifically? Vetted by other scholars? Wouldn’t it be nice to know how the study was done, and whether the research was current?

Even as recent as ten years ago, you had to search tomes or giant stacks of professional journals in an actual library in order to get valid research. But with today’s computer technology it is simple to access serious research for your fiction or non-fiction book.

Hang with me here. It’s not as difficult as it might sound.

My library here in Littleton, Colorado (Jefferson County Library) lets me access professional journals from my home computer. I’m going to show you how Jefferson County’s library system does this. Your library system may vary, so If you need help, ask your librarian for assistance. Also, you need to make sure you have a library card so you can access the system. Here’s what I do:

  1. I go to Jefferson County Library’s web site
  2. I click on the maroon icon labeled, “Research Tools”
  3. I click on “Magazines and Newspapers” (on the left-hand side)

*My library subscribes to something called EBSCOhost, which provides online databases to libraries worldwide. All libraries are different, but most will give you access to two “workhorse, all-purpose” databases: Academic Search Premier and/or ProQuest. These allow you to search specific topics under a broad umbrella rather than having to narrow your research to certain journals (e.g. nursing journals or psychology journals).

Now you’re going to guess at some key words to put into the search box. I start by entering the words:

 affects music cancer patients

This next part is important:

Before I click the search button, I narrow my search by using limiters:

I want to limit my search to scholarly material because I don’t want information to come from non-scholarly magazines such as People or Newsweek, so I check “Scholarly (Peer Reviewed) Journals.”

I only want to look at the articles where I can read the entire article, not just the summary or abstract, so I check “Full Text.”

And lastly, I want the research to be current, so I’ll limit the date to the last ten years.

As I find articles, I look to see which key words are noted so I can try searching those if I’m not finding what I need. When I find my article, I can read it online, print it out in PDF format, or even email it to others or myself. If you are a visual learner, maybe a video showing how I do research will be a helpful addition.

 Do you have some research tips to offer other writers?

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A Word Miser’s Experience with Line Edits

I have two confessions.

I hold tightly to my words.

And of all the things that lay ahead as a contracted author, line-edits made me the most nervous.

Here’s my truth. I’m in love with words. I love stringing them together in creative and clever ways to paint pictures for the reader. I don’t like deleting them. And I’m super protective of my voice.

So the idea of line-editing scared me.

I admitted all this to my incredibly talented line-editor, Lissa Johnson, and she said it’s a common malady for writers, especially beginners. Which makes sense if you think about parenting. We tend to be much more uptight with our first born, don’t we?

So how did line-edits go? Did I have to get rid of words I wanted to keep? Does the writing still sound like me? Was it as painful as I feared? Is the story better?

Good. Yes. Yes. Yes (but not in the way I expected). Very much.

Allow me to elaborate….

I deleted words I wanted to keep.
This is a reality for line-editing. I had to delete some of my more creative descriptions. One of the things I loved about Lissa was that she didn’t just tell me to delete them. She explained why they weren’t working.

Descriptions shouldn’t pull the reader from the story. Not even for the sake of admiring the prose. We can get away with it on occasion, but the more often we do it, the more we risk creating a choppy read for our audience. And choppy’s never good.

I’m learning that subtle and simple is usually best. A hard lesson for a writer who tends to go purple.

My voice is still my voice.
Lissa suggested changes, and even made changes, but she did so in my voice. She stayed true to who I am on the page and put to rest my biggest fear: That by the time this story makes it to the shelf, it will no longer sound like me.

Line-editing is painful.
Yes, it is. But not for the reasons I expected.

Deleting a beloved description wasn’t the painful part.

Having to scrutinize a novel I didn’t want to scrutinize was.

I had to look at so many of my words and make sure they meant what I wanted them to say. I had to look at so many of my details and make sure they were accurate and well-researched.

And I had to do it all while wanting to chuck the story out the window. At this point, I’ve edited this thing more times than I can count.

Combing through it so meticulously yet again made me cross-eyed. My lovely editor, Shannon Marchese, assured me that my strong feelings of dislike toward my story were very normal.

The pain is worth it.
Saying goodbye to some of my words was hard. But after stepping back, I discovered that Lissa was usually right. The changes improved the story. And although I might be permanently cross-eyed, it’s now much cleaner. Much smoother. Much better.

I’m learning something I always suspected. Editors are amazing. At least the good ones are.

And when it comes to editing, we’re wise to ignore those feelings of defensiveness, embrace some humility, and trust that they know what they’re doing.

Chances are, they’ve been doing it a lot longer than we have.

***

What scares you most about getting a book ready for publication? What excites you the most?

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A Writer’s Life: Surviving the Fire Swamp

Rodents of Unusual Size? I don't believe they exist...

After hanging out at the Cliffs of Insanity, I’m doing a bit of rumor control today before negativity infiltrates the Water Cooler crowd. The report is this: “We’ll never survive.”

Survive what, you ask? The journey–wherever it takes us–along the writing road.

Never survive? To quote Westley, our hero from The Princess Bride, when he faced the Fire Swamp: “Nonsense.”

Many writers survive–even thrive. Sure, at times the Brute Squad hammers our egos, but consider a pounding an occupational hazard. Westley and Buttercup conquered the flame spurt, the lightning sand and Rodents of Unusual Size (R.O.U.S.’s). Like our hero and heroine, writers must overcome terrors specific to the writing world.

  • Expect the expected. Flame spurts were predictable. Listen for the popping noise, move, and you won’t get burned. Hang around the writing world long enough and you’ll recognize probable pitfalls. Listen for oft-repeated refrains like:
  1. Show don’t tell. (Unless you’re Erin Healy, who’s teaching a class at ACFW titled “Sometimes It’s Better to Tell than Show.” I don’t know about you, but I’m intrigued.)
  2. Know the rules before breaking the rules. (See bullet #1.)
  3. Writers need a platform. (Or a brand. Or, at the very least, an engaging plot.)
  • Don’t travel alone. You don’t survive a solo encounter with lightning sand. Buttercup would have suffered a tragic death but for Westley’s daring dive into the sand to rescue her. And despite writer Jessamyn West’s oft-quoted assertion that “Writing is a solitary occupation,” I’m thankful for my writing comrades. They’ve saved me from death by over-writing. Death by over-editing. Death by over-thinking why I decided ever to set foot on the writing road to begin with.
  • Realize the reports may be true. I’ll disappoint some of you by not drawing an anology between R.O.U.S.’s and editors. Or agents. Sorry, not going there. (I’m an editor too, after all.) Remember Westley’s response when Buttercup asked about R.O.U.S.’s? He said: “I don’t think they exist.” And right after that–OOOF! An R.O.U.S. took him down. We’d like to think we’re exempt from the tough times writers face: Bad reviews. Low sales. Dissatisfaction with critique groups. Let me be frank: Ignorance isn’t bliss when it comes to R.O.U.S.’s in the Fire Swamp or very real problems along the writing road. Saying “It ain’t going to happen to me” only accomplishes one thing: You’re unprepared when low sales take you out at the knees.Or when your crit group pummels your work-in-progress (WIP). Or when your elevator pitch plummets to the basement.

What about you? Any survival techniques you’d care to share with the rest of the group gathered ’round the Water Cooler today?

Post Author: Beth K. Vogt

Beth K. Vogt is a non-fiction author and editor who said she’d never write fiction. She’s the wife of an air force physician (now in solo practice) who said she’d never marry a doctor—or anyone in the military. She’s a mom of four who said she’d never have kids. She’s discovered that God’s best often waits behind the doors marked “Never.” She writes contemporary romance because she believes there’s more to happily ever after than the fairy tales tell us.

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Celebrate!

Let's all celebrate! (Pic by Photobunny)

Today is both my birthday and my agent, Rachelle Gardner’s birthday. Reason enough to start a party!

As if that weren’t enough, as a bonus to really get in the mood to celebrate I have a few words of wisdom from Rachelle about building a career rather than just selling a book.

I was one of Rachelle’s first clients and right from the start I knew there was the potential for something special. It started with the way Rachelle chooses her clients, the writers.

Rachelle has never been afraid to take on a new author. She now has about 50 clients, 90 percent of whom are new authors, which says something wonderful about her approach to the publishing business. Her intention is to build a strong roster of credible writers rather than make the quick sale. That takes time and talent on both the author and the agent’s part and can be just as rare in an agent as it is in a writer.

“It’s great for me because as agents go, I’m still one of the newer agents, coming up on four years, and it’s kind of neat for me to help build writers from the ground up,” said Rachelle. “Now, keep in mind, I’m making very intentional decisions,” she added, as she looks for writers who have something to say and are willing to work with her.

I’ve had agents before, good agents who quickly sold my work but I’d never had anyone speak to me in terms of a career. Not only in general terms but specific steps I could take if I was interested in making a decent living. Rachelle was doing that from the start even while we were talking about the project at hand. She was taking the long view of me as a writer.

That approach was going to take more work and a lot more patience but has the potential to payoff with steadily rising book sales.

That’s like gold in this business. Continue reading “Celebrate!”