Great News, Three of a Kind is available for pre-order at Barnes & Noble online

I just received some news that has me all fired up. Three Of a Kind, my first thriller, is available for pre-orders at Barnes & Noble online. The publication date is August 28th, less than 60 days away. If you're interested in pre-ordering, there is extra savings.

You can go directly to Barnes and Noble Online, type in my name or the title of the book, and place an order.

Even Better

There's no picture or blurb posted at B&N yet so I made another place you can pre-order from that tells you all about Three of a Kind and gives you a direct link to the B&N page. Click here to Pre-Order Now.

The First Time Author, Their First Good Book, and Their Publisher

As with anything, the first time you take on a new endeavor, you most likely don't know what you're doing and the learning process begins. When I started writing, I didn't know how long a book should be, show vs. tell, what point of view to use, or what a tag line was. However, I persevered and watched as my writing noticeably got better, and I still have a long way to go.

With a completed novel in hand, I started the next process, being published. This meant, too me, finding an agent. Thus the quest for the mythical perfect query letter began followed by rejection after rejection. I got a break, sort of. A local independent, small publisher spoke at one of my local writers associations meetings and offered to spend several hours looking at submissions. Of the forty-five submissions she waded through that night, she only asked to see the manuscripts of eight submissions, two of them were mine. From that group, I believe I was the only one who received a contract offer. I was ecstatic. My publisher turned out to be a wonderful woman who really showed care about helping new writers. There was one small hitch; they only produced trade and hardback formats, not mass market. It took me months of questions and thinking before I signed.

Once again, I was off on a new endeavor, clueless to the publishing and marketing process. Therefore, I placed a lot of faith in my publisher and when my novel was just a few months away from publication, I started learning about marketing a novel. Like anything, the more I learned, the more questions I had. I am probably at that often spoken of place, just enough knowledge to be dangerous. Here is what I'm finding out. Before you sign with a publisher, begin to train yourself in the publishing and marketing process, not after. Why? You won't know what to ask about their business. You won't have the knowledge to do the proper due diligence to make sure that you are getting what you need and expect. Writing for fun and writing to be published are two different things. One is a hobby and the other is business.

Therefore, I highly recommend that while you send out query letters and wait for responses that you take the time to begin to educate yourself on the publishing and marketing aspects. You'll be much better prepared to make a decision should an offer come along, and you'll save countless hours of frustration and disappointment after you sign that contract.

If you're interested in where to learn more about publishing and marketing, contact me and I'll help point you to some resources and answer the questions that I can.

Peace out.

Another Step Toward Publication for Three of a Kind

I just received the first batch of content edits from my publisher Aisling Press for Three of a Kind. Publication date is August 28th, 2008. Whew, those 20-plus rewrites and hiring someone to do editing seems to have really paid off. So far, the changes are minor, but they're good and applicable.

If you're a first time author, or even second or third, paying someone to edit your work before submitting it anywhere is necessary. I say first, second, or third because Three of a Kind was not my first effort, it was my second of three. No one seemed to be interested in my first novel, so about 2/3rds of the way through editing, I had my professional editor switch to Three of a Kind, which was getting a lot if interest from agents and publishers. A rewrite and completion of the first novel Tweakers however, has given me something that there is interest in. Therefore, Tweakers may be my next book out before the sequel to Three of a Kind.

Anyway, I digress. I do not have a background in journalism or literature, and maybe someone who did would feel confident enough to submit his or her first efforts without having a real editor proof it first. I think that even for those people it would be a mistake. If you've been through a re-writing process you know how amazing it is to continue to find errors, even on your twelfth re-write, and those are usually simple typos, not content, continuity, readability, and all around good story. You're an author, and you're human. What you wrote looks good to you because you wrote it. Another pair of experienced eyes is so important before you send your baby off to the world to see. If they're any good, your editor will not only teach you proper form, they'll point out parts of the story that don't work as written or don't belong without changing your voice.

If you're a first timer author, it is imperative that you have your work professionally edited before you begin to submit it.

Finding the right editor for you can be difficult, and expensive. Shop around and you can find good people who charge a lot less. If you need some help, let me know. I have a few good names and email addresses of professional editors who are inexpensive.

Don't let pride, shyness, or money get in your way of having your first works professionally edited, even if the best you can do is a local critique group. Hubris will doom you to a continual string of eventual rejections.

A word on critique groups

Be warned, good critique groups are hard to come by since they are almost all made up of unpublished beginners or persistent people with little or no talent. You'll know when you've found the right one.

Sequel Angst (re-published)

I wanted to repost this BLOG from a while ago because it's important and only existed in one place.

Subsequence, continuation, picking up where I left off. I now have greater respect for those who write sequels. It’s not easy; in fact, it’s very difficult. You would think characters that you lovingly crafted and blew life into could walk on their own. They don’t. They are colored husks with a history, yet no future. Until you breathe animation back into their limbs and pull the strings that make their mouths move, they just sit there and stare at you, seemingly asking for commands. You would think continuation of their story would come easy, but what if you told everything about them you already knew. It’s time to give those legs and thoughts a purpose again.
In a sequel, you can’t tell the same tired story. I suppose you could, I’ve seen it done, but with predictable results. You can’t just bring them to life for the sole purpose of rounding out a hundred thousand words either. That leads to those horrible sequels that are disjointed and lack cohesion. There have been even more of those. No, you need a new story, as gripping as the first without falling back on used prose.

How do you put your creations into a plot that rivals, if not exceed, the previous story.

I’m struggling with Drawing Dead, the sequel to Three of a Kind. There is a story there, but what story. I got excited, I thought I knew what the theme and plot would be, but as I wrote, things became disconnected, ends frayed, and my characters are acting out of sync with their established patterns. I’d given them conflicts and resolutions and now it seems trite to heap more on them, but that is what I need to do. I did too good of a job wrapping things up the first time around that throwing a wrench in the works seems contrived. 

I can see the finish line of books two and three, but not the race. This will be a greater challenge than the first one.

This blog has no answer, no resolution. I’m just documenting the wall I’ve hit that I must climb over. And climb I will. Scott Hayes and Johnny Torelli need to live again, the deserve it, and my job is to give them believable future. I am their god and I have a responsibility.

Wish me luck

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No one told me about this, I might have changed my mind.

The publishing industry has changed drastically over the last twenty years, and even more drastically since the explosion of the Internet. Gone are the days when Random House would offer a $100,000 advance and pimp your new novel for all it's worth. Today, even a seasoned, published, semi-famous writer can count on small advances and a vast decrease in publisher provided marketing and budget.

Forget even that if you're a new author trying to get your first novel published. Take luck and hope out of the equation because as the saying goes, "Hope is not a strategy" and neither is luck.

Today, conglomerates own the major publishing houses and their business models have changed drastically, not that I can fault them for some of it. Being a capitalist myself, I understand the need to pay attention to the bottom line, and the fact that only 1 out of 100 books published (I'm making these figures up, but they're close to accurate) makes the publisher any money, it's no wonder why the glory days are gone.

Now add in the latest trend. In order to get a big publishing house to look at your book you need to go through an agent (remember, luck and hope aren't part of this discussion). They use agents as a filtering process for the thousands of manuscripts that land on their desks weekly. That means finding a reputable agent who is interested enough in your work that they will honestly pimp your work to the big houses. Most agents are looking for sure winners, so unless your Paris Hilton writing a sex tell all, most aren't interested. I've heard too many stories of people signing with agents and two years later, nothing has happened. What the hell has that agent been doing? The same thing can happen at the publisher level. I recently spoke to a very recognized author where Tor asked for his manuscript explicitly. They've had it for two years and done nothing with it.

Overall, the traditional route of being published has become a vicious cycle with very few winners. I recently read a quote by a very famous author with over fifty published titles, and a few best sellers remark, "If I were just starting out today with the same material, I would never get published."

So, in the wake of this paradigm shift in publishing, many authors, even good ones with track records of well received published novels are turning toward the smaller, independent houses.

There are pros and cons to that decision, and there are too many for me to list and pontificate on here, maybe in another rant. The main con that I'm dealing with at the moment is marketing. As a new author and going through a smaller, independent publishing house, the onus, and primary budget, for marketing my novel is on me. I must however, give kudos to my publisher, Aisling Press, who doesn't have the budget to send me on a marketing blitz, is doing everything in their power to help and allowing me full access to their marketing knowledge and experience.

My novel is slated for publishing on August 28th, 2008, and it seems as though I should have started my marketing plan sooner. So, a word of advice to those embarking on the same journey, start learning and crafting your marketing plan six to eight months before your publication date. I recommend eight months.

Unless you have a background in marketing, and I mean a real background in marketing, there is a lot to learn. I thought I had a fair knowledge of marketing through all of my entrepreneurial enterprises over the years, but after reading a half a dozen books, countless web sites, I find myself lacking. The only thing positive I'm taking away from this is that the next time will be much easier.

In ending, if you’re a first time author, or even a somewhat seasoned one, keep in mind that you will be your marketing planner, staff, and publicists, and I suggest you start learning now, even if you've only finished your first draft. The reason I recommend this to even the somewhat seasoned author is from someone I met at my latest convention, another writer on the Aisling Press list. This exceptionally wonderful woman has been writing for 25-30 years and has pages of awards and reviews. Most of her work had been short stories, essays, etc. and she has recently had her first novel published. Let me assure you, the marketing arena had her just as baffled, but to her credit, she's learning it, and embracing it as part of her job.

Don't get caught out in the cold, start to understand what it means to be a published author in today's landscape.

Thanks all for letting me rant. Until next time.

Convention, The WrathofCon, May 2008

The WrathofCon, held in Panama City, FL. was my first convention behind the scenes. As a Sci-Fi/Fantasy convention, the usual suspects were there; dealers of wild memorabilia, gamers, indie films, Q&A panels of the various stars, which was a great set of notables . This was their first year and so the convention was on the small side, but they had done a great job of securing good stars, vendors, and a variety of interesting pitches of new uses of the Internet.

The tables of publishers and authors numbered only four, but sales were brisk, especially for my publisher Aisling Press. Not having my book published yet gave me the freedom to wander more than the other authors who needed to stay with their titles, pitch them, and sign books. For me, it became a great networking opportunity.

The highlight of the convention were my conversations and picture opportunity with Gigi Edgley, Chiana from Farscape, which is possibly my all time favorite sci-fi series.

 

The convention I'm looking forward to is DragonCon in Atlanta over labor day weekend. Last years attendance was 100,000. Due to the economy, we don't expect it to be quite as big, but even half of that is a huge audience. This will be the first convention where I'll have my book in hand and ready to strut my stuff.

I hope to see you there.

The time is NOW

August 28th, 2008 is fast approaching, and I have to get my act together. On that Thursday, my first published novel hits the market and the fun begins.

This is my first 'official' BLOG post as a published author. Okay, it's not August 28th yet, but that date's not far off, and I have to get started on the other parts of my job as an author; publicist and marketing agent.

I'm developing the draft marketing plan that I'll go over with my wonderful publisher, Bo Servino at Aisling Press, and fine tune.

My goal is to make it on to a bestsellers list, if not with this first novel (wishful thinking), then with one of my others. I have two more being considered for publication, am working on a new series, a non-fiction 'How To' on writing the killer thriller, and the sequel to my first published novel, Three of a Kind.

I will open up to the entire painful and wonderful process from writing to publishing to marketing with BLOG posts. I won't hold anything back.

I should probably tell you about Three of a Kind.

They want you dead, and their agent of assassination could be standing right next to you and not even know they will be your murderer. It could be your spouse, your mother, or your best friend, and when you're lying dead, they won't even know they did it.

The mind of a serial killer and assassin is trapped in the bodies of two other men, and the three of them will stop at nothing to destroy each other.

Three of a Kind is a roller coaster thriller with twists and turns that will keep you up and reading late into the night.

Look for it on sale starting August 28th, 2008. I'll be providing more details about the novel, events, book signings, conventions, and so much more.

I look forward to your comments and correspondence.

Visit my Web Site
http://steven-mather.com

Look for Three of a Kind
Publish Date August, 2008

Steven Mather
steven@steven-mather.com