Fairs and Writers

I’m writing this posting on Saturday afternoon, but it will appear on my blog tomorrow. Here’s the thing, today I did my walk, then baked a chocolate zucchini cake for the family picnic, and then drove over to St. Mark’s Catholic Church on Lee’s Summit Road to set up my display for tomorrow’s fair.

         When I got back home, I caught up with reading and commenting on blogs—finally got through my list of 70 for the week and learned so much about the wonderful bloggers whose writing takes me away from this desk and into other states and countries and times. In a few minutes, I’ll take a shower, get dressed, put the cake in the car, and drive to the picnic where I’ll probably go way over the 26 points I get a day on Weight Watchers.

         Now what does all this have to do with a writing blog?

         Selling.

         Selling.

         Selling.

         Tomorrow—Sunday—from 8 am to 2 pm I’m going to be sitting behind a table at St. Mark’s Church selling copies of A Cat’s Life: Dulcy’s Story and A Cat’s Legacy: Dulcy’s Companion Book. Also I’ll be selling two books by E. C. Stilson, The Golden Sky, a memoir, and The Sword of Senack, a fantasy.

         When Dulcy’s first book was published I did this fairly often, but that was twenty years ago and I’ve neglected to attend fairs since moving here to Missouri. So this is a first for me in my new home state. I want Dulcy’s stories to reach many readers and for that to happen, I have to do my part. All writers do.

         The rental of the booth space at the fair was $50. In moving from Minnesota to Missouri four years ago, I misplaced the small easels that I’ve always used to display books. So in August, I meandered over to Hobby Lobby, a craft store, found them on sale, and bought six for $18. 

         Thus, I have $68 invested in the fair. I’m hoping that I’ll recoup that money with Dulcy’s two books. I’m selling the books for $10 apiece or two for $17.

         If four people bought both books, I’ll have the $68. Any more sales would be gravy! And if seven people bought just one book apiece, I’d make $2 beyond what I spent. Hip! Hip! Hooray!

         Of course, I’m hoping I’ll sell more books than that but I saw the other booths being set up today and there are some interesting and lovely things to buy. We all have only so much discretionary money, and I don’t know whether the attendees will be readers who love cats. We’ll see.

         So wish me luck . . . and an abundance of sales!        

         Peace.

Synopsis of One Writer's Life

Warning: This is a long posting. You may want to bypass it until you have a cup of tea and a scone in hand for leisurely reading!!!

         After leaving the convent on Christmas Eve 1966 at age 30, I collapsed in my parents’ home and simply stared into space. The next year, because of a friend’s graciousness, I was offered work as an editor at a Dayton, Ohio, publishing house that produced Catholic weekly readers called “messengers.” I worked as the religion editor for My Little Messenger, a publication for first and second graders.         

         For the next seventeen years I taught briefly in Dayton and in Claremont, New Hampshire, and studied for a master’s degree. The rest of the time I worked as an editor and writer, first for Pflaum in Dayton and then for Winston Press in Minneapolis.

         Beginning in 1973, I worked myself up from editor, to co-director of the Winston trade department, to director of its curriculum department. By 1984, I was working fourteen hour days: eight at the office and six each evening at home. Exhaustion finally took its toll, and in mid-July of 1984, I resigned from my position to become a freelance line editor, copy editor, and curriculum developer.

         I freelanced until my retirement in 2001. During those seventeen years, I completed projects for a number of Catholic publishers as well as small presses throughout the United States. I also began teaching professional editing in evening and Saturday classes at the University of Minnesota, the College of St. Catherine in St. Paul, and Metropolitan University.

         During those seventeen freelance years, I set an hour aside each morning for my own creative writing. I’d begun writing, as all of us probably do, in grade school. The Sisters of Mercy taught me the basics and I became enamored of words and their power to paint pictures.

         In college, my mentor became Sister Scholastica—a Benedictine. She encouraged me to let my imagination soar, and I wrote short stories, fantasies, essays, and poetry before entering the convent in June 1958. However, for the next eight and a half years, the convent offered no time for writing and I lost any interest I had in expressing myself with words.

         That continued until I became a freelancer in 1984—so for twenty-six years I did no writing of my own stories. Then, when I became a freelancer, I suddenly got the idea for a romance. As I’ve posted before, I wrote two romances and they were “duds.” But when Dulcy, the cat with whom I’d lived for seventeen and a half years, died in 1989, she gave me the story of our life together and I began to write again. 

Dulcy and me. 

         For the past twenty-nine years, I began one thing after another, but that demon of perfectionism has kept me from completing much of anything—the words just never seemed to be anything more than mundane.

         And yet, as I sit here today I realize that I have finished a few things and I’m eager to work on others. Here’s what I’ve complete in final draft—edited and polished. The first three listings have been published.

·      A Cat’s Life (Dulcy’s memoir)

·      A Cat’s Legacy (Dulcy’s gift of twelve habits of highly successful cats)

·      Twenty children’s books for Capstone Press under the name Dee Ready and the pseudonym Anna O’Mara.

·      The Gift of Bastet Net (Book 1 of the Great God of Cats fantasy series)

·      The Reluctant Spy (a novel that takes place in first-century Palestine)

·      A Multitude of Angels (the text for a series of photographs by Judy King who did the art for Dulcy’s memoir and who is doing the art for The Gift of Bastet Net)

One of the sketches for The Gift of Bastet Net.

And here is the additional writing I’ve done, but not completed, during the past twenty-four years:

·      A first draft for the novel Winter Tapestry, about four ex-nuns.

·      A first draft of Three Roads Diverged. This is Book 1 of a trilogy I plan that takes place in Bronze-Age Greece.

·      Half of Book 2 of the Great God of Cats fantasy series—Warriors of Bastet-Net.

·      Half of Book 3 of the Great God of Cats fantasy series—Prayers to Bastet-Net.

·      Drafts for two picture books for children.

·      Several chapters for a memoir by the four cats with whom I lived after Dulcy died.

·      Two romances.

·      More than 200 postings that will become part of a single memoir or of a trilogy of memoires: early life, convent, post convent.

         So, on this day, when I woke up and felt a little down. A little blue. A little annoyed with myself for being so lazy and for getting so little done. On this day . . . I’m realizing that I have been true to the longing I have to write. Thank you for all the encouragement you’ve given me through the past months. No one could ask for better and more helpful support. Peace.

PS: Mount Saint Scholastica, the convent I joined, is celebrating its sesquicentennial this year. The nuns there have invited all of us who left the convent to come back for a celebration this coming weekend. I’m eager to go and to meet friends I haven’t seen in 47 years. Given this, I won’t be posting here next Sunday.

         

Book Reviews and Platforms

I have known two exceptionally astute senior editors. Back in 1991, the Crown editor gave me the word relationship that led to the publication of A Cat’s Life: Dulcy’s Story. In 2012, the Wayman senior editor gave me the phrase Dulcy’s Companion Book that led to the final cover for A Cat’s Legacy. Both these women have been a blessing in my life.

         Recently, I spoke with that same Waymen editor about A Cat’s Legacy and why it may not be selling. She believes the new cover, which I introduced to you in last Sunday’s posting, will help. As perhaps the purchase price will. However, she also believes that readers, before deciding to order a book, look not only at the cover, title, and price but also at the number of reviews it’s received.

         As of today, February 3, 2013, A Cat’s Legacy has only eight reviews. Wayman’s senior editor thinks it needs more before prospective buyers will consider it a book worth buying.

         How many more? Well, that’s debatable.  A Cat’s Life: Dulcy’s Story has twenty-two reviews from its first publication in 1992 in hardcover and its second publication in 2012 as an e-book, and yet it isn’t selling well either. Perhaps it, too, needs more reviews.

         Of course, reviews may be only a part of this. Publicity is probably the major influence in the sell of any book. In years past, the publishing company did the publicity. And surely Wayman has done its part in publicizing both of Dulcy’s books.

         However, unlike 1992 when Crown published A Cat’s Life, today’s large, contemporary publishing houses demand that writers have a “platform.” That is, a means by which they themselves can get word out about the book. This platform may be any or all of the following: blog, Facebook, Twitter, web site, radio show, PBS series, seminar or conference given around the country. That is, any writing or personal appearance that puts the author out in front of a large audience that might buy the book.

         Last week, a fellow blogger and author of several well-received and read books sent me an e-mail response to my comment on her blog. Given her past success, her words about platform stunned me. Right now, she is writing another book, and her agent has explained to her what’s necessary in today’s publishing world:

Publishing has changed so very much. Even with all my experience, I feel like a beginner—not in terms of writing, but in terms of the business. Book proposals are now 75% marketing and 25% content. It used to be the opposite. And last year, I read somewhere that you couldn't claim your blog as a decent "platform" unless you were getting 10,000 page views a month. I felt so discouraged as that seemed such an impossible number. But in the last two months, I've been averaging 12,000+ page views a month! Still not a whole bunch of Followers, but a good number of page views.

         Dr. Kathleen McCoy went on to explain that a series of postings she did on parents/adult-children relationships changed the number of page views she began to receive per month.

         So I’m left wondering if perhaps my blogs simply don’t appeal because of what I write about. I have two. One is an on-line memoir on which I post a story of my life each Wednesday. The other is the one you are reading right now. It is a memoir of my life as a writer seeking publication.

         For the first, I have 205 followers and fewer than 2,000 page views a month; for this second one, I have 25 followers and fewer than 200 page views a month. So you see, I literally have no platform.

         Dr. McCoy believes that a platform may be necessary only for nonfiction. So perhaps the novel I’ve written—The Reluctant Spy—won’t need a platform. We’ll see. All I’m sure of right now is that for each of the past three months, neither of Dulcy’s books has sold more than five copies.

         The bottom line to this lengthy posting is that I’d greatly appreciate any help you can give me with the following:

• Writing a book review on Amazon or Goodreads for A Cat’s Legacy and/or A Cat’s Life if you haven’t already done so.
• Asking those to whom you’ve given the book(s) to write a review.

Thank you. And peace to you ever and always, pressed down and overflowing.         

Getting the Title and the Cover Right

Way back in April 1991, a Minnesota friend helped me realize that the words Dulcy had given me after her death were too plentiful. However, trying to determine just what to cut flummoxed both of us. I needed help, but where was I to get it?

         The answer came as a result of a query letter I sent to a senior editor at Crown Publishing, which is part of the Random House conglomerate. With the query letter, I sent five of the manuscript’s chapters in an attempt to whet her interest for reading the entire twenty-six chapters.  

         Within two weeks the editor got back to me. If I’d be willing to cut the book in half—from 42,000 words to about 20,000—she’d be willing to read the completed manuscript. As to what to cut, this astute editor suggested I delete all the words, stories, and incidents that had nothing to do with the relationship Dulcy and I had forged over seventeen and a half years of living together.  

         That word—relationship—delineated the essence of Dulcy’s first book, A Cat’s Life: Dulcy’s Story, which was published in 1992 and which contained about 20,000 words.

         Twenty years later, in May 2012, Wayman Publishing published another book in which Dulcy spoke: Twelve Habits of Highly Successful Cats and Their Humans. However, only a few copies of the book sold throughout the summer months. 

           I didn't know what the problem was. A Cat's Life had sold reasonably well. Why not Twelve Habits? I thought perhaps the format was at fault because I was unsure of my own writing within the book. However, several bloggers reviewed it and seemed to like both Dulcy's words and mine. So what was wrong?

         Today—some eight months later—I think I’ve finally gotten my act together with regard to this second book. Here’s the odyssey that book has taken:

         In September 2012, one of Dulcy’s fans—Inger of Desert Canyon Living—suggested that the book’s title didn’t do justice to its contents. That resulted in a new title, suggested by Inger, as well as a new cover. The new title? A Cat's Legacy: Dulcy's Story.

         In the following two months, Wayman Publishing and I changed the cover two more times. Why? Because the book still wasn’t selling well in either its print or e-book version. So within six months, Wayman and I had two titles and four covers—all because I hadn’t spent time, initially, determining the book’s reason for being.

Here are the four covers.

         Still the book didn’t sell. Now the truth is that writers want to make some profit on their books, even though perhaps their greatest desire is simply to be read. Living on a fixed income, I'd delight in making a little more discretionary money. So I've hoped for many months that this second book would begin to sell.

         It was the senior editor at Wayman who helped me find my way with A Cat's Legacy. With the third cover, she began to call it “Dulcy’s Companion Book.” Then my great-niece Brandi told me what she thought the book still needed—both a title AND a cover that would show its relationship to the first book in which Dulcy spoke. Note that word again—relationship!

         Finally, the light dawned. What the book lacked was visual evidence that it was another Dulcy book; that it was the second book in a series. I also realized that with this second book, I played a more major role. Thus, I decided to add myself to the cover.

         My niece, who is majoring in photography in college, designed a new—AND FINAL!!!!!—cover for me. Here it is:

         If you have time, please go to Amazon and look up Dee Ready. The site will take you to the various books that have been published with my name on or in them. There's you'll see A Cat's Legacy above A Cat's Life. That view pleases me mightily. How about you? Do you like the new cover? Do you think it will attract readers?

Writing, Cutting, Polishing a Manuscript

Effective writing takes both time and effort. It can, however, be a labor of love. At least that’s what it is for me. When I write, I feel centered and aware of Presence. For me, writing is a form of prayer. So today I’d like to share with you my method of writing/praying a story or an extended manuscript.

            In 1989, I channeled the manuscript that was later published as A Cat’s Life: Dulcy’s Story. Originally, Dulcy gave me 42,000 words. In 1991, Jane Meara, an exceptional Crown editor, asked me to cut the manuscript in half by concentrating only on the relationship between Dulcy and me. The result was Dulcy’s first book. The words I deleted became the main part of Dulcy’s second book: A Cat’s Legacy: Dulcy’s Story.

 The scene reflects what the first draft of anything I write looks like.

            The key to cutting was the word relationship. With that word I was able to ruthlessly delete extraneous words and incidents from the original draft. We writers need something to keep us grounded in the thrust of what we are writing. That something may be a keyword or it may be a question, such as “What did the character do that led to this or that effect?” Or “What do I need here so as to build suspense?”

            In an earlier posting, I explained that for thirteen years I’ve worked on a novel that takes place in first-century Palestine. The first draft of that novel boasted 212,000 words. Ultimately, I deleted 86,000 of them. How did I cut so many? By repeatedly asking myself, “Is this word, incident, character necessary to telling the story?” “Does it advance the plot?” “Does it build suspense?” “Does it show the reader something necessary?”

            I simply kept chipping around at the rock formation of the manuscript until I arrived at the “sculpture” that revealed scene, plot, character. Something like the photograph below.

A sculptured face that illustrates the classic Veracruz culture of 600 to 900 CE.

(From Wikipedia)

            As with Dulcy, I tend to be wordy. My writing style is to simply sit at the computer and let the words come—willy-nilly. I write until I’m written out. Word after word. Scene after scene. Lines of dialogue followed by more dialogue.

            I do that in writing my on-line memoir. Often, I’ll write 1,200 words on a Wednesday morning. Then I’ll assiduously cut to fewer than 600 words. Thus, I need two and a half hours to write, polish, and edit a story and then a half hour to select photographs and post. Three hours in all.

            And yet Friko, a blogger whom I read faithfully because I enjoy her attitude toward life, once shared that she needed only twenty minutes to write a posting. My first attempts simply aren’t that good. I must decide what is the essence of the story from my life: what do I hope to communicate? Then I must delete every superfluous word no matter how clever or revealing it is. Anything that does not advance the story to its ending has to go.

            I try to do the same with this blog. I ask myself, “Does this word, phrase, sentence help explain my topic?” If it doesn’t, it’s deleted.

            Now, how about you? Do you write everything down and then judiciously delete? What’s your secret of success?

Postscript:

I hope you’ll share the crafting of this blog with me. Let me know with your comments what you’d like me to write about. One of you has already requested that I write about the use of which instead of that as well as the use of commas. I hope to write that post soon, perhaps as early as next Sunday.

“Landscape with Trees” by adamr from freedigitalphotos.com