Tips from Muse and the Marketplace

In couple months ago, I attended Muse and the Marketplace in Boston. As is becoming my tradition with conferences, I'm passing on a few helpful tips below.

But first, I shall reenact for you my first conference critique.  It went something like this.

Livia enters dimly lit dungeo conference room,clutching manuscript and scanning different tables for her agent.  Finally spies Agent at very end of room and crosses over, bravely ignoring the tortured screams, cackles, and tongues of flame that burst occasionally from neighboring tables.

Agent:  Hello.

Livia:  Hello. (Kicks at enormous rat, which hisses but promptly get eaten by an even bigger cockroach)

Agent:  I have a question.  Was this the first thing you've written?

Livia:   Uhhh.... (madly brainstorming ways to appear less dumb) Oh, uh... this little thing?  Uh, yeah, of course.  I mean. OH YEAH, it's not like I consider this a REAL manuscript or something.  Just a little bit 'o fun on the side, in case you were wondering why it sucked -- I mean not that I'm saying that you're saying that it sucked but yeah, totally, if it read like a first manuscript it's just cuz ...... (Keeps digging grave for a few more minutes.  Vultures circle overhead.)

Agent:  Oh okay.  I was just wondering, cuz this was actually my favorite submission.  I actually didn't have much to say because I just wanted to keep reading.

Livia: (Blank stare)

Dungeon transforms into hotel conference room.  Carrion eaters disappear.  Screams from neighboring tables transform into polite conversation.  Tongues of flame turn out to be smartphone LCD displays.

Hehe, yeah, so the first few minutes took a few days off my life, but the encouraging feedback afterwards counteracted that, for (hopefully)  no let loss of lifespan.   And after I stopped pscyhing myself out, I realized that Agent was very nice.

But anyways, on to the conference tips.




Writing Tips (On writing children, but applicable to other characters)

Observe kids in the age range you're writing. How do they move? How do they interact? For example, ever noticed that toddlers have a bow legged stance and a stomach-forward way of moving? Even if you don't write that out, it will show through in your writing.
 -- Lauren Grodstein, author of A Friend of the Family

In the same way, listen to them talk. Listen to their patterns of speech.
-- Lauren Grodstein
[Note from Livia: Alan Rinzler also has a good article on eavesdropping for dialogue on his blog]

If your research is thorough and people still aren't believing your character, then it's a writing problem, not a research problem. Make your writing strong and authoritative enough that the readers have to believe it.
-- Lauren Grodstein

Generally speaking, the YA market responds to big drama. A girl reconciling with mom? Maybe. A girl reconciling with mom after Dad dies in a space shuttle explosion? More marketable.
--Lauren Grodstein



On Platform and Publicity

If you're an aspiring fiction writer, focus your time on making your book better rather than on blogging. Unless your numbers are huge, blog followings won't help you get published.
– Julie Barer, Barer Literary
[Note from Livia: The other panelists agreed with this, and I've also been seeing this advice elsewhere  -- it seems like there is a  backlash against the recent push for aspiring writers to build up their internet presence. What do you think?]

Five years ago, writers were beholden to their publicists to make their book known. Now you have much more control. “It’s a wonderful feeling.”
– Allison Winn Scotch, author of The One That I Want


On Self Publishing
There isn't as much of a stigma anymore to self publishing. Agents and editors watch self published books to see if they do well (Upwards of 15-20,000 copies sold).
– Julie Barer

While it's true that in self publishing, you get a higher percentage of the cover price, you're also taking all the financial risk of publishing the book upon yourself. In traditional publishing, you share the risk with the publisher. Remember that most books don’t earn out their advance.
– Sanj Kharbanda, VP Digital Marketing Strategy for Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Do you need a publisher? There are parallels to the music industry. If you want to be Lady Gaga, you need a traditional publisher. But just as recording technology has made it possible for indie bands to put out cds, self publishing now makes it possible for indie authors to put out their own books.
 – Joshua Benton, director of Nieman Journalism Lab at Harvard University

On Ebooks and the Digital Marketplace


On a family vacation, Julie Barer's mother started chatting with another woman on the beach.  They were both reading on their kindles, and Julie's mom thought the other woman’s book was interesting. Four seconds later, Julie's mother also owned the book.
– Julie Barer

In the digital marketplace, you get a small number of extreme blockbusters and a long tail. It’s easier than ever to get a book out, but it’s getting harder to make a lot of money from it.
– Joshua Benton

In digital formats, books are no longer limited by length. You don't have to add filler or cut out content to make a book fit the expected word count for the genre. A digital book can be just as long as it needs to be.
 – Joshua Benton



Hope you found these useful!  Let me know your thoughts.

Helpful Tips from a Harvard Writer's Conference

I recently attended Publishing Books, Memoirs, and Other Creative Nonfiction, a three day course sponsored by Harvard Medical School.

The conference was chock full of helpful tips.  If I had a smartphone, I would have tweeted the conference.  But I don't, so I just wrote these tips down for posting later.



These tips are roughly divided into categories, but beyond that, there's no particular rhyme or reason to them.  I just wrote down tips that I found useful.  Note that these are paraphrases and not quotes, so any awkward wording is my fault.  Many thanks to all the speakers and course director Julie Silver for putting together such a great conference.


On Writing Nonfiction Book Proposals

The sales records of the books you list in the Competition section are used, in conjunction with other factors, to calculate your advance.
- Regina Brooks, literary agent and author of Writing Great Books for Young Adults

If you don’t have bookscan to look up sales records, check the Amazon sales rank to get an idea for how a book is selling.
-Julie Silver, M.D., author of Super Healing

An audition video of yourself talking about your book can show your publisher that you’re able to sell your book and may help increase the advance. Publishers are looking for authenticity and passion.
–Alan Rinzler, editor, Jossey-Bass.  (Check out Alan's very informative blog, The Book Deal)

On Publishing Contracts

Deadlines are sometimes negotiable, but be aware that if a publisher
is seeking a reason not to publish your book, a missed deadline is their easiest out.
-Jacqueline Wehmueller, editor at Johns Hopkins University Press

On Platform

helpareporter.com is a website where you can sign up and be contacted if reporters need an expert to interview
- Julie Silver

Expertise is no longer enough for a platform. You need to be interacting with your potential audience via speaking engagements and/or other venues.
- Regina Brooks

Content is King: No longer should you think about the content of your book being used in just one form. The content of your book can be used on many platforms and you can be paid over and over again for the same material: video games, radio/tv shows, software apps, etc...
-Regina Brooks


On The Industry
The publishing industry isn’t dying anymore. In fact, they rebounded to record highs in 2009. Stock for Barnes and Noble went up 27.1% and Amazon 163.5%. For the last 12 months, ending in March, Barnes and Noble has opened more stores than they’ve closed.
–Alan Rinzler

Sometimes timing will affect whether a book gets accepted for publication. Editors have quotas and slots to fill. If they get a book at the right time, they may take a chance on it.
–Alan Rinzler

At least 5% of self published books eventually convert to commercial publishing.
–Alan Rinzler

On Writing

If pitching for a periodical, try to tie your pitch to a certain date to create a sense of urgency and relevance. For example, if you’re writing about hot air balloons, you may want to tie it into the 50th anniversary of ballooning.
- Katherine Russell Rich, author of Dreaming in Hindi


If you have a word that appears all the time in your book (for example, the word "healing" if you're writing a book about healing), try taping the thesaurus entry for that word on your computer monitor.
- Julie Silver


Every word counts, so detail is vital. Specificity in detail serves many purposes. It gives work its voice, particularizes character, shows rather than tells, adds energy, humor, and poetry to dialogue. Specific, microscopic detail gives work with its originality.
 - Kelly Easton, author of The Outlandish Adventures of Liberty Aimes

For help with dialogue, try reading plays. For help with prose, try reading poetry.
–Kelly Easton

To make your writing move, use more verbs and use good verbs. Replace nouns with verbs (look for words that end in –tion, -ment, or –ence). Also, replace adjectives. For example, “It was a hot, sultry afternoon” turns into “The afternoon blazed and sweated.”
 - Susan Aiello, WordsWorld consulting

People think they’re reading because they want to find out what happens, but actually, they’re reading because the author made them care about the characters.
- Michael Palmer, MD, author of The Last Surgeon


On Writing Memoir

Novels have migrated recently into memoir. The people who in the past might have written their stories as fiction are now being told to write their story as memoir.
-Katherine Russell Rich

When writing memoirs, you need to decide how to tell the story. Can you combine two minor characters into one character for storytelling purposes? It’s a tricky question, but in some cases, it's okay.
-Katherine Russell Rich

Establish the narrator immediately. Is he funny? Intellectual?
-Katherine Russell Rich

Try starting with an essay that serves as the launching place for larger work. -Katherine Russell Rich