The Decision to Self-Publish

A lot of things have changed since I last posted here.

Most importantly, I have decided to self-publish.

For most of my life, I saw self-publishing as something weak and amateur. I figured I would never “stoop” to that level. But after two years of devoting my time to sending out query letters and researching who would be a good “fit” for me, I saw no fruit for all my hard work. As conceited as it may sound, I knew the problem was not my writing. I know that my writing is good, and I have enough confirmations of such. After all, every writer has to be a bit conceited about his or her own work in order to devote so much time and energy to it. So why couldn’t I get anyone to pay attention to me?

Through a lucky sequence of contacts and events, I came across an offer to take a trial class with an author named Cathie Beck about how she successfully used self-publishing to nail an agent and a major publishing deal. This idea was new to me. The self-publishing led her to a major publishing deal? I didn’t think that was how it worked. I thought that if you self-published, you get put on some sort of invisible blacklist with a heading like: “These authors have fallen into the pit of self-publishing, therefore they are worthless.”

I no longer see it that way at all. Perhaps, at one time, the market even was like that. But times are a-changing. And so am I!

I don’t want to give away all the secrets of Cathie Beck’s class. If you are considering self-publishing I highly consider you to contact her and sign up for the four-week lesson. More than anything, it inspired me, and showed me that self-publishing was not necessarily a sign of failure. If used correctly, it can become a tool for progress.

I’ve noticed during my last two years of submitting to agencies and publishers that many of them wanted to know about any audience I’d already gathered for myself. This always stumped me. Audience? What audience? I hadn’t been published! This should have been a sign to me that I could have been sharing more of my work, and that it was okay to start gathering an audience for myself.

Every once and awhile, too, I would come across something in an agency’s clarifications that said: “Does not want self-published works.” And I would think to myself, “Well, duh!” But now that I look back at it all in a different light, I think that out of the hundreds of agencies I’ve looked at, I only saw three agencies who did not want self-published works.

The stigma on self-publishing is lifting.

In any case, there’s a bit on how I came to my decision to self-publish. Now, I want to tell you a little about how wonderful it is. It feels fantastic. I am openly sharing my work with people, I am talking professionally to editors and illustrators, and I actually feel more professional about my writing than I ever have before. I have started to release short stories online, long before I release the whole book, in order to start gathering that “audience” I’ve always wanted, and that the agents want, too!

I used to think that writing good work would be enough to get me published, eventually. Unfortunately, that’s simply not the case. An author needs to understand the business. In the past, I refused to look too deeply into the business-side of things: it was simply too confusing, and time-consuming! But it truly is a necessity, and I know now that agents probably weren’t interested in picking me up because they saw that I hadn’t done of the heavy-lifting necessary to get a good book read. I see now that even authors who are successful are still required to blog, keep up websites, etc. etc., all for the sake of marketing. Agents will only pick up someone they know can and will do those things.

I will continue to talk about my ongoing journey here every once and awhile, but to see it in action, visit my new blog: http://talesofmercia.wordpress.com, or my website, www.jaydenwoods.com. I’m kicking it up a notch!

Hope this helps,

Jayden

New Book, Same Journey

Funny how life works, sometimes. I started this blog to try and gather a small community for myself online. I wasn’t prepared to advertise it, however, and got quickly discouraged when my stats remained low. Meanwhile, the original purpose of the blog in itself–to catalog my journey to write my ninth book–was also fading in relevance.  Though I got 29,000 words into my project, I felt as if writing every single paragraph brought on a new headache. My heart was not in the story as deeply as I needed it to be. And finally, I came to terms with the fact that if it caused such a great strain on my psyche, perhaps I shouldn’t be writing it.

Now that I’ve begun to recover from these challenges, I’ve realized that they are quite appropriate to the purpose of my blog, after all.  Sometimes, to write a good book, you must be able to realize when your heart’s no longer in a project and move on.  I think that I’ll eventually return to the “Alexandra” project. It was a good idea and I did enjoy certain aspects of it. Right now, however, my heart is calling me somewhere else.  I want to write a sequel to my last book.

Out of the eight books I’ve written, only two of them were together as a duo.  Later, when I got more serious about trying to publish my work, I scared myself away from writing “sequels” and “trilogies.” I told myself that it was pointless enough to write one book that no one would read. How much worse, then, would it be to write a book that was also dependent on reading the book before it?

Recently, I finally met someone else who is a passionate writer, and also in school for writing. Her lessons have taught that her publishers are actually more likely to publish books–especially science fictions and fantasies–that carry the promise of sequels. If the book is a success, that’s more money for them, right? Franchises are much loved in business. The more I thought about it, the more I realized she was right.

Though my last book was not a science fiction or fantasy, it still carries great potential as a series. Even when I started it, I occasionally paused to foreshadow my ideas for future books. In any case, I’ve convinced myself that it’s safe to do what my heart really wants me to do, and write the sequel to my historical fiction.

The truth is, whether published or unpublished, writing has to come from the heart. Otherwise, what’s the point? My sister gave me a wonderful book for Christmas called “Letters to a Young Poet” by Rainer Maria Rilke, who offers great advice. “Go into yourself. Find out the reason that commands you to write; see whether it has spread its roots into the very depths of your heart; confess to yourself whether you would have to die if you were forbidden to write” (pg 6).

Clearly, I can’t go along in life without writing, otherwise I wouldn’t keep torturing myself with the practice. I am glad to see that I am not alone.  But more than anything, I am reminded that writing is not about pleasing the masses, it is about expressing oneself. At this stage in my life, there is little point in writing another book for the sake of how “publishable” it seems. I want to get it published, but that is not what matters to me the most. What matters to me most is writing something good that expresses me.

So that is what I am doing. I am returning to a project that I have tried desperately to get published and not yet found success. I am returning to it because though I haven’t yet found a publisher or agency that believes in it, I know that it is good. And if I know it, well then, it must be true.

Ugh–and nothing else

I’m still trying to write my new novel, but I’m plagued with insecurities. I’m trying not to let it get to me, but it’s so hard. I’m supposed to be here writing advice to writers starting their first novel or so, but I’m finding it so difficult, so painful and anxiety-ridden.

All that’s left is writing for the hell of it. Literally.

Facing Rejection

If you want to get published, get ready to face a lot of rejection first. I’m still not published yet, and it’s hard to believe I ever will be based on the number of rejection letters I’ve received.  But no matter how many rejection letters you read, you must not give up, or they win! Let your anger spur you on if you must, for mere sorrow will not help you very much.

Nonetheless, I must confess: no matter how much I try to prepare myself, every new rejection letter is like a wooden plank whacking me across the knees and knocking me off my feet.  I’d like to say that you get used to it, and maybe you’re someone who will, but me? Never. Every time I’m knocked down, it gets harder to pull myself up. But I keep doing it anyway, because what other option do I have?

Stephen King mentions in his book On Writing that each time he got a rejection letter, he would spear it onto a pike he kept under his bed. I love that idea. I’m not doing anything quite so dramatic, but I am saving all of my rejection letters, and I advise you to do the same. I’m watching the stack grow. On the one hand, it’s not very flattering to look at. But on the other hand, I can look at that stack and feel that with every new rejection letter, I’m getting closer to one of acceptance. I picture the day when I’m published and I can burn all those rejection letters to ashes.

In the hopes of helping you along your own rejection-ridden journey, I’m going to copy some of my many rejection letters for you in this post. If you’re starting the process of trying to get published, you can get an idea here of what to expect. Or, if you’re already trying to get published yourself, you can know you’re not the only one receiving these letters.

In my opinion, the easiest rejections to take are quick and to the point. There’s nothing personal about them, and when it’s your project of migraines and tears that has just been thrown into the trash can, it can be refreshing to know (or at least assume) it had nothing to do with the quality of your work.  Here’s a rejection letter I received from Fineprint Literary Management.  It didn’t have my name on it, nor  even “Dear Author.” It simply said:

Thank you for querying us.   I’m afraid we’re swamped with material at present and really not taking on new clients.

I wish you luck in your search for representation.

Regards,
Peter Rubie

I didn’t really shed any tears over that rejection. I just realized they couldn’t fit me into their client list. Time to move on.

What you’ll see more often is a slightly longer rejection letter, apologizing for the fact it’s not personally written.  Here is an example from the Irene Goodman Literary Agency.

Dear Author,

We dislike having to send you a standard form letter as much as we’re sure you dislike receiving one. Unfortunately, the volume of unsolicited mail prevents us from giving more individual responses.

We did review your proposal, and unfortunately we are going to pass on representing it.

We appreciate the hard work and diligence needed to get in the door, and since this is a highly subjective business, you may well find success elsewhere. We wish you all the best with your writing.

Regards,

The Irene Goodman Literary Agency

Oddly enough, the longest and sweetest rejection letter I’ve ever received hurt my morale the most. Maybe that’s just me. This was a rejection letter I received from the Larsen Pomada Literary Agency.

Thank you for sharing your work with me. I know that writing a book is a time-consuming and emotional process, so I appreciate the effort you have expended to reach this point in your publishing journey. Alas, I must reject what you have been kind enough to submit.

Like the rest of the arts, publishing is a very subjective business. Even though the founders of the agency have written or coauthored 14 books, most of which have been successful, they still get rejected from time to time. And although we have sold books to more than 100 publishers since 1972, some of our clients’ work is still rejected. Nor do all of the books that we sell succeed. These are the realities of the publishing industry.

Michael, Elizabeth and I are eager to find new books and writers, and we love to get excited about them.  But the only way we can make a living is by selling books to the large and medium-sized New York publishers, and selling books by new writers to big publishers is becoming more difficult.

Like editors, we receive thousands of submissions a year and reject more than ninety percent of them. This forces us to use a form letter.  But rejecting manuscripts that become successful books is a publishing tradition.

Assume I’m wrong. Persevere until your books reach the goals you set for them.  I can’t suggest a publisher or an agent who might be interested in a particular writer’s work, but directories, your publishing network, and the Association of Authors’ Representatives might lead you to the agent you need.  Persistence rewards talent.  I can’t make a living saying no, but as author Joe Girard says: “Every no gets you closer to yes.”

I wish you the best of luck with your writing career.  Our website has information you may find helpful—-www.larsenpomada.com.

–

Larsen Pomada Literary Agents
Office: 1029 Jones Street, San Francisco, CA 94109

Cleary, she is a kind woman trying to write a kind rejection letter. No one can fault her for that. We writers are fragile creatures. So fragile that when I read this letter, it tore me up inside. I had faced so many rejections already and continue to face so many rejections still, I didn’t need someone who didn’t appreciate me to tell me to keep on trucking. I prefer to think of my rejectors as my enemies in order to find the strength to keep going, like these submissions are battles in an ongoing war.  So this felt like my enemy was reaching out and patting my head, saying “There there, kiddo, cheer up. Way to go writing a book! That’s wonderful! Now run along and leave me alone.” I don’t know. It just upset me. But obviously she is a nice agent, and I am sure it is wonderful to work with her. *Sigh.*

In contrast, the most encouraging rejection I’ve ever received came from the Writers of the Future Contest. I submit my novellas to that contest quite often and I’ve never won.  I’ve seen the rejection letter many times. But one day, I received it in the mail with some changes made.

Dear Contestant Jayden, (she wrote my name in by hand!)

Your story did not win in the 2nd Quarter of the Contest, (ending 31 March 2009).

You still have time to submit a story for the next quarter ending on the 30th of June and I do hope you are in the process of writing it already or have already sent it in.

The judges always stress to our winners and contestants that you should write as much as possible.

I look forward to seeing your next entry.

Best regards, Joni Labqui, Contest Director. (Personally signed!)

And then, handwritten below was: Submit another story soon!

The  fact that  the director of this contest had gone through the trouble of writing a note on my rejection form made me feel like I’d gotten through to her. It was like she wanted me to win, but my previous submission just wasn’t what she was looking for. It spurred me on to write the best science fiction novella I’ve ever written.

But guess what? It didn’t win.

I’ve now come to terms with the possibility she might have personally written on several rejection letters, just to encourage people. All I know is that she had never done that before and hasn’t done it since.  Nevertheless … that was definitely my favorite rejection letter.

I have received a few other personally written rejections. They were all very brief and said something like “Your story failed to pull me in.” Nothing helpful or encouraging at all.  Still, I appreciated their effort at human-to-human contact amidst their busy schedules.

Hope that helps.

–Jayden Woods

Conducting Research

My last book project was a historical fiction. And not just a casual historical fiction, like “here’s the general time and place,” but nitty and gritty historical fiction, as in almost every single character was once a living, breathing person. For my new book, the research won’t be quite so in depth (I’m researching Greek mythology), but it will also go faster based on what I’ve learned from my last experience. In this post, I’ll talk about what I’ve learned about how to best conduct research in an efficient and cheap manner.

Most people–like me, at first–will probably just Google their subject and go from there. Due to the wealth of information online, some of which is helpful and a lot of which is junk, you might get caught in this step and never advance past it.  So my first advice to you is not to start out by Googling your subject.  Check out at least one of the resources below first.

1.  Google Books  http://books.google.com/

Can’t be much different from just “googling” something, right? Wrong.  Google Books is a resource of published books, some of which have been around for centuries. It’s a goldmine of useful information without making you wade through shit to find them.

Many literary texts are available here in full or in part. Even if the book is only partially available, you can usually read enough to know whether it’s a book that will be useful to you.   Get an idea of the published texts on the subject using Google Books, and you may find everything you need right there.

2. Your Local Library

I know, obvious, right? But even so, I think people often underestimate the significance of visiting a library and looking for books on your subject, especially considering how much info is available online. But visiting the library isn’t just wonderful because you can borrow books for free. I guarantee you that just by walking through the book stacks and browsing your category you’ll learn something useful.

Surrounding the books directly pertinent to your subject, you’ll probably see books you never would have expected to be relevant to you unless you happened upon them in the same category as the ones with obvious titles.   It will force you to expand your brain beyond the tiny piece-in-time you want to research and help you connect it to other valuable information.  You might realize that you shouldn’t just be researching the Celts; you should also be researching the Romans, who strongly influenced their culture. Or something like that.

3. The Gutenburg Project http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page

This is kind of the same idea as Google Books, but there are a lot of books available here in entirety.  Books are available here because their copyright expired; in other words, they’re old. But when you’re researching history, that’s a good thing, right? If you’re writing about something that happened over 100 years ago, most likely, a text from that time period will be available here.

As I’m currently researching Greek mythology, I am thrilled to find “Bulfinch’s Mythology” available on Project Gutenburg, for instance.

_____

So that’s what I’ve learned about conducting historical research so far.  Once you’ve looked at the resources above, Google or read Wikipedia to your heart’s content. But I say again, if you do that *first,* you may fall into the trap of “Oh, this is plenty!” And if you’re serious about your work, oh writer, then no, it’s probably not plenty.  Anyone can Google your subject or look it up on Wikipedia.  If you want to set your work apart, go the extra mile! Or at least an extra yard! Hell, just an extra little step is all it really takes, eh?

Anyway,  back to the writing process–my writing process, in any case, which may or may not be different from yours.  I’m the sort of person who likes to start writing the actual story as soon as possible. To me, it’s kind of like what Stephen King describes in his book, On Writing: stories are like fossils that we dig up in our heads. They are already buried there, ready to be removed in one whole piece. So as soon as I discover the fossil, I want to start digging!

In the case of “Alexandra’s story,” my current book-in-progress, I did enough research to put the framework of “Alexandra’s story” together and hear the voices of the characters–some of which are Greek gods–in my head. Then, once I started writing, I surrounded myself with other works inspired by my subject. That is my next piece of advice to you. Once you’re doing the actual work, reward yourself with entertainment by other artists that is relevant to your subject.

For my last book, which took place during the Viking Age in England, I started reading a series by Bernard Cornwell–who writes fantastic historical fiction–set in the same time period. This was not only inspiring, but got me to think of a few things I hadn’t thought of before.  Now that I’m writing about Greek gods, I eat my breakfast reading old poetry about them. And if I really want to make my brain relax, I’ll watch an episode of that silly TV show, “Hercules.” Okay, it’s a really stupid show and doesn’t teach me much substantial about mythology. But it still gives me a perspective on how someone else views my subject, and what other audiences have enjoyed about said subject.

Hope that helps.

–Jayden Woods

The Story of Writing (and Publishing) a Novel

As I write my ninth novel and seek to publish all the ones that came before it, I will contemplate upon and rant about my experiences.

Most of my life, I wrote for fun. But for the last two years of my life, I have thrown away my other career goals in order to focus on getting something–anything–published, and make writing my bread and butter.  Have I had any luck so far? Of course not.  If I had, why would I be creating a blog on which to rant about my frustrations?

As I embark upon my ninth novel of substantial length, I find myself weighed down too heavily by self-doubts and crushed dreams to carry on with ease. At first I think, “Why should I write something no one will ever read?” But then I pat myself on the shoulder, and I think to myself, “You should be proud of yourself, Jayden. Writing a book is difficult and damn near impossible for most people. This is your ninth. And not only is it your ninth, but it’s your ninth unpublished novel. If it’s hard to write a book in the first place, how much harder is it to write a book after you’ve faced so much rejection and discouragement?” So whether I can churn out a bestseller has yet to be seen (someone would have to actually read one of my books for that to happen, eh?). But what I know is that I can write, and I can write a lot.  I must be doing something right if I can write this much at all.

So there will be some ranting. But as much as we all love ranting, there’s a time to shake your fist at the heavens, and there’s a time to stop and see if you can learn something from all the shit that has rained down upon you.  So I’m not here just to vent stinky gas. I am here so that if you are going through something similar, perhaps you can learn from a mistake I have already made, or simply be assured you’re not the only one facing such challenges. And if you’re someone who has already waded through the shit and found success, you can either pitch in with a word of advice and encouragement, or just cackle evilly at the losers wallowing beneath you.

Jaded writers, unite!

Inspiration

The inspiration to write a new book always comes about as a very slow process for me. Usually, it arises from the most random of observations. Inspiration could strike while I’m walking my dog in the park (that has happened). It could strike me from a dream (shamefully, that has also happened). It could  strike me from the pages of a book or the frames of a movie (that has often happened). But the question is not so much when inspiration strikes. You can’t arrange for that to happen no matter how hard you try. The real question is: why?

My mom once convinced me to do one of those online surveys. You know, the ones that ask you a lot of weird questions then supposedly reveal something important to you about your personality. I’m sure almost all of us have done many of those quizzes either to amuse ourselves or our friends. Usually, the end result is something you can pretend to boast about: “Oh look, I’m a pirate!” “Oh look, if I was a Harry Potter character, I’d be Snape! Booyah!” But then the little icons fade on our Facebook pages and we forget that we were ever a pirate.

But there is one quiz I took several years ago that did reveal something valuable about me, and that’s the one my mom talked me into. It was one of those trick quizzes that misleads you with unrelated questions then asks you to name a random food at the end. 99% of the people who took the survey thought of the same food at the end. I can’t remember the specific food right now, but let’s say it was an apple.

I, however, thought of a carrot.

At first I thought something was wrong with me. Why didn’t I say “apple” like everyone else? Maybe I didn’t do the quiz properly. But when my mom saw the results, she got that sweet, motherly look on her face. “I had a feeling you wouldn’t be like the other 99 percent.”

So the truth is, quite often, I see the world differently than other people. Sometimes I fall into that 1 percentile. Sometimes, you do, too. And it has always been in moments like that–okay, not while thinking about carrots, but you get the analogy–when inspiration strikes.

I get inspired because there is something about the world I view differently from almost everyone else.  I see that carrot and I want to explain to the rest of the world why I see that carrot. I want to describe that carrot to them until they can see it, taste it, feel it as surely as I do.  Okay, the carrot metaphor may be wearing thin, but bear with me. In order to make people see that carrot like I do, I lead them along not with random survey questions, but with a story. Writing a story is always a minor form of persuading the world to see what you do. It’s like writing a persuasive essay in high school, but on a much more epic scale, and in a fashion that’s a hell of a lot more fun.

So in the case of my newest book, which is currently untitled but I will probably refer to as “Alexandra’s story,” inspiration came while reading, of all things, a book of the “Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter” series by Laurell K. Hamilton. Half of that series is gold. The other half is trash. I happened to be reading a book from the trash half, and I frankly got fed up. To be very general about this series in case you haven’t read it, Anita Blake begins as this bad-ass vampire killer, and gradually becomes a sexually-insecure whine-bucket.

My primary disappointment with this series is that Hamilton wrote, for a long time, a physically and psychologically strong protagonist  who’s awesomeness was double by the fact she was human–surrounded by vampires–and female–surrounded by men. Personally, I have no problem with sex and lots of it. I’m of the opinion that women can use sex to their advantage in the proper circumstances.  So imagine my disappointment as I watched Anita Blake–and, in essence, Hamilton herself–become less and less cool while losing herself to the fact that she loves sex but feels guilty for doing so.  Sex made them weak, and that disappointed me.

Enough about my disappointment in Anita Blake and her sex, because neither of those are what my book is about. The point is, reading that bad book was the beginning of an inspiration that would lead to my own novel. My emotions mulled in my head for a few days and slowly took the form of a story. I decided to create an urban fantasy with its own bad-ass female character in a world of moral, religious, and supernatural challenges. But instead of vampires, her opponents would be Greek gods.

And thus was the conception my ninth book.

Hope that helps.

–Jayden Woods