Should You Self-Publish?

Generally publishers are not interested in a self-published book.  However, if you can be sure of selling 3,000 to 4,000 copies, you can show the publisher you have a market.  The people I know who have been successful at this sort of thing are very out-going, good marketers, self-promoting with high-energy. 

12 Reasons Agents Dump Your Book

Here are the most common reasons an agent puts down your book:
1.  It has a prologue which gives information that happened a significant time before Chapter 1.  Instead, make it Chapter 1.
2.  Descriptions go on and on without any action.  Instead, work descriptions into the story rather than having them stand alone.  Here's a good example from Frederick Buechner's, Telling Secrets:  "One night we went to compline in an Episcopal cathedral, and in the coolness and near emptiness of that great vaulted place, in the remoteness of the choir's voices chanting plainsong, in the grayness of the stone, I felt it again--the passionate restraint and hush of God."
3.  It has a ragged, fuzzy point of view.  Instead, have a series of significant, meaningful scenes, each moving the story forward to its conclusion.
4.  The opening is predictable.  Instead, start with something surprising, or a brand new way of expressing your idea, or a metaphor that is compelling and readers can easily relate to it.
5.  It begins with, "My name is...."
6.  Nothing happens in Chapter 1.
7.  The writing is full of cliches, time-worn patterns of speech; or the reader is led to believe one thing and then tricked, such as, in the last chapter the whole story turns out to have been a dream.
8.  The main character in Chapter 1 dies.
9.  The characters in the story are too perfect, no flaws, ... boring.
10. The writing has inauthentic dialogue.  No one really talks that way.
11. The story goes on and on and no plot is in sight.
12. All the information about the characters is dumped in the first few pages.  Instead, flesh out the characters over time in what they say, do or don't say or don't do.

If Asked For A Synopsis

If an agent or publisher finds your submission intriguing, they may ask you for a synopsis.  For the best chance of having yours read, make it one page of four to five paragraphs, although it could be as long as four pages.  The first paragraph should have a "hook," something as engaging as your opening scene.  The next paragraph or two
should contain a mixture of character sketches and why they are worth reading about, interlaced with the plot highlights.  Then the core conflict should be expressed.  Note that conflict can be between persons, a conflict of values within a character, and even conflict with the environment such as in a mountain-climbing story.  Finally, the conclusion of the tale needs to end the synopsis.  It is even better if you combine the explanation of the conflict and the conclusion in one paragraph.  While you may hesitate to tell the whole story in brief, giving away the ending, no self-respecting agent or publisher will bother with your synopsis if you don't give it to them.

Why I Disappeared for Two Weeks

How good it is to be on the recovery side of pneumonia!  What seemed to be nothing more than allergies turned into something very sinister.  Did you know you can have pneumonia and not have a fever?  Well, I just learned  you can. Thank God I'm attuned to my body and noticed that I'd taken a turn for the worse.  That got me in for a chest X-ray which confirmed the diagnosis. A bump on the road was confusion over medication.  My doctor prescribed doxycycline hyclate (dh), 100 mg.  The pharmacist declared that wouldn't help me heal from pneumonia.  The paper that came with the medicine warned that I mustn't take it with penicillin, but my doctor already had me on penicillin for a sinus infection.  Neither pharmacist nor doctor seemed to be able to help me understand just how to take the dh.  I was frazzled to say the least and feeling rotten anyway.  What to do?  I called my daughter who has "suffered much at the hands of many doctors" and she cleared it up right away--actually dh is often prescribed for pneumonia.  And, after getting clarification from my doctor, I could ignore the warnings on the paper the pharmacy gave me.  After the first dose I began to breathe easier, and now a week has passed and I'm back on my feet blogging, or is that back on my seat blogging???

Free Writing Seminar with Jennifer Lauck

A great writer of memoir (and teacher also) is doing a free telephone seminar on Thursday, May 23, 11 a.m. Pacific Coast Time. It will last about one hour.  I'll be going.  Hope you can make it.  Jennifer is the New York Times best-seller author of Blackbird and more.

Free Conference Call:

Dial-in Number: (605) 475-4000

Access Code: 369859#

 

To register email Jennifer and ask to be registered : 
jennifer@jenniferlauck.com

Mercy--An Intercessory Prayer Answered

I had been praying for Dan, a colleague, for some time when I began to feel deep compassion for his autistic son, Paul.  Paul was in his early teen years, maybe 14, when I learned he had never had a friend of his own.  One early morning during prayer, a deep distress for Paul’s healing filled my heart.  As I began to pray, holding Paul in my heart together with Jesus, I had an interior vision.  Jesus, young, vibrant, alive and full of healing power walked right into Paul’s body and then right out again.  Jesus was covered in a slime-green muck, reminding me of what comes out of my nose when my sinuses are infected.  Inwardly I felt a revulsion and alarm that Jesus was contaminated by the autism, but he quickly shed it like water off a Siberian husky’s coat, leaving it in a puddle at his feet.  He had taken it upon himself, left Paul changed, and shed the effects of it without it contaminating him one bit.  He had purified both Paul and himself.  I understood in that moment that what Jesus had done was called “Mercy.” I think it was only a week later when Dan called with prayer requests, that he told me Paul had his first friend.  Paul is now married to the love of his life and has an adopted son.

Nancy's Birth in 1942

The Very Beginning

     On the fifteenth of November, 1942, on the night of the first winter’s snow, in the shadow of the Sierra Nevada mountain range, just short of the one year anniversary of Pearl Harbor, I came into the “the biggest little city in the world,” Reno, Nevada.    Despite the fact that my young mother, about to send her husband off to war, would have preferred to hop the train at which their car waited, I emerged at St. Mary’s hospital in the company of the prayerful and practical Dominican nuns who hovered over the healing premises like the Holy Spirit hovering over the waters at the creation of the world.

     For the first three years of my life, destiny placed me in a semblance of paradise, in a garden, a piece of heaven on earth that would anchor my soul and become a spiritual magnet by drawing me toward the mystery of love at the heart of the universe. We lived in the family compound with my mother's home on one corner, my great-grandmother on the second corner, my grandparents on the third corner with the barn making up the fourth.  The garden was in the middle, as all the back doors led to it. 

            My father’s return from the army in World War II brought about my departure from paradise.  We  moved to a little stretch of dwellings called Tietjeville, between the country towns of Gardnerville and Minden just 50 miles south of Reno, Nevada.  With the help of my grandfather, our family bought a retail store called The Minden Dry Goods.  Having very little ready cash, we made our first stand in a remodeled chicken coop.  At the age of 4, here was where I was surprised to learn that certain words, if used, would plunk me down in our dark and dirty woodshed complete with black widow spiders.  My first boyfriend, Larry Taylor, was the culprit who taught me how to swear.  I have no idea what words he taught me.  They have been completely washed from my mind and my mouth with the help of Lifebuoy deodorant soap.  This was the beginning of a variety of disciplinary events, when I’m just being myself, which still continue to take me by surprise. I have no intention of disobeying rules, human or divine, yet somehow I can find myself isolated and punished, feeling completely puzzled by the whole thing.  I suspect this is one of the common experiences of being human.