Archive for the ‘Publishing Isn't for Sissies’ Category
Monday, February 13th, 2012
I’m an author, always writing and pitching my work to publishers and (hopefully) reaching readers with ever-new titles. Now I’m also an acquiring editor, too, officially reading other writer’s submissions, searching for the perfect new story for Entangled Publishing’s soon-to-debut Dead Sexy suspense line. Which for some has become a, “Houston. We have a problem,” moment.
“What are you thinking?” a few have asked. Let me ‘Splain.
For me, I’m seeing more options than problems these days. And where I see and understand options that are in my best interest, I act.
I’ve freelanced edited for fiction writers for years–private work stemming from the countless workshops and weekend retreats I teach about writing craft and the romance publishing industry. Before that I was an professional editor, in my senior tech writing gig. Before that…well, we won’t get into (again) how my IT training and project management experience prepared me for the type of analysis needed to break story down, understand its parts, and help people learn how to knit it all back together in their own unique way.
Because that’s all backstory. And as I tell authors, backstory is only a place to begin. Me being qualified for the gig isn’t really the point–without primo qualifications, the savvy team at Entangled wouldn’t have hired me in the first place. The real issue I had to face as I decided whether or not to take their job offer, was what did it mean, me officially moving over to the business side of this journey, at least as I work to help other authors achieve their publishing dreams.
And that, that being a conduit for another writers’ hard work transforming into a dream-come-true, IS what matters to me and the other editors at Dead Sexy. (more…)
Tags: Anna DeStefano, Dead Sexy Books, digital promotion, digital publishing, Entangled Publishing, ePublishing, fiction, fiction writer, indie publishing, publishing, traditional publishing alternatives, writing coach, writing resources, writing workshops
Posted in Publishing Isn't for Sissies | 2 Comments »
Monday, January 9th, 2012
Yes, I have five different book proposals in the works (four of them with my agent or with publishers, waiting for acquisition, finger’s crossed), but I’m also stretching my more technical/editorial muscles in new, exciting directions–I’ve been hired as an Acquiring Editor for the NEW Dead Sexy romantic suspense line at Entangled Publishing.
Officially, the new imprint is:
Dead Sexy: The Nina Bruhns Collection.
And today’s the launch/announcement of our new baby!
If you know Nina, as I do, you’ll be as excited as I am by this announcement. She and I and our other newly hired editor Susan Meier are already working with authors and thrilling stories you’re going to love, come the May launch of Dead Sexy. What a great team, including our managing editor, Vicki Wilkerson!
The Dead Sexy editors were successful, award-winning, best selling authors first. All of us. Now we’re following our passion for teaching and nurturing and helping other writers fulfill their publishing dreams.
We at Dead Sexy strive to be the exciting home every successful romantic suspense author is dying to have. And Entangled is a digital-first publisher that puts authors first. An amazing partnership from the get-go!
Check back often in 2012 for weekly Publishing Isn’t for Sissies and How We Write posts that are taking on even greater meaning and purpose for me, as well as more updates from my popular Dream Theories and Psychic Realm and Soul of the Matter and Things my Teenager Says series.
Now that you know what’s kept me away from regular blog posts these last few months, let me say it’s great to be back. I couldn’t be happier about the horizon before me ;o)
Join me.
It’s going to be an exciting ride!
Tags: Anna DeStefano, anna's world, creativity & inspiration, Dead Sexy Books, digital publishing, Entangled Publishing, Nina Bruhns, publishing, Susan Meier, Vicki Wilkerson, writer resource, writing, writing articles, writing coach
Posted in Publishing Isn't for Sissies | 7 Comments »
Thursday, January 5th, 2012
What new facet of the publishing business will you conquer this year? With all the changes rushing at us, what’s your greatest fear? How can you turn that perceived weakness into an asset? Small press or indie digital publishing has long been my wishy-washy place.
Yes, I can publishing solo, but do I want to? Yes, there are small indie digital presses out there, but do I trust their ever-evolving business models. In the end, I realized the real question was: Do I trust myself, without the umbrella of a large, established publisher propping up both me and my work?
I love my traditional publishers and hope to always have a home in print. I respect most of the inroads these huge corporations are making into digital media, too, though the changes they’re enacting have been slow to come and even slower to implement. Which has left a huge opportunity open for me to make a digital impact with my writing without them… But until lately I’ve been too hesitant to investigate those options on my own.
- Where will I be without a major press behind me?
- Will anyone notice if I go out on my own?
- Will my publisher/agent be less enthusiastic about my work, if I’m also self/indie publishing in the digital market?
- Will I be wasting a lot of time I should be spending writing, by taking on even more “other” business beyond the hours I need to focus each day on my creative pursuits?
Hard questions, all of them. And each question sprung from a core fear of the change happening all around me. Because the reality is, the playing field of publshing that I thought I’d conquered when I signed my first traditional book contract is gone. A new world with exciting new opportunities and scary pitfalls has arrived. I can’t fly beneath the radar and expect folks to find me, because I have THIS publisher or THAT one backing me.
In this publishing world, a writer is either a brand/entity unto herself, or she won’t be found, period.
- Traditional publishers expect us to do all the things we have to do to be successful as self/indie published authors.
- Branding is essential to a book’s success now, regardless of how it was published.
(more…)
Tags: Anna DeStefano, digital promotion, digital publishing, indie publishing, promotion, writer resource, writing, writing articles, writing coach, writing workshops
Posted in Publishing Isn't for Sissies | 4 Comments »
Wednesday, December 28th, 2011
I wanted this Wednesdays writing blog is your one-stop INSPIRATION destination for your 2012 creativity and publishing dreams. How will you excel? How will you write every day, even amidst conflict, chaos and adversity? How will you create that which you alone were put on this earth to bring to life through story? After all, isn’t 2012 supposed to be the end of the world… In that case, we better get a move on. We’re running out of time ;o)
Despite 2011’s challenges (on top of 2010’s ;o), both with my personal health and the industry upheaval happening around all of us, I find myself giddy at the thought of what this newest year in our lives will bring. More ownership of our destinies and the fruits of our writing labors. More opportunity than ever before to reach readers clamoring for the escape that you bring them. More ways to engage your soul in your work, and take every chance that could lead you forward.
Move. That’s my overall goal, my “How” for 2012.
- I will move forward.
- I will take initiative and take chances and take opportunity and run with them all.
- I will ask the right questions and listen to those I trust to share their insight and choose, without fear, what my next course of action will be. Then the next.
- I will role with the punches and move forward despite obstacles and setbacks.
- I will believe that there is success awaiting me around every corner, and I will work my ass off to claim those victories.
What are yours?
2012 is shaping up as a year where we can very much shape our reality simply by the viewpoint and perspective in which we choose to see our world.
- Do you see exciting opportunity or scary change?
- Are you ready to dive in and work hard, or too tired to start over yet again?
- Do you learn from past mistakes and roads not taken, or do you use failure as an excuse to stop trying?
(more…)
Tags: 2012, Anna DeStefano, anna's world, creativity & inspiration, Goals, New Years Resolutions, writing, writing articles, writing coach, writing craft, writing resources, writing workshops
Posted in How We Write, Publishing Isn't for Sissies | 1 Comment »
Wednesday, July 13th, 2011
I’ve been asked to HoWW blog more about putting the writing first…even when we’re being told (and seeing) EVERYthing else in the business is more important. Especially the insanity we call social media (yesterday’s topic, where I ranted about writing first, because who knows what’s really making a difference on Facebook and Twitter anyway, no matter what the “experts” say).
It’s funny, when you think about it. Blogging about not blogging or tweeting or FB statusing so much that you never groove on your craft. Your art. Your purpose to begin with for dipping your toe in the Internet mustof “connecting.” We try to carve out niche in this great beyond. #weWRITE is a great example, which Jen Talty and I started after a few months of HoWW blog posts, to get writers talking about writing alone on Twitter, not just pimping their books or blogs or promo platforms.
We work to be relevant and plugged in and visible. But why? To support our writing, yes. But we do that best BY writing. To support our career? Better. But many of the folks doing the social media thing most fervently don’t have creative writing careers yet. They’re following the advice of social medial gurus telling them that building a following and pseudo platform (before there’s anything to sell from said stage) is more important to publishers these days than the product of the hard, daily, grinding writing work they’ve yet to do long enough to publish. To connect? That’s more to the point, I think.
We write alone, as I said yesterday, most of the time. And social media is a great way to connect with other writers, those we admire in the business, and, yes, those we trust to advise us about our journey. But it’s the massive scope of that very content we’re daily struglling to take in that, in my opinion, begins to overtake the writing itself, unless we’re very careful.
Because here’s the thing for me–anyone, ANYone, telling you to spend any significant portion of your day doing anything BUT writing, is doing damage to your chances of publishing. (more…)
Tags: Anna DeStefano, digital promotion, digital publishing, ebooks, ePublishing, indie publishing, PR, promotion, RWA Nationals, social media, Thriller Fest, writer, writer resource, writing, writing articles
Posted in How We Write, Publishing Isn't for Sissies | 15 Comments »
Tuesday, July 12th, 2011
RWA National’s and the Thrillerfest workshop grids were amazing this year. So much variety, you couldn’t keep up. Amazing depth. Still, on nearly every panel one topic reigned. Social Media. Almost like it’s more important now than the writing and the books. How do publishers use it? How do they want their authors to use it? How do wannabe authors and publishers need to use it? You don’t use it??? What’s WRONG WITH YOU!
And no, I’m not exaggerating. I’m not just talking about the panels focusing specifically on the use of social medial for book promotion, though Shelia Clover English’s panel at Thrillerfestwas absolutely the best of the bunch. Check her out. Download her talk, whenever they make the audio available on the TFest website. Get on board the train to your future…
When I say social media’s taking over, what I mean is that everyone was talking about it, in practically every workshop, panel, and meeting I attended the last two weeks. As I said yesterday, no one knows for sure what’s happening to the publishing industry, but EVERYone seems to think that the old way of promoting and reaching readers is evolving into something else, no one’s really sure what, involving social media.
Several times a day, (more…)
Tags: Anna DeStefano, digital promotion, digital publishing, ebooks, ePublishing, indie publishing, PR, promotion, RWA Nationals, social media, Thriller Fest, writer, writer resource, writing, writing articles
Posted in Publishing Isn't for Sissies | 2 Comments »
Monday, July 11th, 2011
Publishing Isn’t for Sissies is one of my most popular blog threads. Two weeks away in NY, both at RWA Nationals and Thrillerfest, and everywhere I turned writers asked me to post more. So, first day back, what am I prattling about–What is New York publishing looking like/for?
Interestingly enough, I’m not sure anyone at either conference had a definitive answer.
There was lots of talk about new digital offerings, for example from Harlequin (Carina Press) and Harper Collins/Avon (Impulse). The major houses are very aware that the digital future of publishing is now, even though they’re still not ready to pay authors an advance for dipping their toes into “traditional” experiments into the medium.
At the Avon spotlight,the editors were talking about quick turn around and prolific authors and getting excited about how quickly they could get your content up on their websites. Lots of assurances that you’d get great editing and covers and face time on a publisher site they say has heavy traffic, plus the books will be out there on Amazon, etc. But with so many titles going out the door, and the covers they were raving about honestly looked like something my teen could photoshop on his laptop, and talk of fast writing and editorial and revisions that sounds pretty close to flash fiction at times, you have to wonder how anything but their lead authors’ books will get enough attention to sell well.
They do have a great plan for using the digital publishing of novellas and such to promo mass market paperback releases of the star authors. Those ebooks should get promoted out the ying yang, and it should help both the digital and print sales of the corresponding mass market releases. But the rest of the books, it seems, will pretty much be on their own.
Let me do the math for you, if this is the case. No advance. No heavy online promotion. No digital sales to speak of. No money. (more…)
Tags: Anna DeStefano, Avon Impulse, Carina Press, digital promotion, digital publishing, ebooks, ePublishing, Harlequin, indie publishing, PR, promotion, RWA Nationals, Thriller Fest, writer, writer resource, writing, writing articles
Posted in Publishing Isn't for Sissies | 8 Comments »
Thursday, May 26th, 2011
Last May, I was working with my editor and my agent and my family and my doctor, to try and find a way to finish Secret Legacy. Because if I didn’t, there was a very real chance I’d lose my nerve and never attempt another novel. My health was in that bad a place. Fast forward 12 months, and this is me and Secret Legacy this May, at a spotlight signing at the Book Expo in New York City.
Both my beautiful mainstream novels were there, actually, repackaged as sci-fi/fantasy, because that’s what Secret Legacy became with each word I wrote and rewrote last year, until it emerged as a dream come true I hadn’t fully grasped until I held the finished draft in my hands.
The opportunity to sign at BEA came at a difficult time this year, when I could only make it for a day. But I went anyway, because when dreams call you, you go.
Yes, I was as tired as I look in the photo, from flying late the night before and not getting much sleep and getting up early that morning to catch car service into NYC. But I was surrounded by enthusiastic associates from my publishing house. And readers and librarians and book sellers who flocked around our table and got more and more excited about the dream theory and parapsychology and metaphysical concepts in my fiction, the more I answered questions and talked about what inspired me. And there the vice president of the publisher was, holding books open so I could sign them quicker because the line was getting ridiculously long. Amazing. Absolutely surreal and amazing, to feel that kind of support and encouragement and positive energy surrounding something that almost never was.
There were smiles and wows and surprised expressions from readers, and looks of satisfaction and pride on those publishing faces around me. And I was glowing. Exhausted, but glowing as I took the red-eye home to my family and the “other” life I’m so lucky to have here, too. That one day was, hands-down, the most exciting experience I’ve had with readers yet. And I’ve been doing convention and conference signing events for the last six years.
All just a year beyond me wondering if I’d be able to finish Secret Legacy or ever again travel to meet fans and readers and my business associates.
Some days are still hard, and sometimes my system’s still not back one hundred percent, but I couldn’t stop writing a year ago. And I’ll never stop wanting to connect with readers who love what I write, the way I was lucky to have the chance to this week. I’ll always be grateful for the family I have supporting me here at home, as well as the extended family I’ve built in my writing world that are always there for me, making amazing dreams like this one come true.
It’s been an amazing year.
Here’s to revising an even more fearless, exciting, dream-filled year to come ;o)
Tags: Anna DeStefano, anna's world, creativity & inspiration
Posted in Anna's "Soul of the Matter", Books, Publishing Isn't for Sissies | 2 Comments »
Thursday, May 19th, 2011
Dorchester’s abrupt shift from a mass market publishing model to focusing on digital and trade paperback releases has been dissected and discussed and bandied about for kicks and giggles by just about everyone. Mostly by folks not involved in the ongoing change. But was it so abrupt? Was it Dorchester’s choice alone? Was the story really simple enough to be covered in a tweet or a Facebook update?
The emotions running high then and now were real enough. The circumstances weren’t great for anyone involved, either before Dorchester’s move or since. The publishing industry itself, never a source of enduring security for most who challenge it, was has been in a very public tailspin for the last few years.
Exactly how much of Dorchester’s move was about one publishing house’s floundering dynamic? How much of it was industry trends playing out on a small enough stage for us to dissect every bit of it and hopefully learn something new?
From the start, I wanted Publishing Isn’t for Sissies to be about seeing the bigger picture. There’s a larger story here. Every publisher and author is playing it out, in various arenas, trying to find their place in what we’re all about to become. I applaud the brave approach Vice President Tim DeYoung and the rest of Dorchester’s staff are taking to innovate and pioneer an uncharted path they’re determined to make work for their authors.
To see a bit more of that bigger picture for yourself, spend a few minutes looking at our publishing world through Tim’s eyes…
******
Some people have asked me why Dorchester turned from mass market centric publishing to a digital and trade model. The response to this question involves an understanding of the marketplace and the changes within.
I don’t think anyone will disagree with the statement that the biggest trend in the publishing industry is the extraordinary growth of the e-book. Articles, blogs, and editorials are everywhere you turn, trumpeting the demise of print. There is no question that e-books seem to be the future, what with all the new platforms springing up, some that feature interactive participation or even the use of color. Still, even with the fantastic growth in the last couple of years, e-book sales are far overshadowed by the sales of physical books.
Several years ago, the wholesale marketplace started going through very real upheaval. (more…)
Tags: Anna DeStefano, Chris Keeslar, digital promotion, digital publishing, Dorchester Publishing, ebooks, ePublishing, gallies, indie publishing, Legacy Series, NetGalley, PR, promotion, reviews, Secret Legacy, Tim DeYong, writer, writer resource, writing, writing articles
Posted in Publishing Isn't for Sissies | 2 Comments »
Friday, May 6th, 2011
Dorchester Publshing’s gotten a lot of press in the seven months that I’ve waited for Secret Legacy to release. The Dorchester staff has made some tough choices about their business, as have I. PIFS has been about the story behind the drama playing out on social media’s myopic stage. Tough realities and decisions must be faced once emotions cool. I wanted this to be a place where we could share experiences and take those next steps together.
Our industry is a lightening-fast spiral of change at the moment. We’ve talked here about challenging things. We’ve kept things honest but positive and forward-thinking. We’ve already heard from a PR professional and an industry-leading agent. Now let’s dig a little deeper.
My personal impression observing Dorchester Senior Editor Chris Keeslar in my six years as a published author is that he’s widely respected by professionals in every corner of our industry.
Every author I know who’s worked with him loves how much he loves working with story and the minds that craft it. With Dorchester’s shift in publishing model, I suspect Chris is more involved than ever with the management of getting books to market. But reading his thoughts below, it’s clear that story and nurturing an author’s voice and career are still Chris’ ultimate focus.
He’s put a public face on each issue Dorchester has encountered. He’s handled these complex situations as best he could as quickly as he could, providing whatever information and action and answers were needed. I can’t imagine the journey’s been any easier for him than the authors he continues to champion. But he’s never publicly reacted in anger or frustration. I find it inspirational, his brand of integrity and optimism in the face of these challenges.
I’m thrilled that Chris is sharing his thoughts with us today on how a traditional publisher can help a digitally published author…
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“I’ve been thinking about the changing landscape of publishing recently. Here’s what I’ve decided: (more…)
Tags: Anna DeStefano, Chris Keeslar, digital promotion, digital publishing, Dorchester Publishing, ebooks, ePublishing, gallies, indie publishing, Legacy Series, NetGalley, PR, promotion, reviews, Secret Legacy, Tim DeYong, writer, writer resource, writing, writing articles
Posted in Publishing Isn't for Sissies | 8 Comments »
