You know, once you have reached a publisher and had your manuscript accepted, you are prone to think...The worst, the hardest part, is over. My manuscript has found a home, it's going to be published, and now I can relax and get back to work on my current WIP.
WRONG! Here are some of the things I wish I had known ahead of time:
1. Patience! And more Patience! I used to be a very patient person when I was teaching, but this past year has brought out a demon that has little to no "patience" in her body. The first thing is, you sign a contract and send it back. Breathe a sigh of relief. Okay, what's next, editors? I know you're out there, when are you going to tell me what I have to edit, revise, or rewrite to get published?...Hello?...Hellllooo? You wait. And Wait. And Wait some more. You begin to wonder, I have a contract, what did they do, lose my manuscript? WHERE IS MY EDITOR?
2. You don't have just one editor, you have two. One is for Content, and she tells you what is inconsistent with your characters, where your dialogue is off, what she thinks this character should say instead of what he/she is saying, where your descriptions go off on a tangent, and what is just too much...or not enough...backstory. You can disagree with her...after all, this is your story, not hers. But you had better have a logical reason. After all this back and forth, she accepts the manuscript as Content Edited, and you go to the next phase. After WAITING, of course. Eventually, your Line Editor sends you an email, introducing herself, and then you WAIT some more. Finally, the manuscript arrives with everything the Line Editor has found wrong: commas in the wrong place ( I must be in love with commas), a period missing, do I really mean "and" here, or would some other word be better? The Line Editor is just that: she goes line by line to poke out the smallest and most unnoticable errors on your part. Finally, you and she agree, you send back the manuscript, and figure, all is done, now I can sit back and wait for the publishing date. WRONG!
3. One of the things I didn't know and wish I had was that the Cover Artist who designs the cover for your book doesn't have to read it before. My CA didn't even know the book for was kids, so her first cover, while beautiful, was so esoteric I knew kids from 10 to 14 would not get the message. So we had to dicker back and forth on that issue, and since I didn't have the option of suggesting what I'd like to see on the cover, I finally had to go with what she produced. It's okay, but not a cover I'm in love with, or would have wanted under different circumstances. So it takes some time for the CA to get around to doing what you want, or at least, what you will settle for, and again, that takes PATIENCE.
4. I think all writers have at least heard about galley sheets. But do we all know what galleys entail? I sure didn't. You get your manuscript back from the editor, with a note saying these are the galleys, and here is what you do: You go through your book, LINE BY LINE, and note everything that is possibly wrong, not there, or there but it shouldn't be. And make no mistake, there WILL be things missing, or inserted where they didn't originally exist. Why? I have no idea. After all, this manuscript has gone through multiple edits and revisions by TWO separate editors, as well as yourself, so how could there possibly be things still not right? Yawn. Trust me, things are still not right. So, you mark every error you find. But, that's the least of it. Now, you have to copy the ENTIRE sentence plus often the sentence before or after, in which the error occurred. In essence, you have two galleys: one for each page of your manuscript, plus one more for each page where you have to copy the entire sentence where the error occurred. It is agonizingly slow, painstaking, frustrating work. BUT! you must go through this whole process very, very carefully, because when you do send the galleys back, this is how your book will look when it is published.
5. Finally...at long last...eventually...everything is done and sent back to the publisher. Now what? Now you wait...patiently...for the publishing date to roll around, right? WRONG. Now is where the real work starts. Oh, you thought all of the above was the "real work?" Sorry, not so. Now is when you get to start planning your LAUNCH EVENT. This is what you do to announce the published birth of your baby, your novel. It can be a party, a book signing, a press release to the local papers and TV/radio stations, or all of the above. Whatever you plan, you must realize that all it is going to get you is heart burn and nausea. Why? Because you have no idea how anything is going to turn out, how many people are going to be on hand...if any...if your press release is significant enought to warrant the media...any media...to even announce it, much less give you any real time, and most of all, you have no idea what effect any of this is going to have on sales. Or if you are even going to have any sales.
6. So...the launch event is over. People are oh-ing and ah-ing over the fact that you are now a published author. Now you can relax and rest on your laurels, right? WRONG. What laurels? Have you become an overnight JK Rowlings? I didn't think so. Now is where some of the hardest work begins, that of marketing and promoting your book. OH? You didn't expect this? What, you thought the book had some kind of genie in it that was going to make sales come from out of the blue? No, it is up to you. Not the publisher. Not the editors. YOU. Just your little ole' lonely self, out there working your butt off in cyberspace, trying to find the right places to promote your book. Time Consuming. Frustrating. Patience Destroying. Time to write on your WIP? Forget that. Your whole life becomes one of social media, social networking, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, and I'm sure there are many more I have not even heard of. You network and promote
until you are nothing but a promoting robot with a million things to do and only enough time in the day to do twelve. Barely.
This is the hardest thing I have had to learn, and I'm still only slightly more than a D student...I hope it's as much as a D. This is the main thing about publishing I wish I had known. Of course, I did know that I had to do some promoting, just not anywhere near what I am supposed to do, and still haven't done, to get sales for my book. I just didn't know that it was going to consume my life for months on end. I didn't know the extent to which I would have to do this.
Oh, I've heard people say , well, next time, go with one of the Big Six...er, Big Five, and this won't happen. Excuse me, but I know authors who've gone with one of these big guys, and still have to do a LOT of their own promotions. The big guys don't do for their authors what they used to, they have neither the time, the money, nor the manpower to do so. Yes, they do a lot, but the authors no longer sit back and "let the money roll in." It doesn't roll if you, the author, don't do your part.
So, authors: be prepared! Certainly be better prepared than I was! These are the things I wish I had known about publishing before I was published. What about you? Are there other things you wish you had known about?
Until next time,
That's a wrap.
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Friday, January 3, 2014
Monday, December 30, 2013
Monday's Musings: The Backstory of The Freedom Thief, Part Two
After I finished the first novel course with ICL, I knew that I still wanted to pursue my historical novel. I thought the best way to do this was to take still another novel course with ICL, but this time, ask for someone who wrote historical fiction.
Because I was a long time student (by this time) with ICL, they sent me a list of instructors who wrote and liked to teach historical fiction. So I had a choice of instructors...but not knowing any of them, I definitely chose the wrong one.
At first, she was very interested in what I had already written, but then her comments grew longer and longer and more critical. After a few assignments, it was obvious that the story was not going in the direction I wanted. I tried to explain things to her, what I wanted from her, where I wanted the story to go...my point of view. All to no avail. My husband told me I should ask for a new instructor, and I probably should have, but I just didn't want to go through this whole "introductory" period again, get a new perspective that may or may not go along with mine. So I stayed with her, and that was a big mistake on my part.
I finished the course in 10 months instead of a little more than a year, which the previous course had taken me. I was profoundly disgusted with the instructor, and everything else. I put my story away, started writing non-fiction articles for pay for an on-line educational site, wrote a couple of short stories that I got published, and tried to forget the whole experience. No such luck. Ben kept haunting me, telling me that I had to write his story...but MY way.
So I dug "Escape..." out of the files, and reread the entire manuscript. The first five chapters were what bugged me the most. My instructor had insisted that there had to be a "backstory" for Ben...FIVE CHAPTERS worth! That was ridiculous. Any agent or editor reading the first three chapters they normally ask for would still not have any idea of what the story was really about. I had gone over this with my instructor until I was blue in the face, but she was adamant.
Those five chapters contained nothing but setting the stage for the reasons Ben hated slavery, and his parents and two older brothers believed in it. They told in detail why the relationship between Ben and his father was a sore point for everyone. They went into detail about his arguments with his brothers. In other words, it was an information dump of the worst kind. I hated writing it then, I hated it now.
Those five chapters had to go. I deleted every word, and started over. After a few days, I stopped. Another big flaw: Ben had too much knowledge for a boy of his age about the Underground Railroad. Worse, he had learned this information by overhearing conversations in town...how did he get to town, and why would he be overhearing that kind of a conversation in a town that supported the institution of slavery?... and between his grandmother and her friends, all secret Abolitionists. It was all wrong. This was not the story I wanted to tell. It was what my INSTRUCTOR had wanted me to write. Once again I was going in the wrong direction. Back to the drawing board, and more research.
Several months later, I hit upon a piece of research that was like a dash of cold water in my face. Of course! This is where you're supposed to be headed, dummy! From that moment on, everything changed, and the story began to flow. I'm not a person who uses outlines for my work, I simply sit down and let my imagination take over. This time, I was in high gear! Over the next couple of months, my thoughts came together: I edited, revised, rewrote, edited some more. A few more revisions, and The Freedom Thief was born and baptized.
In my next post, I'll talk about some of the things in real life that I incorporated into this story, as well as how the name The Freedom Thief came about...for once, the title did not come from my imagination, but from real life research on the Civil War.
Until next time,
That's a wrap.
Because I was a long time student (by this time) with ICL, they sent me a list of instructors who wrote and liked to teach historical fiction. So I had a choice of instructors...but not knowing any of them, I definitely chose the wrong one.
At first, she was very interested in what I had already written, but then her comments grew longer and longer and more critical. After a few assignments, it was obvious that the story was not going in the direction I wanted. I tried to explain things to her, what I wanted from her, where I wanted the story to go...my point of view. All to no avail. My husband told me I should ask for a new instructor, and I probably should have, but I just didn't want to go through this whole "introductory" period again, get a new perspective that may or may not go along with mine. So I stayed with her, and that was a big mistake on my part.
I finished the course in 10 months instead of a little more than a year, which the previous course had taken me. I was profoundly disgusted with the instructor, and everything else. I put my story away, started writing non-fiction articles for pay for an on-line educational site, wrote a couple of short stories that I got published, and tried to forget the whole experience. No such luck. Ben kept haunting me, telling me that I had to write his story...but MY way.
So I dug "Escape..." out of the files, and reread the entire manuscript. The first five chapters were what bugged me the most. My instructor had insisted that there had to be a "backstory" for Ben...FIVE CHAPTERS worth! That was ridiculous. Any agent or editor reading the first three chapters they normally ask for would still not have any idea of what the story was really about. I had gone over this with my instructor until I was blue in the face, but she was adamant.
Those five chapters contained nothing but setting the stage for the reasons Ben hated slavery, and his parents and two older brothers believed in it. They told in detail why the relationship between Ben and his father was a sore point for everyone. They went into detail about his arguments with his brothers. In other words, it was an information dump of the worst kind. I hated writing it then, I hated it now.
Those five chapters had to go. I deleted every word, and started over. After a few days, I stopped. Another big flaw: Ben had too much knowledge for a boy of his age about the Underground Railroad. Worse, he had learned this information by overhearing conversations in town...how did he get to town, and why would he be overhearing that kind of a conversation in a town that supported the institution of slavery?... and between his grandmother and her friends, all secret Abolitionists. It was all wrong. This was not the story I wanted to tell. It was what my INSTRUCTOR had wanted me to write. Once again I was going in the wrong direction. Back to the drawing board, and more research.
Several months later, I hit upon a piece of research that was like a dash of cold water in my face. Of course! This is where you're supposed to be headed, dummy! From that moment on, everything changed, and the story began to flow. I'm not a person who uses outlines for my work, I simply sit down and let my imagination take over. This time, I was in high gear! Over the next couple of months, my thoughts came together: I edited, revised, rewrote, edited some more. A few more revisions, and The Freedom Thief was born and baptized.
In my next post, I'll talk about some of the things in real life that I incorporated into this story, as well as how the name The Freedom Thief came about...for once, the title did not come from my imagination, but from real life research on the Civil War.
Until next time,
That's a wrap.
Thursday, December 26, 2013
Friday's Focus: More on The Big Six Publishers
Last Friday my focus was on the two Big Six publishers in New York who are actually American-held holdings. Today the focus is on the four who most people believe to also be American publishers, but who are actually owned by foreign entities.
The first is Random House, probably the best and most widely known of the big six publishers among the average reader. Random House was founded in 1927 by Bennet Cerf and Donald Klopfer, and for many years was an independent publisher. In the early 1960's, it acquired two other publishing companies, Knopf and Pantheon, and then in 1998 Random House was bought by Bertelsmann, a privately owned media company in Germany.
There is an interesting, and little known fact, about Bertelsmann, who began as a small publisher in 1835. By 1939, it had grown large enough to become the single largest publisher of Nazi propaganda. The company also benefited from the slave labor from prison camps furnished to them by the Nazi Party.
(My own thoughts about this: having lost a brother to the Nazis, I would not want to be associated with Random House or any of its imprints. Just my own personal opinion.)
Bertelsmann's US Random House Division has a long list of well-known imprints, such as Dell, Doubleday, The Dial Press, Knopf, and others...all of these are often thought of as independent publishing companies, but they aren't.
The second of the four foreign-held publishers is Macmillan, usually thought of as a British publisher. However, it is also a German company, owned by Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holzbrinck of Stuttgart, Germany. Macmillan was originally founded by two brothers, Daniel and Alexander Macmillan, and remained an independent company until 1995, when the huge German media conglomerate Holzbrinck Publishing Group bought 79 percent. Then four years later, in 1999 they bought the remaining 31 percent. In the US, their well-known imprints include Faber & Faber, Henry Holt and Company, and Farrar, Straus and Giroux, as well as others.
The third is the Hachette Book Group USA, owned by the French company Hachette Livre. In turn, Hachette Livre is owned by Lagardere Publishing, the French Media giant. The US website of Hachette Book Group says their story began in 1837 when Little, Brown and Company was founded. In 1996, Little,Brown and Company merged with Warner Books, and eventually became theTime Warner Book Group. This group was then purchased in 2006 by Hachette. However, Hachette's story actually began in 1826 when it was founded by Louis Hachette, when he opened his book shop and publishing company in France.
The last is the Penguin Group, which is the largest publisher in the world. From a US perspective, their story begins in 1838 when John Wiley and George Putnam founded Wiley and Putnam. In 1848, they split, and Putnam went on by himself. The company did very well, and in 1965 bought Berkley books. Then, in 1975, the Putnam and Berkley Groups were acquired by The Music Corporation of America, as their publishing division. In 1985, the division was sold to the Penguin Group, a division of the British publishing conglomerate, Pearson PLC, based in London. The best known imprint of Penguin, in the US, is Viking.
In July, 2013, Random House bought out the Penguin Group, and became the "Penguin Random House." Needless to say, it is now the strongest, the largest, and the most dominant publisher on the planet, in the publishing business.
The new logo, somehow, doesn't demonstrate this fact. It is a very UNinspired logo of the Penguin Group's Penguin standing by Random House's house, but looking away from the house. Hmmm...
Until next time,
That's a wrap.
The first is Random House, probably the best and most widely known of the big six publishers among the average reader. Random House was founded in 1927 by Bennet Cerf and Donald Klopfer, and for many years was an independent publisher. In the early 1960's, it acquired two other publishing companies, Knopf and Pantheon, and then in 1998 Random House was bought by Bertelsmann, a privately owned media company in Germany.
There is an interesting, and little known fact, about Bertelsmann, who began as a small publisher in 1835. By 1939, it had grown large enough to become the single largest publisher of Nazi propaganda. The company also benefited from the slave labor from prison camps furnished to them by the Nazi Party.
(My own thoughts about this: having lost a brother to the Nazis, I would not want to be associated with Random House or any of its imprints. Just my own personal opinion.)
Bertelsmann's US Random House Division has a long list of well-known imprints, such as Dell, Doubleday, The Dial Press, Knopf, and others...all of these are often thought of as independent publishing companies, but they aren't.
The second of the four foreign-held publishers is Macmillan, usually thought of as a British publisher. However, it is also a German company, owned by Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holzbrinck of Stuttgart, Germany. Macmillan was originally founded by two brothers, Daniel and Alexander Macmillan, and remained an independent company until 1995, when the huge German media conglomerate Holzbrinck Publishing Group bought 79 percent. Then four years later, in 1999 they bought the remaining 31 percent. In the US, their well-known imprints include Faber & Faber, Henry Holt and Company, and Farrar, Straus and Giroux, as well as others.
The third is the Hachette Book Group USA, owned by the French company Hachette Livre. In turn, Hachette Livre is owned by Lagardere Publishing, the French Media giant. The US website of Hachette Book Group says their story began in 1837 when Little, Brown and Company was founded. In 1996, Little,Brown and Company merged with Warner Books, and eventually became theTime Warner Book Group. This group was then purchased in 2006 by Hachette. However, Hachette's story actually began in 1826 when it was founded by Louis Hachette, when he opened his book shop and publishing company in France.
The last is the Penguin Group, which is the largest publisher in the world. From a US perspective, their story begins in 1838 when John Wiley and George Putnam founded Wiley and Putnam. In 1848, they split, and Putnam went on by himself. The company did very well, and in 1965 bought Berkley books. Then, in 1975, the Putnam and Berkley Groups were acquired by The Music Corporation of America, as their publishing division. In 1985, the division was sold to the Penguin Group, a division of the British publishing conglomerate, Pearson PLC, based in London. The best known imprint of Penguin, in the US, is Viking.
In July, 2013, Random House bought out the Penguin Group, and became the "Penguin Random House." Needless to say, it is now the strongest, the largest, and the most dominant publisher on the planet, in the publishing business.
The new logo, somehow, doesn't demonstrate this fact. It is a very UNinspired logo of the Penguin Group's Penguin standing by Random House's house, but looking away from the house. Hmmm...
Until next time,
That's a wrap.
Monday, December 23, 2013
Monday's Musings: The Backstory of The Freedom Thief
I've been thinking about the kinds of posts I want to write, as opposed...maybe...to what kinds readers might want to read. Like many bloggers, I get bogged down and wonder what in the world I can write about that everyone hasn't already heard or read about. Today I'm going to tell you a little about The Freedom Thief, and how that story came to be written.
As a kid studying about the Civil War in around the 5th or 6th grade, I was fascinated by the fact that this war came about because of a difference of opinion or philosophy. And that that difference was so great, and so important to so many people, that it set family members against one another, as well as friends against friends. Of course, as I grew to adulthood, I came to realize that wars most often start because of that difference of opinion and philosophy, but never since the Civil War have we seen a division in philosophy of such magnitutde that it set brother against brother.
As a result of this interest, I became an avid reader of the Civil War, and of the organization known as the Underground Railroad, those men and women of Abolitionist and Quaker beliefs who organzied to help slaves escape their bonds and find freedom.
At the end of my first course of study at the Institute of Children's Literature, my last assignment was to write at least the beginings of a novel. Nothing pleased me more than to be able to turn my fascination with the Civil War and the Underground Railroad into a novel of adventure for kids.
When I first began this story, I titled it "Escape on The Train Without Tracks." My critique group thought the main character should be a boy, but about 15 or 16 years old. However, that age would bring it into the YA category, and I wanted this to be a middle grade novel. So I settled on a boy, 13 years old, but close to his 14th birthday. In the 1800s, especially on farms and plantations, both boys and girls of 13 took on a lot of responsibility in their families, working in the fields, helping train, groom, and drive the field horses, doing housework, cooking, learning to sew clothes, and so on. By the time boys turned 14, they were considered grown. I knew that this boy was going to organize an escape for his slave friends, and the younger he was, although still old enough to be plausible, the more impact it would have on young readers.
Ben McKenna became my 13 year old Main Character. I think probably I ascribed to him some of the characteristics of my older brother, who as a young boy, very often had a "difference of opinion" from my parents. And who often paid the price! Ben has two older brothers, Andrew and James, who are both very opinionated but seldom apart from their parents. All of the boys, as well as their parents, were born and raised in Kentucky, although the boys were raised in the city rather than on a plantation. Ben's mother grew up on her father's hemp plantation, where the final edition of this story begins. His father was not, yet both parents held very solid beliefs in the institution of slavery, and passed those beliefs along to Andrew and James. At the age of 5, Ben's father accepted a job in New York, and for the next 5 years, Ben grew up in the schools of the North, which taught him that slavery is a sin. He accepted those beliefs, but never discussed them or asked questions about slavery of his parents, as he already knew where they stood on the subject.
I did some heavy research into the background of the Underground Railroad, and was overwhelmed by the degree to which the Abolitionists and Quakers would go to help the runaway slaves. Thus, the first version of this story was heavily into that part of the Civil War. My instructor loved it, but even as I wrote, something was dinging me at the back of my mind. For a while, it never occurred to me that even a responsible, almust-adult 13 year old boy would probably not be privy to some of the information I was including in the story. I finished the first version of this story with glowing comments from my instructor, and a Certificate of Completion of Writing For Children and Teenagers from the Institute of Children's Literature (ICL).
The more I read and re-read my manuscript, the more I realized that something was off. I decided a needed more concentrated help, and enrolled in the Advanced Novel Writing Course at ICL. But there, my hopes faded away, as my instructor informed me that there were too many novels on the market about the Underground Railroad, and he didn't want me to pursue this venue. He wanted me to write a contemporary novel, instead. From his course, "The Year of The Scream, or Why I Hate Cheerleading, Chocolate, and Celine Carroll" was born. This novel's title has since been changed to "Cheers, Chocolate, and Other Disasters," which will be published by MuseItUp Publishing in spring, 2014.
I was thrilled with this instructor, and had a ball writing Cheers, but at the same time, I never lost hope for my Civil War novel. In my next post, I'll continue my personal adventure that led to the finished and published product of THE FREEDOM THIEF. I hope you'll stay tuned!
Until next time,
That's a wrap.
As a kid studying about the Civil War in around the 5th or 6th grade, I was fascinated by the fact that this war came about because of a difference of opinion or philosophy. And that that difference was so great, and so important to so many people, that it set family members against one another, as well as friends against friends. Of course, as I grew to adulthood, I came to realize that wars most often start because of that difference of opinion and philosophy, but never since the Civil War have we seen a division in philosophy of such magnitutde that it set brother against brother.
As a result of this interest, I became an avid reader of the Civil War, and of the organization known as the Underground Railroad, those men and women of Abolitionist and Quaker beliefs who organzied to help slaves escape their bonds and find freedom.
At the end of my first course of study at the Institute of Children's Literature, my last assignment was to write at least the beginings of a novel. Nothing pleased me more than to be able to turn my fascination with the Civil War and the Underground Railroad into a novel of adventure for kids.
When I first began this story, I titled it "Escape on The Train Without Tracks." My critique group thought the main character should be a boy, but about 15 or 16 years old. However, that age would bring it into the YA category, and I wanted this to be a middle grade novel. So I settled on a boy, 13 years old, but close to his 14th birthday. In the 1800s, especially on farms and plantations, both boys and girls of 13 took on a lot of responsibility in their families, working in the fields, helping train, groom, and drive the field horses, doing housework, cooking, learning to sew clothes, and so on. By the time boys turned 14, they were considered grown. I knew that this boy was going to organize an escape for his slave friends, and the younger he was, although still old enough to be plausible, the more impact it would have on young readers.
Ben McKenna became my 13 year old Main Character. I think probably I ascribed to him some of the characteristics of my older brother, who as a young boy, very often had a "difference of opinion" from my parents. And who often paid the price! Ben has two older brothers, Andrew and James, who are both very opinionated but seldom apart from their parents. All of the boys, as well as their parents, were born and raised in Kentucky, although the boys were raised in the city rather than on a plantation. Ben's mother grew up on her father's hemp plantation, where the final edition of this story begins. His father was not, yet both parents held very solid beliefs in the institution of slavery, and passed those beliefs along to Andrew and James. At the age of 5, Ben's father accepted a job in New York, and for the next 5 years, Ben grew up in the schools of the North, which taught him that slavery is a sin. He accepted those beliefs, but never discussed them or asked questions about slavery of his parents, as he already knew where they stood on the subject.
I did some heavy research into the background of the Underground Railroad, and was overwhelmed by the degree to which the Abolitionists and Quakers would go to help the runaway slaves. Thus, the first version of this story was heavily into that part of the Civil War. My instructor loved it, but even as I wrote, something was dinging me at the back of my mind. For a while, it never occurred to me that even a responsible, almust-adult 13 year old boy would probably not be privy to some of the information I was including in the story. I finished the first version of this story with glowing comments from my instructor, and a Certificate of Completion of Writing For Children and Teenagers from the Institute of Children's Literature (ICL).
The more I read and re-read my manuscript, the more I realized that something was off. I decided a needed more concentrated help, and enrolled in the Advanced Novel Writing Course at ICL. But there, my hopes faded away, as my instructor informed me that there were too many novels on the market about the Underground Railroad, and he didn't want me to pursue this venue. He wanted me to write a contemporary novel, instead. From his course, "The Year of The Scream, or Why I Hate Cheerleading, Chocolate, and Celine Carroll" was born. This novel's title has since been changed to "Cheers, Chocolate, and Other Disasters," which will be published by MuseItUp Publishing in spring, 2014.
I was thrilled with this instructor, and had a ball writing Cheers, but at the same time, I never lost hope for my Civil War novel. In my next post, I'll continue my personal adventure that led to the finished and published product of THE FREEDOM THIEF. I hope you'll stay tuned!
Until next time,
That's a wrap.
Friday, December 20, 2013
Friday's Focus: Things You May Not Know About The Big Six Publishers
With one book published, and one due to come out in the spring of 2014, "publishing" seems to hang heavy over my head, and in my mind. I've also been thinking about why I chose to go the way of smaller, independent publishers, like MuseItUp. Most aspiring authors want one of the "Big Six", publishers whose names are like the brands of our favorite foods that everyone else also knows about. For many reasons, this didn't appeal to me. However, I did do some research about the big guys, and found a few interesting facts in some articles I read. I thought I'd pass them along to you.
The names of the Big Six are: HarperCollins, Random House, Simon and Schuster, Macmillan, The Penguin Group, and Hachette. But did you know that only two of these are US companies, and the rest are foreign holdings? The two US are HarperCollins and Simon and Schuster. Of the other four, two are German, one is British, and one is French.
HarperCollins was founded in 1817 in New York by two brothers, James and John Harper, and at that time was known as Harper & Brothers. In 1962, 145 years later, the company merged with Row, Peterson & Company, and became Harper & Row Publishers, Inc. Eventually, the Harper company by itself was bought out by a gigantic conglomerate, News Corporation Limited. In time, the company acquired a very old and distinguished publishing house, William Collins & Sons, founded in Britain in 1819. The distinguished name Collins was joined to the distinguished name Harper and became HarperColins. It is still a subsidiary of News Corp, the largest media company in the world.
In 1924, Simon and Schuster was established in New York by Richard Siman and Max Schuster. It was a unique publishing house, owned only by these two men, who approached the publishing business much differently than most along Publishers' Row: they were the first to offer booksellers the privilege of returning unsold books for credit; in 1939, they were the first to offer paperback books with the founding of Pocket Books; and in 1945, published the first "instant" book. In the year 2000, they became the first publisher to publish an electronic book, with the publishing of Steven King's eBook, Riding the Bullet, a worldwide publishing phenomenon.
More changes came about as the years passed: in 1944, Simon and Schuster and Pocket Books were sold to Marshall Field, the department store magnate. When he died in 1957, Simon and Schuester re-aquired the company in conjunction with Leon Shinkin and James M.Jacobson. These four men held the company in various combinations of ownership until Shinkin sold it to the international conglomerate Gulf + Western.
Eventually, through many twists, turns, and sales acquisitions, Simon and Schuster became part of the Viacom Entertainment Group in 1994. In 2006, when Viacom separated from CBS Corporation, Simon and Schuster became part of the CBS Corporation.
Currently, HarperCollins has fourteen imprints, and Simon and Schuster have thirty-five imprints. None of these imprints are what most people believe are small and independent publishing companies. They may have been just that, sometime in the long distant past, but now all are a part of these two mega-publishing companies.
Next week, the focus will be on the foreign companies.
Until next time,
That's a wrap.
The names of the Big Six are: HarperCollins, Random House, Simon and Schuster, Macmillan, The Penguin Group, and Hachette. But did you know that only two of these are US companies, and the rest are foreign holdings? The two US are HarperCollins and Simon and Schuster. Of the other four, two are German, one is British, and one is French.
HarperCollins was founded in 1817 in New York by two brothers, James and John Harper, and at that time was known as Harper & Brothers. In 1962, 145 years later, the company merged with Row, Peterson & Company, and became Harper & Row Publishers, Inc. Eventually, the Harper company by itself was bought out by a gigantic conglomerate, News Corporation Limited. In time, the company acquired a very old and distinguished publishing house, William Collins & Sons, founded in Britain in 1819. The distinguished name Collins was joined to the distinguished name Harper and became HarperColins. It is still a subsidiary of News Corp, the largest media company in the world.
In 1924, Simon and Schuster was established in New York by Richard Siman and Max Schuster. It was a unique publishing house, owned only by these two men, who approached the publishing business much differently than most along Publishers' Row: they were the first to offer booksellers the privilege of returning unsold books for credit; in 1939, they were the first to offer paperback books with the founding of Pocket Books; and in 1945, published the first "instant" book. In the year 2000, they became the first publisher to publish an electronic book, with the publishing of Steven King's eBook, Riding the Bullet, a worldwide publishing phenomenon.
More changes came about as the years passed: in 1944, Simon and Schuster and Pocket Books were sold to Marshall Field, the department store magnate. When he died in 1957, Simon and Schuester re-aquired the company in conjunction with Leon Shinkin and James M.Jacobson. These four men held the company in various combinations of ownership until Shinkin sold it to the international conglomerate Gulf + Western.
Eventually, through many twists, turns, and sales acquisitions, Simon and Schuster became part of the Viacom Entertainment Group in 1994. In 2006, when Viacom separated from CBS Corporation, Simon and Schuster became part of the CBS Corporation.
Currently, HarperCollins has fourteen imprints, and Simon and Schuster have thirty-five imprints. None of these imprints are what most people believe are small and independent publishing companies. They may have been just that, sometime in the long distant past, but now all are a part of these two mega-publishing companies.
Next week, the focus will be on the foreign companies.
Until next time,
That's a wrap.
Friday, December 6, 2013
Friday's Focus: Focus Today on Fellow Author, Penny Estelle
Today is a red-letter day...for several reasons. The first is because my book, The Freedom Thief, was featured on Kelly Hashway's blog. Today turned out to be a surprise blitz day for her, also, so the two events garnered, at last count, over a 100 comments. Woo Hoo, Kelly!
The second reason for the red-letter is not so good. I told my fellow MuseItUp author, Penny Estelle, that I would showcase her Christmas story, The Unwanted Christmas Guest, bright and early this morning, in keeping with today's new release. But things never go as planned in my life, it seems! My computer froze up, the Internet went off for several hours, finally came back up but all I could do was get on FaceBook of all things, and then I couldn't pull up my email. So I am several hours late in posting this.
And the third reason is...my computer still is not reacting correctly, and I can't post either Penny's picture nor the lovely cover. But I'm still trying on that one.
Neverthe less, here is an excerpt from her Christmas story: please take a look, and comments are welcome!
Elizabeth
Elizabeth
Feel free to stop by and check out my other stories and/or
leave me a message. I love visitors!
www.pennystales.com
The second reason for the red-letter is not so good. I told my fellow MuseItUp author, Penny Estelle, that I would showcase her Christmas story, The Unwanted Christmas Guest, bright and early this morning, in keeping with today's new release. But things never go as planned in my life, it seems! My computer froze up, the Internet went off for several hours, finally came back up but all I could do was get on FaceBook of all things, and then I couldn't pull up my email. So I am several hours late in posting this.
And the third reason is...my computer still is not reacting correctly, and I can't post either Penny's picture nor the lovely cover. But I'm still trying on that one.
Neverthe less, here is an excerpt from her Christmas story: please take a look, and comments are welcome!
I can’t tell you how excited
I am that my very first ever Christmas story is being released today. The
Unwanted Christmas Guest is a story about Elizabeth McMurphy, an up and
coming high powered attorney, who is after vengeance. Her sights are set on one of the richest and
most powerful families in Colorado
When one of the worst
blizzards in history, hits Colorado and leaves
a hurt Steve York, stranded with Elizabeth
Excerpt
“What’s
going on here? Where the hell are my pants?”
“I found you after your car went nose to nose with a tree.” She
crossed her arms. “The question is, what were you doing up here in a snowstorm?
Were you coming up here to spy on me?”
“Jesus, my head hurts.” Steve groaned and
sat at the kitchen table. “And don’t flatter yourself.” He brought up his hands
to rub his eyes and push on his temples. He started to say something when a
giggle and a round of undistinguishable sounds caught his attention. Steve
stared at the little girl, a whisper of a smile on his pale face. “You have a
daughter?”
She chose to ignore the question. “Again,
Mr. York, you were headed…where?”
“I was going to see some friends in Granby
“You figured on taking a short cut on Badger Springs Road
“Basically,” he muttered. “I had a phone
in my pants pocket…” Steve looked down at the pink sweats. “Yours, I presume?”
At her nod, he asked with a smirk, “And you’re the one that took my clothes
off?”
“Junior, my neighbor.”
“If you’ll allow me to use your phone,
I’ll call Triple A and get myself and my car out of your life.” He reached over
to Katy and she latched onto his finger, the brightest smile ever illuminating
her sweet face.
“Internet?”
“Nope.”
“How the hell do you live here?” he asked
irritably.
* * *
Please find The Unwanted Christmas Guest and my other stories with
MuseItUp publishing @
https://museituppublishing.com/bookstore2/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=146&Itemid=82
Thanks, Penny, for allowing me to share Friday's Focus on you and your Christmas story.
Don't forget, Christmas is for giving! You can get my book, The Freedom Thief, for giving as a Christmas gift at these places: Muse It Up Publishing: https://museituppublishing.com/bookstore/index.php/our-authors/69-our-authors/authors-s/379-mikki-sadil
Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Kobo Books. Thanks!
Don't forget, Christmas is for giving! You can get my book, The Freedom Thief, for giving as a Christmas gift at these places: Muse It Up Publishing: https://museituppublishing.com/bookstore/index.php/our-authors/69-our-authors/authors-s/379-mikki-sadil
Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Kobo Books. Thanks!
Until next time,
That's a wrap.
Thursday, November 21, 2013
Thursday's Thoughts: Thanksgiving Turned Upside Down
A week from today is Thanksgiving. Two weeks ago today, a good friend of mine died. She fought a brave fight against a cancer that would not be conquered, and finally lost that fight. Yesterday, at ten o'clock in the morning, one of my two very best friends died, suddenly and unexpectedly.
Just a few days before that, she had come over to give me a special gift, for no real reason...just to be giving. A beautiful little angel, dressed in white with red mittens on uplifted hands, and a cute red stocking cap on her head. When you turned her upside down, her hands and the end of the stocking cap made feet upon which sat her body...she was a cup.
Today, I can't look at that angel-cup without crying. And I can't help thinking, How can I be thankful this Thanksgiving, when a good friend and another one whom I loved greatly are both gone?
Several days ago, my other best friend who lives far from me in Montana, wrote a post about the "Tiny Pluses in a Minus World," and as I read that post, I realized that it is up to me to find those pluses in my world, no matter how tiny they might be.
It hasn't been easy. Especially today, when I am still reeling from Jackie's death. Jackie was Italian, from a typically large family, and she always had many stories to tell about "growing up Italian." They always put me in tears, either because they were so poignant I cried, or because they were so hilarious I laughed until I cried. But those stories, and their storyteller, are some of the pluses in my world. I may forget her stories, but never will I forget her.
Publishing has been a long journey, and a difficult one, at best. With so much bad news around me, it has been almost impossible to enjoy the fact that, yes, I am a published book author. Yet, I know that it is a plus, and far from a tiny one. I just need to take the time to recognize that fact and take pleasure in it. After all, Jackie was one of my biggest supporters, and she was super-excited when the publishing day came around.
My beloved husband is on the mend again, and oh what a HUGE plus that is! To have him at home, to know that he is getting better and stronger each day, means more to me than anything else in the world.
My children, my son, even though he no longer recognizes me as his mother, and my daughter who lives 300 miles away, are two of the biggest pluses in my life, as are my daughter-in-law and my grandchildren. Yet, they are the "obvious" pluses, and sometimes, we fail to realize that those closest to us are the most important "pluses" we could ever have. Sometimes we think we must search out that which seems almost ephemeral for it to be a real "plus" in our lives.
Still, I can't help but feel that Thanksgiving this year has been turned upside down. We have much to feel thankful for, but also much that has happened at this time of year that we still question, and wonder, "How do I give thanks for this?" This has been a "minus" year of great note for my family, and I think we all are wondering, "What will I give thanks for at the dinner table, when it comes my turn?" Yet, the pluses are there. We just need to look for them.
How about you? Has this year been one of more minuses than pluses? And how do you go about finding the pluses in your life, even if has been a good year?
Until next time,
That's a wrap.
Just a few days before that, she had come over to give me a special gift, for no real reason...just to be giving. A beautiful little angel, dressed in white with red mittens on uplifted hands, and a cute red stocking cap on her head. When you turned her upside down, her hands and the end of the stocking cap made feet upon which sat her body...she was a cup.
Today, I can't look at that angel-cup without crying. And I can't help thinking, How can I be thankful this Thanksgiving, when a good friend and another one whom I loved greatly are both gone?
Several days ago, my other best friend who lives far from me in Montana, wrote a post about the "Tiny Pluses in a Minus World," and as I read that post, I realized that it is up to me to find those pluses in my world, no matter how tiny they might be.
It hasn't been easy. Especially today, when I am still reeling from Jackie's death. Jackie was Italian, from a typically large family, and she always had many stories to tell about "growing up Italian." They always put me in tears, either because they were so poignant I cried, or because they were so hilarious I laughed until I cried. But those stories, and their storyteller, are some of the pluses in my world. I may forget her stories, but never will I forget her.
Publishing has been a long journey, and a difficult one, at best. With so much bad news around me, it has been almost impossible to enjoy the fact that, yes, I am a published book author. Yet, I know that it is a plus, and far from a tiny one. I just need to take the time to recognize that fact and take pleasure in it. After all, Jackie was one of my biggest supporters, and she was super-excited when the publishing day came around.
My beloved husband is on the mend again, and oh what a HUGE plus that is! To have him at home, to know that he is getting better and stronger each day, means more to me than anything else in the world.
My children, my son, even though he no longer recognizes me as his mother, and my daughter who lives 300 miles away, are two of the biggest pluses in my life, as are my daughter-in-law and my grandchildren. Yet, they are the "obvious" pluses, and sometimes, we fail to realize that those closest to us are the most important "pluses" we could ever have. Sometimes we think we must search out that which seems almost ephemeral for it to be a real "plus" in our lives.
Still, I can't help but feel that Thanksgiving this year has been turned upside down. We have much to feel thankful for, but also much that has happened at this time of year that we still question, and wonder, "How do I give thanks for this?" This has been a "minus" year of great note for my family, and I think we all are wondering, "What will I give thanks for at the dinner table, when it comes my turn?" Yet, the pluses are there. We just need to look for them.
How about you? Has this year been one of more minuses than pluses? And how do you go about finding the pluses in your life, even if has been a good year?
Until next time,
That's a wrap.
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