Going for the Gold

Unless you've been living under a rock this past week you've probably heard about Michael Phelps and his history-making drive for gold medals at the Olympics this year. I've been right on the bandwagon, even scheduling social events around his swimming times so I'd be sure not to miss a thing. I watched every one of his races this past week and saw history being made. I am in awe. Even if you're not a swimmer, you can't help but be amazed by his drive, determination, and vision.

This kid (and I can say that because I'm nearly old enough to be his mother...well, actually old enough if you throw in teen pregnancy) is amazing to watch. He's fun, he's hip, he's down-to-earth, he's modest, and you can't help but get caught up in the love and support his family exudes at each race. You feel like you're right there with him as the medal is slipped over his head, the Stars and Stripes flies overhead, and The Star Spangled Banner echoes throughout the Cube.

Now, there are many things in life I will accomplish some day, but winning one gold medal, let alone eight, is something I'll never do. But his example is a good one. Before he reached his goal, he had to set one. He decided what he wanted to accomplish, and he went for it. He did whatever it took to make it. A lesson we can all take to heart.

This week THIS TIME FOR ALWAYS was at the number one spot on two bestseller lists at The Wild Rose Press. And last week I had one of those "MasterCard moments". It went like this:
Wild Rose Press T-shirt - Twenty Dollars
Promotional Bookmarks - One Hundered Fifty Dollars
Having someone at the Farmer's Market ask me about my shirt, pulling out a bookmark to hand to them and saying, "Oh, this is my publisher. Here, this is the book I wrote." - Priceless
Those were my golden moments. For this week. My goal is to have more and more of them. (Maybe even more than eight!)

So dream big and go for the gold. Set those goals and work toward them. No matter what it takes. And take these words of wisdom from Michael Phelps, the greatest Olympian of all time, to heart.

“When you put your mind to a certain thing, it can happen. The biggest thing is nothing is impossible. All it takes is an imagination.” (MP)

That, my friends, says it all.


Until next week,

Happy Reading!

Debra

THIS TIME FOR ALWAYS
Champagne Rose and Champagne Rosebud #1 Bestseller
by Debra St. John

ebook available now from The Wild Rose Press
Print version coming August 29, 2008

www.debrastjohnromance.com

Sub Orbital Travel by Margot Justes

I am somewhat-well-really greatly-out of my depth or altitude here. I went to my local travel agency, Suburban Travel in Glenview, IL; more about the travel agency later.

At any rate, I was going to post a couple travel tips for people going to Europe. In the process I found out that sub-orbital travel is quickly becoming a reality, as in 2010 reality-flights have already been booked and paid for.

That is amazing, exciting and many other ‘ing’s’ I cannot think of at the moment. The plan is to go into sub-orbit, change the trajectory and 90 minutes later you are in South Africa, at least eventually; the first flights will be up and straight down.

Sir Richard Branson of Virgin Galactic is the man of the century for attempting to put us into space; a remarkable man with a magnificent vision toward the future.

Everything has been planned out, and some flights have already been sold at the mere price of $200,000 or so-but for that money, you will train for 3 days in New Mexico, no not area 51, but at Spaceport America, stay in a luxurious hotel and mingle with the astronauts and pilots who will take you for the ride of your life.

The thought of the research, training and dedication of the people involved is astounding and gratifying. We are moving forward into space exploration and kudos to those who are willing to go for that ride. Heroes and adventurers, one and all! Let’s not forget the designer space suit, the sleek and elegant machine you will be riding.

For more information, go to http://www.suburbantrvl.com/ or call 800/237-7730.
Now, back to Suburban Travel, they were one of the few chosen travel agencies, allowed to sell these precious tickets. They are a full service travel agency, with clients all over the country.

In next week’s blog, I will have a couple travel tips and an expanded look at Suburban Travel.

Till next Saturday,
Margot Justes
A Hotel in Paris
Art brought her to Paris, then a stranger’s death changes her life.
Available on amazon.com
http://www.mjustes.com/

WELCOME OUR MAN OF MYSTERY, J.A. KONRATH - INTRODUCTION BY ROBERT W. WALKER, RESIDENT BLOGGER

Joe Konrath has done his very best to step into my shoes, to follow in my footsteps, and I first noticed it while living in Chicago and meeting him at The Red Lion Inn the night of his reading there. What with the snowbanks outside, yes, he literally allowed me to go ahead so that he, wearing sandals, could follow in my boot-steps. Some years later, he stood up as my best man at my wedding to Miranda, and I have had repercussions from famiy ever since who did an intervention on learning my best friend was Satan in disguise. Now I dare to turn over my time at ACME to the man with trepidation mixed with love. Rob Walker


Joseph Andrew Konrath was born in Skokie, IL in 1970. He graduated from Columbia College in Chicago in 1992. His first novel, Whiskey Sour (2004), introduced Lt. Jacqueline "Jack" Daniels. Others in the series include Bloody Mary (2005), Rusty Nail (2006), Dirty Martini (2007), Fuzzy Navel (2008), and Cherry Bomb (2009). The books combine hair-raising scares and suspense with laugh out loud comedy.

Joe is also the editor of the hitman anthology These Guns For Hire (2006). His short stories have appeared in more than sixty magazines and collections.

Under the name Jack Kilborn, Joe wrote the horror novel Afraid (2009).

Joe's been nominated for several awards, including the Anthony, Macavity, Gumshoe, Dagger, and Barry, and has won the Derringer, Bob Kellog, EQMM Reader's Choice, and two Lovie awards.

His blog, A Newbie's Guide to Publishing (jakonrath.blogspot.com), has had over 400,000 hits since 2005.

Joe is married, has three children and three dogs, and currently lives in a suburb of Chicago. He occasionally teaches writing and marketing at the College of Dupage.

AND NOW, WE GIVE YOU THE MAN OF MYSTERY, J. A. KONRATH --


The Myth of the Good Book

No, we're not debunking the bible here. We're talking about the pervasive idea that if you write a good book, it will sell. The writer doesn't have to have an internet presence, or make any public appearances, or do any marketing, self-promotion, or publicity. All the writer needs to do it write a good book and it will magically find an audience.

It makes no difference the years of experience or the amount of success a writer has had, many still believe this.

It's baloney, of course.

As I've said many times on many forums, "good" is subjective. There's no universally accepted standard for "good" because everyone has an opinion. Editors and agents, who believe they know what "good" is, still represent and publish books that fail more often than not. We've all read crappy books that are big hits, and we've all read wonderful books that are now out of print.

"Good" is a really poor indicator of sales potential.

But the myth still persists: Write a good book, and it will sell.

Instead of poking holes in this concept (I'm privy to the "You can write the best book in the world but people won;t buy it if they don't know it exists" rebuttal), maybe we should look at why so many writers feel this way.


1. Naivete. If a writer is only responsible for writing a good book, they don't need to know anything about this mysterious business known as publishing. This offers the artist a nice, insulated cushion from real life, where they feels they only needs to worry about writing the best book they can and everything else will be taken care of for them.

2. Stubborness. It's a publisher's job to sell books. Period. The writer writes, and nothing else. If the writer does their job, the publisher will promote the heck out of it, and the book will find a wide audience.

3. Fear. It's a scary business, and self-promotion is expensive, time-consuming, and difficult. It's much easier for an author to focus on writing than learn the skills needed to become a salesman. Writers get rejected often enough by agents and editors. They shouldn't have to risk getting rejected by readers as well.

4. Envy. We all know a few indefatigueable writers who are constantly promoting heir brands. We don't like to think that perhaps we should be promting our books with equal vigor, instead clinging to the belief that the book should sell itself based on its own merits. It's much easier to attack someone else than blame ourselves.

5. Bad results. Perhaps the writer has tried to self-promote, had a bad experience, and now refuses to do anything else. This is a shame, because we all swallowed some water learning how to swim. Practice makes perfect.

Now let me make it clear that writers do need to write the best book they possibly can. That should go without saying. But in a world with so many forms of entertainment competing for our time and money, in a world where 200,000 new books are published every year but only 1 out of 5 makes a profit, in a world where selling a first book is difficult, but selling a second book is impossible if the first one didn't do well...

Obviously, it is in the writer's best interest to make an effort in selling their books.

Here are some things to remember about self-promotion.

1. People are looking for information and entertainment. They aren't looking for ads or commercials.

2. Sales isn't about selling a book to someone who doesn't want it. It's about finding people who are looking for your type of book and offering it to them.

3. Books sell one at a time, and every effort you make has intangible benefits.

4. Think about the last ten books you bought and why you bought them. These are the strategies you should use when selling your books.

5. Set attainable goals. Becoming a bestseller isn't a good goal, because it is largely out of your hands. Going to three writing conferences and introducing yourself to 100 new people is within your power.

6. This is a marathon, not a sprint. Self-promotion is about planting seeds, and these often take a long time to grow. The longer and harder you work at this, the better you'll do.


If you're a writer who wants to know more about craft, publishing, and promotion, visit my blog A Newbie's Guide to Publishing at http://jakonrath.blogspot.com.

Joe

New Message Board: http://www.JAKonrath.com/phpBB3
http://www.JAKonrath.com
http://jakonrath.blogspot.com
http://www.myspace.com/jakonrath

Even the Greatest Have Struggled! by DL Larson

It's good to look back at the great writers and study their work, learning from them, examining their techniques and hoping for inspiration to fill our own pages. The other day Rob Walker mentioned one of my favorite authors, Mark Twain. Most of us grew up having read Tom Sawyer, or perhaps watched the film on TV. Maybe you preferred The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, known as one of the great American classics. But did you know, ol' Sam Clemens nearly burnt the manuscript when only half done?

In July, 1876, immediately after the publication of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Twain started another book, 'another boy's book.' In one short month, 400 pages were written, all about Huck Finn, good buddy of Tom Sawyer. But this beloved author only liked what he'd written 'tolerably well,' which means he didn't much care for it at all. He thought about burning it and starting fresh. He enjoyed working fast, so that wasn't the problem. The problem was the story didn't move him along anymore. And I understand what he meant by that. He let his characters free reign to get into whatever mischief they desired and then let them figure their own way out of a jam. It makes for intriguing writing. 'As long as a book would write itself' he once wrote, 'I was a faithful and interested amanuenis ... but the minute the book tried to shift to my head the labour of contriving its situations ... I put it away ... my tank had run dry.' And so, The Adventures of Huck Finn had run dry. The book stalled at Chapter 16, with no end in mind.

For nearly three years The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn lay untouched. Then with 'fits and starts' he wrote more of Huck's escapades with his friend, Jim, a runaway slave. Finally, in the summer of 1883, the book was published. But no big hurrahs came. Most thought it a crude, untidy story. (paraphrase from the Library Committee of Concord, Mass.) It was characterized as a book more suited to the slums than to intelligent, respectable folks, considered to be the 'veriest trash.' Others called it a sequel to Tom Sawyer.

What Mark Twain actually did, whether he realized it at the time, I don't know, but he wrote similar stories about the same river town and the people who came from there. His books have been referred to as the two faces of Hannibal (Missouri.) One face/one book - Tom Sawyer, is nostalgic, reminiscing his childhood, the other realistic and unforgiving of the times of pre-Civil War. Both about boys revolting against the restrictions of society.

Mark Twain wrote as no one had ever written. His characters weren't like the well bred New Englanders of the day, they had South-western flavor. Not everyone liked this new way of describing characters and settings in such a 'modern' way. It took some getting used to. And the dialogues ... Twain's quote explains his reasoning for this: 'In this book a number of dialects are used, to wit: the Missouri Negro dialect; the extremest form of the backwoods South-western dialect; the ordinary 'Pike-County' dialect; and four modified varieties of this last. The shadings have not been done in a hap-hazard fashion, or by guess-work; but pains-takingly, and with the trustworthy guidance and support of personal familarity with these several forms of speech. I make this explanation for the reason that without it many readers would suppose that all these characters were tyring to talk alike and not succeeding. The Author '

So that explains why it is so difficult for us to read Huck Finn. Our eyes are not used to slang to such a degree. I learned in some writing class years ago, a little dialect goes a long way. And I have to agree. It's more enjoyable to watch Huck Finn on TV than read about him. But Mark Twain opened doors to the writing world that no one else knew existed. Many years passed before scholars admitted to his genius in writing.

Ernest Hemingway eloquently stated, "It's (The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn) the best book we've had. All American writing comes from that. There was nothing before. There has been nothing as good since."

And to think Mark Twain only liked it 'tolerably well.' He was right about one thing. It made good kindling ... its fire has inspired many American authors.

Til next time ~

DL Larson

MARCUS SAKEY - FIRST IN THE MEN OF MYSTERY SERIES - Intro by Morgan Mandel

LOOKS LIKE MULTI-PUBLISHED, MULTI-TALENTED MARCUS SAKEY HAS ANOTHER HIT ON HIS HANDS.



I'm very happy to relinquish my blog rights today to our premier MAN OF MYSTERY, Marcus Sakey. I first ran into Marcus when we participated in an authors panel at the Schaumburg Township District Library in August, 2006, right before his first novel, THE BLADE ITSELF, made its appearance. At the time I was very impressed by his talent and knowledge of the writing business. I still am and I'm not the only one. -- Morgan Mandel

Marcus Sakey’s debut, THE BLADE ITSELF, was a New York Times Editor's Pick and one of Esquire Magazine's 5 Best Reads of 2007. Ben Affleck purchased the film rights for Miramax.

Of his latest, GOOD PEOPLE, Publisher’s Weekly wrote, “Masterful…a stellar performance.” Film rights have been purchased by Toby Maguire’s production company. Find excerpts, appearances, and contests at MarcusSakey.com.

Sit back now and enjoy what Marcus has to say as Acme Authors Link presents our first MAN OF MYSTERY.

WHAT WOULD YOU DO?

Hey all! It’s an honor to be guest blogging here today—thanks so much to the members of ACME for lending me the microphone. Suckers.

Before I started actually writing, I had an addiction. I know I’m supposed to say that it was to writing, that I would come home from my full time job, or wake in the middle of the night, and rush to the keyboard, eager—no, desperate—to download the stories that were brimming in my head.

But that’s a lie. No, my addiction was to books about writing. Most every time I went to the bookstore, after stacking seven or eight novels I absolutely had to have, I’d drift into the section on writing and browse there. I’d dip into it, buying one at a time, then taking it home and reading it as a sort of balm for not doing the thing I really wanted to be doing.

It’s a common enough addiction, and as they go, pretty low on collateral damage. Sure, my credit cards felt the body blow and my bookshelves sagged, but it beats heroin. And along the way, I read all kinds of advice on where stories come from. One of the most common methods, and you see it in a hundred different forms, was What if?

What if there was one ring that offered the power to control the world, and a force of ultimate evil was searching for it?

What if the Mona Lisa held a secret of incredible proportions?

What if a young boy living with abusive stepparents discovered he was actually a wizard?

And this is a great method to craft stories. It’s created some legends, stories that have become powerful myths. But it never worked for me.

I tried. I’d just sit and stare at the computer and think “What if…”

Problem was, that was as far as I got. Until I learned that for me, it was about a slightly different question. Not “What If,” but “What Would You Do?”

What would you do if you were a retired thief whose past wouldn’t leave him alone?

What would you do if you were a discharged soldier who found a similar war raging in your old neighborhood?

Bam. For me, that was the difference, and those became my first two books. I needed to make it personal. Not only that, where I could, I needed to make it into a central ethical choice.

My new novel, GOOD PEOPLE is about, well, good people, specifically a married couple that’s been trying to have a baby. They haven’t had any luck, and are being crushed by debt from fertility treatments, and that’s straining their marriage and their hope.

Then their tenant, a recluse whose rent had been barely keeping them afloat, dies unexpectedly. And in his apartment they find almost four hundred thousand dollars in cash.

And so the question. What Would You Do?

Sure, it seems obvious, especially to readers and writers of crime fiction, that the correct answer is to back away slowly, call the cops, and pray.

But if it was really you? Standing in front of all that money? Money that seems untraceable, completely unconnected to you?

Money that could make all your dreams come true?

Well? What would you do?

Marcus Sakey
www.marcussakey.com
============================
GOOD PEOPLE, coming August 14th
"Masterful…tops his previous two novels.
A stellar performance."
-Publishers Weekly


You're invited to leave comments for Marcus below and/or visit his website at
www.marcusakey.com

Pooped

(pop)

Hi,
Just pooped, er, popped in to say that I swam late last night and then got sucked into the Olympics coverage. So there won't be a Norm blob ... dern, blog ... today.

...er, I mean, yesterday.

Norm

(pop)



www.normcowie.com
The Adventures of Guy ... written by a guy (probably)
The Next Adventures of Guy ... more wackiness
Fang Face (Young Adult humor/vampire, coming Aug 09)
The Heat of the Moment

FREE Stuff

Whoever coined the phrase "There's no such thing as a FREE ride." sure knew what they were talking about. Over the last week or so I've noticed that many things in life touted as FREE are far from so.

I got some FREE business cards to advertise my new book. After shipping and handling and the fee for downloading a picture my FREE cards cost almost $10.

The inboxes of my e-mail accounts always seem to attract e-mails guaranteeing me a FREE $100 gift card to such-and-such a store. Of course once the fine print is analyzed, I have to subscribe to so many of the following sponsors' services over the next year.

Friends of mine had FREE tickets to Great America. Of course it cost $15 to park and $30 for lunch (for a kid's meal and a burger).

My sister had FREE tickets to the Bears preseason game this past week. Here parking cost $45! And she had to pay for food and beverage.

Now, don't get me wrong, obviously if the main things listed here hadn't been FREE, we all would have paid a lot more money to obtain them or participate in them. I'm simply venting a bit of frustration that FREE things aren't always exactly FREE. (And as a budget conscious gal, it tends to irritate me.)

On the other side of things, my fabulous publisher (The Wild Rose Press) and many of its talented authors have begun offering FREE short stories. And these, my friends, really are FREE. You can go the the Wild Rose site (www.thewildrosepress.com) and download them for absolutely FREE. I myself will have one of these FREE reads available in December.

Any Wild Rose authors and/or readers out there who are reading this, please feel free to give a shout out about your FREE read or a FREE read that you've read and would like to recommend by leaving a comment here.

On a side note, THIS TIME FOR ALWAYS, is currently the number one bestseller on the Champagne Rosebud list at The Wild Rose Press! It's also sitting at 9, 4, and 3 on others lists there as well. Thanks to everyone for their support! I couldn't do this without you!

Until next time,

Happy Reading (I'll be downloading some of those fabulous FREE reads this afternoon),

Debra

THIS TIME FOR ALWAYS
by Debra St. John
Champagne Rosebud #1 Bestseller!

ebook AVAILABLE NOW! from The Wild Rose Press
print release 8/29/08