Covers, Part II: Movie Actors

HQN gave me a big huge form to fill out for my cover art.  (Suzanne McMinn has posted about the system, so if you want to get an idea what it’s like visit her site.)  I actually found the form really fun, in part because I’m not a hugely concretely visual person.

They asked me if there were any actors who looked like my characters.  My initial answer, which I figured would not start my relationship with the Art Department off on the right footing, was, “Probably, but I don’t know who they are.”

Some people pick actors to represent their characters.  My problem is that I don’t remember actor names.  In fact, I am awful with names and face-recognition.  When watching movies I can barely remember the guy’s name in the movie, and if he changes his clothes drastically, I’ll turn to Mr. Milan and prod him and say, “who is that dude that just showed up onscreen?”  And Mr. Milan will be like, uh, the main character, the guy we’ve been watching for two hours?

So my first strategy was to sit down with Mr. Milan and have him list names of movie actors.  “Ben Affleck,” says he.  “Ben Affleck,” I dutifully repeat, typing it into Google Images search.  Images come up.  Ugly images.  My nose wrinkles.  “Okay,” I finally say, “That dude is not Gareth.  He’s ugly.”  No really.  Ben Affleck is ugly.  Seriously ugly.  I can’t believe it.  I know I’ve heard of him; I just did not realize that he was ugly.

“Fine.  Orlando Bloom,” he says, knowing that I actually think Bloom is cute.  But the answer is already no–Orlando Bloom always looks like he’s sharing a private joke with the world and Gareth is not so much into smiling.  So that is a no go.

We go through about twenty more names.  For some reason, Mr. Milan keeps feeding me extremely awkward looking dudes.  He explains that he thought I wanted someone that looked different.  Different?  Possibly.  Ugly?  No.  Finally he mentions John Cusack, I look up John Cusack, who is all wrong but at least cute, and I say, fine, John Cusack.

I e-mail my critique partners with the good news–which I ought to have done immediately, without bothering with Mr. Milan, who I now know has terrible taste in men–and Tessa says immediately, no, no, he’s Viggo Mortenson!  I look up Viggo when he is not being Aragorn and lo and behold.  He is, in fact, Gareth.

The moral of the story is that my critique partners have better taste in men than my husband.

So here are my main characters.  Hi, guys.  Nice to meet you.

Gareth (Viggo Mortenson)
Jenny (Laura Fraser)
Jenny (Laura Fraser)

Covers!

Over the last handful of days, I’ve been filling out some basic information as a prelude to starting work on the cover of my debut, PROOF BY SEDUCTION.  This, more than anything–more than the deal announcement on Publisher’s Marketplace, or even signing the contract and shipping it to Canada–has made the sale seem like it really happened.  My book will have a cover.  It will be produced in a format other than Courier New double spaced, and it will be bound and everything.  Whoa!

But along those lines, my amazing critique partner, Tessa Dare, just got her covers for her back-to-back trilogy from Ballentine.  Her trilogy starts with Goddess of the Hunt, released on July 28, 2009, and I can’t wait for everyone to be able to read this book.  It sold at auction, and once you start reading it, you will know why.  As her critique partner I read it through several times–and let me tell you, there is no book I would rather have read 10 times.  I loved it every time I read it, and you will, too.  The most amazing thing about this trilogy is that with a first book this good…  the second one, Surrender of a Siren, is even better.

So here are her covers!  Now go preorder these books.  🙂

Goddess of the HuntSurrender of a SirenA Lady of Persuasion

Maximizing Your Productivity

Kay Cassidy is the winner of the 2008 Golden Heart for her Young Adult novel The Cinderella Society, which will be coming from Egmont in Spring of 2010.  She’s also got an MBA, and she is more organized than . . . well, I would say more organized than me, but since my desk bears a strong resemblance to a volcanic eruption, that is not saying much.  In any event, Kay has been blogging for the last couple of days, giving productivity tips for authors.  Things like, how to organize yourself so that you can get work done, and how to save things so that you can find them later.

To me, what Kay proposes sounds like something between heaven and magic.  Right now, my organization is to stack things up in a five-foot pile on my desk, and hope that if the cat knocks the pile over, it gets restacked before the dog chews up anything important.  I desperately needed this.  She’s convinced me to go digital in 2009 and buy a receipt scanner.

If you’re interested, check out her awesome posts here, and here.

Uh, wow?

So apparently the little piece of information that I did not write my own query letter has touched off a bit of a firestorm.

Over on Nathan Bransford’s blog, there’s a lengthy (and really interesting) discussion about whether it’s okay to write your own query letters.  Some people say that a query letter is your own work and anything else is dishonest.  Other people say, whatever works, works.  Jennifer Jackson says, unequivocally, no, you should write your own query letter.

I do want to point out one thing, which I hope doesn’t piss off anybody.  On this point, the interests of agents and writers do not align 100%.  As a writer, you want someone to pay maximum attention to your pages.  But an agent wants to focus her very valuable time only on the projects that are most likely to pay dividends.  If I were an agent, I think I would shiver in fear at the thought of everyone being able to produce really awesome queries–because then how do you allocate your valuable time?  How do you filter out manuscripts?  As an unagented writer, I didn’t care about any of those concerns.  I just wanted to hop the filter.

But I do have to say that I think it worked in my case for two reasons.  First, the query letter that Sherry wrote was one that I rewrote until it was in my voice.  Sherry did an awesome job of highlighting the conflict.  And because she doesn’t do this regularly, and wasn’t getting paid for it, and read the pages and got the manuscript, she really understood the crux of the conflict in my book and to help me get it right in the query letter.  I doubt you could pay someone to do what Sherry did for me, and I seriously doubt that someone could start a query service that would make money on such an endeavor.  And when Sherry sent me the version with the conflict highlighted, she specifically did not edit it–so that I would be forced to go and write it in my voice.

I wanted to hop the filter, but I also knew I wanted to hop the filter with the right agents.  And so I knew it was my responsibility to take what Sherry had given me and both make it representative of my voice, and make sure that it captured the heart of my book.  I wanted an agent to read it and think, “how cool”–and then read my pages and think, “yep, that’s what this query told me.”

In some sense, a query letter is like giving an agent a sniff of your book before they take a bite.  Have you ever bitten into something expecting raspberry, and gotten ketchup instead?  Even if you like ketchup, the difference between expectation and actual delivery will make you recoil.  I knew that if the query did not represent my book on all levels, it wouldn’t be a good tool for me in the long run.  So I didn’t send it out until I was sure that it represented my book.  More importantly, I also felt like the query letters I tried to write myself did not represent my book, either–they weren’t good enough for it–and so I wasn’t going to send them, either.

I think you should do as an author whatever works.  I don’t think it would work to have someone else write your query, and not have it represent your book, both in terms of plot summary, quality of writing, and voice.  And I think that if you don’t know what represents your voice and quality of writing and the plot of your book, you have bigger problems then a mere query letter.

Website Redesign

I’m officially announcing that I’ve redone my website!

As 2009 approached, and I realized I was going to have published material out this year, I realized I wanted a newsletter (shameless plug:  sign up for my newsletter!).  This lead to a site redesign.  Among other things, my site now changes colors every month, and it takes a page from Google–on some major holidays, and on a few very minor ones that you wouldn’t think of as holidays as well, it changes in less subtle ways.

For a limited time, go see my website in the future–as it will look on October 31, 2009.  Spooky!

Beyond the fold, I talk about what I was smoking when I redid my website.

Continue reading →

Query Letter Outtakes

Over on Kristin Nelson‘s blog, she is analyzing the query letter that I sent her.  Admittedly, at the time she had already requested the full, so it wasn’t a query query letter, but she does say she would have requested based on those pages.

This might give you the impression that I am actually capable of writing a good query letter.  That impression would be . . . insanely offbase.  If you’ve been following me, you know that Sherry Thomas wrote my query letter.

My own query letters for the book…. they sucked.  So I’m posting the outtakes on this blog.

Continue reading →

Time for a double squee!!

Today is a two-fer, and an amazing two-fer it is!

Erica Ridley just sold her book TOUCHED to Kensington, in a two book deal!

I would say it is very exciting to see Erica sell, but knowing how talented and awesome she is, I have been expecting to hear news along these lines from her for, oh, ever.  The most exciting part is finding out that she’s going to have a book on the shelves, and I can buy it and read it and give it away to friends and family.  Congratulations, Erica!  You’re a superstar, and I can’t wait to find out details.

But as I said, today is a double squee.  Take a look at the comment trail here and you can see Lori Brighton (that would be Lori from FanLit, the Lori who finaled, oh, only about a million times, who has a ton of talent) has also sold to Kensington, and her book will be out at the end of this year.  This sale happened a few months ago, apparently, but somehow she has managed to be cool as a cucumber, and hasn’t shouted about her sale to the winds.  So I have to do it for her!

Squee for Lori and Erica!

One last thought.  At RWA Nationals in Dallas, a group of eight unpublished, unagented authors met for dinner and plotting.  We talked for a very long time.  Eighteen months later, five of the eight authors have sold (Tessa, Jackie, me, Sara, and now Erica)–and having read full books from two out of the remaining three, I am convinced we’ll see awesome sales for the remaining three soon.

Nine months ago, I talked to Lori at Chicago North’s Spring Fling conference.  We were both unpublished, unagented, and we talked about how crazy this business is.  We practiced our pitches with each other.

In some sense, publishing is a competitive business.  There are a finite number of slots for debut authors.  Not everyone can be published; not even half of everyone, or a quarter of everyone, or even a one-hundredth of everyone can be published.  But just because the business may be in some sense competitive doesn’t mean that you must be competitive with your friends.  Because the truth is, unless you are the Kevin Bacon or the Paul Erdos of publishing, there are more slots available for new authors in publishing than you can possibly have friends.

All of your friends really can get published.  I expect that all my friends will.

Unrealistic Goal Number One

One of my goals–and I don’t know how realistic it is as I’m in the writing phase that is best known as “despair” right now–is to make my second book better than my first one.

But this is a year when I’m going to see words that I have written first hit print.  And that means that not only do I need to write, I need to think about promotion.  I need to think about updates to my website, guest blogging, bookmarks, giveaways, newsletters, and book trailers.  In some small part, I look at these things–and some of the associated expenses and I cringe.  One question I ask myself is, is all this really worth it?  Everyone is making book trailers, and yet even the most-played trailers have youtube hit counts in the low hundreds.  Nothing that I can do stands out.  Funny book trailers have been done.  Live-action book trailers have been done.  Rap book trailers have been done, and besides, my book is set in the early Victorian era and I’d hate to get everyone’s panties in an anachronistic twirl before my book comes out.

Then there’s the website.  If you build it, they will come.  If you want them to come more than once, you have to update it.  Not just once, but regularly.  Of course, every author now knows you have to update your website monthly, and so we’re all fighting amongst ourselves for that rare spot, where we are the ones that readers choose to visit.

So here’s one unrealistic goal for the year:  I want to do things that have never been done before–at least as far as romance novel promotion goes.  And I want to do it in a way that leaves me plenty of time to do what’s most important:  writing the best books that I can.

And the good news is, I’m going to be unveiling Part One of Courtney’s evil master plan soon.  Very soon.  Any guesses as to what it might be?  And what would you want to see a romance author doing?

Make Unrealistic Resolutions

Last year about this time, I posted in a particularly oblique fashion about setting unrealistic goals.  I know, I know–it makes no sense to make a goal over which you have no control.  Goals should be things that are very firmly in the control of the author–things like, write 1500 words everyday, or, lift weights for 30 minutes three times a week, or, send out ten query letters a week.  Anything else, and you’re setting yourself up for failure.

On January 1, 2008, I mentioned that I had three sets of goals–one for July of 2008, one for the end of year, and a ten-year plan.  I mentioned some of the ten-year goals, but left 2008 blank on this blog.  The truth is, the goals were too unrealistic–too high and mighty–for me to even bother saying them.  They were crazy.  They were things over which I had no control.  They were impossible, ridiculous, and completely unattainable.

Except that I attained them.  All of them.

I wanted to sign with one of my top five agents by June.  I wanted to sell my book, at auction, by the end of the year.  Craziness.   It’s nearly impossible to get an agent, and even more impossible to get a publisher.  To have an auction not only means you’d have to get at least two houses interested in your manuscript, you’d have to get them interested enough to say, “Yes, yes, we will bid early and often!”  And that’s just crazy.  It’s like lightning striking, except that is so cliched because lightning strikes all the time.

Some people work well with realistic goals.  I applaud those people.  Those are the kind of people who are extremely conscientious and very good about crossing all the i’s and dotting all the t’s.  They will never make spelling errors in letters to important people, or forget to cross-reference a citation.  They will not buy a present for a friend’s birthday and then leave it on their mantel for two months (sorry, Eve) because they plan to go to the post office never today, and always tomorrow.  They will never spend three months running a program on extremely powerful government computers only to discover that a memory leak on Line 426 invalidates all the results.  NOT THAT I HAVE EVER DONE THAT, ahem.

I’ve never been good at reality.  It was totally unrealistic to think I could sign with one of my top five agents.  And if I’d known that the top of my top five agents, the incredible Kristin Nelson, was only going to sign two clients in 2008, it would have made the whole dream even more unrealistic.

Still, I dreamed.  I knew it was a completely unrealistic dream, but that didn’t stop me from reaching for it.  Through the month of January, I rewrote that first book.  I would spend 12, 14 hours at work some days, and come home at 11 at night and write until 2 in the morning, only to wake up at 6 AM the next day.  I wrote, and I wrote, and I wrote.  I didn’t sleep.  When I was done, I revised and revised–and caught up at work, because it turned out that 12 hours a day in January hadn’t been quite enough to keep me on task.

At the point in late March when Kristin Nelson asked me to send her the full, I still had maybe 40 hours of work to do–and a huge project at work in the offing.  Somehow, I managed to get by on a bare hour or two of sleep for five days in a row, just so I could get it to her.

Out of the 88 full manuscripts Kristin requested, she represented 2 of them.  It makes no sense to miss sleep for an extremely busy week on the bare 2.28% chance that you’ll get an offer of representation.  But it didn’t matter to me.  I was certain–absolutely certain–she’d say no, but it didn’t matter, because if you make an unrealistic goal, you can’t let a little thing like reality stop you from your chance at it.

But Kristin said yes.  By the end of July, we had multiple offers on the book and we were going to auction.

Even though it’s been half a year since I met my insane goals, I still can’t believe I did it.  If I stop and look down at where I’m standing, I start to think that the ground is shifting beneath my feet, that it can’t possibly hold me.  That if I stop and look reality in the eye, I’ll realize this has all been a sham.

And I’m not the only one building a house on quicksand.  I’ve heard a lot of doom and gloom in publishing.  I know a lot of aspiring authors who think the world is collapsing and they’ll just have to ride out this economic cycle, unpublished until the bitter end.  Realistically, they’re right.

But don’t look down.  Look up.  Look far, far up, as far as you can see, and then imagine somewhere just beyond that.  That is what you want–that thing, way up there.  It’s unrealistic.  It’s unattainable.  It’s impossible.  It happens to nobody.

Except, maybe, you.

Now I’m off to set unrealistic expectations for 2009.  Who’s with me?

Save the Contemporary!

I write historical romance.  But I read nearly everything–and one of the contemporary romances that I’m most looking forward to has been Victoria Dahl’s Talk me Down.  Dahl has written two funny, enchanting historical romances, and I can’t wait to see what she does with a small town in Colorado.

Both Dear Author and the Smart Bitches loved the book, and so now I am even more excited than ever.  And because they loved it so much, they have somehow obtained the following incredible promotion.  Buy Victoria Dahl’s book through borders.com, use the promotion code HAR1222D, and you’ll get a dollar off!

Awesome.  And if you tell other people about it, you could win an iPod shuffle!  Click here for more details.