ONE DEBUT AUTHOR'S EXPERIENCE

Shared by ITW Debut Author :: Grace Greene
First, a disclaimer:  I'm a big fan of ITW and the Debut Author Program and definitely benefitted from it.
Second, a helpful hint: Never underestimate the value of a friend or the help of kind people.
Third, some good advice: Learn what you can where you can - AKA - avail yourself of opportunities.

My debut release is Beach Rental. It came out in July. Every new author will tell you they need help figuring out how to navigate the release world.  Certainly, I did, and ITW offered me some concrete options from which to choose:  The Thrill Begins Blog, The ITW Debut Authors Mentor Forum, an interview or feature story, Roundtable Discussions, Book Giveaways, and monthly communications–the BIG THRILL Webzine, the ITW Bulletin with Promo Ops, and the ITW Members Bulletin with News and Updates.

Thanks, ITW.

My friend and critique partner, Nancy Naigle (author of Sweet Tea and Secrets, and co-author of InkBLOT) also had her book debut in 2011 and she introduced me to the ITW Debut Authors Program. I joined, but mixed some things up (as usual) and the wonderful Al Leverone (debut author membership coordinator and debut author of Final Vector ) got my membership all straightened out and Carla Buckley (debut author of The Things That Keep Us Here) got me added to the discussion forum and Lynn Sheene (debut author of The Last Time I Saw Paris) got me on the Mentors Forum. Others helped me, too–so many helping hands that I'm sure I've missed some. These volunteers are authors and they give their time in a world where no one has any extra.

I tried to keep up with tasks related to the release of Beach Rental, but I was busy with editing, blogging and so on and quickly feeling buried by the demands of writing and marketing. Nancy gave me the kick in the britches when, overwhelmed, I almost didn't follow up with ITW about the author interview.

Thanks, Nancy.

For the ITW Debut interview, Janice Bashman (managing editor of The Big Thrill and co-author of Wanted Undead or Alive) offered me the choice of an actual interview or an interview crafted from the information I'd already submitted on the book submission form about me and my book.  How easy was that? In the midst of trying to juggle all of the elements, I opted for the second choice–and it was wonderful!

Here's the link to my interview. Check it out. Isn't it wonderful?  http://ow.ly/5WWRQ

Educational and marketing opportunities–and another interesting benefit of my membership in ITW and participation in the Debut Author Program, is that a large percentage of the visitors to my author website come there from the ITW website. Take it from me, an often overwhelmed debut author, ITW and the Debut Authors Program–I've already received a lot and I'm still learning and benefitting. Thank you, ITW and the Debut Authors Program, and all of the splendid people who've  made my journey a little easier.

     About the Author:
Grace Greene writes fiction with romance, suspense and inspiration, always with a strong heroine at its heart. Vivid settings and quirky secondary characters round out the stories and there’s a happily-ever-after-ending—most of the time. Grace is also an artist and photographer. She is drawn to houses and landscapes that ooze character and is fascinated by history and human nature. When she’s writing, all of these interests show up on the page.

Beach Rental is her debut release. Her next novel, Kincaid's Hope, is scheduled for release in January 2012. In Kincaid's Hope, Beth Kincaid finds that swearing off the Kincaid temper and creating the perfect life free from untidy emotionalism has its own dangers and can even get you killed.

A Virginia native, Grace lives in central Virginia. Stay current with Grace’s releases and appearances at www.GraceGreeneAuthor.com

Beach Rental Blurb:

On the Crystal Coast of North Carolina, in the small town of Emerald Isle…

Juli Cooke, hard-working and getting nowhere fast, marries a dying man, Ben Bradshaw, for a financial settlement, not expecting he will set her on a journey of hope and love. The journey brings her to Luke Winters, a local art dealer, but Luke resents the woman who married his sick friend and warns her not to hurt Ben—and he’s watching to make sure she doesn’t.

Until Ben dies and the stakes change.

Framed by the timelessness of the Atlantic Ocean and the brilliant blue of the beach sky, Juli struggles against her past, the opposition of Ben’s and Luke’s families, and even the living reminder of her marriage—to build a future with hope and perhaps to find the love of her life—if she can survive the danger from her past.

Can We Have a Moment, by Steve Piacente & Jenny Milchman

The Help has struck a fat, juicy, chord.

Kathryn Stockett seems accustomed to the idea, but points out that her novel was rejected 60 times by agents before she found one and was awarded a contract by publisher Amy Einhorn. Let’s go back, because the ignition sequence – that period that launches authors from inspired writing into creative marketing – is a witch’s brew of luck, timing, self-promotion, and several more mystery ingredients.

Today’s consumers have a limited amount of intellectual capital to expend each day. Most goes toward the essentials – things like the kids, the jobs, and the bills. Then there’s a small percentage left for leisure; think of it as discretionary intellectual capital.

This is when consumers may be open to suggestions about a good new book. Of course you’re also competing with movies, yoga, restaurants, and, jeez, other good books. How do you fight your way in when the competition already has the door blocked?

The challenge is not much different for self-published authors and those who land deals with a major house, like Jenny Milchman did. Jenny toiled for 11 years before selling her novel, Cover of Snow, to Ballantine.

When it arrives in stores in 2013 – despite the fine crafstmanship that defines the work – the odds are that it will not resonate like “The Help.” So how do you change the odds? (--Steve)

Can We Have an Hour?

Not an hour to present our books—our readers’ eyes would have long glazed over by then, of course.

But I use the word “hour” intentionally to suggest that what an author needs to do in terms of marketing requires lengthy hard work and what I think of as investment building. It takes hours—but most of these come in before you ask the reader for that one minute of his time.

“Permission marketing” is a whole different animal from cold calling. If someone comes to your door with vacuums for sale, that’s a cold call. If your mom’s best friend—who keeps the cleanest house in town—calls up to say she loves her Electrolux but is moving and would like to offer it to you at a good price, that’s permission marketing. You know this woman. And moreover, you trust her level of expertise and knowledge about her product. Just look at her rugs.

(Thank you, Seth Godin, for the concept of permission marketing).

If we translate this to the world of publishing, then a cold call is the 300^th Facebook announcement you get from someone you’ve never heard of announcing that his book is number 1,700 on the Amazon bestseller list of mysteries that feature a monkey sleuth.

While permission marketing would be when Steve Piacente, whom I know to be an intrepid explorer in the independent publishing landscape, suggests that I might like to read the book that started it all.

How do you get to permission status? How did Steve ensure that I knew his name so that he wouldn’t just be thumping on my door while I was trying to prepare dinner?

He blogged. He offered substantive content about what he’d learned, some of which might be of use to me and others. He commented on others’ blog posts so that I started seeing his name around, and realized that he had things of value to say. He put himself out there so that by the time he was marketing anything, I was already halfway to yes.

Does this change for an independent author versus someone like Kathryn Stockett, who had the whole Penguin publishing machine behind her debut? I’d say yes and no.

Kathryn was put on people’s radar by Penguin while the indie author has to put him or herself on the radar through efforts like Steve undertook. But once there, the author has to have something of substance to offer no matter what. Tips for creating a book cover or trailer. Reflections on whether big expenditures like Book EXPO really matter.

And of course, a great book.

One that, when they come calling, we already want to buy. (--Jenny)

Steve and Jenny would like to know what you think. If two well-written, engaging novels are released at the same time, what factors will make one succeed and the other fail?

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Steve Piacente has been a professional writer since graduating from American University in 1976. In 2010, he self-published Bella (www.getbella.com). Steve started as a sportswriter at the Naples Daily News, switched to news at the Lakeland Ledger, and returned to D.C. in 1985 as Correspondent for the Tampa Tribune. In 1989, the native New Yorker moved to the Charleston Post & Courier. He is now deputy communications director at a federal agency in Washington, D.C., and teaches journalism classes at American University.

Jenny Milchman recently received an offer on her debut novel of literary suspense, after eleven years of trying to break in. COVER OF SNOW will be published by Ballantine in early 2013. Jenny teaches for New York Writers Workshop, and co-hosts the series, Writing Matters. Last year she founded Take Your Child to a Bookstore Day, a holiday that enlisted over 80 booksellers in thirty states, Canada, and England. This year the Day spread to Australia. She features international bestsellers, Edgar award winners, and independent authors in the Made It Moments forum on her blog. Her short fiction can be found in an e published volume called Lunch Reads and in the forthcoming anthology, ADIRONDACK MYSTERIES II. Please visit Jenny at http://suspenseyourdisbelief.com.

August Debut Thrillers!

A great big warm CONGRATS to this month's debut authors!!!

Michelle Diener

IN A TREACHEROUS COURT (Gallery)

Rita Henuber

UNDER FIRE (Carina Press/Harlequin)

Keeping a Mystery Fresh by Misa Ramirez

One of the biggest challenges of writing a mystery series is making murder believable--over and over and over again. Sometimes this part of writing causes mayhem in my mind because with a cozy series, which is what my newest release is, the cozy elements must always be front and center. This means: amateur sleuth, small town, community, and a hook (dressmaking/sewing, in my case).

That’s a little bit tough. Murder and death are not uplifting concepts, nor are they something an ordinary person happens upon time after time. The writer doesn’t have the fallback of a professional crime-solver to explain the proximity of murder to the sleuth...or even the explanation of why the sleuth is involved in solving the crime in the first place.

My first mystery series is a hybrid—soft-boiled with romantic elements. Lola Cruz is a smart, sexy Latina PI. Easy to keep her involved in crime solving since it’s her job!

My second series, A Magical Dressmaking Mystery series has a definite lightness to it. It’s not funny the way the Lola Cruz books are, but it’s not dark suspense, either. It’s small town, feel good, and is as much about the community of people as it is about the murder. But the sleuth is a Dressmaker—so how do I keep her involved in murder after murder without the whole thing becoming too far-fetched?

Of course there’s a degree of suspension of disbelief, but I like to be as authentic and realistic as I can in a book’s setup. In a murder mystery, mayhem must reign supreme—it just has to function within the book’s world. In Pleating for Mercy, the first book in A Magical Dressmaking Mystery series, the sleuth is Harlow Cassidy, a fashion designer who’s been away from her hometown of Bliss, Texas for a good long time. But when her great-grandmother, Loretta Mae, passes, and Harlow inherits the old yellow farmhouse off the square (actually, she’s owned it since she was a baby, she just never knew it—there are a whole lot of secrets in Bliss!), she leaves Manhattan and goes home to stay.


She opens Buttons & Bows and her new dressmaking business is born. But mayhem ensues when an old childhood acquaintance shows up needing a wedding dress made, then a dead body is discovered and it’s all a little too close to home for Harlow. Who said small town life was quiet? They’ve never been to Bliss!

Pleating for Mercy comes out on August 2nd. I loved, Loved, LOVED writing this book and can’t wait to get to my computer every day and get back into the world of Harlow, Nana, Tessa (Harlow’s Mama), Will Flores, Loretta Mae (who’s still hanging around the old farmhouse as a ghost), and the town square. It’s become a comfort to me, and truth be told, I’d like to live in Bliss, Texas. If only it existed outside my head and the pages of my books!

Crafting believable killings within a book series is tough, but getting to spend time with Harlow (who’s a descendent of Butch Cassidy and is charmed) is so much fun. I’m getting ready to start book three, a holiday installment, and can’t wait to see how Bliss comes alive for the holidays. Murder and mayhem aside, there’s just something great about cozies and books which have characters you see as friends.

I’d love to hear about some of your favorite books, favorite characters, and favorite book communities. How do your favorite cozy authors handle their sleuths happening upon murder after murder after murder?


Melissa Bourbon, who sometimes answers to her Latina-by-marriage name Misa Ramirez, gave up teaching middle and high school kids in Northern California to write full-time amidst horses and Longhorns in North Texas. She fantasizes about spending summers writing in quaint, cozy locales, has a love/hate relationship with yoga and chocolate, is devoted to her family, and can’t believe she’s lucky enough to be living the life of her dreams.

She is the marketing director at Entangled Publishing, is the author of the Lola Cruz Mystery series with St. Martin’s Minotaur, A Magical Dressmaking Mystery series with NAL, and is the co-author of The Tricked-out Toolbox and two romantic suspense titles to be released in 2012.

Visit Misa at:

Website: http://melissabourbon.com

The Naked Hero: http://thenakedhero.com

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/misa.ramirez and http://www.facebook.com/AuthorMelissaBourbon.MisaRamirez

Twitter: http://twitter.com/melissabourbon and http://twitter.com/misaramirez

Killer Characters (on the 22nd of each month): http://killercharacters.com

Entangled Publishing (publisher of my upcoming romantic suspense novels and the 3rd Lola Cruz book, Bare Naked Lola): http://entangledpublishing.com

Style Blunders in Fiction, by Jodie Renner

No, I’m not talking about the fashion police coming after you. I’m talking about those little errors and bad habits that creep into your manuscript, weaken your message, and add up to an overall feeling of amateurish writing. The good news is that, unlike the more critical creative flow of ideas for plot and characters, these little bad habits are easy to correct, resulting in a much more polished, compelling manuscript.

1. Take out wishy-washy qualifiers like quite, sort of, almost, kind of, a bit, pretty, somewhat, rather, usually, basically, generally, probably, mostly, really, etc. Forget “He was quite brave,” or “She was pretty intelligent” or “It was almost scary.” These qualifiers dilute your message, reduce the impact, and make the imagery weaker. Take them out. Even very is to be avoided – it’s like you’re saying the word after it needs reinforcing. “She was beautiful” packs more punch than “She was very beautiful.”

2. Show us, don’t tell us how your characters are feeling. Avoid statements like, “He found that funny,” or “The little girl felt sad.” Show these emotions by their actions, words, and body language: “Eyes downcast, shoulders slumped, head down, she refused to answer as she pushed her food around the plate.”

3. Avoid colorless, overused verbs like walked, ran, went, saw, talked, ate, did, got, put, took. Get out your thesaurus (or use the MS Word one. Hint: look up the present tense: walk, run, eat, say, etc.) to find more expressive, powerful verbs instead, like crept, loped, stumbled, stomped, glimpsed, noticed, observed, witnessed, spied, grunted, whimpered, devoured, consumed, gobbled, wolfed, munched, or bolted.

4. Avoid –ing verbs wherever possible. Use -ed verbs instead – they’re stronger and more immediate. “He was racing” is weaker than “He raced.” “They searched the house” is more immediate than “They were searching the house.” Rewrite -ing verbs whenever you can, and you’ll strengthen your writing and increase its power.

5. Keep adverbs to a minimum. Instead of propping up a boring, anemic verb with an adverb, look for strong, descriptive, powerful verbs. Instead of “He walked slowly” go for “He plodded” or “He trudged” or “He dawdled.” Instead of “She ate hungrily” say “She devoured the bag of chips,” or “She wolfed down the pizza.” Instead of “They talked quickly,” say “They babbled.”

6. Use adjectives sparingly and consciously. Instead of stringing a bunch of adjectives in front of an ordinary, overused noun, find a more precise, expressive noun to show rather than tell. Overuse of adjectives can also turn your writing into “purple prose” that is melodramatic and overly “flowery.”

7. Dialogue tags – Stick with the basic he said and she said­ (or asked) wherever possible, rather than “he emphasized” or “she reiterated” or “Mark uttered,” etc. These phrases stand out, so they take the reader out of the story, whereas “said” is almost invisible. However, I like dialogue tags that describe how something is said, as in he shouted, she murmured, he grumbled, she whispered. You can often eliminate the dialogue tag altogether and just use an action beat instead: He picked up the phone. “That’s it. I’m calling the cops.”

8. Describe the stimulus, then the response: When writing an action scene, make sure your sentence structure mimics the order of the actions. The reader pictures the actions in the order that she reads them, so it’s confusing to read about the reaction before finding out what caused it. So describe the action first, then the reaction: Instead of “He yelled when the dog bit him,” write: “The dog bit him and he yelled.”

9. Avoid the passive voice: For greater impact, when describing an action, start with the doer, then describe what he did, rather than the other way around. Use the more direct active voice wherever possible. Instead of “The house was taped off by the police,” write “The police taped off the house.” Also, avoid empty phrases like “There is”, “There was,” “It’s,” “It was.” Jump right in with what you’re actually talking about.

10. Avoid negative constructions wherever possible – they can be confusing to the reader. Instead of “I didn’t disagree with him,” say “I agreed with him.”

11. Avoid frequent repetition of the same word or forms of the same word. If you’ve already used a certain noun or verb in a paragraph or section, go to your thesaurus to find a different way to express that idea when you mention it again. Also, avoid repetition of the same imagery. Whether you’re describing the setting, the weather, or the hero or heroine, vary your wording.

12. Avoid formal sentences and pretentious language. Rather than impressing your readers, ornate, fancy words can just end up alienating them. As Jessica Page Morrell says, “if a reader is constantly consulting a dictionary when reading your prose, you’re dragging him from the story. Words in manuscripts such as capacious, accretion, plangent, occluded, viridian, arboreal, sylvan, obdurant, luculent, longueur, rubescent, and mendacious always pull me from the story. Just say no to showing off.”

As Morrell points out, “Simple words are close to our hearts and easily understood…. simpler words are unpretentious, yet contain power and grace….Pompous words are alienating, boring, and outdated.”

* * *

Copyright © Jodie Renner, July 2011

Resources: Thanks, But This Isn’t For Us, by Jessica Page Morrell; Manuscript Makeover, by Elizabeth Lyon; How NOT to Write a Novel, by Howard Mittelmark and Sandra Newman.

Jodie Renner is a freelance fiction manuscript editor, specializing in thrillers, romantic suspense, and mysteries. Her services range from developmental editing to light final copyediting, as well as manuscript critiques. Check out Jodie’s website at www.JodieRennerEditing.com and her blog at http://JodieRennerEditing.blogspot.com.

Jodie is a member of International Thriller Writers (associate), Sisters in Crime (SinC), Backspace: The Writers Place, The Editorial Freelancers Association (EFA), and The Editors Association of Canada (EAC).

Jodie has traveled extensively throughout North America, Europe and the Middle East. In fact, Jodie loves traveling so much, she’s thinking of changing her tagline from “Let’s work together to enhance and empower your writing” to “Have laptop, will travel.”

My Katrina Experience by E.J. Findorff

I don't pretend to have any expertise or secret to offer aspiring writers in my blogs. Most of what I write is prefaced by this works for me. Instead, since all of my novels take place in New Orleans, I thought to share a personal experience in this featured blog.

At the time of Katrina, I was working at a print shop in Niles, Illinois, just north of Chicago. My parents, who lived in New Orleans East, pretty close to the Lower Ninth Ward, evacuated a day early, going to Baton Rouge with my grandmother to stay with my sister. They only took enough items for a two-day stay.

The levees broke and my family couldn’t leave Baton Rouge. That is when a life changing reality set in; my hometown was under water. My experience was a lot different than my parents and those who still lived in New Orleans. I was saddled with the guilt of not being with them and of my life not being turned upside down and the deep sadness of knowing that the home I grew up in was no longer.

My parents lived in the same house in New Orleans East since I was three. I moved out when I was eighteen and my grandmother moved into my old room. After I graduated from the University of New Orleans, I waited tables in the Quarter until I moved to Chicago for a job at twenty-six, about ten years before Katrina.

New Orleans East was a lower-middle class area that was mostly black, with some gangs, but overall, not the worst neighborhood to live in. There were shootings and robberies that you would hear of, but luckily, my parents were never involved in a crime statistic. After Katrina, my parent’s house, which was two blocks off Lake Pontchartrain, had about five feet of water and was totally ruined.

So, at this point, my parents and two grandmothers were staying in my sister’s cramped one bedroom apartment in Baton Rouge with her husband and child and they had no where else to go. I could only imagine the heartbreak and tension they were feeling, not knowing what their future held or what they had to go back to. They had no clothes and their medicine was all back at the house.

The following weekend, I took off work and drove down to Baton Rouge. I don’t know why I did this to myself, but I listened to New Orleans and Mardi Gras music and I found myself crying at different moments during the thirteen hour drive. It became scary when I hit Jackson, Mississippi, as every gas station off the interstate had long lines of cars waiting for gas. For a while I didn’t know if I’d have enough gas to make it, it was getting dark and there was no cell phone reception.

Along the way, I encountered many service vehicles, fire engines, and such heading down. There were campers and SUV’s with Katrina relief written on them. When I finally made it to the apartment complex, I ran up to my family and hugged them and cried, trying to tell them it would be okay, but here I was, feeling that guilt; feeling like an outsider, but this wasn’t about me, it was about my parents and my sister and the hell they were going through.

I stayed with them for a few days. There was nothing for me to do but offer support. They told me I shouldn’t have come, but what could I do? I needed to be there with them, if nothing else, but to be a distraction. When I left, we hugged and cried again and I continued to cry on the way back to Chicago. The total shock of all of these events and the adjustment to a life to follow was going to take a huge toll on them. This was a long way from being over.

As soon as people were allowed back into New Orleans, I drove down to help my parents try to retrieve any items that might have been salvageable. It was extremely creepy driving into our neighborhood as it was a ghost town. It reminded of a typical Stephen King town when there was something evil afoot. There was no law and every time a vehicle came by, we had to be ready to defend ourselves. We’ve heard terrible stories of robberies and murders from people offering help.

We looked around the house first, wearing rubber gloves and facemasks. There wasn’t much to save. Everything was lost; pictures, greeting cards, everything made in elementary school by my sister and me. It was all gone. Gutting the house was a gut wrenching experience, but I couldn’t let it show. Eventually, we had dragged everything we could to the curb. This was a requirement of Road Home buying the house.

My parents, grandmother’s, sister, her husband and child had lived in the one bedroom apartment in Baton Rouge for a while. I called constantly, getting updates on how FEMA’s assistance was coming along. A month or two into it, my parents managed to get their own apartment within the same complex and that saved their sanity for the short term.

My sister had the patience of a saint, dealing with the entire situation. She called FEMA everyday, making sure my folks wouldn’t fall through the cracks. One of my grandmothers was able to move into a FEMA trailer on her property in Slidell while my other grandmother continued to stay with my parents.
Eventually, FEMA came through with Road Home money and my parents started a new mortgage on a house in Baton Rouge and my sister also got her first home just a mile away from them. There were a lot of New Orleanians that stayed in Baton Rouge.Although they are still adjusting to a new life, their new home is in a better neighborhood than the old one and the house is nicer, but it’s not the same, so they tell me. They miss their old life, as would anyone. However, the way I see it, Baton Rouge has gained a lot of character.

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E.J. Findorff is a native of New Orleans. He graduated from the University of New Orleans while serving six years in the Louisiana National Guard. Unhinged is his first novel. For more information about E.J., please visit him at http://www.ejfindorff.com, http://ejfindorff.blogspot.com, and http://www.facebook.com/findej.