Secret Agents: How I Solved the Mystery of Representation

By Erec Stebbins

Sometimes, it can feel like Mission Impossible.

My book was formatted on CreateSpace, and my Smashwords formatting was done.  I even had a hokey cover I put together with Photoshop.  

But I felt crushed.  The novel I had believed in and completed remained unread and unloved in the unbridgeable void between the lands of Literary Agents and Debut Authors.  One of the few to respond to my queries actually flamed me, going so far as to disparage the morals of my characters!  I took minimal solace in that I would at least get copies to my friends and family.  

This was two years ago, before the Great Ebook Explosion (GEE!) of 2012. Before Amanda Hocking. Before fifty lamp-shades of soft-porn. No agent meant No Hope. The nascent technology meant at least I didn't have to pay a vanity press.

Getting an agent these days may be debated more than it once was, but as in any complicated business, it is the rare bird that has the skills and time, the connections and savvy, to do it all by his or her one-sies. The ebook revolution is in fact leading to a diversification and proliferation of agents.  So, assuming you want one, what should you do?

I can only give you a single datum, my own aggressive, nerdy, and ultimately successful journey. I was totally green. I had zero connection to writers, publishers, or agents. I didn't know of ITW or AgentFest. I didn't know to look for them.  

I had begun this journey by following the antiquated protocols in guide-books for writers: look up agents that share your interests, follow their submission procedures to a "T" (not a "U" or a "V"), and mail them what they wanted with a SASE ("self addressed stamped envelope" for you of the digital-only generation: it's like email during high net traffic, only slower).  It felt like getting an audience with the Pope.  Petition, young padawan, then wait.

And wait.

And wait some more.

When those petitions are either not returned or returned negative, rethink, retry, expand.  The guides were less clear at this stage what to do.  But the process recommended could be measured in geologic time.

After a year of this, I had had enough.  It wasn't working for me, and I'm someone who seeks to make things happen for him, not wait for them to happen to him (which can be good and bad).  

So, I decided to take the fight, or rather, the book, to the agents.  I wrote some scripts to grab emails from agency websites, online agent database webpages, writer message boards, etc. and compile them into a long list.  I got hundreds.  Soon, thousands.  

Many would have no interest or experience with my genre - I didn't care.  If 90% of the agents couldn't bother to respond to my query (that's a fact, ma'am), then I wouldn't bother to limit my queries.

I worked up the best letter I could, included sample chapters pasted at the end (whether they wanted that or not).  I sent thousands of emails out querying my global thriller to children's book agents, romance agents, non-fiction agents, cookbook author reps, you name it.  I even sent some to mystery-thriller agents!  It was a high-information-content, polite and polished carpet-bombing.

And it worked.

Over the course of the next year, several agencies asked for the manuscript.  One agency I likely would not have contacted via the Slow Tortoise Approach was especially keen on the book.  So, a big shout out to Sara and Stephen Camilli for believing as much as I did in The Ragnarök Conspiracy.

What's the moral of the story?  I have no idea.  I'm a scientist by day, and I know anecdotes are the stuff of pseudoscience.  I broke most of the rules and perhaps got lucky despite that. Adopt and adapt my ways at your own risk!

Or perhaps, the rules would have killed my embryonic writing career.  Perhaps, in the cold war like atmosphere of unknown authorhood, spying out the territory, employing the gadgets that you have, can lead to an espionage adventure where you can find those operatives that can open the doors that you need opened.

I actually believe that the moral is persistence, the route less important.  As Churchill emphasized, "Never give in — never, never, never, never!" 

If you hold to that, you'll find your path, and that secret agent.

Author bio

Erec Stebbins is a biomedical researcher in New York who writes political and international thrillers. His debut novel, The Ragnarök Conspiracy, was born of intense feelings and the conflicts engendered by the attacks of September 11. He is in the process of writing a series of thrillers that explore our uneasy bargain between security and liberty. 

Book synopsis of The Ragnarök Conspiracy

The Ragnarök Conspiracy a 2012 thriller by Erec Stebbins about a Western terrorist organization bent on instigating a global war to further its political goals.  A group of FBI and CIA agents work together to uncover and stop their plot.  The novel "turns the traditional terrorist thriller on its head" (Allan Leverone) and has been compared to "a Michael Bay movie written by Aaron Sorkin" (Chris Brookmyre).  The Library Journal encouraged readers to "Fortify your shelf of Armageddon thrillers with this promising newcomer."

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December Releases

Happy Holidays! The first of every month we feature releases from our Debut Authors Class. Please take a look and let’s celebrate their success!

William Burton McCormick - Lenin's Harem (Knox Robinson Publishing) December 6, 2012 www.leninsharem.com


Amidst the ashes of the failed workers’ rebellions of 1905, Latvian aristocrat Wiktor Rooks finds that he has lost everything: home and heritage, his life's very purpose. Coerced into the Russian Army, Wiktor is soon swept up into the turbulent years of the Great War and Bolshevik  Revolution. In the service of his enemies, he finds himself torn between the noble classes of his birth and his new communist masters, between calls for freedom on Baltic shores and waves of oppression radiating from Moscow's center.

By a twist of fate, he becomes a member of the elite Red Riflemen of the Revolution; a regiment nicknamed “Lenin’s Harem” for their absolute loyalty to the cause. Wiktor adapts to his situation by hiding his aristocratic past. He finds friendship amongst the soldiers and love with a communist girl. When the wars end, he returns to his homeland a different man. But betrayals await in Riga and Stalin's soldiers are soon knocking on the midnight door...

Set in Russia and Latvia between 1905 and 1941, Lenin’s Harem is a story of nationhood, brotherhood and love throughout the most turbulent years of the twentieth century. The novel explores identity in a time of changing loyalties, and the search for a just struggle when all causes are tainted by bloodshed and betrayal.

Mark Pryor - The Bookseller (Seventh Street Books) December 2012 www.markpryorbooks.com

 

Max—an elderly Paris bookstall owner—is abducted at gunpoint. His friend, Hugo Marston, head of security at the US embassy, looks on helplessly, powerless to do anything to stop the kidnapper.

Marston launches a search, enlisting the help of semiretired CIA agent Tom Green. Their investigation reveals that Max was a Holocaust survivor and later became a Nazi hunter. Is his disappearance somehow tied to his grim history, or even to the mysterious old books he sold?

On the streets of Paris, tensions are rising as rival drug gangs engage in violent turf wars. Before long, other booksellers start to disappear, their bodies found floating in the Seine. Though the police are not interested in his opinion, Marston is convinced the hostilities have something to do with the murders of these bouquinistes.

Then he himself becomes a target of the unknown assassins.
With Tom by his side, Marston finally puts the pieces of the puzzle together, connecting the past with the present and leading the two men, quite literally, to the enemy's lair.

Just as the killer intended.

 

 



Erec Stebbins - The Ragnarok Conspiracy (Seventh Street Books) http://www.erecstebbins.com/

The world's most dangerous terrorist organization may well be located in our own backyard.

As Muslims around the world are being targeted in a series of devastating attacks, Agent John Savas is drawn into a web of international intrigue. He must put aside his personal pain and work with a man who symbolizes all he has come to hate. Both are drawn into a race against time to prevent a plot so terrible that it could shatter civilization itself.

In a thriller that spans the globe in an ever-widening arc of intrigue, violence, and personal conflict, the stability of the world hangs in the balance. Only by transcending his own devastating loss can Savas hope to prevent the ultimate calamity unleashed by the Ragnarök conspiracy.

The Review Quandary – or is it a Quagmire?

There was a time when a book review was a scholarly piece. It might analyze structure or parse theme. Contemplative endeavors, the reviewer filtered the words through their own experience, but wrestled with what the author attempted to convey. While I occasionally encounter a thoughtful analysis of a novel, more often authors – or their publicist – parse reviews for the perfect sound bite in order to create a marketing piece.

Purchased reviews—marketing bits—have been around since storytelling moved from oral to written form, but recent articles have reacted to the discovery as if it were major news. Amazon’s bots have jumped on the issue and with programming known only to them are combing online reviews for (paraphrasing here) reviewers with a financial interest in the product. No one was sure if there was an implied payment arrangement or simply a lot of back-scratching going on.

Do reviews matter? Do they influence your buying patterns?

 

When I shop in a bookstore or wander the mystery section in the library, a title, a cover, a favorite author makes me pause and read the jacket blurb. If the blurb strikes my interest, perhaps that’s sufficient but sometimes I’ll read the first page, especially if the author is a new “find.” But I never read the cover quotes or page(s) of review extracts.

Online, I find browsing difficult. Not to pick on Amazon, but clicking on the mystery section tends to bring up the usual suspects. Once I drill down into new-to-me author territory, reviews actually start to matter. It’s fairly easy to dismiss the best-friend hyperbole (it’s the best book ever!) and the trolls (1-star, no text). But I notice whether a book has been reviewed.

 

What about you? What’s your impression of reviews in general? Amazon’s new policy? Their impact on your buying patterns?

Assuming an identity

I don’t belong here. 

Everywhere I go, there’s a little devil on my shoulder that says: you don’t belong here. It’s been there for as long as I can remember. It is gentle but firm. It says, you don’t quite fit in. Or, you’re not really welcome. At work it says: you’re not smart enough, how did you get this job? At the gym it says: you’re not man enough, and everyone is staring at you. At a party: you’re not cool enough, and what the hell are you wearing? At the beach: you look like a pale piece of spaghetti in swimming trunks. At family gatherings, who let you in? 

I’m actually thinking it wouldn’t be a bad idea to expressly stipulate in my will and testament that the phrase “I don’t belong here” be inscribed on my tombstone. The feeling is such an integral part of who I am that I can’t help but think it’s embedded in my genetic profile — innate and codified in every living cell in my body. 

I know that sounds a little crazy, but I do have proof: my mother.

My mother, Blaize Clement, was the well-loved author of the popular Dixie Hemingway Mystery Series published by St. Martin’s/Minotaur. Her first full-length mystery, Curiosity Killed the Cat Sitter, appeared in bookstores in January of 2005. It was an instant favorite among readers and critics alike. Every year there followed another installment in the series, with more and more loyal readers, more rave reviews, and more glowing letters from fans. Everywhere Blaize went, she impressed people with her confidence and poise, but only her best friends knew that there was a side of her that felt like a perpetual outsider, always observing from a distance, never quite fitting in. It was this funny mix of characteristics that I think made her a keen observer of life and an excellent writer. She died of cancer in July of 2011, so we’ll never know to what literary heights she might have flown had she been given more time, but I’m pretty sure that no matter what, she would always have felt like the odd man out. Like a pretender. Like she didn’t belong. 

Which brings me to here and now. Shortly before my mother passed away, her friend and editor at St. Martin’s Press, Marcia Markland, called with a question: would I be interested in continuing the Dixie Hemingway mysteries? I was mortified. My mother was ecstatic. Dixie lives on. Now, a little more than a year later, here I am with an agent, a publishing contract, and a new book out in July of 2013, writing about what it’s been like to step blindly into the world of mystery-writing and pick up where my mother left off. It’s been an amazing, humbling, and life-changing ride, but do you see how I might feel like I don’t belong here? 

People most often want to know if it’s been hard to recreate my mother’s voice and style. Usually I say it’s been as easy as pie, but in all honesty that’s only partly true. I hear my mother’s voice all day long. I hear the cadence of her conversation, her mild southern accent, her slightly irreverent humor, her stubbornness, her wit, her laugh. She poured herself into her books and, most notably, into the character of Dixie Hemingway, and since the books are written entirely from Dixie’s point of view all I have to do is transcribe that voice down on paper and my work is mostly done. The difficulty has been that I feel like a trespasser in the world my mother created, a cat-burglar in the House of Dixie, snooping about and touching things that aren’t mine. I know how fiercely and passionately my mother loved Dixie and her family of characters, but I also know that I can’t do them justice if I don’t make them fully mine.

Last month, I was lucky enough to attend Bouchercon, the annual conference for fans, authors, agents, booksellers and publishers of mystery fiction. For most of the first day, I beat a straight path through the hallways. I brooked the crowds with purpose. I walked from ballroom to conference room and back again without lingering too long, lest anyone think I didn’t know what I was doing. I even wore my black-framed nerd glasses so I’d look like a real writer. Turns out, I was wasting my time. I can’t imagine a more generous and supportive group of people. Everyone I met went out of their way to make me feel welcome, from writers to fans, bloggers to bookstore owners, and publicists to librarians. I made friends I’m sure I’ll have for the rest of my life. And whenever I worked up enough courage to admit that I felt like I didn’t quite fit in, I always got the same response: “Oh yeah. Me too.”

John Clement spends his time between New York City and Sarasota, Florida. The next book in the Dixie Hemingway Series, The Cat Sitter's Cradle, will be out in July, 2013.

Let’s Get Social: Practical tips for writers

Let’s Get Social: Practical tips for writers

By Collin Kelley

When I signed a contract with Vanilla Heart Publishing for my mystery trilogy (Conquering Venus and Remain In Light are out now, the third book is coming in 2014), I knew upfront that I would be playing a large part in promoting my novels. 

Today, many small presses require their authors to actively engage in promotion and even authors selected by the “big six” publishing houses are finding that they have to organize readings, signings and media coverage of their books.

Using social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Goodreads, LibraryThing, and Red Room has become second nature to me. I’ve even guest lectured on social media for writers at literary festivals and at Worcester College at Oxford University in the UK. 

Yes, having to do your own PR distracts from the writing, but I’ve found it’s all about time management. Give yourself a half hour each day to engage on these sites, but don’t “oversell” your work. More on that in a moment.

An easy first step to building an audience for your forthcoming book is to post a sample. Six months before Remain In Lightdebuted, I posted the first four chapters on Scribd (www.scribd.com) and then linked it around to Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads and my blog. In 24 hours, more than 100 people had read the chapters. 

Similarly, when I decided to explore self-publishing an eBook of short stories in the Amazon Kindle Store, I put one of the stories from Kiss Shot on Scribd and social literary site, Fictionaut (www.fictionaut.com). As of this writing, more than 3,000 readers have sampled my work on these sites and I know it’s led to sales. If you have a website or blog, you can also post sample chapters there. It’s easy and free!

The best tip I can give for new authors about to dip their toes into social media is don’t be frightened and start slowly. When I guest lecture and lead classes on social media the most asked question is, “What do I do once I’m on Twitter and Facebook?” 

I recommend setting up a Facebook page for your book, so that you can be more direct in your promotion and sales, but you don’t want to “hard sell” your book. The goal is to build community, so help other writers promote their books, find topics that relate to your books and interests, post funny YouTube clips – you’re selling yourself as much as the book and readers want to get to know authors, so let them into your world.

If you go on Facebook and constantly post “Buy My Book” it’s going to turn people off. The same applies to Twitter. If you want to engage on Twitter, become a source for good links and information, re-tweet links and information from your followers, and let your interests and personality shine through.

Cultivating and building community on social media sites takes time, so work on it daily, but don’t let it become a distraction from your art.

Collin Kelley is the award-winning author of the Amazon bestsellers Conquering Venus and Remain In Light, which was a finalist for the 2012 Townsend Prize for Fiction. His poetry collections include Better To Travel, Slow To Burn, After The Poison and the forthcoming Render (2013, Sibling Rivalry Press). His just-published eBook of short stories, Kiss Shot, is available exclusively in the Amazon Kindle Store. 

Find out more at www.collinkelley.com 
And follow him on Facebook and Twitter

November Releases

Happy November and Happy Thrilling Thursday. The first of every month we will feature members of our Debut October 2012. Please take a look and let’s celebrate their success!

A.J. Colucci - The Colony (Thomas Dunne Books) November 2012 www.ajcolucci.com

A series of gruesome attacks have been sweeping New York City—three men are found dead, their bodies nearly dissolved from the inside out. The culprit is deadly new species of ants, with razor sharp claws and flesh-eating venom. The desperate mayor turns to the greatest ant expert in the world, Paul O'Keefe, and his brilliant ex-wife Kendra Hart. When the ants launch an all-out attack, Paul and Kendra must hit the dangerous, panic-stricken streets, in search of a coveted queen. It's a race to unlock the secrets of this indestructible new species, before the President nukes Manhattan.

 

Anna Lee Huber - THE ANATOMIST'S WIFE (Berkley) www.annaleehuber.com

Scotland, 1830. Following the death of her husband, Lady Darby has taken refuge at her sister's estate, finding solace in her passion for painting.

But when her hosts throw a house party for the cream of London society, Kiera is unable to hide from the ire of those who believe her to be as unnatural as her husband, an anatomist who used her artistic talents to suit his own macabre purposes. Kiera wants to put her past aside, but when one of the house guests is murdered, her brother-in-law asks her to utilize her knowledge of human anatomy to aid the insufferable Sebastian Gage-a fellow guest with some experience as an inquiry agent. When Kiera and Gage's search leads them to even more gruesome discoveries, a series of disturbing notes urges Lady Darby to give up the inquiry. But Kiera is determined to both protect her family and prove her innocence, even as she risks becoming the next victim...

 

Jamie Michele - An Affair of Vengeance (Montlake Romance) www.jamiemichelebooks.com

Undercover agent Evangeline Quill knows the dangers of getting personally involved in her cases. But this one is unavoidable: someone murdered her parents, and she’s sure she knows the killer. To hunt him down, she’ll need evidence…and someone to lead her straight into the murderer’s lair. Enter handsome and elusive Oliver McCrea, a man with ties to the criminal world.

Although McCrea wears a tough outer shell, Evangeline senses something vulnerable beneath his wounded, golden gaze. He’s the one man she shouldn’t want, but she’s never been big on resisting danger. McCrea knows he should turn Evangeline away, but there’s something about her that calls to the man he used to be before the underworld disintegrated his humanity.

Evangeline is determined to draw out a killer, and McCrea’s going to stay right by her side to keep her safe. But will their passion lead to love…or death?

 

Cathy Perkins - Honor Code www.cperkinswrites.com

In a small southern town where everyone knows each other’s business, veteran detective Larry Robbins must solve the disappearance of eighty-year-old widower George Beason.

When evidence arises that Beason may have left town on his own, it would be easy for Robbins to close the case, but his gut instinct tells him more’s at stake. As he uncovers clues about Beason’s deceased wife and his estranged daughter, Robbins must untangle conflicting motives and hidden agendas to bring Beason home alive.

Building 3-D Characters.

Not long ago, I attended a workshop and met the delightful woman sitting behind me - Cherry Adair. New York Times best-selling author, taking the same craft seminar, underscoring we should never stop learning. I’m happy to welcome her as our guest for today’s blog as she shares her thoughts about crafting characters.

Writing interesting characters – making them three dimensional- is the very heartbeat of a good story. Even if one’s plot is ho hum, if your reader connects with your characters you’ll keep them turning pages (and lining up to buy your next book and the next).

My first step in building an interesting character is their name. It shouldn’t be something unpronounceable with lots of letters and no vowels, or something so unusual that every time it’s on the page it slows down the reader as their brain stumbles over the unfamiliar. We don’t want readers spending the entire book trying to figure out how to pronounce a name.

I always give my main character’s a first, middle and last name. (What does their mother yell when she’s mad at them? lol) Even if you never use that middle name, you should know it. As soon as I name a character, I want to know what other people in the book are going to call them. Is it a nickname? A pet name? Is one character the only person that calls her by this particular name when everyone calls her something else? Do they like the name, hate the name, call themselves by another name?

Next find an image. I tend not to use celebrities because they already have characteristics I know. I look for a fresh face, a blank canvas, so my characters are mine, all mine.

Next I give them a birthday. I don’t allow myself to think about it, or read astrological signs – Do this fast. I just tell myself this characters birthday is March 21^st 1992. Done. I do this for each major character, and that includes villains (it doesn’t have to be a mustache twirling bad guy – it could be the hero’s mother-in-law.) All the main characters have a birthday. Day, month and year. The most important thing with birthdays is you can not change it once you chose it!  No matter what.

 

Once you have a birthday, research that astrological sign and you’ll see who your person is. Pick three to five character traits, and use at least once in every scene that character is in. No matter who’s POV you’re in. If the person is on the page, make sure they have characteristics individual to them. If this is who you want, you’re golden. You have all their characteristics under their sun sign, and you’re ready to write. What is the astrological sign isn’t who you want your character to be? Snoopy dance!  But I love it when I inadvertently end up with a person I didn’t want, and have no desire to write. This is striking gold! (remember, no changing birthdays). If you have a meek and mild astrological sign, when the character you want is a kick butt, fire sign, then you need to go into their backstory and see what changed them from meek, to fire. Give them life experiences, learning curves, lessons in their past, things that have changed them (for better or worse). Make them who you want them to be, but be sure to motivate those changes.

What’s fabulous about this is that you make sure that the ‘original them’ peeks through now and then. You can decide if, when the chips are down, they use everything they’ve learned over the years, or if they revert back to who they used to be.

Once I have their name, date of birth, and characteristics, I write their backstory. I want to know about their family (even if that family never appears on the page) How they were raised, how they grew up, who their patents are/were, how their parents treated them, their birth order, their level of education- all these things go into who they are the moment they first appear on the page. Be sure to add milestones in their life, the good and the bad. Know what they love. What they hate. What is their Kryptonite? What do they consider their strengths? What do they consider their weaknesses? What makes them happy. How do they feel about money (or lack thereof). Another thing I always know about a character before I start writing is how they behave if they’re scared. What is their tendency? To run away? To ask for help? To tackle even the scariest situation by themselves?

Knowing all of the above about your characters before you write Chapter One gives you a solid base to build your 3-D characters on so that once you start writing, you don’t have to come up with his brother’s name on the fly, or decided half way through the book it would be cool if he’s an orphan.

If he’s a three dimensional person in your head, he’ll saunter onto the page, thumbs in his back pockets, scar on his hard head from falling off the jungle gym when he was seven, barely healed heart after Roxanne jilted him at the alter when he was twenty-six, squinting because he refuses to wear his glasses. He’ll look out of that page with so much personality readers will hold their breath as they turn the page to see what he’ll do next.

 

 

You can visit Cherry at her website and check out her recent release Ice Cold

Farewell Miranda

The Thrill Begins will go dark for a week, beginning Thursday, October 18th, to honor Miranda's memory and the enormous contribution she made to the Debut Authors program

~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ 

                                         In Memory Of

                                  Davidae “Dee” Stewart
                                Writing as Miranda Parker

                          February 3, 1973 - October 5, 2012

                       Author ~ Heart health advocate ~ Friend



                   Please add your favorite memory about, or tribute to, Miranda in the comments

~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~

October Debut Releases

Happy October and Happy Thrilling Thursday. The first of every month we will feature members of our Debut October 2012. Please take a look and let’s celebrate their success!

F.T. Bradley, DOUBLE VISION (Harper Collins), October 2012

Twelve-year-old Linc is a trouble-maker with a dilemma. His antics on a recent school field trip went way overboard, landing his already poor family with a serious lawsuit. So when two secret agents show up at his house, Linc is eager to take them up on their offer to make the lawsuit disappear. They just need one tiny favor.

Douglas Wynne - THE DEVIL OF ECHO LAKE (Journal Stone) October 2012 http://www.dougwynne.com

Goth rock idol Billy Moon has it all: money, fame, and a different girl in every city.
But he also has a secret, one that goes all the way back to the night he almost took his own life. The night Trevor Rail, a shadowy record producer with a flair for the dark and esoteric, agreed to make him a star. . . for a price.

Laura Ellen - BLIND SPOT (Harcourt) October 2012 http://www.lauraellenbooks.com/

Seventeen-year-old Tricia Farni’s body floated to the surface of Alaska’s Birch River six months after the night she disappeared. The night Roz Hart had a fight with her. The night Roz can’t remember. Roz, who struggles with macular degeneration, is used to assembling fragments to make sense of the world around her. But this time it’s her memory that needs piecing together—to clear her name . . . to find a murderer.