Swenson Book Development, LLC Blog

What kind of editor do you need?

Jill Swenson — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 16:52:25 +0000

It’s important for an author to know the differences between the various kinds of editing, and understand what professional services an editor may or may not provide. When you work with an editor, find one with whom you can clearly communicate your needs, expectations and working style. Not all editors are the same.

Copyeditors read your document and look for errors in punctuation, spelling, grammar, style, and usage. Sentence structure, unnecessary words, and pagination are covered.

Technical editors read your document for code. The technical specifications required for digital submissions of manuscripts today often means an author requires editorial assistance of a technical nature.

Line editors read for the flow of ideas and arrangement of editorial content. Margin comments are written to the author to address. Line editors move sections around, and identify content that is misplaced, missing, or extraneous.

Structural editors read the manuscript and look at issues of narrative arc, organization, point of view, voice, development of characters or arguments, and other substantive editorial matters. These kind of editors help you put together a clear and coherent line of analysis or work with you to create a narrative arc that satisfies a reader.

Development editors and writing coaches work as needed to be a sounding board while you flesh out your book ideas. A development editor works with an author from the seed of the idea until the book is published and beyond. A writing coach provides you with needed tutorials or guidance to complete your own self-editing.

Editors who will do fact-checking can help with research for your publishing initiative. Find an editor who knows how to conduct the kind of research your book will require; whether subject specific or particular to your audience and market niche. Make sure they know to follow the Manual of Style you specify for your electronic submission.

Ghostwriters are the most aggressive editors in that they take editorial control and rewrite or generate content to communicate your ideas.

Rarely do you find one person who does all these different kinds of editing. And yet, Swenson Book Development LLC, has been privileged to have had Ruth Chlebowski, Ph.D. as Senior Editor and a dedicated team member since the start. Her editorial services will be sorely missed. She has served the select clientele of Swenson Book Development LLC very well.

Congratulations to Senior Editor Ruth Chlebowski who has accepted a full time permanent position as a technical editor and proposal writer in the Austin area.

Happy Father’s Day: For the love of books

Jill Swenson — Sat, 15 Jun 2013 14:20:07 +0000

Growing up in a home with books explains, in part, my love of books. My father has always had a library. That Bob Swenson read Ariel and Will Durant’s 11 volumes of The Story of Civilization and William Shirer’s The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, meant I surreptitiously read them too, in junior high. Cold War novels, international espionage thrillers, an occasional mystery, Michener, Philip Roth, and Graham Greene. An early member of the Book-of-the-Month-Club, Dad always had a new book. He kept the dictionaries and encylcopedias on shelves where I could easily reach them. And there was always something to read in the bathroom at home. Reader’s Digest or the TV Guide, at least.

We watched Walter Cronkite on CBS Evening News every evening before supper, except on Sundays. We’d listen to WCCO’s CBS Mystery Theater on the car radio driving home from Grandma’s after a big pot roast, mashed potatoes and gravy. Driving through the streets of north Minneapolis, Dad would ask trivia questions about history, politics, sports, and current events.

“Who is Richard Nixon’s running mate? A. James Miles Martin, B. Spiro Agnew, or C. Hubert Humpherdink?” he asked from behind the steering wheel of our pale blue Chevy station wagon.

“James Miles Martin,” I guessed. Wrong.

Dad busted out laughing. Jim Martin was our back-door neighbor on France Avenue. Only trivia question I remember getting wrong. Dad won’t ever let me forget it. He’ll be enjoying the day in Minnesota tomorrow with mom.

Memory. Facts. Fun. Story. Books. Knowledge. My father taught me the value of each.

How to Write Your Non-Fiction Book Proposal

Jill Swenson — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 13:37:12 +0000

There is more than one path to publishing today. Whether your plan is to seek a traditional publisher or self-publish, you need a book proposal. Consider it a business feasibility plan. Before you invest your time and intellectual energy to a book project, first determine whether there is market demand for your new product. Figuring out how you will harness that market demand and fulfill reader needs and expectations are fundamental steps to take before writing your manuscript.

Writing a book is an expensive endeavour if you intend your book to be bought and read in print. For those planning to self-publish, you’ll need a budget between $3,000 – $18,000 for professional services. While you will find packages for less than $500 to self-publish, the expenses of editing, page layout, cover design, plus services to market, distribute, promote and publicize your book quickly add up. Keep in mind these companies make a profit from authors, not from selling books. If you plan to pursue traditional publication, you should know commercial publishers expect authors to assume responsibility for more costs: editing, indexing, copyright permission fees, photography, marketing, website development, publicity and promotions. You will likely spend $10,000 before signing a contract in business-related expenses related to your role and responsibilities as an author.

In non-fiction, publishers have moved away from an advance on copyright royalties. They want an author to be invested in their book’s success and publishers expect authors to take the lead in sales. Authors who understand this is a business may become disheartened when they realize the bottom line for their writing efforts are likely to be neglible or negative. Understanding the expenses and time involved will help you build a budget and time schedule for your book project. It will also hone your motivations for pursuing publication.

Preparing a book proposal is a road map for your path to publishing. Because Swenson Book Development LLC provides custom professional author services, we have developed a very inexpensive way for authors of non-fiction and memoir to start on the road with planning their route. Comparable books are $19.99 to $99.00.

Authors who contract for professional services with Swenson Book Development LLC repeatedly tell me how valuable they find the proprietary materials – tutorials, workbooks, checklists, exercises – I provide to assist them with their publishing endeavors. Clients sign a contract which stipulates they cannot copy or distribute these materials to friends or writing colleagues as it is intended solely for their benefit.

Increasing interest and demand from potential clients for guidance in preparing a book proposal now exceeds our capacity to offer custom one-to-one services. Many of you already know how helpful these materials can be, especially when an author begins the journey toward publication. Making some of these writer resources available as affordable paid downloads will allow Swenson Book Development LLC to continue to provide customized services for its clients and address additional authors’ needs for professional guidance, quality instruction, and reliable information.

We’re pleased to introduce our first product for purchase at $3.99 . We hope you have already downloaded our first two free guidebooks and a metric tracker in our previous newsletters. If not, download all four today.

Summer Reading List

Jill Swenson — Sat, 08 Jun 2013 12:35:34 +0000

Good writers read good writing. While you are writing your work-in-progress, keep reading great books. Here’s our recommendations for a super summer reading list.

Non-Fiction

Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo

Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation by Michael Pollan

Death in the Baltic: WWII Sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff by Cathryn Prince

Dirty Wars by Jeremy Scahill

Good Prose: The Art of Non-Fiction by Tracy Kidder and Richard Todd

The End of Night: Searching for Natural Darkness in an Age of Artificial Light by Paul Bogard

Gulp by Mary Roach

Memoir

After Visiting Friends: A Son’s Story by Michael Hainey

Her by Christa Parravani

Memoirs of an Addicted Brain: A Neurochemist Examines his Former Life on Drugs by Marc Lewis

My Beloved World by Sonia Sotomayor

Wild by Cheryl Strayed

With or Without You by Domenica Ruta

The World’s Strongest Librarian: A Memoir of Tourette’s Faith, Strength, and the Power of Family by Josh Hanagarne

Fiction and short stories

Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker

And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini

Damage Control by Amber Dermot

Interestings by Meg Wolitzer

Life After Life by Kate Atkinson

The Sun by Philipp Meyer

Tenth of December by George Saunders

What’s on your summer reading list?

Prose: Good, Better, Best

Jill Swenson — Tue, 04 Jun 2013 13:49:05 +0000

Tracy Kidder and Richard Todd have co-authored Good Prose: The Art of Non-Fiction and opened a window into writing and editing, writer and editor. Author of Strength in What Remains, Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, A Man Who Would Cure the World, Tracy Kidder won the Pulitzer Prize for his 1981 non-fiction narrative, The Soul of a New Machine. Kidder established a relationship with his editor, Richard Todd, at The Atlantic Monthly during the 1970s. Good Prose is as much a story about the 35 year history of a working relationship between Kidder and Todd, as it is an excellent resource for the craft of writing narrative non-fiction.

Chapters Two and Three on narrative and memoir are especially relevant to those working on finding the story and structure. As Kidder and Todd write about literary notions like author’s voice, it is transparent to the reader who narrates each section and you can hear their distinctive perspectives and differences without artifice. The kind of editing one learned in high school or freshmen composition class is merely tinkering. The subtitle, Art of Non-Fiction, implies the artisanry with language these two work. You can’t get very far with an editor who simply pushes things around. Richard Todd is not that kind of editor.

“Editing isn’t just something that happens to you. You have to learn how to be edited,” to quote Kidder on page 136. In publishing today, the acquisition editor who signs an author for a book may not be at that company by the time the book is published and certainly does not have the time to edit the manuscript. I often read book reviews which suggest the failure is the lack of an editor. Writers often resist editing and often the writer prevails simply because a writer is exhausted and committed to his errors, according to Todd. He understands his responsibility as an editor is not as a fixer. He addresses book editors: “You have to admit your confusion, and you have to go back to the author.”

There is so much to recommend about this book for writers, and editors. Here’s a few snippets I hope will entice you to explore the wisdom between the covers of Good Prose. In this short review, some of their editorial suggestions are worth sharinng.

Things Kidder and Todd would happily expunge from language in publication:

Adjectives and adverbs suffering from exhaustion: sustainability, green, iconic, incredible, incredibly.
Phrases that once seemed fresh: low hanging fruit, tipping point, herding cats, on steroids.
Misused words (enormity, fractious, disinterested/uninterested, infer/imply)
Pop cultural references that come too easily (perfect storm, fifteen minutes of fame, whatever, just sayin’)
Euphemism “pass” for “die.”
All sports metaphors.

“The desire to tell the truth haunts the serious memoirist, and so it should. But there is a step beyond truth. For the writer, the ultimate reward of memoir may be to produce a work in which the facts are preserved but the experience is transformed” (p. 61).

“Writers who need editors have to learn to listen, really listen, to advice that no one wants to hear — that you should jettison heard-earned pages, that you must start again” (p. 156).

“I may like not what I see but what I imagine.You have to envision the potential of a piece of writing, and potential can sometimes be more exciting than reality. Emily Dickinson’s line ‘I dwell in possibility, a fairer house than prose’ is an editor’s motto” (p. 171).

Twitter is a research tool for writers

Jill Swenson — Sat, 01 Jun 2013 14:51:27 +0000

Many authors simply dismiss Twitter. They imagine Brooklynites and Los Angelinos strolling city streets while on their smartphones punching tiny keyboards. If the demographics of your book’s readers don’t match those who use Twitter, why bother? No one seems interested in tweeting what they ate for lunch, where they went shopping, or the funny thing their kid said. How can you say anything meaningful or valuable in one sentence?

Dismiss Twitter at your own risk, writers. With 554 million users, the average number of tweets per day is 58 million as of May 7, 2013. Projected advertising revenue from Twitter for 2013 is $400 million. It might surprise you to know only 43% use their phone to tweet. Every day another 135,000 people open a Twitter account. Forty percent don’t tweet at all. They read other people’s tweets.

Twitter is not a megaphone for an author to pick up and shout into the Twitterverse: “Buy MY book!” Many self-published authors continue to use Twitter in this way, much to the annoyance of their Tweeps. Twitter is a many-to-many communication channel which makes it more like a crowded party with many conversations going on simultaneously. Join the conversation only when you have something to say, something of value to share with those whom you have been reading.

Twitter is more interesting, more fun, and more fruitful if you consider it a writer’s tool instead of a marketing platform.

Twitter possesses tremendous research potential for a writer of non-fiction and memoir. The search engine allows you to discover valuable new information by the use of hashtags and keywords. #FlagDay brings up every tweet which uses these two words in that contiguous order. There I discover there will be an Impeach Obama March in Washington, DC on June 14, around the rest of the nation a variety of parades, sales, and public commemorative events. I learn that Haiti’s Flag Day was May 18, read links to essays about the history and meaning of the U.S. national holiday. In 10 seconds of scanning these 140 character messages, a great deal can be discerned.

This means if you are doing research and fact checking for your manuscript, Twitter is a handy tool to have at your fingertips. With a different algorithm for its search engine, you will find material not yielded in a Google search. Tweets often include a link to content that does not fit in 140 characters.

Journalists have discovered the power of Twitter in their reporting skills. In this new era of citizen journalism, breaking news is often tweeted. So it is a source for story leads. Journalists often pose a question or seek specific kinds of sources as they investigate a story. When researching the sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff, Cathryn Prince connected with German citizens, Polish historians, poets, those who endured the last days of Operation Hannibal, and World War II enthusiasts through Twitter.

As an author prepares a book proposal, Twitter becomes a sharp instrument to use in crafting a marketing strategy. Using hashtags (#) and keywords (search terms) an author can find associations and organizations of relevance; with conferences, newsletters, journals,membership lists. Twitter can help you find bloggers and book reviewers whom you would want to review your book. Cultivating connections on Twitter can lead an author to influential opinion leaders whose endorsement for your manuscript may prove helpful.

Twitter can also help your writing craft. Using hashtags like #storycraft, #Memoirchat, and #YALitChat you can engage in real time online conversation with other writers. Furthermore, Swenson Book Development LLC is not the only one tweeting information intended to help authors. If you struggle with your editor’s margin note — show don’t tell — you can search #showdon’ttell and up pops dozens of writer resources to tackle this issue.

Add Twitter to your writer’s toolkit.

Using Citation Machine to Credit Information for your Non-Fiction Manuscript

Claire Webber — Tue, 28 May 2013 13:17:50 +0000

You may think you left citations behind when you finished writing college papers, but if you are writing non-fiction these little footprints of authority are more important than ever. In school, your references to others’ work is a matter of intellectual honesty and under Fair Use of the Copyright Act, attribution of the source is sufficient. When you are writing a book that will be published and sold, your work no longer falls under this clause since the purpose is for profit. The responsibility for proper citations and copyright permissions rests entirely upon the author.

When do you need to use a citation when writing non-fiction?

When you are using a direct quote
When you are paraphrasing someone else’s idea or analysis
When you are using data, statistics, or any other quantifiable ‘fact’ that can challenged or called into question
When you want to strengthen a point or argument, and there is a more qualified figure who also speaks to that fact
If you want to give readers more information that doesn’t fit into the flow of your writing (although that can also fall more under the purview of a note)

There are many ways to deal with citing your sources depending on how you are writing your manuscript and what you are writing about. This isn’t academic writing – those messy MLA and APA parenthetical in-text citations probably won’t make an appearance in your book. Chances are, you will use footnotes or endnotes to house your conceptual credentials.

The Rigid Standards of Citations

Much to the chagrin of creative types the set of rules governing many types of citations are inflexible. They cover order, capitalization, and even formatting like italics and punctuation. Modern Language Association (MLA), American Psychological Association (APA), Turabian, and The Chicago Manual of Style are the most common styles used in publishing. You will probably be formatting the book manuscript with your citations in the format of the Chicago Manual of Style, which is the go-to for most types of book publishing.

For example, if I used this quote from a book I accessed online -

“Hair dyes were popular in Ancient Rome, and historians have discovered more than 100 different recipes that the Romans used for bleaching or dying hair”

The endnote citation in the CMS format looks like this:

Sherrow, Victoria, ed. Encyclopedia of Hair: a Cultural History. Greenwood Publishing Group, 206. s.v. “Hair Colorants.” books.google.com/books?isbn=0313331456 (accessed May 25, 2013).

But I’ll let you in on a little secret – this took me no memorization, no know-how, and no time at all.

Using Citation Machine for Painless Citations

Citation Machine is a free service that helps writers give credit where credit is due, and does away with writing with the Chicago Manual of Style by your side. By simply plugging in my pertinent information, I am able to generate a flawless citation.

Start by choosing the citation style you wish to follow.

Determine the type of resource you are citing. Citation Machine covers even the most modern sources, although not a style guides are up to speed. (MLA has a format for Twitter, for example!)

Complete the form with the bibliographical information of your source.

Highlight the proper generated citation and save it!

Your endnotes shouldn’t be a painful task. Don’t wait until you are finished writing and putting your bibliography and endnotes together. Use the technology at your disposal to source your information as you research. Much easier to gather the citation information when you find it, than try to locate it again later.

The beauty of Citation Machine becomes self-evident when you need to reformat your citations from one style format to another. Let the machine do it for you. When you make reference to the source in the body of the text, Citation Machine provides an ‘In-Text Citation to highlight and copy’ to paste into your document. When you are ready to put your bibliography together, Citation Machine creates a ‘highlight and copy’ citation for you to use.

Citation Machine does NOT save your work. Make sure to create a file for your citations. You put your citation information data into the machine, and it comes out for you to cut and paste into your files. It’s a great rachet wrench in your author’s toolkit.

Welcome Ava Russell, Intern

Jill Swenson — Sat, 25 May 2013 15:33:29 +0000

Ava Russell begins her summer internship with Swenson Book Development LLC, on Tuesday after Memorial Day weekend. She is an English literature major at SUNY Geneseo. Last summer she interned as an editorial assistant for Fresh Dirt Ithaca magazine. Copyeditor for her college newspaper, The Lamron, Ava Russell also tutors fellow Geneseo students in writing. Spring semester in London gave her a permanent travel bug, an endless craving for jacket potatoes, and a slightly better understanding of British satire. It has also deepened her appreciation for the calm and clean water of her hometown in Upstate New York. Fascinated with books before she could walk, Ava is particularly drawn to stories that provoke questions and debate. She has a strong interest in the visual arts and loves when books, like abstract paintings, leave her perplexed and contemplative.

Look for Ava’s contributions to the next issue of our e-newsletter.With her love of books, and career objectives in publishing, Ava Russell joins the team of Swenson Book Development LLC for the summer working with authors and on new products and services to assist writers.

Plans are in the works for Swenson Book Development LLC to offer additional author guides and workbooks, seminars, webinars and podcasts in the coming months.

What does a book development editor do for an author?

Jill Swenson — Tue, 21 May 2013 13:02:25 +0000

What does a book development editor do?

Professionally assess your manuscript or book concept for its publishing potential

Offer critical feedback and editorial guidance

Serve as writing coach as the author completes a manuscript

Collaborate in the development of a winning book proposal

Position and package the book concept to specific publishers

Research what publishers are looking for in the current market

Conduct market research on target audience and how to reach your readers

Identify competitive titles in the current marketplace of ideas

Create a marketing strategy and assist in building an audience platform

Provide guidance in the business of publishing

A book development editor functions as:

* An advocate for an author and his or her work

* A midwife who assists with the birth of a writing project

* A reminder who keeps the author on track if things begin to slip

* An editor for that last push before submission

* A critic who will tell authors what they need to hear in order to improve

* A matchmaker who knows the exact editors for an author’s type of writing

* A negotiator who will fight to get the best deal for an author

* A mediator who can step in between author and publisher to fix problems

* A reality check if an author gets out of sync with the real world

* A liaison between the publishing community and the author

* A champion for your work

* A focal point for subsidiary, foreign and dramatic rights

* A mentor who will assist in developing an author’s career

* A rainmaker who can get additional writing work for an author

* A career coach for all aspects of your writing future

* An educator about changes in the publishing industry

* A manager of the business side of your writing life

A book development editor is NOT an agent, which means s/he does not work on commission of the sale of your intellectual property. The book development editor charges you for professional services; and the fees may vary according to the type of service you contract for. Your editor is not compensated by agents or publishers for referrals.

A book development editor is NOT a publisher and discourages most authors from self-publishing. While self-publishing and e-books have their place—wedding albums, company histories, scrapbooks, family stories, gift books, church directories, cookbooks—the bulk of self-publishing initiatives are poor investments. These ventures usually take more money from authors in publishing fees than they generate in book sales.

A book development editor IS an editor and someone the author hires—often before the manuscript is completed—to provide editorial support, advice, and guidance. The development editor tells that writer what works, what doesn’t, what needs to happen and how to do it. A writer hires a developmental editor to deliver the truth and to provide options for making the book come to life.

Many book development editors specialize in genres (fiction or non-fiction), even subgenres, and they do not accept all clients for their services. A book development editor usually has particular areas of expertise with a particular network of agents and publishers. A book development editor maintains professional relations with these agents and publishers, and knows what they are looking for in new material.

Many publishers are delighted to know the author has invested in a developmental editor. It implies the author will be able to deliver a manuscript according to stylistic and digital submission requirements in a timely fashion, build an audience platform using social media prior to book launch and has someone to assist with the stresses, complexities and demands of publication, marketing and sales.

If you are serious about publishing your non-fiction book manuscript and don’t want to be rejected or scammed, then a book development editor may be what you need. Let Swenson Book Development, LLC help you navigate the headwaters of the publishing industry in these turbulent times.

The Four Bs to Be: Social Media for Authors

Jill Swenson — Sat, 18 May 2013 13:02:50 +0000

Social media marketing of books is an extension of the tried and true method of word-of-mouth advertising. Reviews and personal recommendations have historically played a more fundamental role in a reader’s decision of what book to read than traditional advertising. Today friends and family share what they are reading on Facebook, GoodReads, Twitter. What technology adds to the mix is a way for authors and readers to find each another and communicate. Publishers rely on authors to market their books by making direct one-to-one connections to readers. This means the success of your book requires your strategic use of social media for social purposes. You don’t have to “do it all,” rather do it wisely.

Be There

Give up your fantasy that someone else can ‘do this’ for you. Or that you can program your status updates and blog posts like a robot. Your presence is required to respond to live engagement with readers. It’s tempting to use an automated tweet scheduler to take some of the effort out of your social media strategy.

However small your amount of time online per day is, you open a window to your readers. You want to be able to respond. Don’t leave a potential reader who tries to engage with you hanging. Be present.

Be Shareable

Are your blog posts simply personal journal entries, or are they something that goes beyond yourself? If you are writing just about you, the circle of friends and family might constrict rather than expand your network. If you give useful information, a new way to think about something, or speak to the larger human condition, your audience grows exponentially.

There’s no need to be overly informative or cutesy; just ask yourself if your subject and approach speaks to more than your closest friends. Not everything in your personal life is fodder for your professional persona. What you share should add value to your readers’ lives. Sharing others’ good news is more important than self-promotion as an author.

Be Engaged

You should be excited and share your passion and enthusiasm in your writing. If you feel like reading and responding to your comments is a chore, you’re probably not posting about something you care enough about to sustain for the long haul.

But if you get a little adrenaline rush when you see several comments, retweets, or you think ‘Oh! I have to share this!’ after reading an article, you’re probably on the right track to blissful social media engagement. Write about what you love, what you want to know more about, and what you care about.

Be Friendly

How many blogs have you responded to in the last month? It should be at least equal to the number of blogs you posted, if not more. Remember your grandmother used to tell you that if you wanted to get letters in the mail you had to write letters? Making social media work for authors is more about the social dynamics than the technical or numerical aspects. You are building a community of readers for your book. Respond to your comments to get new readers.

Social Media is meant to be, well, social! You aren’t going to get the results you want if you are a hermit online. If you want more “likes,” then take the time to read and respond with a comment or ‘like’ other writers work. Take the time to find new blogs and reach out to them. Take the time to make your audience feel welcome.

(Photo courtesy of Mary Bouchard, Trumansburg, NY)

Interview with Cathryn J Prince, author of Death in the Baltic

Jill Swenson — Tue, 14 May 2013 14:14:32 +0000

Jill Swenson: Cathryn Prince, this is your fourth book of historical non-fiction. Death in the Baltic: The World War II Sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff is a featured selection for the Military History Book Club this spring, advance reviews are positive and Amazon sales rankings impressive.. How does your experience working towards publication on this fourth book compare to a decade ago with your first, Shot from the Sky: American POWs in Switzerland?

Cathryn Prince: Each book is different, of course. First there are some similarities between the first and my new book. Each examines a “smaller” event embedded in the global events of WWII. In both cases I knew that these were stories that really had to be told. I knew I would be writing about people who were wary of how their story would be received. I felt, and still feel, an incredible sense of responsibility to tell their story and to tell it well.

Both books required a lot of leg work – tracking down people and conducting face to face interviews as well as time spent in archives and libraries. With ten years between the books, I did notice real differences. More information is now at my fingertips with the Internet and more historical records have been made available so it does cut the time in terms of finding the sources. The advent of social media changed things as well. For this book Facebook and Twitter were tremendous resources when it came down to discovering sources and building on-line relationships with potential readers.

Jill Swenson: How did you find out about the sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff? And at what point did you know the story would be your next book project?

Cathryn Prince: Several years ago my father told me about a German ship sunk at the end of World War II. He didn’t know much about it except that “it made the Titanic look like a fender bender.” I looked it up. The worst maritime disaster in peace or war: more than 9,000 people died on January 30, 1945 when a Soviet submarine attacked the Wilhelm Gustloff, a former cruise liner turned escape ship. That’s six times more than those who died when the Titanic sank after hitting an iceberg. I knew it couldn’t be just about the sinking. It had to be about the people aboard the ship – their lives before the war and after the war.

Horst Woit was the first survivor I met. This was back in 2006. I spent a few days with him, but I knew after our first hour of conversation that his was a story that needed to be told. Too many of us are unfamiliar with the sinking of this ship and what it was like to come of age in East Prussia – caught between the Nazis first and the Soviets second.

Jill Swenson: Why don’t most Americans know about this tragic story?

Cathryn Prince: There is no single answer to that question. Nazi Germany did a good job of keeping it quiet in the immediate aftermath. Some of the survivors were ordered to keep their mouths shut. The Nazi leadership didn’t want people to know because they were worried it would cause panic among those still trying to flee in ships across the Baltic Sea. They also knew the symbolism was too great – the Wilhelm Gustloff, the crown jewel in the “Strength Through Joy” fleet had been destroyed. Later, the survivors didn’t talk about it because of war guilt and a sense of shame for the horrors Nazi Germany inflicted on the world. For us in the United States it has taken some time to acknowledge civilians of Nazi Germany suffered. Initially the Soviet Union kept the story quiet because the commander of the submarine – Alexander Marinesko – was not in good graces with his superiors. It wasn’t until Mikhail Gorbachev in 1990 when he posthumously bestowed the Order of Lenin on Marinesko that the story really surfaced there.

Jill Swenson: Where did you travel to conduct your research?

Cathryn Prince: I traveled to Canada a few times, Las Vegas, Ascona, Switzerland and Washington, DC.

Jill Swenson: What challenges did language and national borders play in gaining access to documents to stories involving Russian, German, Lithuanian, Polish, and other Baltic peoples?

Cathryn Prince: Finding the right archive in Germany took a bit of sleuthing. I learned that while the Red Cross had kept records most were destroyed as the Soviet Army neared Berlin. It was a daisy chain of contacts until I found a researcher in Germany. I asked him to copy everything pertaining to this event and ship it to me. I’m fortunate that my husband speaks and reads German. So we spent many nights poring over documents.

Jill Swenson: You’re a journalist, historian, and author. You are also a journalism educator, writing coach, public speaker, and workshop facilitator. But I know you are also a mom to two kids who love to read and married to a brilliant and gorgeous doctor which means you’ve got your hands full. How do you find time to write? And blog? And Tweet and Facebook and LinkedIn too?

Cathryn Prince: I rowed in college. My coach always told us there is time in the day for everything you want to do. I believe that. I don’t have a research assistant, or intern. I’m lucky that my husband and I support each other in our professions and understand the demands of each other’s careers. My children are older now, 15 and 12, so that makes it easier. I usually get up at 5am, when I’m working on a book. If I’m really deep in the writing I get up at 4am. Get my coffee and sit down. After I get the kids off to school I write some more. I do make sure to get outside once a day for a run or walk – I need that fresh air and time to let what I’m working on ‘simmer.’

Jill Swenson: Any additional advice to authors writing non-fiction for publication?

Cathryn Prince: Remember that a non-fiction work needs structure and a narrative arc. It needs a beginning, middle and end just like a work of fiction. I would say that be mindful that nonfiction can be a harder sell to publishers but don’t let that deter you. That’s the writing challenge. Compelling stories will find their way.

Jill Swenson: Favorite authors/books?

Cathryn Prince: Do we have another page? There are so many. Ernest Hemingway’s “A Farewell to Arms,” Dalton Trumbo’s “Johnny Got His Gun,” and Antoine St.-Exupery’s “The Little Prince” are my favorite trio. I adore Alan Furst and John Sanford and Patricia Cornwell. I’m loving Ruth Septys novels for young adults (I have a daughter and we like to share authors). Elizabeth Strout, and Graham Greene.

Jill Swenson: Favorite time and place to write?

Cathryn Prince: Early in the morning, at my desk with my dogs underfoot.

Jill Swenson: Me, too. Thanks Cathryn. And congratulations.

If you want to know more about Cathryn Prince and how to bring her book into your community of readers, please click here www.cathrynprince.com

What’s the premise of your book?

Jill Swenson — Sat, 11 May 2013 15:40:41 +0000

When you write a book, it needs to be about something. When someone asks what your book is about, how do respond? Do you stumble over your words trying to describe your book? Time to pin down your premise.

Premise: The central idea, situation, or set-up which provides the foundation and pushes the narrative forward. What happens as a result of actions is another way of describing the premise. If point A is where the conflict or problem arises and point B is the outcome, then the premise is A leads to B. Perhaps another way to get a handle on the premise of your book is to determine its main point or take-away lesson.

A premise is usually one sentence. It conveys the larger lesson or a universal truth. “When Dorothy is caught up in a Kansan tornado, she visits a magical place called Oz, only to discover there’s no place like home.”

Expressing your premise — your driving idea — helps you while you write. It keeps you from wandering too far astray from the organizing concept and your narrative arc on a steady path. Consider your opening scenario, central characters, the inciting incident and how the stakes are raised. Your premise may be stated in the form of a question. “What if a group of school boys stranded on a desert island work to govern themselves?”

A premise should be brief, provocative, and include the central characters, a conflict, and a hook. The premise should pull the reader into the story and leave them begging for more. The premise should reveal a larger world and contain universal appeal. Write your premise statement in present tense and with clarity.

Here are some examples in book deals reported on Publishers Marketplace from May 9-10, 2013 listings.

“NYT bestselling author Seanan McGuire‘s INDEXING, a serialized urban fantasy novel pitched as Grimm meets Criminal Minds, about a special branch of law enforcement which hunts down potential fairy tales before their narratives can become active and leads to deadly consequences, to David Pomerico at 47 North, for initial publication as a Kindle Serial in 12 installments, followed by a print edition, by Diana Fox at Fox Literary (world English). Translation: Betty Anne Crawford at Books Crossing Borders, Film/TV: Pouya Shahbazian at New Leaf Literary.”

“Compensation expert Don Delve‘s THE PURPOSE OF PAY: Revamping Compensation to Revitalize Organizations, demonstrating the competitive advantage of using compensation and incentives to create a more productive and innovative workforce, to Laurie Harting at Palgrave, for publication in 2014, by Joelle Delbourgo, at Joelle Delbourgo Associates (World).”

“John Glatt‘s THE LOST GIRLS, the story of three young women kidnapped, imprisoned, and repeatedly raped and beaten for over a decade by Ariel Castro in Cleveland and just recently discovered alive, to Charlie Spicer at St. Martin’s by Jane Dystel at Dystel & Goderich Literary Management.

When they write up the big news about your book deal, your clear premise statement will be front and center. Put it down on paper and put it in front of your mind as you craft your book. The power of a premise shouldn’t be underestimated.

In Search of Structure: Finding Your Non-Fiction Narrative Arc

Jill Swenson — Tue, 07 May 2013 14:18:10 +0000

Do you have a non-fiction work-in-progress? Are you in search of structure to your manuscript?

The organization and order of information in a non-fiction book is every bit as important as plot is to fiction. Immersing yourself in the subject matter is no guarantee that the structure of a book will reveal itself as self-evident.

So how does a writer of non-fiction move from the research, notes, interviews, documents, and quotes into a coherent structure? And more importantly, a structure that serves the readers of your work? Structural editing is part of the writing process itself.

Here I suggest four techniques to help you hone and refine the narrative structure to your non-fiction work-in-progress.

Thematic analysis

What are the major themes in the book?

Describe how each theme is relevant. How does each theme get played out? In which sections does each theme arise? Are there characters whose personalities or interactions embody one of these themes? How so?

Write reflectively about each theme. As you do, ideas for tightening the plot will pop out at you.

Question analysis

What subjects, topics, and issues will your book cover? What questions will your book answer? Pretend you are writing questions for IBM’s Watson on Jeopardy. Make a long list. Include questions you have already answered in your research and questions you plan to investigate further.

Sort the questions into groups that emerge from critical reflection. For each group, write additional questions you will need to answer. Think about what the reader needs to know and when and where in your book they need to know it. Sort your grouped questions into an organizational framework.

Don’t forget to ask the big questions. So what? Who cares?

Storyboarding

Sketch the important scenes in your book. Think cinematically. If you are artistically inclined, draw them; if not, paint with words. Brainstorm on as many scene sketches as you can without referring to your research. What are the most gripping moments? Where does the action take place?

Take each scene and identify the conflict or goal, the actors involved, their motives, the themes, and questions it will address.

Play around with the order of these scenes to find a new narrative whole. Consider yourself the movie producer or film editor. Identify the holes between scenes and how to connect the scenes into a coherent narrative.

Character Analysis

Strong narrative structures are built upon characters whose motives drive plot forward. First, identify all of the people in your story. Make two lists: one of major or leading roles, and a second with supporting roles. This is your cast of characters.

In your list of major players, identify your protagonist(s). With which character(s) do you invite your reader to identify, share a point-of-view, and eventually champion? Which character(s) play the role of antagonist? Who (or what) offers the conflict, challenge, struggle, or problem?

For each person in your cast of leading characters, write a character sketch. What role does each one play in this narrative? Describe the physical attributes, distinctive behaviors, personal qualities, and motives. Identify in what places the character appears in the action. Organize a file for each character in which everything you plan to include in your book is in one place. Upon first reference to a character in your new narrative structure, introduce the person to the reader with full attribution. Upon second reference, add more character description and disclosure of details . And so on; developing character depth. As you write the character into the narrative of your manuscript, refer to your sketch and include these details from your sketch.

By taking the time and trouble to work out character sketches, you gather a stronger sense of the dynamic tensions between characters and how their problems, conflicts, and struggles drive the story forward.

Announcing the New and Improved Swenson Book Development Blog Email Subscription

Claire Webber — Sat, 04 May 2013 13:02:54 +0000

If you aren’t already receiving email updates from the Swenson Book Development, LLC blog, we’d like to invite you to subscribe using the form on the sidebar. If you are already receiving updates in your inbox, we highly suggest switching to our new format!

Swenson Book Development has switched to Mailchimp as our official email RSS update system. We’re happy to announce a more readable and handsome format for staying on top of our posts.

Why the switch? Our previous email feed didn’t give us as much control, and blogs had a habit of arriving to our readers not looking as polished as we’d like. To reach the level of professionalism that matches our writing, we decided to move to a new system.

There are lots of changes beyond email updates afoot under-the-hood for SBD, LLC – Chad Lieberman, computer whiz extraordinaire, has been hard at work making our site faster and up-to-date.

Not sure how to unsubscribe from our old feed? Next time you get an email from us, check the bottom of the message and click unsubscribe (and then don’t forget to subscribe to our new, improved emails!)

Enter “Nook Press”, Barnes & Nobels’ Self-Publishing Platform

Claire Webber — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 13:08:42 +0000

Not content to let Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing be the powerhouse of the self-publishing world, Nook Media (a subsidiary of Barnes & Noble) is rolling out Nook Press, its own self-publishing platform for eBooks.

What completely sets Nook Press apart from Kindle Direct Publishing is the integrated feature of composing, editing and formatting your book within the platform instead of uploading and converting a file to an eBook format.

When self-publishing through KDP, there isn’t a way to edit your book within the platform; once you’ve uploaded it it’s set in stone as far as Amazon is concerned. Simple tweaks can require multiple uploads. Nook press is eliminating that hurdle and giving authors simpler-to-use ways to control the final version of their book.

Nook Press is also banking on integrated social capabilities; authors will be able to share their content and receive comments and feedback before publishing.

There’s no guarantee that Nook Press will lure readers away from eBook frontrunner Kindle to the experiencing-a-plummet-in-sales Nook, but authors will certainly be drawn to features made for burgeoning writers.

But just because you have more control doesn’t mean that you should consider self-publication in your immediate future. Swenson Book Development had written about this in the past; consider your needs against the cons of self-publication before you are lured to the easier-than-ever world of online publication.

Writing the First Draft of Your Book Manuscript

Jill Swenson — Sat, 27 Apr 2013 14:45:05 +0000

“Every first draft is perfect,” wrote Jane Smiley, “because all a first draft has to do is exist.” Her words soothe like balm on a writer’s spirit. This simple truth about the process of writing a book is that every author starts with a first draft. Smiley’s words carry the weight of wisdom since her best-selling A Thousand Acres received the Pulitizer Prize for Fiction in 1992. Her novels, short stories, and books about the craft of writing provide me with inspiration. The first draft is never the final draft, but it is the bedrock for your book.

The pursuit of ‘perfect’ too soon may be your nemesis as an author. During the creative process of writing a first draft, you must suspend editorial judgement. Shut off the internal critic in your head. Squash your temptation to pause and obsess about finding the right word. Don’t think about metaphors, or language mechanics. Silence that harsh interior censor, and write ragged, raw and rough. Focus on your story and subject.

If suddenly the idea of writing the first draft seems impossible, stop thinking about writing and think about what you have to say. What is your point? What is the overarching problem/issue/conflict? What is the story? Quiet the monster who whispers in your ear that you’ll never be a good writer. It’s not about the quality of the writing in the first draft, it’s about the story. Focus less on your writing as craft and more on capturing the essence of your story.

“Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor,” wrote Anne Lamott in Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life. It’s called a rough draft for a reason. ”The shitty draft,” is how Anne Lamott describes the product of every writer’s first version. I call it the “vomit draft,” because the words spew out. Gushing like a fire hydrant, it’s not pretty. It’s part of the process. When you’re into the writing flow of new material, it feels involuntary and convulsive. Gulp.

The number of words grows weekly. Page numbers rack up into three digits. Exhilirating. Intoxicating. When you finish the first draft of your manuscript, you will experience an incredible sense of personal accomplishment. Congratulations. Word to the wise: don’t show it to anyone else to read until you have gone back and gone through three or four times cleaning up your own copy. Author and journalist Constance Hale talks about the rigorous 7-step self-editing process she goes through with every piece of her own writing.

It is hard to write. It is hard to receive feedback. It is important to find someone whom you trust, but is an editor and knows how to give helpful feedback. Your family and friends are not your best first readers. Don’t put either of you in a “this is awkward” situation. What they may say will either be what you want to hear and not particularly helpful, or hurtful. Good feedback comes from editors, writing groups, or trusted friends. Good writing is rewriting.

Adding a Profile Image to your WordPress Comments

Claire Webber — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 13:09:25 +0000

Although not all WordPress templates support profile images in the comments, when a profile image is allowed, wouldn’t you rather have another chance to show off your online identity’s ‘look’? Putting a face to your brand helps an author reach readers.

To see if you have an associated image, log in to your WP dashboard and look at the upper right hand corner in the dark grey bar.

See how it’s just an empty square? Let’s change that!

Creating a WordPress.com/Gravatar account

Surprisingly, there is no quick way to add a profile image within the dashboard. Instead, you need to go to Gravatar and log-in using a WordPress.com account (or create one).

WordPress.com is the free hosting/social blogging platform that uses the WordPress platform.You may have installed WordPress.org if you have your own webhost and domain name. If you always had your own dedicated host and built your site using something other than WordPress, you probably don’t have a WordPress.com account. Unless you already using WordPress.com as your blog platform (which has not been recommended for SEO reasons), you’ll need to create an account.

To make matters more confusing, WordPress.com uses Gravatar for its profile and profile picture needs. The concept behind Gravatar is you have one account that handles your profile for multiple sites. It works well, but not every site uses Gravatar!

Go to Gravatar.com and enter your email into the text box in the front page.

If you already have a WordPress.com account, click on the large blue button. If you don’t, then click the link to create a new one.

You’ll get a pop-up window with fill-in forms to create your account. After clicking ‘submit,’ you’ll get a message to check for a confirmation email (remember to check your junk mail and spam folder if you don’t see it in your inbox).

Sign into Gravatar once you’ve clicked the confirmation link.

Once you’re in Gravatar, hover over the symbol next to your name and click ‘Edit My Profile.’

Fill in your ‘About Me’ section as fully or sparsely as you desire. Then click on ‘Verified Services.’ Use the dropdown menu to find WordPress, and click ‘Add.’

Enter your website’s URL and your WP login information. ONLY DO THIS WITH SITES YOU TRUST.

When you’re done, it should be listed as a verified service.

But wait! You aren’t done yet. Click on ‘Add an Image’ in the upper left hand navigation.

Click on ‘My computer’s hard drive’ and proceed as for adding an email attachment or uploading any other image (you can also use an online image’s URL).

Follow the instructions for cropping your image and rate your Gravatar.

Set the image as your Gravatar by clicking on the thumbnail at the bottom.

Give it a few minutes to make the changes, then revisit your WordPress dashboard.

Well, look at that! You’ve got a profile picture on WordPress.

Questions Every Author Must Answer

Jill Swenson — Sat, 20 Apr 2013 14:52:18 +0000

As a book development editor, I help writers’ books take flight. In order to do that, I ask potential author clients to answer a list of questions that an agent or publisher wants to know about a book project before they read one word of a manuscript. The questions are about your book, about your audience, and about you. Your answers to these questions provide the foundation for writing your book proposal and give me the necessary information to determine where an author is most in need of help. The Swenson Book Development LLC team — shoutout of gratitude to Claire Webber, Ruth Chlebowski — have packaged those questions as a workbook you can download. For free. Really.

We’d especially love to get your feedback. Let us know what you think of this workbook as you begin to plot out your next book project.

In coming weeks, we’ll offer more free downloads: Getting Started with Google Analytics: Basics for Authors is a guided tutorial for writers and another workbook, Recording Your Google Analytics Baseline.

Please let us know what tutorials or workbooks you’d like to make your writing life more organized, efficient, and simple. We’re developing an inexpensive series of workbooks on How to Write Your Non-Fiction Book Proposal.

Is Medium a Step Towards Solving the Collaboration Conundrum?

Claire Webber — Sat, 13 Apr 2013 12:58:39 +0000

Writing is primarily a solitary activity. But, as Stephen King wrote in On Writing, “Write with the door closed, rewrite with the door open”.

At some point you will share your work with someone for editing – and that’s where the art of writing gets technologically tricky.

Microsoft Word has a well-documented compatibility issue between versions of the software; Google Docs doesn’t have an easy way to track changes; Pages for Mac doesn’t play nicely with PCs… the list goes on and on.

Luckily, it seems that collaborative writing has become the focus of some reasearch and development and a recent start-up.

Medium isn’t meant for editing – consider it a new way to blog – but it’s moving in a direction of organic community-based creation that is just waiting to be savored by tech-savy writing groups. Ev Williams, Medium’s midwife, was the man behind Blogger and the cheerleader that brought Twitter to the online world’s attention. What is he accomplishing with his latest project?

Medium (currently in closed Beta) invites users to create a theme and generate or curate content with invited collaborators.

An “Open Collection of Crazy Stories” gives users a chance to get an active preview of Medium

Within your freshly written content, you and your collaborators can leave notes for each other, easily edit the text, and upon publication receive credit where credit is do. Imagine, with your writing friends, piecing together ideas and eradicating typos before publication.

It’s an entirely new way to think about blogging; the solipsistic nature of Twitter and personal sites is intrinsically absent from Medium. Critics say its just another platform – but maybe its ripples will lead to better collaborative writing software in the future.

Death in the Baltic: WWII Sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff

Jill Swenson — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 12:32:35 +0000

Horst Woit, a young boy, snatched his uncle’s jack knife from the kitchen table as he and his mother walked out the door of their home. They trudged through the snow and freezing weather toward the Baltic harbor where they boarded a ship named the Wilhelm Gustloff to flee from Nazi Germany while Stalin’s soldiers advanced on the Eastern Front in January 1945. When Alexander Marinesko, commander of a Soviet submarine, torpedoed the Wilhelm Gustloff shortly after they set off to sea, he sent Horst, his mother, and nearly 10,000 passengers into the black waters of the Baltic. As the safety boat ropes tangled along the ship’s hull, young Horst pulled his uncle’s jack knife out of his pocket and cut the cord. Horst told his story to Cathryn Prince, journalist, historian, and author.

The world’s greatest maritime disaster during war or peace time, the sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff, is not a familiar historical event to most American readers. Gunther Grass fictionalized these events in his controversial Crab Walk. Cathryn Prince spent years tracking down the few living survivors, digging through the documentary records, and gathering evidence. She recreates the mounting tension, chaos, and terror with the experiences of those who lived it. The tragedy, and the nearly 70 years of silence in its wake, is a story worth retrieving from the bottom of the black Baltic.

Today, Palgrave-Macmillan releases Cathryn Prince’s new book, Death in the Baltic: The World War II Sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff. Here are some of the great initial reviews:

“The story of the worst maritime disaster in history…Prince has scoured the planet for survivors, treating their harrowing stories with gentle empathy, from the first sickening bolts of the torpedoes to the chaos and terror of the ship’s swift sinking as passengers fell into the freezing water, clambered for lifeboats and watched loved ones disappear in the tumult… An engaging study of a shocking tragedy.”—Kirkus Reviews

“The sinking of the cruise liner that was once the pride of Hitler’s Strength Through Joy program has long been overlooked by maritime historians. Yet when the Wilhelm Gustloff disappeared beneath the freezing waters of the Baltic in January of 1945, she took with her more than six times the number of people lost on the Titanic.Through careful research and interviews with the few remaining survivors. Cathryn J. Prince vividly recreates the chaos and terror of this epic maritime disaster.”–Hugh Brewster, author of Gilded Lives, Fatal Voyage: The Titanic’s First-Class Passengers And Their World

“Death in the Baltic is the engrossing story of a tragedy that should never have been forgotten. With the grace of a writer who truly feels the loss of thousands in the cold waters of the Baltic Sea, Cathryn J. Prince has preserved their memory and improved our sense of history.”–Gregory A. Freeman, author of The Forgotten 500

“Cathryn Prince reaches into the dark corners of history, and draws attention to this unreported tragedy through the experiences of the people who lived it.”—Stacy Perman, author of A Grand Complication

“With Death in the Baltic author Cathryn J. Prince recounts an important but little known aspect of World War II. Rich in detail, drama, and tragedy, Prince’s gripping narrative skillfully interweaves the traumatic events of the final weeks of the war with moving stories of survivors of a maritime disaster which claimed more lives than the sinking of the Titanic.”—Dwight Jon Zimmerman, award-winning author of Uncommon Valor

Death in the Baltic tells a gripping, invaluable story. Out of a desire for vengeance and recognition, one Soviet submarine commander caused the deaths of thousands of refugees, deaths that the victors of World War II chose to ignore. Cathryn Prince breaks the silence around the devastation many German civilians suffered at the end of the war. Parting the curtain on the “collateral damage” the Allied Forces accepted as a necessary strategy for defeating Hitler, Death in the Baltic reveals that war’s trauma spares no one.”–Leila Levinson, award-winning author of Gated Grief.

Congratulations Cathryn Prince.

Spring Seeds on Saturday

Jill Swenson — Sat, 06 Apr 2013 14:38:47 +0000

“Though I do not believe that a plant will spring up where no seed has been, I have great faith in a seed… Convince me that you have a seed there, and I am prepared to expect wonder,” Henry David Thoreau.

Heirloom pink poppy seeds sprouted this week indoors. I am prepared to expect blossoms this July. Much depends on what happens between now and then. And so it is with the seeds of ideas.

As a book development editor, my greatest joy is derived from seeing the seed of an idea germinate and grow into published manuscript. Cultivating the soil, weeding, and tending the plants are tasks for gardening good ideas. Having the proper tools on hand, integrated pest management systems, and sufficient discipline and dedication are important factors in the bounty of one’s garden qua bookshelf. Climate, soil, and weather variables can’t be controlled; nor can the contemporary marketplace of ideas and books.

Springing forth on Tuesday, April 9th from Palgrave-Macmillan is Cathryn Prince’s Death in the Baltic: The World War II Sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff. Outstanding reviews and pre-order sales put her new title at #35 for Books/History/Europe/Poland on Amazon this morning. We wish her the best on her new book launch.

Since it’s spring and National Poetry Month, please enjoy Mary Oliver’s “Why I Wake Early,” in her own voice. “In happiness, in kindness.”

Finally, this Saturday morning we send out congratulations to Deborah Allison of Integrative Holistic Wellness of Ithaca whose name was drawn from new registrations for our e-newsletter in the lobby of Alternatives Federal Credit Union. She wins a free one-hour consultation with Swenson Book Development llc.

Are you planting the seeds of a book idea?

Best sources for news for authors pitching book concepts

Jill Swenson — Tue, 02 Apr 2013 13:09:36 +0000

If you’re an author with a book concept to pitch for publication, know thy market. This means understanding the marketplace and keeping up with the news in the publishing business. If you are serious about getting published and getting paid in today’s publishing environment, it’s a good idea to keep up with current events in the book world. I mean much more than reading the Sunday NYT Review of Books and skimming bestseller lists.

Publishing is a business. So where are the best sources of news and background information for an author? These are the top 4 across all genres and types of publishing.

1. Shelf Awareness has a free subscription to readers. Even if you aren’t an author seeking publication, if you love books this is a great place to dip your toes into enlightment about the business of publishing. It comes out on Tuesdays and Fridays if you subscribe to their Readers version and let’s you know what’s new in publishing. The professional version examines the business of publishing with a weekday trade newsletter.

2. Publisher’s Weekly is known as the Bible of the book business. A weekly news magazine about the international book publishing business and is targeted to the business and professional audience of authors, agents, editors, publishers, and booksellers. It has been published since 1872.

3. Galley Cat is the news hub for MediaBistro. News of deals, writers resources, reviews, and all things current and trendy in book publishing.

4. Publishers Lunch Automat provides up to date information for booksellers and curates the day’s publishing news reports. Delivered daily through email subscription, it’s one of the best places to see what book concepts sell and how they are pitched. It is the free newsletter of Publishers Marketplace, a subscription service targeted to the book publishing industry.

All four of these also offer job boards, resources for writers, reviews, and helpful links. Publisher’s Weekly, Galley Cat and Publisher’s Markeplace have professional versions which bring a subscriber much further behind the paywall to access helpful databases.

Reading the news about the marketplace in which you hope to compete as an author is smart strategy.

The many subgenres of memoir

Jill Swenson — Sat, 30 Mar 2013 13:51:11 +0000

Memoir is a genre of non-fiction written in the first person about a slice of life. There are subgenres of memoir and literary narrative non-fiction with which a writer should know and see where their own writing fits. These subgenres are rather fluid and change across time with readers’ interests and current trends.

Celebrity, athletic, political or public figure
Travel
Spiritual
Food
Grief
Farmsteading
Mommy Dearest/Growing up dysfunctional
Escape from religious extremism
I’ll take you there memoirs
I will survive memoirs
Love and romance
Family, friendship, and business relationships
Workplace or career
Exploration or adventure
Addiction/recovery memoirs
Humor

These various types of contemporary memoirs are not mutually exclusive categories; any one memoir may be more than one type. For example, Eat, Pray, Love is both travel and spiritual as written by Elizabeth Gilbert. Cheryl Strayed’s Wild is a chronological narrative of a trek across the Pacific Crest Trail and a memoir about grief over her mother’s death. Joan Didion has written two powerful grief memoirs. The Year of Magical Thinking is a now a classic recommendation for bereavement counselors to give widows to read and her more recent Blue Nights is a touching portrait of a grieving mother. And yet both are also very much like the rest of her literary narrative non-fiction writing in the “I’ll take you there” style. Joyce Maynard’s classic Looking Back captured the voice of an entire generation 40 years ago and is another example of the “I’ll take you there” kind of zeitgeist memoir. So, too, is Patti Smith’s more recent Just Kids, but it is also about grieving, her career as a musician and writer, and friendships, especially with Robert Mapplethorpe.

Alexandra Fuller has written memoirs of adventure and exploration in Africa with Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight and The Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness. And yet they are also memoirs of love, family, and growing up dysfunctional. ‘You are there’ in Rhodesia with her mother in the Jeep with the Uzi across her lap. Augusten Burroughs in Running with Scissors wrote a memoir about growing up with a mentally ill mother. These revelations about his parents’ behavior, their divorce, and its aftermath revive Christina Crawford’s Mommy Dearest style of confessional disclosures. Though Augusten Burroughs was not the child of a celebrity with a built-in platform. he changed his name after living until age 18 as Christopher Robison. Pooh. Close enough to Christopher Robinson to make an august son’s name from a father like William Burroughs. Much cooler to be associated with the beat writer of Junkie and Naked Lunch. Augusten Burroughs followed up with another memoir, Dry, about his own struggle with alcoholism and addictions. Drinking: A Love Story by Carol Knapp is a memoir about her affection and affliction for alcohol, but it’s also about her career as a journalist. Diablo Cody wrote her memoir Candy Girl: A Year in the Life of an Unlikely Stripper after she started writing a column, “Pussy Ranch,” for City Pages in Minneapolis where she worked the Skyway Lounge off Hennepin Avenue.

One of the funniest memoirs I’ve read is Sara Benincasa, Agorafabulous: Dispatches from My Bedroom. And I’ve laughed hard at the writings of David Sedaris and Garrison Keillor who also write in this sub-genre. Benincasa’s memoir isn’t just humor, it’s an “I Will Survive” memoir. Jeannette Walls’ Glass Castle and Kate Braestrup’s Here if You Need Me are both examples of survivor memoirs. Wall Street Journal reporter Amanda Bennett did survive her husband’s pancreatic cancer and wrote The Cost of Hope sold by the medical system to a nation of people whose loved ones get sick, even on the best health care insurance policies available to two working adult professionals. Rhoda Janzen’s Mennonite in a Little Black Dress made readers laugh as she survives a divorce and a year living with her aging Mennonite parents, but her latest book, Does This Church Make Me Look Fat? is as much about love and middle aged romance as it is a spiritual journey.

Some of the most interesting memoirs fall into the category of escape from religious extremism: Deborah Feldman’s Unorthodox about leaving her Hasidic traditions, and Lucia Greenhouse coming to question Christian Science in her motherfathergod memoir. There are more forthcoming like The Witness Wore Red and the just released revelations in Beyond Belief about the Church of Scientology from the niece of David Miscavige, Jenna Hill. Malala Yousafzai just signed a contract for her memoir. Her story touched millions of hearts when she was shot on the streets of Pakistan for standing up for girls’ education. My former student and colleague, Adam Ellick, of the New York Times had cultivated a relationship with Malala and her father. Ellick had given her an iPad, which made her the envy of some and a target for others.

An escape, a journey, a transformation — these are the matters of memoir. Many of the recent farm memoirs follow a personal path to reduce their carbon emissions, increase their local fare, engage in physical labor, encounter wild life, farm animals, produce their own power, add veggie oil to their vehicles, raise free range chickens, go fishing, hunting, or butcher their own meat. The Dirty Life, Hit by a Barn and Goat Song are favorite examples from this subgenre. Food memoirs run the gamut from classics like Ruth Reichl’s Tender at the Bone and Frances Mayes’ Under the Tuscan Sun to modern celebrity chefs like Gabrielle Hamilton who wrote Blood, Bones and Butter and Georgia Pelligrini in Girl Hunter. Food memoirs are not typically filled with recipes and those that have attempted to mix the genre of memoir with cookbook.

Memoir is a genre that doesn’t blend well with others. Self-help and memoir don’t mix as well as oil and vinegar. How-to and memoir make a poor pairing. Within the genre of memoir, mixing types and kinds is acceptable and encouraged.

What kind of memoir are you writing?

March Brings a New Facebook Timeline Layout to Your Page

Claire Webber — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 14:00:38 +0000

Your Facebook timeline is about to look different for spring 2013 – changes to profile pages are happening now, so don’t be surprised if next time you log in you see something a little different!

The updated timeline layout banishes separate boxes for friends, maps, photos and applications and replaces them with text tabs. The entire look is more minimalist and shifts ‘activity’ to one column while keeping important details about you and friends’ posts in the other.

Focus is now heavily weighted towards interests; instead of languishing in a hidden corner of the page, your favorite books, movies, and TV shows now take center stage (probably to increase the efficacy of their improved Graph search).

What do these changes mean for you?

Take this opportunity to check your privacy settings; whenever there is a change to FB, use it as a reminder to update who can see what on your profile and what your profile looks like to a complete stranger.
Get good photos of yourself. Facebook has always been a visual medium, but now it’s making photos larger and take center-stage to a greater degree.
Consider this a wake-up call to start using more apps. FB is now weighting activity on certain connected partners and giving them a staring role on your timeline. Aspiring authors need a Goodreads account, and now is a great time to get one. Also consider Pinterest, Netflix, or Instagram depending on your style and area of expertise.

Facebook will be changing everyone’s timeline over the next two weeks; don’t be surprised to wake up to a leaner, image-charged page one of these mornings!

Genre Confusion: Fiction, Non-fiction

Jill Swenson — Sat, 23 Mar 2013 14:32:28 +0000

Since Lance Armstrong’s confession of blood doping and use of other performance-enhancing substances, the publishing industry finds itself tripping over the distinction between fiction and non-fiction. In January a lawsuit filed by two California men claims Armstrong’s two books, It’s Not About the Bike (2000) and Every Second Counts (2003) were categorically dishonest: marketed as non-fiction when they were fiction.

Jonah Lehrer published How We Decide in 2009 but it was only a year ago that his fabrication of quotes became public knowledge. His publisher pulled his new book, Imagine: How Creativity Works (2012) for its many errors and Lehrer’s failure to understand or appreciate the importance of facts and attribution. Non-fiction writing can be creative. But you can’t make stuff up and play it off as factual or real. That violates the implicit trust between the reader and author.

It’s been a decade since James Frey authored A Million Little Pieces and Doubleday published it as memoir. As allegations of embellishments and news reports challenging the book’s claims surfaced in 2006, Oprah Winfrey invited Frey back on her TV program. Frey confessed he had only spent a few hours in jail rather than the 87 days he claimed. Publishing veteran, Nan Talese admitted she had done nothing to check the veracity of the manuscript and accepted it on face-value as non-fiction.

The aftermath can be measured in legal expenses to publishing companies, loss of book sales, and much more careful vetting of manuscripts, particularly memoirs. Much of that vetting must be done by agents or book development editors.

Yet the distinctions between fiction and non-fiction continue to blur. One of the pet peeves of acquisition editors in cover letters is genre confusion. “Please find my fictional memoir,” or “I’ve written a novel based on the facts of my life.”

The book publishing industry adds to this confusion with a growing market for a new category dubbed Young Adult Reality-Based Fiction. Graphic novels as a marketing niche now includes documentary titles based on contemporary issues and historical events.

Ben Greenman, an editor at The New Yorker, filed a formal complaint in the New York Times on March 15, 2013 against “novels” marketed as fiction when they blatantly contain elements of truth. It’s a raucous mashup and genuine thinkpiece.

In his essay, “True Lies,” Greenman refers to Lance Armstrong’s interview with Winfrey when he confessed to have looked up the word “cheat” in the dictionary.

The media spectacle of shaming those who misrepresent facts for profit in the world of publishing, sports, books, journalism, and politics is all too common a decade after Frey’s debacle. Non-fiction, of which memoir is a genre, is based on the truth and facts. You can’t make up stuff.

Ben Greenman pulls out his book and reminds us of the definition of fiction: Prose literature, especially short stories and novels, about imaginary events and people. Greenman lists a few offending titles whose fiction is thinly veiled memoir.

Mary McCarthy, J.D. Salinger, Kerouac, Steinbeck. I’d throw in Harper Lee, Ernest Hemingway, even Herman Melville. Stories written with the details of an author’s own lived experiences cached in memory.

If you are writing memoir and seek publication in today’s media milieu, stick to the facts. Authenticity is one of the necessary qualities for a memoir to satisfy readers. An interview on Oprah Winfrey may not necessarily the best career move. Writers beware: don’t betray the reader with lies.

Building your audience platform on a solid foundation

Jill Swenson — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 14:26:45 +0000

Some professional writers have a Facebook Page. Others use Twitter or Tumblr. Many non-fiction authors have a profile on LinkedIn. But every author needs a website under their own domain name.

“Why, oh why, must I also build a website and blog, too?” I often get this question from clients who seek publication of their book manuscripts. Here’s why.

You don’t own your own real estate on any of these other social media platforms. When Facebook changes its policy or practices you have no control over how that affects your electronic presence. Likewise with Twitter and Tumblr. LinkedIn and Facebook now have stockholders who eagerly await new measures to monetize these platforms so they’ll get a return on their investments. The real reason to use these other means for connecting and engaging with others is to drive traffic to your site by pulling them with your writing.

The nice thing about internet marketing of content is that you can pull readers instead of pushing your book. Many authors shy away from self-promotion because they fear becoming the used car salesman hawking HUGE deals with a megaphone.

This broadcasting approach does not work in the blogosphere. Instead a writer needs to be true and authentic in their cyber-persona. And it is a lot easier to do that while you’re standing on solid ground. The website is an author’s homebase and provides the foundation for your book’s success. If you have accounts in social media, link them to your website and blog. You want to feed your blog to your LinkedIn account. And provide a link to your site in your Tweets, Tumblr posts and Facebook status updates. It is more important to drive traffic from Twitter or Facebook to your website than it is to feed your Tweets and Facebook updates to your website. Leverage one piece of writing grounded to a unique URL on your site across multiple social media sharing applications. This maximizes your exposure to new readers and wider distribution to those who connect with your words. Your publisher will want you to eventually work these social neural pathways to convert readers into customers of your book. Before you get a contract, a publisher wants to see your social media metrics. It’s one of the most frequent reasons a proposal is turned down: not a big enough platform to guarantee the costs of publishing the book will be covered by the sales revenues. Such rejections hurt literary souls, but such business decisions are made independent of the literary quality of an author’s manuscript.

People buy books because they like the author. The goal of your website is to create your author persona so that readers like you and will want to buy your book. So as you think strategically about your website, consider two very important questions.

1. What do you want your website to tell people?

2. What do you want it to say about you?

Your website will include a blog and this keeps your website fresh and easy to find in search engines. It’s also important to regularly update and review the other pages to your website. About the Author has your biographical profile and a good headshot, at the least. About the Book is your synopsis which you prepared for your book proposal. You may have a page that is a photo gallery, or media coverage, news and events or others specific to your book project. Perhaps you plan to include a short excerpt. If you are writing non-fiction and memoir, it is not recommended that you blog your book manuscript. Doing so is like giving your content away free. This makes it tough for a publisher to print for profit that which is available for free online.

Keep tabs on the author sites of books you list in your comparative title analysis. This will help you position and package your own book project in the online community of readers and writers. You’ll also observe your competitors’ social media marketing behaviors and learn what works and what doesn’t. And give yourself time to build a national platform; a year to 18 months before your publication date.

Your social media strategy should be specific and suitable to you, your book, and your audience. Swenson Book Development llc can help you find the right mix of traditional and digital marketing methods and practices to work for you.

Makeover and maintenance: The Car Talk for book sites

Jill Swenson — Sat, 16 Mar 2013 13:59:19 +0000

You’ve heard about the mechanic who never has time to change the oil, bang out the dings, clean out the pop cans or repair the ripped upholstery in her own car?

I’m behind the dashboard seven days a week. I drive at high speeds and over rough terrain on the electronic byways of the internet. I keep clients’ motors running smooth and fix them when they’re not. I’ve got topnotch mechanics and superb copy monkeys in our garage dedicated to quality service and customer satisfaction. We advise our clients on proper care, maintenance schedules for tune-ups and replacement of parts, and provide roadside assistance on the internet highway.

So, with some embarrassment, I admit we haven’t taken our own advice on the care and maintenance of swensonbookdevelopment.com during the past year. It’s as though I hadn’t changed the oil since I drove the new model off the lot last March. I just kept filling it up with gas and ignored everything but the fuel gauge on the dashboard.

“You’ll drive that car right into the ground,” would be a good mechanic’s response to such negligence. This IS like your Daddy’s Cadillac. An author imbues their social status and personal brand with a website. Change your oil every 3 months, once a season, or every 3,000 miles. Such routine maintenance of an automobile is the owner’s responsibility.

Likewise, scheduled updates and improvements to one’s website and electronic persona need to be quarterly with an annual review. The link between routine oil changes and scheduled maintenance and development of one’s website is an important one. You want it to last and work and run like a Cadillac.

In our own long overdue makeover, we encountered a snag in the final technical execution and one, two, three of the team suddenly suffered various health crises. Claire Webber brought her technical skills and knowledge to the recent launch of our website redesign. And in so doing, reminded me that a website is never “finished.” There is no final version published. Your website is your real estate, just as much as you (or your bank) own your car. Make changes routinely and as needed.

This goes beyond the updates you post on your blog page. If you have a new magazine feature article published, that static page of your publications needs to be updated immediately. These tweaks are a driver’s way on the dashboard to steer the hills, bumps, and curves of the avenues you course on the internet highway. Get better mileage? YES. The search engines find your new content and send traffic to your website. Help pull readers to your writing, by routine care and maintenance of your site.

This year we encouraged you to track your social media metrics, using Google Analytics, in the first quarter. Claire Webber provided many useful posts about managing this information during the past three months. In January, we recommended you update your bio and your electronic identity. In February, the business of being an author involves organizing a lot of email. Claire Webber offered several posts on using Gmail as a writer’s resource and tool.

We hope you like our new website makeover. Though I loved that old model (sigh).

But what we needed is more fuel efficiency, cleaner and simpler for today’s economy and road conditions. We’ve been taking it out on a number of test rides and we like it, but it’s still a work-in-process. If you need a tune-up, driving lessons, a fix or technical question about your author website, we may be able to help you, or help you do-it-yourself.

In the coming season and through the end of the year, we hope to help you add a stereo system (radio podcasts), GPS system (webinars) and mechanic manuals and specs (electronic paid downloads) to your operating mode of internet transportation. The technological opportunities continue to expand for authors in pulling readers to their content and converting them into book customers. Making it a more pleasant ride for authors and readers for the love of books will continue to be the subject of future blogs here.

Please let us know what you think of our makeover.

In memoir, the narrator IS the protagonist

Jill Swenson — Tue, 12 Mar 2013 14:45:50 +0000

Memoir is not fiction, yet some of the literary conventions used in the genre of memoir are the same as those used in novels. Plot, dialogue, and character are three shared devices.

Fiction and memoir share a structural emphasis on narrative arc. In fiction, this is called a plot line. After setting the scene and introducing the characters through some dialogue and action, there is an inciting incident which creates tension or conflict and pushes the plot forward in a series of escalating incidents that reach a climax and eventual denouement. Real life rarely follows such a clean trajectory of chronological events so the writer must take liberties with the structural development of the story. A memoir is more than a chronicle of events, it’s a hero’s journey of personal transformation. This should not be misunderstood as permission to alter the facts, but to rise to the challenge of writing your story to provide the reader with its intended cathartic effect.

The writer of memoir is a narrator. The reader only knows what the writer narrates. The narrator in memoir must also be the protagonist, the major character in a story with which the audience with identify and champion. Many writers in their first draft of manuscripts haven’t reflected back upon how they have introduced and presented themselves to the reader. They’ve often given a great deal of consideration to the representations of other characters in their memoirs. Concerns about protecting privacy, anonymity, family secrets, legal and financial ramifications for those who might read about themselves in your book can blind you to your own self-presentation as a character.

Review your manuscript from the opening page to the last with your main character in mind. How do you introduce yourself to the reader? How do you deepen the disclosures of conflict between characters and within the protagonist? Do you use interior dialogue? Can you conjure a character sketch of yourself from what is revealed in your manuscript? Does this sketch mirror your current biographical profile?

In book publishing today the author is the brand and the book is the product. In the genre of memoir this is paramount to preparing for publication. Not only are your writing talents on review, but your personal story and experiences go under public scrutiny by every reader. That’s heavy. Fiction writers may be attached to their fictional characters but if someone doesn’t like a character or their actions they don’t dislike the author. What are the character traits you can highlight as marketing features? If you are the brand, how will you brand yourself in the marketplace of memoir writers?

The presentation of self as an author in your manuscript is a process of personal construction through careful editing. Publishing is going public and unlike other genres your sense of self and personal identity are intimately tied up with contents of your book. Before you submit your manuscript to an agent or acquisition editor, a final self-reflective reading of your manuscript for your own character’s sake is highly recommended.

Has all of this made you self-conscious? Effect intended. Self-consciousness is a good thing for writers. It’s not the same thing as self-editing and stuffing down those uncomfortable feelings. Instead explore them. Readers like narrators who are flawed humans situated in interesting circumstances. Your readers want to you know that you are not okay. Finding your authentic voice as a narrator and telling your truth is the literary challenge to memoir.

What kind of narrator are you? Paint a portrait of yourself as the protagonist in your hero’s journey.

Prompts to kickstart your memoir

Jill Swenson — Sat, 09 Mar 2013 14:20:17 +0000

Sitting down to start one’s memoir is a daunting task. Remember memoir is a slice of life, not your entire biography. But where to begin? It’s not always obvious where to start. So finding a way to slip into your story might be easier if you find a side entrance. These memoir prompts are intended to stir up your memories and get you to set them down in words on paper. Focusing on the prompts gives you the distance and perspective to let you find your story.

Write two pages drawing upon your memories for each of these prompts.

Recall a time when you wore the wrong shoes for the occasion. Describe the occasion, your apparel, and the resulting mismatch.
Do you remember someone who told you a secret? Did you keep it or not? What was the secret? Why was it a secret? And what did you do with the secret?
What is one thing you lost and have never found?
What are you afraid of that you don’t want others to know you fear? How do you keep this phobia undercover?
Imagine you are listening to live music. What songs do you hear? Where are you? With whom? When?
Remember the last time you knew you were in real deep trouble?
When did you apologize for something you did not do? Describe the situation and your decision to accept blame.
Describe your most embarrassing moment.
What do you always have close at hand?
What is the one physical activity you enjoy alone? What is that experience like for you?
Sun. Wind. Water. Earth. Stone. Fire. Pick one of these elements and your own personal connections and associations to your memories.
Picture in your mind a time and place where you tasted fish. Write about that moment. Where are you? Describe the scene. Who are you with? Introduce the characters in your story. What are you doing? Action and dialogue and perhaps a bit of plot.

If you write two pages for each of these you’ll begin to see recurring characters, themes, patterns, and threads common across the shimmering images you paint with words. This kickstarts the process of turning personal essays into a memoir with a narrative arc.

What does a book development editor do?

Jill Swenson — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 13:43:49 +0000

What does a book development editor do?

Professionally assess your manuscript or book concept for its publishing potential
Offer critical feedback and editorial guidance
Serve as writing coach as the author completes a manuscript
Collaborate in the development of a winning book proposal
Position and package the book concept to specific publishers
Research what publishers are looking for in the current market
Conduct market research on target audience and how to reach your readers
Identify competitive titles in the current marketplace of ideas
Create a marketing strategy and assist in building an audience platform
Provide guidance in the business of publishing

A book development editor functions as:

Advocate for an author and his or her intellectual property
Doula who assists with the birth of a writing project
Editor for that last push before submission
Critic who will tell authors what they need to hear in order to improve
Matchmaker who knows specific acquisition editors at particular publishers for your project
Negotiator who will fight to get the best deal for an author
Mediator between author and publisher to fix problems
Liaison between the publishing community and the author
Champion for an author’s work including subsidiary, foreign and dramatic rights
Mentor who will assist in developing an author’s career
Marketing strategist who has your brand as an author in mind
Career coach for all aspects of your profesional writing profile
Educator about changes in the publishing industry
Manager of the business side of your writing life

Many publishers are delighted to know the author has invested in working with a developmental editor. It implies the author will be able to deliver a manuscript according to stylistic and digital submission requirements in a timely fashion, build an audience platform using social media prior to book launch, and has someone to assist with the stresses, complexities and demands of publication, marketing and sales.

If you are serious about publishing your memoir or narrative non-fiction book manuscript, then a book development editor may be what you need. Let Swenson Book Development, LLC help you navigate the headwaters of the publishing industry in these turbulent times.