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Conference Report: There’s a New Kid on the Publishing Block…
…and it’s Sourcebooks Casablanca. I walked out of the Spotlight on Sourcebooks feeling truly excited about this new publisher. Well, they’re new to romance publishing, having started the Casablanca imprint about two years ago. Now they’re publishing 10 romances per month, which is an impressive output.
Sourcebooks is the largest woman-owned trade publisher in the United States and publishes roughly 300 titles/year. The Illinois-based company has been in business since 1987 when founder and C.E.O. Dominique Raccah left her job in advertising and started her independent press.
Why was I so excited about Sourcebooks?
Well, you gotta love a company that publishes Georgette Heyer (the author who got me addicted to the romance genre in my youth), Jane Austen sequels, and, get this, poetry! (My own R.W.A. workshop was about using the techniques of poetry to strengthen your prose so you can tell I’m a fan.)
However, as an author, this is what I was thrilled to hear Ms. Raccah (who is a real dynamo) say in her presentation to us writers: We publish authors, not books.
To expand: Ms. Raccah’s advertising background has made her aware of the importance of building an author as a brand. She understands this is a long-term career process. Sourcebooks devotes 30% of the company’s resources to marketing. That’s roughly three times what the big New York publishers spend.
Ms. Raccah believes in attracting a readership by fully supporting every book they publish. The company regularly analyzes what’s working to build sales and what isn’t. They understand how to use the internet but they also do hard copy advertising, i.e., advertisements in RT Book Reviews, bookmarks, etc. Danielle Jackson, Casablanca’s publicist, says they send out 250-300 Advance Reading Copies of every book. That’s amazing!
The folks at Sourcebooks feel that the publisher and author should function as a true partnership.
Oh, and did I mention that they have full distribution in all book-selling venues, that they actively pursue foreign rights sales, and they’re interested in reprinting your backlist?
That’s the official party line, and Ms. Raccah is very convincing, but the proof is in the pudding, so to speak. Well, I have a couple of writing buddies who are now working with Sourcebooks, and they have nothing but good things to say about the company. The covers are beautiful, Deb Werksman (who edits the Casablance imprint) is a terrific editor, and their contracts are getting renewed. That sounds pretty darn good.
Now that we’re all excited about submitting to Sourcebooks, how should we go about it?
According to Ms. Werksman, most of this information is on the Sourcebooks website here http://www.sourcebooks.com/our-authors/romance-fiction-submission-guidelines.html , but I’ll tell you what she said anyway.
Submission Guidelines
Email a full manuscript and synopsis (as attachments in WORD format with file names that start with the title of the book) along with your query letter to deb.werksman@sourcebooks.com .
She’s looking for all subgenres of single title romance fiction which have:
–a heroine the reader can relate to,
–a hero she can fall in love with,
–a world that gets created,
–a hook that allows Sourcebooks to sell the book in 2-3 sentences.
The books should be 90,000 to 110,000 words long. Sourcebooks accepts both agented and unagented submissions.
Your query letter should include the usual information, plus:
–your career arc as an author, including sales figures of your previous books (if any),
–whether this book is part of a possible series (for branding purposes).
Ms. Werksman’s response time is currently 4-8 weeks, and she assured us we would absolutely hear from her with either a yes or a no.
Newsflash!
Ms Raccah announced that they are debuting a Young Adult imprint (as yet unnamed),edited by Daniel Ehrenhaft.
So polish those query letters, synopses and manuscripts, and send ‘em in!
Conference Report: Leslie Wainger, Genius-at-Large
One amazing workshop I attended was A Look Inside the Editor’s Mind. As a writer, I’m always trying to figure out what’s going on in an editor’s mind so the title was irresistible.
The description: Harlequin Editor-at-Large Leslie Wainger will cold-read up to 25 synopses and analyze their strengths, weaknesses, chances of being requested, and more.
That sounded pretty fascinating, especially considering the fact that I find writing a synopsis roughly equivalent to walking over hot coals barefoot. I figured I could use all the help I can get.
It was a master class in synopsis writing like no other I’ve ever attended (and I’ve been to quite a few). Ms. Wainger started reading at the top of her synopsis pile. As she read, she commented on what she liked, what didn’t work, what could be stronger, what should be left out and whether she would read more. The audience sat spellbound and groaned in frustration when the moderator called, “Time’s up!” I think we all could have sat there for at least another hour because we truly felt we were getting to watch the inner workings of an editor’s brain as she evaluates a story. Also Ms. Wainger happens to be very funny and engaging so the time just flew by.
Here are my notes. I’m afraid they are a very minimalist summary of what I truly learned from Ms. Wainger. I was too busy listening to jot down long sentences so this is a boiled-down version without any of the vivid illustrations we got from the workshop. I strongly recommend listening to the audio recording of this presentation.
1. Do not waste time in a synopsis. However, do fill in the blanks.
2. Editors don’t like coincidences or plotlines that feel contrived.
3. A one or two sentence encapsulation of the book right at the beginning of the synopsis can work well. Just make sure it’s clear that the synopsis begins in the next paragraph.
4. Stick to the heroine/hero conflict and plot. Minor characters should be kept to a minimum, if included at all. Keep proper names to a minimum.
5. Starting with a dilemma, often in the form of a question, can work well.
6. Get the romance in! WHY are they in love?
7. She requested a maximum of two pages, single-spaced, in a synopsis.
8. You need to show the tension in both plot and romance.
9. You need to feel the characters are driving the action, not vice versa.
10. Suspense has to be logical, i.e. no coincidences, etc.
11. You want to make sure you get the characters’ emotions across.
12. In contemporaries, try not to put in any references which will date them. Contemps should be in “the eternal present”.
13. It’s all about the characters!
Do I need to add that I came home and immediately revised my synopsis?
Conference Report: Sightseeing
One of my college friends is a senior photo editor for National Geographic, a publication where photography is king. Since we were meeting for lunch in D.C., she invited me to meet her at her office.
Did you know National Geographic has a small museum that’s open to the public? And it’s free? I didn’t but what a wonderful discovery.
On display were the most fantastic, dramatic photos of lions and leopards, taken by Beverly Joubert, with videos filmed by her husband Dereck. I took photos of her photos so you’ll see the occasional reflection in the glass covering the pictures. Look at these incredible scenes!
The Jouberts are an interesting couple. They started off running a luxury safari camp but got fascinated by the lions they sent their guests off to view. So they sold the camp and now spend months at a time living in tents near the subjects of their photos. It’s part of their effort to bring attention to the importance of preserving the habitats of the wild creatures they record.
After lunch, I strolled down to the Corcoran gallery, passing the White House.
At the gallery I found a marvelous exhibit of bronzes. I like sculpture a lot so this was a pleasure for me.
These cowboys by Frederick Remington have such energy and vitality you can practically hear them hootin’ and hollerin’.
I love the beautiful curves of this antelope. In fact, the artist said he found beauty only in curves.
There was even a bronze of a knitter, proving the everlasting appeal of the fiber arts.
One evening, needing a breath of fresh air, I hiked over to the Washington Cathedral. It looks like I somehow got transported to Europe, doesn’t it?
I sat in the Bishop’s Garden while the sprinklers swished, a cute little dog trotted around greeting all comers and a not-too-distant trumpet played the day’s farewell “Taps”. It was enchanting.
On the way home (I got lost!), I ended up on Connecticut Avenue. As you know, I have encountered llamas in Ohio. Never did I expect to encounter a llama in urban D.C., even a cement one!
Conference Report: National Nerves
Last week I went to the Romance Writers of America’s national conference in Washington, D.C.
Ordinarily, I only attend when the event is in New York City since getting there from New Jersey requires no white-knuckled, gut-twisting flight on an airplane (one of those metal tubes hurtling through thin air 30,000 feet above the safe, solid ground). However, there’s a wonderful invention called the Acela train which sweeps you smoothly–with tons of leg room and a plug for your laptop–between Newark, NJ, (no security check required—just waltz onto the platform fifteen minutes before boarding time) and the nation’s capitol. And I have friends and relatives in D.C. so the trip offered several temptations beyond the conference itself.
There was one more variable in my decision: presenting a workshop. I have given workshops for several regional writers’ groups and they’ve always gone pretty well so I thought maybe I was ready for the big time. I would submit a workshop proposal to RWA. If it was accepted, I would go to Washington; if it wasn’t, I would stay home. It was my own weird version of a coin toss.
I chose my most esoteric workshop topic because I figured no one else would be submitting a competing one: How Do I Love Thee: Using the Techniques of Poetry to Strengthen your Prose. Not a lot of folks spent three years in college writing poetry and then metamorphosed into a romance writer (although more than you’d think, as I discovered at my presentation). Since I’ve given the workshop before, I already had handouts and a short description of the workshop. I uploaded the info and forgot all about it.
Until I got an email from RWA, saying my proposal had been accepted and I would be presenting it at 4:30 on Thursday, July 16th.
Excited, I made my reservation on the Acela, called my relatives and friends to set up dinner dates, and then it hit me: I had to stand up and speak in front of a room full of writers at all levels of experience from all over the world. Even worse, it would be recorded so writers at all levels of experience from all over the world could download and listen to it, long after the conference was over. My West Virginia twang, my ums and ahs, the deafening silences when I asked the audience to participate would all be preserved for posterity.
AAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH! What was I thinking?!
Long story short: I survived the workshop, thanks to my wonderful moderator Roni Denholtz who kept me calm and to a truly terrific audience who participated with talent and enthusiasm. I would even go so far as to say it went pretty well. The best part: it was OVER and I could enjoy the rest of the conference without losing any more sleep.
Brodie update
Here’s my adorable niece Jessica, giving Brodie his favorite thing: a belly rub. Turns out the Devil Dog is amazingly good with children. Who’d a thunk?
Brodie is finally settling in. He’s a rub junkie and will melt into the floor with a moan of ecstasy if you pet him. He’s so incredibly cute that it’s hard not to pet him, a genetic adaptation that clearly serves him well.
He’s still digging a bit in the yard but hasn’t eaten any plants lately. I think he’s bonded enough with us at last that he cares about our opinion of his actions.
“Come” is still an alien concept to him, but he’s doing much better on “heel”, especially since we put a “gentle leader” halter on him. Works like a charm. He even goes jogging with my Darling Daughter now that she’s home from college.
Truly, Brodie is such a sweetheart. Our home would be empty without him.
You know you’ve arrived when…
…you find your book being quoted in someone else’s book.
I was delighted to discover that Michael Aaron Rockland devotes a page and a half to my first novel A Bridge to Love in his book about the George Washington Bridge. Mr. Rockland’s book The George Washington Bridge, Poetry in Steel is “a well-rounded tribute to a national landmark”, according to one critic. The book “weaves together history, popular culture, behind-the-scenes tours and personal insight in his living portrait of a modern marvel.”
“Popular culture” is where A Bridge to Love comes in. A whole chapter is devoted to the GWB “in literature” and my novel appears on page 110.
Because he’s a college professor and therefore a very serious thinker, Mr. Rockland throws in the usual snarky remarks about the traditions of the romance novel. However, he goes on to say, “The George Washington Bridge is more central to this novel than to any other I’ve found,” and that “Herkness, a resident of New Jersey, obviously did some research on the nearby bridge,” which I think he meant as a compliment.
He then quotes extensively from my book, picking out some of my own favorite lines in reference to the great bridge. My novel and all the pages referenced appear in the scholarly notes at the back of his book.
Wahoo! I’m a source!
Out of the mouths of babes…
My Darling Daughter brought home a literary magazine from Kenyon College called Hika, An Undergraduate Journal of Arts and Letters. Following is my favorite poem from the journal. The poet speaks of a truly universal truth.
Procrastination Takes on Newton’s Laws of Motion in a Cage Fight and Wins
I have yet to find
an oppositional
force equal to
my desire to
not get things
done.
— Katharine Parrott
Going back, going back…
I just returned from my mrmph-th (that’s the sound of me muffling the number of years since my graduation) college reunion. It struck me that no one would truly believe what a major, insane production my college makes of reunions if I didn’t show you some photos. So here they are.
My outfit. This is my suitcase. Do you detect a theme?
More on the outfit. Nail art by my darling daughter. Did I mention my school’s mascot is a tiger?
The decorations in the reunions tent, one of many mushroomed through the campus.
The Prade. Every alum and their families, including dogs, marches down the center of campus being cheered by all the other alums and their families and dogs.
Here’s my class watching the older classes go by in the Prade. Of course, we were also talking, catching up on mrmph years of news.
Here’s my favorite outfit in the marching band.
My class float.
Here’s my view once my class started marching. A lot of folks came back.
Finally, as embarassing as it is, here’s a picture of me in my class costume, looking as ridiculous as everyone else in the Prade.
Feather boas are really itchy so I turned mine into a hatband. It had the added advantage of weighting my hat down when the breeze got brisk.
Prize: Although there are major clues scattered all through my post, you may have noticed that I don’t mention where all this insanity took place. If you can guess what college I attended, send me an email at nancy@nancyherkness.com. Put “Reunion” in the subject line. Everyone who guesses correctly will be entered in a drawing for a prize.
Note: this morning, I went through my closet to find something to wear and realized I had chosen beige from head to toe. I’m thinking it’s an antidote to my weekend wardrobe.
What is it about a marching band?
I’m a recovering band parent. My daughter graduated from high school and the marching band last year. However, at the Memorial Day Parade in our small town today, my heart still thrilled to the sound of John Phillip Sousa, played as the band marched crisply down our main street. Tears still filled my eyes when the trumpeters played “Taps”, even though my daughter is no longer one of the performers.
Music tugs at some deep part of our hearts and souls. Every culture has music in some form. Human beings can’t seem to survive without it. But why a marching band?
My theory is that it’s the teamwork. A diverse group of individuals has to work together in perfect unison to create a marching band. Maybe it’s because writing is a solitary profession so I find that sort of connection enviable. Or maybe it’s because I admire the willingness of the individual to merge his identity into the good of the whole.
No matter what the reason, I love a parade.
World’s best prequel: Star Trek
My Mother’s Day gift was a family outing to see the new Star Trek movie. Since I was a trekkie in my younger years, I went with a certain amount of fear and trembling. Telling the story of how my favorite starship crew first met and bonded seemed rife with the potential for disaster. I mean I’ve known and loved these characters since I was about ten. Could a modern casting director really know what they looked like, spoke like and moved like when they were younger versions of themselves? Could a modern scripwriter postulate how their chemistry had fizzed into being?
The answer is a resounding, “Yes!” They really got it right!
The references to events we know and love, the interactions between the characters which foreshadow their future relationships, the action sequences where the Enterprise saves the day: it’s all there and all pitch perfect.
I’m going to see it again.
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