Two Bits of Shameless Self Promotion

My new book, VERMIN:  Book One of the Stanley Cooper Chronicles, just hit Amazon, and I hope lots and lots of people buy it.  Stanley Cooper is an average guy, short, dumpy, with bad hair.  But an industrial accident left him dead for seven minutes.  When paramedics revived him, he discovered he had the ability to see dead people.  And not just ghosts, but the living energy that surrounds all things.  A telephone call from a panicked stranger sets events in motion that puts Stanley in the middle of a bizarre string of robberies and murders in Pittsburgh, and it's up to him, his best friend Maggie (who is a witch) and a skeptical cop named Taylor to find out what's going on and how to stop it before it's too late.  


Order it HERE!

Here are a couple of excerpts:

     It takes a lot of guts to come forward when something weird or frightening happens to a person. Most people feel like no one will believe them, or that people will blame them and laugh behind their backs. And most people are right. It leaves people with a sense of hopelessness, that there is nowhere left to turn. When people begin to feel that way, those dark forces win. I don‟t mean that metaphorically, I mean it literally. They win a victory, a conquest over a soul when a person loses hope. Someone experiencing what Shannon claimed to experience has to be at wit‟s end to come and find someone like me. Most of the time, they dummy up and don‟t tell anyone. When it first happened to me, and I thought I was losing my mind, sure, I mentioned it to a few people: a shrink here and there, a few friends, a bartender or two… My friends stopped hanging around with me, the bartenders cut me off, and the shrinks told me I was suffering from some sort of post-traumatic-stress-syndrome brought on by my “passing.” 

     They never say “death,” always “passing.” “Passing” sounds so much nicer, less final than “death.” “Passing” sounds like something a person might do walking between two rooms. It doesn‟t sound like what happens when a piece of safety equipment fails due to production cutbacks, dropping a person thirty feet onto the back of their head. It doesn‟t bring to mind waking up on a gurney with a sheet over one‟s head and a paper tag on a persons toe. That‟s not “passing,” that‟s “death” with a capital “D.” 

     Good things came out of it, though. I developed a new respect for people I might have thought were crazy before. I also quit drinking and smoking. I‟ve heard of so many people who‟ve had near-death-experiences who came away with the “live for the now” attitude and saying things like “I‟ve been dead, so nothing scares me.” 

     Frankly, the thought of dying and not coming back scares the ever-loving Hell out of me. People talk about seeing the long corridor with light at the end or seeing dead relatives. When I died, I saw nothing. I saw darkness. I didn‟t even get to float up above my own body or relive my life in fast forward. Just black. Just cold. 

And

     People say they don‟t believe in magic or ghosts. They call people like me and Maggie delusional or say that we‟re living in a fantasy world. Magic isn‟t real, they say, and there‟s no such thing as ghosts. They go along their happy daily routines, safe and secure in the knowledge that the unexplainable or things that go bump in the night aren‟t real. These same people are the ones who avoid shops like Maggie‟s, who watch me as if I might do something spooky, and are the first ones to scream and run if so much as an odd noise is heard in the old dark and creepy house. They say they don‟t believe, but it‟s a lie. The trouble is they do believe, but they don‟t take the time to try to understand. They believe, but they‟ll never admit it to each other because that would let the possibility in that there are things in the world that don‟t fit in with their neat little model of what life is supposed to be. In the light of day, it‟s easy to say there are no such things as ghosts, or possession, or haunted houses. In the dead of night, tucked in bed, hiding beneath the blankets while the sounds of footsteps cross the floor and the sounds of breathing come from under the bed, everyone believes. 

And Now, More Shameless Self Promotion

Okay, so it's not really self-promotion per se, but it is something I hope lots of folks check out.  My darling and talented wife, Tabatha, just opened up her own online store to sell jewelry, objects d'art, and other stuff that she hand-makes herself.  Seriously, look at Lurch over there and tell me that's not cool.  He's already sold, but there are lots of other zombie heads, necklaces (I have a "Hand of Glory" that I refuse to take off), earrings, book marks, and other stuff.  Oh, and where is her store?  Just go to Monsters Under Glass and help support artists like Tabby and myself.  I can't tell you how wonderful I think her artwork is.  So jump over there already!

Standard Submission Format

Recently, to make ends meet, I've been doing freelance formatting for a publisher.  While most of the manuscripts I get I can chug out in a couple of hours, there are a few that make my job very difficult, and they could all be fixed if the authors paid attention to standard submission formatting guidelines.  When I first started writing, I had a hell of a time trying to find these magical guidelines, so I'm going to post them here so someone, somewhere, might get some use out of them.  Also to keep me from strangling a few otherwise talented writers.

Margins - One inch, all the way around.  You're not helping anyone by providing space for the gutter or by pre-formatting your work for Createspace, Lulu, or any other press.  One inch.

Spacing  - Double spaced.  This does NOT mean hit the "return" button at the end of every line.  All that's going to do is make the formatter (me) want to beat you with a stiff loaf of pumpernickel.  Seriously, just type and let that magical thing called "Word Wrap" do its thing.  And for the love of Pete, don't hit a double return at the end of paragraphs.  We just have to go back and delete them all.  By hand.

Tabs - Use the Tab key instead of spacing over five spaces.  Not every font spaces the same, and the tab goes by a unit of measurement as opposed to the random size of a particular letter.   

Font - This one varies, but for the most part a monospace font (like Courier) is what's preferred.  Also, twelve point is the general rule.  When in doubt, and I can't stress this enough, LOOK UP THE PUBLISHER'S GUIDELINES!


Underlining/Italics  - Anything that needs to be in italics in your story should be underlined, not in italics. I know, it seems weird, and I never understood it either, but here's the fact:  When formatting your work, publishers, formatters, and everyone else can actually SEE the underlining, whereas the italics just kind of run in with the rest of the text.  If we need to change font, we need to be able to see what has to be changed.  Do our eyes a favor and underline, don't use italics.  We know what to do.  Honest.

Document Format - Send it in either a .doc or a .rtf file.  Those two formats guarantee we can open your work.

When in Doubt - Do some digging and look up the publisher's guidelines.  No matter who it is, publisher, agent or editor, they undoubtedly have their own way of doing things, and there are reasons for them.  If your manuscript doesn't adhere to their guidelines, that's one more reason they can throw it in the garbage unread.  Take into consideration the number of manuscripts they have to read every day, and you'll see why they'll take any opportunity to clean out the pile.

If you want to be a professional writer, BE professional.  Find what gives you the best chance and use it. Don't shoot yourself in the foot before you've even gotten it in the door.

The Writing Life: The Ugly Truth

There are a great many misconceptions about writers.  One is that anyone can write a horror/romance/sci-fi/fill-in-the-genre book and get it published.  Another is publication equals respect.  But by far the biggest one has to do with how we measure success.  For the most part, normal everyday folks look at someone who has a couple of books published and think we must be rich.

I thought I'd take a few moments to dispel a few of these myths.  Why?  Not because I'm trying to discourage, but because I want aspiring writers to know what they're in for.  Steel  your nerves and screw your courage to the sticking place, because this isn't a life for cowards.

To begin with, the notion that anyone can write any given type of book is true, but not everyone should.  An idea is not the beginning of a book, nor is it a finished manuscript.  It is simply that...An idea.  I also can't count the number of times I've heard some elitist snob (usually a lit student in a masters program) say "I should just write a _____ novel and get published.  Then I can work on my serious stuff."  Apart from resisting the urge to bludgeon him with his copy of Wordsworth, I wonder just how easy he thinks it is.  Consider:  A novel's word count has to be at least 80,000 words.  That's roughly 380 pages long.  During that time, you have to not only tell a story, but bring characters to life, make sure you know what you're talking about, and emotionally impact the readers, and you have to do it while being original.  Let's say you write a minimum of 1000 words every day.  That still gives you a little under three months for the first draft.  Then there's the revision process, which should take between one and two months.  Then, once it's perfect (in your eyes), you get to do the soul-crushing task of sending your baby out into the world to try to find love, i.e. a publisher or agent.  The major publishers have response times of up to (and in come cases more than) a year, and so do many agents.  Oh, and most of those specify that they want to be the only one reading your work at a given time, so that means you send it, wait a year, get rejected, send to the next person, wait a year, get rejected...ad nauseum.  How do I know you'll get rejected?  Because you will.  Everyone does.  It's a fact of the writing life, and it's something we wear as a badge of honor.  I've actually kept every rejection I've ever gotten.  So then, after several years of hawking the same manuscript, you start to try to push to smaller presses, which brings me to my next point.

Publication doesn't always equal respect.  The smaller the press, the less respect your work gets because it is measured against not only everything else that press puts out, but also because of the simple fact that smaller presses mean smaller audiences.  Few people will have heard of you, so they're not going to respect someone they've never heard of.  Smaller presses also, by necessity, tend to charge more for their books, and why would someone want to pay fifteen dollars for someone they've never heard of when the latest King novel is only ten?  If you go the self-publish/vanity-press route, you'll get even less respect for your book.  Why?  Because anyone, and I do mean anyone, can get their book published if they have the money.  It doesn't mean it's any good, but it can get out there, sell a few copies to Grandma and friends, and then there's still only a penny or two in your pocket.  Second, there are no standards, no people who are professionals at identifying what good fiction reads like, or if the person who wrote it is functionally illiterate.  Many of them don't have editors either.  Any typos or grammatical missives you've made?  They'll be in print for all the world to see.

And by the way, for those of us who do get lucky enough to land an agent and/or get published, it's still not easy.  We're not rich. Because our titles appear in bookstores or online, many people equate us with success stories like Stephen King.  But the truth is far less glossy.  One thing that most of us (with the exception of Mr. King and a few other notables) have in common is that we all have day jobs.  Why?  Because we need them to survive.  I know a rather well-published author who worked as a janitor to make ends meet.  I know another who runs tech at a theater.  I myself have worked as a baker, sales rep, bouncer, bar-backer, teacher, and other various odd jobs throughout my life.  The percentage of writers who get the "big money" deals is far less than the percentage who struggle to make ends meet.  In fact, the vast majority of traditionally published writers, chances are, you've never heard of.

So why do we do it?  Why struggle and try and sweat and burn the midnight oil to tell our stories if the climb is all uphill and fraught with dangerous obstacles?  Simple.  Because we can.  Determination, drive and faith in our abilities are what keeps us going.  For every acceptance, there's a hundred rejections, but those acceptances make it all worthwhile.  We think of ourselves as story-tellers, dreamers and scribes.  Those of us who dare, who stick with it, who learn our craft and pursue this career with dogged determination do have a chance, no matter how small or how high the odds are stacked against us.  We, whether we like to think of ourselves as such or not, are true artists, bearing our thoughts, our imaginations, and our souls to the world.  And to hear just one person (that you don't know) say that they like your work is worth all the struggles, the sleepless nights, and the financial hardship.

I recently landed my first agent.  After ten books and as many years in the business as a professional writer, I accomplished that goal.  I'm luckier than most.  My agent has a fantastic reputation in the industry, and I have complete confidence in her, and for that, I'm doubly lucky.  So keep working.  Do not give up, never stop learning, and pursue this lifestyle if you dare.  I can't, in all honesty, say that eventually you'll come out on top.  But I can, with all certainty, say that you never will if you don't try.

Write on!
SAJ