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A Short Slavic Circle

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A Quick Trip with an Old Friend – A Short Slavic Circle

A Short Slavic Circle: Life should not consist entirely of slaving away over the keyboard, banging out the next novel project. The fact that it does consist, almost entirely, of banging out the next novel project, gave me pause. So when my friend Gus gave me a plausible excuse, I jumped at it.

A very old friend, this Gus character is a professor, raconteur, and photographer extraordinaire. After attending a high-brow photography workshop in Italy, he wanted to wander around a bit. There you have the entire incentive for a circle through Slovenia, Croatia, Hungary, and Slovakia. Vienna to Ljubljana, €80 for the direct train or €29 for the somewhat more local train. Ever the starving author, you know which one I chose. And so it was a merry chase, four local trains across Austria and Slovenia, empty little border stations and stopping at every rural crossroads. It was great! Farms and fields, peaks and valleys, the world falling away into the rhythm of the slow train.
Professor Gus, Ljubljana
Ljubljana, the capital city of Slovenia, is also one of the funnest city names to say out loud. Try it a few times, see if you can come up with our loving nickname for the place. Vibrant, young, fun, and small enough to be very manageable, Ljubljana is a great spot. The city is a mix of modern Europe. Tito’s Yugoslavia, and the Habsburg era. A river runs through it (sorry!) complete with picturesque stone bridges. Outdoor cafés line the river and, of course, there is the Tourist-Shopping-Street. Aside from the T-S-S, Ljubljana is a gem of a walking city.
The moon it did rise low, My Love, As I walked through your town. The silver moon rose low, My Love, As I came walking down.
Me and a Bee, Ljubljana
The great thing about hanging out with artsy friends from the states is that they often have cool stuff, like a Rental Car! Oh, the luxury of turning up random roads, being a crappy navigator, and getting totally lost. Even better when one’s traveling companion loves getting lost as much as you do.
We ran from dead-end to hidden shrine, taking quite possibly the slowest and wiggliest route between Ljubljana and Zagreb. One-lane roads over bumpy mountains covered with steep forests, picture-perfect little farms (which I have no pictures of) and coffee stops at remote cafés.
The Grand Slovenian Back-road Tour managed to transform a two-hour drive into a seven-hour drive. We finally wandered into Zagreb under dark clouds. If you have read any of my other travel posts, you will know that I love Zagreb. It took Gus about six hours to fall in love with the place.
There are churches, of course.
The medieval upper town is one of Zagreb’s charms, but unlike Ljubljana, be prepared to hike up and down hills.
The oddest thing about being in Zagreb is that I used the city as one setting in my current novel project. I was seeing the place through the eyes of my characters, as well as through my own. And Gus, bless his heart, was getting a little sick of hearing about it.
I tried to make it up to him by leading him around one of my favorite cities without walking him to death. Instead, I walked him half to death, then we sat at a café and watched the world go by. After walking his second half to death, we found an outdoor dinner place. The rest of the evening was spent cheering for Croatia in the World Cup. Go Checkered Devils!!  (I continued to root for Croatia throughout the World Cup)
Wall Art, Zagreb   (no, really, the wall is the art)
The Bunnies of Death — Street Art, Zagreb
Two knuckleheads reflected in translation. It’s always about the translation.
The Ruins of Disco — Abandoned Diskotek, Zagreb
The circle ran on, out of Zagreb to the weirdness of a lake resort in Hungary, Lake Balaton. We just picked it off the map because it looked cool, a great whonking big lake. It turned out to be a strange time-warp, casting us back into a world of 1960’s era family fishing vacations. And guess what? That is exactly what it is, verified by My Heart, who spent her childhood vacations there.
Lake Balaton — Trapped in the weird villa, run by Attila
So we left, driving through rain, then brilliant sun over massive fields of sunflowers. Gus kept threatening to pull over and cut off his ear. After managing to keep all the meaty bits attached, we finally wandered into Slovakia, and a whirlwind tour of Bratislava. Bratislava has done a fantastic job of marketing its small Old Town as a tourist destination. Ninety minutes from Vienna, Bratislava has started pulling in day-trippers, shuttled here from Wien by boat, bus, and rail. Even with the influx of tourists, it is an easy town to disappear into. Climb some of the steep hills, or venture out into the ‘modern city’ of the Tito-era, and the tourists are gone.
Poseurs — Flak Tower, Vienna
The Professor had to fly back over the pond, so time was running out. A few nights in Wien, showing him my favorite odd places, then he was gone. Alas! Alas! will be the cry, when the lovely journey has passed us by.
The cagey Professor, trying to chat up My Heart.
I will leave you with this, just because. Lots of possibilities here.
The Author Dude
An ex-resident of Seattle, Marco Etheridge lives and writes in Vienna,
Austria.When he isn’t creating great fiction or being a good Hausmann, he explores the world with his lovely wife. If the sun is shining too brightly, or the birds are too chipper, Marco studies German grammar to create a suitably dark mood for creativity. He is the author of two novels, The Best Dark Rain and Blood Rust Chains. Marco’s current projects include a children’s book and the first draft of his third novel, a political satire/thriller set in Europe.

Book Review: “The Sun Also Rises” by Ernest Hemingway

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The Sun Also Rises

Book review: The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Ernest Hemingway’s “The Sun Also Rises,” published in 1926, has been continuously in print for over nine decades. That, in itself, is a strong testament to any novel. I cannot say exactly how many times I have read this work, but I am going to guess at five readings. My lovely wife brought the book home from the library and, as it was just sitting there, I picked it up and read it. Why?

It has become fashionable, in the years following his death by suicide, to malign Hemingway’s work. There are many reasons for this, most of which do not have much to do with his writing. A cult of personality has grown up around Hemingway’s life, a cult of machismo, that of the hunter, the fighter, the fisherman, the man of many wives. Having read a good bit about his life, I believe that this cult of personality played a part in his undoing. He was a complicated public figure, a famous American novelist, a man of braggadocio and bluster. Infantilized by his mother, he overcompensating for that upbringing by embracing a facade of manliness that he would become famous for. But that is the writer, not the writing. Let us set that aside.

Hemingway subscribed to the “Iceberg Theory” of composing a novel. Using spare, simple prose, he told the tip of the tale, leaving the reader to plumb the depths of what lay beneath his stark words. It may not seem like a huge revelation now, but compare Hemingway’s work to some of his contemporaries: Theodore Dreiser, Ford Madox Ford, John Dos Passos, all great writers who wrote deeply complex novels. “The Sun Also Rises,” seems almost a novella by comparison. Yet below the deceptively simple descriptions, and direct dialogue, lies the bulk of the story. Hemingway’s writing style has had a significant impact on modern novels. Because of that impact, as well as his impressive body of work, he remains an important literary figure.

The novel was written in late 1925 and early 1926, following Hemingway’s third trip to Pamplona, Spain. If the reader knows about the ‘Running of the Bulls’ in Pamplona, the chances are it is because of Hemingway. The characters in the novel are based on real persons, those that made up the party of that third journey. The novel consists of three books: Paris, traveling in Spain and the Festival of San Fermin, and a short third book that is the aftermath and conclusion.

On the surface, this is a novel of flawed characters, desperate friendships, and misplaced longing for love. Only look a bit deeper, and there is so much more. Jake Barnes, the narrator, has been wounded in World War One. The reader is never told the exact nature of his wounds, but he has been rendered impotent. Barnes’ wound becomes an exploration of masculinity, and an example of the Iceberg Theory. Much later in the novel, there are some very subtle (and masterful) hints at what may have happened to Barnes. It is there, sketched as a simple line drawing, yet an integral part of the story.

The beautiful and feckless Lady Ashley, Brett, represents not only the love interest of several characters, but the emerging modern image of female sexuality in the 20th Century. She does not come off well in the process, but none of the characters do. And so it goes, from Robert Cohen to Mike Campbell, both besotted with Brett, both towed along in the building madness of the fiesta.

The novel spills through the streets and cafés of Paris, giving the reader a view of a bygone era. The journey continues into the Basque country of Spain, a quiet fishing trip in a land untouched by the civil war looming in the next decade. Then all of the ill-fated characters come together for the fiesta, a group of disparate expatriates standing out against a backdrop of traditional Spanish culture. The backdrop is portrayed as pure and good, the characters certainly not. As the Fiesta ends, the world comes crashing in, leading to the aftermath.

“The Sun Also Rises” is a deceptively simple novel. The characters haunt cafés and bars, talk, argue, drink an extraordinary amount of alcohol, and then move on. Read through quickly, it is an enjoyable story, a succinct slice of a time and a culture. Taken slowly, however, and a much larger set of themes emerge, just visible beneath the surface. It is well worth the reader’s time to take the novel slowly. Sexuality, masculinity, honor, love and loss, values and friendship, these are the themes that are waiting to be discovered.

I would add a note of caution. The novel is a product of the time in which it was written. There are derogatory terms used to describe one of the characters, who is Jewish. There are also racial terms used to refer to one of the minor characters. Some readers may find them offensive. In no way do I endorse any racial labels, or defend Hemingway’s use of them. I simple point out that they exist in the novel.

In conclusion, if you have read Hemingway, but not “The Sun Also Rises,” I highly recommend the novel. If you have managed to live your life without reading Hemingway, then this is a good place to start. If you like what you read, I would suggest “For Whom the Bell Tolls” as Hemingway’s other excellent early novel, along with some of his short stories, particularly the Nick Drake stories. As always, Happy Reading!

View all my reviews

The Sword in the Stone: Part Two

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This post was originally a guest post on Ashni Clayton’s blog “Speaking Across the Centuries”
Here is a link to the original post on her website:
Speaking Across the Centuries

THE SWORD IN THE STONE:

PERILOUS JOURNEYS INTO THE WORLD OF PUBLISHING

Part Two: INDIE PUBLISHING

In Part One we talked about completing a novel, and what an amazing process that is. We used the analogy of pulling the sword from the stone, the stone representing the obstacles to writing; the sword the completed novel. Part One went on to look at the path of Traditional Publishing and what that means for an author. Here in Part Two, we will talk about being an Indie Author.

Again, this little post is not meant as a “How-to-Indie-Publish” manifesto. That task would far exceed the limits of this blog post. Rather, think of this as a sketch. Choosing to be an Indie Author does not mean treading a dragon-free path. The dragons are just different. Which brings us here. Sandwiched between Traditional Publishing and Vanity Publishing, Indie Authors have become a force in the book marketplace. Although the data is endlessly disputed and revised, revenue from purely Indie books make up somewhere around 40% of total books sales. That, my lovely writer friends, is a great deal of money. And, as any good fantasy book will tell us, dragons love to hoard treasure.

Most authors who choose to self-publish begin with the greatest dragon of them all: Amazon. So let us start there. First, just how big is this dragon anyway? The answer is that it is big; really, really big. According to Data-Guru Drew at K-Lytics, Amazon has more print books on hand than the Library of Congress. When we look at eBooks, the numbers get really staggering. There are somewhere in the range of five-million eBook titles on Amazon, with another 50,000-70,000 coming online every month. Now here comes the important bit: The top 50,000 books make up over 80% of the revenue on Amazon. That means the other four-million-nine-hundred-and-fifty-thousand (yes, I wrote that out on purpose!) books on Amazon, those below the top 50,000, earn less than 20% of the total revenue. The moral of these depressing statistics is that yes, Amazon will publish your book and, yes, your most precious novel will be adrift in a sea of other books.

Forget the numbers,” you all shout. “We are brave authors on a quest! Forward!” Very well, onward we go. Before your manuscript can become an eBook, or Print-On-Demand Paperback, it has to be compiled. Compiling is the process of converting your manuscript into an accepted file format for uploading. Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) is the side-kick dragon to the Amazon mega-dragon. KDP has a special type of file, a (dot)Mobi file. I write in Scrivener, a fantastic writing tool, which compiles directly to Mobi. Compiling a manuscript can be incredibly frustrating. Regardless of what tools you use, here is my first hard advice: Get Help!

One of the most amazing things about the path of the Indie Writer is the vast amount of help that is out there for the asking. Indie Writers love to write, and they love to write about the pitfalls, tribulations, and dragons of the writing and publishing process. Let’s say you are struggling (and you will) with compiling your manuscript into an eBook. The fonts are weird, or the spacing is all wrong, or the chapter headings are seriously wonky. This is your fifth try and you are ready to give it up and teach macramé to parrots. This is where you get help. Actually, it would have been better to get help before you (I) started. Yeah, I’m talking about myself now. Trust me, get help. Read first, learn, and only then compile.

Think of this as a stop at the armory, gathering our tools and weapons before we go further. There are folks who dedicate a great deal of time and effort toward helping Indie Authors, a fantastic army of bloggers who offer support and guidance. There are also folks who prey on the Indies and who, for a price, offer to save you from the horrors. Learn to tell the difference between the two. Here are some of the good guys: Joanna Penn is one of the shining stars along the path. Her Author 2.0 Blueprint is a must-read for Indies, and it’s free! Her website has been a huge resource for me. Mark Dawson’s Self-Publishing Formula is an amazing online course. There is free content and paid content. The point is that you are not alone. Someone, somewhere, has gone through the exact publishing issue you are experiencing, and they wrote a blog post about it. Again: Get Help!

We’ve checked the resources and we have done our homework, so let’s get to it. There is a good deal of work that must be done before we take on the actual KDP publishing process. We have to compile our manuscript to an upload file. We have to create a great book cover, or have someone create it. We are going to need a Book Blurb, some of the hardest writing you will ever do. Writing a fantastic book blurb is brutal. In the links section, I have listed two books that were invaluable to me. Libbie Hawker and Dean Wesley Smith saved my butt on the book blurb front. We need to research KDP Categories and Keywords. This is how we choose where our novel fits in the great matrix of Amazon. Prepare carefully, do the steps, and eventually you will come to the brink. You will press the ‘Publish’ button. If you have done all the steps correctly, guess what? Your novel is now an eBook.

In Part One of this blog, I mentioned savoring the moment. Now would be a good time to do just that. Look at your newly published eBook, all shiny and bright on the Amazon page. Family and friends will buy your book, which is really cool. You will see sales on your very own KDP page. Now take a deep breath, and get ready for end of the parade. Once the Family-and-Friend pool has run dry, it’s time to roll up our sleeves and get to work.

This is paragraph nine, the evil little paragraph where I share a phrase you may grow to hate. That phrase is “Platform Building,” and it is one you will hear over and over. You will hear about it over and over because it is important. To emphasize, building a platform is vitally important. Remember when we were talking about the vast number of books on Amazon? Your novel is now one of those numbers, and most likely not near the top. In fact, hard truth time, if your novel is not in the Top 100 of a given Amazon Category, no one is going to see it. At all. Amazon is not going to market your book. Not even a little tiny bit. There are only two ways a potential reader is going to discover your book. One, they are specifically searching for it by title, like my Aunt Gloria (who really likes my novels) or, two, you have managed to get the idea of your novel onto the potential reader’s computer screen. Building a Platform, or Author Platform, is a series of steps, all of which you can do. I know this because I have done them. If I can do it, you can do it. Trust me when I say I kicked and screamed at some of the steps, but I did them.

Here is the down and dirty on Platform building. Keep in mind, each of these items could take up an entire blog post. The planks of your platform include ways readers can find you. You’re going to need a Facebook page dedicated to your new novel, and to future projects. This is not the FB page where you post cute kitten picture. A FB page is free, and you can build one in an hour. Don’t forget to set up your shop. On Amazon, you will have to build an Author Page. It’s easy and important. Browse the author pages of writers you admire. You’ll get the idea. Ditto for Goodreads. Make sure your new novel is on Goodreads. Go through every single option that Goodreads or Amazon offers and check every single one. Yes, you want to have a biography, a library, an Author Page, and a blog. Yes, yes, yes. This is all free stuff, so enjoy it and make it work for you. Each of these steps gets your novel and your name in front of potential readers.

The next thing that every serious author needs is a decent website. I sweated blood, inventing an entire new language of profanity in the process, but I eventually built a really nice website. Or so my Aunt Gloria says. Learn about SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and why you need it to push your website to the top of the Google search page. After you have a beautiful new website, you will need to read up on building a mailing list. Why do we want a mailing list? So we can connect with potential readers, readers whom we can point in the general direction of our shiny new novel. Here is one more hard truth, and a dirty little secret. Hard Truth: Getting potential readers to see your book, amongst the mass of other books, is the hardest thing about Indie Publishing. Dirty Little Secret: Even Traditionally Published Authors have to do this.

The thing is, the dirty little secret isn’t so secret. One of the items that literary agents will look for in a query is whether or not the requesting author has a website, a following, you guessed it: A Platform. They want to know that you are willing to pick up a big part of the marketing. In other words, you are going to hustle your novel one way or another. If you’re an Indie Author, you get to keep a higher percentage of the sales. The trouble is, there must be sales to get a percentage. Hence the mantra: “We are all in sales.”

This is the place where you breathe in, breathe out, and relax. Your novel does not have an expiration date. It is a wonderful creation of your imagination and hard work. Platform building does not happen overnight, just as you did not write your novel overnight. Work through the items, starting with the low-hanging fruit. Building an Author Page on Goodreads or Amazon is fairly painless. Both sites have a lot of self-help articles. At the tougher end of the spectrum are the tasks of building a website and then building a subscription mailing list for your website. It is prudent to have all of the planks in your platform built and in place before you publish your novel. Having said that, I acknowledge that the pull to publish is strong. My first novel went live while I was still in the middle of the platform building process and I survived.

You have written a book, done the hard work, and published your book. Knuckling down, you have built a fantastic Author Platform. This is so great! Give yourself a pat on the back. Now it is time to put the platform to work. We are ready to take the leap to advertising, and it is a big leap. This is where we step far outside the Friends-and-Family pool, reaching out to the readers who have never heard of our novel.

There are many ways to advertise your novel. Again, let’s start with the low-hanging fruit. First, learn about writing ad copy. This is harder than it sounds. For Goodreads or Amazon, an author has about 150 characters with which to sell their novel; not words, characters. Resources for learning the art of ad copy include the books listed below, and Mark Dawson’s website. There are many more. Try your hand at ad copy before you set yourself to launching an ad.

Goodreads and Amazon are good places to try your first ads. The ad billings are based on link clicks, and the click costs are relatively low. It is critically important to research audiences and ad keywords. This is how you get your great thriller novel in front of folks who like thrillers, rather than wasting time on readers who only enjoy romance novels. It is important to know that you are going to make mistakes. You will probably waste a little money, but it is all part of the learning curve. The learning curve is much gentler on Amazon and Goodreads. Gentler than what, you will ask. Gentler than the complex monster that is the Facebook Ads Manager.

There are books devoted to Facebook ads, blog sites for FB ads, and courses on how to craft a successful FB ad. There are companies that will promise, for a fee, to build you the perfect Facebook ad. Why? Because FB ads are serious business, complicated, and, if done improperly, can ruin an advertising budget. Mark Dawson is one of the gurus of Facebook ads. I would recommend checking out his online videos for advice on crafting and executing your first ad. Some of his most important advice is start small, limit your budget, and track the results. As you hone your ad copy, and find your best audience and keywords, you will start to see results. Things will go wrong, or you won’t get the results you expect. That is all part of the learning process.

Welcome to the path of being a published writer. If you’ve made the Traditional Publishing cut, my hat is off to you. Good Job! If you are now an Indie Author, welcome to the fold. It can be fun, rewarding, and frustrating, but you will learn an amazing amount of new things. Remember to keep writing! One of the most important planks in the Author Platform is to publish more books. I can tell you from personal experience that it is easy to let publishing and marketing interfere with your writing. First and foremost, we are writers. As Indie Authors, we may have to wear different hats. We can be marketers, crafters of ad copy, or promoters, but at our core, we are writers. Keep the writer hat firmly on your head. It looks really good on you.

A Link for Joanna Penn’s The Creative Penn:

https://www.thecreativepenn.com/resources/

A Link for Mark Dawson’s Self-Publishing Formula:

https://selfpublishingformula.com/

A Link for K-Lytics (Alex the Data-Geek!)

http://k-lytics.com/

Gotta Read It by Libbie Hawker

How to Write Fiction Sales Copy by Dean Wesley Smith

Remember, you are not alone. The community of Indie Authors is pretty amazing. I cannot begin to thank all of the people who have helped me, either directly, or by providing information and insight on their blogs. As a way of paying back the rather large debt that I owe to the Indie Author community, I would like to make this small offer: If you are a first time author, or are struggling with one of the many facets of Indie Publishing, feel free to drop me a line. You can contact me through my website, which is listed at the end of this blog. If I can help you in any way, or steer you towards someone who can, I would be happy to do so. Thanks for reading!

An ex-resident of Seattle, Marco Etheridge lives and writes in Vienna, Austria. He is the author of two novels: The Best Dark Rain: A Post-Apocalyptic Struggle for Life and Love and Blood Rust Chains. When he isn’t creating great fiction or being a good Hausmann, he explores the world with his lovely wife.  If the sun is shining too brightly, or the birds are too chipper, Marco studies German grammar to create a suitably dark mood for creativity. For more information about his novels, check out his website at:

https://bro.uxw.mybluehost.me/

The Sword in the Stone: Part One

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This post was originally a guest post on Ashni Clayton’s blog “Speaking Across the Centuries”
Here is a link to the original post on her website:
Speaking Across the Centuries

THE SWORD IN THE STONE:

PERILOUS JOURNEYS INTO THE WORLD OF PUBLISHING

****************************************************************************

Part One: Traditional Publishing

Completing a novel is no small thing. It is like pulling the legendary sword from the stone. The stone represents all the things that hold one back as a writer; the sword is the completed novel. If you have actually finished your novel, savor the moment. Take pleasure in this story that you have brought to life. Heft the thing in your hand, feel its weight and balance. Prepare yourself for an entirely new journey, a new quest with your sword. That quest is the path of publishing.

Writing is, for the most part, a solitary affair. The writer and novel are insulated and safe, protected from the outside world. The process of writing is one of creativity, where anything is possible. The world of publishing is a much different place. Publishing is a business with one aim: Making money. Think of stepping into the world of publishing as embarking on a classic Hero’s Journey. Just as Joseph Campbell tells us, it may get a whole lot worse before it gets any better.

In the past, the journey from completed novel to published novel was set in stone (pun intended). It consisted of writing a novel, finding a literary agent, who would then find a publisher. This process still exists and is generally referred to as Traditional Publishing. The past decade or so has seen the rise of another path, the path of the Indie Author. In Part One of this blog post, we will look at Traditional Publishing. Part Two will look at Self-Publishing, or being an Indie Author. This little post is not meant as a “How-to-Get-Published” manifesto. Rather, this is a cautionary tale of what dragons one can expect along the way. So on with Part One. Let’s get Traditional.

Let us assume that you have written the very best novel you can possibly write. The messy first draft is a distant memory, the rewrites have been hammered out, and the long hours of proofreading are over. If you are lucky enough to have a dedicated group of Beta-Readers, they have gone over your novel with the proverbial fine-toothed comb. This child of your creation, this amazing story, has now been edited, proofed, and read by your loyal and long-suffering friends. Your family, your friends, they all tell you that your novel should be published. They believe in you. The world is waiting for your story, and rightly so. The world needs more great stories.

The first step in Traditional Publishing is querying a literary agent. While being accepted by a literary agent does not mean that your novel will find a publisher, it is a huge first step. In some cases, an author may query directly to small indie presses, but the process remains basically the same. Queries begin with a top-notch query letter. There are many good online resources on how to write a good query letter. There are also a great many opinions as to what makes a query letter great, or damns it to a quick rejection. It is incumbent on the author to do his or her homework on the fine art of writing a query. This is your pitch, the three or four allotted paragraphs to sell your novel. The query is the one brief chance you will have to hook the person reading your query. I cannot possibly over-emphasize how important a well-crafted query letter is. Do your due diligence, do your homework, then write the query. There are many rules to the query process. The first rule of query letters: They have to be perfect. Not one typo, no missed punctuation, no misspellings. I beg you, ask someone to proofread your query letter. Please.

Oh, a word about rejection before going further. If you are determined to pursue this path, now is the time to grow a thick skin. Yes, I know that your novel is perhaps the greatest novel ever written. I know you believe in your novel and, quite frankly, I believe in your novel as well. Regardless, you will be rejected. The agent was having a bad day, the wind was from the south, whatever, it happens. Get used to it. Thick skin, remember? Thus girded for battle, onward!

Once one has the perfect query letter, one must have somewhere to send it. Now we must find agents who are accepting unsolicited queries. There are several very good online resources for researching agents. Agent Query and Publishers Marketplace are two of the best. The former is free and the latter is a paid subscription.

Agent Query
Publishers Marketplace

Finding appropriate agents to query is a process of elimination, and one of strict adherence to the requested documents. There is a great deal of information to be gleaned from most agent listings. First, is the agent open to submissions? Second, will they accept email submissions? What genres are they looking for? If you are a romance writer, do not submit your work to an agent interested in psychological thrillers. You will be wasting their time and yours. Every agent will require a slightly different submission package. They may require a synopsis, a three-chapter excerpt, both, or a query letter only. If one wishes to have any chance of success, the query package must be exactly what the agent is requesting, no more, no less. The agent will likely specify what format the synopsis or excerpts must be in. If they say they want everything in Twelve-point Times New Roman, double-spaced; they aren’t kidding. The query process is a multifaceted test. The test is not only whether or not an aspiring author can write. It is also a test of whether or not they can follow directions. Each letter must be personalized for the agent being queried, including the address of their agency and a reference as to why you chose to query that agent. Any query that begins with “Dear Agent” is most assuredly going to be filed in the round file. So we have our perfect query letter template, our synopsis, our excerpts, all the building blocks for a query package.

Not quite. Sorry. Agents want to see a motivated author. The last paragraph of a query is usually reserved for a short paragraph that is your curriculum vitae as a writer. If the agent manages to read to the end of your letter, they will look for some sign that you are motivated and ready to promote your work. This means having a clean, professional website, a current and active blog, or at least a social media page dedicated to your novel. Okay, last block in place: Ready, set, go!

Depending on the genre that one writes in, it is not unreasonable to compile a list of fifty or more agents. For my first novel, I sent out out many more queries than that. The list complied, the package perfect, it is time to begin mailing or emailing the submission packages. I suggest two things. The first suggestion is to keep a log of which agents were queried and when. Some form of notebook or file, whatever works best, will make it much easier to keep track of requests for additional information or rejections. Which brings us to suggestion number two. Now is the time to make use of the thicker skin we have girded our loins with. You are going to get rejection letters. They will sound personal, encouraging you to keep writing. After you receive a few more rejections, you will notice that they are all very similar. Another caution: do not, under any circumstances, send an angry or whiny reply to any agent. The world of publishing is small and word gets around. Thick skin, breathe deeply, move on.

Keep in mind that literary agents receive a great many unsolicited queries. These queries usually go into what is called a “Slush Pile.” The Slush Pile is often handled by an assistant. Your query package has to shine brightly enough to make it past the overworked eyes of the agent’s gatekeeper. A query may take weeks or months to claw its way to the top of the Slush Pile. Yes, months. Patience is a virtue you will need in great abundance. Once past this hurdle, the package may actually land in front of the agent. It will be Friday. For some reason, agents work on their Slush Piles on Fridays. Don’t ask me why.

At this point, there are three possible outcomes. The first is silence. Many agent listings state that the agency will only respond to queries that they are interested in. No response means no. The second possible outcome is said rejection letter. Invoke the mantra: Thick skin, breathe, move on. The last possible outcome, the joyous one, is a request for more information, perhaps even a request for a full manuscript.

If you are fortunate enough to receive a request for additional material, allow yourself the complete freakout. Go for it, ecstatic dance and everything. Once the joy dust settles, prepare your reply to the agent, sending them exactly what they are requesting, no more, no less. It is important to keep all of your replies professional, businesslike, and upbeat without gushing. A request for additional material does not mean your book will be picked up by a publisher, but it is a very hopeful sign.

From here, the process becomes one of the more intricate steps, and more waiting. Perhaps the agent has, or will, request a full copy of your manuscript. The author sends off the manuscript and waits. Many agents will request exclusivity at this point, not wanting to waste time reading a manuscript that several other agents are reading. The agent may request substantive changes to the manuscript. Authors must choose to compromise or not. This dance may go on through several rounds, but, at some point, the agent will offer representation or bow out. Representation means the agent does the work of finding a publisher for the author’s manuscript. In return for that work, the literary agent will take 10-15% of domestic sales and 20% of foreign sales.

The reality of questing for publication is that only a very few debut authors will find an agent who will offer representation. Many now-famous authors were rejected hundreds of times as debut authors. There is no easy or soft way to say this; finding an agent is a long, tough, arduous process.

But let us assume that one of our lucky few have broken through the barrier. There will be more waiting as the agent queries publishers. Yes, there is an upstream process between agent and publisher. When a publisher shows interest, there may be more requests for changes, either to manuscript, title, or both. The author’s agent should help with negotiating a publishing contract. Once the contract is inked, there will come a period of editing, proof-reading, cover design, and more. All of this takes time. Even with everything going smoothly, the process is not a speedy one.

These few brief paragraphs actually cover a journey that may take between eighteen months and two years. Allowing six months to find an agent is not an unreasonable guess. It could very well take longer. Add another six months for the agent to find a publisher and yet another six months for the publishing process. This would be the fast-track, the shortest distance between the first query letter and one’s published novel sitting happily on a bookstore shelf.

Our intrepid author, sword still in hand, has achieved the quest. What then? There are some very tangible benefits that come with Traditional Publishing. Prestige and recognition are some of the larger benefits. Our author will be eligible for literary prizes that Indie Authors generally are not. This is changing ever so slowly, but for the most part is still true. Our successful author can see his or her novel on the shelves of the local bookstore. The novel is much more likely to be reviewed by mainstream literary publications.

The publisher will, to a point, engage in marketing and promotion. For a debut author, that point will be fairly limited. The days of an author writing in seclusion and handing off manuscripts with no further thought are long gone. The popular mantra is “We are all in sales,” and no one more than the author. Expect to do a large part of your own marketing, traditionally published or not. And do not expect to get rich, or even very famous. The average advance for a debut author is about $8000. The agent will take their cut of this, plus most novels will not ‘earn out,’ meaning that the author will not receive anything more than the advance. As for getting famous, you will read stories of debut novelists winning a prestigious literary award and topping the New York Times bestsellers list. It does happen, but so do lightning strikes.

I do not mean to paint too grim a picture, nor do I wish to portray the world of publishing as any less brutal than it is. It is a tough business, to be sure. But with perseverance, a thick skin, and a great book, debut authors can and do succeed. But what if one simply cannot find an agent, or if one wants more control over the publishing process? That will carry us into Part Two, the world of Indie Publishing. Like Traditional Publishing, Indie Publishing has its own set of benefits, dragons, and trials.

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About the Author:

An ex-resident of Seattle, Marco Etheridge lives and writes in Vienna, Austria. He is the author of two novels: The Best Dark Rain: A Post-Apocalyptic Struggle for Life and Love and Blood Rust Chains. When he isn’t creating great fiction or being a good Hausmann, he explores the world with his lovely wife. If the sun is shining too brightly, or the birds are too chipper, Marco studies German grammar to create a suitably dark mood for creativity. For more information about his novels, check out his website at:

Marco Etheridge Fiction

Book Review: “Born a Crime” by Trevor Noah

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Born a Crime: Stories From a South African ChildhoodBorn a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood by Trevor Noah
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Funny, poignant, and heart-breaking by turns, Trevor Noah’s memoir “Born a Crime” is an enlightening journey into coming of age in South Africa. The fabric of his memories include the towering strength of his mother, the insanity of Apartheid, and being a downright naughty child.

By means of full disclosure, I have to say that I am a big Trevor Noah fan. I love the Daily Show, and I laugh myself silly watching Trevor Noah’s comedy bits. Great stuff. Having said that, this memoir is cut from a different cloth. Funny, yes, but it is also powerful and deeply moving.

An added benefit of this memoir is an inside view of what Apartheid was, and how it impacted the lives of those living under those heinous government-imposed racial barriers. We are living in a time when, tragically, racial divides seem to be growing. “Born a Crime” serves as a milepost, and a reminder, of what racial injustice can to to a people, a family, and a childhood.

“Born a Crime” is well-written, funny, and poignant. What else can you ask of a memoir? Highly recommended.

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Book Review: “Father Figure” by James J. cudney

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Father FigureFather Figure by James J. Cudney
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Book Review: First, full disclosure, I was given a reader-copy by the author. This in no way alters my review. Second, James Cudney’s novel “Father Figure” is far outside my normal reading genre. Regardless, I enjoyed the story, and was glad for the opportunity to read and review this novel.

“Father Figure” is a story of intersecting lives. It is a tale of two teenage girls, two different times, one family. There are family secrets, big family secrets, and the search for the truth. The plot moves back and forth between the two stories, one of a mother’s past, the other of her daughter’s present. As the novel progresses, the two stories intertwine. I am a big fan of intersecting stories, so that was a plus for this novel.

I admit to struggling, at first, to hear the writer’s voice. Not far into the novel, however, the storyline pulled me in. I mean this as no discredit to the author. As I said, I am very far outside my normal genre with this novel. Once I settled in, I became engaged with the characters. I cared about what happened to them. As a reader, that is fundamentally important to me.

This is a tale of women. Strong women characters carry the plot line. It is a compliment to Mr. Cudney that he is able to craft a convincing female point of view. There was no point in the novel where I thought “This is a man writing about women.” Well done indeed. The male characters in the novel, with a few exceptions, do not shine so brightly.

“Father Figure” is a family saga, made no less a saga because the family is a single mother and her daughter. The past and present collide, often with unforeseen results. The author addresses the issues of family secrets, sexuality, and yearning for the truth. One character locks away the past, the other seeks to uncover the truth of the past. This yearning for an identity, for a family landmark, carries the story forward.

I wish to extend my thanks to Jay for trusting me to read his work. I enjoyed “Father Figure” and look forward to other works by the author.

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