Read Part 11 here
My Publishing Journey
Part 12
Okay, this will be the final entry in My Publishing Journey. I think I pretty much caught everyone up and while the saga continues, it’s best saved for another time.
In January 2010, I saw a book called “Abish” by KC Grant on the shelves. I immediately bought it to read. I was a little worried that my publisher wouldn’t be interested in my book on Ammon since Abish is in that story—and here they’d published a whole book on Abish by another author. I emailed the managing editor to see if my idea might receive some “pre-approval” before I started writing. The committee gave me the green light, so in March I started drafting Ammon. I wrote through the spring and most of the summer since I wanted to get it turned in before September. I was worried that if I turned it in later, it would miss being a spring/summer book and be a fall release. This would make it 15-18 months between releases.
In April, I had a new story idea—different than anything I’ve attempted before. I could see it as both a YA or an adult novel, but thought the appeal would be greater if written as YA. I wrote down the premise, then shoved it in a drawer. I couldn’t deal with any new ideas yet. You’ll see why when you read below.
My first non-fiction book (Women of the Book of Mormon) came out in April 2010 and to my surprise it was a fast seller. In two weeks the first print run sold out. I was doing plenty of signings at Costco and other places. My first Costco signing took place in my hometown of Orem. I was deathly afraid that I’d run into someone from high school, but that didn’t happen.
I had skipped a meal, which usually happens when I schedule too much in a day, and so I was hungry by the time I arrived at my book signing. At the Orem Costco, the author table is set up quite close to the large refrigerators. So I sat there all night salivating over the chocolate mousse pudding that was front and center. I did have one lady who came up and was disappointed that my book was on the “Mormon” women since we are “so oppressed.” A very interesting conversation to say the least.
I also had a book signing in St. George at the Costco there. It was kind of strange to see polygamous families milling about. Of course, they wouldn’t come close to my table. They are very strict on what they are allowed to read and my book would probably be considered scandalous to them.
Soon after the crux of book signings, I took my kids on a trip to Israel. My parents were living in Jerusalem at the time, and it was definitely a once in a lifetime opportunity to take my children. I’d lived there as a 7 year old and later as a teenager so it was neat to show them around and let them get to know more about my childhood.
Back home, Alma the Younger was just being released. When I asked about doing book signings for the novel, I was told that the stores were dead in the summer. So I guess I wondered why my book was being released at such a “dead” time. But really, I didn’t have any complaints and was very grateful to have the novel coming out. I did a couple of signings around Father’s Day Weekend, and then later during the fall season.
I finished Ammon by July and let my alpha readers read through it. After edits, I turned in Ammon in August. I fully planned to take a break, but some readers had planted a seed in my head about writing of the “women” in the Book of Mormon. I decided to try my hand at a shorter novel, women’s fiction, first person, from the point of view of the daughter of Jared (which takes place in the Book of Ether). The daughter of Jared is a truly evil woman and plots to kill her grandfather. I didn’t want the book to be too dark, or too much of a downer, so I decided to give her a younger “good” sister. I wrote in the younger sister’s point of view.
I selected my alpha readers carefully. I wanted readers who were familiar with my other books, but who were also adept at writing and editing young adult fiction. The Daughters of Jared has a decidedly young adult approach, although I would officially categorize it as “women’s fiction.”
The three readers all came back with great fixes, as well as compliments. Two of them said it was their favorite story of mine so far. I turned that book in just after Thanksgiving.
Also, in October I went to the Bouchercon Conference in San Francisco. A few years ago I wrote a thriller based on the hunt for the Queen of Sheba’s tomb. I finally got an agent, but the selling process has been going very slow. I wanted to meet some editors from national publishing houses, and San Fran seemed like the closest place to do it. I had 5 publishers ask for the book and when I got back to my agent, she thought 2 of them were good choices. So we submitted to 2. One rejection has come in so far. If the other publisher says no as well, we might submit to some smaller publishers. So, even when you have 8 books published, rejections still come!
I dabbled a bit with my YA novel idea and wrote maybe 45 pages over a couple of months, slow paragraph by slow paragraph. I don’t know if anything will come of it. But I would like to get it roughed in, then polish the first few chapters and see if I can get any interest.
In the meantime, I had my former editor ask me if I was interested in co-writing a book with her on Christ’s Gifts to Women. She’d started the first couple of chapters, but had a baby . . . and you know the story from there. I read through what she’d written and really liked her vision. So I told her I’d finish the book. Several weeks later, we turned it in. Yes, I took the “non-fiction” plunge again, but this one wasn’t as intimidating. Maybe there really is something to co-writing! Time will tell if Daughters of Jared or Christ’s Gifts to Women will be accepted, but I think my readers will be happy if they become available.
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
My Publishing Journey--Part 11
I hope you all had a nice holiday. Now let's get back to business! BTW, I'm teaching a 6 week novel writing class in Northern Utah County starting in January.
Read Part 10 here
My Publishing Journey
Part 11
2009 was a banner year as far as writing awards. Abinadi won the Whitney for Best Historical and also Best of State in Literary Arts. I was surprised on both accounts, first on the Whitney because the competition was quite fierce (and I had won the Whitney the year before, so I thought voters would be looking for a fresh author), and on the Best of State because of the religious and very “LDS” nature of the book.
When I had tried to buy a radio spot for Abinadi on the local radio station, KSL, and have the radio host, Doug Wright, do the live read, I was told my book was “too religious” even for the Utah market. I could have a commercial produced and aired, but not read by Doug Wright or it would sound like he was endorsing a religious book. Pretty ridiculous if you ask me. So I guess having it win Best of State was a bit of a victory in that light.
In the summer of 2009, I also received the good news that my non-fiction book, Women of the Book of Mormon, had been accepted. There was a clincher though—it would be released for the next “Gospel Doctrine Book of Mormon” year in . . . 2012.
My publisher’s reasoning was that it would sell better when it was aligned with the proper Gospel Doctrine year.
I don’t know how many of you have seen the movie “2012” but it’s quite clear that the world is coming to an end around that date. I emailed my editor and in a semi-joking manner said that I might be dead by 2012. Or even worse (or better, depending on how you look at it), the world would end and Women would never be published. Also, (I continued to state my case) who really goes to Gospel Doctrine? For me, personally, I’ve been in primary or Sunday School for at least a decade and I’m sorry to say, I really don’t follow the Gospel Doctrine lessons. BUT . . . I do read the Book of Mormon regularly, by myself, and with my children, no matter what “year” it is in Gospel Doctrine.
I don’t know if my editor appreciated my humor, but she said I had great ideas and she’d sent them to the managing editor. (Wait! I didn’t really expect that and then started second-guessing myself. Oh well. Too late.)
The fall passed and I finished writing Alma the Younger and turned that in. On the third week of December, the managing editor called me and told me that they’d accepted Alma the Younger and it would come out in June (instead of the regular fall release I’d had for 6 years). That was a surprise. I took a gamble and asked if “Women” was still coming out in 2012. No, she said, it was coming out in April. 4 months away! It turns out that I found out before my editor did.
This meant that the design department was putting in holiday hours to get permissions on all the artwork that would go into the book (12-13 paintings). Press deadline was the first week of January. I spent Christmas Eve going through copyedit revisions while my husband took the kids out.
I never received the official answer for the early release date (by 2 years!), but I was VERY grateful when Women sold out of its first printing in 2 weeks. That was a record for me, and my publisher was very excited as well. It also proved to me that the Book of Mormon is a subject that can be sold regardless of the Gospel Doctrine schedule.
On a funny note, for those of you who think it’s glamorous to be a mother and a writer, I dropped in at my publishers just as the Design Director got back the proof sheets for “Women”. She saw me in the lobby and came out to show me them. They were made up of 3’x3’ sheets of paper with the book laid out—I can’t remember what she called the proofs. I had left my 2 girls in the car for a couple of minutes, and apparently, they started arguing. While I was standing around a host of editors and designers, marveling at my new book, my five year old suddenly stepped inside, calling out in a very loud voice, “Shut up!” to her sister, who’d remained in the car. (#4 kid gets away with a lot more, that’s for sure)
I put a big smile on my face and said, “I’d like you all to meet my daughter!”
Read Part 10 here
My Publishing Journey
Part 11
2009 was a banner year as far as writing awards. Abinadi won the Whitney for Best Historical and also Best of State in Literary Arts. I was surprised on both accounts, first on the Whitney because the competition was quite fierce (and I had won the Whitney the year before, so I thought voters would be looking for a fresh author), and on the Best of State because of the religious and very “LDS” nature of the book.
When I had tried to buy a radio spot for Abinadi on the local radio station, KSL, and have the radio host, Doug Wright, do the live read, I was told my book was “too religious” even for the Utah market. I could have a commercial produced and aired, but not read by Doug Wright or it would sound like he was endorsing a religious book. Pretty ridiculous if you ask me. So I guess having it win Best of State was a bit of a victory in that light.
In the summer of 2009, I also received the good news that my non-fiction book, Women of the Book of Mormon, had been accepted. There was a clincher though—it would be released for the next “Gospel Doctrine Book of Mormon” year in . . . 2012.
My publisher’s reasoning was that it would sell better when it was aligned with the proper Gospel Doctrine year.
I don’t know how many of you have seen the movie “2012” but it’s quite clear that the world is coming to an end around that date. I emailed my editor and in a semi-joking manner said that I might be dead by 2012. Or even worse (or better, depending on how you look at it), the world would end and Women would never be published. Also, (I continued to state my case) who really goes to Gospel Doctrine? For me, personally, I’ve been in primary or Sunday School for at least a decade and I’m sorry to say, I really don’t follow the Gospel Doctrine lessons. BUT . . . I do read the Book of Mormon regularly, by myself, and with my children, no matter what “year” it is in Gospel Doctrine.
I don’t know if my editor appreciated my humor, but she said I had great ideas and she’d sent them to the managing editor. (Wait! I didn’t really expect that and then started second-guessing myself. Oh well. Too late.)
The fall passed and I finished writing Alma the Younger and turned that in. On the third week of December, the managing editor called me and told me that they’d accepted Alma the Younger and it would come out in June (instead of the regular fall release I’d had for 6 years). That was a surprise. I took a gamble and asked if “Women” was still coming out in 2012. No, she said, it was coming out in April. 4 months away! It turns out that I found out before my editor did.
This meant that the design department was putting in holiday hours to get permissions on all the artwork that would go into the book (12-13 paintings). Press deadline was the first week of January. I spent Christmas Eve going through copyedit revisions while my husband took the kids out.
I never received the official answer for the early release date (by 2 years!), but I was VERY grateful when Women sold out of its first printing in 2 weeks. That was a record for me, and my publisher was very excited as well. It also proved to me that the Book of Mormon is a subject that can be sold regardless of the Gospel Doctrine schedule.
On a funny note, for those of you who think it’s glamorous to be a mother and a writer, I dropped in at my publishers just as the Design Director got back the proof sheets for “Women”. She saw me in the lobby and came out to show me them. They were made up of 3’x3’ sheets of paper with the book laid out—I can’t remember what she called the proofs. I had left my 2 girls in the car for a couple of minutes, and apparently, they started arguing. While I was standing around a host of editors and designers, marveling at my new book, my five year old suddenly stepped inside, calling out in a very loud voice, “Shut up!” to her sister, who’d remained in the car. (#4 kid gets away with a lot more, that’s for sure)
I put a big smile on my face and said, “I’d like you all to meet my daughter!”
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
My Publishing Journey--Part 10
Read Part 9 Here
My Publishing Journey
Part 10
A few months before Abinadi came out, I was sitting around doing nothing (kidding). But I did decide that now that I had 5 books almost out, perhaps I had developed enough of a platform to write on a non-fiction topic: Women of the Book of Mormon.
I often have readers tell me that they are grateful I’ve used women characters in my book since we hear so little about the women in the Book of Mormon. I agreed, but was I the one to do the research? Yes, I’d researched Sariah and a couple of the other women for various presentations I’d given, but was it enough to write an entire book?
Later, when I told my tax accountant that I had a book coming out on Women of the Book of Mormon, he said, “What is it, 5 pages long?”
The book ended up about 75 pages in manuscript form, and it took my nearly a year to write and research it. When I took the first chapter to critique group, they said it was reading rather dry. So I knew I had to make it more into a storytelling style—or essay style and not just a list of facts. So I got to work. I turned in the book the summer of 2009.
While slowly researching and writing “Women”, I worked on Alma. I ran into a snag while writing Alma, which is kind of interesting. Writers call it “writing into a corner” where you don’t know how to get out of it. I finally found a way out, but the plot had to get pretty creative. Originally I had the title for this book as Alma the Elder, but the publisher decided to have it plain “Alma” since he didn’t have any children born yet to make him an “elder”.
Alma was scheduled for a Fall 2009 release, and as soon as I got “Women” turned in, I started the next novel, Alma the Younger.
Alma the Younger was a bit of a different process. Yes, there would be the plot to follow in the book of Alma, but I had to make some character decisions about Alma the Younger. The book would ultimately turn out to be a character-driven book. I knew that some of my regular reviewers wouldn’t like the story angle, and I was right. In fact one reviewer posted on Goodreads why she wouldn’t be reviewing the book in her regular column. Researching Alma the Younger showed that he was a truly wicked and vile man, and I didn’t gloss over any of his wickedness. This book was darker than my other books, and harder to write for that reason. It wasn’t a happy “feel-good” book and covered some very difficult issues. It was writing about an antagonist who was also the protagonist of the story. I had one lady at a book signing say that she didn’t want to read about the redemption of a prophet, but just about the good things he did—not about the struggles it took him to get there. She didn’t want to have any bad thoughts about him.
But I was okay with that. The point of telling about Alma the Younger’s fall into the dark abyss and his eventual rise to become a righteous leader is perhaps a beacon of hope for many of us who might find ourselves in the depths of despair. And I’d already heard the worst on the book from a copyeditor. (A copyeditor is one of the final editors who proofs the manuscript for typos, grammar, and inconsistencies.) Going through the copyedit, I immediately sensed she didn’t care for the story. I discovered I was right when at the very end of the edit she proclaimed, “This book will kill your series.” (Which, by the way, statements like that are NOT in the job description of a professional copyeditor.)
I think it gave my editor pause—she second-guessed herself, wondering with all the work she’d done, she had been missing something. I said to my editor, “What was your first impression when you read the story?” She said, “I loved it.” I said, “Let’s go with that.”
Whatever the struggles I had with Alma the Younger, they were all completely erased when this review (by a non-member, no less), came in.
My Publishing Journey
Part 10
A few months before Abinadi came out, I was sitting around doing nothing (kidding). But I did decide that now that I had 5 books almost out, perhaps I had developed enough of a platform to write on a non-fiction topic: Women of the Book of Mormon.
I often have readers tell me that they are grateful I’ve used women characters in my book since we hear so little about the women in the Book of Mormon. I agreed, but was I the one to do the research? Yes, I’d researched Sariah and a couple of the other women for various presentations I’d given, but was it enough to write an entire book?
Later, when I told my tax accountant that I had a book coming out on Women of the Book of Mormon, he said, “What is it, 5 pages long?”
The book ended up about 75 pages in manuscript form, and it took my nearly a year to write and research it. When I took the first chapter to critique group, they said it was reading rather dry. So I knew I had to make it more into a storytelling style—or essay style and not just a list of facts. So I got to work. I turned in the book the summer of 2009.
While slowly researching and writing “Women”, I worked on Alma. I ran into a snag while writing Alma, which is kind of interesting. Writers call it “writing into a corner” where you don’t know how to get out of it. I finally found a way out, but the plot had to get pretty creative. Originally I had the title for this book as Alma the Elder, but the publisher decided to have it plain “Alma” since he didn’t have any children born yet to make him an “elder”.
Alma was scheduled for a Fall 2009 release, and as soon as I got “Women” turned in, I started the next novel, Alma the Younger.
Alma the Younger was a bit of a different process. Yes, there would be the plot to follow in the book of Alma, but I had to make some character decisions about Alma the Younger. The book would ultimately turn out to be a character-driven book. I knew that some of my regular reviewers wouldn’t like the story angle, and I was right. In fact one reviewer posted on Goodreads why she wouldn’t be reviewing the book in her regular column. Researching Alma the Younger showed that he was a truly wicked and vile man, and I didn’t gloss over any of his wickedness. This book was darker than my other books, and harder to write for that reason. It wasn’t a happy “feel-good” book and covered some very difficult issues. It was writing about an antagonist who was also the protagonist of the story. I had one lady at a book signing say that she didn’t want to read about the redemption of a prophet, but just about the good things he did—not about the struggles it took him to get there. She didn’t want to have any bad thoughts about him.
But I was okay with that. The point of telling about Alma the Younger’s fall into the dark abyss and his eventual rise to become a righteous leader is perhaps a beacon of hope for many of us who might find ourselves in the depths of despair. And I’d already heard the worst on the book from a copyeditor. (A copyeditor is one of the final editors who proofs the manuscript for typos, grammar, and inconsistencies.) Going through the copyedit, I immediately sensed she didn’t care for the story. I discovered I was right when at the very end of the edit she proclaimed, “This book will kill your series.” (Which, by the way, statements like that are NOT in the job description of a professional copyeditor.)
I think it gave my editor pause—she second-guessed herself, wondering with all the work she’d done, she had been missing something. I said to my editor, “What was your first impression when you read the story?” She said, “I loved it.” I said, “Let’s go with that.”
Whatever the struggles I had with Alma the Younger, they were all completely erased when this review (by a non-member, no less), came in.
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
My Publishing Journey--Part 9
Some updates: I turned in my next manuscript today (Daughters of Jared). Also, check out my holiday book signing schedule on the sidebar.
Read Part 8 Here
My Publishing Journey
Part 9
Writing the next book proved to be an interesting experience. For those of you familiar with the story of Abinadi, he is a man who is asked by God to preach to a group of wicked people. Abinadi warns them that if they don’t repent, the Lord will destroy them. They, of course, throw him out of the city and King Noah threatens his life. 2 years later, the Lord asks Abinadi to return. Abinadi knows it’s a death sentence and is eventually captured and executed. Not a cheerful story to tell.
I had planned all along to write in the point of view of Alma (high priest in King Noah’s court) as well. I had planned for him to take up a chapter here and there, but as I started writing, he really nosed his way in and tried to take over the book. His character became an equal secondary character with as much storyline as the main character, Abinadi.
I also didn’t know who Helam was until about 200 pages into the story. I decided to make him Abinadi’s brother and so had to go back through the book and weave his character in. Helam ended up becoming quite pivotal to this book, as well as the sequel (Alma).
Several changes were in the works when I turned in Abinadi. I had a new editor and the book wasn’t coming out in hardcover. Also, my publisher wanted to move away from “series titles,” so although Abinadi would technically be the beginning of a next series, it would be promoted as a stand-alone book.
I was now on my 3rd editor. Ironically, my 2nd editor became the contract editor on Abinadi (even though when she was my editor, a contract editor did “Land of Inheritance”).
There was no real debate on the title for Abinadi. It was going to stay plain and simple. The editing process went very smoothly and there were no real glitches. During 2007-2008 you might remember that the economy took a massive plunge (due to those high gasoline prices). This trickled into all industries including the publishing industry. Reports were coming in that Simon and Schuster had laid-off 125 employees. It was felt by everyone and trickled into the smaller presses as well. Many friends of mine were having book contracts canceled or release dates pushed back.
I was lucky enough that Abinadi retained a 2008 release date, but only barely. It was pushed to November. This wasn’t so fun for promotion since I really only had about 4-5 weeks of promoting before the holiday season ended. So I went out on a limb (money limb) and purchased an ad on the local radio station (KSL). I first paid for the radio personality to do a live read of the advertising copy. Then I was told that he couldn’t do a live read because my book was too religious (translate “too Mormon”). I guess even in Utah, that becomes an issue. So the radio station produced the commercial instead of the live-read.
The only thing that really caused me a bit anxiety with Abinadi was the cover image. It was literally not finished until a couple of days before the book was released. How can that be so? It seems that a book can go to press, then later the cover is glued on. But I never had the cover image in advance to do any sort of pre-promotion.
My editor asked me for character descriptions because they were thinking of photographing live models for the cover. In my opinion, it would have resulted in poor sales, since it would either look like a YA novel or a Romance novel. That same weekend I was at a book signing and browsed through the covers. I found a couple of other historical novels that had live model pictures and asked the employees if the men picked up these books and bought them. The resounding answer was “no.” My publisher and I had gone to all the work of changing my name to H.B. Moore to attract the male audience, and now with the Abinadi cover, there was potential to alienate them.
So about midnight that night, I wrote my editor, telling her all the reasons why I didn’t want Abinadi to have live models on the cover. They ended using one, but it was just the “tied hands” and looked great. I guess I just needed a little more confidence.
Abinadi would eventually go on to win a Whitney Award for Best Historical (which was a shocker since I’d won the year before with Land of Inheritance), and it also won 2009 Best of State in Literary Arts.
My favorite reader response about Abinadi came from my son who was 14 at the time. When he told me he finished the book, I asked what he thought. He didn’t look too happy. He said, “Why did you have to kill Abinadi at the end?” I said, “Because that’s what happens in the Book of Mosiah.” He said, “So? You could have changed it. You made everything else up!”
Read Part 8 Here
My Publishing Journey
Part 9
Writing the next book proved to be an interesting experience. For those of you familiar with the story of Abinadi, he is a man who is asked by God to preach to a group of wicked people. Abinadi warns them that if they don’t repent, the Lord will destroy them. They, of course, throw him out of the city and King Noah threatens his life. 2 years later, the Lord asks Abinadi to return. Abinadi knows it’s a death sentence and is eventually captured and executed. Not a cheerful story to tell.
I had planned all along to write in the point of view of Alma (high priest in King Noah’s court) as well. I had planned for him to take up a chapter here and there, but as I started writing, he really nosed his way in and tried to take over the book. His character became an equal secondary character with as much storyline as the main character, Abinadi.
I also didn’t know who Helam was until about 200 pages into the story. I decided to make him Abinadi’s brother and so had to go back through the book and weave his character in. Helam ended up becoming quite pivotal to this book, as well as the sequel (Alma).
Several changes were in the works when I turned in Abinadi. I had a new editor and the book wasn’t coming out in hardcover. Also, my publisher wanted to move away from “series titles,” so although Abinadi would technically be the beginning of a next series, it would be promoted as a stand-alone book.
I was now on my 3rd editor. Ironically, my 2nd editor became the contract editor on Abinadi (even though when she was my editor, a contract editor did “Land of Inheritance”).
There was no real debate on the title for Abinadi. It was going to stay plain and simple. The editing process went very smoothly and there were no real glitches. During 2007-2008 you might remember that the economy took a massive plunge (due to those high gasoline prices). This trickled into all industries including the publishing industry. Reports were coming in that Simon and Schuster had laid-off 125 employees. It was felt by everyone and trickled into the smaller presses as well. Many friends of mine were having book contracts canceled or release dates pushed back.
I was lucky enough that Abinadi retained a 2008 release date, but only barely. It was pushed to November. This wasn’t so fun for promotion since I really only had about 4-5 weeks of promoting before the holiday season ended. So I went out on a limb (money limb) and purchased an ad on the local radio station (KSL). I first paid for the radio personality to do a live read of the advertising copy. Then I was told that he couldn’t do a live read because my book was too religious (translate “too Mormon”). I guess even in Utah, that becomes an issue. So the radio station produced the commercial instead of the live-read.
The only thing that really caused me a bit anxiety with Abinadi was the cover image. It was literally not finished until a couple of days before the book was released. How can that be so? It seems that a book can go to press, then later the cover is glued on. But I never had the cover image in advance to do any sort of pre-promotion.
My editor asked me for character descriptions because they were thinking of photographing live models for the cover. In my opinion, it would have resulted in poor sales, since it would either look like a YA novel or a Romance novel. That same weekend I was at a book signing and browsed through the covers. I found a couple of other historical novels that had live model pictures and asked the employees if the men picked up these books and bought them. The resounding answer was “no.” My publisher and I had gone to all the work of changing my name to H.B. Moore to attract the male audience, and now with the Abinadi cover, there was potential to alienate them.
So about midnight that night, I wrote my editor, telling her all the reasons why I didn’t want Abinadi to have live models on the cover. They ended using one, but it was just the “tied hands” and looked great. I guess I just needed a little more confidence.
Abinadi would eventually go on to win a Whitney Award for Best Historical (which was a shocker since I’d won the year before with Land of Inheritance), and it also won 2009 Best of State in Literary Arts.
My favorite reader response about Abinadi came from my son who was 14 at the time. When he told me he finished the book, I asked what he thought. He didn’t look too happy. He said, “Why did you have to kill Abinadi at the end?” I said, “Because that’s what happens in the Book of Mosiah.” He said, “So? You could have changed it. You made everything else up!”
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
My Publishing Journey--Part 8
Some good news. Last night I received the first edit back from an alpha reader on my work-in-progress: Daughters of Jared. (Pitch letter here) She said: Heather, honestly, I have loved all of your books, but this . . . this is my favorite. Yay, so that is a major hurdle for me to overcome to get that first bit of feedback in.
Read Part 7 Here
My Publishing Journey
Part 8
My fourth book was hard to write. It wasn’t that I didn’t have the motivation, but I knew one of the main characters in the story would have to die. So I guess subconsciously I wanted to put it off. I even started writing a few chapters of a different book (Abinadi), but that one wasn’t much better because the main character in that book dies as well. So I had to talk myself out of procrastinating and take the dive.
I was able to finish the manuscript and get it edited, thanks to my always great alpha readers, and turn it in at the end of November. This meant that I actually got some holiday shopping done in more than one store. I was able to revise my motto of “If Costco doesn’t sell it, then don’t put it on your Christmas list.”
In mid January of 2007, I found out that book 4 had been officially accepted. I was excited to be close to the completion of the Out of Jerusalem series. Little did I know that I was about to enter the toughest road of editing I had ever experienced.
Maybe a disclaimer here would be good. With my publisher, I was on my second editor because my brilliant first editor had decided to go into another career. My second editor had worked with me on book 3, and she was wonderful to work with. But for book 4, she was swamped and I was assigned to a contract editor. It became pretty clear from the beginning that we weren’t on the same page (no pun intended). So the story that follows in no way reflects on my publisher whom I owe a huge debt of gratitude for investing in me as an author. In fact, when all was said and done, my regular-but-too-busy editor took my side 100% and all was made good. Sharing this experience is in no way to belittle or bash any editor, but I think it’s a good learning experience for any of you out there who are aspiring authors. In other words, sometimes (and only sometimes), the editor is wrong. I’ll call the contract editor Ms. X.
Having spent 5 years in a grueling critique group with esteemed writers such as Annette Lyon, Michele Holmes, Jeff Savage, Lu Ann Staheli (and would eventually include James Dashner, Rob Wells, Sarah Eden), I felt I knew a thing or two about crafting a story. And, I always paid my due diligence by taking my chapters through my critique group and also going to outside alpha readers who specialized in various things that pertained to my particular books, such as ancient history, Book of Mormon doctrine, etc. So for whatever I lacked in writing, it was certainly made up for in the editing process—this all before I submitted to my publisher.
Ms. X asked me to do several things with Book 4 (Land of Inheritance) that went completely against the rules of fiction writing or would affect the purity of my series.
1. Cut the first 80 pages and put the death of the central character into a flashback.
If you have ever attended a class taught by Jeff Savage, you will know that he would have never spoken to me again if I started my book that way.
2. Get rid of the scenes that follow the scriptural account. Everyone knows what happened and it’s boring to read about.
Of course I couldn’t do that because that was what my whole series was based on. Book 4 wasn’t just Book 4, but a continuation of the previous 900 pages (of volumes l-3). So really it was pages 900-1200 in a series and if I suddenly changed methods of storytelling, the series would lose its niche.
3. Focus more on the suspense. Don’t write overlaying points of view where we know Jacob is safe, and then we are in his mother’s point of view, not knowing he is safe.
This is one that I might have paid some attention to, but I decided that I wasn’t writing a suspense novel, but a historical adventure, which didn’t need the cliff-hanger aspect that a suspense novel has.
When I started to state my case, I was surprised at how quickly the “debate” turned personal, and Ms. X said that only a handful of readers would appreciate what I was trying to do--and those were only made up of a few scholarly types such as my dad. (So obviously she knew who my dad was.)
I remember calling my super-busy-editor and asking for advice. Thankfully, she understood where I was coming from and asked me to do what I felt was best. Of course I was nervous about taking such a strong stance, so in the meantime, I begged two readers to do an emergency read of the manuscript, focusing on the first 100 pages, over the weekend. One was a best-selling historical novelist, Gordon Ryan, the other a well-respected historian, Dave LeFevre. Both came back with encouragement to stick to my original story.
The payoff came when the reviews started coming in. They were literally overwhelming to me. My favorite being from AML reviewer Andrew Hall, who said, “In the first three volumes of her Book of Mormon historical fiction series, Heather B. Moore showed that she could create a view of an ancient world that combines the best scholarship with a lively imagination. She does a fine job of walking the tricky line of faithfulness to the scripture and creative storytelling. She opened up the hearts of her characters in ways both remarkably touching and authentic. In this fourth and final volume she does all of that, as well as writing one of the most exciting adventure tales that I have read in a while.”
The final payoff came when Land of Inheritance was nominated as a finalist for two Whitney Awards: Best Historical and Best Novel. It won the Best Historical category, validating that I had made the right choices, and that, yes, sometimes an editor is wrong.
Read Part 7 Here
My Publishing Journey
Part 8
My fourth book was hard to write. It wasn’t that I didn’t have the motivation, but I knew one of the main characters in the story would have to die. So I guess subconsciously I wanted to put it off. I even started writing a few chapters of a different book (Abinadi), but that one wasn’t much better because the main character in that book dies as well. So I had to talk myself out of procrastinating and take the dive.
I was able to finish the manuscript and get it edited, thanks to my always great alpha readers, and turn it in at the end of November. This meant that I actually got some holiday shopping done in more than one store. I was able to revise my motto of “If Costco doesn’t sell it, then don’t put it on your Christmas list.”
In mid January of 2007, I found out that book 4 had been officially accepted. I was excited to be close to the completion of the Out of Jerusalem series. Little did I know that I was about to enter the toughest road of editing I had ever experienced.
Maybe a disclaimer here would be good. With my publisher, I was on my second editor because my brilliant first editor had decided to go into another career. My second editor had worked with me on book 3, and she was wonderful to work with. But for book 4, she was swamped and I was assigned to a contract editor. It became pretty clear from the beginning that we weren’t on the same page (no pun intended). So the story that follows in no way reflects on my publisher whom I owe a huge debt of gratitude for investing in me as an author. In fact, when all was said and done, my regular-but-too-busy editor took my side 100% and all was made good. Sharing this experience is in no way to belittle or bash any editor, but I think it’s a good learning experience for any of you out there who are aspiring authors. In other words, sometimes (and only sometimes), the editor is wrong. I’ll call the contract editor Ms. X.
Having spent 5 years in a grueling critique group with esteemed writers such as Annette Lyon, Michele Holmes, Jeff Savage, Lu Ann Staheli (and would eventually include James Dashner, Rob Wells, Sarah Eden), I felt I knew a thing or two about crafting a story. And, I always paid my due diligence by taking my chapters through my critique group and also going to outside alpha readers who specialized in various things that pertained to my particular books, such as ancient history, Book of Mormon doctrine, etc. So for whatever I lacked in writing, it was certainly made up for in the editing process—this all before I submitted to my publisher.
Ms. X asked me to do several things with Book 4 (Land of Inheritance) that went completely against the rules of fiction writing or would affect the purity of my series.
1. Cut the first 80 pages and put the death of the central character into a flashback.
If you have ever attended a class taught by Jeff Savage, you will know that he would have never spoken to me again if I started my book that way.
2. Get rid of the scenes that follow the scriptural account. Everyone knows what happened and it’s boring to read about.
Of course I couldn’t do that because that was what my whole series was based on. Book 4 wasn’t just Book 4, but a continuation of the previous 900 pages (of volumes l-3). So really it was pages 900-1200 in a series and if I suddenly changed methods of storytelling, the series would lose its niche.
3. Focus more on the suspense. Don’t write overlaying points of view where we know Jacob is safe, and then we are in his mother’s point of view, not knowing he is safe.
This is one that I might have paid some attention to, but I decided that I wasn’t writing a suspense novel, but a historical adventure, which didn’t need the cliff-hanger aspect that a suspense novel has.
When I started to state my case, I was surprised at how quickly the “debate” turned personal, and Ms. X said that only a handful of readers would appreciate what I was trying to do--and those were only made up of a few scholarly types such as my dad. (So obviously she knew who my dad was.)
I remember calling my super-busy-editor and asking for advice. Thankfully, she understood where I was coming from and asked me to do what I felt was best. Of course I was nervous about taking such a strong stance, so in the meantime, I begged two readers to do an emergency read of the manuscript, focusing on the first 100 pages, over the weekend. One was a best-selling historical novelist, Gordon Ryan, the other a well-respected historian, Dave LeFevre. Both came back with encouragement to stick to my original story.
The payoff came when the reviews started coming in. They were literally overwhelming to me. My favorite being from AML reviewer Andrew Hall, who said, “In the first three volumes of her Book of Mormon historical fiction series, Heather B. Moore showed that she could create a view of an ancient world that combines the best scholarship with a lively imagination. She does a fine job of walking the tricky line of faithfulness to the scripture and creative storytelling. She opened up the hearts of her characters in ways both remarkably touching and authentic. In this fourth and final volume she does all of that, as well as writing one of the most exciting adventure tales that I have read in a while.”
The final payoff came when Land of Inheritance was nominated as a finalist for two Whitney Awards: Best Historical and Best Novel. It won the Best Historical category, validating that I had made the right choices, and that, yes, sometimes an editor is wrong.
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
My Publishing Journey--Part 7
Read Part 6 Here
My Publishing Journey
Part 7
Doing book signings for my 2nd book was a bit more exciting. People started to show up who had read my first book. Also, my book signing table looked more official when I had two books instead of just one. I was starting to feel more like a real author. And better yet, I was well into writing book 3 and had put together a reasonable writing schedule.
Of course no matter how well you plan, life gets interrupted. One of my greatest challenges became focusing on the writing time I had set aside. Not checking emails, not answering the phone, not getting side-tracked. Writing time varied from early mornings, nap times, and late nights, with snatches in between.
While researching book #3 (Towards the Promised Land), I realized that my series was not going to be a 3-volume series, but would need a 4th book. For those of you who are familiar with my Out of Jerusalem series, book 3 is about the time when Nephi builds the ship in Bountiful then sails to Mesoamerica. When I learned that building the ship took 2-3 years, I didn’t want to skim through it in a couple of chapters. My publisher agreed to the idea.
I continued with my critique group, meeting almost weekly. I also joined the LDS Storymakers writers group during this time. Some of the people I met that year through Storymaker events would soon become important parts of my writing-life, such as Tristi Pinkston, Rachel Nunes, Josi Kilpack, Julie Wright, and James Dashner.
One of the amazing things about meeting other authors, who live in the same type of zany world of imagination, is that friendships become valuable because we authors tend to write in isolation. Who else can I chat with about character motivation? Who else can give me advice on making an opening hook stronger? Who else to commiserate about a bad review?
Writing a book (or should I say, completing a book) is a lot like going back to college. There is a lot to re-learn, because, let’s face it, I wasn’t really paying a lot of attention to synopsis-writing in high school. I never thought at the time I might have to write one for a publisher and that a design team would use it to create the cover and backliner for my book. Not only do we have to learn to transfer the idea in our head and make it into a cohesive story on paper, but we need to learn to promote ourselves. We need to understand the business and how to position ourselves as an author. We need to know what we can write off on our taxes, and how best to invest and divide our time between writing and promotional stuff.
Book 3 done and turned in November 2005. Then the wait began.
Book 1 took 11 months to get accepted.
Book 2 took 3 weeks to get accepted.
I didn’t hear back from my publisher on book 3 for 3 ½ months. I was getting a bit nervous, but apparently, the person who was supposed to call hadn’t. So I found out from my editor a bit after the fact. Not that I wasn’t worried . . . :-)
My Publishing Journey
Part 7
Doing book signings for my 2nd book was a bit more exciting. People started to show up who had read my first book. Also, my book signing table looked more official when I had two books instead of just one. I was starting to feel more like a real author. And better yet, I was well into writing book 3 and had put together a reasonable writing schedule.
Of course no matter how well you plan, life gets interrupted. One of my greatest challenges became focusing on the writing time I had set aside. Not checking emails, not answering the phone, not getting side-tracked. Writing time varied from early mornings, nap times, and late nights, with snatches in between.
While researching book #3 (Towards the Promised Land), I realized that my series was not going to be a 3-volume series, but would need a 4th book. For those of you who are familiar with my Out of Jerusalem series, book 3 is about the time when Nephi builds the ship in Bountiful then sails to Mesoamerica. When I learned that building the ship took 2-3 years, I didn’t want to skim through it in a couple of chapters. My publisher agreed to the idea.
I continued with my critique group, meeting almost weekly. I also joined the LDS Storymakers writers group during this time. Some of the people I met that year through Storymaker events would soon become important parts of my writing-life, such as Tristi Pinkston, Rachel Nunes, Josi Kilpack, Julie Wright, and James Dashner.
One of the amazing things about meeting other authors, who live in the same type of zany world of imagination, is that friendships become valuable because we authors tend to write in isolation. Who else can I chat with about character motivation? Who else can give me advice on making an opening hook stronger? Who else to commiserate about a bad review?
Writing a book (or should I say, completing a book) is a lot like going back to college. There is a lot to re-learn, because, let’s face it, I wasn’t really paying a lot of attention to synopsis-writing in high school. I never thought at the time I might have to write one for a publisher and that a design team would use it to create the cover and backliner for my book. Not only do we have to learn to transfer the idea in our head and make it into a cohesive story on paper, but we need to learn to promote ourselves. We need to understand the business and how to position ourselves as an author. We need to know what we can write off on our taxes, and how best to invest and divide our time between writing and promotional stuff.
Book 3 done and turned in November 2005. Then the wait began.
Book 1 took 11 months to get accepted.
Book 2 took 3 weeks to get accepted.
I didn’t hear back from my publisher on book 3 for 3 ½ months. I was getting a bit nervous, but apparently, the person who was supposed to call hadn’t. So I found out from my editor a bit after the fact. Not that I wasn’t worried . . . :-)
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
My Publishing Journey--Part 6
Writing update: Yesterday I turned in a non-fiction book with my co-author, Angela Eschler. We are really excited for the book to go through the evaluation process. It's called: Not as the World Giveth: Christ's Gifts to Women.
Read Part 5 here.
My Publishing Journey
Part 6
I started writing “Of Goodly Parents” (my first book published) in the summer of 2002. It came out in the fall of 2004.
27 months.
It sounds like forever. But it’s the business. Some of my manuscripts wouldn’t be published, others would take much longer than 27 months, my 2010-release novel (Alma the Younger) was as short as 11 months from first word to release date.
The difference between writing my “first” book (as in the book that was actually published) and my “second” book was the timeline and the feeling of pressure. My first book was all self-motivated, with a deadline in mind, but very open-ended. My second book was the opposite. Every word written and every hour spent on research was with a deadline facing me. And with the thought of “someone will be reading or editing the paragraph I’m now writing.” That thought was very surreal. Now that I had experienced the creation of a novel from start to finish, it was pretty amazing to begin the process all over again.
It also took a lot of motivation and patience. Motivation to crank out my daily and weekly writing goals, and patience to know that eventually the few pages I was able to write each day WOULD become a full-length manuscript in a few months.
You’ll be happy to know that I did meet my Dec 1 deadline, but Christmas shopping would have to wait. I was called as Primary President in my ward right before Thanksgiving. And as you know, December is probably the busiest month for that assignment. I remember one comment from a lady at a ward Christmas party was, “I guess you won’t be writing books anymore since you’re primary president.” I don’t think the lady knew I’d just spent two months getting up at 4 a.m.
I survived December (and January! Which is also busy) and did so for the next four years. Serving as Primary President did keep me busy, but it also kept me serving, which is always a good thing.
Edits for book two came around, and luckily I had the same editor for my second book as my first. One of the first things he said to me was to cut down the number of points of view in the novel. I had 9 and he wanted 4. I think I ended up keeping 5 points of view, but it was a major undertaking. It didn’t change the plot or the characters, but it took time to go into each scene and revise so that we were in a different point of view.
Now, looking back, point of view is a very important writing tool. The point of view character in each scene should be the character who will be the most effected in that scene.
Read Part 5 here.
My Publishing Journey
Part 6
I started writing “Of Goodly Parents” (my first book published) in the summer of 2002. It came out in the fall of 2004.
27 months.
It sounds like forever. But it’s the business. Some of my manuscripts wouldn’t be published, others would take much longer than 27 months, my 2010-release novel (Alma the Younger) was as short as 11 months from first word to release date.
The difference between writing my “first” book (as in the book that was actually published) and my “second” book was the timeline and the feeling of pressure. My first book was all self-motivated, with a deadline in mind, but very open-ended. My second book was the opposite. Every word written and every hour spent on research was with a deadline facing me. And with the thought of “someone will be reading or editing the paragraph I’m now writing.” That thought was very surreal. Now that I had experienced the creation of a novel from start to finish, it was pretty amazing to begin the process all over again.
It also took a lot of motivation and patience. Motivation to crank out my daily and weekly writing goals, and patience to know that eventually the few pages I was able to write each day WOULD become a full-length manuscript in a few months.
You’ll be happy to know that I did meet my Dec 1 deadline, but Christmas shopping would have to wait. I was called as Primary President in my ward right before Thanksgiving. And as you know, December is probably the busiest month for that assignment. I remember one comment from a lady at a ward Christmas party was, “I guess you won’t be writing books anymore since you’re primary president.” I don’t think the lady knew I’d just spent two months getting up at 4 a.m.
I survived December (and January! Which is also busy) and did so for the next four years. Serving as Primary President did keep me busy, but it also kept me serving, which is always a good thing.
Edits for book two came around, and luckily I had the same editor for my second book as my first. One of the first things he said to me was to cut down the number of points of view in the novel. I had 9 and he wanted 4. I think I ended up keeping 5 points of view, but it was a major undertaking. It didn’t change the plot or the characters, but it took time to go into each scene and revise so that we were in a different point of view.
Now, looking back, point of view is a very important writing tool. The point of view character in each scene should be the character who will be the most effected in that scene.
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