Author Pics and Bios

Self Portrait--George Henry Harlow-1787-1819 Headshots and short bios are useful to have around.

Even if you don’t yet have a book deal, you’ll need a picture and biography for any contests you might win or guest posts you might write.

And these days, it’s a good idea to build an author platform before you’re even published. A platform is simply a professional internet presence—a personal blog or a website, and maybe a Facebook or Twitter page. What needs to go on these web pages? A nice photo of you looking happily professional and a pithy bio to introduce you to any editors or agents who might look you up.

Headshots

Having my picture made isn’t my favorite thing to do. In fact, my photographer told me in exasperation that the toddler she’d had before me was an easier subject. I’m sure she was right. I had a pained grin in many of the pictures she took.

There are many chain studios that do headshots. You do need to be careful and inquire who holds the rights to the pictures—you want to be able to use your image wherever it needs to go: websites, books, etc.

I used Portrait Innovations which seems to be a fairly good-sized chain. They saw me the same day I called them. They asked me to bring a change of clothing—they’ll take pictures of you in more than one outfit to make it appear that you’ve had more than one sitting (and it’s just a nice change to have different looks for different purposes.)

Unfortunately, I forgot to bring a change of clothes. There are many, many pictures of me in a black dress floating around.

The cost was not prohibitive. I purchased a CD full of different pictures (although I usually use the same one over and over) for about $100. You could get it much less than that if you just purchased two or three pictures.

If you are getting a headshot for your author picture for a publisher, you’ll want to make sure that you follow their art department’s specifications. Most don’t want a full length shot (although studios like taking them)—they only want the shoulders up. And they like you looking right at the camera and not a side shot. They’re also not fond of pictures where you’re resting your head on your hands. So you might want to check in with your publisher before you get your picture made.

Author bios are another useful thing. You’ll need one even for some queries and cover letters (check the agent/publisher guidelines to see if they want it included.)

Bios are written in the third person.

Bios are really short…usually four or five sentences, max. Two or three would probably be better. The important thing is to list your qualifications for writing your novel, poem, or flash fiction piece.

Author bios usually mention the writer’s college degree, writing organizations they’re members of, and any publishing credits, like articles they’ve written or contests they’ve won.

Even if you don’t have any professional credits, you can still state something like “Jane Doe is a paranormal romance writer living in Arkansas. She is a member of the SFWA and RWA and is currently working on a …..”

Because Jane Doe is a writer. She’s just not published yet.

Once you have your headshot and bio, it’s a great idea to post them on your website, especially if you’ve got a book coming out. That way, a news organization can just download a copy of the picture and take the bio off your page.

As a reminder, I’m opening up Fridays, starting this Friday (Jan. 29) for guest posts on the writing process. In addition, the blog is available for promo spots for authors with upcoming and new releases. For more information, please check the post: http://tinyurl.com/ybm3s58 . I’m booked every Friday until April—so you’ll have plenty of time to come up with a post if you’re interested. :)

Terry Odell will be kicking us off this Friday with her post, titled “Plotting? Moi?”

Right Brained Time Management

View of the river Leie--Leon de Smet-1881-1966 I read a lot of blogs during the week and get a lot from what I read. Sometimes I read something that really stops me cold and makes me think.

When I read this interview with Christina Katz on Debbie Ridpath Ohi’s InkyGirl’s blog, I read one part several times through (and I have cut a couple of sentences here. Read this for the full interview):

What advice do you have for writers who are “time management”-challenged?

I’d tell them there is no such thing as time-management challenged. What we are probably talking about is that most left-brained time-management techniques don’t work for right-brained people. So people are not actually “time-management challenged.” They are likely right-brained trying to live in a left-brained world.

If a right-brain person is waiting to be more like a left-brain person before they can master time, they are going to be waiting for a long time. But if they explore and experiment with what works for them within their current work context, and strive for their own definition of time-management success (assuming it harmonizes with those around them), they will start to thrive and be more productive.

I’ve heard and read a myth that left-brained techniques work for right-brained people, if we’d only use them. But I’m pretty sure that’s the road to misery and frustration for anybody right-brained person, who buys into that myth.

My first instinct (because I’m super Type A and an organization nut) was to completely disagree.

After a couple of days, I completely agreed with Christina. Because what I’m doing to organize my day and my writing isn’t exactly a left-brained method. But it works. (Except some days…days that explode out of control. But it works 80% of the time.)

But I’d never thought about the fact that it’s not something you’d read about in 12 Steps to an Organized Life. And I keep thinking there’s a *better* method out there. But I can’t stick to the *better* method.

What works for me is to forgive myself for deviating off the schedule. But I do have an ideal routine that I have on paper as what I’d like to follow. In the perfect world…a world my brain and I don’t live in.

Instead, I’ll deviate off sections of it. Some days just seem to need a different order of events than others.

Some days I’ll start off writing.

Some days I’ll start off answering emails for 15 minutes.

Some days I’ll visit blogs first thing.

For me, mornings are key. The more I can knock out in the morning, the more productive I am for the rest of the day. I’m not sure why that is.

I do live by my calendar (online calendar and physical calendar).

I do realize that anything that doesn’t get done will either get done during my catch-up time right before I turn in at night (after family time is over) or else…it just won’t get done that day. And I forgive myself for that.

I do my writing on the go. And I allow myself some flexibility.

What’s your overall plan for getting things done that you need to accomplish? Do you follow a right brained plan or a left brained one?

Writing Our Region

blog21 I was checking out at the grocery store yesterday with a shopping buggy jam-packed with food. An elderly African American man came up in line behind me with cucumbers and a bottle of Ranch dressing.

“Would you like to go ahead of me?” I asked, continuing to throw cans and boxes at the conveyor belt.

“No thanks,” he said.

“No, really—It’s going to take me a while to unload this cart. Why don’t you just slip ahead of me?” I’m still flinging things on the belt, not even looking at him.

“No thank you. If I go ahead of you, maybe it wasn’t meant to be. Maybe I’ll walk outside and get hit by a car. Because I wasn’t supposed to be there—I was supposed to be behind you at that moment. Instead, my cutting in line sends my day on a different path.”

Now I looked at at him. He solemnly watched me as I continued pelting the conveyor belt with food while I mulled this over.

“Maybe,” I said, “you’d be saving my life if you went ahead of me, though. Maybe if I get delayed by a few seconds then I won’t be in the wrong place at the wrong time. It might be the right decision.”

He nodded. “Just the same, though, I’ll stay put. I don’t want to jinx anything.”

Superstitious place, the American South.

“And..by the way? And I don’t mean anything by it,” he said. “But you’re going to rush yourself right into a grave if you don’t slow down.”

I looked at him again. He gravely studied me above his glasses. He reminded me of that billboard with the eyes from The Great Gatsby.

I slowed down.

This is why my books are full of as many psychics and superstitious people as church-going congregants. The quirky characters around me color my manuscript.

Looking at the mystery market (and the trend may also be true for other genres), there’s a lot of interest in unusual settings for books.

What’s unusual to a publisher? It seems to be anything that’s not in New York, the hub of the publishing industry.

Stieg Larsson’s series is set in Sweden. Louise Penny’s series set in a Canadian village near Montreal is enjoying great success. My friends Jim and Joyce Lavene have a brand new series for Berkley set in the small town of Duck, North Carolina.

The exciting thing for writers is that our own experiences and personal knowledge of our region drifts into our manuscript. Since we live in so many different areas and our readers hail from different regions, it makes our writing seem even richer.

Of course, some writers write about regions in which they don’t reside. Martha Grimes is an American who has done extremely well with her Inspector Jury series set in Britain. I can only imagine the research she’s had to do.

If we write our region? Local color is as close as our grocery store. And we produce something original–an appealing commodity for publishers–in the process.

DIY Book Contract Negotiation

Coffee by the Window, 1945--Konstantin Gorbatov (1876 - 1945) I had a few comments yesterday on my slush pile post that asked for more detail on how I negotiated my contract with Midnight Ink in 2008. At the time, I didn’t have an agent, so I just did the best I could.

I’ll quickly point out that I would never choose to negotiate a contract without an agent. Here is an excellent blog (written by editor Moonrat) explaining why having an agent is essential.

Unfortunately, life doesn’t always work out the way we’d like.

The best information on Do It Yourself Contract Negotiation was on two different agent blogs: the “Agenting 101” series (look for it on the right hand side of the page. There are eleven references) on the Pub Rants blog by agent Kristen, and a blog entry called “Ten Things to Know if You Go Commando” on agent Janet Reid’s blog.

Another site I found helpful showed a sample author contract, just to give you an idea what the document may look like: www.writecontent.com.

The Absolute Write writers’ forum also ran an interesting couple of articles: http://tinyurl.com/yfgu3uv and http://tinyurl.com/yz47l29 .

A guest post by agent Holly Root with Waxman Literary Agency on negotiating contracts: http://tinyurl.com/ybedos7 .

A series called “Contracts 101” on the BookEnds Literary Agency blog:

http://tinyurl.com/2rneqq
http://tinyurl.com/yaebq3t
http://tinyurl.com/y882fn5

What I did on my end:

I told them right away I wasn’t represented. They offered to wait a few days to see if I could get an agent to help me with my contract. At the time, though, every agent I was waiting to hear from was on summer vacation.

I didn’t accept their offer on the phone and they didn’t ask me to. I just very politely thanked them for being interested in Pretty is as Pretty Dies. They emailed a contract and asked me to take a look at it.

I asked good friends who write for Midnight Ink what a fair advance might be. They gave me what they thought might be a range. Since they’ve been established writers for a decade, I looked at the lowest part of that range when coming up with a fair advance for a newer author, like me.

I checked online resources where genre authors had disclosed their own advances, etc.

Everything I read said publishers expect a counter on different points. They likely don’t expect it as much from authors, but it wasn’t going to be like they were going to say, “Actually? Never mind.” if they were presented with a reasonable counter. I didn’t double the amounts or anything crazy like that.

They came back meeting me halfway with most everything.

Negotiating your own contract still isn’t the way you want to go if you have a choice. I wouldn’t want to do it again! But if you’re in that situation, don’t sweat it. There is information readily available online—do the best you can.

Slushy

Morning Light--by Walter Elmer Schofield --1866 - 1944 Helen Ginger on her excellent blog, Straight from Hel which follows and reports publishing news and trends, linked to a story in the venerable Wall Street Journal that proclaimed the death of the slush pile.

Although the story, if true, would give every agent and editor in the business cause to celebrate (can you imagine wading through such an enormous number of submissions?), I think that rumors of the slush pile’s demise have been greatly exaggerated.

As recently as early last year, I was a slush pile girl myself. And it worked out pretty well for me.

I started out with a very small Southern publisher for my first book, A Dyeing Shame: Death at the Beauty Box in 2006.

Wanting to try my luck in the Big Leagues, I started researching. I decided trying out with the Medium Leagues made the best sense. Midnight Ink, a well-respected mystery subsidiary of Llewellyn Worldwide, was accepting manuscripts. Amazingly enough (at the time), they wanted full manuscripts. I read this part several times. Full manuscripts. Mailed to them. This was unbelievable enough to give it a go. Plus, I respected the award-winning mystery authors who were published by them.

I took an online course on synopses (MI did want a one-page synopsis along with the full.) I tore up a bunch of synopses but finally got one I thought would work. I mailed it off…the synopsis and the huge sheaf of papers that made up Pretty is as Pretty Dies, single-sided.

I believe in covering my bases. I sent cover letters and synopses or queries to other publishers for the manuscript—including Penguin’s Berkley Prime Crime.

I sent queries to agents (mainly online queries, but probably ten mailed ones.) I was rejected a bazillion times.

Months later? Many months later? I found out that Midnight Ink wanted Pretty. I was delighted! They had a great plan for marketing, cover, etc.

I continued receiving rejections for Pretty from other publishers. No one else asked for a full, so I didn’t tell anyone that the manuscript was off the table.

I queried agents again.

More rejections from agents—even with the contract in hand.

I read on blogs—particularly Pub Rants—(thanks, Kristin!) how to negotiate a boilerplate contract. I counter-offered and did the best I could under the circumstances. It worked out well.

Roughly a month after negotiating my contract with Midnight Ink, I heard from my current agent. The system just takes a long time, y’all. They’re all inundated with emails and mail.

My Midnight Ink editor and I were about two months into revisions when I heard from Penguin. Pretty is as Pretty Dies had, being an unsolicited manuscript, gone into the slush pile. What’s worse? The editor that I had sent my original query and first 30 pages to had left Penguin at the time my email arrived at their office.

The other editors had taken on that editor’s slush pile, working through hers as well as their own.

Months later? They’d discovered Pretty—and were interested. After some quick checking, they’d found the Publisher’s Weekly blurb saying that Midnight Ink had it under contract.

Amazingly, this editor emailed me to congratulate me on my deal with Midnight Ink and to say that they were sorry they couldn’t have published it at Penguin.

I was absolutely stunned. Could I pitch them another series? I asked. I’d come up with one soon. I loved working with Midnight Ink—and it would be great to work with Penguin too.

At that moment? I had no series ideas at all. I was caught completely off-guard.

But they were interested in a series based in Memphis. An epicurean mystery with a Southern accent. I could submit the first three chapters and they’d see if my vision for such a series would work out.

It did work out. And thankfully I had my excellent agent helping to guide me through the waters this time.

But neither series was pitched to them by my agent. Both got to my editors through the slush pile. In both 2008 and 2009. My process of being pulled out of it reflected a tremendous amount of luck in the form of timing. I hope it also reflects the amount of research and effort I put into it…despite the rejections I received. Perseverance goes a long way with writing.

I know what the Wall Street Journal is getting at. It’s a tough world out there. Publishers aren’t able to hire the manpower to wade through the slush. Agents are facing layoffs at their agencies, too.

But there’s still slush. And there are still folks out there reading it. God bless them.

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I did some blog housekeeping Sunday. Do you read Mystery Writing is Murder? Are you listed in the blogroll in my sidebar? Also, I’m opening up Fridays (soon) for guest posts on ‘writing process.’ In addition, the blog is available for promo spots for authors with upcoming and new releases. For more information, please check the post: http://tinyurl.com/ybm3s58

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