Tag: Uncategorized

I’m pleased to say that most of you (although not all) followed the submission instructions carefully. That is a big deal. Good for you! And even better, good for me! 🙂

I will be adding my critiques and comments to each story. It will be in red.

If it’s a common mistake throughout the story, I will usually only mark it once, and assume that you can go through and find similar places to correct.

At the end of each story, I will post an overall critique, what I liked best, and whether or not I feel it’s ready for publication.

I will also e-mail you my story notes and the score sheet I used for evaluating your story. These will usually contain a little more info than what I’ve posted on the website.

What are your favorite LDS novels? Which do you recommend?

Over the years that I’ve been doing this blog, I’ve gotten this question many, many, many times—at least a few times a month. Another variation on theme that I get several times a year is, would I consider creating an LDSP award for the best books?

I’ve mostly ignored these questions because I have a hard enough time finding and reading all the Whitney nominees. The task of finding and reading every novel by an LDS author would be outside my current resources—both in time and finances.

Then there’s the possible backlash—accusations of favoritism to friends and genres; promoting books I’ve worked on, blah-blah-blah. If I give an award to one book, will people think I’m dissing all others? Also, there are a select few individuals who know my secret identity, and I might not give an award to them. Will they hate me forever?

Therefore, my answer has always been No.

But recently I’ve gotten a deluge of people asking me about this, which has caused me to do some rethinking. I want to be seen as a trusted source of general and unbiased information here on these sites—and I think I’ve accomplished that for the most part. Any LDS author can get their novel and author events listed for free, simply by letting me know about it. The networking is open to any LDS author, publisher or group (it is just taking me some time to get them posted). The only site that has judgment or opinion attached is the LDS Fiction Review site, and there are a variety of reviewers there.

So a few questions for you are:

• Do you really care which books I’d recommend?

• If I came out with an award for the best of the best (IMHO), would that skew the value of any other information I post on these sites?

• Would you be willing to send me a copy of your book to read—knowing that it may not be chosen for the award, but that by sending a copy you were guaranteed to:

  —be considered for the award

  —have it passed along to one of the LDS Fiction Review reviewers for review

  —get its spot on LDS fiction

  —move you up on the “Add to LDS Author Network site” list?

  —get you listed on the LDSP Good Reads shelf (which does not yet exist but will be created if I decide to do this)

  —get you added as a friend on the LDSP Facebook account (which does not yet exist but will be created if I decide to do this)

What do you think? Great idea or one to be tossed in File 13? Ideas? Suggestions?

. . . but rather with technology. Which I am currently hating.

Remember this?

The problem is just getting worse. And of course, it happens when I’m up against a huge deadline. I don’t have it in me to think of post-worthy content until I get this resolved.

So sorry. Consider this week my summer vacation.

Do you have any suggestions on getting artwork “published” or to a distributor? Do you recommend any sites with this info?

Uhmmm, I have no idea. Here are some places that I’ve seen at LDSBA. I don’t know if they all publish or if some just distribute.

Altus Fine Art

Foundation Arts

Granite

Sounds of Zion

Readers, if you know anything about this, please chime in.

If I sent you the info for my book but it never appeared on LDSF, to what should I attribute that? Will you be offended if I resend?

You should attribute it to the probability that I didn’t get it. PLEASE DO resend.

I get a LOT of junk mail at the ldsp hotmail account. So much, in fact, that I’m considering closing down that email and opening a new one. Just haven’t gotten around to it.

The first thing I do when I check my email is to weed out the obvious junk mail—you know the ones, where I’ve won the lottery or someone wants to pay me a million dollars to help them sneak their money into the U.S. If there’s a question in my mind, I usually open it, but if you’ve put something really odd in your subject line, I might have accidentally deleted your email without opening it.

The best way to make sure I know it’s a legit email is to think about that subject line. Good ones are:

• Question for LDSP

• Book for LDSF

• Contest for LDSP

• Author Event (or Book Signing or Workshop or. . .)

• From an LDS Author

• Will you review my book

• or anything else that makes it obvious you’re a legit blog reader and not a mail-order-bride from Uzbekistan.

Sorry, Th. Yes, resend.

And about that Christmas Story Contest. Good suggestions everyone. I’m going to update the rules right now.

Hi, LDSP–

Today’s post made me say, Ooo! What other blogs are your “favs”? Or which ones do you think we ought to be reading?

I know I’m going to leave out some good ones because I don’t have a list anywhere, but here are some of my favorites (in no specific order):

• Pub Rants

• Nathan Bransford

• BookEnds

• Writer Beware

• Chip MacGregor

• How Publishing Really Works

• Publishers Marketplace

• Stacy Whitman’s Grimoire

• Booksquare

• Daily Writing Tips

• Absolute Write (forum)

• Miss Snark (her blog is inactive, but still available for browsing)

Readers, what are your favorites?

It seems that every time I make one teensy little change to my computer, all heck breaks loose! I’ve been dealing with network connection issues all day yesterday and today. Sorry for no real post so far this week.

But here’s a good post that I saw when I was surfing some of my favs over the weekend. While this is a specific situation, it happens a lot in the publishing world—the accusations, not the plagiarism.

Also, just a reminder, today’s the last day to comment for a chance to win one of the two books in the sidebar under the “June LDSP Contest Sponsors” label.

I believe writing is a skill. You learn it just like any other skill. Yes, some may have a greater aptitude for it, but anyone can learn to write well if they practice enough.

There are certain things you do to hone your skills, just like practicing drills for the piano. One of those is writing exercises.

Another one is to enter writing contests. This not only lets you practice writing, it also lets you practice following guidelines, submitting, and—if you’re lucky—it provides some feedback from professionals.

That is why I run the occasional short story contest here on this blog. I want to give you a head’s up on an upcoming writing contest, because this time, not only will it act as a writing drill and give you valuable feedback, it will also give some of you publishing creds!

Every year, I host a Christmas themed writing contest here. I will do so again this year—but not in December. It will be coming up the end of the summer.

Why so early?

Because I’ll be taking the best of them and turning them into a published short story collection that will be published and available for purchase on Amazon.

Yea!!!!

So get started on your story. Story guidelines will be very similar to these. (More information coming later this summer.)

When you sign up for the SRT, I go visit your blog and leave a comment. I also leave comments on your reviews. As I was leaving comments this morning, I read in someone else’s blog’s comments and discovered that they’d tried to e-mail me and it didn’t work.

I double-checked and it worked just fine for me. So I contacted my lovely assistant, who knows way more about this kind of stuff than I do (she does all my design work here) and she informed me that if you use a web-based e-mail service, like Hotmail, when you click on my links, it doesn’t open an e-mail box.

Ooops!

I’ve now put my e-mail address prominently at the top of the sidebars on every site. If your e-mail goes through Outlook or Mac Mail or something else on your computer, then all you have to do is click the button and it opens a window. But if you use Hotmail, etc., you’ll have to type that address in manually.

If there’s something else that isn’t working right on any of my sites, please leave a comment on any post and I’ll do my best to get it fixed, ASAP!

Do you ever have those days when you start up your computer and then you just sit there, staring at a blank screen, with no idea what to write?

I’m experiencing that today. I keep checking my email hoping someone will have sent a question I can answer, but no luck.

Sigh. So I’ll follow my own advice—write something, even if it’s not very good.

Uhm.

Ah.

Hmmm.

Maybe I should ask you a question:

If you had to choose one thing for publishers to do differently, what would it be?

Today is the official start of the Summer Reading Thing 2009, although several readers have gotten a jump-start on their lists.

Starting today, every comment here on the LDS Fiction site or over on the LDS Fiction Review site receives one entry to win this week’s sponsoring book:

Recovering Charles

by Jason F. Wright

Donated by LDSP

Winner will be posted this Saturday at the Contests site.

Join us for the Summer Reading Thing 2009 reading challenge!

SRT 2009 is a low-pressure, easy challenge where you set your own goals for reading fiction by LDS authors.

We did this last year under the title Summer Book Trek. It was a lot of fun.

This year’s reading challenge starts in exactly one week. That gives you time to come up with a goal.

Click HERE for details.

A commenter asked this question, referring to this post:

What ELSE will land an author on the never-publish-this-person list?

There are only two things that will get you on this list.

1) Dishonesty—which includes plagiarism (as mentioned in the previous post), also lying to me, and unethical behavior with past publishers

and

2) Being too hard to work with. This includes personality conflict issues, fighting me on every single thing, refusing to market their book, behaving in ways that make it harder to sell their books—basically being obnoxious and/or clueless and refusing to change.

This is what gets you on MY list. Other publishers, editors and agents may have different things on their lists.

Last month’s prize winners announed HERE.

Please take a moment to learn more about our wonderfully generous sponsors.

The Believer by Stephanie Black

There is a place where the threat of foreign terrorism is nonexistent, where there are no arguments about religion, and no battles over politics. Welcome to New America—a place where reading the wrong book can cost you your life!

Ian Roshek finally believes in something. The young history professor has studied a contraband copy of the Book of Mormon—and he knows what it says is true. But now his newfound convictions will be put to the test as he struggles to listen to the still, small voice, while society screams in his ear.

Ian’s sister Jill and her influential boyfriend only see Ian as a man with religious delusions–a man who needs help. And though her facade of brutality hides it, police interrogator Alisa Kent feels a trace of compassion toward this flawed, but courageous man who stays true to his faith–despite the fact that it’s contrary to both logic and public opinion. If only for selfish reasons, she wants to know more. But soon Ian’s choices will ignite a chain of events that he, and those around him, cannot escape.

Stephanie Black: I’ve enjoyed making up stories since I was a child, when my sisters and I would play long, strange Barbie games or write and direct plays for ourselves and younger siblings. I took a creative writing class in high school, but my stories stunk, since I hadn’t yet figured out that a story needs a plot. But I finally got An Idea, and an encouraging comment from the teacher got me rolling. After a few years of writing random scenes, I decided to try writing a novel start to finish, but that led to a failed unfinished manuscript and the realization that there was a lot more to writing fiction than I’d ever understood. I began reading books about fiction technique and started over with my novel project. After a veerrrry long time of reading, writing, rewriting, more rewriting, submitting, and then—when I thought I was finished—major rewriting, my first novel, The Believer, was published by Covenant Communications in January 2005.

Tower of Strength by Annette Lyon

It was 1877 when Tabitha Hall Chadwick left Manti as a young bride. Now, nearly seven years later, she returns as a widow with her young son to make a new beginning. Tabitha’s strained relationship with her mother–in–law adds more difficulty to her life as a single working mother. Yet with a stroke of courage, Tabitha makes two purchases that become her passions: the local newspaper and a traumatized horse.

As she struggles to meet the challenges of her new roles, Tabitha welcomes the friendship of Samuel, a recently widowed British immigrant. Working together to train the abused horse, the two discover a second chance at love. But when Samuel is critically injured during the construction of the Manti Temple, Tabitha faces the pain of old wounds and the risk of new ones.
Weaving themes of loss and renewal, this poignant tale explores a vital choice each of us must make: to seek safety in isolation or to embrace the painful yet beautiful complexities of life and love.

Annette Lyon was given the 2007 Best of State medal for fiction in Utah and was a 2007 Whitney Award finalist for her fifth book, Spires of Stone. She’s been writing for most of her life, beginning with stories about mice in second grade. While she’s found success in magazine and business writing, her true passion is fiction. In 1995, she graduated cum laude from BYU with a BA in English. Annette enjoys reading, knitting, and chocolate—not necessarily in that order.

Click here for details on sponsoring this LDSF blog.

for details on winning one of these books.

The voting was very close, with this image getting 14 votes. Avatar #2 got 13 votes. Avatar #3 only got 4 votes.

All of you made very good arguments, and there were times when I hoped in turn that each one of those three would win. But since I can only have one avatar, this one is it.

The winner of the “way cool prize” (selected totally at random) is: Jennifer! (An AZ Girl in TX)

What is the way cool prize? CLICK HERE to see.

Jennifer send me your snail mail address and I’ll get that prize right out to you!

I’m discussing a very important issue over on LDS Publisher.

Please go read this post and vote.

Very cool prize will be offered to one voter.

Voting ends Friday, February 27, 2009.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT: Robison Wells, Whitney President – robisonwells@msn.com

WHITNEY AWARD FINALISTS ANNOUNCED

SALT LAKE CITY, UT: The Whitney Awards committee today announced the finalists for the 2008 Whitney Awards, a program which honors the best novels by Latter-day Saint writers. Sponsored and endorsed by LDStorymakers, an LDS authors’ guild, the Whitney Awards offer national recognition to authors whose books win in one of eight categories.

To be eligible for consideration, a book must have received at least five nominations from its fans. More than one hundred works by new and established authors in both the LDS and national markets met the preliminary criteria. Once a book is nominated, juries of authors and critics narrow the nominees down to five per category.

This year’s nominees are listed below in alphabetical order by genre:

ROMANCE: Seeking Persephone, by Sarah Eden, Servant to a King, by Sariah Wilson, The Sound of Rain, by Anita Stansfield, Spare Change, by Aubrey Mace, Taking Chances, by Shannon Guymon

MYSTERY/SUSPENSE: Above and Beyond, by Betsy Brannon Green, Do No Harm, by Gregg Luke, Fool Me Twice, by Stephanie Black, Freefall, by Traci Hunter Abramson, Royal Target, by Traci Hunter Abramson

YOUTH FICTION: The 13^th Reality, by James Dashner, Alcatraz vs. The Scrivner’s Bones, by Brandon Sanderson, Fablehaven: Grip of the Shadow Plague (Book 3), by Brandon Mull, Far World: Water Keep, by J. Scott Savage, Sun and Moon, Ice and Snow, by Jessica Day George

SPECULATIVE: Ender in Exile, by Orson Scott Card, The Great and Terrible: From the End of Heaven, by Chris Stewart, The Hero of Ages (Mistborn, Book 3), by Brandon Sanderson, The Host, by Stephanie Meyer, The Wyrmling Horde: The Seventh Book of the Runelords, by David Farland

HISTORICAL: Abinadi, by H.B. Moore, Isabelle Webb, Legend of the Jewel, by N.C. Allen, Master, by Toni Sorenson, The Ruby, by Jennie Hansen, Traitor, by Sandra Grey

GENERAL FICTION: Bound on Earth, by Angela Hallstrom, The Reckoning, by Tanya Parker Mills, Waiting For the Light to Change, by Annette Hawes, Fields of Home, by Rachel Ann Nunes, Keeping Keller, by Tracy Winegar

BEST BOOK BY A NEW AUTHOR: Bound on Earth, by Angela Hallstrom, The Reckoning, by Tanya Parker Mills, Spare Change, by Aubrey Mace, Traitor, by Sandra Grey, Waiting For the Light to Change, by Annette Hawes

NOVEL OF THE YEAR: Bound on Earth, by Angela Hallstrom, Fool Me Twice, by Stephanie Black, The Hero of Ages (Mistborn, Book 3), by Brandon Sanderson, Sun and Moon, Ice and Snow, by Jessica Day George, Traitor, by Sandra Grey

This ballot now goes out to members of the voting academy, a select group of LDS publishers; bookstore owners, managers, and employees; LDS authors; print and online magazine publishers; reviewers; and others working in the field of LDS literature.

Winners will be announced at a gala banquet on Saturday, April 25 at the Marriott Hotel in Provo, Utah. Tickets are now on sale at www.WhitneyAwards.com.

Special Lifetime Achievement Awards will also be presented that night to two persons whose bodies of works and tireless efforts have made a significant impact on the field of LDS popular fiction. This year’s honorees are Kerry Blair and Orson Scott Card.

For more information on the Whitney Awards, visit www.whitneyawards.com.

Please take a moment to learn more about our wonderfully generous sponsors.

Tribunal by Sandra Grey

Berlin, 1945 Major Rolf Schulmann lies close to death in a military hospital after enduring the horrors of a concentration camp. Revived from a coma through a priesthood blessing, he slowly returns to health as his fiancée, Marie Jacobson, tenderly cares for his deep physical and spiritual wounds. Meanwhile Rolf ’s best friend, SS Lieutenant Hans Brenner, begins to overcome the despair and depression of his postwar gutter-rat existence as he finds himself falling for Natalie Allred, a beautiful American nurse.

But as the world’s emerging superpowers race to obtain nuclear secrets, Hans becomes a pawn in the deadly game—and Natalie’s freedom hangs in the balance. Rolf, unaware of their predicament, feels haunted by his Nazi past and seeks peace of conscience through the rigors of a military tribunal. Then, as tensions escalate between the United States and Russia, Rolf and Hans find themselves on opposite sides of the conflict.

With vivid emotion, Tribunal explores the risks and rewards of loyalty and love in the bitter aftermath of world war.

Sandra Grey was born in Inglewood, California to a very large two-generation military family. Her paternal grandfather served in World War II and her father is a retired Air Force major who trained to be a spy during the cold war.

Sandra remembers one Halloween as a child finding her mother at the kitchen sink conversing intimately with a stranger – a tall man with red hair and red mustache who, after Sandra’s initial shock wore off, sounded like her father and had her father’s eyes. Her father’s never-used, government-supplied spy disguise kit had been utilized for his Halloween costume. The most clandestine action that spy kit ever experienced was when Sandra’s mother arrived at the airport to pick up her husband after spy school, and she found herself being ruthlessly stalked by a tall, handsome, red-haired stranger.

Sandra graduated from Brigham Young University with a degree in Humanities and has followed her insatiable curiosity and love of history on adventures from Asia to Alaska, Mexico to Europe, and Russia to Brazil. Sandra currently lives with her husband and their own large family in Arizona, and is satisfied to leave all covert action to the characters in her novels.

Sandra Grey is the author of the novels Traitor (which has sold over 10,000 copies) and Tribunal, published by Covenant Communications.

Where Hearts Prosper by Suzanne Reese

Carmen Anderson has spent her entire life avoiding the place she grew up: the town tiny of Prosper, Arizona. When she makes the impulsive decision to move back with her rebellious teenage daughter Paige, she has no idea that the worst storm in the town’s history is just days away. Carmen is in Chicago on business when Paige is stranded in Prosper by flooding, stuck with a town full of people she hardly knows, but despises anyway.

Jeopardizing both her career and a proposal of marriage, Carmen sets out on a desperate cross-country chase to be reunited with her daughter before the girl unwittingly uncovers a painful secret buried deep in Carmen’s past. A secret that has kept her from embracing her family, God, devoted friends, and the precious gift of true love.

Where Hearts Prosper is a first novel from Suzanne Reese. She says, “I’m excited to be launching my first book, though I’ve discovered that the writing process is way more fun than the publishing process. Give me a day with nothing but my computer, some good music, and a bunch of chocolate, and I’m in heaven.”

Suzanne resides in Utah with “one amazing, supportive, and dang-good-looking husband” and their five “equally amazing children—though three of them have betrayed me and turned into adults, going against my direct orders to stay little forever.”

The idea for Where Hearts Prosper came to Suzanne while she was reading a book about a natural disaster back east at the same time that a natural disaster happened in her neck of the woods. She couldn’t keep her brain from putting together the story of Carmen, and her daughter Paige, stranded in Prosper—a tiny and unfamiliar fictional town in northern Arizona—during the real-life flooding that happened there in 2005.

CLICK HERE for details on how to win these two books.

CLICK HERE for details on how to become a prize sponsor for this blog.

We (as in me and my ever lovely and helpful assistant) have spent all day today working on the blogs. We have decided to call it quits until Saturday because we were getting frustrated and a little slap-happy. We’re like Dumb and Dumber, only between the two of us, we know just enough html to be seriously dangerous!

Sigh.

We did get the ad links, shopping cart and all that set up and working on this site and the LDS Fiction site. So if you’d like to replace those lovely burgandy and gold “You Book Here” images with your own book covers, go here to get the info and purchase ad space on LDS Publisher or here for LDS Fiction. (Ads are half price during February.)

And Jennie, the sponsoring links should no longer take you in circles (assuming we didn’t break those links after we fixed them).

I won’t have a lot of time to work on this over the weekend but I’m hoping to get it tweaked and mostly functional by the end of next week and to start posting that series on writing and publishing that I mentioned before soon.

In the meantime, if you know of an event that would be of interest to authors or if you have a booksigning scheduled in the near future, e-mail me with all the pertinent information and links and I’ll start getting it loaded up on the LDS Author Events site.

I’ve been a bad, bad blogger lately. I’ve been writing this blog for just a few months shy of three years now. When I started it, things were going well for me. I worked regular hours, got regular paychecks, and had time to whip off a post during my work day. It was a labor of love and I felt I was doing good in the world. Professionally, my company was stable and growing. Personally, our family income was enough to cover our needs and some of our wants.

But things have changed. The economy has changed. Books cost more to produce and fewer people are buying them. Small publishers are crashing and burning all around us and even the larger national publishers are tightening their belts and making cuts. Personal goods and services cost more but no one is getting a big enough raise to cover them. Lots of people are getting laid off and losing their homes. I don’t know about you, but at our house, both my husband and myself have had to pick up extra jobs to make ends meet.

As the economy squeezed tighter and tighter (both professionally and personally), I found myself carrying a greater work load than I was comfortable with. Eventually, it became obvious that I couldn’t continue to do everything I was trying to do. It became difficult to keep up this blog with the ever increasing demands of my job(s). I was reaching a personal breaking point and I seriously considered dropping this blog altogether because it was just one more thing for me to do. I no longer had the time to write it at work and although I loved writing this blog, it was hard to justify why I was spending limited personal/family time on something that sounded like work but that wasn’t generating an income.

Not too long ago it was suggested to me that I might want to consider a career change (that’s the polite way of saying that I realized I might not have a job in the future). I could continue as I was for awhile or I could look for work at another company, but honestly, I’ve been working harder, yet getting further behind financially. And I’m tired of it all. Tired of rejecting good manuscripts because we can’t afford to publish them. Tired of trying to collect money from bookstores who are feeling the pinch and can’t pay their bills on time. And just plain physically tired of working longer days for less pay.

So I’ve made some decisions and plans are being implemented—including changes to this blog and the LDS Fiction blog.

First, my career move. I’m going freelance, aka semi-retirement, aka mostly unemployed. I’ll no longer work a regular schedule at a publishing company—partly due to the current state of the economy and partly due to my own desire/need to slow down a little and stop working 16 hour days. That sounds like I’m moving backwards, doesn’t it? Perhaps I am. We’ll see.

Instead of working in-house for one publishing company, I’ll be auctioning off my services to various publishers on a project-by-project basis. Right now, I have agreements with four publishers—two projects lined up and a few more tentatives. I think it’ll be a win/win situation—they don’t have to hire, then fire staff when things are slow and I can take a health break when I need to.

Now for the blog changes. No, I’m not shutting it down and going into blog retirement. Instead, I’m going to ramp it up a bit and hopefully make this a more valuable resource for LDS writers. I’ve just about got it all worked out, with the help of a friend who’s working on some design changes for me. Everything should be in place and working by the end of this month.

Here are just a few of the changes that are on the way:

• The LDS Publisher blog will be updated to a classier, more professional look. The LDS Fiction blog will also be updated to match the look and feel of this blog.
• While your questions will still be answered, the focus of this blog will shift to step-by-step how-to articles covering the entire gamut from novel idea conception through publication and promotion.
• Author interviews and the occasional guest post will find a place here.
• Monthly contests will continue on both this blog and the LDS Fiction blog where readers and commenters can win books and authors and publishers can promote their books by sponsoring the contests—but there will be a few changes (to be announced later).
• Reasonably priced ad space will be made available in the sidebar to authors/publishers who want to promote their newest releases, to companies who offer professional services to authors, and to other companies/individuals with a connection to books, writing and/or publishing.
• An LDS Fiction Review site will be networked in where newly released LDS fiction will be reviewed (as opposed to simply listed as on the LDS Fiction blog).
• Various LDS Publisher links pages will be added, including links to LDS publishers and their submission guidelines; links to LDS author websites and blogs; links to workshops, events, networks, and other items of interest to writers.
• And probably a few more things that I think of as we go.

Please bear with me as these changes are made and new code is installed. If you stop by one day the whole blog has exploded into nothingness, be patient. It just means something went berserk in the new template code and it’ll be fixed soon.

Hi, uhm. It’s me. Still living. My work schedule has been changed so many times over the past few weeks. Gah! Makes it hard to schedule time to do other things. I will probably remain hit and miss here through the end of the month but I’m starting to get things straightened out a bit. I think.

Anyway, here we go. . .

As long as you’re not dead (yay!), I have a question about distribution. I’ve followed the travails of Zarahemla and Parables as they’ve struggled to get carried in Deseret Book and Seagull stores, and it seems that they all agree that the thing to do is get Granite to distribute you and then voila, you get access shelfspace in those stores. I have some questions on this question:

1. How vital is inclusion in those stores for success? I imagine quite, but what do you think?

Extremely vital. If your book is targeted to the LDS reader, and it’s not in either Deseret Book or Seagull stores or on their website, then 90% of the U.S. LDS reading population will not even be aware that you book exists. I call this the Dead Zone.

2. What about their catalogues?

If you buy space in their catalog, they’ll place orders and have your book in their store. But they won’t let just anyone buy space. You have to be “approved” first. And it’s very expensive. If it’s your first book and you’ve self-published, you probably aren’t going to sell enough copies to cover the cost of your ad or to move your book out of the Dead Zone.

Another option is to buy ad space in Books and Things. This helps you get into the smaller independent stores, but still, it’s expensive and there’s no guarantee.

3. Is Granite in fact the best way in that door? How does one go about arranging that?

There’s Granite, Brigham Distributing, and a few others who distribute that can get products into DB & S. If you’re with them, your chances go up on getting out of the Dead Zone and onto the shelf, but it’s not a guarantee. We’ve had books accepted by our distributor that they have not been able to get DB or S to carry. And believe me, when I say those titles are in the Dead Zone, I mean they are totally dead because many independent bookstores stock what shows up at DB/S and what’s in their catalog because they know people will come in looking for those titles.

To get with a distributor—and in my opinion, you should have distribution lined up before you print more than a handful of copies—contact them and ask what their process is for new product. Most likely you’ll have to send them a sample book (you can print one through POD services fairly easily).

4. Lastly, what sort of sales are individual publishers doing through their websites or other means? The not-available-in-stores crowd — are they flourishing?

Flourishing? No. Surviving? Not all of us. Just heard of another small press going down and it breaks my heart. We’re certainly not getting rich off our website sales. Because:

1. When a reader wants an LDS book, they go to the DB or S website/store and browse. Most of these readers are not even going to know my website (or Zarahemla’s or Parables or yours) exists, unless they Google it and it comes up on the first page or two. Unless you have a specialized niche or you’ve been able to get a lot of online buzz going, just putting up a website doesn’t do you much good.

and

2. Website sales are generally one book at a time, whereas bookstores are multiple copies. One or two bookstore orders for an individual title are often as much as an entire month’s website sales.

I hate painting these negative doom and gloom pictures of the industry and your chances of success in it. So let me end by saying this: There have been/are successful self-publishers/small presses. Study them and what they are doing/did to get where they are, then make a well thought out plan of attack to fit your own book.

But thank you to all of you kind souls who e-mailed to ask that question.

Things are juggling about at work again and I’m trying to decide if I want to switch companies, switch jobs/responsibilities within my current company, go part-time or just retire altogether.

Contemplating the future takes a lot of time and energy, which is why I still haven’t commented on all the Christmas stories yet (but I plan to, eventually).

That’s also why I haven’t updated the monthly sponsors yet. Since we’re well into the month, I’m going to shift all the sponsors out a month. So if you were scheduled to sponsor in January, you will now sponsor in February, and so on. If that’s a problem, send me an e-mail.

I think the LDS Fiction blog for 2008 is almost up to date. If there are any last minute additions, let me know ASAP because I’ll be doing a “by-the-numbers” post for that blog later this week.

Lastly, are Steve Alten and/or Elizabeth Haydon LDS? I’ve been told that they are and also that they aren’t. Does anyone know, for sure?

I enjoy your blog lots and lots. Thank you for taking the time! (you’re welcome)

Wondering: with the economy apparently tanking, what do you think is the future of LDS publishing, especially the small publishers?

In the interest of full disclosure I must admit I currently write for one of the smaller outfits (and love them dearly). Should I offer to forego my (tiny) royalty check in a show of solidarity? It always seems publishers are operating on such a shoestring anyway that tighter budgets could squeeze the life right out of them. Yikes for all of us! Your thoughts?

What?!!? Are you nuts???? If a publishing company can’t afford to pay its royalties, it needs to close its doors. Never, never, never offer to forego your royalty.

As to the economy and what it will do to the LDS publishing industry—same thing it will do/is doing everywhere else. Yes, some publishers will go out of business—some already have, others are teetering on the brink. Other publishers will weather the storm and come out the other side.

IMHO, companies, like individuals, should follow the counsel of our prophets. Get out of debt, save for a rainy day, live/publish within your means. That may mean that fewer books are published for the duration and/or that newer authors may have an even harder time breaking into the market—just like unemployed workers are having a harder time finding a good job right now.

But don’t give up. Books are still being published. New authors are still being accepted. Make sure that what you submit is your very, very best work.

And always, always collect your royalties.