TK Richardson's blog party is in full swing

I want to remind all readers that TK Richardson’s book—Return the Heart—will be out in the stores in June of this year. To celebrate this awesome event, TK is hosting a blog-party at her site, this Friday. In her own words (see how clever I was to save typing many words):

That's right! It's almost time for the release of my novel RETURN THE HEART! And in anticipation of that I will be hosting an awesome blog party along with some great giveaways.

Invite your friends and spread the news 'cause this will be fun!

Starting on Friday May 28, I will be giving away a goodie filled prize pack - all you have to do is show up here leave a comment and your name will be in the drawing to receive the prize.

But that's not all.

It starts all over again on Monday. And on Wednesday and again on Friday. Yes, that's right - 4 awesome prize packs to give away. WOOT!

Want to know what they are?!?! Well come back on Friday, bring a friend and you'll see!

I am there…Oh darn, I popped my balloon. See you there.

Great Forum from Nathan Bransford

One week ago, I sent a question to Literary Agent Nathan Bransford. The question dealt with linking together two stand-alone novels in a series. I was surprised when he answered me with- Thank you very much for your question. I recently launched discussion forums on my website, and I have a dedicated thread for questions that people haven't been able to find an answer for on my blog: http://forums.nathanbransford.com .

I checked it out and found a wealth of information in each of the forums. Here is a list of forums and topics covered:

• Town Hall
New member introductions, suggestions for the Forums, and questions about posting.

• All Things Writing
The writing process, writing advice, and updates on your work in progress

• All Things Books
Recommendations, discussions, and odes to your favourites.

• All Things Feedback
Query critiques, first pages, and sharing your work.

• All Things Finding An Agent
Submission protocol, the road to publication, and questions for your resident agent

• All Things Publishing
News, trends, and the future of publishing.

• All Things Procrastination
Because that novel isn't going to delay itself.

I see great opportunities to improve our writing on the internet. This one speaks volums.

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Dear Luckey Agent Contest number five

If you are writing a science fiction or fantasy book, this contest is for you.

How to enter: E-mail entries to fifthagentcontest@gmail.com. Please paste everything; no attachments.

• What to submit: The first 150-200 words of your unpublished, book-length work of fantasy or science fiction (adult fiction and/or YA fiction; no MG please). You must include a contact e-mail address with your entry and use your real name. Also, submit the title of the work and a logline (one-sentence description of the work) with your entry.
  
  
• Please note: To be eligible to submit, you must do one of two things: 1) Mention and link to this contest twice through your social media—blogs, Twitter, Facebook; or 2) just mention this contest once and also add Guide to Literary Agents Blog (www.guidetoliteraryagents.com/blog) to your blog-roll. Please provide link(s) so the judge and I can verify eligibility! My link to GLA is on the left side of my blog. I have been following for several years and have picked up many tips for sharpening my ms.
  
  
• Contest Rules
  
  
• 1. This contest will be live for approximately fourteen days—from May 12 through the end of Wednesday, May 26, EST. Winners notified by e-mail within 7 days of end of contest. Winners announced on the blog thereafter.
  2. To enter, submit the first 150-200 words of your book. Shorter or longer entries will not be considered. Keep it within word count range please.
  3. This contest is solely for completed book-length works of fantasy and science fiction (both YA and adult novels are accepted; no MG).
  4. You can submit as many times as you wish. You can submit even if you submitted to other contests in the past, but please note that past winners cannot win again.
  5. The contest is open to everyone of all ages, save those employees, officers and directors of GLA's publisher, F+W Media.
  6. By e-mailing your entry, you are submitting an entry for consideration in this contest and thereby agreeing to the terms written here as well as any terms possibly added by me in the "Comments" section of this blog post. (If you have questions or concerns, write me personally at literaryagent@fwmedia.com. The Gmail account above is for submissions, not questions.)
  
  
• Prizes!!!
  
  
• Top 3 winners all get: 1) A critique of the first 10 pages of your work, by your agent judge. 2) A free one-year subscription to WritersMarket.com.
  
  

Quick post on local resources.

Yesterday I called several local newspapers and asked if they had editors who had experience working in the book-publishing world. More specifically, do they do book editing. I was surprised to find a majority of the editors worked in this field and that some still edit manuscripts. One of the editors told me that if I publish my novel through a publishing house they usually have an editing section that will edit your work as part of the process. I am presently waiting for a call, from an editor, and will let you know if her prices are cheaper than the services I see advertised in my writing magazines. (Update, the woman has agreed to read my ms and comment on it—for free).

I also talked with several of the local libraries and asked if I could bring in a printed copy of my ms and have them check it out to beta readers with the understanding that they will fill in a questioner I will provide. The response was positive and I am busy printing copies.

I hope the above information will be of help in your publishing journey.

Now for some fun. I copied this from Nathan Bransford’s blog, enjoy.

The Art of Critiquing

First, I must apologize to my blog readers for my absence. In short, a few weeks ago I lost a battle against the strong Nebraska winds, an engine cover and its metal frame. My head came out in a different shape that when I entered the space. When I opened the compartment, the wind forced the cover open and held it tight. I leaned down and started to remove the starter motor. The wind suddenly did a one-eighty and I remember seeing stars and blood everywhere. It took me a week before I could sleep without my pain. The good news is that during that time I worked on my ms and edited it again.

I am now seeking serious Beta readers for my completed manuscript. With this in mind, I thought it would be a good idea to point out several new critique sites I came across in the latest issue of Writer’s Digest (May/June 2010). The title of the article is 101 Best Websites for Writers. It is full of a variety of Websites guaranteed to meet any of your writing needs.

• Two sites that I joined are Critters Workshop and Critique Circle.

• Critters Workshop: You must love a site whose motto is—Guaranteed Critiques or Your Story Back. To help you review properly they have a fantastic library of articles on how to critique. Be sure to check out the free tool section. You earn credits for every critique you send in. You can post full chapters or a completed novel for review. Different rules apply so be sure to read the instructions. The only drawback I have encountered is that all submissions must be in text format. No DOC/RTF or PDF files. This is easy to do if you are using a major word processor such as MS WORD or Open Office.

• Critique Circle: As with many writing groups, the system is based on points. It costs three points to submit a work. You will likely have to wait a week or two for it to be posted, as there is a queue. Critique Circle pays you points, from 1.5 to three, for your reviews of other people's works, which is necessary on the site so you can post your own material. The shorter your material the more reviews you will receive.

• ALERT: Caught your attention didn’t I. I ordered a book titled Formatting and Submitting Your Manuscript by C. Laufenberg & the Editors of Writer’s Digest. It covers every part of the manuscript submission process, including how to construct persuasive and professional correspondence, with more than 120 sample letters and proposals.

• Cost: $4.95 (original price $19.99)
• Order number: 1711490
• Website: www.edwardrhamilton.com

I am seeking a few BETA READERS who would like to exchange manuscripts. I will read and comment on yours and you would do the same for mine. You must be a follower of my blog.

How do you edit your manuscript?

I want to ask you—How Do You Edit Your Manuscript. Do you rely on peer group critiques; you word processor’s spell and grammar style checker, beta readers or editing books? Do you use sophisticated editing software or rely on your own re-reads of your manuscript?

Here are a few tips I learned editing my own manuscript.

• Self-reading will build your confidence in your script and help you focus on improving it.
• Peer critiques help you focus on your weak points of your novel.
• Reading aloud will help you find missing words, poor sentences and repetitious words within the same paragraph. It will also let you hear the pace of your written words.
• Reading it in a book format will widen your eyes allowing you to see the smallest grammar and writing mistakes.

Self-reading: Face it, you can only read and re-read your ms so many times before you become immune to discovering more mistakes. Sometime you must take several weeks off before attempting another re-read.

Peer critiques: I value peer critiques because they give you several other sets of eyes looking over your writing and it gives you an idea if someone wants to read your entire book. It can also tell if you can hook a reader into wanting to read further. In order for this to work, you must be open, honest and receptive of other criticisms. I use each critique (no matter if it is negative or positive) as a constructive step toward improving my writing.

Reading aloud: I blogged about a free reader program called Natural Reader. After installing the software, I opened my first chapter, selected all and clicked on the Natural Reader. With my laptop on my lap, I shut my eyes and listened. Several times, I heard words that did not sound right and checked in the document, making changes as the program was paused. This helped me also find sentences that needed to be re-written.

Reading in eBook format: This is proving the best editing tool that I have found so far (I also blogged about this in my last post). After printing out my manuscript, I opened the Kindle for PC program and began reading the entire book. Style and grammar mistakes stuck out like a sore thumb. Using a red pen, I made remarks on my printed out pages. I am about one third through this editing phase and expect to finish by Tuesday. I will then review all of the red edit marks and make changes in my master file. I have to say it is almost like reading (and analyzing) someone else’s work.

Keep your pen sharp.

The most exciting news since the Tomato was found to be edible.

Among the myriad of eZines I receive daily one arrived in my in-box that piqued my interest. One link lead to another until finally I discovered a free program that will convert text that you have written and let you read it on almost any ereader. I also discovered another free program called Kindle for the PC.

My mind went into full overload when I thought of the possibility that I could download the free Kindle and the text converter program and then read my book on the Kindle.

Therefore, I did exactly that. Here is how I did it.

Click on the Kindle for the PC link. This brings you to an Amazon page offering a free download. Download the free program and after it has completed open it up. I saved it to my desktop. Next click on this link, Calibre for Windows and download the free program. Set this up on your desktop.

The Kindle for PC program is strait forward. You can Google free novels you want to read. Keep the program closed for now. Open the Calibre for Windows program.

• The first thing you want to do is to convert your written text into HTML, PDF or TXT document format. (If you use Word 7, then saved the file as a WEB Page. Word 2003 will save it as an HTML page.)
• After converting my file to HTML, I saved it to my desktop.
• Using my clicker, I dragged the file on top of the Calibre icon. The Calibre program opened it and added it to the program.
• Once the document is added click it then click the Convert eBook button at the top of the Calibre window. The program converts your file.
• When the program is finished converting your file click on the button titled Save to Disk and save it. I saved it to my desktop.
• (Can you feel the excitement?) I found the file that contained my converted text and clicked on it. This opened up the Kindle reader and my book appeared. The arrow keys allowed me to flip pages.

So how does it look?

Some notes: One of the questions I answered during set up was what type of reader do I have. I selected Kindle 1 or 2. The program now knows to convert your text for this reader. If you own another reader then select the proper one. You can also use the reader that comes with this program. The help button on the Calibre program will guide you through the steps to convert your manuscript to kindle format.

If you own an eBook reader, this program will help you set up an email address and download it to your machine. Have fun.