I learned A LOT at the Book Festival yesterday. I'm going through my notes today to reinforce what I learned and to share some other writers' experiences. As soon as I finish blogging I am going to send a very sincere THANK YOU to Nancy Haddock, writer of La Vida Vampire and Last Vampire Standing. She was so gracious and so friendly and so very helpful. I asked her about writing classes (there are several on-line and few in an classroom), and she told me about the Florida Writers Association and the various chapters and genre/chapters in the area, then she took me by the arm and pulled me across the room, and introduced me to Vic DiGenti, the Director of the FWA. Thank you, Nancy!
Vic explained the meeting schedule and took down my name and email address so I could receive the FWA newsletter. I've already had an email from him with links to his own web site and to the FWA web site. Thanks, Vic!
As I mentioned yesterday Lucienne Diver invited me to send a query and 5 pages of my manuscript to her. Also very gracious! And funny! I can't wait to start reading Vamped. And I hope to get some feedback on Bucksnort.
After a delicious lunch at La Herencia with Kelly (and two very potent glasses of yummy sangria) I grabbed a glass of ice tea to go at the Hot Shot Bakery and made my way back to the Ringhaver Student Center. (A big thank you to Sherry at Hot Shot Bakery who told me I could park in her parking lot instead of feeding dollar bills into the meter!) I had almost an hour to kill so made the financial error of visiting the Marketplace again. $45 later I had 3 more books and totally blew my budget this week!
The next presenter was Tom Cavanaugh (no, not the actor who played in the TV show Ed) but a Florida author with 3 books published. His presentation was very low-key and all about the trail he followed to get published. It was also a lesson that you haven't "made it" until you've "made it" like John Grisham or Stephen King. Tom had just been informed by his New York publishing house that, even though his book Head Games had won all kinds of awards, they were no longer going to continue to publish his works. He was back to square one.
He had also received a ticket on his trip over from Orlando. He was stopped just south of St. Augustine on I-95 and given a ticket for having tinted windows that were too dark. No kidding. And the cop told him that he had already given out tickets for the very same offense several times this month on the same stretch of highway. The cop pointed out that if a citizen had windows that were too dark and they were hijacked, the "po po" (rhymes with doe doe) couldn't help them. "Po Po?" Where did this cop come from? I am so staying off I-95 south!
Back to Tom's writing and publishing history. He sent in his first book Murderland to a contest and won; the prize was being published by a small publishing house. His research turned up many complaints and almost a scam-type operation so he voided that contract. He did point out that the publishing house was very gracious about allowing him to cancel. He then submitted it to some small print houses and succeeded in getting it published. He said that although it was published it made very little money; one of his largest checks was for $40 and it was not uncommon to receive a check for $3.00. He determined that his next book would be published by one of the big publishing houses if at all possible. The small publishing house still has the rights to any sequel he may want to do in regards to Murderland.
In order to get a Big Press Publisher he needed an agent. He said the typical agent is nonresponsive and not to take offense. He knows he is not his agent's biggest earner; he does appreciate that his agent is very responsive to him. His agent submitted his manuscript to 25 houses and got 25 rejections. They were about to approach the smaller publishers when his agent suggested trying one of the rejecting houses again; the person who had rejected the manuscript had been replaced, so his replacement probably wouldn't know that the manuscript had already been rejected. And that editor offered him a contract!
That book Head Games won many literary awards and was successful enough that the publisher offered him another contract for a sequel. He had six months to write it, and he pointed out that like so many of us, he has a "real job" that supports his family, so he spent every spare second writing to make that deadline. That meant writing every night from 9pm to midnight, and when he traveled for work - which was frequently - wrote during his flights and in his hotel rooms. The second book Prodigal Son was published. Then his contract was dropped.
He was very pragmatic about being dropped, pointing out that the publishing business is based on numbers and formulas. His Head Games manuscript was 95,000 words originally, and the publisher told him he had to reduce it to 90,000 words to make it viable to sell. So many pages cost so many dollars to print - the expected profit on so many pages would equal so many dollars, etc. So even though he is back to square one and has to start over with sending queries to publishing houses, he did not seem bitter or angry.
He also pointed out that even though he has a degree in screenwriting, connections in Hollywood, and experience writing scripts for Nickelodeon, NONE OF THAT HELPED HIM TO GET PUBLISHED. He said it was a combination of luck and perseverance. He read the first chapter of Head Games aloud to us and I now want to read it - excellent.
All in all a great experience but I have a lot of homework. And last year during the First Florida Heritage Book Festival I spent the entire weekend indoors, watching the stupid TV, and cursing myself for being too chicken to attend. Hurray for me!
Wow, it sounds like a great book festival. Lots of great information. Thanks for sharing. And the pictures are a fun addition.
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