John Woodington The official site for the author.

Why Self-publishing is BadPosted by John Woodington on July 7th, 2010

One other interesting tidbit I forgot to mention from the Seton Hill writers conference: on the way down to the conference, a fellow writer said to me, “John, I know your thoughts on self-publishing, but you should keep them to yourself while you’re here, because some people here do self-publish, and they might be offended if you said it was bad.”

I do think self-publishing is bad (or, more accurately, I do not think it provides any benefit to the author) and I’m glad that I’m not alone in my thinking.  During a seminar led by Annette Rogers, the acquisitions editor at Poisoned Pen Press, Annette was asked by a writer in the audience what she thought about self-publishing, and if a writer should mention self-published books in their query to her.  She said (not verbatim here), “If you have self-published a book or books in the past, don’t tell me about them, don’t tell anyone about them.  Ever.  Hide them in your garage or burn them in your backyard and pretend they never existed, because legitimate publishers are very wary of working with authors who have self-published content already on the market.  They are not considered publishing credits by anyone.”

She (and the two other agents present) went on to say that the only reason a person would self-publish a book was because it was not good enough for a publishing house to accept.  This made some in the crowd a touch edgy, but I was glad to hear it straight from these guest speakers.  No need to raise hopes when there’s no hope to be had when it comes to self-publishing.

My guess is that some extra drinkin’ went on that night for a few people.

Close Encounters in PennsylvaniaPosted by John Woodington on June 21st, 2010

I’m gearing up for my first writing retreat.  Exciting.  The one I’m going to is at Seton Hill University, and it is a retreat for writers of popular fiction.  I would say that I sometimes write popular fiction, though I tend to have more of a literary slant in my work.  The reason this sort of retreat appeals to me is that I would like some of the financial success of a popular fiction writer, without having to write the shallow, plot-heavy stories.  I’m hoping this retreat will help me out a little in that regard.  It’s way out in Pennsylvania, and I’m flying there Thursday.  And I have to get up at 3:30 am to make the flight.  Yuckity yuck yuck.

Also, my former agent works out of Pennsylvania, so maybe I will have a close encounter of the formerly-my-agent kind.  That would be cool.  I never met her in person, and she seemed very nice, though I don’t think were a good match as far as what I was writing and what she was selling.  There will be agents at the retreat, and I’m hoping to work on my pitch to them while I’m there.  My novel Alien Nation would be the most likely candidate with which to practice, so I’ll bring the first chunk of that along with me.

Jasper’s Galleys Are Proof(ed)Posted by John Woodington on April 13th, 2010

Just a quick post to let y’all know that I received the galleys from Slow Trains for my short story “Jasper Tilson,” which will be online in a week or so, and it looks very nice.  For those of you who can’t imagine what galleys would look like for a story that will appear on the Internet, basically it is just the formatted web page that the story will appear on when it is released.  Slow Trains sends me a hyperlink to the as-yet-unpublished page, and I go read through it, let them know if there are any mistakes or corrections (I didn’t find any) and they they make any suggested changes (if they want to), and then it gets published onto the Internet.  Pretty cool process.  Usually I just get an email (sometimes not) that a story is now online, without giving me any chance to review it.  So thank you Slow Trains for at least making me feel a little like a real author by giving me the chance to proofread my story once more before it goes out to all the people of the world.

I’ll link to the story here when it is published.

By the way: why do they call the proofs of a story “galleys”?  That makes me think of seafaring adventures.  Let me know if you know so we can all know.

A New (Canadian) Novella PublisherPosted by John Woodington on March 30th, 2010

A couple days ago my novella “Goodwill” was rejected by a publisher.  Boo hoo.  So, of course, I went to find another place that I might submit to.  A little searching showed me that many contests for novellas are out of date online, and that certain publishers aren’t taking the time to remove these frustrating pages from the interwebs.  A little more searching led me to Short Sharp Shock, a publisher out of Canada that only publishes novellas.  What a glorious find.  Finally, someone out there cares about the novella form other than Miami University Press.  I sent Short Sharp Shock a query for my novella, and am eagerly awaiting their clever, Canadian rejection letter.

It is still difficult finding publishers that take novella-length submissions, and actually read them with the intent of possibly publishing them.  Many places I know and read accept novella-length submissions, but only very rarely do they publish them (I’m looking at you, Missouri Review and your little “Bearskin”).  It’s very refreshing to find publishers like Short Sharp Shock that actually enjoy novellas and desire to publish them.

So goes my crusade to bring the novella to the forefront of the publishing industry.

With More Drafts to ComePosted by John Woodington on March 16th, 2010

I’m 216 pages into the editing of my novel AlieNation, and things are starting to flow now.  I’m finding that there are certain areas which are a bit loose, but I’ll clean those up in the next draft.  Right now, I’m looking for stuff that doesn’t belong, or is just plain wrong.  Get rid of all the crap, then polish up the stuff that still needs to be there in some capacity.  The hardest part so far is when I want to add new content.  I’d like to rewrite and add some stuff to push the novel more closely to its underlying themes, though I have a feeling this will be a separate draft all in itself.  We’ll see.

In publishing news, I should be getting the online proofs of my short story “Jasper Tilson,” which is set to appear in the next issue of Slow Trains, due out later this month.  I eagerly anticipate their arrival, as I’ve never had the pleasure of reviewing proofs for my own story before.  Usually the publishers just mock it up and print it how they want it.  So I consider this a new level in my publishing life.

I shall mini-celebrate with my friend Earl Grey right now.

Writing for the Money (or not)Posted by John Woodington on March 11th, 2010

I get a daily email newsletter called Publishers Lunch that lists the new book deals that have been signed and gives a rough estimate of what sort of advance the authors get on said deals.  I used it in the past to generate a list of agents to query, but now I just use it for entertainment, as well as honing my email deletion skills.  Reading through Publishers Lunch today, I came across this deal, which surprised me:

Gordon Lish’s GORDON LISH: COLLECTED FICTIONS, the first complete collection of the short work of the celebrated and controversial writer, editor and teacher dubbed “Captain Fiction,” in a nice deal, to John Oakes of OR Books, by the author (world).
john.oakes@orbooks.com

Now, Gordon Lish is a guy I only know because of his connection to Raymond Carver, a favorite author of mine, whom Lish edited (and in many cases edited quite substantially).  I knew he was a writer and did his own stories, and taught creative writing at the university level, so a collection of his short fiction isn’t unexpected.  What surprises me about this particular deal is that amount of money he got for the deal.  Publishers Lunch calls this a “Nice Deal”, which they categorize as a deal in the range of $1 – $49,000.

Now, the high end of that range is nothing to sniff at, but as you can guess, this is the lowest range Publishers Lunch gives for book deals (the high end is categorized as a “Major Deal” at $500,000 and up).  I’m surprised that a collection by someone as literarily (not a real word) accomplished as Lish would be in the lowest category for advances.  You’d think that after a lifetime of work, he’d be able to command higher paychecks.  What this tells me is that critical success doesn’t always translate into dollars.  No surprise there.  How many times do we see novels that are critically slammed sell millions of copies?

In light of this realization, I shall change my writing habits and style to generate less critically-popular work, in the hopes that inferior writing will lead to a brighter career.

Just kidding.

The Story of “Jasper Tilson”Posted by John Woodington on February 16th, 2010

When I was 21 years old, I came up with an idea for a short story about a young man who’s wife suddenly dies, and who then finds out that he does not have the ability to deal with it properly.  I think it partially came from a fear that I had myself.  I was going to be married a year or so later, and was terrified that something would happen to my then fiance/now wife.  I let the story float around in my head until the spring of 2006, almost a year later.  I was in a writing workshop at college, and I decided that it was the right time to write this story.

The initial problem I had was that I’d lost a page of notes that I’d written about the story, and after searching for days, I finally gave them up as lost, and pressed on with the story as I saw it in my head.  I wrote the first draft of the story, then rewrote, redrafted, reread, rewrote, until, five drafts later, I had something with which I was very proud.  I sent it off to the workshop class for critique.

The reviews from my peers were very positive, and my professor at the time said it was one of the better undergraduate short stories she’d seen.  So I figured that meant it was good enough for a strong publication, and I began sending it out to some of the top short story venues.

Two years later I had amassed a pile of rejections, and had lost hope of this story ever seeing the light of publication.  I decided it needed a reread.  I read through it, and to my surprise, saw that it had one major flaw.  It wasn’t finished.  I mean, I had thought it was finished two years earlier, and the praise of my peers hadn’t helped much in that respect.  But when I read it in 2008, I realized it didn’t have a true ending.  So I wrote one.  And I thought the story was much better for it.

I also messed with the title.  I changed it from its original title, “Jasper Tilson”, to “Intervention”, to “A Friendly Intervention”, and then back to “Jasper Tilson”.  The title changing took place over the course of two years itself.  But finally I had it back to “Jasper Tilson”, which was the right title for the story.  Surely publication would come soon.

Cut to the present day, four years after I’d first begun sending it out to publishers, and forty-six rejections later.  That’s right.  Forty-six (46) rejections.  Valentine’s Day, 2010, I get an email from Slow Trains which reads as follows:

Hi John,

Thank you for your submission to Slow Trains. We would like to publish your story in our spring issue, which will be online in late March.

Please return the information sheet below at your earliest convenience, and then we will send you the galleys link for your approval shortly before the issue is linked.

Thank you for contributing to Slow Trains!

Susannah

So now, after four years, forty-six rejections, multiple titles, multiple drafts, multiple endings, and ceasless submissions, “Jasper Tilson” will be published for all the world to read.  I can’t wait to see it at Slow Trains.  And of course, I’ll link to it here when it is up, which should be next month.

Super Important Writing Contests. Or Not.Posted by John Woodington on February 6th, 2010

Just got an email about a few writing contests that are oepn for submissions now, though I kinda feel only one of them is worth entering.  The first is a contest for younger peeps through the Ayn Rand Institute.  Write yourself an essay about how you are better than everyone else in the world, and you could win $2000.00.  The second one is the L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future Contest, in which you can write a story that will create a religion that charges its members an entrance fee to make them think we’re all made out of alien spirits that floated around volcanoes way back in the day.  For accomplishing this feat you can win $5000.00.

Note to self and rest of world: Shouldn’t a contest from the Ayn Rand Institute offer the greatest monetary reward?  Isn’t the almighty dollar the greatest achievement in their world?  And to be beat out by a guy who created a religion?  That’s what I’d call a Double Rand Whammy.

The third contest, and the only one I’d consider entering (because I’m too old and too nice for the Rand contest and too sane for the Hubbard) is the New South Writing Contest, which rewards good prose and good poetry in the amount of $1000.00.  I think this contest holds the most prestige for me, so I may check it out.  Either that, Or I could write up a quick sci-fi story and see what the L. Ronners think about it.

In a significantly unrelated topic, I do not care about who wins the Superbowl, so long as it is a good game, and I’m not waiting for Payton to run out the clock throughout the entire fourth quarter.  Naw meen?

One other thing that popped up in my head this week:  I am currently working on a novel.  I also have realized through the reading and rereading of said novel, that there are various portions (chapters, really) that could be published separately as short stories.  Has anyone tried this and found it successful?  Will it help chances of novel publication later on?  Or hurt them, for that matter?  I’d be curious to hear your thoughts, experiences, and feedback.

Men’s FictionPosted by John Woodington on January 21st, 2010

There’s a really interesting interview up at Luna Park right now with Jarrett Haley of BULL: Fiction for Thinking Men that I think’s worth a read.  They discuss gender issues in modern (and classic, canonical) fiction, and whether the publishing world today is skewed in favor of male writers over female writers.  They make the point that most classic works of literature are by male writers, and that Publisher’s Weekly named their top 10 books of 2009, and all of the authors were male.

So things might get heated, as you could imagine.

I’ve looked around at BULL and have read a few of their stories, and think that they have a very unique position in the publishing world.  I also think that this is one of those debates that could go on forever, and that possibly no one could benefit from it.

That said, I think it’s a debate worth having.  Luna Park makes the valid comment that most consumers of fiction are women, though writers of published fiction are about 50% women, instead of a similar majority.  My take on that is that more men should be reading books instead of soaking in ten hours of football every Sunday.  Even if it is the Packers and the Vikings….

Publishers Accepting Novella SubmissionsPosted by John Woodington on January 5th, 2010

Lo and behold, I was mistaken in my belief that very very few places accepted novella submissions for publication.  It turns out it is only a very few, and not a very very.  The places I’ve found so far are:

• 42 Magazine
• AGNI
• American Literary Review
• American Short Fiction
• A Public Space
• The Collagist
• Gettysburg Review
• Glimmer Train
• Hunger Mountain
• The Journal
• The Madison Review
• The Malahat Review
• McSweeney’s
• The Missouri Review
• The Normal School
• Quarterly West
• Subtropics
• 42opus
• Eclectica
• Failbetter
• Wild Violet

So that’s 21 different publications that accept novellas, out of over 140 on my master submissions list.  I guess one in seven ain’t bad, as they say.  Do they say that?

I’ve submitted a novella to a few of the places above, and those I haven’t published with most of them, I can confirm that their novella guidelines are legitimate, and are worth checking out if you’re looking for a home for your 25,000 word story.

Also, is it just me, or do lists look stupid in blogs?  I might not do that again.  It would have to be a good list, like The Top Places That Give You Free Money or Ten Ways to Avoid Your In-Laws.  Something like that.

No offense, in-laws.