Looking ahead to fall: a contest & a conference

I was ready to post about the annual DFW Writers Conference, October 4-5, when a related post hit my inbox: a contest for a scholarship to the conference.

First, because the scholarship contest deadline is September 1, here's the lowdown about it.

The scholarship is from Dallas Mystery Writers, in memory of LaRee Bryant, a founding member of the group. The scholarship's winner will receive paid-in-full registration for the 2025 DFW Conference, valued at $500, to be awarded at the September 6 meeting of the DMW.

Now for the contest rules:

• No entry fee!
• Open to all fiction genres
• Contestants must be on the Dallas Mystery Writers mailing list. There's no for joining the list. See the site and click on the link "James" -- that's James Gaskin, the group's tech coordinator. Or email him directly at james@gaskin.com
• Contestants cannot have had fiction traditionally or self-published within the last five years. This applies to both short and long-form fiction works.
• Contestants must submit a 1000-1500-word writing sample, along with a bio of not more than 300 words, to include their writing goals.
• Entries must be submitted electronically as Word (docx.) documents, double-spaced, with 1-inch margins, in 12-point Times New Roman font.
• Email entries to sandysteenwrites.@gmail.com  

All entries will be judged by the DMW Board of Directors. The deadline, again, is September 1.

LaRee Bryant was involved for more than 34 years with Dallas Mystery Writers. She was also a chapter administrator for both the Harvard Club of Dallas and the Harvard Business School Club of Dallas. See the DMW site for additional information and/or to contribute to the Harvard Clubs GoFundMe campaign to renovate LaRee's homestead.

Now, for some asides.

I'm not eligible to participate in the contest, due to recent short fiction publications. However, I hope my previous experience with this group may be helpful. 

A few years ago, I and several members submitted writing samples for evaluation by the DMW board. My sample was written in present tense. One of the board members insisted--loudly--that she couldn't even read anything written in present tense. Another simply wrote "Present tense. Ick," on my pages. The matter generated a protracted discussion in the group about how many of them detested anything written in present tense.

It's possible the prejudice about tense no longer exists. But you have now been warned. If the winner turns out to be someone who sent an entry in present tense, I'd love to hear from you!

I'm also not sure how the scholarship winner's registration to the DFW Writers Conference will be dealt with if the person had previously registered. That's probably a question to put to the conference organizers themselves.

Image: Pixabay 

So, now to the DFW Conference information.

The conference is a program of the nonprofit DFW Writers Workshop. It will be held at the Hurst, Texas, Conference Center, 1615 Campus Dr. As of this writing, the adjoining Hurst Garden Inn Dallas still has rooms available at conference rates.

 

Regular conference registration for both October 4-5 is $449 through September 21. Regular one-day registration for either day is also available through September 21 for $250. Late registration from September 22-October 2 is $499 (two-day) or $299 (one day only).

Registration includes attendance at craft and business workshops with industry professionals, one complimentary pith/consultation session with a literary agent or editor (with additional pitch sessions available for purchase), lunch with keynote speakers, and more. 

See the site for additional information and a list of agents and editors who have committed. 

The conference also hosts a pre-con workshop, "Finding Your Voice," taught by award-winning, multiply-anthologized author Ari Tiso, a member of the Bribri tribe of Costa Rica.

The pre-conference workshop is October 3, from 12:30 p.m. - 4 p.m. Attendance is $50 for conference attendees, $100 for non-attendees. See the site for additional information and registration.

Wordcraft – Self-publishing? It takes more than a click

The question left hanging at last Tuesday’s discussion of self-publishing, from a panel discussion by Sandy Steen, James Gaskin, LaReeBryant and Susan May at the recent Southwest Chapter of Mystery Writers ofAmerica, was: how does an author determine how much to charge for her (or his) book? And the still more urgent question of how to induce customers to buy those books, no matter what the price? Because writing a book and preparing it for publication is only part of the story.

The CreateSpace option at Amazon for paper copies of self-published books informs the author of the print cost (which will be primarily for paper). According to the panelists, all veterans of both traditional and self-publishing, this cost typically runs from $7-$8. Without taking into account the author’s time in writing the book and preparing it for publication, any price of more than $8 a copy should be gravy, right?

Except “you won’t sell many paperbacks,” May said, “because most people who read voraciously use e-readers.” (She prints a few paper copies of her books for signings, which she can buy at a, yes, discounted price from Amazon.)

Or say you’re publishing your work as an e-book on Amazon’s Kindle, with the 70 percent royalty option. Although Amazon’s maximum price for most e-books is $9.99, “Amazon can discount the price without asking you,” May said, with royalties based on the sales price, not your list price.

“The good news is, as a self-published author, you have total control,” May said. “The bad news is, you have total control.” And in most cases, that means total control of the marketing of books. (Relative newcomer to self-publishing, Booktrope, offers a team model of publishing, including a marketer as well as editor, cover designer and proofreader in addition to the author, with royalties being divided between all team members.)

How much time should a self-published author expect to spend on marketing, compared to writing?

“Probably 50-50,” Bryan said, “if you’re really doing it well. If you’re going to do it yourself, you need to be sure you’ve got the aptitude to do it.”

“You’ve got to brand yourself,” Steen said, remembering “to add blogging, tweeting, and all that in your time budget for marketing.” May, for instance, guest blogs regularly, multiple times per month, at three separate sites.

What other marketing venues are available to self-publishers beyond Internet sales and limited personal signings, an audience member asked. Although panel members warned that self-published books had no chance of gaining a foothold in most brick and mortar bookstores, is there a way, an audience member asked, to get self-published books into libraries?

Basically, Gaskin said, only by donating them, and even then libraries may refuse to accept them for shelving. Besides continuing prejudice about the writing quality of self-published books, “Many self-published books,” he said, “are not ‘libraryized’ – not tough enough to hold up to repeated lendings.”

What about crowd-funding, an audience member asked, both to raise money to pay the cost of editing, cover design, and publishing? Won’t such funding not only save the author out of pocket costs but also provide a guaranteed audience?

Gaskin’s opinion is that most such efforts actually are under-subscribed, but “I can give you some good news. There’s a formula, that if you have a thousand fanatic fans, you can make a living as a creative artist, because they will buy your book and proselytize for you.”

However, once the market for one book has become saturated, fans will require the author to keep writing more books. “The more books you have, the more presence you have,” Steen said. “The basic problem is, you have to write the book, and you have to write a good book.”

Wordcraft – Publishing: getting our books out there

It was the Fourth of July, early on a beautiful Saturday morning of a holiday weekend. So why was a room full of people taking a break from the holiday at the monthly meeting of Mystery Writers of America’s Southwest Chapter? We’d come to hear four longtime writers, veterans of the business, talk about the topic dear to all our hearts – getting published.

Fiction writers Sandy Steen, LaRee Bryant and Susan May, and computer how-to guy James Gaskin (who also dabbles in fiction) found most of their audience’s questions were about self-publishing, which was OK, because they’ve gone both ways, self-publishing as well as the traditional variety.

Although audience questions started with how to format books for self-publishing, panel members emphasized that the quality of the writing has to come first. “There’s one thing I see about self-published books,” Steen said, “it’s that there’s a lot of dreck out there. Anything you submit, from a query to a full manuscript, needs to be as clean as possible.”

Bryant, who is a professional editor as well as author, agreed. “If you’re going to do it yourself, you need to be sure you’ve got the aptitude to do it.”

So just hard is it to prepare a book for self-publishing, an audience member asked. Is it worth doing yourself, or is it better to hire someone?

Susan May: “I’m a firm believer from many years in business, that you do yourself what you do well. Otherwise, hire it out.”

That said, the multiple options available for self-publishing, such as CreateSpace, have made the formatting the questioner was concerned with one of the easier parts of publishing. (If in doubt while at the self-publishing site, ask for a guided tour, which will explain the concepts as the author goes along.) Pick a standard font (typeface) such as Times New Roman or Courier, in a 12-14 point size.

Steen prefers Garamond, a family of typefaces, which also have a familiar look for most readers. It, as well as Times New Roman and Courier, are all serif typefaces, meaning they have ornamental extender lines, typically at the bases of letters. An audience member asked about the use of the Arial typeface, a sans serif font. But although sans serifs have what some consider a more modern look, Bryant advised against them, finding that they don’t show up as well on e-readers.

However, panelists recommended checking any unusual typefaces to be sure they are no longer under copyright by their creators. Otherwise, authors may find themselves billed thousands of dollars for use of a copyrighted product. (And about copyrighting your own book? That’s the easy part, panelists agreed. The U.S. Copyright Office charges about $35 for the process.)

“What’s the most popular size for an e-book?” was another audience question.

Mass-market size books, the old ones small enough to fit into a pocket, are going out of style in paper because their pages are more difficult to cut. Again, to keep formatting the same for both paper books and e-books, panelists recommended what’s called “trade” paperback sizes, six inches by nine inches, or 5 ¼ by 8.

Bryant suggested that with the slightly larger 6 x 9 inch size sometimes decreases the number of pages, which in turn may decrease the publishing costs. In no case would any of the panelists recommend trying to scrimp on costs by using smaller typefaces. Bryant would never go smaller than 12 point; May typically uses 13 point.

With self-publishing also comes the need to make decisions about marketing, including how to price your own books. At this point, the discussion took a sharp turn into questions about book promotion, to be continued next Tuesday.