Titles and Book Covers

Covers, it turns out, are extremely important. One rule of book self- or independent publishing is to have the cover done professionally. A while back our library branch had a display of what the librarians called great books with lousy covers. These were books they felt were good reads, but because of mediocre book covers, they hadn’t sold well or were rarely checked out from the library.

Amazing how much we go for a book based on its cover in spite of the old saying. Thus the advice, don’t be chintzy with your cover.

On my current book project, I’m ignoring that advice and going with the cheapest graphic designer I can find. But I don’t believe I am sacrificing quality, not one bit. My son, Stephen, a college freshman, is working on the book cover for the project titled “Nite”. (See my last posting in this blog on that subject.) We’ve got a great idea and he is making it look very good.

I was going to title the book “Nite Shift” until I read that you shouldn’t use such non-standard spellings in your title – confuses people when they go looking for your book. Another problem is that Stephen King is one of several authors with a book out by the title of “Night Shift.” Then I decided to use the title “Night Crossing”, shifting away from “Shift” for reasons just given, until a friend and peer reviewer wrote that he really liked the title of “Nite Shift” – and I realized so do I. So for now, I’m still using the working title of “Nite” while I wrestle which way to go.

I’m getting closer on the subtitle. Originally I was going with something like “Agents on a Mission of Grace from an Alien Race” until I got sufficient reaction from my peer reviewers to drop that “cutsy” title. Cutsy is definitely out these days. Now I’m settling on a subtitle that echoes the book’s three major subsections: “A Mission to Cross Borders in the Dark.”

The first section of the book will talk about what our mission is as Believers, a straightforward look at what it means to be agents of blessing in a cursed world. In the middle section, I deal with the idea that we as Believers are all cross-cultural agents. Called to leave our own cultures – be it a certain socio-ethnic category of human culture or simply the culture of Christian faith – we cross borders to bless others with the Good News. Then in the third and final section, the “Night” or “Dark” emphasis comes into focus, that we are more often than not called to take the good news cross culturally in ways that are not so overt or obvious to the observer.

Recently a local pastor called on his congregation to go door-to-door in the neighborhood of the church’s physical plant. The goal was to place notices on the doors of each home. Happens to be a largely upper crusty, fairly liberal, somewhat Jewish neighborhood (the church’s nearest neighbor is a sizeable synagogue) where door-to-door canvassing disappeared a generation ago with the Fuller Brush man.

We don’t need to hide that we are Christians in this neighborhood. They are not that antagonistic. But they aren’t likely to come to a church service because someone was spreading useless paper around in an area that is quite concerned about its environment. Better to find ways to connect with the neighbors themselves and build relationships, a process much slower but perhaps much more fruitful in the long run. Thus the clean up day at the church’s other neighbor, a middle school, was a much better witness.

I talk about these kinds of issues in this new book. How we as Believers are called to be effective rather than efficient in our communication of the Good News. This is not about being seeker friendly. Nor is it about hiding who we are. It is about understanding at a far more fundamental level what God is really wanting to communicate concerning his love to a lost and dying world – and then following God’s pattern. After all, Jesus spent 30 years living among them for their sake before finally revealing what exactly he had come to do.

Sometimes a subtle approach is required by law. Always a thoughtful, culturally tuned approach is dictated by God. If you don’t speak the right language, who will understand?

Catchin' Up!

Without explaining the whys and wherefores, it's been a while since I've posted on my writing progress. So in a quick shot, let me bring you up to date. I've been working on several projects the past couple of years. One in particular is the project I have given the working title of "Nite". (I like one-word headings for my working titles.)

"Nite" is the culmination of 30 years of reflection, research and work. By saying that, I do not mean it is a memoir. I mean that what is getting onto the paper is a distillation of input and output over an extended period of time.

I finished the rough draft not too long ago and have been working it through several revisions. It appears that now is not a good time for the publishing industry -- unless you are a name or have connections. I am or have neither. And I'm not sure that is the direction I am to go.

In recent years, getting your own book published has moved from the level of "vanity" (isn't all publishing a form of vanity anyway?) to another segment of acceptable publishing. Recent advances in technology and the whole internet-computer transformation of the publishing industry have radically altered the writing, printing and marketing world. And that revolution is not over yet. Some bemoan this transformation in the time-honored manner in which all changes are bemoaned. I, for one, love both the changes and my dusty traditional books, though I must say I am having a hard time knowing what to do with all my papyrus scrolls.

So I am catching up on this brave new world and have launched a new publishing name: Fanno Creek Press. The first book will be the completed version of this project called "Nite" and we hope to have it out by the end of the year.

Right now it is in an extensive editing phase. Not me. No one does an honest job of editing their own work. "Not that phrase. I spent days on those words. If you take that out, the whole manuscript is ruined." You get the idea. So there are others doing the dirty work and I will blast them into infamy in my "Acknowledgments" section when the book comes off the presses.

My goal (notice that is not the same as a promise or a commitment) is to update you in this blog on a regular basis, let's say at least once a month, or more often when I really have something to say. Or if not, just because I feel like it.

Rewrites

A straight out rejection is not a very pleasant thing to receive, whether by email or snail mail. Either way it is the pits. Even if they add a few nice words, which they don’t always do. (OK, no answer at all is worse.)

But if the reply is not going to be a full acceptance of what you’ve written, then a request to rewrite is a welcome gift. A couple weeks ago, I heard from one periodical, one that pays no less. They couldn’t use a piece I had submitted as written, but since they really liked what I had to say, they were wondering if I would rewrite it to fit their style – and they gave me specific pointers to do just that.

So this week I worked on reworking that piece according to what their contributing editor had instructed and last night sent it back to him, with my sincere thanks. I’m looking to be a repeat contributor, so if I can figure out how to sell articles to this publication, I’m game to do it.

I’ve had a book proposal “out there” bouncing around in the publishing stratosphere the past few weeks. I keep hoping for an agent, but missional books (as this one is) are not the kind of material agents are looking to represent. They don’t sell well and only certain publishers want them.

I’d almost given up on the proposal when a friend wrote back to say they’d passed it on to someone else who had sent it to a certain publisher. Now I’m pretty excited that they think enough of what I’ve written to send it on with their stamp of approval. But I’m also not naïve and I know the likelihood of rejection is high. It comes with the territory. Baseball batters do well to make a hit 3 out of 10 times and writers tend to have an even more dismal record.

So today I’m going to take a fresh look at that proposal, rework it and send it on to still another publisher, one that does a lot of missional books though it is not easy getting your foot in the door at that company. But then I figure it is worth a try. We’ll see what happens. Meanwhile, I have yet another proposal I’m working on for a different kind of book…

One thing I learned in graduate school, no paper is ever perfect and so you can always do one more rewrite. At some point, you call it quits and send the blasted thing in. But it is never finished until it’s been accepted by a publisher or a professor – and then you can always drag it out years later and rewrite it again!

My first rejections

It’s a sign of arrival, I guess. I’ve gotten my first rejection notices. Months ago I set out to write. I knew I could write, but could I write well enough to get people to publish and buy what I write?

The first test was to see if I could produce. So I set goals, like so many words a day or a steady clip of disciplined writing so I could prove to myself I have what it takes. And I passed the test.

The second test was to see if I could write a book. They say that for non-fiction you should only write the first three chapters and a book proposal (which is a production in itself). This is what you send to agents and publishers and if they like what they see, then you write the book. But I had to prove to myself that I could actually write book length. OK, I did that decades ago with my dissertation, but somehow this felt different. (I “only” had to sell my dissertation committee, not the publishing world.) A month ago I passed that test. I finished a book length manuscript (some 80,000 words).

The third test is to see if I can sell what I write. I’m tackling it on two fronts – trying to “sell” the book proposal for the manuscript to a book publisher and trying to sell shorter articles (500-2,500 words) to magazines and journals.

I sent out what are called query letters ages ago. They were more like the second bird that flew out of Noah’s ark – they didn’t come back. I needed something to come back, even if it was a rejection, just so I would know that a live human being actually saw what I sent and thought enough to express an opinion on it. Well, I’ve had responses the past couple of weeks. Including the much-feared rejection notice “Sorry your writing is not what we are looking for.” Well, what ARE you looking for? I’ll grovel; just send me something to copy!

But it was a rejection slip (actually more than one). And there was another – “you’ll hear from us in a few weeks.” So I am on my way. Like itinerating to go overseas, it takes a lot of rejections to land a live acceptance. I’m getting the rejections out of the way and learning to keep my ego intact as I do.

Now for the sale…

The Writer's Food

Every writer aspires to write what he or she really thinks and feels. Every writer aspires to eat. This is the crux of the writer’s dilemma. Crux. Comes from the word “cross”. Two lines intersecting and where they cross – where they meet – is the optimum spot to be. Being able to write what you really want to say and having it sell well enough so you can eat and live, that is the writer’s dream.

There is that other meaning of the word “cross”, the real meaning behind all those ornate, pretty symbols in churches – the Roman pre-electric chair, the cross you have to bear. This is when you realize, as a writer, you can’t eat what you want to write. It doesn’t sell. So do you sell your soul to preserve your body? Or do you let your flesh die to preserve your soul?

Ironic that your writer’s voice needs your body in order to speak and be heard. If you have a thought and no one else hears it, does the thought really exist?

Maybe you just write like mad to sell hoping that someday you can write to feel. But will you ever really sell if you don’t feel? So you keep looking for the crux of the matter, that place where your soul speaks to enough other souls that they are willing to pay to hear your thoughts.

Whatever I do, I conclude, I must never sell my soul or I’ll have no soul left to share. Then it comes to me that what I feel – the soul of my writing – is a line, a continuum, not merely a dot. And because I am human, I will someday find that intersect with the continuum of other souls, kindred spirits they have been called. I just pray it happens before I die.

So this blog may not mean much to my readers. That’s ok, because today I’m writing solely to express my soul and not worrying about whether it sells (the literary benefit of blogging). Ah, that felt good.

Now, how do I eat?

Suspended Fingers

Research and writing are not what they were in the good old days when I was in graduate school. “Way back when” I’d search through the wooden library card catalog finger-scanning by author, title and subject, look through shelves for books to see if they really were the ones I wanted, or skim the periodical listings for dated magazine articles. We did have a limited form of low-tech networking beyond our own library through the inter-library loan service, as long as you had weeks to kill. Our advance forms of technology in those days were the archival microfilm and microfiche collections.

I still remember the frantic night when I’d been up for 36 hours rushing to finish my master’s thesis and I felt a sudden panic with a whole mess of pages cut and pasted or cut and scattered on the floor and wondering what on earth I had done. I crashed into a fitful sleep only to awaken realizing I had not, in fact, messed up the mess. I went over to the Methodist Student Center to type the final version on Billy Mack Patteson’s awesome IBM Selectric (with the changeable type balls). Later I finished up at Baylor University’s copy center to print off x number of copies for the professors.

Now all the above can be done on my computer from my office just off my bedroom. From my desk or my stuffed rocking chair, I search the internet to verify quotes, put library books on hold to be picked up later, order used books from a zillion book stores to be mailed directly to me via Amazon or held for me locally at Powell’s. I “cut” and “paste” and print x number of copies without my fingers ever leaving the keyboard of my laptop. I can even send copies just about anywhere in the world simply by clicking the “send” button on the screen.

But one thing has not changed. It takes discipline to write. Inspiration comes and goes. Some days it never even shows up. Only the will to write puts ideas into words, words into sentences, sentences into paragraphs, and paragraphs into articles and books.

I remember one of my professors saying that it is not necessarily the smartest or most gifted students who wind up with the “Dr.” in front of their names. But it is always the most persistent ones.

I don’t know how disciplined or persistent I am – probably a mixed bag like everyone else. (Watch me watch my grass grow when financial reports are due.) But I know this – unless you set a time to write and then stick to it, nothing gets written down. When it comes to writing, inspiration is found in suspended fingers.

"They" say

“They” say you need to blog about your writing. So today I start. I began writing in earnest months ago. Gradually I’m refining my plan and my methods. Two weeks ago I finished the rough draft on my first book with the working title of “Nite Shift” and this week sent it to what I call my Beta Readers. I have found a consultant to help guide me as I prepare a query and book proposal for a literary agent. An author friend has offered to pass this manuscript on to her literary agent.

“They” say that with non-fiction, you only send the first three chapters with the book proposal. If the agent and/or publisher like what they see, they’ll ask for more. Guaranteed they’ll make some recommendations on your content. Since this is to be my first published book, I decided to write the whole thing up front to see how it works. Whatever they don’t want in this book, I’ll save for the future.

“They” say you should have more than one major project going at a time. Which I do. I already have a publisher interested in another book: a seminary wants to publish my doctoral dissertation – as is – except that I’ll write a new introduction. I plan to finish the intro and send off the entire manuscript shortly. I’m also starting to write a narrative nonfiction on living for a decade in a city that grew up on our watch. There are several other book ideas brewing around in my head – all in various concept and research stages.

“They” say you need to set up a website and make your presence felt in other ways in magazines, journals and the internet. Working on all that, too. A local web/graphic designer, Jon Haarstad (jhaasdesign.com) is putting together my website, on which I’ll post this writing blog. And I’ve launched several other focus blogs including www.hnktrailhiker.blogspot.com on personal life and interests, www.hnkjourney.blogspot.com on issues of faith and action, and one on learning to live on the edge (when life pushes you to the brink) at www.squidoo.com/ontheedge. Plus the family and I are launching a commentary and review blog on books, movies, music, culture and society, and modern life at www.k6review.blogspot.com.

“They” say you should set daily goals of how many words you write, not how much time you spend writing. So on days when I am doing a rough draft, I set a goal of so many words – a goal “they” say is a good one. Amazing how that goal helps in overcoming writer’s block. The secret, “they” say, is not taking time to go back and correct or change – save that for later. Don’t interrupt your flow.

So who are the “they”? Well, “they” say you should keep your blog postings to about 500 words (I’m at 465 now), so we’ll save that answer for another day.