Joshua J. Perkey's Blog

A Long-Overdue Hello

2011-10-06T06:29:00.000-07:00

Hi Folks,

Sorry I've been incognito for a while. It's going to stay that way for the near future, I'm afraid. I'll post occasionally. I have some new duties at my church that have me totally buried. It's a good thing, but very consuming.

So much is happening right now in publishing it's crazy. From Amazon's new Kindle Fire, to the release of the iPhone 4s, Steve Jobs passing away.

One interesting thing: Dave Farland sends out an email on publishing and writing called "Daily Kick in the Pants." I've mentioned it before, even quoted from it. For the next little while he's going to shift the emphasis away from general tips to much more focused writing discussion. He's a master of the craft. I'm excited to see what he comes up with. You can find him easily with a Google search and sign up for free.

Well, hope all is well with you, my fellow writers. I hope you are finding success in your craft and creative ideas with your publishing endeavors. I'll check back in from time to time, and let you know when I'm ready to get back full steam into commenting with you on writing and publishing.

Thanks for your patience!

Josh

Option 3--At Last!

2011-07-25T13:31:00.000-07:00

Okay, Folks. Here, at last, is Option 3. It's loaded with merits and possibilities. And there are a number of people who have seen it work. I'll explain what it is first, describe it's strengths next, and pose some of the pitfalls last.

Option 3: Raise Funds In Advance Through Kickstarter.com

Ever heard of kickstarter.com? It's a website designed to help people raise capital to fund projects of almost any kind. Really, the sky is the limit as long as your project is for profit. I suspect there are legal issues over a non-profit venture.

Research the site and look around a bit. You'll see what I mean about the possibilities. I saw a lady raising money to support her while she paints a room. Others raising money to create apps for iPhones. And, of course, to publish books.

The basic idea is that you explain your project in detail, using a video if your are really serious. You set a target goal, say $3,000, that you need to hit to fund your project. Then you provide incentives to people to provide money for your project. For a $5 donation perhaps you email a thank-you. For $50, a signed copy of your book. Then you market the heck out of your project and direct traffic to your listing at kickstarter. The best part is that no one is obligated until you meet your funding target--they don't provide the cash, and you don't have to give them the product until the goal is met.

The donations provide you the funding before you actually spend the money--or spend a lot of it. My feeling is that you want to get moving as quickly as realistically possible, keeping in mind you need to produce high quality writing, professional artwork for your cover, and professional editing, production, and binding, as well as digital formats.

Here's how I'd do it:
1. Research publishing and selling books on kickstarter.com under Writing and Publishing. You can then limit it to subcategories, such as Children's or fiction. Get an idea of what products hit their target and why. What incentives did they use that worked? Is a quirky attitude good? Is real product beneficial? Why will people like your product?
2. Research the following costs so you can build a credible and realistic plan:
a. Cover art (don't skimp here). Lots of resources are out there for this. I'll discuss what I've researched thus far in a later post.
b. Layout and production for both soft and hard copies
c. Editing (don't skimp here, either)
d. Distribution, whether through an online service, such as createspace.com, or a local production company.

2. Come up with a creative pricing structure for what you will give based on various levels of donations.
3. Determine a Funding Goal that will pay for your costs and provide you with the capital you need without setting it so high that you'll never reach your goal, and thus never get any funding.
4. Once you've pre-sold your books and met your funding target, you end up with a number of additional copies you can either sell yourself through your website, amazon.com, or market to a traditional publisher with a proven track record.
5. Write a really, really good book. First. Before you try and pre-sell it. If you already know about kickstarter, then do this first. If not, go check out the site so you have a goal in mind.

Here are the benefits:
1. First and foremost, you pre-sell your books and wind up with a number of additional printed copies--all paid for. No out of pocket expenses.
2. Remember: this is highly dependent on: finding the right funding goal, creative incentives for donations, quality control on writing/editing/production/art, and good marketing. Do that and you've got a chance.
3. If you set your goal properly, as mentioned in 1 above, you should wind up with books completely paid for that you can sell yourself for full gross profit.
4. This model is not vanity press publishing because you are not out any costs--not in the long run--and you still maintain complete editorial and artistic control.

Negatives:
1. Not many, really, unless you haven't developed a decent marketing strategy or creative incentives. The kickstarter.com website doesn't do much in the way of promotion. You have to do that yourself. Remember, the goal is to be read and to sell books, not just to convince your family and friends to buy them. You haven't created a following if you do that, and that means you aren't going to be able to create a real career out of this.
2. You have to create a solid product first. Not many people want to pay you to learn the craft of writing, but they might be interested in funding the production of a decent product that only lacks the means of production and distribution. You still have to master the craft, so don't go out there and make a bad name and reputation for yourself. I've seen even the most successful authors lose credibility and readers this way.
3. Legacy publishers and new indie publishers still have great power and, if they continue to evolve, will have great power to market and promote you. Do a good job and you may be able to sell to them. Do poorly, and you may not. Still, I'm not sure there's harm here.

So, I've necessarily had to slow down my personal efforts in pursuing this route because of time commitments, but I'm interested in your thoughts. What do you think? What should Option 4 be?

Changes that Change Your Life

2011-07-23T15:21:00.000-07:00

Over the last two weeks I've been sporadic at best in posting. Made a few promises about a post or two I didn't keep, too. You're probably wondering if I'm just flaky, or if something else is going on.

The real excuse is that I've been called as the bishop of my local LDS congregation--just 2 weeks ago. Those of you who understand what this means will probably instantly understand why I've been so inconsistent.

For those of you who don't, this means filling a 25+ hours a week assignment on top of work and family performing the ecclesiastical functions similar to a priest or minister in other churches. Needless to say, it's a bit overwhelming, though extremely gratifying. It's an unpaid position, but one of deep responsibility and mental and spiritual requirements.

So, in addition to being away at scout camp this week, and yes, falling off the face of the planet (it's been too long since I read Douglas Adams--should have kept the flying thing in mind!), I've been a little busy and preoccupied.

But I've recuperated somewhat from camp, and gearing up for Sunday duties is taking its time. But tonight, after many weeks, I'm going on a date with my wife and seeing Harry Potter.

Monday I have a holiday, however. That means I'll have some time early in the morning. That's when I'll tell you what I think about Harry Potter. But more importantly, I'll reveal option 3--and see what you think about it. I finally have enough information to share. What I don't have is the time to actually pursue it--not for a few months, anyway, until the dust settles and I'm more integrated into this huge change in my life.

Until Monday, then.

New Post on Friday

2011-07-18T20:32:00.000-07:00

Hi Folks,

You're probably wondering if I fell off the face of the planet. A flurry of posts for about 3 months, then nothing. Well, you're right!

Suffice it to say that the last two weeks have been a true whirlwind, and tomorrow I'm leaving very early for a four-day camping trip. So things have had to take a back burner.

But, here's a solemn promise. Barring some devastating injury, such as maiming or death by bear--don't laugh too hard, that actually happens in the mountains of Utah from time to time--I'll post option 3 on Friday.

Thanks for your patience!

Until then, best of luck to you on your writing and publishing.

New Thoughts on Option 3 Coming

2011-07-07T06:24:00.000-07:00

Hi Folks,

I've been a little quiet lately--one of the natural repercussions of some serious time commitments in my life over the last week. I see that happen to a lot of writers, and in my opinion, sometimes you just have to take a little time off.

Don't sweat it in your own life. It's not worth feeling guilty over it. Life throws curve balls--and it's all right to swing and miss once in a while. I believe that we create too much anxiety over not producing as quickly as others think we can, or say we can, or we think we are supposed to, when the reality is that life is a journey. We enjoy the journey when we give our best, but also when we accept the limitations inherent in our best.

Do both and you'll find joy in that journey. I guess that's good advice for me, too!

So, watch out for a new post on Option 3 that I promised a few weeks ago. I think I'm ready to provide some interesting ideas on a new platform that may just work.

Dave Farland on e-Publishing

2011-07-02T19:34:00.000-07:00

Dave Farland's most recent Daily Kick in the Pants email post on How to Sell a Million e-Books is so spot on, so detailed, and so awesome, I'm going to repost it here in it's entirety. Dave, I hope you don't mind--all credit goes to you.
Readers, you can sign up for his posts for free at his website, davidfarland.net, which is why I don't feel quite that guilty reposting.

Here it is. Worth more than I can say in this amount of space.

"Every day, sometimes several times a day, I hear from new authors who say, “I’ve decided to publish my book as an e-book. The New York legacy model of publishing is broken, and I’ve got to do something.”
I worry about such authors, of course. There are so many new books coming out from self-published authors that it’s going to be very tough to build an audience. Some authors are trying it and then soon giving up. Their lone e-book sitting on Amazon isn’t much different from a load of self-published books sitting in a garage.
So let me tell you how to do it right. Steel yourself. You may not be prepared for this.
Last year in April, I told you that a new publishing revolution was officially here. It happened in my mind with the sale of the iPad—an e-reader that does far more than let you read. It can be a tool, an entertainment device, even a toy.
The reason that I liked it is that it lets you enjoy stories in any number of formats—as an e-book, an enhanced book, a movie, an audiobook, a videogame, a graphic novel, and so on. The older e-readers were too limiting.
I said that in 2011 we would see the first self-published novelists come along who were genuine millionaire bestsellers. So far this year, we’ve seen two of them reach that height—Amanda Hocking and John Locke.
Many new authors are looking at this and saying, “Maybe I’ll throw a book out there and try to duplicate their success.” That tactic won’t work.
You CAN duplicate their success, and I can tell you how to do it and why it works. Here are some things that these millionaire bestsellers are doing. If you want to duplicate their success, pay attention:
1) Write a series of books. You need to keep readers coming back so that you can build an audience. Generally speaking, this means that you will have either a persistent character/persistent world to the series. But you may also be able to write books of a very similar type (romances) where the emotional draws are consistently the same.
2) Target a wide audience. Right now, thrillers, romance, and young adult novels have a wide enough audience so that you can break out. As more people move to e-readers in the coming two years, I think that you’ll see some authors begin to break out in smaller genres.
3) Get a lot of books up quickly. It generally takes me up to a year to write a book. It never fails that when I get the novel out, I receive fan mails the day after the books release begging to know, “When is the next one coming out?” You have to have “the next one” up and ready to sell within a week or two. (I’m not kidding on this, folks. It may mean that you’ll need to prepare seven or eight novels before you publish even one!)
4) Make the books short. Writing well quickly means that you probably have to write short books. When I write a book that is 200,000 words long, it will take me a year. But I can write a 40,000-word novel in a month and still keep the quality fairly high. (The reason has to do with the complexity of the plotting on longer novels.)
5) Price them cheap. Note that the authors who have succeeded have priced them at 99 cents. No one has gone out yet and self-published a novel at $15 and sold a million copies. No one has done it even at $3. The authors who use this method are trying to build an audience. They’re sacrificing short-term profits in the hopes of building a long-term audience.
If you give your novel away, no one is likely to read it. Why? Because you’ve just told us that your novel has no value.
Years ago, my family had the misfortune of having a litter of extremely ugly kittens. They were all calicos with grisly markings. Their fur was more like bristles than anything else. They were bony creatures, scrappy and altogether unlovely.
One Saturday morning, my wife came to me crying and begged, “Take these kittens up into the hills and put them out of their misery. I’ve gone all through the neighborhood, and no one will take any of them!”
Well, I didn’t want to commit felineocide, especially with kittens, so I came up with a plan. I dressed my daughters—age 6 and 8—up in nice clothes, then had them go down to the supermarket and try to give away the kittens. Now, my daughters were cute, so having them give away the kittens was the equivalent of trying to put a nice cover on a crummy book.
Well, my daughters went out, determined to give away the kittens, but after four hours they came home in tears. No one wanted our ugly cats. You just couldn’t con them into it. You couldn’t beg, whine, or wheedle.
So I wondered, maybe I could get rid of the cats if I suggested that they had a real value? I decided to sell the darned things. At the time, we were thinking of buying a beautiful little kitten for $200. I decided to sell the ugly kittens at a bargain price. On the cutest of them, I put a price tag of $20. Now, you have to understand, the cutest of them was still hideous. It’s uglier kin cost only $10. My daughters went out and SOLD all six kittens within a twenty minutes. As my wife put it, “People crowded around, fighting to buy those ugly kittens.” Why? Because I had the temerity to suggest that they had value.
Don’t let this lesson be lost on you. Charge for your novels.
Now I’m going to tell you a secret. This tactic won’t work on everyone: I won’t read novels that people are giving away. The author is telling me that “This book is such an eyesore, it’s not worth anything.”
In fact, I’m such a snob that I won’t even look at novels priced at 99 cents. You’ve got to raise your prices to convince me that you’ve got anything interesting.
So what’s your price point? I have a friend who runs a small publishing company. He told me last December that he was making about $7,000 per month off of three thriller novels, which he was selling for $10 each. In January he dropped the price to $3 each, and made $18,000—while selling seven times as many books.
Now, there are a lot of people who do buy 99-cent books and who read free books. I’ve read articles by people who say, “After getting my e-reader, I’ve bought 300 books in the past three months, and I only paid $325 for them.” Well, if you’re buying 100 books per month, you’re not really reading them all, are you?
If I sell you a book at that price, the chances are great that you will have wasted your money and I still won’t get a new reader. So I probably don’t want to go that low on my pricing.
Besides, I’m a multiple award-winning New York Times bestselling author. I think my books are worth more than a dollar. I might be willing to buy books for as little as $2.99, so that might be a better entry price for people like me.
But you can’t argue with success. The 99 cent price point is working for some authors. A lot of readers apparently will buy books at that price. So give it a try.
6) Don’t ignore your traditional marketing points: a great cover, strong quotes, an intriguing back copy—all of those traditional incentives are still required to sell your books. And make sure that you market your other works on the back end. Make it easy for the reader to get the next books in the series—just by clicking a button.
7) Last of all, you can do all of that and still fail if you don’t go out and market your books aggressively. This means that you have to do things like “blog,” speak in public, do readings at libraries, get press releases out, talk on the radio, and so on. In some genres, authors spend only 30% of their time writing and 70% marketing. That doesn’t sound like much fun to me, but it’s part of the model.
Now, many of you are going to be reading this and saying, “But, I don’t write books in a series. I don’t write short books. I can’t use this strategy!” You’re right. It won’t work for you.
Even if you follow all of these rules, things are getting tougher. Some conmen are filling Amazon with “spam” books. Very often they’re stealing prose from other authors, cobbling several books together, and then selling it as their own. By doing this, the unwary buyer might read an opening chapter and think, “Wow, this looks great!” But after a bit they discover that they’ve been robbed. The book is a “Frankenstein,” something sewn together from bits and parts of living, breathing works, and then the warmed-over corpse is foisted on the public.
So over the next few months, we’re going to see buyer resistance to self-published works rising. We’re going to see readers looking for more “proof” that a book is good than just the word of a few readers (who might be the con-man’s accomplices posing as readers). This whole 99-cent price point might fail as a pricing strategy.
Given this, there is an alternative plan I find intriguing that just might work for you. I’m going to talk about it in my next installment."

Thanks, Dave. Awesome post.

Concerns about Outright E-Book Fraud

2011-06-28T18:43:00.000-07:00

I'm as excited as the next guy or gal about the possibilities of e-publishing, but I have to admit a new fear: e-book theft.

This is not your run-of-the-mill piracy. That I can handle. There are two major camps on this older issue: 1) Anger over lost revenue because people are sharing your book and not paying you for it; 2) Excitement because it means your book is being read by more people. More people = more fans, and thus more readers and potential buyers for future products.

Yeah, I'm more in camp 2 on this point, and I think it's just an inevitable part of the business.

But I'm talking about something else here entirely, and it scares the heebie-jeebies (sp?) out of me. E-book theft is when someone takes your digital book and reposts it online under their name. In other words, they've stolen your book and selling it as their own.

And it's on the rise. Dave Farland in his Daily Kick yesterday talked about one 'author' who had stolen 350 titles and reposted them as his own e-book.

That's so outrageous it makes me more than angry. It makes me highly anxious over what may happen to the budding industry, to new authors with little clout to go after such thieves, especially in lawless lands like China where US copyright law has no power. Remember when the unauthorized Harry Potter book 7 came out before the official release date? The one with Gandalf in it?

Just in case you think I'm overreacting, read this article on "Spam Clogging Amazon's Kindle Self-publishing."

Scary because we might lose control over our own product, our own revenue, and even our own names.

It's also scary because it will impact how Amazon handles self-pubs. It will impact other sales vehicles, like Smashwords and B&N. And it will eventually, but quickly, impact how we as e-authors want to market and sell our books.

Suddenly I'm wondering if the big publishers won't find their own niche in this new world faster than we thought. If they can find a way to fight this kind of piracy successfully, they will have given themselves an edge they so desperately need.

We'll have to stand fast and find a way to beat these new nemeses.

As for me, I'm still working on option 3--the one I told you about a few posts ago. Don't worry, I'll reveal those plans soon!

J.K. Rowling on the Future of E-Books

2011-06-23T10:43:00.000-07:00

J.K. Rowling just announced that she will provide the Harry Potter books as e-books through her own imprint. She's spent the last 2 years developing a new website that will have the e-books, games, and a whole Harry Potter world.

I find this fascinating. Print books will never die, and I think we must continue to use them as part of our marketing strategy, but e-books just keep gaining traction and power. I think more and more we need to consider the e-world and consider following in J.K. Rowling's footsteps, same as others.

She owns the digital rights to her books and stands to make a killing. Consider this: she doesn't have to pay Amazon.com a penny. So while most of us rush to Amazon to sell our books on the Kindle and earn 35% to 70% royalties, she's going to earn 100% royalties minus fees to pay for the site, which, of course, will be hugely interactive and popular.

The rise of e-books means greater control of product and marketing. That means we all stand to gain from sending people to our own websites and imprints. Of course, most of us will want to continue to use Amazon.com, Smashwords, and the other web portals that have marketing power and clout.

But at the same time, sell them from your own website. Find ways to attract readers there. For example, sell them from your website at a slight discount. If you sell a book for a dollar at Amazon, but only 50 cents at your website, you still earn more from your own site based on Amazon's pricing structure, and you will likely garner more sales from your site that way than you would otherwise. The same concepts, with different numbers, work with books at $2.99 at Amazon versus, say, $2.50 at your site.

You have to keep in mind the power of high sales at Amazon and consider what sending sales to your site means. Perhaps your site is interactive, engaging, and interesting, and the sales there are mostly part of your offering to fans--ease of purchase and pricing, etc., while you still promote Amazon.

No one has the clout of J.K. Rowling, the kind of clout where you can sell exclusively through your own site. But that should be a central part of your arsenal.

Story Structure, Character Structure

2011-06-21T16:30:00.000-07:00

The past two weeks I've taken off from writing and planning book two in the Lizzie Peterson saga. In part that's because I just needed a break from editing, in part because I was deep into writing several articles for my day job as a writer and editor, and in part because I'm doing some serious research into story structure. Oh, and into publishing, but that's a different post.

I've been studying Larry Brooks' book, Story Engineering: Mastering the 6 Core Competencies of Successful Writing. You can see the cover to the right.

Larry has some very inventive ideas about what makes up a story, character, theme, conflict, concept, and structure. It's got me thinking and rethinking and thinking some more. That's the danger with doing too much research into how to craft stories! ;-)

So, combine this with Dan Wells' presentation at BYU's LTUE symposium two years ago, and you have two very nice approaches to the craft of story. Add Katherine Farmer's research on characters (no direct link to her, but a summary at my friend, Matt Tandy's blog), and you have several key concepts to consider when writing.

What I like about Larry's book, especially when I incorporate my own ideas and others' on story, is that it has the potential to make writing much, much more efficient, powerful, and engaging on all levels.

I'm naturally gifted at plot and dialogue, but I struggle a bit with character (except strong female characters, interestingly enough) and theme.

Now, I'm beginning to see how to see, delve into, and craft an entire world story before I even begin to type it. It's a fascinating journey.

So, if you are interested in really improving your craft, I recommend studying (not reading) Larry's book, watching Dan's presentation a few times, and finding someone who can share with you Katherine's methods (I don't want to give too much because she's writing a book on it and that might preempt her. But if you want to get together sometime, I can teach you what I know.)

What you need to understand is that story is structure, as Tracy Hickman and so many have told me. I've blundered my way through enough free writing and enough outlines to story that still lacked something that I've realized there is a deep, compelling need for a story to work on multiple levels.

The master writer, the truly gifted writer, I believe, is gifted not because she just intrinsically knows all this, but because she learns the craft so deeply that she can apply it and exercise it and manipulate it in the creation of the story. And that means fewer revisions, better stories that people want to read, and greater success as a writer.

That's a fantastic goal.

E-Publish or National Publish? I'll Take Option 3

2011-06-18T15:22:00.000-07:00

Two weeks ago, my wife and I spent about 20 minutes in Barnes and Noble, wiling away some time before meeting others for dinner. She had some things to find; I was doing research.

I wanted to find current middle grade and young adult fantasy books that target my current audience. I had two goals: 1. See what is currently competing successfully for market share; 2. Cover analysis.

It took me a while. Things have changed in Barnes and Noble in the last year. I did manage to find a display table toward the back of the store that had plenty to review, but I also noticed that there wasn't quite the selection I had wanted. There were too many nicknacks and doodads.

Still, I didn't think much of it until a conversation with Tracy Hickman this week in which he commented on the same thing. He said that Barnes and Noble, in an attempt to reinvent itself, is becoming a nicknack store as much as anything.

Then there was this interesting post by Kristine Kathryn Rusch: The Business Rusch: Bookstore Observations.

She makes essentially the same observation, only the implications are worse than I had considered. Her conservative estimate is that over the last 10 months (between visits to a B&N) 20% of shelf space has disappeared. But it might be as high as 30%, replaced by the nicknacks, fewer shelves, books placed face out instead of spine out, and much more physical space devoted to Nooks. The result is that there is a lot less room for new authors, older titles by current authors, and even back list by the major hitters.

Sure, more space for Nooks might help sales, despite the irony, but it means less space for physical books.

Woah.

Yeah. Makes me think long and hard about what I want out of a national publisher, or even if I want one. I mean, if I did manage to gain an agent, and then gain a national publisher, and did accept the likely paltry 4 digit advance with no advertising dollars, where would they place the book? Who would find it? How would they sell it?

People aren't browsing in Barnes and Noble like they used to, and the store isn't even catering to that clientele like they did even a year ago.

On the other hand, e-publishing still requires a readership and a target audience of some size. There are some challenges for newbie writers. Even after footing the bill for a professional, market-quality cover (for middle grade fantasy, the market demands art, and that can run $3,000 or more), editing, page layout, and more, I may not have enough e-readers to make a difference or to sell to.

And, my marketing plan needs to get really ramped up to make inroads into buyers.

These are challenges we all face.

So what's the next best option if national publishing isn't going to happen, and e-publishing on its own, even with a POD hard copy available through a source like Createspace.com?

I believe the answer lies somewhere else. One possible solution is a subscription-based serial version of my product.

But I'm not so sure that would work for this age audience. I think they need the benefit of the entire product. Or rather, that's what they will want, whether as a hard copy or e-version.

Option 3? Well, it's a highly unusual venture, something I'd not thought about at all until talking it over with my guru.

I'm not quite ready to tell you what it is--I need a couple of weeks of research and strategic planning to see how viable it is. But I think I may have just found an opportunity that will change the current field. Revolutionary? Yes, and no, and perhaps not a permanent solution, either. But it might be the silver lining I've been looking for--and if it works for me, it should work for you.

New Post on Publishing Possibilities Coming

2011-06-15T11:45:00.000-07:00

Hi Folks,

I've been derailed from posting for a few days due to recovery from the flu last week. Nevertheless, I'll be back with a more detailed post in the next 2 days. I've had a great conversation with Tracy Hickman, which has reinvigorated my thoughts about the Indie publishing world. Still heavily invested in the national scene, but I've made some new in-roads elsewhere I'll share in the upcoming post.

For now, thank you to all you new followers! And thanks for those leaving comments on Lisa Mangum's interview. She's quite the fantastic author, editor, and person. Good for you to meet her.

Okay, folks, all for now.

Fantastic Author Friday: Lisa Mangum

2011-06-10T07:00:00.000-07:00

Hi Folks,

We have an incredible interview for you today: Lisa Mangum, author of the Hourglass Door trilogy. Lisa's books have won ForeWord YA book of the year, and have already established quite a following. Placement alongside Stephanie Meyer books at Wal-Mart can't hurt! Lisa's 3rd book, The Forgotten Locket, is now available.

Joshua: So, Lisa, we're glad to have you here. Please tell us a little bit about yourself.

Lisa: I suppose I could just copy and paste my official author bio that appears on my books, but that seems like cheating. So here are a few things about me that you may or may not already know. I’m a book lover, and I’m an editor for a publishing company. My first paying job was at a library, but I quit at the end of the summer because I couldn’t handle the fact that people kept bringing the books back. I don’t wear high heels. I don’t like seafood. I love using different colored paper clips when I’m working on a project. And, oh, yes one of my back molars is reversed, which my dentist says makes me super cool.

Joshua: What was your journey of discovery in becoming a writer?

Lisa: I grew up with books and stories, and so maybe it was natural that I grew up wanting to be a writer. But I’ll be honest, when I was a teenager, I lost that surety that burned so bright when I was a child, and I started believing that I wasn’t good enough to be a writer. But I knew I still loved books, so I turned my attention to editing. I graduated from the University of Utah with a degree in English and started working as an editorial assistant for a publishing company. I wrote—a little—but not seriously. And then, about five years ago or so, my friends and I started a writing group and that reignited my passion for writing. It was like the floodgates opened and I was filled with all kinds of ideas. Before I knew it, I had written (and published) three books in three years, and I’ve never looked back since.

Joshua: Tells us about the Hourglass Door trilogy. [This links to a sweet book trailer]

Lisa: HourglassDoor is a YA love story with a mystery that dates back to Leonardo da Vinci. It has some great drama and suspense, but at the heart, it’s a love story between Abby and Dante.

In book one, TheHourglass Door, Abby is a senior in high school when she meets Dante, a foreign exchange student from Italy. Dante is guarding a secret that dates back to Leonardo da Vinci’s day. And the closer Abby and Dante grow in a relationship—and the closer Abby comes to learning the truth—the more danger her life is in. Dante has been sent through a time machine built by da Vinci, but he’s not the only one who came through the hourglass door, and he’s not the only one with a reason to go back.

Book two, The GoldenSpiral, and book three, The Forgotten Locket, continue the story of Abby and Dante as they work together to stop Zo from destroying the river of time.

Joshua: How did you come up with the idea?

Lisa: I was actually working on an epic fantasy story before I started work on The Hourglass Door. I was on my way to a writing conference for YA authors one evening after work and I thought to myself, What would I write, if I was going to write a young adult book? I knew it would be a love story, and I knew it would have a touch of fantasy, and I knew it would be a trilogy. I was thinking about Dante’s epic poem, The Divine Comedy, which has a great love story woven throughout it, and it was like Abby and Dante just jumped in the car with me. By the time I got to the conference, I knew where book 1 would end, where book 2 would end, where book 3 would start, along with character names and some key scenes and even some plot twists. After that, it was just a matter of getting it all down on paper and writing the story.

Joshua: As I recall, writing the third book in the trilogy was a labor of love. Tell us about that.

Lisa: It’s true. Book three was the hardest book to write in the trilogy. Part of it was because, up until then, I could always so, “Oh, I’ll figure it out later.” Well, now there was no later, and I had to figure it out now. Plus, it was the end of the whole story so I wanted to make sure I stayed true to the characters and provided them (and my readers) with a satisfying ending.

I also felt a lot of pressure to meet my deadlines in writing book, and it took a lot of time to outline the story and make sure the plot was just right. I ended up writing 40,000 words in 10 days. Then chucking most of them out the window and writing another 40,000 words in another 10 days. It was a marathon experience for me, and perhaps the best thing I learned from it is that I can rise to the challenge and succeed. That was a good thing for me to learn about myself.

Joshua: Where are some of your upcoming signings where we can meet you?

Lisa: All my tour information is on LisaMangum.com; I try to keep it up-to-date. This summer, I’ll be all over Utah, as well as spending some weekends in Seattle, Arizona, Idaho, and California. It’ll be a busy few months!

Joshua: Any suggestions for aspiring writers?

Lisa: At the Book Festival on June 4^th, my friend and fellow author Rick Walton shared this bit of advice, which I am shamelessly stealing and quoting here: “Give up. And if you can’t, do the work.” I just love that idea. Writing is hard and time consuming and sometimes frustrating. It’s easy to give up when writer’s block hits, or when you get a bad review. But if you can’t give up—if there is something inside you that won’t let you give up—then you have to do the work. And it’s the writers who do the work who are the writers who find success.

Joshua: What do you think about the changing publishing market?

Lisa: I think there will always be stories. How those stories are told, however, might change. It’s true that e-publishing is on the rise and digital is here to stay, but at the same time, I don’t think that means traditional books are going away either. I believe the marketplace is wide enough and strong enough to support both digital books and traditional print books. There are benefits and drawbacks to both, but in the end, they both have the same goal: to transmit the story from the author to the reader. And that is a kind of magic worth preserving.

The Forgotten Locket is available now, and can be purchased online at Deseretbook.com, Amazon.com, BN.com, as well as at in bookstores nationwide. You can find me on Facebook or at LisaMangum.com.

Author Interview: Joseph Vasicek

2011-06-08T20:58:00.000-07:00

Hi Friends,

I have another author to introduce to you today. His name is Joseph Vasicek, a young writer minted from BYU. The current book he's promoting is called Genesis Earth.

Ok, some of you may not think BYU is a significant credential. But consider the number of amazingly successful authors, some of them New York Times bestsellers, who either studied or taught at BYU. Here's a few you might know:

Brandon Sanderson, Dan Wells, Stephanie Meyer, David Farland aka Wolverton, and the list goes on. And that's just for genre fiction, too.

Of course, a number of you and I are trying to do get on that list ourselves!

But enough about us and BYU. Let's showcase Joe. He's a very bright, creative, and entrepreneurial fellow. In fact, he's launched heavily into the e-publishing world. In a few weeks we'll have Joe back to talk about those endeavors. But today, I'm hosting Joe as a guest blogger to talk about what's important to him. Take it away, Joe.

Why I Love Science Fiction

When I saw Star Wars: Episode IV for the first time, I promptly fell in love with science fiction. What seven year old boy wouldn't? For hours afterward, I ran around my house and backyard making starfighter sounds and pretending like I was flying an x-wing.

When I read A Wrinkle in Time one year later, however, my infatuation with the genre quickly turned into a lifelong love. It may have been the concept of fifth-dimensional travel, or riding on a centaur to an alien planet, or perhaps the idea of fighting against a hive-mind bent on absorbing and crushing all individuality in the universe, but I either way I knew I'd discovered my passion: science fiction.

At the city library, I read every Star Wars book I could get my hand on. Timothy Zahn, Kevin J. Anderson, Dave Wolverton, Roger Allen McBride--I read them all. When Jurassic Park came out, I read the book six times before I started middle school. I spent a summer obsessed with the Tripod series, and when I discovered Ender's Game, I finished it at a breathless sprint at 3:00 am the morning after checking it out from the library.

It wasn't just science fiction that entranced me. After finishing Jurassic Park for the sixth time, I devoured every Michael Crichton thriller I could get my hands on. The Chronicles of Prydain hold a special place in my heart, as do J.R.R. Tolkien and David Gemmell. To this day, The Neverending Story is my favorite work of fiction, and probably will be to the day I die. I even enjoyed Jayne Eyre, Pride and Prejudice, and Emma, though I was much older when I discovered them.

But no matter where I wander, I always come back to science fiction. Why?

Part of it probably has to do with the fantastic, otherworldly nature of the genre. C.J. Cherryh makes me wish I had my own spaceship, while Alastair Reynolds freaks me out with alien ruins and cyborg melding plagues. In that sense, escapism has something to do with it, but not entirely. Fantasy takes us away from reality, whereas science fiction presents us a world of possibilities. I loved Xenocide precisely because the philotic web makes so much sense, I still believe that it could be real.

More than anything, though, I keep coming back to science fiction because of its deep capacity for thoughtfulness. I considered myself a free market capitalist, until Ursula K. Le Guin's The Dispossessed nearly convinced me to become an anarchist. A Canticle for Leibowitz gave me a deeper respect for Catholicism and a stronger sense of brotherhood with my fellow Christians than any other book I've read. Ender's Shadow taught me what it means to be a leader, while Robert Charles Wilson's Spin and Arthur C. Clarke's 2001: A Space Odyssey made me spend hours pondering the fate of the universe.

The most thoughtful science fiction always explores what it means to be human. Consequently, the best works focus on character, perhaps more than in any other genre. When the universe itself is so strange as to be unrecognizable, the only things that can keep a reader grounded are fleshed out, believable characters. Whether it's Jane from Speaker for the Dead, Angelo Osic from On My Way to Paradise, Shevek from The Dispossessed, or Tyler Dupree from Spin, I know I've read a good book when I feel like I've come to know someone deeper than I know my own friends.

I love science fiction, not just as a reader, but also as a writer. When I read A Wrinkle in Time all those years ago, I fell in love with the genre because I knew that that was my destiny. I can't explain how or why, but I just knew it, and I've been writing ever since. And if I can write books that inspire my readers just as the best of these books have inspired me, I'd consider myself a success.

Because the best science fiction doesn't just take us somewhere new and alien--it helps us better understand and love the people in the world around us. And as a writer, that is a worthy goal to shoot for.

Josh: Thanks, Joe! Great post, and great to know you a little better. We look forward to your advice on the e-Publishing world. In case you missed it, Joe's website is One Thousand and One Parsecs, and his e-book, Genesis Earth, is available at Amazon.com. Take a peek and let us know what you think.