Agents Looking for Writers

Looking for an agent? If so, you’ve probably begun to think that agents right now are hunkered down trying to wait out the bad economy. There are, however, some who are looking for writers and their manuscripts.

Writer’s Digest is offering a list of 24 Agents Who Want Your Work.

The article lists each agency, the address, email addresses, their interests, what they’re actively seeking, what they don’t want, recent sales, tips and how to contact them.

If you’re looking for an agent or will be soon, click over and check out the list.

Free-Download Publications

For those who, like me, have never published an e-book or given away a free downloadable publication, the New Jersey Business News has some tips. In the article, they’re primarily talking about those “relatively brief, pamphlet-like "books" distributed online.” In other words, these “e-books” are in PDF form for reading on your computer. A lot of companies and individual entrepreneurs use these as marketing devices - as do some writers.

The article says, “…e-books can be a terrific way to gain attention. If you can produce something that’s actually worth reading, and your readers find it useful — and share it via e-mail and Twitter — then you’ve got a chance to forge a genuine connection with the reader.” In this case, your goal is not to make money on these downloadable publications. It’s to get recognition.

The article then goes on to give some tips, like:

As for converting your document to a PDF, you can do that with a free trial from Adobe (createpdf.adobe.com).

Another tip they mention and I would emphasize is editing. Even though you’re giving away content for free, it must be the best it can be. It represents you and your writing. Putting unedited or poorly edited material out, even if it is free, won’t draw people in to buy your books.

Book Review: Consent to Kill

Today, I’m talking about another book in Vince Flynn’s Mitch Rapp series. This one is called Consent to Kill. If you’ve been reading my reviews of this series, then you know Mitch Rapp is the government’s top assassin. He can go undercover into just about any country and take out the bad guy. He is even called upon to take out terrorists within the U.S.

In this book, he’s the target. The father of one of those bad guys that he killed has put a price on Rapp’s head -- a price so high that another big-time assassin has accepted the job, and Rapp has no idea he’s being hunted.

This book offers a twist in the series. Rapp is now the hunted and he comes to see what his targets go through. I liked reading this new angle.

Consent to Kill, like the others in the series, has plenty of action, intrigue, and details on weaponry, politics, and supporting characters. You could pick it up and read it, even if you’ve not read any others in the series, but I think it would be good to read the earlier books before this one, to get the full impact of what happens in this book. This one, in addition, had character growth. Rapp is changed by the end of the book.
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FTC Disclaimer: I was paid nothing to write this review. I bought the book myself and read it myself. I would donate the book, but after my husband read it and carried it crammed in his briefcase through various airports and hotels, it’s in rather ragged shape. It’s still readable, but would probably be like one of those sad little licked-on lollipops in the candy store that no one wants to touch, let alone buy. It would still taste good, though. The book, not the lollipop. I've read used books, but have not eaten already-licked-on lollipops, at least, not in a long time.

Author Julie Lomoe

Today, we welcome Julie Lomoe, author of two mystery novels, Mood Swing: The Bipolar Murders (2006) and Eldercide (2008). Lomoe has been named 2009 Author of the Year by the Friends of the Albany Public Library. The library chose her especially for her novel Eldercide, because of its relevance to current issues surrounding health care reform and our nation’s treatment of the elderly and of end-of-life issues. The award has been given for decades, but this is the first time the committee has chosen a self-published rather than a traditionally published book.

Julie Lomoe knows home health care from the ground up. As President of ElderSource, Inc., a Licensed Home Care Services Agency in upstate New York, she became certified as a Personal Care Aide.

Welcome, Julie.

When you’re feeling creative, how crazy is too crazy?

Since early adolescence, I’ve been fascinated by the fine line between creativity and madness, and the life stories of artists and writers who suffered from mental illness. At 13, when I took up painting and jazz piano, I was intrigued to learn the great bebop pianist Bud Powell was schizophrenic. I barely knew what the word meant, but it sounded romantic, and I thought his illness contributed to the brilliance of his intense, driven style in compositions like “Un Poco Loco.”

When it comes to artistic creativity, is being “a little crazy” an asset or a liability? The question has been the subject of endless speculation. Would Van Gogh have been as great if he’d been totally sane? What about Robert Schumann or Virginia Wolfe? I’m not sure, but in my own case, being a bit over the top has probably helped. At any rate, my experiences with bipolar disorder inspired my first novel, Mood Swing: The Bipolar Murders.

I came by the diagnosis atypically late, in my early 50’s. I was running ElderSource, Inc., a Licensed Home Care Services Agency, and the work was unbelievably stressful. A shrink prescribed Zoloft, and the effect was amazing. Within a couple of weeks, I felt better than I had in years, ready to take on the world. A few more weeks, and I totally flipped.

It began harmlessly enough. I spent more and more time in my office behind closed doors, writing on my computer. My mind was flooded with inspirations I simply had to get down on paper before they escaped. What’s wrong with that, you ask? Nothing, if you’re a writer – but I was supposed to be running an agency. My memos got longer and longer, then turned into voluminous essays, including one about my father’s brilliance as Managing Editor of the Milwaukee Journal during the McCarthy era. Staff in the office were worried, but I blew them off – I’d never felt better, and I knew what I was writing was of supreme importance.

In early December, I devised a plan to revitalize the economy of the Hudson Valley through a multimedia art show which I would carry out with the assistance of the President of Bard College, Robert Rauschenberg (my favorite artist), and various other luminaries. Soon I was on the phone to Bard, trying to schedule an appointment. I locked myself into my office long past midnight, called the New York Times, and tried to convince some lone reporter on the night shift that they should run a front-page story about my plans, my father and his achievements. A sympathetic listener, he diplomatically suggested that my story might be better suited to the Milwaukee Journal. When I called the police rather than let my husband into the office, things were way over the top.

I narrowly escaped hospitalization. Somehow my husband got me to the shrink, who prescribed heavy medications to tamp down what I came to understand was an acute manic episode. I spent a week at home, prone on the sofa catching up on sleep and watching endless videos, waiting for the lithium to kick in. (I remember especially loving a documentary on Sting, U-2’s “Rattle and Hum” concert, and Robert Downey Jr. as Charlie Chaplin.) Within two weeks, I was back running ElderSource, but on a new medication regimen and with a newly heightened awareness of just how fragile mental health can be.

Was I manic depressive all along? I don’t know, but I’ve now got an official diagnosis of Bipolar Disorder I, and I’ll probably be on medications for the rest of my life, although the dosage is minimal now. Fortunately, being bipolar seems to be trendy. When I talk about Mood Swing at panels and signings, people from the audience invariably approach me to confide that they or close friends or family members are bipolar. But too often they tell me they’ve kept the information secret for fear of repercussions from the stigma that still surrounds mental illness.

So is being “un poco loco” good for creativity? Maybe, when it’s under control. These days, that control is possible through advances in psychopharmacology. Hypomania – the state of mind that falls just short of full-blown mania – can be a wonderfully productive state for writers. But if you find yourself locking out your husband and calling the police, it might be time to call a shrink instead, and see about getting onto some new meds.

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Thank you, Julie, for posing such an interesting question and for sharing a piece of your life with is.

Both of Julie’s books, Mood Swing: The Bipolar Murders and Eldercide are available online from Virtual Bookworm, Amazon and Barnes & Noble. You can also visit her blog, Julie Lomoe’s Musings Mysterioso to learn more about her and to read the first chapters.

Julie will receive the 2009 Author of the Year by the Friends of the Albany Public Library tomorrow at a luncheon. I’m so glad she stopped by Straight From Hel today so I could say, Congratulations!

I hope you’ll leave either a comment or question for Julie. Also, feel free to tweet this, so we can get the word out about Julie's books.

What Do You Think of This?

Yesterday, I did a What Would You Do? post. Today, it’s a What Do You Think of This? post.

Richard Nash, founder of Cursor, chastises publishers in a Huffington Post article. First off, he’s not happy that Book Expo America, “the largest book convention in the US,” changed its days from Friday - Sunday to Tuesday - Thursday. What bothers him more than the day changes is that BEA cut the expected opening night party and, to make things worse, the show will not be open to the public, as is done in other book festivals and events. He feels it shows a lack of caring about the fans.

Books was once a business where publishers sold to booksellers, and booksellers sold to readers. So BEA was an event where publishers sold to booksellers. But with the chains not needing an event to meet everyone, since everyone beats a path to their door, and with the explosion in the number of books available means that publishers need to motivate readers to read their books, and not take for granted they'll walk into bookstores and buy, the event needs to be about exciting readers/customers, not hustling the retailers.

He doesn’t put the blame on the organizers of BEA, but on publishers:

By reducing their participation in BEA at the same time the media participation has increased by almost 50%, by refusing to open the Fair to the readers …, these CEOs have effectively thrown in the towel. They are managing the demise of the book business, pointing fingers at any generic social forces they can find, failing to see the one place the responsibility can be found, their own damn offices.

So, what do you think? Should BEA be open at least one day for book readers and fans to come in? Is Nash right when he says to publishers, “That pain in our foot? It's not outsiders stomping on it, it's us, shooting ourselves.”

What Would You Do?

If you read a book and really, really, don’t like it, what would you do? Review it anyway? Set it aside and move on to another book? Trash it?

If you’re Ashleigh Johnson who writes for the Daily Titan (Cal State Fullerton), you trash it. I don’t even have to officially name the book; I can just give you the title of her November 9th article: “Nerdgasm: Basking in the ‘Twilight’”

She gets down to business in her second sentence:

Allow me to rephrase my first sentence: I don’t hate everyone, only die-hard “Twilight” fans. You know, profoundly stupid people. I hate them. The end.

Of course, it’s not really the end of her review of the entire series.

No one knows for sure what happened on that fateful day – some say that a high-powered publisher’s black tar heroin bucket ran dry and he, knowing that teenage girls will read anything that involves angst and glitter, made an unholy pact with the elder gods (Oprah and a drug dealer with a heart of gold named Skidz) to bring the book into the public consciousness in exchange for another hit.

As you can see, she’s taking on everyone involved in publishing or promoting the series. Mostly, though, Johnson doesn’t like Meyer’s writing:

All of the characters are boring, whiny and one-dimensional, to the point where I wanted to pull a Meyer and create my own self-insert character who would then go all Rambo on their asses. Or at the very least, backhand them, I’m easy going like that.
Meyer doesn’t deserve her fame. The story she told (It’s not a saga, shut up before I smack you) is nothing special. Her writing style is sub-par at best. Her characters are unlikable twits.

Okay Johnson, quit dilly-dallying. What do you really think?

More important, though, what do YOU think? Could you write this kind of review? Have you? Have you ever thought about doing it?

Fairy Tales

A few years ago, wizards lit up the YA book world. Then came vampires who sucked up book sales. Now fairies are flittering into the bookstores.

If you write YA, you may already know about the fairy invasion. I don’t. And I didn’t.

According to The New York Times, “These aren’t gift-shop fairies. They’re capricious, twilight creatures that travel between the fairy realm and our own, meddling in human lives.”

The fairies seem to come with different powers, friends and aspirations.

In Cyn Balog’s “Fairy Tale,”a clairvoyant high school girl discovers that her perfect boyfriend is actually a changeling — a fairy child raised by unsuspecting humans. Malinda Lo’s somber and lovely “Ash” is a lesbian retelling of “Cinderella.”

In the majority of these fairy YA novels, the conundrum is a choice between an earthly and a fairy lover. There’s, of course, the usual teen angst over fitting in with the rest of the kids at school, only sometimes with a twist:

Laurel, in “Wings,” has the worst time with this because she discovers she’s not only a fairy but a plant.

Some of the books are apparently quick reads. Some are complex. At least one is getting attention from more than just the pre-teen and teen crowd.

Another much-admired writer in the fairy genre is Laini Taylor, whose fantasy collection “Lips Touch” is a nominee this year for a National Book Award for Young People’s Literature.