From Mark Grisham: I never was what you might call a model student in high school. My focus was not where it should have been, as is the case with most teenage boys. History was the only subject that came close to appealing to me. I have always had a passion for the Civil War especially. Not so much the politics or the causes, but the armies and soldiers that fought bravely for those four horrible years.

When I settled down, after thoroughly enjoying my college years, I began reading more and more about the war. Not just about the armies though, but about the civilians that endured the hardships back home coupled with the loss of so many loved ones. The horrors of a battle and its aftermath really hit home when I began to read the soldiers’ diaries and letters sent back home to their families. I tried to imagine what it would be like to live in that era. To have to leave a wife and children alone on a farm, while I marched off, not sure if I would ever see them again.

I tried to understand why so many southern boys, most of whom never owned a slave, would fight to protect the institution of slavery. Were they brainwashed by unscrupulous southern politicians who convinced them that the Federal government wanted to free the slaves so they could live as equals with the white folks? Were they really so racist that they thought the black race to be inferior to them? It seems hard to comprehend that so many young men would leave everything they had and risk their lives to protect slavery. What was it then? What made these men give the ultimate sacrifice for the Confederacy?

Not being alive in that time frame makes this question difficult to answer. I can only speculate from what I have read. My opinion is that many of these young men were convinced that they were fighting in the second American Revolutionary War. To them, the Federal government in Washington had assumed the role that King George of England did in the first Revolutionary War. That they were defending their homeland from the dreaded Yankee invaders, who were coming to take over the southland. When Abraham Lincoln called for seventy five thousand volunteers to put down the rebellion, after Fort Sumter was bombed, this belief became more prevalent. Maybe that is where the answer lies.

Many believed that the Constitution was worded with the phrase “sovereign states” for a reason. That each state had its own legislative, judicial and executive branches as a way to govern themselves. Whatever their reason to fight was, they fought and died with the belief that they were protecting their families and possessions. The odd reality was, that even if they were fighting for “state’s rights,” they were fighting to preserve slavery. Many southerners will tell you that the war was fought over “state’s rights,” but these rights meant slavery would have continued if the south had won the war. Who knows how long it would have lasted? One would hope that the Confederacy would have eventually freed the slaves, but no one will ever know what would have happened. Just my opinion, that’s all.

Mark Grisham, an aspiring author, and David Donaldson, CEO/President of Impact Missions, co-wrote Bedlam South. A portion of all book sales will be donated to Impact Missions, a faith-based ministry dedicated to providing care to abused children, hurting families and impoverished people. To learn more about the book and the charity, visit Bedlam South.

From Mark Grisham: The best advice I could ever give to anyone attempting to get a book published is to have faith in your abilities and never give up. I have yet to hear of an author who had an easy time getting published. (except for celebrities who do very little of their own writing) David and I were rejected by several publishers before we signed with Borders, and we almost gave up hope ourselves.

The process of hiring an agent and submitting manuscripts is a slow and painful procedure. Unfortunately, because of the sheer number of submissions made to publishers each year, some good books do fall through the cracks. Even my brother John, was rejected almost thirty times before he found a publisher for A Time To Kill, and things worked out pretty well for him.

If you are serious about being an author, you must continue forward no matter how difficult that may seem. You must also be able to handle criticism of your work. Another bit of advice I can share is to be patient when you are submitting queries to potential agents. I would guess that a lot of writers sign with the first agent that contacted them. Unfortunately, we did. This can be a mistake if you rush into it.

If it is at all possible, try to arrange to meet your agent and spend some time getting to know them, before you sign an agency agreement with them. There are many sources on the internet where you can look at an agents’ track record to see how many books they have had published in the recent past and how well these books sold. Search the internet for other authors that your potential agent may have represented, and contact them if you so desire. The agent that you hire will determine in a large part, how successful of an author you will be. I cannot emphasize how important a decision this is. Once you do hire an agent, be patient, because the slow process of finding a publisher can be hard to deal with.

John once told me, “Leave your agent alone and keep writing.” That was sage advice. It is very hard to do, but you must. The easiest way to handle your frustration with the slow process is to bury yourself into another book or project. Even after you sign with a publisher, you still need to be patient. Hopefully, your advance will make that easier to do.

Publishers do not get in a hurry though, and the average book takes around eighteen months to from the time you sign your contract with them until your book is published. That can seem like a very long time, so don’t quit your day job. Just keep busy writing your next book and maybe by the time your first book is published, you will already be finished with your second book. If you are lucky, then maybe your dream of becoming a published author can come true. I know mine has.

Mark Grisham, an aspiring author, and David Donaldson, CEO/President of Impact Missions, co-wrote Bedlam South. A portion of all book sales will be donated to Impact Missions, a faith-based ministry dedicated to providing care to abused children, hurting families and impoverished people. To learn more about the book and the charity, visit Bedlam South.

The comments I get when I tell friends, family, or even strangers that I have published Letters Between Us, my debut novel, usually skip and hop from “Whaddya mean . . . like a real book?” to “What’s the title?”; from “That’s great, and what’s it about?” to “Hmm, I have always wanted to write a novel”; from “Oh really, that’s nice, pass me the Perrier” to “I am writing one too.”

Make no mistake, people are generally happy for me, and I truly appreciate it, but often the facial expressions I see staring at me are the same ones I used to give other published authors I would travel to a book store to hear read, or while attending a writing workshop they were teaching, and usually those looks encompassed staring at them like they were aliens, or super beings. I knew I was certainly not a member of either group. But I wanted to be. My favorite question was: How did you do it? And the response given would range from a vague description of some daily writing work ethic to the often repeated “by sweating blood onto the page.” Afterwards, while I drove back home I’d think: Why can’t I do that? I mean sweat blood on the page, come on, it can’t be that hard. Right?!

The funny thing is that writer’s block got me into writing. I had been a closet writer for years. I kept journals without telling anyone, except my husband. He’d typically say, “Oh, you’re writing, that’s nice,” and change TV channels compulsively on the remote control while I lay next to him jotting down my life as it played itself out. But I never thought of myself as writing — as a writer. I was merely recording events as they occurred. Like a note taker, I filled journals with accounts of my life and that of my two children along with my husband. Others who played a role in my life were also included, family, friends, events, even strangers. This was not “writing” in the authorial sense, in the writerly sense. No. This was secretarial documentation. I thought.

When I tried to sit and write an actual short story, the words jammed up in my head refusing to come forth onto the page no matter how hard I summoned them. I blamed it on the fact that I didn’t have a typewriter. When I got a typewriter, I blamed it on the fact that I didn’t have a computer. Of course, with a computer, I told myself I would have more time for writing because I wouldn’t have to spend all that extra time correcting typos and re-typing pages as I had on the typewriter.

Well, with the purchase of a computer the words were still in a holding pattern in my brain. I tried hanging around friends who were also aspiring writers. Most of them were attempting the romance genre. Something I knew nothing about and never read. I followed them to a writer’s conference. The editors from the various publishing houses were half my age, better educated than I was and successful in this genre that I knew wasn’t right for me. The more my friends wrote category romance, the more I journaled about how unhappy I was. Prose floated around in my head. These floating “gems” however never came down to earth and were not in the romance genre. Soon I stopped trailing about with these women, so devoted to their formula style of writing. I wanted to write mainstream. When they started getting published, I became depressed. My journal entries had rivers of pages of consonants and vowels but not cohesive stories. Every time I tried to transcribe these bits of sentences, or phrases the river ran even drier. So I just kept on with my journaling.

But the truth is — I was writing. I was writing my life as it occurred in its daily moments. And I was more than just recording the day’s events; I was working them out in a way that did not always reflect the actual daily happenings of my life as lived. Something began to change the more I wrote on a regular basis. And I am not talking about sitting and writing uninterrupted for hours — that doesn’t happen with two little kids in the house. I mean just sticking to this act for 15-20 minutes a day, every day. The words and rhythms took on a different life…I was in fact creating stories. The act of record keeping took on the life of another…and then a short story was born inspired by an event I had experienced, I had heard about, I had recalled from my childhood, or even read about. This was not intentional it just flowed from my pen.

And on a good day, I did not let my inner self critic prevent this fictive reality from taking over my words. Gail Godwin calls it “The Watcher at the Gate” and about her watcher she writes: “I first realized I was not the only writer who had a restraining critic who lived inside me and sapped the juice from green inspirations.” And he is one who, Godwin claims, she allowed to “reject too soon and discriminate too severely.” It is only when we refuse to listen to that watcher, he who must not be obeyed, who wishes to silence our creative inner voice that presses for life to be heard. I didn’t and you shouldn’t either.

Linda Rader Overman is a Professor of English at California State University, Northridge. Her work encompasses fiction, and nonfiction consisting of multifaceted elements including photographs, narrative portraits, images, texts, personal and social history, poetry, letters, and diaries. Her epistolary novel Letters Between Us is published by Plain View Press. To learn more about her, and to receive her newsletter, visit Linda Overman.

I take out a sheet of paper and smooth its curled edges with my hands as I lay it on my writing desk. The paper is not white, rather more of a beige or splash-of-cream color, really. It contains no lines, just the minimal echo of the tree it once was part of. I take a whiff and it smells of ink and pencil and the perfume I’d dripped on the desk a bit earlier. There are no spots on the page fortunately, yet the scent is of lemon and salt and the sea. My favorite fountain pen, an old Waterman, the color of malachite, given to me years earlier still feels able-bodied and ready in my hand. I think a moment and then put pen to paper.

Truth is the sheer act of writing a letter in just this way to a person, placing it in an envelope, licking a stamp to it and mailing it, sadly, appears to be a dying art. And partly why I chose to write Letters Between Us as an epistolary novel, to recapture that art, just a little.

Now we have email, blogs, Skype, Webcams, instant messaging, and texting — so much faster, quicker, and more efficient. There is something to be said, however, about the act of holding a pen in your hand and writing to friend or family member, even if only to share a brief hello, a thoughtful remembrance, a declaration of love, or something more. It is embedded with the careful process of cogitative thought, let alone leaves a palpable imprint of the writer’s energy. One day it might even be a treasure to be discovered amongst the long forgotten possessions of another. In addition, writing a letter in such a way brings to light a voice distinctively different from other genres of writing. Imperfect, unedited it is a reflection of the times in the raw.

What would we have done without the letters exchanged between loved ones during war time: the Civil War, World War I, World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War, for example? From such letters we have the voices of a private history from long dead family members and/or friends in their own hand-writing importing a tone that we may never have actually heard them speak during their life time.

This happened after my mother-in-law died. We found love letters written to her on V-Mail (or Victory mail, which was the microfilming of specially designed letter sheets. So as not to waste cargo ship space with large bulks of shipped mail overseas, microfilmed copies were sent instead and then enlarge” at an overseas destination before being delivered to military personnel). My husband’s mother, Martha, was affectionately addressed as “Toni” by her husband away fighting in the Pacific theatre during World War II. No one in the family understood why Marvyn Overman called Martha Overman — Toni? But there it was in the salutation in a facsimile of a letter-sheet reproduced to about one-quarter the original size: Dear Toni, My beautiful Toni, Beloved Toni. Toni. Toni — she will always be Martha to me — was back home in Hollywood, California raising her toddler son: my husband.

This little bit of information called to mind a young couple, they were 25 at the time, deeply in love and suffering from separation. The loving voice of this couple is one I never heard either of them use in the decades that I spent in their presence. Basically, they communicated by fighting, yelling and forgiving and then doing it all over again. Family dinners at their home were usually: eat fast, hold our breaths, talk a little, and hope Marvyn and Martha didn’t do their Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf routine on that particular night. Once they began, all we could do was wait for a break in the action, and cut and run. And yet, they once talked of love and nicknames no doubt written and whispered to one another in days gone by. To this day neither my husband, nor his two brothers know the origin of this pet name for their mother.

Being separated by war is nothing new to this generation of 18-34 year olds. Computers and their full complement of audio/video software enable close circuit communication over many miles and multiple time zones. Families separated by the current wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere can talk to and see each other as if they were sitting in the same room. These conversations over thousands of miles have meaning and impact, don’t get me wrong. But as far as leaving a written record as the letter I am completing to my unborn great grandchild (who exists only in my imagination and that of her potential parents: my son or my daughter) I can’t help but wonder if she or he will prefer to benefit more from this piece of myself on paper, which wears my perfume and is embossed with traces of my own hand writing — or from popping in a portable drive that shows me moving and talking. There’s no perfume in that.

Linda Rader Overman is a Professor of English at California State University, Northridge. Her work encompasses fiction, and nonfiction consisting of multifaceted elements including photographs, narrative portraits, images, texts, personal and social history, poetry, letters, and diaries. Her epistolary novel Letters Between Us is published by Plain View Press. To learn more about her, and to receive her newsletter, visit Linda Overman.

Although my comments in this article are primarily directed toward senior citizens sixty-five and above, they could also apply to virtually anyone over fifty-five who is retired or semi-retired and has a lot of extra time on their hands.

The music business began to dry up for me when I was in my mid-fifties and over ten years away from full retirement age. Fortunately, my business included a couple of music publishing companies from which I continue to earn a good living to this day without having to put in long hours.

Once it became abundantly clear that my music career was behind me, I was faced with a new challenge: what am I going to do with all this free time? Well, I considered starting another business and actually looked into a few possibilities…but nothing seemed to interest me. So, in my spare time (and believe me, there was plenty of it), I became a pretty doggone good gardener and eventually dubbed myself “Chauncey” (you know, like in the movie “Being There”). However, my yard isn’t that big and gardening wasn’t something I could do every day of the week.

Having been a recreational poker player for several year, I soon discovered online poker. If you’ve ever played online poker, you know how addictive it can be. I must point out, however, that I wasn’t playing for real money. In no time at all, I racked up over 200K worthless credits. Even though I was having a moderate amount of fun, I was never tempted to plop down the entrance fee and play in the World Series of Poker, nor was I interested in going out on the Worldwide Poker Tour. What I realized was that I needed something more productive to do with my time.

And then last year, at the age of sixty, I discovered the joy of writing. It all started with an article I wrote and had published in the San Diego Union-Tribune. I then began writing my first novel, Pinch Hitter, which was just recently published. I’m now working on my second book, which I hope to publish in early 2009. Whether or not I’m any good at it is a matter of opinion. However, while maintaining the discipline of writing every day, I stay out of trouble and keep my mind sharp.

So, here’s what I want to say to the retirees who are constantly looking for something to do: even if you’re able to keep yourself fairly busy, why not at least consider sharing some of the knowledge you’ve accumulated throughout your lifetime with others? Whether it be of a personal or business nature or a combination of both, everybody’s life experiences are unique. Perhaps you have an idea for a work of fiction or just want to publish a book that features your all-time favorite recipes. Or, maybe you would simply like to write your memoirs. Several years ago, my sister and I encouraged our mother to do just that. Her life was filled with many interesting experiences, and we begged her to write it from her perspective. What better way to preserve your life story for your children, grandchildren, and all future generations. Unfortunately, she never got around to it. And when she left us three years ago, she took with her all of those unique experiences.

While I can think of many legitimate reasons for retirees to write, I cannot think of any reasons NOT to write. And it doesn’t necessarily have to involve money; in other words, don’t worry about selling it. The process alone will give you great satisfaction and a sense of accomplishment. Remember, like virtually everything else, the more you do it, the better you will become.

So, how does one get started, you ask. Well, if you don’t already have one, I would recommend getting a computer and becoming familiar with a good word processing program. I use Word 07 and love its features. And then you need to do a ton of research on two things: writing in general and the subject on which you have chosen to write. Here’s a good tip: the internet has all the resources you will ever need (just Google it, already). Of course, you’ll also find some terrific books about writing in your local bookstore.

My older brother — a retiree who was undoubtedly inspired by my book — recently mentioned that he had a great idea for a novel. Being that he has a tendency to get bored easily, I encouraged him to at least start the process by putting his idea down on paper. He hasn’t taken that first step yet, but I’ll continue to encourage him as I do everyone with the time and the willingness to try their hand at writing.

Dean Whitney, a semi-retired music producer & publisher and avid baseball fan, recently self-published his debut novel, Pinch Hitter, through BookLocker.com. Dean also writes a baseball blog, which can be found at Dean’s Baseball blog. To learn more about Dean and his baseball novel, visit Dean Whitney.

The sales letter is without a doubt the crucial piece of the online sales process. Many people underestimate the power of the sales letter and concentrate more on their product or service not realizing that without quality sales copy it simply doesn’t matter how good their product is – because no one is ever going to see it.

Writing a cash generating sales letter can be tricky, so to help you, here are the 5 most important ways to make sure you get you customer’s attention:

1. The amazing power of the headline

When a visitor reaches your site, regardless of the topic, you have only between five and 10 seconds to capture his interest before he leaves your site never to return again. That’s why when writing a sales letter you simply have to produce a powerful headline that gets the visitor’s mind racing. A good headline should consist of power words – words that touch the reader on an emotional level – used to convey a powerful promise that provides great benefit to the potential customer and makes him want to continue reading.

2. Understanding your customer’s mindset

It is very important to know who you are selling your product to. I see too many sales letters that try to force the customer to buy, using too much hype and/or using an informal tone. Instead of doing that, try to write the copy as you were the customer’s friend. Just be honest and show them all the benefits of your product/service – using user friendly bullet points - and how it can make their lives easier – this is another proven fact – people buy e-books or courses or join membership sites because what they have to offer makes a certain part of their life easier.

3. Product quality proof

You may have created a great product but to convince people to buy and see that for themselves you must pass the quality check. You see, when reading a sales letter the visitor enters an emotional state caused by the powerful promise and the long term benefits a certain product can bring to them. In this emotional state, people look for proof that what you are selling actually delivers on those promises. That’s why providing testimonials from current customers is an absolute must. People love to hear about other’s experiences with a certain product and a good testimonial could prove to be the extra push they need to buy.

4. Creating a sense of urgency

Nothing has the power to make the prospect buy from you more than the possibility of missing a great offer that he may never stumble upon again. That’s why it’s always important that your sales letters create a sense of urgency. This can be done in several ways. You could sell the product at a small price for a limited time – and have like a countdown on your site with time remaining until the price goes up – or sell it only to an exact number of people and then never again. Of course some actually close their offer after the number is reached but that is up to you. You could always keep the offer open and modify the number of spots that are still open.

5. Guarantees

A guarantee practically eliminates the possibility of the customer losing the money invested in your product/service if they are unhappy with its quality. This helps the quality proof also as it makes the visitor trust you and not feel uneasy buying from you. Always be generous with your guarantee by promising to return the investment after 30, 60 or even 90 days after the purchase is made. This way a customer can buy from you with no fear of loss whatsoever.

Revolutionary software helps you create top quality sales letters in hours not weeks by providing you with hundreds of ready make openings, headlines, subheads, bullet points, guarantees and many more. Just add information about your product/service to the ready-made components and save precious time. Simple Sales Copy

Have you ever read a story with a good plot, but you went away feeling that something was incomplete? In all probability, the author failed to type his characters adequately and the result was a pack of shallow basket cases. This is probably the most common flaw in 90% of the stories that never make it to print.

You can type characters in a number of ways: by their education, their conversation, family background, associations with other people, by showing their passions, their needs, gifts, the plot of the story, by their conversation—or by giving them warts.

* Giving Your Character “Warts”

It has been said that every character ’should have a wart’. That means every character should bear something that is noteworthy in the reader’s mind – something that will make them recognizable and memorable.

Let’s say one of your characters has a crossed eye, one has a mole on her cheek, another has a scar, and another has a limp. These are “warts”, i.e., noteworthy details that will help your audience separate the many characters in a long story. A wart may or may not contribute to character typing.

*Imagery in character typing

What would you think of a male character described as having manicured nails and spit-polished spectator shoes? Now compare that mental image to another man who is described as having halitosis and an unevenly buttoned shirt hanging on the outside. Do you see the difference between these two people in your mind? If you read those descriptions in a book, you would know that character # 1 was very likely a business man, very detailed, clean to a fault, probably very punctual, and quite responsible. Character # 2 would be altogether different. He would be a man who doesn’t care about himself or anyone else. He may be a drinker, has no personal pride, and couldn’t care less about what people think of him. But notice how little I said about them. This is character typing, also known as Show, Don’t Tell, and Imagery.

If you say a man has a “toothless smile” you’ve said a mouthful. *smile* Insinuate things about people’s teeth and jewelry to help typify the character. Think about a girl who wears no earrings- as compared to one who wears small earrings - or huge hoops. Can you see how this helps type a character in the reader’s mind? You can do the same thing with dirty nails, acrylic nails done in French tips, or nails chewed to the nub. You can do it with bleached hair, mini-skirts, torn tennis shoes, a woman wearing a dress shirt with a tie, etc. All of these things paint a picture of your character for your reader.

* Using Dialog to Type Characters

How your character treats others and is treated by others will make indelible footprints in your reader’s mind. Think how easily you can portray a sassy-mouthed teenager, a nagging wife, an unfaithful husband, a nasty store clerk, or the innocence of a child with sheer dialog. There is no trick to it. Get into your characters heads and say what a real character in his/her circumstances would say.

When you learn the skills of typecasting, your sales will sky rocket. See below for further information.

Click here to see the first fully mentored writing school on the Internet! Find more writing tips there. http://www.creativewritinginstitute.com. Ask for a free analysis of your writing!

I get this question a lot: “Now that I’ve self-published I need to find an agent, how do I do that?” Well, it might seem to be a simple and easy transition. I mean you’re already published so it shouldn’t be that hard, right? Not so fast. There are a number of things you need to know before you run headlong into an effort to get a publishing contract.

First off, publishers like what other people like. Well, generally they do. If you’re building success for your book, getting great reviews, building your audience and online presence this is a good thing and will often be viewed favorably by publishers. While there are agents and publishers that won’t even consider a self-published book, there are a number of them who will. The key is to find those agents and publishers and get to know what they specialize in. Since there are a million articles and books on how to craft a query letter and submission packet I’ll skip that. For the purposes of this article, though, we’re going to focus on personal branding and industry positioning.

The first question authors will ask me is how do they know they’re “ready” to submit? Ok, so you’ve got a dozen or so great reviews, you’ve been blogging regularly and you are a regular at author events. Sales, however, are still slumping. You’ve sold 1,000 copies at best and struggled to even make that meager number. Is that a bad thing? Not always, but it depends on how your book was published. If, let’s say, your book was published through a print-on-demand company, a thousand copies is a fairly high number (the average print-on-demand book sells 75 copies).

Also print-on-demand is limited in its distribution, meaning that even if you’ve gotten great media interviews, reviews, and buzz for your book, the reason you’re not selling a ton of copies is the broken distribution systems these books often wrestle with. Bookstores won’t stock them because of the non-returnable factor. (Note to the savvy author, avoid, at all costs, the “returns program” POD publishers offer, bookstores don’t care if you’ve paid to have your book returnable. Don’t believe me? Sign up for it, pay your $500 and then do some calling around to find out).

Here’s the deal: print-on-demand has for years been the red-headed stepchild of publishing. Are there good books published through POD publishers? You bet. But for most of these authors it’s like pushing a boulder uphill. Now don’t get me wrong, all of my first books were published via POD and still they’ve been successful despite the biases and all the other things New York publishing likes to heap on this form of publishing. But the point being: knowing your market and understanding how the market works will go a long way to giving you the insight you need to be successful. Distribution is not defined as a place on Amazon or Barnes and Noble, because anyone with an ISBN can get this type of placement.

Distribution is defined as a distribution company actively marketing your book to bookstores and other sales channels. This doesn’t happen in POD and the New York publishers know this. So, if your book is still selling well despite these obstacles then you’ve got a winner on your hands, and it might be time to seek a bigger publisher for your work. On the flip side, if you have self-published and you do have a distributor in place, then consider trying to pitch your work after you’ve sold over 3,000 copies of your book. But there’s a small catch: you don’t want to sell out of your market. Generally speaking this won’t happen, but in certain cases it could.

Let’s consider, for example, that you wrote a regionally-focused book about the history of a town or state and you’ve focused all of your marketing efforts in that region. It’s likely that if you’ve sold 5,000 copies a publisher or agent could view this as sold out of the majority of the market. You might counter that you could sell this in other markets but unless there’s some tourism angle, it’s not likely and even then, the appeal needs to be really strong. Most books based on towns or cities are sold in the city and generally not outside of that area unless they are big tourism draws, in which case the market becomes much more competitive. Also note that if you’re thinking of trying to cheat the system you should know there’s a little thing called Nielsen BookScan that logs all sales by book and author, so no fair counting your author purchases as sales - BookScan notes sales through commercial sales channels only (major market retailers and bookstores).

All right, so you’re ready to pitch your book. You meet the sales criteria and you know you haven’t sold out of your market. What’s next? Next, ask yourself what your platform is. Platform is one of those words that agents and publishers love to toss out to unsuspecting authors. So what does platform mean? Well, it’s a bit tricky because it varies depending on what you’re writing. Platform isn’t who you know but who knows you. It’s your area of influence. For fiction writers it could be your e-mail list, the subscribers to your blog, conventions you speak at, conferences you attend (as a participant, not just an attendee). For non-fiction authors, defining your platform is a bit easier. Often non-fiction books are tied to speaking, coaching, or some other business model. These are all part of your platform.

When I sold Red Hot Internet Publicity to Sourcebooks, one of the first things I listed on my marketing/book outline was my platform: subscribers to the Book Marketing Expert Newsletter, business revenue, speaking events I am booked on, average client base - everything. All of this is your platform and all of it lends itself to having a built-in audience. This is what publishers look for. Regardless of how you publish you still have to market your own book, and publishers know it’ll be easier to market a book that has a following than one that doesn’t.

After you define your platform the next thing is to define your hook. Especially with self-published books, agents and publishers expect you to have a hook. Since the book is published, if you don’t have a hook this is a tell-tale sign that you haven’t been marketing this book correctly, if at all. (There are additional platform-building tips that appear later on in this issue).

How can you find the right agent or publisher for your book? The traditional ways certainly work: getting books and guides designed to give you agent and publisher contact info, but there might be a better way. Try going to some writers’ conferences that allow you to schedule editor and agent appointments. This is a great way to get some immediate feedback on your book, pitch, and the possibility of selling your work. There are a number of conferences around the country, just be sure to look for ones that offer one-on-ones with publishing professionals.

And finally, it’s sometimes tempting to switch genres to get published. But unless there’s some compelling reason for you to genre-hop, like a changing focus in your business, I recommend sticking with what’s been successful for you. Don’t one day write on true crime and the next day start offering dieting advice unless that’s where you want your ultimate focus to be. Also remember that if you’ve been writing true crime for years, and have built an audience and following, you’ve now lost that base by jumping ship.

The truth is that the odds aren’t always in our favor. With eight hundred books published each day in the US the market is narrow, to say the least, but if you know your market, have a platform and are selling books, you’re already 90% of the way there - the rest is just finding the right match for your book and maybe a little bit of literary luck.

Penny C. Sansevieri, CEO and founder of Author Marketing Experts, Inc., is a book marketing and media relations expert whose company has developed some of the most cutting-edge book marketing campaigns. Visit AME.

Fashion and changing perceptions over time, have influenced the endings of many a great story. From ancient time, the storyteller has always striven to enrapture, with tales of horror, intrigue, romance, and mystery.

Romantic novels – where boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back again, love blooms, and they live happily ever after – still have a large audience. Love and desire have always been at the heart of human reactions. These stories are of course variations of the theme. In Shakespeare, we see many a boy meeting a girl, who may or may not be disguised as another boy, and through much intrigue, parental disapproval, and devious friendships, we could see the girl at the end of the story appearing to die from an overdose, and the boy committing suicide, desperate and distraught. Shakespeare’s brilliant story telling is often as relevant today as it was in the middle ages.

In Victorian melodramas, dark deeds, polite and formal relationships, the heavy influence of the Church, and sexually repressed characters, often led to misunderstandings and miscommunications. Novels of this era often ended with disappointments or at best enlightenment through a religious experience.

Detective novels and mysteries of the first half of the 20th Century had complicated plots, twists and turns, class war differences, and brilliant minds in an age of little technology. These stories often ended with a long, detailed explanation in the last chapter, revealing the guilty party and why everyone else was eliminated. All the pieces of the jigsaw fell into place. And, sometimes the “butler did it!” As the 20th Century progressed, we saw the hard hitting, hard drinking, and no nonsense detective stories with strong sexual overtones. The language was tough, smart and clipped. The “good guys” usually won out in the end.

As a novel evolves, the story, characters, beginning and ending can change many times. The author strives to keep the reader interested and uncertain of the outcome.

Today’s novels could incorporate all or any of these past endings, but I believe the more modern approach has been to ask the audience to think. This means that many of today’s plays, movies, and books do not have neat, tidy endings. To some audiences, this can be infuriating. However, others enjoy the experience of putting their own interpretation and ending to a story.

In my novel, “Bear Any Burden,” I have gone for the more modern approach. While circulating my manuscript to many literary agents and receiving many rejections, I realized that some adjustments needed to be made. One particularly well-established New York literary agent called the ending of my manuscript “serendipitous.” Only a literary agent would use such a delightful word, so I set about making some changes.

Accordingly, the end of my book now leaves many questions unanswered. Some say this should lead to a sequel. Maybe so. But the objective is to make the audience think about various possible outcomes for the characters, and not have a “cheesy” ending in which all the pieces of the puzzle fall into place.

What do you think?

Ellis M. Goodman is a Chicago based businessman who came to the U.S. in 1982 from London England. He is the author of CORONA: THE INSIDE STORY OF AMERICA

Writers have an awesome power over the reader. A skilled writer can create good or bad attitudes, love and hate, passion, fear, depression, regret, joy, sorrow, and the list goes on. If you read much, you have found this to be true. That is but one way the author controls the reader.

Another way he controls the reader is through the speed of reading. Have you noticed that you read faster in some places and slower in others? Have you noticed that one story makes you tired to read it, while another seems restful? That’s because the writer is using clever wordsmithing.

In essence, the author has you in the palm of his hand. He wants you to read faster during action scenes to get you involved – to make you feel the presence of danger, fear or love. In other areas, the reading will slow down to allow your mind to rest and digest the action. As a reader, you become ensnared both emotionally and psychologically. If the action didn’t slow down, it would wear you out.

Here are two sentences from two different scenes in my story, There’s the Somebody I will Kill. The first sentence is fast, the second is slow. Analyze them and determine what speeds up one sentence and what slows down another – then read on.

“We bounced up the stairs two at a time, slipped into my bedroom unnoticed, and closed the door without making a sound.”

“Katy wrinkled her nose.”

The first sentence is fast because it has alliteration, and also because of the action “bounced up the stairs two at a time”. Alliteration usually makes a sentence flow faster. (Alliteration is the succeeding sound of the same letter, or sounds that appear to be the same letter): Note the words “bounced”, “stairs”, “slipped”, “unnoticed”, “closed” and “sound”. All have the S sound. Also notice the T alliteration in “stairs”, “two”, “at”, “time”, “into”, and “unnoticed”. (Note: The words “bounced” and “slipped” have a T sound in the -ed, but no T is there.) This is double alliteration, and it increases the speed even more.

The second sentence, “Katy wrinkled her nose,” is slow because it is a non-action sentence and it has no alliteration, no assonance and no consonance. (Assonance and consonance is a separate study.) That short sentence does three things: it allows the reader’s mind to rest, it expresses attitude, and it expresses imagery.

Another way to speed up a scene is with action verbs, such as: “The roller coaster zipped and whirled at lightening speed.” A good way to slow sentences down is by combining the use of Ws and Ls. Example: (I’ll capitalize the letters in the “slow” words.) “A Little Lady Watched from the croWd, and gLanced momentariLy at her Watch.” Note the four Ls in that sentence and the three Ws. Note: Another interesting thing about that sentence is that it carries double alliteration, but notice that the Ws and Ls slow the Sentence.

A third way to slow the action of a scene is by your choice of words:

(1) Marilyn lingered at the well, slowly twisting the ring on her finger.

(2) The sun sank slowly beneath golden blankets of clouds.

Sentence one is a droopy sentence – very, very slow. Sentence two has alliteration in it, but the speed is overcome by the L sounds and the choice of words. Remember this: Even alliteration will not speed up slow words. Start analyzing sentences and note their structure and speed.

Remember the days of horror movies when your heart beat out of your chest? There’s another instance where the writer controlled you, and he’s still doing it. For instance, compare Little House on the Prairie to the Terminator. One program is soothing and warm. The other takes you into the realm of fantasy.

Whatever your pleasure is, you like it because the content stirs your inner soul. When you write your own blogs, articles or stories, this is the skill you must learn.

Part I of your assignment, should you choose to do it (for your own practice): Write a 500 word article or story and use what you have learned about speeding or slowing the reader. Part II of your assignment: let one person read it.

Click here to see the first fully mentored writing school on the Internet! http://www.creativewritinginstitute.com. Ms. Deb is the CEO & Founder of Creative Writing Institute. If you would like to receive The Writer’s Choice newsletter, or a FREE analysis of your short story or article, write to deborahowen@cwinst.com for details.