Working on Music Again

So the publishing news is slow. I do have three manuscripts submitted, but still waiting for answers. I might go with a European publisher. They want to publish my books. But some people say I shouldn't. I can go with my current publisher, Melange. Just might do it.

In the meantime, I'm back into my music. I have written 13 albums with ten plus songs on every album. I have no singer, so I tried singing on three of the albums. Volume 2, 12, and 13. I have Volume 12 on SoundCloud right now. It's really a good album, too. Just wish I had a decent singer on there.

But while I'm waiting out the publishers, I'm redoing a lot of my other albums. I had written the music on these albums about twenty years ago. Volumes 2, 12, and 13 are good, but the others need to be arranged again. I completed Volumes 3 and 4 by now, and I'm working on Volume 5 at this time. I suppose I'll try singing on them if I can't find a real singer.

And then I would like to put them on SoundCloud too.

I wonder if there are agents that submit songs to real recording artists, like literary agents submit books to publishers. That would be exactly what I need. Time to find out.

Agents? I Wonder

Trying to land an agent again. My first effort resulted in finding an agent but that was short-lived. And nothing happened as a result. I went straight to publishers after that, and had some success. The Vase was seemingly the most popular. It was accepted by five publishers. I went with the publisher I thought would be the best, and it was in several ways. They taught me a lot about writing a novel. And I took that knowledge and applied it to all of my novels, and they are all better for it.

Killer of Killers drew a lot of interest as well. Not just from agents but from publishers. Although only one publisher offered a contract, compared with the five contracts offered for The Vase. But that publisher is still kickin'. Two of the publishers who offered contracts for The Vase, and with whom I signed, folded. Thus the rights are reverted to me. Another publisher with whom I signed had internal trouble, including lawsuits by former staff. I chronicled all of it on the blog here, so I don't need to get into it again. It was a frustrating experience

The bottom line I discovered is that people don't really care about you, or your contracts or your money. They only care about themselves. Of course, I knew that already. So it was no surprise. You can't really trust anyone. Not in the publishing business. Not in any business. It's what I teach my sons. As a matter of fact, my youngest son asked me recently what my most important advice to him would be. I said without hesitation 'Don't trust anyone.' I've told him before. Both of my sons. Many times. You just can't trust anyone is this world and it's a shame really.

Which means being an agent is an oxymoron. An agent is supposed to be someone you can trust. But you can't trust anyone. Still I'm seeking an agent. It's the best chance to make the Big Five. And I do want that. So I have no recourse. We'll see how that goes.

For me, it wasn't an agent, but a publisher who became an untrustworthy entity. Here's a lesson I learned and I did apply it the second time. You cannot trust a publisher who doesn't sign his own contract. I chronicled the happenings here on the blog some years ago. And when a later publisher tried to do the same thing to me, I told them that.

Here's the trick. A publisher will send you a contract unsigned by them. A first time author will sign it and send it back, thinking the publisher will then sign it and send you a copy. But that didn't happen. So I learned a lesson. Then when a second publisher did that to me, this time I knew better. I told them that publishers who don't sign their own contracts are publishers who cannot be trusted. I said that. Straight up. So then they got on the ball and signed it and sent it back to me.

See? Lessons learned and applied. But sadly three of the other publishers who offered contracts for The Vase simply folded. So that's another reason I'd prefer the Big Five. They won't fold.

But you take what you can get. When will I give up? Who knows. You keep trying. The Vase, Heart of a Zulu, and Second Chance will find homes again. We'll see which homes. Soon I hope.

Aberrant Wave of Horrible Heat

I used that phrase, "aberrant wave of horrible heat" in my book, The Vase. It was published some years ago, but it's now unpublished due to the publisher going out of business. I'm hoping to find another publisher, this time one of the Big Five, even.

But speaking of aberrant waves of horrible heat, that's what I'm experiencing right now in the Bay Area. Heat in the triple digits in early September, I'm hearing is record setting heat, and I used that phrase often in The Vase too.

In the story in The Vase, the people in Nazareth, Israel were experiencing their own aberrant waves of horrible heat, and as I explain in the book it was due to unusual geomagnetic storms in the earth's atmosphere, which were caused by solar winds generated by solar flares erupting on the surface of the sun.

Yeah, that's a lot of solar activity for one day, but it's not just one day in which it occurs. It occurs over several months, even years, and it's an eleven year cycle called solar maximum. You learn that through research, and it's all in the book. You see, ultra concentrations of electromagnetic radiation also are spewed forth from the sun which makes its way into the earth's atmosphere, and seeing as how its this type of radiation that powers the audio/video recordings and playbacks of recent technologies, it's all fitting for the holograms that are projected from the ancient vases in a Palestinian potter's ceramic shop.

Throughout the story line the heat is atrocious, and I'm finding out for myself just what it feels like to live through that kind of heat. Friday, it was 107 degrees and Saturday it was 108. Let's see how hot it gets today. I think maybe I'll join the thousands at Santa Cruz. Just for some relief.

But it got me to thinking about The Vase. I'm still hoping an agent will pick it up, and shop it to the Big Five. Fingers crossed on that. We'll see.

John Dunn read-through completed

I had reported that in the first half of my newest book, John Dunn, Heart of a Zulu, there was only one typo. I had hoped that it would project to two typos for the entire book. Well, there's three. No worries, they're very minor typos. In the first half of the book there was a quotation mark where it didn't belong. It turned out that in the second half of the book there were two places where there was no indentation where there should have been.

Both places were in a section where there was dialogue. And for some reason, two times the next person speaking it didn't get indented. I suppose those things happen when the documents are converted from word docs to PDFs and then to print.

So three total typos. All three are minor, and don't impact the story at all. I had already noted that books published by the world's top publishers have at least that many typos, so I guess I'm right up there with them. Still, I'm a perfectionist, and I strive for perfection. I will see if in the future I can get those typos out of there. If not, no big deal. It's still good. So good in fact, that I'm with the impression my John Dunn book is my best book of all five that I've written.

My Killer of Killers book has no typos. That book is my personal favorite. I made sure it had no typos, but it took a Second Edition for that to happen, and I don't want to go that course again. I just want perfection if perfection can be achieved.

My book The Vase, I dare say, will be perfect. I'm still perfecting it right now. It's an amazing story. So amazing that it might end up being my best book. Hopefully it can break the Big Five. I'll need an agent for that. Finding an agent is not easy. But you never know until you try. So fingers crossed.

The Vase Better Than Ever

Just finished rewriting The Vase, and I must say it's very well written indeed. It's a no brainer every time a writer goes over his writing, the writing will improve. And this last time, after all these years of improving and even perfecting my writing, I have made the writing in The Vase pretty darn good. Even great. I have no problem with sending partials or a full to agents or publishers.

Here's hoping an agent will take an interest, because my last hurdle I would like to clear is the Big Five. I really think The Vase is good enough for the Big Five. It's a completely original story. It's a unique and completely original premise. The characters are characters with whom readers can sympathize, and the events are all realistic, suspenseful, and thrilling. I would think that if any agent or editor were to read The Vase in its entirety, he or she will be excited about it.

Just about every publisher I've sent it to was excited about it. Nearly every publisher I sent it to offered me a contract. I lost count how many publishers that was. I think it was five or six. But I'm glad that last publisher folded to tell you the truth for two main reasons. I got a chance to make the story the way I wanted it to be by rewriting it, instead of how the editor wanted it to be, and because I rewrote it, the writing is better than ever.

So, yeah, I'm sending to some agents now. I chose the agent for Dan Brown first, because of all books or stories out there, The Vase is most like Dan Brown's books like the Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons. They are not religious books, nor are they books about spirituality, but still a hint of that is in them, and a lot of people who believe in that are intrigued by those stories. The Vase is right up that alley.

So once again, fingers are crossed that an agent can represent it and I can finally break the Big Five. We'll see how that goes. I won't hold my breath, but I am optimistic. That's how confident I am about the story and the writing in The Vase.

Second Chance - Editing Completed

As of yesterday, the editing to Second Chance, a Football Story has been completed. Dana, the publisher of Knox Robinson Publishing was the one who edited the story. She caught a couple things that I hadn't, and the writing is perfect now.

The only thing that I wasn't so keen on was the fact that she insisted the beginning be changed. I had it so that the main character was introduced in his current homeless state. And then after he tells his story to a reporter, the storyline returns to his homeless state. But now the story begins with the main story, and once that's over, the reader finds out it was a story that was being told to a reporter by a homeless dude in an alley.

Most authors have trouble deleting scenes that they considered well written, and it was like that for me. But Dana's the editor and the publisher of my book, so there's no room for debate there. I made all the changes that she, as the editor, advised to be made, and, like I said, the writing is perfect now.

I believe the book is due to be released next week. August 23rd. That's this coming Tuesday, which is a lot for me to look forward to. And in the meantime, I'm still polishing John Dunn. Oh, btw, The Vase has been submitted to two new publishers. Ignatius Press and Tumblar House. Both are Catholic publishers, which I think will be interested because of the role the Pope plays in the story.

So I've got things happening. Second Chance is coming out this week. John Dunn in November, and The Vase is being actively submitted. I was going to submit to agents, but I'm not doing that. Ignatius Press and Tumblar House didn't require agents, so I didn't bother. I know I said I was going to solicit maybe as many as six, and I might still, so we'll see what happens. I really don't have a good impression of agents. They've never done anything for me. Doesn't mean they can't.

We'll see what happens and I'll keep you posted. Stay tuned.

Interesting News About The Martian

I just read that the new movie called The Martian was written by a man in Mt. View, California, which is in the area where I grew up. (I went to high school in Mt. View.) It was originally a self-published eBook, that became popular to the point where agents, publishers, and movie producers were contacting him instead of the other way around. Talk about a positive turn in a writer's life. Wow.

If only it could be so easy. Or maybe it wasn't. I understand it wasn't his first book. I read that he hates his first book, which wasn't published, and all copies but one have been destroyed. Well, so what. If agents, publishers, and movie producers are contacting you, you did something right, no matter how many books you've written.

But the guy was a computer engineer. He had a large following, I understand, since he was a program writer for some video game company. It wasn't just any company, I believe it was a big one, or at least the video game was big. I don't know much about video games, because I never play them. I'm from the generation right before the generation of video game junkies.

All I am is a teacher. I can reach some kids and maybe their parents, but I have no avenue to a large computer-based following, like this guy apparently did. Of course, the story must be compelling. As I understand it, it's about a manned mission to Mars, and a Martian storm separates one of the astronauts from the others, so they believe he's dead and take off without him. So the astronaut is stranded on Mars alone and figures out how to survive until a rescue mission saves him.

As I write this, I'm reminded of the 1964 movie, Robinson Crusoe on Mars. (I loved that movie, btw.) I wonder if this guy was influenced by that movie. Like The Martian, it was about an astronaut who was stranded on Mars. It seems like a similar plot, but what makes The Martian different is the fact that this writer used his computer knowledge to make the computer related elements accurate.

The only thing I read that wasn't accurate, was the fact that Mars doesn't have storms. So who knows. Maybe one day someone will like Killer of Killers or The Vase enough to contact me with the desire to make a movie. Maybe the day pigs fly. So let's get started on inventing pig wings. LOL.

Agent Search? No Thanks

Well, my agent search for John Dunn, Heart of a Zulu has only been underway for a little more than a month, but I'm ready to forget about it. It's not worth it. I didn't need agents for The Vase. On my own I found no less than FIVE publishers who wanted to publish The Vase. Two publishers were quick to say yes. Aberdeen Bay and Spencer Hill both offered contracts for The Vase right away, but Victoria Strauss over at Absolute Write told me those were bad contracts. Victoria Strauss is probably the greatest lady on the planet, but that's another story for another day.

Then there was Virtual Tales with whom I actually signed, but they folded, so I signed with Cogito next, and that came close to fruition until they had some kind of internal strife. Smack dab in the middle of editing The Vase, my Cogito editor quit Cogito and was suing them. The Vase got lost in all the chaos so I pulled out. Turned out I'm glad it didn't work out with Cogito. They're one of those publishers who want half of your money if your book ever becomes a movie. That alone makes a contract unsignable. No publisher has the right for even one percent of your money if your book becomes a movie. I ultimately signed with Penumbra Publishing, and I'm glad I did. They taught me a lot about editing and writing.

For John Dunn, Heart of a Zulu I want to take the next step. I want to move up from POD publishers to a publisher who gets your book into a real brick and mortar bookstore. And having an agent is the best way to get that done. But not the only way.

There are publishers that get your books into book stores that don't require agents. So if I go it alone I don't doubt I'll have at least equal success I've had with Killer of Killers, Killer Eyes and The Vase. And if I can find a publisher that gets their books into bookstores, then I will have succeeded in taking the next step. And without the useless agent. Fingers crossed and we'll see how that goes. The publisher search begins.

Second Chance over 67,000 words

...and counting. Because my WIP Second Chance hasn't even reached the story's climax yet, after which the resolution or denouement will follow, which could put the word count up to 75,000 words. That's a guess of course. It might reach 80,000 words or over. Even if it does, it will still be my shortest novel. But anything 75,000 words or above will still qualify as a novel.

I certainly don't want to put anything in there that shouldn't be in there. I think I've done a good job up until now. It's a sports story, a football story, and during my search for an agent for John Dunn, (which isn't going very well, btw,) I've seen agents who represent sports stories, so I'm keeping tabs on those guys, just in case I'm still looking for an agent when it comes to Second Chance. (And by the looks of things right now, I probably will be.)

Speaking of agent searches, I am discouraged. When I first started querying agents way back for my debut novel, Killer of Killers, I was getting bites left and right. Requests for partials and fulls, it was encouraging, and I did land an agent. (Well chronicled on this blog.) Even though that agent didn't work out, my point is there was interest out there for KOK.

But then a strange thing happened. For The Vase, a novel that I thought would garner even more interest, garnered next to no interest from agents. Although the flip side of that is that The Vase attracted a lot more interest from actual publishers than KOK did. I was offered four different contracts for The Vase. I actually had a collection of publishers from which to choose. That was very encouraging, and I guess having publishers interested in publishing your book is better than having agents interested in representing it. Although that is arguable, since it's the agent who get you into the Big Six.

KOK got just one publishing contract offer. But that's all you need. And Killer Eyes will be published by the same publisher, meaning the contract has already been offered and signed.

Next up is John Dunn, Heart of a Zulu. I thought that historical novels were popular. But so far no agents are interested. I've been rejected by about a dozen agents at this point, but that's not what's bothering me. What's bothering me is that no agents have requested a partial or a full. It's reminding me of what I went through with The Vase. And that's discouraging. Still you keep at it, you don't give up. If I had given up, KOK or The Vase would never have been published. Or Killer Eyes.

That's all.

Waiting for Responses

...from agents, and while I am, I'll just continue to polish the manuscript. And when I get a request for a full, that ms will be ready to send. Just hope the agent that signs me will not want to change too much. That will probably happen with a publisher, though. And if it's a Big Six publisher, then that will be okay. Even if it's not a big publisher it's okay. Just hope that whoever it is who publishes it will be able to get the book into a bookstore. That means I'm looking beyond POD publishers. That's the only knock on them. They don't get their books into bookstores.

Still I'm glad that Killer of Killers, Killer Eyes and The Vase are published. Even if it's by POD publishers. I'd rather they were in bookstores, but I couldn't make that happen. They're getting read at least, and that's the bottom line.

But it's time for me to make the next step. Meaning get my books into book stores. Meaning find a publisher who can do that. Meaning not a POD publisher. Meaning find an agent who can sell the book to a publisher who sells their books to bookstores. That's a tall order. It may never happen. The authors who make that happen write MG/YA books. Or women's fiction, like Romance or Chick Lit. Stuff like that. I may write a MB/YA book. Maybe Second Chance could qualify. Or the book I have on the back burner-called Inside the Outhouse. But that one's still a ways off. We'll see.

Queried First Scottish Agent

During my agent search last night I found an agency located in Scotland. They indicated they were in Scotland on their website and it got me to thinking. Maybe they would be particularly interested in the John Dunn story, and why? Because John Dunn was the son of a Scottish immigrant. Yes, Robert Newton Dunn, the father of John Dunn came from Scotland to South Africa where he met his English wife and got married. They had three daughters and a son, John Dunn.

Unfortunately for the senior Dunn, however, he was trampled by a bull elephant during a hunting trip. John witnessed it, and from that day on he harbored a hatred of elephants. He killed them all in the Berea, which is the undeveloped area in the colony of Natal at the time. It's just a piece of trivia about John Dunn, and it's mentioned in my book, John Dunn, Heart of a Zulu. Another piece of trivia which I don't mention is the name of John Dunn's horse. He named his horse Napoleon, but I don't point that out in the book. I thought about it, but the book is not about Dunn's horse. I make only a couple references to his horse, but he never calls his horse by name in the story. At least not yet.

That might change. If I find an agent who then finds a publisher, who knows what that editor might want me to change in the book. It could be he or she will want the name of the horse in there, or maybe they'll want more than just a reference to Dunn's father being killed by an elephant. Maybe they'll want it depicted in a flashback or something. We'll see. Let's find that agent first.

Being American Might Hurt Chances

...of finding an agent in the UK. I have concluded this because one UK agency's website said UK editors are less likely to work with American authors if they haven't been published yet. I've been published, but by POD publishers, so I don't even know if that would be acceptable for UK editors. Won't know until I find out, anyway.

But that doesn't mean I'll stop trying. I'll continue looking for an American agent too, of course. Until now no UK agent has sent me a rejection. That bodes well. They say no news is good news. Some American agent have sent rejections though. That's par for the course. And I've queried about an equal number of UK agents and American agents. I'd say about a dozen each.

And out of that dozen, about half a dozen American agents have responded, so I still have the other half dozen that might at least ask for a full. And the UK agents? Why no response yet? Maybe they just take longer to get through their submissions. Or it could be that no answer means no. That's very possible. Only time will tell. We'll see. Fingers crossed.

UK Agents or American Agents?

I'm wondering if being an American will hurt my chances of finding an agent in the UK. My John Dunn book has nothing to do with America. It has everything to do with the UK and the Zulus. So maybe an American writing a story about the Anglo-Zulu War is like a British person writing about the American Civil War.

But whatever. Enthusiasts come in all different nationalities. So who's to say there aren't British Civil War enthusiasts? And who's to say there aren't American Zulu War enthusiasts? It's just that I'm not sure if being an American won't be counted against me. It could be that a UK agent might be interested in repping a book about the Zulu War, but then lose interest when he or she finds out it was an American who wrote the book.

So what am I to do? Well, I'm querying American agents, too. It's just that all the books and TV shows and movies that have ever been made about the Zulus and the Zulu War have been UK publishers and UK movie makers. It's a UK thing. Which is why I'm not limiting my agent search to American agents. You can bet I'm also querying UK agents. Fingers crossed.

Agent Replied Anyway!

This is actually kind of funny. My last post on Tuesday about sending a blank page to an agent resulted in a response last night! That's even hilarious! Many queries get no response at all. But one that was sent in error, with no text in the body of the email, got a response the very next day!

Maybe it was the subject line that drew an interest. I hope so. All the agent said was to check out her website for the proper guidelines to query. Yeah, that's what I do. But as I said Tuesday, I must have hit 'send' instead of 'save as draft,' and I wasn't going to retry that agent, because I was under the impression the agent wouldn't respond after that.

But there it was, a response as if the agent was curious as to what I had to offer. So I went ahead and pasted the message and sent it. Let's see what happens now. If it's going to be a rejection, at least it will come quickly. You would think.

One Agent Got a Blank Page

I'm still querying agents for John Dunn, but when I checked my 'sent' emails I discovered one of them was a blank page. Don't know how that happened. I suppose the agent who got that must have said to herself, "well, there's nothing here," because it was literally true.

When I query an agent I cut and paste first the email address, and then I cut and paste the query letter, and then change the wording so it applies to that specific agent. I guess I got the email address pasted, but somehow hit send before I pasted the message.

I don't even remember that happening. I think I I was distracted by something before I could paste the message and meant to click 'save as draft', but hit the send icon by mistake. That's the only thing that makes sense to me.

So now the question is should I try again to query that same agent. Maybe, maybe not, because she may think I'm some airhead and thus not worth even seeing if my story might be something she would represent. If I do query her again, she'll see that same heading in the subject line and then delete it before even opening it. So whatever.

In the meantime, I'm still polishing up the John Dunn manuscript, which I will continue to do until someone asks to see it. Fingers crossed on that. As for my history on querying agents, it was an unpredictable process. I got a lot of requests for partials and fulls for Killer of Killers, but not for The Vase. I think that for The Vase, the mere thought of a story that involved Hamas terrorists was too scary for agents. They wouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole.

But the John Dunn story is historical fiction and it takes place during Victorian times. And it's in South Africa, involving the Zulus. That's always been popular. There's a huge fan base of Anglo Zulu War enthusiasts everywhere in the world, like American Civil War enthusiasts. That should bode well for my John Dunn story, because he was in the thick of the Anglo-Zulu War and I cover almost the entire war in the story.

So we'll see.

Meanwhile, Second Chance Over 55,000 Words

I was talking about how John Dunn was over 123,000 words, well I've still been working on Second Chance, and it's over 55,000 words now. I suspect it may reach 75,000 words, which will be a good enough amount of words for a book like that.

And what kind of book like that is it? I call it a sports story. More specifically a football story. There's no sex, practically no violence, as almost all of the action is on a football field. In fact you might have to be a football player to understand a lot of what's going on. Maybe not.

Yes, it's character driven. And like all my books, there's a lot of characters, and the POV does change to follow some different characters. Of course I use the scene break when I change POV, as I've learned that lesson by now. It flows well, I think. But I'm still on the first draft, and like all books, it will be revised who knows how many times.

I'm still involved in my agent search too. And I've got a couple agent rejections by now. I'm thinking that a historical novel like John Dunn would have more of a chance of attracting an agent. I've queried about a dozen or so by now. And I'm only a week into it, so those two responses came pretty quickly. Still I hope I do land an agent. Agents can get you into the Big Six and get your books made into movies too. Hope it happens. Fingers crossed.

Agents Queried

After some bad experiences with agents, I decided to query agents again. No need to rehash the problems from before, but if you want to be published in the Big Six or have your books turned into movies, well, you need an agent.

I'm including agents from the UK in my queries this time because John Dunn is largely a British story. It takes place in the British colony of Natal, and it also takes place in Zululand, which was annexed as a British colony, and the Anglo-Zulu War is depicted in the story, .

It might be that a UK publisher would be more interested in publishing my John Dunn book for those same reasons. After all, the Shaka Zulu miniseries was a British production, and so too were the Zulu War movies that were made. There were two of them. The first was called Zulu, and it starred Michael Caine and Stanley Baker. The second was Zulu's prequel, called Zulu Dawn, and it starred Peter O'Toole and Burt Lancaster. Both were outstanding movies, imo, as was the minieseries Shaka Zulu.

The John Dunn book is finished with the second round of revisions, but that doesn't mean it's finished. Even after I sent the first ten pages to some agents, and the first three chapters to some more, I did find places to polish it up somewhat. Which means I made the same mistake. I was too quick on the trigger. I should have waited until today to send those query emails.

So for the next few weeks, what I'll be doing is going through that MS again and again, polishing it up to make it better and improve its chances of attracting representation. Hopefully it will happen. Fingers crossed.

Film Agents, anyone?

With sales picking up for Killer of Killers and The Vase, I was thinking about finding a film agent. Only problem is, I'm not sure how to go about that. It seems that film agents aren't so numerous as book agents. If you google literary agents, a slew of them come up. If you google film agents, not so. You get a different kind of result, and it's not a list of agents.

I've talked a lot about how KOK would be great as a movie, but of course, every author probably thinks their book would be great as a movie, so I'm probably just another one in a countless list of writers believing it. Still, martial arts action movies have always been popular. And they are just as popular now as ever. Probably will continue to be. The story line to KOK is intriguing, and the characters just as interesting as any I've ever seen in any movie.

But again, I have to believe all authors feel that way about their books. A film maker will have to believe it. Then it can happen. But that's where the film agent comes in. It would be his/.her job to convince a film maker that KOK is the story they want. First, gotta find one.