Trump Anthology – Musings of a Generic Asian

What’s In a “Basket of Ridiculousness”?

Anthologies, branding, business, conventions, Trump Anthology, Writing

Since we are doing a Trump: Utopia or Dystopia book launch at Can-Con in Ottawa this coming weekend, we put together a gift called a “Basket of Ridiculousness” as a free draw prize to attract unsuspecting and sort of innocent future readers!

To get free draw tickets, please find me or Jen Frankel and ask us nicely for a ticket at the Can-Con event:

FRI 20:00-20:50 Panel – Braaaains. Please. Sorry Salon D (Jen Frankel)

SAT 10:00 – 13:30 Dealers Room Table –The Alternate Reality News Service

SAT 11:00-11:50 Panel – Economics of Traditional Publishing Salon E (JF Garrard)

SAT 14:00-14:50 Indie Group Launch Event with food (basket will be given away at this event)

You may think, wait, what’s in this bloody basket worth hunting down strangers for?

The basket is valued at $50 and we put everything we thought we would want into it. So if no one wins or shows up for the book launch we will divide up the goodies among ourselves! Contents include:

1) A copy of Trump: Utopia or Dystopia to laugh, cry and get angry with.

2) A set of politician masks – Donald Trump, Hilary Clinton and Justin Trudeau. In time for Halloween and to re-enact scenes from the Trump book!

3) Lay’s Grilled Cheese chips – it just sounded yummy…and strange…

4) A $10 Starbucks gift card – caffeine just makes the day brighter!

5) Batman Story Cubes – making stories with yourself as Batman, just because.

6) Naughty mug – heck, we’re promoting a Trump satire book!

7) Snickers bars – to eat while watching CNN.

8) Fuzzy Peaches – it’s orange, enough said.

9) Crunch ‘n Munch popcorn – more to eat while watching CNN and Fox News.

10) SPAM – goes hand in hand with fake news.

11) Glow in the dark tie – to transport you to the Oval office.

12) Rubber Ducky Socks – we live in Canada, a tribute to our Prime Minister.

13) Dark Helix Bookmark – to keep your page in the book while you watch the destruction of the free world!

Looking forward to meeting random people in Ottawa and sharing the joy of this Trump book which has fantasy, horror and science fiction stories from writers around the world!

Trump book published on Christmas!

Anthologies, Canada Anthology, editing, family, fun, marketing, publishing, Trump Anthology, Writing

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

The Trump: Utopia or Dystopia anthology is now live and available for sale or free for Kindle Unlimited subscribers on Amazon!

I’m not sure if I ever want to publish a book on Christmas again as it is quite stressful. A lot of frantic phone calls, emails and general panic about last minute changes. Although these things are typical of the publishing process with any book, I wasn’t sure if anyone would be working at Amazon on Christmas day to make it happen. It turns out there is a lot of automation I presume and at least one poor person (hopefully making triple salary) processing kindle books out in Amazon land.

Sadly, I’ve discovered that the previewer in Amazon isn’t that great. However, once I download the book or see it in the official previewer software for publishers, the book looks fine. Apparently it’s an ongoing problem that hasn’t been fixed by Amazon yet.

Jen Frankel and I are proud of the Trump book as it is one of the most creative exercises we have ever taken part in! All the writers have been great to work with and I’ve noticed that a few are in other Trump anthologies as well.

Our family also had fun with a Duplo building contest to see which design was deserving of a copy of the Trump book! There were a lot of abstract builds!

In the new year I need some energy to finish an anthology about Canada and will be working with Sarah Water Raven. She will be the main editor as I will be contributing a story, so I need someone else to tear me to pieces. One becomes blind to their own writing after a while and the only cure are fresh eyes!

Trump Book Almost Finished!

Anthologies, Babies, Books, editing, fun, health, Trump Anthology, Writing

Apologies for not updating this blog as of late.

Trying to finished the Trump book has been a priority (oh and that toddler creature needs to be take care of too) and we just finished signing our 30th author (Timothy Carter, who sent in a fantastic story that made me laugh loudly) that will be featured in the book. The stories selected are pretty fantastic and unpredictable. As a writer I don’t like reading things in which I know how things will end. The publishing date we set is November 31, 2017 for the e-book and January 2018 for the print edition.

By the way, I am a horrible person to go to the movies with!

Jen Frankel has come on board as the second editor of the book and she has been fantastic to work with. There was another editor that came and went – lessons learned was to always keep communication open and to be organized, since things get hectic with 30 stories! Also parting amicably is a good thing because one never knows what the future may bring!

Labor day weekend (Aug 31-Sept 3) Dark Helix Press was at Fan Expo , a scifi/fantasy/horror/sports convention which brought over 100,000 people to one place. As a not very famous author, it was a loss financially, but I made some new contacts on the creative front. My husband couldn’t understand why I was exhausted every night. “You just sit at a table!” he said. Well, sitting at a table from 7am-8pm and talking all day is really tiring. Especially when you are not a natural salesperson. But if people don’t know about your book, they won’t read it, so you have to put a piece of your heart out there and let it get stomped on usually! There were a few people that heard me speak at other conventions so it was really nice to meet these people that have similar passions!

Recently I couldn’t find too much information about a device which I splurged hundreds of dollars on called Ovusense, so I will do a future post about this device and how it helps women with PCOS who are considered infertile. Time is passing for me, so I am hopeful, but trying not to be in case I get disappointed (Baby Shadows, an essay I wrote a long time ago explains more). I wish that my husband could have the baby because I seriously hate labor and recovery.

For those bugging me about the second International House of Vampires book, I am working on it, really. I know people are waiting and I have to get it done. I hope to have a draft by December, then find an editor in Spring 2018. This one is about mankind spewing too much garbage into nature and the consequences of that. Have you watched Plastic Ocean on Netflix? Birds and whales among other animals all starve to death because of plastic junk they swallow! The ocean has become a trashcan. Just one example of how horrible we are. Although if any other species took over the planet I’m sure they would do similarly destructive things…

On that cheerful note, have a great weekend!

The Truth About Submissions And Why Editors Reject Your Story

Anthologies, articles, business, editing, publishing, Trump Anthology, Writing

The following is a response to a writer who submitted to the Trump: Utopia or Dystopia Anthology and had questions about what to expect when submitting stories, what it means when they receive comments and why they need to rewrite:

Hi XX,

I am glad that you wrote in with questions, don’t be afraid to always ask – I don’t believe that anyone is a true expert, everyone is always learning.

Generally when you submit anything, you will never hear anything other than, “sorry your piece didn’t make it into the book/magazine.”

As a small publisher for the Trump Anthology we got over 100 submissions (deadline isn’t over yet). An agent typically gets 10,000 submissions/year. Big publishers even more. It is a tough, tough business to select and chose stories. Then it’s another tough road to sell it to readers. 9/10 books don’t sell to recoup costs of editing/formatting/publishing. It’s the one superstar that pays for everything for the publisher during that year.

When a story is selected, it’s because:

1) it connected with the editor (super subjective and editors read a lot, so the story has to be super special),

2) it was well polished, which means that the publisher buying doesn’t need to invest more time/money into the piece,

3) it was an ok story which the editor knows will be an easy sell to the readers.

To be honest, yours is perhaps the 95th story in which the story focuses on a violent incident. After getting so many of them, they all start to blend together unless there was something different about it.

For example, there is a lot of death and violence in one story we bought – “Trump Vs The Zombies” by E. Reyes. His story was the best one selected in which Trump built a wall to keep out zombies (there were about 5 of them) and because he is Mexican American, some of his cultural background also made it into the story. There were many creative twists in the story that made the editors want to keep reading.

Most likely we will pass on your story, I have another editor I work with on making such decisions. We held back on rejection letters as we wanted to get everything in the pool first before we started tossing out stuff. We are going to send a note out to people to let them know that we will be sending out rejections soon. Already one writer wrote back to let us know that he sold his story to another publisher which is great. That’s why we allow simultaneous submissions; we don’t want writers to miss out on another publisher buying even if we don’t!

When you submit a story and get feedback, that is the most valuable part of submitting. If people don’t give a shit, they won’t give you any feedback.

Think about why we sent you such questions or comments and yes, it means a rewrite.

The next version could be sold to another publisher or you can self-publish yourself. On other projects, I’ve worked with editing teams in which we presented such questions to writers and they refused to rewrite. This means we could not recommend the publisher to buy because it means the writer isn’t willing to meet a higher standard.

There was another story in which we had numerous comments/questions, however, the main theme in the short story connected with us. This means another 4-6 months of editing back and forth (between editors & writer) to get the words and ideas in the story to flow properly to make the story better. If we didn’t like the story, we wouldn’t bother spending so much time cleaning up their writing. Another story was so well polished; we finalized it in 3 weeks.

No matter how good of a writer you are, you will always need an editor. I see writing as an art form and it takes time to discover your voice and to perfect a piece, like a painting (I used to be a painter). Anyhow, expect a rewrite every time you receive comments. It will get to a point in which the editor is satisfied and then it will be published. Then sometimes post publishing readers will point out stuff and then another rewrite. It really never ends sometimes…

I hope that you have a day job as many full time writers struggle to eat. It’s hard to become a writer superstar. I don’t think it was every easy – we just never hear about the struggles as much. Self-publishing does fill the gap for those who want to publish, but even for self-publishing, higher standards are being brought in or else readers will not trust this new group of publishers. The landscape continuously changes and I don’t think anyone knows what the secret is to becoming a writer superstar.

Anyhow, hope this helps and let me know if you have any more questions.

Trump Kickstarter & 5 Tips on Successful Submissions

Anthologies, Books, editing, publishing, Trump Anthology, Writing

Whoopee! The Kickstarter Campaign for Trump: Utopia or Dystopia? Anthology is now live! Press release is also live in which we talk to two writers (Chris McGrane & Mathias Jansson) about why they sent in stories.

The Kickstarter is more for PR than anything else. We really, really, really want to find readers for our books and this is one way of finding them as well as pre-selling some copies. Although the submission deadline is June 4, 2017 we have started signing contracts with some writers and doing editing rounds in preparation to deliver Kickstarter goods.

So far we have signed 7 contracts. Our book aims to publish at least 20 pieces. We actually hope to publish closer to 25-30 if we receive more submissions that are too fantastic to resist.

Editing is super subjective and for this anthology I’m working with another editor, so there are two of us. Sometimes our schedules don’t match, but I think we will be ok as we haven’t gotten into any real fights over editing…yet…

I am dreading the task of sending out rejection letters but it will happen eventually. I’ll have to remind people that sometimes it’s really us and not them because another editor might have snapped their story up immediately. This did happen with one story that was sent in and 3 weeks later we were informed that it had been sold. That’s why we are fine with simultaneous submissions, heck, why delay a person a chance to sell to another publisher?

Today I received a really nice email from a writer who was super hyped that their story was chosen. I totally understood how they felt because I have gotten more rejection letters than acceptance ones myself! Out of so many stories, why did we chose their story?

The writing was tight – this person did a lot of editing and they took out a lot of unnecessary words. Grammar, punctuation, spelling was pretty good – not perfect – but editors need something to clean up!
The story had a limited number of characters – there was only one main character in the story and everything was focused on them. When there are too many characters, things get confusing super fast. Also, the writer can’t concentrate on writing a lot about each person and there is shallow character development.
There was a clear arc (beginning, middle, end) – in the beginning the reader didn’t know what was going on, then things got a bit clearer through flashbacks with the main character describing what happened before the ending hit. In some stories too many things are happening, such as too many flashbacks, which makes timing of sequences confusing. Or the ending is too ambiguous and the editor isn’t sure if the story really ended or is missing a page.
Surprise twists are great – in this case, the editor (me) is also a writer, so I can see a lot of plot devices coming. When something happens that surprises me I get really excited.
They built a credible world – the world built had a set of rules which was explained as the story went on and had enough logic that the reader was able to buy in. The main character explained why things were a certain way in the story. Sometimes in other stories there is a librarian or a mentor figure that can do this as well.

One good reference guide is “The Hero’s Journey” which describes how to write a story describing a hero/main character, their adventures and finally the end. The link is to a condensed version, the book is longer than one webpage!

Style guides are also useful if you are writing a story which cites titles or has irregular dialogue, such as the character listening to the radio. The Canadian government has a free style guide and Writer’s Digest also has free resources. The Chicago Manual is one of the gold standards and a great reference.

We just edited a story in which the style/formatting drove us crazy. But we did it because the story was fantastic. Otherwise, we would have said forget it, since it cost us so many hours to clean us! Bottom line, write a great story and the editors can forgive you for everything else!

Happy Easter! Trump Anthology update #2

Anthologies, editing, Trump Anthology, Writing

Happy Easter everyone! Someone told me yesterday that they have a full furry costume to pretend to be the Easter bunny for their niece and nephew which is pretty impressive! They said that they scatter eggs in a park and wait for the kids…while feeling creepy…which I found quite amusing.

Since I am getting many questions about the Trump anthology, I will keep posting updates as the project progresses. I expect I’ll be bombarded with more submissions once I launch the Trump Kickstarter late April as a PR exercise to pre-sell books and to raise some funds for the marketing blackhole. I hope to get the world excited about reading this book!

Question 1 – Should I send in both utopia and dystopia story?

Quite frankly we have received a lot of dystopia stories which is why that comment was made in my earlier post about sending in both types of stories. At the end of the day it doesn’t matter which type you send in as long as it is good.

Question 2 – Should I use names of staff in the administration?

One does have to be a bit careful when citing names and I hesitate to recommend using their full names out right. Names are difficult to trademark, but if characters are written with same first/last name in bad light, there could be a lawsuit for slandering someone. As we condone extreme violence or sex in stories, the chance of a lawsuit is low; but be aware it is a possibility.

Same thing goes with brand name products. If your story is selected, we may suggest to generalize a brand name or use half of it so the reader can fill in the blanks themselves.

Question 3 – Am I at a disadvantage because I’m a new writer?

Some people send in a list of their credentials which include degrees, diplomas, titles at companies/societies/associations, etc. One person said that they were an astrologer who lived in the woods and another had multiple PhDs in ABC.

I don’t care about your background, at the end of the day if you can tell a good story, you are a good writer!

Question 4 – How can I increase chance of selection?

Stick to the theme – The book’s theme is a world in which Trump exists in the present as a leader or has left a legacy. A lot of people are sending in stories which has nothing to do with Trump but they had written as a side project or for fun.

These pieces are really good too, but if it has nothing to do with the theme, the editors (there is more than one editor for this book) will debate if it’s worth the time to make extensive comments to the writer about changing certain things here and there to make the story more relevant to the theme. This is pretty much rewriting the story’s narrative and could lead to months of extra work for the editors.

Or they could chose a story that already has the theme in it.

Basic storytelling – The stuff they taught you at school still holds true!

image of plot diagram labled with exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution

Source: Mrs. Welty’s Guide to Literary Elements

One of my profs in a writing course I took recommended to always start with action. The character is doing something interesting to grab the reader’s attention in the first paragraph. In the next paragraph, the writer can go into why they are doing it, background, etc. Remember that we are not in your head and you have to explain what you are seeing.

World building – I want to feel like I’m in your story: What are the smells around the character? What do people eat? How do they travel? Are their environments different from ours? Are there drones/robots/aliens in the sky? Are there hierarchies in society? Are the rules different at work?

Writing course – If you haven’t done so already, do take the time to consider a writing course in person if you can afford it. The feedback from classmates are invaluable and the instructor is usually the harshest which makes you learn quickly! A writing group which meets regularly also helps improve your craft.

Free open ware writing courses are available at MIT’s website on creative writing as well. I bought books to start one of the courses and then forgot where I put them. Yes, I need real people to push my butt! If you are the super motivated type, then you may find some value in these online courses.

At the end of the day sometimes it’s me, not you.

We have received over 50 submissions so far. If I read your story and I remember it a few hours later because it made me think of XYZ, it’s a good story. If I forget I had ever read your story, then it’s forgettable and didn’t resonate with me.

Sending rejection letters suck as I always get them myself. Writing is also very subjective. Just because your story didn’t make it into this book, it doesn’t mean that your writing isn’t good, it could just be someone else sent in a similar story and we had to chose one.

Good luck and looking forward to your stories!