January/February 2007 Blogs

The February Photo of the Month is of me writing. I revised my website in early February and put a smaller version of this image on the home page. In case you're wondering what I'm writing, it was simply: It was a dark and stormy night. Tuesday February 27, 2007 I know I mentioned it last week, but if you haven't checked out the Events Page, give it a glance. The reason I bring it up again is that I want to let all of you know that as these events start unfolding, I'm going to capture the travelling and audience turnouts on film. I may just take pictures and write brief comments, or I may try to shoot a few videos. Regardless, there is going to be a lot of interesting writing-related travel coming up in the next 2-3 months. Nearly one event per week for most of March and April. So check back often. It should be an exciting time. Also, I reserved my room for Thrillerfest at the Grand Hyatt. If there's anyone reading this who is curious about attending, drop me a line. It should be a blast. Stacey Monday February 26, 2007 This weekend I put together 180 query letters for literary agents. For anyone who has followed this story since November, this is the last of the original 450 agents I wanted to query for my novel The Colorado Sequence. It's been a learning process, and I have gotten a good number of agents who have requested partial samples or full manuscripts based solely on the query package. But once this last 180 goes in the mail this week, I think I'm going to let the traditional publishing route go and focus on selling to readers what I believe is a great book. I will have most of the responses to this final burst of 180 by the end of March, and at that time, I will be switching gears to market and sell the novel as a self-published book and no longer asking agents to represent it to traditional publishers. So say a prayer for me this week. Maybe the right agent for this novel is in this last batch. If not, I can honestly say I tried everyone. Stacey Monday February 19, 2007 This afternoon, I drove up to Chatham, Virginia for an author event and to meet the store owner of Chatham Books. Here's a picture of me driving... The featured speaker was Henry Wiencek, a historian, who discussed his latest book about George Washington. Here's Henry signing his book... And here's a photo of Rick Dixon, store owner of Chatham Books, Henry, and me. I had a great time. It was just the kind of thing I needed to lift my spirits and energize me. And what better way to spend President's Day than by attending a presentation on George Washington. Stacey Saturday February 17, 2007 This week's installment of "Saturday with Stacey" features Jon and Eileen Batson and Michael Graziano. Enjoy... Friday February 16, 2007 Suddenly, I have a writing career. If you haven't checked out my Events page, you might give it a glance. I've never had so many things coming up as a writer in my life. March, April, and May will be moving. Stacey Tuesday February 13, 2007 I called the Richmond, Virginia Main Public Library today to inquire about reserving meeting room space. I had a positive conversation, and it looks like I may be setting up my first Virginia Write to Publish Group for sometime around late April. If you're in the Virginia area and want to get involved with a writers group whose goals are to workshop, network, and get its writers into bookstores, drop me a line. Right now, I've established groups in Raleigh, Greensboro, and Charlotte, NC. The groups are the organizational platforms for building a base of support and for planning events at stores in those areas. Ideally, I would love to have dozens of these established around the country in such a way that I could tour from city to city for the Write to Publish Groups and could count on drawing crowds from these groups at bookstore events. Stacey Saturday February 10, 2007 Just a few words from the writing front; I've managed to chip away on my novel Sacred Kill, bringing the word count total up to 35,940 at 187 pages. It is amazing to me how my perceptions of a given novel change in the course of writing it. One day, I'll feel utter despair that it is a failure, that the writing is poor, that no one will ever want to read it, that I'll never amount to anything as a writer, and that the ten+ years I've been writing are nothing short of an appalling failure. I base this largely on the fact that I've been unable to find a publisher for my work and the (literally) 1000+ rejections I've received over the years. Then, other days, I'll think that I'm carving out a career for myself one novel at a time, that all the lessons I've been forced to learn by self-publishing (public speaking, booking your own writing tour, contacting bookstores on your own, learning to build writers groups in multiple cities, getting to know editors, agents, and writers in the business by attending writers conferences, learning to contact media sources on my own to get the word out about my events, video taping, televising, broadcasting on a budget, book distribution, marketing, etc.) are all tools that will catapult me to bestsellerdom when all the pieces come together the right way. One thing I can say for sure; in the past 3-4 months my confidence about calling bookstores, asking to speak with managers, and following up by scheduling meetings with these managers has leapt ten-fold. I feel utterly at peace doing so, and I think this bodes well for organizing future book tours. I very much would like to build a regional (U.S.) network of writers groups, as a platform to organizing writers events at stores. I've got my Raleigh group which is now nearly 90 members strong. In March, I'll be beginning new groups in Greensboro and Charlotte. The idea is to build, city by city, a base of support that I can draw on to bring people into bookstores in those cities. It's very labor intensive, but when you're thirty-three and you have thirty good years ahead of you to do something like this, it seems like a great way to build a readership and business relationships with bookstores. My goal has become: make networking with other writers (regardless of talent level) a healthy obsession. And film everything, so that others can see what you're doing. Stacey Tuesday February 6, 2007 So, I updated my website. For those who come here regularly (I think there are two of you), you probably notice some of the changes. I figured if I'm self-publishing a new novel, it wouldn't hurt to put together a new look for the site. Incidentally, The Colorado Sequence is now available at Lulu.com. I am still planning to query another 180 agents for it before I release it through Lulu's global distribution service, which will make it available at Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble online, and other book retailers. I would also like to get a bunch of blurbs for the book as well. Once those two things are done, I'm going to get behind marketing and sales of the book full force. Probably sometime around late March/early April. I'm really very happy with how the book looks. Stacey Saturday February 3, 2007 I crossed the 35,000-word mark in my novel Sacred Kill today. I have the outline worked out in my mind for the second half of the novel, and I'm looking forward to completing this one. Partly to celebrate and partly because she's the most amazing wife imaginable, Susan told me that she had a big surprise for me. She gave me clues along the way, and I tried to figure it out. And I made a video... Thursday February 1, 2007 Where I live in the United States, it's a pretty unusual thing to see much snow. In a typical winter, Raleigh, North Carolina may get one or two light dustings. If it ever accumulates more than about an inch, all businesses and schools close down. So, I'm excited to bring you the first photograph of February. This was taken from my front porch about thirty minutes ago.

Monday January 29, 2007 So, I've started having a little success on the marketing and events front of my writing career. I've got six events scheduled for between March and May. I'm working with a PR colleague on getting the word out about these events. I'm calling stores daily and doing drive-bys. I'm meeting with other authors at coffee shops to talk about events. On top of that, I'm teaching a class this spring at NC State, and I have son who is exactly two months old. So, when am I supposed to find the time to write, right? Somehow, I've managed to do it. Little by little, my novel Sacred Kill has been coming along. I am currently at 32,788 words at 171 pages, which is a little under half of what I'd like to end up with. I started it last August, and I've tried to write a little bit on it whenever I have the free time. I would like to have a first draft done by the end of the semester, though the end of the summer may be more likely. It's fun. Additionally, I sent in a copy of my novel Claws to the Hillerman Mystery Competition today. I don't think I stand a chance because Claws isn't really a mystery novel. It's a suspense novel, and it's already been rejected by St. Martin's Press, who is sponsoring the competition. And there will probably be some really strong entries far better than mine. At any rate, I thought I'd give it a shot. Stacey Saturday January 27, 2007 This has been an incredible week. Due largely to the success of my bookstore event last Saturday, I've seen my email increase eight-fold, I've managed to set up three new bookstore events, and I now have Write to Publish Meetups scheduled for Raleigh, Charlotte, and Greensboro/Winston-Salem. Here's a YouTube.com video blog, wherein I discuss some of the things that are working well. Monday January 22, 2007 I've got the video footage of our event Saturday. Enjoy... Saturday January 20, 2007 Well, we had an amazing turn-out at our bookstore event today. I've never seen anything like it. I knew we were in for something special, when we arrived at the bookstore, and the store manager told us that he had already received a call that morning about our event . . . from South Carolina. It was standing room only, and people were gathered on the stairwell trying to get into the room where we had our discussion. Seating was for 70, and one head-count was that we had 108 people, including the folks on the stairwell who couldn't see the event, and instead could only listen. I've got some pretty good video footage of the opening part of the presentation, and I should have that uploaded by Monday. For now, enjoy some of the photos taken by our trusty crew (thanks Eileen and Donna!) Here's a picture of half the room fifteen minutes before the start of the presentation. No seats left. It created a bit of a frenzy on the stairwell, and it was actually somewhat hard for me to get into the room. The stairwell was packed by 11:05 AM, when the store manager led me to the front... Here's one of yours truly getting things started for the lively crowd... Here's a view from the back of the room... Here's a view of the crowd with Lulu staff member Bryan McWilliams speaking... We had a lot of questions from the crowd... Here's a picture of Lulu staff member Bryan McWilliams, and Lulu author K. Robert Campbell... Here's the whole gang afterwards. From left to right, that's Gene Curtis, Gabriel Gurley, Bryan McWilliams, me, Jon Batson, and K. Robert Campbell... Tuesday January 16, 2007 Here is the first part of my presentation recorded Sunday night in South Boston, Virginia. The video footage is not the greatest, but the audio works fairly well. Monday January 15, 2007 I've got a couple of photographs from my speaking engagement last night in South Boston, Virginia. I also have a video of the presentation, and I should have that online by Tuesday. Stacey P.S. This article appeared in the American Booksellers Association's online newspaper about my upcoming bookstore event. Sunday January 14, 2007 Here's a new interview I did with Jason Adams, host of the Lulu Radio Podcast.