Samhain Publishing

With everyone on their way home or already home from RT, I thought I'd chat a bit about conferences from a slightly different point of view.
From the point of view of someone who stays home.
This business we're in is kind of funny in that a lot of the time the isolation can be almost crippling. But then there is the occasional binge of friends and meetings and panels and pitches and parties and fun (or so I've heard).
Yip, it's feast or famine around here.
So how can those of us who don't get to go to the feasts be involved, be in touch, be part of?
Today we have a thousand and one types of social media to help us connect with people. But is it the same as looking someone in the eye? Shaking someone's hand? Getting down with someone to Aretha?
I don't know.
Two weeks ago I went to a talk given by a local cop about protecting our kids online – scared the bejeezes out of me and I immediately came home and put Band Aids over the camera lens on our laptops (do you know that just by clicking on the wrong banner you can get a virus that activates your computer's camera remotely, and the camera can be on even if the little light isn't?) Anyway, the cop said something that stuck with me. He said that today you ask a kid how many friends they have and they'll give you some astronomical number. They'll give you the number of Facebook friends they have–friends they've never actually played with, never actually spoken to–and that can be dangerous because they often allow these 'friends' the same amount of intimacy they would give a friend that lives next door, who goes to school with them and knows their family and shares their life, their real life.
Is this true for us big kids too?
Can we consider our many friends on Twitter, Facebook, Skype, MySpace (do people still use that?), Divas, the blogosphere actual friends? Well, sometimes I think we can. While I don't think we can create the same amount of closeness we have with our friends that knew us when we were young and stupid and have a world of history with, there is a lot to be said for virtual friends. Especially when you're a million miles from everyone and cables and Wi-Fi are the only connections we have to other people like us.
I should get back to what started this ramble… Can we live vicariously through our virtual friends and their tweets, updates and blog posts when we don't get to go to conferences? Maybe? No, it's probably not the same as actually being there…but as my dad used to say, you make do with what you have.
And when you think of it, we're better off today than we were years ago before the explosion of social media. Today we get to read the awesome notes author friends tweet while they're attending panels and talks. We get to see pictures of so-and-so's new shoes instantly uploaded. We get to be part of things in a small way. And that's something. It might not be a feast—it's probably more like a low-calorie lunch—but it something.
So, as I settle in with my second mug of coffee in one hand and my mouse in the other, I'm off to see who said something interesting/smart/inappropriately funny, who wore something interesting/smart/inappropriately funny and who did…well, you get the idea.

Heidi Moore, Editor

Hello! I'm Christa Desir, one of Samhain's newer editors, and today I would like to discuss the somewhat difficult problem of writing a successful novella.

Sure, it seems easy at first. You look at suggested word count and think to yourself, I can definitely pull off 20,000 words. But then you start your novella, and the problems begin to pile up.

Problem 1: Your book is a short story, not a novella. You can't pull off 20k of substance and to reach that length, you'll need to start adding too much descriptive language. I like to call this the "all hat and no cattle" problem. You don't have a premise that is strong enough to sustain 20k. It gets solved within the first 1500 words or so and then all you have left are a series of sex scenes to pad the rest of your book. This is NOT a good idea. Review the structure of your story. When problems are solved by page 15, then you need a different problem. BUT, for the love of cheese, do not invent fake problems that can be solved with a quick conversation. The "it was all a big miscommunication" trope belongs in episodes of Three's Company, not novellas.

Problem 2: Your book needs to be a novel, not a novella. I would venture to say that probably half of the novellas I have read in my life fall into this category. Your problem is too big and 18-35k isn't enough time to solve it. So threads are left dangling or problems are solved too easily by the convenient disappearance of a tricky plot point or your main character has some sort of inexplicable revelation that completely changes them so that the love story can be completed. Look at your novella and assess how much you've honestly tried to take on in this. I'm not saying major events can't happen, but when SEVERAL major events happen in 20k, I'm betting on very little character development actually existing. If someone gets married, divorced, has a baby and someone else dies all in one 20k novella, I'm likely gonna see things skipped over. It's not fair to your readers to "talk" a major life event in one paragraph. 

Example: Xta married early in life and her husband's workaholic nature left her alone most of the time. When her best friend died, she was devastated and alone. When she lost a baby in the second term of her pregnancy, she didn't think she could go on and turned to meth to help ease the pain. After she was robbed while hooking on the streets, she realized she needed to get her act together and met her old high school boyfriend, Dan, who was reeling from his wife's fatal car accident.

There are about 17 book premises in the above example. When you gloss over them because you want to fit your story into a novella, you are cheating your readers. 

Problem 3: You want to write a sexy book so you're gonna fill your novella with sex. Which, yes, can be AWESOME, but if your book is 15k of sex, you're looking at 5k of substance. I love the sexy books, but 5k of substance likely means I don't care about anyone who is having sex. This is NEVER good. I need to care about the characters. I need to care about their problems. I need a story (because we are Samhain and well, "It's all about the story…"). I have no perfect sex to story ratio except to say that when sexy novellas are done well, you know it. You care about the characters. You care about what is going to happen next. You are all in. 

So go back, look at your novella, see if it falls into any of the above problem areas, then read some of my favorite novellas to see how it should be done:

Many years ago – more years than I like to think about – when I was first getting started in this crazy publishing business and working on my first book, I would go with my friends to conferences and listen raptly to the editors from Harlequin, Berkeley, Kensington etc. (hate to say, digital publishers were only a blip on the radar at that time). The same question kept coming up from similarly enraptured newbie writers: “What are you looking for in a submission?”
Invariably, the editor would roll her eyes slightly upward, purse her lips, and say, “Something fresh and different.”
Well, of course we were all convinced we were writing something fresh and different! But in reality, now that I’ve been on this side of the desk for a while, I realize…there is very little new under the sun. And now, I really understand what those editors meant. We see lots of submissions, and you’d be amazed at how many have not only the same basic plots, but the same sort of events – the “meet cute” where the heroine stumbles into the hero. The crisis ending where the hero or heroine gets shot (in the shoulder, of course). The vampire hero in the black leather trench coat. I have no doubt the writers never met, never shared ideas. And yet the same ideas keep circulating. I don’t blame the writers. These are good ideas at heart, nothing wrong with them, and you can’t control what other people are writing. But you still can work to make your book the “fresh and different” book editors are yearning for.
One big tip I’d like to share is to be aware of romance-speak. Even the freshest plot can be torpedoed by reliance on clichés. If you’ve read enough romance novels, then you’ll know what I’m talking about when I describe a certain object that feels like silk over steel, right? Romance readers could tell you in a blink what a nubbin is, a word that would leave non-romance readers scratching their heads. Tangling tongues anyone? Hooded eyes? Hot throbbing thrusting… Well, you get the idea.
Obviously, it’s nearly impossible, and maybe not even desirable, to weed out all these wonderful words we rely upon. But be mindful that if you’re using the same language you’ve read a million times in other books, you might be edging out of that “fresh and different” zone that’ll catch an editor’s eye. Stretch for original description. Push your characters to do something unexpected. Take a risk – you might be surprised that the idea you’re nervous about is exactly the one that will make an editor sit up and take notice.

What makes a good book title?

It's a question a lot of authors have to consider at some point during their journey to publication (whether it's their first journey or their thirty-first).

It needs to be something "hooky" – something that grabs the attention. It needs to not be too long – or too difficult to spell or pronounce, so people can find it on Amazon and in brick-and-mortar bookstores.

Just recently, though, I've been noticing other potential book-titling problems.

A title needs to fit with the book both in genre and theme – I'm sure I'm not the only one who'd be a little surprised if I picked up a book called…for example…Death Stalker, only to find it was a sweet humorous romance about a florist and a chef and an adorable puppy. It wouldn't matter to me that it made sense because the puppy's name was Death Stalker – what would matter to me was that the book was dressed up in the wrong clothes.

Although I haven't so far picked up a sweet romance called Death Stalker, I have seen other books that seem similarly ill-titled.  Sometimes they have an upbeat, contemporary sounding title even though they're science fiction.  Sometimes they have a really depressing-sounding title – which for a romance, even a dark one, is a bit of an immediate turnoff.  Sometimes they're just really bland.  Sometimes they're clunky, like a mini-synopsis of the whole book.  Actually, sometimes that can work (The Millionaire's Virgin Bride, for instance.) but there's still such a thing as too clunky!

Some of my favorite Samhain titles are Mari Carr's Erotic Research (totally does what it says on the tin!) and Serenity Woods' White-Hot Christmas.  Also Tatterdemalion by Anah Crowe and Dianne Fox.

What titles work (or don't work!) for you?

Recently, my family and I got to do a little time traveling, back to the days before electricity, thanks to a freak October snowstorm. There’s a saying about New England – if you don’t like the weather, just wait a minute. Well, even for us Yankees, this particular storm delivered a nasty shock. It wasn’t so much that the snow was heavy and wet or that it came down in near-blizzard conditions. It was that the trees were still adorned with the jewel-toned autumn leaves we’d been admiring just the day before. The fat flakes piled up on leafy branches ill-suited to bearing such weight, and down they came. Connecticut residents are forest dwellers, and there’s barely a yard that doesn’t have many old-growth trees. All night during the storm, we heard creaking and cracking as limbs crashed to the ground, often taking surrounding trees with them, as well as electric wires. My husband and I held our breath, hoping the towering old oaks that line our driveway would survive, and that the shagbark hickory near the front of the house wouldn’t smash through the roof.

In the morning, we awoke to a pretty, white war zone. Debris cluttered every yard and road. An ash across the way had split in half, taking the adjacent maple with it. Our next-door neighbors lost all four Bradford pears in their front yard. Streets were closed. School was cancelled (much to my children’s dismay, as you can imagine, haha). Halloween had to be cancelled as well, which was sad; I felt sorry for families with little kids who’d been looking forward to trick-or-treating. In addition to all that, we’d lost power around 2:00 on Saturday and as it turned out, we would have five days without it.

While the days were warm, in the balmy sixties, the nights dropped into the thirties. You don’t really realize just how dark it gets outside until you’re living without street lights. Our house felt like a cozy little shoebox as we huddled around the fireplace and relied on candles and flashlights for illumination. Cut off from all electronics, the kids and I played a lot of Monopoly and Scrabble. I suppose no one in the 1800s had Kindles, but was I ever grateful for mine. After strapping my miner’s light around my head, I was able to shine it on the Kindle screen and read. Never before had I been so appreciative of the Kindle’s long battery life.

As I caught up on my TBR pile, it occurred to me that living without all the electronic distractions puts your brain in a different place. I didn’t feel the need to check my e-mail every few minutes (or check my crops on Farmville!). I didn’t glance back and forth from the book to the TV screen, and the living room wasn’t filled with the distracting gunfire sounds of the PS3 game my son would normally be playing. Rather than retreat into our individual corners of the house, we gathered before the fireplace, played games, talked, and read. Even though it got pretty darned cold and eating crackers and leftover Halloween candy got old real quick, all in all, going without power for five days and nights was kind of refreshing. It also made me appreciate the companionship of books. Sharing stories in front a fire on a wintery, dark night is surely one of the oldest of human traditions. One evening, the kids and I even made up ghost stories to try to scare one another.

In this busy electronic age, it’s easy to think of books as consumable fiction, quickly read, quickly forgotten, but spending such quiet, concentrated time with books in front of the fireplace reminded me that every story told is a way for one human to reach out to others, to reestablish the familiar connection that has gotten our species through many a cold, dark, lonely spell. It reminded me once again of why I love the written word, and why writing and reading are such valuable past times. So next time you’re feeling overwhelmed – turn off everything. Curl up in front of a fireplace (or flashlight), lose yourself in a story and make that uniquely human connection once again.

I joined Samhain as an acquiring and content editor in October 2006.  I remember it because soon after I joined everyone was talking about celebrating Samhain's first birthday. 

The first book I edited came out in February 2007.  I finalized it and sent it in for formatting just on the deadline, a week before its release date.  Christina Brashear was in charge of the formatting back then, and editors were in charge of writing the blurbs for the books.  I did my best with the blurb for this first book, but it took me FOREVER, and Angela James, who was in charge of training the new editors, sent it back to me at least twice.

Because back then editors got paid solely on royalties, my first pay check didn't come until March, and it paid – well, almost - for my year's online subscription to the Chicago Manual of Style.

The latest book I edited for Samhain will come out in late November.  I finalized it and sent it in for formatting before the deadline, in August, three months before release date.  The books no longer go straight to Crissy – we have a whole organized system with files on a remote server, and a formatting specialist who deals with them all.  The blurb has been produced (thank goodness!) by Samhain's blurb editor.

I received payment for the book in September, added to my editorial assistant's salary.  The entire pay check covered a generous two months' groceries, plus several takeaways.

In October 2006, I loaded all my submissions, via a cable and Mobipocket and synching software, onto a little secondhand PDA I bought off eBay.  The battery used to die within a day of reading, so whenever I went anywhere I used to lug the charger and trailing wires with me.  The screen of the PDA was impossible to read outside, although nice to read in bed.

The last submission I read, I sent via email to my Kindle, which gets HEAVY use and which still only needs recharging every two to three weeks.  I can read it in bright sunlight.  And I have a cute little pink booklight so I can read it in bed too.

In 2006, I had to explain epublishing and ebooks to everyone I told about my job. 

Now, all I have to do is mention the Kindle and everyone understands instantly.  (Although they do still tend to associate it with exclusively self-publishing.)

In 2006, on the Absolute Write website, someone asked "has anyone heard of Samhain Publishing?", and the initial responses didn't have much information to give.  Now, if new writers ask that, they're pointed to a pages-long thread, as well as information all over the net.

I was really happy to get my job with Samhain in 2006, I loved working with everyone and I learned loads.  But I'm even happier that after five years I'm still here – and I'll be fascinated to see what Samhain's doing five years from now!

Do you have any memories from Samhain's early days?

At the weekend I was sorting out one of those cupboard middens that even the best-run households seem to acquire (not that my household is one of the best run, to be perfectly honest with you), and found a couple of computer games my kids had years ago, one based on The Cat in the Hat and one a Crayola coloring game.  I got the Cat in the Hat one to run on our computer, but so far the coloring one just won't install.  My daughters are both teenagers now, so they've moved on from these type of games anyway, but it would be fun to revisit something they loved playing with when they were little.

It's one of the most frustrating things about computers: they change so fast that software gets out of date almost overnight.  And it's so depressing to have a great computer program that you can't get to work anymore!

It's also pretty frustrating when it comes to sending files to other people.  I manage the submissions inboxes for Samhain, and I regularly get attachments of manuscripts saved in WordPerfect, OpenOffice, or something else I don't even recognize.  Usually it's quite easy for the writer who's sent it in to resave it as a more universally accepted format (we require rich text format or MS Word documents, because everyone at Samhain can open them with no trouble).

But sometimes we run into the Word 2007 problem.  Up until Word 2007, all versions of Word saved files with the extension ".doc".  Word 2007, though, saves files with the extension ".docx", and they don't open on older versions of Word.

Quite a lot of Samhain staff members have Word 2007 or later, and for them this is no problem.  But (because of the whole technology changing overnight thing I mentioned earlier) quite a lot of us haven't updated our Word versions yet.  Which is why our submissions guidelines specify ".doc" not ".docx".

The trouble comes when someone sends in what they happily assume is a standard Word document, but they've used Word 2007 and so it comes through in a  ".docx" format.  I can open all these files, as I have Word 2007, and resave them, but we get a lot of submissions and if I have to do that too many times it really slows me down.  So I generally ask the authors to resave.

But because, in addition to changing its file type, Word 2007 has changed its toolbar as well, people sometimes simply can't see how to do that.

So, for all those people whom I upset by asking them to change what they (understandably) thought was a standard Word document, here are the instructions for doing it:

Read More

As I sit here thinking about the “Going Out of Business Sale” signs I spied today, I can’t help but mourn the passing of a friend. This past Friday, all Borders stores across the nation began the liquidation process. At the moment, our local store is undoubtedly seeing more business than it has in years. Customers are filling baskets with books. Lines are long. But soon the lights will be off, the shelves will be empty, and one more venue to buy and enjoy paper books will be relegated to the annals of history.

For many months now, I’ve been going with a friend twice a week to work in our local Borders café. The barista would have my Earl Grey tea waiting for me, and the employees had become our friends. It was like our own little “Cheers,” where everybody knows your name. We also saw our share of other “regulars,” from a charming older couple who always held hands, to the college kids perusing the latest graphic novels, to the chatty kids on field trips who piled in every couple of weeks. You have to wonder where people will go to congregate now to poke through books and find gems on the shelves.

Well, there is one place…right here at samhainpublishing.com. Readers can visit and scan our virtual “shelves” for any kind of romance that suits their mood, from historical to contemporary, gay, straight, multi-partner, or a good old-fashioned sweet love story. And soon we’ll have our horror line opening – I’m looking forward to being kept awake a few spooky nights myself. As for the social aspect, readers and authors alike can meet in the Samhain Café, a Yahoo group I hope everybody gives a try. It’s a great place to make friends and talk about books – without having to pay for a double latte. You can also follow Samhain on Twitter and friend us on Facebook.

So even though the landscape of bookselling is changing, there’s still a warm and welcoming place you can go to for great stories and fun friendships. Pull up a virtual chair, plug in and settle down for some great book talk. Romance (and soon horror!) lives at Samhain Publishing.

~ Linda Ingmanson

I had the pleasure of being in New York City for RWA Nationals the week before last. And let me say, I enjoyed myself! It was so great meeting as many Samhain authors as I could, seeing my own authors, and meeting many other authors, aspiring authors, and industry professionals.

Our first Samhain event was a breakfast for Samhain authors in attendence that the wonderful and amazing Marty set up in the Sky Lobby. The food was wonderful and the company was even better. (My Indiana almost came up and I just had to stop myself from typing "even more better". Oh noes!) It was really great to be able to put names with faces.

The next Samhain event was our spotlight, led by Heather Osborn and Lindsey Faber. As always, they did a phenomenal job of answering everyone's questions. Our moderator, Nikki, did a great job of cutting them off, too, when they were so anxious to answer the question before she was able to repeat it for the taping. LOL They went over a lot of really useful information to current and prospective Samhain authors, so I urge you to purchase the audio of it. It's an absolute goldmine. =)

Our third event, and my absolute favorite, was the Samhain Booksigning. It went AMAZING AMAZING AMAZING! I loved seeing people lined up outside and waiting to get inside to get their hands on our books and see our authors. Almost all of our authors ran out of books. Yay! I took a ton of pictures, which I'll be posting as soon as I can get them off my misbehaving phone. I can't wait to share them with everyone!

Several of us from Samhain are in NYC this week for the RWA National Conference. We look forward to seeing lots of readers and authors during the event, so if you're hoping to find us to Ask the Editors in real life or find out where you can get some (free) Samhain books, mark these events on your calendar.

Tuesday, June 28

5:30 – 7:30 p.m., Broadway Ballroom, Marriot Marquis Times Square, NYC

Readers for Life Literacy Autographing

Many of our authors will be signing at this event, all to raise money for a great cause. Best of all, it’s open to the public, so you don’t have to be registered for the event to attend. 

Wednesday, June 29

4:30 – 5:30 p.m., Alvin/Carnegie

Spotlight on Samhain

Samhain editors and staff will be sharing all the latest about Samhain and answering audience questions.

Thursday, June 30

3:15 – 4:15 p.m., Chelsea/Gotham

Workshop: Money Talks: The Best-Kept Secrets of Digital Authors

Editors Heather Osborn and Lindsey Faber, along with authors Maya Banks and Toni Blake, will present a frank discussion on how to succeed and make money in digital publishing.

Friday, July 1

3:00 – 4:30 p.m., Westside Ballroom Salon 1

Samhain Publishing Book Signing

Registered conference attendees who come to the signing will be able to meet and get fee books signed by the following Samhain authors:
Lacey Alexander
Donna Alward
Vivi Andrews
Vivian Arend
Maya Banks
Jenna Bayley-Burke
Lauren Dane
Leslie Dicken
Megan Hart
Isabo Kelly
Mackenzie McKade
K.A. Mitchell
Kristen Painter
Shelli Stevens
Beth Williamson

We'll also be handing out cards good for one free digital download from the Samhain store. Stop by any of these events or find us to get one. Hope to see lots of you here!