Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

After our pastor’s sermon on the faulty thinking of the “save the planet” slogan (only Christ can save the planet, after all), I debated about the wisdom of this title! But it still captures what I want to say today.

Over the years, writers tend to pile story/article ideas, partially finished manuscripts, rejected manuscripts ... we need more and more space (whether digital or physical) to keep track of our writing family.

What can we do with the growing junk pile? Recycle it.

The “reduce” rule would make an excellent topic for a post on writing tight ... I’ll save that for another day.

But ... reuse and recycle. Those both apply to our “leftovers.”

Reuse I think of in terms of research. Some people have made a career out of writing about the same setting (time, place, and/or culture). Beverly Lewis and Wanda Brunstetter and their Amish books come to mind, although both women have written books in other genres as well. I belong to a marketing group that started among writers committed to American history 1860-1876, Civil War through Reconstruction.

The same time period is the setting for two of my published books as well as a third that an editor has expressed interest in. I keep reusing my understanding of the Year of No Summer in new ways. (Beacon of Love and Bridge to Love)

Researched a story about storm chasers that didn’t sell as a romance? How about reworking it as suspense? A contemporary novella I proposed about a fire in Mesa Verde National Park has morphed into a historical novel about a film producer filming the Anasazi ruins at Mesa Verde.

Use topics you researched in depth for publicity. Offer yourself as a speaker on that topic. Blog about it. Write articles. I wrote an article on witnessing to Buddhists which involved a lot of research. I used and expanded that research to write a second article on a biblical view of reincarnation. (Both articles sold.)

• Your assignment: Find a story you have written and/or sold. How can you use the same information you accumulated during writing that book in a new and different way

Recycle:
Reprints. If you write articles and short stories, keep looking for places to sell reprint rights. My short story The Ultimate Survivor has appeared in three separate places.

Rewrite. Write on the same topic with a slightly different slant. I wrote three articles on using “the arts” in children, one for a parenting magazine and two for teaching magazines.

Prolong. If you’ve written a stand alone, and a publisher wants a series, find a character (or characters) that demand their own story. That’s what I did with my first book, Romanian Rhapsody: Carrie’s best friend Michelle will have her own romance in Plainsong.

• Your assignment: Think of a character from one of your books who could be the center of another story; or research ways to resell or rewrite articles you’ve already sold once.

Reminder: For an opportunity to win one of my books (as well as books by Susan Page Davis and Karen Witemeyer), please leave one or more comments on my blog darlenefranklinwrites.blogspot.com during the month of June.

Researching Publishers

What publisher are you targeting?

The first time I heard that question, my reaction was “Anyone who wants my book!” I suspect several of you feel the same way. We’ve all heard the stories of authors like Frank Baum and Madeleine L’Engle who received dozens of rejections before finding a publisher. They obviously didn’t write for a specific publisher.

Two thoughts: As a writer, I’m not in the same class as Baum and L’Engle.

Second thought: To quote an old adage, if you aim at nothing, you’re sure to hit it.

As authors, we’re supposed to know our audience. We also should know our publisher. But how?

Ideally, we have a publisher (or a “short list” of potential publishers) in mind before we begin writing. Let’s start with some easy differences between publishers: Length? 1st or 3rd person? Number of POV characters? Genre? Flipping through a few books from that publisher and studying the market guide will answer most of those questions.

Once you’ve identified a publisher that you believe might work, the hardest work lies ahead of you: read their books. If the publisher has a book club, subscribe for several months up to a year. . .and read all the books. If they don’t, obtain several books by different authors in your genre. What feeling do you get for style, conflicts, characters? If you write angst-ridden fiction and the publisher focuses on light-hearted romance, your story probably won’t fit. When reading, pay as much attention to the publisher as you do to the author.

Once you’ve read enough from a particular publisher, you get a sense of what they are looking for in a manuscript. For instance, what sets apart Barbour’s Heartsong Presents, Harlequin’s Love Inspired/Historical/Suspense, and Summerside’s Love Finds You from each other? How has each publisher distinguished itself from the other and found a thriving market in their overlapping genres? The answers may surprise you.

The same basic story might fit any of those publishers, but you will have a better chance of selling it if you tweak your story for their specific audience.

I read Heartsong books for years before I made my first sale. I have yet to sign on the dotted line with any publisher other than Barbour, but I am getting close. Within the past year, several publishers I have studied extensively have asked for manuscripts. One has even penciled me in for 2012. So I’m a living testimony to the fact it works.

Have you ever experienced this yourself? Let us learn from each other.