Here’s the full call for submissions:

Imagine your favorite holiday stories. Chances are good the protagonists are a man and a woman, possibly even with children. But where are the stories that feature men together, or women together, that will also warm our hearts at this special season? Are there no gay Christmas tales?

That’s where you come in. We’re collecting holiday stories for two anthologies, one featuring male protagonists/couples/families, the other featuring female protagonists/couples/families, and we’d like to hear from you!

Your story should run between 2,000 and 4,000 words, contain no erotica, and be in a winter holiday setting. The only requirement is that it be historical fiction. We’re looking for tomorrow’s classics in time for next year’s holiday season!

Pay will depend on securing a publisher and will be negotiated at that time for accepted stories. Deadline is June 15, 2012, but the earlier, the better. Send Word docs to Jeannine Allard at jeannine@jeannineallard.com.

So there it is. If you’re gay, you know that the community needs more of these stories. If you’re not gay, then see how you can stretch your imagination … being able to put oneself in someone else’s experience is at the core of great fiction!

Try it out today, and you’ll be … beyond the elements of style!

The problem, of course, is that up until very recently, much of that resolution is/has been out of your hands. You may get the book into a literary agent’s slush pile; you may even get an offer to represent the book from the literary agent. But even that’s no guarantee of publication, this year——or any year.

The ebook revolution has made self-publishing a more viable option for many, though it carries with it a lot of caveats. Self-publishing is really for those who plan to behave like a publisher, and that includes spending money on outside professionals to edit, format, design, and create a cover for the book. So it’s not necessarily the easy way out, though it does offer the opportunity to be in charge of the process rather than sit and wait for the miracle to happen.

I’d like to suggest a different approach in 2012. You’ve probably heard of the SMART acronym for goal-setting: smart goals are specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-based. And they are, at the end of the day, the only goals over which you’re going to have any control.

So how about breaking down that first resolution, that of getting your book published? If it’s really what you want to see happen, there are some components that will get you closer to it:

• Join a critique group (deadline: January 20)
• Have book critiqued in group; make changes/edits as needed (deadline: March 30)
• Study book proposals (deadline: February 15)
• Create book proposal (deadline: April 10)
• Have book proposal critiqued (deadline: April 20)
• Create query letter (deadline: May 5)
• Have query letter critiqued (deadline: May 15)
• Research literary agents/publishers (ongoing)
• Select 10 agents/publishers (deadline: May 15)
• Send query letter to selected agents/publishers (deadline: May 20)

And so on. You see the difference. Your resolution might be more along the lines of interesting an agent or publisher in your book; but with a set of achievable, measurable goals like the ones above, you won’t be simply sitting around waiting for publication to fall from heaven in a Glad bag.

What are your writing goals for 2012? Can you fit them into the S.M.A.R.T. formet? I’d love to hear about them. Let me know, and you’ll be … beyond the elements of style!

So here’s the scoop on who you should pay, when, and why.

“Literary agents” (quotation marks deliberate) who ask for a fee for editing, or who recommend an editing service, are likely scam artists who have no interest in placing manuscripts with publishers. Run, do not walk, away from this sort of interest in your book. Yeah, it’s exciting to hear their enthusiasm. You’ll be a lot less enthusiastic once you’ve spent time with them.

Legitimate literary agents comply with ethical standards that prohibit them from charging authors a fee (beyond minimal office expenses for postage and copying——many do not even charge for those, and most charge only against advances received).

Agents make their money only on manuscripts sold. Agents pay money to authors; they do not collect money from authors. When your book is sold to a publishing house, your agent will collect an agreed-upon percentage of whatever it is that you make from the book. You should never write a check to your agent.

Now … on to editing.

Authors who are preparing manuscripts for submission to literary agents may wish to take full responsibility for the editing of their submissions. They often belong to peer-editing writing groups, writing workshops, critique groups, etc., and I strongly advise you, if you’re writing a book, to send it through this review process.

While a pass by a professional editor may be a worthwhile investment for the submission package of a few chapters, it is not absolutely necessary.

However, a self-publishing author is a publisher and, like all publishers, is responsible for having the book professionally edited before publication. This is when you write the check, folks. Editing (which may include both developmental editing and copyediting) is a normal part of the publishing process and is best done by skilled professionals, who do not work for free.

So … clearer? Let me know if you have any other questions. Recognizing the various roles in the publishing industry and moving efficiently through them is the best way to be seen as a professional; and it will put you … beyond the elements of style!

*****

Interesting conversation about pitch, which leads me to think what all writers, particularly unpublished writers, need in their arsenal LONG, LONG before they start running around trying to corral an agent, publisher, or self-pub their masterpiece.

• GENRE Identification: Don’t snicker. If you can’t categorize the principle genre of your story, you’ve got one strike against you with an agent, and for some agents, it’s three strikes, and you’re out. GHOST had elements of sci-fi, fantasy, humor, chick flick, thriller, and mystery well integrated into the plot, but at the heart of it, it was a romance (Ditto). Don’t confuse or frustrate the agent. The agent has to sell it to a publisher. And if you self-publish, you will have to categorize your story as well. Fortunately, sometimes you’re able to pick two or three categories as a self-publisher, but understanding your own story is important for gathering an audience.
• Pitch: That 20-second, professional sound bite that clearly summarizes your novel with the 5W’s (who, what, where, when, and why) without sounding like a newscaster on speed. (Yes, occasionally a “W” is understood by inference.) At conferences, more success can be achieved from having that “elevator” pitch while riding the elevator, sharing a drink, going to the bathroom, waiting for a cab, signing in, meeting & greeting, or having pleasant dinner conversation with an agent than anything else. Remember when you write it, that this is vocalized. Practice it so that it feels natural.
• Short (TV-Guide) synopsis (log line): This is your written 25 words (much like the pitch) that sums up your story in one sentence. Don’t say you can’t do it…the TV guide has been doing it for over sixty years for every conceivable novel turned into a movie. This is something that you have posted everywhere so everyone sees that you have a book and this is what it’s about. It’s the tease to ease someone into your lair.
• 100-word synopsis: This is the 100-word synopsis of your story that can be used as the basis of your query. This is the one that is the sales pitch without the ending, making the reader ask the question, “What happens?”
• Long-pitch: This is the expanded version of your pitch. This is the 90-second expansion of the key points in your short pitch. This is the statement you make after the agent trapped in revolving doors says, “Tell me more.” They’re not asking you to ramble on endlessly, they want to know if the initial idea has some legs. Does it have complementary and competing sub-plots? Just how idiosyncratic is your protagonist, antagonist? How unique is the setting? Are there possibilities for sequels? How does the story lead to the climax? Is there a climax after the climax? Have your 10-15 second tag-on ready if they ask how does it end.
• 500-word synopsis: This is the synopsis of your story with the ending.This is about one-page, single-space typed. This is the proof that you have command over your story and is often the next thing after three chapters that an agent wants. While there can be requests for other lengths for different types of books, I’ve only been asked for a longer synopsis once, and that was about six years ago. Bottom line. If you can’t write it on one page, the agent’s going to think that you don’t understand the heart of the story.

Are there other things to have in your arsenal? Sure. You could have a 50-word synopsis, a 200-word synopsis, talking notes in case the agent wants to chat with you over dinner on his tab at a fancy restaurant (hey, we can dream).

But the most important item you need in your bag of tricks, is a completed, well-edited book. And now-a-days, you might carry it around on a flash-drive just in case, just in case. “I do believe in spirits; I do believe in spirits.”

*******

Rick Bylina is a novelist and generally interesting person living in North Carolina. Now available: “One Promise Too Many” and “A Matter of Faith.” Read his blog here, and then you’ll be … beyond the elements of style!

“Book publishers,” writes Todd Sattersten, “launch more new products each year than any other industry on the planet and the number is growing. As an industry, we introduced over three million unique products to the marketplace in 2010 and each one of those books started in the same place: with no awareness, no audience, and no sales.”

It’s an interesting subject, don’t you think? I’m amazed by how much my attempts to reach potential clients for my freelance writing company, Customline Wordware, are mirrored by my attempts to gain readers for my novels.

And we’re seeing more and more that writers must also be businesspeople. We all resent it, of course: novelists are right-brained people, we want to create art and then have the grubby business part taken care of by others: just deposit the royalties in my account, thank you very much. But that’s simply not reality: we have a name for people who continue to think that they don’t need to know about the business end of things—we call them “unpublished writers.” Now, as I’ve been at pains to tell you, a contract is preceded by a book proposal that clearly calls out what the author’s platform is, what marketing he or she intends to do, what audience the book is likely to reach.

“Entrepreneurs believe they are always adjusting their startups to move closer to a maxima, a business model high point that can support their fledgeling enterprise. Writing book proposals involves this sort of knob turning, but then we stop. We take on risk, large amounts of risk, as we create in stealth mode outside of the purview of the customers who would most benefit from our work.”

So how does an entrepreneurial approach work for publishing? Sattersten discusses his own model in the article: his publisher put two chapters of his new book online and tested the waters, inviting the literary equivalent of focus groups to comment … and then he tweaked. It seems to have worked, as said book is now selling well. And I expect that it could work very well for nonfiction in general.

Novels are another thing altogether. What novelist wants popular opinion to dictate her plot, his characters, the dramatic arc of the story? No one that I know about.

And yet … and yet. While I am indeed a published author, my favorite and best book to date remains unpublished. I love it. My agent loves it. Publishers hate it.

So who’s to say which approach is correct? Let me know what you think, and then you’ll be … beyond the elements of style!