The Essential Guide to Getting Your Book Published : review

Released five years ago as Putting Your Passion Into Print, authors Arielle Eckstut and David Henry Sterry helped writers brave the waters and move forward in their quest for publication. Updated under a new title and including timely information about the importance of social media and the larger role for the author makes The Essential Guide to Getting Your Book Published a go-to book for writers - those experienced and not-yet-published. As social media becomes our word-of-mouth for the book business, Eckstut and Sterry go over how websites, blogging and communities specific to your topic (plus Twitter and Facebook) can help you establish a market and fan base for your book. I found particularly useful the sections regarding the business side of publishing. This is not a book on how to write a novel nor nonfiction title but practical advice on what comes next, taking the idea or finished project to the next step: how to pitch your ideas, finding an agent, connecting to your audience, and into working with your future editor and publisher with a separate chapter on self-publishing.

Interviews with authors and publishing insiders make the book more insightful than a compilation of steps, however. The authors’ own experiences in the world of publishing lends a credibility to the Guide, giving the book a more personal touch than I've found with many other authors on these subjects. I recommend The Essential Guide to Getting Your Book Published as a practical addition to the serious writer's personal library and will be using their advice in my own work as an author.


And now for the fun stuff *rubs hands together*

Beth Bartlett of Squiggle and I have teamed up for a double giveaway! (I can hear you cheering out there) Two chances to win a spankin' new copy of The Essential Guide to Getting Your Book Published from Workman Publishing.

Entering is a snap with three ways to win:
  1. Follow @plaidearthworm (Beth) and I (@staceyigraham) on Twitter and mention the giveaway with a link back to our blogs, using the hashtag #GTBPgiveaway
  2. Give both sites a "thumbs up" using StumbleUpon
  3. Tell us on both blogs why you need this book in our comments section. Be sure to tell us if you are following us on Twitter - please leave your @ID and your email address so we are able to contact you if you win
Winner will be chosen November 2, 2010, by random.org and announced on both sites.
    Good luck, Sparky!

    photo credit: Workman Publishing

    Don't hesitate to decapitate

    Yesterday was hopping with two interviews - the lovely and talented Eric S Brown's Q/A for Naked Snake Press and the most awesome book bloggers I've met out there, the Paperback Dolls with their Zombie Week questions and giveaway of HUNGRY FOR YOUR LOVE. As always, I try to keep things professional, dignified and slightly off. 

    A sample from the Paperback Dolls interview:


    The Zombies are loose and the military is telling people to abandon their homes and seek refuge until the situation is contained. What books would you take with you if you could only bring three?

    I'd be packing heat so I'd need Sarah Palin's Guide to Big Boom Sticks; 101 Ways to Cook Vermin and, of course, The Hooters Guide to Quantum Physics.
    What is it about Zombies that attracts so many different types of people to read books or watch movies about them?

    Zombies have a sense of humor. They're neither moody like vampires nor whiny like ghosts. They have the whole "I'm going to eat you" thing, sure, but at least you'll get a chuckle out of it before they bite through your skull. You can count on a zombie to take you to fun places. He may be chasing you through them but at some level you'll appreciate the gentle beauty of the Undead. Humans are attracted to zombies because they're not unlike the people we dated in college. Though with more potential.

    If zombies could be put to sleep by reading boring books, what book would you use as a weapon?

    I'd go with War and Peace. That way when they nod off I can hit them over the head with it. Remember those movies where the heroine knocks out the villain and starts doing her nails only to have him rise up in back of her with bad background music? Not me, baby. Don't hesitate to decapitate.
    Thank you to both the Dolls and Eric!

    If you've missed the AOL City's Best - Seattle interview for the upcoming zomBcon, it's a pip!

    Hungry for your autograph? zomBcon schedule for next weekend!

    I'll admit, zomBcon is making me a little nervous. This will be my first book signing, first time on an author panel and the first time with mice in my hair. If you've met me before, you'll know I'm more freaked out about the mice than the other two. But for the sake of room in my suitcase for con swag, I'm going the easily-packable mice route so I can meet up with Melanie and her towering red beehive for me to wear on my favorite holiday.

    I'd love to see y'all if you're around the Seattle area or during zomBcon!

    My schedule:
    • Friday, October 29: 7p at the VIP cocktail party sippin' zombies and dirty martinis
    • Saturday, October 30: 12p at the Barnes & Noble - Seattle Center to sign copies of HUNGRY FOR YOUR LOVE
    • Saturday, October 30: 4-5p Author panel- Zombies are people too, with authors Scott Browne (Breathers), Scott Kenemore (Zen of Zombies) and Jesse Petersen (Married with Zombies) where I'll discuss the subtle nuances of Undead Lovin'. Better bring a wetnap.
    • Sunday, October 31: 4:30p - Eat and Greet

    The Undead That Saved Christmas

    Sometimes it takes a village to help great kids have a fantastic Christmas. And sometimes that village is filled with scary, misshapen beasts that eat brains and have a distinct creep factor but enough about DC...

    The Undead That Saved Christmas is the kind of stocking stuffer that only very odd children would appreciate but adults go nuts over. Filled with enough zombie action for the discerning Undead fan, it replaces the heart that the zombies ripped out moments before. Imagine THAT wrapped under the tree, eh?

    Proceeds from the sale go directly to the Hugs Foster Family Agency in southern California to help with Christmas gift costs. I'm happy to be a part of this fun anthology with my short story, And to All a Good Fright. It's one of my personal favorites. Gather round, kids, for a little excerpt:

    The elves never saw it coming. One minute Santa Claus was happily breaking and entering into houses and the next – dead as a Christmas cookie, crapped on by Comet.    
    “What the hell was that about?” Burley never minced words. It’s no wonder they kept him away from shopping malls when Santa popped in for a special occasion, he’d scare the crap out of the kids. Pulling a cigarette from behind a pointed ear, he scraped a match on the body lying on the snow-covered lawn and lit the sweet tobacco. His breath in short puffs, he attempted to keep it going against the coldness but with little luck.  Throwing the stunted paper roll to the ground, he looked at his partner.

    “Just one more cookie, just ooone more cookie!” Elmore paced around the body. His feet jangled with the regulation bells the main office made all elves wear on their shoes to show solidarity. Burley complained it was more like elf torture to hear the tingling of the silver spheres daily, his ears apparently more sensitive than his personality.

    “Forget it. The old man is gone. What did he think? All those sweets for the past hundred years wouldn’t catch up to him? His only exercise was climbing those roofs one night a year, and damn – those reindeer were getting husky pulling his jolly red butt as he put on a little cookie weight.” Extending his stomach, Burley jiggled toward the Christmas icon, “Ho, ho, meh, whatever.” Clapping his hands together to get the blood circulating again in the cold, Burley looked around the neighborhood where bad luck and one-to-many Ding Dongs had stranded them.

    Other excellent stories and carols by my friends Jason Tudor, Angie Mansfield and Beth Bartlett plus two little carols I, er, zombie-fied, are included, joining other zombie authors in this great book for a worthy cause.

    Ho, ho... meh, whatever.

    Trimming the tentacles

    No, no, I don't mean my recent haircut. But more on that later.

    Yesterday I opened up a WIP that hasn't seen a lot of action lately due to other projects but it's still close to my heart. Almost. The main characters are strong, there's snappy dialogue and the pacing is good (if I do say so myself), however I have no fargin' idea where it's headed. Point A started off well but on its way to Point B it picked up a load of hitchhikers and sub-plots, making what should have been a great short story/novella into a many-tentacled octopus. I hate calamari.

    The ending that was crystal-clear in the beginning is now muddied with pushy sub-characters and their agendas. I have no choice but to be the heavy and snuff a few.

    What's your favorite way to kill off a character?

    Re: hair. I've had waist-length hair for eight years and it was time for a drastic change. You'll see the new 'do on Thursday, October 21st, with my interview with Northern Virginia Daily (if all goes as planned). Stay tuned~

    Latah playahs-
    Stace



    Photo credit: unknown

    Excerpt from Eye of the Beholder in HUNGRY FOR YOUR LOVE



    by Stacey Graham


    Anna left the theater with the theme song swelling her head.  Escaping through the fire exit door, she skirted around couples holding hands as they whispered about the credits.  She had candy stuffed into her bag and a soda stain on her skirt, who would care if she stuck to the shadows?  Stepping out of the alley, she attempted to hug the dirty brick walls lining New York City’s Time Square and avoid the tourists dressed in their best vacation gear, price tags still attached to the collars. 

    Eyes fixed on the filthy oil and God-knows-what stained concrete beneath her feet; Anna crossed Broadway, her hands clutching the cheap purse she’d bought on Canal Street weeks before.  The smell of formaldehyde still clinging to the fabric, the bag reminded her of her last boyfriend: small, stinky and not worth the money she’d spent on it – but she loved it.  It was unfortunate that the chemicals used in making the bag had created an adverse allergic reaction, seizing Anna’s ability to breathe and slowly suffocating her a few days later.  When she awoke in the morgue, she held the purse in a death grip not content to release the faux Coach bag she’d died for, even in the half-life of the undead.  

    Through the excessive noise of the car horns and music of a half-naked cowboy, Anna’s eyes strayed from the pavement to a pair of lovers, caught in the harsh illumination of the street lamp that clashed with the gaudy lights of Times Square.  Their hands wandering and lips smashed in unnatural angles against skin, Anna lingered too long watching, mentally betting against herself on how long it would be before one of them took a breath; one that didn’t include the other’s carbon dioxide.  Her head turning back a moment too late, her body crashed into the figure dead ahead.  As her cheek assaulted the soft gray wool of his suit jacket, she felt her skin tear away, leaving a rough spot that would take forever to patch up in the morning.

    “Awesome,” she thought.  “How much more putty does a girl have to go through to leave the house lately?”  Clutching the torn skin on her face with her fingers, Anna turned to apologize.  Zombie maintenance was getting expensive.  Soon she’d be filling the holes with Spam in order to make it to the corner store, she thought with a wry grin.

    “I’m sorry, I didn’t see.. What are you doing?” she said.  The man in the suit was on his hands and knees in the deepening twilight searching the ground for something. 

    “Don’t step on it!  I can’t get another one and those things squish.  Sounds awful.”  His hands groping blindly, she dropped beside him to help.  Her eyes darting under the tabloid paper boxes, their innards stuffed with news of the apocalypse, she heard him chuckle.  “I finally get a girl to notice me and she’s helping to find an eyeball.”

    “I’ve heard worse pickup lines,” she joked.  Having a bond with someone who understands the delicate nuance of rotting flesh and protruding cheekbones made up for any awkwardness over missing orbs.  Dropping her purse to the ground to get a better look under the paper boxes, she heard a distinct POP.

    "Oh crap, I’m sorry.”  With a grimace, she raised her bag to find the squashed remains of a blue-veined eye, stuck to the bottom of her fake Coach Hobo.  Peeling what was left from the leather, viscous eye goo leaving a trail from the bag, she gave it to the man now standing over her, one hand covering the gaping hole in face.

    “Blech.  I hate it when this happens, it was inevitable, however.”  His auburn hair tussled from the hunt and patches of dirt on his knees, he looked more of a teenager than a grown zombie male slowly losing his parts due to a clumsy girl.  Smiling at her now, she saw how his face was losing elasticity around the mouth, giving him a lopsided grin that she hoped he was going for.  


    ---------------------------------------





    For more of Eye of the Beholder in HUNGRY FOR YOUR LOVE, please click on the graphic above to purchase. Thanks!


    Poe Haiku and contest at Innsmouth Free Press


    I'm late to the haiku game. My friend, Melanie Hooyenga, excels at it and has dedicated a blog to her haiku homage but I resisted. Eventually I came around as the zombies begged for a chance to try the 5-7-5 syllabic poems and the Zombie Dating Guide haikus took over my life.

    Today I found the Innsmouth Free Press Poe Haiku contest via twitter. The heavens opened up (as I love Poe) and I let loose three poems that had nary a zombie. Care to try your hand? The contest closes October 15th and there are prizes, Internet! YAY! It's a dandy little website so take a look around, don't be shy!


    My entries:

    Children of Poe seek
    Refuge in darkness while they
    Paint eyes black and weep

    The subtle ticking
    Of secrets hidden beneath
    The floor rots within

    Poe was mistaken
    It was no raven that brought
    The gloom, it was but the night



    Okay, I didn't say they were good. Show me those Poe poems, people! It's on like Donkey Kong...


    photo credit: reddit

    It all started with a little boo...

    Long before zombies stumbled into my life, I was writing little poems for kids -- usually centered around Halloween. As "Boo-ing" swept across the states years ago, I wrote my own for our neighborhood and whipped up a ghostie to accompany it in the goodie bag.

    From my website, "You have been Boo'd":

    Halloween is the perfect time for good little goblins to come out and play. Spread the fun by leaving a bag of goodies with the Wee Ghostie poem and drawing below on the doorstep of a friend or neighbor's house the week before Halloween but don't let them see you! Click on the ghostie below and save to your computer, then print him out to add to your goodie bag!

    Goodie bag ideas:
    Candy
    Puzzles
    Games
    Halloween DVDs
    Toys
    Coloring pages
    Crayons
    Fake vampire teeth
    Halloween makeup
    Stickers

    Include this poem and the directions with your Wee Ghostie bag:

    It all started with a little BOO
    A knock upon the door and off they flew!
    Halloween is almost here, the leaves are flying by
    The pumpkins are ripe, there’s a witch in the sky!
    Wee Ghostie came by the light of the moon
    Put him in your window, it’s not too soon!


    You have been BOO'd!

    Choose two families and pass on a treat, make a copy of the ghostie and add it in so they can join in the fun! Put your Wee Ghostie in the window so others will know you’re part of the party!






    What traditions do you love at Halloween?

    z-NOM-bie cupcakes

    I think I've finally turned the bend to crazytown.

    I'm being interviewed tomorrow by a local newspaper and was requested to bring a copy of Hungry For Your Love and cupcakes. Apparently my baking skills have proceeded me. Thus I'm happy to comply on both counts. The girls chose the flavor (chocolate fudge for "dirt" of course. I had to stop Vyolette from being a method baker and going outside for more "flavor") and I picked up gummy eyeballs and the nastiest looking gummy hand I've ever seen. To be honest, this was the first gummy hand I've ever seen so sets the benchmark on vileness.

    All went well as you can see:
    Okay, so the grass is actually green but Photoshop got a little carried away...

    Get it? "...as you can SEE?" I kill me.


    Tune in soon for a link to the article where I hope that I don't look like a complete dork. Stop laughing.

    Who put the Me in Meme?

    My lovely friend, author Adam Slade, has foisted a meme upon me. It buuuuuurns.

    But I shall endeavor to live up to his lofty standards with ridiculous answers and slightly uncomfortable pauses.

    Ahem:

    A Meme
    1. If you could have any superpower, what would you have? Why?

    What the what? You don't think popping out five kids and not becoming a complete nutter in the process isn't a superpower? You're grounded.

    2. Who is your style icon?

    Writing-wise: If I get even thisclose to being like Poe or Shirley Jackson, I'll die a happy yet angsty woman. I may be a little too perky, however.

    Fashion-wise: I tend to favor the Dolly Parton school o'fashion and horticulture.

    3. What is your favorite quote?
    "Mom, I think I'm allergic to dumb."  Vyolette Graham, four-years-old

    4. What is the best compliment you’ve ever received?
    I was told today on twitter, "I love that your pic makes everything you tweet, including eating poison M&Ms, seem like the best idea in the world." Awesome, eh?  =]


    5. What playlist/CD is in your CD player/iPod right now?

    When Harry met Sally soundtrack. I have a deep and abiding love for all things classic and Cole Porter makes my whammy go bammy.

    6. Are you a night owl or a morning person?

    I'm a mid-morning person, meaning get the RY#$@ out of my way until I've consumed two cups of strong coffee and it's around 10:30am. Then I'm a vision of loveliness. Or mayhem. Whatever.

    7. Do you prefer dogs or cats?

    Dogs are a bit piquant so I'll take the cats this time though the bones are harder to pick out of your teeth.

    8. What is the meaning behind your blog name?

    Google was taken.



    And now to inflict meme torture upon my unsuspecting friends:


    And now we dance.

    Hungry For Your Love released Wednesday to great fanfare and a headcold. I think the fanfare was, in fact, my blowing my nose repeatedly as Vyolette kept checking for elephants outside, the rotten kid. This was not exactly how I imagined seeing my name in a book for the first time but I rolled with it as per my nature. And I would have scared small  children if I had ventured far that day. Whatever.

    Ergo today Vyo and I scoured Borders for the copies listed on their website as being in the store. I searched the stacks, stalked the tables and finally gave up after finding her complaining to the checkout toys that her mama was a bit odd. Resigned to come back another day, I backed into a shelving cart. There, snuggled next to my buddy, Kelly Meding's excellent novels, were the lone two copies ready to be thrust onto an unsuspecting and zombie-hungry audience. I thought I heard angels for a moment but it turned out to be Vyolette's delicate digestive system. Hey, you take what you can get.

    Grinning like a fool, I walked my lovely (and huge) copy to the checkout stand and tried to be cool. You know, cause I'm an author. That lasted about 30 seconds until I casually flipped to my story and held it under the poor man's nose who was asking about my Borders card.

    "ME!" I said.

    "You know the author?" said he.

    "YES!" Pointing to myself, "I'm one of them. I'm her, that's me!" I could tell he was impressed by my command of the English language. I just have that writer vibe.

    Reaching for the phone, I thought he was about to call security but instead I discussed future book signings with the very nice field manager who told me the manager had a thing for zombies and local babes who write about zombies. Okay, maybe not the last part but it could happen.

    And now we dance.