You Own the Copyright to Your Literary Property

As soon as you write anything on paper or commit your story to your hard drive, you own the copyright to your work according to the U.S. Copyright Office.  You don't need formal registration even though that is certainly wise once you get the work published.

The fastest way not to get published is to ask agents, editors, publishers, and ghostwriters if it is safe to send them samples of your work or to request that they sign non-disclosure or con-compete documents.  We get thousands of queries a year (in some cases, tens of thousands of queries a year).  If we had to sign such documents every time we received a query, we'd live at the Post Office.

No one in a reputable position in the publishing industry is going to steal your work.  If you ask whether it is safe to share your ideas, you are guaranteeing that your query will be ignored.

~ William Hammett

Contact wmhammett@aol.com

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The Quest for Literary Representation

Querying an agent has always been a numbers game.  If you wanted a response from an A-list agent (and hopefully a request for a manuscript), you had to send out dozens of queries.  It was okay to send along a sample chapter or two, which was great if you had a snappy style and a great opening.  Response times were reasonable, with most agents responding in one week to three months.

These days, many agents want only email queries, while many still want a single page sent via snail mail (but often without any sample chapter).  If an agent is interested, you might get a request for three sample chapters.  If these pass muster, you might be asked to send the first one hundred pages.  Only then might you be asked to send the entire manuscript.  There are, of course, exceptions.

Worse still, more and more agents simply aren't responding at all if they aren't interested in an idea or proposal, even when a query or sample pages are sent with an SASE.  I once got a request for sample pages one year after I had queried an agent.  I'd already forgotten about the submission.  I sent the pages.  Another year passed, and I was asked for another hundred pages.  A year after that, I emailed and asked if the agency was interested.  I was promised a response within three months.  Six months later, I emailed again and never received a reply.  That was three and a half years down the drain.

Is it any wonder that more and more authors are self-publishing and taking their literary works straight to readers and doing their own promotion?  There are great agents out there, but it's harder than ever to land one.

~ William Hammett

Contact wmhammett@aol.com

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How Long Does It Take to Write a Novel?

This is a question I get asked all the time, but it has no answer other than "It takes as long as it needs to take."  That having been said, it has taken me about three to six months to write novels, both under my own name or for ghostwriting clients.  Genre fiction usually requires less time than penning a literary novel or "the great American epic."  Romance novels are very formulaic, for example, and publishers have strict guidelines for characterization, plot, and pace of works in this genre.  While some authors rightfully disdain using specific outlines, crime fiction, thrillers, and science fiction dictate that the author have a strong sense of where the narrative is heading in order to foreshadow correctly.  This naturally facilitates the composition process.

Many authors of what we now call the classics took months or years to write their novels, and most usually let their fiction incubate for many months before beginning an arduous series of revisions that could take additional months or years. 

It is best to start with a guiding star--an idea of the overall plot--and then let the characters tell you (within certain parameters) what they would like to do.  Ideally, fiction should grow organically--should breathe.  Otherwise, it becomes an exercise, such as painting by the numbers.  How long such a process might take depends on the length and complexity of the plot.

When ghostwriting clients approach me, however, they are usually on a budget and have a clear idea of how they want their stories to develop.  When writing mass market paperbacks for such clients, it is possible to pen novels in three months for shorter works and four month months for longer books.  E-books, of course, may be any length, and some are short stories or novellas.  Thanks to electronic publishing such as Kindle, one can publish a fairly short work without having to shop it to literary journals and e-zines.

So how long does it take to write a novel?  It depends.  Ray Bradbury wrote the first draft of Fahrenheit 451 in seven days, although he labored for many months on the revision.  And then there is the NaNoWriMo contest each November (National Novel Writing Month) in which participants are expected to write a full-length novel in one month.  It's a bit unrealistic, but it teaches discipline.  That's the key.  To write a novel, one must sit down on a regular schedule and write, write, write.  That's when words start to flow.

~William Hammett

Contact William Hammett at wmhammett@aol.com

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George Clayton Johnson: Fictioneer by Vivien Kooper

George Clayton Johnson: Fictioneer by Vivien Kooper is the engrossing memoir of a writer of short stories, novels, and screenplays. Johnson, however, is best known for his screenplays or screen adaptations of his short stories. Most people don't pay much attention to the credits flashing across their screens after a show has ended, but the chances are pretty good that you've seen one of Johnson's stories. Why? The answer is simple: George Clayton Johnson wrote for some of the most popular shows that have appeared on television, episodes of which have become iconic. Johnson developed plots or wrote screenplays for such shows as Twilight Zone, Star Trek, Kung Fu, Route 66, and Alfred Hitchcock Presents. Additionally, he co-wrote, with William F. Nolan, a novel that was later translated into the film Logan's Run. Johnson, together with Jack Russell, also developed the story that would evolve into Ocean's Eleven (both the original 1960 movie and the later series of films starring George Clooney).

The first chapters of the book detail Johnson's early life, the most pivotal event of which was when he fell into a twenty foot pit that had been dug for a septic tank. With a splintered thigh bone, he spent lonely months recovering in a hospital, much of the time being chloroformed when it was time for the doctor to make an adjustment to the weights applied to his mending leg. The chloroform filled his head with "fuzzy cotton ghosts," and it was at this time that Johnson first began to develop a keen imagination, one that would always be most concerned with the future.

As Kooper describes the childhood of Johnson, who would suffer from a broken home and later run away, we learn that this fascination with the future will remain with him for a lifetime, a belief that what "might be" is more real than present events. By skillfully using the present tense, the author places the reader directly inside Johnson's life so that we may walk with him through seminal events that will help him use this developing imagination to become a "fictioneer." The present tense also merges seamlessly with Johnson's own recollections of how he became an avid reader and paid his dues while observing some of the greatest writers in the twentieth century, men such as Ray Bradbury, William F. Nolan, Rod Serling, and Charles Beaumont.

At the beginning of chapters, Kooper frequently uses historical and scientific "place markers" (e.g., the rise of Fascism or the invention of the modern television set) to delineate the world that Johnson explores in early life. It is a world that he will study and later write about, thematically examining ideas such as freedom, death, aging, and technology.

Of special note is the author's ability to know when to use Johnson's own voice and observations to highlight his artistic and personal maturation, as well as the work that he is best known for. This wise use of source material in Kooper's narrative, and its logical, thematic organization, is the mark of a professional biographer who knows exactly how to best portray the many facets of the book's subject.

The memoir's truly engaging quality is in how it chronicles Johnson's ability to create magic from the ordinary, to infuse his stories with the willing suspension of disbelief. His greatest talent, we learn, is to have readers become willing participants in the alternate realities he has invented. If you have wondered how writers get their ideas or what compels them to practice the craft of writing--or if you are an aspiring artist of any type yourself--you will, in these pages, metaphorically sit at the feet of a master storyteller, a man whose stock in trade is to take almost any situation, turn it on its side, and then say "what if ..."

This is a fascinating book and highly recommended for anyone who wishes to learn about the creative process of one of the most remarkable writers of the twentieth century.

~ William Hammett

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Daily Public Transit Ridership by Peter Felton

Daily Public Transit Ridership: The Inside Scoop  (Daily Public Transit Ridership: The Inside Scoop at Amazon) is a book that appealed to me on several levels.  First, it is the story of Peter Felton, who became fascinated with the transit system, called Muni, in the San Francisco Bay area.  We learn in the opening pages that Felton, when old enough, was able to make his first trip on Muni and felt exhilaration at finding that he could, to paraphrase an old saying, “get there from here.”  His enthusiasm is palpable when he describes the sights and sounds he encountered when riding the Muni routes, a world teeming with energy and life, all available to anyone who had a few coins or a pass and was willing to ride the extensive public transit routes in San Francisco.  With knowledge gained as he got older, he further learned that, with a simple transfer, he could explore the metropolitan bay area and go almost anywhere.  I was fascinated by the author’s enthusiasm since so many people take the ability to travel for granted and don’t take time to really observe their surroundings.  That is who we see in the opening pages of this book: an explorer.

The next chapters of the book explain in great detail the various routes in San Francisco and surrounding areas, as well as list the specs for the numerous kinds of electric cars that have been in the Muni system.  They also explain how they operated and evolved over the decades.  As someone who grew up riding the streetcars of New Orleans and later became interested in trains (to the point of collecting magazines on locomotive and diesel specs and taking endless pictures of railway cars), I applaud the author’s efforts to explain and preserve the proud history of rail transportation, including the technical side of the Muni cars and how they affected ridership ease (or occasionally the lack thereof).  The chapters even talk of stations, platforms, signs, and seating capacity.  Do you wish to know about the legendary BART system or learn of the fabled Embarcadero route?  You’ll find the information in these pages.  As the subtitle indicates, the book provides the inside scoop.

I also enjoyed the book because it reminded me of how eco-friendly public transit can be.  This is not to say that public transit is without its flaws or has no negative impact on the environment, but public ridership does indeed cut down on the number of cars crowding streets and freeways, plus many municipalities are working hard to cut harmful emissions from their transit vehicles.  The book reminds us that comfortable and efficient public transportation is overlooked in too many communities. 

The passages in which the author describes his great wonder at being able to share the driver’s compartment, both as a youth and as an adult, with a Muni operator, even to the point of actually operating a car, brought back memories of when I yearned to drive a streetcar or diesel engine, an opportunity I never received.  Through Felton’s eyes, however, I vicariously got the chance.

Ultimately, this book is about odyssey and opportunity.  We don’t need to climb mountains to find adventure and exploration.  As a kid, Felton saw a world that others lived in but were blind to.  Muni was (and is) not just utilitarian transportation, but rather an exciting way to travel and make discoveries.  The book is a coming of age story in which the author learns to navigate a small part of the world that, through his eyes, isn’t really small at all.  Rather, it is filled with the pulse of life and a million sights that are waiting to be noticed.  As a child, I sat in streetcars and looked at mansions and rural vistas one minute, only to pass through gritty streets lined by brick buildings the next.  I learned a lot about the larger world by investigating the microcosm of New Orleans.

This book reminded me that the simple way of doing things is sometimes the best.  For the price of a simple token or pass, one can board a trolley, bus, or subway, and, like popping in and out of a black hole, discover new places and people—or maybe even the backyard that is the city where you live.

~ William Hammett

Kindle Direct Publishing (Select)

Established authors, as well as self-published authors, are now finding that Kindle Direct Publishing offers many advantages over Print-on-Demand, or POD.  In fact, many authors are not even trying to get their eBooks onto other platforms, such as Barnes & Noble, Smashwords, or iTunes, nor are they interested in producing paperback editions.  At first glance, this would seem to be counterproductive since one would think that sales would increase by also increasing the number of sales outlets for a title.

Kindle Direct Publishing Select offers many advantages, however.  First, Amazon's Kindle store outperforms all other online eBook outlets.  Also, several authors have found that Amazon does a better job advertising titles on their site when authors promise exclusivity.  Sales are definitely generated by Amazon's trademark ads that state, "Customers who bought this title also bought . . . ."

That having been said, it is advisable to follow a few rules of thumb.  Kindle Direct Publishing Select offers an author the option of offering a book for free for a limited number of days for promotional purposes.  Nothing boosts sales more than giving away something for free.  People like to download free books, and this can result in increased reviews on the Amazon site.

In turn, positive reviews result in customers going to the promotional websites of a book or author, sites where the book is also offered for sale by a link back to Amazon.  This is when an author may choose to offer the book for .99 cents for a period or time, after which the price may be increased.  Sales are usually optimal at $2.99 per title regardless of the length of the book, although many authors move up to $3.99.

The book must be well-written, of course, but if an author has a quality product, Kindle Direct Publishing and Kindle Direct Publishing Select offer a great deal of opportunity in this new age of publishing.

~ William Hammett

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Fifty Shades of Boring

Fifty Shades of Grey, an erotic thriller by British author E. L. James, was published in 2011 by Vintage Press.  It has been a huge financial success for its author and publisher.  The public still loves its vicarious sex in an age of "anything goes" combined with "I am so terribly bored with my life."

We have seen this tale before: older man initiates young virgin into the world of forbidden pleasures and sophistication.  Vanity, vanity, there is nothing new under the sun.  Christian Grey will escort young Anastasia Steele into a sordid world that is devoid of any real meaning, corrupting the innocence of his toy in the process.  The world in Fifty Shades of Grey is a depressing place, with no redemption possible on its existential stage.  One survives by submitting to pain or manipulating the body of a lover as one would a puppet or a rag doll.

What is troubling is that we not only have another book of BDSM--bondage, dominance, and sadomasochism--that makes sexual love voyeuristic rather than exciting or meaningful, but we also have sex that is codified by document.  Grey wishes Steele to sign a contract specifying that she will not reveal any of their physical acts, nor will these acts be construed as love.  Contractually, the sexual acts will be sex for the sake of sex, nothing more.  Given that is already the case in the age of the hook-up, forcing someone to sign a contract stipulating that sex will be meaningless is redundant, but it is yet another manipulative tool used by Grey on "Ana."

To sign a contract promising sex--sex under strict, limited conditions--is yet another way of degrading one's lover and robbing him or her of the status of "equal" or "other."  The grand concept of romantic love as a union of partners sharing their bodies and innermost selves with mutual respect and trust is trivialized in this novel of small-minded titillation and gratification of the ego.  Pain and dominance do not achieve worthy goals in any area of life, and we need only look at business and government to see obvious examples.  Pain and dominance have, in fact, fueled most of mankind's wars.  The subjugation of others through arbitrary law, rules, and violence bears no fruit, and it certainly does not enhance personal relationships.  Instead, it creates or reinforces severe dysfunction. 

S&M is nothing new, and for some couples it is a lighthearted role-playing game with "silken bonds."  So be it.  Fifty Shades of Grey, however, portrays BDSM in a more sobering light in which two conflicted souls will sell their integrity to unsuccessfully try to define their humanity and discover the meaning of human relationships.

Walker Percy wrote several novels about the spiritual malaise of the modern age.  He was especially interested in how people who are psychologically adrift will try new lovers, more lovers, and endless variations on the sex act in order to fulfill themselves.  They are, as he said, "lost in the cosmos."  It is obvious that Grey and Steele are among this number, individuals who have such little ego structure that they have no way to live authentically and truthfully.

The book, of course, is not literary fiction, nor does it really qualify as erotica either.  It is soft-core porn according to the definitions of most critics.  Author Sir Salman Rushdie said, "I've never seen anything so badly written that got published.  It made Twilight look like War and Peace."  In the New York Times, Maureen Dowd described the book "like Bronte devoid of talent."  Jesse Kornbluth of the Huffington Post said, "Fifty Shades of Grey is a sad joke, puny of plot."

It's trite.  It's been done before.  To paraphrase Dylan, it's "too much of nothing."  So what are we to make of such a literary success?  The answer is grim.  We want to read anything that will make us forget, however briefly, our own existential angst.  As Walker Percy said, sometimes the best thing a person can do is adopt a little humility and take up golf course maintenance.  Sadly, Ms. James didn't go this route.

~ William Hammett

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