Author Interview: Jonathan Langford

Nearly a year ago, as a Whitney Awards judge in the General category, I read No Going Back, by Jonathan Langford. I knew little about it going in, but I admit to being somewhat wary. This was a first-time novelist taking on a daunting task of telling the story of a faithful LDS young man who struggles with same-sex attraction. Basically, he's a faithful, gay Mormon.

One thing that surprised me (in a good way) about the book is that it wasn't, as I expected, a didactic, preachy story where the author had an agenda he was determined to whack the reader with so often that there's no way to avoid getting the message. (Something that did happen in another nominee I read.) I talked about the difference between the two back in January over at the AML blog.

As my long-time readers know, I don't review books here, but I do sometimes interview writers. So here's my interview with Jonathan Langford, whose No Going Back did end up being Whitney Award finalist for Best General Novel.

How long have you been writing and how did you get started? (When did the bug bite you?)

I had a poem published in The Children’s Friend (its title back then) when I was 8, I think. Does that count?

I’ve always had an interest in stories and writing, and used to spend a lot of time thinking out plots for stories when I was younger. Mostly science fiction and fantasy. A lot of them were interactive stories that my best friend and I would make up spontaneously and act out. Then in college, I was part of a creative writing group at BYU with several people who later became published sf&f authors, including Dave Farland, who’s a good friend of mine. I always seemed to do better at editing and critiquing other people’s work than producing my own, though.

Eventually, I got into informational writing, which is what I do professionally now. I enjoy that — but I also felt that something was missing. Then a few years back, about the time I turned 40, it was like something in the back of my head went “Ding! Time to start writing stories again!” I floundered around for several years, working on fantasy stories that never seemed to get anywhere (though I still have hopes for some of them). Then I started working on the idea for No Going Back, and everything seemed to come together.

Where did the idea for No Going Back come from?

For me, story ideas come from imagining a particular character in a specific situation. We’d been talking on AML-List, an email discussion group sponsored by the Association for Mormon Letters, about the relative lack of stories about faithful Latter-day Saints who are also homosexually attracted. A friend of mine, Rex Goode, who is same-gender attracted but also a faithful member of the Church, explained how people in that situation often are misunderstood both within the Church and within the gay community, which has no sympathy with their desire to live according to Church standards. And then in the middle of that discussion, an idea popped into my head — from wherever it is that story ideas come — for a story about a teenage LDS boy whose best friend (also LDS) confides in him that he’s gay, then is eventually outed and encounters difficulties at school and Church for being gay, even though he’s committed to live by Church standards. I had a picture in my mind of the story ending with the non-gay best friend kneeling at the sacrament table and having a hard time forgiving the members of his ward for the tough time some of them had given his friend.

So originally the story wasn’t going to be about Paul, the boy with homosexual feelings, but rather about Chad, his best friend?

It would still have been largely about Paul, but from the point of view of his best friend. At the time, I was envisioning it as a short story. I put the idea on a back burner, though, because I was busy trying to work with my fantasy ideas at the time. A few years later, I was feeling thoroughly stuck with my other stories, and so I started thinking about this one again. Things started clicking, and I saw how this could become an entire novel. A big part of that was adding Paul as a point of view character, and developing the character of his bishop—who also happens to be Chad’s father—more thoroughly. And then I started writing, and things proceeded from there.

What research did you have to do for the book?

I wound up researching a lot of picky details, such as what kind of music was popular among teenagers in 2003 and what movies were being released. Then I had to watch some of the movies and listen to the music. I interviewed the advisor for our local high school’s gay-straight alliance club, and I attended a meeting of PFLAG (Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays). I went online to check out what priesthood manual was being used that year, and then was able to borrow one of the lessons pretty much as is for what turned out to be one of the funnier scenes in the book. Research can be a pain, but it delivers gifts to the writer. Doing your research and then finding a way to stay accurate within what you found often results in much better stuff than if you just follow your imagination. At least, that’s what I found.

I mentioned on the AML blog that I appreciated how you didn’t approach the topic in a didactic way. Did you go into the book with a message you were trying to convey? Did the story grow organically?

The story grew organically, but I also had some things I wanted to communicate along the way. I wanted to give a sense that it was possible to experience homosexual attractions but also to be quite sincere in wanting to follow the Church’s teachings. I wanted to communicate a sense of the difficulty of being pulled between the world’s way of viewing this issue and the Church’s teachings on this topic. On a broader scale, I was hoping that reading this book might prompt people to think about positive ways they could react if someone told them he or she had homosexual feelings, and to stimulate more discussion of the issue from that perspective among Church members. I didn’t mean to advocate any particular answers, but simply to increase understanding and compassion—along with telling a compelling story about characters whom the readers would hopefully care about. Without that part, all the positive messages in the world won’t get you anywhere.

Back when I was teaching freshman composition in college, I used to tell my students that they should be able to create a thesis statement for their argument papers beginning with the words, “I am arguing that . . .” Generally speaking, you shouldn’t be able to do that with a story. I’m not saying that good stories never come about that way, because Milton and Vergil (among others) might have something to say about that, but as a general rule, stories aren’t about themes but rather about experiences. Inevitably the stories we create will reflect our morality and the way we believe the world works. On the whole, though, story-writing—and reading—isn’t really that much like writing and reading an essay or a how-to manual. As someone who’s written plenty of essays and how-to manuals, I can definitely attest to that.

What was the most interesting thing you learned through the process of researching/writing NGB?

I learned that a lot of what I thought would work for me as a writer, and what I’d heard other people say worked for them, didn’t necessarily work for me. For example, the tactic of writing quickly and then going back later to polish proved to be an absolute disaster for me. I almost literally could not bear to read the stuff I produced that way, which kind of defeated the purpose. Instead, I found that I need to take the time to write as well as I can the first time around — with a lot of revision afterwards, of course. And I found that when my writing quality starts going downhill, I have to walk away from it for a while before writing again: an hour, a day, whatever.

That’s only an example. For me, the process of becoming a story writer was filled with surprises. It still is.

I also found myself surprised at just how definite my conceptions of my characters became over time. Often during the editing process, I’d react to a proposed edit by thinking, “No, he wouldn’t say it like that. Instead, he’d say __.” Once a reader referred to one of my minor characters as homophobic, and I said, “No, he’s not homophobic, he’s . . .” And I spouted about five minutes’ worth of explanation about things I hadn’t realized I knew about that character and his motivations.

What is your writing style? Are you an outliner or a by-the-seat-of-your-pantser? Somewhere in between?

Somewhere in between I think. I’ve tried outlining my other stories, and in fact I typically use outlining in my informational projects, but I found that when I outline my stories, I tend to stick too close to the outline and the stories never come alive. On the other hand, when I go in without any idea what comes next, my story wanders all over the place and never acquires any focus.

With No Going Back, I had a good idea of most of the major plot points and how the story had to end. The rest I worked out as I went along. I wrote the story from beginning to end, but I also jumped ahead many times to write a scene that I had just imagined or that I knew had to come further down the line. That helped me in several ways. For one thing, it gave me something to work on when I was either away from the computer or stuck on my current scene. Second, it allowed me to work on scenes while they were still fresh in my mind. Third, writing later scenes often helped me in writing earlier sections by giving me a clearer idea of where the story was going.

What is one big thing you’ve learned through the process of publishing your first novel?

That if you want people to read your story, book promotion can take almost as much time as writing the story to begin with—or more. That may not be true for authors who are working with larger publishers that have a bigger advertising budget. However, I’ve heard authors at every level make this kind of statement, so I suspect it’s true whatever your sales figures may be.

To be honest, though, I don’t really mind. For one thing, it gives me a chance to talk with people about my story. I wouldn’t have written it if I didn’t want to do that. I’m a bit like a proud papa who keeps dragging out all the pictures of his clever children. The bigger challenge for me is to learn when it’s time to shut up about it.

What’s been the biggest surprise about the publishing process?

The cheap answer is that the biggest surprise is that it ever actually happened! My family has been hearing about my writing for years. They were all quite surprised when I actually finished a novel and got it published. Actually, I think they were more surprised at my finishing it than at its being published.

Aside from that, I don’t think I experienced that many surprises. Maybe that’s because I’ve been around authors and book publishing so much over the years. Probably part of it also is due to having been published by Zarahemla Books, which is pretty much a one-man operation. I’m quite happy with the way Chris Bigelow (owner of Zarahemla Books) treated me, but it’s probably true that I haven’t experienced the “genuine” publication process as it might occur with a larger publishing house.

Maybe I’ll have a better answer when/if I get another novel written and published for the national market . . .

Which authors are your biggest literary influences in the national market?

That’s an interesting question. It’s not the same as asking which are my favorite authors, is it? I’d have to say that writing No Going Back, I kept thinking about Chaim Potok and The Chosen, partly because he does such a good job of showing religious belief as part of an ordinary life, and partly because it’s so thoroughly a novel about friendship, which at one level is what No Going Back is about too. And The Chosen is about relationships between fathers and sons, which also play a role in No Going Back, though not as big. I also have to put in a plug for juvenile sf&f writer Andre Norton, whose novel The Crystal Gryphon, which I reread many times as a child and adolescent, does a fine job with alternating viewpoints from highly sympathetic and distinctive characters—something I attempted in No Going Back. And then I’d say Willa Cather, who does an excellent job of telling quiet stories about ordinary people that are nonetheless finely crafted and heartfelt. You care about her characters—and you like them. And you feel that you know them.

There are probably many other authors who have influenced me as much as these three, but they’re the ones that come to mind right now.

In the LDS market?

I haven’t read as widely as I’d like among LDS authors. Of those I have read, probably the biggest influence is playwright Tom Rogers. His plays illustrate how universal themes can be dealt with powerfully within the context of specifically LDS stories. Maybe Dave Farland, to some degree, though he’s published more on the national scene than in the LDS market. Reading and critiquing his work over the years—and hearing him talk about it—clued me in to the fact that people grappling with, thinking about, and talking over ideas can be an interesting element in a story.

How does being LDS impact you as a writer?

Being LDS impacts me as a writer in many ways. One of the most important is that my reasons for wanting to write stories have a lot to do with my LDS beliefs. In the LDS way of thinking, one of the principal goals of mortality is to develop compassion and understanding for other people, all of whom are literally sons and daughters of God and as such, our brothers and sisters. Fiction is a superb tool for doing that. Being LDS also places a religious value on developing one’s talents, as an act of service to others and an act of worship to God.

At the same time, being LDS means there are a lot of other things that have to take priority over being an artist, like taking care of your family and doing your home teaching. I’ve heard people speculate that this kind of split attention might mean we’re never likely to have world-class LDS artists. I don’t buy that. As best I can tell, all art, whether by Mormon artists or not, is created under conditions of distraction. I don’t think we as LDS artists are any worse off in that regard than anyone else.

Any advice for aspiring authors?

Keep writing, and follow your instincts. And remember that being a writer, even a very good writer, doesn’t give you a pass from being a good person. Story writing is important, but so is turnip farming. Take your writing seriously, but don’t deify it.

Read the first half of No Going Back for FREE on Zarahemla's website.

Listocity

It's the end of summer, which, for a couple of weeks, has meant being very busy.

These weeks have included things like spending several days at various events for the LDS Booksellers Convention, where I got to handle the one existing copy of Chocolate Never Faileth (with strong instructions that I MUST return it . . . very hard to do!).

Also had a family camp-out with Grandpa during which we played silly games, fished, and had a great time (yay for my parents being HOME!). Then came a Lyon family reunion (yay for having ALL the Lyon siblings in the same state!) and getting ready for school (NOOOOOO! Please, no more money!).

Then there was random chaos of various levels, such as all the laundry from the trips, the AC breaking, and other loveliness.

Hence, I've had spotty Internet access at best and very little time.

And, hence, a 2-week bloggy absence.

I'm back, at least for today. And yes, it's Wednesday, but it's not Word Nerd Wednesday. My apologies. :)

Today, a list:

• Yesterday was my day over at the AML blog. I remembered late into the afternoon, but the post did go up on my assigned day, the 17th, so it totally counts, even if I was sleep-deprived and rambled on about three or four different topics. Read it HERE.
• One event during the LDS Booksellers Convention was author "speed-dating." Writers were paired together, giving 3-minute pitches of our books to 16 different tables filled with book buyers (store owners and the like). The best part: I was paired with Mary Jolley, author of The Green Diet. Mary began with scientific and scriptural evidence supporting the health benefits of eating a plant-based diet free of refined sugars and other bad stuff. Three minutes later, it was my turn: YO, CHOCOLATE, anyone? (As we left one table, an elderly gentleman patted the cookbook and said, "I'm on your side." I was surprised at how many people seemed genuinely interested in both books. Paradox, anyone?)
• It could have been worse; we were paired by last name. Which means I got this close to being paired with Michael McClean. How can you possibly follow him around for 16 tables, maintain your confidence in presenting, or make a dent when he's speaking to table after table of rabid fans? I think I would have hyperventilated. (Side note: Later that week, he was inducted into the LDSBA hall of fame. Really cool moment. Totally deserved.)
• Instead of book buyers, one of the tables had a camera, and we gave our spiels to it. You can see me yapping at the camera HERE. Seeing the clip afterward, I wanted to smack myself. Why I kept looking to my left is beyond me, but hey, at least I'm not talking at the speed of sound, the clip shows the cookbook itself, and I give a basic idea of what it's all about. It was filmed in the same room as the rest of the tables, with something like 150 other people talking nearby, during a loud rainstorm. Ergo, there's a lot of background noise. Consider it ambiance.
• The companion DVD for the cookbook is about to be filmed. And here's a really fun bit of news: my good friend Sarah M. Eden gets to be my co-host! If we can keep ourselves from getting too slap-happy silly during filming, it should be a great DVD. We'll see how many recipes we can pack in 60 minutes. Several of the recipes that'll be on the DVD don't have photos in the book, so this is people's chance to see some of them. Should be fun!
• Speaking of Sarah, our publisher is looking for reader help in selecting the title of her next novel. Participate in the survey by clicking HERE.
• For now, that is all. Except that I need dessert and an ice cream sandwich is calling my name.

The Changing Face of LDS Fiction

Last week a Deseret News reporters interviewed me about Band of Sisters and the Flat Daddy Project. I've done several interviews recently, but this particular reporter asked something no one had yet. (I'll link over when the piece runs.)

Her question, and my answer to it, have kept me thinking ever since. She'd read the book before the interview (a rare and rather pleasant occurrence), so she had a better idea of what to ask.

Among the questions I'd been asked already:

• Are the wives in the book fictionalized versions of the ones I interviewed? (No. Not even close. I used the interview information to figure out how my characters would react. All of the interviewees were all pretty close in age (26-33 years old, I think). The wives in my book range from 20-55.
• How did I learn about the Flat Daddy Project? (Through THIS blog.)
• Am I a military wife? (Nope. No family members have even been deployed in my lifetime. Dad's a Vietnam vet, but he came home before I was born. My brother was in the Air Force but never deployed. The book was inspired by watching my friend's deployment.)

And so on.

Then came the interesting question:

Were some specific topics in the book things I had to fight with my publisher to keep in the story?

In other words, did Covenant, my conservative publisher, balk at a book that discussed sensitive, difficult subjects? (I won't include spoilers here, so let's just say that Marianne's daughter has more than one very serious issue. If you've read the book, you know what I'm talking about.)

I was thrilled to be able to say that none of those things ever came up. No one, not my editor, the committee, or anyone else at Covenant so much as mentioned those subjects.

To me, that says a few wonderful things:

1) LDS publishers (and Covenant, in my case) are more and more willing to publish stories that reflect reality. That includes stories with no easy, tie-it-in-a-tidy-bow answers. Their books can still have a Christian world view of problems and how to approach them, but the books also acknowledge that you won't avoid trials just because you're a good person. Bad stuff happens.

2) Likewise, readers are more and more accepting of that change; they WANT to read about real women facing real problems.

Then I thought about other novels recently published in the market and some upcoming ones, and I got even more excited about how this market is shifting. First off, the sheer quality of the literature is better than it has been, EVER. But that's not all.

Which leads us to another exciting change in the market:

3) More and more, I'm seeing books that don't necessarily have LDS themes, but that are simply clean alternatives to national genres that often contain material that Mormon readers would rather not have in their books, whether that means language, bedroom scenes, gore, or the like.

Courting Miss Lancaster, by Sarah M. Eden

I know I've mentioned Sarah before, but she bears repeating. She writes books set in the Regency era, which was before the LDS Church was founded and therefore, by definition, cannot be LDS fiction. When she seeking publication nationally, Sarah got many, many encouraging letters from agents and editors, saying, "You're a great writer! We'll publish you if you add some steamy scenes into your books!"

See, the Regency Romance genre has veered into smut. (Jane Austen would be rolling in her grave at what's out there now.) Sarah refused to "smuttify" her books, effectively closing off the national publishing avenue. She was left with self-publishing until Seeking Persephone (which is currently out of print but likely to be reprinted) was a Whitney Award finalist. That's when Covenant took a chance on her, even though her new book, Courting Miss Lancaster, has no connection to Mormonism whatsoever.

In other words, Covenant is listening to their readers, who simply want great books they don't have to be on guard with. (Quick! Turn the page. And crap! That one, too! Skimming, skimming, skimming . . .)

Finally, Regency Romance fans have a fantastic, well-written and CLEAN alternative to the current stuff out there.

Imprints, by Rachel Ann Nunes

Rachel is one of the two top-selling female writers in the LDS market, and she's known for both romances and women's fiction. But Rachel also happens to love the paranormal genre, and she wanted to write some, especially since the current national paranormal market has veered the same direction as the national Regency market: toward the gutter.

Not knowing whether a paranormal novel would sell to readers used to LDS-themed fiction, Deseret Book took a risk in publishing Imprints, the first book of its kind in this market. But again: finally, a CLEAN alternative to having to skip passages and squint your eyes every few pages to avoid the bad stuff.

The Sadie Hoffmiller Culinary Mystery Series, by Josi S. Kilpack

What started out as something fun and different write for Josi has turned into ragingly popular series. (Devil's Food Cake, the most recent book, has been #1 on Deseret Book's online bestsellers list for some time now.) But going in, Josi didn't expect Deseret Book to even want Lemon Tart. First off, she was known for her issue-driven women's fiction. But there was another element as well: Lemon Tart has absolutely zero Mormon anything in it. Sadie herself is clearly Christian, but there are hints that she's from some other denomination.

To her surprise, Deseret Book snatched it up. Then they requested more books in the series, to the tune of two a year (so far: Lemon Tart, English Trifle, and Devil's Food Cake. Later this year we'll see Key Lime Pie, and next year, Blueberry Crumble). Again, a fun, clean mystery series without any worry about running into questionable scenes, language, and more, and the books just so happen to have nothing Mormon-ish in them.

The Shandra Covingington Mystery Series, by Jeffrey S. Savage

Covenant's clean mystery series. Shandra makes an occasional Mormon joke, but beyond that, the Church isn't mentioned, and it certainly isn't the point. Shandra's murder-solving skills (and her obsession with food) are the focus.

For fans: yes, Jeff is finally giving us Shandra's next installment! Bobby's been lying on the floor bleeding for long enough. The next Shandra book is coming this summer.

All the Stars in Heaven, by Michele Paige Holmes

One of the best romance writers I know, Michele manages to keep the chemistry alive without heading into either cliche or the gutter. But here's the fun part with this book: the main characters aren't LDS. There is one LDS connection: a police officer on the case is Mormon. But check it out: no one converts!

Dangerous Memories, by Jeffrey S. Savage

There's a good chance that this horror novel will be published by Covenant in the relatively near future. No joke. Covenant maybe soon releasing a HORROR novel. (Did you ever think you'd see the day?)

I could go on and on, but it's probably enough to simply say that the market is in an exciting place right now, with welcome changes coming around every bend.

If you haven't tried reading an LDS novel recently (or haven't tried a NEW author lately), give it another shot. No, not everything is stellar (and I can quietly point you away from what not to read, though I'll deny ever saying so :-). But there's so much more quality stuff on the shelves than there used to be.

If you don't know where to start, drop me a note saying what kinds of books you typically enjoy. I'm betting I can find a good-quality LDS counterpart.

Writing Journey: Why Does It Take So Long?

I'm not talking about the eight years of writing, submissions, and rejections I went through before landing my first novel contract, although that did take forever.

(Granted, I was publishing articles during those eight years, so I wasn't a complete failure . . . I just felt like one.)

Today's topic is a reader question I got from Chas Hathaway some time ago:

Why is it exactly that it takes so long (2 yrs I've heard is average) for a book to get from submission to publication? Is it editing? Do they just have a lot of books to work with at the same time?

The really short answer is this: There are a lot of steps in the publishing pipeline, and each just takes time.

Now for the long answer . . . and this is assuming that a writer either already has a literary agent (getting one takes its own good time and has its own challenges) or doesn't need one, such as with the LDS market, which is so small that they don't use agents. (A literary agent would starve if trying to make a living in this market. It just isn't big enough for that, because all the money agents ever get is commissions on author royalties.)

We'll start with submission and then go into the actual pipeline:

Jane Writer (or her agent) submits to a publisher. This is usually not a full manuscript, but a query letter (which has the purpose of piquing the editor's interest) and some sample chapters.

The editor gets dozens of these submission packages on a regular basis and reads them when there are breaks between other publishing deadlines for books that are already under contract. Jane's submission might not even be looked at for a couple of weeks. Or months.

Eventually, the editor gets to the submission and if he or she decides the submission shows promise, contacts Jane Writer and requests either a partial (often the first 50 pages) or a full (the entire manuscript).

Again with the waiting game. With my publisher, if you reach this stage (having a full requested), two or three copies of the manuscript are made and given out to evaluators, along with a massive (seriously, like 15-page) form for them to fill out analyzing all kind of areas of the work.

When all of the evaluations are returned (so you're waiting on other people and whenever they decide to get to it), the editor reviews them. By this point, you can easily have seen three or more months pass since the original submission.

If you're one of the publisher's regular writers, your submission jumps to the front of the line and gets read first (which can still mean 3 months), but if you're new, you go to the back of the line and have to wait longer (I used to wait 8 or 9 months).

If the evaluations are positive enough, the editor reads the manuscript and decides whether to champion the book based on evals, the quality of the writing AND (here's the rub) on the overall marketability of the work.

That last one is the area that took me 8 years to figure out. I got really awesome rejection letters and even a phone call once from a managing editor with things like, "Your work is a cut above what we usually see" and, "We debated long and hard on this book, even with the president of the company," and the like, but the bottom line was that the stories weren't marketable enough for the audience I was writing for.

This is a business, and no matter how much they LOVE a piece, if they don't think they can sell enough copies to make a profit, they usually pass.

If the editor deems the manuscript worthy, it moves on to the committee: all the big wig decision-makers. This includes the company's head honchos, the marketing department, the managing editor, and more. My publisher's committee has a marathon meeting once a week. (You don't want to know what day it is for Covenant. It's a nightmare knowing it's committee day when you're waiting for an answer.)

Before my acceptance, I made it to committee many, many times, but didn't make it past that because of the marketability thing until an editor contacted me and basically said she knew I had the chops and that I'd be "an asset to the company" if we could just knock me over the line. She clued me in to the market, and my next submission was picked up. Yay!

Back to time lines: Jane Writer's book is accepted. She may have already spent 6-9 months, but she's still got a lot ahead of her:

1) First she does any rewrites needed based on the evaluations, the editor's feelings, etc.

2) Then there's the content edit, where plot holes get sewn up, character motivations are fixed, the plot arc is smoothed out. Basically, any big-picture issues are fixed. This can take 2-3 months. Or less. Or more.

3) Next is the actual line edit. This is where an editor takes a red pen and goes through the whole thing word by word, line by line. The point is to polish and clean up anything that might be clunky. Fix any incorrect punctuation or grammar. Smooth out awkward dialogue and sentences. Basically, make the writer shine. This can take several weeks or an entire month.

4) The author goes over the edit and approves or rejects every mark made. This normally takes at least a couple of weeks.

5) The editor reviews the author's changes. If needed, they discuss and talk about anything they disagree with to work out compromises. Depending on schedules, factor in a good week or two.

6) Corrections are then inputted into the file. Mark down a week or so, possibly more, depending on what else is in the pipeline and what other books get precedence.

7) Sometimes a second line edit is done, time permitting. I've even had a third done before. Repeat all the steps (and time) the other one(s) required.

8) Proofers go over the book to look for mistakes. They look for the obvious (spelling and punctuation) but also elements like plot consistency. (Did David's eyes change color? Oops, the author accidentally created an 8-day week. Wait, wasn't it raining a second ago? Now it's sunny.) Add a few of weeks for the proofers to do their job.

9) The author proofs the file. Often at this stage, I find mistakes that someone along the line has INSERTED into the text accidentally. I usually get a week or so to proof.

10) Changes are inputted into the file. (Days, a week, or more, depending on how many other files the worker has to get done.)

11) The file is set to the typesetter, where the book is formatted to look as it will in an actual book, instead of the way it does in a Word document (headers, page numbers, text the size of the book, chapter headings, title page, etc.). Typesetting can take half a month easily, and that's assuming there are no other books in the queue.

12) Proofers go through the typeset book, because typesetting can introduce NEW problems (like several lines of hyphenated words in a row which looks stupid, or a single word on a page, or whatever). Depending on how many proofers get it, add a couple of weeks.

13) The author gets to proof the final typeset version (commonly called the galleys). If you're lucky, you'll get more than a week to do this. At this stage, I'm always amazed that we still catch typos and other errors, no matter how many eyeballs have already been over it.

14) The final changes are inputted into the file. Again, this can take a week, depending on the schedule over at the publisher and how busy the disk-changer is.

15) During this time, the design department has been working on the cover, and you'll get to see it soon.

16) The marketing and PR departments have been working on ad placement, etc.

17) When the cover and the galleys are corrected and complete, the book is (yay!) sent to the printer. The printer is usually in another country, so this isn't like going to Kinko's where you get your order back overnight. Instead, books are often printed in Canada or China and then shipped back.

If your books are being printed in China like many picture books are, you may have to wait for the books to be shipped back by boat. I had a friend who published a picture book that was printed in China, and on the way back, the BOAT SANK. You never know what will delay your book's release!

Bottom line: the printing process alone can take a couple of months.

18) When the books are printed, they're sent to the warehouse. From there, orders to bookstores are filled and shipped. Depending on how close the bookstore is to the warehouse, this could take days to weeks.

Add all those numbers up (rough estimates, since you never know exactly how much ping-ponging is going to happen and how many edits you'll get):

Submission to acceptance: 3+ months

Revisions: 2+ months

Content Editing: 1-2 months

Line Editing: 1-2 months

First Round of Proofs: 1-2 months

Typesetting: 1-2 weeks

Final Proofing: 2 weeks

Printing: 2+ months

Warehousing & Shipping: 1 month

Those numbers add up to about 15 months. And that's assuming you get to move smoothly from one step to another. Sometimes you don't, because the pipelines gets bogged down with other projects being bumped up or having a crisis, so you were supposed to get your edit next week but don't for three weeks . . .

Plus, keep in mind that they're publishing maybe three dozen books a year, keeping that many balls in the air, all at different stages of development.

So does the one-or two-year schedule make a little more sense now? I've been lucky in that most of my books have had a turnaround of slightly under a year, but my last two were more like a year and a half.

One reason for the longer delay on my more recent books is that the month a book is released is a big decision. A lot of things factor into it. The publisher looks months and months into the future, filling slots in here and there with care. They make every decision carefully.

Spires of Stone, for example, came out September 2007. Covenant had four historical novels they wanted to release around the same time. But putting them all out the same month would have been shooting all of us in the foot: if historical fans are going to buy ONE book in a month, they'd have to pick between four of us, and three would lose. (And so would Covenant.)

The best thing to do would be to spread us out just a bit, in a way that would minimize competition and maximize potential sales.

If memory serves, they ended up doing two of those books in September and two in October, and they purposely pitted books against one another that they felt were as different from each other as possible.

As a result, Spires was released the same month as H. B. Moore's Land of Inheritance. My book had a more female, romancey audience, and hers had more readers that enjoyed grand, epic-type books. Plus, she had more male readers. We also have very different tones and styles, not to mention totally different time periods.

But (again, if memory serves), Jennie Hansen had a historical coming out too. They released it in October, because, like mine, her book was set in the 1800s. Had we shared a release date, we would have been in direct competition with one another, so they separated us. Wise move, methinks.

Other issues can help determine a release date, such as whether a book might be a good gift book for Mother's Day, in which case you might get an April or May release.

And if they think a particular book will get a lot of Christmas gift sales, it'll likely come out in September or October.

(Cough**cough** chocolate cookbook **cough**cough.)

Winners #4 & Writing Journey: Part X

First, announcing the next set of FIVE winners from my giveaway:

1) TWO people get the Love Notes CD of romantic music performed by Glenn Hatch. Those two people are LexiconLuvr and SO.

2) The SLC Baby Bandz gift pack goes to Lolli.

3) The Sew Sara bib goes to Krystal.

4) And The Worldwide Ward Cookbook goes to Brooke.

Congratulations, all!

Winners, be sure to send me your mailing address so the sponsors can get your prizes shipped! (annette at annettelyon dot com)

Tomorrow I'll announce the Grand Prize winner of the Colorado Kernels gourmet popcorn gift basket. (Not entered yet? This is your last day. Do it quick on the giveaway post!)


Now, continuing the Writing Journey series:

Part I Part II Part III Part IV
Part V Part VI Part VII Part VIII
Part IX

Unfortunately, in the end, the financial risk was deemed to be still too high to publish girl chapter books like the two I'd submitted about St. George.

Let me say one thing: rejection stings. No matter what.

It's painful, it's icky, and it makes you miserable. You never, ever get used to it, even after you've been published and even when you can intellectually see past the situation and know it's nothing personal.

To make matters even stickier, right around this time I also submitted a YA fantasy I'd written years before, since Covenant had done a few of those (like K.L. Fogg's Serpentide and David Farland's Of Mice and Magic). They didn't take it, either.

I guess the good part is that these rejections didn't crush me like others in the past had. But it was still difficult and, well, not fun.

You'd think that being published (having my fourth book accepted and in the pipeline at that point) would have given me this great self-confidence and ego armor. Hardly.

Also, know that just because you've been published doesn't mean you'll continue to publish. I know lots of authors who have gotten rejected by their own publisher after having more than one book published by them.

There are simply no guarantees in this business.

I was given the green light to submit the girl series elsewhere. I did. Within a few months, I got an answer from the other big LDS publisher. Basically, they said the same thing: we love the idea, great manuscript, but it's not a financial risk we can take.

I knew the books were so specific to Utah that they likely wouldn't work on a national level, even if I took out the religious stuff. I knew this, but I still took out the religion and tried finding an agent for it. Of course, I was told that yup, it's too regional to work nationally.

Delightful.

Getting the rejections on these chapter books was frustrating in a new way, because I wouldn't have ever written those stories if someone else hadn't suggested it first. I felt like I'd totally wasted time, effort, and emotional energy to create something that was for naught.

Then again, it was totally my fault for getting my hopes up and spending all the time on what was a doomed experiment from the start. My daughters were particularly disappointed, because these books were the only things I'd written that were sort of for them. Bummer.

I still have those two "St. George Girl" books, and I might put them up for download on my website some day as e-books if I find some interest in them.

I reluctantly set them aside and moved on to plotting my next temple book: Salt Lake. Once again, I was burning daylight (a common theme with me . . .).

I'd spent the first several months of the year researching and writing those two chapter books, and while I'd also done some work on the Salt Lake book, I hadn't made much progress. And here it was April again.

Would I be able to pull off practically the same timetable as I had with ATJE (get it written, polished, and submitted by the end of the year, and have it not stink)? Yowza.

When I first started the research, I had no idea what story to tell. For starters, as you likely know, the Salt Lake Temple took a whopping forty years to construct. Obviously I couldn't cover all that time.

A tricky issue was that for much of that time, construction was pretty uneventful ("Let's see, this year we laid another row of stones . . .") What would the story be, and where between 1853 and 1893 should it take place? Once again, I had nothing. No characters, no plot. Last time both of those came after I started the research. So I dove in and hoped someone like Maddie would show up.

But this time, I was antsy on a different count. For years, I'd wanted to write a modern-day adaptation of my favorite Shakespeare play. I'd even written notes about certain scenes and how I'd make them work in a contemporary setting. I'd envisioned entire scenes with characters and dialogue . . .

Now? Well, I had willingly stepped into a historical box and had promised to stay in it for a while at least.

Man . . . too bad I couldn't write that Shakespeare book. It would have been a ball.


Today's tour stop: Overstuffed.

Winners #1, Questions #3

First, the today's giveaway winners.

Selected by using Random.org:

1) The 2 oz. bottle of "Tabitha" perfume, donated by Karlene of Urban Botanics, goes to Mindi at The Battraws!

2) The cookbook by Luisa of Novembrance, Comfortably Yum: Food for Body and Spirit goes to Sandra of Sandra's Dance!

3) And Sherrie Shepherd's pre-release CD, Solitude goes to Cheryl at Happy Meets Crazy!


Congratulations, everyone!

Stay tuned for more winners tomorrow! (You do have all 13 entries you're entitled to, right? Check the giveaway post to see how to get them all!)


Now for more reader questions:

AmandaD asked: What other LDS authors do enjoy reading?

This is by no means an exhaustive list, but here are some I enjoy:

LDS Market:
Michele Paige Holmes (Counting Stars)
Josi S. Kilpack (Her Good Name and others)
H.B. Moore (Abinadi)
Julie Wright (My Not-So-Fairytale Life)
N. C. Allen (Isabell Webb: Legend of the Jewel)
Robison Wells (The Counterfeit)
Sandra Grey (Traitor)
Angela Hallstrom (Bound on Earth)

And from the national market:
Janette Rallison (All's Fair in Love, War, and High School)
Brandon Sanderson (The Mistborn series)
Orson Scott Card (Ender's Game)
Jessica Day George (Sun and Moon, Ice and Snow)


I could go on, but that's a pretty good start. :)


AmandaD also asked: What are your favorite movies?

Much Ado about Nothing, A Knight's Tale, and some of the old Hitchcock greats like Charade and Wait until Dark. I also love old musicals like Seven Brides for Seven Brothers and The Slipper and the Rose.

JustRandi asked: If you could write and be successful in any genre, would you choose a different one?

Ideally, I'd love to write in three or four genres. My next book is a slight genre switch, going from historical romance to contemporary women's fiction. I have really enjoyed writing historical fiction, but some day it would be fun to branch out into murder mysteries or young adult fantasies.

She also asked: When your husband isn't coming home for dinner, do you still cook?
Rarely. The kids are old enough now to cook a bit themselves, so I let them have at it with pancakes or macaroni and cheese.

QueenMemory asked several questions:

Who is your favorite actor?
One of my favorites was Heath Ledger (hence A Knight's Tale being in my list of top movies). I also love Robin Williams, Dustin Hoffman, and Kenneth Brannaugh.

What is your favorite family activity?
I love a good family game night. The few times we've gone camping or have just gone up the canyon for a campfire and dinner have been awesome too.

How did you meet your husband?
We were cha-cha partners on one of BYU's summer ballroom teams. I wrote all about it here.

Who is your favorite fan?
My mom. I love how everywhere she goes, she brags about me and my books, even in the most obscure places. She's bragged in the streets of Jerusalem and at a health food store in Helsinki. It's awesome.

Do you teach knitting?
Not unless you're my eleven-year-old daughter, and even then, it's a frustrating experience!

Luisa asked:
Have you gotten fan mail? If so, how have you handled it?
I get some, but not tons. I try to answer every letter or e-mail I get. I also keep them all. Writers tends to swing between great self-confidence and absolute despair so often that I need to read something positive when I'm feeling like I'm kidding myself.


Amelia's questions:

What was the process of getting your first book published?
Lots of writing, submitting, getting rejected, networking, getting critiqued, and not giving up. Part II and Part III of my Writing Journey series cover most of the story of my first book.

How do you handle criticism from an editor/publisher?
I've been in a critique group for over nine years, so I've got a pretty thick skin. I will say it's easier to take criticism from my group (since I know and trust them implicitly, thanks to our long history together) than others, but my editors have always been great too.

As a writer, you have to reach the point where you know in your heart that criticism from editors is not a personal attack. In my experience, it's always been aimed at improving the work. How could I not welcome that? I may not agree with everything, but I don't get upset over suggestions and criticism, and we always find common ground. I've been very lucky with the editors I've had; they're both excellent at what they do.

Who are your favorite authors?
Aside from the LDS writers I listed above, of course there's L. M. Montgomery. I also love Charles Dickens, Jane Austen, Harper Lee, C. S. Lewis, and John Steinbeck.

And for the record, I despise Faulkner.


Today's tour stop:
Novembrance

Writing Journey: Part IX

Part I Part II Part III Part IV
Part V Part VI Part VII Part VIII

Happy, happy! About three months after I submitted the St. George Temple book, it was accepted for publication, to be known thereafter as At the Journey's End. Amazingly, my editor didn't ask for any major rewrites. There were a couple of minor things, but overall not much, especially compared to some rewrites I'd had in the past.

I'd worried a lot that writing a book as fast as I did this one would make the quality go down. I hated reading writers who stopped caring about the craft and just pumped out one book after another. I never wanted to become that writer.

Somehow, things just gelled with this book.

Once again, I loved, loved, loved the cover. Let's gaze upon its splendor, shall we?

(Three cheers for real artwork and a great designer!)


I liked the title they picked because several people reach a "journey's end" in both physical and symbolic ways.

Even better, for the first time ever, I got a fall release (September!), which meant a few things.

I'd get to attend the LDS Booksellers Association convention in August, a big trade show where LDS publishers and retailers roll out their fall lineup and show off their wares. I'd be able to attend the Covenant lunch with authors and bookstore owners before my very own signing at the convention where I'd have a banner of my book cover that was at least a yard tall (talk about COOL and surreal!).

I decided to pitch the idea of a temple book series to Covenant. I sat down the with new managing editor (whom I love . . . Hi, Kathy!) and my then-editor, Angela. They thought the concept was awesome and encouraged me to go forward with my next temple book.

Side note here:
It's really hard to tell my writing history both coherently and chronologically, because there's so much overlap of what happened when. So far in this post, I've referred to when ATJE was accepted and the LDSBA Convention, which were months apart. And then I backtracked by almost a year to when I first had the temple series idea and met with Kathy and Angela about it but hadn't yet drafted ATJE (even though last week's post had me submitting it).

This same thing happens with every book, so if you go back and read this whole series, you'll find lots of places where I'm backing up and jumping forward. A lot of the stories overlap in time.

An example from right now: I wrote Tower of Strength about two years ago. The following year, I wrote (tentatively titled) Band of Sisters, which won't be out until 2010 (another year from now). Since submitting that one, I've drafted yet ANOTHER book, which only a handful of people on the planet have seen a word of.

While you draft one book, you're often editing or proofing another and sometimes promoting a third. All at the same time. I don't talk about them overlapping in this series. They're discussed as individual stories and books.

Currently I'm two books out from Tower of Strength, yet as far as the rest of the world is concerned, it's brand, spankin' new.

This publishing thing is a trippy time warp.

Back to the story:
As I left the meeting, Angela had another idea for me. There had been some talk about doing historical chapter books for young girls (think: American Girl books for Mormon girls). The big hurdle: cost.

The LDS market is relatively small. Many of the costs associated with any book are the same or at least close to the same regardless of the book's length (evaluations, graphic design, typesetting, etc.). Plus, you can't do print runs into the tens of thousands like Scholastic can, you can't charge only five bucks for a copy, because the cost per book is so much more.

And really, what parent is going to cough up ten or fifteen bucks for a book for their kid if they can get something the same length in this month's school book order for $2.95?

So it's tough to make a profit on that kind of thing. (This is one big reason there is so little youth fiction in this market.) But . . . what if you could cut costs, such as on editing and revising? Maybe, just maybe there would a chance something like that could work. Mmmmaybe.

It was suggested that in order to try that kind of experiment, they'd need a writer who had a historical/research background and who could 2) turn in a clean manuscript quickly that didn't need a lot of editorial time.

Angela said that while there would be no guarantees, I might be the right person to try the experiment.

The idea excited me. I put it to the side long enough to finish and submit ATJE (see, I'm backing up in time again . . .), then got to work writing a book about a girl whose family is called to help settle St. George.

In preparation, I read as many historical chapter books for girls as I could find (the American Girl books but also lots of other, similar, titles by other publishers). I got a good feel for the kind of storyline, format, and length these books need. I had two daughters right in the target age, so I picked their brains and had them read some of those books too.

Going in, I thought it wouldn't take much additional research. Boy, was I wrong.

As Angela had asked, I wrote two short chapter books instead of just one (if this idea were to work, we'd need more than one out per year).

She'd warned me that there wasn't any guarantee on the project. So as I sent in the two manuscripts, crossing my fingers, I thought,

Please tell me I didn't just waste months of work!

Today's tour stop: Write Stuff

I'm also the guest poster at The Apron Stage AND at Blog Segullah. Come visit me!

Writing Journey: Part IV

Part I
Part II
Part III

After that February phone call, my editor Angela and I began the editing process pretty quickly because I had an unusually early release date. At first they waffled on two different ones: July or January.

With the typical publishing pipeline process, January would have made much more sense. I don't know why they ended up picking July, but I've always guessed they had an unexpected open slot or something. Looking back, I can see how insanely fast it all happened.

July turned out to be very good for me, as I was due with baby #4 mid-September. That gave me two and a half months to promote before baby arrived. Trying to do book signings and the like with a newborn would have been a challenge. (As it was, dragging my huge, swollen self around was tough enough. My last book signing was days before she was born.)

I spent my spring going over edits and proofs. At one point, Angela informed me in an e-mail that my book would be called Lost without You.

I stared at the screen, confused. I typed, "What does that have to do with my story?"

Her reply: "Oh, I think they figured it was just a romantic-sounding title."

Great. I pictured the marketing department with a list of "romantic" names in one column and a list of writers on the other and then someone randomly drawing lines between the two.

I'm sure it wasn't like that, but I still didn't like the title. To me, the romance wasn't the point of the book. Yes, it's a big part of the story, but it wasn't where I wanted the focus to be. I wanted it on the mother-daughter relationship. Oh, and "lost without you" isn't something any of my characters would say.

During the final editing, I asked if I could tweak the last scene. I added one sentence of dialogue (which included the words, "lost without you") so that the title would point to what *I* wanted it to. (Not the romance!)

Since then, I've gotten several reader letters saying that they wondered what the title had to to do with anything until they got to that line. So, yeah. Glad I did that.

Then I saw the cover. In case you don't remember it, this is what it looks like:

It's not my favorite cover (not by a mile), but it's not bad, either. It does the job pretty well.

Let's analyze it for a moment. Remember, authors don't get much (if any) say in their covers. As a first-time author, I had even less say. No clout at all. I didn't even see the cover until it was finalized and in the Covenant preview catalog that goes to bookstores.

I thought the vertical design was kind of cool. The color was catchy. But . . . the girl on the cover looks pregnant. Brooke isn't pregnant. Ever.

And the girl has curly, brown hair. Brooke has straight brown hair. At one point, she dyes and perms her hair for a part in a play. So if it's curly, it should also be red. She looks so sad and miserable, but the story is actually pretty light for the most part. (It even has some funny moments, I think.) Overall, I didn't fall in love with the whole stock photo thing.

Note how itty bitty my name is on the cover. That's because no one would be picking it up based on my name. I didn't have a name yet, if that makes sense. Ever notice how books by really huge writers have their name emblazoned over half the book, while you almost have to search for the title? That would be why. Their name is selling the book.

A lot of readers are horrified when they find out that the writer doesn't get much say in the title or the cover. But the reality is that the marketing and graphic design departments have a ton more experience in selling books than the writer does. The writer's job is to write a good book; they package it and sell it.

These people have the goal to get customers to pick up your book off the shelf and give it a chance. They have a lot of experience in knowing what types of covers and titles will do that, and which won't. On top of that, the graphic design people are trained in making covers look professional.

Granted, sometimes they create flops, but it's far more likely that they'll do a (MUCH!) better job than the writer could have if given the chance.

This is why it's pretty easy most of the time to spot a self-published book: the writer picked the title and the cover and didn't know how. The cover and title might match the story inside, but the book will almost certainly get passed over on the vast sea that the bookshelves are.

Since the publisher takes the entire financial burden for evaluating, editing, designing, printing, shipping, and marketing your book, it makes sense that they'd get the say on how to sell it to give it the best shot.

That still doesn't make it easy to wait to see what they come up with!

(But I'm still thrilled over my newest cover!)

For over a year I couldn't call my first book by its title; it was just "my book." Not until I had more than one published (so "my book" was no longer specific enough) could I call it Lost without You.

I discovered shortly after LWY hit shelves that getting such a quick release date had one pretty big down side: if I wanted to build any kind of readership in my market (so readers would actually remember me), I'd need to have a book out roughly once a year.

Next time I'd have the typical year-long lag between acceptance and publication, and that didn't count the time it would take to get through the submission and evaluation process with another book.

Which meant I needed to turn in another manuscript, oh, yesterday.