Vol. 3_No. 3 Carmel, Indiana November 17, 2007
Speed City typically meets on the 4th Saturday of the month.
SPECIAL EVENT:
December 15, 2007 (2:00 p.m.)
Don Bruns and Judy Clemens visit The Mystery Company!
NEXT MEETING:
January 26, 2008
10:30a.m. critique group
11:30a.m. business meeting
12:00p.m. guest speaker: TBA
MEETING LOCATION:
The Mystery Company
233 2nd Avenue SW
Carmel, IN 46032
317-705-9711
800-643-6737
CRITIQUE GROUP
SinC members who have not joined the critique group but are interested in doing so need to contact Pat Robertson at:
TO JOIN SPEED CITY SINC:
You must be a member of the National Sisters in Crime Local chapter dues are $15.00, due on or before October 15, 2006 and payable to SCISinC. You can mail your application and check to:
Pat Robertson
554 Miami Street
Ellettsville, IN 47429
E-mail Pat Robertson if you need an application or additional information.
INDIANA SISTERS IN CRIME CHAPTER OFFICERS
(January 1, 2007 - January 1, 2008)
Brenda Robertson Stewart, president
317-831-1566
Andrea Smith, vice president
Pat Robertson, membership chairman, 812-876-7772
Jim Huang, program chairman
Vicki Stewart, treasurer
Kit Ehrman, secretary, newsletter editor
Mark Zacharias, communications chairman, (webmaster)
Sheila Boneham, critique group chairperson
CALL FOR GUEST SPEAKERS
Give Jim a hand in finding interesting guest speakers by providing the following information:
GUEST SPEAKER CONTACT INFORMATION
•
name, job title
name, job title•place of employment
place of employment•address
address•phone
phone•fax
fax•e-mail
e-mail•website if applicable
website if applicable•suggestions for topic(s) the speaker is qualified to speak about and that the group would find interesting
suggestions for topic(s) the speaker is qualified to speak about and that the group would find interesting•list of published works if applicable
list of published works if applicable•your connection to the speaker—how you know him/her
your connection to the speaker—how you know him/her•permission to use your name in the initial contact
permission to use your name in the initial contactSend your information to Jim Huang
Put SinC Possible Guest Speaker in the subject line.
WEBSITES OF INTEREST
If you’re a chapter member with a mystery website, and you would like it listed here, e-mail Kit Ehrman.
WEBSITES OF INTEREST TO WRITERS
NEWSLETTER ARCHIVES
Want to see what happened at an earlier meeting? Visit the newsletter archives page.
SPEED CITY
Indiana Chapter of Sisters in Crime News
SPEED CITY
Indiana Chapter of Sisters in Crime News
compiled by Kit Ehrman
Directions to the new MYSTERY COMPANY:
It's easy to get to the new Mystery Company from the old location. Leave the old parking lot and turn right, heading north on S. Rangeline Road. Pass beneath a steel Arts & Design District arch that spans the road. Almost immediately, make a left onto 3rd Street SW. Third Street SW dead ends at the Monon Trail. Make a right onto 2nd Avenue SW. Go a half block. The new store is on the right. Additional parking is across the street.
Mapquest Map
The Mystery Company phone # 317-705-9711
Pre-Business Meeting:
Shortly before the business meeting commenced, Jim Huang told us about a December 15th event at The Mystery Company, beginning at 2:00 p.m., featuring Don Bruns and Judy Clemens, our national Vice President. Judy will be national president next year. Judy, until recently, was in charge of the Sisters in Crime monitoring project.
Jim suggested that we check out the latest Deadly Pleasures magazine where George Easter published his reaction to the monitoring project.
Locally, Moni Draper monitors Publishers Weekly and pointed out that the ratio of reviews typically runs 100 reviews for male authors to 60 female. Most of the women who are reviewed are mainstream thriller authors. Cozy authors are barely represented.
Since there will be no December Sisters in Crime meeting, please stop by on the 15th to meet Don and Judy.
Business Meeting:
The meeting was opened by Brenda Stewart. She had extra RACING CAN BE MURDER launch party invitations to give out as souvenirs.
Authors with books on order can pick them up on Tuesday or during the December 8th event. The book is selling well according to the publisher who is moving to Shadeland Avenue, an expected improvement from their current location.
Sidebar: The next RACING CAN BE MURDER event will take place on Saturday, December 8, 2007 at noon at:
Danner's Book Store
744 Tillotson Ave
Muncie, IN
(765) 288-1122
Authors signed up so far as attending:
Andrea Smith
Brenda Stewart
Chris Wright
Sherita Campbell
Tamara Phillips
Tammy Huber
Tony Perona
If you can attend and support
our authors, please do so.
Thanks!
New Event:
The Louisville chapter of Sisters in Crime would like us to visit with RACING CAN BE MURDER for a program and book-signing. The dates offered were February 9th or June 14th. We voted and settled on February 9th. Brenda mentioned that we would appreciate a good turnout; however, if the weather turns bad, we will not go.
New Business:
Dues are due NOW. Please send your check to Pat Robertson. See Sidebar for contact information.
Loss:
Moni lost her mom last month and Tony Perona just lost his dad. To honor them, we decided to contribute $25 each to the American Cancer Society. The motion was made by Sherita Campbell and seconded.
Slate of Officers:
Our volunteer for secretary/newsletter editor canceled, so we needed a new volunteer. The job includes recording minutes, especially motions and conduct of business, and producing a newsletter. Ann Collins volunteered, so the entire slate was outlined:
Officer Slate:
President - Kit Ehrman
Vice president - Sara Gerow
Secretary/Newsletter Editor - Ann Collins
Treasurer - Vicki Stewart
Membership Chairman - Debi Watson
Communications Chairman - Mark Zacharias
Program Chairman - Brenda Stewart
The slate was read and a motion made to accept the slate as a whole. Moni moved to accept the slate as presented and Jim Huang seconded the motion. The vote was unanimous in favor of the current slate of officers.
Another Anthology?
Brenda recapped that the RACING CAN BE MURDER anthology is doing well. The print run is 4,200, and we can hope that Cardinal Publishing will be interested in publishing a follow-up. So, the question presented was, do we want to do another anthology? The consensus was, yes. We decided to do the next anthology on The Brickyard (NASCAR) with a target pub date in 2009. The submission guidelines will be reviewed and evaluated in 2008 and will likely be similar to the guidelines for the 500 anthology. We decided to start accepting submission in March '08, so get busy researching and writing.
The meeting was adjourned.
Congratulations to Jim and Austin:
MYSTERY MUSES: 100 Classics
That Inspire Today's Mystery Writers
received the Anthony and MacAvity
Awards for best nonfiction of 2006!
Our Guest:
We were delighted to have Sandra Tooley as our guest. Sandra has been publishing her books since 1998 through her company, Full Moon Publishing LLC. Although she has sold more than 20,000 copies of her titles as well as audiobook, paperback, and large print rights over the years, in 2006 she switched from printing in traditional print runs to print on demand. During her presentation on November 17 she will discuss what effect POD has had on her sales, the changes in how she markets, and why she chose and remains enthused about POD. Although she is a proponent of self publishing when done right, she also wants to make sure authors have their eyes open to the changes in the publishing industry over the past decade.
Please visit her sites:
Sandy has published eight books so far, two in mass market and four in trade as well as hardcover. She joined the Romance Writers of America in part because they have such a helpful newsletter for authors, and their genre blends with so many others, so it was worthwhile.
She defined vanity and subsidy publishing where the author "participates in the cost of the publication process in any manner."
She has been writing for twenty years. Once she began to market her first manuscript, she discovered that so many agents do not allow simultaneous submissions, and the process was taking forever. So she said, screw them, ignored that rule, and sent multiple submissions. Interestingly enough, when she switched to postcards to cut down on expenses, her response rate from agents improved. The postcard had a brief description of the book and a selection of boxes that the agent could check to indicate whether they wanted to see a partial, full manuscript, or were not interested, etc.
Sandy found that many agents who said they were interested in mysteries were replying, "Sorry, not right for us" and she soon discovered that they were objecting to the cross-genre nature of her books.
After five years doing the agent query two-step, she decided to look into self-publishing. There were some stumbling blocks along the way. Everyone says you need a New York agent, although Sandy found an agent outside of New York because they were more open-minded. Unfortunately, the agent closed shop soon after. She also got a Canadian publisher, but there was this nasty little clause about author's portion $8,000. So, that was a no go.
Then, she got serious. Sandy attended Book Expo and studied the books offered in the small press section. They were dismal, poor quality offerings. It was difficult to find a publisher that did mysteries.
Many authors choose to self-publish because the traditional methods take so long. Some want total control over the project. iUniverse is considered self-publish. The author does not have the ISBNs, but they pay a four to five hundred dollar set-up fee.
Sandy recommended Connie Shelton's Publish Your Own Novel. Even if you don't want to self-publish, the book contains excellent information for any author. One excellent feature is a pre-publication timeline listing things the author should do before the book is released. She also lists information on reviewers and their requirements. Some need ARCs (advance reader copies) four months in advance, some only take hardcovers.
Sandy also got involved with the PMA, The Independent Book Publishers Association. They hold a PMA University before Book Expo.
It's easier to self-publish and make money on nonfiction because you have a platform that you can use to develop speaking gigs. You can charge a speaking fee, give a copy of your book to each attendee, and still make a profit.
Back to PMA. There's a PMA member chat list, and this is where Sandy met Robert Rosenwald of Poisoned Pen Press. Some of them broke off and started a chat list for mystery publishers. They developed a catalogue that they distribute at conventions and send to libraries and other industry professionals. Imprints has a print run of 7,500. For the first time, they're working with a single point-of-sale for the books in the catalogue, and they'll see how that goes.
Sandy also studies the market. She'll walk into a bookstore, stand ten feet from the shelves and determined what attracts her to a certain book. She examines the book from cover to cover, noting everything about its presentation. It all matters.
Once she decided to go the self-publishing route, she asked for bids from ten different publishers. When she narrowed the field, she toured the printer.
The tough part is figuring out how to get the books in the stores. Distributors want you to have a minimum of ten titles before they take you on. They have a catalogue and a sales force and what titles make it onto the NYTimes bestseller list get there from pre-orders. They don't take into consideration returns.
A distributor takes 60-70% discount right off the top.
Order fulfillment, warehouse storage, insurance, all have to be considered. Sandy decided on an order fulfillment house, but they changed their mode of operation and were costing her more, so she decided to go with Lightning Source Print on Demand.
It all comes down to marketing, and marketing takes a lot of money. It's all down to dollars. Success also takes talent, luck, and timing.
When there's a big gap between books being published, the sale of backlist slows to a crawl.
Sandy loves Lighting Source Print on Demand. You pay for the set-up and .15 per page. You set the cost. Also, Lightning Source is owned by Ingram.
If you consider a printer, ask for samples so you can evaluate quality.
Amazingly enough, an Oprah pick is a Lightning Source book, because when Oprah picks a book, thousands of copies are needed quickly. A traditional publisher might take 6-8 weeks if they are bumped ahead in line. Lightning Source can produce a book quickly. They also have a UK division now. And e-books.
Drawbacks:
Conferences are closing their doors to POD, self-published books. Some reviewers are, too. So, Sandy focuses on book fairs and organizes the SinC booths at events, and she suggests niche marketing whenever possible.
Only 13% of sales come from reviews. Most happen because of word of mouth.
So:
Write a good book
get reviews
promote
2008 Mystery/Writer/Library Conferences
1/11/08 - 1/16/08
Philadelphia, PA
2/1/08 - 2/3/08
Rosemont, IL
2/28/08 - 3/2/08
Deerfield Beach, FL
3/6/08 - 3/9/08
Denver, CO
4/3/08 - 4/6/08
Philadelphia, Pa
5/22/08 - 5/25/08
Omaha, NE
5/29/08 - 6/1/08
Los Angeles, CA
6/6/08 - 6/8/08
Bloody Words VIII
Toronto, Ont, Canada
6/6/08 - 6/7/08
Boise, ID
6/12/08 - 6/22/08
Owensboro, KY
6/20/08 - 6/22/08
Parsippany, NY
6/26/08 - 6/29/08
Corte Madera, CA
6/26/08 - 7/2/08
Anaheim, CA
7/9/08 - 7/12/08
New York, NY
10/9/08 - 10/12/08
Baltimore, MD
2009 Events
1/23/09 - 1/28/09
American Library Association Midwinter Meeting
Denver, CO
5/29/09 - 5/31/09
Book Expo America
New York, NY
7/9/09 - 7/15/09
American Library Association Annual Conference
Chicago, IL
10/15/09 - 10/18/09
Bouchercon 2009
Indianapolis, IN
From the national Sisters in Crime website:
The Review Monitoring Project is the heart of what SinC is all about: giving women authors equity in the business of writing. Our loyal and thorough monitors check newspapers, magazines, and on-line review sites to take note of how the numbers are adding up. Are the reviewers talking about books written by women? Some of them are, but some of them definitely aren't. It's our job to make sure they realize what they're doing and make them accountable.
We monitor over 60 publications, from dailies to quarterly review magazines. At the end of each quarter our monitors enter their numbers on an easy-to-use web site, and once the numbers are tallied we see how each publication is doing on the continuum of male reviews versus female reviews. Some media do very well. Some need work. But that's why we're here: to make sure women are reviewed as often as men.
We are always on the look-out for new volunteers. If you'd like to join our effort, please contact the Project Coordinator, Judy Clemens, at: contact@judyclemens.com. She will be pleased to get you started.
