Are You An Amateur Sleuth? Contest & Giveaway by Connie Berry

 If you had all the clues, could you solve a crime? When my boys were growing up, they were sure I had supernatural powers. My nickname was “Sherlock Holmes.”

Finding out what my teenage sons were up to wasn’t difficult. My younger son left a trail of clues behind him wherever he went. My older son was more careful, but I had the benefit of my own Baker Street Irregulars—like the time a friend saw his bright yellow VW bug speeding down the highway at 90 mph, or the time my next-door neighbor called me in the middle of the night to tell me someone was stealing his car. She was up at 3 a.m. feeding her newborn when she noticed someone stealthily pushing said VW bug down the street. It was Dave himself, of course, who figured if he didn’t start the engine, we’d never know he’d left the house.

Both my sons have become fine, upstanding citizens. But the point is, do you have what it takes to be an amateur detective?

In today’s blog, I’m laying out a case and giving you the clues. The person who guesses the solution, OR comes the closest, OR solves the crime in a really entertaining way (judged by members of my local SinC chapter), will win a signed ARC of The Shadow of Memory, the latest Kate Hamilton mystery, which will be released on May 10. Entries may be posted here until May 10, at which time a winner will be chosen.

So here’s the case: A cruise ship that sailed along the coast of South America pulls into port in south Florida. When the steward tries to alert the male passenger in stateroom 210 that it’s time to disembark, he finds the man lying across the bed with a knife in his heart. Who killed him and why? Here are the clues, which include two red herrings (true but irrelevant).

1. The victim, in his thirties, was wearing shorts, a tropical-patterned shirt, and flip-flops. There appeared to be no struggle.

2. Other passengers, including the couple in stateroom 208 next door, say that the man spoke with a Spanish accent, and the shipping company produced a passport in the name of Juan Cabrera, whose native country is listed as Peru.

3. None of señor Cabrera’s fellow passengers saw him at the lavish onboard buffets, although the couple next door admit they might have overlooked him as they were struggling with seasickness for much of the trip and ate in their cabin.

4. Also, none of his fellow passengers saw señor Cabrera on any of the shore excursions. To leave the ship, Cabrera would have had to produce a cruise ID card. There is no record of it, although one of the crew members swears he saw the dead man leave the ship several times.

5. A search of the man’s luggage reveals that all his clothes had South American labels.

6. The search also produced a second, hidden passport, issued by the UK, with a photo of the dead man and the name Martyn Whyte.

7. Authorities also found an unregistered cell phone with a number of photographs of the historic center of Lima, Peru, as well as Machu Piccho. One of the photos was of the dead man himself, which means someone else took it.

8. The steward who found the body testified that he saw señor Cabrera (or Martyn Whyte) the previous night, when the man rang his bell and asked for hot chocolate. That was the last time anyone admits to seeing the man alive.

9. Authorities in the UK confirm that the passport issued in London is genuine. Martyn Whyte is wanted for bank fraud and failure to pay his taxes. He was last seen in the company of a woman whose identity remains unknown.

10. Further investigation reveals that Mr. Whyte was an investment banker in the City. He was recently fired from his job after irregularities in his accounts were discovered and he admitted to racking up enormous gambling debts.

There are the clues! Who killed Juan Cabrera and why?

Good luck!

Indie Author Contests

I recently saw an author proclaiming her latest novel had been nominated for an [unnamed for the purposes of this blog] indie book prize. With a newly published novel of my own, (titled Doubtful Relations, thanks for asking) I figured I’d learn more of the details.

Turns out anyone can nominate a book, including its author, for the price of $75. That covers one category; extra categories can be had for $50 each.

As you probably know, I like to understand the economics underlying any transaction, and this one looked intriguing from both the author’s and the contest owner’s perspective.

First, consider the author.

The contest provides more than seventy possible categories that cover the gamut of fiction and nonfiction. I found some most intriguing. First novel split into three categories: under 60,000 words, 60-90,000 words, over 90,000 words. Here’s a category I’ve never seen before: Second novel. There were also separate awards for two ebook categories: fiction and nonfiction.

An author needs to think strategically about which category to enter his work in order to keep fees under control. Thinking of my second published novel, it could have qualified as Second Novel, Mystery, Suspense, Thriller, Regional Fiction, Best Cover (Fiction), and maybe even Action/Adventure.

With a win, what does the author receive?

First/second/third places for fiction and nonfiction win $1500/$750/$500 AND a trophy!

Winner of one of the seventy-odd categories wins $100 AND a “gold medal” AND have a NY literary agent review the book for possible representation.

Top five finalists in the categories also win medals, permission to put stickers on the winning books, listing in a catalog and on the sponsor’s website.

I’m pretty underwhelmed here. Let me explain why.

Literary agent representation: Most agents accept electronic submissions, which cost nothing to submit. Plus, in the contest I was evaluating, a quick check of the agent’s website reveals the agency works primarily in nonfiction, although they will take fiction. I write fiction, so this is probably not the best agency fit for me.

Unlike Olympic medals, which do have monetary value, these won’t put money in the bank.

Winning a category provides a return of the entry fee plus $25. That assumes entry in only one category. Assuming authors who enter in two categories can only win one (not clear, but likely), entering more than one category assures a monetary loss unless the book is one of the overall top three. What are the chances of winning one of the top three spots? Slim, very slim.

So what can an author expect to get for his $75? Clearly, he can accurately claim his book was nominated for the XYZ Prize. The award sounds good, and “nomination” presents the impression there was a vetting process to become nominated (and there is, the check must clear!). Maybe the advertising value brings sufficient monetary rewards to justify the money spent.

I’m skeptical, but willing to be persuaded in the comments.

Now, what does the promoter get out of this?

Prize outlay is $12,500 plus trophies and medals plus paying the agent to look at 70 manuscripts plus a website to post results for a year plus a “catalog” of winning books. What do you think, $25,000 max?

At $75 an entry, the 334^th person covers the costs assuming everyone enters only one category. If on average they choose two, then 200 “nominations” will break even.

Maybe the contest sponsor pays readers – say $25 a book? Even then, worst case break-even requires 500 entrants. With 500,000 or so indie books published each year in the U.S. that’s only one in a 1,000.

Convince 2,000 people to sign up with two categories each and you’ve generated $250,000 in entrance fees. I think I understand the motivation for creating the contest.

WWK readers: it’s your opportunity to set this jaded author right! Tell me in the comments what I am missing; or do you agree this is a PT Barnum opportunity?

~ Jim

On Subjectivity and Writing

In my last post, I discussed how I went about combing through submissions for Pitch Wars, a writing contest for which I’m a mentor to an unagented writer of my choosing. As I explained, I was trying to be as logical as possible, but that I couldn’t ignore my gut. And my gut is subjective.

Now, two weeks later, I find myself attempting and failing at writing rejections.

I know the 76 rejections I have to write (I ended up with two fabulous mentees, if you’re wondering why I’m not writing 77 for my 78 submissions) are only truly useful to those who submitted if I give them specific feedback. These people already know they weren’t chosen. I’m not even sure they’ll open the email when I send it because, really, writers are subjected to enough rejection, why actually read one you knew was coming?

But also, all 76 of those rejections are for reasons that are completely subjective.

Completely. Even if I give each entrant the specific reason my gut veered away.

And how does one truly explain subjectivity?

As Keanu says above, what if what I see is completely different from how others see it? Subjectivity is a stew of so many factors—preferences, education, background, mood, interests, etc.—what can a writer gain except information that can be used with someone who is similarly subjective?

So, if we constantly tell each other that “writing is subjective” what are we truly supposed to learn from that? What do you think?

The Pain of Arriving at “It’s Just Not for Me”

For the second year in a row, I’m a mentor for Brenda Drake’s Pitch Wars contest. Last time, I gave a pretty comprehensive behind-the-scenes look at what it’s like trying to pan for gold in a huge writing contest.

This time around, I thought I’d talk a little more in depth on the very worst part of the contest: Seeing great work and then having to say no.

It’s particularly painful because most writers know what it feels like to put their best work out there and then to be told no—sometimes for a vague reason. Or for a reason that seems so minor that you just want to throw your hands up and say, “Why is that a no? That’s an easy fix.” Or you just get the dreaded “I just didn’t connect with this manuscript.”

I’ve been there on all of those and totally understand how frustrating rejections like that can be to receive. But thanks to this contest I also know how frustrating the flip side can be.

This year, there were more than 1,200 entries—double last year’s totals. Each entrant could pick up to four of the 75 mentors to submit to, using posted wish lists and preferences to figure out who might like what.

Though none of us are agents or acquisition editors, the whole aspect of the “hunt and peck” method of trying to match your manuscript with someone who might love it is very similar to trying to find the right match “for real.”

And sometimes that leads to the same annoying answers as above.

I narrowed my wish list this year and got 78 submissions, most of which were adult mysteries and thrillers, as requested.

Out of those 78, I was required to pick two writers to mentor—one will be my main mentee and the other will be an alternate.

Which means I have to say no to 76 manuscripts.

Not an easy thing—not only as a fellow writer but because approximately 90 percent of those manuscripts are something I could say yes to.

Going through the entries, I ended up with a huge “maybe” pile. Very few pitches ended up in the “no” pile right away and most of those were because the word count was hugely off (below 50,000 or above 120,000). Probably eight or so were flagged right off the query as having mentee potential. That number grew as I sifted through the maybes, looking at both the pitch (for a second time) and the submitted pages (one chapter).

So, what separated the maybes from the “check out more pages” from the two people I choose after eventually reading requested pages?

The same bit of “it” that seems to separate a “yes” from a “it’s just not right for me.”

As to what that X factor is, I still don’t know, and I’ve felt it 90-plus times recently.

Which makes me a little bit more understanding of those vague responses we all know and hate.

Because sometimes the reason is vague. Sometimes the idea and/or the writing is there, but it really isn’t just for you. Or it’s all there, and it’s for you but there’s something that puts you on the fence.

Obviously, because of the parameters of the contest, I was in a frame of mind where I really did just have to pick two writers. Agents and editors can sign however many writers they feel comfortable adding within a certain amount of time. They aren’t limited. But, that said, they still can’t take on every manuscript and writer that they like.

On Twitter, I likened this phenomenon to the classic children’s book Millions of Cats by Wanda Gag. In that story, a little old man goes out to find a feline companion to bring back to his wife. He stumbles upon a veritable kitty sea and can’t decide which one to bring back, so he brings back ALL of them—“hundreds and thousands and millions and billions and trillions” of cats.

As you can imagine, this ended badly: With all the cats (save one) eating each other when he asked them to decide among themselves who was the prettiest cat. The surviving cat didn’t even compete. That’s how it lived.

Just imagine if we asked writers to do that when gunning for a shot at a mentor/agent/editor.

So, that mentor/agent/editor has to use his or her best own judgment—even when something isn’t actually wrong.

How do you deal with the vague subjectivity of the literary world?

Big Personal Risk for a Big Personal Reward, AKA How Sarah Got Her Agent

In my last post, I talked all about lessons learned from Pitch Madness, a fabulous contest created to help writers get a precious bit of agent attention away from the inbox slush.

Working as a slush reader for the contest, which had nearly 500 entries, I got to read a LOT of the sort of things landing in agency inboxes each and every second of every day. It was enlightening to say the least.

My takeaway: contests are a great thing for writers on many levels, and, just like in an agent’s inbox, you have to stand out if you want to get picked.

And I told you I understood this quite well because I found my lovely agent, Rachel Ekstrom of the Irene Goodman Literary Agency, through a contest called PitchWars.

I had several people who wanted to know a bit more about that experience. So, in a phrase: It was crazy awesome.

And it nearly didn’t happen.

Because, here’s the thing: Putting yourself out there is hard.

Really, really hard.

And though I’ve been in newspapers far too long and write a column every week, it was quite another thing to put work out there that wasn’t true-to-life and came straight from my brain. I knew that if I entered PitchWars and made it through to the agent round, I’d have to let a pitch and 250 words sit out on the Internet for DAYS, waiting for agents to comment as to if they wanted a partial or full or nothing at all. Everyone in the contest would know if I had requests or didn’t. And who was asking.

Plus, everyone I knew could read those fictional, straight-from-my-brain words.

And, as you’ll see in a second, those first 250 words are pretty much a doozy. They do not jibe with the sweet Midwestern vibe I project in both my newspaper career and real life. They don’t, AT ALL.

Somehow, in my mind, this juxtaposition would be fine if it were in something official, like say a book, but the idea of putting something up that may or may not go anywhere was pretty much terrifying.

So, I thought long and hard about entering. And nearly didn’t. But my good friend and critique partner Joy was entering, and so we kind of dared each other to do it.

Honestly, I didn’t think I stood a chance. I knew how many people were entering this contest (nearly 500). I knew that because of how it was set up, there were only six spots (initially) for adult works, with thirty more reserved for YA and NA.

And, furthermore, I knew my book was not for everyone. It’s pretty much Top Chef meets the most gory episode of CSI you’ve ever seen and dumped onto a discarded set from Dexter.

Now, if you read my last post, you probably know what I’m going to say next. The thing I didn’t realize about my manuscript was how much it stood out.

It stood out like a sore thumb.

Or maybe like a pulled pork sandwich in a sea of lightly sautéed kale.

Here’s what agents (and everyone else) saw the two days they could request off my pitch and 250:

NAME: Sarah Henning

MENTOR: Rebecca A. Weston

TITLE: DEAD MEAT

GENRE: Foodie Thriller

WORD COUNT: 100,000 

PITCH:

When a sadistic killer begins butchering South Florida’s hottest chefs, Detective Ellis Cash and ex-cop-turned-culinary-school-professor Chase Bowman wade through a veritable stew of knife-wielding chefs, vindictive food editors and ice-cold investors as they race to find the culprit before he incinerates the Palm Beach restaurant world from the inside out.

FIRST 250:

Funny fact: Human flesh sears just as easily as lamb. Crisp skin on the outside, tender and juicy on the inside.

Not that anyone would be eating this bit of flesh any time soon.

It’d been seared, strangled and baked off the bone.

Plus it was mostly raw.

A good portion didn’t make it into the well-salted cast-iron pan on the stovetop for a nice cheek-fat 

sear or into the oven cavity for a good off-the-bone roast. No, the majority of the meat was rigid, sprawled on the floor in the middle of a kitchen in one of Palm Beach’s hottest eateries, bookended by sky blue garden clogs and a face that was now just another anonymous crust on the bottom of a hard-working oven. 

But the face wasn’t the worst part, believe it or not.

No, the worst was the neck. Maybe twelve hours ago it was a stout eight inches in diameter, bent over a computer screen balancing the books after a successful dinner service. Now, it was at best a constipated hourglass, a muddy hash of vocal chords, windpipe and whatever’s to be found in an Adam’s apple.

I swallowed hard, my arms crossed against the hum coming from the hallway—a payroll’s worth of restaurant workers milling behind yellow crime scene tape, all wanting to know when clean up could begin. Just so they could start a late lunch service and go back to earning tips the size of my car payment.

Soooo, yeah. Different than you’d expect from me, right? You can see why I was terrified. Yet: I ended up with five requests from the contest. And, come the next week, I had four official offers of representation.

That contest changed my life.

And it paired me with Rachel, whom I adore and trust completely.

I will forever be a fan of writing contests, especially the kind that allow writers to step out of the slush pile and into a special situation that can shine a spotlight on what makes them unique.

And you know what? Even if I hadn’t made it through the first round of PitchWars, or hadn’t gotten a single request, I was still glad I did it. And I’d still be a fan and enter anything I had prepared. Writing is hard. Publishing is hard. Putting yourself out there and letting a neon sign light up with “This came from my brain!” is hard.

But doing something hard is almost always worth it, because it gets you closer to where you want to be.

Lessons Learned from Pitch Madness Slush

I’m a firm believer that contests are very, very good for writers.

And I’m not just saying that because I snagged my agent thanks to one. (Though, that does help!)

You see, as a querying writer, you know you have competition. Lots and lots of it. And that competition is faceless, nameless and possessing of talent and ideas of a completely unknown quantity.

Which is annoying.

Because, unless an agent gives specific examples of your competition over Twitter or on his/her blog, or you get a chance to read a friend’s query and first 10 pages, it’s really, really hard to gauge what’s hitting an agent’s inbox at the very same time your query makes its appearance.

Now, first, let me be clear: Getting an agent is about your writing. It’s not about whose query is shiniest or who you met at such-and-such conference. Those things help, but ultimately, it’s about the writing.

That said, agents get hundreds of query letters each week. And chances are, they’ll read a good fifty in one giant gulp of yeses (“Please send more.”) and nos (“Not right for me, thanks.”).

So, it helps to stand out in a crowd.

And contests help you do this in a couple of ways:

1. Most have an exclusive window where, if you advance, a number of agents have committed to giving their time to looking at contest entries and making requests.

2. Even agents who weren’t originally committed might hop on and join in on a request-a-thon (my agent was one of those).

But there’s an even larger reason these contests can help you stand out, no matter if you make the agent round: You get a chance to see what everyone is else doing.

And learn from it.

I learned quite a bit from the contest I competed in — not only about what genres were big and better ways to word a pitch, but I ended up with some great critique partners, and my marvelous agent (something I’ll talk about in my next post Sept. 15).

And, you know what? Even though I have an agent, I’m still learning from contests.

This week, I got to work as a slush reader for one of Brenda Drake’s fabulous Twitter/blogcontests: Pitch Madness. I’ve done this once before for Brenda, but I didn’t get to read as much slush as I wanted because I happened to be stuck at a three-day stage trail race in backwoods Arkansas with no Internet. Horrible scheduling on my part.

But this time, I got to read the majority of the 470-something entries in Pitch Madness. Yes, nearly 500 entries, all of which consisted of a 35-word pitch and the first 250 words (about one page) of the actual text.

Now, I know we writers would like to believe this isn’t enough on which to judge a manuscript — especially when you write 100,000-word behemoths like me. But here’s the thing: There’s no guarantee that an agent will read any more than that. Just because you sent a query, synopsis and three chapters does not mean that will get read. In fact, he or she might take one look at your opening paragraph or outrageous word length and send a form rejection.

I know I sound like a jerk when I say this, but in some cases it’s true. And it stinks.

And here’s what you can do about it: Make yourself stick out.

As I mentioned, I read nearly 500 pitches and excerpts over the past few days. And probably 99 percent of them were really good in one way or another.

This is your competition.

So, I want to share a bit about what I learned from reading entry after entry. Now, none of these “rules” really account for subjectivity, which is something impossible to control, but I want you to take a look at your query and sample pages and make sure you’ve taken care of every one of them. Because the competition is fierce and I truly don’t want you to be left behind.

1. Show, don’t tell. This is the first cardinal rule of writing. We’ve all heard it a hundred times. Yet, I saw quite a bit of telling in both the pitch and the actual copy. Yes, it’s beneficial to have both showing and telling in your writing. A mix is great. But in a story’s opening, telling can come off as heavy-handed and un-earned. And in a pitch or a query, you do yourself a disservice by telling. A query or pitch should give your reader a hint your writing’s flavor and if you’re too direct, you kill any benefit.

2. If you start with dialogue, it better be fantastic. Dialogue can be a fine way to begin a manuscript — it puts a reader right in the middle of a scene, giving them a chance to “hear” your characters. But it also can be very tricky in that if it’s basic or too out there, it’s not going to mean a lick to your reader. And they’re going to stop reading. Go back and make sure your dialogue crackles, especially if you’re opening with a conversation.

3. Names, names, names. I absolutely love unusual names for main characters. This sets them apart, gives them personality and, if done well, is a perfect part of them. That said, if you’re going to use an unusual name, make sure a reader can pronounce it in his or her head without much help. If someone stumbles on your main character’s name in the very first instance, that’s a stumble you may not recover from depending on how well the reader/agent likes your premise and writing. Believe me: You can’t afford this. Ask your friends and family to read the name aloud to you to see if they get it right. Seriously. On the flip side, if you use a “basic” name, you might want to make sure it hasn’t been overdone or check other query contests and writer groups to see how many times it’s been used by others. I saw several Jakes, Devs (yes, Dev), Jane/Jaynes and Hopes.

4. Sentence structure and paragraph starters. In the heat of writing and editing, you might be looking for just the right word or phrase or bit of dialogue. But when you’ve got the copy to where you need it to be, take one final pass and look at how your paragraphs appear on the page. If you find more than two paragraphs in a row that start with the same word (usually I, He, She, They, etc.), change it up. I can’t tell you how many little 250-word excerpts I read that over-used the same sentence structure several times in a row. Sometimes, this can be done purposefully to create a certain rhythm. But most of the time? It’s just a go-to way of describing the action that needs to be changed up. The same goes for sentence length. Vary it. Once you start looking, page-by-page, at your manuscript, these things will appear if you’re overdoing them. I swear.

5. A 35-word pitch isn’t a query, but it’s dang close. When you tell someone you’re a writer, they probably ask about what you’re writing. How do you describe it without regurgitating your query? Even if you never use it, you need to perfect how to tell someone what you’re writing in as short of a space as possible. Not only will this help them understand what your book is about, but it’ll help you learn what your book is about. Seriously. Before I start writing any book, I write myself a short pitch and basically the meat of a query. I learned this trick from one of my writer buds and I think it’s genius. It really helped me zero in and go from this nebulous idea to something that has great shape, detail and direction.

I hope you’ve learned a bit from what I saw in those nearly 500 entries. I know some of it sounds like stuff we all know, and we probably do, but knowing it and implementing it is something different altogether.

And if you’re a Pitch Madness person reading this and freaking out because you have an unpronounceable character name, a page full of dialogue and a boatload of “telling” shoe-horned into sentences that exclusively start with I?

Don’t worry.

Seriously. Because, in the end, it all comes down to the writing. You can break every rule in the book and still be successful.

Just make sure you stick out.

What do you learn from reading the work of others?