Weird and Wonderful World

Many of you know that due to a death in our family, we had to cut hours during the spring and summer, and the new blog we had just started, was sadly neglected. What many of  you probably don't know is that during the time we were dealing with family matters, our business doubled in size. We want to thank everyone we've been working with for your understanding and patience. But the good news is that we finally caught up on our backlog of work after getting three new books out just this past month. Bigfoot Blues, Bigfoot Confidential, and Blue Roan Colt. During this time we also published two anthologies for groups that we support; OWL published it's 8th volume of Echoes of the Ozarks, and Saturday Writers just this week published their sixth volume of Cuivre River Anthology. These five books will be in your bookstores and online soon. You can check our website for more information on these books, and any of our other 65 titles.  

There is more good news. We now have six editors on staff, and each one is working on what is sure to be a best seller. Recently, we accepted an intern who will help with everything from posting on our two blogs, to proofreading and design input. She's a brilliant young student of Dr. Susan Swartwout's, professor and university press editor at Southeast Missouri State. We'll be introducing her soon and she'll start work after the first of the year.



Thank you all!
Lou Turner



Oh My! Where does the time go!



I've neglected this blog for way too long.  And I'm sorry if those of you who've checked this site from time-to-time were mystified and confused by my lack of posts. But here are my excuses, in order: too much work not enough time, my husband and partner in the business golfs five days a week, I'm old, my husband and partner golfs too much, grand kids are just too darn cute, my husband and his golf again, and the world is moving way too fast. I published an essay years ago called Slow the Spinning Earth. Tomorrow I'll reprint the essay. It was written in the 90s, but is so appropriate for today.

Just for fun, here are some websites worthy of checking out.

Daily Writing Tips

Squidoo

Write it Sideways

PR Daily

And for more fun, the first person who writes me a wonderful story, essay or poem about the picture below, will have that story, essay or poem published on our website, and maybe in an future anthology. Use your imagination. I would probably write something about my Uncle Calvin, because this monkey does look a lot like him. Maybe Calvin found a monkey somewhere and started taking him into town and to the store and calls him Irving and is teaching him to play poker. I don't know, just a thought.  

www.highhillpress.com

See you tomorrow.

Lou

News From High Hill Press

Okay folks, we've finally pulled ourselves into the 21st century and have a new website. We hired a design company called 2 Rivers Communications and they've done a great job of connecting us to the world. Our authors are listed on the site, along with their books and we have links to everything. I've had several people write to me lately about submission guidelines. They are on the site too. Please check them. out. High Hill Press And make sure to check out the editor's page and send your query to the correct editor. If you can't see an editor that would work for you, send a query directly to  High Hill . Remember, never send your entire manuscript unless you're asked for it. To query us, send a brief letter explaining what your book is about, its genre, its length, and a short bio of you. If you have an exciting marketing plan, send that too.

We're also planning to keep our blog updated and do interviews and live blog tours with our authors and editors. We have some exciting books coming out in the next few months so make sure and follow us.



The Abduction of
Jacob Rote
by Ronda Hassig



Bigfoot Blues
by Pamela Foster



Blue Roan Colt
by Dusty Richards



Bigfoot
Confidential
A collection of
bigfoot stories.



Now What?

Okay, now you've got the attention of a publisher. You've followed the rules, sent them what they wanted in the correct format, and you've been patient. They wrote and asked for three chapters, then the entire manuscript, and then they called and said they'd like to offer you a contract. Wow. You've made it much further than most people do. A contract! How cool is that? But here is where it gets even more complicated. There are rules that you should follow and we've listed just a few

·         Never scribble out things in the contract and write over them in red ink. If you have a question or concern about something, talk to the editor about it. Chances are if it’s a simple point, they will compromise with you. But you have to remember, it’s their standard contract. They don’t have to change the way they do business with an author just because you say so. It doesn’t hurt to ask for a larger royalty, but don’t expect to get it.

·        Never just show up at the publisher’s door. Never ask if you can visit their workplace or office. Don’t call them after five in the evening, or before nine in the morning. Never call on week-ends or holidays. Do not call collect from jail, or from a bar at midnight. Please respect their privacy and remember they have lives and families and like to keep regular work hours if at all possible.

·         You are responsible for keeping your own records and unless your house burns down, there is no reason to request another copy of anything from your editor.

·        Do not send your editor daily e-mails just to ask how things are going. Don’t send them pictures of your family reunion, or chain letters telling them that unless they forward it on to 25 people they will get run over by a garbage truck. And don't send them political or religious forwards.

·         When you are requested to make changes to a galley, do it exactly as they ask you to. Do not draw smiley faces in the margins. Do not reprint it with special purple paper, and do not tape extra pages to the back of it to better explain things. If you are making the changes directly onto the galley, write legibly and please do not write so small that it would require a magnifying glass to read. Do not use a special code that you created, use standard symbols for editing. You can find them online.

·        You will probably have very limited control over the cover, sometimes none at all. Don’t expect to have your 93 year old grandpa’s picture on there unless it has something to do with the book.

·         If your editor asks you to reconsider the title, seriously think about it. A bad title can sink your entire book.  The original title of Jaws was Amity Cove. The editor changed it, and in the opinion of many, changed it to a title that helped it become a bestseller.

·        If your contract states that a galley will be corrected and sent to you for final approval within ten weeks, don’t ask if they could make it three because you'd love to have the book by your high school reunion to show all those smarties that you did indeed become a writer. If it says 3 months, live with it. The editor has a lot of clients and a lot of books to work on. Often they have small staffs or none at all. Don’t push just because you’re impatient. Patience is a must in the world of publishing.

·        If you were told that your book might be out by a certain date, please don’t set up signings. Wait until you have a book in your hands before you do that. There are a million things beyond an editor's control that can delay the release of a book. Again, be patient.

·        Don’t expect your publisher to give you free books. Especially with a small press. Even the New York publishing houses make the author purchase any books that they might want to sell on their own. And it’s common knowledge, that in most cases, that’s the only way you’re going to sell. You should receive a substantial discount, but you will have to purchase books.

Let's Talk Queries

When we started our High Hill Press blog we were initially doing it to promote our authors and their books. But lately we’ve decided we could also use this format to let you know how it works behind the scenes and what you should and shouldn’t do when dealing with queries and submissions and the whole process of getting your book to actual publication. We’ll open this page to comments too. And feel free to ask questions.   

Here’s a bullet point list of things that you should never do. (And FYI, I’ve had all of these things happen to me, or to a friend.)

·         Never, ever, push your manuscript under the bathroom stall and tell an editor it will only take them a minute or two to read the first chapter.

·         Never chase an editor down a hall while jabbing your finger into their back and yelling “Hey, Miss. Miss. I need to talk to you about my book!”

·         Don’t stand across the room from an editor and perform a Vulcan mind meld in the hopes that you can get them to read your manuscript.

·         Don’t interrupt an editor in the hall if she is talking to someone already. Would you want someone to interrupt your time with her?

·         Don’t send an e-mail to an editor to ask about the query you sent a day ago, or a week ago, or a month ago, or even 4 months ago. If you haven’t heard from an editor after 6 months, it’s perfectly acceptable to write a polite e-mail asking if they’ve found time to look over your query, but not one day before then.

·         Don’t send an unsolicited manuscript. It doesn’t matter that you thought you’d save some time, or that you knew they’d like it so you sent the whole thing, or a friend told you since it was a “small press” you didn’t have to query first.

·         Never call an editor to discuss your query. And never call them to ask if they’ve received your query. In the query stage, put your number on your correspondence and let the editor know it’s okay for them to call you if they have any questions. Also give them the best times to reach you.

·         If you are asked to send chapters, or an entire manuscript, send it exactly the way the editor asked for it. And while you’re at it, take the time to learn about formatting. If an editor requests a manuscript, there is nothing more aggravating than one that isn’t formatted properly. You can find formatting guidelines anywhere, but later we’ll post them on this blog.

·         If an editor requests that a manuscript be sent in hard copy, do not send it express with a signature requirement. If they miss mail delivery and have to drive to the post office to sign for your manuscript, they aren’t going to be too happy. And there’s nothing worse than starting off an editor/author relationship when one of you isn’t happy.

·         If an editor asks for three chapters, don’t send the whole thing saying that they can’t get the complete story without reading it all at once. Don’t say you sent five chapters because the real action doesn’t start until then. Send three chapters and not one word more. If you’re book doesn’t get exciting until chapter five, then perhaps you should delete the first four chapters. Do not send anything else unless the editor asks for it. Don’t send sketches of the way you see your characters. Or the world they live in. Or your vision of the cover.

·         Lately, one of our pet peeves is the bio. Bios should be written in third person. Never in first person. There is no I. There is only she or he. When we get a bio that starts out with “I’ve been writing my whole life.” We cringe because we’re almost positive the author has either not been around the writing world very long, or hasn’t paid much attention to how things are done. It should always read, “Stephen King has been writing his whole life.”

Just remember that this whole business is like playing the lottery. You aren’t going to win unless you buy a ticket. But there are rules. You wouldn’t print off your own lottery ticket and if your numbers are drawn expect to win. You have to do it the way they expect you to. So if you want to win the “Big Publishing Lottery” play by the rules. And if you don’t know those rules, then you either haven’t been attending conferences, or you weren’t paying attention when you did. Don’t expect an editor to make an exception for you because you don’t have time to participate in a workshop, or conference, or read a writing how-to book. It’s not as hard as you might think to become familiar with the way this business runs, you just have to try.

Find Bigfoot

High Hill Press is excited about a new book from Pamela Foster, author of Redneck Goddess, published in 2011. Pamela has again written a masterpiece.

Instead of Georgia, Bigfoot Blues is set in the mysterious Northwest, where everyone has an opinion about the hairy man of the forest. Publication is set for the summer of 2012 but before then we're going to have some fun. We have two contests planned for the release of the book. One allows you to go on your own Bigfoot hunt. On our Advanced Reader Copy, we have hidden five Bigfoots in the forest. Be one of the first ten people to find them, and you'll receive an autographed copy of Bigfoot Blues. And very soon we'll announce the guidelines for an anthology that we plan to release along with Ms Foster's book. Bigfoot Blues Confidential: The Truth Revealed will showcase both fiction and non-fiction stories. Watch this site for more details. But right now start your own Bigfoot hunt. Find the five hairy beasts lurking in the forest on the cover of Bigfoot Blues. Just print a copy of the cover, circle the Bigfoot lurking there, and send them to High Hill Press  2731 Cumberland Landing  St. Charles, MO  63303. And leave us a comment or two. Have you had your own encounter with Bigfoot. I have, and I'll post that story here soon.

Read a Small Press Book Today.

I know this editor is a little biased, but I truly think that some of the best books are coming out of small press now. New York has, for the most part, abandoned great stories in exchange for the flashy unauthorized tell all, the political bloviating disguised as literature, every new diet craze to come down the pike, and big name authors who sometimes appear to be doing nothing more than fulfilling a contract.



Eudora Welty



I'm not complaining as much as it may appear, because I still browse the aisles of Barnes and Noble  to find a new Stephen King book, or a book that promises to slow the aging process. But the great writing of old seems to be beyond the radar of New York. I know it has to do with the dollar, and the fact that young people don't know what good writing is, and maybe because the Eudora Weltys of today can't take the pressures and heartache of trying to sell a novel in New York City. And what am I complaining about--many of these great writers are sending me query letters. The editors at High Hill have desks filled with amazing manuscripts.



Flannery O'Connor



But it is sad to think that because we're small and maybe not as well-known as St. Martin's Press, we might not get a query from the next Flannery O'Connor because she doesn't know we exist. And instead of persisting, this new Flannery might quit writing and take up knitting instead. Or worse yet, she will write her wonderful prose and stick it in a box under her bed never to see the light of day, or a Barnes and Noble shelf, or a blurb on Amazon or a fleeting mention in Twitter. And then there's the possibility that the lack of good publications coming out of New York, and the surge of low quality e-books, might make the readers of the country even less apt to buy a novel written by an unknown author than ever before.



Jacqueline Susann



It's all new territory, and publishing is going through a pioneer stage that we haven't seen since the 50's. I always tell my audience at a conference or workshop that we're back to the days of Jacqueline Susann, where an author has to fill the trunk of his car and hit the road in order to sell books. Jacqueline sold Valley of the Dolls to truck drivers and nuns as she drove from the east coast to the west. She was a genius at marketing and it slowly pushed her book to the top of the best seller list. She did it all without the initial help of New York.

A good thing to do is browse the pages of Amazon, find small presses that sell books on their websites, often at a discount price, and ask at the bookstores for small press books. That is where the treasures are sometimes hidden. I love the business, and I'm quickly realizing that there are too many great stories and not enough time. But until I can no longer work, I'll be publishing great books by terrific authors in the hopes that their work won't be lost. I have several authors now that have crumpled up their rejection letters and pulled those dusty manuscripts out from under their beds. We're publishing their books because they're good. We're publishing them because we're trying to keep great literature alive. Of course if anyone out there has a book that proves you can reverse a persons age by 20 years and give them the brain and body of a thirty-year old, I'm interested. 

Just a hint...this is what I want to look like.

Happy Writing! 

Are We Losing Good Literature?

I've read hundreds of manuscripts since starting High Hill Press, and one thing that bothers me is that although I'm finding some great writers with wonderful stories to tell, there are also a lot of bad writers with horrible stories. I keep asking myself why some would think they're ready for publication, when it's quite obvious to me after a quick read, that they don't know the craft. When I first started I set out to read every writers guide, every article about writing, everything I could get my hands on that would help me learn to write. I'm wondering how many of the poor submissions I'm getting come from people who haven't read a writers guide, or perhaps they don't read at all. I get an average of 100 queries per month now, and sadly I find myself rejecting 99% of them. The reason? Their stories are either not stories, or they have a glimmer of a story but are written so poorly it would take a complete rewrite to get the book into shape. I've grumbled and complained  that these writers aren't perfecting their craft before they send out a submission. Then I decided maybe they just don't have the great network of friends I had when I first started. Friends who also wanted to be writers. We helped each other by caravaning to conferences, sharing magazines and books with writing tips, and giving valuable critique and inspiration. When I reject a manuscript now, I include a list of writing guides that will help them learn the craft and rewrite their book. I suggest not only our writing guides, but some of the great ones I read when learning to write. And it is a learned thing. It's not a talent you wake up with out of the blue one morning. It's a craft that requires hard work and hours of reading, writing, and rewriting. Would you decide one day to be an airline pilot and the next day put your application in to Southwest Airlines? Think about it.

Two years ago we published our first writers guide, and have done four more since then. This is a perfect place for any writer to start. Pat Carr's Writing Fiction book is one of the best I've read. Pat is a gentle lady and she teaches in a gentle manner that just makes you want to be a better writer for her.

Pat Carr's book on writing
fiction.Writing Fiction with
Pat Carr canbe found on
Amazon or on the
High Hill website.
http://www.highhillpress.com/

Regina Williams is the editor of Storteller Magazine. In 2011, Regina published Writing with a Mentor. It gives some of the nuts and bolts of writing, plus tells you how to form a group or network of friends that can help you learn.

Regina Williams and
Writing With a Mentor.
This book can be found
on Amazon or
http://www.highhillpress.com/

Mary Horner is a teacher and writer and crafted this book to help the writer with interviewing, organizing, outlining your book, and much more.

Mary Horner gives us a great
book on writing non-fiction.
It can be found on Amazon
or http://www.highhillpress.com/

Dusty Richards is one of the country's best and most beloved of all western writers. He called on a few of his friends to help him with this book. Between the five friends that give their writing tips, and Dusty, writing a western should come easy.

Dusty Richards and a few of
his friends talk about
writing westerns.
Writing the West can be
found on Amazon or
http://www.highhillpress.com/
http//:www.cactuscountrypublishing.blogspot.com



Jory Sherman is a legend in writing. He has tackled every genre, was an original Beat Generation Poet, completely dominated the Western world for awhile, and has won every award there is to win with his writing. Jory developed his Master Course in Writing several years ago, and High Hill was lucky enough to publish it.

Jory Sherman's famous Master Course
in Writing.
Amazon
http://www.highhillpress.com/

Join the High Hill Book Club Now!

Last fall we started a book club for our western division called Cactus Country. It worked great so we're expanding the premise of selling our books online to members of our bookclub and we will not include all of High Hill's books. We have everything from memoirs, to children's picture books, to literary fiction and murder mysteries. We also carry several group anthologies and short story collections. Visit our bookstore page on the High Hill website and order your books today. An advantage of being a bookclub member is that you receive a discount and will never pay shipping. And watch this site for our upcoming author interviews. It's a great way for a reader or another writer to see inside the head of an author and discover how they find the magic in their writing.