TheNextBigWriter Blog

We’re pleased to announce that Edward Aubry (Sherman Bierce) has won the TheNextBigWriter’s Strongest Start Novel Competition for his post apocalyptic novel Static Mayhem.

For those of you unfamiliar with the book, Static Mayhem incorporates elements of fairy tales, science fiction, and fantasy to tell the coming-of-age story of late-bloomer Harrison Cody, who grows from a disinterested slacker into a heroic father of two orphaned children. Accompanied by a wise-cracking pixie, Harrison overcomes his own inner obstacles amid baffling future technology, malignant magical entities, and a trip into Faerie, in his quest to find the rest of the human survivors of a strange cataclysmic event which has altered the very fabric of reality.

As the winner of the competition Mr. Aubry will receive a full manuscript critique and edit from the competition sponsor, iUniverse valued at $2,000, $100 in cash, and a free one year membership extension to TheNextBigWriter.

In addition to Static Mayhem, the other winners are:

Second Place:

The Adventures of Kate Darling by Kirk Ort – Condemned to a life of indentured servitude, young Kate Darling is bound for the American colonies aboard a merchant vessel commanded by the brutal and lecherous Nigel Terwilliger. When the ship is captured by pirates, Kate sees her chance to trade years of sorrow and cruelty for a life filled with adventure and romance.

Third Place:

Feed the Meter by Ben Duiverman – Frank Donnelly is a lucky guy—new house, job promotion, a loving fiancée—but the bottom drops out when the city installs parking meters on his street, reviving his long-dead grandfather’s scary stories about one-eyed monsters operating in cahoots with Zeus, god of lightning, and how these creatures now roam the earth disguised as parking meters, hunting down little boys, hell-bent on destroying their souls.

Congratulations to all!

The Strongest Start Novel Competition is the only “work-in-progress” online novel competition that we are aware of. It allows writers to submit books-in-progress and edit their entries as they receive feedback from the community. The Competition’s goal is to provide you, the writer, with the feedback and motivation you need to edit and improve your opening chapters and ultimately finish your book. This year, the submitted entries received over 1,500 reviews from other writers and readers.

We want to thank all writers for participating and the judges for providing their time. We also want to thank the competition sponsor iUniverse.

For more on the competition as well as future updates on the 2009 competition, check out the Strongest Start Novel Competition page.

I came across this post from Joe Wilkert’s Blog Kindleville and thought it was interesting for anyone who is thinking of making their book available on the Kindle. It shows that many authors aren’t aware of exactly how to load a document on to Amazon’s new reader. The author in the interview, for instance, is trying to load a pdf into the Kindle but that is not the right format.

Joe’s site led me to another Blog called, appropriately enough, Kindle Formatting. Here’s what I learned. You need to convert your document to html (both TheNextBigWriter and Booksie do that for you), and then use a free program called MobiPocket v4.2 Creator to convert it into a PRC file. Once that is done, it’s ready to be uploaded to Amazon for distribution on the Kindle. You can read Kindle Formatting for more detailed instructions.

Once you have your content in the .prc format, getting your book or article on to Amazon is easy. Go to the link below, set up your account, and go.

http://dtp.amazon.com/mn/signin

So if you want to test out distributing a short story, poem, article, or even your book on Amazon, it’s not hard to do.

If anyone has uploaded their writing for Kindle distribution, let us know how it’s going.

I personally believe that print-on-demand (POD) is a viable technology despite much of the criticism it has received from the publishing world. Well, its day may be coming. An article published today in the the Guardian tells of several big publishing houses that are utilizing POD for out-of-print books. Smaller publishers have already found the technology to be an excellent tool for avoiding the big upfront costs of publishing a book. To me, the most interesting paragraph was the following:

“Although concrete revenue figures for such companies are difficult to obtain, a recent report by the Book Industry Study Group estimated that combined sales by smaller publishers and self-publishing companies could have been as high as $14.2bn (£7.3bn) in 2005, the last year in which statistics were available.”

$14.2 billion is a pretty sizable number. And I’d wager the majority of these small publishers and self-publishers utilize POD technology.

After several weeks of reading, re-reading, debating, arguing, etc. we have finally come to our decision regarding the finalists for the 2008 Strongest Start Novel Competition.  The judges had a very difficult time whittling the entries down to six, so congratulations to all of the participating writers.  There are many, many excellent and entertaining books posted.

The six finalists, in alphabetical order are:

- The Adventures of Kate Darling by Kirk
- Consensual Infidelity by Kaysee
- Feed the Meter by William Murrow
- The Shaker Proposal by Gale Martin (Gem)
- Static Mayhem by Sherman Bierce
- This Time You Lose by Chris Stralyn

Hopefully, even if you didn’t reach the finals, you won by receiving the feedback and motivation needed to hone your starting chapters to perfection.  The ultimate decision makers are the agents, publishers, and readers who will purchase and read your books and we have no doubt that we’ll be hearing about the success of many of the entries.

The first three chapters of the finalists will be sent to the Final Round judges and the winners will be announced May 15.

Thanks and congratulations to the finalists and everyone who participated!

We wanted to let everyone know that we are going to announce the finalists for the Strongest Start Novel Competition tomorrow, May 2, 2008. Check back then!

Writers have long lamented that television and video are killing reading and writing. But video, if used correctly, can do wonders to stir the interest in a book. After all, as good as a visual might be in piquing interest, it’s not the same as getting into a good read.

Long time member John Leary recently produced a video to promote his just released book The Angel Hunter. It’s a great example of what video can do. The video is below.

I asked John a few questions about its production and impact.

TheNextBigWriter: How much effort was required to do this?

John: I had to explain to the production guy the concept I had in mind and that the focus had to be Victoria, not the story. I also wrote the voice over script.

TheNextBigWriter: Can you describe the process/time it took to put this together?

John: Not much, maybe an hour or two to write and edit the script and work out the visual details with ReaderViews.

TheNextBigWriter: Also, approximately how much did it cost if you don’t mind me asking?

John: $350.00 – worth every cent.

TheNextBigWriter: What do you hope to achieve with the video?

John: For potential readers to be intrigued by Victoria Hunter enough to read her story.

TheNextBigWriter: Have you seen any results yet?

John: Yes. I have had several people comment that they are ordering the book based on this trailer.

I believe it. The trailer does a great job of raising questions and certainly makes me want to learn more and check out the book. Any author can now produce videos professionally and inexpensively and with sites like YouTube, the videos can very quickly be distributed to a large potential audience.

If you’re interested in learning more about the book check it out below or visit his website. Thanks John and good luck!

The New York Times ran an article today about Christian Lander and his Blog stuffwhitepeoplelike.wordpress.com.  The site takes a humorous approach to listing the types of things white, liberal Americans might like.  For example, although the white people he covers have plenty of money, they still love Music Piracy and Free Healthcare.

The site has pretty decent traffic with a reported 1.6 million page views per day.  What’s news is that Christian has landed a $300,000 advance from Random House to publish a book of the same name and topic.

Joe Wikert on the TeleRead Blog breaks down why it’s unlikely this book will ever earn back its advance but what interests me is the fact that agents are so aggressively coming online to find talent.

The article states:

“There was an innocent time, oh, about four years ago, when the idea of turning a blog into a book seemed novel, a fresh path for unknown writers to break into the big time.

The outcry over Mr. Lander’s book deal suggests the trend that has been building for a half decade may have finally reached apogee.”

The article then mentions numerous Bloggers who have received book contracts.  Agents are looking for talent online.  The success of Bloggers also tests the long-held notion that publishing online hurts a writer’s chances of landing a book deal.

The Wall Street Journal reported today that HarperCollins is starting a new division that won’t accept returns from retailers and that will focus its sales efforts online. The unit plans to pay little or nothing in the way of advances and instead compensate writers via a share of the book’s profits.

The division seems like it will operate much like a POD publisher, which begs the question, will the books be published POD (print on demand)? It will be interesting to see what kind of writers they publish, the publishing terms, their marketing plans, and more.

We have an email in to HarperCollins and will let you know if we learn anything else.

Update 4/4/08

The NY Times published an article with additional details. The new division will be headed by former President of Hyperion, Robert Miller. The division plans to publish 25 books a year in paper and digital format. While offering no advances, the profits will be split evenly with the author, although how profit is calculated is another question. In a statement issues by News Corp., the parent of HarperCollins, Miller said:

“Our goal will be to effectively publish books that might not otherwise emerge in an increasingly ‘big book’ environment, an environment in which established authors are under enormous pressure to top their previous successes, while new authors are finding it harder and harder to be published at all.”

The article also hinted that Hyperion was looking at a digital initiative. Ellen Archer took over for Miller and plans to launch a new digital deal that would be a ”a paradigm shift for how a book is published.”

She goes on to say:

“Anyone who isn’t thinking like this, trying to change the way we published, is going to be out of business.”

The TimesOnline published an article today entitled “Internet book piracy will drive authors to stop writing.”  The claim comes from the Society of Authors, which represents more than 8,500 professional writers in the UK.  Tracey Chevalier, the author of Girl with a Pearl Earring and chair of the London-based organisation had this to say:

“We are trying to plug the holes with legislation and litigation but we need to think radically. We have to evolve and create a very different pay system, possibly by making the content available free to all and finding a way to get paid separately.”

“It’s hitting hardest the writers who write books that you dip in and out of: poetry, cookbooks, travel guides, short stories – books where you don’t have to read the whole thing.

“Although people still buy [books by] Nigella and Jamie Oliver and Delia it is because of their celebrity. Cookbook authors are really struggling. I do it myself – if I want a recipe I go online and get it for free.

“For a while it will be great for readers because they will pay less and less but in the long run it’s going to ruin the information. People will stop writing. There’s a lot of ‘wait and see what the technology brings’ but the trouble is if you wait and see too long then it’s gone. That’s what happened to the music industry.”

Clearly a new model for book sales and compensation is going to have to emerge.  Books are digital products and that means that reproducing and sharing them has not only become easy, but the cost is virtually $0.  This is both an opportunity and a challenge for the industry.

But her statement that “People will stop writing” just isn’t correct.  There are more people writing now than ever before.  She then makes an analogy to the music industry which actually hurts her argument.  I don’t think the music industry has died or musicians have laid down their guitars.  Just the opposite actually.  The Internet and mp3s have provided a platform for musicians that just didn’t exist before.  The only ones who seem to be suffering are the major music labels.
There is no doubt that new compensation systems need to be developed as the old buy-a-book model becomes less relevant.  I have quite a few ideas on how that can be done.  More on that another time.

There are just 14 days left for you to enter your novel into the Strongest Start Novel Competition 2008. The deadline is April 16th. Approximately two weeks later we’ll announce the six finalists.

To date, we’ve received 61 entries. The winner receives a $2,000 full manuscript edit from the editing professionals at iUniverse. They’ll also receive $100 in cash and of course.

There’s still plenty of time to enter. So, post your manuscript and keep us reading.