Pseudonym! Gesundheit!

One Halloween when I was in grad school, I borrowed a suit and tie, glued on a mustache and went about disguised as a man. What fun that evening was! What power I felt! What confidence! So different to feel sure that the whole street was mine, instead of feeling that muggers and harassers owned it. The whole world was mine! (Because of the double takes I got, I know I looked at least somewhat like a man.) Told people I was George. (Who else remembers George, from the Nancy Drew books? I do! Who remembers that when George Orwell (pseudonym)'s school chums saw his obit, they said, "Eric Blair? He was George Orwell?") For one evening, parts of my psyche that are usually undercover got a chance to play the field.

I'm trying to rationalize my use of two pseudonyms. I research, revise, polish to a sheen the work that appears under these names -- but "what certain people will think" does matter should the work be linked to me. Others' power to judge, to grant and withhold, is a fact, and I would be stupid to flout it just to be reckless or "be myself." Yet I like writing and publishing these things and don't feel like stopping. It could be said that a pseudonym means I'm cowardly -- or that it cleverly gives my entire array of traits and impulses a chance to play the whole field.

"I Always Worked Until I Had Something Done"

"It was wonderful to walk down the long flights of stairs knowing that I'd had good luck working. I always worked until I had something done and I always stopped when I knew what was going to happen next. That way I could be sure of going on the next day. But sometimes when I was started on a new story and I could not get going, I would sit in front of the fire and squeeze the peel of the little oranges into the edge of the flame and watch the sputter of blue that they made. I would stand and look out over the roofs of Paris and think, 'Do not worry. You have always written before and you will write now. All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence you know.'

"So finally I would write one true sentence, and then go on from there. It was easy then because there was always one true sentence that I knew or had seen or had heard someone say. If I started to write elaborately, or like someone introducing or presenting something, I found that I could cut the scrollwork or ornament out and throw it away and start with the first true simple declarative sentence I had written." - Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast

Re: Dedications

Writer friend Anthony Di Renzo of Ithaca, NY just published a collection of witty, zestful essays about Italians, Italian-American culture, and food, plus recipes. Four of these essays were first published in River Styx, starting in 1997; allow me to take about 5 percent of the credit for that. Tony titled the collection Bitter Greens (193 pp., Excelsior Editions: State University Press of New York) and sent me a copy. This is the first time a book has actually been dedicated to me: "To Catherine Rankovic / Always Welcome at My Table."

None of my books or individual works are dedicated. That's 'cuz I saw it as just one more thing to worry about, maybe one more thing for the dedicatee (who of course would be sufficiently intimate to complain) to complain about. You might divorce or fight with a dedicatee, or mess up their marriage, or something. Or you might offend somebody who thought he or she ought to have been the dedicatee. An artificial difficulty.

Well, this has taught me: Dedicate books and other works to other writers. Non-writers may feel happy and proud, but I think only writers can appreciate what an honor it is, and all it means.

Are You a Writer, or an Author? Part III

Webster's etymologies, as far back as they can be traced:

author: "to increase, produce"

writer: "to scratch; to tear"

I think writers do both. The difference seems to be that writing is composing, and authorial actions are quantifiable or measurable. As in:

Have you written the next chapter of your novel?
Have you authored your 1500 words today?

"Author" and books are related because published books can be counted. Most people have no other way to take the measure of a writer.

OK -- this question's settled. Now: Have you written the next chapter of your novel? Have you authored your 1500 words today?

Are You a Writer, or an Author? Part I

Common sense says an author is a writer who's published a book. But according to the national Author's Guild (AG), "authors" are those who've published a book "by an established American publisher" who gave them an advance.

I know someone who joined AG because it excluded people like myself whose books were not "legitimate" but still somehow a threat. Mine were published by my choice and with my money -- that is, with courage and confidence. But with my fourth book I qualify for AG now, and if I needed to feel better about myself I could cough up $90 dues and join.

But I feel fine, and won't join a club whose point, apparently, is to exclude the riffraff: the vast majority of American writers. The AG makes further fine distinctions: Writers having a contract with an established American publisher but no book yet may apply for Associate-level Authors Guild membership. Freelancers qualify if they've published three works in periodicals commonly found at newsstands, receiving in return "significant" payment.

In my 35 years of writing, I have never received a "significant" payment. (I once won a "significant" prize, but it wasn't a publisher who gave it.) My guess is that you, like most writers, haven't received "significant" payment either. It's always been peanuts.

How about we forget all this hierarchy business -- it's too D.A.R. for me -- and respect and help each other, especially to get paid what we are worth.

Query Letter Review

A query letter is a business letter and your first contact with anyone: an agent, an editor. They are determined to discourage the riffraff; your job is to not be the riffraff. Do your best to write a sane and dignified business letter:

Name, Address and Salutation

First paragraph: Describe/summarize in your most interesting fashion the book you have finished (agents look at completed books only) or the article you plan (magazine editors will consider "pitches" for articles not yet written if yours is a good idea. Now that you've given away your idea, you must quickly...)

Second paragraph: Tell why you are the person qualified to write this. If it's your first book, don't say so. As proud as you are of your book -- and you should be! -- in the business of publishing, being a first-timer is a strike against you. Latest cool idea for first-timers: Be able to tell the agent or editor that a professional (writer, editor) has read it and declared it publishable.

Third paragraph: About the manuscript (how many words, genre, such as "a 35,000-word western romance novel"). Its working title (chances are they will not like your title, no matter what it is, so call it a working title).

Fourth paragraph: Tell, briefly, why you are querying this particular agent or publisher. Tell the truth. (Perhaps the one time in the business world when you absolutely must tell the truth and scrupulously avoid b---s---. )"I noticed that you are the agent for XX, who is my favorite romance author," or "Writer's Digest says you specialize in historical narrative nonfiction." If you're sending a snail mail, add: an SASE for your reply is enclosed.

Sincerely,

Signature and all possible contact information: Name address phone numbers fax number email.

Likeable Quotations About Art & Artists

The social responsibility of the artist is reuniting people with their reality. – I Ching

When I stop working the rest of the day is posthumous. I’m only really alive when I’m writing. – Tennessee Williams

But isn’t creating a poem / skinning a pelt? – Vladimir Mayakovsky

All critics are infantile before the texts. – Catharine R. Stimpson

When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left, and could say, “I used everything You gave me.” – Erma Bombeck

One has to commit a painting the way one commits a crime. – Degas

Thanks to impermanence, everything is possible. – Thich Nhat Hanh

When the right words hit, I own the previously unknown, repossess the past, and my heart rings like a bell. – Mary Ann deGrandpre Kelly

I'm Rich and Devoid of Common Sense

• If sending out a mass e-mail to 5 million perfect strangers, at a cost to you of $2,359, sounds to you like an effective way to market your self-published book. . .

• If you think establishing an author website or a book website* will make your book sales soar. . .

• If it sounds like a good idea to spend $1,387 to submit the link from your website to 3,000 websites with no guarantees that any of them will post your link. . .

Marketing.YenchenSupport.com is for you. I'm in some sort of database of self-published authors. Yenchen phoned me this morning. When I expressed interest in their company, of which I had never heard, they passed my call up to a guy who spoke better English and told me all about their services for self-published authors. If I signed up today I'd get 30 percent off.

I wish at this time to let everyone know that "self-published" does not mean "rich" or "naive" or "devoid of common sense."

*All authors should have such a site, but such sites aren't sales tools. They are contact tools. When was the last time you bought a book through an author's website?

Advice for the Unpublished

Picture a longtime couples therapist who has written a book for men. It's short and snappy, because men can't read good. Publishers also told her that men don't buy or read books, especially books about relationships, and that's because they're sort of like, well, unevolved, and live in basements, and now and then their women and kids throw bananas down the stairs. After a year of rejections, the author, unwilling to give up, came to the January meeting of the St. Louis Publishers Association. The speakers were two authors fiendishly successful at marketing their books. The therapist presented her problem and asked for advice.

I listened, majorly, because I wanted to tell everyone with unpublished manuscripts what was said.

Could you maybe start a blog about relationships? they asked the author. Everyone's interested in relationships. Did you place some articles on that topic online at ezinearticles.com or Helium? Yeah, you don't get paid for those articles, but it costs you nothing and your name is on them, and a link to your website or blog, and if they're good articles and get picked up by various websites and e-zines, they travel, give you a presence, establish your credibility as an expert in this field, which is what you are. Then publishers might give you a listen.

And maybe put excerpts from your book online? Maybe some chapters on your website? Yes, before it's published, so people will get to know and appreciate your work.

"But I don't want to give too much away," the author said.

"There's no such thing as giving too much away," the expert said. "If people like what you have on the Internet, if they read and value what you write there, they will want to buy your book."

Stealing Prose

Author-friend's nonfiction prose article was published by a good litmag about 15 years ago.

Long before that, pre-Internet, the mag, without authors' permissions, had agreed to allow its contents to be republished in a lit-crit series sold to libraries. This series was later sold to a database, which allegedly "licensed" the article for use on a website -- one that caters to lazy or dishonest students, providing downloadable research papers, articles, bibliographies, and so on. The author was stunned to find the article there, priced at $6.99.

Author contacts this Plagiarism-R-Us website. Meets with arrogance and refusal to remove

the work. Database which allegedly "licensed" the article ignores Author's phone call and letter. Author contacts website's apparent ISP, which says it isn't the site's ISP. Nevertheless, after months, article is finally removed.

Author learns that although the copyright reverted to the author after publication, unless it was then specifically registered with Library of Congress, the author's right to this individual article is essentially theoretical. And it's highly unlikely damages could be recovered, for example, in court.

Screenwriters have a union. Songwriters have a union. For freelance writers there’s a National Writer’s Union offering legal advice and grievance assistance to members ($120/year) -- but how many editors would cheerfully “Hire a Union Writer!”? The Author’s Guild offers members ($90/year) much the same support, plus health-insurance deals, but no self-published authors are allowed.

Now read this again and underline every snag, snafu, artificial difficulty, loophole, clusterf---, and cryin’ shame in this true story about our profession.