Defining Failure in Publishing

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Leaders need to let go, to accept that we don’t know best. Our role is to create the environment in which a sense of urgency around experiments is engendered, to accept and allow failure, to encourage iterative improvement and speedy adaptation, to facilitate information flow throughout the organisation: to orchestrate a process of improvisation, a dance in which the aim is to fail better, cheaper and faster so that we can all work out what will succeed.- Rebecca Smart President and Managing Director of Osprey Publishing on: Publishers Need to Fail Better, Cheaper, Faster | Digital Book World
Yesterday’s DigibookWorld Round Table discussed Defining Failure. The gist of the chat focused on assessment and experimentation. With new and faster reporting technology will publishers, bookstores, and authors do more to fail, in order to succeed in this changing reading cultural landscape? Like tech companies who assess new product launches, will publishers began to assess why certain books introduced into the marketplace fail instead of just leaving the book out to die like a thirsty turtle in the middle of a dessert?

A few interesting questions were raised:

• Have  bookstores become literary showrooms?
• Are there things bookstores can do more to fail?
• Bookstores are currently serving as show rooms, whether they want to or not. Are book buyers going into bookstores looking at books, then buying them online?

Some even better tweets

•  @MatthewDiener: $500K advance for book that will be lucky to earn back vs. $500K for MarkLogic server and an end-to-end XML workflow #dbw
• @kratlee: literary fiction is the old spice of publishing - @glecharles
• @bakersmark: One thing we don't do in this industry is postmortems to discover why a book failed and what we could have done better
• @deegospel: Why aren’t bookstores cultural centers anymore? Where are the cultural centers & do they accommodate readers?
• @MatthewDiener: "We are great at failing with books everyday." @donlinn Grt pt; an industry surviving on 10% success rate w/ print.
• @deegospel: that is the great question: did the Old Spice social media blitz push sales?
• RT @TomThompson: Remember the Old Spice guy took off with HUGE ad spend. Social media wouldn't have worked without it

Now your thoughts…

Christian Fiction

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RSJ 2011 Aspiring Author Contest

This contest helped me get my three book deal with Dafina. The doors are now opened for your chance. Learn more below…

RSJ 2011 Aspiring Author Contest

(Contest Registration Opens 1 Aug)

Each year aspiring fiction authors take a step closer to having their dreams come true by entering the Romance Slam Jam Aspiring Author Contest. The winners' manuscripts are read by an editor or agent with a chance at publication or representation.

Previous winners and prizes. ( I won 3rd)

Genre: Black Romance/Women's Fiction

Prizes:

1st Place: Manuscript reviewed by Editor Latoya Smith from Grand Central Publishing for possible publication.

2nd Place: Manuscript reviewed by Editor Selena James from Kensington Books for possible publication.

3rd Place: TBA

Submission Package:
To help prepare contestants for submitting to publishing houses and agents, the entries will resemble a submission package sent to agents and publishers except remove your name from the query, synopsis and sample pages. You can call yourself Contestant. Submissions are electronic (sent via email). The file should be a Microsoft Word document. In the body of the email, be sure to give the name you registered in the contest under and the title of your novel.
Format:
• 1 inch margins all around
• Font Times New Roman, 12pt

Include (one email, 3-4 attachments):
• 1 page query letter single spaced addressed to:

Ms. C. Judge

2 Busy St.

New York, NY, 10101

Sign it Contestant.

Your query letter may be in the body of the email.

• Synopsis double spaced (3 page max).

• 15 sample pages double spaced.

• Cover page (this page does not count toward your 15 sample pages)
• In the manuscript header, place the Novel Title / Author and Page Number
• If you need an extra page or two to complete a scene, that’s okay.

• Contest registration form if you have not already submitted it.

Note on Eligibility: If you have not had a full-length novel published by a traditional publisher, you are eligible for this contest. Therefore, if your publishing credits are, short stories, novellas, poetry, non-fiction and or you are self-published, you are eligible.

Important Dates: All submissions must be received by 28 February 2011. The winners will be announced at the Emma Awards Banquet during RSJ 2011. Winners not in attendance at the the Emma Awards will be notified by email the first week of May 2011.
Contest Fee:
Please make a $30 money order or cashiers check payable to: Romance Slam Jam
Mail payment and Contest Registration Form to:
Romance Slam Jam
c/o Deatri King-Bey
P.O. Box 822
Tolleson, AZ 85353
If you'd like to pay using PayPal, the fee is $35. Email payment and registration form to deatri@romanceslamjam.org

Once payment and the Contest Registration Form have been received, instructions will be emailed to you on where to send the submission. Please note, registration fee is non-refundable.
Refer any questions regarding the Romance Slam Jam Aspiring Authors contest todeatri@romanceslamjam.org

Good Luck!

Help Selah and I end our Mommy/Daughter Summer Staycation in Style!

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me and girlee(above on my back)

Okay. If you don't know. Girlee(my daughter) & I have planned  a Mommy/Daughter Summer Staycation this year for her summer vacation. We've been everywhere. Last Sunday we participated in The Great Cupcake Smackdown. The week before that she went to The Aquarium, The Atlanta Zoo and The Coke Museum via Girl Scouts of Atlanta, and that's just a bit of all we've done.

But this next thing is free for me, but depends all on you.

We want to end our Staycation by attending a fancy dinner at one of the top Atl restaurants. DiningOut Atlanta Magazine is offering a free $50 gift certificate, if we get 50 people to like their Facebook Page before anyone else.

All you have to do is visit Dining Out http://www.facebook.com/DiningOutMagazineAtlanta?ref=ts at  and like their page.

Then come back here and let me know in comments, so I can calculate who liked them. And use this page as a reference.

Thanks.

Now I guess I owe you all a note on my wall. (lol)

Tyler Perry’s July Play Tapings

Atlanta, you blessed town. Tyler Perry will present his popular 2009/2010 stage plays again for DVD tapings and you get to be in the houses. All seats are $30!

Here’s the info:

Laugh to Keep from Crying

Cobb Energy Perf. Arts Centre

July 13^th - 14^th 2010

Madea’s Happy Family

Cobb Energy Perf. Arts Centre

July 16^th(8PM) - 17^th 2010(3 AND 8 PM )

I’ll post up more the show schedule for the MHF Tour in another post.

Click here to purchase.

Christian Fiction TPT: Tom Davis’ Priceless

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Priceless Trailer from Tom Davis on Vimeo.
Today’s Trailer Park Tuesday spotlight is Tom Davis’ Priceless(David C. Cook.)
Photojournalist Stuart Daniels has found purpose in life. After suffering the fallout of a tragic assignment, Daniels rediscovered his faith while helping a young African orphan. Now his photo work carries a greater mission: To educate people about social injustice happening around the world.
Daniels next assignment carries him back overseas and into the heart of Russia. Once there, Daniels is persuaded by an old friend to help save two girls from a desperate situation. Soon he becomes a key player in a dangerous campaign to rescue helpless women trapped in the sex-slave trade. What Daniels encounters during his journey will shake his faith, test his courage, and even threaten his life. Yet as Daniels gets deeper and the stakes get higher, he will discover that hope can be found in the darkest of places.
Read an excerpt  of this Christian Fiction novel below.
Priceless, By Tom Davis (Chapter One)

Christian Fiction Blog’s First Grade Report Card

The State of African-American Christian Fiction 6 Years Later…

 Agape is the holy, unconditional love God gives us regardless of what we look like…and even regardless of how unloving our actions may sometimes be
-Sir John Templeton’s Pure Unlimited Love

Six years ago I began Christian Fiction Blog to spotlight books that we didn’t feature on our the newspaper and radio station I once worked for. As I began to share those authors with the blogosphere, I learned that more authors weren’t being featured across the country. They weren’t featured on radio, television, newspapers, or even bookstores. What shocked me most was Christian bookstores refused to stock these books and few Christian publishing houses had African-American authors. The more I learned; the more passionate I became about supporting these authors and dialoguing with the publishing industry and Christian readers about this issue.
Six years later I wonder have we made any strides. 
Here’s my short assessment. Click here.

Related Christian Fiction Posts:

• Christian Fiction: 4 Women on America’s Independence

• 2010 Christy Awards & Athol Dickson

• 2010 CFOM Summer Read Picks Announced

 

CFBA: Back on Murder

This week, the
Christian Fiction Blog Alliance
is introducing
Back On MurderBethany House (July 1, 2010)
byJ. Mark Betrand


ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

J. Mark Bertrand has an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Houston. After one hurricane too many, he left Houston and relocated with his wife Laurie to the plains of South Dakota.

Mark has been arrested for a crime he didn't commit, was the foreman of a hung jury in Houston, and after relocating served on the jury that acquitted Vinnie Jones of assault. In 1972, he won an honorable mention in a child modeling contest, but pursued writing instead. Besides his personal website, visit his Crime Genre website at http://www.crimegenre.com/.

The next book in this series, Pattern Of Wounds will come out in the summer of 2011.

ABOUT THE BOOK

Det. Roland March is a homicide cop on his way out.
A missing girl. A corrupt investigation. They thought they could get away with it, but they forgot one thing:

Roland March is BACK ON MURDER...

Houston homicide detective Roland March was once one of the best. Now he's disillusioned, cynical, and on his way out. His superiors farm him out on a variety of punishment details. But when he's the only one at a crime scene to find evidence of a missing female victim, he's given one last chance to prove himself. Before he can crack the case, he's transferred to a new one that has grabbed the spotlight--the disappearance of a famous Houston evangelist's teen daughter.
All he has to do? Find the missing teenage daughter of a Houston evangelist that every cop in town is already looking for. But March has an inside track, a multiple murder nobody else thinks is connected. With the help of a youth pastor with a guilty conscience who navigates the world of church and faith, March is determined to find the missing girls while proving he's still one of Houston's best detectives.

Battling a new partner, an old nemesis, and the demons of his past, getting to the truth could cost March everything. Even his life.

If you would like to read the first chapter of Back On Murder, go HERE.