WD Editors

SkullRing follows up on their earlier mention of WDB’s On Writing Horror, with a fuller review:

The book offers more than just the standard advice on crafting quality stories; all aspects of developing and maintaining a career as successful horror writer are covered, from navigating the potential pitfalls of publishing missteps, to engaging in effective self-promotion for your latest work. Additional consideration is given to writing screenplays, tie-in novels and comic books.

Read the full review here.

You can now browse the spring 2007 offerings of Writer’s Digest Books! More info about these new titles (as well as sample spreads) will be posted in their months of release.

Jane has posted another installment of the Magic Bullet over at Identity Theory. This week’s column addresses how some acquisitions editors must go through a committee-style approval process before a book can be contracted.

P&Ls (profit-and-loss statements) are also required for pub board. No book can be approved without an accurate cost estimate of the book’s projected print quantity, manufacturing cost, photo/illustration cost, and sales in the first 12-18 months. I request P&Ls from our production dept., which usually take two weeks to turn around. When I receive them, I immediately look at the margin. Does this book meet the goal gross margin for the Writer’s Digest imprint? Is it making enough money that it will be a good investment of our time and effort? If the answer is no, then we’re probably doing a book that has limited appeal (limited sales potential), or a book that is too expensive to manufacture.

For a solid month, our Fall 2006 title Unfortunate English by Bill Brohaugh was the best-selling title in the trade through the week ending Dec. 17. Visit the author’s site at www.UnfortunateEnglish.com.

Our upcoming Spring 2007 title, Writer Mama, which is excerpted in the January/February 2007 issue of Writer’s Digest magazine, got noticed by MB Toolbox:

Being a stay-at-home freelancer and mom sounds great to me. But then again I don’t have kids, I’m not married and I have a day job. SO, it’s possible that it’s more difficult than I imagine it is. For those of you who suffer the stress of balancing both jobs, Christina Katz at Writer’s Digest has some advice.

Keith Flynn, the author of the Spring 2007 title Rhythm Method, Razzmatazz, and Memory, will be taking a long tour of the East Coast in March-April 2007. Don’t miss your chance to hear this wonderfully entertaining and musical poet!

MARCH 11 — IREDELL COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY, STATESVILLE, NC
MARCH 13 — CATAWBA VALLEY COMMUNITY COLLEGE—HICKORY, NC
MARCH 14 — EAST CAROLINA UNIVERSITY—GREENVILLE, NC
MARCH 18 — QUAIL RIDGE BOOKSTORE –RALEIGH, NC
MARCH 21 — MADISON HIGH SCHOOL –MARSHALL, NC
MARCH 22 — BRUSH CREEK PUBLIC LIBRARY—WALNUT, NC
MARCH 24 — CARPE LIBRUM BOOKSTORE—KNOXVILLE, TN
MARCH 26 — UNIVERSITY OF TENNESSEE—KNOXVILLE, TN
MARCH 27 — MIDDLE TENNESSEE STATE UNIV.—NASHVILLE, TN
MARCH 29-31 — BLOCK ISLAND POETRY PROJECT—BLOCK ISLAND, RI
APRIL 3 — PENN STATE UNIVERSITY—HARRISBURG, PA
APRIL 4 — YORK COLLEGE—YORK, PA
APRIL 5-6 — TUPELO READING SERIES—CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA
APRIL 10 — THE REGULATOR BOOKSHOP—DURHAM, NC
APRIL 12 — WAKE TECH COMMUNITY COLLEGE—RALEIGH, NC
APRIL 13 — OSONDU BOOKSTORE—WAYNESVILLE, NC
APRIL 15 — ASHEVILLE SCHOOL—ASHEVILLE, NC
APRIL 16 — BREVARD COLLEGE—BREVARD, NC
APRIL 17 — CATAWBA COLLEGE—SALISBURY, NC
APRIL 18 — CHARLOTTE WRITER’S CLUB—CHARLOTTE, NC
APRIL 19 — GARDNER-WEBB COLLEGE—-BOILING SPRINGS, NC
APRIL 20 — BORDERS BOOKSTORE—-CHARLOTTE, NC
APRIL 22 — MALAPROPS BOOKSTORE—ASHEVILLE, NC
APRIL 25 — BROOKLYN PUBLIC LIBRARY—BROOKLYN, NY
APRIL 26 — SUNY-FARMINGDALE—LONG ISLAND, NY
APRIL 27 — YMCA OF SYRACUSE—SYRACUSE, NY
APRIL 28 — POETS AND WRITERS WORKSHOP—SYRACUSE, NY
MAY 29-JUNE 2 — BOOK EXPO—NEW YORK, NY

Staying focused and committed to a book-length project takes stamina and a deep well of self-motivation. In this follow-up to Page After Page, novelist and professor Heather Sellers helps you build on your daily writing habits and write the book of your dreams. The just-released Chapter After Chapter shows you how to:

• Stay tethered to your writing project by planning out where you want each day’s writing to take you
• Protect your creative energy from the demands of everyday life by learning when and how to say no
• Fight off just-want-to-be-done-itis and stick with your project until the very last revision by discovering the value of “re-seeing” your work from new perspectives
• Fend off distractions like exciting new book ideas by staying faithful to your current project

Sellers goes on to illustrate how through the practice of writing a book, you’ll inadvertently create the kind of artistic life, the kind of artistic self, you always wanted:

In writing books, we are, chapter after chapter, revising ourselves—that’s how books get written. We learn to do less of what doesn’t work (overbooking our schedules, staying on as chorale director when we don’t have time to write) and to do more of what does work (showing up every day to write, preparing the night before, never getting too far away from the book).

Click here to read or dowload the full table of contents and Chapter 1: Rose to Ash!

“A writer talks of things that everyone knows but does not know they know. To explore this knowledge, and to watch it grow, is a pleasurable thing; the reader is visiting a world at once familiar and miraculous. When a writer shuts himself up in a room for years on end to hone his craft—to create a world—if he uses his secret wounds as a starting point, he is, whether he knows it or not, putting a great faith in humanity. My confidence comes from the belief that all human beings resemble each other, that others carry wounds like mine—that they will therefore understsand. All true literature rises from this childish, hopeful certainty that all people resemble each other.”

Read full speech here.

We received this charming greeting from Debbie Ohi, who runs the MarketWatch column over at www.WritersMarket.com, and also does wonderful cartoons. Find more of her work here.

For the third week in a row, our Fall 2006 title Unfortunate English by Bill Brohaugh was the best-selling title in the trade through the week ending Dec. 10. Visit the author’s site at www.UnfortunateEnglish.com.