Author Mike Silvestri signed a contract to publish his epic science fiction novel, The Gospel of Matthias Kent, with Draumr Publishing of Columbia, Maryland. The deal covers print and electronic rights to the book, which will be available in late summer/early fall next year. woo-hoo!!!!

Author Mike, joined by the irrepressible Roxy -The Insane Golden Retriever (aren’t they all…) had a great time at Woofstock 2009. Huge crowds of 2 and 4 footed creatures jammed Riverfront Park on a beautiful September day to celebrate all things canine including my Lazy Dog Mystery. Big thanks goes out to Pat Dravk of the Central Pennsylvania Animal Alliance for giving Author Mike a ‘celebrity’ spot near the tough guys of Rescue Ink and It’s Me or the Dog star Victoria Stillwell.

A great big HELLO to all you Barkreaders out there!!! Author Mike will be selling and signing copies of Bark of the Tree at the biggest and best downright fun event for dogs and their owners - WOOFSTOCK!!!

The fun begins in Riverfront Park with a parade of costumed pooches at 11:00 AM (near the Kunkle Plaza) in Harrisburg, PA, this Sunday, September 20th, 2009. From then on, the day is chocked full of dog-related events like agility training, obstacle courses, Frisbee catching, and oodles of booths from Susquehanna Service Dogs, to our good friends at GoldenHeart Golden Retriever Rescue. Dogs are permitted to bring their owners to a variety of musical events going on all afternoon, so long as they clean up after them. Scheduled to appear are Shea Quinn & the Luv Gods, Loose Cannon, and Nate Myers & the Aces.

This event benefits the Central Pennsylvania Animal Alliance, and it truly is an event that no dog lover should miss.

Author Mike and Roxanne, the Insane Golden Retriever, look forward to seeing you there!!!

To celebrate the Big Read program, Author Mike has assembled all 28 of his Sun Sci Fi short stories into a 134 page anthology called, It Came From Beyond the Sun. In addition to the stories, Author Mike is including an author’s commentary describing how each story came about. Add to that an introduction by Mike’s Sun Editor, Carla Chadick, and you have lots of fun and thoughful reading at your fingertips. The book will be available mid-October from either The Mechanicsburg Mystery Book Store, Amazon.com, or from the author - who - by the way - will be signing copies at each of the Big Read events he attends.

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Jumpstreet, that dynamic dynamo of the arts in Harrisburg, PA, has selected Author Mike Silvestri to be their keynote speaker when Jumpstreet hosts the three-county Big Read program on Ray Bradbury’s Sci Fi Classic, Fahrenheit 451.  Adults and high school students will be reading this legendary work and discussing it during several events this fall and winter.

Right now, Author Mike will be participating in two events; November 21st, 2009, at 2:00 PM at the newly opened and splendiferous Midtown Bookstore, and on January 17th, 2010, at the Carlisle Theater.  All events are open to the public. So, go re-read your copy of Fahrenheit and come on out!!!

The summer’s flown by, and I’ve been intentionally ignoring my blogging duties to do a rewrite of The Gospel of Matthias Kent. This all came about when I got a very nice rejection notice from a publisher letting me know that they liked the story, but had some issues. So, I took into account what they said and made the story much stronger. Ah, rejection - the fire that tempers the steel, and revision - the stone that sharpens the edge.  The reworked manuscript has been resubmitted. Now, the waiting. Uh.

After that, I delved into a World War II story based on real events. While it sounds like the same old thing, I can guarantee you a thrilling, thoughtful, and immersive tale of two enemies who must work together to save thousands of lives. My research into the circumstances leading up to this event has been nothing short of fascinating. I can hardly wait to get it all down on paper.

This is a long post. Grab your favorite beverage, put your feet up, and settle in…

I came to the conclusion that most writers who were pitching agents thought of their appointment as though they were speed dating the entire Spanish Inquisition. After all, we believe that agents sit in judgment upon us, poke us with sharp questions, and ultimately condemn us to a fate worse than Hell – rejection. All they need are those nifty pointy hats. Somebody call the Monty Python Props Department.

This year though, I reached an epiphany – the insight kind, not the Spanish Inquisition kind. I wouldn’t want their job. It’s dang tough when you think about it. Look at it from their point of view. They have to winnow countless pitches for the one kernel they can nurture into something sellable. And, if the actual, living, breathing, author can’t articulate the essence of their beloved work of literary art, how can they?

I’ve pitched agents since my first conference back in 2002, but this was the first year that I made myself truly think like an agent. God, that’s frightening when I see it in Times Roman. But seriously writers, what makes your particular work different and strong enough to merit the kind of labor agents have to do to get things published? “Aye, there’s the rub,” said the sailor searching for some Ben Gay. Once I did that, my pitch became focused and simple. Yes, simple. Hook, vital statistics, and why I’m the person for the job. Voop. Simple. And scary.

Simple contradicts our basic nature. We writers want to spill our metaphorical guts to the agent. We want control for all ten minutes lest we leave out the back story to some schmuck we kill off on page 27. A few minutes worth of pitch seems inadequate. But it is. It’s actually much more time than a reader takes to decide to buy a book. So, what’s the rest of the time for? Conversation - that give and take among human beings that lets us get to know one another. It gives you, and the agent time to ask questions about you, your work and your aspirations – not just about this book, but the next and the next and the next. After all, this is two people deciding if they can work together.

With that in mind, I got appointments with three agents who represented Speculative Fiction/thrillers and went before the Inquisition.

I met with Colleen Lindsay of Fineprint first , a fellow geek who worked with LucasArts (among others) when she was on the marketing side of things literary. How did I find this out? Conversation. I wove my pitch for The Gospel of Matthias Kent into our talk. She posed a few questions for me along the way. Before you know it, my 10 minute appointment went 25 minutes. Needless to say, we each had a good vibe about the other and she invited me to submit a sampling. Victory. Well, at least in the sense that I made it to Round 2. Now, my characters & story have to get me to Round 3 - Manuscript Submission.

My second appointment stayed closer to the classic form, 10 minutes end-to-end with Becca Stumpf, a savvy and personable agent from Prospect. I delivered my spiel and we spent the rest of the time talking about possible markets. Good. Productive. Promising. Victory. Pages to be submitted. On to Round 2.

My third appointment with Lucienne Diver lasted less than 4 minutes. Deservedly so. I sputtered out my pitch and basically floundered. To be honest, she should have dismissed me in under a minute. But, being the professional she is, Ms. Diver offered up the names of other agents who might be interested in my novel. Loss? Nope. Victory. Why? Because I have new leads to pursue. In spite of my delivery flaming out on takeoff, my pitch worked well enough to garner interest to a few more agents.

The epiphany I reached also insulated me from the perception of rejection. You see, Ms. Diver didn’t reject me, or my idea, personally. She thought of what she can sell and recognized that my book wasn’t a good fit. Business, plain and simple. And that, fellow writers is the key - business.

As a part of that business, I emailed my submission materials out to Colleen Lindsay and Becca Stumpf within the hour they made their request. And yes, that’s some of that epiphany, too. I wanted to demonstrate that my work was complete and ready for review now. It meant that they can trust my professionalism should they like my sample and want to see the manuscript.

So, now the waiting game begins – that uneasy time between query and response. Waiting is something I admit I’m not good at, but it’s the way it is. Until then, I’ll be doing the best part of the writing business – writing.

Hmmm, maybe I should do something on the Spanish Inquisition…

At any Pennwriters’ conference, one of the best attended sessions is the Agents/Editors Panel Discussion. This is where we writers suck in any and all advice concerning trends, preferences, opportunities, turnoffs, and anything else those agents and editors care to share faster than light near a black hole.

Some questions were the same. “What’s the latest trend?” The answer was also always the same. “Don’t write to the trend or you’ll be behind it.” Thank goodness for panel moderator Nancy Martin who delivered a great set of questions to keep things moving. Her efforts turned a boring ‘same-ole’ into an enlightening discussion.

The most informative part of the discussion centered on upheaval in the publishing industry. Here’s some food for thought:

With over 400 editors let go by publishers over the last year, agents now have to deal with a whole new set of players. Familiar contacts aren’t there any more. Publishers have put some projects on hold. They’ve also put out the word that they’re not going to have the time or money to edit works to the extent they went to before.  

What this means to we writers is that our manuscripts have to be highly polished when they arrive at the agent’s doorstep. One agent even went so far as to suggest paying a professional freelance editor to go over your novel before submission – a fee that can run hundreds or thousands. Uhhhh.

This industry sea change forced me to look deeply into the agent’s perspective. Imagine having to go through myriad queries, looking for something promising, and polished, and able to be marketed a year or two into the future. It’s like panning for gold with the expectation that you’ll find a well-crafted 24k chain in a new style that everybody will be wearing a couple of Christmases from now. Yep, it’s almost as easy as picking winning lottery numbers.

While they agents painted a glum picture, they also shared some optimism. The industry has to produce books, or they will be twelfth in line behind Chrysler at bankruptcy court. They see the glaciating in the industry thawing soon. Publishers utterly need fresh stories to survive. So do editors. So do agents. And, it’s up to we writers to deliver.

There’s no other way to express it - LISA SCOTTOLINE ROCKS!!!

The best selling author and former lawyer delivered a dynamic keynote that set us to belly laughs, touched us, and galvanized everyone in the room with her tremendous energy. (Trust me, some speeches induce comas.) When she finished, every Pennwriter present stood up in an honest standing ovation.

During her speech, she told us of her struggle to get her voice heard - a place where many of us are. Lisa had a tough time of it, divorced, a baby, and credit cards maxed enough to qualify for federal bail out money. But she persevered and succeeded. Sounds simple, but it wasn’t the joke - it was the delivery. And what a delivery it was. 

But the essence of her speech wasn’t about struggle or yukking up the crowd - it was writing. It was the reason we were all there, but it gets lost in the frenzy to pitch, and the mad rush to be published. Lisa just plain told us to write.  

I came out of that keynote recharged and raring to go. I was so fired up that I started fleshing out a World War II novel outline yesterday and began developing a sequel of The Gospel of Matthias Kent.  I feel like a writer and not a query machine for the first time in a long while. It’s what I do. It’s who I am.

So thanks to Lisa, and to Annette, and to everybody at Pennwriters who had a hand in getting Ms. Scottoline to talk with us.  It made a good conference great!!!

Nothing helps being at a conference like having some of your fellow local writers there. The obvious benefit is having somebody you know to talk to. Since you can’t get to every session, it also gives you somebody to share knowledge with. What’s even better is somebody who has seen, or talked with, an agent you’re going to pitch. It’s all good.

What was great was seeing Don Helin, our long time critique group leader, take his place at the signing table with the rest of the published authors. It was tough to see the look in Tina’s eyes when her pitch got shot down. No matter how many times it happens to each one of us, it’s still hard to deal with. Then there was George’s perennial effervescence, especially when some of the agents wanted to see some of his work. And who can forget about Chas’s and Tina’s arguement over the amount of heat dispensed at the event horizon of a black hole. Apparently, discussions like these are expressions of the Theory of Relativity - meaning that both of these folks had relatively enough liquor in them to theorize about the amount of heat dispensed at the event horizon of a black hole during a writers’ convention. I wonder if this is how the Sci Fri Channel conceives scripts.

It’s also a wonder watching our group network with the other writers. We swapped introductions, made new friends, and got the skinny on all things writing. So, to all of the Area 5 folks that attended - thanks for being there! It made a good time great!!!