Saturday, May 28, 2005

The Memories in Memorial Day

As I type at my desk, enjoying the warm May breeze, I am taking a few moments to thank all the men and women who have given their "all" so that I may have the freedom to be here. The freedom to write what I want, the freedom to live in the greatest country in history, the freedom to express my opinions, the freedom to worship as I choose. Thanks to all of you! Your sacrifices can never be repaid.

And to all my writing and reading friends, have a safe and happy holiday weekend.

Monday, May 23, 2005

A Chance for Middle School and High School Writers to be Published Electronically

If you've been around electronic publishing for awhile, you've probably heard that the future of e-publishing is in the next generation. You may have even said it yourself.

EPIC, the Electronically Published Internet Connection, has established a competition to encourage reading and writing among middle school and high school students and to promote e-book literacy in public and private schools. The result of the first annual competition will be the anthology EPIC New Voices 2006 to be published June 2006. This anthology will include all prize-winning entries as selected by the judges. The winners will be announced at the EPIC Conference in San Antonio, Texas in March 2006.

The contest is open to students attending public, private, or home schools anywhere in the world, but all entries must be submitted in English. Students should be in grades 7 through 12 in the US or the equivalent level in the school system of their country.

Categories include Short Story (fiction), Poetry, and Essay (nonfiction). Each entrant may submit no more than one (1) entry in each category — a maximum of three (3) entries per entrant.

Entries in each category will be judged by a panel of three judges, including teachers, librarians, and published writers.

Guidelines and entry forms are available on the EPIC Conference Web site or by e-mail from epicnewvoices@lillieammann.com. If you know aspiring writers in junior high or high school, please tell them about this opportunity to showcase their talent. All winning entries will be published in the anthology EPIC New Voices 2006, which will be distributed on CD at the EPIC Conference and by download on the EPIC Web site.

Thursday, May 19, 2005

Print Publishers Close Imprints

This week Harlequin and Silhouette announced the demise of their shorter contemporary romance lines. These stories were no longer "sweet" and free of explicit details--so I believe their readers were migrating to the inspirational line. How many authors have books written, submitted and even contracted for these lines? How many might eventually submit these (revised) manuscripts to e-publishers?

Here's an excerpt from the offical announcement:

As a company, Harlequin is committed to the success of our series
publishing business. We believe it is our responsibility to develop,
evolve and enrich our publishing programs in order to bring new
opportunities to our authors and fresh and relevant reading
experiences to our readers.

The development of new programs is the backbone of our approach to
the business, and I'm pleased to announce the launch of a new six-
book series starting in September 2006. High on romance, low on
explicit sexual details, this short, contemporary series delivers
feel-good reads that capture the intense emotions and excitement of
falling in love - within a variety of international settings. We
believe this new editorial will help us better serve our existing and
potential global readers.

From September 2006, Harlequin Romance and Silhouette Romance will
cease publication due to declining retail presence globally. The new
series will effectively replace these two series, and many of our
existing HR and SR authors will continue to be published in the new
series. For the others, there are a large number of other series and
programmes within Harlequin Enterprises which may offer new
publishing opportunities, and your editor will be happy to discuss
these with you.

I realize that for some there will be a period of uncertainty.
Please let me assure you that we will do everything possible to
mitigate that uncertainty. Members of our editorial staff will be
speaking personally with agents and all of the authors who are
directly affected by the changes that we are making, and we look
forward to working with our authors and the agents who represent them
to continue to publish the stories that our readers want to read.

Yours sincerely,


Randall Toye
Global Editorial Director, Series
Harlequin Enterprises Limited

Wednesday, May 18, 2005

E-Publishing, how I started

Thanks for inviting me in this forum. I am glad to tell you how God blessed our small effort of online publishing. About over eight years back I came to this beautiful land from India. Internet was new thing for me as India was not that advanced in technology that time. I enjoyed surfing the net. One day God told me that, I must start a weekly newsletter which I could send through email.

Well, it wasn't easy though yet after much prayers and much thought we started "In Search of Peace" Magazine on 17th July 1997. It was a humble beginning, we had very few subscribers in the list. But soon word spread and many joined the list. The list started growing. In past years God has used this magazine to spread His goodness, salvation, deliverance and blessings. We receive many emails that how God blessed them by reading those messages. God did many mighty miracles in the lives of people.

Recently we have converted all our ezines in PDB format so that it could be read with a palm doc reader.

Beside this I have published two books. Both are in paper-back as well as e-book format. Both books are available with my publishers for purchase. Book Titles are Allah and Elohim - Are they the same God? and Is Jesus God?

Excerpts of my both books are available at my website: Bible and Quran

Thanks and God bless
Sherly Isaac
http://insearchofpeace.org

Sunday, May 15, 2005

A little intro, please

Guess it's my turn to say hello and do a little intro. I have a blog called Down the Writer's Path where I offer news and commentary on the writing life and craft and the publishing industry. I'm published in both traditional and electronic publishing. In the traditional publishing world, I've co-authored three travel books, with the third, Exploring Texas History: Weekend Adventures, released this month. The book is structured to be read as a collection of short stories and/or used as a travel book. My first young adult book, Divided Loyalties, published by Awe-Struck E-Books, is in both e-book and paperback format. Inspired by my research for Divided Loyalties, I recently launched a website called TeensTakeAction.com. At the end of summer, a second young adult book, Video Magic, will be released.

So far my publishing history in books and articles, fiction and nonfiction, has primarily been on the secular side of publishing. I recently ended a two-year stint as a communications director for my church where I created and published a 16-24 magazine-format newsletter and wrote a few other articles on religious art. (See Writing in Gold and Art Inspires the Soul.) Although my young adult books are not published by Christian publishers, they are considered to be very clean. One reviewer called Divided Loyalties a "G-rated book without any steamy love scenes to offend young readers." While they have romance in them, the stories occur during that short window when two people meet and discover an attraction to one another, while, at the same time, they continue to face life and deal with issues such as loyalty, anger, and envy. My current project is nonfiction and definitely falls on the Christian side of publishing.

It's exciting to be a part of this new blogging effort, and I hope you'll my contributions and that of the others and will stop by my other blog and say hello there, too.

Wednesday, May 11, 2005

Have You Ever Read an EBook?

As amazing as it seems now, I had never read an e-book when I submitted my novel to an e-publisher. I'd never been to an electronic publisher's Web site and certainly had no idea how to download a book. I only submitted because a fellow writer told me that the publisher was open to a handicapped heroine in a romance novel.

Now I read far more e-books than print books. I often even read the Bible online because I can search for particular words or passages, compare different versions, and read commentaries and study tools -- all at the same time.

Christian E-Authors have published a wonderful devotional book, Milk and Honey for the Hungry Heart, which is available for free download.

If you're new to the world of online book publishing and hesitant to spend money on books by authors you haven't read before, you may want to read one or more chapters of a book on the publisher's or author's Web sites. Visit the Christian E-Authors site for links to publishers and authors, as well as information about e-books, news about e-publishing, author interviews, and much more. You can also find enjoyable reading at Book Reviews from Christian E-Authors.

My Web site includes lots of links for readers and e-book and e-publishing resources, including links to e-book sellers and directories, e-authors, and organizations and information about the industry. You'll also find links to free e-books, and everybody likes free!

I started reading e-books in 1999, and I've been an avid reader ever since. If you're new to the exciting world of e-publishing, I hope you'll try a few e-books, ideally by some of my fellow Christian E-Authors, and that you come to enjoy them as much as I do.

Friday, May 06, 2005

For Our Moms



This is just a thank you to all of our mothers here at Christian-e-authors. Whether we are mothers ourselves or just want to wish our own moms a Happy Mother's Day, I thought this was a great place to do it. Thanks Moms, for encouraging us to write when we were in school and thought we could write a great novel in our composition notebooks with those fat pencils. Thanks Moms, for supporting our essay skills even when the teachers said we were "average." Thanks Moms, for letting us read the books we wanted to without censorship. And thanks Moms, for encouraging our pursuit of publication and appreciating our work, regardless of whether you understood what "e-books" really were or what a "download" entailed. Thanks Moms!

Wednesday, May 04, 2005

AFFIRMATION

What was I doing here? The past three days were a whirlwind of seminars, networking, and meeting other writers most of whom had already been published and many who had written books. I was fooling myself if I thought I belonged to this group of prestigious people. Me, who was only dreaming about writing.
It was my first writer’s conference. I had found the advertisement in a writers’ periodical.
“You should go!” My husband had always been an encourager.
“It’s so far!”
“Nonsense. Take your time getting there. Three days down and three days back. The time away will be good for you to reflect and see what God has in mind for you.”
He was right. I knew it. The last nine months had been a time of deep introspection. I had believed at the time I did the right thing by quitting my job. I knew God had another plan for me. I had believed it was writing. As the months lingered, I felt foolish over the decision I had made.
Five years earlier, I had prayed for a passion, something that would drive my energies. Since my youngest child had left home, my zest for living diminished each day until getting up in the morning seemed pointless. Soon after uttering that desperate plea for renewal, I attended what I termed a feel good seminar, the kind of workshop that motivates a person to go home and hug all the neighbors. I arrived with the poorest of attitudes, expecting nothing but bubbles of intent that burst as soon as the daily grind resumes. With exuberant pleading the speaker asked, “What do you want to do with the rest of your life?”
We were instructed to write our thoughts on a 3 by 5 index card. Without hesitation I wrote, WRITE. He then told us to expand the dream. I asked myself, “What would I write about?” I awakened from my daydreaming with a jolt. The speaker was addressing me, and I found myself publicly declaring a desire to write for Christ.
Riddled with uncertainty and insecurity, I resisted the call for another four years until the burning desire consumed me completely. I resigned my position and thrust myself upon a road of discovery.
The journey had brought me to this conference. As I mingled with faculty and other writers and heard of their accomplishments, my doubts escalated. What right did I have to place myself in the same category as those who had proved their worth? What had I done? I’d chucked a good paying job to pursue a career that I was too inept to ever realize.
Traditionally, the conference held an awards night. From the buzz of excitement surrounding me, I surmised the activity generated much enthusiasm. Like hopefuls at the Oscars, contestants held their breath as the winners in each category were announced. The first place of each category, published and unpublished, would be eligible for the top honors of the evening, The Award of Excellence.
With no expectations, I had submitted an article and three poems in the unpublished category. I was thrilled when my article received an honorable mention. That alone was an encouragement in an otherwise self-deprecating experience. Third and second place for poetry were announced.
How wonderful for them, I thought, as I watched each winner nearly gallop to the front to receive the coveted certificate. “And first place unpublished poetry goes to Linda Rondeau for Whispers of Hope.”
Now I was dazzled with disbelief. Surely, the announcer had called the wrong name. A friend seated next to me, poked me to get up and get my certificate. I had never won anything in my life, not even a raffle. As if in slow motion, I accepted the honor.
A few more awards were given for other categories. Then, the trophy was brought forward. A hush fell upon the exuberant audience as if angels were hovering. “The Award of Excellence goes to—
She stopped and looked at the certificate. “This is the first time this award has been given for poetry—The Award goes to Linda Rondeau for *Whispers of Hope.”
The applause was deafening. My knees seemed too weak to carry me to the podium. Angels’ wings ushered me toward my affirmation, and I felt as if God himself had smiled upon me.


*Authors note: Soon after this award, Whispers of Hope was published in a church newsletter and later in VISTA, a publication of The Wesleyan Church.

by Linda Rondeau
http://www.lindarondeau.com