L.J. Bonham's Blog: Author Insights with L. J. Bonham

You have a problem: you need to get a publisher’s attention to sell your book. How do you do it?

The obvious answer is, “submit a story,” but that is simplistic given the publishing business’ realities.

The key is the “what” an author submits. Quality is everything, volume nothing. One rock solid submission that has been honed to diamond-like perfection is far better than a manuscript blizzard belched forth at bulk mail rates. You, the writer, are applying for a job, and the submittal process deserves all the care and attention a job search entails.

Envision your book as a detailed resume. Would you send it to a prospective employer riddled with misspellings, typos, and grammatical errors? Not if you expected to be taken seriously, of course. You would spend countless hours polishing, and perfecting that resume until it gleamed like a sharpened sword, ready for battle. The analogy is not that far-fetched because you are in a battle: your adversaries are the millions of other authors who think they have written the ultimate book.

Once you’ve perfected your resume, what’s next? An enthralling cover letter.

Your book’s synopsis is its cover letter. It must be concise, on message, and executed flawlessly. The plot, story arc, and characters must be clear and easily understood. Have several people, who are not familiar with your work, read your synopsis. If they can’t decipher what your book’s about, then you don’t know what it’s about either. If you can’t communicate and teach a subject, you do not understand that subject.

Should you attach an actual cover letter to your submission? A case can be made for doing so or not. If you choose to provide one, make sure it is brief (two paragraphs at most), and addressed directly to a specific person at the publisher in question. State your business case for the book: what market it fulfills, how it is better than its competition, and why it is a good fit for that publisher’s product line. Do not waste page space on how much you love your cat, and how popular you are at the local writer’s workshop.

Getting a publisher’s attention is difficult. If you tender a low quality submission package, it is all but impossible, and you won’t be invited back.

Author Insights: You current project is a dystopian novel with the working title, “Sector 12,” structured as a heroic quest. Can you describe your latest struggles with the book?

L. J. Bonham: “Sector 12” is just one of several projects I’m involved in now, and each has its own challenges. At the moment, I’ve just finished the hero’s ordeal and main crisis which ends Act Two as Christopher Vogler would describe it. Time for Act Three, the road back and the hero’s resurrection.

AI: How has this been a challenge?

LJB: I struggled to differentiate the hero’s crisis from his resurrection. I wrote a high impact ordeal and crisis, if I may say so, which made envisioning the final resurrection difficult. Act Two closes with the hero at his lowest point, captured, tortured, and handed over to a sadistic scientist for experimentation. His friends and allies have been neutralized in several different ways and the antagonist seems ascendant. Yet the hero receives some unexpected help from a surprising source which leads to a direct confrontation with the antagonist and his henchman, whom the hero has sworn to destroy. He must make a choice between satisfying his vengeance and potentially sacrificing himself for the higher cause his friends have embraced. His decision, like all good crises, sets him on a new path and launches the rebel band onto the road back. This was all good stuff but despite a solid plot outline, I just couldn’t see how to play things to the end in a satisfying way.

AI: So how did you resolve this?

LJB: When I get stuck in a book, I often go back to the basics of literary construction, the nuts and bolts of how good stories work. I cracked open Vogler’s book, “The Writer’s Journey” and studied the final movement of the quest story archetype. After rereading this section several times, one thing finally emerged to clarify the issue.

Vogler states that the hero’s crisis is analogous to a college mid-term test and the resurrection is the final exam. This was my “ah-hah” moment. It didn’t take long after that to rethink how the hero would be pursued and what penultimate trial he would face at the story’s climax.

Now all I have to do is sit down and write the darn thing. No rest for the wicked.

Author Insights: What lessons have you learned as a published author that would be useful for aspiring writers or those who’ve just had their first book accepted?

L. J. Bonham: I’ve learned a lot, and also not enough. Without a doubt, the need to promote one’s work is the foremost lesson. Other writers whom I know had warned that promotion was a full time job in and of itself, but I was still overwhelmed by the amount needed.

AI: What assistance did you get from your publisher?

LJB: Publishers are not in the promotion business, per se, their primary job is to produce product. Major publishers have very little patience with authors who do not promote their own work and as a rule only spend significant amounts on their top sellers. Everyone else is on their own for the most part. It’s a brutal business, less than forty percent of books from the majors earn back their advance. That’s a sixty percent loss rate, so it’s easy to understand why they are loath to throw large sums at marketing. They know that successful books take off because the author did most, or all, of the leg work. The non-performers are usually pulled from the shelves within a few months if they don’t generate immediate sales.

AI: That’s pretty grim. You’d think they’d be in it for the long haul.

LJB: Given the traditional publishing houses’ structure and overhead, they don’t have the three, five, or ten years it can take an author to develop a readership. They must have instant profit or move on to the next author in line; their stock holders are waiting, impatient for their money.

AI: So how did these hard facts of publishing affect you?

LJB: I am very fortunate that my work was picked up by a quality, mid-sized press who’s more interested in their reputation and author quality than immediate return on investment. They have a distinct advantage over the Big Five. Since they started as an e-book publisher first, they’re not saddled with a centuries old business model. They’re lean and agile. Unlike the majors, who are afraid to move outside the narrow genres that have worked for them in the past, my publisher will push the envelope and take a risk on new authors.

AI: What percentage of the marketing have you done versus the publisher?

LJB: I’ve done ninety-nine percent, which is what I expected. I take responsibility for my work. No one knows it better or is more enthusiastic about it than me, so no one is better qualified to promote it.

AI: That sound like a full time job.

LJB: It is, and I still have to write new material. The most common misconception among writers, in my opinion, is the idea that once your book is in print (or digitized) the hard work has been done and you can sit back to wait for the accolades and large royalty checks. The harsh truth is, once your book is accepted, the real work begins.

AI: If you had to boil this down to one sentence what would it be?

LJB: Write your best book, then get off your butt, hit the bricks, and tell anyone who will listen about it and why they should buy it.

Author Insights: Many authors struggle for story ideas, what do you do to develop yours?

L. J. Bonham: Sometimes I wish I had that problem since I often have three or four ideas rampaging through my brain at any given moment.

AI: Where do you look for inspiration?

LJB: I look everywhere. A great place to start is one’s own writing. Did a book or short story have potential to grow? Ask yourself what your characters would do in the aftermath. How would they change? What new challenges await them? That process led me to envision the follow on books in my “Shields of Honor” series. Although the first book, “Shield of Honor” ends with the battle of Agincourt, the protagonist, Edward, has many unanswered questions and challenges ahead of him from the subplots.

I fully develop my character’s biographies. If you know their past, you can extrapolate their possible futures. It’s a great opportunity for spin off stories as well. “The Debt” follows Edward’s father, Sir William de Clopton, on an adventure when Edward is still a toddler. I also have a story idea for Edward’s illegitimate son, Richard, that I’m fleshing out. I’d like to do a “what if” story on his uncle, Sir Thomas Erpingham’s early life as well.

AI: Those are fantastic ideas, what else do you do?

LJB: I’m a news junkie and I find current events are filled with potential. My primary method is to take a news item and stretch it out, or more accurately, push it down a slippery slope. What would happen if person X did the opposite of what they actually did in the news story? How could things have been different if this or that had happened? I particularly like science and technology news and I extrapolate what might happen if some new device or discovery was misused by evil people. There are many stories lurking in humanity’s darker nature.

Another favorite mind game it to take trends that seem unrelated and put them on collision courses, then see what happens after they collide. I developed the idea for “Sector 12” that way.

AI: Anything else?

LJB: Look for non sequiturs in life. Mix and match things that don’t normally go together. That’s what I did in “Wolves of Valhalla.” I wanted to write a zombie short story but needed a twist. I spent a week jamming odd ball things into a zombie context and one day I wondered who or what would could give zombies a real fight? History’s fiercest warriors, the Vikings, popped into my head and I was off at a dead run to write it down.

I think the best thing one can do to generate ideas is open the mind to the unusual. Take ordinary things, twist them around, and look at them from different directions. Don’t discount an idea because it seems farfetched. Literature would be very different if the idea for “Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea” had leapt into Jules Verne’s mind and he had said, “Nah, who would ever believe that? That’s crazy.”

Author Insights: If you had to choose one thing that aspiring fiction writers should do, what would that be?

L. J. Bonham: Read. Read everything you can get your hands on, both good and bad.

AI: Just read, why?

LJB: Reading conditions your brain just like hiking conditions your legs and cardiovascular system. Your job as an author is to read with a critical, analytical eye. Question everything. Did the book have a cogent plot, believable, empathic characters, and a good story arc? Was the premise clear to the reader, and was the book’s theme fulfilled? Was the prose tight and to the point, or florid and clumsy? What would you have done to improve the book? What did the author do better than you? The list is near endless.

AI: Could you suggest a few books or authors to study?

LJB: A couple spring to mind. John Dalmas’ “The Puppet Master,” has just been re-released in e-book and trade paperback. John is an exceptional writer with a smooth, lyric, yet tight style and his story ideas are still fresh and unique. Another great author is Christie Meierz. Her latest book, “The Daughters of Suralia” was just released a few months ago and continues the world she created in “The Marann” which recently won a prestigious Prizm Award.

Start with those books and I’ll bet your own writing will improve, and you’ll have met two brilliant authors which is always time well spent.

Author Insights: Your books are often filled with action and adventure, what recommendations do you have for aspiring authors to improve their writing in this area?

L. J. Bonham: Accuracy, accuracy, accuracy. Action scenes and books, whether detective noir, tech-thriller, war, science fiction, or fantasy must have a basis in reality, regardless if the author’s world is modern, historical, or pure invention.

AI: Could you elaborate?

LJB: Every world, no matter how farfetched, has to have rules that govern how things happen. Soldiers, spies, guerrillas, and cops all do things in certain ways and have unique cultures. They are archetypes in their own right. Stories that work well set the character’s actions in a believable framework. “Starship Troopers,” by Robert Heinlein, for example, immerses the reader in a future world that is still familiar in its texture. The Mobile Infantry depicted in the book feel real because they think, talk, and act like soldiers have since organized conflict began.

AI: So where does an author learn about military life, espionage, and law enforcement?

LJB: I just ran across a great new book on the subject called, “The Writer’s Guide to Adventurous Professions,” by Clayton Callahan and Lee Roberts.

AI: That sounds perfect.

LJB: It’s a fantastic resource book. The authors are combat veterans and police officers. Mr. Callahan in particular has worked in Army intelligence. The book is fun and a quick read, but authors will want to keep it handy for reference. If you want your action scenes to have impact, you should get this book.

Author Insights: What sets an author apart from the pack when they submit a manuscript to a publisher?

L. J. Bonham: Every editor I know says a book must grab them with the first word, sentence, and paragraph. If it doesn’t, then it goes into the burn pile. Without a great hook, even a great story will get rejected.

AI: Why?

LJB: The digital age inundates people with drivel by the truck load. It streams in on their smart phones, tablets, lap tops, TV, radio, and soon their glasses. This changed the market into a mass of overstimulated, short attention span customers. Anything new has less than ten seconds to grab their attention before they move onto the next shinny object in their view. An author must break through that ten second filter with immediate, compelling words that evoke a deep emotional reaction and yank the reader into their story. If you fail, that reader is gone forever.

AI: Don’t some readers like a buildup to the action, perhaps during the first page or two? Doesn’t that stimulate their curiosity?

LJB: There may have been a time when that was the case, but that era is dead and buried. People just don’t have the time or mental space now. Publishers are in business to sell books for a profit and they know what their customers want. If you, the author, don’t give the publisher what they are looking for they will find another product supplier. It’s just simple business.

AI: There’s plenty of commercial fiction, even best sellers, with weak beginnings, how do you explain those successes?

LJB: Granted some authors get away with it, aided and abetted by publishers, but they often have an established readership and trudge along with good sales despite lazy beginnings. I’m talking about novice authors who want to breakthrough with their first novel or story. Come out swinging or stay home.

Author Insights: What do you think is the most useful self-editing technique?

L. J. Bonham: All of the suggestions in Ken Rand’s “The 10% Solution” are great and important. If I had to pick just one, it is to read your work out loud.

AI: Read it aloud?

LJB: Yes, absolutely. Humans began telling stories verbally long before written language appeared. It’s embedded in what Jung would call the “Racial Subconscious.” Words that look good on paper have a different impact when read aloud. Punctuation errors, word order and choice are all glaring when spoken. Every time I read my work I find little things that need correction or that can be done better, smoother.

AI: That sounds like a lot of work. When should authors read their writing?

LJB: You have to look at it as just one more necessary step to produce a good product. It’s part of the job. Reading aloud is the last step after the manuscript has been scrubbed for spelling, grammar, and passive words, etc.

AI: How many times should you read aloud?

LJB: As many as it takes. That’s not a facetious statement. Read your work until it sounds good, tight, and on message. Then, if you want a real wakeup call, have someone read it to you. That’s the acid test.

Author Insights: You recently overcame a setback writing your exciting new dystopia, “Sector 12,” what can you tell us about it?

L. J. Bonham: Despite my detailed outline, I ran into a wall while crafting the Approach to the Inner Cave portion of the story.

AI: Approach to the Inner Cave? Sounds spooky.

LJB: I’m referring to the story archetype known as The Hero’s Quest as interpreted by Christopher Vogler. Once the hero has accepted the quest and passed from his or her ordinary world into the special world in which the quest takes place, the story enters the Approach phase where the hero discovers friends, allies, and enemies. These characters then move through a series of trials and challenges before arriving at the location (physical or figurative) that holds the hero’s goal. Vogler refers to this goal as The Elixir, the one thing that will bring goodness to the world, or solve the overriding problem in the story, if the hero can obtain it. The Death Star plans in Star Wars, A New Hope is an example.

AI: How did that affect “Sector 12?”

LJB: I had not yet defined the Elixir in the story and things ground to a halt as the characters grew nearer to the Inner Cave, in this case the villain’s fortress. Without an Elixir, it was impossible to develop the Approach’s final steps.

AI: How did you resolve this problem?

LJB: At the moment it is not fully resolved, but now that I’ve identified the problem, I can formulate a solution. The antagonist will possess the Elixir, the key to his overthrow. It will also fuel the conflict between the hero and his mentor which needs greater intensity. If I do this right, the Elixir will catalyze the hero’s personal growth. At the moment his quest is for personal revenge, but when I throw him into the story’s crisis, he will have to choose between his immediate needs and those of the oppressed world around him. When stories fail it is usually because the author did not pay sufficient attention to the critical phases and ingredients. Plot walls are often quiet reminders that you’ve neglected your story’s archetype.

Author Insights: As a writer’s workshop reviewer, what’s the best way to critique people’s writing?

L. J. Bonham: I’m always honored to participate at workshops. I learn a lot at these events. The best criticism is firm but fair. You’re not there to make friends and sugar coating comments does not motivate people to improve.

AI: Hit them right between the eyes then?

LJB: Civility is still necessary and you should remind people that your comments are not directed at them, rather at what they wrote. The worst thing you can do for someone who is trying to become a professional is coddle them. Publishers and editors are merciless and will offer no quarter. I try to steel authors for the real world.

AI: How do you see your role then?

LJB: I am not a development editor, merely a reviewer. Authors who want someone to comb their work line by line and lead them forward should hire a professional who specializes in such things. I give people my overall impression of their work and the major areas where they need improvement. I also point out their strengths, if any. Firm but fair, remember?

AI: What overall advice to do have for novice writers?

LJB: To paraphrase Michael Corleone in “The Godfather,” it’s nothing personal, it’s strictly business. If you want to be a professional writer, then act like one. Take your lumps, like everyone else in the business, and improve your writing. If you think back to your school years, the best teachers were those who did not accept excuses and pushed you beyond your perceived capabilities.