Highjacked—a true internet experience.

A nightmare
One morning, about a month ago, I tried to log into my website to put up a new post when, low and behold, a great big red flashing message appeared on my screen.
WARNING!
THIS SITE IS INFECTED WITH MALWARE.
VISITING THIS SITE COULD CAUSE SERIOUS DAMAGE TO YOUR COMPUTER!

All that work, gone.
Yikes! This was my own website, the one on which I had been working to build traffic for close to one year. In one fell swoop, all the followers I’d acquired were gone. I mean honestly, what person in their right mind would come back to a site after getting a red flashing warning. There was nothing I could do but fix it as fast as I could.
Fixing the problem, however, turned out to be lengthy, frustrating and expensive. Through that experience, I learned one valuable lesson, such a simple one that I feel stupid for not having thought of it myself.

What every website owner should do.
Malware is here to stay, so better be safe than sorry.
1) Choose a safe password. Make it a mix of letters, numbers and punctuation marks. And just to make it that much safer, capitalize a few of the letters.
2) Every time you hire someone to go into your site to do any kind of work, change your password.
3) Before uploading any articles or photos onto your site, check them for viruses. This may sound difficult, but it’s not. Just run your virus software on all your files before transferring anything from your computer onto your site. If you do these three things, your site will be almost impossible to infect. And you will save yourself a ton of headaches.

Now, say ‘thank you Monique.’ 

Hello everyone,

have you noticed that I’ve been keeping in touch more regularly lately? I’ve had so many people lambast me for being lazy and not keeping in touch, that I’ve decided to shape up and say hi more regularly.

The most important thing that’s happened recently is that I finished that novel for Penguin and sent it off. And until I get the edits, I’m FREE. Yay!!! So for the last ten days I’ve been luxuriating; reading magazines, books, watching television. Now don’t laugh, but a friend lent me her entire collection of Stargate the television series, and I am totally hooked. I know. I know. That series is ancient. But since I never watched when it was airing, it’s new to me. Anyhow, the actors wear nothing but fatigues, so the fashion aspect is irrelevant, making the show timeless.

I also watched the Grammys last night. Oh, my God, was Adele amazing or what? I wish I had a voice, but for as long as I can remember, whenever I sang– whether in the house or in the car–my kids covered their ears, going la-la-la-la. You get the picture. It seems that my voice sounds like something akin to the mating call of a Sea Lion. I don’t believe it’s that bad. I have, however, tried to tape myself just to know how bad it really is, and here’s the thing, anybody who’s ever taped an outgoing telephone message knows that when you hear it back, that voice sounds nothing like your own.

Here’s a tidbit. Years ago I went to a Karioke party and sang Patsy Kline’s “Crazy”. I’m still trying to get over that experience. So are all the other guests.

Right now, I have about another weeks’ episodes of Stargates left to watch, after which I’ll have to get down to work and pump out another novel. I have just about time to complete one before starting the next Penguin murder-mystery, and I’m wondering what that next one will be.

So, over and out, for now. Let me know what you’re up to.

This isn’t a blog so much as a question. I’m really curious. Is it just me?

I swear, if I see one more television show using serial killers, pedophiles, rapists and–can you believe it–necromancers as entertainment, I’ll scream. We all know that television–like music and fashion–follows trends, and for over a decade now the top shows have been CSI, Law and Order and others of that genre. Not that there’s anything wrong with those particular shows. They’re well produced. They’ve garnered a number of awards and have large audiences. And yes, I was a fan for many years, but here’s my question. Haven’t we had enough of those? Isn’t it time for something different? Still, every season, all the networks give us are more spinoffs of some blood-and-gore show. Can’t somebody come up with a new fun show? Something without the blood and gore?

Please let me know. Is it just me?

 

I am so incredibly stoked.

 

This weekend is the San Diego Writers’ Conference, the one and only conference I attend religiously year after year. The SDWC is where I met my wonderful and amazing agent, Natalie Lakosil of the Bradford Literary Agency. Just between you and me, the girl has ENERGY, just what you want in an agent. Within months of joining her roster, Natalie had signed me to a three-book deal with Penguin—every author’s dream. Wahoo. And she’s also the one who got a Hollywood agent to look at one of my manuscript.

 

It’s the best—I tell you—the very best.

 

Anyhow, that conference is just the best. It offers, not only the opportunity to hobnob with countless other authors on the brink of being discovered, but it also offers dozens of incredible workshops, seminars and lectures about every aspect of writing, not to mention the chance to meet with editors from the top publishers in the country. True, most of the writers who congregate there, do so in the hopes of scoring an agent. I already have an agent, but I still attend every year.  That’s how good that conference is.

 

What it gives me is immeasurable.

 

The energy I get there, alone, is worth it. I invariably return to my computer, with my mind brimming with new ideas, new plots and new plans. So, just in case anybody wants to know where to find me this weekend—29, 30, 31^st of January—just head for the Double Tree Hotel (Hilton) Mission Valley, San Diego. That woman you’ll see in the front row—you know, the one with the glazed eyes, listening in fascination to every word the speaker utters? That’ll be me.

And just in case you’re wondering–no, this is not a paid advertisement. This conference changes lives. It did mine.

 

 

Bad, bad Monique.

I’ve been so terrible in not posting regularly, and I apologize.  But I bet you have all been crazy busy too, what with the holidays, and family, and shopping, and cooking, and parties.  So you couldn’t have read me even if you’d wanted to, right? Which means I’m not all that terrible after all. Besides, it wasn’t as if I had any great big news to share.

 

Except for maybe this.

About a month and a half ago my agent, Natalie Lakosil of Bradford Lit, sent me a little note, no more than a couple of lines, saying something to the effect that one of my novels—as yet unpublished—was being looked over by a Hollywood agent who was searching for a murder mystery with a chic-lit twist to turn into a movie.

Wahoo! I thought. What a great compliment. I swear that was all I thought. I mean, really. What were the chances? Slim to none. That novel had made the rounds of publishers, all of whom had loved it, but clearly not enough to fork out the dough. Besides, mine was surely not the only novel they were looking at. There were probably dozens, hundreds of others, all at least as good as mine. It would never get chosen. I mean really!

 

Surprise!

Well folks, you could have blown me over with a feather when I got another email from my agent earlier today. They love it, she said. And they want to talk about the next step—if I’m interested. She was kidding right? Interested?  This time I got really excited. So excited, in fact, that I did my happy dance…on the ceiling.

 

Get real will ya?

My feet are back down on the ground again, and I just know that the chances of anything coming of this are…slim to none. I mean really. They probably want to talk to dozens of other authors, hundreds, all probably at least as good as I am…better, even.

Stay tuned

The book as a product
Imagine for a moment that you are an inventor and have just invented a new gadget. You’ve invested hours of your time creating it, and you’ve shown it to your mother, your spouse, your best friend and the mailman. Everyone agrees that your product is brilliant. You are certain that your invention will sell by the thousands—just as soon as you can find a manufacturer to produce it, and then stores to sell it.
This is the position in which new authors find themselves every time they finish a novel. They’ve worked long and hard on their book. They’ve made it as entertaining or educational as they possibly can. They feel sure that if only a publisher would please, please publish and distribute it, the book would work its way to the bestseller lists all on its own. And maybe, just maybe, they are right. But…

Some daunting statistics
According to a 2003 survey from the Jenkins Group, Inc., a Michigan publishing services firm, 81 percent of Americans feel they should write a book. I believe that. We all know somebody who dreams of someday writing a book. Not counting myself, I know about a dozen such people.
If we do a bit of calculating, taking into consideration that there are 312,700,742 people living in the United States, 81 % means that 253,287,601 of Americans dream of writing a book; and according to another statistic, only 10 % of them will actually attempt it, which brings the number down to 25,328,760. We’re still talking a lot of people here. Of those, only about 10% actually finish a book, bringing the number down to 2,532,876—still a lot of people. Of those, only 10% actually find an agent and only another 5 % get published. That’s brings the total to 12,664, which in my estimation is still an optimistic number.

Some great books never get published
When I look at these numbers, the first thing that I think is that surely, among the books that were rejected, there must be some that are so great that, given a chance, would have become best sellers. But for one reason or another, they just didn’t get picked up.

So if you are an author wannabe, and have devoted time and energy to your novel, and are sure your book is wonderful, what are you supposed to do? Let that manuscript gather dust somewhere? Abandon your ambition of being an author as no more than a pipe dream?

The alternative is to start your own business
There is another alternative—self publishing. That’s right. What in the old days they used to call vanity publishing, which, by the way, is a term to which I take offense. If we were talking about any other product than a book, people would applaud the efforts of the inventor for manufacturing his product. They would see this person’s effort for what it truly is, entrepreneurship. Yes, that is exactly what the self-published author is, an entrepreneur. He is the inventor of a product about which he feels so strongly that he chooses to invest into the production, advertising and distribution of it.

Self-publishing as a business
However, like anybody starting a business, this author had better approach self-publishing like the business it is. This means doing the homework, starting with finding out what kind of books are selling these days. I’m talking here about, not only subject and/or genre, but also physical format. Should he go for hardcover? Paperback? Ebook? He needs to know the cost of producing his books and how many he needs to sell to break even. He also needs to know about advertising, which means not only paid advertising but also social media.
Can an author make money by self publishing?
Look at a few of the self-published authors like Amanda Hocking and John Locke. These are just two of the authors who have sold over 1,000,000 books without the benefit of traditional publishing houses. There are countless other authors, not nearly as famous, who sell enough of their books to not only cover their costs but to make a profit.

So if your question is, can you make money self publishing your own novels? The answer is a resounding, yes. But before you take the jump, do yourself a favor and take a look at self publishing from a business point of view. You will have a much better chance of making a few bucks if you approach it that way. And if, after doing this, you still want to self publish, then a good way to start might be to do some research and find out how the big sellers have done it. Learn what you can about starting a small business. And then be prepared to work hard.

If all of this has left you a bit intimidated at the thought of going for it, remember this. When you love what you do, the hard work isn’t all that hard after all.

Thank you for taking the time to read this post, and if you haven’t yet joined my site, please done so now.

 

I’m a die-hard fan of American Idol

There, I’ve said it. I know that I’m far from being the only person who tunes in religiously during its season, and I know we all love the show for a variety of reasons. The entertainment factor is great–stars, talent, laughs, what’s not to love? But I wonder how many other fans love it for the same reason I do.

 The real reason I love that show.

The truth is, I’ve always dreamed of becoming a singer. I know, I know. It’s a bit late in the game for me, but every time I tune in, I picture myself on stage, taking my bow in front of an applauding audience. My husband and my kids tease me about it. They’ll say, “you could have sung that much better, couldn’t you, mom?” And I go along and agree, even though according to them, I have no voice whatsoever. None.

My Very Own American Idol Moment

So imagine my surprise last year, when I found myself facing a panel of judges, American- Idol style. The difference, however, was that this was not a singing competition, but a writers’ seminar. I was attending the San Diego Writers Conference and had registered for a class called, ‘The Slush Pile’. The panel of judges?…three editors from one of the largest publishing houses in the country. To attend this class, every participant had to submit the first page of their novel, and a pile of those now rested on the table waiting to be judged.

Let me admit, right here, that I walked in with dreams of the judges reading my first page, breaking into spontaneous applause and immediately signing me up to a book deal.  I took my seat bursting with anticipation.

The first judge on the right, a pretty girl, picked up one page and read the first line—only the first line—and set it back down with a grimace.

“Slush pile,” she announced. The two other editors nodded in agreement while she went on to tear the sentence apart. Now, I, kind person that I am, had sort of liked that first sentence. Okay, so maybe it wasn’t the opening line of A Tale of Two Cities, but it was nice enough. As the editors explained, however, they get hundreds of manuscripts every week, and if the first sentence doesn’t grab their attention, that manuscript is dumped. Yikes.

I slipped lower and lower into my seat as I witnessed the stack grow smaller and the critiques more severe. I’d worked long and hard to write my novel, and the last thing I wanted to hear was that my writing was lousy—that I was the writer’s version of American Idol’s contestant William Hung. At that moment, the pretty girl on the right picked up a page and read the title. It was mine. I cringed. She read the first line, but to my surprise she continued reading. In fact, she read all the way down to the bottom of the page and only then did she slap it back down onto the table.

Uh, oh, I thought. Here it comes.

“It’s great,” she exclaimed. “I want to read this novel.” The judge next to her, another pretty girl, said, “whoever wrote this, send it to me.” The third editor said, “this author has a great voice.”

And for one brief, shining moment, I was Carrie Underwood.

Since then, whenever my husband teases me about my singing voice, I lift my head up high and say, “according to a few top editors, I have a great voice. So there!”

See you soon, everyone. In the meantime, keep reading. And if you haven’t already signed up for my newsletters, please do it now.

Monique

 

Sept 28/2011

Hello everyone, and welcome to my blog post.
A lot has changed for me over the last few years. Apart from getting married, moving away from my family, my friends and my career, to relocate clear across the continent with my new husband, I also picked up my bow and arrow and aimed for the stars. Okay, so this is a bit of romantic way to describe what I did, but honestly, that’s exactly how it felt and about just as likely to succeed. There I was, nearing the big 6-0 and trying out for yet another career—as an author no less—in an industry renowned for being almost impossible to penetrate.
I remember once hearing that:
Out of one hundred people who want to write a book, only ten percent ever attempt it.
Out of one hundred people who start writing a book, only ten percent finish it.
Out of one hundred who finish it, only ten percent try to find an agent.
And out of one who try to find an agent, only ten percent do.
And out of those, only ten percent get published.
With those odds, who in their right mind would want to try?
Here’s the thing, writing is what I had wanted to do my whole life. I’d even made a brief attempt at it some twenty odd years ago, and abandoned it when my marriage imploded and I found myself financially responsible for my children. I took a job with a pay check. Can you blame me?
Three years ago, with the last third of my life looming so close, I decided that it was time I pursued my dreams. And here I am with two books published and a three-book deal with Obsidian, an imprint of Penguin. I’m still pinching myself.
For those of you out there who dream of becoming authors, here’s how I did it.
First, I joined a writers group and met with them once a month. I wrote some really bad short stories and listened to many others that weren’t any better. Slowly, I began to find my voice. (No, I’m not talking about a signing voice because trust me, I don’t have one.)I guess I noticed I was beginning to develop one when other members of my group began teasing me about killing off all the men in my stories. I like men, honestly, but I found that I loved creating strong female characters who rose from the ashes and who got even. Then, I researched what was and what wasn’t selling these days, and since I wasn’t attracted to the paranormal, I went for number two on the list, which is women’s, and then I wrote the best damn story I could.
The next thing I did changed my life and launched my career. I attended the San Diego Writers Conference and found an agent. Finding an agent was partly luck and partly good strategizing.
Many conferences offer one-on-one meetings with agents, editors and publishers. I decided to spend the extra fifty bucks and go for it. But before selecting the agent I wanted to meet, I did more research. I Googled every agent on the list to see what kind of books he or she sold and narrowed my selection down to those who specialised in books that appealed to women. Next, I looked at how many clients each agent represented and that’s when I decided that, being a new author, I should chose an agent who was looking to build a roster of writers, rather than trying to impress an already established agent.
Now here’s something that every wannabe author needs to know. An agent will decide within two seconds whether to give you a chance or to pass on you. How do they do that? Just by reading the first line of your book. That first line, folks, can make you or break you. So make sure it’s a real grabber.
My first line was, “Call it intuition. Call it a sixth sense. Whatever. Somehow I just knew.”
What you need to do is write a first line that will pique a reader’s curiosity and make them want to keep reading. Mine, quirky as it was, did just that. When I sat down in front of Natalie Fischer of the Bradford Agency, she read it, smiled and said, “I love it.”
Here’s another piece of advice. Know how to summarize your story in no more than a few sentences. Most agents, after reading that first line and liking it, will ask you to tell them the story…in your own words. Gulp. No preparation, no rehearsal, just spill it out. I must have done a decent job of it because Nathalie said, “I want to read it. Can you send it to me?” (I only had the first chapter with me.) Believe me, I drove home in record time and mailed it off the very next day. And the rest, as they say, is history.
Well, not quite. Getting an agent, as it turns out, is only a first step. What follows is the hard part.
But I think this blog had gone on long enough, don’t you think? The rest will have to wait until another day. Till then, everyone. And in the meantime, keep reading and writing. And if you haven’t already signed up for my newsletters, do it now.
Monique