D. J. Herda

"When I complete the volcanic seven summits. If I wrote a book about my experience climbing all of these peaks. Would you be interested to read it?" That was the fairly straight-forward question someone asked on Quora the other day. Here's how I responded.

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I think Joseph came closest to the truth when he said you need a hook for your "travelogue." I wouldn't call it that as much as a memoir, but still, he's right.

I'll take his response a couple steps further, though. I've never heard of you; so, why would I want to read about yet another Volcanic Seven Peaker? If you were going to be the first, you'd have a little stronger hook that could snag the interest of a major publisher. In reality, though, you'd be the twenty-fourth. I don't see how that would be a big plus for attracting very many publishers or readers. If any.

Coincidentally, the honor of being the first climber to conquer the non-Volcanic Seven Summits (the highest mountains in each of the seven continents of the world) goes to Texan Richard Daniel "Dick" Bass, an American businessman, oilman, rancher, and mountaineer, who was born in Tulsa in 1929 before moving to the Lone Star State to help his family run their businesses. He co-wrote a book about his climbing adventures entitled Seven Summits. He also owned Snowbird Ski Resort in Utah for forty-three years. In fact, that's where I met him and accepted his dinner invitation to my son and me. I later wrote an article about him for the Milwaukee Journal or someone. Read More 

When a writer wants some tips on starting a new book without having any idea of where it's going and what it will be about, you have to wonder: Is this guy serious? Here's how I responded to just such a query.

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I've read the responses to your question from two other people so far and found them, uhh, really interesting. Also, really wrong and patently ridiculous. Why do so many people insist on answering question to which they have no logical response and obviously no knowledge? Beats me. So, let's get down to brass tacks with a question right back at you.

Question: What are some ways to fail at life?

Answer: 1.) Don't plan ahead. 2.) Don't anticipate anything but instead play everything "by ear." 3.) Don't learn anything more than you pick up in your daily activities. 4.) Don't, by any means, put yourself out or stress over anything.

Those are the only ways to proceed if you want to guarantee you're going to fail at life. On the other hand, if you want to succeed either at life or at starting a new book without knowing what the hell you're getting into, I suggest you turn out the lights, crawl into bed, and go to sleep. Read More 

Someone asked me the other day how I respond to unwarranted, bad reviews of one of my books. Can you guess how I replied? Check it out here:

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Wow.Do I have the one perfect answer to this question. (Are you glad you wrote in, or what?). And it's this: Write him back with something along these lines: "You f***ing icehole. How stupid are you? How could you have missed all the salient points of my book and gone off on your obvious vendetta against me? You'd better just crawl back under the rock you came from, you disgusting SOB, because you're slime!"

And believe me, I've responded just that way to the more than thousands of reviewers over my 250-some published book career over the years.

In my mind.

That's the secret. "In my mind." Outside of that, keep it to yourself.

You get a great review? Contact the reviewer and thank him or her. You get a scathing review, swallow it. Otherwise, you run the risk of starting an Internet Range War. And that never works out to an author's advantage. Read More 

Somebody wrote in anonymously the other day and asked how much it costs to hire a ghostwriter for a book. He also wanted a little information on where to find one and how the ghostwriting process works. A lot of ground to cover. Fortunately, I had my jogging shoes on.

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I don't know many ghosts personally, but I know their price range is all over the chart. For wannabes and newbies, you can get one fairly inexpensively. Expect the finished product—as well as the experience of working with the ghost—to reflect that. In short, the saying "You get what you pay for" is no truer than when hiring a good ghostwriter.

I've been a published writer and editor for half a century and a book doctor and ghost for two or three decades. I charge only a flat rate (no estimates or hourly rates) and provide a contract guaranteeing a final price, date of delivery, and all the other usual suspects. My charges vary greatly, depending upon the complexity of the project, the difficulty I foresee in working with the client (some are much easier to work with than others), and my availability.

As far as the process goes, you as the story originator would turn over to me as the ghost an outline, rough draft, sketch, audiotape, transcript, or anything else that sufficiently conveys the concept of the book you want to end up with so that I am able to deliver it to you. Unlike many ghosts I've heard people talk about, I'm nonjudgmental, and I don't have a a fragile ego. My goal is to work quickly and efficiently to deliver the product my client wants and deserves. Read More 

Have you ever wondered how you can create a unique book when it's eerily similar to another book that's already been written? Good question.

First, ignore the similar elements between your book and any other, and see your story in your mind as if it were playing out as a movie on a screen. Describe it to yourself. Fine-tune it. Flesh out the weak spots and trim the dead weight. Then, push the original story as far from your mind as possible. After all, there's a reason for the phrase, "There's nothing new under the sun." That applies to books as well as life in general. Get used to the fact that your book, no matter how unique you think it is, will be "similar" to another book or two or ten thousand in one way or another. So?

If you're still concerned someone may compare your work to a previous tome, emphasize the differences. After all, you're the author; you can write whatever you want. Be more detailed. Place your book in a different part of the world. Populate it with different characters, different places, different descriptive narrative, and different dialogue. Set it in a different time period. Use your own literary voice, of course, and not the other author's. (Which, I would hope, you're beyond temptation to do in the first place.)

For instance, you're writing a book about the Civil War and how your main southern belle falls in love with her cousin's fiancé but marries a scallywag who abandons her to her beloved Tara in the end. Oops. Let's revisit that one a bit. Read More 

Someone asked a complex question online the other day: A character in my book loses his eye. Can he regain the eye or should I just keep the eye lost? Interesting. Here's how I responded.

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I can answer this question for you—absolutely and without a doubt. Here's my suggestion:

Quit writing. Go into politics or get a plumbing apprenticeship or become a veterinarian or sell cat litter in a pet shop. I'm dead serious here. I've been writing for half a century and have 250 conventionally published books, both fiction and nonfiction, and tens of thousands of published shorter pieces to my credit. I've taught Creative Writing Workshop at the college level in Chicago and elsewhere. And I've worked as a professional book, newspaper, and magazine editor and run my own Websites for decades. My point is, I know what I'm talking about. And what I'm talking about is this:

Anyone who is floundering to the point of not knowing a basic premise of the novel he or she proposes to write and must instead ask a group of total strangers for advice is nowhere near ready to write a book. Period. Read More 

Someone asked an interesting question online recently. It was "What's the best way to learn to write a book?" The author implied that he has several books he'd like to write but doesn't know how to go about doing it. My response to him may surprise you.

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The best way to learn to write a book? How about the only way! If that's what you and twenty million other Americans want to know, I have the answer. I also know you won't like it.

Hire a mentor.

And no! I don't mean just anyone. I mean someone with a proven record of his or her own conventionally published books plus articles, blogs, and short stories. And someone with a history of teaching fiction writing or journalism or nonfiction writing or whatever area you're interested in pursuing.

That leaves in the dust about 98 percent of all writers advertising their skills and availability to mentor up-and-coming young writers. If they advertise for clients, they're not for you. If you stumble across them and they don't have dozens, if not hundreds, of their own conventionally published books and thousands of short pieces to their credit (verifiably—no taking their word for it), forget them. Read More 

Somebody wrote in the other day, asking which is easier to adapt to film--a novel or a screenplay--and why. Here's what I told him.

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Hmm. Methinks thou art a trifle confused. Asking that is a little like asking which is the tastier fruit, an orange or a shoe. There is no comparison because a screenplay is the film in written form. It's the directions for every character, setting, and scene within the film. I suspect the confusion arises from your using "screenplay" when you meant to ask which is easier to adapt, a novel or a stage play (which is the written form of a theatrical or stage production).

While neither is a breeze to adapt to film due to film's unique reliance on camera placement, evolving scenes, lighting, special effects, etc., I think I would prefer adapting a stage play to film due to the fact that the stage play has already blocked out the dialogue, scenes, flow, and other elements necessary for a visual presentation—that is, a performance. In so doing, it has eliminated all non-visual aspects of the presentation commonly contained in a novel. Read More 

Someone expressed concern about the possibility of including fictional work within a nonfiction book. Is that possible? Here's how I replied.

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Absolutely a nonfiction book can have a fictional story within it. Especially when used to illustrate a point or shed light on a specific topic, ethnic group, or culture, fictional tales shared throughout history can be potent teaching mechanisms. Even though these fictional stories are part of the larger work, the book still remains nonfiction, or a factual work, because the main body of the work is nonfiction.

For instance, in a recently published book on Wilma Mankiller, the first female chief of a major Indian tribe in modern history, I used Cherokee and other tribal tales to enrich an understanding of the complex cultures of Native Americans. Within the book, (following each nonfiction chapter), I interwove various indigenous tales, such as The Mother and the Corn, The Long Way Back, The Cherokee and the Women, The Ending of War, The Lost Cherokee, The Race Between the Crane and the Hummingbird, Two Wolves, and The Coyote and Death. Read More 

Someone asked the other day what I thought a good writer would charge to ghost an article for him. I had to think about that for a while, even though I've been ghosting for others for years. Here's what I finally came up with.

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What you'll need to pay to hire a quality writer to ghost an article for you depends upon a number of factors, of course. Among the things I need to know before accepting an assignment are these:

1. The complexity of the article's subject matter. Is it a piece on the health advantages of owning and caring for pets, or is it an explanation of the Theory of Relativity? That makes a huge difference because that will determine how much research I'll have to invest before ever setting pen to paper. For me, as for most other folks, time is money.
2. My familiarity with and appreciation of the subject. If it has something to do with writing, publishing, or English grammar, I'll take it. I'll even give you a cut rate. If, on the other hand, it's a look at why sexual identity is no longer strictly a binary consideration, I'll take it, too. But I'll have to double my rate.
3. The deadline. If I have a long lead time, I can charge somewhat less because I'll be working on other projects in between. If you're on a tight deadline, though, that's another matter, and I'll have to take that into consideration when setting a price. Read More 

An author asked my opinion the other day about how long he should wait for his agent to sell his book before pulling it away from her and publishing it himself. Here's what I replied.

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This one is easy:

I'm semi-serious about this. If you've been fortunate enough (more like "blessed") to land a legitimate, hard-working literary agent who took on the work of a first-time author (whom you seem to be), you'd be crazy to dump that agent simply because you can get your book into print sooner yourself. If that's all you wanted, I doubt you would have taken the time and effort to find a literary agent willing to take on an untested author in the first place. Besides, self-publishing is not only a quick way to publish your book but also a sure-fire way to get you branded a "loser" within the publishing industry.
 

Also, self-publishing is a great way to spin your wheels and end up with very little to show for your time and effort. Most self-published books earn their authors less than $100 in their lifetimes. Far less!

Now, if you have a questionable agent—one you're not sure is actually working at selling your book at all—my question to you is why? Why didn't you check out the agent before signing on the dotted line? Asked for a list of some of her clients for you to contact? See what books she's sold for those clients? To what publishing houses? Every agent worth her salt should be willing to provide answers to questions such as those. If yours can't, it's safe to say you don't have a legitimate agent, and you need to get free of her ASAP. Read More 

If someone came up to you and asked why literary voice seems more important for narrators in fiction than in nonfiction, how would you respond? Could you respond? I can, and I recently did. Here's what I said.

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You know, I had to think about how to answer this one for a couple of days. Why? First, because your use of the word "seems" implies that this is your personal observation and not empirical fact, which of course is true. Second, if voice does actually seem more important for narrators in novels than in other literary forms—not only to you but to everyone—that tells me there are a lot of poor writers in this world. And I know that to be true from my own observations.

Sadly.

I say this because good writers—great writers—don't turn their literary voices off and on at will. Great writers have only one literary voice, and it's strong, consistent, and commanding. It draws the reader in and ensnares him. It mesmerizes and delights. It fascinates and enlightens. So, why shouldn't a writer use that same strong voice in all forms of writing, from memoir to history, romance to literary, biography to self-help? In fact, in whatever he writes?
 

Answers? Anybody? Anybody?  Read More 

Someone wrote in to ask the other day what at first seemed a simple question. It was more complex in the end, though. Here's what I said to "Is choosing a publisher such as Amazon Prime Publishing worth it for an author or not?" Here's my response:

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First, Amazon Prime Publishing is not a publishing house in the traditional sense of the phrase. It neither publishes nor promotes books the way a conventional house does. Nor does it place your book with an independent or chain bookstore. Instead, you (the author) are the publisher pulling the strings normally reserved to a conventional publisher. Amazon (and all self-publishing aggregators such as Lulu, Barnes & Noble, Ingram, and Draft 2 Digital) merely set up a system whereby you do all the pre-press work yourself, and then they act as printers to produce either a hard copy or a digital version of your book. That's something all printers and even many copy centers can do—at least theoretically.

Where publishing aggregators differ from conventional printers is in having a limited means of book distribution. Amazon peddles the books it produces for you right on their site. Ditto B&N and Lulu. Others join forces with various outlets to offer your book for sale to visitors to those outlets, such as Apple through its Apple store. Read More 

Someone asked the other day what kinds of works literary agents handle--including poetry, screenplays, etc. The answer was obvious. To me. Here's what I told him.

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For openers, keep this in mind: Not all literary agents are alike. That's the first piece of news I'd like to leave you with. The second is that, of the six agents I've had in my life (three great and three barely human), all of them handled both fiction (novels) and nonfiction. In short, literary agents are sales people who specialize in selling book-length manuscripts to conventional, advance-paying publishing houses. Does that mean any and all book-length manuscripts? Well, not quite.

The exception is academic, university, and scientific tomes, which are a specialty unto themselves. Also, while some agents handle children's or Young Adult books, not all do. You would need to check out an agent's Website to tell for sure.

You see, adult trade book publishers are a specific targeted group. They publish books to the general trade (thus the name) and promote them both online, in brick-and-mortar bookstores, and through the publishers' own distribution network. With that said, it makes sense that agents have a targeted list of the names of trade-book editors and their publishers to whom they regularly pitch their wares. Give them something outside of that trade list, and they're lost. Understandably. Poetry publishers? Uh-uh. University presses" Sorry, no. Academic presses? No, thanks. Theatrical works? Are you kidding me? Screenplays? Get out of here! Read More 

A writer asked online recently how to get a proofreader to proof his material before sending it to a publisher. Forget the ridiculous answers he received from other respondents. I gave him the real lowdown. Here's what I said.

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The answer to this one is simple. Pay him.

See?

Or is that too simple? Is it possible that, rather than asking "how" to get a proofreader (the answer to which is painfully obvious), what you're really asking is "where" to get a proofreader? As in where do you find one? The answer to which is a little more complex. But only a little.

Of course, you can go to an online meat market to locate a proofreader. Places such as Reedsy and Fiverr advertise help in writing and publishing and boast a list of available proofreaders (let's call them editors for convenience) where you can hire one and hope for the best. But a recent investigation showed them to be more interested in working with editors who fit their "style" and "purpose" (which is cranking out big bucks) than with editors who really know what they're doing. You might have a different experience with them and luck out. You might not. Either way, I'm not impressed with their standards. And I train editors in how to be better at their editing jobs, so I know what I'm talking about. Read More 

I ran across a question the other day that went something like this: Must an author only write a novel about something he has personally experienced? Well, I like shooting ducks in a barrel, so here's how I responded.

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First, is this a serious question, or did you lose a bet? If you read the other two responses you've received as of this writing, you know what I mean.

Second, if you read those responses, you should also know enough to take both of them with a big grain of salt. The respondent peddling a book telling how long it takes to write a novel, what you should do "about your first draft" (whatever that means!), and how to revise is ridiculous. Making blanket statements designed to fit every personality, work ethic, and talent level is a waste of time and energy. There is no blueprint for writing a novel—only suggestions on various ways to do it.  Read More 

Someone wanted to know how a reader could tell if a book wasn't his cup of tea. I thought about that for a second or two, and here's what I said in response.

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That's an easy one. You know a book is not for you if …

1. You hate the subject matter
2. You hate the genre
3. You hate the author's literary style
4. You hate the author
5. You have the author's family

Seriously, speaking from experience, I know a book isn't for me if it takes me longer than a few pages to get into it. Read More 

While this question is a little off the beaten path, when someone wrote online asking if anyone disagreed with the findings of the Warren Report following the assassination of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy in 1963, I couldn't help but respond. You'll find out why in a couple of minutes. Here's what I said.

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Let me ask you an even more pertinent question: Who didn't?

When I was sixteen and the Warren Committee Report was published, I was a conspiracy theorist right along with some of the others who took great pains to respond to your question, fueling the conspiracy controversy that has survived now for decades. And why wouldn't it survive? It's glamorous; it's mysterious, it's titillating, and it's exciting. Unfortunately, it's also untrue.

Yes, I was bitterly disappointed with the report and immediately suspected Earl Warren, President Lyndon B. Johnson's personal choice to head the committee into the investigation of JFK, of political chicanery. He was slick, and he was evil. He had a hidden agenda and, like Johnson, didn't want the truth known about who really planned for, ordered, and executed the assassination. And like all those other theorists espousing online here, I was calling for blood. And truth. And justice. Read More 

Someone asked a question online recently that stumped even me ... for a while at least. He wanted to know what happens to an author's book rights if the book isn't selling. Here's how I finally decided to respond.

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This is an easy one. If your book is not selling, the Copyright Cops show up at your front door, usually around 3 a.m. although sometimes right in the middle of your favorite television show, and serve you a court order and an injunction forbidding you to receive any future royalties from book sales and ordering you to sign over all rights to your book to the federal government.

Surprised? You shouldn't be. Uncle Sam is trying to grab everything else you own, why not your creative endeavors, too? Read More 

People have asked me this question a few times now in the last few months, and it deserves an answer. Namely, can you use chapters numbered with Roman numerals in your novel? My answer: Yes!

Next question: Should you use chapters numbered with Roman numerals in your novel? Next answer: No! For reasons that may not be obvious. So, let me add a little something more from an "insider's" point-of-view to clarify.

As a former book, magazine, and newspaper editor, I soon learned that nothing set my ears upright and the hairs on the back of my neck skyrocketing for the stars faster than some quirky, unconventionally formatted manuscript submission. It told me about the writer, "I'm a weirdo trying to stand out visually because my material isn't strong enough to stand out on its own contextually." And, do you want to know something else? That was (and is) exactly right. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred. And, for that one time that it didn't hold true, well, let me just say that, as an editor swamped with manuscripts, running the risk of wading through all the hog slop in search of the pork chop just wasn't worth it. Read More