Catching UP!

Books that went to press this week:

THE DREAMER GAMBIT, by Kathryn Flatt

TOBY MARTIN: PARK PATROL, by Barbara Grengs


Galleys that went out, or went out again, this week:

GHOST AT STALLION'S GATE, by Elizabeth Eagan-Cox

OCCUPATIONAL HAZZARDS, by Michael E. Field

DREW GETS IT RIGHT, by Ludima Gus Burton

TOO DANGEROUS, by Geoff Geauterre

ROUGH WATERS, by Gianni DeVincent-Hayes


Work began, or continued on the following:

A HOUSE TO KILL FOR, by Judy Reveal

ON WINGS OF TRUST, by Anna Dynowski



Galleys still out with the authors:

A GRANDFATHER'S GIFT, by Hugh Carter Vinson


WARNING...WARNING...WARNING...DELAYS AHEAD...DELAYS AHEAD!

It's time to do payroll again. :D

My favorite thing to do is to pay my authors, but it is a long and tedious process to collect sales statistics from 9 different venues and compile them accurately so everyone can get every cent that's due them. It does take time away from the regular work schedule for both myself and Shelley, so please expect me to get very little regular work done in the week ahead.

Always a fun time to see who sold what and how many. I hope we all make lots of money together.

Coincidences -- writing tip

Question: The people in my writers group complain that my plots have "too many coincidences." What's wrong with a coincidence? They happen all the time.

Answer: In real life they happen all the time, it's true. But Fiction is a compressed world. There, everything has to be cause and effect. So usually, coincidences are a no-no for fiction writers.

If you're going to have a coincidence happen, try to make sure it is foreshadowed by previous action so that the coincidence will be believable. For instance say two people are going to meet by accident (okay I can't resist a pun) in a fender-bender at a certain intersection.

Although fender-benders happen all the time, the reader might feel their meeting was too coincidental. But you could foreshadow that by saying having the driver see the upcoming light and remember that the traffic light there was malfunctioning last week. Then the possibility of a fender-bender (the next thing that happens) there becomes more likely. It's expected, not a shock.

Chocolate Crinkle Cookies -- Recipe

Gianni Hayes’s Chocolate Crinkle Cookies

Contributor’s Note: These cookies are absolutely delicious, and the softer you make them, the better. For Christmas, you might want to stir in red and green M&Ms. It's easy and quick to do but the secret's in the chilling. This is a recipe handed down to me by my neighbor Diane Davenport. Everyone in my family makes them now.

1/2 cup cooking oil
4 squares baking chocolate, grated and unmelted
2 cups granulated sugar
4 eggs
2 tsp. vanilla
1/2 tsp. salt
2 cups sifted flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1 cup powdered sugar (reserve for baking)

In a large bowl, mix the chocolate, oil, and sugar. Add the 4 eggs, one at a time, mixing well. Mix well, add vanilla

Next, stir in baking powder, the flour, and salt. Chill several hours or overnight (This is an important step). After thoroughly chilled, pre-heat over to 350-F or 177-C degrees

Make small to medium-sized ball; you can use a teaspoon for this. Drop the balled dough into the powdered sugar and roll it around to cover it with the powder. Place 2" apart on greased baking sheet. Bake 10-12 minutes.

Option: Leave out grated baker’s chocolate and add into mixture chocolate Tollhouse morsels or M&Ms. Makes about 50 cookies.

Contributed by Gianni D. Hayes, Ph.D, author....

Scene structure -- writing tip

Question: When I was your student you talked a lot about writing in scenes and scene structure, so I always try to be careful about that in my own writing. But recently, I bought a book from a self-published author for my Nook. It was a good enough story, but there were scene breaks all over the place, and scenes with two or three lines, then another break, with no apparent reason. At first, I thought the writer just didn't understand scenes, but he had viewpoint down, and that's harder to do than scene structure. Have I missed a new trend?

Answer: The rules haven't changed. Scenes are still required to have structure and only one viewpoint character per scene. My best guess is (and it IS a guess, since I have NO IDEA what book you are talking about) the author edits in a scene break whenever the viewpoint changes, with no regard to scene structure and it's requirements.

Doing that will keep the viewpoint critics off his back. And help protect him against sneering reviews on that score. But it may get him reviews that have the words "choppy," "disjointed," and "disconnected" in them.

My best advice is not to disregard either of those rules as book reviewers tend to jump on them.

Every scene has the same structure. Here it is:
1. Transition, preferably with hook.
2. Rising action and dialogue
3. Turning point of the scene
(The turning point is the place where something changes forever. If there's no point, the scene goes, no matter how well written)
4. End/resolution of the scene, preferably with another hook. Usually when we come to the end of a scene,

* * *


we indicate the scene break with the double line break, at least two extra lines of "white space" and most people use the three stars, a line, or some other indication, in case the word processing program closes up blank lines automatically.

Russian Tea - recipe

Mary Cox-Bilz’s Russian Tea

2 1 qt. (large jars) containers Instant Iced Tea, sweetened and with lemon (any brand)
1 1 qt. Jar Tang
3 tbsp. Cinnamon

Since I am a quadriplegic, for this tea, I get someone whose fingers work to mix all ingredients well and store in an air tight container. I use one I can flip open with my mouth stick, but any jar, air tight cannister, or even a large Ziploc bag works well.

Mix two teaspoons with half a glass of water. Add ice, and enjoy a refreshing treat any time you like. You can also use it as an instant hot tea. Or we sometimes make it by the pitcher using 3/4 to 1 cup of mixture to a 2 quart container.

Catching UP

Books that went to press, or back to press this week:

FACEPAINTER MURDERS, by Virginia Winters

CATHERINE'S RING, by Elena Bowman

A POCKETFUL OF HOPE, by Anna Dynowski

SECOND REPUBLIC, by Steven Clark Bradley

TAPE, by C.M. Albrecht


Galleys that went out, or went out again this week:

TOBY MARTIN, PARK PATROL, by Barbara Grengs

A GHOST AT STALLION'S GATE, by Elizabeth Eagan-Cox

DREAMER GAMBIT, by Kathryn Flatt

OCCUPATIONAL HAZZARDS, by Michael E. Field

FORCED PARADISE, by J.C. Compston

PLAYING WITH FIRE, by Tonya Ramagos



Work began or continued on:

TOO DANGEROUS, by Geoff Geauterre

A HOUSE TO KILL FOR, by Judith Reveal

DREW GETS IT RIGHT, by Ludima Gus Burton



Galleys still out, waiting for authors to finish proofing them:

A GRANDFATHER'S GIFT, by Hugh Carter Vinson

ROUGH WATERS, by Gianni Hayes

COLLECTED SHORT STORIES OF VICTOR URIBE, by Victor Uribe



Fictionwise Best-Sellers for Ebooksonthe.net over the last 20 days:

1. Serious Nuts: The Inevitable Rise of Miss Grainger by Geoff Geauterre [Suspense/Thriller/Mystery/Crime]
2. Bleeding Hearts by Josh Aterovis [Mystery/Crime]
3. A Medic in Iraq: A Novel of the Iraq War by Cole Bolchoz [Mainstream]
4. Return of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs [Classic Literature]
5. Reap the Whirlwind by Josh Aterovis [Mystery/Crime]
6. Memoirs of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs [People]
7. Tortured Souls [Arbiter Series Book 2] by Matthew L. Schoonover [Horror]
8. 2004 Anything Goes by Ebooksonthe.net Editors [Horror]
9. Unfamiliar Territory by Nina M. Osier [Science Fiction/Suspense/Thriller]
10. Grimm's Fairy Tales by Brothers Grimm [Classic Literature/Young Adult]


Fictionwise Highest Reader-Rated titles

1. A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett [Classic Literature/Children's Fiction]
2. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen [Classic Literature]
3. Minder's Oath [High Places Series: Book 2] by Nina M. Osier [Science Fiction/Mainstream]
4. Ghost Dancer by Arline Chase [Historical Fiction]
5. Captain Blood by Rafael Sabatini [Suspense/Thriller/Classic Literature]
6. The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie [Mystery/Crime/Classic Literature]
7. The Secret Adversary [Tommy and Tuppence Book 1] by Agatha Christie [Classic Literature]
8. Dark Elf: [Book 2 of the Red Knight Chronicles] by Ray Morand [Science Fiction/Mainstream]
9. Slow Dancing with the Angel of Death [Hollis Ball and Sam Westcott Series Book 1] by Helen Chappel [Mystery/Crime/Humor]
10. Tortured Souls [Arbiter Series Book 2] by Matthew L. Schoonover [Horror]

Baked Rock Fish -- recipe

This works equally well with blue fish or any large baking-sized fish.


Baked Rock Fish

1 4-8 pound striped rock fish (stripped sea bass, in season, of course)
4-6 strips of bacon
3/4 cup melted butter
2 cups dried bread crumbs or stuffing cubes
1/4 cup chopped celery
1 small onion, grated
1 tsp. Sage
1 tsp. Salt
1/2 tsp. Pepper
1/2 cup white cooking wine (optional)

Wash and dry fish and place in a shallow baking pan lined with aluminum foil. Mix1/2 cup butter with remaining ingredients, to form stuffing. Fill fish cavity and lace shut. Place bacon stips across the side of the fish and baste with remaining butter. Bake at 350-F or 200-C degrees for 40 to 60 minutes, depending on the thickness of the fish. Give it plenty of time to cook through, but not long enough to dry out.

Dredge Boat Coffee -- recipe

Thought it might be fun to use one of my own, today.

It's almost Oyster season, and though dredge boats are now for tourists only, their world lives on in fiction.

Stories of the culture of the working oystermen abound, including the daily miracles performed in cramped after-cabins by their legendary cooks.

Barfer Robinson’s Dredge Boat Coffee

In a percolator pot, fill basket with about as much ground coffee as it will hold – add a dash of salt and throw an empty egg shell in the bottom of the pot. Fill the coffee pot up with water, level with the basket.

Percolate on high heat until liquid in the bubble top is good and dark. Remove from fire and when it has stopped perking, remove the percolator basket. Fill up the rest of the pot with white lightning, if there’s no white lighting, bourbon or dark rum will do.

Serve black to six hungry crewmen along with heaps of bacon, fried eggs, and pancakes smothered in butter and molasses and it will help keep them warm, even when they're sailing against the wind, on a frosty morning.

Arline Chase's character, Barfer Robinson, is ship’s cook aboard the bugeye Hope V. Rogers. “Barfer”, so called by his shipmates because he is often seasick, made his first appearance in The Drowned Land... That novella won The Governor's Award in Maryland, in 1984, and the short story collection was an Eppie Finalist in 1999. He, along with his shipmates and many of the other characters appear in the later novel Killraven.

What are Swifties? -- writing tip

Question: Whoever read my submission (the rejection just said "The Editors"), scrawled a note, "too many Swifties." Any idea what that means?

Answer: I have heard editors use the term. It refers to the dialogue writing style in the popular Tom Swift kids' series. Tom Swift and His Electric Locomotive, or, Two Miles a Minute on the Rails, was one, always featuring the newest of scientific gadgets in the 1910s to 20s. These books are now in the public domain and are free for the most part to e-reading devices. The books were famous for their use of "said, followed by an adverb" combinations as speechtags. Later, sometime in the 1950s I think, there was a Tom Swift, Jr. series, followed by a rash of Swiftie jokes:

For Instance: "That's the spark!" Tom said, electrically.

Okay, the jokes weren't very funny. But I often have heard modern day editors refer to the use of a "said followed by an adverb" combination as a Swiftie, and while it was the ultimate of style from 1910 on, it is now considered "lazy writing." Literary trends have fashion and will continue to do so. Using images is in style since Hemingway, and using adverbs is OUT. Any adverbs, and especially, Swifties are out of style, too, and can lead to unintentionally funny combinations if stretched too far.

Back in the day, the best of writers used them. Swifties abound in Agatha Christie, and other best selling writers who started in the WWI era and wrote through the 50s and 60s. But editors who are buying today will not respond well to them. Now I grew up on Tom Swift, Brenda Starr, and Nancy Drew and have read any number of Swifties in my time. Used to write a lot of them too, until I heard the editors comparing notes and telling jokes about them at a conference.

Corn Fritters - recipe

Corn Fritters

1 can of corn
1 dash salt
2 tbsp. milk
2 tbsp. flour
2 egg whites
1/4 inch cooking oil heated in a deep frying pan
1 tablespoon honey for each fritter
strawberry (or any favorite) jelly

Drain the can of corn and dump into a mixing bowl. Combine the with the salt, flour and milk, and then set aside. In a separate bowl beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form then fold into the other prepared ingredients. When a drip of the batter sizzles and browns quickly, the oil is ready. Drop by the ladle into the hot oil and watch for browning on the edges. When edge is brown and bubbles stop forming in the batter, flip the fritter and cook until edge browns to match the top. Remove and drain on a piece of paper towel. The fritter will deflate like a fallen souffle. This is normal.

Serve and top with a mixture of the jelly and honey. Serves 5 to 8 depending on how large you make the fritters.

Catching UP!

Files that went to press, or back to press, this week:

FACEPAINTER MURDERS, by Virginia Winters

TAPE, by C.M. Albrecht

POCKETFUL OF HOPE, by Anna Dynowski

MY DEAREST FRIEND, by Hazel Statham

MINDER'S OATH, by Nina M. Osier


Galleys that went out, or went out again, this week:

MINDER'S OATH, by Nina M. Osier

TOBY MARTIN: PARK PATROL, by Barbara Grengs

GHOST AT STALLION'S GATE, by Elizabeth Eagan-Cox


Work continued on:

DREW GETS IT RIGHT, by Ludima Gus Burton

OCCUPATIONAL HAZZARDS, by Michael E. Field

TOO DANGEROUS, by Geoff Geauterre



Galleys still out and not yet returned on the following:

A GRANDFATHER'S GIFT, by Hugh Carter Vinson

ROUGH WATERS, by Gianni Hayes

You still didn't answer -- writing tip

Question: You still didn't answer my question. Why won't bookstores stock and sell my book on their shelves, even if it is published by a small company. Yes, it has an ISBN. Yes people can go in and order it at a store or on line. But it's never "in stock."

Answer: No bookstore will ever routinely stock books unless they are published by a mass-market publisher. Mass-market publishers print masses of books. Let stores order any amount of them on CREDIT, and if they don't sell them, the store owner rips the covers off, throws the books away, and pays nothing!  The book goes out of print within 364 days to avoid inventory taxes which accrue each and every year. The unsold books end up in a landfill someplace. Neither the author, nor the publisher makes a dime on any of them, despite the large numbers printed.

This is the way the publishing industry had worked for the past 50 years, but I don't believe it will last much longer. E-books are becoming much more  popular and are outselling hardcover and paperback books put together on amazon.com.  On our own home site, they outsell paper books 10 to one.

Most small publishers use Print on Demand technology. With that, no book is printed, until it is ordered. This kind of printing is expensive -- usually $5 or more per copy rather than the 50 cents a copy paid for printing a high number of copies of mass market books. 

Small publishers like POD technology since no copies exist in a warehouse to generate inventory taxes. But small publishers must also pay the HIGH printing costs on every copy printed. At $5 or more a copy, you can readily see that NO ONE could afford to have the cover stripped and the book sent to the landfill by the hundreds. There are no thousands of copies waiting in a warehouse. There are NO full page ads in Publisher's Weekly. No one could stay in business that way.

But on the other hand the title will not go out of print in 364 days. It will stay available as long as the author  and the publisher agree. With the Internet, and social networking, promoting your own work on line can certainly help to sell and to keep on selling.

Hope this holds the answer for you.

Okay, how come my book isn't in bookstores.... writing tip

Question: Okay, my book is published, so how come it's not on the shelves at my local bookstore? I had a nice offer from another publisher who promised me I'd get into the big chain book stores....

Answer: If the other offer came from a mass market publisher, then they may have been telling the truth. But this sounds more like the kind of promise made by vanity publishers (the kind you have to pay big bucks to, who advertise everywhere from Writer's Digest to the classified section of your local newspapers, asking, "Have you written a book?" They will make a lot of promises and charge each time you agree to an option. Anyone can promise anything.

Here's my best advice on Vanity Publishers -- you pay them, they don't pay you:

1. If bookstores are your main market don't use any vanity publisher.

2. No matter how you choose to publish, unless you are with a large NY publisher, marketing is your job.

If you publish with us, or almost any other small publisher who follows the rules, your book is listed in Books in Print, is registered with Bowker, and has an International Standard Book Number, as all legally marketed books need to do. With an ISBN, any customer can go to any bookstore and order your book. You will see the number at the top of the bar code on the back cover and again on the copyright page.

ISBNs are publisher-specific. They are registered to the publisher who has paid for them. Anyone checking the number, through the Bowker Books in Print website, will be told the price and how to contact the publisher for purchase.

That means, if your friend buys some ISBNs, and gives you one that was left over so you can self-publish your book, when anyone goes to a bookstore looking for your book, they will be told to contact your friend to buy it. Same thing, if your former publisher had an ISBN on it, you can't still use the same number, if you publish this yourself. With the cancellation of the contract, the former publisher can NO LONGER SELL the title. But the number, itself, still belongs to them. And any customer who goes to a book store with that number in hand, will be sent to them to buy, although the publisher can no longer legally sell any copies.

Details - writing tip

Question from my e-mail:  Arline, I'm back writing again, but things are going much more slowly  than I had hoped. It can take me an hour, or more, to create the fictional setting and get a real enough picture of it in my mind, and that's before I put a single word on paper.

Answer:  Good to hear from you, Julie.  Congratulations on writing again.  This solution may sound over-simplified, but use what you have. TYou would have thought I would know that from the beginning, but I didn't. I thought if I wrote a story about a wedding, I had to make up the church, spend a lot of time picturing what it was like inside, creating every detail in my mind before I wrote. Then I'd go on to do the same with the wedding dress, and then the next imaginary detail. Now I just describe my church, or a church I have been in, a bell skirted wedding dress I saw advertised in a magazine, the lace-encrusted shirt my son received as part of the rented tux when he acted as his friend's best man. The secret is the reader will take the few details I include and imagine a church of his or her own. It won't look like MY church, but it will be a real and valid creation. Then as long as the characters are real, everything else will be, too.

Sothern Pecan Pie - recipe

Ed Petty’s Old Fashioned Southern Pecan Pie

1 9-inch unbaked pie shell
3 eggs
2/3 cup sugar
1 cup dark corn syrup
1/3 cup melted oleo
1 cup pecan halves

Preheat oven to 375-F or 190-C degrees.  Combine eggs, sugar, syrup and oleo in a medium-sized bowl.  Blend well.  Stir in pecans.  Pour mixture into pie shell.  Bake for 50-55 minutes or until a knife that's inserted into the pie's center comes out clean.

Contributed by Edward Petty, author of Jared’s Little Playground and Naked.... Andy and Jason are longtime friends, but Andy has a secret. Will Andy's telling it break their seemingly inseparable bond? The truth comes out in Naked.

Catching UP

Books that went to press or back to press this week:

TAPE, by C. M. Albrecht

MY DEAREST FRIEND, by Hazel Statham

FACEPAINTER MURDERS by Virginia Winters



Galleys that went out, or went out again this week:

MINDER'S OATH, by Nina M. Osier

COLLECTED STORIES OF VICTOR URIBE, by Victor  Uribe

POCKETFUL OF HOPE, by Anna Dynowski

FORCED PARADISE, by J.C. Compston

DREAMER GAMBIT, by Kathryn Flatt



Work continued or began on the following titles:

TOO DANGEROUS, by Geoff Geauterre

OCCUPATIONAL HAZZARDS, by Michael Field

TOBY MARTIN PARK PATROL, by Barbara Grengs

GHOST AT STALLION'S GATE, by Elizabeth Eagan-Cox

DREW GETS IT RIGHT, by Ludima Gus Burton


Galleys still with the authors for corrections:

A GRANDFATHER'S GIFT, by Hugh Carter Vinson

ROUGH WATERS, by Gianni Hayes

Scalloped Veal -- recipe

Robert Legleitner’s Scalloped Veal cutlets

1 lb veal cutlets sliced thin.
½ cup flour
6 tbsp. butter
1/4 cup sherry (the good stuff too)
2 tbsp. chopped parsley
4 ounces or so of sliced mushrooms
salt and pepper to taste

Dredge the veal in flour and sauté in butter for 3 or 4 minutes each side. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Add sherry, parsley, and mushrooms. Simmer for 10 minutes. Should serve 4.

Contributed by Robert L. Legleitner, author of The Golden Legend...German-born archaeologist Kydon Schmidt has a secret that would ruin him.... in the homophobic atmosphere of the 1940s. So when the U.S. Government recruits him for a mission against Nazi artifact collectors, he is not in a position to refuse. Great action and adventure. You won't be disappointed!

Suspense--writing tip

Question: I got a letter back from an agent with a scrawled note saying, "not enough suspense." I write literary fiction, not mysteries!

Answer: The fact that she took the time to try to tell you something, should also tell you that she sees something good in your work. Yeah, I know close only counts in horseshoes, but still it's encouraging at a time when the mass market paper publishers are choosing fewer and fewer titles to send to press. So think about that, too.

Having said that, all fiction, in fact all tale-tellling, has an element of suspense, of "What happens next?"

To a fiction writer suspense means keeping readers guessing what will happen next. The term suspense, denotes how involved the reader is in your plot. If he or she already knows what is going to happen, there isn't any suspense (critics call it "predictable"), and little reason to continue reading. Hooks help increase suspense. I know most literary writers think they are above such things, but literary hooks are just more subtle, that's all.

"I inherited my brother's life," is a hook from a writer of popular mystery novels.

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times," is a hook you may recognize from a literary writer of note.

To avoid predictable plots, make a list of 10 things that might happen next and pick the least likely. Or brainstorm with friends to come up with suggestions for unusual and exciting twists. Remember, keep your readers guessing.

Angel Hair Pasta -- recipe

Katrina’s Angel Hair Pasta with a fresh sauce ... (for two angels)

2 tablespoons Extra Virgin Olive Oil
½ Vidalia Onion
1 vine ripened tomato diced
a shake or two of sea salt
1 fresh sprig of rosemary
Garlic to taste
a dash of pepper

In a frying pan, add about two tablespoons of olive oil (I add a fresh sprig of rosemary and two cloves of garlic to my bottle of oil to flavor it) one half of a Vidalia onion, cut up fine.
Cook onion in the oil till almost transparent. Add one vine-ripened chopped up tomato
Cook only for a few more minutes. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Boil enough angel hair pasta for two angels. It only takes a few minutes, so do not over cook.

Use this fresh sauce over the cooked angel hair.
Top with freshly ground Parmesan cheese (Reggiano).

Contributed by Jay Hughes, author of Delivery Road...When the town fool is run down by cold-blooded killers, a new brand of terror begins .... And Katie Alexander, who emerges from Kaluga's Killing Grounds with a bewildered sense of purpose, drives innocently into town one night, past the intrigue....

Catching UP!

Books that went to press, or went back to press this week:

CATHERINE'S RING, by Elena Bowman

TAPE, by C.M. Albrecht

FACEPAINTER MURDERS, by Virginia Winters



Galleys went out, or went out again on the following:

FORCED PARADISE, by J. C. Compston

MINDER'S OATH, by Nina M. osier



Work continued, resumed, or began on the following titles:

COLLECTED STORIES OF VICTOR URIBE, by Victor Uribe

DREW GETS IT RIGHT, by Ludima Burton

OCCUPATIONAL HAZZARDS, by Michael Field



Still waiting for the following Galley Corrections Returns

ROUGH WATERS, by Gianni Hayes

A GRANDFATHER'S GIFT, by Hugh Vinson


BEST SELLERS FOR WRITE WORDS INC. AT FICTIONWISE

1. by Anita Dumont [Suspense/Thriller/Mainstream]
2. Serious Nuts: The Inevitable Rise of Miss Grainger by Geoff Geauterre [Suspense/Thriller/Mystery/Crime]
3. Apprentice by David Berardelli [Mainstream]
4. Memoirs of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs [People]
5. A Medic in Iraq: A Novel of the Iraq War by Cole Bolchoz [Mainstream]
6. Angels Unaware by Priscilla Maine [Historical Fiction]
7. Ghost Dancer by Arline Chase [Historical Fiction]
8. 2004 Anything Goes by Ebooksonthe.net Editors [Horror]
9. Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery [Young Adult]
10. The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie [Mystery/Crime/Classic Literature]

READER FAVORITES FOR WRITE WORDS INC. AT FICTIONWISE

1. A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett [Classic Literature/Children's Fiction]
2. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen [Classic Literature]
3. Minder's Oath [High Places Series: Book 2] by Nina M. Osier [Science Fiction/Mainstream]
4. Ghost Dancer by Arline Chase [Historical Fiction]
5. Captain Blood by Rafael Sabatini [Suspense/Thriller/Classic Literature]
6. The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie [Mystery/Crime/Classic Literature]
7. The Secret Adversary [Tommy and Tuppence Book 1] by Agatha Christie [Classic Literature]
8. Dark Elf: [Book 2 of the Red Knight Chronicles] by Ray Morand [Science Fiction/Mainstream]
9. Slow Dancing with the Angel of Death [Hollis Ball and Sam Westcott Series Book 1] by Helen Chappel [Mystery/Crime/Humor]
10. Tortured Souls [Arbiter Series Book 2] by Matthew L. Schoonover [Horror]

Song Lyrics - question

Question: People are saying I can't use song lyrics in my book. My character is a singer in a band. Help!

Answer: You can only use them if you write them yourself. Not if they were written and copyrighted by another writer.

Did you write them yourself? It's easy to do. Pick a melody, say "Greensleeves" and write new lyrics for it. Never tell anyone the name of the melody you use. The rhythm will be right for a song and that's all that counts. That's a perfectly legal way to go!

Some songs are in the public domain (all those written before 1917, and can be freely used) so if someone wants to sing Old MacDonald's Farm or the Star-Spangled Banner, that's okay. But you must have proof of when it was written. Don't assume if you saw a charcter in a period film sing it, that it was popular back when the film was set.

If someone else wrote the song, you have to get the song PUBLISHER's written permission to use the words? The song writer does not have sole copyright and so he or she cannot give permission to use it. DO NOT expect your publisher (at least not this one) to pay thousands of dollars to the song's publisher to use them. They are copyrighted material and so are illegal to use without permission.

Publishers will, sometimes, grant such permission without cost, to a writer who asks to use them in an "as yet unpublished" novel. If they don't recognize the name of the author, they will assume it will remain unpublished. They will, however, always seek to charge publishing companies, however small....

Songs are so short that there is no "fair use" standard for them at all. You can use the title as a title cannot be copyrighted and you can paraphrase the lyrics -- as in "On the radio Kris Kristofferson was singing about being busted flat and waiting for a train in Baton Rouge," but you cannot directly quote from the song itself.

A song publisher (and the Musician's Union) will be quick to sue and they have plenty of pocket money to do so.