Jeffrey Olsen

Well here it is — the cover of my new book. After 8 revisions and feedback from family and friends, this was the cover that was selected. Thank you to all who gave input and voted.

The E-book versions should be available in the next two or three weeks. There will be also be a print–on-demand version available through Amazon, but I am also hoping down the road to have some additional copies printed up and possibly distributed to some LDS bookstores. We’ll see how it goes.

I also updated the description of the book on the “Book” page of the website, so hop on over and see what it’s all about.

I admit it — I took a bit of a break. The family really did go to Tuacahn in St. George, Utah, followed by a few days in Disneyland last month. However, the big reason for the hiatus is that I have been spending most of my “free” time working on self-publishing my first book: Called To Serve Again.

It took me a while to decide whether to self-publish it or not, but I really did not have a lot of other options at this point. The book is LDS general fiction, so there are not a lot of publishers willing to look at it to begin with, and the potential audience is a small niche of the population. I mistakenly submitted it to Deseret Book and Covenant before it was properly edited (I did 2 edits and thought it was done), and of course, they both turned it down. I then went to the LDSStorymakers Conference in May 2010 and learned why they turned it down. I then re-wrote the first 1/3 of the book, and sent it through several readers for feedback. This was followed by 3 more major edits.

Then in May of this year, I asked Covenant if they would be willing to take a look again, and they wouldn’t touch it because it had already been turned down once. I then submitted it to Cedar Fort, and they declined to publish, but it was obvious from their letter that it had made it through the slush pile and had been reviewed. Their response took less than 1 month, which I also took as a positive sign, and I made the corrections to the manuscript that they cited in their letter. However, LDS fiction is a tough sale to begin with, and many of the smaller LDS publishers are fairly selective and/or struggling right now (I believe 2 smaller LDS publishers went out of business this year). With the growing popularity of e-books, and the available resources on the web, I decided it would be better to self-publish the book if for no other reason than to actually say it is finished.

Do I expect a million downloads? No, I have fairly realistic expectations, but mostly I will have the satisfaction of accomplishing one of my goals. It has also energized me to work on the sequel, as well as 2 other books that would be non-religious, but still fiction. Stay tuned to see how things turn out.

Clearly, a new post has been overdue, but I was gone to the LDS Storymakers writing conference last weekend, and then busy with Mother’s Day. Now this weekend has already slipped past, so I better make amends. I thought it appropriate to share some of the highlights, at least from my vantage point, of this year’s writing conference.

Best workshop: Larry Brooks — equal parts educational and motivational, but at the same time grounded in the reality of just how difficult the writing business can be. I wish I would have been able to pick up his new book ahead of time, but I have it on my to get list.

Sarah Eden was an excellent MC. I loved her workshop last year. The best part was the video of her children. She would show them a picture of an author, and then ask them what kind of stories they though the person would write. (she called it judging an author by their ‘cover’). It was absolutely hilarious and one of the best parts of the conference.

Dave Wolverton gave some very sound advice about approaching writing like you would any other job, and he compared authors to factories. We need regular maintenance (exercise), regularly scheduled shifts to work on our product, and we need to keep familiarity with other products currently on the market.

Some of the best quotes:

• “We admire characters for their strengths, but love them for their flaws.” Clint Johnson talking about characterization and conflict.
• “A flare for words does not equal a flare for storytelling.” Larry Brooks.
• “If you recognize something as crap, it probably is. Learn to tell when you’re writing crap.” Dave Wolverton summing up the entire writing process in two sentences.

Overall, this year’s conference was good. I felt reaffirmed that I understand a lot of the basic rules, but still have more to learn about mastering the craft of writing. I look forward to using the tools and techniques I learned at the conference.