Category: Conduit: The Beginning

Posts regarding my book, “The Conduit: The beginning”

The release day of my story Conduit is fast approaching. As of late, I have been working with a talented artist on the design of my cover. I had originally tried to design the cover myself but found I’d be better off hiring someone with more skill then I possess in the Photoshop realm – sadly learned from experience.

I have to give myself a pat on the back though, my attempt wasn’t too bad. Especially for someone who had only used Photoshop in college years ago. Compared to a lot of DIY covers out there, I think it would hold its own well enough. I had some grand ideas of what I wanted my cover to be and I began to dig into the free trial only to realize how much things have changed since my coursework in 1998. I remembered completing my project for the class which consisted of a giant squirrel crushing an image of the hotel I was working at through my college years. The image of a giant Mr. Clean, the hotel’s mascot at the time, stood laughing in the background (I really didn’t have anything against my job. I was actually enjoying it and even shared the image with my manager who thought it was quite funny – so it wasn’t a disgruntled employee sort of thing.)

With my hopes set high, I started drafting the image from a blank slate and then it hit me. Back in the day, there weren’t all these stupid rules around rights to images. One could open up the web browser – which happened to be Netscape at the time – and find images to their heart’s content so long as the page didn’t have copyright signs posted throughout the site. (That is at least what the instructor informed the class. Maybe she’s in jail now?) Now there are sites dedicated to clipart and images that designers pay money to use. Even images of toilette paper can be right protected. Good luck finding any decent free use image.

Still determined, I whipped out my digital camera and began snapping images of cross necklaces – my wife was good about it and lent me her jewelry and granted me all rights to the images I created. One hurdle out of the way, but I really wanted a needle in the picture since the theme in my story is science vs. religion. I’m no addict and I don’t have any diseases, at least that I know of and prefer to happily remain ignorant of it if I do, that require injections. So where would I find a needle?

Again, I have to give my wife credit. Using a dropper from baby Advil and a needle, she snapped a picture. It fooled me, but that’s not saying much.

Now, with all the layers I needed, I put them together. A day later, I sat and stared at the picture with triumph. I happily began to share the picture with friends and family to get their opinions. The responses I got ranged from a flat, “Yeah, that’s neat.” to a boring, “eh.” So I went back to the computer and stared at the image with a new perspective. After a moment of swearing to myself once I realized everyone else was right, which I hate to admit, I took some advice and decided to pay for someone else to do it.

After a few different versions of the artwork, I decided that I’ve tortured the poor artist enough. Everything that I received was excellent, but I couldn’t quite fit them to my story. I believe with this latest round, there are some versions that fit perfectly. Now I have the hard task of deciding on which I want to use.

If you have read this far, you may be wondering what the point was to all my ramblings. To summarize it all as one quick tip for authors who aim to self-publish their work: hire someone to design the book cover. Unless an author happens to be a maverick of all trades and has a reservoir of artistic ability to draw upon, I guarantee they could never create cover art as well as a person who specializes in graphic arts. I especially realized this when I saw the first images that came through from the artist. I had to force myself to swallow my pride and pony up the funds.

If my book tanks, at least it will tank with a nice cover.

I first started my story “Conduit” with the idea that I wanted to create a new kind of alien invasion story. One, not about green people invading earth or ripping from the chests of helpless victims, but one more about how everyday people would cope with an apocalyptic event involving beings from another world.

With that approach I began thinking about what characters I would want to include. I had an overall base of what personalities would be in the story and even the beginning and the end of my book. I toyed with my idea for some time and went through periods of shelving it to revisiting it later followed by shelving it again. There was a piece missing to it all. How do the aliens invade?

Sure, I could use the standard militaristic invasion, but that whole scenario doesn’t fit with me. My reasoning is this: if aliens are smart enough to have discovered a way of space travel, I would expect that they would have figured out a way to conquer us through other methods then through weaponry. Why not instead use us? Why not find a way to tap into our minds and control us. Discover a way for each of us to pass the alteration ourselves, much like the flu. No warfare would be needed and the world is theirs for the taking.

Stuck on that idea, I shelved my idea once more. I liked it, but I didn’t know how to implement it. That was until I remembered an article I had read some time ago. It was scary to me when I read it:

Zombie Ants (National Geographic)

And that’s when it all came together.

Yesterday, I found this article as well:

Zombie Bees (USA Today).

I find that to be creepy stuff and the creepiest thing of all, it is real. Now what if this could be made in a way to affect humans? Yikes!

In one’s never ending quest to getting published, one learns to seek any positive signs in the many rejections that pour into the mailbox. When I first started submitting to agents, I had no idea what I was starting. I wasn’t even sure how to write a request for representation. So obviously I scoured the internet for templates and advice on how to format my request. I thought there must be some common format that would catch the eye of some agent.

No, there is no magic formula – or at least I haven’t found it yet. Most of the rejections I received were form rejections. Every now and then I would receive one where someone took the time to sign. That was like gold. I would stare at the signature and think, “Wow! They must have liked it.” That motivation faded fast.

Having given up on the whole process, I received an early Christmas present – a rejection of course. This one was different though. In this one, the editor took the time to respond with a personalized rejection. This leads me to believe that my letter must be getting closer to catching some interest. Here is the response I received:

“Thank you for giving Candlemark & Gleam the opportunity to consider your manuscript, Conduit. We’ve looked at your manuscript sample carefully and we appreciate its many merits, but unfortunately, we’re going to have to pass on publishing it. You may wish to consider adapting your novel as a screenplay; from the jump-cut pacing and subject matter, it seems as though it might make a better fit for a visual production than for print publication.

We wish you the best in placing it elsewhere, and we hope you’ll try us again in the future with another of your efforts.”

Why am I happy about this? For newbie authors out there like me, it helps to make a game of the rejections and see how many ways one can twist a rejection into a positive message.

1) It shows that my story was actually reviewed.
I don’t know how many times I’ve received some sort of rejection explaining how my story was reviewed in great detail but wonder in the back of my mind if it was even looked at. Where the editor took the time to provide some advice shows to me that my book was in fact read.

2) My story isn’t garbage
OK, I’m making a leap here, I know. It’s that little guy in my back of my head building the wall to soften sting of the rejection. But they must have liked it right? If they took the time to respond with advice and encourage future submissions there must have been something in there they liked. Plus, that voice in my head keeps telling me so and he never lies.

3) It had “many merits”!
Sure, it’s likely part of the standard form rejection. But you gotta pick the positive pieces out of the rejections and ignore the negative pieces or you get depressed fast.

4) My story may be a good candidate for a visual production
That sounds really cool to me. I’m not sure if I should be sad about it though since translating my story to a screenplay is a daunting task. Not only do I not have any clue about screenplays, I really believe my story to be a good novel as well. But it’s nice to know that someone thought it would make a good visual production. So I’ll look at it that way instead.

5) They would like to see more of my work
Well, who wouldn’t get a boost from that? That little voice behind the wall is talking again and telling me they don’t include that line in the form rejection letter!

In all honesty, this letter did make me happy and has given me a little more hope in getting my story published. I will keep trying and when I’m on my last leg once again, another rejection will come in that offers some words of encouragement. It will take more then a signature now though.