Jenna Glatzer, Ghostwriter

This just landed in my inbox, and I'm going to publish it here because I get a variation of this letter at least once a month. It's starting to make me a little loopy. Dear Jenna, I've completed my first manuscript a few months ago and have since received 7 acceptance letters, however 5 are from "self-publishing" companies. One from PA and one from Dorrance. PA has already sent me a sample contract and an Aug. 1st deadline but after reading your comments, now I more confused then ever. Bottom line, I have no funds for Publishing law firms nor Self-Publishing companies. I'm looking for the name of a legit company that can help me without costing an arm and a leg. Okay, new writers, this one's for you. Let's dissect what's wrong with this question: He says has received 7 acceptance letters, but five are from "self-publishing companies." (Which are not actually "acceptances," but rather sales pitches.) Our first dilemma is that he ...

When I started writing, older writers would often say things like, "The publishing world has changed! It's not like it was when I was starting." I'd wonder what publishing was like for them; they painted utopian pictures of editors who spent lots of time nurturing writers who showed promise but didn't have professional polish. They described bookstores giving "fringe" authors a chance, and not giving up on authors whose first books didn't sell well. They described publishing as a kind, gentle world where promotion was left up to the publishers and writers had nothing to do but work on their craft. I don't know how much of that was factual and how much was romanticized. My guess is about 50/50. It's true that when I began writing professionally in 1997, the publishing world had become more competitive, more prone to the chain bookstores' "bestseller" mentality (leaving less space on shelves for books with smaller audiences, regar...

"Funny you should ask that, Bob. As it says in my book, in chapter 4..." That's where I roll my eyes and change the radio station or TV channel. I hate... freakin' hate... being "pitched to" in ways that are thinly veiled as something other than pitches. Free webinars that are really just teasers to try to get you to buy big packages of audio books and DVDs, free e-books that promise to tell you all the REAL secrets in the book that you have to pay for... etc. I think I've struggled with the concept of self-promotion-- and commercialism in general-- since college, when I was an advertising major. Actually, I started as a fine art major, but by sophomore year, realized I wasn't good enough, so I switched into advertising. By the end of junior year, however, I realized I didn't want to spend my life convincing people to buy things they didn't need and couldn't afford. It's just that it was too late for me to switch majors again without ...

This just in: My Stolen Son Susan Markowitz with Jenna Glatzer, Berkley, $7.99 (304p) ISBN 978-0-425-23634-5 This poignant memoir tells the painful story of a brutal slaying that captured national attention when it became the basis of the 2007 drama Alpha Dog. In the summer of 2000, Susan Markowitz's 15-year-old son, Nicholas, was kidnapped and murdered by a local drug dealer in revenge for his brother's debts. Nicholas's death, the ensuing trials of his killers, and the international manhunt for a fourth suspect nearly tore his family apart and sent his mother on a decade-long quest for justice and sanity. Markowitz writes with candor about her grief-induced alcoholism and suicide attempts as well as the troubles that shook her family's foundation long before Nicholas's death. Her unflinching honesty makes this a deeply powerful story that will move fans of the film and anyone grieving a loved one's death by homicide or suicide. (Sept.) Thank you, Publishers W...

It's funny-- if you had ever told me that I was going to become a nonfiction ghostwriter and actually LIKE it, well, I would have cocked my eyebrow at you something fierce. I probably would have even said, "Pshaw!" at you. In my school days, I thought the only kind of "fun" writing was fiction writing. And when I began nonfiction writing, it was only because I saw that it had better financial prospects; it's tough to make a living as a writer, period, but really tough to make a living as a fiction writer. But I did wind up liking nonfiction writing. Getting paid to learn stuff that interested me? What a deal! As I gained more experience, I began getting offers to ghostwrite books. Little did I know at the time that I'd find my calling there. My line of work has put me in touch with some amazing people, both of the celebrity variety and of the regular ol' phenomenal-person-next-door variety. It seems like no accident that I've written the books ...

Imagine you were 18 years old, riding on the back of a pick-up truck as you worked a summer landscaping job with your friends. You're about to go off to college, and this is your last summer all together as a group. Then the unthinkable happens. Your pick-up truck collides with an 18-wheeler. You're launched out of the back and thrown onto the road, where your leg gets trapped and you get dragged 324 feet along the asphalt.That's what happened to Scott Rigsby, who lost both of his legs as a result of that accident. For many years, Scott was lost and depressed, and couldn't figure out a purpose for his life. Then, while browsing at a bookstore, he saw two physically challenged athletes on the covers of magazines. Inspiration took hold, and in 2007, Scott became the first-ever double-amputee to complete the Hawaiian Ironman triathlon... yes, the one that's televised every year on NBC. It's a crazy physical challenge that even most able-bodied athletes can't co...

Several months ago, Susan Markowitz contacted me to ask if I'd help her write her memoir. Her only son, Nick, was kidnapped and murdered when he was 15 years old. This was the basis of the movie Alpha Dog , which starred Justin Timberlake, Sharon Stone, and Bruce Willis. After seeing the movie and reading about her story, I knew this could be the most important book I'd ever write. Susan spent several years in and out of mental hospitals and attempting suicide. As she explained it, each time she told her story in a group, suddenly everyone else realized they didn't have any real problems. Susan's first letter came to me one day after I was in court fighting for custody of my daughter, and I was very down. It was as if God was flicking me in the head and saying, "Here's some perspective for you." I hate that Susan has to be that perspective. But nine years after losing her son, she is remarkably strong and put together, and ready to do great things. This we...

After 10 years, I'm finally realizing that I have a comfort zone when it comes to word counts. At least when it comes to magazine articles. I'd much rather write 1200-1500 words than anything much longer or shorter. When an editor wants me to write front-of-the-book type stuff-- 400 to 800 words or so-- I cringe a little. I know it's going to be just about as much work as the longer stuff, for less pay. I'm still going to have to do interviews, I'm still going to transcribe them, I'm still going to write the same meat of the article... and then I'm going to struggle like crazy to trim it down to what almost always seems like too small a space for the topic. Worse, though, is that there seem to be many editors who cannot grasp that 400 words is not enough to pack in everything they ask for in their brief. "Please write the entire history of the the automotive industry, and a sidebar about bicycles" is just not do-able. So then I do the mental equiva...

Freelancers Union, also known as Working Today, offers freelancers health insurance in 31 states. I signed up with them two or three years ago, when the National Writers Union lost its health insurance provider. It seemed like a good idea-- an organization for freelancers, by freelancers, to negotiate good health insurance rates for the group. Ha! I began experiencing trouble with their customer service right away. It was clear that the organization's president, Sara Horowitz, used lots of nice words that had no actual meaning. She wrote to us about their commitment to better customer service and how glad she was that people kept them accountable... then did nothing to improve anything, and ignored our letters. To be more specific, I'll use my current example. They made a math error on my August bill. I had overpaid for two months, and they owed me a refund. Instead, they charged me again. I began politely e-mailing; they refused to acknowledge the problem. They told me to call...

And now I'll blow your mind (unless you're a published author, in which case you may already know this scenario). There I was in Barnes & Noble the other day. My book The Marilyn Monroe Treasures has just come out, and I happened to be across the street with my mom, so I suggested we stop in and take a look at it in all its glory. I already knew it was selling pretty well at that store, because a friend of mine had seen 16 copies on an endcap, then my mom went in two days later and there were 12, and when we walked in this time, there were 5. So at least 11 copies had sold that week. I felt good about that. Since it was an impromptu stop, I didn't have a Sharpie on me. I went to the customer service desk to borrow one. "Hi," I said. "I'm the author of The Marilyn Monroe Treasures , which you have in stock up front. I'd love to sign the copies you have if you can lend me a Sharpie." The clerk actually looked upset. She referred me to a woman ...

A few months ago, my former editor at Nomad (hi, Lauri!) recommended me for a job writing a book proposal for Scott Rigsby, the first double-amputee to complete an Ironman. He was featured on NBC's 2007 Ironman special-- a great show, which you should definitely watch if it reruns again. I'm no sports person, but this was a human interest piece to the extreme. Great stories. So that's what I've been doing these past few months: working with Scott to get this book proposal ready. Slowly. (Yeah, this balancing-motherhood-with-writing stuff is still a huge challenge to me.) How lucky am I to have found a person who doesn't mind being interviewed at midnight? The proposal is just about done, and I can't wait to see where this book lands. A few publishers are already interested, just based on the pitch, but I suspect a lot more will be excited about it once they read this proposal. It's the longest one I've ever written... closing in on 60 pages. I thought it...

I'm hoping and hoping to finish the Marilyn Monroe first draft before Christmas. I'm not sure if it's possible yet, but I'm going to try. I've interviewed a number of people for it, but am still trying hard for several others. Did you know Gina Lollobrigida and Marilyn were good friends? I'm trying to reach her, and Eli Wallach, and her singing coach, and... well, about 50 others who haven't yet answered me. Time is getting tight. I have enough material already, but it would add a lot to the book if I could speak to people who don't ordinarily speak about Marilyn. I'm aiming to get interesting little anecdotes from people who met her along the way somewhere, even in very limited capacities. (Psst, know anyone who knew Marilyn Monroe? I'll be your BFF.) I'm so distractable about the actual writing, though. Every night, I tell myself I'll do nothing but write, but I have irresistible impulses to do stupid things online. Like, does eBay have...

Michelle tagged me to write a post about what I would write if I had an extra hour every day to write . Hmm. Now, the real answer is that I'd just use that hour to get my assignments done, but I have to assume that the spirit of this meme is to find out what our "heart projects" are. Someone else asked me about that by e-mail recently. Well, technically, I asked myself. It went sort of like this: He asked me if there was anything no one ever asked me about my writing before that I wanted to be asked. I said I had never been asked if there was anything I wanted to write but wouldn't. So... he asked. Anyway, what I explained then was that I had several ideas for books that I'd love to write, but wouldn't be commercial enough to justify the time I'd spend on them. Some Absolute Write readers might remember the time I went searching for a book that would be appropriate to teach my brother (who has Down syndrome) about dating. He had asked me for a book that w...

So where was I? (Read the previous post first if you haven't already. I'm writing about how I became a writer. I'll wait here.) Right, so I was now an advertising major, and as such, had to take writing courses. That was cool by me because I had always enjoyed writing and had taken elective writing courses as an art major. I had even tried to take an advanced workshop in poetry, but I was turned down. What a disappointment that was! I remember waiting outside the class when the list was posted, and searching and searching for my name. I remember, too, the poem I used as an "audition," and how stupid I felt afterwards. Dumb poem! Why did I write you? Why did I think you were any good? I had a slightly weird writing history in school. Very early on-- I'm talking first grade, I think-- my teacher wrote on my report card that she expected to see my name on the New York Times Bestseller List. My mom, who was an English teacher and thrilled! thrilled! thrilled! by t...

For just about every book I've written, I've kept a large looseleaf notebook filled with notes, correspondence, photocopied medical studies, etc. If I kept all these notebooks on my shelves, though, they'd crowd me out of my office eventually-- so I reuse them. I have two big ones (1 1/2 inch ring binders) and two smaller ones that I keep swapping out when it's time for a new book. It's always a strange feeling, though, tossing out the old. Each of those notebooks represents several months of my life. But when I look through them, I realize I'm done-- there's no need to hold on to a hundred newspaper articles about bullying when the book is already in bookstores. So I throw the notebook contents in the recycling bin and put a new label on the spine of the notebook... but it's still hard to do. Only once did I regret it, and that was my Celine notebook. I still know which one it was. I replaced it with notes for another book, but every time I look at it, ...

I didn't expect it to be this hard to reconcile motherhood and writing. I figured all along that I was so lucky to be in the position I'm in-- I work from home and make my own schedule, so I always thought I'd be able to continue fairly easily once baby arrived. I've hesitated to write a post like this, because it brings up another issue bloggers face: my editors could read this. My editors could read this and think, "She's not going to be committed to her work." But for the past 7 years, I've been telling the truth about my career and what I know about publishing in the hopes that it might help other writers, and I don't want to give that up now because it's a riskier topic. So I'll tell it. Somewhere around halfway through my pregnancy, I stopped actively looking for work. I continued the projects I was already contracted for, and took on some small work here and there, but took a "wait and see" approach to the bigger work. I d...

This is one of those deflating moments you never really think about when you're in the honeymoon stage of book publishing-- you know, the time between when you sign the contract and the first month or so after the book comes out. Those months are so full of possibilities. Then, there you are five years later with an unearned-out advance and a statement showing that you've managed to lose money in the last 6 months. How, you ask? Simple: the number of returns exceed the number of sales. "Returns" doesn't mean that a customer returned the book. It means that the book was sitting around on the bookstore shelf and someone who works in the bookstore finally decided it was just taking up space there and probably would never sell, so they get to return it to the publisher for full credit at any time. I guess some of those stores have been hanging onto the book for the full five years. Nice of them, really. Anyway, there does come a point-- maybe after the first two or t...