One Holy Night Wins CSPA Book of the Year Award

Tuesday I received notice that One Holy Night has been chosen as the 2009 Fiction Book of the Year by Christian Small Publishers Association! Needless to say, I am thrilled—and admittedly a bit stunned. I’d forgotten I even entered the contest. LOL!

It’s also entered in the American Christian Fiction Writers Book of the Year contest for long contemporary novels, and it’ll be interesting to see how it does there. Winners in all the categories will be announced at the ACFW conference in September, so I’ll have to wait a while to find out, and that’s always hard. In the meantime, however, Sheaf House will be doing additional promotions in upcoming weeks featuring the award and will also feature One Holy Night again for the holiday season.

Tomorrow, April 18, I’m having a book signing at the Perry Bookstore, 907 Carroll Street, in downtown Perry, Georgia, from 11 to 1. In addition to One Holy Night, I’ll also be signing Wind of the Spirit, and will have copies of books 1 and 2, Daughter of Liberty and Native Son, available at a discount. I appreciate your prayers for a good weather and a good turnout, and if you happen to be in the area, I would love to have you stop by! This is also the weekend for the annual Dogwood Festival in Perry, and there’ll be lots going on downtown, not to mention the Mossy Creek Barnyard Festival, which is close by. Come on out and join in the fun!

Below is an excerpt from a recent review by Jackie Cooper, who is known in the middle Georgia area as the “entertainment man” for his entertainment reviews. His short stories have been used as commentary on Georgia Public Radio and he is also a popular after dinner speaker as well as a noted author. Jackie’s latest release is The Sunrise Remembers.

“Author J. M. Hochstetler has crafted a story that will drive us to tears but also lift our spirits at the same time. . . . It is a “family” story that all readers can enjoy and one to which they can relate in some way. Hochstetler takes us on a journey with these characters as they move through times of joy and times of sadness. Each person described in the story comes alive and takes his/her place in the order of things. The author even brings in side characters to flesh out the story and she does it with inventiveness and skill. If you do not enjoy or appreciate a story of faith then this is not the book for you. But for those who do like this type of religious material as the backdrop for a good story, this is an excellent choice.”

Almost Ready for the Printer!

We’re making great progress on getting Wind of the Spirit ready to go to press! The text has been flowed and the final edits completed. I’m really getting excited about finally seeing this puppy in print! I’ve even ordered some gorgeous bookmarks to hand out. Wait till you see those. LOL! I only have a pdf, which blogger doesn’t accept, or I’d post that too.

Take a look at the images at the left that show the chapter opening pages. We’re using the graphic shown on the first one for the chapters that take place with Elizabeth in New York. The second one is what the chapters set with White Eagle among the Shawnee will look like. Each graphic then also appears in the running heads and the breaks between scenes of those chapters to differentiate the two settings. Didn’t Marisa do a great job with this interior?

All I have left to do is to check through the pages one last time before I create the PDF for the printer. I want to make sure I caught and eliminated all the widows and orphans—the first or last line of a paragraph that flowed over onto the top or bottom of a page, where it sits all by its lonely self. I’ve read several books lately where the editor obviously didn’t know that you’re supposed to eliminate those.

I hate to say it, but I’m seeing a lot of sloppy editing lately—everything from grammar to punctuation to logic. I don’t know if younger editors simply aren’t properly educated and trained or if publishers are increasingly expecting their authors to pay freelancers to edit their books, with the to-be-expected uneven results. I know the economy is bad and everyone is trying to save money, which in a lot of cases means either letting old-timers who earn too much money go and hiring neophytes or transferring as much of the cost of production onto the author’s shoulders as possible. Whatever’s going on, quality, at least in the Christian marketplace, is plummeting in my humble opinion. I guess I’m one of those old-timers. I have every intention of making sure both the writing and the editing of all our books are stellar.

Design is another area that’s suffering. There are gorgeous covers, mediocre ones, and ones that make you wince, but that’s always been the case. But now so many of the current crop of fiction releases I’ve seen have interiors that look downright ugly to me—fonts that are harsh on the eyes, clumsily designed running heads and folios (page numbers) that are way too large, leading that is too tight or too loose. At Sheaf House, we’re going to make sure that both the cover and the interior are beautifully designed and that the text is attractive and easy to read.

Okay, enough qvetching, already! Wind of the Spirit will go to the printer by the 19th at the latest, with delivery to the warehouse by mid February. It’s set to officially publish March 2, but once it’s logged into the warehouse, it’ll start shipping to retailers and will also be open for orders on the Sheaf House shopping cart. It’s already available for pre-order on Barnes and Noble and CBD, though without the cover for some reason. I need to see what I can do about that asap and also contact Amazon, which so far hasn’t posted it.

Stay tuned for more news!

Finishing Up Production

We have the final full cover for Wind of the Spirit! Isn’t it pretty? This book is going to look as good on the back as it does on the front. LOL! Dineen did a smash-up job, and needless to say, I’m completely delighted with the result. And now I’m hoping I’ll be able to release the first 2 in revised editions before too much longer—with new covers consistent with this one, of course. That will be a huge improvement.

More excitement—Jim Brown, my illustrator, finished the 2 maps that will be included in the book. As you can see, we have one showing the Battle of Brooklyn and another of the city of New York in 1776. On the latter I had him include Montcoeur, the home Elizabeth and Tess are leasing along the bank of the Hudson, which allows Pete and Elizabeth to leave the city unnoticed for their clandestine activities. What do you think?

I’ve been deep in the throes of production this week. I received the edited copy and spent several days entering the corrections into the master file. Thankfully there was nothing major, which is especially reassuring, considering that my editor friend is as anal as I am. She did a careful copyedit, questioned a few details, and made several good saves, for which I am eternally grateful. I soooo believe in having your work professionally edited, even if you’re an editor yourself. There’s always stuff you’re going to miss. So whew! I feel much better!

The manuscript is almost complete now. I created all the frontmatter pages—the endorsements, title and half title pages, imprimatur, previous books page, and pages to insert the maps. I also decided to add a page with brief summaries of Daughter of Liberty and Native Son to help bring readers who haven’t read the first 2 up to speed before they dive into the current action. Although I included enough backstory in the first few chapters to allow WOTS to stand alone, I thought this might help even more.

I still need to write the discussion guide and the acknowledgments. I can flow those into the Quark file after I get it, however, so I’m putting that off for now because I NEED to copyedit my next project for Sheaf House. So the Word file has gone to Marisa Jackson, who will design the interior and create the Quark file.

Earlier in the week, it occurred to me—duh!—that I’ve been lurking on the 18th Century Woman and RevWarCostume e-loops for a couple of years, metaphorically rubbing elbows with all those reenactors, docents, and costume experts. Who would be more natural to read WOTS and let me know if there are any costuming or cultural details that are wrong? And who might also spread the word about the American Patriot Series to their compatriots if they like it?

So I e-mailed both loops, offering to send free copies of Daughter of Liberty and Native Son, along with the manuscript of WOTS to anyone who would be willing to read them and give me feedback. I’m up to 11 takers now, 2 of whom had already read DOL and NS and couldn’t wait to read WOTS! I’ve been busy sending out packages, and I’m really excited! At the very least I’ll get help to make this series as accurate as possible. At best, I just might get an endorsement or two out of the deal, along with recommendations to an audience I’m very eager to reach.

Wind of the Spirit Cover at Last!!!!

[Sound of horns blowing vigorously] TAH DAH!!!!!!

I have a new baby! The much-anticipated final version of the Wind of the Spirit cover arrived today!!! Can you tell I’m excited?! It’s a good thing there aren’t any limits on the number of exclamation points you can use in a document, because I’d be locking up the computer. LOL!

You’ve all seen the 2 photos we started out with. And I know several of you mentioned that you prefer covers without any figures on them. But . . . well, I had this vision.

I was not at all sure it was possible to do what I wanted to do. I certainly had no idea how to get it done. But just at that moment, the Lord led Dineen Miller to e-mail me. She asked if I needed another designer, and not knowing much about Dineen, I took a look at her Web site. I was impressed, to say the least. I needed an ad for Sheaf House, so I hired her to do it. And not only did she do a terrific job, but she mentioned she’d love to work on book covers. She hadn’t done any yet, but she was eager to give it a try.

Thinking about Dineen’s portfolio, I threw this project at her. I had 2 images of a stormy sky and some really crazy ideas. A whole long page of them. I was sure she was going to think I was out of my mind, say something polite, and tiptoe quietly out the back door. Instead, to my shock and delight, she responded that she was sure we could do this!

And she delivered. The process took a couple of twists and turns, but . . . take a look. A picture is worth a thousand words, isn’t it?

Needless to say, I’m thrilled! This image doesn’t show the spine, but it’s as cool as the front. Dineen won’t get to the back until after the conference, but it’ll be made up of the 2nd image nicely ghosted to allow the text to show well against it. Maybe a couple of other fancy things, who knows?

All I can say is, WOW!! From a design standpoint, this is one of the best covers I’ve ever seen! It ought to stand out on a book table or shelf in a bookstore, don’t you think?