Martin Roth: Prophets and Loss

The following post appeared recently on Martin Roth’s blog. He had seen my blog and liked the idea. So much so, in fact, that he created an imaginary interview about what he went through before getting his first novel published.  I am using my prerogative as blog owner to include it today–with Martin’s permission.  I hope he’ll forgive me for the merest bit of editing.

Martin explains:

I personally was in that same boat [that Roger was in during his pre-publication days] for more than thirty years, waiting for that first contract. It finally arrived late in 2008 from Ark House Press, for my novel “Prophets and Loss.”

So here is a completely imaginary interview, between me and myself, set in 2008, shortly before the arrival of that contract.

Welcome Martin. Please tell me about your first novel.

Thank you. My first novel? Goodness. That would have been in the 1970s, when I was a journalist in Tokyo. It was a sultry pot-boiler, full of sword-wielding Asian gangsters, voluptuous Oriental women and lots of steamy sex. I wasn’t a Christian back then.

And what happened?

The first person I queried – a very well known US agent – returned it with the comment that I knew more about Japan than I did about how to write a novel. The second said he would be interested if I ever wrote a non-fiction book on Japan. I kept trying, but finally gave up, and wrote a second novel.

And?

I decided to aim at the British market this time, and I actually found a well regarded agent who liked it. She sent it to all the leading publishers, but with no better luck than the first time around. I still have the letter she forwarded to me from a Random House director: “It’s sharp and fast…Martin Roth can certainly tell a story. But…events are too hurried. One can readily believe all the boozing and whoring…but the thriller element is so rushed it is as though Roth wants to get them over so that he can take us as fast as possible into yet another red light district.”

How discouraging.

But I kept trying. I wrote one or two more – I don’t actually remember how many – and then in 1993 I moved to Australia to live. And a local agent expressed interest in one of my novels. She told me she thought she could find a publisher. But then something dramatic happened.

Something dramatic? Tell me, tell me.

I became a Christian. At the age of forty-four. You can read my testimony here. And I decided that I didn’t want to publish a novel with lots of sex and swearing, so I withdrew it. I went to Bible College part-time for a few years, then began praying that God might somehow use my writing for His glory. And at some point I received what was to me a very powerful message that it was God’s plan that I write novels. So I wrote “Prophets and Loss,” a private eye thriller. I finished it around 1998.

Ten years ago.

I spent several years trying to find a publisher, with absolutely zero interest. Eventually I became so discouraged that I decided to place it on the internet, for anyone to read, together with a little PayPal button for people to make donations if they liked it. I raised a total of $15 over fifteen months.

Oh dear.

But then I found an agent, a Jewish lady in New York, who told me bluntly: “This novel will be published.” That gave me a lot of hope. But a year later she said she could do no more for me. So I queried all the leading Christian agents, and one of them actually took me on. I still remember how excited I was when he subsequently sent a copy of an email from an editor at Moody Publishers expressing enthusiasm for “Prophets and Loss.”

I’m already fearing the worst.

It seemed the sales team made the ultimate decision about what got published. And they didn’t like it. One reason was that it was set in Australia. So I decided to re-write it totally, setting it in the US, with American characters.

Wow. That must have been difficult.

I remember spending days and days with Google Maps, changing all the Australian locations, which I was very familiar with, of course, into American locations that I had never before heard of. I set it in Orange County, California, for some reason. Anyway, it didn’t do any good. And that led me to do something I’m a bit ashamed of.

Yes?

I decided to write another novel. But like the ones I used to write before I became a Christian. With swearing and sex. I was angry at God. It was a comic novel, about the sex problems…

Martin! This is a Christian website!

Oh yes. Right. Sorry. (Pause.) There were also a lot of lesbians in it.

A “bit” ashamed. Martin, you should be totally ashamed.

I was angry with God. I was so sure that it was God’s plan for me to write my novel “Prophets and Loss” – I’m still certain of it – that I couldn’t understand why I was being tossed around like a shipwrecked sailor. Not to mention all the expense. It can cost forty or fifty dollars to airmail a manuscript from Australia to the US. So I was kind of challenging God, saying hurry up and arrange a publisher for this novel that glorifies You, before I find a publisher for one that does the opposite. It was actually rather childish of me.

I presume this new novel wasn’t published.

A local agent liked it. But no, she could never find a publisher.

And are you still angry with God?

It’s funny. Ten years ago, after I finished writing my novel, I was so excited. I almost took it for granted that God had this plan to turn me into a famous, best-selling novelist. Then I got discouraged, and after that angry. But now I’ve reached a kind of peace. I’ve done all I can. I know that now it’s totally in God’s hands. Maybe it’s not His plan that it actually be published. Maybe it’ll only be in Heaven that I’ll understand what’s been going on. I don’t know. But I don’t worry about these things any more. I know that my life is good, whether or not I’m a published novelist.

So what’s the latest with “Prophets and Loss?”

Just recently I heard of a new Christian publishing house in Sydney, Ark House Press. They’re looking for novels, so I’ve sent them my manuscript. Please pray for me.

I’ll certainly do that. Martin, thank you and good luck.

* Martin Roth is the author of the Military Orders series of novels, about a church that has established a new military order to fight for today’s persecuted Christians. He is also the author of the Johnny Ravine private eye novels.

Elizabeth Livingston: The Hideout

Please allow me to introduce Elizabeth Livingston, the first author I’ve interviewed for my blog. She and I  share the same literary agent, Mr. Terry Burns of Hartline Literary Agency. When I told Terry’s clients I needed a guinea pig to help test the process, she jumped right in.

The Hideout is a middle-reader adventure novel, complete at 24,000 words and in need of a publisher.

Beth, I can’t thank you enough for being willing to be the first person interviewed here. Can you tell us about your writing background?

I attended the Write-to-Publish Conference in 1979  at the Moody Bible Institute where I learned the tools for being published. As a young bride, I wrote The Hideout. It was published by Moody Press in 1983. The next year they published the sequel, Zach and the Scary Phone Calls, and that was the end of my writing career. For twenty years I tried unsuccessfully to have another book accepted, and then I just gave up. Then in January 2010, I received a phone call from Dan Ewald, a movie producer who wanted to make a movie of  The Hideout. It was his favorite book as a child. For almost two years we have been in the process of making the movie, and there is still a long way to go. He is looking for investors now.

The movie sparked my desire to have The Hideout republished (all rights to the book were returned to me in 1990). But I had no clue how to  do that. When I went to Christian publisher’s websites, I found that they were not accepting unsolicited submissions. You either had to meet with them face-to-face at a writer’s conference or submit through a book agent. So in June 2011, I again went to the Write-to-Publish Conference, this time at Wheaton College, where I learned exactly what I needed to know. I also met book agent Terry Burns who accepted me as his client in December 2011. I have completely re-written and updated The Hideout and am excited about writing other stories that I have been thinking about for thirty years.

Although I am a published author, I don’t feel like it. That was a lifetime ago, and I am starting all over again. I have another middle-reader book manuscript, Susanna of Beaver Lodge, ready for submission. Visit my blog for more details of my writing journey: bookpublishingjourney.wordpress.com.

Wow! I’m impressed. Can you give us a one-sentence summary of The Hideout? That’s often the only thing a writer has the chance to give an editor in the hall at a writers conference.

In The Hideout, three child fugitives hide out in a church.

Ah, and if you had more time with that editor, what else would you say?

Once again abandoned by their mother, the Fleming kids run out of food and steal from the corner grocery store. To avoid being caught by the owner, they hop on a bus, not realizing it is a Sunday school bus. Whisked off to church, they discover the perfect place to hide, for the cops would never think of looking for them there. This story is about their struggle for survival and finding the love of God in the process. It has a strong salvation message.

That may be a middle grade story, but I think some of us adults would enjoy reading it, too.

You sound like a creative lady, but that raises another question. Although some writers love the creative process, others prefer the editing. Do you have a preference?

I prefer the editing process. The creative process is hard and discouraging because I am just writing my ideas as they come, and the writing is not good. I love polishing it into something I am pleased with. This is hard, too, though, because I always find something else to change. It seems as if I will never be done.

Beth, I think all writers can relate to that. How did you come up with the idea for The Hideout, by the way?

The idea for this book came to me when I was sitting in Sunday school as a twelve- year-old  and imagining what it would be like to live in a church.

You mentioned attending several Write-to-Publish Conferences. How did they help you?

I couldn’t be a writer without the help of the two writer’s conferences I attended. I learned how to write a good story, how to get a book ready for publication, how to write a proposal, and current trends. I also met Terry Burns who has become my book agent.

Beth, thanks so much for being my first interviewee. You’ve given us some things to think about—and a movie to look forward to once the details are worked out. The best to you in getting The Hideout republished—and to getting those newer books published as well.

What’s it all about?

During the year since my first novel released, I’ve had fun being interviewed on various other authors’ blog sites. Although the questions were often similar, I didn’t worry about it. I answered each question as if I hadn’t been asked the same thing half a dozen times before–and had just as much fun doing it as I’d had the first time.

I couldn’t guess how many published writers include interviews with other writers on their websites, but it’s a wonderful way to help market newly published books and give a little bit of publicity to an author whose name might not yet be familiar.

Time for a flashback. Necessary backstory.

I created my first blog to communicate with the tribe of influencers I was hoping to build among the teens at my church. It was, uh, less than successful, and I finally deleted it. I don’t think anybody noticed its demise. No one complained, anyhow.

My next blog was called “If You Could Read My Mind.” The idea was to have an unthemed blog where I could post an occasional observation about–guess what?–whatever was on my mind at the time. Unfortunately, I found myself thinking less and less–at least about anything I wanted to say publicly. I never let any of my friends know about that blog because, well, I didn’t want them to see that I posted only once every couple of months.

End of flashback.

Time to try again. But what could I do that everyone else wasn’t doing? And what  could I do that wouldn’t require me to come up with something fresh several times weekly?

Ding! Ding! Ding!

An alarm went off in my head. Why not interview (mostly) writers whose books haven’t been published yet? People whose books probably aren’t even under contract yet. A blog like that might not attract many readers–although I hope it will–but it might prove popular among those many writers who have being unpublished in common.

Whether this blog flies is largely up to you. If you think the idea has merit, I ask two things of you:  Read “About this Blog” and–if you qualify and are interested–go to “Request an Interview.” Then let your other unpublished friends know about this blog.