Hey, There's A Dead Guy in the Living Room

Your Questions, Answered

Jeff Cohen

It's not easy coming up with a topic for a blog post every week (I don't know how the every-day bloggers do it, and people who Twitter 76 times a day? You need to stop that).

So, given modern technology and the availability of other people's ideas for free, I mentioned on my Facebook page  that I was stuck for a topic this week (I actually had some ideas, but I didn't like any of them). And I got some suggestions.

I'll respond to the more plausible ones now. Facebook friends are SOOOOOOO amusing sometimes...

Jenna McCarthy asks how guys can watch so many GD sports on TV? Assuming that "GD" stands for "Good Definition," I'd recommend going up to HD, because I can't understand how people can spend a long time staring at a blurry screen, either. And by the way, stop being sexist. Women can watch GD sports, too. 

Jack Getze asks if male writers can capture the female voice. Yes, we can. But once you have it captured and locked in a box, it's hard to get anything done. That damn box keeps yelling at you to let it out. This is especially distracting if you're trying to write in first person as a female character. I just finished a first draft like that, and it was hard enough WITHOUT a box yelling at me the whole time.

Ilene Schneider suggests I write about "all the terrific women mystery writers (I) know." Again, I must protest the gender-based specificity here. Are the terrific male mystery writers I know not relevant? But you shouldn't for a minute expect me to list my favorite peers of either gender here. I'll leave someone out, and they'll get mad at me. I HATE it when people get mad at me. I get upset when the dry cleaner looks at me funny. 

Lucy Cooper believes I should write about dogs in books, or if absolutely necessary, cats in books. Are we now leaving out wildebeests and polecats, then, Lucy? People (or dogs) seem to be trying to push their own agendas on my weekly DEAD GUY post. Woof, indeed.

Kimberly Malo says I should write about "Elliot scripts The Blob as The Blog, a soon to be classic B movie SF comic classic." Even assuming that she means Elliot Freed, my protagonist of the Double Feature Mysteries (thanks for the opportunity to plug myself, Kim!), I still have no idea what kind of blog entry that would be. But thanks for the suggestion. 

Finally, Sharon Wildwind suggests I explain New Jersey. Not really clear on why New Jersey needs an explanation, Sharon. It seems fairly self-explanatory to me. Explain, for example, Wyoming. It's a state, right? Out there in the west? Well, New Jersey's like that, only completely different. Hope that clears up any confusion for you.

Thanks for all the ideas, friends. I wouldn't have considered any of those myself, and appreciate the effort on your parts. 

Next week, I promise, I'll write on a topic of my own choosing.

The Big Announcement

(UPDATED -- Thanks for bearing with me while I snuck wifi on the road from my 4th festivities!)

Alison Janssen

Oh my gosh, you guys. I have a big announcement.

I've left Bleak House Books.

Whoa!

I'll let you catch your breath.

Ready to lose it again?

Ben left, too.

WHAT?!

I know!

Guess what else?!?

We're starting a new publishing company!

Ahhhhhhhhhhh!

It's called Tyrus Books. You can find it online at www.tyrusbooks.com

Trumpets and fanfare! Glitter and balloons falling from the ceiling! Journey and other power ballads!

Ben began publishing crime and literary fiction in 2001, with John Galligan’s Red Sky, Red Dragonfly. Titles bearing the Bleak House logo, a wonderfully eerie house on a hill in the moonlight, started in 2003. I joined up that same year, starting out as an intern and quickly climbing up the ranks to Deputy Sheriff Editor. To date, we've worked together to publish over fifty (50!) titles. In 2005, Bleak House Books was acquired by Big Earth Publishing, a family of independent publishers.

During our time at Bleak House, our titles have garnered much critical attention and praise, including seven starred reviews in trade publications, inclusion on several “Best of the Year” lists, and over a dozen nominations for prestigious awards in the mystery community. In 2008, three Bleak House titles were named finalists for the Edgar® Awards — I know, right?! We celebrated with glitter and balloons then, too.

Ben and I are so incredibly proud of the successes we’ve built with Bleak House Books, and we're looking to build upon that experience in this new endeavor. We’re ready for this. We’ve done great things with Bleak House, and now it’s time for us to begin another tradition of greatness with Tyrus Books. We have some exciting new ideas, and we’ll be able to implement them with passion and efficiency. Well, probably more passion than efficiency. I'm just being honest.

Tyrus Books will launch its first title in September, with two more to come later in the Fall. Our Spring line is shaping up to be incredibly enticing, but I don't want to spoil the surprises yet. A girl's gotta keep some secrets -- I work with mysteries, after all! Tyrus will, of course, see us sticking with what we know: tight, affecting, honest fiction dealing with crime and its repercussions. We’ll always be interested in stories of men and women making mistakes, and seeking redemption in some form or another.

You can visit www.tyrusbooks.com for more information and to watch some nifty multimedia materials we've put together.

It may seem crazy, amidst all this doom and gloom and Oh-my-god-the-publishing-apocolypse-is-upon-us!-Run-for-the-escape-pods!-What-there-are-no-escape-pods?-HAL!-Open-the-pod-bay-doors! atmosphere, to be opening a brand new publishing house. But Ben and I truly believe in what we're doing, and we believe in the stories that our authors have to tell. We're willing to navigate these stormy publishing seas to connect authors with readers, to bring a little truth into everyone's lives.

Plus, I got promoted to Sheriff Editor. So, you know, I'll be keeping the reading peace 'round these parts. Pass me that champagne, would ya?

Having My Mind Scrambled Through My Ears

By Chris Grabenstein

It’s always a pleasure to pinch-hit for Robin Agnew, one of my absolute favorite bookseller-artist type people in the world.   Have you seen her paintings with the birds and shoes?  Very cool. My wife and I were lucky enough to catch Robin’s exhibit down in Chelsea at one of the super cool New York art scene galleries.  I forgot to wear my black beret but it was a fascinating journey into, as someone on a magic carpet might sing, a whole new world.

On my morning runs (well run then walk, then try to run again given the mushroom popping humidity of late), I have been listening to the Audible download version of my latest John Ceepak mystery MIND SCRAMBLER as performed by Jeff Woodman. 

If you think that sounds like a bus driver spending his vacation riding around on a Greyhound, think again.

It’s probably the closest I’ll come to having the Ceepak books made into a movie, albeit a mental movie.  I guess, because I used to be an actor, I get a huge kick out of hearing my characters come to life with distinct voice and quirks and Jeff Woodman, the actor who reads the books for Audible, is incredible.

Richard Rock is a sanctimonious Texas showman. His right hand man David Zuckerman is snitty little snot. Mighty Mo Mo, the dwarf who performs in the rival magic show at the Trump Taj Mahal casino, sounds like he smoked six stogies for breakfast.  Nicole Piscopo is a pure Jersey girl.  Ceepak is rock solid.  Danny a wise ass.  All of them are Jeff Woodman.  Jeff Woodman is brilliant.

Listening to the 8-hour digital download of MIND SCRAMBLER has made the miles, even the extremely boring ones on the treadmill, fly by.

I find myself wondering -- what’ll happen next?  And then I remember:  I wrote what happens next.  But, you have to remember, these books come out one-and-a-half or two years after we write ‘em.   So, yes, I forget some of the twists and turns in the wringer I created for Danny and Ceepak this time out. 

This is a good time to give a shout out to the folks at Audible who have produced the audio versions of all the Ceepak books.  They are able to do “books on pod” for books that would never be burned onto a CD because of their download-only delivery system.  No discs, no boxes, no shrink wrap -- no trucks to haul the shrink-wrapped boxes full of discs to stores.  No stores.  Since Audbile’s production costs are lower, they can produce audio books from novels that aren’t mega blockbuster best sellers.  Like the Ceepak stories.

People sometimes tell me -- Chris, you should do your own audio books.

Let me set the record straight:  No, I should not.  I am too big, too broad.  Makes for a fun charity auction, not so much for the guy inside your earbuds for eight hours.

Jeff Woodman, who has won a ton of Audio Books awards, knows how to shade the characters just so.  He captures the pace, the emotion.  Heck, he had me tearing up in this one scene from MIND SCRAMBLER, making me believe that Katie Landry and Dr. Sandra McDaniels and all the rest were real people.

Jeff also read my thriller SLAY RIDE.  In that one, I think I had about a dozen different Russian characters.  Taxi drivers, mobsters, clerks in a deli.  So he not only had to be able to a Russian accent, he had to be able to do a dozen different shades of Russian.  The guy is amazing.

But, as amazing as Jeff is, my favorite audio performance in the history of the world is the award-winning reading (Headphones award from AudioFile magazine) of my first Middle Grades chiller THE CROSSROADS by the very lovely, extremely talented J.J. Myers. 

And it’s not just because she’s my wife. 

Or that the main adult character in THE CROSSROADS, Judy Magruder, is based on her so she pretty much nails the part.  (Get it?  J.M. plays J.M.?) 

No, J.J. like Jeff, does an incredible job of making the story come alive…which, I guess, is harder to do with a ghost story where half the characters are dead.

The two narrators I have been so lucky to have read my books out loud for all the world to hear remind me of the best campfire storytellers.  The ones who weave such a mesmerizing tale, you can see the action unfold behind your eyes as they tell it to you.

J.J. is a truly gifted Voice Over actress.  In fact, she and Jeff Woodman work together all the time (she’s the one who recommended Jeff do the first Ceepak book TILT A WHIRL and the rest, as they say, is history).

When J.J. was recording THE CROSSROADS (they basically sit the actors down in a room with the book and give them two eight-hour days to record an eight-hour book), she came home and said “42 characters?  You had to write 42 characters?”  That meant, of course, that she had to come up with 42 different voices. 

That audio book of THE CROSSROADS is my only book that came out on actual CDs.  We bought a copy, framed it in a shadow box, and hung it in the living room of our apartment because it is so cool to see our names eternally linked together on the front cover.  (Hey, I’m allowed to get mushy -- the 4^th of July is our anniversary!  Fireworks guaranteed every year, baby.) 

Speaking of cool things, I just wanted to say a quick thank you to all the Ceepak fans who have been up in arms about MIND SCRAMBLER most likely being the last book in the series.  St. Martin’s Minotaur, so far, has shown no interest in renewing my contract.  Of course, if MIND SCRAMBLER by some miracle suddenly becomes one of those “instant New York Times bestsellers” you read about in ads for instant New York Times bestsellers (which probably don’t need advertising), they might change their minds.  Maybe not.

Either way, it is a great feeling for an author to know that he has created characters that have touched so many readers so deeply.

I hope to keep Danny and Ceepak alive through short stories.  And maybe, like Myron Bolitar who took seven years off, in 2016 John Ceepak and Danny Boyle will surprise us all and come back in a book.

Whatever happens, knowing that so many readers are rooting for a fictional creation that popped out of my brain one day five years ago, all I can say is what Ceepak might say:  “It’s all good.”  

Mistakes we make

PJ Nunn

I had an enjoyable weekend last week, with an opportunity to speak to a writers group in Denton. It’s such a joy to find a room filled with studious and interesting writers, eager to hone their crafts. The other speakers included Sandi Steen, Penny Richards, LaRee Bryant, Patricia Springer and therapist Jan Blankenship and it was great fun.

I always try to keep my presentations fresh and new, but regardless of the topic I present, many of the same questions come up over and over again. I gather some things bear repeating.

This time, I spoke about the mistakes beginning authors often make. And to be real honest, it’s not always just beginning authors so if the shoe fits, as they say…

1.       Bad photos. I can’t emphasize enough how important it is to invest in good photos. I don’t mean airbrushing. I don’t mean keep using a good photo you had made when you were 22 and you’re now 52. I mean a professional, accurate photo. Nobody expects you to be Marilyn Monroe, or Sean Connery as the case may be. But that photo will literally represent you and be a part of the first impression you make on many people who see your promo material long before they ever meet you. It can mean the difference between people seeing you as a professional or a hobbyist who writes on the weekends. They should be able to recognize you from the photo. Make sure it looks like the “you” you want people to see.

2.       Bad bios. It still amazes me that I can be hired to represent an author who wrote a 400 page novel, but I can’t get him to write 50 words about himself. It’s not just how many words a bio is, either. It’s which words you choose. Some bios are factual but they’re dull as dirt. Think about what you write. If the exact same information was given to you about someone else, would you be interested? Be truthful but be realistic. Unless you want to write that you went to elementary school with Barack Obama, probably nobody cares where you went to school. If you need help, ask someone in your circle of friends and family to list the things they find most interesting about you. Or even have someone else write it. But please, take some time with it. Like your photo, your bio is a representation of you and creates a first impression of you for many. First impressions, good, bad or otherwise, are hard to overwrite once they’re written.

3.       Unrealistic expectations. This one comes up a lot. Myths about the writing life abound, particularly on the Internet. It’s important that every writer make acquaintances with writers in all stages of their careers so they can learn from the experience of others, and not just rumors or opinions.

4.       Listening to bad advice. Like the previous one, this one comes up frequently as well. I’m sure the advice is well-meaning, and it can certainly be freely given and abundant. Unfortunately, what works for one author promoting one title doesn’t often work for all the same way and heeding the wrong advice is often costly. It seems those who have the strongest and most vocalized opinions sometimes have the least experience to back it up. Always consider the source.

5.       Arrogant attitudes. This one always surprises me because I’ve dealt with very few authors who exhibited this trait, but a plethora of booksellers and guest bookers swear it happens to them all too often. Authors who don’t request but act in a demanding and arrogant manner. Don’t let this happen to you!

I’ll continue the thoughts next week, but meantime, I’d love to hear your take on mistakes authors make.

Till next time,

Think before you Twitter

Sharon Wheeler

I was going to spend today’s blog happily raving to you about the gems in my review pile which have kept me gainfully employed on my train journeys around the exotic hot-spots of the UK. But you’ll have to tune in next week to hear about what you should be reading, as I really couldn’t resist sticking my oar in over the saga of Alice Hoffman and her bad attack of hair-trigger Twitter.

For those of you who’ve missed this latest little saga of author entitlement, Hoffman’s latest book received a lukewarm review in the Boston Globe.

Instead of realising that it goes with the territory, Hoffman threw a hissy fit, flounced over to Twitter and slagged off the reviewer and the paper – and then proceeded to hand out the reviewer’s phone number and email so that any sheep-like followers could email her to complain.

Since the ensuing row kicked off, Hoffman’s Twitter post has been pulled down, and she’s given the usual passive-aggressive “I’m sorry if I offended anyone” response. Actually, you’ve behaved like a spoiled brat and what you’re encouraging people to do smacks of harassment.

I read the offending review, and good grief, it really isn’t a hatchet job. Hoffman whined about the reviewer giving too much of the plot away. It’s hard to tell whether that’s the case without reading the book (and no, I won’t be bothering, thanks). But it’s why I restrict my summary of a plot to one paragraph and why I’m so anti reviews that are basically a précis of the novel. That way, no one can complain that you’ve ruined their enjoyment of the story.

I’m trying to see this from both sides of the fence. Authors have sweated blood over their darling, and it obviously hurts when it’s not met with glowing praise. But, like I’ve said here before, a reviewer has a job to do – and that’s not to cheerlead for a writer. If you don’t want your work criticised, don’t publish.

Anyone who follows any sort of online media must know that there’s the potential for a minor spat to blow up into something much bigger – look at how people used Twitter to put the pressure on Amazon in the row over rankings and GLBT books. A lot of us have learned by experience not to fire off emails when you’ve got steam coming out of your ears. A few people might want to transfer that rule to Twitter and Facebook.

The online world of Twitter, Facebook, Crimespace and the like is a constant cacophony of “me, me, look at me, buy my book!” from writers who are desperate to be noticed and for their novels to sell. They’ve suddenly got all these cybertools at their disposal and many still haven’t worked out how best to use them. In the old days, probably the worst a writer could do was to get pissed at a meet and greet, or signing. Shit sticks in cyberspace.

The whole saga has shades of Anne Rice’s classic line to a reviewer about interrogating the text from the wrong perspective! What it boils down to, though, is that any writer who insults and patronises readers and reviewers is an idiot and that they’ll find both have long memories.

Rant of the week

Actually make that rant of the year. I don’t think I’ve had one yet in 2009, and this is a biggie.

 

Returns. Sale-or-return. In fact, the way (almost) the whole damn book trade is organised. No offence, Robin, I know you didn’t invent the system.

 

But will someone please tell me who did? Who on earth had the bright idea that books, pretty well uniquely among all items which exist in a retail environment, should be sent back whence they came if they were still on the shelves after three months, with a full refund of whatever the bookseller paid for them? OK, not unique unique; I expect there are some things I don’t know about. One I do know about is newspapers, but I can see a modicum of sense in that, since they’re dead in the water after twenty-four hours. But books? It’s not as if they go out of date. Well, give or take the occasional rush-to-be-first when a celebrity dies. What's with the special treatment for one small part of the retail sector?

 

The same principle applies to returns as to my other pet rant, chain bookshops’ marketing fees. It’s a little over two years since I ranted about that, and needless to say it didn’t have the smallest effect. But nothing ever changes if nobody suggests that change might be needed.

 

What? Oh, the principle. My varied and chequered career has included a couple of forays into retailing. And as far as I could see, the basic tenet on which the system is built is this: retailer looks at the available products, makes an educated guess about what customers will want to buy, orders stock accordingly and takes various steps to make it look attractive so that potential buyers will buy it from him/her rather than the similar shop down the street. There’s a certain amount of bargaining and negotiation with suppliers to ensure everyone gets a deal they can live with, but mostly it’s the retailer’s job to make sure s/he gets it right, not the supplier’s job either to take back any overstocks or make it worth the retailer’s while to make the stuff look attractive. And if it turns out that retailer has misjudged, s/he puts it down to experience and doesn’t stock that product or that quantity again.

 

The point is, it’s a risk. A gamble. Less so in some areas than others; there will always be customers for food and some kinds of clothing, and the more sophisticated a society becomes, the more products are deemed ‘essentials’ and the fewer ‘luxuries’ – though for purposes of this rant, let’s not even get into where books fall on the essential/luxury continuum. And I could digress for hours about the way shopping has become a favourite hobby and designer outlets and out-of-town shopping centres are taking over the world, but for once I’ll resist.

 

In the book trade the risk element simply doesn’t exist. The retailer can order whatever titles he/she takes a fancy to, safe in the knowledge that standard trade practice allows those titles to go back to the publisher (or wholesaler or distributor) for a full refund if they don’t fly off the shelves. Ask the perfectly logical question why books and so few other products? and the answer is a blank look and that’s how it’s always been. Which is really no answer at all.

 

I’ve often found that digging around the history and origins of strange or anomalous quirks of behaviour reveals a certain logic at a certain point in time. For instance, I once heard of an order of nuns based in northern Europe who always wear thick cloaks to celebrate mass – which made perfect sense a hundred years ago, when churches weren’t heated, and has now become part of their tradition, even though they swelter in the central heating. No doubt someone will be able to tell me how it came about that the book trade danced to a different tune from the rest of the retail sector.

 

But why, exactly, is it still the case? It doesn’t make sense any more. Booksellers need publishers every bit as much as publishers need booksellers; it would be hard to find a more symbiotic relationship. The sale-or-return system skews the balance of power a long way in the bookseller’s favour, and it’s small publishers, the ones who take a flier on something fresh and original and need to sell the print run to break even, who suffer as a result. The big ones with budgets for a cushion of celebrity biographies, cookbooks, TV tie-ins, whatever’s ‘sexy’ this year, simply factor the returns into their annual costings. 

 

The problem, of course, is that that is how it’s always been. Sale-or-return is part of the structure of the book trade, and such a huge change in that structure would have to be managed with immense care and skill to keep the entire system from imploding.

 

But see above: change doesn’t happen unless someone suggests it’s needed.

 

So I’m suggesting it’s needed.

 

OK. Someone tell me I’m wrong. And why.

Red Belly. Green Hair. And Freedom.

 

By Barbara Poelle

Ahh, summertime. And the living is easy. Unless you’re in publishing this summer, then the living is endless hours of bingeing and cutting. But that doesn’t make as nice a song.

When I was just a little Shark, June through August was easy livin’!  Summer was for campfires and hiking boots, ice cream cake and sun tea, bronze skin and green hair.

Yes, I looked like some sort of novelty pencil top troll during the summer because blonde hair turns bright green with prolonged chlorine exposure. And prolonged expose I did. The moment the sun came up to the moment it dipped behind Mrs. Studie’s house, I spent every waking minute in the backyard, swimming. I would call over KelC, King-Thing, and Spaghetti and we would crank up the New Kids on the Block and hang tough in the summer sun.  But when the three of them would pull themselves out, dangling their legs and drinking Diet Cokes on ice, I was still doing handstands in the shallow end, diving for rings and sticks in the deep end, and begging them to come back in and play; I was never done swimming.

Are you there with me? Think 13 years old. Think the year before bikinis and boy’s phone numbers.  The year before varsity and calculus.  Can you hear NKOTB with their tinny croon on the boom box? Can you hear the dog bark at a passing car, a bird call to its mate, a distant plane passing over head? Can you be there?

Now cut to the sound of the house door swinging shut on the porch.  Hear Jordan Knight cut off mid-falsetto. Hear the heavy click of a tape being changed. Hear Axl.

Welcome to the Jungle.

When the screen door slides open, the squeak slicing the air like a trumpet blast announcing royalty, you’ll need a second. You will think to yourself, how do I process this? How do I describe what I am seeing?  I’ll help you: What you are seeing is the result of an evening back in college when Reese Witherspoon and Aphrodite got drunk and let things go too far. Yes, this is their love child. No, go ahead and stare. I know, trust me. I grew up 3 years behind this.  The thick blonde hair, the spattering of freckles across the bridge of the nose that only romance heroines have, the blue and green checked bikini, simultaneously demure and filthy. Yes, yes, drink it in. I’ll wait.

You will notice that KelC has been struck dumb mid-sentence, King-Thing powers down the rest of her coke without taking a breath, and Spaghetti is just open mouthed gaping. They’ll be okay, they’ve seen it before. It just takes a second. What you are seeing pour herself onto a lounge chair and pick up reading material (maybe Cosmo, maybe Skeleton Crew), is my older sister. For reference purposes we will use the name the Underground French Mafia uses when tracking her whereabouts: Le Bink.  (The Underground French Mafia, much like the kingdoms of Florin and Guilder, have to keep tabs on the most beautiful women in the world. I don’t know why, I am not in the UFM. Or from Florin or Guilder.)

Cut to everybody’s favorite Shark, flopping in the shallows, spotting someone dry and fresh; someone to plaaaaaay.  

“Le Bink! Le Bink! Wanna play paddle ball?”

Le Bink has adjusted her tortoise shell sunglasses and picked up her magazine, the pages sounding like gunshots as they turn.

“No.” Flip.

“Le Bink, Le Bink, wanna dive for sticks?”

“No.” Flip

“Le Bink, Le Bink, wanna play Monkey See Monkey Do?”

“No.” Flip.

“Le Bink, Le Bink, wanna play Jump or Dive?”

Pause. Slow grin.

“Alright.”

Okay, now remember that scene in Braveheart when William Wallace is like, “No, guys, it’s okay; I am just going to talk to him, nothing bad will happen.” And his bekilted buddies are like, “Dude, don’t do it, remember last time when you said nothing bad was gonna happen and they played canasta with your innards?” (Yeah, I totally slid “bekilted” in there. I am feeling good about that.) Along the pool edge, KelC, Spaghetti and King-Thing suddenly start to murmur and burr to each other, this Scottish Trio has been here with me before.

See, Jump or Dive’s inventors (uh, and competitors) are not the sharpest knives on the tree. Basically I launch myself into the air and at the apex of my upwards arc, Le Bink will call out either “Jump” or “Dive” and I have .07 seconds to rearrange all of my limbs to allow for the according end of my body, either feet or head, to enter the water first.

So it begins. I thump towards the end of the board and launch myself up into space. I just know Le Bink is going to start out with the big guns in order to get me to leave her alone, so I already begin to pike my body into dive position mid-air.

“Jump!” she calls, ohdearGod I misjudged! Heaving my spine back as if I have run into a low slung limbo pole, I overcompensate and back-flop hard onto the surface of the water. I come up sputtering and the Scottish trio is clucking and shaking their heads, while Le Bink flinches and “ooohs” over the top of her magazine.

“I’m okay, I’m okay, I ‘m ready…” I say as I heave myself up the ladder out of the deep end. My size sevens slap rapidly against the gritty surface of the board, and once again I am in space. I know that she is going to say ‘Dive’ because she thinks that I think she is going to say “Jump”. So again, I am already head to knees on my upward arc.

“Jump!” she calls and ohthehumanity, pull up Goose, Pull UP! but I just can’t get there and I hit the water in a perfect sitting position, the slap on my rump worthy of the one I deserved (but never got ha-HA!) for outlining the flowers on the kitchen wallpaper in blue ink.

This continues, me attempting to predetermine what it is Le Bink wants to see, launching limbs and extremities into the fray, only to emerge, sputtering and baffled, to the surface. After a particularly spectacular miscalculation where I may or may not have dislocated seven out of ten toes, the Scotsmen are practically keening. Even Le Bink is looking a little green around the gills.

But I willna surrender!

My arms, splotched and shaking like raspberry jello (which my mom has already called out that she is making for a snack for all of us) lift my shivery corpse up the ladder. I cross to the board. Spaghetti has found some bagpipes and their mournful tone fill the air. King-Thing clutches her kilt, white knuckled and pale faced. KelC is keening, “Mercy! Just cry out Mercy!”

My feet step to the board, chlorine teardrops falling in slow motion from the curve of my ankle bone. Forty yards away, Le Bink narrows her eyes. I am exhausted, but as I start the sprint to the end of the board and launch myself into the air, I know.

 I KNOW.

 She is going to call Jump.

I leave my feet beneath me, my spine straight, my dignity rising with me as I arc through the air.

“Dive!” she yells.

I give it everything I have. I jackknife as if snapped in two. Instead, I end up beautifully parallel to the water’s surface.

Belly down.  

Now, I have never been thrown through a plate glass window (though for goodness sakes I came awful close once and I might of kinda deserved it) but I would imagine that it would be a similar feeling to what I experienced that day. I feel like I hit and then the surface tension just held me for a quiet, achingly beautiful moment and then the water just kind of folded me into its arms, submerging me, like that fat woman who used to over-hug me at the racquetball club. The impact itself was like being bitch-slapped by Poseidon. I would have thrown up in my mouth except for the fact that my lower intestine had already launched itself up my esophageal tract and lodged against my uvula.

The bagpipes blew one final note as I sunk to Davy Jones’s locker. And then I was up at the surface, gasping and heaving, as the Scotsmen just shook their heads and left the scene slowly, off to mourn.

 And to eat raspberry jello.

And this, my dear friends, is what you are doing when you write what you think I want to see and not what is organically you. No matter how much you think you know what I am going to look for, or say, or want to add to my list, you can’t dive when you are in jump position. Stop trying to turn that historical fiction into a thriller. Don’t put the dog in the YA.  You cannot wait for me to call out what I want, you have to throw yourself into your choices for genre and character and execution wholeheartedly and if we connect great, if not, that’s okay too; you’ll find someone you will connect with. Launch it into the air and own it all the way down.

Although who am I kidding. Twenty years later and still…this August? Break out the haggis, it’s on.

 But this year, I KNOW she thinks that I think she is going to say Dive, so I will Jump. Unless she is thinking that I am thinking that she is thinking Dive, and knows I will Jump…then I should Dive.

So I can clearly not choose the wine in front of me….   

 

 

Broadway! Television! Movies!

Jeff Cohen

Well, it won't make the Playbill, but I'll be making my Broadway debut on Tuesday, July 14: I'll be moderating a "Talkback Tuesday" discussion after the evening's performance of Alfred Hitchcock's The 39 Steps at the Helen Hayes Theatre on Broadway (okay, W. 44th St., but it counts). I'll come out on the stage (yikes!), vamp (double yikes!) for a few minutes while the actors change into street clothes, and then ask them questions about the show, Hitchcock and comedy. We'll take questions from the audience, and everybody will be out and looking for a cab by 9:30. 

I've gotta say, I'm pretty excited. If the Tony nominating committee has a "best after-show host guy" category, I'm stuffing some ballot boxes!

Which brings us to the expansion, this week, of the Best Picture category for the Academy Awards. So now it's 10 nominated films? Can you think of 10 films you saw last year that could legitimately have been considered the best of the year? I think the five that were nominated were a stretch!

In a clear attempt to increase the show's TV audience, the Academy has decided to double up on its nominations in this one category. Are we really supposed to think that means things like Star Trek and Up (which actually was the best movie I've seen so far this year) have a chance? That the voters won't still go for some pretentious load of crap in which a movie star pretends to be a Nazi or have some debilitating illness? That if there had been five other nominees last year, Slumdog Millionaire (which actually was a very good movie) wouldn't have won? How stupid do they think we are? Never mind, I just remembered: very stupid.

But exciting as the Broadway news was (and silly as the Oscar news might prove to be), it wasn't the best thing that happened around here last week. That occurred last night,when my son got his first on-screen credit on a national television program.

At the end of the Nick News Special Report: Webstars--The Kids Behind the Hits, comes a list of credits including, "Story Consultant, Josh Cohen." Now, that's something.

Josh pitched the idea of the show when he was an intern at Lucky Duck Productions (Linda Ellerbee's production company) last summer. And was at college when it was accepted by Nickelodeon, so he couldn't actively participate in its production (although he did communicate with those who were, and helped with the odd question here or there). 

It wasn't a paid internship--as Linda says, "we pay in credits." But that was a pretty big reward. For a film student, having your name on screen is a serious boost. It will look very good on a resume. 

From his dad's viewpoint, it's something I wanted for myself until I started writing books. And I couldn't be prouder. Good for you, Josh.

One last piece: Kudos to the organizers of Deadly Ink, New Jersey's only mystery convention. It was a pleasure to serve as the toastmaster this year, and meeting Lincoln Child, interviewing him and introducing him at the banquet only made it that much more difficult to resent him, even if he is a New York Times bestselling author. He and his family are lovely people. I'll just have to concentrate on some other incredibly successful author, and feel that he or she stole the fantastic career that should be mine.

Cover impressions

Once upon a time, I didn't know who David Lynch was.

Well, more accurately, I knew who he was, but I hadn't seen any of his oeuvre. I remember being in elementary school, coming home for the day and going to my across-the-street neighbors, the Fays, to be babysat until my dad got home from work. Mr. Fay  would watch Twin Peaks in the living room, and when he did that, we kids would have to go play outside or upstairs.

So I had a childhood impression of David Lynch as being inappropriate for my delicate, little girl sensibilities. And I remember overhearing something about a lady who carried around a log, so I had an impression that it was inappropriate AND weird.

(To this day, I've still never seen Twin Peaks. I should probably put it on my Netflix or something.)

In any case, when I was in college, I was presented with an opportunity to see Mulholland Drive in the theater. I think I was maybe a sophomore, or thereabouts. My best friend had invited me to take a train into NYC and head to some arthouse theater to see it with a couple of non-college friends of hers. I didn't know anything about the movie, other than it was a David Lynch film, and my knowledge of his work was, as outlined above, that it was inappropriate for kids and probably weird.

I'd glanced at the poster:

... and that was pretty much all I was going on. And from the poster, I gleaned this impression:

"Ok, it's some noir thing. It's set in California. It's got Jennifer Jason Leigh. I like her, I like noir, I'll like this."

Obviously I'd only *glanced* at the poster, because that is not Jennifer Jason Leigh. But I think I can be forgiven, judging from that image, for assuming it to be noir-ish. It kinda looks noir-ish, right?

Well anyway, fast forward to us seeing the movie. It was ... confusing, at best. There was an actress, and a dead woman, and a mysterious box, and some tiny, mean elderly people. And one of my favorite Roy Orbison songs, sung beautifully and mysteriously by this gorgeous woman.

When it was all over, my bff, her friends, and I sat in bewilderment, not sure what the heck we had just witnessed. And after a few minutes, we got up to leave, and we noticed that the other twenty-odd people in the theater had the same expressions that we did: "wtf?" face. I said something to one of those other filmgoers as we walked up the aisle, and pretty soon everyone joined in and we had an impromptu forum, discussing the movie and our various (but all confused) reactions.

It was pretty amazing; a bunch of people standing around, inspired by a movie to strike up a conversation and compare notes with strangers. I'm very glad for that experience, and becuase of it, I will always appreciate David Lynch. But I still don't know what I thought of the movie. I've watched it again, since then, trying to put together the narrative, but it eludes me.

But I'm not here to talk about my lack of understanding of Mulholland Drive. There are entire websites dedicated to figuring that movie out.

Where I'm going with this post, and thank you for sticking with me, is my expectation of the movie, based solely on the poster. It reminds me that often, readers see a book cover, and if they don't know the author or the publisher, they make assumptions about the content of the book based on the imagery presented to them.

At Bleak House, we try to create beautiful, appealing covers which will tempt a reader into picking the book up, while at the same time representing the tone and theme of the text within. I think, for the most part, we succeed.

Have you ever picked up a book and found that the cover belied its contents? Were you upset -- expecting one thing and given another? -- or were you grateful, since you may not have read the book had it not looked the way it did, but you were glad to try something outside your norm?

p.s. Stay tuned, blog readers. I have a *huge* announcement to make, but I can't make it until next Sunday. But it's gonna be big. And awesome. And I'm really excited. Turns out the future might not be so bleak, after all ...

Good PR & Bad PR

Robin Agnew

Every day, it seems, we get all kinds of promotional items from authors, ranging from chapstick (thank you, Hank Phillipi Ryan - our book club will LOVE these!) to bookmarks to postcards to small posters and bound book excerpts.  A book club favorite (not sure why) were squeezy things in the shape of books sent by PJ Parrish.  Another popular iten: "Monk" handwipes, sent by A & E at the start of the second year of the series.  Those, while cool, were unnecessary.  I don't think I have a customer who doesn't watch "Monk".

Anyway, today, I got a very attractive postcard in the mail touting a new book.  The front had a beautiful photograph (which I am assuming is the book cover) and the back, a short description of the book.  I admit, these cards don't always catch my attention, but sometimes they do, and this one did.  But, this fledgling author had made a major mistake - she didn't nclude publisher info or a release date.  Now, this is something I can easily look up, but it's a goofy thing to leave off of your promotional postcard.

On our front counter are bookmarks sent or brought by various authors, and a very nice one was brought in by author Jane Cleland who visited in May.  Jane may be one of the best promotional marketers on the planet, and her bookmark is a little lesson in how to do it right.  Here's a breakdown:

1.  This is a beautiful, full color bookmark on nice cardstock.  Points for this.

2.  It has the cover of her latest book, which is also quite lovely.  More points.

3.  It includes publisher info (and their logo) and the ISBN.  Thank you, Jane.

4.  On the bottom, she gives you a little something - a chance to try out an antiques appraisal on her website (her series is about an antiques appraiser).  And next to this is the all important word "free".  People absolutely love this word.  Plus, she has now imparted her web address in a painless manner.

5.  On the back is a chronological list of all her books (ISBNs included), as well as her e-mail address and phone number (I'm not sure the phone number is necessary, but OK).

6.  Less necessary but never the less key are review blurbs - most of my customers would probably hone in on the ones by Donna Andrews and Margaret Maron, names they recognize and enjoy.

So, in conclusion, this is a tiny, portable crash course on why a Jane Cleland novel might be fun to read - a little GPS in it's own way.  If you take the bookmark (hopefully along with one of Jane's books) you'll also have a guide to what's next.

No matter what, bookselling is difficult - but this kind of thing can give you a leg up.  Just try and remember your publisher's name (I'll never forget the author who went rhrough her whole speil and then at the end said, "Oh, yeah, this is from Random House - they told me to mention that!")  Hopefully some lessons are so obvious they don't need to be learned, but then again, you never know.