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

Children’s classics

Sharon Wheeler

You know me, any excuse to start compiling a list. So this week’s choice of classic children's books selected by five top writers has given me an excuse I certainly don’t need to go and yank kids’ books off the shelf and start re-reading and muttering and scribbling half-remembered names and titles down on the back of an envelope.

So here’s what I remember from when I was little. Arthur Ransome’s books were peopled by smug little middle-class gits and I lost the will to live after Swallows and Amazons and Swallowdale. Enid Blyton’s Secret Seven were boring wimps, but I devoured the adventures of the Famous Five and the Five Find-Outers. Malcolm Saville hardly gets mentioned now, though he wrote cracking adventure stories and the thought of a scene in Rye Royal still gives me the creeps, 30-something years on!

I lapped up the horsey books by the Pullein-Thompson sisters, although the nearest I got to the saddle was riding a placid donkey called Flash round the stable block at Stratford-upon-Avon racecourse. And I adored school stories – Blyton again with her Mallory Towers books, the Chalet School series by Elinor Brent-Dyer (any girl of a certain age who tells you she never read them is a fibber!) and Anthony Buckeridge’s hilarious Jennings series, which pre-dated JK Rowling by a good 50 years.

I’m glad to see, though, that Michael Morpurgo nominated something by Blyton. Of course she’s un-PC if you apply 21st century values to the book (so were Captain WE Johns’s Biggles stories, but they were damn good yarns). Blyton could tell a thoroughly engrossing story – as can Rowling, who doesn’t appear on the lists.

I reckon I’ve read more children’s books since I’ve allegedly grown up that I did when I was in the age range. I swiped my dad’s adult library ticket at the age of about 11 and proceeded to run through Cheltenham library’s stock of Agatha Christie, Dick Francis and Jean Plaidy. The less said about how I got hold of copies of The Godfather and Valley of the Dolls, the better …

My late friend and mentor Joan Martin, a former schoolteacher, provided me with a list of ‘must read’ children’s books about ten years ago. That’s how I discovered Susan Cooper and Diana Wynne Jones, amongst others.

Half the fun of these sorts of lists is deciding what you’d have chosen had the call come. So here’s mine, in no particular order:

1. His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman
2. A Traveller in Time by Alison Uttley (every time I hear Greensleeves I think of this book).
3. The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper (forget the terrible American film and read the original books!)
4. Tom's Midnight Garden by Philippa Pearce
5. Pennington’s Seventeenth Summer by KM Peyton (this series would probably seem dated to today’s teenagers, but it seemed edgy to me in my early teens. Peyton’s Flambards series is also fabulous and spawned an impressive TV version).
6. The Silver Sword by Ian Serraillier
7. Cue for Treason by Geoffrey Trease (I think this book started my fascination with Shakespeare and the theatre).

For a lot of these, I have an inspirational teacher to thank. Mrs Wanless taught us English when we started at secondary school and she seemed to know instinctively which books would keep stroppy 11-year-girls hooked.

So my reserve list could easily include Cynthia Harnet’s The Wool Pack (we got taken to Witney to see the carvings in the church commemorating the wool trade), Rosemary Sutcliff’s Eagle of the Ninth which captures Roman Britain better than many adult books, Alan Garner’s truly creepy The Owl Service, TH White’s Mistress Masham's Repose, E Nesbit’s The Railway Children (even if my abiding memory is the film version with Jenny Agutter waving her red knickers at the train!), Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden and Carrie’s War by Nina Bawden.

OK, so who have I forgotten?

Ready, steady...

Lynne Patrick

Sometimes I feel as if I stepped on a treadmill a few months ago and can’t figure out how to stop the damn thing. Don’t get me wrong; I love what I do and can’t imagine not doing it. But anyone who runs their own show will tell you they have the toughest boss in the world, and people who think being self-employed means you can take days or weeks off when the mood grabs you simply don’t understand the situation. Juggling and plate-spinning are analogies I’ve worked to death. Time off has to be carefully planned for, threaded in between deadlines.

 

But later today – just as soon as I’ve clicked the mouse enough times to get this post out to where people can read it – I get to stop for three whole days. We’ll throw a bag in the boot of the car, jump into the front seats, take off into the mid-morning sun (or more likely drizzle) and head for a small hotel in a town in mid-Wales that hardly anyone has heard of and only the natives can pronounce.

 

We were supposed to go last week, but husband sprang a virus which made him feel dog-rough and made him cough in a way which would not have endeared him to fellow guests. Fortunately there was a gap in the diary this week as well (though it does seem to have filled up in the past 24 hours). Even more fortunately, the guys who run the small hotel are understanding and flexible, and changed the reservation with not a hint of an exasperated sigh.

 

We spent a few days there a couple of years ago, and it was a delight. The bedrooms are comfortable, the lounge is like somebody’s living room and dinner is for residents only. There’s no menu; Roy, the chef, cooks a five-course dinner constructed around the likes and dislikes of that night’s guests, requested and recorded when you make the booking. So I can be certain I won’t be faced with tuna, coconut or rare roast beef; and chances are high there’ll be chocolate in there somewhere.

 

Here in Derbyshire, where I’ve lived for the past mptymumble years, one of the little bits of linguistic shorthand which marks out five-generation locals from us incomers is a phrase which usually comes out on a Friday afternoon, when the end of the working week is in sight. “I’m ready!” they say, meaning, “I’ve had enough of this office/factory/warehouse/building site for the time being, and I need to walk away from it for a while. Give me a couple of days and I’ll be back with renewed energy, but for the moment I just need to stop.”

 

Forgive the brevity of this post. My excuse is that I’m ready. I’m really, really ready.

The Friendly Skies

by Barbara Poelle

So Husband and I were in Minnesota over the weekend to attend a book launch for my client (have you picked up your copy of Purge: Rehab Diaries yet?) as well as to make a grand appearance at the to-do for the 40^th wedding anniversary of my parents- just a quick weekend jaunt, we thought. What could be easier? Well….

On Sunday night we had a layover in Wisconsin, but our flight out of Minneapolis was delayed by three hours. One of these hours was spent strapped in, locked and loaded, on the tarmac. They turned off the engines to conserve fuel which was fine as it ensured that the only ambiance was provided by two drunken nasally ‘Sconnie moms (they weren’t ‘Sotes, we natives can tell, it’s in the nuance of the fricatives) who apparently never get out of the house except to accompany their daughters’ volleyball team on away games who chose to spend that last hour prank calling their ‘Sconnie Mom friends and pretending to be a Chinese takeout restaurant worker over and over and over while hiccupping and giggling. At one point a young teenage voice behind me said, “Is that your mom and Mrs. Harris?” And the response was a humiliated, “They had some margaritas at the airport.” 

I think “some” means seven.

So four hours later we arrive in Milwaukee, but of course we had long since missed our connection and apparently since the Great Vampiric Outbreak of Aught 3, all of the air traffic from Milwaukee stops at 9:58 pm. (The only REASON I can think that in this, the new Millennium, any major airport would only completely close down at 10pm is because of all the vampires getting sucked into the jet engines at night, because otherwise for the love of Gene Wilder WHY are there no flights after 10 pm?) So at the gate, the customer service rep for the airline gives us boarding passes for 7:45 a.m. without batting an eye. I say, “And what accommodations will you be providing for us?” and she proceeded to tell me that “Well, because the delay was due to weather the airline was not responsible….”

Okay. Many sharks have what is known as a nictitating membrane, which is an eyelid that closes during predation to protect the retina from the flailings of prey. That magnificent animal known as the great white shark does NOT have a nictitating membrane. Instead, that sweet pumpkin has the capacity to roll his eyeballs back under the true eyelid which gives him that white-eye or dead-eye look that they are so famous for. 

I also do not have a nictitating membrane. So when my eyes rolled back and went dead and still and black, the nice lady at the airline counter handed over a discount hotel voucher and called the shuttle to come pick us up immediately.

So Husband and I spend a restless six hours in a hotel room somewhere in Milwaukee, and then are walking back through the front doors of the airport at 6 a.m. to see that glorious lite-brite departure board and all of its lovely times and gates and flight numbers. And one tiny “cancelled” next to a flight.

Our flight.

Which explains why the ticketing area looks like the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.

So I let loose with a delightful string of obscenities which may still be hanging over Lake Michigan now, and also causes a young woman to move to the other side of the terminal while casting horrified looks over her shoulder. So we get into the snaking line and when we finally arrive at the ticket counter, I ask the Sally Struthers Doppelganger what the issue is and here, friends and countrymen, is where we get to the whole point of my tale. When asked about the problem with the plane, Sally responds:

“It got struck by light-nin and it don’t work no more.”

It. Got. Struck. By. Light-nin. And. It. Don’t. Work. No. More.

I just don’t have it in me to type any more than that.  Except to say, everyone, please, treat yourself to a copy of Eats, Shoots and Leaves by Lynne Truss. You’ll thank me for it.

 

Ps Also, OMG, did you know that you can spell cancelled like cancelled AND like canceled? Somebody should straighten THAT one out before a fistfight breaks out in an airport or something.

 

 

 

Doesn't Seem That Long Ago

Jeff Cohen

It was twenty-two years ago yesterday.

I woke up in a room I was sharing with my brother at the New Brunswick Hilton (actually in East Brunswick), and I didn't want to eat (that might have been the last time that particular fact was true). But we went to the hotel's brunch, which I'm sure cost my brother a small fortune, and I might have had a bagel or something.

Not long after noon, I got into the suit I'd bought for the occasion (also something of a rarity since), and I remember being irritated as my brother tried valiantly to pin a boutonniere onto my jacket. There might even be a picture of him trying to pin it on, and me looking irritated. Why I didn't just take off the jacket and let him take care of it puzzles me to this day.

We got into my car, which I think was still the 1984 Renault Alliance that was my first new car, and drove from the Hyatt to the Wood Lawn mansion (home of the Eagleton Institute of Politics) on the Douglass College campus of Rutgers University, maybe a two-mile drive. I don't remember anything about it.

We met Jessica at the mansion, but she was getting all fixed up, and I think I actually did pass by while she was getting her hair together, but we're not superstitious. 

Right around three, I took her hand and we walked out of the building onto the back lawn. Jess was wearing a while lacy number with a huge bow on the back that made her look like the best present a man could ever receive, which was true. We stood near a tree, but the sun--which had decided at noon to make its first appearance in a week--was right in my eyes, so all the pictures have me looking like a slightly more Jewish Popeye the Sailor.

We stood under a prayer shawl (a talles for you Gentiles), held up by our tallest friends, including my best buddy Jeff Pollitzer, with whom my son Josh and I will see the new Star Trek movie the end of next week. But I digress.

A very impressive rabbi named Andre Unger, who had been forced to leave South Africa due to his anti-Apartheid statements, presided, and I remember being very impressed, and now wish we'd had a video camera going the whole time. But it was 1987, and video cameras were still a new idea for we common folk. A pity.

He asked me a very long question, and then paused. I thought there was going to be more of the question, so I waited, and got an unintentional laugh from the crowd of relatives and friends. Finally, I realized what he was asking.

"I do," I told him.

He asked Jess the question next, but she'd heard it already, so she knew when to answer. 

"Yes," she said.

I stepped (intentionally) on a glass that had been wrapped in a napkin, and the crowd applauded, as if they'd thought I couldn't smash a glass with my foot. I resisted the urge to bow.

We ate a lovely dinner, which I don't remember at all, and danced (definitely my last time at that, although my daughter insists that when/if she marries, I'll do so again) into the evening, when Jess and I hopped into the Alliance and headed for a hotel (the one "with the wishing well" noted in a vintage song), where we spent all of one night--we had friends in from out of town.

And then 22 years went by. How the hell did THAT happen?

Happy anniversary, Jessica. Thanks for marrying me.

Can you handle the truth? (Can I handle telling it?!)

"The best things in life are free/but you can give them to the birds and bees/I want money."*

I'm a big fan of transparency. I believe that systems work better when you can see inside them, understand how the work, and navigate them without large portions of the map shrouded in fog.

So I was super excited to read Lynn Viehl's blog entry, in which she discusses (and posts!) her royalty statement for Twilight Fall, her latest novel and the first to hit the NYT mass market bestseller list.

(I feel a little late to this party, Lynn's post has been making the blog rounds this past week, so apologies if I'm bringing you old news.)

I really admire Lynn's willingness to be transparent. I want to follow her great example.

So ... what do you want to know? I don't know *everything* about publishing, but I do know some. I want to tell you the truth. (After all, my name is Alison.)

Ask me a question. I'll do my best to answer you truthfully. If it gets too long for a comment, I'll carry it over to next Sunday's blog.

Ready?

Go!

* I know this has little to do with today's post, but here's how I got there. My thought process:
I totally want to link to Lynn Viehl's blog post about royalties today. Royalty statements can be so confusing and sales numbers can be so nebulous! I wonder if more authors will share their statements. I wonder if he publisher is upset about her transparency. It seems so impolite to talk about money, sometimes, but it's really great to see the cogs of the machine and dispell the 'all authors are millionaires!' myth. Ugh, I should put my rent check in the mail. Oooh, I should link to that great money song my dad used to play on cassette tape in the car, that was a great song ...

Rating the customers

by an Anonymous Bookseller

Let's start at the bottom...

The guy (or gal) who comes in and asks: "Where's your science fiction section?" (Or cooking section, or bible section, etc.)  Disbelief when they find you ONLY sell mysteries.  They even ask, to be sure: "So you ONLY sell MYSTERIES?" 

These people aren't actually customers, though.

Lookie-lous.  They appear on Friday and Saturday nights.  They are going somewhere else.  They think we are a "book museum" and usually say brightly "Thank you!" as they leave.  No, thank you!

These people are only very rarely customers.

The old lady (sorry) with a list, often a notebook, sometimes a box of index cards.  She is looking for the very specific and the very hard to find.  She has already been to the library and any other bnookstore, most often Borders.  Sometimes this customer will buy one used book, which is a very labor instensive way to take in $3.50.

So, a customer, but one with specifications.

The customer who comes in every week or so looking again for specific titles, but looking for titles by popular authors whose books turn over often - James Petterson, Lee Child, Harlan Coben, etc.  They usually buy if they see what they want but one thing they will NEVER buy is a new book.

A "regular".

The customer who is going somewhere (we live in a university town, lots of exotic travelling).  Often they want books set in specific locations.  That we can always help with.  Some extra effort but so worth it.

Again, a regular.

The customer with a list - but this is a great customer.  This customer has a volumnious list - or sometimes, a blackberry - and will buy anything they can find by the author(s) they want, usually not caring if they are new or used.  Usually there's a slight disparity between those who will buy a new book and those who stick only to used ones.  These customers often bring books in for store credit, but bless 'em, they go way past their credit amount.  If their stacks are big enough I usually mentally round their credit UP.

These are wonderful customers.

So are those who come to book signings - buying or not; those who come to book club; and those who talk to other customers in the store, making their own recommendations.  We also love people who ask: "Do you have a recommendation?"  Of course we do!

At the very tippy top is the customer who becomes an actual friend or, as is actually pretty rare, shares the same reading taste I do.  These customers bring the extra zing of happy reading fellowship, and I love to see them walk through the door, and not only for the books they buy.  May they multiply, as they are incapable of visiting a "book museum".  They can't leave without a book or three.

Happy reading!

Is It a Murder Mystery?

PJ Nunn

Chester Campbell (shown here with Libby Hellmann) is a long time friend of mine who very effectively manages the art of promoting his mysteries with a little help from his friends (and a lot of help from his wife). I've asked him to share some thoughts with us today:

Is It a Murder Mystery?

When I mention that I’m a mystery writer, the typical response is, “You write murder mysteries, huh?” Well, I write whodunits, and that’s what most people consider murder mysteries. So I suppose the answer would be yes.

 

On the other hand, my books don’t involve a detective going about the business of solving murders. That would only apply if I were writing police procedurals. Which I’m not. I write Private Eye stories.

 

Homicide detectives solve homicide cases. Private investigators don’t usually find clients looking for somebody to mess with murder except in rare circumstances, like Kinsey Milhone’s getting hired by a woman to find out who killed her mother.

 

My PIs Greg and Jill McKenzie are retained to look into a suspected homicide in The Marathon Murders, but that case was so cold it could have cracked off an iceberg. The guy was found dead in 1914. The book mostly involves a search for recently-found, and promptly disappearing, documents that might prove the long-dead victim was framed and murdered. They don’t start a serious hunt for a murderer until near the end, when they stumble onto the latest victim and are incensed at what they find.

 

Fictional PIs are occasionally hired to prove a murder suspect is innocent, and the best way to accomplish that is to track down the guilty party. But most private investigations, even in fiction, deal with less lethal criminal acts. The PI bumps into a dead guy in the living room while pursuing an insurance fraud, a domestic dispute, an embezzlement, or some other misdemeanor or felony of less magnitude.

 

Real PIs rarely get involved in murders of any sort. Unless they’re females, they probably don’t carry guns except for special occasions, like if they’re meeting someone at midnight in an abandoned warehouse. Just kidding. A friend of mine who has been a PI for 18 years says she’s only encountered one murder case during her career.

 

A typical PI’s daily routine would be rather boring to a reader, so mystery writers have to jazz it up with shootings, violence of the physical variety, tight surveillance, and other kinds of action to breed excitement. And our invented PIs have a convenient habit of stumbling over dead bodies.

 

Fictional private investigators come with a conglomeration of talents. Some are good at forensics, some are excellent interrogators, others have great powers of observation and intuition. A few are drawn to corpses like flies. Some of them relish getting into fights with the bad guys.

 

Regardless of who might be the protag, the great debate among writers and agents and editors is how soon in the story should we encounter a body? The question presupposes that in every mystery we’re going to deal with murder.

 

In my newest book, The Surest Poison, a murder occurs in the first chapter, but my PI isn’t concerned when he hears about it. He’s preoccupied with what he’s been hired to do, track down who is responsible for a massive toxic chemical dump behind a small plant. A second murder gets his attention because the victim was on his list of people to question about the pollution. He provides a little input to the homicide detective on the case, but he doesn’t actively pursue the killer until near the end.

 

So the question remains, is it a murder mystery, or a mystery with murders?

 

Leave a comment on Chester’s post and your name will be included in a drawing for his books. To see details, including prizes, follow this link (http://bit.ly/8F7eK) to the Blog Tour Page at Chester’s website.

Till next time,

Why the kids aren’t all right

Sharon Wheeler

I don’t particularly think policemen look young these days – but the same can’t be said for the stars of TV shows.

Regular visitors to Dead Guy Towers will know that I have a soft spot for ITV science fiction show Primeval. It features a motley bunch of scientists, geeks and civil servants trying to discover the secret behind anomalies (rips in time which are allowing dinosaurs and sundry scary creatures through).

It’s one of those shows where you don’t want to start picking holes in the plot, or it’ll do an impersonation of a loose hem and fall down when you’re trying to look suave and sophisticated. It is what it is . . . escapist Saturday night TV which appeals as much to my nine-year-old nephew as it does to me.

One thing you learn early on with Primeval is that you don’t want to get attached to your favourite characters, as they’ll all get bumped off. And series three has taken the show in such a weirdly different direction that it bears little resemblance to the previous two series (mind you, I remain to be convinced that bad writing isn’t to blame for some of this …)

And they appear to be aiming at the younger audience this time, with the focus shifting to the UST between cute 20-somethings Abby and Connor. Even the Special Forces army captain looks like he hasn’t started shaving yet (and I have it on the best authority that 25 is too young to be in that position of responsibility).

One of the reasons I gave up on the totally ghastly Demons after 20 minutes was that I had no interest in seeing these young kids running around with their tops off (well, OK, Philip Glenister’s wandering American accent didn’t much help).

And I can see myself drifting away from Dr Who as well, following the casting of Matt Smith in the main role. I had great fun joining in the speculation beforehand and would quite happily have seen either Robert Carlyle or Paterson Joseph get the lead part. But with Nu Who, the reincarnations seem to be knocking ten years off their ages each time, like coy movie leading ladies, with 40-something Christopher Eccleston becoming 30-something David Tennant who at the end of the this year will turn into 20-something Smith.

A friend of mine said briskly: “Those of us over 40 aren’t Dr Who’s target audience.” And we’re probably not Primeval’s either. But if a show’s being marketed as a family one, then the writers need to bear in mind that the older end of the market want to see characters they recognise. And it’s certainly the adults who’ll stick with a show they enjoy, unlike the fickle and wandering youth market. After all, they make up Who’s dedicated fan market who lobbied so hard and so long for the show to come back. Writer Russell T Davies and his successor Steven Moffat are both 40-something fanboys as well. Presumably the casting director isn’t …

Hey ho, come to the Fair

The strangest part was being accosted by a six-foot white rabbit as I waited for my 3.30 appointment. Has someone done a rework of Harvey? I asked myself, since everyone around me looked as bemused as I felt. The rabbit itself maintained a diplomatic silence and went right on handing out flyers.

 

Then there was the drumming. That began at about 5pm, and I think it was connected to the troupe of glamorous, and teeth-clenchingly thin, girls in red satin who sashayed up and down the aisles flinging out leaflets about Bollywood.

 

Yes, folks, the London Book Fair is upon us once more. It began on Monday and runs till close of play today, with all the high-profile deals and signings, look-at-me displays and razzmatazz I’ve learned to expect.

 

For the likes of me it’s mainly a way of touching base with people who for most of the year are names at the top of an e-mail. The personal touch still counts for something, and sitting at a computer all day most days does have a way of making you crave human contact. Not that I lead a completely solitary life, you understand; but sometimes it’s good to remember that those electronic addresses are real people with faces and voices.

 

But the London Book Fair is more than a meeting place and a talking shop. It’s an experience. 

 

Where else can you see the Bookspresso machine in action? Yeah, OK, a dozen places in north America if you know where to look, and somewhere in Egypt and Australia as well, but here in good old Blighty it exists in one bookshop. And not even there until June. But it was at the London Book Fair. I didn’t actually see it produce a book, though I expect I could have if I hadn’t been rushing to another appointment. But I did get to handle one it made earlier – and whaddyaknow, folks, it looked just like a real book. Which, I suppose, is pretty much the whole point.

 

I didn’t get to see an Amazon Kindle or a Sony e-reader first hand, though e-books were very much on the agenda, not to mention everyone’s lips. Five out of the six people I had meetings with brought the subject up, with varying degrees of enthusiasm and scepticism. I have an awful feeling it’s a subject I’ll have to address at some point in the fairly near future, laying aside my natural aversion to all things technological, if only to make sure I stay up to date on the copyright situation. Not that that will prevent my authors and me being ripped off by cyber-cleverclogses who know how to lift the files from wherever they’re stored without benefit of credit card.

 

And on the subject of being ripped off: am I alone in wondering how a cheese salad sandwich can cost £4.75 inside the exhibition hall when an almost identical sandwich is £2.30 in a shop a few minutes walk away? Or a bottle of water can cost half as much again as at the newsstand outside the Underground station? Maybe no one else notices; even in these days of crunched credit and whatever the opposite of booming is when applied to economies, big publishing companies (and printers and distributors and wholesalers agents and Uncle Tom Cobbleigh and the rest of the extravaganza which makes up the Fair) can still afford expense accounts or they wouldn’t be there. Chance would be a fine thing. For us the train fare’s a stretch.

 

But I’m not complaining. Well, not much. I didn’t buy an overpriced sandwich anyway. I did talk to some people, visit a few stands, pick up a brochure or two. I didn’t cut any major six figure rights deals. But I had the experience.

Lest Ye Be Judged...

By Barbara Poelle

 

Last year I judged a contest as an anonymous expert. Now there is only one thing in this lifetime you should distrust more than flan, and that is an anonymous expert. However, in this case, I was revealed after the results, so people could spell my name correctly when they added me to their list of People To Kill.

 

(Come on. You know you have one. I have one. It is on the side of our refrigerator facing the wall because Husband says “people may find it distasteful”.  I am like, “When is Fat Guy In Yellow Camry ever going to drop by and be offended?”

 

You know who you are, Fat Guy. And you know what you did.

 

You. Know. What. You. Did.)

 

But I digress. The rules of the contest were for unpublished authors, the first 250 words, give or take. That’s a toughie, ain’t it? I mean go back and check out the first paragraphs of some of your early works. Brutal. But I can at least get an idea of what isn’t working, and more often than not, I end up requested more if there is at least a hint of something happening in the first few paragraphs, so it’s good for everyone.

 

Anyway, so after it was done I wrote an open letter to the contest participants. I have since paraphrased and cannibalized this letter on many occasions, but I think I am due for an overall holler out to everyone. See, I am really behind on my submissions. I have hired a wonderful intern for the summer, but my intern doesn’t read my slush, I read all of my initial queries. She will be responsible for fanning me with a large palm frond and telling me my hair looks nice. Maybe I’ll have her file something from time to time, but not if it impedes the fanning. So I really don’t see me getting my head above the waterline anytime soon. But I am trying. I promise.

 

Regardless, I am overdue giving the props to the authors out there. So here it is:

 

Authors,

 

Thank you for being so incredibly brave. Sending only 250 words in is like I’ve asked you to see a picture of your child, but only her elbow.

 

This is a wildly subjective business and for as many times as you have been rejected, multiply x clients with y editors each and know that I have been beaten with the no thank you stick quite a bit myself.

 

Once my identity is revealed there may be a flurry of googling, and much rolling of eyes and harrumphing (“no wonder she didn’t like mine” “I queried her last year!”  “she looks like my cousin, Fran” ) and if you compare my fiction and non-fiction sales, it appears as if I have loaded a cannon up with clients and then fired- they are as scattered in range and subject matter as could be. The identifiable trait that they all seem to have is that they understand the foundation and mechanics of writing and are able to build upon that by composing plot and character and facts that are interesting enough but accessible enough to appeal to a wider range of readers.

 

Ta-da! There you go. That’s the secret.

 

Okay, there’s a little more to it than that generally fueled by feelings of rage, mourning, ambivalence, desperation, apathy and a pinch of narcissism just for color, but overall you have to just keep refining your technique by reading and writing as much as you can in order to truly establish a solid understanding of what makes a stand out a stand out.

 

In the end, however, subjectivity is going to play a role from the first word to the first sale, and that my friends, is the real crux of it. I mean, I love mustard and pickle sandwiches. Love them. But I am not going to be able to force a mustard and pickle sandwich on a ham on rye kind of fellow, but that’s okay, cause this guy over here is perking up at the idea of one, and let me tell you, (if I ever sign you, you’ll get this) if I see an opening I am going to shove that mustard and pickle sandwich in his mouth and make him chew.

 

Hang on; I think I got away from myself there. And now I’m kind of hungry. 

 

What I am hoping that we all take away from this is that there is such a wide range of agents and editors that you can’t let one or twelve or thirty tell you you ain’t got it, kid. Keep reading what’s on the shelves. Pay attention to your technique and basic writing mechanics. And write. Write like your life depended on it.

 

Because mine does.

 

ONWARD!

 

Barbara Poelle

Beats Working For a Living

Jeff Cohen

I spent Friday night and Saturday at Murder 203, the newly minted mystery book convention in Connecticut, and got a lesson in how a small convention should be run. A great big shout-out to the whole crew in Easton, Westport and all points in between for getting a great show together in record time (this began, as far as I know, within the last six months).

I'll be doing a bit of traveling the next few weeks. Tonight, a short trip to Manalapan, NJ for a talk on Asperger's and parenting with ASPEN NJ--hope to see some pals out there--and then beginning May 1, a few miles will be put on the Prius.

First, it's Malice Domestic in Arlington, VA, for a return appearance (I didn't go last year for scheduling and financial reasons). Over 100 authors who have at least walked by a traditional mystery in the bookstore will be on hand, and many are pals I'll be glad to see (others will be pals I haven't met yet). Two panels await (more info on all this at my web site).

About fifteen minutes after Malice is over, I'll be back in the Prius heading for Oakmont, PA (about four hours as the MapQuest flies) for the Festival of Mystery, run by the Mystery Lovers Bookshop in Oakmont. It'll be my first visit, but every author I know who's been there promises a stupendous event run by people who really and truly care about books and authors. Who can argue with that?

(The day after that is the drive from Pittsburgh to Philadelphia, where my regular teaching gig will be waiting, and I'll get to see my son.)

Let's be honest, here: There is a certain amount of ego involved in being an author. If not, we'd write our little stories, show them to our friends, maybe put them in a drawer, tinker with them when we had some spare time, and the more financially needy among us (which counts as 95 percent of all authors) would try to sell the works to publishers in hopes of paying for better insulation for the refrigerator cartons we're living in. But we don't do that--we all badger agents and publishers endlessly to recognize our talent, respond to our message, and more than anything else, to help us find more readers.

We don't stay up nights worrying about story points or the perfect phrase; we pace the floor at three in the morning trying to come up with a form of self-promotion that hasn't been done before, or has been done before, but which would work. We want everyone on the planet, literally (except that one guy) to read our books. And we want everyone on the planet (even him) to love them.

Why? Because we have egos, and that's the area in which they manifest. Otherwise, we'd be successful mechanics, upholsterers, bartenders and other useful workers. 

So a convention like Murder 203 is especially sweet, because for a few hours or a couple of days, an author is treated like someone really special. And if you think we don't like that, you've never actually met an author.

The organizers had actually READ our books, and could discuss them. They placed us on panels that actually fitted our work and our personalities. They cared whether we were finding new readers and if our books were selling. And the fact that the convention was run in and by libraries added to the pleasure--who likes books better than librarians?

Naturally, it's also a blast to see pals along the way, and there were a bunch at the Connecticut con. But the real adrenaline comes with meeting new readers, and there were plenty of those, as well. I'd be happy to attend again next year (I'm told the second annual is already in the planning stages), and I hope I'm invited.

But if you happen to be in Arlington, VA from May 1-3 or in Oakmont, PA on May 4, I do hope you'll walk up and say hello. 

There really and truly isn't anything we authors like more. Well, maybe one thing, but it's best not to discuss that at conventions.

Quick fix: Tactical writing

Tactics.

Do you think about them while you write?

I certainly think about them while I read. I think about how your character's tactics differ from my own presumed tactics, were I given the same roadblocks and challenges. I think about how your main character's tactics differ from your antagonist's tactics, and what that tells me about who each of those characters are.

Way back when I was in college, studying theatre (yeah, I went to an "re" theatre-department-school), tactics were one of my favorite scene analysis tools.

Think about a scene between a parent and a toddler. The toddler wants ice cream. The mother doesn't want to give the toddler ice cream, lest he ruin his supper.

Kids are masters of tactics -- when faced with roadblocks, they don't give up, nor do they only think of one way to get around. They churn full-speed ahead until they get their way:

Toddler: Mom, may I have some ice cream?
Mom: No, honey, it'll spoil your dinner.
Toddler: No, Mom, I promise it won't.
Mom: Honey, ice cream always spoils dinners. You may not have any right now.
Toddler: What if I only had *some*, not a lot?
Mom: I said no, dear.
Toddler: But Mom, I picked up all my toys.
Mom: *sigh*
Toddler: Mom, I love you.
Mom: Ok, just one little scoop. But you'll have to eat all your vegetables later.

Toddler triumphant!

With each "no," the toddler changes his tactics to try to get to a "yes." First, just asking politely. Then promising a different result than the mother predicts. Then bargaining the original request down slightly. Then reminding the mother what a good kid he is. Then, a wildly effective tactic: profession of love!

An interesting scene with clear (and ineffective) tactics on the part of the parent is from Kramer vs. Kramer. It's one of my favorites.

Remember when you write: Your main character wants something. Your antagonist doesn't want your mc to achieve her objective. Think about how your mc can change her tactics in order to reach her goal. There may be a point where your character could choose a certain tactic, which would no doubt be effective, but may go outside her moral comfort zone. Whether or not she chooses that tactic tells the reader a great deal about your mc. How creative and resourceful she is with her tactics is one of the best show vs tell tools available to you.

Don't forget to think about tactics.

And for a brilliant, hilarious, kid-friendly master class on tactics, check out Mo Willems and his pigeon.

p.s. If you're in Madison, come hang out with me at Booked for Murder. Sean Chercover will be there. We're gonna get tacos afterwards. Come along!

Do you Twitter?

Robin Agnew

I don't Twitter, IM or text.  I use my cell phone only when I'm in the car - I turn it on so the kids or my husband can call if they need to.   I am a recent facebook joiner - but mostly because I went to my 30th high school reunion and some of the "girls" got us all going on it.  And even worse, I'm a bookseller.  Which means that I'm a dinosaur.

I had a woman come in the other day and she said she hadn't been in awhile but she was glad we were still open (a comment that's ony sort of a compliment, don't you agree?) and then she said "You know, books!  Paper!"  And then she looked around helplessly at the massive amounts of books that were all around her (luckily she bought a few of them).

So dinosuar or no, I think there's a few things that can't be done without, and books are definitely one of them.  I was thinking about other things I can't live without and came up with a pretty short list:

-good coffee. 

-good discussions.

-going to movie in a movie theater.  We dragged our kids to see "The Maltese Falcon" the other night - and my 15 year old son was pretty reluctant to see a back & white movie with no explosions - but he in fact liked it.  (One of my friends, a high school teacher, forces her students to watch a black & white movie, usually "Casablanca".  The last time she showed it one of the kids told her "Humphrey Bogart is a badass!" ) I guess my point is watching a movie on your TV or iphone or computer is hardly the same thing.

I think that's the list.  I'm thinking I can get through the recession OK as long as I have coffee, a book, and a movie theater I can walk to.  I do notice my computer isn't on there, and so I wouldn't miss any of the things I don't already do, though I do enjoy e-mail.  But apparently, that also makes me a dinosuar...my son says he just "facebooks" his friends.  I think I belong back in a black & white world!

Oh What A Beautiful Morning

 

By Barbara Poelle

This morning as I was scooping oatmeal into the coffee maker, I realized that I may not be starting my day out in exactly the right frame of mind.  So I decided to take a quick jog. At 7:20 am.  In 32 degree weather.  At one point I caught a reflection of myself in a storefront window as I lumbered by in three layers of clothing and I saw that I had the kind of hitch in my getalong that George Romero would have been proud of.  Like a bag of Barbara skin was lurching, mindless and insatiable, towards Broadway in hopes that the deli had fresh brains on sale.  I stumbled back into my apartment a few minutes before 8, and proceeded to the shower where I applied the conditioner before the shampoo.

Uhh, can I get a mulligan here?

Generally speaking, I am a morning person. I am up and yelling at the TV newscasters with a song in my heart and toothbrush in my mouth before the alarm even goes off. But if I can’t get myself started on the right note for the day I end up “chasing normal” for its entirety. And considering “normal” for me can oftentimes include food stains on my shirt and some sort of minor injury, when I am starting with a deficit, it is harder than ever to rally.

Like the first line (or lines) of a novel, my initial moments in the morning set the tone for me, and if my bells ain’t ringing after the first paragraph,  I am typing up a pass letter because otherwise it’s all percolating oatmeal from that point on. The opening of a novel is so important that I will admit sometimes I can’t read past it in the slush. Some of the common roadblocks are gigantic run-on sentences, mixed metaphors or- the death knell of many- the cliché.  (If fog is soup or the rain is coming down in sheets or the screaming is blood-curdling I am not your girl.)

On the flip side, many of my favorite books have murderously good first lines, or first paragraphs.

Take Ahab’s Wife:

Captain Ahab was neither my first husband nor my last.

Fabulous.

How about this one, can you recognize this tone?

Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four Privot Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much.

Beat the Reaper also has a wickedly delicious opening line (but if I retyped it here I would get calls from more than just my mother). THAT opener is a fantastic example of setting the tone- it just continues from there in its brutal, voicey narrative for the next several hundred pages and then when you get to the ending you find yourself verbalizing the same types of noises you would make seeing a monkey fast pitch a hamster. (I have to admit, I loved that book in all of its gratuitous glory.)

Whoops, I just checked to see if my first lines test stood up with The Stand and I just lost 27 minutes of my day as I got started reading it again.

Now I am so into this. Let’s play a fun game. See if you can match the first line with the corresponding work:

1.       Bernadette had been dead two weeks when her sisters showed up in Doyle's living room asking for the statue back.

2.       You think you know how this story is going to end, but you don't.  Trust me, I was there.  I know.

3.       My name was Salmon, like the fish; first name, Susie.  I was fourteen when I was murdered on December 6, 1973.

4.       This is my favorite book in all the world, though I have never read it.

5.       The Santa Anas blew in hot from the desert, shriveling the last of the grass into whiskers of pale straw.

Ooooh, aren’t they all wonderful? Okay, here are your choices:

A.      The Princess Bride: S. Morgenstern's Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure by William Goldman

B.      Lamb by Christopher Moore

C.      White Oleander by Janet Fitch

D.      The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold

E.       Run by Ann Patchett

 

How did you do?

The matches are: 1E; 2B; 3D; 4A; and 5,C.

There are several websites and contests dedicated to the first line of a novel and from time to time I like to sniff around them and see who’s knocking me out of the park with a fabulous, fresh opener. It’s also a great exercise to get the creative juices flowing, and I will often recommend a few first line brainstorms when my authors are stuck on what to work on next.

In the end, of course, it is the body of the work that will truly stand the test of the read, but it can’t hurt to start off with the most bang for the buck, can it?

 

 

How to Lose Money and Have Fun

P.J. Nunn

It’s been a really good week. A good month actually. Seems most of the folks I contact in the course of business are ready and willing to interview authors, write about them, host events for them or something along those lines. It’s a good feeling. I know the business goes in cycles and there’s been many a day when most of my calls resulted in resounding NO to almost every question I dared ask. It seems there’s a generally hopeful attitude for which I’m grateful.

With that in mind, we’re looking at dates to host another Criminal Pursuits workshop here in the Dallas area and perhaps one in Hot Springs again in 2010. From a business standpoint, we’re probably nuts. The last one we put on lost quite a bit of money. But hey, we had a good time, didn’t we? I mean a really good time.

What does this have to do with book promotion? Well, for one thing, if I’m in charge I can bring in whatever guests I want. Usually they’re my clients and it’s a lot simpler than tracking down who’s in charge of other conferences and getting my clients booked there. Not that they wouldn’t want them, but because it’s not always public knowledge who’s in charge until all the scheduling has already been done. But I digress. That’s not really why we put on these workshops and conferences, although it’s a factor that we play. We wouldn’t be very good at our jobs if we didn’t take advantage of that now would we?

One of the reasons we like to do these types of things is because networking is SO important in building a career as an author. We may all write different kinds of mysteries and all have different styles and ideas, but the mystery realm is a relatively small one and we need each other. Thankfully, it’s a pretty welcoming place, all things considered.

Another reason is because there are a lot of scams out there and frankly we’re tired of seeing good people being ripped off because they didn’t know what questions to ask in their early days. We like to provide good, solid information so at least they’ll have a fighting chance.

We also think if it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing right. How many of us have been reading happily along in a new book, only to turn the page and find the unthinkable. WALLBANGER! It happens way more often than it should. To that end, I’ve joined forces with a SWAT instructor and his cadre. Fortunately for all of us, they love to create mock crime scenes based on cases they’ve worked through the years and literally give authors a hands on experience, even providing them with the opportunity to interview the witnesses and solve the crime. Their enthusiasm makes things all the more fun as some of our previous attendees will attest.

This year’s plan is to create a 1 day SWAT school for hostage rescue in which some of the attending authors will be able to participate in rescue situations with some of the SWAT officers.  If you want to observe realism for your writing, this should be a good chance! I’ll give you more details later as we get them worked out.

With budgets what they are today, we try to make sure things are affordable and yet worth the effort to attend. As we go into major planning for the next year’s events, I’d love to hear your thoughts about what you’d really like to see in 1 and 2 day workshops that you don’t easily find out there.

Till next time,

How to turn a crisis into a disaster

Sharon Wheeler

I’m usually a great believer in the cock-up rather than conspiracy theory, but this week I’m willing to make an exception for Amazon.

The row over book rankings and homophobia at the internet sellers is the textbook example of how not to deal with a crisis. All the best crisis management advisers will tell you to apologise if necessary and get your story straight. Amazon’s response to what happens suggests strongly they couldn’t organise a bunk-up in a brothel and that they might like to send their senior management for some urgent media training . . .

Theories and counter-theories have kept the blogging and news communities babbling frantically – was Amazon systematically hacked by religious bigots or was it a surreptitious campaign to go mid-market or was it some poor sod pushing the wrong key on the computer in a room in France? First it was claimed that the American site was the only one affected (and some quick searches I did on Amazon UK and France suggested this might be the case), then it was said the whole of the retailer’s world-wide operations were affected.

What did look more than a tad suspicious, though, was the fact that GLBT books were the ones hit hardest, even those with no sexual content, while explicit or violent ‘straight’ material stayed put. Hence why the conspiracy theory looks the most likely to me, and why Amazon are finding it hard to wriggle out of this one . . .

One thing it does show, though, is how quickly the internet community, such as it is, can mobilise. Last week I wondered about the value of Twitter. The #amazonfail campaign proved conclusively how people can use it. And it proves, too, how companies need to take control of PR disasters from the start. Amazon took their eye off the ball badly by allowing rumours to circulate and by not having a senior manager heading up a clear response. Any big organisation that doesn’t have a crisis management plan in place is just asking for a bad press when something like this happens …

Once an organisation has copped that sort of negative publicity, it can take months or even years to recover. It’s the 20th anniversary of the Hillsborough disaster this week, when 96 soccer fans were crushed to death at an FA Cup semi-final. The Sun newspaper reported at the time how Liverpool fans had allegedly looted the bodies of the dead and dying. The story was untrue – and The Sun’s sales on Merseyside have never recovered.

As for Amazon, mud sticks. And it’s probably given a lot of people pause for thought as to where they buy books, CDs and DVDs. I’d decided I’d suspend all ordering from Amazon until they came clean about what had happened. So last night I went out and ordered some DVDs that I’d had in my Amazon basket for a while from Sendit where they were almost ten quid cheaper. In the scheme of things my £40 isn’t much, but if others decide to vote with their feet, that near-monopoly of online bookselling isn’t looking so comfortable any more.

How to make friends and influence...

I may have mentioned in passing that the good old Royal Mail hiked their prices again a couple of weeks ago. It’s becoming an annual event, and since all the pundits tell us inflation has stopped dead and may even be going backwards, I’m not sure what their excuse is this time, except that they’ve been losing money hand over fist for years.

 

The price of a stamp may not seem a lot in the great economic scheme of things. In pre-electronic submission days I knew writers who sent out a dozen manuscripts a week and didn’t even claim it as a tax-deductible expense, at least until someone pointed out how much a year they were spending. But to a small company, any payment which has three digits before the decimal point counts as a major outgoing, and we have to think carefully about how necessary it is.

 

So whatever the RM’s excuse, each price hike has the effect of making us look at what we send out, how much of it would be equally effective by e-mail, and what, if anything, we can simply stop sending. And the greatest of these is… review copies.

 

When the RM pulled their masterstroke a couple of years ago and began to charge postage by size of letter as well as weight, we needed a serious rethink. What was the maximum number of pages a book could be if it was going to fit through the Large Letter slot? How bulky could the packaging afford to be?

 

And did we really need to send out all these review copies? Though publishers, at least small underfunded indie publishers who can’t afford to buy drinks/lunch for people and aren’t based in London where the action is anyway, have little control over which publication, radio show or website runs a review (but see below) we can be pretty confident that about 70% of the copies we send out get recycled via eBay or Amazon MarketPlace without ever having been opened.

 

So what makes a reviewer choose this book over that one? Why does a series that was comprehensively ignored for three titles suddenly capture the critical imagination for the fourth? And most significantly, what can that small underfunded (actually not funded at all, at least by anything beyond actually selling books) indie publisher do to move our books to the top of the pile?

 

I’m assuming a certain basic common sense on the part of the publisher (eg, not sending romance or kids' stuff to Reviewing the Evidence or Eurocrime). Careful selection of destinations for review copies is a given. So is a firm belief that book reviewers aren’t susceptible to bribery, even by large quantities of chocolate.

 

So how do we get the reviewer’s attention? Previous blog posts have revealed that striking covers have little to do with it; a lot of review copies are ARCs, which often have nothing but a plain piece of card holding the pages together, so the impartial reviewer soon learns to disregard what’s on the outside. Though a zingy cover blurb must help. And since we’re talking specifically about crime fiction here, there has to be a gripping first page, or the book would never have been published in the first place.  

 

But – then what? Is it just a matter of drip, drip, drip until we finally convince the critics that we’re not going away and are worth looking at?

 

I suppose if any small underfunded indie could answer that, they’d stop being small and underfunded very quickly. Or am I – not for the first time – missing something?

Oh What A Beautiful Morning

 

By Barbara Poelle

This morning as I was scooping oatmeal into the coffee maker, I realized that I may not be starting my day out in exactly the right frame of mind.  So I decided to take a quick jog. At 7:20 am.  In 32 degree weather.  At one point I caught a reflection of myself in a storefront window as I lumbered by in three layers of clothing and I saw that I had the kind of hitch in my getalong that George Romero would have been proud of.  Like a bag of Barbara skin was lurching, mindless and insatiable, towards Broadway in hopes that the deli had fresh brains on sale.  I stumbled back into my apartment a few minutes before 8, and proceeded to the shower where I applied the conditioner before the shampoo.

Uhh, can I get a mulligan here?

Generally speaking, I am a morning person. I am up and yelling at the TV newscasters with a song in my heart and toothbrush in my mouth before the alarm even goes off. But if I can’t get myself started on the right note for the day I end up “chasing normal” for its entirety. And considering “normal” for me can oftentimes include food stains on my shirt and some sort of minor injury, when I am starting with a deficit, it is harder than ever to rally.

Like the first line (or lines) of a novel, my initial moments in the morning set the tone for me, and if my bells ain’t ringing after the first paragraph,  I am typing up a pass letter because otherwise it’s all percolating oatmeal from that point on. The opening of a novel is so important that I will admit sometimes I can’t read past it in the slush. Some of the common roadblocks are gigantic run-on sentences, mixed metaphors or- the death knoll of many- the cliché.  (If fog is soup or the rain is coming down in sheets or the screaming is blood-curdling I am not your girl.)

On the flip side, many of my favorite books have murderously good first lines, or first paragraphs.

Take Ahab’s Wife:

Captain Ahab was neither my first husband nor my last.

Fabulous.

How about this one, can you recognize this tone?

Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four Privot Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much.

Beat the Reaper also has a wickedly delicious opening line (but if I retyped it here I would get calls from more than just my mother). THAT opener is a fantastic example of setting the tone- it just continues from there in its brutal, voicey narrative for the next several hundred pages and then when you get to the ending you find yourself verbalizing the same types of noises you would make seeing a monkey fast pitch a hamster. (I have to admit, I loved that book in all of its gratuitous glory.)

Whoops, I just checked to see if my first lines test stood up with The Stand and I just lost 27 minutes of my day as I got started reading it again.

Now I am so into this. Let’s play a fun game. See if you can match the first line with the corresponding work:

1.       Bernadette had been dead two weeks when her sisters showed up in Doyle's living room asking for the statue back.

2.       You think you know how this story is going to end, but you don't.  Trust me, I was there.  I know.

3.       My name was Salmon, like the fish; first name, Susie.  I was fourteen when I was murdered on December 6, 1973.

4.       This is my favorite book in all the world, though I have never read it.

5.       The Santa Anas blew in hot from the desert, shriveling the last of the grass into whiskers of pale straw.

Ooooh, aren’t they all wonderful? Okay, here are your choices:

A.      The Princess Bride: S. Morgenstern's Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure by William Goldman

B.      Lamb by Christopher Moore

C.      White Oleander by Janet Fitch

D.      The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold

E.       Run by Ann Patchett

 

How did you do?

The matches are: 1E; 2B; 3D; 4A; and 5,C.

There are several websites and contests dedicated to the first line of a novel and from time to time I like to sniff around them and see who’s knocking me out of the park with a fabulous, fresh opener. It’s also a great exercise to get the creative juices flowing, and I will often recommend a few first line brainstorms when my authors are stuck on what to work on next.

In the end, of course, it is the body of the work that will truly stand the test of the read, but it can’t hurt to start off with the most bang for the buck, can it?

 

 

Yeah, It's a Bribe. Deal With It.

Jeff Cohen

I'm paying my daughter $10 a week to read the newspaper every day.

As a parenting tactic, that's not exactly something I'd advertise. But I'm determined not to be a member of the last generation that reads newspapers, and the only way to interest THESE KIDS TODAY is to get them into the habit.

Last week, I took out an ad in New Jersey's largest newspaper for my latest opus, A NIGHT AT THE OPERATION (now available; only $7.99 or less!). Well okay: I actually bought an ad in two editions of the Star-Ledger, in the Middlesex and Somerset Counties. Let's be real; I'm an author, and we don't have the kind of scratch to pay for an ad in the run of the paper. 

I didn't take out the ad because I thought it would further my career and sell millions of books. I know all the statistics about book advertising, and why it doesn't work (this, of course, doesn't stop publishers from taking out ads on the back page of the New York Times Arts section when a bestselling author who doesn't need the help has a new book coming out, but am I bitter?). I know you have to get at least three "exposures" for a person to recognize that the book exists. I'm aware that people don't necessarily study every ad in the regional section of a newspaper. I'm sure the vast majority--perhaps all but a tiny few--take no further action other than to turn the page and read the obituaries. I know all that.

And sure enough, even with an ad that reached an estimated 250,000 people on the day the book was officially on sale for the first time, even with my web address prominently displayed (thank you, Berkley ad department!), even with low expectations, the ad didn't have a measurable impact on the book, as far as I can tell. Traffic to the web site was actually slightly lower than the day before. And the only other statistic an author can check, Amazon sales ranking, is impossibly unreliable and meaningless.

Still, I'd do it all again. And when I have enough money to spend on it, I will.

Why? Because a newspaper is a business that's meant to make money, and it's usually a part of a large corporation and it's a private concern. But you know what? It's also a public trust. It's something that is absolutely essential to a free society. And right now, before our eyes, it's dying.

Newspapers are folding all over the country. Seattle might soon become the first major city in the country to have no daily newspaper. The Boston Globe is teetering on the brink. Even the New York Times, the paper of record, has been reported to be in debt beyond its capacity, and is reducing the size of the paper (it's considering cutting sections like the Sunday regional sections--the only time New Jersey gets the spotlight in the Times at all) and staff.

I am not going to take this lying down. I'm a dedicated newspaper fan, a former (very briefly) newspaper reporter and a believer that television news is at best superficial and online news is not even that good. 

But for a generation of people used to getting all their information from their cell phones, this is a problem. Young people don't pick up a newspaper and read it. This is mostly because they've been conditioned to believe that news is something that comes in 140 characters or less, whenever someone belches and assumes the world wants to know about it.

They think speed is the most important component of news reporting. That's why online organizations and cable TV news channels worry about beating the competition by a certain number of seconds.

But speed isn't even fifth on the list of news priorities. Or it shouldn't be. What's important is digging out the stories that aren't being spoon-fed to reporters by government agencies and publicists. What's important is accuracy and some perspective. What's important is getting the story right.

I can say this because the reason I was a reporter only briefly is that I was lousy at digging up news. I could write it well, but I couldn't find and gather information other than what people wanted to tell me. So I know it's an absurdly difficult job that can't be done on the fly, and requires training and talent.

So I'm paying my 16-year-old daughter to read the paper every day. And I'm hoping that as she does so, she'll develop a lifelong habit.

And I'm hoping there will be something to feed that habit for her lifetime, and many more to come.

Superfans, come out to pla-ey-ay!

Passion is a funny thing. And by “funny” I mean “actually pretty terrifying in some contexts.”

It can cause normally sane people to do pretty insane things. Like the time a close relative of mine, when spurned by an ex-bf, hid in the bushes outside his apartment so she could shout, “[Well, a not-very-nice-word]!” at his new gf as they came home from a date. (My family is hilarious, no?)

And when I say passion I don't mean just love affairs. I often talk about how I’m passionate about books, stories, words, plots, mysteries, and characters. I love spending hours reading, imagining, getting lost in the world of authorial creation. And I wind up harboring some pretty passionate feelings (one way or another) about the characters whose lives I’m following. (Ahem. This applies to tv characters, too, as you may well remember.)

But I’ve noticed it can be an especially fierce passion when regarding literary characters. And especially series characters. I mean, a series character is practically tailor made for us to get passionate about, right? We follow them on adventure after exciting adventure. We watch them grow (or we appreciate their stability). They face trials and tribulations and the occasional Mortal Foe. They’re surrounded by a cast of familiar secondary players, some of whom are funny, some prickly, some annoying, some helpful … you get the picture.

They people a world which becomes more real with each further installment, because with each new book new traits are revealed, more backstories are sussed out, and the detail of their universe becomes more tangible.

We invest in these characters, and in return, they live their made-up lives on the page, just for us.

And with our investment comes defensiveness. These are our friends, here between the covers of this book. They deserve our loyalty, fidelity, and remembrance. Any series author will appreciate the fact that you feel loyal to her character –- and she of course appreciates the fact that you track the release of the next book and that your purchase is a sure thing.

Sometimes we readers even glom together with others to share our passions for the world and characters we so admire. Book clubs, fan websites, silly, fun buttons and tshirts and hats –- all of these are great, great things. Not only do they help promote the character, the books, and the author, but they give readers an opportunity to talk about reading, and any talk about reading is good, right?

… Well, but what happens when your passionate love of a character (or series) goes … um … a bit too far?

Have you heard of this book called Twilight? Something to do with a glitterfaced, stonyarmed teen vampire heartthrob and his clumsy, (probably) tasty human gf. (Alright, I admit it. I read the first book in the series. And I saw the movie. I need to stay current on pop culture, people! How will my humor be relevant to tweens if I don’t understand the place from which they are coming?! Ok, ok: my intern made me read it. Plus, I really liked Anne Rice back when I was a tween, and I thought I’d give this Edward Cullen business a try. Turns out he’s no Louis.)

But anyway, my personal reading tastes are not the point here. The point is (wow, you’re still with me on this post? I feel a bit rambly, thanks for sticking it out!) that apparently there are really, really, really passionate Twilight Series fans who call themselves Twihards. According to their Urban Dictionary definition, they, “live and breathe Twilight. Most Twihards are for Edward and Bella. Therefore, those Twihards are all for true love & love at first sight.”

Ok, well, I’m all for people rooting for fictional couples (rah rah Tess and Crow!).  And true love, love at first sight … yeah, ok, sure. Why not? But then I read about these Twihards and their sometimes crazed, violent reactions to kids who just aren’t that into Meyers’s novels. You know, “Antis.”

Really, Twihards? You’re so passionately defensive of Edward and Bella that you felt the need to shank a bitch for being all, “Twilight < Anything Else in the World”?

Now I certainly read most of what I find on the internet with a salt shaker at hand, and I can’t really fathom all of these stories being true (some of them just scream Future Letter to Penthouse Author to me), but then again, it gets me thinking.

Would I ever be moved to violence if a beloved, cherished character I felt literary allegiance to were insulted?

My best friend thinks the Harry Potter books are silly and won’t read them, but I wouldn’t think to throw a pot of boiling oil on her next time she came over and I was cooking doughnuts. Instead, I just get my HP geek on with others. I won’t buy her a Harry and the Potters cd for her birthday (which is today, happy birthday bee eff eff!), but she’s still my Number One Friend.

I suppose, if any of these stories are true, the violence could be sourced back to factors besides the Twiharder’s obsessive googly-eyes for a chaste-yet-still-dangerous cutiepie. The difference between me and your average Twihard is firstly, you know, some number of years. I like to think I’m a bit more mature than a tween. And I’ve also experienced some romantic love in my life, so I’ve got a context in which to place Edward Cullen. (And he falls so far off the side of my scale as to be rendered entirely dismissible, even as a fantasy object.) And who knows? Maybe Twilight isn’t at all a gateway into some realm of completely irrational behavior, but instead merely attracts those already prone to the crazy.

The point is this: if we mystery fans ever got to this level of rabid fandom, wouldn’t Bouchercon be an interesting place? I can just imagine roving droves of Reacher Creatures, cracking their knuckles and looking on as a darkness of Charlie Parkerites glower menacingly in the shadows. Dudgeon's Bludgeons are all sitting in the bar, buying one another beers and reciting Bryan Owen poems. But look out, here come a classic pack of Spade-Mades, and they look noirishly pissed off!

Oh my gosh, it would be like my own personal version of The Warriors.

What's your gang? Do you have a special sign?

(p.s. Hey Barbara, it’s Willow!)

2 authors, 2 outcomes

Robin Agnew

I am approached almost daily by authors who think that either signing in our store or merely making an appearance on our shelves will guarantee them readers.  Neither, of course, is true, though those factors are part of the formula that do supply readership.  Sometimes, of course, I say "yes", and other times I have to regretfully say "no," which is never easy as I know no matter who the author is they have poured their heart and soul into their book.

But I do say beware of annoying a bookseller!  I have a long memory (one author who cancelled a book club appearance at the last minute a few years ago because she had a deadline won't be invited back.  The author who was to sign with her showed up - her mother had died a few days before.  No kidding.  It was a great event - she was charming and personable).   Recently I had two authors approach me within a week or so of each other.

One of them, Eric Stone, sounded interesting and was willing to work around the store schedule. I told him I couldn't guarantee an audience but he was fine with that, and he is even going to do a power point talk about Shanghai, which I am looking forward to.

The other author - we'll call him "X" - called me at the store one morning, and we chatted.  We had a fairly pleasant conversation and he told me he had a first novel coming out from St. Martin's.  I was fairly open to an event with him, figuring some of my guy customers would enjoy the book, and even better, he has family in the area. 

He followed up his phone call - where we had reached no decision - with an e-mail.  He said he would love to sign here, and asked what our schedule might be, indicating he would be open to it.  I told him what might work (I in fact wanted to pair him with Eric) and he was not too excited by that idea.  The book comes out this month, and he wanted a signing date close to the pub date.

I e-mailed him back, explaining our shcedule, both at the store and actually my personal schedule, and also mentioned - which is true - that with a first book it doesn't really matter when you sign, as the people who show up will do so because I've encouraged them to in some way.  In other words, because of marketing.  Many books are published every month, it't the way you call attention to them that can make a difference (read PJ's blog if you don't believe me!)

This made him peevish, however (it was obvious even through an e-mail exchange) and I asked him to think over my offer and get back to me.  I haven't heard back.  He may have found somewhere else to go, not sure, but I wouldn't be too interested in hosting him next time around.  There is another bookseller in town who will take almost anyone, but I think that means your customers can't trust you.  When they come to us I want them to feel there's some guarantee of quality, so they can be comfortable buying a book.  I think customer relations go both ways.  But they might also go three ways - including the author as part of the triangle.  It's a good thing to bear in mind.

What's a money waster?

PJ Nunn

From the time that I entered the magical realm of mysteries and their promotion, I’ve heard lots and lots of questions asked about what to do and how to best spend those promotion dollars. I did a guest blog last week on Make Mine Mystery and one of the comments reminded me that I don’t often hear questions about what not to do or how not to spend the promotion budget. So I thought I’d sort through some of that here and see what you all have to add to the mix.

 

When asked what I thought was the biggest money waster in promotion, I didn’t have to think long before I concluded that one big money waster is buying and sending large quantities of ARCs out without taking time to check with the recipients first. With today’s postage rates and the average weight of an ARC, it’s costly just to send a few, but when you start sending out 50 or 100 or even more, you’re talking approximately $10 for the ARC, approximately $3 and change to cover the cost of mailer, printing and postage (assuming you use Media Mail), which adds up to around $659 for 50 and double that for 100. That may not seem like too much for some, but divide that by the amount of your royalty percentage and see how many books you’d need to sell as a result to make it work for you.

 

But PJ, aren’t you the one who says you can’t judge effectiveness of promotions by a single event? Yep, that’s me. But you do need to look at the overall picture to determine what the best use of your money will be. The point is not to scratch the idea of sending review copies out in hopes of gleaning some reviews; it’s to determine the most cost effective way to do that. Some authors have sent out a hundred copies and gleaned five reviews. Others have sent out ten copies and gleaned five reviews. What made a difference in the outcome? Maybe the book itself, but probably not. More likely, the difference was in the method of selecting markets and sending.

 

I’ve been hired several times over the years to follow up on long lists of review copies sent unsolicited by either the publisher or the author. The results in following up those lists have been the same across the board. A high percentage of the ARCs never managed to get to the intended recipient. Addresses change, names and jobs change, reviewers get inundated, and sometimes, the postal service just doesn’t get them there (gasp!). It’s hard to predict or avoid that last thing, but the others are pretty easy to get around. Take the time to make a phone call, verify name and address and ask if they’re currently open to submissions. Also ask if there are particular submission guidelines or deadlines. It’s not rocket science but I’m always surprised how many people don’t take the time to do it.

 

The second thing that comes to mind is buying mass quantities of postcards and sending them. Now, before you get up in arms, hear me out. Having post cards and bookmarks that inform people about your book is a fine idea and used efficiently can be a good promotional tool for just about any author. However, they’ve been touted as the proverbial be-all and end-all and sometimes are a complete waste of money depending on how they’re used.

 

Sending a large mailing of postcards is rarely a cost effective move for a first time author. It doesn’t mean they shouldn’t get some and use them. But they’re most useful when sent to someone who already knows the author. They can be great tools to send to a mailing list of high school or college alumni, or to the members of a professional organization. Even to a select group of writers, readers and other industry acquaintances, including booksellers. But I’ve not heard many booksellers tell me they’ve been swayed by a post card from a first time author (feel free to comment – I haven’t talked to all of them). The return on that investment increases with each successive book an author has published because postcards generally are an announcement, not an introduction. If I’ve read and liked a book by Jane Doe, I’m much more likely to take notice of a postcard announcing a new release by her. If I’ve never read or heard of Jane Doe, my response is more likely that it’s just one more book and maybe I’ll take a look if I come across it somewhere sometime. Get the idea?

 

Please note again that I’m not saying sending ARCs or having post cards made and mailed are bad ideas. I’m saying they can be a huge drain on your promotion budget, using up dollars that might more effectively be used elsewhere.

 

The last thing that comes to mind in this vein is the production of a book trailer. They’ve become increasingly popular in the last few years and I suspect will continue to grow in popularity. They’re neat and nifty and can be great fun to watch. But production costs can be enormous and frankly I don’t think they’ll generate enough sales to make it worth that kind of investment. Am I saying you shouldn’t have one? No way. I’m saying be careful what you invest to get one made and be realistic in how much you expect it to help sales. If you’ve got a trailer on your website or on Facebook or MySpace, that’s great. But keep in mind that there are a whole lot of readers who don’t have time to browse the online sites very much, and even more booksellers and media personnel who probably won’t either. Some may ultimately see and enjoy it on your website, but only if some other promotional effort on your part has led them there in the first place.

 

As a publicist, I have a good list of clients who have trailers and I think they’re great. I include links in their promo pages and press releases when appropriate. But I’ve never once had a bookseller or media journalist ask me if an author had one and I’ve had quite a few who said they don’t have time to “mess with that stuff” or some variation of the same. I still find a surprising number of booksellers who don’t even have an email address. Amazing isn’t it?

 

Bottom line, there are lots of myths and theories about promotion, but in the end to be successful it has to be treated like a business. Any business that makes it in today’s economy is a business that gives attention to the ratio of investment and return. There are tons of good ideas out there, but only you can judge whether they’re the right ones for you and whether they fit in your own personal budget. So don’t shy away from the B word. Do your due diligence and make a plan that has a good chance of being effective and affordable.

 

Till next week,

Networking cautiously

Sharon Wheeler

I finally got around to joining Facebook a week or so back. It had been on my to-do list for ages, but I’d been studiously avoiding it, as I could see myself wasting as much time on it as I do on Live Journal and other blogs …

In the end, the ‘do as I say, not do as I do’ double standards finally persuaded me. I’d been telling students what a useful tool it could be for contact-making – just so long as future employers wouldn’t come across vomit-splattered personal photos when they were doing an online trawl!

So far I haven’t sussed out all the bells and whistles, but it’s been an interesting exercise watching how friending works. I haven’t gone looking for old school and university mates, on the grounds that I’ve pretty much stayed in touch with all the ones I liked. So far I’ve linked up with people I know . . . and yes, that probably defeats the object of it, as I talk to or email or see a lot of them regularly. There are a few former colleagues that I’m now back in touch with, though – including someone who has moved twice round the world, which is how we managed to lose contact originally.

But I thought I’d watch and wait before rushing out and friending – or accepting friending requests from – lots of people I either don’t know or am peripherally acquainted with. Fortunately I’d been warned about those who trawl ‘friends of friends’ lists for BSP purposes.

So far I have about a dozen friending requests sitting in an inbox. I either don’t know the people at all (no note from them on why they’re friending me) or suspect their motives.

My strategy, such as it was, on joining Facebook (and other networking sites such as LinkedIn and Twitter) was to get chatting to people. But I want it as a two-way process so that I’m not constantly bombarded by authors wanting me to buy their latest masterpiece – I get enough of that in unsolicited emails, thanks! I’m still working out how best to use the site – I’m sure people don’t want an update on every cough, spit and fart from me (and I can live without that from them as well!)

My guess is that in the long run, LinkedIn will be more useful for contact-making and Facebook will be fun for personal chats. As for Twitter … I have no idea. Ask me again in six months.

Little things mean a lot

Isn’t that a line from a song? Quite an old one, I think, which means I’m showing my age again. Must stop doing that…

 

One little but highly noticeable cause for a smile is that spring has arrived. We’re really having a spring this year; last year winter sort of morphed into autumn, with a few blistering days in July so the weathermen could say we’d had summer. But this year we have sunshine and blue skies, daffodils and almond blossom, and the grass needed mowing last weekend. OK, a few showers as well – it’s raining now, as it happens – but that augurs well for a luscious harvest in a few months.

 

So optimism is in the air around here, despite economic gloom and news of redundancies and falling sales figures across a lot of the retail sector. I haven’t noticed any downturn in requests for our murder mystery evenings; we’re pretty well booked through to September.

 

OK, so the Royal Mail just hiked the price of postage again, adding about twenty percent to our bill for sending out review copies. We’ll need to be a little more selective about who we send them to, that’s all. 

 

You start out in this business with hopes and dreams of number one bestsellers and a row of trophies on the mantelpiece. They haven’t arrived yet; we didn’t make the shortlist of CrimeFest’s Last Laugh Award despite having two titles on the longlist. But days like today keep me thinking the visible successes may eventually roll in, and in the short term you soon learn to be content with small triumphs.

 

This week has been a week of small triumphs.

• I found Criminal Tendencies, our charity short story collection, mentioned on five blogs and websites I wasn’t expecting. And since I don’t actively seek them out, there could be more.
• A national women’s magazine ran a feature on Linda Regan, one of our authors, and mentioned the charity collection as well as her new title which comes out in June.
• Another of our authors, Roz Southey, has a story in this year’s Mammoth Book of Best British Mysteries, an accolade granted to only a small proportion of the many crime writers in the UK.
• One of our titles is shortly going to be reviewed in a specialist national magazine in the USA – and last time that happened the review was almost a thousand words long and very, very positive. I just wish my techno-avoiding brain would let me figure out how to add a link here.
• The first title we sold for large print publication earned out its advance and went into royalties in less than six months.

 

That last one is the one that really had me jumping up and down, but I’m not sure I’m supposed to say it out loud. No one ever talks about advances or sales figures, and I’m afraid there may be some kind of publishers’ code of secrecy I don’t know about because I don’t go to the right meetings. But I don’t care. I just think it’s great. Even though we sell the rights and don’t publish in large print ourselves, it feels almost as good as the first time we sold out a complete print run of our own. And let me tell you, that feels pretty damn good! It’s happened a few times since that first one, especially since we began to be distributed in America (I love you guys!), but nothing quite matches that first heady realisation that they’re nearly all gone and people still want to buy them!

 

People still need some fun in their lives. A good book is a small treat to compensate for having to give up the big ones.

 

And if we settle for small in the short term, bigger will surely follow. Hey, it’s spring. I’m sick of grey days and gloom. Let’s be optimistic.

Hunka Hunka Burnin’ Love

by Barbara Poelle

This weekend I was attending a conference in Dallas, and when I got to the hotel on Friday there were a few messages waiting for me. Now I was extremely travel weary, so I may be paraphrasing here, but let me get you the meat and potatoes of it all:

Beep

“Uh, hey babe, it’s me. Uh, I heard some alarms go off in the building and when I look out the peep hole into the hallway there is just a blanket of grey…so I think there might be…oh… people are screaming and carrying things, I gotta go…”

Beep

“Hi Babe, I, uh, am outside [sound of a fire engine] I don’t know if you can hear me [fire engine is overpowering voice]…BUT YEAH, THE APARTMENT ACROSS THE HALL IS ON FIRE AND [unintelligible] BUT DON’T WORRY [the siren cuts out] uh, like I said, don’t worry, I‘ll call you later…”

Beep

“Hey, babe. So, yeah, the firemen said some paint cans ignited in the apartment across the hall, I am downstairs in the café with everything I grabbed….it’s funny, do you know what I grabbed? Your laptop and our wedding album. Anyway, I’ll call you when everything is figured out…”

At this point I am basically frothing and barking so I call Husband and he is back in the apartment and he says other than being stinky from smoke and chemicals, everything is intact in our place. I immediately congratulated him on his choice of items to spare (and then I may have committed some sort of marriage faux pas by asking if it would have been so hard to unplug and remove the 5 ½ foot antique lamp my grandmother gave me and carry it down three flights of stairs…he just sat there in silence until I resumed my fawning over his bravery). But most of all, I was so so so googly eyed in love over this: he grabbed MY laptop, and our (I mean couldn’t you just?!?) WEDDING ALBUM.  Never mind that in the digital age we could most likely call the photographers and be like, “All our memories burned up, please send us more.” He just thought, “These things are important.”

How levelheaded.

I have to tell you, I don’t think I would have been able to make the right decision on the grabbing of the possessions. I would spend lot of time second guessing myself, and then panicking that I was forgetting something important.  Eventually the firemen would discover my smoldering corpse in the ruins clutching what appeared to be a Coach bag, the DVD of The 'Burbs and a handful of Pez.

It got me thinking, this is going to sound so passé, but I ADORE ALL of my clients. If there was a fire I would just grab my Pez and hunker down because the thought of even thinking of it… simple nonsense.

Oh, sure,  Right, right, we alllll love our clients, editors, agents, publishers, dentist’s sister-in-law’s neighbor, everybody is just warm and fuzzy and braiding flowers in each other’s hair, pass me the rum and call me Cloudbreaker,  but I am not kidding when I say I ADORE MY CLIENTS. I find them to be as savvy as they are maniacal, as determined as they are insane, and just overall a DE-LIGHT to work with.

For  example, come be a fly on my wall, friends.  These are just some of the phrases my clients have uttered to me over the last few days (Oh, brothers and sisters, I write the good ones DOWN):

“... I just don’t think this hotel is the kind of establishment you would kill a hooker in…”

“…yes, he seemed totally insane. Which is why I gave him your cell phone number…”

“…Well, hang on, I am in the Starbucks, so I am going to step into the bathroom to scream…”

“…If this is publishing, I better take up yoga…”

“…Alas, I think I'm going to have to blow off my Procrastinator Anonymous class this week….”

Aren’t they delicious? Do you see why I love my motley brood? But seriously, they are all as different as they are single-minded in their intent, and if the grenade was lobbed into our campfire, I would happily fling myself atop it while they sang one more verse of Koom By Ya.

But don’t get me wrong, these folks, although perhaps similar in form, are all cut from their own individual mediums. Some are suede while others are copper. Some have edges where the others are round. Some call me ma’am and some call me crying, but they are all united in their efforts to produce quality material.

For example, I have two authors that have books coming out this week. Oh, wait they are out today. GO BUY THEM.

Ahem, excuse me.

Anyway, one is a non-fiction memoir concerning institutionalization for an eating disorder (Purge: Rehab Diaries) and one is a sinfully delightful historical romance (An Indecent Proposition). Not exactly two sides of the same coin, eh? But both works have been executed with passion. Both works have the clear intent to transport the reader into a world they may not be familiar with. And both books use the word “throb”.

(Not totally sure about that last one.)

This is a wonderful example of how eclectic and subjective the industry is, as well as my list. Any given Tuesday I could be pitching a YA, a non-fiction art book, and a riveting literary fiction, and feel just as passionate, just as determined on each, and I couldn’t tell you which was my favorite because they all are. Really, how could I possibly save just one from a raging paint can inferno? No, I would gather them all in my arms and we would fly on a magical unicorn to the safety of a cloud-covered mountain top where we would eat tofu-dogs and tater tots.

Forever.

Ugh, okay, I am done Pollyanna-ing about the office with ribbon wands and baby songbirds. I do one of those a year and that was it. Enjoy it while you can, clients, ‘cause I’m back to cursing and bellowing at you tomorrow.

Where’s my Pez….

A List of Things to Do Tomorrow Other Than Buying "A Night at the Operation"

Jeff Cohen

1. Mow the lawn (or shovel the walk, depending on where you live)

2. Empty the dishwasher

3. Figure out why Jim Croce isn't in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

4. Go to work

5. Re-read "If I Did It" by O.J. Simpson

6. Watch your DVD copy of the "Joe the Plumber" debate

7. Do the Macarena

8. Tote that barge

9. Lift that bale

10. Search Hulu for the "Hotchkabab" episode of "Green Acres"

11. Try once again to learn how to juggle

12. Try to remember the name of one reality TV "star"

13. Watch the stock ticker and contemplate bankruptcy

14. Re-fill the dishwasher

15. Batten down the hatches

16. Check the standings in Major League Baseball (hint: each team will have played 1 game)

17. Wonder why "March Madness" culminates in April

18. Clip your toenails (actually, I was asked to include that one, and yes, we mean YOU)

19. Try to figure out the plot of LOST

20. See what Regis and Kelly are up to

21. Go on an all-rutabaga diet

22. Calculate the number of minutes until STAR TREK opens

23. Count the holes in Blackburn, Lancashire

24. Walk the dog/cat/ferret/marmoset

25. Run the dishwasher AGAIN.

Or, you could go out and spend only $7.99 (or less!) on a book that I have personally called "the best in the Double Feature Mystery series." But then, I'm slightly biased. I could get you in touch with my mom...

(Normally, I'd be waxing rhapsodic on the first day of the New York Yankees season, but hey, my book's coming out TOMORROW, and the Yankees are doing just fine on their own. GO GET A COPY OF "A NIGHT AT THE OPERATION!" And then please, let me know what you think of it.)

Motivate Your Characters

Why didn't you have pancakes for breakfast this morning?

Why did you go to the symphony last night?

Right now, are you thinking about what you're going to be doing in an hour? Is your mind made up, or are you still deciding? What's influencing your decision?

Probably, your answers to those questions sound like, "Because I didn't feel like it," or, "Oh, I really like Brahms," or, "I dunno, it's kinda gray outside and I don't feel very motivated."

Your characters are the same way. They need not have *good* reasons for doing what they do, but they need to have *some* reason. Some motivation beyond, "Oh, well, I need them to do that for the plot."

Not all motivations are profound, but every action must be motivated somehow.

Some of my Favorite Villains are Golden Age'd

Robin Agnew

I was thinking (in my sleep) about favorite villains.  I think I've written about favorite characters, but the villains are different.  If well done they inform the whole story and are remarkably effective (look at the recent success of Tana French's In the Woods - awesome villain!).  I had to look further back though to some more old fashioned storytelling to think of some of my favorites.

Forgive me, this is of course heretical, but I'm not a big Sherlockian, so Moriarty doesn't do it for me.  My mind went to Christie and Marsh instead.  Christie always had the villain be a part of the story - but nowhere was this more effectively done than in Ngaio Marsh's Death in a White Tie.  (This will contain a spoiler if you haven't read the book; and if you haven't stop reading this blog immediately and go find a copy).

I love the luscious London debutante season setting of Death in a White Tie.  It's Marsh at her best as she slowly introduces wonderful characters, each as memorable as the one before.  This book also makes me curse her as she kills off on of the more delightful characters in the book, Lord Robert Gospell, or "Bunchy" as he's known to his friends, Alleyn among them.  It's Alleyn's grief and anger at Bunchy's murder as well as the fact that he finally wins Troy's heart that make this an even more memorable series entry.

But the villain, a dashing, sympathetic, elegant, and tasteful Harley Street doctor, makes this story truly a heartbreaker.  You actually like him, or at least I did, and I know from conversations with other readers that they felt the same.  He's so nice to some of the characters in the book, and avoids the ones that seemed, to this reader anyway, patently annoying.  I agreed with his choices!  But as Marsh lays in the story it sadly all makes sense as Alleyn unravels the usually complicated mechanism of murder.  And this villain makes the book for me a completely memorable reading experience.

To fast forward a few years, P.D. James was able to accomplish a similar feat in her wonderful Shroud for a Nightingale - I liked the killer, she was a terrific character.  The end of the book was heartbreaking.  I also applaud Louise Penny's recent A Fatal Grace for the same reason - while the villain is actually the murder victim, she informs the story, and the resulting conclusion is again, devestating.

I don't think great villains are exclusively a golden age trait but they sure had it perfeced back then.   Happy trails finding your own reading "villains".

What's a publicist worth?

PJ Nunn

I was interviewed recently by a journalist who asked some unusual questions. I don’t know if the interview will ever make print, but it did prod me to re-examine some things I haven’t really considered since I first started working in the marketing arena. How much does a publicist really cost? And how much should one cost?

Is there really a consistently accurate answer to either of those questions? Probably not, because paying for a publicist is paying for a service. Ideally it should be considered “staffing a weakness.” Since we don’t all share the same weaknesses or strengths, that’s obviously not the same thing for each person.

There are some authors who might be more successful arranging their own book events than we are, for two primary reasons. One – it can be their own highest priority, which usually means they have more of an investment in the outcome and can give more time to the effort. It can’t be the “highest” priority for any publicist or firm that has more than one client. Two – while there can be distinct benefits of a publicist working with the same DMMs or CRMs over a period of time that allows us to call in favors for authors who might not otherwise get a booking, there are also times when it’s harder for them to say “no” to the author than it is to say “no” to me on the author’s behalf. It doesn’t happen often, but it has happened.

So the first issue an author needs to identify is what their weaknesses are concerning book marketing. In what areas do they need the most help? Probably 50% or more of our clients at any given time either feel confident enough to book signing events for themselves, or have publishers that do that. They also have a pretty good handle on review markets. Their primary need is for someone to arrange broadcast media interviews, so that’s what we do for a majority of our clients. But even in that arena, it’s interesting to examine what people really want or expect in that realm.

By far, the most frequent mention is Oprah. I don’t think most really believe they’ll get an appearance on her show, but there’s always hope, right? Over the years I’ve even had requests to submit a few books to the Pulitzer committee. That’s always interesting. But the point is that it occasionally is abundantly clear that authors who are otherwise a little tight for cash would pay dearly for an appearance on Oprah or The Today Show or select few others. I understand the overall concept, but in making a realistic projected budget for marketing a single title, it would compare to betting your entire budget on a serious long shot to win a single race.

I’m always saddened when authors come to me after having worked with another publicist and they tell me roughly how much they spent and what they got in return. Most of the time we’re talking multiple thousands of dollars spent, with a handful of events to show for it. I’ve actually had one of those publicists (that I won’t name) call me to ask me how I managed to arrange so many events for a client for whom she’d only gotten a few. I spent nearly an hour talking with her by phone and must admit it was an enlightening hour. But it didn’t change my philosophy or my business structure.

There’s a tremendous appeal to being on a national television program when you think of how many people will see you and hear about your book, however briefly. But I believe it’s largely an emotional appeal and not necessarily a logical business move – at least not if it’s an either/or proposition. It would be very hard for something like that to be a detriment to sales, that’s not what I mean. What I mean is if you only have $5000 to spend on marketing, it could take that to get someone just to pitch you to a few top shows and certainly would take that if they actually get the booking. OR you could take that same budget and get a lot more coverage in a variety of markets. And any marketing guru will tell you that true results come from repeat exposure. The number of repeats varies according to who you ask, but most cite between 8 and 14 before the product starts to register on anyone.

So despite a background filled with military and law enforcement that created a marksmanship mentality in me (meaning I always like to clearly see the target and hit the bullseye), in book marketing I’ve had to adapt to more of a shotgun approach. Not of necessity, but because I’ve found through the years that’s what works best overall. By that, I mean not to put all the proverbial eggs in one basket. Sure it’s more exciting to be on a national TV show with bazillions of viewers than to be on a list of several smaller stations, radio or television, but your chances of getting on the latter are much better than the former, and those people buy books too. And really, if they have a DMA of 50,000 or even 10,000 that’s exposure to a lot more folks than you’ll get anywhere else.

By all means, hire a publicist to focus on an area in which you’re not strong, but don’t let that one area be the only area of focus overall. I’ve seen too many disappointed with results after the fact because they decided that stores aren’t worth the effort, and they don’t feel comfortable with broadcast, so let’s just do print. Or some variation of the same.

And maybe all that doesn’t really answer the questions I started with, but it’s background info to get to the answers. Before you can decide what a fair price is for anything, you have to know what the worth of the product is and whether it will work for you. I might research tractors until I learn which is the biggest, best and most bang for the buck, but if I don’t really need a tractor, it still wouldn’t be a good use of my money. Or maybe I do need a tractor, but I don’t need one with all the bells and whistles (if there is such a thing, and I suspect there is but couldn’t tell you for sure) so the added expense would just be an overspend.

How much does a publicist really cost? And how much should one cost? In today’s market, you can engage an independent publicist or firm for a fairly low hourly rate (although I’d really be careful with that), to $25,000 and more for a short campaign. Look very closely at services and what your money is buying. Often it’s buying the name and expertise or promise of such more than for events. And paying for name or expertise isn’t a bad thing; you want someone who’s been doing this a while and with reasonable results. But alas, there are some firms who’ve been in business for years and their names are recognizable in the industry, but they have a lot of unsatisfactory results and dissatisfied clients. You should be able to reasonably expect to get what you pay for. I understand there are no guarantees in this business, but I don’t know any reputable publicist who’ll knowingly take your money without expecting to give you something in return.

I know that we’ve had some clients through the years that were not fully satisfied with what we provided and that always makes me so sorry. Hopefully, I’ve learned from each of those experiences and it’s ultimately made us better at what we do, but it’s not something I ever want to repeat. In almost every case, and thankfully there haven’t been many, I can track it back to insufficient communication. Again, I take the large part of responsibility for that because I’m the professional and it’s my job to try to be sure I know exactly what my clients are looking for and to be up front with them if I don’t think it’s going to work quite the way they expect.

Bottom line, before hiring, do your homework. Usually that means asking questions and more questions. Trying to put aside the excitement of an upcoming new release and examining the whole process carefully from a business standpoint. Until you know what you need, want and can afford, how can you accurately gauge whether that firm is the best fit for you? In an economy where few have more money than what they need and advances for mysteries aren’t often as large as we’d like, it’s important that you get the best effort for your investment, so do your due diligence and spend wisely so there are no regrets!

Till next week,

Right to The Wire

Sharon Wheeler

I admit freely that I have a PhD in Cynical from the University of Central Cynical. Every time a book or a TV programme or a film is hyped, I either roll my eyes or smile tiredly and wait for it to crash and burn spectacularly.

Just occasionally, though, it’s nice to have that cynicism given its marching orders. Stieg Larsson’s crime novels, published posthumously, totally blew me away to the extent that for one mad moment I wondered if I could ever learn Swedish quickly enough to read the third book which hasn’t yet appeared in the UK!

And there’s The Wire. It’s been described in the UK as the best drama that no one has ever seen. Until this week it had only been screened on the cable channel FX – and in the UK people don’t automatically subscribe to cable or satellite. And then the BBC bought it with much beating of drums and blowing of trumpets.

Except the silly sods shoved it on at 11.20pm, which is fine for night owls like me, but probably not so good generally. They’re running the whole series back to back on consecutive nights, which looks like it’ll be a cunning plan, as it keeps the momentum going. It kicked off on Monday with 600,000 viewers (a fairly respectable eight per cent of the total audience in the time slot).

I was fully expecting to like The Wire, given David Simon’s previous outing on the totally awesome Homicide: Life on the Street. I won the box sets of the first three series on DVD late last year, bought the other two cheap on Amazon, and then got cold feet about watching them, in case it didn’t live up to the hype.

So far it has (we’re three episodes in to series one), and it looks like doing what disappointingly little crime fiction does – concentrating on real, believable people and focussing on issues that could have come off the front page of a newspaper. The first episode took a bit of getting into, but the next evening I realised I’d been sitting in the same spot for an hour, totally transfixed.

So The Wire passed my 20-minute test spectacularly (this is the TV version of the 50-page test in books, incidentally). I have the concentration span of a gnat and frequently sit down to watch something and after ten minutes am at the computer checking emails or writing frantically with the TV show forgotten.

In stark contrast, I lasted barely 20 minutes with the ghastly Demons a few weeks back before turning over to watch archaeologist Neil Oliver’s luxuriant hair grow. I’d heard enough to be sure that it was a total load of pants, and that Philip Glenister’s American accent had taken a hike and never come back.

Speaking of which, though, I want to know one thing from my American friends who have watched The Wire. Is Dominic West’s accent actually any good? It sounds to me like a Brit trying – and nearly succeeding – to nail an American accent. But what do I know?

A question of priorities

Isn’t it just my luck to be posting on good old April Fools’ Day?

 

Of course, if there’s any truth in the rumour that’s been circulating of a vicious April Fool computer virus, it’s not impossible my hard disk and everyone else’s will have gone into meltdown before I even get around to putting this up on the site.

 

So yesterday morning before the deadly worm was due to strike, I made sure I got around to a job which has been on the to-do list since before Christmas, and is in most circumstances a response to a panic brought about by some kind of technological disaster. This time I actually got in there before disaster struck (or didn’t, as the case may be. So far everything seems to be functioning normally, but I’m touching wood, crossing my fingers and avoiding ladders as I type that.). I copied my entire documents folder on to a large-capacity flash drive bought expressly for the purpose which has been taking up space on my desk ever since I acquired it. It took an hour, and it’s a rare day when I  have many – any – of those to spare, but maybe at some point today when the world is clapping hands to foreheads and swearing very loudly, I’ll be glad I did it.

 

There are always jobs like that on the to-do list: the jobs that potentially make life easier/better/more fruitful in the longer term, but don’t contribute directly to the production of the next book, or have a visible effect on the pile of work in progress. I suppose the most significant one is follow-up to my marketing efforts. The trouble with marketing (and advertising) is the theory that only ten percent of it has any effect – and no one has yet come up with a formula for identifying which ten percent. So setting a value on time spent on marketing, not to mention money spent on advertising (I don’t mention it because I can very rarely afford it!), isn’t easy.

 

Which is no excuse for stinting on it, of course (did I hear Patti Nunn let out the breath she’d been holding?), and at a certain stage in the process it really ought to be top of the priority list. But there are no deadlines for making phone calls in the wake of a press release – or for the press release itself, for that matter – and a deadline is a powerful motivator.

 

My current these-jobs-should-have-been done-by-now list has ten things on it. Of the ten, seven are loosely speaking marketing jobs. I’m not sure what that tells you about my time management…

 

Editing and proofreading have a kind of solidity, and are usually subject to a very tight deadline if the title is to get to the printer on time. Marketing operates more along the lines of I really ought to get around to that… Motivation is all the harder to find for a third, fourth and fifth book from an author, because all the juicy biographical hooks have usually been used up for the first couple.

 

But today I really must get down to it.

 

After I’ve checked these proofs and written that editorial report…