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

Red Belly. Green Hair. And Freedom.

 

By Barbara Poelle

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

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

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

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

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

Welcome to the Jungle.

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

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

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

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

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

“No.” Flip.

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

“No.” Flip

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

“No.” Flip.

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

Pause. Slow grin.

“Alright.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But I willna surrender!

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

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

 I KNOW.

 She is going to call Jump.

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

“Dive!” she yells.

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

Belly down.  

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

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

 And to eat raspberry jello.

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

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

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

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

 

 

Broadway! Television! Movies!

Jeff Cohen

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cover impressions

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

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

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

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

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

I'd glanced at the poster:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Good PR & Bad PR

Robin Agnew

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The passing of time

PJ Nunn

Another eventful week. Today it’s been hard to even capture a moment to reflect on anything and keep my thoughts straight. Ed McMahon passed on Wednesday. Thursday Farrah lost her fight to cancer, then Michael Jackson died. All bring mixed feelings as the passing of celebrities often does. Kind of puts things in perspective.

I think Farrah hit me the hardest. My initial reaction was simply sadness. She was an icon of my youth, yet wasn’t at all old. I wondered what she might have done differently if she’d known years ago that she’d only have 62 short years to live. Sobering thought.

Aside from those things, it’s been a positive week. While I haven’t seen the number of event confirmations that I’d like to see, the caliber has been exceptional. It looks like we’ve nabbed another major national print article for a client. I can’t tell the details of who or what just yet, but it’s very exciting.

We’ve got several great books due for release in July (which it will BE this time next week – can you imagine??), and several great authors who are touring despite the heat and the economy.

We’re locking down details on another Criminal Pursuits workshop for November 6 – 7, 2009 and are really excited about that! Watch the website for more info in the next week and don’t wait to register if you want to come. We’re doing a little more hands-on this time, with several police officers in the mix and we’re keeping it small so registration is likely to fill up quickly.

I’ll also be speaking at a writers workshop at the Denton Public Library in Denton Texas Saturday, June 27, 2009 at 9 AM. I’d love to see any of you there! I was delighted to be surprised by Maria when I spoke in Austin a week or so back. Always love the ability to put a name with a face!

I’ve also managed to squeeze in time to read some of my favorite authors’ books that came out this past week: Mind Scrambler by Chris Grabenstein, Trust No One by Gregg Hurwitz, and Finger Lickin’ Fifteen by Janet Evanovich. None disappointed – buy them all!

Till next time,

Let the train take the strain

Sharon Wheeler

If you want to see a cross-section of the British public at its most eccentric, travel by train.

First we had the wanker who spent the two hours from Preston to Birmingham answering his phone every four or five minutes and yelling: “I’m on the train!” Whether it was to the same person or to everyone in his mobile phone directory, I couldn’t say. Whichever, by the time the train got to Warrington, I had the urge to shove the phone where the sun don’t shine (which, come to think of it, is Warrington …)

Then we had the strange woman who appeared to have spent a king’s ransom so that her handbag could travel in comfort on the seat next to her. Opposite her, a little old dear wittered all the way from Preston to Crewe about this fact after I’d made it politely but abundantly clear that the train was absolutely heaving and I wanted that seat.

And then there was the girl going to rehab (yes, yes, yes – I know because she told me) with two of the heaviest cases you have ever seen. These cases were wedged into the wheelchair slot, and every time the train lurched (which was often, as it was being driven by Driver Kangaroo), they fell over in slow motion, trapping unsuspecting passers-by. She and I managed to heave them off between us at some tiny station in the middle of Hampshire, but I had visions of them jamming the train door and us all being stuck there ‘til the next Millennium.

I count myself lucky to have returned from my annual work trek around the UK without developing swine flu, given the generosity of my fellow passengers when it came to sharing their germs. And considering it’s not yet the school holidays, why were there so many sprogs on the trains, and why do most of them engage in nostril gardening when they think no one’s watching?

OK, you have me bang to rights … I read a lot on my journeys, but I also stared around a lot. I’m a journalist; I’m paid to be nosy. And I always want to know what the people around me are reading. Except most of them weren’t. There were a couple of blokes in suits reading dungeons and dragons-type fantasy. A fair few women were flicking through magazines. But a high proportion of people were either working on their laptops or had iPods clamped to their ears (note to the wanker on the way to Portsmouth: playing Coldplay that loud is a crime against humanity and will be reported to the relevant United Nations committee).

Me, I had Marshall Karp and Mark Billingham for company, and very congenial companions they were too. More next week on why I’m like a pig in the proverbial with my present reading matter …

Reversing the polarity

As one life-episode ends and a new one begins, the first one doesn’t necessarily sink into total oblivion.

 

Sorry to be needlessly obscure and philosophical. Let me elucidate.

 

I was a writer in a previous life. Until about six years ago, in fact, before I started a little indie publishing company which took over this life and several others, all packed into the same bit of the space-time – especially time – continuum.

 

Sorry again. Virgin One have started repeating Star Trek at exactly the time I’m having breakfast. I’ll try not to eject the warp coil; though reversing shield polarity might become essential.

 

I used to think being a writer wasn’t so much a job as a state of mind: that a writer was just something I was, like Welsh, or too badly co-ordinated for team sports, or a Star Trek fan. But a couple of years into Crème de la Crime I realised that in order to be a writer, you have to write. And I wasn’t writing.

 

I’m still not. Mostly. But any writer will tell you it’s an addiction, and not an easy habit to kick. These days I’m on methadone, in the form of press releases, theatre reviews and blog posts; putting words on paper – well, screen – whatever the form or purpose does take a little of the pressure off and allow me to function normally in other ways. And to resist the temptation to rewrite other people’s novels in my own image. Crème de la Crime authors are pretty good at what they do and don’t need me to do it all over again.

 

Mostly the substitute drug is effective. But every now and again…

 

I keep coming across short story competitions – four in the past month. And I have withdrawal symptoms. Strange, because when I ran a big short story competition (another of those previous lives which got overtaken by events) I didn’t feel that way. But now…

 

Fortunately Crème de la Crime’s annual cycle is approaching the point where I can step off the hamster-wheel for a while and look outside the editing-proofreading-promoting tunnel. The promoting still goes on, of course, and I’ll need to spend some time looking towards the next hamster-wheel; and someone in the background is muttering accounts, so I’ll need to fire up the me-lookalike android with the positronic circuit that deals with numbers and money and all the essential but mind-fuddling stuff.

But there just might be a few un-spoken-for hours when I can feed my addiction.

Extra Cheese and a Side of Weeping

by Barbara Poelle

This past Christmas the family theme back in Minnesota was “As Seen On TV”. This means that all of the gifts had to be of the Sham-wow variety. There were Bug-Vacs and Moolarms (alarm clocks that Moo) and the like, but I received the greatest gift of all from my sister: the Pasta and More. This is the item that allows you to put all of the water and pasta in a blue Tupperware and put it in the microwave and then you can put veggies on a double-decker steamer thingy above it all and BAM! Pasta Primavera in about 10 minutes. Now clearly this handy device helps you avoid all the effort of the, well, the water and the pasta on the stove, where you put in the, you know, the water and the pasta…but, right, the veggies! Come on, you can do that on your stovetop! That takes a whole other pot! And a steamer! See? I don’t know how I have lived without the Pasta and More. It’s like Velcro, or plastic. Or toilet paper. (Because, OMG, why do we not all know the name of the person who invented toilet paper? Their face should be on the nickel.)

Anyway, I am just so glad that last year’s theme was As Seen On TV, because the Pasta and More has  come in handy this last week as every night when I get home from work I need to spend an hour or two eating my feelings. And maybe crying a little. No, really. Why am I eating my feelings and crying? Well, because last week, a colleague of mine was going out with a brilliant manuscript and was told by an editor, “The writing is amazing, but amazing writing isn’t enough.”

AMAZING. WRITING. ISN’T. ENOUGH. (I suggest you grab the nearest carbohydrate and stuff it in your mouth and chew vigorously.)

I mean, I haven’t been living in a bubble- although not a bad idea as I am basically allergic to Earth. Seriously, the worst? Someone recently spilled some margarita mix on my arm and I BROKE OUT IN A RASH. Oh the humanity! To be allergic to sour mix! But it does explain that massive asthma attack I had in Mexico in ’04. Anyway, what I am saying is, I don’t have my head in the sand, I know that the publishing industry is really going through it right now. Earlier this month I was asked for the platform on a literary fiction author. I was like, “Uh, she writes good.”  That’s the first time I have been asked for platform on literary fiction.

Is this what we’ve come to? Turning down material because the writing is amazing but they don’t have enough followers on Twitter? (For the love of Megan Fox, did Husband hide the bagels? I don’t care; I’ll eat handfuls of dry cereal.) I mean, I am all for self promotion. In fact, one of our clients just sold to S & S based on a fabulous angle he took in tootin’ his own horn. I love virtual book tours, blogs and tweets, but are we now seeing brilliant writing as a secondary element to viral media in selling a book to a publisher?  

Uuhghgh. I have to go. I can’t type holding these doughnuts.  

(P.S. Next Christmas the theme is "Pawn Shop Gifts", meaning all gifts must come from a pawn shop. My cousin is a cop, so I tried to vote for "Evidence Room Gifts", but was, for some reason, turned down.)  

The End. And a Shameless Plug for Someone Else

Jeff Cohen

"I'm sick of sitting 'round here, trying to write this book." --Bruce Springsteen

The feeling of typing "THE END" on a first draft is something I won't even attempt to describe. You know it'll come eventually (especially if you've already signed a contract), but the emotional, instinctive part of your brain doesn't really believe that until it sees those words at the bottom of a screen. 

Now, both logical and emotional sides know full well that this is hardly the end of your work on this manuscript. In fact, the difficult part--fixing all the stuff you tried to fudge the first time with the hope that "maybe nobody will notice"--is looming on the horizon. Especially if, as in my case, your editor is really good at what she does and disgustingly right about what needs to be improved.

But you don't think about that right away. You exhale, you smile, you sit back in your $89 Office Depot "executive" chair, and you revel in the sense of accomplishment. All those weeks/months ago, when you typed "Chapter One" at the top of a screen, and noted that the Microsoft Word counter at the bottom of the screen registered, "Words: 2," you could envision this moment, but you didn't know how you'd get there. 

Now, you can't really explain how you managed it, but the evidence is beyond argument. The draft is done. Pop open a bottle of bubbly (in my case, caffeine-free Diet Coke, because I know how to live), order in for dinner and make plans with your significant other. You deserve it.

Then, get to work on the next book proposal. I'm 7,000 words into now, and flailing.

On a completely other subject:

If you've never read one of Chris Grabenstein's terrific John Ceepak/Danny Boyle mystery novels, get off your butt and go get one! The latest (and, as with each successive book, best), MIND SCRAMBLER, publishes tomorrow, and there's no excuse for not buying one.

Ceepak, for the uninitiated, is an ex-military policeman (who bears NO resemblance to Lee Child's Jack Reacher) who lives by the West Point code of ethics: He will not lie, cheat or steal, nor tolerate those who do. If you think that sounds easy, try getting through a day telling nothing but the truth, or calling absolutely everyone who can't do so on every lie they tell. It's hard.

But through the series, Ceepak has gained some humanity, thanks in a great part to his new-ish job as a policeman at the New Jersey shore town of Sea Haven, where he has partnered with Danny Boyle, a party kid who took the job to attract girls, and has learned through his partner about responsibility and ethics. Danny is growing up before our eyes.

And in this book, he has a LOT of growing pains: Danny's ex-girlfriend Katie, (who left after Book 2, Mad Mouse) has shown up in Atlantic City, where Danny and Ceepak are doing some police work, mostly involved with Ceepak's father, a man who should not be discussed, since yesterday was Father's Day, and he really doesn't deserve to be honored. Read the book; you'll find out.

Anyway, Danny runs into Katie, now working as the nanny for a famous magician (sorry--illusionist) working at one of the A.C. hotel/casinos. And within hours, Katie is found dead, in compromising position and equally compromising clothing. And it's up to Danny and Ceepak to find out why, and how.

To tell more would be unfair, but suffice it to say nothing is what it seems, except the bond between the two Sea Haven cops who are teaching each other about what it means to be a man and an officer of the law (Ceepak teaching Danny) and what it means to be a friend (in reverse).

Grabenstein, who is a friend, is also a very good writer. His dialogue sounds like people talking to each other, his plots are clever and convoluted in ways that make me envious, and his characters have depth and dimension. 

Go out and get a copy of MIND SCRAMBLER. You don't have to read the series in sequence, and after you read this one, you'll want to read all the others. I, personally, can't wait to read the next.

Just a few reasons why my dad is super-rad.

He used to put me to bed on Monday nights, I believe at 8, but it might have been 7. My bedroom was on the first floor, slightly off of the living room, and I could hear him watching tv as I fell asleep. An hour later, after Alien Nation had finished (which I was not allowed to watch), he'd come and get me out of bed. I'd sit on the couch with him, in my pjs, usually eating a small snack he'd made (mmm, toast with butter and honey), and together we'd watch Star Trek: The Next Generation.

 He was a smoker for many years of my childhood -- until I was about 12, I think. At the time, I had no idea, because he never smoked in front of me, nor did he leave his cigarettes laying around the house.

He once convinced me that before I was born, my mom had a pet chimpanzee. She had to give him up when I was a baby, because the chimp and I did not get along.

Throughout my childhood, he managed the local movie theaters. Whenever I was invited to a slumber party, I would show up bearing a bag of popcorn bigger than I was. I was a pretty popular slumber party guest.

When he enrolled me in elementary school, and filled out the "In Case of Emergency, Contact ..." form, he wrote in, "Anyone but Charles Manson." The school did not think it was nearly as funny as he did.

Though I know he would have preferred I study business, he supported me when I decided to go to Vassar and major in Theatre.

He teases me a lot, but I know he's incredibly proud of me.

At our old house, whenever there was a big thunderstorm, huge puddles would form on the uneven sidewalks outside our house. Dad and I would run outside and do a rain dance through the puddles, under the storm clouds, until we were soaked through and laughing.

When I read my first Sherlock Holmes story, "The Speckled Band," I was too scared to finish it. Dad took the book, finished the story for me, and told me what happened.

On the flip side of his bravery: He took my mom on a date to see Alien. As soon as the retainer-looking alien baby attached itself to John Hurt's face, my dad stood up, yelled, "I don't know why I'm DOING this to myself!" He turned to my mom and said, "I'll pick you up later!" and ran out. Much later, he watched the end of the movie over and over to be sure the alien actually died.

He used to let me stay up late on Thursday evenings to watch Mystery! on PBS.

He introduced me to one of my favorite cartoons for grownups, Home Movies.

He loves to do crossword puzzles, and he'd stay up late, sitting in the kitchen, finishing one up before he went to bed. In the morning when I got up for school, there would sometimes be a puzzle left out, with a sticky note on it saying, "Big Al, 7 down." He'd leave the clues that he knew I'd know blank, so I could fill in the last squares of the puzzle for him.

Nowadays, he sometimes mails me mostly completed crossword puzzles, with sticky notes indicating the clues I should finish.

Thanks, Dad, for being a great dad. And thanks to John, my stepdad, for being rad in other wonderful ways.

How rad is your dad?

 

Found around the store

Robin Agnew

A heart shaped sticky that says: "Contact me if you'd like a review copy."

A notecard taped to the hold shelf with important dates: new Louise Penny, new Julia Spencer-Fleming, new Janet Evanovich, new Sue Grafton.  We could either memorize these dates or have this card for reference for the many, many times we are asked each day about the new books by these particular ladies.

An old postcard of Jack Benny and Marilyn Monroe.  Jack Benny isn't wearing his glasses, and doesn't look like Jack Benny.  Even people old enough to rememeber him can't tell who he is (he looks kind of happy, though).

Various Aunt Agatha's cards signed by authors (I should count them sometime).  A few of my favorites:

"I almost died in Ann Arbor (really!)" - Dennis Lehane (I'm not sure what this means, but Dennis Lehane wrote it, so I love it.)

"To Olive, Edward Marston".  I didn't speak up (this was at a conference) and Marston thought my name was Olive.  He was the first british author I ever met, and I was intimidated!

"From Jeanne M. Dams, who wishes Agatha were her aunt!"

"Stay open - be lucky.  - Liza Cody"

Aunt Agatha's cards taped to the bookshelves that say "If you like so- and so, you may also like..." For example, "If you like Amanda Cross, you may also like Kate Flora."

Many posters of enlarged book covers sent by authors - some especially meaningful for various reasons.  The Salaryman's Wife and The Devil in Music by Kate Ross: meaningful because Ross signed with Massey shortly before she died.  The River Sorrow by Craig Holden: meaningful because at this launch signing (the first time I tracked down an author from a newspaper article) Loren Estleman showed up to check Craig out.  They both had the same trenchcoat.   I felt like I was in a noir film.

A couple FBI wanted posters back in the true crime section (most notably Andrew Cunanan's).  An FBI agent stationed in Ann Arbor who I think was slightly bored used to peruse the true crime books during his lunch hour.  He gave us the posters when he retired.

And many, many photographs.  A favorite: one of Miriam Grace Monfredo being questioned by an especially astute customer.  In the background is a cardboard cut out of Uma Thurman, dressed as Poison Ivy - she looks like part of the discussion. 

That's the tour for today.  Stop by sometime!

One Hot Summer Night

PJ Nunn

It's not a dark and stormy night, but still I’m reminded of many fictional interludes that represent the hot, summer night I’m sitting in just now. My a/c unfortunately decided to freeze up late yesterday. I thought it was a broken thermostat, which we attempted to replace throughout the day to no avail. Finally, around 8 pm, an angel of a friend who was held up on the job in another town (and whose dad happens to own an a/c repair company in town) prevailed upon a friend and sent him flying to my house to bring relief. He promptly changed out the thermostat, fixed whatever else was wrong and left me with instructions to sweat it out for a couple more hours until the unit thawed, then turn it back on and hopefully enjoy cool air again. So sitting here, sticking to the chair I use in my room to avoid whatever ballgame or obnoxious movie my husband and sons have playing in the den, beside the door that opens to my patio, I’m wondering what it is about a hot, summer night that some authors find so sexy to write about. It totally escapes me at the moment. But I digress.

My original thought for today’s blog started while watching a rerun of Frasier the other night. His agent, Bebe, was going through her usual extreme antics and decided to climb out on the window ledge in the midst of contract negotiations on Frasier’s behalf. Frasier, conflicted as always, determined that her desperate action must have something to do with his recent rejection of her amorous attentions and decided to do the courageous thing and climb out after her. Once there, however many flights up, he finds that she’s just pulling another stunt in an attempt to get him a good contract and refuses to come back off the ledge until the Channel 5 news team arrives. After all, they give the best coverage. They’ll see him save her life and of course he’ll get the best contract possible. I think it worked, but that’s not my point.

I was later asked, "Do you always tell your clients what they want to hear?” The question seemed simple enough on the surface, but it pulled me up short. Do I? Should I?

I find it interesting sometimes to be divided between two careers. My first career, chronologically at least, is that of a psychologist, with a specialization in law enforcement. And, although I’ve been a publicist full time for the past ten years, I’m still called upon as a psychologist fairly often and that inquisitive nature is always at work. It’s served me well as a publicist many times, because I find if I can get to the root of a problem or situation, it’s usually much easier to make right choices to bring resolution. The down side is that sometimes I can’t stop thinking. I think too much. Most strengths are like that. Left unchecked, they can become weaknesses.

Back to the question at hand. I do try to be encouraging to my clients whenever possible. There’s plenty of discouragement to go around. I want to be a positive voice in the midst. But at the same time, does that mean I’m promising things that I can’t deliver?

I was reminded this week by a frank email from a discouraged client. In discussing the matter with him, it became clear that I hadn’t told him I could do something I didn’t do. He’d made an assumption that when I said THIS, I meant THAT. Essentially, he believed I could do something that, ultimately, I wasn’t able to do. At least not for him. I always feel that I bear the larger responsibility in communication issues because I am the professional and in most cases I know the business better than the authors I represent, even though they don’t always think that’s true.

I’ve heard myself, after a similar incident, trying to tell a potential client that I can’t promise a particular thing. Even at the time, the little warning voice goes off in me, pointing out that even I wouldn’t hire me if I heard that. So where is the line drawn? How can I be encouraging in a distinctly discouraging business, without indicating that I can do more than I can really do? Hard question.

What does all that have to do with Bebe and Frasier? Not a lot. Just one thing that leads to another. I was thinking of how many people expect their publicists to go to extreme measures to get what the client wants. I don’t think any of my clients expect me to go out on a ledge for them. Honestly, most of the time, I hold myself to a higher standard than they do. But I guess right now, in the heat of the night, I’m feeling a little of the melancholy of my job, and my nature. Regardless of whether I promised or whether they just believed I could do something great for them, when I learn that they’re disappointed, it makes me sad. I may understand that what they hoped was completely outside of my ability to accomplish, but I still secretly wish I could whip that purple cape with a giant P on it out of my closet and become, just for the moment, that super-Publicist that can do anything.

I might meditate on that for a few minutes, but sooner or later it will strike me. There is no such thing, or if there is, then I already am that super-P. The very nature of the job of a publicist means that we take tons of rejection so our clients don’t have to. I’m ok with that. It’s the nature of the biz and I’m glad to do it. And we know, going in, that if the book does well and hits the NY Times bestseller list, it’s because the author has a great talent and wrote a great book. If it doesn’t do well, it would’ve done better if he or she had a better publicist. It’s the same with setting up signing events. If it goes great and they sell 50 books, it’s because they’re great and it’s a great book. If the signing is a bust, the publicist should have scheduled an event at a different store. Or done more promotion. Or sent press releases sooner. You get the drill.

Don’t think I’m whining; I’m not. If I come across an author that I can’t support, I don’t work for them. Like I told the group I spoke to in Austin last weekend – I have the best clients in the world. And I mean that. There’s not one on my list that I don’t completely believe in and highly recommend. There are some who are more “high maintenance” than others, but well worth the effort. Sometimes I wish they were a little more like me, though, at least when it comes to optimism. For instance, I had one who challenged me when I sent a review that we’d gotten for him. Apparently he’d been sent the review by one of those internet marketing companies before I sent it to him, which gave indication (at least it looked like to me) that they’d been responsible for it. I felt really surprised, then not a little unhappy that it seemed he was quick to believe the other company and not me. We talked it out and I think we’re ok now. But I still wished he’d have been quicker to believe me over them. I really have worked hard for him, but I haven’t accomplished as much as either he or I hoped. Yet.

What if you could measure a one hundred mile stretch of desert and mark it off beginning to end. Then suppose you could capture two birds and set them both free at the starting point and follow their progress across that one hundred mile stretch to the finish line. The first bird is a hummingbird. Not surprisingly, that little hummingbird will find any flowers along the route and will give attention to little else. But what if the second bird isn’t a hummingbird? It’s flying along the exact same stretch of desert. Will it find the same things? Not if it’s a buzzard. A buzzard could fly the same path, ignore every flower and find every carcass. The moral of that story is that most of the time, we find what we’re looking for.

That works whether you’re a publicist or an author or whatever. I’m a realist, I’m no dreamer. Anyone who knows me well will tell you that. But that doesn’t mean I go through life looking for negatives. Frankly, there’s enough reality that’s going to fly in my face no matter what. I sure don’t have to go looking for it. So I’ve trained myself to look for the positives in everyone and in every situation. And I’m rarely disappointed, although sometimes I do have to search harder than others.

And guess what? There’s cool air blowing out of my a/c vents again!

So what have you learned this week?

Procrastination = Walking The Dog

Deni Dietz for Sharon:

My sister Marianne has always wanted to be a published author. Once upon a fairly long time ago, she phoned and asked how I found the time to write my books, especially since I had 3 kids (like she did), no child support, and I worked days at a video store and nights waiting tables.

I said, “Here’s what you do, Marianne. Every day you get up an hour before Eddie and the kids. Sit at your computer and write for that hour. Even if you write one page, by the end of the year you’ll have a book.”

“But,” she said, “I already get up an hour earlier than Eddie and the kids. I have to make breakfast for everybody and fix the kids’ school lunches.”

“Okay, Marianne,” I said. “When Eddie takes off for work and the kids leave for school, sit at your computer - every day at the same time - and work for an hour. Even if you only write one page, by the end of the year you’ll have a book.”

“After Eddie and the kids leave for work and school,” she said, “I have to straighten up the house. You know how Eddie gets if the house is messy.”

“Okay,” I said, “after you straighten up the house, sit down at the computer and work for an—”

“After I clean the house, I have to change the sheets and do the laundry, and then I eat lunch.”

“Okay, Marianne,” I said, glancing at my clock. “After you do the laundry and eat lunch, sit down at your computer and work for an hour. If you produce only one page a day, by the end of the year you’ll have a book.”

“After I do the laundry and eat lunch,” she said, “I have to walk the dog.”

Walking the dog has become a catch-phrase in my family. If my daughter says she wants to join the local community theatre, possibly audition for a role in a production of My Fair Lady, but she can’t seem to find the time, I say, “Sandi, you’re walking the dog.”

There’s a PS to my tale. I told my “walking the dog” story at a writers conference. The following year a woman came running up to me. I didn’t recognize her. I hate it when that happens. As I searched for a name, a reference, anything, she said, “You don’t know me.”

I swallowed a sigh of relief.

“I was here at this conference last September,” she continued. “I don’t remember what I ate or what I wore or what Famous Bestselling Author said on her panel, but I remembered your walking the dog story.”

She paused. “And last year,” she said, “I wrote a book.”

Every time I tell that story, it’s an effort not to bawl. Even writing it, I get a lump in my throat.

So if you remember nothing else from this blog, remember my walking-the-dog story. It’s magic. It’s Dumbo’s feather. And, most importantly, it works.

Because I didn’t “walk the dog,” my latest book, STRANGLE A LOAF OF ITALIAN BREAD - an Ellie Bernstein/Lt. Peter Miller “diet club” Mystery - came out this month. An excerpt is on my website. As always, if you’ve never read a Denise Dietz mystery, I recommend you request “Strangle” at your library. Right now. Don't walk the dog :)

      

Come rain, come shine

Lynne Patrick

I was going to write about the 100^th birthday party I went to last weekend, until I read PJ’s post about floods in Texas and power outages. It sent me right back a couple of years to that dreadful ‘summer’ when people were being rescued by helicopter from factory roofs, great swathes of the UK were under water and Shaz was queuing for her supply of bottled water.

 

Nothing quite so dramatic has hit us since then – but it’s surprising how often the weather gets blamed when things don’t go quite according to plan. We’ve all had a good laugh about leaves on the line and the wrong sort of snow; railway honchos and their ilk would much rather blame the weather than actually sort the problem.

 

(Though that 100^th birthday party has its own take on the subject. The guest of honour was a delightful gentleman I’ve known for close to twelve years. Until recently his friends and family threw him a party for every birthday – and every single year, whatever the weather chose to do on either side of the big day, that party took place in his garden, in brilliant sunshine. Maybe when you reach a venerable age, one of the perks is a direct line to whoever arranges these things… We can but hope.)

 

OK, that’s this week’s digression done and dusted; I’m back on message now.

 

We did a murder mystery evening at the end of last week, at a small village library on a pleasant though unremarkable evening. There were six teams of participants, and everyone had a good time – and at least a dozen times in the course of three hours, somebody said, ‘Thank goodness this wasn’t happening last night.’

 

The previous night, a month’s-worth of rain had fallen over Derbyshire in less than twelve hours. When I got home from work, my t-shirt was plastered to my body (and I don’t have a wet t-shirt contest body) and I had to towel off and change my clothes – all the more significant when you remember that my office is a thirty-second sprint from my kitchen door. News coverage showed flash flooding, cars half-full of water and lightning like something out of a Frankenstein movie.

 

The kind of evening when you lock the door, pull the curtains and curl up with a good book.

 

Not the kind of evening when you venture out into the wild blue yonder, or even the local library for a murder mystery evening, even if you’ve paid for your ticket.

 

So yes, on the whole, thank goodness it was actually scheduled for twenty-four hours later.

 

I may have mentioned once or twice in passing the bookshops visits that several of Crème de la Crime’s wonderful authors undertake on a fairly regular basis. That the number of books that leave via the cash register has a strong connection with the number of customers who pass through the shop goes without saying, though I seem to have said it anyway – don’t you just hate it when people do that? And the number of people in the shop seems directly related to – yes, you guessed – the weather.

 

Trouble is, it’s not one specific kind of weather that keeps them away. If it were, the author could simply stay at home – having first contacted the shop to reschedule, of course. OK, maybe snow. It invariably paralyses public transport and sends town centres into gridlock, so maybe cancellation is the best policy there.

 

But rain coming down like stair-rods isn’t necessarily a disadvantage. It can actually send people into a bookshop seeking shelter. I’ve done that myself, and since I’m not safe to be let loose in a bookshop with a Visa card, any author who happened to be visiting could well have profited from my desire to stay dry.

 

At the opposite end of the scale, blazing sunshine, which you’d think would entice people out of their houses, often results in deserted shops, even if the outdoor temperature gets uncomfortable and they’re air-conditioned. Other pleasures obviously beckon.

 

And neither effect is predictable. The opposite could just as easily happen.

 

So what’s the point of this frivolous riff about something we can’t control?

 

Just that: we can’t control it. (Unless we’re a hundred years old with a direct line to the weather fairy. Roll on the day.) We’re at its mercy. And we have absolutely no idea what effect it will have.

 

Like so much of life.

 

Scary.

Tough Love is the New Black

by Barbara Poelle

A colleague of mine, we’ll call her Jolly Loot, recently came into my home and performed what some may consider an intervention- others, an exorcism- regarding the contents of my closet. Apparently, Jolly vacillates between open mouth gaping and outright hysterical laughter at some of my wardrobe ensembles, and she felt she needed to step up and help out someone in need. Friends don’t let friends wear polyester blends or something.

Here’s the thing: back when we shared an office, I was oftentimes guilty of feeling like I needed to shake things up or “etch-a-sketch” the day. When this would happen I would quietly rise, leave the office, go buy a new outfit and come back dressed completely different.  This made her insane.  To add to her agony, sometimes, on a very rare occasion, I liked to go to this discount store aptly named The Big D and make purchases.  Now, I didn’t get the memo on this one, but apparently, buying your clothes from The Big D when your offices are on 5^th Avenue is akin to setting puppies on fire while working for PETA because she would scream and tear at her hair and rock when I would come waltzing back in wearing what I called a flow-y summer dress and she called a mu-mu.   

So, Jolly decided that a deep colon cleanse of my closet was in order. We set a date, and then Jolly came over to my apartment and made me pull out every item in my closet and try it on and it had to go into either the donate, throw, or keep pile.

Of course, there were some ground rules. I began the negotiations by insisting I was allowed three vetoes, and the subset veto clause denoted that if said veto included clothing that was actually composed of two or more items that would still only count as one veto.  Furthermore, it was acknowledged and agreed by both parties that should an item of clothing have particular sentimental value it was allowed to remain in my closet as long as it was never worn “in public”. This was followed quickly by Jolly clarifying that a secondary “in public” sub clause be initiated specifying this restriction included “popping downstairs to the bodega for a diet coke”, and “grabbing the laundry from across the street”. (Damn that crafty vixen, Jolly Loot!) And finally, there was one more clause on Jolly’s part: she would allow a complete ensemble to remain in the closet as long as I never wore all said pieces from ensemble simultaneously, as apparently, “that’s too much matching”.

(W!T!B?)

During the mighty purge, Jolly kept texting another colleague we’ll call Melissa Sarver (because that’s her name) with such phrases as:

OMG Sarver, there are not one, not two, but THREE velour jump suits in here  

Or

This is the first time I have ever seen an actual skort 

Now, you might think that prancing around in tightey whiteys and a tank top while someone laughs at you and texts about you to other colleagues might be somewhat disheartening, but please.  I am in Publishing.  

And there were Bellinis.

I mean, sure, there were a couple of touch and go moments when Jolly had to tear a jean skirt out of my hand screaming, “You are not 22 anymore! You are not 22 anymore! I won’t let you do this to yourself!” and then one other when she pulled out the tiniest halter top in the world and was like, “What Care Bear wore this?” and I said, “That’s the shirt I was wearing the night of my first kiss with Husband.” And she murmured what sounded a lot like “what a skank” under her breath, before acquiescing that it could be filed under emotional wardrobe keepers.  (That and the fact there is no danger of me wearing it even inside the home because it looks like it came directly from Gap Kids and I look like I came directly from the 4^th of July hot dog eating contest on Coney Island.)

By the end of the evening, I had FOUR bags to donate and two to toss out. I had one veto left (I wouldn’t let her throw my favorite plaid pants away nor a pair of sassy corduroys) and I had only howled in agony twice (you guys, I rocked that jean skirt, I rocked it! And who DOESN’T own a pair of culottes?). Then Jolly hung up all of my keepers in order of sleeve length and color. I gazed at my “new” wardrobe in reverence, and I had to admit, I was better for it. I mean, sure, maybe Jolly didn’t have to drive her point home by yelling, or “For the love of- people your age HAVE children they don’t DRESS like them.” or “Don’t you DARE even try that ON!” But then again, Jolly also didn’t have to kindly say, “I don’t think that’s the silhouette you want to be going for” when perhaps someone else might have barked, “Either suck it in or throw it out!” Regardless, what I have now is a sleeker, more refined wardrobe, and I wouldn’t have been able to do that on my own.

And you too, can have your very own Jolly Loot experience through your second readers. They need to be trusted to dive into your manuscript and tell you that sure,  maybe you could bounce a quarter off of some sections,  but you would lose a buck seventy- five in others.  But you must, you MUST, choose your readers wisely. No frenemies allowed. You need someone who firmly yet lovingly sets you straight that no, neon is NOT the new black, but they don’t feel that they are losing any of their worth by telling you so.  

Sometimes, those who you thought were your “besties” can turn angry and resentful when your star starts to rise while theirs still lies gently among the reeds. There is no way anyone could have doled out the tough love like Jolly did, but even when she was verbally berating me, I knew she was doing it for my own good, and I never once thought she was secretly making me keep all of the clothes that are too tight or out of style in order to make herself feel better. The frenemies  may quietly and almost unknowingly sabotage the confidence, and in some cases even the execution, of your manuscript in order to alleviate some of the ache at watching your success.  This is pretty pathetic, but occurs more often than one might think.

All in all, you need to make sure that whoever is reading your work is there to make your manuscript the sleekest, most streamlined it can be, who doesn’t let you get away with anything, and who is almost freaky in their determination to watch you succeed, as in the case of a very spooky text I received in the middle of the day on a Saturday afternoon:

What did I tell you?!?! Take that off.

And I did. And I am better for it.

 

 

 

The Long and Short of It

Jeff Cohen

For years now, I've been trying to crack the code of publishing success. Why do some authors become household names, while others (who sometimes but not always seem to write just as well) labor in obscurity when they are paid to labor at all?

I've wracked my brain on the subject, which isn't as painful as it sounds if you wear gloves, and several theories have come to mind, been considered and, eventually, abandoned. First, I thought it was because I wrote lousy books. But then I realized that some really big deal authors have written lousy books, and that didn't seem to stop them. So I considered the idea that I have a repellant personality and have been, you know, repelling people away from buying my books. But my wife says I'm not most of the time, and we've been married 22 years, so she would know.

I thought it was because I didn't have an agent, but now I do, and she's wonderful, so that's not it. I thought it was because I was published by a very small house, but now I'm not. I thought it was because I was rotten at publicity, but PJ isn't, and she works with me.

But I was wrong all those times. Turns out, the problem is that I'm short.

Now, I know what you're thinking: What has height got to do with success in the publishing industry? I thought the same thing myself, until I discovered that someone named Arianne Cohen (no relation I know of) has written something called The Tall Book, which, as it details the trials and tribulations of being tall (Cohen is 6'3", which is another way I know we're of no relation) and living in America--apparently there's a problem with airplane seats--notes that almost all our Presidents have been tall, that tall men are considered the most successful professionally and "dating and mating," that they earn more (somewhere in the area of $800 per inch over short people) and that CEOs and Oscar winners tend to be tall.

Strangely, so do professional athletes.

Cohen herself is a walking example of her subject--her book has been profiled on NPR, reviewed by People Magazine, featured on the CBS Early Show and discussed on the BBC. It currently sits at #380 on Amazon's admittedly arbitrary sales lists.

My latest, which costs $12.01 less than hers, is streaking forward at #280,033. With a bullet.

So now I understand. Because I'm 10 inches shorter than Ms. Cohen, I should expect to earn roughly $8,000 less than her on each project. But I'm willing to bet the math is off on that, and I'm getting (you should pardon the expression) the short end of the stick.

Now, I've made a few short jokes myself from time to time (like on every other page of the Aaron Tucker series). I realize that short people can be funny and that Randy Newman once opined we have "no reason to live." I'm pretty sure Randy was kidding.

But the science and the math add up: I'm not as successful as Lee Child because he can, literally, look down on me. And apparently, there isn't a damn thing I can do about it, short of investing in a rack, which would probably be only a temporary fix, anyway, and not a terribly enjoyable experience.

Sorry for my tone. I'm just a little short-tempered right now.

Harry Potter and the Editor of Imagined Endings

Sometimes, when I watch movies or read non-Bleak-House books, I can't turn off the editorial voice in my brain. It's not always a bad thing, but it can be distracting. It can also be kindof awesome, in the cases where I invent a new scene to fill a perceived hole, or change all the "said"s to "ask"s as I read along, if the speaker is, in fact, asking a question. (Andrew Grant, I'm looking in your direction ...) :)

Often, I read in bed before I fall asleep, and as I slip in and out of dreamworld, I continue the plot of whatever I'm reading. I'll wake up, face-first in a drool-covered book, trying to find the paragraph where I left off before imagining that all the characters ate Pop Tarts and went to Mars.

Reading the final book in the Harry Potter series was one of those times when my editorial voice started chiming in. Of course, Rowling had me at hello, and no matter how it turned out I knew I'd be engrossed, surprised, delighted, and moved (not to mention devastated that it was all over). I enjoyed the Deathly Hallows as written, and I applaud the author for bringing her characters through an amazing journey, and for the level of craftsmanship needed to create and maintain the whole Harry Potter world.

But ... I have an imaginary ending. And it has to do with the Horcruxes.

WARNING: THERE ARE MASSIVE HP SPOILERS BELOW. FOR BOOK 7, AS WELL AS BOOK 2.

Ok, so, you remember how there's that awesome scene in HP7 where the locket Horcrux begins to strangle Harry, as he's trying to retrieve the Sword of Gryffindor from the bottom of that lake? And Ron appears, and saves Harry, and Harry's all, "The locket! Destroy it with the sword!" and Ron's all, "Ok!" and the locket is all, "Wooo, I'm a creepy Horcrux and I'm all in your face, Ron, making you doubt Harry and feel jealousy and don't destroy me destroy hiiiiiim!" and then Ron's all, "I'm overcoming my jealously and feelings of secnod-best-ed-ness, and proving my loyalty to my friend Harry, whom I love!" and then he smashes the Horcrux and it's awesome?

Yeah, me too. I loved that scene -- and more than that, I loved the interplay of the Ron/Harry relationship, and how Rowling didn't shy from showing that there was competition and jealousy between the boys, but that overcoming You-Know-Who was bigger that them, and that ultimately what mattered was love, trust, and loyalty. So I got to thinking ...

There are seven Horcruxes, and we know that they must all be destroyed in order for good to triumph over evil. A main theme of the novels, from the very beginning, has involved trust and belief and facing difficult and scary truths in order to survive. The Ministry refuses to believe that You-Know-Who has returned, and it costs them. Harry is often cast as a boy seeking attention and fame, inventing scary stories so people will think he's important. He's bolstered by a band of misfits, other people who have experienced the pain of, "No one believes me!" or "Everyone thinks I'm weird!"

So, ok: Wouldn't it be great if each of Harry's friends were required to detroy a Horcrux, as the physical act of doing so would prove their strength and loyalty to good? AND, wouldn't it be great if each Horcrux taunted that friend with their main weakness? (As the locket did, with Ron's jealousy?)

Yeah! Right, well, the Horcruxes are:

1. The locket (Which Ron ably took care of, as discussed above.)
2. The ring (Which Dumbledore destroyed, though it taunted him with the promise of ultimate power, which he amits is a temptation.)
3. Hufflepuff's cup (Which Hermione destroys with her brilliant knowledge.)
4. Ravenclaw's diadem (Which Luna suggests is a Horcurx -- in this imaginary ending of mine, she is the one who must destroy it.)
5. Nagini (Ugh, I'm terrified of snakes, and this one was especially malicious. I LOVE that Neville was given the honor of killing her.)
6. The diary (Remember way back in book 2, when Ginny gets possessed and Harry has to destroy the diary to save her life?)
7. Harry himself

Listen, my version is about to get a bit dark.

If we go ahead and imagine the changes needed to spell out that in order for Harry to be triumphant, he needs his friends, and the specific, physical thing he needs his friends to do is to each destroy a different Horcrux, and if we apply this edit retroactively to book 2, and Ginny and the diary ... she failed in her friendship to Harry. Or rather, in that first test of her friendship, when she was young and impressionable and not yet fully in love with him (though she did have quite the crush).

So Harry destroyed her Horcrux for her, which then would mean ... wait for it ... that she would need to destroy his.

And his was, you know, himself.

Yes, readers, in my version of HP7, Ginny must kill the man she loves. She must stab Harry Potter with the sword of Gryffindor. Tears all around, eh?

After that, I'm fine with the whole train-station-Heaven scene, and Harry being resurrected, and so forth and etcetera. I know it's not popular, but I actually kinda liked the "flash forward they're all married and have kids omg!" epilogue. It's just the climactic action that I have the urge to revise.

(Oh, and Fred. I'd bring back Fred. Sob.)

Well, all that was a fairly long excersise in getting to this simple question (and thanks to those of you who've stuck this out): When you read, do you imagine the characters behaving differently? Do you invent new endings? If you could go back and change the end of one great work, what would it be and why?

Does Size Matter?

I have covered this topic before, in terms of paperback sales.  But lately I have been thinking that in terms of hardcover sales, size may also matter.  The type of smaller hardcovers produced by some small presses and by some larger ones –

Soho, Forge and St. Martin’s come to mind – are somehow more appealing to a reader, in an unscientific study.

Books, luckily (I hope) for booksellers, are not just a way to deliver a story – though of course they are that – but they are also an aesthetic experience.  The way the cover looks, the way the paper feels, and as I’ve mentioned, the size of the book, all make a difference.  Something you enjoy holding in your hand while you’re reading may or may not affect how you feel about the content of the book, but it will certainly affect your decision to buy it.

Some of our bestselling hardcovers have been of the “smaller” variety – In the Bleak Midwinter, Maisie Dobbs, Her Royal Spyness, Still Life, The Coroner’s Lunch, The Reaper – all were the smaller sized hardcovers and all sold like crazy.   Of course I could enthusiastically recommend all of those books, which helped, but somehow when I handed them to a customer they were – and there’s no other word for it – smitten.  Maisie Dobbs especially had an unusually beautiful cover and I think when people saw it they had to have it.

Right now there’s a new book out, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, that may have the same trajectory.  Not only is it small with unusual and appealing artwork on the cover, but it has no dust jacket.  Because it’s also a quirky read that at the same time fits into the popular classic British mystery mode, I think the sales figures for it might be lively.

This may be a crazy theory but I have also noticed that one of our bestselling authors, Loren Estleman, when he moved to Forge began to get smaller hardcovers that were also quite lovely (Forge does a nice job).  His latest, The Branch and the Scaffold, not even a mystery, has done really well for us.  The black cover with the noose on it doesn’t hurt.  I don’t know if any other booksellers have found this to be true – and we certainly see no sales resistance to traditionally sized hardcovers by writers like Lee Child, Donna Leon or Michael Connelly – but it may be the size for a launch.

This goes hand in hand with the true fact that if a customer comes in and doesn’t touch the books he/she won’t buy one.  If books for you are not a tactile experience, you probably aren’t the type of reader we happen to encounter most often.  In any case, though it IS what’s inside that matters, the thing is you want someone to pick the book up in the first place.

What a week!

PJ Nunn

Wowzer, what a week! Seems ages since I've been here with you. It started when my son went into the hospital with what I thought was just another episode with infection causing his blood sugar levels to go amok, but ended up being meningitis and giving us all quite a scare. He's home now and much, much better and we're all making up for lost sleep.

But alas, weather would intervene and caused a power outage Wednesday night that also played havoc   with my sleep patterns and left me dreaming of hail and tornados and getting up several times in the night, wondering what time it really was since my clocks were all flashing due to those blips in the power that reset everything.

After hours of power outage, Thursday was filled with still more rain (as shown in photo) and subsequent floods, and trying to keep my wireless modem online. It finally started cooperating around 4 PM when rain and thunder and such slowed up and segued into bleary gray skies. So guess who's working Thursday night?

But it's not unpleasant work, really, and I'm very grateful to have power again. I'm amazed how hot it gets in this house when there's no power. Generators are good.

I've got several new releases to make ready for July, a wedding this weekend, and a speaking gig with Sisters in Crime in Austin that I've been looking forward to for quite some time. They're going to get a little preview of what I'll be doing at Bouchercon in October so if you're near enough, drive on over and see us! Sarah Ann at hotxsinc@yahoo.com can give you details. As always I'll have goodies to give away. Love to see you there!

One of the things we'll talk about is Myths about Book Promotion. What's real and what isn't? What works and what doesn't? There's always something to be learned from experiences, good, bad and otherwise, but it's not always immediately clear.

For instance, I always try to glean information from client interactions, particularly if a client leaves my service less than satisfied. It is, after all, my job and my desire to satisfy my clients so if that doesn't happen, I spend a lot of time trying to figure out what I might have done differently. Over the years I've managed to identify a few patterns, but there are some incidents that have elusive morals.

Like the author whose promo shot featured him kissing a calico hen in a Wal-Mart photo who wasn't happy that I suggested a new photo. Hmmm. Or the one who felt offended that I didn't concur it was a good idea to pitch him to speak at nudist colonies wearing only a sandwich board with his book cover on it. Go figure. You think I'm making this up? If only.

Of course most authors aren't like that. Most are talented, hard working people who are trying to make it in an industry that some days seems designed to make it impossible. As far as publicists go, most are also hard working people who try to do a good job for their clients and generally enjoy their work. But like the few high maintenance authors out there, there are a few high charging, low producing publicists out there that give us all a tarnished reputation.

Does every author need a publicist? That all depends on the definition of need. You need air to breathe. You don't need a publicist to survive, even in this industry. But can the right publicist be a great tool in your author tool box? You bet.

I'd love to hear some of your thoughts about what a publicist does, or should do. What do you think authors need from a publicist that few, if any, are getting?

My beloved editors

Sharon Wheeler

About the only thing I write that doesn’t get edited is my shopping list. So let me introduce you to my much-loved and trusted team of beady-eyed editors who find themselves roped in to knock my prose into shape.

Yvonne Klein, my co-editor in crime over at RTE, is charged with the task of toning down my more sarcastic comments in book reviews, and also curing me of my life-long addiction to ellipses and exclamation marks …!

Mafalda Stasi and Wayne Gunn look over my academic writings. Wayne’s a retired Eng Lit professor from Texas. Maf is Italian, lives in Paris and speaks at least three languages fluently. Both of them immediately see the wood from the trees.

Fortunately for the unsuspecting world, I don’t write fiction very often. But when I do, it’s shovelled in the direction of my friends Linda and Fiona. Linda can spot a plot hole and character glitch at 20 paces. Fiona is the cheerleader every writer wants. But no discrepancies or vague phrases sneak past her.

You don’t acquire trusted editors and mentors overnight. You learn early on that some friends can’t bring themselves to criticise what you’ve written, so instead give you the written version of a pat on the hand. Thank them prettily and don’t push them – it’s not worth losing a friendship over if you force them outside of their comfort zone.

If I edit for people as a favour, I ask them at the outset how honest they want me to be. Some want you to read and then gush over every word. Others genuinely want you to go through with the finest of toothcombs and are quite happy for you to murder their darling. Sometimes you just know that it won’t end well, so best to discover an urgent deadline which precludes you from helping out.

All this is by way of remembering the two best mentors and editors I’ve had. Joan Martin, a retired Californian schoolteacher, died in 2006. She oozed calm and quiet competence and would say with a twinkle in her eye: “I’m just a sweet little old lady.”

People seemed to know instinctively that she wouldn’t take crap off anybody. And she could fillet leaden prose quicker than anyone. I didn’t get to know Joan until she was over 70, and we met up three times – I went to California twice and she stayed with me in the UK once – but we spoke on the phone several times a month and emailed constantly.

I dedicated my Feature Writing for Journalists to Joan – and will be dedicating the next book to Professor Peter Widdowson, who died last week. Peter was a much-loved colleague in the English department at the University of Gloucestershire, and was the man responsible for kick-starting my research.

When I got the job at UoG, several colleagues in other universities said reverentially: “Oh, Peter Widdowson’s there!” So I was fully expecting some god-like figure who didn’t consort with the hoi polloi. After all, Peter’s publication record stretched halfway to the moon.

In fact, I found a sparky, witty man with an unbounded enthusiasm which he passed on to colleagues and students. I remember my first years enthusing over a grammar and punctuation session he’d done with them. I tried not to gawp with amazement at an academic with Peter’s reputation taking such a basic study skills class – but he made those essential rules fun and accessible.

I hadn’t been at UoG long when he sat me down and asked me about my research record. I muttered that I’d come from a teaching university and anyway, I was a journalist and kept busy with that, thank you very much. He looked at me over his glasses and said that we’d see about that. I then admitted that I’d been toting round a book proposal which three publishers had politely declined, and would he mind taking a look at it and telling me what was wrong with it.

“How honest do you want me to be?” asked Peter. “Totally,” I said. And he was – the proposal came back to me coated liberally with red pen, and I could soon see why none of the publishers had mown me down in the rush. From then on, he looked over my book proposals, jabbed me in the ribs to do research seminars, and provided advice whenever it was needed. And my academic publishing went from nil to one book, a co-edited book and chapters in two other books within five years.

Me and my historian colleague Penny agreed that Peter would be the one man we’d take to a desert island. Never mind all these young hunks with nothing between the ears – Peter had a brain the size of a planet, a cheeky schoolboy sense of humour and could discourse fluently on seemingly any subject. You’d never be bored in his company and would come away realising you’d learned something new each time.

I shall miss Peter’s sense of fun, his enthusiasm and his ‘you can do it’ motivation. And most of all I shall remember the hilarious emails (we had a bizarre double act going which stemmed from both the Carry On films and that well-known quote: "I have in my hand a piece of paper …") As he himself used to sign off: Yours ‘til hell freezes over.

The right place at the right time

Lynne Patrick

This is the time of year when I look at the calendar, realise it’s June (hard to believe, given that the outside temperature is in the low 50s, and I don’t mean on the scale that nearly roasted the drivers alive in the Turkish Grand Prix last weekend) and wonder where the year has gone.

 

Current jobs on my desk include proofreading our next-to-the-last title of the year and the final edit of the last one; the sample copy of the ante-penultimate one (is that right?) landed on my desk this morning (it’s the new Maureen Carter, Shaz – hold on to your hat) and we launched the one before that last week.

 

And in two weeks we have to pay the travel company for the holiday we’re taking in September.

 

OK, so where did the year go?

 

My diary already has dates booked for next spring. It almost feels like the new year has already started. 2010. The end of the first decade of the 21^st century. The Millennium, with all its bugs, domes, monuments and general razzmatazz, was nearly ten years ago.

 

Never mind the year. Where did my life go?

 

Wherever it goes, it goes much too fast. My late, much-missed friend Douglas Hill (see Dead Guy June 27^th 2007) used to tell me to take time to smell the flowers. So last week I did. I took a whole day off, midweek. It felt like bunking off from school, and I’ve been playing catch-up ever since, but it was a brilliant day.

 

We drove to Leeds, the one in Yorkshire, not the one with the castle, and spent the entire afternoon and evening at the theatre. The play was, or plays were, Philip Pullman’s stupendous His Dark Materials trilogy, adapted in a way which captured the spirit of the original – which was more than the most partial observer could claim for the movie of the first book. They couldn’t even get the name right. The Golden Compass, indeed!

 

For the stage, an ingenious adapter has folded three books into six hours, losing one major storyline but none of the magic. For me it’s always a measure of whether a stage show works if there are young people in the audience and I don’t notice. There were, a large school party per performance, and I didn’t. There were a few giggles when the gay angels camped it up, but that could just as well have been adults.

 

And of course it got me thinking, mainly about the process of adapting one fictional form into another, but also about the perennial question: what do we little guys have to do to catch the attention of people who buy the rights?

 

We do pretty well for unabridged audio; large print, too, has raised its head. But nothing else. Translation rights seem to be a no-go area unless the book sells in six figures; every new Scandinavian seems to get translated into English, but Scandinavia doesn’t want to know about us. (Maybe because they all speak such good English that they can read the original? We do sell a few copies in Sweden.)  And as for screen rights, large or small: forget it.

 

Then again, why should we? I understand that any production company would be keen to lay claim to Mark Billingham or Val McDermid. And the old chestnut of characterful detective inspector living in beautifully photogenic part of the UK has a certain appeal – even when the result is a rather implausible weekly body count in a place where in real life a missing garden gnome makes headlines.

 

But I’ve also seen quite acceptable TV drama adapted from books by authors I’d never heard of, and set in unremarkable locations. The key factor is the characterful sleuth – and goodness knows Crème de la Crime has plenty of those!

 

Is there some trick to getting the producers’ attention? Or is it, like so much else in life, just a matter of being in the right place at the right time? Answers on a postcard, please…

Who Needs Crystal Balls When You’ve Got Frog?

 

 by Barbara Poelle

In yoga yesterday we were in this position that was so painful I think I may have time-traveled for a second. No really, I think that when your calf muscle actually separates from your shin bone, it opens a space/time continuum and I slipped right through it like I was lathered in bacon grease.  I could hear my yoga instructor from very far away saying, “Now, if you are feeling discomfort, go ahead and use this two word mantra and breathe through it...”and I was like, “I got two words for YOU, Gandhi….” But I didn’t think she would appreciate me chanting those , so I just acquiesced to the time travel.

Now I was only in the future for a short while, but let me tell you aside from learning that the avocado was declared the National Fruit of the United States, ( I mean who knew, right? Who knew on so many levels?!?!) apparently, in the future,  there is this universal knowledge that authors are the driving force behind their own publicity. I know, the future is WIIIIILD, isn’t it? Who’s looking at monkeys driving cabs when this is floating around? So, as much as I wish I had the Preakness winners or the lotto jackpot numbers , all I was able to grab is the information regarding platform and publicity for authors and bring it back here, to all of you, in order to fulfill our destiny as a human race.

Oh, no, no need to thank me. I do this out of a crushing sense of altruism. I can’t help it. I’m a giver.  

Okay, so what is a platform? It’s basically anything that tells a publisher how famous you already are. In other words, it is all of the ground work you establish in order to sell your book to a waiting audience. And how does one go about establishing? Well, I happen to have these 10 helpful hints from your very own future:

1. Establish who your audience is. Get specific.
2. CREATE A WEBSITE and build it shamelessly. Collect business cards wherever you go. Your web site is your calling card and your brand, make your book proud

3.       Create an enewsletter. Establish a mailing list and encourage people to sign up for it.  Set a goal to get it to 500 people, than  2000, than 3500. Blog, tweet, chat, grog, get traffic moving towards your site and signed on for your newsletter.

4.       Get on list serves, and be a part of online communities

5.       Create an on-line presence by volunteering to review books for other sites, or to guest blog on someone’s site.

6.        Read BUZZ YOUR BOOK by M.J. Rose and Doug Clegg, or Get Known Before the Book Deal by Christina Katz and/or any other reference guides you can get your hands on. Pick and choose the styles of promotion that work for you.  

7.       Befriend local booksellers and build from there.

8.        Join things, serve on boards, volunteer in organizations that reflect your content. Look for ways to create contacts that are outside of the box.

9.       Go to local conferences and, if you can afford it, national ones too. Meet and greet and grin and win.

10.   Know someone who knows someone? Get a blurb/foreword/introduction confirmed with a celebrity or expert on your subject. Ask if you can link to their site or if they will guest blog on yours.

Remember, agents and publishers look at proposals every day, don’t make us work too hard to see why this is a slam dunk, because, if there is one thing we hate more than puppies and Christmas, it’s hard work. 

I know, I know, I get all whiny and petulant when I think about how tight the industry is getting, too. It’s enough to make a girl drink before noon. (Okay, I mean nine). But there are ways to be proactive. I would loooove to get some comments on this blog entry and hear some other ways authors have promoted their works, so please do jump in here and give a shout out to something that has or has NOT worked for you. I look forward to reading.

In the meantime, though, I need to call my broker and have him buy MAAAAJOR stock in…uh, ahem, heh-heh…’cause there was…see I….heh.

Uh, nevermind.

 

Friend Me, Friend You

Jeff Cohen

I'm not discriminatory in most cases, but I feel like I have to have some guidelines in certain areas, and among these is the people whom I will contact about becoming "friends" on Facebook. I know some authors feel it's best to invite everybody (you can never have enough contacts when a new book comes out), and others feel it's beneath them to even consider such things (I'll just wait for people to contact me). I come down somewhere in the middle.

But I do have my standards:

I WILL invite you to be a friend if I actually know and like you.

I WON'T invite you to be a friend if you've made up a cutesy name for yourself like "Angela Awesome!"

I WILL invite you to be a friend if we went to the same high school, worked for the same company or have common interests.

I WON'T invite you to be a friend if you've used a picture of your cat as your ID. Dog pictures will be judged on a dog-to-dog basis.

I WILL invite you to be a friend if you're famous. Hey, I never said I was classy. But I have to have SOME indication that it's not a fan page run by a guy in his underwear in Indiana.

I WON'T invite you to be a friend if we have religious differences, and by that, I mean, if you're a Red Sox fan. Unless I already know you.

I WILL invite you to be a friend if you're a Yankees fan, whether I know you or not.

I WON'T invite you to be a friend if you're not actually a person. If you're a company or a product, you're on your own. One exception to this rule:

I WILL invite you to be a friend if you're a bookseller, either person or shop.

I WON'T invite you to be a friend if you've ever posted something bad about my books. Yeah, I read the Amazon reviews.

I WILL invite you to be a friend if you have the same name as I do. I'm trying to collect as many as possible.

I WON'T invite you to be a friend if you look like the kind of person who's going to send me requests to join you in some kind of insane vampire world game. There are no vampires. Deal with it.

I WILL invite you to be a friend if you've ever said anything nice about my books. Any author who says they don't Google themselves or their titles is a lying swine, or Amish.

I WON'T invite you to be a friend if you're under 16 years old. It's nothing personal--there's just something creepy about that.

I WILL invite you to be a friend if we're related, but I probably won't look for you if I haven't already. I've been busy lately.

I WON'T invite you to be a friend if your ID photo is a jpg of your book cover. I know; I've been tempted to do that myself, but it delivers the message that you don't care about me, you just want me to buy your book.

I WILL invite you to be a friend if someone I know and like "recommends" you. That's happened twice so far.

I WON'T invite you to be a friend if your photo shows you dressed up in a costume. Wizard, Vulcan, vampire (I believe I've mentioned the vampire problem): no. You're not showing off your sense of whimsy; you're showing off how crazy you are.

I WILL invite you to be a friend if you're from New Jersey. Assuming you don't fit any of the WON'T categories. We Jerseyans have to stick together.

I WON'T invite you to be a friend if you owe me money. It's an ethics thing.

I WILL invite you to be a friend if your favorite movie is North By Northwest, Young Frankenstein or anything with the Marx Brothers, except Love Happy.

I WON'T invite you to be a friend if your favorite movie is The Notebook, Alien Vs. Predator or Twilight (see previous entries re: vampires).

Ooh, baby, baby it's a wild world / It's hard to get by, just upon a [single format of book in this new digital age]

Aw, e-books again? Alison is boring!

Sorry to beat this topic to death, but I came across an article that really got me thinking (via my following of Wil Wheaton [*swoon*] on Twitter).

The blog post deals with incentivizing bibliophiles to read on a Kindle. The author has, in my opinion, a great idea:

Allow Kindle owners to download (for free, ideally), every title that they've already bought in physical book form from amazon. Essentially, this idea is akin to when you first bought your iPod, and you spent the better part of a day ripping all of your cds into iTunes and then loading it all into the device.

After the initial back-library download, the idea would be that for every physical book you bought from amazon, you'd also get a downloadable Kindle version. Maybe it would be two or three dollars more, an add-on option at the checkout stage.

What do you think of that idea? I think it's pretty genius. It offers the immediate gratification of buying a story and being able to start reading it immediately, and it also then backs up your digital purchase with a good, old-fashioned, page-turnin' book, which you can put on your shelf and gaze at lovingly. You can read in either format, depending upon your mood and surroundings.

Kinda awesome, right?

So I got to thinking: How might Bleak House run with an idea like this? We don't have our own brand of e-reader, so we couldn't offer the same deal ... but what if we offered the deal backwards?

For every hard copy Bleak House title purchased at, say, and independent book store, the customer would receive not only the physical book, but a fancy card with a download code, good for a one-time visit to a website where you could grab an e-reader version of the same title.

Obviously, there are some details which we'd need to figure out: How, exactly, do we provide a one-time download code, and ensure that the downloaded file can't be passed along? Or, do we really care? Do we trust our readers not to pirate titles -- or, if they do share files, do we trust that the sharer will inspire the sharee to purchase and read more Bleak House books in the future? What about our authors? How do we figure out the royalty shares for the physical book and the e-book file, if we're giving one away with the purchase of the other? Should the price of the physical book be upped by a dollar or two, if the e-book file is included? Should it be an optional upgrade? Should this offer only be good with the purchase of a hardcover book, or should a trade paperback qualify, too? Should this offer only be good on books purchased at indie bookstores, as I've suggested above, or all purchases everywhere? Or only through the Bleak House website?

What do you think, Dead Guy readers? Would you be interested in this kind of program? What elements would be important to you? What details would deter you from participating?

(p.s. Related to my [very short, I'm sorry] blog post last week, I came across another person positing the benefits of Pixar movies to novel writing.)

April Fool - if a bit late

At  first I thought it was an April Fool’s Day joke.

 

April 1 and there it was, big as life, right there on my computer—an offer on eBay to sell the ARC (advance reading copy) of my forthcoming DINING WITH DEVILS—a Tasmanian Thriller. Starting bid: $5.98 U.S.

 

A Tasmanian thriller, I hasten to point out, not due for release until April 15!

 

Whereupon I realized to my horror that the only fool involved in this scenario isn’t April, unless of course April is an author. The fool is ME.

 

WE AUTHORS ARE IN THE WRONG BUSINESS! We should be reviewers, which is what I believe the person peddling my ARC to be, although of course I cannot prove it because this person hasn’t revealed his/her true identity. Not surprising, that.

 

Talk about *lurks’n’perks*, as we’d call them in Oz ... this is a helluva rort. Think about it, folks—you get to read somebody else’s (hopefully excellent) book for nothing, write (or don’t bother to write) a brief (hopefully good and fair to the author and the story—or not) review and then you sell his/her—clearly marked NOT FOR SALE—ARC for twice as much as the author would get if somebody bought the real book. And you can do it again and again and again—just as long as publishers and/or authors will keep sending you free books to read. Consider the thousands of ARCs a reviewer sees in a given year—and can then sell at $5+ each. Maybe more than that. Maybe lots more! According to the person trying to sell my ARC, “They can also be highly Collectible”

 

And if you believe that one, have I got a bridge that might interest you. J

 

It’s money for jam! You don’t have to do the work of actually writing the book, you don’t have to dream up characters and plots or smell red herrings or do any of the real work—and you make twice as much from the NOT FOR SALE ARC as the author does from the book itself. How cool is that? And legal, too.

 

Except that if I were doing it, because I am an author and I respect authors and I respect writing and especially good writing, I would have the common decency to wait until the real book was actually on the market and had some chance to garner the benefits of my (hopefully useful, perhaps even complimentary) review. Fair is fair, after all.

 

I have no argument with reviewers selling ARCs on eBay or anywhere else once the review is written and published/posted and the book is out there in the marketplace. Let us be fair—what else should they do with them? I suppose one could use selected passages (truly great openings, for instance, like the one in DINING WITH DEVILS J) to wallpaper the loo, or something like that. But realistically the options for disposing of ARCs after review—even and/or especially ARCs clearly labeled NOT FOR SALE—are rather limited.

 

I also have no argument with you, me, or anyone else buying an ARC on eBay or anywhere else. Why shouldn’t we? It is legal, certainly. And all of us can’t afford to “buy new.”

 

What I do object to is selling and/or buying the ARCs before the *real* books themselves are even available. And to the seller using deceptive wording to try and pass him/herself off as a good guy instead of admitting up front that he/she is a reviewer selling off books ... books that he/she might actually have never even bothered to review ... as happens all too often.

 

Consider this: The ad for my ARC comes with the disclaimer: “I bought this book at a library book sale, it is an advance reading copy, soft cover. It looks like it has only been read once by a reviewer, who no doubt wrote a glowing review of the book. No spine creases.”

 

Yeah, right. Except that this particular seller has sold 355 items on eBay since 2001 and lists several dozen other ARC’s … all with the identical disclaimer. Including some that I know have the same release date as my own book because I know the author/publisher involved. And the NOT FOR SALE label on each offering’s cover photo has been doctored with white-out.

No mention that the seller has read the book and agrees or even disagrees with this theoretical reviewer. No mention that the seller has read any of the ARCs offered for sale. No suggestion that the seller can even read.

There’s also the disclaimer that goes: “An ARC (Advance Reader's Copy) is an early release of a book to a book reviewer for their opinion of the book. Although sometimes marked Uncorrected Proof or Not for Sale

they usually contain all of the text of the final publication and they can legally be sold once given out by the publisher. They sometimes have a plain cover and they are almost always paperback. They can also be highly Collectible.”

I will therefore bet, even if I cannot prove it, that the seller is not some good-hearted soul who goes around buying from “Friends-of-the-Library” sales to help libraries—and is now sharing that largess with decent, legitimate readers. Not bloody likely! This person is a benefactor to nobody but himself/herself.

 

I also would bet good money (if I had any) that the seller is a reviewer who’s found a good lurk and is cashing in—without having the common decency to admit to being a reviewer who is padding the piggy bank, or even admitting to being nothing more than a common, garden-variety peddler, with dollar signs for eye-balls and no genuine reader’s soul at all. Clearly this person has no honest respect for readers, authors, publishers—and is therefore (in my humble opinion) a person who doesn’t deserve to be a reviewer. If he/she/it is a reviewer.

Not to put too fine a point on it, if the eBay seller really is what I suspect, then he/she/it is nothing but a parasite, a charlatan and a liar. But he/she/it isn’t alone. Peddlers with no genuine respect for authors, books—or readers—are busily flogging all over the internet.

Writers’ Block? What’s Needed? A Good Swift Challenging Kick in the Ass...

brought to you by Robert W. Walker

filling in for P.J. Nunn

 

There’s never been a time when a good swift kick up the yazoo would not benefit you.  You are sitting around on your thumbs.  You are lolly-gaggin’ and finding things to do that have nothing to do with going to work on your story, novella, or novel – or that nonfiction work you’ve always meant to start again—because you’ve started and stopped a hundred times before, but you’ve never completed it.  You grab for the easy excuse—“Hey, it’s writerly blockage.  Happens to everyone.”

It feels like a mountain of earth to move just thinking about it.  You know what it is you want, but you want it to materialize effortlessly and joyfully and without pain—kind of like a naïve teen’s expectation of having a baby.  But again you start in and again you fail to make it work.  You can’t get past the awful-lizing about how badly it is going to come out!  How painful is the coming scene going to be?  How ugly will it turn out, and will the doctors and nurses and readers laugh at it?  Hell, will its own creator cringe from it?  Just how terrible is it to know you have given birth to the half-formed, twisted conglomeration of stuff that makes no sense when you re-read and editorialize?

Is there no cure for the Summertime Blues?  Your left and right brain are fighting over every page, every nuance.  Your self-effacing self-debasing ways are sabotaging you. Little wonder you are stymied, frozen, sitting atop writers’ block.  Not writer’s block which would be your personal one-time only ever in life block, but writers’ block—a quite diffuse disease that cripples all of us at one time or another.  There’s swine flu, bird flu, mad cow, and there’s writers’ block.  The horror of it is that if you contract any of these flues, you’re not going to get much decent writing done.  The same is true of financial difficulties, the failed health of a loved one, the chaos of demanding children, graduations, celebrations, picnics, and dreaded holidays.

Anything and everything can excuse you from writing, and most of all and typically, you are excusing yourself from the job at hand.  And sometimes that is quite, quite the legitimate thing to do; sometimes life’s overwhelming problems are unbeatable, and you just have to let the writing go until after those extremely expensive ten visits to the shrink or marriage counselor or divorce lawyer or the IRS geek have resulted in a calm you never knew (Valium anyone?).

However, there are times when the excuses are inane and ingrained and trained on and unnecessary at best.  Laundry can wait for a scene to be written.  Groceries can wait for a chapter to be written.  That TV program or film can be taped and put off.  There are so often too many times that your excuse for not writing is lame and inexcusable.  Times when you need a good, strong kick in the patootie.  At such times those around you can be no help at all and often downright negative, and sometimes the very barrier to your successfully producing pages.  But think of the reward of accomplishment and adrenaline when you finish a scene rather than do the grocery list or bake the cake?  There is a major payoff when you don’t put off what you inwardly want to achieve.

If you treat your writing like a job and you make it clear to everyone around you that it is your job or second job, and that this is of extreme importance to you, they will back off and respect the stiff-arm you extend and the door you lock yourself behind in order to work.  A schedule is absolutely necessary.  Rewards and punishments are needed.  This is Pavlov’s Dog Time.   And you are not Pavlov.

When I was kicking around at the tender age of fifteen and sixteen, I went about telling everyone within earshot that I was going to sit down and write a book—a novel—the bleepin’ sequel to Huckleberry Finn in fact.  I told my mother this, my father, my brothers, my sister.  I got a great deal of nods and indulgent smiles.  I told teachers, coaches, anyone I might have a casual conversation with including friends and girlfriends.  More indulgent smiles and agreements—none of which were motivating me to actually sit down and go to work, to start the blood to the brain, the sweat to the pores, the tears to the lids.  Then an upheaval came that sent me packing from one home to another, and I wound up living with my aunt and uncle in Screven, Georgia of all places—straight from Chicago to as rural a town as any on the map in the midst of the Civil Rights Movement.

There in Screven, I shared just about everything with my cousin, Dennis Hodges— including a bedroom.  Dennis spoke “Georgian English” a form of rare dialect indeed that some might call BubbaBonics, which was a golden thing for me to hear every day as it greatly helped my ear for a Mark Twain-styled novel and character.  Dennis became my model for Daniel in the book.  But it wasn’t enough just picking up on Dennis and other folks with the thickest accent in the whole of the South.  No it took a brow beating and a mental kick in the ass from someone I loved—Dennis.

My cuz was a year ahead of me in school, but we were the best of buds.  We did everything together.  Sports, fishing, hunting (I am a failed hunter), cruising, picking up girls, dating, getting drunk, puking, and facing my Aunt Sadie’s harsh punishment the next day.  So we were thick as thieves.  And I always felt comfortable enough around Dennis to lay out my plans for my first ever novel—a thing I had a title for and an idea in my head for but nothing else.  The book would be called:  Daniel Webster Jackson & The Wrongway Railway.  Where Huck Finn helped one slave to freedom and actually in the end failed to get Negro Jim free, my Daniel was going to get an entire plantation population of slaves free via the Underground Railroad.  Long story short, I spent day after day talking about this project.  Breakfast, lunch, and dinner until one morning out of the blue, Dennis Hodges shouted at the top of his lungs, “G’dimmit Wayne Walker!  Stop talkin’ ’bout it and do it if’n you’re-a-gonna.  Udderwise, jus’ shut up ’bout it!  I doughn’t wanna hear ‘nuther dim word on it!”

This was over morning oatmeal and coffee at Aunt Sadie’s table.  Aunt Sadie, a huge woman with a powerful presence, came down hard on her son for raising his voice at the breakfast table.  There were words back and forth, but it was cut short as we had to leave for school.  For me, it was a slap in the face and a huge and welcomed kick in the arse—one I realized was both a wake up call and a challenge.  A challenge like a gauntlet thrown at my feet.  Now I had something to prove to someone I felt it mattered a great deal to!  And God bless Cousin Dennis for his outburst.  It was exactly what I needed.  It also taught me something about myself that is still true—I love a challenge, and I’ve learned to kick myself in my own behind when necessary!

So I am here to challenge YOU!  Stop talking about it, stop waking about it, stop mulling it over and under and through.  Stop making excuses and either do it or SHUT UP about it or I am going to come to your house and kick you in the ass!

Got that?  You know who you are, and I know where you live.  Now it is time to LIVE inside your story.  Trust me—any production of pages is better than the loose, unfettered pages blowing around in your head!  Do not start with an outline. Write Chapter One, Two, and Three.  Then think about outlining the rest of it.  Then do that!  But first of all allow those first three chapters or maybe thirty to sixty pages to blossom one from the other.  Start your story at a moment of high anxiety or stress or excitement or as the knife comes down, and see where it leads you—have FUN with it.  Think of your first chapter as an experiment that may fail but even in a failed experiment, you get some where, you learn some things about your story.  Think about that first chapter as an exploratory one, one which may be lobed off or later becomes chapter two or preceded by a prologue.  It’s a rough draft.   A beginning cornerstone that may need replacing or resurfacing, a bit of spackle…but that’s okay.

But for God’s sake—and the sanity of those around you—stop talking about doing it and as Nike says, “DO IT.”  Oh and a PS here:  aside from a schedule, have a comfy place to work, soft music, candles, wine…or coffee and a snickers bar—whatever “rewards” a “dog” needs to jump through the hoops.

 

Rob Walker

www.robertwalkerbooks.com

Dead On, July 09

Nostalgia ain't what it used to be . . .

Sharon Wheeler

It’s been a busy few weeks with end-of-term marking and meetings, so forgive me if I rush in, smile manically at you all, twitch a bit and then scarper in a cloud of dust. Here’s the product of my scrambled brain:

1. The ongoing saga of British MPs and their dodgy expense claims is exactly why we should be fighting to preserve our newspapers. Can you imagine TV stations or online sites putting in the amount of time and resources and legal toothcombing that the Daily Telegraph has? I don’t think so …
2. I now know why reality TV should be re-named ‘train wreck TV.’ Over the years I have managed to dodge various manifestations of Big Brother, Celebrity Come Dancing, Pop Idol and the like (but still remain tediously up-to-date on them through the occupational hazard of reading the British red-top tabloids!) But this weekend, thanks to my ten-year-old nephew and six-year-old niece, I ended up watching one of the semi-finals of Britain’s Got Talent. Actually, that’s a slight fib, as some of the time was spent in the kitchen when the ten-year-old poppet started bawling when she forgot her words. I have a low embarrassment threshold. And while adults should know just what they’ll be getting themselves in to on shows like this, kids (especially if they’re aided and abetted by pushy parents) sure as hell don’t. Keep the under-16s well away from the circus …
3. Doesn’t the discovery of 47 million-year-old Ida piss on the Creationists’ strawberries? And will she get her own reality show?
4. Nostalgia ain’t what it used to be! But there should be a law decreeing that The Specials re-form every 25 years when the country’s going to the dogs. I seem to be humming Ghost Town ever such a lot these days (and doing the sound effects for the spooky bits). Two-Tone, your country needs you!
5. I’ve never had much time for those internet sites where wankers roar out “RTFM!” every time some bemused newbie dares to ask a question. But I am seriously thinking of developing a template email for the writers/publicists who email asking us to review their latest religious mystery ebook from a self-publishing company. Um, that’s why we have a very clear link on the home page which says: “For guidelines on how to submit books for review, please go to the  ABOUT section of our site.” And guess what, the ABOUT section provides dos and don’ts for submitting review copies. Gah!
6. Why is it that authors who teach on creative writing courses are the ones who have no idea how to handle point of view?
7. Are there any humorous Scandinavian crime novels? If not, would someone like to remedy the situation to save what’s left of my sanity?

Happy birthday, Mr President...

Lynne Patrick

It’s not really his birthday, at least not as far as I know, though I’m not party to such intimate details of Mr Obama’s personal life. You have to imagine that headline sung in a pouty, breathy, seductive voice by a beautiful blonde in a long satin dress. A little like Michelle Pfeiffer in The Fabulous Baker Boys, and we all know who she got the idea from.

 

Because Monday, ladies and gentlemen, would have been Marilyn Monroe’s 83^rd birthday if she had stayed around long enough to celebrate it. And since she didn’t, we celebrated for her.

 

With wine. And cake. And beautiful soft early evening sunshine. In (and around) a tiny but atmosphere-laden bookshop in the middle of London, located in an arcade which probably looked exactly the same over a century ago when Dickens had books to launch. Except maybe there was no tarot reader. Then again, maybe there was.

 

There were familiar faces from television. There was the most spectacular scarlet and black satin corset I’ve ever seen. My only tiny disappointment, and it really was very tiny, was that there were no Marilyn Monroe lookalikes. We made it plain on the invitation that such hommage would be very welcome indeed.

 

The occasion, aside from Marilyn’s birthday, was the launch of Dead Like Her, the third in Linda Regan’s dark and dangerous police procedural series which is shaping up to be kind of like Martina Cole with a showbiz theme.

 

The series started out backstage at the pantomime, then went downmarket to the seediest strip joints and sex shops of Soho. This time it explores the murky world of lookalike clubs: one in particular, which is not all it seems (well, it is a crime novel after all). Marilyn lookalikes are being targeted (hey, maybe that’s why none turned up – they’d read the blurb on our website…) and it’s down to our trusty series heroes of the south London police to track down the culprit. And let me tell you, it is not who you’re expecting. Quite a few things took me by surprise, and these days that’s not easy.

 

Enough with the shameless plugging, at least for the book, and for the time being.

 

It really was a lovely evening. I talked to that quintessential English gentleman Simon Brett, author of three wonderful cosy crime series, who actually remembered me after our very brief introduction at CrimeFest last month. I made the acquaintance of a couple of crime writers who had previously only been names on book covers. I watched an impromptu photo-shoot involving that afore-mentioned spectacular corset and a couple of unsuspecting police people, real ones, not fictional, who just happened to be passing and got co-opted.

 

And I touched the hem of the garment of an actress who appeared in my favourite TV drama series ever, Judge John Deed, alongside my even more favourite actor, the knee-meltingly gorgeous Martin Shaw. Realising she was only a surrogate for him, she said with plaintive irony, “I get a lot of that.”

 

Afterwards we repaired to the Italian at the end of the arcade and enjoyed delicious pasta in the company of two Crème authors whose new titles are coming up later in the year: Kaye C Hill and Mary Andrea Clarke, both pretty popular among our growing legion of American fans. Though I’m afraid you’ll have to wait till next year, unless you get them from our website.

 

A brief, completely unconnected PS: Dufour Editions’ autumn catalogue is now out – and Crème de la Crime is strongly featured. Thank you, Chris, Brad, Larisa and anyone else at Dufour who I don’t know about. You’re wonderful people.

Blast From the Past

by Barbara Poelle

Husband read this entry before I posted it and advised me to begin this entry with:

Warning. The following content may not be suitable for some. Reader discretion is advised.

At BEA I was on a panel and I also heard roughly 45-50 pitches in 2 hours. (Do the math. Then have a shot of tequila. ) I know it is so nerve wracking to pitch and the agent is this great unknown- I get the impression that most assume I will run the gambit of requesting your work to slapping you.  This story is for anyone and everyone who has ever felt nervous to pitch to me.

So usually, I know, I am pretty much the model of decorum. I should write a book: Etiquette with Effing Ease by Barbara Poelle. Well, this weekend at BEA, I had an adventure that, should your child ever make a diorama out of it, it may get them either a national award or expelled.

So I BEA’d my brains out from pretty much Wednesday on. I hit the show and did my schmooze. You know, 10 hours a day of tossing my hair and laughing and handing out cards and doing the double barreled finger air gun shooting. I know, if Two Wild and Crazy Guys had needed an agent, I would be a shoo-in. (Is that right? “Shoo”? Because it would make more sense to be a “shoe” in, meaning your foot in the door. Sigh.  If only there was some sort of interconnected electronic international data base where one could look things up.)

Anyway, after tearing up the town and a pair of Holly Root’s shoes on Friday night, I set out to make Saturday a more leisurely experience. Maybe just a single finger air gun and a slight chin nod.  

After my appointments and rounds, I had a casual dinner with some colleagues and then a scheduled drink with an editor.  I have this favorite restaurant near the Javits Center that I love, so we had a long and lovely dining experience, and then I headed up with the editor to have a glass of wine and talk about how awesome this new thriller I will have ready this summer is going to be.

Have you ever had to drag something heavy, like, I dunno, an armoire over hardwood floors? Well, about 20 minutes into my time with this editor, that is the sound my bowels made. Hmm. Not the most pleasant of sensations, but I am able to hold a conversation and still maintain a hair toss if I need it. This was followed, roughly 3 minutes later, by a sound much like a tugboat slowly attempting to dislodge itself from between two battleships. And then, I will spare you the details of what happened next, but suffice to say it was as if someone in my lower intestine had shouted “Fire.” and everybody panicked. I leapt up mid sentence and launched toward the bathroom as if the paper towel dispenser had started dispensing hundred dollar bills.

(Right now my mom has smelling salts in one hand and the phone with my number speed dialed into it in the other because she thinks I am going to go into greater detail, but don’t worry, I think we all get where we are at with this story.)

So, let’s just say, this editor and I pretty much had to walk away from this as best friends or never speak to one another again, because I spent a portion of our meeting either in the bathroom or sitting there sweating and crying a little. We were literally trapped in the restaurant. We were at the mercy of my Shrimp Tom Yum Soup.

At one point I said, “I know in a few weeks this is going to make a really funny story, but I can’t laugh right now.”

And then we laughed.

The point is, we are all just mammals tumbling around on this big muddy marble called Earth, and although agents may sometimes seem scary, just remember I was brought to my knees by a cup of soup.  So please, if you come to Thrillerfest or RWA or Moonlight and Magnolias or any other conference I am taking pitches at, have a seat across from me and let’s talk about your book.

Ooh! You could title it Tom Yum Part Deux: The Reckoning.

Scaaaaaary.

 

Two Jews Walk Into a Comedy Club... Stop Me if You've Heard This

Jeff Cohen

In last week's issue of New York Magazine, the cover story consisted of photographs of a cranky-looking Woody Allen and a bemused (what else?) Larry David. So taking a casual glance, I was optimistic: Finally, a story about humor with people who aren't Judd Apatow or his repertoire company! 

Turns out the story was about the death of Jewish humor. Swell. The one thing I do well, and it's dying out.

To be honest, I'm not sure what "Jewish humor" is. I was asked about it recently for an interview at Poe's Deadly Daughters, and I sort of fudged it, because to me, something's either funny or it's not, and what the ethnic makeup of the comedian might be is secondary at best. I did make a comment that the role of the jester is not just to mock power, but to keep them laughing so maybe the pogroms would stop for a couple of weeks, but that got cut from the interview, with my consent.

But then I noticed that most of the comedians I have studied (for pleasure) and followed during my life have been Jewish. Not all, by any stretch of the imagination. The first stand-up comic who made an impression on me was Bill Cosby, whom I'm pretty sure is not Jewish. And I'd seen Alan King, Myron Cohen and Shecky Greene, none of whom made the same impact on my mind. Cosby was different--a storyteller who had (in those days) a child's view of life, despite his advanced age (at the time, he was probably in his early 30s).

Still, there's no mistaking the ethnic bias that came later on: The Marx Brothers, Woody Allen, Mel Brooks (ESPECIALLY Mel Brooks), Robert Klein and Jerry Seinfeld were/are all landsmen. They were also all men, now that I think of it, but nobody's talking about the death of male humor.

As a mystery writer, I'm a good comedian. As a comedian, I'm a pretty good mystery writer. But to hear that (at least in the opinion of New York Magazine, which has a little more credibility on the matter than, say, Des Moines Magazine, if such a thing exists) the type of comedy to which I've most closely attached myself is dying out is not what you'd call encouraging. I'm not really ready to quit yet. First, I'd like to be successful, for one thing.

Luckily, I think the magazine is dead wrong.

The premise, as I understand it, is that "Jewish humor" as practiced by Allen, David and Brooks is on its way out because those who practice it are not exactly in their 20s anymore. But there's more than one problem with that premise. The first is acknowledged by the article itself:

Neither Allen nor David sees anything particularly Jewish about their comedy. Perhaps that’s not entirely unexpected given that Allen has always cited Bob Hope as a seminal influence, but, to steal a phrase from Saturday Night Live’s Seth Meyers: Really?!

“Right,” Allen says politely. “You know, it’s funny. I have a blind spot there. Because I wouldn’t see what I do as Jewish humor. I would see it as funny if you think it’s funny, or not if you don’t. But I never think of it as Jewish in any way. Now, as I say, this is a blind spot. Because you and other people might feel differently.”

“I get the same thing,” says David, laughing. “People, you know, Jews, they come up to me, they go, ‘Hey, I’m a Jew—I get it.’ ‘I’m a landsman—love your show!’ Jews want to be the only ones who like it! They think it’s for them. It’s not just for them. And I don’t think that way either.”

I'd have to agree with that. Mel Brooks, certainly, makes it a practice to draw attention to his ethnic background. But the rest I've cited really don't make a point of it. And the "classic" Jewish comics, the Marx Brothers, were not so much outsiders from the mainstream of religious society--they were beings from another realm. 

Comedy is about as subjective an art form as can possibly exist. What I consider hilarious you might find banal. What you think is side-splitting I might consider pretentious or juvenile. I'm not a big fan of the current "gross-out" school of comedy, but that doesn't make the people who love it wrong. It's just that I'm not quite as eighteen years old as I used to be.

Will Jewish humor die out? Nah. Not as long as there are people who happen to be Jewish and are funny. Will the Borscht Belt comic, the one that Allen and people like Billy Crystal have had such affection for, stop existing? They really haven't been around for years, since the venues for them have died out. 

But go to a comedy club if there's one near you some night and listen. There are now Indian Jewish comedians and African-American Jewish comedians and Iranian Jewish comedians and Mexican Jewish comedians and... well, you get the idea. The idea of "Jewish comedy" was always a little bit self-deprecating, a little self-aware and not necessarily all about religion, sex or any other one topic. They're still out there. They come in every color and stripe right now. And that's a good thing.

To paraphrase the old ad for the rye bread: You don't have to be Jewish to be a Jewish comedian. I'm not even sure if it helps.

But it's not going anywhere. Get used to it.