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

Quick Tips: Speech and Action Tags

 

by Alison Dasho

 

"Boy, I sure do love the summertime," she declared.

"Say, could you hand me that pitcher of sangria?" he implored.

"This pesto pasta salad is divine," she nodded.

"Careful to save room for ice cream sandwiches," he warned.

 

 

Could you tell which thing is not like the other?

 

In the above dialogue, there are three speech tags, and one action tag:

Nodded.

 

Action tags aren't treated the same way as speech tags -- the example above should be punctuated by a period, not a comma:

 

"This pesto pasta salad is divine." She nodded.

 

Remember, if the tag you're adding to your dialogue describes action and not speech, it needs to be its own sentence.

 

And one last thing, though I know you hear this again and again [and again]: Please resist the temptation to use varied and complicated speech tags with every line of dialogue. Said and asked are truly all you need 85% of the time. Maybe even 90%. (Maybe 95%!) Your dialogue itself should convey the tone of voice in which it's spoken -- fancy speech tags will only slow your reader, or distract her. And resist the urge to slap an adverb in there, too.

“My aim is to put down on paper what I see and what I feel in the best and simplest way," Hemingway uttered declaratively.

 

No one, absolutely no one who knows me, or has the slightest of passing acquaintance with me, is going to believe this.
I'm building a website.
(Waits several minutes while astonished Dead Guy followers pick up their jaws from the floor and gingerly re-attach them. Then picks up her own jaw and does likewise. No, I'm not sure I believe it either.)
Let's rewind a little, to indicate exactly how improbable this unlikely occurrence is. A few days ago my shiny fairly-new laptop threw a small wobbly (yes, OK, I know it was almost certainly something I did) and the useful little numerical keypad on the right of the keyboard hasn't worked properly since. The relevance of this is that a) I have no idea which combination of keys I hit in error to make it misbehave, and b) I have even less idea what to do to put it right. I wouldn't even know where to begin to look for online help. That's how technologically-minded I am. It's all I can do to punch in the number of the helpline on the phone's keypad, which fortunately works perfectly.
But despite this total absence of any proper relationship with technology, I'm building a website.
It's all because of Mystery Nights.
This is what we've rechristened the murder mystery evenings which Severn House inexplicably didn't want when they bought up all the other functioning parts of my small but perfectly formed publishing company last year. A couple of dozen of the events have taken place since I signed on the proverbial dotted line, the latest of them only a couple of weeks ago, so their popularity clearly isn't waning. And as I handed out information about them at a book festival last weekend and found myself apologizing for the absence of a web address, one of the 21st century's great truths hit me: if you don't have an online presence, you don't exist any more.
No doubt online presence these days means clever things like Twitter, which, cyber-philistine that I am, strikes me as an utterly pointless waste of time. I mean, who cares which minor celeb (who most normal people probably haven't even heard of anyway) is having breakfast? And multi-app'd smartphones, whatever they are; all I know is they make you available 24/7, which frankly I can't handle. And probably lot of other stuff which has passed me by completely.
A website is as 21st century as it gets for me - been there, done that, albeit using someone else's expertise - and since I seem to have a bit of time on my hands this week and my mother taught me that you shouldn't spend money if you have time to spend instead, I decided to go in search of a new adventure. (Mother also taught me not to speak to strange men, but if I'd followed that advice I'd never have had my publishing adventure, and think of all the fun I'd have missed...)
So far it has a domain name and a vestigial home page, so I'm not going public with the URL. I need to add a couple more pages with information about what actually happens at the murder mystery evenings, and how to go about booking one. Oh, and find a picture of an ornamental dagger. Clipart provided a hammer and an exercise weight, but no dagger. If you've ever been to one of our evenings, you'll understand.
If you haven't - well, watch this space, and all will be unveiled in due course.
If I haven't expired of shock in the meantime.

Starting the Process

Josh Getzler

Yesterday I officially took on a new client: that minimally-modified first sentence turned out very much to be an indicator of things to come, and the English Civil War Era mystery it was attached to had great pace, a sleuth/midwife we can root for, and the promise of a multi-part series with intelligence, suspense, and heart. The author and I exchanged some emails over the weekend; he spoke to a few clients of mine, I told him in pretty great detail how I planned to approach submitting the book, and we agreed to work together. There are a couple of small tweaks I asked him to make in the book—what I call “brush strokes,” rather than “heavy lifting”—and he also agreed to write up a plan to create an online Virtual York of 1644 that will add value to his mystery novels by giving interested readers additional history of the real setting and events of the time.

So what happens next? 

Well, this is one of the most fun parts of my job: Submissions. The manuscript will be done in a few days, during which time I will be putting together my list of editors for submission. In this particular case, the list ought to be pretty long, as I can approach editors who are interested in both historical fiction and mystery, and since there is definitely a feminist bent to the story, I’ll be able to expand it even further to some editors looking for women’s suspense (although that may be a bit of a stretch). Regardless, it’s a group of editors I know and like, and have spent a lot of time getting to know and like—we have lunch together, and even our shorter exchanges during the course of other submissions help us get to know each other. I’ll probably spend another post discussing the dos and don’ts of submissions from an agent’s perspective, but we’ll just say that I’m doing it appropriately—not double-dipping houses (submitting to two editors in the same division simultaneously, which gets them (understandably) very unhappy), deciding among editors at the same place when there’s more than one who might be appropriate, and then thinking of my pitch.

Pitches from agents to editors can either be done on the phone or over email. Both have been successful for me in the past. In this case, I’ll probably use the phone, since, again, it’s a group of editors I have experience with. I’ll be able to convey my enthusiasm, and I won’t need to go into great detail about the plot of the book in a pitch letter, as I sometimes need to do in, say, a science fiction novel with different worlds and beings. But one thing my authors sometimes don’t realize, and which I think is a matter of simple consideration to the editors, is this: I don’t send the manuscript out into the ether without asking first if I can send it. A number of clients have said “Wow, I thought you choose your list, then just attach it to an email with a “Here it is, hope you like it” message.”  I’ve found greater utility in the way I do it, and for a couple of reasons. First, I find that there are times that I don’t realize that an editor hates, for example, dystopia, or would rather stick a fondue fork in her eye socket than see another knitting mystery. In those cases, rather than passing on an already-attached manuscript (and rendering their entire publishing company useless to the submission), they will most often recommend a colleague who might be more receptive to the topic.

The other reason I ask permission first is that it gives me one more opportunity to get the book’s idea and subject in front of the editor. Now I can say “May I show you this great mystery about a midwife during the English Civil War” and follow it up with “Per our conversation, here is the great mystery about a midwife during the English Civil War.” Every little bit helps.

I’ll do that. And then…we wait. I’ll get into further detail on this process, and others, next time. Happy July 4! 

 

Interview With the Opposite of a Vampire

Jeff Cohen

With much love and admiration:

In the interest of finding a new angle on the whole "crime-fiction-writer" business--and more to the point, in the interest of finding someone else to do the majority of the work on this week's post--I thought maybe we'd take a look at the unsung heroine of my writing career, such as it is.

That, for those of you unfamiliar with the rates at which publishers are paying, is my wife, Jessica Oppenheim, who has for longer than I care to admit supported my writing habit and made it possible for me to be a pro scribe (get it?). 

It occurs to a writer that being married to a writer must be odd. We're always observing life with one eye on what's going on and the other on how we can use it. We take things that happened to us and those we know and love, put a spin on it--I'd like to point out that I NEVER use anything that's happened to my family and use it verbatim--and turn it into fiction, then ask other people, total strangers, to pay for the privilege of reading it.

Those who actually work for a living and then come home to a writer have to be extremely patient. Those who are married to writers who like to take life and make it funnier should be nominated for sainthood. Even the Jewish ones.

So because I haven't embarrassed her nearly enough lately, and because I want to let the world know who's responsible for my being inflicted upon it in print, I decided to interview Ms. Oppenheim on the life of an A.S. (Author's Spouse). Here are her completely unedited responses. I swear.

J.C.: How does being married to a writer differ from being married to, say, an accountant?

J.O.: I don't know because I've never been married to an accountant. (Editor's note: This might be the spot to note that Ms. Oppenheim, much like her husband, can be a wiseass on occasion.)

J.C.: Best that you don't find out. Does it make you uncomfortable to read the latest manuscript hot off the printer with the author in the same room?

J.O.: No, though I do notice that you watch to see when I laugh.


J.C.: It's my favorite reward. If you weren't married to the author, are these the kind of books you'd normally read?

J.O.: My taste has changed generally so that I like books that are fun and have good outcomes, so while I wasn't a big reader of light fiction before I am now and I enjoy these books a lot because they're fun.  

J.C.: Do people think you're a character in your husband's books? What's your reaction?

J.O.: Yes people think I'm a character sometimes and I'm sure they're right. (Editor's note: She's not a character in any of the books. Okay, maybe a little. But not really.)

J.C.: What do you think people don't know about an author's life?

J.O.: That they don't all look and act like Dashiell Hammett, drink a lot and act tortured all the time.  (Too obscure? Lillian Hellman?) Anyway, you don't do that.

J.C.: I'm Jewish; I couldn't pull it off successfully. Are writers different from other people?  

J.O.: No more different than other people are from each other.

J.C.: Do you worry your life is being scrutinized for the next book?  

J.O.: I think you're scrutinizing everyone's life for the next book, but since you're not writing "Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolff?"  I'm okay with it.

J.C.: Do you have a favorite among my books (published or non), and if so, would you be foolish enough to identify it?  

J.O.: You already know I like the one about the female lawyer,  I can't imagine why.  (Editor's note: Ms. Oppenheim is an attorney, and is referring to INHERIT THE SHOES, a--so far--unpublished work that I need to talk to Josh Getzler about. Josh?) I also like the Aaron Tucker series and I really like the Haunted Guesthouse series.  Also, I'm a big fan of your screenplay about the officer who was guarding President Lincoln on the night he was killed and I think that would make a great movie and movie producers are stupid. (Again, from the editor: Here, Ms. O. is discussing THE SINS OF ST. HELEN, one of the 16-million unproduced screenplays in the Cohen canon. And she's right about movie producers being stupid with that one.)

J.C.: Have you heard from fans of my books? How do you react if strangers get in touch or make a comment in the supermarket?

J.O.: I've never had a stranger get in touch but some of my friends have read the books and are big fans. They always ask about what's coming out and look for them in bookstores and online.

J.C.: You know me better than anyone else. Are there things you think I should be writing that I haven't written yet?

J.O.: Not really. And I forgot to mention I also like the one with the talking dog. (Ed.: Again, an unpublished--and so far, unfinished--novel that I DON'T have to talk to Josh about just yet.)

J.C.: Mystery writing is, in almost all cases, not exactly the path to wild financial success. But you've always been extremely supportive of my writing habit. Have you ever secretly wished I'd just give it up and go into the upholstery business?

J.O.: Upholstery isn't a good business for you. If I had thought of something for you to do that you would have enjoyed, I would have said so.

J.C.: Be honest, now--do you think you can write better than me?  

J.O.: No. I'm not a craftsman, but I probably write better legal briefs than you. (Ed. 1. She's being modest, and 2. I certainly hope so.)

J.C.: When you know live with someone for a long time, you get to know them well. Can I really surprise you in a book anymore?  

J.O.: Not yet, though the rapping "Beverly Hillbillies" theme was up there. (Ed.: No, don't look for that one in any of the books. Yet another unproduced screenplay. A week later, they did it on "Roseanne." There's no such thing as an original idea.)

J.C.: I swear, a reader suggested this question: "Is he as funny as his books are?"

J.O.: That's a very nice compliment I think.  You're almost as funny as you think you are but not as funny as your mother thinks you are. (Ed.: Hi, Mom!)

 

Many thanks to my lovely and inhumanly patient wife. Next week, maybe I'll interview one of my children.

 

The problem with hype

    An awful lot of people out there seem to be waxing apopletic about the season finale of the AMC series The Killing.   At the start of its run, television writers were promoting The Killing as something not to be missed since the Danish version of this series had proven to be an insanely popular international hit.    To get to the bottom of who killed teenager Rosie Larsen, each of the 13 episodes in the American version would track the events of a single day in the aftermath of the murder.    

    Somewhat improbably, the series begins with Detective  Sarah Linden being required by her boss to stay on the job for a week beyond her official resignation date in order for her  to work the Rosie Larsen case and help break in Steven Holder, the new guy in the department - this is in spite of the fact that her boss is well aware that Sarah  and her teenaged son have plane tickets to California and  that Sarah actually needs to be in California to attend to last minute details relating to her upcoming wedding.  I don't know if it was harder for me to believe that Sarah's boss could be that unreasonable or that Sarah herself could be such a passive wimp, even if she does love her job.

       After that, the story line slowly unfurls, with a string of different characters being dangled in front of the viewers as possible suspects, only to be ruled out as the spotlight then moves on to focus on another potential bad guy.   Had this been a novel, I suspect I would have found this approach to be annoying in the extreme but as a television show it seemed merely to play into the episodic nature of the series.   Without giving away any of the story, I will say that a couple of extreme plot twists in the final moments of episode 13 guarantee that this storyline is going to be continued in season 2; it is these last minute developments that have infuriated so many people.

     While I do not consider The Killing to be up there with my other TV drama favorites (The Wire and Deadwood), I thought the acting was generally good,  found the rainy Seattle setting compelling, and was totally blown away by some extraordinary videographic images.   If I were to give it a grade, it would have to be a very solid "B".    I do not watch huge amounts of television and my viewing habits are limited almost exclusively to HBO, Showtime, AMC, and  FX, with a smattering of Comedy Central.  Programs that I have found way more annoying than The Killing include Damages (especially the last season) Big Love, In Treatment, True Blood, and anything after the first season of 24.

    The only reason I can think of to explain why emotions are now running so strong is that, based on the phenomenal success of the original Danish version, TV   writers allowed themselves to indulge in an unwarranted level of hype in promoting the American version and are now perhaps feeling just a tad sheepish about it.  Viewers too have been let down by all the hype.  Perhaps there is a cautionary tale here somewhere.

       I, for one, will be back to watch season 2 of The Killing. 

Backstage at a book signing

Robin Agnew

Recently, the New York Times ran a piece about book stores charging for author events to help meet their costs.  I shared the link on my website and got quite a few comments, but one of them was simply "I don't understand - how do book signings work?"  Probably all of us on this blog could tell how a book signing works from their point of view, and I often blog about the "day of" result, but there's obviously lots of work that goes into an event before it ever happens, which is unseen by the public.

Let's take our recent event with Julia Spencer-Fleming.  Back in December of 2010, I got an e-mail from Julia's publicist at St. Martin's, wondering if I'd be interested in hosting Julia in May of 2011.  As I had been bugging my sales rep about this very possibility, of course I was delighted.  Not only do I love Julia's books, but I consider her a friend.

In fact, in AUGUST of 2010, I had heard from Julia herself, asking me if I would mind (mind?) reading her manuscript so I could write a blurb for the ARC, but she needed it done quickly.  I was of course delighted, I loved the book, and this led to me bugging my sales rep which I imagine helped produce the December e-mail from the St. Martin's publicist.

OK, so in Deember, I said yes to St. Martin's who was busy setting up Julia's tour.  While I don't work on that end of things I know it involves figuring out where to send the author, how to get them there, and where they should stay.  I have picked up authors at the airport, dropped them off, and had them stay at my home (including Julia on early tours when she wasn't as well known).

Meanwhile, back at the ranch in Ann Arbor, I had a few other irons in the fire.  But I'd read Julia's book, I was delighted she was coming, and I put the date on the website and on facebook and started getting incredibly early pre-sells.  Pre-sells, obviously, are books sold ahead of time, and getting a pre-sell a few months ahead of the event is a sure sign of a good turn out.  (Usually pre-sells arrive a few days or hours before an event.) 

All well and good.  I realized, when it came time to put together my April newsletter where I would be running a review of Julia's new book, that I would need to re-read it since I had last read it in August.  This was not a hardship and I breezed through it a second time, crying just as much as I did the first read through, and was able to write a coherent and positive review.  That was probably mid-March.

I also placed an order for books with my St. Martin's rep, trying to parse just how many copies we would need, something that's always tricky.  While we didn't sell out the night of the event, we sold out the next day so I was wishing I had ordered a few more after the fact, but a sell out is always ideal.  Left over books mean returns which aren't so hot either for the author or for your own hopes of landing future events.

By this point I had notified the calendars of the remaining print media outlets in Ann Arbor and Detroit, making them aware of Julia's visit.  This is done a month out at minimum.  I also mail in the neighborhood of 500-900 postcards - in Julia's case, the full monty of 900 - which need to be printed, labelled and stamped, as well as mailed on the optimum date.  Not too early, or people will forget, and not too late, or people may have already made plans.

I also send out e-mail reminders to book club members, and in Julia's case, I blasted it on facebook, posting the review and reminders of the event.  Facebook has become as an effective an advertisng tool as anything else.  The day of the event I had a large pile of pre-sells and Julia, bless her, showed up early to chat and signed her pre-sells ahead of time.  

The day of the event I picked up 50 chairs, cleared that the borrowed space we use in the back of the building would be open, and made sure my crew of strong teenagers was standing by to set up chairs and get the room ready for Julia's talk.  The night of everything went smoothly, I enjoyed dinner with Julia and a few other nice folks after, she dropped me off at home in her rental car, and I breathed a happy sigh that all had gone well.  An event lasts a few hours, but as you can see, this particular one in one way or another was about 10 months in the making.

Not all events are planned so far ahead of time.  Some are set up by the authors themselves, who rarely give you that much notice, some are for less well know folks that I have to figure out how to market, but all of them require thought and effort, which brings me back to the New York Times article.  The stores charging for events are dismayed that people are buying the book online, or downloading it, and using a bookstore as merely a "book museum".  That model, obviously, doesn't work for bookstores.

I guess time will tell if folks still want to meet an author and talk to them about their book, exchanging ideas in real time instead of in virtual time.  Those are the moments that, as a bookseller, I feel can't be replaced.  But it's up to the public to decide what they want.  And only time will tell.

Interview with the New Dead Guy

I'm honored to introduce Erin Mitchell of RLM PR, the latest addition to the Hey Dead Guy team! She blogs at her own site as well and you can find her on twitter as @erinfaye. So without further ado...

What drew you to PR?

If I was going to “PR” my answer, I’d come up with some hogwash about it being my mission in life to communicate. The truth, though, is that it was an accident of fate. My dad was dating a woman who ran film programming at the Honolulu Academy of Arts, and through her I learned that they needed someone to do the ever-glamorous job of stuffing press kits, and I needed a job. Twenty-five years and a million paper cuts later, here I am.

What types of clients do you represent?

I’m a generalist, and so they really do run the gambit, from technology to healthcare to political candidates to publishing.

Describe yourself in 5 words – no more, no less.

I try to stay interesting. 

What are your 3 desert island books? And no cheating by saying, “The Jack Reacher series”

TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD by Harper Lee

EIGHT BLACK HORSES by Ed McBain

JOLIE BLON’S BOUNCE by James Lee Burke.

But for the record, if I could only have three books, I would drown myself. 

Favorite debut novel you’ve read this year?

Tough call between THE TERROR OF LIVING by Urban Waite and DELERIOUS by Daniel Palmer. Very different books, but both excellent and show incredible promise on the part of the authors.

What piece of advice would you give an author trying to increase sales and expand name recognition?

Remember that you are an entrepreneur, and as such, seek expert advice on brand management without restricting yourself to experts in New York. Don’t leave sales in the hands just of (immensely talented, but often vastly overworked) publisher marketing departments.

What do you prefer, Twitter or Facebook?

My preference vacillates. Right now, it’s Twitter.

Police procedurals or amateur sleuths?

Police procedurals. Definitely.

Joe Pike or Elvis Cole?

Elvis Cole

Chocolate or vanilla?

Chocolate. And again, chocolate. And once more for good measure: Chocolate.

Pizza: deep dish or thin crust?

Thin crust. Tried to convert to deep dish during many happy years living in Chicago, but to no avail. My failure at this conversion had nothing to do with my leaving Chicago, though.

What does the future of publishing hold?

I think this is where I’m supposed to say, “Change! And more change!” But I actually think the future of publishing lies with readers. The biggest change I’ve seen recently is perhaps best characterized as a power shift in the publishing ecosystem, because readers have ever-more venues for acquiring, formats for reading, and forums to discuss and recommend books. I also think librarians have a bigger role in the future of publishing than Conventional Wisdom might have one think (at the moment).

Pottermore!

 

by Alison Dasho

 

Alright, she announced it!

 

I am a big nerd and happy fan of the series (see my imaginary revised ending to book 7). I'll be scrambling to get an early registration come July 31st, and I'll be back in October to explore and read and enjoy the awesomeness of Pottermore.

 

But, my nerdiness aside, I'm really, really, really interested in how her ebooks will fare.

 

Up until now, Harry Potter hasn't been available in ebook format. At all, anywhere. And Pottermore will make them available -- exclusively. (I'm not sure about DRM, but if I had to hazard a guess, I'd guess the files will be DRMed.) UPDATE! The ebooks will be DRM-free?! Oh, that is awesome!

 

Want to place bets as to how long it takes her to sell a million? (Let's speculate in the comments; whoever is closest, I'll send you a prize!)

 

This is interesting to me because, although fans of all ages enjoy the Harry Potter books (ahem ahem [Hi, Mom!]), I don't know what the demand for digital copies will be. I already have hard copies, so unless the ebooks offer annotations (omg I just geeked myself out with excitement over reading a JK-annotated HP book), I don't know that I'll buy them. I realize I'm a sample size of only one, though, so my thinking may be flawed.

 

And thinking of new HP readers, like children who were too young for the series as it published but are just now getting curious ... will they come to discover Harry Potter as an ebook? Are children reading ebooks? Do they have ereaders?

 

I'm confident that Pottermore will be fun and interesting, and I'll be watching not only as a fan, but as a publishing participant.

 

(Okay, but mostly as a fan.)

 

This is the way the world turns

 The death of the novel has been predicted regularly for as long as I can remember, but it seems to survive all attempts to talk it into oblivion.

Now I’m wondering if the same will happen to bookshops.

The concept of big chains certainly seems to be in a nosedive. The huge Borders organisation hived off its two main satellites in the UK and Australia some years ago. They both kept going independently for a while, but the UK version bit the dust about eighteen months ago, a casualty of the economic crisis that pretty well brought the whole world to its knees; and now both the Aussie version and what used to be the parent company in the USA are set fair to follow. A pity: here in the UK at least, Borders were the good guys among chain booksellers.

Waterstone’s is still afloat for the time being, thanks to monetary input from the Russians, who seem to be the only people with any cash to spare at the moment. But according to the handy little information sources that drop into my in box most mornings, the remaining American giant Barnes & Noble isn’t exactly in clover. Maybe that explains why I was stalked by an over-keen assistant in the Flagstaff branch last month: something that’s never happened before. Possibly he was just trying to be helpful, but I had a hard time persuading him that I wasn’t looking for any particular author’s work - I wanted to see what was on the shelves before I decided what to buy. (Not quite true, actually, but a bookshop is for browsing, not the hard sell.) I’d better hold on to the printed carrier bag they gave me; it could become a collector’s item.

There’s better news about independents, who, it’s devoutly to be hoped, are motivated by their customers’ tastes and requirements rather than by the blandishments and marketing fees of vast publishing conglomerates. Only this week I read of one which has doubled its floor area, and a couple of months ago I visited another which had just moved up the street into larger premises.

It’s not that people aren’t buying books. Amazon is thriving, and other online booksellers aren’t doing so badly. And of course sales of eBooks are growing exponentially. Which is probably the shops’ biggest problem.

I don’t have an eReader, and for the time being at least, I have no plans to buy one. Partly because I’m a quaint old-fashioned creature who actually loves the feel, smell and experience of paper leaves between cardboard covers.

No, not partly: mainly. But there’s also an element of waiting for the technology to settle down. When manufacturers of eReaders sort themselves out, decide on a single format and become interchangeable instead of pulling against each other and jumping up and down for attention like spoilt children, I may possibly succumb. We haven’t just run out of bookshelf space in our house; we’ve actually run out of walls to hang new bookshelves on. So there may come a time when necessity outweighs sentiment.

Then again, maybe not. Curling up in an armchair with a piece of plastic somehow isn’t the same.

So what’s to be done? Do we just sit back and let it all find its own level? Going back to my first observation, it could be deduced that the book trade seems quite good at looking after itself; the novel certainly hasn’t died yet, and given the stack I’m currently working my way through – mainly crime, but not all by any means – if I’m any kind of microcosm, it doesn’t even have a dose of summer ‘flu.

Maybe what’s happening to the chain bookshops is just an Awful Warning. Perhaps some booksellers have got it wrong, in which case we have to ask if they actually deserve to survive. I’m looking forward to seeing what happens to Waterstone’s now they’ve put a real bookseller in charge.

Or maybe it’s just the world turning and settling into a new shape. It does that now and again.

Any thoughts, Dead Guy followers?

The Modifier Zone

Josh Getzler

“Josh stretched his tired arms and wearily dragged his calloused, tapered fingers through his curly, tangled hair as he struggled to rouse his overworked body out of his comfortable bed, the tinny chirps of the chrome iHome alarm clock mocking him…chirpily. He staggered blearily past the cluttered wood desk and opened the white door to the beige bathroom, where he splashed cold water on his scruffy cheeks and shook himself awake as the minty toothpaste shocked his sleepy tastebuds into awareness. He trudged heavily into the book-lined family room, past the herringbone sofa and the orange chairs, stopping at his dark brown Jack Spade messenger bag to take out his red Dell laptop. It is 5:15, and you have entered…The Modifier Zone.”

One of the more common flaws I’ve found in the queries I read is the Modifier Dump, when an author—whether in looking to be absolutely sure that the reader knows precisely what the room looks like or the character feels, goes adjective and adverb crazy. A tree is not a tree—it’s a green, leafy tree. A person doesn’t walk down the street—he walks down the wide, car-filled, green-leafy-tree-lined, newly-paved highway.  At times it’s an excuse to show off SAT words: “The perspicacious toddler lugubriously imbibed the apple juice, perspiration trickling over his bloated digits.”

Regardless, it’s the sure way to make me stop reading. When I am looking at the beginning of a book, I want to be hooked. That’s not a revelation—everyone wants to be hooked at the start of a book. It either needs to have action that draws the reader in, or a description of a place or character that makes you want to continue because that character or place is going to do something or be the site of something interesting. And you don’t need a lot of words to make that happen. (And you sure don’t need to describe the weather. Weather, unless we’re talking about, say, the moors or the desert or the ski slopes or the Islands, is rarely relevant; and when it is, it’s often self-evident.)

Rather, in a short space, you (typically) need to place the reader in time and location, and indicate something about the person or people involved, and what they are doing.

I was talking to my assistant, Maddie, yesterday, about an exciting query which had come in through the weekend. It had many of the elements I salivate over—foreign, historical setting, crime, class issues, badass proto-feminist protagonist, and author with a great background and the chops to pull off an ambitious novel of this ilk.

“How’s the writing?” Maddie asked.

“Marvelous,” I said, and read the first sentence to her. “On the night I delivered Mercy Harris of a bastard child, the King’s soldiers burned the city’s suburbs and fell back within its walls to await the rebel assault.”

There is so much good about this—in 29 words, the author managed to convey so many things—let’s see how many:

1)      The narrator delivers babies. So the protagonist is a doctor or a midwife. Not an amateur, or it would have been “The night I helped Mercy Harris deliver her baby.”

2)      More than that, the narrator delivers bastard babies, which means that the story takes place during a time where that is important.

3)      It’s set in a city.

4)      With a wall.

5)      It’s set during a time and place where there is

1. A king
2. A rebellion

So the reader immediately knows that there are big things going on—a civil war of some kind—and also local dramas of childbirth. We don’t know where it’s going, exactly, but we want to continue. And in these 29 words, there is one modifier—bastard—and it’s vital, and evocative. It would say something very different about the book if the adjective were “illegitimate,” right? And it wasn’t necessary to say that the night was dark or rainy or dangerous, because the details given are more than sufficient to pique our interest. I don’t know if the author will be able to sustain the prose or the story, but I do know that I want to read on, and I’m inclined to like it.

So the takeaway on this I suppose is that for me the best writing is careful writing, where the pyrotechnics can be subtle, the adjectives minimal and always germane, and the weather implied. Many agents and editors talk about wanting to be transported to a different or unfamiliar time and place, with unique characters and gripping plots. That’s an incredibly tall order, and one whose difficulty is only magnified when it is burdened with unnecessary modifiers.

 

Rest Easy, George.

Jeff Cohen

In 1972, George Carlin debuted a monologue which he called "The Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television." It's been almost 40 years, and I'm relatively sure we know which words they were. No need to remind you.

And I'm still astonished at the idea of it.

Words you can't SAY. In a society that supposedly promotes free speech. That's a really odd concept.

Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not interested in obscenity for shock value, and I write what I'll grudgingly admit are cozy mysteries (and I say "grudgingly" only because I didn't set out to follow any set of rules about what can or can't be expressed; it just sort of happened that way). I don't want to offend my readership, unless there's a really good reason to (so far, I have not found one).

But I'd like to know that I CAN if I want to. If I think there's a point to using a word that some might find offensive, I'm going to do so. And to be fair, in most cases, I think my editor and publisher would be okay with it if the word were appropriate to the situation, the character and the story. If it's not, then I shouldn't use any word, regardless of its ability to piss people off. (Oops!)

And as a father of formerly young children, I can sympathize with those who would prefer not to hear certain words on the broadcast airwaves because they'd rather not accelerate the conversation that will ensue. I remember how I felt when I saw certain words on bumper stickers and my kids would ask about them: "Thanks a lot for THAT one, pal!"

Television is an extremely powerful medium, although not what it once was. If you think keeping some words off TV is keeping them away from your kids, well, I'd like to introduce you to the Internet. Smartphone access. Twitter. Anthony Weiner. Wait. Maybe not Anthony Weiner.

Welcome to the new millennium, friend. TV isn't the power it used to be, so keeping things off of it (and radio) won't shield anybody over the age of three.

I remember a long time ago when my daughter, then maybe six or seven, was just figuring out the Internet and, innocently, typed the word "fun" next to ".com" in the address bar. Let's just say she didn't get what she expected, nor what I would have wanted her to see. She wasn't scarred for life, but I was pretty pissed off (oops!).

The point is, I should have been supervising her. It was MY responsibility to oversee my child. I didn't expect the FCC to do my job as a parent for me.

And when someone on TV is confronted with an extreme situation and says, "Oh, shoot!," "What the frak?" or "Fudge!", I'm taken out of the story and the contract between the storyteller and the audience is broken. 

A word is an expression of an idea. If you don't like your ideas, don't use those words. But some of us don't see the harm in using all the words available to us. You want to label a show (or a book, or a record) with a warning for parents who might not know what's included inside? I personally don't have a problem with that. But don't decide for me what words I can hear, or for that matter what words my children can hear. When I became a parent, I took on that responsibility. I didn't abdicate it to a bureaucracy.

Words we can't say? George Carlin is gone, alas, but his fine sense of absurdity lives on. Rest easy, George. There are still words you can't say on TV. I feel so much safer now.

Back from vacation

    As I write, I am still trying to overcoming the effects of jet lag from a wonderful 10 day Italian vacation I took with my husband and daughter.  Aside from the glories of seeing so much artistic, architectural and natural beauty, one of the most therapeutic aspects of this vacation was my abstention from newspapers, the Internet, television and radio (I was blissfully unaware of Weinergate until my return home) - that and the wonderful gelato, Moretti beer, and that most wonderful variation on the tuna melt known as pizza tonno - don't knock it until you've tried it.  

Since I'm supposed to be blogging about things mysterious on Dead Guy, here are some puzzlers I observed during the course of my vacation:

1.    With all the wonderful ingredients that are grown in the hills of Tuscany, why are there so many Venetian restaurants that serve pizza topped with FRENCH FRIES?

2.    Why are the elevators in European hotels so tiny?

3.    Why are so many Europeans bilingual - if not multilingual - and why is the American educational system so lacking in this regard?

4.    Why are Americans so uptight about preserving historic structures as if they were cast in amber?  If I learned anything about Italy's architectural treasures, it was that it was considered totally acceptable to make changes to a structure as tastes and styles changed over the course of hundreds of years.

5.   When Michaelangelo was painting on the ceiling, how did he keep the paint from dripping?

6.    Why don't Americans put shopping malls on bridges? 

7.    Why would anyone visiting Rome choose to eat in a McDonalds?

8.    Why hasn't Nutella become an essential breakfast staple on this side of the Atlantic?

    Much has been said about the convenience of ebooks when one is traveling.  Although my husband brought along his iPad, it should be noted that rather than using it for ebooks, he used it to download movies to occupy his time during the eight hour flights out and back.   For reading, he brought along an ARC of Before I Go to Sleep, by S. J. Watson, something I had picked up at the New Jersey Library Association spring conference a few weeks before.  As for me, I  brought along an ARC of Leftovers, by Tom Perrotta, that I had picked up at BookExpo while my daughter brought along a copy of The Ministry of Special Cases, by Nathan Englander, that I had picked up at Barnes & Noble.  My husband did use his iPad to download free sample chapters of several books but, rather than buying the ones he liked in ebook format, he asked me to bring them back for him from the library once I got back to work.  While I don't think my family necessarily serves as a typical example, I think it does offer some evidence that print is not ready to give up the ghost.

Our three days in Venice also brought to mind a wonderfully evocative read - The Man in the Picture, by Susan Hill, a scary little novella I read several years ago and highly recommend.

Postscript:  Perhaps the biggest irony of our vacation for this New Jersey family was our sighting of Snookie and JWow as we wandered the streets of Florence.

 

 

A Little Contest

Robin Agnew

I was thinking recently about how a good first line, while it doesn't determine the pleasure of a good book, still goes a long way toward drawing you into the story.  A really pithy, memorable first line makes it difficult to stop reading - and of course the rest of the book has to be good too, but I think the importance of a memorable first line can't be overlooked.

Below are some excellent first lines (and in some cases I've "cheated" and used the first couple lines if they are very short) and below that are the possible authors of these concise masterpieces.  Whoever gets the most correct answers (you can post your guesses in the comments section) will receive, courtesy of Aunt Agatha's, an ARC of Janice Hamrick's DEATH ON TOUR, the winner of the St. Martin's best first crime novel contest.  

You'll need to watch the comments section for the winner and the correct answers and I'll need to contact the winner to send along the prize!  Even if you don't win, of course these are some memorable words to take with you through your day.  Would YOU keep reading?

1. "The moment Isobel awoke she knew there was someone else in the house."

2.  "They were barefoot when they were sent home, their dripping feet leaving prints that evaporated almost instantly, as if they had never been there at all."

3.  "Scholarship asks, thank God, no recompense but truth."

4.   "It was a hell of a night to throw away a baby."

5.  "Sister Bertrada was snoring like a woman possessed."

6.  "To judge from the entrance the dawn was making, it promised to be a very iffy day..."

7.  "A dead man fell from the sky, landing at my feet with a thud."

8.  "When a fresh-faced guy in a Chevy offered him a lift, _______ told him to go to hell."

9.  "It was nothing out of the ordinary that Mrs. Barry Rackham had made the appointment with her finger pressed to her lips."

10.  "When I was eight, I was convinced I could disappear."

11.  "Waking is like rising from the dead."

12.   "How did it all begin?  Well, I suppose it would be the day I rescued a newborn baby from apoisonous snake, heard the news ofmy mother's death, and encountered my first ghost."

13.  "How to spend the Labor Day weekend?  Sam could come up with a hundred ways. Covering the Miss America Pageant wasn't one of them."

14.  "A hunchback and a poet met in the glorious gardens belonging to the hunchback's father."

15.  "There is nothing stranger than a familiar place turned unfamiliar."

ANSWERS - and like any good mystery, the clues are there!  

P.F. Chisholm, A MURDER OF CROWS, 2010

Rex Stout, IN THE BEST FAMILIES, 1950

Sharan Newman, THE DEVIL'S DOOR, 1994

Laura Lippman, EVERY SECRET THING, 2003

Andrea Camilleri, THE TERRA COTTA DOG, 1996

Rosemary Harris, SLUGFEST, 2011

Sarah Shankman, SHE WALKS IN BEAUTY, 1991

Richard Stark, THE HUNTER, 1962

Julia Spencer-Fleming, IN THE BLEAK MIDWINTER, 2002

Peter Watson, LANDSCAPE OF LIES, 1989

Gary Corby, THE PERICLES COMMISSION, 2010

Elly Griffiths, THE CROSSING PLACES, 2009

S.J. Bolton, AWAKENING, 2009

Barbara D'Amato, WHITE MALE INFANT, 2002

Sarah Caudwell, THUS WAS ADONIS MURDERED, 1987

 

Have fun!

 

 

 

Joining the Living

By Dana Kaye

It is with a heavy heart and a bloody mary that I announce this will be my last post at Hey Dead Guy. I adore blogging and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed writing for this site, but I feel it’s time to begin the next chapter.

Next week, I will be interviewing our new Friday PR blogger, so don’t miss it!

And for my last post, one final list:

 

10 Things I Love About Reading Crime Fiction

1. The characters are always so much cooler than I am
2. The characters tend to be vulnerable, which makes them more compelling
3. I learn how to use a gun, kick ass, and hide a body
4. If I’m exhausted, a good thriller will always wake me up
5. Books set abroad teach me more about that country than any history book
6. The stakes are always high
7. Just when you think you figured it out, the author can surprise you
8. Quick snappy dialogue instead of blocks of exposition
9. Crime fiction brings me into worlds I wouldn’t experience otherwise (and probably wouldn’t want to)
10. The authors tend to be the nicest people I’ve ever met

Add your Crime Fiction loves to the list and tune in next week when I’ll announce our new blogger. And don't be a stranger: tune in to Kaye Publicity, follow me on Twitter, like me on Facebook.

Beware the Hibernaculum

 

by Alison Dasho

 

I learned a new word yesterday: Hibernaculum

 

(Before you click that, or the link below, did you know that it's possible to switch your web browser's settings so it doesn't load pictures? Check under the Preferences menu -- in Firefox, it's in the Content tab, just uncheck "Load images automatically.")

 

A hibernaculum is a place where an animal hibernates. Simple -- and fun to say -- yes?

 

Okay, well, I learned the word from this horripilating news article. My skin is still crawling. An Idaho couple (with two young boys) bought a house, moved in, and discovered it was infested with thousands of snakes.

 

The ground outside the home sometime looked like it was moving, and the sound of snakes slithering through the walls kept them awake at night.

 

THE SOUNDS OF SNAKES SLITHERING THROUGH THE WALLS, YOU GUYS.

 

Ugh, can you imagine the layers of sloughed-off, dried-up snake skins in those walls? It must be so thick it's like insulation.

 

The family lived in this house for three months before becoming overwhelmed with the stress of LIVING IN A HOUSE FULL OF THOUSANDS OF SNAKES FOR THREE MONTHS. Three months?! I'm in awe of their fortitude.

 

And yes, I know the snakes were garter snakes, and that somehow is supposed to make it less of a big deal because garter snakes are harmless, but honestly. Even if I weren't mortally afraid of snakes, a house infested with thousands of anything that moved through the walls in the night and woke the residents would be just horrendous. I mean, Kirk didn't just let that Tribble infestation go despite the fact that they were cute, right?

 

But this family had invested in their new home, and they had a mortgage, and two young sons, and they thought they could overcome the snake problem, and so they lived in that house for three months.

 

Think about that. THAT'S character motivation. A character has something to lose or something he wants to protect, and so he makes a decision to endure a hardship because he believes he has a chance to successfully endure, or overcome that hardship.

 

If you want your character to do the equivalent of living in a horrible snake-infested house for three months, you have to give him a compelling, simple, relatable reason to do so. And he has to have hope that the choice he makes will eventually lead to a favorable outcome (for himself, or for the person/persons he cares about).

 

No one would live in a hibernaculum for nothing.

Self-fulfilling prophecies and other trivia

 No, I haven't retired. Really, honestly, truly I haven't. My computer was still running at a quarter to seven last night, and I promise I wasn't playing Freecell. I'm open to all offers of editing work and theatre reviewing, and when there's none of either to get my teeth into (not often) I keep looking at the last unpublished novel but one and wondering if the idea I had for turning it into a murder mystery would work if I did this...

Then again, I suppose if I'm really honest, I have to say I've slowed down a little. And anyone looking at my diary for the past few weeks could be forgiven for thinking I'm a lady of leisure these days. Well, maybe not lady exactly...

Two weeks' vacation in the USA last month, and now this afternoon we're off to the south coast of our own little UK. It's partly work; the murder mystery evenings which we used to promote the books I used to publish weren't part of the package when I sold up, so we still run them whenever we're asked. And we do get asked. They're fun. In fact, it's high time I did some proper promotion to get that little business working as it should. I will, I will – just as soon as I get back from my weekend break. The thing is, this particular murder mystery evening is about twice as far away as we usually travel, and close to the Isle of Wight, which we've never visited (can you believe that? we live on an island less than a thousand miles end to end and there are huge tracts of it we've never seen). So we're visiting it this weekend.

Meanwhile, it's Wednesday, and we're not leaving till this afternoon (OK, OK, five-day weekends and she keeps insisting she hasn't retired...) so there's plenty of time for my Dead Guy slot. So while I'm on the subject, sort of, how about we look at promotion from the publisher's point of view. Someone did suggest that even though I'm not actually doing it any more, now I no longer have to be careful about treading on tender book trade toes, I'm in a position to offer a full and frank view of how things look from the publisher's side of the fence.

Several years ago I was at a seminar on marketing run by one of those large gatherings of writers which collectively carry some weight when there's a cause to be lobbied for, but individually seem to consist of a lot of people who simply don't know how publishing works. And for the most part, they had very little idea how book marketing works.

Before I go any further, let me say this: what I'm about to describe is my perception of how it is – certainly not how I think it should be, or how I did it myself.

What seems to happen in large publishing houses is that 90% of the marketing budget goes on 10% (or even fewer) of the books. The lead titles in any given season get a huge slice of the cake – and usually, though not always, the lead titles are the latest by the big-name authors – leaving very little to support other authors. And since the best way to get that all-important word of mouth going is to make sure the book is in the public eye as much as possible, the success of any given book is directly related to the amount of marketing budget it gets, and the success of any given author becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

OK, I know there are exceptions. Occasionally a book captures the public imagination without much promotion. Even more occasionally, once in a lifetime maybe, you get the Harry Potter phenomenon, when all the publisher needs to do is mention to a few people that a new one will be out soon, and the promotion does itself. And sometimes the public imagination refuses to bite and the book bombs anyway.

But mostly, the more promotion a book gets, the better its chance of success.

Back to the seminar. Hackles rose. Questions were asked. Mainly the subtext was, so that's why my books only sold a few thousand copies and my publisher dropped me: I didn't win the big marketing budget lottery.

The question is, is it really a lottery? Or are the publisher's choices and decisions based on the knowledge and experience which ensures they recognise a quality product, and that all-important reliable gut feeling which sorts the best from the rest?

I don't have an answer to that. But from my current position straddling the fence between publisher and writer, I can offer this dubious wisdom: the writer isn't always best placed to know what makes a bestseller. I mean, come on, guys – we all write works of unparalleled genius, don't we? Who's to say which are going to be bestselling works of unparalleled genius? Or why?

Publishers may not do it the way we want them to – but at least they do something.

Does Size Matter? (Not a Post About Anthony Weiner)

Josh Getzler

Quick post today, as I need to wake up Number One Son  early to cram for his sixth grade math final exam; a test for which he is reasonably well prepared but blithely unconcerned. He is not at all certain that understanding absolute value will have any impact on his future career as a muppeteer.  I’ve informed him that it’s tough to be a muppeteer if you’re grounded for the rest of your life as the result of failing your sixth grade math exam, so he’s going to wake up at six. We’ll see.

Today I want to talk about word count. Many of the query letters I get have beginnings like “Naked Came the Zombie is a 78,426-word story of romance among the Undead…” I’ve always found the decision to include a precise word count interesting, as well as of only limited utility. Certainly by the time it’s published, the count will change. And does that include titles, bylines, headers and footers, or just text? Really, it doesn’t matter. The point of including word count (which I DO understand, by the way, and don’t mind—though  you can certainly round to the nearest thousand or even round number if you’d like when approaching me), is to tell me that you’ve written a “book” that’s the size of a “book” rather than a novella or an epic.

But what does that mean? I’m asked that question all the time at conferences. “Do you care how long my book is? Are there guideline?”

And that’s a tough question, because there are exceptions all over the place that prove the rule. My mother-in-law was telling me last night that she just got to an amazing plot twist on page 1,300 of Vikram Seth’s massive A Suitable Boy. I can’t even imagine what some of my editor friends would say if in my pitch letter I said “You know, it takes a little while to get going—but wait till page 1,300; it really starts to fly!” (That of course isn’t fair in this case—A Suitable Boy is pretty much awesome from the get-go…)

I typically tell novelists that while it varies, and there are exceptions, and don’t ever take this as gospel, and many other hedges, I typically feel that around 60,000-120,000 words means a “book.” 55,000 words? OK, that’s fine—it’s just a short book! 130k? OK, but it better move along really quickly. Cozy mystery? More often on the short side. Historical multi-generational romance? Tend to run on the long side.  There are some genre publishers, particularly mass-market romance houses, which do give a stricter limit, but they tell their authors that up front. I always tell authors not to write with word count in mind as a strict guide. Writing quality, character development and pacing are the important things, and they will rarely be disqualified if they don’t fall precisely within the numbers.

OK, so that was the tidbit for this week. Onward to absolute value!

(whew, made 500 words!)

 

 

If It Wasn't "Weiner"...

Jeff Cohen

Anyone who thinks words don't make a difference should consider how this past week would have gone if we were now pondering the future of Rep. Anthony Malakovich. 

Yes, things still would have gone very badly this past week for our mythical Congressman, because the revelations would have still be awful and the backlash would have still been disproportionate. But think of how much harder the joke writers would have had to work. 

Words make a difference. And that's why choosing the right one can take up much of a writer's day. It's not Writer's Block (I stand firm in my belief that there is no such thing); it's a question of making a considered choice that will convey exactly the shading of meaning that one is trying to get across.

Consider: Here is a short segment from a book of mine already published. 

"'I was stupid enough to buy the Rialto and rename it Comedy Tonight, " I told him. 'I am the innovator who brought old movies back to a market flooded with DVDs. I am the genius who refuses to screen Academy Award contenders because the Academy is resolute in its failure to recognize comedy. I'm the marketing master whose theatre brought in two hundred and fifty-two patrons in a seven-day week. I have exactly one regular customer, a man with a life so full he shows up to watch old comedies seven nights a week. Exactly how much useful information do you think you'll be able to get from me?'"

It might not look like that particular passage was especially labor-intensive. Dialogue, especially, is meant to sound spontaneous and natural. If you see the choice of words as you're reading it, the writer hasn't done the job correctly. So it wouldn't be a huge stretch to think that when the words fly by unnoticed, the work is a decent accomplishment.

Consider the tone of the paragraph. The speaker is mocking himself to make a point to the listener. He uses words like "innovator" and "genius" sarcastically. Why? 1. Because he's from New Jersey, and that's what we do. 2. Because he wants the listener (in this case, a policeman he's met recently) to know that he's consciously going over the top with his words, and doesn't mean them literally. 3. Because the speech is meant to convince the listener that the speaker is not a really good witness and certainly not a criminal mastermind.

The first five sentences in the paragraph begin with the word "I" or a variation. It's not that the speaker is an egomaniac; it's a form of verbal punctuation getting to a point. Each time, the reader should hear the word emphasized just a little bit more fervently. The last sentence does not begin with the word "I" to set it off. This is where the point will be made.

The passage is meant to be read in a hurry. The speaker should sound, in the reader's mind's ear, like someone building up speed to a conclusion. If you're luxuriating over the words there, it won't work. They have to gather steam and hit a crescendo at the end. Read that paragraph slowly, savor the wordplay, and the effect is lost.

Words like "exactly" are meant to underline the emotion. "Exactly one regular customer." If "exactly" were substituted with "about" or eliminated together, the literal point would be roughly the same, but the feeling would be lost. "Exactly how much useful information" is, to be honest, a mistake. It's a repetition of the word too soon after its last use. It should have been either "So how much useful information" or "Precisely how much useful information". Either way would work.

And the italics over "seven nights a week" are there, and not somewhere else in the passage, because the emphasis the reader should hear is the equivalent of the speaker's voice rising in pitch and then taking a breath.

That's just one random paragraph. Take any one out of any book you've ever read and liked, and you'll find similar examples. 

See, the words do matter. Ask this guy.

Firing up my ebook habit

Sharon Wheeler (coming off the bench for Dale Spindel)

 

In the time I've been AWOL from Dead Guy, I've gone over to the dark side. No, I don't (yet) have 666 tattooed on my forehead, and I promise you I didn't watch a single second of the royal wedding. I've, ahem, coughcoughcoughboughtaKIndlecoughcoughcough …

And it's the best £109 I've ever spent (I got in before the VAT rise in the UK). No longer do I spent aeons dithering over which books to pack for a weekend away – something I used to spend longer on than choosing clothes, and heavens knows I'm always undecided on that. Now I just stick the Kindle in its rinky-dinky spotted case into my handbag, and I'm sorted.

Old Dead Guy friends will recall that  I'm a fairly reluctant expert on the obscure railway routes of the UK. Come June, I'm usually headed for meetings at other universities in some of the UK's less salubrious cities. And I spend a fair bit of time on the train down to my new(ish) job in Portsmouth. That's the kind of line where the train stops everywhere, there are at least six incidents of cows on the line and I've read the Complete Works of Shakespeare before I've reached Bristol.

With 224 books currently residing on my Kindle, I can happily flip between them if one isn't grabbing my fancy. On last week's train journey home, I finished The Imperfectionists, a novel about journalists, had a quick squint at the next chapter of Simon Hughes'  And God Created Cricket and sampled the first few chapters of a bloke's account of taking over a B&B in Brighton.

A friend of mine reckoned the best way to make friends on public transport was to travel with a sprog or a dog. Forget that – a Kindle will guarantee fellow passengers start cross-examining you on its advantages. The other week, half the carriage seemed more interested in it than getting off at Southampton (understandable, really, if you've ever been there).

I was able to assure the woman who kicked off the conversation that no, it would never totally replace print books in my affections and really, she should see my house if she suddenly felt like going into Luddite mode. As I said forlornly to someone the other day, I never thought you cou;d have too many books.

Well, you can if you're like me and lousy at throwing them away. I think I have more books crammed into a two-bedroomed house than there are in Gloucestershire's public libraries. A Kindle is one way of trying to keep the blighters at bay.

So far, I haven't spent more than £10 on a book for it – and that one was a colleague's which I hadn't been able to justify buying as a £40 hardback, but which looked far more of a bargain on Kindle. I've got good at combing through Project Gutenberg for out of copyright classics and at skulking around Amazon for free or cheap bargains.

I've found that I'm buying what might be called borderline books – those that I wasn't sure whether to splash out on in print format. So a lot are history and sports, both big interests of mine, but areas where I often felt I couldn't justify the money or the space on the book.

It's horribly easy to develop a ebook-buying habit which sneaks up on your credit card and slides a knife under its ribs. After all, just another £1 book won't hurt, will it . . .? And before you know it, the bank manager is sending the boys around.

I'm also developing a much-needed ebook bullshit detector. There's often a good reason why some of these books are being flogged off for a quid – yep, the self-publishing curse follows us over to Kindle which it's sometimes more tricky to work out who's publishing what. And has every damn Christian romance and crime fic writer dumped their wares on Amazon? And why the hell do they show up in my recommended list, considering I'd touch neither with a bargepole!

At least with shiny e-readers, you're never going to pitch them out of a train window or use them as a coaster for your dripping cup of coffee like I've been sorely tempted to do in the past by some particular stinkers of books! With a Kindle, you just relegate them to the ether with the push of a button . . .

Steve Hamilton

Robin Agnew

Steve Hamilton, our biggest draw of the year, was in the store Thursday night, his first event for his new Alex McKnight novel, Misery Bay.  We've known Steve since A Cold Day in Paradise was published, and he was feeling a bit nostalgic, comparing the huge crowd on Thursday to the first one at the store attended by his Mom and his friend from grade school who drove him to the event.

He also talked about his first event at Borders - he said they'd put him in the music section, as far from actual books as it was possible to be.  He said the buyer had bought so many of his books they could have made a castle with them - and the groans of the crowd (and this bookseller) thinking of the stacks of fresh copies of Cold Day in Paradise were many.  That event was also quite sparsely attended.

It's cool how things change - sometimes.  When I introduced him, which was brief as I think everyone in the room had read all of his books - I mainly mentioned that he'd recently won an Edgar for best novel, and he got a nice round of applause.  Steve is a pretty modest fellow, though - that friend that drove him to the first event?  He was there (as he has been for every event) and he hadn't known about the Edgar win, asking Steve after things wound down, "So, there was some ceremony in New York or something?"

Steve was enjoying the growth of his readership on Thursday, as was I, and the event had a seat of the pants feel as he mainly fielded questions from the audience, one of the more interesting bits being the way he researched The Lock Artist (by shadowing an actual safecracker).  The event evolved into a discussion about the future of bookselling and publishing, as well as of course e-books.  Steve made a passionate plea for support of independent bookstores - and as I looked around, the crowd full of book club members and regulars, I knew he was preaching to the converted.

Many in the audience said e-books had boosted their reading - Steve's included - though many also said they also liked to have actual books in their hands (Steve included).  Events like Thursdays surely help us stay open and pay the rent, and the generosity of an author like Steve Hamilton, who has been loyal to our store since the beginning of his career, is a part of our continued existence.  Sometimes that existence is a struggle, sometimes a joy.  Thursday was a joy, and a reminder of why I sometimes love being a bookseller.

 

What's all the buzz about?

By Dana Kaye

I'm constantly reading books for my clients and potential clients, usually about 2 books a week. When I'm not reading work related books, I try to read my friends' books or books I've received from other publicists. I don't purchase a lot of books that are not written by a client, a potential client, or someone I know and support.

Here are some books I have purchased that don't fall in to one of those categories:

1. Hunger Games trilogy
2. The Stieg Larsson books
3. Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand

What do all of these books have in common? Buzz. These are books everyone is talking about, and I bought them not only because I was interested in reading them, but because I wanted in on the conversation.

Buzz comes in all forms. Before, it meant newspaper reviews, radio interviews, tv appearances and bookstore co-op. Now  we include social media discussions, Amazon lists and guerrilla marketing. Utilizing each of these mediums, authors and publicists can create the feeling that everyone is talking about a book. And when everyone in the media is talking about a book, everyone in the reading world starts buying that book.

So how can you generate this type of buzz on no budget and minimal publisher support? Here are a few ideas:

1. Get active on social media. Be a part of the discussion. If you're book has timely, controversial topics, bring them up. If you wrote a cozy mystery centered around a craft, get a tweet chat going about that craft. Guest blog on other sites. Post comments. Be active online and the buzz will follow.
2. Contact your local media markets. Even if it's small, a blurb or review in your local paper can make a difference. Same with the local talk radio station. Contact the producer, introduce yourself, offer to send a copy of the book.
3. Introduce yourself to independent booksellers or, even better, become a regular customer. If they like you and your books, they're more likely to talk about you to their customers.

Combining each of these aspects is the key to generating buzz, even if it's only on a local level. If someone reads about you in the local paper, then is on twitter and sees your name or book mentioned, then sees your book on the front table at the bookstore, they will have seen your name enough times to consider buying the book. Very few people hear an author on the radio or read a review in the paper, then immediately run to the bookstore to get the book. They have to be reminded and hear your name/book title over and over again. Plus, if they feel like everyone is talking about a book, they'll pick it up just to be a part of the discussion.

To sign off, I found this post that was thoroughly entertaining and inspiring: The 80 Best Guerrilla Marketing Techniques

The 90s are back: Writing challenge

 

by Alison Dasho

 

I'm not the most fashionable person in the world, it's true. Although I love to visit The Sartorialist and contemplate wearing those outfits or getting those haircuts, in real life I don't take fashion risks or help break trends. (Especially as a freelancer, when one's wardrobe is allowed to consist of pajama pants and tank tops, both covered in cat fur. Mmm, comfortable work environment.)

 

But I've noticed something about fashion lately: The 90s are coming back. I'm sorry, you guys, but it seems to be true. Short, short dresses in tiny floral prints with tights and big blocky heels. Skorts, even?

 

This resurgance of the fashion of my early teen years is making me feel ... a little awkward. I remember wearing a white, long-sleeved babydoll dress with thick wool tights and a matching choker to the middle school talent show, and I remember feeling uncomfortable and awkward and unsure of myself in that getup -- almost as if I was trying to be someone else, like I was copying the style of the pretty, popular girls in an effort to become them. (Though I did rock that talent show, torch-song-style.)

 

So much of my (well, everyone's) personal development happened during those pre-teen/teen years, and so often during that time I felt goofy and out of place and not at all confident -- and when I see the fashions of the 90s being paraded around on today's Urban-Outfitter-shopping undergrads, my first reaction is to cringe. That tiny floral print reminds me of the time my mom took me to buy the first Greenday album and we fought about the "explicit" sticker. That tattered flannel tied around someone's waist reminds me of my braces and bad perm, and the time we rented an R-rated movie at a sleepover and I had to lie to my dad about it (sorry, Dad! It was Judgement Night! It wan't even a good R-rated movie!). Those chunky Mary Janes remind me of pining away for a certain boy to ask me to Homecoming.

 

But ... seeing these fashions also now makes me curious. As a confident, awesome grownup, do I have the power to take back the floral dress? Can I wear a choker with panache? Is it possible for me to reclaim the fashion of the 90s, and put away all those old associations and memories?

 

I think it is, and I'm going to try. But I don't want to do it alone! I think it's more fun to reclaim a bit of the awkward past in a group, so I have a writing challenge for you:

 

Go back into your manuscript boxes, the old printouts you have squirreled away under the bed or in the basement or on that floppy disk. Pull out something you wrote when you were still developing, still unsure of yourself. Something cringe-worthy. Read it with an open mind. Recognize that you're a different, better writer than you used to be -- you've learned and grown and become more confident. Then pick one element of your old work and use it again. It could be a character, or a bit of description, or a plot point, or even just a single line. Work up a new piece of writing, and marvel at how you've changed.

 

It wasn't that the babydoll dress was wrong, it was the way I was wearing it. Shoulders slumped, head down, voice quiet.

 

It's not that your ideas used to be bad, it was the way you executed them. Softly, verbosely, passively.

 

Don't let an old idea languish in an attic. The 90s are back!

 

 

Retire? Not in this lifetime...

 People keep asking if, and in some cases assuming that, I've retired now that the publishing mini-empire I founded belongs to someone else.

Now, why would I want to do a silly thing like that? My philosophy of life, or at least of work, has always been this: the best way to live is to find out what you're good at and love doing, then seek out someone who will pay you to do it. I achieved the first part when I was about five years old: I loved to read from the moment I knew how, and writing stories became second nature when I'd learned to form the letters.

Put the two together and the natural progression is editing, and thence to publishing. It took me a long time to get there, but I arrived in the end, and as I must have said many times before, mainly because it's true, editing was always the part that gave me a buzz.

So take away the business side of publishing, the pressure to meet deadlines, the marketing, accounting, negotiating, schmoozing (not that I did much of that, and somehow we still managed to get good reviews), and what's left? Why, the part that always gave me a buzz, that's what.

It was always there as a separate enterprise, a sideline to publishing as well as a core element of it, and that's never stopped. I'm currently working with the authors of a futuristic political thriller and a hefty non-fiction view-of-the-world volume as well as on the delicious freelance treats Severn House keep sending my way. And it's SH who supply the best perk the job ever had, still has and could possibly have: I get to see new books by some of the great authors I discovered, months before they hit the bookshops.

A month or so ago I worked on book 3 of Chris Nickson's rich and gripping Richard Nottingham series – and book 2 only came out last week. I swear that series gets better and better.

As does Roz Southey's delicious Charles Patterson sequence, now on number 6, which I'll be gobbling up as soon as this post is up and running.

And if editing them gives me a buzz, imagine the frisson when I think that I actually published the debut novels of both these stupendously talented authors – and in Roz Southey's case several more besides. And I almost turned Richard Nottingham down, not because I failed to recognise its brilliance, but for the hardnosed businesswoman reason that I already had two seventeenth century series in progress... What was I thinking?

Well, whatever it was, I'm glad I saw sense.

So, in case you were thinking of asking, no, I haven't retired, and have no plans to do so. For one thing, only rich or old people retire; I'll never be rich, and since old is a state of mind, not a date on the calendar, I won't be going there any time soon. And for another, I've found what I love doing, and people still pay me to do it.

Why would I stop?

Liking the Tudors

Josh Getzler

The genesis of this column was a conversation I had with my client Nancy Bilyeau while we were walking around BEA. Nancy’s book, The Crown, is a Tudor-era thriller with a Novice for a protagonist, a burning-at-the-stake for an opening scene, Bishop Gardiner blackmailing our heroine, and an inappropriately hot priest named Brother Edmund. As we walked around the Javits Center, Nancy, who has been ramping up her online presence, started talking to me about the way Tudor lovers REALLY get into their heroes. She talked about Twitter feeds in the voices of Henry VIII and Elizabeth I, role-playing games where you can BE in Hampton Court in the service of The King, and the fact that there are myriad Facebook pages devoted to the principals of the era.

I thought it was interesting, and was pleased that Nancy was doing such a good job expanding her platform. I mentioned it to my wife, Amanda, who wondered how, say, Katherine Howard would tweet about being caught cheating (as one poster on the official Katherine Howard FB page put it: “yeah me and culpepper did it. AND I'D DO IT AGAIN!”).

But it wasn’t until last night, when I saw that Nancy had “Liked” Anne Boleyn  and Elizabeth I, that I decided to go into the CyberCourt of Henry VIII. And it was fascinating.

I knew unscientifically that there are “a lot of people out there” who are into the Tudors. That’s why there is a large cottage industry of books, movies, TV series, even coffee mugs and mouse pads with Henry’s face (either his own or Jonathan Rhys-Meyer’s dreamier update from the Showtime series). Also, as Amanda says, because there’s just so much THERE—sex, politics, war, sex, history, courtly manners, torture, religion, and, oh yes, sex.  But the Facebook presence of 500 years-dead Royals was incredible, and illuminating.

The first thing I did was follow Nancy to Anne Boleyn’s “official” (!) FB page, which has been liked by almost TWELVE THOUSAND PEOPLE! In contrast, poor Katherine of Aragon, whom Anne replaced as Queen after the world’s longest lapdance, only had 97 people like her. However, “Katherine of Aragon: England’s Wronged Queen” had 250 supporters, while “Katherine of Aragon: England’s Greatest Slut and Hypocrite” only had four Haters. So clearly the cybercommunity thinks she got the shaft, but still is more interested in the younger, hotter model.

I was pretty surprised to see that Anne of Cleves had a rousing 539 followers (considering that she was something of a blip on Henry’s radar), while the airheaded (and beheaded) hottie wife #5 has 252 followers as Catherine Howard but 272 as Katherine.

The biggest up-and-comer was Catherine Parr, Queen of England and Ireland, who just broke 300 Likes and has the most posts; while possibly the coolest was "We are rad enough to detest the conniving bitchface who was Jane Seymour." Nancy said she’d try to join that one (it’s invite only!). I’m not at all certain I’m rad enough.

But the funny thing was, when you take a step away from the serious semi-historical pages (which are impressive but not, platform-wise, material except perhaps for Anne’s), you start to understand how big the Tudorverse actually is. For instance, while Queen Mary had only 127 followers, her half-sister Elizabeth I has more than 3,000. Move ahead 500 years, and Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II has 61,000 followers on her official FB page, which is dwarfed by the official page of the Showtime Tudors series, which is liked by 733,000 admirers of JRM’s abs and Natalie Dormer’s flirtatious appeal (Amanda used to sit very happily on the couch every Sunday night to watch “History Porn,” which was a dangerous thing—they tended to switch off between the sexy weeks and the beheadings and rack and boiling alive…). The movie page of The Other Boleyn Girl has 107,000 followers.

When I actually stopped playing around and went to book pages, seeing whether historical fiction buffs who gave Hilary Mantel such great fame with Wolf Hall also spent time in social media, I found a very respectable 5,538 followers. Philippa Gregory, who has made a cottage industry of Tudor romances (and who shares a publisher with Nancy), has a rousing 26,772. Which would be wonderful, until I saw the page below hers on the suggestions list when I went to search: the Philippa (Pippa) Middleton Ass Appreciation Society, 229,844 strong. Some things, I suppose, never change.

The point of all this is that Nancy was on to something real, and something that anyone looking to figure out how to market books (or many, many other products) is going to need to face when slamming up against fewer brick-and-mortar distribution retailers for their romance or mystery or literary novel: People are coming together in significant numbers in all different parts of Cyberspace. And you can find them, and join them, and NEED to spend time with them. And then they will find your book, and trust you. And it’s clearly a lot more work, and there are dead ends (the Katherine of Aragon tribute page by a history class at Lower Merion High). But the target markets are out there, and it feels like when you connect with them, the momentum can be marvelous. I can just imagine seeing @therealhenrytudor Tweet “Just read #TheCrown—kudos @Tudorwriter”. Now THERE’S a blurb!

 

The Holy Scripture of Marx (not Karl)

Jeff Cohen

Note: This post is NOT about religion or the lack thereof. Don't let the first two paragraphs fool you.

I am a non-believer. That is, I don't think there is any kind of cognizant supreme being taking care of every little detail on this planet or any of the other ones. In other words, I'm an atheist.

Contrary to popular belief, most of us who are without religion are not necessarily trying to strip you of yours. Personally, I think you should believe what you believe, and I'll continue to believe what I believe. As long as you don't try to convince me otherwise, I'll do the same in return.

But. I do completely understand why those who do believe are so fervent about and affectionate toward the bible, or whatever version of it they might read and/or carry around. I absolutely get the idea of re-reading the book on a regular basis, of quoting it extensively and of committing portions of it to memory. I am right in line with that thinking.

I understand it because I have Groucho, Harpo, Chico and Sometimes Zeppo: A Celebration of the Marx Brothers and a Satire on the Rest of the World, by Joe Adamson.

Please believe me: There is no irony intended in what I've said. This book, a perfectly written history of the greatest film comedy team in history, is my version of the bible. I read it whenever I'm not reading something else. I can easily quote you extended portions of it off the top of my head. I have not set out to memorize the book, but through sheer repetition and appreciation of it, I have large sections of it implanted on my cerebral cortex.

It's not quite as well delineated (chapter and verse) as the bible, but it's a lot funnier.

I first read Groucho, Harpo... when I was in high school, a new convert to the Temple of Marx. (And yes, I believe in comedy. I think it's therapeutic and important, and necessary. It is the thing in which I place my faith.) It's a big book--443 pages in trade paperback, the edition I'd picked up on a whim--and I was so riveted by it, I took it with me wherever I went, grabbing a page here or there until I was finished. Then I read all the notes in the back. (Some of them are hilarious, others just full of information.) Then I read the whole book again.

All right, so I won't say it changed my life, but it sure did get me interested. 

It's one thing to write, as Adamson has, a comprehensive professional biography (with some personal details, but not that much--the work is what matters here) of the Marx Brothers, who made 13 films, of which at least two were among the best ever made, six were wonderful, three were acceptable, and two were downright lousy. It's another thing to assess the work objectively and explain what went into its creation. But it's something else again to write it in a style that mirrors the subject, all the while being perfectly serious in its intent.

Consider: Adamson begins his book with a number of quotes about the Marx Brothers, the last of which is from Arthur Sheekman, who says that no book on comedy has ever been funny. Adamson then writes: 

"Arthur Sheekman is one of the Marx Brothers' better writers, and he should know. Some day he must write a book on the subject, and then his statement wouldn't be true, and then he wouldn't know, and we'd be back where we started." That in the first real paragraph of his book. So we know what we're in for. And it's a great ride.

Without taking sides in the traditional Marx debates (who's the funniest, whether the Paramount movies are better than the MGMs), Adamson imparts his opinions as he relates the facts. It's clear which is which and for more than 30 years now, I have agreed with almost everything he says (my opinion of Horse Feathers is higher than Adamson's, although I see his point).

I always pick up Adamson's book (he also wrote a very good one about Bugs Bunny) intending to read just one section, and inevitably end up going back to the beginning and scouring it from cover to cover one more time. It's infectious in its writing, even when the reader (like, for example, me) knows all the information being imparted by heart, and could in fact write a book on the subject himself. Except that it's already been done, and better.

So I get the whole bible thing. I even try to proselytize, like I'm doing here, trying to get other to see the genius that I see. Just take a look at this paragraph, about an early (in fact, the first) treatment of what would become A Night at the Opera:

"At one point, McGuinness (the writer) informs us that 'Pio returns from Rome and Lili gives him the air. He blames this on Groucho and assembles his behemoths march forth to vengeance. [That's right, Operator, assembles his behemoths march forth to vengeance.] There is nothing for it but to leave Italy at once.' In America, a furor develops over whether
Lili should be allowed to do the seduction scene from Faust on the stage, and, on the preposterous pretext that Lili is supposed to rest her vocal speaking cords, she must argue the matter in song--which progresses, naturally and inevitably, in true sports-writer-sense-of-humor fashion, into a singing argument between Lili, Groucho, and Chico. Why these two rebellious rapscallions should be offended by a seduction scene is a mystery. Almost as much of a mystery as why Lili shouldn't rest her vocal singing cords, if she's going to appear in an opera. But the best mystery is what the difference between a singing cord and a speaking cord might be. McGuinness wrote a mystery."

(And you thought I wasn't writing about mysteries this week!)

If that doesn't convert you, try this: "The sentences of Groucho Marx, like our vast, ambitious mental enterprises, lose their way, fail to accomplish what they set out to accomplish, and are proud of it. Groucho is the vicious outsider who knows all your pontificating is going to come to nothing and is dead set on beating you to it."

We true believers are enthralled.

Just Say No to a "Wire" Re-up

Sharon Wheeler

Filling in for Dale Spindel

I adored The Wire. Every single minute of it. But a plea this week from the US attorney general brought me out in a cold sweat.

Eric Holder wants the writers to come up with more episodes or a film. His request got fairly short shrift from David Simon – and quite right too. You can't improve on perfection.

Sadly, a lot of shows (or books or bands for that matter) hang on well past their sell-by date, or attempt unfortunate comebacks. I was scarred for life by being dragged to a Sham 69 gig at Wolverhampton Wulfrun Hall some years back. Old punks never die – they just squeeze themselves into inappropriately tight jeans and whine a lot at the audience. Oh, and Sham 69 were bollocks in the first place!

Taggart has finally been buried, though. For those of you on the other side of the Pond who may have missed this particular Scottish delight, all you need to know is that DCI Jim "there's been a mrrrrdr" Taggart died 17 years ago. In fact, the show ran for longer without him that it did with him. The show was memorable for keeping the Scottish members of Equity, the actors' union, gainfully employed, and for having the most impenetrable plots ever. You could guarantee you'd sit through two hours of it and not have the foggiest what had happened, except that a lot of blood and guts would be involved and that Taggart and his later replacements would be exceedingly morose and grumpy.

And you thought Morse would come to an end once actor John Thaw had died? Not exactly … Some bright spark at ITV came up with the idea of a spin-off for loyal sidekick Lewis, the man who looks more like an accountant for a north eastern council than an Oxford copper. They've paired him with the constipated-looking DS Hathaway, who has an Enigmatic Past. Whatever, two hours of them trolling round Oxford and dealing with snotty university dons and snippy students, and you lose the will to live.

Maybe the home-grown cop shows just aren't hip any more. Rufus Sewell smouldered beautifully in the BBC adaptation of Michael Dibdin's Aurelio Zen books. That and the Italian setting didn't save him from the chop, though, after just three shows.

The real McCoy European crime drama is the new black, though. Denmark's The Killing, complete with enviable sweaters, picked up a cult following in the UK, as has gritty French cop show Spiral, now into its third series. And it's wall to wall Henning Mankell on BBC4, with Kenneth Branagh staring moodily into the middle distance ("Trees! Snow! Angst!) Better by far, though, is the Swedish TV version with the wonderfully rumped Krister Henriksson as Wallander ("More trees! Deeper snow! Angstier angst!")

Now please excuse me. I lapped up The Wire box set. I now have The Killing one waiting for me …

Graduation

Here's a photo of something I wasn't too sure would actually happen - my son, Robert, graduating from Pioneer High School in Ann Arbor this past Thursday evening.  The blood, sweat and tears it took to get to this point are a real triumph on his part, and he's now looking forward to job hunting and Community College.  We're all really proud of him - Congratulations, Robert!

Detroit Dog Rescue Fundraiser

What I love the most about working in publishing is the community. I enjoy the people, the conversations, and most importantly, how everyone is able to work together.

A few weeks ago, Chantelle Osman from Sirens of Suspense contacted me for ideas about a fundraiser she was trying to get off the ground. The goal was to raise money for the Detroit Dog Rescue and do it in a way that can be beneficial to authors. Here's what we came up with:

In Detroit, entire neighborhoods have been abandoned. People aren’t the only casualties of this crisis. It is estimated that over 50,000 dogs, left behind by their families, roam the streets of the city.  Animal Control euthanizes 80% of the dogs they catch.  One organization has stepped up to help: Detroit Dog Rescue. DDR is trying to build the first no-kill shelter in the city, and we’re trying to help. You can too. 

 

Starting next week, I’ll be posting photos of authors with their dog (different photos, different days) on this website. For every “like” the photo receives here and on the author’s Facebook page, the author will donate $1 to DDR.

 

Participating in the Photos:

 

Sherrill Bodine & Alice, her Newfoundland.

Alafair Burke & Duffer, her French Bulldog.

Bryan Gruley & Jake, his brother’s dog.

Gregg Hurwitz & Simba, his Rhodesian Ridgeback.

Dana Kaye & Mrs. Dalloway, her Shih Poo.

Simon Wood & Royston, his Long Haired Dachshund.

 

There will also be an auction on e-bay, with all proceeds benefitting Detroit Dog Rescue.

 

Authors Donating to the Auction:

Avery Aames - Signed copies of The Long Quiche Goodbye and Lost and Fondue, a cheese board & cheese knife.

Sherrill Bodine - Signed copies of A Black Tie Affair and Talk of the Town and a box of chocolates.

Hilary Davidson - Signed copy of The Damage Done, and a character name in her third book.

Bryan Gruley - Signed copy of The Hanging Tree.

Thomas Hollowell - Signed copy of The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Barefoot Running, a t-shirt and a pair of minimalist running shoes.

Julie Hyzy - Entire set of four White House Chef mysteries, signed.

Linda O. Johnston - Signed copies of Howl Deadly and Beaglemania.

Dana Kaye - One hour publicity and social media consultation.

Kris Neri - Signed hardcover copy of Dem Bones’ Revenge, a character name in a forthcoming novel, and a first chapter critique (up to 25 double-spaced pages).

Janet Rudolph - A year subscription to Mystery Readers Journal (.pdf or hardcopy).

Kelli Stanley - A character name in an upcoming book or story.

Simon Wood - Signed copies of Accidents Waiting to Happen and Paying the Piper.

 

So, keep an eye out beginning Monday for links to the photos and auction, bid, like, and pass it along!

 

Links of interest!

 

 

by Alison Dasho

 

Hi everyone! I'm still enjoying decompression after the frenzy and emotion of the wedding, so today I just have some interesting links to share.

 

First, several debut authors talk about what they learned from their editors here.

 

Second, did you know Marcus Sakey has a new book out soon? You guys, I am serious when I say you must read it. YOU MUST!

 

Third, Tyrus author and all-around wonderful guy Bill Cameron gets featured in an article about crime fiction for The Atlantic. And HE has a book out soon, too! Preorder it here!

 

Fourth, freelance writer and blogger extraordinaire Chuck Wendig has had a baby. And this baby is CUTE, guys. Chuck also has two ebooks for sale, if you're interested. (And you should be!)

 

Fifth, Carina Press is now hiring freelance developmental editors. This is a wonderful opportunity -- my experience freelancing for Carina has been incredibly positive and delightful (and I can't wait until the books I've acquired are published!).

 

Lastly, I can't resist posting a wedding picture. We've only seen a few so far from our fabulous photographer, and they're so, so great I am really looking forward to seeing the rest.

 

Hello, real world

Since I was able to co-opt such a brilliant deputy, I don't suppose anyone even noticed I was gone, but here I am, back again, slightly browner, slightly more relaxed and a whole lot poorer. Or I will be when the Visa bill comes in.

Not that the USA is a more expensive place to live than the UK. It's been a long time since I filled my own car's tank for less than £40, and the one we rented had a much bigger tank. But motels and restaurant meals come in at a little more than my own bedroom and digging in the deep freeze for something to cook. And National Park entry fees, reasonable though they are, soon rack up. But that's vacations for you. And Walmart's Vision Centre, sorry, Center, did fix husband's fallen-apart reading glasses free of charge, and I didn't think they did anything for free...

American friends, you have a wonderful country.

Except maybe Las Vegas.

I don't want to offend anyone, so I'll just say this: I've never been so glad to get out of a city in my life. And our brief return to get the flight home wasn't the easiest of rides either.

Once we were out in the wilds it was great. Despite the snow (which only lasted a couple of days), the roads that are maintained even less well than the ones at home (and that's saying something!), and the way you still let people smoke in bars and some restaurants (it's amazing how quickly you get used to smoke-free public places, and once you are used to it, you really notice places that aren't).

Hey, nothing's perfect. And the pluses outweighed the very few minuses by several thousand miles. People talk to you instead of politely looking away. Nice places to stay don't cost a second mortgage. And the scenery... well, that's just plain breathtaking. In the case of canyon country, quite literally, and I don't just mean the altitude. I stopped breathing more than once.(Dale, in response to your message a couple of weeks ago, you really have to see the Grand Canyon. Maybe a little sooner than the 87-year-old lady from Nashville who I met at the South Rim, who was determined to get there before she died.)

Other people's holiday photos soon get boring if you weren't there, so I won't rabbit on. This is a blog devoted to crime and mystery fiction after all, so I'll wrench my attention in that direction. Not that it's much of a wrench.

Needless to say, that's the direction I headed in both times I found myself in a bookshop, and that wasn't a wrench at all. In the small but perfectly formed Sundancer Bookstore in Springdale, Utah, on the edge of Zion National Park (location of the first of many wows of the fortnight), I was delighted to see Ruth Downie's Terra Incognita on the shelf. Ruth is one of the UK's historical crime brigade's best kept secrets; if you haven't discovered her inimitable Gaius Petreius Ruso yet, you have a treat in store. I've already read Terra Incognita, a few weeks ago, under its Brit title Ruso and the Demented Doctor, and I hardly stopped smiling for the three days it took. Ruso and the Root of All Evils was one of my holiday reading choices; it didn't outlast Las Vegas.

The shop also yielded up the Tony Hillerman I always buy when I'm in the US; he's available over here, but only in a few shops, so rather than resort to Amazon, I save him as an occasional goody. And I discovered a small treasure: a book of long short stories which included one by J D Robb. I seem to pick up one of these every time I visit the US, and my suitcase is the only means by which they find their way to the UK.

Alas, E J Copperman hasn't found his way to the UK or Utah yet. But in Flagstaff's Barnes & Noble a few days later I struck gold: An Uninvited Ghost nestling right next to Night of the Living Deed. Five minutes later they nestled in a paper bag, and now they've joined my teetering reading pile. Looking forward to them, Jeff.

I never did work out why B & N filed Lee Child's entire oeuvre under Literature, though. Lee's books are great, but I somehow don't think he'd line himself up alongside Saul Bellow and Edith Wharton – also great in their way, but not big on fast-paced action scenes.

So there you have it, folks. What I did on my holidays, with added crime fiction.

And now, back to the real world. Whatever that is.