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

Reuse, Recycle, Don't Abuse

Marilyn Thiele

I love books. Bound, paper, physical books. That’s obvious from some of my past writings. There is nothing I enjoy more about my work than opening a carton of brand new books and placing them on the shelves. Handling them is an almost sensual pleasure. Thus when I see these lovely objects mistreated, my emotions range from sorrow to anger.

A large part of my business is selling used books, and I get the majority of them from customers who exchange them for credit toward more books. This arrangement gives me a view into the ways readers handle (or mishandle) their reading material. I can’t help but believe it also gives me an insight into their character (yes, on this point I become judgmental, and work hard to hide it from the offending parties).

Most people bringing used books to my store are serious readers, lovers of books, and their offerings are neatly stacked in boxes or bags, having been reluctantly culled from overflowing shelves and hoping to find another loving home. Frequently the owner will watch as I pick through their collection, pointing out books he or she especially loved and occasionally deciding that one or two must return home. Too often, however, books are packaged like the trash, thrown randomly into plastic garbage bags so that the covers twist and tear, pages fold, and paperbacks develop an unfixable twist or curve. It seems that these books are brought to me as an effort to save disposal costs rather than in the hope of sharing the bounty with another reader. Opening these bags can be heartbreaking, yielding dark thoughts about “book abuse.”

Some misuse or maltreatment of books is less obvious at first glance, but keenly observed by the discerning book re-seller. Books seem to be convenient coasters, yielding covers decorated with coffee rings or other, usually sticky, substances. They are a convenient place to note phone numbers, appointments, and shopping lists, especially on those blank or nearly blank early pages. Dog-eared pages indicate how frequently the reader stopped for a while, or how many places she thought worth returning to. Can’t they find a slip of scrap paper, even a piece of tissue, to mark these places? I give away bookmarks with purchases in a partial attempt to keep pages smooth. It is hard to tell how many cracked spines these days are due to the appalling practice of leaving a book open, face down, flat, until it is read again. As you might guess, I handle the books I read gently, and often when I finish, even with a mass market paperback, you can barely tell it’s been read. Yet more and more frequently I find spines cracking and pages spilling out in new books on the first reading, leading me to believe that lax manufacturing standards rather than abusive book handling may be the cause.

 Other signs of abuse or indifference are the “rolled” paperbacks, missing covers, and storage in damp basements (or around here, barns).  I don’t fault someone for wanting to roll back half of a book as if it were a magazine, if that makes reading more comfortable for them; it’s their book. But it creates heavily creased, rounded spines, loose pages, and a book that looks ugly on the shelf. It’s definitely not my image of a “gently used” book, per my advertising. When customers return rolled books I know they have purchased from me in good condition, I bite my tongue to keep from saying, “What have you done to my baby?” Missing covers are sometimes just damage from rough treatment, but on occasion people have turned up with whole cartons of paperback books with the front covers neatly torn off. When I explain that I can’t take them, not only because they are incomplete, but because they were most likely sold illegally, and explain about returned books and authors’ royalties, etc., I get sheepish hemming and hawing but never a straight answer on where they came from. Books that smell of mildew usually come in large batches when people are cleaning house (or barn), and it doesn’t take much explanation about why I cannot resell them. More common are the “wavy” pages and brown stains from those who claim they read in the tub (never that anything was spilled on the book, or that it was left outside). As with the rolled books, I support anyone who reads their own books in any way they want, in the tub, or in the rain. I just want them to understand that the book is not then very appealing to anyone else.

Our county’s Friends of the Library organization is currently preparing for their annual book sale, which features over 100,000 books and raises significant funds for library programs. (For those in the New Jersey and eastern Pennsylvania area who may be interested, it is in the National Guard Armory in Flemington, New Jersey on April 21 and 22; www.hclibrary.us, click “Friends of HCL” for more information.) As a book dealer, I am not allowed to help with the sorting of the donated books (volunteers get to purchase early), but I was there this morning with my own donations, watching neatly packed boxes as well as trash bags (and even trash containers, which the owners wanted back), being unloaded. I know from several customers who are volunteers for this event that they observe the same spectrum of book use and misuse that I see. (For those who might attend this sale, please note that the “abused” books are discarded and you will find a great selection of books in good condition).

As to judging character by the way a person treats books, I will use a real author’s words, which were part of the inspiration for this piece:

                “One paperback was placed, spine splayed open, on the side table. I don’t like to abuse books like that, but on the other hand, one of my guests was probably reading it and wanted to mark the place. I picked up a bookmark from a stack I keep on the table (which was right next to the paperback) and placed it in the book on the appropriate page, then closed the volume to try to save what was left of its binding.” (from An Uninvited Ghost by E. J. Copperman)

Alison Kerby, the first person narrator here, is obviously a person of impeccable character; she does her best to save a book while trying to be tolerant of a guest who has mistreated a book but is at least reading. We learn elsewhere that in furnishing her guest house she has acquired over two thousand books for its library. She’s a woman after my own heart. And the anonymous, oblivious guest? Probably the villain.

 

Three Links

Ok, I admit it. It’s been a helluva week, and I’m fresh out of inspiration topic-wise. But all is not lost! It so happens I’ve read quite a few interesting articles this week, and so I wanted to share three of them by way of illustrating the single most important key to effective marketing of any stripe: Read. A lot. Of different stuff. All the time.

Glenn Patterson's latest novel, THE MILL FOR GRINDING OLD PEOPLE YOUNG, is set in Belfast in the 19^th century. In this article from The Guardian, Patterson shares his Top 10 Belfast Books. It’s a fascinating list, even if you have no interest in the books themselves because they’re a window into one writer’s soul.

I know I’m really late on this, but if you’ve missed the hoopla around FIFTY SHADES OF GREY, this article is a good, factual read on what it is and why we should—or should not—care.

The world lost an important voice this week with the death of Harry Crews. You’ll find obits a’ plenty, but few as lovely and poignant as this one by Colette Bancroft.

Have you read an interesting article this week? I’d be grateful if you’d leave a link in the comments below!

How Do You Like Your Blue-eyed Boy, Mr. Death?

BENJAMIN LEROY

If you know me even the littlest bit, you know that I have great affinity for a few things. Baseball. Traveling. Writing.

My Major League baseball allegiance is to the Chicago Cubs, a franchise perennially cursed by what one might politely label “underperformance.” Or if you’re more inclined to believe in tales of black cats and billy goats, plain old superstitious jinxes.  Though games give me joy on a day to day basis, it is only because under all of the tough luck and the losing, I’m able to squint in such a way that I have faith in the promise of “next year.” To look at the sum total of the franchise’s existence is to see generations of failures, some more glorious than others—tough jawed pugilists ultimately felled by the barrage dealt by opponents better skilled and/or less prone to catastrophic events.

I spend a lot of time on the road. I fly quite a bit, but I enjoy the inefficiency of driving. I prefer the ability to take unexpected exits, to change course in mid-trip, to stop whenever it calls me to chase after rabbits and to explore gimmicky tourist traps. Those flights drop me off in NYC or Los Angeles or Boston—fine towns, all of them—all of them overly familiar to me from personal experiences and the seemingly limitless portrayals in books, movies, and television.

I am more excited by the prospect of exploration in rural America. Once, when I gave up on the idea of driving across Texas and instead headed north towards home, I came across Picher, an abandoned lead mining town in the southeastern corner of Oklahoma. Had never heard of it, didn't know what it was or, for that matter where I was. I drove by run down restaurants, broken walls, and a sign declaring the town as home of the 1984 Oklahoma Boys Baseball Champs. Only later would I find out the town's tragic history and the story behind what I'd seen. This beaten down town off the beaten path that I ended up in randomly has come to leave a very real and indelible mark on me.

It will come as no great revelation when I tell you that I prefer books set in towns like Picher, inhabited by people that would live in a town like it. The characters I love are not unlike my beloved Cubs in that they come to understand lifetimes of heartache, but still lace up their boots each day, taking joy in the small victories of an otherwise failed war. It is an inglorious, but (and maybe this is me oversentimentalizing it all) an honest life that I can respect.

Nobody lives in Picher anymore, but there are towns I've visited with the same kind of feel. One of my favorite places on Earth—and one where I often dream of settling down without a cellphone or internet access or even a computer—is Wewahitchka, Florida along the banks of the Apalachicola River. It’s beautiful country. Slash pines along the highway. Water dropped all over the map including the Dead Lakes. Beautiful and haunting to see. But there are also dangers lurking on the land and in the water. Alligators. Cottonmouth snakes. I’ve discussed it in other entries on this blog and do not need to retread that ground now.

But it is related to what I want to acknowledge (which, coincidentally is also something I’ve previously discussed here).

Earlier today I found out about the death of author Harry Crews.

I always figured I’d meet Crews at some point. I know people who were close to him, I spend plenty of time in Florida, and I’ve got a lucky streak of running into people I admire. I didn’t feel urgency, even in the face of reports suggesting his poor health, because life works out in the end.

I often point people to the clips of Crews discussing writing on Youtube. I did so on this very blog back on January 5^th. I do it at conferences where I speak. I do it in emails sometimes to the people who submit books to Tyrus. What it means to me to be a writer is wrapped up, succinctly and forcefully, in a ten minute video interview of the author.

Crews’ writing is compelling for its rawness, its honesty, and its exploration of subcultures no less extraordinary than the worlds of superheroes and international badasses. His stories, both fiction and non-fiction are populated with the scarred, the broken and limping, the people who take punches, but find the strength to peel themselves off the canvas. Or at least try to get up. One can only imagine that Crews' style, like Crews himself was birthed and honed in the backwoods of rural Georgia, not all that far from Wewahitchka.

As Crews said (and was later used as the title of a documentary about his life). “Survival is triumph enough.” I believe that. Even use it sometimes when people ask me about the editorial guidelines for Tyrus.

Though I never did meet him and now most certainly won't (at least not this go-around), his impact on many writers that I admire will, for me, ensure his continued presence in the literary world. Proud. Honest. Punching.

Thank you, Mr. Crews.

 

The view from across the sea

Lynne Patrick

Something I’ve never been able to get my head around is why a book is popular in one country and not another. Especially when the two countries speak approximately the same language, so it can’t be down to the translator’s art.

The thought started going round my mind again this week, when I found a new edition of an early title by an American author I enjoy; it was originally published nearly twenty years ago, but only in the USA, carrying the strong implication that the publisher didn’t think it would succeed this side of the ocean. Fortunately this particular author’s early work will only enhance the reputation built by her more recent titles, though this isn’t always the case. Sometimes bringing out the backlist to bask in the reflected glory proves to be not a good idea.

It reminded me of an author I met whose book had been sold to a German publisher long before a British one saw the light. And one train of thought led to another, as they do, and I began to make lists in my head. Brit authors in the US, for instance: why do Val McDermid and Mark Billingham do well, but Minette Walters, who is a surefire bestseller over here, doesn’t seem to press the right buttons over there. I don’t think it’s down to location; all three place their narratives very firmly in a part of the UK which is recognizable if you’re familiar with it, and sufficiently well realized to seem genuine if you’re not. As does one of my top five American authors, Julia Spencer-Fleming. I’m planning to visit Clare Ferguson’s part of the US later this year, and I don’t doubt I’ll know it when I see it.

And to balance up the previous paragraph a little, I know of at least three people who will share my total incomprehension at why Julia hasn’t been snapped up by one of the big publishing houses this side of the Atlantic. Then again, it gives me a reason, if I needed one, to visit the USA as often as possible.

Sometimes an author, like a prophet, is almost a stranger in his own land. Well, maybe not quite a stranger, but one of my top ten authors Stephen Booth still dines out on the story of the time he was at an American book festival with Ian Rankin and found himself surrounded by fans while Rankin, who he openly admits is far more famous over here, was almost ignored.

Sometimes it’s not authors: it’s specific books. When I was publishing, our US sales were mostly steady, occasionally disappointing, and a few times far better than in the UK. In one case we had to reprint when the book had only been out over there for a couple of weeks; the memory still makes me smile. In two cases, titles which were well into a series suddenly captured the American imagination, when the previous ones had done merely OK. Just in case they’re reading this, I won’t embarrass the authors by naming names, but I expect they know who they are. If I’d been able to figure out the difference between the OK and the better sellers, it’s possible both I and those authors would be a lot richer than we are.

Is it all in the lap of the gods? Or is there some secret formula I’ve been missing all these years?

And will eBooks mean that national boundaries will shortly be irrelevant anyway?

Get Out Of My Head

Josh Getzler

On Sunday afternoon, my wife and I sat down at the Public Theater near NYU in comfortable clothes. We popped sucking candies into our mouths, made certain our phones were off-off, and watched a thirty-something redheaded man enter what looked like a dilapidated office from the 1980’s, set down his coffee and turn on his ancient computer. It didn’t work, so he turned it off and waited the requisite ten seconds, then tried it again. As he waited for it to boot up, he looked around his desk and picked up a dog-eared copy of The Great Gatsby. He started to read out loud. He stopped (except for three intermissions, including a supper break) seven hours later, having acted the part of Nick Caraway (along with his co-workers at the office, who took on the roles of Gatsby, Daisy, Tom et al) in a complete reading of Fitzgerald’s book. The play was Gatz, and it was a revelation.

The performance itself, which was somewhere between a staged reading of the entire book and an actual play, isn’t the point of this post. The point is the text of the book—the rhythmic, controlled lines that bridged Hemingway’s minimalism and Faulkner’s genius sprawl. The lines that were all in first person, never deviating from Nick’s perspective, never showing something Nick didn’t see except when he said “they told me that…” or “I heard that…”

Sometimes Fitzgerald wrote his way into corners, such as the scene where Gatsby and Nick were discussing from across the Buchanans’ lawn  whether they thought Daisy and Tom were inside. In order to find out, Nick needed to say “Wait here, I’ll check,” then trudge to a window, look in, trudge back, and report. It’s clunky, but necessary to stay in perspective.  Had Fitzgerald written a different kind of book, he could have panned into the house either by using an omniscient third person narrator or by “head-hopping” to, say, Daisy, sitting at the kitchen table not eating fried chicken or drinking ale. Would have perhaps been faster, not as slightly annoying to read. But, then, you kind of realized as Nick made his way to the house that he was annoyed, too; that he didn’t want to be doing this any more than we wanted to read it. It was an effective, if slightly excruciating, scene.

One of my pet peeves when reading my clients’ manuscripts (you know who you are, You and You and You…) is the overuse of head-hopping. My assistant, the ever-patient Maddie, who often reads along with me, will come in in the morning and, as we discuss our opinions, peer over her monitor and say “So, how many perspectives do we need to work around?”

And here’s the thing. Notice I didn’t say she asked “So, how are we going to work it into one perspective?” Oftentimes—particularly in novels with large casts, with scenes taking place simultaneously in different places, in the third person—it’s neither practical not necessary to be in one tight perspective. The trick, though, to me at least, is to be in as few heads as possible. I don’t like to be confused, paragraph by paragraph or chapter by chapter. I believe (most of the time, at least) in clarity of voice. I also don’t mind a couple of tight perspectives combined with a strong omniscient narrator—that can be very effective, particularly in place of zipping off into someone’s head for a short time. All it means is that you can’t say “he thought” but rather need to show it through action or conversation. It also forces the writer sometimes to really think through ancillary scenes and really assess their reason for being.

At 10:15 on Sunday night, after one of the more extraordinary days of both theater and literature I can remember, my wife and I left the theater and went home. I flipped on my iPad before bed and checked my email, and browsed through a couple of queries. I got to one where, in the first five pages the perspective changed three times. Sighing a little,  I moved it into the “Queries No” file. Sorry, Old Sport. No head-hopping after Gatz.

 

Adapt Or Die

Jeff Cohen

It's my  half-birthday! Which is... totally meaningless. Forget I said anything.

A LONG time ago, I remember seeing a cartoon: People are seated in a large movie theater (remember those?), the lights are out, and the screen is filled with a black-and-white image of a large fancy party. People stand around in dress clothes, wait staff walk through with trays of canopes and champagne. In the foreground, someone is holding another tray, with a large book open to a page in its midsection. A woman in the audience leans over to whisper to the man next to her:

"It follows the book rather closely."

Reading Marilyn's post on Saturday, I was struck by a few things about the task of adapting a work from another medium to film or television. It's something I teach my screenwriting students about on a regular basis (more on that in a later post), and the one thing you can be sure of when you take on such an assignment is: Somebody's going to hate you for it.

Not, I should point out, that I've ever actually adapted someone else's material. I've had enough trouble adapting my own work. But I've read enough of it and done enough of it that I know what the dangers are. The fact is, those who worship the book will hate the movie if you change so much as a detail. Those who are indifferent or unfamiliar with the book will picket your house if you keep in extraneous material or quote large sections of the text, especially if it is done in voice-over narration.

Casting is beyond control of the writer, but people will blame you for that anyway. Marilyn said she'll have trouble with Tom Cruise as Lee Child's iconic Jack Reacher. Many share this opinion, although some are less thoughtful than Marilyn and simply grouse about Cruise being short. This, without anyone having seen as much as a foot of exposed film. Similar ire is being aimed at the casting of Debbie Reynolds as Janet Evanovich's Grandma Masur, which seems to be based on the opinion that as Hollywood's official Old Lady, Betty White should have had the part by acclimation. Forget that she was 89 at the time of shooting, and they were hoping to set up a film franchise that so far has sustained 19 books.

(Never mind, also, that Dashiell Hammett described Sam Spade as tall and blonde, and yet nobody seems to have a problem with Humphrey Bogart's portrayal, despite his being not so much on both accounts.)

But forget casting. The writer is responsible for the material that is handed to the director, who will ignore whatever s/he wants to and create a film. That's the director's job.

So if you're hoping to adapt a book, play or series of educational filmstrips into a movie on the big or almost-as-big screen, block out any idea of pleasing the masses. Simply follow the steps below:

1. Read the material you're adapting carefully and pay attention what makes you respond. If you write it well enough, the film will encourage others to respond similarly. If you lose sight of what you like about the original work--and you'll have plenty of opportunity to do so during the adaptation process--you're cooked.

2. Give up any allegiance you have to the original writer(s). If they were good at screenwriting, they'd be doing this themselves. You're here to write a movie, not a translated book.

3. Include the things that make this a good movie and only those. The subtext of the book was fine, but you'd need seventeen hours of film time to show them all, and you don't have that unless you work for the BBC and everybody wears way too much clothing. Cut down to the plotline. You're lucky if you can fit all that in.

4. You can make stuff up that's not in the book if it clarifies the plot or gives the audience a better read on the characters. You're creative; it's what you're supposed to do.

5. People who want the book will still have the book. They can read it whenever they want. People who go to the movie or watch on TV have only what you give them. Make it the best version of the story in a visual, moving medium. That's the job.

6. If you are successful at your task, some people who see your version will then go on to read the original book. They will find things that they didn't know existed in the story, and note that there are differences between the two. Some will be pleased. Others will be upset that the book is not the same as the movie, and will consider the screen version superior. They will be upset with the author of the original book for not sticking to the story that didn't exist when the book was written. There's no pleasing some people. 

If you're an audience member, keep this in mind: This is a movie. It's not the book. If you loved the book and want to see it translated exactly, don't go to the movie. Read the book again. There will be differences and they'll annoy you. Avoid annoyance when you can. Life is short.

Nameless? Or simply generic?

Dale Spindel

       In my ongoing  quest to keep trying new (to me) authors, I recently picked up the audiobook  of Camouflage, number 38 in author Bill Pronzini's "Nameless Detective" series.    (So much for sticking to my rule of starting series only at the beginning.)  Unfortunately, it has turned out to be a real struggle for me to write about this book because, only a week later, there is so little about it that I still remember. 

    So here's what I am able to recall:  the novel follows the paths of two separate crimes told through alternating chapters.  "Nameless" is investigating the disappearance and possible murder of one of his clients while his colleague, Jake Runyan, is checking into the possibility that his girlfriend's young son is being physically abused by the boy's father's new fiancee.  Since the two cases are in no way connected, their pairing here seems only  to be  a device for fleshing the book out to novel length.  The references that were made to  characters'  back stories seemed to have been done more as a tip of the hat to the series fans than as a way of providing useful information to newcomers like me.  

    Mostly what bothered me about this book was that the plotting was nothing out of the ordinary; I in no way felt challenged by any of the proceedings.   The identity of the bad guys  in both of the story lines was never really much in doubt  and I was  even able to predict who was going to get shot way before it actually happened.  The climactic action scene involving "Nameless" and a colleague was also pretty far fetched from a logistical standpoint. 

    I know I must sound very cranky here, but I was also not a fan of the narrator who I am  deliberately choosing to  keep "nameless" here.   The distinctions he made between the voices of the main characters was anything but subtle.  The voice of Bryn, Jake's girlfriend had the whiny quality of someone doing a deliberate female impersonation while the voice assigned to Jake was that of a testosterone laden growl.   This was clearly a case where less would have been more.

    I'm left to wonder whether Camouflage is a typical example of books from the "Nameless Detective" series or an indication that it has perhaps run out of steam.  In addition to being nameless, more than anything else, this detective also felt overwhelmingly generic.   And thinking about it, I'm not even sure why the book was given the title camouflage. 

    Although I didn't hate this book in the way that I have hated a few of the others that I've written about here, I most certainly didn't love it either.

Postscript:  I received an email from my friend Bob, offering a gentle reprimand for my incorrect spelling of the word excoriate in last week's post.   Bob is absolutely right - I need to hold myself to the same standards to which I hold others with regard to proper spelling.  Mea culpa.

 

 

Read the Book - See the Film

Marilyn Thiele

Having sold a bazillion copies of The Hunger Games in the last few months, and half a bazillion of the sequels, Catching Fire and Mockingjay, yesterday’s release of the Hunger Games movie has me thinking about the relationship between movies and book sales. The bazillions are a rough estimate; I really haven’t added it up yet, but it seems like I just keep ordering more copies. I sold far more of these books than I did of the Harry Potter or Twilight series. However, the closing of the local Borders had a lot more to do with that than the relative popularity of these three series.

The closer the movie release came, the more books were sold. The series has been on the New York Times best seller list for 81 weeks. It has been reported that Scholastic has increased their revenue projections for this quarter based on the sales of the Hunger Games series. The books had been selling well on their own, with word of mouth raves among young adults and adults spreading the popularity. The increase in sales tied to the movie version is, to me, an interesting phenomenon. Most often, what I hear from purchasers is that they want to read the book before seeing the movie. They are afraid that the movie will ruin the book for them.

So why the desire to see the movie yet the fear that it will ruin the book? The comparison of movies to the books they are based on is a common topic of conversation in my store, and I would guess in most other book stores and reading groups. For readers, the most common complaint is that so much is left out of the movie version. My first experience with this complaint was when my son was in 4^th grade. His class read  Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls and then saw the film in class. I have never quite understood why this is so frequently done in schools, but education is not the topic today. My son came home and said, “Mom! The book was so much better.” That’s my boy. I explained to him, as I have to others since, that it is really not possible to get every detail of a 400 page book into a 2 hour (or less) film. Often the reader who sees the film finds that a particular scene or subplot he loved was omitted.

More aggravating is the decision of the makers of the film to change the ending. There are two examples near and dear to my heart where, as far as I am concerned, the Hollywood decision that a happier ending would be more appealing to audiences has ruined the story entirely. Years ago, I loved The Horse Whisperer for the self-sacrificial conclusion. I even encouraged a few friends who found it a little trite to continue to the end, which would make it worthwhile.  The film ending is the more expected result; it would not be disappointing except to those who know the emotion evoked by the book’s ending. More frustrating to me was the destruction of the ending to a great mystery, once known as The Prince of Thieves. This book, a wonderful depiction of the lives of a gang of bank robbers in Charlestown, Massachusetts, keeps the reader entranced with the knowledge of the train wreck that is bound to be the result of “one last job.” I hoped that things would turn out better, because I truly like the protagonist, crook that he was. But I knew that in such a well written depiction of the lives of career criminals, disaster was inevitable, and the disastrous end was satisfying and somewhat tender. Great book. Then Hollywood got on to it. Good movie, until the end. Enough said. It was interesting to me that after the movie was in the works, the book was reissued with the title The Town, the title of the movie. I went so far as to check to see if they had changed the ending in the written work; they had not. I assume the title change was to increase book sales based on the popularity of the movie. For anyone who read the book after seeing the film, it was surely a surprise ending.

I know that except in very rare instances, authors who sell film rights to their work lose all control over what is done with it, and I do not fault them for these changes. They need to sell their work, and Hollywood needs to sell its work. I have concluded that I need to view novels and film as two very distinct art forms, and not compare the two even if when a film is “based on” a book. Otherwise I am frustrated with the film, as indicated in my examples. I do find it interesting that readers will comment favorably to me about films they consider “true to the book”: the Harry Potter films, The Help, and, apparently, The Hunger Games, as conveyed to me by a young friend who was actually watching it after midnight Friday morning. Readers really want to see what they loved about a novel conveyed on screen. There is also a film audience of non-readers, and film makers need to tell a story they think will please that audience also. Thus the changes, whether they work for the person who has read the book or not.  As an avid Jack Reacher fan, though, I don’t think I can picture Tom Cruise in that role, no matter how much of a box office draw he is. It seems to me that the film adaptations of books that have not done as well as expected, based on the books’ popularity, are those that have failed to capitalize on the elements that make the books popular. A recent example is One for the Money, where the casting of the beloved quirky characters took away the appeal that the series has for readers. If there ever was a character who screamed to be played by Betty White, it’s Grandma Mazur. Debbie Reynolds? Really?

So what am I complaining about? Film versions increase book sales. It’s the reader in me, not the book seller, who is sometimes unhappy. Since I am not a frequent movie-goer, I will stick to the books. And tell my customers: “Read the book. It’s even better.”

When You Have Nothing to Say

By Erin Mitchell

I’ve done a lot of listening this week. Some talking, too, of course, but it has been a time to listen. To stories, to commentary, to opinions, to even some music.

Sometimes it’s easy to forget that communications / marketing / publicity are not one-way endeavors. When you’re excited about a book especially, it can be quite tough to sit on your hands and just listen. The thing is, the listening is how we learn. It’s how we come to understand our audience, to know what connects with them, to better comprehend how they receive information and what incites them to make that all-important book purchase.

Ok, so in all this listening, what, pray tell, have I heard?

People are frustrated—some are even angry—and we want revenge. Everyone, to a greater or lesser extent, is frustrated by the world around them. News this week has been maddening—and very sad—for just about everyone on some level. As often as it emerges in the actions of those around us, frustration and anger is even more apparent in the written word. Kindness is at a premium. Hell, there’s even a TV show called Revenge that is apparently raking in the ratings. Our society seems to cherish retribution cloaked in justification. Some even consider it noble, a service to their friends and loved ones, whether on a grand or personal scale. I fear we are losing the quality of compassion completely, forgetting that no, we don't necessarily have to take that measure we think is utterly essential because it has an impact that we might not be so proud of when (if) the fog clears.

We’re looking for stories that speak to our spirits. I’m not talking about holy-roller stuff here, but rather that each of us is actively seeking stories with which we can connect for some reason. Just about any reason will do. Publishing gets an awful lot of flack these days (this was, after all, the week of Karen Wright, about which I’m still giggling), but you need only peruse this very site to see that publishing is full of brilliant people who are contributing to helping stories find their readers.

We share experiences. I have never read any of the Hunger Games books. Haven’t seen the movie. Don’t intend to do either. But I really don’t need to because I’ve been listening to people talk about it. Am I missing a fantastic story? Maybe…but I prefer to hear this one though the plethora of voices out there.

We have A Day for just about everything now. Today is National Puppy Day. Now, I love puppies just as much as the next girl, but really?!? Were I to write a book, I would definitely pick A Day and claim it. Speaking as someone who was involved in having National Sunflower Day created and officially declared by the United States House of Representatives (on behalf of a cereal company, no less), I can promise you it’s really not all that hard.

Every time I take a minute to listen, I learn something brand spanking new. Having completed more than four decades on this planet, I’m still amazed at how much there is out there to learn. And I’m grateful that you took a few minutes here to listen to me.

The Inter-connectivity of All Histories | Down & Out

BENJAMIN LEROY

My publishing career started under dubious circumstances. At 18, I started a business with a lifelong friend. We filed for corporate status, printed business cards, and generally made asses of ourselves as we flexed muscles and tested out the grown up language of adults and businessmen. Had no idea what we were going to do. Hadn’t bothered to write down a business plan or, for that matter, chosen a business.

It took a while to develop, but eventually we decided to start a “multimedia conglomerate.” We wanted to bring together authors, filmmakers, musicians, photographers…hell, I feel like I’ve already rattled out this tired story a million times, and for all I know, I’ve done so on this blog a half dozen times. Things happened. Ideas got tested out, dreams were birthed and crashed, a few years passed, and we decided to settle on publishing books.

There were a couple of experiments to go through the process—short story and poetry collections that are rotting into the earth right now. Then, in the fall of 2001 we released John Galligan’s debut novel, Red Sky, Red Dragonfly. The company back then was called DIVERSITY INC., a naming relic from an old high school philosophy club my business partner and I had started back in the early 90s (to add to the pretension and the teeth rattling arrogance, I’ll let you know that it stood for Divine Intellectuals Violating Every Rational System In The Yuniverse, ah! the hubris of youth!)

Anyway, at some point there was a name change to Bleak House Books and we published about 50 books over the course of the next eight years. Like any other endeavor there were good times and bad times, close calls, and near wrecks, but we always persevered in some form or another.

As I am sometimes inclined to do, earlier this week I got caught up in the grip of the past, thinking about the journey from smart assed 18 year old kid to 36 year old whatever the hell I am now.

While at Bleak House, I had approximately thirty interns who worked with me during those eight years. The lastingness and depth of those relationships are greatly varied. But in the years that followed I provided recommendations and helped make introductions for some of them. By my best count, nearly a dozen of them went on to work at larger publishing houses or agencies or magazines.

My life is incalculably richer for having made the journey. The business side of things has, on the whole, been nice, but pales in comparison to the personal relationships forged. In addition to the people I discussed above, there have been authors, publishers, agents, librarians, and readers.

It’s this last category that brings me to the point of this entry.

Back at Bleak House we started a program called The Evidence Collection—signed, fingerprinted, and numbered collector editions of our titles. We had dedicated subscribers to The Evidence Collection that ordered directly from Bleak House (as opposed to buying from a store). Though it is nearly five years since we started the program, and three years since it ended, I can still see many of the names in my head. Most of them were strangers, names I was grateful to see on a spreadsheet, their purchases the validation I needed for what might have been a questionable idea.

One of those people—Eric Campbell—picked up copies of everything we published at Bleak House. He and I talked on the phone a few times back then about the Evidence Collection, about what was scheduled for publication way in the future, about our shared love of books. Solid guy.

As life goes, things started falling apart at Bleak House Books (by then a division of Big Earth Publishing) in late 2008. My co-worker Alison and I decided that it might be better to continue publishing with a new company than with the company we’d spent so much of our time and lives building.

In a dying economy and with a more developed sense of business than the 18 year old version of me possessed, we struck out looking for investors in our new venture.  We scraped together enough cash to open Tyrus Books, but it was lean and ultimately, without further investors, doomed to certain failure.

At Bouchercon in 2009 we ran into Eric Campbell. We talked about what happened with Bleak House and what the plans were for Tyrus. As it turned out, Eric had been interested in investing in another publishing company, but hadn’t had much success in working anything out.

No doubt you know where this story goes—Eric swooped into the picture in true superhero style, gave the company the stability to make it through the extra lean patch, and made it possible for us to continue with the line including new books from established authors like Reed Farrel Coleman and Victor Gischler, but also debut novels like Hello Kitty Must Die and Untouchable. It is not an overstatement to say that without Eric’s timely introduction to the scene none of those books would have been published by Tyrus, and who knows if they’d have been picked up elsewhere.

It’s two and a half years later and now Eric is the Publisher of Down & Out Books. Alison is doing some editing for him, and perhaps the hardest working intern I ever worked with, Krystal, who later moved to NYC to work for a larger publisher and then a distinguished agent, is doing publicity for Down & Out.

I don’t know how much longer I’m going to stay in publishing, but I know that it is in good hands as long as companies like Down & Out are around. I recorded a podcast with Eric yesterday to discuss his new venture, what he's publishing, and to talk about the new book Scoundrels released this week, edited by Gary Phillips and featuring new stories from SJ Rozan, David Corbett, Reed Farrel Coleman, Brendan DuBois, Kelli Stanley, Tyler Dilts, Travis Richardson, Eric Stone, Bob Truluck, Pamela Samuels Young, Darrell James, Lono Waiwaiole, Seth Harwood and Gary Phillips.

Tyrus Podcast - guest Eric Campbell

 

House style, and other editing hurdles

Lynne Patrick

When I began freelance editing for publishing companies I didn’t run myself (there has only been the one that I did run, in case you were wondering), I received a couple of pages of guidelines to house style: things like double or single quote marks, -ise or -ize endings, how to formulate abbreviations, that kind of small but consequential detail.

It wasn’t unfamiliar; in the company I did run myself, we brought in freelance editors a couple of times a year, and we issued a similar document. One of the perks of the job was that it allowed me to indulge some of my favourite editorial minutiae: things like on to, not onto; OK, not okay; jail, not gaol; all right, not alright; and while and among, not whilst and amongst.

Some of those details are so firmly lodged in the nerve path that joins my reading eyes to my editing hand that I have to make a conscious effort not to ‘edit’ them when all I’m supposed to be doing is reading a manuscript and offering some feedback. It’s the same with misplaced commas and apostrophes; in some cases correcting them is outside my brief, but I can’t guarantee I’ve never done it on autopilot. If I’ve done it to your work and you’re reading this – I’m sorry! Not for the apostrophes and commas, but if I’ve inadvertently changed a spelling or a phrase when copy-editing wasn’t what you needed from me, I apologize most sincerely.

But whatever form of editing I’m undertaking, the fact remains that some things are going to leap off the page at me, and distract my attention from the job I’m really supposed to be doing. Heck, they even distract my attention when all I’m doing is reading a book that’s been through all the editing processes, found a publisher and arrived in my to-read pile.

Here, for your entertainment and possibly enlightenment, are a few of them.

Coming down the stairs, she closed the front door is a physical impossibility, as is ‘This is good lemonade,’ she said, taking a drink from the glass. And don’t get me started on empty bottles of wine.

Characters with green eyes. Especially bright emerald green. I must have mentioned this before. Very few people outside Scandinavia have green eyes, black- brown- or sallow-skinned people hardly at all. It’s usually a variation of olive green: very rarely indeed anything brighter. Yet there is a character with green eyes in 99% of crime novels I read, and the green is often unnaturally bright without recourse to tinted contact lenses. I know characters have to be distinctive, but let’s make them real as well, shall we, guys?

Cars with blacked-out windows. What a cop-out. I know they exist, but as a plot device they’re about on a par with the victim’s stopped watch that indicates time of death. Especially if the watch is a Rolex.

Characters with names ending in S. Not a problem most of the time, but a nightmare when it comes to plurals and possessives, and worst of all both of them together. After more years in this business than I choose to count, I like to think I’m pretty well au fait with how to use apostrophes, but this one has been known to make my head spin. It’s even worse when there’s a vowel immediately before the S. Think about it. I once knew a guy called Menezes. And Mr Menezes’s wife. Which makes them the Menezeses. And they have a house, which is the Menezeses’s house... excuse me, I need to go and lie down in a darkened room for a few moments.

There, that’s better.

Please understand, all the above, and probably a few more which my memory is protecting me from at the moment, are purely personal preferences; given the number of times I encounter them in published books, it’s plain that plenty of other people don’t regard them as empirically wrong. Maybe I’m just picky.

But picky is what some publishers are. Go figure.

Brush Strokes and Heavy Lifting

Josh Getzler

Last week, when Jeff Cohen challenged me to a conversation about agent-author relationships, I wanted to get into one of his comments, but it didn’t fit into the time or space I had. So I’m going to take Extra Time like they do in soccer and discuss the question of whether I would send a book out on submission when it’s not really ready, just to get it off my desk. That was the basic question, right Jeff? No matter, it’s the question I’m answering, because it gets into a far more existential issue than whether another scrub would make a novel more marketable. Rather it has to do with intent, and with the true definition of “done” and whose decision that it, really. Hell, this could be my first Derridian deconstruction of text since my senior thesis (which I reread five years after graduation and didn’t understand one word I’d written after “By Josh Getzler”). So let me impose some late-80’s differance and see where it leads us.

First things first, I almost never simply get a manuscript, say “OK,” and send it to publishers. Once in a while with a reprint (because, well, what are you going to do?), but not with a manuscript that comes to me unpublished. And it’s not because I want to leave my mark or impose my will. It’s that most of the time, when I read a submission—even a terrific one—there are things in it that I think could make the book more marketable, or a better read, or better organized. So I always give it that kind of a once-over. I was originally an editor, and actually digging into text is something I love. But I do my best not to do unnecessary tearing apart.

Often, though, there is a need for edits, where either the plot outshines the character, or the pace needs speeding up (rarely does it need slowing down!), or where relationships need clarifying or worlds need to be built better or…whatever, it needs editing. There are then two ways I go about it: I either write an editorial letter with broad issue suggestions, or I go through the manuscript using Track Changes and do a full-on, roll-up-the-sleeves line edit. Often I will have a phone conversation with the author as well in order to clarify my points, particularly when I get the sense that I will get pushback on my tweaks. My clients know that I use the terms “brush strokes” and “heavy lifting” to describe the degree of work I think a manuscript needs before I feel it is ready to go out on submission.  Those terms also give a sense of how many times we’re going to need to do it, since a Brush Strokes ms often needs just one go-through and a scrubbing, while a Heavy Lift mostly needs to get to Brush Strokes first.

One thing to say here, which leads to the conclusion, is that my edits and suggestions are exactly those. I recognize and understand that this is my author’s writing, and he or she is very much entitled to disagree and choose to ignore me. And that doesn’t mean I won’t submit the book. And here’s the salient point. If I’ve chosen to take an author on, and have gone through the material to the point where the author is satisfied, unless I believe that the book is embarrassing in some way, I am likely to submit it. It’s not that I haven’t refused ever—I have several times told authors that I felt that their books are unsalable and either need another edit; or, occasionally, ought to be shelved for the time being. That could be because the market shifted away from the subject of the book; or there was something fundamentally flawed with the plot or characters that I felt that nobody would buy it and it would be a waste of the editors’ time to make them read it (which then would be a bad reflection on both the writer and on me).

But the point is that I believe that my role is to be the first reader, the advisor, the sounding board, the conduit between the author and the publishers. My judgment had already been made—I took the writer on after submission  because I felt that he or she was talented enough for me to spend my time reading, editing, and submitting the writer’s work. So while I will discuss and argue with the writer about decisions and choices, I will often defer to the author when I feel that further edits will not be useful. This is particularly true when I feel that the author has had it, and is becoming resentful of my suggestions. Then we get into diminishing returns on further edits, and it’s worth stepping back and preparing for submission.

The good thing, I have found, is that most of the time, my authors and I get to the point of saying “we’re ready” at the same time. We get to the best possible place for the manuscript, where the kitchen smells great, like a cake is in the oven. And then, when it’s completely baked to our satisfaction, we take it out and serve it to the publishers.

Hope that helps! 

 

Blah, Blah, Blah

Jeff Cohen

My wife and I have been spending some time watching the TV show Smash, a new series that supposedly chronicles the efforts of an intrepid team of Broadway vets and newcomers to mount a musical based on the life of Marilyn Monroe. The cast is uniformly very good, the songs are Broadway-catchy, the production values are really lovely, the New York locations are absolutely authentic, and the sets look swell.

Jessica especially loves the song and dance numbers and I... I enjoyed the book on which the series isn't even loosely based, but whose title and basic premise they grabbed so it gets a fleeting credit in the crawl at the end of every show. I'm trying my best to get through it, in the interest of marital harmony. Jess already says I hate too many shows (I refuse to watch Up All Night ever again), while my contention is that life is too short to waste on things that aren't at least above average. This problem will no doubt abate in a month, when baseball season begins, and our television habits go their separate ways.

Like I said earlier, the performers are very good. You get actors like Debra Messing and Anjelica Huston, and you'll get good performances. The songs are by Broadway veterans who wrote, among other things, Hairspray. One of the executive producers is Steven Spielberg. All the elements to make a terrific show are in place.

But my ears hurt after every episode from listening to the dialogue. 

I don't brag much about my writing, mostly because I know there are plenty of people who are terrific at what I do, and many of them are indeed better than me in a number of aspects. Some can write plot twists that will curl your hair (something which clearly happened to me at a very early age, possibly in an ABC book; maybe I didn't see the letter Q coming). Others will develop characters who are diverse and real and so compelling you'd pay to read about them sitting around all by themselves doing nothing.

So you can understand that it is very unusual for me to write out loud that my dialogue is well above the norm not just in the mystery field, but in all books. I write killer dialogue. And if you'd like to dispute me on that, it's your right, but you're wrong.

Listening to dialogue that's clunky, that's all exposition, that sounds like a screenwriter telling people what to say, is witnessing a crime against drama. It is the fastest route to taking an audience out of the story and drawing attention to the man, woman, or combination thereof behind the curtain. Bad dialogue is something that can make your head hurt. It can cause dangerous blood pressure levels. It can cause grown people to choke.

It's bad for ya, people.

So when I say that the dialogue on Smash is making it hard for me to get through each episode, you can take me at my word. It's hard to make Anjelica Huston look foolish; you have to go out of your way. Her performance--and those of most of the other cast members--can be best described as "game," because they seem like deer in the headlights, unable to get out of the way of the rush of lousy phrases coming in their direction.

Every week, I hope the sound of the talk will get better. And every week, no matter who wrote the particular episode, it doesn't. 

I don't mean to dump on this one show--bad dialogue is all over television, it's all over movies, and yes, it's in plenty of books, including ones that the critics will tell you are "brilliant" or "penetrating," or worst of all, "shattering." (Who would pay to be shattered?) Some great plotters, some genius misdirectors, and some fantastic deep thinkers with important points to make just don't have an ear for dialogue. They can do everything else great, but they can't write two people having a conversation that sounds like two people having a conversation.

That doesn't make these people bad writers. It makes them bad dialogue writers. There's a difference. I'm willing, in some cases, to overlook--or skim past--clunky conversation if the author (or screenwriter) is wonderful at everything else; that's clearly worth the effort. I will bow down to some of the pioneers of the craft. I will faithfully buy their books and watch their TV shows or movies, because I know that I'll get what I want despite the incredibly creaky talk their characters perpetrate. The original Star Trek had some dialogue that makes my skin crawl; I've been a huge fan of the show for 45 years.

But when someone can really write dialogue, I will overlook everything else in favor of it. I love a good conversation, especially when it's in real life. In fiction, it is a delectable treat. I will watch anything Aaron Sorkin decides to write (even Moneyball, which I thought was silly) because I can't wait to hear what his characters have to say. He's got a new HBO show called Newsroom coming sometime this year (HBO can't seem to make up its mind) and I'll tell you now, I'm watching every episode. Even if the stories are awful, the dialogue's going to be great. I'm there for it.

Because the next best thing to having a great conversation is hearing one. 

Was the problem with me, the book, or the audio?

    I've been a devoted fan of audiobooks for more than three years and can not imagine going back to the days of not having a book going on the CD player while I'm driving in the car.  Having said that, I have to acknowledge the problems that can sometimes occur when listening to audiobooks:

1.   As the audio comes on during my first drive of each day, I can't  immediately place what is happening within the context of what I had  listened to the previous day, requiring me to hit rewind to take me back to a place that I recognize.

2.    If I'm driving someplace unfamiliar, I can't listen to my GPS and my audiobook at the same time.

3.    There are simply some  days when I am preoccupied by other things and whatever it is that I am listening to  is just not going to register.  On these days I find myself  repeatedly hitting the replay button.

        While  the above hold true for me  regardless of the book I am listening to, I've also made the observation that some audiobooks are just harder to follow than others.   This point especially hit home as I listened to The Killer is Dying, by James Sallis.   The problem for me   was that the story is  told from the points of view of three separate characters and I sometimes had trouble keeping track of which character  was doing the talking.    I kept wondering if I would have had this same problem if I had been reading the book rather than listening to it.   And I'm not completely sure I should be blaming the narrator either.

        There was much that I liked about The Killer is Dying - it was noir with characters facing situations that were sufficiently serious  to earn my sympathy, even for the bad guys.    Aspects of the story were brilliantly plotted, with a twist at the end that was absolutely jaw dropping.   And overall, Sallis combines words into sentences in a way that I found to be very satisfying.   I will probably be coming back to him at some later date.

        Since many of my Dead Guy posts offer reviews of books I've recently read or listened to, this is the perfect opportunity for me to add a few not so random thoughts regarding Lynne's March 14 post about book reviews.  

1.      As someone who has been an avid reader, especially during the past ten years, not only do I know what I like, but I also know enough about the kind of writing I don't like that I am  pretty good at avoiding it.   Unfortunately, I have also learned that I can't necessarily count on the starred reviews in Publisher's Weekly as a sign of the quality that I am looking for.

2.    Because I have also done a very small amount of fiction writing during the past five or six years, when I pick up someone else's  published writing, I have the expectation that it is going to be better than the stuff I have written.   The ultimate compliment I can give upon finishing  someone's book is "wow, I wish I had written that."    My ultimate diss is to escoriate the  writer for having wasted my time.

3.       I think some reviewers resort to snark because they mistakenly think that it will make them sound clever.

4.        When you think about it, pretty much everyone who works in a library is a reviewer, although in most cases the reviews we provide are never written down.

It's a Great Day for the Irish

Marilyn Thiele

Happy St. Patrick’s Day. It seems like a good time to remind everyone of some of the great crime fiction by Irish authors. Here are some of my favorites, in no particular order. I know there are many more, and I apologize to fans of those I have neglected.

KEN BRUEN: Best known for his series featuring Jack Taylor, a former policeman now working as a private investigator in Galway. UK Publishers Weekly said of this series “at heart [it] is about one man’s reckoning with a lifetime of pain and loss in a rapidly changing Ireland.” I enjoy the dark humor, and also the fact that Galway, which my own Irish ancestors left in 1840, makes living in New Jersey seem absolutely idyllic. The Tower, a stand-alone written with American author Reed Farrel Coleman, is a customer favorite.

STUART NEVILLE: I do not normally like supernatural elements in fiction, but when I read Neville’s The Ghosts of Belfast (UK title The Twelve) I was convinced of the power of victims of violence to extract their revenge from beyond the grave.  Two more books follow in the series, Collusion and Stolen Souls, featuring Detective Inspector Jack Lennon. “The Troubles” in Northern Ireland leave a legacy that extends past the peace and to the United States.

TANA FRENCH: Although she was born in the United States and has lived all over the world, French has adopted Dublin as her home, and thus qualifies as an Irish author. Her series featuring Rob Ryan and Cassie Maddox has plots complicated by local history, family feuds and tangled relationships. Her portrayals of residents of small Irish towns and insular Dublin neighborhoods, who cope with the restrictions of their lives in complex ways, are worth savoring, even if the plots can be a little farfetched.

BENJAMIN BLACK: Mainstream novelist John Banville uses the pseudonym “Benjamin Black” for his forays into the mystery genre. His detective, Quirke, has appeared in five novels, beginning with Christine Falls. Quirke, a pathologist in 1950’s Dublin, is burdened with both curiosity and a sense of responsibility to those he finds on his autopsy table. Black sticks to the structural conventions of the genre while evoking a gritty, repressed and depressed post-war Dublin.

JOHN CONNOLLY: Here is an Irish-born author who has stayed in his native country, yet writes about a private eye in Maine. Charlie Parker is haunted by the spirits of his murdered wife and daughter, and his desire to find their killer leads him to very dark places. I have already confessed my discomfort with the supernatural in fiction, yet Connolly’s books are so compelling that I choose to live with that discomfort as I read. His work is so intense, however, that I have to take him in small doses, and read a lot of more “down to earth” fiction in between.

PETER TREMAYNE: For lovers of historical mysteries. Although Tremayne is English, his academic achievement in the area of Celtic Studies under his real name, Peter Berresford Ellis, and his popular mystery series featuring Sister Fidelma, a former member of the religious community of St. Brigid of Kildare, qualify him to be Irish today. Fidelma is an advocate in the law courts of 7^th century Ireland. Ireland at that time was a beacon of light while most of Europe was in the “Dark Ages.” Students flocked to Irish universities; women were equal to men in learning and power. And Fidelma uses her knowledge and advocacy skills to do justice in twenty-three novels.

BARTHOLOMEW GILL: Another American born lover of the Old Sod. Gill’s real name was Mark McGarrity.  He studied at Trinity College, Dublin, and had homes in both Dublin and New Jersey. Although he passed away in 2002, and many of his books are out of print, it is worth mining the library or your local used book store for his work. His detective, Chief Inspector Peter McGarr is a solver of puzzles in the classic mode, and his knowledge of Irish esoterica is usually the key to the crime.

Even if you are not Irish, everyone is today. I have barely touched the surface of Irish crime fiction here, and there are numerous lists of authors and books available. It’s a good month to try an Irish book, whether you enjoy noir, historicals, cozies or thrillers. Erin go Bragh!

The Two Most Important Marketing Words

By Erin Mitchell

I finished reading a book last week, and proceeded to read, as I always do, the Acknowledgements. I read them because I know that authors put a lot of effort into them. That they carefully consider the words on these pages as much as any in their stories. And I’m grateful to the people they thank because they each played some role in bringing the story I’ve just read to me.

This particular Acknowledgements was special because as I read the names, one stopped me cold. It was…wait for it…mine. Me. Just a plain ole reader. Who happens to talk a lot about books I love. It made me quite literally squeal with delight because the thought that an author values my advocacy enough to include my name in that illustrious list means the whole world to me. It makes me want to redouble the time and effort I put into spreading the word about amazing stories.

Then there are the fellow readers who email or comment to thank me for recommending a book they loved. Those make me grin from ear to ear for days.

My point here is that the two most powerful words in the World of Marketing are not, as is commonly misperceived, “buy this,” but rather, “thank you.” Think about it…have you ever encountered a customer service rep who thanked you for being a customer and really meant it? Not the ones who read from a script, but those who are genuinely grateful for your brand loyalty? Have you ever gotten a personal thank-you note, even a handwritten one, from someone who didn’t have to send it? If you have, you doubtless remember it.

You probably have too many readers to thank each one individually. But when someone goes out of her or his way, say, with tweets or a complimentary Facebook post, taking a moment to thank her or him will make a huge difference. You cannot buy advocates, but you can earn them. Us readers want to be important to authors. Storytellers bring us to places and spin the tales that feed our imaginations, and when you notice us, it makes a difference. It makes us want to shout from the rooftops even louder about the books we love, the booksellers we trust, and the librarians who are our saviors.

And thank you for working so hard to tell us stories. 

 

When is a review not a review?

That is the question.
Reviews in general are a sensitive subject, but I hope I’m on fairly safe ground here, at least with my blogmates; since we don’t have a full-time reviewer on the team at the moment, and everyone else is five thousand miles away across the ocean, I don’t think anyone will pole up on my doorstep with a baseball bat.
OK, so when is a review not a review?
How about, when it’s a way of bigging up your chums’ new books? Or delivering a put-down to someone who has trodden on your toes?
Don’t get me wrong; the vast majority of reviewers are fair and honest, generous with praise when they truly believe it’s deserved, but frank about the flaws when they can’t be ignored. There are plenty of review columns and sites I consult regularly, reviewers whose opinions I actively seek.
But once in a while...
I once read a review of a book by a good friend which claimed he wrote ‘a decent, flat-footed prose.’ A sense of damning with faint praise there, wouldn’t you say? I raised it with my friend, a bit gingerly since like every writer I know including myself can be a tad thin-skinned about these things. He brushed it off with a laugh that didn’t even sound forced. ‘Oh, the guy’s just getting me back,’ he told me. ‘I reviewed his last book and said the writing sounded like a child’s school composition in places.’
The friend died a couple of years ago so I think it’s safe to repeat the story. Ever since, though, whenever I read an unfavourable review of one writer’s book by another, I’m left wondering when the pair of them crossed swords and what the spat was about. There’s certainly a case for leaving novel reviews to people who don’t write novels themselves.
I’m not sure if that kind of reviewer is more or less worrying than the kind who heaps glowing praise on everything, but only reviews a limited range of authors. Only yesterday I checked out a review site I sometimes visit; as on many websites there’s a tab at the bottom inviting comments, and one pointed out that every book reviewed on the site is described as brilliant and highly recommended. I may have imagined it, but I thought there was a distinct edge there. I’d read the book being reviewed, and I have to say I wasn’t exactly impressed, but the reviewer used words like rich, pacy and masterly. And on reflection, I realized that this particular reviewer has never, as far as I can recall, posted a review that didn’t praise and recommend the book.
I don’t review books, at least not often, though I would if I was asked. But in one of my several lives I do review live theatre. In the course of this work I’ve become acquainted with quite a few less-than-famous actors and a handful of equally unsung directors and producers, all of who work regularly at our little local theatre. Some of them have grown into good chums, and I hate to hurt their feelings. But to my mind the reviewer’s job is to tell it how it is, or at least how s/he sees it. I don’t think any of them would thank me for heaping praise on a production that didn’t work, for failing to notice that a performance wasn’t up to the actor’s usual standard, or, as happened recently, an actor past youth’s second or third blush had begun to lose his touch. As it happened this was a visiting player, not one of those ‘regulars’, but they know I’d do the same if it was one of them. If I start to praise my friends unstintingly and save the brickbats for incomers, my credibility is shot to pieces in no time and nobody bothers to read my reviews any more – a lose-lose situation if ever there was one.
Unstinting praise is the province of publicists, not reviewers. A review is surely only a review when the reviewer’s opinion can be trusted to be informed and honest.

A Response, Not A Rebuttal

Josh Getzler

When Jeff told me that he was going to write his blog post this week on the relationship between author and agent, he made it sound dire. He gave me warning because he said that he wanted to give me the chance to rebut his post. I appreciated the opportunity, and waited quite apprehensively to see what he was going to say.

Ultimately, though, my response is hardly a rebuttal, but rather an expansion of sorts, from my perspective, of the relationship between writer and agent. I want to spend much of the time, actually, discussing an element of this relationship which has always been important but now, as the industry changes seemingly hourly, is even more so: Agent as expectation manager.

Yes, yes, Jeff is right that writers take the very blood out of their veins, give the outpouring to someone who (most of the time) isn't even related to them (and oftentimes not in the same city or state), and asks them to do right by them; to select the correct editor to submit to, to write the most pursuasive pitch, to negotiate the best contract, to stay on top of the publisher to ensure that the book gets the best possible chance to succeed. And the very vast majority of agents take that incredibly powerful responsibility very seriously and work hard to achieve the greatest success. As Jeff said, most of us are in this because we fundamentally love books and are excited to find something we think is terrific; so of course we want to see it reach its potential. It's also how we can pay the rent.

And there is the joke that we all hear that so much of our job is talking insecure and apprehensive artists off ledges that we ought to get degrees in Psychiatry rather than English (or business or writing, but you get the idea).

But now--and particularly in the past months--we have a new responsibility. It's now very important to alert our clients (whether current or potential) that being a writer no longer means, simply, Being a Writer. Rather, with the concurrent blossoming of social media and online communities along with the tightening of most publishers' purse strings in marketing and publicity, a writer is now responsible not just for writing his or her book, but also for getting word out.  And we've hit a tipping point recently, I think. Within the last year, I've seen writers who sign their contracts with a platform either in place  or planned out in detail exceed expectations regarding presales and early momentum. Conversely authors who don't--or who are either resistant or indifferent to this new paradigm--are unhappy, confused and resentful of the fact that simply writing something of quality is insufficient to success: They also need to go out and shill for it.

Both reactions--acceptance and enthusiasm on one side, rejection or grudging, half-hearted attempts on the other--are perfectly reasonable. I totally understand why an author would want to walk away from this crazy business rather than have to spend hours thinking of 140-character updates that might result in sales. I also see how a well thought-out strategy starting several months before publication and going a few months after pub can be both exciting and satisfying to an author who really buys in. (Incidentally, I'm not bringing up the publisher's role at all--that is the subject of a different post from this one.)

So my detour-filled addendum to Jeff is this: Not only do we need to manage an author's expectations on editors' responses, advance and print run sizes, sales figures, and subsequent contracts, we now also need to manage marketing and publicity expectations, and get into very detailed strategies as to how best to market the book on line--which the author needs to do whether he or she wants to or not. We need to do so early--on signing perhaps, and certainly on offer of contract. We need to understand each client's appetite for self-promotion, just how far we can or should push. We need to set up meetings with online consultants--or know enough to do it ourselves. We need to do our homework and learn from other writers' successes and failures. We are no longer "simply" first readers, shrinks, contract negotiators and cheerleaders, but marketing consultants as well. And we all need to get used to it.

PS--Initially when I read Jeff's post I was going to discuss how much work I do on manuscripts before submitting them, and whether I ever go out with a book I'm not 100% excited about or think isn't 100% done. It's a very reasonable question, and one I'll discuss next week. 

What's 15% Among Friends?

Jeff Cohen

The relationship between an author and an agent is complicated and generally speaking impossible. It involves two people working toward the same goal, and with roughly the same agenda, but with different skill sets (remember the word "expertise"? Whatever happened to that one?).

An agent needs to know when something's not ready to be marketed, and when to pull the plug on something that's being marketed. But the author makes the final determination. An author would probably hang in there until there were no publishing companies left on earth that had not turned down the work, and then start again from the top under the assumption that the personnel must have changed by now.

Nobody can always get everything he wants all the time, and you're lucky if there's a good day every once in a while. This is not a function of the personalities involved--I think Josh is a terrific agent and a great guy--but of the way the whole thing is set up to begin with.

Now: I know there are writers and aspiring writers (although anyone who writes is a writer) who are reading this and saying, "Shut up. You have a contract with an agent who wants to represent your work. You should be happy with that." And that's true, and I am. 

But consider the way this relationship operates: The author writes--beyond whatever has already been contracted--anything he or she (but for our purposes, let's say he) wants to write. After spending weeks/months/years sweating blood on said project, polishing it to a positive sheen (or a Martin Sheen) and then shaking with anticipation and dread at the prospect, the author hits the "send" button and expels the fruit of his labors to the agent to read.

I don't presume for a moment to speak for a literary agent; I don't walk in one's shoes and I have only the most narrow of experiences to use as a referent. (Classy, huh?) But the option for the agent after receiving the new file from the author--which we can assume is one of at least a couple showing up from clients today--is clear: Represent the work, or not.

The chances that the agent will say, "This is the worst piece of crap I've ever seen, and I refuse to be associated with it" to an established client are, let's say, slim. Nobody makes anything on a book that they don't even try to sell. Unless the project is really a horrifying mess of tortured verbiage (like that phrase, for example), the worst an author can expect is some gentle prodding to fix the last 100 pages or so in an effort not to embarrass anyone (the agent) associated with it.

So the game is on. Authors have a general idea that someone representing us will respond to our writing, because otherwise they would have passed on the opportunity to work with us in the first place. Next comes a plan. Here, if the author is as completely clueless as, say, I am, the agent can mention any names he wants and suggest the work be offered to those editors. The author generally trusts the agent, and most of the time should, so this is not a terribly hazardous area.

But when something happens with the work, the question must be in the back of the author's mind: Did this sell because I'm a genius, or because my agent is? Did this fail to sell because I'm a hack, or because the business is so screwed up that editors won't buy a book that's good because they don't have a "slot" for it this month?

The problem is that all writers believe everything they deign to save to a hard drive is the next big bestseller and should be the object of a publisher auction within hours of typing "THE END." Agents, who are not insane creative maniacs and actually understand how business works, have to deal with the unhinged writer, keep the avenues of communication open, and maintain the impression (which should also correspond to the truth) that things really and truly are being done.

But writers, alas, are crazy, and patience is overall not one of our most possessed virtues. Hence, the impossibility of this relationship.

I talk to my agent, who might care to rebut everything I'm saying here when his turn comes tomorrow, fairly regularly. And every time I get off the phone with him, I feel better. I trust him implicitly. Truly. I wouldn't be posting about agents at all if I didn't.

What we authors need to do is to have realistic expectations. But then if we were realistic, would we be writing fiction? There's a question to keep you up at night!

I now yield the floor to my counterpart on the other side of the aisle.

To E or not to E

        I feel compelled to start off by stating that I am not a Luddite.   The library where I served as  director back in 1995 was the first municipal library in New Jersey to have its own website and that same year I was also responsible for a project that got the website for that town's municipal government up and running.   Back in the 1980s, I was an enthusiastic user of Dialog and  BRS, the gold standard of electronic databases.   Then, a few years later when I was working as  a medical librarian, I was well on my way to reaching virtuoso status as a user of  Medline and the other highly technical online databases offered by the National Library of Medicine. 

        So why don't I own an e-reader?

        For starters, I just haven't yet  felt that I needed one.   Since I'm surrounded by books  at work seven hours a day, five days a week, I already have access to more of the print and audio books I would like to read than I can ever reasonably hope to make my way through.  Also, by virtue of the fact that  I regularly read the reviews in Publisher's Weekly, I am just not spending a lot of my time trolling Amazon.com or other websites to figure out what I want to read next.

        But there's more than just that going on here.   As a reluctant typist who, in my late 30s, embraced word processing as one of the 20th century's greatest inventions, I always felt something approaching pity toward those writers - usually over age 50 - who were unwilling or unable to make the switch from  their beloved typewriters to a keyboard  and computer monitor.  

        So now, at age 60, when faced with e-readers,  I guess  my turn has come to be looked at with a certain degree of pity.  My husband is an enthusiastic ipad owner who has tried, so far unsuccessfully, to at least get me reading the Sunday New York Times on his device.   In spite of the ipad's obvious virtures, I still feel like I suffer from "fat finger syndrome," my inability to consistently go where I actually want to when trying to navigate on the touch screen.  And no, I cannot explain why my husband, who is even a couple of years older than I am, is not similarly impaired.    And although I happily write using a computer, I continue to believe that my brain has been totally hard wired for reading in print.

       Through our membership in a consortium, the library where I work has been providing access for our patrons to downloadable audiobooks for the past several years; more recently the consortium also began providing access to e-books.   But my position has been that as long as the library  provides both print and electronic access to popular titles, we are under no obligation to provide e-reading devices for people who don't  already own one of their own.   We don't, after all, loan DVD players to  our patrons who happen not to own one.

     But the inevitable will be happening -  over the next several weeks,  my library is likely going to be purchasing a couple of e-readers specifically so they can be checked out by our patrons.   What has changed  is the fact that people have started asking for stuff  that's  only available as an e-book, specifically Fifty Shades of Grey,  by  E. L. James, a novel that takes readers into the world of BDSM (bondage, discipline, sadism, masochism - I had to look it up) and which has been getting amazing pr in such places as  New York Post, New York Times and CNN.   Even in spite of the fact that Vintage Books, a division of Knopf Doubleday, has  just come up this past week with a seven figure advance for the print publishing rights to all three titles in James' trilogy,  I can no longer shrug off the  fact the until the print editions are released, my library patrons are being underserved.   And E. L. James is not the only one -   Stephen King, Tom Perrotta and Dead Guy's own Jeff Cohen are only a few of the ever growing number of   established authors who have made the decision to initially release something they have written in e-format only.      

     Okay, so does anyone have any suggestions for how to alleviate "fat finger syndrome"?

Postscript:  I am writing this as I  am listening to a simulcast  from the New York Metropolitan Opera of Don Giovanni, arguably Mozart's (or anyone else's) greatest opera.    Taking up Erin's theme of encouraging Dead Guy readers to try something out of your comfort zone, I can't resist this opportunity to urge all you lovers of crime fiction to give Don Giovanni a try as you will encounter the following: rape, murder,revenge, assault, identity theft,  possible violations of Spanish labor law, a ghost, demons and hellfire.  It also has moments of great comedy, pathos and terror in addition to  some of the most sublime music you will ever  encounter.

 

 

Pleasure Without Guilt

Marilyn Thiele

Reading has always been a joy for me, but something  of a guilty pleasure. Unless I am reading  something I “should” read, it feels like goofing off. I often justify the mysteries I read as “taking work home.” Recently I read Alan Jacobs’ The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction. I expected some wise words on why we should read more and spend less time on-line, something that would reinforce my own view of what’s wrong with the American reading public today. To some extent, I got that reward; but Jacobs offers some insights that got me to think differently about  my own reading.

Let me begin with the same caveat he does: this is not a current version of How to Read a Book or 1,001 Books to Read Before You Die. Jacobs actually criticizes these volumes and others like them as a sure way to destroy the pleasure of reading. He asserts that self-improvement is deeply imbedded in the American psyche, but reading with self-improvement or a checklist in mind, which so many do, destroys the joy. Instead, he suggests we read at “whim,” finding books in which we can truly lose ourselves.

Jacobs also goes into some discussion about the way our brains are actually being changed by the current surfeit of short bursts of information that we get from all our internet feeds. He cites research showing that this is reversible, and recommends a discipline of focusing, in solitude if possible, for long stretches so that we can restore that joy we had when we were young and were able to shut out the world while reading.

I found a lot of the book intimidating. Jacobs’ suggestion for a reader who has read everything by an author she loves is avoid imitators of that author, and read “upstream,” i.e., the authors who influenced the beloved author. One example he gives is that lovers of Jane Austen might read David Hume to understand more deeply what Austen meant by “impressions.” (In fairness, he also suggests the Gothic romances of the period which she would also have read.) Jacobs is a professor of English, and a great many of his examples focus on the classics. He tries to encompass all sorts of reading, but there is an underlying sense that some fiction, such as my beloved mysteries, is not quite as worthy. Yet he says we should focus not on worth but joy. I felt some inadequacy also when he “confesses” to the enormous amount of on-line content he subscribes to and reads every morning, still finding time, apparently, for those long blocks of solitude for pleasurable, slow (another recommendation) reading.

Jacobs does not like recommended reading lists, since different people will find joy in different things. He says that he will not recommend books unless he knows a person and his tastes extremely well. He seems to want readers to find things by themselves. As a bookseller, I spend a great deal of time making recommendations. These are usually based on my knowledge of a customer’s reading habits, or on responses to questions about what they like to read. I think telling a customer asking for help to find something on their own would not only be rude but would be shirking part of my job. Although I find recommended reading lists mostly guilt-inducing, some guidance is usually appreciated. Friends, book reviews, and reading groups are some alternatives.

Jacobs actually has little to say about book stores, which may explain why I felt dissatisfied when I finished the book. For example, he discusses finding books by serendipity, but uses Amazon as an example, where one gets the computer-generated “People who bought this book also bought” as assistance. I find this particularly amusing, because I often order out-of-print books for customers online; if Amazon has the best deal for my customer, I will use them. Thus my contributions to their algorithm range from herbal cosmetics to original settlers in Bucks County, PA, neither of which holds any particular interest for me. What is missing from Jacobs’ method is the serendipity of browsing a bricks and mortar book store, being attracted to something, reading the jacket or the first chapter, and discovering a treasure.

Increasing the size of the reading public is not something Jacobs thinks can be accomplished. He says that a certain percentage of the population consists of born readers, and that the percentage stays more or less stable over history. The increase in the numbers of people pursuing higher education in the second half of the twentieth century falsely elevated the numbers of those buying and reading books; in reality, many of these people were “checklist” self-improvers, not true lovers of reading. Thus what appears to be a drop in readership is really the human race getting back to its normal state. One can be educated without being a book lover, and today’s sources of information, skimmed for what is relevant, are adequate for most. On the positive side, Jacobs feels that there are, and always will be, enough real readers to sustain the publishing industry. Let’s hope so.

So what did take from this book that was positive? A relief from guilt. I have not read War and Peace, and I probably never will. I don’t need to read all the classic literature; I paid my dues as an English major, and if I love Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins and want a pass on Faulkner, I have permission.  I don’t even have to get through the “Hundred Best Mysteries.” The only list I need is my “want to read” list.  I can feel virtuous hiding away in the quiet I spot I’ve found now that the nest is empty and losing myself in another world; I’m keeping my brain focused and not multi-tasking. Now if I could just get rid of the other lists of things to do!

Reading Outside My Comfort Zone

by Erin Mitchell

Like most people, I’m a loyal consumer. Just ask Tide, Coke, Godiva…or Ed McBain. My consumer behavior has always translated to my reading, too, and as a result, I tend to stick to crime fiction generally, and police procedurals or psychological thrillers more specifically.

I do sometimes stray into traditional mysteries and/or cozies, and I’ve been known to savor a good legal thriller, but beyond that, well, there are only so many hours in the day.

Lately, though, I’ve read spy/espionage novels, young adult fiction, and even a historical tale. While I still pine for cops slapping on the cuffs, it’s been lots of fun to read different kinds of stories. Which has got me wondering how many authors deprive themselves of readers because they “over genre-ize” if not their books, then their marketing.

So how do you avoid this? First and foremost, don’t ever—ever—neglect your core readers. In politics, we call these folks the base and without them, you can’t win. This seems counter-intuitive when talking specifically about readers who are outside your innermost circle, but these are the folks who start the ripples that reach far.

By talking to your readers, you’ll find out which other genres they read—and talk about. It boils down to understanding what readers are looking for, and then looking honestly at where you fit into their view of the reading world. As readers, we’re all looking for a good story, but one woman’s American Idol is another man’s Justified. That is, we don’t all like the same stuff. And sometimes, you need to ask readers to take a chance on something they wouldn’t normally read.

When you do, it’s important to be honest with them. If your book has no sex scenes, don’t call it romance. If there’s not a drop of blood, it’s not noir. Also, respect the fact that we’re all short on time, and you’re asking for a potentially sizeable chunk of it. I think Facebook is a great venue for these kinds of conversations because people tend to go there wanting to converse, but Twitter can work, too.

The other trick to finding readers outside your normal group? Listen. And then listen some more. Pay attention to what people are talking about. For example, I have a deep and abiding desire to visit Rome. I don’t talk about this a lot, but it comes up from time to time in public (read: on Twitter) conversations. So the author of that historical fiction I read, which happened to be set in ancient Rome? He could have used that to get me to read something I wouldn’t otherwise have touched with a 10 foot barge pole.

Joelle Charbonneau is a great example of finding readers loyal to other genres. Joelle’s books are often called cozies although her “traditional mystery” moniker is far more apt. And yet she has fans who are normally loyal to noir. Quite a few of them. Why? Because she talks to people. She interacts with them. And she’s not afraid of tossing the genre designation aside when appropriate. Her brand is about her stories, not about a publishing industry designation that’s irrelevant to most readers.

I’m going to try to keep reading the odd book that’s outside my norm because I know it’s good for me to do so. I might even work my way up to a romance one of these fine days!

On the Road, Good News, & a Brief Update

Good news, readers!

(1) I'm on the road this week, and not really positioned to do a long post. So, no rambling piece from me this week. I will be short. Concise. And I bring good news.

(2) The good news is this -- I had to go to NYC this week for an award ceremony. The award in question? Barnes and Noble's Discover Great New Writers Award. My vested interest? Scott O'Connor's debut novel, Untouchable, was one of the three finalists in the fiction category. 

Where have you heard about Untouchable on this blog?

Alison talked about it back before it came out in February of 2011 here.

It seemed to have an impact on Dale here.

And I was even heard to make some remarks here.

What I mean to tell you is that things were pretty exciting this week and I got to attend a swank event. Twelve years ago when I started publishing books, this kind of thing seemed totally out of reach, the domain of big New York publishers.

Well, mark one up for the little guy and congratulations Scott!

The news from Publishers Weekly here.

A more detailed review of the judge's view of the book here.

 

Absolute ownership, and related musings

Lynne Patrick

A lot of murmuring seems to be happening on the edges of my life at the moment, about copyright. It’s something all writers have a vested interest in, so since nothing else is happening in the crime fiction area of my life this week, I’m going to take the opportunity to muse randomly on the subject for a few hundred words.

I don’t know a single writer who wouldn’t want to claim absolute ownership of the words which appear in print with his/her name attached – but there seems to be a school of thought which claims that copyright limits people’s right of access to written material by requiring – shock, horror – payment to be made to the author.

At the same time, the very notion that essays, dissertations and other writings of similar ilk might not be absolutely, completely and totally original – that they might contain someone else’s words, downloaded from the internet, for instance – is regarded with equal shock and horror.

Seems to me some people need to make up their minds.

Don’t get me wrong; I’m not for a moment supporting the right to plagiarize, and I shall continue to regard an author’s copyright as sacrosanct till my last breath. It’s just that the two concepts I’ve described seem to contradict each other.

Aspiring authors often ask me how they go about protecting their work to avoid infringement of their copyright. The answer, of course, is that there’s no need to do anything, because your copyright belongs to you and no one can take it away unless you decide to sign over the rights in exchange for life-changing sums of money – and you certainly shouldn’t do for for any less.

In fact there’s actually not a great deal you can do, except develop a more trusting nature. Agents, editors and the vast army of people involved in producing books are by and large honest folk who have a job to do; they’re not going to steal anyone’s magnum opus and publish it under their own name, which seems to be the fear besetting the poor insecure authors who feel a need to ask this question.

But what of the right to quote chunks of someone’s published work, properly attributed of course, for some non-nefarious but possibly lucrative purpose? Or to photocopy entire pages, maybe to use as visual aids or examples in one of the burgeoning plethora of creative writing courses available across the English-speaking world? Is there a way writers can claim a royalty when that happens?

Every now and again I get a phone call from someone from the Performing Rights Society, wanting to know why I’m not registered with them. The reason is that I don’t play music for the entertainment of my workforce – and the reason for that is I don’t have a workforce. But try telling them that. They take a lot of repeated convincing that there’s a) just me in the office, and b) no music playing in the background as I and my non-existent wage slaves ply our daily trade. The point, though, is that if I did employ people and even switched on a radio during working hours, I’d be liable for royalties which would then be paid to the people who wrote the music.

Here in the UK we do try to apply the same principle to the written word. An organization called the Authors’ Licensing and Collecting Society serves a similar purpose to the PFS. Any writer can join for a modest fee; the idea is that you register your published work with them, they collect fees and royalties for quotation and photocopying, and everyone gets an annual cut of the takings.

But you have to join. It’s up to the writer; the ALCS don’t chase up potential copyright infringers the way the PFS appear to.

I suspect that as long as writers join up words to make stories copyright will continue to occupy a place somewhere between vexed question and minefield. I don’t claim to have any answers. There probably aren’t any.

Today’s Tom Sawyer

Josh Getzler

Last night, I sat down with my wife and our three children, opened the 135^th anniversary edition of Tom Sawyer (with all the original illustrations), and began to read out loud.

I really didn’t know what to expect, either from my 21^st century kids, suffused with loves of both literature and nick @ nite; or from the book itself, which I hadn’t opened since college at the latest, if not high school. I remembered liking it, but in an “it’s good for you” kind of way. I remembered the story, but had no memory of the words, of the style. I knew it was less earnest than Huck Finn, less noble—and taught less often in literature class.

What I didn’t remember, and maybe never knew or appreciated until last night, is that Tom Sawyer is a modern upper-middle-grade novel (albeit with a much more advanced vocabulary).  And it’s hilarious. And Mark Twain knew exactly what he was doing, and was stunningly brilliant, even while making three upper west side tweens collapse on a couch, punching each other in order to make one of them “holler ‘nuff.” And they kept at it the rest of the night, to the point where I heard, an hour after they should have been in bed, my eight year old gleefully yelling at her overmatched sister to “holler ‘nuff, Jessie—holler ‘nuff…DAD! She won’t do it!” I couldn’t even get mad.

From the standpoint of structure, the first chapter of Tom Sawyer does absolutely everything I want my writers to do in 2012. It gets directly into action, but sets the scene. It introduces almost all the main characters (in the first 9 pages), makes the reader understand the personality of the protagonist through action rather than exposition (for the most part), and sets up several conflicts. And while my kids may have had a hard time chewing on a phrase like “her resolution to turn his Saturday holiday into captivity at hard labor became adamantine in its firmness,” they had no trouble at all understanding the showdown on the street between Tom and an as yet unnamed antagonist:

“I can lick you!”

“I’d like to see you try it.”

“Well I can do it.”

“No you can’t, either.”

“Yes I can.”

“No you can’t.”

“I can.”

“You can’t”

“Can!”

“Can’t”

This is perfect down to the way each line gets shorter, but more passionate; sentences turn into exclamations and grunts, until they boys are rolling on the street "and covered themselves in dust and glory.”

What I didn’t realize however, as I read this to my kids, was that Twain knew exactly how he wanted to market this book—that he was thoroughly modern in his desire to cross over from the children’s book audience to the mass market. As he says in his Preface (and remember, this is in 1876!),

“Although this book is intended mainly for the entertainment of boys and girls, I hope it will not be shunned by men and women on that account, for part of my plan has been to try to pleasantly remind adults of what they once were themselves, and of how they felt and thought and talked, and what queer enterprises they sometimes engaged in.”

And of course, those “queer enterprises” revolved around painting fences and playing hooky and fooling the adults, and sometimes getting caught and being in trouble, and trying to impress the girl next door and figuring out whether your instincts are good or bad, and whether you can make the stranger facing you on the street holler “’nuff.”

This isn’t a call for a return to a simpler world. Rather, it’s a simple expression of admiration for a writer who was modern for 2012…in 1876. Jeez, I can’t wait till Chapter 2!

 

Why Not Be Both?

Jeff Cohen

Are you a series, or a standalone?

What the hell, I can steal from the Mac/PC commercials. I'm shameless.

I just finished writing my first standalone book. For the uninitiated, a standalone is a book whose entire story is told in one volume, as opposed to a series, which has a new story in every book but whose characters will "recur," meaning they show up every time with something else to do.

In short, a standalone is a feature film, and a series is, well, a television series.

Think of how it works: In a feature film, the characters are all new (except for sequels, which now account for about 104% of all movies), the situations immediate and generally extreme. I tell my screenwriting students that they should be telling the story of the most important thing that's ever happened in their characters' lives. Because if there's something more important, why aren't they telling that one?

On a TV series, it would be entertainment suicide to tell the most important story in the first episode. Do that, and what reason does anyone have to tune in next week? The story here is a  much longer, more episodic, being, a thing that will take (hopefully) a very long time to tell in a tremendously huge number of installments. The story really becomes the journey, then, and those who are loyal to the series will see payoffs in a late episode that might come from seeds planted very early on. Keep reading, Haunted Guesthouse fans!

For example, throughout the three books in the Double Feature series (remember that, both of you who read it?), I made jokes about how small Elliot Freed's office was, and I did so because I knew that at some point--as it turned out, in the third and final book--I would want to include a scene in which the size of Elliot's office was the whole point. Readers who started with book one (which included a reference to book two so obscure I think my editor and I were the only ones who got it) would be rewarded in book three by the small-office scene. But it was important that new readers wouldn't feel like they didn't know what was going on.

A standalone, however, raises the stakes. Anything can happen, no future book is guaranteed, so the ending is The Ending. The reader might have a tiny bit more suspense reading a standalone because the characters won't have to recur, if you catch my drift (and if you don't, I recommend more drift practice after school). 

So there are pleasures, for the writer and one hopes the reader, in both. A standalone heightens the tension but a series provides a somewhat deeper experience for the character's development. Someone who is an irritant in book one might be a trusted ally by the time book four rolls around. You never know.

The standalone was an eye-opening experience for me. Even books I've written that haven't sold (yet) had until now been considered part of a series; I had future installments in mind while writing them and was deciding on recurring characters, threads that could be picked up later, and possible plot strands that could color the first book without even being mentioned, but would show up in later volumes so the reader would go, "Oh! So THAT'S what all that was about!"

In a standalone, there's none of that. The story is about this one incident in the character's life, and it can have all the implications I want, because there will be no sequel. Unless, of course, the book-buying public insists on one. I wouldn't want to disappoint my readers, after all.

It is also said that standalones appeal to men, while series are more popular with women. Personally, I find that an appalling generalization, but then, I know as much about marketing as the next guy, assuming the next guy doesn't know much about marketing. So perhaps writing a standalone for me was a baldfaced appeal to get more male readers. Although women have faces that are generally more bald than men, so perhaps not.

Writing a standalone was in some ways liberating as a writer--as I mentioned here last week, it was emotionally difficult because it was more intense. But I'm not at all interested in giving up series writing; I do love to see characters in new and different situations to find out how they'll react. So returning to characters I know is... I wouldn't say comforting, because it's never comfortable to write a book. But it is a way to test myself, see how much I really know about these people I made up, and find out whether readers will go with them in a new direction with each installment.

The next book I write will be #5 in the Haunted Guesthouse series, and after the standalone, it will be something of a relief to get back to Alison and her merry band. But I bet after that, I'll have the itch to write a one-and-out again. There's an exhilaration that goes with it that might just become addictive.

But first, we have to find someone to publish the one I just wrote. Stay tuned!

Some more thoughts on self publishing

        Back in the day, the terms "self publishing" and "vanity press" were pretty much synonymous, the implication being that any author who took this route to seeing his or her work in print was short on talent but long on ego.   People in this category were usually regarded with condescension if they were not actually ridiculed for what was considered  to be their inflated sense of self importance.   This, in spite of the fact that such literary luminaries as Edgar Allen Poe, Virginia Woolf, Louis L'Amour, and Mark Twain were, at one time or another, counted amoung the ranks of those who were self published.   However, with the advent of ebooks and the ease with which someone can self publish, it is no longer considered quite so declasse.   Additionally, with the relatively recent proliferation of Creative Writing MFA programs, there are more people than ever who hold a credential which gives them hope that they will someday see their work in print; unfortunately, they are all chasing after the limited number of opportunities  that exist through maintstream publishing.

        Which leads me to recount what happened when I started a writers group at my library six or seven  years ago.   At the time, I was eager to try my own hand at writing and already knew of a few other people in the library's book discussion group who were also writing and might be interested in participating.  I put press releases in the local newspapers to cast my net a little wider and  waited  to see who showed up.   In addition to the people who I already knew, there were almost always at least a couple of other people who were new to the library  who would show up at each session.    Not surprisingly, the quality of what people brought with them to be critiqued was all over the map.

        And that is what brings me to a fellow we'll call  Stan,  a young man from a neighboring town who saw my press release in the local paper and decided to stop by to see what we were up to.   I know it's a total cliche, but the short story that Stan submitted to our group was most definitely "New Yorker worthy " - I was so astounded by the quality of Stan's writing that I even asked  for his  permission to share his story   with a few friends  who I thought would also be impressed.  Stan had been tryingfor a while, without success, to get his story published and I could not understand on what basis it was being rejected.

        I am by no means an expert, but I do read a lot of comtemporary fiction and I think that I'm pretty good at recognizing those qualities that make a writer stand out.  Unfortunately, I also understand  that superior quality and commercial success do not  necessarily travel in lockstep and that book publishers  need to turn a profit. 

        But turning to self publishing in e-format is not necessarily going to help writers like Stan distinguish themselves from their less talented counterparts who will  be charging into that marketplace in droves.   I do think there is a niche out there for someone with a good eye and an equally good business plan to establish a publishing house that could bring to e-print  at least some of the good writers out there  like Stan who are still  waiting to be recognized. 

        As a reader and librarian, I appreciate the value of the gatekeepers whose job it is to deflect substandard writing  away from my path.   However I wish someone could figure out a way for the market to accommodate a significantly larger number of gates.

Creating New Fans

Marilyn Thiele

The first Thursday of each month is a day I look forward to; our mystery reading group meets at The Moonstone Mystery Book Store, and it is always fun and stimulating. Having tried other reading groups outside of a bookstore setting, and finding them disappointing or chore-like, I have tried to figure out why this one works so well. Is it just good fortune that we have a compatible group of people? Or possibly that we are discussing mystery books? Or the meeting place which is conducive to serious discussion?

A few years ago when I decided to try organizing a store sponsored reading group, I did it for both business and personal reasons. For the business, I thought it would attract serious readers on a regular basis; for myself, I thought it would be a good reason to read some books I might not otherwise find time for and have a chance to discuss them. I hoped that we could avoid some of the disappointing aspects I had seen elsewhere.

The internet is full of resources for starting a group, organizing it, choosing books, managing meetings, and handling group dynamics. I read about the process to the point of dismay. Then I decided to go for it in a way I thought would work, keeping others’ experiences and caveats in mind, but seeing how it would flow on its own.

Getting people to commit was the first hurdle. In the beginning, it was a matter of promoting it to mystery readers at the store. As with many such endeavors, we got a lot of names and e-mail addresses followed by a lot of excuses when it came to actually attending. Nevertheless, we started with four attendees, not as many as we would like, but a beginning. Currently, there are 32 people on the list regularly receiving information and updates on the group, with 8 or 9 attending every meeting. Over the years, the membership has rolled over, so that only one person is from the original group. Yet the group has always had a camaraderie that has made the meetings seem almost like a social event for old friends, while happily welcoming newcomers. Those who have dropped out have generally done so because of personal conflicts with time and scheduling, while most new members have joined through “word of mouth” rather than store promotions. None of the current members are lifelong mystery fans, except for me.

Methods for deciding which books to read vary among groups.  Some groups assign a moderator for each month and that person chooses the book. Others use a suggested list. There are many lists available, depending on the focus of the group. After the first few meetings, when I preselected the books to get things going, we have fallen into our preferred method: at the end of each meeting, members make suggestions, giving a short summary of why they think the book is a good choice. The entire group decides which ones we want to read. We try to plan two or three months ahead, but there are so many good choices that we now have our schedule through September. The schedule is always open to change, if the group feels something more interesting has appeared. Frequently the books are the first in a series that we want to try; we discuss the initial book, and those who like the series continue on independently. It is an excellent method of introducing readers to new authors. This month our choice was Mistress of the Art of Death by Ariana Franklin. During the week preceding the meeting, I had more than a few e-mails to make sure I had the second (and beyond) in this series in stock so they could be picked up at the meeting. This outstanding historical (12^th century England) series was obviously one of our hits. Those that have been less warmly received were usually older, and although popular in their day, and even considered “classics” by some, seemed dated. Examples are Smilla’s Sense of Snow, a very early “Scandinavian” thriller and Charles McCarry’s The Tears of Autumn. It seems that contemporary writers have taken the examples set earlier and refined the genre or subgenre so that the works of 40 or even 20 years ago seem less sophisticated. Even when a book is not universally loved, the discussion of why not is illuminating, and someone always has comments on the strengths he or she sees in it.

Discussions of the books are always lively. Again, there are many sources of advice on how to structure meetings that allow everyone a chance to speak and to draw out opinions. The moderator in our group will prepare a list of questions or topics to discuss, but it is rarely used. It is a backup in case the discussion flags, which it never does. We are blessed with a group of talkative people who are also extremely polite and considerate. They listen to each other, and will draw out a quiet member without the moderator having to intervene. Since the members are not lifelong mystery fans, but are avid readers, they bring a wide variety of perspectives to the discussion, and we all learn a lot about books we have not read.

Characters in the books get the most attention: did we like a particular one, were they full developed, and, most important, were they believable. Most criticism is of characters whose behavior is inconsistent with previous actions, especially if it appears to serve the plot rather than to show another dimension of the person. Because we are discussing mysteries, the most enjoyable part of the discussion is usually about clues. With so many great minds dissecting the plot, all the clues are pointed out, even though most of us have missed more than one. In our discussion this week, one reader said that she had figured out who the killer was in the second or third chapter, because of the way he behaved in a certain situation. She was right, and the rest of us had missed it. This reader is a particularly good observer of human nature, and it was delightful to realize that the author was subtly planting clues to the reader early on. We also had an even greater appreciation of the author, who could show the character’s true nature and still keep us guessing.

So why does this group work so well? The meeting place keeps it from becoming a purely social event, as so frequently happens when meetings are in people’s homes. The mix of participants, male and female, old and young, from varying reading and professional backgrounds creates an open-minded atmosphere; we all learn from each other. The lack of adherence to an imposed reading list or agenda for meetings allows all the variety of experience to be brought forward, even if the discussion occasionally strays beyond the book at hand. Most of all, though, I think it is the focus on mystery fiction. Books with a good puzzle, combined with good characterization and a well-researched background and setting, are catalysts for wide-ranging discussion. I mentioned that most of the group members are new to the mystery genre, or not widely read in this area. They joined because someone else told them it was an interesting group. They discovered what the genre has to offer. And became fans.

Let It All Hang Out

by Erin Mitchell

As you read this, I’ll be in The Land of the Mouse, cavorting with authors, editors, agents, reviewers and readers at Sleuthfest. They have a super line-up every year, and this year’s no exception, from guests of honor Charlaine Harris, Jeffery Deaver, and Chris Grabenstein to reader favorites (ok, this reader’s favorites) Lisa Unger, Joelle Charbonneau, Sara Blaedel, Lisa Black, Daniel Palmer, Reed Farrel Coleman, Elizabeth Hand, Jamie Freveletti, and more.

As I was using my trusty highlighter pen to mark up the panel schedule and pondering how I could best be in two conference rooms at once, it occurred to me that it would be neat to have a directory of all the Twitter feeds of attending authors. A list, if you will.

So I set about making said list (which you can find here). While I was already following many of the authors on the docket, some were new to me. And I was surprised to find some accounts had either no or non-descriptive Twitter bios and/or the accounts were protected.

Protected? From what? From readers? Those people who might want to buy your book?

Ok, ok…I can see several scenarios that might have made these folks think protecting their tweets was a good idea. Perhaps they thought this was the only way they would know who is following them (it’s not). Maybe they like to send a note to new followers when they approve them (again, protecting isn’t necessary to do this). In the end, if you’re an author and you’re on Twitter and you feel the need to protect your tweets, don’t be on Twitter. Or be on Twitter under a pseudonym. But lose the lock, man.

Which leads me to those pesky Twitter bios. At only 160 characters (including spaces), it’s the shortest bio you’ll ever write. Even so, please, for the love of words on a page, make sure the word “author” or “writer” or even just “write” is in there somewhere. As much as we are each precious, unique human beings, some of us share the same name. And those looking to catch tidbits of your wisdom won’t necessarily recognize your avatar image. Leave the mystery in your books and make your Twitter bio clear.

The whole point of marketing is to introduce people to your stories…your content…to bring them in. So keeping them out or hiding behind a virtual curtain accomplishes nothing. And while you’re at it, make sure your Facebook page allows people to post to your page. Blocking this kinda defeats the purpose of having a page. For all its foibles, Facebook allows plenty of flexibility in how page visitors see your content so there’s no need to stop them interacting.

Happy unblocking!

 

Introducing Prologue Books

BENJAMIN LEROY

Today I helped launch Prologue Books, a project I've been thinking about for the last two years. I've talked about it, drawn it on napkins, and dreamed what it would be like to put it all together. And now it's done. Kinda.

A quick summary of Prologue would be that we're trying to trace the genealogy of genre.

The driving question behind Prologue Books is – How have the books and authors of other generations influenced today’s new releases?

To help shed light, we’re converting out-of-print novels into ebooks, in an attempt to better trace the genealogical roots of crime, sci-fi, fantasy, romance, western, and young adult fiction.

Greg Shepard of Stark House Press has been instrumental in helping to curate the Prologue Crime collection. We are also deeply indebted to Ed Gorman whose knowledge of and appreciation for the history of the genre is unmatched.

Here is the press release from today:

F+W MEDIA ANNOUNCES THE LAUNCH OF PROLOGUE BOOKS
Hundreds of Out-of-Print Pulp Novels of 1940’s-1970’s Now Available as E-Books

New York, NY –March1, 2012 – F+W Media announced today the acquisition of more than 250 out-of-print novels, spanning 1940-1970, to be reissued as e-books under the imprint, Prologue Books. These hard-boiled crime novels, written by legends like Peter Rabe and William Campbell Gault, served as inspiration for contemporary crime fiction.  Before, these old paperbacks could only be found at book fairs and used book stores, but now, they will be available to anyone with an e-reader.

“I envision Prologue Books not simply an e-book publisher for out-of-print titles, but as a living record of the crime, science fiction, and fantasy genres,” said Ben LeRoy, publisher of Tyrus Books who is spearheading the project. “There’s a great opportunity to shine the spotlight on authors who may have been significantly influential on the current state of publishing, but who have never really received their due for one reason or another. With the help of luminaries in the genres—authors, readers, reviewers—we are excited to find and share those stories.”

“I love and collect vintage paperbacks, so you’d think the concept of e-books would have no appeal for someone like me,” said pulp novelist, Christa Faust. “But the way I see it, having reading copies of these classic titles available in digital format is not only a great way to attract new readers, it also helps to preserve existing paper editions that are too fragile to be thumbed through. It’s old-school pulp for a new generation. A brilliant idea that’s long overdue.”