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The Almighty isn't in my target demographic

Tue, 15 Nov 2011 17:40:40 +0100

I had great good fun Saturday at the Somerville Public Library speaking on a panel about getting published. I promised several people that I'd try to organize the information in a series of blog posts this week. Anyway, I started writing and rather than a series of short posts on the subject, it seems to have turned into one long post. This post. I hope it's helpful.

On Getting Published

"When you die, I believe, God isn't going to ask you what you published. God's going to ask you what you wrote." (McNally, T.M. "Big Dogs and Little Dogs," in Martone, Michael, and Susan Neville. 2006. Rules of thumb: 73 authors reveal their fiction writing fixations. Cincinnati, Ohio: Writer's Digest Books).

There's a certain wisdom to that remark, but, with all due respect to McNally and to God, the Almighty isn't in my target demographic. God, perhaps,will read my unpublished manuscripts, but the ladies in the Hungry Readers Book Club won't read my books unless they're published.

I have been an unpublished author, a self-published author and a traditionally published author, so I believe I may have some perspective on the subject. There is a difference, although the difference is not necessarily in the writing. But when you're traditionally published, they teach you the secret handshake. And you get the decoder ring.

It took me thirteen years to write my first manuscript. Twenty-seven years if you count the re-writes. The Last Bodhisattva isn’t a mystery. It's a modern Buddhist parable, a cross between On the Road, by Jack Kerouac, and Monkey, a 500 year-old Chinese folk novel by Wu Cheng-En. I began writing the book in 1975, at the age of 23, and wrote on-and-off for thirteen years, completing it (for the first time) in 1988. Believing I had a publishable novel (and knowing nothing about agents, or publishers, or, frankly, anything at all about the book business), I bought The Writer's Handbook and began sending out queries. I spent the next year collecting rejections. I tucked the manuscript away in a file cabinet and went about my life.

And every few years, for the next fourteen years, I pulled The Last Bodhisattva out of the cabinet and did a re-write. The last time I attempted a re-write, I had just turned fifty and I was having a very hard time relating to the character that I had first written nearly three decades earlier. I did a complete re-write, framing the story as a memoir. It was not a publishable manuscript, but it was finished and I was satisfied.

That final re-write did something I hadn't anticipated. It motivated me to start writing again. I had an idea, something about putting a character on a back road in the New Jersey Pine Barrens in the hour before the sun comes up. Five months later, Who is Killing Doah's Deer was finished. I bought a new copy of The Writer’s Handbook and sent out another series of badly written queries.

But the publishing world had changed since 1988. Someone told me about print-on-demand and directed me to iUniverse. Print-on-demand takes advantage of digital technology to print physical copies of a book only after a sale has been made. By eliminating the costs associated with producing and warehousing a traditional print run, print-on-demand created an inexpensive publishing option and gave rise to what has come to be known as subsidized self-publishing. In 2003, the Mystery Writers of America had a publishing agreement with iUniverse. As a result, in 2004 I joined MWA and published my first mystery with iUniverse.

Digital technology continues to evolve and that evolution can be seen in the booming e-book market. Today, it is quite literally possible for an author to finish a manuscript in the morning and upload it to the kindle store in the afternoon. It is possible, but it is not necessarily a good thing.

It seems to me that many, perhaps most, people who self-publish (particularly those who self-publish their first book) do so for the wrong reason. And that reason is impatience to see their book in print. Even though I spent 27 years on an unpublished manuscript, perhaps because I spent 27 years on an unpublished manuscript, I was inclined to be impatient with my first mystery. Patience, as they say, is a virtue.

A survey conducted a few years ago found that 80% of Americans believe that they should write a book. 80% of Americans can’t hit a fastball, can’t balance a checkbook, can’t cook pasta al dente. As much as I love the notion of a nation of writers, I don’t believe that 80% of Americans can or should write a book. But if they do, technology makes it possible for all of those books to be published.

The best thing about ebook publishing is that anyone can get a book published. The worst thing about ebook publishing is that anyone can get a book published.

In an essay in the 1988 Writers Handbook entitled, “Everything You Need to Know about Writing Successfully – in Ten Minutes,” Stephen King offered twelve essential tips, starting with “Be talented.” Being talented requires a writer never to settle for good enough. It starts by writing the best book you’re capable of writing. Don't get caught up in publishing until your book is ready to be published.

I once sent a query to a publisher who loved the manuscript, but declined to publish it. You see, my book didn't fit his business plan. It's great to have a publisher who loves what you write. It's even better to have a publisher who believes he can make money selling what you write. Because writing a great book is an art, but selling a great book is a business.

So, back to 2004 and the print-on-demand release of Who is Killing Doah’s Deer? I took advantage of my membership with MWA to learn more about the craft and the business of writing. In 2005, I was debating whether I could afford to fly to a mystery writers’ conference in Chicago. A friend gave me a wonderful bit of advice. “If you want to be a real writer, you have to start going to the places where the real writers go.” And so I went to Chicago. I attended the “official” panel discussions in the conference meeting rooms, and the “unofficial” discussions in the bar. I met authors, editors, agents and publishers. I became part of a community of writers with similar goals.

I attended a panel of editors and publishers. After listening to them talk, I came to realize that one of those independent, traditional publishers, Five Star, seemed to be a good fit for what I was writing. When I got home, I crafted a query, perhaps the first really good query letter I’d ever written, explaining why I believed they were the right publisher for my second book.

In 2006, Five Star published a hardcover edition of A Minor Case of Murder. Thirty-one years after starting to write my first, unpublished, manuscript, I had written something for which a traditional publisher had sent me a check. And then, in 2009, it happened again. Five Star published It’s Beginning to Look a Lot like Murder. When I finish the next Cassie O’Malley Mystery, the one with the clever working title of Book Four, I look forward to continuing my relationship with Five Star.

Meanwhile, the publishing industry continues to evolve. As a reader, I have not made the transition to ebooks. I still prefer the feel of a book in my hands. New books, like a brand-new automobile before the first ding, pristine, with that new car smell and that shiny new body, practically begging you to take it out for a spin. And old books, especially old books, worn and tattered like a favorite pair of blue jeans. My house overflows with books. But as a writer, I need to remember that different readers like to access stories in different formats - books, ebooks, audiobooks. I’m not a book seller. I'm a story teller. As technology offers new ways to access those stories, I need to make sure my stories are available in those formats.

So those hardcover books are no longer the only editions. I now have a separate publishing agreement with Crossroad Press for the ebooks. And in the very near future, I expect to have an announcement about audiobooks.

And what about that first unpublished manuscript, that unpublishable manuscript? Not so very long ago, I took the red editing pencil to the manuscript and cut nearly 65,000 words. 65,000 words that I had agonized over for decades, writing and re-writing until they shined. The Last Bodhisattva didn't work as a novel. But it did make for a pretty good short story. In 2006, The Sound Bite was published in woman's corner magazine.

Otherwise, you'd get your money back

Thu, 20 Oct 2011 11:11:20 +0100

Last night, at the Somerville Library, I was discussing how to develop fictional characters that readers will care about and I was reminded of this scene from the Woody Allen movie, Sleeper.

"What you have here... I diagnosed the entire situation, and I think what we've got, what we're dealing with basically is a nose. I think we're all in aggreance on that. I have the little beggar right here. And what you want basically is a whole entire person connected to that nose, right? Otherwise, you'd get your money back." (Woody Allen, in Sleepers)

And that, basically, is how I create fictional characters. I start with a nose and using that nose, I create a whole person, I "clone the patient directly into his suit."

Of course, it's not always a nose. With Mr. Garibaldi, the attorney of record for the Sand Skeeter Baseball Club, it was his feet. It might be a nickname (Detective Eddie "Eggs" Bebedict) or a growl (Greta, the waitress with Tourette's). I start with one small thing that I know about the character and I build out from there until I have a fully formed human being.

It really is just like the scene in Sleeper.

Ballistics

Wed, 05 Oct 2011 11:47:57 +0100

The appeal of a traditional amateur sleuth mystery is that the crime is solved by an everyman (or an everywoman) rather than by a professional detective. The amateur sleuth relies on old-fashioned detection to solve the crime, rather than modern forensics. I was asked one time at a conference, how I deal with forensics in my stories. And I explained that I deal with forensics in much the same way that I deal with sex and violence. I know it happens, but in my books, it happens offstage. But the truth is, even in an amateur sleuth mystery, it is difficult these days to write a credible story without some attention to forensic science. So I was pleased to have an opportunity to spend Tuesday afternoon taking a behind the scenes look at the NJ State Police Ballistics Unit.

The Ballistics Unit, according to the NJ state police website "is responsible for providing technical service to all law enforcement agencies pertaining to the examination and test firing of firearms, including detailed microscopic examinations of discharged bullets, shells and other ammunition related components. Conducting distance determinations, restoration of obliterated serial numbers and entering data into the NIBIN (National Integrated Ballistic Information Network) computerized imaging system. Additionally, members of the Ballistics Unit respond to crime scenes to conduct trajectory analysis and shooting scene reconstruction. They are called upon to provide expert testimony in Municipal, Superior and Federal Courts."

When a policeman in the ballistics unit needs to test fire a gun, and he also want to retrieve the bullet undamaged, he shoots into this water tank. The water slows the bullet to the the extent that it can safely be fired and retrieved, in a fifteen foot long tank (hollow point bullets are fired into cotton, rather than water).

The detective who took us around specifically wanted me to get a shot of the inside of the tank. Yes, that's a rubber ducky floating peacefully in the Ballistic Unit's test tank.

My thanks to the officers of the Ballistics Unit for their gracious hospitality, and to the NY chapter of the Mystery Writers of America, for arranging our crash course in ballistics. I'm not ready to write a police procedural, but the next time Cassie solves a case, when the forensics happen offstage, they'll happen offstage in accurate detail.

To read the comments, or to add a comment of your own, please use this link.

Buy the ebook, get the music as my gift

Wed, 27 Jul 2011 16:39:20 +0100

My first book was published in June 2004. In November of that same year, I began blogging on xanga. Other writers find it odd that I blog on xanga, that I still blog on xanga, rather than someplace more writerly. But the simple truth is I like blogging here.

Folks on xanga have been extraordinarily supportive of my writing. So now, with the recent release of a new ebook edition of A Minor Case of Murder, I want to offer something extra to the people who read my blog. If you purchase the new ebook edition of A Minor Case of Murder, you will receive as my gift (while supplies last) a free music download of the album Songs from the 2nd Floor, by Rich Luca.

I posted not long ago about Luca's debut album, his album of "boomer music for cars and bars" with its roots in classic rock of the 60s and 70s. I had the pleasure of writing the album notes for Songs from the 2nd Floor.

And now, I've arranged for a limited number of free downloads of the album. In fact, thanks to Rich Luca's generosity, you will not only get the album, but you will also get a bonus gift from Rich (such as an unreleased cut from the studio sessions, or a copy of the handwritten lyrics, insider notes or other personalized items).

After you purchase the ebook edition of A Minor Case of Murder for $2.99 (available at amazon, barnes & noble, smashwords, crossroad press and other fine ebook sellers) send me a message telling me where you purchased the ebook (please attach a copy of your purchase confirmation, to keep the bean counters happy). I'll send you a message with your unique download code, good for one free download of Luca's album (a $9.50 value, while supplies last) and an email address to obtain your additional bonus gift from Rich Luca. Think about it. Even if you don't own an e-reader, even if you already own the hardcover, you might want to buy the ebook, just for the music.

Thanks. (And thanks to Rich Luca for his generosity).

To read the comments or to add a comment of your own, please use this link.

New Cover Art!

Tue, 19 Jul 2011 10:29:39 +0100

There are few things more enjoyable for an author than the moment you first see your cover art. Apparently that's true even when the book is nearly five years old.

Like most authors, I'm busy trying to catch up with changes in the publishing industry. Today, it would be almost unimaginable for a traditional publisher to purchase book rights without including ebook rights in the contract. But that's a very recent change. Publishing contracts for books that were published in hardcover or paperback editions even a few years ago probably didn't include provisions for ebooks. So the ebook rights remain with the author.

Keep in mind that an author owns all of the rights to his book except for those rights which he explicitly sells to a publisher. So, for example, when Five Star purchased the rights to A Minor Case of Murder, they purchased the hardcover rights (and the hardcover edition was released in 2006). I have a wonderful relationship with Five Star and I look forward to doing more books with them in the future. But in the meantime, I've had some decisions to make about the ebooks. I've moved slowly on the ebook edition for reasons ranging from valid business questions to innate laziness. In any event, I am pleased to announce that Crossroad Press will be publishing A Minor Case of Murder in all ebook formats. I expect the book to be available for all e-readers in the near future.

One of the interesting decisions that had to be made for the ebook edition was cover art. Again, it's a matter of rights. In the same sense that I own all rights to my story, except those rights that I explicitly sell, the same is true about the artist and cover art for the original edition. She owns all rights to the artwork except those rights that she explicitly sold. So I have no right to use her artwork for the ebook unless I purchase that right. Which I considered doing. Because I have always loved the artwork for the hardcover edition.

But the better business decision is to create new cover art specifically for the ebook edition. And today, I got my first look at the new cover. I will be grinning all day.

To read the comments or to add a comment of your own, please use this link.

In Praise of Amateur Sleuths

Fri, 15 Jul 2011 12:41:42 +0100

So by now, most of you know that I write an amateur sleuth mystery series. Amateur sleuth mysteries are a popular subgenre, fun for both the author and the reader, but they hinge on a remarkable bit of "suspension of disbelief". Because the crime solver is neither a police officer nor a private detective. Recently, I did an interview with my amateur sleuth, Cassie O'Malley. Cassie remarked:

"You know, I used to watch that TV show, I forget the title, you know, the one with Angela Lansbury and every week in Cabot Cove, she'd find another dead body. After a while, I wondered why her friends and neighbors didn't give her a wide berth, 'cause you knew every week one of 'em was going to die."

There's very little reason for an amateur sleuth to be out solving crime. And that, in a nutshell is the challenge. To put our sleuth in the position to be able to solve the crime, to be uniquely able to solve the crime. In my mystery series, Cassie writes for a barely reputable tabloid magazine and stumbles into the dead body in the course of covering stories for the tabloid. Across the subgenre, we find inn keepers and barristas, bee keepers and doll collectors (the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker).

"Whether it is shrewd spinsters (Miss Marple), curious clergy (Father Brown) or high-schoolers with hunches (Nancy Drew), the world of fiction has its fair share of amateur detectives, outwitting the local plod." (In Praise of... Amateur Sleuths).

We need to find a reason for our amateur sleuth to be out catching the bad guy, a reason that our readers will find plausible. But sometimes, the only reason an amateur sleuth needs is the determination to do so. I am reminded of that by a story in the news this week, the gruesome murder of nine-year-old Leiby Kletzky in New York. Today, the Daily News is reporting that the police are crediting Yaakov German with cracking the case.

"Yaakov German isn't a cop or a private detective. He's a property manager and a father of 12 with a reputation as a do-gooder. By banging on doors and scrutinizing grainy video, he uncovered crucial clues that led cops to confessed killer Levi Aron." (Amateur Sleuth Yaakov German helps cops capture Levi Aron and solve murder of Leiby Kletzky)

If I were to write an amateur sleuth mystery featuring a Chasidic property manager and father of twelve, you might tell me that's implausible. But today, Cassie and I tip our caps to Yaakov German.

To read the comments or to add a comment of your own, please use this link.

So you want to be a famous author?

Mon, 11 Jul 2011 22:10:53 +0100

I've done my share of book signings, with modest success, which is to say, I've sold some books and met some readers. I've had events when I sat alone at a table, wondering if I had inadvertently swallowed an invisibility potion, but I've also had lively events, at venues like Book Expo America and the American Library Association, with long lines of appreciative readers.

But I've never had a book signing where "nervous bookstore employees pleaded with eager female fans not to lift their shirts... when they reached the signing table." And I've never "started sipping tequila as soon as the event began." Then again, I'm not Sammy Hagar.

Rock stars are the new stars of the book world. "In a squirrely market for books, the rock memoir has taken off, spurring publishers to pursue more book deals with musicians willing to tell their stories." (all quotes are from the New York Times, July 9, 2011, Rock Stars of Books).

So, if you want to be a famous author, but you're not sure how to make that happen, the path is clear. Learn to play guitar. Form a band. Become a rock star. Live hard. And then, as your career begins to wind down, pen your memoirs. Easy peasy lemon squeezy.

To read the comments or to add a comment of your own, please use this link.

The Peacock Room

Tue, 14 Jun 2011 11:20:40 +0100

Something special happens every time I spend a few minutes sitting in Fred Leyland's dining room.

Frederick R. Leyland was a wealthy British gentleman, an owner of ships in an era when ships were the only means of global travel and commerce. Which is to say that Frederick Leyland had money and knew how to use it. Among other things, Leyland was the patron of the painter James McNeil Whistler. He wanted the dining room of his London home to be a suitable setting to display his collection of fine Chinese porcelain (as well as one of his Whistlers) so Leyland commissioned the respected interior architect Thomas Jeckyll to design the room. Confident that everything was under control, Leyland went to Liverpool to attend to his shipping business.

And everything went well until Jeckyll consulted with Whistler. To make a long story short, Whistler took over the project, pushing Jeckyll aside, adding gilded paint and peacocks and extraordinary cost overruns. And, as if that wasn't enough, while Leyland was away in Liverpoool, Whistler used Leyland's London home to entertain friends. The Peacock Room was completed in 1877.

(photo credits - http://www.asia.si.edu/exhibitions/online/peacock/default.htm)

The room, in its entirety, has since been moved to the Freer Gallery at the Smithsonian in Washington DC.

Whenever I sit in the Peacock Room, the mystery writer in me thinks about writing a period piece, a Victorian murder mystery set in Frederick Leyland's dining room. I wonder what might have happened, if, while Whistler was entertaining friends in Leyland's home, someone had found a dead body.

Then I look at the peacocks and smile.

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Bookish

Tue, 10 May 2011 17:13:45 +0100

Unable to rely on bookstores as the focus for their promotional efforts, unable to attract readers in large enough numbers to their own company websites and unwilling to cede the digital marketplace to amazon, the big New York publishing houses are joining forces to launch bookish, the "new digital destination for readers". Bookish will be financed by Simon & Schuster, Penguin Group USA and Hachette Book Group, until the company becomes profitable. Carolyn Reidy, president and CEO of Simon & Schuster was quoted in the NY Times on Saturday,

"There's a frustration with book consumers that there's no one-stop shopping when it comes to information about books and authors."

It seems to me that Ms. Reidy has it backwards. Consumers have found a one-stop shopping destination for books (amazon) and seem to be pretty much satisfied. It is publishers, rather than consumers, who are frustrated as the balance of power shifts inexorably toward amazon. It seems to me that this is another misguided attempt by the New York publishing houses to reassert their power and protect their market share. But I see no good reason to believe that bookish will succeed in wresting business away from amazon nor that doing so will in any particular way, benefit readers.

For those of us who mourn the decline of bricks-and-mortar bookstores, bookish doesn't seem to have much to offer to make up for that loss. And for those of us who are comfortable with online shopping, it's unclear to me what bookish has to offer that will entice buyers to change their online shopping habits.

Bookish is scheduled to go live sometime this summer. I may be wrong about this, but I'm guessing that bookish may go dead by fall.

What do you think? Do you need a new online destination for books?

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It is just sad

Tue, 03 May 2011 20:15:12 +0100

As a young actress, Yvette Vickers appeared in the 1958 B movie cult classic, Attack of the 50 Foot Woman. She played the part of Honey Parker, the "other woman" who seduces the 50 foot woman's husband. ("When she's in the booby hatch, throw the key away. That'll put you in the driver's seat. You'd make a wild driver, Harry... with fifty million bucks.")

But her credits go well beyond Attack of the 50 Foot Woman. She was Roxy in Reform School Girl and Daisy in Shortcut to Hell. She was The Blonde in I Mobster and in Beach Party she was Blonde Yoga Girl. She had a small part in the 1963 Paul Newman film, Hud. And in 1971, she had a part in the really strange horror film What's the Matter with Helen starring Debbie Reynolds and Shelly Winters -

"The Midwestern mothers of two Leopold and Loeb--like murderers move to Hollywood, California in the 1930s and open a dancing school for would-be Shirley Temples seeking to break into the movies. Adelle falls in love with a Texas millionaire, but Helen turns to an evangelist and gradually goes off the deep end. Soon corpses of all kinds start piling up."

Yvette Vickers appeared on TV shows spanning three decades, including The Red Skelton Hour, Mike Hammer, Bat Masterson, Dragnet, The Barbara Stanwyck Show, The Bob Cummings Show, My Three Sons and Emergency.

Some of you may even remember her as the White Rain Girl in TV commercials in the 1950s or as Playboy Playmate of the month in July 1959. In his book, On Writing, Stephen King identifies Yvette Vickers as one of his matinee idols.

Last week, Ms. Vickers was found dead in her home in Benedict Canyon. According to police, the "mummified state" of the corpse suggests that Ms. Vickers may have been dead for a year.

To read the comments or to add a comment of your own, please use this link.