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

Get Me Rewrite!

Jeff Cohen

I hate rewriting.

Hate, hate, hate. Hate. As Hawkeye Pierce once said, the real thing.

Now, don't get me wrong. I recognize the importance of rewriting. I realize that nothing I've ever written would be one half as good as it ended up if the first draft had been the last draft. I will acknowledge that, when the rewriting is done, the book will be much improved. There is no question about it.

But I hate doing it.

I'm currently in the middle of revising (could you tell?) A NIGHT AT THE OPERATION, the third Double Feature mystery book. The second book in said series, IT HAPPENED ONE KNIFE, is right now about a month and a half away from publication, and the first, SOME LIKE IT HOT-BUTTERED, is on your bookshelves now. Or should be. So the book I'm currently rewriting is scheduled for publication almost exactly a year from now, and I'm doing my damnedest to make it improve.

In the newspaper business, they used to have what were called "rewrite desks." Reporters, who were out in the field armed with a pad and pen before cell phones, PDAs, Blackberries, Bluetooths, satellite phones, fax machines, email, text messaging and WiFi hot spots, would call in with the facts of the story, and an editor would channel the call to a "rewrite man," who would take all this gibberish and hammer it into something resembling coherent prose.

Where are those guys when you need them?

My editor, the lovely and obscenely talented Shannon Jamieson-Vazquez, is always able to see where I'm fudging it, what elements of the story don't add up, when a character doesn't register as a real person, and when I'm going miles out of my way for a joke that only I will find funny. She never misses anything, and she's always right.

I hate that.

Writing is hard work. Rewriting is torture. Here, you think you've slogged through it, gotten all the problems solved, tied up the loose ends, created something from nothing, and what happens? Someone smarter than you reads over your cherished work, finds all the potential problems, and then--and here's the part that's truly appalling--won't just let you slide by on them.

William Faulkner, and everyone else who's ever written a word, said, "In writing, you must kill all your darlings." He meant that those phrases, those lines of dialogue, those plot turns of which you are proudest--those are the ones that need to be cut, mostly because they are most likely the sections in which you are being self-indulgent, show-offy, inconsiderate of the reader and self-aggrandizing. Other than that, they're probably perfectly fine passages.

But in killing one's darlings, doesn't one eliminate the fun of writing? If we take out all the stuff we love the best, aren't we just leaving in the things that we put in just to keep the story going? And if that's true, why did we sit down at the keyboard for this particular exercise to begin with?

As a writer, I have to come to terms with the fact that I'm not writing for myself. The reader is the most important person in the equation, and while I understand that from an intellectual standpoint, it's not always getting through emotionally. I love that joke on page 46; so what if the reader might not get it? Well, that's the point: if the reader isn't going to be included in the work, why would s/he go out and buy that book?

Rewriting is about making the book better for the person who reads it. If I want to stand back and admire something I've done, just for my own edification, I can look at a photograph of my children. It's a lie--they've become who they are by being themselves, and their mother and I just helped here and there--but it doesn't hurt anybody's feelings and it makes me feel good.

Writers like me (and I hope there aren't any) have to rewrite, no matter how much we hate it. In fact, we have to rewrite to a large extent because of how much we hate it. Because we are putting ourselves though torture to remind ourselves of the pecking order in the author biz: It's always Reader First.

Second Time's the Charm

Abby Zidle

Man, you guys are bitter! I was shocked to discover that I was the sole bastion of naivete after last week's post--apparently you've all been so beaten down that you're convinced great books are languishing in steamer trunks all over the country.  (Well, maybe on flash drives all over the country.)  It makes me feel both dorky and sad at once--thanks a lot, jaded Dead Guys!

Well, I suppose I'll forgive you.  And I shall grace you with a story, told to me secondhand, but it comes with a lesson at the end (those, as you know, are my favorite--I get to be preachy and look smart).  So gather round, kiddies...

This week, the #1 trade paperback on the New York Times list was The Friday Night Knitting Club.  One of my very good editor friends is in charge of managing the book, but she was not the acquiring editor or the person who worked on the book before it was published.  When I called to congratulate her on the book's success, we talked about how it can feel weird, as the adoptive editor, to receive congratulations for things like this.  After all, we didn't get to pick the book, work on it with the author, pitch it to the sales force, or any of those steps in making a book a success.  But I shared with my friend this bit of wisdom from another editor who works with many paperback reprints:  "Did you f*** it up?"  My friend laughed and said, "No, of course not."  "Then congratulations."

The moral of the story?  There are lots of ways to get in the way of a book on its road to success.  The paperback editor's job is to make sure none of those things happens.

OK, OK, so that's a little obvious.  Bonus story for you:  I nearly set fire to my table today while I was out at an agent lunch.  I ordered a fondue-thing, and it came in a little brazier with a lump of sterno underneath it.  But the sterno just sat on a flat plate--there wasn't any kind of cover to control the flame.  So I'm chatting with this agent, and I notice that the flame is getting a little high and the cheese is not so much bubbling as boiling.  I tried to blow it out, but that didn't work.  My dining companion tried to extinguish it with the flat of her knife, but that didn't work...and now her sterno-covered knife was also on fire.  We tried to tamp it out on the plate, but that had a paper doily on it that caught fire.  We managed to get the doily and the knife extinguished, but the original sterno lump was still blazing away, so we flagged down a waitress.  She tried to use a tablespoon to smother the flames, but it didn't work, and (wait for it) her spoon caught fire.  She ultimately had to take the entire plate back to the kitchen, where they did who-knows-what to it and put out the sterno.  Meanwhile, my agent friend and I laughed until we cried.  Amazingly, none of the tables nearby batted an eye.  Apparently I really am so unpopular that no one would put me out if I was on fire.

Out of print, gone forever?

Barbara D'Amato once commented at a booksigning - as I was filling the table with her books - that the longer you are in the business, the bigger your pile of out of print stuff is in proportion to your in print stuff.  With very rare exceptions, this is usually the case, hence the success of the used side of our business.  But even more frustrating to me are the authors who simply seem to drop from the face of the earth.  Of course somewhere they exisit and perhaps somewhere they are filling notebooks full of writing, but the fact remains that I can't seem to find their books of if I do I can't keep them on the shelf.

Almost every day I am asked about author Deborah Morgan, who wrote a short lived series about an antiques picker in Seattle.  People in Ann Arbor read her books in the beginning I think because she's married to Loren Estleman - when they signed together, people would buy both.  But she now has her own, very devoted following.  When I do find one they are instantly gone.

Two of my personal favorite authors who no longer seem to know how to use a pen are K.J. Erickson and Gini Hartzmark.  Both women were award winning authors - Erickson won an Anthony award, I think, and Hartmark an Edgar for PBO.  Erickson wrote a tightly plotted police series set in Minneapolis, with an unusual divorced Dad as the central character.  Midway throuigh this regrettably brief series he moved over to cold cases.  Hartzmark wrote a fast paced and intelligent legal series, one of the few that actually had an entire book about the financial markets (and it was terrific).  Both authors also killed off a major character in the last published book, so maybe they knew what was coming.  However, ladies and publishers, this was wrenching and some of us need a little closure.  I realize I'm not going to get it at this point but I'm still bearing a grudge.

Jeanne Dams wrote not one, but two series, the first one about elderly widow relocated to England, Dorothy Martin, and a second, historical series about a maid who worked for a wealthy family in South Bend at the turn of the last century.  Actually, checking fantastic fction, I see that the maid series is due for a new installment, but that probably won't satisfy Dorothy Martin fans or anyone who wants to read the rest of the Hilda books.

While David Handler still has a series in print, his ghostwriteer series has vanished - THE MAN WHO LOVED WOMEN being one title.  This series was light and funny and actually had a dog character who didn't make me vaguely nauseated.  Lulu the basset hound was one of the reasons to read the books.

And to finish where I started, with the philiosophical Barabara D'Amato.  While there are some of her titles still in print the ones I enjoy handselling and the ones I am really passionate about - her Chicago cop series featuring Suze Figeroa - are gone, gone gone.  If you can ever get your hands on a copy of D'amato's KILLER.APP or GOOD COP, BAD COP, snatch it up first and think later,  You won't regret it.

I could go on but you get the idea.  I am thankful I sell used books because otherwise these authors would be "gone forever". 

Preaching to the choir

PJ Nunn

The mystery community is a wonderful, living, breathing, entity that's alive and well (relatively speaking) in the US and abroad. Sometimes at odds within itself, sometimes cliquish and exclusive, but generally fun and highly desirable for those who write or want to write said mysteries (suspense, thrillers - lines grow hazy).

Most of the authors who come to me for help with promotions hope to become better known in mystery circles. Some request that, specifically. But there are a select few who seem completely oblivious. What I find most interesting about them is that they're usually published by large publishers, with large print runs, and comparably large advances. So while so many are trying to break into the coveted mystery realm, I'm looking for ways to take some who are in the mystery realm and break them out of it. Not entirely, of course, but let's say widen their boundaries.

I love the mystery realm. I love the cons and the awards and most of the people I find there. But if you want to hit the NYT bestseller list on a consistent basis, you might need to appeal to a larger audience in addition to the already committed mystery afficianados.

Because promotion goes hand in hand with rejection in many areas - not my favorite part of the business, I assure you - it's understandable for authors to want to stick to areas in which there's more chance of quick acceptance. The comfort zone. But if wanting to stay in the safe places (which again is relative, as criticism within the realm can be swift and sure) prevents one from venturing out into other avenues of promotion, it may also assure that they never appeal to a larger audience.

I completely agree that we should all support independent mystery booksellers and mystery publications and virtually all things mystery. And it's completely possible to stay full time busy promoting your books on mystery blogs, indie postcard mailings, select signing events and author panels, and attendance at a mystery con or two a year. But to limit all of your promotional eggs to the proverbial mystery basket is a mistake in my opinion, for what it's worth.

But if most of the more mainstream venues of newspapers and chain stores aren't really open to mystery authors, what's a sleuth to do?

Strap on the armor and wade out there anyway because most is not all and there are some who are open to new things and who will receive your book and help you sell it. People who populate mystery bookstores are usually people who already love mysteries. They probably read Mystery Scene and Crime Spree. They may even be members of Sisters in Crime and a local book group. Trying to convince a devoted mystery reader to read your mystery probably isn't all that hard. But winning an audience that isn't already pre-qualified is a bit more of a challenge. So why not go the easier route? Because there are a LOT more of the latter, that's why.

Like it or not, a lot of people shop chains and non-mystery indies. If you book isn't on the shelf there, those people probably won't buy it.

A lot of people listen to radio shows that aren't dedicated to authors or books in general. If you're not interviewed on those shows, the listeners may never hear of you or your book and again, probably won't ever buy it.

The bottom line of promotion is simple - people don't buy what they've never heard of or seen, so the point of promoting your book is to get as many people to hear of it or see it as possible. Then the chips can fall. So doesn't it make sense to develop a plan that puts your name and your title in front of as many people as possible rather than in front of the same people over and over again? Repeat exposure is important, granted, but oversaturation is also possible. And once you've convinced a person to buy, they're probably not going to keep buying copy after copy. Present it to another person.

So if your whole promotional plan is contained in our own beloved mystery realm, by all means go for it. Just don't stop there. Widen your boundaries just a little. Step out of your comfort zone and get the word out to people who haven't heard of your work before. Some of them will buy it. Some of them will love it! And you'll be a step closer to that bestseller list.

Till next time,

Knowing when to say no

Sharon Wheeler

It took me a long time to learn how to say no. And I know what it stems from as well . . . a stint freelancing in the 1990s when you didn't turn down work in case they didn't ask you again. But I finally sussed out what constituted one commitment too many, even if it does look good on the CV. And I also started to develop the ability to sniff out wankers and time-wasters.

The former including the organisation which seemed to be run solely by middle-aged women who were clearly paid a pittance but who didn't bother about anything so tiresome as money, as hubby obviously had a high-flying job in the city somewhere. Sadly, though, they couldn't understand why some of us weren't enamoured of the lousy pay, considering what the post entailed.

If this didn't ring warning bells enough, they couldn't seem to get past the fact that the glossy booklet in my portfolio was for a 20-something gay audience, and they looked at me like I'd beamed down from Planet Zog when I explained politely that no, of course I wasn't suggesting that sort of approach for their staid (oh, OK, old farts) market. Homophobic or stupid? I dunno. So I made my apologies ("ooh, your project sounds sooo exciting, but sadly I'm booked up 'til 2096 at the earliest") and legged it for the door when they offered me some work. A while later I met the person who'd taken the job on – and who confirmed that I'd had a very lucky escape!

Ah, yes, the glossy booklet. I had a steep learning curve on that project, which involved three charities collaborating. Sadly they couldn't agree on what they wanted, and I was piggy in the middle. Halfway through, the person I was reporting to left, and his successor didn't like what had been commissioned. So I had to start again – and I'd bid an all-in figure for the job. Fortunately they were willing to pay me to do the changes, but it made me re-think the small print when I quoted for jobs. The plus here was that the finished product looked good, and has generally been an asset in my portfolio, old farts excepted! And it kept my postman royally amused, as one of the charities seemed incapable of sending parcels that didn't burst open in the post – and quite a bit of the material was rather explicit gay sex education stuff!

I don't just do things because they look good on my CV – they have to enthuse me as well. Which may account for why I've spent the past five years editing www.reviewingtheevidence. The site's a true labour of love for all concerned, and no one makes a penny out of it (grr – how do these internet millionaires make all their dosh?!)

But I've decided reluctantly that it's time to take a sabbatical for six months. I have a hectic day job on top of the site, also write for a music magazine, and a non-fiction book needs finishing like yesterday . . . And I have several other book proposals that need knocking out equally swiftly, and a couple of journal articles jostling for attention.

The very lovely Yvonne Klein, who's been our Canadian editor for a while, is stepping into the breach – and the site couldn't be in safer hands. I’ll still be writing reviews, looking after our 'Sixty seconds with . . .' interview column and liaising with publicists – and ranting weekly (or should that be weakly?) at a Dead Guy blog near you . . .

HOT OR NOT?

QUIBBLES & BITS

From Deni Dietz, wearing her editor's hat.

Recently I've had a slew of ugly duckling  romance submissions. Well, the submissions weren't ugly---except for all those underlined words; italics are okay nowadays, people, honest!

The heroines were ugly ducklings.

Not!

Apparently, romance heroines don't have mirrors.

So that got me thinking...

In movies, as well as books, the "ugly" girls always look as if they are three seconds away from dieting effortlessly, then ripping off their oversized glasses and starring in an Olay commercial.

Here are some examples:

Drew Barrymore, Never Been Kissed. Newspaper reporter Josie/Drew is sent back to high school for an undercover report. A former outsider, all it takes to hot up Josie is to dress her like the real-life Barrymore, including a cutesy head of ringlets, and soon Josie's popular as all get out. Was she hot or not? Not. Drew can play ugly really well.

Julia Roberts, America's Sweetheart. Kiki/Julia is the personal assistant to her drop-dead gorgeous actress sister. Kiki's dowdy, but it's nothing some wardrobe and hair straightener can't fix. Still, the hero is able to see that beneath the ponytails, glasses, and sensible sweater sets, Kiki's got a great personality. Of course it helps that she's, uh, Julia Roberts. Hot or not? Hot, in a sexy librarian way.

Anne Hathaway, Princess Diaries. Mia/Anne, an awkward, gangly teen, discovers that she's heir to small European nation. The royal stylist tames Mia's birdnest of frizzy curls, trims her unibrow, ditches her glasses, and turns her into a beauty. Hot or Not? Not. Anne Hathaway makes a surprisingly convincing ugly duckling.

Janeane Garofalo, The Truth About Dogs and Cats. Radio talk-show host Abby/Janeane chickens out when a handsome man wants to meet her and instead asks her model friend Uma Thurman to impersonate her. Abby falls in love with the handsome man, but her makeover is largely internal. Hot or Not? Hot. Despite Thurmond's supposedly physical superiority, Abby is charming, smart, and cute. To the movie's credit, she doesn't require a glamorous makeover to nab the hot guy in the end.

And finally...

Nia Vardalos, My Big Fat Greek Wedding. Toula/Nia is a single, shy, 30-year-old Greek woman living with her parents and working at the family restaurant, until she decides to transform her life by getting a makeover. She ditches the glasses, buys a new wardrobe, and discovers the magic of makeup. Hot or Not? Not. Props to Mia for allowing herself to look atrocious at the beginning of the film.

Any other candidates? How about Sandra Bullock in Miss Congeniality?

As I write this blog, I'm working on a book where the heroine is Not in the beginning and Hot by the end of the book. She weighs the same at age 19 as she did at 10, but...she grows 9 inches taller.

Over and Out,
Deni, wishing she could grow 9 inches taller!

Remember that Old Chestnut About No Such Thing as Bad PR?

Janet Reid

Jonathan Franzen seems bound and determined to test that rubric, most recently lamenting the lack of serious discussion in book reviews, their personal and snarky tone, and winding up with “the stupidest person in New York City is currently the lead reviewer of fiction for the New York Times”

Well, ok, sure, I guess, if you want attention, that’s one way to get it.

Franzen first came to my attention as the author of The Corrections; then he was the author who dissed Oprah; and most recently he was the author who used his lunchtime speech at Muse in the Marketplace to read aloud for 45 minutes. The only thing that redeemed him is that he is a very good writer. So how come I want to push him off a cliff? (oops, sorry, snarky and personal!)

Mostly cause the idea that Literature can only be taken seriously when discussed seriously by serious people makes me wildly crazy. Yea sure, we all went to graduate school and wrote pretentious papers extolling our deep and profound insights into Jane Austen and Beowulf. Some of us wrote diatribes on Raymond Chandler, and some of us wrote them about Tolkein, but hey, we were ALL pretentious, and deadly serious. Then we got over it. I burned those papers several years ago. Not only was I a crappy writer, most of my insights were trite and not very original.

I knew they were trite and unoriginal because I’d grown up. As most of us did. Instead of attending seminars about Jane Austen we now attend to jobs. And lives. Some of us started selling Jane Austen, and others of us editing Jane Austen knock offs and a few started writing new versions of Jane Austen. And if we sit around in seminars at 4pm on Monday it’s cause we’re teaching the class, not taking it. And a lot of us manage to talk about books in a serious way in our spare time on that funny new thing they call the Internet. A lot of very serious book reviewers are there too.

But it’s not the job of a book reviewer to lead a graduate seminar on The Corrections. A book reviewer’s job is to talk to people who by and large are reading for entertainment, not to save their lives (one of Franzen’s points in his lunchtime Great Read was that literature will save your life).

I really don’t need Jonathan Franzen to scold me that I don’t take books seriously if I don’t sit around talking about them seriously. Any more in fact than he needs me pointing out that he makes books sound so dreary and so much like work that any reader would run screaming from the room rather than listen to him talk one more minute about the importance of literature.

Jonathan Franzen is a good writer. I just wish he’d quit talking.

Do the Numbers

Jeff Cohen

For an author, having a web site to promote books (and anything else one might wish to promote) is no longer simply a good idea--it's a necessity. My own site has existed pretty much since my first novel, For Whom The Minivan Rolls was about to be published, and it lives to this day, as an impatient world awaits the publication of It Happened One Knife.

It may seem that we're obsessed with our web sites, but we really are. A while back, a company emailed me with the ability to add a function that would count and catalog the hits the site attracts. It was free, so I signed up for it.

Big mistake.

Now, a day doesn't go by that I don't check up on the site. And you can glean a great deal of information from the data you get there, almost all of it depressing.

Number of visitors on the average day? I'm embarrassed even to think about it. Suffice it to say they could easily fit into my living room, and I could tell them about the books. Hell, I could read them the books if they wanted to stick around long enough.

Average time spent surfing the site? Don't blink. Seriously. You might be taking more time than most people do looking at my web site.

Number of pages viewed on each visit? That's really interesting. One visitor spent thirteen seconds on my site, total--and looked at nineteen pages. I don't even see how that's possible.

Others spend a half hour there, and look at one page. I assume the cat is on the keyboard, and they don't want to disturb it while it's sleeping.

If you go deeper, you can see where the person who visited the site lives. (Brazil? Peru? Tasmania? Oklahoma?) You can find out what site referred them to your site--SPOILER ALERT: It's usually Google. You can find out where they went after your site. Or what page on your site they visited last. Or what ISP they use.

What you can't discover is why the visitor was interested to begin with, what they thought of the site, whether they are interested in your books, or whether they bought one after visiting.

But you can discover--as I did, much to my dismay--that the vast majority of the visits to the site (and I expect, to most sites) seem to be made by automated programs looking for ways to phish off your site. There is no other explanation for the overwhelming number of visits that include two page views, and last zero seconds.

It's also a little worrisome that so many governmental agencies appear interested in me and my books. Mostly me. The morning the IRS looked at my author's bio was not a calm one in my household.

I've tried to stop checking the stats so often, but it's no use. I'm just waiting for the day when there's a two-hour visit, viewing at least twenty pages, focusing mostly on the favorable reviews and book summaries, and coming from Hollywood, California, with an address somewhere within Dreamworks SKG.

Then I'll know that all my time obsessing was not spent in vain.

Some Publishing Pros Walk Into a Bar...

Abby Zidle

At the conference I attended the other weekend, I was sitting with an agent and an author at the bar when the agent asked us, "Do you believe that every well-written book will eventually find a publisher?"

It's a good question.  And it's interesting to hear what different people think.  The author who was with us said yes, a good book would always find a home somewhere.  I agreed, if you assume that you have an unlimited time to shop the book around...you might have to put it in a trunk for a few years until the market turns, but a good book will out.  But the agent who posed the question disagreed--she felt that sometimes, even an excellent book simply wouldn't find a home.

Perhaps this is just a reflection of our jobs, and the level of optimism inherent in each.  I think any author who wants longevity in this business probably has to believe that all good books will find a home...otherwise how could you go on?  (Frankly, I don't understand how y'all are that brave to begin with, facing all that rejection.)  As an editor, I dole out rejection all the time...but just as often, I read in the trades that someone has snapped up a manuscript that I thought was junk.  So if those are getting bought, surely a book that's well-written, even if it's not my sort of thing, would find a home, too.  But the agent comes face to face with the difficulty of selling a project every day.  He has to think about more than what he loves, but what will sell...and if something he loves doesn't sell, the project (and the author) don't just vanish with the next recycling period.

So what do you all think?  Will a well-written book always find a home?  Tell me about it in the comments...

(And a post-Derby Day addendum: RIP, Eight Belles. You ran a hell of a last race.)

Bookselling is, in the main, a very routine job.  Shelving, vacuuming, paying bills - it's almost like having customers browse in your own living room, sometimes.  And while I enjoy the routine-ness of bookselling, there are still some things about it that give me a thrill and keep me energized for the next round of straigthening the Rex Stout shelf.  (Why do we even let people touch it?  Sometimes I think that shelf should be behind glass and we'd be happy to get the titles you want, kind of like a deli.  Destroying the shelf will NOT uncover a used copy of WHERE THERE'S A WILL).

Anyway, a few things that still give me a thrill and a reason to get up:

Trying not to shriek when the Harcourt publicist asks if we can squeeze Edgar winner Thomas Cook onto our June schedule.  Oh wait - I think I DID shriek!  My husband is actually more excited even that I am - he's read every book by Cook and worships the man.  We're looking forward to June.

Loren Estleman.  A neighbor, he often stops in just to browse since along with writing the mere 3 or 4 books he manages to churn out every year, he's also a voracious reader.  The other day he stopped by to sign stock of his new book, FRAMES.  Since we've done two events with him in the past few months and have another scheduled in September we didn't schedule an event for this one, but he stopped by on the release day anyway.  It's fun to talk books with someone who loves them as much as you do, though I admit my brain sometimes does not keep up with his which, like Ferris Bueller's, moves pretty fast.

Our annual mother's day event.  We're lucky enough to live near Kalamazoo where there's an annual medieval congress every May - it's brought authors to our door like Margaret Frazer, Sharan Newman, Candace Robb, Alan Gordon, and Kathy Lynn Emerson.  Whoever is in town comes over on Mother's day Sunday for tea and cookies and a relaxed visit with fans.  When people ask me what I do on Mother's Day, I tell them I spend it with Sharan Newman (they think I am kidding!)  This year Sharan & Alan are joining us, and people are already asking me what kind of cookies I plan to have on hand, which certainly raises the bar.

Our customers.  They are always telling us surprising things.  A long time and very good customer was in the other day proudly wearing her Obama pin and slugging down another 6 or 7 books to get her through the week.  As she was paying we got to talking and she mentioned that she has a trip to Russia coming up - and not only that, but she herself is a Latvian, born in a Latvian refugee camp during WWII.  She says she's looking forward to going to a country and hearing her native language spoken on the street - but of course, she was also boning up on her Russian.

We're very lucky - we can stay in our bookselling cave and the good things just turn up at our door.