Vanity of vanities, all is vanity

I was looking at the stats for my website, and someone from Sony Pictures had come to it! OMG! OMG! What book were they interested in? Learning to Fly would make a great movie, and has been optioned a couple of times. And a book I just sold, Shadows Walking Backward, that's got movie written all over it. Think Wait Until Dark, only updated for teens.  

In the time it took for me to click down through the data, I was already imaginging what dress I would wear on the red carpet. 

Then reality hit. Hard. 

The search term the person used to find my site was "tuna noodle casserole."  

That's what happens when you have a bazillion pages on your website, including recipes and clever vanity plates. They are not always there because you are an author.  

Newspaper death spirals - also bad for books

So much has changed in the past decade in how we get our news. It used to be that being a reporter was a great career for a writer. Many mystery writers were once newspaper reporters. But now that career path seems nearly dead.  

I no longer watch national or local news broadcasts, which seem to have deteriorated into cute stories about llamas. The few times I might turn on the set, it’s to see pictures of devastation that NPR’s All Things Considered can’t do justice to. Judging by the commercials – for impotence drugs, and scooters Medicare will pay for – the average age of viewers is somewhere in what they call the “55 to death” category.

Newspapers seem to be faring even worse. My small hometown paper seems to be made up of foreclosure notices with a few news stories. The Oregonian has fewer and fewer pages, and on Friday announced another buyout for 100 employees. On the surface, it sounds like a good deal – two years of pay and two years of health care coverage – but there are NO jobs in the newspaper business. Once you leave, it’s over. 

Newspaper and ink account for 30% of the cost of running a paper. And I understand that classified ads used to account for 30% of the revenue. Those have all gone to Craig’s List, which has no need for newspaper and ink. Buy the paper in Seattle to find out what movie is playing near your hotel, and you won’t find the movie ads. They are all on line.

Think how important book reviews are for books. You pick up a paperback and look at the back to see what the critics had to say. But those reviews are being cut back or eliminated. I write one of the few YA columns that I’m aware of in any newspaper.  

A friend who works for a newspaper told me that they used to say that there was a certain floor below which subscribership would never fall. Now they believe that floor is zero.

But could there be hope? European newspapers seem to be flourishing? “Experts say European papers are prospering largely because they haven't followed the U.S. path of draconian — and self-defeating — cuts in scope and quality of coverage.” Read more here. [Full disclosure: ironically, I read this article in the Oregonian.]

Naughty! Naughty!

This is kind of scary. Random House UK has put this in its contract boilerplate for authors: "If you act or behave in a way which damages your reputation as a person suitable to work with or be associated with children, and consequently the market for or value of the work is seriously diminished, and we may (at our option) take any of the following actions: Delay publication / Renegotiate advance / Terminate the agreement."

In my work with Thomas Nelson, my contract included a “moral turpitude” clause. I signed.  I lead a boring life. To get bounced, I figured would take a little twist on Edwin Edwards “caught in bed with a live boy or a dead girl” problem. I’m pretty sure Nelson doesn’t define moral turpitude the way the government does, where forgery is moral turpitude, and incest is not. See more here.

In Which it is Revealed that the Universe has a Sense of Humor

n the books I'm co-writing with Lis Wiehl, one of the characters works in the Mark O Hatfield Federal Courthouse. I've been trying to figure out how to see inside it - get a tour, if possible. There are few photos online. I tried emailing an attorney I knew, but the email bounced back. I asked an FBI agent if he knew anyone who worked there, but it was buried with a bunch of other questions, and he missed that one.

So what do I get in the mail today? A jury summons to the Mark O Hatfield federal courthouse for district court Sept 2. Since I'll actually be in the building, it seems like I could connect with someone much more easily. And I'll have access to the public spaces.

What do you think the chances are I'll get picked for a jury? If someone said they wrote mysteries and thrillers, and you were a lawyer, would you want them on or off?

Want to eavesdrop on some agents?

Well, now you can! Two Canadian agents interviewed each other by email over the course of a weekend.  

Here are a couple of interesting excerpts:
“Recently I'm sure you've noticed too how the so-called 'midlist' authors are being cast aside by their publishers. In today's difficult marketplace, publishers want either the sure thing or the completely untried, hoping that either one will become a bestseller. Authors on their third book who haven't yet broken out are in increasingly untenable positions, and there aren't many options in our small marketplace.”

And:
“To pick up on one of your points first, absolutely, securing the best deal for an author is about much more than the advance. It's finding the perfect combination of editor, marketing support, position within a publisher's list and timing of publication, and then trying to round that out with strong financial terms. The chemistry with the right editor is worth a significant amount - it's when you have a few wonderful editors fighting for the same book (and don't we wish that happened more often) that the dollars become more significant. Because if the rest of the publishing house isn't backing up that editor with marketing and sales support, all the editorial passion in the world isn't going to help a book get noticed by readers.”

Read more here.  

Blogging as a marketing tool (?)

One of my publishers recently sent me a pamphlet about how to use the Internet to market your book. It had lots of good info, especially if it's your first book. And even more especially, if you write non-fiction. Their example used Author A, who had no web presence at all, and Author B, who wrote a book about the environment.

We don’t need to talk anymore about Author A, because his book is for all intents and purposes remaindered in short order.

Author B, who is a very busy bee, registers both his name and the name of his book, makes sure he has an entry in Wikipedia, etc. The part that caught my eye was that he starts a blog six months before the book comes out and posts 2-3 times a wee” about environmental issues “always being sure to put the stories and commentary in the context of his upcoming book.” And then links and posts to similar Web sites and blogs.

In the happy world of the brochure, by the time his book comes out, he has a readership of thousands, is asked to guest blog dozens of times, and even gets speaking gigs conferences and seminars. The book gets written up on dozens more blogs and mentioned in numerous email newsletters for environmental groups, which helpfully link back to his site.

Well, um, maybe. For non-fiction. Although it seems hard to think of how you could think of 75 topics you hadn’t covered in your actual book-book.

But for those of us who write fiction? I’m not sure this idea would work. I post a lot. I have a readership in the thousands. My next book even has a theme about environmental activists. Extreme environmental activists. But I couldn’t think of something to blog about on this topic 2-3 times a week for six months. Especially not of the “read more in my book” variety. I’m not sure what other blogs I would be commenting on. I’m not unsympathetic to ELF’s cause, but I’m also not pro.

I just don’t think fiction lends itself to 75 posts that all reference the book in some way. Plus putting even more posts on other blogs. Even if it could be done, that’s just too “me, me, me” for my taste.

I blog about writing, the writing business, books and authors I like, and stuff that catches my eye.Probably the latter is the only topic that might interest my potential readers. Maybe not even that. But I don’t know if I have the energy to think of stuff that would solely appeal to my readers. I’m not even sure what that would be.

What are your thoughts?

Who's in charge here?

Driving with Teen earlier in the week, I was musing outloud about a character.

Me: "I know she was raped - but why did she keep the baby? Why didn't she have an abortion or give it up for adoption? That's what I would have done. But she kept it."

Teen: "But you're the writer. You decide what your characters do and then they do it."

Me: "Not always."

Teen: "Now you sound crazy."

Flat Chapter Endings

I’m a firm believer that the end of a chapter should entice you to stay up past your bedtime and read on.  

I just finished World Made By Hand , and while I generally liked it, I did not get emotionally invested in it. The book is set in the near future, after two bombs and a series of deadly epidemics have reduced the world to basically what you can walk to. 

One reason it didn’t engage me might have been the many flat chapter endings.

Some good chapter endings he had were:
- “My heart flew into my throat.” [After hearing three shots.]
- “As I pulled the cart away from the general, all I could think about was whether they would eat the dog.”

But the author had many more like this:
- “I suppose that was what she used to tell her kids back in school.”
- “Tell them eight o’clock at the old town hall upstairs.” [The main character has called a meeting.]
- “Dale Murray seemed to grasp that the jokes would continue at his expense, so he cut his losses and called the meeting to order.”
- “By then, the true darkness of night was creeping over town and stealing into the third floor of the old town hall, and since nobody had brought any candles, I moved to adjourn the meetings.”
- “Then it was a final dram, and we tucked ourselves into our bedrolls in nice cool sleeping weather, for a change, and fell out rather quickly from our day’s emotions.”

I believe a book is more enticing when a chapter ends on a note of drama, rather than summing up what has just taken place.

Ann Patchett talks about touring

Ann Patchett has an interesting piece in the Atlantic Monthly on touring. She tries to remember Alan Gurganus’ advice: “The only thing worse than going on book tour,” he said, “is not going on book tour.”

She writes, “Like the hotels, the tours all start to blend together. The books, the cities, the stores, the airports, the crowds or lack of crowds all fall under the massive heading of What Happened While I Was Away. What I always remember clearly are the times I saw other writers, the way pioneers rolling over the prairies in covered wagons must have remembered every detail of the other settlers they passed, cutting through the tall grass from a different angle. “How was it back there?” you shout out from your wooden perch.”

I’ve had experiences like that. Tim Cockey still owes me a drink, a promise he made when we passed like ships in the night in California when we were both on tour in 2001 or 2002, even though he has now morphed into Richard Hawke.  

Read more about Patchett’s experiences, including how no one wants to talk about your current book here.  

Not so perfect - but still pretty good

NPR devoted part of Talk of the Nation to "[t]wo modern-day mystery writers talk about how to create the perfect whodunit. Tana French, author of In The Woods and The Likeness, and Louis Bayard, author of Mr. Timothy and The Pale Blue Eye, weigh in on the most important elements page-turning thrillers."

I haven't read anything by Bayard. French's In The Woods was extremely well-written - but plot-wise? Let's just say that the plot had some big gaping holes in it. In fact, the central mystery was left unsolved, with a hint that something mysterious had done it. It would be like reading a page turning thriller only to learn that aliens or time travel or something like that were the solution to the who-done-it.  

Still, that didn't stop me from putting a library hold on The Likeness - even though it hinges on a totally improbable idea, that a cop discovers that a dead woman bears an uncanny likeness to her and takes her place. Unless they are twins separated at birth, I don't think that would really work. Still, I will read it for the quality of the writing, which I hope will again be stellar.

To listen to the NPR story, click here.