Visual Writing Prompt 5-31-09

It’s Spring! Oh, not here in Texas. We’re already Summer. Trust me. I have the a/c bill to prove it. But I have a sister in Minnesota who sent an email announcing Spring had sprung in her yard. And she sent pictures to prove it. Here’s one of them:


Which reminded me…Spring is not the same everywhere. If you set your book in Minnesota in early May and start talking about the heat, you’re most likely not from there - at least if you’re talking heat in the 90s, anyway. That’s Texas heat. And if you get it wrong, your readers will pounce on it. You want readers to get lost in your story, not to set the book down in order to go tweet you about your dorky mistake.

Yes, it’s true. Everything has to be researched. And climate is easy to check out now that we have the Internet.

If you were going to write about this picture, would you focus on the big beautiful leaves? Or the one new leaf unfurling? Or something else?

Using Research in Your Book

Some books require vivid imagination. Some books require tons of research.

Now, you might think I’m talking fiction vs. nonfiction. But a lot of fiction requires extensive research. Historicals - learning about the time, language, clothes of the period, etc. Mysteries/Suspense - discovering how various poisons work or how FBI agents behave, and so forth. SciFi/Fantasy - creating imaginary worlds, beings and science that have a believable basis.

The author has to do all the work of making sure it’s believable, accurate, and thorough. That research can take hours, days, weeks, months. Even years, in some cases. It can be exhilarating to find all the answers, to know you’ve gotten it right, and to share it with your readers.

And that’s where authors can sometimes make a big mistake.

Putting all that research in a book can be a killer error. Instead of sounding almost like a nonfiction, believable and real, it comes across as info dump. It puts the reader to sleep or makes them skip pages of facts and information. Instead of white space that makes the reader want to keep reading, the pages are ink, ink, ink, ink -- that can make them skip or drift off into nap land.

Talk to your readers. Is your book reading like a history lesson? A textbook? A how-to on herding goats, or whatever? Do you really need all that? Would your book be better off if it were less dense or pedantic? Can you get across the idea, concept, or material without breaking it down into minute steps or dragging your readers along on your months of research?

You don’t want to cut everything you’ve learned. The book needs to be believable. Just keep in mind that the book also needs to be readable.

Top 150 Books This Week

Stephenie Meyer is back on top of the best selling list - USA Today’s list anyway. She got temporarily dethroned a while back by Rick Riordan’s YA series.

According to USA Today, she holds the top four positions this week, followed by Dan Brown’s Angels & Demons (most likely boosted by the movie). In sixth place is another movie-boosted book: My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult. Number seven is from a favorite author of mine, Lee Child with his latest in the Jack Reacher series, Gone Tomorrow.

Rick Riordan is hanging in at number 8 with Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Last Olympian.

Check out the entire list of 150 and see where your favorite books or authors are.

Gabrielle S. Faust on Book Marketing

Our guest author today is Gabrielle S. Faust. Faust is the author of the ETERNAL VIGILANCE vampire series, as well as two collections of poetry entitled BEFORE ICARUS, AFTER ACHILLES and CROSSROADS. She is a member of the Horror Writers Association and currently pens articles for such sites as Fear Zone, Fatally Yours, Austin Art Examiner and Sci-Fi Wire. More information about Faust and her work can be found on her website, www.gabriellefaust.com.

Outside of the literary world, Faust is also widely recognized in the graphic design and illustration communities for her creativity. With over ten years of professional experience, including the founding of Faust Productions, a freelance studio offering graphic design and brand development services, as well as public relations and marketing (focusing primarily on the publishing and independent film industries) for an international portfolio of clients.

She’s going to talk to us today about promoting your books and yourself. Welcome Gabrielle.

Welcome To Book Marketing

That brilliant day has finally come! You’ve received the official acceptance letter from a publisher. All of your hard work has paid off, all of the long hours sweating over your manuscript, all of the tears cried over rejection letters somehow justified. You are a published author. You can sit back, kick up your heels and bask in the ethereal glow of your success. New York art socialites will ask you to attend their parties as the “interesting author”, universities and conferences will ask you to speak for their attendees, royalty checks will be sitting in your mailbox each time you open it…or so the your vision of that day had played out time and time again in your head. And you were content to live blissfully in that delusion. You never would have thought that the hardest leg of your journey had not even begun! No one warned you of the crash course in marketing you would need to master once the book was in print and sitting there like a newborn infant, unable to feed or clothe itself. Yes, my dear authors, it would appear that writing the book, even finding a publisher, is the easy part. Now you must promote it.

The golden era of large-scale in-house marketing departments and fabulously overflowing promotional coffers is unfortunately as extinct as the Ankylosaurus. In today’s fast-paced, cutthroat world of publishing, authors are, more often than not, left to their own devices when it comes to generating sufficient buzz surrounding their work. If said author is unversed in the hydra monster of advertising and marketing, it can be a terrifying undertaking, at least at first. I was lucky enough to have had the opportunity to spend the first ten years of my professional career as an art director and brand manager in the graphic design studio/ad agency world and, thus, it was only second nature to me to instantly begin developing my marketing strategy and brand to promote my vampire series ETERNAL VIGILANCE, even before the first novel was in print. However, I can’t imagine having not had that experience and honed skill set before attempting such a feat. I have heard repeatedly from other authors that the marketing of their book is overwhelming and, at times, feels like a full-time job in itself. They were sadly unprepared for the work that lay ahead of them; those that were able to embrace it have flourished while others have become incredibly discouraged by the process. This is not said to frighten anyone from the publishing world, by any means, but to simply realign one’s expectations to a more realistic outlook of the future, after publication. You, the author, must do the prep work ahead of time, investing the necessary hours to teach yourself about marketing basics and develop a strategic plan of action to ensure that the world hears you and that your work is not buried under the avalanche of titles published each year. You can’t rely on your publisher, your agent, your distributor or your editor to do the work for you. The life of your book is in your hands. Try not to drop it on its head.

There are a few simple things you can do, to start with, to begin developing your book marketing savvy. The first of which is to check out the most current books on marketing strategy. You can find these in your Graphic Design section of your local bookstore or library. While you’re in this department, thumb through some of the books on design trends (logo design, advertisement design, packaging design, etc.). This will give you a current outlook on what is considered “hot” in the world of advertising and design. What you may consider eye-catching, may in all honesty, be quite out of date and stale. Investing the time to do this research will expand your vision of possible marketing avenues and give your “brand” a fresh new look. And, yes, you must begin to look at your work and yourself as a sort of brand. Create a consistency in your marketing materials so that they tie into your book cover design(s). This way, when people pick up a postcard or bookmark from you at a convention or signing they will automatically make the mental connection. The more motivating and eye-catching the design of this brand, the more likely the person will be to gravitate to and buy your book, so give every piece of marketing material equal care and consideration. You may have only one chance, at between two and four seconds, to grab someone’s attention. Make those seconds count.

To get you started on your book marketing path, there are a few current web tools which most authors are using today, that will keep you in touch with your audience, as well as cultivate new readers. However, keep in mind that you must tend to these things with a consistent regularity or else they are worthless. Just like your fichus, if you don’t water it, it will turn brown and die. Also keep in mind that the “brand” I spoke of in the previous paragraph should be carried throughout all of your pages in order to create a consistency. Once you develop a look for your marketing materials, apply this design to all of your web tools. Again, it’s all about creating a recognizable signature that draw readers in and make them remember you as a professional writer, emphasis on the “professional”. If you do not have the skills to create these design materials yourself, invest the money and hire a professional designer to do so. Trust me, it will pay off in the end in folds!

Blogs: Every author must have a blog. Whether you decide to use a free blog such as the ones available through the Wordpress.com website or you chose to set up a more in-depth site with outside hosting space and a custom url, you should have at least one main site where you can direct your readership. Your blog should feature pages talking about your background, your book(s), your book tour (where you will be signing) and contact information. Use the front blog page as a way to regularly update the world with the current news of your progress in your publishing adventure, as well as any industry news related to your specific genre or field. Remember to always be professional, but entertaining. Give the visitors to your blog something that will keep them coming back for more and a reason to tell others to visit your site.

Live Journal: Many authors I know chose to also use Live Journal as a way to keep their readers and fellow authors abreast of their world. Live Journal (www.livejournal.com) tends to have a more personal and relaxed persona to it and gives you the option to set your journal entries to “friends only” or “private” if you would like to be more candid at times than others. LJ is a great way to network and should definitely be considered.

Facebook: Facebook (www.facebook.com) is the new MySpace, so to speak. It is the hot social networking site and is utilized heavily by just about everyone, it would seem. Facebook is an excellent way to instantly update your fans and friends as to your latest news. You can post videos, pictures and create invites to your book signings and convention appearances. Another feature, which I have found very beneficial, is that of Groups. You can create a Group for your book or series which people can join. They can then post discussions about your book, photos related to the book, comments, as well as receive news blasts from you regarding all things related to your work. It is extremely user-friendly and self explainable so if you are easily intimidated by the internet, this will make it all the more pleasant to adapt.

Twitter: I’m sure you’ve heard about Twitter by now. What is Twitter? It is what is referred to as a “microblog” site. The purpose is to allow users to post microblog posts of 140 characters or less, which are instantly viewable to all of the people who chose to follow that particular blog. I must admit that it is a VERY addictive site and quite a bit fun, as well as extremely useful in getting hot news out very quickly to a large network. Again, it is very user-friendly and free, which is always a bonus! Simply sign up with a user name and password at www.twitter.com and start blogging. To talk directly to someone use @theirusername and to join in on group discussions use #discussionname somewhere in your “tweet” or microblog post. There is also, if you want to be even more tied into the grid, a way for you to link your Twitter account to your Facebook account using a program called Tweet Deck (www.tweetdeck.com), which is a free application you can download and install on your computer. Ah, the many possibilities!

MySpace: Those that are fully integrated into the internet often will argue that MySpace is becoming a bit outdated. I have not jumped on that bandwagon just yet. I still find MySpace to be a very useful tool in my marketing efforts, especially to reach out to the younger members of my audience. I also prefer the home page set up of MySpace over Facebook as it allows the user to be more creative in applying their brand to the site that people first see when contacting you. To use an example, here is my MySpace page: www.myspace.com/gsfaust. However, MySpace can be a bit of the Wild Wild West at times so be sure to set up your account so that people can’t randomly post comments without your approval or you may end up with some very random and offensive material on your homepage. Also, it is a good idea, I have found, to change your password regularly to guard against all of those rebel sixteen-year-old hackers out there who still think it’s cool to hijack your site. Don’t let these things intimidate you, though. No site on the internet is 100% safe and where there be technology, there will always be hackers. Just take the necessary precautions to safeguard your work and you’ll be just fine. All of that aside, MySpace is very useful in many of the same ways that Facebook is: you can post videos, blog posts, comments, announcements, photos and send out invites to your followers, which they, in turn, can forward to all of their followers or “friends”.

BlogTV: If you’re feeling like you are really wanting to come out of your shell and push the marketing envelope, there is BlogTV (www.blogtv.com). This will require a webcam and a great deal of courage, but it will allow you to record live video announcements about your work or book tour, as well as interact with viewers of your BlogTV station in real time as they log in to chat with you. I must admit that I am still getting used to this format of promotion, but it is definitely a marketing tool that I will continue to use. The videos generated on BlogTV are stored in your personalized channel on the site, but are also downloadable so that you can post them on your blogs, websites or even upload them to YouTube! And all for FREE!

These are only a few of the current web tools you can utilize for the promotion of your novel and, believe it or not, it only skims the surface of what can and should be done to properly promote your work. But don’t be overwhelmed! It is a learning experience with its own learning curve and once you take the plunge, you’ll find it isn’t as terrifying as you once thought. The end result: the world will know about the book you spent all of those years writing. And isn’t that what all authors really want out of the publishing process?

Good luck!

Thank you Gabrielle S. Faust.

Check Gabrielle's website for her upcoming post on Book Trailers.

Ask Gabrielle questions or just say hi in the Comments section, which is now open!

The Book Publicist

The National Post had an interesting article on Book Publicists, specifically Evan Munday, the publicist for Coach House Books.

In the article, he is working with an author, whose pub date is six weeks away and the author is already wanting the marketing to be over with so he can go on vacation.

The job of a book publicist is a thankless one. If a book does well, the author gets the credit. If it fails to get attention, it's the publicist's fault. The publicist's job is the opposite of the editor's. The editor's role is to be invisible. For the publicist, the more visibility, the better. That means connecting with writers, broadcasters, bloggers, critics, editors - right down to readers.

Munday is not a big fan of sending out scads of review copies. And even though newspapers are still the go-to source for book coverage, they’re not the only source.

More and more publicists, especially those working for smaller presses, have harnessed the Net to level the playing field. … Word of mouth: Ask any publicist, they'll tell you that's where it's at.

Another publicist, Penguin’s Stephen Meyers, goes in a different direction for promotion:

He has staged boxing matches, drinking contests and South African-style barbecues to draw attention to his authors. He insists that's essential because journalists "are looking for a good reason to write about a person who's generally perceived to be sitting in a room in front of a typewriter knocking away at the great Canadian novel or whatever," he says. "But that doesn't really make too interesting a story, especially if you have to pitch it 100 times a year."

For the rest of us, who don’t have publicists, what do you like to do to promote your books?

Another New Book Idea

Seriously, I don’t know how people come up with these new ideas. When I say “book idea,” I don’t mean plot. I’m talking a new conception of the book.

Wendy Coakley-Thompson wrote about his in the Examiner. The book is called The Obama Time Capsule: World History in the Making. It’s being done by Hewlett Packard (HP), so that right there should tell you it’s something totally new.

According to the Examiner, here’s how it works:

To make this book possible, HP is fundamentally changing the traditional publishing business model by utilizing an Internet-based platform that makes it possible to print customizable content on demand at low cost. By leveraging the Internet, publishers have fewer barriers to market - the need for large press runs and prepublication costs are removed. Additionally, by only printing what is necessary, excess inventory and waste are also eliminated. Once a book is purchased and personalized, the HP platform 'publishers the book' by uploading the customized pages to a designated print service provider (PSP), which then prints the book using HP's Indigo presses, where it is then bound and shipped directly to the buyer."

What does this mean for this book, specifically?

Using HP’s POD technology, millions of Americans are able to personalize The Obama Time Capsule by interspersing their own names, photos and messages into the book, alongside the work of the world’s leading photojournalists, graphic artists and writers like Arianna Huffington and Joe Klein. In this way, each copy of The Obama Time Capsule is unique.

Will people want to do this?

As of [Friday, May 22], Amazon.com lists The Obama Time Capsule’s sales rank as “#1 in Everything Else.”

What about you? Would you buy this book with the idea of personalizing it and making it “yours”?

Get Ready to be Bushwhacked

Just about every player in the (W) Bush administration are about to hit the bookshelves with their memories of the Bush years.

I wondered why Dick Cheney suddenly was everywhere on TV, ranting, defending, and giving interviews. I assumed he was trying to position himself as the head honcho of the Republican party and a possible future candidate for the presidency. And he may be, but The New York Times reports that:

Mr. Cheney is actively shopping a memoir about his life in politics and service in four presidential administrations, a work that would add to what is already an unusually dense collection of post-Bush-presidency memoirs that will offer a collective rebuttal to the many harshly critical works released while the writers were in office and beyond.

The NY Times said he may not get his asking price, considering the economy.

A person familiar with discussions Mr. Cheney has had with publishers said he was seeking more than $2 million for his advance.

Plus, he’s not the only one from those years penning a book.

Already working hard to meet publishers’ deadlines is an informal writers’ workshop of historic proportions: President George W. Bush; Laura Bush, the former first lady; former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice; former Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr.; former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld; and Karl Rove, the former presidential political mastermind.

Although Mr. Cheney is late in jumping on the publishing wagon, his fellow Bush administration members are helping him:

Members of the Bush group are in regular contact as they seek to jog their memories, compare notes and trade stylistic tips in their new lives as authors, according to friends and current and former aides.

Are you ready with your checkbook for the onslaught of the Bush year memories?

Visual Writing Prompt 5-24-09

This past Friday, I blogged about Books From Blogs. In that blog, I mentioned a blogger who got a book deal based on her picture-heavy blog on cats. The book has sold over 100,000 copies.

I facetiously asked on what subject matter I should create a stupid blog aimed at getting me a huge book deal. Patricia Stoltey suggested a book on feet.

Well, as luck would have it, I already have the cover pic. Currently, it’s up on my website. And now, it’s here today on Straight From Hel.


Now, that cat site got lots of hits because each cat picture had some crazy caption to go with it. What can I label this one?

Sidewalk intersection.

Where the feet meet the tile.

Seven people, one mind.

The meeting of the toes.

The Right Footed Society.

You put your right foot in, you put your right foot out…

Hmm. Clearly, I shouldn’t give up my day job to write comedy.

One Gift Book

If you knew a writer, unpublished, and you wanted to give him or her a book, what would it be?

Would it be a quick and easy to follow grammar book? My favorite is Grammar Girl’s Quick and Dirty Tips For Better Writing by Mignon Fogarty.

Would you choose a book for plot structure, like The Writer’s Journey: Mythic Structure for Storytellers & Screenwriters by Christopher Vogler? A great book I have on my resource shelf.

Maybe Intent to Sell: Marketing the Genre Novel by Jeffrey Marks or The Marshall Plan for Getting Your Novel Published by Evan Marshall or On Writing by Stephen King - all of which are on my shelf (along with tons of others).

But which ONE would you give?

For my aspiring writer last Sunday, I gave Hooked by Les Edgerton. A great book on starting your story, be it a book or a short story.

What about you?

Books from Blogs

When you think of The Washington Post, you don’t usually think “funny.” But this past Sunday, Gene Weingarten was funny in his article, Can I Has Money? It’s about books being published and which ones are pulling in the big advances.

The point I am trying to make is that it is very, very difficult to get a book published, which is why I am dismayed by a hot new phenomenon in the publishing industry: People who cannot write are getting fat book contracts for work they didn't do. I'm talking about certain kinds of bloggers: people who run Web sites that subsist on things like reader-submitted snapshots of dogs in stupid outfits or photos of big plates of greasy food.

He cites one blog in particular:

The Web site Lolcats.com, which features photos of people's cats paired with illiterate captions, has become a book called "I Can Has Cheezburger?" which has sold more than 100,000 copies. (This is more than twice as many copies as my three books have sold, altogether, and that's counting the fact that, like all authors, I lie about my sales.)

Okay, two questions for you:
1. What do you think about this trend?
2. On what subject matter should I create a new blog that’s got to be totally stupid and picture heavy?

E-Readers and Publishers

A New York Times article, titled Steal This Book (for $9.99), talks about the public push for publishers to lower the price of e-books.

For many readers, this may sound like sufficient reason. Buying music, after all, is so much cheaper now that there aren’t discs and plastic cases. Shouldn’t the same logic apply to books? …
Publishers are caught between authors who want to be paid high advances and consumers who believe they should pay less for a digital edition, largely because the publishers save on printing and shipping costs. But publishers argue that those costs, which generally run about 12.5 percent of the average hardcover retail list price, do not entirely disappear with e-books. What’s more, the costs of writing, editing and marketing remain the same.

Without going into how that “writing, editing and marketing” cost is falling more and more on the author to cover, what this article seemed to really be about is the publishers fear of Amazon.

For the moment, say some publishers, Amazon is effectively subsidizing the $9.99 price tag for new book titles in digital form by paying publishers the same $13 it pays them for a new hardcover title with a list price of $26. It’s a classic “loss leader” situation. Although Amazon won’t comment on the arrangement, the online bookseller is using low-price e-books as a lure to persuade consumers to pay $359 to buy a Kindle, or $489 for the new, larger Kindle DX.
But Amazon presumably won’t be willing to take those losses forever. And publishing executives say they fear that Amazon eventually will pressure them to accept lower payments for e-books.

Sure, there are other e-readers out there, but Amazon, for the moment, rules the roost.

Publishers are hoping that as more people begin to use e-readers, they may be buying books for less, but they’ll buy more of those books. And publishers hope to raise their bottom line through more sales. Let’s hope that scenario includes the authors’ bottom lines.

Shooting Star Award

This past Sunday, I received the Shooting Star Award from the Barbara Burnett Smith Mentoring Authors Foundation.

Cool.

But the coolest part is I received it for doing something fun and interesting.

I served as a mentor to an aspiring writer. It wasn’t some huge task and it didn’t take long. She and I are going to keep in touch and she’s going to send me more pages to read.

If you’re a published author and live in the Austin area, you can become a Mentoring Author next year. It doesn’t take a long time and you’re giving back to your writing community. Just contact the Heart of Texas chapter of Sisters in Crime and let them know you’re interested in participating next year.

And if you don’t live in central Texas, consider starting this kind of program in your community. Make connections with other writers. Reach out and lend a hand. And better yet, reach out and learn. Writers can learn from each other.

From my experience, writers are some of the most giving people. A lot of writers made a difference in my life when I first started out - and are still making a difference. I urge you to be one of those writers for someone you know.

Keeping Up Your Database

All authors, both published and pre-published, need to be maintaining a database -- tracking people you meet, people who email you, people who order your book directly from you, people who attend your workshop or booksigning, people you interview or work with, folks who hand you their business cards, fellow writers you meet at conferences, and so on.

Don’t make it a big deal, though. Don’t spend hours. You can do it as they come in or you can save it up and enter things once a week. If you don’t do it, you’ll lose track of those people. And you’ll lose the opportunity to include them in your announcement of your recent publication. Or your upcoming appearance on TV. Or your book launch. Or whatever you need to promote.

Now, don’t be collecting contact info on people you don’t know or haven’t met. If you send them stuff, you’re spamming. Nobody likes spam - the email, phone or snail mail kind. Everybody likes spam the meat. Or is that just me?

Find an easy way to keep your database. I keep mine on my Palm - not my hand, the device for keeping your calendar and addresses. Other people use their Palm for other things, but mine’s one of the first, ancient ones and I don’t have Internet connection and all the other jazz. I can put in all the information I want on someone and even label the entry, such as Author or Agent or Personal. Get a program where you can create your own categories for sorting.

There are other, newer programs that are even better. This is what I’ve been using for years.

Anyone else have a recommendation for keeping up with your database?

What Are You Drinking?

I work at my desk in my office at home. In the mornings, I drink coffee and/or hot tea. In the afternoon, it’s either Diet Dr Pepper or water.

But…if I go to a coffee shop, I drink Chai Tea.

What do you drink while you’re writing? If you went to a coffee shop to write, what would you choose? Does what you drink have any influence on your writing? Do you use beverages the way writers sometimes play music to fit the scene they’re writing?

Visual Writing Aid 5-17-09

I took this picture in San Francisco at a museum. It’s one of my favorite story pictures.



This is a stained glass tunnel leading to a closed door.

I can see so many stories developing from this one picture. Currently, I use it on my website on my Editing Services page. It just seemed to fit with the idea of writers can create wonderful stories and memorable characters that can lead them to a door. They can step through that door into another world, both in the stories themselves and in the new adventure of being published authors.

What story do you see in this picture?

Event for Writers and Readers

If you live in the Austin area, join me tomorrow at 2 pm at the Westlake Barnes & Noble. We’ll be celebrating mystery, all writers, and Barbara Burnett Smith, in particular. Barbara was the author of the Purple Sage mysteries and a friend. She was also a past-president of National Sisters in Crime.

The Sunday event is called the Barbara Burnett Smith Aspiring Writers Event (BBSAWE), sponsored by the Heart of Texas chapter of Sisters in Crime and the Barbara Burnett Smith Mentoring Authors Foundation. BBSAWE is held each year during Texas Mystery Month, a month of mystery events held across Texas. Barbara was known for her willingness to share and help other writers, so part of the event is honoring another author who exemplifies Barbara’s spirit. This year that author is Micqui Miller. She’ll be given the Sage Award.

Other authors join in by mentoring aspiring writers. There’s no contest to be one of the aspiring writers. You just have to send in your material and the Heart of Texas chapter of Sisters in Crime matches you with a published author. During the event, the published authors and the aspiring authors meet and discuss the work they submitted and/or any questions the mentees have.

This year, I was honored to be asked to serve as a mentor. My mentee is Lisa Carroll-Lee. Lisa has been published in short story and is working on her first novel. We’ve emailed, and I’m looking forward to meeting her in person.

Other mentoring authors who will be there include: David Ciambrone, J.F. Constantine, Susan Rogers Cooper, Jan Grape, Joan Upton Hall, Russ Hall, Julie Wray Herman, Karen Swartz MacInerney, Sylvia Dickey Smith, Vallie Fletcher Taylor, and George Wilhite.

There will be lots of fun for everyone who comes, including a talk by Micqui Miller, a tribute to Barbara Burnett Smith, a “Murder in Four Parts” mystery, and Best Worst First Lines of a Mystery Story.

There are always refreshments and authors will have books there to sign.

So, come by the Barnes & Noble Bookstore in The Village of Westlake Shopping Center, Sunday, May 17th, from 2 to 5.

Gaming

I turned in the manuscript for TechCareers: Avionics Technology, the second in the series that I’ve written for TSTC Publishing on April 14th. About two weeks later, my publisher emailed and asked if I’d like to write another one called Gaming.

Ooh, I thought. Vegas. Atlantic City. Finding out how those one-armed bandits look on the inside and how techs work on them. Field trips!!

Then I found out it’s about creating computer games and iPhone apps and stuff like that - the 3-D graphics and the programming for them. Even better! I won’t be losing money on the tables. (Actually, the only games in Vegas that I play are the quarter slot machines. But I have a winning formula. Keep this quiet: Put in $20. If you start losing too much, cash out, take a break, breathe. Then try again and when you start winning and get back up to the $20 you started with, quit. Or if you get distracted and look down, only to discover that you’re up to $40… scream, cash out and run.)

Oh, er, uhm … Back to the gaming book.

I’ll be looking for people to interview who know about creating computer games -- students in a gaming program, instructors, employers, experts in 3D graphic design, programmers, etc. From those interviews, I’ll create Profiles. Email me! But be quick. This book has a fast turnaround. The drop dead deadline is August 1.

Email me at: helenAThelengingerDOTcom

P.S. One advisory on using my slot machine system: Don’t use it unless you can sprint really, really fast. Casino guards do not like someone who screams, grabs money and runs through the casino. They go a bit nuts. Seriously. Run fast. Really fast.

Naming the Best Sellers

In Wednesday’s USA Today, they gave a snapshot of the five best sellers by showing how each one relates to the other in proportion of sales.

Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Rick Riordan - 10
Dead and Gone, Charlaine Harris - 6.6
New Moon, Stephenie Meyer - 4.8
Twilight, Stephenie Meyer - 4.5
Eclipse, Stephenie Meyer - 4.3

This means that for every 10 copies of Percy Jackson and the Olympians that sold, 4.3 copies of Eclipse sold.

What I’m wondering is what happened recently to send Riordan’s series to the top? Meyer’s series has been hogging the top spots forever. So, what happened?

Could it be the recent news about the upcoming Percy Jackson movie? The appearances on TV by actors? Is it that summer is coming up and parents are buying books for their tweens and they want something that not only entertains but also teaches? Did Meyer’s three highly popular books cancel each other out in top sales?

I’ve read both Meyer’s and Riordan’s books and like them, so I’m not choosing sides. Just wondering.

What do you think?

Book Tour Planning

Yesterday, we talked about targeting your audience when you’re out on a book tour. Today, we discuss Planning.

Plan ahead. Don't just show up and hope for the best. Send out your own press releases. Work with the store's CRC (Community Relations Coordinator), either in person or via the phone. Send the CRC an advance copy of your book. Store clerks can do amazing things hand-selling your book, but they're more likely to do that if they've read it. Make sure there will be copies of your book available to sign and sell (yes, I've seen signings where the author showed up, but no books did). If the store will provide a big poster of your cover with information about the signing to promote the event, as well as to stand close by during the signing, that's great. If not, make your own or prepare something else to pull in buyers -- something that will draw over people who might otherwise avoid the scary-looking person sitting at the table (you). But check with the store to make sure it’s okay. (Some stores may not want you handy out candy to kids who then handle books with their sticky hands, for example.)

Some authors, when possible, visit the store a week or so ahead of time. They introduce themselves to the CRC and leave bookmarks or postcards that can be put in customers' sacks.

Also, Ray Bard with Bard Press recommends that you give all the information about your tour to your sales rep. It'll help her promote your book when she goes to bookstores to sell it.

As part of this "plan ahead," consider teaming up with other authors. Find others who have books coming out about the same time as yours and go together. That not only saves time and money, it can be a good gimmick to help with promotions and convince stores to book your event. Look for authors who have a common theme, either via genre or time frame or setting or whatever.

Once you know your schedule, try to set up radio and/or television interviews to coincide. Send newsworthy press releases to local papers with a release date that converges with the day or week you'll be in town. Work with the bookstores to get invitations and announcements sent out.

Book tours are a lot of work - and take a chunk of money. To make them profitable isn’t easy.

Remember Book Tours?

We’ve talked so much about virtual book tours that it’s almost easy to forget that most writers still do in-person tours. The big name authors might go from city to city. Smaller niche authors might go from winery to winery or craft store to craft store, depending on their niche. Some authors tour from point A to point B.

I know there are authors who feel like book signings in stores are a waste of time. There are just as many that swear by them.

Malcolm Jones in Newsweek said that touring is "as much about selling the author as the book." He also said that a successful tour is "still more about chutzpah and glamour than literature." I think that's true. You have to sell yourself as well as each particular book.

I also think it's true that it's easier to do if you're a big-time author with a big publisher and a well-paid publicist. Duh. But most of us are not only the writer, we're also the editor, the publicist, the tour bus driver, and everything else. We couldn't afford to pay someone to do all that we do!

A writer has to have more than chutzpah to sell books. He (or she) has to be organized and relentless. And he has to be frugal -- most of us don't have the $2,000 a day that publishers estimate it costs to send an author on tour.

First of all, target your audience. This means going to the cities that will net you the most sales. Certainly, visit all your local stores. You're going to sell best there. Do some research and find out which stores elsewhere have a record of good sales. Big independents in cities like Denver, Seattle, and St. Paul are known for their author promotions. They're not the only cities or the only stores that have good track records, though. Decide where you're going and target the stores on your route. Targeting your audience also means aiming your promotional time and money on the people most likely to buy your book. If your book takes place in an officers' club, then why not sign at stores close to military bases? If your book involves a librarian, then make sure press releases and posters go to close-by libraries.

Second of all, don’t forget to look to places that aren’t bookstores, but where your book would fit in. A book involving quilts? Check out quilt shows or sewing clubs. Look to find niche markets where your book would have appeal. Think outside the box.

Goodbye to Bud Shrake

Writer Bud Shrake died this past Friday. Although he’s considered a giant in Texas literature, having set all but one of his novels in the Lone Star State, he’s well-known around the world. He started as a journalist and moved into novels and biographies, including one of Willie Nelson, and screenplays.

Although a native of Fort Worth, Texas, he died in Austin, of cancer. In the 60s and 70s he was part of a group of Austin writers known as the Mad Dogs. Austin screenwriter, photographer, and friend, Bill Wittliff, said, “Bud was a treasure. He was one of those who took the raw material of our history and was making real literature of it. He was one of the greats with Larry McMurtry and Cormac McCarthy. We were fortunate indeed to have his voice.”

Shrake was probably best known for his book on golfing. He co-authored Harvey Penick’s Little Red Book, which became the best-selling sports book in publishing history, according to the Dallas News.

Shrake grew up during the depression. When asked why he became a writer, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reports that he answered:

The sight of bread lines and soup kitchens was always scary to me. I had this fear of being destitute. Somebody said the other day, 'Well, if you were afraid of being broke, you sure picked quite a way to make a living.' "

According to the Dallas News, “He was friends with some of the best-known literary, cultural and political stars of the era, including Willie Nelson, George Plimpton, Norman Mailer, James Dickey and William Styron.”

His literary agent, Esther Newberg, said:

He loved Texas. There isn't anybody you'll find who could say anything bad about him. And you don't find many people who have lived that long that you can say that about.

Bud Shrake was married three times, twice to the mother of his two sons, but the love of his later years was Ann Richards, ex-governor of Texas. He called her the anchor of his life for 17 years. He will be buried beside her in the Texas State Cemetery.

Visual Writing Aid 5-9-09

Last summer, I took quite a few pictures during my trip to San Francisco. This is one I took at a Redwood forest park.


Not sure whether this was a vine or a dying tree limb, but it was hanging down almost to the forest floor. The shape and angles intrigued me.

I decided to post it today because I just finished reading The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly. This oddly shaped tree limb/vine makes me think of that book -- the Crooked Man, the wild forests the boy travels through, the shifts and twists of the plot.

Do you ever keep pictures that remind you of the book you’re working on? Do you hang them up so you can see them as you work? Make them into a screen saver?

Be a Featured Author at the TBF

Since I’m a Chair for the Texas Book Festival, I get asked by writers how they can be invited to appear at the festival. The fact is that although the staff does a great job of finding wonderful authors, they can’t know about everyone, even though they’ve been out talking to publishers for months. So, if you haven’t been contacted by now, it’s up to you to let them know about your book.

And you can do that. Or you can have your publicist or publisher do it for you.

Just go online to the Festival site and you’ll find out how.

Here are some things to keep in mind:

You have to have had a book published in the 18 months prior to the start of the Festival.

Your book can’t have been self-published.

You or your publicist will have to send in copies of your book, a press kit, an author bio and more.

And if you want to be considered to speak or be on a panel, act now. It’s best if you submit all your material before June 1st. Authors are already being lined up and preference is given to those who act early.

And, just to let you know, I have absolutely nothing to do with who gets chosen. That’s done by a committee. I don’t even choose who appears at the Austin Museum of Art, the event that I chair.

The Texas Book Festival is a huge event – and that means many authors participate. If you want to be one of them, go online and find out how.

Macavity Awards

This has been a week of awards. On Monday, I listed the winners of the Agatha Awards. Yesterday, I talked about an award new to me -- the Innovations in Reading Prizes. If you’re involved with an organization or group that promotes reading, be sure you check into those awards.

Today I’m listing the Macavity Award Nominees. No winners yet, so you have until October to read the nominated books and see if you can figure out the winner in each category. They will be presented at Bouchercon in Indianapolis.

The Macavity Awards are given out by Mystery Readers International, which, according to its website, is the “largest mystery fan/reader organization in the world.” In case you’re wondering where the awards got their name -- they’re named after the “mystery cat” of T.S. Eliot.

Best Mystery Novel:
• Sean Chercover: Trigger City (Wm. Morrow)
• Deborah Crombie: Where Memories Lie (Wm. Morrow)
• Declan Hughes: The Dying Breed (UK) / The Price of Blood (US) (John Murray/ Wm. Morrow)
• Arnaldur Indridason: The Draining Lake (Minotaur)
• Lisa Lutz: Curse of the Spellmans (Simon & Schuster)
• Louise Penny: The Cruelest Month (Minotaur)
• Louise Ure: The Fault Tree (Minotaur)

Best First Mystery:
• Zoe Ferraris: Finding Nouf (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
• Stieg Larsson: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Knopf)
• G.M. Malliet: Death of a Cozy Writer (Midnight Ink)
• Charlie Newton: Calumet City (Simon & Schuster)
• Scott Pratt: An Innocent Client (Onyx)
• Michael Stanley: A Carrion Death (Harper; Headline)
• Dan Waddell: The Blood Detective (Minotaur)

Best Nonfiction/Critical:
• Frankie Y. Bailey: African American Mystery Writers: A Historical & Thematic Study (McFarland)
• Leonard Cassuto: Hard-Boiled Sentimentality: The Secret History of American Crime Stories (Columbia Univ.)
• Kathy Lynn Emerson: How to Write Killer Historical Mysteries (Perseverance Press)
• David Geherin: Scene of the Crime: The Importance of Place in Crime and Mystery Fiction (McFarland)
• Harry Lee Poe: Edgar Allan Poe : An Illustrated Companion to His Tell-Tale Stories (Metro)
• Kate Summerscale: The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher: A Shocking Murder and the Undoing of a Great Victorian Detective (Walker)

Best Mystery Short Story:
• Dana Cameron: "The Night Things Changed" (Wolfsbane & Mistletoe, ed. by Harris & Kelner, Penguin)
• Sean Chercover: "A Sleep Not Unlike Death" (Hardcore Hardboiled, ed. by Todd Robinson, Kensington)
• Toni L.P. Kelner: "Keeping Watch Over His Flock" (Wolfsbane & Mistletoe, ed. by Harris & Kelner, Penguin)
• Laura Lippman: "Scratch a Woman" (Hardly Knew Her, Wm. Morrow)
• Tom Piccirilli: "Between the Dark and the Daylight" (EQMM, Sep/Oct 2008)

Sue Feder Memorial Historical Mystery:
• Rhys Bowen: A Royal Pain (Berkley)
• Ward Larsen: Stealing Trinity (Oceanview)
• David Liss: The Whiskey Rebels (Thorndike/ Random House UK)
• Jeri Westerson: Veil of Lies (Minotaur)
• Karen Maitland: Company of Liars (Michael Joseph/ Delacorte)
• Kelli Stanley: Nox Dormienda (Five Star)

Congratulations to all the nominees. Have any of you read one of the nominated books? Does knowing a book has been nominated for an award make you want to either check it out or buy it?

Innovations in Reading Prize

This was the first I’d heard of the Innovations in Reading Prize, given out by the National Book Foundation. When I read about this year’s winners, I thought, what a great idea. There are probably groups out there who might qualify, yet haven’t heard of it either.

Each year, the National Book Foundation awards a number of prizes of up to $2,500 each to individuals and institutions--or partnerships between the two--that have developed innovative means of creating and sustaining a lifelong love of reading.

How cool is that!

A selection process was created based on the following criteria: level of innovation, impact and need, with innovation always carrying the most weight. Impact and need came into play only in cases where two programs were judged to be equally innovative. “Innovation” was not limited to meaning only technologically innovative. In some cases, innovation meant identifying a need in the community and developing a program to address that need in a simple and effective way. In all cases, selections were made to reward programs that create and sustain a life long love of reading.

Applications fell into these categories:
Education & Community Outreach
Tools & Technology
Schools & School Libraries
Public & University Libraries
Literary Magazines & Publishers
Book Clubs, Reading Series & Performance
Individuals

And who received the 2009 Innovations in Reading Prizes?

Fathers Bridging the Miles (a program of Read to Me International)
Eloy, Arizona

Maricopa County Library District (Perry Branch)
Maricope County, Arizona

James Patterson’s ReadKiddoRead.com
New York, NY

readergirlz
Tacoma, WA

Robert Wilder
Santa Fe, NM

Go to the website to learn more about each of these programs.

Bitten by Charlaine Harris

To be fair, I, myself, wasn’t bitten by the wonderful author Charlaine Harris. As far as I know, she hasn’t actually bitten anyone. But her Sookie Stackhouse series has bitten a lot of people.

In an age where vampires run amok in books, her series is running ahead of the pack, er, coven, er, flock. What do you call a group of vampires? Never mind. Back to Harris.

In yesterday’s Wall Street Journal, Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg interviewed Charlaine Harris. I can’t get cable where I live, but the HBO series, “True Blood,” is based on Harris' “Southern Gothic” series. The latest in her Sookie Stackhouse series is called Dead and Gone, and Ace Books has issued 400,000 copies. According to Ace Books, “there are more than 8 million copies of the nine-book Sookie Stackhouse series in print.”

Trachtenberg asked Harris what she thought about the show’s racy material.

The sex scenes startled me very much. There are sex scenes in the book, but not as many as in the show. The books are all written in the first person, so when Sookie's brother leaves a scene [for a romantic encounter], you don't see what goes on. But you do with the show, and that took some getting used to at first.

Harris said that once Sookie became a hit on TV, her own life changed. Her sales went through the roof.

When Trachtenberg asked her to define the appeal of genre fiction, she said:

I think we enjoy seeing the familiar become unfamiliar. Also, it's an escape, which people need, especially now. They need to get away from the very real troubles and confusions of everyday life and they need to escape to a place where justice triumphs.

It’s an interesting interview, so pop over and read the full article.

It seems to me that there is almost an overload of vampire books. But that means the door is open for some new twist on the protagonist. What do you think the next big theme will be?

After you leave a comment here, zip over to The Blood-Red Pencil where I'm talking about cutting the bland and mundane from your manuscript. I mean it, Cut It Out!

Writing Dreams

Actually this isn’t a post about writing your dreams. Or dreaming about writing. It’s about what dreams can teach you about writing. (But that seemed like too long of a title.)

First, let me tell you about a dream I had this morning. I usually don’t remember dreams, but this one I do because I woke up during it.

I’m in my car, driving. The sun is high and bright. Heat radiates off the hood, causing me to squint. Despite the air conditioning, my left arm is hot from the sun glaring in the side window. I’m alone and headed back to the house. My husband is at home with the kids. As I turn into the neighborhood, I know this is not where I live now. It is not even where I lived when the kids were babies. It is the neighborhood where I lived as a child from one month to ten years old. Even though I know the way, I take a wrong turn. A car in front of me turns down a side street and I follow. At the first driveway, I u-turn and backtrack, until I get to our street. I roll down the windows and the sharp scent of the pine trees lining both sides of the road floats in. I pass the persimmon tree that has stood there forever, since I was a child and snitched persimmons on my walk home from school. I smile.

I approach the driveway. The house is the same as from my childhood. Except instead of a front yard, there is a small pond. The ground around the pond is wet, soupy, as if there had been a big rain. The mud lies between the water and the green grass that encircles it like a bright emerald picture frame. As I get closer to the house, I wonder about the lake. Will it stay against the hot sun? Will it be overtaken by the grass? What will the fish do if it dries up? Before I reach the house, I spot something lying in the mud, next to the brown water.

A child. A very young child in diapers. Face down.

I slam on the brakes and fly out of the car. Screaming for my husband.

A baby. My daughter.

I run toward her. The mud slows me, but I push through it, gunk caked over my shoes, sucking my feet down. I must lift my right foot high, shove it forward, then drag the left. Lift, shove, drag. Lift, shove, drag. She is still too far to reach.

My baby.

And then I wake.

Lisa Logan could interpret the dream for me, I’m sure. But I really don’t need her to since I know why I dreamed it. The dream itself and the purpose behind the dream isn’t particularly important. What it says about writing is.

I tried to write this dream as I experienced it, as I felt it. Notice the flow. I’m driving. I’m aware of the sun and the heat. The smells and the memories. My sentences are long, languid.

Then something goes wrong. In a flash I know what it is and I react. My sentences (and the scenes in my dream) become short, broken, fast, choppy.

I can’t reach my daughter. My sentences reflect that. They become complicated, as weighted down as my feet. Repetitive and laborious, as I slog through the mud. I’m no longer using words like “emerald,” “bright,” or “float.” Now, it’s “gunk,” “sucking,” and “drag.”

The last sentence is two words. A cry.

As you write, look at your sentences. Make them reflect, support, become the actions. When your scene becomes tense or hurried, your writing should make your readers’ hearts beat faster, not slower. As this dream became tense, I (in the dream) no longer notice the trees or the grass. If your character is about to get shot or is the one aiming his gun at someone, he’s not likely to admire the lone petunia in a pot. He may have seen it earlier, but now his focus, his life, has narrowed to one moment, one thought. And your writing should be just as focused.

As you edit your work, look at the different scenes in your book, whether they’re tense or funny, and make your words and sentences not just fit the mood, but establish the mood.

Is this something you’re aware of as you write and edit?

Mystery Book Awards

The Agatha Awards are named in honor of Agatha Christie, and, as such, are given to books that exemplify her style and genre.

The Agatha Awards honor the "traditional mystery." That is to say, books best typified by the works of Agatha Christie as well as others. For our purposes, the genre is loosely defined as mysteries that:
• contain no explicit sex
• contain no excessive gore or gratuitous violence
• usually feature an amateur detective
• take place in a confined setting and contain characters who know one another

Novels and stories featuring police officers and private detectives may qualify for the awards, but materials generally classified as "hard-boiled" are not appropriate.

Another thing which makes them different from most awards is that there isn’t a panel of judges who chooses the winners. The voting is done by secret ballot by the attendees at the Malice Domestic conference each year. In other words, mystery writers, readers, and lovers – people like you and I.

In case you missed this, here’s a list of the newly announced Agatha winners:

Best Children’s/Young Adult
“The Crossroads,” by Chris Grabenstein (Random House)

Best Short Story
“The Night Things Changed,” by Dana Cameron (Penguin Group)

Best Non-Fiction
“How to Write Killer Historical Mysteries,” by Kathy Lynn Emerson (Perseverance Press)

Best First Novel
“Death of a Cozy Writer, by G.M. Malliet (Midnight Ink)

Best Novel
“The Cruelest Month” by Louise Penny (St. Martin’s Press)

You can find the full list of the nominees on the Malice Domestic site.

Congratulations to all the winners!

Visual Writing Prompt 5-3-09

Happy Sunday everyone. Today I’m sharing another visual writing prompt. Otherwise known as a picture that may inspire you to write. This is one I took in South Carolina:


Not sure why, but trees appeal to me. They can take such odd and amazing shapes and colors. This one, as you can tell, is quite grand. It looked like it had been standing for years, as I’m sure it had been, in quiet majesty.

What was most interesting, to me, was the Spanish Moss. The day I took the picture, it was cold and windy. But only the moss on the left side is blowing. The moss on the right is hanging straight down, oblivious to the wind. Lest you think I pieced two pics together, I assure you, I am not that good with Fireworks.

When I took the picture, I was enthralled by the size, shape and position of the tree. When I saw the result, the moss was spooky. The wind was really howling that day and yet the moss on one side stayed calm. There’s a lot of symbolism in this tree, to my eyes. How about yours?

A Fabulous Free Class

Are you an author looking to take to the cyber highway for a blog book tour? Never done one before? If you want to get ready, learn how to do a fabulous tour, and find the right hosts for your stops, then quit whimpering in the corner of your office. It may seem overwhelming, but it’s not. You can learn how to organize and do a tour in an intense class that’s free. Yeah, free.

Zip over to Blog Book Tours. A class started yesterday. You might not be able to get in since it began May 1st, but then again, maybe you can. But even if you can’t, follow along with the bloggers who are learning and you’ll learn something along the way.

Dani Greer leads the class. She’s the kind of teacher you want. She tells you exactly what you need to do – and she doesn’t let you skip a lesson or slip. You may even think she’s a taskmaster, but by the end of the class, you will know how to do a blog tour and what’s expected of you by the hosts. You’ll have built up visitors to your blog and you will have found potential hosts for your tour.

Right now the class has started their first lesson. They must blog every day this month. Every day. No skipping days. And they must visit the blogs of their fellow students – as many of them as each person can get to, each day. I didn’t say the class would be easy, just beneficial.

So, if you want to know how to do a successful blog book tour, go over to Blog Book Tours and check it out.

It’s Not Over ‘til It’s Over

For quite a while now we’ve had the back and forth between Google and publishers and authors over Google’s decision to digitalize books. Finally, there was a settlement -- Google said it would pay $125 million into a book rights fund to pay authors and publishers.

Well, “settled” doesn’t mean “finished.”

According to the Dayton Business Journal,

The U.S. Department of Justice is looking into a proposed settlement by Google Inc. with authors of books it wants to put online, according to news reports.

A New York judge recently pushed back the May 5 deadline for authors to tell Google whether they want to opt out of the deal. Now that date has been moved out four more months.

Apparently the problem is in the details of the agreement. According to The Register:

The details of the agreement reached with publishers gives Google monoploy rights on publishing books included in the deal - so if Google decides to delete a title it will effectively disappear. If Google labels a book "inappropriate", no one else can publish it online without risking being sued. There's no indication what Google might dee an "inappropriate" book.

The Register also notes other concerns over the agreement:

Under the agreement Google pledged to establish a Books Right Registry - US copyright holders can get onto the register and get a cut of 63 per cent of Google's earnings from their work, or can ask for their work to be removed. If they don't receive an opt-out request, Google has the right to scan and offer for sale digital copies of books. … The deal also controversially gives Google rights over "orphan works" - books written by people who cannot be traced.

Ars Technica went more specifically into concerns by some authors and publishers about the deal:

So, for example, the agreement as structured could essentially turn Google into the sole rightsholder for orphaned works, which would mean that anyone would have to negotiate with the company over the use of these works. Other objections focus on the fact that Google could control the sale and distribution of out-of-print works, even if the original author decided to release it under a more liberal license. Other recent objections suggest that the settlement, by giving the search giant control of how the out-of-print works are displayed, could allow the company to censor and selectively display these works, based on community standards or political concerns.

If you want more info, including links to the motion filed to intervene in this case, check out The New York Times.

So apparently, it’s not over ‘til it’s over. You’ve got about four more months to weigh in and be heard. The best place to voice your opinion is with The Authors Guild or talk to your publisher.