Jean Henry Mead’s blog becomes book

Jean Henry Mead

Today I’m delighted to welcome Jean Henry Mead, whose Mysterious People blog has given birth to a brand-new book with Poisoned Pen Press.

 *The Blog That Became a Book*

*By Jean Henry Mead*
 
           When I first began interviewing mystery novelists for my blog site, Mysterious People, I had no idea they would wind up in a book, although I had published three other books of interviews with Western and Hollywood screen writers, politicians, artists and ordinary people who had accomplished extraordinary things.

           So it made sense that a book about mystery writers was in order, but who would publish interviews that had already appeared online? Bestselling novelists such as Carolyn Hart, Jeffrey Deaver, Louise Penny and John Gilstrap undoubtedly sold the book. Three publishers were interested and I decided to go with Poisoned Pen Press, the number two mystery publisher in the U.S.  Coincidentally, quite a few of PPP’s authors had already been interviewed.

           Because mysteries appear in a variety of subgenres, I divided the writers according to their specialties: the traditional mystery or cozy, historicals, suspense and thriller novels, crime, police procedurals, private eyes and senior sleuths (sometimes called “geezer lit”). There are also medical thrillers, romantic suspense as well as science fiction mysteries and the niche novels which cover endless subjects. I had no idea there was such diversity until I started categorizing them.

           Those I’d interviewed had fortunately written articles about various aspects of publishing, including writing tips, marketing and promotional advice, and their opinions on the current state of the publishing industry, among other topics. So the book is a good read for aspiring mystery writers as well as readers. I can say that objectively because I didn’t write the book, I just asked the questions.

           Carolyn Hart, bestselling author of the /Henrie O and Death on Demand /series, talks about her new protagonist, Bailey Ruth Raeburn, who returns to earth as a ghost to anonymously unravel complicated mysteries. John Gilstrap explains why a bestselling novelist still holds down a fulltime job and international bestseller Rick Mofina provides sixteen great tips for writing thriller novels as well as discussing his struggle to the top of the charts.

           A number of Canadian and UK authors share their publishing views as well as comparing books from their countries with those of the US. Suspense novelist Paul Johnston writes from his native Scotland as well as his home in Greece while Tim Hallinan divides his time between Thailand and southern California, writing much of his work in Bangkok cafes. Gillian Phillip writes YA mystery novels from Barbados and her native Scottish highlands, and international airline pilot Mark W. Danielson composes his suspense novels during layovers in various parts of the world.  One of my favorite interviews was with Bill Kirton, whose humor and compassion led to an Internet friendship. I also enjoy his writing.

           Another English native, Carola Dunn, writes historical mysteries about her countrymen as does Rhys Bowen, who lives and writes in California about historical English royals. Other historical novelists include Larry Karp, who writes about Ragtime music and the people who made the genre popular during its heyday.  And Beverle Graves Myers, who brings operatic mysteries to life from eighteen century Venice.

           Jeff Cohen, Tim Maleeny, Morgan St. James, Phillice Bradner and Carl Brookins add humor to their mysterious plots, so prepare to laugh when you pick up their books. There are police procedurals, medical thrillers and romantic suspense novelists represented here as well as niche mysteries designed for readers who love dogs, scrapbooking, zoos, the Arizona desert, space shuttles, weight loss clinics, actors, designer gift baskets and other specialty subjects.

           Nonfiction books about the mystery genre round out this eclectic collection with Edgar winner E.J. Warner, Agatha winner Chris Roerden, Lee Lofland, Jeffrey Marks, and small press publishers Vivian Zabel and Tony Burton. So there’s something for everyone who enjoys some or all the mysterious subgenres.

           The book is currently only available on Kindle at:
http://tiny.cc/zsgsl
as well as Barnes & Noble and Sony readers.

Jean Henry Mead began her career as a news reporter, later serving as a news, magazine and small press editor. The author of four novels, she has also published nine nonfiction books. Her magazine articles have won state, regional and national awards and have appeared domestically as well as abroad.

 

 

 

Writing the Breakout Mystery: Donald Maass’ Quickie Version

How do you write the breakout mystery, the novel that transcends genre and takes your work, and perhaps your career, to the next level? Literary agent Donald Maass gave a condensed workshop on the topic at the Mystery Writers of America’s recent Edgar Symposium in New York City. I picked up lots of good pointers and I’m passing on a few of them today, along with an exercise you can use to deepen the plot of your proposed book or your work-in-progress.

I was delighted to realize that Eldercide, my suspense novel about end-of-life issues, has many “breakout” characteristics; here I’ll refer to them to illustrate some of Maass’ key points.

Higher purpose – philosophical questions: breakout novels aren’t simply about an isolated crime. (Eldercide addresses the question: When quality of life declines with age and illness, who decides if you’re better off dead? Our society is rapidly aging, our allotted life spans growing ever longer, but at what cost?)

Multiple points of view and story lines as well as more characters – breakout novels usually utilize multiple third-person voices, often including those of children, old people, or the antagonist. (Eldercide opens with the viewpoint of an elderly Alzheimer’s patient, a client of the home health care agency Compassionate Care. Several of the victims have their own points of view, as does the villain.)

The victims matter more than in the usual crime novel. (In Eldercide, we empathize with the victims, whose struggles with declining health and dignity are described in vivid detail).

There’s at least one three-dimensional, fully developed antagonist, who may or may not be the killer. (My villain, Gabriel, is  charismatic, conflicted and reasonably compassionate. He refuses to harm animals, even if it costs him his job, and he channels his obsession with the protagonist, nursing supervisor Claire Lindstrom, into passionate, expressionistic paintings.)

Here’s Maass’ exercise for creating larger, more multiply layered stories with more resonance:

Give your protagonist a life issue separate from the main story. Now complicate the problem: how does it get worse? Think of a solution – why doesn’t it work? Think of another way the issue gets worse, and the way most people would solve it. Why wouldn’t this work?

In the workshop, Maass challenged us to use this technique with our own novels. (I chose to work on the sequel to Eldercide and explore the travails of Paula Rhodes, the CEO of Compassionate Care, whose experience is inspired by my own eight tumultuous running a home care agency.) Complicate the situation still another way, he told us. Who’s going to get hurt? How does the situation cripple the protagonist? What brings the problem to a crisis?

Next, he said, give the protagonist still another problem, but a less serious one, perhaps something humorous or annoying. (I gave Paula secret problems with clutter and disorganization, topics close to my heart.) Again, envision an easy fix, why it won’t work and how it gets worse. What’s the worst-case scenario?

Maass estimated that enfolding these additional story lines into an existing plot might add an additional 30 or 40 pages for the protagonist, and suggested using the same techniques to enrich additional characters as well. There’ll be more scenes, more events, more characters, but the novel will be the richer for it.

It’s also possible to use similar techniques to develop the major themes and settings of the novel, but those are topics for another day. Maass gives intensive weekend and weeklong workshops, and you can learn about them by visiting his agency’s website, www.maassagency.com. More economically, you could buy his book Writing the Breakout Novel by going to the same site. You can even download his book The Career Novelist free of charge.

Reviewing my notes from the conference, I’m amazed how many intriguing twists and turns I came up with for Paula’s character in just a few minutes. Will I try Maass’ methods with the sequel to Eldercide? Absolutely! I’d love to write a breakout novel that actually breaks out.

Have any of you used Maass’ techniques or similar methods? How did they work for you?

Laura Lippman and Lee Child share the view from the top

Laura Lippman

Early in your writing career, you have to believe you can reach the top of the best sellers lists even if you never confide that conviction to anyone else, according to Laura Lippman. That was one of the tips she shared at the Q&A session with fellow best-selling author Lee Child at the Mystery Writers of America’s Edgar Symposiuim last week. Capping a day of illuminating panels, their informal dialogue conveyed a vivid sense of what it feels like to be a best-selling author – and it’s anything but easy.

Lee Child

When they began writing mysteries, both Lippman and Child already had 20 years of media experience, Lippman as a journalist and Child in the TV industry. The initial goal for both? Simply to get published. Child knew he would make it, at least to the entry level of publishing. “You need to be blind to the possibility of failure,” he said. Both began writing to please themselves rather than worrying about the “oughts” of mystery writing or the ingredients for commercial success.

What’s luck got to do with it?

Both consider themselves lucky to have reached their level of success, but “luck accrues to those who work hard,” according to Lippman. She acknowledged, though, that some gifted and hard-working authors just don’t catch a break. Some fall by the wayside, and “the people who persevere may need to reinvent themselves and write under a new name” with a new series if that’s what it takes to keep getting published.

Both authors emerged in 1997 along with Dennis Lehane and Harlan Coben. They all kept “showing up,” publishing a book a year with the goal of making each book better than the one before. Writing never gets easier, said Lippman. If you ever think it’s easy, you’re in trouble. And with increasing success, there’s more pressure and more anxiety.

“There’s nothing that will ever convince you you’ve made it,” says Child. “The horizon keeps shifting” as authors like Dan Brown come along and dominate the best seller charts.

Keeping a series fresh

Lippman has written four stand-alones, including the recent Life Sentences, in addition to her series of ten Tess Monaghan novels. They allow her to explore characters and themes that don’t necessarily mesh with her series, but after the time away from Tess, she’s grateful to be back in her company. “Make sure you write about a character you like spending time with,” she advises.

Child, in contrast, has no plans to write stand-alones. He plans to stick with his protagonist Jack Reacher. “I’m not as smart as Laura,” he quipped. “I’m just trying to get by.” This of course elicited comments from Lippman about his brilliance. Child pointed out that Reacher has the advantage of traveling to many settings for variety. Nonetheless, he said with self-deprecating humor, “It’s okay to write the same novel over and over again with minor changes – it’s what people want and expect.” Over the years, readers build up a relationship where they feel they know Child, and they often write to him confiding things they don’t tell family or friends.

I came away from this discussion with a vivid sense of the unremitting hard work, dedication and self-confidence it takes to maintain a writing career at their level of success. “There’s always something new to chase,” said Lippman. “You’ve never arrived.”

“If you write the perfect book,” Child concluded, “what do you do next? You’re done.”

What about you? Do you have the admirable qualities you need to take your work to the next level? Or do you ever feel as if you’re “done,” perfect or not? I’d love to read your comments. And stay tuned for my report on Donald Maass’s workshop on the breakthrough mystery.

Lee Child’s author photo is copyrighted by the celebrity photographer Sigrid Estrada, whose work I remember from many years ago when I worked at Ladies’ Home Journal. He really does look this good, and he’s friendly and charming as well. Lee is past president of the Mystery Writers of America, and Laura’s the new president. Her author photo reminds me more of Cybill Shepherd than of the unassuming way Laura looks in person – not that she doesn’t look great, mind you. But I decided it was unfair to use a studio glamour shot for the man and a more ordinary candid shot for the woman. 

Getting the call from Ruth Cavin – Gerrie Ferris Finger’s story

Gerrie Ferris Finger with her poodle Bogey

Today I’m excited to welcome guest blogger Gerrie Ferris Finger, the latest winner of the Malice Domestic Best First Traditional Mystery Novel Competition for The End Game, scheduled for release on April 27^th. I just finished reading the advance review copy she sent me. The novel’s thoroughly engrossing, and much edgier than I’d expect from a Malice Domestic winner.

Next week I’ll review the book and give you some of my thoughts on Gerrie’s story. Here’s her description of the many years of dues she paid before getting the call from Ruth Cavin telling her she was a winner. I hope you’ll find it as inspiring as I do.

GETTING THE CALL 

By Gerrie Ferris Finger

I wrote my first novel before I began my newspaper career, right after I got out of college, while I was babysitting my two children. It was a war novel – hey, why not start with something you know everything about, right? It’s a good thing I love to research.

I sent it off to an agent friend, a classmate in college. He told me it was hard to believe a woman wrote the book, and that if he sold it, I should use initials so buyers would think I was a man. Then he gave me friendly advice. He said I should write women’s non-fiction like the stuff in “Cosmopolitan”. Sex positions was going to propel me to the top of the Best Seller List.

I went to work for a newspaper instead. After twenty years as a writer, editor and columnist, I retired to write novels in earnest. Like most journalists, I had a few manuscript starts, but never finished them.  My first effort was a mystery overlaid with romance. I didn’t consider genre when writing the manuscript. I just wanted to tell a story, sell it to a publisher and have a large reading audience. I hired an agent and wrote four books in what she called the romantic suspense genre, before she told me romantic suspense wasn’t selling well.

So okay, let’s do something else. I created Moriah Dru, a former cop turned child finder. Already in love with a detective, Dru wouldn’t be drifting into romance. My agent didn’t like The End Game, because she didn’t like the heroine. Dru had too much angst. After three years, my agent and I parted, and I sent The End Game to large independent publishers (of which there are few) and got requests for the “full” manuscript from all. I wrote the second book while waiting for offers that didn’t come.  

I entered The End Game into the Malice Domestic/St. Martin’s Minotaur competition for Best First Traditional Mystery novel and started another mystery series. I’d forgotten about the Minotaur contest. Who wins contests anyway? Then my contest reader called to tell me she’d sent the novel on to St. Martin’s. The process starts with readers who receive manuscripts from all over the country. They choose the best in their estimation and send them to St. Martin’s.

A couple months went by, and I “got the call” from Ruth Cavin. I was working on a straight romance and almost let the phone ring. Instead, I said “Hello”.

I swear my heart stopped beating as I listened to her words that went something like: “This is Ruth Cavin with St. Martin’s. I’m calling to tell you that your novel won the St. Martin’s contest. Congratulations.”

It couldn’t be any of my joker friends. They didn’t know I’d entered the contest. My husband didn’t know.

My mouth was open and dried-out when I stuttered, “You’re kidding?”

She laughed and said, “I had some wonderful manuscripts to choose from, but I thought yours was just the best.” Just the best. Her wonderful voice still resounds in my head.

When I told my husband I was going to be published by a big New York house, he said, “At last!”  

Thank you Julie for letting me relive that call on your wonderful blog.

Gerrie Ferris Finger

http://www.gerrieferrisfinger.blogspot.com

http://www.gerrieferrisfinger.com

Outliners, blank-pagers, and the challenge of series writing

Jan Vermeer

As a writer, are you an outliner or a blank pager? This is one of those perennial questions that comes up time and again at writers’ conferences, and I’ve heard countless twists on the topic, but never have I heard of a spreadsheet system as elaborate as what Donna Andrews described at the Empire State Book Festival.

Donna has just released Swan for the Money, twelfth in a series of mysteries featuring amateur sleuth Meg Langslow, and she was part of a panel titled “Laugh or I’ll Kill You – Humor in Mysteries.” The topic was a tricky one – asking authors to describe how funny they are is a challenging proposition, and the three authors, all from St. Martin’s Press, took turns assuring each other and the audience how hilarious their colleagues truly were.

Things got more interesting during the Q&A when someone posed a question about working methods and Donna described her spreadsheet. She aims for a manuscript of 80,000 words, then breaks the project down into specific word counts pegged to specific dates and deadlines. She incorporates the plot outline into the spreadsheet as well, so on any given day, she knows exactly where in the story she’s supposed to be and whether she has any catching up to do to meet her self-imposed schedule.

Personally, I’m more partial to Rosemary Harris’s approach. She’s just published Dead Head, the third in her “Dirty Business” gardening series, and she outlines as she goes along. “My synopsis is more like an elevator speech,” she says.

Jane Cleland, author of the series featuring antiques dealer Josie Prescott, falls somewhere between these two extremes. She writes from a detailed synopsis – around 20 pages, although she says her editors would prefer a shorter synopsis of 10 to 12 pages. Her publishing career with St. Martin’s falls between the other two authors as well – her newly released Silent Auction is fifth in a series.

I can’t help wondering how much these authors’ approaches are influenced by the demands of cranking out a book a year under contract with a specific publisher. It’s a challenge I’d dearly love to have, but it’s got to be daunting. Rosemary’s series is the newest, so perhaps she’s still in the early years of inspiration where her characters are concerned, whereas when you reach the twelfth book in a series, a spreadsheet may well be critical in maintaining your momentum.

But I’m just projecting here – the question of how it feels to come up with a book a year in an ongoing series is a topic for a whole different panel. And what author would dare tell the truth if she’s no longer enchanted with the series she’s committed to? I’ve heard Sue Grafton speak, most recently last year at the Edgar Symposium, and I haven’t caught her saying, “I’m sick to death of Kinsey Millhone and I can’t wait to get to the end of the &*(^% alphabet.” That wouldn’t do much for sales!

This train of thought is fueled by two books I’ve just finished, both by well-regarded and gifted authors of popular series. (I won’t disclose their names, because I don’t believe in dissing people online, but they’re not people I’ve mentioned in this post.) Both had minimal plot lines that didn’t hold my interest as much as earlier books in the series, and both were padded with repetition and extraneous detail. I can easily imagine the authors slogging their way through spread sheets, trying bravely to come up with the requisite number of words to meet a deadline.

Still, I’d love the luxury of producing a series on schedule, and I’m hoping to make that happen with the folks at Compassionate Care, the home health care agency in Kooperskill, New York, that’s featured in Eldercide. But till I get that elusive agent and publishing contract, Claire Lindstrom, Paula Rhodes and the rest of my cast of characters will have to put up with my blank-page approach to literary inspiration.

What about you? Are you an outliner or a blank-pager, or do you fall somewhere in the middle? Please leave your comments, and if there’s enough interest, perhaps we can have an extra day devoted to your contributions on the subject.

ANNOUNCING AUTHORS AVANT GARDE!

I’ve just registered two new domain names for my latest blogging brainchild, Authors Avant Garde. One is a dot-com and one is a dot-org. I’m not posting the links, because there’s nothing there yet, but Go Daddy assures me that courtesy of my Visa Gold card, I now own the domains for two years. I’m amazed the name hasn’t been taken already. So what am I going to do with it? You’ll just have to wait and see.

For over three months now, I’ve been planning to start a new blog titled Authors Avant Garde. I even registered the name with WordPress back in December, but till now, that’s all I’ve done. The idea came to me after an ill-fated trip to New York City wherein I missed the Mystery Writers of America’s holiday party due to acute intestinal distress, followed by a memo from MWA banishing Harlequin from their list of approved publishers because they’ve started a POD and self-publishing division, and that’s strictly verboten.

This confluence of MWA events ratcheted up my rage over the many snippy comments I’d been reading online about self-publishing and quality concerns. I was growing increasingly angry about industry snobbism and old-fashioned gate-keepers. Rather than conjure up the winter’s foul mood by writing more on this issue, I invite you to read my post from December 4^th, titled “Was Jane Austen a professional writer? Not according to the Mystery Writers of America.”

I’m hoping the new blog will be a communal effort. Back in December, I even toyed with the notion of forming a not-for-profit corporation, an association of nontraditionally published writers, but I quickly realized that was a terrible idea, at least for me – I don’t always play well with others, and at this stage of my life, I have no need to subject myself to daunting bureaucratic games. So I’ll keep the ultimate control, thank you very much.

So what will I (or we) blog about? I envision Authors Avant Garde (AAG for short) as addressing aspects of writing, publishing and marketing especially from the perspective of self-published writers. I may sell memberships or (gasp!) paid ads, and I’ll offer others the chance to sell their books as well. Traditionally published writers will be welcome too, but they’ll be considered affiliate members.

AAG is very much a work in progress. Till now, it’s existed primarily in my head, but now my brainchild has survived the first trimester of the long dark winter, and I’m going public with the announcement of its impending birth. I don’t have a launch date yet, but if I commit to periodic progress reports on this blog, perhaps that will kick my motivation up a few notches. Never fear, though – it won’t take a full nine months.

I’d love your reactions and ideas. And no matter how this new venture evolves, those of you who’ve helped inspire me with your ongoing comments and support, especially the folks from Blog Book Tours, will always have pride of place.

I’m self-published, I’m out and I’m proud

Here’s another post that’s new to this blog. I wrote it for Morgan Mandel’s site as part of my blog book tour last November. I’ve talked about self-publishing here, but not for ages, so some of my newer readers may be unaware of what I’m about to confess.

IN PRAISE OF SELF-PUBLISHING

True confession time: I’m a self-published author, I’m out and I’m proud! There’s still a certain stigma associated with self-publishing, but the publishing industry is undergoing seismic changes, and I believe those of us who’ve bypassed the traditional system are taking back our power and gaining greater credibility with every passing day.

When I began blogging seriously back in May, I posted about my bipolar diagnosis, saying I’m out and I’m proud. At that time I wrote that self-publishing with a print-on-demand publisher rather a traditional publisher had even more stigma attached than revealing that I’m bipolar. But in the six months since then, I’ve changed my mind. Here are some reasons why.

I was recently honored as 2009 Author of the Year by the Friends of the Albany Public Library for my suspense novel Eldercide. They had a wonderful luncheon in my honor, and when their President Gene Damm introduced me, he pointed out that although they’ve been giving the award for decades, this is the first time they’ve ever chosen a self-published author. The fact that I was self-published didn’t weigh into their decision either positively or negatively; they simply thought my book was the best of the many they considered, and they liked the way I dealt with important social issues regarding aging and death.

In October, I moderated two panels for the Poisoned Pen Web Con, sponsored by Poisoned Pen Press and billed as the first-ever virtual worldwide mystery conference. When I volunteered to serve as moderator, the organizers didn’t ask who had published my books. Rather, they gave me free rein in organizing my panels on social issues and point-of-view. Most of the authors on the panels, which I put together by e-mailing back and forth, had far more impressive publishing track records than mine, but it didn’t matter. (By the way, you can visit the Web Con at the link above to read my panels and access the rest of the conference proceedings free of charge.)

Putting together those two panels made me even more grateful that I took the self-publishing route. Especially in the social issues panel, authors related stories of agents and editors who dictated what they should and shouldn’t write. Child abuse was taboo, for example. Appealing to the broadest possible audience without offending anyone seemed to be the dominant concern, and for the most part, the authors acceded to the restrictions. Those of us who self-publish have no such limitations – we’re free to write about whatever we want, however we want, and to build our own readership without having to appeal to the lowest common denominator.

I tried the traditional route to publication for both my mystery novels. While attempting unsuccessfully to find an agent for Mood Swing: The Bipolar Murders, which deals with mysterious deaths at a social club for the mentally ill on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, I wrote Eldercide.. Perhaps mental illness was too specialized a topic, I thought, and I hoped for more success with the novel that drew on my experience running a home health care agency. No such luck: the rejections continued. Approximately 15 rejections for each book – not many at all, but enough to throw me into a profound clinical depression. I nearly gave up, until some writer friends convinced me to try print-on-demand publishing. I did due-diligence online research on POD companies and settled on Virtual Bookworm, a company in Texas that received consistently good reviews. Within two months of my decision, I had a published book in my hands. I had a major say in the design and layout, and I did my own cover illustration. Lo and behold, my depression lifted, and it hasn’t come back since.

Do I still want a big-time agent and publisher? Yes, that would be great, but my life no longer depends on it. And I plan to acquire them on my terms, when and if I choose. In the meantime, the people buying my books don’t care who the publisher is. Bookstores and libraries carry them when I do the necessary outreach, and they’re available worldwide through Amazon and Barnes & Noble. At my high school reunion last June in Milwaukee, I learned the school had purchased both books for their collection of alumni writers. And a fellow alumna from Norway, an exchange student back in the day, had bought them online as well.

Do I recommend POD self-publishing to other aspiring authors? Absolutely, and even more so since I’ve met Morgan Mandel and so many other successfully self-published writers on line. I firmly believe we’re just beginning to come into our power.  

Are you a self-published author? If so, what sort of stigma have you experienced? If you had it all to do over, would you take a different route? Or are you out and proud like me?

Want to order one or both of my books direct from the source and personally inscribed to you? E-mail me at jlomoe@nycap.rr.com and I’ll tell you how it can be arranged. One of these days I’ll have PayPal up and running on this site, but why wait? I’d love to hear from you.

Was Jane Austen a professional author? Not according to the Mystery Writers of America!

Jane Austen

This past Wednesday, December 2^nd, both literally and figuratively, I suffered through my crappiest visit ever to New York City. I’d been looking forward to a day in Manhattan, culminating in the gala holiday party held by the Mystery Writers of America at the National Arts Club. I caught Amtrak’s 8:05 Empire Express from the Rensselaer station, but as I exited Penn Station, I experienced an acute attack of what might politely be called gastrointestinal distress.

I barely made it to the women’s restroom on Macy’s second floor – having lived in Manhattan for 18 years, I still knew my way around, even managed to find the secret old-fashioned escalator with the wide wooden treads – and found blessed relief in the nick of time. Next, I found a Duane-Reade drugstore, popped some Immodium, and headed for the Morgan Library to see the exhibit of William Blake watercolors and engravings. Happily, I also stumbled upon an exhibition titled “A Woman’s Wit: Jane Austen’s Life and Legacy.”

I’m shamefully ill-acquainted with Austen’s work, but the exhibit was fascinating. I was especially intrigued by the display featuring the first edition of Sense and Sensibility, written between 1795 and 1797. The description read in part:

It was published on commission by Thomas Egerton in 1811, an arrangement in which Austen paid all the publication expenses but retained the copyright and increased her potential profit.

Wow! That sounds exactly like my arrangement with my publisher, Virtualbookworm. So Jane Austen started out as a self-published author. Would she have been eligible for active membership in Mystery Writers of America? Absolutely not.

Today I received an e-mail from MWA, which begins as follows:

Dear MWA Member:

The Board of Mystery Writers of America voted unanimously on Wednesday to remove Harlequin and all of its imprints from our list of Approved Publishers, effective immediately. We did not take this action lightly. We did it because Harlequin remains in violation of our rules regarding the relationship between a traditional publisher and its various for-pay services.

What does this mean for current and future MWA members?

Any author who signs with Harlequin or any of its imprints from this date onward may not use their Harlequin books as the basis for active status membership nor will such books be eligible for Edgar® Award consideration. However books published by Harlequin under contracts signed before December 2, 2009 may still be the basis for Active Status membership and will still be eligible for Edgar® Award consideration.

When they address me as “Dear MWA Member,” they don’t mean I’m a full-fledged Active Status member. Rather, I’m an Affiliate Member, meaning I’m not a legitimate author, and I don’t get any of the major perks, but they’re willing to take my money. In fact, reading the criteria on their website, I may not even qualify for this level of membership. They mention agents, attorneys, editors and other professionals, but nowhere do they mention authors who are self-published, pre-published, or published with a press that doesn’t meet their lofty criteria. In their eyes, apparently we don’t exist.

National Arts Club

Perhaps it’s no coincidence that I was too sick to attend that fancy MWA party. I’m a firm believer in gut reactions and synchronicity. Normally, though I go through a fair number of Tums, my own gut is pretty sturdy, so I didn’t know what was happening to me. The Morgan Library is equipped with a beautiful new ladies’ room with lovely tiling and a large handicapped stall with which I became intimately acquainted over the course of several hours. During my fourth stay in that stall, fearing I might be coming down with the flu, I realized I was never going to make it to the Kandinsky show at the Guggenheim, much less the MWA party, so I trudged back to Penn Station and caught the 4:40 train back home.

The party would have been great; I had a wonderful time last year. But in addition to the lavish hors d’oeuvres, there was an open bar, and I might have said things I’d regret in the cold light of morning. Instead I spent the evening in bed – no food, no booze. I was fine in the morning, so fortunately, it wasn’t the flu  – just something I couldn’t stomach.

Where do books go to die? Find out in my poem on library sales.

In last week’s discussion of print-on-demand technology and self-publishing, several folks commented that the new POD technology is far more environmentally friendly than older technologies. I wonder how many thousands of trees per year sacrifice their lives to produce the thousands of printed works no one buys, that end up on remainder tables and in landfills. Even those that once found a home and presumably a reader often end up consigned to library sales.

I’m an avid patron of these sales. I like the heft, the feel and the reader-friendly larger fonts of hard-cover books, and I usually come away with a couple of cartons of mysteries to tide me over till the next sale. I’ve puzzled over why most of the books for sale are by big-name writers. Is it that no one bought the mid-list and lesser known writers, or did they perhaps buy the books and decide that they were keepers? In today’s post, I’m sharing a poem I wrote about some of my speculations.

Library Sale

 

How many books can you cram in a Hannaford bag?

There’s no official number, but beware –

the putty-colored plastic splits

when poundage passes certain limits.

Grab a box of rice, Ritz crackers, maybe Wheat Thins

if you worry about your waistline.

All approximate the average novel

bound between hard covers.

 

Oh, but the weight of words on paper

far exceeds the carbohydrate calories

in their cheerful colored boxes.

Books have heft. Their corners thrust against

the filmy, flesh-toned plastic, struggling to escape.

Better to double bag them. That’s allowed,

on bag sale day in affluent East Greenbush.

 

Twelve books per bag, at least, for just a dollar

on this final day, this final hour.

How can I lose? If I don’t like the book,

or even if I do, once read, I’ll throw it in the trash,

rather than clutter up my house with more forgotten words.

Less than a dime a book – what else comes so cheap?

 

Watching the greedy throngs grab bargains

from the folding tables, scanning author photos

that smile beguilingly from backs of dusty jackets,

I think about the lifespan of these books,

whether someone paid list or bought at discount,

and why they wound up here.

I ask a volunteer what happens to the rejects,

the ones that no one bags. She says they’re destined for

the dumpster, then probably a landfill miles away. 

 

And so these books may predecease their authors.

I picture them entombed with tons of garbage

in rolling manmade hills, decaying,

billions of words struck soundless

as seagulls wheel and scream

above the dump.

 

©Julie Lomoe 2006

This is the first time I’ve shared my poetry on this blog. I’ve been writing fiction longer than poetry, but I find the two complement each other in many ways. For me, poetry is a more spontaneous form of self-expression, a way of processing my thoughts and feelings. It’s not tied in to my more grandiose ambitions as a writer, since publication isn’t a major goal. There’s immediate gratification in spending a couple of afternoon hours writing a poem, then going out to read it that same evening at an open mic in a local pub or coffee house. These venues are generally congenial: people never put you down or reject your work, and they always applaud. And I’m convinced the poetry process has helped me hone my skills as a writer of fiction.

Would you like to read more of my poetry here? Would you be interested in a post about my poetic process? Please let me know. And check out my blog Wednesday, when I’ll write about my experience as an artist at the 1969 Woodstock Festival of Music and Art.

If you self-publish, will a conventional publisher want you?

“Can self-publishers sell their books to conventional publishers? Should they want to?” Jeff Herman poses this question in his Guide to Book Publishers, Editors & Literary Agents, which has an excellent chapter on self publishing. Yes they can, he says – but they may not want to.

 

Herman’s book is perhaps the most highly recommended guide of its type, and I’ve been buying the new edition every couple of years, although I’ve never seen it for sale in a bricks-and-mortar bookstore. Rather, I learned about it online, through various writers’ groups, and ordered it from Amazon. That makes me part of a clientele that’s very different from traditional bookstore customers. Herman makes some fascinating points in the 2008 edition:

Too many books are published, compared to the quantity and quality of shelf space to accommodate them. You can have a big-name publisher and an invisible book (p. 801).

A self-published book may have sold as many as one million copies . . . but (conventional) publishers may still deem the book as virtually unpublished. Why? Because publishers essentially focus on retail sales, and within retail sales, most of their focus is on bookstores . . . It follows that self-published books that have not penetrated bookstore shelves in any meaningful way, can still be seen as virgin meat by publishers . . .

At a minimum, publishers evaluate self-published books as if they are untested raw manuscripts, and all consideration will be based upon the publisher’s sense of the work’s salability in bookstores. At a maximum, the publisher will take into consideration the self-published book’s sales history and the author’s ability to manifest those results. If it’s believed that the author can duplicate her proven capacity to sell books once the product makes it into the stores, then that will add leverage to the kind of deal the author can make with a publisher. Even if a self-published book did not sell very many copies, a publisher may be very happy to pick it up if they can see that it has unfulfilled potential once it has distribution behind it. Publishers do not have any expectations that self-publishers can or should be able to succeed by themselves. (pp. 802-803).

I especially like the last two sentences. One of my goals in building my online presence is to build an impressive track record that will interest agents and publishers, but maybe I don’t need to wait until I have astronomical numbers. Numbers, though, are a major reason Herman’s become a strong proponent of self publishing. Self-publishers can make as much as a 90% profit on each copy they sell, he says, whereas the traditionally published author makes only a small fraction of that amount.

Granted, he’s discussing self-publishing in terms of hands-on involvement from start to finish. The profit for authors who contract with a POD printing firm like XLibris, Lulu or Virtualbookworm doesn’t approach 90%, but the arrangement can still be far more lucrative than working with a conventional publisher.

Jeff Herman is walking his talk. His 2008 Guide is the 18^th edition of this work, but after many years with traditional publishers, he’s gone the self-publishing route by founding his own firm, Three Dog Press. Since I haven’t been actively agent hunting, I passed on the 2009 edition (pictured above), but I’ll be looking forward to the 2010 version, where I hope he’ll have more to say about self-publishing and print-on-demand. If you’re not familiar with this book, I heartily recommend it.

Thanks for all the great comments on POD and self-publishing over the past week. Let’s keep the discussion going. As for me, my head is spinning, and I plan to lighten up a bit for August. I’ll start the month on Monday by posting my poem about a library book sale – a fitting follow-up to your comments on printing costs, paper waste and green consciousness.