Books

What I’ve Been Reading

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I haven’t been reading as much as I would like lately because I’ve been too busy writing, but I have managed to squeeze in a few books…

044914836x01_sclzzzzzzz_I devoured Ed Gorman’s WOLF MOON in one sitting. I really enjoyed it. The book came out a few years ago and it’s unlike any western I’ve read before.  Think of it as western noir, with an emphasis on noir, though you wouldn’t know that from the standard "western" cover and "frontier" font.  Sure, it takes place in the west and has all the expected genre trappings…but it’s the kind of tale Charles Williams, Harry Whittington, Dan J. Marlowe, Wade Miller, Vin Packer and Charles Willeford like to tell. Dark and violent. Grim and doomed. It’s about a bank robber who gets double-crossed, goes to prison, and seeks revenge. Sounds pretty standard but trust me, it isn’t. The hero of this book is an original…a guy who is literally rabid with revenge. I can’t help but wonder how the book
would have fared, and the attention it might have garnered, if it was marketed as a weird twist on a dark crime tale instead of western.

I also read Meg Wolitzer’s THE POSITION, about a couple of sex educators and the impact their JOY OF SEX-esque book has on their children.  The book was well-written, clever, funny and insightful and yet, as a whole, unsatisfying and disappointing. I kept waiting for the story to start and it never did. I kept waiting to get involved and I never did. It’s basically a series of loosely connected vignettes without any real narrative drive. 

Which brings me to Susanna Clarke’s JONATHAN STRANGE & MR. NORRELL. I’m mid-way through it (pg 390) and so far I am loving it. I find myself so involved in the book that  I tote that damn thing with me everywhere (which is no small feat…the book is nearly 800 pages and I have a bum arm) and find any excuse at all to read. I’m sure a thousand folks have said this before me, but I’ll say it again… the book is basically HARRY POTTER for grown-ups. I hope the next 390 pages are as satisfying as the first!

The Made Men of Mystery Fiction

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There’s a phenomenon in mystery/thriller fiction… I call it "The Made Men." These are authors who wrote several terrific books…a string of career-making, break-out, wonderful books which have made them icons/leaders/celebrities in the genre…but have been writing  mediocre (or worse, far worse) books for the last few years. And yet, each new book from one of these authors is treated as if it’s another masterpiece, and the hyperbole used to describe the author and his work gets grander with each new release.

Are reviewers in a trance? Are readers under a spell? I don’t know. But I must be one of the few who didn’t get hypnotized. 

My theory is that for some special authors,  once you reach a certain status in sales and critical acclaim, from that point on you are untouchable. You are a genre "Made Man" (though this applies to female authors as well) and seemingly no matter what you write, you are held in the same high regard by critics and readers alike. I recently read the latest book by one of these authors and am dumbfounded that anybody could have ranked it as a masterpiece…or even particularly good. It certainly didn’t come close to matching his previous work (by the way, just because I say "his," don’t assume I am talking about a male author). So why all the praise? Made Man, that’s why.

Am I way off base?  Or am I simply a lousy judge of good writing? Or is it sour grapes on my part? Or am I on to something here? Your thoughts are welcome.

Whither the Book Tour?

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17813888The LA Times devoted the front page of their Calendar section today to a feature on my friend Harley Jane Kozak and her book tour to support DATING IS MURDER. It’s great to see her getting some well-deserved publicity.  The article is about her, but the angle really seems to be whether a book tour  makes sense anymore for authors who aren’t mega-bestsellers.

There are fewer Kozaks — new writers hoping to stake out a readership — out on
the road these days. When they do tours, the trips tend to be shorter and closer
to where the author lives or where the book is set, hoping to play off local
interest.

"What we have learned is that if you are going to go out on
tour with basically an unknown author and set up a book-signing, chances are
you’ll have two to five people show up," says Justin Loeber, publicity director
for Simon & Schuster. "It’s just not very cost-effective."

The reporter followed Harley to several of her signings, including some in Houston.

Each morning, Kozak visits a handful of bookstores to meet the owners and
managers and sign copies of her books. In smaller ones, such as Houston’s Blue
Willow Bookshop, tucked between a tailor and a gift store in a neighborhood
strip mall 10 miles west of downtown, that means three hardcover copies of the
new book and four paperback copies of her first one…

…an evening reading and signing at Murder by the Book, where she is double-billed
with Randy Wayne White, author of the bestselling Doc Ford mysteries and former
"Out There" columnist for Outside magazine. Together they draw about 50 people,
and Kozak signs 34 books for 19 readers, many of whom tell her they came for
White but decided to buy her book too.

The question is whether the schlep to Houston was worth it.  Most likely, she wouldn’t have sold 34 books at Murder By The Book otherwise (and will now sell more since she signed stock), but when tabulating the costs of the trip (and time away from family and writing), was it worth it?  Did she gain anything in the long run by signing seven books at Blue Willow Bookshop?  I don’t know. But those are questions that authors, publishers and booksellers are asking themselves these days as it gets more and more expensive to send authors out on tour (or for authors to send themselves).

The Dollars and Cents of Writing II

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Author SL Viehl shares the royalty statement on her latest paperback.  The book is doing well and she has every reason to be thrilled and proud.  But if you’re an aspiring writer, the numbers will be an important reality check for you about the kind earnings/sales a successful (as opposed to bestselling) author can expect. You should also check out the nitty-gritty of novelist Alison Kent’s recent royalty statement and author Ian Irvine’s excellent article on how publishing works. The chart below, which I posted back in February,  is from his article:

Table 1: What you get in your hand after agents’ cuts, per book

                                                             

COUNTRY   HARDCOVER**   TRADE PAPERBACK**   MASS MARKET PAPERBACK
Pre-tax Price Your share ($A) Pre-taxp Price Your share ($A) Pre-tax Price Your share ($A)
Australia $A40.50 $3.44 $A27.33 2.32 $A18.13 1.54
Britain £17.99 3.21 £12.99 2.32 £7.99* 1.07
USA $US25.95 2.52 US14.95 1.45 $US7.99# 0.62

* Exch. Rate 0.38, royalty 7.5% to 20K, Aust publisher 20%, Aust agent 15%

# Exch. Rate 0.70, royalty 8% to 100K, Aust publisher 20%, Aust agent 15%

** Trade paperback and hardcover royalties 10%

 

A Warehouse Signing

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For his novel WHISKY SOUR, author Joe Konrath did over a hundred drive-by signings last year (that’s bookstore-speak for dropping in to sign stock without an official booksigning event scheduled)   In some cases, he found himself driving for hours to sign three copies. Not the best use of his time. So, for his new mystery, he visited an Indiana book distribution warehouse and "handsigned" 3000 copies books.  He tells the story today on his blog. Was this four-hour warehouse signing a better use of his time than visiting one-on-one with various booksellers? Who knows. He’s certainly getting more signed books  into the marketplace than he would have personally visiting stores on a book tour…but is it the signed books that count, or the personal interaction with sellers and customers?

What Do You Call Rabid Fans

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I belong to a tie-in and novelization writers discussion list…and many of the writers have been discussing how they deal with rabid fans, the kind who live, eat, and breath the fictional worlds of STAR TREK or STAR WARS or BUFFY or even DIAGNOSIS MURDER and seriously need to get a life.  One of the writers came up with a name for them… and I predict it’s going to catch on: The talifans.

UPDATE: I want to clarify my thoughts on this.  Fans are great, they read and support our work and deserve our respect,
kindness, and attention. But rabid fans, for whom the TV show or movie becomes
something akin to a lifestyle or religion, are scary and hostile. There are some
STAR WARS, STAR TREK, and BUFFY tie-in writers who have some real horror stories
to tell about their interactions with fans like this…the Talifans. Heck, I
have a few I can tell myself from my SEAQUEST days (I even wrote a novel about
it!).  Talifans aren’t average fans…Talifans are rabid fans.

Here are some links to other Talifran discussions. Author Karen Traviss talks about how the term "talifan" came up.

This came from a media tie-in compadre after a mutual colleague had been given a
pretty grim tme by their fandom over parts of their book that did not fit
said fandom’s view of What The Character Should Have Done –  even if their view
bore no resemblance to continuity:

And Brian Hogg, pondering the religious implication in the term "talifan," wonders if fandom has become a religion  to some fans.

The level of devotion that genre fans feel is not at all unlike religious
fervor… The truth is
that these fans are paying tribute, endlessly, to their favored properties —
properties which, as sci-fi, generally espouse an ethos, a specific mindset, a
way of living today to achieve some exhalted future.

Now back to our regularly scheduled programming.

Zorro

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My friend Paul Quarrington, a wonderful novelist himself, reviews Isabel Allende’s Zorro in this weekend’s Globe and Mail.

This is a book rife with coincidence, love at first sight, pirates,
secret societies — hey, it’s a book where a guy can put on a mask,
draw a little moustache on his face and fool people who have known him
all of their lives.

And it is hugely enjoyable. It appealed both to the sober-sided book
reviewer that I am and the bespectacled, television-viewing lad that I
was. I have been missing this kind of thing for 40-odd years; it seems
simply not to be around. We have lost our appetite for narratives of
frolicking farfetchedness and preposterous implausibility.

His review was so much more fun to read… and revealing about the book… than the dull piece in the LA Times Book Review a few weeks ago. Although Paul puts himself into the review in a big way, Mark Sarvas’ big gripe about LA Times book reviewers, at least he doesn’t do it to tell everyone which Ivy League university he went to or mention the books he’s written. Besides, Paul is lively and funny, something LATBR writers rarely are. They much prefer being somber, dull, and self-important.

(By the way, Paul’s non-fiction, very funny book on fishing, FISHING WITH MY OLD GUY,  is a classic…whether you like to fish or not. We  worked together on the first season of MISSING up in Toronto and I must have imposed on him to sign a dozen copies of the book for my family).

The Book is Done

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I finished writing MR. MONK GOES TO THE FIREHOUSE and sent it off to the publisher, the studio, and the showrunner on Friday…ten days before my deadline. You can read it in January.  As much as I enjoyed writing that book (and proving to myself I could write a book that fast), it’s going to be very nice to have a free weekend to do whatever I want, which will be…

…playing with my INport, a device that allows me to transfer my old LPs and cassette tapes to .wav and .mp3 files.

…finishing Meg Wolitzer’s novel THE POSITION.

… getting hamburgers and shakes at The Habit with my daughter and going swimming.

…cleaning up my office, organizing my desk and paying bills.

…catching up on the TV shows I recorded on Tivo last week in my mad rush to finish the book.

…starting to plot MONK #2, which is due in early September and will be published in July 2006.

How Not To Get a Blurb

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A self-published author sent me a generic email asking me to read his book and blurb it. I’ve taken out his name, and the title of the book, as a courtesy:

I am  about to launch the XYZ novels, which are
legal/crime thrillers. I would love to get a blurb from you for the first novel
in this series, XYZ.  I have attached the first few chapters for
your review and will be happy to send the full book upon request.  I
thoroughly believe that you will find this book compelling and will be proud to
have your name associated with it, otherwise I wouldn’t intrude upon your
valuable time.

As compelling as his personal endorsement of his own book is, that’s not a good enough reason for me to read his novel.  In fact, this solicitation is a classic example of how to not to get an author to read your book. For instructions on how to do it right, check out author Gregg Hurwitz’s checklist of dos-and-don’ts for blurb pitching.