Tag Archive for: books

Mystery Novel Seeks New Home

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by Bethany Maines

As the release date for my newest mystery (An UnseenCurrent) approaches (April 28th – ahhhhhhh!!!) I find myself once
again pondering the cruel irony of nature that crafts writers to be introspective
sorts and then pits them against a task to which they are monumentally
unsuited.  That is to say: marketing. The
woman hours spent lovingly crafting characters, settings, and events leaves the
writer more than a little in love with their own book. To then have it
heartlessly thrust into the public where some reviewer will crassly thumb
through it and declare it to be passable is like being gently stabbed with
needles by someone who doesn’t really care about your problems.  We all want to be bestselling authors.  I mean, who doesn’t want to be RichardCastle? (I really am ruggedly handsome!) 
But in all honesty, I think most writers would rather have their books
treasured and loved than consumed like soda and disposed of.
I remember the first time I saw one of my aunt’s books at
Half-Price Books. My aunt, Linda Nichols, writes beautiful Christian fiction
with snappy plots and characters you want to hug. I had not yet, published any
books and I personally thought that seeing her books on the shelf of a used
bookstore was cool.  But Linda did not
think it was cool – there was wincing and the sad look of “ohh, I wish I didn’t
know that.”  Someone sold her book down
the river – the heathens, the Philistines! The bastards with not enough shelf
space!  After I had been published I
realized her pain.  How could someone not
love my book?! Why would anyone give my book away?  My books are awesome.  All right, yes, I recognize the shelf space
issue is a real thing – even libraries don’t have ALL the books.  But as each baby book flies out into the
world, forgive me if I hope that it will find at least one home where it will
be treasured.
And on that note – who wants a free digital copy of An
Unseen Current?  It’s looking for an
awesome home (and someone who will leave a review).  Leave a comment here or on Facebook to be
entered to win.  I’ll draw names on Friday morning.
AN UNSEEN CURRENT
When Seattle native Tish Yearly finds herself fired and evicted  all in one afternoon, she knows she’s in deep water. Unemployed and desperate, the 26 year old ex-actress heads for the one place she knows she’ll be welcome – the house of her cantankerous ex-CIA agent grandfather, Tobias Yearly, in the San Juan Islands. And when she discovers the strangled corpse of Tobias’s best friend, she knows she’s in over her head. Tish is thrown head-long into a mystery that pits her against a handsome but straight-laced Sheriff’s Deputy, a group of eccentric and clannish local residents, and a killer who knows the island far better than she does. Now Tish must swim against the current, depending on her nearly forgotten acting skills and her grandfather’s spy craft, to con a killer and keep them alive.
Bethany Maines is the author of the Carrie
Mae Mysteries, Tales from the City of
Destiny and the forthcoming An Unseen
Current.  You can also view the Carrie Mae youtube video
or catch up with her on Twitter and Facebook.

How Best to Support Your Favorite Writers and Make Sure the Books You Love keep Coming

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How Best to Support Your Favorite Writers and Make Sure the Books You Love Keep Coming by Linda Rodriguez

This is a piece I posted to Writers Who Kill a couple of years ago. I’m reposting it here because I think it has important information that I didn’t know until recent years and that others have since told me they also didn’t know. I’m also adding to this list “likes” and “tags” on Amazon and retweets about authors’ books. Nancy Cohen reminded me about these. I think I’d missed them because I was already doing all those.

The publishing business still offers a steep learning curve to me. However, some of the things I’ve learned as a published novelist are turning me into a better fan of my own favorite authors. I’ve written on here before about pre-ordering and how I learned of its importance to writers. Instead of waiting for the books of my favorite author to be published, I pre-order now, knowing I’m contributing to their success as well as assuring I’ll have their book as soon as it’s available.

I thought I was already helping with reviews. On my blog, www.LindaRodriguezWrites.blogspot.com, I try to spotlight books by literary writers of color who might be hard for the average reader to find, as well as mystery novelists who are writing high-quality fiction. I do this with profiles, interviews, and sometimes reviews of individual books. However, I’ve learned that reviews on Amazon and Goodreads count more toward sales than those longer ones on my blog or elsewhere.

I’ve always just given stars to books on Goodreads. I’ve read so many books that I didn’t think I had time for more than that. I was wrong. Those stars don’t do much good. It’s the reviews that make others decide to pick up the book to read. It’s the same with Amazon—reviews lead to sales. Even for authors who seem to have it made! Often even famous writers are just a breath or two away from tumbling down the slopes in the fickle game of publishing, and success is even more volatile for midlist authors. I try not to buy much on Amazon, so I’ve not done much except hit the ‘Like” button for a book/author I enjoy.

I’ve learned about how important these reviews can be to authors, and now I’ve set myself a goal to post a daily review of a novelist whose work I enjoy on either Amazon or Goodreads. I’m also going to learn how to link them so a review on my blog will post to Amazon or Goodreads. This is one thing I can do to make sure the writers I love don’t disappear on me.

I’ve always been a person others ask for book recommendations, primarily because I read so much in so many areas. Now that I’ve learned how important that word-of-mouth advice on books can be, I’ll be doing a lot more book recommendations and not just waiting for folks to ask me. I have occasionally requested my library system buy a book I want that they don’t have. Now, as soon as I know a book is coming out by one of my favorite writers, I will request my library system order that book—and my own pre-orders for those books will be through local bookstores because that helps them decide whether or not to order in that book to have on the shelves.

The publishing business is in deep flux right now, and authors are being required to do more than ever to promote their books. Every novelist I know, famous or unknown, is buried in a mountain of promotion efforts while still trying to write the books we fans love and wait for breathlessly. The influx of millions of ebooks by people who haven’t bothered to learn to be either good writers or good editors—and this is not meant to describe the many self-published writers who have worked hard at both—makes it hard for the potential buyer to find the writers who have worked for many years to hone their craft. Everything we, as fans of good writing in whatever genre, can do to make our favorite authors successful ensures that in the volatile atmosphere of publishing today these favorite novelists will survive and thrive—and continue providing us with our favorite addiction, their good books.

Do you know of other strategies we fans can do to help ensure the success of the book and authors we love?

Flying Flags

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by Bethany Maines

I had to laugh when I read Debra Goldstein’s post yesterday about
football being “only a game”.  I live in
Washington State, which, in case you’re living in a hole, is home of the
Seahawks, contenders the upcoming football high-holy day – the Super Bowl.  Although, even when living in a hole, I’m
fairly certain that you probably felt the Beast Quake or possibly Richard
Sherman dropped by to tell you how awesome he is, and then probably stuck
around to make pointedly blunt statements about the corruption in the NFL.  Football may be only game, but tis the season
for every football fan everywhere to lose their dang minds.
As I’m only an occasional football watcher I find most of
the fan-actions a bit mystifying.  Twelfth
man flags decorate every building, a local tattoo parlor is offering a 12’s
tattoo special and last game against the Packers the Seattle City Council
banned cheese from the premises.  Like
Debra, I say, “But it’s only a game!”  Not
that I say that very loudly – my husband would glare at me. 
But also like Debra, I identify with the way fans pour over
every detail, dissect plays, and watch every report on the subject.  A fan, no matter the subject, wants to know
all about the thing they love.  So I don’t
wave a twelfth man flag, but the books on my shelf tell their own tales (pun
intended).  Anyone visiting my house knows
where I stand on the topic of Lord of the Rings (pro) and the work of cover
artist Thomas Canty (also pro) and Tintin (highly pro). I don’t have any
tattoos, but I can quote The Walrus and The Carpenter – it’s tattooed on my
brain.  And as for cheese… no, sorry, I
have nothing there. Cheese is never banned at my house and neither are
books. 

Am I the only “12th Man” uber book fan out
there?  What “flags” are flying on your
bookshelf?

Just The Facts

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76% of American adults 18 and older read at least one book in 2013

  • 69% read a book in print
  • 28% read an e-book
  • 14% listened to an audio book

The average number of books read or listened to in 2013 is 12; median is five.

52% of readers only read a print book; 4% only read an e-book, and 2% only listened to an audiobook. Nine percent of readers said they read books in all three formats.

  • 35% of print book readers also read an e-book and 17% listened to an audiobook
  • 87% of e-book readers also read a print book in the past 12 months and 29% listened to an audiobook
  • 84% of audiobook listeners also read a print book in the past year and 56% read an e-book.

42% of adults own a tablet

  • Among tablet owners who read an e-book in 2013, 78% read e-books on their tablet

32% of adults own an e-reader

  • Among e-reader owners who read an e-book in 2013, 87% read it on their e-reader

Source: “A Snapshot of Reading in America in 2013” Pew Research Center

What group do you fall into?

I consider myself an e-book reader since 90% of books I read are on my e-reader.

–Dru Ann

Books That Stick

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by Bethany Maines

A friend recently posted a list of books that have “stuck with him.”  It was an interesting list featuring, among other things, Encyclopedia Brown and the Case of the Disgusting Sneakers. (For those who never read Encyclopedia Brown as a kid – you missed out.  Half Choose Your Own Adventure, half Sherlock Holmes each Encyclopedia Brown book required attentive reading so that the reader could solve the mystery along with the heroes.) But the list got me to thinking about books that have stayed with me. What makes a book stick? Maybe the right book has to arrive at the right time, or maybe a book has to articulate something that I was unable to express until the moment I saw the words on the page. Or in the case of some books… they just seem realer than real life.  So for what it’s worth, here’s my list of the top 5 books/book series that have stuck with me.

  • Trixie Belden – This teenage sleuth was a tomboy with annoying siblings, and that sounded a lot more like pre-teen me than perfect Nancy Drew with her fancy car and friends.
  • The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings – My mother read us these books out loud (reading, it’s what people do when they don’t have a TV) when we were young.  I blame Eowyn for my life long desire to kick ass, take name, and defeat an Orc horde.
  • The Ordinary Princess – A  little tale about a Princess who is blessed with the gift of being ordinary by her fairy godmother, what could be better than that?  Oh, how about the most adorable illustrations penciled by the author herself?  From the day I discovered this book, the author, M.M. Kaye, became my inspiration. I don’t know if art and novel writing are a rare combination or if author’s just aren’t allowed to be something else, but what I know is that I want to do both and M.M. Kaye inspired me to reach for that dream.
  • Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson – Foisted on me as a birthday present, I didn’t read it for years, mostly because the book jacket let me know that the hero’s name was Hiro Protagonist.  I was put off.  I shouldn’t have been.  Bouncing between religion, language, consumerism, cybernetics, and computer programming, the book honestly made me rethink some of my positions on those topics.
  • Pyramids by Terry Pratchett – This was the first book I read in the Discworld series and it was the first “quirky” British style novel I’d ever read.  It was also the first time that I’d ever read something that sounded like the inside of my head, with parentheticals, footnotes, strange topic switches, and a loopy plot.  I didn’t even know you could write like the inside of my head and get away with it.  I became a devoted follower of the Discworld and when I learned that Sir Pratchett had been stricken with an early onset Alzheimer’s that was robbing of his ability to write, I was absolutely devastated.  The fact that he has carried on writing novels with the help of a tape recorder, a stenographer and some new drug treatment inspires me to get off my ass and write more as well.

That’s my list.  What’s on yours?

Bethany Maines is the author of the Carrie Mae Mystery series and Tales from the City of Destiny. You can also view the Carrie Mae youtube video or catch up with her on Twitter and Facebook.

Bouchercon in Albany

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This is my third year attending Bouchercon, which gives me the chance to visit cities that may or may not have been on my radar. So far I’ve been to St. Louis and Cleveland and got to see their main tourist attraction, that being the Arch and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

This year, Bouchercon was in my home state and its capital, Albany. I’ve never been there and I was excited to see the governor’s mansion and the state capital building. I suspect their main attraction is the EGG, which is part of the Empire State Plaza.

Friends: As always, it is great seeing old friends and meeting new friends face-to-face. The power of social media makes this happens. I’ve also stopped saying “I’m a just reader” when asked what am I. Now I say, “I’m a blogger, reviewer and a reader” as I have been told.

Panels: There were so many panels to choose from attending several of the panels that were offered. One panel had Brad Parks turn from book author to Superman Parks. Another panel talked about big city crime. Then there was the panel where attendees had to guess what food product was featured in which author’s book. That too was fun. One panel was popular by the time I got there it was standing room only. Then there was the panel that talked about how far could you go in a cozy. Then there was panel about being a private eye and the panel about being a writer with no room service. Overall, I had a good time at the panels that I attended.

Books: What can I see, one of the things I like about attending these conferences is what books will appear in your goodie bag, what books will I buy and what books will I get as free giveaways. This is my biggest haul of books I’ve gotten autographed and standing on line was worth it. I was most happy with my copy of W for Wasted by Sue Grafton and I knew no matter how long, I will be standing in that line to get my book autographed.

Authors: Harlan Coben called me a troublemaker. It was great talking with authors that I’ve work with on my blog and those I friended on Facebook. These conferences allow a face-to-face meeting and it’s great. It also gives me the opportunity to meet other authors that I have not come across in my regular reads. There’s a couple of new authors who debuts their new books in 2014 and I look forward to reading their work.

I was lucky to get the opportunity to take a tour of the New York State Trooper facilities. It was cool. We got to see their headquarters, their gym, their dorms and when we saw a training that involved German Shepard dogs.  We also got a chance to go into the indoor firing range where I imagine myself shooting a bulls-eye in dead center mass. 

I’m an introvert but when I am in my element, that is being around authors, fellow readers and books, I’m not as shy. Thank you for letting me know that reading is good and hanging with the authors and fans is Awesome.

Am I’m going to the next Bouchercon? Yes I am and I can’t wait to hit the town of Long Beach. Who else is joining me?

Some photos from Bouchercon.  What excited me most was finding a phone booth with a working phone and a seat where you can close the door.
             
   

Ramblings From Dru

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The hardest thing about writing a monthly post is coming up with a topic that the audience will find interesting.

So here I sit, trying to think of a post to write.

Should it be related to writing? Well, since I’m not a writer, I don’t have to worry about that.

I am a reader, but how many times can I write about the number of books I’ve read since January (for the record it is 78 books).

My friends tell me that besides being a reader, I’m also a blogger/reviewer. I don’t consider myself a reviewer because my musings are short and not standardized. However on my blog I do offer a feature to authors about the day in the life of their protagonist or a recurring character from their stories.

I recently attended my fourth Malice Domestic Convention. I always have a good time and it’s a chance to attend panels; catch up with friends who I haven’t seen in a year, meet new-to-authors and reconnect with the authors I’ve already met. The one for reader fans are fun to attend and so far this year I’ll be going to four events. I’ll be at BookExpo America (BEA) where I’ll be attending the Power Reader event. Then it’s the Fan Fest at Thrillerfest this summer and last but not least I’ll be at Bouchercon in Albany. Is anyone attending any of these events?

Well, it looks like I thought of something to write.

What’s the hardest thing that you have to do?

How Making A Book Is Like Making A Baby

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By (the almost five months’ pregnant) Susan McBride

I’m following Maggie Barbieri’s lead this week. On Wednesday, she talked about how dieting and writing are linked. Since I’m not dieting (um, quite the opposite) and am lacking in fresh ideas to blog about, I thought I’d discuss how similar pregnancy and writing are. Yes, I’m serious. Not that writing books gives anyone swollen ankles, sleepless nights, or giant bellies (wait a minute, yes, it can!); but there are lots of ways conjuring up a literary baby and creating a human baby are quite alike. 

1) Both take a certain amount of time to gestate. Sure, there are authors who write books in two weeks, but I’m not one of them. And, honestly, does anyone not believe that those authors are aliens? Most of us need a period of months—for some, years—to let an idea percolate and write it up as a proposal with the requisite sample chapter before we present it to our agents (who in turn show our editors). Once we’ve got the thumbs-up (picture getting a plus sign on a pregnancy test stick), we focus on little else but the story, growing it little by little. If we take care of ourselves and don’t do anything reckless, our babies can develop into something viable and real.

2) There are aches and pains along the way. Who hasn’t gotten physical pains while toiling away on their latest opus? Like a backache, stiff neck, or cramp in the calf (or in the brain)? Just like with pregnancy, writing can be hard on the body which is why it’s always good to get plenty of rest and take lots of breaks. (FYI, breaks are those periods when writers get up from their chairs to stretch, vacuum, do laundry, run to the grocery store, break up a fight between cats, call our mothers, and so on.)

3) It’s impossible not to talk about your baby’s progress. Once you feel secure that your baby has progressed to a certain point (say, 100 pages, which we’ll call “the end of the first trimester”), you can’t help gushing to your friends about it. You thrive on encouragement and advice. Yapping about the last chapter you figured out gives you a high, like sharing the news of your baby’s heartbeat. You’re even compelled to gossip about how a secondary character—patterned after your crazy aunt Martha—has become an unapologetic scene stealer. And if you have an author-friend who’s on the same deadline as you, you constantly compare the size of your bump…um, your word count.  Yep, writers and mommies, we’re a competitive lot.

4)  You worry about how your baby will be perceived by the world.  Does any expectant mother not have twinges of anxiety about whether or not her child will do well in life?  Will he or she have friends, be accepted?  It’s the same with a book.  Even during the writing process, you have moments where you think, “Will anyone else appreciate this?  Will it be loved or hated?”  Vicious reviews are like bullies.  Writers–like moms–know they’re out there.  You just have to hope and pray that the meanest ones stay away from your kid.

5) There’s no elation quite like reaching “The End.”  When you’re finally done—when you’ve given that final push—all you want to do is smile…and cry…and sleep…and imagine the day when you’ll see your baby all dressed up in a pretty cover—I mean, in an adorable onesie. You can’t wait to show off your amazing creation everywhere you go and post photos ad nauseum on Facebook. Then you can look back at all the months it took to bring your baby into the world and think, “Yep, it was all worth it.”

What is it I’m doing again?

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or
How I Think Publishing Works
by Bethany Maines
As the author in residence to my friend’s and family, I frequently receive questions about the publishing industry.  Well, let’s be honest, frequently is stretching it.  More like occasionally, but I still get them and usually it goes something like this…
Them: You published a book? That’s cool.  How does that work?
Me: Well, you write a book, try to get an agent, and then the agent sells it to a publisher.
Them:  Yeah, but after that, how does it all work?  And what’s this thing with Amazon that I’ve been reading about lately?
Me: Uh… Does any body need more salsa? I have to go get more salsa.
After awhile I just couldn’t eat anymore salsa, so I did some research and I thought some of you might be interested in what I found out. This, in broad strokes, as far as I can tell, is how books get to you.  Don’t worry, I’ve also included a handy infographic.  If you feel that I am incorrect in some way, please comment and let me know.  This information is relatively hard to get in a linear progression, so I’ve had to piece it together as I come across it – I welcome all input.
Agents select manuscripts and sell them to publishers.  At the same time Publishers also seek out manuscripts on their own – either from celebrities or from their “slush pile.”  A manuscript gets selected to become a published book. The publisher has a couple of options for distribution; either they have sales reps who sell the book directly to booksellers and club stores (like Cost-Co and Sam’s Club) or they sell their books to distributors and wholesalers.  Distributors and wholesalers sell books to bookstores, club stores, and they also sell to the non-bookstores like Fred Meyer, Target, gift shops, airports, and grocery stores.  Publishers set the release date and release e-books at the same time that a distributor sends books to bookstores.  Bookstores buy books at a 40-50% discount and sometimes have as much as 6 months to return books (if they don’t sell) to the publisher or distributor/wholesaler for either cash or credit against future purchases.  Which is how an author’s sales can look great the first week after publication, but not so great months later after “the returns” are in. Publishers and booksellers also provide an internet location to buy the book.  Then you, the reader, buy the book and/or e-book.
Now we get to Amazon.  Amazon decided that it did not need wholesalers and most distributors… because they didn’t.  They get their books directly from publishers or from distributors that represent publishing houses that don’t handle their own sales. Wholesalers and distributors are mad at Amazon because Amazon has essentially cut them out of the business.  Bookstores are mad at Amazon because they feel that Amazon, due their deals with the publishers, can undercut bookstore prices, thus driving them out of business.  Amazon has also offered a service to writers that let them self-publish (also known as vanity publishing) print-on-demand books and e-books; writers, of course, took to the process like a duck to water.  With that much content floating around, next Amazon decided that it doesn’t need publisher’s either, because they can buy their own manuscripts and sell them.  So… publishers, distributors, wholesalers, and bookstores are all mad at Amazon.  So far the only people who aren’t mad are the consumers and the content providers – readers and writers.           
Interestingly, I looked at the prices for print-on-demand books through Amazon a year or so back and I remember the number as being about $9 a book.  Which, I thought, was a little high, but manageable if you were selling the book at $15.  I recently looked at Amazon’s print-on-demand options and saw that they had raised the prices significantly and added additional fees for “expanded distribution.” Which leads me to speculate that Amazon may be attempting to let the air out of the self-publishing balloon.  After all, why would they let self-publishers provide cheaper (and possibly just as good) content on Amazon distribution channels when it would be a direct competition to their own publications?
There’s plenty more to be said about publishing, self-publishing, marketing, and how publishers decide who gets what marketing dollars, but that would be a subject for another day.  And now, please enjoy your infographic.

Too Young for Stilettos, But…

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By Lauren Baratz-Logsted

I’m just retro enough that I use a real physical dictionary when I need to look a word up and my 11th edition of Merriam-Webster defines “stiletto” as: a dagger; an embroidery tool; a shoe.
The Sisters 8, being just seven years old, are too young to go teetering around in stilettos for very long. They’re also too young to use daggers as weapons although they are fond of the spear from the suit of armor in their drawing room. As for embroidery tools, they might take up needlecrafts if only they weren’t so busy trying to solve one very big mystery.
WHAT?

What are The Sisters 8? They’re the eponymous octuplet heroines of a nine-book series for young readers ages 6-10. At the beginning of Book 1: Annie’s Adventures, their story begins on New Year’s Eve 2007 when Dad goes out to get firewood while Mommy goes to the kitchen to get eggnog…and neither return. The Eights, as they are known, discover a note behind a loose stone in the drawing room, stating they each need to discover their individual powers and gifts before solving the mystery of what has happened. There is one book for each Eight with a ninth to wrap up all the mysteries. Book 7: Rebecca’s Rashness was just released in early May.
HOW?
How did the series come about? My family – husband Greg; daughter Jackie, who was six at the time, and I – were stranded by a blizzard for 10 days in December 2006 in Crested Butte, Colorado. So what did we do to amuse ourselves? We did exactly what you would do – we brainstormed a series of books!
WHY?
Why should you care about The Sisters 8? Because like the heroines of the novels penned by The Stiletto Gang, the Eights are powerful, mysterious, adventurous, magical heroines, who – even at age seven! – kick butt. And they do it without being old enough to wear stilettos. Each of the Eights has her own personality: capable, nurturing, complaining, even-tempered, scientific, fearful, mean, greedy. Each, over the course of their nine-book journey, must learn to work with the group and stand alone, in the process becoming a little more than the person they were before. Every day, I receive emails from kids, and even their parents and grandparents and teachers, saying, “X didn’t like to read before discovering The Sisters 8.” For a writer, at least for this writer, that’s better than anything except maybe winning the Nobel. (Actually, it’s better than the Nobel too but I’d still like some of that money Sweden hands out with the awards.)
Thanks to The Stiletto Club for letting me natter on here about one of my favorite writing topics: the series I created with my family. How lucky am I?

Lauren Baratz-Logsted is the author of 21 published books for adults, teens and young children, including the YA Victorian suspense novel The Twin’s Daughter. All of her heroines wear metaphorical stilettos even if their age or time period prevents them from literally doing so. You can read more about the first five books in The Sisters 8 at http://www.sisterseight.com/ and more about all of Lauren’s books at http://www.laurenbaratzlogsted.com/.