A Serendipity Story

Posted on April 15, 2010 by lalber

AprilHenrybook — Can you see April Henry's name?

I like the idea of synchronicity. As in when you work toward a goal, and life treats you to a serendipitous surprise as a reward. Kind of like creating your own luck. This is the way I’ve experienced serendipity anyhow. Not that I’ve been on that roll for awhile…sadly…BUT, at novelist April Henry’s reading earlier this week, I bouyed myself up with her grandly serendipitous publishing adventure. It can happen!

Sidenote: April Henry taught a thriller-writing class last fall. I was one of her students, eager to learn more about plotting. She’s an excellent teacher and knows her stuff for sure.

Back in the day, April worked hard at her fiction (and still does, obviously). In fact, she mentioned five unpublished novels in different genres, including historical and chick-lit. Then, she hit her stride with Circles of Confusion, which sold in three days.

So, now April was a mystery writer with a series. She also wrote YA novels. As I understand it, there came a point when the adult novels weren’t doing as well, and the series petered out. She kept writing around her 9-to-5 job and plugging away. Here’s where I see serendipity: Because she’d been out there and working hard, she knew people, people knew of her, and the way I see it, up pops an opportunity that she’d never have imagined possible: “helping” (my quotes, not April’s) Lis Wiehl, legal analyst and television personality, write thrillers.

Another sidenote: It’s the James Patterson thing. The brand name with the true author mentioned in little print. Once again, my words, not April’s. (I repeat, my words, not April’s.)

You might be thinking…Well, that sounds oookay, but not like an optimal publishing experience for a talented novelist. But, here’s the thing. The first book in their series landed on the New York Times bestseller list, and they’ve signed a second multi-book deal. Meanwhile, April has continued her YA publishing track, and because of her new success with Lis Wiehl, her YA publisher is promoting the heck out of her upcoming YA novel.

On the purely practical side: April got a quit her day-job. She now writes fiction (lucratively) full-time! Isn’t that what we all want?

I felt happy for April as I walked out of the bookstore. To me, that’s a great story.

Thinking About Self-Publishing

Posted on February 26, 2009 by lalber

She used Llumina Press to produce the novel.

I haven’t mentioned Mr. M in a long while. He’s a writing buddy, and he recently told me that he’s decided to consider self-publishing. I’m almost hoping he will go that route so I can see what it’s like from one-step removed. Mr. M, the guinea pig!

Anyone could get sick of slogging through the muddy land of traditional publishing, right? I haven’t given up, but today, I decided to ponder self-publishing along with Mr. M. We went to a meeting of the Northwest Association of Book Publishers to listen to a novelist, Linda Kuhlmann, talk about marketing for self-published authors.

And you know what? I don’t think I could hack it! Kuhlmann’s always carting around promo copies and every trip, no matter how small, how casual, is an opportunity to check-in with local bookstores, visit area libraries, and scout out possible events. She’s got spreadsheets (there’s that word again!) and “Autographed copy” labels that she made herself. (Actually, I was impressed: Avery labels come in shiny gold–who knew?)

She’s so on top of self-marketing that she’s practically a professional speaker now.

I’m serious, I don’t know if I could hack that. I know we novelists have to self-promote–I get that–but I dream of having a support system behind me even if it’s one harried publicist with minimal time to deal with my book because she has the likes of John Grisham and Danielle Steel to oversee.

And who do I think I’m kidding anyhow? During the networking portion of the meeting (immediately I’m thinking: yee gads), a freelance editor asked me what I write. Novels, I replied. She cocked her head, eyebrows raised. Getting nothing out of me, she jutted her head forward a little, opened her eyes wider. Such expectation.

But I choked. Given the chance to excite someone about my novel, I inevitably clam up. Uh uh uh. I know the novel backwards and forwards but rally around it in a couple of sentences, off the cuff? Hah!

That was an ARGH of a moment, truly. Because despite what I tell myself, in the reality of self-promotion, anytime and anywhere is the perfect time and place to talk about my opus. That’s what it’s all about.

I was exhausted by the end of the meeting, but I left with three conclusions:

1. There are plenty of resources out there for self-publishing novelists. I was impressed with the group at the meeting. I might have even met my future website designer!

2. I need to join Toastmasters (again, yee gads) because today’s novelist is doomed to have to speak in public. Unless you’re Cormac McCarthy, of course.

3. I need to come up with two, just two, novel summary sentences and practice them in front of the mirror until they roll out naturally. I mean come on, how hard could that be?

Free-For-All Friday

Posted on October 17, 2008 by lalber

(What is this? My very own meme, which could take the form of other Friday memes out there — random five or ‘fessing up — or non-Friday memes, or anything! Point being to have a little fun and get a little interactive.)

Two items I ran across that made me uneasy: This goes to the state of the publishing biz and our lot as novelists within it.

The Independent carried a piece about how novelists are under pressure to “dumb down” so as to appeal to a wider readership. It could be that publishers are rebranding certain authors more commercially — I call this the cult of personality in action — rather than let their work stand on its own.

Granted, these novelists stand to gain in the moulah-department if the publishers succeed in the marketing “remarketing.” But, I ask you, would you really want to see Cormac McCarthy rebranded as a thriller or action writer?

Simiilarly, The Guardian ran a piece about authors as “branding machines.” I’m going to quote a portion, because, for me, it says it all:

“…the obsession with “branding” authors is threatening to hamper new talent. Writing a book a year is the absolute minimum for an aspiring genre novelist, and this treadmill approach allows no let-up. Will new crime writers get the freedom of say, Dennis LeHane, Thomas Harris and James Ellroy to write the books they want, when they want? Or will they be squeezed out by rivals willing to fire off three or four books a year to establish themselves?”

Seems to me this scenario is pertinent to most novelists, not only crime writers. What are your thoughts?

An item that made me think: Sometimes another blogger’s pearl of wisdom takes me by surprise. One wee sentence on Quantum Storytelling’s blog was a welcome slap in the face: “Procrastination is caused by indecision.”

We could discuss whether procrastination is always caused by indecision, but, in point of fact, when I read that statement I realized that my procrastination of past weeks had indeed been caused by indecisiveness! Yowza. I outlined my tangled thoughts in a post last week. This week I decided to tackle point number one from that post (finish a revision). Low and behold, this week my work routines settled back into their good groove.

And, an item that made me smile: A writers-retreat-friend is doing well for himself these days. His name is Eldon Thompson, and he writes epic fantasy. I enjoyed perusing his website this week — and I’m happy for him. The bit that made me smile came out of an interview. He said this:

“…Most importantly, perhaps, it has taught me to simplify things—to toss out ideas that are too complex and to really focus on the emotional response of characters to whatever obstacles are thrown at them.”

I smiled because I tend toward too much complexity in my first drafts. Glad to know that I’m not the only one that’s learned a few lessons around this!

What I Learned From a Bestselling Novelist

Posted on March 1, 2008 by lalber

Last weekend during my impromptu Puget Sound writers retreat (I wrote 32 pages!) I spoke to New York Times bestselling novelist Susan Wiggs at a book event. That I’d met her once before and that we have at least one mutual friend went a long way toward alleviating my tendency to clam up in the presence of novelists of stature. It also helped that she is down-to-earth and friendly.

Ms. Wiggs was a font of information about what life can be like in the publishing big leagues.

For example, did you know that…

1. …publishng contracts can include bonuses for landing on the NYT bestseller list? Or that it behooves us to negotiate favorable reversion rights so that we can regain ownership of our out-of-print novels? This is especially true should our books gain a fan-base. On the other hand, once we become bestsellers all our old publishers will rush to reprint those older novels anyhow — money in the bank for everyone involved.

2. …there is a smoke-and-mirrors aspect to the business that publishers readily exploit for the greater bottom-line? Here are a few examples: Designing the cover art with the novelist’s name bigger and bolder than the title to lend it that “bestseller” look even though the novelist hasn’t attained that status (yet). Or, negotiating favorable positioning inside one of the major chains (in custom risers in the front of the store; you’ve seen them) for an entire first print run — which in essence also gives the novel a “bestseller” appearance.

3. …many novelists at Ms. Wigg’s level incorporate themselves? Recently, a friend told me that National Book Award winner Denis Johnson recently inc’d himself. My impression is that becoming a limited liability this or that (jargon unknown to me) is pretty standard. And it makes sense, too, for tax and personal liability reasons.

4. …steadily increasing sales over many books is often preferable for a long-lived publishing career than the bidding-war-big-bucks first novel? Second-novel syndrome in which the second novel can’t hope to compare to the phenomonal first has sunk many a novelist.

5. …at the bestseller-dom level, the novelist and publisher may engage in a collaborative roundtable to generate story ideas? These brainstorming sessions include the marketing department, which may have veto power because there’s so much at stake. Call it a symbiotic relationsip: publisher committing to marketing and publicity bucks (which land novelists on the bestseller lists when all is said and done) and in return author commiting to one or two novels a year to keep the momentum going.

Number five fascinated me, especially when Ms. Wiggs mentioned that she still gets rejected (at the idea level not at the written-manuscript level).

Besides rejection, Ms. Wiggs still faces her writing group with potentially crappy drafts and expects the truth from them; still gets red-lined by her editors; still battles with story ideas that don’t necessarily pan out in the writing.

She’s still a novelist writing one sentence at a time like the rest of us. And, she works hard. She mentioned that she’d be reading page proofs (a tedious task) after dinner on Saturday night and before breakfast the next morning. I forgot to ask her whether she ever gets an entire weekend away from her characters…