The Cybils

So you know all those kidlit blogger types I’ve been telling you about? Seems that a couple of years ago, they organized an award for children’s literature. Called the Cybils (Childrens’ and YA Bloggers’ Literary Awards), the competition is designed to incorporate the populism of the internet with a celebration of literary merit. The public is invited to nominate their favorite children’s or YA books, but to keep the award from being a mere popularity contest (like the late Quills), panels of children’s and YA lit bloggers then read the nominated books and choose the ones they feel are the best. I checked out the 2007 list and found books I’d never heard of—but which look amazing. (My next trip to the bookstore, I have my list, and Boy Toy by Barry Lyga is at the top.)

The Cybils is only in its third year, so if you or someone you know is a fan of kidlit, spread the word. And if you read a children’s or YA book this year that you adored, skip on over to the nominations and let them know. Nominations close October 15th!*

(In case you’re wondering, Ten Cents a Dance has already been nominated—thanks for asking, and whoo hoo!)

*Here’s the Official Fine Print, but in short (read the following very fast, in the tone of one of those prescription medication commercial guys): To be eligible, the book must have been published between Jan 1, 2008 and Oct 15, 2008, must be in English (or bilingual), and only one nomination per genre per person. Books may be nominated in these genres: Easy Readers, Fantasy & Science Fiction, Fiction Picture Books, Graphic Novels, Middle Grade Novels, Non-Fiction Middle Grade/Young Adult Books, Non-Fiction Picture Books, Poetry, Young Adult Novels. The Cybils will not cause drowsiness, headache, intestinal distress, hair on your palms, dropsy, or myopia.

Kidlit 08!

I can't even remember now how I found out about the 2008 Kidlit Bloggers Conference; but as soon as I did, I asked for that day off work so that I could attend. Because:

1) I've been thinking a lot over the past several months about how I can improve this blog--especially how to make it less random and more focused, and thus less like my actual brain tumbling out onto the internet, complete with dust bunnies and odd knick-knacks, like that tiny china box my best friend in 7th grade gave me for my birthday that's too small to put anything in and yet which I can't bring myself to throw away...um...right. Focus! *ahem* Carrying on:

2) It sounded like a great opportunity to meet children's lit bloggers in the actual world, instead of just reading and lurking in their online haunts, which is what I normally do; and:

3) It just so happened to take place in my hometown of Portland, OR.

So, bright and early Saturday morning, I joined several dozen folks in a hotel meeting room and settled in for what turned out to be a fabulous day of blogtalk and kidlit. I've attended a lot of conferences (both veterinary medicine and writing), and this was the one of the very few I've been to in which every presentation was both informative and entertaining. Not to mention, these folks are smart, funny, opinionated, and passionate about both children's literature and the art of spreading kidlit love in the online world, and consequently they're a kick and a half to spend time with.

Who are these passionate people? The Kidlit site has a list of attendees (with links to their conference blog posts, complete with photos!), but in general they're a delightful mix of children's literature book reviewers, librarians, book illustrators, and authors (both published and pre-published). Most wear more than one hat, some work in day jobs far removed from children's books, and for almost everyone, blogging about kidlit is a labor of love that pays back only in intangibles.

I'll post some specifics about what I learned a little later...but for now, major kudos to Laini Taylor and Jone Rush MacCulloch, the conference organizers, and to all the presenters. Next year's conference will be in Washington D.C...I'm already scheming ways to get there!

Wop Bam Boom!

One of my best adventures in book promotion has been getting to know local booksellers. Now, Portland authors are lucky. Most places I’ve lived, there’s one national chain bookstore and (maybe) one used bookstore. Here, in addition to the usual suspects (Barnes & Noble, Borders), there are at least a dozen indies: St. Johns Booksellers, Broadway Books, Annie Bloom’s Books, Looking Glass Bookstore, In Other Words, and A Children's Place, Portland's indie bookstore just for kids. Not to mention we've got bragging rights to the biggest, baddest indie in the whole world—Powell’s Bookstore, which takes up an entire downtown city block in four-story, rambling, book-lovin' grandeur.

Everyone advises new authors to go out and build relationships with booksellers. When Tallulah Falls pubbed, I had no idea how to do this. My idea of shopping for anything--books, clothes, dog food--involves the least amount of interaction with actual people. I’m introverted, shy, and convinced that merely asking the location of something is inexcusably bothersome. In other words, I have a classic author’s temperament. Introduce myself? Couldn’t I just jump off a bridge and save everyone the trouble?

But to my relief—and delight—the booksellers I’ve met have been nothing but kind, encouraging, and supportive. At A Children's Place, Kira loads me up with recommended titles to expand my YA reading education. Roberta at Broadway Books hosted a Tallulah Falls reading for dogs and their owners which was a woofin’ good time. The good folks at Powell’s made both Tallulah Falls and Ten Cents a Dance recommended staff picks. And wonderful Nena and Liz at St. Johns Booksellers not only threw the launch party of my dreams for Ten Cents a Dance, but have continued to handsell the book to success; it’s now the #2 bestselling hardcover in the history of the store, second only to one of the Harry Potters. (Confound you, J.K. Rowling!)

The thing is, very few authors break out on the national scene. Most of us have to work just to become known locally; with luck, more books, and a lot more work, we hope to gain wider recognition and a wider audience. Good relationships with booksellers help. But that relationship is a two-way street, something we authors sometimes forget. Bookstores don’t exist to support our egos. They exist to sell books, bless ‘em, an increasingly difficult endeavor in the age of Amazon.com and videogames. I subscribe to 2 daily newsletters, one on the publishing industry and one on the bookselling business, and almost every week yet another independent bookstore gives notice that it’s closing its doors.

What's the best thing an author can do? Support his local brick-and-mortar store. Buy books there. Attend author events besides her own. Get to know the booksellers. Not just as a means to promote one’s own titles, but because booksellers are some of the coolest, sharpest, most knowledgeable folks you’ll ever meet. And they love books.

Authors and booksellers...we go together like rama lama lama ke ding a de dinga a dong, We're for each other like A wop ba-ba lu-mop and wop bam boom!

Wait...I Know It's Around Here Somewhere...

One assumption I think most aspiring authors make is that when their book is published, bookstores will carry it. That’s the whole point, right? Writing the manuscript, landing an agent, signing a contract with a publisher…all milestones on the road that lead to an actual book in an actual bookstore which a real, live, actual reader (or ten thousand) will pick up, fall in love with, and buy.

Fadeout to unicorn puppy heart rainbows.

Or…not.

Reality hits when you, Newly Published Author, walk into your local bookstore (trying to look casual—will the booksellers recognize you from your jacket photo?) and saunter to the shelf where your book will be. You know where your book will be, of course, because you’ve pictured it a thousand times in the months leading up to this day. You scan the titles, and…hm. Scan again, this time looking for your name.

Wait a minute. Where is it? You ask the clerk, who looks it up on her computer. “We’re not carrying it,” she tells you, “but we’ll be happy to order it for you.”

“Um, no, thanks,” you say, and you flee.* And then you email your agent in a panic. “What happened?” you electronically wail.

What happened, O Best Beloved,** is that bookstores can’t carry every book that’s published. They simply don’t have room. Shelf space is limited, and the number of books vying for that space is huge.

Huge? you say. C’mon, now. You’re a novelist. You exaggerate for a living.

OK, smartypants, get this. On the day Ten Cents a Dance was released, thirty-four other young adult titles were also published. Thirty-four. Not in the same month, or even the same week. The same day. And we’re talking only young adult titles. That’s not counting adult mainstream, mystery, romance, sci-fi, or any variation of non-fiction.

You see the problem.

If you’re an aspiring author, know that your publisher’s sales reps and your editor will go to bat for you. But if a big national chain declines to carry your book, what then? Weep copious tears, rend your garments? Gnash teeth? Curse the universe?

Please. Get over it. And get busy. That goes for you, too, Miss My-Book-Is-Being-Carried-In-Every-Bookstore-In-The-Country. You don’t get a pass; in fact, your work may be even harder.

Next post: Authors and Booksellers, or, What Have You Done For Me Lately? (Hint: I’m not talking about the booksellers.)


*Not that this ever happened to me. Well, OK, yes. It did. Pretty much just like that, except I was too embarrassed to ask the clerk, so my sweetie had to do it.

**Apologies to Rudyard Kipling. If you haven’t read the Just So Stories, then do. Kipling plays with the English language like a puppy with a ball, and the result is whimsical, magical fun. But gee, where's the best place to get a copy? If you're an aspiring author, and you can't guess the answer to that one, you most definitely MUST read the next post. There may just be a pop quiz.

Get on the Bus, Y'All--It's Adventure Time!

If there’s one thing that new or aspiring authors hear over and over again, it’s that we must actively promote our books.

But wait a minute, many authors say. Promotion is the publisher’s job, not mine.

It’s true that your publisher will put together a publicity and marketing plan for your book, just as it does for every title it produces. But plans vary widely, depending on—among other things—the subject matter of the book and the amount of time and money the publisher has to spend. At a minimum, your book will be included in the publisher’s catalog and sent out for reviews. The in-house publicist might be able to arrange some media coverage, maybe some local events. But if you’re a new author with no audience (yet), don’t start packing your bags. That national tour most likely ain’t happening.

So then what? The answer from most publishing folks these days is: take off the writer’s hat and put on the self-promotion one. Because now that your book is written, rewritten, edited, rewritten again, designed, and on the shelf…it’s time to get to work.

Not everyone is unanimous on this point. Well-known agent Donald Maass, for example, dismisses the notion of authors promoting their books. In his writer’s guide, Writing the Breakout Novel, he contends that the best way for a writer to sell books isn’t by going around tooting her own horn, but by focusing on writing the best damn books she can manage. Write a novel people want to read, he says, and the rest will take care of itself.

Donald Maass notwithstanding (and I love ya, Donald, really I do—yours is a refreshing, soothing voice, and lord I wish I could believe you), most of us grit our teeth and roll up our sleeves, if for no other reason than we believe in our books and we want to give them the best chance possible. The problem is, most writers—myself included—start out having no clue what to do. (If we did, we’d probably be in sales, and making a lot more money). The possibilities seem endless—and endlessly expensive, in either time or money. Should I spend $2000 on a book trailer? Another $1500 on a website? Scrape together thousands for a freelance publicist? Devote hours every week to MySpace and Facebook? Write a blog? An article for the local paper? Comment on other people’s blogs? Drive to every bookstore in a 50-mile radius to sign stock and meet booksellers? Should I bring cookies? Homemade or store-bought? What about milk?

Having now studied these burning questions for two years (and having actually done some of them) I herewith inaugurate another periodic series* on this blog: My Adventures in Book Promotion!

And just to kick the series off right: Watch this hilarious book trailer from author Dennis Cass (hilarious, because it is so painfully true...)

Next week: The One Thing People Fear More Than Death, and How to Deal (without actually dying).

*In case you missed it, the first periodic series was called From Manuscript to Finished Book. Click here for the first post in that series.

Crack the Champagne, It's a Book Launch!

Last Sunday, St. Johns Booksellers hosted the launch party for Ten Cents a Dance. Liz and Nena, the fabulous booksellers, cleared a big space in the middle of the store and set out all their chairs in preparation. After all, my last reading there had been a great success, with more than thirty attendees—fingers crossed that as many people might come this time!

The party started at 3 PM. By the time I started reading, at 3:15, the entire store—front to back, side to side, every chair, between every bookshelf—was standing room only. More than sixty people came out to help us celebrate! To say I was gratified would be the understatement of the year—I was utterly overwhelmed.

The crowd responded enthusiastically to the reading, and in the Q&A session following, questions flew thick and fast: about the research and writing, about taxi dancing and the Chicago of the era, what a dime would buy in 1941 (besides a dance with Ruby!), and about the opportunities and sacrifices that WWII brought to a young generation—some of whom, I was honored to discover, were in the audience. And doubly honored when they told me, afterward, that Ruby’s world seemed to them truly authentic.

I was going for some personal authenticity, myself. With the invaluable assistance of friend and fellow author Sally Nemeth, I snagged a fabulous 1940s dress. Then, armed with YouTube tutorials, advice and encouragement from the wonderful folks at the Fedora Lounge, I practiced and practiced my chosen 1940s hairstyle, reverse victory rolls and pincurls. (Our grandmothers had some dextrous fingers, to pull these off every day. Pincurls are hard!) Finally, seamed stockings, my mother’s ‘40s crocodile platform heels, a flower to top it all off—I was set!

Two days later, I’m still floating. Thank you to everyone who came to this colliding of my worlds: all my veterinary folk, my writing pals, friends, neighbors, and Tallulah fans who came to discover what this new book is all about. Special shout-outs: to my pal Amber, who bought a zoot suit costume for the occasion; to the Portland members of the Fedora Lounge, some of whom I finally got to meet in person, and whose vintage turnout put mine to shame! And especially to my good friend Walter, who flew in from Idaho just for the party, and had to fly right back out again.

A heartfelt thank you to my wonderful agent, Dorian Karchmar, who bought the champagne and sent a lovely message of congratulations. The crowd burst into quite an ovation!

And finally, my deepest gratitude to Nena and Liz of St. Johns Booksellers, who, the moment I told them I was working on a second novel, cried, “We want to host the party!” They made it a magnificent event—Liz even suffered high heels through the entire afternoon (I hope your feet have recovered, Liz!) These two are truly a class act, and their bookstore is a treasure in our neighborhood.
Thanks to them, and to all who came, and to all who couldn’t but sent their congratulations—Ten Cents a Dance is well and beautifully launched.

Countdown: ZERO!

Publication day! Ten Cents a Dance is officially available in bookstores and online. Are we excited? Is the Pope Catholic?

So what happens on pub day (as book insiders affectionately call it)?

Well, so far, not much. I got up, curled my lip at the frost outside (it’s April, people! Enough with the frost!), ate breakfast, and parked myself in front of my computer. Pub dates, alas, aren’t like a movie premiere. There’s no red carpet in front of the local Barnes & Noble, George Clooney ain’t showing up at my door in a tux. (Although, if he wants to, who am I to deny the man?) In short, it’s a lot like any other day. There’s pages to write on the next book, errands to run, chores to do.

But Ten Cents a Dance, the novel I’ve lived and breathed for two years, is now—finally—on the shelves. Ruby’s story is out of my hands, and into yours.

Enjoy.

She'll Bring You the World...In Books

A few weeks ago, a friend e-mailed me with a request. She had an author coming to Portland for a reading; would I be able to drive him from his hotel to the bookstore?

Go to a reading? You don't have to ask me twice. So, on a recent rainy Wednesday (is there any other kind in the Pacific Northwest in March?) I had the pleasure of meeting Dominique Fabre. Dominique is well-known in his native France, where he's published nine novels to widespread acclaim. But he's virtually unknown in the U.S., because none of his books have been translated into English.

Until now.

That's where my friend comes in. Jill Schoolman is the founder and publisher of Archipelago Books, a small independent press dedicated to bringing the best of the world's literature to the United States. I met Jill some years back, at the Pacific Northwest Writers' Conference. I was there to pitch my first novel to agents and editors. At the time, she was an editor at Seven Stories Press. She sat down next to me at the conference's opening banquet; we started talking, and we haven't stopped since. That was when I first heard about her idea--more than an idea, her passion. Less than one percent of books published in the U.S. every year are translations of foreign works. Why? Because common wisdom says that Americans aren't interested in reading them. If Americans won't buy translations, then obviously there's no point in publishing them. Right?

Jill believes the common wisdom is wrong. She believes it so strongly, she quit her job at Seven Stories and leaped off the proverbial cliff: She founded her own publishing house.

Everyone told her she was nuts. The odds of any independent press succeeding are astronomically high, let alone one devoted to translations. In addition to the usual costs of acquiring, editing, designing, and producing the books, there's the additional burden of finding and paying top-notch translators. But Jill was determined--and where Jill is determined, odds don't seem to matter. Now in its fourth year, Archipelago Books boasts 35 titles hailing from all corners of the world: Lebanon, Poland, Japan, Russia, Palestine, Germany, Brazil, Korea and Bosnia, among others. Just last week, Archipelago Books won the 2008 Miriam Bass Award for Creativity in Independent Publishing, in recognition of its "commitment to enriching and broadening the American literary landscape through the publication of...a host of distinguished international authors." A whole new catalog of books is coming out from Archipelago this year; Dominque Fabre's gorgeous little novel, The Waitress Was New, is but one.


The reading, held at one of Portland's best-loved indie stores, Looking Glass Books, was cozy and informal. Dominque spoke with delightful, self-deprecating humor about his writing process, about publishing in France ("All my books sell the same number of copies," he said. "I think perhaps I'll put my grocery list between two covers, and see if it sells the same"), and about the experience of being translated into English; he said the translator, Jordan Stump, did a marvelous job. Afterward, we headed up the street for dinner and drinks with the bookstore owner, Karin Anna, along with the Looking Glass staff and many of the guests who had come to the reading. It was a wonderful evening with great conversation, but not a late one. Dominique was Amtrak-bound early the next morning for Seattle, where he read at Elliot Bay Books--the final stop on his first American tour.

All made possible by one woman's unshakeable belief that Americans will embrace the world in literature...if only we get the chance.



Countdown to publication of Ten Cents a Dance: One week!

The Quiet Time...or, Mommy, Why is That Lady Muttering to Herself and Twitching?

Countdown to publication: Four weeks, minus 1 day.

This is when many authors go slowly nuts. All revisions on the book—for better or worse—are finished. Not even a comma can be changed; not even a question mark. Someone is working hard, turning manuscript pages into actual books; but the author’s part in the creation is over. Marketing and publicity plans have been finalized. The heady days of e-mails and phone calls between author and publisher are at a lull. Nothing now requires the author’s input.

Cue the nail-biting.

I’m no good at waiting for a bus, let alone a publication date. When it comes to the quiet time, it’s like all caffeine, all the time. I’m scattered. I can’t get to sleep. I fret about everything. That the book won’t get reviewed. That it will get reviewed, and the reviews will read exactly like hideous, cackling hyena laughs, if hyena laughs could be translated into English. I fret that the pub date will come and no one will notice because readers will be too busy swarming around another title. You don’t even want to know how many young adult novels are pubbing the same day as mine. In fact, I don’t want to know. I stopped counting at six.

So, yeah. It's the quiet time, and I’ve got the pre-pub jitters like you wouldn’t believe.

This is what helps:

My sweetie, who has the front row seat for every fret and anxiety I can dream up, and who still hasn’t run screaming out the door.

My writer friends, who get the deal because they’ve been through it themselves—especially Sally Nemeth, who took me on the hunt for a fab 1940s dress to wear to my publication shindig, and the hunt was good, and spoils were brought back to the lair in triumph. Did I mention the fabulousness? Oh, child. There’ll be pics, you just wait.

My non-writer friends, who are steeped in yet more wonderfulness because they get it, too. Or they’re all actors right up there with Cate Blanchett, only Cate Blanchett would be getting that narrow-eyed little frown of hers that makes ordinary people look like ferrets and yet she remains gorgeous as she telegraphs with her ice-making eyes, You’ve become a crashing bore, get hold of yourself, can’t you? Bloody American, and none of my wonderful friends are doing that. Yet.

Kitties falling asleep on my keyboard.

Working on the next book. Because no matter what flavor of reality ends up smacking itself all over the book about to hit the shelves, there’s always another story that needs telling. Publishing is one thing. Writing is a whole different beast. Writers write, and so…off I go.

While I wait, the next story is waiting for me.

The Art of Enticement...and an Announcement

For me, the most mysterious aspect of the manuscript-to-book journey has to be the cover art. Think about the cover’s job. Sure, it has to look good…but is that enough? In the bookstore, surrounded by hundreds of other books, the cover has to entice the reader. Look at me, it has to say. Don’t I look delicious? Don’t you just have to know what I’m about? Come on, pick me up. You know you want to. Once the book is in the reader’s hands, it’s up to the concept and the writing to clinch the deal. But first, the reader has to pass by all those other books and pluck this one off the shelf. We say “don’t judge a book by its cover,” but come on…of course we do.

In fact, the judging starts even before the cover makes it onto the book. Case in point: this early design for Ten Cents a Dance. When I saw it, I thought…nice. Just…nice. Would I pick the book up, though, if I was browsing through a bookstore? Well, umm... It's pretty, all right. But to be honest, it doesn't really pique my curiosity.

Well, as it turned out, nobody was really happy with that first design. And this is why I love my agent and my editor, and I adore the book designer, whom I’ve never met but if I do, I will wash her windows and her car and walk her dogs and make her dinner. Because once it became apparent nobody was really happy, she started again from scratch. Authors usually aren’t involved in cover design—many authors are shown their cover as a courtesy, and that’s it. But my editor asked for feedback, and bless her heart, my agent and I gave it, and they listened, and the book designer (who, by the way, is responsible not only for my book, but also for probably 20 other titles coming out this spring) knocked it right out of the park:



This is gorgeous and striking and enticing as all damn, and if I saw it in a bookstore, I would make a beeline and snatch it right into my greedy little book-loving hands. That girl looks like she's up to something--perfect for my main character, Ruby. The mood is more tense, more mysterious. And I adore all the little details: the pinstripes, and (you can't see this, really, but take my word for it) the way the woman's nail polish matches the color of the title font. And then there's the little tagline above the title: Bad boys and secrets are both hard to keep...

No secret that I'm in love with this cover. Kudos to the whole amazing team at Bloomsbury and to my wonderful agent. You've made this author one happy gal.

So what's the book about, you ask? And when will we see it in real life?

Here's a sneak preview of the flap copy:

Chicago, 1941: When her mother becomes too ill to work, fifteen-year-old Ruby Jacinski is forced to drop out of school to support her family. But her dull factory job makes life feel like one long dead end...until she meets neighborhood bad boy Paulie Suelze. Soon, Ruby discovers how to make money—lots of money—while wearing silk and satin and doing what she does best: dancing. Paid ten cents a dance to lead lonely men around a dance hall floor, Ruby thinks she’s finally found a way out of Chicago’s tenements…until swinging with the hepcats turns into swimming with the sharks.

A mesmerizing look into a little known world and era, Ruby’s story is resplendent with the sounds of great jazz, the allure of beautiful clothing, and the passions of a young generation in a country on the brink of war.

Coming to a bookstore near you on April 1! If you want to read an excerpt ahead of time--and have a chance to win a signed copy--be sure to sign up for my newsletter here.

We Gots Us Some Geeky Fun

Naming characters is always fun. For Tallulah Falls, I knew Tallulah’s name from the very beginning. Maeve's, too. I don’t know how; that’s just who they were, and I ran with it.

For the characters in Ten Cents a Dance (which I’m already thinking of as my “last book,” even though it isn’t published yet, to distinguish it in my head from the “new book,” the one I’m currently whamming at with a sledgehammer trying to get it off the ground—and if that sounds like a frustrating way to get something airborne, believe me, it is), Ruby’s name came to me fast. It’s colorful and sparkly, which fits her, plus it has that lovely 1940s feel to it.

That’s the thing about names. They have to fit the characters, and they also have to be true to the time period of the book. Which gets me to the main event of this post:

The Baby Name Wizard’s Name Voyager!

Now, I realize I am a geek. I find many things fascinating which put other people to sleep. Which I don’t understand, because they're fascinating, don't you understand? But OK, whatever. This, though—I showed this to a couple of co-workers, and the next thing I knew, ten people were crowded around the computer, yelling, “Put in ‘Leslie!" "Put in ‘Sam’!" "Put in ‘Ashley’!”

See, the Name Voyager is a Java interactive thingy whereby you type in a name, specify “boy” or “girl” or both, and its magical presto-chango graph illustrates, in lovely color, how popular that name has been in every decade since the 1880s. You heard that right. Eighteen-eighties.

Type in “Bella.” Middling popular until the 1910s, then it tanks and disappears by the mid-‘30s. Gone for decades, then…boom, 2003, folks start naming their baby girls “Bella” again. It’s shot up the charts and is still climbing. Why is that? No idea.

And then there’s “Lisa.” I know a million Lisas. It’s a name as old as the hills, right? One of those perennial favorites that’ll never disapp— Hey, wait a minute! Where’d it go?

Gone with the wind, my friend. The Lisa, she is gone with the wind.

I could spend hours on this thing, it’s so much geeky fun. No, wait—I have spent hours on this thing. Naming characters was always entertaining…but with the Name Voyager to play with, now it’s a wonder I get anything else done at all.*

*Shhh! Don't tell my agent. She thinks I'm working.

***********************************************

Cassie Edwards plagiarism update:
(here's the original post)

Signet Books, which originally said this, is now saying this. (I can just hear their lawyers: "All riiiiight, everyone, backpedal! And a-one-two-three-four...")

One of the plagiarized parties, Paul Tolme, whose article on mating habits of the black-footed ferret—I swear to God I’m not making this up—was copied and pasted into Edwards’s novel, Shadow Bear, writes about his reaction in Newsweek magazine.

To top all off—because the whole thing isn't bizarre enough already, you know—an exceptionally dedicated searcher found this in Edwards’s novel Savage Obsession:

SAVAGE OBSESSION Page 284

The odors of the forest, the dew and damp meadow, and the curling smoke from the wigwams were left behind as Lorinda [...]

HIAWATHA by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: Lines 3-5 of the Introduction

With the odors of the forest,
With the dew and damp of meadows,
With the curling smoke of wigwams


Holy freaking moly. Hiawatha?

A Rose By Any Other Name...Still Stinks

There’s a brouhaha a-brewin’ in romance publishing this week.

I'm not a romance novel reader, although I did go through a brief period in college during which I scarfed them down like Pringles (sour cream and chives flavor, yum!) I am, however, a huge fan of the Smart Bitches, and thereupon hangs this blog post.

The Smart Bitches, Sarah and Candy, run the romance novel review website Smart Bitches Who Love Trashy Books. I adore them because, first, second, and third, they are profanely funny. (Their style of humor isn’t for everyone, but hey, I like it.) Fourth, they take reviewing seriously. A lot of book review websites hand out five-star write-ups like prizes at a beauty pageant for toddlers (make sure everyone has a shiny crown to take home!), which renders them pretty much useless. The SBs, though, call it like they read it, and if what they read is crapola, they’ll not only tell you so, but their snarky analysis will have you snorting coffee out your nose. Fifth, one of their regular features is offering up romance cover art for unabashed critique. Straight shooters? These gals could plug a squirrel’s eye at fifty yards, and make the squirrel think it’s funny, to boot.

So when the Smart Bitches discovered that Cassie Edwards, a romance author with over 100 published books, has apparently lifted lengthy passages from other books verbatim and used them in her own novels, they did what any honest, sharp-shootin’ gals who run a book review site would do.

They documented their findings. And then they called Cassie Edwards and her publishers on it.

Inevitably, this being the Internet, the SBs received angry comments from Cassie Edwards fans. The gist of these screeds was 1) verbatim copying isn't wrong, and 2) the SBs are evil for creating such skeezy drama.

Well OK, you think, those are fangirls. Sure they're going to defend a beloved author (although I'd like to see their reaction if some other writer had ripped off Cassie Edwards, instead of the other way around).

Today came the official response from Signet Books. You can read it here, but in short, it tells the SBs to take a hike. An excerpt:

"The copyright fair-use doctrine permits reasonable borrowing and paraphrasing another author’s words, especially for the purpose of creating something new and original. "

Hmm. My Oxford English dictionary defines “plagiarize” as to:

“take and use the thoughts, writings, inventions, etc. of another person as one’s own.”

Now, I'm no lawyer, but I've read my publishing contracts. They contain a standard clause that says the work I submit to my publisher must be original. I've sweated blood worrying that somewhere in my new book, I may have inadvertantly used a phrase or sentence from a research source. I've checked and cross-checked obsessively, and still I worry. I listed my most-used sources in the acknowledgements, both to give credit to these outstanding works and to give interested readers leads on more information.

So I'm pretty confident that--no matter what Signet claims--verbatim copying, Cassie Edwards-style, is not “reasonable borrowing and paraphrasing.” Students flunk classes for this. Other authors get called on the carpet, in public. It’s plagiarism, and it’s unethical.

Just sayin’, Signet. Smart Bitches, rock on.

The Journey Continues: First Pass Pages

I thought I’d get to blogging about this earlier, but, you know, holidays and whatnot…so here we are, better late than never, talking about first-pass pages.

When last we left our book-in-progress, I was reviewing copyedits and going over the manuscript, looking for errors. Two months later, another big FedEx package lands on my porch. But for the first time, the pages inside aren’t a raw manuscript. They're still loose, not bound; but otherwise, they look exactly how they will in the finished book. They’re designed. The words are typeset, the chapter headings are set off in an amazing bold font. It’s beautiful. But my publisher didn’t send them for me to admire. No, it’s time to—once more—proofread for mistakes. But honestly, at this stage, how many can there be? I sit down with my pencil and Chicago Manual of Style, and not even three pages in, oh, my God. You’ve got to be kidding.

My editor and I ended up going over all the corrections via phone. Me in Oregon with my set of pages, she in New York with hers, both our copies bristling with colored sticky tags. A different shade for every person who’d found stuff to fix. Five readers in all: the two of us, the copyeditor, the proofreader, and my good friend/writing mentor/fresh-pair-of-eyes, Karen Karbo. The scariest thing? Each of us had caught something that the other four missed. That’s how sneaky some of this stuff is. And not just typos, either. I picked up a plot inconsistency that had completely eluded me earlier. D’oh! *smacks forehead with hard object*

And yet my editor somehow made this whole thing fun, rather than nervewracking. For this, she deserves sainthood. And me—when I find an occasional slip-up in a book I’m reading, I’m a lot more forgiving than I used to be. Because I know, somewhere, the poor author (and his poor editor) are smacking their foreheads, saying, But we went over it eighteen-bazillion times! How could we have possibly missed that?

Yeah, dude. I know. But it's still a beautiful thing.

Writer-Geek Heaven...

...is two days spent bundled under an afghan in a rocking chair , with my manuscript, a sharp pencil, big pink eraser, a cup of coffee, and the Chicago Manual of Style. Outside, it rained; inside, kitties snoozed on the bed. A cozier, nerdier time could not have been had.

It was time to review copyedits.

As I mentioned in my last post, I adore copyeditors. First, I strongly suspect that they are even geekier than I am. Second, as I noted before, it’s the copyeditor’s job to keep me from making an idiot of myself in public. As I went through the manuscript, one thing became clear: me and proper comma use, not so much acquainted. What can I say? I put them where the pauses sound in my head.

So if the copyeditor is catching all the mistakes, what is the manuscript doing back on my lap, the person who made the mistakes to begin with? Because my job, at this junction, is to go through every change suggested by the copyeditor. The author may not have final say over the cover or the title, but s/he has absolute, final say over the actual writing. If I felt it was utterly essential that those commas stayed where I originally put them, then all I needed to do was indicate so on the manuscript. Take that, Strunk and White!* My word is law!

Then again, my manuscript was blessed with a wonderful copyeditor who really knows her stuff. That, and I’m not an idiot.

Reviewing copyedits isn't all coziness; it's also stressful, and not only because I'm never sure if I'm making the little squiggle at the end of a line deletion correctly. This is crunch time, the last chance an author has to make any significant changes. By this time, I have so many different versions of certain scenes in my head, it's hard to see the words fresh on the page the way a reader will. And there's not much time to ponder. One week to turn the manuscript around. But by Monday afternoon, I was done, the sun was out again, and the manuscript was winging its way back to New York--in better condition, I hope, than when it arrived.

*"Strunk and White" is the nickname for the book The Elements of Style. It was originally written by William Strunk, Jr. a zillion years ago, added onto by E.B. White only a million years ago, and is the one essential reference on written English that everyone should have. Everyone. It's only about 80 pages long and it's plain, clear, common good sense and a masterpiece. So no, I don't really defy Strunk and White. But I could. If I wanted to.

From Manscript to Finished Book...The Journey Continues

So my editor has read the revisions, and my agent, too, and they love them. Whew! Can I just tell you what an incredible relief that is? I mean, you think the book is good, and that you’re making it better, and you hope so, but you’re never sure until someone objective reads it. So that enthusiastic thumbs-up from the Powers That Be means a lot, and it feels heavenly.

If the manuscript needed more revisions, my editor would have sent it back to me. But since it didn’t, it’s now gone on to the copyeditor. The copyeditor’s job is to catch mistakes that everyone else has missed so far. Those can be as minor as using the same word twice in a sentence, to as major as chapter structure and pacing. Copyeditors also do a lot of fact-checking, looking for inaccuracies. Yes, it’s a novel…but one grounded in the real world, amid real events. In short, the copyeditor is a sharp-eyed perfectionist, whose job is to keep me—the author—from making an idiot of myself in public.

I love copyeditors.

Meanwhile, work proceeds on the cover art. Just as with a book’s title, the publishing house has full control over its cover. Most authors are shown the cover art, as a courtesy, but we often have no input into the design. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. I can draw, but I’m awful at graphic design, and when it comes to color, well, let me just say that if it weren’t for my highly multi-talented friend Laura, my house would now be an awful shade of chartreuse instead of the lovely muted earthy green it is. At the same time, though, my agent and I had some ideas of how we wanted the Ten Cents a Dance cover to look. My editor, bless her heart, has been completely open to our input. I can’t wait to see what magic the art director at Bloomsbury conjures to convey the spirit of the book.

And what am I doing, during all this activity in NYC? Enjoying the brief lull before I get the copyedited pages back—catching up on house stuff, brainstorming the next novel, and of course practicing veterinary medicine. I expect the copyedits to arrive any day, and when they do, I’ll let you know what’s involved on my end. Let’s just say, it’ll be time for my inner geek to shine!

And the Title Is...

Ten Cents a Dance!

That's the newly official title of my second novel. A lot of people are surprised to find out that authors don’t get final say over what their title is. That’s not to say that the publishing house won’t go with what we suggest; for my first novel, I was really attached to Tallulah Falls, and fortunately the folks at Bloomsbury loved it, too. Simple as pie, warm fuzzies all around.

In her book The Forest for the Trees, former editor Betsy Lerner recounts the story of how Peter Benchley’s first novel got its title. How to convey the terrror of a great white shark hunting humans at a popular coastal resort? They tried Death in the Water and Leviathan Rising and just plain Leviathan and The Jaws of Death and, Mr. Benchley estimates, perhaps a hundred other suggestions. Even his dad got in on the act, with What Dat Noshin on My Laig? But whatever someone’s favorite was, someone else was sure to hate it. Finally, with the book about to go into production, a choice had to be made. The only title that everyone didn’t absolutely loathe was…Jaws.

Which now, of course, seems the one and only perfect title for that book.

Titling my second novel, while not as straightforward as the first, was thankfully not nearly as agonizing as the Jaws experience. The whole year I worked on this book, I called it Taxi Dancer, mostly because I had to call it something besides Second Novel and I couldn’t think of anything else. I kept waiting for inspiration to strike, but then in March the manuscript was finished, it was time to hand it in, and still lightning eluded me. Nobody at the publishing house was crazy about Taxi Dancer—which was OK with me, I didn’t like it, either. My editor came up with Ten Cents a Dance, and that proved to be the winner, to everyone’s great satisfaction!

Next week, I’ll write about the editing process (which I just finished—whew!—and which is why I’ve been absent a while from this blog!)

Guest Blog over at Bookseller Chick

If you’re a writer, you know there’s tons of books, workshops, and advice forums for those struggling with their first novels. But what happens between books #1 and 2? Bookseller Chick invited me to guest blog on that very topic, and you’ll find it here. As I told her, guest blogging feels kind of like throwing a party in someone else’s house, hoping no wine gets spilled on the carpet. Thanks, BSC, for letting me set up a tent in your space!

A New Look for Tallulah Falls

The brand-spanking-new paperback of Tallulah Falls hits the bookstore shelves this week! Check out the new cover—light and bright and beautiful. One of the reasons I’m glad to be published by Bloomsbury Children’s Books is that they take such care to make their books gorgeous. Between this and the fabulous hardcover design, I feel like one highly pampered author.

I just got back from a two-week tour around Scotland and Ireland, and am jet-lagged beyond belief. More on that later...

The Bella Stander Poetry Contest

If you’re in the mood to read some REALLY bad poetry (and come on, who isn’t?) then head on over to Miss Snark’s blog. Miss Snark is a literary agent whose prolific, funny, and yes, snarky blog normally deals with publishing questions. This week, however, she held a poetry contest. Why? To make Bella Stander laugh.

Who’s Bella Stander? And why do we care if she laughs? She’s a writer and book reviewer, an organizer for the Virginia Festival of the Book, and founder of Book Promotion 101, a workshop that teaches newbie authors like me how to launch our babies into the cold cruel world. I took Bella’s workshop last year and found it excellent. Afterward, I had the pleasure of chatting with her for a couple of hours over Chinese food, and that was even better. She’s a fount of book world wisdom, and funny as hell to boot.

This past May, Bella took a very nasty spill off a horse. On Tuesday she went in for yet another surgery, this time on her fractured (and poorly healing) humerus. Not one to pass up fun with homonyms (humerus/humorous—the possibilities practically boggle the mind!) and with the goal of rallying Bella’s spirits, Miss Snark announced the contest and threw open the blog doors.

Eighty-five entries in 48 hours. Twelve hours for blog readers to cast their votes, and—ta da! Results are in. The poem written by yours truly (#44) landed in a 3-way tie for third. (Yeah, I see you back there, I know what you’re thinking. No, I didn’t vote for myself. Not even once. Scout's honor).

So Bella, I hope we made you laugh and that your humerus is on the mend, and do you have any idea how hard it is NOT to make bad puns on the word humerus? (Must refrain…must…refrain…)

Happy 4th of July!

I’ve been spending almost all my free time writing the 2nd novel, so the blog has been neglected a bit. Sorry, folks. But I thought I’d post a couple of quick updates today.

First, Barbaro’s cast (see here for original post) was changed for the 2nd time yesterday. He’s still in the ICU of the University of Pennsylvania’s New Bolton Center, but so far he’s making a marvelous recovery. He’s got his own official photo gallery now—click here to see current pics of him.

Second, if you found the agent information here interesting, and you’d like more—from an actual agent, no less!—then hop over to Agent Kristin’s blog. She’s doing an Agenting 101 series, beginning with this post, that you won’t want to miss. And then bookmark her site in your browser, because she's a gem--if you read her blog regularly, you'll learn tons.

I’ll be back soon. In the meantime, happy 4th of July, everyone!

This Reading Experience Brought To You By...

Courtesy of the New York Times comes this article about product placement in a young adult novel.

Yep, that’s right: product placement.

You know product placement. It’s what made Reese’s Pieces a household name after E.T.; it’s why sitcom characters always hold the soda can with the name displayed toward the camera. Companies pay for the privilege of having their products onscreen. Nobody cares; after all, the hero has to swig something, and whether it’s a Coke or a Pepsi won’t make any difference to the story or to the viewer. If a company wants to cough up enough cash to ensure that their athletic shoes adorn the heroine’s feet, be my guest.

This seems to be the line that the publisher, authors, and Cover Girl are taking about the product placement in Cathy’s Book, a young adult novel due out in September 2007 from Running Press. Cover Girl isn’t paying the authors directly; instead, the company will help promote the book. In exchange, according the NYT article: “Some of the changes that the authors and illustrators…have made since the partnership was struck include altering a drawing entitled "Artgirl Detective" to "Artist! Detective! UnderCover Girl" and changing a generic reference to "gunmetal grey eyeliner" to "eyecolor in 'Midnight Metal.'”

So what? Does this hurt anyone? Probably not. But it makes me uneasy, if for no other reason than novels are one of the last ad-free bastions left in our world. Here in Portland, our city ballpark is named after a utility company. The Triple Crown races are now the Visa Triple Crown, the Kentucky Derby brought to you by Yum! Brands. Everything, it seems, now comes with a tag attached. Even--if you can believe this--a kid’s bus ride to school.

If this works out well for Cover Girl, then certainly we’ll see more of it. How soon before a company offers to pay? How many authors could resist the kind of money and promotional opportunities a big company can offer? (Let me pop a balloon right here—nobody, aside from Steven King and John Grisham and a few others, makes a living writing novels. Even Toni Morrison and Joyce Carol Oates have day jobs). Would we tell ourselves, as the writers in this article did, that it's not a big deal, it's not changing the story?

As far as that goes, I do believe them (and for the record, let me say that the premise of Cathy’s Book sounds absolutely delicious). But if a company pays for product placement in a novel, you can bet that at some point, pressure will come to bear on the author or publisher.

More importantly, does it change the reader's experience? To me, there's a big difference between "gunmetal grey eyeliner" and "eyecolor in 'Midnight Metal.'" The first is good, detailed writing that does what good, detailed writing is supposed to do: evoke a visual image. I read that phrase and I can see the color. In contrast, “eyecolor in ‘Midnight Metal’” pulls me out of the story, wondering what Midnight Metal might look like. Instead of a clear visual image, it evokes...shopping mall.

It's the same difference between the Civic Stadium and PGE Park. One belonged to the city residents. The other is bought and paid for, and you'd better not forget it.

It could be hard to lose yourself in a novel with that kind of message.

Literary Agent Redux

You’ve written a book, and you want to find a literary agent to represent you and your work. How do you find this person, and how do you make sure you don’t get scammed?

(Do you need an agent? That depends. If you’re going to self-publish, no. If you’re aiming for the small, independent publishing houses—not necessarily. But if you’ve got your sights set on the big guns—Random House, say, or Simon and Schuster—then you probably do. Check out this article, or the resources listed below, for more info).

The first step is to make a list of agents who are looking for manuscripts like yours. There’s lots of ways to do this, and I recommend a combination of approaches (hey, it worked for me). First, look for published books that are similar to yours in genre or theme. Often, the author will include his or her agent in the acknowledgements. (If not, a Web search can often turn up the agent who represented the novel; or, as a last resort, you can call the publisher and ask who the agent of record is for that book). Once you’ve discovered the agent's name, you can then search the resources mentioned below to see what other books he or she has represented, to see if the agent might be a good fit for you.

A couple of nice bonuses to this approach is that 1) You’ll get a good feel for what’s already out there on the shelves. Agents appreciate writers who are knowledgeable about what’s happening in their genre. And 2) If an author thanks his or her agent with particular enthusiasm, that’s practically a personal recommendation!

At the same time, do some digging to turn up more agent names. Jeff Herman’s Guide to Book Publishers, Editors, and Literary Agents is an great place to start. A new edition comes out every year; since agent information can change rapidly, be sure you’re using the current one. Writer’s Digest Guide to Literary Agents is another good reference, also updated annually. On the Internet, two very helpful resources are Agent Research and Evaluation and AgentQuery.

When searching these references, remember you’re not going to contact every agent listed; that’s a waste of your time and theirs. Instead, you’re looking for those agents who represent books like yours. Using these strategies, you should be able to generate a list of twenty to fifty literary agents, and possibly more, depending on your genre.

How do you avoid scams? Pretty easily, actually, if you remember two principles.

First: Only query reputable agents. Reputable agents make their money by selling manuscripts to publishers. This means they'll have an established track record, which you'll be able to find. Most are also members of the Association of Author’s Representatives, and so are bound to the AAR Canon of Ethics. (Note that membership in AAR is not mandatory, and some very excellent agents are not members. Still, they voluntarily abide by the same ethical code). If you use the agent-hunting strategies described above, chances are good that your list will only include reputable agents.

Second: In the agent-author relationship, money flows toward the author, NOT the other way around. In other words, before the manuscript has been sold to a publisher, you never, ever pay an agent. For anything. Ever. As I emphasized above, agents earn their money by selling manuscripts. Once this sale is made, then the agent takes his or her commission (15% is standard) out of the advance paid to the author by the publisher. At this point, the agent may also ask to be reimbursed for any ordinary office expenses (postage, copying, etc) incurred in the sale. These expenses should be clearly explained to the author beforehand, and/or spelled out in the agent-author contract.

In contrast to the above, a scam agent usually has no verifiable record of sales to publishers. He or she will not be a member of AAR. Most importantly, a scam agent will ask for some kind of upfront payment from the author. This payment may be disguised as “reading fees”, “editing fees”, or reimbursement for office expenses (remember, any such reimbursement should only be made after the manuscript is sold). These people make their money from the authors they’ve scammed, NOT from selling manuscripts to publishers.

If you harbor any doubt about the agents on your list, do yourself a massive favor and check them out before you send them your manuscript. (Two excellent resources to help you: Preditors and Editors and Writer Beware). As I noted in last week's post, many authors spend little or no time researching agents. Before they know it, they’ve signed with a scam artist—and only come to realize it when, some months down the road, the manuscripts they've labored over for years remain unsold, and their bank accounts are smaller by hundreds—sometimes thousands—of dollars.

Be smarter than that. Next to writing a fabulous book, finding a good agent can be the most important step you take toward publication. You owe it to yourself—and to your writing career—to do it right.

Agents 101

Fireworks arrived early this year, in the world of writing and publishing blogs. The website Absolute Write, which has been a wellspring of information on writing and publishing for several years, was shut down last week after a threatening phone call from a “literary agent” whose name appeared on AW’s list of 20 Worst Agencies (the AW site is back up, but I can't find their version of the list; so here it is on Writer Beware). This hasty plug-pulling of a respected, educational writers’ website caused a furious backlash among a number of writers and publishing professionals, including the anonymous NYC literary agent, Miss Snark, who issued a take-no-prisoners, bring-it-on shout out to the “agent” who started this whole brouhaha.

So what? You’re writing away in your cubbyhole, deaf to the distractions of the blogosphere. (In which case, what are you doing here?) You say to yourself: Tempest in a teapot, and why should I care, anyway?

If your goal is publication, you should care plenty.

Why? Because in your quest for publication, most likely you’ll be seeking representation by a literary agent. A GOOD lit agent can and will do all these things:

• Help you polish your work, so that it is in best possible shape prior to submission to editors;
• Formulate and carry out a submission strategy to these editors, using her extensive contacts and the relationships she’s built in the publishing world;
• Negotiate the best possible publishing deal for you and your work (this goes beyond the bare question of advance money; this also includes which rights and subrights the publisher gets, the royalties you will receive, and a host of other details—most of which you’ve never heard of, but which can make a huge difference in your publishing experience);
• Mediate any problems which arise between you and your publisher, from bad cover art to book promotion snafus;
• Give you oodles of advice and encouragement, to help you shape your long-term writing career.

So what’s the problem? There are no degree certificates for literary agents, no government regulation, no exams to pass, no licenses to acquire. I could slap together a webpage today, order some business cards saying “Dog-Eat-Dog Literary Agency”, and voila! I’m a literary agent. (Perish the thought—I would be terrible). Many writers, many of whom have invested years in their novels, don’t bother to take the time to learn what separates the good agents from the bad. Bad agents know this. Operating under the time-honored truism that there’s one born every minute, these scam artists go a-hunting. And they catch plenty, with the result that the agent ends up richer, yet another writer ends up poorer (and bitter, to boot), and the book is no nearer publication than it was before.

Over the next week or three, I’ll post some more about agents: how to recognize the bad ones, how to find the good ones, and how to get the agent of your dreams.

And The Bell Rings For Round Two!

Like most unpublished writers, I had one goal in mind: publication.

Didn’t see much beyond that, except, of course, that life would become easier. As if the alchemy that would transform my hundreds of loose manuscript pages into a gorgeous bound book would also transform my working life into a smooth, clean machine. I would be a writer! Gone would be the juggling of schedules, the stress of too many tasks in too little time, the eking out of an hour here, a morning there, to work on my books. No, I would be a writer, and my life would be writing.

If the laughter you hear is a little shrill, well, that’s because nothing has changed—except now, I’m working under a deadline.

It was different for Tallulah Falls. In the normal course of publishing (we’re not talking Kaavya Viswanathan of Opal Mehta fame here—her path to publication was definitely the road less traveled), the only person invested in the completion of a first novel is the writer herself. I realized an important truth about halfway through the first draft: Nobody cared if this thing got finished or not. Except me.

The second book, though—that’s a different story. The second book has all kinds of people invested in it. It’s exciting, it’s life-changing. It’s scary as hell. It ought to be interesting—especially since, in this next year, I’ll also be spending time promoting Tallulah Falls. And of course working hard at my first love, veterinary medicine.

I’ll let you know how it goes.