What’s Important

I was busily writing at home last week when my husband called me up and asked if I wanted to meet him for lunch. I hopped in the car and drove the 25 minutes over to his office to pick him up.

Usually when we have lunch, we eat at a sandwich shop or get some Chinese food…nothing fancy.

This time, though, my husband was interested in going to the City Tavern—a white tablecloth-type establishment.

It sounded good to me. But then my husband hesitated. “Do we look all right?”

I glanced over at him—blue jeans (he works in IT) and a golf shirt. I looked at myself and I was wearing something such as a person writing at home might wear on a warm day—flip flops, capris, tee shirt. “We’re good!”

I was driving us over to the restaurant and chatting away about my morning when he asked again if I thought we looked okay.

I said something like, “Sure we do!” and continued on my train of thought.

But the third time he said it, we were about to go into the restaurant. I said, “Sweetie, I don’t think they’re going to turn away paying customers. We don’t look that awful.” He seemed so reticent, that I finally realized that even though I rarely care what I look like, it was important to Coleman. He’s a professional person. He might run into people he has a work relationship with.

I peeked in. I saw other people in jeans. One person had flip flops. We were okay.

Just because it wasn’t important to me, didn’t mean it wasn’t important.

I think that’s why it’s vital for me to have first readers (my parents, mainly) before my manuscript goes to my editors. Sometimes there are book elements that I don’t spend a lot of time writing (I always need to fill in more setting). Just because it’s not important to me, though, doesn’t mean it’s not important to a reader.

My mother is a great first reader for me. “I can’t really picture the porch at the barbeque restaurant,” she said.

I could picture it plainly…in my head. But I hadn’t put my vision on paper at all. It was as if, if I could see it, I thought everyone could see it.

A content critique is vital, I think. Sometimes I think I’ve established the relationship between different characters very clearly—but, again, it might have just been clear to me and I didn’t share it with the reader.

And then, like at the restaurant, there are things that I just don’t enjoy developing in a book. But I need to know when readers need more information: on setting, on character description, on backstory. Those are things I don’t incorporate a lot of—but that sometimes are more important to readers than I think.

Do you have a first reader that you give your manuscript to before its submitted?

Introducing Channing Hayes

Today's post will be short and sweet (very sweet!).

I'm thrilled to announce that I'll be writing a new series for Midnight Ink. It features Channing Hayes, a stand-up comic with a tragic past, who is now part owner of a comedy club. The first book, THE LAST LAFF (or maybe just LAST LAFF, or maybe something else entirely), is scheduled for publication in March 2011.

Thanks to everyone at Midnight Ink, especially Terri and Brian, for bringing this on board!

Now I'm off to do some research. In other words, it's time to turn on Comedy Central.

Sometimes the life of a writer is a hard one.

Inkspot News - December 5, 2009

G.M. Malliet will be at St. John's Episcopal Church today, signing books from noon to 1:30 pm. The fundraising event, "Christmas Spirit in the Heart of Georgetown," features more than two dozen local authors. Autographed books by Madeleine Albright, first woman Secretary of State, will be available. http://www.stjohnsgeorgetown.org
Address: 3240 O Street, Washington, DC

Pam W of The Mystery Bookstore in Los Angeles chose G.M. Malliet's Death and the Lit Chick, the 2nd St. Just mystery, for her December Top 10 List of favorite mysteries. The third book in the series, Death at the Alma Mater, is now available for pre-order. See the review under the "Mystery" category at the latest Publishers Weekly.

Beth Groundwater will be making two appearances in Denver, Colorado next week:

Sunday, December 6th, from 3:00 – 4:00 PM, Beth will participate in a group signing with fellow mystery authors Mike Befeler, Linda Berry, and Patricia Stoltey at Who Else Books? in the Broadway Book Mall at 200 S. Broadway.

Friday, December 11th, Beth will participate with a host of other authors in a fundraiser for the Colorado Humanities and Colorado Center for the Book at the Barnes & Noble Bookstore in the Entertainment and Fashion Pavilion at 500 16 Street. Beth and science fiction author Laura Reeve will sign from 11:00 AM to noon. For more information about this event and to download a voucher that assures a percentage of your purchases goes to the fundraiser, go to the Colorado Humanities website.

Judging a Book

by G.M. Malliet

I was recently tapped to be one of the judges in a writing competition. What an honor. What a responsibility. What a real labor of love - emphasis on labor, emphasis on love.

Many submissions later, and more on the way...Since my own escape from the slush pile is not that far in the past, I’m excited by the quality of what I’m reading, and determined to give everyone a fair shot.

I am also starting to see what agents mean when they say "Don’t give me any excuse, however small."

They are swamped with good-quality manuscripts. I get it now. They are looking for reasons to toss your gorgeous book aside.

Don’t give them a reason.

That means this: No funny fonts. No colored fonts. No odd spacing. Nothing that makes you stand out, in fact (except your exceptional writing and storytelling skills, of course). Boring conformity is what the agent and editor want to see.

I repeat: Don't give them a reason. These people are more jaded than I am. They are more tired after years in the business. Their eyesight is probably bad, and they may be cranky, for any number of unknown reasons. They may not choose to ignore, as I steadfastly do, the things that make it harder to read your manuscript. After all, I'm in this for the short haul, so I can be more diligent, and "holier than them."

They will not be as patient. Trust me on this.

The things it is assumed "everyone" knows about submitting a manuscript - not everyone does. So I’ve recently been compiling my own list of the formatting rules I didn't always know:

* Doublespace the entire manuscript. There is no need to triple or quadruple space between paragraphs – just doublespace.

* Indent each paragraph five spaces. Fewer or more spaces can make it harder to read. Also, don’t use dashes at the beginning of each paragraph. (I don’t know where this formatting style started - is it a European thing?)

* Again, no fancy fonts. Plain old Times New Roman, 12 point, is just fine. By the way, I was taught that a sans serif font, like Arial (apparently the default font for this blog), is harder to read than a font with serifs – those little sticky-outy things (a technical term I learned from Hallie Ephron) like on the letters g and p and m. Supposedly, the eye can track words better when you use letters with sticky-outy things.

* Put your name, the title of your book, and the page number on every page. The exact way you do this probably doesn’t matter. I put, for example, Malliet/Death of a Cozy Writer at the top left of each page, and the page number at the top right of each page. Imagine if you will a busy agent, dealing with dozens of manuscripts on her/his desk. The casual swoop of an arm, and there go your manuscript pages, mixed up now with dozens of other manuscript pages. This is the reason why you should label every page.

* Despite the above, it is not necessary to bind your pages. I have heard that agents/editors prefer pages unbound, except for a rubber band around the middle. Has anyone else here heard the same? (I think a giant, removable clip at the top is fine, too, but that’s just me.)

* By the same token, elaborate packaging isn’t necessary. A manuscript-sized box, such as that provided by the postal service for priority mail, or one of those unrippable bags is fine. One agent (now I can’t remember who) has famously begged people not to pad their manuscript with that plastic popcorn stuff, which tends to explode into every corner of an office.

* Center your chapter headings so the break is obvious. I also bold my chapter headings. Some people (me) begin a new chapter at the center of the page itself. It doesn’t matter, I don’t think, and probably wastes paper.

* Despite what I just said, it is better/more usual not to print on both sides of the page. Yes, I know this is wasteful. You are trying to get published, so the recycling gods will probably forgive you.

* Scene shifts or breaks in a chapter: Everyone does this differently, but use something to clearly indicate this type of break - don’t just quadruple space. I center five asterisks on a line by themselves to indicate that I’m shifting gears slightly, but I’m still in the same chapter. (*****).

* I don’t think a separate title page is necessary, although I’m probably in the minority here. I just put my title, name, Chapter 1, and then I start the story, all on the first page. (I confess that I only started doing this because I couldn't get my word processor to start numbering from the number 1 on the second page of the document file. Bill Gates, are you listening?) However, if you want a separate title page, I would bet most agents would tell you not to bother using a graphic or background image. Personally, I like this look and think it is effective in setting the tone. But we’re talking boring industry standard and getting published - so play it safe.

What have I forgotten?

Typescript image taken from http://www.star-dot-star.co.uk/books/buttons/004946.jpg

On Chocolate Martinis - My New Black

by Felicia Donovan

Growing up, my parents frequently entertained. Their "themed" parties were quite popular among friends and neighbors. As children, we heard phrases like "highball" and "gin and tonic" and knew that these were special drinks that only adults could have.

Well, I'm an adult now. Though I've tried the "hard" stuff, my tastes never ventured beyond a nicely hopped brew or a well-bred glass of wine... Until I discovered chocolate martinis.

This sudden predilection for what I'll call "Kick Ass Hershey's" all began a few weeks ago when my friend and I ventured down to Newburyport, MA for a weekend of shopping. As we perused the assorted shops and their eclectic wares, we stumbled upon a tiny little bar called "Appletinis." The name immediately caught my friend's eye, her devotion to pomegranate martinis being well-known. By that evening, having fortified ourselves from a day of shopping with a good meal, we somehow managed to find ourselves back in front of Appletinis. We ventured in.

Anyone who knows me would affirm that my devotion towards all things chocolate is near religious. In fact, I do believe I saw an icon in a Nestle's bar once though that could also have been the effects of it having been left in the car and melted. Regardless, I'll try just about anything if you wave a cocoa bean in my face first.

My friend and I planted ourselves in our stools and anxiously awaited our "desserts." Yes, if it has enough chocolate in it, the alcohol is negated, thus it qualifies for the "dessert" category. Even Paula Deen knows this.

I ordered a "Milk Chocolate Martini" while my friend ordered a "Peanut Butter Cup Martini," a.k.a. "Reese's On Testosterone."  The server brought over two glasses rimmed in chocolate syrup. I would have paid $10 just to lick the rim at that point. I took a sip. Velvety smoothness married with chocolate and cream filled my mouth. I was in love...

And here's the best part - add a little peppermint and I'm good to go for the holidays. Add a little more cream and I'm boosting my calcium. It just keeps getting better and better...

What floats your cocktail boat? I'd like to know.

Weihnachtsmarkt

by Julia Buckley
I didn't have much time to do my post today, but I thought I'd share a picture of the Christkindle Market, also known as Christmas Market or Weihnachtsmarkt, in my mother's home town. My aunt and uncle sent me the photo this week, and it captures the charm and beauty of the place where my mother grew up.

This town, Paderborn, was hit hard during World War II, and some of its beautiful monuments were destroyed; but today it still possesses the beauty and elegance that my mother loved as a child.

There is probably a Weihnachtsmarkt near you; here in Chicago there is a lovely one right in the middle of Daley Plaza. When you visit one you get an authentic feel for a German Christmas, which I was lucky enough to experience every year, thanks to my mother's fastidious observation of her traditions.

The Smasher Launch: A Two-Month Retrospective

Two months ago today was the official publication date of my second novel, Smasher: A Silicon Valley Thriller. Maybe it’s a good time then to assess how the launch has gone.

In-the-Flesh Appearances: The folks at my publisher, Midnight Ink, suggested I not schedule anything before mid-October to give stores a chance to get the book in stock. So I waited until October 14 for my first event at the Foul Play Bookstore in Westerville, Ohio. All told in the roughly seven weeks since then I have shown up at:

9 bookstore events where I read and spoke
3 library events
2 conferences (Bouchercon in Indianapolis and Men of Mystery in Irvine)
11 “greet-and-signs” where I stand by the front door at bookstores and beg customers to buy my book
3 private events (two at houses and one at a restaurant)
2 drop-by signings at bookstores

That’s a total of 30 events. The 27 events in California ranged from a Silicon Valley kickoff at Kepler’s Books with 106 attendees and 81 books sold to a Southern California library event with four attendees and three books sold. Even at the latter, I had a good time since the witty and sly Ashley Ream was moderating, the good-humored cynic Eric Stone was in the audience, and my fellow panelist was pal Libby Fischer Hellmann. In fact Ashley and Libby were so good, it’s a shame the session wasn’t recorded. At the Mystery Bookstore in Westwood traveling partner Libby Fischer Hellmann and I had a dozen or so people show up in person, but Linda Brown of the store tweeted dozens more in real time. At the nine events I did with Libby, we provided each other support and had a good time discussing and comparing our books and workstyles.

At the 11 greet-and-signs I signed over 400 books. (I have another five of those scheduled before Christmas.) I met lots of interesting people and, judging from emails I’ve received, made some real fans.

The launch at Kepler's. The great Cara Black is providing moral support from the end of the third row back.

The Virtual World: I guest blogged for seven different blogs, all terrific, that I read regularly.

The Rap Sheet
The Well-Read Donkey
Criminal Minds
The Kill Zone
The Outfit
A Million Blogging Monkeys
Bookreporter.com

I have no idea about how effective my postings were in spreading the word, but it was sure fun writing them.

Again in the virtual world, I moderated a discussion on plot versus character for PP Web Con, the first online crime fiction conference, that included four great writers, Kelli Stanley, Rebecca Cantrell, Dave Zeltserman, and Mark de Castrique. Loads of fun there, too.

I was amused by tweets from Silicon Valley luminaries with lots of followers like Chris Shipley and Tim Chou. Apparently, there’s something like a guessing game going on over whom the predatory billionaire in Smasher, Ricky Frankson, is based on. My position is no one, but my protestation are being ignored. Ah well, the online speculation keeps people thinking about the book. At a signing I met Valerie Orsoni, the head of "Le Boot Camp" which has 600,000 members; she tweeted her followers, too.

The book trailer for Smasher has received lots of compliments, but I am , I admit, a little disappointed it hasn’t had more than a total of 600-700 views in its various manifestations.

In 2007 Google had hosted me as a participant in its Authors@Google program for Dot Dead. They posted my appearance on YouTube where it’s had over 1500 views. Apparently, like newspapers and everything else, they’ve cut back, too. No dice this time.

Reviews: The first magazine review of Smasher came from 17-year old Monica Deutsch in Jvibe, a magazine aimed at Jewish teens. Ms. Deutsch called it "intensely suspenseful and captivating." We were off to a good start. The next piece in The Palo Alto Weekly, my hometown paper, was a generous review by fellow Palo Alto crime fiction novelist Lora Roberts. Overall though, one of the most disappointing aspects of launching Smasher was the paucity of reviews in newspapers and magazines. Since Dot Dead, my first book, came out a couple of years ago, the number of places to be reviewed has just shrunk. A great review of Dot Dead in The San Jose Mercury helped turbocharge its early sales. Now The Merc is suffering from journalistic anorexia. Last Sunday the only two book reviews it ran were reprints from other papers. I don’t understand why I can’t get anywhere with The San Francisco Chronicle, but so it goes. As consolation and much more, Joe Hartlaub’s review in Bookreporter.com and Oline Cogdill’s in Mystery Scene were fabulous, the kind where my wife accuses me of ghost-writing them. Mystery News and especially The Boston Globe were a little less so. Still, I’m grateful to have been reviewed in a major metropolitan daily like The Globe at all, and I made it into Mystery News in the nick of time – lamentably, it was its last issue.

Articles: I got in touch with a friend who is one of the greats of Silicon Valley PR. With her help, I did a press release where I compared my current life as an author to my former one as an entrepreneur. I made lots of calls to journalists. The one to Mike Cassidy at The San Jose Mercury paid off. He came over to the house, I really enjoyed talking to him, and the result was a great piece.

Therese Poletti had worked for the aforementioned Mercury and done a nice story on Dot Dead. We’ve stayed in touch since and she said she wanted to write a piece on Smasher for Marketwatch, a business website owned by Dow Jones. A terrific reporter, she came up with a funny slant on my transition from entrepreneur to writer.

Michael Liedtke, another great guy whom I’d known from my days in the high tech world, included Smasher on his list of 10 tech books that made good holiday gifts. Since Michael works for the AP the story keeps popping up. I saw it first on November 19 on the site of The [Melbourne, Australia] Age. Since then it’s been in The Cape Cod Times, The Seattle Times, The Contra Costa Times, The San Jose Mercury, and -- just 30 minutes ago -- in The [Hagerstown, MD] Herald-Mail. It’s the gift that keeps on giving.

There’s no question about the efficacy of these articles. Before Mike and Michael’s pieces ran my Amazon number was around 400,000. After, it ducked below 5,000.

Conclusions: Even as the disappearing act of newspapers plays out, articles and reviews in them can’t be beat as a way to reach readers. I don’t know how effective the virtual tour I did was, but I enjoyed it. Speaking at stores worked best around Palo Alto, my hometown, where I did a fair amount of marketing myself. Otherwise, standing at the entrance to a busy store worked better. I could sell more than 50 books in an afternoon that way and get to recruit readers, many of whom turned into dedicated fans.

Comments (Please): I’d love to hear from other writers and readers about what’s worked and not worked launching books. Feedback please in the comment section!

Are you unbalanced?

All writers start off as readers, and most of the authors I know will admit that they were addicted to buying books long before they ever thought of writing one. As someone confessed to me recently, "I buy three books for every one I read...I can't help it." Clearly there are worse vices to have, but one of the great ironies of becoming a writer is that you have less time to devote to the reading, the very act that inspired you to write in the first place. And once you start meeting other authors, including those who inspired you to write in the first place, the size of your collection of books can rival the library at Alexandria.

Lately I've been living on airplanes, flying back and forth between San Francisco and New York on a weekly basis. And the dilemma I always face is the temptation to read the entire flight, when I know that time in the air (away from phones and kids) is prime writing time, if only I can resist the urge to grab one of the 3 paperbacks stashed in my carry-on bag. Sure, I still read whenever I can, and most of my writing time in the early days came from stealing hours away from other activities and hobbies. But as a writer your reading is more directed, often driven by your latest research, or just catching up with friends' books.

Unlike many of my fellow scribes I haven't found the discipline to achieve a consistent balance between what I want to do and what I should be doing, so I've become a binge writer. I'll get sucked into a book like Keith Raffel's latest breakneck thriller, Smasher, and not write consistently for days, then after I finish I'll clear the decks and write nonstop for a week, barely sleeping. (I can tell when self-editing which prose was written first thing in the morning and which came from some self-induced sleep derived psychosis.) Then I'll take a day off, and next thing you know, a book is in my hands and days vanish like smoke.



I admire and envy those writers who bang out a consistent word count each day, but I'm not one of them. I guess I'm just not balanced, but anyone who's read my books already knows that.