Mysterious Matters: Mystery Publishing Demystified

The Biggest Challenges

Back in my university days, I remember reading sources from ancient Babylon and Ur in which writers complained that children are becoming increasingly unruly, and that the downfall of society would certainly result therefrom. (Come to think of it, those cities did fall...)

My point is that people have been foretelling the downfall of society, industries, models, methods, and theories since the beginning of time. When I started in this business decades ago, I remember one of my mentors bewailing the state of the industry and how books were getting worse and and worse. (He would spin in his grave if he could see some of what's being vanity-published these days). Today, with the passing of Maurice Sendak (met him once - NOT a nice man, but that's a different story), he's being quoted for his stance on e-books: "shit," he decreed unapologetically.

I half-disagree with him, and thought I'd use today's installment of Mysterious Matters to talk about the issue in the larger context of the biggest challenges our industry faces. Some of these haven't changed in decades; others have cropped up only in the last few years.

1. THE LACK OF GOOD MANUSCRIPTS.  There's a reason why it's so hard to get published by a reputable publisher. Despite the fact that a lot of garbage does get published, most editors/publishers make significant investments (emotional and financial) in the books they buy. I remember my first job, way back when, and the feeling of excitement that I was about to read one fabulous manuscript after another. Reality set in very quickly - the truly good, the truly worthy of publication, was as difficult to find as a needle in a haystack, a pearl in an oyster, a diamond on a beach.

The same is true today. It is really, really difficult to find worthy manuscripts. Each day brings the hope that one will rise to the top; on 99% of days, that doesn't happen. Remember, I'm talking here about manuscripts that I can take to the editorial board and say, "This will sell - it's worth us investing our money in editing, publishing, and marketing it." And the hurdles are higher than ever.  Why is that? This brings me to the next two challenges.

2. TOO MANY BOOKS ARE PUBLISHED. By books, I mean "fiction," as that's the world I work in. This is true for the print world, and it's even more of a problem in the ebook world. Avid readers, occasional readers, and society in general just can't absorb the amount of fiction being put out there. And yet, we do work in a capitalist system, which means that good publishers will stay in business while bad publishers will go bankrupt eventually. In the meantime, books are printed and remaindered left and right. People are busier than ever before, with levels of sensory overload never-before-experienced in human history. How can we expect that typical business traveler to learn about, pick up, and read New Novelist A when the airport bookshop carries only Tried and True Novelists B, C, and D? What we need is a good, old-fashioned book shortage.  I'd try to engineer one, but then the Department of Justice would sue me.

3. OUR EGALITARIAN SOCIETY HAS LED THE AVERAGE PERSON TO THINK THAT S/HE HAS THE RIGHT TO HAVE A BOOK PUBLISHED. Oh, what a problem this is. Many people who work in this industry think the business is mostly a meritocracy, though I'm not naive enough to buy into that idea more than about 60-70% of the time. But society has changed over the decades. In general, people used to understand that to have a book published, they'd need to be at the top of their game. Now, just as the grammar schools make every child believe s/he deserves some sort of athletic trophy just for participation, every would-be writer thinks s/he has the right to be published. And here's where Amazon - along with Apple, one of the most opportunistic enterprises in modern history - hit paydirt. Their idea: "Let's let people publish their own work. It costs us absolutely nothing and, even if the book sells 10 copies to close friends and relatives, we get our cut with practically zero investment." The company's done a good job of fomenting discord with "traditional publishing" (you wouldn't believe the scorn with which that phrase is used on listservs and other Web forums), implying that we're all rip-off artists, scammers, and millionaires rolling in cash.

As for waiting - well, our have-it-now, instant-gratification society is filled with people who mistakenly think their work is so good, so perfect, that it must be published NOW so that it can sell millions of copies. Again, enter Amazon to play into this fantasy and make a few bucks while doing it.

4. VANITY PUBLISHING CLOGS THE DISCOURSE AND INTERFERES WITH THE MESSAGE. It's hard enough to get the word out about good books. People seem to be afraid to say this in public, and if this blog weren't anonymous I think I might also think twice for fear of hurting conceited people's feelings, but 98% of self-published ebooks are garbage. And yet, many of their authors are working conventions, setting up Facebook pages, and in general acting as if their books have the legitimacy of the books published by the oft-maligned "Big Six." Sorry, but they don't. Yes, I'll admit that about 1% of ebooks-only are decent, good, or even excellent - but that's not much of a hit rate given the sheer volume. I would imagine that someone with good taste could have a great deal of fun setting up a Kirkus-like review site that provides reviews - REAL reviews - of self-published books. Of course, no one would waste their time on such a pointless endeavor; how many ways can you find to say "self-indulgent," "tripe," "awful," "badly written," and "execrable"?

The term "vanity publishing" has gone away and yet that's exactly what it is, which is why I use the term without apology. I really would love to see a greater acknowledgment of the fact that vanity publishing taps into the same self-centeredness and desire for popularity/idolatry that Facebook, American Idol, Twitter, and all these other so-called "social media" tap into. That's what cell phones and all these other things are about - popularity, stardom, and worship: NOT communication. We used to assume that people had to WORK hard to get published, and the hard truth was that people could try to get published all their lives and never succeed. But that's gone away, and it is leading to what I see as our industry's #1 challenge, which is...

5. BOOKS ARE NOW PERCEIVED AS INTERCHANGEABLE COMMODITIES, AS PLENTIFUL AS WATER AND NOT WORTH SPENDING A LOT OF MONEY ON. Of course, this sweeping generalization isn't true of the many devoted readers who spend a lot of their disposable income on books (and we thank you for that). But how can anything possibly be perceived as having value if it's given away for free, or sold for 99 cents, on Amazon? Sadly, the overall goals of publishers and many writers just are not in alignment here, and it's a problem. Publishers are corporations that seek a profit - We need a return on our investment, and we need to pay our vendors and staff. Many writers, it seems, care only about having an adoring reading public. If that means they have to pay their own money to get published, and then give their work away in the hopes that by some miracle they'll end up on the best-seller list, then so be it. Some of these folks are very, very vocal - and what works me up is their complete ignorance regarding the way predatory corporations like Amazon (and to a certain extent Apple) are using propaganda to make Joe Bad Novelist think he can self-publish his own crap and get rich. This is one of the great mass delusions of our age; I can't believe more people don't see it and talk about it, but hey - that's what Mysterious Matters is for.

Meanwhile, the Kindle/Nook/iPad walk the interesting line between wondrous marvels and thought-control devices. Wondrous marvels in that many people love to read books on them. Personally, I don't; the only one I find at all aesthetically appealing is the iPad, but I have such a problem with Apple's business practices that I won't buy one. But a lot of people love their e-readers. So, to come full circle, I wouldn't agree with Sendak's blanket dismissal of e-books as "shit" -- many of those books are quite, quite good, and the devices help get books to people in the format in which they want them. But the existence of ebooks (and now these new "ebook publishers," which are basically versions of Kindle Digital Publishing that allow the deluded to think they are with a "real publisher") has allowed so much junk into an already crowded stream...and I am so tired of hearing the vanity-published act as though we traditional publishers have been the enemy that has conspired to keep their crap from getting published.

Well played, Amazon - while demonizing an industry that is your bread and better (ever hear of biting the hand the feeds you?), you have succeeded in crafting the American mind to align with your pursuit of profit. And while I say this with proud rancor, I also say it with the bitter realization that we let it happen instead of fighting back from the beginning.

What the Heck Is Going On?

It's simply impossible to keep up with the mystery genre and its permutations. But I do try....

One doesn't have to follow blogs, read listservs, and attend conventions to hear writer's frustrations. The smarter ones don't inveigh against the industry and its quirks in public; though I'm sure some have wisely chosen to vent under screen names/pseudonyms.

Sometimes I understand their frustrations; sometimes I want to tell them to grow up. No one ever said a career in a creative discipline is going to be easy. Several years ago one of my daughters, enrolled in a Ph.D. program, decided to quit. She had a heart-to-heart with her advisor, who told her (kindly, which I understand isn't always the case) that she had to adjust her expectations or find something else to do. He told her that establishing an academic career isn't easy - that it's filled with nastiness, politics, and back-stabbing that only gets worse after the degree has been granted. In essence, he was telling her: Stop expecting people to be nice to you. It's not going to happen. Suck it up or find something else to do. She decided to do something else and is now the bright, upbeat person that is her natural state. 

I often give writers the same advice: You can't expect this industry to be nice. It isn't. Like so many areas in life, it's unfair. It stacks the cards in favor of certain people and against others. You can swim against the tide and win a blue ribbon for tenacity and still get nowhere. That's just the way it is. And I realize I'm part of that system, and I've been lucky enough to be able to do this for several decades and earn a living at it. A handful of us can make that claim; many more can't.

But this week I'm feeling sympathy for writers and what they go through. And why? I have read some really mediocre books over the past few weeks - not just by established writers but also by newbies who got that much-coveted contract. One was so formulaic I felt it had to have been written by a teenager; another was so slow as to be practically unreadable. Each week I reject books that are BETTER than these two published works.

And I've heard through the industry grapevine about manuscripts on which I've passed that have gone on to receive contracts, usually thanks to a tenacious agent with the right connections. The late, great Ruth Cavin once commented that she'd never rejected a book that went on to become a best-seller; I can say the same, but only because I do this blog anonymously. I'm going to watch these books and see what happens. One that I rejected a few years ago was published by a good company to lukewarm reviews; another that I rejected a while ago seems to me completely incapable of achieving any sort of critical or popular success. And yet - those writers have contracts and likely received a larger advance than I ever would have been willing to pay.

What's my point? Oh yes - that based on these experiences, I can see why writers feel so frustrated. Is there any connection between merit and success? Will a good manuscript necessarily get bought? Will fabulous reviews in PW or LJ lead to a mega-bestseller? The answer to all these questions, sadly, is No. Which is why I always say: Don't quit your day job.

Action - Camera - Lights!

I haven't been blogging as much as I'd like to lately because it's been a good season for manuscripts. (I wonder if this has anything to do with NaNoWriMo.) As always, there are many submissions, few contracts. The submissions tell me that, despite all the dire prognostications, as well as the pomposities of the self/vanity-published, there are still a good many aspiring writers who understand that a publisher can do many things that the average person can't - and that the publisher will actually pay to have all of this done because it believes in their work! Imagine that - a world in which writers don't have to pay for editors, pay for typesetting, pay for ISBN numbers, pay for cover design, pay for publicists, etc. Oh, right: That's the world I've been working in for decades now. 

But I digress. I'm seeing a common problem in recent submissions. It's not that this problem is NEW (in fact, it's always been a problem, for at least as long as I can remember), but since I've just set side about the 20th manuscript that has this problem, I thought I'd talk a little about it here.

In a nutshell: Writers, please make sure something HAPPENS in your first chapter. Not just anything, please, but SOMETHING INTERESTING, WEIRD, PUZZLING, ODD, or MYSTERIOUS. This spark of action is what readers need to get involved in your story. There's that old literary concept of in medias res - of starting a narrative in the middle of something, then going back and filling in details about the past as you move the story forward. It's as relevant to genre fiction as it is to Beowulf, and I can't stress that enough. A protagonist is not a baby just out of the womb: We should not hear the protagonist's life story, in sequence, starting X number of years ago, in the first chapter. We need STORY in the first chapter, with hints about what is to come and strange things about the characters that need explanation. 

This is why I suggest the Action- Camera - Lights! approach to writing your first chapter.

ACTION - Have something happen. Your doorbell rings, you answer the door, and a stranger drops dead in front of you. You run to pick up the phone and as you're doing so, you hear someone smashing the back window of your house. You're running through Central Park at night, chased by God knows who, protecting that little package (with CONTENTS UNKNOWN TO THE READER) as if your life depends on it, because it probably does.

CAMERA - Make that first chapter visual. Picture it as the opening sequence of a film, or the trailer that makes you want to plunk down ten bucks to see the movie before it's released on DVD two weeks from now. I'm not saying to describe every last thing or person in detail, but make that opening chapter visceral. Something important has to be at stake, and you can "swing the camera" to other viewpoints (if you're doing a third-person narrative) to increase the mystery of what's going on.

Then, finally...

LIGHTS! - In your second chapter, or later, begin to illuminate what has happened in the first chapter. How did your protagonist get to where he or she is? Please note: I'm NOT saying that Chapter 2 is the place to then begin a longwinded backstory about your character's entire life history. I'm saying that in Chapter 2, you can let just a little bit of light onto your scene, dropping a couple of delicious tidbits or hints for your readier. The police have identified that man who dropped dead on your doorstep - It was your wife's lover, whose awareness you'd been blissfully unaware of. You find safety in a little-known hidewaway in Central Park and notice the feet of your attacker running past - he's wearing orange running shoes of the type favored by your boss. When you go to investigate the broken window at the back of your house, you find that your favorite pen has been stolen. But it was a Bic pen that you bought at Walmart for 29 cents. What gives?

You see my point... I don't want to read an autobiography or a biography. I want to read CRIME FICTION. So do the tens of thousands of other devoted mystery fans who are willing to try a new writer who does things right.

Bill Pronzini: An Appreciation

Bill Pronzini:
An Appreciation

 

I always knew, but was recently reminded, that the longest-running series in mystery fiction is Bill Pronzini's Nameless series. It began in 1971 and continues through today. The most recent title is BETRAYERS, and I understand that the next installment, HELLBOX, will be published this summer.

Over the years, we've watched Nameless age and take on partners in his San Francisco-based detective agency, including the stoic Jake Runyon, the enterprising Alex Chavez, and the sassy computer expert, Tamara. While I haven't read every book in the series over the past 40 or so years, I have ready many of them, and I can't remember a clunker in the bunch.

How do I like Pronzini? Let me count the ways.

First, Pronzini makes everything look so effortless. The books, which sometimes have a hardboiled element to them, are as smooth as cream. Pronzini knows how to pack meaning into each and every word, so readers never find themselves wading through endless verbiage to get to the point.

Pronzini also keeps in mind what so many other seem to have forgotten: Longer isn't better. He's like the writers for the old Crime Club, who told their story, turned their characters upside down, and threw in a twist every couple of chapters for 180 tight pages. As a result, the books are extremely fast reading, made all the more enjoyable by the multiple plot strands Pronzini tends to weave, especially in later books. 

I think crime fiction, especially first novels, tend to suffer from the "anxiety of influence" that Harold Bloom talked about. Many writers (admittedly, not all of them, but those who are more serious about their careers and success) ask themselves how they are going to make their mark. A lot of them think it's going to happen with some wacky character or a series of punning titles. As a result the books can get loopy and forced - or, on the other side of the coin, pretentious and ponderous. Pronzini has never been a show-off; he does what he does with consummate skill, even when he's pulling off some really twisted plot turns (I particularly like FEVER in this regard).

I think I've said in the past that I like to see themes explored in crime fiction, but not in a heavy-handed way. For me at least, this is the sign of someone who thinks a lot about his or her writing. I'm all for escapism, and I publish plenty of it, proudly. But I like when books make you think just a little bit beyond the last page. And Pronzini's themes are there, proudly and overtly, in his one-word titles. In FEVER, for example, he explores different types of fever, including gambling, series of extramarital affairs, and others. In CAMOUFLAGE, his theme is the unseen camouflage people wear to hide their true motives or personalities. SCHEMERS and BETRAYERS are pretty self-explanatory...and I can't wait to see what HELLBOX is all about. 

Finally, I like that Pronzini has written books outside the Nameless series - books like THE OTHER SIDE OF SILENCE, which are just as good as the Nameless books.

I think the new generation of aspiring writers can learn a lot from Pronzini - about jumping into a story immediately, about making characters tough but real, about plotting, about not writing the same book a dozen times. He's a passage from FEVER:

The big hype is that cell phones are one of the wonders of the modern age. Bells and whistles galor. You can talk to others, receive voice and text messages, send text messages, take photographs, play music and games, access your e-mail, and, for all I know, track the progress of herds of elephants on the African veldt. All in one self-contained little unit that fits in your shirt pocket and the palm of your hand. Some people seem to worship the things; they're the ones you see every day on streets and highways and sidewalks and in public buildings with cells guled to their ears and rapt, satisifed expressions on their faces. Instant telecommunication orgasms delivered by your choice of jaunty, sappy tunes and other fun electronic noises... A phone, in my old-fashioned world, is an instrument that provides necessary--emphasis on the word necessary--access to another person for a definite purpose. IT is not a toy. It is not a source of public auditory (or visual) masturbation. Above all, it should not be, but too often is, an annoying, attention-distracting, accident-causing, self-indulgent plaything used at others' expense... [But] once you give people a fancy new toy, you'd better not try to take it away from them; it produces tantrums, and in adults tantrums can sometimes be accompanied by guns, knives, and other deadly weapons. (pp. 182-185).

Right on, Bill.  If, someday, this blog goes blank, you will know it is because I have been killed by someone who is texting while driving. I see that every single day of my life.

Rant to Department of Justice: Get a Life

OK, so let me get this straight.

The airlines just get bigger and bigger. Continental merges with United to create the world's largest airline. Ticket prices go up. Services goes down. WAY, WAY down.

Banks keep getting bigger and bigger, with colossi buying up independent state or regional banks. Fees go through the roof while interest rates on savings go through the floor.

Investment firms are declared "too big to fail" (as a result of merger after merger) while hard-working people lose their retirement funds.

Mrs. See's candies, those wonderful San Francisco chocolates, are now a part of Berkshire Hathaway.

Speculators continue to drive up the price of crude oil, making gasoline prices skyrocket. But that's OK.

In a nutshell: Huge, powerful companies are merging, acquiring, eliminating jobs left and right, sending work overseas, and the Department of Justice's Antitrust Division nods sagely and with delighted approval. No, the Antitrust Division has much bigger fish to fry. Why hold banks accountable for ruining people's lives when you can sue the publishing industry for price fixing?

For those of you who don't know, it is likely that the Department of Justice is going to sue Apple and the large publishers for attempting to fix prices, especially the new ebook model. What a great use of the taxpayers' money! Last time I checked, people don't take out mortgages to buy novels. The publishing industry doesn't foreclose on their homes or charge them $5 when they use an ATM outside their network. Our products sell in the $5 - $30 range and are completely discretionary purchases. Nobody is holding a gun to anyone's head saying, "Buy this book or I'll blow your fucking head off."

What are publishers doing, you may ask? We're simply trying to establish a model that does not devalue our products to the level of mass-produced Chinese garbage. We're trying to prevent Amazon from ITS predatory practices of using our products as loss leaders and its many other questionable (and borderline unethical) business decisions.

And what do we get for trying to protect intellectual property - and to protect the industry that is responsible for world literacy from going the way of the music business - and for our attempts to find a fair model that compensates authors and agents while not sending us into bankruptcy? A proposed lawsuit for "price fixing."

Department of Justice: I hereby declare you the biggest bunch of morons, imbeciles, and shitheads on the face of this planet.  Let's hope your government pensions remain intact when one bank runs the United States, gasoline costs $10 a gallon, and one mega-airline has swallowed up all others. Then you'll get to read your $2.99 paperback or .99 ebook on a flight to Chicago that has cost you $4,000.

Is a Sociopath Living Next Door?

I don't venture into nonfiction too often - there's too much crime fiction to keep up with - but every so often a book grabs my attention. A few days ago I finished Martha Stout's THE SOCIOPATH NEXT DOOR, pubished a number of years ago (2005). The cover, which I find eerily effective, is reminiscent of the frontispiece of my copy of Truman Capote's IN COLD BLOOD, of which I am lucky enough to own a first edition. I've always believed you can tell a lot about someone by looking into his/her eyes.  Of the three pairs shown at left, I'd trust the top set of eyes the least.

I write about the book here today because I think it would be of interest to readers and writers of crime fiction. I had an epiphany as a result of reading this book, but more on that later.

Stout's primary thesis is based on the rather shocking statistic that 1 in 25 people, or 4% of the total population, is a sociopath. Stout cites the DSM's definition of the multiple criteria that help psychologists identify a sociopathic personality, but for her a sociopath comes down to one simple criterion: a complete lack of conscience. The book provides composite portraits, based on real people, of sociopaths, and it was a relief to discover that not all sociopaths are crazed murderers. They're all manipulative and all without a conscience, but some have no grander ambition than to destroy the lives of people they're jealous of, or to find a spouse who'll support them.

I'm not a psychologist, so I don't have the credentials to really evaluate this book. I can say that the author is a marvelous writer; her case studies of sociopaths read like good thrillers. I can't help but question her primary assertion - that 1 in 25 people is a sociopath - which doesn't seem to be supported by any specific data. She also seems to equate sociopaths and psychopaths, and yet I had always understood there to be a difference between the two. I thought a sociopath was more of antisocial personality, while a psychopath is truly incapable of understanding the difference between right and wrong. I looked in my copy of the Penguin Dictionary of Psychology, and there I see that the editors do draw a distinction between the two types, considering psychopaths more extreme than sociopaths.

Within the pages of her book, Stout not only describes the way sociopaths behave, she also talks about how to spot them. The key, she suggests, it to look for someone who is consistently manipulative and who constantly plays on people's symapthy to make it seem as though s/he is the victim. That was an eye-opening discussion for me, as I'd worked with a woman a number of years ago I had never liked. She came across as a sweet, hard-working, long-suffering professional who just wanted what's best for everyone. And yet I'd always thought she would have ripped the spines out of anyone who stood in her way. I'll never know for sure - she disappeared into the Midwest a number of years ago - but now I think I understand her better...

But time for the epiphany. I'm not much of a reader of thrillers or serial-killer books. Part of the reason is that the former often seem contrived to me, while the latter often seem like the work of lazy writers who couldn't be bothered to come up with something original. But, thinking about it more deeply, I realized that these books often feature sociopaths as their villains/drivers of the action. And those characters have just never seemed quite believable to me. The men always seem like versions of Dick Distardly tying the heroine to the train tracks, while the women always seem like a version of Natasha Fatale (cohort of Boris Badenov on the old Bullwinkle cartoons). I make these comparisons to cartoons for a reason: The "bad guys" of thrillers and serial-killer books often seem like over-the-top, cartoonish versions of human beings. I just can't suspend disbelief that far to see them as versions of "real people."

And yet, as I learned from The Sociopath Next Door, socipaths are exactly like the bad guys we often see in thrillers and other crime fiction. Stout makes the point that people who have a conscience have a hard time conceiving of anybody not having one; a conscience, she argues, is such an innate part of being human that normal human beings just can't make the leap into thinking that another person would be completely devoid of conscience. Aha! And right there Stout opened my eyes to what happens when I read a certain type of fiction: I can't believe the villain because I can't accept that such a type of person exists. But they do exist, Stout argues; and after reading her book, I believe her. And I am venturing to guess that this newfound realization will affect how I react to villains from now on.

That said, I probably would take the book with a grain of salt. In addition to her primary thesis about 4% of the population being sociopathic, she makes some other questionable assertions. For example, she suggests that Western/U.S. society, with its sense of individualism, is more prone to producing sociopaths than Asian/Eastern culture, because those cultures inculcate a sense of community/ collective responsibility in their children from birth onward. Thus, Stout suggests, while Eastern cultures may have just as many sociopaths, those with sociopathic tendencies may remain on the straight and narrow because society prevents them from blossoming into full-blown sociopaths. The argument here doesn't sound particularly strong to me, but then again I'm not qualified as a psychologist, except an amateur one who likes to make sure that the books I acquire and edit are populated by believable characters who are driven by a set of needs, motivations, and personality traits.

 

Agatho, You Cheapskate!

A famous businessman (I forget who) once said, "I know half my advertising dollars are wasted. I just don't know which half."

Wise words, indeed. And said quite some time ago, in the days before advertising-based business models (think newspapers, magazines) started experiencing some major challenges. I recently picked up a copy of Time magazine - once replete with ads - and was moderately shocked to see how thin the publication has become. Now it's mostly content, not something I would complain about, since who buys a news magazine for the advertisements?

Fortunately or unfortunately, the book publishing business hasn't relied on advertising (within the pages of the books themselves) to support itself. So, I do think we are a step ahead of newspapers and magazines in that regard. (And, honestly, I don't think magazines and newspapers would be in their current pickle if they hadn't all been in such a rush to provide all their content for free online. What sort of bubblehead ever thought THAT was a good idea?)

As we watch markets adjust to new conditions, helping to craft them in the tiny ways over which we have some control (for example, my publishing house refuses to ever offer its books for 99 cents online), all of us are forced to examine our operating assumptions and to think about ROI (return on investment), the acronym we can't get away from. Before we spend any money, we have to ask ourselves: Will this help us sell more books? Will it help us increase our profits and keep us in business? Or will this send money down a sinkhole?

With that in mind, I've compiled a list of the things I will pay for, and the things I will NOT pay for.

THINGS I WILL NOT PAY FOR:

1. Reviews.  I will never, and I do mean NEVER, pay anyone to review any book we publish. Paid reviews don't matter and don't affect sales. They are a waste of time, a waste of money. Nobody takes them seriously. Most pay-for-review sites are taking advantage of those who take part in vanity publishing activities. Kirkus (shame on them, but heck--they DO have to pay the bills) now has a pay-for-review part of the magazine; nobody even looks at those reviews. ForeWord magazine occasionally sends our publicist an email saying that one of our books hasn't been chosen for review, but it HAS been chosen for the privilege of our paying them to review it. We laugh and wonder if they think we're some vanity publishing outfit. The only reviews that matter are those that you get for "free," because all others are paid advertising, pure and simple, and we know what most people think of THAT. I will pay people to review my books when three conditions are met: (1) Pigs fly, (2) Hell freezes over, and (3) Snowballs stand a good chance in the aforementioned Hades.

2. Author "tours." I know that many writers dream of the days when publishers sent them on book signing tours. And if I was with one of the big houses who is lucky enough to publish guaranteed best-sellers, I might spring for one. But from where I sit now - we just can't do it. Have you looked at the price of airfare, hotel rooms, and meals lately? Do you have any idea how many books we have to sell just to cover the cost of one night in a hotel room? Sadly but truthfully, people just aren't going to turn out to hear some author they've most likely never heard of and buy their book. We have better ways to spend our money.

3. Advertisements in the popular media. We simply can't afford advertisements in popular magazines and newspapers; and even if we could, the number of books sold as a result would not cover the cost. I think many writers think that advertising is the key to getting readers; it isn't. I know people who take out ads with their own money, post on every listserv known to man, and blog themselves silly who still can't sell more than a couple of thousand copies of their book. This isn't to say that I have the magic formula for making a book successful, as there's plenty of garbage that does quite well and plenty of wonderful books that get remaindered almost instantly.

4. Overnight mail. Was there ever a greater waste of money and resources than overnight mail? Listen, I love what I do, but most people can wait 2 or 3 days for their books without dying. In many cases, the cost of shipping is the single largest chunk of book revenue - it can even exceed the book's unit price (i.e., the printing cost per unit). Media Mail is what it's all about. I shudder to think what would happen if the USPS ever got rid of Media Mail. So let's not even go there.

THINGS I WILL PAY FOR (OR CONSIDER PAYING FOR):

1. Good cover designers.  I'm shocked by the really awful cover designs that I see (sometimes, but not always, done by small presses). In our visual and shallow age, there is no more important signal of a quality-published book than a good, creative, interesting cover design. Look at the best-seller list: Rarely do you see a terrible cover. Nothing makes a book look more cheap, or more unprofessional, than a poor cover design. I'm afraid that this comment will now make the self-published spend lots of money on cover designs; but please know that a good cover alone is not enough to make a book sell.

2. Bookstore placement. It isn't cheap, but I am willing to pay for book placement at Barnes & Noble and a couple of other large book retailing outlets. To do this, I would have to have the utmost faith in my book, as well as an aggressive author who is as much a self-marketer as s/he is a writer. No human being can go into a B&N and look through all the books in the stacks, their spines facing outward. Being on display says "Look at me," and it can be enough to turn a casual browser into a book buyer. Of course, the book has to have a great cover, a whammo opening page, and an attractive author (which is why you see so many author photos that have been Photoshopped into Hollywood-style images).

3. Quid Pro Quo. While I don't believe advertising works (except library advertising, and then ONLY if your ads are backed up by good reviews in LJ, PW, Kirkus, or Booklist), I can and do advertise in those magazines as a way of supporting them. And while subscriptions to each of those publications is a burden, we need to support them, their staffs, and their missions--so each year we shell out the annual subscription fee. In other words, if you want my scant advertising dollars, your best bet is to review a couple of our books, which then creates a sense of obligation in us to support you in return. (As I say this, I am glad that I do this blog anonymously.)

4. Google AdWords. What a terrific waste of money. I speak from experience. Never again. Maybe for yachts; not for products, like books, with razor-thin profit margins.

What about the Internet, you ask? Well, the jury is out. We do cautiously try things out every now and again; results have been mixed (the 50% to which the first line of this post refers). We're in the process of trying out a few Amazon programs - we'll see how those turn out. I do worry about Amazon and its predatory practices; we've seen what happens when a company becomes the only game in town (Microsoft, though it's only a matter of time before Apple eclipses them, and it may have already done so). But just as B&N is still the best venue for book lovers at a physical level, Amazon seems to be the best Internet space for book lovers, so I bow to pragmatism and do what I must.

 

 

 

 

A Tribute to the Grand Masters

To do my job, I feel that I have to keep one foot planted in the past and one planted in the future, with the rest of my body in that ill-defined space called "the present."

So, while I do my best to keep up with what's being published and what's succeeding (as well as what isn't), I like to revisit the greats. 

The first Grand Master award for lifetime achievement was bestowed by the Mystery Writers of America on Agatha Christie in 1955. The three most recent recipients have been Dorothy Gilman (2010), Sara Paretsky (2011), and Martha Grimes (2012).

Something I really like and respect about the Grand Master award is that it has been earned. Unlike so many other awards in the various industries (film, publishing, etc.), the Grand Master award is bestowed with care - or at least it has always seemed to me. Reading over the entire list of recipients, it's hard to see anyone who doesn't seem worthy, though there are a few whose links to mystery seem more tenuous (Graham Greene in 1976, John Le Carre in 1984, Daphne du Maurier in 1978, Stephen King in 2007).

More sad, for me at least, is the number of writers on the Grand Masters list who are out of print or receive very little "press" or chatter. I've waxed rhapsodic about Margaret Millar (1983's Grand Master) in the past and tried via Mysterious Matters to get at least a few more people to look for her books. 

I haven't read ALL of the Grand Masters yet, but I plan to do, sometime between now and the time I die. Here are a few books I've read recently by the Grand Masters (with some Agathovian observations). The full list of Grand Masters can be found on Wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mystery_Writers_of_America.

1. GEORGE HARMON COXE (1964 Grand Master), Moment of Violence.

When I first picked up this book, the title seemed very Dell Shannonesque, and I was expecting a police procedural. Truthfully, I did not know much about Coxe; he seemed to be quite respected in his time, but I believe all of his books are out of print. Moment of Violence is what I call a straight-out mystery. The attorney protag, David Payne, flies down to Barbados to help out his former mentor, who is about to be cheated out of a valuable property. Upon arrival, he finds a body - and the investigation proceeds from there, in a very tight 190 pages. Coxe isn't a stylist, but he does make good use of the femme fatale who was so essential to the earliest detective stories. There's very little fat here: Just a solid mystery, good detection, and minimalist description. I enjoyed the book but would have to read more Coxe to formulate an opinion. 

2. DOROTHY B. HUGHES (1978 Grand Master), A Fine and Private Place.

Hughes was very respected in her day, and her talent is on display in A Fine and Private Place. (I also like The Davidian Report, but am less of a fan of Ride the Pink Horse, which I find very s-l-o-w.)  Crazed psychos have become a fairly large part of the modern mystery/thriller population, but I don't think the earlier practitioners of the craft had the vocabulary we have to describe a certain type of person. But in A Fine and Private Place (1947) Hughes wrote a very fine portrait of a sociopath and the forces of the law closing in on him. The books holds up very well, and I hope some readers of Mysterious Matters will consider going to Amazon or the local library and finding a Hughes to curl up with.

3. STANLEY ELLIN (1981 Grand Master), House of Cards.

A one-time president of MWA, Ellin was also a strong writer in his own right. Some of my favorites of his include House of Cards, Very Old Money, and Mirror, Mirror on the Wall.  Like Margaret Millar, Ellin never wrote the same book twice; the books can be long and expansive (House of Cards) or short and disturbing (Mirror, Mirror). 

Truthfully, there are some names on the Grand Master list with which I have zero acquaintance: Vincent Starrett (1958), Baynard Kendrick (1967), Aaron Marc Stein (1979), Edward D. Hoch (2001 - I believe he is more known for his short stories than for novels; and short stories are not my strong suit). Sometime between now and death, I'll find something of theirs to read.

Looking at the list, though, one can't help but notice some really glaring omissions. For example, where is Charlotte Armstrong? Elisabeth Sanxay Holding? Margery Allingham? Henry Holt? Leslie Charteris? Celia Fremlin? If practitioners of the Gothic are included (Phyllis Whitney and Daphne du Maurier are on the list), then shouldn't Mary Stewart also be honored? How about Cornell Woolrich, Andrew Vachss? Doubtless we all have favorites with prodigious output whom we'd like to see honored. 

 

 

 

 

I Am a Book Person

I am a book person.

It's not that I'm against Kindles, Nooks, and the like. I understand why people like them.

But at the end of the day, I want to curl up with a good book, not a computer.

I stare at a computer screen for much of my day. I don't want to do it at night.

I like the books on my bookshelf. Often, I can pick one up and remember what was going on in my life at the time I first read it.

I appreciate the art of the book, and how everything (typeface, cover, the entire package) fits together. There's a sense of permanence there. For me, an ebook is gone as soon as the last character is read.

I like the quality-control process that most printed books have gone through. 

Books take up too much space in my house and my office. But if they didn't, other stuff would take their place. And it would be junk. Books are never (well, almost never) junk.

I like buying books. So much value for so little money. They are my "retail therapy." And they don't break the bank.

I'd never read a "free" ebook. If a book has gone out of print, I'd rather look around for a used hard copy than read it on an ebook reader. So even though I'd buy it new if it were still in print, I know there's a copy of it available SOMEWHERE. Thank God.

There's a tactile sensation to the book that I like. With a hardcover, I like the feeling of strength. With a trade paperback, I like the feeling of flexibility and portability. With a mass-market paperback, I like the feeling of being in touch with an editor's idea of what "The Reader" is interested in reading.

I think the "death of the book" has been greatly exaggerated. At Barnes & Noble, the kids' section is usually overflowing with kids. A new generation of readers is growing up with books, and they won't be giving them up.

We'll have fewer retail outlets selling books. Can't deny that - but we'll also have fewer retail outlets selling appliances, clothing, and so forth. We'll adapt, just the way the movie and TV industries adapted to VHS tapes and DVDs.

Books have always been an escape. They're even more of an escape now, when the average person is wired 24 hours a day, answering instant messages while having sex or on the toilet. I don't think I'm the only one who wants to disconnect from a bright, glowing screen. 

[Note: This blog entry is just a set of notes from a speech I was scheduled to give last year. I came across them and realized I haven't changed my mind about anything over the last year, and I don't think I'll change my mind in the near future, either.]

Top 5 List: Reasons to Read

Looking over my last post, it occurs to me that I didn't mention "readers' advocate" as one one of the top challenges of my job. I think that's because it undergirds everything else I do. Because commercial success is built on readers' opinions (especially on word of mouth), readers' reaction to a book is always uppermost in my mind. Of course, there are many types of readers; and, of course, the publisher's greatest joy is publishing a book that even non-readers pick up and read, just because they want to see what all the fuss is about.

So, with all this in mind, I've been thinking about the reasons people read. This won't come as a surprise/shock to any of those who read this blog on any sort of regular basis - but maybe this post would be good for forwarding to non-readers to help them understand what their missing.

All right, then, why do readers read?

1. To escape. Let's face it, the world is a stressful place, and even those who should help us relax (family, friends) often add to the stress levels. There's nothing like cocooning with a good book. This is why one of the key (but hard-to-define other than "I know it when I see it") things I look for in a manuscript is the author's ability to completely absorb the reader. The kind of book I like is one that demands the reader sit and gulp down a hundred pages at a time. (I say this because, during my nightly reading time, I usually begin to fatigue at about 75 pages. But a really good book pushes me to page 100 and beyond.) I just wish that those who follow TV series (to the exclusion of reading) would give books a chance to show what they can do. And I think there are "gateway" books that do bridge this gap. I'm thinking of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Da Vinci Code, the Twilight books, the Hunger Games books, the Harry Potter books -- all, I think, have helped introduce reading to non-readers of all ages.     

2. To learn. I recently read a nonfiction book about how much of his/her college education the typical college graduate "uses" in real life. The answer, not surprisingly, was "not very much." But I do think people with curious minds like to keep learning, to keep experiencing new things. Magazines and books both accomplish this; and recent difficulties in the magazine and newspaper business make me wish that their business model wasn't built on advertisements. And learning can be a great part of fiction, where readers can learn about new places, history, hobbies, professions, and so forth. When all of this takes place within a novel (as compared to, say, a textbook), the phenomenon is sort of a "stealth" learning that is absorbed rather than crammed down one's throat.  

3. To relax and fall asleep. I've been reading a lot lately about the sleep issues Americans have. Whom do I blame? The Internet. Plenty of research has shown that the light given off by screens has a stimulating effect, so playing around on the Internet before bed is a bad idea. And yet how many people do we know who are on their computers (or smart phones) all their waking hours? Research is showing just how relaxing reading is - how it is the perfect nighttime activity to wind down from the day. (In contrast, TV, with its noise, its light, its action, has the same effect as a computer). I think a lot of people guard their nightttime reading time quite closely because they understand how useful it is to them not only intellectually but physiologically. (Of course, there's a difference between using a book to relax and reading a book that puts you to sleep!)

4. To be part of a community. Recent years have seen the growth of book clubs; and the Internet is full of listservs, blogs, and so forth that help people connect with one another. I wish I had the time to do more of this sort of thing - I need to know what readers are saying and thinking, what turns them on and what turns them off. My wife and I tend to have only about 20% overlap in what we read, and then there's usually a lag. There's nothing like being able to engage in a conversation about a book as soon as one has read it, which is why I usually run to Amazon after I've turned the last page, to see what others have said about it. That could be considered a conversation in a way, I think. (Unfortunately, I can't post reviews, as I would want to be honest, and I can find a good deal to critique in many of the books I read, most of which I'd probably give 3 stars.)

Those four points are the bright/sunny side of reading. However, there is a dark side, specifically:

5. To feel superior. I admit it: I'm not a fan of literary fiction. Yes, it has its place. But it doesn't sell, and it makes very few writers into household names. I see a lot of Amazon Vine reviewers who seem to use their reviews as a place to put writers and publishers down; and there are certain review sites that seem to have that same goal. I'm all for honest criticism, but I do draw the line at nastiness for the sake of nastiness (though who's going to listen to me?) I think this is a real problem in terms of the big houses and agencies these days: They say they want best-sellers, but they turn their noses up at the mass-market fiction. Then, of course, there's the New York Times, in which Ivy Leaguers review books by other Ivy Leaguers, which are then purchased (but not read) by other Ivy Leaguers. It's all so incestuous and ridiculous.  There's nothing wrong with escapist genre fiction, but our more serious review engines refuse to recognize that. They see reading (or their choice of reading materials) as a way to demonstrate the superiority of their taste and educations. Let them have it, I say; others can publish it, while I try to make best-sellers.  

An anecdote about this last point: The late, great Charlotte Armstrong once found herself at a party, and she met a woman who asked what she did. Charlotte replied, "I'm a novelist." "What do you write?" asked the woman. Charlotte responded, "Mysteries." The woman replied, "Oh, I don't even have the time to read good books."