Mysterious Matters: Mystery Publishing Demystified

The Go-Go's and the Mystery

At the risk of turning this into a music blog rather than a crime fiction blog... bear with me, as the link to mystery will become apparent.

In my last posting I ruminated about the difficult path many artists face in bringing their work to the public's attention, trying to stay "on top," and finding that tricky balance between something comercially viable and artistically intact.  As an editor I try to respect the writer's craft and vision while also trying to steer the project onto a path that will achieve some sort of commercial success. Commercial publishers aren't nonprofit organizations; we need successful books to survive. Some day it might be interesting for some philanthropist to begin a publisher dedicated to publishing works of crime fiction that deserve to be published, without profit motive - as many university presses do in such areas as poetry and philosophy. (Admittedly, I think fewer and fewer university presses are able to pursue this type of publishing, due to the demands of the parent organization and the 21st-century demand for Profit At All Costs.)

This week, my oldest daughter brought to my attention the 30th anniversary release of a classic 1980s album, "Beauty and the Beat" by the all-girl group the Go-Go's. This daughter was the first to hear of them, and her enthusiasm spread to the rest of the family (all the kids were teenagers in those days). She brought the CD over and we had a nice trip down memory lane, remembering a lot of the lyrics and singing along, albeit in a mangled way. There were so many things about that album that seemed fresh and fun at the time, and I think it's held up well.  And, interestingly, I like the music a lot even though I don't really like Belinda Carlisle's voice (lead singer). Which is sort of like saying there are books I really like, even though I don't care for the author, at least based on impressions made in bookstores, in interviews, on listservs, and the like.

But, back to the Go-Go's.  How does this all relate to mystery fiction? Well, as a 30th anniversary edition, the CD had a booklet of liner notes that included reminiscences of the band's early days - and the recording of the album - from each of the five group members. I've always enjoyed seeing stories told from different points of view (think AN INSTANCE OF THE FINGERPOST), and that's what these reminiscences were.

What I found most interesting was the band members' memories of their producer, a man who had produced some of the great commercially successful acts of the 1970s and 1980s. All of them remember not liking the direction he was providing, the decisions he was forcing onto the music, like slowing it down and teaching the bass player how to play bass. When the record came out, they felt that it wasn't really "them," but they felt they'd reached a milestone just being have a record released. And then something strange happened - the album was a huge hit, the group was launched, and the reason was clear: the producer had taken the strong core material written by the band and helped polish it into a form that people wanted to hear.

Sound familiar?  I think many writers, especially those who've had their first work accepted/bought, encounter similar feelings. Their baby is no longer theirs alone - it now has a "rich uncle" who is trying to craft it into something that will break through into the public consciousness. The excitement of the contract can be tempered by what seem strange, odd, or subjective editorial requests (these following, of course, strange, odd, or objective agent requests). The line is a tough one to negotiate and requires many leaps of faith, many internal battles as well as some external ones. When success happens, there's a sort of acknowledgment that others have helped them on the road to success, but never a full forgetting of the ways in which these "outsiders" have forced their opinions onto a book.  

Don't get me wrong. The Go-Go's liner notes showed nothing but respect for their producer and what he did for them. And I have felt the same sort of appreciation, for most of my career, from writers - from the delightfully easy to the frightfully difficult. In my career, there has been only one writer who has not acknowledged me in her acknowledgments - and I'm human enough to admit that I bear her a bit of ill will about that; she'll never understand how I went to the wall for that book, which did fine; she never wrote another book after that, though, because she just couldn't handle the process.

One of my mentors,early in my career, told me that if I ever got along with my authors too well, I was not doing my job correctly. He said that a condition of "low heat" brings about the best books. And I do think he's right about that. In my editorial comments I don't mince words; I say exactly what I think, though I try do to so in a way that is respectful and polite. I have found that almost all writers appreciate this while simultaneously working hard not to have their feelings hurt. I don't mind at all when a writer pushes back; editorial work is a conversation, and I sometimes need to be educated on what the author is trying to accomplish. Case in point: In a recent manuscript, I cut an entire swath, finding it extraneous - the author came back to me explaining why it needed to be there. I saw her point and the debate was concluded to everyone's satisfaction.

I think the point I'm trying to make, in a sort of roundabout way, is that while writers see the challenges of trying to please an editor and agent, they don't necessarily see how editors also have a constitutency they have to please: Publishers. Owners. Accountants. Editorial boards. Publicists. (If they're not excited about selling the book, we're up the creek.)  Readers. Librarians. Reviewers. Bookstore owners. Opinion leaders. We are out there fighting these battles so you don't have to. It's all part of the extremely complicated process of getting a creative work accepted by an overwhelmed and easily distracted public.

 

Amy Winehouse and the Mystery

Mine has always been a contentious household. My wife, my three children, and I believe we are from five different planets, so different are our outlooks and tastes. There are only two things we have in common: (1) books, and (2) music. Surprisingly, most of us like the same books and the same musicians. This has afforded a nice number of family-bonding over the decades, with books being passed back and forth between the generations. For instance, it was my youngest who "turned me onto" (to use that generational phrase) steampunk, which I wrote about here a few weeks back.

I also quite like the fact that my wife and I are able to keep up with modern music. The kids make us playlists, and we do the same, or we trade CD's back and forth. Because our kids grew up in a household that pledges allegiance to Intellectual Property, they know that borrowed CD's are solely for temporary use. If they like it, they buy one of their own or download it (and pay for it) from iTunes.

The death of Amy Winehouse several weeks ago was something we all felt keenly. One of my girls cried her eyes out over it, and all of us had a general sense of tragedy, of a great talent gone to waste. My oldest discovered Amy's debut album, Frank, and the rest of us rapidly became fans. When she really took off in the States, we were able to boast that we'd seen her in concert in Europe long before she was refusing to go to Rehab in song.

Thinking about Amy has made me consider how much musicians and writers have in common. There's that long, intense uphill climb to get recognition, and then the fear of not "making it" once you're out there. When you do make it, there's always the insecurity of thinking "Will the public buy my next book/CD? Do I keep doing what I've always done, or do I strike out in new ways? What happens if my contract isn't extended? How much money should I really be making?"  And, of course, writers and musicians suffer massively from a public that believes all its entertainment should be free and therefore has no qualms about illegally stealing music or books via "share" sites.  (Nice euphemism, by the way. These should be called "Theft" sites.) So how does the artist devote his/her time to writing/singing, to making the books and music that people love, while also taking care of little things like the rent and medical insurance?

The Amy Winehouse situation also made me think about my taste in manuscripts. I'd seen Amy interviewed on a number of occasions, and I found her honesty refreshing and slightly overpowering. For example, in one interview she was asked why her songs often talk about the violent aspects of love. Amy replied something along the lines of, "Listen, I don't think a lot of people experience love as all sweetness and light. There's often a lot of anger and frustration, and the desire to beat your lover. I've had certain boyfriends and we've beaten the crap out of each other. But that didn't mean we didn't love each other."  Hmm, now one could argue that such an outlook was one of Amy's underlying issues, but ... I do think she has a point. Love may be a many-splendored thing, but it's rarely the treacly syrup that one finds in Top 40 music and romance novels.

Ultimately, what I liked about Amy was the fact that she wasn't afraid to be dirty and honest. And you know what? I like the exact same qualities in manuscripts.  Many of the manuscripts that come across my desk seem sanitized, carefully scrubbed and shined for presentation.  Certainly I am not arguing that manuscripts should come to me in 6-point type, single-spaced, in 14 different fonts. But the writing sometimes seems to have been overseen by an Ethics committee that censors the Messier Emotions and tames the writer's Inner Wildness.  I LIKE a book that's powerfully itself, with characters that are conflicted and sometimes inconsistent. For me, this was one of the great appeals of Sophie Littlefield's A BAD DAY FOR SORRY, whose protagonist, Stella Hardy, was abused one too many times by her husband, and who finally ups and kills him.  The fact that Littlefield handles that with a light touch, with just enough seriousness, made for a very enjoyable read.

Sometimes I pick up the mass-market paperbacks on display at the drugstore and read a couple of pages from each. I think, "These all sound the same."  And I guess that's why they are mass-market books with little character or little that is truly memorable. I like something that's going to stay with me, something that takes some chances. When I look at Amazon reviews of books I've published, I find that they are often wildly divisive, with those who loved the book giving it 5-stars and those who hated it giving it 1 star. Needless to say, the 1-star people just didn't get it. I suppose they are the same type of people who post comments along the lines of "Amy Winehouse was a drug addict who wrecked her own life and deserved to die." 

Failure to Launch

For the last several months - or perhaps the last year - I have been obsessing about series.  

As a reader and editor, my tastes are squarely on the side of stand-alones. The only series I follow religiously is the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency. For many, many others, I've read a couple of books in the series. It's always the same scenario: I usually enjoy the first one, find the second one not as enjoyable, and have had my fill by the third. I think economists call this the "law of diminishing marginal utility."

My taste for stand-alones probably doesn't comes as a surprise to readers of Mysterious Matters.  Look at the writers I truly admire: Margaret Millar, Minette Walters, George Dawes Green, Charlotte Armstrong ... these are novelists who have accomplished the remarkable feat of not writing the same book a dozen times.

As a businessman, however, I know how valuable a series can be to the bottom line.  Until recently, I've been letting the more junior editors acquire the series, while I sit in my ivory tower and acquire my stellar stand-alones. But this nags at me.  I've been doing this a long time, and prior to my life in this job I signed up some nicely successful series.  So now it's time for me to have a go at it again, and I've contracted for a couple of series.  In both cases, the contract is for two books only.  If the second isn't as good as, or better than, the first, there will not be a third, I tell myself, sitting on my chair of ivory. But the truth is this: If #1 sells, and #2 sells even better, then there WILL be #3, and likely #s 4, 5, and 6. 

And yet, at a lunch earlier this week, I was reminded just how difficult it is to launch a successful series. I'm trying to think of a truly stellar launch, with sales increasing book after book. The only one who comes to mind at this point is Louise Penny.  (Stieg Larsson doesn't count, for reasons too long to go into.) I was discussing this perception with my friends at other houses, and a few anecdotes were shared.  Four of us were at lunch.  Three told the same story: A writer who comes strongly out of the gate, with about 15,000 units sold (net of returns).  That is extremely respectable and establishes a base for Book #2 in the series, one hopes and expects.

HOWEVER - this did not happen for a dozen or so writers whom we discussed.  In many cases, sales of #2 dropped to 5,000 units, and sales of #3 either stayed at about 5K or dipped even lower. Most of these folks are on the verge (whether they know it or not) of being in that extremely unenviable category of Dropped Author.

How and why did this happen?  It could be the economy; it definitely could be.  Or was it that the novelty of Book #1 wasn't really enough to make people come back for seconds?  Was the series character somehow not interesting enough to become the "friend" to readers that we wanted him or her to be?  Is it that readers perceive a formula in the books and, after an outing or two, decide they want something different?  

I don't know; none of us do. Sure, we have our ideas.  A couple of these writers are very active on listservs, etc., and have managed to create a vocal fan base. But a few diehard fans isn't enough to push a writer into the best-seller space. I've read some of the books my friends were talking about. One has a heroine who's a bit of a whiner; maybe that has something to do with it.  It drove me insane when my kids whined as children; I don't really like dealing with it as an adult, either. One featured a likable enough heroine with a nice budding romance; but the setting was somewhat dull, and the books all very similar. One features police who are likable enough, but I'm starting to think that the American public has had enough of police, given all the scandals of late. So, that series went away. A couple are historical in flavor; the sales of every book are just about the same, indicating that the writer has picked up almost no new readers - but at that particular sales level, the writer remains profitable.

Agents, publishers, creative writing teachers, and so forth will tell you that creating a successful Series Character is the Brass Ring.  And I can't argue with that; what I am struggling with, at a sort of meta-level, is exactly what the components of a successful series character are.  I know what I like to see in a character - a certain inconsistency, a few flaws, strong moral fiber that is challenged and sometimes recedes under temptation, a sense of humor, a knowing and often ironic or cynical way of looking at the world. But is this the taste of the Average American? Somehow, I doubt it.

Looking at some of the most successful of series, it strikes me that readers are more drawn to the CAST than to the lead.  I think this is true of Evanovich; those who have grown weary of Stephanie Plum still read for Grandma Mazur. In Louise Penny's books, Gamache is certainly a moral and upstanding man; but I think it's the setting, the coziness, more than Gamache himself that keeps people coming back. In the No. 1 Ladies series, Alexander McCall Smith has created a Botswanan soap opera, with a cast of leads as well as supporting characters who cycle in and out. In Mma Ramotswe, Smith created a character who fires on all cylinders: happily fat, independent, strong-willed but kind, comfortable alone or with friends. Her very ordinariness makes her a wonder. But would these books work as well if they were set in, say, Tennessee, or New York, instead of Botswana? 

As an editor I have vowed to work with authors to keep their series fresh and evolving.  But how will we do that?  Only time will tell. Will readers want the same thing every time, or will they grow weary? Will the writers remain open to a challenge, or will they go onto auto-pilot?  Either way, as long as the books are selling, I will send up a prayer of thanks to the Big Guy and continue working on, and looking for, those magnficent stand-alones.

Journalists and the Mystery: A Match Made in Heaven?

If you read author bios on flaps, back covers, "About the Author" pages, and the like, you may have noticed how many mystery novelists have journalism somewhere in their backgrounds. A stellar example is Laura Lipmann, one of my favorites (that woman can WRITE).  There are plenty of other examples, too: Michael Connelly, Todd Ritter (a new name, whose Death Notice I quite enjoyed), Edna Buchanan, Kathryn Casey, Betty Webb, Brad Parks, Anna Blundy, Jan Brogan ... the list goes on and on.

Manuscripts by former (or current) journalists usually move to the top of my pile, even if the high concept doesn't particularly move me.  Why?  Because these people are trained writers, and I can usually assume that the story is told competently.

If you think about it, it's not hard to see why the journalism background is so helpful. Those writing for newspapers are trained to put the most important details up front in the article, with increasingly less important information later. This way, if the editor has to make cuts, it's easy to lop off an entire chunk of the story without doing time-consuming line edits.

An article also has to grab readers' attention instantly - lest the reader skip it and move to another, more interesting, place in the newspaper or magazine. This is an extremely useful skill for a novelist, who has to grab the reader's attention in Chapter 1 with the promise of a good story and interesting characters. 

In longer stories or investigative pieces, the journalist also has to parcel out the information in a way that keeps the reader involved - not giving away everything up front, but rather planting "clues" (as it were) and developing the story. It's a bit sad that most magazines have moved to shorter pieces these days - the days of those Atlantic-type 30-page articles seem to be almost over.  But such is the American attention span.

The ability to keep the reader's attention over a longer piece is also extremely useful to novelists, needless to say.

Finally, the parallels between investigative journalism and the sleuthing process are many. In fact, other than professional private detectives and police, investigative journalists are probably the closest thing we have in reality to fictional sleuths.  So their methods, when fictionalized, have an air of truth about them that brings a nice tone of reality to their manuscript.

The only suggestions or criticisms I'd offer would be these.  Often, journalists make their protags journalists as well. I truly don't like saying this, but everyone knows that these jobs are going away. It's a damn shame - doubly so when I read articles on Yahoo.com and elsewhere that were clearly written by kids with little to no journalistic training or experience. So I think that books featuring traditional journalists working for the local newspaper (or even a big-city newspaper) are going to have a harder and harder time finding a wide readership. So, if you're going to have a journlistic protag, I might find a way to make this person a private or freelance journalist who works for political pundits, or private industry, or even an Internet journalist working for a major Website or search engine. These somehow seem more "relevant" in the current age.

Also, I not unfrequently catch a whiff of self-congratulation in books by journalists, a sort of "We journalists save the world" tone. To see what I mean, look no further than Stieg Larsson's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, et al. While I loved the book and would have published it exactly as is, the "Journalism Saves the World" motif does get a little tiring, I suppose because, at the end of the day, we want escapism and a good story, not necessarily an authorial ego trip.