Miss Demeanors

  Last weekend I was honored to moderate a panel at Killer Nashville on getting a debut book to print. My co-panelists Patricia Dusenbury, Danny Lindsey and Rona Simmons were such a pleasure to meet and we each had a different story to share. The morning of the panel we spent some time thinking about our message, sharing our stories of path to publication, and ruminating about what we wanted to do next or do differently. This conversation led to the realization that the most important question any author can ask is: what is my goal. That became the theme of our panel. My goal was the start of a lasting relationship with an agent and publisher to launch a series. Series equals long term relationship with ‘the team’ made sense to me, however I’ve come to realize that if someone has a stand-alone book a long term relationship may not be as important. Several members of our audience expressed a sense of urgency due to age or health or another time factor. They wanted to see their book in print and the immediacy of self-publishing made sense to them. There were, of course, pre-conceived notions about the path of agent/publisher and self-publishing. One of the biggest seemed to revolve around marketing. In today’s world I think that anyone publishing a debut book will have to engage in marketing – even if you have a large marketing team coordinating an effort, there will be social media and local appearances that the author takes full responsibility for. Decide to embark on self-publishing and you’ll need to take on marketing whole heartedly – there was general agreement among the audience that once your book is launched you really do want it to sell regardless of any initial dream of simply seeing it in print. When you learn that Amazon launches 5,000 books a day you understand how hard it is to garner attention for anything being published. There were also cautionary tales of self-publishing, not necessarily bad business practice or dishonesty but the need to do the research to find a publisher or platform that truly meets your needs. For example, if you are publishing a mystery find a publisher who understands what that cover looks like, not a publisher who has a stock of romance covers that will make you grit your teeth every time you see it (a ‘wrong genre’ cover also hurts marketing). There was one horror story of self-publishing that proceeded smoothly except for the fact that the finished books were in a warehouse in Asia and the fee to get them to the US was not included in the original cost. Read the fine print is the take away here. My story, by contrast, has been a joy. I met my agent and signed quickly thereafter, she sold the manuscript within a few months and I have been thoroughly pleased with every aspect of the process – lovely cover, love the title, wonderful copy editor, supportive editor, encouraging marketing staff (I’m at the end of my adjectives now). At the Killer Nashville Conference I sat through many cocktail conversations and panels thinking that I needed to reach out to my agent and publisher to thank them, it is easy to forget to thank people who are wonderful, not as easy to forget the tales of woe. For my path to publication I had some thoughts about the process, which I shared, including these points: 1. To obtain an agent go to conferences. A face to face meeting gets you over a huge hurdle. 2. Sign up for on line help. Specifically, Writers Digest First 10 pages or Synopsis critiques (there are others, but as a panel we had experience with these and they were entirely positive). 3. Enter contests. There are contests for a variety of manuscripts/books. There are also contests for short stories, which provide an outlet for a new manuscript that doesn’t necessarily take months and months to write. 4. Be ready to revise. Among my panel there was consensus that the suggestion of a major change often results in a knee jerk reaction of NO! I want that sad ending or happy ending or whatever the suggestion is. Take some time to think about it. Ask why. If you are talking with an agent or editor then you are speaking with an experienced professional. We all fall in love with our story, we also have to learn to kill our darlings. (This may not be correct but I believe that Patricia Cornwell first wanted to publish a thriller series with a very different character and someone said to her – what about a female coroner as your central character, that would be unique and make you stand out. Perhaps she jumped on the idea, but I suspect she was very disappointed they didn’t simply take the character she had already created and say Yes!) 5. Be ready to revise again. Seriously. Two times I thought I had ‘finished’. Not so. I was fortunate to have a beta reader who suggested some structural changes that I incorporated prior to sending to my agent (without too much detail they were the kind of changes that meant cutting and chopping everywhere…. I had to think about them for two months to get up the courage. Even the idea of doing it was so painful I wasn’t sure I could. But I did!). I had another great reader make suggestions after the manuscript was sold and I knew they were the right changes – it meant taking a small suggestion and really going for it. I could have gotten away with an easier edit (trim a little here and there) but the better decision was to trim by re-incorporating. Harder, yes. But infinitely better. Ironically both changes came at critical moments which meant that they were made before I sent the manuscript to my agent (perhaps getting her to sign me) and then after we sold the manuscript, which means my editor thinks I am an editing genius! (Hope she’s not reading this.) If you have a chance, take a look at my co-panelists’ books. They are great people and I enjoyed sharing an hour with them. Patricia DusenburyA Perfect VictimSecrets, Lies & HomicideA House of Her Own Rona SimmonsPostcards from WonderlandThe Quiet RoomInto the Light of Day Danny LindseyThe PresJustice 

If you thought the title was tongue in cheek you will be disappointed. I had the pleasure of hearing Ms. Evanovich speak last weekend at Killer Nashville in a variety of forums from panel to interview to presentation and in each she didn’t disappoint. (I also was able to speak briefly with her over a glass of wine at the reception afterward…. a little bonus.) If you have passed through an airport or bookstore you likely recognize her books and you don’t have to be a fan to acknowledge that her success merits attention – 200 million books sold, I believe. In the spirit of full disclosure, I read my first Evanovich when she was on about #9 or so of the Stephanie Plum series. I was new to Kindle and wanted a book to read by the pool on an excruciatingly hot day in Phoenix. I started with number one of the series and, since I’m a quick read, needed another book later in the afternoon. To cut to the point, by the week’s end I had read all of them. The books were perfect for a great pool location – thank you Arizona Biltmore – and I downloaded seamlessly from one to the next. All the while my husband thought I was reading serious Russian literature (Evanovich, get it?).   In any business there are crossover principles to be learned (if you have major success in a hotel chain perhaps the restaurant business can pick up a pointer). This should apply to book genres as well:  mysteries learn from thrillers as well as from humor or historical romance or any other success story, and of course the reverse is true. Evanovich’s principles are as universal. Her main theme throughout the weekend was Work Hard. Seriously. In any discussion this came up. Treat writing like a job because it is a job. If you aren’t willing to do this, then you need to find a different job. Her analogy – do you drive up to 7-11 for a shift and sit in the car and decide if the muse is upon you before clocking in? Good day or bad day you go in and work. And just like a clerk or barista, as a writer you will experience the range of ‘performance’ – the day you spill the pot of coffee on a customer or consistently count out the wrong change, as well as the day when you get a huge tip. It’s a job. In the case of writing just sit down and do it.   Ms. Evanovich was asked: What does work hard mean if you have a full time job and a family and a million other obligations? Simple. It means that writing is a part time job and proceed accordingly. Do you have the ability to have a part time job one hour a day or three hours a day? Decide as if you were hiring out to work, then stick with it as a serious commitment to yourself. In the end, you will achieve your goal (a page a day and in a year you have a complete manuscript) and at the same time develop good habits that will stand you in good stead as a full time writer with a crushing publication schedule that requires sitting down at the job 8-12+ hours a day. (Here, she did a have a little be careful what you wish for moment.) Another overarching principle Ms. Evanovich presented was be deliberate and thoughtful. In other words, plan. That encompasses myriad components of her success. What should you write? Ms. Evanovich swears she was kicked out of romance and had to decide what to do next. Why was she ‘kicked out’? Because she wanted to insert humor. When she took a break to decide what she wanted to do long term she found a genre (really invented a niche) that allowed her to do what she felt she was good at: adventure, romance and humor. This means a brutal self-evaluation – if you love reading humor but can’t write it, then stick to reading and discover your authentic voice as a writer. This is a slightly different interpretation of write what you know, write what you love, etc. Yes, you should love your genre, but you should also be able to write it. This concept worked well for Ms. Evanovich and, as I said, I won’t ever disagree with her. There were many other topics she touched upon: the importance of the bad guy, setting, relationships within the novel or series. The list goes on and on, but in the end it is work hard, plan, work harder, keep working, and one day you will succeed. Right now I’d like to agree with that. 

I’m a mystery writer, not a murderer. Though, anyone looking through a record of my Web searches during the past year could be forgiven for assuming that I’m a human trafficker, drug dealer or worse. Here are a smattering of my searches for The Widower’s Wife: “How many people can squeeze onto a go-fast boat?” “What quantity of drugs have been seized from cigarette boats?” “What is the distance between the Bahamas and Miami?” (follow up)  “How does immigration check passports on day cruises?” “How to sneak into the Miami without documents?” “Average life insurance premiums for a thirty-one year old woman?” I am always surprised by the answers I find to these questions. Thanks to Google’s endless archiving of news articles, there always seems to be a story exploring the very topic in which I am interested, regardless of how lurid. For example, in response to one of these searches, I found a 1994 New York Times Special Report on undocumented immigration that detailed how would-be Americans would sneak aboard day cruise ships and walk into the U.S. without ever showing anyone a passport, Visa or any other kind of documentation. Having spent most of my adult life in a Post-9/11 America where border security has been a chief public safety concern, I could never have imagined that it had once been so easy to come into the country undetected.  For my book, The Widower’s Wife, I took some liberties with the timeline and used many of the methods outlined in the 1994 story. I assume that the “Loophole at the Pier” closed during the past two decades. Though, the cruise industry does have a considerable stake in fighting more stringent border controls given that long lines could sink the business for Caribbean day trips. So, it’s possible that a character could slip through the cracks and enter the country this way. At least, plausible enough for me to add it to my narrative.  The premiums for life insurance policies were also readily available online. MetLife has charts of the average premiums paid by healthy people in various age groups.  As a journalist for more than a decade, I believe in research and writing what I learn rather than just what I already know. The research component is a big part of my process. And, thanks to the endless reams of data online, immersing myself in a subject–even one that might put me on an FBI watch list–has never been easier.    

I write for me. But editing that way would be too selfish.  At night, when I pour over whatever I penned earlier in the day, I try to wrest myself from my characters’ heads and my own mind and place myself in the heads of three people: my dad, my closest friend from elementary school, and my agent. Each person is very different. And, if I can please these imagined readers, I feel good about continuing my story.  My father is the critic. A sixty-six-year-old, soon-to-be retired accountant, my father scrutinizes stories like a balance sheet, searching for mistakes and plot failings. He wants to point out that something didn’t make sense or that a character’s actions were “unbelievable.” He refuses to allow well-crafted sentences to seduce him into an easy suspension of disbelief. Reading with my father in mind forces me to constantly ask myself whether or not I’ve done enough work to make my characters’ actions natural. If my fiction doesn’t feel truthful, my dad’s voice will accuse me of lying with all the venom of a parent thinking of a punishment for breaking curfew. I’ll need to go back to the drawing board.  My closest friend from elementary school is probably the person in this world most similar to me. She reads often. She likes stories. She enjoys being entertained. However, she’s a super busy working mother with a ton of responsibility. She doesn’t have time for tales that don’t keep the pages turning. If my story is not exciting and the characters are not compelling, she’s going to put it down–even though it was written by her best friend. There are just too many other pressing things demanding her attention. When I’m editing, I imagine her reading my book after putting the children to sleep. Does she place it on the nightstand because she’s tired or can she not help herself even though she knows her kids will wake up early the next morning and she’ll have to get them all ready for camp before heading to the office? If I can still have her imagined attention, then I’m telling an exciting story.  My agent is the seasoned professional. She’s read so many thrillers that few plots seem original and few stories aren’t predictable. She is my barometer for genre aficionados. If I can surprise her with a twist–or at least delay the inevitable guessing until the third act–then I may have something that will please serious mystery readers.  If, in my head, I’ve kept these three people interested in my story, then I’ve done a good job writing something that I can take pride in. If not, I need to write something better the next day when I’m back to being me.   

In twenty minutes, I will call into another live radio show to promote my book The Widower’s Wife. I enjoy these interviews. For the most part, the radio hosts sound happy to discuss themes in my novel and my writing process. They give me a chance to tell my story. If the hosts genuinely liked the book, they’ll say so, which is a nice ego boost, particularly for someone who spent six hours-a-day for the past eight months in relative silence crafting and, then, rewriting a ninety-thousand word book. What writer isn’t thrilled hearing that someone read her work, let alone liked it?  But, aside from the aid to my fragile scribe psyche, are radio interviews worth the PR investment? Do they sell books?  My experience is YES. Here’s why:  Amazon’s author central provides a map showing where my sales have been geographically. (SEE MAP)  I live in the New York area and have concentrated most of my marketing efforts and book tours there. Not surprisingly, most of my sales have come from the dark blue area in the North East. I also have a family contingent on the West Coast that has been very supportive and helped get the word out there to book clubs, so that partially explains the concentration of sales in the Los Angeles and the Bay area.  Radio, I believe, is largely responsible for several of the light blue areas on the map. Last year, I was fortunate to be on culture shows in Des Moines, Iowa; Ocala, Florida; Orange County, New York; and Philadelphia, PA. As you can see from the map, those areas where I did radio have larger concentrations of sales (shown as a mid-blue) than other areas.  For The Widower’s Wife, I plan to do more radio and podcasts. I hope that those mid-blue areas will get to a nice, rich navy this time around.