publishing Archives - Page 2 of 2

What's New in Social Media

August 19, 2016 Susan Breen Uncategorized

One of the perks of being a Random House author is that you get invited to webinars where various publishing folk tell you about things they think you should know. I love going to these webinars. You don’t know who else is sitting in, of course, because you’re just looking at a screen with a picture on it, but I like to imagine Paula Hawkins sitting across from me in the void and thinking, “What if Maggie Dove met The Girl on the Train? Why don’t I call Susan and ask?” Anyway, yesterday the topic was “What’s New in Social Media.” The speaker was a young woman who handles all the social media at Penguin Random House and she had a lot of interesting tidbits. Here are some of them. 1. Share content you enjoy. (Yes, it’s okay to post all those pictures of dogs!) Readers want to know who you are and what your interests are. Social media is about getting across your personality! 2. You don’t need to be on every platform. Pick the one you like. But. If you are only going to pick only one, go with Facebook. That’s the big one, with more than a billion users. She advised authors to set up a fan page because while there are limits to the number of friends you can have, there are no limits to the number of fans you can have. 3. Twitter and Facebook tend to attract older users. The newer platforms, such as Snapchat, tend to draw younger ones. She said young people tend to colonize the new platforms and then the old people move in. 4. Because it’s the internet, there are always going to be some haters. Don’t respond. Don’t get upset. Don’t dwell. (But don’t forget. Never forget! 🙂 ) 5. One of the most exciting new platforms is called Litsy. It’s an app for your phone, and it’s all about books. When you go on, it’s a little like instagram, except that there are only pictures of books. You can take pictures of books you’re reading and post them and write blurbs about them. I posted a picture of my fellow Miss Demeanor Cate Holahan’s book, The Widower’s Wife, against a red pillow, since it’s a domestic thriller. Best of all, it’s a new platform and only has 28,000 or so users so far, so joining Litsky gives you chance to get involved with something on the ground floow. (Imagine if you’d joined twitter when it had only a few thousand users!)If you do decide to join, let me know and I’ll follow you. There’s another platform that’s similar called Reco. I haven’t checked that out yet. Probably her most important advice is to have fun with it. Social media really is about connecting. What about you? Which platforms do you like?

Copy Edits

August 18, 2016 Susan Breen Uncategorized

This is my week for going over the copy-edited version of my new novel, Maggie Dove’s Detective Agency (which will be coming out on November 8.) It’s my last chance to make changes before it goes into publication, which means it’s my last chance to get everything right. On every page of the draft, there are notes from the copy-editor. Sometimes he just wants me to think about a word. Other times it’s more substantive. Here are some sample questions: 1. Timing is very important in mysteries, as you can imagine. At one point I say that something happened two weeks ago, but actually it happened 20 days ago. Fix that! 2. Early in the novel I refer to a cat as having green eyes, but later on he has yellow eyes. Fix that! 3. I keep misusing “further” and “farther.” 4. Maggie has a conversation with her nemesis, Walter Campbell, and she feels badly for him. But soon thereafter she loses her temper. Take more time, the copy editor cautions. Wait a beat before she yells. 5. I tend to use the word “dumbfounded” a lot. Which I frequently am. But I shouldn’t use it too much. 6. I refer to a book of magic spells. (There are witches in this book!) But I got the title wrong. I fixed it. And so on. None of these things are onerous, but it’s important to get it all right. There’s nothing worse than finding a mistake in a book. Completely damages the author’s credibility. In my first Maggie Dove mystery, the copy-editor found a real doozy. I was referring to a psalm and got the number wrong. Maggie Dove is a Sunday School teacher and that would have been an embarrassing mistake. One of my favorite things about this process is that it does give you a chance to fix mistakes, which is not something you always get in life. Wouldn’t it be nice if there were someone walking alongside you saying, “Just a minute. Are you sure you want to do that?” (Maybe that’s my husband’s job.) Anyway, only 100 more pages to go through and then my new mystery will be as fresh and shiny as I can make it. Then I can get going on a first draft of a new book and make whatever mistakes I want! Have you ever found a mistake in a book? Or have you made one? (In a book, or in life?)

What scares you?

July 18, 2016 Susan Breen Uncategorized

So much of writing is scary. Should you write down those thoughts? Will your family think you’re crazy?Should you send your work out to an agent? What if she thinks you’re crazy?Will anyone buy your book? What if all the reviews are one stars? So much of publishing makes me nervous, but I vowed to myself, when I turned 50, that I would try to say yes to everything people asked me to do, which is how I came to take part in a reading at the Parkside Lounge last Thursday night. This was an event fraught with anxiety. First of all, it was in the East Village in NYC. Once I get south of 14th Street and the numbers go away, I just have to accept that fact that I’m going to spend an hour lost. I carefully mapped out subway directions. Dragged my sister-in-law and a friend into a subway, which wound up being un-airconditioned. It was 100 degrees. My make-up dripped onto my lap. Then there was the place itself, which was, exactly as I feared, much cooler than I am. (I’m not speaking of temperature here, but of a state of mind.) The walls were red (I think). There was a pool table in the bar. The emcee was a very cute young man who reminded me of Lin-Manuel Miranda. And there was I to read about the Sunday School teacher who is the protagonist of my cozy mystery. But not yet, because first there were three hours of other people reading. (I was the headliner, either because I’m that good, or because I harangued the most people into going.) First up was a man writing about his first time using a condom. Then came various other intense and very moving pieces. Then came a woman describing an intimate relationship with an ice cream cone, and then came me, talking about Maggie Dove. I went up to the stage and the light shone right into my eyes. I’m a teacher and used to relying on visual cues. When people start looking down at their cell phones, I know it’s time to move along. So it was weird to be in a cocoon of light. Anyway, I started to read the first chapter of Maggie Dove. Suddenly everyone got quiet. You know that feeling when people are really listening to you? It’s a nice feeling. When I was done, everyone applauded. Sincerely, I felt. Afterwards I got an e-mail from someone who had been there who had been one of my students several years ago. She was so excited to hear about my book, had written one herself. Wanted to reconnect. The next day I got this group photograph, and as I looked at it, I thought how much fun the whole thing had been. Writing is about saying yes. But now I think I’d like to stay curled up in my office for a bit. At least until Thursday, when I have a reading at Bryant Park. How about you? Have you ever done anything scary?