Posts
By Lonnie Cruse
Personally I never thought that much about Word Of Mouth until I became a published writer. Yeah, I knew it was there, even participated in it myself, but never thought about it. Then I had a book published.
We all use Word Of Mouth every day, whether we realize it or not. "Oh, how cute, where did you get that dress/purse/hat/whatever?" "Who cuts your hair?" "Who watches your kids?" And the recipient--smiling over the compliment--coughs up the information as to where she shops. In fact, some women, including me, feel compelled to spit out the all-important location of our shopping trips when someone simply says the "How cute" line, without even asking where we got it.
And some of us feel compelled to share our opinions without being complemented or even asked. We get excited about something and start chattering about it, sometimes even to strangers: "Did you see this movie?" "Did you read this book?" "Did you know there's a huge sale at . . .?" And thusly the items that are sold and/or those who manufactured them become popular. Because someone told the rest of us about them.
Authors, having studied marketing strategies and/or learned same from other authors, discovered the power of Word Of Mouth a very long time ago. We know that far beyond a gorgeous cover, a rave review (though that is word of mouth, albeit from someone we don't know and therefore have no reason to trust) and a great price, Word Of Mouth sells more books than anything. So we do our best to get our books into the hands of as many people as possible, above and beyond selling them in stores.
We join book chat lists to chat about books, including ours, we set up blogs and websites, we run contests, we make public appearances to meet and greet readers, and we even give books away, each time crossing our fingers that this reader will love it and tell all her friends about it. (And closing our minds to the possibility that she might not. Let's face it, would you want someone to call YOUR baby ugly?) Then, if we're lucky, word begins to spread. Our books begin to sell.
It goes without saying that the product--the book--must be as excellent as the above mentioned dress/purse/hairdo. (Okay, so I said it.) But Word Of Mouth doesn't just sell our books, it sells US, the authors. And if we, the authors, don't come up to scratch as human beings, if we don't "sell," then likely our books won't either.
An author makes an appearance somewhere, forgets the manners her mother worked so hard to teach her, turns off one or more attendees, and Word Of Mouth spreads. Or she hogs the spotlight and over-sells herself, whether in public or on the book discussion lists or other Internet venues. She's too full of herself, certain sure that her personality and her work are of THE most importance. Word Of Mouth spreads quickly among readers. Book sales drop like an over-ripe peach off a tree.
You, the reader, are one of THE most important aspects of our writing careers. Without you reading our writing and passing the word to others, our books won't sell. Books don't just magically become best-sellers because the author or the publisher wants them to. Yes, some authors get a lot more "assistance" from their large publishers than those with small publishers. But people have to want to read the books no matter who wrote or published them. And want to tell others about them. Consider the rather well-known murder case where the defendant, judged not guilty by the court but found guilty by many fellow countrymen, had a lucritive book deal cancelled when the reading public let it be known that this book would not be on their "must buy" list. You, the reader, have the biggest impact on what becomes a best-seller and what doesn't.
As writers, we see the respect readers have for us when we meet you in person. Trust me, we are just as in awe of you, as you are of us. So please, keep right on chatting to everyone you meet about us and about our books. And if you think our babies are ugly, we'll do our best to overlook it. Really.
Friday, April 10, 2009
Thursday, April 9, 2009
My husband the body and other adventures in making the book trailer
Elizabeth Zelvin
I didn’t think he would agree to do it, but my husband racked up marital points by dressing in black and flinging himself face down on the front hall floor in our apartment so I could shoot the “body in East Harlem” I needed for the book trailer for Death Will Help You Leave Him, my very first video. He has been accusing me of stealing his one-liners ever since he finally read my first mystery, Death Will Get You Sober. He preempted such theft by suggesting a couple for this post: “I finally found a use for my husband,” and “My husband has finally discovered his true talent—he makes a great corpse.”
My agent suggested that I make the trailer, in spite of the ongoing debate among mystery writers on whether or not such videos sell books. Like any legitimate form of promotion, a video increases the author’s name recognition and visibility on the Web. The publicist at my publisher’s, when asked, said he was skeptical about a trailer’s value and cautioned against spending a lot of money—preaching to the choir on that point. On the other hand, he had great things to say about a friend’s trailer, which he described as “like a little music video.” Okay, so the task was to make a good video.
I’m in favor of do-it-yourself creativity. Why hire somebody else to have all the fun? I designed and did the graphics as well as the text for both my author website and my online therapy website. So right after my first “I can’t!” which in my creative process is like the preliminary start-up cough of an outboard motor, I began sizzling with ideas for my video. I did find a friend to put the thing together for a reasonable fee—more cost effective than my learning to use video software. But I wrote the script, took photographs and figured out how to shoot video clips on my little digital camera. I got my husband to record voice-over dialogue with me. He’s no actor, but why was I surprised that he could do sardonic? And I realized I already had the perfect song, one of my favorites by a singer/songwriter friend who generously permitted me to use it.
I had a grand time shooting the real-life counterparts of places I had made up in the course of writing: a Madison Avenue lingerie boutique, an Italian pastry shop, a Brooklyn cemetery on a gloomy day, a SoHo art gallery. Strolling down West Broadway, the main artery of SoHo, I came across a genuine artist leaning against a wall contemplating two magnificent paintings of skulls—one grinning like a comedy mask, the other in a grimace of tragedy—leaning up against a couple of mailboxes. What a perfect street encounter for a mystery writer. I also had a creepy experience in the cemetery, when I photographed an angel, decided to go back and get a different angle, and couldn’t find the angel again though I’m sure I retraced my exact steps. Pure woo-woo.
Going on location, I discovered, is a great way to reveal mistakes in the manuscript. Why had I never noticed that West Broadway is a two-way street? Does it affect the scene where Bruce’s ex-wife almost gets run over? Can I change it when I get the copy-edited manuscript? I never knew that Brooklyn’s one big cemetery is nonsectarian. Will readers care that I filled it with Italian and Irish Catholics?
The only bit I couldn’t do myself was the car crash. My husband agreed to drive while I shot through the windshield with the wipers going and the red and green traffic lights pulsing on a rainy night in the city. But he has his limits. No problem. I downloaded the perfect four-second crash—squeal, thud, and shattering glass—for $2.96 from a special effects site.
I didn’t think he would agree to do it, but my husband racked up marital points by dressing in black and flinging himself face down on the front hall floor in our apartment so I could shoot the “body in East Harlem” I needed for the book trailer for Death Will Help You Leave Him, my very first video. He has been accusing me of stealing his one-liners ever since he finally read my first mystery, Death Will Get You Sober. He preempted such theft by suggesting a couple for this post: “I finally found a use for my husband,” and “My husband has finally discovered his true talent—he makes a great corpse.”
My agent suggested that I make the trailer, in spite of the ongoing debate among mystery writers on whether or not such videos sell books. Like any legitimate form of promotion, a video increases the author’s name recognition and visibility on the Web. The publicist at my publisher’s, when asked, said he was skeptical about a trailer’s value and cautioned against spending a lot of money—preaching to the choir on that point. On the other hand, he had great things to say about a friend’s trailer, which he described as “like a little music video.” Okay, so the task was to make a good video.
I’m in favor of do-it-yourself creativity. Why hire somebody else to have all the fun? I designed and did the graphics as well as the text for both my author website and my online therapy website. So right after my first “I can’t!” which in my creative process is like the preliminary start-up cough of an outboard motor, I began sizzling with ideas for my video. I did find a friend to put the thing together for a reasonable fee—more cost effective than my learning to use video software. But I wrote the script, took photographs and figured out how to shoot video clips on my little digital camera. I got my husband to record voice-over dialogue with me. He’s no actor, but why was I surprised that he could do sardonic? And I realized I already had the perfect song, one of my favorites by a singer/songwriter friend who generously permitted me to use it.
I had a grand time shooting the real-life counterparts of places I had made up in the course of writing: a Madison Avenue lingerie boutique, an Italian pastry shop, a Brooklyn cemetery on a gloomy day, a SoHo art gallery. Strolling down West Broadway, the main artery of SoHo, I came across a genuine artist leaning against a wall contemplating two magnificent paintings of skulls—one grinning like a comedy mask, the other in a grimace of tragedy—leaning up against a couple of mailboxes. What a perfect street encounter for a mystery writer. I also had a creepy experience in the cemetery, when I photographed an angel, decided to go back and get a different angle, and couldn’t find the angel again though I’m sure I retraced my exact steps. Pure woo-woo.
Going on location, I discovered, is a great way to reveal mistakes in the manuscript. Why had I never noticed that West Broadway is a two-way street? Does it affect the scene where Bruce’s ex-wife almost gets run over? Can I change it when I get the copy-edited manuscript? I never knew that Brooklyn’s one big cemetery is nonsectarian. Will readers care that I filled it with Italian and Irish Catholics?
The only bit I couldn’t do myself was the car crash. My husband agreed to drive while I shot through the windshield with the wipers going and the red and green traffic lights pulsing on a rainy night in the city. But he has his limits. No problem. I downloaded the perfect four-second crash—squeal, thud, and shattering glass—for $2.96 from a special effects site.
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Ripped from the headlines: Where do we draw the line?
Sandra Parshall
I know a woman who could be transferred to the pages of a novel exactly as she is, to become a marvelously twisted character. She would be a plausible killer because of her unmatched talent for holding a grudge and her relentless vindictiveness. She would make an even more believable victim because everyone who knows her longs to be rid of her.
I’ll probably use her in a book sooner or later. But regardless of how accurately I try to portray her, the minute she hits the page she’ll begin to morph into something else, a fictional woman. A character. She will live in a world the real woman has never known, and respond to events and pressures unique to the story she’s in. As the pages and scenes and chapters wear on, she will become less and less the real person I know and more a creation of my own imagination.
I was thinking about all this a few days ago while listening to Laura Lippman talk about her books, which she said were all inspired by actual events. When one book, What the Dead Know, was published, Laura felt she had to publicly acknowledge that the story was inspired by the disappearance of two young sisters in suburban Maryland in the 1970s. I’m not sure she had to address the issue at all. Children disappear every day. There have been other cases of young sisters disappearing together. At the time of the case Laura had in mind, the sisters’ disappearance was little known outside the Washington-Baltimore area where it happened. But what’s most important is that, other than the disappearance itself, her story had absolutely nothing in common with the actual events, or the lives of the real girls and their parents.
Today, of course, 24-hour cable TV would make the simultaneous disappearance of two young sisters an international story, and the whole world would hear about it, day after day, every hour on the hour. In far-flung locations, TV viewers would stare at photos of the smiling girls and grow teary-eyed when contemplating their probable fate. The voracious news machine would scoop up every scrap of information or gossip and put it on the air within minutes, without bothering to verify it. Crime stories, as reported on round-the-clock cable, can become so detailed and sensational that no writer’s imagination could envision anything to top them. Drawing inspiration from today’s news might mean laboring for a year on a story that will be stale by the time it appears in book form. Even if you change significant aspects of the crime and its solution, the story may still seem overly familiar to readers -- and the real people involved won’t look kindly on your creative endeavor.
The folks who put Law & Order’s “ripped from the headlines” shows on the air can snatch up a sensational story and turn it into fiction much faster than a novelist can, and an episode may go on the air while the horror of the real crime is still unbearably raw for the victims and their families. In a few cases, L&O has come up with its own version before the real crime was even solved. The “characters” are eerily like the real people, with no effort made to disguise them beyond name changes.
A recent Washington Post story – which you can read here -- reports that many people whose worst nightmares show up on L&O feel “blindsided and used” and find the experience, on top of the tragedy they’ve suffered, deeply disturbing. “We’re trying to heal,” said a man whose young son and housekeeper were murdered in a still-unsolved case, “and to have it constantly dredged up is painful.” No one from the program or network contacted the family or alerted them that the show would be aired. The older brother of the murdered boy called the program “sick.”
Law & Order and its spinoffs have used hundreds of real cases over the years, loudly advertising them as “Ripped from the headlines!” while simultaneously claiming that they’re pure fiction, depicting no actual person or event. Such a claim is usually enough to protect creative work from libel and slander charges, but that might be changing. Since 2004, L&O has been fighting a lawsuit over a program that aired in late 2003, and despite efforts to have the suit dismissed, it was recently cleared for trial. The eventual outcome could make a difference in the way television crime shows are written.
Will it make a difference to novelists? Combined with the over-exposure many crime stories receive now, would a judgment against Law & Order be enough to make writers stop combing the news columns and cable networks in search of inspiration? I almost hope so. Unless we have Laura Lippman’s ability to take the germ of a situation and turn it into something brilliantly original, maybe we’ll write better books if we stop trying so hard to be topical and rely on our imaginations to provide us with material.
I’ll go on using real people as the starting points for characters. I’ll probably put the awful woman I mentioned earlier in a book someday, but I know she'll be someone else, a fictional person, by the time I'm done. I hope no one ever reads something I’ve written and exclaims, “Oh my god, that’s me. She stole my life!” I don’t want that kind of guilt – and I don’t want the lawsuit.
I know a woman who could be transferred to the pages of a novel exactly as she is, to become a marvelously twisted character. She would be a plausible killer because of her unmatched talent for holding a grudge and her relentless vindictiveness. She would make an even more believable victim because everyone who knows her longs to be rid of her.
I’ll probably use her in a book sooner or later. But regardless of how accurately I try to portray her, the minute she hits the page she’ll begin to morph into something else, a fictional woman. A character. She will live in a world the real woman has never known, and respond to events and pressures unique to the story she’s in. As the pages and scenes and chapters wear on, she will become less and less the real person I know and more a creation of my own imagination.
I was thinking about all this a few days ago while listening to Laura Lippman talk about her books, which she said were all inspired by actual events. When one book, What the Dead Know, was published, Laura felt she had to publicly acknowledge that the story was inspired by the disappearance of two young sisters in suburban Maryland in the 1970s. I’m not sure she had to address the issue at all. Children disappear every day. There have been other cases of young sisters disappearing together. At the time of the case Laura had in mind, the sisters’ disappearance was little known outside the Washington-Baltimore area where it happened. But what’s most important is that, other than the disappearance itself, her story had absolutely nothing in common with the actual events, or the lives of the real girls and their parents.
Today, of course, 24-hour cable TV would make the simultaneous disappearance of two young sisters an international story, and the whole world would hear about it, day after day, every hour on the hour. In far-flung locations, TV viewers would stare at photos of the smiling girls and grow teary-eyed when contemplating their probable fate. The voracious news machine would scoop up every scrap of information or gossip and put it on the air within minutes, without bothering to verify it. Crime stories, as reported on round-the-clock cable, can become so detailed and sensational that no writer’s imagination could envision anything to top them. Drawing inspiration from today’s news might mean laboring for a year on a story that will be stale by the time it appears in book form. Even if you change significant aspects of the crime and its solution, the story may still seem overly familiar to readers -- and the real people involved won’t look kindly on your creative endeavor.
The folks who put Law & Order’s “ripped from the headlines” shows on the air can snatch up a sensational story and turn it into fiction much faster than a novelist can, and an episode may go on the air while the horror of the real crime is still unbearably raw for the victims and their families. In a few cases, L&O has come up with its own version before the real crime was even solved. The “characters” are eerily like the real people, with no effort made to disguise them beyond name changes.
A recent Washington Post story – which you can read here -- reports that many people whose worst nightmares show up on L&O feel “blindsided and used” and find the experience, on top of the tragedy they’ve suffered, deeply disturbing. “We’re trying to heal,” said a man whose young son and housekeeper were murdered in a still-unsolved case, “and to have it constantly dredged up is painful.” No one from the program or network contacted the family or alerted them that the show would be aired. The older brother of the murdered boy called the program “sick.”
Law & Order and its spinoffs have used hundreds of real cases over the years, loudly advertising them as “Ripped from the headlines!” while simultaneously claiming that they’re pure fiction, depicting no actual person or event. Such a claim is usually enough to protect creative work from libel and slander charges, but that might be changing. Since 2004, L&O has been fighting a lawsuit over a program that aired in late 2003, and despite efforts to have the suit dismissed, it was recently cleared for trial. The eventual outcome could make a difference in the way television crime shows are written.
Will it make a difference to novelists? Combined with the over-exposure many crime stories receive now, would a judgment against Law & Order be enough to make writers stop combing the news columns and cable networks in search of inspiration? I almost hope so. Unless we have Laura Lippman’s ability to take the germ of a situation and turn it into something brilliantly original, maybe we’ll write better books if we stop trying so hard to be topical and rely on our imaginations to provide us with material.
I’ll go on using real people as the starting points for characters. I’ll probably put the awful woman I mentioned earlier in a book someday, but I know she'll be someone else, a fictional person, by the time I'm done. I hope no one ever reads something I’ve written and exclaims, “Oh my god, that’s me. She stole my life!” I don’t want that kind of guilt – and I don’t want the lawsuit.
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
The Mountain Goat View
Sharon Wildwind
One of the best pieces of writing advice I ever had came from a woman who would not let me tell her what happened in a story. “You’ll spoil it,” she said. "Once you talk a story through, you’re likely to feel as though you’ve already told it, and there goes your motivation for writing it."
I’m what’s known in the trade as a plotter: a person who likes a detailed roadmap before I begin a story. So losing interest in a story by pre-telling it to myself is a real danger. I've had to work hard at building a little panster into my workstyle. The panster is, of course, the person who starts a story without having much of an idea where it is going. I like to keep just on this side of knowing what happens next. Even writers like surprises.
When I begin working on a new book I try to start with one sentence: [Name of book] is about . . . , as in Simple Gifts is about never losing sight of the commitment underlying romance.
Then I ask myself where are the main characters emotionally at the beginning of the book? Our main characters in Simple Gifts are an engaged couple, Arlene and Damion. They’re late-thirty-somethings, living in a major city, and heavily involved in their careers.
When the book begins, Arlene is desperate for the most beautiful wedding ever because she never thought she would marry, but she’s so tied up in wedding plans that she’s not paying attention to what Damion wants.
Damion wants a simple wedding because it’s the vows, what they will promise each other, that’s most important to him, but he can’t get Arlene’s attention long enough to explain that to her.
Great, I’ve got immediate conflict and two characters who are on opposite poles of the question, what’s a wedding for?
If that’s the beginning, what’s the ending? Arlene and Damion will meet each other half-way. She means every word of the vows she recites, and he learns to enjoy a little pageantry.
Where did the characters get the strong feelings each brings to the beginning of the book?
Arlene grew up poor, had to go to work when she was a teen-ager, and spent half of her life watching one friend after another get married. Until six months ago, when she and Damion met, she’d resigned herself to being an old maid. Now not only is she getting married, but she’s saved enough money for a snazzy wedding; maybe not the $100,000 extravaganzas she drools over in sleek bridal magazines, but something a cut above average.
Damion is still reeling from his mother’s recent death. He can’t stop thinking about how his father took a year off from work to care for his mother during her final illness. His mother loved to tell the story about how she and Damion’s father were so much in love that they decided not to wait until they finished college to get married. She borrowed a dress from the college’s drama department, carried flowers picked illegally a public park, and her roommate took up a collection among their friends to buy ingredients to make the wedding cake. His dream of a wedding has always involved two people gazing lovingly into one another’s eyes as they recite their vows.
By the time I’ve got my conflicts and motivations half-jelled, I’ll probably notice that some words keep reoccurring. I’ll pick five of those words, jazz them up to give them more punch, then decide what the opposites—also words that pack a wallop—are.
Attention/inattention
Wealth/poverty
Glitz/simple
Commitment/surface interest
Romantic love/practical love
I print those five pairs of words on an index card and post them near my computer. Each time I start a new scene, I try to see how many of those words I can work into the idea behind that scene.
If I set this scene in a really simple place, what would Arlene’s reaction be to the simplicity?
If Damion blows it in this scene by failing to keep a commitment he made to Arlene, how will he feel?
Now we get to the mountain goat. Imagine a goat hopping from peak to peak. What the goat wants to do is get to the top of the mountain. He’s not interested in scenery, details, or sub-plots.
Can I tell this story in ten events—ten mountain peaks—each of which is a turning point in the story?
1. Arlene and Damion fight over their wedding ceremony, but it’s a surface fight. They’re both ticked at not getting their need across to the other person.
2. Damion takes on a volunteer job—something related to a group fighting poverty—that requires a lot of his time, and Arlene feels shoved aside.
3. Arlene gets a chance to work for one of those glitzy bridal magazines she’s read for years.
4. Damion’s dad consoles him and suggests he might want to rethink what life would be like with Arlene.
5. Arlene is offered a big project that has to do with travel, money, buying tons of stuff.
6. They have a second, serious fight and break off the engagement.
7. Damion’s group is desperate for money. He organizes a fund-raising event for them and discovers that glitz can be useful.
8. Arlene is unexpectedly exposed to poverty and realizes that glitz for glitz sake is empty.
9. Damion and Arlene reunite to work together to bring off Damion’s event. As they are working together, they are finally able to talk. They begin to plan a wedding that will be special to both of them.
10. We end with the wedding.
This way I have something of a road map, thought I know good and well that it will change as I get further into the book.
So my entire start-the-book kit consists of
1. One sentence that gives me a general idea of the theme.
2. Five pairs of emotionally-ladened words, which play off of one another as opposites.
3. Ten mountain goat points.
Because those three pieces are so general, I have loads of options about how I’ll play out each turning point in the book.
I could write their first fight scene at Damion’s office, where Arlene arrives loaded down with boxes from her latest shopping trip; or in a coffee bar where Damion is trying to talk to Arlene about writing their own vows, but she’s prattling on about how she just LOVES a certain bridal magazine; or at a massive wedding show in the local convention centre. Each of those would be a different kind of scene, but all of them would allow point #1 to happen. Best of all, the story is still a mystery to me, too. Hey, I work hard at this writing game. I deserve a few surprises, too.
______
Writing quote for the week:
Every book starts with a what-if question. Two sentences, 25 words or less, plus a one-paragraph answer. Sharp. Emotional. Visceral.
~Tess Gerritsen, mystery writer
One of the best pieces of writing advice I ever had came from a woman who would not let me tell her what happened in a story. “You’ll spoil it,” she said. "Once you talk a story through, you’re likely to feel as though you’ve already told it, and there goes your motivation for writing it."
I’m what’s known in the trade as a plotter: a person who likes a detailed roadmap before I begin a story. So losing interest in a story by pre-telling it to myself is a real danger. I've had to work hard at building a little panster into my workstyle. The panster is, of course, the person who starts a story without having much of an idea where it is going. I like to keep just on this side of knowing what happens next. Even writers like surprises.
When I begin working on a new book I try to start with one sentence: [Name of book] is about . . . , as in Simple Gifts is about never losing sight of the commitment underlying romance.
Then I ask myself where are the main characters emotionally at the beginning of the book? Our main characters in Simple Gifts are an engaged couple, Arlene and Damion. They’re late-thirty-somethings, living in a major city, and heavily involved in their careers.
When the book begins, Arlene is desperate for the most beautiful wedding ever because she never thought she would marry, but she’s so tied up in wedding plans that she’s not paying attention to what Damion wants.
Damion wants a simple wedding because it’s the vows, what they will promise each other, that’s most important to him, but he can’t get Arlene’s attention long enough to explain that to her.
Great, I’ve got immediate conflict and two characters who are on opposite poles of the question, what’s a wedding for?
If that’s the beginning, what’s the ending? Arlene and Damion will meet each other half-way. She means every word of the vows she recites, and he learns to enjoy a little pageantry.
Where did the characters get the strong feelings each brings to the beginning of the book?
Arlene grew up poor, had to go to work when she was a teen-ager, and spent half of her life watching one friend after another get married. Until six months ago, when she and Damion met, she’d resigned herself to being an old maid. Now not only is she getting married, but she’s saved enough money for a snazzy wedding; maybe not the $100,000 extravaganzas she drools over in sleek bridal magazines, but something a cut above average.
Damion is still reeling from his mother’s recent death. He can’t stop thinking about how his father took a year off from work to care for his mother during her final illness. His mother loved to tell the story about how she and Damion’s father were so much in love that they decided not to wait until they finished college to get married. She borrowed a dress from the college’s drama department, carried flowers picked illegally a public park, and her roommate took up a collection among their friends to buy ingredients to make the wedding cake. His dream of a wedding has always involved two people gazing lovingly into one another’s eyes as they recite their vows.
By the time I’ve got my conflicts and motivations half-jelled, I’ll probably notice that some words keep reoccurring. I’ll pick five of those words, jazz them up to give them more punch, then decide what the opposites—also words that pack a wallop—are.
Attention/inattention
Wealth/poverty
Glitz/simple
Commitment/surface interest
Romantic love/practical love
I print those five pairs of words on an index card and post them near my computer. Each time I start a new scene, I try to see how many of those words I can work into the idea behind that scene.
If I set this scene in a really simple place, what would Arlene’s reaction be to the simplicity?
If Damion blows it in this scene by failing to keep a commitment he made to Arlene, how will he feel?
Now we get to the mountain goat. Imagine a goat hopping from peak to peak. What the goat wants to do is get to the top of the mountain. He’s not interested in scenery, details, or sub-plots.
Can I tell this story in ten events—ten mountain peaks—each of which is a turning point in the story?
1. Arlene and Damion fight over their wedding ceremony, but it’s a surface fight. They’re both ticked at not getting their need across to the other person.
2. Damion takes on a volunteer job—something related to a group fighting poverty—that requires a lot of his time, and Arlene feels shoved aside.
3. Arlene gets a chance to work for one of those glitzy bridal magazines she’s read for years.
4. Damion’s dad consoles him and suggests he might want to rethink what life would be like with Arlene.
5. Arlene is offered a big project that has to do with travel, money, buying tons of stuff.
6. They have a second, serious fight and break off the engagement.
7. Damion’s group is desperate for money. He organizes a fund-raising event for them and discovers that glitz can be useful.
8. Arlene is unexpectedly exposed to poverty and realizes that glitz for glitz sake is empty.
9. Damion and Arlene reunite to work together to bring off Damion’s event. As they are working together, they are finally able to talk. They begin to plan a wedding that will be special to both of them.
10. We end with the wedding.
This way I have something of a road map, thought I know good and well that it will change as I get further into the book.
So my entire start-the-book kit consists of
1. One sentence that gives me a general idea of the theme.
2. Five pairs of emotionally-ladened words, which play off of one another as opposites.
3. Ten mountain goat points.
Because those three pieces are so general, I have loads of options about how I’ll play out each turning point in the book.
I could write their first fight scene at Damion’s office, where Arlene arrives loaded down with boxes from her latest shopping trip; or in a coffee bar where Damion is trying to talk to Arlene about writing their own vows, but she’s prattling on about how she just LOVES a certain bridal magazine; or at a massive wedding show in the local convention centre. Each of those would be a different kind of scene, but all of them would allow point #1 to happen. Best of all, the story is still a mystery to me, too. Hey, I work hard at this writing game. I deserve a few surprises, too.
______
Writing quote for the week:
Every book starts with a what-if question. Two sentences, 25 words or less, plus a one-paragraph answer. Sharp. Emotional. Visceral.
~Tess Gerritsen, mystery writer
Monday, April 6, 2009
100 Great Mysteries
by Julia Buckley
According to the online members of the Mystery Booksellers Association, these are the 100 favorite mysteries of the 20th century.
Naturally, after stumbling across this list, I had to check and see how many I had read. I love mysteries and I've been reading them for about 30 years, so I should have read almost all of them, right?
Well, no. But a respectable sampling at 37 books. And what a wonderful list I now have to choose from! There are some writers here that I look at and say, "Why have I never read that book?" Two that jump out at me are James Lee Burke and Lawrence Block--names I've heard many times, but whose work I haven't really explored (I've read one Burke novel but I've been told it was the "wrong" series to start with).
There are also a couple of names here that I've never heard of, like K.C. Constantine and Janet Neel (not due to their lack of fame, but to my ignorance).
This is one of the reasons that people continue to compile lists--because people like me love them. They are fun to read, fun to compare with one's own choices, and fun to use as fodder for future purchases or library visits.
I'm thrilled to see that both Ross MacDonald and his wife Margaret Millar are on the list--I've read all of their work, not to mention a couple of biographies of MacDonald (who is many ways was an unhappy man, but perhaps that was what tinged his writing with such sad beauty).
The biggest surprise to me is that the great Mary Stewart isn't on the list--perhaps because her books were classified as "suspense," as were the books of people like Phyllis A. Whitney. But if I made my own list--and maybe I will--those two would certainly be on it; their books aren't that far in structure from the Josephine Tey novel listed here.
Anyway, it's another fun list of some undeniably wonderful titles.
What would you add? What does it make you want to read?
According to the online members of the Mystery Booksellers Association, these are the 100 favorite mysteries of the 20th century.
Naturally, after stumbling across this list, I had to check and see how many I had read. I love mysteries and I've been reading them for about 30 years, so I should have read almost all of them, right?
Well, no. But a respectable sampling at 37 books. And what a wonderful list I now have to choose from! There are some writers here that I look at and say, "Why have I never read that book?" Two that jump out at me are James Lee Burke and Lawrence Block--names I've heard many times, but whose work I haven't really explored (I've read one Burke novel but I've been told it was the "wrong" series to start with).
There are also a couple of names here that I've never heard of, like K.C. Constantine and Janet Neel (not due to their lack of fame, but to my ignorance).
This is one of the reasons that people continue to compile lists--because people like me love them. They are fun to read, fun to compare with one's own choices, and fun to use as fodder for future purchases or library visits.
I'm thrilled to see that both Ross MacDonald and his wife Margaret Millar are on the list--I've read all of their work, not to mention a couple of biographies of MacDonald (who is many ways was an unhappy man, but perhaps that was what tinged his writing with such sad beauty).
The biggest surprise to me is that the great Mary Stewart isn't on the list--perhaps because her books were classified as "suspense," as were the books of people like Phyllis A. Whitney. But if I made my own list--and maybe I will--those two would certainly be on it; their books aren't that far in structure from the Josephine Tey novel listed here.
Anyway, it's another fun list of some undeniably wonderful titles.
What would you add? What does it make you want to read?
Saturday, April 4, 2009
&#*@?€% AND OTHER BAD WORDS
By Guest Blogger Marshall Karp
Marshall Karp is the author of The Rabbit Factory, Bloodthirsty, and the just released Flipping Out. I've been a fan since I read The Rabbit Factory. (He's a funny guy.) As a young adult writer I'm always struggling with how far I can go in my writing when it comes to profanity. (I've been accused of going too far and not far enough.) When I read Marshall's post about four-letter words I asked him if we could reprint
it here. He agreed. Leave a comment and your name will be entered for the chance to win a signed copy of Flipping Out.
And the winner is Sandra Seamans! Sandra send me your address (darlene at darleneryan.com) and we'll get the book in the mail to you. Thanks everyone for stopping by.)
Back in December Darlene Ryan saw a blog I wrote about how I handle profanity in my books. It talked about my sensitivity (or lack of it) to reader concerns about the foul language my characters have been known to use.
She asked if she could reprint it here as soon as my new book Flipping Out is released.
“Shit, yeah,” I said.
So here it is, with a few afterthoughts that have crossed my mind since the blog was first published.
“Profanity,” my father used to say, “is the ignorant man’s crutch.”
He almost never cursed, but while I seem to have inherited a lot of his better qualities, that one seems to have skipped a generation.
I curse.
And now that I write books, my characters curse. Hey, they’re cops. They may be fictional, but I spend a lot of time talking to real detectives, FBI agents, sheriffs, and other law enforcement officers. They are not a genteel bunch. They get up every morning and head out into a dark ugly world. Profanity is part of the currency of that world.
That’s reality. But do those same vulgarities have to been in my books?
According to one critic, no. At least not as much as soiled the pages of my first book, The Rabbit Factory. And this is a critic I listen to. I’m married to her.
My wife was not thrilled about the language in The Rabbit Factory, and when she read the first draft of my next book, Bloodthirsty, her reaction was the same. Love the book. Hate the language.
I took back the manuscript and did a global search for the four-letter offender. It appeared 115 times. I told my wife that was quite an achievement. Rabbit Factory had twice as many no-nos. She pointed out that it also had twice as many pages.
“Please fix it,” she said.
I knew the please was strictly a formality.
I thought this ain’t gonna be easy. I was wrong. As I read the draft of Bloodthirsty I realized that my father was right. Profanity is a crutch. When you’re trying to paint a picture of a tough talking street cop, it’s easier when you throw in lots of tough street talk.
I defused one F-bomb after another. When I was finished there were 30 left in Bloodthirsty — a big drop from the 233 in The Rabbit Factory. Interestingly enough, my new book, Flipping Out, also has 30. They’re in there because they aren’t coming from me. They’re true to the characters that say them.
There are a lot of readers who want vulgarity-free, violence-free murder mysteries. And for them there are lots of wonderful options. I just read one by Denise Dietz. Her earlier works had a handful of &#*@?€% words, but her latest, Strangle A Loaf of Italian Bread, is geared to the more sensitive reader. That said, the book is not your maiden auntie’s murder mystery. It’s fiendishly clever, blatantly sexy, and uproariously funny. Denise Dietz writes like Robert B. Parker on estrogen.
Two years ago I was at the Miami Book Fair and asked the audience what they thought about all those F-bombs I drop in my books.
One woman had the best answer. She said, “You write about murder, mayhem, cops, killers — of course the characters are going to curse. It’s real. I don’t mind when I’m reading it in private at home. But when I’m in my car, with the windows wide open, and I’m stopped at a red light on Biscayne Boulevard, and I have a crime novel on audiotape, it gets a little uncomfortable when the speakers are blasting, ‘bleep you, you bleeping motherbleeper,’ and the little old lady in the car next to me grabs her chest in horror.”
There are horrified little old ladies, sensitive religious fundamentalists, and diehard language purists wherever I turn. They often don’t hesitate to point out my tragic flaw as an author. One recently blasted me in an online review for Flipping Out, which only has 30 offensive words out of 75,000. Sometimes they send me emails letting me know how crude I am, and some even attack my character, and my parents for the way the raised me
I always answer politely. But I have to admit there are times when I just want to respond with two words.
One is a verb. The other is a pronoun.
Marshall Karp is the author of three novels, Flipping Out (released 3/31/09), Bloodthirsty and The Rabbit Factory. His website is www.lomaxandbiggs.com
Marshall Karp is the author of The Rabbit Factory, Bloodthirsty, and the just released Flipping Out. I've been a fan since I read The Rabbit Factory. (He's a funny guy.) As a young adult writer I'm always struggling with how far I can go in my writing when it comes to profanity. (I've been accused of going too far and not far enough.) When I read Marshall's post about four-letter words I asked him if we could reprint
it here. He agreed. Leave a comment and your name will be entered for the chance to win a signed copy of Flipping Out.And the winner is Sandra Seamans! Sandra send me your address (darlene at darleneryan.com) and we'll get the book in the mail to you. Thanks everyone for stopping by.)
Back in December Darlene Ryan saw a blog I wrote about how I handle profanity in my books. It talked about my sensitivity (or lack of it) to reader concerns about the foul language my characters have been known to use.
She asked if she could reprint it here as soon as my new book Flipping Out is released.
“Shit, yeah,” I said.
So here it is, with a few afterthoughts that have crossed my mind since the blog was first published.
“Profanity,” my father used to say, “is the ignorant man’s crutch.”
He almost never cursed, but while I seem to have inherited a lot of his better qualities, that one seems to have skipped a generation.
I curse.
And now that I write books, my characters curse. Hey, they’re cops. They may be fictional, but I spend a lot of time talking to real detectives, FBI agents, sheriffs, and other law enforcement officers. They are not a genteel bunch. They get up every morning and head out into a dark ugly world. Profanity is part of the currency of that world.
That’s reality. But do those same vulgarities have to been in my books?
According to one critic, no. At least not as much as soiled the pages of my first book, The Rabbit Factory. And this is a critic I listen to. I’m married to her.
My wife was not thrilled about the language in The Rabbit Factory, and when she read the first draft of my next book, Bloodthirsty, her reaction was the same. Love the book. Hate the language.
I took back the manuscript and did a global search for the four-letter offender. It appeared 115 times. I told my wife that was quite an achievement. Rabbit Factory had twice as many no-nos. She pointed out that it also had twice as many pages.
“Please fix it,” she said.
I knew the please was strictly a formality.
I thought this ain’t gonna be easy. I was wrong. As I read the draft of Bloodthirsty I realized that my father was right. Profanity is a crutch. When you’re trying to paint a picture of a tough talking street cop, it’s easier when you throw in lots of tough street talk.
I defused one F-bomb after another. When I was finished there were 30 left in Bloodthirsty — a big drop from the 233 in The Rabbit Factory. Interestingly enough, my new book, Flipping Out, also has 30. They’re in there because they aren’t coming from me. They’re true to the characters that say them.
There are a lot of readers who want vulgarity-free, violence-free murder mysteries. And for them there are lots of wonderful options. I just read one by Denise Dietz. Her earlier works had a handful of &#*@?€% words, but her latest, Strangle A Loaf of Italian Bread, is geared to the more sensitive reader. That said, the book is not your maiden auntie’s murder mystery. It’s fiendishly clever, blatantly sexy, and uproariously funny. Denise Dietz writes like Robert B. Parker on estrogen.
Two years ago I was at the Miami Book Fair and asked the audience what they thought about all those F-bombs I drop in my books.
One woman had the best answer. She said, “You write about murder, mayhem, cops, killers — of course the characters are going to curse. It’s real. I don’t mind when I’m reading it in private at home. But when I’m in my car, with the windows wide open, and I’m stopped at a red light on Biscayne Boulevard, and I have a crime novel on audiotape, it gets a little uncomfortable when the speakers are blasting, ‘bleep you, you bleeping motherbleeper,’ and the little old lady in the car next to me grabs her chest in horror.”
There are horrified little old ladies, sensitive religious fundamentalists, and diehard language purists wherever I turn. They often don’t hesitate to point out my tragic flaw as an author. One recently blasted me in an online review for Flipping Out, which only has 30 offensive words out of 75,000. Sometimes they send me emails letting me know how crude I am, and some even attack my character, and my parents for the way the raised me
I always answer politely. But I have to admit there are times when I just want to respond with two words.
One is a verb. The other is a pronoun.
Marshall Karp is the author of three novels, Flipping Out (released 3/31/09), Bloodthirsty and The Rabbit Factory. His website is www.lomaxandbiggs.com
Friday, April 3, 2009
The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency . . .
By Lonnie Cruse
Some time ago I learned about a fictional series written by Alexander McCall Smith, beginning with The No. 1 Ladie's Detective Agency. I've read and/or listened to audios of the entire series, and I love it. I particularly love listening to Lise Lecat reading the books on audio, as I learned the correct pronunciation of the names of people and places in the books that way. I was able to download the audios to my MP3 player from a local library.
McCall Smith's series is about the one and only female detective located in Botswana, but some readers argue over whether or not these are true mysteries, as there is rarely--if ever--a dead body. Mostly Mma Precious Ramotswe solves problems for her clients, such as whether a man who shows up in a young woman's life, claiming to be her father and requesting her to take care of him, is really her daddy. Mma Ramotswe's solution to the problem had me chuckling. The kidnapping of a small boy, and her solution is, well I don't know how to describe it, except it made me cry. Her solution to a possibly unfaithful husband had me rolling on the floor.
Jill Smith is perfect as Precious Ramotswe and Anika Noni Rose is absolutely hilarious as Mma Makutsi, her secretary-dying-to-become-a-detective. The characters were beliveable and the television version satisfyingly close to the book.
The scenery in this movie is amazing. It's one thing to picture Botswana from McCall Smith's descriptions, but to actually see it on television is nothing short of wonderful. And the interaction of the people living there is amazing as well.
We got to see the first in this series because we changed satellite providers and as a result are receiving free HBO for several months. If you don't have that opportunity and are a fan of the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, do yourself a favor and find the DVD's if and when they are available. You won't regret it. And if you haven't read the series, you're missing a real treat!
Some time ago I learned about a fictional series written by Alexander McCall Smith, beginning with The No. 1 Ladie's Detective Agency. I've read and/or listened to audios of the entire series, and I love it. I particularly love listening to Lise Lecat reading the books on audio, as I learned the correct pronunciation of the names of people and places in the books that way. I was able to download the audios to my MP3 player from a local library.
McCall Smith's series is about the one and only female detective located in Botswana, but some readers argue over whether or not these are true mysteries, as there is rarely--if ever--a dead body. Mostly Mma Precious Ramotswe solves problems for her clients, such as whether a man who shows up in a young woman's life, claiming to be her father and requesting her to take care of him, is really her daddy. Mma Ramotswe's solution to the problem had me chuckling. The kidnapping of a small boy, and her solution is, well I don't know how to describe it, except it made me cry. Her solution to a possibly unfaithful husband had me rolling on the floor.
Jill Smith is perfect as Precious Ramotswe and Anika Noni Rose is absolutely hilarious as Mma Makutsi, her secretary-dying-to-become-a-detective. The characters were beliveable and the television version satisfyingly close to the book.
The scenery in this movie is amazing. It's one thing to picture Botswana from McCall Smith's descriptions, but to actually see it on television is nothing short of wonderful. And the interaction of the people living there is amazing as well.
We got to see the first in this series because we changed satellite providers and as a result are receiving free HBO for several months. If you don't have that opportunity and are a fan of the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, do yourself a favor and find the DVD's if and when they are available. You won't regret it. And if you haven't read the series, you're missing a real treat!
Thursday, April 2, 2009
Covers of 2008, Part 3
This is the last week I'll post 2008 cover art, sent in by authors who loved their covers and all eligible to be nominated for the Anthony award being given this year for best cover art, chosen from the short list of nominees by Bouchercon attendees in the fall. Once more, Poe's Deadly Daughters has nothing to do with Bouchercon. We're just displaying authors who chose to send them to us. We're happy because it's been a big success in terms of both author enthusiasm and comments by readers of the blog. I believe the cover art award is a "wild card" Anthony, a category selected by this year's Bouchercon folks. But if it is repeated my blog sisters and I are thinking of devoting a whole weekend to displaying 2009 covers next year and encouraging even more authors to send them in. Thanks to everybody who participated, including those who came, saw, and in some cases left a comment.
Since we don't have quite as many covers to post this week as the past two Thursdays (do look back if you haven't seen them all--the variety is amazing), I thought I'd say a little about my own cover experience. By the time my debut mystery, Death Will Get You Sober, was ready for a cover, I had heard quite a few discouraging words about other authors' experiences and publishers' agendas. I knew at least one author whose book title had been changed to match a cover timed for the book's release in a certain season--neither cover art nor title having anything to do with the book she'd written. I'd heard a senior editor describe--approvingly--a certain subgenre as enabling the publisher to put a puppy or a kitten on the cover, even if there were no animals in the story. My own publisher, St. Martin's, has a reputation for doing wonderful covers. But I was still afraid they'd change my title--and thus my hook for the whole series--and put, if not a kitten, some equally discordant illustration on the jacket.
Luckily, my editor liked my title and was even open to my input on what the designer and photographer came up with. The first draft of the cover art, which appeared in the publisher's catalog, showed a wine glass shattered, clearly having just been shot. I loved the concept, but pointed out that you don't see too many wine glasses on the Bowery, where my recovering alcoholic protagonist's story begins. (Actually, by today the Bowery has been gentrified out of all recognition, and there are plenty of wine glasses to be found. But that's another story.) They had already thought of that, and the final draft showed what a quick google of barware informed me is called a rocks glass, again in the moment of being shot, presumably by a bullet from a gun. No guns in my story--but none on the cover either, so that was fine with me.
However, a problem remained. The words of my title, in this version, had also been shot, so "Death Will Get You Sober" was fragmented, flying off the page like fireworks in a jumble of different fonts, and very hard to read. Again, thank goodness, St. Martin's was receptive to my request to rework the title--which really was the hook (and a kind of secret signal to one group of potential readers). The result was the highly legible and beautifully balanced version that appeared on the finished book, and I've been happily collecting comments of "What a great cover!" ever since. It's not even BSP, since the cover is not my work. In fact, let me acknowledge the talented jacket designer David Baldeosingh Rotstein and photographer Jon Shireman, whom I have never met. Authors and art folks never seem to connect, so I can't even solve the final mystery about my cover: Did they really shoot the glass?
Elizabeth Zelvin, Death Will Get You Sober (hardcover)
Jane Cleland, Antiques to Die For (hardcover)
Krista Davis, The Diva Runs Out of Thyme (mass market paperback)
Kelli Stanley, Nox Dormienda (hardcover)
Marcia Talley, Dead Man Dancing (hardcover)
Ann Littlewood, Night Kill
John Boundy, Justice Is Coming
Susan Fleet, Absolution (trade paperback)
Mary Stanton, Defending Angels (mass market paperback)
Ken Kuhlken, The Vagabond Virgins
Kathleen Hills, The Kingdom Where Nobody Dies
Zetta Brown, Messalina: Devourer of Men
Sandra Balzo, Bean There, Done That
Robert Fate, Baby Shark High Plains Redemption
Radine Trees Nehring, River to Die For (trade paperback)
.jpg)
Rosemary Harris, Pushing Up Daisies (hardcover)
Cheryl Solimini, Across the River (trade paperback)
Since we don't have quite as many covers to post this week as the past two Thursdays (do look back if you haven't seen them all--the variety is amazing), I thought I'd say a little about my own cover experience. By the time my debut mystery, Death Will Get You Sober, was ready for a cover, I had heard quite a few discouraging words about other authors' experiences and publishers' agendas. I knew at least one author whose book title had been changed to match a cover timed for the book's release in a certain season--neither cover art nor title having anything to do with the book she'd written. I'd heard a senior editor describe--approvingly--a certain subgenre as enabling the publisher to put a puppy or a kitten on the cover, even if there were no animals in the story. My own publisher, St. Martin's, has a reputation for doing wonderful covers. But I was still afraid they'd change my title--and thus my hook for the whole series--and put, if not a kitten, some equally discordant illustration on the jacket.
Luckily, my editor liked my title and was even open to my input on what the designer and photographer came up with. The first draft of the cover art, which appeared in the publisher's catalog, showed a wine glass shattered, clearly having just been shot. I loved the concept, but pointed out that you don't see too many wine glasses on the Bowery, where my recovering alcoholic protagonist's story begins. (Actually, by today the Bowery has been gentrified out of all recognition, and there are plenty of wine glasses to be found. But that's another story.) They had already thought of that, and the final draft showed what a quick google of barware informed me is called a rocks glass, again in the moment of being shot, presumably by a bullet from a gun. No guns in my story--but none on the cover either, so that was fine with me.
However, a problem remained. The words of my title, in this version, had also been shot, so "Death Will Get You Sober" was fragmented, flying off the page like fireworks in a jumble of different fonts, and very hard to read. Again, thank goodness, St. Martin's was receptive to my request to rework the title--which really was the hook (and a kind of secret signal to one group of potential readers). The result was the highly legible and beautifully balanced version that appeared on the finished book, and I've been happily collecting comments of "What a great cover!" ever since. It's not even BSP, since the cover is not my work. In fact, let me acknowledge the talented jacket designer David Baldeosingh Rotstein and photographer Jon Shireman, whom I have never met. Authors and art folks never seem to connect, so I can't even solve the final mystery about my cover: Did they really shoot the glass?
Elizabeth Zelvin, Death Will Get You Sober (hardcover)
Jane Cleland, Antiques to Die For (hardcover)
Krista Davis, The Diva Runs Out of Thyme (mass market paperback)
Kelli Stanley, Nox Dormienda (hardcover)
Marcia Talley, Dead Man Dancing (hardcover)
Ann Littlewood, Night Kill
John Boundy, Justice Is Coming
Susan Fleet, Absolution (trade paperback)
Mary Stanton, Defending Angels (mass market paperback)
Ken Kuhlken, The Vagabond Virgins
Kathleen Hills, The Kingdom Where Nobody Dies
Zetta Brown, Messalina: Devourer of Men
Sandra Balzo, Bean There, Done That
Robert Fate, Baby Shark High Plains Redemption
Radine Trees Nehring, River to Die For (trade paperback)
.jpg)
Rosemary Harris, Pushing Up Daisies (hardcover)
Cheryl Solimini, Across the River (trade paperback)
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Why are so many people in prison?
Sandra Parshall
Did you know that one out of every 31 adults in the U.S. is either in prison or jail or on supervised release from incarceration?
That startling statistic is in an article by Senator James Webb of Virginia that appeared in last Sunday’s Parade Magazine. I don’t usually regard this newspaper supplement as a source of sociological wisdom, but Webb’s piece is worth every citizen’s attention. Reform of the criminal justice system and our overburdened prisons is one of his keenest interests, and he has the facts, supplied by the Department of Justice, to back up his call for change.
The prison population in this country is up to 2.3 million. Another 5 million adults are on probation, parole, or other correctional supervision. The U.S. has only 5% of the world’s population but nearly 25% of its prisoners – 756 inmates per 100,000 residents, almost five times the worldwide rate of 158 per 100,000. As Webb says, “Either we are home to the most evil people on earth or we are doing something different – and vastly counterproductive.”
What we’re doing differently is putting a lot of people in prison for relatively minor and nonviolent offenses. According to the DOJ, fully one-third of all prisoners are incarcerated for drug offenses. Almost half of all drug arrests in 2007 involved marijuana rather than “hard” drugs. Almost 60% of those imprisoned for drug offenses have no history of violence or involvement in major drug sales. Four out of five drug arrests are for possession; only one in five is for dealing. While marijuana users are serving prison sentences, the Mexican cartels that bring drugs across our borders and into our communities, at an estimated annual profit of $25 billion, flourish unimpeded, and gangs from other parts of Latin America, Asia, and Europe are getting in on the action. Imprisoning users does nothing to stem the drug trade.
Our prisons are overcrowded and dangerous. People who commit offenses that other countries would treat as medical, mental, or social problems are thrown into institutions where violence is a constant threat and diseases such as HIV/AIDS and hepatitis are rampant. Being caught with even a small amount of an illegal drug is enough to ruin a person’s entire future, if he survives prison. According to the DOJ, more than 350,000 adult prisoners are mentally ill. This is some of what we’re getting for the $68 billion we spend on corrections in this country every year.
Some state governments are beginning to realize that their corrections systems have to be fixed – if only because state budgets can’t continue to fund ever-increasing prison populations. Last week, Gov. David Patterson of New York announced plans to roll back harsh sentences for nonviolent offenses. Across the country, leaders are pushing sentencing reform to reduce prison populations and costs. Of course, opponents claim that this amounts to coddling criminals and that we must build more prisons.
Senator Webb proposes a national commission that would take a comprehensive approach to corrections reform and provide guidance to states dealing with overburdened prisons and court systems. Like so many other problems we face in this country, the chaos in our prisons seems overwhelming, and plenty of people will throw up their hands and say it can’t be fixed. But it must be fixed, whether at the federal level or state by state. We can’t look the other way and allow this mess to get worse.
What approach do you favor? Do you believe nonviolent offenders should be given lighter sentences, or probation and community service instead of prison terms?
Do you believe nonviolent offenders should be incarcerated with those convicted of violent crimes?
Do you think drug use should be treated as a crime or a medical problem?
Do you believe marijuana use should be decriminalized?
Read Senator Webb’s article here:
http://www.parade.com/news/2009/03/why-we-must-fix-our-prisons.html
Did you know that one out of every 31 adults in the U.S. is either in prison or jail or on supervised release from incarceration?
That startling statistic is in an article by Senator James Webb of Virginia that appeared in last Sunday’s Parade Magazine. I don’t usually regard this newspaper supplement as a source of sociological wisdom, but Webb’s piece is worth every citizen’s attention. Reform of the criminal justice system and our overburdened prisons is one of his keenest interests, and he has the facts, supplied by the Department of Justice, to back up his call for change.
The prison population in this country is up to 2.3 million. Another 5 million adults are on probation, parole, or other correctional supervision. The U.S. has only 5% of the world’s population but nearly 25% of its prisoners – 756 inmates per 100,000 residents, almost five times the worldwide rate of 158 per 100,000. As Webb says, “Either we are home to the most evil people on earth or we are doing something different – and vastly counterproductive.”
What we’re doing differently is putting a lot of people in prison for relatively minor and nonviolent offenses. According to the DOJ, fully one-third of all prisoners are incarcerated for drug offenses. Almost half of all drug arrests in 2007 involved marijuana rather than “hard” drugs. Almost 60% of those imprisoned for drug offenses have no history of violence or involvement in major drug sales. Four out of five drug arrests are for possession; only one in five is for dealing. While marijuana users are serving prison sentences, the Mexican cartels that bring drugs across our borders and into our communities, at an estimated annual profit of $25 billion, flourish unimpeded, and gangs from other parts of Latin America, Asia, and Europe are getting in on the action. Imprisoning users does nothing to stem the drug trade.
Our prisons are overcrowded and dangerous. People who commit offenses that other countries would treat as medical, mental, or social problems are thrown into institutions where violence is a constant threat and diseases such as HIV/AIDS and hepatitis are rampant. Being caught with even a small amount of an illegal drug is enough to ruin a person’s entire future, if he survives prison. According to the DOJ, more than 350,000 adult prisoners are mentally ill. This is some of what we’re getting for the $68 billion we spend on corrections in this country every year.
Some state governments are beginning to realize that their corrections systems have to be fixed – if only because state budgets can’t continue to fund ever-increasing prison populations. Last week, Gov. David Patterson of New York announced plans to roll back harsh sentences for nonviolent offenses. Across the country, leaders are pushing sentencing reform to reduce prison populations and costs. Of course, opponents claim that this amounts to coddling criminals and that we must build more prisons.
Senator Webb proposes a national commission that would take a comprehensive approach to corrections reform and provide guidance to states dealing with overburdened prisons and court systems. Like so many other problems we face in this country, the chaos in our prisons seems overwhelming, and plenty of people will throw up their hands and say it can’t be fixed. But it must be fixed, whether at the federal level or state by state. We can’t look the other way and allow this mess to get worse.
What approach do you favor? Do you believe nonviolent offenders should be given lighter sentences, or probation and community service instead of prison terms?
Do you believe nonviolent offenders should be incarcerated with those convicted of violent crimes?
Do you think drug use should be treated as a crime or a medical problem?
Do you believe marijuana use should be decriminalized?
Read Senator Webb’s article here:
http://www.parade.com/news/2009/03/why-we-must-fix-our-prisons.html
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Follow the Book Trail
Sharon Wildwind
It’s spring and time we had a talk about the birds and the bees—of book reproduction, that is. Have you ever wondered what happens to that physical object called “a book”? Where is it born, where does it live, and how does it die?
What I’m talking about today is the classic book: pages of printed paper, held together with a cover that is either slightly thicker and glossier than those pages—the paperback—or a lot thicker—the hardback. Books that are produce in print runs of anywhere from a few hundred copies to a million copies at a time.
Somewhere there is a room, usually with a specially reinforced floor, where a big printing press stands. A completed and edited manuscript is fed from a computer to that press to turn out page after page of printed text. The pages are cut, folded, and bound into a cover. If it’s is a hardback, a paper book jacket is usually added. Books are packed tightly into boxes and boxes put on pallets to go to temporary storage in the printshop warehouse.
The publisher does publicity. A warehouse or distributor hears about the book and decides to stock it. Boxes are put on a truck and driven from the print shop warehouse to their warehouse. Tony Burton (June 23, 2007) and Katheryn Wall (June 13, 2007) have both written excellent blogs on the current state of book distribution, and I refer you to them for more information about this stage of the process.
The book is now listed on web sites and in catalogues as available for purchase. Publicity happens and readers go looking for the book on-line or in bookstores and other venues. Stores—both on-line and bricks-and-mortar—decide to stock some copies.
They buy books on consignment from the warehouse or distributor. Buying on consignment means they don’t have to pay any money up front. They essentially get free books to have available for a period of time, say 30 days. The books are sent by mail, courier, or delivery service and eventually reach the store. The box is opened—releasing that wonderful new book smell, of course—and copies go on display on a table or shelf in the bookstore. Extra copies are kept in the back storage area, next to the coffee pot.
A person buys a book, takes it home, and does something with it. Hopefully reads it, or gives it to Aunt Ethel so she can read it, or tells their friends how wonderful the book is and encourages them to read it. A few very fortunate books find a permanent home. They go on a bookshelf and quietly settle in with the other hundreds or thousands of books that the reader loves.
However, many books are now ending up being quickly sold to second-hand stores, so that a second person buys it, reads it, sells it; then another, and another and so on. The problem is that the author gets money for the sale only the first time that book is sold.
Some copies are never sold. At the end of the consignment period—which may be only a few weeks—the vendor either has to pay for the books or return them for credit. Because books are heavy it’s not cost-effective to return the whole book, so the cover is torn off and that returned. Rather like sending in box tops for a decoder ring, in case you are old enough to remember that. Look on the back cover of a book. If there is a triangle, or a triangle with an “S” inside of it, that doesn’t mean this book is endorsed by Superman. It means the cover can be “stripped” and returned for credit.
Those stripped books are supposed to be tossed in the garbage, but check out any used bookstore and see how many books are there without covers. How they end up there is anyone’s guess.
The vendor gets to repeat this process. Order 10 books, sell and pay for 3, strip and return 7 covers; order 8 the next month, sell and pay for 2, strip and return 6 covers, etc. for as long as the vendor wants to play the game. Most of the time the vendor doesn’t want to play very long. Maybe 1 month, maybe 3; longer if the book generates terrific sales every month.
Unless a book is selling like hot-cakes, orders are always in decreasing numbers in subsequent months, and each vendor comes up with their own private formula for what the decrease will be. As an example, one vendor might make an order for X number of copies in the first month, order 50% of X the second month, and 50% of the second month’s order the third month. Unless the book is a consistent seller, most vendors reach a point at somewhere between 3 weeks and 3 months when it is no longer profitable to send in any order at all on this particular book, though they may order individual copies if a customer makes a special order and pays for it in advance.
Tax time rolls around. There may still be books on that print shop’s shelves; on the warehouse or distributor’s shelves, and on the vendor’s shelves, back by the coffee pot. In the United States, anyone with books on the shelves has to pay inventory tax on them, and they are taxed for every year that they are on the shelves. So the impetus is to clear out the stock after a year, or even better just before the year is up.
As we’ve seen, the vendors are already returning books rapidly. They might put a few copies out for a sidewalk sale, etc, but essentially their shelves are pretty clean. The warehouse or distributor returns all their copies to the print shop, who contacts the publisher and says, “We have Y number of copies of this book and tax time is coming. What shall we do with these books?”
The publisher will likely decide to send the book to remainders. Hopefully, they will first give the author a chance to purchase any or all remaining copies of the books, at a reduced price.
With smaller companies, what the author doesn’t want is packaged into remainder boxes. Employees go down the line and pick 3 copies of this book, 4 copies of the next book, 2 copies of the third book, until they can fill a box. The key here is how many books fit neatly into a box without regard for title, subject, or author. It is, if you will a grab bag, or in this case a grab box. The boxes are sealed and sold, closed, as is, with the buyers having no idea what they are getting.
Larger companies participate in remainder sales, like CIROBE (The Chicago International Remainder and Overstock Book Exposition). At these book expositions, books are sold, not by the box, but by the pallet or truck load.
The next time you see you see a big bin of books in your local grocery store, being bought as a remainder is how they got there. Authors get no royalties from the sale of remaindered books.
After a book goes to remainder, it’s dead. The only way for readers to get a copy is to borrow one, either from a friend or on inter-library loan, buy from the author who might have a few of those remainders sitting around, find it by accident in a remainder bin, go on-line or to a used bookstore and hope for the best.
Not all copies are sold, even as remainders. The rest are pulped, which is a fancy way of saying recycled into other paper products. Many people don’t know that, yes, you can put discarded books in the average household recycling, if you take them apart first. Get a sharp craft knife and slice the individual pages from the spine, then put those pages in paper recycling. It’s the covers and the glue that shouldn’t go in recycling.
The difference between the number of books printed and the number of books destroyed is called the through-put. Most publishers are happy at about a 45% through-put and ecstatic at a 55% through-put. That means for every two books printed, roughly one is sold and one is pulped. It’s a horribly wasteful system, and one unique in commerce. Can you imagine stores being allowed to destroy cars or washing machines or denim jackets and return a fragment of the original product for full credit?
Surely someone can come up with a better system.
------
A sad quote for the week. Thank goodness most book sellers don’t think like this:
A book is only a widget. The purpose of a bookstore is to sell units. ~District manager, large chain bookstore, reported by mystery writer Viccy Kemp
It’s spring and time we had a talk about the birds and the bees—of book reproduction, that is. Have you ever wondered what happens to that physical object called “a book”? Where is it born, where does it live, and how does it die?
What I’m talking about today is the classic book: pages of printed paper, held together with a cover that is either slightly thicker and glossier than those pages—the paperback—or a lot thicker—the hardback. Books that are produce in print runs of anywhere from a few hundred copies to a million copies at a time.
Somewhere there is a room, usually with a specially reinforced floor, where a big printing press stands. A completed and edited manuscript is fed from a computer to that press to turn out page after page of printed text. The pages are cut, folded, and bound into a cover. If it’s is a hardback, a paper book jacket is usually added. Books are packed tightly into boxes and boxes put on pallets to go to temporary storage in the printshop warehouse.
The publisher does publicity. A warehouse or distributor hears about the book and decides to stock it. Boxes are put on a truck and driven from the print shop warehouse to their warehouse. Tony Burton (June 23, 2007) and Katheryn Wall (June 13, 2007) have both written excellent blogs on the current state of book distribution, and I refer you to them for more information about this stage of the process.
The book is now listed on web sites and in catalogues as available for purchase. Publicity happens and readers go looking for the book on-line or in bookstores and other venues. Stores—both on-line and bricks-and-mortar—decide to stock some copies.
They buy books on consignment from the warehouse or distributor. Buying on consignment means they don’t have to pay any money up front. They essentially get free books to have available for a period of time, say 30 days. The books are sent by mail, courier, or delivery service and eventually reach the store. The box is opened—releasing that wonderful new book smell, of course—and copies go on display on a table or shelf in the bookstore. Extra copies are kept in the back storage area, next to the coffee pot.
A person buys a book, takes it home, and does something with it. Hopefully reads it, or gives it to Aunt Ethel so she can read it, or tells their friends how wonderful the book is and encourages them to read it. A few very fortunate books find a permanent home. They go on a bookshelf and quietly settle in with the other hundreds or thousands of books that the reader loves.
However, many books are now ending up being quickly sold to second-hand stores, so that a second person buys it, reads it, sells it; then another, and another and so on. The problem is that the author gets money for the sale only the first time that book is sold.
Some copies are never sold. At the end of the consignment period—which may be only a few weeks—the vendor either has to pay for the books or return them for credit. Because books are heavy it’s not cost-effective to return the whole book, so the cover is torn off and that returned. Rather like sending in box tops for a decoder ring, in case you are old enough to remember that. Look on the back cover of a book. If there is a triangle, or a triangle with an “S” inside of it, that doesn’t mean this book is endorsed by Superman. It means the cover can be “stripped” and returned for credit.
Those stripped books are supposed to be tossed in the garbage, but check out any used bookstore and see how many books are there without covers. How they end up there is anyone’s guess.
The vendor gets to repeat this process. Order 10 books, sell and pay for 3, strip and return 7 covers; order 8 the next month, sell and pay for 2, strip and return 6 covers, etc. for as long as the vendor wants to play the game. Most of the time the vendor doesn’t want to play very long. Maybe 1 month, maybe 3; longer if the book generates terrific sales every month.
Unless a book is selling like hot-cakes, orders are always in decreasing numbers in subsequent months, and each vendor comes up with their own private formula for what the decrease will be. As an example, one vendor might make an order for X number of copies in the first month, order 50% of X the second month, and 50% of the second month’s order the third month. Unless the book is a consistent seller, most vendors reach a point at somewhere between 3 weeks and 3 months when it is no longer profitable to send in any order at all on this particular book, though they may order individual copies if a customer makes a special order and pays for it in advance.
Tax time rolls around. There may still be books on that print shop’s shelves; on the warehouse or distributor’s shelves, and on the vendor’s shelves, back by the coffee pot. In the United States, anyone with books on the shelves has to pay inventory tax on them, and they are taxed for every year that they are on the shelves. So the impetus is to clear out the stock after a year, or even better just before the year is up.
As we’ve seen, the vendors are already returning books rapidly. They might put a few copies out for a sidewalk sale, etc, but essentially their shelves are pretty clean. The warehouse or distributor returns all their copies to the print shop, who contacts the publisher and says, “We have Y number of copies of this book and tax time is coming. What shall we do with these books?”
The publisher will likely decide to send the book to remainders. Hopefully, they will first give the author a chance to purchase any or all remaining copies of the books, at a reduced price.
With smaller companies, what the author doesn’t want is packaged into remainder boxes. Employees go down the line and pick 3 copies of this book, 4 copies of the next book, 2 copies of the third book, until they can fill a box. The key here is how many books fit neatly into a box without regard for title, subject, or author. It is, if you will a grab bag, or in this case a grab box. The boxes are sealed and sold, closed, as is, with the buyers having no idea what they are getting.
Larger companies participate in remainder sales, like CIROBE (The Chicago International Remainder and Overstock Book Exposition). At these book expositions, books are sold, not by the box, but by the pallet or truck load.
The next time you see you see a big bin of books in your local grocery store, being bought as a remainder is how they got there. Authors get no royalties from the sale of remaindered books.
After a book goes to remainder, it’s dead. The only way for readers to get a copy is to borrow one, either from a friend or on inter-library loan, buy from the author who might have a few of those remainders sitting around, find it by accident in a remainder bin, go on-line or to a used bookstore and hope for the best.
Not all copies are sold, even as remainders. The rest are pulped, which is a fancy way of saying recycled into other paper products. Many people don’t know that, yes, you can put discarded books in the average household recycling, if you take them apart first. Get a sharp craft knife and slice the individual pages from the spine, then put those pages in paper recycling. It’s the covers and the glue that shouldn’t go in recycling.
The difference between the number of books printed and the number of books destroyed is called the through-put. Most publishers are happy at about a 45% through-put and ecstatic at a 55% through-put. That means for every two books printed, roughly one is sold and one is pulped. It’s a horribly wasteful system, and one unique in commerce. Can you imagine stores being allowed to destroy cars or washing machines or denim jackets and return a fragment of the original product for full credit?
Surely someone can come up with a better system.
------
A sad quote for the week. Thank goodness most book sellers don’t think like this:
A book is only a widget. The purpose of a bookstore is to sell units. ~District manager, large chain bookstore, reported by mystery writer Viccy Kemp
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