Libbysbooks

The Jazz Singer and the Kindle

2010-08-03T06:35:00.009-05:00

When the first feature-length "talkie," The Jazz Singer, was released in 1927, it represented a half-million-dollar investment in a movie that could only be shown in two theaters in America. Nobody was wired for sound.

But Sam Warner, the visionary who spearheaded the production despite his brothers' objections, correctly assumed that once the public had a taste of a full-length sound movie, they'd want more and more. . .and more. Movie theaters would catch up quickly enough.

He was right, of course, even if he didn't live to see it--tragically, he died of an infection several days before The Jazz Singer's premiere.

Once The Jazz Singer debuted, however, it started what amounted to a nuclear reaction in the film industry, exploding away the old ways of making films, and with them, some of the people and professions associated with silent movie-making.

While this upheaval progressed, some folks remained in denial. Irving Thalberg went so far as to say, "sound won't last," calling it a "passing fancy."

Even those who saw sound's audience potential still believed that the silent picture market would continue to flourish--due to its great artistry and ability to be marketed worldwide (no dubbing necessary).

Nonetheless, within two years, talkies became the dominant movie form. In that time, directors who didn't know how to work effectively with speaking actors lost their careers (such as Fred Niblio, who'd made the silents Ben Hur and The Mask of Zorro) while mere speaking coaches imported from the New York stage would see their directing careers begin (George Cukor among them).

Actors who couldn't capture audiences' imagination with their voices lost their livelihoods (John Gilbert, Mary Pickford) while new stars were born (John Wayne, for one, who was hired by Raoul Walsh for The Big Trail). Even second-string movie companies like Fox and Warner Brothers were able to speed past their "quality" company brethren (such as Paramount) by jumping on the sound bandwagon fast and furiously.

Denial wasn't just a river in the Egypt of film actors' and directors' minds, though. It also flowed through film journalism. The Film Daily didn't utter a peep about sound in their yearly editorial about the business in 1927. And the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America's 1927 list of important events in cinema only included the release of The Jazz Singer at the very end, "behind DeMille's The King of Kings and the movie industry's contributions to flood relief," writes Scott Eyman in his book The Speed of Sound.

Denial is a powerful thing. But we witness it today in the midst of another great technological upheaval beginning to send shock waves through. . . the book industry.

Like Thalberg, some in publishing and beyond haven't quickly seen the potential of e-reading devices such as the Kindle. Quick, who's the famous utterer of this bit of nonsense, spoken a mere two years ago:

“It doesn’t matter how good or bad the product (e-reader) is, the fact is that people don’t read anymore. Forty percent of the people in the U.S. read one book or less last year. The whole conception is flawed at the top because people don’t read anymore.”

That would have been Apple's Steve Jobs. Two years later, he metaphorically ate those words when his company released its own e-reader of sorts, the iPad (which in many ways is just a slimmed-down version of a Mac computer) in order to keep up with Amazon's Kindle and Barnes & Noble's Nook, which, like Fox and Warner Brothers back in the day, were speeding past Apple in this area.

What else will happen in publishing as prices of e-reading devices come down and more consumers read books in that format?

The author Joe Konrath, a pioneer in bypassing publishing houses entirely and putting his own material for sale in e-markets himself, lists his predictions at his blog here. They're worth a look. The ones that jump out at me are these:

"Ebook readers will be available in stores for less than $99." -- Although Konrath included this in a round-up of predictions made several months ago, it's already on the horizon. Kindle is now available in Target, and prices have been falling dramatically. Once ebook readers are widely available at reasonable prices, that part of the book market will explode, just as the market for sound pictures exploded once the technology was in place.

"A bestselling author will self-publish an original ebook novel" -- I wholeheartedly agree with Konrath's prediction here. After all, bestselling authors have a following. They don't depend on marketing strategies to sell their books. Their name on the book is the marketing strategy! By self-publishing an ebook novel, however, they get to keep all the profits.

"Bankruptcy" -- Konrath predicts that some major publisher or bookseller will go out of business. I don't follow the financial news vigilantly enough to determine the merit of this prediction. But if publishers act like the old moviemakers of the silent era, it could happen.

Added to Konrath's prediction, I have one of my own -- I think hardcover books will disappear eventually, except perhaps for the library trade where durability is a concern, or for those books people will want to own as objects in their own right--art books, for example.

And, another sad prediction--just as silent film directors lost their jobs in the late 1920s, so, too, will some editors today as publishing houses move to ebook markets. If you follow the publishing world, you can see this already happening as houses try to streamline and save money.

But I think market pressure will drive personnel shifts in the future. Right now, publishing is curiously immune from some market responses. Because of the book returns policy -- where bookstores can return unsold books to a publisher for a refund -- publishing houses aren't able to respond with alacrity to the reading public's market desires. They don't know quickly enough, in other words, what is selling (except, of course, for the megasellers). For many books on their lists, they are groping in the dark for a long time before seeing precisely how well or poorly books did.

Epublishing changes that. Sales are immediately known and can be tracked. It becomes apparent pretty quickly if an editor has chosen wisely.

Meanwhile, authors will continue to bypass editors and publishing houses completely, going to the ebook market directly, as Joe Konrath has done (and as I have done as well).

Back in the days when films moved from silent to sound, it took the movie industry two to three years, starting in 1927, to adapt and start down a stable money-making path in the new world of sound. By my reckoning, we're probably at the 1928 mark in the parallel shift in the book industry.

____

Sloane Hall by Libby Sternberg, a story set in old Hollywood and inspired by Jane Eyre, tells the tale of troubled chauffeur John Doyle, who falls in love with his starlet employer Pauline Sloane, only to be repulsed by secrets she hides from the camera and the world. It is available in hardcover for preorder on Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble, among others. It will be available on Kindle within the year.

Check out other posts on my blog for more related to old Hollywood, Sloane Hall, and its inspiration, Jane Eyre.

Several of my books, including a Kindle-exclusive mystery novella, are available in ebook format. Look for books by Libby Malin and Libby Sternberg.

The Music of Silents

2010-07-29T08:55:00.006-05:00

At one point in my novel, Sloane Hall, the old cinematographer Leo asks John Doyle, now a chauffeur for starlet Pauline Sloane, if his boss needs any musicians for parties. That's because Leo knows "some good piano players. Out of work organists, really. No need for them in the theaters much now."

Odd-voiced actors weren't the only ones losing their jobs when silent movies shifted to sound; many musicians also found themselves out of work. Music had played an integral role in silent films, with even small theaters hiring a pianist to accompany the flashing images.

Larger theaters in major metropolitan areas actually supported full orchestras. Such was the case with the old Capitol Theater in New York, where a house orchestra rehearsed twice a week for three-and-a-half hours each.

Not only did these orchestras accompany the showing of the film. They often also played overtures from the classical repertoire before the film began.

"In larger theaters," writes Scott Eyman in his excellent history book The Speed of Sound, "the orchestra conductor had the responsibility of compiling the musical score for a film from large libraries of sheet music: light classics or source music composed especially for stock situations, agitatos for actions scenes, and so on. . . Very early, the showcase theaters provided music of considerable sophistication. Accompanying the premier engagement of Cecil B. DeMille's Chimmie Fadden at the Strand Theater in 1915, audiences heard the overture from Cavelleria Rusticana, a duet from La Forze del Destino, and the sextet from Lucia Di Lammermoor."

According to Eyman, the Capitol Theater orchestra conductor would regularly log over nine hours on the podium on a Sunday and also conduct evening shows. The matinees were left for assistants.

The eighty-five piece orchestra at the Capitol, by the way, employed a young concertmaster by the name of Eugene Ormandy, who eventually became the theater orchestra's conductor before moving on to bigger things.

In 1931, Ormandy's really big break into mainstream classical conducting came when he was asked at the last minute to conduct the Philadelphia Orchestra, filling in for an ill Arturo Toscanini. After this auspicious debut, he went on to become the conductor of the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra until 1936, when he returned to Philadelphia and began his 44-year tenure leading that esteemed ensemble. He was known for being a quick study, often conducting from memory.

Years later, he reminisced about his debut with the Philadelphia. Stepping in for Toscanini on such short notice had actually been easy, he commented. "Of course," he said, "I knew Till Eulenspiegel very well. We played it at the Capitol."

_____

Sloane Hall by Libby Sternberg, a story set in old Hollywood and inspired by Jane Eyre, tells the tale of troubled chauffeur John Doyle, who falls in love with his starlet employer Pauline Sloane, only to be repulsed by secrets she hides from the camera and the world. It is available for preorder on Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble, among others.

Scroll down this blog for more posts related to old Hollywood, Sloane Hall, and its inspiration, Jane Eyre.

"Terror in All Their Faces": The Release of The Jazz Singer

2010-07-27T10:05:00.000-05:00

In his biography of filmmaker Samuel Goldwyn, A. Scott Berg describes the scene when Hollywood insiders finished watching the L.A. premiere of The Jazz Singer on December 28, 1927.

"The audience sat stunned," he wrote.

Frances Goldwyn herself observed that there was "terror in all their faces. The game they had been playing for years was finally over."

Many silent stars fell from the Hollywood sky after that, their voices too heavily accented or too unappealing for sound.

Some actors had perfectly acceptable voices, but their on-screen persona was weakened by the reality of speech. Listen to John Gilbert in the early talkie Queen Christina, playing alongside his lady love, Greta Garbo. His voice is all right.

But that's the problem. It's just "all right." Not dashing or heroic or suitable for a "great lover." And when studios could ditch his high salary for an up-and-coming speaking actor who'd work for less. . . well, the rest, as they say, is history.

Other folks besides actors lost their jobs in this industry upheaval, as tumultuous as any industry shift where great technological change is involved.

I previously told a story on this blog about Charles Rosher, Mary Pickford's cameraman. She fired him because he couldn't quickly enough master the new lighting that sound required when shooting her sound screen test.

Let me make a slight correction to my earlier post. Rosher's career didn't quite "go to ashes" during the shift from silent to sound, even if being fired by Pickford was a low blow for a man who had been one of the most sought-after cameramen during silent films' heyday. He actually went on to work on films such as Little Lord Fauntleroy, The Yearling, Kiss Me Kate and Showboat, among others.

But Rosher's artistry would have been a waste in the first days of sound. Cameras had to be stationary, housed in boxes to mute their noise, on the very first talkies. There was little for cameramen to do in those early days but stand and shoot.

Ironically, look to some of the great silent films for examples of when cameras really "spoke."

One of the great achievements of artistic cinematography was F.W. Murnau's silent Sunrise. Released by Fox in 1927--the same year Warner Bros. released the first feature-length talkie, The Jazz Singer--Sunrise is so visually rich and dense with great storytelling that one forgets there is no dialogue. Title cards are few as well in this story of country versus city life, domesticity versus urban excitement. Silent film directors like Murnau knew how to tell a story with images alone.

The film is available through Netflix. During research for my novel, Sloane Hall, my husband and I watched it, mesmerized from beginning to end. Someone has also posted it on YouTube in nine parts. Click here for the first one. (Photos in this post are from Sunrise.)

Today, even casual observers of film know of the movie The Jazz Singer, while only film aficionados are aware of Sunrise.

If you're wondering who Murnau's cinematographer was for his masterpiece -- it was none other than Charles Rosher.

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Sloane Hall by Libby Sternberg, a story set in old Hollywood and inspired by Jane Eyre, tells the tale of troubled chauffeur John Doyle, who falls in love with his starlet employer Pauline Sloane, only to be repulsed by secrets she hides from the camera and the world. It is available for preorder on Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble, among others.

When Jane Met Rochester

2010-07-23T09:05:00.002-05:00

The following post originally appeared on the Author Expressions blog on July 14:

Recently on my own (this) blog, I hosted a discussion of favorite scenes from Bronte's Jane Eyre, the inspiration for my own September release, Sloane Hall, which is set in old Hollywood as films shifted from silent to sound.

A favorite Eyre scene for a bunch of folks was when Jane first encountered Rochester, not knowing who he was, on a walk near Thornfield Hall.

Here's how I handled that scene in Sloane Hall, when chauffeur John Doyle encounters his starlet employer for the first time, not knowing who she is:

In a refreshed state of mind, I decided one Thursday afternoon to set out on a dirt road just north of the house, one that led away from the fields and into more barren land. I'd traveled nearly five miles by my reckoning and just made my way to the crest of a hill when I saw a tiny ball of fur in the middle of the road, trying to scamper to the side with no success.

Pushing my hat back on my head, I bent forward to help the poor creature. It was a baby rabbit with a leg cramped tight against its body, and it wouldn't last long. Not in this land with sun and wind and other creatures aiming to hurt it. I felt the need to do something, so I took my hat off to scoop it up and into the brush where it could at least rest peacefully before death surely claimed it. Before I had a chance to touch its downy back and soothe its fright, I was put into a fright myself.

Heehaw, heehaw! A motorcar horn split the air, as out of place in that barren region as a snow-draped Christmas tree. I jumped back, just in time to save myself from being run over by a spitting new Duesenberg J, its long nose jutting down the road like a ramrod.

"What the . . .?" My head twitched as I saw the large wheels crush the animal into the earth. Damn that driver! Damn him to hell!

My gaze turned up to the vehicle, careening into a ditch while its driver cursed with a vocabulary I thought only my fellow reform-school inmates had mastered.

My hands clenched into fists. I marched toward the car, ready to give that driver more than just a piece of my mind. Out here on this sun-baked road, I could pound that rascal's head into the ground, and no one would know but me and God. And I was sure, at that moment, that He was on my side.

But that feeling faded as I took long strides toward the car and . . . damn. Damn if the driver wasn't beautiful. Soft and pretty like the small thing she'd destroyed.

A porcelain doll. A translucent face, too pale for California's savage sun, and eyes as piercing as old Milqueton's but blue instead of brown. Blue ice. Or blue flame, I suppose, depending on your perspective. Now they burned with anger, and her small rosebud of a mouth pursed in annoyance. Her hair was blond -- white blond, like blinding sun--in one of those new short, wavy styles all the girls were favoring, and she wore a long-sleeved dress--something yellow and silky that gave the impression she had nothing on underneath. I was beaten back by all that, by the softness and the beauty. . .

. . . Opening the door, she jumped onto the road, but the car was leaning at an angle that made the distance from running board to ground farther than she'd counted on. Her knees buckled for an instant and she herself would have fallen had I not stretched out my hand to catch her arm.

Here was Eve herself. Soft skin, even though she herself was thin and bony, and sweet scent. . .

. . . I had to steady her with both my hands, while she latched onto my arms with her slender fingers. It was then that she looked me in the eyes and laughed. Here was the apple. That laugh. A silvery sound that rippled into the empty space like birds trilling in the distance, jangling my nerves. . .

"Dear boy, you look like you've seen a ghost."

I hope you enjoyed this little excerpt. What scenes from favorite books do you like to re-read?

(For more about Sloane Hall, be sure to check out other posts on this blog. Or to pre-order the book, go to amazon.com or bn.com!)

Jane Eyre on Film

2010-07-13T15:56:00.017-05:00

Sloane Hall is inspired by Jane Eyre but set in old Hollywood. What better way to celebrate its imminent publication than by a quiz on film versions of Bronte's classic? Here are some questions about the various film versions of Jane Eyre. Have fun (sorry, no prizes this time)! Answers are at the bottom -- try not to peek! Once you're finished, tell me how many you got right, or if you enjoyed the quiz.

Questions:

1. What actress played a young Jane in the Jane Eyre film released three years after she won an Academy Award for her performance in a film co-starring Holly Hunter and Harvey Keitel?

2. What composer/conductor wrote the music for an American television version of Jane Eyre before becoming famous for music he composed for many more movies, particularly a series that started in 1977?

3. What "brave new" British author famous for a futuristic novel helped co-write the screenplay for the 1944 Orson Welles/Joan Fontaine film version of Jane Eyre?

4. What now-famous actress played an uncredited role in the 1944 film version?

5. The first talkie of Jane Eyre starred what actor as Rochester who went on to play a famous monster maker?

6. A BBC miniseries of Jane practically transcribed the book word-for-word to the screen and starred what actor who might have preferred his off-camera drink shaken, not stirred?

7. Robert Stevenson directed the 1944 film version, coaxing lovely performances from the child actors playing the young Jane and Helen Burns. What well-known child-friendly film did he go on to direct starring Julie Andrews?

8. A 1918 silent version of Charlotte Bronte's book featured a change in the story -- Rochester doesn't realize his first wife, Bertha, is still alive, until her brother brings her on the scene and attempts to blackmail Rochester before his wedding to Jane. What was the name of this version?

9. Another early version of Jane handled the first-wife angle by having Rochester in the process of annulling his marriage to Bertha, when Jane discovers it's not yet final and flees the scene. Which version was this?

10. Finally, another musical question -- the composer of the score for the 1944 Jane Eyre went on to score a famous Hitchcock movie where one scene's music is remembered as much as the scene itself. What was the movie?

Bonus question: How many silent iterations of Jane Eyre were made?

Answers:

1. Anna Paquin played young Jane in the 1996 William Hurt/Charlotte Gainsbourg version of Jane Eyre directed by Franco Zefferelli. Paquin had won the Academy Award for her role in the 1993 movie The Piano starring Holly Hunter.
2. John Williams, who wrote the music for the Star Wars movies among many others, was a relative unknown when he composed the score for the 1971 American television version of Jane starring George C. Scott and Susannah York.
3. Aldous Huxley, author of the novel Brave New World, was one of the screenwriters for the 1944 film version of Jane Eyre.
4. Elizabeth Taylor played young Jane's friend Helen Burns in the 1944 film, but she received no screen credit for the role.
5. Colin Clive played Rochester in the 1934 talkie of Jane Eyre. He went on to play Dr. Frankenstein.
6. A 1983 BBC version starred James Bond-portrayer Timothy Dalton as Rochester.
7. Robert Stevenson went on to direct Mary Poppins with Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke in the lead roles.
8. The 1918 silent was called Woman and Wife.
9. The 1934 first talking version of Jane Eyre featured a storyline where Rochester was annulling his marriage to mad Bertha, who comes upon his wedding preparations in one scene and thinks he's marrying her again.
10. Bernard Herrmann, who wrote the score for the Orson Welles/Joan Fontaine version of Jane, also wrote the music for Hitchcock's Psycho. The screeching violins of its shower scene make up perhaps one of the most recognized pieces of movie music.
Bonus: There were eight silent versions of Jane made. Since then, at least one film version has appeared every decade.

Hope you enjoyed the quiz. To learn more about Sloane Hall, check out these blog links:

Sloane Hall and its Inspiration
When Jane Met Rochester: An Excerpt from Sloane Hall
When Rochester Loved Jane: favorite scenes from Bronte's classic

To pre-order it, go to:
Amazon.com
Bn.com

Again, let me knonw if you enjoyed the quiz!

Pickford's Cameraman: A Casualty of Sound

2010-07-12T13:07:00.008-05:00

From Sloane Hall, by Libby Sternberg:

When I picked her up that evening, she was angry. Instead of slumping in the seat next to me and falling asleep, she immediately pulled out a cigarette and started nervously smoking and talking.

"He said I was looking ugly today!" She shook her head in fury. "In front of the whole cast. He said he couldn't get the lighting to work for me!" Her foot twitched.

My impending departure made me bold.

"It's the lights," I said, remembering the story of Pickford's cameraman. "And the new film they use. Makes you look older than your years."

"Oh, really? Well, that makes me feel so much better."

The above excerpt from my novel is a bit of interaction between chauffeur John Doyle and his starlet boss, Pauline Sloane. Pauline, a successful silent film actress, is making her first talking picture, and she's justifiably nervous. Many a silent actor's career ended when they had to speak and not just "emote."

In this scene, John makes a mental reference to Mary Pickford's cameraman, a bit of Hollywood lore he picked up from his friend, Leo, who had worked with all the old silent greats.

The Pickford reference is based on a sad story. Because the buzz of old arc lights used in silents could be picked up by microphones, talking pictures required different lighting . Quieter incandescent lights came into use with the advent of talking pictures, and with them, a new panchromatic film -- as opposed to the orthochromatic film used in silents.

In fact, the first full-length sound feature film, The Jazz Singer, was shot using both kinds of lighting and film, one for the silent sections and the other for the sound sequences.

Just as actors had to adjust to speaking rather than mouthing their lines, so, too, did cameramen have to learn to use the new lighting and film to advantage. And just like the actors of the time, some didn't make the transition well.

Such was the case with poor Charles Rosher, Mary Pickford's cameraman since 1917. He shot her first sound test -- even the greatest of actresses had to make sound tests now -- and despite his best efforts and several attempts with and without diffusion filters, he couldn't make the thirty-seven-year-old actress look as young as the part she was trying to play.

The result? She fired him.

Rosher's was not the only sad tale of a livelihood gone to ashes during the shift from silent to sound. Directors, title writers, musicians and more saw their paychecks disappear as this industry was turned upside down.

In the future, I'll be blogging more about old Hollywood information I discovered in researching my novel.

For more about Sloane Hall, a novel set in old Hollywood but inspired by Jane Eyre, see these blog posts:

Sloane Hall and Its Inspiration
When Rejection Helps

When Rochester Loved Jane

2010-06-24T06:38:00.008-05:00

Sometimes I wonder if I was what is now called a "reluctant reader" as a child. I remember my father reading to my sister and me from Golden Books, the thin volumes one could purchase at drugstores and the like, and enjoying the stories. But once in school, reading was often as much chore as pleasure. I didn't devour books the way my mother and sister did (and she still does--reading a book a week). I read them for class assignments.

Some exceptions stand out in memory like goldfinches among sparrows. The prosaic Trixie Belden stories hooked me as a preteen. And the poetic Great Gatsby made me swoon a few years later.

Somewhere in that time I discovered the great love of my reading life -- Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre. I read and reread that book many times.

Today I think of Jane Eyre as the classic romance novel. Don't cringe, purists. Bronte's novel follows the romance novel story arc to a tee. Just because it's artfully written and the story is magnificently told doesn't mean it can't be classified as romance.

Romance novels follow this formula:

girl meets boy (or vice versa)
it's obvious they're meant to be together
circumstances intrude;
they ultimately confess their love
they plan to be together
the Black Moment occurs -- something happens capable of rending them asunder for all time
they reunite after the crisis passes
the HEA -- happily-ever-after--tops things off.

If you look at each of these elements in the context of Jane Eyre, you see just how skillfully Bronte told her story.

Girl meets boy -- was there ever a better first meeting scene than when Jane encounters Rochester on the road to Thornfield?

And the Black Moment -- Bronte tears the reader's heart out, placing this moment at the very pinnacle of what should be the lovers' happiest time -- their wedding day. Now that I'm an author myself, I have to smile and shake my head in awe at that stroke of genius. Charlotte, you sly fox, how clever you are, how well you knew your readers!

Today's readers, however, would have little patience with a romance where the first third of the book is backstory. Yet Jane Eyre begins with page after page after page of young Jane's early life and growth to adulthood. As a reader, I enjoyed that portion of the story, feeling with Jane the injustices that befell her, grieving with her when her dear friend died, admiring her feisty contrarian spirit, and rooting for her as she struggled to survive and ultimately break away.

In fact, when I read the book the very first time, I had no idea where it was going, thinking perhaps it might just be a poor-girl-makes-good, rags to riches tale. I had no idea of the great love story that was about to commence.

To this day, though, I recall the scene that really enraptured me, that had me aching for Jane and her love of Rochester.

It occurs when Rochester demands that Jane attend his house party with Adele, and there she overhears the cruel ridicule uttered by Blanche and her mother about governesses. After Jane leaves the gathering, Rochester catches up with her, asking her how she is doing after noticing her downcast mood.

". . . What is the matter?"
"Nothing at all,l sir."
"Did you take any cold that night you half drowned me?"
"Not the least."
"Return to he drawing-room: you are deserting too early."
"I am tired, sir."
He looked at me for a minute.
"And a little depressed," he said. "What about? Tell me."
"Nothing--nothing, sir. I am not depressed."
"But I affirm that you are: so much depressed that a few more words would bring tears to your eyes. . . If I had time, and was not in mortal dread of some prating prig of a servant passing, I would know what all this means. Well, tonight I excuse you. . .Now go, and send Sophie for Adele. Good-night, my -- " He stopped, bit his lip, and abruptly left me.

In that spare scene of dialogue -- with speaker "tags" missing, feeling like a page from a play -- Bronte communicates Jane's yearning and Rochester's desire to comfort her. He notices the unshed tears in her eyes. He wants to use an endearment when wishing her farewell but stops himself. At that moment, you know he loves her, and it's just a matter of time before our sweet Jane realizes it herself.

Bronte allows the reader to discover Rochester's love before Jane does. In on this happy secret, we eagerly turn pages anticipating the moment when our dear friend Jane will understand that her love is not unrequited. And, after allowing us to rejoice with her, letting us in on wedding preparations, even while throwing in a few ominous signs that obstacles still await (but surely nothing they can't overcome, we think in our naivete!), Bronte dashes us all -- Jane, Rochester, readers -- against the rocks of heartbreak.

Charlotte, you sly, sly fox.

These emotional benchmarks--the sympathy for young Jane's plight, the yearning for her love to be returned, the heartache of betrayal, the joy of reunion -- are the moments that lingered with me over the years and had me returning to reread this perfectly told tale. Those moments were what ignited in me a desire to write a story that I hoped would capture those high points. In a way, writing my book, Sloane Hall, was a selfish endeavor as I strove to recreate the emotional roller-coaster ride of Bronte's original tale.

Tell me what you loved most about Jane Eyre. . .if you include your email address in your comment, I'll enter your name into a lottery, choose one winner at random by the end of next week, and send you an Advance Reader Copy (ARC) of my novel Sloane Hall. For those who don't win this time, I'll be running more contests in the future. Or, you can now preorder the novel at Amazon or Barnes & Noble.

An Author's Journey on Kindle

2010-06-20T11:24:00.007-05:00

As previously reported on this blog, I'm Kindle-fied now. I own a Kindle (still loving it-- thank you, father-in-law!), and now I have several books offered on Kindle.

I put one of these books on Kindle myself, and others are being offered there by the original publishers. For a list, see the end of this post.

Some author friends of mine have been contemplating putting books up on Kindle, either older books of theirs whose rights have reverted back to them or new manuscripts they didn't sell -- or attempt to sell -- to a traditional publisher.

My advice to them: go for it.

This is a wild, wild west time for the Kindle market (for ease of reading, I'm going to use the word Kindle throughout this post, but other ereading devices could be dropped in as well), where publishers have yet to figure out the best pricing schemes or what to offer on Kindle, or even whether to offer books simultaneously on Kindle and in print or wait until hardcover/trade paperback versions have been out a year.

While publishers dawdle, Kindle owners crave ebooks at reasonable prices. If traditional publishers won't provide sufficient books at decent prices, independent authors can, especially authors, like myself, who have been published in traditional formats.

I decided to try offering a book directly on to Kindle and not through another publisher, this year. Here's that book's story:

I had an adult mystery manuscript titled Death Is the Cool Night that a previous agent had shopped around, but, as seems to be a pattern with me, it had received lovely comments and no takers. It had even been a finalist in a romance writers chapter contest.

New day, new agent, new career moves, and I decide a revision of this book is in order -- I changed the point of view to first person and cut about 30,000 words. It was now more novella than novel, but I thought it was a strong offering nonetheless. I'm an Edgar nominee for my first YA mystery novel, so I wondered if it might be possible to use those bona fides to get a traditional publisher interested in buying this puppy.

Nope, agent didn't think it would work. The market, it sucketh. And the book had been shopped. And it was a novella, for crying out loud.

It didn't bother me when this verdict came in. I agreed with the assessment and had other stuff for the agent to shop anyway. This was my Kindle opportunity.

First step: formatting the thing. I thought this would be tricky, but if you're just going up on Kindle and not trying to be all formats to all ereaders, it's not so difficult. Amazon walks you through the process, and you can use an MSWord format to keep things clean.

Second step: designing a cover. My husband and I spent an afternoon photographing various props--a glass of whiskey, a bottle of laudanum, a shawl and a music score--that tied into the plot. Once we had the photo we liked, my good-natured daughter offered to photoshop the title/author info on it and tidy it up, saving it in jpg form. (Lesson learned, however -- because the covers are often seen in thumbnail format, brighter is better.)

Third step: Finish the upload to amazon. This included setting the price (more on that in a sec), and writing the "product information" that would appear when browsing readers took a look at what the book was about. It took me a couple tries to get this right, by the way. The first iteration of "product information" only included a summary of the book and a few words about me, the author. Later, I added review quotes from my other books, as well as a blurb from a well-known mystery author for one of those books.

An aside about pricing: Kindle owners are in a fever about overpriced ebooks. There are even discussion groups dedicated to boycotting books priced over a certain amount. Many of these folks own a bunch of the books in print format already. They just want them in this new format. And they figure the publishers don't have to buy paper, pay for printing and distribution and the like, so why should ebooks cost so darned much? Other authors who've successfully put material up in the emarket advised against overpricing and to go for volume of sales rather than high per-unit costs. I took that to heart. Since I was offering a novella, I chose $1.99 for my price.

Fourth step: getting the word out about my book. This step is still a work-in-progress. I've found a group of Kindle owners on yahoo, where the list moderator does a monthly author promo. Many Kindle owners, I've found, want to support independent authors. Many especially want to support independent authors who are selling their works for reasonable prices. I learned to "tag" my book on amazon with descriptive words ("historical fiction," "mystery," "opera," etc.), making sure that at least two of those tags are "Kindle" and the price of the book. I'm still looking for gatherings online of ereader owners, and try to leave appropriate posts on the amazon discussion groups dedicated to letting readers know of new offerings.

The conclusion: I'm not yet lighting the world on fire with my book, but sales have been trending steadily upward. I sold twice as many this month as I did in the first two months combined. And I know precisely how many I've sold because I can check for myself online--I don't need to wait for a publisher's statement that I'll need help interpreting.

I'm hoping to put another book up on Kindle soon, another mystery with the same detective who was a player in my first book. This, I've heard, is another key to ebook success -- having numerous offerings from which readers can choose. You're trying to build a following, after all, for your "brand." Once I've polished that manuscript, up it will go -- and be available for readers to buy immediately.

Here are my books available on Kindle:

I love this brave, new world of publishing and can't wait to explore more of its possibilities. To my author friends who are thinking of dipping their toes into this pool, I say again: dive in. To readers, I say. . . . many thanks to all of you willing to give independent authors a chance!

Happy reading!

You've Come A Long Way, Baby

2010-06-08T07:35:00.003-05:00

So, I got me a Kindle. Woot! More specifically, I received one as a gift. Double woot! And how do I like it?

I do not like it.

I. LOVE. IT!

I wish I could read every book on it. It's simple, it's lightweight, it's easy to understand (and I'm no techie), and it's marvelously flexible (I increased the font size when my eyes were tired and found a page I wanted to read aloud to my husband by doing a search of a book for a key word). Another plus -- I can send manuscripts to my Kindle to read there instead of on the computer. This came in handy immediately as I'd promised a fellow author I'd take a look at his work in progress and comment.

Do I miss holding and reading a real paper-printed book? Uh, no. In fact, I discovered that reading on the Kindle is perhaps a "purer" reading experience, where the words and the story become paramount and the method of transporting those words to my eyes and mind becomes mere background. For an author, that's a thrilling sensation.

But I know there is a lot of gnashing of teeth out there in BookLand amongst readers, authors, publishers, booksellers and the like all fretting over how these danged new reading devices are going to rock our worlds.

I thought some perspective might be in order, some context. How did our ancestors feel when faced with similar writing and reading transitions?

Being the scholar that I are. . . ahem. . . I mean, "that I am," I immediately went to my massive library of reference materials, and, after many hours of exhilarating research, I came up with several missives sent over the years during periods of great change in the world of printed communications. Here, for your edification, are some samples, translated into modern English:

From a fifth century A.D. Sumerian clay tablet discovered in the Euphrates delta, remarkably intact except for the salutation and signature:

". . . a thousand pardons for hitting young Jezebel in the head with my last note. I am sure no one will notice the scar after it heals. You do keep your tent very dark. She will still find many suitors (editor's note--it is unclear if the writer is saying "suitors" or "donkeys" here as the words are very similar in cuneiform). After all, there's a suitor born every minute. Please do not worry about the new papyrus we have heard so much talk of. The clay tablets we provide for the village elders are more durable and authentic. They have a rich earthy smell and make for heft in one's hands. Papyrus will never take the place of clay. I am so sure clay will never be replaced, I have taken a loan from Old Fatima-mae to make some improvements to my tent. I will be able to pay it off quickly with the delivery of our next set of tablets . Stop worrying about flooding from the Euphrates. My tent is on a good foundation. It will not go under water. And stop using the clay to write down what you are calling 'poems.' That is a waste of precious material, my dear cousin. No one wants to read those when they can hear them round the fire at night."

***

Unknown century, the following appears to be a clandestine letter written in an Egyptian scribe's spare time to his wife. Although the date is missing, experts peg its provenance somewhere between 500 BC and 200 AD:

". . . if I've told you once, I've told you a thousand times--look at both ends of the scroll to see which one is the beginning of the story. It's no wonder that Nanatu, the Story Seller, would not buy my latest effort. You presented him the scroll with the ending first! And no, my dearest one, I refuse to try that product they are calling parchment. It is thin and one must use many separate sheets of it, which can easily become lost. If one scroll confuses you now, what will you do with many single pieces? I can see it clearly--parchment blowing every which way in the wind like the petals of a flower during a sandstorm, and you giving Nanatu one of my stories with half the pieces missing. Nanatu is temperamental enough as it is. If I hear him say one more time he wants a story with a boat journey in it like the one that Homer fellow told, I will scream. Putting my stories on parchment will not make the difference. Getting rid of the likes of Nanatu will make a difference. Parchment is a passing fancy that will soon be forgotten . . ."

***

Fifteenth century epistle from an older monk at an Alsatian monastery, Schwer-an-Merde, to another younger monk in a nearby German abbey:

". . . . Please try harder to color within the lines, dear Frere Aefle. Your latest efforts were a strange mess of colors in odd cube-like forms that reminded me of images seen through shards of glass. But I must say at least it was better than the blurry pictures you did on the previous manuscript. That one created mere impressions, rather than a specific image. It made one feel as if one were viewing a landscape through wine-besotted eyes. Dear Abbot Pierre exclaimed after seeing it: Je vais chercher du bon vin a la cave. (Editor's note: the loose translation for this phrase is, 'This looks to be written with wine. I must search for some wine. Wine is good. Very good. Very, very good. Is it five o'clock somewhere?') Such shoddy workmanship on your part will only feed the talk that our efforts are useless decoration and unnecessary toil, especially now that villagers are all in a fever over the printing machine you described. Gutenberg, Schmutenberg, my dear Frere Aefle. Even your most pitiful illumination efforts are more vibrant than the cold images of letters on paper I've seen coming from his machine. No, dear Frere, rest assured nothing will replace our artistic efforts. And even if Herr Schmutenburg's device takes hold, I have been told by dear Friar Chuck that such 'presses' will still need laborers like us. He has devised a plan to work together with the Glutenbergs, something he is calling 'the agency model,' providing manuscripts to the presses for distribution . It is very complicated. But the important thing to remember, mon Frere, is to keep toiling away, perfecting your craft and trusting Friar Chuck and all the Abbots to look after us. . . "

***

Well, I'm sure I could dig out more examples from ages past, but I think these samples tell the tale. Just as these well-meaning scribes had to adjust to the new worlds of communication opening up before them, so, too, will we authors, publishers, readers and agents make the change as e-readers become ever more popular and e-books make up a larger share of the book market.

Okay, question time -- how many of you own an e-reader? Like it? Love it? Hate it? On the fence? If you don't own one, do you have plans to get one soon?

About Sloane Hall. . . and its inspiration, Jane Eyre

2010-05-11T08:25:00.005-05:00

Sloane Hall by Libby Sternberg

(Hardcover, Five Star, September 2010, ISBN: 9781594149177)

In 1920s Hollywood, young John Doyle learns the craft of cinematography when a stupid mistake costs him his job. On a tip, he heads to Sloane Hall, the estate of a famous silent screen actress, Pauline Sloane, where he lands a position as chauffeur. Sloane Hall first offers him peace as he enjoys the bounty of the luxurious home, then unrest as its beautiful namesake returns and starts preparing for her first talking picture. Despite his best efforts to resist, John falls hopelessly in love with his employer. His future brightens, however, when she appears to return his affection, leading to plans for a secret wedding—until other awful secrets intrude, leading to heartbreak and separation. A story of obsession and forgiveness, Libby Sternberg’s Sloane Hall was inspired by Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre.

Q. Is Sloane Hall just a retelling of Jane Eyre?

A. It’s not a point-by-point re-creation of Bronte’s classic romance. Rather, I wanted it to be a re-creation of the emotional journey found in Jane Eyre, with recognizable references to the original story line. I really hope readers are able to appreciate Sloane Hall as an homage to that brilliant piece of storytelling but aren’t disappointed when they come across a new story.

Q. One of the major deviations from the original is the fact that Jane . . . is a John! Why did you decide to switch the gender of the protagonist?

A. I wanted the story to be fresh. I think any time you write a book like this, which clearly references a well-loved, well-read original, you struggle to keep it feeling new, as if it had never been told or written before. I’m a huge Jane Eyre fan. I’ve re-read the book countless times. I’ve watched numerous film versions of it. It’s the emotional journey of the book that has stayed with me more than the actual details. I wanted to recreate that journey. I didn’t think changing the time period or setting was enough to accomplish that.

Q. Other than the gender switch, what other aspects deviate from the original?

A. Time and place are different, of course. I chose Hollywood in the 1920s because film stars make up a kind of American "gentry." And I chose the year film was making the shift from silent to sound to create a background tension that makes Pauline’s circumstances precarious. She’s about to make her first talking picture, a very stressful time for silent stars of that period, many of whose careers didn’t survive the change. And I will tell readers right now—there is no lunatic spouse in the attic!

Q. That begs the question—what is in Sloane Hall’s attic?

A. Secrets! Actually, this was one of the most challenging—and most fun—aspects of writing this book, coming up with the awful secret, the climactic moment to parallel when Rochester reveals he’s married to insane Bertha. I kept asking myself: how did nineteenth century readers feel when reading that scene? Would their sensibilities about mental illness be the same as ours today? I think not. I believe today’s readers probably feel most sympathetic to Jane in that scene and are, perhaps, troubled by Rochester’s deception and the handling of his mentally-ill wife, even if they can spare a measure of sympathy for him, too. I wondered if the original readers, however, had much more sympathy for Rochester in that scene, and experienced, perhaps, an “eww” moment when contemplating his wife’s state. I wanted to recreate the feelings that nineteenth century readers might have had—equal measures of sympathy and disgust. I hope I succeeded.

Q. The other very memorable moment in Jane Eyre is when Jane hears Rochester calling to her across the countryside. How do you handle that?

A. Since we’re dealing with film, I think most readers will guess that this scene involves one of Pauline’s movies. But perhaps not in a way readers might expect. So I’m hoping there’s still an element of surprise and appreciation here that makes this aspect fresh for the reader.

Q. How else does the book differ from Jane?

A. I think John struggles with the idea of forgiveness much more than Jane did. John has a much, much harder time letting go of his resentments of those who had wronged him in the past. This resentment and simmering anger gets him into trouble and ultimately drives his transformation. He has to learn to conquer it before he can ultimately accept Pauline into his heart. And, of course, she has to conquer many inner demons as well. I think her struggles are a bit more “on stage” than Rochester’s were.

Q. With all these differences, what is similar to the original?

A. Like Jane, John had a troubling youth. His “Lowood” was a reform school. Also like Jane, he’s a contrarian and a realist, especially about himself. He’s a gentle soul wanting to be loved and to return that love in full measure to someone worthy of it. He is also a deeply spiritual man, although not in any denominational sense. He’s an “outsider,” a loner, someone who grew to expect little from life except what he could bring to it. And, like Jane, he considers himself plain, certainly unable to compete with the dashing stars surrounding Pauline Sloane.

Q. Are you a fan of retellings of famous stories? If so, what are your favorites?

A. Skillful retellings excite me because they make me feel as if I’m reaching across time and enjoying the story the way its original audience might have experienced it! I love the movie Oh Brother, Where Art Thou, which is loosely based on The Odyssey, for that reason. I really enjoyed the 1995 film version of Richard III with Ian McKellen and Annette Bening, which is not a retelling but a resetting of that play in a completely unexpected way. I thoroughly enjoyed Alice Randall’s book The Wind Done Gone, a different take on the characters in Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind. Each of these had me looking at the original stories and their characters with fresh eyes. It’s a thrilling sensation to feel in communion with the first audiences for these tales. I hope readers of Sloane Hall have that experience and feel connected to the first readers who fell in love with Jane Eyre.

When Rejection Helps

2010-05-05T13:46:00.007-05:00

This week, a box arrived filled with Advance Reader Copies (ARCs) of Sloane Hall, a real "book of my heart." I have seven books published by houses ranging from big Harlequin to little Bancroft, but some books occupy a special place in your heart and Sloane Hall is one.

It will be released by Five Star in hardcover in September of this year. Five Star markets primarily to the library trade, and I happen to also read manuscripts (making recommendations to buy or pass) and edit for them. Selling to them wasn't a slam-dunk, though. It just meant I'd get a quick read and some good vibes. In fact, selling Sloane Hall to them required a strong sales pitch along with the merits of the book itself. Here's why:

Although it's women's fiction, Sloane Hall is written in first person from a male point of view. It's set in old Hollywood but inspired by the classic romance Jane Eyre. The genders are reversed, with the protagonist, John Doyle, in the role of servant--a chauffeur--to a silent screen starlet about to make her first talking picture. She's the Rochester figure. He's the Eyre one.

I wrote Sloane Hall, oh, maybe eight or so years ago. Yes, it's a long time. And if you'd told me then that it would take this long to sell it, I would have covered my ears and shouted down your prediction! I'd heard stories of other authors taking that long to sell a favorite tale, or going through eight or more revisions of a novel (was that Amy Tan and Joy Luck Club?). I just couldn't imagine it happening to me. I couldn't believe I'd keep trying that long.

But I couldn't let Sloane Hall go. I love the Jane Eyre story. I've read it so many times that its emotions don't pop the way they used to. So I wanted to hear the story again, with all the powerful moments fresh. Thus, my desire to re-imagine it, to make a drastic, fundamental change that would force the reader -- and myself, the author -- to view the story as if it had never been told.

My first iteration of this manuscript, in fact, was practically a point-by-point mirroring of the original Bronte tale. My critique partner loved it and the characters. My agent at the time was tepid. And rejections from editors told me it wasn't heating up their hearts either.

But one editor told me this -- the story has to work separately from Jane Eyre. It has to be something on its own. Of course it did-- this made perfect sense.

Back to revisions. This time I looked at the characters and asked myself how they differed from Bronte's. If they were different, how would that affect how they'd act. How would it change the story?

I wrote and wrote, sculpting an altered story, one in which the main characters shared some of the characteristics of Jane and Rochester, but also some flaws that were more pronounced, that led them down different paths.

Again, back to submission, this time with another agent a little reluctant to send out the manuscript since it had been submitted before.

Alas, still no deal. But the rejections! Some of them read like back-cover blurbs. Here are two of my favorites:

"(The) story has all the elements of a perfectly developed read: a colorful cast of characters (Eleanor is incredible!), a good sense of era and setting, and a compelling major plot line that feels complete and yet leaves you wanting to know what happens next."

"Libby Sternberg did a wonderful job of capturing 1920s Hollywood in all its drunken, tragicomic glory. John and Eleanor were very appealing, sympathetic characters, and I loved exotic Marta and mysterious, crabby Julia. . ."

These editors and others passed because of market reasons--not being able to envision the book on their list, mostly. One editor at a major house did want to buy it, but couldn't get her editorial team's okay.

One editor, the same one who'd told me before to make sure the book worked without the connection to Jane Eyre, was kind enough to again pass along meaningful advice with her rejection: "This needs to be a big book at a small house," she said.

And that's when I woke up. Up until that time, I'd been thinking that Sloane Hall could be my "breakout novel," the one that moved me up farther, that maybe, just maybe, would get me on a list or two.

But I loved this story so much, it absolutely pained me to think it wouldn't get published by anybody at all, that it would sit in my documents file collecting cyberdust until maybe I decided to go Kindle with it. By this time, I'd revised it yet again, changing the setting back a couple years into the tumultuous time that Hollywood shifted from silent to sound pictures.

So as I was editing some Five Star manuscripts, I thought: why not submit it to them? I mentioned it to a fellow Five Star editor I know, and she was enormously supportive. Yes, she said, submit it -- and I want to be your editor.

As I said, it still wasn't a slam-dunk. The male point of view was a big hurdle because Five Star's women's fiction usually features a strong female protagonist. The editor and I came up with a list of examples of male POV novels that had done well with readers, especially women readers. We came up with the many Internet and social media groups devoted to fans of Jane Eyre. We pointed out the strong female characters in the book, despite its male POV.

And, after holding my breath for a few weeks, I got word that Five Star would buy it. An immense sense of relief as well as joy went through me.

This week as I stared at the ARC, I thought: was it worth it? Is the book good? Should I have invested so much time in it?

It took a lot of courage for me to crack open the ARC and start reading, a pad of paper at the ready to catch mistakes that needed to be fixed. Having revised and edited it so many times, I saw many things I'd love to be able to change now! Some overwriting I'd like to cut back, a few adjectives and adverbs I'd like to toss, some general tidying up that I might need to let go.

But I still love this story. And I'm so glad the earliest version of it isn't the one being published. I am also so, so grateful to the people who've helped me get it to print, including the editor who rejected it twice, but with advice that really resonated with me, ultimately spurring me to revise and resubmit . . . and sell.

An Interview with Libby Malin, Internationally Renowned Author of Humorous Women's Fiction

2010-04-30T08:12:00.003-05:00

This post first appeared on the Casablanca Authors Blog on April 13 as part of my blog tour promoting My Own Personal Soap Opera.

Q. Your book, My Own Personal Soap Opera, has been out for several weeks now. How has it been going?

A. Very well. I’ve been having lots of fun on my eco-friendly virtual book tour, and I’ve been receiving many positive comments from readers. Both of them. No, seriously, it’s been great, and I truly have been enjoying myself.

Q. Well, since you’re visiting this blog today, why don’t you tell us a little about yourself?

A. Thank you for asking. Not many people know my true personal story, so I'm happy to share it here today. It has great relevance to my journey as a writer.

I was born in a small village in the Hungarian Alps, orphaned at the age of five months and raised by vampiric werewolves. This is one of the reasons, by the way, that I cannot bring myself to write stories involving vampires or werewolves, no matter how much money is to be made in that field. I know, I know—authors are raking in dozens of dollars writing those tales. But for me, it would be a great sign of disrespect to my parents—Alpo and Nutella—to use their backgrounds as the basis for my profit-making. I salute the authors who write those stories, however, and mean no disrespect to them either. It is just not for me, given my upbringing.

I turned to writing comedy as soon as I could pick up a pen, which was difficult to learn considering my parents didn’t have opposable thumbs. Recognizing how their lineage could hold me back and realizing they couldn’t keep feeding me carry-out pizza purloined from the Magyar Pizzeria and Sub Stop at Buda-on-Pest, my parents sent me to a convent school at the age of seven where I learned . . . that the hills are alive. With the sound of music, no less. Who knew?

After graduation, I was heartbroken to discover that my complete assimilation into the non-vampiric-werewolf world meant I could no longer recognize my parents in a pack of wolves roaming the village. Crushed in soul and spirit, I hopped on a steamer in the Black Sea bound for America. It was a long trip.

Barely surviving a shipwreck on the Jersey shore and a subsequent mugging attempt on Jersey streets, I made my way east eventually settling in Pennsylvania where I lead a quiet writerly life, grateful for the solitude and the earthy smell of fertilized fields, which takes me back to the days of my childhood when Alpo and Nutella would carry me in a vampiric-werewolf baby tote (FDA-approved, of course) through the waving fields of Hungarian paprika plants.

Q. How did you come to write comedy and, in particular, a book featuring a soap opera head writer?

A. As you can tell, my life was hard. But there is an old French-Hungarian saying that explains much about life and how we vampiric-werewolf-raised Hungarians approach it. It has given me great comfort over the years. The saying is: Je vais cherchez du bon vin a la cave. Loosely translated, this means: Life is hard. One must laugh or one must cry. Laughing is easier. Drinking wine is good, very good. Very good indeed.

That saying has guided my life. As to soap operas, I became familiar with them at the convent school. We had a ham radio/TV setup in our dormitory. Many of the girls would gather round the flickering broadcasts coming from America telling tales of spectacular wealth and characters named Victor, Nikki, Rachel, Mac, Stefano, Hope, Bo, Kayla, Brooke and, of course, Luke and Laura. Oh, how we longed for that life and those names! It was only when I came to America that I learned these stories were not newscasts but fictional tales. I shrugged my shoulders, thought of that French-Hungarian saying, and began penning humorous women’s fiction, setting my latest novel in the world of soap operas. The rest, as they say, is history.

Q. What is My Own Personal Soap Opera about--is it your life, thinly-veiled?

A. If this blog could speak, you would hear me spitting with laughter right now. No, MOPSO is not my life--although at one time, I wished I could have been a soap opera head writer, like the book's protagonist. How proud Alpo and Nutella would have been then, eh?

At any rate, MOPSO tells the story of soap head writer Frankie McNally, who uses her show as her own personal message board to the world while dealing with multiple crises at work and home -- a leading man who broke his leg on Dancing with the Stars, staff members who all wish they were doing something else, a jewel thief imitating a story on the show, and two dashing men after her heart. By story's end, she has to decide what is most important to her in life and love.

Well, perhaps that last part is similar to my own life's journey. And, of course, there is my striking physical resemblance to the woman on the cover of the book.

Q. Is there anything else you’d like to share with us?

A. Hmm. . . well, I guess I’d like to say I’m very happy to be here. As a guest on this blog, that is. Very grateful. And I’d really, really, really like it if people would buy my books. Many people don’t know that actually buying the books helps authors live and write. It’s a crazy system, I know. But buying the books means authors get to keep itsy-bitsy, teensy-weensy amounts of money, and the publishers might want to give the authors some more teensy-weensy bits of money to keep writing books. I’d really appreciate the support. More importantly, Alpo and Nutella would appreciate it. They are now in a Home for Old Vampiric Werewolves in Outer-Mongolia, and I am their sole means of support. I only get to visit them twice a decade. The trip is so expensive, and so grueling. I can’t think about it too much. It upsets me . . . Je vais cherchez du bon vin a la cave. . .

______________

Of Libby Malin’s My Own Personal Soap Opera, Publishers Weekly says: "Malin coaxes plenty of laughs. . ." while Booklist calls it, "a world of wit and chaos . . .smart and insightfully written."

For more information please visit www.LibbysBooks.com or her blog, www.LibbysBooks.blogspot.com. You can drop her a note at Libby_Malin@hotmail.com if you’d like to be put on her email list. Also, you can friend her on Facebook at Libby Malin Sternberg.

The Deconstruction of Humorous Fiction in a Reactionary Postmodern World. Or, From Chaos to Conformity: How to Write the Comedic Novel

2010-04-30T08:05:00.002-05:00

This post first appeared on Fresh Fiction's blog on April 7 during my blog tour promoting My Own Personal Soap Opera

By Libby Malin

www.LibbysBooks.com

When I was a graduate student at the University of Gussberry-on-Hornsplat reading for my doctorate in “Humor and Humorlessness in Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Proto-European Monographs,” my professors often referred to a theory they loosely called “The Banana Peel Slide.”

This meme postulated that a humorous trope—such as the man-falling-on-banana-peel— loses its ability to trigger amusement after it becomes part of the greater eco-social-spiritual consciousness, leading to a revolt by sophisticated elites against populist humor grounded in laughing at another’s misfortune, and eventually coming round to popularity again throughout the entire societal continuum when the joke takes on a wry postmodern irony encapsulating the laughing-at-the-laughter-of-those-who-laugh at such simplistic slapstick (See I.M. Gully-Bull, “They’re Laughing With Me, Not At Me, an essay on the struggles of a stand-up comic in the world of spelunking,” Psychiatric Journal of the Criminal Mind, Jan. 09, 43-57).

In other words, slipping on a banana peel was HIGH-LAIR-EE-YUS when first viewed by Cro-Magnon Man until his momma rapped him on the knuckles for laughing at another Cro-Mag hurting himself, and then became funny again when Momma started giggling about it herself.

But humorous tropes grow stale, so the banana peel gag loses its luster (or “lustre” as we were instructed to write at UGH) when viewed too often.

Humor, of course, varies from place to place and generation to generation (see Habe R. Dashery, “A Most Dreadful Hat: Materialism and Comedy in the Works of Jane Austen,” Oxford Community College Press, 1998, 90), but one thing remains constant—laughter usually accompanies surprise. One expects the man walking down the street in his fine new suit and boater hat to find his path smooth and journey uneventful. Then—surprise!—banana peel, meet foot. What’s not to love?

Nonetheless, humor writing is more than the mere description of slapstick moments which are, in reality, difficult to capture succinctly while retaining the laughter-inspiring elements. Written humor, in fact, depends a great deal on the effect of the words themselves, their groupings, their compilation, if you will, into a contextual image that ignites some inner Jungian childhood-pleasure-memory within the reader (see Diep Krappe, “Syntastic—Grammar, Puns, and Humor from Iambic Pentameter to ‘Yo Momma’,” Journal of Polska Witticisms, Aug. 01, pp. 3-87).

This is not to say one can’t describe slapstick effectively on the written page. As the great humorist J.P. Sartre (not to be confused with her more well-known and morose second cousin Jean-Paul), once wrote: Je vais chercher du bon vin a la cave, which, loosely translated, means: “It is possible for anything to be funny as long as the writer knows how to effectively communicate the core elements of the humorous situation, whether they be a physical action, a tres amusent observation a la ‘but other than that, how did you enjoy the play, Mrs. Lincoln,’ or even, perhaps, the acting out of despair in a completely unexpected way. It is not the full bottle of wine in the wine cellar that makes one smile. It is the empty bottle of wine in the . . .” (the rest was lost to posterity, but the major components of Sartre’s take on humor appear in the brilliant essay by Dom. Pear I. Gnon, “The Banana Peel and the Descriptive Verb: Physical Comedy in a Linguistic Setting,” Wine, Laughter, and More Wine, Lots More Wine, More Wine . . . Please, June 02).

So, what, aspiring authors ask, is the secret to writing a successful humorous novel? Good spelling and grammar help (see Strunk N. White, “Spats, Spoofs and Spelling: The Dialectics of Inter-Class Dialogue in the Works of George Bernard Shaw,” Auckland Council Kanberry, ACK Journal of Pedants and Proofreaders, Sept 1910). But beyond that, a funny story is really any one that makes people laugh or smile. If it does so for you, the author, you might be on the right path toward igniting the same reaction in others.

Humorous fiction comes in all varieties, from the zany (L. Malin, My Own Personal Soap Opera, Looking for Reality in All the Wrong Places, Sourcebooks 2010) to the zanier (L. Malin, Fire Me, a Tale of Dreaming, Scheming and Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places, Sourcebooks 2009).

There’s no telling what will tickle any one particular person’s funny bone at any one particular moment. There is no formula for success, in other words, just a keen power of observation—keep your eye on that banana peel, sweetie—and the ability to write characters readers care about even as they face unrealistic situations that could make them laugh or cry (see Gloria Steinmart, “That’s Not At All Funny,” Feminism Yesterday, April 1971).

If you’d like a peek at my latest oeuvre, My Own Personal Soap Opera, go to my website to read a first chapter. It tells the story of soap head writer Frankie McNally, who has to deal with failing ratings, staff members who all want to be doing something else, a leading man who broke his leg on Dancing with the Stars, a jewel thief imitating a similar story on the show, and oh yeah, two men who both want to win her heart.

Hope you like it—or that degree from UGH was a total waste of time!

___________

Libby Malin did not attend (nor go anywhere near) the University of Gussberry-on-Hornsplat. In fact, she holds a bachelor’s and master’s from the Peabody Conservatory of Music. When she finally turned to her first love, writing, she began penning women’s fiction and young adult mysteries (which she writes as Libby Sternberg). Her first YA mystery, in fact, was an Edgar nominee. Her three humorous women’s fiction books (Loves Me, Loves Me Not, Fire Me!, and My Own Personal Soap Opera) have garnered critical praise.

I'm on Kindle!

2010-03-23T17:53:00.004-05:00

I'll be blogging about this more in the future, but here's the exciting news -- my mystery novella, Death Is the Cool Night, is available on Kindle! Stop on by and see some of the terrific reader comments so far.

Death Is the Cool Night tells the tale of a concert pianist-turned-conductor who cannot remember the night his nemesis was murdered. Did he himself commit the crime? Did the enchanting soprano with whom he's falling in love? He has to puzzle out who the murderer is before his own freedom is in jeopardy.

More later. . .

Throw Another Bear in the Boat

2010-03-15T06:36:00.002-05:00

This post originally appeared on the Casablanca Authors blog (www.Casablancaauthors.blogspot.com) March 7, 2010).

by Libby Malin
www.LibbysBooks.com

When last we left our heroine . . .

Actually, when last I darkened these blog pages with a post of my own, I was talking about writing, my thoughts and fears when I first started out.

Since that time, a friend sent me a funny and clever article entitled Ten Rules for Writing Fiction, a compilation of such lists from various authors. In case you don't skip on over and read the whole thing, here are some of my favorite tips:

Try to leave out the parts readers tend to skip (Elmore Leonard)
Take something to write on (when traveling). Paper is good. In a pinch a piece of wood or your arm will do. (Margaret Atwood)
Do not place a photograph of a famous author on your desk , especially if the author is one of the famous ones who committed suicide. (Roddy Doyle)
Put one word after another. Find the right word, put it down. (Neil Gaiman)

As you can see, some of the tips are tongue-in-cheek. Others are more serious and personal to the writer -- advice on avoiding adverbs, only using "said" as a dialogue tag, etc.

Reading that article got me thinking about my own "Top Rules for Writing Fiction." I guess I qualify to come up with some -- I do have a bunch of books published, so some folks must think I know something about writing fiction.

My list for writing commercial fiction would include the following:

Write the whole book. When you start out, you have to devote the time to finishing a manuscript, not just a proposal. Later, after you're published, you can sell on proposal.
Set a daily page quota. You won't feel inspired to write every day, but you can get something down on the page. If you write three pages a day, you can finish a manuscript in about three months.
Know where you're headed, but don't be afraid to change direction. Sure you might have a plot roughed out in your head or even on paper, but don't be afraid to change direction if the characters want to go racing down another path more compatible to the portraits you've drawn of them.
Don't give up in the Terrible Middle. Midway through a manuscript, many writers I know feel as if they're walking through mud. Know that a lot of authors feel this way. This too shall pass.
When you're stuck, throw another bear in the boat. In other words, look for ways to amp up the tension when you feel the plot's getting stodgy.
Write the Big Scene and get it out of your system. Sometimes you're itching to get to that big, fat, juicy climax so badly that it stalls you while you're writing the scenes preceding it. Okay, give in to temptation and write the Big Scene. You can tweak it when you stitch the plot threads together.
Similarly, don't be afraid to write notes to yourself in the ms, to fill in later. I've typed "NEED MORE HERE" in the middle of scenes when I've got a great writing pace going and don't want to stumble over something easily filled in later.
When you revise, keep two lists: character names and timeline. It will save you and your copy editor a lot of trouble later.
Once you're finished, put your business hat on and act like the professional writer you aspire to be, researching agents and editors and submitting to the appropriate ones.
Finally, when you're writing, remember you're the only person who can come up with a Top Ten Rules for Writing Fiction for you. If you like adverbs, use 'em. If you're expressive using metaphors, go for it. If you do description well, don't let Hemingway's approach hold you back. You're the captain of your own writing ship. Cruise away!

Okay, that's my list. What's on yours?

Ch-ch-changes

2010-03-04T07:48:00.002-05:00

In case you haven't noticed, I'm trying to make my blog more active -- that means I'll be posting more. I've already uploaded a bunch of blog posts that originally "aired" over at the Casablancaauthors.blogspot.com, the gathering place for authors in Sourcebooks' Casablanca line.

In the coming weeks and months, I hope to feature some Q and As with editors and agents. So if you have any questions you'd like me to pose to any of them, send them to me at Libby_Sternberg@hotmail.com!

Learning to Sing

2010-03-03T15:26:00.001-05:00

(Originally published on the Casablancaauthors.blogspot.com 2/20/10)

The last time I posted here, I talked about my "first love" -- music. Even though music was the first love I dedicated my energy and passion to, writing has always, always, always called out to me. As soon as I could string words together, I wrote stories, poems and essays. In creative writing class in high school, friends and I would exchange "fan fiction" -- stories involving our favorite television shows.

But I didn't start dedicating energy and passion to getting my writing published until later in life. For that I have my dear sister to thank. She's the one who encouraged me to try getting a romance novel published when I was between freelance writing projects and looking for something to do to make money. Once I knew that this very practical person in my family wouldn't think I was crazy for spending so much time at the computer writing fiction, I was on my way.

For most published authors, it's a tough slog from that first moment you decide to really try to get a book into print. First, there's the actual writing journey. Then, there's the publishing business journey.

I had a chance to revisit my own writing and publishing journey recently when I picked up one of the first manuscripts I'd written. I wanted to review it for possible revision. A couple things struck me as I reread it. One was the memory of how many doubts and questions I had when I wrote it. How long should a chapter be -- is there a standard page count? How many points of view can I include? Do I have to account for every minute of each characters' time? How much "telling" versus "showing" of the action should I do? If I use "are" too much, is my writing weak? What's the most riveting way to begin a story?

The answers to those questions came in the fullness of time as I gained confidence as a writer (there's nothing like confidence to help you develop your own voice), and as I became a more observant reader, analyzing what other published authors did that succeeded in moving me as a reader.

Not surprisingly, the answers to my questions can be summed up in this statement: in writing, pretty much anything goes as long as it works. Sure, there are guidelines for certain genre lines. But there are no rules that can't be broken, even in genre fiction, if you tell the story well.

Nora Roberts gave an excellent talk about this years ago at the New Jersey Romance Writers conference. I remember her saying that she didn't know about all the rules when she started writing, so she was able to blow past any fears and doubts associated with them. She counseled the writers in the room to break rules when necessary to tell a good story, not just for the sake of daring.

Another worry memory popped into my head as I reviewed my old manuscript. I remembered how I used to sweat the small stuff when preparing to send my writing to the publishing world. Now the questions became: should it be set in Times New Roman or Courier? Must it have exactly 25 lines per page? Should I send only the first 50 pages when asked for a partial or can I send 60 since a terrific scene starts on page 51? Can I query more than one agent at the same agency? How long should I wait before following up? Will an editor think I'm rude if I remind her she's had my manuscript for six months?

Here, I discovered the rules of good etiquette applied. The goal of manuscript preparation is to make your manuscript easily readable and your interactions with editors and agents professional and pleasant. A readable serif face with standard margins will do the trick. And reasonable follow-up is certainly allowed as long as you're not whiny or petulant.

In fact, just as in writing, I discovered that there weren't many specific rules about manuscript submission -- just the general etiquette principles -- and that you could approach many editors on your own as long as you treated them the way you'd like to be treated yourself.

Selling your manuscripts is hard. This business is filled with rejection. As time went by, I learned that I needed to stop rejecting myself -- that is, stop rejecting my own ideas -- based on what I perceived to be the "rules." Only then would my writing voice learn to sing.

First Loves

2010-03-03T15:21:00.001-05:00

(Originally published on the Casablancaauthors.blogspot.com 2/07/10)

A long time ago, in a galaxy far away--specifically, right after I graduated from college--I worked as a Spanish gypsy, a Russian courtier, a Japanese Geisha, a Parisian bohemian, a Middle Eastern slave, a French courtesan, and a Chinese peasant.

Those were the roles played by chorus members of Baltimore and Washington Operas as they put on productions of Carmen, Eugene Onegin, Madama Butterfly, La Boheme, Salome, La Traviata, and Turandot. I was one of those chorus members, happily arriving about an hour before each performance, traipsing through the stage door with makeup bag in hand, ready to be wigged and dressed.

To get ready for this backstage preparation, the women were all required to flatten their hair into pincurls and place a stocking cap over all. Then we'd head to the wig room where the loveliest hairpieces would be placed on our heads, glued to our foreheads with fine netting. Back to the dressing rooms where hired "dressers" would help us into our costumes--some of them very heavy and historically accurate with laces rather than buttons up the back. For most performances, these costumes were rented from a shop or another company's production of the same opera.

Once during my "illustrious" career, I sang in a La Traviata where the costumes were designed specifically for that production. A confection of pale pink lace and chiffon thus had a tag sewn into it with my name on it--original costumes were tagged with the names of the first persons to wear those garments. Somewhere in an opera house today, a chorus member might be wearing a gorgeous gown with the label "Elizabeth Malin" sewn in a seam.

In between all the dressing and the wigging, we'd be gluing on our false eyelashes and smearing on whatever pancake makeup was best (for some productions, like Salome, directors would specify the shade), lining and filling in our lips, placing small cutouts over our lids if we were to play Asians, and generally warming up, maybe even reviewing passages of the score that were hard to remember (chorus cues in the last act of Carmen are a bear to recall). This last task we were not required to do. As members of the American Guild of Musical Artists union, we were not expected to learn the music on our own. That's what the hours of rehearsal with the chorus master were for. Union reps were quick to pop up and remind us we had no obligation to do any work outside the paid rehearsals should a conductor tell us to "go over that on your own."

We were expected to be on time (or have our pay docked), get into our costumes, be ready to sing and act, and wait as the stage manager calmly called cues over the speaker system piped into our downstairs dressing rooms, excitement building as the moments before the first notes sounded ticked by.

"Fifteen minutes to places," "ten minutes. . ." "five. . ." "chorus to the stage, please."

The Kennedy Center stage was a world unto itself. It was large enough that the stage manager could stand in the wings calling lighting cues on his headset in a normal tone of voice, not worrying if the sound would carry into the "house."

During one production of Boheme (directed by the composer Gian Carlo Menotti), the president attended (I won't say which one or it would date me!). Secret Service staff roamed backstage and artificial snow was left out of one scene so that these dedicated personnel could more clearly see into the hall and up to the presidential seats.

Those were magical times for me. Music was my first love--I actually have two degrees from a conservatory.

But I discovered pretty quickly that I wasn't cut out for the performer's life. I didn't enjoy the traveling it would require, and I always struggled with stage fright. Writing continually called out to me.

While I didn't stay in the music field, my life has been enriched immeasurably by that "first love." My writing, too, has benefited because studying music teaches you a lot about rhythm and pacing, about audiences and characterization, about how to express passion, longing, acceptance, and even humor. I don't regret my early days in the music world at all and have recently begun singing in my church choir again.

So. . . what "first loves" inform your life and writing now? Do you ever wish you could return to them?

Hey, Hon

2010-03-03T15:19:00.001-05:00

(Originally published on the Casablancaauthors.blogspot.com 1/16/10)

I can't get it out of my head: Oh, oh, oh/Woke up today/Feeling the way I always do. . .

Yup, the first lines to "Good Morning, Baltimore!" from Hairspray.

Tonight, hubby and I head to Lancaster's American Music Theater to see a touring production of this musical, the tickets a Christmas gift from our son.

Going to see this show means we'll miss watching the Baltimore Ravens face off against the Baltimore, er, no, the Indianapolis Colts.

As a Baltimore native, it hurts to write "Indianapolis" in front of that sports team's name (sorry, all you Hoosiers!). I remember the heartache the city's residents experienced when, in the middle of the night, March 29, 1984, Mayflower vans moved the Colts from Charm City to the Midwest.

That pain cuts deep. At my father's funeral two years ago, a cousin reminisced about that day, the bitterness still in his voice. It was a fitting tribute. My father had been a big Colts fan, idolizing Johnny Unitas. He would have enjoyed the conversation and joined in the indignation.

The Colts are gone, but I have no trouble rooting for the Ravens, the only NFL team I know that's named after a character in a poem! That poem's author, Edgar Allan Poe, is buried in Baltimore, and for a half century, a "mysterious stranger" has left a partial bottle of cognac and three roses at the gravesite on the anniversary of Poe's birth.

When I grew up there, Baltimore was a real smokestack town, with a Bethlehem Steel plant near the harbor at Sparrow's Point (if someone mentioned they worked at Sparrow's Point, you knew they were a Beth Steel employee) and all sorts of industry crowding up against its waterways, including the always-fragrant McCormick Spice company (once located where the glittering Harborplace stands, now moved to the north of town).

A lot of those businesses have left, but a drive through the city to the south toward DC still takes you through areas crammed with trucks, containers, and light industry. Baltimore is a working man's town, a tough little city with its own architecture--street after street of rowhomes with marble steps and religious paintings on window screens--and even its own accent (John Travolta does a pretty good job of it in the movie version of "Hairspray.")

People who speak Bawlmerese say "hon" a lot -- "I'm goin' dannie ocean for vacation, hon" -- and there's even a diner-like Cafe Hon in the old mill section of the city called Hampden. Cafe Hon recently was at the center of a signage controversy over huge pink flamingos adorning its building. Hampden itself is host to an annual "HonFest" where big hair, lycra, bowling shirts, and leopard prints are encouraged.

That's not the whole story the city has to tell, though. Baltimore is also home to high culture and great intellectual endeavors and philanthropy -- Peabody Conservatory of Music and the world-famous Johns Hopkins Hospital and University.

The University nestles against a couple of the city's oldest and finest neighborhoods, where once Baltimore's high society could find their names listed in an exclusive "blue book."

To bring this back to writing, my affection for Baltimore leads me often to putting the city into my novels. Three of my young adult novels are set there, as is my very first humorous women's fiction. Fire Me is set just a hop, skip, and jump down I-95 in DC, with the hero's family located in Baltimore. The protagonist in My Own Personal Soap Opera was raised there. And the hero of my work-in-progress is a professor at a university in Bal'mer.

Robin Kaye blogged about special places earlier this week. Are there any special places you find yourself writing about often? How do you choose where to set your stories? And do you like to get a sense of a place from the novels you read?

For Starters

2010-03-03T15:16:00.003-05:00

(Originally posted at the Casablancaauthors.blogspot.com 1/06/10)

Over the holiday, my husband and I treated ourselves to a re-viewing of the movie Star Trek. We'd seen it in the theater and loved it, and I wanted to judge whether it still held up on the small screen. It did, and then some. If anything, more intimate moments popped more for me on our modest-sized Toshiba.

One of the pleasures of watching a DVD, rather than the theatrical version, is clicking your way through to the "extra features." So we did, finding the "commentary" and watching a bit of the movie all over again while listening to the director and others offer insights into the action.

And here was a surprise -- the director had originally thought of opening the movie with the birth of Mr. Spock, instead of the action-packed moments leading up to Kirk's father's death. As Spock himself would say, this discussion of alternate beginnings was "fascinating."

If the movie had started with Spock's birth, it would have added a scene of "backstory" to the four or five already in place, delaying the arrival of the real meat of the story-- the world-threatening battle that fed Spock and Kirk's initial antipathy and ultimate friendship. The directors opted for a telescoped-in backstory, reasoning that viewers learn of Spock's human lineage in another early scene involving his earth-born mother. So they did what is so hard for artists to do -- they cut their own work.

But this discussion of how to start a story reminded me how difficult it is for any storyteller to decide just where to open the curtain for the reader/viewer.

Most of the time, I can just. . . start. The seeds of a story swirl in my head. I hear a snatch of dialogue, or glimpse part of a scene, and bingo-bango, I'm at the computer writing.

Occasionally, though, I struggle. I write an opening, then go back and write another. I re-read and jettison everything, trying again with yet another Act I. I have debates with myself about what will grab the reader (or acquiring editor!) versus what needs to be told to set the stage for what's to come.

How many authors wrestle with openings? I suspect many do. Looking at some famous novels, it's impossible to tell, however, if what now seem like perfect starters presented inner struggles for their writers.

In fact, it's interesting to note just how little of what is to come is given away in the first lines of some well-known books.

Here's a quick quiz on book beginnings that might be a fun post-holiday exercise! Below, you'll find first lines from several books. Can you guess what novels they belong to? (And do you wonder if the authors debated if they were launching their stories with the right lines?) Answers are at the end. . .

1. "He lay flat on the brown, pine-needled floor of the forest, his chin on his folded arms, and high overhead the wind blew in the tops of the pine trees."

2. "We were studying when the headmaster came in, followed by a new boy, not yet wearing a school uniform, and a monitor carrying a large desk."

3. "Ours is essentially a tragic age, so we refuse to take it tragically."

4. "1801--I have just returned from a visit to my landlord--the solitary neighbor that I shall be troubled with."

5. "There was no possibility of taking a walk that day."

6. "In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since."

7. "In the late summer of that year we lived in a house in a village that looked across the river and the plain to the mountains."

8. "To the red country and part of the gray country of Oklahoma, the last rains came gently, and they did not cut the scarred earth."

9. "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife."

10. "Sometimes Anne Wyatt wished she could feed parts of her life into a shredder."

1. For Whom the Bell Tolls, Ernest Hemingway; 2. Madame Bovary, Gustave Flaubert; 3. Lady Chatterley's Lover, D.H. Lawrence; 4. Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte; 5. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte; 6. The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald; 7. A Farewell to Arms, Ernest Hemingway; 8. The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck; 9. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen; 10. Fire Me, Libby Malin (hey--I couldn't resist including my own book! LOL!)

How many did you get? (Confession--I might have guessed just three correctly myself if I'd not had the books in front of me.)

Tricks of the Trade

2010-03-03T15:14:00.001-05:00

(Originally published on the Casablancaauthors.blogspot.com 12/04/09):

So it's holiday time, when all good writers pen their letters to Santa, asking for. . . inspiration, time, film options in the seven figures with producers who can snap their fingers and have projects come together in the blink of an eye. . . .

I'd be happy with all those things (and maybe a Kindle, too--please, Santa. . .), but today I'm going to address only one of them and how to get it without help from Kris Kringle.

That is, inspiration. Or, more specifically, the ability to keep writing when the muse is off stuffing herself with holiday cookies.

All writers have different approaches to lighting the fuse of creativity, but sometimes even the brightest-burning flame flickers out, leaving you bereft and searching, staring at a computer screen, or out the window, or at that plate of cookies you wish you'd not left so close to the desk.

Over the years, I've developed a number of tricks to help me strike the match and get my creativity glowing. When I first began writing, the best and most effective strategy was for me to set daily page quotas. Three double-spaced pages a day was my goal, nothing extravagant, very doable. Yet, sometimes even making that goal was tough, and I'd keep scrolling down the page to see just how much space I had left to fill. Nonetheless, this trudge-through approach did result in manuscripts, even if they needed editing.

Once I knew I could finish a manuscript, new winds blew out my flame. I'd stop at a plot crossroads, unable to continue as I considered what would happen if Jane did X instead of Y, if John took the train to San Diego instead of to San Antonio.

Time for a new trick--at that kind of plot indecision stall, I would start writing scenes single-spaced. This shift seemed to give my imagination "permission" to play with ideas because, after all, everyone knows a real manuscript is double-spaced. Single-spacing is so unofficial.

But sometimes my problem wasn't an overabundance of plot ideas. Sometimes, it was a dearth of them. There are days I can't seem to get John or Jane to make the train reservations at all, let alone choose the destination. That's when I realize the problem is characterization, not plot. I'm trying to fit a square (character) peg into a round (plot) hole.

Next trick--interviewing my characters, sometimes on paper, sometimes by talking out loud (yes, that's who I'm talking to alone in my car as I drive to and fro). I ask them, what do you want to do, what do you want out of life, where are you going? The answers often surprise me, but I'm back to the page, the creativity candle burning.

I asked some writer friends about their tricks. Here are a few:

Set a timer and write until it dings. No matter what the writing quality is, it helps you move past a writing funk, or a procrastination problem.

Journal in first person POV as if you are one of your characters, using stream-of-consciousness to keep you going.

Type in a smaller font. Like my "single space" trick, this tactic gives you permission to experiment, since you know you'd never submit pages set in anything but 12 point Times New Roman.

Write longhand for awhile, tackling particularly troublesome scenes.

Take a break and read some nonfiction research material.

Redo your office space -- new day, new atmosphere, new chances to shine as a writer.

Those are the tricks I've learned--what are yours?

Q & A's about my novels

2009-07-13T08:03:00.003-05:00

I've been tweaking my website lately, and I've added some Q & A's about my novels. Take a peek if you want to learn more about Fire Me and my YA mysteries. I've also added info on upcoming novels.

I haven't been blogging much because I'm meeting deadlines right and left at the moment. But I hope to get into regular blogging soon!

Jane Eyre Redux

2009-06-17T08:40:00.004-05:00

Great news! I just sold another novel, a manuscript that is a true "book of my heart," as authors call those stories they just can't let go. Called Sloane Hall, it tells the tale of a Hollywood chauffeur in the 1920s who falls in love with his starlet employer, only to be repulsed by secrets on their wedding day.

If the climactic plot point sounds familiar, that's because Sloane Hall is inspired by Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre, one of my favorite books.

I must have re-read Jane a dozen times over the years. I love the melodrama, the Cinderella aspect of the story, and especially the love so strong it defies time and distance at the book's core. My heart broke with Jane's at the moment of discovery and betrayal, and I rejoiced when she returned to Rochester after hearing his voice across the miles.

But over the years, those deeply-moving moments started to fade, and I dearly wanted to experience them again. I thought perhaps other Eyre fans would feel the same way, so I decided to refashion the story into something different. And what better way to have readers approach this story as a completely fresh tale than to reverse the genders of the main characters?

Instead of a young governess working at a powerful man's estate, in Sloane Hall you'll find a young chauffeur with a troubled past working for a bewitching starlet of the silent era about to make her first sound picture. The book contains many familiar benchmarks Eyre fans will recognize, but it's also something completely new, a story that delves into the path to and meaning of forgiveness.

Sloane Hall has gone through several revisions and has been praised by the many editors .... who ultimately rejected it! LOL! But it's found a home at last with Five Star Publishing and will be available September 2010.

If you'd like to be on my email list to hear news of its release, please send a note to me at: Libby_Malin@hotmail.com and put "Sloane Hall" in the subject line.

In the meantime, if you're looking for a light and entertaining beach read, check out Fire Me, which has been hailed as "hilarious" and "inspired" by online reviewers!

FIRE ME Is In the House!

2009-04-18T07:54:00.003-05:00

I'm jumping for joy--at last, my new book Fire Me! is available, shipping from amazon and other outlets now and soon to be in stores everywhere (well, I hope everywhere--be sure to ask for it!). Woohoo! Click on the heading of this blog entry to go to the amazon site, in fact, if you'd like to order it.

Fire Me! tells the story of Anne Wyatt, who goes into work one day determined to hand in her resignation, only to change course when she learns her mercurial boss will lay off an employee by the end of the day, bestowing on said worker a generous severance package. Anne decides to go after that prize, trying to earn her boss' negative attention, and learns a lot about life and love in the process.

Yes, it's a comedy filled with crazy stunts and zany antics as Anne races her way to the finish line, eager to see her boss point his finger at her as the one slated to go. But it's also a deeper story about pursuing one's dreams, and learning how to seize opportunity and take risks, even when you think you have everything so carefully planned.

Fire Me! takes place in the space of one wild twenty-four-hour period, but I'm offering a free extra chapter to those who want to hear what happens to Anne several months after the story in the book ends. Information on that offer, plus how to sign up for my newsletter, plus news on a "blog tour" I'm doing in the next couple weeks, plus.....well, more....can be found at my website: www.LibbysBooks.com. Stop on by!

Four Book Reviews -- Fiction and Nonfiction

2009-03-15T18:23:00.003-05:00

NONFICTION:
THE WORST HARD TIME by Timothy Egan
If you ever thought the Dust Bowl was just an act of nature, you'll think again after reading this moving and well-researched book. Egan tells a sad tale of strivers, believers in the "next good year" who settled the High Plains with the hopes of farming enough to support their families, only to be rewarded with high wheat prices during the first World War that led to more plowing, more turning over of the once-grass-laden land. One hundred million acres of grass were plowed up on the High Plains by these yeomen farmers during good rainfall times. Then, when the weather went back to normal -- scarce rain -- nothing held the soil in place, since the grass was gone. A staggering 850 million tons of dirt blew off the land during a single year of the Depression, several "dusters" dumping dirt as far east as New York City. People died of "dust pneumonia" and the "dusters" created so much static electricity in the air that barbed wire fences sparked and people dragged chains under their cars as a kind of "ground" to keep the static from hurting them in the car. Egan recounts this history through the eyes of several High Plains dwellers, but is careful to lard the story with cold, hard facts about soil conservation. Excellent read. Highly recommended.

FICTION:
THE BRASS VERDICT by Michael Connelly
My pocketbook doesn't usually allow me to pick up hardcovers, so I wait for the paperback version of most books to be released before heading to the store. Not so with Michael Connelly's The Brass Verdict, the second installment in Connelly's new Mickey Haller mystery series. After reading the first one, The Lincoln Lawyer, I couldn't wait for this second swipe at the Haller saga.

Like the first book, it was a great read and doesn't disappoint. The Mickey Haller character, a defense lawyer who struggles (although not too mightily) with the concept of getting off crooks and murderers, is a well-rounded, sympathetic soul you just like spending time with. He's quick-witted and kind, cynical and hopeful, great combinations that make him real and not a legal-beagle stereotype.

The Brass Verdict, like The Lincoln Lawyer, features a mystery (who killed Jerry Vincent, a defense attorney whose cases Mickey "inherits") which ultimately has its solution buried in the multi-layered attorney-client privilege that Mickey protects as fiercely as he protects the rights of scumbags.

There's an extra treat in The Brass Verdict, though. Mickey meets Connelly hero Harry Bosch, who works the murder case while Mickey goes to court defending a man on trial for another murder.

You might think, as you approach the end of this book, that you know where it's going. Hold on to your hat because there's an elegant and very satisfying twist to it all.

One final note on this excellent offering: I love the way Michael Connelly occasionally includes what could be "asides" on the book biz. In one scene, Haller drops into a bookstore to make a call he doesn't want his driver to overhear. Haller eschews the "mystery aisle," which was "too crowded with customers," and instead "found an empty alcove where big coffee-table books were stacked heavily on the shelves and tables." Great subtle commentary on publishing!

NONFICTION:
POWER, FAITH , AND FANTASY: AMERICA IN THE MIDDLE EAST 1776 TO THE PRESENT by Michael B. Oren
Be warned -- this is a loooong book, clocking in at around 700 pages. But it's well worth the time and effort, even if it does sag a bit in the middle. If that stalls you, skip ahead to the more recent history, which is a faster and easier read.

For those who think America's (and the world's) recent problems in the Middle East are new challenges, this book will provide eye-opening insight. Since the beginning of the American Republic, presidents have grappled with the same old problems--how to keep vital trade open while protecting Americans (and American interests) from thuggish and/or militant Middle Eastern leaders who used piracy, kidnapping and worse to gain advantage. "To the shores of Tripoli" -- the line from the Marine anthem -- has its origins in the beginning of this American/Middle Eastern struggle. Oh...and European nations standing idly by, willing to pay ransoms instead of facing down brutal hostage-takers, is nothing new either.

What I liked most about this book was its dispassionate narrative. I didn't sense the author had an ax to grind or agenda to push. The last 100 pages or so, which covered familiar territory, did seem a wee bit pro-Arab, but not over the top anti-Israeli. Keeping that in mind, this book is an excellent overview of a complex part of the world, a great primer for understanding today's events. Highly recommended.

FICTION:
THE BLACK TOWER by Louis Bayard
About four years ago, I discovered this author's sweet and heartbreaking historical Mr. Timothy. That book seemed to be marketed more as historical fiction than as mystery, even though a mystery was included in it. It was a delightful read, featuring a grown-up Timothy Cratchett (yes, that one, from A Christmas Carol), a melancholy soul trying to figure out how to live his life.

I was entranced and bought Bayard's next book, a true-to-the-core mystery, The Pale Blue Eye, that went on to become an Edgar finalist (although it didn't win). Blue Eye also featured a young "searcher"--this time the great poet himself, Edgar Allan Poe.

This past year, Bayard has scored again with another historical mystery, The Black Tower. While the book still features a youthful man caught up in discovering what will give his life meaning, the story is much more mystery-focused than Bayard's first two similar novels.

And what a mystery it is. In Reformation France, where the wounds of the French Revolution still sting as sharply as those to come in post Civil War America, Hector Carpentier is enlisted by master detective Vidocq to determine who killed Chretien LeBlanc, who was searching out Carpentier at the time of his death. The murder leads to a deeper mystery -- is the Dauphin of France, the son of Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI, still alive?

This is a page-turner mystery that places you immediately in the world of a country teetering between monarchy and democracy, with no one quite sure if they are safe from the next "revolution." Highly, highly recommended.

Book Ads and Book Reviews: What Moves the Consumer?

2009-03-04T15:13:00.004-05:00

Recently, news hit the book world of yet another standalone book review section at a newspaper folding . The Washington Post will no longer publish its separate book section, instead placing reviews in its features section. The number of reviews is not supposed to decrease (significantly) but the review section will cease to exist.

The explanations for this that I read seemed to indicate the ad revenue wasn't there to support a standalone book section. One article suggested that publishers themselves weren't doing enough advertising to keep the section afloat. I'm hoping that was just a bit of less-than-complete reporting, because a newspaper book section should have many other advertising possibilities beyond publishers of books.

After all, a book section has an"evergreen" quality to it. Unlike the "breaking news" sections that become a trout's overcoat by evening's end, a book review section can hang around a house or business for later perusal or reference. Advertisers like that kind of staying quality. And book lovers do buy other things--dinners out, coffee at the local Starbucks, jewelry, wine, chocolate, tea. The list is endless.

Book review sections, too, are one of the few places where newspapers might have an advantage over parallel free internet sites. Sure, there are a lot of fine book reviewing web sites out there. I read them. Friends of mine read them. But I do believe that most book lovers still rely heavily on book review sections of newspapers or magazines, with established and respected editors choosing reviewers for important books, to point readers in the right direction for new offerings. That's just my speculation, based on no marketing research whatsoever.

And therein lies the problem. Marketing research probably does come into play when these decisions are made at newspapers, just as such research comes into play at publishing houses when buying and promoting books. But market research isn't perfect. Just ask the folks who came up with New Coke.

I've always been baffled, for example, by most publishers' decision to eschew advertising directly to the book reading consumer, instead focusing most promotional efforts on influencing the booksellers (book stores and vendors). Publishing is about the only segment of the entertainment industry that doesn't advertise directly to the consumer.

That will probably have to change quickly as the Kindle and Sony E-reader start pushing the electronic book market to broader audiences. With no bookstores necessary for these book purchases, publishers will have to figure out ways to reach the e-book reader directly. Why not start now looking at ways to advertise books effectively?

The only ads I've ever seen or heard for books are usually stilted things without much flash--print ads that tout reviews or blurbs, or the occasional television or radio ad with the serious, eager voiceover providing a two-sentence summary of the book and a "you must read this thriller/romance/coming-of-age story now" message that hardly convinces me to even remember its title. If these efforts worked well, you'd probably see/hear more of them.

But what about using a different approach--one that has already shown phenomenal success? I'm talking about the Oprah strategy. Oprah Winfrey need only breathe a book's name and sales skyrocket. This makes perfect sense. Don't most people buy books on the recommendation of a friend whom they trust? People trust Oprah.

Surely there are other celebrities people trust. Why don't book publishers hire such people as spokespersons? Strike a deal where the publisher determines the celebrity's reading interests, provides the celebrity with a range of books in that area the publisher wants to promote, and allows the celebrity to choose those he or she is willing to tout in well-designed "book club"-like ads that can play on television, radio and the publisher's web site?

Yes, the celebrity will be a "paid spokesperson," which will remove the sheen of objectivity from this exercise. But if done well, these promotional efforts could still influence readers.

If book publishers opted for more traditional television or radio ads, I would suggest taking a page from perfume ads that run at holiday times--moody scene-setters with breathy voiceovers that tell a story in a few seconds, a story you usually want to know more about (even if you do sometimes roll your eyes at the zaniness or sentimentality!).

Those are a few ideas from this author who has no idea what book promotion budgets are at publishing houses, big or small!

I'd love to hear your ideas, readers and writers, on what kinds of direct-to-consumer ads would move you to take a look at specific books or which celebrity spokespersons you'd choose to promote books!

Interpreting Rejection Letters

2008-12-27T08:35:00.005-05:00

Almost every author has experienced rejection. Usually, lots of it. I'm no exception. I have file folders full of rejection notes, from agents and editors alike.

When I first started writing seriously, in fact, I began measuring my progress by the type of rejection letter I was receiving: starting with form letters ("Dear Author...."), moving to short personal letters ("Dear Libby...not right for us..."), and on to longer, more thoughtful letters with more specific reasons why my manuscript didn't work for the editor or agent.

Whenever I received a longer rejection letter, I'd pore over the words trying to unlock the "real" meaning of what the editor was saying, looking for some magic fairy dust I could sprinkle on future manuscripts to make them sell.

Now I find myself in the ironic position of writing rejection letters too. Several months ago, I took a freelance job reading manuscripts for a publisher. I write up recommendations for the purchasing editors. And without thinking about it, I've started using some of the phrases that popped up in rejection letters to me. Now at last, I think I know what they mean. Here are my interpretations of two such phrases, which always had me scratching my head and pondering their meaning:

Sadly, this is a pass for me: My reaction to this frequent letter-closer was always something like this: "Sadly? Sadly? Why not make yourself happy and accept my gem of a manuscript? Then you won't be sad any longer!" But once I used that phrase myself, I knew what the editor was feeling. Here's what I meant when I used it: I really wanted to love this. It had so many great elements and it's clear the author has talent. I was rooting for it even as I stumbled over its flaws. But eventually the flaws made me realize this book wouldn't work without substantial revision. I'm not opposed to working with an author on revision, but this one requires a lot of "pulling apart at the seams" in order for it to work for me. And what if the author doesn't agree to the edits? What if she digs in her heels and says "this is the book you bought?" Nope. Can't take that chance. So......sadly, this is a pass for me......

The writing wasn't strong enough: Ouch. This hurt when I'd see it show up in rejection letters. I always thought it meant the editor believed I was a lousy writer. My reaction: "Say it isn't so! I was at least competent--right, right, right?" Well, yeah, right.

I had to think about this a long time to figure out what I meant when I found myself using this phrase. And here's my conclusion -- for a book to work for me, it has to have three key ingredients, all of which have to be good to great, but at least one of which has to be way above average: characterizations, plotting, writing. So, a fantastic yarn -- a story with magnificent characters and plot -- can pull me through a story even with so-so writing. (I can think of at least one recent bestseller that fits that description, in fact.)

But if all three of those elements are merely competent or even just "good," the book doesn't tug me along; it doesn't force me to turn its pages.

Is it possible for the writing to be excellent and the other elements missing? Sure, and then the rejection letter would focus on those. But when the plotting and characterizations are good to even very good, but the writing doesn't cry out --Listen. To. Me.-- then the book doesn't work. And that's when I look at the lovely characters and the intelligent plot and sigh. And find myself saying....the writing wasn't strong enough.

I hope this helps other writers interpret these common phrases. It's possible editors and agents mean different things with them, but I suspect my interpretations are pretty close.

FREE BOOK: Mystery Novel

2008-09-27T13:34:00.004-05:00

Although I'm the author of four teen (or YA -- "young adult") mysteries, I've not yet published an adult mystery. My published adult books are women's fiction--lighter fare written under my maiden name, Libby Malin.

To help draw attention to my YA mysteries, I am offering readers a freebie--a full adult mystery novel available for download from my web site at: www.LibbysBooks.com

Death is the Cool Night is set in the world of opera, in my native Baltimore, in the months before December 7, 1941. Its operatic tale follows the lives of five main characters who become connected through the death of a villainous conductor. I hope you enjoy it! Please let me know your thoughts by emailing me at: Libby_Sternberg@hotmail.com

Bancroft Press

2008-07-13T18:27:00.004-05:00

Recently I deigned to participate in a phone survey. It was from my alma mater and it dealt with the alumni magazine--a confluence of two subjects in which I'm interested on different levels. At the end of the survey, the interviewer went through some standard demographic questions, one of which was: what was my occupation? "Novelist," I answered, with no hesitation.

Novelist. When I look back at how it has come to pass that I'm able to say, with no qualifiers, with, in fact, a sense of pride, that I am a novelist, I know I owe a debt of gratitude to many people. My family is among them, cheerleaders extraordinaire. They know who they are and why I owe them.

But among the crowd of folks to whom I owe a deep debt of gratitude is the publisher who first took a chance on me--Bancroft Press.

In the publishing world, there's a lot of gnashing of teeth and moaning and whining about how Big Corporations are having negative effects on the book "industry." Big Box Stores. Big New York Houses owned by Big Multinational Corporations. Big. Big. Big.

Bancroft is a small, independent press. No multinationals pull its strings. Just a courageous publisher operating out of a tiny corner of Baltimore, Maryland looking for "books that enlighten."

That publisher is Bruce L. Bortz. I knew Bruce before he started his publishing business. And when I finally decided to give in to my muse and start writing novels (thanks, in large part, to the continuing encouragement of my sister), I sent Bruce some of my stuff.

He liked it. But I was writing adult novels in a genre he wasn't handling. In fact, he was just starting to publish young adult novels (YA) at the time and wanted to know if I had an interest in that genre. Well, no, I didn't.

Not at first, that is. I thought about it. I remembered how reading the Trixie Belden mystery series turned me on to reading when I was a kid. And I decided that I would like to try to write books like that, books that ignited in young readers the desire to....read more. And to keep on reading.

So I put stylus to parchment (or rather, ink jet to paper) and wrote Uncovering Sadie's Secrets, the first Bianca Balducci mystery. Bruce loved it and offered a contract. I accepted, still thinking that somewhere out there was my Future as a Wildly Successful and Respected Adult Novelist.

While I waited for that fate to catch me, Sadie became an Edgar finalist. The paperback rights to it and its sequel, Finding the Forger, were sold to Dorchester Publishing (an independent New York City house). I went on to sell a "chick lit" book to Harlequin's Red Dress Ink, and recently a romantic comedy to Sourcebooks (another independent publisher), the film rights to which have already been optioned.

Without Bruce and Bancroft Press, these things either wouldn't have happened or would have been extremely unlikely.

Bruce loved Bianca and her stories, yes. But he also saw a spark that, if tended well, could be coaxed into a glow. He was willing to take the time and effort to nurture that flame. This is an important point, one that distinguishes him from the crowd.

Authors who submit regularly to publishing houses know it's not unusual to get glowing rejection letters (some of which read almost like back-cover blurbs!), many of them ending with...But I didn't fall in love with it.

I never sense Bruce has to "fall in love" with a book to see its potential. In fact, potential is the key to acceptance with him. If he sees the bones of a great manuscript and the sparkle of a good writer, he is willing to take a chance and help the author shape his or her manuscript into something publishable.

(It's important to note here that, like some Big Houses and their editors, Bancroft Press operates an editing services component of its business, but this is separate from the publishing arm in that no author is told they should use the editing services to enhance their chances of getting published by Bancroft. Nor is this ever implied.)

Bruce matches his editorial support with marketing back-up as well. Bancroft Press does everything within its power to promote its books, from advertising in industry publications to providing boxes of ARCs for potential reviewers and blurbers and more. Much more. If I had a marketing idea that Bruce bought into, his first reaction was, "How much does it cost? I'll help pay for that." Once he commits to an author, he doesn't back down.

I came to realize what a special attribute this was as I made friends in the book industry. It wasn't unusual to hear tales of woe from authors published by large houses about everything from lack of marketing support to delays in check delivery.

Other Bancroft authors I contacted at random have similar good things to say about Bruce and his Little Press that Could:

From my first conversation with Bruce Bortz, I knew that Bancroft Press was not representative of the cutthroat, jump-on-the-latest-hot-trend publishers that so many in the industry have become. Bruce was interested in the quality of the work and made it clear that he would want to publish my novel only if he was certain that he could make it better without compromising the work's integrity. And he did exactly what he promised. Bruce and Bancroft editor Harrison Demcheck offered unerring advice and a strong sense of teamwork that made the editorial process enjoyable and gave a great boost to my creative confidence. -- Ron Cooper, author of the satirical Hume's Fork, called by novelist and MacArthur Fellow Rebecca Goldstein a "mix of zaniness and erudition, satire and insight . . . as delicious as it is original."

I have had the pleasure of working with Bruce Bortz and Bancroft Press for the publication of my two novels, Mia the Meek and Mia the Melodramatic. Bruce's personal attention, excellent revision skills, and business savvy have been instrumental in launching my writing career. My books were designed and crafted with the ultimate professionalism and are an example of the thoughtful consideration Bancroft Press gives to each detail of the publishing process. -- Eileen Boggess, author of Mia the Meek and Mia the Melodramatic, called by a teen reviewer for Flamingnet.com: "...amazing, extremely hilarious, laugh-out-loud.... "

Bruce and Harrison certainly have a passion for publishing. They constantly strive to produce the best work possible and encourage the writer to move forward in his or her writing career. Like all passions, it can be a blessing and a curse. Certainly, the blessing is the opportunity to see new novelists succeed. And the curse is the continuous rewrites that must be done to move towards a better final product. They do both well. -- Andy Harp, author of A Northern Thunder, called by Booklist "heart pounding."

Their plaudits are matched by Bancroft's record: five Bancroft books were sold to mass market paperback, seven to book clubs, four to the movies and television, four to a foreign publisher, three to audio book publishers and two to serial sales. In the YA area, Bancroft has one Alex Award winner, one Edgar finalist, and one Booklist starred review author.

That's a pretty good track record for a very small press. Some imprints of large houses would be happy to claim it.

The point of this blogpost is that starting with a small press can jump start your publishing career. Yes, you should be careful. You should scrutinize any offered contract to make sure your rights as an author are protected. Look at publication date windows, options clauses, and subsidiary rights. Follow up when delivery of checks are due.

But don't eschew small independent presses just because they're "small." Bancroft Press is a shining example of a small press that can launch authors' careers.

Thanks, Bruce, for taking a chance on this author.

The Story of FIRE ME

2008-02-27T14:36:00.006-05:00

New Year's Resolution: blog more.

Well, I guess that resolution didn't last long! Here it is the end of February and I'm posting for the first time this year. In my defense, I've been busy. I know I have. I've been doing....things. Lots of them. Busily.

Actually I have been writing, after experiencing something of a drop into Writer's Doldrums where the winds of creativity went out of my sails. This period was created by holiday activities as well as a general loss of direction. I wasn't sure where I wanted to go next with my writing, whether to tinker with old manuscripts (which I did) or to start new ones (ditto) or to move forward with revisions of those currently under contract (one down, one to go). While my mind isn't completely clear yet on which direction I want to head in, my thoughts are beginning to settle on a few ideas. And I did finish one revision!

For some time now, though, I've wanted to write a blog post about that other manuscript now headed for revision. Called Fire Me, it recently sold to Sourcebooks. Prior to that, film rights were optioned by Landscape Entertainment.

Book biz insiders know that's not the way it's usually done. Most of the time, book rights sell first and then, if you're lucky, film rights will follow.

I say "if you're lucky" because I've come to the conclusion that some (maybe even many?) literary agents don't like to deal with film rights. The reasoning is simple and understandable: when a film is optioned, the money up front isn't likely to be high, unless you're a bestseller. In fact, some producers offer no money for the initial option (the period of time the producer has to try to advance the project into a film). The ultimate purchase price might be sweet, but that amount is only disbursed if the project becomes a film.

Many projects can be optioned for film but languish in the options stages, never to have the Klieg lights of stardom shining on their brilliance. So agents could put a lot of time and effort into landing and negotiating film deals for what probably amounts to minimum wage or less by the time they've calculated their hours.

Writers need to be aware of this because you might assume, as I did at first, that your manuscripts automatically go to your agency's film agent and on to dazzle Hollywood producers after that. In reality, literary agents might not even pitch all of their clients' works to their subagents working on film rights. And if they do, the film agents themselves probably winnow the list down to those that are most likely to succeed.

So if selling film rights is a priority for you, you will probably have to nudge your agent in that direction.

In my case, I had a manuscript, Fire Me, that I believed had a "killer premise" (to quote the LA Times article that appeared about this deal), one that I'd always envisioned taking to film. I even suggested that my agent try to sell book and film rights simultaneously.

Fire Me tells the tale of Anne Wyatt, a communications expert at a business improvement firm, who goes into work one day with the intention of handing in her resignation. When she learns the boss intends to lay off an employee by the end of the day, she races to grab the pink slip and the severance pay package that goes with it.

While the story is filled with comedic moments, it is also bittersweet as Anne makes discoveries about herself and where she's going, about whether she's made the right choices in men and in life in general.

The only problem with this tale? It fit into the "chick lit" genre and we were hitting the market with it at a time when pink-covered books were disappearing from bookstore tables. The chick lit market was tanking.

This was confirmed when rejections from publishers started coming in. Glowing praise followed by the inevitable "but..." But in this tight market.....

I'm a leave-no-stone-unturned kind of gal, though, so I posted on Publishers Marketplace, an industry-read subscription website, that the rights to this project were available.

Before I go on, let me point out that I know some insiders think that posting rights' availability on sites like Publishers Marketplace makes you look desperate. But I figured I might as well use the services at that site, since I was paying for the subscription.

Besides, Publishers Marketplace lists thousands of rights postings. I doubted if publishers and editors were trolling those lists, tsk-tsking over who was posting there. My guess was that the only people giving those listings a serious look were either a) writers themselves, or b) people actually interested in buying or representing projects.

And this is what happened with my post. I actually received several queries from people interested in Fire Me's film potential. A team of writers approached me about turning it into a script and pitching it to Big Name Producers. Several more folks contacted me, some of them agents.

Serious interest came, however, from a woman named Amy Byer. She was connected at the time with a Hollywood management and agent firm. She asked to see the manuscript, read it, and fell in love. I notified my agent and negotiations began.

And then....petered out. Amy left her firm and flew solo, taking the project with her. I signed what's called a "shopping agreement" with her, so she could continue to market the project to producers.

Along the way, my agent and I parted ways, but she remained agent-of-record for the film part of this manuscript submission, since it had started on her watch.

Meanwhile, Amy, an incredibly dynamic and energetic individual, never lost her enthusiasm for Fire Me and kept me posted about her activities -- who she was pitching to, what their initial reactions were.

In a relatively short time, it was no surprise that her efforts paid off. She had interest from a talented producer, Bob Cooper, who had his own firm, Landscape Entertainment, after heading HBO Pictures for many years and being involved with such well-known movies as My Best Friend's Wedding and American Beauty.

The project was at last optioned, even though it had yet to sell to a publisher. What was happening on that front?

When Amy first expressed interest in the manuscript, I thought this was an excellent opportunity to re-approach editors who'd praised it but rejected for market reasons. After all, a film deal could increase the "marketability" of the book at some point. My former agent was less than enthusiastic about this strategy. As a former editor, she knew that film interest alone didn't guarantee an actual film. Editors will just roll their eyes, she informed me, if told that this rejected manuscript now had legitimate film interest.

Her lukewarm opinion didn't prevent her from giving me the green light to revisit editors on my own, however. So I contacted editors who'd seen it and tried again, even reconfiguring the manuscript from a chick lit full to a romantic comedy proposal. This resulted in heartbreakingly close possibilities, with the manuscript being re-read, re-liked, and sent to the editorial team for consideration in a couple instances. Many writers have been in that place. Do I need to explain what happened next?

It was shot down again by several editors, and the reasons can probably be recited by any writer whose manuscripts have been in similar situations -- good story, good writing, good everything.....but....still too "chick-litty" or "didn't fall in love" or "doesn't quite fit our imprint" or....you know (and don't forget the "congratulations on the film deal....").

I continued to submit it to publishers on my own, including with the submissions a link to an LA Times article that appeared about the deal and its unusual progression -- selling to film before selling to a publisher.

And I also landed a new agent just as a respected independent publisher, Sourcebooks, made an offer on the rom com proposal.

The book is now slated to appear in spring 2009. I'm happy with the book deal, happy with the film deal, and happy that I broke so many rules to land them both. I believed in this manuscript and I had more to gain than to lose by doing a film deal before the book deal.

The so-called rules that I broke, by the way, are these:

1. You don't sell film rights before book rights.
2. You don't post available rights on Publishers Marketplace because it makes you look desperate.
3. You don't sell book rights to a novel on proposal.

The moral of the story for writers is that you have to look out for yourself and do what you can to move projects forward. Your agents, as kind or sweet or competent as they might be, sometimes have other priorities that don't overlap yours. You are the only one who has the time, energy and incentive to go for the deals you really want.

I've asked other writers for their own "rule breaking" stories and will be posting those soon.

Happy New Year!

About those MWA standards....

2007-09-04T08:13:00.001-05:00

Controversy continues to dog the new Mystery Writers of America (MWA) standards for admission and for entry into their famous Edgar contest. Over the past year, MWA has gone from being an inclusive organization (one that admits virtually anyone and allows virtually any author to enter their contest) to an exclusive one (excluding people on the basis of newly-configured standards).

I've posted my thoughts already on whether I think such standards really help authors -- assuming, of course, that at least part of the goal of the new standards is to help authors. But that post was rather...oblique. (See "Don't Ignore the Small Press" below.) I didn't name MWA in that post and I cushioned my remarks about the MWA standards with other opinions on how to survive as an author in what is essentially a buyer's, not seller's, market.

My goal in that post was not to specifically criticize MWA so much as to point out how creating new opportunities for authors helps them, even if these opportunities occur outside the mainstream, or NYC-centric publishing circles.

But now, the discussion of MWA's new standards has appeared on several other venues, including a mystery readers/writers/booksellers group and various blogs and writing lists. Through one of these, I've learned that some internet book review sites might be using the new standards as a guide in determining which books to review. So I've begun speaking out more.

Pasted below, in fact, are some comments I recently offered on a writers' email group when the subject of MWA's standards came up:

All professional organizations can have standards for admission. I don't have a problem with that. My beef with the MWA standards is that they are inconsistently applied and don't accomplish what the organization claims is their goal. It is my understanding that MWA decided to set standards at least in part to help protect unsuspecting writers from predatory practices. Therefore, for example, they decided that in order to be approved as a publisher, you can't offer things like editing services on the side.

Then how does Harlequin get on the approved list? They have offered critiquing/editing services to writers for several years now. They promote these services on every page (or virtually every page) of their submission guidelines pages on their web site, thus sending the implicit message that if you use those services....you might have a better chance.

My first YA mystery was an Edgar nominee. It was published by a small press. This same small press is not on the approved list now because they, like Harlequin, offer editing services (not tied to publication).

When I petitioned MWA to reconsider (so that I could enter my latest release in the Edgars -- it, too, is published by this small press) I pointed out the Harlequin example, but I was told that Harlequin's editing services are a smaller component of its overall business than those same services are to my small press' publisher.

I can't imagine that MWA asked to see the accounts of either press in order to make this determination. And, I really don't think it matters. If MWA sincerely believes that offering editing services sends the wrong message to writers....then Harlequin should be off the approved list.

But I'm not advocating that Harlequin be taken off the list. I'm advocating that MWA rethink some of these standards, maybe using a broader standard, such as that used by the Authors Guild, to determine who qualifies as a bona fide author and a bona fide publisher. Then if MWA wants to help warn writers away from predatory publishers, start a blog or devote a portion of their newsletter/web site to unmasking such publishers.

Since posting on DorothyL about my experiences, I've heard from and read of several other authors who have been hurt or offended by the MWA standards, including:

1. A writer who writes with a co-author. The co-author can't join MWA because of the new standards but the other author can because she joined before the standards were in place -- so one gets in and the other doesn't (on the basis of the same book, same publisher).

2. An author (also a lawyer) who joined MWA hoping for support and collegiality after having her first book published by an approved press, only to find the standards changed after she joined, resulting in her publisher no longer being approved.

3. An author who is upset that MWA does not support the work of some writers who have started web sites to warn other writers of predatory practices.

4. An author who went to the web site of an approved small press only to find out the link to their mystery imprint is broken and they really don't publish mystery any longer. Why are they on the approved list? This author speculates that it might be because an MWA board member is published by them.

5. An author who cannot join because she's published by a small press not on the approved list....yet she'd heard of this small press through an MWA newsletter article.

I'm very grateful to the Edgar nod I received three years ago for my first book. It meant the world to me -- and probably helped me land a better agent and bigger book deal. I wish MWA would see that the way to help authors -- even if you want to tighten membership standards -- is to present them with more, not fewer, opportunities.

What Are Editors Thinking

2007-06-05T07:38:00.001-05:00

I was rummaging through my writing files and found some notes from a conversation I had with an editor a year or so ago. This editor was bemoaning the state of the business. His/her comments are still apt so I thought I'd share (and keep his/her identity tres secret so as not to harm said editor, even inadvertently). I'm paraphrasing, but the excerpt below is true to the meaning of the conversation:

Big publishing companies are not run by the editorial department. They're not even run by people who truly love to read. Unfortunately, they're run by the marketing department. The people in marketing might not have degrees in English or Comparative Literature or anything like that. A lot of them were hired right out of college and landed an entry-level position. A lot of these people just look at what other publishers are doing -- they watch trends -- and steer acquisition decisions based on that....

How does this play out? Marketing might issue a decree telling editors to acquire lots of historical fiction or paranormals or Da Vince Code-type books, based on trends they think they see in the bookbuying marketplace....

This leads to pigeonholing or branding of authors. So if you're known to write a certain kind of book, they feel it's too risky to have you do a different kind of book. You'd have to use a pseudonym...

Okay, here are my comments on this Tale of Woe: I don't have a concern about editors having degrees in English or Comparative Literature or the like as long as they're well-read and have a skillful, intuitive sense for what makes a good book that will appeal to their publisher's readers.

Therein lies the problem with the "marketing" approach, though. Too often, I think marketing folks not only lack that "skillful, intuitive" sense of what appeals to readers. They also misread readers from a purely market-based perspective.

They see the success of a Phillipa Gregory, say, and they think "aha, historical fiction from the Tudor and similar periods is hot hot hot..." ignoring any other attribute that might have led to Gregory's success. Was it only the historical nature of the book? Or were there other essential qualities that were key to its buzz?

If you strip The Other Boleyn Girl of its historical setting, it's a straightforward piece of Women's Fiction, told in the first person, a relatively quiet story about a woman grappling with a marriage with no love, a powerful lover, family intrigue and ultimately domestic happiness. Oh, yeah, because of the historical setting you do learn along the way a bunch you might not have known about the court of Henry VIII. So while the historical aspect of the story is important, so too is that other key element -- a woman's journey through life, engagingly told against the backdrop of Important Events. I even characterize it as a "quiet" story, despite its dramatic background. (Yet "quiet" seems to be the Kiss of Death with editors for many manuscripts today. Sigh.)

Similarly, perhaps part of the attraction of readers to The Da Vinci Code came from a hunger for religious insights that startle and surprise the way Bible stories once did in Sunday School. Part of the trend to follow here, in other words, might not just be "mystery/suspense with religious puzzles" but rather, "books that make readers re-evaluate what they know about religion and spirituality." Those books don't need to be knock-offs of Da Vinci. They could even be in different genres, as long as they satisfied readers' hunger for the complex wonder of rediscovering religious/spiritual stories, for books that make those stories come alive.

In fact, I would even go so far as to say that The Secret Life of Bees, with its fresh take on a spiritual/religious angle (adoration of Mary) has more in common with the appeal of The Da Vinci Code than the trend-following mysteries bought in the wake of Da Vinci's success.

The point I'm trying to make here is that I have no quibble with publishers trying to identify trends and buying books to satisfy those trends. Publishers are out to make money, after all, and I don't begrudge them that. I want to make money too!

But sniffing out trends is more than looking at the success of Bestseller X and thinking "hmm, it's a vampire erotica told in the first person, must buy more, more, more..."

I guess I would liken that kind of wrong market identification to, say, a big soda company executive looking at the success of Coca-Cola and deciding that the key to mimicking it lies largely with putting the company's rather bland-tasting soda in a red can. Yeah, some folks might fall for it. For a short time.

In the long run, though, that misguided approach to "marketing" leads to jaded consumers skittish about your offerings.

Don't Ignore the Small Press

2007-05-25T14:45:00.001-05:00

It's a buyer's market.

That means there are more of us sellers -- writers -- than there are of the buyers -- editors. In fact, there are a lot more of us sellers than buyers, which slants the power seesaw in whatever direction the buyers want.

In a nutshell, this is why it's so difficult for your Average Jane/Joe writer to get attention or even a good deal. Agents and editors are receiving hundreds -- nay, thousands -- of submissions from your sisters and brothers every day. Yes, there's a chance you are the Next Big Thing and editors should jump on the opportunity to buy your manuscript. But that thought is competing with the chance that the manuscript under yours in the pile is the Next Bigger Thing and the one under it is the Next Biggest Thing.

So what's a writer to do?

First, ignore any publisher who says "no simultaneous submissions." I don't know how many publishers post this in their submission guidelines any longer. I hope none. Editors take a lonnnnnnnng time to look over some submissions. If you're unagented, you could end up waiting six months or more for a reply. Even with a good agent, a month to six weeks isn't unusual (or even unreasonable) for submission review

Do the math. If you submit to only one editor at a time (instead of submitting to several simultaneously), and patiently wait for a response before moving on to the next editor, how old will you be before a dozen editors see your masterpiece?

Second....don't ignore publishers outside of New York. I'm published by both New York-based publishers and a small press in Baltimore. The small press launched me, publishing my first YA mystery which went on to become an Edgar nominee. That springboard in turn opened other doors.

Without that small press, who knows where I'd be?

I've gone back to that publisher with a book that will be out in November, The Case Against My Brother, my first historical YA mystery.

A moment of writerly honesty: I'd shopped Case around to New York houses, received some lovely comments as well as some lukewarm ones. Most of the time, the rejections were based on
marketing issues or the fact that the editor hadn't "fallen in love" with the book.

The editor of the small press, however, saw the book's market potential (it has strong appeal to Catholic schools because it deals with an anti-Catholic campaign in the early 1920s) and saw the story's and characters' potential as well.

The editing process for Case included quite a bit of back and forth over the protagonist's motivations and actions. By the time we were finished, I knew the book was much, much stronger (and might have even satisfied some of the New York editors who'd been so complimentary yet still passed).

In short, the small press took the time to work with me on a manuscript in which they saw a great deal of potential. We're getting some great pre-publication blurbs (you can check them out at www.LibbysBooks.com) that affirm the publisher's judgment.

Like almost all presses, though, this one isn't without its critics. Some disgruntled authors and inaccurate info posted on a blog have dimmed the glow of an otherwise quality press that has launched several writers to larger houses and more lucrative careers and earned numerous awards for its books.

I've seen similar grumbling about other small presses pop up on writer email loops, with critics bashing the beejeebies out of a press and defenders chatting up their good treatment and gratitude. Maybe because small presses are, well, small, criticism of them by any author is proportionally louder.

Let me make this clear: any writer who is subjected to unfair, illegal, or unethical treatment has the right to squawk, to take action, to warn other writers. And all writers should be careful when dealing with lesser-known businesses.

But no press -- large or small -- is immune to criticism, some legitimate, some not, some picayune, some serious. Simon and Schuster is taking a beating this week because of alleged changes to its contracts that are unfair to writers, and other presses have felt the sting of criticism from writers and agents alike because of activities that are not always on the highest plain. Writer friends of mine regularly complain about the length of time it takes to get their checks from Big Publisher X, or the lack of marketing support from Big Publisher Y. These are not small things.

Don't assume that large presses always offer a higher level of decent treatment, respect or support. The point is that while big, New York-based publishing houses offer writers important advantages -- distribution, larger print runs, sometimes (but not always) larger advance checks -- small presses can offer crucial opportunities as well -- the chance to be reviewed, to receive awards, to be read by folks outside one's family. To grow as a writer.

All presses should treat their writers fairly. But small presses shouldn't be held to a higher standard. Documented illegal or unethical treatment should get bad presses on the black list, not anecdotes.

Why am I writing about this? For two reasons. I recently learned that my small press doesn't make the "approved" list of a large writing organization. From what I can tell, this blacklisting is related to some of the "grumbling" I mentioned above and to inaccurate information about the services the press offers.

This lack of "approval" is a disappointment to me but doesn't damage me personally. It keeps me from entering Case in a competition, but I've already received kudos and awards for my books that will follow me from book to book and house to house.

However, I believe this blacklisting is unjust in this case and counterproductive. It does nothing to help writers. Yes, draw attention to presses and business practices in general that are not beneficial to writers. But for goodness' sake, don't narrow the door through which writers can pass to success. Capriciously labeling some presses as approved and others (that engage in the same practices) not does nothing to further writers' interests.

Small presses are extremely important. They often publish books that larger presses won't take on. They can launch talented writers whose work doesn't immediately appeal to those who work in the Manhattan publishing bubble. They can even sometimes achieve phenomenal success for a writer if the moment and talent are right.

Small presses change the power equation. If small presses become more firmly entrenched in the publishing landscape, accepted by writers, reviewers, writing organizations and the like....that means there are more "acceptable" buyers. Still not as many buyers as sellers. But more buyers nonetheless.

Having more buyers for our wares is a good thing for writers.

Getting Started as a Writer

2007-05-19T18:13:00.001-05:00

Most writers I know have embarrassing stories to tell about the first forays into the publishing world. I've read numerous articles, for example, about writers who wondered if they should choose the three best chapters of their manuscript to send to an editor when submission guidelines specified: "synopsis and three chapters."

(The answer is: no, send the first three chapters, or roughly 50 pages...Oh, and if the guidelines say send a synopsis and 50 pages, don't rigidly interpret that to mean only 50 pages and not a comma more. If the scene on page 50 doesn't end until page 70 and it's a fantastic piece of writing, then take the chance and send 70 pages.)

I, myself, have this blush-inducing story to share: when I was first trying to get published in romance, I wrote query letters that encouraged editors to read my exquisitely-crafted stories because...my sister, a huge romance fan, thought they were great.

Yes, I said that.

The point is that most writers start out not knowing the business, not knowing the standards of professionalism, not knowing how to promote themselves to editors or agents. And why should they know? Most of them trained to be something else. Few went through writing programs that explored the business side of things.

So my first piece of advice is...unless you do something spectacularly rude, don't beat yourself up for not knowing the rules. There really is only one simple rule, in fact. It's the rule that applies in every other line of work as well. You know, that shiny, sparkly one. The Golden Rule.

Treat others -- agents, editors, fellow writers -- the way you'd like them to treat you.

Oddly enough, this will give you new confidence. Instead of chewing your fingernails waiting for six months to hear back from an agent who asked to see your full manuscript with a breathless excitement that had you choosing a new wardrobe with the advance you were surely going to make, call or email the agent with a polite inquiry about the submission. You shouldn't be treated to a half year's wait to learn that the agent no longer thinks you're the next...(fill in the blank with Bestselling Novelist's Name).

Beyond the general "how should I behave" rule, though, here's the best advice I can give a beginner:

Spend as much time learning about the business as you do writing.
This was a really hard lesson for me to learn. After all, being a writer meant you didn't have to do all that other...worky stuff. Being a writer meant you could be creative while other people -- copy editors, typesetters, publicists, agents, etc. -- got to do the worky stuff.

Nope, at least at the outset, you have to invest a goodly amount of time in learning a few key pieces of info -- who represents what, who's buying what, and even what's selling. This will take some time, some notepaper, and maybe even a pencil or pen.

The reason for this research is simple -- you need to get your precious manuscripts into the right hands. There's no point in sending your mystery/thriller to an agent who handles mostly children's and romance.

The research is about more than avoiding mistakes, though. It's about finding opportunity. You might, in the course of your diligent study, discover an agent whose outlook and area of specialization is so sympatico with your own that it will feel like striking gold.

How do you get started? Well, one way is to take a notebook with you to the bookstore. Look at books, particularly those similar to your own. Look at the dedications and acknowledgments. Authors often mention their agents and/or editors in these sections.

Subscribe to Publishers Marketplace (www.publishersmarketplace.com) , at least signing up for the free weekly newsletter that rounds up the week's deals. If you have the cash, spring for the paid subscription that allows you to search past deals and has other great features.

Use other web sites as well. (For quick profiles of agents, try www.agentquery.com.)
And, even use the "search within the book" feature at amazon.com, plunking in names of agents or editors to see where they turn up (again, in acknowledgments and dedications).

Join writers groups -- online groups are great if you can find a supportive mix of published and unpublished folks -- to learn as much as you can.

And don't feel stupid. Chances are if you make a mistake, someone else has made it before.

Like the writer who once thought all you needed to do was send a manuscript to "Simon and Schuster" to have it considered for publication.

Uh...that would be a writer a lot like me. Yeah, I did that once. A long time ago in a galaxy far away.

In the coming weeks, I'll address some other topics of grave importance to writers -- like fonts and lines per page. And small presses vs. large presses. And people who think of themselves as "champions of writers" and...lots and lots of stuff.

About Writing...and Other Stuff

2007-05-19T18:08:00.000-05:00

Welcome to my blog.

She said nervously.

For some time now, my daughter has urged me to start a blog. My daughter is my cheerleader. She loves my books (or is awfully good at pretending).

Anyway, she has encouraged me to blog because she believes that blogs attract readers, and novelists need readers.

I resisted blogging because I didn't think I had enough of interest to say (and perhaps you're snorting out your agreement at this very moment). I've done my share of opining on other topics in the past, but writing a regular blog seemed like an invitation to babble.

Don't get me wrong -- I'm a World Class Babbler. But usually only to family and friends.

Lately, however, I've had a few things on my mind that I think might be at least marginally interesting, particularly to other writers.

So, here I am...and here's my first pearl of wisdom...