Shoutout to Debut Authors by Terry Shames

 

Terry here, and here’s our subject this week: Let’s do a shout-out to the debut authors. What’s a wonderful book by a first time crime fiction author you’ve read in the last six months? 

 Is it just me, or are debut authors getting better? Some of the debut books I’ve read in the past couple of years have blown me away. When I read Please See Us, Caitlin Mullen’s 2021 debut, I noted in my reading list, “Absolutely brilliant. If this is a debut, I shudder to think what some of her future books will be.” I was not surprised that it won the Edgar Award among a field of other amazing debuts that included, the riveting Darling Rose Gold, by Stephanie Wrobel, and the absolutely fabulous Winter Counts, by David Heska Wanbli Weiden. I have yet to get to Catherine House, by Elisabeth Thomas, or Murder in Old Bombay, by Nev March. I’m told that both novels are terrific. 

 In the past year, Wanda Morris has gotten a lot of buzz with her debut novel All Her Little Secrets, winning the Macavity Award and a Lefty Award for Best first Novel. The story is riveting, and the writing is top-notch.

I look forward to her second, Any Where You Run, which comes out next week, October 25! And then there’s Arsenic and Adobo, by Mia P. Manansala. Another multiple nominee who won the Anthony Award in 2022. 

 Looking at the last couple of years’ debut novels, I’m struck by how few I manage to read, and how many I want to read. I suppose I’ll get around to them eventually. I’m in the middle of Jamie Mason’s Three Graves Full, which I was astonished to find was Mason’s debut novel. It’s so damn good! 

 But here’s the thing I think makes debut novels so spectacular these days. They are highly polished because they have to be to find a publishing home. Agents and/or editors won’t look past page two of a submission that isn’t honed to near-perfection. I’ve read several novels by experienced, published writers that I don’t think would get a full reading from an agent if it were a first submission. 

 I started writing in the days when agents would take on a “pretty good” read, because editors were poised to polish diamonds in the rough. Somewhere around the eighties (or nineties?), publishing changed. There were fewer editors, and they didn’t have the time to carve a good book out of a decent story. It fell to agents to spot the best among their submissions and work with authors to hone them until they could be presented to editors as polished work. Before the eighties, writers could work largely in a vacuum and send off what they hoped would be a “discovery.” 

These days, before a fledgling writers even attempts to find an agent, they will workshop the novel with writers groups, beta readers, manuscript swaps, and even professional editors. They probably don’t all do this. There are probably writers who simply know deep in their bones what makes a good book. I don’t know whether the authors I mentioned above fall into that category or whether they wrote, rewrote, got advice, found readers, rewrote, and found an agent who recognized the quality of the work. And then got hooked up with an editor who made the words golden. 

 I also think another thing that makes debut novels so good is that often the writer has had all those words pent up for years, and finally set them loose! I know these days my novels take a few months to write, and a few more to edit. My first book took exactly two months to write. The words poured out. I think it’s because that book had been sitting in the back of my brain, waiting to be tapped. All I know is that the debut authors I read these days seem like seasoned veterans. 

 One more thing about debut novels. Recently there are a lot more previously-ignored writers breaking what was for so long a hateful, invisible barrier to publishing their work. I don’t want to think there was a conscious decision on the part of publishers to shut out writers of color, and LBGTQ writers. I think it was more a matter of laziness and worry about the bottom line. It was a matter of choosing the familiar, choosing the recognizable subject matter, protagonists and settings. That seems to be changing, and it’s a change that readers will be the better for. Reading about other cultures that exist right alongside my white culture, in my city, can only expand my understanding. I celebrate it! 

I’m reading and appreciating the authors who have so long been ignored in a stifling publishing culture. So here’s to debut authors—of all kinds! May they thrive.

On the Reading List - A Life of Bliss

Let’s do a shout-out to the debut authors. What’s a wonderful book by a first time crime fiction author you’ve read in the last six months?

Brenda here.

I've read one debut novel during the past six months titled A Life of Bliss, written by retired award-winning journalist Don Butler, who spent 40 years at the Ottawa Citizen, including six years as executive director.

A Life of Bliss is something of an unusual mystery with a quirky protagonist named Bliss Browning. Bliss is a travel editor who hates and fears travel. He's also got few friends and a failed marriage. The only thing that raises him out of a mundane existence is his passion for the opera star Maria Callas. 

Unexpectedly, his home computer email becomes overtaken by 'a ghost' purporting to be Callas speaking to him beyond the grave. She wants him to travel to Greece to undertake a mission on her behalf. Bliss, of course, believes himself to be hallucinating. When his boss decides he's to go on a trip to Africa that Bliss is desperate to avoid, events are set in motion, and the mystery unfolds. 

Butler calls this book "a hilarious and hopeful modern-day fable", and is a book I recommend for its originality, good writing, and well drawn characters. Life of Bliss turns out to be a most entrancing tale and a brilliant debut.

Website: www.brendachapman.ca

Facebook & Instagram: BrendaChapmanAuthor

Twitter: brendaAchapman

Kill your writing bad habits before they kill your writing, by Josh Stallings

 

Q: Most of us have a writing tic or two, a word we overuse, a tendency to start sentences with the same word, a motion every character makes. Do you have one or a few, and, if so, what do you do to guard against them?

A: My first drafts have more tics than a Swiss watch. As I learn to tame one, another rears up and bites me. An early bad habit was what editor Elizabeth White referred to as Yodaisms. I would flip the beginning and end of sentences. It took me a while to see this, and a while longer to clear out most of them before showing anything to anyone. This is like any bad habit, it requires me to name it, claim it and then kick it to the curb. (For those counting that is the third metaphor in this paragraph. This may be a new tic showing up like an unwanted dinner guest.)

I believe that first-first drafts need to be written in an edit-proof safe space. Pounded or scribbled with wild abandon, letting passion and intuition guide my mind. When this energy flags, I go back to the latest sections and clean up as well as I am able. 

I need energy to write first-first drafts, I can edit when I’m tired and grumpy. 

Another tic I struggle with, meaningless body movements. Head nods, head shakes. Smiles or grins. I used these in place of dialogue tags. Instead of, “Bobby said” I’d do linguistic backflips or clumsy body movement tags. Bob winked. Shane shrugged.

This aversion to dialogue tags started when I read Cormac McCarthy and Charlie Huston. Neither of them even needs quotation marks for you to know who’s speaking. I respect them both as writers, immensely. But I’m me, not them. 

I was hung up on the way a printed page looks. All those he/she/they saids looked cluttered.  

After driving myself mad to kill all tags, I was pleasure reading and discovered that I don’t notice the tags when I read. I went back and looked at James Crumley, an undeniable word stylist and saw - 

“Whiskey flu,” he said, “and a two goddamned hour whiskey

lunch.”

“No way,” I said, but the old man had me backing up so

that I didn't even believe myself anymore. “Not true.”

“Well,” he said…..

 I then checked the king of brevity Hemingway -

“It is very valuable,” said the lieutenant. “It tells you about those priests. You will like it,” he said to me. I smiled at the priest

and he smiled back across the candle-light. “Don't you read it,” he said.

“I will get it for you,” said the lieutenant.

“All thinking men are atheists,” the major said. “I do not believe in the Free Masons however.”

I noticed in most books I love, a bunch of people SAID things. That gave me freedom to keep it simple. 

I believe my primary job as a writer is to deliver a story that is emotionally truthful and told in a way that best makes the page disappear from the reader’s mind. I love the feeling when a book transports me to another world. And hate when either clunky or overly ornate writing takes me out of the story. 

NOTE: What I call overly ornate others call brilliant. There are books for every  palette. And isn’t that what makes reading so wonderful? 

I still find myself trying to write workarounds for dialogue tags. They are always removed by my editors. Which brings me to another conundrum. As a beginning writer I hated to hear, “You must kill off your darlings.” Why would I kill what I find darling? But my experience with multiple editors has been that those amazing paragraphs, those guaranteed Booker prize winners are always the first to go. What I love about them is also what pulls the reader out of the story.

I equate this to film editors. Anne V. Coates cut everything from Lawrence of Arabia to Out of Sight. She was nominated five times for an Oscar. She was a master at knowing the exact right length a shot should be. She cut so perfectly that you never saw her work, you saw the story. She knew, cut too quickly the audience wouldn’t have time to read a shot, hang on it too long they would feel boredom. Either confusion or boredom take a viewer out of the story. The hat trick is knowing how long it takes to read any given shot. Or in our work, how much information a reader needs to get a story point. That is the magic of this craft. Every person’s brain is different. So we write the way we want to read, and hope there are enough readers out there that have similar preferences. 

One of the best ways to kill sloppy writing habits is to have editors you trust kill them for you. And then when approving their changes take note of the ones that keep cropping up. Quiet the internal voice screaming, “Yes but I do that because…” We can’t show up at every reader’s home and explain why we did something. If we could  it would be creepy. Instead it’s best to pull up your non gendered lower body covering…

Name your tic. Claim it. And kick it to the curb.

In order of full transparency I’m leaving space at the bottom for Erika, my partner in crime and first editor, to chime in on what are her favorite of my writing tics…

Erika wrote: “I’ll never tell.”

Just A Few Wee Tics, by Catriona

CRAFT: Most of us have a writing tic or two, a word we overuse, a tendency to start sentences with the same word, a motion every character makes. Do you have one or a few, and, if so, what do you do to guard against them?

Well, Susan talked about "just" on Monday, and Gabriel talked about "that" on Tuesday. Then Cathy talked about ... yesterday. And here I come today, one of "that"'s "just"'s and "..."'s most enthusisastic practitioners and loyal friends.

I do know the rule saying "just" and "that" are crutch words. I'm not sure I believe it. I tend to wonder if the rule itself isn't used a crutch sometimes. You know - "ten top tips for good writing", "trap door to success this way".

The thing about "just", for example, is that it's an invisible word, until someone points it out. I'm not at all sure it would bug anyone who hadn't heard the rule about not using it. 

To turn to an analogy: (some) British people of a certain age don't rinse our dishes. We let the Fairy Liquid dry in and think nothing of it. When people find out, they sometimes decide they must be able to taste the residue. But no one has ever said "What's that taste?" and worked out that it came from unrinsed dishes. Similarly, I'm not sure anyone has ever wondered why a piece of writing feels bad and narrowed it down to the word "just" then gone to Google and been astounded to find a community waiting there.

Yeah, nah.

Or, maybe all of that is bunk and it's just that "just" doesn't bug me for some reason. "That" doesn't either. I get irritated (or flooded with helpless empathy, depending on mood) when I see sentences that needed a "just" but have had it amputated. Or sentences that are mangled because someone was trying to avoid a "that". These writers aren't following the (I'd say arbitrary) rules, so much as they are being flattened by them.

So maybe it's sheer cussedness and a childish resentment about being told what to do that makes me insist on hanging on to my "just"s and "that"s (and ...). Added to the fact that, as I say, they are invisible words (till they're not. Like how I never noticed the problem with house hunters, on Escape to the Country, coming into a room and gushing about how flooded with light it is, for a railway cottage, or an oasthouse, or a subterranean bunker. Then, in the summer, my mum snorted and shouted at the telly "All the lamps are on!" They were. They always are. I can't unsee it now.)

Thing is, I can be persuaded that I overuse a word when it isn't invisible. Or - to take the most common example from my writing - a word that's invisible to me but not to others (and not because they went on a course and heard a rule). 

I'm Scottish. [pause for recovery] And we say "wee" a lot. It's a modifier to make things less extreme or combative - Can you move over a wee bit, please? It's a hedger to help soften blows - I'm just going to stick a wee needle into you. It adds affection and intimacy - you're a wee sweetheart, aren't you?

But only if you're Scottish. Or Northern Irish. English James in Derry Girls, when they are all being asked to howl their rage into the night sky (trendy new English teacher), shouts "You people use "wee" to talk about things that aren't actually all that SMALL!!!"

We do. And that's fine when it's just us. But when I write a Scottish voice to be read by an English or US audience, it lands on them (you) as it lands on James: like a mystifying overuse of an extremely visible and also pointless word. I used to wait to be asked, but now I do a wee-ectomy on my draft before it leaves the house. In the book I just sent to my agent, there were 135 "wee"s in draft one and but only 47 in draft five. We'll see if they survive. 

I had a long hard think about what my other tics might be. One thing I came up with was: happy endings. And there's never going to be an -ectomy there. You can prise my hopeful and redemptive last sentence out of my cold dead laptop.

Cx

 

Here a tic, there a tic… by Cathy Ace

 CRAFT: Most of us have a writing tic or two, a word we overuse, a tendency to start sentences with the same word, a motion every character makes. Do you have one or a few, and, if so, what do you do to guard against them?

Found another one!

As a writer, I’m constantly trying to find the way to allow my true “voice” to come through on the page, without sending readers off on a rampage about how often I use a certain word/phrase. And, for me as a reader, that “voice” comes from the rhythms, vocabulary, turn of phrase, and even the pattern of punctuation, used by an author. You know what I mean – our fingerprints are all over our work: I bet you could read a book by your favorite author and know it was written by them without their name being on the cover, or their usual characters being involved.

That said…there is a line one shouldn't cross. It might be a faint line, indeed, it might be all-but transparent, and – to make things worse – it might exist in a different location for every single reader. However, I know that, if my overuse of “something” in my writing crosses it, I’ll have taken my reader out of the story - and that’s not what any author wants.

Shrugging, rolling eyes, winking, grinning…no, I’m not having a stroke, I’m listing the sorts of things I have to eradicate (or at least significantly cut back on) in my second draft.

Then there are sentences starting with BUT or AND, oh…and my favorite…my use of ellipses (which send my editor loopy!). I work hard to remove as many sets of ellipses as possible, by using different forms of punctuation, or even restructuring sentences and paragraphs. But then (confession time!) I allow some to slip back in during the final editing stages, because (especially in my Cait Morgan books, where there’s a personal POV) I want the reader to pause in their reading as my character pauses in her thinking.

“It’s a rhythm thing, so...” is one of my most overused phrases, appearing in emails to my editor with alarming regularity.

I have learned to use a universal search on my manuscript, starting with the words I overuse most, and on each pass through my work in progress I challenge myself to introduce more varied patterns of speech, or vocabulary. BUT (and it’s a BIG BUT!) I don’t want, for example, speech tags to always have to be changed from “s/he said” to “s/he interjected/squealed”, or any other irritating alternatives that make you believe the author ate a thesaurus for lunch. That bugs me.

There, I’ve said it.

Do I have tics? Oh boy, yes I do. Do I work hard to get rid of them all? Indeed. But do I allow enough to remain because they “feel” right to me? Absolutely.

 All I can hope is…that I get the balance right.

If you want to be able to form your own opinion about all this, why not try some of my books? https://www.cathyace.com/

Confessions of an Unrepentant Word Nerd by Gabriel Valjan

 

Hi, my name is Gabriel. I’m a word nerd, and a repeat offender with the words THAT and HAD.

Criminal Minds [Chorus]: Hello, Gabriel.

Today, I’d like to talk about my dysfunctional relationship with these two words that (oops, did it already) so plague my work that (d’oh) if it were not for Microsoft’s Edit-Find, my manuscript would be infested with these two blights. Once upon a time I had (eeks) identified 700 instances of THAT in a manuscript. Edit Find Next ignited two bonfires.

            A while back, Career Authors posted an article on ‘crutch words’ and Hank Phillippi Ryan (had) created a ‘hit-list’ of words that writers ought to delete on sight. The inference was that these words were specimens of lazy and ineffective writing, and authors could replace them with better, stronger, faster elements of speech, as if prose could become bionic through ruthless editing.

            Yes and No.

            My problem isn’t that my word-hoard is deficient.

My problem is that my repeat offenders are essential workhorses.

            Confession or alibi—you decide, my friends.

            The confession. My eyes see THAT as little fruit flies onscreen. When I type, I hear words as I lay them down, and THAT echoes in my ear, especially when I have a legitimate double-tap of THAT, such as: ‘I can see that that is a problem.’

            Grammar autopsy: The first ‘that’ is a conjunction; the second one, a demonstrative pronoun.

            Contemporary style veers towards the economical, and advises writers to drop one ‘that’ unless you risk ambiguity. Where I trip over THAT is when it signals subordination:

            I think THAT…

I believe THAT…

Or, the one that flails like a Muppet, ‘He said THAT.’

The rule of thumb is subordinate in exposition, but lose THAT like a bad date in dialogue.

            My relationship to both HAD and THAT stems, I believe, from a rusty wheel inside my head. A linguist friend said whatever your mother tongue, a gear exists inside your brain. It is embedded no matter what.

            English was not my first language, and though I (had) ‘lost’ my mother tongue through divorce, I’m convinced that my wheel has periodic malfunctions, but guess what? It is impossible not to use QUE (that, in Spanish) when you do subordination.

            Pienso que...

            Creo que…

            Both phrases translate to, ‘I think’, but the second one is closer to, ‘I believe.’

            THAT is necessary in Romance and Germanic languages. It cannot not be used. And then there is the other matter of the use of the subjunctive mood that has limited use in English.

            Which brings me to HAD, my other darling on the chopping block.

            Of past tenses, English and Spanish have four. German and Italian have two, and French has five. Latin, the language I took to avoid speaking a language because of my flawed hearing, has two.  As an aside, I believe that we should learn the past tense of languages first because people often talk to each other about things that happened in the past before they talk about what is happening in the present.

            The origin of my fetish for the word HAD is rooted in Latin’s pluperfect tense. A common hurdle in Latin is to distinguish between habitual and continuous action—the imperfect tense—from completed action. English has this weird thing where the present tense could be continuous or future action. The word HAD is essential for translation from Latin to English to convey a completed action.

            What do authors do to reduce instances of HAD in their work?

            They opt for the simple past. The gear inside the head of a native speaker knows implicitly (that) it’s a completed action. It’s subtle the way readers know (that) dialogue contains subtext.

            English is a hard language. Think of the word secrete; it’s pronounced two different ways and has two different meanings. How you say a word, spell it, and write it in English are often at odds with each other. What does a word nerd do?

When certain words are frequent flyers and the destination is the best possible fiction, the choices are to vary the itinerary and reassign seats—i.e., experiment with syntax—yet make sure the reader arrives safely, paragraph after paragraph; page after page.

I vow to eliminate THAT and HAD wherever possible without jeopardizing my writing or losing my reader. Thank you.

Criminal Minds [Chorus]: Thank you, Gabriel.

But It's Just a Tic!

 Q: Most of us have a writing tic or two, a word we overuse, a tendency to start sentences with the same word, a motion every character makes. Do you have one or a few, and, if so, what do you do to guard against them?

 

-from Susan

 

Yes, I do have a few. Let’s start with the infamous “just,” which pops up everywhere in the first draft. When it signals time it’s good as a placeholder but not as the final word of choice. When it means merely, I use it because merely sounds old fashioned, particularly in 21^st century dialogue. I hunt it out as if it were a nasty spider, whacking it out or changing it to something else about 90% of the time. (Notice I didn’t say “just about 90%”?) Apparently, I’m not the only one afflicted with justitis. Get a group of us together over a beer and you’ll hear the laughter and groans when it comes up. All praise word search-and-replace technology!

 

During copy edits I am forced to see that I start far too many sentences with “But.” Sometimes I defend it because especially in dialogue, it works. But  Other times it’s best as a clause in the previous sentence. When I do that, I always precede the word with a comma, which seems to drive copy editors nuts. Why? I was an English major, but in comp lit. 

 

When it comes to motions I ascribe to my characters, I’m big on smiles and uplifted eyebrows. Too big. With the French series, I use a lot of shrugs, meaningful shrugs. People in my books run their hands through their hair, sigh, growl, have wobbly legs, incipient headaches, lurches of their hearts. Writing this, I realize I have underused itching, stumbling, farting, snoring, and sneezing. Must keep that in mind for the next book.

 

The core of the overuse of words and descriptive behaviors is just merely that  – overuse. In copy edits I can see where I got lazy or my imagination failed me, and I thank the editors for kindly pointing that out and even suggesting alternatives. Writing 75,000 words that hang together and tell a story is not as easy as some of our non-writing friends imagine. We soldier on, hunting down those moments when we got tired and lost concentration. Maybe I should start a fine jar and put a quarter in every time I run across a misused “just” or “but.” It might well fund my next airfare to France! 

Coming March 2023!

Death of a Salesman

 

 by Abir

 

 

The latest wisdom is that trekking to bookstores with your new book isn’t the best use of time in today’s market. So, what do you think works to promote sales and get to the place where you’re receiving royalties?

 

 

Good question this week. As my fellow writers have said, if there was some magic formula we’d all be billionaires by now, and as far as I’m aware, only among us Jim Ziskin is able to outbid Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos in the art market.

 

But as Jim wrote yesterday, if you want to be a full-time writer, the key is to work out how to focus your publicity and marketing effort in a fashion that gets you to the goal of being able to give up the day job.

 

The first thing to say is that for 99.99% of writers, this isn’t going to happen with your first, second, or even fourth book. Ian Rankin (my hero) was on his eight novel Rebus novel (Black & Blue) before he had his first no.1 bestseller, so patience is essential.

 

My first novel, A Rising Man, was published in 2016, but I started writing it in late 2013. It was 2020, and four books later, that I finally decided to risk giving up my day-job (and it is a risk, because there are no guarantees I’ll be able to make a living from this for life. Right now though, and thanks to wonderful readers, things are going well.)

 

I’ve spent a fair proportion of the last five years on marketing the books – doing everything from pounding the streets of Glasgow and Edinburgh in the snow, going to see booksellers with a trolley case to introduce myself and distribute the first proof copies of that first book, to building up a half-decent number of Twitter followers with a strange but effective combination of angry political ranting and terrible dad jokes. Some things have worked well; others less so. I can only tell you what’s worked for me, but things that worked for me might not work for other writers and vice versa. I think your own personality and willingness to get out there and press the flesh also make a difference.

 

Writing a series

 

Unless you’ve got a huge publicity budget behind you, building awareness of your book(s) is a slow, difficult, gradual process. No matter how you do it, social media, bookshop visits, attendance at festivals and conferences – you’ll only reach an infinitesimally small fraction of the potential audience for your book. As a result, it generally takes a long time for knowledge that your books even exist to get out there.

 

This is where writing a series can help. In my opinion, readers tend to fall in love with characters rather than plots. Once they’re hooked on a protagonist, they generally come back for the next book and the one after that. Ideally, they’ll go on to buy everything you ever write. What’s more, now that I’ve got five books in the Wyndham and Banerjee series under my belt, I find new readers who might pick up book five, then go back and buy all of books one to four, and suddenly the sales are increasing by a faster rate than in prior years.

 

Newspaper reviews 

 

My career was jumpstarted by positive reviews of my first book in many of the UK’s national newspapers. A Rising Man was a Book of the Month in both the Times and the Sunday Times and was given great publicity in the Telegraph, the Guardian and several other papers. This gave the book the oxygen of publicity which was just priceless. On the back of it, several bookstores increased their initial orders for the book, with some doubling the number they were taking and prompting the publishers to embark on a second print run. As James pointed out yesterday, though, it’s difficult to get this sort of press coverage unless you’re with one of the big publishers. Their PR departments are the ones with the contacts at the papers. With so many new books coming out every year, it’s hard to get their attention otherwise. Many of these journalists attend crime and literature festivals however. A good way of building relationships with journos is by collaring them at these festivals and buying them drinks till they fall over. But don’t mention your books till you have got them drunk at least twice.

 

The Radio 

 

I’ve been lucky enough to do a range of radio interviews in the UK and Europe and there’s generally a strong uptick in sales after most of them. I’ve met many people who’ve said to me, ‘I got into your books after hearing you on the radio,’ and while that’s probably down to my wonderful Scottish accent, if it helps sell books, who am I to complain?

 

Promotions in Bookstores 

 

Bookstores are brilliant. The wonderful staff in these stores are generally avid readers and can be some of your most vocal champions. Smaller towns and villages often have an indy bookshop at the heart of their communities and recommendations from the booksellers are taken up with gusto. If they suggest someone read your book, more often than not, you’ll make a new sale.

 

While all bookstores are brilliant, it’s just a fact that certain chains have more weight (because of their sheer size, network of branches and buying power) than others. Building relationships with the store managers of these chains can be very useful in the long term. Probably the greatest increase in sales I’ve had is when Waterstones, the UK’s biggest physical bookstore chain, selected A Rising Man and later Smoke and Ashes as their Crime Book of the Month. In that period, the books were in the windows of every branch in the country and displayed prominently in stores. So many new readers discovered my work through those promotions.

 

Social media 

 

Twitter, Facebook, Insta, Tik Tok - everyone tells you that to be a big seller these days, you need a social media presence. It’s cheap, and if you do it well, it can really help. But it’s tough. I find some media are easier to get to grips with than others. Twitter and Facebook I can do. Instagram, I find tougher, and as for Tik Tok, I get a sore back just thinking about it. I’m not sure how directly interaction on these platforms translates to sales, but in recent years I’ve tended to do my version of marketing campaigns on Twitter in the run up to a book launch (generally me threatening people with dire consequences if they don’t buy the book) and pre-orders have risen significantly.

 

The other side of the coin – one of the UK’s best-selling crime writers, Mick Heron, has no social media presence whatsoever. He didn’t even have wifi till a few years ago. He’s brilliant, and he’s built his career the hard way. I love him (and envy him).

 

Festivals

 

Book festivals are where the hard-core fans hang out. These are the vanguard of the book buying world. If these people like you and your work, then they’ll convince others. It’s worth getting to know them. (Also, as I said – it’s a chance to get journalists drunk).

 

Other writers

 

Crime fiction writers are the best. So many bestselling writers have gone out of their way to help me when they didn’t need to. I try and do the same for others. They’re also generally getting drunk at festivals. Make friends with them.

 

 

Good old fashioned dumb luck

 

So here’s the rub. At the end of the day, you can do it all – you can write the best books, you can do all the PR and marketing in the world – and you can end up selling seven copies. Meanwhile someone else who can hardly string three words together becomes a bestseller simply by smiling and being photogenic. There’s no justice in the world. There’s only dumb luck. All you can really do is try your best, roll the dice and see what happens.

 

May you have all the luck in the world.

How Many Books Does My Mother Need to Buy to Make Me a Bestselling Author? from James W. Ziskin

The latest wisdom is that trekking to bookstores with your new book isn’t the best use of time in today’s market. So, what do you think works to promote sales and get to the place where you’re receiving royalties?

For this week’s question, I’m going to go beyond simply earning royalties. I think most writers would rather make more than a couple of hundred dollars in royalties per year. We’d like to break out and make a real living with our books.

That said, let’s think about it.

Some Assumptions

First, let’s assume you’ve written a really fine book. Without that, your task will be a lot harder. How many mediocre books provide real income for writers? Then, let’s say you make a plan to promote sales of your latest book by organizing signings at ten bookstores in the ten largest cities in the US. That’s going to set you back a good deal in airfare, hotels, and dining out. But let’s say you’ve saved some money for just such a purpose. Next, let’s assume you get excellent turnouts at those ten venues and sell fifty books at each. That would come to 500 books sold. Pretty good. Unlikely but pretty good. (Let’s face it; we’ve all heard of or experienced book signings where NO ONE AT ALL showed up.)

Still, 500 books probably won’t earn back your advance. Even if you assume the 500 buyers love your book so much they recommend it to their friends and families, I still doubt sales will soar. More likely, the buyers will loan the books to their friends and family. But let’s say half of the 500 manage to convince someone else to buy your book, which is, of course, pie-in-the-sky dreaming. But let’s assume it anyway. Now you’re up to 750 books sold. At this pace, with the impossible assumptions that half the people who buy your book will hand sell it to someone else, you might reach a couple of thousand books eventually. But I doubt it. 

Plan B: Your mom will buy enough books to make you a bestselling author.

No, bookstore signings alone probably won’t get it done. What you need is real, organized, effective publicity to go along with your bookstore signings. And—most of all—some lightning in a bottle. Yes, you need luck. Everyone does.

Here’s what works

Big publishers can make books big. It’s reality. Smaller publishers don’t have the resources to achieve what the large houses can, just as a small liberal arts college football team—no matter how plucky and endearing—isn’t going to beat Alabama on any given Saturday.

Look at The New York Times bestsellers. This week, the hardcover top ten includes Nicolas Sparks, Stephen King, James Patterson, Elizabeth Strout, Richard Osman, Kyle Mills, et al. More big names in the top fifteen. These are talented, well-known and established writers, so it’s not surprising to find them selling tens of thousands of books. But there are also the names that follow the titles of their books: the publishers. Random House; Scribner; Little, Brown; Ballantine; Pamela Dorman (Penguin). These are the big hitters with worldwide distribution, large promotional budgets, and decades of building business practices and relationships. Even a mid-list novel from these publishers gets more attention from booksellers than a small independent publisher might. And their books reach outlets in every corner of the country. In every Barnes and Noble, hundreds of airports, libraries, and in the vast majority of indie bookstores. Authors higher on the food chain might even get travel budgets for signing tours. And, while it’s certainly possible for a book from a boutique press to get reviewed in major news publications, it’s much more likely to happen if it’s a book from a major house. 

Reviews in The New York Times or other major newspapers drive sales and can create buzz. Both of which are essential, of course, for a book to start earning real royalties for the author.

So, if you want to make a living writing books, you’ll probably need to get yourself a Big 5 publisher.

Well, that was depressing

No, not really. Imagine you played volleyball in high school. Or baseball, soccer, or basketball. You loved it. Were very good at it. But not good enough to play professionally or make the Olympics. So what? You’re not the chairman of the board of GE, either. Only a few make it to that level. And the same is true of the writers on top of The New York Times bestseller list. Sure, we’d all love to join that club and rake in real money for our work, and we will all keep trying to make enough to quit our day jobs. 

But I don’t write to make the bestseller lists. I write to write.

So my advice is this: 

If you love to write, write. Try to find the best publisher you can. If that’s one of the Big 5, great. You might make a living on royalties after a few books if they’re successful enough. But if not, remind yourself that you love to write. That you really have no choice but to write. It’s something you must do whether you get paid a little or a lot for it. The satisfaction of creating stories from nothing is actually the greatest reward in this business. At least I think so. Anything more is gravy. Enjoy the meager meal if that’s what’s put before you. Enjoy it even if there’s only a modest puddle of gravy on top.

Throw it at the wall and see what sticks

The latest wisdom is that trekking to bookstores with your new book isn’t the best use of time in today’s market. So, what do you think works to promote sales and get to the place where you’re receiving royalties?

by Dietrich

Getting to the place where promotional ideas turn to royalties — I wish I had some surefire ideas to share. During the past couple of years I’ve been promoting my books the same ways that many authors have — online. I update my website, write blogs and guest posts, and of course there is social media and Goodreads. I plan virtual book tours, take part in online panels, Zoom events and interviews, and so on. I think these are all worthy ways of promoting a book. One bonus is whoever is reading a post or watching an online event is just one click away from making a purchase. Another benefit, online events are less time consuming and far less expensive than taking part in live events.   

Once a book is in print, I like to put myself out there as much as possible to support it. I do stay open for new ways to promote my books to potential markets, but I think the bulk of my time is always best spent writing the best book I can. That’s what will (hopefully) garner positive reviews and get people talking — and buying. 

“I put a dollar in one of those change machines. Nothing changed.” – George Carlin

Aside from writing every day, I put a lot of thought into a catchy title, and I labor over the copy for the back cover, boiling down the story to just a few lines. I know authors don’t always have the last say here, but I think of a catchy title as a powerful headline, and the copy on the back as a memorable hook. It’s the first thing a potential reader sees when browsing the book aisles. Does the title grab? Does the cover stand out? 

It’s been far too long since I’ve gotten together with some of my author pals (some right here on Criminal Minds) for a live event. We always have such a good time whether there’s a full house or a lot of empty seats. And live events are the best way to get to know other authors and readers too. I’ve learned plenty by standing in front of a roomful of people and reading — how they reacted to the rhythm of the words. Did they seem engaged? Did they get it? Do they like it? Did they buy the book?

As we slowly get back to the way things were before Covid, I’m really looking forward to planning a launch for my next one. The Get is slated for release next June. Click to find out more. With vanishing fears and restrictions, I can’t wait to take part in an event at a favorite bookstore, a local library, a noir at the bar, a festival, conference, and to plan a book tour — hopefully all of the above. 

Launch Day!!!

 

Terry Here: Today I’m going rogue! Instead of writing on our weekly topic, I’m going to talk about my book that comes out TODAY: MURDER AT THE JUBILEE RALLY. 

 This book is special. Most books are born in the usual way: conception, growth, and birth. This book took an unusual route: conception, “growth”, and then the birth of Rosemary’s baby. And, eventually, a do-over. That’s right, a do-over. Why? Because the first attempt at the book produced a monster.

Here’s what happened: I wanted to write about a murder at a motorcycle rally. The town that Jarrett Creek is based on actually has a motorcycle rally every couple of years—at least it did pre-Covid. I conceived of the book before we ever even heard of lockdown, and had plans to actually attend a rally so I could see first-hand what transpired. But Covid happened, so instead of going to the Sturgis Rally, or one like it and getting Covid, I watched videos.

Lots of videos. And I got a flavor for what the rallies look like. I couldn’t smell the smells, but I could see the way attendees dressed, how they behaved, what the motorcycles looked like, what concessions looked like, hear the music of the bands, see the pole-dancing (yes, there is pole-dancing). 

 And then I wrote the book. Or rather, I wrote “A” book. Not a book about a motorcycle rally, but a book about people behaving badly. Okay, in a murder mystery people always behave badly, but this was different. My characters veered off into territory I had never intended. And the motorcycle rally became an afterthought—or a side gig, or something. I gave the book to my writer’s group and they said the equivalent of “What (the hell) is this?”

I gave it to my agent. She said the equivalent of “what happened? This is awful!” Which I already knew, but I was in a daze and hoped it wasn’t as bad as I thought it was. 

I wish I could understand exactly what happened. All I know is that the characters were sleazy and unlikeable. The plot was muddled and mean. In some way, I think it was a monster born of Covid. Not that I minded being isolated during Covid. I had a good house, a good husband, friends who were careful so we could meet at distance in my backyard. 

It was the uncertainty that flummoxed me. It’s hard to make myself recall those early days when we were all so shocked and scared. I know not everyone was, but I’m in an age group that seemed to be particularly vulnerable. So in answer to my shock, I created a monster. And then I pitched it out.

Yep. I threw out an entire book. 

Now this isn’t the first time I had done that. A few years ago I went through my old manuscripts and kept thinking, “Yeah, I see why this was never published.” I had no problem ditching those. They were learning tools. This time was different. It was my ninth Samuel Craddock book. I know my protagonist, my supporting characters, and the town of Jarrett Creek. So throwing out this book felt different. 

When I considered what ditching the book meant, I had to address what I could learn from the experience. And I did learn, although the lessons were ones I knew, and had abandoned. The experience taught me once again that writing a book demands dedication to the idea of the book, not just wandering around on the pages until I have a collection of scenes. 

Writing a book demands a thoughtful understanding of my intention. It demands that I treat my characters with respect. I’m glad I tossed the book. It cleared the way for Murder at the Jubilee Rally, which really does center on the rally. And which explores the world of my characters with an interest in why they do what they do and how it impacts the people around them. It is true to my original vision, true to the characters and to the setting.

One side note: I retrieved one character from the original muddle: Hailey is a 16-year-old who makes a big splash on the page. She was such fun to write, and I hope readers will love her as much as I do. From The Reading Room review: Murder at the Jubilee Rally is another hit out of the park for Terry Shames

Wanna Buy a Book, Lady?

The latest wisdom is that trekking to bookstores with your new book isn’t the best use of time in today’s market. So, what do you think works to promote sales and get to the place where you’re receiving royalties?

Brenda at the keyboard.

If I had the answer to this question - the best way to make sales and ergo a bestseller - I'd be on easy street. Rich beyond my wildest dreams. Invited to all the big book conferences. Recognized in swank locales.

Instead, I'm slogging it out to get my books into the hands of readers like everyone else, except maybe for the select few authors with massive publicity machines behind them. Perhaps I should direct this question to the likes of James Patterson or Michael Connelly or Louise Penny.

Having sat in on a few of Louise's talks, I know that she trekked around to bookshops with her first novel Still Life. As a result, many of the store owners and staff hand sold her books, and we all know how that turned out:-) Louise went on to win every award going the following year, and I don't think it was simply a coincidence. I'm therefore not convinced that dropping personal visits to bookstores should be in an author's marketing plan. There's still nothing like the personal touch to make connections and to get salespeople interested in one's book.

Over the years, I've made friends with several independent bookstore owners and their staff, and managers and events planners at a couple of Coles/Chapters. They've unfailingly had me in for signings and events, and I know they're hand-selling my books. I promote them as well every chance I get. It's all time well spent in my opinion.

Is there a better use of time than making personal connections? There are quicker, more effective ways certainly to reach more people en masse.  The best one in my experience is to get coverage in the newspaper - a review, an interview, an excerpt from my book - sales have always gone up after such publicity. I would imagine being interviewed on a major television network would have much the same effect. Yet, I would argue that this cannot replace the time put into meeting people in the industry and making connections, or for taking the time to meet readers.

Another writer I know said that he does not do bookstore signings anymore because the return is not worth the time spent. He prefers book clubs and book conferences. I don't think it's a question of either/or, but I agree that standing in a store for a few hours and only selling a few books doesn't always feel productive. I limit my signings to two hours, so they don't take up the entire day. I use the visit to check in with the staff, sign stock and keep my book in their sightlines. At the end of the signing, I like to add up how many brand new readers bought a book and think that even a couple is helping to spread the word. I also love going to book clubs and conferences, but think they should be part of a wider marketing plan that includes visiting as many bookstores as I can fit in!

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