Monthly Archives: December 2008

Jodi Picoult Tackles Issues

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There is a great debate regarding the artistic process of writing and the business end. You don’t want to think about the business side when you are creating your art, but you can bet that the minute the time comes to start promoting your work, you are going to be sifting through your manuscript looking for angles and hooks that will get readers to pounce.

Jodi Picoult is a great example of a writer who pays attention to what readers want and tries to incorporate that into the stories she wants to tell. It seems to be working for her, as her books only continue to gain attention as they tackle issues that are prominent in our society. She also just received a starred review in Publishers Weekly for her upcoming release, HANDLE WITH CARE.

Handle with Care Jodi Picoult. Atria, $27.95 (480p) ISBN 978-0-7432-9641-0

Perennial bestseller Picoult (Change of Heart) delivers another engrossing family drama, spiced with her trademark blend of medicine, law and love. Charlotte and Sean O’Keefe’s daughter, Willow, was born with brittle bone disease, a condition that requires Charlotte to act as full-time caregiver and has strained their emotional and financial limits. Willow’s teenaged half-sister, Amelia, suffers as well, overshadowed by Willow’s needs and lost in her own adolescent turmoil. When Charlotte decides to sue for wrongful birth in order to obtain a settlement to ensure Willow’s future, the already strained family begins to implode. Not only is the defendant Charlotte’s longtime friend, but the case requires Charlotte and Sean to claim that had they known of Willow’s condition, they would have terminated the pregnancy, a statement that strikes at the core of their faith and family. Picoult individualizes the alternating voices of the narrators more believably than she has previously, and weaves in subplots to underscore the themes of hope, regret, identity and family, leading up to her signature closing twists.

But you don’t have to write about huge social issues (death sentence, church scandals, etc.) for your book to be newsworthy. If you write about issues that people face on a daily basis (relationships, careers, health, happiness, depression) then you are tapping into an area that you can explore in the media when your book is released. Become an expert in whatever you write about and your readers will appreciate it. They want to know they are in reliable hands when they pick up a book. Bring awareness to your readers and they will keep coming back for more!

Seth Godin Talks Publishing

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In an interview over at 26th Story, Seth Godin talks about free content and the publishing industry. Should the publishing industry go the way of the music industry? Could it be the best move ever made? Here is what Godin had to say about it.

The market doesn’t care a whit about maintaining your industry. The lesson from Napster and iTunes is that there’s even MORE music than there was before. What got hurt was Tower and the guys in the suits and the unlimited budgets for groupies and drugs. The music will keep coming. Same thing is true with books. So you can decide to hassle your readers (oh, I mean your customers) and you can decide that a book on a Kindle SHOULD cost $15 because it replaces a $15 book, and if you do, we (the readers) will just walk away. Or, you could say, “if books on the Kindle were $1, perhaps we could create a vast audience of people who buy books like candy, all the time, and read more and don’t pirate stuff cause it’s convenient and cheap…” I’m a pessimist that the book industry will learn from music. How are you betting?

Read the rest of the interview here.

Could a self-published cookbook be a big holiday seller?

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We often speak with authors about the success rate of self-published books. We have worked with a few self-published authors who have had great success. This is something that really can’t be predicted and there is no secret “ingredient”. But here is a story about two women who found that secret ingredient and may just have the sleeper hit of the holiday season.

Holiday Giveaway from Brenda Janowitz

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Brenda Janowitz, author of SCOT ON THE ROCKS and JACK WITH A TWIST, is hosting an amazing book giveaway over on her site! Head over there and sign yourself up. Because we all know that books make GREAT gifts!

Here are the rules from Brenda’s site:

To enter, just email brenda@brendajanowitz.com and write “Another holiday book giveaway” in the subject line. You must be a subscriber of the www.brendajanowitz.com mailing list to enter.

Want extra entries? Post a blog entry about this giveaway and/or email five friends about it. For each blog entry and each email you send out, you’ll get another entry to win!

Winners will be announced on December 16. So what are you waiting for? Enter today!

Read Boston

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Tonight Mayor Menino hosted the holiday event, ReadBoston at the Hotel Commonwealth in Kenmore Square. The event was a wonderful opportunity for authors and readers to meet, mingle and talk books while raising money for an incredibly worthwhile cause. ReadBoston’s mission is to have children in Boston reading on grade level by the time they complete third grade. Founded by Mayor Thomas M. Menino in 1995 to address low literacy levels among Boston’s youth, ReadBoston has since grown into a city-wide leader in the field of early literacy.

I took the opportunity at this wonderful event to connect with some of my favorite authors. For example, the charming Beth Teitell. Teitell is the author of FROM HERE TO MATERNITY and DRINKING PROBLEMS AT THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH. She writes in such an amazingly honest and authentic voice that I found myself quoting her own writing back to her. I was certainly a fan!

And here are two of the best thriller writers of our time, Joseph Finder and Michael Palmer. Wouldn’t you love to join these two for dinner? I’m sure the conversation would be as intoxicating and intriguing as their writing.

Joseph Finder and Michael Palmer

Todd English was there, as well, signing copy after copy of his gorgeous cookbooks! I am currently poring over THE OLIVES TABLE.

Our partner, Megan Kelley Hall, was there signing copies of SISTERS OF MISERY. Here she is with debut author of legal thriller EIGHT IN THE BOX, Raffi Yessayan.

Here are just a few of the other talented authors present at tonight’s event.

Bill Brett
Michael Connelly
Anita Diamant
Todd English
Joseph Finder
Jill Ker Conway
Megan Kelley Hall
Jarrett Krosoczka
Ben Mezrich
Mary Newell DePalma
Rebecca Angelina Nigro
Michael Palmer
Andrew Rimas
Casey Sherman
Clara Silverstein
Irene Smalls
Beth Teitell
Raffi Yessayan

I am looking forward to future ReadBoston events!

The Writer vs. The Author

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This weekend the Lifetime movie version of Jane Porter’s novel, FLIRTING WITH FORTY premiered. I love when books are turned into movies because I find that film versions have the amazing ability to help non-readers discover books and authors. What it allowed me to do was to discover an author I had heard about, but never fully appreciated on my own. Last night I picked up ODD MOM OUT by Jane Porter and could not put it down! It is a wonderful book about being a renegade and a mom, and the challenges both positions pose.

Here is a blog post that Jane wrote about the life of an author versus the life of a writer and how different those two roles can be.

Learning Commons

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The library is now a thing of the past. It has officially been replaced with “Learning Commons.” This new spin on a timeless classic may motivate people to spend time in a place that both encourages and inspires learning. In today’s Boston Globe there is a piece about Chelmsford High School revamping their outdated library to encompass a more modern trend of library as meeting place. Complete with cozier spaces for cafes, comfortable furniture and booth seating for groups, the Learning Commons is a place that has become popular to work and meet up with friends.

“It has that Barnes and Noble feel,” said Premal Patel, 18, a senior at Chelmsford High School. “You can focus more on the learning experience.”

The changing face of libraries is a recent development and one that is taking the learning experience in a positive direction. Eliminating the negative perception of libraries as a place where conversation is forbidden and everything is out dated will help get people back into their local libraries. With more and more authors doing signings at libraries, why not enhance the overall appeal of these institutions? Anyone who has ever walked through a Barnes & Noble on a weeknight and seen the groups of people huddled in chairs or at tables, reading or discussing books and projects, knows that as a society we are in desperate need for locations conducive to learning, meeting and conversing. Let’s bring back the library!

Romance Survives Recession

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A recent article in The Scotsman points to the one thing that is going to flourish during times of economic instability…ROMANCE NOVELS!

It seems that as we fear our pension fund is nose-diving and we need a bridging loan to afford our weekly shop, the world of Italian stallion business tycoons, mysterious sheikhs and an endless supply of young virginal hotties for them to seduce, is truly irresistible.

The British romance publisher Mills and Boon, meanwhile, has reported this year as the most successful in its 100 year history. The publisher’s spokesman, Digby Halsby, says romances are “recession-proof, as people seek joyous relief from the gloomy news headlines”.

It is this guarantee of good surviving evil and love conquering all that has readers gathering their romance novels close and slipping beneath covers to escape from the peril of the latest economic report. But this isn’t just happening now. Historically, during times of economic upheaval, people would use romance and entertainment as a way of escaping reality.

“Remember that the time of the Great Depression in the 1930s was Hollywood’s Golden Age,” she says. “Films like the Busby Berkeley musicals took the world by storm, because people just desperately needed cheering up,” says romance novelist Sara Craven, who calls the romance genre, “Fairy tales for grown-ups.”

So if you are looking for a sweet treat to escape into, head to the romance section of your local bookstore. Because honestly, how can you be depressed when you have books like these waiting for you on your nightstand? Check out one of my favorites, Susan Mallery, for a sweet escape!

Sifting Through the Chaos

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I was recently reading through Seth Godin‘s Permission Marketing when I found a quote that struck me as particularly poignant. It was actually in the introduction written by Don Peppers.

The truth is your whole problem comes down to a question of time and energy, doesn’t it? Technically, life is easier for you than it was for your parents, because so much of the drudge work is now done by machines. But for some reason you’re busier than ever, isn’t that right? And doesn’t it seem as though every day you get still busier?

How can this be? Simple. Because there are so many more claims on your attention, that’s why. You’re already overloaded with an embarrassment of opportunities to absorb your time and expend your funds doing things, watching things, using things. But every day even more opportunities are presented to you.

I think this is an interesting and common question. With all the steps we are taking forward, are we getting lost and overwhelmed in Web 2.0? Or are we just opening our eyes to a tremendous amount of opportunities? An “embarrassment of opportunities?”

UPDATE: I found an article in the Columbia Journalism Review titled Overload! that covers this topic.

Time Management

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According to this study from Harvard Business School, that was reported on their newly launched HBS Blog, the more projects one takes on, the less one seems to accomplish.

Here are their suggestions for Time Management:

• Try to bring old projects to some kind of closure before new ones get on the list.
• Make sure to book some time with yourself for those strategic, but non-urgent tasks (like thinking, or writing) that tend to get crowded out by urgent demands. I have one client who has a mythical person named “Joe” – meetings with Joe are for thinking, and it’s understood that they are not to be interrupted.
• Check email only twice a day (promise- it won’t kill you!)
• Try to make the consequences of your tradeoffs clear to those (like a boss or colleague) who may be creating excess work for you.
• Match your strategic priorities with how you spend your time – and question activities that don’t drive those priorities.
• And finally, do question the value of every activity – if it simply didn’t get done, what would happen?

Independent Bookstores

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{image courtesy of Hannah Whitaker/New York Magazine}

New York Magazine has a great piece on the independent bookstore, comparing it to your local bar. “Not only does everyone know your name, but they know what you like.” In this article they list the 14 best independent stores in NYC.

The importance of independent bookstores for helping boost authors exposure is immeasurable. We always advise our clients to head out to their local independents, introduce themselves, give copies of their book to the manager or salespeople, build a relationship by having signings and signing stock. These small efforts can sometimes pay off in a big way!

Novel Adventures

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CBS Interactive and Saturn have jointly announced plans for a new web-series called Novel Adventures. Starring Daphne Zuniga (”One Tree Hill”), Paola Turbay (”Cane”), Ashley Williams (”How I Met Your Mother”) and Jolie Jenkins (”Desperate Housewives”), each episode will spotlight a different book, as the four characters go on adventures inspired by each novel. The second episode will feature Girls Like Us: Carole King, Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon – and the Journey of a Generation by Sheila Weller (although they mistakenly call the book Ladies of the Canyon). From the press release:

– The Fab Four: Sheila Weller’s Ladies of the Canyon (Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon, and Carole King) brings the groupie out in the girls who are determined to live out the life of rock legends.

Produced and written by Jonathan Prince (”The Cleaner”), the web-series will premiere Monday, November 3 on CBS.com, TheInsider.com, and TV.com. “The Fab Four” episode will appear the following Monday at the same websites for 48 hours, and then be available through iTunes.

Yes it feels like you are being hit over the head with product placement, but the concept is cute. And I, of course, would support anything that brings attention to books.