A few weeks back Arianna Huffington over at The Huffington Post announced the launch of their book club. Their first selection was IN PRAISE OF SLOWNESS: Challenging the Cult of Speed by Carl Honore. I think the subtitle of this book really says it all and it is fascinating that this was selected to be the inaugural book club selection for a website.
They are having their first *live* discussion about the book today at 3pm (EST). Check it out here.
Harlequin, the romance publisher famous for starting the careers of such household names as Nora Roberts and Tess Gerritsen, has teamed up with Author Solutions to create a self-publishing imprint. Harlequin Horizons, the new author subsidized imprint is one of the first in what could be a trend of major publishing houses seeking alternative methods for turning a profit. These new imprints would offer print on demand printing, typesetting, jacket design and basic levels of editing for a fee.
While I’m sure there are many authors who will jump at the chance of having their books printed with an imprint that is closely related to a major publishing house, there are both advantages and disadvantages to going the self-publishing route. The success stories of self-published authors may push many aspiring novelists to take this route, however, it is a very difficult and time-consuming journey. It is a journey that needs to be planned out fully and properly executed in order to give yourself a chance at mainstream potential (hiring an editor for a thorough, complex editing of manuscript, a publicist to help in media placement and review coverage, and acquiring distribution).
We will have to wait and see if more publishing houses follow suit and what kind of attention this results in for the writers involved.
This is something that I think about often when reading. How many people write in their books? Do you scribble notes to yourself, underline important/quote-worthy passages or do you just highlight words or sections? Does it help you better understand the material? Does it make the entire experience more memorable?
My parents collect rare books, so it has always been an unwritten rule around my house that books should be treated with care and respect…however, I have gone to the dark side. I write in books! I underline, I scribble (although I have extremely neat handwriting, so it really can’t be called scribbling), I highlight (yellow is my color of choice). I like my books to look like a version of my own personal diary. I want to always remember what struck me as poignant. I want to be able to revisit my thoughts and perceptions.
So my question is, “Do you write in books?” If you do, I would love to see snapshots of a page out of your book.
I am going to try and use this blog as a place to disperse some pertinent information regarding strong publicity tactics. With publishing houses shrinking in staff and budgets dwindling, many authors will have to put their own time and effort into an effective campaign.
Here’s an insider tip:
MAKE YOUR PRESS RELEASE COUNT!
When faced with tight deadlines and mounting article assignments, journalists need as much information as possible at their fingertips. The press release can also spark an idea or give the journalist incentive to include your book in an article or segment they are already working on.
Here are three things a good press release should offer.
1.) What problem will your book or your expertise solve.
2.) Why are you a good authority. Why should you be called on?
3.) Explain what you would like to offer to help solve the problem or bring light to a situation.
“Whatever big events have recently occurred, sure enough, I’ll see projects that are trying to capture that lightning in a book.”
-Agent Nathan Bransford on the trends he sees in queries.
Bransford wrote last year about a wave of chick lit with heavy protagonists. Sure enough, fast forward one year and that is exactly what we are seeing on the bookshelves.
From the article:
In this brave new ‘chick lit’ world, women realize that weight loss and dieting isn’t the way to happiness. If these new heroines lose weight in the books, they do so incidentally, as a result of finding genuine happiness and fulfillment in more substantial areas of their lives.
The ultimate fantasy for most women today is simply accepting themselves, whatever their body weight.
CBS News deserves a medal! Every day we hear about book sections folding and the lack of interest surrounding literature, authors and publishing, and yet it is still one of the most influential and inspiring areas of our culture. It fills me with hope when I see news outlets adding book coverage to their schedules. Jeff Glor is the host of AUTHOR TALK, a place for authors and readers to come together and learn about what is going on in the world of books. Author Talk is “a place to find the best new books, and get answers directly from the authors who wrote them.”
The most recent book covered is WHEN EVERYTHING CHANGED: The Amazing Journey of American Women from 1960 to the Present by Gail Collins.
Neil Gaiman and Melvin Burgess are the latest authors to explore the potential of storytelling in 140-word bursts. Check it out here.
Just received my December issue of Glamour (Women of the Year). This issue is also the debut of Katie Couric’s new column focusing on inspiring women.
“People are deciding what media they want to consume out of a bewildering array of choices, and the ground is constantly shifting.”
-Literary agent, Nathan Bransford, at The Huffington Post, on why it is getting harder and harder for books to make a splash these days.
Fantastic article from the Wall Street Journal on the writing techniques, styles, nuances of famous writers!
For example:
Dan Chaon writes a first draft on color-coded note cards he buys at Office Max. Ideas for his books come to him as images and phrases rather than plots, characters or settings, he says. He begins by jotting down imagery, with no back story in mind. He keeps turning the images over in his mind until characters and themes emerge.
His most recent novel, “Await Your Reply,” which has three interlocking narratives about identity theft, started out as scattered pictures of a lighthouse on a prairie, a car driving into the arctic tundra under a midnight sun and a boy and his father driving to the hospital at night with the boy’s severed hand, resting on ice. He described each scene on a card, then began fleshing out the plotlines, alternating among blue, pink and green cards when he moved between narratives.
During the early stages of writing, he carries a pocketful of cards with him wherever he goes; as they accumulate, he stores them in a card catalogue that he bought at a library sale. It often takes two years before something resembling a novel takes shape. He eventually transcribes the cards onto the computer and writes furiously from 11 p.m. to 4 a.m.
{Thanks to Koreanish for bringing this article to my attention.}
“There’s no secret recipe for a good plot. Brilliance can be born of anything from a twelve-layered mystery to one old man in a boat trying to catch a fish. It’s all in the telling. But make sure your plot has the elements of great storytelling: believability, heart, and tension.”
— Laura Whitcomb, Your First Novel
Yes, I made my 5th appearance on Oprah on Monday! It was amazing! I actually said to Oprah, “I think we’re best friends now,” and she replied, “I think we are!” Yes. Pretty surreal.
You can watch the webcast for Uwem Akpan’s SAY YOU’RE ONE OF THEM here.
I recently interviewed Chris Bohjalian, author of the enormously popular MIDWIVES as well as many other thought-provoking and captivating novels. His upcoming release, SECRETS OF EDEN just received a starred review from Publishers Weekly.
Do you feel the subject matter of your books are ever rooted in a current event, a hot news story or a popular debate?
I don’t always relate a novel to a current event. “Skeletons at the Feast” is a love triangle set in Poland and Germany in the last six months of World War II. “The Buffalo Soldier” was about parental grief and loss and recovery. “The Double Bind” harkens back to “The Great Gatsby” and the literary canon. And even “Midwives” wasn’t about an issue that was out there in the news: No one was talking about midwifery in 1997. There was no national debate about home vs. hospital birth.
Still, I do have novelist friends who are preternaturally gifted at tapping into the cultural zeitgeist – and they sell boatloads more books than I do. So, clearly they’re on to something.
In any case, the last thing I would tell a novelist is that the key to great art is a great hook. Sometimes great art has a great hook…but I wouldn’t recommend beginning there.
Now, I think that if you are determined to pull something off the newspapers or news web sites and craft it into a novel, be sure there is some moral ambiguity or conflict to the story. Drama still needs conflict, even if your source is the news.
How do you decide what makes a good story?
Some writing professors will tell you to write about what you know; others will tell you to write about what you don’t know, but learn all you can. My sense is that it really doesn’t matter if you are writing about a subject you know all about or one that is completely foreign. The key is to explore a subject you care about so passionately that you want to get up at five a.m. to dive in. That has always been the barometer for me.
I should also note that for every novel I finish, I must go down two dead ends, some of which are hundreds of pages long.
Seventy-year-old Canadian author, Margaret Atwood, could teach her successors a few things about online promotion. To help generate attention for her latest novel, THE YEAR OF THE FLOOD, Margaret Atwood is blogging, tweeting and creating a YouTube contest.
Here is an interview she did with Reuters about her latest online activity.
Great piece in the New York Times about the price war between Walmart and Amazon over their books.