Future of Books: The Problem of Filtering (part 1)

January 2, 2009 — Pat Bertram

My guest blogger today is Dale Cozort, author of American Indian Victories. Normally I don’t post such long articles, but I thought Cozort’s analysis was too important to edit down. Cozort writes: 

If you’ve been around aspiring writers much you know that a good percentage of them produce the writing equivalent of really bad karaoke.  You also know that there are undiscovered gems out there.  Until recently the book buying public has not had to deal with the ‘bad karaoke’ books.  We’ve probably missed a few gems too.  What we saw in bookstores was filtered.  Sometimes that filtering kept out good books, but it mainly kept readers from wading through an awful lot of crap. 

Like it or not, the filters are going away.  Good books are still being published but they are hard to find among increasing amounts of drek.  Readers, authors and publishers need to figure out how to deal with the glut.  If we don’t the book market will continue to spiral downward, with more writers pursuing fewer and fewer readers.

The key issue for readers, authors and book publishers is going to be how to replace the traditional filters and get high quality novels together with their audiences.  

In part one I’ll look at what has happened to the traditional filters.  Past two will look at potential replacements. 

So what have the filters been and why are they going away? 

Filter One: The Expense Of Putting Together a Manuscript: Until recently putting together an acceptable manuscript was difficult and expensive.  Personal computers and affordable laser printers made writing a novel and putting together a manuscript much easier.  Before  affordable PC and laser printers you didn’t just have to write the novel, you also had to type up the manuscript, then retype revisions, a slow and cumbersome process that kept many would-be novelists (including me) from ever sending a completed manuscript to a publisher. 

Affordable computers and laser printers let more people write novels.  Established writers could write faster.  The result was empowering.  A lot more people wrote a lot more stuff.  The result was also disastrous.  The publishing industry simply couldn’t deal with the increased flow of manuscripts.  That brings us to filter two.. 

Filter Two: Publishers: Publishers used to look at the stream of manuscripts coming in from aspiring writers and rejected the ninety-nine percent or more that for one reason or another they couldn’t profitably sell.  That took care of most of the ‘bad karaoke’ writing. 

Writers had little choice but to accept the verdicts of the publishers.  Publishing and promoting a book was expensive.  An author could almost never make money publishing a book independently.  Also, ‘subsidy publishers’ preyed on would be authors, charging exorbitantly to print unsellable books.  Most readers correctly felt that self-published books were mostly junk because if a book was any good it would have been published by a real publisher. 

The system worked for the most part.  Authors with enough persistence and skill could find a publisher.  Readers could know that the books they saw on a booksellers shelves usually, though by no means always, met a set of minimum standards.  Publishers prospered in that environment, taking most of the risks and most of the profits from publishing.  Most writers didn’t prosper, though authors who made it through the filters and established a name for themselves could earn a modest living at writing, and a few very big name authors became moderately wealthy. 

Smart publishers made an effort to find the few publishable manuscripts among the “slushpile” of unsolicited manuscripts they received.  That made sense because if they didn’t they not only lost out on a potential profit, but they also handed that profit to their competitors.  Good publishers also took pride in finding and nurturing new talent. 

Several things changed that system over the past several years.  First, the sheer number of manuscripts coming in made even skimming the slushpile more expensive.  Second, many major US publishers were bought out by conglomerates from outside the publishing industry.  They moved to the short-term “what is the bottom line this quarter” thinking that has destroyed so many US industries.  Many publishers also seemed to develop a “who needs talent when we have marketing?” view of the industry. 

Most major publishers stopped looking at unsolicited manuscripts a few years ago.  They farmed that function out to agents.  As the slushpile flood diverted to agents, those agents were also overwhelmed and most of the good ones stopped looking at unsolicited manuscripts too. 

New authors found it harder to get published by traditional publishers.  They also found it easier to take other routes.  Print-on-demand and e-book technology makes both self-publishing and being a publisher much less expensive. 

Some readers still look down on self-publishing and to some extent on being published by small POD or e-book publishers.  Part of the problem is lingering attitudes left over from the old “big publisher versus vanity press junk” dichotomy.  Part of the problem is that a lot of small POD and e-book publishers do publish “bad karaoke” writers.  

Small POD and e-book publishers have little short-term incentive to filtering out the junk.  Being selective can actually hurt a small publisher in the short-term because most novels will attract enough of the novelist’s family and friends to pay the bulk of the (very low) costs of publication. That makes it close to cost free in the short term to take a chance on a new novelist if the advance is low enough or if there is no advance.  Some, but by no means all POD publishers actually charge the author for publication, which gives them incentive to publish just about anything. 

At the same time, POD and e-books are in many ways a much more rational way of publishing books than the traditional publishing model with its wasteful return policies.  Some newer, smaller publishers are finding and publishing gems or at least books that satisfy certain audience niches more effectively than traditional publishers.  Readers who stick exclusively with traditional publishers do miss out on some good reading. 

Filter Three: Bookstores.: Up until the last couple of decades, bookstores acted as an additional filter, with small bookstores owned by people who were also avid readers  Those bookstore had limited shelf space and did not stock books that they didn’t like or think would sell. 

That changed in two waves.  First, bookstore chains pushed most small independent bookstores out of the market by stocking a larger selection and charging lower prices.  That cut out much of the filtering function of bookstores.  More shelf space meant that bookstores didn’t have to be as careful what they stocked.  Loose return policies meant that if a bookstore overestimated many books would sell it was the publisher’s problem, not the bookstore’s. 

The increasing power of the chains also made the market less responsive to local preferences.  A local bookstore had to know what would sell locally and order accordingly.  Owners often knew and talked with customers.  That was much more difficult for chains. 

Second, Amazon.com rose to challenge the chains.  Amazon lists books at very little cost to themselves and do almost no filtering.  Best sellers from big traditional publishers are listed along with self-published “bad karaoke” POD books.  Amazon reviews can give some idea of the quality of a book but they’re fairly easy to game. 

So the traditional filters are disappearing.  Readers can’t find new authors they like among the glut of “bad karaoke” books.  New authors often can’t find a publisher, and often can’t find an audience even if they find a publisher.  Traditional publishers no longer reliably find fresh talent and increasingly rely on marketing rather than talented writers.  That shrinks the market by making books less attractive to younger readers. 

So how can all of that be reversed?  I have some ideas.  They’ll be in part two.

The Future of Books: The Problem of Filtering (Part 2)
The Future of Books: The Problem of Filtering (Part 3)

—–

Dale Cozort is author of American Indian Victories.  Visit his website at http://www.DaleCozort.com

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Duh

January 1, 2009 — Pat Bertram

I’m not a big fan of slang or lingo, but certain words are so simple and perfect in their way that it’s hard not to embrace them. Like “duh.”

My favorite duh dialogue comes from the movie “Love Actually”:

Karen: So what’s this big news, then?
Daisy: We’ve been given our parts in the nativity play. And I’m the lobster.
Karen: The lobster?
Daisy: Yeah!
Karen: In the nativity play?
Daisy: Yeah, first lobster.
Karen: There was more than one lobster present at the birth of Jesus?
Daisy: Duh.

How perfect is that? A single grunted syllable that takes the place of, “Yes, of course. It’s so obvious that even you should be able to see it.”

I had a duh moment last night. I’d been trying to figure out where to have my virtual book launch party, wondering if it would be better to have it on Facebook, MySpace, Gather, or try to find another venue entirely, when it dawned on me: have it here on this blog. I can set it up in advance, prepare a printable book mark, find images of scrumptious-looking food, and then when the books are finally published, all I’ll have to do is post the party, send invitations, then sit back and enjoy myself.

It’s so obvious, I should have been able to seen it immediately.

In other word, “duh.”

(BTW, you’re all invited.)

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When Writing Suspense, More is More

December 31, 2008 — Pat Bertram

The other day I broke my rule about giving critiques (I’ve lost too many friends by being honest) and responded to a writer who asked my opinion of his work. I gave him a few suggestions about comma usage and speaker attributes, then I put my foot in it. I said there was no suspense, no reason for me to read further. (To create suspense, a writer must raise questions in readers’ minds, and he didn’t raise any questions.)

This got me a long email explaining that of course there was suspense — we didn’t know who the killer was, who he was going to kill next, and if the detective would catch him in time. True, these were unanswered questions, but simply posing questions does not create suspense.

To raise questions and to make us worry about those questions, a writer must show us readers why we should care. Just a thought flitting through the killer’s mind that he was going after an unspecified “her” does not create any sense of immediacy or concern. If we know that he planned to kill a little girl that he (and we) saw playing with a kitten, we have someone specific to worry about.

Also, if we’re supposed to care if the detective catches the killer, we have to know the detective’s stake in the matter. A cop doing his job is completely different from a father worried about spending too much time on the job and not enough time with his daughter. And if it turned out the little girl with the kitten was the cop’s daughter, we’d worry about the characters even more .

The moral of the story is, when it comes to suspense, less is not more. More is more.

And the moral for me is, no more critiques.

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On Writing: Style and Cadence

December 30, 2008 — Pat Bertram

Ken Coffman, my guest blogger today, is the author of eight books, including a popular technical book called Real World FPGA Design with Verilog. He could easily make money writing additional technical books, but has more fun writing absurd novels like Steel Waters and Glen Wilson’s Bad Medicine, available from fine online bookstores everywhere. Ken writes:

Recently, my friend Lisa said this to me: “You tend to like more baroque-type authors, gravitate towards writers with that style, and write in that style.  Ironically, I really do like Hemingway, in that when I read him way back when, I immediately liked and related to the prose style . . . ”

It’s true. We’re diverse, and different things float our metaphorical schooners. See, there I go. I could have simply said boat and your eye would have slid smoothly over the cliché. But, I didn’t want to.

Anyway, back to the point I’m laboring to make.

          Nick looked on at the moon, coming up over the hills.
          “It isn’t fun any more.”
          He was afraid to look at Marjorie. Then he looked at her. She sat there with her back toward him. He looked at her back. “It isn’t fun any more. Not any of it.”
          She didn’t say anything. He went on. “I feel as though everything was gone to hell inside of me. I don’t know, Marge. I don’t know what to say.”
          He looked on at her back.
          “Isn’t love any fun?” Marjorie said.
          “No,” Nick said. Marjorie stood up. Nick sat there, his head in his hands.
                — Ernest Hemingway, The End of Something

Of course, I can appreciate Hemingway’s sparse mastery. In feeble imitation, sometimes I report things in a flat tone to emphasize a point or work against the reader’s mental picture. But, generally, my ambitions lie elsewhere. I like prose that is more playful and convoluted.

Tom Robbins, who I like to call my neighbor, writes like this:

          A few months later, everyone of the bride’s relatives, including even distant cousins, decided that life was meaningless without that most talented, most delightful girl, not to mention her pious and generous family, and so the relatives, as well, set off for the hills and Fan Nan Nan. Their departure tore a hole in the fabric of the community; there was an abiding emptiness there.
               –– Tom Robbins, Villa Incognito

The difference in style could hardly be more obvious. Tom’s zany prose dances.

          Then I looked at Dale, my sergeant, wringing out his shirt in a metal water drum. His back was brown, ridged with vertebrae, his ribs like sticks against his skin, the points of his black hair shiny with sweat. Then his lean Czechoslovakian face smiled at me, with more tenderness and affection in his eyes than I had yet seen in a woman’s.
          He was killed eight days later when a Huey tipped the treetops in an LZ and suddenly dipped sideways into the clearing.
                —  James Lee Burke, Heaven’s Prisoners

Burke has a huge vocabulary and is unafraid to take a risk. He sits on a limb and with careful, deliberate, thoughtful strokes, works his saw.

To my taste, the master of mixing the eloquent with the absurd is Nabokov.

          I thought I had crossed the frontier when a bare-headed Red Army soldier with a Mongol face who was picking whortleberries near the trail challenged me: “And whither,” he asked picking up his cap from a stump, “may you be rolling (kotishsya), little apple (yablochko)? Pokazyvay-ka dokumentiki (Let me see your papers).”
          I groped in my pockets, fished out what I needed, and shot him dead, as he lunged at me; then he fell on his face, as if sunstruck on the parade ground, at the feet of his king. None of the serried tree trunks looked his way, and I fled, still clutching Dagmara’s lovely little revolver. Only half an hour later, when I reached at last another part of the forest in a more or less conventional republic, only then did my calves cease to quake.
              — Vladimir Nabokov, Look at the Harlequins!

So, how am I doing? You judge.

          “I’m bored,” Nort said.
          “That’s because you’re not doing anything.”
          “And you can’t make me.”
          “Right,” Jake said. “Exactly.”
          “I’m not staying here. I’ll beg on the street.”
          Jake looked up.
          “It used to be that a man would rather die than be a beggar or take charity,” he said.
          “Things are different now.”
          “I can see that. Good luck out there.”
          “What’s wrong with you? You don’t care about me at all.”
          Jake licked the tip of his pencil.
          “When I was in Da Nang, I was stabbed in the gut with a sharp stick by a starving 11-year-old who wanted the three dollars in my wallet.” He lifted his shirt to show a twisted scar. “After I killed him with a brick, I realized either God either didn’t exist or was the biggest asshole of us all. I care about you, but out in the world you’ll die of AIDS or get stabbed in an alley by a cracked-out whore. It doesn’t pay to get emotionally attached to the doomed.”
               — Ken Coffman, Fairhaven 

You plant your butt in your chair and you face the demons that live in that blank screen. You spend hours and hours wringing words, situations, and plots from too-thin air.

Who are your influences? And, what are your ambitions?

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Cashing in on the Book Business

December 28, 2008 — Pat Bertram

I’ve been looking for book review sites, trying to find places to send my books for review when they are finally released in January or February of next year. There are so many people with published books trying to get them reviewed that most of the good places aren’t accepting or else they charge exorbitant fees. Even the not-so-good places have a waiting list, and many of them charge a fee, too. (Rule of thumb: don’t pay for a review on a blog with less traffic than yours.)

The problem? When self-publishing first became popular, the authors were more or less satisfied with selling 100 copies to family and friends, but now they are learning how to promote. With the big guys making most of their debut authors do their own promotion, writers are beginning to wonder why they should bother with traditional publishers — if authors have to do their own promotion, they might as well get paid. Several bloggeries I’ve read mentioned an expected explosion of self-published books in 2009, and that a large percentage of those books will be aggressively promoted by their authors.

Makes me wonder if the whole book business could implode, with more writers than readers. Many of the people I’ve come in contact via this blog are readers as well as writers, but at least half of the writers I meet elsewhere do not read books. Nor do they buy them.

In the future, perhaps more money can be made reviewing books than writing them. I’ve mentioned before that I’ve been toying with the idea of becoming a reviewer. It’s tempting — especially if I could find others who would be willing to review the genres I don’t read. It’s one way to eventually cash in on the superabundance of published, POD, and self-published books out there, and I’d never lack for reading material. I have only a few objections: I’d have to review for nothing until I could build up a reputation, and I’d have to give strangers my address. Also, I am so jaded when it comes to reading that I’m not sure I could think of anything nice to say about any book, and if I tried to say something positive about a book with negative appeal, would it harm my (so far non-existent) reputation? Even worse, all that reading would take me away from writing, and I have enough distractions as it is.

But still, it’s something to think about as I try to figure out how and where to promote my books.

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Describing a Winter Scene — Again. And Yet Again.

December 26, 2008 — Pat Bertram

I was leafing through a poetry anthology the other day, looking for ideas for mini fiction (stories of exactly 100 words), when I chanced upon a wonderful description of a winter scene by Wallace Stevens from “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird.”

Among twenty snowy mountains,
The only moving thing
Was the eye of the blackbird.

What a marvelous description. You get the feeling of where you are and what you are seeing from three simple lines. If you can find unusual details such as these for your description of a winter scene, and if you can write them as succinctly, you will satisfy both readers who like poetic descriptions and those who prefer brief descriptions.

Another few lines from the same work that describes a winter scene:

It was evening all afternoon.
It was snowing
And it was going to snow.
The blackbird sat
In the cedar-limbs.

I wish I had written “It was evening all afternoon.” I know I’ve been there and felt that, just never found the words.

One of my favorite haiku (favorite perhaps because it’s the only one I remember) is called November:

No sky at all
No earth at all
And still the snowflakes fall.

Beautiful and succinct.

So how do I describe a winter scene? I know I said not to expect me to tell you what I learned about winter from taking a walk, but what the heck. It’s certainly no secret. Since I look down at my feet so I don’t slip and fall, I saw lots of tire tracks.

These tractor tracks caught my eye. Beautiful and perfect in their own way. Now if I can evoke an entire world from a short description of these tracks, I will be on my way to becoming a master wordsmith.

Luckily for me, though, my WIP takes place in the summer.

Other bloggeries that might be of interest:
Describing a Winter Scene
Describing a Winter Scene — Again
A Short and Witty Photographic Ditty (Footprints in the snow.)

***

Pat Bertram is the author of the suspense novels Light Bringer, More Deaths Than One, A Spark of Heavenly Fire, and Daughter Am I. Bertram is also the author of Grief: The Great Yearning, “an exquisite book, wrenching to read, and at the same time full of profound truths.” Follow Pat on Google+. Like Pat on Facebook.

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Describing a Winter Scene — Again

December 23, 2008 — Pat Bertram

The most viewed of all my bloggeries (supposedly that’s the correct name for blog posts) is The Origin of the Grim Reaper. The second most viewed is Describing a Scene in an Interesting Way.  The third is Describing a Character the Easy Way, and the fourth is Describing a Winter Scene. Apparently, writing description is a difficult subject to master. And so is deciding how much or how little to describe.

It seems as if this year we are getting plenty of winter. So, if you want to figure out how to describe a winter scene, don’t think of this a terrible winter but as a marvelous opportunity for learning how to describe a winter scene. The secret  is to find the telling details — the sights, sounds, smell, feel, taste that evoke the entire feeling of the season. Even better is to find that which only you can experience. Icicles dripping from the eaves have been described a zillion times. (A slight exaggeration, but you get the point.) The crystalline aspect of ice-covered trees has probably been described as often. And so has that childhood horror of getting one’s tongue stuck to metal. But what about shadows on the snow?  Rats. That’s been done, too. 

Sitting at a computer and looking out the window is no way to come up with telling details, which is why I can’t think of a single way to describe winter that hasn’t already become a cliché. Winter looks like a Christmas card when looked at from inside, but it can only be experienced (and hence described) by going outside and . . . well, experiencing it.

So, I will leave you all to your chilblained fingers tapping on warm computer keys, and I will brave the elements. But don’t expect me to tell you what I learn. My winter is not your winter. We each have to describe the winter that only we can experience, otherwise there is no reason to describe it at all.

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Becoming My Own Genre

December 19, 2008 — Pat Bertram

Libraries and bookstores used to be set up with a mystery section, a romance section, a science fiction section, and then all the rest of the novels. That’s what mine are — “one of all the rest”. Though that isn’t a genre. Drats.

When did we become so concerned with genre? When independent publishing houses were bought out by the conglomerates? It makes sense — because of my efforts at trying to promote my still-soon-to-be released novels (“soon” is sometime in January now), I’m becoming aware of how difficult it is to get people to notice a “one of all the rest” novel. Most people seem to stick with a reading a certain type of book, and they have certain expectations. Romance readers expect the romantic couple in a romance novel to have romantic conflicts, romantic interludes, and romantic delays until the final romantic finish. If any of their expectations are not met, they will hate the book even if it is spectacular.

I understand this; it happens to me with movies. If a certain movie is advertised as a comedy (Working Girl, for example) and it isn’t comedic all the way through, I hate it because my expectations have not been met. Later, if I watch that same movie without any preconceived notions, I might like it, seeing it (again, like Working Girl) as a drama with comedic moments. But how many people reread a book they hate?

A friend (James R. from Gather) told me: “Transcend genre, change the rules and the world is your oyster. Lamentably, only a few writers are able to pull that off, but hey, nobody said this writing, promoting, and editing stuff was easy, right?” So I need to build my own audience and then it won’t matter that I have no genre because I will be my own genre. Sounds good.

Now if I can only figure out how to do it.

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Writing Discussion: How Do We Make Our Writing the Best We Can?

December 18, 2008 — Pat Bertram

Shirley Ann Howard, author of  Tales Out of School, is hosting my No Whine, Just Champagne discussion group. Please join us, either here or on Gather.com.  We want to know what you have to say.

How do we make our writing the best we can?

Reviewing previous discussions, I found a similar desire in all of us. How do we make our writing the best we can? I suppose it’s different for everyone. Some might like an exciting story with lots of action; others prefer a character driven novel. Last week I saw that quite a few of you do not like description, yet a previous discussion topic referred to it as imagery used to create a mood or enhance a reader’s knowledge of a character. I personally adore imagery/description.

A few previous discussions touted writing rules from well-known authors. How about if we discuss our writing rules, how we make our writing the best we can.

I’ll get us started with what I believe, and what I would suggest as rules if I were a famous author asked for advice. What fun…… What a great fantasy….. 

  • Write from the heart and soul.
  • Pretend nobody is going to read it.
  • Write what you know.
  • Write what you care about.
  • Write what you’d like to read.
  • Involve all senses, especially in an unusual way. I thought last week’s “smelling like horse manure” example was outstanding. It could have said so much about the male character. (Either he didn’t care enough to clean up or he cared so much he couldn’t wait to get to his woman.)
  • If you get stuck, go back and read your previous ten pages. When I do that, I’m always amazed that it seems so obvious what comes next.
  • Write from beginning to end, sketchily if necessary. Fill in the imagery, additional necessary exposition, and “he touched the side of her face” actions with dialogue later.
  • Then edit, edit, edit. Add, cut, correct.
  • Listen to the cadence of your language. It should flow like music with the rhythm of your action.
  • Avoid repetitious vocabulary. Use a Thesaurus…. carefully.
  • Avoid contrived situations and dialogue.
  • Make characters real, like the ones you know. Even Edgar Allan Poe said he did that, if you can believe it.
  • Edit two hundred more times.
  • Show your writing buddy. Take what he/she has to say under advisement.
  • In the end, write what you want… but please… do not use the word “gal.” 

So how about you?

Do you

  • Use an outline?
  • Read and study authors you enjoy?
  • Work on only one project at a time?
  • Write for today’s market?
  • Read “Writer’s Digest?”
  • Take writing classes?
  • Participate in a writing workshop?

Looking forward to what you have to say. I celebrate that we’re all different.

The group No Whine, Just Champagne will exchange ideas during our live discussion on Thursday, December 18, 2008 at 9:00pm ET. Meet us here.

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A Writer’s Life (Guest Blog by Bestselling Author Michael Palmer)

December 14, 2008 — Pat Bertram

I asked bestselling author Michael Palmer if he’d like to be a guest on my blog, and he graciously consented. (You can see an expurgated version of our email conversation here.) Need I say how thrilled I am? Most thrilling of all, instead of sending me an article he’d posted elsewhere, he wrote this piece especially for the readers of Bertram’s Blog. Please join me in welcoming Michael Palmer to the blogosphere.

I want to thank pat for inviting me to be a guest blogger……I will be writing the way I write e-mails and get out of creator’s block-relaxed with no consistent punctuation, no caps unless I feel like it…..what pops into my head is what you get

I tried blogging once-three times, actually, on amazon when I was pushing the first patient…..it felt like I was better off working on my book…..it’s a little like the hallowed book tour…..i could never figure those out……so much money, so little exposure (in some cities I have been to, the books weren’t in any stores)……it used to be you could combine a signing with a day of media work, but the papers aren’t all that interested any more (even in a fine fellow like me, with 13 NY times best sellers and a job taking care of doctors with drug and alcohol problems)……there are very few talk radio shows (I used to bop into a studio and talk with the host for an hour, even two-that was my favorite)…..the TV shows like good morning Cleveland are mostly gone……so on recent tours, I hit a town, stay in the best hotels, and spend the whole day before an evening signing racing (with an escort) from store to store, pounding flesh like a desperate politician and doing everything short of standing in front of a barnes & noble yelling “puleeeeeese buy my book!!!!”)……then, comes the signing-15 – 115 depending on how aggressive the events people are (often “kids” on their first job)….. now don’t get me wrong…..i’m incredibly grateful for what my publishers and the industry and the booksellers and the readers have given me……I live in the big house on the hill and love it up here (there, I said it and I’m glad) but I am also a realist……book tours are done many times because the publishers are afraid to tell their big ticket authors that there isn’t going to be one…..

It is always a painful moment for me when a new author excitedly says to me that they have their first book coming out and “what can I do to get people to buy it??……first I tell them to sit down, that they’re not going to enjoy what I have to say……then I tell them: THE ONLY THING YOU CAN REALLY DO THAT WILL HELP SELL YOUR BOOK IS TO WRITE ANOTHER BOOK……authors do from time to time catch lightning in a bottle—but mostly it’s a matter of improving your skill, learning from your mistakes, and producing……

For my February release, the second opinion, I will not be going away from home…..a signing in Nashua, new Hampshire (I’ll be there on 2/20/09) or at the boston public library (3/3/09 – reception and talk open to the public) is really no different than a sweep through Denver (pray it doesn’t snow) or Nashville or Miami……there are so many cities……publishers budget funds for each book, and when those are gone, no more publicity…..would I rather have a two week tour away from my kid and word processor and favorite pillow, or a full page ad in the times??…..you can answer that one……often it’s either or, though not necessarily on the same scale……

So, I’m a writer, and I’m best off writing and “performing” locally……if I were more disciplined and less exhausted all the time, I suppose I could blog……but I would never be as good at it as JA Konrath or my friend Tess Gerritsen, who are both consistent and incredibly entertaining……

Writing books isn’t just about writing books…..the demands on our time are incredible even without book tours…..i have already apologized to pat a number of times for not getting this piece in to her…..in addition, I have just finished a piece for the hundred greatest thrillers of all time, and am on a rewrite of a serial thriller I’m doing a chapter in for charity with one more due in january…..then there’s the six advanced reading copies on my floor awaiting readings, talks scheduled at the local middle school (I never say no to schools) and also the senior citizens center (I don’t say no to seniors either) and more blurbs, with anywhere from 3-8 ARCs coming in each month (I’m a wicked slow reader)……finally, there’s my kid, and my increasing need for exercise, and a hobby or two, and the holidays, and oh, yes, the pressure and deadlines inherent in my new 4-books in 4-years contract……(write fast and steadily or prepare not to be paid…..

So look for me right here at my desk, and not on the road…..

I love traveling and meeting people and staying at **** hotels (the norm on tour), and eating at the restaurant of my choice, and cleaning out room service, and being treated as something of a celebrity……but, as it has been said many times in one form or another….WRITERS DON’T LIKE WRITING BOOKS, THEY LIKE HAVING WRITTEN THEM…..

Back to work

Have a great day…..

michael

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