Please, take my book! (Contest details to win an ARC of LAST WILL)

Now that I have this pile of advanced reader copies taking up space on my dining room table, I need to start giving them away. The cats said I had to, as they’re not willing to share the table with my books. So, here’s the deal. I’m giving away the twelve (12!) copies of the book seen in the following picture. That includes the top copy where I scattered cat treats to lure the cats into posing. It may smell a bit fishy, but it’s a free book! I’ll be happy to autograph the twelve copies in any way the winners see fit.

Sippy grudgingly deigns to pose with my book fort

Additionally, I’m giving away 20 bookmarks as secondary prizes.

Oooooh, book swag!

Now, there are a couple of ways you can enter, and each one gives you an additional entry. First and easiest, you can Like this blog post. Almost painless. (Unless your mousing hand cramps up, which I hope it doesn’t.)

However, if you’d like to enter the giveaway multiple times, come visit me over on Facebook.  There you can see the full array of things that will get you more chances to win. You can Like my author page on FB, follow my blog, follow me on Twitter, retweet the giveaway, and you can add the book to your to-read list on Goodreads.

The contest o-fficially begins at midnight tonight and runs for a full week.

About the book:

Bernie Raleigh fails at everything he touches. The victim of a kidnapping for ransom as a child, Bernie has spent his adult life trying to avoid being noticed. That’s impossible once he inherits his grandfather’s enormous fortune.

The inheritance comes complete with a lot of obligations, a mansion, and a problematic housekeeper named Meda Amos. Beauty queen, alien abductee, crypto-Jew, single mother — Meda is all those things, and she may also be the only person who can help Bernie survive his new and very public life.

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A rite of publishing passage

I suppose it’s official now: my book really is being published. And I have a photo of a book fort with a cat to prove it. As many people before me have ascertained, it’s just not real until you have enough copies of your book to build a pyramid. Stay tuned. I’ll have details on how you can win a copy soon.

Sippy deigns to pose with my book fort

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What role does luck play in publishing?

Most writers would like to think that our brilliant writing, clever premise, and skillful plot manipulation are the primary things that lead to a book selling. We want to believe this, perhaps even need to believe this, because it helps us feel that we have some control over our writing careers, such as they are. If it’s all about skills, we can just work harder to become better writers, thereby increasing our chances of being published.

That said, as many writers can tell you, luck is a big component to the publishing game. You have to write not just a good book, or a great book, but the right book. Then you (or the right agent) have to send it out to the the right editor at just the right time. If this weren’t true, then how would any of the great classics of literature have ever been rejected even once? If all it were about was the quality of the writing and the story, every great book would immediately sell, leading to accolades, fame, and wealth for the author. We know it ain’t so.

Yet sometimes I encounter writers who would have you believe that it was only their hard work that led to their writing successes. As though they alone controlled the outcome.

Today, I read a news story about a CNN producer who has won the lottery twice. She tells her own story here. Part of the story is touching, because she apparently won $100,000 the first time, just at the moment she most needed it. Those are wonderful stories, when crisis is averted by a sudden windfall.

The rest of the story is pure aggravation. Here is what she has to say about why she won:

“I believe that this blessing came to me because I have worked very hard.”

Scratch harder!!!

I have scratched lottery tickets before. It’s not that difficult. It certainly doesn’t qualify as “hard work.” Somehow, this woman believes that she won the lottery because she deserved it for working so hard. These are the words of someone who is either delusional or lacking in logic. Unless one is cheating, one wins the lottery, because through a process of random chance, one has purchased a winning ticket. It has nothing to do with hard work or being deserving.

The same is true with writing and publishing. To get published, you have to write a book (or in some cases, hire someone to write your book.) Hard work helps with this, because writing a book is not as easy as buying a lottery ticket. That said, the rest of the equation is all about getting your book into the hands of the right editor at the right moment. This rests a very great deal on chance.

What say you? How important is luck? In publishing? In winning the lottery? In everyday life?

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A poll: How would you feel if I misspelled your name?

So, let’s just play a hypothetical game to help me out with a dilemma.

Let’s say that 10 or more years ago, while toiling in obscurity in Tampa, I finished writing my first real novel. Let’s pretend it was before the internet was big, so my circle of writing friends was a lot smaller than it is now. I had this really great coworker, you, who read a lot and enjoyed talking about books. So I asked you to read my book, before I decided what to do with it–burn it, query it, weep quietly over it?

Continuing with our hypothetical scenario, let’s say you were an enthusiastic reader, who not only said nice things about my book, but offered some comments that proved helpful to me in revising.

Now, flash forward to the present. Sadly, you and I lost touch years ago. Before the internet, this happened all the time, remember? It was nobody’s fault. Sad, but true.

Except something pretty cool happened this year, hypothetically. After all these years, I sold that very first book to a publisher. I’ve hammered out edits, weighed in on covers, shilled other writers for blurbs and engaged in a growing variety of networking gymnastics. Then the publisher emailed me to ask, “Do you want to include a dedication?”

Um, yeah, yeah, I do. I particular, I’d really like to dedicate this book to my two first readers. The problem is, I don’t remember how to spell your name exactly. I think it’s Brianne May. But maybe it’s Brianna May. Or maybe your last name was LeMay. It’s just been too long since I worked with you, and I don’t remember.

So, in this hypothetical situation …

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Wait … you want MY opinion?

I know, I know. I’m always over-eager to share my opinion, whether anyone asks for it or not, but every once in a while, I’m asked for my opinion and have to scramble for one. This one is a doozy.

A great title makes a great book cover!

Over the last ten years, a goodly number of my friends and acquaintances have sold books. At some point in each case, they opened the emails in which they got to see the final version of their covers. That sight has been met with everything from giddy delight to caution to abject disappointment. Until the recent increase in self-publication, that was how the game went: the author was the last to know what the cover would be. Now I know a few people who’ve actually designed their own covers with varying degrees of success.

On the other hand, I fielded an email from my soon-to-be-publisher asking for my input on a cover for my book. It’s a small press, with a president who’s used to making his own decisions, so I was prepared for the likelihood that I would simply be sent a couple versions of possible covers for feedback.  From watching all those friends’ and acquaintances’ experiences, I was also prepared for the likelihood that my feedback might be the least important factor in the final decision. After all, I’m no graphic designer.

I guess I wasn’t really prepared for the prospect of being asked for my very own little ideas about the cover.

Uh, me? I …

Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve cogitated, looked at a variety of photos, and a whole slew of book covers. Today, I actually mocked up a few things to see how I felt about the various possibilities. Today I clicked SEND, and I wait to hear what the guy who makes the decisions thinks.

How about you? Have you designed a cover? Had one thrust upon you? What are your favorite covers? Least favorite?

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Oh, my stars! What’s with all the review inflation?

I’m not sure where the star rating system first originated. (Curse you, internet, for failing to provide immediate trivia information!) I believe it became well-known by its use in the Michelin hotel and restaurant guides, which have been giving stars to deserving establishments since 1926. Now? Star rankings are everywhere. From football stadiums to random hotel sites to amazon.com to this new-fangled GoodReads.

Originally, the star itself was a marker of quality. To be singled out by Guide Michelin with a star was to be raised to the firmament, put above lesser establishments. (See what I did there? ;o) Pretty quickly, however, Michelin added two- and then three-star ratings. Three stars represented the very best restaurants and hotels. As of this year, there are only 79 three-star restaurants in the world.

Michelin, like some redoubtable academic stronghold, has resisted ratings inflation over the years. The new reader-based internet rating systems for books has not held up so well. In fact, the whole system seems to be plunging from the sky in a ball of fire, like some Sputnik/Skylab/Challenger disaster of literary proportions. The whole thing is blowing up faster than I can read the latest review kerfuffle on Amazon or GoodReads.

The first time I really noticed how rapidly book reviews were becoming inflated was when a friend lamented that she’d gotten a “bad rating” for her book on GoodReads. I sympathized with her and went to see the damage. The review wasn’t vituperative or even particularly harsh, and then I noted that the reviewer had marked the book with 3 stars.

But wait! What? 3 stars? I hesitated, confused, as I scrolled back up to pass my cursor over the offending rating in question. The hover text obligingly popped up: “3 of 5 stars, liked it.” That was what I thought. 3 stars means the reader liked the book. That was the presumption upon which I’d based all of the ratings I’d doled out on GoodReads. Not that I’m all that adept at remembering to enter the books I’ve read and my ratings of them, but there were several good books I’d rated at 3 stars. Because I liked them. Not loved them. Not felt gushy and world-altered. Just liked. You know, in a positive, hey, I enjoyed reading that kind of way.

So how the heck did 3 stars became a “bad review”?

Oh, right… the same way a C became a bad grade, when we all started expecting to be above average. When we all started expecting our work to be deemed “amazing,” or “brilliant,” or “earth-shattering.” When we started getting our little feelings hurt if we weren’t deemed geniuses by everyone who read our stories.

It’s not that I don’t understand. Yes, when my first book comes out later this year, I will hope for mostly 4- and 5-star ratings. That would be very nice. We all want to be loved and admired. But it’s crazy when we expect that. Because like the old Freshman Composition teacher I am, I still want a system of evaluation to maintain its credibility. I still want there to be standards for what makes a student essay a B+, as opposed to a C. I don’t think “average” is a “bad grade.” I don’t think marking that I liked a book should be interpreted in a negative way.

The truth is, I don’t think most books I read are 5-star books. There are a few. Books that just blow me away. Books that have changed the way I think about the world. Books that I can re-read over and over and never get bored. Those are 5-star books. Maybe I’m just a bitch, but generally the highest rating I’ll give, even to the aforementioned dear friend, is 4 stars. Because although I think some of my friends are very talented writers who’ve written enjoyable books, I don’t feel like going around proclaiming they’re works of genius, just … because. For the sake of friendship. To be nice. That’s not really what book reveiews/ratings are for, right? Or is it?

A Theme

I won’t even get into the question of writers rating their own books at 5 stars. Do I think my forthcoming book is a 5-star book? No. I think it’s pretty good. Mostly well-written with some nicely crafted characters. The plot’s no beauty pageant winner, but that’s just it. Not every book is gonna be the winner. The Pulitzer Prize–only goes to one book. Not every student essay is an A++++++++++++++++

Which is not to say that everybody should have the same 5-star book. Ridiculous. The joy of such reader-centric sites as GoodReads is that each reader can expound on the virtues of their favorite books. The other side of that coin is that every reader can discourse on the failures of the books they deem deserving of 1-star ratings.

The problem, as I see it, is when we get sucked into a system of over-rating books, because we’re afraid of offending someone or being attacked for our honest opinion. Having been lambasted for giving my honest, but not cruel opinion on books that I thought were less than stellar, I’ve all but given up rating books on GoodReads. I cringe in anticipation of my entry into the land of stars and reviews and revenge ratings, but there doesn’t seem to be an alternative…

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Ravenous Romance Blog Tour: C. Margery Kempe

And now for something completely different …Today, I’ve got something a bit more racy than I usually do: The Ravenous Romance Ornery Eleven Blog Tour.  That’s eleven of Ravenous Romance’s writers weighing in on the topic of writing, sex, and e-publishing. Please stick around and feel free to ask any questions you’d like about erotica and what e-publishing is like from an author’s perspective.  We’ll kick off with some words from the guest author for today’s tour stop: C. Margery Kempe.

Chastity Flame

Hello and thanks so much to Bryn for hosting our rambling group of Ravenous writers!  We’re here to let the world know a bit about the wide variety of books available from Ravenous Romance.  While we all love to pen a hot story, we come at it from different angles.  My new novel CHASTITY FLAME is a case in point.  While it’s chock full of inventive sex scenes because she’s a secret agent with who makes the most of any opportunity that comes her way (and a lot of them do!), it’s also about a woman who appreciates art, clever conversation and partners who aren’t the least bit intimidated by her.  She meets every wild adventure with confidence.  Of course, this grows from my own opinion that the brain is the most important sex organ of the body.  I’m drawn to people who are clever as well as intelligent, with a good sense of humour. Make me laugh and you’re half way there. I may admire a hot body, but if it’s not guided by a curious and creative mind, I’ll lose interest fast.

Why do you think the e-book format is taking off so much these days?

C. Margery Kempe: So many reasons! They are in general less expensive, take up less space and people love anything that’s portable or works on electronic devices. It’s a plus that it saves resources as well–think of all the trees *not* getting killed.  With the high consumption rate of these steamy little dumplings, it seems a real savings not to have to pay for shipping, too. Or to wait for it–there’s a lot to be said for the instant gratification that e-books offer. You know how it is: you realize you have a very long meeting in the afternoon, so you cruise over to Ravenous Romance and download a new story which you surreptitiously read while someone is droning on and on about profit margins or administrative whatnot (clearly I never pay attention in meetings). It’s discreet, too, as no one can really see what you’re reading and won’t guess why you’re fidgeting in your seat so much unless you actually start fanning yourself and saying, “Whew, I gotta cool down!”

Inara LaVey: It’s cheaper than print, easier for publishers to take a chance on new talent, and it’s definitely in sync with the new (and hopefully continuing) trend toward green/sustainable living.

Isabel Roman: There’s such a wide variety available so much sooner than print houses, they’re cheaper, and private. No one looking over your shoulder to see the sexy cover then commenting on it.

Lisa Lane: The world is going electronic, so it only stands to reason that the world of print would follow suit.  The slow economy also has made their lower prices much more appealing, as of late.

Angela Cameron: I think it’s a combination of necessity and convenience. E-books can go anywhere. Plus, they’re generally less expensive for everyone than print. In this economy, that’s a necessity.

Savannah Chase: E-books are becoming more popular because they are not as expensive as paperbacks. They also don’t take up as much space as a traditional book would. With all the different e-book readers you can fit a huge number of books on one device and not have to carry them around. I think it is mostly the convenience of being able to read an e-book on your computer, mobile device or e-book reader.

Elle Amery: I think we’re all conscious about the environment in a way we weren’t even ten years ago. E-publishing has a much smaller carbon footprint, something we all care about. I’m thrilled that many people are choosing to read e-books! Perhaps it’s time I invested in an e-book reader for myself instead of reading on my computer . . .

Em Lynley: So many reasons! They are in general less expensive, take up less space and people love anything that’s portable or works on electronic devices. It’s a plus that it saves resources as well.

Jamaica Layne: Because it’s cheap, accessible, and people spend so much time using their computers, iPhones, etc.  It also gives the reader a lot of privacy, which is great for erotica.

Sèphera Girón:  I think it’s a combination of cheaper prices, convenience of ordering because you can download a story in minutes and that they are environmentally friendly. Also, in the arena of erotica, you can have anonymity in both the purchase and the reading experience.s

Neve Black: I hope it’s because people are concerned about leaving a smaller carbon footprint.

***

And now a sample of Margery’s first contribution to the e-book world of erotic romance!

***

“Is this seat taken?”

Chastity looked up from her lounge seat to see a tall man with greying hair gesturing toward the orange chair beside her.  She shook her head and returned to her novel, but part of her attention was captured by his handsome profile.  For some reason she hadn’t been able to get into North and South as quickly as she had Gaskell’s other novels, so at last she closed the book with a sigh and stretched.  Still another hour to go according to her new mobile.

“Would you care for a coffee?” the gentleman beside her offered.

“That would be lovely,” Chastity answered with genuine pleasure.  Her gallant returned with coffee and all the accoutrements and she gratefully added a helping of cream to the rich black brew.

“Simon Chalk,” he said by way of introduction, offering her a smartly manicured and surprisingly large hand to shake.

“Masie Diamond,” Chastity offered, picking one of her stock names at random and reminding herself to keep to it.  It was not, however, the name on her passport.

“Do you make this trip often?  Or is that far too dull of a question?”

“How about ‘what did you want to be when you grew up?’” Chastity asked with a smile.  It was always one of her favourites.

Milkman

As expected, he laughed and blinked a little at her.  “I wanted to be a milkman,” he said, his grin betraying a good bit of embarrassment at his sudden revelation.  Chastity was sure he had expected to be the one leading the conversation.

“A milkman?” she prompted.

“I’m not sure what it was,” Simon continued, “I think I just liked our milkman.  He was always kind and cheerful.  I liked the crisp white uniform, too.  What a strange thing to dig up from memory.  And you?”

“I wanted to be a circus performer,” Chastity said, no longer sure if it was a lie or the truth.  “I wanted to ride bareback on a horse and do pirouettes and stand on one leg.”

Simon smiled at her.  Unlike his initial predatory grin, there was a genuine warmth to it.  “I can see you doing that.  On a white horse with bells and shiny silver buckles on its bridle.”

Chastity sipped her coffee and regarded him closely.  “Maybe that’s why I like leather… and straps and buckles.”

His intake of breath was audible.  Chastity kicked off her shoes and crossed her legs, resting them on the stool in front of her that was padded with the same hideously orange upholstery.  “You have such lovely calves,” Simon said, his tone now slightly uncertain, yet gaining strength.  “I could certainly see you as a circus acrobat on horseback, those strong legs lifting you to incredible heights.”

Chastity stretched her legs, pointing the toes and then relaxing them again.  “And what would you do with these legs in your hands?” she asked him, turning her amber eyes on his gaze unswervingly.

He was warming to the challenge rather quickly though.  “I would start with the toes, yes, I’m sure of that,” he said, his eyes caressing what his hands were denied.  His voice lowered in both tone and register.  “I would start with your toes in my mouth, happy to suck each one and enjoy the salty savour of them.  And then I would run each fingertip along the muscles of your calf, needing to feel the interplay of the flexing tendons.  I would caress your knees until I was sure I had memorized their shape.  Only then would I consider your thighs.  All right so far?”

Chastity nodded, her expectations already exceeded.

“Your thighs,” he continued, “would be a special assault.  Clearly they are soft and well cared for, but you are a woman who keeps an active life, so they are well disciplined and strong.  That must be admired and acknowledged.  Hands would not be enough.  It would be necessary to employ the mouth and lips as well.”

“Of course,” Chastity murmured, wondering if the toilets on the train were really any better than those on an airplane, but content for now to slump in her chair and listen to the seductive words of this would-be milkman.

***

Remember to leave a comment; it automatically enters you to win a free copy of CHASTITY FLAME.  We’ll also be giving away three $5.00 gift certificates for Ravenous on three random stops.  You won’t know which ones until the tour is over, so visit as many as you can!  And if you leave a comment on every stop in the RR Ornery Eleven BBT, you’re eligible to win a $25 gift certificate from Ravenous Romance!

Thanks so much for stopping by and thank you, Bryn, for hosting us!  Please visit The Bookwenches tomorrow, April 30th, for another question of the day and our featured author Savannah Chase!

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Branding…not just for cattle anymore

As soon as I found out about it, I become a fan of the blog Shrinking Violets.  It bills itself as “Marketing for Introverts.”  Just what I need. I’m sure all the teenagers and felons who watched me do condom demonstrations over the years wouldn’t believe that I’m an introvert, but I am.  The condom lady–that was just a role to play.  Me, the real me, is a quiet, reserved person.

Shrinking Violets recently had a guest blogger, C.J. Lyons, who writes medical suspense novels.  She also has some interesting observations about identifying and solidifying your “brand” as an author.

We’ve all watched commercial properties go through branding changes with varying degress of success and failure.  Remember when Phillip Morris changed their name or when Coke changed their recipe?

It’s strange to think of my writing in this light, but it is a product.  I am trying to sell it.  It has left me wondering what my brand is.

Obviously, I’m not flashy, as you can tell from the plain design I picked for my website.  Nor is my writing flashy.  On occasion I engage in verbal pyrotechnics, but those darlings usually end up drowned in the bathtub of revision.  I like my prose to be solid, practical, and easy to understand.  Primarily, I think that’s because I want people to think about the ideas behind the writing instead of the writing.

My website design reveals another aspect to my “brand” that I haven’t given much thought to.  Apparently I’m a “regional writer.”  I’ve written plenty of stories that take place outside of Kansas and Oklahoma, but I do find that my best short stories develop out of the rather narrow locales of my childhood.

Even when I step outside of Kansas, as I do when I write fantasy, I find that the dry pragmatism and deep passions of the place sneak into the cultures I make up.  The abolitionists who fought in the border wars and the people who stayed through the Dust Bowl crop up in places I never expected.

Also, I love intimacy.  (And by intimacy I don’t just mean sex.  Although I don’t shy away from including it where it fits and where it develops the characters.)  It’s more that I like stories told in close-up, to use a camera analogy.  I quickly lose interest in stories, reading and writing them, that are told in the long view.  Although I prefer third person to first, I like a very close third.  In stories of grand scale, I want the main action to play out in a narrow room with two or three people intensely interested in that moment.

There’s a dark element in my writing, too, that surprises a lot of people.  Betrayal, isolation, disappointment, and cruelty all make their way into my stories.  It’s what I always think of as the Peyton Place Factor.  In isolated places, people become dark, strange, secretive, and intent on their desires.  Yes, even the wholesome young men who stop to help when you have car trouble, and the little old ladies who cook at church suppers, and the nice neat Christian families who eat across from you at those same church suppers.  They’re all hoarding secrets: meth addictions, shameful lust, decades-old jealousies, crushing disappointment, daily revenges on petty slights.

In some ways, it all comes together in the novel I currently have out with a few agents.  I call it Ugly and the Beast on the days I love it.  Blackneck on the days I hate it.  Depending on who reads it, the book is perhaps urban fantasy that takes place in rural Oklahoma.  Or it’s literary with elements of magical realism.  Cormac McCarthy smokes a bong with Gabriel Garcia Marquez.  Despite my original intentions, it has a deep vein of politics on the issue of the death penalty and a parallel track of folkloric whimsy.  The Executioner’s Song meets  Snow White.

Its main character, Axyl, could be my half-brother: a boy who grew up isolated among well-meaning people, with a basic notion of decency that hasn’t stopped him from killing people.  Carrying secrets and longing to find someone to tell them to.  Trapped in a cycle of betrayal and always looking for the joke that will make it okay.

Austere, dark, funny, in close-up.

What’s your brand?

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Depends on what you mean by “publish” or “perish”

I know I’ll be sorry, because those people who believe deeply, truly, sincerely in the value of self-publication, they’re going to come to my blog and torment me.  Fine.  I just can’t help but write this post after the self-publishing laugh/cry fest I recently witnessed in the form of a promotional website for a soon-to-be-released self-published novel.

Sadly, I will not name names nor link links.  I’m willing to hurt and piss off self-publishers in general, but I won’t poke any one self-published individual, no matter how ridiculous and sad I find his promotional website or indeed, his prose.

I readily admit that there are writers in specific situations who are better off going the self-publication route.  For example, I have a passing acquaintance with someone who writes Christian Nudist Humor.  As surprising as it seems, there is not a huge market for Christian Nudist Humor.  Why?  Being neither a Christian nor a nudist, and only occasionally funny, I won’t hazard a guess.  So, to preclude anyone bailing into me on that front, I acknowledge that there are niche markets best served by self-publication and self-promotion.

Beyond that, however, self-publishing seems to be the last resort of the uninformed, the desperate, the stubborn,  the delusional, and the…gosh, I was hoping I’d think of something neutral to put in here that would allow the self-publishing believers who don’t think of themselves as any of the above to walk away from this blog post without wanting to kill me.  Fail.  Um, the easily satisfied?

At any rate, from my occasional encounters with people who believe in self-publishing, I perceive the rhetoric of self-publication to be that the publishing industry is inept, corrupt, sheep-like, narrow-minded, or some other epithet that explains why traditional publishers don’t want to publish a particular book much beloved by its writer.  The rest of the rhetoric goes like this: I know some self-published books are really bad, but mine is really well written but too controversial or innovative or just too darn good!

So let me just say, the current rate of disappointing books to good books among the traditionally published books I’ve bought or checked out of the library runs at about 3 in 10.  Seriously, of every ten books I buy or check out, I find only 7 of them both readable and enjoyable.  Two of the other three tend to be not to my taste, but typically at least one of the three is poorly written or indifferently edited.

As for self-published books, the rate of disappointing books to good books runs at about 9 in 10.  Don’t think I’m making that up.  I didn’t pull that ratio out of my ass.  I have some experience reading self-published books, some of it quite by chance and some it a product of my own perverse curiosity.

When my husband was stationed in Classifiedistan with the Marines, he was tormented by a lack of reading material.  Being a bit of a scammer, he contacted Alibris, the used book seller, and asked about creating a program to get books to Marines and soldiers in Classifiedistan.  Alibris agreed and asked Hubby for a list of books, which he provided.  Shortly thereafter, Alibris customers began buying books off the list to be shipped overseas.

It got big.  Really big.  Think pallets of books.  This was in 2001 and everyone was eager to “support the troops.”

When Hubby returned home, some of the books followed him, because they came addressed to him personally.  Over the next several months, we received many boxes of books, including several that contained multiple copies of self-published books.  It was clear in those cases that the authors had purchased and shipped the books themselves.  Never mind that those books weren’t on Hubby’s request list, making the whole thing smack of a sleazy sort of self-promotion to a captive audience, the books were uniformly bad.  Bad.  Laughably bad.  If I’d been asked to critique or edit those books, I would have returned them filled with notes and corrections.  I didn’t even know these people and I was embarrassed for them having published those books under their real names–I assumed.

That first brush with the self-publishing world created my morbid curiosity.  I found myself at library donation sales and used book stores and garage sales, sifting through boxes of books for the self-published ones.  In an interesting turn of events, I learned that my boss had published a book.  My co-workers talked about it as something very important and special.  She’d written a whole suspense novel and had it published!  Then I looked the book up and learned it was self-published.  It was also available used from amazon.com, for a penny plus postage.

I bought it, of course, and learned two things.  1.) Someone who knew my boss well enough to get the book signed had later sold it to a used book dealer.  2.) My boss could put together a grammatically correct sentence, but her dialog and description were death-dealingly boring.  I tried to read the book and foundered after a mere 30 pages.  I later passed it surreptitiously to another unindoctrinated co-worker who experienced the same level of proxy-embarrassment.

After that I went through a few months of buying a variety of self-published books for a penny plus postage.  I suppose I was searching for that elusive thing: the self-published book that was truly too good, too controversial, too innovative for traditional publishing.  I haven’t found it yet, but more than that I haven’t found even one self-published book that left me thinking positive things about the author’s decision to publish.  (Excepting the niche market element I cited earlier, which represents my 1 in 10 that I consider readable.)

I have winced, giggled, and sighed over these books, but I’ve concluded that the traditional publishing process does have something to offer.  It’s something more than a filtration system to keep out “bad” writers as some people have suggested.  Rather, I suspect it’s that the process produces better writing.  Having other people evaluating your writing with an eye to improving it can never be a bad thing.  Certainly, it’s possible to ruin a book by forcing revisions by committee, but far more often the revision process required by the traditional publishing system produces better writing.

Maybe it’s a sign that I lack confidence in my own writing, but the thought of being the last arbiter of editorial decisions for a book I wrote…it skeeves me out.  I want someone else who has something on the line to say, “Yes, this book is ready to go to print.”

Now, before you bail into me, two things:

1.) If you are considering self-publication, but haven’t done it yet…wait.  Wait to bail into me until you’ve actually published the book.  For that matter, wait a while before you publish the book.

2.) If you have self-pubbed your book and you’re experiencing righteous indignation at my attitude toward it, e-mail me.  Don’t e-mail me insults, just e-mail me to let me know you’d like to send me a free copy of your fabulous book.  (Don’t e-mail and offer to send me a copy of some historical example.  The times, they have already changed.)  I swear, I’ll send you my address, I’ll look at your book, and if it is indeed the exception to my sweeping generalities, I’ll send you a check for the cost of the book AND I’ll document the whole thing right here.  Promise.  It’ll have to be more than merely adequate or serviceable.  It’ll have to be good.  A book that is as skillfully written and edited as the average book published through traditional routes.  If it’s outside my preferred reading areas, I don’t demand that I enjoy it, but simply that the writing reveal quality workmanship.

3.) Okay, three things.  Again, niche market writers, don’t get huffy with me.  I’m not talking about you.

ETA: Time just ran an article about how publishing is changing, and that self-publishing is the wave of the future.  They base this on a few radical exceptions–people who first self-published and later sold the rights to major publishing houses.  All of which seems to prove only that the more things change the more they stay the same.  Yes, some writers have successfully used self-publication as a kind of grand sales pitch to…traditional publishers.  The success comes not from the “selling books out of your trunk,” but from getting a six-figure advance from a big publishing house.  If I hear about a bunch of writers making six figures from selling their books out of their trunk (or off their website), then I’ll consider the possibility that traditional publishing is dead.

Also, it all smacks of entrepreneurism, to which I say, “Are you kidding me?”  If I wanted to be an entrepreneur, I’d already have started my own business.  I’m a writer.  I like sitting around by myself writing, not going out and selling myself to people.  Eeek!

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Race and Writing What You Know in Your Heart

It’s not unusual to come across the kind of discussion I found on Absolute Write the other day, in which well-meaning writers try to hash out a safe path through the minefield of racial identities.  If you’re a white writer, is the “racial default” in character descriptions necessarily white?  How do you describe characters who are outside that racial default setting without being racist?  Can you write outside your racial default without being racist?  Can you write outside your racial default and still be authentic?  What happens when you step outside the lines that are supposed to define your racial identity?

I’ll admit, it was very late in the game of writing my most recent project that I even contemplated this question.  Maybe I’m a little dense, but it really didn’t occur to me to ask: can a white girl write convincingly in the voice of a black man?  The overriding feeling I had and the one I still have above all others is that the narrator, Axyl, is an Okie like me.  He was born and grew up not thirty miles from where I grew up.  He was raised by the same kind of working class family I was raised by.  He has the same cadence to his speech and the same uncertainty about how far he’s willing to embrace his redneck upbringing.

I don’t pretend that I have a clue what it’s like to be a black man in redneck America, but I have lived as an outsider in a community that should have embraced me, if inclusion were only a matter of race.  I was kicked out of Sunday school and harassed for being an atheist.  Everyone in town knew about my father’s criminal habits and his lengthy stints in prison, and people talked about it, not always behind my back.

Years later, living in rural Japan, I had a taste of what it’s like to be on the receiving end of racial bias.  Dozens of times people got up and moved, when I sat next to them on the bus or train.  I learned to cut my own hair, because I couldn’t find a single barber or hairstylist who was willing to cut gaijin hair.  There were restaurants in my town where I couldn’t be served and stores where the shopkeepers put up the closed sign if they saw me coming.

These feelings are in my narrator’s experience.  After all, isn’t that the job of a writer: to borrow from our own experiences to inhabit the lives of people who don’t exist?  It’s an odd task and one that can’t require the exactness of journalism.  Approximation is all anyone can provide.

The strangest part in all of this is that after a dozen or more people had read the manuscript and offered critiques, the question of my race vs. my narrator’s race came up many times.  The question of my gender vs. my narrator’s gender came up a few times, but oddly enough no one asked me whether I felt comfortable writing as a multiple murderer.  I’ve never killed anyone, but apparently that discrepancy between my life experience and my narrator’s life experience seemed unimportant next to the question of skin color.

I wonder, too, exactly how long the lines between races will stay sharp.  They’re blurring already, and writers and readers are both trying to figure out how that affects their perceptions of characters.  For an interesting observation on the failure of race to color inside the lines, see sci fi writer Tobias Bucknell’s great post on his experience as a “Caribbean writer.”

I think about this today, because of all the hubbub in the news about our new president.  Many commentators have remarked that “a black family in the White House changes everything.”   On certain levels, I have no doubt that they’re right.  The Obamas represent a sea change for racial minorities in America.  Barack Obama even gets mentioned in my book, as some successful counterpart to my narrator.  The son of a white woman and a black (and largely absent) father, my narrator is in the same awkward gap Obama has described being in: too black to fit in with white people or too white to fit in with black people.  Neither one nor the other.  Neither hot nor cold, but lukewarm?

As I contemplate the process of querying this book, I am in uncertain waters.  The book, though it has elements of the fantastical in it, doesn’t truly fit with the “urban fantasy” genre.  I have called it “literary fiction with magical realism,” but perhaps it has too much action to suit literary tastes.  It’s perhaps too raw and ugly to consider itself  “commercial fiction with magical realism.”  I find myself looking at agents who represent “multi-cultural” novels, but I always end up with the same question: Am I out of the running for multi-culti because I am so pasty white?  Will my skin color become an issue more than the contents of the book?

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