The New York Times Best Seller List is perhaps the most famous and coveted bestseller list, and some claim that most buyers check this list before making a purchase. [I doubt this, as do others - see below.]
How this list is compiled is a trade secret, but it's known that the NYT "News Surveys" department creates it and the NYT Book Review publishes it.
It's a weekly list, said to be based upon weekly sales reports from a selected set of independent and chain bookstores - and wholesalers - across the country. The sales tallies are not wholesale figures: they represent actual books sold to the individual buyer.
There are other bestseller lists, of course. USA Today has a well-known list: providing the top 150 in book sales without categorization, it gives other information, including the week of peak sales and number of weeks on the list.
Publisher's Weekly has its list. So do various booksellers: for independents, check out BookSense; for chains, look to Barnes&Noble.com, and Borders, which is "teamed" online with Amazon.com. The Christian Booksellers Association also has its own list.
Once you've found the lists, the question becomes: what do they tell you? On his blog From Where I Sit (12-22-06 entry), ThomasNelson CEO Michael Hyatt tells you: not much. The lists don't include things like Wal-Mart sales, and the bulk of the Christian market, for example.
Hyatt explains: "Most of the bestsellers lists are inaccurate. In fact, I can't think of a single exception. They claim to be comprehensive. Supposedly, they represent the best selling books in the country. But the fact is, they don’t. At best, they represent sales through a specific sales channel. But guess what’s missing? That’s right. All the mass market outlets like Wal-Mart, K-Mart, Target, Costco, and Sam’s and Christian bookstores (some 2,300 stores or so). This is a big piece of the market.
"For example, at Thomas Nelson, about 34% of our total sales come from Christian bookstores and another 16% come from mass outlets. Only 21% of our sales go through general market bookstores like Barnes & Noble, Borders, and Books-a-Million—the stores the New York Times polls. The other large Christian publishers probably have a similar mix. As a result, the Times completely misses the number of units that are moving through some very significant sales channels. At best, they can claim that their bestsellers list represents sales through only one specific sales channel.
"...The best solution of all would be for Nielsen’s BookScan to collect data from Christian bookstores. It already collects data from 6,500 general market bookstores and other retail outlets, including Target, K-Mart, and Costco. (It apparently does not collect data from Wal-Mart or Sam’s.) It is also based on point-of-sale data, so the data is thus more reliable. It reflects what customers are actually buying."
PoynterOnline's BookBabes blog (11-19-04 entry) has a nice discussion of an article written in Fall 2004 by Marina Krakovsky which appeared in The Washington Post Book World.
Krakovsky's interest was piqued by a study by Stanford business professor Alan Sorensen, who had compared the NYT List with Nielsen BookScan. (Nielsen more accurate, NYT didn't impact booksales in any significant way.) Krakovsky investigated how various bestseller lists are compiled, comparing them to the Nielsen BookScan, which purportedly logs approximately 70 percent of all book sales.
Margo Hammond, book editor for the St. Petersburg Times writes, "So which bestseller list really tells us which books America is buying? It would seem none of them. Even [Nielsen] BookScan can't convince Wal-Mart to disclose its sales, for example. BookScan may provide the most accurate list for the whole country. But for now the public buys into the more "whimsical" lists because they carry some sort of branding allure, without thinking about how these lists reflect the tastes and philosophies of each publication as much as they do actual sales. Instead of bestseller lists, perhaps we should call them Lists of Books We Think Our Particular Readers Are Buying."
Ellen Heltzel, co-author of the BookBabes column for Poytner, replies: "Beware the big clomping feet of BookScan. Sure, the data-meister doesn't clock Wal-Mart, nor, for that matter, does it measure sales to libraries or assigned reading on college campuses. But, in the four years since it was started, BookScan has turned itself into a force to reckon with. Where newspapers and magazines used to offer the best that was available in customer advisories on what was selling, now BookScan can do it better. Cultural lag and tradition accounts for why the reading public is still addicted to The New York Times bestseller list. But BookScan's Jim King makes it clear that his outfit would like to become the standard inside the industry -- and outside, as well.
BookScan's advantage is that all it does is collect the numbers that reveal winners and losers (as far as sales go, anyway). It surveys national chains, regional chains, discounters like Costco, and independents. The information is helpful to publishers, who now can make decisions based not only on how their own books are doing, but with fair measure of the competition."
In 2003, Publisher's Weekly wasn't so sure about this new kid on the block. "So how representative are the service's numbers? An informal survey of the top-selling books of 2003 showed some surprising things.
"BookScan generally claims to represent between 70% and 75% of sales in the industry (Wal-Mart and some of the supermarket chains are among those who decline to report.) But a comparison with in-print figures supplied by publishers reveals that the numbers are more likely to represent about 65%, even after deducting for unsold books and returns.
"For BookScan's top ten nonfiction titles published last year--a list that include mass-market favorites like Phil McGraw's diet books as well as indie hits like Benjamin Franklin: An American Life--no title had BookScan sales comprise more than 75% of total sales. For some of the books that had strong special-sales, they ran as low as 25%."
[Note: if you want to check the sales of a particular book (e.g., if you want to confirm the accuracy of your royalty check), you can buy a sales report based upon Nielsen BookScan information from the BookStandard. An example of what you get for $85 is shown on the site in .pdf format.]
December 25, 2006
December 22, 2006
How to Write A Book Proposal - 1 (the CEO)
Written by the Pres/CEO of ThomasNelson (6th largest trade publisher in the US, 2006), this is a nice article both in size (10 pages) and in example (lots of illustrations of what he likes to see).
What does Michael Hyatt want to see? Five things:
1. captivating cover letter;
2. title page;
3. proposal overview (the content, the market, and the author);
4. chapter-by-chapter synopsis; and
5. two sample chapters.
What does Michael Hyatt advise? Two things:
1. Decide what you want to say; and
2. Decide to whom you want to say it.
Lots more in this downloadable article (pdf format). A must read.
Mr. Hyatt has a very nice blog, too, entitled, "From Where I Sit: Musings on the World of Publishing."
What does Michael Hyatt want to see? Five things:
1. captivating cover letter;
2. title page;
3. proposal overview (the content, the market, and the author);
4. chapter-by-chapter synopsis; and
5. two sample chapters.
What does Michael Hyatt advise? Two things:
1. Decide what you want to say; and
2. Decide to whom you want to say it.
Lots more in this downloadable article (pdf format). A must read.
Mr. Hyatt has a very nice blog, too, entitled, "From Where I Sit: Musings on the World of Publishing."
November 25, 2006
Grammar-1:11 Common Mistakes
According to JunketStudies, here are the 11 rules of grammar that are most often broken (or is it "broken most often"?):1. To join two independent clauses, use a comma followed by a conjunction, a semicolon alone, or a semicolon followed by a sentence modifier.
2. Use commas to bracket nonrestrictive phrases, which are not essential to the sentence's meaning.
3. Do not use commas to bracket phrases that are essential to a sentence's meaning.
4. When beginning a sentence with an introductory phrase or an introductory (dependent) clause, include a comma.
5. To indicate possession, end a singular noun with an apostrophe followed by an "s". Otherwise, the noun's form seems plural.
6. Use proper punctuation to integrate a quotation into a sentence. If the introductory material is an independent clause, add the quotation after a colon. If the introductory material ends in "thinks," "saying," or some other verb indicating expression, use a comma.
7. Make the subject and verb agree with each other, not with a word that comes between them.
8. Be sure that a pronoun, a participial phrase, or an appositive refers clearly to the proper subject.
9. Use parallel construction to make a strong point and create a smooth flow.
10. Use the active voice unless you specifically need to use the passive.
11. Omit unnecessary words.
What does all this MEAN? Go here, and click for details: http://www.junketstudies.com/rulesofw/
How They Do It-2: Robin Lee Hatcher
Robin Lee Hatcher describes herself as an "intuitive writer," explaining: "I write to discover what will happen next just as my readers read to discover what will happen next. I don't know what will occur in chapter ten until I have written chapter nine."I've discovered this is how I write fiction, too. So, how to keep the plot organized when you're not working from an outline?
Robin's way:
"I keep what is called a "rolling plot" notebook. Basically, I journal before beginning to write for that day, determining, based on what I wrote yesterday, what needs to be accomplished next. Sometimes, of course, I write down what needs to happen in the future. I keep an 8.5" x 5.5" spiral notebook for each book, and some pages are flagged and highlighted as I go along, knowing I will have to backtrack to some of my comments."
For software help, Robin's recommendation - coming by way of author James Scott Bell: Inspiration8. "I've used it now on two projects, and I highly recommend it as a way to get the juices flowing." A free version is available at http://www.inspiration.com/productinfo/Inspiration/index.cfm.
Robin Lee Hatcher has written over 50 novels, and includes among her accolades:
winner of the Christy Award for Excellence in Christian Fiction (Whispers from Yesterday), the RITA Award for Best Inspirational Romance (Patterns of Love and The Shepherd's Voice), and the RWA Lifetime Achievement Award. Catching Katie (Tyndale) was named one of the Best Books of 2004 by the Library Journal.
For all of Robin's article, see: http://charisconnection.blogspot.com/2006/11/rlh-brainstorming-and-intuitive-writer.html
For Robin's writing blog, go to: http://robinlee.typepad.com/i_was_just_thinking_/
November 24, 2006
Elements of a Thriller-2: Thriller Sub-genres
My research is revealing a lot of controversy concerning what is, and what is not, a thriller. Is Capote's In Cold Blood a thriller? There's a debate for you. Reader's Digest would take the affirmative side of that argument, as the RD editorial board has attempted to categorize a wide variety of books as "thrillers" in their list of "the world's best thrillers," organized by RD's definition of the most popular thriller sub-genres, commentary below provided by RD Special Editions editor Laura Kelly:
1. The Spy Thriller
The Spy Who Came In from the Cold by John le Carré (1963) is the quintessential espionage thriller. Set during the Cold War, this rich tale still captivates with its spellbinding portrayal of the world of secret agents. And don't miss The Avenger by Frederick Forsyth (2003) the 21st century's top spy pulse-pounder, by the author of The Day of the Jackal.
2. The Techno Thriller
Gadgets, gadgets and more gadgets. Ian Fleming started it all with James Bond and his arsenal of clever, useful gadgets, some not so far-fetched anymore. The best Bond book? From Russia with Love (1957). Get to know the real Bond, not Sean, Roger, Timothy or Pierce, by imbibing him on the printed page. For a more recent techno thriller, The Blue Nowhere by Jeffery Deaver (2001) stimulates the imagination with its truly surprising twists and turns, and a fascinating computer-based plot.
3. The Classic Thriller
The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells (1898) was one of the world's pioneering thrillers, introducing this genre, unknown at the time, to worldwide acclaim. And the story is still alive and well today. We agree: Tom Cruise is cute, but treat yourself to the real deal and snatch up the book. For a more recent classic thriller, try Whiteout by Ken Follett (2004), the latest gem by the author of Eye of the Needle. It's the chilling story of what happens when biological weapons fall into the wrong hands, and the blizzard that builds over the course of the book will cool you right off at the beach.
4. The Psychological Suspense Thriller
If you get your adrenaline rush from mind games rather than chase scenes, psychological suspense is for you. For sheer creepiness and terror, nothing beats The Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris (1988). More recently, Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane (2003), will not only scare you silly but fool you as well.
5. The Legal Thriller
Presumed Innocent by Scott Turow (1987) features terrific characters, a deftly executed plot, and fascinating legal insight, making it the definitive legal thriller. And for an exciting new author, don't miss In the Shadow of the Law by Kermit Roosevelt (2005), a firecracker of a debut by a former clerk for U.S. Supreme Court Justice David Souter.
6. The Medical Thriller
Medical paperwork these days is pretty terrifying, but you can get true terror in these two great medical thrillers. Read Coma by Robin Cook (1977), the unforgettable saga of patients who check into the hospital for "minor" surgery and never wake up. For the strong of stomach, The Surgeon by Tess Gerritsen (2001) is gruesomely chilling and addictively page-turning.
7. The Sci-Fi Thriller
Sure he's done dinosaurs and television emergency rooms, but Michael Crichton's first novel, The Andromeda Strain (1969), still ranks as one of the top science fiction thrillers of all time. What could be scarier than microscopic killer germs run amok? Representing the larger end of the weird-creature spectrum, Mammoth by John Varley (2005) imaginatively spins a yarn starring a billionaire, a brilliant nerd, and a gifted animal wrangler whose newest charge happens to be a woolly mammoth.
8. The Military Thriller
You've seen the movie, but don't miss the book. The Great Escape by Paul Brickhill (1950) is even more captivating on paper, with perhaps the most hair-raising POW escape scene ever written. Remembering that this novel is based on a true story renders it doubly nerve-racking. For contemporary military thrillers, nothing beats the Jack Reacher series by Lee Child. Try the first Reacher novel, Killing Floor (1997) or Child's latest bestseller, One Shot (2005). Or, for that matter, pick up any riveting Reacher book in between.
9. The True-Crime Thriller
Yes, real life can be stranger than fiction, and true-crime thrillers prove this. The most famous book in this nonfiction genre is Truman Capote's In Cold Blood (1966). The author spent months in the Midwest painstakingly retracing the steps of two young rural killers -- and then wrote about it chillingly. Another excellent and more recent true-crime book is Green River, Running Red by Ann Rule (2004), the true story of the notorious Green River serial killer who terrorized the Seattle area for decades.
10. The Action/Adventure Thriller
Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors by Piers Paul Read (1974) set the gold standard for heroic survival stories, with this true tale of a Uruguayan rugby team whose plane crashes, resulting in an incredible 10-week physical and emotional ordeal. Changing altitudes from mountains to the ocean floor, Shadow Divers, the hit 2005 book by Robert Kurson, re-enacts the story of an extraordinary deep-sea discovery and adventure.
Elements of a Thriller-1: Thriller vs Mystery
What is the difference between a mystery and a thriller?
From David Morrell, former president of the International Thriller Writers Organization:
"One crucial distinction is that traditional mysteries appeal primarily to the mind and emphasize the logical solution to a puzzle. In contrast, thrillers strive for heightened emotions and emphasize the sensations of what might be called an obstacle race and a scavenger hunt.... [T]he contrast is between emotion and logic, between an urgent pace and a calm one. True, the two genres can merge if the scavenger hunt of a thriller involves solving a puzzle. But in a thriller, the goal of solving the puzzle is to excite the reader as much as to satisfy curiosity.
"It’s interesting that, in recent years, some authors have blended elements of thrillers and mysteries into a hybrid (mostly involving serial killers) in which a detective’s solution to a heinous crime is presented in a harrowing fashion that is more typical of thrillers than mysteries. This sort of evolution is an indication of how creative these genres can be."
Carolyn Wheat, quoting from Trish MacDonald Skillman, provides Fifteen Differences Between Mysteries and Thrillers:
1. A mystery concerns itself with a puzzle. Suspense presents the reader with a nightmare.
2. A mystery is a power fantasy; we identify with the detective. Suspense is a victim fantasy; we identify with someone at the mercy of others.
3. A mystery can be likened to a myth. Suspense is more like a fairy tale.
4. In a mystery the hero or heroine already has the skills he or she needs to solve the puzzle. In suspense, he or she must learn new skills to survive.
5. In a mystery, thinking is paramount. In suspense, feeling is paramount.
6. The most important action in a mystery takes place offstage. In suspense, the important action happens onstage.
7. A mystery usually takes place within a small circle of friends. The hero or heroine of a suspense novel often finds him or herself thrust into a larger world.
8. Readers of mysteries are looking for clues. Readers of suspense are expecting surprises.
9. In a mystery, information is withheld. In suspense novels, information is provided.
10. The ideal reader of mysteries remains one step behind the hero or heroine. Those who read suspense should be one step ahead of the hero or heroine.
11. Mystery readers expect a series. Those who read suspense know a book can be a one shot.
12. The hero or heroine in a mystery is looking for suspects. The hero or heroine in suspense looks for betrayers.
13. A mystery hero or heroine must confront a series of red herrings. The suspense novel hero or heroine faces a cycle of distrust.
14. Mystery endings must be intellectually satisfying. Suspense endings must provide emotional satisfaction.
15. Mysteries are usually three hundred manuscript pages. Suspense novels can be longer.
Sources:
http://bksp.org/secondarypages/articles/authors/DMorrell2.htm
http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=18575302
From David Morrell, former president of the International Thriller Writers Organization:
"One crucial distinction is that traditional mysteries appeal primarily to the mind and emphasize the logical solution to a puzzle. In contrast, thrillers strive for heightened emotions and emphasize the sensations of what might be called an obstacle race and a scavenger hunt.... [T]he contrast is between emotion and logic, between an urgent pace and a calm one. True, the two genres can merge if the scavenger hunt of a thriller involves solving a puzzle. But in a thriller, the goal of solving the puzzle is to excite the reader as much as to satisfy curiosity.
"It’s interesting that, in recent years, some authors have blended elements of thrillers and mysteries into a hybrid (mostly involving serial killers) in which a detective’s solution to a heinous crime is presented in a harrowing fashion that is more typical of thrillers than mysteries. This sort of evolution is an indication of how creative these genres can be."
Carolyn Wheat, quoting from Trish MacDonald Skillman, provides Fifteen Differences Between Mysteries and Thrillers:
1. A mystery concerns itself with a puzzle. Suspense presents the reader with a nightmare.
2. A mystery is a power fantasy; we identify with the detective. Suspense is a victim fantasy; we identify with someone at the mercy of others.
3. A mystery can be likened to a myth. Suspense is more like a fairy tale.
4. In a mystery the hero or heroine already has the skills he or she needs to solve the puzzle. In suspense, he or she must learn new skills to survive.
5. In a mystery, thinking is paramount. In suspense, feeling is paramount.
6. The most important action in a mystery takes place offstage. In suspense, the important action happens onstage.
7. A mystery usually takes place within a small circle of friends. The hero or heroine of a suspense novel often finds him or herself thrust into a larger world.
8. Readers of mysteries are looking for clues. Readers of suspense are expecting surprises.
9. In a mystery, information is withheld. In suspense novels, information is provided.
10. The ideal reader of mysteries remains one step behind the hero or heroine. Those who read suspense should be one step ahead of the hero or heroine.
11. Mystery readers expect a series. Those who read suspense know a book can be a one shot.
12. The hero or heroine in a mystery is looking for suspects. The hero or heroine in suspense looks for betrayers.
13. A mystery hero or heroine must confront a series of red herrings. The suspense novel hero or heroine faces a cycle of distrust.
14. Mystery endings must be intellectually satisfying. Suspense endings must provide emotional satisfaction.
15. Mysteries are usually three hundred manuscript pages. Suspense novels can be longer.
Sources:
http://bksp.org/secondarypages/articles/authors/DMorrell2.htm
http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=18575302
Finding an Agent-2: Writer Beware's Top 10 List
Writer Beware keeps an updated online list of the worst agents out there. They have compiled a list of the twenty literary agents with the worst reputations at their site: these are the most notorious of the past two decades. From that listing, here are Writer Beware's top ten:
The Abacus Group Literary Agency
Allred and Allred Literary Agents (refers clients to "book doctor" Victor West of Pacific Literary Services)
Barbara Bauer Literary Agency
Benedict Associates (also d/b/a B.A. Literary Agency)
Sherwood Broome, Inc. (also d/b/a Stillwater Literary Agency, LLC)
Capital Literary Agency (formerly American Literary Agents of Washington, Inc.; also d/b/a Washington Agency and Washington Literary Agency)
Desert Rose Literary Agency
Arthur Fleming Associates
Finesse Literary Agency (also d/b/a/ Elite Finesse Literary Agency)
Brock Gannon Literary Agency
The full list: http://www.sfwa.org/beware/twentyworst.html
Writer Beware's Writer Alert Page: http://www.sfwa.org/beware/
Writer Beware's FAQ: http://www.sfwa.org/beware/overview.html
November 15, 2006
Finding an Agent-1
AgentQuery
www.agentquery.com
List of agents, the site appears to be choosey about who they include - reputable agents only.
Agent Research & Evaluation News
www.agentresearch.com/news.html
Articles on agents and deals.
Agent Research & Evaluation Verification Service
www.agentresearch.com/agent_ver.html
You can check out an agent's reputation here - as well as sales he/she has made, things like that.
Association of Authors' Representatives
www.aar-online.org
AAR is the professional trade group for agents in the US. The site has a membership list, and the AAR Code of Ethics is published on the site. Good to know.
Preditors & Editors
www.anotherealm.com/prededitors
Online site listing evildoing agents and their schemes.
Publisher's Lunch
www.publishersmarketplace.com/lunch/free
Free version - nice, but the subscription does provide so much more. For free, you get a daily email providing publishing news; once a week, the email gives you a listing of recent deals. Get the subscription from Publishers' Marketplace.
Publishers Marketplace
www.publishersmarketplace.com
Great site. Deals in an organized manner, going back several years. Agents can be researched here. It may not have all the scoop, but it does have a lot.
Publishers Weekly
www.publishersweekly.com
Online version of the magazine. You have to subscribe. Expensive.
Writer Beware
www.writerbeware.org
Science Fiction Writers' Association site that gives lots of info about agents, as well as publishers and the like. You don't have to be a science fiction writer to appreciate the great info here -- it's a great service that SFWA provides, akin to Preditors & Editors (see above).
www.agentquery.com
List of agents, the site appears to be choosey about who they include - reputable agents only.
Agent Research & Evaluation News
www.agentresearch.com/news.html
Articles on agents and deals.
Agent Research & Evaluation Verification Service
www.agentresearch.com/agent_ver.html
You can check out an agent's reputation here - as well as sales he/she has made, things like that.
Association of Authors' Representatives
www.aar-online.org
AAR is the professional trade group for agents in the US. The site has a membership list, and the AAR Code of Ethics is published on the site. Good to know.
Preditors & Editors
www.anotherealm.com/prededitors
Online site listing evildoing agents and their schemes.
Publisher's Lunch
www.publishersmarketplace.com/lunch/free
Free version - nice, but the subscription does provide so much more. For free, you get a daily email providing publishing news; once a week, the email gives you a listing of recent deals. Get the subscription from Publishers' Marketplace.
Publishers Marketplace
www.publishersmarketplace.com
Great site. Deals in an organized manner, going back several years. Agents can be researched here. It may not have all the scoop, but it does have a lot.
Publishers Weekly
www.publishersweekly.com
Online version of the magazine. You have to subscribe. Expensive.
Writer Beware
www.writerbeware.org
Science Fiction Writers' Association site that gives lots of info about agents, as well as publishers and the like. You don't have to be a science fiction writer to appreciate the great info here -- it's a great service that SFWA provides, akin to Preditors & Editors (see above).
October 27, 2006
Reading Great Writing-4 (Online Magazines)
Vanity Fair provides some excellent examples of good writing at its website, including:
Dominick Dunne on Truman Capote
Alex Shoumatoff on Reinhold Messner
The New Yorker has a nice online archive.
Dominick Dunne on Truman Capote
Alex Shoumatoff on Reinhold Messner
The New Yorker has a nice online archive.
October 21, 2006
Reading Great Writing-3 (First Sentences)
From the Radcliffe list (below), some of the first sentences. After that, some greats that didn't make their list. Ford Madox Ford -- more people need to read his work. In Cold Blood, Truman Capote:
The village of Holcomb stands on the high wheat plains of western Kansas, a lonesome area that other Kansans call "out there."
Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie:
I was born in the city of Bombay... once upon a time.
White Noise, by Don Delillo:
The station wagon's arrived at noon, a long shining line that coursed through the west campus.
Death Comes for the Archbishop, by Willa Cather:
One afternoon in the autumn of 1851 a solitary horseman, followed by a pack-mule, was pushing through an arid stretch of country somewhere in central New Mexico.
The Maltese Falcon, by Dashiell Hammett:
Samuel Spade's jaw was long and bony, his chin a jutting v under the more flexible v of his mouth.
Gone With the Wind, by Margaret Mitchell:
Scarlett O'Hara was not beautiful, but men seldom realized it when caught by her charm as the Tarleton twins were.
The Color Purple, by Alice Walker:
I am fourteen years old.
Ulysses, by James Joyce:
Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed.
Lord of the Flies, by William Golding:
The boy with fair hair lowered himself down the last few feet of rock and began to pick his way toward the lagoon.
All the King's Men, by Robert Penn Warren:
To get there you follow Highway 58, going northeast out of the city, and it is a good highway and new.
The World According to Garp, by John Irving:
Garp's mother, Jenny Fields, was arrested in Boston in 1942 for wounding a man in a movie theater.
Rebecca, by Daphne DuMaurier:
Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.
The Beautiful and the Damned, by F. Scott Fitzgerald:
In 1913, when Anthony Patch was twenty-five, two years were already gone since irony, the Holy Ghost of this later day, had, theoretically at least, descended upon him.
The Wind in the Willows, by Kenneth Grahame:
The Mole had been working very hard all the morning, spring-cleaning his little home.
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, by L. Frank Baum:
Dorothy lived in the midst of the great Kansas prairies, with Uncle Henry, who was a farmer, and Aunt Em, who was the farmer's wife.
Why aren't these on the Radcliffe List?
The Good Soldier, by Ford Madox Ford:
This is the saddest story I have ever heard.
Lonesome Dove, by Larry McMurtry:
When Augustus came out on the porch the blue pigs were eating a rattlesnake -- not a very big one.
A Prayer for Owen Meany, by John Irving:
I am doomed to remember a boy with a wrecked voice -- not because of his voice, or because he was the smallest person I ever knew, or even because he was the instrument of my mother's death, but because he is the reason I believe in God; I am a Christian because of Owen Meany.
Cold Mountain, by Richard Frazier:
At the first gesture of morning, flies began stirring.
A Wrinkle in Time, by Mag L'Engle:
It was a dark and stormy night.
Double Indemnity, by James M. Cain:
I drove out to Glendale to put three new truck drivers on a brewery company bond, and then I remembered this renewal over in Hollywoodland.
The Screwtape Letters, by CS Lewis:
My dear Wormwood, I note what you say about guiding your patient's reading and taking care that he sees a good deal of his materialist friend.
Reading Great Writing-2 (Apple)
Johnny Apple died recently. While most will recall his work as war correspondent for the New York Times, for me, it's his work as a travel writer that first comes to mind.
Apple's Europe and Apple's America are great reads -- beautiful and eloquent without being elitist. You can read excerpts of America at Amazon.com; Apple's Europe is rather hard to find -- if you stumble upon a copy, grab it.
First sentence, Apple's America:
Boston is one of the oldest American cities, a repository of our national past, yet it has shown an extraordinary capacity to look to the future and reinvent itself when needed.
Apple's Europe and Apple's America are great reads -- beautiful and eloquent without being elitist. You can read excerpts of America at Amazon.com; Apple's Europe is rather hard to find -- if you stumble upon a copy, grab it.
First sentence, Apple's America:
Boston is one of the oldest American cities, a repository of our national past, yet it has shown an extraordinary capacity to look to the future and reinvent itself when needed.
Reading Great Writing-1
According to the Radcliffe Publishing Course, these are the top 100 English-language novels of the 20th Century (banned or challenged books having been bold-faced by the American Library Association):
The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger
The Grapes of Wrath, John Stein****
To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
The Color Purple, Alice Walker
Ulysses, James Joyce
Beloved, Toni Morrison
The Lord of the Flies, William Golding
1984, George Orwell
The Sound and the Fury, William Faulkner
Lolita, Vladmir Nabokov
Of Mice and Men, John Stein****
Charlotte's Web, EB White
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, James Joyce
Catch-22, Joseph Heller
Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
Animal Farm, George Orwell
The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway
As I Lay Dying, William Faulkner
A Farewell to Arms, Ernest Hemingway
Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad
Winnie-the-Pooh, AA Milne
Their Eyes were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston
Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison
Song of Solomon, Toni Morrison
Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell
Native Son, Richard Wright
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Ken Kesey
Slaughterhouse Five, Kurt Vonnegut
For Whom the Bell Tolls, Ernest Hemingway
On the Road, Jack Kerouac
The Old Man and the Sea, Ernest Hemingway
The Call of the Wild, Jack London
To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf
Portrait of a Lady, Henry James
Go Tell it on the Mountain, James Baldwin
The World According to Garp, John Irving
All the King's Men, Robert Penn Warren
A Room with a View , EM Forster
The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien
Schindler's List, Thomas Keneally
The Age of Innocence, Edith Wharton
The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand
Finnegans Wake, James Joyce
The Jungle, Upton Sinclair
Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Frank L. Baum
Lady Chatterley's Lover, DH Lawrence
A Clockwork Orange, Anthony Burgess
The Awakening, Kate Chopin
My Antonia, Willa Cather
Howard's End, EM Forster
In Cold Blood, Truman Capote
Franny and Zooey, JD Salinger
Satanic Verses, Salman Rushdie
Jazz, Toni Morrison
Sophie's Choice, William Styron
Absalom, Absalom!, William Faulkner
Passage to India, EM Forster
Ethan Frome, Edith Wharton
A Good Man is Hard to Find, Flannery O'Connor
Tender is the Night, F. Scott Fitzgerald
Orlando, Virginia Woolf
Sons and Lovers, DH Lawrence
Bonfire of the Vanities, Thomas Wolfe
Cat's Cradle, Kurt Vonnegut
A Separate Peace, John Knowles
Light in August, William Faulkner
The Wings of the Dove, Henry James
Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe
Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier
A Hithchiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
Naked Lunch, William S. Burroughs
Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
Women in Love, DH Lawrence
Look Homeward, Angel, Thomas Wolfe
In Our Time, Ernest Hemingway
The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, Gertrude Stein
The Maltese Falcon, Dashiell Hammett
The Naked and the Dead, Norman Mailer
The Wide Sargasso Sea, Jean Rhys
White Noise, Don DeLillo
O Pioneers!, Willa Cather
Tropic of Cancer, Henry Miller
The War of the Worlds, HG Wells
Lord Jim, Joseph Conrad
The Bostonians, Henry James
An American Tragedy, Theodore Dreiser
Death Comes for the Archbishop, Willa Cather
The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame
This Side of Paradise, F. Scott Fitzgerald
Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand
The French Lieutenant's Woman, John Fowles
Babbitt, Sinclair Lewis
Kim, Rudyard Kipling
The Beautiful and the Damned, F. Scott Fitzgerald
Rabbit, Run, John Updike
Where Angels Fear to Tread, EM Forster
Main Street, Sinclair Lewis
Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie
The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger
The Grapes of Wrath, John Stein****
To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
The Color Purple, Alice Walker
Ulysses, James Joyce
Beloved, Toni Morrison
The Lord of the Flies, William Golding
1984, George Orwell
The Sound and the Fury, William Faulkner
Lolita, Vladmir Nabokov
Of Mice and Men, John Stein****
Charlotte's Web, EB White
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, James Joyce
Catch-22, Joseph Heller
Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
Animal Farm, George Orwell
The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway
As I Lay Dying, William Faulkner
A Farewell to Arms, Ernest Hemingway
Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad
Winnie-the-Pooh, AA Milne
Their Eyes were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston
Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison
Song of Solomon, Toni Morrison
Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell
Native Son, Richard Wright
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Ken Kesey
Slaughterhouse Five, Kurt Vonnegut
For Whom the Bell Tolls, Ernest Hemingway
On the Road, Jack Kerouac
The Old Man and the Sea, Ernest Hemingway
The Call of the Wild, Jack London
To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf
Portrait of a Lady, Henry James
Go Tell it on the Mountain, James Baldwin
The World According to Garp, John Irving
All the King's Men, Robert Penn Warren
A Room with a View , EM Forster
The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien
Schindler's List, Thomas Keneally
The Age of Innocence, Edith Wharton
The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand
Finnegans Wake, James Joyce
The Jungle, Upton Sinclair
Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Frank L. Baum
Lady Chatterley's Lover, DH Lawrence
A Clockwork Orange, Anthony Burgess
The Awakening, Kate Chopin
My Antonia, Willa Cather
Howard's End, EM Forster
In Cold Blood, Truman Capote
Franny and Zooey, JD Salinger
Satanic Verses, Salman Rushdie
Jazz, Toni Morrison
Sophie's Choice, William Styron
Absalom, Absalom!, William Faulkner
Passage to India, EM Forster
Ethan Frome, Edith Wharton
A Good Man is Hard to Find, Flannery O'Connor
Tender is the Night, F. Scott Fitzgerald
Orlando, Virginia Woolf
Sons and Lovers, DH Lawrence
Bonfire of the Vanities, Thomas Wolfe
Cat's Cradle, Kurt Vonnegut
A Separate Peace, John Knowles
Light in August, William Faulkner
The Wings of the Dove, Henry James
Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe
Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier
A Hithchiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
Naked Lunch, William S. Burroughs
Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
Women in Love, DH Lawrence
Look Homeward, Angel, Thomas Wolfe
In Our Time, Ernest Hemingway
The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, Gertrude Stein
The Maltese Falcon, Dashiell Hammett
The Naked and the Dead, Norman Mailer
The Wide Sargasso Sea, Jean Rhys
White Noise, Don DeLillo
O Pioneers!, Willa Cather
Tropic of Cancer, Henry Miller
The War of the Worlds, HG Wells
Lord Jim, Joseph Conrad
The Bostonians, Henry James
An American Tragedy, Theodore Dreiser
Death Comes for the Archbishop, Willa Cather
The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame
This Side of Paradise, F. Scott Fitzgerald
Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand
The French Lieutenant's Woman, John Fowles
Babbitt, Sinclair Lewis
Kim, Rudyard Kipling
The Beautiful and the Damned, F. Scott Fitzgerald
Rabbit, Run, John Updike
Where Angels Fear to Tread, EM Forster
Main Street, Sinclair Lewis
Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie
September 30, 2006
Watching the Deals-6
Two major deals were reported within the past two weeks: first, A Travel Guide to Heaven author and priest Anthony DeStefano's next two spiritual/religion books were sold for "in the six figures," and second, St.Martin's will publish NYT bestselling author/former attorney Stephen Coonts' next two hardcover thrillers featuring Tommy Carmellini.While Tommy Carmellini can claim his own series beginning with 2004's Liars and Thieves, he has appeared as a major character in several of Coonts' Jake Grafton novels: Cuba, Hong Kong, America, Liberty, as well as Coonts' latest on the shelf, Traitor. Obviously, the major deal involves an expansion of the Tommy Carmellini series.
Recent Romances Sold:
RITA award-winner Beth Pattillo's THE SWEETGUM KNIT LIT SOCIETY, in which five women find faith and healing through their knitting and their novels, to Dudley Delffs at WaterBrook Press, in a two-book deal, for publication in spring 2008, by Jenny Bent at Trident Media Group (NA).
Syrie James's THE LOST MEMOIRS OF JANE AUSTEN, written in a modernized Jane Austen style that weaves fact and fiction together seamlessly, and in which Jane Austen meets Mr. Ashford, falls in love, and has just the relationship her legions of fans and readers might wish for the beloved spinster, to Lucia Macro at Avon, in a good deal, at auction, by Tamar Ellman at the Laura Dail Literary Agency (NA). Good deal = $100,000 - $250,000.
Lucinda Betts's SHE BEAST, an anthology of erotic romances where each story features a woman shape shifter; HORSE PLAY, a single-author, paranormal erotic romance anthology; and MYTHOS, a multi-authored, paranormal erotic romance anthology, to Hilary Sares at Kensington Aphrodisia, in a nice deal, by Faith Hamlin at Sanford J. Greenburger Associates (world). Nice deal = $1 - $49,000.
NYT bestselling author Lynsay Sands's three untitled historical romances, to Erika Tsang at Avon, in a good deal, by Jenny Bent at Trident Media Group (World English). Good deal = $100,000 - $250,000.
Marjorie M. Liu's four untitled paranormal romance novels, to Chris Keeslar at Dorchester Leisure, in a good deal, by Lucienne Diver of Spectrum Literary Agency. Good deal = $100,000 - $250,000.
Doreen Rainey's FOOLISH PRIDE, about an unlikely couple who team up to stop their siblings from marrying, only to find themselves fighting their own attraction, to Evette Porter at Harlequin's Kimani, in a nice deal, in a two-book deal, by Pamela Harty of The Knight Agency. Nice deal = $1 - $49,000.
Maxine Billing's IN SICKNESS AND IN HEALTH, the sequel to The Breaking Point, in which a couple will see just how strong their marriage is when the husband is faced with a serious health condition, again to Glenda Howard at Kimani, in a nice deal, in a two-book deal, by Pamela Harty of The Knight Agency. Nice deal = $1 - $49,000.
AND ONLY TO DECEIVE author Tasha Alexander's next two novels of historical suspense featuring a Victorian aristocrat, to Jennifer Civiletto of William Morrow, by Anne Hawkins at John Hawkins & Associates.
Writing as Dawn MacTavish, Dawn Thompson's THE MARSH HAWK, for publication in July 2007, THE PRIVATEER, and PRISONER OF THE FLAMES, both for publication in 2008, to Chris Keeslar at Dorchester, in a nice deal. Nice deal = $1 - $49,000.
Recent Mysteries Sold:
Kathryn Lilley's DYING TO BE THIN: A Fat City Mystery, in which a spunky television reporter travels to Durham, NC, "Diet Capital of the World," to enter a clinic and achieve that "on-air look," but she soon finds the inside story on a murder investigation when one of the doctors ends up dead, to Kristen Weber at NAL, in a nice deal, in a three-book deal, by Kim Lionetti at BookEnds(World). Nice deal = $1 -$49,000.
Claudia Bishop's holiday-themed Hemlock Falls mystery, to Natalee Rosenstein at Berkley Prime Crime, in a nice deal, by Lucienne Diver of Spectrum Literary Agency. Nice deal = $1 - $49,000.
Emmy-nominated star of The Young and The Restless Eileen Davidson and author Robert J. Randisi's THE YEARNING TIDE, set in the world of soap operas, to Kristen Weber at NAL, in a two-book deal, by Dominick Abel at Dominick Abel Associates (World English).
Ashna Graves's DEATH PANS OUT, debut featuring a recovering breast cancer victim who instead of resting and recovering from a double mastectomy, finds herself drawn into deadly, decades-old secrets of an old mining outpost, as she tries to unravel the enigma of her long-missing uncle, to Robert Rosenwald at Poisoned Pen Press, by Sorche Fairbank of Fairbank Literary Representation.
Eppie winner Penny Rudolph's LIFEBLOOD, the sequel to Thicker Than Blood, in which a recovering alcoholic discovers two young Mexican boys locked in a van in her parking garage, and stumbles onto a deadly organ harvesting ring involving illegal immigrants, again to Robert Rosenwald at Poisoned Pen Press, by Sorche Fairbank of Fairbank Literary Representation.
Rapper C-Murder's DEATH AROUND THE CORNER, the first title in the Vibe Street Lit franchise, to Laurie Parkin at Kensington, for publication in December 2006, by Rob Kenner on behalf of Vibe and Richard Joseph, on behalf of the author (NA).
Franklin prize-winning author Mary Anna Evans's EFFIGIES, the third in an archaeological mystery series, to Robert Rosenwald of Poisoned Pen Press, by Anne Hawkins at John Hawkins & Associates.
Recent Thrillers Sold:
NYT bestselling author Robert K. Tanenbaum's ESCAPE, the 20th book in his Butch Karp legal thriller series, another provocative and topical story which blisters the use of the insanity defense pushing the limits of the law and letting murderers go unpunished, to Roger Cooper at CDS Books for hardcover North American rights, and to his longtime paperback publisher Louise Burke at Pocket for paperback reprint, in a good deal, by Bob Diforio at D4EO Literary Agency, in association with Michael Hamilburg at the Mitchell J. Hamilburg Agency. Good deal = $100,000 - $250,000.
NYT bestseller Stephen Coonts' two new hardcover thrillers featuring Tommy Carmellini, to Matthew Shear at St. Martin's, in a major deal, by Robert Gottlieb at Trident Media Group (NA). Major deal = $500,000 and up.
Laura Caldwell's RED HOT LIES, featuring a sassy, redheaded trial lawyer who turns to sleuthing when her fiance disappears on the same day her big client is killed, to Margaret Marbury at Mira, in a good deal, in a three-book deal, by Maureen Walters at Curtis Brown. Good deal = $100,000 - $250,000.
Tom Cain's THE ACCIDENT MAN, introducing series hero, Daniel Carver - a good guy, who makes bad things happen to bad people, to Joshua Kendall at Viking, for publication in winter 2008, in a two-book deal, by Julian Alexander at Lucas Alexander Whitley (US).
BLACK FOR REMEMBRANCE author Carlene Thompsons's WHEN THE CLOCK STRIKES THREE, to Jennifer Weis at St. Martin's, in a very nice deal, in a two-book deal, by Pam Ahearn of Ahearn Agency (World). Very nice deal = $50,000 - $99,000.
Mark Terry's ANGELS FALLING, in which a terrorist group infiltrates the G8 Summit and holds the world's top 20 leaders hostage threatening to kill one every hour, and THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOWS, to Barbara Moore at Llewellyn, in a nice deal, by Irene Kraas at Kraas Literary Agency. Nice deal = $1 - $49,000.
Recent Religion/Spirituality Sales:
A Travel Guide to Heaven author Anthony DeStefano's next two books, to Doubleday Religion, in a six-figure deal, by Peter Miller at PMA Literary & Film Management.
Baylor University professor Thomas Kidd's A CHRISTIAN SPARTA, a religious history of the American Revolution, to Lara Heimert at Basic, by Giles Anderson at the Anderson Literary Agency (world).
Source: PublishersMarketplace.com
September 22, 2006
Amazon Author Blogs
Amazon Connect hosts author blogs, with RSS feeds. A long and growing list of participating authors is provided.
Two examples:
Sharyn McCrumb
Robin Lee Hatcher
Amazon Connects also offers customer "plogs" which it defines as "a personalized web log that appears on your customer home page. Every person's Plog is different (hence the name) and just like a blog, your Plog is sorted in reverse chronological order. Each post also gives you the opportunity to provide feedback to the sender as to whether you liked the post or not. This feedback loop means your Plog becomes even more relevant and interesting over time. Your Plog will appear if you are logged into our web site and is visible only to you."
Bottom line, your Amazon "plog" collects posts from various author blogs for you on your customer page. Same thing can be done directly to your email via an RSS feed option, if you prefer.
From my surfing through the author blogs, these aren't kept current -- and most authors with an interest in blogging have their own blogs at this point.
Two examples:
Sharyn McCrumb
Robin Lee Hatcher
Amazon Connects also offers customer "plogs" which it defines as "a personalized web log that appears on your customer home page. Every person's Plog is different (hence the name) and just like a blog, your Plog is sorted in reverse chronological order. Each post also gives you the opportunity to provide feedback to the sender as to whether you liked the post or not. This feedback loop means your Plog becomes even more relevant and interesting over time. Your Plog will appear if you are logged into our web site and is visible only to you."
Bottom line, your Amazon "plog" collects posts from various author blogs for you on your customer page. Same thing can be done directly to your email via an RSS feed option, if you prefer.
From my surfing through the author blogs, these aren't kept current -- and most authors with an interest in blogging have their own blogs at this point.
September 19, 2006
Watching the Deals-5
Nancy Atherton's Aunt Dimity series continues with the sale of two more in the series. A cozy mystery series that is sometimes called romantic suspense as well as gothic, Aunt Dimity is a ghost providing supernatural assistance to the protagonist, Lori Sheppard. The first in the series broke all the rules, and got a rating of "5" (superb) from MysteryGuide.com. Recent Romances Sold:
Stacey Kayne's BRIDE OF SHADOW CANYON, a second western historical romance, to Linda Fildew at Harlequin Historicals, in a nice deal, by Kim Lionetti at BookEnds. "Nice deal" means $1 - $49,000.00.
Larissa Ione's DEMON E.R: Dark Pleasure, the first in a paranormal series in which a demon doctor in an underworld hospital and the woman who hunts his kind must join forces to stop an enemy who would kill them both, to Melanie Murray for Warner Forever, by Roberta Brown of the Brown Literary Agency (world).
Tess Stimson's THE ADULTERY CLUB and THE INFIDELITY CHAIN, which have been sold to ten territories, to Caitlin Alexander at Bantam Dell, for six figures, at auction, by Carole Blake at Blake Friedmann (US).
Recent Mysteries Sold:
Nancy Atherton's AUNT DIMITY books, thirteen and fourteen in the series, to Rakia Clark at Viking Penguin, in a good deal, by Meg Ruley and Annelise Robey at the Jane Rotrosen Agency (NA). "Good deal" means $100,000 - $250,000.00.
Olen Steinhauer's VICTORY SQUARE, the fifth and concluding book in the Yalta Boulevard crime series, set in 1989 at the end of the Cold War, to Kelley Ragland at Minotaur, in a very nice deal, in a two-book deal, by Matt Williams of The Gernert Company (world English). "Very nice deal" means $50,000 - $99,000.00.
Edgar and Shamus Award nominee Parnell Hall's HITMAN: A Stanley Hastings Mystery, to Claiborne Hancock at Pegasus, in a nice deal (world).
Recent Thrillers Sold:
From Perri O'Shaughnessy (the pen-name of sisters Pamela and Mary), two more suspense thrillers, following Maggie Crawford to Pocket, for publication beginning in 2008, by Nancy Yost at Lowenstein-Yost.
John Olson's FOSSIL HUNTER, an Indiana-Jones-style thriller that explores the Intelligent Design controversy from the points of view of two field scientists working in the strife-torn countries of Iraq and Pakistan, to Karen Watson at Tyndale, in a nice deal, for publication in fall 2007, by Steve Laube at the Steve Laube Agency (world).
September 16, 2006
Write A Book Fast: In a Week, Two Weeks, a Month
Lots of people do this: put the pressure on themselves to write a book fast. After all, Jack Kerouac wrote On the Road in three weeks. (Kerouac's famous first draft in its scroll format is pictured here.)First, there are the groups, that provide help and support.
1. NaNoWriMo stands for "National Novel Writing Month," with a website, forums, and a national following. Lots of books actually get written during this time period (in 2005, there were 59,000 participants and 9769 winners). You "win" NaNoWriMo by writing 50,000 words by midnight on November 30th. Every year, there are many winners. No awards are given; however, each winner gets an official "Winner" web icon and certificate. During the month, there are open forums, where lots of good advice is shared on writing, grammar, and other helpful topics.
2. BIW is similar to NaNoWriMo, but it is for those interested in writing a book in a week. The site is coordinated with a Yahoo Group, and on the first full week of the month, participants go for it. They are scheduled a year in advance. For 2006, the remaining three BIWs are: Oct 2 - 8; Nov 6 - 12; and Dec 4 - 10. The site is run by published authors, includes a chat room, and has a great list of helpful sites.
Second, there are online articles by writers who share their tips on fast writing.
3. Romance writer Elizabeth Rose wrote her first published novel (Eden's Garden) in two weeks, and provides the steps to do write a book in one month in two great posts: How to Write a Book in a Month, part one and part two.
4. Writer John Coyne offers How to Write A Novel in 100 Days or Less, with excellent, practical advice for each step along the way.
2011 Update: I may have found the book for me where you learn to outline and write your novel in 90 days, read about it here.
September 13, 2006
2006 Check: The Big Deals So Far
So far this year, Publishers' Marketplace reports 84 "major deals" and 63 "significant deals". Select details are shown below.
Major deals are those starting at $500,000.00; significant deals range from $251,000 - $499,000.00. Now, this is only what PM reports - and it's only what has been reported to PM. This is not a complete list, and from what I understand, this information may not be totally accurate, either.
Major Deals:
Fiction: Thriller (10)
Fiction: Women's/Romance (9)
Fiction: Mystery/Crime (4)
Fiction: Debut (2)
The only major deal in non-fiction (religion, spirituality) went to romance writer Debbie Macomber for her book Knit Together: Discover God's Pattern for Your Life, saying that when we come to recognize our deepest longing, we can discover our potential and reach for our dreams, with her own journey of discovery weaved throughout the book.
The nine romance writers with major deals are: Carly Phillips, Kat Martin, Madeline Hunter, Karen Robards, Stephanie Laurens, Teresa Medeiros, Eloisa James, Kris Radish. All these deals are multi-book deals - mostly two books, sometimes three.
The four mystery/crime writers with major deals are: Iris Johansen (8 books, "multi-million dollar" deal); Ariana Franklin (2 books, "seven figure" deal); Joseph Wambaugh (1 book); Jacqueline Winspear (2 books).
The ten thriller writers with major deals are: Chelsea Cain (3 books); co-authors Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child (2 books); Mitch Silver (1 book, a debut); Harlan Coben (2 books); Stephen J. Cannell (2 books, Scully series); C.J. Box (3 books, all stand alones); James Rollins (3 books, Sigma Force series); Erica Spindler (3 books); Kathleen McGowan (3 books, first being her initially self-published The Expected One); Dale Brown (2 books).
Significant Deals:
Fiction: Debut (2)
Fiction: Mystery/Crime (4)
Fiction: Thriller (4)
Fiction: Women's/Romance (2)
Non-fiction: Religion/Spirituality (2)
The two romance writers with significant deals are: Allison Brennan (three romantic suspense) and Julia London (1 romance).
The four mystery/crime writers with significant deals are: Linwood Barclay (1 book); Margaret Coel (2 more in her Wind River series); Lisa Lutz (1 book), P.J. Parrish (3 books).
Major deals are those starting at $500,000.00; significant deals range from $251,000 - $499,000.00. Now, this is only what PM reports - and it's only what has been reported to PM. This is not a complete list, and from what I understand, this information may not be totally accurate, either.
Major Deals:
Fiction: Thriller (10)
Fiction: Women's/Romance (9)
Fiction: Mystery/Crime (4)
Fiction: Debut (2)
The only major deal in non-fiction (religion, spirituality) went to romance writer Debbie Macomber for her book Knit Together: Discover God's Pattern for Your Life, saying that when we come to recognize our deepest longing, we can discover our potential and reach for our dreams, with her own journey of discovery weaved throughout the book.
The nine romance writers with major deals are: Carly Phillips, Kat Martin, Madeline Hunter, Karen Robards, Stephanie Laurens, Teresa Medeiros, Eloisa James, Kris Radish. All these deals are multi-book deals - mostly two books, sometimes three.
The four mystery/crime writers with major deals are: Iris Johansen (8 books, "multi-million dollar" deal); Ariana Franklin (2 books, "seven figure" deal); Joseph Wambaugh (1 book); Jacqueline Winspear (2 books).
The ten thriller writers with major deals are: Chelsea Cain (3 books); co-authors Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child (2 books); Mitch Silver (1 book, a debut); Harlan Coben (2 books); Stephen J. Cannell (2 books, Scully series); C.J. Box (3 books, all stand alones); James Rollins (3 books, Sigma Force series); Erica Spindler (3 books); Kathleen McGowan (3 books, first being her initially self-published The Expected One); Dale Brown (2 books).
Significant Deals:
Fiction: Debut (2)
Fiction: Mystery/Crime (4)
Fiction: Thriller (4)
Fiction: Women's/Romance (2)
Non-fiction: Religion/Spirituality (2)
The two romance writers with significant deals are: Allison Brennan (three romantic suspense) and Julia London (1 romance).
The four mystery/crime writers with significant deals are: Linwood Barclay (1 book); Margaret Coel (2 more in her Wind River series); Lisa Lutz (1 book), P.J. Parrish (3 books).
Watching the Deals-4
This month, a significant deal for a romance writer was revealed, when Julia London's latest romance was sold to Pocket. Recent Romance Sales:
NYT bestselling author Julia London's untitled romance, to Maggie Crawford at Pocket, in a significant deal, by Jenny Bent at Trident Media Group (world). Significant deal means $251,000 - $499,000.00.
Jennifer Oko's debut GLOSS, a peek at the ratings-driven, celebrity-mad world of TV news, told through the eyes of a young morning show producer who finds herself in jail after working on what she thought was just a fluffy feature, to Selina McLemore at Mira, in a two-book deal, by Stephanie Kip Rostan at Levine Greenberg Literary Agency (World).
Francis Ray's ONLY YOU, the fifth novel of the Graysons of New Mexico series, in which Sierra Grayson falls in love with a compelling stranger, which leads to unforseen and almost disastrous consequences, to Monique Patterson at St. Martin's, for publication in summer 2007, by Elaine Koster at the Elaine Koster Agency.
Annie Windsor's BLOODLINE, the first in a paranormal trilogy, the story of a warrior-witch, a NYPD detective and the terrible murder that brings them together, to Charlotte Herscher at Ballantine, in a very nice deal, in a three-book deal, by Nancy Yost of Lowenstein-Yost (World). Vice nice deal means $50,000 - $99,000.00.
Molly O'Keefe's JIGSAW HEARTS, about a tortured journalist hiding from the world and the FBI agent sent undercover to investigate him, to Wanda Ottewell for Harlequin Superromance, in a nice deal, in a three-book deal, by Pam Hopkins at Hopkins Literary Associates.
Marie Bostwick's untitled, again to Audrey LaFehr at Kensington, in a nice deal, by Jill Grosjean at Jill Grosjean Literary Agency.
Maya Reynolds's YOU'VE BEEN A BAD GIRL, to Tracy Bernstein at NAL, by Jacky Sach at BookEnds.
Recent Mystery Sales:
Timothy Boyd's A NAIL THROUGH THE HEART, launching a mystery series about Bangkok, and THE MILLION-DOLLAR MINUTE, the second in the series, in which the hero finds himself stuck between North Korean counterfitters, the Secret Service, and his long-estranged father's cry for help, to Marjorie Braman at William Morrow, in a pre-empt, by Bob Mecoy at Creative Book Services (World).
Martyn Waites's BONE MACHINE: A Joe Donovan Thriller, the second in the series, in which Joe Donovan and his crack team of investigators infiltrate a gangland prostitution ring but discover their quarry's a deranged serial killer, to Claiborne Hancock at Pegasus, in a nice deal, by Jane Gregory of Gregory and Company (US). Nice deal means $1 - $49,000.00.
Recent Thriller Sales:
Chicago Tribune editor/reporter Gerry Doyle's speculative thriller, DRAGON, pitting a CIA forensic scientist with a Navy SEAL team investigating deaths aboard a North Korean submarine defecting to the US, to Jackie Swift of McBooks Press, for publication in November 2007, by Lois Bennett at Bennett & West Literary Agency (US).
-- From Publishers' Marketplace.
September 9, 2006
Natural Reader - Help in Editing
When you're alone and editing your work, hearing the words come back to you helps. There's an excellent and free online AT&T service that offers voice recognition software at NaturalReaders.Com. (Technically, this stuff is called "text to speech" software.) The free version offers a male voice that is rather electronic, but if you don't mind 2001's HAL reading your work back to you, then you'll be fine. For those who prefer a more human feel, both male and female readers are offered (there is a selection) for a cost: the Professional option is $39.95 while the Enterprise version is $79.50. Each option has lots of bells and whistles (MP3 converter, etc.) if you're interested in that sort of thing.
Personally, I'm happy with HAL. Remember? "Hello, Dave ...."
September 8, 2006
What's Your Genre?
Who do you read? That's what you should write, so they say. Here are books/authors I've read recently - some, if not most, are favorites:
Cozy
Tamar Myers (Magdalena Yoder)
MC Beaton (Agatha Raisin)
Nancy Bell (Biggie)
Alexander McCall Smith (Mme Ramotswe)
Susan Conant (Holly Winter)
Diane Mott Davidson (Goldy Bear)
Hard-Boiled
James M. Cain
Raymond Chandler
Dashiell Hammett
John D. McDonald
Legal Thriller
Lisa Scottoline (all)
John Grisham
Earl Stanley Gardner (Perry Mason)
Private Eye/Caper
Janet Evonovich (all)
Sue Grafton (Kinsey Milhone)
Elizabeth Peters (Amelia Peabody)
Whodunit-Classic
Elizabeth George (Inspector Linley)
Agatha Christie (Poirot, Marple)
Carolyn Hart (Henrie O)
PD James (Inspector Adam Dalgliesh)
True Crime
Diane Fanning (all)
Frank Abagnale (Catch Me If You Can)
Science Fiction
Patricia Briggs (Mercedes series)
Romantic Suspense
Daphne DuMaurier - Rebecca
Charlotte Bronte - Jane Eyre
Romance
Margaret Mitchell - Gone With the Wind
Jane Austen - Pride and Prejudice
George Eliot - Middlemarch
Charles Dickens - A Tale of Two Cities
Here's my quick list - I know I've missed some. Already, I see that I'm driven by characterization in my reading, as well as my writing. Ethical dilemmas and the fight between good and evil also form a theme in this list. Humor and wit are there. And, I'm much more focused on mysteries than romance. All, good to know.
Cozy
Tamar Myers (Magdalena Yoder)
MC Beaton (Agatha Raisin)
Nancy Bell (Biggie)
Alexander McCall Smith (Mme Ramotswe)
Susan Conant (Holly Winter)
Diane Mott Davidson (Goldy Bear)
Hard-Boiled
James M. Cain
Raymond Chandler
Dashiell Hammett
John D. McDonald
Legal Thriller
Lisa Scottoline (all)
John Grisham
Earl Stanley Gardner (Perry Mason)
Private Eye/Caper
Janet Evonovich (all)
Sue Grafton (Kinsey Milhone)
Elizabeth Peters (Amelia Peabody)
Whodunit-Classic
Elizabeth George (Inspector Linley)
Agatha Christie (Poirot, Marple)
Carolyn Hart (Henrie O)
PD James (Inspector Adam Dalgliesh)
True Crime
Diane Fanning (all)
Frank Abagnale (Catch Me If You Can)
Science Fiction
Patricia Briggs (Mercedes series)
Romantic Suspense
Daphne DuMaurier - Rebecca
Charlotte Bronte - Jane Eyre
Romance
Margaret Mitchell - Gone With the Wind
Jane Austen - Pride and Prejudice
George Eliot - Middlemarch
Charles Dickens - A Tale of Two Cities
Here's my quick list - I know I've missed some. Already, I see that I'm driven by characterization in my reading, as well as my writing. Ethical dilemmas and the fight between good and evil also form a theme in this list. Humor and wit are there. And, I'm much more focused on mysteries than romance. All, good to know.
September 6, 2006
Watching the Deals-3
Recent Romance Sales:
Annie Windsor's BLOODLINE, the first in a paranormal trilogy, the story of a warrior-witch, a NYPD detective and the terrible murder that brings them together, to Charlotte Herscher at Ballantine, in a very nice deal, in a three-book deal, by Nancy Yost of Lowenstein-Yost (World). "Very nice deal" means $50-99,000.00.
Molly O'Keefe's JIGSAW HEARTS, about a tortured journalist hiding from the world and the FBI agent sent undercover to investigate him, to Wanda Ottewell for Harlequin Superromance, in a nice deal, in a three-book deal, by Pam Hopkins at Hopkins Literary Associates. "Nice deal" means $1-49,000.00.
Marie Bostwick's untitled, again to Audrey LaFehr at Kensington, in a nice deal, by Jill Grosjean at Jill Grosjean Literary Agency.
Roxanne Rustand's INTENSIVE CARE, in which a couple who marries against all odds faces a serious accident, bringing into focus their joy, mistakes, and heartbreak, to Johanna Raisanen at Harlequin Everlasting, in a nice deal, by Roberta Brown at the Brown Literary Agency (World).
Sharlene MacLaren's LOVING MISS MERIWETHER, in which a young Bostonian woman travels to Kentucky to assume the job as schoolteacher, but finds tender love instead, and SARAH, MY BELOVED, in which a woman travels to Kentucky as a mail-order bride only to find her intended has married another, to Christine Whitaker at Whitaker House, in a nice deal, by Joyce Hart at Hartline Literary Agency (world).
Deborah Wright's THE HISTORY OF LUCY'S LOVE LIFE IN 10 1/2 CHAPTERS, in which Lucy, fired from her job as assistant to a scientist, retaliates by stealing her boss' prototype for a time travel machine, meeting history's most famous lovers, and trying to discover the true nature of love and if the love of her life has been right under her nose, to Alicia Bothwell Mancini at Plume, by Melissa Chinchillo at Fletcher & Parry, on behalf of Simon Trewin at PFD UK (NA).
UK rights to Little, Brown.
Kristin Harmel's THE ART OF FRENCH KISSING, in which a charmingly neurotic record exec in search of the perfect kiss in Paris stumbles upon much more with a headstrong journalist with a family secret while she tries in vain to save the public image of her volatile, zany rock star client, to Rebecca Isenberg at Warner Five Spot, in a nice deal, by Jenny Bent at Trident Media Group (world).
Recent Mysteries Sold:
Darlene Franklin's GUNFIGHT AT GRACE GULCH, a reenactment of a famous gunfight during Oklahoma's centennial goes terribly wrong, to Susan Downs at Barbour, in a nice deal, by Tamela Hancock Murray at Hartline Literary Agency.
Lisa Harris's BAKER'S FATAL DOZEN, in which a baker goes missing and a woman is hot on the trail of a sticky scandal that begins with murder, to Susan Downs at Barbour, in a nice deal, by Joyce Hart at Hartline Literary Agency (World).
Nancy Mehl's A BIRD IN THE HAND, in which a woman is working hard to get her late aunt's rare bookstore on its feet when she discovers an old map tucked within the pages of a book, to Susan Downs at Barbour, in a nice deal, by Janet Benrey at Hartline Literary Agency.
Sara Ann Freed Memorial Award winner Karen E. Olson's WATERLOGGED, the next Annie Seymour mystery, moving to Kristen Weber at NAL, in a two-book deal, by Jack Scovil at Scovil Chichak Galen Literary Agency (NA).
From Publisher'sMarketplace.Com.
And, just to keep things in perspective, remember that the most expensive book ever published is hitting the shelves this Fall: Random House paid $8,000,000 for the new book from Charles Frazier, author of Cold Mountain. Thirteen Moons arrives in October.
Annie Windsor's BLOODLINE, the first in a paranormal trilogy, the story of a warrior-witch, a NYPD detective and the terrible murder that brings them together, to Charlotte Herscher at Ballantine, in a very nice deal, in a three-book deal, by Nancy Yost of Lowenstein-Yost (World). "Very nice deal" means $50-99,000.00.
Molly O'Keefe's JIGSAW HEARTS, about a tortured journalist hiding from the world and the FBI agent sent undercover to investigate him, to Wanda Ottewell for Harlequin Superromance, in a nice deal, in a three-book deal, by Pam Hopkins at Hopkins Literary Associates. "Nice deal" means $1-49,000.00.
Marie Bostwick's untitled, again to Audrey LaFehr at Kensington, in a nice deal, by Jill Grosjean at Jill Grosjean Literary Agency.
Roxanne Rustand's INTENSIVE CARE, in which a couple who marries against all odds faces a serious accident, bringing into focus their joy, mistakes, and heartbreak, to Johanna Raisanen at Harlequin Everlasting, in a nice deal, by Roberta Brown at the Brown Literary Agency (World).
Sharlene MacLaren's LOVING MISS MERIWETHER, in which a young Bostonian woman travels to Kentucky to assume the job as schoolteacher, but finds tender love instead, and SARAH, MY BELOVED, in which a woman travels to Kentucky as a mail-order bride only to find her intended has married another, to Christine Whitaker at Whitaker House, in a nice deal, by Joyce Hart at Hartline Literary Agency (world).
Deborah Wright's THE HISTORY OF LUCY'S LOVE LIFE IN 10 1/2 CHAPTERS, in which Lucy, fired from her job as assistant to a scientist, retaliates by stealing her boss' prototype for a time travel machine, meeting history's most famous lovers, and trying to discover the true nature of love and if the love of her life has been right under her nose, to Alicia Bothwell Mancini at Plume, by Melissa Chinchillo at Fletcher & Parry, on behalf of Simon Trewin at PFD UK (NA).
UK rights to Little, Brown.
Kristin Harmel's THE ART OF FRENCH KISSING, in which a charmingly neurotic record exec in search of the perfect kiss in Paris stumbles upon much more with a headstrong journalist with a family secret while she tries in vain to save the public image of her volatile, zany rock star client, to Rebecca Isenberg at Warner Five Spot, in a nice deal, by Jenny Bent at Trident Media Group (world).
Recent Mysteries Sold:
Darlene Franklin's GUNFIGHT AT GRACE GULCH, a reenactment of a famous gunfight during Oklahoma's centennial goes terribly wrong, to Susan Downs at Barbour, in a nice deal, by Tamela Hancock Murray at Hartline Literary Agency.
Lisa Harris's BAKER'S FATAL DOZEN, in which a baker goes missing and a woman is hot on the trail of a sticky scandal that begins with murder, to Susan Downs at Barbour, in a nice deal, by Joyce Hart at Hartline Literary Agency (World).
Nancy Mehl's A BIRD IN THE HAND, in which a woman is working hard to get her late aunt's rare bookstore on its feet when she discovers an old map tucked within the pages of a book, to Susan Downs at Barbour, in a nice deal, by Janet Benrey at Hartline Literary Agency.
Sara Ann Freed Memorial Award winner Karen E. Olson's WATERLOGGED, the next Annie Seymour mystery, moving to Kristen Weber at NAL, in a two-book deal, by Jack Scovil at Scovil Chichak Galen Literary Agency (NA).
From Publisher'sMarketplace.Com.
And, just to keep things in perspective, remember that the most expensive book ever published is hitting the shelves this Fall: Random House paid $8,000,000 for the new book from Charles Frazier, author of Cold Mountain. Thirteen Moons arrives in October.
September 5, 2006
How They Do It -1: Nora Roberts
In a recent article, Nora Roberts explained her work ethic as well as how she works. First, she writes 8 to 5, Monday through Friday.
Second, she does this consistently.
Third, she limits her commitments: she relates that she may not see anyone other than her family for days, or weeks, at a time.
As for how she works, she doesn't plot nor does she outline. She works on one book at a time, and completes it in three drafts. Beginning with a key character, or setting, or event, she builds a story from there - crafting a story that she would want to read.
For example, in her latest - Angels Fall - she began with the key idea of a woman who sees a murder, but she is not close enough to stop it, and too isolated to be able to get other help in time. Later, when she reports the killing, she isn't believed.
"That's how I build," Roberts said. "What's the situation? And here is basically the setting I'm thinking of. ... What is she doing there? Why did she come there? Did she live there? Did she move there? Is she visiting, passing through ... and why doesn't anybody believe her? Oh, well, maybe nobody believes her because she's not only new in town, but she's a little bit crazy. Oh, that's good!"
At the age of 55, Nora Roberts has had 165 published works under both her name and the pen name JD Robb. What's her secret? "I think I have a really strong work ethic, plus I really love the work. I think if you love what you do, you do a lot of it. I have a lot of discipline ... and I have a fast pace."
September 2, 2006
Rules for Writing Romantic Suspense
Nora Roberts has an article entitled Crafting Romantic Suspense available online. While it doesn't have a rule list, it does have lots of info.Deidre Savoy has a good how-to article, as well: her view being that romantic suspense is a full romance and a full murder mystery, combined.
From Becci Clayton, there are seven rules for writing romantic suspense (go here for the full article:
1. Romantic Relationship - First and foremost, these stories are romance.
2. Logical Suspense Plot - As with any suspense story, any error in logical suspense will not be forgiven by the reader.
3. Include Sexual Tension - ... a careful balance must be created between the suspense and the romantic relationship and the internal and external conflicts.
4. Insure the Correct Use of Language - ... A romantic suspense tends to be more spare and "clean" or "everyday" where straightforward romance tends to have a more emotional, intimate descriptive flavor.
5. Get the Details Right - ... If you are writing a story set in the early 1960's, DON'T put a laser sight on the murder rifle. They weren't available to the public yet....
Not as well defined as other genres, eh? Perhaps reading through books considered "Romantic Suspense" helps .... And before you think contemporary works, like that of Nora Roberts, Suzanne Brockmann, and Catherine Coulter, remember Rebecca by Daphne DuMaurier and Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte.
Oh, and there's a sub-sub-genre here: humorous romantic suspense, with Jayne Ann Krentz leading that pack.
Author Interviews Worth Your Time
From Elizabeth George, the mystery novelist and creator of the Inspector Lynley series (currently on PBS) an interview that includes the advice to write an author a note of appreciation for their work, when you stumble across something that really moves you.American Grand Master Lawrence Block has an interview which includes the savvy encouragement to write what you would like to read. Lots more here.
Robert B. Parker, creator of Spenser and Jesse Stone, talked about his writing process: five pages a day, no outline. Yep, that's right: no outline.
P.D. James told Salon Magazine that she loves the way that writing mysteries allows her to bring order out of disorder, and while she mentions many great mystery writers (Chandler, MacDonald, Hammett), her favorite author of all time: Jane Austen - because of this shared love of order.
Carolyn Hart, master of the cozy mystery, joins with the advice to write what you want to read - ignoring the market, as well as how she fell into cozies.
Many more writer interviews are available for free downloading at The Paris Review. The masters are here: Truman Capote, TS Eliot, Dorothy Parker, Shelby Foote, PD James, John Irving.
For more mystery writer interviews, try Houston's Murder By the Book site.
Rules for Writing Mysteries
Writing a murder mystery is different than other kinds of fiction. There are rules to follow, and there's the trick: to tell the story of a killing (or more) in an entertaining manner, when it's been done so often before, and so well.Masters of the craft have offered their own insight. Listen to Agatha Christie give some tips during a BBC interview.
One of my personal favorites is James M. Cain, who advises (in the preface to Double Indemnity):
"I make no conscious effort to be tough, or hard-boiled, or grim, or any of the things I am usually called. I merely try to write as the character would write, and I never forget that the average man, from the fields, the streets, the bars, the offices and even the gutters of his country, has acquired a vividness of speech that goes beyond anything I could invent, and that if I stick to this heritage, this logos of the American countryside, I shall attain a maximum of effectiveness with very little effort."
Online, you can read the excellent Atlantic Monthly article written by Raymond Chandler, The Simple Art of Murder.
Elmore Leonard has 10 Writing Rules, the full context appearing on his website with an edited version below:
1. Never open a book with weather.
2. Avoid prologues.
3. Never use a verb other than “said” to carry dialogue.
4. Never use an adverb to modify the verb “said” . . .
5. Keep your exclamation points under control.
6. Never use the words “suddenly” or “all hell broke loose.”
7. Use regional dialect, patois, sparingly.
8. Avoid detailed descriptions of characters.
9. Don’t go into great detail describing places and things.
10. Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip.
American Grand Master Hillary Waugh offers the following six rules:
1. All clues discovered by the detective must be made available to the reader. (This is where Fair Play comes in.)
2. The murderer must be introduced early. (This doesn’t mean he has to make a personal appearance, but the reader must know of his existence.)
3. The crime must be significant… usually murder, though kidnapping, blackmail, theft and the like will also do.
4. There must be detection. The solution must not be stumbled on; it must be sought and found.
5. The number of suspects must be known, and the murderer must be among them.
6. Nothing extraneous may be introduced.
Finally, from the creator of Phylo Vance, S.S. Van Dine, the following, oft-quoted twenty (20) stringent rules are proscribed:
1. The reader must have equal opportunity with the detective for solving the mystery. All clues must be plainly stated and described.
2. No willful tricks or deceptions may be placed on the reader other than those played legitimately by the criminal on the detective himself.
3. There must be no love interest. The business in hand is to bring a criminal to the bar of justice, not to bring a lovelorn couple to the hymeneal altar.
4. The detective himself, or one of the official investigators, should never turn out to be the culprit. This is bald trickery, on a par with offering someone a bright penny for a five-dollar gold piece. It's false pretenses.
5. The culprit must be determined by logical deductions - not by accident or coincidence or unmotivated confession. To solve a criminal problem in this latter fashion is like sending the reader on a deliberate wild-goose chase, and then telling him, after he has failed, that you had the object of his search up your sleeve all the time. Such an author is no better than a practical joker.
6. The detective novel must have a detective in it; and a detective is not a detective unless he detects. His function is to gather clues that will eventually lead to the person who did the dirty work in the first chapter; and if the detective does not reach his conclusion through an analysis of those clues, he has no more solved the problem than the schoolboy who gets his answer out of the back of the arithmetic.
7. There simply must be a corpse in a detective novel, and the deader the corpse the better. No lesser crime than murder will suffice. Three hundred pages is far too much pother for a crime other than murder. After all, the reader's trouble and expenditure of energy must be rewarded.
8. The problem of the crime must be solved by strictly naturalistic means. Such methods for learning the truth as slate-writing, ouija-boards, mind-reading, spiritualistic seances, crystal-gazing, and the like, are taboo. A reader has a chance when matching his wits with a rationalistic detective, but if he must compete with the world of spirits and go chasing about the fourth dimension of metaphysics, he is defeated ab initio.
9. There must be but one detective - that is, but one protagonist of deduction - one deus ex machina. To bring the minds of three or four, or sometimes a gang of detectives to bear on a problem, is not only to disperse the interest and break the direct thread of logic, but to take an unfair advantage of the reader. If there is more than one detective the reader doesn't know who his co-dedutcor is. It's like making the reader run a race with a relay team.
10. The culprit must turn out to be a person who has played a more or less prominent part in the story - that is, a person with whom the reader is familiar and in whom he takes an interest.
11. A servant must not be chosen by the author as the culprit. This is begging a noble question. It is too easy a solution. The culprit must be a decidedly worth-while person - one that wouldn't ordinarily come under suspicion.
12. There must be but one culprit, no matter how many murders are committed. The culprit may, of course, have a minor helper or co-plotter; but the entire onus must rest on one pair of shoulders; the entire indignation of the reader must be permitted to concentrate on a single black nature.
13. Secret societies, camorras, mafias, et al. have no place in a detective story. A fascinating and truly beautiful murder is irredeemably spoiled by any such wholesome culpability. To be sure, the murderer in a detective novel should be given a sporting chance; but it is going too far to grant him a secret society to fall back on. No high-class, self-respecting murderer would want such odds.
14. The method of murder, and the means of detecting it, must be rational and scientific. That is to say, pseudo-science and purely imaginative and speculative devices are not to be tolerated in the roman policier. Once an author soars into the realm of fantasy, in the Jules Verne manner, he is outside the bounds of detective fiction, cavorting in the uncharted reaches of adventure.
15. The truth of the problem must at all times be apparent - provided the reader is shrewd enough to see it. By this I mean that if the reader, after learning the explanation for the crime, should reread the book, he would see that the solution had, in a sense, been staring him in the face - that all the clues really pointed to the culprit - and that, if he had been as clever as the detective, he could have solved the mystery himself without going on to the final chapter. That the clever reader does often thus solve the problem goes without saying.
16. A detective novel should contain no long descriptive passages, no literary dallying with side-issues, no subtly worked-out character analyses, no "atmospheric" preoccupations. Such matters have no vital place in a record of crime and deduction. They hold up the action, and introduce issues irrelevant to the main purpose, which is to state a problem, analyze it, and bring it to a successful conclusion. To be sure, there must be a sufficient descriptiveness and character delineation to give the novel verisimilitude.
17. A professional criminal must never be shouldered with the guilt of a crime in a detective story. Crimes by house-breakers and bandits are the province of police departments - not of authors and brilliant amateur detectives. A really fascinating crime in one committed by a pillar of a church, or a spinster noted for her charities.
18. A crime in a detective story must never turn out to be an accident of a suicide. To end an odyssey of sleuthing with such and anti-climax is to hoodwink the trusting and kind-hearted reader.
19. The motives for all crimes in detective stories should be personal. International plottings and war politics belong in a different category of fiction - in secret-service tales, for instance. But a murder story must be kept gemuetlich, so to speak. It must reflect the reader's everyday experiences, and give him a certain outlet for his own repressed desires and emotions.
20. And (to give my Credo an even score of items) I herewith list a few of the devices which no self-respecting detective-story writer will now avail himself of. They have been employed often, and are familiar to all true lovers of literary crime. To use them is a confession of the author's ineptitude and lack of originality. (a) Determining the identity of the culprit by comparing the butt of a cigarette left at the scene of the crime with the brand smoked by the suspect. (b) The bogus spiritualistic seance to frighten the culprit into giving himself away. (c) Forged fingerprints. (d) The dummy-figure alibi. (e) The dog that does not bark and thereby reveals the fact that the intruder is familiar. (f) The final pinning of the crime on a twin, or a relative who looks exactly like the suspected, but innocent, person. (g) The hypodermic syringe and knockout drops. (h) The commission of the murder in a locked room after the police have actually broken in. (i) The word-association test for guilt. (j) the cipher, or code letter, which is eventually unraveled by the sleuth.
Source: Twenty Rules for Writing Detective Fiction
by S.S. Van Dine (pseudonym of Willard Huntington Wright) - originally published in the American Magazine (1928-Sep),and included in omnibus Philo Vance Murder Cases (1936).
___________________________________________________________
August 22, 2006
Book Awards
There are an unbelievable amount of awards giving to good writing. First, there are the overall, famous ones:
Caldecott Medal
Man Booker Prize
National Book Awards
National Book Critics Circle Awards
Newbery Medal
Nobel Prize for Literature
PEN/Faulkner Award
Pulitzer Prize.
Then, the less famous but still a big deal:
Audie Awards
Bram Stoker Awards
Coretta Scott King Awards
Hugo Awards
IACP Cookbook Awards
James Beard Foundation/KitchenAid Book Awards
Michael L. Printz Award for Teen Literature
National Academies Communication Awards
Nebula Awards
Newbery Medal
Philip K. Dick Awards
Quill Book Awards
Whitbread Book Awards.
And then, those specific to a genre and therefore, for these writers at least, should be listed at the top of this post:
Mystery:
Anthony Award
Agatha Award
Barry Award
Derringer Award
Dilys Award
Edgar Award
Gumshoe Award
Hammett Prize
Herodotus Award
Macavity Award
Shamus Award
Romance:
RITA
RNA's Romance Prize
RRA
Sapphire Award
Zircon Award
For a long, long list of book awards, check out literature-awards.com.
And, if you want to know where the bar is set, check out Julia Spencer-Fleming's debut novel, In the Bleak Midwinter - which won more mystery awards for a debut novel than ever before in 2003 (Anthony, Agatha, Dilys, Macavity, Barry, and the St. Martin's Press/Malice Domestic Best First Traditional Mystery, together with a nomination for the Gumshoe).
Caldecott Medal
Man Booker Prize
National Book Awards
National Book Critics Circle Awards
Newbery Medal
Nobel Prize for Literature
PEN/Faulkner Award
Pulitzer Prize.
Then, the less famous but still a big deal:
Audie Awards
Bram Stoker Awards
Coretta Scott King Awards
Hugo Awards
IACP Cookbook Awards
James Beard Foundation/KitchenAid Book Awards
Michael L. Printz Award for Teen Literature
National Academies Communication Awards
Nebula Awards
Newbery Medal
Philip K. Dick Awards
Quill Book Awards
Whitbread Book Awards.
And then, those specific to a genre and therefore, for these writers at least, should be listed at the top of this post:
Mystery:
Anthony Award
Agatha Award
Barry Award
Derringer Award
Dilys Award
Edgar Award
Gumshoe Award
Hammett Prize
Herodotus Award
Macavity Award
Shamus Award
Romance:
RITA
RNA's Romance Prize
RRA
Sapphire Award
Zircon Award
For a long, long list of book awards, check out literature-awards.com.
And, if you want to know where the bar is set, check out Julia Spencer-Fleming's debut novel, In the Bleak Midwinter - which won more mystery awards for a debut novel than ever before in 2003 (Anthony, Agatha, Dilys, Macavity, Barry, and the St. Martin's Press/Malice Domestic Best First Traditional Mystery, together with a nomination for the Gumshoe).
August 12, 2006
Watching the Deals-2
For the second week of August, some interesting deals as reported in Publishers' Marketplace:
Debbie Macomber's KNIT TOGETHER: Discover God's Pattern for Your Life, has sold with the book being described as "saying that when we come to recognize our deepest longing, we can discover our potential and reach for our dreams, with her own journey of discovery weaved throughout the book," to Chip Macgregor of FaithWords (formerly Warner Faith), in a major deal, by Wendy Lawton of Books & Such Literary Agency (world). Major deal? $500,000+.
Brenda Mott's COWBOY ATTITUDE, "in which a heroine searching for her missing sister must rely on the aid of her former fiance while trying hard to keep her old feelings of love from resurfacing," to Victoria Curran at Harlequin Superromance, in a nice deal, by Michelle Grajkowski at 3 Seas Literary Agency (world). Nice? $1-$49,000.
Catherine Mann's MIAMI DYNASTY, part of an upcoming Desire continuity series, to Melissa Jeglinski at Harlequin, in a nice deal by Barbara Collins Rosenberg at Rosenberg Group (world). Catherine Mann is a RITA Award Winner, as well as National Readers' Choice Award Finalist. Nice? $1-$49,000.
Cynthia Polansky's REMOTE CONTROL, "about a 31-year-old Jewish control freak with an unlikely last name, who dies in a medical mishap and calls upon her supernatural status to "rescue" her widowed husband from the sexy clutches of their gold-digging, thrill-seeking blonde accountant, with disastrous results," to Karen Syed at Echelon Press, in a nice deal (world English). No agent reported here. Nice? $1-$49,000.
Abby Gaines's ACCIDENTALLY WED, about "a reality show stunt gone wrong resulting in a marriage where happily ever after is the last thing on anyone's mind," to Victoria Curan at Harlequin, in a nice deal, by Pamela Harty of The Knight Agency. Abby's real name is Adele Gautier. Nice? $1-$49,000.
Shiloh Walker's UNDER REALM, "the launch of an edgy alternative fantasy series," to Cindy Hwang at Berkley Sensation, in a two-book deal, by Roberta Brown of the Brown Literary Agency (World).
Hank Phillippi Ryan's PRIME TIME, the first in a series "featuring a 40-something TV reporter who discovers a link between a suspicious car accident and hidden messages in spam emails while juggling an on-camera world that values beauty more than journalism," to Ann Leslie Tuttle at Harlequin Next, in a nice two-book deal, by Kristin Nelson at the Nelson Literary Agency (world). Nice? $1-$49,000.
Saralee Rosenberg's ALL IN THE CARDS, "a humorous, heartfelt romp through bedrooms, boardrooms, and backyards, making unlikely heroines out of two bickering, its-your-day-to-drive moms," to Lyssa Keusch at Avon, for publication in late 2007, by Deborah Schneider of Gelfman Schneider.
Debbie Macomber's KNIT TOGETHER: Discover God's Pattern for Your Life, has sold with the book being described as "saying that when we come to recognize our deepest longing, we can discover our potential and reach for our dreams, with her own journey of discovery weaved throughout the book," to Chip Macgregor of FaithWords (formerly Warner Faith), in a major deal, by Wendy Lawton of Books & Such Literary Agency (world). Major deal? $500,000+.
Brenda Mott's COWBOY ATTITUDE, "in which a heroine searching for her missing sister must rely on the aid of her former fiance while trying hard to keep her old feelings of love from resurfacing," to Victoria Curran at Harlequin Superromance, in a nice deal, by Michelle Grajkowski at 3 Seas Literary Agency (world). Nice? $1-$49,000.
Catherine Mann's MIAMI DYNASTY, part of an upcoming Desire continuity series, to Melissa Jeglinski at Harlequin, in a nice deal by Barbara Collins Rosenberg at Rosenberg Group (world). Catherine Mann is a RITA Award Winner, as well as National Readers' Choice Award Finalist. Nice? $1-$49,000.
Cynthia Polansky's REMOTE CONTROL, "about a 31-year-old Jewish control freak with an unlikely last name, who dies in a medical mishap and calls upon her supernatural status to "rescue" her widowed husband from the sexy clutches of their gold-digging, thrill-seeking blonde accountant, with disastrous results," to Karen Syed at Echelon Press, in a nice deal (world English). No agent reported here. Nice? $1-$49,000.
Abby Gaines's ACCIDENTALLY WED, about "a reality show stunt gone wrong resulting in a marriage where happily ever after is the last thing on anyone's mind," to Victoria Curan at Harlequin, in a nice deal, by Pamela Harty of The Knight Agency. Abby's real name is Adele Gautier. Nice? $1-$49,000.
Shiloh Walker's UNDER REALM, "the launch of an edgy alternative fantasy series," to Cindy Hwang at Berkley Sensation, in a two-book deal, by Roberta Brown of the Brown Literary Agency (World).
Hank Phillippi Ryan's PRIME TIME, the first in a series "featuring a 40-something TV reporter who discovers a link between a suspicious car accident and hidden messages in spam emails while juggling an on-camera world that values beauty more than journalism," to Ann Leslie Tuttle at Harlequin Next, in a nice two-book deal, by Kristin Nelson at the Nelson Literary Agency (world). Nice? $1-$49,000.
Saralee Rosenberg's ALL IN THE CARDS, "a humorous, heartfelt romp through bedrooms, boardrooms, and backyards, making unlikely heroines out of two bickering, its-your-day-to-drive moms," to Lyssa Keusch at Avon, for publication in late 2007, by Deborah Schneider of Gelfman Schneider.
What's an ISBN?
ISBN stands for "International Standard Book Number," and it is a ten-digit number identifying books being sold internationally.
Why have one? ISBNs distinguish one title (or one edition of a title) from one specific publisher. That particular ISBN remains with that particular title/edition, which helps in the book's marketing not only to booksellers, but to libraries, universities, wholesalers, and whatnot. Think of it as that edition's SSN.
What do its four divisions mean? (1) Location of the publisher (national or geographic group); (2) Publisher; (3) Title or edition of a title; and (4) Validation, which is a single digit shown at the end, providing the ISBN's accuracy. If you see an "X," think Roman numerals - here, it stands for 10.
Source: isbn.com
Why have one? ISBNs distinguish one title (or one edition of a title) from one specific publisher. That particular ISBN remains with that particular title/edition, which helps in the book's marketing not only to booksellers, but to libraries, universities, wholesalers, and whatnot. Think of it as that edition's SSN.
What do its four divisions mean? (1) Location of the publisher (national or geographic group); (2) Publisher; (3) Title or edition of a title; and (4) Validation, which is a single digit shown at the end, providing the ISBN's accuracy. If you see an "X," think Roman numerals - here, it stands for 10.
Source: isbn.com
Learning the Publishing Industry From Your Chair
Thanks to the Web, there are several sites that will educate you about the publishing industry. It's up to you to read their content regularly and do your homework on what's selling and what's not - and why.
Of course, you need to do your footwork, too. Check out what's being touted in the grocery store's book section, as well as WalMart's and Target's book aisles. Roam through there and see what people are wanting to read. Do it regularly. It goes without saying that you're also going to be doing this at the local bookstore. Talking to the worker bees there - "what's hot this month?" - can be very enlightening.
As for the sites, there are a few that attempt to do this forecasting/prediction business for you. Publisher's Marketplace, for one. BooksInPrint IntelliMarketing looks pretty, too.
However, as one of my famous, very successful, author role models recently warned me, "remember whatever wonderful things that are said are simply whatever the publisher or agent or whoever sent to PM. It isn't exactly unbiased."
And, there's another negative: they're not free. PM costs around $250/yr for the privilege of accessing its site information, for example. And, you have to email BooksInPrintIntelliMarketing in order to learn its cost. Now, that's skeery.
So, we come back around to the free web sites. Here are a few:
WriteNew's long list of industry links
PublishingIndustry.Net's MostRead Links Page
BookWire.Net
USATodayOnline's Book Section
ParaPublishing's Collection of Statistics - a must read
Yahoo News on Books/Publishing
Google News - nice to create a news alert here for your particular interest - say romantic suspense, or cozies
Of course, you need to do your footwork, too. Check out what's being touted in the grocery store's book section, as well as WalMart's and Target's book aisles. Roam through there and see what people are wanting to read. Do it regularly. It goes without saying that you're also going to be doing this at the local bookstore. Talking to the worker bees there - "what's hot this month?" - can be very enlightening.
As for the sites, there are a few that attempt to do this forecasting/prediction business for you. Publisher's Marketplace, for one. BooksInPrint IntelliMarketing looks pretty, too.
However, as one of my famous, very successful, author role models recently warned me, "remember whatever wonderful things that are said are simply whatever the publisher or agent or whoever sent to PM. It isn't exactly unbiased."
And, there's another negative: they're not free. PM costs around $250/yr for the privilege of accessing its site information, for example. And, you have to email BooksInPrintIntelliMarketing in order to learn its cost. Now, that's skeery.
So, we come back around to the free web sites. Here are a few:
WriteNew's long list of industry links
PublishingIndustry.Net's MostRead Links Page
BookWire.Net
USATodayOnline's Book Section
ParaPublishing's Collection of Statistics - a must read
Yahoo News on Books/Publishing
Google News - nice to create a news alert here for your particular interest - say romantic suspense, or cozies
August 5, 2006
2006 Winners of Bulwer-Litton Fiction Contest: Laugh a Little
Jim Guigli, of Carmichael, California, has won the overall award in the 24th annual Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest with the following entry:
Detective Bart Lasiter was in his office studying the light from his one small window falling on his super burrito when the door swung open to reveal a woman whose body said you've had your last burrito for a while, whose face said angels did exist, and whose eyes said she could make you dig your own grave and lick the shovel clean.
From the Contest's site:
"An international literary parody contest, the competition honors the memory (if not the reputation) of Victorian novelist Edward George Earl Bulwer-Lytton (1803-1873).
"The goal of the contest is the essence of simplicity: entrants are challenged to submit bad opening sentences to imaginary novels. Although best known for "The Last Days of Pompeii" (1834), which has been made into a movie three times, originating the expression "the pen is mightier than the sword," and phrases like "the great unwashed" and "pursuit of the almighty dollar," Bulwer-Lytton opened his novel Paul Clifford (1830) with the immortal words that the "Peanuts" beagle Snoopy plagiarized for years, "It was a dark and stormy night."
"The contest began in 1982 as a quiet campus affair, attracting only three submissions. This response being a thunderous success by academic standards, the contest went public the following year and ever since has annually attracted thousands of entries from all over the world."
In the Romance category, Dennis Barry of Dothan, Alabama, won with:
Despite the vast differences it their ages, ethnicity, and religious upbringing, the sexual chemistry between Roberto and Heather was the most amazing he had ever experienced; and for the entirety of the Labor Day weekend they had sex like monkeys on espresso, not those monkeys in the zoo that fling their feces at you, but more like the monkeys in the wild that have those giant red butts, and access to an espresso machine.
In the Detective Fiction category, Derek Fisher of Ottawa, Ontario, claimed the prize with this entry:
It was a dreary Monday in September when Constable Lightspeed came across the rotting corpse that resembled one of those zombies from Michael Jackson's "Thriller," except that it was lying down and not performing the electric slide.
You have more self-control than I do if you can leave the contest site without surfing thru their Special Salute to Breasts Category, as well as the Vile Pun finalists - here, the winning pun from Dick Davis of Circle Pines, New Mexico:
As Johann looked out across the verdant Iowa River valley, and beyond to the low hills capped by the massive refrigerator manufacturing plant, he reminisced on the history of the great enterprise from its early days, when he and three other young men, all of differing backgrounds, had only their dream of bringing refrigeration to America's heartland to sustain them, to the present day, where they had become the Midwest's foremost group of refrigerator magnates.
To read the runners up, as well as the entries in varying categories, or to educate yourself on the rules in preparation for next year's contest, go here.
Detective Bart Lasiter was in his office studying the light from his one small window falling on his super burrito when the door swung open to reveal a woman whose body said you've had your last burrito for a while, whose face said angels did exist, and whose eyes said she could make you dig your own grave and lick the shovel clean.
From the Contest's site:
"An international literary parody contest, the competition honors the memory (if not the reputation) of Victorian novelist Edward George Earl Bulwer-Lytton (1803-1873).
"The goal of the contest is the essence of simplicity: entrants are challenged to submit bad opening sentences to imaginary novels. Although best known for "The Last Days of Pompeii" (1834), which has been made into a movie three times, originating the expression "the pen is mightier than the sword," and phrases like "the great unwashed" and "pursuit of the almighty dollar," Bulwer-Lytton opened his novel Paul Clifford (1830) with the immortal words that the "Peanuts" beagle Snoopy plagiarized for years, "It was a dark and stormy night."
"The contest began in 1982 as a quiet campus affair, attracting only three submissions. This response being a thunderous success by academic standards, the contest went public the following year and ever since has annually attracted thousands of entries from all over the world."
In the Romance category, Dennis Barry of Dothan, Alabama, won with:
Despite the vast differences it their ages, ethnicity, and religious upbringing, the sexual chemistry between Roberto and Heather was the most amazing he had ever experienced; and for the entirety of the Labor Day weekend they had sex like monkeys on espresso, not those monkeys in the zoo that fling their feces at you, but more like the monkeys in the wild that have those giant red butts, and access to an espresso machine.
In the Detective Fiction category, Derek Fisher of Ottawa, Ontario, claimed the prize with this entry:
It was a dreary Monday in September when Constable Lightspeed came across the rotting corpse that resembled one of those zombies from Michael Jackson's "Thriller," except that it was lying down and not performing the electric slide.
You have more self-control than I do if you can leave the contest site without surfing thru their Special Salute to Breasts Category, as well as the Vile Pun finalists - here, the winning pun from Dick Davis of Circle Pines, New Mexico:
As Johann looked out across the verdant Iowa River valley, and beyond to the low hills capped by the massive refrigerator manufacturing plant, he reminisced on the history of the great enterprise from its early days, when he and three other young men, all of differing backgrounds, had only their dream of bringing refrigeration to America's heartland to sustain them, to the present day, where they had become the Midwest's foremost group of refrigerator magnates.
To read the runners up, as well as the entries in varying categories, or to educate yourself on the rules in preparation for next year's contest, go here.
August 4, 2006
Watching the Deals-1
Romance and mystery deals of note, this first Friday in August 2006, as reported in Publishers' Marketplace:
Sandra Schwab sold a two-book erotic romance deal to Dorchester Leisure (Chris Keeslar) led by THE CASTLE OF THE WOLF, her agent being Stephanie Kip Rostan of the Levine Greenberg Literary Agency(World).
Sarah McCarty sold a two-book western romance deal beginning with HELL'S EIGHT to Harlequin Spice (Susan Pezzack) with agent Roberta Brown of Brown Literary Agency (World).
Anne Argula sold a two book mystery series deal beginning with WALLA WALLA SUITE to Ballantine (Fleetwood Robbins) with agent Vicky Bijur of the Vicky Bijur Literary Agency (site not found). There is no website for Anne Argula, but Sarah Weinman reveals that this is a pseudonym for a "well-published writer," and further surfing finds the publisher of Anne's first work [Edgar Award nominee HOMICIDE MY OWN], Pleasure Boat Studio, revealing online Anne's real identity to be that of Darryl Ponicsan, author of THE LAST DETAIL and CINDERELLA LIBERTY, and screenwriter of Nuts, Taps, Vision Quest, School Ties, and other films.
Lisa Renee Jones sold a three-book paranormal romance deal to Harlequin Nocturne (Ann Leslie Tuttle) led by THE BEAST WITHIN, her being agent Natasha Kern, in a 'nice deal' ($1-49,000).
Pamela Clare sold a two-book romantic suspense deal to Berkeley (Cindy Hwang) lead by UNLAWFUL CONTACT, her agent also being Natasha Kern, don't know the deal details.
Eliot Pattison sold a two-book mystery series deal to Carroll & Graf (Keith Wallman), again with the help of agent Natasha Kern, no money details provided.
Who is this agent, Natasha Kern, referenced in these last three listings? According to her website, she is a 1971 graduate of Columbia University whose agency was voted 11th out of the top 25 in 2003 by Writer's Market, in no small part due to a willingness to seek out new talent, to work with new writers. Check out their client list here.
Sandra Schwab sold a two-book erotic romance deal to Dorchester Leisure (Chris Keeslar) led by THE CASTLE OF THE WOLF, her agent being Stephanie Kip Rostan of the Levine Greenberg Literary Agency(World).
Sarah McCarty sold a two-book western romance deal beginning with HELL'S EIGHT to Harlequin Spice (Susan Pezzack) with agent Roberta Brown of Brown Literary Agency (World).
Anne Argula sold a two book mystery series deal beginning with WALLA WALLA SUITE to Ballantine (Fleetwood Robbins) with agent Vicky Bijur of the Vicky Bijur Literary Agency (site not found). There is no website for Anne Argula, but Sarah Weinman reveals that this is a pseudonym for a "well-published writer," and further surfing finds the publisher of Anne's first work [Edgar Award nominee HOMICIDE MY OWN], Pleasure Boat Studio, revealing online Anne's real identity to be that of Darryl Ponicsan, author of THE LAST DETAIL and CINDERELLA LIBERTY, and screenwriter of Nuts, Taps, Vision Quest, School Ties, and other films.
Lisa Renee Jones sold a three-book paranormal romance deal to Harlequin Nocturne (Ann Leslie Tuttle) led by THE BEAST WITHIN, her being agent Natasha Kern, in a 'nice deal' ($1-49,000).
Pamela Clare sold a two-book romantic suspense deal to Berkeley (Cindy Hwang) lead by UNLAWFUL CONTACT, her agent also being Natasha Kern, don't know the deal details.
Eliot Pattison sold a two-book mystery series deal to Carroll & Graf (Keith Wallman), again with the help of agent Natasha Kern, no money details provided.
Who is this agent, Natasha Kern, referenced in these last three listings? According to her website, she is a 1971 graduate of Columbia University whose agency was voted 11th out of the top 25 in 2003 by Writer's Market, in no small part due to a willingness to seek out new talent, to work with new writers. Check out their client list here.
How to Copyright Your Work and Noticing the Copyright
From the US Copyright Office, the steps on Copyrighting Literary Works:
"Follow these steps to register your book, manuscript, online work, poetry, or other text:
Step 1
Make sure your work is a literary work. Literary works may be published or unpublished and include nondramatic textual works with or without illustrations. Computer programs and databases also are considered literary works. Here are more examples and specific information.
To register serials and periodicals, see the Serial Works instructions.
Step 2
Put into one envelope or package:
a completed application Form TX or Short Form TX and Form CON if needed (choose which form to use) (go to the site for downloading these forms as PDF documents)
a $45 payment to "Register of Copyrights."
nonreturnable copy(ies) of the material to be registered. Read details on deposit requirements. Please read this important notice about mail delivery disruption.
Step 3
Send the package to:
Library of Congress
Copyright Office
101 Independence Avenue, S.E.
Washington, D.C. 20559-6000
Your registration becomes effective on the day that the Copyright Office receives your application, payment, and copy(ies) in acceptable form. If your submission is in order, you will receive a certificate of registration in approximately 4 months.
For more details about copyright, please see our information circulars."
About the Copyright notice, that c within a circle, the site explains:
"The use of a copyright notice is no longer required under U.S. law, although it is often beneficial. Because prior law did contain such a requirement, however, the use of notice is still relevant to the copyright status of older works.
This circular discusses both the copyright notice provisions as originally enacted in the 1976 copyright act (title 17, U.S. Code), which took effect January 1, 1978, and the effect of the 1988 Berne Convention Implementation Act, which amended the copyright law to make the use of a copyright notice optional on copies of works published on and after March 1, 1989. Specifications for the proper form and placement of the notice are described in this circular.
Works published before January 1, 1978, are governed by the previous copyright law. Under that law, if a work was published under the copyright owner’s authority without a proper notice of copyright, all copyright protection for that work was permanently lost in the United States."
"Follow these steps to register your book, manuscript, online work, poetry, or other text:
Step 1
Make sure your work is a literary work. Literary works may be published or unpublished and include nondramatic textual works with or without illustrations. Computer programs and databases also are considered literary works. Here are more examples and specific information.
To register serials and periodicals, see the Serial Works instructions.
Step 2
Put into one envelope or package:
a completed application Form TX or Short Form TX and Form CON if needed (choose which form to use) (go to the site for downloading these forms as PDF documents)
a $45 payment to "Register of Copyrights."
nonreturnable copy(ies) of the material to be registered. Read details on deposit requirements. Please read this important notice about mail delivery disruption.
Step 3
Send the package to:
Library of Congress
Copyright Office
101 Independence Avenue, S.E.
Washington, D.C. 20559-6000
Your registration becomes effective on the day that the Copyright Office receives your application, payment, and copy(ies) in acceptable form. If your submission is in order, you will receive a certificate of registration in approximately 4 months.
For more details about copyright, please see our information circulars."
About the Copyright notice, that c within a circle, the site explains:
"The use of a copyright notice is no longer required under U.S. law, although it is often beneficial. Because prior law did contain such a requirement, however, the use of notice is still relevant to the copyright status of older works.
This circular discusses both the copyright notice provisions as originally enacted in the 1976 copyright act (title 17, U.S. Code), which took effect January 1, 1978, and the effect of the 1988 Berne Convention Implementation Act, which amended the copyright law to make the use of a copyright notice optional on copies of works published on and after March 1, 1989. Specifications for the proper form and placement of the notice are described in this circular.
Works published before January 1, 1978, are governed by the previous copyright law. Under that law, if a work was published under the copyright owner’s authority without a proper notice of copyright, all copyright protection for that work was permanently lost in the United States."
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