New York Times Bestseller List

Awhile back I stopped reading agent blogs. I do still check in here and there and follow links recommended by others. But for the most part, I have a general knowledge of the more popular topics like ‘use of dialogue’ and ‘what not to include in a query letter.’ My thirst for writing knowledge has become a little deeper, or if you will, advanced.

AQ Crew (the owner of AgentQuery.com), unbeknownst to them, issued a challenge. And that is to start paying closer attention to world of publishing. They suggested that us writers who want to slide a foot in the door start checking out more than agent blogs. (Get a real handle on the business.) We should be checking out editor blogs, publishing blogs, certain newspapers, certain publications regarding publishing, the New York Times Bestseller list, etc. It’s an idea I like. I was feeling stumped. Like I had stalled out in my learning, but wasn’t sure where the door was to take me to the next level. Voila.

<Sigh> Not that kind of challenge. Although a Pepsi and a bag of Doritos would really hit the spot right about now…

And sure, I know ereaders are big (and getting bigger, better, and cheaper by the moment) and a lot of authors are publishing directly to ebooks here and there. But really, could I predict the next trend? Maybe not. I can see the end of YA (I mean, that market has got to get flooded at some point too, right? Especially since everyone is deciding to represent it).

Recently I decided to leave chick lit writing behind. It is a totally fun genre, and one I really enjoyed getting to know, but the fact of the matter is, it is a flooded market. My rejections were rarely about my writing, but about the market. Now that I have passed the newbie mark in terms of novel writing, I am moving on to different genres and working with more business sense. That’s not to say I’m not still going to have a blast when I write. It’s saying that if I want a shot at this publishing thing, I have to think like this is a business. Because it is.

So, today I am starting by looking at the New York Times Bestsellers list. And not just reading it, but studying it. Why are these books on there? Why are some of these books still on there?

To tell you the truth, I feared checking out the list as I was sure it would be all books I hadn’t heard of. Wrong! I even have a couple on my ereader (okay, they are on my husband’s and only on my ‘to be read’ list–once I get around to downloading them to my reader). Anyway, I am realizing that maybe I’m not quite as in the dark as I first thought. (The depth of this statement has yet to be determined.)

Here is a link to the list: http://www.nytimes.c…oks/bestseller/

And here are some of my thoughts:

“The Girl…” books by Stieg Larsson. Why? Is it the bright cover art? I’d say about half of those who read it over on AgentQuery Connect gave it a thumbs down. As in slogging through backstory, wondering why the main character doesn’t appear until page 25. That kind of thing. I tried reading one of the books. Really tried. But I couldn’t. Curious about this one. It isn’t the writing, so there must be an element of ‘je ne sais quoi’ about it.

The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls. Is this one inching up the list again due to her newest release?

Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. I’m guessing the movie release of this one is helping keep this one at the top of the list.

Okay, so looking at the list has only brought up more questions for me… but they are good questions I think. (I hope.)

How about you… any thoughts on the list?

Let It All Hang Out

I was thinking about writing and the truth of a good story while trying to sleep the other night. Basically, when you are writing there’s this balance between structure (all the technical stuff that keeps the story flowing in a coherent and pleasing way) and the story (all the fun and entertaining bits–as well as the unexpected). So while in the back of your head you have that editor dude making sure the structure is sound, you have to have this slightly crazy dude in the forefront mixing things up and, in essence, letting it all hang out. This crazy dude needs to ensure that the editor lets the characters be who they need to be. It’s his job to ensure spontaneity gets a chance to rear its beastly head and allow those characters to say and do all those things that the editor might not otherwise hear or see–and therefore include in the story.

If you don’t let your characters be themselves you end up with a stiff, stilted, awful scene where you’ve accomplished everything on your writer’s list, but it doesn’t flow. It’s not real. Somehow it is lacking that something that makes it breathe and jump off the page and into the reader’s mind, coming alive to do a memorable little dance.

Think about this. What would happen if you: Sat all your relatives around the dining room table for Thanksgiving dinner? Now, as the hostess/host you rule with an iron fist and ensure that they all hold their forks properly, don’t slurp their wine, dab their lips with their linen napkin, and for heaven’s sake, put an end to those awful fart jokes. Why? Because this is your dinner and you have an image of what this dinner is supposed to look like.

Think for a moment. What’s going to happen?

Conversations and the necessary element of spontaneity, passion, and one-thing-leads-to-another that will make the night memorable simply won’t be there. In essence, you will have a fake gathering on your hands. A cardboard cutout of real life. Those characters you’ve got around the table will cease being themselves and won’t bring their zany past experiences to the table. They won’t hoot and holler. Your little nephew won’t secretly feed the dog (that has snuck under the table), causing him to barf into Auntie Ness’s 20-year-old winter boots by the end of the night. In turn, because she doesn’t have boots to wear home, she stays overnight. A blizzard traps her in your house for five days. Things ensue. If you push the scene into your little image of what it has-to-be box (let the editor have full reign of the scene), you most certainly won’t have that pesky nephew shooting peas down Uncle Al’s exposed butt crack. Nope.

On the flip side, you can’t let the editor take a huge nap in the living room either and leave everyone unattended and at the mercy of the whimsical crazy dude. Because let’s face it, the editor is going to have one heck of a hard time scraping the hardened mashed potatoes off the walls the next day when he has to give purpose to and make sense of everything that went on the night before.

I suppose what I am trying to say is that you have to balance the two. You must leave room for the editor to plan and structure, but you also must temper that with some real hootenanny moments and general shenanigans. There might be times where your character really, really needs to have a conversation with another character in order to turn the story. And another time, they might need to do something spontaneous like push a friend off a tower in order to get things heated up again.

Creating a Brand and Going Too Far

As a writer hoping to create a brand someday (Jean Oram–the author of a certain type of book) I keep my eye open for how people create their ‘brands.’ Over time I have picked up little tips on what seems to work and what doesn’t. Or to put it more aptly other words, what pisses of the potential buyer and what doesn’t.

In the past 24 hours I have discovered a method that plain and simply pisses me off.

Okay, let me back up a bit.

First of all, I live in a town of about 11,500 people. If you have even a whiff of famous on ya, I’ll hear about it. You can’t keep a whiff of fame under wraps around here. For example: OHMIGOD! Did you hear? Joe was in the same room as Wayne Gretzky!!! I know! Instant fame status for Joe.

So, you take someone who is working to build their music career and guess what, the whole town is going to know about it. Especially when you have your own charity golf tournament in town. You sing for free at the local dealership (still haven’t quite figured out why on that one–I think it may have been a fundraiser). You are in the paper every other week for something or other (no, seriously). You have your name plastered on this, that, and the other thing. For example: OHMIGOD! You donated five dollars to the library, we’d better put up a sign touting your famous support! (Okay, he hasn’t donated to the library yet. Probably because another singer has her name on the library’s coffee shop. And get this, when she popped by the other day for a latte–they made her pay! How completely and utterly wrong is that?)

Anyway, recently this guy has been popping up like he’s the mole on the hardest level of whack a mole. Which was okay. He’s got a business to run, a family to keep, no hard feelings.

Until this week. We’re talking over-the-top, annoying, spamming the town. Why? Because he wants to be voted fan’s choice or something. (I have been trying exceedingly hard to block out everything to do with him.) The town paper put out a special commemorative paper on shiny paper–sort of a collector’s item type thing–and he’s in there three times. I open my mailbox and there is a flyer asking me to vote for him. I drive into town there is a sign asking me to vote for him. I go to the grocery store, there are flyers under windshield wipers asking us to vote for him. I pay for my groceries and the cashier hands me my receipt and a flyer to… yeah, you guessed it.

I wish I was exaggerating. And while I know it makes me petty to admit this, but it is to the point where I want to go online and vote for someone who is NOT him.

So, the lesson I’ve learned by watching this guy is that there is a fine line somewhere between getting your name out there and being an annoying bother. I have seen some authors do a fabulously fine job of getting their name out there as well as the name of their book without it all being, ‘my book, mybook, mybook, ohmigoddidyoureadmybook?’ And there have been some where every tweet, blog entry, conversation and online post has been ‘my book, mybook, mybook, ohmigoddidyoureadmybook?’ Again, that fine line.

Where do you think that fine line is between just enough and too much?

Tab Purge

I have been totally falling down on my monthly Good Links posts. For some reason the end of the month comes, I think about it, procrastinate, the new month begins, I feel guilty, I get over it. I carry on.

Well, my tabs in Firefox are full of good stuff once again that I would like to share. So, without any formality… here goes.

FICTION: if you hang out on AgentQuery Connect you may have gotten to know Chopsaw, aka, James Kidd. Well, he’s got a great little short story called ‘Holes in the Walls‘ up at Every Day Fiction. It’s worth checking out.

YOUR FICTION: Speaking of fiction, maybe you have some of your own and are wondering whether it is flabby or fit. Well, wonder no longer! You can paste some of your writing into this analyzer and see whether it thinks you use too many adverbs, be words, or commits other writerly sins. The Writer’s Diet Waistline Test.

PUBLISH YOUR FICTION: Moonrat (a recovering editorial assistant) gives the goods on publishing houses whether big, small, or self.

PUBLICIZE YOUR FICTION: John Betcher discusses a few ideas on how to create a buzz around your book at the local level.

MARKET THAT FICTION: TK Richardson begins her marketing tips this week. If you don’t know where to start, take note!

**I recommend keeping a file with good marketing/publicizing tips and advice on your computer. As you come across helpful stuff, pop it in the file and it will all be there when you need it. Saves time!

Now I can close a few tabs–and I didn’t even bombard you with links like usual! Probably because Firefox and I keep fighting about saving my tabs when I shut down which means I forget all about those goodies I wanted to share!

Enjoy!

Jean The Destroyer

So, it’s been a while since I’ve posted an entry where I chant, “I am at one with the universe.” Evidently, too long.

Let me start at the beginning…

Once upon a time there was a girl who every once in a while would fall out of sync with the universe and break, damage, destroy, wreck, decimate, and generally lay waste to the electronics around her.

Flash forward to June 2010. Her two-year-old laptop starts making ‘bad’ hard drive grinding noises. Her darling husband knows what’s coming. He’s seen the signs before. He seizes the moment he’s been waiting for… he orders her a Mac in hopes that its indestructible and simple design will last her at least three years, making up for its increased cost. Jean jumps for joy at the idea of a laptop that might last. Yay! Yay!

Don’t let the smoke out! They never work right after that.

Jump back in time a little bit… Jean’s cell phone stops working properly. It must be persistently coaxed to have its screen light up and work. Darling Husband The Rescuer jumps in once again with his not-yet-recycled cell phone. He battles Bell Mobility and has her phone number transferred to the old phone. He knows its days are numbered and that he must put his get-Jean-a-new-phone-before-impending-technology-breakdown can come to fruition. Bell says Jean is up for a new FREE phone. Jean says this one is fine. Husband takes further action. Begins soft sell on Jean. Jump to July… Jean finally caves. New phone ‘purchased.’ Husband breathes sigh of relief for narrowly avoiding yet another technology breakdown crisis.

Jump to the end of July. Jean not quite sure why their digital camera is taking slightly blurred shots. Surely it can’t be the bent lens from being dropped at the mountain summit between the Yukon and Alaska acting up now. Surely.

Jump to August. Place Oram family in the safari ride at Disney’s Animal Kingdom in Florida. Animals abound. Lens won’t come out. Jean fiddles with it like she did in Alaska last summer. Breaks it. Camera done. Kaput.

Don’t even think about touching our TV, b*tch!

A week ago: Jean pulling things from the dryer. Remarks to husband, “The dryer smells funny.” Involuntary moan emits from his lips. Both realize that dryer, while still feeling new to us, is actually on borrowed time… <gulp>

Yesterday: Checking my WEbook Page to Fame entry status. I get a message saying something to the effect: You have broken our website you awful, nasty person. Whatever did we do to you? Please make it up to us by sending this code (seen at bottom of page) so we can fix our website, you awful nasty person.

Actually, the message was much kinder than that. I hit refresh a few times and went back to their homepage and things were all okay again. Whew! (Don’t tell them it was me, okay?)

Today: For the fall I have made some wonderful writing plans that I hope are not as elusive as a well-priced, point-and-shoot digital camera with a glass lens. Anyway, to keep me on track, I have managed to somehow be paired up with two very lovely, talented and motivated aspiring writers who also want to do some kick butt writing this fall. Yipee! Nothing like a group to keep you on task. So, one of the lovely ladies created a Google group for us to share documents, plans, goals, motivations, and unbeknownst to her… a place for Jean to destroy.

That’s right. I have somehow made it so even my dear ol’ hubby with his tech Masters degree cannot figure out why I cannot upload my profile picture. But that’s neither here nor there. That sort of thing happens to me like peanut butter. (Yeah, I don’t know what that means either.) Today, I wrecked a page made by another member. No, let me amend that. I didn’t wreck it, I made it not exist. No, seriously. That’s what Google says. And Google is like God. Don’t argue with God. God has lightning bolts. So, I added my goals to the existing, pre-made page, hit ‘save and publish’ and got the message that it had successfully published. Apparently into another dimension.

See? Told ya.

Oh, and I forgot. The Mac? You know how it doesn’t seize up, like ever? Yeah, I did that yesterday by trying to add someone to my address book. I’m just that good.

Anyone have a camera I can borrow? Really, I’ll take good care of it. I promise.