A Writer's Wish List

Welcome to December. Here is your official welcome package: a snowflake, a large pine tree, a candle, a snifter of brandy. Whatever tradition you're gearing up for, it's likely you've got gifts on the brain, and a shopping list as long as your arm. Here are some hints as to what the writers in your circle of friends and family might be longing for this holiday season. Some are DIY, some are even free! Only one is purely mythological.

No matter the genre or publisher, these are guaranteed to make any author click its little heels together with glee while smiling ear to ear. You might even see a little tooth sparkle, along with a charming *TING* of holiday magic. And if that isn't an image to go on a greeting card, I don't know what is. In related news, I'd like to know who's stuffing all those cats into Santa hats.

Quit it.

10. Sales.

Authors love sales. So I know that you, being a good and virtuous family member or friend, have already bought the book. But now, you can buy your friends the book. Buy your kids' teachers the book. I remember at my book launch, several dear and marvelous friends actually said, "I'm doing my holiday shopping right now!" as they toted away an armful of copies. I have now erected large, permanent, ostentatious statues in their honor in my driveway. Yes, it's hard to get the car out, but these people need recognition.

Many authors are happy to mail you a signed bookplate, for even more palpable specialness.

9. Reviews

It is free to review your author friend's book on Amazon, on Goodreads, on LibraryThing. A thoughtful few sentences, a handful of stars, a couple of tags checked, a "Like" button clicked: these might seem insignificant to you, but they are beautiful gifts to an author.

8. Stories

Interrupt the novel, and I will destroy you.

A truth: Authors often chuckle to each other about how people come up to us saying, "I've got a great book idea for you. You write it, and we'll split the profits!"

Another truth: Most authors are walking around with 87 book ideas in their heads, and their only lament is not being able to crawl into a cave, dig a tiger moat at the entrance, and crouch over a laptop for the next six years, writing them all down. Did I mention the cave has wifi? And that someone occasionally tosses a turkey dinner across the tiger moat? Is this just my fantasy?

KIDS, STOP TALKING TO ME.

This one is tricky because not every story makes a good gift. Long ones usually don't. Ones involving the death of grandmothers, or adoptees finding birth parents, or really special, amazing animals... usually don't. What constitutes a literary treasure? Odd little snippets. Nuggets maybe. Sometimes whole book ideas emerge from tiny little bits of overheard conversation, or sometimes those little nuggets can fit into our books in weird ways.

Example: My friend Tina was chatting with me and some other people and casually mentioned she had a cousin or uncle or something who had escaped from prison by riding a cow through a river. I swear, it was as if the ceiling ripped open, a beam of light shone down on her face, and time slowed. I pulled up a chair and begged her to keep talking about this beautiful, magical cousin from god. Turns out he killed himself playing Russian roulette. WHAT? Was there NOTHING this cousin could not do? Turns out this backstory went like a puzzle piece directly into the past life of one of the minor characters in my WIP. It went in so perfectly, there was almost an audible click. Share your stories. Then get ready to read all about it.

 7. Social Media Love

Easy to Tweet: Hey, I read this book and it's awesome. If you loved Eat Pray Love, you'll want to get this one. It's like Eat Pray Love but IN SPACE!

Easy to share on Facebook: Hey, this book totally changed my mind about panthers. Turns out they're really lovable pets! Check it out. 

Post the cover on Pinterest. Microblog it on Tumblr. Pass the link around. Boost the signal.

6. Blog Posts.

If you have a blog, post a review or an interview! Relate the book to something personal to you, to give awesome content to your own readers while spreading the word for your author friends. If you don't have a blog, consider submitting a guest post to a blog you love. Starting a blog just to pimp out your friend's book is probably a bad idea, although I can see it working as a publicity stunt, if you were able to sustain it on a daily basis for several years. You can do that, right?

So many to choose from!

5. Booze. 

Note: This should also be on the wish lists for architects, bottle washers, chefs, dog walkers, educators, firefighters, grooms, hospital clerical workers, infographic makers, jewelers, kick boxers, loom weavers, magicians, nickel stampers, obstetricians, physicists, query critiquers, rocketry specialists, specialists of all kinds, truck drivers, unitarians, vets, white house interns, x-ray technicians, yak worshippers, and zebra inseminators.

What, my spell check doesn't like the word "inseminators"?

4. Encouragement. 

You can do it! Your book is freakin' fantastic! Are you kidding? Of course you can write another one just as good. Better, even. You are killing this author thing. 

As much as you feel like you've already stroked this needy author's ego quite enough, consider the fact that probably right now the soundtrack in their head is something along the lines of this: "That last book was a fluke. Nothing you say makes sense. You couldn't write your way out of a tiger moat. The things that are important to you aren't important to anyone else. That character's not likable. That idea makes you certifiable. Coffee is starting to taste bad, WHY? You're going to get a hole in your favorite sweater. The hole is coming. The groaning abyss that is your absence of talent will suck you down through that hole and annihilate you."

So you know, some cheery words are never amiss.

3. Time

If there's any way you can facilitate your author friend or family member getting more peaceful and uninterrupted time to write, this is a treasured, hallowed, beautiful thing. Loan your summer house. Babysit. When you're thinking of asking your author friend/family to volunteer for some lengthy, time-consuming activity, or get them involved in some really great idea for a project, or join you in a new hobby, reconsider. Think of someone else. Don't recommend new TV shows. Don't say, "You know, we should really go hiking on the beach once a week, for our health!"

Note to my personal friends: This is not a call for help. I have everything under control. Just send tigers. 

So, I was trying to think of what I would include for #2, and I told my husband what I was considering, he said, "What? That has nothing to do with gifts. Don't you want a gun/flyswatter? Or a robot that sharpens your pens?" It's true that I do want those things, but I feel a responsibility to be honest and deliver a true list, of real desires, and the list would not be complete without this:

2. Magical Plot Solutions. 

There's probably nothing you can really do here, and there's nothing to buy. But this is what authors really most want: plot solutions. We want to experience that sudden strange, unexpected brain-twist that results in a smooth, blissful unraveling of a huge plot-knot.

I want one really bad, this month. I'm praying and dreaming and hoping. I know it will come to me while driving, or while in the shower, or while reading someone else's book and thinking about something completely different, or while knitting, or while telling my dog to stop scratching his junk so luxuriously on the carpet -- I know it will come.

Like most writers, I'm an optimist. Even though we crank about the world and write books where everyone inexorably dies in despair, we all believe in magic, much like the kind that gets talked about in December. Writer magic comes in the middle of writing books. It comes when you're 16 chapters in and it's dismal and clanging and nothing works. It's like a special weapon that only becomes available when you've committed yourself to a battle you can't win. You can't predict or explain it, or make it happen, or find it by looking, but if you didn't think it was coming, you'd never start chapter 2. When it comes, it's the best, best thing ever. When you're waiting for it, the night can be long and dark.

I know I said it wasn't for sale, but if anyone's seen the devil, can you give him my mobile #? Thanks.

Note: My husband's next suggestion was "Sexy muse." But we all know what the #1 gift idea should be, right? It's not a brilliant cover or getting on year-end lists (although Book Pregnant authors have been killing it on that front, yo!). 

1. Sales

See #10.

Lydia Netzer is the author of Shine Shine Shine, which the New York Times Book Review just selected as one of 100 Notable Books for 2012. It was also chosen by Amazon as one of their Editor's Picks for the Top 100 Books of 2012, by Library Journal as one of five Top Women's Fiction Titles of 2012, and by Nancy Pearl in Publisher's Weekly as one of her ten favorite books of 2012. Written over ten years, two attempts at Nanowrimo, and many despairing moments, it's a novel about robots, motherhood, space travel, true love, and the perils of fitting in. Find her on her blog, Facebook, and Twitter. 

Is "Iron Curtain" Worth Four Frappuccino's?

By Nancy Bilyeau

Being published yields lessons about control. After you sign your contract and, much later, the book goes on sale, you will learn what you can control. Or what you think you control but don't. Or what you don't realize you control and should actually spend more time controlling. Some of the lessons are stark, and some are subtle.

But there is one thing that you, the traditionally published author, do not control and that is the price of your book. There are no gray areas here. You can send emails to your editor and agent, or spend hours venting to friends in your online groups, and the price won't change a penny. The publisher sets it. Period.

Do readers know this? Maybe not.

Last week my husband and I were talking about the new book "Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe 1944-1956." I'd read a compelling review of "Iron Curtain" in "The New Yorker," on the way home from work on the subway. Later that night, I mentioned it to my spouse--we both studied 20th century history in college (University of Michigan for me, University of Toronto for him). We were sitting up in bed, with our laptop computers and kindles and magazines, talking about this new book we were both interested in.

(Clearly if you've come to this blog post looking for Fifty Shades of Grey, you've so come to the wrong place.)

Anyway, my husband was poised to order "Iron Curtain" from amazon.com when he said, surprised, "Two one-star reviews?"

"Iron Curtain," published two weeks ago and and written by the award-winning journalist Anne Applebaum, does indeed have one-star reviews. And both of them were posted by people who hadn't read the book.

That's right. Hadn't read it. But were ready to post "reviews," which are by any definition about the work itself.

One-star review No. 1: "Having travelled recently as a tourist in this part of the world, I was very excited to buy this book after reading a review. When I saw the outrageous Kindle price I was mightily offended. Pass on this."

One-star review No. 2: "Not only will I not purchase this book for a kindle I own (which my wife uses pretty exclusively), but this is the sort of thing that will leave me on the fence in deciding to purchase a Paperwhite for my own use, which I have been seriously considering this week. I love the author; it is probably a great book. But, I will wait. I have plenty of unread books.
Some of us enjoy holding a book. I only read one at a time, so space/size simply aren't considerations for me. I would never, in a million years, purchase an e-reader for any reason other than economy. So, an eye-raising price like this factors DIRECTLY into my buying decision."

What is the price that these consumers, one of whom travels through Eastern Europe, recoil from? $17.99. The original list price for the 608-page hardcover is $35 but of course amazon does not charge that and most likely book stores discount too.

The pricing of books is now at the heart of debates raging about traditional publishing versus self publishing. I use the word "rage" advisedly. Independent publishing is an issue often argued with passion that veers into accusation. We who are published by one of the "Big Six" are in the strange position of being both envied and despised. My friends with books out have been told they're passive, deluded, defrauded, the victims of Stockholm Syndrome. I'm not going to hurl myself into the fiery pit of which way of being published is "superior." I see merits in both. I have read great books that came to me via a bricks-and-mortar publisher and an author using Smashwords. I have come not to criticize self-publishing.

No, I have to come to talk about value. What our books are worth.

My novel, "The Crown," is currently priced at $9.99 for e-book. Many novels cost about that. I worked on my book for five years, researching and writing, taking classes and workshops. Traveling. Getting up at 5 a.m. so I could make my word count before the children woke up and I had to go to the office. Drawing on my love of Tudor England and the thriller genre, I crafted the best book I possibly could. It was edited by talented people, with a striking cover. Is my e-book worth $9.99? In my opinion, yes.

Let's talk about entertainment, because that's what many novels are. I am fine with that. In cities, movie tickets these days are set at about $10 for adults. So my novel is not as much of a value as a couple of hours with "Skyfall" or "Taken: 2" or, good grief, "Paranormal Activity 4"?  When you tell a novelist that their  book--in many cases, their dream--should be priced at a dollar or two, rather than nine or ten, you're saying their dream is not worth as much as "Paranormal Activity 4" and should instead cost as much as the Diet Coke someone sips while watching it.

To return to "Iron Curtain," it is an extensively researched book by the journalist who won the Pulitzer Prize for her last book, "Gulag: A History." My husband, who went ahead and bought it that night, keeps reading to me parts he thinks are especially interesting. Based on his comments, The New Yorker review and the first chapter I read for myself on amazon, I believe "Iron Curtain" to be a thoughtful, provocative,deeply informative book. And yes, I think it is worth $17.99. I think it is fair market value to pay that much for a serious work of nonfiction. 

The e-book price of "Iron Curtain" is the price, plus tax, of four venti Frappuccinos at Starbuck's. 

And that's gouging? What am I missing here? It's as if people are outraged that a new book costs $50, which I would agree is too high. Instead, it's $17.99-- the cost of a movie ticket and popcorn and drink. Or a CD.  Or one-third of the cost of the new Playstation game. Or one-fifth of  a ticket to a professional baseball or football game. Or four Frappuccino's.

The supporters of self-publishing write very well about the movement. I sometimes get worked up reading their blogs. I agree it's important that writers now have a means to reach readers independent of agents and publishers. But lately the controversy over pricing of books (which has to do with the question of monopolies and the Department of Justice suit) has crept into the question of self-publishing. Now, for me, things are getting messy.

Nathan Bransford, a fascinating thinker on the book business, writes in "The Publishing Industry is Not Deserving of Special Protection", "What are publishers fighting for? They're fighting for the ability to charge a premium for their products. To make customers pay more money for books." I worry that Nathan is one of the people who thinks books should cost as much as a Diet Coke. Being a smart man (who used to be an agent), he knows that there's no way that an industry that went in that direction would be able to dole out an advance to a nonfiction author that would finance the months and years required to research a serious book. His fix for that problem is nonfiction authors should "find a member of the 1 %" to pay for them to write. I know a little bit about the 1 percent. You know what? That's not going to happen too often. No, if traditional publishing goes away, books like "Iron Curtain" go away too. And I think that would be a true and terrible loss. 

Agree with me? OK. Disagree with me? That's OK, too. But please don't let's duke it out in the reviews for the actual books.

Publishing in the Age of Google Alert

            By Nancy Bilyeau

Occasionally when my red “smart” phone trembles in my palm, signaling the arrival of book news--perhaps welcome, perhaps not--I think of A.S. Byatt’s 1992 novella Morpho Eugenia.

            Adapted into a fine film called Angels and Insects that ramped up its more-decadent plotline, Morpho Eugenia is at its core a mid-Victorian love story between an impoverished naturalist named William Adamson and a repressed governess named Matty Compton (wonderfully inhabited by Kristin Scott Thomas). Long before their feelings are made known to each other, when William can do nothing but admire Matty’s vigorous wrists, they hatch a plan to earn much-needed money: write books about insects. William’s is about ant colonies on the grounds of an aristocratic mansion where they are both ensnared; Matty’s is a fairy tale featuring same bugs.

            The two of them get busy researching and writing. And I know what you must be thinking: How could decadent plotlines exist in such a novella?  But this is the sublime A.S. Byatt, and yes, it gets kinky, including a passage about a family card game that spells out a sexual act not legal even now in any of the United States. To my point—William and Matty mail off their respective manuscripts to London. And more than a year later: results. William receives a letter saying, “We are very happy you have chosen our house as publisher and hope we may come to a happy arrangement for what will, I am quite sure, be a most fruitful partnership.” Moreover, Matty tells him she has quietly sold her insect fairy tale book and now has in hand a sizeable bank draft. With that money, they run away from the mansion in the middle of the night, heading straight for the Amazon, determined to study much larger insects for a number of years.

            Since the mid-Victorian age, there’ve been some changes in publishing.

            About six months ago--which would be a year after I’d sold my historical thriller The Crown to Touchstone/Simon&Schuster--someone savvy about these things told me to put a Google alert on my name. This was the best way to keep up with news on the book. I did so, and for several weeks was kept informed about the dessert recipes created and then published by a distant relative in Michigan and the high-school-quarterback achievements of an even more distant cousin. I was intrigued by an alert that led to news of someone with my last name being arrested and charged with robbing a Dollar Store in Kentucky. I pondered under what circumstances this would have seemed a profitable plan.

            My Google moment came when I sat at the bar at our local Thai restaurant, sipping a club soda while waiting for my take-out order. It was Friday night, there wasn’t much food in the house, and I wanted to surprise the kids with Pad Thai and their favorite duck with crispy noodles dish. My phone whirred, and I glanced at my Gmail account: “‘Publishers Weekly’ review of Nancy Bilyeau’s ‘The Crown.’ ”  I clicked on the link, excited. My first review! And then a cold and sour panic took hold in my stomach as I read the sentences once, twice, three times. It wasn’t a good review. There was no Pad Thai for me that night, and not much sleep either.

            Since that autumn evening, I’ve been reviewed in national magazines like O: The Oprah Magazine and Entertainment Weekly, in trades such as Kirkus Reviews and BookList, in daily newspapers and on more than a dozen blogs. The reviews of The Crown have been mostly positive. Oprah said, “The real draw of this suspenseful novel is its juicy blend of lust, murder, conspiracy, and betrayal.” It’s wonderful to read a sentence like that. Yet nothing can quite erase the dismay and disappointment I felt when I read my very first review in a Thai restaurant, with no warning from agent, editor or friend.

            I considered removing the Google alert the next day. But I decided, “No, put on your big girl pants—you have to be able to handle this.” And so when the Google alert trembled the next time, I clicked open my Gmail. I had roughly the same defensive stance as a boxer who’s suffered a powerful right hook, trying to ward off the knockout. This alert wasn’t even about me. That Michigan relative had produced an amazing apple crisp, and I burst out laughing.

            The next time Google came for me it was just after breakfast on Saturday morning—a giveaway of advance copies of The Crown just commenced on goodreads. I had no idea this was planned. But before lunch, I’d fired off emails to friends and relatives. My goal was to hustle 50 requests. It was absolutely thrilling to watch the number of people who requested The Crown soar to just over 1,000 in a week.

            More and more, the Google alerts were for me and not the chef or the football player: book reviews; an announcement that the first two chapters were posted on scribd; a news brief in Time Out New York about my upcoming reading and signing at a Barnes & Noble on the Upper West Side. After my book was published on January 10, the alerts came faster and faster. Yet more reviews—Devourer of Books just named The Crown her pick for the month of January. Yay! A piracy website with a skull & crossbones as its emblem offered my book for free, a novel that took five years to write. Boo!

            Google knows no borders, and now that my novel is on sale in the United Kingdom I get alerts on reviews popping up across the Atlantic. Don’t get me wrong. Coming out with a first book is exciting. But there is much about publishing a book that is baffling too—and at times harrowing. Several times I’ve considered removing the Google alert that sends news updates hurtling into my world. Wouldn’t it be nice to search through the Amazon for unusual insects with William and Matty, oblivious of the latest news in book publishing?

But in the end I always accept that knowledge is power. It was Sir Francis Bacon who said it first, in Religious Meditations Of Heresies in 1597, proving that for me all roads lead back to the 16^th century.

I feel confident that if Sir Francis were here right now, he would tell me there is no going back. Information must flow, and I must be ready for it, and never fail to respond when the news comes, which is more often than not through that sudden whirring jolt in a small red phone.

            www.nancybilyeau.com