Hey, There's A Dead Guy in the Living Room

January 13, 2017

The Postcard Rule

by Erin Mitchell

Once upon a time, before email existed, we used to write letters, memos, and postcards. Letters and memos could be kept private in regular or inter-office envelopes, but postcards were different. They could be--and often were--read by anyone who happened on them.

I was first introduced to electronic communication via a weird DEC intranet system that allowed us to send what we now know as email only to people in the one company. I hated it--much preferred my IBM Correcting Selectric. But not long after, I had my first AOL email account, which I fell in love with the first time I found and booked cheap airline tickets through Sabre, which had been previously available only to travel agents.

But I digress.

As email became a "thing," we were in a weird situation. The people who knew all about it--the IT geeks--weren't, as a general rule, especially fond of communicating with people live. Training us to use the wonderous new technology we were being presented with wasn't their forté. So I read manuals. Lots and lots and lots of manuals.

There weren't many guidelines for using electronic communication back then, but there was one simple rule we learned early on: The Postcard Rule.

Simply put, this said: "Don't put anything in an electronic message that you wouldn't write on a postcard." That is, if it's private or secret, don't put it in an email. Because you don't know where it's going to end up or who's going to read it.

These days, it seems like this rule has gotten lost.

I get that sometimes it's not practical, but in terms of marketing, it applies more than ever. Are there (more) secure forms of electronic communication? Sure, of course. And some are more private than others. But for any public figure (Authors! I mean you!), it's worth assuming that anything you post, especially on Facebook, is going to be seen by everyone. And because the Internet never forgets, I mean anyone forever.

I'm not saying you shouldn't share opinions, even controversial ones. But it's a good idea to understand the repercussions of doing so. And The Postcard Rule will serve you well in this, as will understanding privacy settings and how to use the telephone...and stamps.

Posted at 11:52 AM in Erin Mitchell | Permalink | Comments (0)

January 12, 2017

PS Unforgivably, I almost forgot. RIP Reginald Hill, one of the greatest crime writers who ever lived. He died five years ago today, and will be missed forever. I'm commemorating his life by reading one of his extensive backlist, Who Guards a Prince. It dates back to 1982, but technology aside is still as fresh and unputdownable as the day it was published.

Posted at 11:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Books, books and more books

This may sound like hubris, but it’s actually relief. Amazingly, in the course of the past hour or so, I’ve discovered that there are two people of my close acquaintance who have even worse computer skills than I do! And last night at a ‘live’ screening of a rather good Shakespeare production, the complete stranger in the seat to my left tsk tsk-ed even more loudly than I did when the presenter invited all and sundry to ‘join the conversation’ via the dreaded Twitter! So it’s not just me. Phew.

Which wasn’t at all what I planned to post about today at all, so let’s move on. Pondering on a suitable topic in the shower earlier this morning, I thought back to last week’s post, and considered the possibility that I may now be the reader on the Dead Guy panel: the end of that from-idea-to-bookshelf chain. Self-appointed, perhaps; and certainly not in any way suggesting that the others on the panel don’t read; I’m sure they do, at least as voraciously as I do. But they all have an alternative point of view to post about; once I did too, but these days I don’t, not really. Well, maybe occasionally. But mainly reading is what I do to contribute to the progression.

Maybe because I read so much, I decided some time ago that life is far too short for books I’m not enjoying. That doesn’t apply to books I’m reviewing, of course – a commitment is a commitment, and unless it’s really, really bad, I soldier on to the end. And out of what must be close to two hundred books I’ve reviewed, there has been just one that was so bad I couldn’t finish it. A few – though only a few – have been books I wouldn’t have read in any other circumstances, and their authors don’t figure on my wishlist, but even they had their moments. The vast majority are on my shelves and I have no plans to cull them for the charity shop.

Following Santa’s generosity, I have a well-stocked shelf at the moment (actually a houseful of well-stocked shelves, but I’ve read most of those). And I still review for Mystery People, which means anything up to four, sometimes even six, books a month which I probably wouldn’t come across any other way. And I have a bookshop habit which may not be quite as expensive as the more destructive kind of habit, but is definitely at least as compulsive.

So – what have I been reading? One of the most recent additions to the shelf via that habit was The Light Between Oceans, which is only crime fiction in a loose sense, but is still unputdownable: that rare breed, in my experience of a book in the top ten bestsellers which is worth a few hours of anyone’s time. I read it back in December, loved it, and highly recommend it. Santa’s bounty included The Ambridge Chronicles: pure self-indulgence made me add it to my wishlist, it’s not crime, and it won’t mean anything to our friends across the water, since it relates to a very British radio soap which has been running for over sixty years. I’ve read that too, and loved it. My New Year began with Mistletoe and Murder, the latest in a delicious and hilarious YA series my daughter keeps supplying me with. It's set (mainly, though this time it moves to Cambridge University) in 1930s boarding school life. And my reviewing role most recently supplied What Remains of Me, by A L (otherwise Alison) Gaylin, which is definitely crime fiction, and which I gobbled up in two sittings because she's an excellent and much undersold writer.

I don’t know to what extent all this qualifies me to be a designated reader, even a self-appointed one, but it’s what I have to offer. And, in the absence of other interesting topics to post about, I’ll be posting about what I’m reading over the next few months, possibly in a little more detail than the paragraph above. I hope that’s OK with everyone. Or anyone.

Posted at 09:50 AM in Lynne Patrick | Permalink | Comments (0)

Winter Blues

Terri Bischoff

Hi all! This week finds me mostly healed and able to type with two hands. That is a vast improvement over last week. My arm is a little sore yet, but it doesn’t prohibit me from doing anything. I didn’t bowl this week as a precaution. J

This week has been an interesting one in the Twin Cities, and by interesting, I mean snow. We have gotten that annoying snow – the snow that comes overnight and early morning so that the morning commute is completely messed up. My winter driving plan is this – if I get to the halfway point of driving to work and have passed more than three cars in the ditch, I turn around and go home. Sometimes though, I give up before then, like this morning when I almost slid into an intersection. After my fall last week, I guess my winter toughness has been broken, lol. Ah well, you know what two days of working from home gave me? 16 hours of being able to read manuscripts without interruption. Ok, I was checking my email, so it was slightly interrupted, but not anything like when I am sitting at my desk. It was heavenly. I would like more time at home. Not only am I able to read more, but it’s easier to retain the information when I can read without interruptions. There has been talk lately of allowing us to work from home more often, perhaps even on a regular basis. I have my fingers crossed. That is a change I can really get behind! (Speaking of behind, I am always behind. Maybe with the new changes at work, I can suggest hiring me an assistant. Oh man, I was laughing so hard I may have fallen off my chair and injured my left arm!!)

Right now in my world, I am launching Winter 2018 books (title and cover meetings) and acquiring for Winter 2018. I am always approving covers, copy, and answering random questions from other departments. I would be curious to see how other publishers function and if other editors are as overworked as I am. With that, I am posting this blog and heading off to bed so that I am bright eyed and bushy tailed in the morning. My to-do list has tripled over the last two days.

Posted at 12:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

January 09, 2017

What To Write. Period.

Jeff Cohen

Recently I--among many others--was asked on Facebook (the only place people interact anymore) what my advice would be for someone who "wants to be a writer." My immediate impulse was to tell the person that s/he is either a writer or not already and if there's any doubt, s/he is probably not. But I knew what this person was really asking so I decided to forego that answer because it was obnoxious. I'm on a new kick of trying not to be obnoxious. We'll see how long that lasts.

I gave the question some thought, but not a lot because I already knew what I wanted to say. It's what I always tell people when the subject comes up (as it will when one is foolish enough to identify oneself as a professional writer). Because it really is what I think any aspiring published author should do.

Write the book you want to read.

There are many strategies for getting published, all of which are perfectly legitimate if they work for you and some of which include the idea that you should publish your work independently. Again, absolutely fine if that's your strength.

But there is an equal number of theories bouncing around that are aimed at making the person espousing the theory money. Many of these purport to analyze the "current publishing market" and reveal what is being purchased from authors in the hope that you, the aspirant, can write something that's "hot" right now and get your foot in the door.

Don't fall for those. They are the equivalent of saying you'll build a wall on the Mexican border to keep Mexicans out and Mexico will pay for it. Seriously. Who'd believe that?

The fact is that writing to some magic formula that analyzes the market is a sucker's game. For one thing, you'll write a book you don't care about very much, and that means your writing will be considerably less good than it should be. For another, you'll be writing a story that might be in vogue now but won't be in the 18 months or so it takes to hit bookshelves, and editors and publishers know that. So scrap your plans for The Gone Girl on the Train and move on.

Instead, write the book you want to read. Write the story you would immediately pick up if you saw it in a bookstore. Think about what isn't being written because you haven't written it yet, and make that. You'll be more enthusiastic about your own work, you'll be writing something only you could write and even if it doesn't get published, you'll be creating something that will make you proud.

Next week I'll tell you about the down side of following this particular advice, but suffice it to say it won't have any effect whatsoever on your getting your work published. The down side is about you personally not about your work. That's right: I can tell you something about you that you don't know yourself yet. Tune in next Monday.

Until then, get to work. Write the book you want to read.

Pitchers and catchers report in 35 days.

Posted at 12:00 AM in Books, Crime Fiction, Jeffrey Cohen, Publishing, Writing | Permalink | Comments (5)

January 08, 2017

2015 submission statistics

Jessy Randall

In 2015, I submitted 102 bundles of poems, comics, essays, stories, and other stuff to literary journals. 25 journals accepted my work. I received 70 rejections, and seven journals never responded. So, that's a 25% acceptance rate, the exact same as last year (weirdly).

I set my sights high this year, mostly to no avail (the New Yorker doesn't care for my comics one bit). The most exciting acceptance came from Poetry, which accepted a diagram poem in January of 2016 and published it in December. (In case you're curious: over the years I sent them almost 100 poems, drawings, and diagrams before they said yes.)

I can't crunch the numbers for a year of submitting until the year after that year, because many journals take a year to respond to submissions. So that's why I'm giving the 2015 statistics in early 2017.

Why should you care? You probably shouldn't and don't, but I started keeping track on this blog a few years ago and I'm nothing if not persistent -- as you can tell.

Posted at 11:00 AM in Jessy Randall, Writing | Permalink | Comments (0)

January 06, 2017

Bad Marketing

Happy New Year! If you’re reading this, chances are good that you survived 2016. For that, I think we all deserve a medal. Or chocolate. Or both.

When it comes to marketing, I’m all for getting attention. And I fully acknowledge that sometimes attention-getting tactics can be a bit shocking. Maybe even offensive to some. We all have different buttons and tolerances.

Attention-grabbing tactics can be a spectacular means of getting in front of new readers.

Sometimes, though, they can go terribly wrong.

For example:

What’s wrong with this? Plenty.

I haven’t read the book (and won’t, now), but I’ve read others in the series, and I’m willing to bet that this image has nothing whatsoever to do with the story. In case there’s any doubt, your marketing should have something to do with the product you’re trying to sell and nothing whatsoever to do with ones you’re not.
It’s a friends-only post, which one would think would be good in this case. But it’s not. It’s just childish.
There’s getting attention, and then there’s being desperate. The latter is kinda pathetic, and should be avoided.

I’ve spoken with many an author (not to mention CEO) over the years who doesn’t want to change who he or she is in order to market. That’s fine. You don’t need to. Just like people don’t need to buy your books. That’s your choice.

If your choice is to do things that are pointedly and deliberately offensive, you’re going to lose some readers. Will you gain others? Possibly. If the American President-Elect’s Twitter feed is to be believed, it’s a surefire route to...greatness.

But I like to think y’all are better than that.

Posted at 03:05 PM in Erin Mitchell | Permalink | Comments (0)

January 05, 2017

And so it begins

Memo to Jeff, following his highly entertaining and nonetheless wise post on Monday: it’s not that I’m naive enough to believe that a new year means a new me, or a new world, or new beginnings in any major way. But wouldn’t it be good to have cause to believe that this particular new year could be better than the one that just ended? Or at least no worse?

Let’s dream a little. I was half-watching a TV show the other evening which invited viewers to suggest good things that might happen in 2017. They included an end to all the mayhem in the Middle East; Donald Trump showing some decency by stepping down before January 20, having realized he can’t hack it; rain in Africa where and when it’s needed, and maybe even aid deliveries unimpeded by terrorists and inefficient governments.

Yeah, right.

So far, much as it grieves me to point it out, in many respects 2017 isn’t looking much different from its predecessor. Children are still dying in Syria. Donald Trump is still... Donald Trump. Terrorism and drought are still vying for the top spot in much of Africa. But a wise person once said that if you can’t change the world, try to change the way you look at it. So dreaming aside, I’m trying to be positive in a sensible way.
Here are some good things I know will happen:

New books by some of my favourite authors will be published. (J D Robb, Phil Rickman, Chris Nickson are already in progress. Others will follow.)

Other books, already published, will become available in paperback. (Ruth Downie, Elly Griffiths, Stef Penney are on the cards. There will be more.)

Some brilliant books will come my way, through reviewing and recommendation (mostly) or pure chance (occasionally). This seems to happen regularly. Towards the end of last year I received Jane Harper’s stupendous debut The Dry to review, and a friend steered me towards The Light Between Oceans – the book, not the much-filleted version they turned into a rather trite movie – and it’s finds like these that make me confident it’s a trend that will continue.

And since all the good things that come easily to mind are book-related (and you won’t hear me apologizing for that, especially not on this blog), it looks as if my best option for dealing with the world in 2017 is to escape from it into well-wrought fiction. No change there, then.

When the Dead Guy blog was set up all those years ago (nine? ten? eleven? I’m not sure; I wasn’t there at the beginning) there was a distinct chain of crime-fiction-related activity from idea to bookshelf: author, agent, editor, publisher, publicist, reviewer, bookseller. People have come and gone, but the chain is mostly still there; I started out as publisher, moved sideways to editor when I sold my publishing house, then kind of took on a roving commission which covered editor (sorry, Terri – you get first dibs at that now, since you edit twenty or thirty books to every one of mine), reviewer and occasional bookseller. Above all, though, I’ve always been a reader, and a pretty avid one, of the world’s favourite genre. So maybe that’s my role for 2017. Books need readers, and there’s no eighth day in the week to encompass that.

Happy new reading year to one and all. I’m enjoying mine so far. Hope you are too.

PS: a question. What would happen if Donald Trump really did step down? Does anyone know?

Posted at 12:06 PM in Lynne Patrick | Permalink | Comments (2)

January 04, 2017

Winter - I shake my fist at you!

Terri Bischoff

Oh, the perils of winter in the upper Midwest. I’m typing this one handed, left-handed, because my right arm is in a sling. Ice 1, Terri 0.

But hey, I’m an editor, I can just read all day. Except I need to take notes. I’d say now is the time to brush up on my left hand writing skills! My biggest worry is how exactly am I going to refill my coffee cup? I drink a lot of coffee. Ugh. Just this morning I was giving myself a pep talk about buckling down and powering through this week. Looks like I will have to shift a few things around. But hey, accidents are a part of life and maybe I need to slow down and examine what I’m doing, why I’m doing it, and if I should be. I can see this as a good thing. Only positive thinking in 2017 – let’s do this!!

PS – working a mouse left-handed is really hard!

Posted at 05:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

January 03, 2017

Stairway to Heaven (The Last Dance)

Josh Getzler

It happened this morning like it happens every year. The emails started at 3 AM—Happy New Year! Welcome Back! So…about that manuscript. By 10 in the morning, there were eight; by noon, 14. Today is the first business day of the new year, and everyone wanted to get rolling.

Publishing is such a cyclical industry that anyone who’s been involved in any aspect of it knows the rhythm of the year—which is kind of like a school year: Business gets going right after Labor Day, with a peak right before and after the October Frankfurt Book Fair and a frantic burst of dealmaking right after Thanksgiving as agents and editors try to finish their calendar years with ONE LAST DEAL before everyone starts to depart for winter break.

Then there are crickets for two weeks, as authors finish their NaNoWriMo edits, agents write their new pitches and look through the Fall’s subs that didn’t quite get traction, working to inject new energy. There is a sustained energy to the industry through March, when it begins to be Fair Season—Bologna (for children’s books) leads to London (for everything), then a break for six weeks or so, then the big BEA convention that begins the summer season.

Summer is a crap shoot. Back in The Day, it was a dead zone, with editors disappearing to the Hamptons and nothing getting done. Nowadays, however, the industry slows, but doesn’t stop. Everyone takes a break, but it’s rolling. Consecutive rather than simultaneous. So sometimes it’s possible to make things happen, and sometimes it’s not.

But everyone knows about the first workday after New Years. We’ve all had a vacation, and had slowed down for a couple of weeks before we left. Authors get itchy—they know that they can’t expect much for around four weeks, so by the time Christmas break is over, it’s TIME.

Hence, 14 gentle nudges in the first morning of the new year. And I’m fine with that (as long as “Hi, yes, I’m on it” is an acceptable response).

I’ve been blogging on Hey, There’s a Dead Guy in the Living Room pretty much every Tuesday for five and a half trips around this publishing cycle, from the very beginning of Hannigan Salky Getzler in 2011 until today. And it’s been fascinating to explore this industry—as well as music, politics, parenting (sometimes), sports, and other arts. I’ve had three assistants. Approximately 20 interns. Three offices. One New York Times Best Seller. Two USA Today Best Sellers. A bunch of successes, and some books that never caught the public’s fancy the way I thought they should.

All three of my kids became teenagers during this time period, and they, as well as my wife, Amanda, have dealt with my Tuesday evening freakouts, where we’ll be watching TV or reading at 10:30 at night, and all of a sudden I’d say “Oh NO, it’s TUESDAY!” and run into our bedroom where the desktop sits.

I’ve written blog posts in Florida and Prague, London (a bunch of times) and assorted conferences. Sometimes I punted, and posted a photo with a caption. Sometimes, though, I’d spend a thousand words on an esoteric topic within the publishing world.

This blog definitely helped me improve my visibility—my Q rating, as it were—and many prospective clients cite the blog in their queries. And the most popular blog post of my tenure here was about “The Modifier Zone,” where I go through a few first pages to show how writers sometimes frontload their manuscripts with adjectives—presumably to show me that they know big words—before settling down to their true styles. (The fact is, though, that probably the TRULY most popular posts of my time were written not by me, but by my son Joe, who can continue on his own blog at Skidmore next year.)

But I started to realize this year that I needed to wind down. I’ve really written a lot the past five years, and found that I was boring myself. I didn’t want to write another post about queries, or marketing ebooks, or the changing bookselling attitudes in the UK. It’s not that I was not enjoying writing, but that I wasn’t enjoying the deadlines, the relentlessness of time passing. And I kind of want to write different things—maybe more about being a parent, or about music, or even some fiction…but that’s really not what Dead Guy is about. Mostly, I need to recharge the batteries and start over in a different way.

When I was a teenager, and went to camp, the weekly socials (we had socials) always ended with Stairway to Heaven, so the party could end...but slowly, over 8 minutes. That's really what I've been doing the past weeks--wrapping up slowly, so I didn't actually have to turn on the lights and go back to my bunk. But it's time. So…thanks for reading! I’ve loved the feedback, the friends I’ve made through the blog, the challenge of consistent writing, the way it’s let me organize my thoughts. It’s probably made me a better agent. It’s definitely made me a better writer.

And particular thanks to Jeff and Lynne (whose thumbnail always seemed to appear on my Facebook links to my posts) and Terri and Jessy and the rest of the Dead Guys. Hopefully Jeff will let me guest post once in a while if I ask nicely, when something relevant comes up. I look forward to reading everyone’s posts, and to hearing how the NEXT Dead Agent Guy analyzes the publishing industry.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pPvNqOb6RA

Posted at 09:56 PM in Books, Current Affairs, Josh Getzler, Music, Publishing, Writing | Permalink | Comments (7)