Lifescapes

Brazen hussy week

The sun was out for, oh, about two minutes the other morning, just long enough to get this photo before it clouded over again. Otherwise, I can't remember when we've seen the sun last. Outside my writing studio window, the day is gray, foggy, damp and chilly. The bare, black trees are receding into the misty woods, and next month’s daffodils and a few hardy daylilies are poking up through the soggy brown blanket of leaf mulch in the flower bed. A nice day for a fire.

No news yet on Zach’s tests, so I am occupying myself with the necessary business of book promotion chores--brazen hussy work, we call it around here. When I first starting writing professionally, I wrote mass market books for young adults—no promotion required. The manuscripts went to New York, the acceptance checks came back, and that was the end of it.

But when I moved into mystery writing in the early 1990s, I discovered a whole new world, where the author is expected (required is probably a better word) to push the book: going on book tours (author-funded or publisher-funded); talking to libraries, book clubs, garden groups, hockey teams, riot squads, whoever is patient enough to sit and listen; hosting a website or two or three; sending out eletters; blogging and arranging blog tours (making virtual appearances on a dozen or so host blogs); and showing up, scrubbed and smiling and wearing my best bib and tucker, at mystery conferences and conventions.

In my former incarnation as a university professor, I learned to like standing up in front of an audience, so talking to readers is a treat for me, actually. And I don’t dislike managing websites or blogging or going to conferences, either. I’ve learned to accept book promotion as a necessary part of the writing business—and yes, oh, yes, it is a business.

But it all takes time. Not just the time spend doing it, but the time I spend arranging to do it. Yesterday morning, it took a couple of hours to email the twenty or so people and groups who have invited me to do this, that, or the other thing during April, the publication month for the next China Bayles mystery (Nightshade). I listed all the events and emailed the whole kit and caboodle to Peggy (She Without Whom Nothing Gets Done). When she posted the page to the website, I proofed everything, then emailed it to Catherine, my publisher’s publicist, who responded (five minutes later, such is the blistering speed of the Internet) with an offer to mail out a box of giveaway copies of Nightshade during the April blog tour (yes, there will be one of those, too) and to remind me that I also need to update my Amazon and MySpace pages.

Good grief. Amazon has been on my conscience--my last post was back in October and I know I need to do a better job with that. But I’d forgotten all about MySpace, which doesn't seem like "my space" at all. When I go there, I feel like I'm dropping in on a noisy frat party where everybody else is enjoying the happiest of happy hours and I haven't had my first G&T. But I’m delighted to hear that Catherine will have books to give away (you will be pleased, too, I hope). My next chore is setting up the blog tour, which will likely take the better part of three or four days. If you're interested in participating, email me at china @ tstar dot net and I'll reply with details.

And hey, I can't complain. Bill deals with the bewildering clutter of contracts and royalty statements (he is a DIY kind of guy), does at least half of the grocery shopping, manages the flow of life here at Meadow Knoll, and helps with the dogs, who lately seem to be spending days on end at the vet’s. Which leaves me time to write books. And sell them, since that’s what’s required. It’s all part of the job.

Reading note. There are hours and hours of a writer's time that aren't worth the paper he [or she] is not writing anything on.--E. B. White

Getting the word out

With The Tale of Briar Bank off my desk and onto my editor's and The Tale of Hawthorn House due out in another month, it's time to turn my attention from writing the Cottage Tales to getting the word out. Peggy Moody and I finished the new website a couple of weeks ago, with some really nice Beatrix-y art work done by Peggy Turchette, who does the covers and the maps for the books.

There's no tour for this book--two tours a year is just too much. So I'm doing a kind of minimalist thing. Bookwoman in Austin is hosting a Beatrix Potter teaparty on September 26 (if you're in the area, come on by and have some carrot cupcakes).

The big thing I'm doing for the book, though, is something I can do from home: a blog tour, which is a new experience for me. Julia Buckley just posted our interview on her blog, Mysterious Musings--she'll publish that again for the tour. (Thanks, Julia!) I got in contact with another reader, who had earlier put up a really cute post about the books, and I'll be stopping by her blog on the tour. I'm making a list of other blog possibilities for the publicist who is helping me with the project.

And then of course there will be the regular eletters and that sort of thing. I'm encouraged by the first review, from Publisher's Weekly. You can read it on the the book's Amazon site. Oh, and while I'm thinking about it, I want to say a big thanks to the readers who go to the trouble of posting thoughtful reviews on the Amazon site. That takes time and effort, and I'm grateful.

A couple more days, more household chores (finally got around to all that piled-up laundry!) and then the dogs and I are off to join Bill in New Mexico. He went out yesterday, with the cat. It was the first long-distance trip for Shadow Kitty, and I'm glad to report that she made it in fine style. She's discovered the loft in our house out there, where she will be safe from two-thirds of our dog pack. (Lady and Zach, the Labs won't go up the open stairs--chickens! Toro, the heeler, just closes his eyes and takes them by leaps and bounds.)

Oh, and my granddaughter just saw her first bear, in her very own front yard, through her very own front window. Becky is autistic, so her excited exclamation "Look! A bear!" was as significant an event as the bear itself. Way to go, Becky. Tell us all about it, but do stay safe. The wild world is wonderful, but sometimes the creatures we share it with have claws. And teeth.

Reading note, for Becky. It does not do to leave a live dragon [or a bear] out of your calculations, if you live near him.--J.R.R. Tolkein, The Hobbit

UPDATE.
I'm adding this note because Pam (see her comment below) just wrote to offer her blog as a possible stop on the tour, and I thought some of the rest of you might be interested. I'm looking for blogs that would be a good fit for the Cottage Tales and allow me to do something different, to go beyond the usual author interviews (which are nice, but I'm sure you don't want to read two weeks' worth of the same thing!). Pam has a nature blog, which would be a comfortable fit for a post about Beatrix's life-long interest in nature. Also, Pam's blog has some pretty good traffic, which makes it attractive from a publicity point of view. I imagine I'll be bringing some traffic, but the idea here is to connect with the readers who already connect with a particular blog. And the expectation for a tour is that at least some of the new readers will go with  me to other blogs, and we'll all benefit from the sharing.

What other kinds of blogs am I looking for? Maybe a children's illustrator blog, an art blog, a miniaturist's blog, a cookery blog (there are recipes in the books, you know), a garden blog (Beatrix had a lovely garden), a kidlit blog, a reading-for-families blog, and so on. Get the idea? If you're interested, send an off-blog email to me at china at tstar dot net and we'll see what we can cook up together.

Books and markets

Look closely at the bloom of this staghorn milkweed (Asclepias asperula), and you'll see some tiny ants enjoying the sweet nectar.

Erratic dialup service this morning, so this is a short post--hope the connection is good enough to manage this photo.

But I do want to say something in response to your blog comments (and your many emails) about self-publishing the Potter YA biography. (I've withdrawn the proposal as unsaleable at this time.) As many of you know, I'm a supporter of self-publishing, which is a wonderful way to get the work out there--for certain markets. But a biography of Beatrix Potter for young readers would find its best market in public libraries and school libraries, not in bookstores and over-the-counter sales. While it's certainly possible to publish the book as a POD, libraries (especially school libraries) generally wouldn't acquire it in that format. If you're considering self-publishing and POD, think about your market. Who is likely to buy this book? How are you going to market it to them?

More later, when the connection is better. (There is a certain price to be paid for living in the country. And please don't write suggesting satellite. There are good reasons NOT to do that here--at least not now.)

All About Thyme

In the writing business, it's all about getting the word out--the word about your books, to those who might be interested. I know, I know. It sounds enormously egocentric, blatantly self-promoting, and maybe even whiny, but it is unfortunately true.

It wasn't always like this. Used to be, if you were lucky enough to be published by a New York publisher, you figured the marketing monkey was on their backs, and you sat back and let them do whatever it was they did to get the word out.

But not anymore. It's not only the writer's job to put the words on paper, but to bring them to the world's attention--or to that little corner of the world that is likely to want to read what you've written. Your publishing house does what it can (sometimes), but it actually can't do a lot except to ensure that books are on bookstore shelves (in case anybody comes to the bookstore looking), or put an ad in a magazine or newspaper (in case anybody is reading). These days, a big part of the writing business involves promoting what you've written. You don't have to like doing this, of course, although that certainly helps. And if you don't want to do it, you'd probably better get into another line of work.

I happen to be one of those crazy people for whom the promotion part of the business actually seems like fun. Which is one of the reasons I created the new weekly eletter that will be going out every Monday morning. All About Thyme is all about herbs--well, okay. I won't explain it here. You can click on the link and read all about it.

But I will say that I am enjoying doing it: working with Peggy (webmistress extraordinaire) to create the design/layout and iron out the distribution wrinkles; getting back into the research material I used for The Book of Days; and doing the actual writing. To me, the eletter feels like an online extension of Days, which is really interesting. In fact, it will have a great many more resources than Days, because I can include links to other sources, which I can't do in the book itself. The Web is a broader, more comprehensive publishing medium than a book can ever be, which may eventually (and sadly, for those of us who enjoy the feel of a book in our hands, the adventure of the turning pages) lead to the demise of books. But not in my lifetime, so I'm not going to worry about it. And anyway, I'm in the writing business, which is larger and more inclusive than the book business, isn't it?

Go check out the eletter. I've got all kinds of ideas for ways to make it more interesting, more informative, more fun. Who knows what it will grow into?

Reading note. You write a book and it's like putting a message in a bottle and throwing it in the ocean. You don't know if it will ever reach any shores. And there, you see, sometimes it falls in the hands of the right person.--Isabelle Allende

coming soon....

...coming next Tuesday, as a matter of fact. The Book of Days, which has been so long in the process. This post is a bit of brazen-hussy book promotion, so if you don't want to read it, you can click on over to China's blog and read about tomatillos.

Usually, the mysteries come out and land in the bookstore and I do a tour and a few signings and web promotion through the online newsletters and that's that. This book is a little different. It's an herb book, which means that it won't get reviewed in the usual places, and may not even get carried in the mystery bookstores or your favorite library unless you bang your fist on the counter and demand that they stock the book. So I've done some extra advertising, sent extra galleys out, and have been emailing herb shops and farms, in the hope that they'll carry the book.

Also, beginning in May, I started selling the books online through Story Circle, instead of through the bookstore that had handled my online sales for several years. It's more work this way, because I get to pack and ship books (as well as sign them--that's the fun part!). But Story Circle earns the profits, which means a lot to me, as the founder of that organization. It's a non-profit, and these book sales go to support its programs, like the anthology you've been hearing about from me, and the workshop and conference we're having next year.

There's been a terrific response to the online promotion on the book's website and we have a gazillion orders--so many that we'll have to order another 150 from Penguin! So for the past few nights (after the day's writing work is done), I've been making labels for the mailers and setting up a system to get the orders signed, personalized, and off to the post office as soon we get our shipment from the publisher. Once the books arrive, it shouldn't take long at all to get them out of here.

Here's one batch of mailers, ready to be filled with books. If your order isn't in there, it's in the other batch--or maybe you haven't ordered it yet! If not, that's easy to remedy. Go here and follow the links to the order form.

Really, it's a very good book. And there's a cute little surprise in it that I'll tell you all about next Tuesday morning here, and on China's blog and on the website. Sorry, you'll just have to wait until next Tuesday to find out what that is.

What? You thought that to be a writer all you had to do was put words on paper, find an agent, sell the book, and enjoy the profits thereafter? Think again!

Reading note:
Be a scribe! Your body will be sleek, your hand will be soft...You are one who sits grandly in your house; your servants answer speedily; beer is poured copiously; all who see you rejoice in good cheeer. Happy is the heart of him [sic] who writes; he [sic] is young each day.--Ptahotep, 4500 BC

The Cottage Tales audiobooks

Good news, if you're a fan of the Cottage Tales! (Good news for me, too.) We've agreed with Recorded Books for unabridged audio of the first four books in the series--yes, including The Tale of Hawthorn House, which won't be out until Fall, 2007. My only request was that they use a reader with a British accent, which they promised to do. But that's like book covers and marketing and distribution and lots of other stuff if in this business: once it's out of your hands, it's really out of your hands. So I can only cross my fingers and hope. They don't say when Hill Top Farm will be released, but I'll watch for it and let you know the minute I have any word.

People sometimes write and tell me that they think this or that book of mine ought to be recorded. I usually agree with them, but the fact of the matter is that the recording companies approach authors, not the other way around. In the mystery field, books have to sell a certain number of copies in hardcover before they are considered for audio. And the first couple of issues have to meet sales expectations, or the rest of the books in the series will not be recorded. Like it or not, that's the way the business works. Me, I always feel just plain lucky to be published. When the books make it into audio, I'm one happy camper.

Book report

I see that Dead Man's Bones has just been released by Recorded Books, bringing to six the number of books now available in this series. Somebody wrote to ask if BLEEDING HEARTS would be available in audio; the short answer is "How the heck should I know?" The longer answer: "I just have to keep checking the Recorded Books website until I see that they've released the title--but they may do one of the other books (maybe LAVENDER LIES?--before they do HEARTS. The author is the last to know."

Sounds weird, doesn't it? The author is the last to know. Honest-to-pete, I am not complaining, because I feel very fortunate whenever any of these "extras" shows up on my horizon. Feels like a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, even when there isn't any money in it.

But "the author is the last to know" is true for just about everything in the writing biz, from the pub date to the ISBN number to the flap copy to the price on the book to sales figures. I never know what the cover is going to look like until my editor's assistant (who is really VERY good about keeping me posted) sends me a jpg of what's called a "cover flat," which is the front cover without the flaps, back copy, etc. I find out about the Mystery Guild selection when I get the Guild catalog. Foreign translation rights: my editor usually lets me know, but sometimes it falls through the cracks and I find out when I get a print copy of the foreign publication (always an amazing surprise, whether I know it's coming or not). Translation, audio--these are called "subsidiary rights," (sub rights) and are usually part of the contract the author signs. Smart authors keep the dramatic rights, though. So if any of you know of a producer out there who is dying to turn one of my books into an Oscar-winning film, let me know--and watch my smoke.

On the home front, I've been getting my act together for the April-May book tour: hotel reservations, maps (decided against GPS, which seemed like a good idea until I calculated how much extra work it would take to get it set up), material for various talks, bookmarks and other goodies. I've also posted a couple of new entries on my Amazon blog. I'm using it to expand on some of the "narrative strategy" topics I've introduced here. And yes, I'm writing: up to 53,000 words on the next Beatrix Potter, which I won't quite finish before I go. Busy days, and even a few nights. But when I think I'm busy now, I just remember back to the days when I was a grad student, teaching, writing my thesis (which turned into a book), and being a single mom to three kids. Whew. Now, THAT was real work.

Reading Note:

Dear authors! suit your topics to your strength,
And ponder well your subject, and its length;
Nor lift your load, before you're quite aware
What weight your shoulders will, or will not bear.
                                       --Lord Byron

cat on a hot new ARC

It's been cold all day today, with an icy north wind, and Shadow has been sitting on top of the kitchen stove, her favorite place on chilly winter days, particularly since I have the oven on, baking potatoes. But this afternoon, she came into my office to sit on my desk beside the computer keyboard, under her favorite lamp, where she could warm herself beside a hot, newly-arrived ARC.

An ARC is an advance reading copy. These are put out by publishers for distribution to reviewers, booksellers, tour hosts, and the like. I got a few in the mail the other day, and will be sending them out to my own (short, very short) list. One reader (a botanist) who got one from my publisher emailed me this morning to tell me that I made an error in the botanical identification of Bleeding heart (Dicentra formosa). It seems this plant was reassigned some 20 years ago from the Papaveraceae to the Fumariaceae.

Sigh... Too late to correct this for the hardcover, but I've saved the email (thanks, Alice!) and will make sure the error is corrected in the paperback edition.

I've often wondered just what booksellers do with ARCs--especially since I regularly see them for sale here and there. (Yes, even at mystery conferences! and especially in the used book sections of the on-line bookstores.) This is definitely not kosher, since the book clearly says "not for sale" on the cover. (Well, you can't see it in the photo, but it's there, just above the title.) My question was answered in a link that Sharon Wildwind posted today on the Murder Must Advertise list. If you're interested, it's on the Bookweb site. I am wiser, having read it (thanks to you, Sharon), and will treat my ARCs with more respect from here on out--although I don't suppose it hurts to let Shadow warm her paws on one.

And if you're wondering whether that purple thingy on the other side of the cat is actually a crochet hook, you're right. I'm knitting a scarf (the yarn is Kollage/Passion/raspberry, very fun to work with) while I work on Beatrix, because writing involves more than just typing. Right? Yes.

The crochet hook is there in case I drop a stitch.

Reading Note, a meditation from At Knit's End (Stephanie Pearl-McPhee): At first the marriage between knitting and computers struck me as odd. Knitting seems like the opposite of computers, and I couldn't imagine that the two were compatible. That didn't last long. When I found out I could join a virtual knitting circle and ask 7,000 knitters worldwide what they thought I was doing wrong with buttonholes, I was hooked.

I will remember, should I choose to explore the virtual knitting world, that you can knit while using the computer if you put the keyboard on the floor and scroll with your toes.

getting the word out

Sometimes readers think that the only thing writers do is write. I'm here to tell you: t'ain't so. Writers spend a lot of time getting the word out.

Take yesterday, for instance. Peggy (my always-helpful webmistress) and I spent most of the morning putting together the first of our two Mystery Partners January eletters: newsletters we send out via email. If you didn't get one in your mailbox (why not? they're free!), you can see it here. Click on "Newsletters" and check out the archives. (You can subscribe there, too--hint hint.)

Yesterday's eletter took a little longer to do than usual, because I discovered that we hadn't yet done a web page for DEATH ON THE LIZARD, which will be out next month, and the page needed to be done before we could put out the eletter. There were some photos and Marconi links that I wanted to post on the page, too, and it took a little while to find them. Sigh....

Peggy and I have been sending out these eletters for four years, sometimes once, sometimes twice a month, depending on how energetic I'm feeling and how many deadlines are hanging like the Sword of Damocles over my head. I don't like newsletters that are simply a promotional tool, so I try to include a few other goodies: herb info, links to pages that have interesting content, etc. We must be doing something right, because the subscriber list keeps growing.

The eletters are a continuation of the print newsletters we did until 2002. In 1994, I started publishing a quarterly herbal newsletter called "China's Garden," which also had an order form for my little mail-order bookstore, which I ran out of the back bedroom. The bookstore specialized in herb books (which were harder to find back then) and the China mysteries (the distribution of those wasn't very good back in those days, either). That subscription newsletter really helped to get the word out, but golly, it took a lot of time, between writing/producing/mailing and keeping up the mailing list.

By 1999, more chain bookstores were carrying the China mysteries, so I decided--somewhat regretfully, because I rather liked messing around with desk-top publishing--to close the bookstore and "China's Garden." As a substitute, we started sending out a semi-annual four-page print newsletter called "Partners in Crime," which had book announcements and little articles about the books. We closed that at the end of 2001, when it became possible to send out eletters instead.

The eletters aren't cheap (counting Peggy's time and mine and the cost of the bandwidth and mailing service), and it's not clear just how effective they are. But it's a heck of a lot easier and cheaper to produce and email 18,000 eletters a month than it is to produce and mail 18,000 print newsletters. Believe me. I know.

So the next time you get one of our eletters in your inbox, picture me at my computer here at Meadow Knoll and Peggy at hers in Austin, going back and forth via email until we've got something we like. It's all part of the business of writing, in the same way that arranging book tours and making up bookmarks and postcards and other promotional material is part of the business. Years ago, writers didn't do much of this sort of thing. These days, we do a lot of it--not because the publishers don't want to (although sometimes that's part of it), but because they can't, not really. When they think of marketing, they think of it broad-brush: advertising in USA Today or Publishers Weekly or sending their reps and catalogs to all the chain buyers. Not making bookmarks or bookplates or sending out eletters to individual readers or book clubs or libraries. Like it or not, that's what authors do. It's part of the business of writing.

But it's absolutely fatal to confuse the business of writing with writing itself. Putting words on paper has to happen before you can put the word out. The writing itself comes first, and everything else depends on it.

Reading Note, by Colette: You will do foolish things, but do them with enthusiasm.

Dagger again, and the website

China still hasn't told me what happened when she, Blackie, and Sheila raided the plant nursery in the next-to-last chpater, so I haven't quite finished the book. However, today I put together the resources section at the back of the book: a short piece on herbs of the Southwest, a reading list, and some interesting recipes (Braised Yucca, anybody?). Tomorrow, I'll write the wrap-up chapter--you know, the end-of-the-mystery chapter in which all the clues are explained and all the loose ends are tied up. Except, of course, the loose end that will be braided into the next book, which is called Nightshade. (How's that for a shivery title?) And maybe China will figure out how everything came down, and will let me know so I can write the next-to-last chapter, too. For now, the book stands at 87,400 words, which means that these last two chapters are going to have to be pretty short. 90,000 is the outside limit for these books.

Besides the writing, Peggy and I worked on a couple of new web pages for the Book of Days, which will be published next October. Of course you know that authors are responsible for doing most of their own promotion, and our Mysterypartners website has always been a big part of that effort. The website's current look is several years old, and it could stand a makeover--the Book of Days pages are a step in that direction. If you want to take a sneak peek, it's here. Working with Peggy is a joy, and I'm always amazed at what we can do together, inventing as we go.

Reading Note, fromThe Stories We Live By: Personal Myths and the Making of the Self, by Dan P. McAdams:

If you want to know me, then you must know my story, for my story defines who I am. And if I want to know myself, to gain insight into the meaning of my own life, then I, too, must come to know my own story. I must come to see in all its particulars the narrative of the self--the personal myth--that I have tacitly, even unconsciously, composed over the course of my years. It is a story I continue to revise, and tell to myself (and sometimes to others) as I go on living.