The rainy-day marathon was a big success. After a slow start when the cold, dark, rainy day just made me want to nap, I was able to figure out a particularly knotty problem and then move forward. And then I realized that the "forward" came at the very end of the day, fairly late at night, and I'd spent hours re-working what I'd already done so I could reach the "forward" part. Today, though, I really do hope to move ahead.

One thing I did this weekend, in addition to going to the show on Friday and the neighborhood social and the library on Saturday (it was a rockin' weekend, for sure) was swing by Borders, since they'd sent me another one of those tempting coupons. As a result of that visit, I have this open letter to Borders (which I will likely send to their management):

Dear Borders:

I know times are tough and you need to do anything to make a buck. I also know that you think you're being innovative by having your employees hand-sell certain books whose publishers are paying you to do so.

But, speaking as a customer, I have to say Stop. It. Now. It's the most annoying thing ever, it cost you at least one sale this weekend, and it's making me reluctant to go to Borders anymore because it makes book shopping intensely unpleasant.

I had only a few minutes to spend in your store because I was on my way somewhere else, but I'd been lured by a coupon, and I had a list of specific books I was looking for. I had just enough time to look for these books, decide which one I wanted, and then get through the checkout line. But then I got waylaid by your employee, doing the mandatory book-pushing duty. She shoved a book into my hands and told me I would love it.

I don't mind handselling when it's true handselling, when a bookseller who knows me as a regular customer or who has taken the time to get to know what I like recommends books based on her knowledge of my tastes. This program is the opposite of handselling. It's attempting to make books a one-size-fits-all item. There is no possible way that booksellers can honestly tell every single customer that he or she will like one particular book. This book was so far beyond what I'm remotely interested in reading that I practically threw it back at the bookseller in reflexive revulsion once I read the cover copy.

Unfortunately, the time taken up with having to look at this book I didn't want and then fend off the bookseller trying to push the other "make" title on me meant that when I didn't find the primary book I was looking for after searching a couple of different possible sections, I no longer had the time to look at the other possible books on my wish list and then get through checkout before I had to leave, so I just left the store without buying anything. If I hadn't been waylaid by your "make" titles, I would have probably bought a book.

The problems with this practice are numerous:
1) If customers don't realize that this isn't an honest recommendation and instead is merely another form of paid placement, it risks your booksellers' credibility when they make blanket recommendations that are outside their own areas of interest and that have absolutely nothing to do with the customers' tastes. When a bookseller pushes a book the customer has zero interest in with a "you'll love it" recommendation, the customer is less likely to listen to that person's recommendations in the future. Handselling -- real handselling -- then loses its effectiveness. If you do know it's paid placement, you can no longer trust any bookseller recommendations. A Borders bookseller can swear on a stack of Bibles that a book is brilliant and that I'll love it, and unless I know that bookseller personally, I won't believe it. I will assume it's paid placement and disregard it.
2) When booksellers have to focus on pushing particular titles, they aren't available to help customers find the books they're actually looking for.
3) Most people don't really like being rude or rejecting people, so if they have to reject a bookseller every time they walk through the door of a bookstore, they're going to quit going to the bookstore. This practice makes it less pleasant to visit a bookstore. Amazon looks better all the time. At least their recommendations are based on actual data, and I don't feel rude for rejecting or ignoring them. Why would you deliberately create a situation that makes your customers want to avoid your employees?
4) Making me look at a book I have zero interest in wastes time I could be spending browsing books I am interested in (it's probably not smart to intercept people heading to the genre fiction section to push literary fiction) and makes me less likely to buy anything at all.

I find this practice so annoying that even your coupons may not make up for it if I have to enter the store through the cafe and then crawl on my elbows to the section that interests me so I can avoid the "make" title push. I can tell you right now that I will NEVER buy one of these books. On the remote chance that one of them interests me (so far, none of them have been of the slightest interest to me), I will make a point of buying it somewhere else because I refuse to reward this practice.

This may be a radical concept, but why not empower your employees and give them free rein to choose the books they want to push, based on their customers' tastes and interests? Or maybe develop some subject matter experts who can help customers within certain genres? I would love it if a knowledgeable bookseller could take a list of my favorites and give me some good recommendations for other books I might like or could give me insight into new titles in my areas of interest.

I hope the publishers are giving you a ton of money for these "make" titles, enough to make up for the customers you lose by making it so unpleasant to go to your stores. I have my own issues with the other big chain and go out of my way to visit Borders even though the other chain has a store a mile from my house, but my loyalties are about to shift, and I'm a very avid reader.

Love, me.

Or am I being a grouch about this? I was just so annoyed about the fact that I went there planning to buy a book and then didn't have time to choose one because I got stopped and had a book that included the words "crumbling marriage" (one of my auto-reject cues) on the cover literally shoved into my hands, even after I told the employee that I wasn't interested and that I knew she was being forced to push that book rather than making an honest recommendation. I don't ask much of bookstore sales staff. I usually just want to be left alone and can find things for myself. If I need help finding something, like if I'm not sure which section it's in, it's nice if there's a human being at the information desk. If I have time, I don't mind chatting if the bookseller notices what I'm buying and can make other recommendations. Other than that, I just need someone there to take my money.

Otherwise, are there no writing post questions? I have Book Brain this week, so you never know what I might come up with if I'm left to my own devices.

Have you ever had one of those days where you feel like you missed a memo somewhere along the way? I may be having one of those weeks. It started in church Sunday. I'm in the choir, so I get a pretty good view of the entire congregation, and this Sunday, it seemed like there must have been some kind of organized effort for everyone to wear blue. I know a lot of the kids were wearing blue t-shirts because they'd had music and arts camp the week before, and this was the Sunday when they sang a song in the service to show what they'd learned, so they were in their camp shirts. But I don't know if the adults planned to wear blue in support, or if it was just an odd coincidence because just about every man in the congregation was wearing either a pale blue Oxford shirt or a blue dress shirt. Then a lot of the women were wearing blue dresses or blue blouses. The church was a sea of blue.

What was I wearing? Bright red -- a dress that looks a lot like the one on the cover of Damsel Under Stress. And during the summer we don't wear choir robes, so that one spot of red really stood out.

So, in general, I'm afraid I may be having a red dress on "wear blue day" kind of week, where no matter what I do, I'll be at least a little bit out of step with the rest of the world. For instance, I have a funeral to go to later in the week, and at the last couple of funerals I've attended, I've gotten the impression that you aren't supposed to wear black to funerals anymore. All the Southern ladies have worn pastels or bright jewel tones in floral patterns because you're not supposed to look like you're mourning. The problem is, my wardrobe is pretty much either black or red, and I can't quite see bright red as appropriate funeral attire. If I wear mostly black, I'm not wearing funeral clothes. I'm wearing my general wardrobe. Now, I don't know when this change in customs came about, but apparently I missed a memo along the way. I may play the "eccentric writer" card and not worry about it.

In other news, the bookselling follies continue. I mentioned a while ago that a certain major chain whose name begins with a B but doesn't include an ampersand decided to try something new and innovative and (gasp!) handsell books to their customers. Only, they weren't really handselling. It was just another form of co-op marketing, in which certain books, whose publishers were paying for the privilege, were to be pushed by sales staff as though they were handselling, with quotas in place and jobs at stake. I'm guessing from my last visit to a store in this chain that the book Julie and Julia is one of the titles being given this treatment at the moment. I'm basing that assumption on the fact that one of the employees was stationed near the store entrance and greeted everyone who came through the door with, "Hi! Is there something I can help you find? Julie and Julia is 30 percent off!" As she did this, she was standing next to a table piled high with copies of the book and whatever copies of the Julia Child memoir and cookbooks they were able to scrounge (since apparently someone severely miscalculated and they didn't print nearly enough books, and those are the books the movie seems to be selling). Oddly, she didn't push the book on me, possibly because I was already making a beeline toward the book I was there to get or possibly because I gave off the vibe that I would be One of THOSE People who was likely to smirk and say, "Oh, let me guess, that's the 'make' book of the moment."

This strikes me as a really odd use of marketing resources, considering that the book is already a bestseller, so the publisher has surely already made a profit on it. There's a movie with the same title, and the movie is being advertised far more heavily than any book ever is, with someone else (the movie studio) footing the bill. If there was ever a book that didn't need extra marketing resources, this would be it. I can't imagine there's any kind of return on investment here, where forcing booksellers to handsell it is going to sell that many more copies than would have sold anyway. While eavesdropping, I noticed that every person she pushed the book on either already owned it or had already read it. Why spend huge amounts of your miniscule marketing budget on a book where just about everyone who might be interested in it has already read it? I guess that's more proof that the future marketing division of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation is currently working in publishing. Meanwhile, I hope the bookstore chain is getting some serious money for this, because it doesn't seem to me like a good use of staff resources. A good bookseller turned loose and allowed to handsell books she's familiar with and passionate about could probably make the company a lot more money than one forced to stand next to a display about a book while telling every customer about it (though that may have been that particular bookseller's tactic for meeting her quota -- but still probably not the most profitable use of her time for the company).

It seems like there are opportunities here for tiered levels of publisher payola to bookstores to push certain books. At Level 1, the book gets placed on the "new and recommended" table in the front of the store and a mention in the store's online newsletter. At Level 2, the book gets its own display, a poster in the window and featured placement in the store's online newsletter. At Level 3, it gets everything in Level 2, plus the employees are forced to handsell the book (with their jobs in jeopardy if they don't meet their quota) and the book is displayed next to the cash registers. At Level 4, the book gets everything in Levels 2 and 3, plus employees chase customers around the store, beating them around the head and shoulders with a copy of the book until they agree to purchase it. At Level 5, employees are forced to form gangs to go out and terrorize people in the streets into purchasing the book.

I'm still not sure how they know which employee sold which copies of the books in question. Does it work like a telemarketing firm, where they get to ring a bell when they persuade some poor sucker to buy that book? Will it be like at a clothing store, where the sales staff make sure you remember their names and then the cashier asks you if anyone helped you with your selection so the right salesperson gets credit? If you agree to take the book, does that employee then accompany you to the cash register to get credit? I haven't yet bought one of the "make" books (none of them really interest me, and I have to admit that I'd probably rebel against the concept even if they pushed something I was interested in and go buy it from Amazon or get it from the library) so I haven't seen how the process works.

Now to go put together some funeral outfits because God forbid I actually look like I'm in mourning at a funeral. The world is all topsy-turvy -- you can now wear black to weddings, but you're not supposed to wear black to a funeral. I even hear rumors that white shoes may be allowed after Labor Day.

Well, my attempt to game the weather by announcing my plans to enjoy summer activities didn't work. On the up side, I had a nice swim and spent a little time in the hot tub, so my sore shoulder is feeling a lot better. It would have been nice if the hot tub had been a little warmer because I generally find it works best on sore muscles when the temperature is in the "making soup" range, but the water jets did help some. What didn't help was the young thing in the string bikini reading Jodi Picoult as she subjected the DNA in her skin cells to mutation from ultraviolet radiation exposure while I was flopping about with my pale, flabby thighs in the pool, but I consoled myself with the thought that when she's my age, she'll look a lot older than I do if she keeps up the tanning.

I haven't done a book report in ages, and that's not because I'm not reading. I'm just reading mostly for researching a book, and talking specifically about those books would mean talking specifically about the work in progress, which I don't like to do unless it's already contracted (why tease people with stuff they may not ever get to read?). Or else I've been reading and re-reading a lot of Terry Pratchett, and I don't think I need to say much more on that subject.

But since I'm seeing a lot of "what they're looking for" reports coming out of the RWA conference involving publishing terms that no one has a real meaning for, I thought I'd come to the rescue and offer Shanna's Guide to Genre Designations. This is mostly my own somewhat cynical take on the matter, though I believe there's a kernel of truth to it.

First, there's women's fiction, which some people think of as the broad range of novels appealing primarily to women, including but not limited to the romance genre. It seems to me that the industry generally thinks of women's fiction as books appealing primarily to women that aren't shelved in the romance section. That would include chick lit, family sagas, those rebuilding your life after divorce/widowhood books, the knitting circle/book club books, and the romance novels written by romance authors who've "broken out" of the genre and are now big enough sellers to be considered "mainstream." My books are classified as "women's fiction." Yeah, I know, they're fantasy, but they sold when chick lit was hot, so that's where they landed, and the fact that chick lit is no longer hot (and some publishers don't want to be tainted with it) has a lot to do with the reason they don't want a fifth book.

Really, though, when you think of it, "women's fiction" is a misnomer because just about all fiction is women's fiction, as women purchase far more fiction than men. We should just consider fiction to be women's, with then a subcategory for "men's fiction," which would include technothrillers, disgruntled suburban men books (though I think women may still be the primary readers of those) and war books. But they won't do that because while women will read "man stuff," men are less likely to read "woman stuff," so pretending it's all for men, except for the obvious women's fiction, probably means more chance of selling.

A term floating around a lot lately is upmarket women's fiction, which seems to mostly mean "not chick lit or romance." Or, you can think of it as book group fodder. These would be books that are quasi-literary, in that they deal with fairly heavy subject matter that offers a lot of material for discussion or debate in a book group, but that are written in a more accessible style than a lot of literary fiction, so that a busy professional woman can read the book pretty quickly to prepare for her book group meeting. You might think of it as literary subject matter written in a more commercial style that still has some literary flair to it. The literary snobs refer to this as "middlebrow." A lot of the Oprah picks fall into this category (though she's lately trended to mostly male authors, for whatever reason). There may be a romantic plot, but not necessarily a happy ending. Subject matter may deal with family crises, sick kids, dying kids, dead kids, kidnapped kids, marriages on the rocks, illness, etc. This kind of book is pretty hot right now and is what a lot of the publishers seem to be desperately looking for, but it can be very difficult to pull off the literary/commercial balance. Books that appeal to book groups are good because you automatically sell multiple copies at once, and that spreads word of mouth faster.

Then there's the whole urban fantasy and paranormal romance issue. Contrary to what it may seem, these are not interchangeable terms. In a Venn diagram, you might get a lot of overlap, but not all paranormal romance is urban fantasy, and not all urban fantasy is paranormal romance. The term "paranormal romance" generally applies to any romance novel that involves elements that don't exist in the real world (although some make a distinction between "fantasy romance" and "paranormal romance"), so it can be set in any place or time and may include elements like ESP, ghosts, psychics, mer-people, etc., and not just the usual urban fantasy type things like vampires and werewolves. I don't think there's any consensus on the definition of "urban fantasy," but the way it seems to be used in publishing at the moment, it means a blend of horror, fantasy, romance and hardboiled noir mystery, with a gritty urban setting where the fantasy world and the real world collide and a tough main character who straddles these worlds. Or, depending on the publisher it may mean "those books with either women in black leather and tattoos or men in black trenchcoats on the cover."

What's the difference between paranormal romance and urban fantasy? Mostly it's where they're shelved -- in the fantasy section or the science fiction/fantasy section. Theoretically, a paranormal romance would focus primarily on the developing relationship between the two main characters, with some sort of satisfying conclusion to the romantic relationship at the end of the book, while an urban fantasy focuses more on the world building and the mystery/action part of the plot, with the romance as a sub-plot, and the romance may end unhappily or not be resolved at the end of the book. But the distinction really has more to do with which editor bought the book and where they think it will sell best. That can come down to really practical considerations, like where the first or best available slot is, which major chain buyer is most likely to go for that story, the author's track record, where the most similar successful books are shelved, etc. You may think you're writing urban fantasy and end up with a book with "paranormal romance" on the spine, and vice versa. The author has almost no say in this.

There's also a category of paranormal mystery that has a lot of overlap with paranormal romance and urban fantasy, but I'm less clear on those distinctions. I suspect it still comes down to where they think it will sell the best. Sometimes they're wrong. Not to go on with the deceased equestrian flogging, but the "people who bought this also bought" books listed with mine are all urban fantasy, paranormal romance or paranormal mystery, so it would seem that someone made a bad guess. It happens, but the number one rule in publishing is It's the Author's (or the Book's) Fault, so if a book doesn't sell, it's because there's something wrong with it and no one wants to read it, not because it was misclassified, given a bad cover, not promoted, published at a bad time or anything else the publisher might have done.

So, there you have it. Genres in a nutshell. When the Ongoing Quest for World Domination succeeds, this is likely to change.

In other news, I'm totally stuck for a writing post topic for tomorrow. Any questions of a how-to variety?

You'd think it would be easy to find a swimsuit in July. But no, not if you're at all selective or wear the wrong size. Granted, I only went to Target and didn't bother shopping around, but still, I'm not sure how much luck I would have had elsewhere. If I'd been looking for a string bikini I might have been able to find something, but that's what I already have that I wanted to avoid wearing. In general, they should rename them and call what they had on sale "hanging around by the pool/on the beach suits" because anyone who tried to actually swim would surely suffer a wardrobe malfunction.

Take, for instance, the one with the cute little skirt, which might have been nice for hiding the lumpy thighs, but it was strapless. The skirt creates drag on the suit, so I could only imagine what would happen just swimming across the pool. Otherwise, we were dealing with a total Skank-o-Rama. I'm not a serious enough swimmer that I need the racing tank suit, but I do need something that's good for activities that go beyond sunbathing (and by "activities" I mean moving around in the water, not holding a drink with an umbrella in it). I found something that's not ideal but that should work. I actually like the style of the suit, but it's not the color I would have chosen. I tend to go for basic black or navy in swimsuits, and this is brown with some kind of animal print trim. I also had to get a size larger than usual because they had absolutely nothing other than dental floss woven together with a few metal rings, the strapless skirted suit and a few string bikinis in my size. The larger size just makes the suit a little less high-cut in the legs and should work okay until the Spandex commits ritual suicide and the suit suddenly becomes baggy. But it was on clearance, so if it lasts the rest of the summer, I'll be okay.

Last night was the last ballet class of the summer session. We'll be starting up again in August. I've already registered for the fall semester, so I think I can justify getting a new leotard so I can switch them around and not just wash the same one every week. I may even get one of those little ballet gauze wrap skirts. The teacher showed us some stretches to help get into the splits, and I think I have a new goal. I used to be really flexible, and I could do splits three different ways well into my 20s, until I had knee surgery. Then all the therapy after that built up my leg muscles, and I went for a long time without being able to stretch much, so I lost that flexibility. I'd really like to be able to get it back and be able to do splits again. The problem is in my hamstrings, as my hip flexors are still really loose.

Thanks for the responses yesterday about book reviews. Not that I can do anything about it since even if I went insane and decided to start my own book publicity agency that does things in a way that makes sense for the way the world works today, I'd be limited by what the publishers allowed me to do or gave me the material to do (even an independent book publicist has to work along with the publisher's publicity department). But I had a feeling that this issue was yet another way that the book publishing world makes their decisions based on their own lives, how they respond and what interests them rather than on any knowledge or understanding of how their target audience really behaves. I seriously doubt that the majority of the reading public even reads book reviews, let alone rushes out to buy books right away on the basis of a book review. Since they don't do much advertising or other marketing, they really need to look at reviews as just another "exposure," part of the number of exposures someone needs to have to something before it sticks in the brain.

I don't read a lot of newspaper or magazine book reviews (well, I read them, just because they're words and in front of me, but they don't influence my behavior at all) because newspapers and magazines don't review the kinds of books I read. I guess if I read genre-specific publications that would be different, but I don't. I do read a number of book-related blogs, and there, it's not the review that gets my attention, but just the mention of the book. If the book sounds interesting, I'll jot it down in my notebook. If the book's at the library, "Sounds interesting" is enough to get me to check it out. If not, then I will do more research before buying it. I generally prefer amateur or semi-pro reviews -- people who talk about books just because they love them -- and what I look for is some specificity in what they liked or disliked because that way I can tell if it's something that would bother me or something that appeals to me. I don't usually read Amazon reader reviews before I buy a book, though I will check to see what the rating distribution is, but I may check Amazon to see if there's a Booklist review because I know some of their reviewers and know whose tastes I trust. I may read Amazon reader reviews after I read a book, if it's one that I've heard a lot of positive buzz about but I really hated, because sometimes seeing the reader feedback helps me understand what the deal is, if there was something I missed or if I'm apparently not the target reader.

Even with the title and author's name jotted down in my book, it may take me seeing that book mentioned in several places and then running across it in a store before I buy it, and then it may be weeks or months before I read it. I can't think of a book that I've gone out and bought and then read on release day, other than the Harry Potter series. I don't often even read books the day I buy them, unless I buy something while I'm traveling for reading in transit -- if I'm getting to the end of what I brought with me to read, I may buy something new and start reading it immediately. Otherwise, I buy books to have them handy for when I want to read them.

And I don't think I'm a real oddball in acting this way. I probably seek out more information about books than the average person, and there are still books I miss that would have been perfect for me. That says to me that the industry isn't doing a good job of identifying and communicating to their potential audience and are relying on people to just somehow stumble across their products or to take the initiative to find out what books are available and then learn about those books. They also rely heavily on word of mouth, which takes time, but then expect the kind of results you get from a multi-million dollar, multimedia ad campaign.

I'm going to have a lot to do when I succeed in the Ongoing Quest for World Domination. Maybe I should start taking minion applications.

As part of my Ongoing Quest for World Domination, I've been trying to optimize my schedule for maximum productivity. That includes time management as well as figuring out the best timing for sleeping, eating and writing that takes the best advantage of my biorhythms (which then feeds into the time management thing). My latest experiment: Last week, I started eating my big meal of the day for lunch. This strange waking up early thing has actually cut into my working time because I don't seem to get any additional work done in the extra time I have in the morning, and then I'm going to sleep earlier, so I'm not getting much night work done. So I thought if I had my big meal at lunch, I could use some of that extra morning time for cooking, and then in the afternoon when I'm getting work done, I wouldn't have to stop working to cook dinner and could just throw together a sandwich. It also helps during this hot weather to be using the stove mostly in the morning, when it's relatively cool, rather than in the late afternoon when it's over 100. I'm also finding that I'm not snacking as much in the afternoon and I'm sleeping a little better, so that seems to have been a good move. I can't believe I didn't think of it sooner, since I'm no longer bound by office-job practicalities.

Since Tuesday is the traditional new book release day, it's a timely day for a topic I've been thinking about ever since a post a couple of weeks ago on The Book Publicity Blog about the timing of book reviews. Publishers send out review copies far in advance of publication, in the hope that reviewers will have a chance to read the books in time to post a review on or about the book's release date. But now that publishers are looking to bloggers for a lot of book publicity, they're finding that bloggers get to the books a lot earlier and try to be the first to post reviews, sometimes weeks or even months ahead of the publication date, which is bad because if people read the review and are interested in the book, they can't go buy it right away, and since they're reading the blog online, they especially can't go straight to the online bookseller of their choice and order it. There's a fear that the book will be forgotten by the time it hits bookstores.

And that does make sense. On the other hand, it's not like we're not at all used to seeing advance publicity for things. We see movie trailers weeks, months, even up to a year in advance, and do we completely freak out if we find that we can't go see that movie right now? You can pre-order books online. You need some pre-release publicity to build buzz, and since the book business generally doesn't do much in the way of advertising, they rely on reviews for almost the entire marketing campaign for most books, and some early reviews can work for building buzz. People gravitate toward the familiar, so if you've read about a book on a blog, you're then more likely to notice the review in a newspaper or magazine or another blog, which then makes you more likely to notice the book when you're in a bookstore. My guess is that the majority of people don't read a book review and then immediately run to the bookstore or click over to Amazon to purchase the book, or even write the title and author down in their handy-dandy "books I want to look for" notebook. Most people probably think, "Hmm, that sounds interesting," before going on to read about something else, and then when they're in a bookstore or browsing on Amazon later, their eyes gravitate to that book because it's familiar, but they don't consciously think of that review they read.

The real issue is that publishers have unrealistic expectations of the amount of marketing they do. If a book is lucky enough to get co-op so it gets a coveted spot on that "new in fiction" table at the front of the bookstore, it's only there for a couple of weeks, a month at the most. Meanwhile, the publishers are relying on word of mouth as the best "advertising" for books, and they're relying on reviews to make early adopters aware of the existence of the book so they can buy it and then talk about it to their friends. And that's practically impossible. Even if someone does read the review and immediately rush out to buy the book, and then reads the book right away, it may be several days before that person has a chance to tell anyone else about the book, and then even if those people go right away to buy the book for themselves and read it immediately, that's several more days. So, even if you've got a significant number of people who drop everything to get and read the book, you can only get through a few levels of word of mouth before the book is no longer at the front of stores where people can see it and think, "Oh yeah, that's the book my friend told me about." But since we're in the real world where it may be a few days before most people go buy even something that really intrigues them, and then days or weeks before they get around to reading it, and then when they tell someone about it, that person says, "Oh, that sounds interesting," but doesn't make a note about it or write it down and will only remember hearing about the book if it leaps off the shelf at them in a store, book publicists have been given an impossible task, and they should be grateful for early reviews because that means at least some buzz and talk and curiosity will spread ahead of time, and people will have been exposed to the book a few times before it's released.

When I succeed in the Ongoing Quest for World Domination, assuming that part of that domination doesn't mean I get to dictate actually having a marketing budget for books that doesn't almost entirely go to the books that were guaranteed to sell well even without any marketing, I think I'd implement what I used to call a Rolling Thunder campaign back in my PR days. Start early by sending out teaser information to the relevant genre blogs -- "Here are some of our upcoming releases you might find interesting." And not in boring catalog copy style, but more of a conversational blogging style. Send some excerpts out a bit after that. Then the review copies, and don't worry too much about when the reviews hit. Professional reviewers will probably stick with the on or around release date tradition, while bloggers will be all over the map, which isn't such a bad thing. Early means buzz, late means legs.

I'm curious -- how do you respond to book reviews? Are you in the "write the title down, then go buy it now" camp, or are you in the "oh, I think I've heard of that" when you see it in the store camp? Do you get mad or annoyed if you read a review for a book that isn't available yet? Do you even read reviews or book blogs?

Now I'm off to have lunch with a former client, and maybe I'll see if I can actually find a swimsuit in July (they were putting out back-to-school stuff last week). Apparently, the mother ship from the planet Spandex sent out the kill order recently so that all the little Spandexians on our planet died all at once, and now almost everything I have that incorporates Spandex has died. It's a little freaky when your swimsuit suddenly becomes crunchy and no longer stretches (or no longer springs back when it does stretch), and I've had that happen to two suits, the one-piece and now the more modest two-piece. I'm down to bikinis, and I don't have the body I had when I bought those suits more than five years ago.

Still not done with the book, but closing in on the ending. I can't add more than 2,000 words, though there are a lot of existing words that will likely be replaced. I hesitate to say I'll finish today because that will just mean that at the end of the day, I'll still have about 2,000 words to go. I just have a couple of big scenes to write.

The Romance Writers of America National Conference is next week, and summer is also a prime time for writing conferences, so I thought I'd share some tips for how not to sabotage yourself when you're attending a conference and how to make the most of your conference experience.

1) Remember the first rule of networking: Focus on what you can do for the other person instead of on what they can do for you.
If you approach someone with a vibe of expecting to get something, you'll probably turn them off. This applies to published authors, editors, agents or anyone else you think may be helpful in your career. As an aspiring author, you may not think you have anything to offer these people, but if you think about it, you can probably find something, and just thinking in those terms takes you away from the "do something for me!" impression. You could bring water to panelists, stop and say hi (or even buy a book) at the booksigning or even just allow the person to have a fun conversation that has nothing to do with "I've written this book about ..." At the very least, when approaching someone with the thought of getting them to do you a favor, have another conversation first. Don't just launch into "could you read and critique my manuscript/introduce me to your agent/give me a blurb, etc."

2) There is a time and a place for pitching. There are many, many more times and places where pitching is a bad idea.
Most writing conferences have formal pitch sessions available. It is okay to pitch your project then. Otherwise, don't, unless the editor or agent asks what you've written (which does often come up in conversation). When pitching, know when to shut up. Give a high-level, short description (think TV Guide episode description), then elaborate as the person asks questions. If they decide based on your pitch that it's not for them, don't push. You won't get them to change their mind because you say that everyone who's read it loved it or because you know it's a really, really good book (everyone thinks their book is really, really good). DO NOT EVER (never, ever, ever) take advantage of a captive audience to pitch your book. That includes bathrooms (and yes, that has happened).

3) Don't stalk, monopolize or interrupt.
At conferences and conventions, most authors are happy to talk with fans and aspiring authors. That does not mean they belong to you for the duration. There may be other people they want to talk to. They may want to conduct business with other writing professionals. When they do this, they are not necessarily being rude or snobbish and snubbing you. It's best not to approach an author to ask for advice or input when he or she is already engaged in a conversation. Once you do start talking to an author, be aware that he or she may need to end the conversation in order to stay on schedule. The author doesn't owe you anything other than common courtesy (and if the author has been helpful, it's nice to buy a book or go to the autograph session -- and if the book isn't your thing and you wouldn't be caught dead buying it, why do you want this person's advice?).

4) Remember that your personal behavior probably won't make your career, but it could break your career.
You're probably not going to get a book deal because you're cute and charming in person. You might get a faster read or get bumped out of the slush pile when you've met the editor or agent in person, but no matter how much they like you, that personal contact is not going to make them buy a book they wouldn't have bought if they hadn't met you. However, if you're a jerk in person, that can kill your career. Unless you're the most brilliant writer ever with a sure-fire bestseller, if editors or agents get the impression you'll be a real pain to deal with, they're probably going to avoid dealing with you. There are too many talented people out there to bother putting up with the jerks. So, while schmoozing at conferences and being charming may not put you that much further ahead than if you'd just submitted the normal way, being a demanding jerk in person can put you behind where you might have been if you'd submitted the normal way.

5) Keep questions pertinent to the workshop.
This is my number one conference pet peeve (aside from cell phones going off during sessions), and it takes a couple of forms. At every conference, there apparently has to be somebody who stalks editors and agents by going to all their workshop sessions, and then during the Q&A asks a question that's a thinly veiled pitch for her book, usually offered as a "hypothetical" example that's way too detailed (and consistent from session to session) to be off the top of her head. It's like she's just waiting for one of those editors, authors or agents to say, "Wow! That sounds like a great book! I must see it now!" and when they don't respond accordingly, she gets snippy ("but it's a really GOOD book, and all my friends said so"). Then there are the very basic "how do I get a book published?" questions that always seem to come up in what are supposed to be advanced-level workshops. When you've got a couple of big-name, bestselling authors talking about making the jump from midlist to bestseller, you're not helping yourself or anyone else in the room when your question is about whether you should use binder clips or rubber bands on your submission (here's a hint: that had nothing to do with these authors becoming bestsellers). At a big conference like RWA, there are usually beginner-level workshops or "ask me anything" sessions with authors. That's where you can ask the basic questions. Published authors get a lot of grief about elitism when they try to have published-only sessions, but that's a big reason. It's hard to have a serious session about issues specific to being published and building a career when there's someone in the group asking how to write a query letter.

6) This is not fifth grade.
I have school cafeteria flashbacks at any conference with a luncheon because of all the people who race into the room and save seats for all their friends, so that half the tables have all the chairs tilted forward (which the serving staff hates because it trips them). I realize that these conferences are a chance to catch up with friends you only see at conferences, but you're cheating yourself out of some excellent networking opportunities when you refuse to step outside your usual posse. My favorite thing to do with luncheons is wait until the line has gone down, and then find any empty seat. I often find myself sitting with an editor or agent who was also avoiding the stampede. That's also a great way to make new friends.

7) Also in the not fifth grade category, be careful about gossip and bitterness.
It's not just dangerous to gossip about people or make disparaging remarks about particular books while you're at a conference -- because Murphy's Law states that the editor, agent or best friend of the author in question will be within earshot -- it's also kind of rude to disparage entire types of books, whether it's a genre, e-books, "dead tree" books, etc., and you don't look smarter or more talented if you go on about how the publishing world only wants trite and stale stuff, so they can't possibly recognize your genius and innovation. The chip on the shoulder and bitterness that leads to the assumption that everyone who gets what you want has to be lesser than you is not too appealing. Also don't assume you're the big fish at the table and try to lord it over everyone else (because you'll inevitably find out that the quiet person on the other side of the table is a bestseller). Save the catty gossip session for your hotel room with your best buddy, and then keep your voices down and maybe turn on the TV because I have overheard some really good stuff from the room next door at conferences. My conference rule is to never say something that I wouldn't say to the face of the person I'm talking about, or someone who fits into the category I'm talking about.

8) Plan, pace yourself and allow for spontaneity.
I'm one of those people who likes to sit down with the program book and highlight the sessions I plan to go to as soon as I get to the conference (if I haven't already done so with the advance schedule). And then I just use that as a rough guide. I note the must-do sessions, and then otherwise I go with the flow. If I'm in a great conversation, I may skip the session and keep chatting. If something suddenly strikes me as interesting, I'll change plans. It never fails that one of the more useful sessions for me at any conference ends up being the one I went to on a whim that seemingly had nothing to do with my career. Sometimes, getting information from an unexpected source gives you a totally new perspective. On the other hand, if absolutely nothing on the schedule sounds interesting during a block of time, it's okay to skip it entirely and take a break. Hang out in the lobby and chat or go back to your room and rest or read. You'll be more likely to absorb more information later at other workshops or have more energy for the parties.

9) Remember that this conference will probably not make or break your career.
One of the reasons I've cut back on attending RWA national conferences is that the stress levels are so very high because there are a lot of people there who act like this conference is their one chance to get published, and if they don't have a good editor or agent appointment or don't make the right contacts, they're forever doomed. Just being in that atmosphere is utterly exhausting to me. I can certainly understand the feeling, though, because I was that way at my first conference, and I was already published. So, learn from my experience and relax and enjoy yourself. The best opportunities seem to come when you least expect them, and you'll be in a better position to take advantage of them if you're not so highly strung and not so focused on what you think you want that you miss something unexpected.

Today's early morning activity was baking blueberry muffins, since I had some fresh blueberries, and I figured I ought to bake during the cool part of the day. This being a morning person thing is strange. Next thing you know, I'll be getting up early to write. And then the world will come to an end. (Though I don't think that getting up at 7:30 really qualifies me as a morning person.)

I've reached the hard part of the revisions, where it's not so much about tweaking scenes as it is about doing a lot of going back and forth to fix things. I got kind of excited heading toward the ending and totally dropped a few character threads. I suppose I could fix that the way I fixed the end of Once Upon Stilettos, when I realized I'd totally forgotten Ethan, and so I locked him in a closet rather than rewriting to include him. I can just reveal near the end that most of the supporting characters got kidnapped and locked away somewhere, but then I'd at least have to write about the main characters noticing they were missing.

However, last night when I was re-reading the last few chapters, I got so caught up in it that I forgot to take notes about things to deal with, and I even found my pulse rate increasing while I read the exciting parts -- which is a good sign, considering I wrote it and I know what happens.

It's been more than a month since I've done an FAQ type post, and I've started getting another wave of e-mail questions, so here goes an update:

If you've seen an Amazon listing for a book called Hex and the City, that is the German translation of Enchanted, Inc. I have no idea why the German book has an English title. It is NOT Book 5. If Book 5 were to exist, that would not be the title of it. That's actually the title I wanted for Book 1, but it ended up as a tagline instead. So, anyway, don't order it unless you want the first book in German. You won't be getting anything new.

The last I've heard, the publisher still isn't interested in book 5. As I explained before, the latest reasoning is that the initial order from the two big B chains, based on sales in their stores of the previous books, wouldn't be big enough for the initial print run to be profitable. Publishers these days are doing smaller initial print runs and then going back to print if necessary rather than printing a lot up front and then having to store books. At the same time, stores are ordering fewer copies up front and then reordering if necessary rather than taking a lot of copies and then returning them (and I suspect the publishers are okay with this because they lose money on returns). Even if there's a history of going back to press repeatedly, publishers aren't interested in a book whose initial print run would not recoup the cost of producing the book -- all the printing, payment to author, payment to editor, payment to copy editor, cover art, typesetting, marketing, etc. -- even if it sold out entirely. The problem with my books is that most of my sales have come from Amazon and from independent bookstores (mostly science fiction/fantasy specialty stores) or from smaller chains. But the two big Bs are the 800-pound gorilla of the industry because they each order thousands of books up front. The chains usually do the bulk of their purchase for the initial order and count on most of the sales coming during the first couple of months. Meanwhile, each independent might place an initial order of two to ten copies of a book like mine and then restock as needed. The initial orders of all the independents added together might not reach the level of one chain's order. Then Amazon mostly does a just-in-time ordering system, where they don't do all their ordering up front, ordering books only as needed to meet demand. The indies and Amazon may sell more of each title than the chains in the long run because the indies stock for their customers and hand sell, and Amazon has lots of ways for people to stumble across books, while the chains just stop carrying the books after a few months, but it's that initial order that the publisher looks at in making decisions about books.

At least, that's the latest excuse. I think the other problem is that the publisher still sees these books as "chick lit," not as fantasy, and chick lit is pretty much dead. The only books I've found on this publisher's list that even remotely fit into that category, going from April into early next year, are the newest Gemma Townley and the new Sophie Kinsella -- both big sellers, and both imports, so that the bulk of the editorial work is done by the British publisher. Otherwise, it's all more the "book club" type "women's fiction"-- the issues/family/more serious type stuff.

However, I did see that they have a new Connie Willis book in the catalogue for February 2010. I hope that's the time travel book involving the Blitz she was talking about a few years ago because I've been dying to read that for ages. It's called Blackout and is up for pre-order at Amazon. Pause for a moment of squeeing. EEEEEEEEE!!!!!!

Anyway (ahem, returning to dignity here), I'm not sure how to overcome or fix any of these things, aside from praying that the movie gets made and is done well enough that it boosts book sales. The movie really would change the playing field. Otherwise, I suppose I could write something that gets shelved in fantasy and does brilliantly, so that the old publisher would want to capitalize on it by reissuing the older books in fantasy and then doing the new one. The word of mouth does continue to spread, and all the books in the series are selling at pretty respectable levels, week by week. I'm just not sure how that would translate into calculations for initial orders that would be enough to flip a switch somewhere within the publisher that would change their thinking. But, you know, it wouldn't be the first series with a gap between books, and if things happen that make them want the fifth book, that would then mean more books in the series from there (and I do have ideas).

So now I guess I'd better write that brilliant book that will make me such a star that the old publisher will be begging for more books. Piece of cake. I'll get right on that.

I'm still on a roll, with more than 5,000 words written yesterday. I may have lower productivity today, since I have choir practice tonight and something to write for the medical school today. But still, I'm starting to feel like a diligent professional instead of a slacker. It does help that I've reached the part where I really know what I'm doing, the part the rest of the book was aiming toward.

There's been a lot of news out there lately that has to have come from the Department of Bad Ideas. I'm not even going to get into the economy and politics and stuff. Just in the general field of entertainment there's more than enough.

For instance, that idea to make a new Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie, but without any of the cast from the series or the characters (aside from, I would assume, Buffy herself) or Joss Whedon. Unfortunately, this is one of those Hollywood things. Once the script for the initial movie was sold, it became the property of the people who bought it, and they have the rights to do whatever they want to with it. That's something you have to be aware of in selling things to Hollywood and why I just about broke out in hives when reading the film option contract. With publishing, you just assign the rights to the book for a certain amount of time, and once those conditions are met (usually a certain amount of time after the book goes out of print), you get those rights back and can sell them to someone else. In Hollywood, you sell something and they've got it for good. If they do make a movie out of Enchanted, Inc., then they have all rights to it forever. Even years later when it comes time for a remake using the new holographic technology, I don't get to sell it again. I get a cut of whatever they make if they sell it to another production company or remake it, but the decisions are out of my hands.

Still, having the right doesn't mean it's a good idea. After all, the people talking about making the movie are the ones who made the first movie, which was kind of why they needed the TV series to set things right after the movie messed up the concept. I can't imagine how making another movie with even less involvement from the creator is going to work, especially when the core audience is rather devoted to said creator. So, yeah, bad idea to remake something by removing the elements the very vocal core audience is most attached to.

Then there's the latest round of Stupid Corporate Bookseller Tricks. Apparently, Borders, as part of their effort to rebuild and avoid bankruptcy, was struck with the new and innovative idea (sarcasm alert) that it might be helpful if their staff hand-sold books to customers. They might be a huge corporate entity, but they could act like an independent bookstore, with their staff interacting with customers and making personal recommendations.

Except it turned out that the "handselling" and "personal recommendations" were actually product placements, just like those "new and recommended" tables at the front of the store (those books may be new, but the "recommended" part just means the publishers shelled out money for them to be there). There were certain books mandated to be hand-sold, with quotas for each employee, and employees who didn't sell the assigned number of these particular titles risked losing their jobs, no matter how many copies of other books they might have sold. It had nothing to do with the booksellers personally endorsing books they loved or making recommendations based on the customers' interests.

That's a problem that comes up so often with marketing and promotion, and it's one of the reasons people are so resistant to sales pitches. Something that starts as a good idea for spreading a message gets overused and misused to the point that the medium becomes useless. It's the reason people automatically throw away junk mail and delete advertising e-mail unread. It might be a convenience if it contained information we actually wanted and were interested in, but we get so buried in the stuff we're not interested in that we don't have time to sort through it and just toss everything. It's like when I bought a new car last year and that put me on the dealership's mailing list, so I kept getting e-mails about sales they were having on new cars -- like I was going to buy another one a couple of weeks later. I unsubscribed from their mailing list because I didn't need the information they were sending me, but that also probably meant I missed things I might have wanted, like specials on an oil change. I'm afraid the Borders thing will work the same way. If employees are desperate to keep their jobs and required to sell a certain number of these specific books, they're probably going to be pushing them on people regardless of their interests, and that then will make people leery of bookseller recommendations in all bookstores.

The thing is, the good booksellers at Borders or any other store were already handselling. I've had great "Have you read this? Then you might like this" conversations at my nearest Borders. All an edict like this does is penalize these people and make them less effective by forcing them to do something that goes against what makes them good at their jobs. It reminds me of my PR days when I knew a particular publication wouldn't be interested in what I was pitching, but my boss made me call anyway so we could tell the client we'd called that publication, and all that did was make that reporter less likely to take my calls in the future so that I'd be less effective when I did have something to pitch him that he'd be interested in.

There was a huge outcry when word about this got out, and I don't know what became of it or if Borders backtracked. I know the last time I was in a Borders that nobody tried to sell me anything (but then they were in the process of doing inventory and reorganizing the store after getting rid of the movies/music section). I know there are bookstore folks here. Anyone want to clue us in? (and you can comment anonymously, if you like)

I had a spectacularly unproductive day yesterday -- just couldn't seem to focus on any thought for longer than five seconds. I couldn't even manage to read. I ended up dusting my office, taking apart a fan to dust the blades and washing dishes. But it's raining today, which is always good, and on the way home from ballet last night I figured out the next scene I have to write, which will help me get a running start.

I did a post last year on "TV Laws," on the way things work in the television universe that aren't like real life. I was thinking of some new TV laws and realized there are a whole set of laws applying to writers. Some of these may be part of what leads to the major misperceptions about life as a writer. Where applicable, I'll add the reality check.

1) If a regular character on a television series writes a book, it will be an instant, huge bestseller that immediately makes the author rich and famous. A TV character would never get an average advance and midlist publication, like most authors in the real world. And the book is published (and the money starts rolling in) almost as soon as the character writes it.

Reality: See my post on publishing realities.

2) The writer characters on TV series aren't very creative. The main characters in their books are usually not-so-loosely based on themselves, and all the other characters are based so closely on the other people in their lives that these people recognize themselves and each other in the books. Even total strangers who've read the books will immediately recognize the real people as their characters' counterparts when they meet them. These writers seem incapable of just creating a character out of thin air. Every character has to be based on a real person, and if the writer is blocked on creating a character, all it takes to become unblocked is meeting someone who makes a good basis for a character, and then the writer will have to spend a lot of time with that person to develop the character. If the writer characters work in law enforcement, the cases in their books will all be based on real cases they've worked on. The exception is the rare situation where the cases are made up, but then some deranged fan starts acting them out in reality (and the deranged fan can manage to kill the "characters" since they all have real-life counterparts).

Reality: This does happen, to some extent -- look at all those "assistant to a famous person" books that came out during the chick lit craze, where someone who'd worked for someone famous wrote a novel about someone working for someone very much like the real famous person. But those are special circumstances based on the fame of the people involved. Not knowing the real people involved, I can't say how closely the rest of the characters in those books were based on real people, but my guess is that the non-famous ones were composites or entirely fictional (libel standards are different for people who have "thrust themselves into the public spotlight" so it takes more to prove you've libeled someone who's trying to be famous and living a public life than it does to prove that you've libeled ordinary people who didn't do anything to bring themselves attention). Most novels are entirely fictional, and while authors do sometimes loosely base characters on real people or are inspired by real people, you have to be careful so that the real people can't be readily identified. If you libel a real person who can be readily identified in your work by the general community, that "this is a work of fiction" disclaimer won't be much help. Plus, if you're so creatively barren that you can't make up characters, your book isn't going to be that good.

There are a couple of characters in my books who are loosely based on or inspired by real people. Mimi is a composite of two real people (who utterly loathed each other, which I suppose is ironic in its own way) with a lot of other stuff added in, and a couple of people who worked closely with those people have recognized certain traits in Mimi, but I doubt that anyone who wasn't working with me at the time I worked with those people and who didn't know I worked with those people would ever meet those people and think they inspired Mimi. Her physical description is entirely unrelated to the real people. Mostly, I took some behaviors from real life and put them into a character. They must be pretty common behaviors because I get a lot of e-mail from people who've said they worked with a Mimi. Katie is definitely not that much like me. I certainly didn't intentionally base her on myself, and if I were to talk about her, I wouldn't get my pronouns mixed up.

3) Writer characters on TV have deranged fans who take their books far too seriously, think the characters are real (okay, given the above law, maybe that's not so crazy) and who stalk the writers or the people the characters are based on.

Reality: This does happen, as well, but it's very rare and generally limited to specific genres. I hear about it more in paranormal romance and books of that ilk. It does seem like steamy stuff involving vampires brings out the freaks. I don't know enough mystery writers to know if they get the fans trying to act out their cases. I've yet to have a fan make me really uncomfortable, aside from the men at conventions who come onto me, but I suspect that has little to do with my writing or the content of my books and might even happen if I weren't a writer, given that I'm female, single, reasonably attractive and speak conversational geek.

4) Writer characters on TV are probably writing either a mystery novel or a literary coming-of-age story. A sitcom character may be allowed to try to write a romance novel, but only if it's played for laughs, with the other characters trying to figure out who the hero is (since TV characters are incapable of making up characters) or reading the love scenes out loud.

Reality: the majority of novels published are romance novels. Mystery is actually a fairly small slice of the publishing pie. But I suspect this TV law has something to do with most TV series having something to do with crime.

5) On television, novelists are major celebrities who can get into exclusive nightclubs or who can get impossible restaurant reservations just by dropping their names. And when they give their names, everyone knows who they are. Everyone they run into is a fan.

Reality: Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! There are maybe five authors in the world who are that famous -- and even there, I bet you could still run into people who wouldn't know who they were. I have friends who are national bestsellers, and still most of the people I know outside the writing or fandom world have never heard of them. I know people who have had movies made from their books, and I've run into people who saw the movie but still don't recognize the author's name. Sadly, I've yet to be in a non-book-related situation where someone heard my name and recognized me as an author or asked if I was the one who wrote those books. I haven't even had my name recognized at a bookstore when I was paying by credit card and using one of those loyalty cards with a coupon where my name came up. I'm lucky if people in the store know who I am when I show up to do a booksigning. The closest I've come to being "recognized" is at WorldCon, where the occasional random passer-by saw my name badge and said something about my books.

6) Television publishing companies all seem to be based in the city where the TV series is set. They have spacious, plush offices.

Reality: There are publishers outside of New York, but not many, and most of them wouldn't be considered major publishers. There are more agents outside New York, especially since more of them are realizing they can work just as effectively at a lower cost away from New York. I've been in the offices of two major publishing companies, and even the fairly high-up editors have tiny, cramped offices, with just about every surface covered with paper and piles of manuscripts everywhere. A lot of people work in cubicles. In one editor's cube, the "guest chair" was a filing cabinet on wheels with a padded top. It shoved under the desk and then could be pulled out to use as a seat when she had a visitor. I could probably fit three or more New York publishing offices into my office. My agent's office is fairly spacious, but she's not based in New York.

7) Editors and agents on TV shows take a deep, personal interest in their authors' lives and work. They have time to come up with elaborate publicity stunts (like fake crazy fan letters or fake stalker fans), to give relationship advice, to have lunch with their authors all the time (since they all live in the same city), and to provide lots of personal hand-holding if the writer is blocked or struggling. Book publicists sometimes do crazy things like staging crime scenes out of the books to generate publicity. Deranged editors, agents and publicists have even been known to go overboard and commit crimes to publicize books.

Reality: I've generally had friendly relationships with my agent and editors, and we do sometimes talk about our personal lives. I've met my agent's husband. But editors and agents don't have the time to devote all that much attention to any one author, and they're certainly not going to take illegal or unethical steps to promote an author's work. Though perhaps it's different if you're an instant, huge bestseller. I have known a major author who did get the hand-holding and intense attention when she was blocked and on deadline. My agent, editors and publicists have all been total slackers because they haven't staged elaborate murder or crime scenes that are right out of my books in order to get media attention (though that's probably difficult since I don't write a lot of crime or murder scenes), and none of them have killed anyone in a misguided attempt to publicize my books.

(Please note: I was being sarcastic about calling my agent, editors and publicists slackers. I was not implying that they really are because they have not killed on my behalf.)

Perhaps because I've been working on my taxes (all that's left it the final forms in ink!), I'm feeling very practical, which brings up today's topic. I've heard that publishers and agents are seeing a lot more submissions these days, with the theory being that with more people out of work, more people are taking this opportunity to write that novel they've always said they wanted to write, and they may be hoping to strike it rich or at least get some income coming in before they find a new job. As a public service to those people, I'd like to offer a publishing reality check.

I'm not saying that you shouldn't take losing your job as an opportunity to write a book -- that's exactly what I did, and it worked out for me. I didn't get rich, but I haven't yet had to go back to a day job. But I do think it's important to know what to expect so you can plan accordingly and so you don't get taken advantage of. I don't mean to be discouraging, but if the reality check does discourage you, then maybe you should be discouraged. This is not the path to take if you're looking to make a quick buck, but it can be a very rewarding path to take if it's something you love to do and if you have the persistence to keep doing it.

I'm not even going to get into the odds of actually selling a book because it's not really a numbers game. You can't look at the number of submissions and the number of publishing slots and calculate your chances. A really good, highly marketable book has a good chance of selling, no matter how many other people are submitting books. Instead, I'm going to assume that the book in question does sell, even though, realistically, that in and of itself is an uphill battle, especially in the current economy.

First, the timeline. This is not a "quick" business. Glaciers honk their horns and wish the publishing industry would get out of the way. Taking our hypothetical book that will sell, it could take months to find an agent. Once the agent actually reads it, she may act quickly, but it could sit in the queue for months before being read. Then once the agent takes on the project and submits it to editors, the waiting time can vary. Editors can take months to get around to reading even agented material, or if someone does read it quickly and makes an offer, then suddenly everyone else will have to jump on it. Once the book sells, it can take more months to work out the contract, and then you generally see money about a month after the contract is signed. It was about a year between the time I finished writing Enchanted, Inc. and the time I received money for it, and I think parts of that process actually went pretty quickly. It only took a couple of months to get an agent because my agent was fairly new in business at that time and wasn't nearly as busy as she is now, so she read it pretty quickly. We took some time to revise the book and get it spiffed up, and then it took about two and a half months to sell. Then it took time to get the contract and get the contract worked out. So, don't count on selling a book as a way to tide you over through a jobless spell, unless you anticipate being out of work for more than a year and unless you have some other way of covering your living expenses in the meantime (I did freelance marketing communications writing). And remember, this timeline starts after the book is complete and ready for submission. I'm not counting writing time.

With a few exceptions (like category romance with Harlequin), I wouldn't recommend trying to shorten this process by cutting out the middleman and submitting directly to publishers instead of finding an agent. When you do that, you generally land in the slush pile, so it can take twice as long to get a project read, if it even gets read. Most major publishers don't accept simultaneous submissions (if they even accept unagented submissions at all), so you wait all those months for a rejection before you can start over again with the next house. An agent can send to everyone at once and play them against each other to encourage faster reads, and agented material almost always gets read before the slush pile gets tackled.

Now, the money. You may hear about all those six-figure and multimillion dollar deals, but you hear about them because a deal like that is unusual enough to be news. Most new (and even established but not bestselling) authors aren't going to get that kind of deal without being a celebrity. There are exceptions, but again, you hear about them because they're unusual. The publishing industry blogosphere isn't going to buzz over an author getting a $15,000 advance for a book -- unless it's an author who used to get millions but whose last book bombed so he had to take a lower advance to get a publisher to take a chance on him. The lowest category of the Publisher's Marketplace deal report is "nice deal," which covers advances from $1 to $49,000. That's a pretty huge range, and it makes it hard to get a realistic sense of exactly where deals fall. Those numbers are also not entirely accurate because they often reflect a multi-book contract and bonus clauses in the contract (extra payments at certain sales thresholds). That one deal may reflect several years worth of work (and income).

Plus, that number is a gross amount. Deduct from that the agent's commission and your business expenses. Unless your book is being positioned as a lead title, you'll have to do most of the promotion for the book out of your own pocket, which can entail travel to conferences and conventions, web site hosting and design, bookmarks or postcards or any advertising you decide to do. Then you also have to pay income taxes and self-employment taxes, which include not only the "employee" FICA contribution that gets deducted from paychecks, but also the "employer" contribution. And, unless you have a day job with benefits or a spouse with benefits, you'll also have to pay for your own health insurance. All that chips away a lot from that advance. My gross income as a writer (before business expenses or taxes) is a bit more than I was making when I had a job, but my net income (my "take home pay") is significantly lower than it was in my employed days, even when I was working part-time. I'm not in this to get rich. I do this because this is the only thing I'm really happy doing, and I'd rather pinch pennies than have a regular job.

Then there's the timing on the money. Generally, the advance is broken into portions. You may get part of it when you sign the contract, more when you turn in the completed book (even if you sell on a complete manuscript, you may be asked to make revisions) and then the rest when the book is published. That means it can be more than a year after you sell the book before you get all the advance for that book.

There is the possibility of earning royalties. The author's payment for a book is based on a percentage of the cover price for each copy sold, with the advance being an estimate of how much the book is likely to earn in a given period (sort of -- advances are crazy things that vary widely). Once it's earned beyond the advance, then you start seeing royalty checks. Some books never "earn out" and receive royalties. This isn't necessarily bad because it may mean your agent was able to get more out of the publisher up front. If you earn royalties too quickly it means they lowballed your advance. Royalties are generally calculated twice a year, and each publisher seems to have its own calendar for this. You get a royalty statement (and maybe a check) a few months after the end of the royalty period. Even if your book is a surprise hit and earns out the advance in the first six months, it could still be a year before you see that money, depending on where the book fell in the royalty cycle. Then there's the "reserves against returns" clause. They won't pay you for every copy sold for a while, keeping some in reserve, in case books are returned unsold by booksellers. Yeah, they get point-of-sale data these days so they know how many copies have actually sold, but that hasn't stopped them from holding onto reserves just in case a bookstore finds an unsold copy and decides to ship it back to the publisher. This means that even if you have sold enough books to earn out the advance and start seeing royalties, it may take a little longer or more sales before you get that money.

Not everything is bleak, though. Depending on your contract, you may be able to sell rights to foreign publishers separately, which is like selling the book all over again. Foreign sales are generally for smaller amounts than US sales, and the money can take forever to arrive, but it creates a nice flow of income over time. And then there's always the chance of selling film rights, but that can also take forever.

In a previous post I busted the myth of the "surprise bestseller," but it's important to remember that there really isn't such a thing. The publisher knows up front if the print run is big enough for it to be mathematically possible to make a bestseller list, and that print run is based on orders, which are influenced by how much of a push the book is getting. If your book has the potential to be a bestseller, you'll know that. Sadly, even if a book with a lower print run sells its entire print run really quickly, that doesn't mean the book will become a bestseller. In some cases, the publisher may realize they might have something that could really catch on and they do something about it, but I've heard of far too many cases where the publisher didn't bother reprinting. They figured that everyone who might want the book already had it, or the major chain stores didn't reorder once they depleted their stock. The two big B chains have a lot of sway, and their automated ordering systems are basically stupid, so if a store hasn't been "modeled" for a title, it won't be automatically reordered once it sells out. It takes human intervention somewhere along the way to realize that something is selling better than expected and to adjust ordering and stocking accordingly. Getting that done may require the publisher to essentially re-sell the title to the chain if it's sold out and not being reordered, and there are times when the publisher doesn't see that as worthwhile. If the two big chains aren't reordering, then it would take a massive groundswell of independent and Amazon sales to make the publisher reconsider.

In other words, if you got a moderate advance and have a midlist book, don't count on it becoming a surprise bestseller that will end up making you a fortune. It has happened, but those cases are rare enough to be news, and they generally involve Oprah. I will confess to having been pretty naive about this. Not that I expected to be a bestseller, but I had a strong feeling about my series, and I knew that there was a good market of people out there who would like it. I knew the publisher wasn't giving it any kind of push and was probably even marketing toward the wrong people, but I had this hope that people would find it themselves and the buzz would start to spread so the book would sell beyond the publisher's expectations. Buzz has been good, and even the first book is still selling, but to really pop, a certain number of copies has to be available where people can find them, and without the high print run or publisher push, that's not going to happen.

Finally, remember that money always flows to, not away from, the author. Self-publishing or subsidy publishing (any kind of publishing where you have to pay money to have your book published, or where you're required to buy a certain number of copies or pay the publisher for marketing services) is not a quick way to bypass the New York publishing machine and make lots of money. It seldom pays off for fiction. You'll probably be out thousands of dollars and end up with boxes of books in your garage that you have to sell yourself if you want to make money. This is yet another situation where it makes the news when it works because it's so rare. Just as more people write books in difficult economic climates, the publishing scams come out of the woodwork in difficult economic climates, but the scammers are the only ones who end up making money in those deals. The authors never do. You should also be extremely wary of any publisher or agent who contacts you. In this publishing climate, they're cutting authors, not seeking them. Unless you become famous, are in the news or have a blog that gets national media exposure, the chances are very, very slim that a reputable agent or publisher is going to contact you out of the blue to ask about publishing your book.

Now, if you still want to write because you enjoy writing, then good luck. But if you're doing it because you think it's a quick path to being rich and famous, I hope this has set you straight. Yes, some people do get rich and famous with their first books, but it's probably best not to count on that or to plan your finances around that hope.