Prithee, Inform Me: What Are You Reading?

We've only got a month left of summer, mes auteurs, so prithee, inform me: what are you reading?

Books I'm currently reading:

A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan

Fall Higher by Dean Young

Why Evolution is True by Jerry Coyne

Books I've recently finished reading:

The Iliad by Homer

Sum by David Eagleman

No One Belongs Here More Than You by Miranda July

The Girl in the Flammable Skirt by Aimee Bender

The Lifting Dress by Lauren Berry


Reviews of these books potentially to come in future posts!

Guest Posts: Redux

When I last asked for guest posts back in May, I received so many quality submissions that I couldn't take just five. So! I accepted an additional five guest posts for next week, as I shall be out of town on Ye Olde Holidaye Times.

Where will I be? Well, somewhere significantly less stressful (and smelly) than New York City. I suppose that's not much of a hint, though, since that's pretty much everywhere else on the planet. At least you know I won't be in Beijing or L.A.

Without futher ado!

Monday, July 11th: "To Self-Publish or Not to Self-Publish? That is a Darn Good Question!" by Chevonese Fender

Tuesday, July 12th: "Four Elements of a Great Book Signing" by Corrie Garrett

Wednesday, July 13th: "The Glamour Life on a Book Tour" by Wayne Arthurson

Thursday, July 14th: "Writing Without a Net(Work)" by Lorna Graham

Friday, July 15th: "Rotten Rejections" by D.L. Orton

I'll return on Monday, July 18th with more gems, pearls of wisdom, and other assorted literary treasures for you. Until then, enjoy Friday's round-up and next week's guest posts!

Happy Fourth of July!

Due to the Fourth of July weekend, mes auteurs, there'll be no round-up from Laura today and no new post on Monday, July 4th. Check back on Wednesday, and have fun blowing things up in the meantime!

Market Update

It's been awhile since I've talked about what seems to be selling, mes auteurs, so below are the five categories I've noticed particular growth in over the past few months.

Keep in mind that (1) these are based on a healthy mix of data and anecdotal evidence, and (2) these are my thoughts on what seems to be selling now, not what will necessarily be popular in a year (the earliest your book would come out, assuming it's acquired in short order).

Graphic novels. It's likely these are seeing a bump because summer is superhero movie season, but it's pretty clear that this category is up from earlier this year. And (according to BookScan) it's not just properties with movies out/forthcoming, such as Thor or Green Lantern, so if you happen to be a graphic novel type of guy or gal, this is good news for you.

YA apocalyptic fiction. This (to my mind, anyway) was probably touched off by Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games in the same way vampire mania was touched off by Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series, but I feel like I'm seeing an awful lot of end-of-the-world scenarios (Harold Camping's failed Rapture prediction and the New Age folks' Mayan 2012 nonsense notwithstanding).

Weird diet books. I've seen everything from "only eat raw foods and if you eat a cooked vegetable you will die" to "feel free to eat your weight in bacon." Some of this is probably seasonal—while a ton of diet books come out in January, I figure there's always a beach season bump—but I feel like I've been getting an earful about Paleolithic diets, raw food diets, Mediterranean diets, and no- or low-carb diets for months.

Thrillers/horror novels. While I still firmly believe the mass market paperback is on its way out, sales appear to be holding steady in this format for thrillers and horror novels (not so much straight mysteries, for some reason). Again, it's beach season, and I imagine anyone without a Kindle is buying a stack of inexpensive paperbacks for the beach or pool.

Romance. A perennial favorite, romance is probably doing well for the same reasons as the aforementioned thrillers—it's generally inexpensive and great for beach or poolside reading. Romance readers also tend to buy repeatedly and generally buy more books per purchase than other readers, so the effect may be amplified by those kinds of consumer habits.

That's all I've got for today, cats & kittens. What books have you been hearing about/reading about/seeing everywhere lately?

Prithee, Inform Me: Summer Reading

A reminder: don't forget to submit your guest posts before midnight on Monday, May 23rd!

I know it seems like spring has only just begun, but the fact is, mes auteurs, that in a month it will officially be summer. And you know what that means: summer reading!

What are you planning to read this summer? What have you recently read that you loved? Favorite/least favorite books of 2011? Books we might have missed in 2010? Go nuts in the comments, and as the summer unfolds I'll be posting short reviews of my own summer reading selections.

Six books I'm definitely going to be reading this summer:

A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin. The hbo miniseries has me hooked. I've got to go back and read this.

A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan. I'm a sucker for a Pulitzer Prize winner, especially since hbo has the rights to this, as well!

The Cloud Corporation by Timothy Donnelly. My list wouldn't be complete without some poetry. Speaking of:

The Odyssey and The Iliad by Homer. I re-read these every summer. If you haven't read 'em, you should. The Fitzgerald translations are the best.

Why Evolution is True by Jerry Coyne. I've had my eye on this one for awhile, actually, and I think a science title will round out my summer really well.

This isn't going to be enough to fill twelve+ weeks of summer, however, so be on the lookout for additions over the next several weeks. And don't be shy about sharing your favorites in the comments!

Call For Guest Posts!

gentle readers!

I will be taking vacation time the week of Memorial Day, so I'm going to need five—count 'em, five—guest posts to go up from Monday, May 30th to Friday, June 3rd. And one of them could be yours!

Who: You!

What: One (1) guest post per customer. Please try to keep them in the neighborhood of 300 to 1,000 words. Be creative! Feel free to include a brief bio (50 or so words) and a link to your blog/website, if you have one. Reposts of material from your own blog are 100% fine.

When: You have until 11:59 pm on Monday, May 23rd. I'll announce the five winning posts on Wednesday, May 25th, and they'll be posted Monday, May 30th through Friday, June 3rd.

Where: Right here, on pmn!

Why: I'll be out of town and 100% incommunicado. The show, however, must go on, and I need your help to ensure that happens.

How: Please paste your post into the body of an e-mail and send it along to pimpmynovel [åt] gmail [døt] com (see link at right).

On your mark—get set—go!

Happy President's Day!

As you've no doubt by now guessed, mes auteurs, Abe Lincoln and George Washington teamed up to get me the day off of work. (I hope they did the same for you!) Come back on Wednesday for a brand-spanking-new, sweet-baby-Jesus-February-is-almost-over post!

What I Learned at AWP

For those of you who aren't familiar, AWP is the Association of Writers & Writing Programs, and their annual conference was this past weekend in Washington, D.C. I had a great time and met a lot of wonderful people, and in the spirit of reliving the experience and imparting any and all wisdom I may have gleaned in the process, here's what I learned about AWP (and writers/conferences in general):

Check in early or late. I picked up my badge on the second day and completely avoided any and all lines. I hear the folks who arrived on the first day had to battle epic crowds (one of the few things that instantly gets me in a bad mood).

Introduce yourself to people. I thanked/spoke with editors who had published my work in literary magazines, chatted up folks running tables for journals I really admire, and mingled with professors, writers, and publishers who seemed cool. Who knows when a connection you make will turn into a career opportunity?

Exchange business cards. There were way too many names and faces for me to recall even a tenth of the people I met, and I'm sure everyone else felt similarly. Cards help refresh your memory and provide much-needed contact information.

Go to the hotel bar. Everyone worth talking to is there. Everyone not worth talking to is somewhere else. Everyone who doesn't want to talk to anyone is holed up in their hotel rooms.

Budget carefully. Many writing conferences have a lot of awesome books for sale, and the temptation to buy everything is pretty strong. If you're not paying attention, you could end up spending way more money than you intend (and will then have to lug 30 pounds of books home with you). That said—

Make sure you walk the floor on the last day. In this case, many publishers wanted to unload as many copies of books/journals/magazines/t-shirts/&c as possible so they wouldn't have to lug/ship them back. This resulted in a lot of great deals (and even free stuff!) on the last day of the conference.

Were any of y'all at AWP, as well? If so, please feel free to share your stories in the comments!

Enhancements

Apologies for the radio silence yesterday, mes auteurs, but I'm now dug out from under Snowpocalypse 2010 and bringing you a double-length post to make up for it. Think of it as Twofer Tuesday. Better yet: Twofer Tuesday™.

The word "enhanced" has taken on a funny meaning these days. First there were "enhanced interrogations," which apparently meant "waterboarding and other forms of torture." Then came "enhanced patdowns," which apparently meant "frisking bordering on sexual assault" or "strip-searching a seven-year-old." Classy, government. Very classy.

Now we have "enhanced e-books," which apparently means... well, we're still not quite sure, but it's supposed to be a hot new trend in e-publishing.

From what I've gathered over the past year or so, enhanced e-books are e-books containing "extra" material. The definition of "extra" depends on the publisher and the title at hand: author interviews/videos, social networking compatibility, iPhone, iPad, and Droid apps, and other varieties of electronic multimedia are all fair game. Books in the world of tomorrow™ will be more like the Internet and less like... well, books.

Not surprisingly, the Apple iPad is the device of choice for many enhanced e-books due to its color screen, multimedia compatibility, and app-centric disposition. But with the advent of machines like the color Nook (watch out, Amazon), that's not necessarily going to be the case in 2011.

Not to get all Lord of the Rings on you, orcs and lady orcs, but the (publishing) world is changed. Whether you like it or not, your books will become e-books and your e-books will become enhanced with Twitter roundtables, author videos, content-specific apps, and other electronic oddities. Publishers are trying to wring more money out of e-books for fear that the electronic format will bankrupt them the way it did the music industry, and "enhancing" the crap out of a book with a lot of extra material is one way to justify charging more for it.

One of the more novel—pardon the pun—applications of said enhancements is the Vook. (This beats out Barnes & Noble's ill-fated PubIt! as my least favorite publishing-related word.) Rather than tacking on the equivalent of director commentaries and blooper reels to books, the Vook relies on video files and the Internet to actually complete the written story, sort of like how brief cinematics fill in the gaps in storylines in a lot of video games.

Do I think we'll be reading Vooks (or even enhanced e-books) exclusively in five years? No—as I've said before, I expect the e-book to eventually become the (pre)dominant format, but I don't think it will utterly kill the physical book. I do think the large retail chains are in trouble, but if Barnes & Noble plays its cards right, it will continue to use the Nook to revolutionize its business practices and adapt to the new market.

As I've also said before, I think the the world of tomorrow™ will comprise e-retailers and independent booksellers, the latter specializing in rare and used physical books.

The industry is changing and will continue to change, folks, and it's undeniably becoming a more Internet-dependent, electronic, app-driven environment. As format competes with content to determine the future of publishing, I think we're going to see even bigger and more interesting developments in the new year.

That's it for today, ladies and gents. Stay tuned for the announcement of the five winning guest posts tomorrow!

Happy Holidays!

In case you didn't know, cats & kittens, the publishing industry pretty much shuts down the week between Christmas and New Year's. Being the lazy forward-thinking young publishing professional I am, I have taken that week (and the week before it) off.

That's right, folks: I'm on vacation. So! Before I head off to celebrate Christmas with my non-Internet friends and family:

• Thanks again for reading, commenting on, and e-mailing about all things PMN this year;

• Have a safe, happy, and healthy holiday season;

• Don't forget to send in your guest post submissions by Monday, 12/27;

• See you next week!

Sort of Semi-Annual Call for Guest Posts

It's that time of year again, mes auteurs! I'm going to be gone the first week of January (January 3rd through 7th), so I'm going to need five guest posts to start out the new year. You can send any and all such potential posts to pimpmynovel (åt) gmail (døt) com, but I'm particularly interested in the following topics:

• Your feelings about the ongoing e-pocalypse and how e-books will continue to impact your authorly duties in 2011;

• Successful self-publishing stories, particularly of the electronic variety;

• New Year's resolutions (how you stick to your writing goals, &c);

• Your hopes and dreams;

• Odes to my awesomeness.

Kidding! I'm not all that interested in your hopes and dreams.

Kidding again! I totally am. But odes to my awesomeness never hurt anyone. Just saying.

Entries will be accepted until Monday, December 27th at high noon (12:00 pm). The winning posts will be announced on Wednesday, December 29th.

Also, public service announcement: PMN will be closed for Christmas, so there will be no posts on Thursday, December 23rd or Friday, December 24th. My posts will resume on Monday, December 27th and will run through Friday, December 31st. Then it's 2011, meine Autoren, and the first week is all yours.

What are you waiting for? Get going! Only thirteen more writing days 'til Guestpostmas!

Genre Sales 2: Mash-Up (Part 1 of 8)

Your votes are in, mes auteurs, and after taking careful tally I've decided to cover the following genres over the next eight days:

Tuesday, November 30th: Mash-Up
Wednesday, December 1st: Children's/YA
Thursday, December 2nd: Fantasy
Friday, December 3rd: Mystery/Thriller

Monday, December 6th: Literary Fiction
Tuesday, December 7th: Science Fiction
Wednesday, December 8th: Chick Lit/Women's Fiction
Thursday, December 9th: Romance

And we'll have the usual round-up from Laura on Friday, December 10th.

The usual disclaimer: this is all my opinion, I'm not responsible for any lost time or money you might suffer due to taking my opinion as cold hard fact, this post is not for ophthalmic use, &c &c.

Without further ado—mash-ups!

For those not familiar, the mash-up (in this sense) is a novel that combines a pre-existing text with new material; while the concept isn't new, the literary mash-up of today was more or less created a couple of years ago by Seth Grahame-Smith in his Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. After the enormous success of the book, a number of "resurrected" classics (e.g. Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters, Little Women and Werewolves) arose, creating a sort of independent genre at the intersection of literary classics and humor.

Funny? You bet. The first time, anyway.

If any of you are currently writing mash-ups, my advice is: cut it out. My sense of the market (based on experience in-house, sales numbers through services like BookScan, and anecdote) is that it's Pride and Prejudice and Zombies in the lead with a number of imitations (many of which are pretty middling) tied for a very, very distant second. My opinion (opinion! not fact) is that this trend has pretty much run its course, and if you're jumping on the bandwagon now (in the hopes of publishing in 2011, 2012, or later), you're probably too late, regardless of how sweet your title/concept was.

This, by the way, goes for 99% of the trends you're seeing in publishing these days: whether it's vampires, zombies, Vikings, or mash-ups, the flavor of the day is exactly that: temporary. Just like in the stock market, if enough people are doing something for you to notice a trend, it's probably too late for you to capitalize on it. That ship has sailed; keep on doing what you do and don't worry about what everyone else is doing.

Unless, of course, your book is coming out at a time when your genre or topic is a hot commodity, in which case: go even more nuts promoting yourself and separating yourself from the pack than you otherwise would. But this isn't something you can predict or have any control over.

So, my advice for writing mash-ups is:

1. Don't.
2. If you're dead-set on it, at least pick an interesting classic that hasn't been done yet.
3. Make sure the text you're working with is in the public domain. If it isn't, you're going to have to get permission from the author/his or her estate/his or her publisher, and you're going to have to split any profits you derive.
4. You probably won't see (m)any profits.

Tomorrow, dear readers: children's/young adult literature!

Prithee, Inform Me: Genre Sales Breakdowns (Redux)

It's that time of year again, mes auteurs!

I've gotten a few suggestions via The Twitter, but since I realized many of you may not be Twitter-inclined, I've decided to open up the official vote to the blog. I'll do four genres this week (including Friday, as Ms. Ombreviations will be away on vacation) and (potentially!) another four next week, so vote while the voting's good.



As always, if your genre of choice isn't represented in the poll, please mention it in the comments!

Happy Thanksgiving!

We'll return to our regularly scheduled programming on Monday, November 29th. Until then, have a happy and safe holiday!

The Other NBA

For those of you that missed it (either in person or via the #nba10 Twitter hashtag), the 61st annual National Book Awards were presented last night in New York City. While yours truly was neither a winner (they have yet to institute a blogging category) nor an in-person attendee, I had fun following via the Interwebz and am pleased to announce this year's winners:

Lifetime achievement award: Tom Wolfe (whose speech apparently went on forever).

Young people's literature: Mockingbird by Kathryn Erskine (NOTE: while her writing may be superb, her website is an example of what yours should not look like). (Other finalists: Paolo Bacigalupi, Ship Breaker; Laura McNeal, Dark Water; Walter Dean Myers, Lockdown; Rita Williams-Garcia, One Crazy Summer.)

Poetry: Lighthead by Terrance Hayes. (Other finalists: Kathleen Graber, The Eternal City; James Richardson, By the Numbers; C.D. Wright, One with Others; Monica Youn, Ignatz.)

Nonfiction: Just Kids, Patti Smith. (Other finalists: Barbara Demick, Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea; John W. Dower, Cultures of War: Pearl Harbor, Hiroshima, 9-11, Iraq; Justin Spring, Secret Historian: The Life and Times of Samuel Steward; Megan K. Stack, Every Man in This Village Is a Liar: An Education in War.)

Fiction: Lord of Misrule, Jaimy Gordon. (Other finalists: Peter Carey, Parrot and Olivier in America; Nicole Krauss, Great House; Lionel Shriver, So Much for That; Karen Tei Yamashita, I Hotel.)

Suffice it to say, I have four more books to add to the "to-read" pile, including the new Hayes (of whom I'm a big fan, & was rooting for to win—not that I didn't/don't love the other finalists). If anyone's interested, my picks were: Terrance Hayes (poetry), Barbara Demick (nonfiction), and Nicole Krauss (fiction). (I don't read enough children's literature/YA to have an informed opinion.) Congrats to all, however, winners and finalists alike!

What about you, meine Autoren? What do you think of the finalists/winners and their books?

Happy Memorial Day!

No post today, mes auteurs. Enjoy your long weekend!

Call for Guest Posts

You read that right, mes auteurs: I'll be on vacation the last week of June, so I'm going to need five—count 'em, five—guest posts to put up while I'm away. And one of them could be yours!

Who: You!

What: One (1) guest post per customer. Please try to keep them in the neighborhood of 300 to 1,000 words. Be creative! Feel free to include a brief bio (50 or so words) and a link to your blog/website, if you have one.

When: You have until 11:59 pm on Wednesday, June 16th. I'll announce the five winning posts on Wednesday, June 23rd, and they'll be posted Monday, June 28th through Friday, July 2nd.

Where: Right here, on PMN!

Why: I'll be on vacation, Dr. Leo Marvin style. Do not come looking for me with an air (bus) sickness bag and a goldfish in a jar around your neck.

How: Please paste your post into the body of an e-mail and send it along to pimpmynovel [åt] gmail [døt] com (see link at right).

Let the games begin!

Terms to Know: BEA

Great Zeus Almighty—250+ Twitter followers in just 24 hours! At this rate, I'll have the world's population in thrall in... uh, seventy thousand years, give or take a few thousand. Feel free to follow, if you're so inclined.

Moving on!

As many of you may know, next week is bea, or BookExpo America, one of the (if not the) largest and most important annual book fairs in the United States. This year it's May 25th to 27th, and industry insiders from hot-shot publishing executives to small town librarians will be milling around the Javits Center in New York City to meet other trade book folk, check out the big new titles coming out from a variety of publishers, and attend various seminars, talks, and panels. Authors (like you! or, like you one day!) will also be there, signing copies and often participating in the aforementioned talks and panels. And I'll be there, too.

This will be my third non-consecutive bea (I volunteered in 2007 and went as a representative of my house in 2009), and I'm excited to head back and use the event as a learning experience (read: find out what books are coming down the pike from other publishers) and as a chance to (re)connect with other industry professionals. And incidentally, gentle readers/authors, that's exactly what bea can be for you: a significant networking opportunity.

While I'm certainly not telling you to show up at the Javits Center with the shirt on your back and a carton of books, I am encouraging you to speak with your agent about whether or not it makes sense for you to attend. Space is substantial but limited, and badges are pretty expensive (they can cost up to $295 for a three-day pass); not everyone with an agent or publisher can or should or does go, so it helps to get perspective from your agent/editor. Of course, if they suggest you attend, I think you should go if at all possible. There aren't as many galleys as there used to be, but I think the information and connections you'll acquire by attending for even one of the three days will make the trip well worth your while.

While I don't have any particularly entertaining bea stories (at least, none that I can mention here), I'm certain that's not the case for all of you. If I'm right (and I usually am), feel free to share in the comments! (Ditto for any questions.)

Books > Diamonds

Okay, this one's kind of a stretch. Books may be generally less expensive, less shiny, and less physically enduring than diamonds, but since I won't have another opportunity to mention Valentine's Day before it shatters the hearts of the lonely unites the hearts of couples around the globe (or at least the country) this Sunday, I figured I'd make my case for books = gifts now.

I think buying any book your boyfriend / girlfriend / husband / wife / mistress / mister(?) / favorite prostitute (male or female) would enjoy is a great idea for Valentine's Day, though there are a few books that are specific to the holiday. as I've said before, buying someone a book is a great way to show them you care and know something about them without having to make something yourself or go totally broke.

So, while I humbly submit that books are The One True Gift this coming weekend, I'd be remiss if I didn't ask you, dear readers, what you plan to be up to. Me? I'm going to eat my weight in Necco candy hearts and re-read Cat's Cradle.

Happy Martin Luther King, Jr. Day!

I have the day off work today, mes auteurs, and so PMN will be taking a one-day hiatus as well. Feel free to frolic in the comments, and I'll be back tomorrow!