On Breaking the Rules

First, to all my he-bros (and... she-he-bros?) out there: !שנה טובה Here's to everyone getting inscribed in the Book of Life (and, if there is one, the Book of Representation by an Awesome Agent).

Speaking of books: when writing yours, you may be tempted to break the rules. While the rules are neither inscribed in an all-encompassing cosmic book nor universally accepted across the board, there are certain conventions, dos/don'ts, and guidelines that I think most writers have heard somewhere along the line (e.g. show, don't tell; maintain a stable point of view; don't write in the second person; clearly plot the rising action, climax, and dénouement; and so on).

Now, plenty of authors have broken one or all of the above rules, as well as many more that were hammered into you in seventh grade English class that I've failed to list. The reason the likes of James Joyce, Toni Morrison, and E.E. Cummings got away with breaking these rules is a simple one: they learned to follow—and mastered—the rules long beforehand.

It may be tempting for you to write a stream-of-consciousness second-person novel in dialect as your very first oeuvre, but I respectfully suggest you start with the basics. If you attempt calculus before you've figured out algebra, you're going to fail the final exam that is representation. Learn to walk before you learn to run, or you'll trip and smash your face on the cold, hard curb of the query process. (Are these proverbs and analogies working for you yet?)

Most good writers who have gone on to produce truly inventive and unique work generally started out with your basic short story or novel; most good poets who have done the same learned to master rhyme and meter before they began to work outside it. You, too, gentle readers and writers, should do the same until you've not only mastered the rules as written, but understand why those rules exist in the first place. If you break a rule without knowing why, you're bound to break it the wrong way.

Tomorrow: return of the round-up!

Timing is Everything

There are a lot of factors affecting your success in this industry, writeurs and writeuses, including talent, luck, discipline, luck, motivation, and, of course, luck. Among these is another factor over which you have relatively little control (at least in terms of a publication date), but it can be of significant importance to your sales: timing.

I can guarantee you that at any launch meeting you attend, if someone's presenting a title due out in the spring that has even the slightest connection to environmentalism/green living/&c, the first words out of the sales rep's mouth will be: "Can we bump this to coincide with Earth Day?" Books about religious holidays (Christmas being the obvious example) come out in time for holiday shoppers; books about celebrities in the news are rushed out the door in order to capitalize on media attention; women's fiction and memoirs by female political figures come out in time for Mother's Day, and books about golf, grilling, and other assorted manly topics come out in time for Father's Day.

If you're writing literary fiction, science fiction, fantasy, or historical fiction, you might not have much in the way of "prime" timing. Be aware, however, that many more books are published in the fall than at any other time of year, so if you're pubbing in the fall, 1.) you'll have the advantage of full(er) book stores and holiday shopping madness, but 2.) so will everyone else, and you may get drowned out by the deluge of new titles.

I'm hesitant to say whether romance titles do better around Valentine's Day. My inclination is to believe that romance titles are bought year-round by very devoted audiences, so it doesn't seem likely that there'd be much of a bump for a Hallmark holiday in February. I don't think many husbands/boyfriends/partners buy many books for their wives/girlfriends/partners for Valentine's Day (which is sad!), and the only items I can think of that would see a bump are the tried-and-trues (chocolates, champagne, &c), movie tickets (hello romantic comedies!) and maybe DVDs.

If you're writing children's or YA, there's an interesting sales bump around Easter that doesn't appear in sales trends for adult titles, so you might benefit from a publication date in March or the first week of April.

Mysteries, in my experience, do well in the fall, but that could be due to the fact that everything does well in the fall (see above). I'm not sure whether Halloween exerts any influence, but I don't think it can hurt.

As previously mentioned, women's fiction tends to do well in the spring and summer, due in large part to Mother's Day and the perennial "beach read" tables in brick-and-mortar book stores. Then again, many argue that most fiction is "women's fiction," so take this with a grain of salt.

Finally, non-fiction (unless it's holiday-themed or otherwise sensitive to a particular time of year) tends to loosely follow the news cycle, so books about oil and BP did well during the Deepwater Horizon disaster, books about derivatives, mortgage-backed securities, and other financial topics did (and continue to do) well in the midst of the recession, and books about or by celebrities do well when those celebrities are in the news (everything from winning awards to getting jail time to biting the proverbial dust).

In short: absolutely ask your agent and editor about the timing of your book release, and don't be afraid to make suggestions if you think anything from Arbor Day to Yom Kippur will make an impact on your sales. Being in the right place (ideally front-of-store) is only half the battle; the other half is guns being there at the right time.

Virtual Particles are the New Vampires

I've always considered myself something of a science buff, mes auteurs (although I find actually doing science, complete with statistics and differential equations, too taxing for my literary sensibilities), so I was surprised and delighted to read this article in the Telegraph about the recent rise in popularity of popular science books.

As noted in the article, if people were buying popular science books five or ten years ago, they were largely about evolutionary biology (and all the "religion versus science"-type arguments those books seem to entail). Recently, however—and, in my opinion, due in large part to physics projects like the Large Hadron Collider—popular science books about astrophysics, quantum mechanics, and parallel universes have seen unparalleled demand (pun totally intended). Books about evolution, biochemistry, and other scientific disciplines are selling, too, but it's the physics behind the structure, origin, and fate of the universe that seem to be intriguing The Reading Public these days.

I've been into popular physics since at least the late '90s, reading and re-reading Stephen Hawking (A Brief History of Time, The Universe in a Nutshell, A Briefer History of Time), Carl Sagan (Pale Blue Dot, The Demon-Haunted World, Billions and Billions), and Brian Greene (The Elegant Universe, The Fabric of the Cosmos), so while this trend may be new to a lot of people, it isn't for me (although I am, again, surprised and delighted). I will say I'm glad that more people are reading Asimov and Hawking, even if it doesn't balance out the number of people reading Stephenie Meyer and The Situation.

What I'm interested to know is: is this new and/or surprising to you, bros and she-bros? Do you regularly read popular science, and, if not, do you think you'll start doing so? Will you pick up a copy of The Grand Design or Why Evolution is True in the coming weeks or months? If so, why? If not, why not?

Bonus question: if a train leaves Boston at 5:00 pm traveling in a straight line toward Tallahassee at 90 MPH, and another train leaves Tallahassee at 7:00 pm traveling in a straight line toward Boston at 120 MPH, how long will it be before I fall asleep?

Happy Labor Day!

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

Revenge of the Round Up

A long-awaited Friday round-up, from Laura at Combreviations:

It's been a while, friends and foes, and there's so much to share. First, things about the kiddies—they are the future, you know. And they hate paper books! Hate 'em. That's why Random House Children is putting out its first digital-only title, and HarperCollins Childrens is launching an app for the youngins. This is also why Scholastic is trying to sneak new techy advertising in with its books to school. It's too bad that kids hate books 'n shiz, because Emma Thompson is rebooting Peter Rabbit, and a 6-year-old landed a 23-book deal (that should come with the warning: be ready to feel bad about yourself). And teachers are getting in on the book action, training using literary teachers as examples. Well, as long as they don't train using vampires as examples—watch out, Dick and Jane!

Book reading can be dangerous, even without vampires running around after the kiddies. Book signings have become a tremendous spectacle—potentially scary! Your book recommendations could go terribly awry, and your historical fiction could be lying to you. Plus, Dostoevsky is in your subways, causing the youth to revolt.

There are a million more good links but, in the interest of time and convenience, I'm going to give you all of the things I've run across in list format, so you can decide what types of things you like... you know... listed. So: are you interested in this year's fantasy cover trends? In free audiobook sites? Maybe you're more into the 17 most innovative university presses, or 12 great non-book but still literary Ebay purchases. As a great academe, you are clearly (clearly!) interested in this intro to sci-fi syllabus, and also in these 10 typefaces of the decade. Perhaps you're interested in the best and worst books about the war in Iraq, or in these visions of the apocalypse. Maybe you'd like to see the highest paid authors—or maybe you'd rather see the best pigs in literature (of the non-author variety). And I know you want to read about these great posthumous works, these bad ass oral histories, and the books that made China Mieville into China Mieville. Also, hey, 5 YA books to read after Mockingjay, and 10 lesbian and bisexual poets who are awesome!

More awesomeness to come, next week, right here at Pimp My Novel.

This is Why You Always Meet Your Deadlines

In case you hadn't heard, Yahoo! sports columnist Adrian Wojnarowski (say that three times fast) has been sued by Penguin Books for failure to meet his deadline regarding a book about former North Carolina State University basketball coach Jim Valvano. The original manuscript delivery date? August 1, 2007.

Wojnarowski was originally offered a cool $400,000 (of which he received $140,000), but his repeated delays caused Penguin to reduce the total advance to $325,000. Now, over three years later, they've canceled the book and are taking Wojnarowski to court to recover the $140,000 they already paid him.

I wish I could say this kind of story was uncommon, but honestly, the only unusual aspect is the filing of a lawsuit. Books are delayed by months (sometimes years) all the time, and failure to meet deadline (sometimes more than once) is not unheard of. I think, however, that publishers' patience is particularly short in the midst of the recession, so I wouldn't be surprised if they were to become even less lenient about missed deadlines, particularly for books bought for six- or seven-figure advances.

The reasons for delays can range from author laziness to the publisher's disapproval of various drafts (that is, sending them back for rewrites) to changes in current events that warrant substantial revisions (generally affecting only nonfiction). Remember, too, that most advances are cut into pieces: often one installment is paid on signing, another on receipt of the manuscript by the publisher, and occasionally a third on or around the date of publication. If you're getting $400,000 and you've already gotten $140,000 just for signing a piece of a paper, one can see how your motivation might be temporarily shot.

That said: this business is slow enough as-is, so as début writers who always want to make the best of impressions, it's in your collective best interest to get your manuscripts and revisions delivered on time. Always be professional, always be on time, and always ask your agent or editor if you have any questions about deadlines, timelines, or any of the other myriad -lines to which you might be subject.

The Blockbuster Phenomenon

Nathan's post from yesterday regarding Jonathan Franzen's Freedom has gotten me thinking about the blockbuster model for book sales in general. Why does the industry invest millions of dollars in a tiny percentage of books that they hope against hope will turn a huge profit? Why do fewer than 1% of books pay for the acquisition of the remaining 99%? Why are the likes of James Patterson, Sarah Palin, and (saints preserve us) The Situation running the show?

Part of the reason is, as I've mentioned before, a sort of singlemindedness endemic to the industry that assumes anything that has worked in the past will continue to do so in the future. If Esteban Fancypants' novel The Art Dealer's Wife becomes a huge hit, he may well end up with a seven-figure offer for his second (or second and third) books. True, it's not entirely fair to blame the industry for this; time and again, consumers have returned to a brand (read: author) they love, and if enough people hear great things about (and later buy) Mr. Fancypants' first book, he's got an established audience for his future titles. Publishers throw money at "sure bets" because publishing has been and always will be something of a gamble, and if there's any indication that leveraging an author with a proven track record can produce more profit, they'll be all over that deal like a monkey on a cupcake.

HOWEVER. Simply because Mr. Fancypants' first novel sold 5 million copies doesn't mean his second and third novels will perform similarly, and for every story of the out-of-the-blue début novelist whose first book sold millions of copies, there's a story of an out-of-the-blue début novelist whose second book tanked. Maybe the second book received bad reviews; maybe it was so different from the first book that it alienated his or her established audience; maybe it comes to light that the author is a terrible person and nobody wants to be caught dead reading his or her book; the number of reasons is potentially infinite. Thing is (and it is fair to blame the industry for this), publishers 1.) perpetuate the blockbuster cycle by driving prices up at auction to patently absurd levels, and 2.) tend to chase losing brands by throwing more money at them long after the authors' audiences have either stopped caring or died.

What, then, can be done about this, mes auteurs?

Well, publishers could consistently include and enforce clauses in contracts stipulating that authors whose books fail to earn out their advances must return the balance of the advance to the publisher, but that's not going to happen unless the industry adopts this policy across the board (not to mention it's not really fair to authors who receive little in the way of marketing and co-op dollars).

I'm interested by this NPR article from last year, which mentions HarperStudio's experimenting with publishing two books a month, neither with an advance of over $100,000, and attracting authors by promising a 50/50 split on the book's profit. While I'm not sure this exact model is a solution, I think programs like it may offer a way out of the boom-and-bust, all-or-nothing blockbuster model that prevails in the industry today.

What say you, gentle readers?