Jeffrey Cohen

This past week, I did not win the Gumshoe Award for best mystery novel of 2005. This is not terribly unusual, as I did not win the Gumshoe Award the previous week, either, or any other week since, roughly, birth. So it didn’t strike me as a tremendous surprise that I didn’t win.

The difference was that this year, my book AS DOG IS MY WITNESS was actually nominated for a Gumshoe Award, and so the possibility actually existed that it could have won. That was a surprise. I was actually shocked to have been nominated, as my work isn’t what you generally think of in the same sentence as the word “award.” And yet, there it was, in pixel and white, on the Mystery Ink web site. In fact, there were only five people on the planet who were eligible to win said award this past week, and I was one of them.

That’s something in itself, don’t you think?

Don’t worry: this isn’t going to be a diatribe on how unfair it all is, and how I should have won the award, but it’s all politics. Because the fact is, I understand precisely why DOG didn’t win the award, and Laura Lippman’s TO THE POWER OF THREE did.

The main reason my book didn’t win was that it actually was not the best mystery of 2005. I don’t know if Laura’s book was–it’s entirely possible, but I honestly haven’t read every mystery published during the year, so I can’t say for sure–but I know it wasn’t mine.

This is NOT to say that AS DOG IS MY WITNESS isn’t a good book. I think it’s my best so far, and truly believe that it accomplishes exactly what it sets out to do: it sets up a tricky mystery, develops the characters in the Aaron Tucker series a little more, has a good number of laughs (which is always my objective) and gets in a little covert information about Asperger Syndrome, the high-functioning form of autism that Aaron’s son shares with my own. Not a bad few hours read. I’m proud of the book, so don’t think this is a pitch for the Smallest Ego in the Publishing Business Award, which I also would not win.

The thing is that DOG isn’t meant to be the Best Mystery of the Year. A few people who read it might think it is–as my daughter says, everymovie is someone’s favorite–and I’m certainly not going to argue with them. But it’s not designed to be a huge statement about the human condition (other than to touch lightly on people responding to differences in others), the most astonishing thriller since Alfred Hitchcock gave up the ghost and became one, or my answer to Dennis Lehane’s most recent question, whatever it might have been. No, DOG was always intended to be a light entertainment and little more. An award for FUNNIEST mystery of the year? Yes, I’m egotist enough to think it should have qualified for that. But BEST? What the heck is BEST, anyway?

Now, I can hear loyal readers of this Sunday blog (hi, Mom! Happy Mother’s Day!) ask, “hey wait a minute, Jeff: didn’t you go on like a maniac just a couple of weeks ago about how comic mystery should be on an equal plane with serious mystery, and how it’s unfair that nobody takes into account how hard it is to be good AND funny?” Yes, I said all those things, and I stand by every word (except “AND”: who told it to be in all caps?). But strictly as a mystery novel, stripped of its humor, would DOG be the best of the year? Probably not. It’s good, but it’s not groundbreaking. It doesn’t further the form. It is there to distract, to amuse.

Given the opportunity, would I have voted for AS DOG IS MY WITNESS? That’s a whole different question (which you can tell, based on the fact that it’s a separate sentence, and everything). Sure I would have; I’m no fool. That’s my book, and I worked on it for a long time, and I think it works pretty well and besides, “Gumshoe Award Winner” would have looked nice on my next cover. Do I think other people should have voted for it? Wow, this is getting complicated. What’s “best” is entirely too subjective. Can we have a list of rules please?

It gets back to the argument about comedy being on the same ballot as more “serious” pursuits. If you believe in competition at all–and let’s face it, awards are fun–you have to decide whether there should be separate categories for funny mysteries. I think there should be separate AWARDS for funny mysteries, just to acknowledge the best writers working at making us laugh. But when it comes to a straight discussion of “best,” I think the choice should be open to all genres and tones.

Is YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN a better movie than THE GODFATHER PART II? Probably not. It’s a MUCH funnier one. Should it have been nominated for Best Picture ahead of THE TOWERING INFERNO (yes, THE TOWERING INFERNO was nominated for Best Picture; you can look it up)? Now, there you have me–yes, Mel Brooks’ monster movie is better than Irwin Allen’s. It was probably better than LENNY (another nominee, along with CHINATOWN, which probably should have won), too, and Gene Wilder was miles funnier than Dustin Hoffman.

But this is a little off the point, which started out on this week’s award. I didn’t expect for a moment to win the Gumshoe, but I’m thrilled to pieces to have been nominated. All those cliches you hear are true: being considered among Laura, Reed Farrel Coleman (whose parents should have kept their original last name), Denise Hamilton and Duane Swierczynski is plenty of an honor. The fact that a goofy mystery like DOG was nominated is progress. When I write the Best Mystery of a year, I’ll be seriously ticked off when it doesn’t win. But as for now, I can’t tell you how nice it felt. I hope it feels just as good (or better) the next time I have a book published.

The next time they say “it’s an honor just to be nominated,” and you want to roll your eyes incredulously and comment on what a colossal fib THAT one is, think twice. It really is an honor, and I’m very grateful for it.

Meanwhile, since today is, indeed, Mother’s Day, let’s take a moment to consider and honor those who made the holiday possible. Naturally, I mean the flower and greeting card industries. Without them, we wouldn’t be able to ignore our mothers for 364 days and still feel like we’re good children. Hats off to you, flower and greeting card people!

My own mother (and you should know, if you’re a fan of Freudian slips, that while typing the phrase “own mother”, I almost wrote “owner,” which is creepy) made sure that her young son (that was me) was a fan of books, had plenty of them around the house and, as I recall, never dissuaded me from reading any of them. She has introduced me to some of my favorite authors (thanks for Irwin Shaw, Mom!) and never fails to praise my work beyond realistic limits.

I’m sure that when she reads this post, it will annoy her that I said AS DOG IS MY WITNESS wasn’t the best mystery of the year. For her, it was. And if there’s any greater praise for a mother than that, I don’t know what it is.

Thanks for dropping by, but I’m not here right now.  I’ve just left to attend the World Horror Convention in San Francisco.  Yay, a hometown convention.  I don’t have to get up at some ungodly hour to get dressed, so that I can get undressed again to go through airport security. I can get up when I want and drive in when I need to.  Nice.

They say that you should write what you know, but you should also write what you like.  I grew up reading crime novels and horror novels, so it’s no wonder that I switch between writing the two genres and occasionally smoosh them together.  Because of this, I attend both mystery and horror conventions.  I have to say that of all the conventions I attend, World Horror is my favorite.  That isn’t to say the mystery ones aren’t fun.  Don’t get annoyed.  But for me, World Horror is the one I can’t miss.  It may not be the best organized or the biggest, but it’s the friendliest of all the cons I’ve attended.  There’s a strong family feel amongst the attendees and because of that, people aren’t afraid to let their hair down.  It is also the most grueling con of any by far.  Scheduled events usually run into the wee hours and parties put on by publishers, authors and bookstores usually run on ’til morning.  Sleep isn’t an option.

Contrary to what you might think, the crowd at World Horror isn’t a group of slavering freaks looking for virgin’s blood.  It’s usually attended by some of most mild mannered and grounded people I know looking for virgin’s blood.  You’ll see very few people dressed up as vampires and such—just a lot of people wearing black tee shirts.  The misconception is that horror is an excuse for blood and guts, but it’s not, if it’s good.  Horror at its best lets you see the darkest side of human nature if you want to look at it or not.  But I digress.

World Horror is a four-day celebration for all things scary and a chance to see some of my favorite people that I only get to see once a year—like Santa.  It’s also become an all-encompassing con offering panels aimed at the reader and the writer.  There workshops for writers and editors.  It’s one of the few conventions that arranges pitch sessions with publishers and agents, which is one of the reasons I like World Horror so much.  I actually sold a book as a direct result of a pitch session at World Horror.

I’ll be pretty busy.  I have three panels, two autographing signings and one unofficial one, and a reading.  I’m especially looking forward to the con because advance copies of Working Stiffs will be there on Thursday.  The book isn’t out until Monday, by the by.

If you’re attending, you can find me at following events:

Thursday 8:00pm: Borderlands Signing Event 
Thursday 10:00pm: Morbid Curiosity Open Mic 
Friday 12:00pm: Building a Fan Base panel
Friday 8:00pm: Mass Autographing
Saturday 3:00pm: Marketing and Promotion for Authors panel 
Sunday 2:00pm: The Sounds of Horror: Audio Horror panel

My subject this week is Small Presses and "Crap Happens," so if you’re a wildly successful published author with 6, 7 [or even high 5] figure advances, feel free to skip this blog entry. And, as always, this is just my opinion. ["Of course it is, Deni, who else’s opinion would it be?"].

I’ve been published by Walker, Harlequin, Kensington and Delphi [among others]. I write crime fiction and historical fiction, and I love both genres. While researching the 1692 Salem witch trials for an historical romance, it occurred to me that I could combine my two loves into one book. Thus, I wrote EYE OF NEWT, the first mystery in my Sydney St. Charles "witch" series.

I called it a "cozyhalfhistwoo."

But Big Pub Houses weren’t interested, and I finally shelved the manuscript when St. Martin’s said the concept was "too dark." I don’t write dark. . .

[Please ignore that last sentence, since a goodly number of readers swear up and down that they prefer "dark" mysteries, like The Cat Who Became a Serial Killer or The Exorcism of Lassie.]

Flash forward a few years. Buffy and Charmed were popular on TV, a film studio was shooting the big-screen version of Bewitched, and I had been agentless for a while. So I decided to use EYE OF NEWT [dusted off and revised] as an "audition piece." I submitted to 4 agents. Two weren’t enthusiastic enough, one said she’d sign me up and market the book if I took out the historical portions, and one said I showed promise [ouch! – NEWT is my 13th published book]. So I began investigating small presses. . .

Three wanted EYE OF NEWT. Three small presses saw the commercial value: witchcraft was "in" — so were cats, dogs and parrots. Three small presses knew I had a fan base and a library "name" from my diet club series. And, I guess, three small presses thought I showed "real talent" rather than "promise"  🙂

I chose Five Star.

EYE OF NEWT came out in October 2004–just in time for Halloween!–and received a rave Library Journal review. By the end of December, NEWT had a 95% sell-through. Since then, the book has gone Trade paperback, is on the desk of a high-powered film rep, and I suspect it’ll soon go large-print [wish I could crack the audio market].

When I started writing CHAIN A LAMB CHOP TO THE BED, many agents [and a few editors] told me I’d never sell a series that had started at another pub house. I don’t like to be told I can’t do
something. LAMB CHOP, a Five Star Mystery and the third book in my Ellie Bernstein/Lt. Peter Miller diet club series, made its long-awaited <ahem> debut last November/December. But there was a glitch in Five Star’s cover art department and the book was sent out too late for major reviews. Without a review [positive or negative] from one of the big three — Publishers
Weekly, Library Journal, and/or Kirkus — library sales are impaired. All I could do was ask friends and fans to request the book from their local libraries [see last Tuesday’s blog].

"So, Deni, you’ll stop publishing with Five Star now, right?" Not! Crap happens. EYE OF NEWT earned out, big-time, and I’m already negotiating with another press to bring out my diet club backlist in paperback, which will, eventually, include a LAMB CHOP reprint.

There are many spokes in the publishing wheel. and if Five Star wants another Ellie or Sydney book, I’m game.

I’ve just sedated Beatrice, after promising her that she can continue her serial, GOLDIE AND THE THREE BEERS, next week. Instead, I want to tell you a "crap happens" tale. As L&O would say, this is "ripped from the headlines," but I’m not using any names. I swear under oath — and on a stack of Stephen King novels — that it’s NOT Five Star. Also, I’m not one of the authors involved.

Once upon a time a small press contracted many new authors, all of whom had written some really good mystery novels. Eventually, the small press allegedly began cutting corners and costs, delaying releases, and using a printing company that produced such a poor product, several authors returned books to the small press’s owner, refusing to consign copies that fell apart or had pages missing or had huge errors that weren’t the fault of the authors who’d carefully checked the galleys. The small press owner always had excuses, some of them pretty creative.

The press then "went silent" by not answering phone calls, emails, or snail mail. That left authors waiting for edits, galleys, book releases, etc. One author’s second book was months overdue, which, she said sadly — and a tad caustically — made it difficult to schedule a launch.

Also screwed were authors who had ordered and pre-paid for books to use at signings; who had anywhere from several hundred to a few thousand dollars tied up in their books. "The silence was awful," said one of those authors.

Half the authors chose to leave.

Another author said, "It wasn’t easy to leave a ‘bird in the hand’ publisher and step back into the heavy competition of submitting/crossing fingers, searching for a new publisher.  But if you can’t count on getting your edit, galley or book release month after month, or worse, ordering books and paying for them and not knowing if you’d ever receive them, what other choice do you have?"

Some authors got out with all their rights. Some are still battling to get what’s owed to them. "Mostly the problem was the broken promises, excuses, and breached contracts," said an author who bailed. "Better to go out on our own and find some other way to publish," said another.

What did I tell those authors [whom I’ve promised to keep anonymous]?

Well, I certainly didn’t say "Crap happens." While that’s undeniably true, it’s not very soothing.

Instead, I related my experience with Zebra. How I’d contracted 3 books and was convinced that my career was on the brink of soaring to unimaginable heights. In my daydreams I pictured my new convertible, my villa in Greece/Spain/Ireland, my huge hot tub, and a box of new paper clips
[rather than the "borrowed" paper clips — and rubber bands — from Kinko’s]. In my divorce I specified that my ex was not to get a penny of my advances and royalties.

One of the contracted books — DREAM DANCER — was published in 1997, just before my Zebra line
went belly-up [or in their words, "was downsized"]. And although I had to nudge, I received reversion letters for the other two books.

I truly thought my career was over.

But it wasn’t. I simply took a deep breath and began to look at other spokes in the pub-wheel. I contracted FOOTPRINTS IN THE BUTTER – an Ingrid Beaumont Mystery co-starring Hitchcock the Dog – to Hard Shell Word Factory, an e-publisher. FOOTPRINTS was seen by a print publisher who brought it out in hardcover. Since then, it has gone mass market paperback and large print [with Thorndike in the US, BBC Library in the UK].

One of my Zebra paranormals — HALLIE’S COMET — was sold to Five Star Expressions.

So yes, crap happens. But you can’t have a rainbow without some rain and my mantra has always been: "If you drop a dream, it breaks."

To the authors who had the courage to leave an unsatisfactory publisher and start again from scratch, all I can say is please don’t drop your dreams!

Over and out,
Deni

            Pari Noskin Taichert

Most writers I know won’t fess up to their own professional jealousy. They’re also slightly offended when I bring it up — as if discussing the subject taints the sanctity of our magical profession.

But I’ve been published just long enough to observe something: Jealousy corrodes our creativity. Its handmaidens – pouting, self-pity and an unrequited sense of entitlement – wait in the dark corners of our insecurities, poised and ready to infiltrate our successes and undermine our careers.

The first time I felt professional jealousy (a.k.a. envy) was a few weeks before CLOVIS was sold. An acquaintance of mine had her manuscript go to auction. It commanded bids in the high six figures. My first sale was in the low four figures.

Go figure.

I faced jealousy again right after CLOVIS was published. Another acquaintance was nominated for an award that I thought I deserved (ah, yes, arrogance is a professional hazard, too).

What surprised me most about the absolute ugliness and murk of my reactions were how they affected my writing. Well, that’s not quite accurate. You see, I was so upset, I couldn’t write.

Talk about stupid. Talk about shooting myself in the foot. Talk about digging a hole I couldn’t climb out of.

I was fortunate during those first months of pre-and-post publication. When I expressed my utter dismay at how easily jealousy crept into my life, a more experienced author sent me an article – “Green is Not Your Color: Professional Jealousy and the Professional Writer” – by Jennifer Crusie**  Her splendid piece posits that jealousy comes with the profession—any profession—and the trick is to acknowledge it and then move on.

This is good advice.

The fact is there are people who do “get it all.” There are overnight wonders. There are writers who make millions while many of us don’t earn as much as we did when we ran a lemonade stand on our neighborhood street corner.

At some point in all of our careers, we’ll feel jealousy. We’ll all probably be the butts of someone else’s envy as well.

Last week, I felt envy’s corrosive tinge at the L.A. Times Festival of Books. While sitting in the audience at a panel of famous mom writers — I couldn’t even get on a damn panel — I thought, “That’s what I want. I want to be up there answering questions. How come, they get to do it and not me?” Wah.

Later that same day, sitting next to Lisa Scottoline (who’s very nice by the way, damn her), I thought, “I want throngs of people lining up to buy MY books.”

How petty. How unbecoming. How honest.

So, I let myself feel those things for a few minutes. I wallowed. I had that second . . . third . . . um, well, that fourth piece of chocolate.

Then, I carried on.

I allowed myself to enjoy the experience of being an author at one of the world’s largest literary festivals. I relished the sensation of the sun on my face and the pen in my hand when I autographed another one of my books.

Website of the week:

http://www.worldrps.com

For those of you looking for a gentler form of conflict resolution.

**** If anyone wants to read Crusie’s piece, it’s in Romance Writers Report (also known as RWR) February 2005. Though I’m not sure you can access it online, It’s the best article about this professional pitfall I’ve read yet.

Jeffrey Cohen
Damn memoirists.

I’m old enough (I’ll spare you the guess: I’m 48) that I can remember a time when, in order to have your memoirs published, you had to have done something first. You had to be an ex-President, a famous actor, a baseball player (or to be more specific, a baseball player’s ghostwriter) or an explorer. You had to be well-known. You had to have accomplished something that was, at least within the confines of your field, extraordinary.

Now, apparently you just need to have screwed up royally at some point in your life, and be able to reach the keyboard of a laptop.

This week’s news that a 19-year-old Harvard student’s novel was yanked from the shelves after great acclaim (and major bucks) because apparently large chunks of it were unconsciously and unintentionally copied word-for-word from other books left other writers gnashing their teeth at the sheer audacity of the thing. Their feel-good story about Kaavya Viswanathan, a girl who could write a bestselling novel at an age when most of us were too busy trying to find a date for the prom, was exploded. They couldn’t believe they’d been suckered in. Some were flat-out jealous about the previous incarnation of this junior novelist, and silently chuckled to themselves about retribution.
Not me. I just shook my head and smiled a rueful smile, and thought: “what a great career move.”

Think of it! Now, all this semi-confessed plaigiarist (how do you “unintentionally” copy large passages of someone else’s novel and then forget?) has to do is agree to tell her side of the story in–one hopes–her own words, and before she is old enough to toast herself with a legal beer, she’ll be financially set for the rest of her life.

Man, I wish I’d thought of that when I was a teenager, but no. I was too busy working on the school newspaper.

Think I’m wrong? Consider this: Jayson Blair, who used to make up stuff for The New York Times when he was supposed to be reporting, you know, facts, sold a book about how he did it and why it was really other people’s fault, and reportedly pocketed himself a six-figure advance.

Valerie Plame, whose major claim to fame two years ago was that saying her name out loud was a Federal crime, is now shopping her side of the story, and the bidding is reportedly up to seven figures (that’s in the millions, for the mathematically challenged). She can’t tell us who “outed” her, since she doesn’t actually know for sure, but publishers can’t wait to pay her enough to buy a small island not to tell us.

James Frey, whose memoir about drug rehab quite famously turned out to be a novel about drug rehab, hasn’t signed a contract on what one can only hope would be a “real” memoir–about how he made up the last one and got Oprah mad at him. Not yet, anyway, but how much do you want to bet?

And then there’s the case of J.T. LeRoy, who wrote about his years as a drug-addicted, sexually abused teenage HIV-positive prostitute and became a darling of the New York literary scene. He didn’t just make up the story; he made up himself. The fact that there really was no such person as J.T. LeRoy didn’t stop him/her/it (apparently there were two J.T. LeRoys, or three, depending on how you want to count them: a musician named Geoffrey Knoop says his ex-partner Laura Albert invented LeRoy and did the writing, and his half-sister “played” J.T. out on the town. Photographs indicate she looks as much like a teenaged boy as Julie Andrews looked like a man in Victor/Victoria) from signing for major bucks, palling around with serious lit stars and signing the obligatory movie deal.

Makes a person wonder if maybe we should all make ourselves up and cut out the middleman.

How have these frauds been punished? Knoop has reportedly signed a movie deal about the hoax. His attorney says he came clean after he and Albert split up because “he wanted to take the high road.”

The high road!

Still, all these frauds (minus Ms. Plame, who according to all reports really was a CIA operative) aren’t the problem with memoirs. It’s the fact that everybody and their Uncle Sid thinks we’re obsessed with their lives these days. It used to be that you had to be extraordinary to write and publish a memoir; now, you don’t even have to be interesting.

It seems that virtually everyone on the planet had a horrific childhood full of abuse (sexual, physical or emotional), a horrific experience with addiction (sexual, drug, alcohol–which is a drug–or shopping), a horrific secret to tell the family (sexual, drug or psychological) or a horrific marriage to someone better known than they are (sexual, athletic, literary or Hollywood).

Go to the local bookstore, and–after picking up copies of my novels and non-fiction–check out the memoir section. It’s larger than almost any other in the store, with the possible exception of the Stephen King wing, Oprah’s Book room (with copies of only one book in it at a time) and The DaVinci Code: The Ride. Scan the titles: how many of those people have you ever heard of? How many of them are telling you stories that aren’t designed to make you feel inadequate because you haven’t had to go through some heartbreakingly awful experience? How many of them have recipes? What the heck is that all about?

Does this sound like sour grapes? Am I complaining about memoirists because I couldn’t sell a memoir on my best day? Maybe it’s not the writers of memoirs with whom I have a problem. Maybe it’s really my parents. Damn it: they were normal! They stayed married for my entire childhood, and beyond, the swine. They tried their best to do things that would make us kids happy. They worked hard and played fair. Honestly, how could they? They didn’t even have the common decency to sell us for liquor, become addicted to LSD (it was the Sixties, after all) or even–and would this have been so damn hard?–to become Communists. Sure, it’s outdated, but I’ll bet I could have gotten some good mileage out of that. But, noooooooooo!

My childhood, my education, even my young adulthood was so by-the-numbers I could have been named “Generic Jewish Kid.” (And the fact is, my name actually is Yiddish for “Generic Jewish Kid.”)
We even lived in New Jersey, for goodness sake! And we didn’t know ONE mob boss. Not a capo. Nobody.

I’m telling you, the lack of trauma screwed me up for life. I’ll never be able to sell a memoir for six figures (or even two figures, on either side of the decimal point). I’ll never be asked to weep on Oprah’s couch, assuming Tom Cruise’s sneaker prints have been cleaned off. Dr. Phil won’t answer my calls. Larry King would rather book Lola Falana. My children will have to go to community college because I simply wasn’t mistreated enough. My life is in ruins.

Hey… maybe there’s a memoir in there somewhere. I’ll jot down a few notes.