Does Touring Matter?

I’m full of questions today.

I’m on the road promoting 14. I had a great launch party and a separate signing at my local independent, Davis Kidd, where I was shocked to find I only knew 1/3 of the crowd. Progress!

And then I left for Colorado. I did a signing at a Barnes & Noble in Lone Tree, Colorado and it went great. It was a meet and greet, not a signing with chairs, etc. I did a bunch of this style signing for ATPG, and found it was quite effective. Usually a minimal amount of effort is required to make a sale — a big smile, a welcoming attitude, and a simple "Do you like thrillers?" and in two hours I hooked twenty new readers who would have never known who I was otherwise, who bought BOTH books. A stellar afternoon, in my mind. Yes, there was the inevitable "Where’s the bathroom?" "I only read non-fiction," stuff, but you have to check your ego at the door when you do an event in this style. It works for me, I can talk to strangers with no problem. I have a couple more of those lined up back home.

I decided to try something different this time around — instead of setting up multiple signings and praying people show up, I flew out to Colorado, made plans to hit Phoenix and Houston. I’ve been doing drive bys, dropping in on stores, meeting booksellers, signing stock. My house set up two "official" drive bys for me this week, with Poisoned Pen and Murder by the Book, and I’ve scattered the rest across the two states. I signed in eight bookstores in Phoenix, five in Denver. Needless to say, I’m already exhausted. I was supposed to go from here to Houston today, but Hurricane Ike changed my plans. I’ll be in Houston the 24th now, but I can’t say the break from traveling isn’t welcome. I’ve got a lot more planned, including a whirlwind few days in one of my favorite towns, Omaha (the food is DIVINE) right before Bouchercon, so a few days of rest is a Good Thing.

I’ve been surprised to find that some independent stores don’t carry my books. (Careful, hubris.) Perfect example, Tattered Cover in Denver chose not to stock 14. I have no idea why. The house has no idea why. Which was a bit of a shock to the system, considering they successfully carried the first book. The house tried to set up a signing, but they weren’t biting. It’s the first time I’ve gotten a flat out refusal, so it stung a bit. And then you try to balance it with, well, I’m in Walmart. But I want to support indies too. I have great events lined up at indies in Nebraska with
Alex Kava, and I’m on the docket because of her kindness in including me. I need to find
more ways to get myself in front of additional independent
booksellers.

Granted, this is only my second book. I have a limited backlist. My series is just beginning. This may all be a moot point in two years. But for now, I’m curious.

So here’s question number one. Outside of your publisher’s efforts, how do you get the independent stores to notice you? I’ve been a vocal supporter of BookSense, which has now morphed into a very cool organization called IndieBound.org. I have independents on my website, and we’ve always had links here at Murderati. I accept and seek out their Facebook and MySpace sites. Yet I’m nowhere on the radar for many of these folks? And please don’t misunderstand, this isn’t an indictment, but a serious question. What am I doing wrong? I want to support the independents, but I’d like to have some support in return. And I’m a little bit worried that I can be ordered online from their websites but they don’t have any books on the shelves. We’re supposed to be helping sustain the brick and mortar stores, right?

Here’s question number two. Does ANY of this really matter? I like meeting readers. I’ve enjoyed meeting the booksellers (aside from the one who accused me of bringing my books into the store. I had to prove to her that no, they came off her shelf. She was busy, I was trying to help. THAT backfired. So no more of me retrieving my own book. You learn…) Across the board, the chains have had plenty of my book in stock, on coop, etc. But does a signed paperback really entice a new reader? Will that green sticker make them jump and say — oh, must get this, the author SIGNED it. I simply don’t know. I won’t see any numbers for a couple of weeks so I have no idea if it’s making any kind of impact or not.

That’s one of the major problems with publishing, I think. There aren’t any quantifiable numbers unless you’re on the lists, and there’s a ton of super successful authors who aren’t. God knows following your Amazon ranking isn’t the way to judge your reach. Calling Ingram to get your sales figures doesn’t give you the whole picture; they’re a fraction of the actual number. So an author works in a vacuum for a few weeks, hoping what they do promotion wise makes a difference.

And the experience for a hardcover author is different than for a mmpb author. I’m assuming this is part of the problem with the indies. We don’t get the kind of attention hardcovers do. Which sometimes makes me feel like a spoiled child who’s stamping her foot and saying "LOOK AT ME," but that’s the way the cookie crumbles. It’s always lovely to have the attention of the community, to get reviewed, to get interviews. It’s a nice ego stroke to have that kind of affirmation, even if it’s not the most stellar review. But is it just that, an ego stroke, or does it raise awareness and sell more books???

With all of this in mind, I decided earlier this year that I was going to skip both touring for JUDAS KISS, coming out in January, and the conference circuit in 2009. I have one that I may do, because it happens to be an hour from my parents, but for the most part, I’m hitting a couple of regional literary festivals, and that’s it. I need a break. I have two books due next year, and I need to focus on making sure I’m writing the very best books I possibly can. So this 6 weeks of excursions is my last hurrah for a while.

I’ll tell you, I don’t know if I’m making a massive mistake or if it will prove to be the smartest thing I’ve done career-wise. We’ll find out soon enough, I suspect.

So tell me, what do you think really works? Signings? Drive bys? Traveling on your own dime? Sitting at home and working on your next book? Working the Internet, the social networking sites, the listserves? Conferences? Literary Festivals (I personally find the literary festivals exceedingly rewarding.)

I’d love to hear from all sides on this one. Booksellers, do you want us coming by? Readers, will a signed sticker make or break a buying decision for you? Writers, do you find one aspect of the mix works better than the other?

Wine of the Week: 2004 Bodegas Lan Rioja

Our prayers are with you, Texas.

When a Dream is No Longer Just a Dream

By Brett Battles

The Dream.

The Dream is to write and only write. Not to have to do something else to pay for the roof over your head. Not to have to answer to some boss who’s constantly checking to see if you’re in on time or if you took a long lunch. Not to have to pull yourself out of bed every weekday morning, join the rush hour traffic to get to your cubical so you can work 8 or 9 or 10 hours a day then go home to sleep so you can do it all again the next day.

That’s the dream. That’s my dream anyway. A dream I’ve had since I was in sixth grade. Seriously. I think it would be fair to say it’s the dream of most writers, though, admittedly, not all. I know a few who love their day jobs, and have no intention of every leaving them.

Me…I can’t wait to get out.

But there are a lot of considerations that need to be made before someone takes the leap. Sure, maybe you have a contract that gives you enough cash that you can live and write full time. It might not be live-in-grandeur style money, but enough to pay the rent and buy your food. But the question then is…for how long? You see, that money you just got might be the most you’ll receive at one time for the rest of your career. (I sure as hell hope not and don’t wish that on anyone, but it needs to be said.) If it is, would it be better to sock it in the bank and continue working the two jobs…your day job and your author job? How can you know?

And then there are the added expenses. There’s those pesky estimated tax payments you need to make that cut into the lump sum you thought you got. There’s the fact that now you have to pay for your own insurance. And all those freebies you got at the office? The paper clips? The pens? The free copies? All gone.

Yes. There’s a lot to think about when you make “the” decision. It’s a decision I had to make this summer. And for me, it took all of perhaps one nano second to make up my mind.

Five and a half weeks ago, I told my bosses that I was retiring from television.

That’s right. I’ve chosen the life of fulltime novelist. Yet because I have a great job and work with people I don’t just consider my colleagues, but also my friends, I gave a seven week notice. That’s right…I was VERY generous. The good thing is that that notice will be up a week from tomorrow. So the next time I blog here, I will no longer have the 9 to 6 desk job I’ve been at for the last 6 years…hell, perhaps they were at different places, but the last 19 really.

I intend to take my new fulltime job very seriously. I’ve already started planning out my schedule and my goals. You see, I have a responsibility to make sure that this leap I’m taking isn’t only for a limited amount of time, but rather forever. I think the possibly of going back to a corporate job should be more than enough to keep me focused.

But I can’t lie. I am so excited about the new freedom I’ll now have to do things whenever I want to do them. I’m thrilled at the idea of being able to spend more than an hour or two a day at most writing, and now stop only when I feel done for the day. I cannot wait to be able to focus totally on the story I’m working on, to not be forced out of my train of thought because I have to go to work.

Taking this step is a huge risk. I know. But it’s time.

So this is my last post before I retire from television. It’s been a wonderful career. It has taken me places, exposed me to new things, and introduced me to people who have become friends I’ll have for the rest of my life. It has given me the safety net I needed to foster and grow my writing abilities, and to keep me afloat until I was ready to jump. Though I doubt any of the people I work with now will be reading this…I just want to say thank you.

Oh, and another bonus that comes with my new found freedom…an ability to be more active here at Murderati. My colleagues have been more than patient with my less than stellar involvement, and I plan to make up for that now. Well, not now…in a week and a half.

When I’m free.

When I’m a fulltime writer.

_______________

Song for the day (Let’s make that for the next week or two): BEAUTIFUL DAY by U2

And for those who missed my good friend Rob’s post from yesterday, scroll down and check it out. It’s excellent.

No Offense Intended

by Rob

I’m concerned.

It seems to me that it’s getting harder and harder for us to say what’s on our minds, these days. If we get even the slightest bit controversial, we’re told to keep quiet because someone might get upset. If we speak in shades of blue and green rather than stark black and white, we risk being attacked by those who are colorblind.

A politician makes a nuanced and valid point and his words are distorted and he’s jumped on for going too far. The outrage is as phony as the people who make the charge, of course, but the drums start beating anyway, and before you know it, he’s tarred and feathered by the press.

This has been going on for quite awhile now. I see evidence of it everywhere. People afraid to speak up about how they feel. Holding back because they don’t want to risk offending anyone. Or being branded a troublemaker. Or losing their jobs.

A woman in the workplace can’t mutter a swear word for fear that some co-worker might overhear her and turn her into the boss. And even a hint of sexual innuendo is immediate cause for firing.

A man can’t wear a certain declarative T-shirt in public because he might become a target of harassment.

It’s as if we’re all being conditioned to be afraid of our own shadows. We’re taught to be good and polite and inoffensive, because good and polite and inoffensive people get rewards. Like food on the table. Cars to drive. TVs to watch.

As authors, we debate about the language we use. Is it too strong? Should we tone it down? Make our books more palatable? We avoid any obvious political or religious statements because we’re afraid we’ll lose half our readers. And half our income.

Recently, a bestselling author wrote a book featuring his series character and, according to the reviews on Amazon, went a little too far this time out. The author dared to give his character a point of view — one that didn’t sit well with some of his readers — and the Amazon reviewers went nuts, telling the author to keep his politics out of his books. How dare he ruin their favorite hero by making him utter such tripe?

But really, folks, are we that shallow? Can we not recognize that EVERYONE has differing points of view about many different things, and simply learn to live with it without going ballistic? Especially when it comes to fiction.

Must authors and musicians and artists strive for the lowest common denominator? Strike the blandest note they can, in order to try to make everyone happy?

I don’t think so. We’re all adults here. Why on earth can’t we act like it? Why must we allow the emotionally stunted, the colorblind and the brain dead to dictate to us what we can and can’t say? Why must we tiptoe around them for fear that they’ll somehow steal our lives away?

To my mind, if we allow them to control us, then our lives are already gone.

In the words of Howard Beale, "I’m mad as hell, and I’m not gonna take it anymore."

And maybe you shouldn’t either.

No offense intended, of course.

How many books do you have in you?

by Tess Gerritsen

Today, my new Jane Rizzoli thriller, THE KEEPSAKE, goes on sale.

It’s my twenty-first published novel. You’d think that after going through this twenty-one times, the publication of a new book would feel routine to me now. But no, watching a new book hit the stands is every bit as exciting and scary as it’s always been. I find myself doing the same obsessive things I did with my last five books. I check my Amazon index every hour, thereby guaranteeing lithium-league mood swings. I Google myself several times a day, looking for new reviews. I slip into bookstores unannounced to see if the books have arrived, and where they’re displayed. Every Wednesday evening (when the New York Times bestseller list is announced) I wait by the phone, hands sweating. I know this behavior is unhealthy. I know that obsessing won’t make the books sell faster. I know that this is wasted effort and it’s sapping my energy.

I wonder how many more years I’ll be doing this, and how many more books I’ll write before I kick the bucket.

It’s a morbid question, but every writer has probably asked it: What will my obituary say about my writing career? "Prolific author of fifty bestsellers"? or: "Was working on her second novel"? Life itself is full of too many variables, so you just don’t know. You could get hit by a truck tomorrow, ending your budding career at age thirty. Or you could keep on turning out a book a year until you’re ninety nine and you finally get that Mystery Writers of America award, if only because you’re the oldest guy in the room.

Or (and this is one of my nightmares) you’ll find the quality of your work slowly deteriorating as you endure ever-crueler reviews, until suddenly it’s announced that you’re suffering from Alzheimers. And suddenly everyone is nice to you again.

A baby girl is born with only so many eggs in her ovaries. That’s it, that’s all she gets. Throughout her lifetime, she will not make any new eggs. Once she grows into womanhood and reaches menopause, all her eggs are used up, and her childbearing days are over. She simply cannot produce any more babies.

Do authors have a similar limit? Is there such a thing as artistic menopause? Is there a point in life when a writer finally sets down his pen and says, "That’s it. All my ideas are used up. I have no more books left inside me"?

I know I haven’t reached that point yet, because I can still feel those future books lined up in my imagination, like eggs waiting their turn to gestate. But I also know that I’m not a prolific writer like Isaac Asimov or Georges Simenon or Nora Roberts, who together have written enough books to fill a library. I’m capable of writing, at most, one book a year. If I keep up that schedule of one book a year, until the demographics predict I’ll keel over from old age, I could theoretically produce another thirty books.

Thirty more books to write! So far I’ve only written a measly twenty-one. Which means I haven’t yet reached the halfway point in my lifetime oeuvre.

Egads, I’d better get back to work.

Many unhappy returns

by Pari

What business do you know that lends brand new items to the seller and allows those items to be shipped back, anytime, often in lousy shape? What business do you know that wants many of those items to be defaced prior to being shipped back?

Welcome to the wonderful world of book returns.

Amid all the conversations about book sales, the publishing industry, finding the right agent, we don’t hear much about returns. I think I know why. It’s a crappy system no one understands fully and NO ONE seems to know how to fix.

A little history:
Back during the Great Depression, publishers sought a way to get booksellers to continue buying books and to try new authors. So, someone (maybe one of you readers can give me the name) came up with the idea of offering more books without risk. If something didn’t sell, it could be returned for credit — no questions asked.

Back then, I think the model worked well for everyone because
1. There wasn’t the volume of books published today (and that’s an issue that deserves more than one post).
2. Though illiteracy may have been higher, I suspect many more people per capita turned to books and reading for their entertainment and information gathering.

Flash forward to today. The book return system aggravates just about everyone.

For authors
It can be good for new authors because bookstores can "taste" new works without worrying about being saddled with clunkers. However, any traditionally published author is never going to know how sales are going . . . not really. A book can be returned months after publication, sometimes even years. Publishers often hold back a portion of royalties against this possibility. Sales may look magnificent at the beginning of a book’s life because bookstores will order in large quantities. And then poof! Three quarters end up getting returned or, if they’re mass market paperbacks — they’ll be stripped (it’s heartbreaking, really).

For Bookstores
You’d think bookstores would adore this arrangement; after all it was created for them. But with the ever increasing number of titles, it’s impossible to predict what will and won’t sell. Over the years, publishers have changed their return policies and bookstores need manuals to meet their specifications. Some stores now only deal with wholesalers because of this (and other reasons of course. . . that’s another post if I can ever get enough info on it).

Even if everything is totally hunky-dorey with the system, returning books is still labor intensive — there’s packing, labeling, removing stickers (autographed copy! discount!) and keeping track of this revolving inventory. That’s why people like Steve Riggio of Barnes and Noble are calling for a major revamp of the system.

For publishers
It seems obvious why they’d dislike the system, doesn’t it? So why the hesitation to change? When HarperCollins announced a new imprint that would be return-less, many people screamed. What would happen to new authors? What would happen to the booksellers’ freedom to have a broad inventory? EEEEEEEE!!!!

Wholesalers/Distributors
I don’t know how they feel about the system. Their existence depends on variety and making life easier for bookstores, but in my research for this piece, I didn’t find anything specific on the subject. If I do, believe me, I’ll write more.

So, what to do?

* Authors could write fewer books. Uh hunh. (I can just hear the response to that suggestion: "We’ll do that when we get paid more.")
* Booksellers could stop over-ordering AND/OR commit to selling what they order. But how would they decide? What would be best for their customers and also great for the business bottom line?
* Publishers could stop publishing as many books AND they could commit more marketing dollars to the ones they do produce. Has anyone ever seen that happen?

I don’t know what the answers are, or if there are answers. Far greater minds have tackled these questions. I found two interesting articles on the subject here and here.

Right now, I think it’s important to talk about returns and changing the system.

What do you think? Booksellers? Publishers(editors)? Writers? Readers?

Is there anything we can do to transform a dinosaur into a dragonfly?

_______________________________________________________________

Next Monday, Roberta Isleib takes the reins for a guest visit. Please join me in welcoming her.

Fish Out Of Water

By Allison Brennan

I’ll admit, I’m nervous to be here. Okay, we’ll say terrified.

I’ve been a regular visitor and fan of Murderati for a couple years. I met JT, Rob, Brett and Toni at Thrillerfest in 2006 and we hung out. We were in Arizona and there was something about that first ITW conference that was intoxicating. Not just the drinks, but the atmosphere. I mean where else could a newly published author like myself walk into a bar and see Lee Child hanging out? Or share a ride with the classy and smart and talented Tess Gerritsen? I felt out of my element. I wasn’t a real thriller writer, after all. I write romantic suspense. A little sex, a little violence, and the guarantee that my hero and heroine are going to survive and be together at the end of the book.

I felt far more comfortable with the Killer Year gang–the soon-to-be-published thriller writers of 2007. Sure, I had three books out in 2006, but they didn’t really count as three because they came out bang-bang-bang in consecutive months. It was *like* having just one book release.

Today, I feel just like I did two years ago when I stepped into the Arizona Biltmore Hotel. A bit in awe, shocked I’m here, happy as a clam, and feeling a bit unworthy. (Four cliches in one sentence! How about that.)

I rarely write anything profound. Occasionally, I can turn a phrase and impress myself, but usually I write how I talk–too long with lots of tangents. One thing I love about writing novels over short stories is that I have 100,000 words to play with. I can throw out all these threads and have plenty of time to tie them together. When I write short, it’s painful. Agonizing. My high school American History teacher gave me an “A-” on my final essay because I, “So eloquently said in ten pages what could easily have been said in five.”

The other bloggers here at Murderati have backgrounds that are professional, interesting or fun. Doctors, attorneys, executives, business owners. They’re smart, profound, and probably read all those intelligent literary books that make them even smarter and more profound. They care about the words, what they mean, and how they look and sound together. They anguish over making a sentence just right, to leave just the right image in the reader’s mind. Don’t try to deny it, I’ve read your blog posts, I know this about you.

I envy you. Sure, I get excited when I come up with something that sounds so good I can’t believe I wrote it. Those are the sentences that usually get deleted during revisions. I recently had one of those, “Wow, I can’t believe I wrote that” moments.

Okay, tangent time . . . I don’t plot. Ever. Even when I think I know where the story is going, it doesn’t go there. For example, I just finished writing SUDDEN DEATH (4/09). About two weeks before I was done, my editor needed a synopsis for the two books that follow it (for sales, art and the copy editors.) They had to know what the books were about so they could write cover copy. (Okay, tangent again — I wrote a synopsis for SD before I wrote the book because they needed it . . . I didn’t expect the cover copy so soon, and I sort of forgot to tell my editor that the story wasn’t what I said it would be. The cover copy sounded terrific–except I hadn’t written that book. We fixed it.) Anyway, back to the first tangent . . . I still had 100 or so pages to write for SUDDEN DEATH and I wrote a new synop and figured I knew how the book was going to end, I was so close to the climax, right? I finished the book Thursday. It didn’t end anything like I thought it would. You can see that writing a synopsis is paralyzing for me because NEVER has a book turned out remotely like the synopsis.

I wrote a brief synopsis (about 3 paragraphs each) for FATAL SECRETS and CUTTING EDGE, books 2 and 3 of my FBI trilogy. Immediately, I knew book 2 wasn’t going to work. The characters were wrong, the premise was great–but the story would be boring. I could see it. I put myself to sleep just thinking about it. And then woke up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat fearing I was stuck writing a boring book. So I emailed my editor and said, um, don’t send FS to copy because I’m not going to write that book. It doesn’t work.

But I’m getting excited about book 3 because already I can see all the possible threads and potential outcomes. Within the short synopsis I laid out I can go in infinite directions. I like my characters, they’ve walked right in and made themselves at home. I see them. My villain creeps me out, always a good sign. The story doesn’t have to go the way I think it might, because the set-up works. I have many paths my characters can choose.

My “wow” moment came Thursday when my editor sent me the draft back cover copy. I read it and loved it. I wanted to read the book! Well, first I have to write it, but still, I couldn’t believe they extracted that cool story out of my pathetic synopsis. The copy is going to be hard to live up to.

I get thrilled very easily. I lead a very boring life. When you get excited about touring the morgue or going to the gun range to shoot guns you can’t buy in California (but it was okay, because they were cops letting us shoot them–I wasn’t breaking any laws, so please don’t turn me in. Okay, I did break one law last week when I talked on my cell phone not using the hands free device that I hate, but the kids were in the car and the story I was hearing was not fit for their ears . . . )

So, anyway, I’m rather simple. You probably won’t get any brilliant commentary from my blog posts or find me as crafty as Alex or laugh-out-loud funny as Toni or as poignant as Pari. I love wine like JT, but for me it’s either, “This is really good” or “This is crap.” I often start talking about one thing, and end on a completely different note . . . for example, I originally planned to introduce myself here on Murderati with a post about why I love to write romantic suspense. I even talked out my blog while driving home after dropping the kids off at school Friday morning. You can see from my opening, where I mention I write romantic suspense, that I did intend to come back to that at some point. But this is already running long and — wait!! I now have a blog topic next time. Woo hoo, I’m already ahead of the game. 🙂 And I didn’t even plan it.

I thought I would share a couple facts about me you may or may not know:

** I have five kids. (Yes, I know where babies come from and how they are made.)

** I’m a college drop-out. UC Santa Cruz. Yes, our mascot was the banana slug. . . . okay, stop laughing. Seriously. It’s not that funny. It’s actually quite weird and disturbing. But . . . I suppose I saw this fate in my future. When I was 10, a columnist for the San Mateo Times, John Horgan (who was my uncle’s college roommate,) wrote a column titled, “Allison and the Banana Slug.” Yeah, I was THAT Allison. The rest is history. Please rewrite it.

** I love video games. It’s sad. I’m going to be 39 this month.

** I wrote a gushing fan letter to Stephen King when I was 13 and he wrote me back.

** When I was a kid, I wanted to be a forensic pathologist. Why? Because Quincy was my favorite tv show. (Yes, I know it’s not realistic. There was never any blood.) When I did my morgue tour last year and observed an autopsy, I realized that I wasn’t as squeamish as I thought. Maybe I should have pursued that career path . . . naw.

In light of my virgin post here at Murderati, I’m going to give away some books. Why not, right? And I’m being perfectly selfish in my gift-giving. The last book of my prison break trilogy comes out at the end of the month. I want to suck you in with the first two books so you’ll run out and buy PLAYING DEAD on September 30th. See, I’m really not a nice person . . . just ask my fourteen year old daughter who thinks I’m evil, don’t care, don’t understand, and just plain mean because I won’t let her date until she’s 16. And sometimes I think it’s odd that my agent has to preface any conversation about me with, “Allison is really very nice, honest . . . “

To win, all you have to do is comment. And maybe tell us one thing we don’t know about you. I’ll randomly pick five winners over the course of the week and ask Toni (please!) to post them next Sunday.

Thanks, gang, for having me. I’m truly honored to be here.

Gustav and Me

by Alexandra Sokoloff

Thanks and sorry to everyone who was worried about me being in New Orleans (at Heather Graham’s Writers for New Orleans Workshop) last weekend while Hurricane Gustav was on its way. I didn’t mean to scare anyone!

I guess it must have seemed rash of me not to just cancel the trip, but I didn’t go blithely down to the workshop on Saturday when storm warnings were in effect – I wrote that blog on Wednesday, before anyone really knew where the storm was going to hit and at what strength, and I was committed to showing up at the workshop as long as it was still on – it would have left Heather in too much of a lurch to have all her speakers canceling on her.

As it turned out, we spent a lot of the time we did have down there watching the weather forecasts and listening to half the locals say that everyone was overreacting – at the same time that businesses all over the French Quarter were closing down and boarding up. Faux News was screaming gloom and doom, while the Weather Channel kept saying that no one would know anything until Monday. No one could really talk about anything else.

I have to say – earthquakes are less time-consuming. Really. Because there’s no build up. They hit, period, end of story, and then you deal with whatever the damage is. No one talks about them before, because you never know at all when or if they’re going to hit. Well, except for that anxiety that takes over native Californians when the winds are hot and dry off the desert – the infamous Santa Anas) and the ground seems to just bake under you. We call that “earthquake weather” and it makes anyone who grew up in the state jittery, even though there’s apparently no proven correlation between Santa Anas and earthquakes.

But with hurricanes, you know they’re coming, but you don’t know exactly where. It stops time and momentum. All you can do is talk about it, but no one really knows how bad it’s going to be. Having been through it now, I’m not a big fan of that tension, myself. It’s the damn back-and-forth that will kill you.

Anyway, those of us who decided to tough it out – including authors Harley Jane Kozak, F. Paul Wilson, Nathan Walpow, Dave Simms, Kathy Love, Erin McCarthy, Cathy Maxwell and Kathy Pickering; editors Kate Duffy, Leslie Wainger and Adam Wilson; Barbara Vey from Publishers Weekly, Medallion Press publisher Helen Rosburg – just went on with the show – rehearsal for Heather’s traditional Saturday musical (this year, “Pirates! A Fractured History of the Lafitte Brothers in New Orleans”, with songs like Louie, Louie, Smoke on the Water, Come Sail Away, and You’re No Good), an opening party featuring vampire band The Impalers at the Monteleone Hotel, then on to Helen Rosburg’s lavish Victorian party, upstairs at Muriel’s on Jackson Square – an old (and of course, haunted) New Orleans mansion preserved in period splendor – from formal rooms to red wallpapered bordello and séance rooms crammed with Victoriana, from red velvet love seats to erotic paintings to sarcophagi. Psychics were on hand to tell fortunes, a photographer was taking portraits of us in our Victorian garb (designed and built by the fabulous Connie Perry) in the bordello room, and people played charades in the parlor, while others ate at the multiple carving stations in the ballroom

After midnight (and changing out of poufy Victorian dresses) the party reconvened on Bourbon Street… with more Impalers… so to speak…

Even so, I got a decent six hours of sleep that night… er, morning… for which I was grateful, considering how the next day turned out.

Saturday the opening breakfast was served at the top of the hotel, a fabulous view of the Mississippi and a fabulous spread of food, and I was very grateful to have the chance to talk with legendary Kensington editor Kate Duffy at breakfast and confide my third book what-do-I-call-the-damn-thing title woes; she offered to help brainstorm, but when I told her the front-running choice was THE UNSEEN, she told me in Duffyesque pull-no-punches style – “But that IS the title. It’s eerie, it’s two words and nine letters” (she said without even blinking; she must have one of those calculator minds)… “It fits perfectly on a cover – why are you still looking?”

Then the program started, with bestselling authors F. Paul Wilson and Cathy Maxwell providing the featured chat over breakfast… and about half an hour into it the hotel manager interrupted to announce that Mayor Nagin had declared a mandatory evacuation and that the hotel was closing down. All tourists were asked to go to the airport (there were shuttles provided at another hotel) and our flights would be rescheduled to get us out early.

Okay, fine. We all knew this could happen. We knew we were headed for a freeway that looked like a parking lot and an airport that would look like a refugee camp, but it was so sunny and still… not like a hurricane at all.

The thing is, there were about 18 in our immediate party, half of that being Heather’s family, with two vans to accommodate all of us – and you know how it is getting a group that size to do anything, even when there isn’t a hurricane and a mandatory evacuation…

It was kind of fascinating what happened. We all were trying to pack at the same time that we were on our cell phones trying to get hold of our airlines to rebook flights and track down everyone else at the hotel, but the connections kept dropping, and there was an adrenaline charge to the whole thing… spaciness, fast compulsive talking, sudden outbreaks of tears. It wasn’t as if we were in any immediate danger; the major stressor was trying to decide if we should take our chances trying to get flights out of town at the New Orleans airport, which was apparently going to shut down completely on Sunday at 6, or drive out of town to some other airport to fly out from there. I didn’t like that idea myself, having seen endless news footage of what highways look like during an evacuation, but this was all new to me, so I busied myself collecting every available foodstuff and especially bottled water I could find in the hotel, since we’d heard that all the airport vendors had already closed down their shops and left.

It was an interesting four-hour ride to the airport (which is usually about a half hour trip from the Quarter), too. One hour was stopping at the ER of Tulane Hospital, as one of our party had developed a staph infection that had to be treated right away and we didn’t want to split up. That was a bit surreal, as all of downtown was completely deserted except for a few construction crews boarding up windows and a lot of emergency vehicles and National Guard. The upside is that there was no waiting in the ER, as no other patients were there. It was also hot as hell, with sun blazing down and no wind whatsoever.

On the freeway at last, it was, of course, a parking lot; the agonizing crawl only broken up once in a while by the scream of police escorts taking buses of prisoners out of town.

We had another hour detour on that ride when someone spotted a lone Burger King that was actually open and we spent an hour in that drive-through line (they wouldn’t let anyone inside the store) to get what might be the only hot meal we could get in the next 24 hours. All they had left were chicken nuggets, French fries and diet Cokes, but in evacuation panic mode we managed to get $150 worth of them. I didn’t know it was possible to spend $150 in a fast-food drive-through, but when we finally got to the airport the TSA guys joked that we should be able to get a dollar a fry inside (we didn’t actually try.)

I had already missed the last flight out that day on my airline (which I could have booked several hours before, but I’d had a feeling I wouldn’t get to the airport in time). Half of us were able to get out on standby, leaving about eight who’d have to fly out the next day, so we staked out some floor in the main terminal and set up camp for the night. All the vendors were indeed closed up except for the news shop, and we already really had all the junk food we could eat, but there were a few travel blankets and pillows to purchase. I built a little camp of suitcases for privacy (really mostly so that we wouldn’t get stepped on – people were uniformly dazed and spacy and weren’t very conscious of where they were going).

Toni Causey very sweetly called and, so typically of her, offered to come pick all of us up and put us up at her house in Baton Rouge, but there really wasn’t any danger, and it made no sense to have her or Carl try to drive hours down and hours back; we were all resigned to getting what sleep we could on the floor.

It was a long, noisy, crowded and COLD night – I must have piled every piece of clothing I had on top of me and I was still freezing from the AC, even with all of those people crowded nearby. Barbara Vey was fun to have around, the intrepid reporter – she blogged live, with photos, and way early in the morning when the National Guard showed up with MREs and water for the masses, she had Heather film her opening various MREs and showing off the contents. I reflected in between dozing (awakened periodically by National Guard patrols) that all in all it was less stress than I would have felt actually rehearsing and performing the “Pirates!” show, although I really regretted not being able to do the panels and my screenwriting tips for novelists workshop. I do know that we’ll just be that much more ready to do “Pirates!” next year, so that’s a plus.

I had more anxiety in the morning when I woke up to find that my flight had been delayed five hours – and as I waited I saw more and more flights on the board being canceled, not something you want to contemplate on 2 hours of sleep… and the airport was shutting down at six… which made me feel rather like Dorothy staring at that damned hourglass… But finally I did get on the plane, and it was an uneventful flight back. Or maybe there was a foiled terrorist takeover, I was too fast asleep to notice.

The real anxiety started when I was home obsessively watching CNN, wondering if New Orleans was done for this time. But as we all know by now… lots of damage, but nothing catastrophic, thank God.

We’re still waiting to hear how much damage our favorite Louisiana bookstore, Bent Pages in Houma, sustained – we heard Molly and Kay lost the roof and are worried. We’re all ready to fly down and do a benefit, though. Um, “Pirates!”, anyone?

Otherwise, as they say, all’s well that ends well.

Except that, right, Hannah is now headed straight for North Carolina. No beach this weekend, that’s for sure.

Oh well, you know… it makes a good story.

– Alex

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Starting this Monday, Sept. 8, THE PRICE is the featured horror title at DearReader.com, the online book club that e mails you about a chapter a day of a different book every week. You can sign up to get excerpts of books in all genres, here , and if you want to get your excerpts of THE PRICE, and a chance to win a free autographed copy, you can sign up here.

And will ‘Rati Catherine and RJ please contact me via alex@alexandrasokoloff.com? I need your addresses again to send you books. Thanks!

Writing Southern

by JT Ellison

Why do we write Southern?

When I chose to set my Taylor Jackson series in Nashville, I
had no idea what I was getting myself into. I love this town with an unmatched
passion. I love its dichotomies – the class structure, the allegiances, the
warped politics. I love the traditions and history of the city, the inside
jokes and very real sense of community. This is the kind of place where
strangers smile at one another when they are walking down the street, where
waitresses call you honey, where men still open doors and stand when a lady
enters the room. It’s old school southern, the real deal.

There’s just one problem.

I’m not southern.

I grew up in
Colorado, land of snowy winters and vast open skies. There was no such thing as
an ice storm, or kudzu, or pollen counts. “Y’all” wasn’t a part of the lexicon.
And then I moved to Washington, D.C., land of the transplant. So few
Washingtonians are actually natives, and outside of the political lingo, vernacular
doesn’t really exist.

But in Nashville, I was assaulted with a wide variety of
terms and phrases that left me agog with wonder. I picked up so much of the
phraseology that people can’t figure out where I’m from. I now have a tiny
little drawl, one that gets more pronounced after an adult beverage, to the
delight of my Nashville born husband. Strangely enough, he has no discernable
accent. He uses all the phrases, but has very little drawl to him. Most
Nashvillians have at least a slight twang, a way of emphasizing and drawing out
the vowels that screams “SOUTH” without being country.

The phrases were hard for me to master at first. Men call
you girl. Grocery carts are buggies. You don’t get in or out of bed, you get in
or out of “the” bed. You don’t take pictures, you “make” pictures. You don’t
plan to go somewhere, you’re “fixing” to go. You don’t want something, you’ve
been “wauntin that.” You don’t “try to,” get your work finished, you “try and.”
Oil is pronounced “ooll,” and people really do say “y’all” and “all y’all.”

Don’t even get me started on the cursing. One of my favorites is the ubiquitous "God BLESS!" the bless replacing damn. I can scream it in the garage when I smack my knee against the car door and not worry about offending my lovely neighbors. And when the University of Tennessee Volunteers start losing? The living room is filled with the strains of "Dad gum it!" Another great one is Dagnabit. Shoot, one of the all time best southerisms comes from Nascar. The commentator asked about the car, and the guy said, "Damn thing’s done tore slap up." Now THAT’S southern speak for you.

It’s utterly foreign and charming at the same time. But for
a non-southern speaker, it is an adjustment. After ten years, I almost have the
speech side of things down pat. I still have a few Midwestern Os that creep
into my speech, the flat, clipped vowels, but I’m getting better.

Translating the speech patterns to the page – well, that’s a
whole different story. You can imagine the inherent trouble of writing a book
that takes place in Nashville. For a writer, it’s vital to have the exact
inflection, the right wording, to make the characters come alive. That often
means using phrases in dialogue that aren’t remotely grammatically correct, but
are representative of how people talk.

I have to fight with the copyeditors every time, strangers
who’ve never heard our verbal communication. It’s distinct, and different. Yet
that’s how Nashvillians speak, and for me, altering their language is the worst
kind of sin.

If you’ve chosen to write about unfamiliar environs, it’s
that much more important to spend some time there. Or find someone who knows
the vernacular like the back of their hand, someone who can guide you through
the audio graphic mind fields. There’s just nothing better than truly
experiencing a setting in a novel through fully realized characters and their
authentic speech patterns.

Do you have a favorite author who writes in vernacular?

Wine of the week: 2005 Trapiche Broquel Bonarda

We had my book launch Wednesday night, a lovely evening with great friends, great music and great wine, plus lots of books. Acclaimed Nashville artist Anthony Billups created a one of a kind mixed media collage, a representation of 14, the book’s artwork and Nashville. We auctioned the piece off for Book ‘Em, my literacy charity. Here are a few pictures from the night, and from my signing at Davis Kidd Thursday. Thanks to everyone who came out!

Santa Tom, we’ll miss you!

We’ve Lost One of Our Own

A note from Louise Ure

To the many, many crime fiction writers who were touched by him:

I sorry to have to pass along the information that crime fiction reader and fan, Tom McGinn, died in Southern California on Tuesday, September 2.

You’ll remember him as the tall man with the Santa-like beard who came to all your signings at Mysteries To Die For, bought multiple copies of your books, and then had them autographed for each member
of his family. His wit and humor were legendary. His reading lists prodigious.

And you’ll remember him as fellow ‘Rati "Santa Tom" in his posts here.

He named a wide range of authors — from Ann Parker and Patty Smiley to David Morrell and Stuart Kaminsky as "his favorites."
I will remember him as the man who taught me that when you sign your emails with a host of hugs and kisses, Spellcheck will translate all those X’s and O’s as "tsetses."

Tsetses to you, Tom McGinn.

If any of you would like to send your condolences to his wife, Sue, please contact me at louiseure@aol.com and I’ll pass along the address.

Louise

Your Writing Community

by JT Ellison

We’ve talked about many aspect of the writing life, from what music we listen to to where our desk are in our homes to whether we’re desktop or laptop, Mac or Windows. Something we haven’t talked about in depth is your hometown writing community.