Lori Devoti, paranormal romance and urban fantasy author

I’ve had the opportunity to be part of a few online discussions with editors and agents lately and thought I’d share what I’ve learned.

First, as everyone knows, paranormal is hot. Vampires are hot, but there are too many of them out there right now - houses are overstocked. So, if you haven’t gotten in on this (vampires) trend yet, it may be a tough sale to hop aboard now. On the other hand, if you have a new creative paranormal hook, you may be the new golden child - get thinking!

Sex. Can’t have too much. Can’t be too wild - as long as there is romance there too. (and that probably doesn’t matter to all houses.) But on the other end of the spectrum you can still sell less steamy books even books with no sex. (That aren’t inspirationals, that goes without saying there is no sex.)

Historicals are really, really tough right now, especially American-set historicals. There are houses specifically looking for Scottish set and other European settings. Common wisdom is though that this drought won’t last forever and all it will take is a historical-set blockbuster movie or a new historical author hitting the NY Times list and houses will be clamoring for historicals again.

That’s it for now. Hope it helps someone. :)

On one of my loops, talk frequently turns to reveiws and reviewers. The comments vary from the “way to go girl” variety to the ever popular “ignorant cow.” And the more reviews I see, I have to wonder, do some reviewers get too caught up in analyzing the pieces of a book and miss the whole?

One of my friends recently shared with us a posting from a reader. Said reader “loved, loved, loved” her book. This same book was slammed to the point of bruising by a number of online sites. (yes authors bruise) Another author I know got some fairly mediocre reviews, but her book is selling gangbusters. What did these readers see the reveiwers didn’t?

If you read a lot of reviews, you start to notice patterns. Historicals get slammed for using the wrong title (as in His Grace, not book title). Things like goal, motivation and conflict are mentioned. Are these things your average book reader care about? I don’t think so. They care about the experience, how the whole book comes across. They aren’t sitting there with a working knowledge of The Hero’s Journey or The Perfect Historical’s Guide to Titles. They want to escape - to enjoy.

Look at The Davinci Code. How much was that slammed? How about just about any big seller similar to this book? They never do everything right. There is always a paper-cut-out character or an improbable plot point, but do most readers care? No, they are going along for the ride and loving it.

Now all of this rambling isn’t to say that we shouldn’t strive for good writing - the best we can do. I know I try to improve all the time. I see my flaws and try to improve them. But PLEASE don’t pass up a good book just because the hero wore the wrong kind of waistcoat for 1822. (Did they even wear wasitcoats? Probably not. Ah well…)

Note: This, of course, doesn’t pertain to all reviewers. Many do a fine job of giving an honest evaluation while keeping their reader hats firmly affixed to their heads.

First I came across an article on nonfiction chic lit. The art alone is plenty disturbing, not the fun/funny side of chic lit we all know and at least some love.

Anyway, I think it is prime example of how somethings are better left in fiction. This supposed trend to nonfictin chic lit is, well, a tad scary. I like chic lit, but I hope there aren’t really hordes of women out there living the chic lit life. Are there?

On the writing front, I’ve been reading the Donald Maass Writing the Breakout Novel book and workbook. At first I didn’t think there was going to be anything new in the book, but about half way through I started discovering some real pearls and I do think the workbook is going to be very useful.

The only thing I’m not sure of is how some of it fits with comedy. I need to think on this. The reason I say this is all the deep motivation, etc. Let’s face it a dead child in your past isn’t funny. Although I do have to say I loved Sweet Home Alabama and there was a miscarried baby in that backstory. But if you look at say Bet Me by Jennifer Crusie there isn’t any deep psychological pain there (just your normal I’m fat, and insecure and no one loves me pain most women have felt at some point) and actually the goals aren’t deeply driven needs, at least not compared to other romances. I sometimes wonder if all that painful past stuff we give our heros and heriones doesn’t start to wear thin.

What do you think? Do books have too much angst? Can a book be just as good without it?

How about the Breakout Novel books. Have you read them? Do you think they lend themselves more to drama? Or am I just tired and missing a major point?

Want to learn about possible career mistakes before you make them? Check out this great article on Joan Reeve’s site.

Just got the word that my second book, Pig in a Poke (working title), is now scheduled for May 2006 - one year after Love is All Around. I would be more disappointed by this except the date I had heard before was December 2005, and according to all sources, December is the worst month to have a book come out.
On the other hand, I really love Pig. So having it come out sooner would have been nice.
Ah well, onward…
Oh, if you don’t get my newsletter now would be a good time to sign up. I only send out four full fledged newsletters a year, and a few little holiday greeting things. Anyway, subscribers are automatically entered in my contests. For May I am going to give away a really nice hand-made oak basket full of all kinds of fun stuff. :)
Later!

USA Today had an interesting article on this topic. I really don’t think most readers understand the game behind the whole “best-seller” thing. It’s all rather shocking. Best-seller, that should the book that is selling the best, right?

Uh, yes and no.

Here’s the deal. The key isn’t how many books are sold overall, but how many are sold in a specified time period and in many cases only at very specific top-secret locations. Here is another article to check out. Now the idea, of course, is that this “sampling” of book stores will reflect the overall buying in the entire country. Do you believe it? Big book retailers like Wal-mart and grocery stores are completely left off the list. And then there is the fact that a “rush” for a certain title at one of the sampled stores could totally skew the data. This has happened.

But it doesn’t matter. The book is now a “insert title” best-seller.

In today’s world of information will this change? We certainly have the technology to get “real” numbers, and there is a service to do it now. Neilson introduced Bookscan in 2001. And even though it also misses some retail outlets (grocery stores, major discounters) it is based on “real” numbers at far more bookstores than the select sample most lists like the NY Times uses.

So, why don’t the big lists change too? Why not tell people what is really selling? Cause it’s a franchise. Right now there is a huge amount of prestige that goes with being a NY Times bestseller. If everyone converted to real numbers that franchise would be lost. Besides, those people know better than average Joe, right? Let them tell us what we should be buying, not what we really are.

for bad reviews, rejections, and the guy who cut you off on the interstate…
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