I would have been wrong.

Now there is good reason behind my previous thinking. More often than not I don’t remember the actual title to the last book I read. I remember characters or plot or author, but the title, especially with romances, tend to fade. And in a bookstore I don’t grab up a book for the title…cover yeah, but title? No way.

But the fact is titles can sell a book. They can sell it to an editor or an agent. They can sell it to readers. They can even sell it to Hollywood.  Here are a few examples of titles that I believe helped sell the book:

The Naked Duke

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

Eat, Sleep, Poop

Carpe Demon: Adventures of a Demon-Hunting Soccer Mom

Do any of these titles get your attention? They do mine and I guarantee they have helped the success of these books. Why? Because they are high concept. They in seven words or less grab your attention and tell you this book is going to be different while also playing on some concept you already know and love.

The known and popular, but fresh. It’s a killer combo and if you can relay it in a book title you have a very marketable gift.

Another thing about these titles is they all show contrast. They put the unexpected together. Think Duke. You think aristocratic, noble, if you are a romance reader, maybe alpha. You do not think naked. Pride and Prejudice? Well, before this book, your brain certainly didn’t go to zombies. Eat, sleep….fill in the blank. Love? No POOP. (Dreamworks by the way just picked up the rights to make this into a movie. A how to book being made into a comedy! I have to think the title helped that deal come to be.) And finally, soccer mom does not equal demon hunter.

None of these things go together and that is exactly what makes all of us go “Oh, I need to read that.” And that, people, is what makes them high concept.

The morning was excellent. There was lots of talk of digital publishing and where it is right now and how as it continues to grow it may change publishing. First right now numbers of what percent digital is of the total were varied from 2 to 4%. And everyone agreed predicting when this number would become big enough to have a real impact on the market depends mainly on what happens with readers and format–readers going down in price and formats becoming more standard. But even with the small percentage digital represents of the business right now, there was a lot of talk of what this will/could mean to both publishers and authors.

One thing mentioned was once digital is used by more people, the need for a publisher will or could go down. Publishers offer authors distribution (with digital this won’t necessarily have to go through a publisher), production (again something with digital authors could do on their own), marketing (lots of jokes about how publishers don’t really do this anyway) and editing. Editing seemed to be the thing some saw as what publishers could still offer. Personally, I think it is going to be more about marketing/vetting. With the wild wild west of self-publishing (once digital is widespread) people are going to be looking for some assurance of quality before they buy. The easiest way to get that is going to be knowing if you buy from a certain publisher (or other group) you will be assured some level of quality and a fair representation of what the book is before you buy.

There was also talk of how much more important a platform is becoming for a fiction writer. Platforms have always been important for non-fiction writers, but now and into the future when people have to search out your books online rather than stumble over them in a brick and mortar store this will be even more important. The problem is, it is much harder to build a platform as a fiction writer. Many authors do this by offering writing advice–but if you do that, who is in your platform? Other writers and not necessarily people interested in reading your fiction. I have my own ideas on how fiction writers can do this though, and honestly, I think it involves giving away some fiction. (This can be a hot topic with authors, but I’m on the give away side.) I have plans to do something with this idea in the near future…

Honestly, there was so much more, but I’ll move on to the afternoon.

Ann and I went up into the Arch. If you haven’t done this and are ever in St. Louis, you really should. The arch was completed in 1965 and the futuristic feel of the transport system feels like that. It is kind of wild. At the top you have a great view and yes, you can feel the arch moving.

After the arch we headed to Anheuser Busch. This is not what you may expect if you aren’t from St. Louis. The tour is at the original buildings where they still make/bottle/can beer today. The buildings and ground are gorgeous. It is kept up like Disney. The arts and crafts tile in the Bevo building are amazing. The Clydesdale stables are wild. I have pictures which I will post when I get back home. Oh, and at the end you get two free glasses of beer. I had the American Ale–a darker beer with a more bitter taste. It was excellent.

Dinner was at the Broadway Oyster Bar in Soulard. It’s a fun kind of place built to look a bit like a shack.

Then back to the night owls. Brenda Hiatt lead the discussion on market trends we see coming. Again talk of digital. Someone else mentioned cougar stories–which brought on a lot of groans. There was also a lot of chatter about what is happening in the Inspirational market. Sounds like that is a genre in transition. After that Kay Hooper lead a session on Feng Shui. It was interesting and while I am not a total believer I do agree that how you have your space set up can really effect your energy.

And then BED!!

Hope everyone has a fabulous weekend planned. More sessions for me today, lunch at Charlie Gittos, more sessions, group dinner….etc.

I’ll probably check in again tomorrow!

Now finding a agent who is not only good, but also good for you is a huge topic, but literary agent, Rachelle Gardner, has posted at least one thing every writer thinking of signing with an agent should consider… the author-agent agreement..

And I don’t think she mentions it in this article, but there is a second thing you need to ask to review before signing an agency agreement–the clause they will put in all of your publishing contracts. This is what tells the publisher things like the agent is authorized to receive your payments, but there can be other little hidden jewels in there that you will want to know about upfront. Because, trust me, if a publisher has made an offer on your book and you have a contract in hand–you will not want to have to start arguing with your agent about their inserted bit in that contract. Ask to read it upfront, before you even agree to go with an agency. Second tidbit to watch out for in this bit (probably no longer than one or two paragraphs) is an “in perpetuity” clause. Here is a good article on in perpetuity clauses and why you don’t want them.

Go forth and make good (for you) agent choices!

I have now worked with three different publishing houses and they all pretty much work the same way. We’re going to start this AFTER you have completed the book and it is sold.

The first step is revisions. My most extensive revisions were on my first book, but even those weren’t too terrible. Revisions can come though in the form of say a 20 page letter. The tough thing about revisions, no matter how minor, is getting past your initial gut reaction to pitch a fit. :) Thoughts like “if it is so bad why did they buy it?” are pretty common. At this stage it is wise to stay away from all forms of communication with anyone anywhere except maybe a trusted writing friend who understands your moment of temporary insanity.

So, you work all that out and send in the revisions. Life is good again.

Then come copy edits. Copy edits are after a copy editor has (in addition to your regular editor) gone through your book and made changes by marking on the manuscript manually. These changes range from grammatical to good Lord knows what. My favorite part of CEs (and I mean this sincerely) is the continuity check–things like pointing out your heroine had blue eyes on page 6, green on page 200 and brown at the end. But copy edits can be as painful as revisions. Like all things, there are good copy editors and bad copy editors. You can get a copy editor who doesn’t get you–or thinks all of your dialogue should be written like an English text book. Or in one personal instance deleted all of my scene breaks where a character point of view happened, making it look like I was a head-hopping fiend.

So, you have to re-read everything and decide which changes you like and which you hate. You write STET to keep things the way you had them and draw little lines, etc. to insert new bits you’ve decided you need. At this stage you can do those things; it is totally acceptable to add a full page of new stuff if you like.

You send off the pages you had quibbles with (not the whole manuscript) and life is good again.

Then about the time you are fully engrossed in some new project, galleys arrive. This stage is the only place where one of my publishers (Harlequin) does things differently. They don’t do galleys; they do something called Author Authorizations or AAs. Galleys look exactly like the final book will look, the pages the same size, the type the same size and set in whatever font it will be set. AAs are more like a manuscript page but with each line numbered. This is actually kind of handy because if time is short you can email back the changes with the page number and line number noted. You can do this with galleys too (because of time restraints that is what I’ll be doing with Amazon Ink), but it isn’t quite as smooth.

At the galley stage you can not add a new scene or delete three pages. Well, you can, but people are not going to be happy with you and can in fact charge you for that. Galleys are not for changes–they are for making sure the copy edits were done as you requested.

But, like copy edits, you have to sit down and read the whole thing again. Trust me, by this time you do not want to read this book again. And galleys are the worst because if you hate something major, you are probably stuck with it. (Which actually is good because whatever it is is probably fine and you are just psychoing out….)

After this, you are done. You do not ever have to read your book again, and for what it is worth I never have. I have never picked up one of my books in the completed, bound form and re-read more than was necessary for a reading at a bookstore. I have friends who re-read their books, but I like living in ignorance–the thing is done. I’d much rather read something brand new to me that I didn’t write. :)

Oh, but you do wait eagerly for those author copies (free copies of actual book that you negotiate in your contract) or ARCs (advance reader copies that are sometimes produced). I love getting those boxes!

Juno started in publishing in fall 2006. Editor Paula Guran will work together with Pocket’s Jennifer Heddle on the line. Pocket publisher Louise Burke says, “We’ve seen great growth in this category, are delighted to now have a dedicated line, and look forward to helping to cultivate a wider audience for Juno’s terrific roster of authors.”

Guran adds that “both Juno and fantasy readers in general will gain immensely by sales and marketing reach of Pocket Books and Simon & Schuster, while still getting the best of our editorial sensibility.”

this article on Borders not picking up a couple of well know SFF writers’ latest novels.

I know a number of authors who have had to change their names because of this. Some of them have been told to change their name and let no word that they are the author of the previous stinker leak out anywhere. In other words that previous name/author is dead, buried in the back yard of publishing with their stinky numbers (hopefully). I know of a book from a smaller publisher that wasn’t published AT ALL because the bookstore orders weren’t there to support it. Yes, the publisher could still have sold the book online, but it just wasn’t going to give them a big enough potential earning to make it pay.

This is just another unfortunate fact of publishing. And in case anyone thought it–it isn’t just Borders. They just happen to be the ones mentioned here. Target ordering or not ordering a book can have a HUGE impact on its success. It’s just that we expect bookstores to duh carry books. But have you been in a bookstore lately? Have you seen the inventory? It is overwhelming. We publish a hell of a lot of books in this country. It is darn hard to stand out.

So, what’s the answer? I don’t know–but you could go to Borderstores.com and order Gregory Frost’s book. (I was on a panel with him at Wiscon and he seemed like an upright guy.) That might show them there is a market for books they doubt. (Or another retailer if you prefer… BOOKSAMILLION.COM or Chapters or Amazon.)

And you can do that for every author you love–pull rather than push marketing. Meaning you search out the authors you love, to make sure they keep writing. Because in the sea of books, if you wait for them to be pushed at you…they may just disappear.

Edited to add: Also check out Tobias Buckell’s response to his book being skipped. Also looks like an upright guy–might add his book to your To be bought list. :)

I have until the end of next week to finish it, then I’m diving back into my next Nocturne. Its working title is Dark Destiny. I take a very bad character from Dark Crusade and make her good–tricky. I stopped writing on it for a while because I hit a big ole “this is so not working” snag. I think, thanks to some conversation with my sister and mother, I have that worked out. I’m going to toss it around with some friends this weekend too–then hopefully all will be straight in my head. It is really hard to write when you have that nagging knowledge that something isn’t right.

I’m also planning my big blog blowout event 30 Days of Vampires. I have a lot of guest bloggers and interviews set up. I’m also going to have prizes! One big prize and then probably a prize every Friday. Fun, fun, fun. Tell your vampire-loving friends.

And on a personal note, birthday parties are finally over here. They are fun, but time sucks. I will miss them though once the kids outgrow them.

Let’s see…there has also been a lot of talk around the Internet about what is going to happen in publishing due to the state of the economy. Here are my thoughts…in bad times I’ve heard romance sales actually increase. Now that may or may not be true this time, but I don’t think there is any reason to run around screaming the sky is falling. Also, side note–bookstore sales were UP in August. Again, may not hold true for future months, but another reason not to play chicken little. And finally, if the bad economy hits publishing, it hits publishing, but me sitting around worrying about it and projecting it will do nothing to prevent it and might actually make it worse. So, don’t be an Eeyore, CYA and move on. That is my motto on that.

Have a great weekend!!

I have five books in print, four more under contract, two short stories ready to be released and a novella. Kind of wild. I also just found out my next full-length Nocturne is scheduled for April. Which means two of those books (Dark Crusade, the Nocturne and Amazon Ink, urban fantasy) will be out in the spring. By this time the novella and both shorts will also be out and about. Even wilder.

So, does this make me real?

Being a writer is a weird thing. I tell people that is what I do, and they usually assume I don’t really have anything published, then when I say I have five books out they look at me like I’m from Mars. It makes me strangely uncomfortable, like I am impersonating someone. Very, very weird.

But there you have it, by spring I will be able to say I have seven books published–eight if you count my Holiday with a Vampire novella. Will I feel real then? Hmmm…maybe after ten.

Oh, and I got the Holdiay with a Vampire cover. I’m in it with Merline Lovelace. She is real.