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I was reading though For The Love Of Books (the Blog for Biblio) the other day and they had a great article on cleaning and repairing ex-library books.  Which, as they mention, is a great skill to have when you find books that are neat or interesting but don't necessarily have a great monetary value.  The day I find an ex-library Hemingway first I’m taking it straight to a specialist but in the mean time I shall pay heed to these valuable tips:

Then they go on to describe some products and tricks for restoring dust jackets...

If you want more information on book care AbeBooks has an interview with Brodart Book Supplies and Littera Scripta also has a pretty good summary on book care. 

If any of our readers have done any book restorations themselves and have before and after photos I would be most interested in seeing what an armature restoration job can accomplish.

[Now reading: Enders Game by Orson Scott Card]

Question of the day: Can you talk about the best way to go about asking authors for blurbs? How do you approach them? When is the best time in the process to do so?

This is a timely question for me, as I'm sitting here typing this with a stack of ten or so to-be-read-for-potential-blurb manuscripts and galleys on my desk. Sigh. I feel soooo badly that I haven't had time to read them all, but given where I am with my manuscript, it hasn't been possible. BUT, now that I've been on both the asking and the being-asked end of this question, I do think I have some insights.

First, I can't and won't blurb a book that hasn't been sold. A lot of authors feel this way, and there are several reasons for it. To begin with, as noted above, I have a long pile of books that HAVE been sold, and truth told, I just don't have the time to read a manuscript that might not see the light of day. That sounds terrible, I know, but it's honest. And I think understandable. Second of all, agents and editors advise authors not to blurb anything that hasn't yet sold for legal reasons: if the manuscript never sells and the author THINKS he sees something similar in your next book, who's to say that said author won't raise a stink about plagiarism, stolen ideas, etc? Again, I know, very unlikely, but people can do very weird things when they don't fulfill their dream and see someone else doing it, and it's not a chance worth taking.

So, let's say your manuscript sells. Hurrah! Congrats to you! What now? Well, once you have a finished ms, you can certainly start sending out notes to your favorite authors. If you're not in the galley stage, however, this means one of two things: that the author, if she agrees to read, will receive a bound copy of the ms (sort of like a bound term-paper/thesis that you might have made at Kinko's in high school or college) or the author will receive a 300-page print out of your book, akin to a loose ream of paper. You can guess which ones get relegated to the bottom of the pile. I do my reading at night or on the subway or in hit or miss places where I might find a few spare minutes. I simply cannot carry around loose pieces of paper, not to mention that it feels much more like homework than pleasure reading when you're reading a literal print-out.

BUT, sometimes, you can't avoid that, and it is what it is. If you really want an author, it might be worth asking, even if she receives a 10-pound lug in the mail. Most often, however, I'd simply advise that you wait until the galley stage. Yes, it's soooo wonderful and joyous and perfect to have blurbs on your galley, but unless you personally know an author, I really wouldn't have an expectation that she'll read those 300 loose pages.

How do you ask? You send a very, very polite email to said author, explaining why you'd like HER to blurb, why you think the book might resonate, and of course, being very, very understanding if she can't. I'd also make note of the fact that blurbs aren't obligatory, and when I was asking for blurbs, I never, ever assumed that someone would like my book OR would have the time to read it. If one did, bingo! And if she didn't, there were no. hard. feelings. You should also leverage your agent and editor contacts: they might rep or work with authors who are good fits and with whom they have an in. Authors always feel more obligated to read a ms if there's a connection.

Finally, don't take it personally if you don't receive a coveted blurb from a particular author. I can honestly say, now that I'm on the other side, that I am so, so busy, and I am trying to bust my way through all of these, but a realistic voice in my head also knows that's not going to be possible. I used to think: how hard is it to read one lousy book? But it's never one lousy book; it's a lot of them, along with juggling my own work, my own life, and ideally, my own reading for pleasure.

I'm also trying to be judicious: there are authors who blurb just about anything, and I don't think that's fair to readers. I'd like to think that I'll be someone who readers can count on to be honest in my endorsements, so if I don't fall in love with something, I just don't feel right tacking my name on. It's not personal. Hell, plenty of people didn't blurb me. And I get that. It made the ones that we DID get all the more sweet. And that's not to say I wouldn't go back to these authors and ask again next time. But when and if I did, I'd keep in mind their own looming tower of to-be-read manuscripts, and I'd recognize that one blurb won't make or break my book. Really. You won't believe it now, but looking back on it, I promise you that it's true.

Question of the day: Why didn't you try to be the screenwriter for Time of My Life? Do you care that someone else is writing it?

I get asked this question a lot, and to begin with, I didn't even entertain the idea of adapting TOML. For a few reasons: 1) I had no idea how to write a screenplay. I'm sure I could have learned, but at the time, it felt like selling the book was enough. 2) The various producers who were looking into acquiring the project weren't interested in using me, or so I assume. Producers like to vet their own "talent," work with people who have reputations or experience they're aware of, and I totally respect and understand that. And 3) the stakes were just too high. Selling this project and getting it made mattered to me personally but also, let's be honest, mattered (and matters) to my career. I didn't want to mess around by either not landing the producers we wanted or producing a screenplay that wasn't up to par. It was just too important that everything came together seamlessly, more important (to me) than writing the script.

So I guess, to answer the latter question, I don't care AT ALL that someone else is drafting it. To begin with, I totally trust the producers - I met with them several times, and my vision is very cohesive with their vision. But, that said, even if it weren't, it's a win for me to get this made, period. Even if the movie were total crap (which I don't expect it to be), that's no reflection on the original book. The book stands as it is. THAT was my work. The rest is gravy. A bad movie still sells more copies, a bad movie still raises awareness of the book. Beyond that...I don't feel any real ownership. I mean, don't get me wrong, I love this book, and I love the characters, but whether or not they're perfectly translated on screen...well, I have other things to worry about. (Really, I do!) I mean, sure, are there some actors who I might not want playing these roles? Well, yeah! But the fact that ANY actors are playing them is enough for me.

For now.

For the next book, if we're lucky enough to sell it, yeah, I might be interested in tackling that script. But I'm at a different point in my career than I was when we sold TOML, and I feel more confident with that challenge. And if they opt for someone else? That will likely be okay with me too. The good news is, is that by then, I'll hopefully have moved on to my next book, and with that one, there's always more possibility for another movie and another challenge and another option to write a screenplay...not to mention new characters who promptly make me forget the old ones.

Would you guys be okay letting your work fall into someone else's hands or do you think you'd be concerned over the implications?

Did you guys see this article in the New York Times on writer advances? I've mentioned a lot of the info before, but it's a very thorough piece and well worth reading.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/12/books/review/Meyer-t.html?_r=1

Question of the day: Do you feel the current state of the economy is dictating what books are being published? For instance, my second novel is about a mother caring for her adult daughter who suffers from a chronic illness. I am struggling to find an agent for it, although all my rejections are personal. You were able to write about cancer and yet didn't scare away agents, why is writing about diseases now so taboo? Everyone says that my writing is great, yet they say that the subject matter is a tough sell right now. Arrgh!! I wanted this to be my break-out novel and it's not breaking anything but my heart. I've written a third novel in the meantime and my publisher is gobbling it up, but I had hoped to have an agent by now to help me. What would you do, wait to see if the second book can find an agent or go ahead and sign the papers on the third book even though I'm sure the contract will be bad? Do desperate times call for desperate measures or is patience a virtue on this one?

I'll offer a third suggestion: since your newer book is the one that's generating the heat, why don't you shop that one around to agents? I wouldn't sign a contract that I know is going to be crappy, but an agent can certainly take a crappy contract and make it a better one, AND, hey, you never know what other offers an agent could get you. If your previous manuscript just isn't getting the job done, set it aside, and you might discover that as time goes on, your wound will mend...especially if you sell the next one. :) And once you've sold the other one, who knows, maybe it will open doors for the one you have your heart set on right now.

I think the key is not to get too, too, too invested in one manuscript, such that it can divert the trajectory of your career. A lot of us have had that ms, the one that we poured every ounce of ourselves into and that ultimately didn't sell, but I'll tell you what: I am so grateful that I didn't get hung up on that specific ms and that I moved on from it, because if I hadn't, my career would be DOA right about now.

As far as the first half of your question, I'm going to devote a separate post to it because I think it's a worthy discuss to have in and of itself.

Good luck and hang in there! BTDT. Other readers who have BTDT, can you weigh in and help her out?

Question of the day: Was it difficult to create relationships with editors at magazines, and thus, create work through said relationships?

Hmmm, well, I guess it depends on your definition of difficult. :) The reason I say this is because creating these relationships is sort of like establishing your freelance career: they happen over time and eventually snowball, but there are a lot of factors that are going to contribute to your success (or lack thereof).

The first thing you have to remember is that you're going to have to be persistent. If you don't hear back (which you likely won't) from a query, follow-up, follow-up, follow-up. If you have other ideas for an editor if she passes on your initial query, send them, send them, send them! Too many aspiring mag writers give up on an editor, and while sure, sometimes you should, many times, you shouldn't. You have to keep pitching until you find something that sticks.

From there, once you land the assignment, you need to nail it. By that I mean that you need to consider her instructions and deliver what you promised you would. Without careless fact-checking errors and typos and all of those easily-correctable mistakes that look sloppy. Your job as a writer is not just to hand in a great piece but also to help make your editor's job easier. Yes, I know this sounds sycophantic, but I don't mean you have to turn yourself into a slobbering servant, but yeah, you need to ensure that the piece really is the very best that you could make it.

After that, you need to be amenable to reasonable edits. These days, yeah, I hear about some ridiculous requests for revisions and no, you are not a doormat, but I consider two rounds of revisions fair game (this is just my opinion, of course), and even if the questions and red-lining are driving you crazy, that's part of the deal, and you'd be wise not to let your editor know. When I was really in the thick of my mag writing, I really did pride myself on the fact that there was very little editors could or would ask of me that I couldn't get done. And I think they knew this, which is part of the reason I was a go-to writer. (I am not talking about those last-minute 10PM "we need a total overhaul by tomorrow" requests, which I perhaps would conveniently not reply to until a reasonable hour the next morning. I'm talking about what I considered fair requests even if they were annoying and pains in the ass.)

Finally, I made it a point to be friendly with my editors. Not everyone is comfortable with this, but for me, it was only natural. I knew about their kids, I knew about their outside interests. And I really think it benefited me - not in a selfish way, like I was learning about their lives only to land work - but because it made our collective experience working together a hell of a lot more fun and enjoyable. You're a lot less likely to get irritated with an editor (or conversely, a writer) if you genuinely like her, and I really did (and do) like the majority of my editors, and I think they felt the same way. We enjoyed working together, partially for the reasons mentioned above (i.e, I worked my tail off for them) and partially because we had something in common other than the 750 words we were working on together.

So, all in all, was it hard? As you can see, yes and no. I also found that if I did good work for one editor, she was always happy to refer me to another, and from there, an entire network of business contacts AND friendships have been built. But it takes time and hard work. But yeah, it's entirely doable, in my opinion.

What about you guys out there? Easy or hard to build those relationship?

Every red blooded bibliophile will eventually admit that at one point they have dreamed of owning, or at least working, in a bookstore.  The idea of getting to spend ones days bustling though the smell of the stacks, handling old books, and being able to recommend a book that makes the customer’s week are a fanciful notion.   But is this actually how it happens, or is it just the romantic fantasy we bibliophiles hold on to about the professional bookseller.

If you ever wanted to know what it was like to work in a bookstore but aren’t ready to jump in head first here are a few reads that might help paint the picture for you.

Top 10 books about bookselling 

1.Books: A Memoir by Larry McMurtry
Larry McMurtry’s novels are barely mentioned. They just don’t seem that important to him. Books: A Memoir is a book about being a bookman, being a book scout, being a used bookseller. Countless authors stress the importance of literacy and bang on about how books must never die, but how many open bookstores and get their hands dirty at the sharp end of this business – flogging used books?

2.The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop by Lewis Buzbee
In The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop, a Book Sense selection, Lewis Buzbee celebrates the unique experience of the bookstoreé  He shares his passion for books, which began with ordering through the Weekly Reader in grade school to a fascinating historical account of the bookseller trade—from the great Alexandria library to Sylvia Beach’s famous Paris bookstore, Shakespeare & Co. Rich with anecdotes, The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop is the perfect choice for those who relish the enduring pleasures of spending an afternoon finding just the right book.

3. The King's English by Betsy Burton
Burton opened her bookstore in Salt Lake City in 1977, and this book explains the trials and tribulations of running an independent bookstore.  From competition from national chains, censorship under the Patriot Act, strange twists in reading tastes, and even stranger tastes in visiting authors whose lists of demands read like those of rabid rock stars.

4. The Haunted Bookshop by Christopher Morley
Unlike the previous suggestions The Haunted Bookshop is a novel set in Brooklyn just after the end of World War I.  The story juxtaposes a pair of middle-aged bookshop owners and two young lovers with a nest of German saboteurs, but more importantly for this list, the novel has a great insight into the bookseller’s trade.

5. Sixpence House by Paul Collins
This is Paul Collins account of his move, with his family, to the Hay-on-Wye book town (1500 residents and 40 bookstores) from San Francisco and the adventures he finds there.

6. Bookstore: The Life and Times of Jeannette Watson and Books & Co. by Lynne Tillman
The behind-the-scenes story of one of America's greatest bookstores, narrated by Lynne Tillman and the customers, employees, and famous writers who frequented it.

7. An Alphabetical Life: Living It Up in the World of Books by Wendy Werris
This book is another memoir in the life of books and bookselling.  Werris got her start in 1970 selling books at Pickwick Bookstore in LA.  She talks about her time with small presses and independent bookstores. 

8. A Gentle Madness: Bibliophiles, Bibliomanes, and the Eternal Passion for…  by Nicholas A. Basbanes
Not directly about Bookselling per say but any conversation where books about books are talked about Nicholas Basbanes will eventually come up.  Basbanes has written no less than eight books about books, book collecting, bookstores, libraries and book culture and his works provide a great insight into the world in which booksellers live.

9. Shakespeare and Company by Sylvia Beach
In 1919 Sylvia Beach "opened an American bookshop in Paris called Shakespeare and Company.  The shop became a publishing house for a majority of The Lost Generation.  This book talks about how this little shop came to publish James Joyce`s opus Ulysses.

10. Left Bank waltz : the Australian bookshop in Paris by Elaine Lewis
Elaine Lewis left her home in Australia to open the first Australian book shop in Paris.  Elaine hosted events, book readings and encouraged an exchange of ideas and a love of literature, as well as midnight swims in the Seine! But when some bumbling and nasty French bureaucrats threatened to close down the shop, Elaine and her many staunch supporters were faced with a battle against the establishment that quickly became stranger than fiction Left Bank Waltz is the spirited story of an Australian woman's courageous decision to follow a dream

... I didn't include them on this list since they are not about bookselling per say but there is also a neat series of detective novels by author and bookseller John Dunning about a bookseller and ex-policeman named Cliff Janeway who solves crime.  Start with Booked to Die and work your way though the series.

Question of the day: Recently on the Dystel & Goderich blog there was a post that bemoaned the fact that agents are having a difficult time getting editors to read their submissions. I'm wondering if other agents are finding this also. Excerpt from DG blog: "Has EVERYBODY stopped reading? This last week a senior editor at a major publishing house received a proposal from us and rather than read it at all, she simply looked up other books in the category and decided that since they hadn’t sold, it wasn’t even worth reading one word of this author’s work. In another, rather shocking instance, a publisher of a very good house turned down material I had submitted saying that the fiction market was extremely difficult these days. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I read the note – the material I had submitted clearly stated that it was a memoir."

Well, I'm not an agent, but I do chat with my agent regularly, and from what I can tell, it's not that people have stopped reading, it's that acquiring has certainly slowed down, and thus, unless an editor really believes that what he/she is about to take a look at is really going to be worth her time, she's not going to devote said time to it.

One thing that is definitely happening right now, given slow book sales and the whole gloom and doom economy is that fewer books are getting bought and those books that ARE getting bought are selling for a whole lot less than they would have a year ago. I definitely even saw this when we sold The Happiest Days of My Life. Yeah, I got a very nice-sized advance, and trust me, I'm not complaining, but numerous parties involved noted that in a different environment, it would have been an even nicer-sized advance. But again, I'm not complaining. I'm happy to have had a healthy offer and a guarantee of a published book than nothing else, and yeah, these days, plenty of authors who would otherwise have a shot aren't getting them.

So are editors reading less? I'm sure. Because they're buying less. That's the real root of the problem here. Sort of like how in better times, I'd immediately open shopping emails (i.e, J. Crew) in my inbox just to see if there might be something that catches my eye. Now? I rarely bother because I'm not going to spend the money on something that I really don't need.

That said, I'm sorry that you got that "fiction" rejection for your memoir. That does feel sloppy and dismissive, but regardless, it's a "no" all the same, and I'd just try to forget about it. I don't know, maybe it's better to hold off on submissions until things are on the upswing? What do you guys think?

Question of the day: Do you have to have connetions to get an agent? It feels like everyone who lands an agent has some sort of in.

Huh. This question has popped up a few times as of late in my inbox, and it surprises me every time.

For the record, I had absolutely no connection to my agent when she signed me. And I can think of several friends for whom this is also true. Do connections help? Absolutely. Referrals are a great way to get your foot in the door (though no guarantee), and obviously, sure, if you know someone who knows someone try to milk that. But what matters at the end of all of this is whether or not you've written a strong manuscript. And even BEFORE that, what matters most critically is how kickass your query letter is. I cannot stress this enough.

A friend recently sent me a query letter, and I suggested a few tweaks which he totally implemented. He sent me the revision, and it totally rocked. And from what I've heard since, he's had a lot of success in agent interest because of that inital letter. It was witty, biting, interesting and made you want to read the rest of the ms. You have to GRAB AGENTS FROM THE VERY FIRST SENTENCE, because if you don't, even if the rest of your letter is the most incredible thing they'll read, they likely won't even make it that far: there are too many other queries in their inbox.

So how did I land my agent? I wrote what I think is a kickass query letter (which I'll try to find and post at some point). It generated a lot of interest, and I was fortunate to have a selection of all very good agents. No connections. No referrals. No calls on my behalf. My letter spoke on my behalf, and you can be damned sure that since I was sending it out into the world as a representation of my work, it was awesome. End of story.

Other authors: did you find your agent via connections or all on your own?

So my agent called me the other day to discuss some business and she proposed this topic for the blog, so I want to thank her for today's fodder! We were chatting about how brutal the current market is and how everyone's expectations have had to change about not only what you should expect for an advance, but whether or not your book is going to sell at all in the current climate.

It got me thinking because as of late, I've heard from a few friends that they've received less-that-stellar offers for their manuscripts, and they weren't sure how to proceed: do you turn down a lowball bid knowing that it might be your only chance at getting published (for this book, at least) or do you hold out for something better, either a better offer or a better time to shop it around, because you suspect that the book is worth more and you further suspect that this shoddy offers aren't going to help your book make much of a splash?

It's a tricky thing to consider, and I suppose that it all depends on what you can and can't afford financially, and what your expectations are in terms of sales, attention, and doing a lot of the work on your own. As someone who did walk away from middling offers (for the book I wrote between The Department and Time of My Life), I have ABSOLUTELY no regrets about it. But it was a different time in the industry: the middling offers indicated to me that I had to write a bigger, better book...so I figured out a way to do that and promptly wrote TOML. But now, that isn't always the case: some of these lowball offers are simply what publishers are willing to offer period. Whether or not your book has breakout potential. So again, the question becomes, do I settle for this or do I hold out?

I don't really have any answers...I just thought it made for good food for thought. As I've discussed here before, whether or not folks like to hear it, it is very, very difficult for a book to break out if it's been sold for a low advance. This has nothing to do with the quality of the words inside, rather the attention and marketing money that will be devoted to it once it's in the publishing assembly line. But is it better to release a book that doesn't go gangbusters than release no book at all? The easy answer is, "Of course," until you consider that your future advances will be based on previous book sales...and if your book hasn't sold like crazy, well, your advances will remain low. It's a catch-22, a vicious cycle. And I don't really have the answers.

The best thing that I think you can do is trust your gut (I did when I turned down the three or four lower offers that middle book) and listen to your agent whom you hopefully trust as much as your gut. He or she should be able to give you an honest assessment of what your expectations should be with whatever advance you're receiving, and then you have to decide how that fits into your overall career game plan (and current financial needs). It's not pretty out there right now, but hopefully, with some smart strategizing, we can all make it through,

So what say you guys? Is it better to be published, even if your book doesn't make a huge splash, or do you turn down the low advance and hope for something better in the future?

Question of the Day: Is there a difference between "commercial women's fiction" and "chick lit"? I think the novel I'm writing could fit into either category; i.e., it's the funny/sad/triumphant story of three young women figuring out their spot in life (and running a marathon-- shout out to a fellow runner :). They're single and young in a city, albeit Pittsburgh rather than NYC. I've thought of it as "chick lit"-- I embrace the term, actually, but I know to many it carries a stigma. Plus, my story contains more Nikes than Manolo Blahniks, and I've heard that the Chick Lit trend peaked a few years ago. When I'm ready to pitch the book to an agent, which term do you think I should use? Does it matter? Do you deliberately avoid the "chick lit" categorization in your own writing?

Great question. (Or questions.) I'll start by addressing the first question: is there a difference between CL and commercial women's fiction? And the answer, in my mind, is slightly. But before I get into this, I want to say that I think they're both equally great and that the only people who really delineate between all of the various categories are INDUSTRY folks, not consumers, and at the end of the day, it's the consumers who matter. But, yeah, when pitching your agent, I suppose it matters how you categorize it, if only to boost its appeal to said agent. And then, once signed, it matters how your agent pitches it to editors and then, once bought, how the marketing and cover design people perceive it, because all of these interpretations help shape the final presentation of your book to the buying public...but...still, I don't think consumers walk into bookstores and think, "Gee, I want to buy a commercial women's fiction book today." Does that make sense? What I'm saying is that these categories matter, but they are not the holy grail.

Anyway, in my opinion, the difference between CL and CWF - and this is just the general perception, and again, I'm certainly not taking away from either - is that CL is slightly less weighty. Breezier, less grave subject matter, if you will. I don't even know that the married vs. single thing matters so much anymore - I think it's more about the overall plot and the issues it addresses. I also think that CWF can skew a little more literary, though this definitely isn't always true. Think of it this way: my first book, The Department of Lost and Found, was classified as CWF, though I've seen plenty of folks call it chick lit. I don't really care what people call it, as long as they buy it. :) But it was classified as CWF because of the gravity of its primary plot device: cancer, and because it was deemed slightly more literary than your classic beach read.

These days, certainly, CL gets a bad rap. The industry bought so many CL books a few years back that they oversaturated the market, and ended up publishing a lot of not-so-great reads, even though there were plenty of great ones published at the same time. And yes, there's still a market for it - just look at the trade paperback new release rack at your bookstore. But some agents will cringe at the term because so many insiders have said that the CL market is dead. I don't think it is. I think they've just repackaged a lot of these books - Emily Giffin, Jane Green - they're great writers who are called both CL and now, CWF, and really, does it matter? And do I write with one in mind? Definitely not. I write with the voice that I find suits my characters and my story best. That the industry has deemed this CWF is just fine with me because I adore my covers and the support I've gotten with marketing, etc, but I write what I write, as well as I can, the end.

But, that said, I have read a lot of editors saying that they're more apt to buy CWF (again, because of perception, whether or not they're the same thing as CL), so I might use this term in your query letter. Not because one is better than the other, in terms of writing (I just want to be clear on this, because I have plenty of friends whose work I admire who write CL), but because the industry is in such disarray right now, that I think agents might find any reason to pass on your query letter and the term CL might be it.

Of course, what REALLY matters in your query letter is a strong voice, an engaging plot and a few sentences that leave the agent wanting for more. The rest? Not nearly important.

What say you readers? How would you advise her?

So today, I'm over at Writer Unboxed talking about why I don't think that the gloom and doom of both the industry and the economy are entirely bad news for publishing. In fact, I think a few positives can come out of it. Warning: I know that not everyone is going to like what I have to say, and I'm open to healthy debate. No problems. :)

Check it out here: http://writerunboxed.com.

So So I am ONE WEEK away from publication (ahhhhhhhh!!!!!), and it's been an interesting contrast compared to the first time around. I was mulling this over this weekend, and at the risk of sounding a wee bit crude, your first time being published is a bit like your first time doing something else, ahem, if you know what I mean. It's exhilarating and nauseating and a little painful and and you're not sure what the hell you're doing and you want to call everyone you know and tell them about it. The second time? Well, you hope you're a smarter and a little better all-around. Know what I mean?

So, here's where I am. I am trying my very, very best to be fairly zen about the whole experience. Which, of course, I can't be, but I can be a little more zen than last time, though, really, that's not hard since I was a frenetic tornado the last time around. What you learn through your first experience is that so much of a book's success is out of your control. It's hard to understand this before you've been published. It's hard to recognize that even if you've written an amazing book or written a book that you think really should connect with audiences or written a book that your mom thinks should land you on Oprah, what really affects a book's success often has very little to do with what you've written.

Okay, wait, I'll take that back. Don't throw tomatoes. What I mean is that, of course, it helps if you write a universally-appealing, well-prosed, well-praised book. Of course. But plenty of mid-list authors have done just that - just ask them or look at their reviews - but that doesn't mean that they sold all that well. (This is a depressing fact. Consider how many books are in Barnes and Noble, and then consider how many of them you've actually heard of. The rest of them are considered mid-list: they sold decently, though not great, and no one's career took off because of them.) This is the stomach-churning reality that a second-time author understands. You can promote the hell out of your book, and it might not matter. You can tap-dance naked across the country, and it might not matter. You can send out emails and get small bites of press and beg everyone you know to tell everyone they know to buy the book, and it might not matter.

On the other hand, it might. But, again, this is what a second-time around author understands. It's not that I don't hope for all of the success in the world; of course I do. But I also understand that what matters now is left up to my publisher - saturating stores with the book, buying good co-op space, pushing the book into notable reviewers' hands - and the press - if a big-name magazine or paper runs a review, it will change the trajectory of both my career and the book. I don't have a whole lot to do with any of the above things.

So now, I'll try to breathe. I'll try not to check my Amazon numbers or wonder why my BN.com number shot sky-high this past weekend or search the web for reviews. I don't know if I'll really be able to be as zen as I'd like to be, but I also know that last time, all of my obsessing didn't do anything other than drive me bananas. We'll see how well I do...I'll keep you posted. :)

First time authors - how did you deal with your book's launch? Second-time (or more) authors - what did you do differently?

I got via Jonathan Lyons this awesome series of posts by Sarah Weinman over at Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind. Sarah has basically gone and done all the research on all the major houses and put forth descriptions of all their imprints and what they do.

Call this your agent cheat sheet.

Part I: Macmillan
Part II: S&S
Part III: Hachette
Part IV: HarperCollins
Part V: Penguin Group
Part VI: Random House

(Be forewarned: this isn't everyone. There are a couple of huge houses missing, and this doesn't even try to cover distribution systems or unaffiliated indies. But this is a great intro to how we, in publishing, kind of see ourselves, and also, in Sarah's unsparing words, to just how ridiculous some of our interior systems are. Definitely worth reading, since knowing the biggies is a jumping-off point to understanding the whole thing. If anyone actually does.)

Before you thoroughly study these lists, though, try a little experiment (this, I think, is especially helpful for people who either want to be published or work in publishing). Ready?

1) Go to your bookshelf.

2) Pick out your 10 or 20 favorite books and put them in a rough order.

3) Turn them all spine out.

4) Notice any themes? Is there a particular imprint that occurs again and again?

I know there's a theme to my bookshelf. It's very funny. I realized by turning my books spine-out what three of my dream jobs would be... and also three of my dream imprints to have publish my book (you know, when I get around to writing one, har har).

Tell me! What are your top three?

Question of the day: I'm still in college, but graduating soon with my degree in Creative Writing. All I've ever wanted to do was write, and my plan has been to start small with submitting stories and trying my best to get published, then work my way from there. Right now I write for my college's newspaper and have been published by them several times. My post-graduation plan is to try finding a full-time job in publishing and write when I can. My main question is, in your opinion, is that the right course I should take, or rather, what do you think the best course might be when my main goal is to just write? Of course I need a job, which I have, but I want to get into the editing field. I would love to edit stories and such, so I guess I'm wondering what options someone like me has at this point in time.

I think that it sounds like you have an excellent plan and also, an excellent background. I started in PR after college, so maybe some others here can chime in who went right into magazines, but from everything I know, you're on the right track.

I've been asked before from new grads if there's a chance if they can make it right away in the freelancing world, and the cold, hard truth is that I think it would be very difficult. There are so many established writers who are also circling around the same magazines that there is just very little chance that an editor will send a lucrative assignment, as a newbie, your way.

So instead, go out, get that editing job, hone your skills even more, collect great clips (which it sounds like you're already doing), and pull together a great portfolio. In addition to building both your writing and that portfolio, you'll also meet a ton of other up-and-coming editors - you'll all move to and from different magazines, go to the same parties, run in the same circles. And these contacts will prove invaluable once you're ready to head out on your own. I think - and this is just an educated guess - that editors who start at magazines and leave to freelance probably have a much easier time breaking in and staying in the game than total outsiders.

So I think that you're definitely on the right track. Keep at it! Remember that things snowball in this industry, and while you might be chomping at the bit to write, write, write, (or at least get paid for that writing!), all good things come to those who wait. And from the sound of it, good things are headed your way!

Anyone out there get a magazine gig right out of college? Want to chime in with advice for our reader?

So today, I'm happy to mention a new book that comes out this week: Confessions of a Contractor by Richard Murphy. I don't really know Richard, but his galley was passed to me by a mutual friend, and I really enjoyed it. Head out to your local store or to Amazon and pick up a copy today!

What I found interesting about Richard's book (among other things) - and what I'm finding more and more these days - is how appealing a man's writing can be to a woman. In fact, some of my favorite writers these days - Jonathan Tropper, Tom Perotta, Nick Hornby, Larry Doyle, Joshua Ferris - are men, and I think that Richard's book falls well into the same category of these aforementioned authors. All of their books transcend gender lines, and some, in fact, might even been aimed slightly more AT women than at men. (For example, Tropper's How to Talk to a Widower was widely read by a lot of female friends I know.)

But when I thought about the flip side- do men read works by female writers - I started to think that maybe this is a one-way phenomenon. Am I crazy? I can't ever imagine seeing a guy pick up a book by Jennifer Weiner or Emily Giffin or even less-chicky writers like Jodi Picoult. (Well, maybe Picoult. Maybe.) Yes, there's a huge category - women's fiction, duh - devoted to female writers and their readers, but there really isn't such a thing for men. Is there? Have I missed something?

So are female writers being helped or hurt by this? I'm not sure, to be honest. I suppose that part of the whole "women's fiction" or "chick lit" category is nothing more than a marketing ploy...and that really, even if a book didn't have pink on the cover (or whatever), men wouldn't be interested in the words inside. And maybe having these easy categories helps women readers narrow down their choices at the book store. Hmmm. I don't know. But it definitely makes me think.

What do you think of the gender divide in books? Do you tend to read mostly male or female-authored books? Or doesn't it matter? And don't forget to pick up a copy of Richard's!

Question of the day: I would like to increase the readership of and was wondering how I could get it added to the "blogroll" of an online magazine. One of the Conde Nast publications would be great (ha! wouldn't it!) but maybe there is a better place to start? How do those publications choose blogs for their sites?

Well, this is a toughie. The Conde Nast pubs, for example, hire bloggers to write for them...for example, I have a few friends who write blogs for Glamour, and these are paid gigs. They're hired in the same way that a freelancer is for the magazine: it's a contracted position. From what I can glean, these folks have earned these lucrative slots by proving themselves to the magazine editors...so it's not as if an editor at, say, Self, is going to stumble upon your blog and decide to link to it.

I imagine that some of the other blogs/sites they link to are sponsored links. In other words, advertisers pay to link up with them OR there's some sort of cross-promotion going on. So, that's not gonna help you either.

If you're interested in hooking up with smaller blogs, the best way I've found is to simply send the blog proprietor a note and ask if you can link to them and vice versa. In most cases, a blogger is happy to add you to their blog roll. (Though I've also found that a blog roll, like mine, can get a little too long and cumbersome. I've been meaning to go through the links to make sure they're all still up to date and current, but just haven't had the time.) Of course, you can also endear yourself to a blogger by leaving comments on the blog and hope that he or she will simply add you out of the goodness of her heart.

Readers, do you have any tips to get in good with the biggie blogs like the Conde ones? Or other tips on getting in with bloggers period?

If at any moment over the weekend, you heard a loud whoosh of wind, it actually might have been me exhaling. Yes, I exhaled so forcefully upon reading my first big review from Publishers Weekly that you might have heard it 'round the nation.

It's funny: I know, as a writer, that books and writer are subjective and that certainly, not everyone will like what I put out there. I read plenty of books that I don't necessarily adore but understand that somewhere out there, someone else does. I get that I'll get the occasional (hopefully just occasional!) bad review from someone, and that's okay. You have to have an awfully thick skin to make it in this industry, and mine is certainly thick.

But.

I was totally internally freaking out all of last week about my first review, which I knew was coming from PW. Because the first review is the toughest. Because you worry that maybe you're walking around in this complete cloud of self-delusion, thinking, "I wrote a kick-ass book," which, by the way, every writer thinks, when, in fact, you wrote a crap book. And that first review might just shoot you off of that cloud. So, yeah, I was a little bit (or a lot of bit) of a stress ball.

So when it popped up late Friday, I was soooooo relieved that I could enjoy my weekend! Because they liked it! They really really liked it! They called the book "an engaging, fast-moving, high-concept drama," and said that "Scotch keeps one dexterous step ahead of page-flipping readers eager to guess the outcome." Whoohoo!

Now. I know that reviews are just that: a review from one single person's viewpoint, and if I'm going to enjoy the good ones, I damn well better read the bad ones too. And I will. With Kirkus just around the corner, that time might be sooner rather than later. LOL. But still. For this past weekend, I could exhale and know that I wasn't self-delusional. At least not completely. :)

Other writers - how do you cope with reviews? Do you read 'em? Do you take them to heart?

ForeSee Results’ Top 100 Online Retail Satisfaction Index tries to quantify customer satisfaction at various ecommerce sites on a 100-point scale.

The five online book retailers listed in their May 2007 release are:

• 83: Amazon.com
• 79: Barnes&Noble.com:
• 74: AbeBooks.com
• 74: Overstock.com
• 72: Buy.com

The aggregate satisfaction score for the 100 measured retailers is 75. The book sites do fairly well for themselves, in light of the competition:

• 86: NetFlix.com
• 90: Apple.com
• 83: Amazon.com
• 79: Barnes&Noble.com
• 77: CrateandBarrel.com
• 76: VictoriasSecret.com
• 74: AbeBooks.com
• 74: Overstock.com
• 73: Target.com
• 72: Buy.com
• 71: FTD.com
• 69: HomeDepot.com

Per the release, this data is based on feedback from “over 24,000 respondents who had visited the top 100 online retail sites within the previous two weeks but didn’t necessarily make a purchase” during spring 2008.

Bibliopolis and Biblio.com are working together to make available a free version of Bookhound, an inventory management tool for used and rare booksellers. Bookhound is the best-known software package on the Mac, and there’s apparently a Windows version coming in July. The BookHound 7ce software is available at no cost to all sellers, Biblio.com member or not.

I pulled Suzanne's comment from over the weekend and brought it to the main board because I thought it was good discussion fodder. Here's what she asked:

After reading a review of Emily Griffin's latest book and then thinking of yours, I have a question. How would you define the genre of 'chick lit?' When I think of chick lit, I think of happy-go-lucky twenty-something romances. But when I think of your books, I would classify them as post-chick-lit, something more grown-up and mature. What are your thoughts? Do you consider yourself writing for a specific genre when you are writing your novels?

My books are generally classified as "women's fiction" or "commercial fiction," while, you're right, Emily Giffin is generally classified as "chick lit." These are fluid categories, however, and some books don't fall into one easily. I think, in general, "chick lit" is thought of as less literary (whether or not this is the case - I'm just passing along the stereotypes), and generally tackles less weighty subjects than "women's fiction," which, obviously, is targeted at women (as is chick lit - the markets aren't too different, though CL might skew younger) but maybe at women who like their prose to be meatier. (Again, I'm not passing judgments - Emily Giffin, for example, is a great writer who knows her audience, and yes, our new books cover remarkably similar themes!)

These days, as you can see from all of my caveats above, "chick lit" often has a derogatory connotation, and I don't mean it to be so by my comments. CL has a HUGE market - I guess I think of CL books as classic "beach reads," but after an enormous push for CL books on the heels of the success of books like The Devil Wears Prada (actually, the push started long before this, I think), the quality of these reads deteriorated faster than you can say "single girl in her twenties looking for love in a fab pair of shoes," and now, many authors don't wear the CL badge with much pride. Which is silly. Because if you do it well, as Giffin proves you can, you can crank out a book that's both smart and relatively easy-to-read. No shame in that as all.

As far as all of these categories, well, I'm not the one who categorizes my book in the first place. That's up to the publicists and marketers at my publishers, and they were the ones who deemed me "women's fiction," or "commercial fiction." I try to write the best book I know how, one that I'd pick up in a store, one that I wouldn't roll my eyes at or, conversely, find too dense (and I mean weighty, not dumb) to really get into. I do constantly go back and fiddle with sentence that I think are overly simplistic or amateurish, and I don't think that will ever stop, regardless of how many books I write or what catagory I fall into. I want to be proud of every word that goes onto my pages.

In the end, do these labels matter? Maybe when the sales team is shopping around the book to stores whose buyers are wary of buying "chick lit," but really, I'm not so sure that readers care all that much about the categorization, as long as the book appeals to their personal sensibilities. I know if I pick up a book that is waaaaay too chick lit-y for me, I'll put it back down, but not because the cover or whatever says it's "chick lit," but because I read 1000000 of those books in my 20s and just don't enjoy most of them as much anymore. (Generally speaking, of course, as I buy Giffin and others with frequency.) But on the other end, I'll do the same with a heavily literary book or any book that doesn't appeal to me: CL is just an easy classification that doesn't mean too much to me as a buyer.

But what about you guys: do you agree with these classifications and will you buy/not buy a book based on them? And who do you think of as classic (and good!) chick lit?

Andy Gutterman, the man behind the popular BookTrakker bookseller inventory management system, has been posting ads and emails from the early years of American online bookselling on the BookFinder Insider mailing list.

My favorites include:

• an ad for the BookBytes online service
  circa 1992; dealers could update inventory data either via modem, or by mailing disks
• an Interloc beta test letter
  Interloc was the precursor to Alibris
• an ad for AB Bookman’s failed “Automated Bookman” online service
  AB Bookman’s Weekly was the must-read weekly for American antiquarian sellers, published from 1949-1999; it died with the coming of the Internet, when dealers no longer needed to rely on its ads and classifieds as their primary of market access

See them all…

I realize, as I finish writing this post, I've basically created a manifesto about book publishing here, and I really would like to hear everyone's feedback on many points. Sorry this post turned out so long; keep reading if you aren't bored to tears by it. I had the opportunity today to sneak into a lecture given by Jonathan Karp, the publisher/editor of the Hachette imprint Twelve. Most of

Question of the week: Can you explain what happens at the London Book Fair? It seems it's all I've been reading about this week.

Um, sure, if I can! I'm not sure that I have a complete understanding of the entire situation, but I'll do my best. The London Book Fair, along with the Frankfurt Fair, are the two biggest forums in which publishers sell foreign rights to, well, foreign publishers! From what I understand, here's what happens:

A publisher, in my case, the Shaye Areheart imprint at Random House, starts generating buzz about a book to foreign publishing houses long before the actual fair. Book sales are often all about buzz, so they try to get as much momentum going into the fair as possible. Once at the fair, they sit down with various representatives and contacts and push the book even more. Though a lot of deals used to happen at the actual fair, these days, from what I understand, most of what happens is an attempt to generate enthusiasm and excitement, and the actual offers for the books come about in the subsequent weeks. Which means, for sure, I'm biting down my nails in anticipation.

(Also, having attending BEA last year (Book Expo America), I can tell you that from what I imagine, LBF is really whirlwind of socializing, networking and hobnobbing. It's also really freaking tiring. I was completely wiped out after one day at the event.)

That said, foreign rights sales can happen at any time, which is exactly what happened for The Department. I'd just get a random out-of-the-blue email from someone at Harper's subsidiary dept saying, "We're thrilled we got an offer from X...do you accept?" And duh, obviously, I always did! But don't be fooled into thinking that foreign sales will make you rich: most of these deals are for probably (this is based on nothing scientific, only an estimated guess) less than 20k, and most for much less than that. AND, unless you've earned back your advance, you won't see a dime: they just get added into the overall tally of your sales and earnings until you've crossed that lucrative line.

So tell me, anyone else have inside scoop on LBF? Or foreign rights insights in general?