A lovely review for The Sound of Letting Go

Recently, my editor emailed me this gorgeous review from the BULLETIN OF THE CENTER FOR CHILDREN'S BOOKS:

Kehoe, Stasia Ward The Sound of Letting Go. 

Viking, 2014 [400p]

ISBN 978-0-670-01553-5 $17.99

Reviewed from galleys -  Gr. 7-10

Ever since Daisy’s autistic younger brother, Steven, turned from unresponsive little boy to threatening manchild, she and her parents have lived on a knife-edge of tension, fearing that a loud sound, a burnt waffle, an errant bad smell could trigger a violent outburst. Daisy empathizes with her parents’ desire to escape, finding release herself through playing her trumpet in the soundproofed room her parents have built for her. She knows that both her musical success and its limitations are due to her brother’s condition; her survivor’s guilt trumpets from every poem in this staggeringly honest verse novel about living with someone at the far end of the spectrum. What sets this work apart is that it tells the whole truth about that experience, from the strain it puts on a marriage, to the financial drain, to the compulsion to hide how bad things are and the isolation that brings, to the heightened emphasis on control and perfection that she and her mother experience, her with her music and her mother with her decorating and cooking skills. Readers may be surprised when Daisy balks at the idea of sending Steven to a group home, but it’s just another way in which the book renders the deep ambivalence of the sibling experience with striking insight; Daisy wonders if she will ever be able to experience relief without guilt, and she questions whether there might be something in her that is broken and autistic, keeping her from true feelings. Kehoe also deploys a complex yet accessible metaphor via Daisy’s contemplations about slavery in her U.S. history class, and she crafts a romance with a not-so-bad-after-all bad boy that begins as rebellion but ends as something like redemption. Gracefully eschewing platitudes about acceptance and advocacy, this is as real, poignant, and messy as it gets.  KC 

I read this, touched and delighted by the reviewer's insight into my book. Despite the lovely critical response, I continue to worry that my novel will not reach the readership I'm trying to touch before it starts down the inevitable road to "Remainder-dom" that its BookScan numbers foretell. I know this is the fate of most novels. But it never stops stinging.

Back to Business: KEEPING UP WITH THE (no, not Kardashians) PUBLISHING INDUSTRY

So, you shouldn't waste too much time on the interwebs. YOU SHOULD BE WRITING! But just in case you (like me) need a break from time to time--and, in truth, if you're serious about being in the children's or YA literature business--here are a few helpful industry links:

PUBLISHERS LUNCH on FACEBOOK (nice, free updates on the industry, book deals, etc.)

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY Children's page (on the web, great info and links to blogs)

SCBWI (if you don't belong already, go join today!)

If Twitter's your thing, I recommend @ShelfAwareness

And, if you're so inclined, click one more time and enter to win a signed, annotated arc of THE
SOUND OF LETTING GO!

WROTE BUT NEVER POSTED, 3rd EDITION

This post was originally titled THE HUNGER GAMES & LEARNING YOUR CRAFT

I'm not a big LinkedIn person but I do occasionally update my profile. It was while doing so recently that I saw that I'd been working in publishing for EIGHTEEN YEARS. First I thought that just couldn't be true. Then I realized that I started working at Random House the year before my eldest was born.  Here are some other things I realized.

• It took me forever to get my act together to try to become a published writer. (To be clear, the delays caused by my four kids were totally worth it.)
• Having the opportunity to work on the "other" (non-author) side of the business does not give you a leg-up in becoming a best-seller but certainly arms you with a healthy understanding of your odds.

I loved The Hunger Games, am terribly excited to see the movie and hope that I love it. The recent flop that was John Carter kind of proves that even the hulk-muscled arm of Disney can't MAKE a movie property a success.  Still, I have a good feeling about THG.

TODAY...

In an ode to nostalgia, herewith a link to a pre-Common-Core writing guide I wrote for Random House:  http://www.seussville.com/activities/HOORAY_TeachersGuide.pdf. It is for a Seuss/Prelutsky title, so it's in verse. Foreshadowing? Coincidence? Karma?

Also, in this earlier post, I was already showing a predilection for capitalization and parentheticals.
Finally, I can report that I did like, thought didn't love, THG, and that  I am currently looking forward to seeing THE HEAT (yes, I am a Sandy B. fan), DIVERGENT and WORLD WAR Z (who knew back when I was only 18 years into publishing that zombies would become the new vampires?).

Back to Business: WHAT IS A MARKETING PLAN (and who is in charge of it)?

WHAT IS A MARKETING PLAN?

Ever wondered this? Sometimes it's easier to know what a marketing plan isn't.  A marketing plan is not a SALES plan. A sales plan is a plan for maximizing revenue and closing deals. Sales is what happens when a customer takes a book to the cash register of a local bookstore and hands over his or her credit card. Sales is getting said bookstore, novelty shop, big box chain, book club, etc., to stock/list your title.  Marketing is also not PUBLICITY efforts, which you might consider the attention-grabbing actions that require payment, such as placing ads in teen magazines (virtual or paper) and sometimes producing professional book trailers or other promo materials (note: publicists also arrange for radio/tv appearances but let's assume you're NOT Chris Coifer or Tyra Banks, 'kay?). YOU (the book author, exceptions noted in intro, above) can rarely impact point-of-sale. And, if you're like me, you have no personal publicity budget. BUT you can make a strong contribution to marketing, because...

MARKETING is a collection of "cost-free" (as in dollar cost, not time and effort) things done to connect with prospective book buyers. Marketing is reaching out, persuading, enticing...

This is merely a working definition because, as in many industries, children's and YA book publishers' trade marketing plans have significant overlap with publicity and educational marketing. 

For many titles, the marketing plan is a pro-forma document including such generic phrases as "online promotion & social media outreach" and "ARC distribution and blogger outreach." Sometimes, there's no actual written plan at all. You can ask (nicely) to see your in-house marketing plan but don't freak if one isn't forthcoming. This is nobody's fault. Big-name authors and highly anticipated novels will get the most attention in-house and everywhere else. But there's a bright lining to this cloud: The more bland your in-house marketing plan, the lower the sales expectations likely are for your novel. You have more opportunity for small victories and less risk of flaming out.  Embrace the very typical scenario that you're getting low-level marketing attention, and that much of the marketing effort will fall to you (e.g., that "blogger outreach"? - your job!).

But you can still help yourself along. Keep in mind that you are a WRITER, not a marketing professional (some exceptions surely apply) and that you probably have a limited amount of time to support your publisher's marketing efforts. Here are some ways to be efficient and a solid team player.  First...

IDENTIFY YOUR MARKET

Take a sober step back from your beloved manuscript and ask yourself: WHO WILL WANT TO
READ THIS BOOK? WHO WILL LIKE THIS BOOK? More specifically, answer these questions:

1. WHO are three other authors who I believe have similar readership? And how are their books marketed?
2. HOW might I draw the narrowest parameter around my "ideal" reader (e.g., age 7-9; girl; horse-lover; suburbanite - OR - age 16-20; girl; educated; sexually curious; child of divorce). And, are there magazines, websites, blogs, specialty stores, clubs, etc., that speak to this same reader?
3. DOES my book have more than one type of reader? If so, repeat exercises A & B. This may especially be the case with crossover titles.
4. WHO buys books for my ideal reader (parents, friends, readers themselves, online or in-store)?
5. DOES this book have CLASSROOM POTENTIAL (go learn about the Common Core Standards and write 2-3 bullet points showing any connections).

That's a lot of work, but it is important for a writer to answer these questions for him/herself. they are the equivalent of your "elevator pitch" for the next leg of the author journey. Whether or not you already have a virtual platform or other marketing springboard, you are now becoming a smart advocate for your book, ready to jump in and help your publisher draw eyes to your lovely cover. You are in a position to ask your publisher for help because you have done some serious work to identify your market and are not wasting time asking for broad, expensive help that will really only be given to proven superstars and lead titles.

WHEN SHOULD YOU ASK YOURSELF THESE QUESTIONS? As soon as possible after you've finished revising the ms (don't tweak the ms for marketing--very bad idea).

WHAT SHOULD YOU DO (SPECIFICALLY) WITH THE ANSWERS?
Keep your answers and get ready for next Monday's worksheet/questionnaire: Identifying the Resources You Already Have...

A Bizarre Blip in Periodical Publishing

I love PARADE magazine. A hot coffee and James Brady’s “In Step With” interviews are a favorite Sunday morning indulgence. The rest of the newspaper-insert periodical is fun, too, from the celebrity gossip to the recipes. But this weekend, my frothy diversion astonished me. The Sunday, January 6, 2008, PARADE cover reads “Is Benazir Bhutto America’s best hope against al-Qaeda?” Okay, they got all the spelling right. Here’s the problem for the one person in America who may have missed it: Benazir Bhutto is dead. Inside, the three-page interview makes absolutely no mention of the woman’s assassination, subsequent funeral, and the chaos these events have caused in the already turbulent Pakistan. Inaccurate doesn’t quite cover this error, does it? Beyond confused, I visited the magazine’s website where, not on the publication’s main page but only after clicking on a link to “learn more” about Bhutto, I found the following: “The assassination of Pakistan’s Benazir Bhutto on Dec. 27 occurred after PARADE’s Jan. 6 issue went to press.”

Sorry. No matter the cost or hassle, this one should have been pulled. Or at least, some sort of insert contextualizing the article and commenting on the assassination should have been included. Parade’s excuse that the issue had already been printed and shipped the day before the assassination needs a bit of beefing up before that’s okay—or maybe there’s not enough beef in all the Midwest for this one. Our country is embroiled in a difficult war which brightens the spotlight which September 11th switched onto the Middle East’s political/religious/natural-resource-based quagmire. To disseminate nation-wide a snappy, four-color document featuring Bhutto’s face and cover assertion that “I Am What The Terrorists Most Fear” nine full days after her assassination goes beyond cheap or lazy to irresponsible (and, seriously, weird).

I cannot imagine a trade book publisher not stopping the presses or even shredding volumes in production at this pivotal moment. Perhaps this is purely economics. Who would buy a whole book about Bhutto absent this critical final component? Meanwhile, no one is going to skip their local “Times” because PARADE editors have decided its gossip and brainteasers are so essential to readers that they are going to include a dangerously dated, offensive, and ultimately bizarre cover story. (And apparently editors of Sunday papers nation-wide agreed!) Still, if one takes even a single step back, past the obvious cost and possible penalties of failing to provide this weekly missive to its many contracted newspapers or having to reprint or rebundle the advertising circulars, toward the bigger picture, can this possibly be viewed as the optimal decision for this periodical, much less its readership, its carrying papers, or Americans?

Unfortunately, I think Parade is showing our true American corporate colors: the bottom line is more important than the human mind. I believe this philosophy (to grace the notion with such a word) is ultimately self-defeating. In focusing so hard on the cost of the immediate change, Parade was blind to its readership’s sense of compassion, intelligence level, and international concerns in this critical election year. The result seems to me to be a humiliation for the magazine in the astonishment of those of its readers who were not outright offended.

I guess Parade’s embarrassment is a good thing. But I still wish I had not had the twilight-zone experience of seeing that cover. Parade and the entire publishing industry can, and should, do better.