Writer on the Side

Friday, November 15, 2013

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!

Thursday, November 14, 2013

Thoughts on SPECIAL TOPICS IN CALAMITY PHYSICS by Marisha Pessl

Although writing commitments have taken me away from my beloved Bookanistas this year, I decided to post this review on a Thursday all the same. And hop on along to the Bookanista site for more great reviews!

Plot without spoilers...Sixteen-year-old, motherless Blue Van Meer has spent her life traveling from one college town to the next with her noted professor father, living a loner's life at the many schools she attends. Then the pair land in Stockton, NC, where Blue begins studying at the elite St. Gallway School, and finds herself becoming part of a powerful clique known as the Bluebloods who themselves seem to operate under the spell of a mysterious adjunct professor named Hannah Schneider. Plots of death and deception play out between engaging line-drawn art by the author and voluminous citations from masterworks of literary fiction and nonfiction.

Of literary interest...Pessl's language is delicious. From "...weird, grown-up youth, which was like gardenias blooming in January" (p. 70) to a "soft, wisteria-fairy-pin of a smile" (p. 198), and on and on, I found myself turning the book I thought would be donated to the library into a dog-eared underlined keeper-of-deliciousness.

Finally, just gotta say...The novel, to me, is a musing on the WHO we want to be remembered as (sorry for that bad grammar). The plot-twist at the end was satisfyingly surprising if a little breathless. While I continue to struggle to unravel my feelings about the ending, it is with certainty that I encourage you to read Special Topics for its spectacular language.

And a question...With its sixteen-year-old protagonist and prep school setting, WHY COULDN'T ONE CATEGORIZE THIS BOOK AS YA? It is far less steamy than a lot of YA/New Adult I've seen. And I think the footnotes and literary allusions are comprehensible to those with weaker personal bibliographies (starting with me!). Selfishly, I wonder if being categorized as literary fiction gives the book stronger legs (I think so). This question isn't a judgement on this novel. Titles like THE SECRET LIFE OF BEES and THE BOOK THIEF also seem to me to be equally categorizable as YA or adult. Maybe some books are just both.

What do you think?

Tuesday, November 12, 2013

Business on Tuesday: AUTHOR SHAMING EXPERIMENT RESULTS

On November 4th, I proposed a week-long experiment here on my blog. I also emailed a group of my author friends about what I was proposing and asked that they tweet about it to help spread the word.

Here are the results:

My AMAZON ranking moved up from the dark, depressing 4 millions to the 137,000s. At last check it had wended its way back down to the 900,000ks.
On the GOODREADS YA BOOKS of 2014 list, I traveled up from 137 up to a peak of 109 and is now at 110. There was a small uptick in additions to peoples' "to read" lists and a few other nods. On the GR February 2014 list, TSoLG remained solidly at #69. No additional votes.
Not enough blog comments to do a giveaway.
The needle did move but the absolute numbers (additional GR votes, additional pre-orders or whatever changes your Amazon score?!) were small.

IN SUM:
The aforementioned needle is very sensitive to even the slightest motion. Therefore, aside from the top and bottom outliers, these rankings are pretty insignificant.

QUESTION:
Were the results worth the time, effort and imposition on friends' goodwill the required? Not really (but thanks everybody!). In fact, the more the needle moved, the more I realized its insignificance for a midlist writer such as myself.

TAKEAWAY:
If your stats really bother you, you can probably just as easily move your Goodreads/Amazon stats by getting people like your mother-in-law to pre-order your book and your neighbors to click on your Goodreads links. Or, see if somebody like Dr. Who can morph you into Cassandra Clare. Either way ;)

Still running this, though...

GOODREADS ARC GIVEAWAY FUN! Ready...set...click!