Slow Going. Again.

Progress Meter Courtesy of Writertopia

For some reason, I felt burnt out yesterday. The words just wouldn't come. After two days in which I pounded out approximately 11,000 words, I simply ran out of plot, and I couldn't think of filler. Not that there's really room for filler in a 50,000 draft. Let's just say I felt mentally exhausted.

Read this New York Times article Publishers Seek to Mine Book Circles. It's about publishers' rather belated discovery of the power of book clubs. I'm really surprised that they didn't catch on earlier. There have been a number of books that really owe their success to the early and sustained support of book clubs, the Ya-Ya Sisterhood being one of them.

The importance of book clubs was brought home to me with HARLEM REDUX. Both Simon & Schuster and Random House showed little enthusiasm in the book, but then the Go On Girl! Book Club picked it up and made it their novel of the month. All of a sudden both houses were pitching for it. It was astounding.

I think most African-American authors and self-published writers have been doing the book club thing for a while now. Where else can you go to find genuine book lovers? The bookstores aren't interested in giving unknowns a chance, and even some celebrity authors find thinner and thinner crowds awaiting them at every book reading.

Furthermore, I personally never saw much sense in bookstore signings. The bookstores only want you in there to attract buyers. You're hoping that once the buyers get in the store, they'll buy your book, but many store owners simply hope that the visitors will be a book, period. Any book. It doesn't have to be yours.

Although it pains me to say it, a writer has to deal with the possibility that someone who ostensibly entered the store to hear you speak ends up buying someone else's work. They'd have to be very loyal and determined not to. Just think of what they're walking through? It's no accident that bookstore events are usually set up in the back of the store, forcing buyers to wander past tables and through aisles laden with a tempting potpourri of beautifully designed covers and tantalizing titles -- all designed to grab your buyer before he or she gets to you.

From the bookstore owner's point of view, this is great. But from the author's standpoint, this is terrible. So I ask you, why would you, the writer, want to set yourself up for business in the middle of the competition?

Last, but not least, is my personal beef with larger, i.e. chain, bookstores, that practice something I call literary apartheid. Some, not all, but some, have this marvelous little system of assigning all books by African-American, Native American, gay, etc. authors to respective shelves at the back of the store. If you're a member of any of those "marginal" groups, as they're so euphemistically termed, then your book will be categorized and displayed according to your ethnic or sexual affiliation rather than by genre. I find this really repugnant. It's a system of institutionalized racism. When books are separated out this way, their authors miss the spontaneous sales generated by being at the front of the store, or at least closer to the front.

None of those concerns apply with a visit to a book club.

With a book club appearance, you have a loyal audience. True it can be a small one, but these days, with the decreasing attendance at bookstore signing events, many authors would be happy to have a room of "only" seven or more readers. Those readers, at least, have definitely purchased your book. They're interested in what you're writing about. They have opinions and often give wonderful feedback. The event is often in someone's home, so you get to meet with your readers on an individual basis and have a chance to make a memorable impression.

Big bookstores still remain a wonderful venue for the really big names, but there are fewer and fewer big names these days, and those few either don't need or want to constantly be on the road.

Let me note that visits to independent bookstores often offer the same personal touch as a visit to a book club. The owner is someone who loves books and often goes out of his or her way to make you feel welcome.

Anyway, it does sort of upset me to see that big publishers will be throwing lots of books at book clubs and money at Internet advertising. Small presses can't afford to send out tons of Advanced Readers' Copies and the price of Internet advertising could be driven way up, destroying the two characteristics that makes it so wonderful: its affordablity and it's basic return on investment (i.e., the fact that you get so much more bang for your buck).

Oh, well. I refuse to worry about it. The fact that the big publishers are just now realizing what they should've realized a while ago (or maybe the Times only just now decided to cover it), only confirms the wisdom of my marketing plan.

I've got to get back to work now. It's late in the day and I've only just reached the number that was yesterday's goal. Tomorrow there'll be little writing since I'll be out all day with my son.

I should be thrilled to have reached 45,000 words+, but all I can think about is how I meant to reach that number yesterday and finish up today.

Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!

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Doing It My Way

The other day I alluded to (!) my frustration with the whole traditional publishing world machinery. Today's system for publishing reminds me a lot of the old Hollywood studio system. Studios would sign an actor, contract for a certain number of pictures, groom the star, promote the star, etc. The lucky actor who scored a studio contract would have as much security as his/her line of work could offer. As for the ones who didn't ... Bottom line: If you weren't signed with a major studio, you didn't have a chance. That's not so different from today's widespread belief that if you're not published by a traditional New York publisher, you similarly "don't have a chance."

Actually, let me amend my earlier statement. Today's system of publishing reminds me of a very watered down version of the old studio system. Gone are the days when publishers contracted with writers who could basically come up with a very good story but didn't have the faintest idea how to write it. Gone are the days when publishers would edit, market and or promote their writers. What remains pure and simple is the iron grip. What remains is an incredible power imbalance.

But of course, that's changing. Just as actors eventually started to take charge of their careers, so too are writers. As just about everyone knows, anyone can see his or her words in print thanks to print-on-demand. What many still don't realize, however, is that the company doing print-on-demand is still another middle man. Just as actors now establish their own production studios in order to finance and produce their own vehicles, writers might consider establishing their own publishing house to publish their own works.

That's what I'm going to do.

If all goes well, the first work to appear will be The Palmer Affair. I've already begun work on a cover for it. The picture of the book cover up top is my first stab at it. What d'ya think? Kind of edgy, huh?

(I put it together using this new program called Book Cover Pro. The program is still very shaky. It was clearly written for Windows and runs on a Mac just the way you'd expect a Windows program to run -- slowly and uneasily. However, I'm grateful that the authors of the program even thought about Mac users -- most Windows programmers don't bother.)

The cover text reads: "It's 1926. Summer in Paris ... and the living is anything but easy."

It's the sequel to Harlem Redux, which only told the story of Lilian McKay, but said nothing of the life her twin, Gem, led in Paris. In the Palmer Affair, David McKay, the twin's older brother who investigated Lilian's death, goes to Paris hoping to heal after the events in New York. What he finds ... well, it'll blow your socks off (not to put too elegant a point to it).

The thing is, I noticed that my urge to write was definitely being dampened by the knowledge that in order to see my work in print I'd have to run the gamut of agents and editors, all of whom often give contradictory advice. After a while, a writer starts feeling like she's trapped in a spider's web. You're stuck. You're making no progress and after a while, you feel like you're dealing with a bunch of dunderheads.

Of course, publishing yourself puts you under a lot of pressure to make sure the darn thing's worth publishing. But that's a fine exchange. You know that it WILL get published and that energizes you -- at least it does me.

The Palmer Affairis mostly done. It just has to satisfy me -- and it doesn't. Not yet. But I will get it done. And I'm going to have fun doing it, knowing that it won't sit in a pile somewhere, gathering dust, maybe to be read and grumbled over and poked and prodded and then grumbled over some more. Yeah!!!!!

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