Comments on: A Few Disjointed Thoughts About The Writing Life

By: Burning the Rulebook | Writer Unleashed

Burning the Rulebook | Writer Unleashed — Sun, 28 Aug 2011 20:51:55 +0000

[...] post that was the catalyst for the plot change in Office Politics, I came across an older post on Diana Peterfreund’s blog, where she talks about being shocked by all the “rules” cited by contest judges when [...]

By: Diana Peterfreund Blog | To Market, To Market, to Buy a Fat Killer Unicorn…

Mon, 13 Apr 2009 12:51:28 +0000

[...] interesting topics of conversation. First off, Courtney Milan responds to my earlier post about chasing the market. (Hi, [...]

By: Diana

Diana — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 13:43:51 +0000

That’s really interesting, Courtney. I always joke with my pal CL Wilson that when we first exchanged our work with each other (category romances, nothing like what we ended up selling!) she thought my heroine was a slut and I thought her hero was a stalker. And then when we sent each other our next books, my heroine was way more of a slut (she is coming home from a one night stand whose name she doesn’t remember in the opening pages) and her hero is way more of a stalker (well, the Taren has his reasons for watching Ellie while she sleeps) and yet we never actually made those comments, because their characters were so well motivated in those instances.

So I think you can pretty much make someone anyone you want if it WORKS. And yeah, people might love it or hate it, but I think I’d rather have some people love my work — really love it — than everyone just go, eh, it’s okay.

Then again, my mortgage company may feel differently.

By: Patrick

Patrick — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 13:43:23 +0000

Oh, I wasn’t saying Tess was bad in anyway.

I meant I don’t think it is bad if the publisher were to decide that they wanted to only use electronic formats for reviews. Of course, this will limit them from some desirable reviewers.

But that email was offensive.

And if I was the author of the book and Tess had already told me she would try to read my book, but wouldn’t read it in PDF, I would be begging my publisher or doing the kinkos thing myself, as well.

We’re in agreement here. For some reason, I felt my agreement was necessary.

By: Diana

Diana — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 13:04:19 +0000

Patrick, I don’t think anyone is saying PDF galleys are inherently bad. I read ‘em sometimes myself. But Tess doesn’t have a kindle and she doesn’t want to read a book at her computer. That’s her prerogative. Listen, if Tess Gerritsen said she’d consider giving me a blurb but I had to deliver the manuscript on pink, unicorn-festooned parchment paper, you’d find me down at the stationery store, know what I’m saying?

To me, it’s no different than listening when an agent wants an equery or a snail mail query. It’s not really YOUR choice, is it. If you want this very important industry person to read your book, you have to provide it in the format that they want to read it in.

Alternately, I have emailed manuscripts to people for download onto their kindle, because they didn’t want an ARC, they wanted it on their kindles. (Hi, Julie.)

As an example, my father wanted to read RAMPANT last summer, but I wasn’t getting ARCs until October, so I went down to Kinkos and made him a fake ARC, all bound up kinkos style, because my dad would NEVER read something on the computer. He even prints out emails.

By: Patrick

Patrick — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 12:23:33 +0000

You know, I don’t think the sending out of PDFs is so bad(especially now that there is a Kindle2 in my house), but that accompanying email was brutally stupid.

By: Courtney Milan

Courtney Milan — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 04:45:47 +0000

Hey, that’s interesting–because I’d never thought about it that way, but you’re exactly right. When I was thinking “market” I was thinking of a particular person I’d had a conversation with back when I first started writing, who had given me some advice about what the “market” would bear–which, in retrospect, was really a list of ways to play it safe, which is rarely the same thing as writing a good book.

It’s funny how, in my head, that initial conversation has always stood out as what I thought of as “the market”–apparently even after the market smacked me on the side of the head. I had just heard so many times that your heroine had to be likable and martyr-like that I’ve continued to believe that–even after all evidence to the contrary was in.

I like what you say. Because it means that writing “to market” does not mean writing vampires because vampires are selling, but writing something that pushes your boundaries.

By: Diana

Diana — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 03:06:10 +0000

Tiff, I don’t know if anyone thinks those printed manuscripts are crap. Or maybe they do, but they aren’t sharing that opinion — that I know of! We all know what book budgets can be like, and the effort made (i.e., I’ll print something out for you and bind it at the local kinkos if you don’t want to read an electronic version) is certainly appreciated! I don’t think people need anything fancy. don’t think fewer people are going to be interested to read my ARC because it has a plain paper cover on it instead of a mock-up of the final cover. The book inside is the same!

By: Diana

Diana — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 02:52:50 +0000

Actually, Lell, it can happen that way. I know authors whose books have just been randomly read by other (famous) authors. A recent example of this:

http://www.usatoday.com/life/books/news/2009-03-25-book-buzz_N.htm

Other times, the author’s publisher, agent, or even the author themselves might ask another author to take a sneak peek. On very, very rare occasions, the promise of a blurb by a famous author might even sweeten the pot during the acquisition process.

By: Lell

Lell — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 02:10:01 +0000

Believe it or not, this entry answered a question I’ve been idly thinking about for years whenever I pick through bookstores. I’ll glance at a book cover and see a little snippet like “fantastic read – Acclaimed Author.” I’ve always wondered how that process works, like do they call that author up and get a review, like a reporter? Does the author just randomly read a book one day, call the publisher and tell them, ‘This is a fantastic read, tell the world I say so?’ Like I said, idle wondering. Also, before today I thought a galley was only part of a ship. I’m apparently learning lots.

Something interesting for you: I looked it up and if you pre-order Rampant from Amazon.com, it’ll cost you 2 galleons, 9 sickles and 4 knuts. CNN has the best stuff.
http://cgi.money.cnn.com/apps/hpcurrconv