Amazon Names Best Books for the First Half of 2009

(From Publishers Marketplace)

Not waiting for the end-of-year list season, Amazon is highlight an eclectic selection of their "best books of 2009...so far." The Top 10 overall comprise:

Cheever: A Life by Blake Bailey
Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann
Fordlandia by Greg Grandin
The City & The City by China Mieville
The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton
Brooklyn by Colm Toibin
The Gamble by Thomas Ricks
Sag Harbor by Colson Whitehead
and even Starbucks pick Crazy for the Storm by Norman Ollestad, and one-time Borders "make book" The Lost City of Z by David Grann

Separate lists offer top tens for fiction, nonfiction, children's and "hidden gems." And each list appends 5 forthcoming fall favorites, including:

Fiction
Evil at Heart by Chelsea Cain
Homer and Langley by E.L. Doctorow
Chronic City by Jonathan Lethem
A Gate at the Stairs by Lorrie Moore
Inherent Vice by Thomas Pynchon
That Old Cape Magic by Richard Russo

Nonfiction
The Big Burn by Timothy Egan
American on Purpose by Craig Ferguson
Hope for Animals and Their World by Jane Goodall
The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind by William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer
Why This World: A Biography of Clarice Lispector by Benjamin Moser
The Book of Basketball by Bill Simmons

Best of 2009 so far

Backspace November conference

Go!

http://www.backspacewritersconference.com/

Sales resource for self-published writers

I can't vouch for this service, but it is new, and it is free--which means that if you have a self-published book, you have little to lose. Basically the site is a database that gathers information on your book and its sales record. The idea is that traditional publishers seeking to buy the rights to a "proven" title (i.e., they don't need to invest as much money in creating a buzz) can search the database, find your book, and make an offer to you for the rights.

From their website:

The Publetariat Vault provides a new kind of service to self-published authors: the opportunity to get your indie book in front of the publishers and producers who are seeking proven books for low-risk acquisitions. Publishers can:

Find independent literary material that is already proven in the marketplace

See actual sales data, and know if the work already has traction

See reader reviews from bookseller sites, reader communities like Goodreads, blogs and elsewhere

Search by genre, topic, keyword, recommended reading level and more to find the kind of content you want to acquire

See author platform pieces, buzz, publicity and more, and know if the author will be an active partner in promotion

Write pathetically

When I think about writing, I usually think about it in terms of the hale Aristotelian triad of pathos-logos-ethos (I blogged about this a little while ago). In other words, writing that works well appeals to your audience’s hearts, minds, and sensibility. When we care about a character, that means the writer has done a good job with writing pathos into the scene. Which means that the most exciting battle scene in the world will never be a good one if every character in it remains anonymous.

This also means that the most important element in the opening pages of a novel is not really action, then, but character. A character gives meaning to the actions on the page. For instance, how much do we care about a child throwing a tantrum in the cereal aisle? How much more do we care if that scene is told from the mother’s point of view, when the tantrum is interspersed with someone telling her that she’s a crappy mom? As always, it depends on the writing, but the second situation would compel me to read on at least a bit further. I’d want to know how the mother responded, both to the tantrum and the criticism.

This is why good action scenes begin with attention to people–to point of view, character, and the who-what-how-and-why of a given person’s response to a situation. So I guess you could say that good writing is pathethic writing.

What I learned at the conference will help you: Part I

I already knew, but had to learn again, that agents are humans. They are humans with overtaxed brains who get anywhere from 50 to 700 queries per week, who buy iPhones so that they can read your letter in subway on their way home, after spending 10-12 hours on everything else that agents have to do.

Therefore, if you plan to find an agent rather than self-publish your work, your query letter better sing. You already know that. You'd also better research the agent on AgentQuery.com and PublishersMarketplace.com, so that you can find someone who is right for your work, and mention their work in your letter. Don't take shortcuts here, any more than you would stick any old key in the ignition of your car. Only one key is a useful fit.

Do:

• Actually read the books you mention in the letter. One agent said she received a query from a writer that referenced a book that was not due to be released until next spring. Oops.
• Follow the query formula: start with a concise opening that contains title, genre (i.e., where your book would be shelved at the store), and word count. Follow with a three-paragraph pitch that covers character, problem, and story question. Conclude with a bio.
• "Lead with your best," said Jennifer DeChiara. If your work has won awards or been published in The New Yorker, go ahead and put it in the first line.
• Proofread. Every last period should be perfect.
• Use the agent's name in the salutation, and spell it correctly.

Don't:

• E-query a slew of agents at once and put them all in the "To" field. Agents know one another, and will ignore your letter but exchange amused e-mails among themselves all day.
• Requery an agent, even if you have revised (unless the agent specifically invites you to in his or her rejection letter). Jenny Bent was the only agent who confessed to having a short term memory about these things.
• Send cover art for your book with the letter, even if you are a graphic designer.
• Tell any kind of lie or exaggeration in any shape or form in your letter. As Colleen Lindsay said, "We will Google the heck out of you." If you get caught in a lie, you're out.
• Ignore submission guidelines.

The conference was fascinating, and I will post again in the coming days about how to make your publicity efforts sing, how the old stigma on self-publishing has finally worn off, what changes will improve your query and first manuscript pages the most, and more.

200 words the English language can do without...

...according to the UK's Local Government Association. I don't see these in literary writing, but I see them all the time in e-mails, and hear otherwise bright people use them when they feel the need to sound more type-A. Next time you hear "going forward" and "facilitate" and "outcome" coming out of your mouth, brush your teeth and say ten Hail George Orwells.

http://www.lga.gov.uk/lga/core/page.do?pageId=1716341

Beware of spam

APB to writers: I just got this bit of spam in my inbox today. No, Dr. Michael J. Duckett is not interested in your book. I know, because wherever he got my business e-mail address, it had nothing to do with my personal writing. Save yourself time and money, and just hit DELETE.

___

Dear Author: [Flag #1, impersonal solicitation]

We are interested to speak with you about the possibility of publishing or distributing your book.

Only a select number of authors are called upon [Flag #2, publishers don't solicit authors in such a vague way] each year to submit their work for Hyper Publishing Company's consideration. Your book has been recently brought to our attention and we would like to open a discussion for publication or distribution of this work.

Please click here for submission guidelines or go directly to our website http://hyperpublishing.org and click on the Submission link.

You have ten days to complete the submission package and mail to our office. [Flag #3 with fireworks, an "Act now!" offer.]

We look forward to receiving your submission package and communicating with you in the near future.

Sincerely Yours,
Dr. Michael J. Duckett
President/CEO [Flag #4, this is a businessman asking you. Not an editor or an agent. He's probably the CFO, board president, secretary, janitor, and pizza boy, too.]
Hyper Publishing Company

Top 10 errors you can fix in your own manuscript in 10 minutes or less...

...and not make your editor regret drinking that third cup of coffee, because her nerves are getting seriously frayed.

Microsoft Word's find-and-replace feature is a writer's friend. Find it under the Edit menu, as "Replace..." or just hit Control-F and click on the "Replace" tab. At the bottom of the window you'll see a button to expand the window and view advanced features, which will help you make global changes with one click of the mouse.

Searching for these top 10 errors will save me time (and therefore, you money) as I edit your manuscript for publication or review by a literary agent.

1. Misplaced periods and commas around dialogue. EXAMPLE: ...third cup of coffee". OR ...third cup of coffee",

2. Unnecessarily capitalizing dialogue tags. EXAMPLE ...third cup of coffee," She said.

3. You only need one space between sentences. Yep, it's true. Believe me, or else believe the Chicago Manual of Style.

4. Don't use hyphens instead of dashes. EXAMPLE: I wonder- and it's pure speculation... OR: I wonder - and it's pure speculation... The correct dash is an em-dash—and it looks like that. You'll find it under the "special characters" menu in the "replace" menu.

5. Rampant ellipses. An ellipsis is three dots only. It is a punctuation mark used only to indicate an incomplete sentence, not to indicate a pause, and certainly not to mark the length a pause by the number of dots. EXAMPLE: She paused... and said... OR She paused for a really long time............ and said...

6. Common misspellings. EXAMPLE: waive instead of wave, pubic instead of public, lead instead of led (past tense of to lead). Or whatever your own favorite misspellings are.

7. Its vs. it's. EXAMPLE: Its mine. OR Wash it's fur. Both of these examples are wrong. It's is a contraction of it is, and if you take two seconds and mentally substitute it is in your sentence, you will know which one to use. Run a search on both, and double-check.

8. Other common usage errors. EXAMPLE: everyday instead of every day (everyday is an adjective only, like "my everyday shoes"), for awhile instead of for a while, peeked instead of piqued (you peek with your eyes, feel piqued when you're tired, and have your interest piqued).

9. Double periods and commas. EXAMPLE: He told me.. OR Slowly,, he told me.

10. Wild card. If you've been writing long enough to finish a draft of something, you know what errors you make. Always double check for missing words and your own favorite misspellings before sending out the draft.

You'll always miss something. That's human. But be a professional and make a reasonable attempt to send a clean draft.