HelenKay Dimon

If you haven’t checked out the discussion by Wendy and Kassia about Jennifer Crusie’s re-release of Anyone But You at PBR – go check it out. They are funny and smart. They share a love for all things Crusie but manage to find fault. Then there’s the part where they did so well without me…

Since I haven’t read the book but did purchase it, I have some thoughts on the buying process. Taking a second to whine – while I am all for authors making money, including making gobs of money from backlist titles, this propensity to re-release old paperback titles in hardcover form needs to stop. First, it leads to several conversations per month with my mom (sorry mom) that go like this:

Mom: Sandra Brown/Nora Roberts/some other female writer has a new book out called XXXX.
HKD: It’s not new.
Mom: It just came out.
HKD: It’s not new. It’s from the 1980s.
Mom: I don’t think so.
HKD: It’s not new.

Thanks to publishing houses, we have engaged in this discussion, well, let’s just say several times. Then there’s the cost issue. Should a former category romance that cost somewhere around $3.00 when it was first released now cost $14.00? Answer: no.

While I find all of this annoying, there is a publishing phenomenon I like even less: the re-release that has been edited/doctored by the author in some way. To provide extra confusion, sometimes these new versions have new titles. Elizabeth Lowell is famous for this. She takes old category romances, rewrites parts and re-releases with a new hefty price tag.

Again: money for authors=good. Confusing the hell out of readers=bad. Write something new then charge the new price.

I’ve always believed in the power of covers. While checking out the future releases section over at Chick Lit Books, I came across this book, Goodbye, Jimmy Choo by Annie Sanders. It looks as if this was a UK release in 2004. It’s coming out here in April 2006 (a wonderful time to have a book release – that’s a hint for those who have not pre-ordered When Good Things Happen To Bad Boys).

Also looks as if Sanders’ book has had a cover change.

The one on the right is the new one. I think I prefer that one.

I got an email over the weekend asking how I dealt with rejection before I sold. The real answer is this: I just did. I dealt with it – like everyone else deals with it – because the only other option was to stop writing and that wasn’t a choice I was willing to make. I dealt with it because that’s how the business works for most people. I dealt with it because I had a goal.

Getting rejected sucks. It does. You can learn from it, blah, blah, blah… It’s still rejection. It means no. If there is any solace in being one of a group, then this may help. Here are some rejection stories from this site :

**Dr. Seuss’s first book was rejected twenty-four times. The sales of his children’s books have soared to 100 million.
**John Grisham’s first novel, A Time to Kill, was declined by fifteen publishers and some thirty agents. His novels have more than 60 million copies in print.
**Mary Higgins Clark was rejected forty times before selling her first story. One editor wrote: “Your story is light, slight, and trite.” More than 30 million copies of her books are now in print.
**The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck was returned fourteen times, but it went on to win a Pulitzer Prize.

And, in case you think you’re the only one out there getting rejections, the following authors – in addition to Nora Roberts and Jayne Ann Krentz – were all rejected before selling:

George Bernard Shaw
Stephen Crane
Ernest Hemingway
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Alexander Pope
Lord Byron
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Alfred Lord Tennyson
Edgar Allan Poe
Walt Whitman
Ezra Pound
T. S. Eliot
Henry David Thoreau
Rudyard Kipling
Stephen King

Over the weekend I saw Les Miserables at the National Theater in D.C. I have seen this show more times than I care to admit – in more than one country, more than one state. Call it an obsession. Well, Les Miserables is off Broadway now. It’s touring for the last time. “Last time” as in last time until they revive the show a decade from now for a new generation (see: Sweeney Todd and Gershwin-filled musical ever made). Why the OCD attitude toward the show? Simple. It moves me. Every single time.

Driving home I tried to think of a book that has had that kind of impact on me. There are authors who always inspire me. Those who always entertain. Those I enjoy. Books I’ve read what seems like a million times. Lists of favorites. But I wonder if for many people there is a power in music that doesn’t translate to the written word. Why they can sit for hours watching people sing about themes like redemption but could never read words and feel the same way.

Then I remembered a story Suzanne Brockmann told a few years ago at the RWA conference. She talked about taking a break from writing and expecting to miss her daily routine. She didn’t. In fact, when she returned to writing after a few months off, she had a very hard time wanting to write again. That little voice in her head pushing her to put the words on the paper had disappeared. Then she read a book – I think it was called The Wedding Dress - and felt that spark again. She suddenly needed to write. That’s the kind of power I’m talking about.

There’s a book out there called The High Impact Infidelity Diet by Lou Harry and Eric Pfeffinger. The good news is that this is fiction not self help. Since I’m at a bit of a loss over what to say about this book, I’ll go with the publisher’s description:

A WHOLE NEW WAY TO CHEAT ON YOUR DIET
Meet Brin and Martin, Cheryl and Doug, Dierdre and Randy. Three normal married couples who share a common problem: all of the husbands weigh over 300 pounds–and not much of that’s muscle. The concerned wives concoct a plan and offer up a deal. Each guy who scales down to 210 pounds gets a free pass to spend an evening with a beautiful hooker Brin just happens to know from college.

Of course, there’s no such hooker. The wives only hope that the incentive will help their men lose a few inches off their guts. Unfortunately, Brin, Cheryl, and Dierdre underestimate the power of the male competitive drive. As the men begin to shed pounds, the women find themselves on a frantic search to find the perfect prostitute.

Follow along on a hilarious journey as three marriages, six friendships, 300 pounds of fat, and one saucy hooker endure the ups and downs of the worst weight-loss plan ever.

Kirkus Reviews said:

An idiotic, implausible novel about three women who use the prospect of sex with a prostitute to get their husbands to lose weight.

I say: someone read it and tell me how stupid it is. I just have to know.

Every now and then people ask me if I plan to quit my day job as a result of selling my first book. These same people are usually looking for a loan of some sort. Since my first sale was for a novella where I got about $1.32 and a cheese sandwich for the advance, ummm, no. Okay, I did a bit better than that but think “better” in terms of “wow, what an amazing designer watch” versus “wow, what a beautiful beach home you have.” If someone out there is getting enough money to comfortably retire based on one novella, I want to know about it. Fess up. Sure, there a few who get amazing deals out of the box. There are those who hit it big with one book (see: Midnight In The Garden Of Good And Evil). For the rest of us, it’s a longer haul.

I’m thinking Sylvie Kurtz’s experience is more realistic. In an article in the Boston Globe in January, Kurtz talked about how she started writing in 1992, has published 17 books and has even more under contract. On the issue of how many bonbons she eats each day while lounging around writing, the article says:

Kurtz declined to specify how many books she has sold, but she said that her segment of the publishing industry is a tough one and so far hasn’t provided her with a living. It’s both hard to break into and to remain in, she said, especially with the increased pressure to promote her most recent books while producing each new book in four months.

In other words, no bonbons.

This book sale in Publishers Marketplace jumped out at me. Think of it as the anti-Maureen Dowd book. It goes like this:

FICTION: DEBUT
Syndicated columnist Kathleen Parker’s SAVE THE MALES, a humorous yet poignant look at the way men have been under siege in American culture and how they have been over-domesticated and mistreated, resulting in unintended consequences for both sexes, to Susan Mercandetti at Random House, for publication in fall 2007, by Andrew Stewart (NA). Rights: rbernstein@randomhouse.com

Over-domesticated and mistreated? Kind of leaves me speechless. Can’t even think of a joke.

There’s a bit of a brouhaha over RomancingThe Blog . You can read it for yourself. This is one of those issues we can talk about until we vomit and still never reach an agreement. Some people believe the only acceptable reviews are ones that give authors 5 stars, 5 puppies, 5 roses or 5 whatever. These people live in a dream world. This is my blog, so I can say that.

This is one of those issues about which I have strong views. Of course, I can have strong views about anything if you give me 2 seconds to think about it, so this isn’t a surprise. Without commenting on any actor in this little drama (I don’t know them and am not involved in the controversy), here are my thoughts:

1. People who praise every book they read and never write a negative thing about a book are not reviewers. They are people who like to give book suggestions. That’s great but don’t confuse the two.

2. If you are an author and don’t like other authors reviewing your work – find a new profession. Authors can be supportive of each other, can promote books and can promote other authors without being blind followers when they do a review.

3. Not every negative review or negative point in a review is a personal attack. Not every review is motivated by jealously, anger or stupidity on the part of the commentor. Sure, some come from a dark place. Understand that many don’t. Some books aren’t that good. They are flawed or have some weaknesses. We should be able to talk about that.

4. Do a little self assessment. If you can’t tolerate a review that is negative – I am talking to 93% of the romance writing community here – then stop reading them. The resulting whining, complaining and general “you just don’t get it” attitude doesn’t help anyone.

5. If you think you can tolerate a negative review – stop and reassess. There is a good chance you can’t (still talking to those romance authors out there).

6. A good review probably says things that are positive and negative. If the idea of seeing any flaw pointed out is intolerable, then go to those sites that only give 5 puppies/roses/stars to books. They are great for promotion and author insecurity. They also do a nice job of describing plot. The question is whether they are really reviews.

7. Do not believe any – ANY – Amazon and B&N individual reviews. People have agendas. People write “false” reviews under pseudonyms. Authors have overly positive reviews written on their behalf. All of this taints the process.

8. If you are one of those authors listed in #7 who has friends write reviews so that you’ll have positive comments up there, please stop it. This is silly. You are a professional not a teenager fighting for the Prom Queen crown.

9. If you are a person from #7 who writes reviews under fake names to be spiteful or for whatever bizarre reason, you are a complete idiot. You should be unmasked and humiliated.

10. If someone has the nerve not to love your books, do not mobilize your friends and relatives to attack the reviewer. This is not junior high. It may feel that way, but it isn’t.

Stumbled across an interesting book while reading People over the weekend. This Day In The Life is a “satisfying collection of diaries from 34 women across America” and details the events in the life of each on a normal, otherwise unremarkable day – June 29, 2004. There’s only one celebrity diary (Roseanne Cash). There’s one from a woman who runs a brothel near Las Vegas. You know she has great (by that I mean scary and bizarre) stories.

If someone had asked me, my entry probably would have been boring as hell.

James Frey writes a little known book called A Million Little Pieces. Oprah picks it up and now Frey has sold something like a billion copies. That’s a slight exaggeration, but you get the point. With all that notoriety there was bound to be trouble. According to Publishers Lunch the trouble is in the form of lying and criminal (in this case, not-so-criminal) conduct.

The Smoking Gun went looking for some mug shots of A MILLION LITTLE PIECES author James Frey, which turned into an extensive examination of his account of his years as a drug addict, alcoholic and criminal. After searching police and criminal records in multiple states, and interviewing numerous law enforcement officials and Frey himself, TSG concludes he “demonstrably fabricated key parts of the book” and “wholly fabricated or wildly embellished details of his purported criminal career, jail terms, and status as an outlaw ‘wanted in three states.’” Besides accounts they call “patently dishonest,” TSG says his allegedly exaggerated version of the role he played in a train accident that killed two girls when he was a teenager “is downright creepy and detestable.”

The (no longer) poor guy writes a book and thinks he can blend into the background and enjoy a little fame and fortune. Nope. We’ve got accusations and lawyers, threats and a public brouhaha. Check out The Smoking Gun for all the dirty details.

I’m guessing the moral of this story is this: if you publish a book and no one reads it, then no one will look into your sordid past. Get a big Oprah deal and make a buck or two, and you’re chum in a shark tank.