Rereading your favorite novel, love or leave it?
They say that every time you read a book it’s a different book, because you are different. If you read a book when you’re twelve you bring one set of experiences, opinions, and influences to that reading. Read it again at twenty-one, it’s a new book because you’ve survived to your majority, studied, read, and maybe even written something yourself. So if you keep reading that book, at thirty, forty, fifty, does it keep changing for you?
I submit that it is possible to read a book too many times. Unless you are dissecting it for the purpose of figuring out its structure you can bore yourself. There are so many books in the world! Read a new one! Only my most favorite novels hold up time after time, offering up nuggets of humor and wisdom again. My favorite novel is Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen precisely because there is so much left out of it. I read it first at seventeen. I reread it looking for more, sure there is something I missed. Most novels, even ones that I absolutely adored, stories that make me gasp and cry, leave it all on the page. Because, frankly, that’s where it’s at, writing-wise.
I’ve been thinking about reader reactions, and rereading, since reading this piece in the Guardian. Authors are generally voracious readers and sometimes reread novels out of necessity (nothing else in the house) or to study the way an admired author got the job done. Poetry, of course, and classics like Shakespeare, Doestoevsky, and Jane Austen are definite rereads. The classics hold up because they are dense and enjoyable and fulfill a reader’s need for philosophy of living, human emotion, or just plain excitement.
As you can see from the article authors have a diverse list of favorites that are often very personal. Reading is like that. Have you ever given someone a book (that they didn’t request, written by someone they’ve never read) and wondered why they never read it? You loved it so they should too. But like jewelry and perfume, novels are an individual taste. Often as readers we don’t know exactly why some stories resonate, holding us captive and nestling deep in our subconscious, while famous novels loved by millions leave us cold. It doesn’t matter what you read as long as you’re reading for pleasure (unless you are in a Nazi book club. If so, my condolences.) Pick a novel, new or old, fresh to you or as familiar and comforting as an old sweater, and read it. Enjoying reading is one of the most basic, simple pleasures of life.
Reader reactions fascinate me. As a writer you can only write the book you can write, and hope that it appeals to someone (or many someones.) In the age of online reviews anyone who reads a book can offer his or her opinion of it to the world, uncensored and often poorly spelled. It’s sort of like fan mail. One of my novels now has nearly 40 reviews on Amazon (a consequence of a giveaway campaign last summer) and as much as I hate the bad reviews and cherish the good ones I find the whole thing amusing. How can one reader write: “something for everyone, intrique, romance, murder and all tied up neatly together,” and another have the opposite reaction: “too much nonsense in it. It took me forever to read as I was very bored with parts”? Well, because one might be fifteen, the other seventy. One might be used to reading romance novels, another might be into ‘Twilight.’ You never know. I couldn’t have written this book when I was twenty (Blackbird Fly, by the way, written when I was 50ish. I couldn’t have written any novel at 20 but I loved my journalism classes.)
I bring to the table my own experiences, just as the reader does. I love that I can hear what they think. It makes writing a lot less lonely.
The changing marketplace
My favorite librarian sent me a tweet this week:
Hi, Lise! I like buying books from Amazon, but am concerned about its multiple efforts toward dominance/monopoly. Your thoughts?
Lately Amazon seems to be taking drastic measures to destroy its competition. This isn’t exactly news. They’ve been in that zero-sum game for some time, where they spent vast amounts of money to expand into everything from diapers to lawn mowers, not to mention their bestselling Kindles and exclusive deals on e-books. They undercut everybody else’s prices, hoping to drive everyone else out of business. And then what? Are they going to raise their prices? Are they going to be sued by the government like Microsoft? Or just sit back and rake in the cash?
This week brought the news that both Barnes & Noble and Books-A-Million will not carry Amazon Createspace titles in their stores. As far as I can tell they will still carry them on their websites. E-books are a different story, not apparently affected. But for the library market, well, often librarians buy directly from Amazon or Barnes & Noble. It’s faster and cheaper. But will it stay cheaper if Amazon is the only game in town? The future is murky, my friend.
I told my librarian friend that things are changing so fast in publishing that I couldn’t get riled up about any particular change. Tomorrow there will bring something else. Jeff Bezos of Amazon said: “As a company, one of our greatest cultural strengths is accepting the fact that if you’re going to invent, you’re going to disrupt. A lot of entrenched interests are not going to like it. Some of them will be genuinely concerned about the new way, and some of them will have a vested self-interest in preserving the old way.” He says they plan to disrupt themselves. They can be something different next year, next month. They can change on a dime, and plan on doing so. Are bookstores entrenched interests? Absolutely. Are publishers? Without a doubt. Are libraries? I hope not.
Let’s face it: the old way of publishing, where you as a publisher bribe bookstores to carry your book then take it back at full price (hardback) and/or encourage them to tear the cover off and throw it in the garbage (paperback), was fundamentally broken 50 years ago. Entire forests have died for unloved literature. Yet the broken system continued plodding along, until the Internet and Amazon turned it on its head. Thank God for Amazon!
But if you don’t like the changes, you can always squawk about them — everywhere. This week showed again the power of social media when the Susan Komen Foundation decided to blacklist Planned Parenthood, pulling over half a million dollars in grants for breast cancer screening. Three days later they got the message loud and clear: petitions on Facebook, rants on Twitter. The outcry was deafening and they backtracked. News travels at warp speed on the Internet. Public opinion of your decision, good or bad, is democratic and widespread. Everyone has a voice. Like the revolutions in the Mideast, you can’t keep a good opinion down, no matter how much money or power you have. As an old sociology major I find this fascinating — and encouraging.
The biggest change this past year for Amazon is expanding into their own publishing with Larry Kirshbaum at the helm. (An interesting article about him here.) The ultimate insider, Kirshbaum brought Jeff Bezos to a publishing meeting way back in ’98 when Amazon started as an “internet bookstore.” (Another article, on Bezos, here. Wired Magazine, by the way, is full of great writing!) As much as publishers (and some authors) talk about Amazon’s business strategies being evil, they are making money there. (Full disclosure, I made about $11,000 on e-books at Amazon last year, much of it on books that had been traditionally published years before.)
Every year won’t be like 2011. It was a wild ride for e-books, e-readers, publishers, self-publishers, and authors. But it’s hard not to be excited by all the changes. The author is now in the driver’s seat, (even if your book is proclaimed by Publishers Weekly to be “The Worst Novel Ever.” At least you can upload it and get a reaction.) Nobody is forcing readers to buy your book but at least they have a chance to see it and decide. You have to write the best book you can, get it edited and proofread, put your baby out into the world all fresh and shiny. You have the opportunity with Amazon — and Barnes & Noble and Smashwords and Apple. May there always be choices in the marketplace. Lots of competition out there, from great writers, mediocre writers, and crap writers. Amazon and those who followed them have leveled the playing field. Will the cream rise to the top? I can’t wait to see what happens next.
Monday 2/6: We didn’t have to wait long for the next part! Over the weekend Indigo Books in Canada also decided to not stock Amazon books. And this just in: Amazon will open their own bricks-and-mortar store. Reportedly to open in Seattle in the next few months. As the worm turns…
Happy new electronic year!
Got a new Nook or Kindle? Lots of folks are jumping on the e-book bandwagon and as authors we are all thrilled to get more folks reading fiction, whether ours or somebody else’s. Several of us here at Thalia Press Authors Co-op have free or specially priced e-books right now. Go forth and load up those e-readers!
Gary Phillips is offering up up a free holiday story for everyone – The Kwanzaa Initiative at FourStory.
Sparkle Hayter has the first book in her very funny Robin Hudson series, available in many formats for free at Smashwords.com
Katy Munger is offering many of her mysteries for free for Amazon Prime members. Her Casey Jones mysteries are a kick-ass ride. Check them out!
Rory Tate (that’s Lise McClendon) is also offering up her new thriller Jump Cut for free to Amazon Prime members who can borrow books for Kindle.
And don’t forget DEAD OF WINTER, the short story anthology for your Kindle and Nook. Chilling stories from bestselling mystery writers for only $4.99.
Subscribe to the blog to find out about future promotions and free e-books.
Is hard copy still alive & kicking?
I’m pretty sure the book in its physical, dead-tree form is not going away, at least until we quit paper entirely. But I do like holding a book in my hands for reading. That love, instilled in childhood, will probably be the first thing to go as children grow up reading on electronic devices. Keep your children reading real books! Objects of affection that last and last. (What was your favorite book from childhood? I have a falling-apart copy of The Night Before Christmas in Texas That Is, given to us by my Texas grandparents. It’s still pretty funny to see Santa in cowboy boots.)
That said, digital seems to the wave of the future. But like me, people still like real books. I just formatted my mystery Nordic Nights to be printed on demand (one at a time, less waste) by Amazon’s Createspace. I’ve done about four or five books so far for them so not a new experience…. or so you would think! Every time I format a book I have to re-learn certain aspects of Microsoft Word (which as much as I hate it is the only word processor that has all the bells and whistles I need.) Section breaks are the main bugaboo, and headers, and pagination, and do-you-start-every-chapter-on-the-right-or just flow? After about a week of hair-pulling I got it right. And the reason I know is there is a new gadget at Createspace that lets you actually look at your uploaded text. It’s called Interior Reviewer and after you upload your file (pdf/x please) you can turn the pages, get called out for your mistakes, and re-do it if necessary. It appears there is still some actual person doing final review but this new feature lets you fix the major things. I can see reviewing interior text formatting errors would be a major hassle for Amazon (it’s a major hassle for me and I only have to do one book at a time.)
The templates you download from Createspace make interior formatting much simpler. But beware adding new pages (to make certain text on the right or left usually.) I found out the new pages weren’t sized properly, going in at 8.5 x 11, instead of the document page setup size. That wreaked havoc with pdf/x, making it break down each size into a separate file. Such joy, to get the NO ISSUES report from the Interior Reviewer. Ring the merry bells! And I thought designing the cover would be a bitch.
Oh, it’s the little things this holiday season…. cheers!
Growing old waiting for your audiobook? Take action!
A quick note here mid-week to give a shout-out to Iambik Audiobook who have released three of my books on audio recently. Not only does the author have input into the narrator selection (akin to having final approval on your book cover — when did that happen?) but you work with the narrator and Iambik to make the best product you can. I found the experience transforming, maybe because I’m doing my books with Thalia Press these days. (That means I edit myself basically so I love having a team at Iambik!)
The company is bundling the three audiobooks — my two Dorie Lennox mysteries, One O’clock Jump and Sweet and Lowdown, plus my stand-alone suspense Blackbird Fly, with a 25% discount right now! The single title price is only $6.99 but you can all three for just over $15. (The discount code is mcclendon-audio through the Iambik website.)
To find out more about the books and their narrators, check out this Iambik blog post. I loved what they had to say about my writing (another reason to love Iambik!)
The Importance of Boots on the Ground
First let it be said that I love research. Maybe too much. When I was writing my historical mysteries I had to finally set aside all the fascinating books and just *write.* Because you don’t want your research to be show-y and all “this is what I know.” It should flow naturally from the story. But a couple weeks ago I found out — in the nick of time — that sometimes all that book and internet research, even your memories of a place you’ve been, aren’t enough. You need boots on the ground.
My new thriller, Jump Cut, comes out next week — officially. I spent a couple days in Seattle shooting video and stills for a book trailer that I cobbled together last week. (Also just in the nick of time! Wouldn’t want to be planning ahead.) While my son (a great photographer, thanks, Nick!) and I drove around the city, getting shots of Seattle iconic sights like the monorail, the Space Needle, the ferries, etc., I noticed something. I had a couple details wrong. And they were, like, really important! In the big climactic scene. Read more 
