“When I was first

I’d travel around the world—at my publisher’ expense, of course—and hit the major bookstores, where I’d do readings and signings for standing-room-only audiences,” says Jackie Morse Kessler, the author of a four-book YA series with Houghton/Graphia: Hunger, Rage, Loss and the upcoming Breath.

“Then reality hit. My publisher wasn’t sending me anywhere. If I wanted to do a book tour, it would be out of my own pocket.”

Reinventing the book tour

Out with the glitz and glam, and in with the blog tour. As Kessler describes the new approach, “It’s exactly what it sounds like: a group of bloggers agree to “tour” you, invite you to visit their websites and blogs, which helps promote you and your book — and, of course, you’re helping promote your hosts’ websites and blogs, too. Basically, you schedule a day to do a guest post or Q&A on their blog, and that’s your tour stop for that day.

Kessler just finished a marathon 22 stops for her book Loss, and agreed to talk with me about what goes into planning a successful blog tour.

How does a blog tour compare to a traditional book tour, where an author does signings at bookstores and gives interviews at media outlets?

Getting signings in bookstores isn’t easy. The chains were reluctant at best to host them for me. I’ve had more luck with my local indie bookstores…but not much. One store treats me like a rock star and is a true pleasure to work with; others, less so.

And just because you write it, that doesn’t mean they will come. My signings were hardly a case of me sitting in a comfy chair, sipping an energy drink while my eager fans lined up. I stood for hours, hawking my books, schmoozing with customers, and chatting with the booksellers. On a good day, I sold 12 books. On a bad day? No books at all.

Happily, it’s easier than ever these days to do your own blog tour. Setting it up basically goes like this: You start three months ahead. You research a lot of blogs; you create a top-tier and second-tier list of blogs; you contact the bloggers and pitch yourself/your book/your blog tour; you follow up; you slowly book dates; you come up with a tour giveaway. This last part is very helpful: it’s added incentive for people to read your guest posts and/or interviews, and it can stir up excitement, depending on what you give away. For the blog tour on my first book in this series, Hunger, I created small posters of the cover, which I gave away, along with a signed copy of the book.  For the Loss tour just completed, I included the extra incentive of a grand-prize drawing, the winner of which would be named a character in my next book, Breath.

A number of the bloggers emailed right away for the Loss posters. I think my grand-prize giveaway was pretty cool, if I do say so myself. And the grand-prize winner was extremely happy.

The big thing to remember when you’re setting up your blog tour is you must be professional. It’s so easy to think that just because you’re emailing someone who isn’t a New York Times book reviewer, you can be lazy with your inquiry, or sloppy, or even rude. Bloggers who agree to tour you are doing you a massive favor, one that will cost you only your time and effort, as opposed to hundreds, even thousands, of dollars on promotion and advertising. For the love of chocolate, be polite!

Has your publisher helped out? Did they coordinate their publicity and marketing with your blog tour?

I set up my own blog tour for Hunger in 2010, and was fortunate to also be part of the Crossroads Blog Tour (an annual blog tour for authors of paranormal YA books that takes place around Halloween.)

For Rage, the second book, my publisher’s publicist set up a fabulous blog tour for me. My gosh, it was so relaxing! All I had to do was answer the questions/write a guest post to the topic that my publicist sent me! What sweet relief! OK, it was a lot of work. But I didn’t have to query or schedule the reviewers, and I didn’t have to mail out prizes. Whew!

For Loss, my new publicist didn’t set up a tour for me, although she was happy to provide advance review copies. I decided to go ahead and put together a blog tour on my own; it had been almost a year since Rage had hit the shelves, so I wanted to renew interest in the book and the series overall.

How did you select the 22 stops on the Loss tour?  How did you approach them? Did anyone turn you down?

First, I made a list of bloggers who had toured me previously. Next, I researched YA review blogs and made my list of tier 1 and tier 2 candidates. Some of them didn’t do tours but did do reviews; others didn’t do reviews but hosted tours. When I emailed people I didn’t know, the pitch went like this:

My name is Jackie Morse Kessler, and I am a young adult author published by Harcourt/Graphia. Would you be interested in being part of the Loss blog tour in March 2012? The book — third in the Riders of the Apocalypse series, but it can be read as a standalone novel — is about a bullied teenage boy who is tricked into becoming the new Pestilence, one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. (A portion of proceeds will be donated to the Alzheimer’s Association.) Loss hits the shelves on March 20, 2012.

For the bloggers with whom I’d worked before, I didn’t have to introduce myself, but I did have to pitch the book.

A number of bloggers either said “too busy,” which could mean exactly that or could be a polite way of saying “I don’t like your books”, and only a few didn’t respond, even after a follow-up message. But for the most part, everyone said yes. Which is why I had 22 tour stops lined up, as well as giveaways on two blogs that I participate in: Deadline Dames and The League of Reluctant Adults.

I did mention that I didn’t sleep much in March, right?

What kinds of things can go wrong on a blog tour?

There were a few late posts, or posts that went up a day or two off schedule. When a blogger missed the scheduled date, I sent an email the next day asking if the post would still be going up, because if not, I’d use the guest blog elsewhere. Everyone got back to me, for which I was grateful.

How did the blog tour work out for “Loss”?

I consider the Loss blog tour a resounding success, based on the comments on the participating blogs. Many mentioned that they hadn’t heard of the series before but now were interested; quite a few commenters responded to the specific guest blog I posted, talking about how they agreed, or that it was helpful, or that they were looking forward to reading Loss. A few mentioned that they loved my books, which gave me a warm, fuzzy feeling all day.

Because the tour took place immediately before and during launch week, it’s hard to say whether the tour helped generate sales. But in terms of raising awareness? Yes, the tour worked.

I’m thrilled that Loss is a Junior Library Guild selection for spring 2012, as well as a top pick for RT magazine.

Any last words of advice?

Along with my “be polite” message above, don’t over schedule. In the end, 22 blog tour stops was too much. I’m grateful that the bloggers did so much for me — tweeting/Facebooking the tour and reviews, not just on the tour date but after — but I overdid it. I wrote 17 individual guest blogs, answered four sets of interview questions, did a phone interview, answered questions from commenters all day — all this while writing Breath and finishing my taxes. And working the full-time day job. And taking part in an all-day tae kwon do tournament.

I’m pretty sure that for Breath, and going forward, I will max out a tour at two weeks. Especially when I’m on deadline for another book.

Care to share any other details about your life?

I’m the senior editor and copy chief for a business management journal. My sons are 10 and 8 — and my God, the 10-year-old has his first crush. I may never sleep again! The Precious Little Tax Deductions, my Loving Husband, and I are all testing for our next tae kwon do belt levels in mid-May. Training to be a superhero!

For the record: I write about demons, angels, the hapless humans caught between them, superheroes, the super villains who pound those heroes into pudding, witches, ghosts, and the occasional Horseman of the Apocalypse. And I had a stint in the Buffyverse when I wrote a Tales of the Vampires comic for Dark Horse Comics.

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What about you?

Are you an author who’s tried blog touring?  We’d love to hear about your experience with that and hope you’ll add your own advice for fellow writers here in comments. And if you’re an author whose publisher sent you out there on a traditional old-school book tour, we’d love to hear about that too!  Every last detail.

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Readers, if you liked this post, you might be interested in these:

Attention shoppers: Lessons learned from a book signing disaster

Book bloggers can help sell your book: Tips for authors

A smart marketing consultant can be the secret weapon in an author’s campaign to market and promote a book. That’s according to Adrienne Biggs, one of three experts interviewed for this post.

Since not all authors are experienced or even comfortable selling themselves, professional consultants can help with customized marketing strategies to reach your targeted audience of eager readers.

I surveyed three veteran book marketing pros and here’s what they said about the changing world of promotion and publicity. First, their credentials:

Cindy Ratzlaff describes herself as a brand evangelist, buzz marketer and social media strategist. She’s the author of The Beginner’s Guide to Facebook for Business. Cindy has developed award-winning marketing and publicity campaigns for more than 150 New York Times bestselling books and was named by Forbes magazine as one of the “Top 30 Women Entrepreneurs to Follow on Twitter”.

Stephanie Chandler is CEO of Authority Publishing, a company that specializes in custom publishing and marketing services for authors. She has a broad variety of publisher and author clients, and is the author of Own Your Niche: Hype-Free Internet Marketing Tactics, and The Author’s Guide to Building an Online Platform: Leveraging the Internet to Sell More Books.

Adrienne Biggs is former Publicity Manager for Jossey-Bass, an imprint of John Wiley & Sons. In 2008, she launched Biggs Publicity, and embraced the use of Facebook and Twitter. In 2010, Adrienne was named Board Member and VP of Northern California Book Publicity and Marketing Association and in 2011 she assumed the role of President.

What can a marketing consultant contribute to the success of a book?

Cindy Ratzlaff: A marketing consultant can help a new author navigate all of the metrics that must be in place in order for a book to be successful, including a promotional plan that coordinates the timing of in-person and online advertising and publicity, consumer outreach, and social networking that should all occur simultaneously when point of purchase ebook and print retail distribution is active.

Stephanie Chandler: The right marketing consultant can help you identify your target audience and understand its needs, challenges, and interests. This step is essential in building your marketing plan. Next, a marketing consultant should help you identify marketing tactics to reach that audience and generate broad sales.

Adrienne Biggs: Good marketing consultants are an author’s secret weapon when putting together a successful book campaign. They have the experience, they know the market and how media and book buyers think and can present your book to these outlets effectively. They can work either independently or with an in-house marketing team to insure that all bases are covered and no creative opportunity slips by.

What are the best ways for an author to help with marketing a book?

Cindy Ratzlaff: It’s the author’s job to build a platform and increase his or her visibility. Every author should have five basic social media accounts to maximize their visibility:

1. A Facebook personal profile in their real name, with a photo. I recommend that authors enable the “subscribe” button and live their online life more publicly. As an author, you are or are becoming a “public figure.” Invite people into a relationship with you, the author, in the simplest way…on your Facebook profile.

2. A Facebook Fan Page titled with the name of the author and the word “author.” A fan page can be customized so that fans can check the “Buy the book” page and make a purchase without leaving Facebook. They can also join the author’s mailing list (all authors should be capturing email names of fans), and authors can even have a tab, or app as Facebook is now calling our former tabs, with a list of personal appearances or media events.

3. A Twitter Account. Twitter is the amplification tool. The fast moving stream means that multiple messages about the author’s tour, book, topic of interest, love of books and anything they care passionately about can lead like minded, potential readers to them. Additionally, every Tweet is a unique URL and again, the goal is to create a large digital footprint, filled with keywords that describe the author’s topic, to lead readers back to the author’s home base.

4. A YouTube Account. YouTube is the second largest search engine behind Google. People search “How-to” on Google hundreds of thousands of times every day. Authors should create short video talks about their books and post them to their own YouTube channel, making sure the title of the video includes keywords that would attract the ideal reader. Upload the videos to YouTube and share the links to Facebook and Twitter for added digital clout.

5. A blog. I encourage every author to have a blog and to post 2 times per week with each post containing 300-500 words. The first and the last paragraph should include some important keywords that are integral to the author’s core topic to attract, again, ideal readers.

Stephanie Chandler: I am a big advocate of blogging. This will help attract traffic from Google and give you a way to connect with your audience via comments. Next, share each blog post with your social media networks. This will bring visitors back to your site. Commit to engaging in social media daily. Also, look for groups on Facebook or LinkedIn that reach your target 
audience and get involved. Or, better yet, start your own group and gain 
exposure as a leader. Finally, look for websites that reach your target 
audience and see if you can submit guest articles or blog posts. 
Marketing online is all about consistent action, sharing content, and 
building an audience.

Adrienne Biggs: I recommend that an author take a public speaking course or hire a media coach if you’re not comfortable talking about the subject of your book in public, or with the media. Know your “talking points” so you can feel confident that any media interview he or she schedules for the client will be informative and engaging.

What are the skills of a really good marketing consultant?

Cindy Ratzlaff: A marketing consultant should understand the entire publishing process, the traditional promotional seasons of retail bookselling, current distribution models, and both traditional and online advertising options.

Stephanie Chandler: A great marketing consultant should give you plenty of ideas for locating and connecting with your target audience. And by the way, not 
all marketing tactics work for everyone so a big part of it is testing 
to find what works for you. Your marketing consultant should give you 
plenty of ideas so that you can try out multiple tactics.

Adrienne Biggs: Creativity, tenacity, direct experience, “connectivity”, a great network, and realistic expectations.

Has your role changed with the upheavals in publishing? If so, how?

Cindy Ratzlaff: My role has definitely changed. It used to be that one or two big national hits were a guarantee of bestsellerdom. Now even that “holy grail” of publicity hits doesn’t guarantee books will sell. In the non-fiction genre, the national network programs are using fewer authors than ever before, bringing their own experts into long term contractual relationships and leaving fewer spots for authors.

In marketing, the big advertising campaign in say, the New York Times Book Review, is now reserved for the rare book. Traditional marketing budgets just don’t include major advertising anymore.

With fewer television outlets and smaller advertising budgets, I’ve turned my focus toward teaching authors how to create their own passionate following. The average Facebook user has 130 friends. If an author has 10,000 fans with 130 friends each, you can see how quickly potential influence can spread. Consumers need many more touch points with the author and his or her message before making a decision to purchase the book.

Stephanie Chandler: Yes, I’ve been doing less traditional marketing and publicity and focusing more on helping authors get professional support for self-publishing their books. My Authority Publishing company specializes in custom publishing and content marketing. We consult with the authors individually, reviewing strategies and customizing the best plan for their unique content and goals, including internet marketing, search engine optimization, blogging, promotion on Amazon, internet media outreach, articles, public speaking and more.

Adrienne Biggs: Yes, very much so. I rarely stuff envelopes with printed galleys anymore. These days I spend most of my time creating, managing, and administering online social networks (FaceBook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Pinterest, WhoSay etc) and a smaller part of my efforts on traditional media outlets which have shrunk and sometimes disappeared over the past few years. I’ve been doing most campaigns since 2008 using 65 percent social media and only 35 percent traditional media.

Do you generally work for the author or the publisher, and how 
does that affect what you do?

Cindy Ratzlaff: I most often work for the publisher on behalf of a single author or group of authors. I create a marketing plan, a calendar and recommended messaging and then I model the art of social media brand building to the authors and teach them how to continue to build their tribe.

But if anyone tells you they’ll do it all for you, RUN. If the author is not involved personally, lending his voice and personality to social media, the desired effect will not be achieved. The whole point of social media is to shorten the distance between the passionate reader and the passionate writer. Social media marketing is the new book tour or bookstore reading. The author is the magic.

I do work directly with authors if I feel the author is highly motivated to learn the strategies I teach and willing to work alongside me so that they can eventually take total control of their own social marketing. Because working one on one with authors on a tight budget isn’t always possible,  I’m beginning to produce some self-study video and webinar materials that will give authors the same information but in a DIY format.

Stephanie Chandler: Since Authority Publishing is an active publisher, I generally work with authors directly on customized marketing plans. However, other authors we don’t publish can also take advantage of our services.

Adrienne Biggs: When I started my own marketing agency in 2002, I was typically hired by the publisher. These days, budgets are tighter and publishers may hire an outside publicist for only one part of the campaign, like creating a Facebook presence, or doing radio in one market, or targeting a certain kind of media outlet.

Consequently I’m working now directly with authors who want to supplement the in-house publicist’s work or with self-publishing authors who appreciate my focus on their book and willingness to give it all I’ve got.

What are the newest trends in book marketing? What’s hot?

Cindy Ratzlaff: I’d say that right now, as the Facebook Timeline rolls out to Facebook fan pages, one hot new opportunity for author marketing is creating custom apps so fans can buy books, join mailing lists, enter contests and ask questions all without leaving their favorite. Another hot trend is Twitter parties at a pre-determined hour in which fans and the author gather for a live chat using a #hashtag to help people follow the conversation.

But the coolest thing I’m seeing is adding an online environment to a book. This means putting URL links into a book that lead a reader to an author’s website where they’ll get expanded new content, videos from the author, out takes back story, and live webinar chats with the author. I love the idea of baking “more” into the book as an added bonus. You’re saying to the author “this book is an invitation to a longer, deeper relationship with me.” But, of course, then you must be prepared to deliver.

Stephanie Chandler: Pinterest is the big buzz right now. This is a social network for sharing images — pictures, graphics, clipart, etc. Authors can use this to create “pin boards” with photos from their books, or photos of books in the same genre, or other theme projects. I’m finding this to be a fun and creative way to connect with a new audience.

Adrienne Biggs: The current trends are the use of Google+ to create an author presence/platform/engagement; the use of “social releases” in addition to the traditional multi-page press release, and video book trailer.

7. Do you work with self-published authors and if so, are there any 
special issues?

Cindy Ratzlaff: I offer webinars, video courses and how-to blog posts to help self-published authors find the tools, tactics and strategies they need to be their own marketing and publicity people. The self-published author is often more willing to work on their platform than traditionally published authors who still operate under the illusion that the publishing house will take care of everything.

Stephanie Chandler: Yes, I do work with self-publishing authors through my company Authority Publishing. I tell my clients that any author who cuts corners and skip essentials like editing and professional cover design will not be as successful as those who take the necessary steps to make their books as professional as possible. If you’re going to self-publish, make sure you treat that book like a business and get it done right. I firmly believe that self-published books can be just as successful as traditionally published books if you’re willing to do the work.

Adrienne Biggs: Yes, but I’m very particular about choosing clients who are serious about self-publishing in a professional manner. Services I provide might include: building a platform, training how to build an audience or social network, consulting on how to market the book as a tool to build their business, or informing them of publishing courses, conferences or organizations that can help further their experience as an author.

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What about you?

Are you looking for help in marketing your book? What’s your experience with publicity that works or doesn’t? How have you customized your strategy to fit your target audience? We welcome your comments and any advice for fellow authors.

It’s a blurb to die for, and well deserved. I’ve known Barbara for more than twenty-five years and worked with her on several books, including The Viagra Diaries.

She’s a dynamo, an anatomizing social satirist and commentator with a keen ear and profound empathy for everyone she writes about. She’s been in the news recently for selling Viagra Diaries, which she originally self-published, to Simon & Schuster for a six-figure advance and to HBO for a TV series coming this fall.

We spoke the other day and she agreed to share her story here at The Book Deal.

What’s the book about?

It’s the story of Anny Applebaum, a 65-year-old writer with a weekly newspaper column called “The Viagra Diaries,” about love and sex after 60. She falls for Marv, a 75-year-old diamond dealer and they have a passionate affair — but Anny soon discovers that he’s a serial online dating-service customer, that he can’t face aging, and he’s on the prowl for younger women. So Anny struggles with Marv, with aging, with her own fears of intimacy, and also worries about her 41-year-old unmarried daughter. Anny takes the reader through her funny, insightful account of a woman who ignores the fallacies of age, romantic love, sex, and makes some surprising new choices.

How does an author go from self-publishing to a big book deal?

First you write the book, believe in it, and ignore the agents who reject your project. Then you self-publish the book, do your own marketing and publicity, online social networking, and call bookstores to see if they’ll order your book from Ingram. The rest of it is up to the public. They make a book happen.

Tell us about the HBO TV series, which came before the Simon & Schuster book deal. How did that happen?

The Viagra Diaries had been out for about six months and was selling well. Then I received a call from Wendy Riche at Alan Riche Productions in Hollywood. Wendy said she had read the book and loved the premise. She asked if they could option the novel for a feature film. After I checked them out and saw they were very reputable, I said yes and hired Patti Felker, an entertainment lawyer in Los Angeles to negotiate the contract.

The Riches had one year to sell the book. They had an almost deal with Universal but then passed: “No one wants old,” they were told. “No one will watch a 70-year old woman having sex,” But my daughter Suzy Unger, a VP for the William Morris Agency said “Mom. It should go to HBO. It should be a television series.” She gave the book to Aaron Kaplan, a well-known producer and a week later he sold the book to HBO. HBO hired Goldie Hawn to play the lead, Darren Star who wrote Sex in the City to write the script, and Paul Feig, director of Bridesmaids and The Office to direct. The latest news is that they dropped Goldie Hawn, so they’re recasting now for the pilot in May.

And how did you get the book deal?

Patti Felker, my entertainment lawyer, referred me to David Vigliano, a literary agent in NYC, since she does the legal work on most of his book contracts. He loved the theme of ageism and sex after 60, and sold it right away to Simon & Schuster. I think that the new edition, which will be published in October 2012, is fabulous. And David has sold the book to eight foreign countries so far, along with world wide audio rights.

Tell us about your background as a writer

I’ve wanted to be a writer as long as I can remember. Early on I wrote poetry and short stories. In my 30s, as a single parent with two daughters, I went to graduate school and finished my MFA in creative writing. While there, I wrote my first novel The Rise and Fall of A Jewish American Princess, which my then agent Fred Hill sold, but it got shelved and never came out.

Then I wrote another novel So Long Princess, and worked on it with you, Alan, to get it to the point where Fred sold it to Morrow in 1987. It had great reviews but there were big problems with distribution. After I left Fred Hill, I wrote thirteen other novels and book projects, but I couldn’t get an agent, and couldn’t sell anything. In the nineties, when self publishing was still looked down on, I put out my own book about AIDS in San Francisco called God Doesn’t Make Trash. We had nine film options with Sharon Stone, James Woods and others but it never got made. My new agent is interested in selling So Long, Princess, and other books that no one would read at the time.

How did the The Viagra Diaries get started?

It was 2007 and literary agents were telling me it was “too late” to pitch my projects, because my books were “outdated,” or, “too old…” They told me, “Rest on your laurels and get another husband or something.” This really made me angry. What’s outdated or too old? It seems that unless you write chick lit or you’re 20 and look like one of those reality show housewives with hair extensions and fake boobs, you’re treated as if you’re a throwaway.

I was tired of ageism. So I began writing a column in a local paper called “Suddenly Sixty”, until the new editor wanted me to write about “seniors and goldfish,” so I quit. Now I write “Suddenly Seventy” for the San Francisco Jewish Weekly, and get tons of fan mail. I also write a column for The Huffington Post about dating at 70.

Then I ventured onto a singles Internet site, only to be told not to put my age above 60.

So I decided to write about an aging protagonist who doesn’t believe in age, a boomer hottie, who still pursues her dreams. I decided to take all the stories I had from researching and make them the basis for The Viagra Diaries, the story of Anny Applebaum.

Why did you decide to self-publish?

I didn’t want to waste years sending query letters to agents and publishing. When I sent it to agents those few who responded said things like “There isn’t a demographic for over 60” and “No market for seniors.” Self-publishing was becoming more and more respectable so I thought, why not? At least my book will be out there. I’ll have control.

So as you know, I worked with you, Alan, to edit the early version of the book. You were the only one who took The Viagra Diaries seriously at the time.

What did you do to market and publicize the self-published edition?

I wrote a good pitch and sent it to all the San Francisco Bay Area papers, television and radio shows. A few responded with some good press but most of the local media said “We can’t sell age.”

So I asked my daughter for a list of movie stars who might endorse. Some of them were very kind and generous, including Joan Rivers, Ed Asner and the poet Phyllis Koestenbaum, whose blurbs are up with the book on Amazon.

Then Suzy got the name of Kathy Lee Gifford and Hoda’s publicist at the Today Show. I sent them a letter along with along with a copy of the book. Kathy Lee and Hoda emailed back quickly and said they “LOVED” the book and were glad someone was at last talking about age, dating, and ageism. Their producer booked me for a fifteen-minute segment.

After the Today Show, I got on Entertainment Tonight, CBS Morning Show, The Talk with Sharon Osbourne, Touch Of Gray Radio, and a few others. It was an important experience. I learned a lot and from 2009-2010 the book sold 10,000 copies.

How did readers react to the book?

Beyond my hopes. Immediately after I self-published, I started getting fan mail from aging boomers around the country, saying, “Thank God someone is writing about this. At last a real character with her real age.” Fans wrote me stories about their fears of aging, the age discrimination they suffered. They want to find new love, too.

What’s it like to have a huge success at this point in your life?

Well, I feel great about getting some recognition for what I believe in at last. I don’t think of my current success as an end but more a process. I am 75 and I want to be a star.

What’s your advice to authors?

Keep writing. Never give up. Don’t get caught up with snobby elitists or prissy cloistered groups of writers, authors, teacher, who label your work bad, good, mid-list, this or that. Don’t listen to anyone who discriminates, who tells you how to write. Break the rules. Find your voice. Learn from those who are there for you, who have real expertise. I learned from you as my editor all those years, and from the higher power and from myself.

Write your books in YOUR VOICE, and don’t worry about what other people might think, or if it will be a bestseller. Write every day, as discipline is talent. See a project through even it if it’s not great or if you’re struggling. Go on to the next project even when you’re down.

Do you recommend self-publishing?

Definitely. I heartily recommend self-publishing to all writers. It’s the way to go. It’s a way to get your book out there–instead of waiting years for an agent to send you a form letter or ignore you. Publishers, I’ve been told, are scouring self-published books, checking out sales, and buying them for conversion to their lists, like Simon & Schuster did with me.

What’s your next project?

I’m currently working on Should I Sleep In His Dead Wife’s Bed, a book of monologues and snippets about boomer-plus love, sex, and dating and there’s already interest in a television sitcom based on it. I haven’t showed it to an agent yet, only to a producer.

It’s exciting being on a new mountain. I wonder if there’s a top?

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What about you?

Does Barbara’s experience with publishing resonate with you?  She struggled with rejections for many years and yet found a way to soldier on.  We’d love to hear your thoughts here in comments, and will watch for any questions.

How does an author of memoir or personal narrative transform a naked self into a compelling voice that tells a story readers can’t put down?

This question arises frequently in my work as a developmental editor.

One of best books on this technique is The Situation and the Story: the Art of Personal Narrative by Vivian Gornick, author of the memoir Fierce Attachments about her struggle to be independent of her mother.

In The Situation, Gornick shows how to pull from the raw material of a writer’s life and create a “truth-speaking narrator” to tell the story.

I underlined my own copy so much that some of the pages are covered in red ink.

Get an attitude

The trick is to create a fictional “I” narrator with an attitude. This new character sets out on a journey of self-discovery that’s informed by the hindsight of a current understanding of what happened. “This narrator becomes a persona. Its tone of voice, its angle of vision, the rhythm of its sentences, what it selects to observe and what to ignore are chosen to serve the subject,” Gornick says.

She analyzes how writers like Edmund Gosse, Geoffrey Wolff, Joan Didion and others succeed in telling their stories so well. “In each case the writer was possessed of an insight that organized the writing, and in each case a persona had been created to serve the insight.”

In Joan Didion’s essay “In Bed” from her book The White Album, Gornick shows us how the author uses her own “depressed, quivering persona” and personal experience with debilitating migraines to create a narrative voice uniquely qualified to expel the conventional view of these chronic headaches as malingering or imaginary. But then Didion’s insights go much further, discovering the painful migraine’s “usefulness” as a distraction from something even worse: the mundane “guerrilla war” of her daily life. The headache becomes a purge of sorts, followed at last by a grateful peace. Didion’s skill as a writer elevates the personal to a universal truth with which many can identify.

It’s not easy to construct a narrative persona. Gornick describes it as a character we can trust to “bring us out into a clearing where the sense of things is larger than it was before.”

This reminded me of Toni Morrison’s first book The Bluest Eye, which I acquired and edited. A young woman’s distinct and yearning voice begins with a deep melancholy that takes us through 200 pages of shocking drama and leaves us ultimately with an impossible but utterly credible resolution. Only a voice with that kind of power could achieve this tour de force. Read it, if you haven’t, and see what you think.

How to do it

Here are some of Gornick’s insights and her advice for authors.

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Creating a compelling narrative persona

• Lie down on the couch but never treat the reader as your analyst. Weed out the defensive, embarrassed, self-pitying, insecure, self-aggrandizing, or complaining. Then bring us your conclusions about what were once mixed feelings and are now clear insights.

• Weave a story of discovery and definition. Remember that your memoir or personal narrative should relate a journey from an unfinished self to a purposeful being, warts and all.

• Think about your voyage in terms that Gornick calls “involuntary truth telling”. You didn’t realize at the outset what you are able to tell us now. The reader moves with you from ignorance to truth.

• Illuminate the small moments and telling details that illustrate the deeper meaning of what are otherwise random events.

• Welcome the dramatic buildup of uncertain outcomes and unresolved conflict. Readers will empathize and identify with this kind of reality, regardless of how the curtain falls.

Not confession but self-investigation

When writing a memoir or personal narrative you’re involved “not in confession but in this kind of self-investigation,” Gornick says. “Be honest about your own part in the situation, your fear, whining or self-hatred.”

As an example, she cites George Orwell’s personal essay “Shooting an Elephant” in which he describes his duties during the early 1920s as an English colonial police officer in Lower Burma. Called upon to deal with a rogue elephant’s lethal rampage, he kills the beast. The event becomes a bloody metaphor for both the decline of the British Empire and the terror young Orwell feels before his senior officers who consider the elephant more valuable than any dead Indian.

Orwell’s narrator becomes in Gornick’s words “the one who implicates himself not because he wants to but because he has no choice.”

More tips for writers

Memoir and personal narrative are very popular among authors and readers. Here are some more useful tips from other writers and memoirists.

• The most important character of all in nonfiction is the narrator, especially in memoir. The narrator, of course, is you. But you as a character.” –Richard Goodman (The Writer’s Chronicle, V. 40, #2)

• The more deeply one reflects about one’s own life, the more one realizes one’s connections to other people, other species, other times. Such reflection is in fact an antidote to self-absorption. – Scott Russell Sanders (The Writer’s Chronicle, V. 41. #1)

• The crucial distinction for me is not the difference between fact and fiction, but the distinction between fact and truth. Because facts can exist without human intelligence but truth cannot. – Toni Morrison (Inventing the Truth: The Art and Craft of Memoir)

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What about you?

Are you developing a persona for a memoir or other work of personal narrative?  If you’re not already familiar with The Situation and the Story, check it out.  It’s a book that has helped many writers.

I’ve worked with quite a few authors of memoirs and I know there are different approaches that work. Tell me about your experience. I welcome your comments and will watch for any questions.

Do you have a

Is it bursting at the seams? Does it feel incomplete and frustrating to read?

Then you may have a recalcitrant short story that could be transformed into a successful novel.

A case in point

A writer client of mine, a young author who had already published a collection of short stories, came to me with a new work of about 12,000 words that was giving her a hard time.

“I can’t fold in the backstory, and every new scene seems to require more characters and relationships.”

Our editorial process became a slow march through the pages, during which we identified many spots where more explanation seemed necessary. We struggled to confine ourselves to the original tightly compressed narrative arc fraught with ambiguity and deliberate incompletion, but both of us found the next draft hard to understand and ultimately unsatisfying.

So after some major discussion to consider the goals and potential structure of the piece, we went the other way: expansion, amplification, fleshing out, going back and going forward with more story and character development. The manuscript grew and grew like Alice in Wonderland after swallowing the cake marked “eat me”, until it became a novel of 85,000 words.

Getting from short to long

Expanding an incomplete short story into a novel involves a variety of tools and techniques according to the specific needs of the original piece. Here are some suggestions and guidelines that may help you along your way.  And if you’d like to work with a developmental editor on this project, check out my advice for finding a good one.

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Guidelines For Growing a Novel from a Short Story

• Deconstruct the original draft

Take apart what you have so far, and look for the holes. Study the characters. Are they alive, three dimensional, speaking and behaving in a credible and compelling manner?

Analyze the sequence of events. How can you expand on the existing scenes so they have more meaning and power? Where can you add detail, space, and time?

• Create a new outline

It’s essential to make a plan for the structure of a book, particularly when expanding from a short story to a novel.

An outline provides an opportunity to step back and see where you can flesh out the original incomplete material with more linked events.

Each chapter gives you the opportunity to add and subtract elements, move them around, and to insert more dialogue and visual description at key points.

Remember that outlines are never carved in stone, since they’re usually polished and revised once you start writing again and the book takes on a life of its own.

• Conceptualize anew

When you create a longer work from a short story, you’re not just filling in the holes. You’re painting the picture on a larger canvas.

The rhythm of a novel is different, the pacing more ample. You have the luxury of spending extended time with the characters so we know more about their history, where they’re coming from, the deeper complexity of their motivation and actions. What was originally subconscious can leak out a bit more, without of course revealing more than you want to

What you thought had to be a brief and sketchy backstory may in fact become where the book actually begins.

Where you once had only one character you can have two or even three, each representing different aspects of the same theme but with a variety of temperaments and behaviors.

And there’s more room to write about the setting, the way things look, the colors, the smell and grit of the ashes as that train struggles over the mountain.

• Consider the composite novel

Collections of short stories may be carefully organized as a group that can also be read as chapters in an episodic sequence that portrays a common theme, with a focused group of characters in place and time.

In this way, a collection of short stories may be read as a full-length work which can be greater than its parts. I’ve worked with authors writing excellent composite novels, so I know how well it can work.

Examples of major critical successes of composite novels include Winesburg, Ohio: A Group of Tales of Ohio Small Town Life by Sherwood Anderson, Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri and Natasha by David Bezmozgis.

• Hang on to the original

The process of converting your short story to a novel can reveal a great deal about the weaknesses and strengths of the shorter first draft. In some cases, you may be inspired to go back and revise the old story to the point where it works on its own.

F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote what he thought at first was a false start and deleted from the opening pages of The Great Gatsby. He saved and published that story, however, calling it Absolution, which is now acknowledged as a revealing dress-rehearsal for his classic novel.

A successful short story is an elegant form of fiction that readers love and publishers respect as popular commercially. So many characters, feelings, ideas and meaningful action in such a limited economy of words! It’s like an austerity budget that results in a new abundance of creative capital. And short stories are currently enjoying even more success with the proliferation of new ways to sell them online.

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The bottom line

If your current short story draft has energy, intimacy and punch, leave it alone!

But if not, and you’ve identified some of the issues above, you may want to take the plunge and go for the long form.

What about you?

Have you wondered about converting a short story to a novel? Or assembling a collection of stories that work together in some important way?

We’d love to hear about your own experiences and ideas about this process.

That’s the bottom line, despite all the big changes in publishing, says Candice Fuhrman, an agent with many New York Times bestselling authors in her corner.

“As long as publishers are buying books and paying advances, agents have a role.”

It’s still true

Most traditional publishers will only consider a submission that comes from an agent they know and trust. That’s the way it’s worked for decades and it’s still true.

But the downturn in big advances and the explosion of self-publishing has challenged and shaken up the role of agents. As with everything else in the turbulent book business today, smart agents have had to adjust, experiment, and evolve to keep up with the times.

A special breed

Literary agents are a special breed: they love books and they know how to sell them. Sure, it’s not easy to get an agent. Who said writing a great book or getting published was easy? Agents are always on the prowl, however, to find the next big thing, especially that spectacular debut author who comes out of nowhere and makes a big splash.

But that doesn’t mean all agents agree about the changing marketplace and how their roles are changing with it. No no. I found quite a range in points of view from these four veteran VIPs in the business, whose opinions and insights you’ll find below.  First, their credentials:

Candice Fuhrman has had many #1 New York Times bestsellers ranging from nonfiction to quality literary fiction, including the series YOU: Staying Young, YOU: On a Diet and YOU: The Owner’s Manual, an Insider’s Guide to the Body, by Drs. Michael Roizen and Mehmet Oz, all #1 on the New York Times Bestseller List. Also The Rapture of Canaan, a novel by Sheri Reynolds, a selection of the Oprah book club and #1 on The New York Times paperback fiction list, and many others which you can see at the link.

Andrea Brown was an editor at Knopf, Random and Dell before opening her own agency in 1981. She has sold more than 2,000 titles, from toddler board books to serious, award-winning young adult works, including the bestselling titles Mama Do You Love Me, The Beanie Baby Handbook, Fire on Ice, Dark Fusion, Everlost and Unwind.

Andrea Hurst is a 25 year veteran of the book business whose authors include emerging new writers as well as New York Times bestselling authors. As a literary agent she handles high profile fiction and nonfiction. Her consulting division offers skilled developmental and copy-editing. A frequent keynote speaker and educator, she has written several books herself, including The Lazy Dog’s Guide to Enlightenment and Everybody’s Natural Food Cookbook.

Bonnie Solow was a journalist and film and publishing executive before establishing her own agency in 1997. Since then her agency has celebrated 22 New York Times bestsellers, including Secrets of the Millionaire Mind by T. Harv Eker, Teach Like Your Hair’s on Fire by Rafe Esquith, Happy For No Reason by Marci Shimoff, and many others.

Are you finding that acquiring editors and their management are more risk averse than in the past?

Candice Fuhrman: Most definitely.  Since the economic crisis began in 2008 we’ve seen a decline in advances.   This is true even for the “high-platform” authors.

Andrea Brown: We don’t see our end of the business (children and YA) as risk-averse. Maybe some of the advances have been lower in 2011, but publishers still want books and are willing to pay for them.

Andrea Hurst: They absolutely seem to be. What used to be a sure deal for us is often rejected.  A writer can have a great platform, polished manuscript, a compelling story, and still not receive an offer.  It can be hard to judge just what publishers want now.

Bonnie Solow: In our experience, if you represent books that promise powerful content along with strong marketing platforms, publishers and editors will compete to acquire them.

Given this climate, how has business been for you?

Candice Fuhrman: We’ve been fortunate to have a string of very good years. But I would say that our clients’ backlist sales were lower in 2011.  The collapse of Borders certainly contributed to that.

Andrea Brown: We had our best year ever in 2011, selling to all the publishers we have in previous years but now also selling to places like Amazon—both ebook and print deals. Perhaps because we specialize in children’s books, have many New York Times bestsellers and award winners, we are slightly immune to many of the upheavals my adult book colleagues are facing.

Andrea Hurst: In 2010, we did see far more sales with higher advances than in 2011. The changes happening at the publishing houses are affecting our productivity as well.  Publishers appear to be taking fewer risks, offering lower advances, and taking longer to payout on a deal.

Bonnie Solow: Last year was a stellar year for our agency. After the financial contraction of 2009 and 2010, in 2011 we found publishers to be highly receptive toward new projects and aggressive in their acquisition strategies. The majority of our projects were acquired via preemptive bids and competitive multi-house auctions.

What’s your prognosis for the future of agents?

Candice Fuhrman: It is closely tied to the future of the major publishers.  As long as they are buying books and paying advances, agents have a role.   We will have to fight harder, however, for a bigger share of electronic rights for our clients.

Andrea Brown: I have been an agent for 30 years and expect to be one representing the best in children’s literature for the next 30 years. Most writers we know still want their book published by the big houses and want those advances. They also still prefer the traditional book deals and paper. Ask me these questions again in 2 years and the answers may be different! But for now, nothing much has changed except we have some new doors that have opened, see increases in royalties now that e-books sales are increasing and have more options for our clients.

Andrea Hurst: Agents have always been the gatekeepers and in many ways will probably continue to be in one form or another.  Those that resist the current changes will miss out on the wonderful opportunities that are available.  Change is happening so fast in this industry, as I see it, you can be a part of creating this new world of publishing or ultimately be left behind.

Bonnie Solow: I wish I had a crystal ball. I certainly believe that certain agents will thrive with the evolution of the book industry. To do so requires staying current on digital developments, expanding one’s network of contacts in the digital publishing arena, and continuing to provide indispensable editorial, legal and marketing support to clients. Authors will need guidance in navigating their writing futures, and experienced, forward-thinking, savvy agents are in the best position to provide that direction.

What’s the most important thing an unpublished writer should do to get an agent?

Candice Fuhrman: Write well! Then seek referrals to agents from other writers who are pleased with their representation.   I would submit to a number of agents simultaneously (even though many agents say they don’t “allow” this).  If you’re good, you’ll have several agents to choose from and you can decide who is the best fit for you.

Andrea Brown: Above all, writers must write fabulous books that are also commercial.

Andrea Hurst: Research the publishing business and present a polished and professional query package.  Also, make sure you are pitching an agent that represents what you write and follow directions on the agent’s website.

Bonnie Solow: Unpublished writers should thoroughly do their homework. Identify agents who represent books that are kindred spirits to yours. Writers should present compelling reasons to a prospective agent why you think he or she would be right for your project. Also, a query should be lean and persuasive and succinctly answer three questions: 1. what is the book about, 2. why does it have to be written, and 3. why are you the perfect person to write this book.

What do you say to writers who are considering self-publishing?

Candice Fuhrman: In many cases I say GO FOR IT!   It’s never been a better time for self- publishing; there are so many options for sell your own e-book.  With most major publishers still only paying 25 percent of net for e-book sales, most writers can do better on their own.  Of course they have to be marketing demons — but that’s the case no matter who publishes you. Although many agents are becoming “jacks of all trades” with self-publishing authors, we could be called something else — such as a publisher or a production person or a marketer.

Andrea Brown: Some authors we’ve worked with have also done indie self-published e-books but don’t seem to make any money with them. The market is overwhelmed with titles — many badly written or edited — and writers find it’s tough to market. We do tell writers that if their book will be difficult to sell the traditional way (or we do not think we can place it), to go ahead and self-publish — but they must do it well and plan to spend lots of time to market.

Andrea Hurst: For many authors, this is a very viable option today.  Indie publishing, especially with e-books, offers a way to get your book directly in the reader’s hands.  It is still important to have a high quality product and market your work. Many agents I know are diversifying what services they offer and how they will work with authors seeking nontraditional publishing options.  Our agency consults with self-publishing authors through the whole process, offering professional editorial, design and evaluation services.

Bonnie Solow: Self-publishing is a viable option for many writers. There is no barrier to entry and authors can enjoy the satisfaction of maintaining full creative control with an accelerated release schedule. For authors who are entrepreneurial and who can access their readers through online marketing, speaking engagements, and so on, self-publishing can be the right route to take. In the long-term I do think agents will be more and more involved in helping clients self-publish… At this stage, however, authors who come to me are not interested in self-publishing. Instead, they want to enjoy the myriad benefits that come with being published by a major house.

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What about you?

Are you represented by an agent?  Can you share something about how you found your agent, and the impact representation has had on your writing career?

If you’re an author seeking representation now, how is that going?  Any advice for fellow writers?

And if you’re an author who’s decided to go forward without an agent, we’d love to hear about that decision too.

I’ll watch for your questions here in comments.

A: The short answer is “Yes, absolutely!”

That’s the truth, despite the fear that agents and publishers will avoid a book that falls into more than one genre.

But since this question comes up so often, let’s take a close look at the importance of genre in the book business today.

Scroll down for suggestions on how to cross genre boundaries successfully

A long-standing practice

“What’s your genre?” is a question every author gets, right? Authors in classes I’ve taught recently and others who have consulted me as a developmental editor have been seriously concerned about crossing forbidden boundaries that might offend the gatekeepers who stand in their way.

Categorizing a book by genre is a long-standing practice in the book business. It’s a convenient label for agents to slap on a book ahead of pitching the project to an acquisitions editor. It’s also the way bookstore clerks decide where merchandise goes in the store. And it’s how buyers browse and find books.

Categories are breaking down

The hegemony of genre categories, however, is gradually eroding. A book may well wind up on more than one shelf. Popular young adult books, for example, may also be shelved in adult fiction. And now that so many buyers research and purchase books online, they may not know or care about what genre the publisher labeled the book.

Not only that, many very successful bestselling books clearly cross the boundary from one genre to another, with terrific results.

Bestselling cross-genre books

From the New York Times bestseller lists, Stephen King’s 11/22/63 is a science-fiction political thriller that takes its hero back in time to prevent the assassination of JFK. Also on the list is Death Comes to Penderley by P.D. James, which merges a murder mystery with a sequel to Jane Austen’s literary masterpiece Pride and Prejudice. A classic example is the Fahrenheit 451, one of Ray Bradbury’s most famous and bestselling works that crosses from science fiction to a political diatribe on literary censorship.

Similarly, Judy Blume has been crossing highly literary fiction with young adult books about serious stuff from racism (Iggie’s House) to teen sex (Forever) since 1970. She paved the way for many other current cross-genre YA writers like Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games, which takes place in a post-apocalyptic future with romance, violence and politics.

And of course there’s the humungous success of Harry Potter, which includes several genres, including fantasy, YA coming of age, mystery, thriller, adventure and romance. Not to mention Stephanie Meyer’s vampire romance Twilight Saga and Amanda Hocking’s My Blood Approves paranormal romance series.

So why not write a literary coming-of-age novel about a young girl who just happens to be a wood fairy? Or a mystery where the killer is found through past life regression. It’s been done and if this is where you’re headed, you can do it, too, no matter what you’ve heard.

How to cross genre boundaries successfully

Here are some suggestions that I recommend to my author clients who are intending to mix genres.

Pick the alpha element as a tag

When you’re starting out, choose a label that’s easy to understand and sell. Pick the alpha element in your story — romance, mystery, paranormal — and give your book that tag to provide the marketplace with an initial perspective on where you’re coming from. The other elements in the story, whatever they may be, will remain evident and eventually create the context of your brand identity.

After you’ve established a successful track record your brand will be you, your name. That’s one of the reasons Suzanne Collins, Stephen King or Amanda Hocking can combine and meander through more than one genre at a time with impunity.

Build your own bandwagon

Any mixed genre story needs to come from your heart rather than from strategic calculation. Avoid the distraction of trendy fashions like Micro, the posthumous cross-genre technoscience adventure bestseller by Michael Crichton and Richard Preston, where the half-inch tall grad students get carried off by sadistic beetles. Shades of Gulliver’s Travels and Fantastic Voyage.

Be consistent

Sustain the integrity of the world you’ve created, however unique and unusual it may be, without jumping into any off-the-wall devices. Don’t pile one genre on another for the sake of cliff-hanging thrills or bravura embellishment. If your romance has elements of the supernatural, don’t unnecessarily slip in a murder just for good measure. Use the style and elements of more than one genre only in service of the story and its authentic characters.

Never take no for an answer

Don’t quit if the door is slammed in your face. Try another way to get that agent’s attention, like in a blind date or pitch session at a writers conference, or through a mutual friend. Be sympathetic to the agent, publisher, or retailer’s plight. From their perspective, genre purity makes a book faster and easier to sell.  Be persistant and convince them that you’ve got a great story.  That’s your best ammunition.

Don’t worry

Genre is a convenience, a traditional device that the conventional process of commercial publication has been using awkwardly for centuries.  But it didn’t stop cross-genre authors Nathaniel Hawthorne and Charles Dickens all the way up to Alice Sebold (The Lovely Bones) and Audrey Niffenegger (The Time Traveler’s Wife).

We all have to live with this outdated artifact.  At least for now.

What about you?

Are you working on a book that crosses genre lines? Are you concerned about it? Have you met up with opposition from agents or editors? Has it been resolved? We welcome hearing about your experience, and I’ll watch for any questions here in comments.

Authors today need a

Until now, the author pitch was defined as a hard-sell verbal punch to persuade agents and editors to take on their book. It was typically brief, high-concept, often hyperbolic and was designed to convince the agent standing there that the book was fabulous and so was the author.

But as with everything else in the book business, pitching too has changed, evolving with the times into something different and actually much more interesting.

Choosing the right pitch for the job

Like all good pitchers on the mound, authors today need a few tricks up their sleeves. They need to choose the right pitch for the job, taking aim directly at readers, retailers, social networks and media. Unlike the old arm-twisting approach, the new pitch doesn’t try to persuade these folks they’re going to love your book.

Instead you let them know what you’ve written in a way that makes them want to read it. Your goal is to hear back: “Sounds interesting. How do I get a copy?”

The new approach

The new pitch isn’t a hard sell or painful duty, but rather an extension of your creative process. This is a very different approach. It’s all about using the right words to represent your work. The oldest adage about good writing also applies here: Show, don’t tell. And by extension: Show, don’t sell.

Three new developments — the etiquette of the softer sell, online connectivity and independent self-publishing — have revolutionized pitching. These have opened up a whole new world of alternative ways to craft different types of pitches, depending on your specific book and what it needs. The new pitch may be delivered or written directly to potential readers, reviewers, book bloggers, feature writers, interviewers – and it may be in person or online.

In many cases, the author has no intention of seeking either an agent or a conventional publisher. For those writers seeking a traditional book deal, however, pitches may still be directed at an agent or acquisitions editor, either in writing or at face-to-face writers conferences with blind-date or ask-the-pro sessions.

The new author pitch in action

Pitching directly to readers

Feature a short description of your book on your website. In this case, I recommend a one-paragraph straightforward description. No excessive adjectives or adverbs. Just very well-crafted essential information about the book’s story and characters, whether it’s a novel, romance, mystery, YA, memoir or nonfiction how-to book.

You can also pitch on your blog, but in a different manner. The interactive features built into blogs provide the opportunity to discuss the process of your writing, offer sample chunks or chapters, and invite feedback. You can establish a dialogue with your readers to captivate their interest and increases the potential for ultimate sales.

In both cases the reader gets to know you without your having to deliver a rapid-fire biography, including credits, education, track record, and other forms of visibility, media and otherwise. That traditional platform pitch can appear elsewhere on your website under an “author” tab, and it can be as long as necessary.

Pitching to a social network

This kind of pitch involves reaching out to comment on other websites and blogs where you can be helpful and offer a contribution. It can include tweeting, with either links or referrals, or by distilling selections of your content into 140-character haikus.

Social networking is like entering a cafe or front-porch conversation, and adding your two cents about the topic under discussion. This is the most subtle form of pitching and requires a keen sense of online etiquette. Don’t begin by saying you’re an expert, and expect everyone to sit up and listen. Be altruistic, service- oriented, and keep yourself out of it on a personal level until you’ve established some ongoing connections.

A variation on this approach is a pitch to book bloggers who build powerful websites with dialogue that usually focuses on a particular genre. They discuss, review, interview and generally chat up a storm about a book or author they like. These days traditional publishers are courting book bloggers who have tremendous influence in a particular field. We’ve known for years, for example, that Mommy bloggers are well organized and have created many bestsellers in parenting and baby care categories. And the legendary self-publishing phenom Amanda Hocking reached her multimillion sales level only after going viral with book bloggers who specialized in YA vampire romances.

Pitching to retailers

It takes courage to walk into a bookstore and talk about your book. Reading or memorizing isn’t natural and can appear canned, so the best technique is old-fashioned sincerity. This means telling the truth – you’ve worked hard, you care about this book, you want them to read it and give it a chance on their shelves, or better yet on the front table if they will agree to a reading and author signing. It can help if it’s your neighborhood bookstore, where you browse and shop regularly. But ultimately the proof will be in the pudding: will the buyer believe in you enough to sample the content and will they like it. Bookstores will be especially interested if you can guarantee crowd of local friends who’ll fill seats and buy a stack of copies.

Pitching to the media

Local print and broadcast media are always looking for material about local authors and their work. They have space to fill with material to attract advertisers. Offering them a sample of your book or interview may be done with a carefully written press release, or, if their internal process is more informal and easily accessed, you can call them up or go into their offices. In either case, they’ll want to hear a short description of who you are, since there may be a strong local personality hook, and also what you’ve written, particularly if you’re known in the community or the content has a local angle.

Pitching to the virtual media takes less dressing up. There are many websites that feature book reviews, interviews, and samples of new books, usually self-published but occasionally from traditional houses. Here, as always, the drill is to be authentic, brief, and provide either content or service that fits their purpose.

The video pitch

In the YouTube era, your visually delivered pitch doesn’t have to be slick, heavily scripted, or shot with fancy cameras and lights. Put your digital camera on a tripod or ask a member of your family to shoot you at your desk or walking outside. Again, don’t read, just be yourself. Tell us the story, how and why you wrote the book, and why it’s important to you. Enough said. This variety of pitch can be directed at your readers, or as a link when approaching busy retailers, book bloggers, and media professionals.

What about you?

Have a few tricks up your sleeve?  We look forward to hearing about your experiences in the age of the new author pitch.

A well-written book requires some kind of symphonic climax that resonates in our heads and hearts like the famous 40-second E major chord at the end of the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart Club Band. Our response may be filled with joy, hope, and happiness, or it may lead us to feel uncomfortable, to frown, scratch our heads, and worry about the unknown mysteries of life.

I’ve worked with many fiction and narrative nonfiction authors to achieve such closure for plot-driven thrillers, mysteries, romances, literary novels, memoirs, and young adult books, but also histories, biographies, travel books, and other stories. I don’t believe there’s a predictable formula for every ending, far from it. But nevertheless, it’s essential to provide an emotional landing place, so the reader can put down the book with a sense that “Yes, it may not have happened to me actually, but my life is richer for having read this. I know more about the world, people, relationships, the way things happen.”

This kind of emotionally satisfying ending is by no means easy to write. Here are some tips to remember.

Endings are about change

It’s disappointing for a reader to reach the end of the book only to realize that the characters and continuing events are basically at the same point as the beginning. I’ve seen this with many early drafts: not enough has happened.

Endings are about change. Fiction and narrative nonfiction stories are about overcoming major obstacles, quests, and transformations. The changes may not be all good. The story may be upsetting or depressing. But if none of the book’s characters has learned anything and the challenges faced at the outset remain static and identical to those at the end, the story can seem pointless, unsatisfying, and without universal significance.

All writers can look to the Young Adult category for great examples of overcoming difficult problems with courageous changes that lead to fully evolved endings. Judy Blume pioneered realistic stories about sex, racism, and divorce in a teenager’s life with such books as Are You There God? It’s me, Margaret and It’s Not the End of the World. New generations of YA authors have continued this gritty approach to the real lives of preteens, teens, and young adults, from S.E. Hinton (The Outsiders) to Suzanne Collins (The Hunger Games).

Find the right moment to end

It’s crucial to realize when it’s time to stop. Authors often send me a draft ending that repeats and churns over previous action, or goes off on a new and irrelevant digression. This kind of treading water can indicate the fear of not having demonstrated or explained everything enough.

I worked recently on an ambitious and complex novel that took four or five drafts to produce an ending that tied up a painful family relationship which had been interrupted for thirty years by historical disasters and personal wrong turns. The trick was to acknowledge mistakes and calamities without reiteration or blame, while at the same time avoiding any saccharine projections into the future. Ultimately the author succeeded in writing just a few short paragraphs with words chosen as carefully as a haiku or sonnet. It’s not always easy to write such a good ending, but in this case the end was exceptionally well crafted.

But don’t end prematurely!

Sometimes the curtain falls with a surprising thud. Beware of premature endings that leave too many threads still unraveled. Most mystery and thriller readers will agree that crimes should be solved and the world saved from political or corporate terrorists and other heinous villains. I’ve worked with several writers to develop mysteries with a strong suspect that turns out to be innocent, or a cumulative gathering of clues leading to one of many potential suspects. Similarly I’ve edited global thrillers (i.e. Robert Ludlum’s The Scarlatti Inheritance) that leave the reader nervous and uncomfortable, but with a sense of some hope for the future. John le Carre is the master of such ambiguous endings, as in Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and The Constant Gardener.

Another frequent cause of a premature ending is the hope this book will launch a series. I’ve learned first hand while working with authors like Clive Cussler on his Dirk Pitt thriller Night Probe, and Ernest Tidyman’s Shaft that a continuing hero or heroine may age and develop in new ways over several titles, but each story needs to be complete on its own. It isn’t fair to demand the reader buy a second or third book to find out what happens.

Romances demand the same respect when avoiding a premature ending. The curtain can descend on either a happy or unhappy couple, but it can’t just fall out of the blue. Even after Rhett said he didn’t “give a damn” about what happened to Scarlett O’Hara, Margaret Mitchell kept going until her plucky heroine declared with signature fortitude: After all, tomorrow is another day.

Similarly, a successful memoir can’t either go on unnecessarily or stop precipitously. Memoirs focus on a discreet thread of the author’s life that makes a point, has a theme, and therefore requires an enlightened ending, even though the life itself isn’t over. Again, it doesn’t have to be happy, successful or inspiring, though that can help. What’s more important is a coming-of-age or the resolution of obstacles overcome, with experience and wisdom for anything that might follow.

In The Glass Castle, for example, Jeanette Walls takes pains to tell the story of her profoundly dysfunctional family in a sober and straightforward manner. Walls keeps her focus steadily, without judgment but rather compassion for her parents and siblings, and ends the story with a message of survival and redemption, leavened with affection and good humor.

Outlier endings

Not all endings are neat or tidy.

I’ve also worked with several writers whose last page leaves various threads of the story still tangled. The inimitable Tom Robbins comes to mind, since Jitterbug Perfume can hardly be described as having a tidy ending but rather drifts off into thin air: The lesson of the beet, then, is this: hold on to your divine blush, your innate rosy magic, or end up brown. Once you’re brown, you’ll find that you’re blue. As blue as indigo. And you know what that means: Indigo. Indigoing. Indigone.”

Or the late Hunter S. Thompson, whose Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ended in a frustrated rant, brought up short in order to make our overdue deadline: I hung up and drank some more gin. Then I put a Dolly Parton album on the tape machine and watched the trees outside my balcony getting lashed around in the wind. Around midnight, when the rain stopped, I put on my special Miami Beach nightshirt and walked several blocks down La Cienga Boulevard to the Losers Club.

The last pages of Toni Morrison’s first book The Bluest Eye are also disturbing and uncomfortable to say the least, and I remember when Toni first brought me her manuscript, how shaken I was by the ending: The soil is bad for certain kinds of flowers. Certain seeds it will not nurture, certain fruit it will not bear, and when the land kills of its own volition, we acquiesce and say the victim had no right to live. We are wrong, of course, but it doesn’t matter. It’s too late. At least on the edge of my town, among the garbage and the sunflowers of my town, it’s much, much, much too late.

Dozens of conservative school and community libraries disapproved of the book and it was banned in many places. But it launched a career that led ultimately to the Nobel Prize for Literature.

What about you?

Are you working on the ending of a book?  I’ll watch for any questions here in comments.

Are you a writer

You’re not alone

If so, you’re not the only one. One writer put it this way recently on an online forum: “I worry that an editor will erase my voice.” Another said, “I fear I’ll end up with a book I no longer recognize as my own.”

At the same time, authors are discovering that agents and publishers now insist on a polished manuscript that’s ready for production, and won’t accept a draft that still needs work. And since most big-company acquisition editors don’t edit these days, that leaves the author without any editor at all, whether going the traditional route or self-publishing.

So it’s vital for authors to have realistic expectations about hiring and working one-on-one with their own professional book editor.

How a good editor-author relationship works

I’d like to address some of these concerns and perceptions, and what I see as the reality of the editor-author relationship from my point of view as a book editor who has worked closely with writers for many decades.  And later, if there are any questions about all this, I’ll be very happy to answer them in comments.

Perception: I’ll lose control of my own creation.

Reality: The writer is always the boss. Good editors subsume their own egos and enter the consciousness of the author. Any editor who insists on big changes that compromise your core intentions, who demands deletions, additions and new material – or else – isn’t doing a good job. A good editor can’t be a frustrated writer or have a didactic professorial approach to the work.

Perception: I’ll be intimidated, and won’t be able to resist making changes that I think are wrong.  I worry that the book will lose my voice.

Reality: Good editors are sensitive to an author’s literary style, basic story, and core motivation. They appreciate that an author’s voice is essential and precious to preserve, for both the writer’s artistic integrity and unique point of view. They know how vulnerable an author may feel when exposing their unfinished work to an outside reader.

Perception: I can’t tell if an editor is any good or not since there’s no rating system, license, or industry standard.

Reality: An editor’s track record is the best way to judge competence. Have they edited successful books you recognize or may have read? If a prospective editor can’t produce such a list of prior work, either on their own website or by request, you should probably seek elsewhere.

Perception: Agents won’t take on my book if I’ve worked with a private editor.

Reality: Most agents are happy to hear that you’ve worked with a good developmental editor. It means you’ve cared enough to make the investment in making the book as good as it can be, and have had the benefit of professional feedback. They know that virtually every successful writer, from F. Scott Fitzgerald to Kathryn Stockett, has worked with an editor.  Agents do, however, worry about freelance editors who are not accomplished or have a negative impact, and rightly so.  So once again, choose carefully.

Perception: If I do get an agent or publisher, I won’t be able to produce another book as good as the first one without help.

Reality: Authors are usually pleased to establish a long-term relationship with an editor they like. Agents, publishers and ultimately readers are also happy about the results.

Perception: An editor will produce a new manuscript and I won’t be able to restore the original if that’s what I decide to do.

Reality: Editors today work with Tracked Changes in Word documents which allow an author to see what’s recommended to be deleted, added or revised and permits them to accept or reject each edit, one by one.

Perception: I’m already in a writer’s critique group and don’t need any other help.

Reality: Members of writers groups are unlikely to have the experience or objectivity you need for professional and candid feedback. Developmental editing is not usually a good job for friends or family.

Perception: I won’t be able to have a close working relationship with an editor since I haven’t found one who lives nearby.

Reality: Most developmental editing is done through email and phone calls. Skype is also a very effective way to communicate these days. Many long-standing editorial relationships – examples like Hemingway with Maxwell Perkins, Raymond Carver with Gordon Lish – weren’t based on close proximity, but on other forms of continuing communication.

Perception: Developmental editing is expensive. Is it really worth the investment?

Reality: The cost of editing varies depending on what you need and who’s doing it. The decision on your best choice and what you can afford is a personal judgment based on your own priorities. But there’s no doubt that the better your book is, the more successful you’ll be in the long run.

What about you?

Have you worked with a developmental editor?  What were your concerns?  Were you able to resolve them to your satisfaction?  Were you pleased with the outcome?  Any suggestions for fellow writers?

For more detail on how to evaluate an editor’s professional status, track record, compatibility and accessibility, take a look at this earlier post, Choosing a freelance editor: What you need to know