Category Archives: publishing

3 Pieces of Overlooked Advice

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Jack and I are tucked into the cozy visiting authors cottage here in Southern Pines, NC. We’re taking Kimberly, manager of The Country Bookshop, up on her offer of waiting out Storm Sandy, as friends back home warn of an Appalachian Apocalypse, snow and ice, blocking the mountain passes ‘twixt us and them.

Besides, Kimberly and her friend Janet know this really cool wine bar….

Kim bought The Country Bookshop two years ago, but it’s been on the go for sixty(!) in various locations throughout this resort town (think horses and golf). Last night I played visiting author; as temperatures dropped and winds accelerated, we feared no one would attend, but they did–drawn in large measure by Kim’s lovely article in the Sunday paper, noting that I’d be talking about the path to publication.

We chatted about the particular process that led me to Pamela and Nichole (my perceptive-of-intellect-and-heart agent and editor, respectively). I told the story of When the Borders Opened and Closed at the Same Time (you can scroll back to it in the blog if you want; it’s what happened the day we sold the book). And I shared the most overlooked pieces of advice from the publishing community on how to get your work published:

1)    Write the book. If it’s non-fiction, write at least half of it, and have the other half roughly mapped in your mind, before you send a query letter. For fiction, write the whole thing. These are drafts. They will change. They will get thrown across the room in crumpled balls, by you or your editor. But write it first. DO NOT QUERY ANYONE until you have at least half the pages you want them to take seriously, the first 50 as good as you can make them.

2)    When you’re ready, go to a bookstore or library and look up books that are like yours. Read the acknowledgments for who agented and edited these. Check the Internet to see if they accept unsolicited queries. Build a list of 10, and make your query letter amazing. The first sentence has to rock the world. After that, you can just be brilliant. For query letter advice, the Net is full and so are writing books. But the most overlooked, valuable piece is:

3)    Be yourself. Editors have built-in bullshit detectors. They’ve seen it all—twice. Agents have seen it all six times. Do not try to dazzle them with borrowed jewels. Write like you write. It’s not unlike dating; why pretend to be someone else if it traps you in a relationship that doesn’t click on its own merits?

That’s what I told the dozen brave souls who ventured out amid the howling winds. It’s what wise women told me. It’s what publishers tell audiences in after-dinner speeches. And it works. Go forth, and conquer.

Malaprop’s Sweet Malaprop’s

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One of the fun things about running around touring a book is all the great bookslingers you meet in shops you’ve not seen before: Ann at Spiral Bookcase, Ruth of Book People.

Then there are the old familiars, like Malaprop’s.

I’ve been going to Malaprop’s since college, when I discovered the South’s San Francisco in Asheville, North Carolina. For those who haven’t been, Asheville is a city full of hats, dogs and same sex couples. It’s one of the best places to eat for 400 miles. And it’s got Malaprop’s.

Thirty years old this year, Malaprop’s is one of those Dr. Who bookstores that’s bigger inside than out. It’s got a cafe that serves things with long names ending in “o” made by guys who take their work waaaay too seriously. It’s got floor-to-ceiling wooden shelves in old dark wood, and cool staff. You can buy just about any snarky magnet or bumper sticker you ever imagined.

It’s got style.

Malaprop’s was a book talk I really looked forward to giving, and it did not disappoint–not even when I arrived to find myself advertised (next to Barbara Kingsolver and Ron Rash) for NOVEMBER 28th. See the woman between Jack and me? That’s Elizabeth. She runs events at Malaprop’s. That’s why she’s grinning like that.

Elizabeth was lovely, and that one piece of card had the only errant date. Their copious mailing list, the flyers on the windows, even the one on the back of the toilet stall door, gave the correct date, and I am pleased to say we had a capacity crowd: a new author whose book debuts in February, an Atlanta businessman retiring to the mountains, two couples from the town, some bookstore lovers, and–wonder of wonders–our dear friends the Volks from Big Stone Gap! They’d decided to surprise us and make a weekend of it in Asheville.

Jack and I talked about the world we live in now, full of convenience over community, one-click shopping and easy choices whose consequences lay buried behind time and media messages. I repeated my mantra that I don’t object to Amazon wanting to be the biggest, but to their wanting to be the only. We talked about Malaprop’s online service–one click, but still part of the big picture, not its whole. And we reminded ourselves, as an audience in the Q&A afterward, that what Malaprop’s and the other independents offer is a sense of place, an anchor for the place to go and enjoy oneself on a Saturday. Take away Malaprop’s and the yarn store next door, the chocolate shop across the street, the Himalayan Imports store will lose business, and wither. Malaprop’s is big and strong. It pulls customers up the street past other enticing store windows, creating commerce: commerce that sustains the heart of a downtown community.

Convenience is nice, the assembly agreed, but it’s a commodity, not a virtue. It behooves us as American bibliophiles to remember that.

Thanks, Malaprop’s (and Elizabeth) for having me there, and for being there.