This Just In: A Contest For Those Who Might Be Interested

Second Annual Warren Adler Short Story Contest

NEW YORK CITY theme

Submissions now being accepted

July 13, 2007 through January 15, 2008

New York, July 13^th --Warren Adler, the prolific writer who has penned some twenty-nine novels, among them the movie adaptations THE WAR OF THE ROSES with Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner and RANDOM HEARTS with Harrison Ford, has announced that submissions are now being accepted for the Second Annual Warren Adler Short Story Contest.

“I’ve always been a fan of the short story, both as a reader and writer.” says Adler. “Although the form has been with us, one might say from the beginning of time, it has for many years declined in popularity. Thanks to the internet it is coming back in vogue stronger than ever. My goal in sponsoring the contest is to encourage and promote the art of the fictionalized short story, to restore its place as a prime literary format, and to cultivate and foster an interest in imaginative writing.”

The rules are as follows: all stories must be based on a New York City theme; submissions July 13, 2007 to January 15, 2008; entry fee $15.00; maximum length 2500 words in English; previously unpublished stories only.

The first prize story will be chosen by Adler, and announced in March 2008. The winner will receive $1000 cash, and a six month exclusive contract to publish the story on Amazon Shorts. The winner will also receive a personalized first edition copy of New York Echoes, a collection of Alder’s short stories, which will be published in March 2008.

Five stories will be chosen by Adler for the People’s Choice, and in February 2008, will be posted on http://www.warrenadler.com/ for the public to vote on their favorite. Adler will have secretly picked his number one choice from amongst the five. The People’s Choice winner will also be published and available for purchase on Amazon Shorts. The finalists will do a “live” reading at Amazon’s Theatre at Second Life, where Adler will reveal his favorite of the People’s Choice, and the winner will be announced in March 2008. All five finalists will receive a personalized first edition of New York Echoes.

Further information can be found on http://www.warrenadler.com/.

Little Me Content, Lots of Links

Via Shelf Awareness, O’Reilly—the lovely people who put on the great conference everyone was talking about*—now has a publishing blog to discuss how “technology is transforming publishing.” I must read for everyone wanting to discuss the newest innovations.

From A Chair, A Fireplace and A Tea Cozy, I got this link to Directory Aviva’s 12 Important U.S. Laws Every Blogger Needs To Know. Since I’m not a lawyer I cannot testify to the veracity of this information, but I would love to hear from someone who is. Aviva does a great job of laying out the guidelines in manner that makes them easy to follow (or at least make you realize what you are willing to ignore).

Booksquare talks about how the publishing industry can save money. Should I be taking notes to bring up in class?

I can’t remember where I read about this first (so we’ll use the Galleycat article instead), but this story just makes me happy. Yeehodi.com, the “website for hardcore hep cat swingers,” rallied around Frankie Manning’s memoir, Frankie Manning: Ambassador of the Lindy Hop, and created a video of his footwork to urge people to buy the book so that Frankie would be #1 on Amazon’s bestseller list on his birthday. Not only is this a great example of the targeted marking that MJ Rose talked about in her interview, but look how happy he looks in all the video clips! I guess it is true, it don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing… Happy belated birthday, Frankie.

Straight from Marta Acosta’s blog, here’s the skinny on the Classics book trailer contest she’s hosting for all you aspiring and professional book trailer producers out there:

BOOK TRAILER CONTEST: Okay, I've figured out the rules for the Best & Worst Book Trailer of a Classic Novel Contest.

First Prize: Adobe Creative Design Suite 3 Premium, professional design package.

Second Prize: $300 Gift Certificate to Major Store (winner can select from list)

Honorable Mentions: $50 Amazon Gift Certificate (two winners)

Contestents may submit either a “best” version of a book trailer of a classic novel, or a “worst” version of a trailer. For the purposes of this contest, a classic was written by someone who is dead or doing a good imitation of being dead (i.e., J.D. Salinger).

Trailers must be 2:00 minutes or less.

Contestants must state whether they are submitting as an amateur or professional, and will be judged accordingly. Entries will be scored for creativity, design, and appeal to target audience for the best trailers; and for creativity and humor for the worst trailer.

Contestants are allowed to submit up to four entries.

Submissions must be posted on YouTube with “MA Contest” in the title. For example, “MA Contest: Best David Copperfield Trailer,” or “MA Contest: Worst Huckleberry Finn Trailer.” The links must be sent to: contest@martaacosta.com.

Judges are:

Michael Gough, Adobe Vice President

Ron Hogan and Sarah Weinman of GalleyCat

Candy Tan & Sarah Wendell, Smart Bitches Who Love Trashy Novels

Linsey, aka, Bookseller Chick

Contest runs through July 31. Winners will be announced on August 14.

All patently offensive (racist, pornographic, misogynistic, tediously insane…you know who you are so don’t waste our time) entries will be rejected.

It’s a pleasure to be in such illustrious company.

Rosina Lippi, the author of the Wilderness series under the name Sara Donati, is running two contests at the moment, but one really highlights an issue many authors and readers are facing in the book world. To get the word out (and to get her book ordered in) about her new paperback release, Tied to the Tracks, Rosina is having readers interested in winning a $50 gift certificate to Amazon and a pile o’books do the following:

Between now and July 5, either visit or call a local bookstore (that is, a brick-n-mortar store, near where you live or work). Once you've got the attention of a human being, ask:

1. When Tied to the Tracks will be released in trade paper;
2. When they expect to have it in the store;
3. How many copies will be available.

She then asks for the readers to either leave this information in the comments on her blog (or on their own blog and just link to hers).

Go read the comments. It’s horrifying, but not very surprising that a great number of the stores called have booksellers that don’t know the lay down date (otherwise known as the street date) or cannot (or will not) tell whether the book will be on the shelves. Part of the reason stores are hesitant to part with the information on how many books are coming in is because there have been a lot of schemes in the past—always with political books it seems**—to inflate numbers. People either order in books that they never pick up in the assumption that they’ll then be put out on the floor (they won’t be), or they bombard the store with calls hoping that they book will then be ordered in because there looks like a lot of interest.

Still, for the midlist author just trying to get their name out there, this might be helpful increasing the store’s book order from one to more, which means it is worth the effort. You can’t face out a book if there is just a single copy.

Alison Morris of Shelf Talker has a great post up called, “See that Galley? Sell it to me,” in which she bemoans the frustrations of receiving galleys with no synopses. She says, “Just as books have to sell themselves to customers, galleys have to sell themselves to booksellers.”

Hell yeah, sister bookseller. That’s what I’ve been complaining about for years. I hated, hated, HATED when I would get galleys with absolutely no information that was helpful to me. I don’t want to hear that this is the next Da Vinci Code or Historian, just sell me the story on its own merits! If you want to throw in something about how this will appeal to readers who liked X and Y novel then that’s wonderful and very helpful. That will stick in my head down the road when I’m trying to find a book that someone who liked both X and Y liked to read.

Powells has posted Bitch Magazine’s review of She’s Such a Geek: Women Write About Science, Technology and Other Geeky Stuff edited by Charlie Anders and Annalee Newitz. Behold the Geekery love.

Read Roger rants on the Mike Ford’s pay as you go novel idea.

The Readergirlz July issue is out and highlighting Melissa Schorr’s Goy Crazy.

In other YA news, I’ve just been alerted to the existence of Book Divas, the “leading book club for YA and college readers.” Although new to me, the Divas have been around in some form or another since 2002, and were recently purchased by Sinuate Media. If you have some time, click around the website to read different interviews with YA authors (they will be hosting a visit from E. Lockhart July 7^th through the 21^st), check out their contests and look at their message board and blog.

And that’s all for now. I need to go do homework and clean my house so it is not a wreck for me to come back to in August.

*What’s a girl gotta do to get invited to these things?

**I believe there have also been a few instances with non returnable titles, but I can’t think of a title off the top of my head. Maybe these are the equivalent of the scary tales that your parents told you to keep you in line.

Useless Piece of Plastic

I had this whole piece planned for today where I would write about the wonderful books that got me out of my reading slump, and how wonderful that feeling of rediscovery is…but then I somehow managed to turn off my alarm and sleep in far too late. Suddenly I was faced with the dilemma of either writing said column in my normal half-assed and rushed fashion or showering.

Showering won.

Besides y’all deserve better than half-assed and my customers deserve squeaky clean (even if some of them don’t return the favor). So instead I ask you all to once again put on your materialism hat (despite what it does to your hair, or in my case, my psyche) and consider this:

When you receive something for free (or win something as a prize), do you appreciate it more if you can use it or if it simply something you can admire?

Now apply this logic to the doodads that authors send out, and leave your thoughts below.

For me this means that pens, pencils, post-its? Good.

Eight-bazillion bookmarks? Not so good, five will do unless you are Nora Roberts.

Small foamy car which, while adorable, does not appear to do anything? On its way to the local landfill.

(Personalized wine, by the way, would fall in the good, good, hot-damn-this-is-stupendous category. Yes, it can be done, and then classified as a tax write-off for business expenses.)

Questions! Contests! Exclamation points!

ETA: Comments now closed so I can draw a name.

Yesterday when Blogger was being eeeeeevil, Ms. Librarian emailed me this question (as she could not simply post a comment), which I decided to use to help kick off a contest:

Apropos of nothing in particular, do you find yourself more protective of what you read as you get older? (I'm not sure I'm putting this well ...) For example, I find that I can no longer read anything in which an animal is abused or killed, even as a minor plot point. I used to be able to tell myself that such an event was illustrative of the evil of the villain, or whatever, but now, it just doesn't matter -- I won't read it, and if such a thing occurs after I've started a book, I quit the book right there. Is that weird? I also find that I don't put up with depressing books anymore. If it doesn't make me feel positive, I quit reading it. Maybe it's just that I feel like "been there, done that" and I don't want to waste any of my diminishing reading time on that sort of thing.

What do you think?

I don’t think it’s weird at all. Now we’ve covered this a bit before in “Book Therapy: Taking Your Place on the Couch,” but it deserves to be revisited. As I mentioned there that I cannot read books where a dog dies. I just can’t. I’m apparently fine when it comes to any other animal dying, something I didn’t realize until this weekend when I finished a book where a horse is put down. Now I desperately wanted a horse when I was five up until “the conversation” with my father (and I have to say, doing a cost analysis to convince your five year old that a horse just cannot happen is wrong, Dad, just wrong), and I’ve grown up around horses all my life, but the horse dying in this story fit. It advanced the plot. It gave the moment emotional impact and wasn’t something that just happened only to be forgotten a few minutes later. Had the death been for pure shock value I would have laid the book down and never come back.

As I get older I find that I’m more open to reading new genres than I was as a kid. Sure I was voracious reader even then, but I was pretty single-minded about it. It had to be something I could get my hands on, and more often than not I was drawn more to historical than scifi elements. Now, perhaps due to my job, I jump from genres to nonfiction and back again. I enjoy the diversity of the worlds that books can bring.

Sadly I have far less time to read.

“But where is the contest in all of this?” you ask. “I was promised a contest and quite possibly some chocolate.”

It’s simple. To enter this contest all you have to do is comment on Ms. Librarian’s question. Are you a more adventurous reader now or less? How have your reading likes and dislikes changed? What do you read now that you would never pick up when you were younger?

I’ll take all the names from the comments (including the anonymous ones, but please do something to differentiate yourself. Remember, you can always use your stripper name (the name of your first pet and a street you lived on), or your soap opera name (your middle name and the name of your grade school) if anonymity is important to you), and pick a name or two to win. Depending on how many people comment I might do this a couple of times this week. I don’t know. The prizes might be chocolate, or it might be a book, but it will be something worthy of putting your thoughts in a box and hitting publish.

I want this to be an open place where everyone feels comfortable commenting, and if that means offering a reward then so be it.

Comment away! You’ve got until I post the next post to make yourself heard.

The Poll!!!

ETA: Okay, it works! It works. Let's try this again.

Despite what my negligence may suggest (I really meant to get to this yesterday), we had a really great selection of books and hand sells offered up for your voting pleasure. All of them beat my immortal hand sell for The Island of the Sequined Love Nun that started with "How can you resist something with a talking fruit bat..."

But really, how can you?

Anyway, below are your choices, so read and vote so I can send one of these lovely people a prize (I'm thinking chocolate, but there might be a couple of choices). Please vote once, be fair and let me know if you have any issues with the poll. Voting will run through until Friday, March 17th, at 6:30 pm.


It's got this kid, a boy, and this bear, see. But there are other animals too. They, er, all live near each other and visit each other a lot. The bear eats as much honey as he can. It could use more female characters -- there's only one and she's a mother figure -- but it's a pretty appealing book--set of books actually -- anyway. By Kate R

Shadow of The Wind is like one of those old fashioned Hollywood movies-it has mystery,romance and a great opening scene set in The Cemetary of Forgotten Books! This is the first of Carlos Ruiz Zafron's books to be translated and I for one, look forward to reading more.
By lady t

UNDEAD AND UNWED is about a secretary who loses her job and then gets run over by a Pontiac Aztec. When she wakes up in the morgue, she has no idea she's the queen of the vampires. Hilarity ensues.Written by...me! Hee. --MaryJanice Davidson
By MaryJanice

Are you afraid of the dark? Not if someone's with you, right? But what if that someone is a killer. His thoughts. His philosophy. His words. What if you forgot who you are?Arden Davis knows this killer. Can she catch him? Perhaps. But first she must find herself.Before I Wake by Anne Frasier.
By jason evans

Need some good mommy talk? [hand book to patron]. You know the good birthing disasters and is-it-really-this-hard discussions. Well, trust me, LITTLE EARTHQUAKES (Jennifer Weiner) is all that and then some tears. Really. I've read it whenever I need a pick me up. Or some girlfriends and can't get away.
By Bethany


Voting Now Closed! Stay tuned for the results.