The Year of the Second Novel: a Guest Blog by Christine Fletcher

Christine Fletcher has the distinction of being one of the few people I’ve actually met in person after years of interacting on this blog. A wonderful woman (who allowed me to use WAL*MART as an excuse for my egregious lateness), she also has the distinction of having visited my store back in those days of my anonymity. I can still remember the Boss Lady telling me how I’d just missed this great author by ten minutes as she pointed out the newly signed copies of Tallulah Falls.

It is with great pleasure that I post Christine’s guest blog today and I hope you enjoy her thoughts on writing, life and the second novel.

~*~

The Year of the Second Novel

My first young adult novel, Tallulah Falls, debuted in May 2006. Around the same time, my agent negotiated a deal for my second book. I was so giddy, I practically floated. After twelve years of writing, I couldn’t help but feel that I’d finally gained the summit…and the view was mighty fine.

I soon discovered what every author finds out: publication, exciting as it is, is only the first peak. Ahead: the entire Himalayan range. Oxygen! Quick!

First, there was the mysterious world of book promotion. Promotion involves a whole set of skills radically different from writing, different even from agent searches and conference schmoozing and other steps on the road to publishing. Let’s just say it’s been a steep learning curve, and I’m still hauling my keister up it. Readings, contests, meeting local booksellers,* mailing postcards, visiting schools, blogging, keeping up the website and MySpace page that are now de rigueur for authors…

…and, all the while, writing the second book.

The thing about second novels is, they come with deadlines. First novels don’t. Except for the author, nobody cares if a first novel ever sees the light of day. That’s the challenge: knowing the world is indifferent, and slogging through to the end anyway.

The challenge of the second novel is making it better than the first, and writing it faster. It took me almost four years to complete Tallulah Falls. For the second book, I had one year. I also had two day jobs, and Tallulah to promote. Not to mention a boyfriend, a house, friends, family, pets…

I quit my teaching job. At the veterinary practice, where I’m blessed with a boss who loves books, I was able to consolidate my hours into two days a week. Housework became an early, and enduring, casualty. When I’m preoccupied, I can subsist indefinitely on cheese popcorn and Dublin Mudslide ice cream; fortunately for both of us, my sweetie took over the cooking. The veggies on my plate were like love notes: Eat this, it’s good for you.

Preoccupation became my constant mental state. Novel writing is a bit like inhabiting a waking dream. After spending five consecutive days in the world of my book, re-entering the living, breathing reality of clients and patients was always a shock. Bits of my life fell away: dinners out, coffee with friends. As did every belief about what I needed in order to write well.

I used to say, If I don’t get a good start early in the morning, the entire day is shot. And: I can’t be distracted with errands and chores—it breaks the flow. Cue fluttering of hands.

Funny how quickly you can get over yourself when faced with a deadline. My hands stopped fluttering and started typing. I wrote in the mornings, the afternoons, and late at night after I got home from work. In between, I did errands and chores and all that real life stuff because—and this sounds obvious except it wasn’t—real life doesn’t give a crap about deadlines.

Maybe that’s why this year, the year of the second novel, I started feeling like a real writer. You’d think this feeling would have bloomed when Tallulah Falls was accepted for publication. Or the first time I held the actual book, with its gorgeous, haunting cover.

Nope. I felt most amazingly fortunate, but under the excitement lay doubt—maybe, maybe it was all a fluke.

There were days, this past year, when I’d sit at my computer, not a word to be found in the desert that used to be my brain, except a repeating chorus of self-reproach: What on earth made you believe you could actually write this thing? Then, eventually, the words would start coming, and the sentences, and the pages. I lived in the characters’ skins, saw through their eyes, fell in love with them. I tried to tell their stories well, so they’d come to life for readers the way they had for me. The way Tallulah had come to life, out in the world. I found that putting myself in front of strangers had an unexpected side effect: I was enjoying myself tremendously. Connecting with booksellers and readers has been a blast, the best reward of publication by far. Who would have guessed?

Oh, and the deadline? Three hundred seventy-six pages, delivered on time. The book (tentatively titled Ten Cents a Dance) will be published in April, 2008. Meanwhile, Tallulah Falls has just come out in paperback (with a brand-new, equally gorgeous cover), and I’m working on ideas for a third novel. I know a little better what’s ahead, now. More peaks, lots of hard climbing.

I can’t wait to see the view.


*Thanks to our lovely hostess who, back in her days of anonymity, gave me stellar advice on how to approach that wily species, the bookseller, in its native habitat.

~*~


Thank you, Christine.

If you’re interested in learning more about Tallulah Falls or Ten Cents a Dance you can visit Christine’s website.

Be Careful What You Wish For: a Guest Blog By Rosina Lippi

Rosina Lippi’s first novel, Homestead, won the Pen/Hemingway award for literature and was nominated for the Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction in 2001. She went on to publish the Wilderness saga under the pen name Sara Donati, garnering fans world wide. Her newest novel, Tied to the Tracks, hit the shelves on July 3rd in trade paperback. She left a successful career in academia to write fulltime—a dream many writers have—and what follows is an essay on the what happens when you get exactly what you wish for.

~*~

Just about twenty years ago I got a PhD in linguistics at Princeton. It was a big deal. That fall I started as an assistant professor on the tenure track at the University of Michigan. There were only three jobs in my area of specialization in the whole country that year, so getting that job - the cream of a very small crop - was a big deal.

I worked my rear off at UM. I taught, I advised, I directed dissertations, I sat on committees, I published. And published. Then tenure review came along. The turn-down rate in the humanities (at that time) was about 80%. I got tenure. Huge deal.

Twelve years after I got my PhD and started on an academic track, I walked away. I gave up tenure, I resigned all my responsibilities, and I said my farewells. A lot of hard won big deals, but I made a conscious decision to simply stop.

Here's what I was giving up: a regular salary; job security; a really good benefits package; the social stuff that goes along with the title and the rank. But I was also giving up the excruciating politics, the infighting, the jockeying for position, the cultural snobbery, the endless committee meetings about (believe it or not) things as trivial as whether THE should be capitalized in a title.

I gave up the good parts of teaching. Watching the face of an eighteen year old as a completely revolutionary concept takes hold. The students who asked really hard questions that made me think in new directions. The funny ones. The ones who had beat terrible odds and horrendous personal histories but never tried to cash in on those experiences. The kids you reached.

So sure, there are things I left behind reluctantly. But it was my decision, and I left academia to write full time. I just had no idea what it would be like.

Someone who has been in prison for thirty years is so habituated that they find it hard to function in a world without the prison day routine. Sound like a stretch? I was in one academic setting or another as a teacher or student from age five to age forty-four. My
year began in September and was divided by semesters; my day was divided into fifty minute class segments.

But all that was gone. No structure at all, beyond a far-off publisher's deadline. Freedom.

Terror.

For at least a year I woke up regularly in a panic. What was I teaching today? Who was I supposed to advise? Had I prepared the lecture? Adrenaline pumping, I would jump out of bed and then remember that I was done with all that. I could work this morning or go for a walk; if I wanted to write in the cool of the night I didn't have to worry about getting up the next morning. My time became endlessly flexible.

It sounds great, doesn't it? But here's the fly in that otherwise enticingly fragrant ointment: motivation. If you write full time, the only pressure to keep on schedule is what you can inflict on yourself. You can go for days, weeks, months failing to get anything
written, but nobody knocks on the door to read you the riot act. Nobody even KNOWS unless you tell them.

You may yearn for somebody to impose structure (where is Sister Maria Terese when I need her?) but it's all up to you. Of course, when a scene is giving you terrible trouble, it turns out that the bathrooms haven't been cleaned, or you need to call about the newspaper delivery, or the dogs are in need of a bath or you really have to get that review written or the deepest, darkest sinkhole: when did I last check email? Or: Let's have a look at traffic to the website.

It takes a huge amount of self discipline to stay seated with your eyes on the page. Self discipline sometimes just isn't enough but somehow or another, you've got to muddle through. Every book seems harder than the last, but never mind: the mortgage calls. Now you have to pick between the two extremes: *just do it* or *the corn also grows while the farmer sleeps*.

I gave up the stress of a university setting, but stress is a universal in abundant supply. Am I happier now than I was as a professor trying to find time to write?

I think so. I look at the line of novels out there with my name (or my penname) on them and I know I've somehow managed to keep writing, even through the most difficult times. There's a real sense of satisfaction and renewed hope every time a new book comes out (Tied to the Tracks in trade paper is just a couple days away as I write this). Sometimes I am nostalgic for academia, but on the whole, I'm better off where I am now. I am fortunate to be in a position that allows me to write full time. Hundreds -- maybe thousands – of people would give just about anything to have the same opportunity. I am very aware of my good fortune, but I am also reminded daily of that old chestnut:

Be careful what you wish for. You may just get it.

~*~

Thank you, Rosina, for taking time out of you schedule to guest blog here today.

She’s graciously offered up a signed copy of Tied to the Tracks—which Booklist calls “an effervescent tale of a trio of offbeat Yankee filmmakers plunked down deep in the heart of Dixie”—to be given away to a randomly chosen commenter on this blog (to be chosen on Monday).

I’ve often wondered how writers are able to muster the self-discipline necessary to accomplish a finished novel, and I would love to hear from those of you who write. What gets you to the computer? What keeps you there?

Maybe I’ll be able apply them to getting a regular blog out while I’m here.

Freaks ’R’ Us: Inhabiting Alien Characters

Author Andrew W. M. Beierle’s 2002 Lambda award winning novel, The Winter of Our Discotheque, had aging star Dallas Eden playing fairy godfather to Tony Alexamenos’s young ingénue. In his new novel, First Person Plural, his characters are a unique set of conjoined twins that have their own set of personalities and problems, one is straight and one is gay, but they share the same torso and legs.

And you thought you had sibling problems…

In the first post of what will be an ongoing series of guest posts by different authors on writing, Andrew discusses what it's like to find commonality between writer and character as well as the difficulties in writing about conjoined twins.

Thanks for joining us today, Andrew.

Freaks ’R’ Us: Inhabiting Alien Characters
By Andrew W. M. Beierle

When I first told a friend about the theme of my new novel, First Person Plural—an exploration of the private lives of conjoined twins, one gay and one straight, who share a single body—he expressed concern for my mental health.

It was not that he thought I was insane for attempting to tackle such bizarre content. Rather, knowing how deeply writers need to immerse themselves in their characters, even to identify with them, he thought the process just might drive me crazy.

“I’m worried about you spending two years in the company of such freaks,” he said.

Despite the fact that two years turned into five, I’ve emerged as sane as when the journey began in 2000 with my short story “La Vie Sexuelle des Monstres” (“The Sex Life of Monsters”), a reference to a 1904 study of the romantic adventures of Italian brothers Giovanni and Giacomo Tocci, upon whom my characters, Owen and Porter Jamison were based, in part.

An extremely rare set of conjoined twins of the type dicephalus (literally “two-headed”), Owen and Porter are separate individuals from their necks up but share a single body. As children, they’re seen as a single entity—Owenandporter, or more often, Porterandowen. As they grow to adulthood, their differences become more pronounced: Porter is outgoing and charismatic while Owen is cerebral and artistic. When Porter becomes a high school jock hero, complete with cheerleader girlfriend, a greater distinction emerges, as Owen gradually comes to realize that he’s gay.

Porter’s unease with his brother’s sexuality leaves Owen feeling increasingly alienated from his twin, especially when Porter falls in love and Owen becomes the unwilling third side of a complicated love triangle. And when Owen finally begins to explore his own desires, the rift grows deeper.

Contrary to my friend’s concerns, it has been neither difficult nor unpleasant spending time with Owen and Porter (or, for that matter, crazy-making). In fact, of all the characters I have ever created, I feel closest to them for the very reason that they are so unusual, so unlike me or anyone I know.

My interest in writing about the alien, the “other,” was sparked largely by three novels: Geek Love, by Katherine Dunn, in which a mother ingests a variety of drugs and toxic substances during pregnancy to produce offspring who will populate the family-owned sideshow; Mrs. Caliban, by Rachel Ingalls, which depicts a love affair between a lonely married woman and a sea monster; and The Giant’s House, by Elizabeth McCracken, a romance between a meek librarian and a very tall young man.

In First Person Plural, I wanted to use my two-headed protagonists as a metaphor for the alienation I felt as a gay man. Despite the progress gay people have made since I came out at the age of eighteen in 1969, I remained constantly aware of feeling different. And I felt that no matter how hard I tried to fit in (short of going back into the closet), I would always remain as obviously different as if I . . . well, had two heads. Voilá.

We’ve all been told in creative writing seminars that we need to know our characters intimately. What makes them happy or sad. What motivates them. What scares them.

All that is well and good, but when we try to bring them alive on the page for our readers, we tend to focus on externals, on descriptions: what color hair or eyes they have, whether they are tall or short, fat or thin, plain or pretty. We attempt to demonstrate personality through specific characteristics or through the choices they make: What size shoe they wear, what flavor ice cream they prefer. Mac or PC? Lefty or righty? Boxers or briefs?

Many times, our principal characters most closely resemble ourselves. While it is not unheard of, it is somewhat unusual for a man to write from a female protagonist’s perspective, or vice versa. And we tend to base lesser characters on people we know—parents, siblings, friends, and lovers (or ex-lovers, oh yes, ex-lovers are a favorite species). We adopt the personality templates whole, only the names are changed to protect the innocent (or to protect us from lawsuits by the guilty).

But how do we convincingly inhabit alien characters? How did I get into the heads (pun fully intended) of Owen and Porter?

In some ways, my methods were not out of the ordinary. Calling to mind my personal discomfort at hearing other people eat—the slurping of soup or crunching of cereal drives me from the dining room—I imagined what it must have been like for Owen to listen to Porter, whose head was always tangential to his own, chew his Lifesavers instead of letting them dissolve silently in his mouth. I thought about what it would be like for Owen to get razor burn from Porter’s stubble when his brother first began to grow a beard. And at night, lying alone in my bed, I imagined what it would be like to have another person sleeping not beside me but, in a way, inside me, his half of our body inert while I remained alert and restless.

One night I realized I had developed the habit of crossing my ankles over one another and interlocking my big toes. Somehow, it subconsciously gave me a sense of security, of self-containment, of completeness, that did not exist when my feet were not intertwined. I realized that quirk might serve as a powerful connection between Owen and Porter, especially when they were younger—a way for one to let the other one know he was there for him. At that moment I realized I had become, if not Owen and Porter then at least one of them.

While I did not set out to write a “message” novel, it is my fervent hope that straight people who read First Person Plural may find something in the character of Owen with which they identify, some hope or habit they recognize as their own, and thereby come to understand that we are not so different, any of us, under the skin, behind the labels, beneath the armor we each don daily to protect ourselves and to conform.

As Rosemarie Garland Thomson, an Emory University faculty member and author of Extraordinary Bodies, writes, “People who are visually different have always provoked the imagination of their fellow human beings. The extraordinary body is fundamental to the narratives by which we make sense of ourselves and our world.”

You can read more about First Person Plural at http://andrewbeierle.com/. For the record, Porter wears boxers; Owen prefers briefs. They alternate.




Thank you again, Andrew, for generously agreeing to kick off the guest blogging here at Bookseller Chick.

If you have any questions for the author or would like to learn more about his body of work, please leave your comment below. On Saturday one commenter will be chosen at random to receive a copy of First Person Plural before its release date on August 28th.*

*To be sent out after my trip to Denver is over.

Summer Reads, Death Penalty Cases and Kittens: an Interview with Stephanie Gayle

As a follow up to Monday’s guest blog, author Stephanie Gayle agreed to answer some questions had by myself and a couple of other readers. If you have any further questions please leave them in the comments below. Also if you have any interest in winning a copy of Stephanie’s book, comment as well. I will draw a winner on Saturday.*

Linsey: Your female protagonist and narrator in My Summer of Southern Discomfort shares a name with Natalie Goldberg, the writer, was that a coincidence? (Or just something you’re tired of people pointing out?)

Stephanie Gayle: This was semi-intentional. I had named her Natalie but she needed a last name. Goldberg met the Jewish requirement and paid homage to the woman who wrote Writing Down the Bones (a fabulous book for writers). Some writers suggested I change the name because of the coincidence, but I refused. I’m obstinate that way.

Linsey: You did a lot of research on the legal system for your novel both on the justice system and on Georgia. Did you have to guard against just dumping in all the info you found or did the infusion of knowledge into the narrative happen naturally?

Stephanie: Sometimes a situation within the narrative would lend itself to this information and sometimes a bit of set up was required, but I tried to work the legalese in organically rather than insert it as exposition to show what I learned about today in law.

Linsey: Natalie prosecutes a death penalty case despite her liberal Yankee background and her father’s civil rights work. What made you decide use the death penalty in her story?

Stephanie: It seemed like the biggest, toughest issue I could put on her plate. I wanted to give her a truly big conflict (because moving thousands of miles away and alienating family and friends and starting her career from scratch was minor conflict, really). Plus the state where she practices, Georgia, has been at the forefront of death penalty decisions.

Linsey: Did your personal research change your own opinions the subject?

Stephanie: No, quite the opposite. Having read about the death penalty’s application and enforcement, I am more convinced that the United States should abandon the death penalty as a punishment. Unlike Natalie, who was always opposed to it, I think I represented the ‘pro’ side in a debate on the death penalty in seventh grade.

The things you do when you’re twelve.

Linsey: I think I was involved in that exact same debate, except it was in Social Studies my freshman year of high school. Oh, the universal school experience. Would you recommend writing programs like that of Harvard’s to other budding novelists? Why?

Stephanie: I only took a few writing classes at Harvard. Both the novel class and the advanced fiction class were excellent. I know people from both classes who went on to get an MLA from the Harvard Extension School in Creative Writing. (They were willing to write a thesis, unlike me.) I think the class’s efficacy is dependent on the instructor and the students in your class. For me, the novel class was invaluable for motivation, critique and making connections with other writers. Aside from cost, I can’t think of a reason not to recommend it.

Linsey: Had you been involved in any other writing programs before the Harvard one?

Stephanie: I took a memoir writing class at Smith College and writing workshops through Grub Street, Inc.

Linsey: Speaking of Grub Street, Inc, I noticed it was mentioned on your bio as well; what is it?

Stephanie: Grub Street is a Boston-based writing center that offers classes taught by amazing writers. Grub also hosts readings, is involved in community-writing projects and holds an annual event called The Muse & The Marketplace where writers, editors, and agents all convene to talk the business of writing. I recently took a Master Fiction class through Grub Street taught by Ellen Litman, which was fantastic. Go Grub!

Linsey: What else are you (and your publisher) doing to help launch My Summer of Southern Discomfort?

Stephanie: Pony rides and free ice cream cones with the purchase of a book! (Kidding). We’ve been setting up local readings, getting the word out to the press (my novel just got listed as a best summer read in this month’s Redbook-bless the person at HC who did that!) I’ve been working locally with Haley Booksellers who are hosting my launch party on Monday. June 25th. They’ve also worked to get my name in local papers (BostonNOW and the Globe) and they’ve papered local neighborhoods with launch party fliers. I’ve been guest blogging here and gotten better about approaching bookstore staff (in a respectful manner, Linsey!) and asking about possible reading or signing opportunities.

Linsey: Regarding your next novel, 1000 Fluffy Kittens, do you know if this cat will be your cover cat or perhaps this one? Just kidding. What are you working on next?

Stephanie: Oh the kitties! Sadly, I didn’t follow my dream of 1,000 Fluffy Kittens. Instead I chose to begin a second novel, set in 1978, about a young woman who takes her parents to court after they have her kidnapped from a community they deem a cult. So I get to read lots about cults and kidnapping and deprogrammers. Next month I’ll begin editing the first draft. That’s the plan anyway.

Linsey: Wow, I think I would rather read about a possible former cult member suing her family than kitties anyway. What novels would you recommend to my readers to check out for their summer reading (after they’ve picked up yours, of course)?

Stephanie: Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell (How did I come to the David Mitchell party so late? He’s a genius.)

Any of the Peter Wimsey-Harriet Vane mysteries by Dorothy Sayers. (Strong Poison / Have His Carcass / Gaudy Night/Busman’s Honeymoon)

The Lady and the Panda: The True Adventures of the First American Explorer to Bring Back China's Most Exotic Animal by Vicki Croke

This is terrible, because I know I have more recommendations but I’m not at the computer with my ‘books read spreadsheet.’ Yes, I have a spreadsheet. Yes, I’m just that geeky. It also helps because I have a terrible memory and am prone to picking up (or buying) books that I’ve read before.

Linsey: I wish that I was organized enough for a spreadsheet. Currently I rely on my brain, faulty thing that it is. Probably why I needed y’all to help me come up with interview questions. Stephanie actually answered (with great speed) all of the questions posed on her original column, but I’ve copied and pasted them below for those of you don’t necessarily always read the comments.

Chris asked, “Have you ever lived in Georgia or did you just imagine what it would be like?”

Stephanie: I never lived in Georgia. I chose it for legal purposes (and because it has Piggly Wiggly stores). In part, I wanted a place where Natalie would be out of her element and a place with which I didn't have so much familiarity that I couldn't imagine it. I'm afraid if I set it where I live(d) I would have been tied to facts and what I know. This way, I was a bit freer to creatively imagine Nat's habitat. Though I also did a fair amount of research so that I had authentic details.

Miri asked, “How was the Harvard writing class formatted? What kinds of things did you do, exactly? And how many agents did you query before you found the one for you?”

Stephanie: The Harvard writing class was structured like most workshop classes. We'd read chapters submitted by our peers and then discuss them at the next class. We submitted 3 chapters per cycle as I recall. Our instructor, Stratis Haviaris, would also lecture briefly about novel structure, point of view, and tips on writing and publishing. The caliber of writers in that class was astonishing, and represents some of the best work in progress I've read. Stratis also insisted we get an agent, which leads me to question #2.

How many agents? You know, I have a spreadsheet somewhere. I think it was around 40 or so. I'd gotten some requests for full manuscripts in the very early query stages, but they all came back as "no"s. In the end, I think I have the right agent, so I'm glad I didn't get the first agent I asked.

Linsey: Thanks again, Stephanie, for taking the time to both interview and guest blog. I can always tell when a guest blog has been successful when my friends make mention of it while surreptitiously glancing around my apartment in search of the ARC to steal. You've garnered more than one comment and I've had to hide the ARC away for safe-keeping so I'll still have something to give away!

If you're interested in picking up Stephanie’s book, My Summer of Southern Discomfort, it will be available Tuesday of next week (according to the neat little widget below).

Get this widget!

(The widget is currently experiencing technically difficulties, but if you click on it will take you to an actual working version. Why it is not working here is probably a question for a greater being and the answer would probably be something like 42. This is what happens when I try to get technical.)

*Chris, you’ve already been entered, and Miri you’ve been excluded as requested.

Piecing Together Normal: An Interview with Sandi Kahn Shelton

When Dorothy Thompson approached me about having Sandi Kahn Shelton on my blog, I didn't say yes right away. Not because I feared that Sandi was a horrible writer (she most definitely is not), but because I try to host people on this blog that I would legitimately read (or be interested in reading) even if I don't get a chance to read over their book before I give it away. So armed with a name and the power of Google, I did a bit of research on Ms. Shelton, and discovered a woman with the power to look at the trials and tribulations that families cause with the humor necessary to make it through those moments.

Dodie Smith once called families "the dear octopus from whose tentacles we never quite escape, nor, in our inmost hears, ever quite wish to." They are our burdens and our loves, the sources of our deepest pain and our greatest amusement. In her books, Shelton acknowledges these lows and highs with humor and poignancy, making limoncellos out of life's lemons and offering up a perfect cool read on a hot day.

It's no surprise that her latest novel has been chosen as one of Target's Bookmarked selections and it's a pleasure to have Sandi join us today to talk about writing, families and books we love.

Bookseller Chick: Thanks for joining me, Sandi. Both A Piece of Normal and your first novel, What Comes After Crazy, revolved around families. How does Lily's relationship with Dana differ from Maz's relationship with Madame Lucille?

Sandi Shelton: Oooh, that’s such a good question. Nobody’s ever asked me that before, and it’s fun to think about. First I’d like to say that I love to write about families, because I think that’s where the real power that shapes us lies…and where we learn the essential truth that we can both love people and want to kill them at the same time.

In A Piece of Normal, Lily is the “got-it-all-together” sister whose life is sooo comfortable and sweet—she’s an advice columnist who tells everybody else how to live, and in fact, is still best friends with her ex-husband. (She won’t find a new lover until she finds somebody for Teddy, too!) When her little sister, the flaky punk-rocker Dana, blows into town after a ten-year tiff, Lily realizes that maybe there are just a few tiny little details about life she didn’t always have a handle on: like—hello? How did she miss the Huge Family Secret that was always right under her nose? The relationship between the two sisters goes from bad to awful—but in that way of families, they have to learn what’s worth saving and what can be walked away from.

Maz’s situation—oh, boy! She’s an only child raised by an itinerant, many-times-married fortune-teller, and somehow in her travels to carnivals with her mom, she learned how to make a decent gin and tonic and how to tell which of her mom’s many husbands was likely to stick around, but she didn’t get the essential skills of life, like how to make a home. When her own marriage falls apart, leaving her with two little girls to raise—and Madame Lucille comes back to town with her latest husband, Maz’s job isn’t to figure out how to continue being in her mother’s shadow, it’s to figure out how to stand her own ground and not let the past overwhelm her.

B.S. Chick: Speaking of family, how do you handle the responsibilities that come from being a mom and a full time writer?

Sandi: Well…it took me SEVENTEEN YEARS to write the first novel, if that’s any indication of that little balancing act! No, seriously—writing a novel was what I got to do when all the other things were done: the costumes sewed, the dioramas set up, and all the carpools carpooled. I was working—still am actually—as a feature reporter and columnist, doing magazine articles, as well as writing three humorous non-fiction books about parenting, but my real dream was to write this novel! I simply could not put it aside and forget about it, and—hey, I just realized that it finally got finished when my last child got her own driver’s license! My advice to Mom Writers everywhere: get driver’s licenses for your kids!

B.S. Chick: You've written for a number of magazines during your writing career. Is Lily's job as an advice columnist based anything you've written/done previously?

Sandi: Actually, no. That question makes me smile, because I first realized Lily was an advice columnist when she came to me as a character who was soooo smug about her life. I mean, this woman really knows the secrets of life—she even tells other people how to live. I thought it would be fun to write about somebody whose own life is kind of falling apart around the edges, meanwhile she’s telling everybody else what to do…and I figured her advice column would change to reflect her greater awareness of her own foibles.

My magazine writing wasn’t ever advice-driven; it was mainly humorous essays about parenting, which later became books in some kind of magical way. The “advice” in my books and magazine articles (if it could be boiled down into one sterling sentence) would have to be: Muddle through as best you can, and remember that no one else knows what they’re doing either.

B.S. Chick: On your website you have a feature set up for book groups to contact you about answering questions via email or setting up 30-minute conference calls, is this a new feature? Do you have any interesting stories about readers using either of these services?

Sandi: Oh, this has been very fun! Mainly this has been through phone calls. Book groups contact me, let me know when they are meeting, and then I call them at the appointed hour. We chat about the book, I answer their questions, and I’ve loved doing it. People ask such insightful questions. Sometimes we laugh, sometimes we get all analytical about human nature and writing—it’s such a great way to connect with readers.

B.S. Chick: Your books, both fiction and nonfiction, seem to contain a humorous tone. Do you believe that a good sense of humor is necessary to get through day to day life?

Sandi: Absolutely! My first book was called You Might As Well Laugh and it’s a collection of columns I wrote for my local newspaper (for ten years), many of which appeared in Working Mother magazine’s Wits’ End column. When I started writing this column for my paper, I was a single mother of two kids working in an office in which NO ONE had any kids whatsoever. Many had never heard of children. They would come in to work after having played tennis, for heaven’s sake, or just having had great sex. I, meanwhile, wandered in after just having fought with a 3-year old about why she couldn’t drink her milk out of the soy sauce bottle! The thing was, when I started my column, I just wrote about all the tragic and annoying things going on in my house, and I swear I did not know it was a humor column until people started telling me it was funny. That’s when I realized that daily life, in all its awfulness, can only be handled by laughing about it—hopefully with other people laughing with you.

B.S. Chick: Since at one time I was a bookseller and this a bookselling blog, what books do recommend my readers check out?

Wow! That’s a hard question. I love so many writers. I love Jennifer Crusie and Anne Tyler and Alice Munro and Lolly Winston and Elinor Lipman. Recently I’ve discovered the writer, Haven Kimmel, who writes the funniest and most breathtaking memoirs about growing up in Mooreland, Indiana. (Her latest is called She Got Up Off the Couch.) For those who like essays, there’s a wonderful anthology about what parenthood does to a romance, called Blindsided by a Diaper, that has essays that will make you laugh and some that will make you almost want to cry. (Full disclosure: I have one of the essays. But I’m simply in awe of the ones in that book that are not mine.)

Thank you so much, Linsey, for letting me come on your site and answer your very thought-provoking and insightful questions!

B.S. Chick: No, Sandi, thank you. If you want to hear more about Sandi you can read her blog, or catch her at any of the following stops on her virtual tour:

May 1, 2007 - The Writer's Life
May 2, 2007 - Trashionista
May 3, 2007 - Julie Kenner's Writes and Wrongs
May 4, 2007 - Night Owl Romance
May 7, 2007 - Alison Kent's Blah Blog
May 8, 2007 - Kathy Holmes' Fiction With Attitude
May 10, 2007 - Over the Hill Chick
May 15, 2007 - Bookseller Chick
May 21, 2007 - Alyssa Goodnight's On the Writers' Road Less Traveled
May 22, 2007 - The Book Pedler
May 24, 2007 - Susan Wiggs' The View from Here
May 25, 2007 - Fiction Scribe
May 28, 2007 - Blog About Romance
May 29, 2007 - Gypsy Psychic
May 31, 2007 - Pump Up Your Online Book Promotion

Like Gil, Sandi has offered up a copy of her new book if you're interested, so leave your comments below. I'll take comments on both interviews until Friday when I'll draw a name at random and send off the books.

Cleaning up the Aftermath: An Interview with Gil Reavill

Crime is big in our country, not only on the streets, but on the television as well. Nightly you can watch a CSI or Law & Order spin-off or catch any of the many other crime related dramas such as NCIS, Close to Home, or Criminal Minds. While many of these shows deal with the law aspects, CSI and NCIS tackle the crime scenes in all their bloody, stylized glory--Hollywood's take on what the end of someone's life looks like. These shows never deal with the after though. Who cleans up those bloated, week-old bodies and suicide splatters?

To this question, author Gil Reavill has the answer. He spent time working with the men behind Aftermath, Inc. a company that cleans the remains from crime scenes and works to find the best way to get blood out of the sub-flooring--jobs traditionally left to grieving families and church groups. He chronicled this time in his new nonfiction novel, Aftermath, Inc, about which PW said:

In this grisly, swaggering tale of gut-churning crime scenes and the men who clean them up after the forensics team is done, veteran true crime scribe Reavill (Beyond All Reason: My Life with Susan Smith) holds nothing back. From descriptions of crimes ("The fusillade of bullets tore through Johnson's body.... Blood, bits of flesh and bone fragments exploded everywhere") to hepatitis C "bleed-outs" ("All four walls of the bathroom looked like someone had taken a blood hose and turned it on them"), Reavill grabs the reader by the throat and doesn't let go. He follows the techs from Aftermath, Inc.—a bioremediation outfit in suburban Chicago—as they make the rounds of shotgun suicides, multiple murders and meth lab cleanups; dealing not only with the gross-out of the work but trying to stay sane doing it. While some black humor seeps in around the edges, Reavill mostly depicts a cadre of low-key, hardworking men doing a horrible job with respect and compassion. The narrative pace flags a bit in the last 50 pages when Reavill tries to connect Aftermath's work with larger moral issues, but otherwise, if anything can get CSI watchers to flip off the tube and pick up a book, this is it.

Gil, the husband of former guest columnist Jean Zimmerman, was kind enough to join me today to answer questions about his book, crime dramas, and what kind of publicity do you do for a book about cleaning up after the dead.

Bookseller Chick: Thanks for joining me, Gil. You've been a journalist, screenwriter, ghostwriter and the co-author of a parenting guide, how was writing Aftermath Inc different from your other projects?

Gil Reavill: In ghostwriting, which I’ve done a lot, I have a real sense of personal concealment. I’m not “me”; I’m the author to whom I’m giving voice. This is true to some degree in journalism and screenwriting as well. As a writer, I’ve always fooled around with voices and masks, with assuming other identities and characters, probably due to chicken-shit insecurities, false and otherwise. I’ve never been immersed in a subject to the degree I was working alongside the techs at Aftermath. At the same time, I’ve never been exposed personally in my writing to the degree I am in this book. I guess the two things — immersion and exposure — go together. Because I was immersed, because working with the techs remediating crime scenes had such an immediate intensity, I didn’t have any option but to wear my emotions on my sleeve. Going into the project, I wanted to appear hard-boiled, cool (in the Marshall Mcluhan sense) and “objective.” I wanted to be Hammett’s Continental Op. But I discovered I was totally unable to front in that particular way. I found the material too challenging. I needed to process these intense, jittery personal experiences through my writing. There wasn’t any other choice. I had to be me, to paraphrase Sammy Davis, Jr. So the experience of Aftermath was different from my other writing in the sense it brought me out somewhat from behind my protective journalistic smoke screen.

B.S. Chick: Once upon a time I thought I could hack it as a coroner, but having read some of the crime scene descriptions in your book I'm pretty sure I would have lost my lunch on the first day. What compelled you to follow along with Tim, Chris and their crew on their jobs?

Gil: I did lose my lunch on the first day! Literally! I come from a rationalist, humanistic background. In theory, what I was encountering — death, blood, the muck of mortality — was the most human stuff there is. So in theory, I should have been able to handle it. I could have merely accompanied the crews as a passive observer. That’s what they expected. But I felt to do the experience justice I had to strap on a respirator, climb into some Tyvek and work alongside the people who do this for a living. A line I quote in the book is from the Latin poet Terence: “Nothing human is foreign to me.” I’ve paid that line a lot of lip service in my life. Aftermath was my chance to measure my commitment to it. And as it turned out, there is quite a damn bit that is human and utterly foreign to me. You live and learn. Or at least, you live.

B.S. Chick: Was there any point where you wished you hadn't?

Gil: Plenty of times. You know that old Tooter Turtle cartoon? “Help, Mr. Wizard! I don’t want to be a crime-scene clean-up guy anymore!” I often had that feeling, “Get me out of here.” Not only because of the gore, either. Some of the scenes I encountered had a wrenching commonness to them. Up close, some lives and most deaths seem sucked dry of all romance. It’s disheartening.

B.S. Chick: How was what you experienced different from what we see on the TV crime dramas like CSI or Law & Order?

Gil: It’s the difference between the city of Orlando and Disney World. A crime scene on TV is a pretty stylized thing. Advertisers don’t want directors to get too graphic. So you see a pile of blood here and a smear of blood there. A real crime scene is a lot more chaotic than that. Blood makes it around corners and bounces underneath doors; body fluids drip into the subflooring. Hitchcock has a line: “In films murders are always very clean. I show how difficult it is and what a messy thing it is to kill a man.” On the other hand, one thing I liked about going out on jobs was measuring the differences and similarities between the world of Gil Grissom and the world of Aftermath. I’d ask myself, How might Grissom handle this? But it was mostly just a mildly amusing game. Grissom is a character played by an actor. Like most of prime-time television, shows such as CSI or Law & Order give only the most perfunctory of nods to reality.

B.S. Chick: Congrats on the great review from PW, but like Paul Bresnick I've got to ask: can anything get CSI-ers to turn off the television?

Gil: I’m a great believer in the book. You can pick up a copy of Aftermath, Inc. at JFK, fly to the west coast, and finish it by the time you land at LAX. I guarantee my book will twist your mind around in ways that the inflight movie just can’t do. I would also have no objection at all to anyone reading my book while they are watching CSI. During the commercials! There are so many! There will always be a solid core audience of reading devotees. Plus an editor friend of mine told me, “Publishers can always count on the gore fans.” I’m a great believer in the book, but I also have a couple of blogs, a MySpace page on the way and some virals on YouTube. No sense in not hedging your bets.

B.S. Chick: What are you doing for publicity given the nature of this book?

Gil: Among other measures, the owners of Aftermath (the company) are putting up a billboard beside a Chicago interstate that will be seen by a quarter million people a week. That’s a first for me. Gotham has promised a “killer marketing campaign.” There’s an understandable concern about public reaction to the subject matter. There are those who can’t get enough of it, and those who can’t handle any of it.

B.S. Chick: Thanks for taking the time to talk to us, Gil. What I've read of your book has been really interesting (I would even call it great, but given the subject matter that seems a bit inappropriate), and I'm kicking myself for offering up my copy as a giveaway. Still, a promise is a promise, so here's y'alls chance to get a free copy of Aftermath, Inc. Just leave a comment about this interview, answer whether or not you think CSI-ers will ever turn off the television, or ask a question of Gil (or hell, even myself) and I'll enter your name into the drawing for this brand new (only slightly read) copy of Gil's book.

If you still find yourself fascinated by all things Gil, visit his writing blog, and the website of Aftermath, Inc or check some of his other books j(those without a link are no longer available):

Hollywood (Compass American Guides/Random House)
Manhattan (Compass American Guides/Random House)
Beyond All Reason (Kensington)
Raising Our Athletic Daughters (Doubleday)
Smut (Sentinel/Penguin USA)
Ruthless (Simon and Schuster Spotlight Entertainment)
Aftermath, Inc. (Gotham/Penguin USA)

Coming tomorrow: an Interview with Gil Reavill

Tomorrow Gil Reavill, the author of Aftermath, Inc, will be joining us to talk about his new nonfiction book, dealing with bodies and who steps in after the CSIs go home. Here's a little preview of the story behind the book from his website:



I hope you'll join me for an interesting interview with an interesting man. I'll be giving away a copy of this title to a person chosen at random from the commentators, and I'm sure that Gil will be able to answer any questions you might have.

Talking Virtual Tours with Dorothy Thompson

I've recently rediscovered something amazing about myself: that I can be productive when I'm trapped upright in front of a computer for eight hours a day. My "enforced" captivity has led me to do a great deal of research in the last couple of weeks as well as interview a number of authors and industry people who work with the internet. Questions, I've found, are much easier to think up and type between phone calls than actual columns and I've gotten a chance to chat with a number of interesting people.

And Dorothy Thompson is one of those interesting people.

Ms. Thompson approached me about hosting interviews with three authors she's been working with: Shel Horowitz, whom you've already read about; and Sandi Kahn Shelton, who you'll read about on May 15th when she stops by to talk about her book, A Piece of Normal. I'd done a virtual tour before as part of the Dirty Sugar Cookies blog extravaganza, but I'd just filed the whole concept away in the back of my mind. It was in between email exchanges it occurred to me that Dorothy was capitalizing on the ever expanding power of the internet for writers, and it would be interesting to find out how she got into the field of virtual tours and how she goes about setting one up.

Bookseller Chick: Thanks for joining me here today. I want to know more about your company. How did you get started in the business of helping others market their books and how long have you been doing it?

Dorothy Thompson: Thank you for having me! I’ve been learning how to promote books over the Internet for about six or seven years now, partly because I was interested in finding out ways to use the Internet to market my books, but also because I knew that online marketing was going to be the new age of promoting. Being a small press author, I was a little frustrated with how I was supposed to get my books into book stores, using consignment and practically begging to stock me. So, I took to the Internet and, so far, I’ve found out that you can market your book right from the comfort of your home and virtual book tours is only one way of doing it.

In my ebook, A Complete Guide to Promoting & Selling Your Self-Published eBook, I show authors what I’ve found out to be the ultimate experience in online marketing and ways to get your book into top placements in the search engines. Don’t let the title fool you. This works for any kind of published author. For your marketing plan to work, it’s a combination of things you must do and virtual book tours are one of them.

I had heard about virtual book tours and wanted to try it out with my ebook, sort of as a guinea pig, and because I used the methods outlined in the ebook to promote the ebook, my virtual book tour was a success. It’s a lot of work, but it’ll pay off. The main thing you want to do before you even begin a virtual book tour is to zero in on your key search words and use them in every bit of promotional literature you send out. That’s the secret to getting your book into the first page of the search engines for your key search words. For instance, one of my set of key search words (and you should do this with as many groups of key search words as you can) was "promote your self-published ebook". Even today, it’s #1 out of 90,700 without the quotes and #1 out of 985 with the quotes. And anyone can do it.

It was then that I decided to start my own virtual book tours business and I call it Pump Up Your Book Promotion Virtual Tours after my blog, Pump Up Your Online Book Promotion because I wanted to help others do what I did so that they can sell their books, too.

B.S. Chick: I hear you (or in this case, I read you), I’m a huge fan of notes and learning from experience. So tell me, what goes in to putting together a virtual book tour?

Dorothy: The first thing I do when someone is interested in becoming a part of my tours is to send them an application which will have all their vital information so that I can get familiar with their platform and determine where I can place them. For example, there’s the basic stuff like the name of their book, etc., but what I also look for are things like do they have a print book to send to these hosts because in order to get on the high profile blogs, it’s a must. Another thing I do is ask them if there are any particular literary blogs they’d like to appear just in case one of them comes back at me and says, “Well, so-and-so appeared on such-and-such blog; why didn’t I?” There are a lot of factors involved in why some books appear on more high profile blogs and the key factor is whether they have a supply of books to send to these high profile blog hosts. However, I do try to give them the best service I can. Some of my clients have ebooks only, and that’s fine, so we start finding blogs that will take them, but concentrate on ones that are active and ones in which would give my clients some exposure.

The next thing I do is set up a tour page for them here. This is not only for them to see where their tour is taking them, but also as a guide for the blog hosts to refer to in case they want to grab the cover or the author’s picture, or just to find out more of what their books are about.

And, then we get to work.

As each contact is made, I cc the author so that the author, blog host and I stay on the same page. Some of these are interviews, some are guest blogs and some are reviews. It all depends on what the blog host wants. We’re all very flexible.

When a client signs up with me, I go beyond just the tour. I help them set up their blog so that it’s SEO-friendly, teach them about tags and get them to learn about google alerts so that they’ll see how well they are doing as their tour evolves. It’s more of a science to see what happens…we do this, then this happens. It’s fun, though. The authors are real excited and are such a pleasure to work with. I try to answer whatever questions they might have so that it’s a pleasurable experience for everyone.

B.S. Chick: Do you specialize each one to the book involved?

Dorothy: Yes, I do specialize each tour. Someone asked me that the other day. If an author writes inspirational, for example, I aim for bloggers who write the same thing. I like diversity and try not to use the same blogger in a month's time. I have four authors going out next month, and have tried not to double up on any of my bloggers, but sometimes it can't be helped. But, I do try for diversity.

B.S. Chick: You've approached me about working with a self published title and a big house title, does this represent your spread of clients?

Dorothy: Yes, I work with any author who has a published book. That's the difference between me and those other guys. I used to hate it when a high-trafficked blog would turn me down because I wasn't with a big house. I guess it's my pet peeve. It doesn't matter who you are published with. An author is an author.

B.S. Chick: Why do a virtual tour? How can this affect the success of an author's book?

Dorothy: Why do a virtual book tour? Many reasons, actually. When you do a tour in a bricks and mortar house, how many books do you sell? Let's say you've sold maybe ten. Well, that's not bad, but look at what you have to go through? There's gas, there's getting ready, there's tension. Over the Internet, you can do the same thing and the only one going through all the tension is me, lol. There's a lot involved when you have four authors going out in one month, especially since this is really the first real month that's going to test me as to whether I can do it or not. I've had blog hosts turn me down; I've had blog hosts think it's the neatest thing since Cheez Whiz.

The successes, though, are the things that really keep me going. I am so excited when I get to email an author and tell her/him that I've got them on so-and-so blog. And, the strange truth of the matter is, most of these authors wouldn't have been able to do it themselves for one reason or another. It's really strange that if you go through a third party like myself, people respond faster. But, wouldn't you? If an author emailed you, you might do it, but if a publicist emailed you, your subconscious figures that this author must be really serious if they've hired outside help, you know? And I love playing publicist. I've worn the author's shoes and I know what they feel like, so this really helps me to help other authors. I know their frustrations. I know their fears of losing a publisher if the sales aren't there. If I can make a difference, then that's all that matters to me anyway.

I do want to mention another reason for going on a virtual book tour. If you are touring bookstores, you're there maybe a couple of hours. When you do tours online, what happens is that whatever blog you are on, it doesn't matter where or with who, your tour will be archived indefinitely in the search engines as long as the blog host keeps it in their archives. This builds up your online presence which is going to work in your favor. Let's say you appear on 20 blogs for this. Well, that's 20 more links you'll have in the search engines, which raises your presence there. I've done studies on SEO and I tested it out with a couple of free ebooks that my writing group and I wrote and I managed to get the last two we did in the number one spot in the search engines in one day for our particular key search words. It's actually fun watching it happen. It doesn't happen miraculously. It takes a lot of hard work, but the end result is what is going to sell books. ;o)

B.S. Chick: Thanks, Dorothy, for stopping by and explaining why virtual tours can help an author out. So what do y'all think, are virtual tours worth it? Have you ever picked up a book after reading an author's interview or guest column on a blog?

If you have any questions for Dorothy about her business and virtual tours in general, leave it on this thread and I'll pass it along.

Guest Blogger: Jean Zimmerman and the Un-Tour

BS Chick: Jean is the first of the guest bloggers for the week, and the author of Women of the House, a book (that I desperately want to read) on the life of Margaret Hardenbroeck, a she-merchant in 1600s New Amsterdam. Both she and her historical subject have proven that sometimes it comes down to sisters doin' it for themselves. It's great to have you here at the blog.

“We Have An Author In the Store”
by Jean Zimmerman

Tuesday, the first of August. On this hottest day of the summer of 2006, I spent most of the morning painting the deck railings. At 11 I came inside and sat at my desk. I looked at the phone. No calls.

It was my pub date. Shouldn’t I be at Elaine’s? Shouldn’t there be a fete of some kind? Telegrams of congratulations? (Do telegrams still even exist?) If a book falls in a forest, does it make a sound?

Welcome to the world of a mid-list, middle-aged, not to say middling author. I was putting out my fourth book, The Women of the House: How a Colonial She-Merchant Built a Mansion, a Fortune, and a Dynasty, a work of narrative non-fiction, a popular (I hoped it would be popular) history of four women in a Colonial-era New York family.

From my experience with my previous three books, I thought I had faced up to the Brave New World of post-millennial publishing – a world of limited p.r. budgets, cautious publishers and a brutally Malthusian marketplace. For most of us, the author tour was a thing of the past.

I loved my book. I wanted so much for it to succeed. What could I do to help it along? A phrase from Pound ran through my mind. Go, dumb-born book…

From the start I had been closely involved with the marketing and pubcity efforts made by Harcourt, my publisher, which had the best of intentions regarding my book but was crunched like any publisher in America. This, I decided, was the first responsibility of the Brave New World author – to be actively engaged, not passive, not sit-back-and-let-folks-do-their-job. My team at Harcourt, one of the last independent publishers, was great, and I liked and respected all of them. I swore that in this case, at least, there was going to be an “I” in team. They exhibited a characteristic of all true professionals – they were so good they encouraged me to be part of their process. Together we came up with lists of groups to target that might both welcome me as a speaker and buy my books. Yet as my pub date passed quietly, so, so quietly, I resolved that I would do more on my own to help my book succeed.

The day after my book pubbed, I began a bookstore blitzkrieg near my home in Westchester County – a self-designed, under-the-radar author’s tour, actually an “un-tour.”

At a local Barnes & Noble I skirted the discounted books, looking vainly among the new releases, new nonfiction, new hardcovers, new history. The clerk took a long time fiddling around with her computer terminal. “I guess we don’t have any copies,” she said finally. Nor did the next Barnes & Noble I visited. “Hmn,” he said, “It looks like none of our area stores ordered any copies.”

The landscape changed at Borders, which I expected. The Women of the House had been chosen by Borders as an Original Voice selection for August and September, a national program that was reserved usually for new and emerging writers, and to me it seemed a stroke of great good fortune that I had been invited into this coterie. The Borders store had the book displayed in five different spots, including the Original Voices case at the very front of the store, over a red tag with a witty review. I introduced myself at the information desk, signed stock, and inquired about participating in some kind of store event in the future. Another Borders store I visited also gave WOTH star billing. The floor clerk was a history buff himself, he said, and couldn’t wait to read the book.

Then that night it was back to another Barnes and Noble, a big one at a gigantic area mall. The store seemed to have every book in the world except The Women of the House. Once again, a search turned up zero copies in stock, with zero plans to order any. The clerk helpfully checked every area store. No copies would be on hand, as far as he knew – anywhere.

What was going on? How could I expect WOTH to sell if it had no presence in the country’s biggest bookstore chain? From my editor, I knew that Barnes and Noble had committed to ordering a good quantity. I sent her an email. “I am so happy about Borders!” I said. “But what about B & N? Where is my book? I’m invisible!” My editor swore she’d get to the bottom of it.

I spent a wretched weekend. Then, on Monday, the worm turned. I opened an email from my agent that forwarded a lucid explanation from a marketing exec at Harcourt for what she termed my book’s “choppy distribution path.” Barnes and Noble, it seemed, had stumbled in getting my book into the stores. But the good news far outweighed the bad. The company was eager to compensate for its error. Not only did it confirm its store order of just over 2,000 copies, to be shipped immediately, it would feature The Women of the House on the front tables of its top 200 stores in the major urban markets for two weeks, beginning the last week in August. The company made good on its offer pronto, and now I saw my book displayed along all the other current titles when I walked in the door of many B & N’s.

My first thought was, Cool! The falling through the cracks incident had actually worked out to my favor! My second thought was: what would have happened if I hadn’t done my un-tour of bookstores? The same old precept was rammed home once again. Ya gotta do it yourself. It’s a simple lesson, but a hard one for authors. It’s something we do all the time when we write books. Why not when we sell them?

With The Women of the House out for seven weeks, I am still cold- calling the chains. I’m growing accustomed to the person behind the information desk speaking into her mike, beckoning the manager: “We have an author in the store.” At first I thought the phrase sounded like a Ripley’s Believe It or Not, as though the clerk was saying, “We have an alien in the store.” But now, after my never-ending un-tour has continued, it sounds more natural.

I have found that store personnel I meet will go out of their way to reshelve my book to face front. They tell me it does make a difference for an author to come in; that they will remember to recommend the book to patrons. Store managers may not always have to time to meet with authors, but when they do they just might see a fit between your work and the readers who shop at their store, and work with you to set up a book talk or a session with a reading group. It’s never a pre-determined thing, what is going to happen when you drop in unannounced at the superstores. But more will happen than if you stayed home.

Fanatics Unite! (from a guest blogger)

In the last couple weeks, I’ve learned about Aquaman fans, notebook collectors, people obsessed with Jamba Juice, and so-called “case fanatics” who’ve been following – and trying to solve – the murder case of JonBenet Ramsey for years.

I don’t go looking for these passionate fanatics, but I do notice them – probably more than most people do. See, I spent the last three years zig-zagging the country while working on a book about passionate fanatics called WHO ARE YOU PEOPLE? Among other people, I studied pigeon racers and Barbie collectors and furries and Grobanites, which are middle-aged women who are over-the-top in love with the singer Josh Groban.

When people ask why I was interested in the topic (which, I’ve since learned, is merely a polite way of asking, “Why the hell would you want to hang out with such weirdos?”), I tell them it’s because I don’t have an obsession-passion-call-it-what-you-will thing.

My official research has ended, the book is out, but I’m still fascinated by the fascinations of others. And as I give media interviews, I realize other people are as well. The radio shows I’ve been on are jammed with callers eager to talk about the quirky fanatics they know: the geologist who doesn’t like anything younger than 25 million years, the Oakland Raiders fan with the specially made dental crown, the guy who loves Frisbee golf so much he even plays in the snow. Everyone I speak with (and I mean everyone) has a story of some “crazy” obsessive in their life.

So… Bookseller Chick asked me: What is it about fanaticism that captures our attention? Why are books like mine or the Orchid Thief or The Big Year or Confederates in the Attic still being published to receptive audiences?

I’ve got four theories:

1. Because there are an endless supply of fascinations out there, and the variety itself can boggle the mind. Get on Meetup.com, and you’ll find groups organized around beekeeping, cake decorating, dumpster diving, Elvis, flashlights, graffiti, juggling, magic, poi, pugs, robotics, roller coasters, scrapbooks, skyscrapers, yo-yos, Ukrainian eggs and hundreds of other interests. The endless variety of these groups, and the secret insider language and rituals they develop, are mystifying and entertaining to those on the outside.

2. Because these fanatical groups help us better understand who we are as individuals. An added bonus: classifying someone as a “weirdo” helps us feel better about ourselves. Social psychologists call this the theory of social comparison. According to this theory, how we feel about ourselves is largely based upon who we compare ourselves to. When we see someone dressed in a Stormtrooper costume, or dusting off their display of 5,000 Hot Wheels, or wearing a Cheesehead to a football game, it’s easy for those of us who don’t share the fascination to ridicule it, and in so doing, slightly elevate our own self-conception. (Sorry. But it’s true. I know from personal experience.)

3. No one thinks that they are fanatical. Several months ago, I sat transfixed as a friend unraveled two hour’s worth of details about The Sound of Music and all its stars and where it was filmed and how and why the movie had affected her so much. This woman, who’s highly educated, speaks several languages and grew up abroad, was so over-the-top in love with The Sound of Music that she’d attend Sound of Music sing-alongs. The event attracts fans dressed in lederhosen and nun habits and Nazi uniforms, all of whom watch the movie on a big screen and, as the name suggests, sing along.

“But I’m not a fanatic,” she assured me. “I’m not like most of the people who go to the sing-along.”

“Why’s that?” I asked.

“They dress up,” she said. “I would never do that.”

As this friend nicely illustrates -- we never view ourselves as “crazy." That’s why it’s fun to read about others who are.

4. Finally, I think books about fanatics (particularly narrative nonfiction books) continue to sell for the same reason all good stories sell: Because they lift the veil on some aspect of the human condition, and in so doing, help readers understand their own world a little better.

So….. here’s my invitation: I truly believe we all have some kind of micro-interest with which we express the quirky, colorful sides of ourselves. Post a comment confessing to your own fanatical passion and the poster who demonstrates the most colorful, unusual or obsessive fascination will win a free signed copy of my book, WHO ARE YOU PEOPLE?

--Shari Caudron