Egypt and Greco-Roman Art, Mystery, Adventure and Romance

Years ago I traveled overseas for business and was gone for two weeks at a time. I traveled alone and kept my suitcase filled with paperback books. It was the perfect way to spend the evening after finishing up my reports and preparing for the next city.

On the long trip from New York to Egypt I consumed a romance mystery novel, The Mummy. It wasn't the classic story, definitely a romance. I wish I could remember the author. I do remember the story taking place in the 1920's. When I got to Cairo I stepped back in time. I walked through the Cairo Museum, a smallish building, that was filled to overflowing with mummies and sarcophagi. I took the obligatory trip to the Sphinx and Pyramids.

On a drive through the desert to Alexandria with my Egyptian colleague I saw sand dunes as large as mountains and in the distance large tanker ships that seemed to float through the desert. They were going through the Suez Canal. Business-wise the trip was a success. Personally, I reread my book as I experienced Egypt. It was more wonderful the second time.

When I returned home I once again scoured my local bookstore (we had them then) for something new. I found Elizabeth Peters. She's become one of my favorite authors. She writes about Amelia Peabody, a Victorian woman deeply in love with her husband, archaeologist Lord Radcliffe Emerson, her son, Ramses, and Egypt. The stories are filled with mystery, adventure, romance and Egypt.

You can find out more about Lady Amelia in a post by Shelley Noble as well as on Amelia Peabody's own website.

There is another author that writes along a similar vein, Tasha Alexander. Her Lady Emily series is also filled with mystery, adventure and romance but instead of Egypt, Lady Emily is enraptured with Greco-Roman antiquities. The series begins with Lady Emily trying to find out more about her late husband. A marriage of convenience, Lady Emily knew little about her archaeologist husband. By the end of several hundred pages Lady Emily solves the mystery and truly falls in love with her husband.

I'm excited that Tasha will be one of the speakers at this year's NJRW Put Your Heart in a Book Conference October 12-13.

I know some of you write about Egypt, Greece and Rome. Tell me about them. Better yet, send me your covers with a link and I'll post them here.

Speaking to a Stone Wall

At the Romantic Times Convention last April I told my senior editor that I had learned a valuable lesson. When my book, Knight of Runes, was getting ready for release last November I asked her what I should do to promote it. She said write the next book. I thought she was crazy. This is my first book. No one knows who I am. Who will buy it if no one knows about it?

I read up on book promotion and marketing and as a result I did a three week blog tour. I tweeted. I Facebooked. I made swag to send to conferences. I did everything except write the next book. I watched as my colleague debut authors released their second and third book. I still hadn’t put pen to paper.

When I saw Angela in April my new story, a series of five books, was well underway. The beginning of June, Mine Forever , the first of the series was packed up and sent into m editor. It’s not a sure thing so I sit and wait to hear if they want to publish it. In the meantime, my now multi-published colleagues and critique partners encouraged me to start the next story. 

Where is the stone wall? I’m getting to it. 

I work with building my characters before I work through the plot. I admit I laid the ground work for the second story nicely in the first one so I had a head start. But speaking to my hero, Cameron, was like... speaking to a stone wall. He's handsome, outgoing, tall and blond. He's a throw-back to his family's Viking influence but no matter how much I spoke to him, how many questions I asked he didn't reveal very much. I love the strong silent type but wasn't getting the second book written. 

On a whim, I spoke to Lady Barbara, the heroine. She was much more communicative. In a matter of hours I had the goal, motivation and conflict right there in front of me.

My point is sometimes when you can’t get to the route of the issue, problem, action, etc. change your perspective or point of view. For me, the walls came tumbling down!

How to you get around problems? How do you take down those walls?

72 Quotes About Writing

I took some time to catch up on blogs and email. I had tagged them to read later in the week when I had more time. One email was from Writer's Digest. This post had an article by Zachary Petit. It was a collection of quotes on writing. He said he uses these quotes to keep him motivated. I can see why.

 Here is Mr. Petit's full article. I'm certain you have some favorite quotes. What are they? What keeps you motivated?  

A good writing  quote can give me goosebumps.

For those days when the well is feeling dry and a tad echo-y, I keep a running list of my favorite quotes—things I’ve read, things I’ve edited, things I’ve found in the WD archives, things people have said to me in interviews.

Such tiny, perfect revelations.

A couple of years ago, I posted a portion of this list on my old WD blog. Recently, someone asked if I was still collecting quotes.

Here’s the latest iteration of the list. (I’d love to expand it, too—please share some of your favorites in the Comments section of this blog post.)

Happy Friday, and happy writing.

                                                           *

“The road to hell is paved with works-in-progress.”
—Philip Roth

“The road to hell is paved with adverbs.”
—Stephen King

“Who wants to become a writer? And why? Because it’s the answer to everything. … It’s the streaming reason for living. To note, to pin down, to build up, to create, to be astonished at nothing, to cherish the oddities, to let nothing go down the drain, to make something, to make a great flower out of life, even if it’s a cactus.”
—Enid Bagnold

“To gain your own voice, you have to forget about having it heard.”
—Allen Ginsberg, WD

“Cheat your landlord if you can and must, but do not try to shortchange the Muse. It cannot be done. You can’t fake quality any more than you can fake a good meal.”
—William S. Burroughs

“All readers come to fiction as willing accomplices to your lies. Such is the basic goodwill contract made the moment we pick up a work of fiction.”
—Steve Almond, WD

“Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand.”
—George Orwell

“It ain’t whatcha write, it’s the way atcha write it.”
—Jack Kerouac, WD

“Not a wasted word. This has been a main point to my literary thinking all my life.”
—Hunter S. Thompson

“When I sit down to write a book, I do not say to myself, ‘I am going to produce a work of art.’ I write it because there is some lie that I want to expose, some fact to which I want to draw attention, and my initial concern is to get a hearing.”
—George Orwell

“I don’t care if a reader hates one of my stories, just as long as he finishes the book.”
—Roald Dahl, WD

“The freelance writer is a man who is paid per piece or per word or perhaps.”
—Robert Benchley

“We are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master.”
—Ernest Hemingway

“Every secret of a writer’s soul, every experience of his life, every quality of his mind, is written large in his works.”
—Virginia Woolf

“Making people believe the unbelievable is no trick; it’s work. … Belief and reader absorption come in the details: An overturned tricycle in the gutter of an abandoned neighborhood can stand for everything.”
—Stephen King, WD

“If a nation loses its storytellers, it loses its childhood.”
—Peter Handke

“To defend what you’ve written is a sign that you are alive.”
—William Zinsser, WD

“If I had not existed, someone else would have written me, Hemingway, Dostoyevsky, all of us.”
—William Faulkner

“For your born writer, nothing is so healing as the realization that he has come upon the right word.”
—Catherine Drinker Bowen

“Each writer is born with a repertory company in his head. Shakespeare has perhaps 20 players. … I have 10 or so, and that’s a lot. As you get older, you become more skillful at casting them.”
—Gore Vidal

“We’re past the age of heroes and hero kings. … Most of our lives are basically mundane and dull, and it’s up to the writer to find ways to make them interesting.”
—John Updike, WD

“The greatest part of a writer’s time is spent in reading, in order to write; a man will turn over half a library to make one book.”
—Samuel Johnson

“If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it. Or, if proper usage gets in the way, it may have to go. I can’t allow what we learned in English composition to disrupt the sound and rhythm of the narrative.”
—Elmore Leonard

“Write. Rewrite. When not writing or rewriting, read. I know of no shortcuts.”
—Larry L. King, WD

“Know your literary tradition, savor it, steal from it, but when you sit down to write, forget about worshiping greatness and fetishizing masterpieces.”
—Allegra Goodman

“I’m out there to clean the plate. Once they’ve read what I’ve written on a subject, I want them to think, ‘That’s it!’ I think the highest aspiration people in our trade can have is that once they’ve written a story, nobody will ever try it again.”
—Richard Ben Cramer

“There are no laws for the novel. There never have been, nor can there ever be.”
—Doris Lessing

“Style means the right word. The rest matters little.”
—Jules Renard

“Style is to forget all styles.”
—Jules Renard

“I do not over-intellectualize the production process. I try to keep it simple: Tell the damned story.”
—Tom Clancy, WD

“The writing of a novel is taking life as it already exists, not to report it but to make an object, toward the end that the finished work might contain this life inside it and offer it to the reader. The essence will not be, of course, the same thing as the raw material; it is not even of the same family of things. The novel is something that never was before and will not be again.”
—Eudora Welty, WD

“One thing that helps is to give myself permission to write badly. I tell myself that I’m going to do my five or 10 pages no matter what, and that I can always tear them up the following morning if I want. I’ll have lost nothing—writing and tearing up five pages would leave me no further behind than if I took the day off.”
—Lawrence Block, WD

“Don’t expect the puppets of your mind to become the people of your story. If they are not realities in your own mind, there is no mysterious alchemy in ink and paper that will turn wooden figures into flesh and blood.”
—Leslie Gordon Barnard, WD

“If you tell the reader that Bull Beezley is a brutal-faced, loose-lipped bully, with snake’s blood in his veins, the reader’s reaction may be, ‘Oh, yeah!’ But if you show the reader Bull Beezley raking the bloodied flanks of his weary, sweat-encrusted pony, and flogging the tottering, red-eyed animal with a quirt, or have him booting in the protruding ribs of a starved mongrel and, boy, the reader believes!”
—Fred East, WD

“Plot is people. Human emotions and desires founded on the realities of life, working at cross purposes, getting hotter and fiercer as they strike against each other until finally there’s an explosion—that’s Plot.”
—Leigh Brackett, WD

“The first sentence can’t be written until the final sentence is written.”
—Joyce Carol Oates, WD

“When your story is ready for rewrite, cut it to the bone. Get rid of every ounce of excess fat. This is going to hurt; revising a story down to the bare essentials is always a little like murdering children, but it must be done.”
—Stephen King, WD

“Genius gives birth, talent delivers. What Rembrandt or Van Gogh saw in the night can never be seen again. Born writers of the future are amazed already at what they’re seeing now, what we’ll all see in time for the first time, and then see imitated many times by made writers.”
–Jack Kerouac, WD

“Long patience and application saturated with your heart’s blood—you will either write or you will not—and the only way to find out whether you will or not is to try.”
—Jim Tully, October 1923

“All stories have to at least try to explain some small portion of the meaning of life. You can do that in 20 minutes, and 15 inches. I still remember a piece that the great Barry Bearak did in The Miami Herald some 30 years ago. It was a nothing story, really: Some high school kid was leading a campaign to ban books he found offensive from the school library. Bearak didn’t even have an interview with the kid, who was ducking him. The story was short, mostly about the issue. But Bearak had a fact that he withheld until the kicker. The fact put the whole story, subtly, in complete perspective. The kicker noted the true, wonderful fact that the kid was not in school that day because “his ulcer was acting up.” Meaning of life, 15 inches.”
—Gene Weingarten, WD

“Beware of advice—even this.”
—Carl Sandburg, WD

“I would advise anyone who aspires to a writing career that before developing his talent he would be wise to develop a thick hide.”
—Harper Lee, WD

“I think the deeper you go into questions, the deeper or more interesting the questions get. And I think that’s the job of art.”
—Andre Dubus, WD

“Geniuses can be scintillating and geniuses can be somber, but it’s that inescapable sorrowful depth that shines through—originality.”
—Jack Kerouac, WD

“People say, ‘What advice do you have for people who want to be writers?’ I say, they don’t really need advice, they know they want to be writers, and they’re gonna do it. Those people who know that they really want to do this and are cut out for it, they know it.”
—R.L. Stine, WD

“I don’t need an alarm clock. My ideas wake me.”
—Ray Bradbury, WD

“Just write every day of your life. Read intensely. Then see what happens. Most of my friends who are put on that diet have very pleasant careers.”
—Ray Bradbury, WD

“Let the world burn through you. Throw the prism light, white hot, on paper.”
—Ray Bradbury, WD

“Remember: Plot is no more than footprints left in the snow after your characters have run by on their way to incredible destinations.”
—Ray Bradbury, WD

“I don’t believe in being serious about anything. I think life is too serious to be taken seriously.”
—Ray Bradbury, WD

“It’s none of their business that you have to learn to write. Let them think you were born that way.”
—Ernest Hemingway

“Writers are always selling somebody out.”
—Joan Didion

“Writing is not necessarily something to be ashamed of, but do it in private and wash your hands afterwards.”
—Robert A. Heinlein

“Keep a small can of WD-40 on your desk—away from any open flames—to remind yourself that if you don’t write daily, you will get rusty.”
—George Singleton

“There is only one plot—things are not what they seem.”
—Jim Thompson

“Anyone who is going to be a writer knows enough at 15 to write several novels.”
—May Sarton

“I think all writing is a disease. You can’t stop it.”
—William Carlos Williams

“The most beautiful things are those that madness prompts and reason writes.”
—Andre Gide

“Literature is strewn with the wreckage of men who have minded beyond reason the opinions of others.”
—Virginia Woolf

“If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.”
—Elmore Leonard

“You do not have to explain every single drop of water contained in a rain barrel. You have to explain one drop—H₂O. The reader will get it.”
—George Singleton

“When I say work I only mean writing. Everything else is just odd jobs.”
—Margaret Laurence

“The difference between the almost right word and the right word is … the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.”
—Mark Twain

“I always start writing with a clean piece of paper and a dirty mind.”
—Patrick Dennis

“Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book, or for another book; give it, give it all, give it now.”
—Annie Dillard

“A book is simply the container of an idea—like a bottle; what is inside the book is what matters.”
—Angela Carter

“I almost always urge people to write in the first person. … Writing is an act of ego and you might as well admit it.”
—William Zinsser

“When writing a novel a writer should create living people; people, not characters. A character is a caricature.”
—Ernest Hemingway

“Write while the heat is in you. … The writer who postpones the recording of his thoughts uses an iron which has cooled to burn a hole with.”
—Henry David Thoreau

“You don’t actually have to write anything until you’ve thought it out. This is an enormous relief, and you can sit there searching for the point at which the story becomes a toboggan and starts to slide.”
—Marie de Nervaud, WD

“Whether a character in your novel is full of choler, bile, phlegm, blood or plain old buffalo chips, the fire of life is in there, too, as long as that character lives.”
—James Alexander Thom

          “Writers live twice.”
          —Natalie Goldberg 

The Truth About Blogging

I've been in the cave, again. Not necessarily a dark and foreboding place but more of an alone one where I can write and think and write some more. While I'm pretty good at multitasking I found I had to concentrate and push to the finish line of my new manuscript.

The results are really good actually. I created a five book series with book one completed. Now I wait with baited breath for an acceptance from the acquisition team at my publisher. I'm already formulating Plan B just in case they're not interested.

But how does that tie back to the title of today's blog. Well, as you know, I haven't been blogging very much recently. It seems that there are less comments on blogs in general so have blogs passed their usefulness?
I came across a great blog by Suzan Butler (I've turned into a lurker but I still read blogs) that addressed this questions and really make me think.

While there are some that think blogging is passe and surpassed by Twitter, Pinterest, and Facebook, Suzan believes that there are ways to draw readers. I suspect that consistency is one of them *cheesy grin*

Suzan's top ten blogging tips include:

1. Keep the paragraphs short and easy to read.
2. Use lists. Personally, I love lists.
3. Keep the background easy on the eyes and not distracting.
4. Blog titles are like book titles. They must be engaging to draw your readers.
5. Make certain your name is somewhere in your blog title so you market your brand.
6. Add links to all social networks.
7. Add share buttons to all your posts.
8. Add a subscription widget.
9. Make your language PG-13.
10. Get the conversation going. If you want comments and discussion, provoke it by asking questions. 

Here is the link to Suzan's full post.

So, to borrow from Suzan, What other blogging tips would you add to this list? Do you think blogging is past its prime? Tell me one think you came across in blogs that you hate and one thing you really love?
Coming out of the cave isn't so bad. It's like coming into the sunshine. Besides, I realize that I've really missed you.

Hola! Felice Cinco de Mayo!

I was looking for something about Cinco de Mayo and found this article about the similarities between romance in Mexico to romance in the United States. 

So sit back and grab some Dos Equis, Corona, or what ever and enjoy the article. 

In Mexico it is more romantic to give red
roses then any other present.

Directly from Topics Online Magazine for Learners of English. 
There are many points of similarities about romance between the United States and Mexico in the areas of special dinners, gifts, and music. A special dinner is considered romantic in both Mexico and in the United States. A special dinner in the United States is going to an expensive, five-star restaurant. However, in Mexico, a special dinner is when the food is homemade. The table has to have candles.

Another similarity they share is gifts. American people consider it very romantic to give a present to the person they love. Some of those gifts are red roses, chocolates, and a diamond ring. In Mexico it is also very romantic to give presents, but in Mexico it is more romantic to give red roses than any other presents.

Finally, the United States and Mexico also agree that music is one of the ways a person can show romanticism. In the United States turning on the radio and listening to soft music is considered romantic since it has a slow rhythm and the words of the songs are very nice. In Mexico soft music is also considered very romantic. However, in Mexico to turn on the radio and listen to music is not enough. Mexico is more romantic because men serenade their loves singing those soft songs in person.

In conclusion, although both countries have many points of similarities about romance, Mexico is more romantic because Mexican people show their romanticism by doing the things by themselves. 

Coming Out of the Cave!

Over the last several weeks I've been in my cave heads down writing, attended the RT Convention in Chicago, and back to heads down writing.
It was my first experience at RT and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It's wonderful to immerse yourself with other authors that speak the same language. Who else understands what you mean when you say you talk to imaginary people and they answer you. Jimmy Stewart and his Harvey would fit right in. I reconnected with old friends, met many new ones, and had fan girl moments with some of my favorite authors.

With Scott and Brooks at RT

The RT Convention has a reader component that I found exciting. It was a wow moment when a group of readers at the Carina Press cocktail party rushed to meet me. Yes, my signature was the last one they needed for the drawing for the iPad but the excitement was still the same.

I've also walked out of the cave to join fellow authors on a live chat at Night Owl Reviews. I finally had the courage to request a review of Knight of Runes. My Dear Husband is my 'taster.' In historic times, tasters sampled the food before it was served to the king. My 'taster' samples the review and deems it OK for me to read. He was as excited as I was with this review. It scored 4.5/5.0. It's a Top Pick!

I've read two articles this week that I think you might find interesting. Both are from Writer's Digest.

One article is on How to Use Pinterest to Market Your Book. The article by Rob Eagar is very interesting. The statistics in the article are eye openers. I love pictures but when I read a book what I love more is envisioning things my way. But Mr. Eagar clearly states that Pinterest is the 3 largest social network behind Facebook and Twitter.

The other article is Amazon Let's Authors Spy on Reader. The author, Phil Sexton, sees some innovative promotional opportunities for authors.  One of which is looking at what someone highlighted in their Kindle when they read your book.

Enjoy the articles. I hope you read the review. Have a great week. Now... back to the cave!

Narrators and Fiction Writing

I’ve been heads down the last few weeks working on my new story. It’s 90% complete and as I read it, out loud, I’m proud to say I’ve incorporated many of the lessoned learned. I can actually hear the head hopping and find those split commas.

This read through, one of many, I concentrated on smoothing out the narration. As I went from scene to scene, I started to think about the importance of the narrator.  

Narration is needed to set the scene, explain the environment, the character’s appearance and action.  I read a blog this week about narrators by Denise Shekerjian. Denise’s blog, Soul of a Word, has a lot of great hints and helpful information for writers. This week’s offering: How to Write a Compelling Narrator

Denise offers five key items about creating compelling narrators:

1. The narrator is as complicated as the characters.
2. The narrator has his own attitude.
3. The narrator must have a consistent voice.
4. The narrator must elicit reader compassion.
5. The reader must trust the narrator.

When I looked at these key items I began to see the narrator as a key character.

I did a bit more research and found another great site, Study Guides and Strategies.  The information on narrators here talked about the different POVs. They are the same as POV characters, first person, second person, third person and omniscient.

The Fiction Writer’s Mentor had an article about the unreliable narrator. Here the narrator, first person POV only please, is ‘allowed’ to misinform. Third person narrators are supposed to be absolutely factual. The unreliable narrator strategy has to be used judiciously. There are three types of unreliable narrators:

1. Deliberately lying.
2. She thinks she is telling the truth.
3. The narrator genuinely thinks she is telling the truth but the reader knows she is wrong.

What type of narrator strategy do you use?

Pinterest - Terms of Service

We’re planning a wedding. For those of you with daughters, you know how exciting and frustrating that can be. This is our second wedding and I’m trying to apply the lessons learned from our older daughter’s wedding. Stay calm, pick your battles, and clearly establish the limits. Both my daughters are wonderful and the wedding plans are realistic, so far.

My daughter has been on a pinning frenzy. Since she doesn’t live at home, and while we do talk almost every day, she’s been sending me pictures via email and text messages. When I missed the emails with wedding gown pictures she told me to get a Pinterest account. I opened and she walked me through what to do and how to do it. I thought it was pretty neat. To start my account I added one picture, my book cover.

Over the last several weeks I received Pinterest invites from many of my author friends. I’ve been writing my next book and while doing research have come across some wonderful pictures that I find inspirational. I had plans to pin some of those inspirational pictures into my Pinterest board that is until I read an article about copyright infringement and Pinterest. According to the article, Pinterest has shifted all the liability of copyright infringement onto the Pinterest user.

As an author who has worked to get my book off pirate sites I understand the issues around intellectual property. Most of the pictures I’ve found are in Google Images or within research documents. I’ve not worried about copyright thinking… well maybe I wasn’t thinking. After reading the article written by a photographer, Kristen Kowalski, who is also an attorney I have to rethink whether or not to use my Pinterest account or, at best, how to use it. Her post generated nearly 600 comments.

Here is the article-she’s given permission to share.

Why I Tearfully Deleted My Pinterest Inspirational Boards byKristen Kowalski

Pinterest has been reviewing it's terms and conditions. New ones have been developed and go into effect April 6, 2012. I've included them below.

Do you have a Pinterest account? What do you think of the copyright issues and the new terms of service? 

Updated Terms of Service

Over the last few weeks, we've been working on an update to our Terms. When we first launched Pinterest, we used a standard set of Terms. We think that the updated Terms of Service, Acceptable Use Policy, and Privacy Policy are easier to understand and better reflect the direction our company is headed in the future. We'd encourage you to read these changes in their entirety, but we thought there were a few changes worth noting.

• Our original Terms stated that by posting content to Pinterest you grant Pinterest the right for to sell your content. Selling content was never our intention and we removed this from our updated Terms.

• We updated our Acceptable Use Policy and we will not allow pins that explicitly encourage self-harm or self-abuse.

• We released simpler tools for anyone to report alleged copyright or trademark infringements.

• Finally, we added language that will pave the way for new features such as a Pinterest API and Private Pinboards.

We think these changes are important and we encourage you to review the new documents here. These terms will go into effect for all users on April 6, 2012.

Like everything at Pinterest, these updates are a work in progress that we will continue to improve upon. We're working hard to make Pinterest the best place for you to find inspiration from people who share your interest. We've gotten a lot of help from our community as we've crafted these Terms.

Thanks!

Ben & the Pinterest Team

Letter From Scott Turow: Grim News

There is a lot of discussion about the Justice Department filing and antitrust lawsuit against the five major book publishers and Apple. After reading this open letter from Scott Turow, President of the Author’s Guild, and the comments it generated I knew I had to share it with you. I’ve included his message in its entirety. Here is the link to his original post where you can read the comments, http://tinyurl.com/759tfls

We can clearly see Scott’s position and those of the commenters. How do you feel about the subject?

Dear Member,

Yesterday's reports that the Justice Department may be near filing an antitrust lawsuit against five large trade book publishers and Apple is grim news for everyone who cherishes a rich literary culture.

The Justice Department has been investigating whether those publishers colluded in adopting a new model, pioneered by Apple for its sale of iTunes and apps, for selling e-books. Under that model, Apple simply acts as the publisher's sales agent, with no authority to discount prices.

We have no way of knowing whether publishers colluded in adopting the agency model for e-book pricing. We do know that collusion wasn't necessary: given the chance, any rational publisher would have leapt at Apple's offer and clung to it like a life raft. Amazon was using e-book discounting to destroy bookselling, making it uneconomic for physical bookstores to keep their doors open.

Just before Amazon introduced the Kindle, it convinced major publishers to break old practices and release books in digital form at the same time they released them as hardcovers. Then Amazon dropped its bombshell: as it announced the launch of the Kindle, publishers learned that Amazon would be selling countless frontlist e-books at a loss. This was a game-changer, and not in a good way. Amazon's predatory pricing would shield it from e-book competitors that lacked Amazon's deep pockets.

Critically, it also undermined the hardcover market that brick-and-mortar stores depend on. It was as if Netflix announced that it would stream new movies the same weekend they opened in theaters. Publishers, though reportedly furious, largely acquiesced. Amazon, after all, already controlled some 75% of the online physical book market.

Amazon quickly captured the e-book market as well, bringing customers into its proprietary device-and-format walled garden (Sony, the prior e-book device leader, uses the open ePub format). Two years after it introduced the Kindle, Amazon continued to take losses on a deep list of e-book titles, undercutting hardcover sales of the most popular frontlist titles at its brick and mortar competitors. Those losses paid huge dividends. By the end of 2009, Amazon held an estimated 90% of the rapidly growing e-book market. Traditional bookstores were shutting down or scaling back. Borders was on its knees. Barnes & Noble had gamely just begun selling its Nook, but it lacked the capital to absorb e-book losses for long.

Enter Steve Jobs. Two years ago January, one month after B&N shipped its first Nook, Jobs introduced Apple's iPad, with its proven iTunes-and-apps agency model for digital content. Five of the largest publishers jumped on with Apple’s model, even though it meant those publishers would make less money on every e-book they sold.

Publishers had no real choice (except the largest, Random House, which could bide its time – it took the leap with the launch of the iPad 2): it was seize the agency model or watch Amazon's discounting destroy their physical distribution chain. Bookstores were well along the path to becoming as rare as record stores. That’s why we publicly backed Macmillan when Amazon tried to use its online print book dominance to enforce its preferred e-book sales terms, even though Apple’s agency model also meant lower royalties for authors.

Our concern about bookstores isn't rooted in sentiment: bookstores are critical to modern bookselling. Marketing studies consistently show that readers are far more adventurous in their choice of books when in a bookstore than when shopping online. In bookstores, readers are open to trying new genres and new authors: it’s by far the best way for new works to be discovered. Publishing shouldn’t have to choose between bricks and clicks. A robust book marketplace demands both bookstore showrooms to properly display new titles and online distribution for the convenience of customers. Apple thrives on this very model: a strong retail presence to display its high-touch products coupled with vigorous online distribution. While bookstores close, Apple has been busy openingmore than 300 stores.

For those of us who have been fortunate enough to become familiar to large numbers of readers, the disappearance of bookstores is deeply troubling, but it will have little effect on our sales or incomes. Like rock bands from the pre-Napster era, established authors can still draw a crowd, if not to a stadium, at least to a virtual shopping cart. For new authors, however, a difficult profession is poised to become much more difficult. The high royalties of direct publishing, for most, are more than offset by drastically smaller markets. And publishers won't risk capital where there's no reasonable prospect for reward. They will necessarily focus their capital on what works in an online environment: familiar works by familiar authors.

Two years after the agency model came to bookselling, Amazon is losing its chokehold on the e-book market: its share has fallen from about 90% to roughly 60%. Customers are benefiting from the surprisingly innovative e-readers Barnes & Noble's investments have delivered, including a tablet device that beat Amazon to the market by fully twelve months. Brick-and-mortar bookstores are starting to compete through their partnership with Google, so loyal customers can buy e-books from them at the same price as they would from Amazon. Direct-selling authors have also benefited, as Amazon more than doubled its royalty rates in the face of competition.

Let's hope the reports are wrong, or that the Justice Department reconsiders. The irony bites hard: our government may be on the verge of killing real competition in order to save the appearance of competition.

This would be tragic for all of us who value books, and the culture they support.

Sincerely,

Scott Turow
President

The Authors Guild | 31 E 32nd St | Fl 7 | New York, NY 10016 | United States

Common Fiction Writing Mistakes

I found an article I thought would interest you. It was on the How To Write A Fiction Novel site. I admit some of the things made me cringe when I read them. Others I agreed with and moved on. All are a good reminder. Let me know which ones you can identify with or that you have overcome. If there are any missing from the list, by all means please share them with us.


Here is the entire article.

Are you guilty of any of these common fiction writing mistakes?

• No Hook
• No Hero
• No Motive
• No Clue
• No Point
• No Meaning
• No Research
• No Punch

Well, no more excuses. Here is a list of the most common fiction writing mistakes and how you can avoid them all.

Where's the Hook?

Ever read a book that makes you yawn by the end of page one? Yeah, me too. Usually, I'll try another page or two, but if the author hasn't gotten to the tension by then, I give up.

So, rule number one: make sure you have a hook. Start at a point of drama or tension. Drop us off the cliff into the conflict on page one, or we'll walk.


Who's In Charge Here?

Along the same lines... have you read any books that start with a meandering description of the room or the scenery, maybe with an unnamed character somewhere on the tapestry that's being woven, but otherwise "lifeless"?

Right. Mistake number two. Not introducing your hero or heroine right away. Within one or two pages max.

Or, if you want to live dangerously - and you can do it well - show us your antagonist right away, instead. Plotting something devious or committing a crime. Remember, dump us into the action.

Either way, get with the program and let us know who this story's about!


Why Did She Do That?

I'm sure you've seen the next of the common fiction writing mistakes, too. You're reading along, minding your own fantasy when out of the blue, your favorite character turns 180 degrees south when she should have been going north.

Why did she do that?

Don't be caught with your character's pants down. Make sure they have a motive for their actions. Or we're going to toss that book aside for the next episode of our favorite TV slop.


Who Said That?

"I like them hot," she said.

"I like them cold," she said.

"I like them tagged properly," I said.

Confused? So will your readers be, if you don't write dialogue that's either tagged with the speakers identity somehow, or, if you're a real pro, sounds like only one character in your book.

Tags will make your dialogue clear when you have too many speakers to keep track of otherwise. The more fun way (in my eyes) to keep dialogue making sense is to be sure at least your main characters all speak their own way.

Not different languages (I don't like too much translating), but just different turns of phrase and common figures of speech they're - like - guilty of using frequently. Do this well, and your readers will love you for it.


What's Your Point?

Another mistake writers make is to use description when they don't really know what they want to say next. Going on, and on, and on, and... Yeah, it might be exquisite prose, but if it doesn't move the plot along or illuminate a character's character, out it goes.

Make your point without confusing us with lack of detail, too. Tied into the above discussion about dialogue, if you don't leave enough detail for us to know who did what, we're going to flee in confusion. End of story.


You Again?

Another bee in my bonnet comes from "I'm-gonna-get-rich-quick" writers, who use cliches throughout their novels and stereotypes for all their characters. You know who I'm talking about.

The dumb blond - with stars in her eyes - who kisses the hunk-of-the-day - and feels fireworks explode as she melts in his arms.

Ooohh! I'm gonna gag.

If you can't think of a better way to put things than cliches, dig deeper. It's there, and you can find it by playing with words. (No, your mom won't yell at your for playing with your words. Only for playing with your food.)

And if your characters are all stereotypes from overused story ideas, you better be writing some very sharp fiction humor books. Otherwise, it's notfunny. Nor entertaining.


Am I Dumb (Or Are You)?

Other common fiction writing mistakes related to language usage come under the category of talking wrong to your readers. Especially in genre fiction, the avid readers are going to know what you mean if you talk about commonly known facts.

For example, what science fiction reader doesn't know that FTL means "faster than light"? If you say "faster than light", you're going to tick them off. (Or make them think you're a dumb blond.) There goes that book again. Straight to the dung heap. So to speak.

So go for great description, but don't define things your readers already understand.


But What About...?

It's the home stretch. You're almost past all the common fiction writing mistakes without a hitch. Just dodge these bullets and you'll be home free. Or your hero will be, anyway.

Remember that hook we talked about? Make it snap. Make it fast, make it pick us up by our lapels and give us a good shake. Whatever you do, don't drag it out into oblivion.

Same goes with your middle (no, I don't care if you've got a beer belly). No sagging allowed. Or is that no sagging aloud? If your middle doesn't keep us zipping right along, you need to trim it until it does.

Wow, you've made it to the end, your heroine's poised on the brink and... "they all lived happily ever after..."

Boo, hiss! That's no way to end your story! Don't be lazy here. We'll catch you if you are.

And while we're at it, if Aunt Agnes had a subplot going, you better tie her loose ends up, too. Or we'll never trust you again.