Winner of the 2012 Los Angeles Times Book Prize

A.S. King’s ASK THE PASSENGERS

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YOGALOSOPHY by Mandy Ingber

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TOMS RIVER by Dan Fagin

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MURDER AS A FINE ART by David Morrell

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USA Today Bestseller

THE VINCENT BROTHERS by Abbi Glines

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USA Today Bestseller

CRASH by Nicole Williams

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New York Times Bestsellers

WEEKENDS REQUIRED, NOT PLANNING ON YOU, and FALL FOR ME by Sydney Landon

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Wall Street Journal Bestseller

WAR BRIDES by Helen Bryan

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New York Times Bestsellers

Raine Miller’s NAKED and ALL IN

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#1 New York Times Bestseller

Rhoda Janzen’s MENNONITE IN A LITTLE BLACK DRESS

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New York Times Bestseller

Lisa McMann’s THE UNWANTEDS

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New York Times Bestseller

Richelle Mead’s BLOODLINES

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New York Times Bestseller

Tammara Webber’s EASY

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New York Times Bestsellers

Tina Reber’s LOVE UNSCRIPTED and LOVE UNREHEARSED

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New York Times Bestseller

Samantha Young’s ON DUBLIN STREET

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New York Times Bestseller

Tracey Garvis Graves’ ON THE ISLAND

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2012 Ken Purdy Award Winner

Bill Vlasic’s ONCE UPON A CAR 

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Independent Literary Award for Fiction and Grant Winner from the National Endowment of the Arts

SILVER SPARROW by Tayari Jones

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IACP – Cookbook Award Winner (Baking) and Finalist (Single Subject)

CHEWY GOOEY CRISPY CRUNCH MELT-IN-YOUR-MOUTH COOKIES by Alice Medrich

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2011 Coretta Scott King Honor Book

NINTH WARD by Jewell Parker Rhodes

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New York Times Bestsellers

James Dashner’s THE MAZE RUNNER, THE SCORCH TRIALS, THE DEATH CURE, and THE KILL ORDER

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Soros Justice Fellow and Image Award Winner for Outstanding Literary Work

A QUESTION OF FREEDOM: A MEMOIR OF LEARNING, SURVIVAL, AND COMING OF AGE IN PRISON R. Dwayne Betts

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New York Times Bestseller

YOUR INNER SKINNY: FOUR STEPS TO THIN FOREVER by Joy Bauer

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New York Times Bestseller

Carrie Ryan’s THE FOREST OF HANDS AND TEETH

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New York Times Bestseller

MENNONITE IN A LITTLE BLACK DRESS: A MEMOIR OF GOING HOME by Rhoda Janzen

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May 03, 2013   Jessica   conferences, Jessica, pitch sessions, suggestions, Uncategorized  
3

Do’s and Don’ts for Pitchers

 

In the past few weeks I’ve done several pitch sessions (pretty much the only sort of pitch I’m likely to entertain, since I’m not much of a baseball fan) and although my advice may well be familiar, my experiences would indicate that it bears repeating.

Do: Relax. Pitches are good practice, but your ability to pitch your project does not necessarily determine its fate.  What matters most is always on the page, so don’t treat the meeting as a summary judgment of your future in publishing.

Do: Identify a few contemporary writers to whom you feel your style/work compares. I am always surprised when an aspiring writer can’t come up with a few “like” books or authors.  This is a basic and almost inescapable question.  Having an answer at the ready shows that you know the market and are reading in the category into which you hope to be published.   Once you’ve pitched your book and made a couple comparisons, feel free to turn the question back on the agent/editor.  “Having heard my description, is there a project that you think sounds like an apt comp title?”

Do: Follow up via e-mail.  If an agent has invited you to send along your query or additional materials, you can feel free to issue a gentle nudge several weeks after your meeting.  Mention the conference in your subject line or in the first few lines of your letter.

Don’t:  Bog down in a play by play synopsis of the plot. Think about your summary as back cover copy and try to craft a description that is as more persuasive than exhaustive.

Don’t:  Arrive at your pitch session in search of an idea. It’s fine to field a concept in hopes of soliciting feedback, but know that agents and editors can seldom suggest a book idea upon meeting someone.

Don’t: Try and present more than one (or at most, two) ideas at a time. Fine to mention that you have other projects in the works, but concentrate on the single pitch that is strongest and most suited to your appointment.

Do you have any pitch related questions? I would be happy to field them. (It seems baseball metaphors are impossible to escape in the spring).

May 01, 2013   Stacey   advice, book ideas, brainstorming, ideas, Stacey, writing  
5

Let the storm(writing) begin

The idea of brainstorming is one we talk about all the time. For everything, not just in books. But certainly, if you are trying to come up with a book idea or developing a concept for an author, brainstorming is a critical part of the process. Just this morning, I had a brainstorming session with an author and his editor to try to think of ideas for the next book, which will be his fifth.

But sometimes the brainstorm isn’t enough and you’d be better served by digging deeper and finding ideas that come from your “heartbrain”. That’s what guest author on writersdigest.com Elizabeth Sims talks about in this piece adapted from her book You’ve Got a Book in You.

Sims describes your heartbrain as your whole, deepest self. When you bring this to your brainstorming, it takes on a new life. Thinking about it from a more personal and heartfelt place gives you an ability to reach deeper for your big ideas. She compares it to improv for actors: “In practically any stage of writing, when you’re brainstorming, trying to create new material, it’s like doing improv. And just like improv, it requires more than your head. It requires your heartbrain.”

By starting with a couple of key phrases that work as activators for your heartbrain – “Yes, and…” and “What if?” you are setting yourself up to have a successful stormwriting session.

Take a look and hopefully this idea will help you better develop new work that comes from your heartbrain and through the process of stormwriting rather than just relying on the rather dated and  overused notion of more general brainstorming. Good luck, and let us know if you come up with anything great!

April 29, 2013   Jane   ideas, Jane, writing  
5

Mining for book ideas

Sunday is my absolutely favorite day for reading the newspaper as I love diving into the New York Times.  Usually, I just digest it and enjoy but always in the back of my head, I am asking myself whether or not the story I am reading might be a book.  Today I actually read two, one about a Holocaust survivor who died last year at the age of 97 leaving $40 million and no will, and the other about an enemy agent in New York City during World War II called Doll Lady. I think that each of these stories could be the basis for either a book of narrative nonfiction or even a novel.

In fact, I find book ideas everywhere especially in the obituaries which are often filled with rich and colorful material (one of my clients is publishing a book in June which began many years ago when I read one of these pieces).

I am always intrigued about where writers get their book ideas.  With nonfiction, many times the author explains this in their book’s preface or introduction.  Novelists on the other hand rarely explain where their ideas come from and so I am wondering, those of you who write fiction, what inspires you to write the stories you write.

April 26, 2013   Rachel   authors, characters, fun, Rachel S.  
3

Rest assured, I’m a doll

It’s no secret that one of the best things about reading a really good book that features a dashing leading man or desirable leading lady (depending on your type) is developing a secret (or not so secret) crush on the character. Entire blogs are dedicated to “book boyfriends” or “literature loves” and if only there were more alliterative phrases I would keep going. The fact of the matter is, a well-written book gives you an insight into a fictional character that is so deep, so real that you get to feel as if you know this character as a person. Any romantic thing they do is doubly swoonworthy since it’s so easy to insert yourself into the pages of the book.

This isn’t new and don’t pretend you’ve never done it, never had oddly overly affectionate feelings for a character who not only doesn’t exist, but whose visage, demeanor and gait you’ve come up with all on your own, with only a little help from nice adjectives and descriptive phrases.

What about, though, falling in love with the person behind the words? Authors, especially authors long since gone, have a real mysteriousness and intangible quality about them that is just so. darn. attractive. I have a friend who is insufferably in love with Ernest Hemingway and another who would give anything, anything to meet John Keats.

Personally, though I have never before had any previous inclination, I’m leaning a little towards one Mr. J.D. Salinger, of late. Yes, the misanthropic shut in who also, apparently carried on an epistolary relationship with a young woman he had never met. Sure, the romantic aspect of this is ramped up by the long lost letters component, and today’s equivalent of emails and text messages just won’t compare, but his self-deprecating boasting and little endearments really show a different side to the man no one really knew too much about.

After melting a little bit at “Sneaky girl. You’re pretty,” tell me about any of your author crushes or any authors you’d do anything to simply exchange letters back and forth with for years, even if it only amounted to something to look back on and smile fondly at later.

April 24, 2013   Miriam   fun, Miriam, reading  
12

On the sunny side of the book shelf

In the wake of what The Onion said “could only be described by witnesses as the goddamned week to end all soul-crushing weeks,” I found myself, along with most of America, in a dark mood.   The horror in Boston, the horror in Texas, the horror…well, everywhere it seemed, and nowhere to go to get away from it.  Facebook?  An endless loop of anger, grief, speculation, and uninformed rants.  Ditto for Twitter, all of network and cable tv and pretty much everyone standing in line at Starbucks.  I couldn’t wait for my bedtime reading to take me away from the insanity being parsed like Bill Clinton’s testimony on the Lewinsky affair.

Problem is, that I’m reading a downer of a book.  Breasts by Florence Williams is a smart, well-written (although badly copyedited), lively discussion about our most objectified and misunderstood of body parts.  Unfortunately, the book has more in common with Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring than a Jackie Collins novel.   Basically, Ms. Williams argues that this most intelligent and adaptive of glands is also the most vulnerable to environmental toxins and the chemical stew that we are all bathing in 24/7.  Well, that was not the escapist literature I needed to take my mind off current events.

So, I eagerly accepted my son’s invitation to watch a movie with him.  But, he’s currently obsessed with all things Harry Potter and wanted to watch The Goblet of Fire.  You know, the one where that cute kid from Twilight dies and Voldemort is getting more and more powerful and evil.  What the….

By the end of that movie, I was desperately looking around my bookshelves for the happiest, peppiest, most life affirming book I could find.  Note to self, get more light reading in the house.  I finally settled on Nora Ephron and David Sedaris.  No, they’re not all that happy, but they reliably make me laugh and after that kind of week, humor is definitely healing.

What do you read when you feel like everything’s going to hell in a handbasket?  Share your upbeat choices…puhleeeze!

 

 

April 23, 2013   Yassine   culture, Middle East, opinion, World Book Night, Yassine  
0

Half the World Away

Tonight is World Book Night. It’s an event that sees volunteers put thousands of books into the hands of strangers, “Spreading the love of reading, person to person” as the slogan goes. As tonight’s events aim to place books into the care of those who do not frequently read or have access to books, it dawned on me that it is rewarding to live in a society that is able and willing to allow this free circulation of cultural capital. You could say I am reading into this too much, but I will counter that in this imperfect society, such collective moments of benevolence like these are to be savored, if only for a night.

For me, this point was put into sharp focus when I came across this piece of news. The article reports that Magdy El Shafee, the author of Egypt’s first graphic novel, Metro, has been arrested following clashes between rival political groups. Hearing of this news put back into mind when El Shafee was previously arrested by former President Mubarak and Metro banned for “offending public morals.” Only recently has El Shafee’s novel been made available in Arabic in Epygt.

So, tonight, when we have the privilege of exchanging literary treasures, keep in mind those who still struggle and fight to make their voices heard, if only for a night.

April 22, 2013   Jim   Jim, teachers  
5

Teaching English

Last Friday, I met one of my newest clients for the first time. Amy Hanson, besides being the author of the glorious novel THE THIRD ACT (coming soon to editors’ desks around town!) is an English teacher. And lucky for her, she has say over what books she will teach. We chatted a bit about the fact that she teaches Jennifer Egan’s A VISIT FROM THE GOON SQUAD to her high school students. As someone who would marry that book if I could, I was jealous of the teenagers who got the chance to read such a vibrant, thrilling, daring novel in class. I also started thinking a lot about what I read in high school and how valuable teaching current fiction can be.

 

Let me first say that I believe deeply in teaching the classics. I actually believe every student should have to read LORD OF THE FLIES and TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD. I’m much less certain that I feel CATCHER IN THE RYE and THE GREAT GATSBY are as important as they’re made out to be. And sure, everyone should read some Shakespeare, but how about some August Wilson? Amy teaches Ibsen! That thrilled me to no end.

 

That aside, I remember the day my English teacher delivered copies of Richard Russo’s THE RISK POOL to our desks, and my mind blew open. Here was a novel that had been published in my lifetime. And there were things in it to learn? Mesmerizing.

 

As most people reading this can probably also claim, I had already found books I loved by this point. SONG OF SOLOMON and SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE remain two of my favorite novels precisely because of when I first encountered them and how defining the first reading of each was to me. But it was that notion of great literature as a living, evolving thing that most struck me. Maybe I just wasn’t terribly bright, but until then it had never occurred to me to think of new books as potential future classics, or to approach them with the open mindedness that they might very well be brilliant.

 

So then the question becomes: which contemporary books should be taught? A few of the first novels I thought of would likely be terribly dull for teenagers or just be those kinds of books you don’t enjoy until you’ve experienced certain things: THE CORRECTIONS, BEL CANTO, THEN WE CAME TO THE END, GILEAD… Right now I’m leaning towards Bonnie Jo Campbell’s brilliant collection AMERICAN SALVAGE and Junot Diaz’s peerless THE BRIEF AND WONDROUS LIFE OF OSCAR WAO.

 

What about you all? What contemporary work of fiction would you add to a high school curriculum? And if you are a teacher, what do you wish you could add?

 

Also! Don’t forget that Lauren and I are hosting an online book club. We’re reading ELEANOR & PARK by Rainbow Rowell, and the first Twitter chat will be April 30 on the first half of the book. Follow along with @JimMcCarthy528 and @laureneabramo. And check back here for updates on our progress!

April 19, 2013   Lauren   children's books, fun, Lauren, reading  
4

Back to the start

It’s hard to get away from the horror of the world this week, and our hearts go out to everyone much more immersed in it than we are.

For those of us in need of a distraction*, what’s more wholesome and good and right in the world than children’s books?  Nothing, I tell you.  So PW’s PWxyz blog has some for you, namely the books that made their staff big enough readers to become the kind of people who work at PW.  Not always children’s books, of course, but a few of those are among my childhood favorites as well.  Rachel Deahl’s reminiscence about The Bridge to Terabithia really strikes a chord with me, though I’m not sure I disliked it so much.  I knew what was going to happen and was determined not to care.  And then I did.  Boy, how I did.

For me, I’m not sure I can totally pinpoint a book.  Certainly the Laura Ingalls Wilder books were incredibly important to me growing up, as I’ve written about before.  If I try to trace it back to the first book I was passionate about, I’d say it would have to be something from the Cam Jansen series.  Do you remember Cam?  She had a photographic memory (hence her name), and she solved mysteries by puzzling together the clues hidden in her brain.  She was brilliant and feisty and dedicated and maybe a bit of a show off.

I like to think she’s still a role model for me today, though my memory isn’t quite photographic and I’ve never had to locate missing monkeys.

So what did it for you?  Was it a children’s book or something you encountered later in life?  When did you give yourself up to the reading gods and never turn back?

*Did that not work?  Try this.

P.S. Do you know about the group read Jim and I are doing?  Are you already reading Eleanor & Park?  We can’t wait to discuss with you.

April 18, 2013   Jessica   art, Jessica, music  
0

Goosebumps

Not long ago, I was reading a piece in the New Yorker that gave me chills—Hisham Matar’s account of returning to Libya after many years of exile. His father, a prominent member of the opposition to Muammar Gaddafi, had been arrested and imprisoned in 1990.  Matar never saw his father again, and aside from two letters (smuggled out of the prison six years after his capture), had no word from him either.

The piece was harrowing, beautiful and moving. Since I was wearing short sleeves, I could watch the goose bumps rise in waves across my arms.  I paused for a moment, reflecting not only on the power of good writing—which both thrills and reassures me in an existential sort of way—but also on the absolute weirdness of this physiological response. Why do we have physical reactions to the awe-inspiring? Fear I understand—the autonomic nervous system kicks in, preparing us to fight or flee—but as an aesthetic reaction the function is not entirely clear.  Probably because I spend a good deal of time reading, it’s usually a written passage that sets my scalp tingling, but I get a similar reaction to music (the Goldberg Variations), to poetry (T.S. Eliot’s the Hollow Men or Matthew Arnold’s Dover Beach), even the color of blue on some clear evenings just after twilight but before night has properly fallen.

What about you? What’s the last thing (besides a cold snap) that gave you shivers?

April 17, 2013   Stacey   fun, future of publishing, selling, Stacey  
2

Where else can we buy books?

I just got back from a wonderful week in Los Angeles visiting Disneyland with my family. It is such a magical place.

Of course, being the book person I am, it struck me as surprising that there were so few books available for sale at Disney. They have a gazillion shirts, mouse ears, key chains, and tons of other Disney-marketed paraphernalia, but where are all the books? I recall seeing one shop that had a few books. My goodness, they should have a bookstore at Disney! I would have gladly bought a few keepsake books for the kids.

It got me to thinking about other places that should sell books and don’t. I mean, the market has changed so much that traditional bookstores, although they still provide an important sales outlet, are not the only place successful books are sold. Over the last few years, books have made their way into Costo, Target, Crate & Barrel, and Anthropologie, to name a few. These additional outlets are incredibly helpful from a sales perspective.

And I think we all need to start thinking outside the box to find new outlets to sell books. What about movie theaters? I’d totally buy the book version of a movie I loved if I didn’t already own it.

I recall years ago a client of mine who wrote a cookbook about rotisserie chickens called Rotisserie Chickens to the Rescue had the brilliant idea to sell the book alongside rotisserie chickens at supermarkets. If ever there was a place to sell cookbooks, supermarkets are an obvious choice!

So, Disney, A&P, and Clearview, can we work on selling books to your customers? And where else would you like to see books sold? I bet we can come up with some really great ideas.

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