Romancing the Blog | Romance Authors and Readers Who Blog

by Wendy Crutcher, originally posted 05/02/05

As a reader there are a lot of themes and plot devices that I don’t care for in Romance Novel Land. For instance, I’m not big on royalty, sheiks, secret babies or Navy SEALs. However, I’m OK with those themes coexisting in my reading universe. I’m sure there are just as many readers who dislike my favorites: cowboys, virgin heroes and marriage of convenience plots

However there is one theme that has got to go. It needs to be chased out of Romance Novel Land by hordes of chanting townspeople carrying pitchforks and torches. That is the theme of soul mates.

Sure, the concept that everyone has a “soul mate” is terribly romantic, but it has a tendency to perpetuate what I call “lazy romance.” Instead of showing two people learning to love and understand each other, the author so often just whips out the concept of soul mates and voila! Instant romance! Who needs characters learning to understand and respect each other when Fate destined them to be together for all time? Why take the time to get to know each other and fall in love when it’s already written in the stars?

The soul mates theme also has a way of stripping characters of free will. Romances have a time honored tradition of featuring characters who are down but not out. Whether they are the brooding and scarred military hero, or a heroine who must marry for money because her wastrel brother gambled away the family fortune – these characters need to claw their way up. However despite their less than ideal circumstances, they still have choices. They still have free will. They can still choose who they are going to fall in love and live happily every after with. Tossing in the idea of a soul mate takes that completely out of their hands. They have no choice. They’re stuck with the partner Fate cosmically assigned to them.

This insidious little theme has been around for ages, but has lately enjoyed a revival thanks to the resurgence of paranormal romances. Werewolf romances especially love to feature the idea of a “mate.” So even if the heroine is turned off by a hero getting hairy at every full moon that’s just too darn bad. Some mysterious deity deemed them “mates,” so they are now stuck with each other. She better start resigning herself to buying dog food and raising a litter of pups

Call me old fashioned, but characters with no control over their romantic futures is not romantic. And simply declaring that the characters are “soul mates” without showing the reader how and why they fall in love is not only lazy, but boring. Really, really boring.

Last month you saw me venting about the utter despair one can feel when dealing with a fellow romance reader like my sister, Luli: someone who just won’t take any recommendations that fall even one tiny inch outside her comfort zone. It’s enough to make even a dedicated book pimp such as I go crazy.

But hold the straight-jacket! I do have a john worth pimping for, and I thank the book gods every day for my friend María Inés!

If Luli’s the ying, María Inés would definitely be the yang when it comes to picking books to read. Their tastes could not be more diametrically opposed. While Luli cringes away from anything that’s not familiar and safe, the weirder a book sounds and the more rules it breaks, the keener María Inés is to read it. I can be sure that anything I find noteworthy and different, she will, too.

Of course, there are a few things I enjoy that she doesn’t (i.e. certain futuristics with a lot of world-building) and certain things she loves that I simply don’t get (i.e. Christine Feehan), but, on the whole, we have remarkably similar tastes. And since being a faster (and probably more obsessive) reader has allowed me to go through quite a few more romance novels than she has, I’ve had the pleasure of introducing her to some amazing authors she hadn’t ran across yet.

And the feedback is great! A sure sign that a particular recommendation has been a huge hit is that, the minute I connect to my Instant Messaging program, a little animated icon pops up reverently bowing to me. And since we’ve had so many of those ( Balogh’s Slightly Dangerous motivated the latest), if I say she has to read something because I know she’s going to love it, she won’t ask any questions and just get to it eagerly.

I failed with María Inés once, and only once. I still remember that one (probably because she still teases me about it): The Gentleman Thief, by Deborah Simmons. To my defence, I still wasn’t that familiar with her likes and dislikes back then. Although I must confess this is one I’d probably recommend to her even today, so we’ll just chalk it up to the fact that no two people will see eye to eye 100% of the time. And while we’re on the subject, I have to say I still can’t believe she found the heroine silly instead of delightful!

What I like most about letting María Inés borrow my books (who am I kidding, I should say making María Inés borrow my books) is what comes later… the Book Talks. Oh, the joy of it! Online discussions and blogging about books are all well and good (extremely well and good, actually), but they just aren’t enough.

To think only a couple of years ago, I had to make do with Luli’s “Ehhh, ok, I guess” whenever I asked how she’d liked the latest book I given her… But let us forget the bleak past. ::shudder::These days, with María Inés, we try to get together at least a couple of times a month and, after covering what’s going on in real life for a while, we just let loose and dig in, going on and on about anything and everything that even remotely touches on romance novels.

We’re especially fond of sitting over a cup of coffee, surrounded by my very crowded bookshelves and picking book related topics at random to talk about. What we’ve just read and loved, what we’ve just read and hated, what’s in the To-Be-Read pile, what we’re planning to buy and what we love or hate in our heroes and heroines, it’s all grist to our mills.

And that reminds me, I should go put The Veil of Night in my bag. I have a feeling María Inés is going to love it, and it’s going to make for a wonderful discussion on Monday. Ahh, bliss… I feel a bowing icon coming my way!

by Deidre Knight, originally posted 06/22/05

If you spend much time perusing romance discussion blogs or websites, you’ll hear a fairly common refrain: why are the romance shelves populated with so many similar books? Duplicate plot ideas, overused settings, cookie-cutter heroes (or heroines or whatever overplayed aspect of a romance novel you want to cite) all repeatedly surfacing until readers’ heads spin. A parade of sameness, if you will. I believe someone on this blog once suggested that authors might consider reading within their own subgenre as a means to avoid this Parade of Sameness, and after a while of ruminating on that suggestion, I thought I would weigh in with an agent’s perspective on the issue.

First, I should warn you that while I have plenty to say on this topic, I do find the task a bit daunting. It’s the old problem of just how much one should really say about the industry or one’s professional cohorts. So let me preface my remarks this way—I love the editors and publishing professionals with whom I do business on a day-to-day basis. Nothing here is meant as a personal indictment of any single person. We’re all just trying to find a way to make books stand out in an extremely sluggish book-buying economy, but that said I happen to believe that risk-takers rise to the top. I also believe that if you mold every work to the exact same shape (or perhaps I’m being overly generous, and that’s just pencils being sharpened as they’re applied to the bottom line), then you’ve lost the ability to say something truly innovative. And when you cease to be innovative in this business, you cease to find the pulse of your readership—that next really big thing. All you’re doing is mimicking the last really big thing, which will obviously work for a period of time, but will eventually run its course. “Publish to the market” is how I’ve heard this philosophy described at one company. “We must publish to the market, and we can’t ignore the dictates of the market.”

But where was “the market” when the first person wrote the book that created said trend? Simple, it didn’t exist. It took the forerunner—the Big Risk Taker—to pave the way. If I’ve heard it said once, I’ve heard editors say it a zillion times: “We want to find something fresh and different.” But when something fresh and different is shopped out to publishers, oftentimes there aren’t enough in-house champions to be found. Maybe an editor or two, but not the whole necessary shebang (editors, sales, publisher, etc) within any one house. Here are the kinds of reactions agents might hear when shopping a risky, innovative (and barrier-shattering) project:

“I stayed up all night reading it, but others here didn’t share my enthusiasm.”

“We all love it, but we just couldn’t figure out how to publish this book.”

“Nobody buys _________ anymore.”

“_______________ is really dead right now, and when I brought it up, sales staff shot me down.”

Every publishing house has its own corporate character. Some romance houses have an atmosphere of freedom and chance-taking. Their editors don’t work with a heavy-handed approach, but rather understand that creative people thrive in an atmosphere of trust. It doesn’t mean that the authors aren’t edited—no, but they are given the ability to take chances. To find their voice. To tell the stories they truly want to tell. These houses tend to have vibrant, diverse lists. Other houses, however, tend to be more lock-step. They would be the places where agents might be likely to hear things like, “we’ll buy X, but it has to be _________.” Fill in whatever you want here—think of it as a publishing Mad Lib! Some examples:

“We’re looking for inspirationals, but they have to be very clean. No crime, no murder, no infidelity. Very down the middle.” (Translation: if you bring them a dynamic inspirational story about a woman who cheats on her husband, and makes a long, painful walk back to God, well, they can’t publish that.)

“We’re looking for paranormals, but they have to be really sexy. We’re only buying them if they’re really, really, REALLY hot.” (Translation: there’s no room for something they’ve never seen before, unless there’s a lot of sex written in just to service the “market.”)

Keep on Mad Libbing. Think of any single element you’ve seen over-represented in romance, and you can count on the fact that there’s been some of this “only if XYZ” mentality in the publishing process somewhere. It’s not just the editorial staff, either, but it happens on the market and sales level and basically at every juncture in the process: packaging, marketing, sales. You name it. Everyone is trying to divine what’s selling and follow that lead, in order to get someone—God, anyone!—to buy a book. Especially from a new author.

And so it comes back to my opening caveats. All these fine people are simply trying to do the one thing we must applaud them for—they are trying to sell books in a tough climate. But what of the authors who pave the way, the ones we need to keep on generating trends? If we stop allowing their works out of the gate, there’s nothing left to mimic! From the agenting perspective, it only takes one publishing house to “get” whichever revolutionary author I’m shopping and then we have a chance. Just one. I might receive seven or ten or more passes, but then the last house gets it. They get it, they publish it, and kablam! We have a hit. A great example would be a nonfiction book I shopped a couple of years ago called 90 MINUTES IN HEAVEN. This is a Christian market book, and is a narrative memoir. Everyone I sent it to said, “Nobody’s reading true stories right now. They’re dead in the inspirational market.” Fortunately one house did get it, and, thank goodness, they published it. That book now ships roughly 25,000 copies every single month and isn’t slowing down.

In romance, I have a very successful author on my list of whose first-time work it was said, “Nobody’s reading this subgenre. It’s dead.” That same house has since tried to acquire her now that she’s a blockbuster. Follow the wagging tail.

So where is the answer? I’m not sure, and I don’t think it’s simple or easy by any means. But I would suggest that on a readership level we should support books that seem to push the envelope. When you sense that a particular house is willing to take chances, buy as many of their “risks” as you can. I’m talking about romance here, obviously, since this is Romancing the Blog. You couldn’t follow something like that on a publishing-wide basis, but surely you can get an idea of who is putting out interesting work on a romance-only basis. As a reader, take chances yourself. If we want publishers to do it, then it’s the least we can do. If you think about it this way, a small increase in sell-through can make a big difference in how a book’s bottom line is viewed. On a first time author’s book even just 3-6K copies is a big difference in that percentage. For my part, I’m determined to keep on taking chances. To represent the books that other people don’t think will sell. I can’t do that all the time, but I refuse to become bland just because the market says so.

Most importantly, as writers we must endeavor to write the books that speak to us, even if it means pushing the envelope in our particular genre. We can’t be inefficient or foolish with our precious time or resources, but we have to be risk takers. It’s our job to set the pace, because only then is it possible to break wide the barriers—and only then can the next Big Big Thing happen.

We’ve just finished framing up some major home renovation work, and what used to be a REALLY UGLY house is no more. It’s now dramatic, spacious, and much more efficient. Previously, we had a glassed-in porch, affectionately known as “the stupid room” because instead of windows, the prior home owner had used sliding glass doors (the room is about 3 feet above the group), and then promptly nailed them shut. The carpet fumed with eau d’wet dog, fluorescent lights hummed with a non-melodic thrumming sound, and in general, it was useless.

We had the opportunity to frame in the stupid room, and had to decide what to do with it. My husband suggested I use it as an office, but we share printers, so I wanted to keep the printer near his work space. After a mere three seconds of thought, I knew what I wanted: a library. One room, three windows, carpeted floors, a couch, two chairs, a wall of book shelves: five thousand. No TV, no music, no Playstation: Priceless.

Since I’ve been a Mom, my days of reading in the living room are gone. I’m relegated to the bedroom (rampant interruptions) or the bathtub (not so many interruptions, but there’s a one-hour time limit before the water turns cold and fingers turn crinkly). The idea of being able to while away even a mere thirty minutes makes the whole home renovation hell seem worthwhile. I spent this weekend pulling out insulation tufts and cleaning up 5 cubic yards worth of sawdust, general dust, organic mice poop, and 1960’s mustard yellow shag carpet, but I had a smile on my face the entire time. I’d gladly clean out mice poop today for a library tomorrow.

My little room is a place I’ve always dreamed of. Not an office. Not a space to pay bills. A space just for reading. To be perfectly honestly, I’ll probably take my laptop in there to write, because it’s silly not to, but to have a space that’s quiet? Ah… heaven on earth.

So, question for each of you. Where do you read? And if you could design a reading room, what would it be like?

by Beth Ciotta, originally posted 06/25/05

I’m not a shopaholic, but I confess I have a weakness for shoes and purses. Can’t own enough of them. When I saw a colorful purse emblazoned with the slogan ‘Nice Girls Finish First’, it fell into the ‘must have’ category. You know—want, need, MUST HAVE! That slogan made me smile. It made me pump my fist in the air and shout, “Go, nice girls!” Why? Because I’m a nice girl, and, believe it or not, I’ve achieved some pretty amazing accomplishments in my life, including realizing my publishing dream and snagging my real-life hero, by remaining true to my nice girl self.

These days, kick-ass heroines are all the rage—strong women with attitude. Not just in romantic fiction, but everywhere. It’s hip to have a snarky edge. It’s fashionable to stand fearless in the presence of danger. Ms. Popular is the confident heroine who kicks evil-doer ass.

Don’t get me wrong. I like reading books that feature kick-ass heroines. I even wrote one. She’s featured in my latest release and I had a blast living in her lethal high-heels for an adventurous few months. But typically I like to read stories that feature women like me. Polite women. Shy women. Women who never think of that witty comeback until it’s too late to be effective. Women who don’t know how to change a flat tire, but try. I don’t need a man to survive, but I surely like having my man around. The thought of him rushing to rescue me from the bad guys makes my romantic heart flutter.

There. I said it. I’m seduced by the idea of a man defending my honor and guarding my safety. It’s chivalrous and, yes, darnit, sexy! I’m unfashionably old-fashioned. Can I defend my own honor? Extract myself from a dicey situation? Yes. I can and I have. Nice girl does not equal weak girl. Nice girls can, and do, finish first.

Thankfully there are authors out there who still celebrate this kind of heroine. Julie Garwood is a prime example. I could name several other authors who feature nice-girl heroines, as those are the books that make up the bulk of my ‘keeper’ shelves, but just now I’ll focus on my newest discovery: Rexanne Becnel. I had the pleasure of reading an advance copy of ‘Old Boyfriends’, a Harlequin NEXT, set for release August 2005. This story features three heroines, two of whom I’d describe as ‘nice girls’. They suffer the same or similar insecurities, fears, and physical limitations as me. I could totally identify with these women who struggled to overcome emotional and physical issues. I cheered as they pursued true happiness and love through inner strength and perseverance.

That’s the thing about us nice girls. We may look like pushovers, but we’re not. We possess a fierce inner strength. We don’t slice and dice our opponents with sharp words—until they attack a friend or family member, or otherwise push us to our emotional limit, and then WATCH OUT. If a villain attacks, we may not possess a gun or martial arts training, but we’ll find a way to defend ourselves and loved ones, even if it means beaning the bad guy with a frying pan. Like I said: Nice girl does not equal weak girl.

That said, many of us go out of our way to avoid confrontation, and that includes publicly admitting that we indulge in the occasional rescue fantasy. So I figured I’d pipe up for the quiet few (or many). I, for one, will never tire of the Cinderella story, as long as it’s told in a fresh, compelling way. Bring on the social misfits, the damsels in distress. Give me a gallant knight or a chivalrous Navy Seal. The thrill factor for me in these slightly out-of-fashion tales is when the kitten transforms into the lioness. When, to the alpha hero’s horror, the heroine aids in her own escape by outwitting the villain with words or that deadly frying pan. Go, woman, go! I want a heroine I can relate to, a heroine to root for. A heroine who surprises the hell out of everybody in a crisis situation. These women exist and they’re every bit as admirable as Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Sidney Bristow of ‘Alias’.

I’m on the lookout for a new purse with a new slogan. Nice girls kick butt too!

There’s been a lot of chatter about E-Books. Most of the discussions I’ve been a party to have not been positive. Perhaps the most common thing I hear is, “E-Books will never take the place of print books.” (Usually said in a defensive, protective tone)

I don’t hear a lot about why people LIKE E-Books, mainly why they don’t or suppose they don’t like them. The thing is, I don’t think the purpose of E-Books was ever to supplant print books. They are merely a natural evolution of language, the printed word. Most importantly, they offer today’s reader something wonderful. More choices.

More is always better in my book. (pardon the bad pun) One of my favorite things to do is browse for new authors or new books. I’ll peruse authors’ websites, scour blurbs, hit Amazon and see what’s new, and my eyes light up when I find a must have book. The problem is that upon finding a new “to buy” book I have two choices. One, I can pack all three of my kids up in the car and drive an hour round trip to my bookstore, or two, I can order it and wait a week to receive it in the mail. Neither option is exciting to an instant gratification freak.

But E-Books. Ahhh, here is something truly marvelous. I can browse, find a book I really want to read, click, pay and be reading in two minutes. It has truly spoiled me. It’s also expanded my library of books by an enormous amount without me having to buy a dozen new bookcases.

Yeah, I know, a lot of people purport that E-Books are inferior, not just in format but in quality to print books. That’s hogwash. Sure, there are some really rotten E-Books. I’ve read a few that made me want to rip my hair out by its roots, but I’ve read far more print books that made me wish I was illiterate. It’s a simple fact. There are good books and bad books. Everywhere.

Finding a new favorite author in E-Book format has an added bonus of running through her backlist a lot more quickly. No scouring Half.com for out of print books no longer shelved in the bookstore or offered new at Amazon. (I really, really like this instant gratification thing)

And finally, if you’re convinced I’m a regular Pollyanna about E-Books, I’ll give you my one complaint, and it’s something I’ve seen crop up with more regularity in my recent months of book buying. The prices are going up, and not by just a little. I logged in the other day to buy a new release by an auto-buy author only to find it was nearly seven bucks. Not much money you say? Well considering her releases used to cost me four bucks, and I can buy a paperback with a higher page count for 4-5 bucks either online or at the bookstore, I’m not exactly pleased.

I’m not getting “more” for my money than I used to, and I’m reasonably sure the production costs of E-Books aren’t skyrocketing. (But hey, what do I know, I’m just the consumer) It’s a trend not isolated to just the author I was going to buy. I’ve also noticed that a lot of print authors’ E-Books cost the exact same as the shelved copy. I’m sure the author isn’t complaining, but in my mind, if you don’t give the purchaser an incentive to buy the E-Book, most people are simply going to buy the print version.

I certainly do not want to see E-Books ever go away, as many have sworn they would, but I’m very motivated by “rewards.” I love my E-Books, the convenience and the really great new authors I get to enjoy, but I don’t like to be penalized for choosing this venue. The ease does not outweigh the price. I’m not that spoiled.

by Melissa Senate, originally posted 02/21/05

“Warner Books is entering the chick lit market with a new imprint—5 Spot—which the publisher says will have something special to help it stand out in the crowded field. ‘We’re smart,’ says Amy Einhorn, VP, executive editor and editorial director of trade paperbacks. ‘And I think smart does sell well. Unlike a lot of chick lit,’ says Einhorn, ‘5 Spot’s books will be more than: ‘I don’t have a boyfriend and I need to go buy a new pair of Manolos.’ “–-The Book Standard

Okay. Smart marketing, I’ll give them that.

To effectively position yourself in a crowded, competitive marketplace today, you need an angle, and an angle that addresses the chick lit backlash is as smart as Warner’s new imprint professes it will be. My problem with the spin is that it flat out says that most chick lit is stupid because it’s about women looking for boyfriends and shopping for shoes. That’s exactly what non-chick-lit readers and bashers believe. So again, smart marketing, Warner.

The thing is, I’ve read a lot of chick lit, and I’ve yet to read one about a woman looking for a boyfriend and shopping for shoes (including my own debut novel, which has the word date right in the title). Chick lit, whether frothy fun or literary or anything in between, has never been about boyfriends or shoes. Chick lit is about a woman’s journey toward fulfillment. Does that journey often include romance? Yup. Is that stupid? (And by the way, only Carrie Bradshaw, in TV land, can afford Manolos.)

When people harp at women for daring to say they want love in their lives, I want to scream. Do bashers really think that women want boyfriends or shoes at the expense of everything else? Getting back to Carrie Bradshaw, The Sex and the City characters were intelligent, vital, super successful women. They wanted someone with whom to share their lives, someone to come home to at the end of the day, just like I did. Just like chick lit heroines. Why is this stupid?

“Chick lit heroines are allowed to want love, but do they have to WHINE about it?” a friend asked recently. “That’s what’s stupid!”

Now, mind you, this is my non-chick-lit-loving friend. All I know is that in 2003, I married for the first time at age thirty-eight. I began dating at what—sixteen? That’s twenty-two years of bad dates and relationships that didn’t work out. I love (and will always relate to) books about single women who are dealing with dating woes in addition to everything else. I love all of what chick lit offers. And there’s an incredibly wide range–from authors’ styles and voices to subject matter.

I’m sure I’ll love Warner’s don’t-call-us-chick-lit imprint too, especially given the fun titles of the inaugural list, such as How To Sleep With A Movie Star. Doesn’t sound like chick lit to me. No, not at all. Back to what I said about Warner’s smart marketing.

Many years ago now, an acquaintance of mine, Steve Heller, wrote a marvelous first novel titled The Automotive History of Lucky Kellerman. When I met Steve, we were both in the early days of our writing careers, out trying to promote our respective books, and because, at the time, we were fellow Kansans, we wound up doing a book signing together. So of course, I went home from that with an autographed copy of Steve’s novel.

Had I seen Steve’s book in a bookstore, I would have passed it by, the title putting me off. A novel about the history of cars? No, definitely not my thing. Except that when I read it, it definitely was.

The cars, you see, represent the various stages of Lucky Kellerman’s life:

“Squinting at the purple Moon 8-80 Prince of Windsor sitting up on blocks, the green Hudson Hornet, the Jimmie Truck, the Studebaker Silver Hawk, and the battered Corvair all lined up beneath the canopy, he understood why he had parked them in that order, in perfect view from the window above his worktable. The reason was so obvious he had overlooked it all these years. Yet there it was, right in front of him. Each automobile represented an unmistakable stage in his life. By lining them up in the order they had come into his possession, he had assembled his automotive history.” —The Automotive History of Lucky Kellerman

I’ve been thinking quite a bit lately about Steve’s book and that particular plot device.

Off and on for some weeks now, I’ve been working on my website, cleaning up folders, getting rid of old graphics, freshening up others, and rearranging pages, etc. This past weekend, I worked on all my actual novel pages. At the time I first uploaded my website to the WWW, it seemed like a good idea to give each title its own individual page. But since those have now crept up to more than thirty, that’s an awful lot of pages to maintain—and at this stage in my life, I’m unabashedly all for whatever makes my life easier.

That being the case, I decided to consolidate all my title pages, condensing them to six. So I spent the weekend going through them all, deciding what bits to keep, what to get rid of, rereading synopses and quotes, and basically reacquainting myself with novels I haven’t thought about in years, despite the fact that I wrote them.

While I was doing all that, it occurred to me that like Lucky Kellerman’s cars, each of those books represents a stage of my life.

Lucky Kellerman needed a big carport to house the stages of his own life. I only need a
bookshelf.

When you talk to them, most writers will tell you that when they look back over the novels they’ve written, they don’t remember which passages just came pouring out of them, inspired by their creative muse, and which passages they struggled with and labored over, feeling as though said muse had deserted them forever. I’m no exception to that rule.

Glancing back over the body of my work, I realized that what I do recall is the events that
occurred in my life at the time I was writing each book.

Yes, believe it or not, writers are actually real people with real lives that take place in the real world.

No Gentle Love, my first novel, will always be special to me simply because it was my first. I was twenty-one when I began writing it, and a year later, right in the middle of it, I decided to return to college to obtain my master’s degree. In the process, I received a graduate teaching assistant’s post, and I remember all my fellow teachers periodically dropping by my office, fascinated by the fact that I was writing a book. When they learned I’d finally finished and sold it, they threw a big party for me to celebrate. I still have the T-shirt they gave me. So whenever I think about No Gentle Love, it’s not actually the novel itself, but all my college chums and college days that come to mind.

And Gold Was Ours — my sister had to be rushed to an emergency room and almost died. Desire in Disguise — I was a brand-new mother with a colicky baby keeping me up at all hours. As I went down the list of my books, I passed one milestone after another, each time struck by a wave of memories, some happy, and, yes, some sad. At one point, I recalled having drinks and laughing it up with good friends and colleagues who have long passed away, and I realized how much I still miss them.

So, now, I’m wondering: Do other writers associate their novels with various stages of their lives, the way I do? Do readers associate books they’ve read with various stages of their lives, as well? If so, what novels do you best remember, and why?

by Anna Genoese, originally posted 05/19/05

Almost every work day, at the end of the day, I sit down with a stack of submissions. Sometimes they’re romance submissions, sometimes they’re mysteries or thrillers, sometimes they’re science fiction or fantasy. I don’t just limit myself to my own submissions either — at Tor/Forge, every two weeks, the entire editorial department gets together in a giant room with a big stack of submissions, and we get rejecting.

Nope, I don’t mean reading. I wrote rejecting, and I meant rejecting (grammar aside!).

Tor/Forge, all told, gets somewhere between 25 and 75 unagented, unsolicited submissions every single business day. So let’s say there are 365 days in a year, minus 96 (or so) Saturdays and Sundays, minus 10 business holidays and whatnot. That leaves us 259 days per year for unsolicited submissions to stack up. That means we get between about 7,000 and 20,000 submissions every year, not counting stuff from authors we already publish, and agents.

We publish an average of 15 books per month that are original to our house in hardcover, trade paperback, and mass market (and another 15 – 20 books per month that are reprints of one sort or another). That’s about 180 books every year. Subtract from that the number of authors we work with on a regular basis and… well, the odds aren’t good.

How many of those 20,000 submissions actually become real grown up novels?

Not many.

In fact, in the last five years, I can count on one hand the number of books that we pulled out of the slush piles and published. All of them stellar examples of their genres, all of them praised highly by other stellar novelists, all of them worked on for hours and hours by the editors who loved them and cuddled them and nurtured them into becoming published novels.

And that sucks. It really does. But think about how many truly horrible books are published every year. Now aren’t you glad that you’re not reading the unpublished ones?

But, Anna, you say, that’s not fair! What about all the really good books that don’t get published?

Ah, grasshopper, how little you know of the slush pile! Yes, it’s true that there are, in fact, very good books existing in the world that aren’t being published by a major New York house or a well-respected small press.

However, consider this: I have worked in publishing for over five years now, and in all of that time, I have not purchased one book out of the slush pile. Certainly I’ve seen books that were pretty good, and books that were decent, and books that were readable. I’ve seen books that even could have made an all right showing if we’d gone ahead and published them — if I’d been willing to put in the work necessary to make the book a success.

I wasn’t willing. Because for me to put that energy into a book… well, I’d have to love the book. If I don’t love the book, why should I spend all that time and energy on it?

But, Anna, you say, that’s selfish of you! To deny the world a wonderful book because you don’t love it? You’re a bitch.

And to that I say…. “Yes. And?”

Editors are, really, paid for their opinions. Editors are promoted when it’s made clear to the bigwigs that this particular editor’s opinion is also shared by a couple tens of thousands of members of the reading public. An editor’s opinion isn’t law, neither is it flawless — and when an editor reads a submission and winces at the phrasing of a sentence, you can lay a pretty successful bet that nine out of ten people will wince too.

I don’t mean to sound like a downer. Obviously first-time writers do get published, and sometimes they don’t even need an agent to do it. The right place, the right time, the right luck, the right talent, the right subject matter — getting that first book published is a combination of luck, skill, talent, and persistence. If you don’t persist, you’re never going to be that one in twenty-thousand to get pulled out. Because…

Sometimes we do set submissions aside. Sometimes we read the entire submission and then write to the author to ask for more. And sometimes (but not often) we buy that submission, because it’s too good not to share with the rest of the world.

I knew I wanted to be a writer when I was five. I knew I wanted to be a romance writer by the time I was twelve. I sold my first book when I was twenty-eight. It took me ten more years to decide it was a career. Now maybe you’re wondering—-why wasn’t it a career before? You were selling books, weren’t you? What’s the difference between a writing career and a writing hobby?

A writing hobby is something you pursue for pleasure. You write what you want, when you want. Sure, you want to sell. And if you’re selling, you’re probably working really hard. But it’s still a hobby if you treat it like one.

For the first ten years of my career, I wrote when I felt like it. And I didn’t write when I didn’t feel like it. Very cool!!! That was fun. I often took weeks, even months off at a time! I had no career plan. No particular goals beyond selling the next book. I wrote romantic comedies, traditionals, romantic suspense, sexy short contemporaries, even a trilogy of medieval romantic adventure. No need to worry about branding! And I sold them to whoever showed up first to buy them. What a fabulous job!

Then I got a real job. My husband quit his job to pursue a fulltime MBA—-and whoa! I spent the next two years teaching English to spawns of Satan, I mean, seventh graders. Now there’s a job! It was, in fact, the hardest, most exhausting job I’ve ever had in my life. (Kudos to you teachers out there.) And it was a huge wake-up call. I didn’t like real jobs! I had to set my alarm and take a shower at the crack of dawn, not to mention put on presentable clothes! I had to deal with 100 students a day, grade ten thousand papers, and please a long list of people who never all seemed happy with me at the same time. Oh, how I longed for my jammies and nothing more stressful to do all day than make up love stories. But there was that little pesky detail of actually making money. I never made a heck of lot of dough with that whole lack of career plan thing going on.

When I was free to return to fulltime writing, boy had my attitude toward writing changed! No more writing what I felt like, when I felt like. Writing was still a pleasure, a joy, but the balance shifted toward a more professional perspective. I started planning my career, setting goals, and gasp, keeping office hours. I even set up an office in my house! Yes, a whole room just for my writing. No more writing three pages and patting myself on the back, then wandering off to garden or bake cookies for the rest of the afternoon. I have a career now, and my career is writing. That means writing when I feel like it, and sometimes when I don’t feel like it.

If you’re interested in moving your writing from a hobby to a career, here are a few tips to get you started:

1. It all starts with you. Writing can still be fun, but if you want it to be a career, start treating it with the respect a career deserves and demands. Set office hours and keep them. Set goals, short-term and long-term. Focus! Make a career plan-—where do you want to be this time next year? In five years? In ten years? Break those goals down into steps so you know what you need to do today to be where you want to be in ten years.

2. Share your career plans with your family and ask them to help you. For example, my husband cooks dinner every night after he gets home from work and does everything else he can to assist me in my goals. Remember that your attitude impacts the people around you. If you start taking your writing more seriously, so will they. If your family doesn’t want to help, tell them to at least get out of your way.

3. Write and submit like you never have before. Don’t write one proposal then sit around watching soap operas while you wait to hear back. You write another one. And another one. And then you write twenty more.

P.S. You can still do it in your jammies.