Technology inventor protecting creator's copyrights. Business writer, novelist, songwriter, and Citizen Journalist.
Bookending two recent weekends was a writer/publisher//agent convention called Killer Nashville, which I attended for the first time and wherein I had one fine blast and installed and began to use this new app for my iPhone called Snapchat.
The other was the twelfth annual AJC Decatur Book Festival wherein the main reason I had fun was because I was with my fellow Atlanta Chapter of Sisters in Crime in a tent we shared with the Southeast chapter of Mystery Writers of America.
From cozy mysteries where the crimes happen off the page to thrillers where the good guys kidnap the bad guys and use mind games to make them write their confessions to fun and snarky rock'em-sock'em action, we sisters (and a couple of misters) know how to kill you and get rid of your body while at the same time we can solve the crime, too.
But this article is not about those fine authors or organizations.
"In any dispute the intensity of feeling is inversely proportional
to the value of the issues at stake."
To that I add:
"That is why the book publishing business is so viciously petty."
At Killer Nashville, I signed up for a pitch session that was scheduled the hour before I was to moderate a bevy of kick-ass panelists, only one of whom I had ever met. Explaining my situation, the two agents allowed me to pitch first and leave the room since I had to get things set up and make sure all was well. The next day, I saw one of the agents who...well, let this Snapchat video to my friend tell you what happened:
Now, I've been good and properly dissed in my lifetime so I know dissing when I see it. I was dissed.
Turning the page to the next weekend...
Then I saw this couple walking toward me. I can only describe them as smooth. That is, their clothes were crisply starched and ironed. Their hair was perfection itself. Even their skin looked like it had no imperfections. I doubt either of them had ever broken a sweat in their life. Both the man and woman seemed to be somewhere between 45 and 60 years old; these days it's sometimes hard to tell ages.
But hey, they looked like they could afford books. So of course I myself an author of over fifteen books — several novel length — am taking my turn handing out marketing materials for our booth, approached this couple and said in quite a friendly fashion...
"Hello. Are you fans of murder, mystery, and mayhem?"
Remember I told you that I've been dissed good and proper before, so I know when I'm being dissed. I got dissed again by this smooth couple.
First, they stopped dead in their tracks.
Second, their noses locked onto me like laser beams. Those noses quickly traced a pattern from my head to toes and back again.
Third, the woman rolled her eyes and looked away with such an elegant snort of derision.
Fourth, as if I had missed the big sign above their heads announcing it, the man said just prior to walking away in a huff, and I'm not kidding you, he said, "We're authors."
"We're authors."
"We're authors." We. Are. Authors. Hahahaha. I just can't get enough of saying that.
I wanted to holler after them, "Oh, yeah? But are you selling any books?"
Because frankly, if you've got to advertise the fact in such a petty fashion, then it's a sure bet you aren't selling any. Further, it's a sure bet you can't figure out why you are so successful in the rest of your life but can't sell a damn book.
At Killer Nashville, I asked a question of the agent I mentioned above. I said, "So, how difficult is it to sell a publisher on a book?"
Her first unguarded reaction told me all I needed to know. She isn't selling many at all. You need to understand that she's only been in the publishing business for a year. Being an agent looks fun and sexy, but it is damn hard work. Like many, she thought she would just jump in and make the next star.
After all, how hard is it to form an opinion on what makes a book the public will like? Like many who have just such an opinion, she thought she had the agent's role all figured out. I know this because her introduction to the pitch group was:
"I look for books I can fix."
Oh, honey. It's a good thing you have a rich husband in Big Pharma. You must have a lot of free time on your hands.
Her idea of "fixing" my book — based on only reading two double-spaced pages — was that on the first page I had to include gory details of the torture murder and make the woman who found the evidence the main protagonist of the story.
On the first page.
No wonder she's not selling anything.
To show you how unpetty we real authors are, here is me and my friend Linda Sands using the Snapchat app and giving hints and tips on how to get an agent. Enjoy.
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