August Special!

The first 25 people to purchase a copy of One Summer in Arkansas from Amazon.com during the month of August will receive an additional, signed copy of the novel delivered to the recipient of your choice. Not only will you end the summer with a great read, you will be able to share an amazing story with a friend or family member at no charge! Simply email your date of purchase on Amazon along with the name and address of the gift recipient to Marciakempsterling@sonic.net and we'll mail a signed copy of One Summer in Arkansas to the book lover of your choice! Happy Reading!

The Oxford American: Why Reading Still Matters

Strapped into my seat on a cross-country flight, I can indulge in the rare pleasure of reading something worthwhile.

The Oxford American, produced in that most improbable of literary headwaters -- the great state of Arkansas -- is packed with thought-provoking, beautifully written pieces that engage your mind and heart in a way that couldn’t be further removed from the drivel we are fed by the popular media.

My eye was drawn to this caveat by editor Roger Hodge at the beginning of the magazine:

“… if you are reading these words you have entered an aesthetic zone that is as free as possible from the hectoring voices of opinion merchants and professional manipulators of resentment and rage.”

Writing for its own sake?  Not trying to sell something?  What a concept.  In an age when news broadcasting has become cynically profit-driven, creating perpetual controversy for financial gain, and when serious fiction has been undercut by our stressed-out longing to read nothing more challenging than escapist action adventure, it is a sweet indulgence to spend a couple of hours with my nose in a literary magazine.

The Oxford American spotlights Southern culture – fiction, photography, music, the arts – beautifully laid out, with superb storytelling.

 Storytelling has been central to the way we human beings have understood ourselves and our world from the time man first walked this earth.   It is at the core of all the world’s major religions. It gives children a universe of experiences, thus enabling them to imagine the trajectories their own lives could take.  

If you enjoy the beauty of a well-turned phrase or the drama and pathos of Southern fiction or stunning photography of rural America, you’ve got to check out the Oxford American.

Writing Books and Speaking Out

Even though many authors are drawn to the solitary business of writing because they prefer the written word to social intercourse, one of the by-products of releasing a book is that people expect you to show up and talk about it.

I’m thinking about public speaking because I have a reading at Kepler’s Bookstore tonight, wondering how this foray into writing has led me right back to the place I thought I was escaping.

                                               

I did a lot of public speaking during my career as a lawyer and the unreliable voice caused by a neurological disorder called spasmodic dysphonia was a big factor in my decision to retire.  The journey from being a retired attorney who still had something to say to writing a novel was not as big a leap of faith as you might imagine.

Because today’s book publishing industry is in such turmoil and disarray, the risk of your book dying on the vine is bigger than ever.  At the same time, the opportunity for a book to gain traction is wide open to anybody and everybody, as the power of the Internet, ebooks and new channels of distribution are increasingly democratizing the book business.

In today’s San Francisco Chronicle, the Director of UCSF’s Anxiety Disorders Program Tracy Foose talked about some of the positive aspects of anxiety, a human survival gene that is “highly preserved across species” because it gives us the energy and heightened awareness to outperform in the face of perceived danger.

I plan to leverage that performance gene tonight in hopes of reaching new readers who will find pleasure and hopefully something of meaning to carry away with them after reading One Summer in Arkansas.

On Being a Writer

After “many a slip twixt the cup and the lip,” my novel One Summer in Arkansas is published and in the hands of a number of readers, some of whom I don’t even know.  It’s enormously exciting and gratifying (thank you, thank you, book buyers) but at the same time the oddest feeling to have people wandering around inside your head, finding meaning in your random thoughts and ramblings.

I started to think seriously about writing when my voice disorder – spasmodic dysphonia – became troublesome enough to get in the way of my lawyering.  Not that I’m so young, but I felt I had to retire too early -- before I was done saying what I had to say.

I wasn’t sure I could put together a cohesive story and by now there’s too much emotional sunk cost there for me to have any idea whether it’s any good or not.

I must say, though, there are two aspects of writing that have been hugely gratifying.  Blogging has been a good outlet for me and I expect it’s something I will continue to do.  It suits my personality to have a little to say about a lot of things and not have to defend my position to anybody.

The other thing about producing this book (and maybe it’s more about publishing it than writing it) is that it really is an entrepreneurial undertaking.  Most of the jobs I’ve done in my life have been safe – safe in the sense that the positions were backed up by a lot of credentials and expertise that wasn’t so easy to come by, and therefore pretty secure.  Writing a book and trying to sell it is anything but safe.  God knows, it’s no way to make money.  The industry is in great turmoil and it’s as wide open as the Wild West, with ebooks and self-publishing and bookstores closing down and Amazon owning the world.

It’s not at all clear that the best work gets read or appreciated and chaos is rampant.  But I’ve had fun creating something from whole cloth and trying to figure out a way to get it out there into the world.  I’m proud of my book and grateful to so many of you who have been kind and supportive of this venture.

On Southern Fiction and IPOs

I celebrated the 4^th of July by taking one more step towards the finish line.  One Summer in Arkansas is on track to launch before the beginning of December.

While Nat did all the work to prepare our annual 4^th of July barbeque, I reviewed the last suggested changes from the copyeditor, one of the least painful steps in the process—just check “Accept Change” or “Reject Change” and Microsoft does the rest.  At this point we’re down to the classic debate about whether or not serial commas have any place in modern literature.  This is when everybody reverts to their 6^th grade personality, since that’s when we learned our grammar, and at this stage of life we’re not about to deviate from what our 6^th grade teacher taught us.  I can remember fighting the same fight in the middle of the night at many a financial printer during my life as a lawyer—a room full of entrepreneurs, lawyers, accountants and investment bankers sitting around a conference table at 2:00 a.m., eating junk food and arguing (in a 6^th grade tone of voice) about whether serial commas belong in the prospectus for the IPO hitting the market the next day. 

Some things never change.

Status of the Novel

It has been less than a month since I blogged about how to get my book published, and now I am on a path to realizing that goal.  The final manuscript of One Summer in Arkansas is in the hands of a publisher, with a target launch date of November 15^th.

Over the last year, I have learned quite a bit about digital print-on-demand self-publishing, which has become a legitimate and efficient way to bring a book to market.  But ultimately I wasn’t satisfied with the materials available in digital publishing.  I was also concerned that the POD business model required a price-per-book too high to compete with established writers of fiction.

I made modest efforts to find an agent and publisher, but those doors are pretty tightly closed to new fiction.

I have finally found a solution that works for me.  The book will be self-published in the sense that I’ll bear the upfront costs, do my own marketing and keep the profit.  But I’m working through a publisher to get the offset print quality I want, using traditional methods and materials.

It’s a tough challenge to enter the market for print fiction these days, but it has been great fun to learn a new line of business and I’m excited to see what I can do with it.

Call for a New Literary Genre: Older Adult Fiction

The hottest market for novels these days is a category called Young Adult Fiction.  Most agents and publishers, even those who are closed to new submissions, are seeking out YA manuscripts.

Science Fiction, Fantasy and Romance, all established genres in their own right, are featured prominently in Young Adult novels. The YA category implies an interplay of those categories with Internet-age speed, cryptic use of language (as in texting), edgy plots and non-conventional sequencing. 

The consumers of YA Fiction have little tolerance for exposition, their lives having been shaped by screen time, so these books are often indistinguishable from screen plays or film scripts.  And, since the readers are computer-savvy, social media-oriented and mobile, there is a strong preference for electronic content.

So pervasive is the fascination with the YA genre that its elements are increasingly finding their way into general fiction.  Books with obscure plots, interconnected stories within stories, cartoon-sketch characters and disturbing realism are often favored by book reviewers, who are drawn to anything unique and virtuosic.

But, as the Baby Boomers expand the ranks of older Americans, it is the Older Adult category that makes up the fastest growing demographic among consumers of books.  As the Boomers move from career to retirement, they will have more time to read.  At this point, the OAs are the last hold-outs in traditional bookstores, active in book groups and migrating to electronic books on a slower track than their juniors.

Because the OA category is so broad and growing so rapidly, there has not been an easy way to get a handle on their preferences in fiction.  Older adults have tended to buy paperbacks on the New Arrivals table in bookstores or whatever is atop the New York Times Bestseller List, though their satisfaction with the literature they are consuming is more nuanced.

If the publishing industry could be a fly-on-the-wall in OA book groups, they might be surprised at the level of frustration with the stunningly unique new books that come out to great fanfare, but slip right back off the charts as quickly as they came.  There is a palpable longing for stories with depth and coherence, tales that tap into universal themes, conclusions that leave the reader satisfied instead of confused.

Most commercial enterprises in the free market economy today are tuned in to the expanding OA demographic, with vendors of food and condos and clothing accommodating to the tastes of this large population of Older Adults with money and time on their hands.  I wonder if booksellers, publishers, agents and writers are paying attention.  

Should I Self-Publish?

I finished a rough draft of my first novel about a year ago.  Since that time, it has inched along, dutifully slogging through its life cycle of reviews, rewrites, feedback, rewrites, comments, rewrites, professional edits, rewrites. 

The question now is this.  Do I select a digital print-on-demand self-publishing company and put my book out there, hoping the world will find it, or do I take the longer traditional route of seeking an agent and hoping to be picked up by an established publishing house?

I’ve thought from the beginning I would self-publish.  The book publishing industry is under stress.  The new digital technologies are getting better.  You can get a print-on-demand book out faster and cheaper and, if you’re successful, keep more of the proceeds.

True, you have to sell it yourself, but that seems to be the case these days even if you have a publisher.

But here’s the thing.  There are still advantages to having a traditional publisher.  For one, digital books don’t look as good as offset print books.  The covers are glossy and lighter weight than paperbacks printed by the big houses.  They are getting better, for sure, but you can tell. 

This wouldn’t be so much of a problem, were it not for the fact that too many books of poor quality have hit the market.  If you have a publisher, people at least assume a certain level of competence. 

Does that mean traditional publishing has become the new vanity publishing?

I don’t think I can wait another year to have a book in my hand. 

So we’ll see.