Meanwhile, Across the Pond...

Question of the week: Can you explain what happens at the London Book Fair? It seems it's all I've been reading about this week.

Um, sure, if I can! I'm not sure that I have a complete understanding of the entire situation, but I'll do my best. The London Book Fair, along with the Frankfurt Fair, are the two biggest forums in which publishers sell foreign rights to, well, foreign publishers! From what I understand, here's what happens:

A publisher, in my case, the Shaye Areheart imprint at Random House, starts generating buzz about a book to foreign publishing houses long before the actual fair. Book sales are often all about buzz, so they try to get as much momentum going into the fair as possible. Once at the fair, they sit down with various representatives and contacts and push the book even more. Though a lot of deals used to happen at the actual fair, these days, from what I understand, most of what happens is an attempt to generate enthusiasm and excitement, and the actual offers for the books come about in the subsequent weeks. Which means, for sure, I'm biting down my nails in anticipation.

(Also, having attending BEA last year (Book Expo America), I can tell you that from what I imagine, LBF is really whirlwind of socializing, networking and hobnobbing. It's also really freaking tiring. I was completely wiped out after one day at the event.)

That said, foreign rights sales can happen at any time, which is exactly what happened for The Department. I'd just get a random out-of-the-blue email from someone at Harper's subsidiary dept saying, "We're thrilled we got an offer from X...do you accept?" And duh, obviously, I always did! But don't be fooled into thinking that foreign sales will make you rich: most of these deals are for probably (this is based on nothing scientific, only an estimated guess) less than 20k, and most for much less than that. AND, unless you've earned back your advance, you won't see a dime: they just get added into the overall tally of your sales and earnings until you've crossed that lucrative line.

So tell me, anyone else have inside scoop on LBF? Or foreign rights insights in general?

Theo Pauline Nestor Sleeps Alone in a King-Size Bed

Today, I am so super-excited to bring you Theo Pauline Nestor, author of the newly released memoir (okay, as of tomorrow), How to Sleep Alone in a King-Size Bed.

I am not what you would call a classic memoir reader. What I mean by that is that if I'm in Barnes and Noble, I rarely drift to the non-fiction table and instead wander over to the novels. (And I do sometimes feel that some memoir subjects are less fascinating than the authors might have deemed themselves...geez, though it feels lousy to say that.) That said, there are a lot of upcoming memoirs that I'm truly psyched about including, but not limited to Jen Lancaster's Such a Pretty Fat, Trish Ryan's He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not, and Stephanie Klein's Moose, but most often, yeah, I'm a fiction type of gal. But I was sent a galley of Theo's book, which chronicles her divorce and her subsequent recovery, and though most galleys I receive go unread, for whatever reason, I was drawn to this one, and as soon as I read the first chapter, I was sucked in for the long-haul.

The reason, for me, that this book was so readable is because it's not "memoir-y," and by that I mean, yes, this is a true slice of the author's life, but it also reads as smoothly as a novel. I wanted to get to that final chapter and uncover the ending just as I do any fictional creation. I've never been divorced, never even been close to divorce, but this was a universal story about how one woman struggles through the muck and finds her way, and that message resonated with me, regardless of my exact life circumstance. What also made this memoir so intriguing is that it is one of several that got its roots in the NY Times's Modern Love column, which isn't an easy gig to land in and of itself.

So, whew, without further ado, I'm thrilled to have Theo here today to answer a few questions for Ask Allison readers. After reading the Q/A, head out and grab her book. I don't think you'll be disappointed! For more on Theo, check out her website.

1) The germ of this book started out as a Modern Love column. As you drafted that essay, did you ever think, “Oh, this is a much bigger story?”

I actually extracted material from a larger (frankly, rambling) piece to create the 1800-word Modern Love column. In the first days of my divorce, I found every day was full of terribly profound moments, and even though I had no intention of writing a memoir about my divorce, I kept taking notes. Some time after the column was out, I started to realize that what I was writing was becoming a book.

2) Can you tell us how indeed it evolved from a column to a memoir? Was it seamless or, as I’d imagine, a little tougher than it sounds?

The essay that appeared in Modern Love describes the sudden end of my marriage and then an overview of the pain and shock I felt in the first few months after our split up. I knew I couldn't use the article as it was because it covered too quickly the crucial time frame that held a great deal of my story, but I did end up taking the break-up scene from the essay, expanding it and using it as the opening chapter of the book.

However, publishing the essay in the New York Times helped the article evolve into a book in many ways. First, I received an enormous number of emails from readers of the column and their letters gave me a lot of good ideas for the book. Also, the fact that the essay had been published in such a popular column helped get publishers interested in the project while it was still a proposal.

3) I know that you’ve also published fiction. Did it ever occur to you to fictionalize your story and instead write a novel? Especially these days when memoirists are really held up to a lot of scrutiny re: accuracy.

I didn’t want to write a novel, partly because I could hear the voice of this book even before I knew what all it would cover. I knew it was a memoirist’s voice, one that said to the reader: Listen, this is true. In one moment I was married and in the next I wasn’t. I was afraid and angry and sad and then I was hopeful and tired and happy. I thought it would be a voice that would earn the trust of readers, especially those going through a divorce themselves.

4) If I were to write a memoir (which I never will!), I’d always be concerned about portraying other people fairly and accurately, and you did indeed mention this in the acknowledgments, in terms of your ex-husband. Were you ever tempted to downplay what really happened out of concern over upsetting others and if not, how did you get over this?

I wanted to write this book without mentioning that my marriage ended because of my husband’s gambling addiction. I had no desire to reveal that to the world. I didn’t want to do anything to hurt (or frankly, anger) him and my purpose in writing a memoir about my divorce was not to “tell all the dirt” but to share my experience with transitioning suddenly from being married to being divorced. The trouble was the story didn’t make any sense without the reason why we split. I tried multiple times to write it without the gambling in there, and it never worked. People who are reasonably happy (we were) don’t split up overnight unless something big has happened and when I wrote about the split up without including the reason, it seemed like either 1) I was being overly coy or 2) we split up because my husband had an affair (or something worse…although I’m not sure what that would be). So, what I decided to do was include the gambling but write just the minimum about it. I also tried to offset that information by including scenes in the book that showed what a good person my ex-person is despite his addiction. Still, it’s not easy.

5) What I loved about your book is that to me, it read like a novel. How did you decide which stories to include, which aspects of your divorce and post-divorce life to highlight, and which to discard? Was this an instinctive process or is this where an editor really helps you out?

At first I wrote from instinct, but as I drafted the proposal for the book, I tried to think of which of the experiences I went through in this post-divorce period were universal because I wanted to write a book that readers who’d been through divorce would relate to and find helpful. During this process, I read self-help books and talked to friends about their divorces and then returning to my own experience, I picked out the events and experiences that seemed endemic to the divorce process--telling friends and random acquaintances, looking for work, dealing with depression, helping kids through their anger and grief, rebuilding life as a single person and even falling in love again.

6) I know that I found my novel’s release to be the most nerve-wracking aspect of the entire process, and I imagine it’s even more so when it’s such a personal book. You’re right on the cusp of publication: can you tell us how that feels?

Sometimes, I think I’m okay and then I realize I’m really nervous. Oddly, it’s not so much that strangers and friends are going to read personal details of my life. For some reason, I don’t really think about that. I just want the book to do well out there in the world. It’s sort of like I’m sending my youngest child off to kindergarten.

7) You also teach memoir writing at the University of Washington . What are the three (or so) biggest tips for memoir writers to keep in mind as they go about turning their own histories into books?

1) Be patient with yourself. Throughout every stage of the memoir writing process, you will feel internal resistance. It is very scary to tell the truth about your experience and expect that you’ll need to keep giving yourself permission to do so.

2) Learn everything you can about story telling. Study the craft of fiction writing. Character development, plot, theme---all those things that make a novel work are present in memoirs. An excellent book about shaping your story into a memoir is Your Life as Story by Tristine Rainer. I highly recommend it.

3) Don’t hold back. When you’re writing you’ll no doubt think oh I can’t write this. Everyone I know will leave me and I will die penniless and alone. Yes, maybe, but that might happen anyway, but in the meantime, there’s a reason why you came to the page and that reason is you need to tell Your Story. Once you have it down, if it still scares you terribly that you’ve written all this crazy stuff, you can tear it up if you want. But the words unwritten, they might be the greatest danger of all. Some call it regret.

Getting By With a Little Help...

So I usually don't blog on Fridays, but I wanted to take a moment to share a wonderful experience that I had last night. I was fortunate enough to be invited to a get-together with several other authors, and we convened yesterday for high tea. What a blast! (The company might have even been better than the scones, and that's saying a lot.)

In attendance were Sarah Mlynowski, Jane Green, Laura Dave, Emma McLaughlin, Nicola Kraus, and Lynda Curnyn. (Leslie Margolis was sick, so couldn't make it.) Now, these are women who, conceivably, do not need to sit down with other writers to chew the (literal and otherwise) fat. The above names, for the most part, are big, big names in women's fiction and YA and the world of writing in general, so the fact that they all hustled their butts to a tea salon in Gramercy Park to meet other writers says a lot about them.

And oh what fun we had. Yes, there was some industry gossip, but mostly, it was just getting to know each other and supportive stories from the trenches and figurative pats on the backs or shoulders to bitch on. And this, to me, is what makes these women so amazing...and what we need more of in this industry. It's even more fitting because I'm attending a dinner for FLX members tomorrow, and nowhere is there a more supportive writers network than on FLX.

Writers need to support other writers. Women need to support other women. As Emma said at one point, we are not opening weekends. We are not competing with one another for box office seats. Their readers are my readers, and vice versa. Failing to realize this can not only alienate you from other authors, I truly believe that it can limit your personal growth, which, really, is probably leaps and bounds more important than your total book sales at the end of the day. And, incidentally, this is the same reason that I don't post negative reviews on places like GoodReads: this writing business is tough enough, why bring someone else down?

And, of course, that's also what this blog is all about. So, even though we haven't all met for high tea, I do hope that we all put out there what we take in, that we all sow and reap and reap and sow. I'm grateful that other writers feel the same, and I'm grateful that you guys do as well.

Cover Me

Today, I'm over at Writer Unboxed, chatting about covers and how they influence different demographics - for example, the softness and more heightened emotion of my paperback cover compared to the striking, stronger image of my hardcover and what that's all designed to do, in terms of sales.

Check it out!

Btw, this paperback version is out on April 22nd! (Don't worry, I'll remind you!) But please do look for it in a store near you. I know that a lot of folks don't like to shell out for hardcovers, but I hope that you'll consider paying $11 from Amazon or the $14 at your local store. (And yes, you can pre-order it now! It might show up a few days early.) :) First week sales and pre-orders make all the difference (something I'll be chatting about next week), so I can't thank you enough for your support.

GCC Presents: Wendy Tokunaga and Midori by Midnight

So I haven't done a GCC post in months, and I can think of no better way to get back into the swing of things than with a Q/A with Wendy Tokunaga, whose debut novel, Midori By Midnight just hit bookstores and which Publishers' Weekly called, "a delectably frothy romp!" Sounds like the perfect beach novel when/if spring ever arrives here in the Northeast! (But my weather complaints are another post for another day...) I especially like her answer to #3, and suspect that many blog readers will as well.Here's the scoop on the book, then read on for her wonderful answers to my usual questions:

What happens when a young woman, fresh from Japan and too independent for Japanese society, finds herself suddenly lost in translation in San Francisco as she searches for her American Dream and the perfect dessert?

Wendy Nelson Tokunaga answers this question and more in her poignant comic novel, MIDORI BY MOONLIGHT, where we meet thirty-year-old Midori Saito, whose dream seems about to come true. A strong independent streak has always made her feel like a stranger in a strange land in her native Japan, but now she’s embarking on a new life in San Francisco. She’s about to marry Kevin, the perfect American man—six feet tall, with curly hair the color of marmalade. Unlike a Japanese guy who’d demand she be a housewife, Kevin doesn’t mind if Midori follows her dream of becoming a master pastry chef. Her life is turning out as exquisitely as a Caramelized Apple Tart with Crème Fraiche, until Kevin dumps her at their engagement party in favor of his blond, ex-fiancée, whom Midori never even knew existed.

Now Midori is not only on her own—with just a smattering of fractured English in her repertoire—she’s entered the U.S. on a fiancée visa that will expire in sixty days. Unable to face the humiliation of telling her parents she’s been dumped, and not wanting to give up on her American dream, Midori realizes she’s “up the creek without a saddle.” Her only hope is new acquaintance Shinji, 30, who long ago escaped Japan after a family tragedy, is a successful San Francisco graphic artist and amateur moon gazer, and who lets her share his apartment as a platonic roommate.

Soon Midori finds herself working at an under-the-table hostess job at an unsavory Japanese karaoke bar, making (and eating) way too many desserts, meeting a charming and handsome chef with his own restaurant who may be too good to be true, and trying to uncover the secret behind a mysterious bar hostess who looks strangely familiar. But Midori’s willing to endure almost anything to hang on to her American dream, and she just might find that the love she’s been searching for far and wide is a whole lot closer than she thinks.

1) What’s the backstory behind your book?

~ MIDORI BY MOONLIGHT is about 30-year-old fresh from Japan Midori Saito, who finds herself lost in translation in San Francisco searching for her American dream and the perfect dessert. It is inspired by my Japanese husband’s story of how he never felt he fit in Japan and ended up trading his native culture for a new one when he settled in the United States.

2) It seems that a lot of readers confuse fiction with real life, assuming that a novel must be an autobiography of the author as well. How many elements of your real life are reflected in your book?

~ MIDORI BY MOONLIGHT is the story of a Japanese woman who feels like a stranger in a strange land in her native Japan and escapes to the United States, so of course it’s not autobiographical (I am Caucasian American and was born and raised in San Francisco). But I have had a long love affair with Japan and Japanese culture, am married to a man born and raised in Japan, have Japanese in-laws, and I speak the language half-way decently so I have put a lot of my experience and knowledge into the book.

3) A lot of my blog readers are aspiring or new authors. How did you land your first book deal?

~ MIDORI BY MOONLIGHT is my debut novel, but is actually the fifth I have written. For me to get a major publishing deal it took over ten years of trying, along with getting hundreds and hundreds of rejections from agents. I did win an award in the Writer’s Digest Best Self-Published Book Awards in 2002 for my novel NO KIDDING, but that didn’t help much in getting notice from agents. Along the way I published some short stories in small journals and wrote a couple of children’s non-fiction books as works for hire (flat fee, no royalties). So this has been a long road (including finally getting an agent who couldn’t sell book number three or four, then him dumping me). I decided that maybe out of these five novels I’d written I could at least get an MFA in Creative Writing. So I applied to grad schools, decided on the University of San Francisco, and right when I started in Summer 2006, I got my great agent Marly Rusoff and she got me a two-book deal with St. Martin’s about eight weeks later.

4) I have a serious procrastination problem when it comes to tackling my fiction. What’s your routine? How do you dive it? Do you have any rituals or necessary to-dos before or while you write?

~ I procrastinate when I know I have to write something new because that’s the hardest part for me. On the other hand, I can spend hours happily revising, rewriting, and tweaking. I don’t have any particular rituals. I am deadline driven and always meet my deadlines so I guess that motivates me.

5) Clearly, your book will be optioned for a multi-million dollar film deal! Who would you cast as the leads, if you were given creative control?

~ Rinko Kikuchi ("Babel") as Midori and Masi Oka ("Heroes") as Shinji.

Anatomy of a Book Sale

So this weekend, I picked up Meg Wolitzer's The Ten-Year Nap. We've discussed the book-buying decision several times on this blog, and since I'm fresh out of a meeting with my marketing and publicity team for Time of My Life, in which we talked about which publications actually get people to buy books, I've been paying particular attention to how I make my book-buying decisions. (Btw, I'll have more on my FABULOUS meeting coming up on the blog soon.)

So here's what happened: I saw a great review of TTYN in Entertainment Weekly, which, I believe, gave the book an A-. The book seemed to cover similar themes as those covered in Time of My Life - motherhood, the bigger picture, discontentedness, fulfillment, etc. Over the years, I've come to learn that my sensibilities match EW's nearly exactly, and since they so rarely give As, this review caught my attention. (Incidentally, the pr/mktg team agreed that EW is one of those places that really can sell books, so I'm not alone.)

From there, with my interest baited, I headed to both Amazon and GoodReads to see what others had thought. All good things, it turns out. And from there, because I suspected that Wolitzer might be a little too literary for my specific tastes (and because I judge a book based on its cover, and that too, seemed literary), I tried to read the excerpt on Amazon, but the link wasn't working, so I googled an excerpt, found one on NPR and discovered that this book was right up my alley.

I bought it later that day and dug into it that night (whoohoo, rockin' Saturday night at the Scotch household, thanks to an emergency in our babysitting situation!) and read until my eyelids could no longer hold themselves upright.

I have no idea if this is how most of the book-buying public makes their decisions, but I think this is a pretty standard way that I make mine. A lot of times, I buy books simply because I know the author, and whether or not it's truly a book that speaks exactly to me, I want to support him or her, so I whip out my wallet. But beyond that - and other than referrals from friends - this is the best way that I know how to end up with a book that I enjoy reading from first page to end.

So...let's get this discussion going. A) What are you currently reading? And B) if you're up to elaborating, how did you make the decision to buy it?

When You Screw the Pooch

Today, I'm giving confession (even though I'm Jewish). This week, I royally screwed up an article. I didn't realize, of course, that I'd screwed it up so badly - in fact, I thought it was perfectly fine, if not better than fine, or else I wouldn't have handed it in - but when my editor pointed out where and why it wasn't fine, I realized just how in the wrong I had been.

And when I realized my error, I also wondered if it were possible to die from mortification, because I nearly felt like I might.

I've written, I dunno, hundreds of articles in the past few years. I can't remember a time, barring the second article I'd ever written for a national magazine, when I hadn't produced what I was capable of...or at least made the editor happy enough so that he or she thought it was what I was capable of. And this time, well, in retrospect, I didn't. In retrospect, I see why I didn't: I did an interview in which I was totally charmed by my interviewee, and we were having such a good chat - in the way that you do with a confidante - that I failed in my mission to conduct a really probing Q/A.

So what was I to do? I did the only thing I knew how to: I tried to rectify the situation as fast as humanly possible all the while owning up to what I did. I sent off a contrite note to my editor saying, in essence, "Look, I take responsibility for this mistake, it was my fault, and I'm busting my ass to fix it." And in the subsequent nights, I lost sleep (literally) until I found a way to resolve it.

But resolve it I did. That's all I could do. One of my biggest pet peeves in work (and in life - just ask my husband) is when you don't take ownership for your mistakes. No one is interested in excuses, even if you somehow think they cast you in a better light. Most often, they don't. So just get on with it, apply the band-aid and find a way to heal the wound.

I'm hopeful that I did. And you can be damn sure that this is a lesson well-learned. Just because you're a pro doesn't mean that you're infallible. I won't forget that again.

So tell me, anyone want to share their own screw-up story, just to make me feel a little better? :) Or if not, share what you do when you realize that you've made a professional screw-up.

When the Payout Doesn't Pay

I'm guessing that a lot of you already saw this piece from the weekend's NY Times on how bloggers are still being offered huge book deals. Basically, for those of you who haven't yet read it, the article highlights a recent (rumored) $300,000 deal for a blogger who runs a blog called, Stuff White People Like. There are then various quotes as to why this is a ridiculously high number, how bloggers are still sought after but most of the hot ones are already taken by agents, and how a good many of these books, including Gawker's, fail.

Interesting. To be honest, I didn't realize that this was still such a trend: I thought that publishers had maxed out on bloggers and weren't really pursuing their deals with the same frenzy.

Evidently, I don't know what I'm talking about.

This article - and the $300,000 figure - were being discussed on several boards I frequent, and the general consensus was some sort of weird ire at the blogger. Or maybe I mistook that and people just thought the publishing house was insipid to throw this sort of money at an unproven author. But in my mind, certainly, the author shouldn't be blamed. In fact, I say, good for him! If he can milk that money out of a publishing house who foolishly threw it at him, who am I to hold it against him? It's the publisher, the one who got caught up in the bidding frenzy, who should be held responsible - as noted in the NY Times piece, it's highly unlikely that said publisher will earn back that money, but then again, ya never know, and I guess they wanted to take their chances.

But herein is the big problem with our industry: no one knows which books will sell. Maybe it will be this $300,000 purchase, maybe not. There is little to no market research, little actual marketing beyond the first few weeks of a book's release, and while many people involved love books, they don't have a real understanding of the financial decisions behind the business, and thus, many books "fail," despite these huge advances and/or buzz.

My husband, who is in finance, always shakes his head and says things like, "It's like no one wants to make any money in publishing." And while, obviously, this isn't true, the net effect of it is the same: few books do make money, and no one is really fixing the problem. In my opinion, the problem is this: too many books are published and then left to languish with no marketing or publicity behind them. Too many other books are given huge pushes, and it turns out that they're not so good. When a book does succeed, sometimes it's serendipity, sometimes it's a really good book, and sometimes, it's just luck. So what's the solution? Gasp...I think the industry should publish fewer books and rather than try to meet some sort of quota with how many they have to churn out, focus instead on finding gems that will resonate (or even be heard of!) with their respective markets.

I've rambled. I meant to stay on topic about bloggers and book deals because certainly, some can do well, like the success stories of Jen Lancaster and Stephanie Klein. But the larger point, I guess, of this post, is that when a publishing house throws $300,000 at an author, and no one buys the book...who is to blame? To me, it's the publishing house, even though the author will be the one to take the fall.

Jen Singer is a Good Mom...And Her Books Aren't So Bad Either

So today, I'm thrilled to host a Q/A with my friend, Jen Singer, who founded the very prosperous MommaSaid.net network and is the author of two books, including the newly-released You're a Good Mom (and Your Kids Aren't So Bad Either). Jen is admirable for a lot of reasons - for one, as you'll read below, she turned the other ear when rejection knocked on her door; for two, she then went ahead an established an unbelievable platform; and for three (among other things), she was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma smack in the middle of writing You're a Good Mom, but she absolutely refused to put her life on hold because of cancer. Read on to see why I (and a lot of others) think that Jen is pretty kick-ass. And don't forget to pick up a copy of her book!

1) You have a great story about how tough the road can be to publication and how if you dig into the trenches, you can come out on top. Can you share with us that success story?

When I tried to publish my first book, 14 Hours 'Til Bedtime, all I knew about platform was the About the Author paragraph in the back of books. I figured that if I'd been published in major magazines like I had been, that would be enough to get a book deal. Silly me. The subsequent rejections from publishers all pretty much said the same thing: "Talented writer, but she has no platform." One editor even lamented, "Too bad she's not famous!" If only I could prove I was Elvis' love child.

My book was published by a very small publisher and sold well despite being available pretty much only on Amazon and the trunk of my mother's car. But I wanted more for my future books, so I set out to build my platform up from the ground by growing my web site, MommaSaid.net, from a cute little site that only my mom and a neighbor read to a formidable presence among the mommy blogging community. I hired a personal publicist, who still works with me today, and together we blasted the media until my platform got big enough to get the attention of publishers, especially the ones who had wished I was famous.

2) We've been chatting a bit about platform building recently on the blog, and you are one of the best examples I know of as someone who created an amazing platform for herself. How did you go about doing this?

The short answer is dogged determination and the desire to keep on writing funny little things. But it's more complicated (and exhausting) than that. Launched in 2003 when my kids weren't in school at the same time, MommaSaid is now the base of my platform. It allows me to keep in touch with moms around the world, which makes me attractive to journalists and producers who want to know what makes moms tick. I answer Profnet leads relentlessly, and I set up a page on MommaSaid called the Magazine Rack, where journalists and producers can troll for sources. It keeps MommaSaid in front of the media while providing them a free service. Meanwhile, my readers get to see their names in print.

Over the years, I've acted as a spokesperson for Huggies Pull-Ups, Similac and Listerine, and as a consultant for Disney's Family.com. Their PR firms contacted me through MommaSaid. I've also forged relationships with the publicity departments at various publishing houses by giving away free books as Housewife Awards. So, when my books are being shopped around, the PR folks already know me. And I blog and blog often. That keeps the readers coming back for more. Plus, relentless blogging helped me land a parenting tweens blog at Good Housekeeping. I could prove to my editor that I could keep up a quality blog for the long-term because I'd already been doing it. Now that I've blogged for them for a year, the deal has gotten even sweeter: Yahoo will syndicate it starting this week. That's about six million readers, and I don't have to do anything more than I've already been doing.

Finally, I've built up a fan base by being true to the moms who visit MommaSaid, which is about to have a makeover. I keep up the site -- posting just about every day. (I taught myself HTML, but my husband is an IT guy who can help me with the technical stuff. I married smart.) I've even created a social network based on my newest book, "You're a Good Mom (and Your Kids Aren't So Bad Either)" out this week from Sourcebooks.

3) How critical do you think having a platform is these days and do you have any beginner's advice for readers who are looking to establish a name for themselves?

Platform is king. The writing has to be good, too, but we all know that celebrities get book deals and sell books because of their names. You can build platform, too, but you have to shift your mindset. For example, at last year's ASJA meeting, fellow author Paula Spencer was telling another writer about my online success. She had just published a book, and was trying to build an accompanying blog after years of success in traditional media, most notably as a Woman's Day columnist. The other writer, a curmudgeonly old-school journalist was unimpressed. "Why would I give away my writing?" he barked. "I'm not writing unless I’m getting paid." If you want to be a working journalist, that's a fine approach. But if you want to build platform, you need to "give away" some of your writing in order to create a fan base. ("The Long Tail" author Chris Anderson wrote a great article about this concept in Wired: http://www.wired.com/techbiz/it/magazine/16-03/ff_free. A book is due out next year.)

I won't kid you; it's a lot of work. But it affords me the opportunity to do the kind of writing I love. There aren't enough essay markets to make a living, and, even though I've managed to garner a lot of back page spots in Parenting magazine, that's only part of the multi-faceted platform behemoth that MommaSaid is becoming.

4) How much easier was it to sell/publish your second book than your first?

Actually, I didn't sell my second book. Two years after my first book was published, my (now former) agent tried to shop around a book called, How Come I Only Get to Sit Down in My Mini-Van? But I was up against an onslaught of mommy bloggers, and, apparently, my platform was still too small. I was deflated. A year later, I switched agents. My new (and current) agent shopped around You're a Good Mom (and Your Kids Aren't So Bad Either). Sourcebooks bought it in January of 2007. At the same time, I got a call from an editor at Healthcare Communications, the publisher of the Chicken Soup series. They wanted to create a series of books based on the MommaSaid brand. Four years after launching MommaSaid, my platform had arrived -- and I didn't even have to write a book proposal. I've finished writing the first of those books, a guide book to raising toddlers, and now I'm working on the preschooler version between publicity gigs for Good Mom. Those two will be published before Mother's Day of 2009. A baby book is slated for the following fall.

5) I LOVE the cover and title of this book. How did you come up with the concept and what made you want to write it?

I had been writing a blog called MommaHeard designed to bring the news that's important to moms who don’t have time to read more than the headlines. (I still write it. I am a news junkie.) I also did a weekly radio spot based on the blog until the show's host left radio. What I found is that mothers were trying too hard to try to keep up with Super Moms, thereby giving up and becoming Slacker Moms. One was bad for mom and the other bad for the kids. But I knew that there was a sweet spot between the two where you can raise perfectly good kids without losing yourself or your sanity. My editor at Sourcebooks, Shana Drehs, pushed for a better title, and I'm glad she did. It was originally "Don’t Answer the Phone When the Class Mom Calls," after one of the chapter titles, but that didn't tell the whole story of the book, so she asked for more. Then, just like "14 Hours 'Til Bedtime," I woke up with the Good Mom title one morning.

I pushed for the cover, because I didn't like the image Sourcebooks had chosen. It was stock drawing of a retro housewife, and I felt it didn't fit the book. (Turns out, it's on another book's cover anyhow.) They used Goldfish crackers first, and I loved it, but when Tom Perrotta's publisher had used them on "Little Children," Pepperidge Farm sued them. So we ditched that idea. On the way to the pediatrician's office one night in December, my kids and I brainstormed and came up with the rubber ducks. I love that Sourcebooks made one of the ducks going the other way. We all have a kid like that. So far, it's gotten a lot of attention from radio shows and magazines. We'll be pitching TV soon.

6) You've also had an incredible year personally: in addition to publishing your second book, you kicked cancer's ass after you were diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and managed to keep an incredible sense of humor about the whole thing as you did. And I know that your snarky good humor is also in full form in the book. I'm always talking about positive thinking on my blog - both as a mother and as a writer - so how do you maintain your healthy attitude, even when things, whether it's your aspirations for your book or your health, veer wildly off-track? I think there are some wise lessons to be learned from you!

I had four chapters of You're a Good Mom left to write when I found out I had cancer, fittingly on D-Day, June 6th. I know I could have abandoned the book and nobody would have flinched. But when you're faced with death, you find out what's truly important to you. Turns out, writing -- or at least the kind of writing I do -- is important to me. Sourcebooks gave me a six-week extension, and my brother gave me his laptop. I wrote parts of the book on the oncology floor at New York Hospital and parts at outpatient chemo. (When else do I get to sit for four whole hours and write?) Lucky for me, humor is my defense mechanism. I turned in the manuscript a week early, and I'll bet no one can tell which chapters (written out of order) were penned pre-diagnosis and which were fueled by Percocet and fear. Meanwhile, Good Housekeeping let me blog about parenting with cancer once a week on my blog. My editor and I call it "Cancer Thursdays!" like it's a special at Applebee's or something.

Even though I'm in remission now, I still write about cancer, because it's cheaper than therapy. Besides, I still have something to say. The three-book deal has also helped pull me through this crisis. I had just met my HCI editor at BEA five days earlier when I found out I had cancer. At that point, we didn't have anything in writing, and I feared they'd dump me. When my agent e-mailed me in the hospital to tell me HCI was 100% behind me, I cried with relief. My nurse went out and bought me Haagen-Dazs pops to celebrate, and I've been hooked on them ever since. I attribute the hard work of "my people" for helping save my career. My agent, my publicist, my manager/lawyer and my assistant all kept the MommaSaid machine running, even though I was laid up. I didn't start out with all of this help five years ago, but as MommaSaid grew, I needed them to get my platform to the next level, because unless you're Dave Barry or Madonna, there's always a next level. Frankly, I'm just glad I have hair now. You know, in case The Today Show calls.

Funny or Die? Funny.

This post has nothing at all to do with writing and frankly, what I'm about to post is not-safe-for-work and can be crass. So if you're offended by R-rated themes, don't click!

BUT. I like to give props to good people who have good things happen to them, and to that end, two friends of mine from college just got named to EW's must list (that's Entertainment Weekly for those of you who aren't as obsessed with pop culture as I am) for their short film, Matumbo Goldberg, which is currently running on Will Ferrell's website, FunnyOrDie.com.

Check it out and then vote "funny!"

(Again, I don't want to offend anyone, so if you're pure of heart, feel free to ignore this!) :)

Are You a GoodReader?

(Hey Suzanne, I owe you that Jodi Picoult interview link: here ya go.)

Have you guys checked out the site, GoodReads.com? I'd think that anyone who is an avid reader would enjoy it. Basically, it's sort of like a Facebook for readers: people post objective reviews and comments on books and share those thoughts with their "friends." For some reason, I find the reviews there more objective than on Amazon, and I find the navigation a lot easier too - it's cool to see all the books someone has reviewed and their baseline for what they deem good vs. crappy, as well as what sorts of genre books he/she enjoys.

I only post about books I like, though plenty of people offer middling reviews. But as an author, I have no interest in eviscerating another author publicly, especially because I know that one person's trash is another person's treasure. I also suspect that it's a good tool for an author to reach readers, but I haven't quite figured out what tool that is yet. :) For now, I'm just enjoying the community.

Anyway, check it out. I'm curious what you guys think: is this just another time waster (for sure!) or a cool resource for readers who are always looking for recommendations? (Or my vote: both!)

How Backstory Makes the Book

All of this talk about backstory has me thinking about my next next book. I’ve given myself a May 1st deadline to come up with the concept because for whatever reason, I tend to write best over the spring and summer (random, I know!, but I also write best when I’m in my running routine, and I’m a fair weather runner – you won’t catch me out there in long underwear and gloves), so I know that I need to get crackin’.

For me, a book begins with a character and her backstory. Whether or not I fully integrate this backstory into the actual plot is one thing, but I’ve found that it’s easiest for me to hit the ground running (I guess both figuratively and literally!) when I have a full understanding of my protagonist - who she is, where she is in her life and where she’d like to go. A lot of the plot pieces fall into place as I write – I’m not the type of writer who lays everything out from the get-go – but as long as I have a full-bodied concept of my character’s backstory, I’m set.

For example, here’s how Time of My Life came about. I was chatting with one of my closest friends, who happened to be on vacation in a city where an ex-boyfriend currently lives. She and I were having one of those conversations that you can only have with your dearest confidantes, one in which she said, “I’m here and I’m so weirded out. I mean, what if I run into him? And I can’t stop thinking about what would have happened if we hadn’t broken up.” I concurred about the weirdness, having just visited a city of one of my ex-boyfriends, and we proceeded to talk about our various life decisions and how different - for better or worse - things could have been if these decisions had been tweaked. Then, eventually, we hung up, and I went for a run. As I circled the reservoir in Central Park, our words lingered in my head, and I was instantly struck with my character, Jillian. She came to me immediately, and I had a complete understanding of where she was in her life, why she was so discontent, and how she was haunted by her “what ifs.” (I've always been fascinated by this concept: how small changes can change the entire outcome of your life - if, say, I hadn't joined the gym at which I met my husband.) So I came home and wrote what are now the first 15 pages, sent them to my agent, and voila, a book was born. My vision of Jillian never wavered from that first moment because I understood her so completely. (I should note: I didn’t understand her because I share her sentiments, only that I could understand how she had gotten to where she'd gotten.) The rest of the book was up in the air – I had a general idea of what I wanted to do but the details fell into place as I went. But my character’s backstory held steady, and for me, that is what made this book.

For more backstories, check out Backstory.com. Maybe you’ll find some inspiration. But in the meantime, keep your ears open: you never know what will spark you next story idea.

Backed Up With Backstory

Question of the week: I'm currently working on my second manuscript in the mystery/suspense genre, but I'm having difficulty with the back story. How important or relevant is the back story? I find that the back story really slows down the first 50 pages of my manuscript, then it takes off after the murder takes place. What can I do for this?

Ugh. Backstory. The downfall of so many writers.

I've told this story on here right? The story of how the very first draft of The Department had an additional 99 pages (yes, 99) that my agent read and said, "Why do you need this? Everything in these pages can be cut, and you can open the book on page 100." And she was right: I was able to open with a diary entry that gave readers everything they needed to know about where my character was in her life and where she was headed.

That, to me, pretty much sums up how I feel about backstory and how it can really, really bog down a book. Plots need to be in perpetual motion - they always need to be moving the reader forward (especially, I should note, if this is the second in a series - some readers will already be in the know and will quickly find themselves bored with regurgitation of the facts). When you spend 50 (or in my case, 99) pages catching the reader up to the present, you've wasted precious space - and reader attention - when you should be able to start your book immediately in the present.

Another example (and I'm not trying to pimp this, I just think it's a good example of what I'm talking about): read the first chapter of Time of My Life. I learned my lesson with The Department, and I wasn't about to axe 99 pages again. (Oh, the agony!) In this one chapter, the reader learns everything she needs to know about the protagonist to move ahead. You learn, very succinctly, that she's in a tepid marriage, that she longs for days gone by, that she misses her job, that she's insecure about motherhood, that she's insecure about just about everything...well, you get the point. Sure, I could have spent the first five chapters citing various scenarios and crafting scenes to convey all of the above, but a better way is to hit the ground running: find a way to fill the reader in on all of this info in as short a span and as few pages as possible. Don't forget that you can always do quick flashbacks via your character (which I do in TOML) as the book progresses. But it would be, in my opinion, a big mistake to get bogged down in this from the get-go. A classic mistake, but a mistake nevertheless.

But what say you, readers? Have you ever gotten bogged down in backstory and if so, how did you fix it? Or how do you avoid this trap in the first place?

Get Going with the Grunt Work

***Don't forget to add your name to my mailing list on the below left! I promise to only send you a note when something really important happens. I swear!***

So I was googling Jodi Picoult the other day (thanks for the tip, Kristyn!), and started reading an interview with her that detailed her road to (overwhelming) success. It turns out that just like the rest of us, Ms. Picoult was once a nobody - someone with a day job that she didn't particularly love and someone who ran home at night and tucked in her kids and then started writing. What I found most interesting about the entire article was this quote:

"'Writing,' she says, offering me a slice of home-baked lemon and buttermilk sponge cake, 'is total grunt work. A lot of people think it's all about sitting and waiting for the muse. I don't buy that. It's a job. There are days when I really want to write, days when I don't. Every day I sit down and write. You can always edit something bad. You can't edit something blank. That has always been my mantra.'"

And the reason I loved it is because of late, I've had so many people tell me that they've written half of their manuscript and that's it, or really have a great idea for a novel but haven't started, or feel stuck and can't motivate to write...(people tend to mention these things once you've been published, trust me), and I always sort of want to shake them and say, "If you don't at least attempt to write it, you'll have nothing! You may as well try, because you can't end up any worse than where you are now - with nothing!" (And I'm not referring to any Ask Allison readers! These are all people in my real life, so don't worry!) Of course, it would be wildly inappropriate to shake said people at my son's school or at a dinner party or whatnot, but the overall point is true, and Picoult really drives this point home.

Look, writing can be total grunt work. It's not always - and often isn't - fun. There are times when I'm working on a manuscript when the last thing in the world that I want to do is actually write. But if I don't write...I'm left with nothing. That blank page doesn't fill up by itself. And since I'm the only one who can fill it - and really, that's the goal of this whole deal, to fill up enough pages until I've told a good story - I better get going. Even if every cell in my body is telling me to find yet another way to procrastinate. I had half a manuscript sitting on my computer for two years until I finally finished it. And it wasn't until I finished it that my career as a novelist started going somewhere. Because until I did - until you do - there's simply no place to go. Period.

Something is always better than nothing. Even if it's one page. Even if it's 15 minutes a day. You can manage that. It's a drop in the bucket.

So if you're stalled, remember that Jodi Picoult, just like the rest of us, starts with a blank page, and she has to work her way out of that hole. If she didn't try, she'd be left with nothing...and so too will you.

The Countdown Begins

I looked at the calendar today and couldn't believe it: I'm less than seven months out from publication. Which might sound like a really long time, but in the publishing world, it's not. It's really, really not. In fact, I just sent in my copy edits (for those of you unfamiliar with the process, this is an excruciating process in which you receive a hard copy of your manuscript with red pencil all over every tiny grammatical error or non-literal word use or typo...in other words, NOT FUN!), and I should be getting galleys fairly soon. Yikes! And with galleys, so begins the big promo push.

So now, I'm engaged in that age-old debate: do I or do I not hire an outside publicist? Every single published author I've ever met has encountered this question, and even though I've been through the process before, I'm still as confused as ever. The thing is this: outside publicists are very, very costly and the truth is that you can't really quantify what exactly they do for your sales. And one of the reasons that you can't quantify this is because no one in the industry really has any freakin' idea as to what sells books. Well, sure, co-op space does (the space at the front of the store where new books are presented - publishers pay for that) and a large print run often does too because it increases visibility (though having a huge print run can also backfire), but other than that? No one really knows. A friend recently asked me if getting reviewed in Redbook, Marie Claire, etc, really helped boost sales, and I could only say, "I have no idea! In theory, I'd think so, but I have no concrete proof of this." And it's true...I'm not entirely convinced that reviews boost sales except in huge named places like People.

That said, of course you still want to receive this exposure, and thus, I'm right back into the do-I-hire-someone-else debate. I'm really excited because my in-house team is evidently doing a lot for both me and the book...but still. You hate to wake up one week after your publication date and think, "If only..." And I did feel that way with The Department, for sure, and by that point, there was little more that could be done.

Frankly, I'm not convinced that your book can do really well if you don't have a healthy print run. (Exceptions aside, which we discussed a few weeks ago.) I really believe, as do a lot of other writer friends, that if your book isn't saturating the market, it doesn't matter how many reviews you have: you're screwed. So I'm also having that chicken-egg debate: what if I hire a publicist and I have a crap print run? Then what? But maybe this publicist can get me some great clips and placements, which might excite the sales team enough to do a hard sell and thus increase my print run? (Print runs are usually based on how many books the sales team has initially sold to stores.)

Argh. Who the hell knows? It's all a toss-up, and for me, that only adds to the stress of the decision.

In the meantime, one thing that I know DOES work is emailing directly with readers. So, if you're interested, please sign up to be notified about my latest news. (I promise I'll only send a note when it's important!) See that box to your left? Yeah, enter your name there. Thanks!

So readers and authors who have BTDT, what do you think is the best thing an author can do to promote herself? Anyone hired an outside publicist and found it worth the money?

Climbing the Platform, Part Deux

Question of the day: Would you consider the fiction equivalent to platform building akin to attending conferences or networking in genre specific group, for instance RWA, or entering writing contests, short story, first chapter, etc? In those instances, do you have to walk a fine line between the value and exposure of those experiences against allowing those venues to keep you from finishing the novel, or the query, to ultimately get you published?

Building a platform, whether in the fiction or non-fiction arena, is all about name-recognition, something that will set you apart from the thousands of others who do exactly what you do - i.e., write a decent-good book on a specific subject or in a specific genre - and that will give a publisher reason to choose you over the thousands of others. As far as fiction goes, as I mentioned before, having a strong platform isn't as necessary as in non-fiction: the average debut novelist probably isn't a household name, but if you are one, or if your name is at least recognizable in some circles, certainly, this will help your cause.

I'm sure that being a member of RWA and the like will help you network, which will undoubtedly help your career (and as I noted last week, having writer friends is invaluable), but I'm not sure that this is part of a "platform" in the truest definition of the word. Landing your short stories in notable journals or winning/placing in contests is...sort of. What these credits really mean is not so much that you'll sell more books because people know your name but that you're a better writer than most aspiring writers, and chances are, you'll be taken more seriously from the query letter on up.

If you're serious about pursuing your fiction - and most of you are - I do think the best thing you can do is write the best possible book and not worry about the rest. Enter contests and land short stories if they fit into your game plan, but as you noted in your question, they can distract from your ultimate goal, which write an incredible book and then sell it. There are enough landmines to worry about in this industry - don't complicate it if you don't have to. (Non-fiction is an entirely different ballgame. Then you can sweat it because yeah, you have to.)

But what say you readers? If you're aiming to be a published fiction writer, have you built your platform? If so, how? And if not, why?

(P.S. - I hope this post is coherent. I'm unthinkably exhausted from the weekend, and I'm not sure if I'm making sense!)

Getting By With a Little Help

...From my friends.

Today's post is over on Writer Unboxed and is all about why I think it's so important to surround yourself with writer pals. While we're on the subject, thanks to ALL OF YOU who have become one of my networks of support. I always appreciate your comments, insights and humor!

More Great Blogs

I just received a note letting me know that Ask Allison has been named one of the top 100 blogs for freelancers. Whoohoo! I'm so excited because that's the goal here: to give a little bit of perspective from someone who has BTDT.

I know that you guys are always looking for new and better resources, so if you want to check out the list and find some new blogs and sites to peruse, here ya go:

http://www.businesscreditcards.com/bootstrapper/the-top-100-freelancer-blogs/.

Goodbye Dear Friends

You have been with me through thick and thin - literally - through two pregnancies; through the conception and drafting and publication of one, nearly two, books; through fall and winter and spring (though I tend to lose contact a bit over the summer); through, well, just about everything.

But our relationship is well, literally beginning to thin. It's fraying and stained and frankly, unsightly. I suspect that people are starting to comment.

So it's with much sorrow that I'm saying goodbye. I've loved you so, so much and you've been of great support.

Goodbye my beloved Gap Kids velour sweatpants. For the past six years, you've provided unimaginable amounts of comfort. But your waistbands have popped and your legs are gnarly, and well, it's all gotten a little embarrassing.

So while I love you dearly, it's time to look for something new. As I case the racks of J.Crew and yes, Gap Kids (always return to the place of your first love), know that I'll think of you fondly and smile.

(Hey readers, where do you get your favorite lounge wear? As you can tell, I'm in need of an upgrade, but I need a 30" inseam and everything other than kids wear and J.Crew petites is too long!)

The Truth Behind The Myths

Lately, I've been running headfirst into all kinds of questions and people who seem to totally not get how this industry works or what life is like as a full-time writer. I don't blame (or begrudge) some of these people or comments...I mean, I get how you can be pretty clueless about my job if you've never dipped your toe in this arena, but still....If I'm told one more time by a person with no writing experience or background whatsoever that "I want to do what you do - work from home and make money - how do I do it?," my head is going to explode.

So, to that end, I reveal my top five myths (and truths) about publishing. Have some others? Weigh in on the comments section.

1) This job is a piece of cake/a dime a dozen/insert cliche that implies lack of ass-busting work and a dash of talent. I am, I like to think and verified by those around me, a very easy-going gal. Not a lot ruffles my feathers. But so help me God, if one more friend of a friend of a friend (no, not you dear Ask Allison readers, whom I know are at least moderately invested in your careers) writes me or calls me or stops me at some social function and says, "Ooh, how can I get in on that," as if any old Joe can do what I do...well, as stated above, head meet explosion. The truth is that there aren't a lot of industries with higher failure rates (and lower success rates), and just because you have an idea for a book or 30 pages somewhere in the dredges of your hard drive, that doesn't mean squat. It certainly doesn't qualify you to assume that what I do is easy, nor that you could just slide in and assume my career as your own. UGH. Pet peeve.

2) That Oprah Will Love My Book. Even my dear mother, whom I love to pieces, suggested at some point that, "now, all I need to do is get The Department on Oprah." Well, mom, (and everyone else!), DUH! Wouldn't that be lovely? Of course it would! But Oprah (and the Today Show, etc) are but pipe dreams for the average lot of us, so let's just be happy with the kudos and press we do receive and stop pretending that the world's most influential television figure would even care a flying fig about us. 'Kay?

3) That Film Rights are a Given. Most writers fantasize about Julia Roberts and George Clooney or Reese Witherspoon embodying their characters. (Well, they might fantasize about Clooney for entirely other reasons as well.) Most writers will be sorely disappointed. The truth is that selling a book is damn hard. Selling the movie rights is damn harder. Actually getting the movie made is damn near impossible. Sort of like making the all-star team and then being selected as MVP. It happens. (And I hope it happens to me and in the near future.) But you can't - and shouldn't - spend a hell of a lot of time worrying and/or dreaming about it.

4) That Selling Your Book = Financially Loaded. The average fiction book advance hovers in the four-digits. I have no idea why people assume that when you land a book deal, you're also on the way to easy street...but people do. I can't tell you the number of off-hand comments I get. The truth is that - while this isn't a scientific number or anything like that - I'd venture to say that 95% of first-time published writers keep their day jobs. My advance was significantly higher than the average first-timer's, and after my agent's cut and taxes...I kept right on writing for my other clients.

5) That Writers Lead Lives of Leisure. True, I do wear sweatpants just about every day. (A habit I've tried in vain to break but just can't! Summer can't get here fast enough so I can at least switch over to shorts.) But I work damn hard. In my early days, my husband called this "hustling." I had so many balls in the air that I nearly had whiplash, but in trying to establish myself, I had no other option. These days, I've slowed down a bit due to a variety of reasons, not least my two kids, but that doesn't mean that I still don't hit the ground running. I have no idea why people think writers are lazy - maybe it's the sweatpants or the failure rate? - but to them, I say, "Try my job for a month, and then report back to me." Oh yeah, see #1. Good luck with that.

Working Without a Net

Or a contract that is...

Question of the week: Do you always ask for a contract if the publisher doesn't mention it in your initial contacts? What if they say 'no!' Update to this question: I haven't received the contract despite an impending deadline...what should I do?

Truth told, in recent years, I've never worked for a magazine or client who hasn't offered a contract, but yes, if one isn't mentioned in the initial email or phone exchange, I would simply ask, "When can I expect the contract, as I'd like to get started on this right away." This implies that a) you have the expectation of establishing proof of assignment and terms of said assignment and b) you're still eager to tackle it but won't tackle it without documentation.

If they say "no?" I'd walk away. Because if someone firmly refuses to give you contract, even something loose like putting the terms in an email, then I'd think the publication or editor was dodgy.

That said, I certainly have started working on assignments before I'd received the actual contract, but only for clients with whom I have an established relationship. For example, I write often for a certain magazine that has very tight turn-around times and requires hard-to-nab interviews. I've been writing for this client for years: there is no doubt that they'll pay me and pay me promptly. By the time the editor gets the contract request into whomever processes the contract, I'd have long missed my chance to nail down my sources. SO. In this case, I move ahead, knowing full-well that everything is on the up-and-up. Some writers won't do this. Some insist on waiting for the written contract, and I understand why they do this, but for me, it works best to be flexible and make certain exceptions.

In your case, however, this is a first-time client (as elaborated on in the email), so I'd never proceed until something materialized. Now, with a looming deadline, I'd send her another note or better yet, pick up the phone and say something sweet yet pointed, along the lines of, "You know how excited I am about this project but I simply can't proceed without a contract. As you may know, my deadline is imminent, so in order to complete this on time, please let me know when I can expect the contract." If your editor still hedges, I'd take it as a much bigger sign of problems to come with this publication, and I'd walk.

Readers, what say you? Do you work without contracts, and if so, have you ever gotten burned?

BTDT (Been There, Done That)

Someone recently asked me what my best advice is for newbie writers, and I wanted to inhale and ask her how long she had. I've been doing this for a long time, or at least what feels like a long time, and the truth is that there's no better experience than on-the-job training. I mean, there is no doubt that some of my lessons have been learned the hard way and frankly, that sort of lesson is invaluable...sort of like how I believe that kids have to pull themselves up from their bootstraps to really grow into themselves...but that doesn't mean that I can't pass on what I believe is my best advice. So here goes.

1) Develop a THICK - we're talking industrial-grade - skin. I was born with too much self-confidence. This, at times, has proven disastrous when I refused to acknowledge that a boyfriend (or two) might be trying to break up with me or other such scenarios. However, it has proven to be among my best assets in this industry. I honestly couldn't give two figs if a pitch or an article gets rejected. Their loss, I think. No matter how brilliant you are, you will get rejected and often in this line of work. If you don't have the stomach for it - and there's no shame in that at all (in fact, you'd be a lot wiser than I am), find something else to do.

2) Be aggressive. I'm reminded of that old cheer from summer camp: "BE AGGRESSIVE, Be, Be, aggressive. B-e-a-g-g-r-e-s-s-i-v-e. Aggressive!" You get the point. No one gets ahead in the freelance world by lobbing off on email to an editor and hoping that he/she will respond. Follow up. Follow up again. If you get a nibble, even if it's not a bite, keep pursuing it. Too many writers, in my opinion, treat editors as if they are Gods, so don't use common sense when it comes to establishing themselves. In any other line of work, you'd go after that promotion or that new job. The same is true here.

3) Be Impeccable. Too many freelancers make mistakes and their editors are there to fill in the gaps. They notice. They notice misspellings, fact errors, missed deadlines. There are too many others writers who are willing to slide into your place, and if an editor thinks you're second rate, you're also history.

4) Don't Be Afraid to Suck. Yes, this is a complete contradiction to #3. But in this case, I'm referring to fiction, not magazines. With fiction, it's entirely okay to explore your capabilities because often, you're only writing for yourself. Experiment with different voices, different points-of-view, different characters. Some will work, some won't. Nothing's wrong with abandoning your manuscript if it's crap. Chances are you learned something along the way and you'll be better for it the next time out.

5) Listen to Criticism With Open Ears (and an Open Mind). Nothing irritates me more than writers who don't think that they can get better. (Okay, that's not true, a lot of things irritate me more, but you get my point.) If you're lucky enough to have someone take enough interest in your work to offer constructive criticism, you'd be wise to shrug off your ego (get over it already!), digest the advice and then apply it to your work. Being pig-headed about it might soothe that ego, but it won't land you a book deal.

So I think those are my top tips. There are dozens of others, of course, but that's a starting point. Now it's your chance to chime in. What is your best advice to pass along to other writers?

Climbing the Platform

So I posted something last week about whether or not you should have your agent land you magazine pieces, and my answer to said question was no, almost universally. But it was mentioned in the comments section that one reader was told by a perspective agent to wait to pitch magazines until she'd sold her book, the thinking being that as a soon-to-be published writer, she'd have an easier time landing gigs.

I wanted to take a second to talk about why I think this is terrible advice and why having a platform is so critical to selling a book these days. (Courtney - please note that this post totally isn't aimed at you! I just think it raised an interesting topic that I wanted to elaborate on!)

To begin with: platform: defined as a presence, ideally national, at which you are recognized in your area of expertise (maybe you're an master florist or more likely, a famous doctor) or your work (maybe your byline is in every magazine known to man).

Establishing a platform certainly raises the chicken or the egg conundrum: how on earth are you supposed to get famous if you need to be famous to get famous in the first place? Follow? In simpler terms - a lot of aspiring writers worry (partially justifiably) that they need some name recognition to get published but getting published in the first place is what will give them the name recognition. Chicken. Egg.

And that's the problem I have with the advice that sparked this whole post. These days, like it or not, it is incredibly hard to land a book deal. That's just the truth. If you're aiming to publish non-fiction (self-help, etc), you'll have almost an impossible time of it without a platform or without a co-author who has a platform. So to wait to aim for magazines until after you've landed a book deal...well, you might be waiting until you're old and withered because it likely won't happen. While a platform isn't as critical for nabbing a fiction deal (and maybe a memoir deal, though it certainly helps to be famous), it can still help immeasurably. Did the fact that I am relatively well-known in the magazine world land me my first deal? No. The manuscript did. Did it help boost my advance significantly? Without a doubt. My publisher was paying me for my connections and for the fact that I might gain more national exposure than someone who hadn't written for all of these magazines.

Building a platform isn't easy. But I think that's a discussion for another day. And one worth having. But to wait until your platform comes to you...well, foot meet trigger, and pull.

What say you readers? Has your platform (or lack thereof) helped or hindered you in your quest for publication?

Motivation, Where Are You???

So there's been some discussion on a writers' board I frequent about motivation and how to stay interested and energized day in and day out with your writing. I thought this was a fantastic discussion for the blog because I feel like I'm smacked with ennui several times a year, and I know that I'm not alone in this.

For me, the best way to deal with the blahs is to branch out into something new. In this sense, writing is no different than any other job - everyone needs to change things up every now and then. That's honestly why I started writing fiction: I just got tired of the constant deadlines of the magazine work and writing piece after piece on subjects that I already knew about. What I loved most about magazine writing when I first started out was that I was learning so damn much. I mean, if you write about a variety of subjects and interview enough experts, you're bound to soak up reams of info yourself...but after a while, especially to maximize your time to money ratio, you tend to cover similar subjects over and over...and well, that's just not the best way to feed your brain, though it does help feed your bank account.

So, I started writing fiction in my off-hours. Turned out that initially, I wasn't so great at it. But it didn't matter! It energized me, made me fall back in love with writing, and that energy carried over to my magazine assignments, which I returned to with a renewed vigor.

But now, having just been given the official sign off on Time of My Life (my editor deemed it, "perfect!"), I'm faced with diving back into the grind, and lemme tell you, it's not coming easily. I have enough time to now tackle more work but I'm dragging my feet because I'm waiting for something to jump out and inspire me. Maybe it's my next book? I dunno: I'm brainstorming ideas, but I've found that brainstorming doesn't work best for me - I just need to be struck like lightening with an idea and characters, so...eh...that's not filling too much of my time. I'm staying busy with celebrity stuff and various mag work here and there...but still, I'm weighted down with that weird feeling of being both antsy and bored.

Normally, I'd take a day or two off and kick around to renew my enthusiasm - and in many cases, I think this is exactly what works - play hooky, do something you love, take a walk - and you'll return to your computer raring to go. But in my case, I'm not sure. Honestly, I think that maybe on solution is to return to work full-blast: I find that when I'm working on a ton of stuff, I have less time to think about being bored, and thus, voila, I am less bored and more stimulated by what I'm doing.

But...eh....I don't know. I'm guessing that I haven't fully laid my characters from Time of My Life to rest, and once I've fully gestated that book, I'll be fired up to move on to something bigger and better. (Which, in the meantime, means I have a lot of time for twiddling my thumbs.)

So what do you guys do when either daily or more long-term blahs hit?

Paperback!

So...if you didn't feel like shelling out for the 24 bucks for the hardcover version of The Department, now's your chance to pre-order the paperback, which will be out in late April.

Snap it up from Amazon now! Come on...it's only $11! (And yes, there's a cover change which I will discuss on the blog in the future, so no, you're not looking at the wrong book.)

Which Comes First: The Agent or The Article?

Question of the day: when I pitch a query to a magazine, is it helpful to have my agent do it for me? I.e., is it more likely to get accepted if it comes from her?

My immediate gut answer to this is a resounding "no." I've written probably somewhere in the hundreds of articles and never once has my agent pitched one for me. The reasons for this are several: 1) most magazine articles pay, at most, several thousand dollars (the bigger magazines usually pay about $2 a word, and few places assign more than 2000 words these days, and rarely do you even get 2000 words), so really, it's not worth your agent's time to nab a couple hundred dollars from these pieces. 2) There is absolutely no reason for your agent to be your go-between. Editors aren't interested in dealing with a middleman: they want to deal directly with a polished, professional, fun, breezy writer - adding your agent into the mix just complicates things. 3) As I alluded to in #2, agents are unnecessary in this process: what lands you an assignment is coming up with a unique, kick-ass idea, crafting that into a wonderful query, then emailing it to the appropriate editor. An agent can't help you do any of the above better than you can on your own.

That said, I *do* think an agent (and/or your publicist) can help open doors when it comes to the biggies: The New Yorker, The Atlantic, even something like Modern Love in the NY Times (though I know people who have been published in that column by simply emailing in their essay, and I also know others who succeeded with the help of their publicist). Unlike the service magazines like SELF or GLAMOUR or whatnot, these magazines are harder to break into than the toughest NYC private school (which these days, can be harder to get into than Harvard...seriously), and having an agent demonstrates (fairly or not) that you're already a cut above some other writers. (And I don't mean to imply that service magazines aren't hard to break into. They are. I tried for years to crack GLAMOUR and did a joy dance when I finally did. I only mean that there's a leap, in terms of exclusivity, from these huge national magazines to the even more upper-tier, more literary mags.)

So, for the most part, my long answer to your short question is that no, you don't need your agent to land you a gig. Save that 15% for a celebratory gift when your query gets accepted.

What say you, readers? Ever used an agent to land you an article?

Oscars...

Admin note: I have just a few more questions to burn through and answer on here, so now is a good time to send any questions my way. I'm looking for new things to blog about these days, so don't be shy! allison@allisonwinn.com

So I'm watching the world's most boring red carpet and Oscar ceremony (though Jon Stewart is actually cracking me up, so at least there's that), and am pretty brain-dead from the weekend, so I'm not sure that I have anything insightful to post.

But I will say that several book adaptations are up for Oscars, and this sparked a discussion tonight with my husband, who couldn't believe that when a movie's film rights get picked up, that's it's not an automatic cool million dollar pay-off. He said something along the lines of, "But without the writers, there would be no movie!"

To which, I'm like, "Duh. Sweetie, welcome to the writer's strike of '07...go walk the picket line!"

Anyhoo, as I mentioned to him, the real bonus of getting your book turned into film is the fact that you'll reap royalties up the booty. Sure, that initial payoff is fabulous, (I think on average, these pick-ups are probably in the six figures - correct me if I'm wrong - but it's usually just a one-time pay out), but the royalties and sales of the book go on forever. And that, at least metaphorically, is priceless. (Even though it's anything but.)

Okay, sorry for the mindless post. I'm back to watching the awards to see who assess who's the worst-dressed, and this year, for the first time in so long, there are a lot to choose from.

On the Mommy Track

Question of the day: A personal question, if you don't mind: everyone says that when you have a baby you can pretty much forget about writing for the first year or two, but it looks like you're handling it fine. How do you do it?

Wow, I had no idea that everyone says this, and if everyone does say that, I think it's a big old bag of hooey that might give women a reason to toss out their figurative pens when a baby comes along.

For me, a funny thing happened on the way to motherhood: I became more productive than I was pre-kids. Frankly, I can't even remember what I did with my time pre-kids. Seriously. I sometimes say to my husband, "What did we do? I mean, really, how did we fill our time??" I'm sure we found some way to fill it, but the sense of urgency wasn't there. For example, I'm writing this blog post right now because I'm eyeing the clock and see that I have exactly one hour before my nanny leaves, and I sure as hell better get every last thing done that I need to get done before dinner/bath/bedtime happens. Which is a long-winded way of saying that because I have fewer hours for my work during the day, I tend to make more of them than when I had as many hours as I wanted.

So I don't buy this theory that you can't write once you have kids. In fact, I just interviewed a TV actress who said that having kids has made her all the more creative because it's opened her heart and mind in so many ways, illuminating all sorts of things that she previously missed in the world. And I concur completely.

Look, there's no doubt that kids can take over all aspects of your life if you let them (or if you want them too). I'm not one of those moms who wants them too. I love my kids more than ANYTHING on the planet, but I still need to feed other parts of myself, so...I have help when I need it (a la, my sitter), and I pour every last thing into those hours that I can. Whether or not you can afford help, there are often ways to get a repreive during the day: organize a neighborhood sitting system with four other moms, in which each of you watches the others' kids one day a week, freeing up three days for your work. Ask a family member to drop in several times a week. Hire a high schooler on the cheap.

To buy into the theory that you can't devote time to the inner-writer in you just because you're a mom (or dad) really sells everyone (and everything) short: you, your kids, and finally, your work.

So all you moms (or dads!) out there, tell me, has motherhood made you more or less productive?