It seems that for people who are supposed to be in the imagination business, an awful lot of writers check their imagination at the door when it comes to marketing their books.
I am a “member” of so many Facebook writer/fiction/reader groups I lose track of them. Some of them have a No Spam rule which is enforced with varying degrees of militancy. What they all have in common is that their “Rule” is ignored.
It’s even worse in the Kindle reader forums. Amazon has recently added to its Terms of Service a prohibition on their authors using the reader forums to post product links to their own work. There are dozens of forum members who quite assiduously enforce this rule, and they make no bones about it. They even started a thread dedicated to telling authors to stop spamming. It’s up to 71 pages, some of it argument and objection from writers. There is that sort of personality who either can’t read, can’t obey, or just is oblivious to the concept of common courtesy.
On the Authonomy website, there is a designated forum thread called Shameless Plugs. Back in the stone age when I was hanging around there, many writers used that thread to invent very clever and often hilarious methods of promoting their work. The Art of BSP was raised to dizzying heights, and it garnered appreciation, and resultant reward, from many participants.
But things have changed. The raucous marketplace of fiction has been infiltrated by pickpockets and knock-off watch salesmen. The art of promotion has been soiled by rank carnival barkers. The clever loquaciousness of the snake oil salesman has been drowned out by pamphleteers, panhandlers, peddlers of paper roses. Subtle enticement has been overrun by BUY MY BOOK!
Selling a work of fiction is not like a Jerky Boys routine.
So here’s a little public service message I hope my friends will pass along. Readers deserve better.
Filed under: Book Marketing | 7 Comments
Tags: crime fiction, pete morin, small fish, spam
The Law Is an Ass
Well, okay, not the law per se.
Reading my weekly legal newspaper (Mass Lawyers Weekly) is rarely this entertaining.
One John Queenan sought to buy himself some alcohol at a local package store (that’s the New England idiom for liquor store). Detecting that Mr. Queenan was unsteady on his feet, the female attend demurred. Queenan sought to explain his unsteady gait, telling the clerk he had a new artificial leg. She was unconvinced.
So Queenan dropped trou. Not just his trousers, but his tightey-whiteys too.
He was arrested, prosecuted and convicted of indecent exposure.
The Massachusetts Appeals Court reversed his conviction. It seems that under Massachusetts law, it isn’t enough that you expose yourself in public. The prosecution must prove that you offended someone. Here, when asked if she was offended, the clerk said, “to be perfectly honest, it didn’t bother me.”
Queenan’s defense lawyer explained:
“The prosecutor kept asking the clerk, ‘how did you feel about seeing the penis?’ and she kept saying it was no big deal and she felt sorry for the guy.”
Insert small penis jokes.
[We're fiction writers - and we can't make up stuff any better than this.]
Filed under: law and lawyers, literature, Uncategorized | 16 Comments
Tags: criminal law, indecent exposure, liquor, package store, penis
You Dirty Rotten ^%@$#@^$
Every novelist worth his Mont Blanc has to know something about libel law.
In fact, anyone with a mouth, an opinion and an inclination to express it should, because there are a lot of thin-skinned people out there, and even more hungry lawyers. So today I’m going to talk a little about insults.
[NOTE: The law of defamation[1] is rooted in the common law. Consequently, the principles that guide it are somewhat uniform in the United States. I am going to use generalities, but as you will see, the case law comes from all corners. Disclaimer: the following is not legal advice, you are not my client, and you are to take none of this as an invitation to say nasty things about others.]
There is a widespread misconception that defamation law protects the individual from the ridicules and insults of his detractors. Quite the opposite is true. As a general rule, “epithets, rhetorical hyperbole, or pure statements of opinion” are not actionable. Lyons v. Globe Newspaper Co., 415 Mass. 258 (1993).
It is true that a statement is defamatory if holds one “up to contempt, hatred, scorn, or ridicule or tend to impair his standing in the community, at least to his discredit in the minds of a considerable and respectable class in the community.” Tartaglia v. Townsend, 19 Mass. App. Ct. 693 (1985). You’d think that included insults and mockery. It does not. An epithet that constitutes “a lusty and imaginative expression of the contempt” does not entitle the victim to relief. National Ass’n of Letter Carriers, AFL-CIO v. Austin, 418 U.S. 264 (1974). To be defamatory, the statement has to assert facts, not opinion, no matter how vicious it is.
Here are some colorful examples:
In Fleming v. Benzaquin, 390 Mass. 175, 180 (1983), radio host Paul Benzaquin referred to the hapless Fleming as “arrogant,” a “little monkey,” “tough guy,” “absolute barbarian,” “lunkhead,” “meathead,” and “nut.” These insults were deemed “no more than either Benzaquin’s ‘harsh judgment,’ ‘mere vituperation and abuse.’”
Benzaquin’s insults aren’t the most opprobrious examples of protected hyperbole, either. In Travers v. Shane, 4 Mass. L. Rep. 141, 142-143 (1995), “fat, f***ing, disgusting bitch” didn’t make the grade. In Puccia v. Edwards, 10 Mass. L. Rep. 185 at 11(1999), the defendant’s accusation that Puccia was a “racist” and a “harasser” was found to be protected opinion. In, Tech Plus Inc. v. Ansel, 9 Mass. L. Rep. 671 (1999), accusing someone of anti-Semitism and mental instability was not actionable.
In Lane v. Bump, 1995 Mass. Super LEXIS 117, the defendant’s characterization of Lane as incompetent and fraudulent was likewise protected opinion. In Hyatt v. Lucas, 1995 Mass. Super LEXIS 35, an editorial opinion’s reference to Hyatt as a “flasher” was protected opinion.
But my favorite is the California case of Ferlauto v. Hamsher, 74 Cal. App. 4th 1394 (1999), where the plaintiff (a lawyer no less) was called “a whore’s son,” “full of shit,’” “Kmart Johnnie Cochran,” “loser wannabe lawyer,” “creepazoid attorney,” and “meanest, greediest, low-blowing motherfucker.” Toughen up, counselor, you’re out.
In Greenbelt Cooperative Publishing Assn. v. Bresler, 398 U.S. 6, 14 (1970), the use of word “blackmail” to describe a developer’s tactics was not libelous as matter of Constitutional law. In National Ass’n of Letter Carriers, supra at 284-286 (1974), the use of the word “traitor” in literary definition of a union “scab” was not actionable defamation. In Woodcock v. Journal Pub. Co., 230 Conn. 525, 540 (1994), accusations that a planning board member was engaged in “back room deals” did not support a verdict of libel. In Lizotte v. Welker, 45 Conn. Supp. 217(1996), newspaper’s reference to Plaintiff’s settlement with the zoning board as an “illegal deal” and “illegal out-of-court settlement” was not libelous. In Pullum v. Johnson, 647 So. 2d 254 (1994), calling the Plaintiff as a “drug pusher” was deemed incapable of defamatory meaning in the context of a hotly contested political debate. And last but not least, in Steinhilber v. Alphonse, 68 N.Y.2d 283 (1986) the use of language to refer to a union scab as “fat, ugly, backstabbing, lacking in talent or ambition” was not actionable, in context of labor dispute.
So there you have it. Namecalling is a popular American sport, and we play it with gusto.
To be in danger of a libel suit, you must assert facts that are defamatory, and those must be proven false. If the facts asserted cannot be proven false, they cannot be libelous.
Not that this would stop the next Kmart Johnny Cochran.
[1] Defamation can be made by oral statement (slander) or written statement (libel).
Filed under: Craft, Peter Morin | 14 Comments
Tags: defamation, fat ugly bitch, fiction, insults, libel, pete morin
The Winters of Our Discontent
Today I have the rare opportunity to blog on a subject that combines all three of my current professional occupations: fiction, music and law.
In my internet meandering, I notice this question is asked over and over: Can you use the likeness of a famous person in your creative work, and under what circumstances?
Today, we will look at the case of Edgar Winter et al v DC Comics, 30 Cal 4th 881 (2003), for an answer to that question.
As a teenage Rock & Roller, I was a huge fan of Johnny Winter and his brother, Edgar. I saw Johnny live in concert at least a half-dozen times, and his brother twice with him and once on his own with Rick Derringer (Rock & Roll Hootchie Koo, anyone?). One of the first LPs I owned was First Winter, featuring the incomparable Leland Mississippi Blues. I still have it (in a box somewhere in that drafty barn).
Johnny was one of the greatest guitar players ever (he is now a severely debilitated shadow of his former self), and Edgar one of the most brilliant songwriters (and a ridiculous saxophonist and keyboardist). But besides being extraordinary musicians, the Winter brothers are best know for their very unusual physical appearance: flowing white hair and pale skin (I always thought their being over 6’ tall and rail thin counted for something too). The Winter brothers’ albino condition gave them something of cult hero status, I believed then, and it seems that DC Comics agreed.
In the 1990′s, DC Comics published a five-volume comic miniseries featuring “Jonah Hex,” a fictional comic book “anti-hero.” The series contains an outlandish plot, involving giant worm-like creatures, singing cowboys, and the “Wilde West Ranch and Music and Culture Emporium,” named for and patterned after the life of Oscar Wilde.
The cover of volume 4, titled “The Autumns of Our Discontent,” features brothers Johnny and Edgar Autumn, with pale faces and long white hair. One brother wears a stovepipe hat and red sunglasses, and holds a rifle. The second has red eyes and holds a pistol. They are depicted as villainous half-worm, half-human offspring born from the rape of their mother by a supernatural worm creature that had escaped from a hole in the ground. At the end of volume 5, Jonah Hex and his companions shoot and kill the Autumn brothers in an underground gun battle.
Johnny and Edgar sued DC Comics alleging several causes of action including appropriation of their names and likenesses. They alleged that the defendants selected the names Johnny and Edgar Autumn to signal readers the Winter brothers were being portrayed; that the Autumn brothers were drawn with long white hair and albino features similar to plaintiffs’; that the Johnny Autumn character was depicted as wearing a tall black top hat similar to the one Johnny Winter often wore; and that the title of volume 4, Autumns of Our Discontent, refers to the famous Shakespearian phrase, “the winter of our discontent.” They also alleged that the comics falsely portrayed them as “vile, depraved, stupid, cowardly, subhuman individuals who engage in wanton acts of violence, murder and bestiality for pleasure and who should be killed.”
So then, can the Winter brothers protect themselves from this sort of artistic free speech?
The California Supreme Court said no. Drawing on the test it had earlier developed in another celebrity case involving another beloved iconic group of the past – The Three Stooges – the Court outlined its distinction between economic theft of celebrity image and artistic free speech protected by the First Amendment.
“When artistic expression takes the form of a literal depiction or imitation of a celebrity for commercial gain, directly trespassing on the right of publicity without adding significant expression beyond that trespass, the state law interest in protecting the fruits of artistic labor outweighs the expressive interests of the imitative artist….
“On the other hand, when a work contains significant transformative elements, it is not only especially worthy of First Amendment protection, but it is also less likely to interfere with the economic interest protected by the right of publicity. . . . [W]orks of parody or other distortions of the celebrity figure are not, from the celebrity fan’s viewpoint, good substitutes for conventional depictions of the celebrity and therefore do not generally threaten markets for celebrity memorabilia that the right of publicity is designed to protect.”
“Transformative elements,” then, are essential ingredients in artistic expression that uses the name or likeness of a public figure.
What are these “transformative elements” the court needs to see?
Were you hoping for a simple list that you can commit to memory? I hope not.
Borrowing somewhat from the federal courts’ infamously vague articulation of the considerations used in determining whether the fair use doctrine is properly invoked, The California Supreme Court articulated its own “test” (or riddle, of you will) in the Three Stooges Case.
Okay, so here’s the test.
…whether the new work merely ‘supersede[s] the objects’ of the original creation, [citations], or instead adds something new, with a further purpose or different character, altering the first with new expression, meaning, or message…
Need examples?
“Trading cards” caricaturing and parodying well-known major league baseball players (they “provide social commentary on public figures, major league baseball players, who are involved in a significant commercial enterprise, major league baseball.” Cardtoons v. Major League Baseball Players (10th Cir. 1996) 95 F.3d 959.
“Factual reporting” – (see, e.g., Rosemont Enterprises, Inc. v. Random House, Inc. (1968) 58 Misc.2d 1.
“Fictionalized portrayal” – Guglielmi v. Spelling-Goldberg Productions (1979) 25 Cal. 3d 860; Parks v. Laface Records (E.D.Mich. 1999) 76 F. Supp.2d 775 [use of civil rights figure Rosa Parks in song title is protected expression])
“Heavy-handed lampooning” – Hustler Magazine v. Falwell (1988) 485 U.S. 46
“Subtle social criticism” – Coplans et al., Andy Warhol (1970) pp. 50-52 [explaining Warhol's celebrity portraits as a critique of the celebrity phenomenon].
But there’s also another inquiry that courts “may find useful.” (See why so many lawyers are rich?):
Does the marketability and economic value of the challenged work derive primarily from the fame of the celebrity depicted? If this question is answered in the negative, then there would generally be no actionable right of publicity. When the value of the work comes principally from some source other than the fame of the celebrity–from the creativity, skill, and reputation of the artist–it may be presumed that sufficient transformative elements are present to warrant First Amendment protection.
Okay, then this is necessary? Ooerr…
“If the question is answered in the affirmative, however, it does not necessarily follow that the work is without First Amendment protection–it may still be a transformative work.”
Oh my. So much for a Bright Line.
Sometimes I get cynical and suspect that judges do this on purpose, just to perpetuate the legal profession.
I have my own rule of thumb. If I ever choose to portray someone famous, I’m going to lampoon the hell out of them. You seem to be perfectly safe if you stick to parody.
Just don’t lampoon a judge.
Filed under: Uncategorized | 11 Comments
Tags: andy warhol, dc comics, edgar winter, fair use, free speech, hustler magazine, jerry falwell, johnny winter, noah hex, three stooges
Joining the Scrum
Last week, my friend Jill Marsh invited me to guest blog on her site. Jill is a UK writer based in Swizerland whom I met at The Bookshed, which you will see below. I thought I’d repost it here. Hi Jillie!
Some of this might sound repetitive to regulars. It’s a story I’ve told before, but honestly, I’m still pinching myself over this whole experience.
________________
Jill asked me to share that part of my journey wherein I decided to ditch my pursuit of the Holy Grail of traditional publication and join the ranks of the Great Unwashed (that’s how Big House editors look at us, I’m told).
First let’s get something straight. I am not a dreamer. I am a cynical, battle-scarred veteran of partisan politics and the trial courtroom. While I briefly entertained a dream of being a novelist back in college, it was quickly squelched by the pressure of parental expectations, economic reality, and the recognition that I had no life experience worth writing about.
So I went off and got some life experiences. The kind worth writing about. But it wasn’t until almost 20 years later that these experiences began to spill out of me in a story. A pal of mine asked back then, “do you have a novel in you?”
“Nah,” I said, and believed it.
Then my father died in August 2007. I’d been helping him with his memoirs when he became too weak to continue. After he left us, I tried to transform the work into a biography. But it was just too painful, and too soon. Still, I needed to find a way to grieve, and I found burying myself in a story was a pretty good way to do it.
One day I found youwriteon.com, where Jill’s pal John Hudspith found something within the rough first chapter I’d put up there that glimmered through the crap. I don’t know what it was, or why he thought so, but he invited me to join him and Jill and a lot of other awesome writers at a place called The Bookshed, and 18 months of merciless flogging later, I typed “the end.”
I did not write a novel to become a novelist. I had no illusions of big advances or Hollywood movie deals. I just wrote a novel, and people seemed to like it. I wrote some short stories and people seemed to like them. And I had a blast doing it, so what the hell, right? You enjoy doing something, why not see how far you can go with it? Surely, somewhere not far down the road, cold reality would slap me silly.
I started two more novels, just in case.
Going 0-for-120 on the query trail didn’t really bother me. This novel must not be as good as people say, I thought. Hell, a lot of folks think the food at Denny’s is pretty good, but we know differently, don’t we? It was the same as cooking. A lot of my friends thought I was a pretty good cook, too; but I’d never thought I was qualified to run the kitchen at a five star restaurant.
Then I went to my first writer’s conference in November of 2009, The New England Crime Bake. The first day, I attended a pitch practice session. Fate’s fickle hand at work, you know. I sat at the first empty seat, next to a lady I’d never met. She happened to be the agent. She went around the table, listening to stumbling and stuttering neophytes who hadn’t known what at all to expect. But I had practiced my elevator pitch. I sure had.
“What have you got,” she said to me, wearily.
“Diary of a Small Fish is about a virtuous man who gets indicted for playing golf.”
A couple of giggles from the others.
“I want to read that,” she said.
Heh, what can I say? She’s married to a trial lawyer. She read it and loved it. He read it and loved it. Dumb luck. Nothing more.
Six months later, I signed on with Christine Witthohn at Book Cents Literary, but not until I’d spoken to a half dozen of her current clients, published and unpublished (at her insistence). The lady had sold practically everything she’d put her hands on. She must know what the hell sells!
Still, I am a cynic, you recall. I do not entertain fanciful dreams.
During the next nine months, I did significant revisions to the manuscript, based upon long conversations with Christine – and her husband, Jeff Mehalic. In that stretch of time, I might have sent Christine a dozen emails. She responded to every one of them within two hours, mostly by phone – except once, when she was stranded in Italy.
I know there are other cynics out there who find this preposterous. An agent responding to an email with a phone call? Within an hour? Like I said. Dumb luck.
These developments occurred, you will note, during the onset of the “ebook revolution.” Self-publishing was developing at light speed, and there were dozens of pioneers blazing the trails. I followed this closely, because many of my Authonomy friends were trailblazers.
In December of 2010, Christine submitted DOSF to editors at 7 publishers – editors she knew. Editors she’d sold stuff to before. But she told me when she did, “I’m not sure I can sell your book.”
You see, it didn’t fit neatly into the mystery/crime/suspense genre. (As Jill’s lovely review begins, “What exactly IS this book? Yes, it’s a political mystery. It’s also a love story. It explores corruption, honour and integrity. And it’s funny. But how to define it?”)
The wait began. That ridiculous, inexplicable, infuriating wait where even your own agent’s inquiries to them go unanswered. Two months, three, four. Okay, that’s to be expected. But more?
In the meantime, Joe Konrath, Dean Wesley Smith, Barry Eisler, Amanda Hocking, John Locke and dozens of others filled the internet with dazzling information. Bloggers like Robin Sullivan kept tabs on a growing number of self-published authors making a serious living! Selling ebooks at 99 cents!
Get out of town. Seriously. And I was sitting on my hands waiting for a response, 6 months now.
June arrived. Christine and I had a heart-to-heart.
My novel is Boston-centric. It involves the shadows of personalities still walking, big names in politics being tried and convicted of the very same crimes my poor virtuous protagonist is accused of. At that very time! There was a market for this fiction, right here, right now! I was missing it! I couldn’t wait!
Christine’s response was simple:
- When you want to withdraw DOSF from submission, say the word, and I’ll call them.
- If you want to self-publish, then do these things first: (a) put up a single short story that’s really, really good, for FREE, (b) put up a collection of short stories a month later for 99 cents, (c) bust your ass creating buzz in advance of DOSF release, and (d) keep busting your ass to sell it.
Like a man looking at a break-up with his first true love, I asked, “What about us?”
Seriously! I had snagged one of the hottest agents in the business, and one who not only had a conscience, but a clear one at that. A lady as righteous and morally sound as my own protagonist! How could I take my only property off the market and negate the subject matter of our contract?
“We’ll use DOSF as a platform to sell your next one. And if it does well enough in the meantime, I can still sell it.”
Dumb luck. I’d stumbled upon a literary agent who not only understood the changes that were coming, but embraced them, and encouraged me and several other of her authors to self-publish.
When Amazon announced their genre imprints, she was on the phone to them, grilling them about what they were looking for, and in some cases, delivering it.
When the 9 month anniversary of the DOSF submissions approached, when none of the 7 had even given her the courtesy of a reply, and when Amazon’s Thomas & Mercer took a pass, it was time to go ahead.
[Note: There are now several authors on Christine’s list (some signed to multi-book deals with Big 6 publishers) who have at least one self-published work available. Some shorts, some novellas, some novels.]
I self-published Diary of a Small Fish on October 1st. I worked hard on the launch, had a lot of help from writer friends who delivered some very nice reviews (none nicer than Jill’s), and sold some books. I ordered 100+ paper copies from Createspace, sold most of them in a month, ordered some more. I had a smoking hot launch party in the shadow of the State House, sent out a very smart press kit.
Why did I, the stubborn cynic, the world-weary ex-politician and trial lawyer, decide to go to all this work and trouble to self-publish a first novel? Why didn’t I put it on the shelf and move on to the next, as the Old Guard would have?
Because somewhere in the process – when I’d heard enough feedback from people whose opinions I respect and trust – and when I’d re-read enough of it for the 100th time, I realized how damn much I believe in this novel.
I’m no authority on fiction. I’m just a guy with a little storytelling talent. But I firmly believe that a successful novel is one that touches all of your emotions. Humor, sorrow, anger, hatred, love, hopelessness, panic, fear, elation, etc. I didn’t know that when I started writing.
I think that’s what DOSF does. And I wanted readers to experience it now, today, not in Q4 of 2013.
There is also this:
What is going on in fiction publishing today is truly revolutionary. Seldom is the use of that word so fitting. It was impossible for me to sit idly in the cheap seats, waiting for my prom date, when all that energy was burning on the dance floor below. There are some bad dancers down here, but they’re not stepping on my feet. And there are some really fabulous dancers, too. This is where the action is, here in the scrum. I want to have fun dancing, not compete in a marathon.
Filed under: Craft, Internet, literature, Peter Morin | 10 Comments
Tags: christine witthohn, diary of a small fish, jeff mehalic, jill marsh, joe konrath, pete morin, self-publishing, thomas & mercer
What a Pahty
Well, it’s been an interesting month indeed.
DOSF is about lobbyists and legislators and their hobnobbing in the environs of fine dining and luscious golf courses. So, where better to throw a book launch party than in the shadow of the State House? At a watering hole favored by those very characters?
Three weeks ago, I locked in the date at Scollay Square. On that day, the Massachusetts Senate passed a casino gambling bill different that the House’s version. So it went to a conference committee. They usually futz around with it for a few weeks anyway, but they’re going to want to pass it before Thanksgiving, right? Hah, I laughed to myself, wouldn’t it be hilarious if the conference committee reported out the casino bill the day before the party, and both the House and Senate were busy as beehives?
Now to get some of those lobbyist folks to host the event. No problem, said ten of the most respected people in the profession – without even knowing what was in the novel! Well, one did. Ace environmental lawyer Jamy Madeja was an early beta reader, so she knew the dirt.
Now to invite 150 of my closest friends and a bunch of complete strangers. Ever use Paperless Post? What a marvelous tool.
Put together a nice passed hors d’oeuvres menu, order 50 more books, just in case, get some sharp looking posters made. Put together a press kit and a press release, and find an incredibly fabulous publicist to help a friend.
And voila, a party ensues precisely at the time that both the House and Senate are acting upon the conference committee’s compromise casino bill
Let it be known that I have some exceptionally fine friends, most of whom go back over 20 years, some more than 35. Why look, some of them are here! (We forgot the camera until after I’d spoken and a good half crowd left.)
The two gentlemen in the foreground are Mark Russell (L) and Tom Beaton. They are my 1973 Andover classmates. The fellow over Tom’s right shoulder is Russ Bubas, the President of Dataquest Ltd., a security and PI firm. Russ is the real life Rex Barkley (a book character for you laggards).
Russ is talking to Ladette Randolph (hidden behind Tom), the author of A Sand Hills Ballad and Editor-in-chief of Ploughshares, the literary journal of Emerson College.
Okay, let’s change the perspective. There’s my darling bride in the foreground, chatting with one of my very best friends, Ken Ghazey. Ken and I are former college chums, post-college roommates in Boston, and frequent golf co-conspirators. To the left 
of Tom’s closed eyes, in the background, is Len Rubenstein, and incredibly talented photographer who is usually off shooting portraits of the very important people. Len and I are guitar players in the fabulous Gratefuls band.
In the very back corner under the television, there is a clutch of men in suits. Those are all lobbyists hiding from the camera. You can just make out a shock of white on the head closest to the tv. That’s Tom O’Neill, Tip’s son, former Lieutenant Governor, head of O’Neill & Associates, and one hell of a competitor on the golf course.
Let’s see who else Betsy captured for evidence.
Here, we’re getting on toward the end, so I am enjoying my very first and only martini. My arm is draped upon Ruah Donnelly, my first cousin, author of The Adventurous Gardener. On my right is Holly Laurent, a law school classmate who - coincidentally – formerly worked with Ruah at Goodwin Procter . Obscured by Holly, wearing a chic purple scarf, is our dear friend Jan Saragoni, President of Saragoni & Co., who provided me with some superb publicity help. (Getting a Boston Globe columnist to attend an event requires persuasion tools I do not have.)
Now I insinuate myself into the lair of lobbyists under the ruse of signing their books, for which they have paid cash. To the 
left of me with the charming smile is Steve Tocco, the President and Chief Executive Officer of ML Strategies, the government relations arm of the law firm, Mintz Levin. While this appears to be a fairly innocent scene as I sign Steve’s book, Steve and I are actually engaged in a ruse to lure Bob Havern (far right holding the Amstel) into a lopsided golf match to be scheduled in the future.
By 7:00 sharp, the tables were rolled out, the crowd was gone (well, most of them), and my first book launch party was behind me. I was drained, wired, exhausted reeling from it all.
At the end of the night, I’d sold over 65 books, generated some great buzz, seen some old friends, had one hell of a good time; and I’d been shown an unusual instance in which word of mouth in your own back yard has a huge amount of power.
More importantly, I realized how damn much I believe in this novel.
And that right there’s worth the price of the Baby Beef Wellingtons and Tuna Tartare.
Filed under: Peter Morin | 13 Comments
Tags: book launch, casinos, diary of a small fish, ladette randolph, len rubenstein, mystery, pete morin, scollay square, tom o'neill
Introducing Elle Amberley
I was asked recently by a publisher’s publicist (doesn’t that concept amuse you?) if I would help her introduce a British writer to the American audience by giving her an interview here. Isn’t that flattering?
Well, Elle Amberley is a very charming and cerebral person, as I have found by reading about her in her blog and in some of the other Q&A’s she’s done over in UK. One of those Q&A’s is with Morgen Bailey, another UK writer whose blog has tons of stuff on it for writers.
So I’m going to cheat a little and repost Morgen’s interview with Elle:
Morgen: Hello Elle. Please tell us something about yourself and how you came to be a writer.
Elle: I’m bohemian at heart, I find it hard to settle anywhere after having lived in so many countries as a child. I homeschool my children partly because I want them to have a rounded education, one that isn’t limited by curriculum’s constraints but also because I can’t bear to be away from them for too long.
Morgen: Ah, that’s nice. I feel the same about my dog… not the quite the same I know but… You write a variety of genres, is there one you generally write and is there another genre you’ve not written but have considered?
Elle: I have written Literary but have switched to Women’s fiction for my current projects. I also write poetry and the odd article. If I get round to it I might write a children’s book one of these days, another project squatting my brain.
Morgen: I have a few of those. Do you write under a pseudonym? If so why and do you think it makes a difference?
Elle: Yes, I do. In fact, I’m using a new pen name for my current project. It would take a long time to explain the reasons for this, but by reading “Nowhere Left To Hide” you might get a clue. Let’s just say it started way back when I was in need of protecting myself.
Morgen: Well, I like the one you’ve chosen; it’s very women’s and literary… soft. Are your books available as eBooks? If so what was your experience of that process? And do you read eBooks?
Elle: Yes, good question. I don’t know much about the process as my publishers take care of this. Many people say it’s very easy, I’m not so sure. I must admit I prefer paper books for the simple reason I spend enough time looking at a screen already. I’m not against it but I love bookshops.
Morgen: Me too. I always say I spend more time buying books than reading but I hope to free up some time next year to change that ratio. I’m also going through the eBook process so I’ll let you know. I’m quite teckie but whilst I would love “very easy” I’d be grateful for “easy”. What was your first acceptance and is being accepted still a thrill?
Elle: Yes, of course. You always wonder. Well, I do. I have a need to write. I’ll never get tired of readers getting back to you, such a wonderful feeling to know you’ve provided escape or touched someone through your writing. First acceptance to spring to mind is my teacher at school, praising and pushing. It didn’t mean anything to my parents but I was thrilled.
Morgen: “need to write” I love that (me too) and it started early. Have you had any rejections? If so, how do you deal with them?
Elle: We all do. I wish I was thick-skinned but I’m not. That’s life! You just have to get on with it.
Morgen: You do and really that’s the only way to handle them. What are you working on at the moment / next?
Elle: “Nowhere Left To Hide” is coming out this Autumn.
Morgen: It’s a lovely cover; simple. Very Dorothy Koomson.
Elle: My next project after that is a story based in Paris which I’m currently editing. I have another two on the go plus a French novel. I have far too many ideas popping up in my head, I file them until I can go back to them.
Morgen: Ditto. I have a dozen display books just filled with newspaper cuttings so that doesn’t include the scraps of paper that have my brain output on. Do you manage to write every day? What’s the most you’ve written in a day?
Elle: I do write most days. If I don’t get it out, it haunts me during the night until I switch the light back on. I have “manic” periods like last Christmas, I wrote the first draft of my Parisian novel in one week while we all had the flu. I was burning up but couldn’t stop.
Morgen: Wow. A NaNoWriMo in a week. This next question doesn’t sound like it applies but here goes… do you ever suffer from writer’s block?
Elle: Writer’s what? LOL It must be dreadful. I dread it happening to me. I’d be devastated, lost.
Morgen: I’m lucky too. If I get stuck on something I switch to something else, writing or otherwise, and usually figure it out quite quickly. Do you plot your stories or do you just get an idea and run with it?
Elle: I’m a messy writer, I have notes everywhere. I get an idea and it all just pours out. It’s a very emotional process. I get my best ideas while I’m in the shower or swimming. I once told this to a journalist and got sent a box of pens you can use in the shower by a fan. There’s a warning for you, be careful what you say… No seriously, it was really sweet!
Morgen: Oh wow. I got my first piece of ‘fan’ (e)mail the other day… I was truly thrilled. Do you have a method for creating your characters, their names and what do you think makes them believable?
Elle: It’s more of a vision. They live in me, through me.
Morgen: Who is your first reader – who do you first show your work to?
Elle: My husband and my best friend who is also a novelist.
Morgen: Wow, how lucky are you? A live-in (and free) editor. Do you do a lot of editing or do you find that as time goes on your writing is more fully-formed?
Elle: With time you find your style and rhythm.
Morgen: You do. It’s all about ‘practice’ (like painting / playing the piano). Do you write on paper or do you prefer a computer?
Elle: I used to write my first drafts in notebooks. Now I pour it all on my Mac. I do some of the editing on paper though, I need the contrast.
Morgen: Ah, a fellow Mac owner. Some writers like quiet, others the noise of a coffee shop etc. Do you listen to music or have noise around you when you write or do you need silence?
Elle: I love Kings of Leon, but I have many favourites. I have far too eclectic tastes to list them all. Plus I have my secret desert island disc…
Morgen: Ooh… tell me later. What point of view do you find most to your liking: first person or third person? Have you ever tried second person?
Elle: I like both, it depends on the story. I could write a story using second person but that would be for one special person only and it would have to be in French.
Morgen: Ah now you’re just showing off. (je parle un peu Francais mais mon allemand et espagnol son mieux). Do you use prologues / epilogues? What do you think of the use of them?
Elle: Yes, but not for my current novels. I don’t use them very often as most people skip them. They need to be short and throw the reader in order to work, otherwise not much point really.
Morgen: They do. I used to skip the prologues until I wrote one but I admit I still skim them. What’s your favourite / least favourite aspect of your writing life?
Elle: Favourite is writing, least favourite is all the promotional stuff. I love interacting with readers but dislike the “look at me, buy me” element.
Morgen: As do the readers. A LinkedIn thread once said ‘90% useful:10% promo’ and I’d say that’s a maximum. If I’m following someone on Twitter who has nothing else to say, I hit that ‘unfollow’ button without hesitation. If anything, what has been your biggest surprise about writing?
Elle: Discovering things about me and family members. Writing has provided “lightbulb” moments and given me better understanding.
Morgen: When I’m out and about I see everything as book covers now and always have my camera with me thinking “ooh that’s nice with lots of space for the title / name”. It does give you a different perspective, and of course listening in on other people’s conversations is dialogue development. What advice would you give aspiring writers?
Elle: Get on with the writing. Don’t get distracted by the Internet.
Morgen: er… guilty as charged.
Elle: Listen to your instinct and don’t believe everything you read.
Morgen: Unless it’s our fiction. What do you like to read?
Elle: I like to be surprised. I don’t want to read the same stories all the time. I read in English and in French. I’m currently reading Tatiana De Rosnay and Yoko Ogama.
Morgen: New ones to me. What do you do when you’re not writing?
Elle: I read and I spend an awful lot of my time travelling. Mostly I look after my children and I’m a music addict and I swim everyday even when it snows.
Morgen: I have once… we don’t get much snow… or have any outdoor pools so that doesn’t help really. I know you’re on a couple but which forums or networking sites are you on? How invaluable do you find them?
Elle: I use Twitter, Linkedin and more recently I joined Facebook. I’m also on Google and a lovely community called Women on the Verge.
Morgen: I really must get on Google, I’ve heard good things. Where can we find out about you and your work?
Elle: My website, Twitter, Facebook and Google+.
Morgen: Is there anything else you’d like to mention?
Elle: Yes, I’d like to thank you for welcoming me here. I’ve really enjoyed answering your questions.
______________
So, go investigate.
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The Fish Swims
Diary of a Small Fish has finally made it to market.
A project that began as an amusement, a hobby, in February of 2008, enters a new phase.
It’s all fine and dandy that friends and acquaintances have read your novel and been complimentary about it. The true measuring stick is whether people will buy it. How interesting it will be to see!
The Acknowledgments don’t even scrape the surface of my gratitude for all of the encouragement and support I’ve received during the past three years. You all know who you are.
Now I’ve got to put my Chief Marketing Officer hat on and go to work.
If you read it, please don’t be bashful about leaving a review.
If you don’t read it, fake it.
Small Fish for KINDLE users
Small Fish for NOOK users
Small Fish for SMASHWORDS & APPLE users
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Tags: crime fiction, humor fiction, pete morin, political fiction, satire, small fish
Do You Hear Voices?
One of the most vexing questions I’ve seen asked by aspiring writers is this one:
What is “voice” and how do you find it?
Damned if I know.
Really.
Of all the “writing tips” that I’ve read during the past decade, the one that’s the hardest to explain is this damn voice thing. Some writers seem to have it naturally. I suspect I fall into that category, because I insist that I really don’t know what I’m doing – consciously, anyway.
In order to find an answer to this mystery, I’ve examined what I do subconsciously. This is what I would defined as the period of time variously between 2:00 am and 6:00 am when sleep is elusive but the mind struggles in semi-consciousness to get me the hell back to a dream state.
It is said by writing luminaries that in order to write convincing characters, we must learn to live in their heads. We must get to know them as well as ourselves (hopefully better, in some cases). We must be able to predict what they would say and how they would say it, like they were our lifelong pals or high school sweethearts.
I am a pantser through and through, which means –especially as I approach the climax and ending of my second novel – that I must rely on the feedback of my characters to help me get them out of the jam I put them in. I mean, it’s only fair, right?
Often this time in semi-consciousness is spent running through a conference call with these characters, brainstorming, noodling, arguing about where they’d go next. By this point, I need to trust them, and they need to trust me. How did we get to this point?
James N. Frey recommends in his How To Write A Damn Good Novel series that before we ever put pen to paper, we need to write out finely detailed character sketches of every character in the novel. I appreciate that, I understand it, and it’s a great idea. I can’t do it. It’s like figuring out before you go to a bar exactly who the person you’re going to meet is. It doesn’t work for me.
I need to get to the bar, meet the person, and discover him or her from there. I know generally whom I’m going to be looking for (e.g., I’m looking for a male member of the District Attorney’s office who is ignorant of the corruption of his colleagues), but I don’t know his style, his mannerisms. So I might be lying awake, envisioning the scene in the bar, and Jackie Callahan is going to come wobbling in and start arguing with me. He’s going to waggle his finger in my face, call me a “bastid” for what I’m doing to his boss, accept my offer of another Guinness and have trouble getting the rim of the glass to his lips without spilling.
On torturous nights, I will be semi-awake for two or three hours, turning over and over in my head where the plot goes from here. These debates with the characters can be cooperative or acrimonious. They involve many intricate plot points that must be resolved. Someone’s going to lose. Callahan’s boss, the D.A. His career is going to be ruined by the discovery that he’s caught on tape having sex with an under-aged girl, even though he was lured into the situation with liquor and the girl was imposed upon him to concoct extortionate evidence. Is he going to kill himself, or is he going to be able to suck it up and hold his chin in the air? Callahan’s a loyal man. He wants to believe his boss will be a hero. I think he’s too weak, he’s a drunk, and his life is passing before his eyes as he sees the disgrace ahead. Callahan’s going to hate me for his boss putting a gun in his mouth. He’s going to sneer and call me a “fuckah,” but he’s going to lose, and it’s going to put him further into the pit of an alcoholic funk.
This sort of exercise does nothing for your long-term health. Sleep is important. But I have it on good authority that no man in his mid-50’s gets a solid night’s sleep. At least I don’t have to get out of bed for these arguments.
Voice is about hearing these characters in your ear. It’s about smelling their B.O. and noticing little things about their odd socks or scuffed shoes. It’s about having an intimate feel for the environment you’re in, and finding a simple, convincing way to convey it. It’s about talking like they talk to you at 3:37 am.
When you hear from them, tell them I’m taking a few days off.
I need the sleep.
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Tags: characters, craft, fiction, james frey, small fish, voice, writing
My Lousy Stigma
At the risk of repeating myself, I’m going to revisit this whole canard about self-publishing suffering from a “stigma.”
Over at The Forum That Shall Not Be Named, the usual suspects continue their broken record. One of these people purports to be a “professional writer,” but I’m skeptical. “When my novel is done,” she assures us, she will pursue the traditional publishing route, and would never self-publish it, lest she be tainted with the stigma of self-publishing. I got news for you, lady. You’ll never be published.
So now that I am committed to self-publishing Diary of a Small Fish (after all those nasty traditional publishers have ignored it for far too long – **sniff**), these warnings take on a new dimension of absurdity, which I will explain. But first – a commercial message:
Now then. It is indeed so that the digital libraries at Amazon, Smashwords, B&N and Apple are chocked with dreck. There is a clamor of noise out there in digital land, like singers auditioning for American Idol, peeling the paint off of Jennifer Lopez’s eyes, howling like sick cats. Do those singers diminish the quality of Carrie Underwood or Kelly Clarkson? (No wisecracks, please. I’m no pop music lover either, but talent is talent.)
A few more examples are warranted.
There is a stigma surrounding the game of golf, you know. So many players can’t break 100 and swing like broken windmills. Ruin it for the rest of us, so I don’t play golf any more.
Big stigma surrounding indie rock music. So many crappy bands out there. So I don’t listen to rock music anymore unless it’s put out on a major record label.
I don’t eat steak any more either, because the quality of hamburger at McDonald’s is so inferior.
And don’t talk to me about those Japanese cars! I drove a Civic once and had a sore neck for a week.
And finally, how about this one:
I’ve been told that as soon as my short stories appeared on Amazon, they went from excellent to lousy, just by being so close to all that dreck. Like catching a cold in kindergarten. You just can’t avoid it!
You see the absurdity of it?
Filed under: Uncategorized | 44 Comments
Tags: amazon, diary of a small fish, literature, novels, self-publishing, smashwords, stigma
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