Caren Johnson Literary Agency

Having gotten sidetracked from reading Legacy of Ashes (I can only take political books in small doses and this one is a doozy), I picked up the ARC (Advanced Reader Copy in publisher speak) of Twilight, by Stephanie Meyer. I’ve had it on my shelf for the past two years and haven’t gotten around to reading it until now and that’s a shame since it is such a great book. Two thirds of the book are spent leading the reader quietly along with Bella who is getting used to a new school, making friends, and generally surviving being the new girl. It is the last third of the book that is the most exciting. By then the hero, the gentlemanly vampire Edward, has already declared his fascination and adoration for her and has to prove that he means it when a new vamp comes to town and sets his sight on Bella. I can just imagine me as a teenager devouring this book and the other two (New Moon, Eclipse) and swooning over Edward. A google search says I’m not the only one with those thoughts; I counted more than a few fan fic sites dedicated to the couple.

What interests me most in Stephanie Meyer’s books isn’t really the content (wonderful as it is), but the reaction to it. There were two Wall Street Journal pieces earlier this month talking about the phenomenon of Twilight and the reaction it has created among its fans and booksellers. The one that interests me the most touches on why Twilight has done so well. To promote Twilight, Stephanie has an official website and she also maintains a MySpace page that helps her stay in touch with her fans. I think by putting the bulk of her time into promoting and marketing her book online, she created a solid fan base that actively promotes the book for her. It is viral marketing at its best.

Stephanie is really smart and she’s not the only one using the web to promote her work. Most of my own authors maintain a website and have MySpace pages (I tried to put together a MySpace page as well, but found I liked maintaining a blog like this better since its straightforward; I don’t need to know coding or anything else so I don’t have to do a lot of manipulations). They also use LiveJournal, a blog hosting site, as well as blog spot. What I think we can all learn from Stephanie is that by playing to her base (very George W. Bush of her) of teen fans, she has cracked the code to building a branded product with loyal followers. Mari Mancusi and Liz Maverick do this as well. I was on a panel with Mari at the Romantic Times book conference this year and she had some amazing things she does to maintain her readership like keeping her blog in the voice of her character, which means there is original content for fans to continually read at all times. Serena Robar has street teams of dedicated readers who, in exchange for a goodie bag of stickers, bookmarks and other things, promote the book to their friends and family. It is the new way of selling girl scout cookies.

Even if you don’t write teen fantasy novels, there is a lesson to be learned here and it is one that I’m going to talk to all of my authors about: all books need to be promoted. With so many on store shelves, your reader needs to know that yours exists. To do that identify your target market (and don’t say everyone because as much as you’d like to believe that everyone will love your book, this probably isn’t the case). Once you know or think you know who will buy your book, go after them. For example, if you write romance novels as so many of my authors do, your target market is romance novel readers (usually women in their 30s to 50s who regularly purchase books for entertainment purposes). To reach your readers you have to know where they shop, what they buy, and why. Then go to the outlets where they shop and push your product (your book).

I personally love when an author maintains a website and does it well. I worked in a bookstore before (eons ago) and I know what a signing is like. It is usually difficult to get a big crowd unless you’re a known writer. I like the web because you can look through it at any time, day or night and at your leisure. I also am a fan of soliciting reviews from friends and family. When I worked in retail, I heard the most fascinating factoid. If a person likes a product, they will usually tell 3 people. If a person doesn’t like a product, they’ll usually tell 7. If this is a numbers game, you want as many people to talk about your book as possible. I’d rather have someone tell me why they liked a book since it is better for the author to not have their pride and joy talked about negatively, but I’m very likely to google a book or pick it up in B & N if someone told me they didn’t like it out of curiosity.

Now I guess the thing to do is get and read New Moon and Eclipse, the next books in Stephanie’s series. Just when I thought I made a dent in my reading pile there springs up more books to look for.

Barb sent me this review last week of It’s Not About the Accent from PW (Publisher’s Weekly). I’m so excited and proud. Though not supposed to admit having favorites, It’s Not About the Accent is my favorite book of hers. It’s such a great story and I love the heroine, Caroline Darcy. Don’t forget to check out an excerpt here and grab a copy of the book from here.

It’s Not About the Accent
Caridad Ferrer. Pocket/MTV Books, $9.95 paper (288p) ISBN 987-1-4165-2491-5
When Caroline Darcy heads off to college, the theater major from small-town Ohio dyes her hair from “blah, beige blonde” hair to “Havana Brown” and pretends she is half-Cuban—never mind that her Cuban connection comes entirely via her late great-grandmother, the dashing Nana Ellie. Caro sprinkles Spanish into her speech, wears tighter clothes and enjoys the attention she gets from being “exotic,” even starting a relationship with“smooth” fraternity boy Erik. The plot takes a jarring turn when one of Erik’s friends rapes Caro in her dorm room, despite the efforts of her Cuban friend from across the hall, Peter, to save her. Retuning to school in the fall, Caro stops pretending to be Carolina, but decides to research Nana Ellie’s family, which alters the direction of the story. Readers may grow frustrated wondering where Ferrer (Adiós to My Old Life) is going next, besides building to the inevitable romance between Caro and Peter. But the book achieves a real richness: Caro not only learns unexpected secrets about Nana Ellie, but hears many revealing life stories. The elderly Cuban women who talk about their journeys prove especially moving. In the end, this twisting book amply rewards readers. Ages 12-up. (Aug.)

I’ve been distracted lately, reading more than a few books at once. This happens whenever I get a little time to read things just for fun and not for work (I do a lot of research to see who else is writing what and the quality so I feel like I’ve just about overdosed on romance and mystery novels; I need just a bit of a break). I picked up this pair of foodie memoirs. The first is called Trail of Breadcrumbs: Hunger, Love and the Search for Home, by Kim Sunee. Its a great melancholy book, full of recipes that are deliciously complex and a story that made me teary eyed more than a few times. The other is Julie & Julie: My Year of Cooking Dangerously, by Julie Powell. The author is  laugh-out-loud charming and reminded me strongly of Jennifer Crusie’s heroine in Bet Me. Immediately I felt closer to her because I love Bet Me and I love Julia Childs.

Both books are wonderfully written. But what makes them special is that the authors do what good story tellers do: they tell a story that almost anyone can relate to. With Trail of Crumbs, I’m not an orphan, nor am I a great cook, but I can empathize with the author as she strives to find herself through her cooking. Food has always been a way for her to feel closer to people; she cooks enormous meals for her friends and later for her lover’s friends, sometimes 25 and 30 people at a time. She’s at ease when she’s in front of a stove in a way that she’s not when surrounded by so many faces. She’s like a junkie, looking for a stronger fix with each meal she prepares until she’s snapping up copies of Saveur and Cook’s Illustrated, recreating the recipes in those pages and lapping up the praise that each creation brings. I can’t wait to finish the book and see what happens to her and her search for home.

Julie Powell’s theme is a search for self. In her book Julie & Julia, she describes the rut she’s gotten herself into: she’s spent so long being a temp/admin assistant that she’s almost resigned to the fact that she’ll probably be someone’s secretary for the rest of her life. In one last bid for freedom and happiness, she steals her mother’s copy of Mastering the Art of French Cooking and at the instigation of her husband, decides to cook her way through the weighty tome. Now I’m the kind of person who does things like this all of the time. Dare me to do something and I’ll do it just to see if I can. It gets me into trouble sometimes. But I love that Julie is feeding herself (and the instigator husband) to feed her soul. I can’t wait to finish this book either.

Now I’m quite sure that I’ll never be a brilliant chef. I can make a few dishes that I stick to because I can do them in my sleep and they don’t take too long (arroz con gandules|rice with pigeon peas, tortilla Espanola, sloppy joes, pizza, vegetarian chili with chocolate—sounds odd, but the chocolate is unsweetened and adds texture—and lasagna). But I love reading about cooking and journeys through cooking, especially when it allows me to sympathize with the author and understand what they’re feeling. Happy reading!

My author Kelley St. John sent me the following link to an article in Wired magazine: The Chinese Novel Finds New Life Online. She knows I’m interested (obsessed) with publishing news and trends. The article talks about the rise of internet publishing in China; an estimated ten million people have taken up the hobby of reading and writing novels online. That means there are about 10 million people reading and writing for fun. I don’t think there is an equivalent trend in the US that matches this kind of enthusiasm. And the interesting part is that print versions of popular online novels are selling and selling well.

I wonder if this kind of trend will take hold in the US. I’ve seen how well companies like Ellora’s Cave—an erotic romance e-pub—have done. The problem is that once traditional format publishers saw the popularity of the novels, the authors were snatched up and locked into print publishing contracts. I don’t think that authors were prevented from writing for EC, but the quality of their writing suffered with the multiple deadlines on their plates.

I can’t wait to see how this trend develops in the next few years. Unlike China, US pubs have always had an uneasy relationship with non-traditional formats. While this won’t change the face of publishing, it could give it the jolt it needs.

I’m on vacation for the next two weeks starting today. My great plan is to bum around the city, haunting museums and movie theaters (anywhere with a better air conditioning system than mine), while making a dent in the pile of books to-be-read on my night stand. I kicked off vacation yesterday night by watching The Good Shepard. Its a great movie, with plenty of melancholy music and long silences from Matt Damon.

There were a lot of great performances (Alec Baldwin’s character was a lot like the one he played in The Departed without the Boston accent; Deniro is a toned down version of his characters in Meet the Parents and Analyze This; and Matt Damon could have stripped off his glasses and tie to fight an evil agent without raising an eyebrow like he does in the Bourne movies). Now I’m left with the urge to revisit books like Graham Greene’s Our Man In Havana, Joseph Conrad’s The Secret Agent, and Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms (I went through a phase early last year reading 20th century American novelists—blame it on the English major in me).

I’m not sure if The Good Shepard makes it into the favorites column yet or one that gets watched when I’m bored with absolutely nothing else to do. The pacing is uneven, Angelina Jolie’s character needs developing and the film gets caught up in being atmospheric to the point of being unnaturally self conscious of itself. Still, I’m in love with the spare starkness that each character has and I like the way the story is laid out. This is clearly a fence movie—the kind I flim flam about liking or disliking depending on my mood. Its one of those that I dream of going back and recutting so the quality of each character stays intact while moving the story along, much like The Usual Suspects does. Still, it’s worth watching at least once.

Of course this is all a prelude to the two books that I’m getting ready to dive into: Collusion: International Espionage and the War on Terror, by Carlo Bonini and Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA, by Tim Weiner. Now I’m not usually a history/politics reader, but something in these caught my eye (plus both were recommended to me by a friend I trust who knows my reading tastes). Check them out and let me know what you think.