Notes from Clarion 6

Well, it's over. We've just come back from our last Friday lunch with an instructor. Last night we had a few fun moments of pomp and circumstance when we had a pot luck dinner, took turns reading aloud selected excerpts from our "favorite" romance writer Connie Mason, presented funny certificates and awards, passed out our class t-shirts, donned sarongs (men and women) and took photos for posterity. In class today after critiquing, the administrators gave us our secret Clarion decoder rings, official certificates, and a book entitled "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Publishing Science Fiction," apparently it was written by a Clarion grad.

Up until now, I don't think I talked about the critiquing process itself. This is the 16th year of this particular permutation of Clarion West and over the years they've been tinkering with the process to figure out how to make the workshop the most effective it can be. They've meticulously detailed specific procedures about how to critique the story (not the author), stating what worked first before stating the problems (we had one participant who was the god(ess) of this, she always offered well written ruminations on what worked before explaining what didn't and what could be done to improve it), simply saying "ditto so and so re: ____" rather than repeating a comment that had already been covered at length and giving a hard three minutes to each participant for critiquing. Do the math, three minutes each critiquer, plus a 10 minute break, that's an hour per story. The time limit is to curb grandstanding and egotistical ramblings and force each critiquer to stay specific to the story at hand. We also had a ticket system. We were given five tickets a week. If we were late or spoke out of turn or didn't say something positive, we lost a ticket. At the end of the week the tickets were used to raffle an autographed book from one of the instructors. It may sound juvenile and disciplinarian, but what the tickets really were was a physical reminder of the rules. As we were all inclined to follow them, giving up a ticket didn't feel like punishment, it was a reminder of what the rules were thereby keeping us aware of the behavioral boundaries. [We had a subversive member who ran a gambling racket with the tickets and also gave tickets to classmates for edgy stories, and today, three of us (led by the subversive member of course) draped ourselves in tickets we took from the roll when the administrators' backs were turned. [All in fun!] In short, Clarion West was well administered, which allowed the participants to have a smooth ride.

I have pages and pages of notes from Jack Womack's week. Jack gave a great reading Tuesday night. He's the author of six or seven novels. He's an excellent writer who plays with language and writes worlds in a dystopian future. At his reading for his latest novel, Going Going Gone, his power over language really shone through. His writing has an amazing vibrance and imaginative quality. Some of his novels are more over the top than others. Before Clarion I read Ambient, which I believe is his first novel, and enjoyed it immensely, others started Elvissey and Random Acts of Senseless Violence, but couldn't finish them. Elvissey because it was written in an invented language and Random Acts because it was so depressing, the reader felt like there was no sense in continuing on. But he really is an excellent writer.

I wrote pages and pages of notes that I am not going to retype here, but I think Jack has a unique perspective because he's not only a novelist, but he's also a publicist, so he has a very clear understanding about how the business works. His first statements were "no publicity is bad publicity" and "any publicity is good publicity." Your publicity dollars are allotted in proportion to the number of copies published. Publishers don't usually take chances with first novels so you'll probably get about 3,000 copies printed in hardcover [from a publicity perspective novels that go straight to softcover start out at a loss because many reviewers (such as the N.Y. Times) refuse to review softcovers. Jack says there is a prejudice in reviewing community that says if the book goes straight to paperback, it can't be that good.]

Your publicity budget is a little more than $1 per copy. A 3,000 book print run will most likely get $4,500 for publicity (advertising and marketing are separate departments in the major houses). The bulk of the money (approx $2,500) of the publicity budget goes to the production and mailing of galleys. Galleys go out to all major publications in the genre, columnists from the genre, major newspapers, and, if there is national interest, the big national publications. Along with the galleys, the publicist sends a galley letter (press releases go with finished copies of the books). Your press release should tell just enough about the book so a radio interview and other interested media parties don't actually have to read the book to interview the author or to insert small blurbs in their publications). The galley letter introduces the author, describes the content of the book, explains what makes it so great, and includes quotes from other authors. The quotes that make a difference to booksellers are the quotes in Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, Library Journal, and major review newspapers (N.Y. Times, Washington Post, etc.). Individual author quotes only make a difference when they write quotes so rarely that their opinion is respected AND when they have a "rabid" fan base (a group of fans that obey the author's every word). Otherwise, Jack says, the quotes just make the author feel good.

After sending the galley letter, the publicist calls to follow up to make sure the recipient (who usually receives a mountain of books weekly) actually received the galleys. The picture Jack painted regarding the possibilities of success is not pretty. In his words "it's tough getting attention" for your books. Your best hope is that after several books, your sales rise or hold steady. If you consistently have a good sell through (sell through is the proportion of books you sell in relation to the amount printed, i.e. if you sell 2500 and the print run was 3000, you have a good sell through), you will probably be retained by your publisher. But your books will probably go out of print. Apparently books go out of print much more often than they used to. Jack says he was let go by his publisher once because they were losing money. They were letting all their mid-list authors go (steady sellers, but not bestsellers) in hopes of finding a bestseller. They never did find one.

Your publisher will only spend more money on you if they believe you have a chance of breaking into big time. For example, if you sell about 10,000 copies, then the publisher sees an opportunity. With such an author, Jack's company recently set up an online campaign six weeks in advance. They sent a number of review copies to every publication looking for the fan at the newspaper or magazine. They made efforts to get bound galleys to "long lead" magazines (those mags that have their magazines ready to go 6-8 months in advance), then followed up with full color galleys. Then they organized a tour specifically hitting the bookstores that report to the New York Times for the bestseller list. Apparently, not all stores report to the N.Y. Times. Most chains do, but many of the large independents don't. Obviously this skews the reliability of the N.Y. Times Bestseller list, but it doesn't matter. Reliable or not, the list has clout, more clout than any other bestseller list. Jack says USA Today and Wall Street Journal's are better indicators of what books are actually being sold.

If you're an up-and-coming writer, Jack suggests you build a good relationship with your local bookstores. The relationships you build with bookstores will influence how those bookstores present your books to customers. Tell your publicist if you're going to take a trip to another town; the publicist may be able to set up a reading for you. As a first time (or even a second time) author, don't expect to get sent on a book tour. Bookstores report when they're interested in having an author appear at their store. If the publicist gets enough requests, the publisher may send the author on a tour.

While the author may have some control over the flap copy and the press release (it is apparently within your rights/interests to ask to see both and rewrite them if necessary), you have no control over the cover art. Jack told us a horror story regarding his third book. His first book sold 1,000 copies, his second book sold 3,000. Mathematically speaking, his third book should have sold at least 5,000. However, it only sold 750. Why? Because the cover was so horrendous, it not only dissuaded readers from buying the book in bookstores, but the company's sales reps (the people who travel to bookstores to pitch the books to bookstore owners) were so appalled by it, they refused to even show the storeowners the books! There was nothing Jack could do.

Part of his point in explaining the publicity end was to educate us about the business; the other part of his point, I think, was to bring it home to us how difficult it is to get noticed in the book world. He wanted us to have an intimate knowledge of what we're up against. I asked him his opinion on the suggestion that writers save part of their advance and use it to publicize their books. He immediately said don't spend your advance. How well your book does is based on such a complex mix of factors that throwing money at it won't make a huge difference (unless maybe you can sustain the financial flow of dollars into publicity vehicles). Hmmmm. Anyway, it's all just food for thought. Jack gave us lots more food regarding characterization, character and setting extrapolations, internal consistency and story logic, dialogue, infodumps, emotion, comedy, openings, and endings.

There's only so much more info my brain can take. It feels good to be finished. Half of us don't want it to end and half of us are eager to go home. I'm in the latter camp. I miss my life and I miss the events I'm missing (concerts in the park, cultural performances, birthdays). But I walk away with a much stronger sense of storytelling. I also have the first draft of four really great stories and the beginnings of two more tales. The week after my return to NYC, I'll be going straight into the big promotional weekend for When Butterflies Kiss (see silverlionpress.com for more info), the first African American collaborative novel--one novel, 10 authors. True to the speculative fiction tradition, my chapter had a bizarre inexplicable event which the editor toned down into a less bizarre, but still terrifying, dream. I think I will continue to write spec fic on the edge of literary fiction, bringing speculations and magic to mainstream literature. Whatever I decide to do, I'll be better equipped to do it now that I've attended Clarion. Tonight the last party, tomorrow the plane takes me back to the East Coast. Long live travel and growth.

Blessings.

kis.