Nothing succeeds like success
Mario here:


What I'm reading this week: In The Woods by Tana French.










Getting published is an emotional boxing match, you versus Goliath. Unless you got an enchanted sling and rock in your backpack, expect a long, bruising battle. You pour yourself into your work, and it's so easy for an agent to say no. Once upon a time, they had to take minutes to scrawl a negative missive on your letter and stuff it into an SASE. Now with the magic of the Internet, rejection takes seconds. David Cameron performed an experiment to demonstrate how myopic the process can be. He copied a short story published in The New Yorker, thinking here is a work that had been vetted by the top pooch in the dog pile of American short fiction, and so it must easily pass any literary smell test. But no. Every magazine he submitted the story to, rejected it. Including The New Yorker. What did Cameron prove? That the system was unfair? Waa, waa! Like that's a surprise.

For the past couple of weeks, millions of computer bytes have been chewed up regarding Hugh Howey, the success of his novel Wool, and what that means in the publishing world. Many have hyper-ventilated in their claims that Howey's experience with Kindle was a game changer for writers. Namely that us hacks no longer needed the blessing of the New York Six to make money from our work. We can all get rich self-publishing our ebooks. After all, Howey turned down seven-figure advances. But not so fast. What Howey proved was to demonstrate that old truism: If people can make money from you, they will come knocking. And, like Howey, you can turn down their deals if you got plenty of fuck you money in your pocket. Howey hadn't done anything that others haven't tried. Some with better success than others. (A few friends have managed to quit their day jobs; others have yet to sell more than a half-dozen copies.) Howey happened to have the alignment of the stars, some luck, and a damn good story well told. Have self-pubbed ebooks changed the market? Only by 25%. That means 75% of book sales are still in traditional paper form.

Though we've pimped them before, to keep the pump primed of some deserving writers recently venturing into the self-pubbed ebook swamp, including our own Jeanne, please patronize these offerings. If you already have copies, then please post a review and hustle the books to your friends.

Labels: Cloud City, Hugh Howey, Mark Henry, rejection, Sea Foam, shrimping, Tana French, Wool

  ¶ posted by Mario Acevedo @ 8:55 PM  5 comments

  When the Big Man grins... Mario here:

I've been reading a lot of novels lately in a variety of genres as I try to pin down what makes a good read "good."

What complicates the process is what we determine as "good" is so subjective. Almost all of what I've read lately is not just good, but damn good. Humbling good. Among the titles:

Thread of Hope, by Jeff Shelby

                                          The Financial Lives of the Poets, by Jess Walter











Citizen Vince, also by Jess Walter

                                                                              Wool, by Hugh Howey








Consent to Kill, by Vince Flynn

                                               In Pharaoh's Army, by Tobias Wolf (a memoir)









Then just this weekend I finished (more or less) one book that screwed my mood. The novel was by an award-winning author--recipient of an NEA grant and a Guggenheim Fellowship--and featured lost love and a man scarred by war. With those credentials, I was expecting to be blown away. What could go wrong? Plenty, unfortunately. The narrative read like a first draft. The author was blurbed by the usual suspects and the book's Kirkus Starred review praised it for "extraordinary language." I must have missed something or read a different book by the same title. Jess Walter and Tobias Wolf ka-powed me with their mastery of prose. For a literary writer, the guy in question was a lazy hack.

In another blog exploring the magical sprouting of a breakout book, an agent was quoted as saying, "and then God smiled." In other words, "a miracle occurred." I don't want to slight another author for their success--bad karma and all that--and if someone hits the jackpot, good luck to them.

Still, I wish God wasn't so stingy with his smiles. I know of plenty of good great outstanding writers who have not been given the attention they deserve. Meanwhile, other less talented scribes get heaped with praise and sales. We have the hoopla over Shades of Grey. What puzzles me is all the media carnival about the sexual content, as if no one else had ever written erotica before. Well, here's a nod and a wave of the stinky finger to my naughty and successful writer pals, Lorelei James, Lauren Dane, and Megan Hart.


And this week, on October 9 to be precise, is the release date for Daniel Marks' (né Mark Henry) amazing YA novel, Velveteen. Don't believe me, read this review. Buy bunches of copies. The hardback looks gorgeous. Hate to say this of anything regarding Mark Henry (I mean, have you ever met the guy? It's like visiting the monkey cage at the zoo.), but I'm jealous.

Labels: Daniel Marks, Hugh Howey, Jeff Shelby, Jess Walter, Lauren Dane, Lorelei James, Mega hart, Tobias Wolf, Vince Flynn

  ¶ posted by Mario Acevedo @ 8:48 PM  2 comments