The decision to sell THE PROVIDENCE OF DEATH at locally owned stores was not the result of original thinking. Many years ago, as part of the journalism program at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, one of the required courses was in advertising. A guest lecturer during that class was a Coca-Cola representative. He said that better than ninety-five percent of Americans surveyed knew the name, Coca-Cola, proof that the corporation’s marketing efforts were successful.
However, he said marketing was not enough to guarantee sales. There had to be a sales plan that included two elements. First, The product has to be placed WHERE the customers are, in a position WHERE it can be seen. The second element of successful sales was POS (point of sale) advertising that changes periodically. He said that an experiment was held in a sales region near the home of Coca-Cola, Atlanta, Ga., that proved this latter point. For a period of time, all POS advertising was eliminated in some stores, not changed in others. He said the sales drop in the region during the test period reached “double digits.”
I knew that manufacturing reps paid for product placement in grocery stores. And I’d been told had that the big displays immediately inside the front door at Barnes & Noble come about the same way. Money changed hands. That was what led me to decide to be the only fish in several little ponds, rather than be buried alphabetically among dozens of other books on a shelf somewhere in the fiction section.
When THE PROVIDENCE OF DEATH went on sale at these local sites, POS advertising was a part of each sales site, but for a period of time, it was not changed. After the initial surge, sales dropped off. Now that the POS copy is changed on a periodic basis, there has been a measurable increase in sales.
Many folks may not equate peddling books with soap, cereal, or soft drinks, but the principle is the same. Like the producers of these products, folks involved in book selling need both a marketing and sales plan. In today’s world, on-line efforts have become the major venue for marketing. But it like the rep from Cola-Cola said, there also must be a sales plan, a method to put books before the buyers, and continue to grab their attention with new POS advertising.
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
Sinclair Lewis .... Upton Sinclair .... and..... Jane Haddam?
Sinclair Lewis, Upton Sinclair, and…. Jane Haddam?
Yes.
Lewis and Sinclair used the novel to take readers beyond the façade of our society to reveal and explain issues not easily seen, understood, and often ignored. Jane Haddam does the same with complex interpersonal and social issues that exist in today’s world.
She takes readers to a prep school campus where scholarship is confused with intelligence; to a movie location where actors gain public attention with behavior instead of talent; to a small town where local residents look with scorn and resentment at a fellow native who achieves success on a national scale. The rest of Haddam's plots are as varied as these three examples.
For readers who want murder, Haddam includes one. Sometimes, there are two, or even more. To solve these crimes, she had created the character, Gregor Demarkian, a former head of the FBI’s Behavioral Science Unit, now retired, and living in Philadelphia. He is not a private detective. He abhors the concept. He is a crime consultant. Sometimes, he gets paid, sometimes, he does not.
This character, oft called an American-Armenian Hercule Poirot, has been the central character in Haddam’s work through twenty-seven novels since his first appearance in NOT A CREATURE WAS STIRRING, published in 1990. At times, Demarkian’s demeanor could be compared to Colombo, the TV character portrayed by the late Peter Faulk. They both think a lot faster and deeper than outwards appearances convey.
However, readers should be prepared for much more than a murder on page four, fourteen, or at the latest, page forty-four, with the rest of the book devoted to a simplified process of determining whodunit. The crimes with which Demarkian becomes involved are not simple ones.
People impacted by the crimes have other daily issues to face, ones not erased, but often exacerbated by the situation. There may be a direct connection between these issues, or maybe not. This is the beauty of Haddam’s writing, part of the puzzle. It is Demarkian’s task to look at the crime, look at the issues, and sort through them to identify the guilty party. It’s this aspect of the novels that elevate them above the average whodunit.
While the author mixes social issues with murder, she does not hit the reader over the head with a point of view. She uses Demarkian, with his slow, questioning, but always-focused thoughts and questions, to shine a light on them. They become a natural part of his investigation. This approach not only presents elements of the issues, but their potential consequences that the reader might never consider on his or her own.
Those who open a Haddam novel should not expect an easy read. She is one of the few novelists writing today who appears to have experienced enough of life to understand the human condition at its deepest roots. And she is one of the few with the talent to pass on to the reader what she has come to know through that experience.
Yes.
Lewis and Sinclair used the novel to take readers beyond the façade of our society to reveal and explain issues not easily seen, understood, and often ignored. Jane Haddam does the same with complex interpersonal and social issues that exist in today’s world.
She takes readers to a prep school campus where scholarship is confused with intelligence; to a movie location where actors gain public attention with behavior instead of talent; to a small town where local residents look with scorn and resentment at a fellow native who achieves success on a national scale. The rest of Haddam's plots are as varied as these three examples.
For readers who want murder, Haddam includes one. Sometimes, there are two, or even more. To solve these crimes, she had created the character, Gregor Demarkian, a former head of the FBI’s Behavioral Science Unit, now retired, and living in Philadelphia. He is not a private detective. He abhors the concept. He is a crime consultant. Sometimes, he gets paid, sometimes, he does not.
This character, oft called an American-Armenian Hercule Poirot, has been the central character in Haddam’s work through twenty-seven novels since his first appearance in NOT A CREATURE WAS STIRRING, published in 1990. At times, Demarkian’s demeanor could be compared to Colombo, the TV character portrayed by the late Peter Faulk. They both think a lot faster and deeper than outwards appearances convey.
However, readers should be prepared for much more than a murder on page four, fourteen, or at the latest, page forty-four, with the rest of the book devoted to a simplified process of determining whodunit. The crimes with which Demarkian becomes involved are not simple ones.
People impacted by the crimes have other daily issues to face, ones not erased, but often exacerbated by the situation. There may be a direct connection between these issues, or maybe not. This is the beauty of Haddam’s writing, part of the puzzle. It is Demarkian’s task to look at the crime, look at the issues, and sort through them to identify the guilty party. It’s this aspect of the novels that elevate them above the average whodunit.
While the author mixes social issues with murder, she does not hit the reader over the head with a point of view. She uses Demarkian, with his slow, questioning, but always-focused thoughts and questions, to shine a light on them. They become a natural part of his investigation. This approach not only presents elements of the issues, but their potential consequences that the reader might never consider on his or her own.
Those who open a Haddam novel should not expect an easy read. She is one of the few novelists writing today who appears to have experienced enough of life to understand the human condition at its deepest roots. And she is one of the few with the talent to pass on to the reader what she has come to know through that experience.
Saturday, November 19, 2011
New Ideas or "Lurking" Plagiarism; Maybe A Hidden Danger for Writers?
What are the odds⎯if you have devoted a major portion of your life to reading novels and writing creatively⎯that in pursuit of the latter, you will sooner or later cross the line that separates the realm of original thinking from what some might call plagiarism? I’m not speaking of the conscious act of copying word-for-word the language from another author, but something subtler
As a reader, I’ve regularly devoured novels for more than sixty years. I’ve cobbled words together creatively for the last decade. This past summer, I began to reread novels published and read long before the idea to try my hand at writing creatively was born. One scene, in a novel published and read some fourteen years ago, was so close to what I had written only four years that I stopped reading and began to ask a question.
How was it possible that two pieces of writing, separated by nearly a decade, could be so similar as to the situation in which the main character finds himself, how he feels about the situation, and the physical actions he takes to alleviate his feelings? My thought, after some consideration, is that the separation may not be as wide as it appears.
Those who conduct research on human memory agree that every event experienced since birth is stored in the brain’s memory cells. These stored memories are used as a reference (a process called prior probability) to identify new events, and how to react to them as they occur.
The experts have not suggested that every word of every novel read is stored in the brain’s memory cells. However, it is not uncommon to start reading a novel with the assumption that it is a “new” read. At some point, a particular scene brings the realization that the book has been read at some time in the past. But nothing up to the point of realization has been remembered, and nothing that follows can be recalled.
So is it possible for the process to work in reverse? Could an author’s creative effort to describe a moment in his or her protagonist’s life be influenced subconsciously? Could what the author considers original thinking be, without realizing it, only new words to describe a scene from another novel, read and then filed away in the brain’s memory cells?
As a reader, I’ve regularly devoured novels for more than sixty years. I’ve cobbled words together creatively for the last decade. This past summer, I began to reread novels published and read long before the idea to try my hand at writing creatively was born. One scene, in a novel published and read some fourteen years ago, was so close to what I had written only four years that I stopped reading and began to ask a question.
How was it possible that two pieces of writing, separated by nearly a decade, could be so similar as to the situation in which the main character finds himself, how he feels about the situation, and the physical actions he takes to alleviate his feelings? My thought, after some consideration, is that the separation may not be as wide as it appears.
Those who conduct research on human memory agree that every event experienced since birth is stored in the brain’s memory cells. These stored memories are used as a reference (a process called prior probability) to identify new events, and how to react to them as they occur.
The experts have not suggested that every word of every novel read is stored in the brain’s memory cells. However, it is not uncommon to start reading a novel with the assumption that it is a “new” read. At some point, a particular scene brings the realization that the book has been read at some time in the past. But nothing up to the point of realization has been remembered, and nothing that follows can be recalled.
So is it possible for the process to work in reverse? Could an author’s creative effort to describe a moment in his or her protagonist’s life be influenced subconsciously? Could what the author considers original thinking be, without realizing it, only new words to describe a scene from another novel, read and then filed away in the brain’s memory cells?
Sunday, November 13, 2011
Do Writers "Become" the Fictional Character They've Created as Their Protaginst in Novels
When I gave in to those who were urging me to write a mystery, which would be set in my hometown, there was only one thing I knew with what I thought was an absolute certainty. It would, in no way be autobiographical. Beyond that, I knew enough to know there were many things I didn’t know.
Included among what I didn’t know was that there is such a vast plethora of books written by “experts” on how to do it. That is why⎯until way too late in the game⎯I was ignorant of what one “expert” had written. “Developing a despicable villain is the key to writing an excellent novel.”
I’d always heard that one should write about what one enjoyed reading. That made sense to my naive mind. Since I get no enjoyment from reading about despicable villains, I started thinking about the main character. If I were lucky enough to beat the insurance company’s mortality tables⎯live to write enough books to call them a series⎯this would mean I’d be living with the character for several years. I’m too old and set in my ways to live with someone I don’t like, even if they are fictional.
It was easy to decide what type of person the protagonist would NOT be. He would not be a cartoon character, driven by an overdose of testosterone and ego. He would not be a person who believed he knew all the answers, was invincible, and on a mission from god to right all he perceived as wrongs in the world.
I turned to novels I’d read, ones with main characters about which I enjoyed reading. From this exercise came a list of traits pulled from characters created by at least a dozen different authors. The next step was to create a physical picture. Again, there was an effort to not create a self-portrait.
To use a clique if I may, the effort became⎯using physical features and personas from people I had known over the years⎯the creation of a character with enough intelligence to talk the talk, and with the physical ability to walk the walk, doing both without being arrogant.
The name: Joe McKibben. How did I come up with that? I’d like to say I did extensive research, collected a list of surnames, all filled with hidden meaning. But that didn’t happen. The name must have been observed on a bottle label after a long night at Sarah’s Irish Pub. The only research came late in the game, a determination that there was not a person with that name living in Hampton.
So what should Joe to earn a living? Many of my working years were spent in the company of members of the law enforcement community, local, state, or federal. From observations, and relationships developed over the years, it was felt that some of these men were a reflection of the persona I wanted the main character to be.
But I didn’t want a working cop. The day-to-day routine would be too restrictive. It would not allow the freedom to write Joe into scenarios where he had the freedom to pursue the mysteries he was driven to solve. But he had to be more than a retired cop who had moved to Florida, and chased retired schoolteachers. That’s why Joe is in the historical research business, the one exception I made of a personal nature.
I had a main character. It was time to start writing a story. But at that time, one of the most drastic things that can happen in a person’s life occurred. It became a constant battle as I began to write to keep personal conflicts, feelings and fears out of Joe’s story, to keep it from becoming autobiographical.
Fortunately, the late William Tapply had agreed to become my mentor. His guidance, his advice on to how to deal with these personal issues became invaluable. He encouraged their inclusion, but showed how to keep them within the context of the story as it was written, rewritten, rewritten, and rewritten, until he said, “Okay, you got a publishable story.”
With the first book published, a second being rewritten, and a third one underway, a question has arisen. Can an author write fiction without at least some visceral part of self find its way into the story? A friend, after our discussion about this question, gave me a coffee cup with the following inscription. “Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.” Is that a way of saying fiction writers become the characters they create?
Included among what I didn’t know was that there is such a vast plethora of books written by “experts” on how to do it. That is why⎯until way too late in the game⎯I was ignorant of what one “expert” had written. “Developing a despicable villain is the key to writing an excellent novel.”
I’d always heard that one should write about what one enjoyed reading. That made sense to my naive mind. Since I get no enjoyment from reading about despicable villains, I started thinking about the main character. If I were lucky enough to beat the insurance company’s mortality tables⎯live to write enough books to call them a series⎯this would mean I’d be living with the character for several years. I’m too old and set in my ways to live with someone I don’t like, even if they are fictional.
It was easy to decide what type of person the protagonist would NOT be. He would not be a cartoon character, driven by an overdose of testosterone and ego. He would not be a person who believed he knew all the answers, was invincible, and on a mission from god to right all he perceived as wrongs in the world.
I turned to novels I’d read, ones with main characters about which I enjoyed reading. From this exercise came a list of traits pulled from characters created by at least a dozen different authors. The next step was to create a physical picture. Again, there was an effort to not create a self-portrait.
To use a clique if I may, the effort became⎯using physical features and personas from people I had known over the years⎯the creation of a character with enough intelligence to talk the talk, and with the physical ability to walk the walk, doing both without being arrogant.
The name: Joe McKibben. How did I come up with that? I’d like to say I did extensive research, collected a list of surnames, all filled with hidden meaning. But that didn’t happen. The name must have been observed on a bottle label after a long night at Sarah’s Irish Pub. The only research came late in the game, a determination that there was not a person with that name living in Hampton.
So what should Joe to earn a living? Many of my working years were spent in the company of members of the law enforcement community, local, state, or federal. From observations, and relationships developed over the years, it was felt that some of these men were a reflection of the persona I wanted the main character to be.
But I didn’t want a working cop. The day-to-day routine would be too restrictive. It would not allow the freedom to write Joe into scenarios where he had the freedom to pursue the mysteries he was driven to solve. But he had to be more than a retired cop who had moved to Florida, and chased retired schoolteachers. That’s why Joe is in the historical research business, the one exception I made of a personal nature.
I had a main character. It was time to start writing a story. But at that time, one of the most drastic things that can happen in a person’s life occurred. It became a constant battle as I began to write to keep personal conflicts, feelings and fears out of Joe’s story, to keep it from becoming autobiographical.
Fortunately, the late William Tapply had agreed to become my mentor. His guidance, his advice on to how to deal with these personal issues became invaluable. He encouraged their inclusion, but showed how to keep them within the context of the story as it was written, rewritten, rewritten, and rewritten, until he said, “Okay, you got a publishable story.”
With the first book published, a second being rewritten, and a third one underway, a question has arisen. Can an author write fiction without at least some visceral part of self find its way into the story? A friend, after our discussion about this question, gave me a coffee cup with the following inscription. “Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.” Is that a way of saying fiction writers become the characters they create?
Monday, November 7, 2011
What's Been The Biggest Surprise Since Ist Novel Was Published
“What’s been your biggest surprise since becoming a published author?”
Answer: the questions readers ask.
Time and space prohibit a full listing, assuming I could remember them all. It is safe to say, however, there are only two or three things about which a question has not been asked. No one has asked what I eat for breakfast, or if I wear boxers or briefs. But it would not be a surprise to hear both.
Some questions are easy. Why Hampton, Virginia, for the setting? The Tidewater area of Virginia (including Hampton), other than references and inaccurate video snippets of the place on the TV show NCIS, is not among the top ten settings for novels. But the choice, other than it’s the place I've lived and come to know over the last forty-six years, is that it represents the “platform,” the market for which I write.
A combination of factors⎯age, health, dislike for large crowds and extensive travel, and laziness⎯led to an early decision that the dark side of writing, book peddling in both the traditional sense and what it has become, would not be a part of my life.
A look at the area around me, within a hundred mile radius of my home, revealed some interesting statistics. The area includes over three million permanent residents, over 35,000 military personnel, and major, destination-type tourist attractions that draw some eleven million visitors a year.
My guess that this area would be as big a piece of the pie as I wanted has proven to be true. It keeps me busy, but also limits the amount of time that book peddling takes away from my first love. Word cobbling.
Next question, next time. Which came first? Plot or character.
Answer: the questions readers ask.
Time and space prohibit a full listing, assuming I could remember them all. It is safe to say, however, there are only two or three things about which a question has not been asked. No one has asked what I eat for breakfast, or if I wear boxers or briefs. But it would not be a surprise to hear both.
Some questions are easy. Why Hampton, Virginia, for the setting? The Tidewater area of Virginia (including Hampton), other than references and inaccurate video snippets of the place on the TV show NCIS, is not among the top ten settings for novels. But the choice, other than it’s the place I've lived and come to know over the last forty-six years, is that it represents the “platform,” the market for which I write.
A combination of factors⎯age, health, dislike for large crowds and extensive travel, and laziness⎯led to an early decision that the dark side of writing, book peddling in both the traditional sense and what it has become, would not be a part of my life.
A look at the area around me, within a hundred mile radius of my home, revealed some interesting statistics. The area includes over three million permanent residents, over 35,000 military personnel, and major, destination-type tourist attractions that draw some eleven million visitors a year.
My guess that this area would be as big a piece of the pie as I wanted has proven to be true. It keeps me busy, but also limits the amount of time that book peddling takes away from my first love. Word cobbling.
Next question, next time. Which came first? Plot or character.
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
Paying to Get Name in a Novel; Interesting Quirk of Human Nautue
The person at the recent Bouchercon gathering who bid $7,000 to have a name used for one of the characters in a future novel has created quite the buzz. The large amount can be explained in part by the fact that the money was not going to the author, but to support a local library system. The amount is a bit staggering. But the fact that people will pay to have their name used in a novel is a quirk of human nature I experienced after venturing into the creative writing game.
To add a bit of pizzazz to a book signing, I made the offer that every person who purchased a book would be eligible to enter a “Your Name in the Next Novel” drawing if he or she so desired. Two names would be drawn. I was not prepared for the reaction this offer created. Three people during the session said they were buying a book just so they could enter the drawing. Shocked? A bit, but …whatever sells.
The entry form for the drawing gave each person the option to select between being a “good guy” or a “bad guy.” At the end of the signing session, two names were drawn⎯one female and one male. She wanted to be a “bad guy.” He wanted to be a “good guy.”
After getting home that day, I looked through the balance of the entry forms. Two people wanted to be identify by initials and a last name. These gave no clue as to gender. Three first names could have gone either way. But among every name that clearly reflected gender, all the female entrants had checked “bad guy,” while all the males but one wanted to be a “good guy.”
The results cannot be used to draw any firm conclusions applicable beyond the group of people who entered the contest. But as I continue to cobble words together for another novel, I feel conflicted. I grew up with a nursery rhyme, two lines of which are:
“What are our mothers made of?
Ribbons and laces and sweet pretty faces.”
I cannot say that the “mini-poll will not be an influence on future character development when I envision what might be beneath those ribbons and laces and sweet pretty faces.
To add a bit of pizzazz to a book signing, I made the offer that every person who purchased a book would be eligible to enter a “Your Name in the Next Novel” drawing if he or she so desired. Two names would be drawn. I was not prepared for the reaction this offer created. Three people during the session said they were buying a book just so they could enter the drawing. Shocked? A bit, but …whatever sells.
The entry form for the drawing gave each person the option to select between being a “good guy” or a “bad guy.” At the end of the signing session, two names were drawn⎯one female and one male. She wanted to be a “bad guy.” He wanted to be a “good guy.”
After getting home that day, I looked through the balance of the entry forms. Two people wanted to be identify by initials and a last name. These gave no clue as to gender. Three first names could have gone either way. But among every name that clearly reflected gender, all the female entrants had checked “bad guy,” while all the males but one wanted to be a “good guy.”
The results cannot be used to draw any firm conclusions applicable beyond the group of people who entered the contest. But as I continue to cobble words together for another novel, I feel conflicted. I grew up with a nursery rhyme, two lines of which are:
“What are our mothers made of?
Ribbons and laces and sweet pretty faces.”
I cannot say that the “mini-poll will not be an influence on future character development when I envision what might be beneath those ribbons and laces and sweet pretty faces.
Saturday, August 13, 2011
MISERY BAY a Chilling Read: Continues Extended Metaphor
Steve Hamilton has followed THE LOCK ARTIST, his award-winning stand-alone thriller, with a return to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Once again readers are taken to the small town of Paradise, the Glasgow Inn, and another story featuring Alex McKnight. And once again, the weather is freezing cold. It’s a “frozen January night” readers learn when they open MISERY BAY; the eighth book in the series.
But cold lurks in every Alex McKnight story, regardless of the season. Readers first met him some thirteen years ago in A COLD DAY IN PARADISE. The former Detroit cop who’d been shot in the line of duty says, “There is a bullet in my chest, less than a centimeter from my heart. And even though that bullet has been warming inside my body for fourteen years, on a night like this when it is dark enough and the wind is blowing, that bullet feels as cold as the night itself."
Next came THE WINTER OF THE WOLF, in which readers were told, “The cold can take away a piece of you. Not just your physical body. I mean inside you. Once you freeze all the way through to your soul, you will never feel warm again.”
It was spring in THE HUNTING WIND. However, “April in Paradise is still cold enough to hurt you.” Summer had arrived in NORTH OF NOWHERE. However, Lake Superior, a prominent feature throughout the series, is “filled with pure, sweet, cold water and not much else.”
Summer had turned into autumn in BLOOD OF THE SKY, but “the days were getting shorter … the pine trees were bending in the cold October wind.”
In ICE RUN, it’s February, a time when “a few days of mild weather will soften you up for three feet of snow in one night.”
In A STOLEN SEASON, readers learn it’s “a cold, miserable night in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, a night that wouldn't feel so unusual if it wasn't the Fourth of July.”
There is little I can add to those who have written reviews and those who have given book awards. All I can do is echo what has already been said. Each of these books contains a story that will satisfy the cravings of any reader who wants a complex, chilling mystery. But I do have a thought as a reader of this series.
The cold weather that is pervasive through out these novels is more than mere setting. It is an extended metaphor. The life of Alex McKnight is filled with tragic personal loss. Those who have experienced such loss in real life know it creates an icy chill deep within that no source of warmth can totally eradicate. They know the truth of the quote from THE WINTER OF THE WOLF.
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