As the launch day approaches...advice from two people who know what they're doing!!!

Thank goodness authors no longer have to sing their books

Since my first novel-- A Murder at Rosamund's Gate--will be released next week, I asked my awesome co-bloggers Nancy Bilyeau and Sam Thomas to share some of their experiences and insights into their book launch and that that first week was like, as a published novelist.  

Sam's novel,  The Midwife's Tale: A Mystery, was released in January, while Nancy's SECOND novel, The Chalice, just released a few weeks ago. So, I view both as all-knowing pros.
 
What was the experience like, for each of you, as your release date approached? Were you nervous? Excited?  Worried?  What (if anything!) do you remember about the release day? Did you do anything special? 

Sam: The days leading up to the release were far worse than the release itself. So much seemed to be riding on that one day, yet I felt so powerless to do anything about it. Sure I sent out hundreds of postcards to bookstores, libraries, friends, relatives, etc., flogging the book, but even if I had a 100% purchase rate from those - hard to imagine - it couldn't make a difference in the grand scheme of things. At the outset, at least, your book will sell if the publisher decides to put money into marketing. If not, your sales will be modest. Fact. Of. Life.   As for the release, it was pretty unspectacular. I went to work, home for dinner, and then to my launch. No champagne, dinner out, or anything like that. 

Nancy: I was very nervous for both books, in a daze really as it came upon me. I was blogging as much as I could. For the second book I posted four blogs or interviews on the actual publication day.

Describe your first event as a newly published author (book launch). Where did you hold it?  Who came?  Did it go as you expected?

Sam: My local library was nice enough to host the launch, and the woman in charge did a marvelous job on the publicity side of things. Thanks to her, I landed a ten-minute spot on the local NPR, which really goosed my numbers. In the end we had about eighty people show up, only a handful of whom I actually knew! In the end, it went as I'd hoped and expected. I read a little (maybe eight minutes in all) and talked a lot about the history behind the book, for a total of maybe half an hour. Then we had about an hour of Q & A, which was great.

Nancy:  For both The Crown and The Chalice, I had a book launch event within 2 days of the book’s official drop date. For The Crown it was a reading at a large Barnes & Noble, followed by a party. I invited absolutely everyone I knew in New York City, plus there were posters in the window of BN and the publisher did a few things to publicize. About 80 people came. For The Chalice, the reading was at an indie called The Mysterious Bookshop. Wine was served and I signed books. I would say 60- 70 people came. I think the second event was more successful because I feel so much more comfortable talking about my books.

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What have you learned about doing author talks/book signings? What works well? What works less well?  (I'm eagerly taking notes here! :-)) 

Sam: Be ready for anything. I've been to signings that turned into formal presentations, and book clubs that did the same thing. Other  times, it just becomes a raucous discussion of the book and characters. You can't go in knowing what you want to do. You're just along for the ride.

Nancy: For me, I try to talk about the research and the journey of writing a book, and I keep it positive and anecdote-rich. I actually don’t read more than a few minutes. I remember that I need to enlighten and entertain at a reading. I try not to make it too insiderish to other authors, but interesting to a wide spectrum of people.  I went to one book event where the author went on and on about how hard it was to be published and how her editors tell her she is no Lee Child, and it didn’t make me excited to read her book. I think that sort of thing is for your writers’ group, not potential readers.



What advice about the book release would you offer someone who—say—has her first book coming out next week? 

Nancy:  Blog, post and tweet like crazy the first two weeks. That is key! The first two weeks. And ask friends (like myself) to tweet and post on your book. Because personal recommendations are what counts.

 Sam: Chill. It'll be anticlimactic. Nothing about your life is going to change except you'll be busier.

Thanks, Nancy and Sam! 

An intriguing 17th century theft

This is the kind of little snippet that really intrigues me as a writer, and as a historian. I came across this interesting 17th century advertisement in the Early English Books. Five valuable books had gone missing--"Lost or Stolen"--and a relatively large reward had been offered for their return.

Early English books tract supplement interim guide ; / E4:2[148]  Date 16--?

Clearly, the books were valuable. Four were bound in rough calves leather and had clasps.  One was in smooth's calves leather and lettered on the back.

But it's the glimpse into the content that intrigues me. Three volumes of Monasticon Anglicanum, also known as The history of the ancient abbies, and other monasteries, hospitals, cathedral and collegiate churches in England and Wales. With divers French, Irish, and Scotch monasteries formerly relating to England (1693) (You can actually read all three volumes here if you like!).  Dugdale's Antiquities of Warwickshire. And Camden's Britannia.

All of them could be viewed as sort of refined travel guides, pointing out the interesting facts and histories of important buildings, ruins, castles, private homes, churches and former monasteries (each was also likely informed by key political and religious tensions of the time, but that's another story.)

This fascinates me: who might have taken these books? (I'm sort of discounting the idea they may actually have been lost...what's the fun of that?)  A petty thief who may have wanted to make a few shillings? Maybe. An armchair traveller, sitting in his oak-panelled chair with spindled arms, sipping some Rhenish wine, dreaming of places he'd never been?  Perhaps.

Or perhaps, and here's the fun part to conjecture, the books were lifted from the bookstall by a master thief. To get the lay of the land throughout Warwickshire. To understand the best ways to travel. To study escape routes. To look for hidden entrances and egresses. 

There's no record as to whether the books found their way back to booksellers Bateman and Brown, but I like to imagine they didn't. Maybe some seventeenth century rogue (or moll) pulled off the heist of the century...and it's up to me to write that tale...

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It's less than seven weeks till the launch of my first mystery, A Murder at Rosamund's Gate (Minotaur Books/St.Martin's Press) on April 23, 2013!   www.susannacalkins.com

When cases were solved by a corpse’s pointing finger….

 
Recently I came across the Detective’s Oath, written by Dorothy Sayers and first administered by G.K. Chesterton, as part of the initiation ceremony for the London Detection Club. The club, convened in 1930, included the likes of Sayers, Agatha Christie, and a slew of other Golden Age mystery writers.

The oath was this: “Do you promise that your detectives shall well and truly detect the crimes presented to them using those wits which it may please you to bestow upon them and not placing reliance on nor making use of Divine Revelation, Feminine Intuition, Mumbo Jumbo, Jiggery-Pokery, Coincidence, or Act of God?”

While I think we’ve all seen authors—well-known ones at that—break these principles regularly (after all, why can’t a ghost solve a crime? Or for that matter, a cat?), there was something to these expectations that made sense. A reader should be able to work out whodunit, at least after the fact, to be fair.

But when I first read the oath, I had to laugh.  All three of us—Nancy Bilyeau, Sam Thomas, and myself—have situated our mysteries in early modern England, a time when divine revelation, providence, acts of God (or the Devil, for that matter) often served as the explanation for most mishaps and misfortune.  It would have been so easy—and realistic—to have our sleuths solve crimes in that fashion.

After all, there are many incidences of a community “solving” a murder when a corpse’s finger pointed to its murderer. Or when the corpse’s eyes would open and stare in the direction of the murderer’s house.  There are even examples of corpses bleeding from the nose or ears, indicating that their murderers were in the vicinity.

Sometimes, logic and reason and evidence would prevail and sometimes…they did not. There are many examples of superstitions, hearsay, and feelings making their way into court testimony, especially in ecclesiastical courts.

I can’t speak for Nancy and Sam’s protagonists, of course, but I wanted Lucy Campion, my chambermaid in a A Murder at Rosamund's Gate, to be someone who was resourceful and intelligent, despite having little formal education. But it wasn’t just about creating a character who would use her wits and evidence to solve a crime; I wanted her to question how the community identified murderers in the first place.

I also wanted Lucy to be someone who rejects the notion of providence as a means to explain murder. I wanted her to dismiss the idea that divine revelation could be a reliable way to identify a murderer—even if that meant challenging the expectations of her community.  

I’d like to think that Lucy would approve of the Detective’s Oath, even if everyone around her was convinced that the murderer could be discovered by a corpse's pointing finger.

But what do you think? If you're a writer, do you adhere to this oath? Or gleefully stomp all over it? If you're a reader, do you mind if the detective doesn't use logic or wits to solve a crime?