Unleaded – Fuel for Writers

J.D. Salinger, author of “The Catcher in the Rye” just died. The novel is considered a classic and introduced us to the rebellious Holden Caulfield , a young man who’s mix of innocence and cynicism would become the standard for the anti-hero we would see in film and books for years to come; some who perhaps gained more notoriety and recognition – James Dean in “Rebel without a Cause,” “The Breakfast Club ,” and of course…Benjamin Braddock of “The Graduate”.Embittered and enraged by the “phonies” and alienated by an adult world he wanted no part of, Holden has come to epitomize teenage rebellion.

With regard to the novel itself, according to Finlo Rohrer the reasons behind the popularity and criticism of the book are because the Catcher in the Rye “captures existential teenage angst” and has a “complex central character” and “accessible conversational style” – while at the same time some readers may dislike the “use of 1940s New York vernacular”, “self-obsessed central character” and “too much whining.”

I have to admit, that I tend to fall in the latter category. I found myself wishing that Holden would just “get on with it.” Actually, very similar to my feelings about Hamlet. But I can at least say that I have some fondness with both because of the fencing.

REFERENCES:

Catcher in the Rye Author Salinger Dies

New York Times – Get a Life, Holden Caulfield

The 3rd annual Dying to Write conference has been cancelled due to lack of interest.

Mystery Writers of America (MWA) Mid-Atlantic Chapter President Laura Durham put up this notice last Friday: Dying to Write Cancelled!
For those of you that don’t know, Dying to Write is a mystery writers conference held in Maryland and put on by MWA Mid-Atlantic. It is a small but talent laden conference that was held (in its first year) in a funeral home.

It’s a sad comment on the atmosphere among today’s writers that such an amazing conference had to be cancelled. With scheduled speakers such as, the ex-CIA head of the spy museum as well as too many authors to count it’s a shame that no one will be able to enjoy it.

Then again, is it all the fault of the economy? Summer vacations? Or was it something else? Could it have been the lack of advertising (on the part of the sponsors and invited guests both) about this conference? Or is it partly the fault of the organizers for not making this conference available to those wanting to attend it?

Wouldn’t this conference be more visible by purchasing dyingtowrite.com? And why aren’t the members of the MWA’s MD chapter handing out flyers, posting blog posts, and encouraging attending authors to put up alerts to their fans? And if they are, why isn’t it reaching the audience it’s striving for???

I personally would never have found out about it if I hadn’t been on their announcements list…and having attended the first I think that is a damn shame! This conference, while small, is intense and worth your time and attention as an author or author-to-be. The people are kind AND accommodating. The location (Bethesda) is nice. The authors in attendance are approachable and available.

I know I will be pounding the drum about this conference next year, and I’m not even part of MWA! And let me encourage you to help keep Dying to Write alive as well! Take a day out of your busy schedule and sign up…I’m sure you’ll be happy you did!

In the meantime, any ideas on how to spread the word would help. Just plop them in the comments.

Last time, I spoke about the dominance of the romance genre in book sales accounting for 21% of the book market. Since that time, there have been some requests for statistics as to the sales figures for other genres. The total net revenue for books in the U.S. was around $6.31 billion. Of that, Science Fiction/Fantasy accounts for $495 million or 7.8 % of the market. Classic Literary Fiction is about $448 million or 7.1 % of the market. I was rather surprised to discover that Mystery, which is at $422 million, is only 6.7% of the market. And perhaps the newest and fastest growing genre – Graphic Novels make up a not insignificant 2% of overall book sales, bringing in $128 million and those figures are expected to increase in the years to come.

In the writing world, and even occasionally, the reading world you will hear people making fun of romance writers and fans of the genre. Even I’ve fallen victim to the hype and find myself buying my romance novels online where no one can see me and reading them in secret. But to honor the fact that Romance Writers of America held their National Conference here in Washington DC in July, I thought it would be good to clear the air once and for all about romance novels.

According to Simba Information, which reports U.S. book sales (net revenue from retail sources) – in 2006 romance sales accounted for $1.37 billion in revenue. Okay, now considering that the total sales of in the U.S. are around $6.31 billion. If you do the math, that means that romance novel sales account for more than 21% of the market. Pretty impressive. And if that isn’t enough romance books actually dominate bestseller lists. There were 288 titles on the lists (some represented twice because of the different formats for a total of 304 books) and 161 romance authors.

Maybe it’s time to give the romance genre the respect it is due.

Sometimes query letters have references to other works. According to a literary agent’s assistant at http://brainbombs.blogspot.com/ (blog is now defunct), about half of the queries that they’d selected for manuscript request this week have a line that says something like, based on your representation of such-and-such book OR interest in such-and-such genre, I thought you may be interested in my book XYZ.

She’d also seen the tactic where the author says, My book XYZ is similar in the themes of love and forgiveness in such-and-such book.

After a discussion with their in-house editor this is what she had to say: Mentioning a the work of an agent’s client is 1)flattering and 2)let’s them know you’ve put some thought into selecting them as an agent to query. Comparing your book in tone or theme or culture to another book gives the agency some sort of idea on your writing style.

Audio File: References in Queries – (An Unleaded, Fuel for Writers Podcast)