Start making sense

Most of you know I live in southern California and today it's Santa Ana Winds week. We get static-charged dry air along with 60-mile an hour winds (no, I'm NOT kidding) that rearrange everything everywhere. Me? I get a headache.

I read some doctor's claim that there are very few sinus headaches and people who say they get them are simply misdiagnosed. I'd like to exchange heads with him for one of these Santa Ana days and see if he still believes that.

But even though I'd like to take a rock and hit myself in the head (unconsciousness would be good right now), that doctor has given me something to post about.

Science - what does the data really prove?

In my very first psychology class as a college freshman, my professor said the most astounding thing: "There is no scientific proof that cigarettes cause cancer." What?!? He then explained. To establish scientific proof, scientists would have to set up three groups of people of the same age. One group of people would never EVER smoke ANYTHING. One group would begin smoking a pack a day at age eighteen. The third group would smoke something that looked like cigarettes but were placebos.

"Then when they were all sixty, we'd count the survivors and have our proof," he said. "There is, of course, a moral and ethical code about running these kinds of experiments, which is why we have laboratory mice and we make comparisons and extrapolations and it takes years to convince anyone to put a warning label on a pack of cigarettes, instead of a skull and crossbones."

(By the way, he smoked. He just admitted it was not his safest choice.)

From that moment, I looked at all pronouncements, scientific or statistic, with a degree of skepticism. How was the testing done? How were the results gathered? Who is behind the study or poll? What do they have to benefit from the results?

I can say this attitude has served me, in that I no longer panic when a headline screams, "Analysts Predict Worldwide Financial Collapse Within Fifty Years." Which analysts? Define "financial collapse." How did they arrive at their conclusion?

It also made me fall in love with the idea of the pure test, without any anticipation of results. Let the data prove what it proves, instead of looking for your own personal AHA.

What does any of this have to do with books and writing?

Because I read Publisher's Weekly and a bunch of other publisher/agent/author blogs, I'm always reading about how e-books are overtaking print books - NO WAIT - the print books are still in the lead - NO WAIT - independent authors are becoming more legitimate - NO WAIT - the Big Six Publishers are still calling the shots - NO WAIT...

Good grief, I'm exhausted just trying to figure out what kind of data they've used to arrive at their conclusions. At the end of the day, I can only do what seems right for me at the time, but I do consider the headlines because 'what's right for me' has to include what the market is doing.

So when Joe Konrath threw this little test up in a recent blog post, it got me very excited:

Visit publishers' websites. Pick ten books by new authors that are being released in November. Then set up a Google alert for each title, so you get all the marketing, news, and publicity associated with it. Also watch and track Amazon and BN.com rankings.

Follow these books for a month. See for yourself how well publishers do in breaking out these ten new books. Do any get on the bestseller lists? Visit some local bookstores. How many copies do they stock, if any? Contact the authors and ask how they're being treated.

Then you can find out for yourself what a Big 6 publisher does for a new author, and you'll have a much better reason for either taking, or rejecting, any deal they might offer you.

A test with real data I could collect and use! This is useful to me because even though I've self-pubbed my last three books, I may still want to submit the next one to a publisher. Maybe - if they can do things for me that I can't do for myself, such as reach a broader audience. But how do I know they are helping their authors sell as many books as possible?

Joe's test can be a more analytical, less anecdotal, way to determine that, which can only help me.

If you're an author, is there any criteria you use for determining what path to take your career? Do you find yourself relying on anecdotes for your choices?

If you're a publisher or agent, are you seeing any differences in authors these days? Are you also looking at the anecdotes and making adjustments in your own career/company to meet the market needs?

I hope this makes sense, in spite of my "non-sinus" sinus headache.

Five reasons to go to the Southern California Writer's Conference

The Southern California Writers Conference, Los Angeles*, is less than a month away and I'm getting excited, as usual, to be in that warm environment of people who don't back slowly out of the room when I start talking about my characters as if they're real people.

A lot of people, though, writers and non, wonder why I still go to writer's conferences. Aren't I already a writer? A published writer?

Yes and yes, and here's why I need to go:

1. The SCWC is not just about the process of writing, it's also about the business of writing. I've already blabbed about the state of publishing, but a writer's conference is a great place to hear industry experts talk about what's being done and what's falling out of favor and what are the pros and cons of anything I'm considering doing. Where's the market for marketing? Are bookmarks still a viable way to advertise your books? Are there any good websites out there for publicizing what you've done? There's always something new to be learned.

2. Guest speakers have been through the process. Almost all of the SCWC's speakers are people who have current tales to tell about getting published. Although I love to hear from the old guard, they've had the same agent for 40 years and the same publisher for 35. When I was at Bouchercon a couple of years ago, I had the good fortune to end up sitting next to Lee Child at the bar. His advice to all the newbies was to "forget Facebook and all that social media and just write good books and be nice to people." Writing good books is good. Being nice to people never hurts. But Lee is a famous guy who is, by now, surgically attached to his agent/publisher. He doesn't need social media - yet. I'd like to hear how someone did it in this era.

3. Even though my last two books have been self-published, I still like to learn about writing a good query letter. Why? Because I need to sell my books, and part of that advertising is a good hook, a good jacket blurb, a good way to get people to want to pick up my book and plop down their money. Even if I never queried another agent/publisher, I want to hone my book's description until it's taut and enticing. I don't want to go to an author festival and tell people, "Well, my book is about this private eye who used to be a housecleaner but she doesn't want to clean houses anymore, so she gets her license and this wealthy man hires her to find out if his wife is cheating on him, but then funny accidents start happening and..." Gah. After cutting and sanding and honing and working, I can say, "A housecleaner-turned-detective is hired to investigate a wealthy, possibly cheating wife, but the wife's best friends have other ideas. After all, a friend will help you move. A good friend will help you move a body."

4. My writing can always be improved. Any author who says their writing is perfect is deluded. My writing is good, but it can always be tightened or even expanded, and I can always learn new ways to use first person or write someone's thoughts without being boring or mix up description and action to keep the pace moving. Years ago, I heard Willard Scott say something interesting (okay, granted, I don't listen to Willard very often). He said, "When you're green, you're growing, and when you think you're ripe, you're rotten." I don't want to ever be rotten.

5. There is the night life. After the workshops and the speakers, etc., there's always a table where drinks appear and writers and agents and publishers and the conference staff gather to talk about how the day went and laugh and make plans for the next day. The agents don't huddle by themselves. The writers don't pounce on said agents. Everyone just talks about writing and publishing and where it's all going. At least, when we're not making stupid jokes and making the waitresses miserable because people keep arriving and leaving and joining tables until the entire bar is just one big table.

I love this conference.

*Why they call it the Los Angeles conference when it's held in Newport Beach, I don't know, but it means I don't have to get a room because I'm pretty local, so I don't care.

Students! Pay Attention!

So Karen Syed mentioned Yahoo!Answers in her blog one day and I thought, hey, it's my dream job calling - sitting in a big comfy chair while I give everyone my opinion. I went to the Books & Authors section and started answering questions. This is what I found:

1. Most of the questions seem to revolve around the Twilight series and whether you, like, really really like it, um, and, like, how much do you love Edward, and aren't you just so bummed that Stephanie Meyer isn't going to finish Midnight Sun...? Yeah, in mostly those words, only not as well written.

2. Some of the questions are of the "I was supposed to read the book and do a report but could you just tell me the plot and help me answer the questions" variety. I want to answer these, but the reply box doesn't have a good, animated laugh.

3. The questions I like to answer have to do with: how do you publish a book, how do you cure writer's block, how do you find an agent, how do you think of a story to write about, etc. Some of the writers appear to need help on their spelling and grammar, but these are the questions I like to answer.

The only thing I don't understand about all these questions is, why do people ask them over and over if they've already been asked and answered? I mean, the questions on this website never stop, and there are at least 2-3 a day asking "how do I get published?" Can't anyone do a search?

Some of the answers are frightening. My favorite is always, "Find a list of publishers and send your whole manuscript to each one." Yeah, there's a good way to make friends and influence people.

I offer the same advice that's been pounded into me, via writer's conferences, author/editor/publisher websites, blogs, etc. "Write a good query letter. There are books and websites that show you how to do this. Then go to the library and check out Writer's Market. They list agents and publishers, along with the types of books they represent, and whether they're accepting new clients. Find agents and publishers who take your genre and send them the query letter, plus any materials they request in their submission guidelines. Do not send them anything else. If you get a lot of rejections, consider joining a writer's group or attending a writer's conference, where you can share your work with other writers and get their feedback.

I wish I could just store this answer and push a button.

What I really wish is that I could tell SurferDude what he needs to do when he asks if someone will write his essay on Catcher in the Rye that's due tomorrow. READ THE DAMN BOOK, JOCK-O!

Yahoo!Answers hates that language.