Mary Louise Kelly proclaims the book tour not dead yet

HALLIE EPHRON: Every once in a while, an article “goes viral” behind the scenes here on Jungle Red. Last week Hank sent us a link to an essay by Mary Louise Kelly (author of THE BULLET) that ran in the Washington Post. It had the long and provocative (especially to an author) title:

Do book tours sell books? Maybe not, but that shouldn’t stop you from having a good time The book tour ain't dead yet

What she had to say struck a nerve. So true and so funny. Timely, too, because one of the Reds is invariably “on tour.” (Rhys is out with MALICE AT THE PALACE; in October Hank will be launching WHAT YOU SEE and Susan will be launching MRS. ROOSEVELT'S CONFIDANTE)

And on tour, the one… make that TWO things we invariably ask ourselves:
- Are we having fun yet?
- Is anything that I’m doing making a difference?
Along comes Mary Louise Kelly’s hilarious essay with a few answers of her own. She’s just coming down from launching THE BULLET, her tour taking her from Atlanta to Seattle to Damariscotta, Maine, and she shares her insights and 7 stellar tips.

I especially love this quote she got from David Baldacci, whose books will hit the best seller lists whether he goes on tour or not: “It’s far better to go out on book tour than it is to sit and tweet.”

Mary Louise, Now that you’re back from book tour, do you agree?

MARY LOUISE KELLY: Most definitely. There's always a moment at a reading where I have to stop and pinch myself, because it hits me all over again: these people are here to talk about a book that I WROTE! And look, there it is, my book! Sitting there all perky on the shelf in an actual bookstore!

I don't know how many bestsellers you have to write before you stop being struck by that sense of wonder, but I'm not there yet. Speaking of bestsellers, my favorite quote from Baldacci was that he once flew to Nebraska for a pot roast dinner, served at a book club with all of three members. Now, THAT is book tour dedication.

HALLIE: You advise us NOT to read from our books, unless we pick a really provocative passage. Just wondering, can a passage be too provocative?

MARY LOUISE:  Yes, it does make you wonder how E.L. James (of Fifty Shades of Grey fame) fares on book tour, doesn't it? I did a book event in Atlanta recently, and the venue was a lovely big hall inside an Episcopal church. My books aren't especially racy, but the passage I'd chosen to read contained some, ahem, shall we say salty language. I got halfway through it and thought -- I can't read this out loud to all these nice church ladies! I toned down a couple of words and just let roll with the rest. The crowd appeared to enjoy themselves, they bought lots of books, and I'm happy to report I was not struck down by lightning.

HALLIE: I laughed when I saw your advice #6 Don’t say yes to every invitation followed by #7 Say yes to every invitation. That nailed it.

MARY LOUISE:  It's like Whitman says:  "Do I contradict myself? Very well I contradict myself. I am large, I contain multitudes." Walt Whitman must have been a force to be reckoned with on book tour, by the way.

HALLIE: And I love your advice, “Don’t wear stilettos.” I only wish I still could. Any advice about sharing the stage with other writers?

MARY LOUISE:  One reader complained to me about that stiletto comment, harrumphing that I was being sexist and setting different rules for male and female writers. I assured him that I would advise male writers to stay away from stilettos too...

As for sharing the stage with other writers, I love it. I always learn something. I did an event this spring with Julia Dahl (author of the clever Brooklyn-based thrillers Invisible City and Run You Down). We hadn't met until five minutes before we climbed onto stage, but we hit it off and had each other doubled over in giggles. I can only hope the audience had half as much fun as we did. Afterwards we sneaked off to a French bistro, polished off a bottle of good wine and swapped book tour stories until she had to run for the train.

HALLIE: SO jealous! I'm a huge Julia Dahl fan. We hosted her in this very space not that long ago.

I’m betting that your Washington Post article sold a lot of books, more than an appearance for sure. But you’d never have been able to publish the article if you hadn’t done the appearances. Another Catch-22 of book promotion.

What feedback have you gotten?

MARY LOUISE: The thing is that it's impossible to measure, right? I hope the Post article sold a lot of books, but other than furtively checking my Amazon rankings -- a bad habit I fight valiantly to suppress -- there's no way to know.

I do believe, though, that book publicity is a cumulative affair. Meaning: maybe no one buys my book because I wrote an essay in the Washington Post. But maybe they read that essay, and then they find your way to this Q&A on Jungle Red (which only happened because of the Post article), or they come hear me talk at a big mid-Atlantic book festival (an invitation which arrived because of the Post article)... And all of it adds up to convince people that they want to read my book. And if not, well -- as an author I can only say that I feel extraordinarily lucky to have the chance to do all those things, and that I'm having a heck of a good time.

HALLIE: What a fantastic attitude. For me, events and book groups are the silver lining of a writing career, and boy aren't we lucky!?

Today's question: Do you think tours are worthwhile or would authors be better off to just sit and Tweet?

ABOUT The Bullet by Mary Louise Kelly
   Two words: The bullet.
   That’s all it takes to shatter her life.
   Caroline Cashion is beautiful, intelligent, a professor of French literature. But in a split second, everything she’s known is proved to be a lie.
   A single bullet, gracefully tapered at one end, is found lodged at the base of her skull. Caroline is stunned. It makes no sense: she has never been shot. She has no entry wound. No scar. Then, over the course of one awful evening, she learns the truth: that she was adopted when she was three years old, after her real parents were murdered. Caroline was there the night they were attacked. She was wounded too, a gunshot to the neck. Surgeons had stitched up the traumatized little girl, with the bullet still there, nestled deep among vital nerves and blood vessels.
   That was thirty-four years ago.
   Now, Caroline has to find the truth of her past. Why were her parents killed? Why is she still alive? She returns to her hometown where she meets a cop who lets slip that the bullet in her neck is the same bullet that killed her mother. Full-metal jacket, .38 Special. It hit Caroline’s mother and kept going, hurtling through the mother’s chest and into the child hiding behind her.
   She is horrified—and in danger. When a gun is fired it leaves markings on the bullet. Tiny grooves, almost as unique as a fingerprint. The bullet in her neck could finger a murderer. A frantic race is set in motion: Can Caroline unravel the clues to her past, before the killer tracks her down?

In the Gothic Tradition: a guest blog by Sara Foster

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: It's no secret we Reds have a fondness for Gothic. Whenever we talk books-we-have-loved, Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier is always on the list, along with any assortment of other novels featuring Young Governesses In Peril, Lonely Houses Perched on High Cliffs, and Mysterious Brooding Masters. (I'm tempted to make an argument here that 50 Shades of Gray cut such a wide swath because it appeals to a gothic-starved audience. I'll leave it to you, dear readers, to hash that conceit out in the comments section.)


You can imagine my reaction, then, when I got a copy of Sara Foster's Beneath the Shadows (which you will be able to read starting June 5th!) Beneath the Shadows wasn't a parody, it wasn't an ironic reimagining - it was the genuine article, a classic gothic updated to a believably modern tale. It was not surprising when I discovered Sara was already a bestseller in her adopted homeland, Australia.


Is there a cold wind creaking the ancient oaks outside? Do you hear a mysterious howling out on the moor? Pour yourself a pot of tea and let Sara tell you how it all began...

I didn’t set out to write a gothic novel. The seed for Beneath the Shadows was my vivid imagining of a vulnerable woman called Grace, who is utterly alone, undone by the mysterious circumstances of her husband’s disappearance, and trapped by her own fears and uncertainties. Only as I began sketching out the details of the story did it become clear it was a gothic suspense. By that time, many of the elements were already present: a woman in distress, threatened by her surroundings; dark symbols and disturbing local legends; and a touch of romance. 

 

I shouldn’t have been surprised. My favourite writers as a teenager were the Brontes and Daphne du Maurier, who could pull me into their spine-tingling stories of love and loss so completely that I would sometimes be part of them in my dreams. Du Maurier’s classic Rebecca even wound its way into Beneath the Shadows. My character Grace reads it and is absorbed, just as I was, while her external life occasionally touches on or parallels the second Mrs de Winter’s.

For a truly gothic story, you need a fabulous, foreboding setting. My knowledge of the North Yorkshire moors was a gift given by my in-laws, whose cottage is not dissimilar to Hawthorn Cottage in Beneath the Shadows. They introduced me to this stark and beautiful landscape, and by the time I had learned many of the old stories and symbols, I had an abundance of material I could use. The hardest part was deciding what to leave out.

However, despite these traditional gothic allusions, Beneath the Shadows is also intended to be a thoroughly modern tale of a woman ensnared in shifting circumstances. Grace is caught between the past and the future; the city and the country; modern and traditional life; the safety of the familiar and the courage required to face the unknown. On top of it all, she must confront supernatural as well as psychological explanations of everything taking place around her. In gothic literature, the fortunes of female protagonists can be varied, and the stories I love most are not only concerned with thrills, but also highlight the determination of these women in extremis. These heroines might be pushed to the edge by fear and intimidation, but they also find ways to confront and move past their fears, however insurmountable, to ultimately set themselves free.

Intrigued? You can find out more about Sara Foster and her books at her website. You can also read her blog, follow her on Twitter as @SaraJFoster and friend her on Facebook. Sara also writes for Holiday Goddess, one of the most popular woman-oriented travel sites on the web. All you pack-a-bag-and-go gals need to check it out!

Blogging in the City

JAN BROGAN: Here at Jungle Red, we promote writers.  Ourselves. Other mystery authors. Friends. Friends of friends. Anyone we just happen to think is interesting. I'm pushing the envelope a little today. I'm promoting my son.  

You've heard me hear talk /write about him as Spike, which is what we've called him since birth, but he writes under his actual given name, Frank Santo.

Spike/Frank lives in Brooklyn and blogs about the literary world  for PageViews, which is a new initiative by the New York Daily News. The blog, which I actually read even when my son isn't posting, isn't what you think of when you think of the New York Daily News.  Less Daily News, more New York. It's sophisticated, edgy, witty, and controversial as it covers everything from the publishing world's latest phenom to Sunday's episode about Madmen ( and exactly which serial murderer were they all talking about anyway.)

Editor Alexander Nazaryan started the blog in December with the goal of being the "best source for cultural and literary reporting on the web," and while he says it's not there yet, the blog has been getting a lot of attention.  Frank (I'm having a really hard time calling him that) started there in February, and I'm not just bragging when I say he's had great success in only two months. (okay, maybe I am bragging just a little.)

What do I mean by success? Two weeks ago, he found himself quoted in People Magazine.  His blog about literary speed dating was tweeted across the universe and got picked up by the Paris Review.  His review of Fifty Shades of Gray made its way to Jezebel before it hit People.  And last week, a post he did about the Rolling Stone expose on Dartmouth hazing went viral and got more than one thousand Facebook recommends. (the counter stops when you hit 1K)

So please welcome Frank Santo to Jungle Red.

JAN BROGAN: Tell us about Page Views:  

FRANK SANTO: I’m not really sure what the overall concept of the blog is other than that I hope it is a place that fosters intelligent discussion about culture and has its own unique voice.The key to its success is probably consistency, we have at least three posts a day, and its becoming a daily destination for people interested in the literary world (whatever that is).

JAN:  Your editor puts says the concept is to have a blog about book and culture that was both sophisticated and could laugh at itself.  And I'd say you definitely laugh at yourself when you explain in your  review of Fifty Shades of Gray by E.L. James, just how excruciatingly uncomfortable it was to be reading that book as a young male on a crowded New York subway.  But the review was also interesting because it was the male perspective of a book about female fantasy.  How difficult was it to write that review and how shocked were you to find it quoted in People Magazine? 

FRANK: Well it wasn’t as difficult to review that book as it was to read it. It was hard coming up with a way to review the book that would be more interesting than “this book is really tedious, don’t read it.” So pretty much the only unique angle I could take was to write it from a male perspective. I was pretty shocked to see my name in People Magazine. I think it was because I said 50 Shades was pornography. 

http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/pageviews/2012/03/its-all-porn-to-me-one-mans-review-of-50-shades-of-grey


JAN: His review was kinder than his answer would indicate, but let's say I'm still not going out to buy the book.  Back to the interview, what did you learn about your experience going undercover at a literary speed dating event?

FRANK: I learned that literary speed dating is goofy in a fun way. Everyone there was in it for the story, which was kind of nice. I think people liked it because it would have been easy for me to make fun of all of those speed-daters, but instead I kind of connected with them. They were just people seeking out a good time, like most of us.Waiting-for-a-stranger-to-roll-her-eyes-my-adventures-in-literary-speed-dating

JAN: As a Dartmouth alumni,  you took issue with Janet Rietman's expose in Rolling Stone, but not in support of fraternity life. I was really proud because you stuck up for all the students at Dartmouth trying to make it a better place, but tell us about how you approached your rebuttal piece and the reaction it's had.

FRANK: I just think Rietman relied on a false characterization of Dartmouth students in order to drum up populist outrage.  Hazing and fraternities are unneccesarry, but they aren’t the result of some kind of elitist conspiracy.  It happens at plenty of non-elite schools, so her whole 1 percent  vs 99 percent  angle was contrived. I don’t put a lot of stock in the positive reaction my post received  because it was mostly Dartmouth people who liked it, and they’re obviously going to be biased. But it was nice to have people say it meant a lot to them though.

http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/pageviews/2012/04/confessions-of-an-actual-dartmouth-student-rolling-stone-vomits-all-over-ivy-leagu

JAN: One of the best things about the Pageviews blog are the creative story ideas. Short pieces about what we happen to be wondering about at the exact moment we are wondering. Where do the assignments come from?



FRANK:  My editor is the one who comes up with most of the assignments. He has a great feel for what kind of things will get picked up by bigger websites and re-broadcast across the Internet. I'm just trying to learn as much as I can, see where the assignments take me. It's been a lot of fun so far.

JAN: What has been your favorite blog assignment so far?


FRANK: Probably the post I wrote about an art and music program for the kids at the Homeless Shelter, where I volunteer one night a week. I had the most invested in that story because I knew all the kids I was writing about and the organization I was profiling means a lot to me,That's not the kind of post that goes viral, but it gave me a lot of satisfaction.

http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/pageviews/2012/03/art-start-showcases-talent-of-at-risk-youths

JAN: Frank/Spike has a day job and no access to the computer until after 4 pm, but he'll check in then to answer any questions you might have.


In the meantime, if you want to find out which Springfield they really meant when they wrote the Simpsons, check out: 

http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/pageviews/2012/04/springfield

And come back tomorrow, when I have Jodi R. R. Smith, author of The Etiquette Book, give us tips on how to network at mystery or any other convention.