Don’t Blame the Author by E.J. Copperman, or his designee

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: If you're a mystery reader, sooner or later you're going to know this pain: three or five or eight books into a series you love, with characters you look forward to spending time with, and twisty plots that come to a satisfying end, suddenly... there's no more.

Sometimes, it's because the author has passed away. We are human, after all, and though I personally wish the ghost of Edith Pargeter was still toiling away at the Brother Cadfael mysteries, she's more than earned a peaceful rest. Some retire: Lee Child has placed the Reacher series in his brother, Andrew Grant's hands, and back in the late 90s, the historical romance author LaVyrle Spencer retired at the height of her career. Some writers get tired of the characters, or run out of stories to tell for them - famously Dennis Lehane with his Gennaro/Kanzie series. And occasionally, an author makes so much moolah he can sit on his vast horde like a dragon, puffing out hints of more books but never producing (I'm looking at you, George R.R. Martin.)

But the most common reason for the death of a series, and the one our well-loved EJ Copperman is here to tell us about, are the cold equations of the publishing biz.

 

 

It’s not my fault.

Readers like to ask authors questions, and authors love to answer them. But when I tell you that Good Lieutenant, the sixth Jersey Girl Legal Mystery, will be the last in that series, please don’t ask me why I decided to stop writing about Sandy Moss and her undisciplined friends.

I didn’t.

The reality of the publishing business is that it’s… a business. Publishers buy manuscripts they think will appeal to readers enough that they (the readers) will purchase copies, either physical or digital, or check one out from a library that has, in turn, purchased that book. If enough money is made – by the publisher – to justify trying this whole thing again, the publisher will request another manuscript in the series and the author, if they haven’t anticipated this development, will get to work on the next book.

That’s the theory. Now sometimes, not enough people purchase copies, and not enough money is made, and the publisher gently (most of the time) informs the author that the upcoming novel will be the last in the series, and thanks for your time and effort. If you get a new idea, ask your agent to let us know.

(Just as an aside: There are no new ideas. There are twists on old ideas and if it’s a novel – you should pardon the expression – enough idea, it seems new. But it’s not.)

So as Good Lieutenant was in process – that is, when I had submitted the draft but before all the editing and revising had been done – the publisher let me know, yes, gently, that this was the end of the line for Sandy et al. That was considerate, as I still had time to revise the manuscript and wrap up some storylines that otherwise would have been left dangling with no resolution.

It's six books and out for the Jersey Girl, and while I’m sorry to let her go, she had a good run. I’m proud of the books and glad that some readers have let me know they enjoyed the experience.

When I’m writing a series, I usually make each installment just a little more personal for the main character, and since I had started (Inherit the Shoes) with Sandy defending a client she didn’t know, but who ended up being her longstanding boyfriend a couple of books later (Spoiler! Sorry!) it made sense that she should finish by defending the character she most respects and from whom she craves the same kind of respect, Lt. K.C. Trench.

In Good Lieutenant, Trench calls Sandy at home to tell her he’s in custody, accused of fatally shooting another LAPD detective, one who Trench admits to having despised. There are good reasons for despising him, but Trench insists he didn’t kill the other cop. Problem: The bullet found in the victim matches Trench’s gun, which he keeps locked in a safe at home when he’s not on duty.

Trench, who plays his cards very close to the vest, cooperates with his defense team (mostly Sandy) but not that much. He doesn’t like to discuss emotion of personal business, and for Trench, this case if extremely personal. But he can’t investigate it, and that’s making him crazy.

But I’m not here to give you the whole plot of Good Lieutenant. Suffice it to say that Sandy’s life is threatened, her office vandalized, and her stuffed teddy bear destroyed. But that just makes her mad.

No, I’m here today (and thank you for inviting me, Reds!) to explain how I did not choose to end the Jersey Girl series. I don’t blame the publisher, a company that’s been very good to me and with whom I will publish again (two books in 2025). It is a business, and they are trying to turn a profit.

So what I’m saying is, do not ask for whom the series ends. Not enough readers heard about, were interested in, or bought the books, and that doesn’t look good on Severn House’s bottom line.

It ends for thee.

(I’m not really blaming you or any other reader for this; seriously. But how could I pass up a closing line like that one?)

 

E.J. Copperman exists in someone’s twisted imagination. E.J. authors the Jersey Girl Legal Mystery series, currently represented by Good Lieutenant, and the Fran and Ken Stein series (get it?), which will continue next year with Switcheroo. A new series will start around this time next year, but that gives me time to tell you about it later. There are a bunch of other series, too, but you know, not enough of those sold so…

Don’t blame me for being passive aggressive. I have a Jewish mother.

How're the revisions going? "Not great, Bob!"

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Like Debs, I'm also recovering from surgery; in my case a knee replacement. Will this mean you'll see a lot of fiction in coming years featuring post-procedure protagonists? Probably not, as it's difficult to make someone who can't sit properly or drive the exciting center of a story unless you're Alfred Hitchcock. 

Fortunately, I handed in my first draft last month, so I'm feeling guilt-free and unencumbered. I told my editor and agent I didn't expect to be back to work until eight weeks after surgery, and while that seems to have been a pessimistic timeline, considering how well I'm doing, I'm still not able to sit at my laptop for more than an hour or get through the day without a nap, so I'm definitely not going to be knocking out revisions in the immediate future.

Which is fortunate because a few weeks after handing my ms in, my editor of many years, still dealing with a major cross-country move,  lost a close family member. Naturally, he's going to be sticking close to home and family for a while, thus a longer timeline for getting my revision letter. Life and death happen, and in an industry which depends largely on a chain of individuals all putting their stamp on a work, slow-ups happen.

Thus, my answer when asked when readers can expect to see AT MIDNIGHT COMES THE CRY: I don't know. Mt publisher won't schedule the print run until after I've turned in the revision. This isn't JUST because I'm notoriously late; the whole process of physically printing books for major publishing houses is a bit of a bottleneck these days. 

Publishers, you might be surprised to know, don't actually produce the object you buy in a bookstore - that thing with the attractive dust cover and paper pages you can riffle through. Those are created by book manufacturing companies, and over the last twenty years, the number of those companies has dwindled to three or five or seven, depending on what source you're reading. 

This aren't the smaller, more nimble printing presses that run off ten books per year at one thousand copies each - these are mammoth concerns rolling out tens of millions of printed books annually. Their various "runs" are more tightly scheduled than D-Day: SENSITIVE LITERARY DEBUT, with a print run of 35,000 fits in one day and time, while  A GAME OF MASSIVE FANTASY with an initial printing of 750,000 has another slot. They might be back to back for efficiency, or to save absolute quantities of paper, or to minimize ink usage.

Plus, they have to leave in some flexibility. In the publishing world, nothing is a sure thing, and if THE MODEST TALE OF AN ENGLISH SLEUTHETTE is unexpectedly featured on the Today Show and the original printing of 20,000 sells out overnight, you can bet the publisher is going to be screaming at the book manufacturer to get another 40,000 copies out STAT.

Which brings me back to AT MIDNIGHT COMES THE CRY. Once I have the revision letter, confer with my editor and agent, and work my way through the franken-manuscript, St. Martin's will be ready to add my novel to the queue of thousands. And the date will be well in advance of the time my editor says, "Okay, this is good." They need to leave time for copy edits, gallery prints, gallery edits and art and book design, the not-very-noticeable stuff that makes the book "feel right" when you read it: starting and spacing paragraphs, proper word breaks, avoiding widows and orphans, etc.

Thus the truism in the biz: it takes about the same time from conception to baby as it does from final draft to printed book.

 

Getting an Agent: When Luck Meets Opportunity - a guest blog by Regan Rose

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: I met Regan Rose at the New England Crime Bake this past fall, and I must have been the only attendee who hadn't heard the excited buzz about her debut novel. We clicked over our points of contact - Mainers, ex-lawyers, already knew a lot of the same people, both attorneys and writers. 

It was later I got the 411 on Regan's debut - sold on a preempt in what Publisher's Weekly calls "a major deal," her foreign rights agent mobbed in Frankfort by eager publishing houses from around the world.

But here's the thing: whether you get 500 or 500 thousand for your first book, the process - doubts , fears, rejection, elation - is the same for almost every author. And the equation Regan posits here holds true for most endeavors, not just writing: Success = Luck + Preparation + Opportunity.

There is something so swanky about “having an agent” that it’s one of the most common questions I get from people who know I’m an upcoming debut author. Even friends and family totally disinterested in writing or publishing are dying to know: “How did you get your agent?” 

I was usually too shy to ask this question of other authors, but I spent countless nights and weekends scouring the internet for answers to the question. The bedrock truth is what my dad liked to repeat to his students (who hung on his every word) and his daughters (who tried to see the TV around him): luck happens when preparation meets opportunity. 

Let me take this up to 30,000 feet for a second. Hi! I’m Regan. My first novel, a standalone drama about family, crime, and questions, will be published in summer 2021. I hit the book-deal motherlode thanks to my agent, the coolest of the cool, Helen Heller of Toronto. Here is the “you’re so lucky!” version of how she became my agent:

In December 2017, I read Shari Lapena’s The Couple Next Door in two short days. I was a couple months into writing my own suspense novel, and I saw Shari had dedicated the book to her agent, Helen Heller. In the acknowledgements, she also talked about how great Helen was. A few months later, I started a list of agents I might want to query one day. The first name I wrote down was Helen’s. 

 

 In October 2019, I submitted an unsolicited query to Helen. Twenty-nine minutes later, she requested my full manuscript. I sent it to her that night, and the next afternoon, she called me and asked to represent me. I said yes. I could skip everything in between and make it sound like I must be a literary leprechaun.

But that doesn’t help you if you’re interested in getting an agent of your own. And even if you aren’t, it doesn’t tell you the whole story. So here’s what happened in between those dates.

During the two-plus years before I queried Helen, I worked on my book like I’ve never worked on anything in my life. I got up every morning at 5 sharp, stumbled into the study, and sat down to write for two hours before work. I read every night for at least an hour. I took vacation days to write and said no to weekend invitations. I shared early drafts and took people’s advice. I edited the story over and over.

In summer 2018, about a year into writing the book, I participated in Pitch Wars, hoping to get selected for a serious manuscript overhaul. I wasn’t chosen, but I did learn loads about the querying process and how to write submission materials. I drafted my first query letter and synopsis for that contest. When I wasn’t selected, I kept editing my manuscript, collecting agents’ names, and reading about how to write a good query letter.

In March of 2019, I didn’t know how to make my book any better, so I decided to send out my first round of queries. From my giant list of agent names, I picked eleven to start with. With some exceptions, I chose people who seemed to be relatively new at their agency. I got a few polite rejections, a lot of radio silence, and a single revise and resubmit.

I stopped querying and focused on the R&R. I liked the agent’s advice and didn’t want to send out the sub-par manuscript anymore. Meanwhile, I went to Maine Crime Wave in June and met another agent there. We had great chemistry, and when I pitched her my novel, she requested the full manuscript. She said I could send it when I was done with the edit. (And she was not shy about how jealous she was to know another agent had already caught my eye…a good thing to keep in mind when you’re querying!)

I finished the R&R edit in early September 2019 and sent the manuscript to the two agents awaiting it. Smart or not, I didn’t send it to anyone else. At the end of the month, I got an email from the conference agent passing on the project. I had already looked her up on Query Tracker, and I immediately knew it was a form rejection. I wallowed for a few hours then talked to an author friend, who reminded me rejection is the name of the game. She recommended I send out a new batch of queries, and she asked how much work I was doing to vet the agents in advance. She told me to fork over the $25 a month it costs to subscribe to Publishers Marketplace.

Obviously I am a masochist, as every writer is, so I started by looking up the agent who had just rejected me. She had big sales, and lots of them. Obviously I am very critical of myself, as every writer is, so I burned with shame. I couldn’t believe I’d thought a hotshot like her (and I mean this in the best way) would ever represent me. But then I remembered agents do not waste their own time, and she had asked me to send my manuscript to her. I went back to my list and saw Helen’s name. Another hotshot, I thought. The next morning, I got up early and queried Helen and a few other agents I’d been too intimidated to try in March.

Helen called me with excitement, a strong vision for the book, and a plan to get it sold. I’d already seen her numbers online. I took a ten-minute breather then called her back and said yes. I could have done things differently, but I had a good feeling and I went with it. Another day I might return with the next leg of the story, but the short version is, she sold my book within a week.

 

 Per usual, I think my dad was right. When you look at my story, I got lucky, absolutely, in so many ways. But a big part of the luck in landing Helen was my preparation, especially in the work I did on my manuscript. (Is this braggy? Yes. [Editor's note: No.] But it’s also true, and I feel the need to say it when I’m not feeling too self-conscious about it.) If you want to get an agent, my advice is always going to be to spend the bulk of your time and energy on your manuscript. Then researching the process and the agents you’re interested in. Don’t rush. You want your materials to land you an agent, but you also want to land the right agent for you. Doing your homework can help you reach out for opportunities you want to say yes to. Your story won’t go exactly like mine did, but that doesn’t mean you won’t get lucky.

What do you think? Do you buy my dad’s equation for luck, or has life taught you different math?

Regan’s debut novel is slated for publication in the summer of 2021. It’s currently called A KINDNESS, but there’s a new title in talks. Set in a fictional town in southern Maine, A KINDNESS is equal parts family drama, crime story, and moral thriller. The story alternates between the past, when Julia Hall’s family was rocked by her brother-in-law’s sexual assault, and the present, when Julia is called to the home of the detective who investigated the crime. You can keep up with Regan and learn more about her book at regan-rose.com, where all of her contact information is available.

The Jungle Reds Talk Diversity

JENN McKINLAY: So, a couple of books back, I introduced a new character to my long running library lover's series. Her name was Paula and she had purple hair, a tattoo of books going up one arm, and she was a lesbian. I didn't think anything of it since my characters pretty much announce themselves in my head fully formed.

Well, one of the very first criticisms the book got was a vitriolic review from a reader, saying how dare I introduce a lesbian, why did I buckle to the pressure to be politically correct, and, she was never going to read a book by me again. I did not consider this a loss.

Photo by RawPixel.com from Pexels.Com

Here's the thing, my world is incredibly diverse. Mostly, I'm sure it's because I worked downtown in a city for twenty years, a real melting pot, but also being a creative sort married to another creative sort, a musician, we tend to mix and mingle with other creative sorts and our world just gets more and more and more diverse. Frankly, I wouldn't have it any other way.

Like I said, I don't consciously choose to have such diverse casts in my books but there is no question that my books have people of every ethnicity, sexual orientation, age, and religion. I can't help it. It's a reflection of my world which is my creative stepping off place but I have come to understand that this isn't true for everyone.

Several years ago an author asked me to co-write an idea with her. When I suggested one of the lead support characters had to be Hispanic as it was set in Phoenix, she blinked. She didn't know how to write a character with a different ethnicity than her own and it completely stymied her. Needless to say, the project was abandoned because we just didn't see the world the same way.

So, Reds, do you write with diversity in mind? 

RHYS BOWEN: Jenn, I got the same response when I created Molly Murphy's lesbian neighbors. Hate letters demanding why I had dared to introduce a lesbian couple. My answer was two fold. One, that I was trying to portray Greenwich Village as it was at the time with Bohemian society, and two that they were the couple I'd want as my neighbors!

I have limited my characters to those I feel I can truly identify with. I don't think I could do justice to an African American or Asian heroine simply because I have not grown up with that community experience and thus wouldn't be authentic. There are so many small nuances of thought and sensibility that I would overlook or get wrong.

JENN: I agree, Rhys. I wouldn't want to misrepresent anyone's culture so I will likely never have a lead that I can't write accurately. Plus, I believe that authors of color and members of the LGBTQ population are the most qualified to write their own experiences.

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: I'm the first to admit my books are pretty white, because the area I'm writing about is like a white-rice-and-mayonnaise convention. That being said, I consciously try to add racial diversity when I can - the local ADA is Vietnamese, I've mentioned Cambodians living nearby, and several characters visiting from away have been African American. I try to keep in mind that my mental default is "white", and it's a good thing, as a human being and as an artist, to push against that. 

I've included gay and lesbian characters right from the beginning, because that reflects life as I know it. My second book specifically dealt with homophobia and violence, but in all my other novels, I've been careful to make characters' sexual identity be just an everyday part of who they are, not A Big Deal (or worse, A Fatal Flaw.) 

 I despise the term "political correctness." It's so often used as a way to attack people for including the experiences or viewpoints of someone who is - gasp!- different than the attacker. If you can't handle reading fiction, for God's sake, that raises the idea of people who aren't Just Like You, then hop in the freezer, sweetheart, because you're a special snowflake.

JENN: "special snowflake" -- coffee just came out my nose.

HALLIE EPHRON: My first published book had a male protagonist, a lesbian nurse and an Indian psychiatrist as supporting characters. In today’s prickly world I’m not sure I’d attempt anything like that for fear of being outed as trying to write someone else's story. I think what’s even more important than writing a diverse cast of characters is READING diverse voices. And to be read, they have to be published. That’s where I hope I’m doing my part when I’m at writing conferences and workshops, coaching writers and encouraging them to step up to the plate.

Photo by RawPixel.com from Pexels.Com

DEBORAH CROMBIE: My books have had gay and lesbian characters from the very beginning. I wasn't deliberately trying to be diverse. They popped, as Jenn says, fully formed into my head. That's who they were.  And as two of my primary characters are male, I've never worried too much about writing the other gender. As the series has progressed we've had many characters who are black or Asian--London is so diverse that it would be hard to write a legitimate story WITHOUT diverse characters. Also, Gemma's and Duncan's foster daughter, Charlotte, is mixed race--her father was Pakistani, her mother white. I think one of the points of writing, and reading, fiction, is to put ourselves in the in the minds and shoes of people whose experiences may differ from ours, but are, as are we all, human.

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN:  I think about this every writing day. How can I make sure my book is "real" and like the real world is?  So I'm very conscious to default to "real" and not white middle class.  Happily my books have juries and court officers and elected officials and judges and cops and reporters so there's a big pool of possibilities.  But I don't want the book to "feel" like I'm just heavy-handedly making them diverse --I want them to be seamlessly diverse. And that sometimes means simply giving someone an ethnic name, and  letting the reader imagine the person for themselves.  But even that may be unfair.  
(I have to balance men and women too--in an early version of my upcoming book, my editor said: "Oh, I love this--all the supporting characters are women. Cool! And I thought-oh, no, I didn't mean to do that. So I changed that.)  Readers, do you notice?

LUCY BURDETTE: In Key West, all kinds of characters abound--and that is reflected in my series. But I would say the diversity has more to do with sexual orientation and economic situation than race, because that's how things are on this island. (Although Cuban-Americans were big in DEATH ON THE MENU. ) That aside, my WIP includes an African American and a Korean woman, Antimony and Linda. They are not main characters, and I've been thinking of them more as people than standard-bearers for diversity. But interesting comment you had Rhys, about making sure you write from the perspective of characters you can identify with. I'm not sure I could do justice to Antimony or Linda in a leading role...

Okay, Readers, chime in. Do you feel authors have a responsibility to portray a wide variety of characters in their work? Is a diverse cast appealing to you? Do you look for it in your fiction or no? 

Jane Friedman: Not an art or science, The Business of Being a Writer

HALLIE EPHRON: Jane Friedman has a well earned reputation as a publishing industry guru with expertise in digital media strategy for authors and publishers. I try not to miss reading anything she puts out there because she's so smart and doen't mince words.

In one of her latest missives, she declared with typical tartness:

"I don’t believe that 'cream rises to the top' in the writing world."

She was on the war path against the notion that for writers, art is polluted by business concerns. She argues that while some writers are fortunate enough not to have to think about making a living wage, the rest of us need a sustainable business model that doesn't include the expectation of a six- (or even four- or five-) figure advance every year or so.

In other words, making a living as a writer doesn't just happen.
She speaks from experience:

"I learned early on that if I wanted to make a living from my writing, I’d have to learn to balance the art and the business."

That's what her new book is about: THE BUSINESS OF BEING A WRITER.
In it she exhorts the rest of us to stop being so precious about m-o-n-e-y --

"To break out of the unproductive silence about what we earn and how the industry works. We have to be more transparent about what writing pays, and how it pays, and that it takes time and an informed strategy to make it pay. We may all hope that serious art speaks for itself, and once in a while that may work for the Franzens of the world, but it doesn’t work for most of us. Educate yourself on the business, and learn how to make the system work for you."

In response, Jane provides a strategic, high-level look at how writers can establish a lifelong writing career.

The book is simply terrific. I only wish it had been around when I was inventing my own business model which has been a combination or publishing fiction, nonfiction, and magazine pieces, along with speaking and teaching gigs. Ever grateful that I had a thirty-year career and a wage-earning husband and, like industrious ants, we'd socked away our pennies before I took the plunge.

She addresses questions like the age-old:  

• Do I need a day job? (It depends.) 
• Can't I just write and leave marketing and promoting to the publisher? (No.)

Her answers are bracing. Yes, marketing is now part of the writer's job, but that's is nothing new:

"During the Renaissance, Erasmus organized a network of agents across Europe to actively distribute his works and collect his rewards. Mark Twain’s most successful work was sold by traveling salesmen going door to door—at a time when this form of marketing was considered extremely impolite.  And everyone knows how Charles Dickens released his work in multiple formats, modified his stories based on audience feedback, and masterfully used the serial to garner attention and publicity."

The book also has solid, smart advice on the nitty gritty of getting a book published. Just for example, here are the chapters that form the middle of the book.

 9. Book Publishing: Figuring Out Where Your Book Fits

10. Understanding Literary Agents

11. Researching Agents and Publishers

12. Book Queries and Synopses

13. The Nonfiction Book Proposal

14. Working with Your Publisher

15. Self-Publishing

16. Publishing Short Stories, Personal Essays, or Poetry

17. Traditional Freelance Writing

18. Online Writing and Blogging

But the final sections have information you're not going to find in the average writing book. For example:

23. Starting a Freelance Career
25. Teaching and Online Education
26. Contests, Prizes, Grants, Fellowships
27. Crowdfunding and Donations
28. Memberships, Subscriptions, and Paywalls

I'm so happy to welcome Jane and her new book to Jungle Red. She'll be dropping by this afternoon to answer questions, so FIRE AWAY!

I met JANE FRIEDMAN when she was an editor at Writers Digest Books and I was writing my Writing and Selling Your Mystery Novel for them. She was young and savvy, and in just a few years rocketed from editor to senior editor to publisher. She's now a widely respected publishing consultant, one of the most savvy people anywhere in the world about the REAL world of publishing. And about writers and writing and what it takes to succeed.

You can meet her at writing conferences where she's often invited to give the keynote, read her blog https://www.janefriedman.com/blog/ (where you can subscribe to her newsletter), subscribe to The Hot Sheet https://hotsheetpub.com a newsletter for authors that distills what's happening in the publishing industry for authors. Her new book, The Business of Being a Writer, is being published by University of Chicago Press.