Traveling With Books.

(This blog entry was delayed due to...what else...my going to Malice Domestic!)

I’ve just finished most of my packing for my first Malice. I’m excited to be going and am looking forward to seeing old friends and making new ones, to great panels, and especially to getting ideas for new books to read!

I always put off packing ‘til the last minute. But now the easy part is done—making sure I remembered pajamas and the toothpaste and making choices for clothes I hope will be appropriate for the weather.

The hard part is before me . . . making sure I have books to read on the road. Even knowing there will be opportunity to acquire lots of books at Malice, for me it’s important to pack a good assortment, after all one can never have too many books to choose from. And among the selection must be one or two set in or around Washington. I love fiction that transports me to another place or another time. Most of my traveling with books is done at home from my favorite comfy chair. But I especially love it when I’m able to travel to a place physically while I’m traveling to it through a book I’m reading.

This all began back in grad school when I serendipitously packed a copy of Sara Paretsky’s Killing Orders to take along to a conference in Chicago. For my first and only visit to San Francisco, my copy of The Maltese Falcon was at my side. Image my delight at discovering our hotel was just up the hill from the spot where Sam Spade’s partner, Miles Archer was shot! On our 25th anniversary, my husband and I returned to where we’d spent our honeymoon near Fontana Dam, North Carolina. We listened to Sharyn McCrumb’s Bimbos of the Death Sun in car while driving through the Smoky Mountains. We’ve gone back to the Smokies each spring since that trip; Charles Frazer’s 13 Moons is loaded into my iPod in anticipation of our visit next month.

I’m pretty sure I’m not alone in this obsession. I’d love to hear other people’s experiences of traveling with books.

Mary Callahan Boone
Library Liaison, Sisters in Crime.

Malice Domestic, the con for the criminally genteel, begins in a few days. I'm always excited when it's time for this convention, especially so this year which is its 20th anniversary. I have no doubt the Malice organizers have many extra surprises for attendees to enjoy this special celebration. Foremost, their line-up of honored guests, Charlaine Harris, Peter Lovesey, Lindsay Davis, and Toastmaster Daniel Stashower is what has everyone talking. It's going to be great hearing them throughout the weekend.

Amidst all the fun, your Sisters In Crime board will be taking care of business, too. We'll have a board meeting, and Roberta and Judy have organized a terrific get-together on Friday for members to talk about what works in their local chapters. See Judy's blog below for details.

I'm hoping to talk with many Sisters and Brothers over the weekend. It's great to put faces to names that I know from our SinC e-list and to visit with old friends. I'm particularly interested in learning of new publications that review mysteries to add to those we now check in our Review Monitoring Project. We check local and national newspapers and magazines, so if you can recommend one you subscribe to or regularly read off the newstand, please see me at Malice or send me an email me at marysaums@hotmail.com.

Best-Mary Saums
Review Monitoring Profect Coordinator

In Praise of Editors

by Nancy Martin

My latest book (Murder Melts in Your Mouth, the 7th Blackbird Sisters Mystery) was released a month ago, and we’ve been enjoying good sales. I say “we” intentionally, because no successful book could possibly be the work of one person. In my case, there’s my critique partner, my blog sisters, my readers, my family, my agent and her various colleagues, my publisher and the house staff, and last but certainly not the least--my editor.

In my twenty-eight-year writing career I’ve had nine editors (and three agents, five publishers) so I’ve had good and not-so-good experiences. Recently, I asked a few friends what they felt about editors. We came up with a list of good qualities in the person who buys, edits and shepherds a book through the publishing process. Here’s our list in no particular order:

1. A good editor has the people skills to make an author feel smart. And clever. And writerly. Not to mention confident and talented with skills and a creative mind that needs to be nurtured, but also occasionally whipped into shape. An editor can truly build an author into a powerhouse bestseller—or break her into a muddle of melted self-esteem. But the author must stand up for herself if she’s being treated unfairly or impolitely. Don’t be a victim.

2. A good editor is a good communicator. Whether the news is good or bad, she writes or phones promptly and doesn’t pussyfoot. She gives you all the information in her power to give: print runs, sales figures, returns, remainders—the works. It’s up to the author to ask the important questions sometimes, however, so an author should educate herself to be an equal in the partnership, not a supplicant. Plus the author has to learn to take bad news like a grown-up. Otherwise, you’re just asking to be treated like a child.

3. A good editor brings creative ideas to the table. “You know how the first plot point doesn’t work? You need to come up with something else.” That’s not helpful editorial input. But brainstorming—that can be fun as well as useful for the book and the longterm author-editor relationship. On the other hand, an editor who’s a frustrated writer can spoil the book and undermine an author’s confidence. It’s the author’s job to draw out the editor’s best ideas, but stop short of taking a collaborator.

4. A good editor edits for content and clarity. Once she gets her red pencil out, she’s the last person (after your critique group or your husband or your mom or whoever else reads your manuscripts) who can honestly tell you when stuff doesn’t make sense or the theme isn’t clear or the story wanders long before a reviewer or bookseller or reader claps eyes on it. An editor who skips this step isn’t doing the author any favors, so the author must learn to accept criticism for its intended purpose—to improve the book.

5. A good editor copy-edits. I’ll never forget the moment I—a former English teacher who thought I knew my trade--opened my first copy-edited manuscript and discovered all the red marks the copy editor had inflicted on the “perfect” pages I had rewritten and revised a dozen times. What an education! A good copy editor is golden. Again, she’s one who will save you from embarrassment and frustration, because there are plenty of readers who will hunt you down like a dog to point out the smallest errors in your published book.

6. A good editor is an author’s champion “in-house.” She’s the one who pitches your book to the art department for the cover, at the editorial meetings and the marketing meetings and at sales conference. She’s your cheerleader. If your editor doesn’t throw herself behind your book to the people who will market and sell it, you’re doomed to lousy sales, disappointing sell-through and—oh, dear—possibly the end of contracts. Give her all the ammunition she needs to do her job.

7. A good editor is ruthless in her pursuit of quality. If she wants your book to be the best possible product, her determination can be contagious. You’ll work harder because she’s encouraging you to produce the best writing you can manage. Are those endless revision letters frustrating? Yes, but not as frustrating as the alternative.

8. A good editor has an appreciation for books and language. Some of my favorite conversations are with agents and editors, talking about books. I’ve learned a lot.

Naturally, most writers don’t have a choice when it comes to editors—not at the beginning of our careers. But as you get a few books under your belt and develop your skills and your business savvy, you can better participate in the process of choosing who you want to work with.

Until then, you take your chances. Out of nine editors, I’ve had only two not-so-great experiences. In both cases, I was part of the problem. Since then, I’ve had a couple of tremendous editors who have challenged me, partnered with me, bolstered me and otherwise helped me become the writer I am today. I thank them from the bottom of my heart.

Nancy Martin is a Sisters In Crime Member at Large.

Dear Sisters and Brothers,

The board is excited to offer a new event at Malice this year. Please join us on Friday afternoon, April 25, in the Fairfax Room on the 2nd Floor of the convention hotel, from 1:00-3:00 for our Flash Training Session and chapter meeting.

Here's the schedule:
1:00-1:15 Creating a Must-Read Chapter Newsletter: Roberta Isleib (NE Chapter), Jane Cleland (NY Chapter)

1:15-1:30 Spicing Things Up with Special Projects: Ruth McCarty (NE Chapter)1:30-1:45 Cover to Cover: Producing a Professional Anthology: Elena Santangelo/Caroline Stafford (Delaware Valley Chapter) and Beverle Graves Myers (Louisville Chapter)

1:45-2:00 Forming and Implementing a Spellbinding Speakers' Bureau: Kate Flora (NE Chapter) and Gigi Pandian (NorCal Chapter)

From 2:00-3:00 we will have an open session where we can ask questions of each other to find out what's going on in other chapters or with SinC National.

I've received some items of interest from chapter presidents including questions like:

What are other chapters doing to increase membership and raise their local profiles?

How are other chapters raising funds, or writing grants?

How can we light a fire under our chapter?

We have a great group,happy to come to meetings, but they aren't big on volunteering, and it would be great to see them more involved with supporting our local mystery authors and having more of a presence in the community.

What have other chapters experienced with having a booth at a booksellers convention?

We can discuss these questions and more...bring your enthusiasm, your concerns, and your creativity, and we'll see how we can help each other out.

We look forward to seeing you all there!

All the best,

Judy Clemens
SinC Vice President

Losing A Friend And A Fan

As some of you may know, my stepmother, Mary Jane, died unexpectedly of an aneurysm in February. She and her family lived next door to mine in New Jersey when I was a kid. Her reconnection with my dad thirteen years ago brought that history full circle. She took good care of my father, yes indeed. And she was kind and welcoming to my family, right down to the dogs. But she was also one of my great supporters. She couldn¹t wait to buy a stack of each new release and get them signed so she could distribute them to family and friends. One morning a year or so ago, she called me and announced she hadn¹t been able to sleep. Instead of tossing and turning, she got up and brainstormed titles for my next release. She rattled thirty of them off.

But it wasn't just my writing she enjoyed: She was a huge mystery fan. So I gave her books for her birthday, Mother's Day, and Christmas. And in between I collected my freebies from conferences and sent them her way. A couple of weeks ago, I went back to New Jersey to pack up my dad's belongings. What fun to come across my fellow sisters' books on Mary Jane's bookshelves! I uncovered Rochelle Krich's FERTILE GROUND (well before I'd ever met Rochelle through SinC and before I'd had a book published), a signed copy of THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING ERNESTINE by Dorothy Cannell from the last Crime Bake conference, books by Denise Swanson, Elaine Viets, SW Hubbard, Deborah Donnelly, Sujata Massey, Mignon Ballard, and more. (Can you tell she loved cozies?)

So if you noticed a flicker of darkness on February 11--maybe that was Mary Jane passing. I'll miss her terribly--but we've all lost a fan!

Roberta Isleib is president of Sisters in Crime and the author of DEADLY ADVICE and PREACHING TO THE CORPSE.

A Few Good Sisters in Crime Members Needed

I'm sure all of you have thought about volunteering for Sisters in Crime. I have a great opportunity for you to join in and improve Books in Print.

As most of you know, Sisters in Crime had a difficult time this year making the transition from collecting data by hand for Books in Print to collecting data on the web site. For 15 years one person, currently Vicki Cameron, collected the data, edited the data, answered 3,000 e-mail per edition and worked endless hours. In this day and age the organization can't afford these old school ways. Vicki did get a paycheck which probably amounted to under a dollar an hour. For one year we notified author members to visit the web site and list their books as we were going to take the paper version from the web site in 2008. Many did not and many were frustrated with the process. And then to top it all off we had glitches which deleted some listings and altered others.

Some of our members need your help!
Please e-mail me at sistersincrime@juno.com and volunteer to help the authors who can't navigate the process of listing their books on the web site. If I'm lucky, I will hear from 3-4 of you who have patience and computer knowledge to "walk" these members through the process. Once I have a group of you in place we will all discuss the procedure. I would like to ask one of you to step up and be the chair of this group and set up procedures for the group.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Beth Wasson
Exec. Secretary,
Sisters in Crime
PO Box 442124,
Lawrence, KS 66044
785-842-1325, fax 785-856-6314
sistersincrime@juno.com
web site www.sistersincrime.org

The Pursuit of Excellence

Sixteen years ago I set out to become a published novelist. During that year I took it upon myself to outline and write my very first book. After finishing the first draft I went through and re-wrote it before holding my breath and handing it to a few trusted readers. One reader, especially, who happened to be a professional proofreader, gave me lots (and lots) to think about. I re-wrote the book again. And again. And again.

After re-writing it a dozen times I began the agent search. I got such glowing rejections as:

*Thank you very much for submitting YET SHE MUST DIE. There is no doubt that you’re a real writer, and YET SHE MUST DIE is merely the first of many books. However, despite its strengths, given today’s tough fiction market, I didn’t feel quite enthusiastic enough to represent your manuscript.*

OR

*It’s a good story, nicely written, but alas, I’m afraid it just doesn’t seem right for us.* (which meant, of course, that they didn’t like it!)

And then there were those simple but heartbreaking one-liners, such as: Sorry, I’ll pass.

I persevered, rewriting and sending out queries, until I decided it was time to cut my losses and move on. While I felt good about the book, it obviously was not of a high enough quality for the market.

I wrote another novel. And another. None of these caught the lasting attention of any agent, although I continued to receive that oxymoron: the positive rejection. Somehow, that was enough to keep me going.

I spent my time writing, reading other books in the genre, and going to writers’ conferences where I made contacts, attended workshops, and learned about the business. I took what I learned and funneled every bit of it into my writing.

Finally I was able to write a book that caught the eye of both an agent and a publisher. In 2004, thirteen years after I began the attempt, I was published. And you know what? It felt great.

I look back at that first novel I wrote, and while I have sentimental feelings for it, I wonder how I ever thought it was ready to be published. While it had, as the agents noted, some things of value, it simply wouldn’t be able to compete with other books. Those agents knew what they were doing. But I refuse to be embarrassed that I sent it out. That book was a stepping-stone. A learning tool. Some might say that first not-quite-good-enough manuscript is a necessity. Because it taught me a world of lessons.

It has been a hard road, and a long one. Every writer knows the pain of rejection and the sinking feeling when those letters come back saying No.

But hopefully every writer will also feel the joy that comes with seeing her work come to fulfillment. She will know that she persevered, taking what she learned and using it to pursue excellence in her writing. And she will continue to perfect her craft – because I know I certainly never stop learning! – making her work the best it can be.

We at SinC love to hear stories of success and how the pursuit of excellence pays off. If you have a story to share, we’d love to know about it.

Judy Clemens
Vice-president, SinC
Author of the Stella Crown mysteries and LOST SONS, coming out in April

Changing small pieces of the world

By Donna Andrews

As I'm writing this, it's late Sunday night at the Left Coast Crime convention hotel, and I just found an email reminding me that I'm at bat tomorrow for the Sisters in Crime blog. I suspect my fellow board members are probably hoping I'll post something profound about some of the contentious topics facing the organization, but I'm juggling post-convention exhaustion, the dregs of a cold, and a touch of altitude sickness, and I'm not sure I can do justice to any weighty issues. And I'm kind of talked out about books and writing for the time being. I thought I'd talk about something else instead-- not unrelated to SinC, I hope.

A few months ago, I was listening to an interview with someone from The Hunger Project. He said that they had determined that there was no technical reason why hunger couldn't be eliminated from the world, and they set out to figure out what was keeping this from happening. And they found that the main reason was the low socioeconomic position of women--if they could find ways to change that, they could make a real impact on hunger. And that one of the most effective ways to change women's lives was through microfinance--small loans made directly to women to help them change their economic situation. The old "teach a man to fish" premise.

Made sense to me. That's why I was so excited when I discovered Kiva.org. My writer friend Toni Kelner said it best: Kiva is like eBay for charity.

You go on the Kiva site and you can see pictures of entrepreneurs--people who are asking for small loans to help them start or expand a business or make some other improvement in their lives, like repairing their houses or paying children's school fees. The working poor. When you see one that touches you--the smiling Peruvian women who wants to buy more yarn so she can pay her son's secondary school fees with her expert knitting, or perhaps the wistful nineteen-year-old single mother from Mexico who is hoping to support her toddler by starting a food stall in the market--you can click a button and put a loan of as little as $25 in your Kiva basket. When you check out, you can pay with Paypal. And when enough Kiva lenders like you have offered their $25 loans to your entrepreneur, the loan is funded.

Assuming your entrepreneur is able to make a go of it and pay the loan back—loan terms range from three months to two years--you will eventually get your money back, and can take it out of the system or reinvest it in another entrepreneur. And repayment rates are currently in the high ninety percent range, probably because Kiva has partnered in each country with a local organization that vets each entrepreneur’s business plan and keeps in close touch with them to ensure payback.

No, you don't earn interest. So the benefits aren’t direct and personal to me. But there is an intangible but very powerful payback. Today, I look at a map of the world and I see it very differently. When I look at the map of Africa, I think of my tie-dye maker in Sierra Leone, my fishseller in Benin, or the school in Togo whose classrooms I'm helping to outfit. When I hear dire news from Kenya, I think of the two determined and resourceful women there whose medical clinics I've helped to fund, and hope they are still alive and well. Other continents have also come alive for me--I've helped fund a clothing stall in the Ukraine, a flower grower in Cambodia, a kindergarten in Viet Nam, and an Internet café in Peru. I seem to have a weakness for women doing needlework of all kinds--knitters in Bosnia and Peru, embroiderers in Iraq and Mexico, tailors on three continents.

It's exciting and humbling to think that a small amount of cash--what I might spend on a nice dinner when I'm traveling--can help make a profound difference in the life of a woman at the other side of the world. And I can also hope that my efforts combined with many others can eventually help make a dent in the centuries-old socio-economic disadvantages affecting women throughout the world.

Just as I hope my participation in SinC can help end the centuries-old attitudes that devalue women’s ideas and women’s work—attitudes that force women to settle for smaller advances, smaller print runs, smaller publishers, fewer reviews, and less respect at every point in their attempts to build a career in the traditional market. And yes, I’m pretty focused on reforming the traditional market for the same reason Willy Sutton robbed banks—because that’s still where the money is. And because the benefits of changes there won’t just be trickle-down but culture-changing. World-changing.

But don’t get me started on that. You’ve heard me already on the topic of "ask not what SinC can do for you, but what you can do for SinC." (Or if you haven’t, my blog on that is still available on SinC’s MySpace page: http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=161917660&blogID=286242493

I'm off to see if there are any more Kiva loans that can seduce me into funding them. Did I mention that every once in a while, you get a chance to support a bookstore or a school? Not just teaching someone to fish, but how to read . . . wow!

Staying Connected

By Marcia Talley

When I still worked “outside the home” at a job in Washington, DC, we were always being asked by our supervisors to accommodate “shifting paradigms.” This usually meant that a hot-shot management guru had treated our CEO to lunch, and presumably held him hostage over double martinis, prime rib and crème brulé until he’d signed the corporation up for the latest management craze — MBO, TQM. Remember?

If you don’t, never mind. After spending millions on training and implementation, we employees usually forgot the mumbo-jumbo, too, and it was back to business as usual until the next management fad came along.

I was thinking about paradigms recently as I sat on our sailboat in a quiet anchorage in the Exuma Islands chain in the Bahamas. My husband and I have been living on Troubadour for several months. While he’s retired, I’m still trying to function as a working writer. This is something of a challenge in the islands, and a real-life test of shifting paradigms, one that has come to depend heavily, but not entirely, on the availability of an internet connection.

Before leaving the U.S., I set up everything electronically — bank accounts, bills, NY Times online, newsletters (like InSinc: save a stamp and download now from http://sistersincrime.org/newsletters/March2008InSinCNewsletterLowRes.pdf) and Skype, a free voice over internet “telephone” service that is so neato-keen that I’m amazed AT&T hasn’t bought it out simply so they could shut it down.

But all this preparation is for naught in the absence of an internet signal, so we dropped big bucks on a satellite telephone to serve as backup when we sail out of range of the wireless internet on the island settlements.

Satellites are not the panacea one might think, however, as they have the irritating habit of passing over my patch of sky, then vanishing over the horizon, taking my internet signal with them. So, I have a regular cell phone with which I make calls and send short text messages — whenever we’re in range of a Batelco tower, that is. Alas, even local residents don’t rely on the on-again, off-again telephone service. Every house and boat has a name and a VHF radio (I’ve got a hand-held strapped to my belt) and contact one another on Channel 16 — “Troubadour calling Lion’s Den, switch and answer channel six seven.”

Several weeks ago I delivered to my editor the final manuscript of the next Hannah Ives mystery, Dead Man Dancing, while anchored behind Leaf Cay, a tiny island occupied only by iguanas, some as big as dogs. I think it was the writer Annie Lamott who said there are only two prayers — “Please, please, please” and “thank you, thank you, thank you” — so as the file began to upload to whatever satellite was currently passing over, I began reciting the first prayer until (after three attempts) the large file went through and I could recite, with feeling, the second.

Can you tell I’m enchanted by the islands?

In fact, I hope to set my next mystery down here, and have been hanging out gathering atmosphere and background at Norman’s Cay, former headquarters of the infamous Carlos Lehder who bought most of the island, terrorized the residents, and used the island as a way station for transferring cocaine between Columbia and the US for the Meddelin cartel, and where a DC-3 that missed the runway is now a haven for fish and a delight for snorkelers. And speaking of spectacular snorkeling, yesterday I donned snorkel and fins to explore Thunderball Grotto, a sparkling cave at Staniel Cay which was named for the James Bond movie, Thunderball, and where scenes from Splash and another 007 movie, Never Say Never Again were also filmed.

Right now, though, you’ll have to excuse me while I do something I will never willingly do electronically. Yesterday at a marina take-one-leave-one “library” I snagged a paperback copy of Margaret Maron’s Winter’s Child (how had I missed it?). I’m going to put on my hat and my sunglasses and take it up on the bow for a good, long read.


Marcia Talley is the Agatha and Anthony award-winning author of THROUGH THE DARKNESS and five previous Hannah Ives mysteries, all set in Maryland. DEAD MAN DANCING, next in the series, will be published later this year. She iserves as Secretary for Sisters in Crime National.

Books in Print changes

Dear Sisters in Crime members:

We’ve had a few problems with our transition to entering titles online
into Books in Print (BIP) this past year. Our apologies to those of
you who were inadvertently left out of the BIP, or whose listings were
incorrect. We are working on ironing out the bugs. If your listing was
missing or incorrect and you haven’t told us already, please email
Beth Wasson: sistersincrime at juno.com. (The deadline for checking your
entry and adding your books for the 2009 edition will be August 1.
I’ll remind you again!)

As I mentioned in the newsletter, the board has voted unanimously to
change the present system for the printed version of BIP to include
only those printed books that meet established marketplace standards.
In other words, the printed BIP will include books that are accepted
by booksellers and librarians. We are making this change because these
same booksellers and librarians have told us they no longer find the
BIP useful in its present form.

Our online BIP will include all member books: the print version
listings, print titles that did not meet the print BIP criteria, and
additional categories for non-print books, e.g. e-books and audio
books.

The online version of BIP will provide a site for readers and
professionals to find information about members' books that may not
fit into the established marketplace. As these books are marketed
mainly to online buyers who are likely to prefer checking online
resources, the online version is a good match and a good way to
provide a service for this segment of our membership.

Following are the criteria for a book that meets marketplace
standards:

Is returnable
Is offered at standard industry discounts
Is available through national wholesaler, such as Ingram or Baker &
Taylor
Is competitively priced
Has a minimum print run of 1,000 copies

(We believe that the minimum print run of 1,000 copies shows a
publisher's intent to place the book in the marketplace. It is the
same number used by Authors Coalition to determine a 'published
book.’)

Any titles that do not meet one of the standards may be petitioned on
a case-by-case basis, so long as all other requirements are met.
Petitions must be submitted in writing, preferably by email.

However, as POD technology becomes a more common practice for books
accepted in the marketplace, we want to create an avenue of
flexibility in print runs for those exceptional titles that now meet
all other criteria, as well as for future circumstances we might not
be envisioning. POD reprints of titles that met industry standards
when originally published will be included in the print BIP.

As you can imagine, it will take time for the board to work with our
BIP editor to make this transition smoothly. As always, we welcome
your questions and comments.

Sincerely,

Roberta Isleib
President, Sisters in Crime

Write Fast!

About fifteen years ago, I was deep into writing my first mystery novel. Or should it be “deeply”? “Desperately” is probably better. No matter, it was a very serious endeavor, requiring deep/desperate scrutiny of every word as it appeared on my computer monitor. It was a very slow endeavor. But it was coming along, I convinced myself, every perfect word a bridge to every other perfect word.

Then a Hollywood—yes, that’s right, HOLLYWOOD!—screenwriter brought his traveling workshop show to my area and I signed up for a weekend of learning how to write screenplays. Not that I had any intention of writing a screen play, but does any writer know what she/he might write tomorrow, if the money were right? In my career, I’ve written a lot of stuff I never thought I would write, including a comic book. But I digress.

I signed up for the Hollywood screenwriter’s workshop because it occurred to me that the one thing a screenwriter ought to be an expert on was writing dialogue. Yes, getting those perfect dialogue words in place had been giving me, shall we say, a little trouble.

So I sat through two-and-one-half days of the screenwriting workshop. Along with a few good hints about writing dialogue, this was what I learned—this was the gold: Write Fast. Because, the screenwriter said, when you write fast this is what happens: you submerge yourself in the writing zone. You are carried away by the story. You are living the story. And the story becomes infused with your energy and excitement.

As opposed to stepping out of the zone, stopping the story and allowing the energy to leak out every time you edit what you’ve just written, ponder over some technical aspect, check the dictionary and the thesaurus. Oh, yes, check your e-mail, and as long as you’re now taking a break from the actual writing, go get another cup of coffee.

I went home, turned on my computer and went back to writing my novel. I was on chapter ten, and I wrote the rest of the novel. In many sittings, of course, but as I wrote the story, I never stopped to edit or make changes. I just wrote as fast as I could, and I lost myself in the story. It was an exhilarating experience, like turning the pages of a really good book that you can’t bear to put down. I was so caught up in my story, I felt sad when I finally wrote “The End.”

But I had a whole novel. Then—and only then—did I start the rewriting and the editing, all that left brain stuff that forces writers to step away and turn a jaundiced and very critical eye on what we’ve written. But here’s the thing: I found that as I rewrote and rearranged paragraphs and sometimes chapters, sharpened dialogue, polished prose and cut out all the stuff, as Elmore Leonard says, that the reader skips over, the energy and excitement that had come in the writing itself stayed with the story, like a fresh wind blowing through.

Recently I read an obit on Phyllis Whitney that said she had slowed down in the last years of her life. From age 85 on, she wrote only one book a year. Obviously Phyllis Whitney believed in writing fast.

When asked how he had written the screenplay for Rocky in only 18 days, Sylvester Stallone said that was all the time that was necessary. It took Gustave Flaubert eighteen years to write Madame Bovary, he said, and “it was a lousy book.”

When my novel, The Eagle Catcher, came out, several critics said that the novel got off to a rather slow start, but turned into a page-turner once it took off. I got a good laugh out of that because I knew exactly when the novel took off. Chapter ten, when I had started writing fast.

I’ve been writing fast ever since. In every workshop that I teach, I give my students those two golden words of advice: Write Fast. It does not mean that you never have to rewrite, or that when you finish the first draft, it will be ready for publication. It will still be what it is—a first draft. But it does mean you will have a complete novel, a story bursting with creative energy, a diamond in the rough waiting to be chiseled, shaped and polished. And that is the time to put on your editor’s cap, not before.
---------------------------------
Margaret Coel
SinC Member-At-Large

Room Change and Breakfast Sign-Up

Sisters in Crime Chapter Meeting at Malice
Friday, April 25, 2008 from 1:00 PM to 3:00 PM.
Fairfax Room, 2nd Floor, Crystal Gateway Marriott

Make your Sisters in Crime Breakfast Reservations

The Sisters in Crime breakfast will be Sunday, April 27, 2008 at 7:30 AMat the conference hotel. The room will be posted at the conference. Reservation are needed. Please send your e-mail address with your check for confirmation of receipt.

Send your $20.00 check to:
Sisters in Crime
PO Box 442124
Lawrence, KS 66044
to arrive in Lawrence by April 18, 2008.

Beth Wasson
Exec. Secretary, Sisters in Crime
PO Box 442124
Lawrence, KS 66044
785-842-1325, fax 785-856-6314
sistersincrime@juno.com, web site www.sistersincrime.org

Speechless. Tongue-tied. Thunderstruck. Bowled over. Wordless. Dumbfounded.

You get the idea. That’s me when it comes to writing. It’s also me in the presence of those of you who write--especially those who write crime fiction--for your livelihood. So it’s a great honor and privilege for me to have been elected to follow the incomparable Doris Ann Norris as Sisters in Crime’s Library Liaison.

With two major library conferences on the calendar, 2008 is an especially promising year for bringing together Sisters in Crime authors and libraries. Not only does the Public Library Association hold its biennial conference in Minneapolis in March, the American Library Association’s capital-“B”-Big annual conference will be held in Anaheim in late June. Sisters in Crime will continue to take an important part in both these conferences by hosting booths in their respective Exhibitors spaces. The booth provides terrific opportunities for SinC authors who attend the conference to meet librarians and talk with them first hand about your work.

Even if you can’t come to the conferences, you can still send promotional materials for your books. I can promise you, speaking as a library conference attendee, we collect those bookmarks, business cards, and postcards with a passion. Once home from the conference we use what we’ve gathered to help make purchasing decisions for our libraries.

It’s not too late to send promotional materials for PLA, and I’ll soon be posting more details about ALA to the listserv and newsletter.

In the meantime if you’d like more information about either conference (or if you just want to say hey) please email me at boonema@earthlink.net. The two big library conferences are just a start. I am looking forwarding to working with the members of SinC to find even more ways to connect mystery writers and their books to libraries and readers.

Is this the world’s best job, or what?
--------------
Mary Boone
Library Liaison, Sisters In Crime

One of Sisters In Crime's ongoing programs is the Review Monitoring Project. We have a team of dedicated SinC members who check book reviews in local and national publications all year long. They tally results in two categories, those reviews of mysteries written by men and those by women.

Since its beginning, Sisters In Crime has worked hard to accomplish its mission of raising awareness of women mystery authors. The monitoring project is one way to measure how women's books are recognized by the media in the area of print reviews.

In 2006, the averages of all publications we monitored showed about 56% of mysteries reviewed were written by men, about 44% by women. I've been expecting less of a gap this year, due to the many well-received and breakout books we've seen from female authors. But, at the moment, it looks like the gap actually widened a bit. Our numbers are almost all in for this year. As they stand now, about 58% of mystery reviews were of books by men, about 42% by women. The complete report will be in the next InSinc newsletter.

Our work isn't done. We need to keep supporting the women in our industry who write books we love! If you would like to be a volunteer for the monitoring project, please contact me at marysaums @ hotmail.com for more information.

Mary Saums
Monitoring Project Liaison

Left Coast Crime, Denver 2008

All Sisters in Crime members who are attending Left Coast Crime in Denver are invited to meet with SinC board members in the hospitality suite at the conference. Informal gatherings will be held at the following times.

Friday, March 7, 2008 @ 10:30 am and Saturday, March 8, 2008 @ 10:30 am.

Bring your questions and ideas with you.

See you soon,
Beth Wasson
Exec. Secretary, Sisters in Crime
PO Box 442124, Lawrence, KS 66044
785-842-1325, fax 785-856-6314
sistersincrime@juno.com
web site www.sistersincrime.org

Ten Things a Tart Learned About Blogging

By Nancy Martin (SinC member at large)

Three years ago, some author friends and I decided to call ourselves the Book Tarts and start a blog (insert www.thelipstickchronicles.typepad.com ) in order to reduce our PR travel and help sell our books. Our success has come as a result of a lot of vigilant, ongoing work. (Our only motto? Never blog about diets.) If you're reading this, chances are you also blog yourself. Or if you don't blog, there's a part of you that's wondering if you've missed the boat. Am I right?

If so, maybe you're interested in what some blogging veterans have learned after three years of posting blogs while writing and selling books. And I'm very interested in your conclusions, too. Here goes:

1. It didn't take long to learn that building an audience depended upon posting new content every day. Without fresh material, our readers quickly found other blogs to procrast---er, spend their leisure time.

2. Because blogging every day soon becomes a terrible chore and prevents writers from writing books that actually pay the mortgage, a successful blog needs more than one writer at work. (Unless you're a regular on the NYT list, which probably exempts you from a lot of grunt work except the really, really hard stuff-writing books worthy of the NYT list.) In our case, we tried to find like-minded authors who wrote books for the same target audience. But we keep to a regular schedule so our readers know who to expect on each day of the week. To avoid diluting our "brand," we limit guest bloggers to weekends when---with apologies to our many delightful and insightful guests-hits are about half what they are on weekdays.

3. By writing posts aimed to entertain the readers who buy our books (instead of blogging for an audience other writers) we quadrupled our daily hits. Mind you, that quadrupling took a year, but it's still growing.

4. Content is Queen. The Tarts think a lot about who our audience is and what material will best keep them coming back. First, the people who read our books want to be entertained. Second, to laugh. But subject matter is especially vital in the mystery community because the best mystery novels are not just a story, but a story about something. The good ones feature new ideas, fresh takes on current issues or trends in popular culture. Yes, the Tarts sometimes blog about the mundane details of our lives, but only as a metaphor for something thought-provoking.

5. By extension: Advertising is not blogging. Posting nothing but tour schedules and release dates is a surefire way to lose our audience. That kind of info goes on our websites. Blog readers get bored with obvious self-promotion faster than anything else.

6. We track our hits. And this is worth repeating. Track the hits! We count our hits every day, notice what our best referrals are, and sometimes watch ISP addresses. We count the number of daily comments and note when and how many first-time commenters come out of lurkdom. Then we compare that data to our content. We notice which posts are winners with readers and which are duds. If our hits aren't growing, we know it's time to re-think and/or re-invent and go find more eyeballs. (You can do this by posting on some big listserves, by emailing alerts to your friends, by inviting guest bloggers who bring an audience with them. If you write about cats or knitting, join some related listserves and alert your listmates about your blog. And I'm sure many of you have even better ideas you could share here. Please do!) Only if we continue to grow our audience can we hope that our blog is helping our sales numbers.

7. Comments are an indication of how large and interactive our online ommunity is. And that's what you're trying to do with a blog, right?--To build a community of readers who will become so loyal that they'll be moved to buy your books when they're released. To attract comments, I must pose a subtle question in the text of my blog. Not an obvious question, because readers are turned off by such pathetically clumsy efforts.

8. The employees of NYC publishing houses read blogs. Therefore, if you want to keep your reputation as a team-playing author, don't post anything stupid or insulting about your publisher, your agent, your publicist, the buyers for major chains or your friends. On the other hand, if you want to get 1000 hits in a single afternoon, say something insulting or stupid, because other writers enjoy watching their colleagues crash and burn. Human nature.

9. Here's our big conclusion: Blogs do sell books. In the last year, we've seen quantifiable evidence of that during the health crises of two authors whose friends volunteered to blog on their behalf. Resulting book sales have been documented. The rest of us have to study our royalty statements to puzzle out whether or not blogging triggers specific sales. But all of us at TLC have enjoyed increased sales since starting the blog.

10. My last word of wisdom? Don't blog about diets. It's boring. And boring is the worst thing a blog can be.

For more on this subject, you can check last year's State of the Union TLC blog here: http://thelipstickchronicles.typepad.com/the_lipstick_chronicles/2007/01/2006_a_year_in_.htmlcomments

And you can bet I'll be tracking how many readers come from this blog to The Lipstick Chronicles.

Sisters in Crime Makes Plans for 2008

The Sisters in Crime Board of Directors has planned many gatherings and book events for 2008. Take a minute to read the list and let me know if you have additional questions. More information is on www.sistersincrime.org.

- Left Coast Crime 2008 - Denver, CO - March 7&8 - Roberta Isleib, Donna Andrews and Beth Wasson will be at Left Coast Crime and will be available at the Sisters in Crime Rocky Mountain Hospitality Suite. The times will be posted soon. Let me know if you would like to meet with us. Chapter members and individuals who would like to discuss Sisters in Crime are welcome.

- Public Librarians Association Annual Meeting 2008 - Minneapolis, MN - March 27-29 - if you are a SinC author who would like to set up a time to be at the SinC booth please e-mail, board member, Mary Boone @ boonema@oplin.org.

-Malice Domestic 2008 - Washington D.C - Sisters in Crime Breakfast - Sunday April 27 @ 7:30 am - come and join your friends for breakfast and conversation. Reservations are needed. Send $20 to: Sisters in Crime, PO Box 442124, Lawrence, KS 66044 by April 16, 2008 in Lawrence, KS. Tickets will not be sent but your name will be on the reservation list at the door. Please send your e-mail address with the check so I can send you a confirmation. I hope to see many of you there.

- American Library Association 2008 - Annual Conference will be held in Anaheim, CA, from June 26–July 2, - Mary Boone will be handling author scheduling at the event - she can be reached at boonema@oplin.org.

The Los Angeles Chapter will be pitching in to make this ALA a success. Last but not least - don't forget to renew your Sisters in Crime membership for 2008. The first newsletter of 2008 comes out in March and you want to be on the list. You may renew at the web site www.sistersincrime.org or send a check for $40 to: Sisters in Crime, PO Box 442124, Lawrence, KS 66044.

Have a great week and e-mail me if you have any questions.
Beth Wasson

A New Year for SinC

Happy New Year to all of our friends – whether you are readers, librarians, writers, agents, booksellers, editors…or a combination of any of those. We welcome you to the SinC blog, and to SinC. If you are not a member of Sisters in Crime but would like to be, please visit us at sistersincrime.org. We’d love to have you join us.

This year we are trying some exciting new things for our members, with the goal of expanding our members’ knowledge of writing, the mystery business (and sometimes it truly is a mystery!), and the web of support we – and others in the community – can offer.

One of these ways, which was discussed last week, is the new Mentor Mondays program on the listserv, which brings experts of our business to the forum for questions. Margaret Maron, multiple award-winning SinC author, started us off last week with a wonderful day, in which she shared about her process, the business, and writing in general. On January 14 our visitor is Paige Wheeler, a literary agent from Folio Literary Management. If you’d like to join the listserv to participate in the active discussions there, the information is on the homepage of our web site. We’d love to have you!

Another program that began last year and will continue in 2008 is the Publishers Summit. Several members of the board visited with publishers and agents in the fall to talk with them about the writing business and find out how we can best help our members break in, promote themselves, and, yes, even make some money. The information they received is helping to expand the information section of the web site, and will be coming out in the newsletter and other forums. We plan to hold another summit this year, and gather more information for our members.

At Malice Domestic, in April, we are expanding our annual chapter presidents’ meeting to include anyone from SinC chapters who would like to attend. We will be inviting members of various chapters to share a way in which they have excelled at helping their regional members or the larger organization. These ways might include newsletters, workshops, conferences, or other creative areas. If your chapter does something you would like to share, please contact our administrative office at sistersincrime@juno.com and let us know what special things you do!

We will continue to fill InSinC, our newsletter, with informative (and entertaining!) articles, monitor publications for reviews of books by women, and gather information for a Book Club Database. We strive to help our members in whatever way we can, and look forward to a very exciting 2008!

Happy Reading and Writing!
Judy Clemens
Vice President, SinC

Don’t miss out on Mentor Monday!

Have you ever wished you could talk directly with your favorite mystery authors, or get an agent’s up-to-the-minute report on what editors are looking for, or ask the advice of an expert web site designer? SinC gives you the chance to do all that and more every week through Mentor Monday, a new feature on our national listserv.

Beginning Monday, January 7 with a visit from Margaret Maron, we’ll have an unprecedented lineup of guests who excel in every aspect of the book business. Each guest will be available throughout the day to answer your questions and offer their insight and advice. In addition to Margaret, we’ve already scheduled agent Paige Wheeler, Nancy Pickard, Gary Niebuhr (author of Read ‘Em Their Writes, a guide to running a book discussion group), Margaret Coel, agent Janet Reid, top web designer Maddie James, Eve Sandstrom (aka JoAnna Carl), Susan Wittig Albert, SinC Library Liaisons Doris Ann Norris and Mary Boone, and editor Chris Roerden. Later guests will include Stephen Booth, Julie Smith and many more you will not want to miss.

If you’re a member of SinC but haven’t joined the national listserv, sign up today by sending an e-mail to sistersincrime-subscribe@yahoogroups.com – and please include your full name in the body of the e-mail to speed up verification of your membership so you can be added to the list as quickly as possible. You can opt for a daily digest, but for Mentor Mondays you may want to switch to individual messages for the day so you can join in the conversation. (Changing back and forth via e-mail is easy – just click on the link at the bottom of every digest or message. Contact sparshall@verizon.net if you hit a snag.)

Don’t miss out on Mentor Monday – or the lively, informative discussions among SinC members the rest of the week. Whether you’re a writer or a fan, we hope we’ll be hearing from you on the listserv!

Sandra Parshall
Leslie Budewitz
SinC Listserv Moderators

Looking Back, Looking Ahead

As the end of the year approaches, it seems fitting to both look back over avery busy, productive year for Sisters in Crime, and then to look ahead.Here are just a few of the 2007 highlights:

In March, libraries across the nation celebrated the SinC 20th anniversaryby setting up displays highlighting our authors and our organization. SinCsent out almost 2000 packets which included crime scene tape, posters,bumper stickers and more to help organize the displays.

On April 5, the Detective and Mystery Caucus of the Popular CultureAssociation and American Culture Association presented a special Dove Awardto Sisters in Crime to honor our organization's extensive activities insupport of women crime writers. A crowd including founding mothers SaraParetsky and Kate Mattes packed Kate's Mystery Books to watch the ceremony.

September brought the first Sisters in Crime publishers summit, in whichRochelle Krich, SJ Rozan, Jim Huang, and I visited a number of publishingprofessionals in New York to talk about the publishing business and SinC'srole in it. We plan to meet with another set of professionals late inspring, 2008.

In October, Sisters in Crime wrapped up its twentieth anniversarycelebration with the launch of SISTERS ON THE CASE, an anthology of storiesedited by Sara Paretsky. Signings were held across the country.

Forensics University, the first ever conference devoted to the details offorensics, was held in St. Louis in November. Students raved about thefaculty and the curriculum. The St. Louis chapter did a wonderful job oforganizing the event and threaten to repeat it 2 or 3 years down the road.

And what's ahead? We're very excited about our "Mentor Mondays" project, tobe launched in January, 2008. Each Monday, a special guest will stop intoour list discussion to offer advice about their special areas of expertise.Members can join the list by sending an email including your full name to:sistersincrime-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

January 7: Margaret Maron
January 14: Paige Wheeler
January 21: Nancy Pickard
January 28: Gary Niebuhr
Feb. 4 -- Margaret Coel
Feb. 12 -- Janet Reid (Note this is a Tuesday)
Feb. 18 -- Madeira (Maddee) James (web designer)
Feb. 25 -- Eve Sandstrom/JoAnna Carl

We will also be hosting a breakfast at Left Coast Crime, and a chapter"flash training" session and a breakfast at Malice. Of course, we continuewith the good work of our monitoring project, our book club project(connecting readers with books), our many trade show booths, offering thebest articles we can find for the newsletter, and many activities at thechapter level. Please visit our website for more details:http://www.sistersincrime.org.

I'd like to thank the board and all the other members who work hard to makethese projects possible. We're open to your suggestions and welcome you tovolunteer your services and energy! I'm proud to be a member of Sisters inCrime and delighted to be leading our march into 2008.

Warmly,
Roberta Isleib
Sinc president
Www.robertaisleib.com