A Reader Goes to ALA

By Molly Weston


Asking me to be part of Sisters in Crime's Summit Team and attend the American Library Association's Summer Conference in New Orleans was a lot like throwing Br'er Rabbit in the Briar Patch! Of course, I'd been to mystery conferences and booksellers' conferences, but never to a library conference. I had everything laid out for the trip a month before I was due to pack.

The excitement began to swell on the plane leaving Charlotte. I watched more and more travelers board carrying tote bags from libraries—and paperbacks in their hands. As I looked around en route, nearly everyone was reading! My seat mate was a librarian from Canada and the kind lady who entertained the child beside her until takeoff explained she was a grandmother. I later found she, too, was a librarian.

When I got into line for the van ride to the hotel, it was jammed with more librarians and their accompanying identifying tote bags. And these weren't the "Ssssh!" types from the 50s. They were all swaying to the sounds of the jazz band playing beside baggage pickup!

Unsurprisingly, our hotel was packed with librarians, too, and every day more tote bags replaced purses and suitcases. By the time the trade show floor opened, the bags were stuffed with books and posters. It was heartening to see the distinctive red Sisters in Crime bags amongst those from publishers and distributors.

[Photo: It wouldn't be New Orleans without beignets for breakfast!]

The SinC bags were an enticement for visiting our library-themed booth, as was the drawing for an iPod Touch. Mary Boone and Doris Ann Norris did a bang-up job making the booth both attractive and accessible. In addition to the SinC banners, they hung poster-sized photos of many of the "We Love Libraries!" winners to ensure that folks asked about entering the contest.

[Photo: Dorris Ann Norris and Mary Boone take a break after setting up the SinC booth.]

The Summit Team members were charged with talking with librarians, distributors, and publishers about how readers find books. We met in focus groups, one-on-one interviews, catch-as-catch-can talks on the trade show floor, and at meals. Everyone we talked with was happy to share ideas with us—frequently they seemed thrilled that someone would ask!

The Summit Report will provide full details about these ideas. Don't miss reading it! All SinC members will receive the report as part of their membership package. If you're reading this as a non-member, consider joining today at www.sistersincrime.org. This report will be well worth it.

The Saturday "Mystery Day" coordinated by Rosemary Harris brought in so many mystery writers it would be difficult to list them all. It was great fun catching up with old friends and meeting (and making) new ones. I was delighted to meet Julie Smith, whom I've loved reading for more than 20 years (she must have won her Edgar when she was 12!).

Nearly every member of the Summit Team was on a panel on the Pop Top stage. I was delighted to get to moderate "Attention to Detail: How Research Adds to the Mystery," with Frankie Y. Bailey, Rhys Bowen, Jane Cleland, and Carolyn Hart. My trip was made!

Every night I returned to my hotel room totally exhausted, but with my mind overflowing with great ideas and wonderful memories. After all, what could be better than five days with librarians and Sisters in Crime?

[Photo: (front row, from left) Rhys Bowen, Holli Castillo and Libby Fischer Hellmann ready to lend a hand in the SinC booth at ALA.]




New Orleans photos by Molly Weston.


Molly Weston is the editor of inSinC, the Sisters in Crime quarterly news bulletin. She is a book reviewer, media escort, blogger and book club maven — when not pondering the intricacies of keeping the local deer from eating the entire colorful crop at her day lily farm.

SinC Extends Member Discount for Writers' Police Academy

Sisters in Crime is extending the member discount for SinC members attending the Writers' Police Academy taking place Sept. 23 to 25, 2011, near Greensboro, North Carolina.

The offer, originally scheduled to end on June 16, was extended due to its popularity. SinC members are now eligible for the deeply-discounted registration fee of $100 throughout the entire registration period of the conference. SinC national will pay the balance of the $255 registration.

If you’re not a Sisters in Crime member, you can sign up for a SinC membership to receive the discount. The annual membership fee for a SinC professional membership is $40. For more information on membership, go to www.sistersincrime.org.

The Writers' Police Academy provides a hands-on interactive experience designed to help writers increase their understanding of all aspects of law enforcement and forensics.

The three-day training program offers access to active-duty police instructors, an on-site working fire station and working police, fire and EMS equipment.

Sisters in Crime will sponsor a mix-and-mingle reception on Friday, Sept. 24, from 7 to 9 p.m. The get-together will be followed by a “night owl” presentation by Lee Lofland, author of Police Procedure and Investigation, a bestseller in the Writers Digest “Howdunit” series.

To register, or for more detailed information on the Writers' Police Academy, go to writerspoliceacademy.com.

Inside inSinC

This week, Sisters in Crime members received one of the organization’s leading member benefits -- the inSinC quarterly bulletin, a 20-page publication filled with practical information for Sisters in Crime members writing and reading crime fiction.

inSinC, edited by Molly Weston, provides a treasure trove of feature articles, columns from industry experts and useful news for SinC member writers and readers.

The June 2011 issue starts off with a bang with “Reviewers Unleashed,” a far-ranging conversation with Oline Cogdill (Fort Lauderdale Sun Sentinel, Mystery Scene, Publishers Weekly, McClatchy Tribune Features and more), Hallie Ephron (The Boston Globe), Jen Forbus (Jensbookthoughts.com and Crimespree), Art Taylor (the Washington Post) and Sarah Weinman (Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal, the National Post, Maclean’s, The Baltimore Sun, the Washington Post and more).

In “The FOSS Cure,” Ramona DeFelice Long provides a helpful – and therapeutic – examination of the short story form, with advice for conquering fear of the short story (FOSS).

Jan Burke turns a watchful eye toward the state of death investigation in the U.S. with “Who’s Watching Our Deaths?” Studies, problems, critical needs, what you can do – you’ll find all of the information here.

“Writer Beware” by Victoria Strauss outlines the work of the publishing industry watchdog group sponsored by the Science Fiction Writers of America that provides information and warnings about scams and schemes that threaten writers.

The photo essay, “Memories of Malice 2011,” shares some of the highlights of this year’s Malice Domestic conference. Remember, not all of what happens at Malice stays at Malice!

The regular inSinC columns include Sisters in Crime president Cathy Pickens’ report on recent and upcoming SinC initiatives, “Law & Fiction: Getting Facts Straight” by attorney Leslie Budewitz and “Illusionists and the Brain” by forensic psychology and criminal justice professor Katherine Ramsland, Ph.D.

In addition, the latest inSinC provides other news you can use, including “Chapter Highlights,” news of special events that may just offer some ideas for your own chapter activities; “Conferences and Happenings,” an updated event calendar; “The Docket” by Patricia Gulley, the latest in publishing news from your Sisters; and “Writing Contests,” a look at award-winning opportunities.

Let us know what you think about the latest edition of inSinC. We'd love to hear from you!

Writers’ Police Academy: SinC will pay more than half your way

Sisters in Crime members can attend the Writers’ Police Academy, to be held Sept. 23 to 25, 2011 near Greensboro, North Carolina, for a deeply-discounted registration fee of $100. SinC national will pay the balance of members’ $255 registration.

Act quickly to take advantage of this offer, which is in effect until June 15, 2011.

If you’re not a Sisters in Crime member, you can sign up for a SinC membership to receive the discount. The annual membership fee for a SinC professional membership is $40.

The Writers’ Police Academy, helmed by SinC member Lee Lofland, provides a hands-on interactive experience designed to help writers increase their understanding of all aspects of law enforcement and forensics.

The three-day training program offers access to active-duty police instructors, an on-site working fire station and working police, fire and EMS equipment. Law enforcement professionals participating in the event include ATF special agent Rick McMahan; Lt. Josh Morris of the Central Point Police Department, assigned to the FBI as the commander of the Southern Oregon High-Tech Crimes Task Force/FBI Cyber Crimes Task Force; Dave Pauly, retired from the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command as a Special Agent-in-Charge/Commander and forensic science officer, and others.

Exhibits and demonstrations will focus on crime lab work, firefighting equipment, command post vehicles and motorcycles, as well as the work of dive teams, the state police, K-9 teams and hazardous material teams.

Sessions and workshops will examine the use of force, 3-D laser modeling, bloodstain patterns and cold cases, including how cases go cold and the realities of homicide units. Dr. Katherine Ramsland will offer a special presentation on “Psychological Sleuthing and the Tools of Forensic Psychology.”

The keynote speech will be presented by award-winning author Christopher Reich, the author of eight espionage thrillers. His most recent work, Rules of Betrayal, is the third installment in the series featuring Dr. Jonathan Ransom, a surgeon who previously worked with Doctors Without Borders, and his wife, Emma, a secret agent.

Sisters in Crime will sponsor a mix-and-mingle reception on Friday, Sept. 24, from 7 to 9 p.m. The get-together will be followed by a “night owl” presentation by Lee Lofland, author of Police Procedure and Investigation, a bestseller in the Writers Digest “Howdunit” series.

To register, or for more detailed information on the Writers’ Police Academy, go to www.writerspoliceacademy.com.

Chapter by Chapter

By Kathie Felix


It’s a busy day for Sisters in Crime members from coast to coast.

The Chesapeake Chapter begins celebrating the holidays today with a meeting and a discussion of blood and d.n.a evidence. The Northern California Chapter gets its festivities underway today with a joint SinC/MWA get-together. And, in between – and to the north and to the south – many other chapters are meeting and celebrating.

As we look toward the new year, this seems like a good time to reflect on our involvement with SinC, both personally and locally.

Do you belong to a SinC chapter? If not, why not?

If you do belong to a chapter, how many meetings do you attend a year? And why do you attend those meetings?

Do you select the meetings you attend because they have a topic or speaker that interests you?

Do you attend as many meetings as you can because your SinC chapter offers a good networking opportunity – one that can help you and enable you to help others?

Do you show up just because you can never tell what’s going to happen when a creative group of SinC members gathers in one place?

Or do you have other reasons to get to your chapter meeting?

Tell us: What takes you away from the pages of a good mystery – or the keyboard – and out to a meeting with your Sisters in Crime?

Member Benefits? Check out SinC Links!

By Nancy Martin

Every month, Sisters in Crime sends an e-blast to members called SinC Links. When the board created this project, the purpose was to provide the professional writers among us—members who make their living from writing—with solid information about the industry and our place in it. To prepare the e-blast, a crack team of volunteers spends every month scouring the Internet for new stories that have value to women crime writers. We specifically target the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Publisher’s Weekly, UK and Canadian newspapers and various industry-related blogs and websites. But we manage to find good stuff off the beaten track, too.

If you followed the Links this year, you undoubtedly noticed that publishing industry trends—especially those in the mystery genre--have been mixed. Sure, bestsellers Janet Evanovich and Patricia Cornwell managed to land great book deals. A few more authors in the mid-six figure range were also successful. But the majority of women selling mysteries right now are being paid very low advances—and a sorry few of those women were members of Sisters in Crime. (So few, in fact, that we changed our policy and now include deals by non-members just so we have something to report in the SinC Links.)

We’ve also noted the “small presses” are paying about a thousand dollars for a book, often for just one-book deals. This kind of deal is more for the hobby writers than the pros, but we list such deals anyway because knowledge is power, right?

The disheartening low-advance trend brings up the consideration that maybe now’s a good time to write something besides mystery if you can. But if you watch the “deals” in other genres, you’ve noticed that YA has exploded (that is, publishers have been eagerly accepting manuscripts that appeal to young adult readers) as have the paranormal and inspirational genres. (Now’s the time, apparently, to try selling that Amish teenage vampire manuscript you’ve kept in a drawer.) If you want to write a thriller and you have a name that could pass for a man’s--well, now’s good for you, too. Romantic suspense seems to be heating up as well. And historical fiction is enjoying a surge among publishers, too.

Of course, those trends may have run their course. If it takes you two years to write such a book--well, “you snooze, you lose,” comes to mind.

The other big story for SinC Links this year, of course, is the rise of e-books. Amazon says they’re selling more e-books than hardcovers. Barnes & Noble’s Nook device has come down in price, and many of their e-books are priced at $10 or less. Which means you can buy a Nook along with a dozen e-books instead of $25 hardcovers, and you’ll break even. Professional authors would be fools not to be sure their books are available in Kindle and Nook format? The Sisters in Crime Summit Report http://www.sistersincrime.org/displaycommon.cfm?an=5 contains valuable info if you’re behind in the e-book trends.

But let’s face it: It’s the “deals” that everybody’s really interested in. How much money was So-and-So paid for what kind of book? Who’s her agent? What editor made the purchase? If you read SinC Links every month only for the deals, you’ll eventually start seeing the trends and act accordingly.

What SinC Links doesn’t do? We don’t provide supportive inspiration. (Although we occasionally find a tidbit that’s entertaining.) Nor are we an outlet for self-promotion. (We don’t announce pub dates, only business deals.) Unfortunately, we don’t provide a venue for discussing current trends either—but that’s what this blog is for! And so is the Sisters in Crime listserve. But SinC Links is intended to help professional writers make solid business decisions as we strategize our careers.

Any questions about SinC Links? Thoughts? Suggestions? Today’s the day!

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Nancy Martin's writing carer has stayed alive for 30 years, during which she has written nearly 50 popular fiction novels including The Blackbird Sisters mystery series and the Roxy Abruzzo series. She serves on the board of Sisters in Crime and blogs at The Lipstick Chronicles.  Be sure to visit Nancy's web site.