10 Last Minute Holiday Book Marketing Tips

We have a few more weeks before Christmas, Kwanzaa, Watch Night and New Year's. Bookstores have geared up for holiday shoppers and blacked-out in-store events for marquis authors, so there are fewer available spots for in-store events for authors to grab at the last minute. Public libraries have geared up for holiday events, so again, the newer authors will have trouble finding readings to participate in. So what do you do? Hold off selling your books until 2012? Or are there ways for you to take advantage of Holiday Cheer? I say take advantage. Here are 10 ways to promote your writing through the holidays.

1. Host a free children’s book drive at your local library.

It’s not too late to book a meeting room or space at your local library or smaller bookstore for a free children’s book drive. If you plan it now, you have time to get a local reporter and local blogger to the event. Invite the public to drop off new books at the library to give away or donate to the library’s children’s section. On your event day have holiday punch and cookies and invite the public to pick up a free children’s book.

2. Give your book to local coffeehouses to include in holiday gift baskets.

Four years ago I met with a popular local coffee house in my town by request of the owner. He loved authors and great books. We created gift baskets with my client’s books inside. We also introduced a new Winter Reading Series.

3. Host an Under the Dryer Book Signing at a Beauty Salon.

Have you ever been in a beauty salon? The long wait, the old reading material. What if someone was selling a book to read while sitting under the dryer? Bingo!! A client of mine sold out one weekend doing this event. You can also create holiday spa gift baskets that include your book for the salon event.

4. Write a Christmas story and have it published in your local community paper or regional magazine.

I wrote a story for Precious Times Magazine a few years back titled “Kissmas Time.” From that one story, I received many invitations to write articles for other magazines. I have a mailing list of people interested in my book (when it comes out). And I have had speaking engagement requests also as a result of that story.

5. Sponsor your local Girl Scout or Boy Scout Christmas Parade Float.

I just participated in my town’s annual Christmas parade. Loads of fun. I saw many familiar faces and made a friend of the mayor. Yippee. Being out and about in the community is a great way to build your author name. Sponsoring a float, making a banner, providing costumes, or just chaperoning kids in the parade will help make you a presence. People will become familiar with you. If you are an author, have kids pass out bookmarks with candy attached to them, or take your little Christmas story, package it up, and give it out to those on the parade route.

6. Read Christmas Stories at your local elementary school media center.

If you write for a young adult market, or even a soccer mom market, then get yourself to your local school and read your cool book to kids. Host a Santa letter party.

7. Host an Online Book Giveaway--but not of your book. Instead give away:

• a book you know your readers want like Ted Dekker’s Kiss, which comes out in January, or
• a book that's tied to the holidays like a Paula Deen Holiday Cookbook, or
• a book your friends might be afraid to buy, but would love to read (for instance Carleen Brice’s Buy a White Friend a Black Book Month Project)

Promote the giveaway and the winner by sending a press release to the winner’s local paper.Put the book in a gift basket from your local coffeehouse. Hey, it works for the Avon lady.

8. Host a Holiday Book Party at a local restaurant

Publisher and author Dwan Abrams hosted a party this weekend in downtown Atlanta to celebrate her birthday, the holidays, and the release of her fourth novel Married Strangers. The event was free to attend. It is also a book drive for a Women’s Prison Literacy Project. She’s got local celebrities, book reviewers, and bookstore managers popping through. The event has been promoted on local gospel radio stations, online mags, local papers, and to anyone within two paces of her.You do know that now is the time to throw a party?

9. Build a tip sheet

Center the sheet around your book’s theme and the holidays, then submit the tip list as filler for major local magazines and online magazines your readers read.

10. Be a front door vendor at your local bookstore.

Ask your local bookstore if you can set up a table on the weekend to sell your books. Ask for two tables. One to sell your book and another to gift wrap books as a free service to the bookstore. All bookstore chains allow authors to do this. (However, some bookstores will only talk to publicists or publishers.)

Bonus: contact your bookstore every week to see if any big authors had last minute cancellations for their Holiday In Store Events. But be prepared to get books to the store on short notice.

If you put all this together, you will see that the lesson here is to become a part of your community. The holidays are the best and most opportune times to do this. There’s just something about holiday cheer. And it only comes once a year--take advantage of it.

What other Guerilla Marketing Holiday Tips can you share?

And what are you most thankful for as a writer this year?

Miranda Parker is the author of A Good Excuse to Be Bad (Kensington), the first in the Angel Crawford Bounty Hunter Series. Parker has been featured at NBCC and The Decatur Book Festival, and featured in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, RT Book Reviews, and Publishers Weekly. She is also the Social Media/Marketing Person for the International Thriller Writers Debut Authors Program and a contributing editor to The Big Thrill. A sequel, Someone Bad & Something Blue, will be released in July 2012. Visit her at www.mirandaparker.com

photo credit: macinate

Thriller subgenres: is it SciFi, or SciThri?

Thriller subgenres: is it SciFi, or SciThri?

By Amy Rogers

When authors pitch a novel to agents or editors, they’re expected to cite which category or genre applies to their work. “Where would this book be shelved at Barnes & Noble?” is the question.

Some thriller writers struggle to neatly package their novel in a single category. Mystery versus thriller is a distinction blurred in some books. Thrillers may have strong horror elements, or plenty of romance, begging to be shelved with those genres.

For me, the problematic genre distinction is science thriller (SciThri) versus science fiction (SciFi). I write thrillers. My books meet the expected conventions of the genre in terms of page-turning tension, action, high stakes, and a ticking-clock climax. Yet some reviewers have referred to my debut novel Petroplague as “science fiction.”

Why? Well, I wrote a work of fiction that has a lot of science in it.

Unlike legal thrillers, medical thrillers, espionage thrillers, historical thrillers, and so on, science-themed thrillers are uniquely vulnerable to this kind of mislabeling. There is no shelf at B&N marked “Legal Fiction” or “Spy Fiction,” but there is that big section of “Science Fiction”. How tempting it is to take a novel with a science-driven plot and just toss it in the fiction category that has “science” in the title.

Does it matter if a science-themed thriller gets shelved as SciFi? I think it does. A reader picking up a SciFi novel will have different expectations than a reader picking up a thriller with a scientist as protagonist. SciThri may appeal to SciFi fans, but the science thriller audience is different and potentially bigger—consider all the Michael Crichton fans in the world!

So what’s the difference between SciFi and SciThri? I’ll admit it’s not always clear-cut. But based on the scores of reviews I’ve done for ScienceThrillers.com, here are the general characteristics I believe define these two categories of stories.

Science thrillers:

• Usually fiction but can also be nonfiction (e.g. The Hot Zone by Richard Preston)
• Set in the real world or something recognizably similar to it
• Plot occurs in the present time
• Science is crucial to the plot and typically a scientist is a main character
• Technology alone does not make a science thriller (e.g. military technothrillers such as Tom Clancy’s The Hunt for Red October don’t qualify)
• Story must be plot-driven, page-turning, with some (or a lot of) action
• The science should be largely grounded in scientific reality. If a scientific plot element is technically impossible, it must be plausible to an average reader.

Science fiction:

• Always fiction
• May be set in any world, real or imagined, earth-bound or outer-space
• Plot events may occur at any time (past, present, future, or an indeterminate “long time ago in a galaxy far, far away”). History can be rewritten at will.
• Science or technology may be important to the plot, or it may be little more than mood-setting wallpaper in the background of the story
• SciFi can be plot-driven and action-packed, or it can be quite literary
• Scientific plot elements don’t have to be realistic. Time travel, warp speed, and mind-reading are all okay.

Many ITW members (Paul McEuen, James Rollins, and Karen Dionne, to name a few) write books that qualify as science thrillers. I wonder if they have seen their books categorized as SciFi? Granted, some of them—such as Rollins—stretch the science in their stories beyond plausibility into the SciFi realm. Others, such as Paul McEuen in his brilliantly technical debut Spiral, keep their stories largely rooted in scientific reality or near-possibility.

Ultimately, I think the distinction between SciThri and SciFi is believability. In science fiction, the reader allows the author to manufacture entire universes and civilizations from scratch; as long as the author keeps internally-consistent rules, anything goes. By contrast, in a science thriller the reader should be plagued by the feeling that this could really happen. This feeling lurks in the heart of the tension of most great thrillers, science or otherwise.

Do you know a thriller that in your opinion has been wrongly categorized by some readers or industry professionals?

More questions: How do you categorize your novels? Have you experienced mislabeling because you write hybrid thrillers?

Dr. Amy Rogers writes thrilling science-themed novels that pose frightening “what if?” questions. Compelling characters and fictionalized science—not science fiction—make her books page-turners that seamlessly blend reality with imagination. She is a member of International Thriller Writers Debut Class (2011-2012). In her novel Petroplague, oil-eating bacteria contaminate the fuel supply of Los Angeles and paralyze the city. Learn more at AmyRogers.com and ScienceThrillers.com. You can also follow Amy on twitter (@ScienceThriller) and on her Facebook fan page.

Related Thrill Begins Posts:

• Michael Crichton’s Top 5 Writing Lessons
• Making an Audiobook
• Can a Novel Change the World?

More about ITW Debut Author’s Program":am

The International Thriller Writers membership includes some of the world’s best-selling authors: David Morrell, Gayle Lynds, Lee Child, Sandra Brown, Clive Cussler, Jeffery Deaver, Tess Gerritsen, James Patterson and many, many more.

The ITW Debut Author Program, under the aegis of the International Thriller Writers main organization, seeks to support our first-book members through the publication process by providing a friendly, interactive community for the purposes of networking, mentoring, promotion, and camaraderie.

Membership in the Debut Authors program is for Active-status ITW members only. Before you can apply to the Debut Authors program, you must first apply for ITW membership. More information about ITW membership here

CREATING A WORTHY ANTAGONIST

"Since the heroes and the gimmicks tend to repeat from film to film, only a great villain can transform a good try into a triumph." Roger Ebert

Welcome to Thriller Thursday!

This week we have a treat for you. Jodie Renner shares advice that is paramount to writing a great thriller. The Villain. As the Roger Ebert quote states above, having a worthy antagonist does more than just give your hero someone to defeat. The villain gives your reader a reason to join your hero’s journey, to connect emotionally with the hero, and to understand what’s at stake, if the hero does not succeed.

The villain deserves a great deal of attention from the writer. Wouldn’t you agree? Renner shares terrific villain character development tips and also opens up this week’s discussion. How evil should a modern villain be?

Thank you for this great post, Jodie.

_____________________________________________________

CREATING A WORTHY ANTAGONIST

by Jodie Renner

You’ve outlined a plot and created an appealing, complex protagonist for your thriller or other crime/action fiction — great start! But what about your antagonist? According to James N. Frey, “the villain is your best friend, because the villain creates the plot behind the plot — the plot that has to be foiled by the hero.”

The hero or heroine of your suspense novel needs a worthy opponent who is standing in his/her way and threatening other innocent people. As James Scott Bell says, “Without a strong opponent, most novels lack that crucial emotional experience for the reader: worry. If it seems the hero can take care of his problems easily, why bother to read on?”

And thrillers and other crime fiction need a downright nasty bad guy — but not a “mwoo-ha-ha” caricature or stereotype. If your villain is just a wicked cardboard caricature of what he could be, your readers will quickly lose interest. As Hallie Ephron says, “Characters who are simply monstrously evil can come off as old-fashioned clichés.”

To create a believable, complex, chilling villain, make him clever and determined, but also someone who feels justified in his actions. Ask yourself what the bad guy wants, how he thinks the protagonist is standing in his way, and how he explains his own motivations to himself.

How does your villain rationalize his actions? He may feel that he is justified because of early childhood abuse or neglect, a grudge against society, a goal thwarted by the protagonist, a desire for revenge against a perceived wrong, or a need for power or status — or money to fund his escape. Whatever his reasons, have them clear in your own mind, and at least hint at them in your novel. Like the protagonist, the antagonist needs motivations for his actions.

To give yourself the tools to create a realistic, believable antagonist, try writing a mini-biography of your villain: his upbringing and family life, early influences, and harrowing experiences or criminal activities so far. As Hallie Ephron advises us, “Think about what happened to make that villain the way he is. Was he born bad, or did he sour as a result of some traumatic event? If your villain has a grudge against society, why? If he can’t tolerate being jilted, why? You may never share your villain’s life story with your reader, but to make a complex, interesting villain, you need to know what drives him to do what he does.” Creating a backstory for your antagonist will help you develop a multidimensional, convincing bad guy.

Many writing gurus advise us to even make the antagonist a bit sympathetic. James Scott Bell says, “The great temptation in creating bad guys is to make them evil through and through. You might think this will make your audience root harder for your hero. More likely, you’re just going to give your book a melodramatic feel. To avoid this, get to know all sides of your bad guy, including the positives.”

Bell suggests that, after we create a physical impression of our antagonist, we find out what her objective is, dig into her motivation, and create background for her that generates some sympathy — a major turning point from childhood or a powerful secret that can emerge later in the book.

Not everyone agrees with that approach, however. James Frey, on the other hand, says “in some cases, it is neither necessary nor perhaps even desirable to create the villain as a fully fleshed-out, well-rounded multidimensional character.” Many readers just want to a bad guy they can despise, and are not interested in finding out about his inner motives or his deprived childhood. That would dilute our satisfaction in finally seeing him getting his just deserts.

Frey does feel it’s extremely important to create a convincing, truly nasty villain, one who is “ruthless, relentless, and clever and resourceful, as well as being a moral and ethical wack job,” and one who is “willing to crush anyone who gets in his way,” but doesn’t feel it’s necessary to give us a great deal of information on the villain.

As kids, we loved to see good prevail over evil, and the nastier the villain, the harder they fell — and the greater our satisfaction. Perhaps Frey’s “damn good villain” hearkens back to those times, and his ultimate demise evokes greater reader satisfaction. Forget analyzing the bad guy — just build him up, then take him out!

On the other hand, many readers today are more sophisticated and want to get away from the caricatures of our popular literary heritage… hence, advice from writers like Ephron and Bell to develop more multidimensional antagonists with a backstory and clear motivations.

I’d say there’s room for both approaches in modern fiction, and probably the thriller genre favors the “just plain mean and nasty” villain. Never mind the psychological analysis of the bad guy—we just want to see Jack Reacher, Joe Pike or [fill in your favorite thriller hero or heroine] kick butt!

What do you think? Make the villain nasty, evil and cruel through and through, or give him some redeeming qualities to make him more realistic? Show some of his background and motivations, or just stick with his current story goals and plans?

Resources:
Hallie Ephron, The Everything Guide to Writing Your First Novel
James N. Frey, How to Write a Damn Good Thriller
James Scott Bell, Revision and Self-Editing

Jodie Renner is a freelance fiction manuscript editor, specializing in thrillers, romantic suspense, and mysteries. Her services range from developmental editing to light final copyediting, as well as manuscript critiques. Check out Jodie’s website at www.JodieRennerEditing.com and her blog athttp://JodieRennerEditing.blogspot.com.

Jodie is a member of International Thriller Writers (associate), Sisters in Crime (SinC), Backspace: The Writers Place, The Editorial Freelancers Association (EFA), and The Editors Association of Canada (EAC).

Jodie has traveled extensively throughout North America, Europe and the Middle East. In fact, Jodie loves traveling so much, she’s thinking of changing her tagline from “Let’s work together to enhance and empower your writing” to “Have laptop, will travel.”

Copyright © Jodie Renner, October 2011

Related Articles:

• 20 Essential Elements of a Bestselling Thriller
• Roger Ebert’s Review of Star Trek Wrath of Khan
• Creating Compelling Characters

What is a Small Thriller?

By Steven Rigolosi

At some point in our writing careers, most of us wrestle with the definitions of genres and subgenres. What exactly is a mystery? How does it differ (if at all) from a crime novel? Is it all right if characters use profanity in my cozy? What is suspense and how do I create it? Or, more importantly, how does the reader define and experience suspense? And of course for the debut author, are my perceptions and definitions in line with what agents and editors want?

We hope we can answer these questions by the time the book is published. In my internal dialogue, I think I have written a caper/cozy (Who Gets the Apartment?), a novel of psychological suspense (Circle of Assassins), and an urban satire (Androgynous Murder House Party).

Never in any of my outlining, plotting, or positioning self-discussions did I consider that I might be writing THRILLERS.

Why? Because to me a thriller is a Big Book with Big Players. Perhaps the protagonist is John or Jane Q. Public, but John or Jane inevitably comes up against Major Forces: the government, a renegade faction of the FBI, an international spy or terrorist network filled with moles and triple agents, or a global corporation with unlimited money, resources, and power. Or Bioengineers doing unsavory things with the human genome for profit. High-speed chases through Zurich, Abu Dhabi, Prague, Johannesburg, and Taiwan…Big Things. At stake is the fate of the Human Race, not to mention Morality, Country, Liberty, and Family.

But, after taking a second look at my work, I ask myself: Must a thriller be Big?

Most of us, whether readers or writers, have a fairly small sphere of influence. We work, we spend time with family and friends, we take a couple of weeks’ vacation each year. If our worlds are small in comparison to those of international jet-setters, perhaps we can have “smaller” thrillers where various microworlds interact, where life-changing events happen to everyday people who are not engaged in ferreting out Al Qaeda cells.

If I think in these terms, then maybe Circle of Assassins might be called a “small thriller.” It tells the intersecting stories of five unnamed people who make a pact to exchange murderous favors. Their tales (and identities) unfold as they tell their stories, describe why their victims deserve to meet their fate at the hands of an assassin, and live with the aftermath of the killings.

One character, who grew up impoverished, is willing to fight to the death to preserve the tiny Cape Cod home she purchased with her life savings. Another is a traditional Italian-American whose father has installed Old-World ways into him – traditions that clash with modern expectations regarding family and gender roles. A third is an academic who sees her department chair as the living embodiment of white privilege.

Each of these people sets events in motion that have ripple effects among smaller communities: an extended family, a college campus, a suburban neighborhood. The drama that unfolds is personal and intense - definitely not as world-changing as pharmaceutical companies manipulating national governments, but, I am hoping, more immediate and more at the level at which the average person lives his or her life, encountering smaller-scale villains who are just as greedy, manipulative, or power-hungry as those CEOs and Directors of Government Agencies.

Still, I don’t think we’ll be seeing any novels subtitled “A Small Thriller” any time soon.

But if you wanted to give it a try…

Here are Three Things Your “Small Thriller” Needs:

1. Character development.

A lot of “big thrillers” are criticized for stereotypical or undeveloped characters. A small thriller offers an opportunity to combine a thrilling plot with intense character study.

2. A tight page count.

The big thrillers often come in at about 400 pages. A small thriller covers much less of the world (and has much less, perhaps even zero, jet-setting), so it might be able to tell its story in a tight, taut 300 pages.

3. Plot twists and a memorable ending.

Regardless of its size, a thriller has to thrill. This means a good story with plenty of surprises, turnabouts, betrayals, unexpected twists, and – my favorite – a surprise ending.

Question: Do you think you’ve written a small thriller? How has it worked for you?

Steven Rigolosi is the author of the Tales from the Back Page series. The most recent installment is Androgynous Murder House Party. He lives in Northern New Jersey and is at work on the next book.Visit him on Goodreads.

If you are a debut suspense or thriller [even small thriller like me] author whose book will release within the next year, we invite you to join International Thriller Writers (ITW) Debut Author Program. Click this link to learn how. thrillerwriters.org/join-itw/debut-authors

Related The Thrill Begins articles:

• Can A Real Spy Write a Spy Thriller?

• What is a Thriller Anyway?

• An Interview with Lisa Gardner

Related articles in the blogosphere:

• How dare Tom Cruise (macleans.ca)
• 'The Double': In From The Cold War, A Retro Thriller (npr.org)
• Suspense Your Disbelief » Made It Moment: Steven Rigolosi

photo credit: Miranda Parker

Can A Real Spy Write a Spy Thriller?

3 Things to Consider when Your Day Job is the stuff of Novels

by Alma Katsu

When I was an analyst at CIA, many of my coworkers thought about sitting down one day and writing a spy novel. Obviously, few did. (Even I didn’t: my novel, The Taker, is historical with a supernatural element and had nothing to do with my intelligence career.)

But one analyst had penned a spoof of The Hunt for Red October as if it had been written in the rigid style taught to analysts in the Directorate of Intelligence. I wish I could show it to you—I’ve been told that a copy is floating around the Internet, but I couldn’t find it—because it perfectly illustrates the difference between being a spy in real life and being one in a novel. Needless to say, it made real intelligence analysts laugh so hard they’d blow Coke through their noses when they read it.

I worked in intelligence for nearly thirty years, splitting my time between the National Security Agency (known to you civilians as “the super-secret National Security Agency”) and CIA. Thirty years is a long time to do anything, long enough to ingrain the many quirks and peculiarities of the intelligence business into my DNA. (For instance, I find I must correct the inaccurate statement I made above, though it is a common misconception: technically, intelligence professionals are not “spies.” The people they recruit to give up secrets are spies.)

I was midway through my career as an analyst when I decided to return to writing fiction, something I’d abandoned once I started at NSA, as being a published writer is pretty much incompatible with working in intelligence. When literary agents found out about my day job, they’d invariably encourage me to write a spy novel. “You could show what it’s really like,” they’d say, and I took them at their word.

So I wrote a spy novel. It was a lot of work. I wanted to pick the right international conflict, one that I found interesting and I thought Americans should know more about. I wanted it to be accurate: my professional reputation was on the line.

I showed it to agents. To say they were underwhelmed is putting it kindly. I remember one telling me pointedly, “No one wants to read about someone doing their job.”

Of course, many writers are perfectly able to write great thrillers based on their day job: bookshelves are crammed with novels written by doctors, lawyers, police officers, pathologists, detectives, military personnel, police, you name it. For me, the decision not to write spy thrillers came down to this: it wasn’t fun. To me, writing is a means to be somewhere I want to be, with characters I want to be around—an escape. Writing spy novels kept me tethered to my workaday world, and it wasn’t rejuvenating.

You may be in a similar conundrum. What should you do if you’ve got a day job that seems custom-made for a novel but your heart is in writing an epic fantasy? Here are a few things you might want to consider:

1. Platform:

Having that killer day job—Navy SEAL, coroner for LA county—is a leg up for a writer, whether you decide to use it for your novel or not. Even though my book, The Taker, has nothing to do with the world of intelligence, mention of it tends to give me an extra second’s worth of consideration with reviewers and the publicity machinery. There’s a trade off, though: it’s really easy to confuse your potential audience about your product. They may be drawn to the killer day job and have no interest in your type of book (zombie apocalypse, romance.) If you go this route, you need to scrupulously manage your platform to ensure it doesn’t affect how your book is perceived.

2. Your work leaks into your writing anyway:

You know how people are always advising you to ‘write what you know’? I’ve found if you worked in a particular environment for a long time, you’ve absorbed enough of its culture that it’s going to come out in your writing. In other words, the ‘what you know’ will come through anyway, even if you don’t use specifics. For instance, I thought I’d left the spy business behind when I wrote The Taker, but someone at the publishing house pointed out that all my characters tend to be secretive and manipulative, never telling the truth when a cleverly managed facsimile of it will do. It hit me between the eyes: I’d duplicated the atmosphere at my former job.

3. Hold it in reserve:

Never say never. You may find one day that the prospect of writing that trial novel (if you’re a lawyer) or heist novel (if you’re a jewel thief) suddenly appeals. Now that I’m no longer working for any three-letter agencies, I’m thinking that one day I may come up with an idea for a spy novel that I can’t resist. Particularly if the series I’m writing now doesn’t work out. As a working writer, you owe it to yourself to use every tool in your toolbox.

Alma Katsu is the author of The Taker, the first in a trilogy of novels that have been compared to the early works of Anne Rice: historical thrillers with a supernatural element. The Taker was named one of the Best Debut Novels of 2011 ay ALA Booklist magazine. The second novel in the trilogy, The Reckoning, comes out in June 2012. She also blogs for the Huffington Post on intelligence and policy.

Related The Thrill Begins Articles:

• Write What you Know by Allan Leverone
  
• Tweeting in character by Jeremy Duns

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The Art of Suspense by A.J. Scudiere

Wait for it . . . wait for it . . .

Every thriller depends on suspense. Without it, it’s just another tale. Like most things, suspense is both an art and a science. The science can be learned, but the art takes talent and practice – and the best suspense writers have both. To be honest, part of the art is learning when to ignore the science, but you have to know both first.

All thrillers have a uniform goal: mess with the readers’ sleep patterns! Up all night, calling in sick to work, nearly exasperated at the inability to put a bookmark in it and get anything else done. Those are the signs of a thriller done well.

So how do you do it?

Step 1 – Begin in the middle. Okay, you can begin at the beginning. But when you hit chapter three, go back and erase chapter one and probably chapter two as well. Open with the strangest line you have (“The bird asked him how his day went”) or the one that would make the least sense if taken out of context (“The boy crawled along the ceiling”). These require explanation . . . and the reader will have to follow along to find out.

Step 2 – Cut out background information. (Why did she shoot her boss?) Don’t give in to the temptation to put it there. You can add it later. (A lover’s spat? Blackmail? Corporate espionage?) The wait makes the reading intriguing and keeps the pages turning. This step is nearly the opposite of the next step, and they need to be used in concert. The art comes in deciding which to use when.

Step 3 – Set up your punches. Think about a sitcom (follow me on this one for a minute . . .) The best sitcom jokes are the ones that build throughout the show, so that by the time the punchline comes around, you have all the pieces you need. Key ideas and occurrences should never be followed by an explanation – just like in a joke. If an explanation is needed beforehand, cut it into tiny pieces and disperse it throughout the prior info.

Step 4 – Don’t explain. Trust your readers to get it. You can only go for a certain audience – and the best thrillers assume the audience is smart enough to catch on. (A man walks into a bar . . . and says ‘ouch’. Because it’s a bar, like a beam, not like where you drink – Yup, I lost you at ‘because’.) A good beta-reader will let you know if you need more info.

Step 4b – Assume the reader isn’t a specialist. This harkens back to steps 4 and 3. You do need to explain anything that’s not in the general knowledge pool. Dice it into tiny pieces and sprinkle them liberally into the text, so that when the student shows up late for his LSAT, the reader already knows that he won’t be let in, and that the next test isn’t until February, thus keeping him out of law school this year.

Step 5 – Tie it up. But please, not too neatly. If I read another thriller where the killer explains himself to a victim while the good guys get into place, I’m going to . . . (sorry. I read yet another one of those at 10am this morning.) Please! I beseech you: Don’t do it! (Step 4 also applies to characters!)

These are just some of the key pieces to great thrillers. Sometimes the suspense is intrinsic to the story, and other times it can be edited in. Of course, there are more things you need, but we could never hit them all in one spot. What are some of the other essential ingredients for building suspense you can think of?

So bring on the edge-of-your-seat, roller-coaster, can’t-put-it-down-even-though-it’s-four-AM stories! I can’t wait . . .

* * *

It’s A.J.’s world. A strange place where patterns jump out and catch the eye, very little is missed, and most of it can be recalled with a deep breath. It’s different from the world the rest of us inhabit. But the rest of us can see it – when we read. In this world, the smell of Florida takes three weeks to fully leave the senses, and the air in Dallas is so thick that the planes “sink” to the runways rather than actually landing.

For A.J., texture reigns supreme. Whether it’s air or blood or virus, it can be felt and smelled. School is a privilege and two science degrees (a BA and MS) are mere pats on the back compared to the prize of knowledge. Teaching is something done for fun (and the illusion of a regular paycheck) and is rewarding at all levels, grade school through college. No stranger to awards and national recognition for outstanding work as a teacher, trainer and curriculum writer, like most true teachers, the real joy for A.J. is in the “oh!” - the moment when the student sees the connection and it all makes sense.

A.J. Scudiere has lived in Florida and Los Angeles among a handful of other places. Recent whims have brought the dark writer to Tennessee, where home is a deceptively normal looking neighborhood just outside Nashville.

http://www.ajscudiere.com/

Follow A.J. on Twitter: @ajscudiere

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SO MUCH CONTROVERSY: To post or not post a book review on Amazon.com

Amazon.com Losing its Book Reviews Footing or Literally Misunderstood

Gaining a great book review is very important for a debut author. Reviews help us stand out in the sea of books that release around the same time that ours do. Book reviews help readers find us. Depending on the media outlet, reviews can get us placed as featured authors in book festivals and shelved in independent bookstores.

Today book reviewer, Curiosity Builds blogger, and former book store manager of LA’s Mystery Bookstore Linda S. Brown shares her insights about book reviews, and posts a controversial water cooler topic about the Amazon.com review system. Please join us today, as we discuss the topic of Book Reviews. At the end of Brown’s post we’ve also added links to related articles that buttress Brown’s argument.

We hope you find this post insightful and please share your thoughts with us.

-Miranda Parker for ITW Big Thrills

 

SO MUCH CONTROVERSY: To post or not post a book review on Amazon.com

by Linda S. Brown

Over the past few months, several authors have asked me to read and review their books. I am honored by those requests. Moreover, I am touched and flattered that those authors respect my opinion enough to ask me. But when those authors asked me to post my reviews to Amazon, I cringed.

No, Amazon did not single-handedly destroy indie brick-and-mortar bookstores. However, it has dealt death blows to many and weakened scores more. And that truth greatly disturbs me.

And… I am uncomfortable with the Amazon.com review system. For those unfamiliar with the system, Amazon.com allows anyone [who has an Amazon.com account] to post a review of a book and give the book a value based on a 1 to 5 rating system (with 5 being best.) After I did some homework I came to the conclusion that this system is flawed on at least two fronts:

1. Some Amazon reviewers are paid. As far as I can determine, they are not identified. That strikes me as misleading.
   
2. The Amazon review and rating system is directly related to sales -- and I don’t feel comfortable with that since I do not work for that retail establishment. I don’t begrudge the authors making money by any means, but why should I, as a reviewer, put more money in the pockets of Amazon.com? The difference between Amazon and book blogs like LibraryThing, GoodReads, CuriosityBuilds.com (my own blog), and publications such as Crimespree Magazine is that Amazom.com will receive direct revenue from someone, who read my review and chose to buy the book based on my review. LibraryThing, GoodReads, Crimespree Magazine, and the rest would not.

On another note, I’ve read some of the reviews on Amazon.com while doing my reconnaissance work: I chose authors whose work I knew and whose books I’ve read. Some of the reviews were well-crafted and thoughtful. Some, not so much. But that could be true in any forum. A review is, after all, primarily one reader’s opinion, informed or otherwise.

Author K. Bennett (aka James Scott Bell, author of a mainstream suspense series featuring an L.A. based attorney named Buchanan, as well as several inspirational novels – and some popular writing manuals) recently asked me if I’d consider posting to Amazon my review of the first book in his new series, PAY ME IN FLESH: MALLORY CAINE, ZOMBIE AT LAW. I thoroughly enjoyed the book, I gave it high marks on LibraryThing and GoodReads, and I posted a review on my blog. Jim’s request – innocent enough – sort of sparked this whole debate.

I threw it out to the Twittersphere to discover what other people thought about Amazon reviews. And the issue brought up some lively Twitter and email debates. Some authors felt Amazon ratings and reviews have a direct impact on their sales, and also broaden their exposure to markets they might not otherwise reach. Some authors disagreed. Some authors, bloggers, reviewers and readers refused to look at the ratings and reviews on Amazon, for the same reasons I listed above.

Thriller writer Meg Gardiner (CHINA LAKE, THE DIRTY SECRETS CLUB – which I enjoyed so much while working at The Mystery Bookstore that I made it one of my monthly picks – and more, including her latest, THE NIGHTMARE THIEF) admitted that she had “been surprised to hear from readers who say they hesitate to buy a book that had any 1-star Amazon reviews. To me that sound incredibly shortsighted. Almost every book has at least one 1-star review. TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD and THE DIARY OF ANNE FRANK have 1-star reviews, for Pete’s sake…” However, Meg further pointed out that she understood “why some authors count on good Amazon reviews, especially if their books don’t get a lot of editorial coverage.”

When I expressed my reservation to Jim about posting a review on Amazon, I asked him what made him think people took them seriously. Who takes them seriously? Do authors? Do critics? Do publishers?

Jim’s response was that “readers take (the reviews and ratings on Amazon) seriously, so publishers and authors care because they could affect sales.”

Jim takes marketing very seriously. In addition to offering seminars about the writing process, he also teaches about marketing the finished book.

In the current publishing environment, we all understand the desire for good reviews, good ratings, and most importantly, good sales numbers. I am not currently receiving any compensation for the reviews I’ve written. However, if it ever came to pass that I am compensated for offering my opinions, it would be clear that I am being paid to read the books and to work with the authors.

Meanwhile, I am delighted to continue to read and review books sent to me by authors, publicists and publishers. I will post those reviews on LibraryThing, GoodReads, CuriosityBuilds.com, and I will submit those reviews to other blogs and publications, including the award-winning Crimespree Magazine.

And, meanwhile, I think I will leave the posting of reviews on Amazon to others, until such time as the Amazon system is more clear, open and equitable.


Linda S. Brown was the Assistant Manager of The Mystery Bookstore Los Angeles for 6 years, where she leveraged her love of crime fiction into a position in which she developed and coordinated author events, acted as liaison with publishers and public relations firms, and coordinated media campaigns. Since the closing of the bookstore earlier this year, Linda has become Book Lover at Large, in search of self and a job; meanwhile, she is reading and reviewing crime and young adult novels, writing articles for various blogs, and in the process of developing her own book-loving blog, CuriosityBuilds.Com.

Connect also with Linda S. Brown at:

• linda.brown@filagree.com
  Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/LindaSueBrown
  FaceBook: http://www.facebook.com/linda.s.brown

Related Links:

• New York Times: In a Race to Out-Rave, 5-Star Web Reviews Go for $5

• Getting Paid to Post Book Reviews on Amazon, Barnes & Noble

• The Amazon Review Controversy

• TechCrunch: Amazon: You Need To Change Your Idiotic Customer Reviews Policy Right Now

Now that Linda has opened the doors to this great question, let’s discuss:

Do you agree with Linda’s decision? Do you think Amazon.com’s Reviews have the same value as before? Why are Amazon reviews important to your readership?

Technorati Tags: writing tips,book review,amazon.com,public relations,bookstore,mystery books,suspense novels,thrillers,international thriller writers,online review

20 Essential Elements of a Bestselling Thriller, by Jodie Renner

20 Essential Elements of a Bestselling Thriller

We all want the same thing, right? No, not *that* thing. What we suspense writers and fans of the genre want is a book that leaves us draped over the edge of our seats, hanging on the author's every next word. While no one can guarantee a seat-of-the-pants ride--there's a certain ineffable magic that takes place on the page between writer and reader--in this week's blog post Jodie Renner comes close. Follow these tips, breathe them in and internalize them, and you will have done the thing we're all here for. You'll have written a thriller.

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If you want your thriller or romantic suspense to be a compelling page-turner, make sure you’ve included most or all of these twenty elements:

1. A protagonist who’s both ordinary and heroic.

Rather than having a “Superman” invincible-type hero, it’s more satisfying to the readers if you use a regular person who’s thrown into stressful, then increasingly harrowing situations, and must summon all of his courage, strength and inner resources to overcome the odds, save himself and other innocent people, and defeat evil.

2. A likeable, sympathetic protagonist

The readers need to be able to warm up to your main character quickly, to start identifying with her; otherwise they won’t really care what happens to her.So no cold, selfish, arrogant characters for heroes or heroines!

3. A worthy adversary for the protagonist

Your antagonist needs to be as clever, strong, resourceful and determined as your protagonist, but also truly nasty, immoral and frightening.

4. An interesting setting

Readers like to find out about places they haven’t been, whether it’s the seedy side of Chicago, glitzy Hollywood, rural Kentucky, the mountains of Colorado, or the bayous of Louisiana — or more distant, exotic locations. And milk your setting for all it’s worth.

5. A story that fits the protagonist and vice-versa

If it doesn’t, change your protagonist — or your story line. You can always use your present one in another novel.

6. An inciting incident

What happens to the main character to set the story events in action? Make it tense and compelling.

7. A great plot, with ongoing conflict and tension

You need a big story question and plenty of intrigue. And every scene should contain tension and conflict of some kind. If it doesn’t, delete it.

8. Lots of suspense

Keep the readers on the edge of their seats, turning the pages to find out what’s going to happen next. See my blog post, “Heightening the Suspense,” Sept. 26, at http://crimefictioncollective.blogspot.com.

9. Multiple viewpoints

Narrating the story from various points of view, including that of the villain, will add interest, complexity and suspense to your novel. But don’t head-hop within a scene! Wait for a new scene or chapter to change viewpoints.

10. A tight, generally fast-paced writing style

Streamline your writing to improve flow and pacing. Go through and take out all unnecessary words, sentences, and paragraphs, and any repetitive phrases, events or ideas. Thrillers are not the genre to wax eloquent.

11. Increasing danger

Keep putting your hero in deeper and deeper trouble, to stretch his courage, determination, physical abilities and inner resources to the maximum — and increase the reader’s admiration and emotional investment in him!

12. Troubles that hit home

Endanger the protagonist or someone close to her, to add a personal dimension and more stress to the threats and conflicts.

13. Internal struggling of the protagonist

Give her a moral dilemma; show his inner conflict. Make them complex and fascinating; never perfect, complacent, or overly confident.

14. Critical turning points

Present your hero with life-or-death decisions and show his anxiety, tension, and indecision.

15. Obstacles in the way

Your heroine runs out of gas on a lonely road; your hero’s weapon falls into the river far below; he is wounded and can’t run; her cell phone battery is dead; whatever can go wrong does, and more.

16. Enough clues

Be fair. Use foreshadowing and layer in clues and info as you go along, to slowly reveal the plot points and character backstory and motivation to the reader.

17. Twists and surprises

Write in a few unexpected plot twists, but make sure that, in retrospect, they make sense to the readers.

18. A compelling climax

Put the protagonist at a disadvantage in the final conflict with the antagonist, to heighten the stakes. Pile on the adversity the hero has to overcome at the end.

19. A satisfying ending

Leave the unhappy or unresolved endings for literary fiction. Let the good guy overcome the bad guy — by a hair.

20. Psychological growth and change in the hero/heroine

Adversity has made him or her stronger, braver, wiser, a better person.

Copyright ©Jodie Renner, September 2011

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Jodie Renner is a freelance manuscript editor, specializing in thrillers, romantic suspense, mysteries, and other crime fiction. Her services range from developmental and substantive editing to final copyediting and proofreading, as well as manuscript critiques and plot outline analyses. Check out Jodie’s website at www.JodieRennerEditing.com and her blog, dedicated to advice and resources for fiction writers, at http://JodieRennerEditing.blogspot.com, as well as Crime Fiction Collective, of which she is a founding member.

To join the (ITW) International Thriller Writers Debut Author Program, please visit this link: http://thrillerwriters.org/join-itw/debut-authors/

A View to a Kilt by Chris Redding

Today author Chris Redding presents James Bond fans (or ace Google users) with a game. Answer 10 trivia questions and be entered in a drawing to win a prize. Simply paste your answers in a comment below. And have fun!

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James Bond Trivia

1. First Bond movie theme to appear on the Billboard Top Ten.
   
2. Who was the second actor to play James Bond?
   
3. Where did the title Goldeneye come from?
   
4. Who was the oldest actor to play Bond?
   
5. What film is considered an “unofficial” Bond film?
   
6. Who starred in it?
   
7. What movie is it a remake of?
   
8. How many novels was James Bond featured in?
   
9. What nationality is James Bond’s mother?
   
10. What children’s book that was made into a movie did Ian Fleming write?
    

Commenters who answer all 10 questions correctly will be entered in a drawing for a prize. U.S. entrants only please.

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Chris Redding lives in New Jersey with her husband, two kids, one dog and three rabbits. She graduated with a degree in journalism from Penn State. Her latest book, A View to a Kilt, an homage to James Bond, will be out October 1.

Rickard DeMille

This may be one of the more unusual posts we've had in a while--a tutorial within the story of one author's approach to writing. If you've ever wondered how a writer makes one of those exotic locales in his story come alive, read on. Rickard DeMille is about to tell you. No, show you.

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About seventeen hundred years ago, St. Augustine of Hippo wrote, “The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page.”

This statement is proof of two things. First, the condition of man hasn’t really changed that much in almost two millennia. Second, those who don’t travel probably have to work for a living. Even those fortunate enough to travel, usually don’t do it as much as they wish.

That’s where we come in. We are writers, and more than writers. We’re travel agents as well. The shelves of the local bookstore (the ones still in business) are like the brochure racks that line a travel agent’s wall. Our clients browse and sample, drawn in by the alluring images displayed on the covers. Eventually they decide where they want to go, and who they want to spend their vacation with.

Personally, I herein confess that I am also a reader - a vicarious vacationer - who frequents the ‘travel brochures’ of my local bookstore. Through my reading selections, I’ve recently searched the hills of Los Angeles for a lost boy with Robert Crais. I’ve sat, enthralled, while Robert Harris took me on a tour of Ancient Rome with none other than Tiro, Cicero’s scribe, as my guide. I spent hours on the edge of my seat as Nelson DeMille rushed me around the state of New York in a life and death quest to stop a brutal terrorist. I accomplished all this without a plane ticket or passport.

As writers, I believe we have the opportunity to expand on St. Augustine’s affirmation. We can say, “The book is a world, and those who read it can travel anywhere with every page.”

I am here to make that task easy, for everyone.

Right! If you believe that, I can make you a great deal on some prime real estate at the top of Mars Hill.

What I actually plan to do is introduce you to a tool that will make your travel planning easier – as in sitting comfortably at your computer while enjoying your highly caffeinated beverage of choice.

My novel, HELLFIRE, is set in Wales. I had the extreme pleasure of visiting Wales for the Six Nations Rugby championship a few years ago. I did a quick tour of South Wales during that visit, but it was only a quick tour. The idea for HELLFIRE came later, after I’d missed my chance for any real research.

Fortunately, I found a way around that. There are literally thousands of resources available to the writer, which offer an alternative to physical travel. While they are not as good, and will never be as enjoyable as a physical visit, they can add a more realistic feel to your setting.

I mentioned thousands of resources, and I truly believe there are at least that many, but here I will discuss just one – Google Maps with Street View.

I only have space to present one tool, and I sincerely believe this is the best.

Let’s start with an easy example. Where was Osama bin Laden’s hideout? Our first step is to open our browser, and type: <maps.google.com> into the address or URL line. This will take us to the main Google Maps page.

Here we enter the place we wish to find. In the search box we will now enter <osama bin laden’s hideout, Pakistan>. Make sure you enter the country and/or city. We enter Pakistan here to avoid Google showing us bin Laden’s hideout in the Hamptons, or his secret office at UC Berkeley.

This is what that line will look like after we’ve entered our search location:


We will now be directed to a page like this in Google Maps:

These are the same place, one a map view and the other a satellite image, of Abbottabad, Pakistan, where bin Laden lived and died. The orange pin icon,labeled “0” in red, shows the location we searched for. If we zoom in, the compound is easier to see:

This is a good time to do a quick tour of the Google Maps screen, and how to use the various features. Here is a screen that has the elements numbered:

The first element I want to point out is in the upper right hand corner and indicated by a large red “5”, it is a box labeled “Satellite.” This will change the view from a map of the area, to a satellite view of the exact same location. Click on it now and watch the image change back and forth between a map and satellite image.

The other tools on the page are as follows:

1. Panning Tool – this will shift the image in the direction of the arrows around the outside of the circle.
   
2. Street View Tool – The small orange figure changes the image from map or satellite, to Street View (I’ll talk about that shortly). We simply drag it onto the map. If there are ground level images available, they will appear as blue lines or dots.
   
3. Zoom Tool – As the name indicates, this allows us to zoom in (clicking higher on the bar or on the “+” symbol at the top), or zoom out (by clicking lower on the bar or on the “-“ symbol at the bottom).
4. Legend – allows us to measure distances.
5. Map / Satellite tool – This changes from map to satellite view, and back.
   
6. Photo tool – This lets us look at photos, videos, or any other resources associated with this location.

Now that we know our way around, let’s play. Click on the “+” symbol at the top of the zoom bar and watch the white indicator bar move upward toward the top. After several clicks, it will reach the top indicating maximum magnification. If you want to give it a test drive, click on the “-“ sign and zoom out.

Now let’s try the Street View. Make sure you have zoomed back in as far as it will go before continuing. Put your cursor on the Street View figure, he will lean slightly toward the image. Left click and hold the mouse button down, and you can start to drag it toward the bin Laden love hut.

At this point, you will notice that several blue dots have appeared. These are places where images are available. Sometimes there will be blue lines as well; this indicates where an entire road has been recorded. Now move the orange icon over one of the dots (or lines) and drop it by releasing the button.

You will now see a view of the bin Laden compound from where the dot indicates. The picture above is not from Street View, but a public domain pictureinstead. You can click on the “X” in the upper right hand corner of the picture and return to the Satellite View to check out other images.

Right now I want to show you one more feature. On the search line, where we typed “osama bin laden’s hideout, Pakistan,” delete that and type “sake toro frisco texas.” When the image loads, zoom in (“+” symbol) all the way and you should go into Street View and see an image like this:

If you don’t have an image similar to this, drag the Street View icon (the little orange figure) to the blue line in the middle of the screen. The photo below is a current picture of the same location. It is important to keep in mind that the Street View images are often several years old, and there may have been changes. Notice the awning and foliage on the trees:



Now that you are in street view, you can use the Panning Tool to “look around.” If you want to “drive around,” put the cursor in one of the streets ahead, put the little white oval in the spot you want to move to, and click:



By panning (using the circle with the arrows in the upper left corner) and moving you can go on a tour of much of the world. From the sushi in Texas, to the hideout of the world’s most wanted terrorist (formerly most wanted that is).

I apologize if this blog entry was longer than normal. It was still a frustratingly short amount of space to explain something so powerful. I’m going to expand this into a booklet, offering more complete and detailed instruction and examples. VIRTUALLY ANYWHERE will also go into other tools I have used or know about to help writers successfully research their settings.

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A few years ago, I began to write seriously. Since then, I’ve had short stories and articles published, in print and online, and done well in various competitions. Recently I finished my first novel, set in Wales, which was a finalist in the 2010 Debut Dagger contest. In 2011, I signed a contract with Transit Publishing, and HELLFIRE will be published in September of 2011.

Visit Rickard at http://www.rickardbdemille.com.