Sneak Peek at Scratch (an unpublished manuscript)

Last week I had the rare opportunity to read an unpublished manuscript by Steve Himmer, author of The Bee-Loud Glade. I was pining over some much anticipated supernatural novels - like Glen Duncan's Talulla Rising and Ben Percy's Red Moon - on Twitter and Steve mentioned that he had just the thing to hold me over. 


His manuscript is called Scratch and though it is loosely based on Algonquian & Wampanoag lore from the region where the story is set, it's wholly original and incredibly unsettling.


Martin's the new guy in a small, secluded, superstitious town and he's heading up the new housing project out in the middle of the woods. As the trees are cut back to make space for the new development and after a frightening run-in with a bear, Martin learns about the legend of Scratch - an unknown entity that is accused of luring townspeople into the woods, never to be seen again. When a local drunk disappears, the rumors and whispers of Scratch rise up again. And what of the pile of bones that is uncovered while excavating the site? And the little boy who was last seen chasing a fox into the forest behind his home, was that Scratch's handy work as well? 


The story leads you along, and you follow it willingly, much like that little boy followed the fox. And even though you are intent on catching up to it, you can feel the weight of the woods all around you, like a hundred eyes staring out from the darkness, hidden in the undergrowth and the clinging to the branches above... just out of sight. Steve starts to turn the tables in favor of our furry four legged friends...


I think Steve described it best when we were discussing the manuscript earlier today, "..Scratch dismisses the taken-for-granted familiar elements of literary fiction (the tragic childhood, etc.) and ultimately doesn't make human lives more important than any others. What's really compelling to me is the idea of a place built from layers: of stories, ecology, history, left behind objects, lives and deaths, folklore, etc., and how one layer is constantly erasing and overwriting another through invasive species, construction, industrial and agricultural migrations."


The manuscript currently sits in the hands of a publisher for consideration. And though it is certain to undergo many changes - some slight while others might be rather large - before it finally gets picked up, I want to share a little bit of the story so you can see why I was so taken with it. I want to give you something to restlessly anticipate. Maybe your interest in seeing more of the story could help it find its way into print faster? (no pressure.. right?)


World, I give you a sneak peek into Steve Himmer's unpublished manuscript Scratch!
(Shared with Steve's permission, of course!)

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SCRATCH (excerpt)

Then pain jerks him awake and he’s stretched on his back in the burnt-out foundation. He’s been dragged feet-first from his fireplace bed by a bear, a real bear, and now it rises to its full height and crashes down hard with its paws on his chest.

Martin lets out a sound that would be a yell if he could gather enough air to make one. His attempt to draw breath expands his chest just enough to increase the pressure and weight of the paws.

The bear leans across his body so its hot belly swings against his thighs. The pressure on his ribs is immense, and pushes the last gasps from his lungs. His hands spring to his defense without being asked, wrapping themselves as far as they can around the bear’s legs just above each of the paws, wrenches too small for the job. He pushes and pulls, struggling to move the thick legs, but they will not be budged. The pressure on his chest doesn’t increase but it doesn’t lighten up, either, and Martin wheezes and rasps, his struggle for breath made all the worse by his panic.

He feels the bear’s gaze on his face along with its hot breath, but he fights the urge to look. Some old memory, from a book he read as a child or some rerun he saw on TV, insists that the worst thing to do in a situation like this is to look a bear in the eyes. As if a situation like this happens often enough for there to be a wealth of advice.

He feels five sharp points of pain, and when he lowers his eyes without moving his head he sees that the claws of one paw have punctured the jacket, the T-shirt, his skin. The details of the holes are strangely acute, each frayed thread on his jacket individual and distinct and each curved claw glazed with its own unique pattern of cracks and chips. The other paw still presses his ribs.

Martin studies the claws for a long time, a moment so slow he starts to think he has already died and his spirit has drifted away from his body, that he’s watching all this from somewhere beyond himself. His head swims and he becomes dizzy despite lying flat on the ground. The treetops bordering his field of vision sway like the waves of a rough, green sea he is sinking under.

Then the bear grunts, and without increasing the weight on Martin’s chest it leans closer, filling his eyes with its body. Black fur streaked with copper surrounds him, and the bear smells of old meat and wet dog. Its cold black nose sniffs a circle around his head. He tries to lie still but can’t stop his body from shaking. The bear snorts beside his face and the air is so hot he feels it deep in his ear.

This is it, Martin thinks. This is the way I die.

No sooner does the thought cross his mind than the bear moves, draws its paws away from his body in a swift, sweeping motion that tears five bloody tracks through two layers of cloth and the skin underneath.

Now he does scream, loudly and at a high pitch. He sustains the harsh note until the bear rears up then slams a forefoot to the dirt beside each of his ears, shaking the scream from his throat. The back of his head bounces against the ground with the force of the impact.

The bear turns murky eyes onto Martin’s blue ones, and that hot breath makes him gag. He tries to stop his body from shaking, afraid it makes him look appetizing the way a lively fly lures a fish. He tries to look away from that wild gaze, the orange and yellow and brown of a fire, but the flame holds his eyes.

Then at last the bear’s body relaxes and the creature steps forward. It slides across Martin’s body so its hot, heavy fat slaps his face as it passes. The chaff and dust of dirty fur fill his nose, and he fights back a strong urge to sneeze. When the whole broad, black body has passed over his face, the bright light of morning rushes into his eyes and the sneeze bursts out before he can stop it.

The bear rises onto hind legs and climbs over the wall of the house. There’s a thud from outside the foundation, then Martin listens as his attacker lumbers away. He hears the thumps of the animal’s first few steps before the forest falls quiet again and there is only the pounding of his own pulse.

Then birdsong sneaks back in, leaves rustle, trunks creak and boughs crack, and the world carries on as if none of that happened. As if it was no more than a dream or a story.

(end of excerpt)

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If you liked what you read here, leave a comment to show your support of Steve and his manuscript.  And while we wait patiently to see if it gets signed to a publisher, why not follow Steve, visit his website, and pick up a copy of exceptional novel The Bee-Loud Glade, and ebook short The Second Most Dangerous Job in America?

BEA here I come...

If you were following this blog last year, you probably saw a few pre-BEA posts from me where I was freaking out about how I wanted to travel (bus vs. car), laying my schedule out, and just being a plain ole nervous nelly.

This year, I'm cool as a cucumber (who comes up with these things, and why do we still use them?) and anxious to just get it all going. I've got a great week planned and the waiting is killing me. 

BEA starts for me tonight. Tara (booksexyreview) and I are kicking things off a night early at the KGB bar for the CCLaP reading. You should totally hit this if you are going to be in the area. Ben Tanzer and David David Katzman (among others) will be reading, Susie from Insatiable Booksluts  - who I'm meeting in person for the first time - and Jessica from Swift Ink Editorial - who I met last year at the Indie Book Event - will be hanging with us, and drinks can easily be had because.. hello... it's a LIT BAR!!

While I am away at BEA, driving Tara and I back and forth each day, drop dead tired with happy exhaustion, this blog will carry on. I've got some cool posts lined up for you this week, so TNBBC won't miss a beat. It'll be like I never left.

If you are at BEA, this won't matter very much, because I am sure, like me, you will be much too busy - meeting and hanging out with amazing bloggers, authors, and publishers - to be checking in on some silly blog. But if you are still home, Armchair BEAing it, well, I hope you enjoy the new content.

Most likely, I'll be back in town on Thursday and recapping my time in NYC by the weekend. In the meantime, if you are traveling, be safe, get to NYC in one piece, and be sure to stop and say hi when you see me! If you are staying home, be well, read tons of great books, and I'll see you when I get back.

Book Giveaway: The Adults

Since July 2010, TNBBC has been bringing authors and readers together every month to get behind the book! This unique experience wouldn't be possible without the generous donations of the authors and publishers involved. 

TNBBC and author Alison Espach are thrilled to be working together

to bring you next month's Author/Reader Discussion.

In July, we will be hosting Alison and her novel

  The Adults

In order to stimulate discussion, 

Alison is offering up 6 copies, domestically.

(Sorry international folks)

Here is the goodreads description:

 In her ruefully funny and wickedly perceptive debut novel, Alison Espach deftly dissects matters of the heart and captures the lives of children and adults as they come to terms with life, death, and love.At the center of this affluent suburban universe is Emily Vidal, a smart and snarky teenager, who gets involved in a suspect relationship with one of the adults after witnessing a suicide in her neighborhood.  Among the cast of unforgettable characters is Emily’s father, whose fiftieth birthday party has the adults descending upon the Vidal’s patio; her mother, who has orchestrated the elaborate party even though she and her husband are getting a divorce; and an assortment of eccentric neighbors, high school teachers, and teenagers who teem with anxiety and sexuality and an unbridled desire to be noticed, and ultimately loved.
An irresistible chronicle of a modern young woman’s struggle to grow up,The Adults lays bare—in perfect pitch—a world where an adult and a child can so dangerously be mistaken for the same exact thing.

This giveaway will run through June 9th.
Winners will be notified here and via email on June 10th.

Here's how to enter:

1 - Leave a comment stating why you would like to win a copy.

2 - State that you agree to participate in the group read book discussion that will run from July 15th through the end of the month. Alison Espach has agreed to participate in the discussion and will be available to answer any questions you may have for her. 

 *If you are chosen as a winner, by accepting the copy you are agreeing to read the book and join the group discussion at TNBBC on Goodreads (the thread for the discussion will be emailed to you before the discussion begins). 

 3 - Your comment must have a way to contact you (email is preferred). AND you must be a resident of the US!!!!

Good luck!

Tell Me A Story: Jason Lee Norman

Welcome to another addition of TNBBC's Tell Me A Story. 

Tell Me a Story is a monthly series that features previously unpublished short stories from debut and Indie authors. The request was simple: Stories can be any format, any genre, and any length. And many amazing writers signed up for the challenge. 


This month's original short story comes from Jason Lee Norman. Jason is a writer with a beard . He learned how to write properly and eat biscuits and drink tea in Manchester, England. His first collection of short fiction entitled 'Americas' has a story for every country in the Americas. It is available now. He lives, writes, and eats in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.

Beard of Bees

My father always used to say to me, "Son" (he called me son) "Son. Falling in love is easy. Getting into the Guinness Book of World Records is hard". So you can imagine my hesitance to tell him that I had fallen in love with a girl who was in the Guinness Book of World Records. Her name was Elaine and she had nearly seven thousand piercings- over two hundred of which were just in her face. When people saw us together they'd usually comment on how kind and sweet I was to see past the superficialities of her facial and body art and look into the heart and soul of the woman she was. In all honesty I was mainly attracted to her because of the piercings. It felt like I was dating someone from another universe. A place and time where man (or woman) and machine had become one colossal and beautiful being. I loved looking at Elaine. I love being with her.

Traveling through airports was an obvious rush. The airport security personnel would get this exasperated look on their faces as they passed those little wand thingies up and down over Elaine’s mostly metallic body. Around the house we would cuddle up during thunderstorms and her whole body would vibrate and hum with the electricity that surrounded us. Things eventually ended between Elaine and me, not because I couldn't get past the piercings but because she ultimately couldn't get past my lack of them. When she touched my face there was no electricity during a thunderstorm and when she ran her fingers across the skin on my arms or legs or back she felt only that- just skin. Something soft, something warm, something that would eventually die. She was beyond those things. All she really cared about was slowly turning herself into a robot or "mecha-human" before everyone's eyes and, eventually, living forever.

And then there was Beth. Sweet Beth. In some ways Beth was the complete opposite of Elaine in that not a hint of metal touched her body. Not a stud, bullring or spike had pierced her gentle skin. Her skin was amazing. Smooth- almost slippery like a buttery popsicle.

Did I mention that Beth was in the Guinness Book of Records too? She holds the record for the largest single connected tattoo. Just one tattoo that starts from her right toe and travels all the way to the top of her head, back down to her left toe and then the balls of her feet and the same thing on her backside. One single tattoo that took four artists, working consecutively, over hundreds of hours to complete. Beth had herself put into a chemically induced coma for these sessions and stayed unconscious for one month and one day. While she recovered the nurses dressed her arms and legs and torso in linen and lathered her in petroleum jelly. At night she slept in a shallow tank of avocado oil.

When I first met Beth it took me three hours just to look over her tattoo (and these were just the parts that were showing). She didn't talk during that time. She didn't need to. In the windy passages on her arms and legs I saw our future together and I knew that I would be a short one but a happy one. 

Beth didn't mind that I didn't have a single tattoo but she did find it extremely irritating that I did not hold one single world record and she made it her mission to put my name in that book.

I wore a thirty-seven and a half pound beard of bees for that girl. A beard of bees isn't so much a beard as it is a beard, sweater and vest. They just need to be touching your body for it to count as a 'beard'. The beekeeper said to me “don't worry. It will only hurt when they sting you.” When they sting me?

The beard of bees record depends on the weight of the beard and also the time that you wore it for. Time of year is also a factor. Nobody had ever tried in the winter months so I thought I had a fighting chance. I wondered if the bees knew that they would die if they stung me. If they knew that I was doing that stunt for love would they feel better in being a part of it? As they stung me I hoped very much that they would lift me up and carry me away somewhere, perhaps to a big stash of honey. The beekeeper stressed that I needed to remain calm. I tried to ask him if the bees knew they were dying but he couldn't hear me. I didn't get the record and I missed the record for most bee stings received in November by two. When Beth left me I wasn't sad at all because I had seen it coming. I'd seen our future in the mural that was her body. The smell of avocado oil always reminds of me of her.

Now there is Sarah and Sarah is beautiful. We like to joke that we met in the dark but it was really just a darkened movie theatre, right before the coming attractions. I looked over to my right and there she was. I asked her for a napkin for my fingers covered in theatre popcorn even though I actually had about fifty in my coat pocket. I hate not being prepared at the movies. I asked her if she liked seeing movies in the afternoon. I asked if she thought it was weird that when the movie was over we would go outside and it would still be light out, even though it seemed like it shouldn’t be. Like how we always just assume it should be dark when the movie's over. She agreed. We agreed on everything. We agreed that even though we loved movies we still always wondered what was happening outside in the daylight. We agreed that it was the strangest if it had rained while we were inside. Walking out into the parking lot afterwards and everything would be wet and there would be little puddles everywhere. That was always the strangest. We agreed that the rain would make everything smell clean again and that if we were outside it would make us clean as well.

I like to meet Sarah downstairs when she comes home from the store. I take her bags as we get into the elevator. When we get into the apartment she usually looks tired and sinks into the couch. I tell her that I like her this way. When she’s tired she looks human, affected by the world. I like watching her put on her earrings. She tilts her head as if she's listening to a secret. By now I’ve told her about all the women in my past; Elaine and Beth and the piercings and tattoos. I've told her all about my world record attempts. I told her I'd do it all again for her. I'd wear a fifty pound beard of bees for you- I told her once. She just smiled as she put on her earrings.

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I want to thank Jason for participating in TNBBC's Tell Me a Story. If you like what you've read, please support Jason by checking out his book.  Help spread the word by sharing this post through your blog, tumblr page, twitter and facebook accounts. Every link counts! And be sure to check back with us next month for the next installment....

If you are interested in submitting your short story for consideration for this series, please contact me mescorn@ptd.net.

Where Writers Write: Katherine Scott Nelson - The "Have You Seen Me" Blog Tour

Welcome to the last stop in Katherine Scott Nelson's Have You Seen Me blog tour. 

I thought it would be fun to act as the caboose this time, bringing up the rear of this tour with a special installment of my new blog series "Where Writers Write". A TNBBC newbie, Katherine Scott Nelson is celebrating the release of hir new novella Have You Seen Me, published through CCLaP - a Chicago based small press that specializes in handmade books and electronic "pay what you want" downloads for all of their titles. The book is currently a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award. 

Most of the blog tour consists of interviews, and while there is nothing wrong with author interviews, they can get a bit long in the tooth and repetitive for me. So I've asked Katherine to show us where the inspiration to write hits. Where does the writing happen? Why does it happen there? Give us a look behind the book. And what follows is...

Where Katherine Writes

Where I write: coffee shop

I’ve spent a lot of time fantasizing about my dream office. It would look a lot like Hemingway’s studio in Key West – panoramic views, floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, and ridiculous furniture like chaise lounges and secretary desks. It would have a built-in espresso bar in one corner and a single-malt scotch bar in another. There would be NO wi-fi.

But right now, I live in a 295 square foot apartment. The massive oak desk and the potted palms are going to have to wait.

When I moved to my current place, I discovered a nearby coffee shop with a real “study hall” atmosphere. It has a brick-lined back room that feels like stepping into a monk’s cell – cool and silent. What’s interesting is that everyone seems to respect this atmosphere, whether they’re regulars or not. If someone’s phone rings, they’ll either answer it in a hushed tone, or turn off the ringer and step outside.

The décor and the layout of the space changes regularly, lending it all a kind of subtle unpredictability that I’ve found really conducive to creative writing. A lot like the low-level conversations that take place all around me, infusing the room with life and energy.

I go to work at the coffee shop regularly enough that I’ve started referring to it as “the office.” I’ve trudged to the office through sub-zero temperatures, three feet of snow, thunderstorms, and scorching heat. It’s taught me to always show up for my writing, no matter what.

Do I have any pre-writing rituals? Obtaining caffeine, mostly.

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 You can catch up on the blog tour and see all that came before by clicking on the links below:

Day 7: Curbside Press sports an outdoor recorded excerpt of Katherine reading from Have You Seen Me. 

Day 6: Another Chicago Blog plays host to a print excerpt from the book. 

Day 5: Interview at The Orange Alert. 

Day 4: This Podcast Will Change Your Life from the always excellent Ben "Tanz the manz" Tanzer.

Day 3: Interviewed by fellow CCLaP author Jason Fisk. 

Day 2: Interviewed by Sassafrass Lowery. 

Day 1: The Thang Blog interviews Katherine. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The book: 

Chris and Vyv have always been close -- as the only two 'weird' kids in their small Midwestern town, they've often depended on each other to survive. But their friendship will be put to the test when Vyv runs away and continues to communicate with Chris in secret. All summer, as the search for Vyv mounts, Chris tries to avoid the pressure by working for Albert, an off-the-grid survivalist writer building an anarchist compound from an abandoned house and barn. But as Albert's plans for the future grow more apocalyptic, and Vyv's emails gradually become more terrifying, Chris will face the complete upheaval of everything he's ever known.

Don't forget to check out the novella Have You Seen Me and download it here via CCLaP's "pay what you want" set up. For real. 

AND.. Even though the virtual blog tour has come to an end, Katherine's (and a handful of other CCLaPer's) real book tour kicks off in NYC this week! Don't miss the grand finale at the KGB bar on Sunday, 6/3, at 7pm. I'll be there so if you do stop by, be sure to hunt me down and congratulate Katherine on the book's release!

(Many thanks to Jason Pettus, the brains and brawn behind CCLaP, for inviting me to be a part of the tour.)

Review: Dogs of Brooklyn

Read 5/21/12 - 5/22/12
4 stars - Strongly recommended to NYCer's and Brooklynites,  wanna-be NYCer's and Brookylnites, and dog lovers
Pgs: 92 (w/ photos)
Publisher: Dog Poet Laureate Press (self-published)

What happens when a professional dog walker from Brooklyn starts writing poetry? Dogs of Brooklyn happens, that's what.

Susie DeFord, owner of Susie's Pet Care, lover and walker of dogs big and small, self published this collection of poetry in December 2011. Offering up a fresh perspective of city life, Susie documents her trials and tribulations with many fur-covered, tail-wagging canines (and some cats thrown in for good measure) while wandering the side streets and green parks of Brooklyn.

I discovered Susie and her poetry through various articles that started popping up in my twitter stream earlier in the year. Dogs was making quite the splash in the "indie" scene. She had been featured over at The Nervous Breakdown in an interesting interview conducted by a traditionally published friend of hers, Melissa Febos. The other, by GalleyCat, highlighted the intricacies of self publishing.

These articles, among others, prompted me to reach out to her and request a review copy. You guys should know by now that I have no shame.

The first thing that struck me upon receiving the book was its design, all bright orange with black trees and white lettering. It stands out above many of the other self published novels I have read and seen. The cover and quality of the binding and paper even rivals some of the small / indie presses I've reviewed.

Score one for Susie for not taking the cheap way out. The first thing to turn away a potential reader, especially for a work that has been self published, is a poorly designed book.

The second thing to turn a reader away from self-published work is poor editing. The concept of editing poetry is an unfamiliar one to me. To be honest, until recently, I had no idea that the content of poems were edited - I just assumed misspellings and bad punctuation were the only things that had a red pen taken to them. (I since have Ryan Bradley to thank for schooling me a bit on what poetry editing looks like.)

One flip through Dogs and you'll see that Susie formats her lines differently from poem to poem. Some are in paragraph form, some grouped in twos, others in threes. Her sentences keep your eyes moving. Her poems tell stories of places marked (or made magic) by the dog she has with her at that moment. She pulls you along... between tall buildings and past local bakeries, from home to home as she dog-sits, out into the cold and the rain and the sunshine. Her poems write us through a year's worth of Brooklyn, in and out of puppy love, from the discovery of new and homeless four legged friends to the death of the ones who have stolen her heart.

Dogs of Brooklyn delivers on all levels. Susie writes to the every-man, her poems are accessible. This is a collection of poetry that city dwellers and animal lovers will definitely appreciate - she's captured the animal essence hidden within a very human world. And manages to make the animals more human, for a time...

Review: My Only Wife

Read 5/15/12 - 5/19/12
4.5 Stars - Highly Recommended to everyone. Period.
Pgs: 168
Publisher: Dzanc Books

Jac Jemc paints a devastating picture of what happens to the one who gets left behind in her debut novel My Only Wife .

First, a confession: By sheer coincidence, I read Jac's novel on the heels of Amelia Gray's Threats, and while I promise this review will not be spent dissecting how similar the two novels are to one another, there seems no better way to start than by making some basic comparisons. For starters, they both wrote their novels from a male perspective. Both of their leading males are suffering the loss of their wives. Both perspectives are extremely constricted and unreliable, not to mention how eerily similar their writing styles are to one another - tight, teasing prose and extremely short chapters. Though Jac and Amelia have been published before, these are their debut novels and they were released within months of each other. I knew none of this when I picked them up. I'm tempted to use the phrase "bookendipity" for these "strange reading accidents".

All similarities aside, My Only Wife is the magnifying glass under which an abandoned husband grieves and mourns the disappearance of his wife. Ten years have passed, and it appears our nameless narrator is still reliving the memories of their failed marriage in an effort to discover exactly where things had begun to disintegrate between them.

It is obvious from the very beginning that this was not your normal, every-day sort of relationship, though the further down memory lane we go, the more fucked up and unusual it becomes. The wife, cold and withdrawn around her husband, apparently has this uncanny ability to get complete strangers to open up to her and spill their life stories, which she then repeats into a tape recorder behind the closed door of her closet. Preferring to carry the weight of strangers' secrets, she seemed to have little interest in those of her own husband, unless she was looking to start a fight. An overly particular and inflexible woman, the wife sometimes barked at our unnamed narrator over anything and everything, no matter how large or small. The engagement ring he bought from a mall jewelry store; watching her while she swam at the beach; her refusal to show him the inside her closet of other people's secrets or the painting she was working on in her art class; how she walked out of the movie theater if she got bored.

And to hear our narrator tell it, he was the ever patient, ever loving other half. A man willing to accept his wife's eccentric ways, tip toeing around  and keeping the peace. He worshipped her every breath. He soaked in every minute they spent together. He accepted her as she was. And he has collected these memories. And now he torments himself with them, because they are all he has left.

Jac doesn't make you wait until the end of the novel to see the writing on the wall; it's been there in day-glo colors from the very start. But she does let our narrator help us connect the dots in his own slow and sensitive way. As he comes to terms with the fact that she is gone, we come to terms with the fact that we might not be getting the entire story.

Reviewing these type of novels are always tricky for me. The simplicity of stories like these tend to make me feel as though I am missing something... That there must be something deeper, some additional meaning or message that the author has buried beneath her words that I just haven't uncovered yet. And then, when I see reviews like this one from html giant and this one from nouspique, I realize I am not the only one who feels it. And it makes me feel better. But then I laugh at how crazy we will drive ourselves in the search for these hidden messages.

If you read their review, Html Giant found a double "and" in the second to last paragraph of the book. They called it the perfect stutter and hoped beyond hope that it was intentional, rather than a serendipitous typo. They assigned the double "and" meaning. After reading their review, I admit that I flipped back through my copy of the book, fearing that I missed this obviously important hiccup, only to discover that, in the finished copy, the double "and" had been removed, and it was ... despite their discovery ... an accidental typo.

So you see what I mean? We will go to incredible extremes searching for what isn't even there, when sometimes, the story we are reading is the whole story and nothing more. No hidden meaning, no deep and existential messages buried beneath the words. No smoke and mirrors. Just the words we are reading and the pages on which they are placed.

And Jac can correct me if I'm wrong, but I'd like to think that My Only Wife is simply as straight-forward as it appears. No tricks or sneaky agendas here. I think it's really just the story of a hurt and dejected husband pining for a woman who probably never really loved him the way he loved her, living in the past because for him, it's preferable to living in the present without her.

Indie Spotlight: Ryan Quinn

In talking with authors, I always enjoy hearing how their novels came to be. Especially the rags-to-riches stories in which an author didn't give up on their book, even when the odds were stacked against them. 

How many times can an author hear "I'm sorry but your novel is not a good fit...." or "I can't back this one up..." or "There isn't an audience for this type of..." before they give up, tuck tail, and chuck their manuscript in the bottom of a desk drawer, where it will never see the light of day?

What if the author believed in his novel so strongly that he wouldn't let those naysayers derail him. What if he took all of that feedback and made it a better novel, and then self published it? What if the book, in its initial "indie" form, sold well.. so well, in fact, that a publisher finally turns around and requests to re-release it under their name? Well, then that author might look and sound a little bit like Ryan Quinn. 

Ryan describes his novel's difficult journey - from seeking out an agent and a publisher to making the decision to self publish, and the wonderful, rewarding things that came out of it all:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The term “published” used to have a very narrow definition. It meant that an author, usually a writer with social or professional connections inside the publishing industry, was offered an advance from a corporate publisher in Manhattan, who would then edit the manuscript, design a cover and the interior, and print anywhere from a few thousand to hundreds of thousands of copies, depending on some educated guesswork about sales expectations. The publisher ensured that the book was reviewed in newspapers and magazines as it landed in bookstores across the country, where the author was sent to give readings and sign copies.

That formula might still work for well-known authors and surefire bestsellers, but for everyone else almost everything has changed. Newspapers don’t review books anymore, advances are shrinking, and many bookstores are facing an existential crisis. To the publishing establishment these might look like symptoms of a problem. I think they’re symptoms of progress.

My debut novel, TheFall, was published this month. I’m not well known, and The Fall’s chances at bestseller-dom are far from surefire, at least from the perspective of a traditional publishing house. The simple truth is that a book like mine might never have had a chance to be published in the publishing world of five or ten years ago.

It has always been the case that any literate person could write anywhere. What changed so dramatically for writers in the last decade is the relationship between writing and publishing. The old model of publishing was built, by necessity, around a chain of printers, distributors, and brick-and-mortar booksellers that presented prohibitively high barriers of entry. Only a big publisher with industry relationships and capital to invest could afford to pay authors an advance and then print books and ship them around the country to bookstores where they could then be discovered by readers.

The basic process of getting a book from an author to a reader no longer depends on that particular distribution chain and all the middlemen that prop it up, thanks to the rise and convergence of four disruptive technologies: the Internet, the e-book, the e-reader, and print-on-demand book printing. This doesn’t mean that the old model is dead. In fact, it still accounts for the bulk of sales at the “Big Six” publishers. It simply means that there are now alternative paths a book may take to be published.

That "publishing" is now more accessible to more people than ever is a wonderful development for the democratization of reading, writing, and—at the most fundamental level—ideas. It gives life to super-niche books of high quality but low commercial viability; it keeps books in print indefinitely; and it allows readers to discover authors who might never have had the opportunity to win the approval of the traditional publishing gatekeepers in Manhattan.

And, perhaps most significantly, the new indie publishing scene serves as a sort of farm league for cultivating and discovering up-and-coming talent.

That’s how my debut novel was discovered.

More than five years ago, I sat down in a coffee shop and wrote the first chapter of The Fall, a coming-of-age campus story about the fateful relationship between three friends whose lives become intertwined during their final year of college at a university with a dark past. It took me about a year to write the first draft, which weighed in at a not-very-reader-friendly 500 pages. At the time, I worked in book publishing in New York, and having one of the “Big Six” publishers publish my book seemed like the only way to go. So I started to send out query letters to literary agents. First I targeted well-known agents at the big agencies, and then quickly widened the net I cast to include young and unknown agents, some who even (gasp!) resided off the island of Manhattan. The rejection letters came back by the dozens.

Eventually, one agent saw something promising in my writing and we started working together on revising the manuscript. It was a grueling process. I revised the book, then got more feedback from her, then revised it again, then put it away for several months, then came back to it and revised it again. Like any good agent, she was a talented editor and helped me to slash away over 100 pages of excess backstory and tangential plotlines. After many months of revisions, I felt good about the book and wanted to take the next step: submitting it to editors at major publishing houses to see if we could land a deal.

Then I received an e-mail from the literary agent. She was concerned that publishers might not see enough commercial potential in a coming-of-age campus novel written by a first-time author. She was sure I was a promising writer, she said, but she wasn’t prepared to take this book to market with her own reputation behind it.

I was devastated. I knew how subjective publishing could be and that with my improved manuscript I had a good chance to secure representation elsewhere. But I was emotionally drained. I had written and rewritten and revised and cut and re-revised the thing so many times that I was sick of it. I wasn’t sure I could face that process again. I went on with my life, and the manuscript sat on my hard drive—untouched.

When I opened that Word document ten months later, it was mostly out of curiosity. Time had given me some distance from and perspective on the book and I wanted to see if it was writing I could still believe in, or if it was something better left buried in the cemetery of old documents on my computer’s hard drive.

I started reading. I did not made it past the first paragraph before I reached for the mouse and keyboard to make a small revision. A few pages in, I was still making changes. I realized I wasn’t going to stop. I was going to revise this book again. Was I a masochist? Maybe. It didn’t matter. I was a believer. This book could work. I just knew it.

One thing I came to understand while working in the book publishing industry is just how mysterious publishing success can be. Every day, publishers have to bet on the future sales records of many books, and more times than not, betting on an unknown, first-time author who’s not writing formulaic genre fiction is not a confidence-inspiring business decision. The risk that it will tank is high, the likelihood of a big upside in profits is low.

On my second go-around with The Fall, I believed more than ever that I could get an agent who could sell the book to a major publisher. But, Then what? I thought. My book would be on a list of dozens of other books, some written by successful authors whose profitable track record would naturally make them a priority when it came to allocating the publisher’s time, money, and enthusiasm as the list was pitched to booksellers.

My gut told me to do it myself—to self-publish. Or to publish it independently. Whatever you want to call it. There are several names for it, and all of them are derogatory to most people within the traditional publishing establishment. I wouldn’t be impressing anyone in Manhattan, but at least it would have a chance to be discovered by the people who really mattered—readers.

I asked more people read the manuscript and give me feedback. I had the final draft copyedited. I designed a cover. I made sure every single page was in the best shape it could possibly be. I made a website. I worked my connections (and plenty of cold calls) to get some modest review and publicity coverage.

Then I made The Fallavailable in both paperback and e-book formats everywhere.

The book sold dozens of copies. Then hundreds. Once the number had grown well past the number of friends and relatives I had, it kept selling. Not at a bestseller clip, but steadily. People were discovering it, and they were leaving good reviews on Amazon and Goodreads.

The book was out on the market for about six months before a senior editor at Amazon's AmazonEncore imprint noticed The Fall’s sales and the positive reader reviews, and reached out to me to say that they wanted to publish the book.

This is the main point of this article: I think this is how publishing is supposed to work. Just like an indie band or an indie filmmaker, it makes sense to embrace a model that encourages first-time authors to take charge of their career, to write and revise and edit and promote themselves until they’ve built up a following that demands to be noticed.

Much like an indie band who is picked up by a major label, I was thrilled to sign with Amazon and work with them to get the book into the hands of more readers. This month, The Fall launched with a stunning new cover, some editorial improvements, and some marketing help from the data wizards at Amazon.com. I couldn’t be happier with how things have gone so far.

There is no inherently right or wrong path for a book to pass from author to reader, which, perhaps, is the new, broader definition of “published.” Whatever the book, there are more options, and it’s clear that certain types of books now thrive where they otherwise never would have been given a chance.

Indie authors might not yet be thought of as cool in the way that indie bands or filmmakers are. But we are a new—and significant—force in book publishing. Don’t take my word for it, and don’t hold your breath waiting for approval from the publishing establishment in Manhattan. Just ask the readers.

Bio:

Ryan Quinn grew up in Alaska. He attended the University of Utah, where he was an NCAA champion and an All-American athlete. After graduation, he worked for five years in New York’s book-publishing industry. His debut novel, The Fall, was originally self-published. This month it was published by AmazonEncore. Quinn currently lives in Los Angeles and can be reached at www.ryanquinnbooks.com.

Review: Threats

Read 5/7/12 - 5/14/12
4 Stars - Strongly Recommended to everyone. Period.
Pgs: 278
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

My first experience with Amelia Gray's writing was listening to her read from her collection of flash fiction at the 2011 Brooklyn Book Festival. Her's was the last panel of the day - sharing the stage with Alan Heathcock and two male writers I had never heard of - and what a panel it was. She read from AM/PM (which I hadn't read but of which I had heard countless good things). Her stories were tender and sweet and strange and a little screwy. They were amazing to listen to; the stories pushed quickly out of her mouth, the moments in between as we waited while the pages were flipped through as she decided which one to share next...

So during my most recent visit to NYC, when I stumbled across Threats (her newest release and first novel) while wandering the many tables and stacks of book within The Strand, I knew immediately that it would be coming home with me.

Amelia writes the story from the point of view of a confused and distraught husband. David, our protagonist, is trying to come to terms with the fact that his wife is dead. That she has, in fact, died right beside him on the hallway stairs and has since been delivered back to him, as a box of ashes, that sit on his kitchen table. The days immediately after her death are a mystery to David, wrapped inside one big cloud of fog. He can't seem to get his brain to behave; he's misinterpreting things, he's paranoid and his memory is unreliable.

It doesn't help that, as he wanders from room to room inside his home, he's begun to uncover cleverly hidden threats written out on scrap pieces of paper. Are they clues? Are they from his wife? While David is being questioned by the police regarding the strange circumstances surrounding his wife's death, he sets out on his own determined to find an explanation for those horrid, hurtful notes.

Right from the very beginning, it's obvious that Amelia's magic is in her timing. She draws information out of her characters slowly, teasingly. She's letting out just enough line to allow us to get hooked, and then once the bait is taken, toys with us relentlessly, right up until the very last page. The tight constraints of perspective, the limited and somewhat warped peephole view she allows us, keeps us from ever getting too far ahead of her. Her short chapters (anywhere from one to three pages long) yank us along in fits and starts. Make no mistake. Amelia holds the reigns in this one, and she's not afraid to choke us if we get out of line.

See, for me, it's all about the writing. Amelia's writing is elegant and sparse. The power of her words lie in their simplicity. The story she placed us in reads like one of those horrible nightmares in which you are aware you are dreaming and yet you know there is nothing you can do to wake yourself up. Everything's familiar but.. something's off. It looks like home but it doesn't smell quite right. Maybe the furniture is a tad bit too dusty, or the rug is slightly too worn. It's like you're living inside a memory, breathing stale old air. She creates in you that feeling of unease and dread that you just can't seem to shake.  

While reading this book, I often found myself wondering how my own husband would react were I to pass away before him, before my time. Would he begin to fall apart at the seams like David did? Would he, too, start to unravel and lose his mind to paranoia, loneliness, and fear? There's a part of me that wants him to, that foolishly hopes that I am his whole life, and that without me, he wouldn't be able to function. There's something incredibly romantic about that... That a man could so completely depend on his wife, need her soo badly in his life, that when she is no longer there, he begins to slowly disintegrate before everyone's eyes...

Run, readers. Run out to your local bookstore and get this book. You don't want to miss it. And to entice you even further, here is a cute video of Amelia, on a moped, as she recites some of the threats David uncovers in the oddest of places:

Where Writers Write: Collin Kelley

Welcome to TNBBC's 3rd Installment of Where Writers Write!

Where Writers Write is a weekly series that will feature a different author every Wednesday as they showcase their writing spaces using short form essay, photos, and/or video. As a lover of books and all of the hard work that goes into creating them, I thought it would be fun to see where some of TNBBC's favorite authors roll up their sleeves and make the magic happens.

This is Collin Kelley, a novelist, poet and playwright from Atlanta, Georgia. His second novel, Remain In Light (Vanilla Heart Publishing), was a finalist for the 2012 Townsend Prize for Fiction and is available in eBook format and trade paperback. His critically acclaimed debut novel, Conquering Venus (Vanilla Heart Publishing), was released in 2009 and an Amazon bestseller.

He is co-director of the Atlanta Queer Literary Festival, sits on the board of Poetry Atlanta and on the advisory council for Georgia Center for the Book. By day, Kelley is the managing editor for Atlanta Intown newspaper. He has been a journalist for more than 25 years. 

Collin wrote a guest post for TNBBC back in April of 201o on unconscious connections, and also submitted a previously unpublished poem to our Tell Me A Story feature. 

I'm excited to share today's Where Writers Write post with you because Collin took things up a notch and shot a video for us!!! Check it out....

Where Collin Kelley Writes

Check back next week to see where TNBBC newbie Katherine Scott Nelson works HER magic!!

Author Spotlight and Giveaway: Lauren Carr

To authors, it can be an uncertain world out there. If you've written and published a book (whether it's your first or twenty-first), you want nothing more than for the whole world to fall in love with it. 

At the same time, you wish you could clutch it to your chest and refuse to let it go because, let's be honest,  there's always that fear that someone, somewhere, won't like it. And they might just try to tell the whole world about it!

Lauren Carr, author of the Mac Faraday Murder series, is not one to hide her books from the public. In fact, once she got over her first bad review, she's come to appreciate them for what they are... and wants to help other traditional and self-published authors come to the same realization. 

Fear not the reviewer. Set your novels free... Check out Lauren's take on authoring up and getting your books out there:

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Writers! It’s Time to Author-Up and Get Your Books Out There

The number one fear of any author is—Reviewers.

It’s bad enough if a reader doesn’t like your book. Most readers, if they don’t like your book, will keep it to themselves. Or, at the worst, they will keep it within their immediate circle of friends. Or, if they have a big mouth, they’ll keep it within their book club or community.

Since it’s their job, reviewers will broadcast their dislike of your book to the whole world! Their distaste used to be confined to the subscribers of whatever publication they were writing for. But now, with the Internet, a reviewer’s hatred for a particular book is broadcasted throughout cyberspace for everyone in the universe to see exactly how bad your book is.

That’s enough to scare any writer into wanting to lock their baby up behind closed doors and never let anyone read it.

Yes, you can do that.

But, like a parent protecting her child from the outside world by locking him up in his bedroom and never letting him step outside, it’s not a realistic option. Children who are over-protected don’t develop a tough enough skin to deal with all that life has to throw at them. As scary as it is, sending them out there where they can fall down and skin their knees is a good thing.

Likewise, any writer wanting her book and career to be all it can be, needs to “author-up” and get her book out there into the hands of reviewers…who may or may not like it.

Yes, some reviewers may not like your book.

I was surprised to learn not too long ago that many authors don’t send their books out to reviewers for precisely that reason. One author shocked me with the announcement, “I don’t let strangers review my books.” I was still wrapping my head around that statement when he went on to say that he knew several authors who don’t solicit book reviews. Those who did would stipulate to the reviewer, “If you can’t give me 5-stars, then don’t bother posting any review at all.”

Yet, these same authors scratch their heads and wonder why they have failed to find their audience and can’t break through to have good book sales.

Book reviews are FREE advertising. With every review site that your book is featured, more and more people are learning about it. I have had reviewers contact me asking for copies of my book as a result of reading about it on other book review sites. I send them the books, they read it, and then yet another review is posted for even more readers to learn about my books.

All it costs me is the cost of the book and postage, unless it’s an e-book, in which case, it costs me NOTHING! Beat that price for advertising!

Based on successful reviews for my previous books, I have over fifty reviewers WAITING for the advanced review copy of Shades of Murder, which will be out in a couple of weeks. That’s over fifty websites that will publicize my new book as soon as it is released. Many of these reviewers will read the e-book version, which means it will cost me nothing.

Do I have a guarantee that all of these reviewers will love Shades of Murder as much as they loved the other books in the series? No. Most likely they will since they loved my previous books, but there’s no guarantee. I consider it the chance I have to take to be a professional author. It’s worth the risk to get the word out there about my books.

Here’s the way I see it. I publish my books because, in my heart, I know I’m a great writer. If I didn’t think I was good, I wouldn’t be investing my time and effort into writing and publishing my books. To me, authors who clutch their books to their breasts and refuse to show them to reviewers have a lack of confidence in their own writing.

Breaking through to the big time is not going to happen if you keep your book a secret from reviewers.

What if the reviewer doesn’t like your book?

That is one thing that I can guarantee. Not everyone is going to love your book.

Being a Mom, that’s something that I can understand and deal with.

The other night I prepared Tuscan Ribeye for dinner. I marinated the steaks for four hours before putting them on the grill. They came out juicy and melt in your mouth delicious. I also put equal amount of love into preparing garlic mashed potatoes with fresh garlic and butter drizzled in it. I topped off the mashed potatoes with fresh chives. They were so beautiful I didn’t want to eat them!

Then, for the vegetable, I broiled parmesan tomatoes. The parmesan and tomato were the perfect accompaniment to this a meal that had my husband rubbing his tummy saying, “I can’t wait to see what you come up with next.”

My son shrugged his shoulders and said, “Eh!”

Lesson: You can’t please everyone.

I put my heart and soul into that dinner. It was with pride that I presented it to the world (okay, the dining room) and only pleased half of my audience. My son would have been happier with a cheese dog and fast food fries.

Likewise, you can spend months slaving over a storyline, invest money in an editor, and hand picking a cover, and have a reviewer say “Eh!” She would have preferred it if your deep thinking, spunky protagonist that saved the world was a vampire with big boobs.

All right, so you’re thinking, “Yeah, Lauren, you don’t have to tell us that not everyone will love our books. We know that. That’s why we’re keeping them locked up in the trunk of our cars and not telling anyone about them. If a reviewer doesn’t like them, THEY’LL TELL SOMEONE ABOUT THEM.”

Here’s a news flash for you: As long as your book is for sale to the public, bad reviews can still happen—even if you aren’t soliciting them to reviewers.

My first book, A Small Case of Murder, has a couple of really horrible reviews posted on Amazon. The first one appeared over a year after its release. I was depressed for a week before my husband suggested I look up the other reviews this reviewer had posted on Amazon. I found that she had posted one. It was a five-star review for a rap CD entitled something along the line of “Kill All the People”. Of course, someone like that would not like a book about a functional family with a Christian protagonist.

Every bad, spiteful review I have received, I did not solicit. They were posted by readers who had come upon the book themselves and felt compelled to vent about their hatred for it.

As I have learned from readers and reviewers, hateful and spiteful reviews are not taken seriously by readers. The best way to combat them is, when you find such a review, to click on the button below the review saying that it was not helpful, and have your friends and family do the same.

The second line of defense against unsolicited bad reviews is to solicit reviews that will be positive from professional reviewers.

Generally, professional reviewers do not post hateful criticism. They will find something good to say, or say nothing at all. Yes, they will be honest, but they won’t be hurtful and you may find the criticism helpful.

I have had a couple of reviewers comment, nicely, that they would like to have a cast of characters listed in the front of the book. So, in Shades of Murder, I have listed a cast of characters, and will do so with future books.

Here’s another surprising note about criticism, it gives your book creditability in the eyes of some readers. Believe it or not, I was dancing around the house a few weeks ago when I received my first two-star review for It’s Murder, My Son, which was released over two years ago.

Have I lost my mind? I was dancing about a two-star? Yep.

Here’s why? Many readers view books with only positive reviews with suspicion. Maybe it’s the society we now live in. A while back I had read a thread in a book forum in which a lot of writers and readers commented that when they come upon a book on Amazon with forty or fifty 5-star reviews touting the book as the best thing since Gone With the Wind, they regard the reviews with suspicion, especially if there are no four, three, or two or one-star reviews. The suspicion grows deeper if the book and author are unknown. How do you get so many highly positive reviews without anyone knowing about you or your book? There are many readers who will assume all of the reviews were by family and friends of the author. When I brought up the matter in my book writing class, I was surprised to find that many of my students feel the same way.

I read not too long ago about an author who went into Amazon, using various different accounts, and posted dozens of five-star reviews for his own book. Then, he bragged about it on a blog. Amazon found out about it and pulled all of the reviews.

Reviews that state some form of objective criticism for a book gives it credibility. Readers take that book and the reviews listed for it more seriously. Thus, when I got my first two-star review for It’s Murder, My Son, I proceeded to dance around the house. After two years, It’s Murder, My Son has credibility!

Lesson to be learned: Even a critical review can be good for your career.

What are you waiting for? You have a book that you’ve labored over and now it’s ready to push that baby out of the nest and send it out into the world to the applause and acclaim of reviewers—who will pass on the word to your audience—which will open the doors to the authorship that your books and you deserve.

Go get ‘em, Tiger!

Lauren Carr fell in love with mysteries when her mother read Perry Mason to her at bedtime. The first installment in the Joshua Thornton mysteries, A Small Case of Murder was a finalist for the Independent Publisher Book Award. A Reunion to Die For was released in hardback in June 2007. Both of these books are in re-release.

Lauren is also the author of the Mac Faraday Mysteries, which takes place in Deep Creek Lake, Maryland. The first two books in her series, It’s Murder, My Son and Old Loves Die Hardhave been getting rave reviews from readers and reviewers. The next book in this series, Shades of Murder, will be released May 2012. This will be Lauren’s fifth mystery.

Lauren’s sixth book, Dead on Ice, will be released in Fall 2012. Dead on Ice will introduce a new series entitled Lovers in Crime, in which Joshua Thornton will join forces with homicide detective Cameron Gates.

The owner of Acorn Book Services, Lauren is also a publishing manager, consultant, editor, cover and layout designer, and marketing agent for independent authors. This spring, two books written by independent authors will be released through the management of Acorn Book Services.

Lauren is a popular speaker who has made appearances at schools, youth groups, and on author panels at conventions. She also passes on what she has learned in her years of writing and publishing by conducting workshops and teaching in community education classes.

She lives with her husband, son, and two dogs on a mountain in Harpers Ferry, WV.

Visit Lauren’s websites and blog at:

E-Mail: writerlaurencarr@comcast.net, Website: http://acornbookservices.com/ ;                  http://mysterylady.net/

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The Giveaway

Where are all the murder mystery fans at?!!

TNBBC is happy to offer a set of all three Lauren Carr "Mac Faraday" novels 

to one lucky US resident!

This giveaway will end on May 28th.

Winner will be announced here and via email on May 29th.

Here's how to enter:

 1 - Leave a comment stating why you believe the Mac Faraday series should go to you.

 2 - You must leave me a way to contact you (email is preferred). AND you must be a resident of the US!!!!

Good luck!