Are You Sorry?

If so, you're probably a woman. Norah Vincent, author of Self-Made Man : One Woman's Journey into Manhood and Back, was interviewed on "The Colbert Report" last week, and one of her comments really struck home. Colbert asked her whether she had discovered any difference in the way men and women speak. Yes, she said, women apologize all the time: "I'm sorry I'm here. I'm sorry for existing." For example, when ordering at a restaurant, a woman will say, "I'm sorry, but would it be possible for me to have...?" Whereas a man will just sit back and say, "I'll have the steak."

A woman I work with is constantly apologizing. One day I got fed up and said, "You have to stop apologizing so much!" Her response: "I'm sorry!" (We both laughed, but she actually meant it.) Another woman we work with is a big apologizer too. They could cut their meeting time in half if they'd cut out "I'm sorry." Whenever I hear them speaking to each other, I'm always tempted to count who apologizes more.

Not that I'm much better. I constantly catch myself apologizing needlessly. I'm sorry, but I was brought up that way. My mother is sorry too. Is yours? Are you?

Preston Sturges Would Be So Happy

Remember Trudy Kockenlocker and Ignatz Ratskiwatski in "The Miracle of Morgan's Creek"? Or John D. Hackensacker III (aka "Snoodles") in "The Palm Beach Story?" Well, art is a fine thing, but once again it pales when compared to real life.

Consider Denver, my new home. I am waiting breathlessly for a newspaper headline announcing a meeting between the mayor of Our Fair City and the new offensive coordinator for the Broncos. Perhaps they'd engage in an informal sports contest, say, of the kind favored on college campuses throughout the Golden West.

I can see it now: "Hickenlooper and Heimerdinger in Hacky Sack Fracas."

If only...

End Those Blurb Woes

Every writer cringes at the prospect of soliciting blurbs for their magnum opus. It's embarrassing, demeaning, [insert adjective here]. Well, cringe no longer! John Warner, author of FONDLING YOUR MUSE: Infallible Advice from a Published Author to the Writerly Aspirant, has devised the perfect solution: the Blurb-O-Matic. Just type in your book's title, then click "Create a Blurb" and--presto!--you have the perfect laudatory phrase. Book Promotion 101 is "fuzzy and radiant." I'm so proud.

The Worst Lying Writer of Them All

I've read about the transgressions of James Frey, JT LeRoy and Nasdijj till I thought my eyeballs would drop out. Interesting and thought-provoking as all the commentary is, their misdeeds make little difference to me personally as I'd never read anything they've written. But there is one writer whose lies have affected me right where I live, and I am shocked and appalled that the media has completely ignored this burgeoning scandal.

I am referring, of course, to the person who wrote the assembly instructions for the Target Mission Wall Hook (DPCI #249-06-0660) in oak finish -- now mysteriously "out of stock" -- which I put together yesterday.

Right on the front page, it says, "All you will need is a phillips screwdriver." STEP 1 then directs: "Drill 1/4" hole in drywall and press plastic anchor fully into hole." [Ahem!] Even if one uses the shaft of the screwdriver to make a hole--as I did, since my drill bits are at the bottom of a moving box somewhere--one needs a hammer to pound the screwdriver into the wall. And I have never yet been able to "press" a plastic anchor into a wall except with a hammer. Especially a plaster wall, as mine is.

So, all you need is a phillips screwdriver--and a drill and a hammer.

STEP 1 continues: "Using Phillip head screwdriver to tighten screw (C) into the hole from upper step."

So, all you need is a phillips screwdriver, a drill and a hammer--and a proofreader.

STEP 2 directs: "Hang wall hook to the screw from Step 1."

Very simple -- except that if one were to follow these directions exactly, the unit would be hanging sideways, as there are TWO (2) hooks on its back, exactly 29" apart.

So, all you need is a phillips screwdriver, a drill, a hammer, a proofreader--and a tape measure and a level.

Incidentally, the Mission Wall Hook unit looks lovely in my front entry, especially near the Mission Bench I put together earlier. The air there, however, is still blue with the epithets I unleashed when I discovered that (1) the bench bottom was split (I patched it w/ plywood) and (2) two of the camscrew holes didn't line up (I took out the screw).

I'm waiting for the New York Times to follow up -- or at least the Denver Post.

Whose Story Is It? II

Woke up ridiculously early this morning--in part because our room is ridiculously cold & the comforter was all on Darling Husband's side of the bed. Couldn't get back to sleep, so I finished reading the ARC of a riveting memoir that reads like a novel. In fact, it is by a novelist. He describes in minute detail a tumultuous affair he had in the early 1960s with a woman who was pregnant (not by him) and how he helped her give the baby girl up for adoption. Decades later, the daughter tracks him down, assuming he was her father, and asks for help finding her mother. He gets back in touch with Mom, whom he gives a pseudonym, but describes her background, very public career and looks in minute detail. Mom doesn't want to see the daughter; in fact won't even acknowledge that she is indeed her mother, despite their striking resemblance. Basically Mom comes off as a hypocritical, manipulative, selfish bitch--the more so when it turns out that she lied to the author about her relationship with the guy who knocked her up.

Mom is very protective of her privacy. Her husband knows about the adoption but her kids don't. She complains that the author portrayed her poorly in his novels and tries to get him to promise that he won't write about her and the adoption, which he refuses to do, claiming that it's his story too. Fair enough.

BUT...

Within 10 minutes, using just two short phrases from a newspaper quote about Mom, I discovered her real name, which contains an anagram of the pseudonym. Just to be sure it was her, I searched Google Image. Bingo! Gotta give the author kudos for physical description--though he neglected to point out Mom's amazing resemblance to Geena Davis. (However, he did mention that Daughter's new husband looks like Benicio Del Toro.)

SO...
Whose story is it? Is the author right to have outed Mom? Despite her odious behavior, should he have omitted some details in order to keep her identity secret?

Woody Allen Was Right

It's true: 80% (or was it 90%?) of life is just showing up. I had a reservation for the Dave Barry lunch sponsored by the Denver Press Club. I was running late, had a million things to do around the house (we're still all over boxes) had to call various contractors (the heat isn't working right--Grr! Brr!), web site to update, workshop to plan for & publicize, etc. I was going to cancel, but thought, What the hell? The house can be cold a little longer, and at least I'll be warm at the lunch.

So I went. Got there 15 minutes late and only heard 10 minutes of Barry, who had to dart out for an interview. But sitting at my table were the director of a local literacy program and the manager of The Rock Bottom Remainders (the band with Barry, Amy Tan & other bestselling writers), who it turns out I'd met at a BookExpo party a couple of years ago. We got to talking, swapped cards and info, and wound up being among the last people to leave.

Moral: Be there.

Life Intrudes Yet Again

Woke up this morning all fired up to:
1) Continue unpacking & organizing my office.
2) Prepare for my Book Promotion 101 workshop in LA on Saturday.

First I took my Aussie-Golden mix out for a nice long walk in a wildish section of park along Cherry Creek, where there's no one to snarl at you about leash laws. It was warm (50s), sunny, not too windy for a change--a perfect Denver day. Got back home even more fired up to Get Things Accomplished.

But first I had to feed myself and dog. Gave her a bowl of chow and she dove right in. Then I heard jingling (license) & flapping (floppy ears). OK, so she had a tickle in her ear. More jingling & flapping a few seconds later. Must be quite a tickle, I thought. A few more seconds go by. Jingle/flap. A few more seconds. Jingle/flap. Over and over.

I look in her ears. Oh no, here we go again...

New to-do list:
1) Search piled-up boxes in hallway, bathroom & basement for doggie ear wash & antibacterial goo.
2) Corner dog, wash ears, insert goo.
3) Prepare for workshop.

Advice from the Trenches II

This just in from Quang X. Pham, author of A SENSE OF DUTY: My Father, My American Journey (Ballantine Books, 2005), who attended the same Book Promotion 101 session as Kathryn Jordan (see post below).

Quang X. Pham writes:

I went through a media training session with Kim-from-LA [she & colleague Bill Applebaum presented at the workshop] and that really helped with my appearances on NBC, Tavis Smiley Show on PBS, C-SPAN BookTV, NPR and many other regional radio and television interviews. Have energy, be passionate, lose the frog in your throat, don't blab forever...

My wife threw a launch party for 200 attendees (including media) on April 12, 2005, the day my father-son memoir went on sale. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

My first printing was 15,000 and the book went into a second printing six weeks after publication. My publicist sent galleys and books along with pitches. I sent out another 100 at my cost, resulting in a dozen reviews and interviews in niche publications and newsletters (and Amazon.com). After the first three weeks (unless you're James Frey), authors are on their own!

Niche venues, like Kathryn Jordan said, are much more productive than chain bookstores. Service organizations, friends of libraries and colleges worked the best for me. THEY HAVE BUILT-IN MAILING LISTS.

Advice from the Trenches

The below is just in from two-time Book Promotion 101 alum Kathryn Jordan, author of HOT WATER (Berkley), a novel about a Minnesota housewife who sneaks away for a weekend at a Southern California spa with a rented red Lamborghini and a male escort. I usually can't abide "women's" and romance novels, but this one had me rapt. It's not too often you get a book with hot sex, humor AND a philosophical discussion of Hannah Arendt.

Kathryn Jordan writes:
A year ago I hadn't heard of a launch party, but when Lynn Isenberg (THE FUNERAL PLANNER, MY LIFE UNCOVERED) told about hers at the workshop, my mind got busy. Next week, I will speak and read excerpts at Two Bunch Palms to an audience standing within yards of where the scenes took place. How amazing. [Sure wish I could be there! --B]

'Til last Friday, I didn't know what the print run was. My editor, Leona Nevler, passed away in Dec., and my publicist moved to Simon & Schuster on Jan. 6th (3 days after the book release). Talk about feeling abandoned! Then my new editor called: the print run was 13,000! Pretty darn good for a first novel, and she indicated they're expecting a second printing before long. You said if an author generates enough interest it could make the publisher increase the print run. I don't know for sure, but maybe that's what happened.

Here's my advice:

1. Find a niche market, if possible. My publishers were delighted with the spa resort tour idea.
2. Use the internet - Follow every lead, however small. I took part in a conference call with retreat coaches (found online browsing spa resorts) and several events came from that, including the Hot Licks BBQ & Saloon in Bisbee, AZ (who woulda thought?) which is planning special sexy drinks, a sexy fashion show and belly dancers! An event at La Posada Resort in Santa Fe also came from the call, because I decided to go to a retreat at Ojo Caliente. Only about 20 women will be there, but boy did it pay off. A Borders signing in Santa Fe, and a couple things in Albuquerque too.
3. Use each success to get more. I used the fact that the book is set at Two Bunch Palms to get local spa resorts to support my booth in the Palm Springs Book Fest (way before the book came out) and to interest other spas in events. I used La Costa (one of the first to book) to get more. I used the signings in Vegas... Well, you get the idea.
4. Do not let disappointments stop you. There were spa resorts who decided Hot Water wasn't "appropriate" for them. (They'll be sorry!) Sometimes the same day I'd get a rejection, then pick up another venue.
5. Send lots of galleys and advance copies, join whatever networking groups fit, word-of-mouth, word-of-mouth, word-of-mouth. My continual requests for more galleys--which ran out so they made bound manuscripts--must've registered on the publisher. I've given away maybe 40 copies from my author supply, but women are passing them around. Even some who said "inappropriate" are giving it to friends to read in the closet.
6. Think outside the box - My "Hot Water House Party" idea (like lingerie or Tupperware, but with me & the book) is actually working. 6 scheduled so far.
7. Be gracious. What people want is to connect with you on a personal level. They want to touch your experience as a writer. I've actually made friends with many women, talking or emailing about issues in the book, about writing, about events, etc.
8. Practice. Keep it short.
9. And finally, the bottom line of Book Promotion 101: WRITE A GOOD BOOK. With an edge, if possible.

Build a Better Website

Through my Book Promotion 101 work and as a program organizer for the Virginia Festival of the Book, I look at an awful lot of authors' websites. And too many of them are indeed awful--amateurish, poorly organized, with vital information hard to find or nonexistent.

Here is what every website should have:

1) An experienced designer! You get what you pay for (but don't overpay either). A good designer can set up your site so that you can edit the content yourself. Your website is your public face to the world. Make it crisp, sharp and professional-looking. As a friend of mine in ad sales once told me, "Presentation is everything."

2) A good proofreader & copy editor! (Not you. The more eyes checking it, the better.)

3) URL should be [yourname.com]. If you must use [booktitle.com], it should lead to [yourname.com].

4) An image of your current book on the first screen of the home page with title, publisher, publication date, purchasing information & blurbs.

5) Separate pages for Author Bio, Press/Reviews, Events, Contact, Book Excerpt, Other Works.

6) MAKE IT EASY TO REACH YOU! Contact page must have your email address (you can encrypt it and/or set up a separate Yahoo/Hotmail/Gmail/etc account just for website mail); contact info for your publicist (her name, title, email & phone #).

7) Bio page should have a good, clear, recognizable picture of you, with a high-resolution (at least 300dpi) PROFESSIONAL headshot that journalists & event organizers can download. This means: No blurry snapshots on vacation or in front of a bookcase. No pix of you with pets/kids/spouse/partner.

8) Meta tags on (at least) your home page with your name, book title & key words. For example: Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist, orphan, orphans, orphanage, pickpockets, gangs, Fagin, London, 19th century.

9) No flash animation on home page (takes too long to download & watch). But if you must have animation, have a "Skip flash" button.

10) No automatic sound (annoying/embarrassing for office workers). Offer sound as an option (for example: see website for Becky Motew, author of the upcoming COUPON GIRL.)

Here is a nearly perfect author website:
LOVE WALKED IN by Marisa de los Santos. My only quibbles are that she doesn't have a URL for her name & no meta tags, so a Google search for her name didn't lead to the site.

OK, I'm really back

Happy New Year! After 3 weeks in a hotel suite, I and my family, including dog & cat, are ensconced amidst scores of boxes in a charming (read: drafty & spottily heated) Victorian house in Denver. And after countless hours of frustration & umpteen calls to Qwest (Motto: "Pay no attention to our salespeople or website"), I'm finally able to send email again. No one else in the house can, though, till I work up my fortitude to call Qwest about why the wireless router isn't routing. Ah technology...

I'm back...more or less

Sometimes life interferes with blogging. When I last posted, I was living in Charlottesville, VA, and had just put my house on the market. Eight days ago, I moved to Denver--or rather to a hotel in suburban Denver, and then yesterday to a hotel in downtown Denver. (Sooner or later I'll have a real home again, but that's another story.)

Between dealing with the selling realtor & the buying realtor, fixing up & clearing out one house (including disposing of some 500 books), negotiating to buy another, contacting schools here & there, hassling with United Airlines over pet transportation (GRR!), coordinating my panels for next year's VaBook Festival, etc...well, let's just say that blogging fell by the wayside. So did reading other people's blogs. In fact, so did any online activity that didn't directly pertain to Real Daily Life.

As a way of dipping my toe back into the blogging waters, let me point you to the ever-entertaining Miss Snark, the Literary Agent, who wisely observes in a post entitled, "Money can't buy love...and a few other things either":

And remember, throwing lots of money at a publicity campaign is often not as effective as you think it will be. You can BUY advertising and marketing support. You can buy a publicist's time, but you cannot buy publicity. You can generate it, you can support it, but you cannot buy it.

Strong Women on the Road

Novelists Judith Ryan Hendricks (THE BAKER'S APPRENTICE, Wm. Morrow), Daniela Kuper (HUNGER AND THIRST, St. Martin's) and Masha Hamilton (THE DISTANCE BETWEEN US, Unbridled Books) have joined forces to do a traveling road show, "Strong Women Characters: In Fiction. In Person." They're currently touring Colorado and New Mexico, organized by publicist extraordinaire Caitlin Hamilton Summie. (See press release and tour schedule.)

Hendricks sends this dispatch from the front lines:

Strong Women Tour - Part One
Our hotel room looks like a sorority house on Sunday morning. There are shoes—Masha’s cross trainers, Daniela’s black loafers, my cowboy boots. Sweaters and dresses draped over chairs, cosmetics and vitamins litter the bathroom vanity, damp towels on the floor.

We all tell each other, “I really don’t live like this—normally.”

But I think we’ve all been wanting to. Live like this, I mean. We are a sorority. The three laptops plugged into various outlets tell the tale—a sorority of writers. Three midlife women—a war journalist, a bread baker and an advertising CEO who made abrupt exits off the smooth blacktop of known careers onto the potholed gravel road of fiction writing.

It’s not an unknown story. A lot of writers have come from other places. What makes this group startling is the way we have banded and bonded together for this trip…The Strong Women in Fiction Tour, our publicist calls it, for lack of a better description. The irony for me is that on my solo book tour just prior to this, I felt anything but strong. There were too many long drives through rain and traffic that moved by inches to speak to groups of three and four readers, sign some stock and then drive back to my parents’ house in yet more rain and traffic. Alone.

By the time I got to Lizzie’s house in Denver I felt exhausted and beaten, in a way I’ve rarely felt. Elizabeth Eads is an old friend of Daniela’s and she has insisted we stay with her for the Denver leg of our tour. Her house, with its warm wooden floors, comfortable furniture and folk art, is the kind of place that you pull up around you like a blanket rather than walk into. As is Lizzie herself—a tall, lanky beauty with curly hair that I would kill for, a contagious laugh, and a penchant for saying “Oh, shut up,” in an Arkansas twangy voice whenever we try to thank her for anything.

I immediately relaxed in her presence, like butter coming to room temperature. But then Daniela arrived, loaded down with groceries and wine, and Masha, straight off the plane from New York, and Lizzie was roasting chickens, steaming wild rice and the rest of us were cleaning tiny crisp asparagus and washing red leaf lettuce and setting the table. We talked as if we were cousins who hadn’t seen each other in years, not strangers who had only been together once before for a few hours on a panel in Tempe, AZ. That is to say, all we had to do was catch up. We had no need to explain ourselves to each other, tell where we were coming from. Somehow we knew.

Lost & Found in the City of the Dead

1920s graves, Edmonton Cemetery, North London.

Tonight begins Yom Kippur, the day of atonement and remembrance of the dead. So it's about time that I finally recount my August visit to Edmonton Cemetery in London. As I wrote in the July 29 post kicking off my Fabulous Yiddisher Britisher Tour, I and long-lost Stander cousins Dan and father Howard went to Edmonton but were denied entrance. The helpful person who told me the cemetery closes at 4:00 pm on summer Fridays neglected to mention that the gates are locked at 3:00 pm. So we left in defeat, after I snapped a retaliatory photo (see 7/29 post).

I went back by myself the following Tuesday at 1:00. Thanks to the databases on JewishGen.org, I knew where three long-ago kin were buried, and figured I'd find others on my own by looking at each and every grave as I had in Margate. But after walking back and forth through maybe 20 rows of tightly packed graves in Q section nearest the entrance (the sections go A-Z, with dozens of rows in each), I realized that I had to rethink my strategy.


At the entrance of Edmonton Cemetery, with the
caretaker's cottage on left & section Q on right.

So I trudged the 1/4 mile or so to the office, where there was a group of men in jeans and T-shirts huddled about. I thought maybe I'd interrupted some frum religious ritual, but on closer inspection they turned out to be playing a mid-day game of poker. I asked the caretaker, a freckled and sandy-haired bloke with a classic Nawf Lunnen accent, whether there was a map to the graves. No, just a plan of the various sections. I left my heavy bag in his care and traipsed back out into the blazing sun (yes, London does get hot & sunny) with just my camera, notebook & pen. This time I decided to look for the graves I knew about, then go through sections T-Z, which weren't yet in the JewishGen database.


Wall near office, Edmonton Cemetery. Ladies' sign is
in Yiddish: "Fuhr froyin." For detail of large sign over
fountain, see August post "Signs of the Times: London."

I threaded my way through the claustrophobic K section (see photo at top), dodging leaning headstones while also trying not to step on the graves; an impossible task, as they're maybe six inches apart. Eventually I found the grave of Harris & Jane Stander, who died respectively in 1940 and 1921. I knew they had a son, Benjamin--named for Jane's father, I deduced from the headstone inscription--and wondered why there was no mention of him. Then I righted the tablet at the foot of the grave that had been knocked over so long ago that there was a thick layer of soil under it, embedded in which were lead letters that had fallen off the stone. (Many of the gravestones had letters stuck onto them, instead of carved inscriptions. Must have been cheaper; definitely less durable.) It was a memorial for Benjamin from his sisters; he was killed in action in 1915, age 22. Poor boy; I wondered whether anyone alive besides myself knew he had existed. The grave had obviously not been visited in decades.


Grave of Harris (Zvi) & Jane (Simchah)
Stander, and memorial for son Benjamin.

Let this be a virtual memorial candle to Benjamin Stander and all the forgotten dead wherever--and whoever--they may be.

What Are You Doing?

Thanks to a reader's comments on the inestimable Miss Snark, the literary agent's blog, I found some fantastic essays on writing and publishing by author Jennifer Crusie. (Yeah, so she writes romances. Get over it.) One of the best is It's All About You: The First Step in Finding an Agent. Even (and especially) for writers who already have agents, Crusie's advice is spot-on. She emphasizes looking at one's whole career, not just this one book--something I've been increasingly honing in on in my Book Promotion 101 workshops. She asks:

[W]here do you see your publishing career in a year? If you interviewed an agent now, could you tell her what you want her to do for you beyond “sell my book”? Do you know what editors you'd like to work with, can you pitch the kind of books you need to write, do you know how long you need to have between books, can you tell her how you feel about starting in midlist? Can you tell her where you'd like to be in five years, the improvements in money and contract terms you want to have by then, the kind of things you want to have happen over the next five years to make those improvement feasible? Do you know where you want to be in ten years, the kind of career and life you're aiming for?

Read the whole essay, and then check out the rest of Crusie's website. It's an object lesson in how to do a perfect author site.

Rolling Stones Report

Here's what you don't want to see part-way through a Rolling Stones concert: An empty stage being minutely examined by three bomb-sniffing dogs and their policeman handlers. But I get ahead of myself...

Turns out there was no activity bus for Darling Child on Thursday (I was too tired to write this up yesterday) because every school bus in town was being used to ferry people from outlying parking lots to Scott Stadium at UVa. We parked at a 500-space garage about a mile away, which by 5:45 was almost full (showtime was 7pm), and joined a couple dozen other clever people for takeout at Foods of All Nations, a local gourmet supermarket. (BTW, you haven't lived till you've had their chocolate-dipped almond macaroons.)

At 6:30 or so we joined the throngs heading to Scott Stadium, and at 7:00, when opening act Trey Anastasio began, we were shuffling up a ramp toward our seats at the bottom tier of the nosebleed section. (I joked that we'd be singing "Nearer My God to Thee.") I'm no Phish fan and Anastasio's band left me cold. Evidently most of the ticketholders felt similarly, as the stadium was maybe 1/3 full. Anastasio's best number was the Beatles' "I Am the Walrus," but even that lacked much vitality. Sure wish we'd had the Black-Eyed Peas, who are opening for the Stones elsewhere. The band was off the stage by 7:30, to deservedly tepid applause.

At a few minutes before 9:00, by which time the stadium was full, the Stones came on with a bang--literally--with "Start It Up." A five-story (!) structure at the back of the stage shot off flames and fireworks from both ends of its swooping wings (the jumbo video screen was in the center). I could feel the heat from 120+ yards away. Yowzah!

Next came "Only Rock 'n' Roll," then "Shattered," "Ruby Tuesday," and a song from their new album. Interestingly, the videography for the latter was in black & white, while the rest were in color, so the new song looked "old." (I might have missed a couple songs in there.) Then Jagger got out an acoustic guitar and harmonica and said, "We don't get to play this one very often," and brought the house down with "Sweet Virginia." The crowd, including Your Humble Correspondent, all sang along, and went wild when the video screen showed a young woman in the audience with a "Sweet Virginia is for Stones Lovers" t-shirt. Much to my surprise, Darling Spouse--he of the 700+ record album collection & encyclopedic knowledge of popular music--had never heard "Sweet Virginia" before & was astonished that practically everyone there (especially YHC) knew it. It just goes to show: You think you know someone and then...

It hardly seems possible, but Jagger then brought the house down even more with a tribute to Ray Charles, complete with b&w pix of Charles on the Jumbotron, singing "Nighttime Is the Right Time" with the female backup singer. Besides her amazing voice, she provided a good deal of visual excitement, as her jiggling embonpoint threatened to overflow the cups of her low-cut vest. But the levees held and there was no wardrobe malfunction.

After that, Jagger started introducing the band and was just turning to Keith Richards when he abruptly left the stage, then a couple of minutes later reappeared to say that he was very sorry, but there was a"technical problem" not of their making & they had to stop the show. He stressed that this was not planned and they'd be back in about 10 minutes. Next thing we knew, the stadium lights were all on, the Jumbotron was off, and the stage (including the few hundred seats in the 5-story structure) & first 20 rows of the field seats were cleared out. Hmm, that's weird, I thought. Weirder still was when I saw the policemen and dogs. I and some other bystanders figured (correctly, as we learned from the news next day) that someone had phoned in a bomb threat. Ugh. I uneasily recalled that a friend had joked that if a bomb went off in Scott Stadium that night, half the teenagers in Charlottesville would be orphaned. Suddenly it didn't seem so funny, especially with my own teenager right there.

The "10 minutes" stretched to an hour, towards the end of which the audience passed the time by doing multiple stadium waves. All those pale arms (I think there were more African Americans on stage--5?--than in the stands) looked like coral fronds in an undersea current. Finally, the Stones came back at 10:30, appropriately with "Miss You," then launched into "Honky Tonk Women," which brought on the rain that had been threatening for the past two days, though fortunately not very heavily. The humidity had been something like 110%--we were sweating just sitting still, and that was up where there was a breeze. Earlier Jagger had observed that it was "a sultry Southern night." I'll say! (We're still desperately awaiting fall weather. Please send some this way!)

To cut a long story short, the Stones rocked out with many of their golden oldies: "Midnight Rambler" (great visuals in sync with the music); "Sympathy for the Devil," which had the audience singing "woo woo" long before Jagger chimed in; "Get Off of My Cloud," "Paint It Black" (Jagger seemed off-key on that one). There were one or two new tunes in there, then a grand finale of "Jumpin' Jack Flash." The encores were "You Can't Always Get What You Want," with the female singer's powerful operatic soprano, and "Satisfaction." By then it was after midnight and despite the late hour, there was another spectacular jet of flames followed by a bunch of loud, bright white fireworks. I'm sure they were appreciated by every dog, cat and baby in the neighborhood.

We didn't get home till 1:20 a.m. (we'd originally estimated we'd be back by 11:30. Ha!) and not 10 minutes later the rain came down in torrents, which didn't let up till this afternoon. I imagined Jagger looking in his hotel-room mirror, saying "Après moi le déluge."

In conclusion: You can make all the jokes you want about "geezer rock," but the Stones still have It. And Charlie Watts makes every other drummer look as though he's working too hard. Also, our drought is officially over.

TJ* Would Not Be Amused...Or Would He?

The Rolling Stones are playing in UVa's Scott Stadium tonight and they're the biggest thing from Britain to hit Charlottesville since...well, probably since the Redcoats stormed the town in 17-whatever. (I guess all those lectures at Monticello didn't stick.)

There is no other news here in Charlottesville, VA. Seriously. Except that Darling Child's activity bus from school is late and his Doting Parents are anxiously waiting to start up the flivver and join the throngs looking to park near the stadium (i.e., within a mile).

Full concert report tomorrow.


*That's Mr. Jefferson to you.

How Much Is Your Career Worth?

I met an author at BookExpo who was all upset because her publisher had been sitting on her manuscript for more than a year and wouldn't give her a pub date or tell her what was going on. Should she bail, self-publish, or what? I told her that I'm a consultant and gave her my card. She called a few days later, wanting my advice. I told her that I charge $75 an hour. "Seventy-five dollars! Ohhh, I don't know..." Then I told her that I offer a free 15-minute initial consultation. That was fine by her. When would she like to schedule an appointment? The next morning, "but it has to be early because I'm going into New York to have lunch and see The Producers."

Which got me thinking...

How much is your career worth?

You spend $1000+ on a computer & printer; hundreds more on a sturdy desk & ergonomic chair, stationery (gotta have nice paper to send out agent queries!), business cards, postage, toner, internet service, computer programs, etc. All those are considered as the cost of doing business in the 21st century.

But what about the other stuff?

1) Do you belong to the Authors Guild?
If you earn less than $20K a year from your writing, dues are only $90 a year. That's $7.50 a month -- the price of a breakfast special (if you don't leave a big tip). And it's tax-deductible as a professional expense. For that you get free legal advice on contracts, a free web page and the AG's excellent quarterly bulletin, which always has useful information (an article on FOIA requests and the write-up of the January symposium on publicity were alone worth this year's dues), plus other perks.

2) Do you belong to other writers' organizations?
Examples: Mystery Writers of America, International Thriller Writers, Society of Children's Book Writers & Illustrators, Romance Writers of America, National Book Critics Circle, American Society of Journalists & Authors, press clubs, etc. They are invaluable for making connections (and friends even!), learning the tools of the trade and publicizing your work. Also tax-deductible.

3) Do you subscribe to Publishers Marketplace?
It's only $20 a month (one latte & a cookie per week), for which you get a daily email news digest & weekly book deal digest, plus access to the stupendous database of book deals, agents, book reviews, job board, rights postings, etc. Again, tax-deductible.

3) Do you pay for professional advice and assistance?
Confused about how to deal with your publisher, agent, editor, or publicist? There's only so much help you're going to get from friends and family. ("I hate it when writers talk to their friends," an agent recently confided to me. "They have no idea how the book business works.") Pay for knowledgeable advice, even if it isn't from me (though of course I'd prefer it were). What's the price of an hour or two with a consultant when your publishing career is at stake?

You want an opinion on your just-completed Great American Novel before you send it out to agents? Leave your friends, family & fellow writers alone, and find a freelance editor or manuscript doctor. An author I recently consulted with, whose first book is coming out in January, told me that she paid $300 for a line edit of the first chapter. She said, "My friends were horrified that I spent the money, but it's the best thing I could have done." The editor got her going in the right direction and the author was able to clean up the subsequent chapters without any further help. BTW, that book is the first of a 3-part series, with the others following in Feb & March, and the author has a deal for another 3-part series.

If you are too busy and/or inexperienced to do your own publicity, pay for someone to do it right. And pay that someone enough to do it right. I was mortified to learn that an author friend I'd referred to an independent publicist asked her whether she'd give him a "divorce discount" (and not only because I didn't know that he was being divorced). I'm sure he didn't ask for a divorce discount at the supermarket or the gas pump, or from his plumber. I'm also sure he wouldn't have expected less work for the lesser rate, either. An author who took my workshop hired an out-of-work cousin as a publicist, who put up an abysmal website larded with fake blurbs, including one from me that credited me as a reviewer for the New York Times (as if! I mean, I tried, but the little guy in the plaid shirt & big specs was So Not Interested). On the other hand, another debut novelist who took my workshop used her advance to hire a top-gun publicist, who squired her to an awards dinner and introduced her to the NY press, plus pitched the book like crazy to media and reviewers. Consequently it got a lot more media attention than other "midlist" novels and made it as an Amazon pick and a Readerville featured title.

When Worlds Collide 3

After nine years of marriage, yesterday I decided that it was probably safe to finish consolidating my 1 shelf-foot of vinyl records into Darling Husband's 14 (plus one hundred or so 45s). They're organized alphabetically by artist, which resulted in Miles Davis ("Bitches' Brew") nestling against Doris Day ("Greatest Hits"), something that I'm sure (I hope!) never happened in real life. I called out to Darling Child to expect an explosion in the record shelves, and why. His response: "Who's Doris Day?" Whereupon I played snippets of "When I Fall in Love" (which he naively thought would be the Beatles' "If I Fell") and "Whatever Will Be, Will Be." Whereupon Darling Child started gagging, and threatened to fall on the floor in a fit. So I've done my duty: Another generation has been scarred by "Que sera, sera!"

I started wondering how I could have married someone who even posseses a Doris Day album, but consoled myself that maybe it was a joke, or had belonged to his parents. The important thing, I kept telling myself, is that he also has two Fugs albums--which he even plays from time to time. To my surprise and relief, when I recounted the above incident to Darling Husband, he said, "I have a Doris Day album?"

Looks like we're good for another nine years.

Noshing Around London I

The incomparable Poon's, London

When I was planning my Yiddisher Britisher Tour back in June, I left a phone message for long-lost cousin Larry in London, asking whether we could meet. I knew that he and I were going to hit it off when he emailed a response that began as follows:

Picked up your message as just about to go in to see Yoko Ono on the South Bank therefore more alive to the unexpected than usual - though believe me an hour was plenty (it must have been very wearing for John)...

He then further secured a place in my heart by suggesting that we meet for Chinese food. However, not knowing Larry's tastes or London restaurants, I was a bit apprehensive about his choice: Poon's, off Leicester Square. When I mentioned this to his sister-in-law Lorraine, she told me that Poon's is one of his favorites, and assured me that if Larry recommended a restaurant, it was guaranteed to be: 1) inexpensive and 2) really good. I asked her whether Larry was, you know, frum. "Oh no!" Lorraine responded. "He's like the French--he'll eat anything that moves." I took this as high praise, though her tone of voice didn't entirely support my interpretation.

Poon's wasn't quite as easy to find as Larry had led me to believe. Leicester Square was far larger than I imagined, as well as choked with hordes of clueless tourists, making it quite a challenge to find someplace "just off" the Square, as Larry airily described it. The address I had was on Lisle Street, which wasn't on the map I had. Eventually I found my way into Chinatown--"just off" the Square--and struck gold when I asked a Chinese shop proprietor for directions.

And so, not two hours back from my sojourn in Kent, I was hunkered over a bowl of hot and sour soup at Poon's. It was thinner and much more chili'd than its American cousin, though unfortunately had just as much MSG. I wasn't impressed. However, the entrees (seafood something and duck something) were out of this world. And the fried rice was like nothing I'd ever had: ungreasy and light in color as well as texture, with little bits of crunchy green onions. I'm making myself hungry just thinking about it. Oh, right...I haven't had lunch yet. Wish I could have it at Poon's; will have to settle for what's kicking around the fridge.