By John Gilstrap

I returned to my home last Saturday after spending the better part of a week at the Midwest Writers Workshop in Muncie, Indiana, where I was part of the faculty. MWW is one of my favorite “working” conferences–that is, a conference dedicated specifically to writing technique, as opposed to other confabs that are weighted heavily toward social interaction. When you sign on to teach at MWW, you’re signing on to work. This was my fourth or fifth tour with the conference, and I’m anxious to go back when invited.

As part of my duties, I agreed to review ten, 5-page writing samples and discuss them with their authors, which I hammered out back-to-back in half-hour increments. I mentioned here last week that I’d noticed an overall decline in quality from my previous experience with MWW. None of the samples I reviewed were truly awful or beyond redemption, but none of them jumped out as sparkling with potential.

The experience did, however, provide me with the topic for this week’s TKZ missive: How to make the most (or trigger the worst) out of manuscript reviews. Presented in no particular order . . .

My opinion of your writing is merely my opinion. It’s the opinion you paid to hear, and the one that I am obliged to give. You are free to dismiss any bit of guidance that I provide. The opinions from your friends, family and beta readers, while in opposition to my own may very well be definitive. Go with them–with my blessing–but know that the fact that your Aunt Betty was an English teacher and says your characters are vivid and exciting will not cause me to change my assessment that they are neither.

If you listen to anything I say, listen to everything I say. The positive things I note about your work are every bit as honest as the negative things. I understand that we don’t know each other very well, but those who do know me will assure you that I am not a blower of unearned sunshine. Give yourself a break.

“The first five pages” actually means the first five pages. Of the ten manuscripts I reviewed, three of them were hunks of story excised from the middle of the novel, in each case chosen because the author thought those pages represented their “best writing.” Yeah, let that settle. None of the good writing happens before page 48 (and presented to me either as unnumbered pages or as “page one” of the sample). Let’s save that rant for later. Assessing a manuscript is more than just copy editing. In fact, copy editing is the last thing this kind of assessment is. If I’m going to evaluate your story, the elements of plot, setting and character all have to make sense. I’ve thought about this a lot, and I cannot think of a simpler, more understandable way to issue the instruction to “submit the first five pages of your work.”

Quit worrying about someone trying to steal your idea. If you want my help, you’re going to have to share critical elements of your story. In many years of doing this, I’ve never once heard a premise that was truly unique. I’ve seen a thousand different squints on romances and mysteries and murder weapons, but never a plot point that was unicorn-unique. When you demand that I sign a non-disclosure agreement before you allow me to dedicate my time to your writing, you double-dog guarantee that I won’t look at a word, and won’t lift a finger. Well, maybe I’ll lift one finger.

Okay, Killzone family, what’s your experience with giving or receiving critiques. Did you enjoy the experience? Hate it? Have any more tips to add?

By John Gilstrap

I have a problem with authority–a quirk of my personality that stretches back to my earliest memories of face-slaps and groundings. I can’t think of a single occasion when I was punished with out reason, or punished unreasonably, but I can remember dozens of times when I was given an order by my parents and I dug in my heels, knowing full well what I was getting myself into.

As I got older, my petulance moderated, but it has never gone away. I thrived in work environments where I was given goals to achieve, but foundered in jobs where I was told specifically how to achieve those goals. I don’t get along with micromanagers, and I push back with proportional force against anyone who tells me to do something that I think is wrong.

Enter the era of the pandemic. We don’t do politics here at TKZ, so I won’t delve into the specifics, but when people in power told me to do things that I thought were unreasonable, I became an angry man. I stayed an angry man for the better part of three years, and I’m not sure that I am yet 100% over it.

But I’m getting better. Events last weekend and in the coming week are bringing me much, much closer to normality. I’m teaching seminars again.

Last Saturday, at Shepherdstown Public Library, I taught a truncated version of my course called Adrenaline Rush: How to Write Suspense Fiction. The room was full of adult students, all of whom were free to breathe freely. It was a lively group, and the course went well. Next week, I will be on the faculty of the Midwest Writers Workshop at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana, where I will teach that same course, plus one other on research techniques. I will also have one-on-one meetings with about a dozen writers to critique the first five pages of their manuscripts.

There will be group dinners and cocktail receptions. You know, like the old days.

While MMW is not an event reserved for college students, if past is precedent, young adults will make up a large percentage of the attendees. This will be my first encounter with that age group since the lifting of the moratorium on fun, so it will be interesting to see how the years of isolation have affected them. If the quality of manuscripts to be evaluated is any indication, the alone time has been harmful. I’ve done this conference a number of times in the past, and this year’s crop is in general of a lesser standard.

It takes a while for a train as big as the whole world to get moving smoothly again, but at least it’s once again being allowed to try. It’s good to be back in the saddle again.

By John Gilstrap

As I write this, I’m sitting at a scarred desk in my room on the third floor of the Holland Hotel in Alpine, TX. A century old, more or less, the Holland started life as a cattlemen’s hotel. Night before last, we rested our heads in the Hotel Paisano in Marfa, TX. The combined populations of the two towns is fewer than 8,000 people. Traffic doesn’t really exist (except at the moment when you want to cross the street, at which point a convoy of vehicles will roll through). At the local watering holes, my request for my standard drink–a Beefeater martini–is met with cocked-head puppy dog stares. It was 107 degrees yesterday. But it was a dry heat.

And I’m loving every minute of it.

My lovely bride and I are traveling with our good friends Reavis Wortham and his own lovely bride to enjoy a part of the U.S. that we’ve never seen and that they know so well.

People are different here than they are in bigger cities. In restaurants, strangers start up conversations with the patrons at another table. When people ask, “Where you from?” they seem to actually care. There’s no way a New Yorker (or even a West Virginian) could write about these places without having been here. They wouldn’t know about the 20-degree drop in temperature when the sun goes down, or the marvelous desert breezes that blow up out of nowhere. Or the flies. Good God, the flies. They seem to be mustering here in anticipation of the next cattle drive through town. Yesterday, Reavis treated us all to our own swatters. All I need is a cross-draw holster and I can feel like Doc Holliday as I walk the streets, ready to defend myself and my family from the winged bastards.

It’s impossible to be in surroundings like these and not be flooded with story ideas–or if not stories, the locale for a scene. Every person any of us meets on any given day carries physical and mental burdens, some of which they talk about, but most of which they don’t. How are those burdens different when living in a tiny town than in a megalopolis? I imagine it’s equal parts blessing and curse to have all of your neighbors know all of your business.

Imagine how much harder it would be to get away with a crime. Or would your neighbors rally to protect you and hand you an alibi?

Hey. I believe I just got another idea for a story.

By John Gilstrap

After twenty years of using the same business card design, I decided a couple of weeks ago that it was time for a change. There wasn’t anything wrong with the old card, exactly, but it looked old and un-cool. The front featured a stock picture of a fountain pen and showed my name with the title of “author.” Then it was junked up with the URLs for my website, Facebook page, YouTube channel, and my Twitter handle (JohnGilstrap201). The back of the card listed the names of my most recent books. It’s what I would call a busy image.

What’s the point of having a card in the first place?

I’ve done a lot of soul searching on the question of whether a business card is even necessary in this day of emails and file transfers. Clearly, my answer is yes, and for one very good reason: I leave my business card everywhere. In restaurants, I leave my card in the payment folio. When I drop off my dry cleaning, I leave a card. When people work on the house, I give the craftsman a card.

More importantly, whenever I meet someone, I ask for their business card, for which I exchange my own. Often as not, the exchange will trigger a question that goes something like, “You’re an author? What kind of books do you write?” Then, after the 10-second elevator this-is-me speech, the conversation generally ends with, “I’ll have to look up your books.” I’m confident that only a small percentage ever do actually look me up, but at least it’s a start.

Those among us who say that marketing is the part they hate most about the book biz do a real disservice to themselves by not taking advantage of such a simple ice breaker.

Who am I today?

Back when I had a Big Boy Job with a trade association, my position was a prominent one through which I met hundreds of people every year. My corporate business card listed my title as “director of safety” and offered up my various phone numbers. I tried to keep the two parts of my professional world separate. I would never, for example, present my author card to a member of the association when I was on association business.

But worlds are small. Word inevitably leaked that I was also an author, and when asked (and never before), I would present my author card and encourage the requester to go to my website for more information.

After hours, however, I was an author. Period.

What makes for a good business card?

I can answer this one from only my point of view, which comes from a place of serious thought and introspection. In no particular order:

1. The business card needs to be attractive. I’m not talking extensive design costs here, but rather a sense of proportion and symmetry.
2. It needs to be read and understood in the course of a one-second glance. If you want to trigger that elevator speech, people need to see everything they need to know right away.
3. Contact information. I jealously guard my phone number, so I know I don’t want that on the card, but I certainly want my email address and website information to be easily found.
4. Traditional shape. When I accept someone else’s business card, I slip it into a special place in my wallet that is reserved specifically for that purpose. If the card is too large or too small, it won’t fit. I like to think that I’m not the only one who’s a touch on the OCD spectrum (or CDO–alphabetical as it should be).

This is what I came up with:

I wanted to keep thing relatively simple–minimalist, really–so I went to Vistaprint.com and scrolled through their business card templates till I found one that I thought came close to the design I wanted. I thought the glossy black kinda popped. Everything I wanted the recipient to know was right there on the front.

I confess that I struggled with the job title. “bestselling thriller author” sounds clunky to me, but my old title of “author” felt too generic. This is a marketing piece, after all, so I oughta be marketing, right?

But what about all the other cool stuff? The social media platforms and my website? I solved that with QR codes on the reverse side of the card. Rather than listing all of the books I’ve written, why not let them use their cameras to zap themselves right to my website, where they’ll find everything from the various titles to how to hire me as a speaker. I don’t understand how any of the technology works, but I figure I might as well take of advantage of it.

It’s your turn, TKZ family. What do you think about business cards in this age of electronic media? Did I miss anything in what considerations go into the design of an effective business card?

One last thing . . .

Remember, I told y’all that I’ve got a spot open for you and your book if you want to want to appear on morning radio in the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia. Our own Debbie Burke too me up on the offer and I think she had a good time. Last week, my buddy Jeffery Deaver stopped by for at thirty-minute chat about his books and his upcoming television series. Let me know if you’re interested!

By John Gilstrap

From 2019 to 2022, I wrote two books per year–one Jonathan Grave thriller and one Victoria Emerson thriller. That’s six books in three years. Or, 200,000 words per year. During Covid. While building a house. And selling a house. And moving twice. It was exhausting.

Worse, it wasn’t fun. Don’t get me wrong–I’m proud of the stories and the characters and all the moving parts of the books, but as I age, sitting and writing for long periods of time has become uncomfortable. Thanks to a reckless youth and too many years of catching heavy burning stuff with my fire helmet have left my neck and back pretty creaky. When I stay active–say through gardening and yard work and playing with the dog–everything works fine. But after five or six hours at the keyboard, I feel like it takes an hour just to stand upright again.

And there was a mental strain to that writing schedule, as well. Taking all the unique life-stuff out of the equation, a two-a-year contract means that I was always writing one story while editing or proof reading another. It’s just more work than I wanted to do.

But I still want to explore new ideas.

If all goes as expected, I will soon sign a contract with Kensington Publishing that will advance my Jonathan Grave series to 18 volumes. I never dreamed that the momentum of those books would continue to build as it has, and while I’m very much in love with the characters and their mission to bring justice to bad guys, it’s fun to explore different characters and different plots.

Another new series.

I had just finished the page proof edits for White Smoke, the third book of the Victoria Emerson series, when my agent called to tell me that she and my editor had been talking about me over lunch. They think I should do another new series, this one a spin-off from Jonathan that would take a regular character from the series and spin her off in a new direction while at the same time knocking Jonathan’s world a few degrees off its axis.

The idea had occurred to me before, and I find the idea exciting, but see above. I don’t want to do two books a year anymore. I want to have a life outside of my office. It’s the nature of a popular series (and one that I hope will also become popular) that people want to see new books on a regular basis. I hear all the time from people who count on the new Grave book to entertain them at the beach every year.

So, we reached a compromise: One book every 9 months, each new volume in each series dropping every 18 months. That feels doable to me. I guess we’ll find out.

I’m being deliberately obtuse about the new series because no contracts have been signed. I’ll come clean when that happens, I promise.

So, TKZ family, do you find the act of writing to be physically tiring? Inquiring minds want to know . . .

By John Gilstrap

Google is nice and convenient and all, but I miss the multi-volume encyclopedias of my youth. I used to take a volume down and read it like a book–okay, it was a book, but work with me here. So many fascinating facts to learn, people to meet and places to visit, all from the comfort of the living room.

But that was different than what’s required to research a book. When you’re telling a story that is outside the real world of what you already know, you’ve got to find the way to inject the verisimilitude necessary to make the story resonate for the reader.

HEADS UP: At the end of this post, I’m going to ask the members of my TKZ family to help out. I know we have folks here who write about topics that are completely alien to me. In the comments, please share the sources and websites that help you with the details of the worlds you create.

Consider faking it–making stuff up.

Research and writing are two different tasks, though for research junkies they can feel very much the same. In reality, especially if you’re on a deadline, unnecessary research is an advanced form of procrastination. As you approach the opening to the rabbit hole, ask yourself this question: Does this part need to be real?

Many of my books are set in and around the areas where I grew up, in the suburbs of Washington, DC–Fairfax County, Virginia, to be exact. Given the nature of the stories, though, where local politicians are corrupt and incompetent, I decided to create Braddock County, Virginia, which, if you know the area and pay close attention, you’ll recognize to be parts of not only Fairfax County, but also of Prince William and Fauquier Counties.

Think of the burden I’ve lifted from my shoulders. If I wrote about the Fairfax County Police (as opposed to the Braddock County Police), I’d need to know their command structure, the weaponry they use, their shift schedules and the details of their uniforms. The Braddock County cops wear whatever I tell them to put on.

Remember, that you’re writing fiction. By definition, it’s okay to make stuff up if it doesn’t ruin the story.

Wikipedia and YouTube

Your novel is not a doctoral dissertation. The sources you use to write your fiction don’t need to stand up to academic scrutiny. Keep it as simple as possible. For the subject matter I write about–weaponry, military tactics, machinery operation, etc.–Wikipedia and YouTube do for me everything that needs to be done. Almost.

Develop your stable of experts

Nearly everyone is an expert at something. As a Type A extrovert, when I meet someone, I chat them up and get to know what they do. If their life’s work is in an area relevant to what I write, we exchange business cards. When I’m back to my desk, I send them a brief email telling them how much I enjoyed our conversation and promising/warning that I will be giving them a call if I ever need assistance in research. No one has ever said no. Not ever.

My virtual Rolodex is filled with the names and contact information for people I’ll probably never speak to again, but they’re there if I need them.

It’s hard to replace real exposure

“Hey, Loo, just got a call from EOC. They’re detailing the wagon and crew to Twenty-Seven.”

Translation: “Excuse me, Lieutenant. Just got a call from the Emergency Operations Center and their sending the pumper and its crew to Fire Station Twenty-Seven.”

Every group, like every geographic region, develops a patois that is unique to them. The only way I know of to actually learn those speech patterns and traditions is to immerse yourself in that world. How do you do that?

You make a phone call and ask. Whether it’s the police station, the local hospital or an Air Force base, there’s someone on staff whose job it is to give you a tour and answer your questions. While you’re there, you trade business cards with as many subject matter experts as you can find.

Write around what you don’t know

Jonathan Grave has access to vast amounts of intelligence data that is collected by his right-hand-gal, Venice Alexander. Venice is a master computer hacker, with cyber skills that rival any expert in the world. Like Jonathan, I don’t understand how she does what she does, but she’s able to take an order from her boss and return vast amounts of information. And she does it all off the page, presumably between the chapter breaks.

I’m not a technology guy. As such, I know that the deeper I research the topic and present my research on the page, the greater chance that I’m going to get a very important something wrong. So, I write around the holes in my knowledge.

Okay, your turn

It’s a big world out there, and we’re all chasing different research rabbits down different holes. Please share your tricks and sources and websites for the topics near and dear to you. Consider them to be virtual business cards to help other writers find the information they’re looking for.

By John Gilstrap

Two days ago, on May 1, our own Sue Coletta posted an outstanding article here about newsletters, with the promise of more to come. As I read her piece, I found myself dealing with a low grade sense of anxiety–not because I disagreed with her, but rather because I think everything she said was exactly right.

I’ve stated here before that social media in general is my Achilles’ heel. I deeply don’t understand Twitter, which seems bloated and toxic, and I don’t photograph nearly enough of my life to drive my Instagram account. My social media safe space is my Facebook author page, where I’ll post a few times a week with interesting tidbits and photos–leaning heavily into dog pix because Kimber is the cutest creature on the planet. I don’t post book news unless it is timely and new, so that leaves me with the daily chores, pleasures and ironies of life.

I never post anything negative about health or family because I’m aware that I live a very blessed life and people don’t need to add my burdens to their own. I’m in the entertainment business, after all, so I figure it’s best to be, well, entertaining.

My YouTube channel, to which I have not posted in a while, is dedicated to helping writers learn their craft, but I would guess that most of my fans have little interest in becoming writers themselves.

Which brings me to my newsletter, which has over two or three times the number subscribers as my Facebook page has followers. Here’s where I start thinking too much. To me, newsletter articles need to reach a higher bar than social media posts. I’m invading a busy person’s inbox, which is a lot more intrusive than having a post sit passively on Facebook for people to see or ignore as they amble by. I use my newsletter for significant announcements about book launches, signings, appearances, that sort of thing, but they tend to all concentrate around the date. At Christmas, I’ll send out a virtual card with a link to the family Christmas letter, if people want to read it.

I know I should do more, if only because everyone tells me that, but what am I supposed to talk about, beyond the topics mentioned above? Fern Michaels’s website is a wonderful mix of newsy newsletter, recipes, a touch of technology and flowers. I think it’s great, informative, and very Fern Michaels-y. Her books aren’t about blowing stuff up, killing bad guys and saving the world.

I could always write about what interests me, such as guns, politics, gardening and cooking, but those pose challenges. Certainly, politics are a non-starter, and guns fall close enough to that high-voltage wire that I don’t want to submit myself to long screeds and diatribes. As for gardening (at which I suck but am learning) and cooking (at which I’m pretty good, if I do say so myself), neither one of those topics does much to advance my brand.

My lovely bride and I took a trip to Alaska back in February, about which I posted extensively on Facebook, but again, is that worth invading someone’s inbox with a newsletter? Isn’t it self-aggrandizing to show people who may be slogging through their day that I have the time and the wherewithal to go mushing and snowmobiling?

It is in my nature to overthink just about everything, and perhaps that’s what’s happening here. Rest assured, though, that if I had a better idea of what to post (outside the confines of book stuff), I’d be much more active with my newsletter.

By John Gilstrap

It’s rare that the Chapter One I start with when writing a new book lives on as Chapter One in the final version. Usually, it’s a structural thing. I’ll realize after I’m a couple of dozen (or a couple of hundred) pages that I set the story up the wrong way. Sometimes, this leads me to move existing chapters around, and sometimes it leads me to write whole new sections. It’s all part of the process.

The lure of the prologue.

We all know that in the suspense genres, readers expect something big, plot-wise, in the opening pages of a book, yet as authors we have twenty pages of setup and backstory in our heads that we want to reveal so that the Big Moment will make more sense when it arrives.

“I know!” the writer says to himself. “I’ll start with a really exciting moment from Act 2 that will pique the readers’ interest, and I’ll call it a prologue. After that, they’ll endure those twenty boring pages because they know something exciting is coming.”

Sounds silly, doesn’t it? It’s the same silliness that explains why prologues are largely reviled and spell real danger coming from a rookie writer.

Action wins the day every time.

Here’s the opening (for now) of my current Jonathan Grave WIP (with apologies up front for the formatting glitch that I don’t know how to fix:

            JoeDog growled.

Jonathan Grave snapped awake and snatched his cocked and locked Colt 1911 .45 from the edge of his nightstand. As his right thumb touched the safety, his left thumb depressed the button for the muzzle light, launching an 800-lumen disk that revealed the entirety of his bedroom. If there’d been an intruder, the bad guy would be dead now.

But the room was empty, save for Jonathan and the ever-flatulent 65-pound Labrador retriever that shared his bed tonight.

I write every series book with the assumption that it is the first time a reader has encountered Jonathan’s world. At this stage, the action of the scene is everything. Readers don’t need any of the backstory. They know that there’s a guy who’s cautious enough to sleep with a loaded pistol on the nightstand, likable enough to share his bed with a big dog, and that the dog senses danger. If the first paragraphs drive readers to read the succeeding paragraphs, they have done their job.

Lessons from Harry Potter.

An exercise I love to lead when I do seminars is to ask students to tell me when Harry Potter’s story begins. (Spoilers ahead for the 5 people on the planet who’ve neither read the books nor watched the movies.) Hands shoot up and invariably, someone says the story begins when Baby Harry is delivered by Hagrid to the doorstep of the Dursley home.

Nope.

Okay, then it begins when Dumbledore sucks the light out the street lamps with his magical Zippo.

Nope.

Those events do, indeed, mark the beginning of the book and movie, but not the beginning of the story. The story begins 10 years before Harry was born, when James and Lilly Potter–Harry’s parents–were mean to a teenage Severus Snape. The backstory that emerges from those bygone years ultimately have a massive impact on the overall plot, but Rowling had the good sense not to start with that backstory.

In Medias Res

A quick peek into Encyclopedia Britannica, in medias res translates from Latin as “in the midst of things.” It’s a phrase used by every writing instructor as the place to begin a story for maximum impact on the reader. It’s worth considering. If you hook the reader at the beginning, and you keep the journey interesting, readers will follow to wherever you want to take them.

What say you, TKZ family? Does the proper beginning elude you at times? How do you find it?

By John Gilstrap

During a book signing event a couple of weeks ago, a gentleman named Don handed me his card and introduced himself as an official with the West Virginia Writers Association, representing the Eastern Panhandle–the slice of heaven where I now live. I have since joined that group, and plan to attend their annual meeting in June.

As a recent emigree to the Mountain State, I’m working hard to establish as many connections as I can as quickly as I can. Don told me that there’s a writing group in Charles Town (nearby city) that meets regularly and he suggested that I give it a try. I reached out to the nice lady who runs the group, and I was invited into the fold.

Not sure what to expect or what I was getting into, I went to the designated spot at the designated time and we were off and running. It’s a small group, and it’s dedicated to workshopping WIPs. (WsIP?) Among the members, the levels of enthusiasm are high but the command of the craft varies widely. About ten minutes in, I realized that I’d entered a potential minefield.

It’s not my group.

The lady who runs the meetings–we’ll call her Dorothy–has worked hard to wrangle participants from disparate backgrounds and abilities into what seems to be a cohesive group–of which I want merely to be a part. The last thing I want to do is steal anyone’s thunder. That said, I have the answers to many of the questions bandied about the members, especially with regard to the book business–stuff like copyright law. As the new guy to any group, my inclination is to sit quietly and get a feel for the room, but when people are guessing at answers, I feel an obligation to set things straight. I realize now that that’s a lot like stealing thunder.

Critique group etiquette is alien to me.

For a quarter of a century now, I have taught writing sessions and seminars in which I am the presumed authority. When those seminars have included workshop sessions, I save my input until everyone else has had their say, and then I express my agreement or disagreement with those opinions and then offer my own. I’m something of a blunt object when it comes to offering critique–never cruel but always direct. I point out what I like and dislike, and I give my reasons why.

The new group brings a different structure. First point out the good, and then lay out the critique smoothly and with light brush strokes. Listen as the writer explains what they meant to say, often couched in the tone of, “It’s all there, how could you not see it?” Apologize if the honest assessment has offended.

The phrase, “In my opinion”, must be stated aloud before a critique can be given.

“It’s only a first draft.”

When the criticism comes, an oft sought safe harbor lies in the act of pointing out that the sample people have dedicated time and effort to read and critique is only a first draft–the implication being that the writer could have done better if they’d cared to make the effort. I want to point out (but haven’t yet) that no, your submission is not a first draft. It is the final draft of the version that you chose to submit for input.

“I don’t care about ever getting published.”

Those were the words of one of the members of the group. She went on to explain that she expresses herself exactly as she likes, and is not all that concerned if it makes sense to others or if they like it. It hurts her feelings when she hears negative feedback, but has no intention of internalizing that feedback or making any changes. Being a writer is who she is, she says. It’s her entire purpose in life. I’m not getting in the middle of that one.

Soon it will be my turn.

If I have seemed a bit snarky in the above paragraphs, please find none in this one. I really do want to sink roots into the local writing community, and while I feel a bit like a fish on the shore with this new group, I enjoy the interaction. I will do my best to live by the rules. And among the rules: you’ve got to pay to play. If I’m going to critique others, then I must submit to critique myself. That’s one hundred percent fair. And it will feel really, really weird.

I will submit my best work on my work-in-progress, and I will receive blunt input from real readers–a live audience to what is usually a recorded performance. I will sit quietly and I will absorb what they have to say. I will learn some things, and maybe they will, too. Or maybe not.

What do you all think about critique groups? What works? What doesn’t? Is it helpful or harmful in a group to have a wide range of writing experience?

By John Gilstrap

With the publication of White Smoke last month, the third book in my Victoria Emerson post-apocalyptic thriller series–the past couple of weekends have been consumed with signing events. On March 11, I was lucky to be a part of the Suffolk Mystery Authors Festival in Suffolk, Virginia. Hank Phillippi Ryan was the guest of honor, and I was one of 50 other authors representing every corner of the mysteryverse. Then, on March 18, I hosted a public signing at Four Seasons Books in Shepherdstown, WV. I am pleased and proud to report that I sold out of books at both events.

Having been in this business for a long time, I have some observations to share about the art and science of book signings. What follows are my own experience. Anyone who disagrees or sees things through a different lens are heartily invited to chip in.

The purpose of a live book signing has less to do with the author making money on the day of the event than it does about making the bookseller pleased and proud to have been involved in the event. Think about it from their point of view. Irrespective of how much of the promotional burden you choose to carry on your own (and that should be a lot–more later), the bookseller has to order the books in, promote it within the store and do whatever they can to build buzz. You don’t want them to feel as though they’ve wasted their time.

My book signings look a lot like cocktail parties. In the case of the signing at Four Seasons Books, since I’m new to the community, I bought a gorgeous charcuterie platter from Graze Ful, a local caterer, and we brought in red and white wines from Grapes and Grains Gourmet, a wine merchant located a block away from the bookstore. My wife is instrumental in making tables look lovely. To that end, we bring our own tables, tablecloths, napkins, glasses, trash bags and cleaning solutions. When the party is over, we want the bookseller to be left only with profits–not with a big cleaning chore.

I always bring extra books–especially for the first event with a new bookseller. It’s always hard to estimate how many books is the right number for a signing, and for reasons that make all the sense in the world, booksellers often underestimate. If they run out of their stock, they can dig into my author’s copies, which they sell at list price and then just backfill my copies with the next order from their distributor. This saves a lot of embarrassment.

Show loyalty to your bookseller. I have it on good authority that when John Grisham was just starting, trying to sell A Time to Kill out of the trunk of his car, only a handful of booksellers would allow him to do live promotional events in their stores. Among them, I am told, were That Bookstore in Blytheville (Blytheville, AR), Burke’s Books (Memphis), Square Books (Oxford, MS) and Quail Ridge Books (Raleigh). There might have been a couple of others. But here’s the cool part: after his career went stratospheric, those were the only stores where he would hold signing events. In the lead-up to his live event, he would sign (maybe he still does, I’ve never met him) thousands of pre-orders from each of those stores. Think of the windfall for the booksellers!

Now, I’m a mere bottom-feeder compared to that other JG, but I love the fact of his loyalty. So, now that I have settled into my forever home, I now have a forever bookstore. Anyone who buys my books through Four Seasons Books can get a signed copy mailed to them. I’ll even do personal inscriptions.

Promote, promote, promote. I’ve got something like 4,500 subscribers to my newsletter, and another 2,500 Facebook followers (presumably with quite a bit of overlap there). About two months ago, I sent out a save-the-date announcement. Two weeks before the event, I sent out invitations for the world to attend, and then a few days before the signing, I sent out yet another invitation, this time with parking instructions because street parking in Shepherdstown can be a bit dicey on the weekends. From all of that, I figure we had about 50 people come to the signing over the course of two hours. In addition to that, I signed a healthy handful of pre-orders.

You don’t need swag. As one of 50 authors at the Suffolk Mystery Authors Festival, my job for the day (1-5pm) was pretty much to sit at a signing table and wait for attendees who paid $30 apiece to attend to choose which books they wanted to buy. As I mentioned above, I was fortunate enough to sell out, but the sales per unit of butt-numbness was pretty low. I had lots of time to observe my book-hawking colleagues, taking note of what seemed to work and what did not.

Three or four had massive, five-foot-tall banners with their book titles and the authors’ likenesses, which they set up next to themselves–as if their flesh-and-blood presence is somehow reinforced by a printed image. I don’t understand the theory. Frankly, I think it projects a weird desperation.

While everyone loves candy, I don’t believe that miniature Snickers bars–or even Twix, the gold standard for candy–have ever sold a book. I watched countless attendees snag candy out of authors’ candy jars without even slowing. Not once did I see an author use the passing instant of candy-grabbing to engage the grabber in conversation about their book.

Engagement is everything. In the mind of your readers, your status as an author makes you a celebrity. Because of your talent and hard work, you are engaged in an activity that others dream of performing, and that makes many people uncomfortable to even say hi. It’s perfectly normal, and extremely humbling. As the focus of a signing event–irrespective of the venue–the responsibility lies with you to engage with attendees. When I’m stuck behind the table signing, my wife works the room to greet people and make them feel comfortable. Would they like something to eat? A glass of wine?

The enormously talented Lisa Scottoline actually stands in front of her signing table and greets every fan personally, often with a hug. I’m not a huggy guy, so that won’t work for me, but it’s very impressive to watch.

So, is handing out candy your thing? Bookmarks, maybe? That’s fine. If you find yourself sitting at a lonely table in a big box store where people are avoiding eye contact so they don’t have to talk to the author they’ve never heard of, consider filling your pockets with the swag from your dish and personally hand it out to customers in the aisles. I do this with bookmarks. “Hi. I’m John, the author at the front table. No pressure. I write thrillers. Here are a few of my titles if you want to look me up. Have a great day.” Every single person went right to their phones to look me up. A few then went on to buy books.

Okay, TKZ family, what am I missing?