By PJ Parrish

My post today is going to sound a bit crabby, and for that I apologize. Okay, here goes: . I am not a big fan of historical fiction. I know there are many many truly great historicals out there, and a few remain among my favorites — Shogan, Beloved, Memoirs of a Geisha, The Underground Railroad, Perfume.

I’ve got my favorites from the historical mystery shelf as well — The Name of the Rose, The Alienist, Child 44, The Eye of the Needle, among others. I’m not a total philistine.

But most historicals I’ve tried leave me cold. And for the life of me, I can’t quite figure out why. I think it is because too many just try too hard to impress with…details.

Research is, as all writers know, very seductive. And sometimes, it shows.

To my mind, the best historical novels, first and foremost, explore the great themes of what we like to call popular fiction―crime, family, passion, betrayal― set against well rendered backdrops. The not-so-best of these, on the other hand, let the historical details overwhelm the story, choking the characters in layers of crinoline, stiff collar stays and stilted dialogue.

I’m crabby about this, I think, because the contest I am judging right now for a writers conference is coughing up a lot of historicals this week. I’m drowning in miladies, malingering lords, and gagging on the “sulphuric aroma” of gunpowder and the “foul hint” of stale tobacco. These manuscripts are far from bad; they are well crafted. But they are also boring because nothing is happening. And it’s not happening in numbing historically accurate detail.

I am also reading two historicals right now, and both are somewhat disappointing. I got Kristin Hannah’s The Nightingale for Christmas because the gifter knew how much I loved the TV series A French Village, a superb soaper set in a Nazi-occupied village. Hannah’s book is mildly diverting so far, but the 1939 France setting comes off a little post-cardy and I feel like I’ve met these characters somewhere before.

The second book I’m reading is Jess Walter’s The Cold Millions. I love anything this man writes, truly. Two poor brothers struggle to survive in 1909 Spokane. Exquisitely detailed in its research and setting with a carnival parade of quirky characters. The writing is dazzling. Yet the book is very put-downable. I’m almost half-through and the story itself just isn’t gelling as a whole. It’s more picaresque than well-plotted.

So all this has me wondering why some historicals captivate while others capsize. I don’t have the answer, folks. I actually have written two historicals — fat family sagas with love and sex, one set in post-earthquake San Francisco, and another set in Belle Epoque Paris. You can find them both on Amazon for about a buck a piece. Heck, let me know and I will give you a copy. I have lots left.

My late friend Jerry Healy once quipped that I still write historicals because my Louis Kincaid mystery series is set in the Eighties. And yes, I had to be careful with my research as to when cell phones and DNA arrived, little stuff like that. But research never got in my way.

Maybe that’s all it comes down to — not letting the grinding machinery of research gunk up your plot or drown out what your characters are saying.

In 2003, Dennis Lehane was red hot. His Kenzie-Gennaro series had established his mystery cred. His blockbuster stand alone Mystic River was coming out as a movie. He had just published Shutter Island.  Where does a guy go from there?

He took a couple years off and in 2008 came out with The Given Day. It was a magnum opus historical set in post-war Boston. It clocked in at 720 pages. The New York Times called it “intensely researched” and I don’t know if that was a compliment. I found The Given Day hard going. It’s ambitious, sprawling and almost promiscuously sensual in its style, as in this sentence:

Lying together in the smell of flowers and the constant threat of a rain that never fell, as the ships left for Europe, as the patriots rallied in the streets, as a new world seemed to sprout between them even quicker than the blooming flowers, Danny knew the relationship was doomed.

I didn’t finish the book. After The Given Day, Lehane decided to go back to his Kenzie-Gennaro series with Mooonlight Mile. He told a British interviewer, about returning to genre fiction: “It’s ten years later, and it scares me. Do I still have that looseness? [The genre books] had an ignorance about them, and I wonder if I can recapture that now that I’ve flirted with self-importance.”

Two years later, Lehane came out Live By Night. It’s a slimmed-down sequel to The Given Day, with the spotlight lazer-trained on one character Joe Coughlin. It has the same beautiful Lehane writing, but the ease is back. Here’s the opening paragraph.

Some years later, on a tugboat in the Gulf of Mexico, Joe Coughlin’s feet were placed in tub of cement. Twelve gunmen stood waiting until they got far enough out to sea to throw him overboard, while Joe listened to the engine chug and watch the water turn white at the stern. And it occurred to him that almost everything of note that had happened in his life — good and bad — had been set in motion the morning he first crossed paths with Emma Gould.

The history is there in this gritty gangster yarn. The research is there, but now it’s background music for Joe Coughlin’s solo. Lehane finally won the Edgar that he should have gotten for Mystic River. I loved this book. Couldn’t put it down. It broke my heart in the end.

Okay, thanks for letting me vent today. I feel less crabby now, and am going to give Jess and Kristin more time to win me over. History doesn’t have to be drag.

Would love to hear some of you weigh in who are more learned in historical fiction than I am. What did you read that worked? What fell short and why?

The title of my most popular talk is “My Road to Publication, and Other Great Disasters.” It’s as long or as short as I need it to be, depending on how much time they allow me to speak, but the framework is the same throughout.

I do a lot of public speaking, and travel across the Lone Star State to discuss books and writing. Listeners hear about my disastrous starter agent, issues with my first novel, and the loss of a movie deal.

The presentation begins when I’m ten years old, touches on adventures and misfortune in elementary school, high school, and jumps to the first time I was published in a newspaper and finally my first novel.

Sounds dull and lifeless here, but, and I hope this doesn’t come across as conceited, it’s fun, entertaining, and informative all the way through.

When I first started this writing thing, no one ever told me I’d have to stand in front of crowds ranging from twenty people to several hundred and entertain them. I thought we were supposed to just write a novel, get it out there on the shelves, maybe do a couple of signings, and lean back to rest until it was time to write another one.

But signings, panels, and book clubs, are required for high visibility. It’s part of the job.

It comes natural to me. Maybe because I taught school for ten years and then became the spokesperson for the (then) tenth largest school district in Texas. Every time I turned around I was on the television, radio, or being interviewed by usually suspicious newspaper reporters.

Talking to folks is a barrel of fun, and almost every time I finish a presentation, at least one person comes up to tell me they enjoyed what I had to say, and that I’m “one of the best speakers they’ve ever had.”

Yeah, it sounds pompous, I don’t mean it like that.

Maybe that comes from that abovementioned 35-year career in public education, where I endured hundreds of dry, boring speakers who left me wanting to stick a log in my eye for relief. Staff once hired guy to speak for three hours in the morning and another three in the afternoon.

By ten o’clock, my boss was cleaning out her purse on the front row. She fired him by eleven that morning and we improvised for the rest of the day.

The worst presenter is the individual who stands in front of a crowd and reads to the assemblage in a long, droning voice. But, here’s that oddity in nature, it worked for one of my college professors who walked into the classroom, opened a three-ring notebook full of pages in plastic sleeves, and read some of the most fascinating American history anecdotes, facts, and information I’ve ever heard. His mix of styles kept us fascinated all the way through, and it was one of the few classes I truly enjoyed.

That may be where I learned public speaking, because it sure wasn’t in another college course where I drew a D in Speech and was glad to get it. I’ve been told I’m a natural storyteller, and it might have come in part from the old men I listened to up at our country store, but also from a high school history teacher (history again, hummmm), who again blended fact and stories.

So when it’s time to step in front of a crowd, I want to entertain first, and then bring the information they’ve requested. Audiences hear personal experiences that relate to them and I usually manage to do that with humorous stories from my childhood that tie into their memories or experiences. That mix of old recollections usually makes them smile, and I have ‘em.

More than once I’ve heard, “Your story reminded me of something that happened when I was a kid. I’d forgotten until you said something. Thanks for reminding me of those/that wonderful time(s).”

Here are a few things I’ve learned through the years, and they might be useful to those of you who are just starting out, or who don’t really like to speak in public in the first place.

• People want to laugh, but don’t try to be funny by telling jokes. Only do that if you’re really, really good at it. Wait, never mind. Don’t tell jokes, period.
• Don’t talk at your audience. Don’t preach. A conversational approach to storytelling and teaching is the best. Again, draw on your own experiences to make it more personal to the audience.
• Make eye contact. Don’t forget to look front, left and right. Find that person who’s engaged and talk to him or her, then find someone who out there with a blank look on their face and speak to them, no matter how uncomfortable you feel. (Lordy, I remember a guy on one Bouchercon panel who leaned back in his chair to expound one some subject, tilted his head back, closed his eyes, and talked for a good five minutes to the ceiling. Gilstrap and I wanted to flee the scene and find a bar, and would have if I hadn’t been on that panel and sitting right beside the guy. Gilstrap got the giggles while I had to maintain at least a little composure.)
• Which brings me to speaking on panels. Years ago I was on another five-person panel seated on chairs above a crowd of about two hundred. Our discussion went well until the moderator asked the gentlemen on my left to talk himself and thrillers. He rose and stepped to the edge of the stage leaving an empty seat between myself and Texas author David Wilkinson, cleared his throat, opened the book he was hawking, and read to excess. I mean it. He read for days. And as usual, the mischievous kid in me awoke after a while and I leaned across the empty seat and introduced myself to David. We shook as if we were sitting at a livestock auction, and talked among ourselves and to the other panelists while the author droned on to what felt like the end of his novel.
• Be energetic. For the love of God, be energetic!
• But don’t talk too fast. I was watching one of my favorite movies the other day, A River Runs Through It, and listened carefully to Robert Redford’s cadence. It was slow, but not plodding, and his inflections kept my attention, making it feel like he was talking to me.
• Don’t dump volumes of information on your audience. They’ll retain little of it unless they’re born note takers. I usually get them to laughing, throw in a bit of important writing info, and then slide into another story or something they can relate to, and then back to technique before another story that usually occurs to me on the spot.
• If you’re inexperienced, start out talking to book clubs. They’ll be forgiving, then polish your “act” in front of local civic organizations and clubs who are always looking for speakers. But remember, small groups are sometimes hard to engage. I’ve found that the larger the group, the more fun we all have.
• I avoid power points. I don’t use technology. It defeats me. Simply visiting with the audience as if we’re sitting in a living room makes it easier and I don’t have to lug around a heavy thumb drive, hoping someone has the equipment to project the image from a laptop.

There are thousands of pages of information out there on public speaking. You can join Toastmasters or some such club or organization that teaches the steps and techniques to stand before a crowd, but it might not be for you.

If not, outline your program, then practice in front of a mirror until it comes smooth and effortless.

Sounds simple, don’t it?

Practice, practice, then practice some more. It’ll pay off in the long run.

For example, last month in front of large group of Dallas writers, I realized I’d spoken to them before. Something different was necessary to avoid picks and torches as they stormed the lectern, so I tried something different. I began my presentation near the end, but realized the whole structure was built on earlier parts that were linear in construction, so the next thing I knew, I found myself doing the entire presentation backwards, and it worked!

They all remembered I’d been there eight years earlier, but more than one attendee said they loved the presentation because it was chock full of writing advice…and I was best speaker they’ve had in years.

But it was the same talk, and I wondered as I left, if I’d just competed with myself.

Who knows, but at least they were entertained, and learned something about writing, and that’s why I was there.

Gads, how pretentious this all sounds, but it’s the only way I know to get this point across. I apologize for my perceived arrogance and hope this helps you in front of a room full of strangers who want to learn and be entertained at the same time.

Achilles was, of course, the greatest of all the warriors of Greek mythology and the magnificent champion of the Greek forces in the Trojan War. Here’s a brief (and, I hope, mostly accurate) retelling of part of his story.

Achilles’ father was Peleus, a mortal human, but his mother was the immortal sea nymph Thetis.

Thetis, being a good mother, wanted to protect her darling offspring, so she held the infant Achilles by one of his heels and dipped him in the river Styx to make him invulnerable. (What mothers won’t do for their children!) That one spot left him defenseless on his heel, but it also lent his name to the strong, fibrous cord that connects the muscles on the back of the calf to the heel bone, an area that’s susceptible to overuse injury. Ask any runner.

Back to the story: Although Achilles’ physical body was well protected, his ego was easily bruised. At the start of The Iliad, the epic poem about the Trojan War, we find Achilles pouting in his tent because the leader of the Greek forces has commandeered Achilles’ war prize for himself. Achilles can afford to be a spoiled brat. The Greeks need him to win the war, and he knows it.

Without Achilles on the battlefield, the tide of war turns against the Greeks, and a team of Greek leaders visit Achilles to try to convince him to return to battle. But Achilles isn’t ready to abandon his version of victimhood, and he tells them he’s considering giving it all up and going home. So there. He explains that his goddess mother told him he would have two options in life: a) he would fight in the Trojan War and die gloriously, or b) he would return home to live a long, but uneventful, life. 

It’s a great metaphor for the options we have and the choices we make in our own battles.

* * *

As writers, we’ve made a choice to bequeath something of ourselves to posterity.

So, TKZers: in the manner of the Achilles options, I present two hypothetical possibilities for your writing life and livelihood. Please pick one of the following:

Option A) You are a wildly successful author. Your books live on the New York Times best seller list for months. You make millions, and you’re sought after for interviews and guest appearances on the most popular talk shows. But fifty years after your death, your books are considered prosaic. They’re almost never read, and your name has disappeared from all things literary, never to be seen again.

Option B) You’re a midlist author. You may eke out a living with your writing, or you may have to work another job to stay alive. But you have a story to tell, and you work hard at the craft. Fifty years after your death, your books are “discovered.” You’re hailed as one of the hundred best authors of the twenty-first century, and your books are cited as classics for hundreds of years.

Which option would you choose?

By PJ Parrish

My husband does the grocery shopping in our house. He’s a sucker for buy-one-get-one free. He can’t resist, bless his little hunting-and-gathering heart. I just did a tour of our closets and pantry. We have four bottles of Gardini’s Caesar Dressing, three six-packs of Swiss Miss cocoa mix, five cans of Edge shaving cream, six bags of Greenie dog treats and 52 rolls of toilet paper.

The other day, after hitting the garden section at Home Depot, I popped the trunk to load in my mulch only to find the trunk stuffed with four 8-roll packs of Bounty paper towels. He knows we have no room for this in our small house, and this is a bit of a marital turf war, but he can’t help himself. Why buy just one if you can get three at a great price?

Okay, he did come home the other day with four bottles of my favorite pinot. It was buy-one-get-one day at Publix. Wine can go a long ways to soothing the savage wife.

Who can resist a real bargain? Buy-one-get-one-free packaging is a time-honored ploy to hook customers. Musicians have been onto this since the Great Vinyl Age. TV specials and movies are routinely packaged as one box-set either as physical discs or streaming options. (Being a Luddite, I treasure my CD box-set of the complete original Star Trek).

I realize this post isn’t for everyone. But if you already have some books out there, you might considering bundling. Bundled books can stoke new interest in old titles, especially if you a series, because readers love to move easily from one book to the next. Or perhaps, you’ve written books on one subject — like our own James here does with his series on fiction craft. Even if you’re still slaving away on that first book, file this away for the future marketing option.

I’m writing about this today only because my sister Kelly and I have finally gotten around to doing this. Today marks the debut of our first bundle in our Louis Kincaid series. I don’t usually go in for blatant self-promotion, but even if you don’t buy it, go check it out just to see if it might work for you.

We’re able to do this because we finally have the rights back to almost every book in our series. We’ve redesigned and self-published all the titles as ebooks and trade paperbacks, but we’re banking on the idea that a bargain bundle might stoke sales and reap new readers. Our plan is the bundle three titles at a time over the next couple months.

Okay, so what do you have to do to get this off the ground? My sister Kelly is going to answer here because she has handled all the technical aspects of this, including the formatting and cover designs. Also, my friend Neil Plakcy will weigh in. Neil has four series in bundle now: Golden Retriever Mysteries, Have Body, Will Guard, Mahu Investigations, and Angus Green FBI Thrillers. He has also bundled up a group of young adult romances, and collected together three unrelated contemporary gay romance novels. After retiring from teaching college, he now writes full-time, kept company by his husband and their two rambunctious golden retrievers. Check out his bundles at http://www.mahubooks.com

1. Why bother, if the individual books are already available?

Neil: The advantage is that readers can get a 600-page book for one credit. Bundling also helps read-through — the reader doesn’t have to go back to the store to get the next book. It’s already there. I also use the bundles to generate read-through. If you got 1-3 for free, or through Kindle Unlimited, I hope that you’ll be motivated to keep reading.

Kris: Neil’s point about read-through is a good one. A new release deserves its own launch and breathing space. But if the books have been out for some time, it can generate new interest. Binge consumption is the norm these days, and a box-set of your work at a good price entices readers.  As indie superstar Kristine Kathryn Rusch says, “The best way to get noticed is by publishing enough that readers can binge for a weekend.” Binge readers who buy box-sets are often a different audience than those who buy individual books. Why not go after them?

2. How do you decide which books to bundle together?

Neil: By theme? (I’ve done a set with stand alone gay romances) Or by series? That’s the traditional way I have done them. I usually do a three-book bundle but I’ve also experimented with a larger set. I’ve seen other authors who will put together a complete series. In my case, I’m usually still writing in that series.

Kris: Neil is very prolific. For us, we have just our Louis Kincaid series, so the decision is easy. It seems to me bundling would work best for series writers. Or perhaps you have a sci-fi or fantasy trilogy; that seems a natural. Also, romance novels in any given sub-genre, given the rapacious nature of its readers, would be a good fit.

Kelly: It’s important to keep the tone consistent in your bundle. Don’t bundle fantasy with romantic suspense, for instance. It takes time to create bundles. Use your time wisely. Three is a nice bundle, but I’ve seen authors do two-book bundles (say, a story and its sequel.) Authors also bundle 10 or more. Neil bundled nine in his golden retriever series — quite a haul for readers!

3. How do you set pricing?

Neil: Amazon lowers the royalty percentage for books over $9.99. I usually use $6.99 — that’s a bargain for three books that are usually $3.99 or $4.99 each. But most of my revenue from bundles comes from Kindle Unlimited, not from sales.

Kelly: If you’re a big gorilla, you can price your bundle high. But for the average Joe, you have to make the reader feel they are getting a deal.

4. How do convey that it’s a box set instead of a regular book?

Kelly: The most important thing you do is make sure the image you upload to Amazon or others looks like a 3D box-set (as opposed to a flat cover). Remember, the first thing a potential reader sees is this image. I designed all our individual covers. But when  I went to design the box-set image, I knew it had to look like a realistic box-set that you’d have on a bookshelf. I tried it first in photoshop but it looked amateurish, so I invested in a template specifically for this.

Neil: I use a 3-D cover that shows the front cover of the first book in the series, with an extra ribbon that indicates it’s “Books 4-6 of the Have Body, Will Guard series.” Also you can see the titles of all three books on the spine.

5. Can I do this myself?

Kelly: Yes, of course. But even if you are proficient in cover design already, it’s still a bit of a learning curve. Or hire someone to do this for you. I have designed all Neil’s covers and his box-sets. Formatting the books in the bundle is not hard if you’re used to formatting already. But it is time-consuming. You must combine three manuscripts into one file, and that can be troublesome. You’re now dealing with a 900-page file vs a 300-page file. Chapter headings can move, double breaks go crazy, and the tables of content can be a headache. If you have trouble getting professional looking interior ebooks, consider buying a template for that as well. Don’t wing it. Once you get the hang of a good template, you’ll be happy.

Kris: Back to those covers: Ugly covers signal amateur hour. If your covers are ugly, consider rebranding all your covers first before bundling.

6. Do I leave my individual books up if I upload a bundle?

Kelly: Absolutely. It’s one more product on your shelf. At the supermarket, you can buy one roll of toilet paper or 12. So it should be with your ebooks.

7. Is this really for me?

Kelly: If you’re like us, and your books have been out there for while, it spices up your bookshelf. If you are very prolific, like Neil, and have a several series and multiple stand alones, bundling them up can really expand your publishing real estate. Don’t let the possible problems intimidate you. Think creatively. You can bundle anything — and rebrand old material — if you pay attention to imagery, tone and genre.

5. What about bundling with other authors?

Neil: I have thought about it but haven’t found the right partners. Also the royalty accounting can be complicated, especially if your income is going to come from KU, since there’s no way to tell “which” pages the reader read.

Kris: This can get really messy in terms of dividing income and promotion duties. Whose publishing account will the box-set be loaded onto? Who gets the income and makes sure it is divided fairly? (Amazon allows you only to have one person on an account.). How will you handle this come tax time? Really do your homework if you are considering this. Get a legal partnership agreement. Kelly and I have one, and we like and trust each other. What happens if you and your box-set partner have a falling out? Marriage is beautiful. Divorce is ugly.

Our Louis Kincaid bundle goes live this morning. $6.99. Such a deal. Click here to check us out.