What’s Your Brand?

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“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” – Leonardo da Vinci

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Last week John Gilstrap posted about his brand, and it got me thinking about what an author’s brand is and what it does for us.

First, a little history. According to Wikipedia

Branding and labeling have an ancient history. Branding probably began with the practice of branding livestock to deter theft. Images of the branding of cattle occur in ancient Egyptian tombs dating to around 2,700 BCE. Over time, purchasers realized that the brand provided information about origin as well as about ownership, and could serve as a guide to quality.

More recently, we understand branding as a way to differentiate products in a world full of product names. Again, from Wikipedia

The key components that form a brand’s toolbox include a brand’s identity, personality, product design, brand communication (such as by logos and trademarks), brand awareness, brand loyalty, and various branding (brand management) strategies. Many companies believe that there is often little to differentiate between several types of products in the 21st century, hence branding is among a few remaining forms of product differentiation.

Wow! That’s a lot to think about.

Book Branding

When I was writing novels in my Watch mystery series, I assumed all my books would be watch mysteries, and therefore, my brand should be something related to time or clocks. I created some bookmarks and lid grippers with a watch face that I thought was cute.

In addition, my cover designer suggested putting a watch face on the spine of each book in the place the publisher’s logo usually goes. I agreed, and I love to see my books lined up in our local bookstore. Each watch face is different, but they define my series.

But then I was encouraged to write a novel on the Lady Pilot-in-Command theme, so the watch brand didn’t work anymore. The brand for the new series became anything to do with aviation: an image of a Cessna on a pen, the propeller on the spine of the book, or—best of all—the gorgeous propeller pens my TKZ friend and colleague Steve Hooley makes.

Currently, I’m writing Middle Grade novels that are traditionally published, so the book spine will carry the publisher’s logo. I’m not sure what brand we’ll come up with for that series.

Author Branding

But after reading John’s post, I’m wondering how to create an author brand for me in addition to my books.

Publishdrive.com summarizes some of the key elements for an author brand.

Author branding, which comprises your writing style, website design, social media presence, and the emotional impact of your work, not only defines your identity as a writer but also influences how readers perceive and connect with you, differentiating you from others and establishing a solid foundation for your writing career.

To build an authentic author brand identity, focus on creating a tagline that encapsulates your essence, establish a unique brand voice for consistency across communications, and understand your unique selling proposition to differentiate yourself from other authors.

Looks like I have some work to do.

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So, TKZers: Have you put much thought into branding? Do you have an author brand? Do you have a tagline? How about an image that reflects your brand?

 

Coming Soon!

The Other Side of Sunshine
A Middle Grade Mystery

The Reen & Joanie Detective Agency is open for business, and the first assignment is to find a treasure hidden by the mysterious “Mr. Shadow.” But others are looking for the treasure, too, and they may not be playing by the rules.

Recapture Your Mojo

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) began in 1999 as an informal way for writers to accept a challenge: Write a 50,000 word novel in a month. It grew into a non-profit organization, and at its height had hundreds of thousands of writers participating world wide. I was one of those writers. I found the challenge infectious, even joyful. Some critics found it “ridiculous” to think that most writers could come out with a competent novel in a month. But that missed the point.

It was mainly about exercising your writing muscles, learning discipline, and even coming up with a story that you could later whip into shape. It also fostered a supportive and community spirit.

Of late, however, the revenue needed to keep it going just wasn’t there. And now the interim director has announced that NaNoWriMo has come to an end. See her statement here.

You can find what other TKZers and commenters have to say about it, both pro and con, by putting “NaNoWriMo” in our search box. You might start with this one.

Another factor is that NaNoWriMo faced significant blowback last year, as described in this article in the New York Times:

For over 20 years, writers around the world have participated in National Novel Writing Month, or #NaNoWriMo, as it’s known online. The challenge is simple: Write 50,000 words in the month of November. Well, as simple as writing 50,000 words can be. (That’s 1,667 words per day, for those of you doing the math at home.)

Of course, using a generative artificial intelligence platform, like ChatGPT, could make those words go by much quicker. But is that really ethical? In the spirit of the event? Good for the craft of creative writing in general?

These are some of the questions that fueled a heated debate this week among writers, editors and others in publishing who fear the creep of A.I. in their industry. It started with a statement from NaNoWriMo, the nonprofit organization that coordinates the writing marathon every year. It ended — though perhaps there is more to come — with resignations, a lost sponsor and plenty of prickly feelings in what is meant to be an uplifting community.

“NaNoWriMo does not explicitly support any specific approach to writing, nor does it explicitly condemn any approach, including the use of A.I.,” the organization wrote on its website at the end of August. To fully condemn the technology, it said, would be “to ignore classist and ableist issues.”

“For some writers, the decision to use A.I. is a practical, not an ideological, one,” the statement continued, noting the “upfront cost burdens” in the publishing industry as well as the challenges that writers with different mental and linguistic abilities may face. “The notion that all writers ‘should’ be able to perform certain functions independently is a position that we disagree with wholeheartedly.”

More:

Online, the reaction to the statement from many writers was swift and critical. The organization later updated its blog post to emphasize that it was speaking in broad terms and that it was “troubled by situational abuse of A.I,” but it appeared to do little to assuage writers’ concerns.

Multiple writers, including Daniel José Older and Maureen Johnson, announced on X that they would be stepping down from NaNoWriMo’s writers board. 

According to Ms. Johnson: “It was a way of encouraging people to sit down and set aside a block of time to learn to build writing muscle by drafting, by writing badly, by getting over self-doubt and boredom and writer’s block….What I saw in their statement was the opposite of that.”

One of the comments on the article said:

Allowing ChatGPT in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) is a nuanced issue. On one hand, using ChatGPT can aid in generating ideas and overcoming writer’s block, aligning with the event’s spirit of creativity and exploration. On the other hand, the challenge is meant to push writers to develop their own narratives and discipline. Extensive reliance on AI might undermine the authenticity of personal effort and creativity that NaNoWriMo aims to cultivate. Ultimately, while using ChatGPT for brainstorming or assistance can be valuable, it’s crucial that participants maintain their own creative control and write the bulk of their novel to stay true to the event’s goals.

This twist was added:

This comment generated by ChatGPT in response to the query, “Should authors participating in National Novel Writing Month be able to use ChatGPT to write their novels? Please answer in 150 words or less.”

I can’t speak to all the ins-and-outs of the controversy. Suffice to say, I much enjoyed doing NaNoWriMo. I even used it to form the foundation for two novels that were eventually published. But most of all it gave me a good jolt of writing energy. I loved the feeling of exhilaration mixed with fear and trembling, what that “eccentric Frenchman” Phillipe Petit must have felt as he walked a tightrope across the Twin Towers in 1974.

There is much value in that for the writer. So what’s to stop you from designing your own NaNoWriMo? Nothing, except perhaps accountability. To solve that, you could put the word out to family and friends. Or you could get with a writing pal or two and do it together.

And if a whole month seems too long, two weeks will do it. Instead of completing a 50k novel, think of it as a 20k start of a novel. That works out to a little under 1.5k words a day.

Or set whatever goal you like, so long as it is a real stretch. How many words can you comfortably write a day? Multiply that by three, and off you go!

Of course, no A.I. during this run. That would defeat the whole purpose, which is to exercise your head.

Sorry to see you go, NaNo. Thanks for the workouts.

Did you ever participate in a NaNoWriMo? Would you ever consider designing your own NaNo?

Hooking the Reader Words of Wisdom

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“You ever killed anything?” Roy asked. (Dean Koontz, Voice of the Night)

The car was just sitting there, its hazard lights blinking like beacons in the darkness. (P.J. Parrish, Paint it Black)

I was talking to a woman about flowers when John the Baptist blew up. (James Scott Bell, Romeo’s Rules)

An opening line like the ones above grabs the reader and pulls them into the story. The hook at the end of the chapter propels the reader forward, making them turn to the page to find out what happens next. Yet another hook is the book description itself, which gets the reader hooked into opening the novel to read that first line.

In today’s Words of Wisdom, Kathleen Pickering discusses favorite opening hook techniques, Nancy Cohen tackles end of chapter hooks and Jodie Renner looks at how to hook the reader with a book description. The full posts are date-linked from their respective excerpts. Afterwards, I’ll have a few questions as fuel for our discussion.

Hooks–so many types! Of the various suggested techniques, I’ve listed my five favorite hooks below.

  1. Three-Pronged Hook. This is a wonderful approach using three sentences to pull the reader deeper into the story.

Here are three, expertly crafted Three-Pronged Hooks:

“I sleep with the dead. I don’t remember the first time I did it and try not to think about why. It’s just something I do.”  (In the Arms of Stone Angels, by Jordan Dane)

Or:

“Two Whom It May Concern: My name is Wilfred Leland James and this is my confession. In June of 1922 I murdered my wife, Arlette Christina Winters James, and hid her body by tupping it down an old well. My son, Henry Freeman James aided me in this crime, although at 14 he was not responsible; I cozened him into it, playing upon his fears and beating down his quite normal objections over a period of 2 months.” (Full Dark, No Stars by Stephen King)

Or:

“The boy stood naked in the middle of the road. Sam Hall’s headlights caught him there, frozen in position, like a deer. He was covered in something slick and it dripped down his flesh.”  (The Evil Inside, by Heather Graham)

Makes you want to read more, yes? You’ll also see that expertly composed hooks manage to combine techniques to create a masterful atmosphere. With hooks created by the guest authors I’ve featured here today, if readers were fish, they’d be jumping into the boat.

  1. Startle Hooks.These hooks capture audiences quickly because the readers can’t quite believe what they’ve just read (like those hooks above). Folks will keep reading to discover what is really going on. Another example, and shameless plug, is in Mythological Sam-The Call, where Sam Wilson starts the first chapter with a surreal visual:

“I steer around the bend and my breath catches in my throat. A hideous, mythological hydra suspends across the bay, clawing each shore with twin, snarling heads straining towards the sky.” (Mythological Sam-The Call by Kathleen Pickering.

Couldn’t help but include myself here, especially in such good company, but  I hope you’ll agree that no normal dude driving along the road is going to see a snarling, mythological beast where a bridge is supposed to be. I’d like to think the startle factor will keep the audience reading to learn what’s really happening.

  1. Describe a personality and elicit emotion.  See how a master handles this one:

“Myron lay sprawled next to a knee-knockingly gorgeous brunette clad only in a Class-B-felony bikini, a tropical drink sans umbrella in one hand, the aqua clear Caribbean water lapping at his feet, the sand a dazzling white powder, the sky a pure blue that could only be God’s blank canvas, the sun as soothing and rich as a Swedish masseur with a snifter of cognac, and he was intensely miserable.” (The Final Detail, by Harlan Coben).

Superbly done. (Applauding from my chair!) This hook flashes Myron as a law enforcer of high caliber who knows danger, attracts sexy women, lives life like a hedonist and is bored out of his gourd, eliciting both envy and concern from the reader over a intriguing personality. All done in one sentence. Amazing.

  1. Establish a Setting. Mr. Coben also combines setting into the above hook, so I will cite the same quote. While establishing a setting is a gentler hook, when professionally cast as Coben has done, the results reel readers in hook, line and sinker. (I just know you were waiting for me to use that cliché!)
  2. Introduce the Main Character. This hook is most effective when working with character driven plots, especially if the author is establishing a series with a particular character. Here, F. Paul Wilson’s character, Repairman Jack, has developed a cult-like following by portraying a darkly dangerous Jack with a quirky yet endearing, under-the-radar life style.

“Jack looked around the front room of his apartment and figured he was either going to have to move to a bigger place, or stop buying stuff. He had nowhere to put his new Daddy Warbucks lamp.” (Conspiracies – Repairman Jack Series, by F. Paul Wilson)

Kathleen Pickering—September 27, 2011

 

Creating a hook at the end of a chapter encourages readers to turn the page to find out what happens next in your story. What works well are unexpected revelations, wherein an important plot point is offered or a secret exposed; cliffhanger situations in which your character is in physical danger; or a decision your character makes that affects story momentum. Also useful are promises of a sexual tryst, arrival of an important secondary character, or a puzzling observation that leaves your reader wondering what it means.

It’s important to stay in viewpoint because otherwise you’ll lose immediacy, and this will throw your reader out of the story. For example, your heroine is shown placing a perfume atomizer into her purse while thinking to herself: “Before the day was done, I’d wish it had been a can of pepper spray instead.”

This character is looking back from future events rather than experiencing the present. As a reader, you’ve lost the sense of timing that holds you to her viewpoint. You’re supposed to see what she sees and hear what she hears, so how can you see what hasn’t yet come to pass?

Foreshadowing is desirable because it heightens tension, but it can be done using more subtle techniques while staying within the character’s point of view.

Stick to the present, and end your chapter with a hook that stays in character.

Here are some examples from Permed to Death, my first mystery novel. These hooks are meant to be page turners:

“This was her chance to finally bury the mistake she’d made years ago. Gritting her teeth, she pulled onto the main road and headed east.” (Important Decision)

“There’s something you should know. He had every reason to want my mother dead.” (Revelation)

“Her heart pounding against her ribs, she grabbed her purse and dashed out of her town house. Time was of the essence. If she was right, Bertha was destined to have company in her grave.” (Character in Jeopardy)

“She allowed oblivion to sweep her into its comforting depths.” (Physical Danger)

Personal decisions that have risky consequences can also be effective. For example, your heroine decides to visit her boyfriend’s aunt against his wishes. She risks losing his affection but believes what she’s doing is right. Suspense heightens as the reader turns the page to see if the hero misinterprets her actions. Or have the hero in a thriller make a dangerous choice, wherein he puts someone he cares about in jeopardy no matter what he decides. Or his decision is an ethical one with no good coming from either choice. What are the consequences? End of chapter. Readers must keep on track to find out what happens next.

To summarize, here’s a quick list of chapter endings that will spur your reader to keep the night light burning:

  1. Decision
    2. Danger
    3. Revelation
    4. Another character’s unexpected arrival
    5. Emotional turning point
    6. Puzzle
    7. Sex

Nancy Cohen—April 9, 2014

BACK COVER COPY

Your back cover copy or book description is the biggest deciding factor for readers picking up your book for the first time. Not only does it have to be enticing and polished, but it has to strike at the heart of your actual story, hint at the genre and tone, and incite curiosity among the readers, to compel them to open the book and read the first page (which, as you know, is also critically important).

Your back cover copy or book description needs to:

– Grab readers’ attention – in a good way

– Incite curiosity about this book

– Tell us roughly what the story is about

– Give an indication of the genre and tone of the book

– Introduce us to the main character and his goal

– Tell us the protagonist’s main problem or dilemma

– Leave us wanting to find out more

James Scott Bell (Yes, TKZ’s beloved Sunday columnist and writing guru) gives us a great template for writing strong, compelling back cover copy in his excellent book, Plot & Structure.

Jim’s outline is a perfect jumping-off point for creating your own book description.

Paragraph 1: Your main character’s name and her current situation:

__________________ is a ________________ who ___________________________________.

Write one or two more sentences, describing something of the character’s background and current world.

Paragraph 2: Start with Suddenly or But when. Fill in the major turning point, the event that threatens the character, disrupts his world and forces him to take action. Add two or three more sentences about what happens next.

“But his world is turned upside down when…”

Paragraph 3: Start with Now and make it an action sentence, for example, “Now (name) must struggle with….”

Or use a question or two starting with Will: Will (name) be able to….? Or will she….? And will these events….?

Then add a final sentence that is pure marketing, like “(Title) is a riveting…. novel about …. that will …you…till the … twist at the end.

Now polish it up, making sure every word counts and you’ve used the best possible word for each situation. Aim for about 250-500 words in total.

There are of course many other ways to grab your readers in your book description, but be sure to use the main character’s name and hint at the threat that has upset his world and the obstacles he needs to overcome to win, survive or defeat evil, and right wrongs. And leave the readers with a question, to pique their curiosity and propel them into the story.

Then, if there’s space, you could squeeze in a great blurb or two, or a short author bio.

Jodie Renner—July 13, 2021

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  1. Do you have a favorite type of opening hook to grab the reader? How do you come up with one?
  2. Which sort of end of chapter hook (AKA “mini-cliffhangers”) have you used? How much do you focus on them when revising your novel?
  3. What do you think of Jodie’s elements of an effective book description? Anything to add?
  4. Do you have any books or other resources you’ve found helpful in coming up with hooks?

Why Self-Published Books Are Rarely Inside Bookstores

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Terry Whalin is a California-based writer and acquisitions editor with years of experience in his field. I follow Terry’s work and religiously read his periodic newsletter. Appreciatively, Terry is very supportive of my writing on the DyingWords.net blog as well as sharing Kill Zone posts on social media.

Recently, Terry Whalin published a short but highly informative piece on the difficulty of getting indie work introduced into bookstores. Terry’s insight rang home to me, so I contacted him and asked permission to share the article on the Kill Zone. He graciously agreed, and here are Terry’s thoughts.

Why Self-Published Books Are Rarely Inside Bookstores

By Terry Whalin (@terrywhalin)

I’m involved in a couple of online writing groups and no matter how many times you say it, there seems to be a broad misconception about self-published books. These books simply don’t appear in the brick-and-mortar bookstores.

Please don’t misunderstand me. These self-published books have their place in the market—particularly if you have a means to sell the books to individuals or companies. For example, if you speak often and would like to have a book to sell in the back of the room, you can easily get a self-published book to use in these situations. Just don’t expect to sell your book to bookstores.

Recently a well-meaning author celebrated his first printed book, which was self-published. He was holding it in his hand—always exciting. He was plotting a strategy to get his book in as many bookstores as possible and asking for help from other authors in the group. If you are going down this path, it shows a clear disconnect with the realities of the market.

Here’s a bit of what I told him. “Congratulations on your book release and I celebrate with you—but after more than thirty years in this business and over 60 books in print—and working as an acquisitions editor over the last twelve years—I am going to have to give you a bit of a reality check. You will struggle and find it almost impossible for brick-and-mortar bookstores to stock your self-published book. It’s one of those messages that the self-publishing places don’t tell you (they want to get your cash and get your book in their system).

“Yes, your book is listed on Amazon.com (easy for anyone to do) but getting it into the bookstores is a completely different story. I’ve been telling writers for years about the ease of getting a book printed—now getting it into the bookstores and ultimately into the hands of consumers, that’s a different story.

“Retailers dislike self-published books. Every retailer that I’ve talked with about this issue (and I’ve invested the time to talk with them) has countless stories about the difficulties of these books. They have re-stocking problems and problems with the quality of the products (typos, editing, etc.).

“Here’s the real test for you: go to your local bookstores and ask them if they are carrying any self-published title on their shelves. Go to the big box stores like Barnes & Noble or Books A Million as well as your mom and pop smaller independent bookstores. The answer will surprise you. I will be surprised if you find a single self-published among any of the thousands of books.”

“We can’t say it often enough—the bookstore market is a closed system—that deals with distributors and large and small publishers. It’s why we work hard to get our books into the traditional publishing marketplace. It’s why you go through the effort and hard work to create an excellent book proposal or book manuscript or novel, then sell that idea to a publisher. Then your book is available in any bookstore—and can have the possibility of sitting on those bookshelves.

“It’s a free country and you can feel free to expend the effort and energy to market to bookstores and try and place your book. From my experience and others, it will be frustrating and likely not sell many books. I believe your marketing efforts are better served in other markets (outside the bookstore).”

No matter what I write, several of you are going to take the leap into self-publishing. Here’s several action steps if you go this route:

  1. Work with an experienced editor to create an excellent book.
  2. Work with professional cover designers and people to format and produce a book where every detail looks like something from one of the big five traditional publishers. This means including elements like endorsements and words on the spine of the book (including a publishing logo on the bottom of that spine). Many self-published books are missing key elements which become striking signals they are self-published such as leaving off the barcode or doing this code improperly (without the price).
  3. Keep working consistently to grow your audience. As I’ve mentioned in the past, work daily on your platform and reach your audience. You need to try new avenues to market and sell your book.
  4. Continue to learn all you can about publishing. Get a free copy of my Book Proposals That Sell and study the publishing insights in this book.
  5. Never give up on your book. As the author, you have the greatest interest and passion for your book. This statement is true no matter whether you are traditionally published or self-published. Always be looking for new opportunities to write or speak about your book.

This last point is something I try and model with my own books. For example, I continue to promote and use the radio interviews I recorded for Billy Graham biography which has been in print for about ten years. Each author needs to be actively telling new readers about their books—whether they are carried in the bookstores or not.

Bio — W. Terry Whalin, a writer and acquisitions editor lives in California. A former magazine editor and former literary agent, Terry is an acquisitions editor at Morgan James Publishing. He has written more than 60 nonfiction books including Jumpstart Your Publishing Dreams and Billy Graham. Get Terry’s recent book, 10 Publishing Myths for only $10, free shipping and bonuses worth over $200. Also get the free 11th Publishing Myth chapter.

To help writers catch the attention of editors and agents, Terry wrote his bestselling Book Proposals That $ell, 21 Secrets To Speed Your Success. As Jim Cox, Editor-in-Chief of Midwest Review wrote, “If you only have time to read one ‘how to’ guide to getting published, whether it be traditional publishing or self-publishing, Book Proposals That Sell is that one DIY instructional book.” Connect with Terry on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

Kill Zoners — What’s your experience as an indie trying to get your work into bookstores? Feel free to share. And thanks to Terry for sharing this piece. Hopefully he’ll drop by to engage in the comments!

My Branding Opportunity

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By John Gilstrap

On March 20, less than two weeks ago as I write this, I received the following email out of the blue:

Dear John,

Last week, your name and “Zero Sum” came up in a staff meeting…

It was the strong opinion of our award-winning Branding / P.R. firm that you are entitled to and would benefit from a significantly greater visibility in the modern world.

We have a new low-cost, high-impact plan that I sense might be perfect for you. Here is our Wikipedia page for your review: [redacted]

Can we arrange a convenient time to discuss this, John?

Warmly,

[President of a well-established, high-powered public relations firm in California]

Yeah, right. I know a scam when I see it. Some fraudster expects me to believe that a firm that represents some really well-known folks is talking about my paperback original that dropped over nine months ago? I might live in West Virginia, but I’m no rube.

Funny thing though. The address for the incoming email matched the email address on the company website. And the Better Business Bureau. I decided maybe it was a mistake to ignore this email completely.

I went stealthy. I went to the company website and filled out the general interest form that anyone from the general public would fill out. That form includes my phone number, and in the comments section, I referenced the email I had received from the president. Then I replied to the original email thusly:

Dear XXX,

 

Lovely to hear from you. These being the awkward times that they are, I have sent a note back through your website seeking authentication of this email. Please feel free to call me on the phone number I left on that inquiry. I look forward to speaking with you.

 

Best,

 

John Gilstrap

To which he promptly replied,

Dear John:

Yes, it’s me, and to be open, I could weep over the seeming necessity of your note.

Warmly,

He called me later that evening and we had a very nice chat about author branding and what he and his firm could do to help me. The details aren’t important here, but they resonated with me. They come with a price tag, of course–significant, but not bank breaking, and hey, I just got a movie deal.

After laying out the general elements of the plan, he closed by saying he didn’t want me to make a decision right then. There are things I need to do to make this work, so there’s an element of commitment. He urged me to think it over for a day or two, but no longer than that. In his experience, after two days, a maybe should be a no, even if the client talks himself into a yes.

I sent him an email the next morning telling him I was ready to go.

A lot of career elements seem to be aligning for me these days. In addition to the SixMin movie deal, Kensington is repackaging the Grave backlist and changing the format of the Grave front list to trade paper, all while launching the new Irene Rivers thriller series.

For this public relations opportunity to arrive as it did and when it did somehow feels right. So I’m rolling the dice and writing some checks.

The John Gilstrap Brand

When it comes to marketing and publicity, I don’t know what sells books and what doesn’t. I don’t think anyone does. But I know that I can work a crowd well and that I deliver a pretty decent speech and workshop, and that a higher profile generally is better for sales than a lower profile.

Enter the John Gilstrap brand–similar to yet different than yours truly. Yes, it makes me uncomfortable because I don’t fully understand all of it yet, and because I do know that it comes with a level of self aggrandizement that will make me uncomfortable. Somehow, if all goes as planned, with the help of my new best friends on the Left Coast, the world is going to see a freshly packaged new breed of author who’s politically conservative, carries a pistol, drinks martinis and lives in the woods of West Virginia.

How they do that without pissing off half of the reading public is a mystery for the future.

 

Why Write If It Makes You Miserable?

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By PJ Parrish

Rejection bites.  Even 45 years after the fact.

I was cleaning out some old files the other day, searching for my portfolio of clips from my days working on my college newspaper The Eastern Echo. 

Didn’t find the clips but I found my first ever rejection letter from a publisher. It doesn’t have a date on it, but it had to be somewhere around 1980. That was back when I was trying to break into the romance novel business. I had a half-written manuscript and no clue what I was up against.

I decided to send it out to an agent. Guess who I picked? Mort Janklow. He was probably one of the top five literary agents in those days. His client list included Judith Krantz, Thomas Harris, Nancy Reagan and some guy living in The Vatican named John Paul.

I got a very nice letter back from him [his secretary], saying thank you but no thanks. So I decided, well, hell, who needs an agent? Why not go right to the publishers? I told you, I knew nothing back then.

So I sent my partial off to Dell Publishing. I don’t remember who I sent it to. And until the other day when I was cleaning, I didn’t remember exactly what their letter to me said. But here it is:

[]

In case you can’t read it, here’s what it says. The bold-faced bracketed comments are mine.

Dear Sir or Ms. Montee,
We thank you for the opportunity [yeah, right!] to consider your proposal or manuscript. [what, they can’t figure out WHICH?]. We are sorry [I’ll bet] to inform you that the book does not seem a likely prospect [how elegant!] for the Dell Book list. Because we receive many individual submissions every day [you think I care how overworked you are?] it is impossible for us to offer individual comment [I’d say so since there is no human being attached to this letter to begin with] We thank you for thinking of Dell [insert sound of raspberry here] and we wish you the best of success [ie don’t darken our doorstep again with your crap] in placing your book with another publisher. [you’ll be sorry some day!]

Sincerely, [you’re kidding, right?]
The Editors [aka the evil Manhattan cabal trying to keep me unpublished]

I can laugh about the letter now. But it stung at the time, and in a way it still does. Because I remember how insignificant it made me feel at the time. (I didn’t realize how insignificant I actually was in the grand scheme of publishing). The impersonal-ness. The cop-out cliches. The fact that no one had the guts to even sign their name. But I kept this letter for some reason. Who knows why? My mom might know, because she always said that I never liked being told what to do. And these anonymous editors were telling me I couldn’t be a published writer.

(A year later, a different manuscript I had finished, was plucked out of the slush pile by an editor at Ballantine Books. They paid me $2,500. I was up and walking!)

Here’s the thing about rejection. It never stops. Even after you are published with a decent track record, you can still get dumped on. Four books into our Louis Kincaid series, my co-author sister Kelly and I decided we wanted to try our hand at a light mystery. We finished it, convinced we were the next Janet Evanovich, had our new pen name picked out and everything. But our agent couldn’t sell it. Not even to our own publisher. Which taught me a valuable lesson: It is not easy to write funny. I never tried that again.

Since I am retired now, I am sort of out of touch with the technical side of our business. Are query letters now done all by email? Does anyone even get paper rejection letters anymore? I kind of hope so, because tangible evidence of rejection can be a powerful motivator. Stephen King’s debut novel, Carrie, was rejected by nearly 30 publishers. He kept the rejection letters pinned to his wall, eventually replacing the nail with a spike.

Do rejection emails still come in the same code of yesteryear?

1. “This doesn’t fit my needs at this time.”
2. “Your writing is strong but I don’t feel I can be enthusiastic enough to fully get behind this project.”
3. “I’m afraid I will have to take a pass. But I am interested in seeing other projects…”

What they really mean:

1. You can’t write.
2. I already have four authors who write interplanetary romantasy.
3. Solar Punk rip-offs are yesterday’s news. Have you considered writing a horror-hardboiled mash-up?

I don’t mean to make light of your woes if you are going through this phase of rejection now. It’s not fun. But you will get through this. You will keep going. And with time, you’ll probably get a better perspective about it. Like I did.

The manuscript I sent to Dell was really, really bad. It was called The Last Rose of Summer, by the way. Go ahead, you can steal that title. The manuscript had no business going out in the world in the state it was in. I know, because I kept it. And yeah, It found it, too. It was actually physically painful to read it. But it reminds me that I learned a lot, and I came a long ways. This is a learning process. It still is. It always will be.

I read a good column by David Brooks the other day. He normally writes about politics, but he is often drawn into the side current of family or tribal dynamics. He asked a simple question in his column: Why do people do things that are hard?

Why do marathoners run almost to bodily ruin? Why endure the tedium of practicing the violin? Why does your curiosity compel you to explore the darkest cave despite your fears of going down there?

Why do we keep writing when we don’t even know if someone will ever read it?

Brooks believes it has something to do living in an “offensive spirit.” Meaning, you’re drawn by a positive attraction, not fear of failure. You see obstacles as challenges, not threats. “By the time you reach craftsman status,” he writes, “you don’t just love the product, you love the process, the tiny disciplines, the long hours, the remorseless work.”

I know that strikes a chord with some of you.

So, if you are feeling blue today, just know this one thing: You are not alone. Pearl Buck’s novel The Good Earth was rejected on the grounds that Americans were “not interested in anything on China.” A editor passed on George Orwell’s  Animal Farm, explaining it was “impossible to sell animal stories in the U.S.A.” And let’s not forget the agent who dumped Tony Hillerman and told him to “get rid of all that Indian stuff.”

And know that if you remain in an “offensive spirit,” you can prevail. I feel this way about gardening. And trying to become a really good cook. And playing the piano and pickleball. David Brooks ends his column by quoting the sculptor Henry Moore. So I will as well — because it rings true whether you are writing a book or learning how to make pasta from scratch:

“The secret to life is to have a task, something you devote your entire life to, something you bring everything to, every minute of the day for your whole life. And the most important thing is — it must be something you cannot possibly do!”

Meta Stole Copyrighted Work from Millions of Authors

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On December 9, 2024, I wrote about Meta’s new terms of service, effective January 1, 2025. This month, I’m even more disgusted by what I learned. An email from one of my publishers told me Meta stole 7.5 million books and 81 million research papers to train their new AI model, Llama 3.

For those who haven’t heard the news yet, Alex Reisner first broke the story in The Atlantic…

“When employees at Meta started developing their flagship AI model, Llama 3, they faced a simple ethical question. The program would need to be trained on a huge amount of high-quality writing to be competitive with products such as ChatGPT, and acquiring all of that text legally could take time. Should they just pirate it instead?”

Meta employees spoke with multiple companies about licensing books and research papers, but they nixed that idea, stating, “[This] seems unreasonably expensive.” A Llama-team senior manager also said it’d be an “incredibly slow” process. “They take like 4+ weeks to deliver data.”

Offended yet? Not only has Meta and others stolen copyrighted work but they’ve reduced authors’ blood, sweat, and tears to nothing more than “data.”

“The problem is that people don’t realize that if we license one book, we won’t be able to lean into fair use strategy,” said the director of engineering at Meta in an internal memo.

If caught, the senior manager claimed the legal defense of “fair use” might work for using pirated books and research papers to train AI…

“[It is] really important for [Meta] to get books ASAP. Books are actually more important than web data.”

How did they solve this problem? Meta employees turned to LibGen (Library Genesis), a digital warehouse of stolen intellectual property, neatly stacked with pirated books, academic papers, and various works authors and publishers never approved.

As of March 2025, the LibGen library contained more than 7.5 million books and 81 research papers. And Meta stole it all, with permission from “MZ”—a reference to CEO Mark Zuckerberg—to download and use the data set.

Internal correspondence were made public this month as part of a copyright-infringement lawsuit brought by Sarah Silverman and other celebs whose books LibGen pirated. If that’s not bad enough, the public also discovered OpenAI used LibGen for similar purposes. Microsoft owns a 49% equity stake in the for-profit subsidiary OpenAI LP. It is not yet known whose idea it was to download the LibGen library to train its AI model.

Does it matter? They still used copyrighted material without obtaining licensing fees or giving authors the option to opt-out.

“Ask for forgiveness, not for permission,” said another Meta employee.

Even when a senior management employee at Meta raised concerns about lawsuits, they were convinced to download the libraries from LibGen and Anna’s Archive, another massive pirate site.

“To show the kind of work that has been used by Meta and OpenAI, I accessed a snapshot of LibGen’s metadata—revealing the contents of the library without downloading or distributing the books or research papers themselves—and used it to create an interactive database that you can search here:

https://reisner-books-index.vercel.app”

~ Alex Reisner, The Atlantic

Meta and OpenAI have both claimed the defense of “fair use” to train their generative-AI models on copyrighted work without a license, because LLMs (Large Language Models) “transform” the original material into new work. Work that could directly compete with the authors they stole from—by duplicating their writing voice and style!

This legal strategy could set a dangerous precedent: It’s okay to steal from authors. Who cares if they worked for months, even years, to write the pirated books and/or research papers?

The use of LibGen and Anna’s Archive also raises another issue.

Alex Reisner stated the following in one of The Atlantic articles:

“Bulk downloading is often done with BitTorrent, the file-sharing protocol popular with pirates for its anonymity, and downloading with BitTorrent typically involves uploading to other users simultaneously. Internal communications show employees saying that Meta did indeed torrent LibGen, which means that Meta could have not only accessed pirated material but also distributed it to others—well established as illegal under copyright law, regardless of what the courts determine about the use of copyrighted material to train generative AI.”

Not only has Meta and OpenAI stolen copyrighted material from authors, but they’ve distributed it to others.

By now, you must be wondering if your books are included in the LibGen library. I found six of mine, including my true crime/narrative nonfiction book, Pretty Evil New England, which took me a solid year to research—driving around six states to dig through archives—and then submit the finished manuscript to the publisher by the deadline, never mind the weeks of edits afterward. Each one of my stolen thrillers—HACKED, Blessed Mayhem, Silent Mayhem, Unnatural Mayhem, and HALOED—also took months of hard work.

Click to Enlarge

By stealing six books, they robbed me of years—years(!) of pouring my soul onto the page to deliver the best experience I could—and I’ll continue to put in the time for my readers. I suspect you’ll do the same. But authors still need to eat and pay bills. It’s difficult to write if you’re homeless.

What message is Big Tech sending to the public?

If Meta and OpenAI prevail in the lawsuits, authors everywhere are at risk.

Quick side note about pirate sites: Sure, you can read books for free. Just know, most sites include trojan horses in the pirated books that will steal banking and other personal info from your network. Every pirated book steals money from authors. If you want us to keep writing but can’t afford to buy books, get a library card. Or contact the author. Most will gift you a review copy.

Care to read Meta’s internal correspondence?

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.415175/gov.uscourts.cand.415175.449.4.pdf

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.415175/gov.uscourts.cand.415175.417.6.pdf

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.415175/gov.uscourts.cand.415175.391.24.pdf

And here’s a court document regarding OpenAI:

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.414822/gov.uscourts.cand.414822.254.0.pdf

Disgraceful, right?

The Authors Guild is also reporting on the theft and closely monitoring the court cases.

If your work is included in the LibGen library, your name will automatically be included in the class action (there are many filed), unless you opt-out. However, if you prefer to contact the attorney handling the case against Meta, contact Saveri Law Firm HERE.

Did you find any of your work in the pirated libraries?

What Film Noir Can Teach Writers

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

You humble scribe with the “Czar of Noir” Eddie Muller

Recently, I joined my son in Hollywood for our annual ritual—dinner at Musso & Frank, followed by opening night of Noir City, the film festival at the Egyptian Theater hosted by Eddie Muller and Alan K. Rode of the Film Noir Foundation.

There’s always a pre-screening reception in the courtyard outside the theater, where many attendees come dressed in 1940s fashion. Local distilleries provide liquid refreshment, and a band with a torch singer performs vintage songs from the era (classic American film noir ran from 1941 and The Maltese Falcon to 1958’s Touch of Evil).

Just what is film noir, and why does it have such a loyal following?

As the French name implies, this is “dark film.” It always revolves around crime, and who among us hasn’t had a passing thought of such ilk from time to time? Even if it is just to wonder “Could I get away with it?” Film noir allows us to indulge that fascination without getting too close.

Film noir has a distinctive look—rich black-and-white (as opposed to neo-noir, like Body Heat). Indeed, cinematographers, like the great John Alton, were just as important as the writer and director. (See Alton’s masterpiece He Walked by Night sometime).

The noir world grinds out rough justice. No bad deed goes unpunished. A guy makes one bad move years ago, and has managed to find a new life…until that past catches up with him to exact retribution (Out of the Past).

Sometimes, the hammer falls on a decent guy who makes one bad choice.

In Side Street, Farley Granger plays Joe Norson, a mailman working like a dog to support himself and his pregnant wife. One day he delivers mail to a lawyer’s office and, alone there, finds $200 in cash. On impulse, he takes it. What he doesn’t know is the dough is part of the lawyer’s extortion racket.

And then there’s a murder.

Soon enough, the bad guy is after Joe, and so is the law, considering Joe a suspect in the murder. Hoo boy. Can he possibly get out of this? We watch to find out, pulling for the guy. Noir justice happens, but exacts a heavy price.

Not all noir leads are good guys who make a bad choice. Sometimes they’re bad guys through and through, and we watch to see if he gets away with it (Touch of Evil). Heist noir (Criss Cross; The Asphalt Jungle) is like that.

Thus, shades of black and white mix, which is just like life.

And makes for compelling fiction, too. The character with a “moral flaw” is more interesting—and more realistic—than a pure, immaculate hero. We relate to characters like that because deep down we know we have flaws, too, and that should our flaws get out of hand, it will lead to disaster.

In a way, noir is like classic Greek tragedy. The purpose of tragedy was to create “catharsis” and warn us of what happens when we follow the dark side.

Thus:

  • Give your Lead a moral flaw, and show it via inner conflict and the “mirror moment.”
  • Indeed, give all your characters, even minor ones, a moral flaw. Even if those are never revealed, it help you come up with more original actions and dialogue.
  • Consider exacting a price the Lead must pay for justice to prevail, a “wound.”

If you want to explore film noir more deeply, I recommend Dark City by Eddie Muller (affiliate link). There are also scores of B-movie noirs available for free on YouTube.

Here are ten of my favorites:

The Maltese Falcon (1941, Dir. John Huston)
Double Indemnity (1944, Dir. Billy Wilder)
Out of the Past (1947, Dir. Jacques Tourneur)
Too Late For Tears (1949, Dir. Byron Haskin)
Act of Violence (1949, Dir. Fred Zinemann)
The Asphalt Jungle (1950, Dir. John Huston)
99 River Street (1953, Dir. Phil Karlson)
The Hitch-Hiker (1953, Dir. Ida Lupino)
Pickup on South Street (1953, Dir. Sam Fuller)
Touch of Evil (1958, Dir. Orson Welles)

Are you a film noir fan? What are your favorites? 

Mr. Pennington

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Growing up, I lived in the Urbandale neighborhood of Old East Dallas, a post-war collection of neat little white frame houses that could have stood in for a television neighborhood like Leave It To Beaver, only with a different title.

Folks think I went to school in rural Lamar County, Texas, but I graduated from W.W. Samuell in Dallas’ Pleasant Grove, which is much different today. This misconception about my roots is because I tell everyone I lived on my grandparent’s farm in Chicota. We’re talking semantics here, but I mean this little scrawny, asthmatic kid existed in the city, but bloomed and experienced life in the country.

That doesn’t mean my experiences on the concrete streets weren’t valuable. I fought against the monicker of City Boy, and believe me, it wasn’t an easy thing to accomplish. We only lived there because the Old Man left the farm during the war and never returned after getting an assembly line job at Ford. He never wanted the gambling life of a farmer, always watching the market for cattle prices, or worried that enough rain would fall to sustain the cotton and corn crops they raised in those river bottoms in the 1960s.

So after school during the work/school week, I roamed the neighborhood with the other bike-riding outlaws who lived in our area. We did the usual, hung out in backyards, prowled the tame woods on the other side of the railroad tracks half a mile from our house, and organized pickup ball games at the school a block away (without adult interference and rules).

We kept the sidewalks hot running and riding back and forth between houses, and in the summer, they stayed that way all night from the heat of the sun. Summer in those days without air conditioning kept us outside, much to our parent’s delight. In the Texas heat, our bare feet toughened up to defy sizzling sidewalks, gravel, and even the street spiderweb patchwork of black, gooey hot tar in the concrete cracks that bubbled up and popped when we stepped on them.

Most folks in the neighborhood ignored us, as long as we stayed outside where we only came in after the streetlights came on. On Friday and Saturday nights we roamed even later, playing a made-up game of Run and Hide, our version of Hike and Seek, which involved hiding around every house, shrub, flowerbed, and driveway on our block.

We only had two old soreheads on our long block. One was Mrs. Grubbs, who lived in a on the corner up by the school and often stood on her tiny concrete porch to shout at us not to step on her grass when we made the 45-dgree turn on the sidewalk.

I think nothing grows today on that corner packed hard as concrete, where every kid in the neighborhood made sure to plant their foot just for spite.

The other sorehead was a case of mistaken identity, and I still regret it.

Sunbaked Mr. Pennington, who somehow misplaced his two front teeth at some point in his long life, talked with a soft whistling lisp through thin, loose lips that seemed to flap in the wind. He lived with his wife on the opposite end of our block. Each day he made his glacial, creaky walk down the sidewalk, using a heavy black cane to steady shaky knees.

I’d see him talking to the Old Man on occasion out under the big pecan tree in our front yard. I think Mr. Pennington like to stand there and blow for a minute, the old man’s euphonism for resting. It was an ancient reference to the days when Dad used mules to plow, and they’d rest in the shade for them to cool down and…blow.

When I was younger, I was always afraid of Mr. Pennington, mostly because his grizzled old wife who had a better mustache than mine, and only wore house dresses. She once scolded me when I rode my bike down the sidewalk and across the water hose she’d stretched to soak the parkway strip.

“Hey boy! Don’t run over that hose. Ride out in the street where you belong.”

Brother, that little outburst resulted in my mother-bear Mom roaring down there to “straighten that old $%@! out.” After that, Mom and Mrs. Pennington never spoke again, though they bared their teeth at each other when they passed on the street.

I didn’t pay the old man much attention when I was a kid. He was simply a fixture in our neighborhood, wearing work pants and shirts faded to a soft blue from thousands of washings and exposure to the sun on the clothesline in back.

As the years passed, more of his teeth disappeared and his hair turned snow white, what you could see under the John Deere cap he’d received somewhere around the time Eisenhauer was elected president.

The cap should have given me a clue.

I was home from college one day and sitting alone in the Old Man’s metal glider when Mr. Pennington crept by.

“Mind if I sit and blow a minute?” he asked.

I perked up at that comment and slid against the opposite arm. “Sure.”

“I always admired this shade.” He settled heavily onto the seat and leaned back, smelling of cigarettes and Old Spice. “It reminds me of one down in the Chicota bottoms when I was farming. I cooled off and took my dinner there when I could, and watered my mules of course.”

Shocked at the news, I probably gaped like a fish out of water. “You’re from Chicota?”

“Sure ‘nuff. Spent a lot of years walking behind them old mules, just like your daddy and grandaddy. I ain’t from around here.”

I couldn’t my ears. Here I was sitting next to still another fountain of information and stories, but in my mind growing up, he was just an old man walking past our house. I still wonder today how two men from that tiny little community would wind up on the same residential block 120 miles away.

For the next couple of years I got to know Mr. Pennington, and grew fond of the old farmer. I even forgave his wife for the water hose incident. Then one day he didn’t walk by and I learned he was walking a different, brighter trail where he didn’t need that cane, or his teeth, anymore.

I wish I’d sat at his knee a little earlier, and listened to what a quiet man had to say. His character, and those stories I missed would have inevitably found their way into my work. We spend too much time in our lives overlooking the world around us, while searching for unrecognizable opportunities we think we need.