6 Tips for File Management

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This weekend, we helped our daughter move into our condo. She put her furniture in storage and transferred the rest of her belongings to our place. If the condo wasn’t crowded before, it is now. I hope our closet rods don’t fall down under the heavy loads. She filled up every inch of closet space in our three bedrooms. Naturally, she gave us bags of stuff to take home for donation. This is the only benefit of moving as I see it: cleaning out unwanted or outgrown items.

Periodically, we should do the same sweep of our files. Not counting paper files, take a look at your online folders and consider paring them down. Here’s what to do:

  • Convert older file formats to current versions. For example, I still have my earlier book files in Word Perfect. Now I exclusively use Word. I need to convert these files before this conversion is no longer possible or the upgrade to the next Microsoft Office edition isn’t compatible. Fortunately, I’d moved over all of  my floppy disk files into Dropbox so those were preserved. You could also convert all of your files to PDF if they need to be moved across computers whilst you clear through your files, for example. To edit these PDF documents at a later date, you could always use software such as the one from FilecenterDMS.
     
  • Pick one of your folders, and click on each file to see if you want to keep it or delete it. Here we go. Let’s choose your first published title. Do you really need that notice of your first booksigning? The list of book blurbs that are no longer catchy? Three versions of your synopsis? An email announcement to booksellers that are probably no longer in existence? A copy of the query letter you sent out to reviewers to see if they wanted an ARC? Sure, you might want to keep some of these for sentimental value, but which ones can you use today if you revise and republish this backlist title?
     
  • Update any files that are relevant to your backlist titles available in print or ebook format. Which ones, if any, can you use to promote this book?
     
  • On files that you decide to save, even if you convert to the current version of word processor you are using, make sure your formatting is the same as what you’re doing now. For example, I used to put two spaces between sentences. Now I use only one space. So do a Find and Replace to correct these formatting problems. Get rid of tabs and replace them with 0.5 first line indent. Reformat your headers. Change the font. Make sure the files you are keeping are up to speed. It’ll less hard to access them later that way should you need them again.
     
  • Rename your files if necessary to be more indicative of what they are. I’ve changed a lot of file names as I go through this review process. For Hair Raiser, as an example, chapter one went from chapter1.hair.wpd to chapter 1.doc (or docx, depending on which form of Word I’m saving them in).
     
  • Condense similar files into one file. Let’s say you have three different files, all named something different, with review quotes. Copy the material from two of them into one file and delete the extras. Pruning your files this way will eliminate repetitions.

This cleansing process can be very time consuming but it’ll save you anxiety later when you need to use a particular file, and you don’t have to go hunting for it. Nor will you lose the data when upgrades make conversions of earlier files impossible. So maybe pick one day per week or one particular folder to work on and clean it up. You’ll feel good about your accomplishment.

What advice on file cleansing/updating would you add?

The Great Summer Mystery: How to Open a Clam

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by: Kathleen Pickering  http://www.kathleenpickering.com

It’s my turn to blog today. Unfortunately, I’m away on vacation this week (and last week) and have been ensconced on a boat along the Fire Island seashore.

sailors haven

Hence, my writing only has been to keep on deadline. Otherwise, I’ve had my feet in the sand, been body surfing and learning one of the great mysteries of the Great South Bay: How to open a clam.

Snapshot 1 (7-16-2012 2-33 PM)

Click here to view the video:

How To Open A Great South Bay Clam

Afterwards, I’ve been sitting back and enjoying glorious summer sunsets like these:

photo

sunset-sailors haven

In my writing vocabulary, times away like these are called Percolating—or giving the mind time to rest and let new ideas work their way to the surface.

See? Even when on vacation, the writer is always working. I guess somebody has to do it!

Hope you enjoy the clam shucking video. Feel free to post any questions pertaining to this particular quahog—or how to find this free lunch!

Write on, my friends.

xox, Piks

(Next post will be relevant. I promise!)

Do we Really Want to Know the Alternate Endings?

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by Clare Langley-Hawthorne

News that we will finally get to see all of Ernest Hemingway’s 47 alternate endings for A Farewell to Arms in print has me conflicted. At some level I am intrigued, as it would provide a unique insight into all the options Hemingway went through until he was (apparently) satisfied. 


On the other hand, though, I don’t really want to see those behind the scenes machinations (it seems a little too much like the Great Oz being exposed). At one level, I like the satisfaction that comes from accepting a story for what is (not for what it could have been). 


Although I am sure I would have loved a happier ending to many of my favourite books, it dilutes the power somehow of the ending that was finally chosen, if I know all the other options the author weighed up (especially if some of these options turn out to be really lame!). So all in all, I’m not sure I want to trudge through all of Hemingway’s alternate endings just as I wouldn’t want to know if Emily Bronte considered a sappy ending to Wuthering Heights that involved Heathcliff and Catherine living happily ever after…


Or would I?


One of the most well-known examples of alternate ending controversies is with Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations. Dickens changed his original ending (one in which Pip returns to hear that Estella has remarried) to the one that exists in most editions (they meet in the grounds of Satis House and in the final line “I saw no shadow of another parting from her” there is the implication that Pip and Estella might end up together). The original ending was much more downbeat and apparently Dickens’ friend, Edward Bulwer-Lytton (who read the original draft), urged him to change it to be more positive. Now I  probably would not have enjoyed the original, more pessimistic ending so in one sense I am relieved that he changed it – but do I really want to know that this was how Dickens’ originally wanted it to end? 


Knowing the alternate endings that famous authors such as Hemingway or Dickens considered provides insight into both the mind of an author as well as the writing process – but I’m still not sure I want to find when I finish a book,  a list of all the other possible endings that had been discarded (which is how I assume Scribner is going to present Hemingway’s alternate endings for A Farewell to Arms). It would seem to cloud the enjoyment of the reading experience and make me question the ending that was ultimately decided upon.


But what about you?

  • Would you like to know the alternative endings some of your favourite writers considered and ultimately discarded?
  • Have you ever wanted to go back and change the ending to your own book, after it was published?

Writing Advice from John Steinbeck

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What follows is some writing wisdom from John Steinbeck, via an old interview in The Paris Review. I’ve added some comments, which is a bit cheeky considering Mr. Steinbeck is a Nobel Prize ahead of me. But here goes anyway:
1. Abandon the idea that you are ever going to finish. Lose track of the 400 pages and write just one page for each day, it helps. Then when it gets finished, you are always surprised.
JSB: I like this. It’s similar to what Ann Lamott counsels in Bird by Bird, i.e., the “one inch frame.” Just face your daily writing, with full attention. If you do this faithfully, at some point you’ll look up and see a full novel. And that’s a very nice feeling.
           
2. Write freely and as rapidly as possible and throw the whole thing on paper. Never correct or rewrite until the whole thing is down. Rewrite in process is usually found to be an excuse for not going on. It also interferes with flow and rhythm which can only come from a kind of unconscious association with the material.
JSB: I completely agree. I am a planner, but once I get going I want to finish that first draft as rapidly as I can. I edit my previous day’s work and then move on. I don’t do substantial edits, with one exception. At about 20,000 words I’ll stop and assess the foundations of my story (using my LOCK System). I don’t want to press on for another 70k or 80k if the spine is not strong.
           
3. Forget your generalized audience. In the first place, the nameless, faceless audience will scare you to death and in the second place, unlike the theater, it doesn’t exist. In writing, your audience is one single reader. I have found that sometimes it helps to pick out one person—a real person you know, or an imagined person and write to that one.
JSB:I’ve heard this advice before, but I’ve never been able to use it. I don’t think about readers when I write. I think about the characters. I think about the readers when I come up with a concept. I make sure I’ve got an idea that will appeal to people who have discretionary income to spend on books. But once I’ve put that concept into motion in a novel, I’m involved only with the characters and how they get out of trouble.
           
4. If a scene or a section gets the better of you and you still think you want it—bypass it and go on. When you have finished the whole you can come back to it and then you may find that the reason it gave trouble is because it didn’t belong there.
           
JSB:This is good advice, so long as  you’re not doing it a lot. If you do, there’s going to be a much bigger mess at the end than there was at the beginning. If you have too many scenes that are not “working,” the problem may be in the structural foundations or in scene writing itself.
5. Beware of a scene that becomes too dear to you, dearer than the rest. It will usually be found that it is out of drawing.
JSB:I believe “out of drawing” is an art term which means an element that doesn’t fit. “Kill your darlings” is another way to put it. But this advice has always puzzled me. Maybe that scene that’s dear to you is the best one in the book. I think the only test is, Does it work? And maybe what we need is that objective eye, from someone else, to tell us if it does.
           
6. If you are using dialogue—say it aloud as you write it. Only then will it have the sound of speech.
JSB: I prefer to write dialogue and let it flow. When I edit the dialogue, that’s when I might say it out loud, or have Word’s speech function read it to me.
So there’s a list from one of our most esteemed writers. Any of it resonate with you? (I’ll be flying to L.A. from NYC today, so talk amongst yourselves!)

Don’t Stop Believin’

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Never. Give. Up. It can’t be said often enough. Whether it’s writing or making Seal Team 6 or winning the heart of your one true love the only person you can’t beat is the one who tells you “quit” when you look in the mirror in the morning. Writers get a lot of that from their reflection, and it’s the self-doubt that you have to kick to the curb whenever and however often it rears its ugly head.
You can find all sorts of stories about authors who persevered. Get a Facebook account, list “writer” in occupation and sooner or later you will find one of those posts listing which authors got s number of rejection slips before getting published and becoming overnight sensations. This isn’t one of those stories. You can find such elsewhere. This is one you will only read here, and it’s not about an author. It’s about Lisa, my wife.
Lisa wanted two things from the time she was a little girl. She wanted to be a mother and she wanted to be a teacher. The second goal was the one she reached first, teaching special education in Oak Hill and Fayetteville, West Virginia, two places about as diametrically opposite from her birthplace on Long Island as one could imagine. She made an impression on any number of young lives — to this day, a quarter-century on, she still gets letters, some addressed in pencil, from former students — often scraping together money she didn’t really have to but shoes when she noticed a seven year old limping in the back of the room because they’d outgrown an older sibling’s Keds. At one point, however, she heard that biological clock ticking and without any likely prospects for a husband took matters in hand and began a course of artificial insemination. It was a one hundred fifty mile round trip to get-er-done, but it was what Lisa wanted, and she did it for two years, all the while teaching at a small school named Gatewood Elementary. Lisa used to stand and watch the children on the playground during recess duty, imagining that one day her child would be out there playing with them. At the end of two years, Lisa was given the solemn news that she would never get pregnant.  She kept teaching, took in a couple of foster children, and hoped that down the road a miracle would happen, all the while watching other parents’ children on the slides and swing sets.
Fast forward fifteen years or so. A combination of circumstances brought Lisa from West Virginia to Westerville, Ohio where, we met ironically enough in the hallway of a school. One thing led to another, as such things sometimes do, and we fell in love and became engaged. By that time I was aware of her dream; more importantly, I was aware of the type of person she was. I already had three children on the cusp of adulthood, but I knew what I knew, and I knew she wanted a child of her own. I told her that once we got married we could try to bring our own new life into the world. She repeated to me what the experts had told her. I waved the sage pronouncement away. “You just haven’t been with an Italian,” I said. “You’ll be pregnant within a year.” She replied, “You’re a cocky little b*****d, aren’t you?” We were both right.
Fast forward another fifteen years to last month. On our way to Charlotte and points south from Ohio we — Lisa, myself, and Annalisa, our fourteen year old who the experts and specialists said would never happen — stopped in West Virginia and did a tour of Lisa’s former schools and residences. As the sun began to set over the New River Gorge Bridge to the west we drove seventeen miles down a long holler on Gatewood Road, turning right into the parking lot of a small school. I drove around to the back while Lisa and our daughter Annalisa got out. Annalisa, unbidden, went over to the playground and got on a swing. And for a few moments, the world stopped as a dream came true and — I swear — the next song up on the    iPod shuffle was  “Don’t Stop Believin.’”
And those are my words to you.
 

Reader Friday: Where do YOU write?

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Last Friday we shared some pix of where the TKZ bloggers write. This week, it’s your turn. A number of readers responded to our request with some great photos of their writing spaces. Here we go!


Basil Sands:

Basil is a self-described “on the go, write-where-you-can” kind of guy.

“I have three primary butt parking spots where my literary juices tend to spike highest,” he says. 

I vote for #2, the comfy, cozy chair.

John Gilstrap:
Blogger Emeritus John Gilstrap sent in a view of his office as you come in from the front door. I have to say, John’s writing space comes closest to my ideal vision of a bestselling author’s writing space!

Mike Dennis:

OK, forget the office–just look at Mike Dennis’s place (I think it’s hidden behind the palm trees). It must be great to work in paradise! 

And here’s his office…
Mike Jecks: 
Mike from the UK accused us of cleaning up our desks for our photos last week. Guilty as charged, Mike! He included a photo of his office and canine muses.

“As you can see, British writers don’t tidy up the desk before wandering off to pointlessly take photos, even leaving both dogs in the shot to prove we’re not idly ambling around the lanes instead of working,” he said, with lovable British sarcasm. “No. We’re sitting indoors pretending to concentrate on the next book, while actually taking photos of the ‘workspace’ instead. Work displacement activities are a wonderful thing! Hope you like the way I took one photo, didn’t like it, so took a second while leaving the first on the screen … yeah, I forgot.” 

Oh, and the second dog? If you look under the desk, you’ll spot a nose.




Zoe Sharp:

Zoe gets her creative juices flowing in an unlikely spot–her car. 

“I get a lot of productive work done in the car on motorway journeys,” she says.

Seriously, Zoe? Be careful doing that in Southern California–they hand out tickets here for texting and using a cell phone, much less tapping out the Next Great American Novel! 

Michael Harling:

Michael is shown working in his office.  


“This is me, our dining table and, yes, that is my permanent ‘office.’  It is where I work when I am not writing on the bus or a train,” he says.


I’m a dining room table writer too, Michael. Thanks for sharing!


Richard Mabry:

Richard Mabry sent us a photo of his office from his iPhone. Very cool! 

Mark Terry:

“My office used to be in the basement… and my youngest son wanted to move down there so I switched with him,” Mark says. “I rather liked the solar system hanging from the ceiling, so I left it up.” 

The acoustic guitar provides an additional outlet for creative expression.
 

Terri Coop:
Terri describes her office as “very much my cocoon.”

“This is my little corner of the world where I write and run my business,” she says. “It is in a free-standing apartment built inside my warehouse. I rescued the desks and wall mount cabinets from the alley behind an insurance agency (there is another on just like it to the left holding all my graphic design printers). Then I decorated the office around the desks.”

I love the HOPE sign on top of the cabinet. Every writer needs one of these!

Thank you! 
Sending out a big thanks to everyone who shared their pictures and stories about their writing spots this week. Hope we didn’t overlook anyone. Please share your story today in the Comments!

Getting Out of the Protection Racket

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 by Meg Gardiner

The Kill Zone is delighted to welcome Edgar Award-winning author Meg Gardiner. The Boston Globe says of her latest thriller: “RANSOM RIVER  is everything you want in a blockbuster thriller: multiple plot twists, thoroughly creepy psychotic villains, danger at every turn.” In other words: “It’s awesome!” Meg’s latest is a departure from her popular series, and today she discusses a critical question for every thriller author.

Thrillers toss characters into danger. They force cops to chase maniacs through dark woods. They make covert agents disarm suitcase nukes—while trapped by rising floodwaters and clutching a basket of kittens. The writer’s job is to keep the reader worrying: Who’ll survive? Please let it be the cop. And the kittens… won’t somebody think of the kittens?


But here’s the thing. If your sympathetic characters always survive—the hero, the partner and girlfriend and Fluffy—are you writing a real thriller? Or are you conducting a puppet show?
This raises the question: Should you ever kill a major character?

Michelle Gagnon has done it. George R.R. Martin does it so regularly that readers preemptively cry, “Noooo!” before opening his books. On the other hand, I recently heard Sue Grafton promise that none of the regulars in her Kinsey Millhone series is going to die. And I felt so relieved. I felt happy and grateful.  

And I’m not following in her footsteps. Here’s why.
A few years ago, I realized I was protecting my characters. Not in any obvious way—in my novels they faced plenty of peril. The Evan Delaney series opened with a major character critically injured and disabled. Heck, Jo Beckett’s husband was buried before chapter 1 began. But when I sat down to write, I unconsciously assumed that all the characters I liked would make it out alive.

This was a bad thing.
Bad, but natural. It takes me a year to write a novel, and in that time my characters grow on me. I want them to stick around, and to be happy. That’s my problem: I want them to live normal lives and play softball and build loving marriages and have beautiful babies.
And as soon as I think like that, part of me starts to write them as content, easygoing, settled… and wants to keep it that way.

You can see that what works well in real life would take the edge off in a thriller.

And I saw that I was never truly jeopardizing my characters’ lives or relationships. Sure, I’d write scenes where they faced doom, and readers would worry… but I knew they weren’t at risk. In my own mind, I never truly put their fate up for grabs. I kept them safe. During the course of the novel they got scared and maybe beaten up or even shot, but in the end they always got together for margaritas and a good, if rueful, laugh.

But safe leads to static. Safe kills suspense.
One of my favorite books on craft, Stein on Writing, talks about the concept of the crucible, “the container that holds the characters together as things heat up.” It’s a key to successful plotting:  

“Characters caught in a crucible won’t declare a truce and quit. They’re in it till the end. The key to the crucible is that the motivation of the characters to continue opposing each other is greater than their motivation to run away. Or they can’t run away because they are in a prison cell, a lifeboat, an army, or a family.”

It’s a great concept, and an excellent way to increase drama. But by promising my favorite characters a safe landing, I was creating a crucible and then providing them with ejector seats and parachutes. 

That’s when I reset my mental parameters to imagine: What if anybody can die? What if any and all relationships—family, friends, lovers—can be ripped apart by events and choices? And once I put it all on the table, I saw a more powerful way to write fiction. I opened myself to creating stories that went to the end of the line.

So I got out of the protection racket.

Now I try to write without a net for my characters. My new novel Ransom River throws heroine Rory Mackenzie from the frying pan into the fire. She’s a juror on a murder trial who finds herself fighting for her life when gunmen attack the courthouse. Though she escapes, she lands in a hotter crucible—she discovers that the attack is connected to an old unsolved case, and to dark skeletons in her own family history. Bringing the truth to light might destroy her and the people she loves.

I think I took the story as far as it could go. And part of me still thinks, Yikes, Rory. You’ve got some nasty relatives. Sorry, kid. But I know I shouldn’t change a word.

Here’s my writing advice: Put your characters to the test, and don’t let them get out of it by any means but their own grit and blood and pain. 

Don’t let coincidence save them. Don’t let somebody else come to their rescue. Don’t provide a secret fire exit to the sunny side of the street.  


Make them act. Make it hard. Force them to sacrifice. If they’re characters that readers care about, you’ll create genuine suspense. You’ll raise the stakes, and write books that readers shove into their friends’ hands, saying, You’ve got to read this.

MegGardiner.com   | Visit Meg on Facebook   and Twitter  | @MegGardiner1

Conference season and the pitch

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By Joe Moore

ThrillerFest-VII-logo-500

This week, ThrillerFest VII, the annual writer’s conference sponsored by the International Thriller Writers is taking place once again in the heart of the publishing universe, NYC. Like many other major conferences held each year, ThrillerFest is a great opportunity for writers and fans to come together and celebrate their love of the genre. If you’ve attended a conference like ThrillerFest, you already know the benefits. If you haven’t yet experienced a conference, make a goal to do so soon. You won’t regret it.

ThrillerFest is actually a combination of 3 events: CraftFest, AgentFest and ThrillerFest. CraftFest is a 2-day series of workshops taught by some of the most successful mystery and thriller authors on the planet. Names like Berry, Sandford, Gardner, Coulter, Palmer, Morrell, Rule, Child, and TKZ’s own James Scott Bell are just a few of the instructors on staff this year.

ThrillerFest is a 2-day collection of discussion panels and spotlight guest interviews culminating in the naming of this year’s ITW Thriller Awards.

AgentFest is an insanely popular opportunity for writers to pitch their manuscripts to over 50 top New York agents and editors. The pitching exercise is what I want to talk about today.

We all know how important it is to prepare when pitching a manuscript to an agent: look professional, act professional, be able to summarize your premise in a couple of sentences, and know that not every book is right for every agent (most of the time, that’s why they say no).

But what about those things you don’t want to do; those things that could wreck you presentation or turn off the agent? Here are a few pitfalls to avoid:

Never refuse advice or feedback. Even if the agent or editor is not interested in your book, many times they will offer suggestions or advice on making it more marketable. Never have a closed mind and think that it’s your way or the highway. Professional agents know the market and are aware of what the publishing houses are looking for at any given moment. Also remember that just because an agent is not interested in your book doesn’t mean the book is not publishable. It’s just not for them.

Don’t begin your pitch by saying that “everyone loves your book.” Of course they do, because everyone is probably your family and friends, and if per chance they don’t like it, the last thing they want to do is hurt your feelings. If they didn’t like the book and were completely honest with you, it would be like hitting your ego with a sledgehammer. Now on the other hand, if John Grisham, Ken Follett or Stephenie Meyer read your manuscript and loved it, I would mention that somewhere right after "hello".

Don’t be a pest. By that I mean sending the agent multiple emails, phone calls, letters, presents, or anything else that would quickly become annoying. If the agent says no, the likelihood of you turning them around with a box of Godiva chocolates is not good. Send it to me instead.

Don’t suggest that if the agent wants to know all about you they can visit your website or blog. It doesn’t matter if Michelangelo designed your graphics, James Patterson wrote your text, and Lady Gaga composed the music for your book trailer. The agent doesn’t care. All she wants to know is: who are you, what is your idea, and can you present it in a logical, concise and professional manner.

Even if your manuscript has been rejected before, don’t volunteer that information. As far as the agent is concerned, they’re getting the first look at your idea. They’re also realistic and know it’s probably been pitched before. And the fact that you’re standing there means that if it was, it was rejected. Always remember that rejection is as much a part of the publication process as line editing or cover design. It happens to everyone. Move on.

Don’t claim that no one has ever written anything like your book before. If that’s really true, there’s probably a good reason no one has. But trust me, claiming that what you’ve written is a brand new idea is as compelling as claiming you have the winning numbers for tomorrow’s lotto. What you might want to do is suggest that you’ve completed a unique and original treatment of a well-established theme or premise. That will make sense to the agent.

Never say that your book is going to be the next blockbuster or that it should be made into a movie. The top professionals in the publishing and motion picture industries cannot predict with certainty what will be the next blockbuster or bestseller. Neither can you.

In general, always assume that an agent or editor has already heard every variation on a theme there is, because they have. Much of your success in capturing the attention of an agent is you, not your story. Be enthusiastic but not obnoxious, knowledgeable but not condescending, proud but not conceded, prepared but not pushy. And most of all, be friendly and professional. Your presentation is a foreshadowing of what it would be like to work with you. Agents don’t want to spend a year or more in a wrestling match with a jerk.

Remember that literary agents and editors are people, too. Yes, they can have a tremendous impact on your writing career, both positive and negative. But just like the rest of us, they get excited when they hear a great idea. Treat them as people, not gods.

If you practice all these tips and you have a killer idea for a book, there’s a good chance the agent will hand you her business card and ask for a partial. And if by chance, she asks for a full, go celebrate. You’ve accomplished more than most ever will.

Rethinking the “Like” button

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Graphic by Scott Beale, Laughing Squid

Recently I’ve been inundated by “Like” requests from Facebookers. “Like” my page! “Like” my product! “Like” my book! Like me! Like me!


I used to be a promiscuous Liker. Show me your Like button, and I’d press it. Why not? I figured. There’s little enough like in the world, say nothing of love. I was a one-woman sunshine squad, spreading the Like around.


But then I read that if you Like something, your endorsement might turn up in a Facebook ad or Sponsored Story. I started worrying about my lengthy trail of Likes. Egad, what if my mug wound up in an ad for Jello(R) Chocobeasts? I moved quickly to counteract potential damage; first I reset my Privacy options so that my name can’t be used without specific permission. Then I went through the products that were hawking messages in my timeline; I must have liked those products sometime in my glad-handering past. I Unliked all the ones I could track down.


Nowadays I seldom press the “Like” button. Like Sally Field, I have to really, really like you. To “Like” you, I mean. And I’ve started to pine for a “Dislike” button.


It’s not personal. It’s business. But isn’t that what all the Like-mongers are after, after all? Our business?


Am I the only person who has grown wary of the Like button? Have any of you wound up unintentionally in an ad, simply because you Liked something?

What Your E-Reader Knows…

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by Clare Langley-Hawthorne

An article in today’s Australian newspaper has prompted me to re-think exactly how much my e-reader knows about me and how little I know about the technology that is used to monitor the book apps I’ve downloaded on my iPad and iPhone. 


Today’s article, “Your e-book is reading you” (which I think is a reprint of an article in the WSJ – the link to which is here.)  highlights the amazing amount of data these kind of devices can provide not just about what you are reading but how. Gone are the days when no one knew when you skipped the boring bits, abandoned a literary classic or got totally bogged down and bored. Instead (apparently) your e-reader knows:

  • How fast you read the book and when you slowed down, skipped bits, or stopped reading it altogether
  • Which passages you highlighted or bookmarked 
  • How many times you opened a book and how long you read it for
  • How quickly you purchased/downloaded a sequel after finishing a book

I have to say, I never really thought about my e-reader gathering such data, but now this information is proving invaluable to sellers as well as publishers. They can now use this knowledge to gain insight into your reading habits. They can tell when a reader’s interest tends to drop off, when a series might be flagging and the kinds of books readers consume in one sitting versus those which tend to get read in fits and starts (most non-fiction, apparently gets read this way).  


This information can also be very specific and some publishers are even conducting market tests in which readers can customize elements of the book – from the level and intensity of love scenes (!) to which of three potential suitors a female protagonist chooses. At one level this smacks of commercial dilution of the creative process (rather like writing a book by committee!) but obviously this kind of analysis is proving invaluable for publishers (and writers) on exactly what  readers want. By looking at the pace with which books are read and the places where readers get bogged down or bored, publishers can also glean when a writer is losing  a reader’s interest. 


For instance, for Suzanne Collins’ hugely successful Hunger Games trilogy publishers found out:

  • It takes the average reader 7 hours to read the final book on the Kobo e-reader (which equates to about 57 pages an hour)
  • That 18,000 Kindle readers highlighted the same line in the second book – “because sometimes things happen to people and they’re not equipped to deal with them”
  • On Barnes & Noble’s Nook e-reader, the first thing most people did upon finishing the first book in the trilogy was to download the next one.

Obviously this kind of data makes it clear why the series is so popular – readers read it voraciously and then immediately want to read the next installment. But how do you feel about your e-reader knowing that much about your reading habits?


Do you consider it an invasion of privacy? I for one would prefer no one knew which bits I skim over, especially if I’m reading some impressive high-brow literary tome:) As a writer, though, I can imagine this information could provide an amazing insight into what my readers liked and disliked about my books. At the same time this feels kind of scary and, dare I say it, a bit depressing too (knowing Big Brother is watching what everyone is reading in such detail). What do you think, should we be scared or exhilarated by the prospect?