Posted by Jocelyn on November 16th, 2009
Yes, I made my 5th appearance on Oprah on Monday! It was amazing! I actually said to Oprah, “I think we’re best friends now,” and she replied, “I think we are!” Yes. Pretty surreal.
You can watch the webcast for Uwem Akpan’s SAY YOU’RE ONE OF THEM here.
Posted by Jocelyn on November 16th, 2009
I recently interviewed Chris Bohjalian, author of the enormously popular MIDWIVES as well as many other thought-provoking and captivating novels. His upcoming release, SECRETS OF EDEN just received a starred review from Publishers Weekly.
Do you feel the subject matter of your books are ever rooted in a current event, a hot news story or a popular debate?
I don’t always relate a novel to a current event. “Skeletons at the Feast” is a love triangle set in Poland and Germany in the last six months of World War II. “The Buffalo Soldier” was about parental grief and loss and recovery. “The Double Bind” harkens back to “The Great Gatsby” and the literary canon. And even “Midwives” wasn’t about an issue that was out there in the news: No one was talking about midwifery in 1997. There was no national debate about home vs. hospital birth.
Still, I do have novelist friends who are preternaturally gifted at tapping into the cultural zeitgeist – and they sell boatloads more books than I do. So, clearly they’re on to something.
In any case, the last thing I would tell a novelist is that the key to great art is a great hook. Sometimes great art has a great hook…but I wouldn’t recommend beginning there.
Now, I think that if you are determined to pull something off the newspapers or news web sites and craft it into a novel, be sure there is some moral ambiguity or conflict to the story. Drama still needs conflict, even if your source is the news.
How do you decide what makes a good story?
Some writing professors will tell you to write about what you know; others will tell you to write about what you don’t know, but learn all you can. My sense is that it really doesn’t matter if you are writing about a subject you know all about or one that is completely foreign. The key is to explore a subject you care about so passionately that you want to get up at five a.m. to dive in. That has always been the barometer for me.
I should also note that for every novel I finish, I must go down two dead ends, some of which are hundreds of pages long.
Posted by Jocelyn on November 2nd, 2009
Seventy-year-old Canadian author, Margaret Atwood, could teach her successors a few things about online promotion. To help generate attention for her latest novel, THE YEAR OF THE FLOOD, Margaret Atwood is blogging, tweeting and creating a YouTube contest.
Here is an interview she did with Reuters about her latest online activity.
Posted by Jocelyn on November 2nd, 2009
Great piece in the New York Times about the price war between Walmart and Amazon over their books.
Posted by Jocelyn on October 27th, 2009
Great piece by Jonathan Fields in The Huffington Post about the changing face of self-publishing. It is especially delightful because two of my clients, Lisa Genova and Brunonia Barry, are referenced in the piece.
We worked with Brunonia Barry when THE LACE READER was self-published and we were able to secure her coverage that brought the attention of agents and a major seven figure deal with William Morrow. We were then hired by Lisa Genova to help promote her self-published novel, STILL ALICE, about a woman suffering from early onset alzheimer’s. Once again, the coverage we secured led her to a dream agent and a major deal with Simon & Schuster.
Here is a quote from the Huffington Post piece.
“What so many people don’t realize is that self-pubbed writers are not a group of frustrated, no-talent writers. Rather they include established authors like Stephen King, intellectuals like Noam Chomsky and Lisa Genova and Brunonia Barry, writers who couldn’t find anyone to publish their books, did it themselves, and landed on the NY Times bestseller list. It is my belief that there are many more great works and writers out there, just waiting to be found by adventurous readers.”
I was thrilled to work with both of these authors at the very beginning of their careers and to help provide them with the guidance and publicity they needed to lead them to immense success. As the publicist, I am the behind-the-scenes person, but I truly love seeing my hard work and dedication to my clients pay off…BIG TIME!