Getting Medieval

Just argh! I'm so tired of hearing people disparage medieval life as "smelly, cold, dirty and uncomfortable." Look, when you embrace a time period, you accept it. You don't stand over it with your contemporary mindset and tick your head saying, "What a tragic era. Such inequality. Such violence and ignorance."

I say, get over yourselves! Medieval life was what it was. They thought what they thought and they did what they did based on centuries of experiences and society with like-minded communities. They tried to make it less smelly. They wore layers to keep away the cold that they were perfectly aware of, they kept things as clean as they could, believe me, and as far as uncomfortable? By whose standards?

I read this article in The Guardian (I know, my own fault) which starts out with this diatribe: "Domestic life in the past was smelly, cold, dirty and uncomfortable, but we have much to learn from it." And then the writer has the nerve to start telling us that all this stuff was great! What? Okay, yes, it's a good point that smaller windows and shutters help with energy efficiency in the home. All these are "duh!" moments but don't start off by knocking what you are praising.

Medieval life was full of rules and laws designed for tight knit communities to live in relative harmony with one another. The mindset was communal and anyone going outside those bounds was going to get into trouble. I really doubt any women were sitting around lamenting their place in society. And if you look a few blogs back (Social Mobility) you'll see that the supposed inequities that plagued the era were mere Victorian fantasies to hide behind their own inequities.

Looking at the era with fresh eyes, I can't say that there is anything I abhor about it. Even the superstitions and treatment of the Jews. This was their timeframe given their education and rules of society. You can't judge any of it with contemporary eyes. There were people of that era that spoke out against these inequities and put their lives on the line for it. Even their hospital systems were better. They never checked to see if you had insurance and could pay for your care. What I abhor is this "modern" era we live in where there is no excuse for prejudice or superstition and yet we still harbor them. Tell me why in 2011 that every newspaper still has a horoscope for "entertainment" purposes? 

And let the record show, that "Elizabethan" is NOT medieval. Just so you know. Article is here but why bother? 

Today is the day! We are officially published. It's a celebration! The book is in bookstores, I'm gearing up for the book launch party, all is right with the world!

Please come on the blog tour with me. I've already been to a few places. Here is the list. 

BLOG TOUR:[a virtual tour wherein I post on the blogs of others or get interviewed.] September 30--Historical Boys; October 6--Crispin gets interviewed!; October 6-12-- Moments in Crime (the St. Martin's blog), October 20--Reading, Raving, and Ranting; October 25--Historical Tapestry; October 26--Edward the Second Blog; October 28--History Buff; October 28--The Rap Sheet; October 29--Poe's Deadly Daughters;Nov 3-- Reading the Past, Nov 5 & 6--The Graveyard Shift; November 9--Type M for Murder November 10--Book Bitch;November 12--It's A Crime; November 15--Writer's Plot; November 17--Working Stiffs; November 19--Jungle Red Writers; ...stay tuned! There are a few more!  

And on Thursday, October 30, catch me on the radio! --8:48AM PDT/11.35 AM EDT  Radio Interview on AM 1290 KZSB out of Santa Barbara, CA. The program also airs in Goleta, Carpinteria, Ventura, Thousand Oaks and Los Angeles County. In addition, the show is rebroadcast on KNRY AM 1240 in Monterey, Salinas, Santa Cruz and Pebble Beach; KNWZ-II AM 1270 in Palm Desert, Palm Springs, Indio and Rancho Mirage. The program is delayed broadcast in Australia on 99.7 FM in Queensland and to another 30+ radio stations via ComRadSat.

I miss Parrot Boy. No, he's not the latest in superheroes. He's the kid in the parrot costume that stood on the corner sign-twirling. My husband and I would see him on our carpool commute to work (the day job, don't you know). He was advertising some early bird special for a lube shop. ("Polly want a lube?") I don't know if sign-twirling is peculiar to California alone but usually some kid or retiree (or me about six months ago when I considered it when I was downsized) is stuffed into some kind of costume, stands on a street corner, inhaling smog and whatnot, and twirls these directional signs advertising (usually) new tract homes (not so much these days). 

It's funny. "Westerson" would not seem to be such a hard name to spell. There's a "west" and an "er" and a "son". And yet, it's one of those quirky things where people have a hard time with it. Mostly, they want to add an "N" in the middle of it--"WesterNson". Which is sort of what it means in Danish, really: Son of West, West probably being someone from the west. Vistersen, is the original spelling before the fellows at Ellis Island put their hands in it. Lately, though, I've been seeing--and hearing, from intros--the spelling "Westerman." Now admittedly, my husband, whose name it is, has been dealing with it a lot longer than I have (though "Jeri" gets its fair use of spelling choices). So Jeri "Westerman" and even "Jen Westerman" have been sloshing around the internet on occasion. But as it happens, there is a quite successful mystery author by the name of John Westermann. So it might look a bit as if he's got another pen name, masquerading as a middle-aged woman writing medieval mysteries.

Or...is John Westermann my nom de plume? Hmm.    

When I signed my contract for my first novel, the publishing date seemed so far away. That was in May of 2007. The release was set for October 2008. Why do these things take so long? But now August is spinning away and soon it will be September. October 28th looms on my calendar. And now there is so much to do.

When you are a first-timer like me, you get the standard treatment. That is, the in-house publicist sends ARCs or Advanced Reader Copies to the usual suspects to get reviewed. He will book you in a few bookstores. I would not get a "tour." Since I am a card-carrying member of the Sisters in Crime and we all talk a lot online, I was forewarned so I was forearmed. What I didn't know but soon learned, is that the more you know the more you can ask for. No, they weren't going to print me bookmarks or postcards, but the library marketing person would mail out my postcard to 3000 library contacts. If I wanted more bookstore signings, my publicist would book them if I asked. But not too many for a newbie. No one will come out for a newbie. And hence the reason for this post.

Now I usually don't get personal in these posts and talk too much about publishing because, quite honestly, I find those kinds of blogs tiresome. But this is my blog, dammit, and today I'm going to rant.

I think creative people live in a constant state of flux. No wonder many of them are mad or dirven mad by the process. One day you are spectacular. Your writing is the best there is and you are going to be sooo successful. But the next day can easily see you in a pit of despair. No one will ever read this. No one will ever buy this. Your first book will be your last. And on and on.

Right now I'm sort of inbetween. Granted, it's a bit overwhelming right now. There is a lot of publicity to plan and when you are essentially doing it on your own and balancing a day job and trying to write the next one, it can be a little daunting.

Will they love me or hate me? Only time will tell. But I'm a half-empty sort of person. If I come into something not expecting much, then any little thing becomes a bonus. For instance, in my few bookstore signings, I'll be lucky to have anyone besides the employees show up. So if three people show--even if they're just there to come in out of the rain--I'll consider it a success.

My goal, of course, is to sell through my advance, that is, sell enough books to cover the advance the publisher paid me (and the advance is an advance on royalties, like a loan. The publisher doesn't actually buy your book. It's more like leasing. They print it and take care of getting a distributor. And in the beginning, they advance you money betting that they will earn it back.) Not only would that mean that I would start to receive royalties but it would be a clear sign to St. Martin's that this book is worthy, that this author deserves a little more. That there will indeed be a next book. I've been told there will be 4500 copies printed as a first run. Yes, it's small but I'm not complaining. Less to sell, right? (Half-empty). But 4500 is still a lot of books. I don't know 4500 people, so I can't fall back on "if all of my friends buy a copy..."

So the circus begins. It's time to get the tiny car with all the clowns gassed up and ready to go. I will be jumping through hoops. Flaming ones. I will be in the (small) center ring. With a whip (heh, heh). So let's all look forward to October 28th with a big smile now.                 

 Oh goody. A new hurdle to worry over. The high price of fuel might keep potential buyers from coming to bookstore events which might translate into less sales. Although, I tend to think that if you are a person who goes to bookstore events, you'll be going anyway. And as for booksales, a recession is likely to hurt the independent booksellers rather than megga sellers like Amazon. Books will still be sold, but where they will be sold is the difference.

Ah, how I miss living in an area where it was easy to get to a bookstore. Multiple bookstores! The experience of browsing through bookstore shelves is completely different from the online experience. I have found some interesting books that I never would have picked up had I not browsed the shelves than I could ever find from difficult online searches. Though there is nothing like the instant gratification from online sources. Something to be said for both. Christopher Kenneally from the Copyright Clearance Center (whom I talked about from BEA) sent me So Many Books: Reading and Publishing in an Age of Abundance by Gabriel Zaid, which breaks the bookreading public psyche down to digestible parts. We want it all, in other words. We want it fast, cheap, now. But we want it and nothing can stop that inexorable movement.

I'm banking on it.

This is truly an era passing away. Dutton's in Brentwood, CA (Los Angeles) that used to have two locations in swanky areas has to close its doors after twenty years. It's one of those places I dreamed of doing a signing in some day. Unfortunately, now I won't get that chance. They are closing up shop in April well before my book can hit the streets. Their Beverly Hills store closed in December over rent disputes and now the Brentwood store will close because the developer who owns the property is going to refurbish and rebuild the shops in that area. The new, smaller bookstore he is putting in at "ridiculously low rent" may be too small for Dutton's culture, says Doug Dutton.

Hey, I know LA is about change. I've seen it morph into all sorts of things over the years, from when I grew up there in the sixties to today. When I was a kid, I remember being in the car and cruising down the Harbor Freeway and gawking at the buildings of downtown. In those days, the City Hall was the tallest building. Now it is dwarfed by the other mega buildings surrounding it.

Book culture was always part of my younger days. We'd make the occasional trek downtown to the LA Public Library and even when I was a kid, I marveled at the deco design and WPA artwork in the place. Stairwells with brass and wood. Large wooden book index files (before computers made it easy to look up books and where in the library they could be found.)

When I was a teenager, we journeyed to Westwood by UCLA to go into their multi-floored bookstore. We perused the used bookstores in Long Beach--Acres of Books, and all the other stores we came to love. Recently, I've come to love Warwick's in La Jolla as the sort of standard independent bookstore; cozy, knowlegdable staff, a little of this, a little of that. Sure, we all buy books on Amazon, too. It's inevitable, the convenience. But it is no substitute for thumbing down the shelves, picking up something that looks interesting, and making that discovery.

Are bookstores a dying breed? I hope not. Like books themselves--paper and cardboard cover--I hope they never disappear. We need them. We need the visceral sense of walking into a place that smells like books, of taking a book down from a shelf and paging through it with our flesh and blood hands, not virtual fingers, of chatting with staff that actually reads and can recommend. Call me a dinosaur, but I don't want these experiences to die off. Yeah, there's room for Amazon and e-books and e-book readers, but please give me the brick and mortar stores, too. Can't we all just get along?   

Got to get serious again about putting up real posts here. Sorry about the delay. The boy wizard is off my back, I've gotten considerable work done on the next Crispin, and it's time to do some mystery and history again.

Some upcoming posts: medieval forensics--what Crispin could or couldn't know; more stuff on weapons (I loves the weapons); a few things about Richard II's court; crime and punishment in the middle ages; important medieval battles; strange English customs and traditions... Those are just a few. Stay tuned.

It happened yesterday. I was ditching a staff meeting at work by hanging out at home and monitoring my calls when my agent Steve Mancino called me yesterday morning. "We have an offer." Four of the nicest words in the English language. It can be revealed at last that St. Martin's Press has made a deal for VEIL OF LIES! Even though the erstwhile first book in the series CUP OF BLOOD was rejected by St. Martin's, the editor remembered the characters and "couldn't get them out of his head." I had only just put the finishing touches on a revision of VEIL (the second book, now the first), and sent it off to Steve at JABberwocky when the editor called him and asked about me. Pow! I was certainly floored by that. I mean, even though I knew that these characters were great and that readers will love them (some already do, like Cornelia Read, Kat Richardson, Margaret Frazer, to name a few) it's still great to have an editor behind it.

On top of that, it will be coming out in hardcover and released in the fall of 2008! I couldn't be more pleased. I really wanted to give this series a home at St. Martin's and now it's going to be happening.

And none of it would have happened without my fabulous Vicious Circle, my critique buddies of Ana Brazil, Bobbie Gosnell, and Laura James. And of course, a supurb agent who never lets me get away with anything.

So that's nineteen novels, fourteen years, and four agents later. Sheesh! That's what it takes to be an overnight success?

One of my chief goals for spending the cash I didn't have to go to Bouchercon last October was to meet editors to send my ms to and to get some blurbs from name authors. So far, I've accomplished both goals. The ever amazing Cornelia Read gave me a splendid blurb as did the fun and funny Margaret Frazer. I don't think my agent Steve has sent it out yet but it should be good.

In the meantime, however, I came across this little gem. Bonnie Goldstein of slate.com informs us about vanity presses who will not only publish your deserved or undeserved work for cash, but for a little extra, you can get a good review, too.

BookSurge is the press in question and for an additional $399 you can receive a personally craftedreview written by "New York Times bestselling author, Ellen Tanner Marsh," who did indeed make it to the NYT trade-paperback bestseller list in '82 and '83. 

"Not surprisingly," says Goldstein, "many BookSurge titles boast enthusiastic reviews by Marsh. 'For anyone seeking a health program that really works ... a motivating and significant book,' Marsh gushed about The Beer Drinkers [sic] "Diet". "We are drawn into this seaboard existence, seeing the stars pronging the sails at night, the flying fish that land on deck, and even the birds that fly, unaware, into the mast," Marsh cooed over The Last Voyage of the Cosmic Muffin. Some of these paid-for raves turn up on Amazon. "This well-organized, fun and fact-crammed guide will make any parent a hero … exploring and enjoying all that Long Island has to offer," Marsh enthused about Be the Coolest Parent on Your Block: Your Guide to Long Island and the Internet For Families."

For the whole article, see this link.