Book business
2024!
Welcome to 2024: New year, new calendar, new thoughts. I don’t do New Year’s Resolutions, but around this time last year, I said that I wanted to focus on what has come to be known as “Swedish death-cleaning”—a rather noir term for dealing with all that stuff your kids won’t have any idea what to…
Read MoreNot Just a Pretty Face: Cover Art
(Because what I do for a living often seems like magic—I come up with an idea and *POOF* the book’s in your hand—I thought I might do a series of blog posts (no spoilers!) about the actual process. (Though rest assured—it’s still pretty magical.) In the publishing world, cover art comes before the book is…
Read MoreLantern’s Dance: The Beginning
Because what I do for a living often seems like magic—I come up with an idea and *POOF* you have the book in your hand—I thought I might do a series of (spoiler-free!) blog posts about the actual process. Though rest assured—it’s still pretty magical. As with many of my books, The Lantern’s Dance began…
Read MoreThe Business of Writing: The Editor (2)
Last day of February, the last of February’s posts celebrating 30 years of A Grave Talent. ** About a year after Grave Talent came out in 1993, St. Martins Press published The Beekeeper’s Apprentice. Two months later, in April, 1994, Grave Talent won the Edgar award for Best First Novel. Nonetheless, the sub-editor in charge of the…
Read MoreThe Business of Writing: Your Friend, The Agent
Part of the 30-year anniversary celebration of A Grave Talent. Like most first novelists, I had no clue about how to run my life as a business. In 1993, the only people who did self-publishing were the desperate souls who just HAD to have a volume to put in the hands of family and friends.…
Read MoreA Writer to Watch!
Part of the month-long celebration of A Grave Talent, the Edgar-winning first novel about SFPD Inspector Kate Martinelli that started my writing career. One of the surprises I found as a new author was that people not only read the book, but talked about it as if it mattered. Take reviews: who knew they were…
Read MoreGetting to Beekeeper
The other day I posted (over here) an image of the original cover proposal for The Beekeeper’s Apprentice, thanking the publishing gods that it went away in favor of the one St Martins Press ended up with. But a couple of you were curious about how that happened—so here’s that story. I first saw that…
Read MoreThe Early Beekeeper
This month, we’re celebrating the 25th anniversary of The Beekeeper’s Apprentice. I wrote about the early editorial letters in my newsletter (There’s also a giveaway of the audio–here) and will be celebrating it in various ways at Bouchercon, the end of the month. But this early cover proposal from St Martins Press has always cracked…
Read MoreRemember the Mystery Bookshop?
Once upon a time, when Laurie King had some brown in her hair and people used telephones to talk into, the world was filled with specialty mystery bookshops. Most big cities had one—some, like San Francisco, had two—and they were an amazing place to fossick about and discover someone new. There are still a few,…
Read MoreA Week in the Life…
So, this week I will: Drive to San Francisco and fly to New York, Monday. Have breakfast with a friend; go to the Sue Grafton memorial at the NY public library; have an afternoon meeting; and have dinner with friends, on Tuesday. Have breakfast with friends, an afternoon meeting, and dinner with friends, and that’s…
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