Laurie R. King

Award-winning, bestselling, thought-provoking mysteries

LAURIE'S NEWSLETTER

The Business of Writing: The Editor (2)

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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 SMP paperback division decided they didn’t want to keep the paperback rights for this new, mid-list author, so they put them up for sale. There was not so much of an auction as a “best-by” date, for any houses that might want to take a chance on them. Any interested houses had a tough time even finding the books.

Kate Miciak, at Bantam books, was interested. She was so interested that she got into her car and drove all over New Jersey and Connecticut in search of copies (this was 1994, long before Jeff Bezos took over the world.) She found them, she read them, she bid, and voilà, I was a Bantam AND St Martins author.

The original hardcover rights for A Grave Talent had sold for an advance of $3,000,

$3,000 meant our old farmhouse now had central heating!

and Beekeeper’s Apprentice for not much more. But because of the potential Kate saw in the two books—the potential she saw in me, one very new author—Bantam handed over $18,000 for the right to publish Grave Talent for ten years, and $29,500 for Beekeeper’s Apprentice.

This was actual money. This made it Not-Laurie’s-Hobby, but an income.

Bantam put Grave Talent front and center in an enormous Summer Reading promotion, built around an Edward Gorey illustration (and if you haven’t entered my drawing for the t-shirt, which closes midnight tonight, Feb 28, you can find the signup here).

A year later, they did the same for Beekeeper. (Yes, I have a t-shirt of that campaign, too, ready for next year’s 30th anniversary.) And both did so well in building my numbers that one Friday afternoon a few months later, I had a call from my agent to say that St Martins had decided to retain the paperback rights going forward, wasn’t that good?

And it was, really. It always creates difficulties for an author when their backlist and their new hardbacks are from different publishers. I knew this. And yet…

Bantam really made an effort with the promo…

On Monday, I had my agent call my editor and tell her that I really, really would prefer to keep things as they were. To be clear here, my contract stated that the decision was ultimately theirs, not mine. And to be equally clear, turning down this offer would have repercussions. But my editor, as I’ve said, was a gem among women, and she did not want me to be unhappy. So she passed the word on to Kate—who, I later learned, had spent a very depressed weekend at the thought of explaining to her bosses why she’d dedicated so many of Bantam’s marketing dollars on promoting me—and after Kate had picked herself up off the floor, I stayed with my two divided houses.

St Martins Press hardback, Bantam Books paperback: first of many covers.

A few years after that, I moved over to Bantam for both hard and soft, and have been with them ever since. Kate retired a few years ago, and she’s always been notoriously shy about having her photograph taken or published, so I won’t show you what she looks like.

But I’ve been blessed in my editors, from Ruth to Kate to Hilary now. Three women with heart, and tenacity, and the sharp eye to what makes a writer better. When I was named Grand Master last year, only one of my editors was at the dinner, but the other  two were definitely there at the table with us, hoisting their champagne.

**

Read about A Grave Talent (with order links), see the other Martinellis,

or order a signed copy.

The Business of Writing: The Editor (1)

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Part of February’s month-long celebration of A Grave Talent, the Edgar-winning first novel about SFPD Inspector Kate Martinelli that started a writing career.

**

I wrote a few days ago about my beloved first agent, Linda Allen, the woman who got me started as a writer. The agent is the person who knows the industry, who knows what house might be looking for this kind of book, knows how much to ask and when to push for more. The agent is the writer’s primary cheering section—and only partly because they’re getting 15% of the royalties.

Not much money, for this first contract, but such pride!

But what about The Editor? The Editor is the person who buys a writer’s book, edits it, shepherds it through the publication process, fights for attention from Sales. The Editor is the primary reader, indispensable when it comes to improving the book. The Editor can be madly supportive, wildly enthusiastic, can bleed with failures and buy champagne for triumphs—even though, unlike the agent, The Editor is always and primarily an employee of the publishing house.

My first editor was Ruth Cavin, may untold blessings be heaped upon her. Ruth bought A Grave Talent, for the Thomas Dunne imprint at St. Martins Press, and when it was in production, asked me if I had anything else…and thus brought Russell & Holmes into the world. She and I started our relationship via the Post Office, graduating to faxes when I entered that exciting world a few years later—and then burst into email when our technological prowess had reached that advanced state.

Her faxed note with an email address.

Ruth left us a dozen years ago, but wherever you find gray-haired mystery writers, you find fellow admirers of Ruth.

As I  wrote, in  2011:

Yesterday morning, news reached me that the woman who had picked me from a pile of obscurity had died.  92 year-old Ruth Cavin, the legendary Ruth, who started her career at the age of sixty and overnight seized the heart of the publishing industry; whose eye went to the essence of a book’s strengths—and weaknesses; who held court at conferences by claiming a table at the bar, cigarette and drink to hand, while attendees came and paid homage; who made her writers feel loved even as her editorial pencil left them bleeding.

Ruth, publishing’s grandmother, the kind of woman you just knew had A History, the kind of woman who would toss off a remark that made you do a double take, because she looked far too innocent to have said that.  The kind of woman who could be a lady and have a wicked sense of humor.

The kind of woman we need more of, and now have one less of.

Blessings, Ruth.  I can just hear that great laugh of yours, when St. Peter grins at you from the pearly gates and says, “Of course you can smoke here, for God’s sake! Would you like a drink as well? And not to hurry you, but once you’re settled in, we’ve got all these great young writers…”

**

Read about A Grave Talent (with order links), see the other Martinellis,

or order a signed copy.

The Case of the Upside-Down Hebrew

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A Grave Talent, as my first book was dedicated to my husband, Noel–in Hebrew, which is only right between two scholars. Amos 3:4 means, more or less, Can two people walk together unless they be in agreement?

I know, scholars are really romantic, right?

 

 

Now, there are two mysteries here (beyond the mystery of married relationships, that is.) One, why was the Hebrew dedication to A Grave Talent flipped over in the first edition? Because if you don’t know Hebrew, the line linking the letters is supposed to be along the top.

And the second puzzle was, why was the Hebrew sometimes not topsy-turvy?

As to the first, I suppose it proves that St Martin’s Press at the time had no Jewish typesetters. The page I’d sent them with the Hebrew went in the wrong way. I noticed, let them know, and they fixed it for subsequent editions.

But as for the second question…

There are some copies of Grave Talent out there that have the numbers of a true first edition, and yet the Hebrew is the correct way around. And it’s possible that someone noticed halfway through the printing, fixed it, and finished the run. It’s possible.

The first edition, first printing is indicated by the countdown to 1. A number is dropped with each subsequent printing. (Different publishers do it different ways.)

On the other hand, there was a while in the Nineties and Aughties when modern first editions were a Big Thing. Recently published books—as in, within ten years or so of publication—could leap to ridiculous sums, if collectors thought the author was going to be a Big Thing. First editions of A Grave Talent went for as much as $1400.

And what happens when there’s quick money to be made? Right: forgery.

Of those, I am certain. The first one I saw was when someone handed me a copy to sign, and—as I generally did—I checked to see if it was a first draft, because personalizing a true first could reduce the value. This one said it was a first edition…except that the dedication was the right way around. And when I looked more closely, the dachshund logo on the title page looked somehow, well, photocopied.

Tom Dunne’s dog. Printed, not photocopied.

That’s right. Someone had taken apart some second editions, cut out the title page, photocopied the publishing history of a first edition on both sides of a replacement, and glued that one in. I actually had one that someone bought from a sidewalk display for $1, in which the glue was more obvious—clearly an early failed attempt.

The thing took on a life of its own. Mystery Scene wrote it up. That’s when the theory came along that the printers had themselves found the mistake and changed it. But honestly? A small printing, of an unimportant first-time author? Not only would no one have bothered, but they didn’t know before I told them.

Anyway, the bottom dropped out of the Modern First market after a while, and the books aren’t worth enough now to forge them.  I just hope you’re not one of those who shelled out a thousand dollars for the book. And if you find yourself with a “first edition” that has the correct Hebrew, well, do enjoy the story. All the words are the same.

**

Read about A Grave Talent (with order links), see the other Martinellis,

or order a signed copy.

The Art of the Review

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Part of February’s month-long celebration of A Grave Talent, the Edgar-winning first novel about SFPD Inspector Kate Martinelli that started a writing career.

One of the things I had fun with in writing A Grave Talent was crafting a series of reviews of the work of Eva Vaughn, the artist at the center of the story. It’s a specialized language, that of magazines like ARTnews and Art in America: puzzling, arrogant, and at times amusing (and not deliberately.) I also needed it to give insight to what she was doing—insights that my cop protagonist wouldn’t have noticed—and beyond that, to give a hint of what’s coming, both in the revelations about her past and in the plot as it unfurls.

Her images are classically simple: a man, a woman, some children, a kitchen. Landscape is background, allegorical in its overtones but secondary to the humans who dominate all her work. The figures are generally unposed, or informally so, and so intimately known as to embarrass the viewer.

Aside from that, it is difficult to reduce the Eva Vaughn style to mere description, even to say that she belongs to one school or another. The lesbian lovers of Quiet are caught in a shaft of light from a window, two fresh bodies pinned into the still, silent moment of a Vermeer,

Vermeer, The Lacemaker

a suspension of movement before life sweeps in again to animate and discomfit. Her farm laborers—Strawberry Fields, Three P.M., and Green Beans— rival Van Gogh for lumpen grittiness. The surface beauty (how seldom does a critic use that word in a review!) of Cas, Asleep could have come from Bouguereau’s brush,

Bouguereau, Le Secret

and the voluptuous pleasure of the woman’s sprawl could be an early Renoir, but whence comes the vague sense of unease? Is there menace in the shadow that falls across the bed, or is it merely the drapes? Is that a man’s shoe in the corner, or the arm of a chair? Is the scarlet stain a part of the multicolored bed cover, or something more sinister? Is Cas actually asleep? Or does she lie there, murdered in her bed?

This is not an isolated fling of imagination in viewing Eva Vaughn’s work, for emotions are her forte, particularly the dark and disconcerting ones.

 

Dark and disconcerting, indeed.

**

Read about A Grave Talent (with order links), see the other Martinellis,

or order a signed copy.

…And a Year Later: Edgar!

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Part of February’s month-long celebration of A Grave Talent, my Edgar-winning first novel.

**

A year after A Grave Talent was published, my first venture into publishing took me to the annual Mystery Writers of America Edgar Awards banquet, when it was nominated in the Best First Novel category. I went with my daughter (then 14) and my agent, Linda (whom I talked about here in a recent post)

I was somewhat stunned to be in the same room as so many REAL writers. I sat at my publisher’s table along with another nominee, this one for Best Novel, Minette Walters.

Reader, I won. (So did Minette. It was a good night for St Martins Press.) I think I only put the statue down when we were back in the hotel room and I had to phone my family in California.

And when I got home, I found that my local bookshop was happy too.

Since then, I’ve been nominated a number of times, and won other awards. I’ve been on several Edgar committees, too, which is great fun–working with writers you respect, knowing that at the end of the process will be a grin like the above.

**

Read about A Grave Talent (with order links), see the other Martinellis,

or order a signed copy.

The Author Photo: a work in progress

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Part of February’s celebration of A Grave Talent, the Edgar-winning first novel that started a writing career.

**

If you have ever tried to take a good picture of yourself—not just a grinning selfie with friends but the kind of photo that says “thoughtful, intelligent person with a trace of humor and wit”—well, all I can say is, it’s a lot cheaper to try it now than it was when every click of the camera cost money.

I had a friend who took nature photographs, and they were nice, so when St Martins Press asked me for my very first author photo, I thought, Well, she has a camera. So we took a few photos, and one of me at the blank wall of the house wasn’t completely awful, so there it went, onto the cover flap of A Grave Talent.

I didn’t quite realize that converting our color shot into black and white would make it look as if I was standing in a lineup, so for the next one, I asked the photographer who’d taken my daughter’s high school photos. And ended up with something that looked rather like a high school photo. (Don’t you love those 80s glasses?)

Next came a photographer who arranged to meet me in San Francisco for some location shots, and told me not to worry, he’d touch up the chin. I later discovered he told every one of his clients this, even the size 2 women. (Men with full beards maybe got out of it.)

At some point I graduated to color photos, and did a photo shoot with a crew of three—photographer, assistant, and makeup person—that took up a huge amount of the day, made a sore place on my cheek where the makeup brush had tried its hardest to get rid of a mole, and left me with a stiff face the rest of the day (and a lot of curious glances) when I had to rush off and pick up the kids from school with foundation and powder and mascara and the lot. This one I couldn’t find a copy of, but if you spot it in one of your books, stick it into the comments.

Then, my daughter had a friend who was setting up a photographic business, Red Bat, so she was next. I liked hers a lot.

(She took a few with the cat, as well, which I didn’t use because he didn’t look terribly happy with the entire-grab-and-clicking-lady routine…)

There have been others, but the one I use now, by Josh Edelson, still looks like me, just with different glasses. I’ll probably keep that one for a while.

**

Read about A Grave Talent (with order links), see the other Martinellis,

or order a signed copy.

A T-Shirt Promo

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Once upon a time, children, publishers used to promote mid-list authors and build the careers of newbies.

That’s right, my publisher took out a quarter-page congratulatory ad in the New York Times back when Grave Talent won Best First and Minette Walters won Best Edgar.

My original publisher decided to pass on the paperbacks of the first two books (a decision they regretted afterward) and sold the rights to Bantam. And Bantam thought, hey, let’s do a big promo for three of our new authors, with a commissioned illustration by Edward Gorey on the book displays, free samplers, bookmarks—

and T-shirts!

That’s right, if you bought all three, they’d send you a t-shirt. Fabulous, no? And don’t you love that Gorey drawing? Shades of Masterpiece Mysteries!

Anyway, I’m mentioning that here because—

I HAVE  ONE!

that I’m going to—

GIVE AWAY!

through the newsletter, which goes out on Wednesday. So watch for the Buzz dropping into your box (or sign up on the yellow button here ) and get a chance to win it. (I only have XL, so it might be your next nightie….)

**

Read about A Grave Talent (with order links), see the other Martinellis,

or order a signed copy.

The Business of Writing: Your Friend, The Agent

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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.

My vanity projects, e-book version.

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. The publishers who would do this for them were called “vanity” presses, which shows the scorn with which “real” published writers held them.

At the time, there were (as memory provides) only two actual, New York publishing houses that accepted manuscripts from the writer herself, rather than through an agent. These unsolicited manuscripts were called “over the transom” submissions, meaning that you had to (figuratively, at least) climb up and thrust your manuscript into the little window over their firmly shut door, listening to it thump down on the floor with a whole load of similar thick envelopes.

A transom.

A junior editor described to me the way publishers dealt with them (those houses that didn’t automatically stamp them with RETURN TO SENDER.) Every few months, on a Friday night, the editorial assistants (all of whom wanted to grow up and become real editors with the budget to buy actual books) would send out for pizza and beer and sit around the storage closet with piles of thick manila envelopes, and start to read. Some manuscripts got a fair try, and got passed on to The Editor. Others would either have a typo that irritated the baby editor, or was not to their taste, or would have the bad luck to show up towards the end of the evening. Those rejects would be thrust back for RETURN TO SENDER with a printed “Thanks-but-no-thanks” slip. (Or just be tossed, to save the cost of postage, and “Oops sorry I guess we lost it.”)

Very occasionally, like the girl in the soda fountain who became a star, the stars would align, and the envelope would make its was to an Editor, who nine times out of ten would write a personalized “Good job, not for us” rejection note.

Those that I sent in myself got rejected. Or “lost”…

 

…and THEN rejected. An agent was clearly the way to go. Agents held the key to that locked door. But how did I get one of them?

As I said in an interview a few years ago (2015)—

How did you get your first literary agent?

I looked in the back of Writer’s Market, back in 1987, and found five agencies in San Francisco. (I didn’t believe in New York. Still not too sure about it…) I wrote to each of them, sending a couple of chapters of the two books I’d finished. Agency one said their client list was full up. The second said they liked the one but not the other. Number three said they liked the other, but not the one. Number four said they’d be happy to read the books if I’d send them $385 for each. And the fifth was Linda Allen, who liked the books, thought they needed work, and ended up representing me until her retirement last year.

 

Or, as I put it in my Really Long Autobiography, Linda was—

The first professional to look at my work and see it as—well, my work.

She’s also been a friend all these years, although we didn’t really bond until she came to England for the 1995 Bouchercon in Nottingham, and stayed with us, visiting nearby Blenheim Palace

And venturing into cold, wet, windy Dartmoor, helping my two kids and me research The Moor.

Agent and author, hard at work.

(I nearly lost her in the fog, but fortunately, she heard me calling….)

She was a fairly new agency then herself, and the partnership went through some really great years, with this simple, small beginning.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

She’s retired now, but I talked with her the other day, and she remembers how thrilled she was at the sale to St Martins Press.

A contract. An actual contract!

And how much did I get from that first book? Well, more than the £25 Arthur Conan Doyle got for his first story, but in modern terms, maybe about the same. But hey, I was in business!

**

Read about A Grave Talent (with order links), see the other Martinellis,

or order a signed copy.

 

 

When Intellectuals Read Crime

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Part of February’s month-long celebration of A Grave Talent.

A writer tosses books out into the world without much clue about where they will wash up or whose hands they will end up in. Naturally, this is especially true with a first book. What, people who don’t know me will read it? Wow.

(Personal note from the publisher. Common Knowledge was a new journal then, from Duke University, whose articles still “challenge the ways we think about scholarship and its relevance to humanity”.)

With A Grave Talent, one of those who picked up the book was a gentleman named Richard Rorty. A philosopher who taught at Princeton, Wellesley, and Stanford, won a MacArthur fellowship, wrote books with titles like Consequences of Pragmatism, Essays on Heidegger, and What’s the Use of Truth?, and developed the ideas of antirepresentationalism, Ironism, and Epistemological behaviorism (and no, I have no idea what any of those are)—this gent took time out of his Big Important Philosophical Ideas writing to send in a little review to Common Knowledge about my little book:

(Click on the image to read it.)

I particularly love the way he hedges his bets so thoroughly. Granted, there were other fictional Californian lesbian cops out there, but as fields go, that one is fairly small.

Still, thanks, RR!

**

Read about A Grave Talent (with order links), see the other Martinellis,

or order a signed copy.

The Fans

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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.

In addition to actual, print reviews, my first book brought letters from people from all over who liked A Grave Talent enough to go to the trouble of writing me about it, buying a stamp, and finding an address that might reach me. Who knew?

They came in from all over, and not just the USofA.


They were written on embossed cards, postcards, scratch pads, or—high tech in 1993—faxes.

Most of them got the title right.

As for where to find me, well, that could be anywhere (though the publisher was a pretty sure bet.)

I got letters–FAN letters!– from actual booksellers!

Some letters were from people who seemed awfully…committed?

Nowadays, the vast majority of messages from readers comes electronically, in blog comments, social media posts, or just through the web site. But some still drop into my PO Box…and if you’ve written me there in the past couple of years, and I didn’t answer, I will, some day, I promise.

Especially if you get my titles right.

**

Read about A Grave Talent (with order links), see the other Martinellis, or

order a signed copy.

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