Wordcraft -- Romancing the readers

It’s my first time to attend “Readers and ‘ritas,” the annual conference of romance writing fans sponsored by the North Texas Fresh Fiction Readers and held this past weekend in Allen, Texas. I pick a lunch table with a couple of vacant spaces, a couple of writers I recognize -- Alexandra Allred (Damaged Goods) and Diane Kelly (Death, Taxes, and a Sequined Clutch) -- and a few people I don’t know.

I’d marked the conference’s panel on erotic fiction, “Above and Beyond Fifty Shades of Grey,” as a must-see for that afternoon. But the group at the lunch table is discussing the decision of the cheerful blonde woman next to me, Jenny Pedroza, to quit her teaching job. The conversation turns to schools and kids, and Allred’s concerns about environmental pollution. Not until we’re digging into the lunch’s buffet fajitas do I learn I’m sitting next to E.L. James’s first publisher. That's E.L. James as in Fifty Shades of Grey.

How, I wonder, did this teacher, wife and mom from Arlington, Texas, end up publishing an erotic trilogy that’s among the blockbuster fiction of the decade?

The answer is, as so often nowadays, online.

Pedroza and her publishing partner to be, fellow housewife Amanda Hayward of Hornsby, Australia, met online through a common interest in fan fiction, and started a website, The Writers Coffee Shop.

We had some really good writers, Pedroza said. One of them just happened to be another wife and mother, Erika (E.L.) James.

Pedroza credits partner Hayward with getting James to agree to publish. “Amanda worked for 10 months to get her signed,” Pedroza told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram earlier this year.

I’ve got to point out that Pedroza’s statement, “We had to do some editing to make it fit in a three-book series and had to take out any mention of Twilight,” notes the importance of a third party’s role in publishing without denigrating James’s work.

James’s work sold more than 250,000 e-books before becoming too much for the small Writers Coffee Shop publishing company to handle. It sold rights to the books to Random House in March 2012, giving Jenny Pedroza the chance to quit her day job and pursue her own writing ambitions.

The books also come up repeatedly at the conference, and not just where I’d most expect to find them. Everywhere from discussions of the cover art for romance novels (more symbolism, fewer bare-chested male models) to franker discussions of alternate sexuality following Fifty Shades’ scenes of domination and bondage, to the admonition to write from the heart rather than trying to fit the market.

Conferences attendees still debated how much trickle-down effect the trilogy will have for romance fiction. But one thing’s certain -- neither the books nor the genre they sprang from can be ignored.

To see what’s up at Fifty Shades’ old publisher, see www.thewriterscoffeeshop.com/.

Jade Lee, Roz Lee, Eloise James

To see what else Fresh Fiction has to offer, see www.freshfiction.com/.

(Next Monday -- I give another blockbuster author, Justin Cronin, and his Passage series their due. Then you tell me whether you want more advice about writing romance, from authors who do it for a living.)

Wordcraft -- Publishing's imperfect storm

I leafed through Sunday’s Dallas Morning News, luxuriating in the extra hour of sleep from going off daylight savings time. And there it was, an article headlined “How to Become a Published Author,” with “published” printed in red ink. I began hyperventilating.

The next to last paragraph said, “All told, you may want to self-publish this first book.”

The hypothetical question opening the article was from a person who wrote a first book -- “a steamy romance novel” -- and asked whether she needed an agent to publish it. The answer began sensibly with “not necessarily.” Unfortunately, it didn’t stop there.

The article’s writers are from a company that distributes comic strips and syndicated advice columns. They mentioned, correctly, that agents want first-time authors to provide not only a quality manuscript, but a “platform” -- a fan base or other forms of name recognition. So far, so good. But after describing how tough it is for agents and publishing houses to sell books, the article’s writers suggested that authors may want to have a go at selling their own books.

Seriously, if people who make their living selling books can’t sell yours, how do you hope to do it yourself?

Sure, you can publish books on www.amazon.com or www.smashwords.com/. But publishing is not the same as selling books. (As I know by reading emails from editors whose anthologies I’ve sold to, and who published on one or the other of these formats.)

Of course, the article referenced the Fifty Shades of Grey phenomenon.

We’ve all heard the stories about people who sold thousands or millions of their self-
published books online or out of the trunks of their cars. I’ll add a couple of cautions. Whatever you may think about Grey author E.L. (Erika) James’ books, she built a formidable writing platform from her works of fan fiction based on the world of Stephanie Meyers’ Twilight series. This was not an inexperienced or unknown author.

(Interestingly, the Los Angeles Times reported earlier this year that the original fan fiction pages have been deleted from the internet. See
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/jacketcopy/2012/05/index.html/.)

Here’s a second caution. I used to be a professional journalist. And not to deprecate my former method of making a living, but I know why stories make the news -- they’re exceptions to the normal course of events. That’s why tropical Hurricane Sandy devastating the Jersey Shore at Halloween is news. And why the beautiful late autumn weather I’m enjoying here in Dallas isn’t.

The aim of this blog is to bring you accurate information about writing, such as last Monday’s post (“Publishing perils and pitfalls,” October 29, 2012) about people who write books for a living and sell over and over, think about the business.

Want to sell your book? In a quotation I didn’t use last week but will now, “write a book worth buying.” Write, rewrite, consult your critique groups, learn all you can. And keep writing.

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In the interest of learning all I can, in this case about writing steamy romance novels, I’m heading to the Readers & ‘ritas Gathering this coming weekend. Of course, I’ll tell all. To join the gathering, see www.eventbrite.com/org/771389189?s=6028956/.