One day, or ‘Ok, now I’m cranky’

I said I would have a YA Crime Guest post this week – yeah, sorry, that post is coming up next.  Now I usually use this blog to bang on about writing and process and my books and other people’s books, but today I’m going to post about something else.  Because I also started this blog to share some opinions.  And I read something the other day about gender disparity in the New York Times Bestseller List, and I have an opinion about it. So there you go.

Now if you’ve been reading this blog’s past posts, you’ll know that a while ago I had a little chat about perceived notions of bias towards women in YA fiction – you might wanna go read that before you read this.  I don’t want to rehash too much, but basically it came about because I was asked ‘where are all the male YA writers?’ during a panel (a panel I shared with Simmone Howell and Kirsten Krauth).

I found the question confusing, as I pretty much knew where they were (uh, at home writing YA books?), but since then I’ve been asked the question again and again, and I’ve also made a discovery.  So now when people ask ‘where are all the male YA writers?’, I can answer with ease, because the answer is ‘they’re on the New York Times YA Bestseller list’.

Yes, that’s right.  Recent number crunching in a post by Kelly Jensen – a librarian, researcher and blogger in the US – on the blog Stacked has revealed that according to the New York Times Bestseller list, male writers of YA actually out-sell female writers by a fairly wide margin.

 

Although there’s been some attention given to the NYT Bestseller list before (by Carey Wilson, here, in 2012), Jensen has done a thorough analysis of the data from 47 weeks worth of NYT Bestseller lists for YA, starting from when they began a YA list until 11/5/13.  E-book sales are included in the NYT YA lists, and placement depends on the highest sales within a given week.

She noted a number of kooky variables that seem to be particular to the NYT list, including the time lag from sales reporting to list placement, and the way books in a series are shifted over to a separate ‘series’ list once the third book is released. She also took into account things like author teams (books written by two authors in collaboration), how long individual authors remain on the list, and whether YA is accurately defined.  If you’d like to read her original posts on the issue (which are fascinating), I strongly encourage you to go here, and then on to part 2, here.

What she discovered was both startling, and curiously…not.

Now I’d like to point out, at this juncture, that a lot of hoo-ha has been made of the alleged domination of YA by female authors.  People have blogged about it, and written articles about it, and talked about it, and generally made merry with the idea that women writers are disproportionately represented in YA.  The NYT even published an article by Robert Lipsyte about how ‘YA is becoming too girly’ – there’s been much lamentation of the fact that boys are ill-served by YA, because of the lack of male YA writers. 

I honestly cannot tell you whether the percentage of female YA writers is larger compared to male YA writers in any given year – I don’t have that data, and Googling doesn’t bring up any results.  I suspect I’d have to subscribe to BookScan and crunch the numbers, in the way Jensen has, to come up with any genuine information (and it’s interesting that those stats aren’t available – if you do have the stats, let me know!).  Anecdotally, female writers are considered to predominate in the field.  And going by questions like the one I had, about ‘where are all the male YA writers’ , it appears that this perceived gender imbalance towards female writers in YA has become the ‘accepted’ understanding.

People genuinely believe that male writers struggle to get a foothold in YA.  This all feeds into the ‘boy books vs girl books’ argument, the one that drives me so crazy – the argument that girls will read anything, but that we need more books for boys, written by men, to appeal to boys’ specialised tastes.  Clearly there’s some idea floating around that male writers of YA languish in a kind of literary ghetto.

But if you look at the stats, a very different picture emerges.

In terms of sales numbers, it’s actually male writers in YA who hold the top spots.  Don’t believe me?  Go look at the raw data.  Jensen first examined the top 15 spots on the NYT Bestseller list, to cast a wide net, and discovered that – on average – bestsellers were attributed to ten authors (noting that authors who appear more than once are only counted once).  7 of the authors were male and 3 of the authors were female. 

In fact, going by the available data, it appears that there has never been a time when individual female writers have outnumbered individual male writers on the NYT YA Bestseller list.  Ever.  In the history of the list.

If you want to see it for yourself, go have a look – here’s the current NYT YA Bestseller list.  There’s currently six male authors up there in the top ten right now, and their books hold eight spots in total.  Are you noticing a trend?

Jensen goes into far greater detail in her analysis than I have here, of course.  She looks at the average length of stay for books on the list, and breaks down information about publishers represented.  There are also other variables to consider, including points raised in comments to the Stacked article – some of the most relevant ones included questions regarding whether some male YA authors already have a healthy readership in adult before moving to YA, and whether gender imbalance in the adult market has trickled down to the YA market; also whether adults buying YA (and that’s 55% of sales) have had a major impact on sales figures.

Authors themselves – if you follow Jensen’s links to the Twitter discussion – have called the NYT list ‘quirky’, and questioned whether the list might have more to do with prestige than with sales.  They asked whether the NYT list is a true reflection of actual buying habits of YA readers.

But they also raised a few issues that it would be well worth following up: namely, is the path onto the NYT list different for the genders?  What would now be an interesting discussion is what the marketing budgets look like for male writers of YA compared to the budgets of female writers.  And how those books are marketed as a product (returning to Maureen Johnson’s analysis of gendered cover trends).  And, y’know, because life isn’t busy enough, maybe we should check and see what the ratio is like for male/female readers (or maybe more relevantly, male/female buyers).

What kind of implications does an analysis of the NYT YA Bestseller list have?  Well, I guess the most obvious implication is that as a society, we still buy men’s writing more than we buy women’s writing.  And I mean ‘buy’ in both senses – we spend our money on it, and we continually return to it as the norm, or benchmark if you will, of quality writing.

Lots of people will say ‘well, what does it matter what the New York Times list looks like?  JK Rowling sold millions - if female writers’ books are selling well, then the list is obviously not a reflection of trends, or even an accurate reflection of market share’.

But this is disingenuous - as Jensen points out, it matters.

Because publishers ostentatiously use the tag ‘#NYT Bestseller’ to plug their books.

Because some retailers (eg big distributors like Target) won’t even pick up a title unless it has the ‘#NYT Bestseller’ label attached.

Because writers themselves use the ‘#NYT Bestseller’ label as a draw for readers and (particularly, adult) buyers.

And above all, because the ‘#NYT Bestseller’ label has status – it has become representative of what qualifies as a good book, a book that we recommend to our friends, a book that we buy as a Christmas present for a family member (see the Wikipedia article note that a Stanford Business School analysis found that the majority of book buyers use the NYT list for buying ideas), a book that we pick up ourselves to see what is going on inside .

It’s also a very visible ranking of sales, and consequently a great way for people to make assumptions about what’s going on in the world of literature.  So if my husband really wants to yank my chain, he can make a comment like ‘So does that mean that male writers of YA are better than female writers of YA?’.  He knows what happens when these jokes get made (‘honey, I love you, now just walk away’), but he’s also making a point: that these are the kind of value judgements that are made by the larger community.

If the NYT Bestseller list for YA is largely dominated by male writers, despite the preponderance of female writers in the field, then obviously there’s underlying social trends going on – well, d’uh.  And if you couple that with VIDA stats and coverflip issues and inequality in award lists (see the Caldecott thing here) and so on, then you start to see a very glaring picture of where women still stand in the literary field.

None of this is new.  None of this is unclear – saying there’s no gender disparity in literature is right up there with climate change scepticism, in my opinion.  It’s a no-brainer.  Gender inequality in literature is, after all, right on trend with gender inequality in all the other areas of life – domestic life, work, government, policy, agency, opinion.

I guess for me the question of literature is one of voice.  Without women’s voices, women’s stories, women’s expression, then half of the population goes silent and unheard - and by extension, unseen, unvalued, ignored.  Sure, some female authors have made it onto the list – and some (Suzanne Collins, Cassandra Clare, Stephenie Meyer, Virginia Roth, JK Rowling) have been hugely successful.  Perhaps this has blinded people to the awareness that gender parity is still a long way off.  Which, when you consider how much has been made of the presence of female authors in YA, is a real kick in the pants.

So I guess the question I have – the BIG question - is this.

Is it asking too much to think we could have real societal change on gender inequality in my lifetime? 

Wow, that’s a big one.  It’s only been about fifty years since the emergence of Second Wave feminism.  My mother was still reading a completely male-dominated literary canon in school; my own experience was only one step removed.  I was one of the first women to go through the officially-classified Women’s Studies major (now called Gender Studies) at my university.

Am I expecting too much to think that women should now have an equal slice of the literary pie within barely one generation?  We have come from a very low base – in slow-moving political terms, fifty years is not a lot, and the fact we’re discussing and questioning it so openly is quite a big deal.  At least we’re talking about it – as Jensen points out, this isn’t a discussion that’s ‘begun’ but rather one that has been raging for some time.  And here in Australia, where our discussions on racism seem to have stalled to the point where we’re all now back somewhere in the fifties, discussions about gender disparity are still strong and ongoing.

But I’m impatient.  I want more than talk.  I want something to happen.

I guess for me, part of the impatience stems from having children of my own, who are now readers.  In some kind of hilarious karmic smack-upside-the-head (for the woman who studied feminist literature and philosophy) I have four sons.  They are my life, and they will grow up into amazing and vibrant young men, and I want something for them.

I want my sons to grow up reading books by men and books by women in equal amounts, to value their stories equally.  I want them to be free of the ‘boy books vs girl books’ bullshit that restricts what is considered appropriate for them to read.  I want them to see books by both women and men with covers that reflect the human stories inside.  I don’t want them to grow up thinking that ‘mum just writes chick stories’.  I want them to grow up believing that all stories are human stories.

I don’t want them to grow up thinking that half of the population is lesser.

So bear with my naïve logic here.  Bestseller lists are about sales, right?  Which means that more people need to buy more books by more female authors, in order to generate the sales that would create gender parity on the lists.  Then we have a ‘quirky’ but nonetheless visible indicator that we’re valuing female voices as much as we’re valuing male voices.

If that’s the case, then I thought I might try a little experiment.  In 2014, I’m going to buy only books by women.

I mean, why not?  Who could it hurt?  Well, I might irritate a few people who think I’m being self-serving, or just find my unsophisticated politics kind of annoying.  I may well tick off a few of my male writer friends - although I’d like to emphasise that the statement above doesn’t say ‘read’, it says ‘buy'.  So I will continue to read books by men – and I’ll promote them, and rec them to friends, and give them to my kids, and review them positively whenever I can.  I’m always happy to promote good books, and great stories.  Haven’t read The Fault in our Stars yet? – do yourself a favour and read it!  Love Scot Gardner’s The Dead I Know? – go get a copy!  Hanging out for the next book by Michael Adams, The Last Shot? – me too!  I’m definitely gonna put it on my to-read list, and in 2015, I will go out and buy it.

But not next year.  Next year, what I’m going to spend my money on is books by women.

It should be easy.  Women writers already dominate my reading list, and there are lots of female writers out there who don’t get the acknowledgement (or sales) they deserve.   This is just something I can do, on a small (miniscule!) personal level.  Not a petition or a discussion – a backyard economic change.  Just me.  One year, one person, one wallet.

It may not count as a blip on the NYT Bestseller list.  But maybe - one day - we’ll see those equal stats line up.

The Newbie's Book Release Survival Guide

Hi again :) Before we get to the main show, just a few quick notes:

* The Every Breath Goodreads giveaway finished on 31 October.  More than 1430 people slugged it out for three signed copies, but the comp was finally won by three lovely people from the US, the UK, and Canada.  Congratulations!  I’m posting out your copies of Every Breath this week, after the Melbourne Cup furore has died down.

If you’d like another chance to win a copy of the book, I’ll be having a Christmas giveaway on this blog very soon – stay tuned :)

* I’m going to be at the Reading Room of the Ballarat Mechanics Institute on Thursday 7 November (just after Melbourne Cup Day) at 7.30pm, talking to folks from Ballarat Writers Inc, and anyone who’d like to drop by, about process, how YA is awesome, and other things like that.  If you’re in the neighbourhood, come along!

* I’m also going to be at an authors signing event at Dymocks Camberwell in Melbourne on 21 November from 6-8pm.  That will be me, sitting with a glass of wine, wielding my big yellow pen.  If you’d like to have your book signed, or do some pre-Christmas book shopping (er, yes, I have to do that too), come over and say hi.

I’ve posted lots of updates and things lately, so today I thought I’d try something different.  Some of you out there are writers yourselves – awesome!  I want to read your book!  As Every Breath inched closer to publication, I picked up a few tips along the way.  Now I know I’m a newbie to this business, so this might seem impertinent, but I figured ‘what the heck’, I may as well post up a list of tips on how to handle that crazy time when your book is ready to hit the shelves.

So here’s everything I know about surviving your book release.  This applies primarily to traditionally published books, as I’ve never e-pubbed, but I’m sure a few of them would work well in either case.  Some of these tips I’m still following up on – like thank yous, and things like that.  Some of these tips are things I wish I’d known at the start, and some of them I’m still a bit crap at…but I’m getting there.  Hopefully by the time Every Word is ready to go next June, I’ll have it all down pat (Hahahahahahahaha….okay, I’m gonna stop laughing now)

The important thing to remember is that, when your book is coming out, you don’t really know what’s going on.  You feel like you’re making it up as you go along.  Just run with it.  If you don’t know how to deal with something, I suggest Googling.  Seriously.  Google is your friend.

You do wonder if you’re ticking the boxes, with your editors and so on.  You don’t get a lot of feedback about that, so you just have to hope you’re not being a drip or a diva.  I guess my advice is always to try to act professionally, and ask if you have any questions.

So here you go – my hot tips for getting a book out and living to tell the tale:

1. Sleep

Yo, get some sleep.  You’re going to need it.

2. Let go of your blushes

When this first started, I used to get so embarrassed/shy when people asked me about the book, or congratulated or complimented me.  Then I realised that these blushes weren’t  serving any purpose.  If you pay someone a compliment, don’t you want them to feel good about it?  It’s even a little insulting if the person you’re complimenting goes red and starts stammering/trying to hide behind nearby furniture (not an actual example. you know what I mean).

So I decided to stop getting embarrassed and return people’s enthusiasm.  When they asked, I’d say ‘yes!’  When they complimented, I’d fall back on that old standby: ‘thank you.’

It was a revelation.  I think it really helped give people I met a sense of inclusivity about the book, and helped to swell the local community excitement – and it certainly made me feel good, and gave something back to those who were so supportive.

3. Invest in your book

Look at your advance – no, really, look at it.  Consider how much better things will be if your book is successful.  Calculate a percentage of your current budget that would help make that possible.  Go and spend it on stickers, flyers, mailouts, badges, t-shirts or other promo swag (don’t forget to add the cost of postage and photocopying!).  This is called helping your book out.

Unless you are Stephen King, your publisher’s promotional budget will be small, and you may not see a lot of it.  It’s good to have something of your own, so be prepared to help.  If you can chip in financially, and make up your own promo stuff, then yay.

Promoting your book in conjunction with your publisher (ie – doing stuff in addition to the publicity arrangements organised by your publicist) means you’re pooling forces.  It’s a natural ‘follow through’ on the effort it took you to write the book in the first place. Anything that you can do to give your book a better chance at life is awesome.

4. Say yes to everything

Wise advice, given to me by another writer, AngelaSavage.  Say yes – to signings, to blog tours, to local promotion, to talking to classes, to interviews…  Say yes to anything you think you can handle without destroying your marriage/mortgaging your house/getting fired from your job.  You only get a very small window – 6 weeks before your book’s release, and 6 weeks after – so take on as much as you possibly can in the way of promotion, be it self or book promotion (the two are inter-related).

5. If you have a partner, be nice

If you have a life partner supporting you, you’re lucky.  Keep up your end of the bargain.  You will inevitably neglect your house and garden during this period, so let go of guilt – if the floor isn’t waxed or the car isn’t detailed, who’s gonna know?  Small window of opportunity, remember?  But do your hell-bent best not to neglect your family and your partner.

Try to keep up a normal share of housework – you will probably fail, but give it a go.  Give your partner lots of loves.  Be kind and remember to give them a break sometimes.  Your free writing day?  You may need to sacrifice it for the greater good, so your partner can get some time away from the kids.  Yes, you are incredibly busy, but life is busy.  Don’t forget, your partner will be there for you after the book release is over.  Domestic harmony can be ensured if you keep giving back.

Compliments are good.  Even bribery!  But presents actually carry less weight than giving them a break from frantic-you, or a break from the extra work they’ve had to take on to help you achieve your dream.  Listen when they talk.  Schedule time in there for being nice.

I had to keep in mind that this was only the first book – there’s two more to go!  I still want my partner with me when next June rolls around, hehe.

6. Talk to your publicist

If you have any questions at all about this whole process, ask.  Email often.  Give them regular updates – you might be emailing daily, more than once, when things are really hot.  Tell them about everything – every promotion, every communication with stores, every blog update.  If you’re worried about spamming them, ask.  This is their job, and they can’t do it well if you don’t keep them informed.

When it’s all over, remember that thank yous are gracious but bottles of wine are awesome.

7. Talk to your agent and your editor

You will be right in the thick of it, but remember, your agent and your editor both need to know what’s going on too.  Give them a regular update every week or fortnight (maybe more often, with your editor).  Share the excitement you’re feeling!  This is their glory moment too.

8. Stay on top of it

You will panic less (I won’t say you won’t panic – you’ll panic, get over it) if you keep daily lists of things that need chasing up.  Emails, writing interview questions, contacting book stores and schools, phoning places, organising stuff for promotion, posting stuff out, online work…  I have a list-compulsion, because I’m so forgetful.  My list was sometimes the only thing that kept me from hyperventilating – when I’d wake up in the night, terrified, I could look at my list and go through all the stuff, and reassure myself that it was all organised.  So little of your life at this time will feel organised – it’s good to have a list.

Keeping a wall calendar is really good too – one of those ones that shows the whole year in advance.  You can see it all there (all that craziness!) written up in black and white (and green, and pink, and blue…) and you can even mark off the days until things return back to normal.

Keep up with your appointments – that’s only good manners.  Your time is valuable, but so is everyone else’s.

9. Eat.  Take vitamins

Look after your health.  Eat properly, rest when you can, take vitamin B or whatever it is that helps you physically keep going.  Try not to get sick – save it up for after this is all over!

10.  Be polite

This is a stressful time, and you’re dealing with a lot of different people.  I know it’s hard when you’re relying on other people to follow stuff up or stay organised, but you’re not surrounded by minions.  This book business is just that – a business.  Always stay polite and professional.  People will remember this after the book release is over, and remember that you were good to work with.

11. Take a break

I know, your schedule looks like back-to-back everything.  But you still need to maintain your sanity.  Whatever works for you, if you have a spare moment, do it – take a 15 minute walk, read a book for a half hour (someone else’s!), sit down and have a glass of wine with your partner, talk to your kids.  Your head may be all over the shop, but even a short break can help centre you.

Retain your sense of humour.  Remember, this is supposed to be fun!  Haha…  Seriously, take a break sometimes - you need to remind yourself what you’re doing and why, and to just draw breath.

12. Help each other out

Your network of friendships with other writers is one of your most valuable assets.    Share, attend, RT, link, congratulate, commiserate, compliment, applaud, support – remember to do unto others as you would have them do unto you.  You should do this early, and do it from the heart.  Writing is an isolating business, and we all need to give each other a leg-up sometimes, even if that just consists of moral support.

My family and friends were incredibly excited for me, and spread the word about the book with their mates and through their work circles at home and interstate.  But some of the people who helped me out the most were other writers – they helped with the launch parties, shared info about the book online, gave me encouragement and support, and shared my enthusiasm.  Someone once said ‘You’ll never hurt your own career by helping another author’, and I believe that to be true.

And when it’s all over…

11. Be gracious

Say thank you to everybody.  They deserve it (for putting up with you, heh).  Write thank you notes, give small gifts.  All those people who supported you?  They like to feel appreciated.  And yeah, they worked hard too – it was a group effort.  Remember to single out your editor and publicist and agent for special treatment.  Be gracious, and people will be sure to feel happy about working with you next time.  You want there to be a next time, right?

That’s it.  I know I’ve left out a few things, like publishing schedules and all that stuff, but for me this is the nuts and bolts.  And if you’d like to know more, do your research – there’s a whole lot of websites out there with info about the nitty gritty technical aspects of how to get a book published (Google!  Google is your friend!)

Next blog post, I promise to stop talking writing and let someone else talk about it.  I have a fantastic Crime Report post planned with our first international guest, English author Sharon Jones, whose debut murder mystery Dead Jealous is already in stores – I’m very excited about it :)

Until then, take care, especially to all of you dealing with the aftermath of the NSW fires.  And I’ll leave you with a pic of our new family member: Caesar, the Wonder Bird! 

He’s a cockatiel, and he’s gorgeous (I think he might know this), and my son Alex has completely fallen for him.  Ahh, first love!

Xx Ellie

YA Crime Report: GUEST POST – Nansi Kunze

I first met Nansi Kunze at the Sisters In Crime women crime writer’s festival – SheKilda – in 2011.  We were sitting next to each other in the audience during one of the panel events.  I was there to see the launch of Scarlet Stiletto: The Second Cut, the SIC anthology that included my winning story ‘Tallow’ – I was high on the energy of all the women at the festival, and feeling the glow that comes from having something (anything!) published.

Nansi and I introduced ourselves, had a little chat.  I admit I was a bit awed – Nansi was a published author, with two books under her belt.  She talked about the juggle of family and writing life - her little boy was sick upstairs in the hotel, with her husband looking after him while she attended the panel.  She was on speed dial.  I talked about how I’d left my four kids at home with my husband for two days, and what a big deal it had been just to get out of the house and drive the two hours down to Melbourne to attend the festival.   We hit it off right away.

So I’m rapt to be introducing Nansi as today’s guest for the Crime Report.  Nansi’s previous books, Mishaps and Dangerously Placed, have had a definite whiff of the criminal about them too.  But her most recent book Kill The Music launches right into Nancy Drew-mystery territory.

In Kill The Music, death threats against the world’s most famous boy band, Turmoil, have Lorna Powell gasping.  And it’s not because she’s a fan – Lorna is a reluctant band mascot while her brother, Flint, plays on stage with the rest of the guys.  Dragged from one glamorous location to the next, Lorna would like nothing more than a normal life.  But she’s not going to back down when the boys’ lives are at stake.  Lorna races to discover the killer…all while trying to figure out why lead singer Marius is acting weird, as well as keeping up with Turmoil, and getting her homework done on time.

Please give Nansi your warmest welcome!

Hey Nansi, so good to talk to you again!  How’s it going over your neck of the woods?

Hi Ellie – it’s great to be here! Things are going pretty well, thanks. We’ve been away for school holidays, so I’m about to get back to work on my new manuscript. I’m about half-way through the first draft, and I’m really looking forward to finishing it off.

So tell us a bit about your process.  Once you’ve got an idea (or two, or three), how do you go about working it up?

I’m a major planner (which is another way of saying I’m a bit of a control freak about my writing!). When I come up with a basic concept for a novel, I write down a ton of things longhand in my planning book before I get anywhere near the computer. I usually start with a fairly detailed outline of the first scene, some basic information about my main characters and a plot summary. After that I spend pages and pages scribbling stuff about the themes and development I want the book to have, as well as one-liners and ridiculous situations I want to include. Only when I’ve got a pretty solid idea of what’s going to be in it do I let myself start typing the actual manuscript! Even then, I stop every chapter – sometimes more often – to plan what’s coming up next in close detail before I go on.

Now tell us about Kill the Music.  In the book, Lorna gives us a wry glimpse into the world of super boy-bands – I couldn’t help but think that this is what it would be like on tour with One Direction!  What gave you the idea, and how did you research it?

It sounds a bit ridiculous to use the old ‘It came to me in a dream!’ explanation, but this one really did: one night I dreamt that I was the manager of a boy-band, and the boys were so irresponsible I couldn’t even trust them to cross the road without getting themselves run over! I thought it was a fun idea, and while I was writing the initial outline for the book I realised that Turmoil, the four-member rock outfit who’d had a bit part in my first novel, Mishaps, would be perfect for it. A lot of the material I needed came from my own experiences: things like starting at a new school (I went to eight different schools in the UK and Australia), hanging out at gigs and rehearsals (my parents are musicians) and speaking German and Japanese (I taught foreign languages before I became a novelist). Some other parts, like the physics and technological elements of the plot, were just fortuitous finds gleaned from many hours on the internet!

Lorna is a great character – she has a dry sense of humour, she’s tenacious and loyal, and she has an old-fashioned integrity.  Was she the easiest character to write?  And did she pop into your head like that, fully formed?

I’m glad you liked her! I realised as soon as I had the book concept that Lorna needed to be strong, loyal and affectionate – despite being somewhat contemptuous of what Turmoil get up to – and that she had to be able to kick butt. So I had a pretty good picture of her from the beginning. I usually find that it’s the outrageous secondary characters who are easiest to write, but Lorna was easier than the protagonists in my previous books because she’s got so much of me in her, like her lack of tact and tendency to make scathing remarks. I just wish I had her martial arts skills too!

The locations in Kill The Music are gorgeous, and give the book a cosmopolitan jet-setting allure.  Japan, Vienna…are these all places you’ve been?

Yes! I’m lucky enough to have travelled to all the places mentioned in the book, except the fictitious island in the Great Barrier Reef where Turmoil hold a party. It’s based on Double Island, north of Cairns, which I’ve often seen from the mainland and wanted to visit, but you have to rent the entire island – a little out of my price range! I absolutely loved being able to include some of my favourite travel destinations in Kill the Music, and I plan on putting some more of them into my next books.

What sort of detective mysteries draw you as a reader?  And were you an early aficionado of crime?

For me, mysteries are all about character. While I love an intricately-crafted plot and clever twists, if the characters aren’t fascinating in themselves, I don’t think any plot can make up for that. An early aficionado of crime? You know, I wouldn’t have said so. Actually, when I was invited to speak at SheKilda I was kind of surprised, because I hadn’t thought of myself as a crime writer up until then – even though Dangerously Placed was technically a murder mystery! But since then I’ve realised that I did read quite a lot of crime novels as a child. The ones that have really stayed with me are the ones with the most convincingly-drawn and charismatic characters, like Ellis Peters’s Cadfael and (of course) the superlative and ever-engaging Holmes.

Teen sleuths – they seem to be popping up all over the place lately!  What do you think makes teenagers good detectives?

One of the awesome things about teenagers is that they’re old enough to be capable of the tasks investigating a mystery might require; a teen sleuth can plausibly follow suspects over long distances, go undercover while at work, and even get into places children aren’t allowed to be. At the same time, teenagers are often underestimated or overlooked by adults, so they’re in a unique position to find things out. More importantly, though, a teenage detective can look at a situation with an open-mindedness, idealism and willingness to challenge the status quo that a jaded middle-aged detective might lack.

And finally, how do you unwind at the end of a long writing day? (Are there any of Lorna’s luxuries that you envy?)

I love curling up with a good book … like all writers, I expect! Gaming is my other favourite form of unwinding, and I always look forward to a bit of time with my 3DS. I don’t envy most of Lorna’s luxuries – like her, I prefer the quiet life – but I must admit, I wouldn’t mind spending a day checking out the bakeries and eco-boutiques of Vienna like she does!

Nansi, thank you for being such a good sport and answering my questions J  If you’d like to watch the cool trailer for Kill the Music, go here – or if you’d like to read the book, you can buy it in all good book stores, or maybe drop in here.   Get in touch with Nansi at her website, or on Twitter.

Now before I pull the pin, here’s a couple of events coming up that you may like to know about:

* The Every Breath giveaway over on Goodreads is about to finish.  I’m giving away three signed copies, open internationally, and it’s all over red rover on 31 October -  if you’d like to put your name into the hat (and an astonishing number of people have already done so, thank you!) dropover to Goodreads here and put your name down to win. (Or, you know, just go over to the sidebar and click)

* I’m talking on a panel!  Ooh, it is going to be very exciting…  It’s for a Sisters In Crime event, and it will be me, Kathryn Ledson (Rough Diamond) and Jaye Ford (Blood Secret, Scared Yet?) talking about female protagonists dealing with danger, and how to make crime fiction sparkle.  If you’d like to come along, you’re quite welcome!  We’ll be at the Rising Sun Hotel, South Melbourne, at 8pm on Friday 25 October – for more details go tothe Sisters in Crime website.

* I’m also going to be visiting the Mechanics Institute in Ballarat on Thursday 7 November at 7.30pm, to talk at a Ballarat Writers Inc event.  I’ll be talking about process, getting published, and why YA writing is the best (I just added that bit in).  Come along if you’re around, and have a cuppa and say hi.

Have a good week, stay sane, and see you again soon.

Xx Ellie

Wild bears ate my list

This week was not mega, awesome, super, massive, amazing or chockablock.  This week was just normal.

Phew.  The busiest time of my life (aside from the times I had newborn babies) has just passed.  I’ve given you some idea how full-on the launch of Every Breath has been over the last few months, but I still don’t think I understood it myself.

The last fortnight kind of elaborated on the theme.  I went to Queensland to visit my family and to drop in at bookstores in Brisbane and Townsville.

If you’re from Avid Reader (Hi, Hannah!),Black Cat Books, Riverbend bookstore and café, Dymocks Brisbane, or Pulp Fiction, in Brisbane – hello again! *waves*.And the folks at Angus and Robertson Townsville (hey Janelle and Nick!) and MaryWho? bookstore made me feel incredibly welcome.  I met Boori Monty Pryor in MaryWho?, which was amazing – we’ve been reading his new children’s book, Shake A Leg, ever since I got home.

I had a fantastic time – and seeing my family was wonderful – but I’m doubly glad to be back.   Launching Every Breath was an incredible thing, like a whirlwind trip to some strange glamorous country, and I was thrilled to see how you all loved the book so much.

I was especially flail-y to see that a great review of Every Breath was published in The Age on October 12 – so cool!  The book seems to be slowing gathering momentum, which is awesome.  People have even started sending me letters – some with lovely pics attached!
(see right-hi Eva!)

But sometime during the last week, the jetlag caught up with me.  My son turned to me the other day and said ‘Will you read with me?’, and I realised I hadn’t really had a chance to do that for ages.  I did gardening yesterday, which made me feel really happy – even though the spring weather in Victoria is so bizarre that my son and I were planting seedlings, then bolting inside when the hail started, then emerging again into the sun.

So I’m having a return to normal life.  I’m entering that nice golden period, when everything starts to slow down and take on a more relaxed pace, and I become exponentially more chilled out as a result.  My heart, which felt like it’d been racing at a million miles an hour, is easing back into its regular rhythm.  My brain, for so long subsisting on a diet of stress and a multitude of organisational lists (‘OMG, MY LIST, WHERE IS MY LIST!?!’) is giving itself a good shake and starting to blink and look around again, even going so far as to occasionally gaze up at the stars or notice some small extraneous detail that it might like to incorporate into a narrative sometime…

 

Yes, I’ve started writing again.  Thank god, is what my family is probably saying (actually they are saying it, and not behind my back either) right at this moment.  Because living with a writing person when they’re not writing is a bit like living with a wild bear in a cage – only your house is the cage, and wild bears can be significantly less ferocious if you feed them things like raw fish, and I don’t eat a lot of raw fish… Anyway – what it means is that I’ve started work again on the third book in the Every series, Every Move.  Diving back in has been like taking a big deep breath and let it out with a nice whooshing sound…  I remember these characters, these feelings.  I remember what it’s like to absorb myself in another universe for a little while every day.  My body starts to unravel and relax and settle with each new word.  When my alarm goes off at 5am, it’s a good thing – I’m keen to get back into it all over again.

In the meantime, you may want a little update on book 2, Every Word?  Well, I’ve finished the revisions, and sent it off to my editors.  Now we begin the process of picking it apart and putting it back together so it readers tighter, cleaner, prettier.  This is always a bit painful – you feel like your insides are being picked apart in the process – but I know now not to fight it.  I’m genuinely excited to see the copyedit, which will remove about 23,000 words from my manuscript and consign them to the dustbin.  What will emerge will hopefully be a beautiful shivering butterfly of a book, something that glows.  Every Word is due for release in June 2014, and I’m wriggling with the itch to read the finished product (I know, I’ve already re-read the manuscript about a hundred times, but still!)

So I’m writing, and I’ve had a chance to read some books by other people, omg – go check out The LastGirl by Michael Adams, it’s terrific (and scarily prescient – smoke pall over Parramatta?  Michael, you are psychic guy), and then scoot on over and read Dead Jealous by Sharon Jones, for another delicious taste of YA crime.

A few events coming up – I’m going to be on a panel with Jaye Ford (Blood Secret) and Kathryn Ledson (Rough Diamond), talking about female protagonists dealing with danger, and how to make crime writing sparkle.  That’s happening on Friday 25 October at 8pm at the Rising Sun Hotel, South Melbourne – all organised by the awesome Sistersin Crime.

I’ll also be in Ballarat on Thursday 7 November at 7.30pm, at the Reading Room of the Mechanic’s Institute, talking to members of Ballarat Writers Inc (and anybody who wants to come along) about YA, crime writing, and my path to publication.  If you’re in Ballarat, drop by and say hello!

And I’ll be at Dymocks Camberwell in November for a Christmas signing party – I’ll let you know more about that soon.

In the meantime…I guess I just keep writing and chilling out.  Talking to people (y’know, people.  I guess I’ll start with my husband).  Gardening some more.  Working.  Watching tv (wow, what a concept!  Is that Agents of Shield show any good?  No?  Damn.  Guess I’ll stick to Elementary then).  Hanging with my kids.  Maybe even exercising again? (shock, horror)  Anything could happen, now the wild bears have eaten my list…

Next time, please come by and meet my lovely friend Nansi Kunze, whose YA murder mystery, Kill The Music, came out this year – she’s a rockin’ chick, and I’m rapt that she agreed to come on the YA Crime Report.  Until then – have a good week :)

Xx Ellie

Thank You! & YA Crime Report: GUEST POST - Rebecca James

Before we kick off today’s blog post – and I promised bells and whistles with this post, I know – I wanted to say a huge thank you.

Thank you to everyone who has supported me, and supported Every Breath, as we’ve made our way out into the world.  It’s been a truly extraordinary experience, having this book published, and so many people have stood up and helped out – I am incredibly appreciative of all of you.

So thank you to every person who has encouraged, read, reviewed, bought, blogged, commented, tweeted, shared, and otherwise created such an amazing groundswell of support for Every Breath, especially for the friends and family who have kept my spirits high and helped me stay sane!

I can’t express how much this means to me – I am thoroughly humbled, and really really grateful.

At the bottom of this post I’ll show off a few pics of the launches, both in Melbourne and in Castlemaine.  They were awesome fun, and I had a great time - and if you came along, I hope you did too!

But first, the Crime Report…

Next on our whistle-stop tour of YA crime, I’ve invited the lovely Rebecca James to come and put up with some weird questions! 

Rebecca has been an incredibly good sport about agreeing to be interviewed, and I should mention that it was lovely to talk to her because she said a lot of things about writing and juggling daily life that really spoke to me – she keeps it real, and I totally get that right now!

Rebecca is the author of Beautiful Malice, and her new novel Sweet Damage was released this year.  In Sweet Damage, rootless sun-bleached surfer Tim is sucked into the mystery of Anna London, the strange occupant of his new share-house in Sydney.  Initially sure that he can bring some light and normalcy to Anna’s life, instead Tim becomes part of an ominous web of family history and half-truths until he’s not sure what exactly is real and what is paranoia…

Rebecca, so nice to finally have more than a brief Twitter conversation or five-line Facebook message with you!  How the heck are you?

I am very well. The sun is out in Canberra today and I don’t even have the heater on. I think Spring may be coming which is a good thing...

We have a couple of things in common – we both write YA (although you do more psychological suspense stuff and I do straight murder mysteries), and we both live in large and busy families.  Now I know I have to fight hard to get my writing time, and I’m sure you have those struggles too.  How do you find the time to write?  What do you reckon is the key to maintaining a writing practice amidst all this bustle?

I don’t know that I’ve found the key or if one even exists. Basically I try to work while my kids are at school and try not to work out of school hours or on the weekends. That’s about it as far as time organisation goes. This doesn’t always work, though, because family life is constantly creeping into my writing time and vice versa.

I write from home and my husband has an office job and generally this arrangement works pretty well for us. I get the kids ready for school and drop them off in the morning and then pick them up at 3. It means my working day is quite short (6 hours) and I sometimes feel like I’m only just starting to get into things when 2 pm rolls around and I realise it’s nearly time to stop. That can be a bit frustrating at times and occasionally I envy my husband – he gets to leave the house early in the morning and can stay at work until he’s finished.

The bizarre thing is that it wasn’t until I’d had kids that I actually started writing. Something about becoming a mother made me crave a creative outlet. It also taught me to use what little time I had productively. I sometimes think that if I hadn’t had four kids (and thereby discovered what hard work really was) I would never have had the stamina to finish an entire book. I was far too scatterbrained and restless before.

I think, ultimately, that having a family and trying to work is a messy and chaotic business, (kind of like this answer!), full of compromise and negotiation. It’s hard to find a perfect balance. I always feel like I’m neglecting something –  my work, my kids, the house, the dog, the tax, you name it. I never feel caught up or ‘finished.’ I always feel slightly frantic. I  think once you have kids you simply have to embrace the chaos and accept the fact that you’re always going to feel a bit fractured.

Rebecca, you totally read my mind with that answer!  But now, please tell us a bit about Sweet Damage – there are lots of hints dropped along the way, about what has happened to Anna, and the whole book is layered with mystery and suspense, in a stew of slowly-building tension.  What were the challenges of writing a mystery?  Did it change the way you wrote?

I guess the challenge with writing a mystery (and you could no doubt argue that this is the case in writing any kind of fiction) is keeping the narrative tight and tense without making it feel too contrived or obvious. But I can’t necessarily tell you how to do this because I don’t actually understand my own writing process. I just sit down and write. If I think about it too much I start getting anxious and self-conscious, and that can be paralysing. I try to keep the whole process instinctive and organic which unfortunately doesn’t help me answer questions like these...

So why mystery and psychological suspense, instead of something else? (zombie apocalypses, or westerns, for instance?)

Oh, because I love psychological suspense.  I love reading it and I love writing it and I love watching it.  At heart I think it’s all about the damage people do to each other and it’s fascinating to consider how far people will go to get what they want, to manipulate their world and the people they come in contact with.

I’m fascinated by the cruelty people can inflict on each other in a kind of everyday way, and how very frequently, if you dig a little, you’ll find that the cruelty is actually coming from a place of pain and/or vulnerability. (Which doesn’t necessarily justify the bad behaviour, though it might sometimes go some way towards explaining it.) I think it’s also fascinating to think about the psychology of victims and how much abuse or bad treatment people will choose to put up with in the name of friendship or love.

And someone else has noted your affinity with Du Maurier, so I have to ask – do you have a favourite writer of suspense or crime? (and why are they the one that rocks your socks?)

I always feel weirdly uncomfortable when I try and list favourites and I think it’s because my preferences are so fluid and changeable. And I hardly think I’m unique in this but whether I enjoy a book or not depends so much on my mood and the place I’m in, how hard I’m working, how much energy I have, whether it’s late at night or early in the morning, whether I feel obligated to read or whether I’m reading for pleasure -- it’s so difficult to be subjective and so hard to be consistent.

I can definitely say though that I’d always be pretty happy to have a freshly written book by Nicci French, Sophie Hannah, PD James, Elizabeth George, Minette Walters, Gillian Flynn, Donna Tartt or Elizabeth Haynes in my hands. At the moment I’m really enjoying Tara French and Patricia Highsmith. And I absolutely love Anne Fine!

Now it’s honesty time – what d’you reckon is your worst writing habit?

Procrastination.

Well, I don’t think you’re alone in that one (ahem).  But what activities do you find most conducive for generating ideas?   Personally I’m a big fan of driving while listening to Triple J, or doing the dishes…

 Actually, I’m pretty boring that way. When I’m plotting or generating ideas I just sit at the table with a pen and a piece of paper and think really really hard and write stuff down until logical links are made and my random ideas start to form into something that might resemble a plot. 

 And finally – writing must-haves?  Beverages, snacks, music?  What do you take with you to your writing cave?

At the moment my desk is in my kitchen so I’m very close to the fridge and the tea canister and the kettle. This is handy for satisfying my tea habit. I drink too much tea. Far too much.

Rebecca thanks for coming along for the ride! (and for answering my questions so beautifully). Find out more about Sweet Damage here - it's available where all good books are sold.  You can check out Rebecca’s website here.

So I won’t keep you much longer – realistically, I don’t think I can fit everything that’s happened into this one blog post – but I better give a few updates.

Over the last few weeks the tempo has increased, with reviews and interviews and special stuff appearing on blogs and all over the place.  If you’d like to check out some of the lovely Every Breath reviews, go over here to The Rest Is Still Unwritten, or here to Speculating on SpecFic.  You can read Carmel Shute’sfantastic launch speech here, at Sisters in Crime, or you can trot over to Goodreads and check out the nice things people are saying (and there’s still time to enter the Goodreads giveaway – hop to it!)

The most exciting thing was seeing Every Breath reach Number 3 on the Readings Bestselling Kid’s Chart!  That was amazing, and you were the folks who made it happen (like I said at the Castlemaine launch, I wasn’t the one who went out and bought all those books, that was totally you guys).  I did a feature on 'The Story of My Book' for the website - the Readings family was really supportive in hosting the Every Breath Melbourne launch, so thank you, Readings!

Another exciting thing – Every Breath was featured in Girlfriend magazine, which was awesome!  Grab a copy of the mag for their review, or if you head over to their website you can download a free excerpt of Every Breath to taste test!  (And if you’d like to get an early gander at the covers for Every Word and Every Move, as featured, have a look here.)

Now – the launch parties. 

I was hopelessly nervous before each one, knowing I’d have to give a speech and stuff like that, but then everyone started arriving and I figured out pretty quick that it was really just a gathering of all my mates and family, and my nerves settled. (Aww...I know, I'm totally the pits at social events! I'll get better, I promise!)

Rather than describe, I’ve chucked a few pics up here to give you a feel for the occasion/s - I'll put some more up next post. Thank you so much to all of you who came along, and happy birthday to Every Breath – you’re loose in the wild now, baby!

Xx Ellie            

Launch Fever Baby!!!

Ok, this is just a quickie – this fortnight has been so crazy I just haven’t had time to get a post together.  I promise that the next blog post will be chockas, with pics of the launch parties and crime interviews and  lots of news – seriously, it will be the post of the century.

But right now, I just wanted to remind y’all that THERE IS A PARTY GOING ON.  It is this Friday night.  It is gonna be mega.  And if you want to come along, then RSVP…oh, y’know, forget that, just COME!

The Every Breath Castlemaine Big Bash is on Friday 20 September (last day of school!  yay!) at 6pm at Castlemaine Library.

There will be music…there will be door prizes…there will be food and drinks (mm, drinks)…there will be copies of the book on sale from Stoneman’s Bookroom…there will be me, looking a bit frazzled but basically okay, and having a very good time, because ALL the people I love will be there!

So come on over and help me celebrate.  Have a chat with mates, have a dance if you like, and just hang out on a lovely Friday evening for a few hours, on the first day of holidays.

It will be lovely to see you!!

Xx Ellie

PS - Hey, I got on a chart!!  Every Breath is the number 3 bestseller on the Readings Kids chart (omg, I beat Patrick Ness!! - who I love...but omg!!)  That is just...I can't even.  I'm gobsmacked.

xx E

Playlist of the stars!!!

‘…We walk into her room, where her speakers are wafting out Triple J…’

Every good book deserves fruit.  Hang on: that should be ‘every good book deserves a playlist’.  It’s taken nearly two years to get Every Breath onto bookshop shelves, and in that time I’ve had to keep the flame alive.

I find the best way to do that, largely, is to have a theme song (or two, or three…) that gets you back in the mood for the characters and their lives.  Certain scenes have their own songs.  And yes, because it’s taken two years, we have a little problem with dated material…but y’know, I can live with that.

So here’s the playlist for Every Breath, and if you’re knocking around at the launch with me, you may get to hear some of these tracks wafting out of the speakers in the background.

* ‘Plans’ - Birds of Tokyo : For reasons unknown I always imagine this song playing during the opening credits of Every Breath: The Movie.  No doubt any producer putting aforementioned movie together would have the sense to use something that wasn’t so old-hat (also something by a band that didn’t immediately follow up a really decent song with a really lame one like ‘Lanterns’).  But I still love the lyrics, and find them just right: We made plans to kiss the sun at night/Hopeless dreamers, hopeless times…

* ‘Boyz’ – MIA : Did you know that Every Breath originally started with a fight scene?  This was the soundtrack to Mycroft crackin’ skulls.

* ‘My Sharona’ - The Knack : Do I need to explain why this is Mycroft’s theme song?  (And did you also know that – tv-nerd-alert – the Girl Watson character in the old tv show Monk was called Sharona?)

* ‘Gimme Shelter’ - Rolling Stones : Probably my fave Stones song ever.  Has the requisite tension, plus a mix of violence and self-awareness that creates good accompaniment for the pivotal scenes in Chapter 2 & 3 (the title should give this away).

* ‘7 Nation Army’ - White Stripes : God, I really dug into my back list for these tracks, huh?  If I tell you what scene is attached to this song I’ll be accused of spoilers.  But it involves a certain drunken confrontation…  The beat and tone of this song is so dark, so deep and resonating, I couldn’t go past it for Mycroft’s dark moments.

* ‘Jungle’ - Emma Louise : Always think of this one as Rachel’s ‘my head is too full!’ angry song.

* ‘Embrace’ - Oliver Tank : Post-dramatic finale.  You know how, when something really full-on happens, there’s that feeling of everything being in slow motion?  This song is perfect for that, and also the lyrics are poignant for Rachel in that scene.

* ‘The Nosebleed Section’ - Hilltop Hoods : Because ‘…someone puts Hilltop Hoods on the stereo, away down the block…’  I love Hilltop Hoods.  Love, like lerve.  My lerve is like a river of lerve, that meanders on down to a great ocean of lerve…  And hey, I mention them in the book, so they had to go in somewhere.

* ‘Allies’ – Mutemath : A nice upbeat number for the end credits.  Plus a totally appropriate title.

Okay, before I go I have to say this really loud: OMG, IT’S HAPPENING!!!  We are having a book launch TOMORROW NIGHT!!

My excitement is clashing together with my nerves right now, to the point where it’s all bouncing around together in my head like a…well, like a Skrillex song or something.  I’m sort of terrified that the cake won’t be ready (Note to self: phone about the cake).  I have to work out what to wear.  I’m taking lots of deep breaths.

If you want to come along and see me sweat, haha, then go for it.  The Every Breath official launch is on at Readings Carlton, 6.30pm, Thursday 12 Sept.  If you haven’t RSVP’d, and you’d like to come, do it now!

If you want to come but you can’t make it – bummer.  We’ll miss you!  But you can join in the action on Twitter on the night @elliemarney.  Or if you’d like to check out the fun interview I did on Bad Ass Bookie, go have a look.

I’m also still giving away copies of the book – see the sidebar and click to enter the Goodreads giveaway, or go over to the site (there’s some awesome reviews of Every Breath over there as well!)

And if I haven't said this to you, personally, yet - thank you.  Thank you for reading, thank you for reviewing, thank you for supporting, thank you for being as into Every Breath as I am.  I am full of the loves right now, for everyone who's been with me on this journey, and for all the friends and family who've given me a hand along the way.

YOU ARE ALL MADE OF AWESOME.  Just so that's clear :)

See you tomorrow night!!

xx Ellie