on Cornwell...

I've been indulging myself recently with easy readers. Not Dick and Jane or John Grisham, but something like that: the historical adventure novels of Bernard Cornwell.

For many people, reading all the time is simply what they do, no matter how hard they labor at other things. A friend of mine who works full time is forever recommending books she’s actually read. She must read several a week. And she remembers what she reads. Amazing. For me it’s always been a struggle to put aside distractions and focus on the simple joy of reading.

I’m always conscious that sooner or later I’ll be reporting on what I’ve read. This creates a kind of internal dialog where I’m taking notes for the next radio show rather than enjoying the pages in front of me. Challenging and rewarding as that can be, it also takes away some of the fun. So a couple of weeks ago I ate dessert first because life is short. I dove into a pile of books I’d been saving for fun, not for review. No pressure cooker. All fun, as reading should be.

Bernard Cornwell is a so-called “genre” author of historical novels. He’s not reviewed much in prestigious journals or newspapers, but he is read prodigiously by a large band of fans. I’m one of them.

On vacation in the middle of the Pacific Ocean I hauled out “The Nathaniel Starbuck Chronicles” and pondered the American Civil War between bouts of snorkeling. I then turned to Merry Olde Before-There-Ever-Was-An-England and read the “Saxon Novels,” four of them so far.

And when those weren’t quite filling enough, I also read “The Spies of Warsaw” by Alan Furst, “The 25th Hour” by David Benioff and John Marsden’s young adult novel, “Hamlet.” Gems, all of them.

Back to Mr Cornwell. After devouring several servings of his books I discovered they follow a pattern. The stories are told from the point of view of a fighting outsider hero. It may be Nathaniel Starbuck, a displaced Northerner fighting for the Confederacy. In Ninth century Britain it’s Uhtred of Bebbanburg, a displaced Northumbrian fighting for the southerners of Wessex. Or Richard Sharpe, a common soldier raised to officer status during the Napoleonic wars, or the protagonist may be Thomas of Hookton, a skillful archer during the Hundred Years War seeking not just the Holy Grail, as if that isn’t enough, but also revenge for the massacre of his family. All of these characters are involved in various aspects of revenge, come to think of it, plus the occasional manly love affair.

Simply, these are ripping tales that don’t stop. Cornwell never bogs down in literary description or gratuitous subplots. Although the scenery’s often lovely, there’s very little of it.

He brings alive a far-off time and place as few others are able. If you time-traveled me to, say, Northumberland in the year 891, I could tell a Dane by his arm rings, a Viking by his dragon ship, and a Saxon by his stink. I have learned the old place names and fought the old battles. It’s like studying history with the most entertaining teacher you could imagine.

Now and then Cornwell does get all poetic: “...and so I turned south and rowed away from the shore, while in the west the sun leaked red fire through rifts in the cloud so that the whole sky glowed as if a god had bled across the heavens.” (from “The Pale Horseman”).

But the adventure never falters: “And next day the eight dark horsemen came.” (from “Lords of the North”). He begins well: “Darkness. Winter. A night of frost and no moon. We floated on the river Temes, and beyond the boat’s high bow I could see the stars reflected on the shimmering water.” (from “Sword Song”) and of course he ends well, too: “...but in the end he had pulled the trigger because he had to live with himself. Though God alone knew where that would take him. Night fell. The smoke of a broken city vanished in the dark. And Sharpe sailed home, a soldier.” (From “Sharpe’s Prey”).

Cornwell sets up the reader to crave more: “While at Bebbanburg, where the gray sea never ceases to beat upon the long pale sands and the cold wind frets the wolf’s head flag above the hall, they dreaded my return. Because fate cannot be cheated, it governs us, and we are all its slaves.”

Ahh. History for dessert. Delicious!

You too, can receive WOB scripts in your email and review episodes you may have missed. To be on the list, please send a note to amiksak@gmail.com. I'm blogging at www.wordsonbooks.blogspot.com and I enjoy reading your comments here.

NOTES:

Pick up any of Cornwell’s novels and you’ll find a current list of all his works, by series, and sometimes by chronological order within series. He’s written at least 42 novels, probably a few more than that, and he’s only 28 years old (I made that up. Born in 1944, he lives with his wife on Cape Cod, where the adventures roll in like the Atlantic tides).

Cornwell's home on the web.

The American publisher of all these books is HarperCollins.

A fascinating exchange on Cornwell’s site:

Hello Mr. Cornwell, I am curious about your process for developing (and writing) a story. Stephen King says that he gets the idea for a situation--say, a crazed fan holds her favorite author hostage--and lets the story develop however it happens. Do you do the same, or (for example) do you have the climax of the story mapped out inside your head in advance, and just have to figure out the way to get there? Do you outline story before beginning to write? Also, when you are in the process of writing, do you try to write a certain amount every day (like King), and do you try to write the first draft through all the way without edits, and then go back and make changes when you are finished? Anything else you can share about your process would be welcome. Thanks and best wishes, Warren Firschein Safety Harbor, FL

A:   An outline? No, I don't. I have a very broad idea of where I want the book to go, then just let the characters sort it out amongst themselves. I'm not saying this is the right way to do it - some writers plot very carefully, and their books are great, but others, like me, leave it to instinct. I write maybe eight, nine hours a day? That includes daydreaming. I always start with a stick figure . . but there ain't no rules. I like to get the story straight so I write fast, pushing the story line ahead, but I revise constantly. I always think that writing a novel (for me! not for everyone!) is like climbing a mountain - I get a quarter of the way up, look back and see a better route, so it's back to the beginning and start again and that better route takes me halfway up, I look back, and so on and so on. Once that 'first' draft is finished I rewrite the whole thing maybe two times, and it's then that I add lots of detail. (B.Cornwell)

pricing update....

An update on the predatory pricing, from today's Publishers Weekly Daily newsletter (30 October 09)


Wal-Mart, Amazon Limiting Discounted Purchases
Plans by independent booksellers to buy the 10 November titles being offered at steep discounts by Wal-Mart, Target and Amazon have been foiled by the big box retailers who are limiting the number of books one customer can buy. According to the Wall Street Journal, Wal-Mart is limiting purchases to two copies per customer, Amazon has a three-copy limit and Target five. There has been lots of discussion in bookseller forums about buying quantities of titles at the big box retailers as a protest to the discounting policies, but also as way to get a better margin since the 10 books would be cheaper to buy from the stores than from the publishers.

Bill Petrocelli on the Price War

Under the title “Not a Simple Price War -- It's a Fight Over What You Get to Read” Marin bookseller Bill Petrocelli of Book Passage in San Francisco and Corte Madera has published an absolutely right-on screed about the current price war on books.

I mentioned the situation here two weeks ago, and was planning to say more. Writing for the Huffington Post, Bill said it for me and for all fans of good books. I’ll devote the rest of this Words on Books to excerpts from Bill’s article:

“What looks like a simple price war between Amazon, Target, and Wal-Mart over a handful of bestsellers is symptomatic of a much deeper problem in the book business. The larger fight is really over what you get to read.

“The price war began October 15 when Walmart.com dropped its prices drastically on several bestsellers. Amazon.com and Target.com quickly followed suit, and within a couple of days the prices were down to $8.99 and heading lower... these behemoths were clearly selling those books below cost and engaging in an illegal form of predatory pricing.

“The authors affected by this price slashing were not amused. James Patterson said, "Imagine if somebody was selling DVDs of this week's new movies for $5. You wouldn't be able to make movies." John Grisham's agent added, "I think we underestimate the effect to which extremely discounted bestsellers take the consumer's attention away from emerging writers." The American Booksellers Association saw things the same way, saying in a letter to... (the) Anti-Trust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, that these companies are using books as loss leaders to sell other kinds of merchandise. ‘The entire book industry is in danger of becoming collateral damage in this war.’

“Predatory pricing is a means of driving other booksellers out of business. When this happens, the choice of books is one of the first things to suffer.

“... the literary life of America has to go through two very narrow choke points: publishing and bookselling. Both of these choke points have become more and more constricted in recent years as a result of economic concentration and market manipulation.

“Publishing is now consolidated in the hands of a few large conglomerates that control most of what is published in America. There are, to be sure, many booklovers in the publishing divisions of these giant corporations, but they are outnumbered and out-maneuvered by the bean counters... It is not an atmosphere that favors innovation or literary discoveries...

“... The chain stores had been doing their best to squeeze out the independent stores over the last 20 years or so, and now they in turn are being squeezed by the mass merchandisers... Big-box mass merchandisers, like Wal-Mart, Target, and Costco, have taken over 30 percent of the book market. These mass merchandisers are now selling as many books as Barnes & Noble and Borders combined.

“It's hard to exaggerate the consequences of this mass-merchandiser dominance. These (big-box) outlets carry, at most, a few hundred titles at any given time. This means that a handful of books -- far less than one percent of all the books published -- are probably accounting now for more than 30 percent of all sales in America. Price wars in this segment of the market... (are) driving more customers to these merchandisers in search of quick bargains on a handful of big-name books.

“Publishers are under more and more pressure to subsidize these new, ruinous prices, and they will probably end up pushing more and more of their resources in that direction. But it's a devil's deal...

“...There's a big difference, say, between 500 buyers all buying for their own stores and one chain-buyer purchasing for 500 outlets... ...when the system is dominated by a small handful of powerful buyers, their decision can make or break a book... One of the dirty little secrets of the book business is that publishers often check in advance with the buyers for the chain stores and mass merchandisers before agreeing to publish a book. If the answer they get is no, the book may never see the light of day.

“One of the ironies of the current price war is that it includes ‘The Lacuna,’ the latest novel by Barbara Kingsolver. But Kingsolver wasn't always a bestselling author. When her first novel, ‘The Bean Trees,’ was published in a modest print-run in 1988, independent booksellers recognized it as a literary treasure and sold thousands of copies. After that the chain stores climbed on the bandwagon, but without that first push from independent booksellers Kingsolver's career might never have taken off.

“Anyone who loves books should worry that the doors seem to be closing on the Barbara Kingsolvers of tomorrow.”

NOTES:

"Not a Simple Price War -- It's a Fight Over What You Get to Read" was published on the Huffington Post on October 28. Read the entire posting here, with references and attributions to document his points:

From the bookseller newsletter Bookselling This Week: “William Petrocelli is an author, a bookseller, and a former attorney. He spent a few years as a Deputy Attorney General for the State of California and then as a poverty lawyer in Oakland, California, before going into private practice. For the past 30 years or so, he has been the co-owner with his wife, Elaine, of Book Passage in San Francisco and Corte Madera, California.

Petrocelli is the author of ‘Low Profile: How to Avoid the Privacy Invaders’ (McGraw-Hill) and co-author of ‘Sexual Harassment on the Job: What It Is and How to Stop It’ (Nolo Press). He is also the author of the forthcoming novel ‘The Thirteen.’ ”

That Cow Came Home

It started with a challenge from an author friend, Lewis Buzbee. He posted this on Facebook: “I just finished reading ‘Cow Across America’ by Dale Neal, and if you want to be reminded of how good novels can be, why we need them, and how they can, yes, make you laugh out loud and cry at the same time, read it. I guarantee it. You buy it and don't like it, I'll refund your money.”

So I went out and purchased the book from my friendly helpful local independent bookstore, and then I read it, and Lewis definitely does not owe me a cent.

I can’t say I’m quite as all-out enthusiastic as Lewis, but the book is excellent. It’s a first novel, it’s a grabber of a story, it’s multi-generational, specific to the Carolina mountains and at the same time universal as Homer.

Not to get all highfalutin about it, because the book is anything but high brow: Dwight Martin is a kid bored with visiting his grandparents in the country, but surprisingly intrigued by his grandfather’s stories. The stories may be true, or maybe not, but they’re good stories and one of the kids in the story also is named Dwight, and Pop has a story about that, too.

The title “Cow Across America” refers to a group of connected stories Pop tells about himself and a boy named Dwight and a cow named Daisy who one summer decided to walk west, all the way west, coast to coast. Pop’s stories are spread over years and many summer visits by the young Dwight to Pop’s isolated hill farm. Turns out the boys and the cow got home again. At least the way Pop tells it, they did.

The reader wonders, while wandering through these delicious tales, who, finally, is the narrator of the book, and what is HIS story? Stories about Dwight and Wylie and Daisy are set far in the past. Then there is Dwight Martin growing up in the present and learning about love and life.

In the opening scene: “Two weeks shy of turning ten, Dwight Martin wrote his first novel. It took most of the morning, far longer than he would have believed, and his finger hurt where the pencil had pressed a saddle-shaped callous against the knuckle, but he kept writing, filling the blue-ruled pages of a wire-bound notebook, nodding slowly as his sentences raced toward the red margins.”

In the last pages Dwight is grown up, waiting for a plane in an airport lounge, still wondering about things: “(He) never understood why travelers read novels in airports, noses pressed to the latest best-seller about serial killers or lawyers, while real life streamed about them in the terminal, a thousand and one stories on their way to different destinies and unforseen fates.”

This is excellent stuff, playing with our sense of time and place, moving backwards into myth and forward into the unknown, all the while staying centered on a boy’s life.

Author Dale Neal lives in Asheville and writes for a local newspaper. “Cow Across America” is his first novel, and it won the Novello Literary Award, intended to promote Carolina writers.

Lewis Buzbee dropped me a follow-up note: “Dale is a friend of mine, a writer friend. I've known him for 15 years probably. I had no involvement in the making of this book, other than being his pal... with this book, I really lost track when I was reading it, forgot that it was Dale. I was just reading a wonderful book... really glad you liked it, Tony.”

NOTES:

“Cow Across America” by Dale Neal. Novello Festival Press hard cover $21.95. ISBN 9780981519234.

Novello Festival Press announces publication of Dale Neal’s first novel.

Fascinating essay by the author on how he came to write this book.

There is a connection here with the novel “Cold Mountain” by Charles Frazier. Charles and his wife Katherine in 2004  founded the Cold Mountain Foundation to promote and support other writers from the Carolinas. Their funds helped subsidize publication of “Cow Across America.”

“H.L. Mencken, in his famous book The American Language, mentions highfalutin as an example of the many native U.S. words coined during the 19th-century period of vigorous growth. Although highfalutin is characteristic of American folk speech, it is not a true regionalism because it has always occurred in all regions of the country, with its use and popularity spurred by its appearance in print. The origin of highfalutin, like that of many folk expressions, is obscure. It has been suggested that the second element, -falutin, comes from the verb flute-hence high-fluting, a comical indictment of people who think too highly of themselves.”  The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright c 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

News and some made up stuff too

At a recent bookseller’s trade show author Timothy Egan suggested that there should be some sort of "cash for clunkers" policy for booksellers.

WHAT IF... In record time President Obama today proposed a short-term boost for the flagging publishing industry, a set of rules and regulations promulgated by the Agriculture Department under the heading Feed Your Head (of Cattle) for Farmers, a proposal already nicknamed by Republicans the “Cash for Chapters” boondoggle.

Under the proposed new plan farmers would receive cattle cars filled with no longer fully functioning books. They would mulch them, scatter the resulting mixture on their fields, and thereby raise much more interesting and well-educated cattle at less cost than current methods.

Opponents of the plan, which included all Congressional Republicans, noted the plan pays farmers when local charities and church-sponsored bookstores could simply strew their unwanted books along highways near farms, letting the farmers do the rest.

“This book bill weakens my American values,” said Republican spokesperson Clo Miles. “Where’s the help for big corporate farmers in this proposal?”

Under the new regulations, donors of clunker books receive a gift card to purchase one new book recommended by Oprah. New books are expected to force out the old while supporting publishers and several best-selling authors.

“It’s win win win,” said Al Knopf of Random-Penguin-Harper-Houghton-Harcourt House. “We win win win!”

* * * * *

In other news, actual, real news, a church in North Carolina, with 14 adherents, plans to burn books, including copies of the Bible, for Halloween. At least 298 online news articles cover this event, so it must be true.

Pastor Marc Grizzard told the Associated Press the King James version of the Bible is the only one his church follows. He says all other versions are "satanic" and "perversions" of God's word and he’s going to burn them.

So much for North Carolina. In SOUTH Carolina, kids are being urged to trick or treat for books rather than candy at the Independent Mail newspaper 2009 Literacy Festival. Books, no candy. Guess how well THAT will go over. Children are asked to dress like a favorite character from a book and enjoy games, crafts and story-telling. A free book for every child will be donated by a local foundation. Just no candy.

* * * * * *

Friends of the Plainville Public Library holds the annual book sale this weekend... the Wall Street Journal reports the new Sarah Palin memoir is expected to sell well... Wal-Mart.com has announced it will pre-sell selected new books for $10 each, and many other titles half off list price. For comparison, books now on the New York Times Best Seller Fiction List have an average retail price of $26.47 each.

Wal-Mart is promoting not-yet-published books in order to utilize generous publisher rebates and promotions when most available. Amazon.com has cut some prices to match. It’s a battle of the giants. As the old saying goes they lose money on every sale but make it up on volume.

* * * * * *

The highly progressive Huffington Post online has opened a new section on books and publishing. Right now they are laying odds on the National Book Awards, publishing various book-related blogs, and generally hotting up the world of books for interested readers. You might want to take a look:

NOTES:

The Big Burn: Teddy Roosevelt & The Fire That Saved America by Timothy Egan. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt hard cover $27. ISBN 0618968415.

Christian book burning in North Carolina:

Current NY Times best selling fiction:

1    THE LOST SYMBOL, by Dan Brown. (Doubleday, $29.95.)
2    AN ECHO IN THE BONE, by Diana Gabaldon. (Delacorte, $30.)
3    ROUGH COUNTRY, by John Sandford. (Putnam, $26.95.)
4    THE LAST SONG, by Nicholas Sparks. (Grand Central, $24.99.)
5    THE HELP, by Kathryn Stockett. (Amy Einhorn/Putnam, $24.95.)
6    HER FEARFUL SYMMETRY, by Audrey Niffenegger. (Scribner, $26.99.)
7    THE PERFECT CHRISTMAS, by Debbie Macomber. (Mira, $16.95.)
8    SOUTH OF BROAD, by Pat Conroy. (Nan A. Talese/Doubleday, $29.95.)
9    ALEX CROSS’S ‘TRIAL’, by James Patterson & Richard DiLallo. (Little, Brown, $27.99.)
10  HOTHOUSE ORCHID, by Stuart Woods. (Putnam, $25.95.)

Total $264.67 for an average retail price of $26.47

Books, not candy, for Halloween:

Letters...

We get letters... from all over. From Rodney Davey in England:

“The US continues to puzzle me enormously. At the moment it's the fuss and rage and (so far as I can tell from the news clips) the sheer insanity which has blown up around Obama's plan to introduce health insurance. What's the problem? Most of Europe has had something like it for decades. Is it the perceived cost which is likely to devolve upon the shoulders of the luckier portion of American society? If so, then that sounds like 'bugger you Jack, I'm alright' politics. Or is it because it smacks of 'socialism', a concept more appalling to the average US sensibility, it seems, than Satan himself.  Astonishing. Poor old Obama, he's got his work cut out. Will he be tougher than Hillary C was?”

In August I wrote a column that told the story of Grandma Roseby in Pembrokeshire, Wales. Grandma Roseby is one hundred and five years old and reads six books a week.

Speaking of Pembrokeshire, Tom Davenport wrote:

“The wonderful writer John Seymour lived and farmed there for some years, producing a number of highly enjoyable books on self sufficient farming...

"He eventually...  migrated across to Ireland, where he started over again and wrote “Blessed Isle - One Man's Ireland” in 1992, beginning around his 76th year... John's writing has a great deal of unvarnished charm in its descriptions of the rural and village life he savored.”

On the subject of the Internet vs. reference books. I got quite a few letters, among them this note from Dan Kvaka:

“Funny but all very true. In our health center, our doctors and mid-levels no longer have subscriptions to magazines and journals (except the ones sent for free by drug companies, and loaded with ads for.....guess what?). Instead they have online subscriptions to medical websites. The information changes so fast, printing could not keep up.

"Last week (someone) asked me to set up (her computer) so she could view a YouTube video of a white guy in a lab coat droning on about lyme disease... I asked her, is that actually interesting? She said, Yes, he's the mega-expert and she pointed to the ratings for that video, thousands of reviews and he got 4-1/2 stars.

"All of our providers still have all of their textbooks decorating the shelves in their offices. They don't read them, they don't want them taking up space at home, and they don't want to throw them away 'cause they paid so (goddamn) much for them when they were starving students in medical school.”

On a column about owning way too many books, Nancy Suib wrote:

“REALLY enjoyed this... you have put words to my addiction as well... definitely feel more comforted about it.”

Roger Luckenbach: “Makes me think that at least I am not the only crazed overly literate person. I thought that I had an over-active packrat gene but then a psychiatrist friend corrected me and said I was an esteemed bibliophile. Makes me feel better but still don't have enough room or time for all the books.”

Finally, this school memory from John Bear, concerning first sentences:

“My wonderful 10th grade English teacher, Aram Tolegian, who claimed (as did many Armenians at the time, I suspect) to be a cousin of William Saroyan, gave us the class project of choosing the best first line in American fiction. It was a wonderful and contentious time, and when the final vote was taken, and there was a clear winner, we were all commanded to commit it to memory forever, so of course we did.

"The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as best I could, but when he ventured upon insult, I vowed revenge."

Thank you John and thank you all listeners and readers. I truly enjoy hearing from you. Has anyone remembered what book that first sentence comes from? No fair looking it up on Google, just because I did.

NOTES:

All Words on Books scripts are archived here.

Specifically:
“Instant Books & Evil Politicians”

“Grandma Roseby in Pembrokeshire”

“Eat Your Phone Book”

“I Fear I’m Not Alone”

“Judging a Book by its First Line, or maybe its Last Line”

“Blessed Isle: One Man’s Ireland” is out of print. It can easily be obtained from a number of dealers at prices ranging from under a dollar to $212. Try this

SPOILER ALERT: Don’t read further if you still are figuring out the provenance of "The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as best I could, but when he ventured upon insult, I vowed revenge."





– “The Cask of Amontillado” by Edgar Allan Poe.

Never Could Figure Out How to End It

The Books section of the Sunday San Francisco Chronicle features Grabbers, “a selection of first sentences from new books.”

For example: “I was suspended in eighth grade for bringing my semen to science class” writes Ryan Boudinot at the beginning of his novel “Misconception.”

Being contrary, I wondered about the opposite of “Grabbers.” LAST sentences. From OLD books.

The hapless ending: “That might be the subject of a new story, but our present story is ended.” (from “Crime & Punishment” by Fyodor Dostoevsky).

The famous ending: “That’s well said,” replied Candide, “but we must cultivate our garden.” (“Candide” by Voltaire).

The scratch-your-head ending: “I dwell the longer upon this subject from the desire I have to make the society of an English Yahoo by any means not insupportable,” (Jonathan Swift at the end of “Gulliver’s Travels”) “and therefore I here entreat those who have any tincture of this absurd vice, that they will not presume to come in my sight.” Swift prefers impossibly smart and civilized horses to debased human Yahoos, or at least that’s how I read it, but I could be wrong. And the novel ends.

Herman Melville began “Moby Dick” with what became one of the most famous first lines in history: “Call me Ishmael.” The novel appears to end with the sinking of the whale ship Pequod: “Now small fowls flew screaming over the yet yawning gulf; a sullen white surf beat against its steep sides; then all collapsed, and the great shroud of the sea rolled on as it rolled five thousand years ago.”

Wonderful ending. But wait; there is an epilogue so Ishmael can survive to tell the tale. Buoyed by the coffin of his friend, the harpoonist Queequeg: “I floated on a soft and dirge-like main. The unharming sharks, they glided by as if with padlocks on their mouths; the savage sea-hawks sailed with sheathed beaks. On the second day, a sail drew near, nearer, and picked me up at last. It was the devious-cruising Rachel, that in her retracing search after her missing children, only found another orphan.”

Back here in present reality, I asked local publisher, poet and editor Cynthia Frank to share her thoughts on the usefulness of first lines:

“If I'm bored by the first page in a manuscript submission, I'll usually skip around a bit to see if the story picks up. Many authors who are starting out seem to find their voice, their real starting point, a number of pages in. If it's a first novel and I'm intrigued enough to give the manuscript some time, the architecture of the story, and its ending are extremely important. I've read a lot of bang-up beginnings. Not everyone can write a bang-up ending.

“Some newer authors paint themselves into painful literary corners... If the manuscript is both problematic and full of errors (grammar, syntax), reeks of perfume or mold, or is full of hate (race, gender, religion), we'll reject it immediately. Neatness counts, too. I want to be working with authors who respect their own work! A publishing contract is a long-term relationship, not dinner at your favorite restaurant.

“Of course, we spend more time on submissions than the big publishing houses. If you're a Random House editor wading through 300+ submissions each week, that first page is really important! And so is the marketing information and information about the author,” she concludes.

Now Words on Books needs a good last line. Except I don’t have one.

NOTES:

My long-time friend and colleague Cynthia Frank owns Cypress House, Lost Coast Press, QED Press, and EdgeWork Books, all located on 155 Cypress Street, Fort Bragg, CA 95437.

You can reach her at (707) 964-9520 and online:

Recent books and awards include “Spanish-Live It and Learn It! The Complete Guide to Language Immersion Schools in Mexico” by Martha Racine Taylor and “The Dog Walked Down the Street: An Outspoken Guide for Writers Who Want to Publish” by Sal Glynn (winner, IPPY Gold Award for Best Writing/Publishing Book).

Someone has compiled 98 PAGES of first lines, if you dare to look.

Current editions of books mentioned:

“Misconception” by Ryan Boudinot ISBN: 080217065X

“Crime & Punishment” by Fyodor Dostoevsky ISBN: 0199536368

“Candide” by Voltaire ISBN: 0140455108

“Gulliver’s Travels” by Jonathan Swift ISBN: 0199536848

“Moby Dick” by Herman Melville ISBN: 0199535728

“Spanish-Live It and Learn It! The Complete Guide to Language Immersion Schools in Mexico” by Martha Racine Taylor ISBN: 1879384647

“The Dog Walked Down the Street” by Sal Glynn ISBN: 1879384663