A Different Take on Book Launches

No two books are alike, and from what I can tell, book launches are often different.

The latest book from Elephant’s Bookshelf Press is unlike anything we’ve ever published before, and so is the launch. Which the Days Never Know: A year in Vietnam by the numbers is the first nonfiction book from EBP.

The name might imply that it’s a memoir, and in a sense that’s correct. But not quite. It contains memories from the author, Dr. Donald McNamara, who walked off his flight home from Vietnam on January 13, 1968; we published the paperback on the fiftieth anniversary of his return home. But the book conveys moments more than memories, impressions rather than intensity.

Which the Days Never Know does not set out to recount battles or delve deeply into personal matters – or even personnel matters. Instead, Don takes the approach of a workaday soldier.

Everything in the Army seemed to have a number, he said, so in his book Don marched through 365 days – the typical one-year term of service in Vietnam – number by number.

From a visual standpoint, he wanted the book to look like verse or poetry.

From a publishing standpoint, I knew right away that we were taking a risk. But I think it’s a risk worth taking.

In launching EBP’s nonfiction division, I wanted something that felt true to what the company has been aiming to accomplish – its mission, if you will. Unlike many EBP authors, Don is not unpublished; he has retired as a professor of literature and during his academic career wrote pieces on Irish language and literature in particular. He also has written countless journalistic pieces, which is how our paths crossed.

But EBP prides itself on helping authors share their voice and helping their stories find an audience.
As a bit of EBP trivia, Don helped me find the voice of my company, years before I knew I become a publisher. He taught me the phrase bionn gach tasu lag, which I used in the first paragraph of the introduction to Spring Fevers, EBP’s first book, back in 2012. For those who do not recall the intro – or might not be fluent in Irish – it means “every beginning is weak.”

And in a mirror image of Spring Fevers, I have decided to publish Which the Days Never Know first in paperback; Spring Fevers was originally planned as an ebook only.

Think of this as a soft launch.

In this age of electronic and independent publishing, we learn to stagger launches every few months – more often, if you’re able to write that quickly – and build up a team of eager early readers. These approaches can work. I haven’t done that with Which the Days Never Know.

As I said above, this is a very different book for EBP -- and for me. I’m not sure he’s aware, but Don has been a helpful mentor to me as I’ve grown as a journalist and author. Many EBP authors are people I’ve met maybe once or twice. Most of them I’ve never even spoken to on the phone. Don and I worked together years ago. We even shared office space.

Without a doubt, I aim to build the audience for Don’s book, but I also want to share with this audience. I want to share the book with readers who might be able to use it best; veterans’ organizations, for example. I suspect the paperback version will be better appreciated for those groups, though I’m sure many of those readers also enjoy building their ebook collections.

In fact, for readers who buy a copy of the paperback, I’ll provide them a free ebook version.

So, if you’d like to get a free copy of the ebook, send an email to matt@elephantsbookshelfpress and we’ll make that happen.

Platform and Credentials: The Other Side

In the comment section of a recent post, newly minted Elephant's Bookshelf follower Angela Ackerman suggested I look at when a writer has a marketable book concept and a great platform but no credentials for writing the book.

To me, it begs the question: How has this person developed a platform? Well, one obvious way is that he or she is a celebrity. Think Snookie of Jersey Shore infamy. Now, I'll admit that I can be a little snobby at times and I see no value in that particular show, but it's clear that many people love watching morons who put themselves into stupid situations. Heck, the fact that the Jackass movie brought in millions of dollars helped prove that point almost a decade ago. So, Snookie's placement on the bestseller list should shock no one who keeps an eye on American pop culture these days.

Perhaps a better example came to light more recently. Kelly Oxford, who writes the Eject blog. I've never read it, and just now as I checked it out, I saw nothing worth digging into. (Top post was about her book deal, the next posts were about how ill she was feeling, and other gossipy stuff I didn't care about.) I'm not sure what she's selling, but the Canadian writer now has a publishing deal with two HarperCollins imprints.

My initial impression is that this is just more noise added to the cacophony (or should it be "caca-phonies"?) And publishers have every right to produce books that are likely to sell. This is a business, after all. If nothing else, it helps buttress the belief that we writers who don't (yet) have agents or publishing deals need to work on our platforms as well as our credentials. But I can't help but ask myself — and you, dear readers — can't we find better people to write books that will attract an audience?

And platform is no longer just a nonfiction term (though I still feel most comfortable thinking of it that way). But in the fiction world, what is generally meant by platform is having multiple access points for readers to find you; I think of them as conduits rather than platforms.

I suspect this is a topic I'll return to often. Anyone care to suggest any other points on this or other matters?

Platform vs. Credentials

This was originally posted in the nonfiction forum I moderate on AgentQuery Connect. I thought I'd share it here. Comments are always welcome.

While reading through agent blogs recently, I came upon a wonderful distinction that sums up quite well one of the challenges that frustrates writers of nonfiction: Platform vs. Credentials.

For example, say you're the president of a small company that produces widgets. You started in the field as unpaid internship in widget making, got a full-time job after graduating widget school, and worked your way up the ranks to be chief widget operator and finally president. You're a big wig in your little widget world. Congrats. You have credentials.

But do you have platform? Not necessarily.

You're running a small regional operation that until recently was struggling to make payroll, remains virtually unknown outside of the widget world, and makes decent widgets but is not recognized as an innovator. To make matters worse, you cancelled your subscription to Widget World Times ten years ago. I mean, who does that?

You don't have a great platform. As far as the widget world is concerned, you're a dinosaur. In fact, if it weren't for your son, you might be facing difficult decisions about the future of your little company.

Your son, who you hired a year ago after he earned his masters in widget management even though he followed at your heels since he was a kid, not only gets a subscription to Widget World Times, he's been quoted dozens of times in its competitor publications and has a column in the Widget Gazette. In addition, his blog, Widgetwatcher.com, is quickly becoming a must-read for the widget cognoscenti. Not only does he boast of his hundreds of blog followers, his frequent Twitter posts get retweeted regularly by the 4200+ followers he has there. And comments? Jeez, he pays your teenage son $10 a week (and supplies him with a six-pack of beer on occasion -- but you didn't hear that from me) to moderate the comments on Widgetwatcher.

Your son is developing a strong platform. If he can help you grow that company, then his platform becomes even stronger. Because he doesn't quite have the credentials yet. Maybe you and he could write a book together.

Does that help?

McCarthy's Bar by Pete McCarthy

From time to time, I read books that confound me. In my middle-dotage, I've started shoving those books to the side with a phrase along the lines of "There's not enough time in the world to finish tripe like that." Within the first fifty pages of Pete McCarthy's McCarthy's Bar, I found myself wondering what the heck was his point. But I continued. I love Ireland and I'm not averse to drinking. And McCarthy has a way with words and phrases. At that point, I wasn't so sure about his having a way with books, but like I said, I'm not averse to drinking.

Before I'd reached page 100, I had realized it was basically a travelogue. He's driving around Ireland drinking in pubs, visiting stone circles, being accosted by killer cows (ok, not a killer), waxing philosophical and spiritual at times, and sleeping in B&Bs of all sorts. And telling stories about the many, varied people he meets in all these places. I don't really read travelogues too often, but that's fine. I mean, the guy's funny, so why not?

See, this is where I had a problem. McCarthy is funny. I would laugh out loud at times, which can be a little strange when you're sitting among weary commuters heading to or from New York. By page 150 or so, I'd decided that I would finish reading the book even though I was having a hard time justifying it to my inner book-reading snob.

Along the way, I discovered that the book has more going for it than just a travelogue. It really is about learning about your identity. McCarthy's asking, "Where do I belong?" He was born in England, though his family is Irish and he still has cousins and uncles living in Ireland. His accent is English, so there's no BSing about it to the Irish. (He's not visiting the U.S., after all.) And those he meets on his travels include people from Germany, Belgium, Russia... I think there may even have been an Uzbek in there somewhere. And they're becoming Irish — at least their kids are.

So can an English-born guy with Irish roots claim to be Irish? I'll let you read for yourself.

So carry the book with you for a few weeks. I wouldn't recommend you read it all in one sitting, unless you've got a lot of beer and hearty food with you. No, take it with you to a pub, read a few pages over a pint. Mark your place when someone sits down near you and chats (it may help to stop in an Irishy pub; they're everywhere now, which also is a point McCarthy makes), and enjoy the craic.

You may not remember every single person you meet on these pages, but you don't have to. This is one of those books where the journey is far more important than the destination. But when you've reached the last page, you'll realize you've found a nice place for resurrection.

When the Time Comes: Michael Chabon's Manhood for Amateurs

This morning, it happened. I hit that page. You know the one I mean: the page when you realize you don't have much left in the book you're reading and you'll have to find something else to read — or start the same book over from the beginning.

There are few writers whose work I enjoy enough to do that, but Michael Chabon is one of them. A co-worker let me borrow her copy of his latest, Manhood for Amateurs. Now, my being a man probably makes this a more enjoyable read than it was for her — and she enjoyed it. But, from my perspective, what makes it worth immediately re-reading is that it rekindles thoughts about childhood while simultaneously making me wistful for my future years of parenthood.

Like the best nonfiction, Chabon makes everything in this collection of essays feel like a short story. From his own recollections, Chabon transports me to my special hidey-holes of kid-dom. Those secret paths through the woods where I tracked tribes of Indians. The moments on home movies long since muted when I didn't know I was being filmed. Even the essay about the changing of a radio station's playlist brought back car rides along roads I haven't traveled in years.

Though I sometimes wonder if people who aren't blessed with a good vocabulary and the knowledge of how to use a dictionary can fully appreciate the nuance and virtuosity he applies to each sentence, he also scars the landscape with enough f-bombs to make any 13-year-old boy proud.

So here I am, poised to begin page 301 of his 306-page book, and I wonder whether I'm man enough to do it all over again.

Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell.

Every once in a while, a nonfiction book crosses my path that amazes me. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy nonfiction. Heck, I write a lot of it myself — probably a lot more than I write fiction. But when I read nonfiction, it often seems to drag through example after example, factoid after factoid, until I can't wait to sink my body into the soothing waters of imagination and cover my head so that every possible dream and idea can be absorbed into my brain.

But Malcolm Gladwell had me from the first page of Outliers and he hasn't let go. This is a book that addresses the key questions of what makes one person more successful than another, and the answers can be amazingly simple. To be sure, luck and innate talent have a lot to do with success, and he would completely agree. But while two different baseball players at the same position may have similar skills and talents to succeed enough to make the major leagues, what sets them apart from each other — what makes Derek Jeter a superstar and Orlando Cabrera merely a former Gold Glove winner — might surprise you.

Actually, my example, isn't fair: Gladwell doesn't examine those two. But chapter one is about the differences between the top Canadian junior hockey league players and the kids who played in high school but don't get much closer than enjoying the game on television. It's not simply about talent.

This book also makes me think about myself: what is it that has allowed me to succeed where others might have fallen short; why have I fallen short when others I believe I'm better than have advanced?

Gladwell has had his articles published in the New Yorker for years, and I think several of these essays appeared there first. He's also the author of the now famous Tipping Point and Blink. I've not read those others, but I definitely will now, having enjoyed Outliers so much. The book is thought-provoking while remaining a real page turner. It's like no other nonfiction work I've read all year. Check it out.

Nonfiction Writers Wanted!

If you're a writer of nonfiction who's looking to get his book idea into shape for agents, you might want to visit and join AgentQuery Connect, where a nonfiction discussion group was recently established. For those of you who are familiar with AQC, you probably know that it's primarily populated with fiction writers, but nonfiction remains the biggest segment of the publishing world and AQC recognizes that.

I don't work for AgentQuery, I'm simply an active member of that community, and while I'm there to gain insight into getting my fiction published, I'm a working journalist with ideas for several nonfiction works, so I'll be an active participant in that area too.

There simply haven't been many participants yet, so come on in and join on the ground floor of an active online community of writers. I'm sure you'll like it.

It's True, Fiction Is on the Rise!

Now this is good news! The National Endowment for the Arts is reporting that fiction is becoming increasingly popular.

After twenty-five years — a generation — the downward trend toward reading fiction has reversed. But this report asks people whether they've read at least one novel, short story, poem or play in the past twelve months. One. Uno. I believe most people have at least one imaginative thought per day. Can't more than half of America read more than one piece of literature during a year?

I'll take the good news and happily praise Americans for getting back on their duffs as long as they're reading literature — even bad poetry is better than nothing at all.

But I look forward to the day when at least 15 percent of Americans say they read at least one piece of literature per month. I haven't drilled down into the report to see how far off from that mark we are, but I don't expect it's anywhere near that.

So read up, America! Fiction, nonfiction, newspapers, poetry. Order a subscription to One Story or visit your local library. Imagine gas is still close to $5 a gallon and take the train, where you can read during your commute.

And while you're at it, imagine. Imagine a world without literature. It's a dark, dismal place. People are despondent, hopeless, angry. It's worse than what you see today, because half of America reads literature. But if everyone read just a little bit, I suspect the world would become a bit brighter, a bit more hopeful. Perhaps it might even spur the imagination and inspire ways to turn the economy around. Just imagine!

2009: Predictions for the Year in Reading

Soon we will turn the page on 2008. To my mind, not a bad year over all, though I know of many people who don't have the same affection for 2008. I have much to be thankful for: a good year at work, though I can do more; the joy of impending fatherhood; I got my novel in shape to be seen by agents. And I read a lot of books.

I'm not quite prepared to go over what I read that most impressed me. (After all, who really cares what someone else has read, unless they can say well why someone else should read it?) But I think I can offer a few thoughts about what I and other hardcore readers will be reading in 2009.

I expect to see lots of Dress for Success and job-search books on the trains this coming year. I don't know whether ye olde What Color Is Your Parachute is still a go-to help book in this Internet, "information era" age, but there's probably something of that ilk that'll be flying off the shelves -- at least at the library, since no one has any money any more.

Other books of choice will be along the lines of "How to do more with less." As someone who grew up with Depression-era parents, I feel well indoctrinated about that sort of lifestyle. I've always been frugal, and with my kids on the way, I'm sure that'll continue.

I suspect that there'll be a renewed interest in stories of the 1970s, because that's the era that will be most similar to what we're embarking on. The Great Depression, with its breadlines and Hoovervilles just doesn't seem quite as likely as the '70s lunchbox, baby-sitting relatives, PBJ sandwiches, TV dinners, and other forms of parsimony. I wonder if That '70s Show will stage a revival...

But I'm a fiction writer. What's in it for me? I honestly don't know. I suspect that fiction could become slightly less popular than it already is — and it's already fairly unpopular. So read up America! Fiction, nonfiction, whatever you enjoy. And keep or gain employment. Keep this country literate and great!

Why Do You Read?

I just noticed this article, which appeared over the Thanksgiving weekend in the New York Times. It asks a fundamental question: Why do we read?

I'm rarely without a book or other reading material at my disposal, though I'm not so addicted that I'll read the shampoo bottle every morning.

Anyone who's visited The Elephant's Bookshelf knows that I have eclectic reading tastes. But what about you out there? What do you like to read and why? Cammy? Frank? Care to start us off?

The Writing Life of the "Successful" Author

The Boston Globe recently ran a story about author Leah Hager Cohen. It has become rare to find an article about someone who's basically a mid-list writer. By her own admission, Cohen is not making a lot of money writing both novels and nonfiction. She may have to start teaching to make ends meet, she said. Frankly, that doesn't sound so bad to me, but I'm sure she'd prefer to be able to write on her usual schedule. The article also describes what to me sounds like a dream relationship with an agent: the agent pushed her but was honest, perhaps also blunt.

This article is also another example of why it's important for newspapers -- especially major ones like the Globe -- to continue to cover writers and books. While there are tons of Web sites and blogs out there that talk about writers no one in the "mainstream" world has ever heard of, when a New York Times, LA Times, Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, or any of the other important U.S. newspapers include stories about authors other than Stephen King, J.K. Rowling, John Grisham, or any of the instantly recognizable, commercial writers, it helps all of us who aspire to get their works published and to believe there will be avenues of distribution for us too.

Keep writing, Ms. Cohen, and if you have to teach, then do it. Because that's one more way of developing writers and readers. Those kids will go off to college and talk about the quirky English teacher they had who had a few books published. The audience can keep growing one commuter at a time.

Bird By Bird by Anne Lamott

Just about any aspiring writer has at least heard of this book, which is probably referred to as often as Stephen King’s On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft as an approachable, helpful text from which to learn. I’ve not read anything else by Anne Lamott, but in this book her sense of humor is inviting and infectious. She is honest and relates unattractive tales of her life that help show why she is the writer she has become. At times she gets a little preachy, but a brief glance at her other works shows that faith is a big part of who she is. So, if you accept the rule that writers must use their voice, not that of their favorite writers, then you must either accept her preachiness or just put the book down and move to the next item in the stack beside your bed.

I kept reading Lamott, and I was pleased I did. Published in 1995, Bird By Bird offers a classroom experience in creative writing –- regardless of whether you write fiction or nonfiction. Frankly, her advice isn’t earth shattering, and any writer should already have heard these tips a few hundred times. Still, the chief lesson I took from her was to allow your childhood vision to return and draw on it for your observations, which will inform your work. Be unafraid of what you say –- as you were when you were a child. Another helpful lesson is to accept that your first draft will be shitty and shouldn’t be seen by others. (From my experience, the second draft might be flushable too, and it’s probably best to not show anyone else that ugly thing floating around until it’s fertilized something beautiful.) And for you perfectionists out there, Get over yourselves! For most writers, such advice isn’t too hard to take, but it’s nice to know that a writer who has penned this articulate guide to effective writing practices what she preaches and has had her share of failures.

While I read Bird By Bird, I was reminded of John Irving’s The World According to Garp –- particularly the scene in which Garp discovers his mother has written about him in her book, which becomes a feminist manifesto. He becomes known as the “bastard son of Jenny Fields.” Lamott often talks about her son, Sam, and being a single mother. I wonder what this young man, who’s probably in his early twenties now, thinks of how he’s portrayed -– not that there’s anything wrong. Lamott also speaks about the death of her father, and the death of a close friend, which she has written about in earlier books. Indeed, her nonfiction is probably more successful than this fiction writer would like. But as the old saw prattles on: Write what you know. It’s not exactly how Lamott would say it, though. So find your way while I look further for mine.

Indeed, finding your way is the key. Persevere and know why you are writing. As Lamott says, if it’s just about making money, then you’ll likely be quite disappointed.