Book Chick City calls it “one of the best books [she's] ever read,” and says:

For me, Unholy Magic has the precise combination and balance of everything I love about the urban fantasy genre: action, romance, complex but likeable characters and world building. I adored this book so much from beginning to end – just perfect.

Smexy Books says:

Kane has written one of the most dark and disturbing Urban Fantasy’s I have read in a long time. This story drug me in, striped me bare, then rebuilt me page by page till the end. Enticing and addicting from page one…

5 out of 5 from The Fiction Vixen: In trying to come up with an adjective to describe the over all tone and feel of this story, I came up short. Gritty seems weak in reference to this book and just does not cover it. I had a brief twitter conversation about the Downside series and I eventually came up with this: Unholy Magic spits on gritty and calls its mother names. Yes, this book is that bad ass! Stacia Kane has written an amazing, spine tingling novel in Unholy Magic, taking me by surprise by surpassing even the brilliance of its predecessor Unholy Ghosts.

Last but certainly not least, we have Barnes & Noble’s Paul Goat Allen on the B&N Explorations blog, a man who’s been reading and reviewing fantasy for twenty years or so:

The bottom line is this – never before in paranormal fantasy have I read a series that features the combination of grand scale world building, labyrinthine storyline, superb character development, and social relevance. Stacia Kane’s Downside saga is taking paranormal fantasy to another level right before our eyes…

I challenge anyone who has never read a paranormal fantasy before to read this series – I’ll guarantee you that you never look at paranormal fantasy the same way again.

So, um, all of those are really nice to get.

But they do kind of have something to do with my art posts, honestly they do. Because yesterday the first post, But is it Art?was linked to on io9. Which was also pretty cool.

But I found the comments over there really interesting, in that so many of them seemed to automatically assume that you must compromise in order to get published, that it was necessary. That if you want to be published you have to expect you’ll be told to change things.

That hasn’t been my experience at all, frankly. While UNHOLY GHOSTS isn’t everything I’d envisioned it being when I started writing it, that’s my failure; I wasn’t asked to tone anything down or change anything fundamental about the story, characters, or world. Not one thing. Not in any of the Downside books, in fact. Not in any of the Demons books, either. Hell, DEMON INSIDE has a ritual cannibalism scene involving the hero of the series. Nobody asked me to take that out or tone it down or change it. Nobody has asked me to change or tone down anything I’ve written, frankly, with the sole exception of–as I’ve mentioned before–the incestuous rape scene in DEMON’S TRIAD, and that was perfectly understandable and perfectly okay with Anna and I; we’d inadvertently made it a bit sexier than it should have been and so needed to tone it down. That wasn’t a compromise. We weren’t asked to remove the rape, which was female-on-male. We were just asked not to make it titillating, and like I said, we were happy to do so.

That is honestly the only time in my entire career that I can think of where I was asked to change something in one of my books, and that’s not really a change at all. I’ve never had to give up on anything truly important to me. I honestly don’t know anyone who has.

Yes, saying that does sort of negate the whole point of the first post. And I think it’s important to remember that DEMON’S TRIAD was an X-rated ebook, sold with a warning; that scene very well may not have flown in NY, especially NY genre romance. UNHOLY GHOSTS and the Downside books are urban fantasies, which also give me a bit more leeway. As I said on Tuesday, if you want to write a cannibal love story (in mine, it was ritualistic and involved non-humans, remember) you may have problems. There are a lot of difficult subjects that you may indeed need to wait to write, until you have a bigger name or more solid standing.

But I also believe it comes down to the writing. I’d never sold to NY when I signed with my agent for UNHOLY GHOSTS, and the series was my first NY sale. I had no standing in the industry (not that I think I do now; I’m still nobody, really). But my agent and several editors felt my writing was strong enough, my story, characters, and worldbuilding compelling enough, that they didn’t care about the slightly difficult subject.

Which brings us full circle. Getting published isn’t about compromising. getting published is about writing. It’s about characters and story. Focus on those, and on being true to them and to yourself, and on giving your work that emotional depth and making it as strong as you possibly can. That’s how you get published, not by giving in or giving up or whatever.

Tomorrow I’m going to post the CITY OF GHOSTS playlist, I think, and a weekend SNeak Peek. I’m also thinking of a contest of some kind, to name a character in the fourth Downside book? Trying to think of a fun way to have people enter; I’m thinking of doing a Twitter contest using the #cityofghosts hashtag HarperVoyager already came up with. Thoughts? Anybody interested?

And you know, I understand that to an extent. It’s scary. The economy is scary. Hell, everything is scary right now; our ocean is filling with oil and all anybody with the power to do something seems interested in doing is pointing fingers and sitting around talking and whatever. There have been earthquakes and tornados and volcanos and shit all over the world. Am I terrified that the world is ending? Honestly? Kinda, yeah. But then, I’m a bit of a pessimist when it comes to this sort of thing; I’m the only person I know who is terrified of outer space and doesn’t even like seeing pictures of it because it reminds me that the earth is this one small rock floating in nothingness and something could go wrong at any second and we could start plummeting, but there’s nothing to land on so we would just keep plummeting through the darkness forever. That’s not a pleasant thought.

It probably won’t happen, either. But I wonder if I start insisting often enough that it will, and get a bunch of people to also start talking about it and how the earth’s field of gravity is thinning, people will start to believe it.

Because it seems to me that everyone is talking about the demise of publishing, but there’s actually no real evidence that it’s dying. Everyone is claiming that ebooks will be the death of publishing, but I honestly don’t understand that at all; how is providing books in another format for people who like that format killing publishing? (Aside from the issue of piracy, which don’t even get me started on.) Aren’t we hearing about people buying more books now that they’re started reading ebooks?

I know a lot of it is just to get website hits, or because people have a specific axe to grind. And you know, none of us are without bias. I certainly don’t want to see publishing die, because it’s how I make my living. I don’t want to see us all switch to self-publishing, for reasons I’ve stated many times before but will recap quickly:

1. Ease of finding something worth reading (low when trying to go through thousands & thousands of self-published books with no quality control or vetting process)

2. Ease of publishing (sure, right now you can go to Lulu and set up a book for free; it’s what Jim Macdonald did for me with the Strumpet book. But do you really think if publishing fails, and self-publishing becomes the norm, those companies won’t start charging, or charging more?)

To be perfectly honest, my feeling is and has always been that if publishing “dies,” and everyone is self-publishing, you’ll soon have people offering to vet books for other people. You’ll have someone who realizes they can make some money by taking the best books out there and printing them for a cut of the money, and setting up some sort of nationwide distribution, and…lookie there, you’ve just reinvented a publishing house.

When people want a book to read, they want a book to read. They do not want to spend hours hunting around for something readable. (Don’t believe it will take hours, or be difficult? Here’s a site where people can post shirt stories for free, called Bibliofaction. It’s a nice site; it’s a fun idea. And I don’t link to it to pick on or put down any of the stories posted there; I link to it to show you how much there is on just that one site, and what a variety of quality there is too.)

Now I’m veering off into my big self-publishing rant again, and I’ve already covered that, so I don’t want to do it again. What I do want to say is that yes, times are a bit hard right now. Yes, I’m seeing good writers whose series don’t get to go on because sales that would have been good enough three years ago aren’t anymore, or if they do get contracted for more books their advances are lower. It’s awful and it’s sad.

But for every series that doesn’t do so well, there are series that are big hits and make tons of money. I’m tired of seeing that ignored. I’m tired of seeing specious statistics bandied about all the time, like the “95% of published books don’t sell more than 500 copies,” which sounds terrifying until you realize that the people who came up with that statistic were including every single book published, including self-published books, technical manuals, employee guidebooks, specialist textbooks, souvenir books, and whatever else. The idea that most NY published books sell less than 500 copies is simply incorrect.

This study by The Association of American Publishers estimates the publishing industry sold $23.9 BILLION worth of books in 2009. Yes, that’s down almost two percent from 2008 (although apparently in the last seven years overall it’s grown), but when you consider how the economy took a swim in Lake Shitty in early-mid 2008 especially, that’s really not that bad, is it? How much have other industries lost? If we can use this CNN article as any indicator, auto industry sales/profits dropped about 30%. Freddie Mac says home prices fell almost five percent in 2009 (it was a much bigger percentage in ’08).

Yes, it’s a scary time right now. Yes, we’re all watching it and keeping an eye on what’s happening. Yes, advances aren’t as high as they once were–at least so I understand. But we’re still getting deals. We’re still getting advances. Every day.

But that doesn’t mean we all need to start desperately casting around for some other way to earn a living, or start pontificating on how publishing is “broken” and it’s the end for it. It’s not. As long as people want to read books, there will be publishing. Quite frankly, for all the “publishing is dying” talk I hear online, it seems to be pretty limited to online; the average person–the average reader–has no idea this discussion is happening, and they care even less. And why should they? The only thing readers should–or should be expected to–care about is that they get books they want to read when they want to read them and in the format in which they want them, at an affordable price. (Readers are of course welcome to care more about it if they want, but it’s certainly not a requirement, is my point. I don’t want to bore my readers with talk about how my life will end if they don’t buy my books and I’ll end up selling matches on the street and how expensive everything is–like they don’t know that–and how I really need their help or whatever. As I’ve said here before, entertaining readers is my job. Yes, I want and expect to be paid for it, but beyond that they have zero obligation to me, and I certainly don’t expect them to give a shit about my financial situation. Remember how I’d rather not have people buy my books because I nagged them into it? Yeah. I’d rather they not buy them because I guilted them into it, either. I’m fucking lucky I get to write books for a living, and I try not to forget that and act like it’s some kind of burden.)

Anyway.

Whether the agent commission goes up to 20%, as the lovely Victoria Strauss suggests in this post (which also links back to me, making a nifty linky circuit), or whether more agents branch out into different areas of the business, or whatever…I think reports of publishing’s death are greatly exaggerated, and to be perfectly frank I’m tired of hearing about it. I don’t know if that’s me being sensible or being ostrich-like, but I’m tired of constantly feeling like the sword of Damocles dangles over all of our heads. I’m tired of feeling like there are crowds of people rubbing their hands together gleefully and waiting for publishing to fail, for whatever reason; I don’t understand it, as I don’t see why anyone would want to have to wade through slush for hours, but people can certainly do what they like.

I refuse to feel that way anymore. I refuse to listen to alarmists and bone-pickers. Will I keep in mind that things are tough all over? Absolutely. Will I remember how tight money is? Again, absolutely.

And I will use that knowledge to inspire me to write more and better books, to challenge myself more, to not take sales for granted but to remember that I need to push myself to be great, to be outstanding, to put everything I have into my work. I’ll use that knowledge to inspire me to write bigger stories, bigger worlds, bigger characters; to remember that “good enough” isn’t good enough. And so even if I don’t achieve that greatness and never get to be outstanding I at least wasn’t lazy. At least I tried. At least I didn’t forget that what it ultimately comes down to are readers, and what they want, and that my job is to try to give it to them, to impress and entertain them and make them think and feel.

So everyone else can sit around in the doom-and-gloom corner and decide the end is coming and there’s nothing we can do about it. I’ll be over here writing more books.

Because that’s what I do.

At some point in the next month or so I’m planning on doing some posts about editors and editing. A bit like my Summer Series but, since I let you all down so grievously with last year’s series, I hesitate to call it that. But it is going to be several posts about that one subject, and I have a few things planned that I think are going to be pretty cool.

One (or three, actually) of those things are interviews with my Del Rey editor, her assistant (who is now an associate editor herself!), and my publicist. (I know the publicist doesn’t really have anything to do with editing, but I thought it would be neat to hear from her anyway.)

So! What would you like to ask these fine ladies? I’m going to pick five or six questions for each of them.

NOTE: Let’s keep our questions confined to things like the actual editing process, what condition editors expect submitted mss to be in (typos, grammar, etc.), and how a book goes from ms to book and things like that, okay? Let’s please not run through the same-old-same-old questions like “What are you looking for?” and “What kinds of submissions are you tired of seeing?” or “Where is the genre heading?” Do you know what I mean? The focus of the series is on editing and the process of editing and what editors do ASIDE from acquiring books, so if you could keep your questions in that area, that would be great. Thanks!

Second, I did want to let everyone know that UNHOLY GHOSTS is going to be the lead Feature Discussion for June on the Barnes & Noble paranormal/UF/Fantasy Bookclub forum!

If you’re not already registered over there, take a minute to do so; the bookclub discussions are always a lot of fun, and since authors are invited to join the conversation, I’ll be in and out of there all month answering questions etc.

But today we’ll talk about something different, something not really related to me or my books at all. We’ll talk about websites a bit.

Periodically the question comes up as to whether or not unpublished writers need websites, and what kinds of websites, and if it’s a necessary promotional expense and how to do it cheaply and all of that. (It came up recently on a forum I’m a member if, in fact, and this post is basically an expansion of my reply there.) And as always, my opinion may not be the popular one or the one everyone agrees with, and as always you’re perfectly free to disagree if you like.

See, a lot of people will tell you that if an agent or editor is interested in your work, they’ll Google you. And that it’s important if that’s the case to have a nice, clean, professional-looking website up and ready to go.

I don’t agree with this. I don’t really fully disagree, but I don’t agree, and here’s why.

I’m not saying it’s wrong to do this–hey, if you want a website, by all means get one, it’s not up to me or anything–but I always kind of feel like the time to set up a website is when you actually have stuff to put on it. And I’m not just talking about writers here; I’ve seen all kinds of sites that seem to really just be mostly a collection of blank pages, and they make me a little sad, to be honest.

I think a web presence is a great idea. It’s a good thing to have. But honestly? I’m not even sure a full website with all the stuff is such a necessity after you sell. For a while my website was basically a few pages that I hated updating and couldn’t figure out. I kept just about everything in my Blogger blog. (And yes, I know that I’m on WordPress now, but I’m here because it’s the platform my web designer uses. And while I’m slowly figuring out how to do stuff on WordPress, I think Blogger was easier. So, while hoping fervently WordPress doesn’t take issue and “accidentally” shut down my site, ha ha ha, I’m totally just kidding there, WordPress! I will say that if you’re not big on the programming and designing stuff, Blogger is easier to start with, at least it was for me. I tried to set up a WordPress blog once several years ago and could not for the life of me get my posts to show up. I still don’t know what I did wrong now that I’m using WordPress regularly, to be honest; I did there exactly what I do here, but any post over about 500 words would just vanish into the ether. Seriously. I suspected it had something to do with their free template or something, I dunno. Anyway.) The main reason why I finally decided last summer to go ahead and get a cool, professionally designed site was because at that point, with two books in stores and four more due to be in stores in the next year, I figured I should really upgrade.

Here’s what I did, and it worked pretty well for me. I did outgrow it eventually and wanted to move to something more cohesive, but it worked, and that’s what matters. Not to mention that it didn’t cost me a penny. I did eventually buy my domain names–I suggest you do that first, these days–to reserve them, and you can point your domains at your free blog if you want, but if you choose not to, this costs you nothing.

I set up the Blogger blog and chose a template. Easy enough; it’s just a blog, and it looks nice and clean. Choose a basic template; you can customize the colors, but I’d stay away from templates that look like spiral notebooks or are just words on a white background simply because I think they’re either dull or overused, but that’s your choice. A blog is a blog, really.

The sidebar is where all the good stuff happened:

I had my titles and buylinks in the sidebar.

I did posts with the first chapters of all my books on separate (also free) Blogger blogs and linked those in the sidebar.

I had an “About Me” post linked on the sidebar.

I had a post with my covers, blurbs, and review quotes–again–linked in the sidebar.

Articles–like my Publisher series or my Heroes series–were also linked, under title; I’d link to the first article and link to the other two from the bottom of that first post. So my sidebar essentially looked a lot like this:

About Stacia (I was December for most of this period, actually)
Books
FAQ
Choose the Right Publisher
Write a Great Hero
A Novel in Three Acts
Be A Sex-Writing Strumpet

And then thumbnails of my covers with buylinks.

And then my links to pals and cool sites and all that stuff too.

I also had a few widgets and things there; I had an Amber Alert Ticker that I wish I could get over here without messing up the page structure, because I felt really good about having that and it was/still is important to me. I had a bunch of those little “Recommended Read” buttons and my Smart Bitches title (The Duchess of Manholleton, thankyouverymuch). I had a Library Thing widget too. And all of that was fun to have.

And of course like any good blog patform, there was a Search function, as well.

The one thing I seriously wish I’d done was tag my posts there. Because I didn’t. So there were no tags to transfer here, so any posts here written before the switch–about a year ago–aren’t tagged (except the Strumpet series). One of these days I’ll go back and add tags back into those, because there are some posts I’m quite proud of that are difficult to find if you don’t know exactly what you’re looking for.

It wasn’t a superduper custom site or anything (though a friend threw together a little header for me), but it looked nice, and it was free.

And especially in the beginning…this may not be a popular opinion and I certainly hope I don’t hurt anyone’s feelings or step on any toes; this is JUST MY OPINION. But I think smaller is better in the beginning. You don’t need big empty pages that just list projects you’re working on or excerpts from unpublished work, really. There’s nothing wrong with having it if you like it, I just don’t think it’s necessary. It starts to look and feel a bit static after a while, a bit stale. And you might have people who visit the site kind of casually, and the last thing you want is for them to start thinking things like, “She hasn’t finished that project yet?” or “That thing still hasn’t sold?” (It’s not a nice thing for people to think, no, but as we know, not everyone out there is nice; and the point is, you don’t want to open yourself up to even the possibility of thoughts like that.)

Instead you have everything in one place; your blog, your links, your FAQ and releases. All very simple, attractive, and organized. No agent or editor–if they do Google you, which not all of them do–is going to think badly of your site for being small; the only sites I think they may raise their eyes at are, like, covered with sparkly things and auto-music, and print over patterns, and big weird fonts at funny angles or whatever, you know? And you can sign up at a place like StatCounter, which I did, copy the code into the blog template, and now you have a very effective free stats program to track pagehits and what parts of the world your readers come from and all that good stuff. I miss that here, a lot; I can track quite a bit, but not in the kind of detail I got from StatCounter.

So really, that is something to consider. You can even register four or five more free blogs and treat them as pages on the site, if you want, and link to those; I didn’t, except for my first chapter excerpts, but you can if you like.

But it’s very easy to do, and it won’t cost you a lot of money at all. What you need is a place for readers to find you, find your books, and get what information they want and need. That’s all. They don’t need to Enter The Fabulous World Of You and Be Transported To Another Realm, although of course there’s nothing wrong with doing that. They just need to see who you are and what you write, you know?

Don’t drive yourself crazy, or into the poorhouse. Do what you like, do what’s fun, do what gives you pleasure and time.

“Chess is an intriguing character, a powerful Church witch with magic tattoos, but also a serious drug problem… She’s not your usual heroic protagonist, and this isn’t one of your humorous urban fantasies, but rather a lively thriller, full of action and ghostly encounters.”

Next, thanks to everyone who downloaded the 5-chapter sample of UNHOLY GHOSTS, and emailed me or contacted me on Facebook or Twitter to let me know how much you enjoyed it! For those of you who haven’t yet read it, why not? UNHOLY GHOSTS sample (The link is also permanently up on the UNHOLY GHOSTS page on the site, where the description and blurbs are.

Which brings me to today’s topic (see how neatly that was done?)

A while ago someone asked me in comments about blurbs, and last night I got an email asking about them again, which reminded me that I wanted to blog about them. Keep in mind this is my experience, and my thoughts, as always.

There’s a really cool post on the Reagan Arthur Books blog about blurbs, and the “karma” of them. And I believe there is a karma to them, yes.

I’ve seen a few times, in a few places, people expressing the idea that blurbs are given for money, or because the authors are friends, or whatever. I’ve never heard of blurbing for money, and I certainly can’t deny that friendship can lead to blurbs, but I have to be honest here; probably not as much as you think.

Take my blurb from Caitlin Kittredge for UG. Caitlin loved the book. Is Caitlin my friend? Absolutely; one of my closest friends (although we didn’t know each other very well when she first read UG). Does that mean Caitlin would have blurbed the book even if she hated it? I seriously doubt it.

The thing is, as writers we’re very aware of our “brand.” And what that means. We’re aware that if and when we recommend a book, our readers–who trust us–will see it. We don’t want to let our readers down, and we don’t want to disappoint them. We don’t want to mess with our own “brand” or our own reputations.

Are there writers out there who just blurb their friends willy-nilly? Oh, I imagine so. But to assume that’s the case with everyone strikes me as a bit unfair. To take Caitlin and myself again, we became friends because our tastes in and opinions on what constitutes good writing are so similar; we became friends because I loved her STREET MAGIC (and still do, with a passion) and she loved UNHOLY GHOSTS, both of which were in ms form at the time, pretty much. So of course she loves my work and I love hers; that’s how we got to know each other.

So I got a blurb from Caitlin by emailing her, and saying, basically, “Hey, you know my book that you told me you loved? Could you write a blurb for me to give to my editor?” And she replied with, “Yeah, of course! Here it is.”

I don’t try to hide my connection with Caitlin, or deny that she’s my friend. I guess if someone wants to believe her blurb means nothing because of that friendship, that’s their prerogative–just as it will be if you have a friend blurb your book, or blog about it, or whatever. But I don’t think that’s enough reason to keep from asking if your friends whose work you admire and feel is similar to yours will be willing to give you a blurb. Friends share interests and tastes; that’s one of the tenets of friendship, if you know what I mean. So it doesn’t bother me.

In a similar vein is my blurb from Ann Aguirre (which incidentally, is my favorite blurb ever in the world. I mean, “the ultimate bible of badassery?” Who wouldn’t love that?!) I knew Ann vaguely from around the internet, but not very well at all; we started following each other on Twitter, and exchanged a few comments here and there, but that was about it. But one night she said she was bored, and she was looking to read something with a different kind of love interest, someone who was rougher and not so handsome and dashing and all of that. I volunteered UNHOLY GHOSTS and sent it over to her, and she read it, and loved it. I told my editor she loved it, my editor told me to ask for a blurb, and I did. Ann is another one who I’ve become friends with because of writing; when you discover you enjoy someone else’s work, and that you have similar tastes, and even similar tones…friendships form, and it’s a fantastic thing. Because honestly, there’s nothing worse than reading a friend’s work and thinking it blows. It happened to me once, years ago, and it was really awful; I had no idea what to say.

I’m proud of my blurbs, and I’m proud to be friends with Caitlin and Ann. And as I say in the Acknowledgments of UNHOLY GHOSTS, the book is special to me for a lot of reasons, but especially because it was the book that brought some great people into my life.

So moving on. Those are my “friend” blurbs, although certainly in Ann’s case it was the book itself that really started our friendship. But I will say this one thing more, on the subject:

One of the most important things to me, as you guys who’ve been reading here for a while know, is politeness. Making other people feel comfortable, and welcome. I certainly don’t mean to sound like a braggarty braggart here or anything of that nature, but I will say–and this isn’t specifically about one of my blurbs, or even necessarily about blurbs in general–that it never hurts to be nice to people. There is simply no point in not being so.

And I don’t mean “nice” as in “If I’m nice to them they might do something for me.” I mean nice as in simply be a decent person. Treat other people with respect. Publishing is a small industry. We know who’s being a jerk to whom, or who stepped all over X or Y because they weren’t a big enough name. Well, guess what; if I’m friends with X or Y, and I get your ms mailed to me in hopes of a blurb, I’m going to say no. Why should I help someone who was rude to my friends? I don’t mean in a “not liking their work” way, and I don’t mean you need to be a kiss-ass; in fact, that’s just as bad.

What I mean is just that it doesn’t hurt to be friendly. Not to decide you’re better or more important than other people, or that they’re not worth your time. That doesn’t mean you have to spend all day every day helping others, but neither do you have to be rude when you decline to help. In any industry, it helps not to be a dick.

So. Let’s talk about other ways blurbs are given and received. In general, here’s what happens when the blurber in question isn’t someone whose email address you have, or someone you feel comfortable emailing and saying, “Hey, why don’t you blurb me up, yo?”

You and your editor will probably have a talk about blurbs, and who you think would be a good blurber, and who your editor things would be a good blurber. You may talk to your agent about this as well. You will probably agree on at least a few names.

Now, I’m of the school that believes blurbs are something for your editor to handle. I’m not a fan of emailing other writers for blurbs unless you know them pretty well. Because the thing is, it’s a lot harder to say no to a friend, and by emailing said writer yourself you’re kind of exploiting that. It may get you the blurb, yes, but it’s more likely to get you marked, at least in that writer’s mind, as an annoyance.

Others may disagree, and that’s certainly fine. Like I said, these are just my feelings and opinions.

If your agent is involved, s/he may contact a few people s/he knows to ask them about blurbing you. S/he will then pass the request on to your editor, who will compose an enthusiastic little letter about why s/he is certain that the potential blurber is going to just love the book more than anything in the world and thanking them for agreeing to look at it, and mail it off.

Again, unless it’s a unique situation or a personal friend, you don’t normally handle this. For one thing, those bound proofs can be heavy, and thus expensive to mail. Why pay for that yourself when your publisher can do it, and probably at a discount they’ve worked out with the shipping company? For another thing, it’s extremely difficult to compose a “You’ll love this I just know it” email about your own work. Yes, I guess it’s kind of like a query, but you know all those things you’re not supposed to put in your query, like “potential to be huge,” “amazing,” “an incredible new talent,” “something really special?” Yeah. Those all belong in the blurb letter. So it’s weird, and extremely hard to do without sounding like a hideous megalomaniac. And nobody wants to blurb hideous megalomaniacs.

And then? You wait.

Your editor might send some follow-up emails; again, it’s best for him/her to do it. If the connection came through your agent, s/he might follow up. The reason you don’t generally do this is the same: if it’s someone you know, they may be embarrassed to have forgotten or, worse, they may be embarrassed because they didn’t like your book. If it’s someone you don’t know at all…well, see that “annoying” thing again.

You’ll probably have people say no. It happens. Just like agent or editor rejections, it probably isn’t personal (although, when you know who a proof is being sent to, it’s a good idea to do a quick search on your blog or website or forums you frequent to make sure that if the writer in question does a google search, it won’t turn up you proclaiming to all and sundry that their latest book blows, or you hate their MC, or whatever. Because if that’s the case, then yeah, their “no” just might be personal). Your book simply may not be to their taste, and that’s fine. It’s nothing to get upset about.

Of course, sometimes they say yes, too. My Karen Marie Moning quote came this way; I didn’t actually even know my editor had sent her the books, but she had. All three of them. Karen’s blurb is for the entire series, and it’s lovely to see. I’d never met or spoken to Karen before, but her enthusiasm is of course wonderful, and I’m very, very grateful for it.

The thing is, blurbs are wonderful to have. They’re fun, and exciting. But I’ve heard more than once readers say they don’t pay attention to them. Part of this is, I think, because of the fallacy that blurbs are just a tit-for-tat, that the blurbers in question don’t even read the books or they get paid to say nice things about them.

That always surprises me, frankly. Do you really think the writer in question has that little integrity? In some cases they’re talking about writers they read and enjoy, even.

But blurbs are fun, and they’re good to have. Blurbs are important to bookstore buyers–a good blurb from a big name can jump the order numbers–and they’re very helpful when it comes to selling foreign rights.

Plus they just make you feel good. For me, I like the sense of community that comes from blurbs. I like the reminder that deep down we really love books and reading, and that we’re in this together. I like that it’s an industry where people help each other out.

So here’s the ultimate point. Blurbs are great. You want them. But don’t beat yourself up over them. And it never hurts to be friendly, and to be kind. And of course to write a great book.

And I keep feeling like I’ve forgotten something important about the blurbs, but I don’t remember what it was (obviously).

On Tuesday I’m going to go into more detail about the giveaway I’m doing for the UNHOLY GHOSTS release, but just in case the book starts appearing on shelves this early… If you buy UG, you get a free sample of the first three chapters of the second book, UNHOLY MAGIC. You email me with a scan of your receipt (or forwarded from an online site), or a picture of you with the book in somewhere that’s obviously not a bookstore, or a picture of the book somewhere not a bookstore if you’re shy, or a picture of your ereader with the book on it, or even just telling me your favorite parts of the book so I know you did read it.

The rules aren’t strict because this isn’t really a contest. It’s just a giveaway; a thank you to everyone who buys UG. Yes, I will be doing a few small giveaways as well, but again, not huge things, and just as a thank you.

You do not have to buy the book after or by any specific date, or in any specific place, or in any specific format, to qualify. I’ll probably end the giveaway in the third or fourth week of June, but that’s it.

Like I said I’m going to discuss it more on Tuesday but I wanted to get the info out there now, just in case it starts getting shelves REALLY early.

Agent Miriam Goderich rebutted it here very nicely. So, I’m sure, have others, but I’m about to add my voice to the chorus simply because that’s the way I roll, baby.

Do you need an agent?

Yes. Yes, you fucking do.

Period.

Okay, sure. If you’re planning on having a career in epublishing, you probably do not need an agent. If you’re planning to self-publish, you do not need an agent. There’s nothing wrong with either of those things. I started out in epublishing, without an agent, and thoroughly enjoyed the experience. I’m glad I did it and am grateful to Ellora’s Cave for treating me so well and enabling me to make some decent cash. Working with them was a pleasure for me.

But–no offense–I wanted more than that. I wanted books on shelves. I wanted advances. I wanted a bigger career. I wanted to move out of genre romance/erotic romance; not because I didn’t enjoy it or don’t enjoy it (writing and reading), but because the more of it I wrote the more a little voice inside me told me it was simply not quite the right fit for my voice or the kinds of stories I wanted to tell.

To accomplish those things (aside from moving away from writing romance, which of course is a huge genre in all forms of publishing: ebook, mass market paperback, trade paperback, hardcover, audio, whatever) I needed an agent.

Here’s what fascinates me (and infuriates me) about the original Galleycat article (aside from the fact that its author apparently also runs a website devoted to helping writers self-publish; again, legal, but certainly interesting). It’s this paragraph here:

One published author who asks to be unnamed disagrees, “What do you need an agent for anymore, really? Why? To negotiate a meager advance? You can’t get them on the phone anyway. You’re stuck promoting the book yourself because publishers don’t put any marketing dollars into your book unless you’re John Grisham. I don’t see the whole point when I can hire an attorney to negotiate my publishing contract for a flat fee or just upload the book to Kindle myself.”

Let’s take a look at these points, shall we?

1. “To negotiate a meager advance.” Hmm. Speak for yourself, buddy. My advances aren’t huge, but I certainly wouldn’t call them “meager.” And having been involved in the negotiation process–through regular discussions with my agent, every step of the way–I’m well aware of how much bigger they became once he started negotiating them. In fact, several surveys have been done proving that the average agented advance is something like twice the size of an unagented one; Tobias Buckell’s, for one.

2. “You can’t get them on the phone, anyway.” Dude, if you can’t get your agent on the phone, you need a new agent. (Or perhaps you need to stop calling several times a day; ever considered that maybe the problem is you?) I can assure you, each and every one of you, that if I picked up the phone right now and called my agent, he would take the call. He always has, and he always will. And you know what? He calls me, too. When I send him a proposal, he calls me to discuss it. When he sells subsidiary rights (yes, we’ll get to those), he calls me. As I said above, he called me every step of the way, sometimes several times a day, when we were negotiating the sales of the Downside books and the second & third Demons books.

He calls me when something happens, like when my release dates changed. He calls me when we get cover art so we can discuss it. He calls me to talk about ideas.

Do we talk every day? No. Do we talk every week? No. Do we talk every month? No. But we do talk. And we do email, and he always answers those too. My agent is THERE FOR ME. And I am not unusual in that, I promise you. Every single writer pal I have is in the exact same situation. We talk to our agents. All the time. About all kinds of things.

An agent who does not have time for you is not a good agent. Find a good agent and stop bitching.

3. ” You’re stuck promoting the book yourself because publishers don’t put any marketing dollars into your book unless you’re John Grisham.” First, this is about agents how? Second, patently unfuckingtrue. Those books you see on front tables, end caps, mid-aisle tables, and those little rotating shelf things in bookstores? Are they all by John Grisham? No. Are they all, even, by known, NYT-Bestselling authors? No again. I see debut authors on those things all the fucking time, and guess what? Marketing dollars buy those spaces. Marketing dollars that publishers, real ones, put into the books they sell every fucking day.

And again, this has nothing to do with agents, as promoting your book to the public isn’t their job.

Here’s what my agent does for me. You look at this list and tell me if you think it’s worth it:

1. Reads my work, discusses it with me, offers suggestions
2. Sells my work to editors for major houses (not just “sends” or “submits.” SELLS. Pitches. Anyone who’s ever worked a sales job knows that isn’t easy.)
3. Negotiates not just my advances, but my CONTRACTS. All those confusing things about royalties and schedules and payouts and subsidiary rights and non-competition clauses and options and exclusive- and non-exclusive? He knows what all of it means, and how to get the best possible deal for me.
4. Sells those subsidiary rights. I would not have a UK deal without my agent. I would not have an audiobook deal without my agent. Which means readers in the UK and those who enjoy audiobooks would not have access to those books without my agent.
5. Keeps track of what monies have been received and which haven’t. Follows up on checks.
6. Keeps track of royalty statements. Follows up on those, too.
7. Knows what’s selling and what editors are looking for.
8. Talks about me; lets editors know I’m available (if I am) should they be interested in working with me.
9. Discusses my career with me. Offers guidance. Helps me plan my schedule.
10. Is a third opinion in discussions with my editors, should either of us wish him to be. Should a problem arise, my agent will step in to help. My agent is always on MY SIDE.

These are all equally important, at least to me. These are things that MATTER. My agent is the lifeline between myself and the world of publishing. He is invaluable.

Sure, I could probably do those things myself. I could fly to New York regularly and try to build relationships with editors. I could submit over the transom and wait a year for responses. I could spend ages learning about contracts. I could fly out to Frankfurt and London for the book fairs there and try to sell foreign rights (after first thoroughly researching all the publishers in lots of other countries, to determine if they’d be good for my book, and hope they’ll be interested), and then I could spend a bunch of time figuring out exchange rates. I could mark my calendar to make phone calls to follow up on payments and statements and all that stuff. I could be my own, my only, advocate, and jeopardize my relationships with my editors should disagreements arise.

What I probably couldn’t do, if I were doing all of that, is still have time to write.

If you want a real career, you need a real agent. You need an agent. YOU NEED AN AGENT.

Anyone who tells you that you don’t is either wrong or is trying to sell you something. Or both. Don’t believe them.