The Writing Center

Gather.com has just announced the winners of its First Chapters writing competition, which I wrote about back in January, in which readers vote on the first, second, and third chapters of an unpublished novel — to many, a strange and unconventional way both to run a contest and acquire a book. But now it has produced results: a winner and a runner-up, both unagented and unpublished writers who now have both cash and contracts.

It’s fun to see that the contest succeeded, with 2,676 submissions and the awarding of not just one but two contracts. According to the press release, inner Terry Shaw’s novel, The Way Life Should Be, is a mystery about a modern-day newspaper editor who investigates his best friend’s death in coastal Maine, and runner-up Geoffrey Edward’s novel, Fire Bell in the Night, is a historical thriller set in the antebellum south. The books, to be published this year by Simon & Schuster’s Touchstone imprint, are set to receive addional publicity from Borders.

It’ll be very interesting to see where this new trend leads and how it changes publishing. but most of all, the contest should restore hope for writers who may be daunted by the seemingly impenetrable publishing industry.

We were out of town for a week and missed the big news of Miss Snark’s retirement. Anyone who has read her blog knows that this is terribly sad news … the only good news (aside from the fact that she is alive, well, and retiring only her blog) is that she will maintain the archives for anyone looking for information about agenting and publishing, as well as gin and George Clooney. On behalf of Metro Writing and all writers, we thank her for all that she’s done to demystify a very confusing industry in a most human way.

For fans, there’s a lovely tribute to Miss Snark on YouTube. Enjoy.

To follow up on a previous cliffhanger post (in which we announced that Metro writer and San Diego Writers board member Victoria Melekian was a finalist in the Best Unpublished Short Story category in the San Diego Book Awards Association’s annual contest) — we now have a winner! Victoria was awarded first place for her short story, “Looking for Stars,” at the awards ceremony on May 19. Congratulations, Victoria!

James Frey and his publisher, Random House, agreed to refund up to $2.35 million to readers who felt misled by Frey’s memoir, A Million Little Pieces (see today’s LA Times), in response to several lawsuits filed by readers.

This might be more comforting if it weren’t for the fact that both author and publisher continue to deny any wrongdoing, despite the fact that Frey admitted to both inventing and embellishing aspects of his “memoir.”

Still, it’s a start, and though it’s always a pain to return things, I hope readers do so out of principle. If you are one of these defrauded readers, you have until October 1 to file for a refund — visit the Random House web site for full details.

The New York Times has published a story in its business section about the mystery of what makes a best-selling book (the answer: no one knows).

The article offers a great look at how the publishing industry works (rather, at the miracle that it works at all). Publishers never really know when or how a book might become a best-seller, or why a huge advance and publicity blitz sometimes doesn’t pay off — and they show why it’s impractical do to the marketing research that might give them a few clues.

All aspiring writers should read this article — both for the inspiration (surprise best-sellers) as well as its dose of reality (all those books that only sell a few copies). Take it from the words of those in the industry: “It’s an accidental profession, most of the time” (William Strachan, editor-in-chief, Carroll & Graf); “It’s guesswork” (Bill Thomas, editor-in-chief, Doubleday Broadway); “People think publishing is a business, but it’s a casino” (unnamed editor, overheard by Curtis Sittenfeld, whose first novel, Prep, became a surprise best-seller).

Today’s Wall St. Journal has a piece on Simon & Schuster’s newest marketing strategy — an Internet book channel, Bookvideos.tv, to be hosted on YouTube and other sites, on which authors will talk for two minutes (”about as long as you can watch something on your desktop before your boss catches you,” says the chief executive of the corporation producing the videos) about their lives, how they became writers, and other such behind-the-scenes topics. The channel will focus on only Simon & Schuster authors, though the company seems open to expanding in whatever direction viewers take the most interest.

The channel will launch next month and has committed to 40 author videos, with featured authors including bestselling authors from Sandra Brown and Mary Higgins Clark to Ursula Hegi and Marianne Wiggins. You can check out the videos here as well as on the Simon & Schuster web site.

Here’s wonderful news for all you local writers — San Diego Writers, Ink, is accepting submissions for its first anthology of local work. Editor Thomas Larson is looking for poems, stories, essays, and novel and memoir excerpts.

Here’s the catch: All writing must be associated with SDW, Ink, whether it’s material written in classes and workshops, or something read at First Friday. The good news for any of you who haven’t yet discovered SDW, Ink, is that the submissions deadline is August 1, and you still have plenty of time to become a member and/or to sign up for one of SDW, Ink’s many classes, workshops, and events.

For complete details about the anthology, as well as info on programming, registration, and membership, visit San Diego Writers, Ink.

Today’s New York Times features an article about the losses of book reviewers at newspapers across the country, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution being the latest casualty (it recently eliminated its book editor position). The LA Times and San Francisco Chronicle have also recently reduced the amount of ink devoted to books … and all you local readers of the Union-Tribune’s already tiny book section may have noticed that your favorite freelance reviewers aren’t getting as many gigs as they used to.

While I agree that this trend is indeed “yet one more nail in the coffin of literary culture,” I also think blogs are fantastic, and that for writers, these bloggers are our friends — our very good friends. They can get an author quite a bit of mileage for many reasons, among them the fact that many emerging writers don’t get reviewed by major newspapers at all, as well as the fact that bloggers have a reach that goes well beyond those who buy books based on reviews alone. And, as the Times points out, “while authors and publishers may want long and considered responses to their work, sometimes what they most need is attention.”

As disheartening as it is to read about decreasing coverage of the literary arts, this debate is entertaining to read, from blogger Edward Champion, who told the Times that “literary blogs responded to the ‘often stodgy and pretentious tone’ of traditional reviews” to Richard Ford, who, though he’s never read a literary blog, said, “Newspapers, by having institutional backing, have a responsible relationship not only to their publisher but to their readership…in a way that some guy sitting in his basement in Terre Haute maybe doesn’t.”

And if you visit Champion’s blog, on which he has posted a photo of a basement in Terre Haute, you’ll see that the debate continues…

We have some exciting writing news: longtime Metro writer and San Diego Writers, Ink, board member Victoria Melekian has just been named a finalist for Best Unpublished Short Story in the San Diego Book Awards Association’s annual contest. Her short story is one of three finalists, and Victoria will be awarded either first, second, or third place at the awards ceremony on May 19. Congratulations, Victoria!

Write what you love. Follow your passions. And don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

These are among the insights and inspiration at one of the fiction panels at this weekend’s Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, the country’s largest celebration of the written word. The 12th annual festival was held at UCLA and drew upwards of 130,000 word lovers (along with their children and pets).

The advice above comes from Chris Bohjalian and Peter Orner, from the panel Fiction: Jumping Off the Page, which also featured Marianne Wiggins and Gary Shteyngart. What was fun about this panel, for me, was hearing about the processes of these writers: that Wiggins and Orner both write in longhand; that Wiggins takes two to three years to think out a novel but writes only one draft; that Bohjalian writes eight, nine, and ten drafts of each book. It was heartening to learn that even a writer like Bohjalian has written novels he will never publish; that it took Orner twelve years to write his novel The Second Coming of Mavala Shikongo; that, in Orner’s words, “first and last sentences are a constant hell.” For writers who make it look easy, it’s comforting to know that for even these authors, writing is anything but.

It was impossible to sit in on all 97 of the panels, of course, but we did our best to visit as many of the 300 exhibitor booths as we could, seeing everything from literary magazines to small presses, as well as testing out the Sony Reader and checking out the new MySpace for literary types: TheYack.com.

Best of all, San Diego Writers, Ink got us there and back on its inaugural trip to the festival, complete with open mic readings and plenty of coffee. Mark your calendars for next year; I already have.