Starred PW Review
For about eight years I subscribed to Publisher’s Weekly. Every week I’d take a trip into the city on the subway and read the first half, then the second half on the way out. I skimmed most of the reviews for books that sounded good, or authors I liked, but I read this periodical like it was a life-preserver. I read about the deals and about the new authors. I read about bookselling and about the trends. I read to find agents to send my work to and I read for the editorials to keep up with the business of publishing.
After a while, maybe about the fifth year, when the pile up of rejections got bigger and my third agent went west with the sun, it became harder and harder to read it. It was a reminder of my lack of success. It was similar to an old friend that I would avoid because he would always ask me about my latest book and if I’d had any luck in selling it yet. Now he knew if I’d sold it he would have been told but he had to ask anyway. So after a while, years to be exact, I lost touch. This happened to a few friends. I’m ashamed to admit it but it is what it is.
So I stopped buying PW.
I said it was because of the cost. And it is a weekly so it’s near two hundred dollars – way too much to pay when the bill came around. But that’s not why I stopped buying it. I was losing faith in myself and my work. Now that doesn’t mean I haven’t looked on-line or checked out Publisher’s Lunch (I subscribe each month now). But it was just easier not to be reminded of the status of my newest book. Writing is a hard life. There’s no way around it and sometimes you have to protect yourself. So I did.
Yesterday my publisher called me to tell me I received a starred review in PW. My mouth dropped open and nothing came out. Then I said, “I can’t believe,” because I couldn’t. She told me to believe it and I could see her smiling through the phone line. “I wanted to tell you in person,” she added.
It’s a terrific review. One line really stands out for me, “Lunievicz’s impressive debut is a dark, often brutal story, balancing some of the meanest villains in recent memory with a beautifully portrayed historical New York and a movie-obsessed boy determined to overcome the hand life has dealt him.” Okay it’s the first line and it’s a doozy but the part “balancing some of the meanest villains in recent memory” really got me. Are they that mean? I lived with them for seven years so I don’t think of them that way but I guess they are. Of course I like the impressive, dark, often brutal, parts also. I also liked the last line ending with “… painted with equal brilliance and realism.” That’s gotta be good. Here’s the link to the review.
It’s a big review from a big reviewer. And it’s the first. Now let’s keep our fingers crossed and wait for the next round.
Maybe it’s time to buy a subscription to PW again. I don’t know. It’s still pretty expensive.
To come tomorrow: information about my Big Blend Radio interview on Sunday!
ReachOutReads
Tomorrow night at 8pm EST, 5pm PST I’ll be Skyping an hour-long show for ReachOut.com. ReachOut website is run by the Inspire USA Foundation, a California-based not for profit whose mission is to help millions of young people live happier lives. Their site is filled with facts about typical teen problems ranging from anxiety and depression to family problems and suicide, real stories about young people who have had these problems, an active blog, a list of ways and sites for get help from, and the ReachOutReads program which hooks up authors with young people to answer questions about their work and lives. If computers were around in Cid Wymann’s (protagonist from Open Wounds) times he would have benefitted from a website like this. Perhaps he wouldn’t have been as lonely.
I’m really happy to have the chance to be a part of the hour-long program tomorrow night. Author, Bethany Hegedus, also editor from Hunger Mountain (an online magazine I’m writing an essay on the creative writing process for the coming issue in May – more on that to come) will be moderating. I’ll be set up in front of my computer, camera aimed at my mug, headset on, and family banished to their rooms (it’s around my son’s bedtime anyway so fair play to him – he’ll be reading) including the two dogs.
I wonder what listeners will ask? It’s strange because my book isn’t out yet and although Bethany has read my book, the young people will not have. I’ll have to go over my pitch synopsis. And remind myself why I started this whole crazy journey 33 years ago by putting pen to paper – yes it was in a time before computers were used by all. There’s something just… right about that.
Twelve Days and Counting…
Twelve days till Open Wounds hits its publication. It’s going to be a close run thing. I say this knowing my publisher at WestSide is busting her bum to reach that day so we can have copies for the BEA Bloggers Convention on the 26th. I may end up picking up the books for the event myself. WestSide is out in Lodi, New Jersey – not too far from New York City.
Also, I’m hoping that my son, my wife and I can see the first books roll off the press. Evelyn Fazio, the publisher, said it’s about the coolest thing to see and because WestSide is a subsidiary of EverBind (a binding company) they bind their own books right there in Lodi. I can’t wait. But I’m nervous about timelines.
I did the MAGPI workshop in Phili on Wednesday for three Ohio high schools but more about that later. My friend Dave and I fenced a little. I talked a bit. And the students wrote a bit. An hour goes fast when the lighting is on.
Back to the timeline.
- Kids Reach Out skype interview is on Monday evening the 16th.
- Sunday Big Blend radio interview sometime in the afternoon on the 22nd (2.5 million listeners!).
- Book Expo of American at the Javitts Center in NYC on the 24 and 25 (with a trip to Lodi on the 25th?).
- BEA Bloggers convention on the 26th and 27th – yours truly at the reception on Thursday and speed dating on Friday (after my son’s 3rd grade play!).
- Book launch party in the planning for early June – more details to come…
- ALA national conference in New Orleans at the WestSide booth – I’m there!
Deadlines
You’d think that after the book was in the can, the final proof completed and the manuscript off to the printer, I’d have nothing to do but sit back, put my feet up (if I had something to put them up on) and wait for publication day.
Wrong.
I knew there’d be a lot of work. I’d been warned. Marketing is work. It’s work to do marketing. But, man, there’s a lot of work to do to get things moving publicity wise, outside the arc of actual book production. If I was a full-time writer (not there yet – I have a full-time day job, a part-time job, and a son and relationship with my wife to keep going in addition to writing) maybe it wouldn’t be such a big deal. But I’m sweating it out today. Okay. Okay. I’ve got a book coming out in 16 days. That’s a great thing. But the work is far from over.
Hunger Mountain wants my revised essay on historical fiction writing by Wednesday and my MAGPI presentation in Phili is on Wednesday. Then, because my hardworking publicists have been setting me up for interviews and events – stacking them like lincoln logs – I’ll be doing multiple gigs each week for the next three weeks. Did I mention Book Expo? I also still have to get the launch party set up. Just what do you do at a launch part? I have to have one. Everyone has one. Don’t they? These are all good problems to have. There are good problems and there are bad problems. These are in the good problem camp.
Time is ticking.
It’s funny about the essay for Hunger Mountain. The editor, who is wonderful, told me gently to rewrite it. She found a few good thoughts in my first draft but needs more, deeper, better. I know what she means, I think. But it’s a paradigm I’m not used to writing in – a bit academic, a bit writer-ly. Last night I cut out a third of it and tonight will have to rearrange the order and… dig deeper. I need to hit my deadline. Perhaps, while I’m driving at 5 o’clock in the morning towards Phili on the Jersey Turnpike inspiration will come to me. My son, who is 9, has trouble with non-fiction paradigms also. We have that in common. I’ll take my advice to him and use it. I’ll sit down this evening, while the laundry is the building’s laundry room doing cartwheels back and forth inside the machine, and write it down. Or… in my case, revise, revise, revise.
Review Two!
This is my second review from a blogger, Lawral the Librarian, and dovetails nicely with Richie’s Picks. Read her review of Open Wounds at lucy was robbed. Thank you Lawral for the kind words and support for the book!
It’s painful to wait for reviews to come in. I have an image from the movie The Producers in my head, where Zero Mostel and Gene wilder are sitting at the bar across the street from the theatre where Springtime for Hitler is running opening night. Of course they’re waiting for bad reviews so they can make money on a flop. I’m waiting for good reviews so my ego will survive to fight another day.
A bit of trivia. Gene Wilder taught stage fencing at HB Studio before my mentor, Joe Daly did. I heard he was quite good. Can you imagine being taught fencing by Gene Wilder? How about just being taught by him?
I still remember one of my first rejection letters from Amazing Stories when I was a lad of seventeen or eighteen and the editor wrote, “I can’t believe something this disgusting kept my interest for as long as it did. Thanks for sending me this.” It was a story about a guy who goes to the bathroom and has an encounter with a skeleton sitting on the toilet next to him who died in a fire forty years ago sitting in that same spot. I know. I know. But I was young and into skeletons then. Okay. Okay. I still am. But that was my first review. Fortunately… my writing has gotten better.
Lunievicz 