Lunievicz

Latest

The Last Typewriter

The title would be the beginning of a great story. I’ve filed it away as one I need to work on… some day.

But… I just heard this on the news, then read about it and can’t believe it. The last typewriter factory in the world – not just in India, but in the world, closed down today.

That doesn’t mean nobody uses typewriters anymore, but it certainly cuts down on the number of typewriters that will be available and out there to be bought and sold. There is now a limited number available, end of story. At least one author I know, Dewey Lambdin, writes on a typewriter – letters and I believe first drafts of all manuscripts. I’ll have to ask him if he hires someone to put it all on a computer for him so that it can get to publishers in electronic form. I don’t know. But I’ll ask. I love his Alan Lewery Naval series. But he has no website – no electronic presence other than what his publisher sets up for him.

I digress.

Typewriters.

It saddens me there will be no more made. It makes me want to go out and get an old manual Oliver or Remington or Underwood. It’s the end of an era. Mind you I love computers and the internet and spell-check – oh I love spell-check – but I also love the sound of clicking keys and the look and feel of an old manual typewriter.

I first started writing on a manual, non-electric Smith Corona. Then I moved on the an electric. I used the IBM Selectric at a few jobs – with corrector ribbons. But what I remember the most is having to type manuscripts of short stories to send out and having to throw out a page if there were more than three errors on the page. An error was X’ed out and four X’s meant I had to do the page over. It was brutal for a learning typist in High School who would get to the last line of a page and make that fourth mistake. Ugh. I can still hear the sound of the roller ratcheting as I pulled the paper out in frustration and lined another one up – drew it in. Back then, proofing your work had a different meaning.

Hey. It wasn’t that long ago.

So long typewriter factory in Mumbai. I wonder how much each of the last 500 typewriters that came off the line will sell for? Just curious. I’d better reread the article.

Anybody else have a typewriter story?

Posted by Joe Lunievicz | April 26, 2011 | Categories: Blog, On Writing | 2 Comments

5 things I learned in Denver

Here are five things I learned about marketing to bookstores and booksellers in my first trip as an author.

It’s hard to describe your book to someone without a physical copy of the book there for them to hold on to. Holding your book also gives them something to do (ie: look at it). Solution: bring a book everywhere with you – which means next book I need to order a lot more ARCs – live and learn.
Booksellers are busy people and just because you make an appointment doesn’t mean they’ll be ready for you, or even remember that you’re coming. Solution: be prepared to make it a cold call and sell your stuff!
Blurbs are important. One of the first things people looked at were the cover and the blurbs listed there. A blurb by Robert Lipsyte on the cover made at least one buyer stop what she was doing and really listen to me. “You got a blurb from Robert Lipsyte?” was my entre to ten minutes of talk rather than two minutes and the door. Solution: get good blurbs. Thankfully I worked my butt off, wrote a lot of emails/letters to writers and got eight good ones from very gifted and known writers. I did this because my brilliant publisher E. Fazio told me to. Thank you, E. Fazio.
Some booksellers don’t know anything about the publisher. Solution: bring catalogs and know the other books on the list. Fortunately I’ve read three other novels by my publisher. (Scars, by Cheryl Rainfield, Orphans, by John R. Weber, and Something Terrible Happened on Kenmore, by Marci Stillerman)
Booksellers like to have a hook by which they can place and sell your book on their shelves. Solution: practice your pitch/have a pitch. For example some people liked “it’s a cross between Book Thief and Gangs of New York,” and others liked “it’s part Oliver Twist and part Captain Blood.” By the way I hate this part. Which means I have to practice it even more in order to be good at it. Can you describe you book in two sentences or less?

One other thing. I was reminded how much I love independent bookstores. The Tattered Cover Bookstores (all three) were extraordinary stores, unique, filled with nooks and crannies, cubby-holes, and great displays. And… the coffee and tea were excellent.

Colfax store.

Posted by Joe Lunievicz | April 25, 2011 | Categories: Blog, Open Wounds, Travel | Leave a comment

Agent Lost

I have a question for you.

It goes like this.

I got my first agent over ten years ago.

I lost him because… he died. I’m not kidding. I had no idea he was ill when I signed on with him and his partner – who happened to be his ex-wife – but after two years he passed away and I was out on my own. I found out later I was the last author he’d signed. His colleague offered to represent me but only in a half-hearted way. “He (meaning her ex-husband) loved your book. I didn’t,” she said. I passed on her offer.

My second agent, after representing me for three years, left the business to open a gourmet deli. Some time during the beginning of the third year she also had a nervous breakdown. I found that out later also.

My third agent left the business to take a job in public relations. He didn’t tell me he had left his agency until three months after he was gone. I didn’t know because I was working on revisions of my manuscript. “I’m sorry,” he said when I called him with a finished product – asking for his opinion of it, “I’m no longer in the business.”

“Why didn’t you tell me,” I asked.

“I forgot to tell you,” he said.

My fourth agent, one month before my debut novel hits its publication date – which she sold for me last summer – called me yesterday to tell me she’s off to work for an investment company. She’d been taking courses to get her certificate so she could work as a financial advisor… or something like that. I had a hard time taking it all in after I heard her say she was leaving the business.

So here’s my question.

Are all agents like this or is it just me?

I called my wife and told her about my new agent lost and she said, “You’ve driven another one out of the business. You have a perfect record.”

Seriously. Did I?

The good thing is, my last agent sold my book. The bad thing is I’m without an agent again.

It’s hard to get one.

It’s hard to keep one.

So I’ve got three things to do. 1) Keep working on my next book. 2) Start looking for another agent because I still own the movie rights to Open Wounds. 3) Get back to work on my publicity campaign. Next month is going to be a busy one.

So it goes.

Posted by Joe Lunievicz | April 22, 2011 | Categories: Blog, On Writing, Open Wounds | Leave a comment

Book Review: Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers

Walter Dean Myers has been writing YA, gritty, urban fiction for a long time and he is very, very good at it. He writes boy books for boys with African-American protagonists. I picked up a special anniversary edition of Fallen Angels last week while I was at the Tattered Cover Bookstore in Denver because I’d read Lockdown, his 2010 release, and loved it and the subject matter – the Vietnam War – interested me. I can still remember sitting around a table in the cafeteria in ninth grade talking to my friends about what we’d do if they started the draft again. In 1975 the Vietnam War ended but it seemed like a close call for me and my brother who was a year older. My father served in WWII – step-father and father-in-law in Korea. A great-uncle was one of the first soldiers to liberate a concentration camp. Anyone who saw combat rarely talked about it. Fallen Angels perfectly captures the reason why. Fallen Angels was originally published in 1988 and is a horrific account of the Vietnam War froma 17-year old African-American boy from Harlem’s perspective. Richie Perry’s first person, grunt’s eye view is highly compelling and perfectly describes the horror and chaos of both firefights and the psychological impact of the war on American soldiers.

Before I read this book I thought The Things They Carried, by Tim O’Brien, was the best book I’d read on the Vietnam War but this one tops it. It in no way glorifies war and it’s parallel to today’s wars in Iran and Iraq is frightening. The erosion of the soldier’s nerves as the story builds and they see more and more action, is handled well as is the insight into why we were at war then and what each character wanted out of being there. The action is visceral. The ending is haunting.

This is not an easy read as the violence is realistic and explicit as is the language, but it is an important and cautionary one.

Check out this award winning author’s website and Goodreads for more reviews of his work.

More reviews at Goodreads.

Purchase at Amazon.

Walter Dean Myers’ website.

Posted by Joe Lunievicz | April 19, 2011 | Categories: Blog, Book Reviews | 4 Comments

First Review!

My publicist (JKSCommunications) found this on the YALSA (Young Adult Library Services Association) list serve. Richie’s Picks is my first review and it’s a good one. Here’s his tag line:

“OPEN WOUNDS is a gem of a tale that is filled with guy relationships, flavored with a lost era of New York City, and features the intricacies and athleticism of a sport that is rarely part of young adult literature.”

Beside being from Long Island (though he doesn’t live here any more) and growing up not to far from where I did, he fenced in High School and knows something about the sport. So It’s pretty cool to get the thumbs up from someone who knows a parry four from a parry six.

Thanks for the kind words about my book, Richie.

Posted by Joe Lunievicz | April 17, 2011 | Categories: Blog, Open Wounds | Leave a comment