Rob Hart's Blog, page 3

Now accepting reservations at the Paradox Hotel

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Time travel hotel.

That’s it. That’s all I had. It struck me while wandering the McKittrick Hotel during a performance of Sleep No More. What if there was a hotel where you could walk in a room and find yourself five minutes ahead, or ten minutes behind?

I wrote it down and it sat there while I did other things—but I’m a sucker for a good time travel story. It kept calling to me. I thought it might be a good vehicle to write about the assumed power of money. Time travel and financial markets both being largely theoretical.

It kept calling to me even as I spent nearly a year working on a book that, ultimately, never came together.

So…

Welcome to the Paradox Hotel. My next book. Coming out at some point next year probably.

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It’s set in a hotel connected to a timeport, in a world where time travel is a tourism industry for the super-rich—like what space travel is becoming today. It follows January, the house detective, who is trying to solve a murder where events are happening out of order.

It’s a locked-room puzzle box. It’s about class discrimination and the way billionaires are happy to let the world burn to get what they want.

But mostly it’s about the way facing ourselves is the hardest thing we have to do.

I’m thrilled to be working with Julian Pavia again, an incredible editor who did great things with The Warehouse, and has already been a fantastic partner in shaping this very weird, very complicated story.

And once again I feel compelled to build a statue in honor of my agent Josh Getzler. Not even for brokering the deal! He deserves it for putting up with me.

That’s all I’ll tell you about the book for now, but I’ll leave you with the words of the White Queen in Through the Looking Glass:

“It’s a poor sort of memory that only works backwards.”

More soon…

Haha what now?

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So that’s a thing that happened. That’s it. That’s the post.

Writing through fear

I’ve said this in a bunch of interviews but: I originally got the idea to write The Warehouse back in 2012. Then, it was a little seed of an idea that needed time to grow, and part of the process was letting it take root, letting it suck up water and nutrients, and letting it blossom. I didn’t start writing it in earnest until something like 2015. And I had three or four false starts before I really cracked it.

But part of the reason it took so long was that I was afraid to write it. I didn’t think I was a good enough writer. I didn’t think I was smart enough. It was economic policy and criticisms of capitalism wrapped in the blanket of a thriller.

I thought to myself: I’ll get there eventually. One of the things I do when I feel challenged by something is, I go bigger. Maybe so the thing that’s actually scaring me seems less scary. So I came up with this idea for a novel, that I don’t want to completely give away because it might be salvageable at some point, but it was a horror novel, wrapped in a memoir of the author who is writing it, and the way fiction and reality influence each other. It was a very meta, very risky narrative, and I wrote 70,000 words before I realized I’d hit a wall.

And I saw the way the world was keying into the idea that large corporations treat us like a disposable product, and getting angry that billionaires are hoarding wealth like dragons sleeping atop a pile a gold while people suffer and die, and I figured that if I didn’t write this idea, someone else would. So I buckled down and I wrote the damn book and when I sent it to my agent I thought it was garbage.

I turned out to be very wrong. The Warehouse changed my life. I was able to quit my job. I’ve traveled to countries I’ve never visited. I’ve sold more books than probably my six other books put together. One of my favorite directors, the first director I could cite by name, optioned it for a movie.

With that came a lot of anxiety. Which was hard to talk about, and that made it harder. I would be at a convention and people would ask how I was doing and I would say: good, but it comes with a lot of pressure. Some people would get upset at me for saying this. Not viscerally, but there was a distinct vibe of: “But you’re happy. You must be happy, right?”

Yes, I’m happy. But it’s possible to feel multiple and conflicting emotions about a thing. I get that this is the “dream” and no one wants to hear that the dream isn’t all sunshine and gumdrops. No one wants to hear it isn’t perfect. So I just stopped telling people that it was hard. They’d ask me how I was doing and I would say: “Great! Awesome! Everything is wonderful!” And they would smile and nod and they were satisfied and I’d go to the bar for another drink.

It was standard operating procedure for me. I was doing that thing I tend to do, which is take my emotions and ball them up and pretend they’re not there. The truth is the success of The Warehouse—along with some other stuff related to my inability to deal with my emotions—finally pushed me into therapy. Which I’m glad to be doing and it’s been helping.

But that’s not the point I’m trying to make. The point is this: I put off writing The Warehouse because I was afraid, and that was back when I was writing for a very small audience and the stakes were low. The stakes are so much higher now. I need to deliver a book that’s better than that. As a writer, as an artist, that’s what I need. I need to grow. Even just as good isn’t good enough. That’s not why I’m doing this.

Meanwhile, my agent is waiting, and my editor, and my film/TV agent, and all those foreign publishers who picked up The Warehouse, and now, a whole ton of new readers who want me to write something new…

For the last year or so I’ve been working on a book. I’ve told a bunch of people about it. It was a very ambitious narrative and the world-building was maddeningly difficult. I was super excited about it… but gone are the days when I could decide to write a book and then just do it. At this level, I needed to develop it with my editor. And we weren’t seeing eye-to-eye on it.

And we tried. I went through five or six versions, trying to find the marriage between the book I wanted to write and the book he wanted to see. And I’m sure someone out there will be like “well what about the art don’t compromise yourself!” and… it’s not about that. Every time we tore it down and built it back up it got better. But we also didn’t get it across the finish line. There was a fundamental flaw in the underlying structure. Just something that didn’t click. Who knows—maybe one day I’ll have a eureka moment and realize what it was. Sometimes that’s how it works.

But two weeks ago, I was talking to my editor on the phone, and I said, “Well, I have this other idea…”

This other idea is a book I was afraid to write. It’s very ambitious, and it’s going to take a lot of research into things like theoretical physics and financial markets, and the actual narrative structure is really unique. I’m not saying I’m going to try and write House of Leaves, but I’m certainly in that headspace. And it’s something that kept on waving for my attention and I kept pushing to the side, because there was already a book I was working on—I took that one to the dance and I had to go home with it.

But sometimes things just aren’t working. And this book wasn’t working. I sent the new pitch to my editor, my stomach twisted in knots, thinking if this doesn’t work then I’m fucked. I climbed to the top of the mountain and I planted my flag and then my foot slipped and you all were about to see the frozen corpse of my career come sliding down the side. I really was the fraud I believed myself to be.

My editor loved it. He ran it up the flagpole with some other editors and they loved it too. My agent, who had expressed some skepticism when I initially did a poor job explaining it, keyed into my vision for it. Once I did a less shitty job explaining it.

I’m still terribly frightened about writing this thing. There are two specific aspects that, if I can pull them off, will be pretty cool, and if I fuck them up will make the whole thing pretty much unworkable.

But I have to remind myself that I’ve been in this place before, when I sat down with a book I thought I was going to call Waypoint Seven and eventually turned into The Warehouse. I have to remind myself that fear can hold you back, but sometimes you need to let it push you forward.

Whether that means getting help, or abandoning one project you’ve invested blood and sweat into, or just telling the story you want to tell. And even saying all this is scary. I feel like I’m pulling back the curtain on my life and my anxiety a little when my default setting has always sort of been: “Chin up, don’t let ‘em see you sweat, because you don’t want people thinking you’re weak.”

Which might be the problem. Seeing fear or anxiety as a weakness, or a character flaw. They’re really not. They’re just states of being. There is no one in this world who doesn’t feel those things. Some of us hide them better than others. Some of us handle them better too. The important thing is accepting them for what they are, and finding the way to utilize them. To make those things work for you, instead of against you.

I am hugely excited to be working on this and I hope to tell you more about it soon. And frankly, I’m feeling a lot better about some things now, too. The power of inertia. I don’t know why I needed to write this but I felt like I did. For myself. But maybe someone else needs to see it to. That’s the point, I guess. We write.

My favorite reads of 2019

It’s that time of year again, when I have to list my five favorite reads for LitReactor and I feel like an asshole because I read so many good books and how in the wide world of fuck can I possibly narrow it down?

I tried my best. My top five is:

American Spy by Lauren Wilkinson, Recursion by Blake Crouch, Wanderers by Chuck Wendig, Three-Fifths by John Vercher, and Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid. You can see my reasoning here.

BUT there were a whole lot of books I read that I really liked and I am going to list some more of them here because this is my site and I can do what I want. This is for books released in 2019 (some of which I really struggled about including in the top five).

The Better Sister by Alafair Burke – could not put this book down—it was impossible to ignore
Miami Midnight by Alex Segura – the final (maybe?) Pete Fernandez mystery and Alex really stuck the landing
They All Fall Down by Rachel Howzell Hall – Rachel’s writing always makes me jealous
Gods of Jade and Shadow by Silvia Moreno-Garcia – such fantastic myth and fantasy
How We Fight For Our Lives by Saeed Jones – this book shook me
Lock Every Door by Riley Sager – good god Riley knows how to build suspense
Miraculum by Steph Post – I want an entire universe based around this world and these characters
End of the Ocean by Matthew McBride – Matt just gets better and better with each new book
Your House Will Pay by Steph Cha – the crime fiction we need right now
Deception Cove by Owen Laukkanen – come for the great characters, stay for the very good dog
Disappearing Earth by Julia Phillips – breathtakingly beautiful
Unspeakable Things by Jessica Lourey – this one stuck with me
Maxine Unleashes Doomsday by Nick Kolakowski – a hell of a lot of fun
Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson – required reading
War Girls by Tochi Onyebuchi – Black Panther + Fury Road – need I say more?

There are probably a few I missed. There are also a few books I really wanted to get to this year, and didn’t… but I vow to get to them soon.

(And yes I get it there’s a new Amy Hempel book in the world and I didn’t read it yet; I’m afraid to, because once I’ve read it, the world won’t be as full of the same wonderful possibility it held, from knowing there is new work from Amy Hempel.)

I also read some really fantastic books coming out in 2020 that you ought to have on your radar:

Blacktop Wasteland by S.A. Cosby – Shawn is another writer who just takes huge leaps and bounds with each new project – you can see the movie as you read this
Stealing Thunder by Alina Boyden – so much fun, such great themes of politics and family and identity… with dragon-bird fights
Sixteenth Watch by Myke Cole – I love books from authors who are writing with the authority of experience… also, Coast Guard on the moon!
Consider This by Chuck Palahniuk – a fantastic book on writing
Uncanny Valley by Anna Wiener – truly cutting portrait of Silicon Valley
Line of Sight by James Queally – you’re going to know this dude’s name real soon
The Return by Rachel Harrison – I was legit afraid to read this at night because it was so scary

There were some other books mixed in—older books, or non-fiction books for research (none of which knocked my socks off so thoroughly as to warrant inclusion here). Looking at this list I feel like I did okay but also wish I had read more. I went through a dark period over the last few months where I wasn’t reading as much, and honestly it was Blacktop Wasteland that got me back into the groove. What a good fucking book that is.

Anyway. Happy reading! Hopefully you find something fun here.

Italy/Germany/Holland

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I’m back from Europe, having spent a week shuttling from Milan to Munich to Hamburg to Amsterdam. And it was a trip. Not just because I covered so much ground, or ate so much food, or wandered through not one but two famous red light districts. It’s because I got the chance to see the kind of impact The Warehouse is having in other parts of the world and the entire process was humbling and surreal.

I also learned some fun stuff about the weird cultural differences of book publishing and promotion in other countries. Which I thought it might be fun to talk about here.

(Oh, and before I left, I went to all the Hudson News stands in Terminal 4 at JFK and signed their copies of The Warehouse… so if you’re flying through there soon and want to get one, there you go.)

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First up was Milan, which is where my publisher, DeA Planeta Libri, is based. I landed on Sunday morning, and after a quick nap to get myself adjusted I met my publisher Francesca, and spent the day wandering the city with her. Monday was press, all day—from 11 a.m. until dinnertime at 8 (people in Milan eat late!). Then on Tuesday I did stock signings at a couple of bookstores in the city center.

Press was interesting. Everyone I spoke to keyed into the book in big ways. As I kept on saying to anyone who would listen, I thought The Warehouse was too uniquely American, and was surprised at how common those anxieties about capitalism and big business are in other parts of the world.

It was also my first time working with an interpreter. Most folks in Milan didn’t have a great grasp of English. Just basic pleasantries. The woman I was teamed with, Chiara, was great. I got into the flow quickly—not saying too much at a stretch, so she wasn’t overwhelmed, and staying away from American colloquialisms and phrases I thought might not translate.

My only interview without her was with Nikki at Radio Deejay. We did a nice stretch on his afternoon radio show, where he would ask a question in Italian, then English, and I would answer in English, and he would translate. It was a blast. You can hear it here if you’re interested.

One thing that surprised me was that Planeta used a variation of the US cover. Especially since I had seen another take they’d done, which was pretty different (and also very good!). Apparently the book got such good press in the US they thought it was better for branding. And they kept the US title because the translation for warehouse, il magazzino, didn’t really translate correctly to what the warehouse in The Warehouse is.

I heard some things that sounded familiar to US publishing. We focused on press and stock signings because it’s hard to get people out to events. Also, Planeta had previously been situated in the city center but had been pushed out by the high rental costs (it was the same thing for my publishers in Germany and Holland).

I was a little surprised that the bookstores I visited for stock signings—as the book was just hitting stores that day—were so close to each other. Within minutes by foot, which is not a common thing, at least here in New York (outside, I guess, The Strand and B&N around Union Square). There seems to be less of a sense of competition. After I finished my signings, I had a few hours to kill and wandered the city, and stumbled into a few more stores, all of which had piles of the book prominently displayed at the front. That was a hell of a thing to see.

Overall it was lovely. Very warm—85 degrees during the day—but a lovely ancient city to aimlessly wander. I got into the Duomo and climbed up to the roof. I visited Chiesa di San Bernardino, because I am all about a good ossuary. I found that if you want to eat something between lunch and dinner you are out of luck—everyone goes on break. But the food. Oh the food. I eat a low-carb diet and Italy is just all carbs. But it’s all so good. And the gelato. Lord.

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From Milan I went to Munich, home of Heyne Verlag, my German publisher, which is an imprint of Penguin Random House. The city, while it sustained some damage in World War II, still had a ton of great, old architecture and cathedrals (I love cathedrals, which is funny, being a lapsed Catholic). My editor, Patrick, gave me a fantastic walking tour while giving me a lesson on the city, the German language, the German publishing industry, and lederhosen and dirndls (traditional Bavarian garb—something they take very seriously).

There, the book is Der Store. Apparently warenhaus was not a good translation, because that’s more like a department store in Germany. And der lager, German for warehouse, sounds too much like the term of concentration camp. Hard pass! So Der Store it was. Look at how nice that book looks! They really treated it like a piece of art. Again, primo placement, and I am also getting a TON of love on Instagram. There is a big bookstagram community in Germany and Heyne developed a fantastic marketing plan to reach them (for what it’s worth, when I was in London last month with my UK publisher, Transworld, I learned they don’t have a big bookstagram community—they tried to crack it and just couldn’t).

In Germany, it was all readings, no press; I had done some press before I got there. I also visited the Heyne offices, where I signed 150 copies for promotional purposes. So I did my event in Munich and then the next day it was off to Hamburg for the Harbourfront Literary Festival, and let me tell you something: they know how to do events out there.

They were both formatted the same: a moderator, who would interview me and then sum things up in German (but less specifically; English is much more common, though a few folks were a little shaky on it). Heyne also hired German actresses in each city to read parts of the book in German, while I read passages in English. We had a crowd of about 50 people in Munich and a hundred in Hamburg. And we sold a ton of books.

While Munich felt very old and more “traditionally” German, Hamburg, which is a port city in the north, felt much more modern, because most of it got destroyed during World War II. It is home to the Reeperbahn, the longest red light district in Germany. I only got to see it during the day—I was in the city less than 24 hours!—and it was both a little creepy and also weirdly safe (it’s also home to the biggest police station in the city).

Oh man. Again, the food. I had lunch in a traditional biergarten. And also a traditional north-Germany meal of pickled herring and potato salad which was… interesting! And also good! Good beer too. So much good beer.

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I ended the trip in Amsterdam to visit my Dutch publisher Karakter. I should note it was my first time in all these countries which made the trip especially exciting.

I signed a few dozen books for my publisher and then did three long interviews—again, with journalists who were very keyed into the issues in the book which made me very happy—and then… that was it! I had a lovely dinner with Isabel, my publisher, Hannah, from the marketing team, and Henk, my translator. And… that was it! I was done!

The food was incredible. And it was fascinating hearing another perspective on all of this; they changed the book to Cloud because they thought the US title (which they still added in small print) wasn’t right for the Dutch audience. But like in Italy, they kept the US cover because of the positive press, despite having worked up some concepts of their own.

It was fascinating to hear from Henk, too, both over dinner and later as we were wandered the city. Apparently at his pace he likes to translate two to three pages a day (though had to move quicker on mine because the original translator became ill during the process). He said it wasn’t a difficult translation besides that (the only example he could think of where he had some difficulty was the first facility people visit at The Warehouse, Incoming, which there wasn’t a good Dutch word for).

The next morning I had free (my flight out was at 5 p.m.) so I met with Isabel to wander the city some more (very different by night than by day). And then I flew home! Completely and utterly exhausted, physically and mentally. By the last interview in Amsterdam I was ready to crack—yes, it’s incredible to have this opportunity but there’s only so much you can talk about yourself (and really, say a lot of the same things), before it wears on you. Luckily the last journalist was a fun guy who was very much on my level, and we had a fun conversation.

Like I said, I thought this book wasn’t fit for foreign audiences, and I was very wrong about that. It was interesting to see who picked up on what. The Dutch reporters were keen to hear about my jump from the Ash books to these. The Italians were very interested in the film deal (it came up everywhere but it always came up sooner in the Italian interviews).

And in all three countries I was asked some variation of: am I an optimist, and what can we do? And I wanted to share my answer here, especially since I feel like I got that question less in the US (weird) and it gave me time to think. And it’s something I will expand on in the future, maybe here or elsewhere, but:

Yes, I am an optimist. I have to be, for my daughter, but also, I believe most people are fundamentally good, and we know the younger generation is more liberal, and for as much as the world feels like a trash fire right now, compared to how bad things used to be—see: slavery, the Holocaust—things are getting better. Sometimes not by much. Internment camps have made a big comeback and our president is literally colluding with foreign powers to sway our election and no one on his team cares because they’re winning.

But I am an optimist. Because I don’t think The Warehouse would have hit the way it did two or three years ago. I think the reason it’s resonated the way it has is because people are waking up to this shit: that we’re killing ourselves to make rich assholes a little bit richer. That some CEO is shopping for his fourth yacht while families at the company he owns are struggling just to feed themselves.

And as for an answer, or a solution: that’s a tough one too, but I think the first step is to just be a little more mindful about our economic and environmental impact. If we can do that, maybe it can lead to small steps (walking more, shopping online less) and hopefully those will lead to bigger steps.

It moves slowly, but it moves.

Anyway. There we go. It was fun. I’m very tired. I met some incredible people and was shown so much kindness and hospitality by my foreign publishers that right now my heart is full to bursting. I can’t believe I get to do this.

Here are some more photos if you care to see them!

Finances for Authors

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So we’ve all seen The Piece. You know the one. About the advance. I’m not getting into judgement one way or another except to say that it was bold to share that and it got people talking. And talking is good because in publishing there’s a whole lot of not talking because it’s considered… I dunno, uncouth or something.

And yes, you have to arm yourself with knowledge. It’s all out there on the internets. The problem is that the good advice is really very often nestled amongst bad advice. A lot of people are ready to tell you how publishing works, despite having no idea how publishing works. Some people consider this “branding,” like if you present yourself as an expert you’ll be taken more seriously.

I have shot from the hip with advice over the years and some of it has been good and some of it has been bad. I’m still learning. No one has it all figured out and anyone who says they do is lying. I do feel like at this point I know a little about a little–I’ve worked as a publisher, published seven of my own books at both small and large presses, co-authored a book with James Patterson, and navigated the weird and winding road of a bananas book deal with The Warehouse.

And one thing that was really hard to figure out–because there’s no guidebook!–is the financial end. Chuck Wendig touched on it briefly in this very good article about the overall tomfuckery of publishing. It’s a must-read. It also made me think I had some information to share about navigating the financial end of things.

Because, again, people don’t always talk about this stuff. And some of the people who do are dumbasses. So… here’s some stuff I learned, that you may or may not find helpful (and while some of it applies to The Warehouse deal a lot of this I was practicing before that, when my advances amounted to four figures instead of seven):

Every check you get, put away 30 percent. I actually do 35, just to be safe (my tax bracket got a little higher recently), and you’re going to owe it in the end, so better to have it ready. I have a separate savings account and I put it all there so it can earn a little interest. Then I send out estimated payments straight from the account.
Put reminders for your estimated payments into your calendar, with alerts, or you will forget to do them. Like I did earlier this year!
Consider getting an accountant. I hate dealing with this stuff and it’s worth it to me, to get guidance on deductions, have my estimated payments set up, etc. It used to be you could deduct the cost of that but I don’t think so any more (fucking Trump). But it’s a worthwhile expenditure to get it right.
There are a lot of things you can deduct. I won’t list them here. You can find them or ask your shiny new accountant. But the best advice he gave me was: if you question whether you can deduct something, explain to a friend why you need it for your job. If they don’t laugh at you, you can deduct it.
Also talk to your accountant about setting up an LLC. I have not. He doesn’t seem to think it’s worth it–it doesn’t actually lower my tax burden, it’ll cost money to set up, and all it’ll really do is protect my assets. He’s not worried about it and I probably don’t need to do it unless I branch out into other mediums, like TV and comics.
Consider a financial planner, especially as you get to higher income levels. They can help you with retirement accounts, college saving accounts, etc. Another worthwhile investment (they take a small cut of what you dump into your accounts–you don’t even notice it’s gone). This was especially important for me because after Warehouse I couldn’t contribute to my Roth IRA anymore–I was over the income limit. I have to open a Single K, which I promptly maxed out for the year. But a planner (or even an accountant) can tell you what’s right for you.
A lot of people will tell you what you need or don’t need–a lawyer, a business manager. I decided on neither, because my agent and his office handle all the lawyer-y stuff (mostly contract writing/review). No reason to pay twice. If I get into TV or heavily into comic work or something, maybe. And I spoke to a business manager who told me… I don’t need a business manager. He said most of what he would do, my publishers and agents are doing, or I’m doing, so I’d be paying him for duplicate work. Not worth it.
I tweeted about this yesterday but I recently became a full-time writer. I did it because my college loans were already paid off, my cost of living on Staten Island is (relatively) low for New York City, and my wife has a good job with solid health insurance. Also, my Warehouse payments were equal to about 11 or 12 years of my then-salary (I thought it was seven but re-crunched the numbers).
Speaking of–my accountant is begging me to move to Florida, where there is no income tax, or Jersey, where I’d save seven percent over what I’m paying now. I won’t, but hey, it’s an option!
Also: pay off all your debts before you do anything else!
And enjoy the money a little, if you have it. Don’t be afraid to buy a fancy dinner or trip or pick up a meal for friends, once you start making bank… but also treat every check you get, even if you have more coming in that you know about, as the last check you will ever get. It is safer that way. But also consider giving some money to charitable causes, because the world is a fucking trash fire right now.
I’m going to say it again just because I think about it every day: this could all disappear tomorrow. This could be the last book I ever write. It could fail. I could fail. It could all disappear. Internalize that. Make it your mantra.
I know we all want the big book deal out of the gate but I think there’s some real wisdom to starting with a smaller press and working your way up. You learn to find your voice. You learn to work with editors. You learn a little about how fucked up publishing really is, so you can figure out how to set your expectations. I’m happy for the path I took. I think it’s a pretty good one.
Also, when you reach a higher earning level, be prepared for people to ask for money. Know to be kind but also know how to say no, because then you’ll turn into an ATM. You and your family come first.
Make sure your agent is there for you. If you have an agent who is afraid to negotiate, or takes the first offer, or doesn’t push back against things, or isn’t working to get you to the next level–consider getting a new agent. If your gut is telling you something is wrong, something might be wrong. To be clear: if my agent called me at 3 am to paint his house I would ask “what color?” The original Warehouse offer blew my hair back. Then he went and got more. That’s how it’s supposed to work.
Speaking of agents–they really can help you navigate this stuff. They’re not there to hold your hand, but it’s a business partnership. Don’t be afraid to ask questions. You’re not bothering them. That’s what they’re there for. Navigating the foreign stuff has been nuts–I’ve had to fill out a lot of paperwork–often not in English!–to avoid stuff like double-taxation. They guided me through it and when I had questions, they answered them (thanks Soumeya and Ellen!). That’s how it’s supposed to work.
Know, too, what you and your time are worth. I’m not a die-hard “the writer should always get paid” guy. If I know some folks putting together an anthology for free or low-pay and it’s for a good cause or it’s a good group of authors–fuck it, I’ll probably get in on that. But I’m also not going to take on a lot of work or travel that distracts from my own family or writing–unless it’s contributing to my own family or writing in some way.
Also–there’s a lot of stuff you think you need to spend a lot of money on as an author that you do not. You don’t need swag. Swag isn’t going to get you readers. Ever go to a conference and see all those tables full of the bookmarks and postcards no one ever takes home? Yeah. I made up bookmarks for my first book. You know who uses them? Me. It’s wasted money. And you don’t need to spend thousands on a website. I maintain this myself, on WordPress. The costs come to maybe a hundred bucks a year? I’m also a little more tech-savvy and can usually figure shit out. But there are plenty of cheap options and anyone who tells you that you need to have a super fancy bells and whistles site is full of shit.
Finally, on conferences: there’s always a lot of talk about whether you should attend them. They are expensive. You’re spending hundreds of dollars–maybe even over a grand–to, if you’re lucky, sell a handful of books. There’s something to be said for networking and seeing friends and recharging creative batteries. But as a strict dollars-and-cents business proposition? It’s a waste of time. You’ll never sell enough books, either there or then through word-of-mouth, to equal out the cost. This one is just a matter of having the right expectations. I still go to them. I just do it to have a good time, maybe meet a few new potential readers, and eat some good food for a few days.

So, that’s what I got. It’s worked for me thus far. Maybe you’ll find something helpful. Or just think I’m a bougie asshole. I get that I have a massive fuckton of privilege in this industry. Not just from being a straight white guy with all my hair–but now I’ve got a major book release on top of it. But… again, people don’t talk about stuff, and there’s a lot of bad information out there, and maybe it’d be good for people who’ve been through the crucible to pull back the veil a little.

Pitch Wars mentor wishlist

[image error]Hey everyone! So, Pitch Wars. I’m a mentor this year! I’m excited. Don’t know what Pitch Wars is? Click this link. Or, here’s some sample text I copy and pasted because I’m a little lazy!

Pitch Wars is a mentoring program where published/agented authors , editors , or industry interns  choose one writer each to spend three months revising their manuscript . It ends in February with an Agent Showcase, where agents can read a pitch/first page and can request to read more.

I am looking for books in the adult category, and in a broad sense, in the crime-thriller and/or sci-fi-speculative realm (we’ll get to that…), and here is some relevant info that you will hopefully find helpful:

About me

I’m the former publisher of MysteriousPress.com, at which I published and edited more than a dozen books in the crime/mystery genre (A Swollen Red Sun by Matthew McBride, several Nero Wolfe books by Robert Goldsborough). I wrote a five-book amateur PI series and a collection of food-noir short stories, all for a small press, Polis Books. I co-wrote Scott Free with James Patterson, and my latest novel, The Warehouse, is out from Penguin Random House—it’s been sold in more than 20 countries and been optioned for film by Ron Howard. My non-fiction articles have been published widely—Daily Beast, Salon, LitHub, Electric Literature. This is all to say… I’ve seen the industry from a couple of unique angles and I think I’m at a point where I can offer some useful advice.

My style

I want you to write the best book you can. I want you to do it. I want to give you the insight to recognize where your story can be stronger, and the tools to make it happen—then get the hell out of your way. I want you to come out of this process with a shiny new toolkit. I’m going to push you because the story has to win in the end. I love big picture stuff—I’m ok with copyediting but a few misspelled words are not going to hurt you as much as a plot that doesn’t hold up to scrutiny, so I’ll be focusing slightly less on the former.

What I want:

Mixed genres: I like books that straddle genres. A murder mystery with time travel? A heist story set on a Mars base? Please and thank you. I won’t say no to a classic PI novel if it really lights my fire, but this is where my head is at: big, sprawling, challenging ideas.
Strong social themes: I’m a big fan of books that get to the root of crime. I care less about the street crime created by the heroin crisis and more about the pharmaceutical companies that started it. Blue-collar crime? Yawn. White-collar crime? All day long. I like politics in my fiction. My latest book is an indictment of capitalism and consumerism wrapped in the language of a thriller, so, that’s my sweet tooth.
Diverse stories: I’m a straight white guy. I have read a lot about straight white guys in my lifetime. I’m not saying I won’t accept something with a straight white male protagonist—making a visceral connection to the narrative is the ultimate goal here. But as of late, I’m more interested in stories different from my own upbringing and experience. Think American Spy by Lauren Wilkinson (black Cold War-era FBI agent), the Roxane Weary mysteries by Kristen Lepionka (LGBT private investigator), Gods of Jade and Shadow by Silvia Moreno-Garcia (Mexican fantasy), and Three-Fifths by John Vercher (noir featuring a bi-racial protagonist).
Deeply, deeply human stories: Let’s use American Spy as an example because that book legit made me cry. It’s a spy novel, about a black woman in the FBI during the Cold War, so there are themes of racism and sexism. And the book could have just been that and it would have been really good. But it’s also a romance, and it’s a story about a mom and her kids. And those are the things that make it great. So… plot is great. Ideas are fun. Character is the most important thing. And I want deep emotional honesty more than anything else.

What I don’t want

Game of Thrones– or Wheel of Time-style fantasy: Not my wheelhouse. A book with elements of fantasy (see genre-straddling above), I’m cool with. Got a PI who also uses magic? Great. But full-on fantasy, I don’t think I can offer effective guidance.
A first draft: I want something you’ve worked over a few times and you think you’re done, or close to it. Spoiler alert: you’re not even close! But one of the best pieces of advice I ever got is: your book is ready for the next step when you don’t know what else to do with it. That’s the point when you need to bring in another perspective (like me!).
Transgressive fiction: It is really, very rare for transgressive fiction to be done well. I cut my teeth on Chuck Palahniuk but I want emotional honesty a lot more than I want subversive, explosive violence for the sake of itself.
A violent act against a woman as the inciting incident: Most any trope can be reinvented and done well but this one really needs to just… go away.

Contact style

I like e-mail, and occasional Skype session is cool. If you’re local to NYC or you’re visiting, I’d be open to getting a drink/coffee/cupcake. I know a really good cupcake place.

Find more wishlists below!

Pitch Wars 2019 Adult Mentors’ Wish Lists

Paris Wynters
Kathleen Barber (Accepts NA)
Ian Barnes
Mary Ann Marlowe (Accepts NA)
Elizabeth Little
Hayley Stone and Erin A. Tidwell
Gwynne Jackson (Accepts NA)
Maxym M. Martineau (Accepts NA)
Katie Golding (Accepts NA)
Ava Reid and Rachel Morris (Accepts NA)
Carolyne Topdjian
Natalka Burian
Tim Akers
Alex Segura
Michelle Hauck and Carrie Callaghan (Accepts NA)
Laura Brown (Accepts NA)
Mia P. Manansala and Kellye Garrett (Accepts NA)
Kerbie Addis and Ren Hutchings (Accepts NA)
Susan Bishop Crispell (Accepts NA)
Kelly Siskind and Heather Van Fleet (Accepts NA)
Janet Walden-West and Anne Raven (Accepts NA)
Kate Lansing (Accepts NA)
Kristen Lepionka and Ernie Chiara
Alexa Martin and Suzanne Park (Accepts NA)
Gia de Cadenet (Accepts NA)
Rob Hart
Layne Fargo and Halley Sutton
Michael Chorost (Accepts NA)
Sarah Remy (Accepts NA)
Nicole Glover (Accepts NA)
Farah Heron (Accepts NA)
Samantha Rajaram
Keena Roberts (Accepts NA)
Rebecca Enzor (Accepts NA)
Matthew Quinn Martin (Accepts NA)
Denny S. Bryce (Accepts NA)
Meryl Wilsner and Rosie Danan (Accepts NA)
P.J. Vernon and Kelly J. Ford (Accepts NA)
Gladys Quinn (Accepts NA)
Diana A. Hicks (Accepts NA)
Damyanti Biswas
Stephen Morgan (Accepts NA)

 

WAREHOUSE invades your television + Italian cover, German publication

[image error]The Warehouse train keeps on rolling. This week I was on TV twice! First on NY1, where I fulfilled a New Yorker bucket list item: getting interviewed by Pat Kiernan, who is just as nice in person as you would imagine. Then today I was on CBS This Morning talking to the fantastic Michelle Miller, and I was dreading both pieces because I hate watching myself—especially watching myself speak—by they came out pretty good!

There was also this great Associated Press piece that I saw in the Washington Post, that put me in the company of authors like Margaret Atwood and Salman Rushdie, which is just completely ridiculous, but ok. I did a deep-dive interview with Ryan Steck over at The Real Book Spy, which is a fantastic site that should be in your regular rotation if you’re looking for book recommendations.

[image error]I also had a long talk yesterday with a journalist for la Repubblica in Italy, and I’m sort of amazed, because I thought a lot of  the problems I explored in the book were uniquely American. I guess not. Which is… both good for me and bad for the world? He also keyed into something that no one else has picked up on, and I won’t say what it is so I don’t spoil anything, but it does make me really excited to head out to Milan in *checks calendar* two weeks!

This is also a good time to share the Italian cover, from DeA Planeta. I like that other countries are using the US cover but tweaking it. I love the US cover because it has 2001-monolith vibes, and seeing other countries use the image, with some tweaking and different languages, makes it feel slightly more… iconic?

Finally… the book is out in Germany from Heyne Verlag! They changed it to Der Store, for a variety of reasons (including that “warehouse” in German is more like a department store). I will be in Munich and Hamburg in two weeks to help promote this gorgeous thing, which I’ve copied below. As much as I like how foreign publishers are using the US cover… it’s also really cool to see different takes. I love this.

So there we go. Enjoy your long weekend, everyone. Remember: the best ways to help authors is to tell your friends and family about the books you like, and to leave reviews on sites like Amazon. If you haven’t read The Warehouse, leave a review for someone else. You’ll brighten that author’s day. And don’t forget to wear sunblock.

[image error]

WAREHOUSE invades your television

[image error]The Warehouse train keeps on rolling. This week I was on TV twice! First on NY1, where I fulfilled a New Yorker bucket list item: getting interviewed by Pat Kiernan, who is just as nice in person as you would imagine. Then today I was on CBS This Morning talking to the fantastic Michelle Miller, and I was dreading both pieces because I hate watching myself—especially watching myself speak—by they came out pretty good!

There was also this great Associated Press piece that I saw in the Washington Post, that put me in the company of authors like Margaret Atwood and Salman Rushdie, which is just completely ridiculous, but ok. I did a deep-dive interview with Ryan Steck over at The Real Book Spy, which is a fantastic site that should be in your regular rotation if you’re looking for book recommendations.

[image error]I also had a long talk yesterday with a journalist for la Repubblica in Italy, and I’m sort of amazed, because I thought a lot of  the problems I explored in the book were uniquely American. I guess not. Which is… both good for me and bad for the world? He also keyed into something that no one else has picked up on, and I won’t say what it is so I don’t spoil anything, but it does make me really excited to head out to Milan in *checks calendar* two weeks!

This is also a good time to share the Italian cover. I like that other countries are using the US cover but tweaking it. I love the US cover because it has 2001-monolith vibes, and seeing other countries use the image, with some tweaking and different languages, makes it feel slightly more… iconic? There are more to come after this one, too. I’ve seen a few others that, when I can share, I will!

So there we go. Enjoy your long weekend, everyone. Remember: the best ways to help authors is to tell your friends and family about the books you like, and to leave reviews on sites like Amazon. If you haven’t read The Warehouse, leave a review for someone else. You’ll brighten that author’s day. And don’t forget to wear sunblock.

WAREHOUSE week 1 recap

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So… everything seemed to go okay?

I did two release parties for the book—at The Mysterious Bookshop with Miami Midnight author Alex Segura, and then by myself at the Staten Island Barnes & Noble. Both were standing room only, which was really encouraging. Especially for end-of-summer events.

USA Today gave it a lovely review, saying that “its interplay of taut action and incisive cultural commentary gives it shades of Fahrenheit 451 and Jurassic Park.” The Associated Press review… the first paragraph is just so god-damn lovely it took my breath away. My local paper and former employer, the Staten Island Advance, covered my release party. I spoke to Forbes about Maria Fernandes, the woman I dedicated the book to. Me and Alex did a fun Q&A for am New York. The Wall Street Journal highlighted The Warehouse in a roundup of novels going after big tech. SYFY ran a brief interview and excerpt. NPR called it an “outstanding read” (this hit literally as I was writing this post).

I also wrote about why genre labels are weird, and recommended some genre-bending books for CrimeReads. And I wrote about books that dared me to dream bigger for Bookish. And I wrote about how Big Data is bad, for the Penguin Random House UK website. And I was on the Liar’s Club podcast and the Booked podcast (which also gave the book an incredible review)…

Oh, and as you can see above, Ron Howard tweeted about it, which was very nice of him. I was also able to announce the reason I drove from San Diego to Los Angeles while I was at SDCC to visit his office—so I could meet the screenwriter, Scott Conroy, who is a super smart guy with a lot of passion for the book. I feel like the story is in very good hands.

There’s more to come! Like the TV interview I did Friday morning (more on when that airs soon). Don’t worry—if you weren’t sick of hearing about this book, you will be.

I also spent Friday and Saturday visiting local bookstores and signing stock. So you can find signed copies in Manhattan at the Tribeca, Union Square, and 46th Street Barnes & Noble locations, as well as Three Lives & Company, the Strand, and the Hudson News in Penn Station by Amtrak (and also, of course, at The Mysterious Bookshop). In Brooklyn you can find it signed at Greenlight, Books are Magic, and the Court Street Barnes & Noble.

[image error]Overall… I feel good. At the Mysterious event my editor asked if it was anti-climactic, as release days can sometimes feel like that, and in the past I might have agreed… but this time, it didn’t feel that way. I think it’s because for my previous books, being with a small press meant putting an enormous amount of effort into promo, and not always feeling like that effort paid off. Granted, I got some good coverage and reviews, but this is just a whole new level. I have the Seal Team Six of PR and marketing. I have the experience to navigate this without losing my head. Frankly, the last few weeks have been incredibly nerve-wracking, and yet this week, I felt calm.

There are a few media hits coming up soon I wish had hit now rather than later, but in the end it’s probably for the best, so the release is a little more drawn out. And anyway it’s mostly me being impatient.

The best part is that for weeks now, too, I’ve been struggling with the pitch for the next book—which is funny when people ask me what I’m working on and I’m like, shrug—but I’ve got something down now I feel pretty good about, and tomorrow I’ll blast it off into space and we’ll see how it goes…

Anyway. There were go. My next stop is Politics and Prose in DC on Sept. 4. Then in mid-September it’s off to Europe for a bit. Don’t forget the best way to help any author you like is to leave them a review on sites like Amazon (the more reviews you get, the better it works out for the algorithms and visibility), so if you want to do that, swell, and if you haven’t read The Warehouse, just go leave a review for another author, because it’s a nice thing to do.

More soon.