TUESDAY BRINGS TROUBLE

I think most of you have probably heard my Ian Rankin story by now. After 150+ rejections by literary agents, The Beggar’s Opera was shortlisted for The CWA Debut Dagger in Harrogate, UK. As I was getting ready to leave for Canada, unemployed and feeling very dejected after travelling such a long way to lose, I met Rankin in the bar. Thanks to his generosity in sharing his contacts, I ended up represented by his agent, Peter Robinson, and Peter’s Canadian counterpart, Anne McDermid. Within a few weeks, the book was on the hot list at the Frankfurt Book Fair and picked up by Penguin Canada.

The Beggar’s Opera is now in bookstores across Canada, which is exciting but also stressful. I’ve come to realize that, in some ways, this is the most difficult part of the journey.

Sure, all those rejections hurt, but they were private. When I got anything at all, it was usually a form letter—more often, it was silence. ( It’s like going out on a date with someone you like; if he hasn’t called in a month, you sort of get the message.) And once I was represented, my agents didn’t bother me with rejections; I didn’t want to see them, and they didn’t think I needed to, unless they saw the same comment more than once.

But now that The Beggar’s Opera is out and in bookstores, there’s no buffer anymore. It’s like watching your child cross the street alone for the first time—exhilarating and sort of grownup and terrifying at one and the same time. The Globe and Mail’s bestseller list, I’ve discovered, requires that 1,000 books a week be sold to be a bestseller. 1,000 books a week! I’m humbled by those who have achieved that kind of success and right back to feeling like a little puddle on the ground.

I’ve also discovered that people feel quite free to make all kinds of personal comments to you once you’re an author.

For example, I was invited to a small writers’ group (I’m afraid it will be the first and only time I’ll be there). “Wow, they sure airbrush those pictures, don’t they?” the organizer said to me, as he looked at my jacket photograph.

Last night I had an email from a reader who said she loved The Beggar’s Opera and couldn’t put it down. She then proceeded to list every typo she’d found. She was just trying to be helpful, she explained, given her attention to detail. Of course, now I can’t look at the book without seeing those errors myself, given my own attention to detail. Sigh.

As a “newbie,” or “debut author,” as we say in the biz, I have to hand my hat to those of you who have not only survived as authors, but thrived. You must have a thicker skin than I do, although mine’s certainly thicker than it was. (But then again, that could just be the airbrushing.)

Peggy Blair has been a lawyer for more than thirty years. A recognized expert in Aboriginal law, she also worked as both a criminal defence lawyer and Crown prosecutor. She spent a Christmas in Old Havana, where she watched the bored young policemen along the Malecon, visited Hemingway’s favourite bars, and learned to make a perfect mojito. A former member of the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal, Blair is named in the Canadian Who’s Who. She lives in Ottawa.

LADIES' KILLING THURSDAYS

My Kindle and Me

Both Linda Wiken and Rick Blechta have been blogging about covers this past week. I take Rick's point that cover artists are getting lazy. He uses the cover art on Ian Rankin's latest book as an example. It's stark and ugly. I'm wondering if the recent explosion of e-books could be at the root of this.

I'm addicted to my Kindle. There, I've said it. I never thought it would happen but I actually prefer to read on this device. Partly it's the joy of being able to access a book the minute I hear good things about it. I've had this device for a while and I still can't get over the fact that I can zap 600 pages into my hand in the time it takes me to swallow my first sip of coffee in the morning. I just love the look and feel of the thing and I don't yearn for paper the way I thought I might.

What I do miss, though, are covers. I used to spend hours browsing in an independent bookstore, checking out covers and blurbs, reading the first page or two and often buying a couple of books on that basis. Now I'm more likely to check the Kindle reviews and perhaps download the free sample before I buy. The cover is simply not an incentive on an e-reader.

My Kindle offers a slightly grey and slightly blurry version of the paper cover. But most of the books I've downloaded open at page one. If I want to see the cover I have to back up through all the copyright and dedications and acknowledgements and by the time I get there it's not worth the trip. Maybe the newer Kindle Fire is crisper but I still can't help but wonder if covers are on the way out for e-readers. Maybe this is what's driving the crappy cover art that Rick suggests is the norm today.



Sue Pike has published a couple of dozen stories and won several awards including an Arthur Ellis Award for Best Short Crime Story. Her latest, Where the Snow Lay Dinted appeared in the January issue of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine. Sue and her husband and an opinionated Australian Shepherd named Cooper spend the winter months in Ottawa and the rest of the time at a mysterious cottage on the Rideau Lakes.

WICKED WEDNESDAYS

Reflections of a retiring sales rep

I don’t feel one bit venerable, nor as old as someone might be who’s been in the same business as long as I have. But it was indeed 1974 when I stepped into Classics Bookstore in the Adelaide Centre in downtown Toronto for my first day working under a manager who also happened to be my older sister! I was sure it was just a Christmas season job. I was wrong – it was the first step in a 37-year career.

I had been connected to the world of books for years before Classics because my uncle was in the publishing business. During his tenure he and my aunt, characters both, had entertained dozens of authors including many of the grand dames of mystery – Agatha Christie, Ngaio Marsh, Margery Allingham. My aunt was an avid reader of their books. How well I remember her extensive library of mystery novels dating back to the thirties, each one with dates (sometimes as many as 4) pencilled on the frontispiece to indicate each time she had read it. That library, and my aunt’s expert guidance, was my first exposure to mysteries, beginning with A Surfeit of Lampreys by Ngaio Marsh. I was hooked, and forever in love with Roderick Alleyn. I have never stopped reading and loving the evolving genre since.

I left bookselling for in-house publishing and from there I moved to work as a Publishers Sales Rep where I was lucky enough to hook up with publishing dynamo Kim McArthur, first with Little, Brown Canada and then with McArthur & Company. Under Kim’s excellent leadership, many great Canadian, British and American mystery writers were introduced to Canadian readers and it was a career highlight that I was there to help make it happen.


There is nothing more gratifying than falling in love with a writer’s first book, then being able to convince your booksellers to take a chance on your recommendation. It is even better seeing it sell thanks to the bookseller’s efforts at hand-selling. I’m very proud to have been instrumental in my own small way in the success in Canada of an illustrious list of writers.

Our first and biggest success was Ian Rankin. There was a terrific sense of common purpose and excitement in the Little Brown Canadian sales force as we vowed to get Rankin discovered. Slowly and steadily, over several years and several titles, starting with Strip Jack, we persistently cajoled our booksellers to keep trying him. Rankin’s publisher, Orion, provided us with advance reading copies and multiples of his backlist titles so that we could salt them around to book buyers and their trusted customers. Word of mouth worked its magic and McArthur’s volume discounts helped to position titles prominently. Once we had a good base of readers and after Ian won his first CWA award for Black and Blue, Kim and her marketing team orchestrated a highly successful cross Canada publicity tour. It was very satisfying to see the sell-out crowd at the National Library when he came to Ottawa. We had done what we set out to do!

Rankin was the beginning. Since that first outing I was involved in the Canadian success of such masterful writers as James Lee Burke, Michael Connelly, Brian Freeman, and Declan Hughes in each case starting with their debut efforts. I am especially thrilled to have been part of the “discovery” of our own home-grown star, Louise Penny.

There is no mystery to loving this business. It takes hard work and a love of books to end up as I have, with a load of fantastic memories. Of course, it helps to be blessed with having had such talented authors to sell and wonderful people to sell them to.


Bridget Barber has been a freelance sales representative with Hornblower Books in Ottawa since 1984 with 10 years in bookselling and publishing in Toronto before that. She was one of the first women in Canada to be hired as a sales representative in publishing, an industry that is now dominated by women at most levels. Although she is giving up the sales and the attendant travelling, she intends to stay connected to books by working part time in a local bookstore...back to her roots.