WICKED WEDNESDAY

When I was asked to blog for Mystery Maven, I was immediately intimidated. The authors who write for this marvelous blog are all so witty and interesting, They have entertaining stories and viewpoints and that’s part of what makes them authors. What can a publisher possibly say that can rise to the level of the entries below this one.

Should I talk about the difficulties of being a small publisher in the large corporate world that is our present publishing environment? Or could I entertain you with statistics that tell us the whole world is reading the same hundred bestsellers into which the largest advertising dollars have been poured? The remaining thousands of books jostle for position in a much smaller playing field. Or, we could talk about the decline in print book sales without a corresponding uptick (yet) in eBook sales. (Al Navis just wrote a provocative blog on the topic of e-books.)

But this is a blog for people interested in crime/mysteries, so I thought what might interest you is the view that our funding agents at all levels take of your work. Crime writing can’t get no respect! I know this is not news to those brilliant writers among you who labour just as hard and write just as well as your purely “literary” brethren, and yet can’t get reviewed in the major literary journals or in the general book reviewing columns at major newspapers. Being labelled as genre mystery fiction can be a liability.

Twenty years ago, Canadian literary fiction was already considered a respected and growing field, with international exposure and many awards committed to its promotion. Canadian mystery fiction still hardly existed and Canadian fans of the genre read British novels particularly, in my opinion, and American novels as second choice. Even today I think the Canadian mystery follows the British pattern more closely and has more similarities with it than the American model. Whereas Americans have always excelled in the thriller category, with great international events as the backdrop to their stories, and intrepid American heroes as their protagonists, as befits our more modest nature, our Canadian protagonists strive and struggle on a less heroic level; they cope with everyday stresses and petty impediments. They’re endearing—they’re like us. (I like to think.)

Our cozies, detective series and police procedurals are as good as anything in the world. And I think Canadian readers are really finally beginning to appreciate their own indigenous group of creative and entertaining authors—that is, if they get to hear about them. It took a small number of Canadian publishers to recognize that Canada needed its own mystery writers to admire and to enter the field with their own mystery imprints. RendezVous Crime began twelve years ago, near the beginning of this trend, and has never looked back.

At this point, I’d love to name some of RendezVous Crime’s authors, who epitomize this talent for Canadian crime, but as a Canadian, I’m too modest to boast of our collective accomplishments. I’m afraid if I mentioned those terrific RVC series by Mary Jane Maffini or Barbara Fradkin, or by R. J. Harlick or Rick Blechta or Lou Allin or Joan Boswell or C.B. Forrest or Vicki Delany (I could go on) that I’d be slammed for self-aggrandizement, so I won’t.

So what’s my point? Despite the difficulties of promoting our own Canadian authors in a field crowded with Brits and Americans and now Swedes, there are certain cultural funding bodies in our nation that look down upon the whole mystery genre as being too “commercial”, suggesting that somehow the writing is not up to the level of purely “literary fiction”, not as worthy of respect. The term also suggests that crime fiction is automatically an easier sell. If a publisher overloads their list with crime fiction, they will be penalized or denied funding altogether. Enough said.

I won’t get into the discussion which rages occasionally about whether Canadian publishers should receive any funding at all to help them compete with the elephant south of our border or the dolphin across the seas.

Instead I will grit my teeth and carry on, because I love every moment of being a publisher of “Canadian” crime fiction and I think our work is worthy of respect.



Sylvia McConnell is the publisher of Napoleon & Company and its RendezVous Crime imprint. Publishing is Sylvia's second career. After 25 years of teaching French, German and English in Europe and in Toronto high schools, she switched to publishing when the 26-year-itch hit. Napoleon began with children's books and added adult fiction in 1998 with the RendezVous line. 2010 marked the 20th anniversary of Napoleon and Company.

TUESDAY BRINGS TROUBLE

Write something for my blog she says to me. Me, who’s first look at a blog was last week after receiving numerous emails telling me to check out the mystery maven blog site. I’m glad I did because Mary Jane Maffini had written a beautiful tribute to Audrey Jessup.

I’m not writing at the moment I tell her, thinking that’ll let me off the hook. But no, back she comes with ‘then write about not writing’.

Why am I not writing? In the beginning because I needed to find the house beneath the mass of paper cluttering every surface. And I started well, clearing off my desk, which seemed enormous afterwards, a great expanse of empty space with a computer sitting, waiting.

Then I tackled the next area and the only place to put anything was that lovely empty space…where was Charlotte Adams, the declutterer (one of Mary Jane’s protagonists) when I needed her?

Abandoning flat surfaces, I turned to the books. How can one throw a book out without re-reading it? I’ve now re-read Ngiao Marsh, Agatha Christie, Margery Allingham, Dorothy Sayers and Martha Grimes and, being a person of little memory, the endings were always a surprise.

I might give away the Martha Grimes as her characters don’t appear to move on in their relationships, the others are back on the shelves.

And since I love these authors I have, of course, fallen under the spell of Louise Penny’s Inspector Gamache. I’ve just bought her latest, Bury your Dead, and I’m looking forward to reading it. Hope it doesn’t have such a sad ending as the last one.

Barbara Fradkin’s recent book, Beautiful Lie the Dead, didn’t disappoint. There are so many layers to unravel in Barbara’s books and I’m a big fan of Inspector Green who comes across as a very real person, warts and all.

Our local paper had an article on Nadine Doolittle in December and I was thrilled for her when I read that she’d signed a contract with McArthur and Company for her first novel Iced Under and another, Grey Lady. They are due out in paperback this fall. Iced Under is an amazing first novel, nothing amateur about it.

What is it about The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series that captured the worlds imagination? For me it’s the almost magical powers Lisbeth Salander has with the computer and her marshal arts. The books reminded me of the Harry Potter series, small fry fighting huge evil and winning.

Continuing with Swedish writers I recently read a Henkel Manning that wasn’t in the Kurt Wallender series, The Return of the Dancing Master. It’s a ‘hold your breath’ read.

So, do you think that in Sweden the readers are enraptured with Canadian mysteries? If not, why? We have many fabulous mystery writers covering all the different genres writing just as well as any author in any country yet search the shelves in W.H. Smith in UK and you’d be hard pressed to find a Canadian mystery there.

Short stories fascinate me but the December issues of Ellery Queen and Alfred Hitchcock I found disappointing and have you noticed that they never mention Canadian books in their reviews. When they have people on the CBC recommending books for Christmas, or summer vacations, I’m willing them to mention some of our mystery books, it happens, but only occasionally.

At the moment I’m trying to work out what makes a good short story. I’m working my way through the Norton Anthology of Short Fiction and often find myself puzzled as to why a particular story was thought good enough to be included. Some are fantastic and I’ve just become a fan of Flannery O’Connor, (died in 1964). I would love to be able to paint pictures of my characters in as masterful way as she does not to mention the dialogue…hope some of it rubs off on me.



Liz Palmer has written numerous short stories, seven of which have been published, one even being short listed for an Arthur Ellis award. She hangs out in the Gatineau Hills when not kayaking at the cabin or camping in France.

MAYHEM ON MONDAY

Mayhem on Monday has been the story of my life. Although in recent years, Mondays still mean mayhem but not in the same hideous way they used be. Nope. Gone are the days when mid-afternoon on Sunday I’d start to obsess about the next morning in all its nightmarish qualities. As a child the worry was undone homework or impending math tests or the need to sit quietly muzzled among the long rows of other kids, wishing to be almost anywhere else — with the exception of the Principal’s Office. Flash forward and school has become work. On Sunday afternoon, the specter loomed of perma-meetings starting at the crack of dawn and grinding inexorably through the day, while the mile high inbox teetered. And of course, there was the unrelenting pressure of locating two shoes from the same pair in the dim early morning. This didn’t always happen successfully, but that’s a story for another day. I haven’t even mentioned the traffic, often compounded by snow!

No matter how much I liked my jobs — the work was very interesting and I had excellent colleagues many of whom are still friends — I could never manage being a morning person. And as for being a Monday morning person: are you kidding? Mayhem doesn’t come close.

Now, if there’s any mayhem on my Mondays, it happens in a good way: cheerful, empowering, fun. The fictional game of creating murder mysteries has many lovely advantages, quite aside from the ongoing game of wits with readers, the fun of playing with characters’ lives and the joy of dreaming up bizarre and dangerous scary experiences for them, not to mention bumping off people.

Here are my top ten reasons to love Mondays now:

· Working in my pajamas
· Drinking endless cups of coffee, made the way I like it
· Having the right – no, make that the obligation – to nap
· Enjoying the advantage of having my dogs cuddled up
· Getting paid for telling lies (oh the thrill!)
· The commute to my kitchen is less than a minute. No snow. Bare feet!
· Being able to bump off anyone who has annoyed me in even the smallest way (Hear that Mr. Big Shot in the Cadillac Escalade? You are toast)
· Reading two papers in the morning and having that count as research (yes, that includes comics and horoscopes because I make the rules)
· Talking out loud to myself and knowing it’s definitely in the job description
· Meeting the nicest people without leaving the house! You know who you are – friends, readers, former colleagues, cozy mystery lovers
· What’s not to love? Hey, my whole week is like that!

And as for you, gentle Monday reader: what’s the best or the worst about your Mondays? Are they filled with mayhem? Or are they marvelous? Don’t hold back.


Mary Jane Maffini is a lapsed librarian, a former mystery bookstore owner and a lifelong lover of mysteries. In addition to the four Charlotte Adams books from Berkley Prime Crime, she is the author of the Camilla MacPhee series, the Fiona Silk adventures and nearly two dozen short stories. She served two terms as President of Crime Writers of Canada. She loves mysteries of all kinds and is enjoying the surge in Canadian crime (writing).

Her latest Charlotte Adams book, The Busy Woman's Guide to Murder, will be published in April, 2011. She says she’s grateful for all the tips she gets from Charlotte and for the opportunity to write the series. She lives and plots in Ottawa, Ontario, along with her long-suffering husband and two princessy dachshunds. Visit her at www.maryjanemaffini.com

MYSTERY REVIEW

REVENGE OF THE LOBSTER LOVER
by Hilary MacLeod
Acorn Press

If you're a lobster lover, and I mean the kind that loves eating them, you may have a few rocky moments in reading this delightful book. But, put those reservations, so to speak, aside and dig into a mystery that features a cast of the most eclectic and eccentric folks you'll ever meet.

The location is The Shores, not far removed from The Island. Hm, wonder what PEI residents think of all this? MacLeod brings together a very wealthy but slightly odd come-from-away, who's bought a very modern A-frame in a very precarious cliff, overlooking the ocean.

Then there's Hyacinth, or Hy as she's called, free-lance writer writing from her home, at the moment an article about lobster recipes for a client's newsletter. She's from 'away' also and trying desperately to fit in. When she invites a speaker whose topic is lobsters to the Women's Institute meeting, and this woman turns out to be part of the LLL -- the Lobster Liberation League -- and proceeds to lambaste the women about cruelty to lobsters, it doesn't do much to help Hy's standing in the community.

Then the attacks start on the lobster lines and local fishermen are ready to bear arms. Everyone in town is blaming Hy but she's onto another infiltrator -- two to be exact, and now she has been ear-marked for some messy and violent threats.

As she tries to convince the LLL lady to skip town, a deadly confrontation on the seas takes place, a chef flying high on coke is electrocuted in his own lobster pool, a ferocious storm batters The Shores and all hell breaks lose.

It's hilarious and endearing, with more nefarious goings-on than a lobster stew. Not to be missed. By the way, the author divides her time between Ontario and PEI and is a bright mysterious light on the Canadian crime scene.

CRIME ON MY MIND

Nothing on my mind!

How can that be? I'm a writer, after all. Isn't that what writer's do, or start with at the very least...something on his or her mind?

So, maybe I exaggerate. I do have things on my mind: the troubling violence in Egypt; whether we'll have a snowstorm next Tuesday; should I re-write the last 30 pages in my new book to delay this latest development; will a dear friend soon be back to good health?

And then there's this blog. Every day that I've had to write a blog, it's been there. The topic. Something has flowed from my brain, through my fingertips, onto the screen. Even if I didn't know what was coming. Because that's another trait that writer's have...the ability to just sit down and write, even if it isn't great prose, even if you're not quite sure where it's coming from, even or especially, with the deadline looming.

Blogs are a bit different though. You don't have a plot which gives you a partial roadmap, at the very least, of where you're heading. The only character on the page is you...your thoughts. Hopefully, there isn't a murder.

Blogs allow the blogger to share thoughts and information, and it's hoped, open a dialogue with the reader. That's why comments are so important to the blogger. Do you agree? Have you had a similar situation happen? Maybe you disagree -- that's great to hear, too. And there are times when blogs can be a cry for help. Like, not to berate this point, a title.

I'm still playing around with that elusive title for my second book. Would you allow your baby to go un-named for the first 2 months of it's life? Because even though it's not a birth that involves a pub date (such as Mary Jane Maffini's announcement of her newest book, The Busy Woman's Guide to Murder), that book is in the writer's mind and is a living entity. It invades the brain all hours of the day.

I'm sure you know by now that when writers look spaced out...well, they are. They're dwelling in bookland. For me, that's Ashton Corners, AL and I'm hanging out with Lizzie Turner, a younger, smarter, wittier, prettier and hotter gal than me but, I get to work on her roadmap. Great fun but sometimes very daunting.

So, where was I? Oh, yes...my blog for today. Sorry. I can't think of a topic. But next week I'll be rejuvenating my body & soul...so look for enlightening things on this page in the future.

Anything on your mind today?


Linda Wiken/Erika Chase

LADIES' KILLING THURSDAYS

A week or so ago Sue Pike wrote in her birthday blog that she wanted and intended to write a novel, became discouraged but then gained courage and inspiration from novelists whose first novels appeared when they were past retirement age.

Her reflections and the fact that I have been in a state of limbo while my ever helpful writing group is reading my manuscript led me to consider the nature of writing. Each morning, when I do not have an ongoing project, I rise with a feeling of loss. There is lots to do but I don’t feel right not spending time working at my desk or carrying on life’s routines while simultaneously exploring possible plots and characters. I know why many writers don’t park their pens and retire. It’s because we can’t.

Is writing a vocation, a hobby or an obsession? The answer may differ from author to author. A vocation is defined as a “calling, life's work, mission, purpose, function; profession, occupation, career, job, employment, trade, craft, business, line, line of work, métier.” That seems to fill the bill except that you can and most people do retire from business. Few writers choose that option.

Perhaps it’s a hobby defined as a “pastime, leisure activity, leisure pursuit; sideline, side interest, diversion, avocation; recreation, entertainment, or amusement.” I suspect most writers would be offended by this description. Writing is not something we do to fill our time and amuse us.

If not a vocation or a hobby how about an obsession? The definition is “fixation, ruling/consuming passion, passion, mania, idée fixe, compulsion, preoccupation, infatuation, addiction, fetish, craze, hobbyhorse; phobia, complex, neurosis.” This seems closer to the truth. For most of us writing is something we have to do.

I hope that when I sit nodding in an advanced state of decrepitude I’ll still be watching the attendants, noting their mannerisms, questioning their motivations, considering plots and living a rich interior life because that’s what writers do.

Or am I wrong? Do writers retire? Do they stop plotting, taking notes asking ‘what if”?


Joan Boswell A member of the Ladies Killing Circle Joan co-edited four of their short story anthologies: Fit toDie, Bone Dance, Boomers Go Bad and Going Out With a Bang. Her three mysteries, Cut Off His Tale, Cut to the Quick and Cut and Run were published in 2005, 2007 and 2007. In 2000 she won the $10,000 Toronto Star’s short story contest. Joan lives in Toronto with three flat-coated retrievers.

WICKED WEDNESDAYS

Whence Doth It Go?

By the 1820s, newspapers were plentiful and inexpensive and people thought that it would mean the death of the book. In the 1870s, magazines were now becoming common and everybody knew that the book couldn’t survive. By the 1920s, it was radio and pretty soon everyone would have a radio and the book would be a goner. In the 1950s, television came into living rooms across the continent and there would be no way that the book could survive. At the turn of the 21st.-Century, it was the Internet. It was everywhere: in the offices, in the homes, in the schools, and even on mobile telephones. Now, it is the electronic book reader: iPads, Kindles, BeBooks and eReaders and certainly the death knell is being sounded for the book.

But when you look back, the only thing that has changed is the carrier. From paperbacks, back to hardcovers, back to vellum, back to papyrus scrolls and finally back to stone tablets. So, when was the last time you read a papyrus scroll?

In my opinion, before the book bows out and exits, stage right, it will be the booksellers who will be gone. After more than a century of having to deal with the ultimate ‘middleman’—the retail bookseller—the publishers at last have achieved their most sought-after goal: being able to sell their product directly to the public.

Without having booksellers eat up 40-60% of the total retail price of the book, think of how much more the publishers will be able to keep for themselves. For a $30.00 hardcover, an independent bookseller buys that item from the publisher for $18.00, meaning that $12.00 is all his, just for the job of ordering, stocking a selling the item. If that retailer is a ‘big box’ store, like WalMart, Target, Chapters/Indigo, etc., they only pay $12.00 for that item…and get to keep $18.00 for themselves. Yikes!

The reward for the actual creator of the damn thing? Well, if your agent is on the ball, 15%, if not, then as low as 8%. That’s $2.40 to $4.50 per book when the bookseller gets $12.00 and the ‘big box’ retailer gets $18.00 and you wrote it!

So what will the publisher do with that extra $12-18.00 they no longer will have to fork over to the bookseller? Give it to the author? Oh yeah, that’ll happen! When pigs fly! No, the publisher will, in all likelihood, keep that bonanza as well as the other savings.

“Other savings, Gracie?” I hear you ask.

With no actual physical book to sell, they will no longer have to design elaborate covers, thereby saving even more and no longer employing either art directors and cover designers or even having to pay actual cover artists. Since the book won’t be printed, they won’t have to get a printer to buy paper for the text block, paperback covers and dust-wrappers and cardboard for the hardcovers and the printer can say ‘good-bye’ to a nice chunk of their business and they can downsize, releasing an equal chunk of their employees.

The lumber companies will cut down and therefore plant fewer trees to be used for the paper to make books and that will affect the forestry industry. Since the publishers will no longer need to stack physical books by the pallet-ful, they too can downsize from their large warehouses to just offices, saving them even more cash and allowing their warehouse personnel to find employment elsewhere.

Will it just be forestry, the printers and publishers who will be laying people off? Nope. How do the printers get all those thousands of pallets of books to the publishers? Trucks. Likewise the publishers use trucks to deliver boxes to independent booksellers and big box retailers. So they will lose maybe 10% of their business and might have to lay off even more people.

So technology again moves us forward, making reading more affordable than ever when an ebook is selling for about ten bucks (with occasional sale items, loss leaders and day specials). What percentage does the author get from ebooks? If they place it on Amazon themselves…70%! If their publisher does it…20-25%. Double Yikes!!

If the bookseller can very easily be removed as a middleman from the author-to-publisher-to-bookseller-to-reader chain, just how long before the publisher is a similar casualty? I can see authors’ websites having all their books in digital form, pret á lire, ready to read. You pay the author directly either through your credit card or Paypal or other on-line payment system and there you have it, James Patterson’s most recent book…the next one will be ready in a couple days!

Now I have, by choice rather than necessity, made this a gloomy future perspective. In reality there will be many shades of grey in this black-versus-white question but the black may descend if not by 2015, then maybe by 2025, or 2050, or 2100…

The only survivors of the electronic book wars will probably be the used and out-of-print dealers selling actual books (their own versions of 33s or 45s or 8-tracks) to a gradually diminishing readership or even smaller pool of collectors.



Al Navis is the owner of Handy Book in Toronto for the past 28 years, a used and out-of-print independent bookstore. He was chairman and host of Bouchercon: The World Mystery Convention in 1992 and 2004. He has also been on and off Toronto radio for over 30 years. Books are his business and first passion. Other passions are most sports (except basketball), most music (except C&W and rap) and radio. More recently he has gotten back into editing and writing as well as appraising book collections for insurance or for loss.