Debra - How do you buy books?

Okay, I know this isn't about my first sale. But I'll get to that later in the month. Promise.

Today I want to pick your brain. I want to know how you decide which books to buy and where to buy them. First let me give you some context...

There's a debate in the industry about something called "returns."

Returns are the unsold books that the bookseller sends back to the wholesaler. Yep, you heard me. The bookseller doesn't have to be responsible for their inventory. They can (at any time) send books back to the wholesaler. No sales are ever really final unless you make the books NON-returnable.

This is a dirty word in bookselling. Booksellers hate non-returnable books. They won't usually order them for store shelves unless the bookseller is pretty darned convinced that book will sell itself. This business model evolved because publishers tried to get booksellers to take a chance on new authors. Somehow returnable books for "new authors" became returnable books for "all authors."

There has always been grumbling in the industry, but lately some not-so-small publishers are experimenting with non-returnable books. Returns are horribly costly for publishers.
As you might expect, the books returned are in pitiful shape after being shipped around the country four (4) times (first to the wholesaler, then bookseller, back to the wholesaler, and finally back to the publisher). The publisher generally has to pay for shipping twice which is why paperbacks are rarely returned. The covers are stripped off and returned for credit.

Massive amounts of books are printed and never sold. They're pulped usually. I could go on about the ins and outs of returns, but that's not the point. I just wanted you to know what returns are and how NOT having returnable books would affect shelf-space. (i.e. a book would get darned little of it.)

SO...how important is it to you that the book is on the store shelves? Is that how you make your buying decisions, by browsing the shelves every so often?

Or do you do most of your shopping online these days and add books to your cart until you're ready to order?

Are you willing to track a book down once you've found out about it?

Are you willing to ask your bookseller to special order a book for you?

We all love a bookstore, me included. But I rarely go to a bookstore to purchase a particular book. All my planned purchases are online. I buy more "planned" books than "browsed" books.

How do you buy books?

Debra Dixon - Big prizes ! But you have to vote.

Yep. I'm using you as a focus group today. We're working on the cover for our first YA contemporary fantasy novel coming out from Bell Bridge Books (08/08), and we have not one, but two covers we like.

What to do? Which to use? I have a favorite and I'm hoping you folks will support my cover.

Marilee Brothers, author of Moonstone, has a fabulous YA voice. Wry, compelling, heart-warming and just plain fun. Allie Emerson is living in a twenty-four foot trailer with a mother who has decided to Retire From Life. Not exactly the sort of environment you'd think would produce a girl destined to save the world. Allie's barely managing to survive high school. She hasn't got time to believe in prophecies and evil. Until evil makes it personal.

(Please do not blame our marketing department for this blurb. They'll do a much better job when the time comes for the real blurb. And now you know why I don't write the blurbs. I leave that to others except in blogging emergencies.)

Which cover floats your boat? Which one do you reach for?

Regardless of how you vote one "reader" and one "writer" will get some goodies.

Our writer will be offered a 25 page critique from me. Seems oxymoronic to consider the "picking apart of a manuscript" as a prize, but we writers are an odd determined lot. And nope. You don't have to have a synopsis. I don't care what genre.

Our reader will receive any four (4) titles from either the BelleBooks or Bell Bridge Books catalogues. (http://www.bellebooks.com/) The Bell Bridge site is still building but the offer of 4 books is good through the fall as the rest of the Bell Bridge Books hit their pub dates. The Southern titles from Bell Bridge will be cross-listed for sale at both BB and BBB websites.

We have some great Southern fiction lined up for July and the fall:

Booth's Sister is a beautifully written novel of Asia Booth, who endured the wrath of a nation when her brother killed Lincoln. Jane Singer, noted Civil War scholar, has masterfully imagined the family dynamic and intimate dilemmas that led to one of America's most fateful crimes and left a sister's life in shambles. (Did I mention beautifully written?)

Egret Cove by travel writer Margaret Nava is a fun romp with a mature woman as she makes a new life in Florida just when she thought life was through handing out exciting surprises.

We also have Jacquelyn Cook coming out this fall with The Gates of Trevelyan, another of her richly detailed Southern historicals.

Fear not. Eventually, we will get the next MOSSY CREEK novel out the door. I've been a little busy, and the editor insists I have to finish a story for the book. And the corporation insists that I negotiate the foreign, domestic and audio distribution contracts and all that other boring business stuff.
(Yes, our titles will be coming out in audio as well.)

And as a final plug we have a dark, scrumptious, "Anne Rice meets Laurell K. Hamilton" epic vampire series that will launch in September. Rich. Textured. Epic. We first meet the clan centuries ago. We posted on every blog in the world that Bell Bridge wanted contemporary urban fantasy, but when this came in the door, we all decided there was room for a voice and a story this big. A great lush read. With more to come.

There you have it! Lots of yummy goodness for readers who aren't afraid to step up and vote for their favorite Moonstone cover. Tell me why you like it. And let me know what you think about any of the upcoming titles. TELL ME IF YOU'RE AFTER the WRITER prize OR READER prize.

Debra- The Art of Rejection

None of us like rejection. One of my favorites was the time my editor rejected something because it just wasn't Debra Dixon enough.

That's enough to make you go bang your head into a wall.

Another head-banger is the ubiquitous "not right for our list at this time."

Writers slave alone in a room for the most part. Feedback is critical to the process. Feedback assures you that you've made contact with the outside world and, if you're lucky, gives you a springboard from which to jump back into the fray with a stronger manuscript.

These days the rejection shoe is on the other foot because of my expanded role into the editorial side of Bell Bridge's horror/fantasy list. I'm the one sending rejections (instead of getting them) and sending the occasional request for more of a writer's work. This is why I'm pondering the art of rejection. Mostly I've concluded that I should apologize to every editor who's used that "not right for us" line. Never was a truer cliche created.

There is rarely enough time to give any rejected unsolicited submission a proper critique. Often the work is so obviously not right for us that saying anything else might send a writer into a rewriting frenzy with no guarantee that the rewrite will make the book any more marketable.

I've noticed writers have a very flexible idea of whether their work is right for a publishing house. "You want demons? Let me slap a demon in this title and send that sucker in!" Uh...no. But in rejecting the writer, I don't have time to point out the obvious (that I'm not stupid and they'll be published sooner if they work smarter). The time I have should be spent on writers who are right for our publishing house, who have had work requested, who might come through with a revision that can work for us. So, my rejections are normally a couple of lines.

"We appreciate the opportunity to look at your work. Unfortunately, your manuscript isn't right for our list at this time."

But the writer in me wants to say more. The common sense portion of my brain is screaming that I only have so much time in the day to give. I compromise and add that third or forth line giving more guidance as to why the project isn't working for us or at all. But only occasionally.

What's your best rejection? Your worst? Do you think it's best to say nothing rather than something brief which can be only the tip of the iceberg and ignore the more serious problems?

DEBRA - Announcing Bell Bridge Books

Well, we've gone and done it. Decided to open a new imprint over at BelleBooks. Yep. I'm still getting a few hours sleep every day so adding more to the workday shouldn't be a problem.

I bet you think I'm crazy, but you wouldn't if you'd seen some of the good books we've had to turn down over the years because they didn't quite fit our audience. Combine that with my love of fantasy, dark fantasy and urban fantasy. Those don't fit with BelleBooks' Southern slant either. And we've managed to acquire the reprint rights on some of Deborah Smith's books from Little Brown.

We want to get those in print, but they've already been in print, had their time to shine as frontlist. So, we're really looking at serving a writer's backlist, which is also different from what we do at BelleBooks since those are all original titles.

A new imprint was the only realistic choice. It allows us to "brand" a division that can handle this diversity! (Didn't I hear that word brand around here recently?)

http://www.bellbridgebooks.com/

We're currently looking for fantasy, especially urban fantasy. We'll also be publishing a few of those Southern books that we can't publish through BelleBooks' traditional program.

Bell Bridge Books will be an advance and royalty paying house. We'll publish POD (print-on-demand) and ebook simultaneously. The advances are small but our cover looks will be "big house" looks. We've included some samples in this blog. Fake books but real covers produced by Bell Bridge Books.

We aren't looking for "romance", even though that cover to the right skewed to the romance side! Romance is a well-served market and there isn't any reason to dip a toe in that pond.

What we are looking for is writers with unique voices who create strong fantasy, dark fantasy and urban fantasy stories with compelling characters--male or female.

We're looking at some young adult. Very excited about that. If you're interested in querying, head on over to the website: http://www.bellbridgebooks.com/

Tell a friend. Tell two friends. We're beating the bushes for good quality fantasy.

So, folks! What do think about our new imprint? What are your thoughts about our cover looks?