SHE WROTE: The Curse of the Were-Writer

Well, I'm gobsmacked. Bob Mayer actually wrote, "we could all just hum in harmony to the Earth Mother Goddess."

Sorry. I read that and my head exploded.

The Church of the Bobster, that sounds like Bob. I can only imagine the sermons.

But yes, the reviews are all over the place, and Bob's right, you can't get hung up on them (unless they're excellent and then you recite them at night before you sleep). Somebody on a list just asked me if I was worried about losing readers doing this and I just typed in a long answer, so I'll copy it here:

On Mar 6, 2006, at 9:17 PM, ?@yahoogroups.com wrote:
"One interesting thing about Jenny's upcoming book--forgive me for being voyeuristic, Jenny --is whether, and how much, her core readership will change now that Bob Mayer's name is going on the cover along with hers. I think Jenny's readers have specific expectations when it comes to her books, justifiably."

The reviews are all over the place. Got raves from Booklist and Romantic Times, PW and Library Journal sounded confused, and Kirkus was just snippy. Bob says they're all looking at it and saying, "What is it?" Kirkus (I think it was Kirkus) called it "oddly wimpy." Eight people die in this book, people rappel off bridges, there are helicopters and body armor and an alligator eats two people. The highest body count I ever had before was one, usually tastefully offed offstage, and they never called me oddly wimpy. The body count goes up and suddenly I have limp wrists. Huh? Somebody else, Library Journal I think it was, complained that the book wasn't as hot as my usual stuff (they phrased it differently). There are two explicit love scenes, one of them involving bondage. I mean, HUH?

On Mar 6, 2006, at 9:17 PM, ?@yahoogroups.com wrote:
"Will she lose some of her old readers while gaining new readers? Will the overall readership number remain static? What happens if you've got a steady, dependable readership and you suddenly toss something entirely different at them?"

You know, people had the same questions when I went from category to single title. A Pal Who Knows Publishing read my first ST and said, "You'll lose some readers and gain some new ones." As near as I can tell, I kept the old ones and got new ones, but that may have been just because some people won't buy Harlequins.

But the bottom line is, that's not part of the decision. I'd written everything I wanted to write in romantic comedy. It's a great genre, I love it, I wrote fifteen of them, I was done. Not because I'd perfected it or anything, I'd just written everything I had to say in that genre. And I was seriously thinking that my writing career was over when Bob said, "We should write together," and I thought, "You know the He Wrote She Wrote thing could be interesting," and said, "Yes." Trying something new really revitalized me, and now trying something even more different with Krissie and Eileen is taking me in directions I'd never have had the nerve to go. I don't think I can write an entire paranormal novel, at least not right now, but I can write one with Eileen and Krissie, sort of try out new muscles with them to catch me, and I'm having the best time. And my next solo book is going to be different, too. Even the Christmas novella I did for SMP was great because it was a new form and I could use what I'd learned from Bob. I'm HAPPY writing again, and I love the stuff I'm doing with Bob, and if there are people out there who read it and say, "But it's not a Crusie," they should check the name on the book again. I can't write to other people's expectations. They want a certain kind of book, they'll have to write it themselves. I'm over here writing what turns me on creatively and it's a blast again.


Why yes, the whole "not a Crusie" thing is one of my hot buttons. Bob has suggested I learn not to leap to the bait on those topics but I'm a natural born leaper. And it does make me nuts when they compare this book to my old stuff, particularly since so much of my writing happiness is directly due to Bob who said, "Pull up your socks and stop whining, we got books to write." So the fact that some reviewers are confused because this doesn't read like a Crusie? Not my problem.

I'm starting to sound militant, aren't I? And Bob's talking about the Earth Mother. It's like the Were-Rabbit movie where Wallace links his brain to the rabbit and they switch personalities. And we all know how well that turned out.

But then there are the good reviews like the one in RT which made DLD a Top Pick:

"Bless the day that Crusie and Mayer sat down to chat, for this collaboration is inspired! All of the humor and irony from Crusie's previous books is here in full force, but now it's ratcheted up with a male action-adventure perspective. Lucy and J.T. are polar opposites who are perfect for each other -- not to mention hilarious -- as they try to stay sane in an insane situation."

What else? New York Times reporting stores. That's supposed to be a big secret but it generally isn't. Look around your area to see which bookstores get all the booksignings when a big books comes out. That's your NYT store. Books and Co. in Dayton, Oh, Jo Beth in Lexington KY, Rainy Day in Kansas City, Andersons in the Chicago area . . . publishers find out pretty quickly who reports and send their authors there to generate sales in the first weeks because, oddly enough, bestseller lists aren't about number of books sold, they're about velocity, how fast the books sell. So if you sell ten thousand books the first week, and eight thousand the second, you might get on and then that's it. Meanwhile somebody who never gets near the lists sells thirty thousand books over the course of the year and makes more money. Except that the bestseller lists are self-fulfiling prophecy: Make the lists and you get displayed in special racks, more people hear about you and read you, etc.

It's a jungle out there. But it's okay because Bob's in with the Earth Mother.

I'm telling you, it's The Curse of the Were-Writer.