Library Book Sale Spoils

Twice a year, our local library holds a book sale.  Quite a large one–for weeks before, I could see the area over the parking lot looking like it was about to bust.  Lots and lots of books.  I usually troll the sale for reference books, since it’s easy to check out the novels at the library.  The spoils:

• Descriptionary, A Theamatic Dictionary.  It takes a topic like firefighting and defines some of the common buzzwords. 
• Illustrated Reverse Dictionary: Find the Words on the Tip of Your Tongue.  This is a dictionary that helps you if you can’t remember a word.
• National Geographic Traveler San Diego.  Full color, lots of photos!  Even a spiffy section called “Tide-pooling” with a pretty good description of a tide -pool’s features.  That’ll be useful for SAND DOLLAR MAGIC.
• Compass American Guides: Santa Fe .  I like this series because it’s not just a tour guide but gives a lot of information about the place. 
• Underwater Wonders of the National Parks.  It’s a tour book for divers, with awesome color photos.
• The Ultimate Kaua’i Guidebook, Third Edition.   It’s Hawai’i.  Need I say more?

Organizing the Books

When I was growing up, I used to visit my grandparents in San Francisco.  They’d remodeled their house at one point and expanded the living room, which included a floor to ceiling bookcase.  And it was filled with books!  This was the coolest thing to me because I loved books. 

Because I’m a writer, I always end up with a lot of books.  I’ve sort of tried to organize them like designers suggest–some horizontal, some vertical, and put other things in the bookcase.  Usually the books end up looking like a bunch of bowling pins after a strike.  There’s a surprising amount of information available on the Internet on arranging bookcases, ranging from the designer version to arranging by size, topic, color, etc.

So I’m trying to get a better handle on all these books.  I decided that the bookcase needs to be for books.  Period.  

Step 1: I’m getting rid of anything I really don’t need.   Everything goes to the library sale.  Of course, they aren’t taking any new books until November 1 … Sigh.

Step 2: I got some cloth baskets–they have old fashioned maps on them–for all the paperbacks.  The paperbacks get the most messy, and some of them are pretty well-worn.  Toss them in the baskets, and they’re available but not falling off the shelves in the middle of the night.

Step 3: Separate fiction and non-fiction.  Most of the non-fiction books are research for novel projects.  I have a few Civil War books from my last book.  I also have a number of spy books for a future project.  There are various California, beach, or seashell books for the Morro Bay project.  Books on antiques, auctions, and weird mysteries (i.e., Bigfoot, lost treasures) for MAGIC STUD and general adventuring ideas.

Step 4: Alphabetize them by author.  I liked the idea of just organizing it like a library.  Forget trying for different sections–that’s hard to remember.  Alphabetizing is easy to remember.  So I’m going through them now and sorting in small batches–A-D, E-H, etc.

I think I’m going to have to buy some bookends, too, though it’s hard to find good ones.  Staples has some, but they look very office-like and industrial.  Some of the other ones I’ve seen have been better, but not the fun and colorful I want.  Nor do I want to spend $100!!   So I’ll just have to keep on the lookout while I go through the books.

Where Old Library Books Go

We have a library sale coming up in October–actually two.  At the last one, I used the opportunity to pick up about half a dozen cookbooks.  In the past, I’ve found some research material for my book.   The rest of the year, the library sells the better books or puts them out to pasture in the free bin. 

Every now and then the free bin has some gems.  Mostly, it has the kind of stuff that no one wants.  Usually dated books, like a government address book from 1974 or a book on diplomatic relations from 1980.  Since this is Washington, DC, I see a lot of dated political books.

Those usually don’t last very long on the shelf.  The next week I come by, the books are all gone, and I’m sure the librarians are tossing them.  Awful Library Books talks about the books librarians discard and why.  Most of the books are dated non-fiction.

Strange Things in Library Books

I get a lot of books at the library, and sometimes I find odd things in them.   The librarians filter out a lot of it–check out Librarians Find the Weirdist Things. 

The other day I found a photo card of John F. Kennedy and Jackie Onasis that was copyrighted 1998.  Inexplicably, on the inside cover, someone had glued a recycled paper.  Otherwise, the card was blank.  I was a bit mystified as to why someone is even selling a card of a President from more than 40 years ago.  But then, this is Washington, DC.

A friend reported that she’d bought the photo book for The Greatest Story Ever Told, a movie released in 1965.  Inside, she was surprised to find the tickets to the premiere of the movie!

I also picked up a book on the first woman FBI agent.  Apparently a person reading the book disagreed with some of the words.  Every single “like” was crossed out and changed to “as if” or “as.”

What have you found in library books?

The Cost of Books

When I grocery shop each week, I usually shop at 3-4 different stores to get everything I need at a good price.  I look through the ads for sales, plan my list accordingly, and shop.  If I can’t find an item on sale,  I buy the generic store brand to get the lowest price.  And of course, I try to use coupons where I can.  Last week, I got blueberries from Giant that were 4 for $5.  This week Safeway had laundry detergent on sale for a fantastic price with a coupon, so I stocked up.  And I needed jam, so I bought the store brand from Target because that was the cheapest price. 

I can’t do that with books.

But at the bookstore, it’s not always a great deal.  In fact, most often, there isn’t one.  A hardback is $24 and up.  A paperback in $7-$8.  A trade paperback is $12 and up.  I can find store brand books, but all non-fiction.  No novels.  A sale at a bookstore is either the remainders or 20-50% off a new release.

And here’s the problem:  If I buy marshmallows for a dollar, I’m reasonably sure of what I’m getting, no matter the brand.  With a book, I’m taking a chance I’m going to get one that’s a klunker.  I bought one non-fiction book based on a sample chapter posted online.  I turned out that sample chapter was the only thing good in the book.  I bought a hardback of a best selling author that I had liked on previous books and expected to see a good story.  Not only did the story flop, so did his next three books.   I also read a business book last year that cost $25.  The book was about 300 pages, but was a 150 page book.  The publisher had double-spaced the entire thing, and each chapter had an executive summary of the chapter that sometimes ran almost as long as the contents of the chapter itself!

Since the reader is taking the chance on the books, I think better price incentives would help.  How about 2 paperbacks for $10?  How about if you buy a newly released paperback by a best selling author at full price and get a price break on several other lesser known or new authors from that publisher?  Or how about to promote the new release of a book, a sale on the other books in the series?

And yes, I understand that all of this affects sales for the authors themselves, of which I hope I’m in there one day.  But I also know a writer who had a pretty good series and the publisher discontinued it.  Why?  Didn’t sell well.  Maybe it would have if it had been included in a sale that provided incentive.

Learning to Be a Better Writer by Reading

When I was in a critique group, there were two writers who were working on a novel but didn’t do much reading.  One stated, “I don’t have time to read!”  and the other wouldn’t read anything unless it was recommended to him.  They both had a very hard time understanding plot and premise–both difficult concepts even for voracious readers.

Jennifer Roland’s Read to Be a Better Writer brings up interesting points on how it can improve your writing.  When I first started writing in omniscient viewpoint, I went in search of books that were written in the viewpoint.  My main goal was not just to find any books written in omniscient, but to find ones recently written–and study them.  Not one of the how-to books explained how to do omniscient, so I’ve had to learn by reading the novels to see how other authors used the techniques.  And I did find books.

When I asked for critiques, the response I got from other writers varied from, “I’ve never read omnisicent viewpoint,” to “Omniscient viewpoint isn’t used any more.  Why can’t you change it to third?”

Uh, I have a thriller I got from the library yesterday.  It’s in omniscient viewpoint and was published this year.  Clearly, we aren’t reading the same books.

Ms. Roland’s advice on sampling different genres comes into play here.  While I do tend to stay within about four genres, I also will go outside of the genre if a book catches my eye.  I’ve found some good books that way.   I always look through the books the library puts out on the table as recommended reading.  And I’m doing Christian fiction reviews even though I would never pick up the books on my own.  Why?

Because if I’d stuck with just mystery or just urban fantasy, I would have never learned there were other viewpoints besides first.  And if I’d listened to other writers and how-to books, I would have thought that omniscient wasn’t used any more.  Who knows what else reading widely might give me?

Free Books From Harlequin

Harlequin is celebrating their 60th anniversary by giving away 16 books in eBook format.  The book range from Suspense to Historical. 

The link is courtesy of Hey, It’s Free!

Writing Books for the New Year

Happy New Year!

I thought I’d make a list of writing books that I find particularly helpful. If you asked me for a list in another couple of months, I’d probably have something different on it.  The books always change.

Write Better, Write Faster, by David Fryxell: Okay, it’s mostly for freelancers, but his discussion of organizing your writing is excellent.

Writers Market FAQs, by Peter Rubie:  Rubie’s an agent, and he answers questions about the business of writing.  There’s a breakdown and explaination of a typical writing contract (though that may be dated now, given some recent changes), all in plain English.  Even an explanation of whether you should have your writing copyrighted.

Make a Scene, by Jordan Rosefeld:  I like this one because it made me think about how to open my story in an unusual way.

The 38 Most Common Fiction Writing Mistakes: Worth looking at solely for #34.

The Power of Point of View, by Alicia Rasley: The only book I’ve ever seen that has an in-depth discussion on omniscient viewpoint–and doesn’t start out with “No one uses omniscient any m0re.”  It explains some of the reasons why you might choose this viewpoint.

Swallowing Darkness by Laurell K. Hamilton

I remember when I saw my first LKH book.  The title caught my eye, and I took it off the shelf. Looked at the back.  Whoa!  It was about a woman protagonist. There just weren’t a lot of books around like that at the time. 

Her book Swallowing Darkness is the seventh in the Merry Gentry series.  Merry is a princess in faerie, and the series started with the queen requiring Merry to get pregnant.  Caught up in faerie politics, Merry has to do it or someone will eventually kill her.  Merry is pregnant with twins by six different fathers in this book.

I’d like to write a description of what this book is about, but the plot is missing in action.  Merry runs from crisis to crisis, reacting to everything, and that’s about it.  This has been an unfortunate trend in previous LKH books–no plot or maybe only a few chapters of it, and the rest is crisis management or sex.  The sex is thankfully not a focus in this book, but the crisis management is in full force, and important details that might have been a story get forgotten in favor of crisis management.

Each crisis runs at breakneck speed, with the whole story crammed into what appears to be a very short period of time.  I’m saying this because I get the impression that time doesn’t actually exist in the book.  The sun doesn’t come up or go down, and characters don’t stop to sleep or have dinner.  After a while, it starts to feel tiresome rather than action-packed.

Throughout the book, when a crisis happens, Merry conveniently gets a new power to solve the problem.  Even the goddess fixes a few problems at Merry’s request.  The purpose of a book is to watch the main character try to solve the problems, not have magic or gods solve it for them.

This book feels like she’s run out of ideas and is tired of this series but still has to do something with it.  The books gives me the impression not a lot of effort and thought was put into developing it.

Reading Outside the Genre

Though I’m writing an urban fantasy novel, I read all kinds of books.  You’ve probably seen some reviews for Christian books.  The CEO of the company, whose blog I read, introduced a program to promote his company’s books.  I thought, “Sure, why not?”  It’s not what I would normally read, but it does get me to see things in different perspectives.

For example, if I only read Urban Fantasy, I probably wouldn’t know that there were viewpoints other than first person. I haven’t seen an Urban Fantasy in anything but first person until the last two weeks (now I’ve seen not one but two books in omniscient).

I used to know someone who wanted to write a novel, but he didn’t read unless the book met a very specific and narrow criteria.  It meant he didn’t read much to start with, and he was likely to read more non-fiction than fiction.  How do you learn to write fiction if you don’t read it?  How do you learn how to develop a story, probably the hardest skill of all?  As a result, he always had trouble grasping what the story was.

Read lots of books.   Experiment with others outside of your genre.  Your writing will benefit.