One of the things that pushes a button for me is to read a news article that doesn't include all the necessary information. Needless to say, to leave your reader without important information is not good writing—or reporting.
I remember a couple of years ago a study reported that mega-doses of vitamin C were not healthy. I must have read half a dozen articles based on this report and none of them identified what constituted a mega-dose. I imagine they were all generated from one wire story, perhaps an AP bulletin, that omitted this bit of information and no subsequent reporter or editor took the time to correct it.
An article by staff writer George Hostetter in Thursday's edition of the Fresno Bee commits the same sin. Hostetter's story reports on the ongoing saga of the Running Horse golf course. Running Horse, started a couple of years ago with the promise of a PGA tour event, is now in bankruptcy with only two of the 18 holes completed. A PGA event would be a huge boost to Fresno's national image, to say nothing of its self-image, so it is important to readers of the Bee.
The story has extra drama to it because, a few weeks ago, out of blue, riding a white charger, Donald Trump—yes The Donald—arrived with visions of saving the golf course and building a huge, fancy resort or some similar project around it. (Okay, it wasn't a white charger, but I think his private jet is white.)
According to Hostetter's article, Trump's plan has hit a snag because, Trump feels he needs six additional parcels that were not part of Running Horse's 420 acres. The subtitle to the article is "Six parcels seen as crucial to Fresno's project's viability." It goes on to quote Trump's daughter, Ivanka Trump, his VP of real estate development: "If we can't come to an agreement, [on the six parcels], we say thank you very much, we loved the experience, we loved the city of Fresno. But this is not negotiable for us." Obviously this is a story about six parcels.
However, Hostetter doesn't identify the six parcels, their location relative to the project, or who their owners are. Nor does he say anything about ongoing negotiations for these parcels if there are any. Property ownership is a matter of public record and Hostetter undoubtedly knows how to get the names of the property owners. He should have attempted to contact these owners to learn of their thoughts and intentions.
On the other hand if he for some reason couldn't identify the parcels, he needed to explain that, at press time, this information was not available and why.
In Hostetter's defense, newspaper articles are a team sport and perhaps the night editor didn't have enough column inches available and deleted the necessary information. Whatever, incomplete reporting makes for fewer readers and who among us vying for a seemingly dwindling number of readers has any to spare?
Friday, July 27, 2007
Sunday, July 8, 2007
Psychic Gifts
Jim Frey e-mailed me the other day and said he had written a book I ought to take a look at. It was the biography of Annette Martin who, Jim told me, is America's greatest psychic.
I admire Jim's writing, but wasn't particularly excited about publishing a memoir and didn't know a thing about Annette. Still, I asked Jim to send me the manuscript. He and Annette have been friends for years and Jim evolved from a position of skepticism of Annette's abilities to a believer.
I read parts of the manuscript and thought, "How nice it would be to get a book in that doesn't require heavy editing or worse yet, rewriting." Jim's, as would be expected from one of the best novelists and writing teachers on the planet, is not only well written but tells an amazing story. Still it is a memoir, one of the toughest genres to market unless the subject is famous. I had my doubts that QDB should get involved.
Friday, Annette, Jim, and my friend Cassandra Williams—who, coincidentally, knew Annette from 20 years ago—met at Annette's house in Los Gatos. It's a beautiful house with a gorgeously-flowered back yard. Annette had spread photos and articles out on the dining room table for us to go over.
Annette has an amazing set of accomplishments. She is active with police departments across the nation and has about 10 ongoing investigations where she has identified the killer, helped find the body, or otherwise helped solved the case. These she can't discuss until the appeal process ends, but she has dozens of ones she can.
The episode of Psychic Detectives that chronicles a missing person case she solved is the third most popular of all of the episodes and was sold from whatever cable TV network it's on to NBC which still airs it now and again. She also has done a show for Psychic Investigators which airs in Canada. She is an entertainer/opera singer who still performs. She's had stories about her in Cosmopolitan, the San Francisco Chronicle and dozens of other publications.
She has been on lots of TV programs, Montel Williams, and others. She had her own radio show in the Bay Area and in Hawaii.
She still does readings of the standard love and health kind for individuals and she channels Edgar Cayce--the most famous psychic of them all when the situation calls for it. Yes, seemingly sooo strange, but likely not without some kind of merit. Hordes of intelligent, well-educated people endorse her—including Buzz Aldrin.
She is delightful. I'd say she has recently passed the 70-year milestone, but looks and acts 10 years younger. Lots of irons in the fire, a real go-getter. She has a film agent and currently has three shows she is hawking to TV.
I had gone to the meeting thinking that I'd leave telling Jim and Annette I needed to think about it before making an offer for the book. Yet, after about two hours of conversation, I was sold. I cemented my decision by asking Annette, "If Quill Driver Books were to publish the book, would it be a success?" She instantly shot back a vigorous "Yes!" So there you have it, for the first time in my decade-and-a-half career as a publisher, I know in advance that I have a book that will sell well.
Since it is already written and doesn't need much editing, we can make it a spring 2008 title.
Annette will be a delight to work with. She'll travel and do free readings at bookstores and conferences. We should be able to draw a crowd anywhere she goes.
She's used to being interviewed and she and her psychic journey should be good fodder for talk shows. We'll have her do readings at the Northern California Independent Bookseller Association's annual October conference to whet the appetite of Bay Area books sellers and get us mentioned in Publishers Weekly's coverage of the show.
The working title of the book is The Gift of the White Light: The Life and Times of Annette Martin, America's Greatest Psychic. Watch for it, it'll be fun to see if Annette's prediction of best-sellerdom materializes.
I admire Jim's writing, but wasn't particularly excited about publishing a memoir and didn't know a thing about Annette. Still, I asked Jim to send me the manuscript. He and Annette have been friends for years and Jim evolved from a position of skepticism of Annette's abilities to a believer.
I read parts of the manuscript and thought, "How nice it would be to get a book in that doesn't require heavy editing or worse yet, rewriting." Jim's, as would be expected from one of the best novelists and writing teachers on the planet, is not only well written but tells an amazing story. Still it is a memoir, one of the toughest genres to market unless the subject is famous. I had my doubts that QDB should get involved.
Friday, Annette, Jim, and my friend Cassandra Williams—who, coincidentally, knew Annette from 20 years ago—met at Annette's house in Los Gatos. It's a beautiful house with a gorgeously-flowered back yard. Annette had spread photos and articles out on the dining room table for us to go over.
Annette has an amazing set of accomplishments. She is active with police departments across the nation and has about 10 ongoing investigations where she has identified the killer, helped find the body, or otherwise helped solved the case. These she can't discuss until the appeal process ends, but she has dozens of ones she can.
The episode of Psychic Detectives that chronicles a missing person case she solved is the third most popular of all of the episodes and was sold from whatever cable TV network it's on to NBC which still airs it now and again. She also has done a show for Psychic Investigators which airs in Canada. She is an entertainer/opera singer who still performs. She's had stories about her in Cosmopolitan, the San Francisco Chronicle and dozens of other publications.
She has been on lots of TV programs, Montel Williams, and others. She had her own radio show in the Bay Area and in Hawaii.
She still does readings of the standard love and health kind for individuals and she channels Edgar Cayce--the most famous psychic of them all when the situation calls for it. Yes, seemingly sooo strange, but likely not without some kind of merit. Hordes of intelligent, well-educated people endorse her—including Buzz Aldrin.
She is delightful. I'd say she has recently passed the 70-year milestone, but looks and acts 10 years younger. Lots of irons in the fire, a real go-getter. She has a film agent and currently has three shows she is hawking to TV.
I had gone to the meeting thinking that I'd leave telling Jim and Annette I needed to think about it before making an offer for the book. Yet, after about two hours of conversation, I was sold. I cemented my decision by asking Annette, "If Quill Driver Books were to publish the book, would it be a success?" She instantly shot back a vigorous "Yes!" So there you have it, for the first time in my decade-and-a-half career as a publisher, I know in advance that I have a book that will sell well.
Since it is already written and doesn't need much editing, we can make it a spring 2008 title.
Annette will be a delight to work with. She'll travel and do free readings at bookstores and conferences. We should be able to draw a crowd anywhere she goes.
She's used to being interviewed and she and her psychic journey should be good fodder for talk shows. We'll have her do readings at the Northern California Independent Bookseller Association's annual October conference to whet the appetite of Bay Area books sellers and get us mentioned in Publishers Weekly's coverage of the show.
The working title of the book is The Gift of the White Light: The Life and Times of Annette Martin, America's Greatest Psychic. Watch for it, it'll be fun to see if Annette's prediction of best-sellerdom materializes.
Tuesday, July 3, 2007
Titling a Book
Newsweek, using Booksinprint.com as a source, recently reported that the top 5 words to be found in a book's title over the last 100 years (1906 to 2006) are:
1. Man—122,221 [men 57,485]
2. Diet—9,960
3. House—100,648
4. Woman—36,123 [women—98,140]
5. Sex/Sexual—[Sex—23,235, Sexual—12,772]
House is a somewhat surprising inclusion to me. Newsweek gives "The House of [you name it]" as an explanation of why this word is so popular. When I did an Amazon.com search, "house" came in second to "man." (The numbers in the list above are from my Amazon search.)
"Diet" came up with a surprisingly low return on Amazon, only 9,960, compared to "man" at 122,221. Diet books are, of course, huge sellers. At Quill Driver Books, we've published two, one of which, after making it a New York Times bestseller we eventually sold to Warner Books for a princely sum.
Since the Amazon "woman" figure seemed somewhat low, I searched on "women" and the two of them come in at 134,263 combined. The "men" "man" searches returned 179,706. Sex/sexual combined came in at 36,007.
Apparently in reference to an accompanying article (I only have a clipping someone sent me.), Newsweek reports "Jesus" has never been in the title of a bestseller. When I Amazoned "Jesus," I got 35, 392 hits about the same as "sex/sexual." And the pope's new book Jesus of Nazareth at #38 in Amazon's bestseller ranking today might be considered a bestseller. The number one bestseller each year and in the course of history is a book about Jesus, but, of course, his name isn't in the title.
Why does all this interest us as writers? There is an argument to be made that including the most popular words in your book's title might help it sell. If that is the case, someone bring to me a proposal for The Man and Woman's Guide to the House of Sex and Diet.
By the way, the word "guide" returned 477,180 hits.
1. Man—122,221 [men 57,485]
2. Diet—9,960
3. House—100,648
4. Woman—36,123 [women—98,140]
5. Sex/Sexual—[Sex—23,235, Sexual—12,772]
House is a somewhat surprising inclusion to me. Newsweek gives "The House of [you name it]" as an explanation of why this word is so popular. When I did an Amazon.com search, "house" came in second to "man." (The numbers in the list above are from my Amazon search.)
"Diet" came up with a surprisingly low return on Amazon, only 9,960, compared to "man" at 122,221. Diet books are, of course, huge sellers. At Quill Driver Books, we've published two, one of which, after making it a New York Times bestseller we eventually sold to Warner Books for a princely sum.
Since the Amazon "woman" figure seemed somewhat low, I searched on "women" and the two of them come in at 134,263 combined. The "men" "man" searches returned 179,706. Sex/sexual combined came in at 36,007.
Apparently in reference to an accompanying article (I only have a clipping someone sent me.), Newsweek reports "Jesus" has never been in the title of a bestseller. When I Amazoned "Jesus," I got 35, 392 hits about the same as "sex/sexual." And the pope's new book Jesus of Nazareth at #38 in Amazon's bestseller ranking today might be considered a bestseller. The number one bestseller each year and in the course of history is a book about Jesus, but, of course, his name isn't in the title.
Why does all this interest us as writers? There is an argument to be made that including the most popular words in your book's title might help it sell. If that is the case, someone bring to me a proposal for The Man and Woman's Guide to the House of Sex and Diet.
By the way, the word "guide" returned 477,180 hits.
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