It’s always gratifying to get a good review, and I am fortunate to have another one at www.historical-fiction.com/?p=1888

The reviewer, Arleigh Johnson, writes that although she never cared for Shakespeare in school, the novel has inspired her to buy a two-volume set of the Bard so she can revisit the plays in a new light.  But here is the line from the review that really gladdened my heart:

“I could have devoured this book in a matter of days, but I made myself read it slowly and take in every word, pausing to make notes and write down quotes as I went.”   -  Arleigh Johnson

Yes!  I do understand that having written a book readers can’t put down is a very good sign.  But I also hope that when readers come across any enthralling book, they will feel justified in taking their time.

So in these long, hot days of summer, please sit back, sip an iced tea, and read slowly.  There are elegant words and spine-tingling phrases waiting to be savored, vibrant characters and powerful ideas yearning to challenge your mind.

Many people assume that once a book is published, the author has only to sit back and relax while the publisher arranges book signings, tours and media interviews.  I blame Hollywood for this misperception.  Think of those movie scenes in which the newly published sensation sits at an autograph table in a bookstore with a line of adoring fans spilling out the door.

In the real world, authors–in collaboration with their publisher–are expected to do a lot of the promotional legwork.  Since the publication of The Secret Confessions of Anne Shakespeare on 1 June, I have completed/scheduled 15 book signings and public lectures, done 4 radio interviews, written 3 guest blogs and participated in an online chat.  I have contacted over 100 Shakespeare organizations, 40 bookstores and 20 media outlets that might be interested in my book.  I have distributed approximately 500 postcards (kindly supplied by my publisher) featuring the book cover and end0rsements.

Welcome to the world of hustling your book!

The faces of aspiring writers almost always fall when I convey this information at a speaking engagement or writers’ conference.  But if you’re serious about making your book a success, expect to spend a hefty amount of time, effort and your own money on promotion.  Moreover, you need to start a good three months before the book comes out so you can hit the ground running on the publication date.

By the way, if you haven’t yet booked me for a signing or presentation at your college, conference, literary or Shakespeare event, you can contact me at arliss@arlissryan.com.  I still have a few open dates.

My inbox today contained an interesting offer from a book review publication that shall remain nameless.  After congratulating me on The Secret Confessions of Anne Shakespeare, the form letter proceeded to point out how much competition there is for authors to get their books reviewed nowadays.  Thus, the letter continued, it’s possible some great books [mine, presumably] could get overlooked or lost in the shuffle.

But here’s the solution:  a “sponsored review.”  This paid service “expedites” the process by ensuring your book is read by one of their “established reviewers.”  It does not guarantee the review will appear in their print publication, only that your book will be read and the review put “in the pipeline.”  The more you pay ($99-$299), the faster the turnaround time on your review.  If the review does not end up in the print publication, they will post it online and put an ad for your book in their paper instead.

A few questions:

1) Isn’t it a conflict of interest for a reviewer or publication to accept money from the person whose book they are reviewing?

2) Doesn’t this sound suspiciously like payola?  Or extortion?  Or bait-and-switch?

3) How does the reader of the paper know which reviews have been “bought” and which are genuine?

4) Do readers care?

5) How much do I have to pay to get a really great review for my book?

6) Does anybody besides me think this is appalling?

I’ve had some very favorable reviews on my past books and some that were less so.  I’ve had reviews that made me wonder what the reviewer was smoking–one review even got a main character’s name wrong.

But all the reviews I’ve had so far have been honest ones.  I plan to stick with that this time around.

Please check out my guest blog at Affaire de Coeur and feel free to add a comment at:

www.affairedecoeur.com/blog

Authors and readers connecting with a keystroke–wouldn’t Anne Shakespeare be amazed?

Today is the official publication date for The Secret Confessions of Anne Shakespeare–hooray!  The book has already received several enthusiastic reviews, for which I am most grateful.  Please check them out at:

http://www.featheredquill.com

http://genregoroundreviews.blogspot.com/2010/05/secret-confessions-of-anne-shakespeare.html

So, it is a good day, although I don’t have time to uncork a bottle of champagne.  That’s because for some weeks now I have been fully occupied with the other half of a writer’s job:  marketing.  This includes setting up book signings and speaking appearances, writing guest blogs for other websites, prepping for radio interviews, and, in my case, contacting numerous Shakespeare organizations.

And lest anyone think this all sounds too commercial, I invite you to read the introduction to Shakespeare’s own First Folio, published by the efforts of his colleagues John Heminge and Henry Condell in 1623.  Their preface includes a plea entitled “Epistle To The Great Variety Of Readers,” and in modern English it reads as follows:

“…the fate of all books depends upon your capacities and not of your heads alone, but of your purses.  Well!  It is now public, and you will stand for your privileges, we know:  to read and censure.  Do so, but buy it first…whatever you do, Buy.”

I couldn’t have said it better.  The fate of my book is now in your hands.

The June issue of Smithsonian magazine contains a wonderful article by Doug Stewart Entitled “To Be…Or Not” about a hoax perpetuated on literary England in 1795-96 by one William-Henry Ireland.  In an attempt to win the approval of his Shakespeare-loving father, the hilariously incompetent William-Henry began his hoax by claiming to have found long-lost, original Shakespeare manuscripts in a trunk.  But as experts lapped up the news–and proclaimed the documents to be genuine–the young forger found himself more and more entangled in his own web of deceit.

What caught my eye, however, was that one of the documents William-Henry felt inspired to forge, was a love letter from Will to Anne, apparently when she was his fiancee.  Today, Anne is so often maligned that it is refreshing to think she was once viewed in a better light and considered worthy of a love letter from England’s future Bard.  So my thanks to William-Henry for his gallantry toward Anne.

You can read Mr. Stewart’s article at www.smithsonianmag.com

When my second novel was published in 2007, I contacted a number of bookstores in my area to ask if they would be interested in having me do a book signing.  One of those was an independent bookstore whose owner promoted herself as eager to support local authors.

But when I reached the owner on the phone, I got a different response.  After hemming and hawing for a moment, she dropped the pretense.

“Look,” she said, “why would anyone want to buy your book?  You’re nobody famous.”

I wrote down the words in something like shock.  Of course, big names sell books.  But independent bookstores usually portray themselves as being more involved in the community than the national chain stores, more knowledgeable, more interested in discovering unknown authors and the next great book.

So with The Secret Confessions of Anne Shakespeare coming out in two weeks, I did an experiment.  I emailed a total of 36 independent bookstores in four states where I have ties.  I attached information about myself and the book and simply asked that they check it out and let their customers and book clubs know about it.

The three bookstores where I had done signings for my previous novel replied instantly and favorably.  Three more wrote back with nice notes, and further correspondence with one of those has led to a signing.  My thanks to all six.

The remaining 30 did not reply or acknowledge receipt of my message.

Obviously, I’m not (yet) famous enough.

The package that arrived at my door yesterday afternoon looked like a perfectly ordinary, white bubble-wrap mailer.  But the size and return address–my publisher–immediately gave it away:  here was the final print version of The Secret Confessions of Anne Shakespeare.

“I hope you’re excited to see your words in print,” wrote my editor.

Actually, my first reaction on holding a finished book in my hands is profound sadness, precisely because it is finished and I can’t work on it anymore.  Counting the time spent in editing, it took five intense years to research and write that novel, and it’s like losing one of my closest friends to have to let it go.

I would love to hear from other writers:  Do you feel a similar sense of loss or do you experience only elation when a book is published?  Are you ever sick of a book by the time it’s done and glad to move on to something new?

Writing a novel isn’t always fun–sometimes it’s downright agony–and I will always ask myself what I could/should have done better.  But in the end, writing for me is about the process, so there’s only one logical thing to do:

Keep working on the next novel.

In Shakespeare’s day, women were not allowed to act in plays, and boys and men played all the female roles, including Juliet, Ophelia, Cleopatra and Lady Macbeth.  Having women act on stage was deemed immoral, although, as Anne wryly points out in The Secret Confessions of Anne Shakespeare, women were more than welcome to pay their penny and join the audience to applaud these very same plays.

Nowadays, with directors and actors always looking for new twists on the Bard, you might see women playing Richard III or Prospero, an all-female Julius Caesar, or a cross-dressing version of Hamlet.  Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t, but what is art about if not expanding opportunities and taking chances?

To see what an all-female cast can do with Shakespeare, check out the Los Angeles Women’s Shakespeare Company (LAWSC) at www.lawsc.net.  Founded in 1993 by Lisa Wolpe, this award-winning ensemble offers professional productions of Shakespeare plus classes and workshops.  Think a woman can’t play the sinister Iago?  Think again.  Finding it hard to picture an all-female staging of Much Ado About Nothing? LAWSC has done it and more.  Get past the initial hurdle and you’ll find all sorts of exciting possibilities for female actors, directors, choreographers and designers to do Shakespeare–and other playwrights as well.

What would Will say about all this?  I’m not sure.  But I do know what Anne would say– “Bravo!”

With The Secret Confessions of Anne Shakespeare due out 1 June, this might be the time to relate the behind-the-scenes story of how the book got its title.  My original choice was The Shakespeare Chronicles, and I loved it.  To me, “chronicles” evokes a sweeping sense of history and legend, of heroism and valiant deeds, a fitting word to sum up my saga of Anne, Will and the writing of the greatest plays in the English language.

Unfortunately, the publisher did not agree.  Women being the major buyers of historical fiction, the publisher wanted a title more targeted to female readers.  The title also had to make it clear at a glance that the story was being told from Anne’s point of view.

There followed two weeks of intense brainstorming between me and my editor, and between me, my writers’ group and my husband and children.  We played off words and phrases like “bard,” “mistress” and “the secret swan of Avon.”  We tried twisting titles and quotes from the plays.  We couldn’t use the obvious Shakespeare’s Wife–Germaine Greer had a recent book with that title–and I didn’t like it anyway.  We also had to be sure it sounded like a novel and not a nonfiction book about Will.

One interesting complication was that even though Anne is almost invariably referred to, in any Shakespeare context, by her maiden name Hathaway, using that name in the title caused engine search confusion with the actress Anne Hathaway.  So it had to be Anne Shakespeare, which is only right.  It is the name she would have called herself from the date of her marriage until the day she died.

In the end, I still prefer The Shakespeare Chronicles, and I urge male readers not to be deterred by the feminized title.  But I am glad if the revised title plays a small part in restoring Anne’s name.  To strip her of “Shakespeare” follows the trend of belittling her as the shrewish wife.  I say she deserves a better fame.