Dystopian February Theme Month at Presenting Lenore

In February 2010, I kicked off my very first theme month dedicated solely to dystopian and post-apocalyptic fiction.  Back then, dystopian was an emerging trend, buoyed by the popularity of THE HUNGER GAMES and CATCHING FIRE.

Now, two short years later, we are in the midst of a dystopian explosion, with new upcoming titles being announced every week it seems.  But with so many new dystopians available, how do you choose which to read?

That's where Dystopian February at my personal blog, Presenting Lenore, can help.  Starting tomorrow and continuing all through the month, I will be posting reviews, previews, author interviews, and in-depth discussions of books that may or may not be on your radar.  I also have so many book giveaways planned, I can hardly keep track of them. (Spoiler alert: I'll be giving away, among others, League books such as A MILLION SUNS, STARTERS & THE OTHER LIFE)

By now, I've read over 100 books in the genre (see index of all my dystopian reviews) and I'm still super excited about it.  Based on the types of books I've come across in my reading, I've created five categories of dystopians/post-apocalyptics:

World-building books - These are the books that (usually) take a real world issue or concern and barrel down the slippery slope to explore a future world through the distorted lens of that issue.  They can be very deep and philosophical. For example: FEED by MT Anderson (media addiction)

Action books - These are the page-turners that get your adrenaline pumping and make you bite your fingernails until the tips of your fingers are raw.  They are often stories of surviving despite terrible odds.  For example: ASHES by Ilsa J. Bick

Twisty books - Surprising, original, fun - these are the books that are unpredictable and make the genre feel fresh again.  For example: VARIANT by Robison Wells

Romance books - The world may be ending, but that doesn't stop the chemistry between these books' characters from melting off your pants. For example: SHATTER ME by Tahereh Mafi

Amazing writing - These are the books that get under your skin with their perceptive insights into character, their lyrical prose, and their masterfully created atmospheres.  For example: WITHER by Lauren DeStefano

And of course, there are the books that seem to have it all and could fit into any category (HUNGER GAMES, anyone?) -- but for my purposes, I'm giving each book I review a merit badge in one of the above categories (see the merit badges here - they are ADORBS!) so if you know you prefer world-building books over all else, you'll know which titles to look out for.

Hope you enjoy Dystopian February!  What do you think my categories? Am I missing any in your opinion?

The Super Bowl, The Hunger Games, and me.

On Friday, my wife and I walked from our house near downtown Indianapolis to the Super Bowl village. The game was more than a week away, but the whole area was already crowded. It appeared that every pavilion and tent within 500 miles was either already set up or currently being assembled in the streets and parking lots of downtown Indianapolis.

There are giant Super Bowl sculptures, at least three stages, dozens of outdoor bars, a zip line down the middle of Capitol Avenue, and half a dozen buildings wrapped in enormous Microsoft Kinect ads. Here’s a shot of Monument Circle:

 As I walked around this temporary amusement park, I got more and more depressed. Why? For every scene like this:

There’s also one like this:

Now, I know that only a minority of the people holding signs are actually homeless or hungry. And giving money to panhandlers only exacerbates the problem. But the dichotomy between the glittering temporary bars and stages for Super Bowl XLVI and the panhandlers points up a real problem in our society—one that calls The Hunger Games to my mind.

Are the fashionable spectacles of the Super Bowl Village really that different from the glitz and glamor of the Capitol District? And while we don’t have any place labeled District 12, you could easily form one among the population of Indianapolis. Consider this:

167,000 residents of Indianapolis live below the federal poverty line

63,000 of them are children

34,000 residents will go hungry at some point this year.

3,000 will be homeless at some point this year.

About 50 homeless people in Indianapolis will die of exposure this winter.

And consider these stats:

Lucas Oil Stadium cost $750,000,000, of which $650,000,000 was public tax money.

The Super Bowl will cost at least $29,000,000 ($25,000,000 from private donors and $4,000,000 from the Capitol Improvement Board, which is publicly funded.)

No, we don’t kill 23 kids per year for our entertainment. Football only kills about four people each year, making it a relatively safe sport (gymnastics, cheerleading, and downhill skiing are far more dangerous.) But as I walked through the Super Bowl Village on Friday, I had the feeling that I was bearing witness to an inevitable slide—America becoming Panem.

What do you think? Please convince me I’m wrong in the comments. I’m getting depressed all over again.

Bloggers + BEA

Did you hear the awesome news this week about BEA and book bloggers?  If you're a book blogger or a book lover or a bookseller, something very cool is afoot in the book world. (I win for most uses of book in a sentence.  Also my copy editor would be banging her head on her desk and scribbling "repetitive" all over this post.)

First of all, in case you aren't a total nerd for all things book like me, BEA stands for Book Expo America, and it's sort of like heaven for readers.  Technically it's for booksellers, who are readers of course, but in recent years, intrepid writers and bloggers have been turning out for the event in NYC.  Basically it's a conference to showcase books by publishers as well as other book related services.  It's also an excellent way to get your hands on advanced copies of upcoming books and even rub elbows with authors.

So what does this have to do with book bloggers?  Well, the organizers of BEA just announced that they've officially purchased the Book Bloggers Convention.  BBC used to be hosted at the end of BEA in a co-location but the events were separate.  This year BBC will be held in conjunction with BEA at the beginning of the week, because BEA wants to get bloggers even more involved with the conference.  Why?  Because book bloggers are integral in getting the word out about books!    

You can read all about the merger here on the BEA blog, and I don't know about you guys but I'm definitely looking into going this year.

A Shout Out to a Few Bloggers

While I was busy writing and trying to get published, I didn’t read book blogs. I read blogs about writing, mostly written by agents. It is only recently that I’ve come to discover the great variety of book blogs.

I have so much admiration for all the book bloggers. I’m going to do a shout-out to a few that you’ve probably never heard of (that’s the point), and two that you should definitely know about if you don’t. Some of the following are small, but display an infectious love of reading.

http://Brokeandbookish.blogspot.com American college students who love YA.

http://onceuponaquote.blogspot.com A French college student studying English.

http://www.overflowinglibrary.com/ A British blogger.

http://www.publishingcrawl.com An international group of authors and publishing professionals.

http://presentinglenore.blogspot.com - our own Lenore did my first blog interview.

http://www.kamigarcia.com/blog/ - One of my favs, by rockstar bestselling author Kami Garcia (Beautiful Creatures), lots of YA dystopian book recs. And currently, she has a great post up now with writing links that is a don’t-miss for the writers out there.

Enjoy the read!

Why I read reviews

I know many experienced writers tell debut authors: “don’t read reviews of your books” or “don’t read the bad reviews” or “stay away from goodreads, shelfari, etc...” or even “don’t read good reviews”. And many writers seem to take this advice to heart – stop interacting on goodreads altogether once their ARCs are out in the world for readers to dissect.

Back in October 2010, when I sold THE OTHER LIFE and reviews were still far off, I thought: “Huh, why should I not read reviews? I can take criticism.”

Fast forward a few months, when ARCs were finally sent out, I suddenly wasn’t all that sure about my thick skin. I checked goodreads religiously and then I got my first not-so-stellar review (a two star rating) and I sat in front of my laptop paralyzed. I was too scared to read it and was driving myself insane with the possibilities. But then I told my husband (with the warning that he shouldn’t read it either and that I didn’t want to know what was written!).

Yeah...Husband didn’t listen and in the evening while we were making dinner, he described the review to me and I didn’t die. I could deal with it. My husband shrugged at the end of his recount and said “that wasn’t so bad”. And he was right. The next day I read the review and it was well-written and I was grateful that the reviewer had taken the time to write something about my book, though they didn’t like it.

I still cringe every time I see a low-rating, I still hesitate before I read a negative review but I do it anyway because, while it hurts a little to find out that not everyone loves your book, it helps me grow as a writer. Every time someone criticizes some part of my writing, I challenge myself to do better next time. And I love a good challenge.

Of course I know that no matter how hard I try, I’ll never make everyone happy and that’s not what I’m striving for (though maybe a little part of me does). But I want to know what readers think, want to know why people hate some books while they love others with such a fervor that they fight for them.

I often find myself browsing reviews of books I’ve read, and one day I found a negative review for a book almost everyone loved (myself included). And there were dozens, maybe hundreds of comments defending that book. I was stunned (and I felt a bit sorry for the poor reviewer who’d done nothing but write their opinion and got bashed for it). People were willing to defend a book – not because it was written by their relative, or agent sister, or friend. No, because they loved it so much. I think it’s wonderful that books are still capable of evoking such strong emotions in us – hate, love, despair, blind rage. Isn’t that what we want as writers?

Movies have pictures, soundtracks and big actors to get a strong reaction from their audience, we have only our words.

Celebrating Bloggers

Where would I be without blogs and bloggers? Maintaining a book blog and reading a ton of other book blogs and author blogs is what originally sparked my interest in YA lit – and in writing my own YA novel.

By keeping up with blogs, not only do I keep up with the zeitgeist, but I also learn what readers love and love to hate (insta-love, red-headed best friends, inaccurate college application timelines to name a few) as well as a ton about craft and how to improve my storytelling.

Let me give you one example of a blog event that directly impacted LEVEL 2. Frankie Diane Mallis (writer, blogger and member of The First Novels Club) puts on an event in January called the No-Kiss Blogfest, where participants are challenged to find or write an "almost kiss-- the rising, crushing, excruciating, longing, tension that comes when two characters get oh-so-close to kissing that you can just feel it, want it, NEED it....and then...they don't!"

Well, it just so happens that in January 2011, I was about to sit down to revise chapter 1 of LEVEL 2 when I stumbled upon Frankie’s post. My first draft of LEVEL 2 had my main character reliving one of her favorite memories with her boyfriend and it involved a kiss. But Frankie got me thinking … could the scene be even better with an almost kiss? So I tried it out. And guess what? It upped the excitement factor tenfold – and had a profound effect on the plot going forward too.

So thank you Frankie, and thank you book bloggers and writing bloggers who continually inspire me with your insights, passion and love of literature. I am proud to be a part of the conversation.

PS: For more tales of blogger love, check out YA Fusion.

Lenore's Blog

Celebrating Bad Reviews

I come from a line of men who worked with their hands. My grandfather rebuilt boat motors; my dad builds and repairs furniture.  For almost ten years, I made a living as a carpenter/handyman/remodeling company owner.

When you do this sort of work, you inevitably accumulate coffee cans filled with random nuts, bolts, and screws. And this gives rise to what I’m modestly calling Mullin’s Law: In any can of random nuts, 2% of them will be wingnuts.

The rest of this post is not for the wingnuts out there. If you’re an author who trolls threads on Goodreads, you’re a wingnut. If you’re a blogger who continues to review YA, despite professing a disdain for the whole literature, you’re a wingnut.  If you’re a blogger who reviews the author’s weight instead of her book, or uses hateful and misogynistic language in your reviews, not only are you a wingnut, but your threads are stripped. Seek professional help retooling.

Now, to the rest of you, the 98% who are just plain nuts: bad reviews rock. One-star reviews rock. Two-star reviews rock. Authors, celebrate your bad reviews (you’re allowed 5-10 minutes of cringing self-pity first). Bloggers, don’t feel badly when you negatively review an author’s work. Unless that author has published ten or more books, you’re helping her with your negative review. 

Want evidence?  Check out this study of New York Times book reviews conducted using Nielsen Bookscan data and reported in Marketing Science. The upshot is that negative reviews of works by authors who had previously published fewer than two books boosted their sales by 45% on average. Negative reviews of well-known authors (i.e. those who had published 10 or more books previously) hurt their sales by 15%. So the advice about celebrating your one-star reviews doesn’t apply after you’ve published your tenth book.

I first posted on this topic on my blog last July. If you're interested in a more thorough discussion of the benefits of bad reviews, click through. To sum up, the worst thing that can happen to an author isn't bad reviews; it's being ignored.

What do you think? Do the other authors out there help spread the word about negative reviews of your work? Do those of you who blog feel hesitant to post a negative review? Why or why not? Let me know in the comments, please.