Susan, quickie backflung.
May I say, WOOT!, here?
Just asked to write my own copy for the 2005 Fall Minotaur catalogue. 150 words, give or take a dozen. This is what I sent:
(suggested catalogue copy for Minotaur Fall 2005) Matty Groves
When Ringan Laine and his band, Broomfield Hill, are invited to the prestigious Callowen House festival, he accepts. There's one catch: Callowen is haunted, by a very famous ghost. And that ghost, Susanna Leight-Arnold, is the subject of one of England's most famous ballads.
After two close encounters with ghosts, Ringan and Penny are relieved to know that no exorcism is required of them. Callowen's imperious and eccentric owner, Miles Leight-Arnold, is quite proud of the family phantom.
Almost immediately, Jane Castle, Broomfield Hill's flautist, realises that there's more than one ghost moving through doors and walls at Callowen House. Something evil, dormant for five centuries, has been awakened by the sensitive Penny's presence, and held there by Jane: the spirit of a man killed by Edward Leight-Arnold in 1629, for the crime of lusting after Lady Susanna. And Jane bears an uncanny resemblance to the famous portrait of that long-dead wife.
Matty Groves is the third novel in the Murder, Music and Ghosts series.
Ooh, that sounds
really
good.
OK, I am now officially laughing my arse off.
Toni Plummer pinged me back to say it needed to have a blurb, a series summation about what makes the series different and unique, at the end, and that was standard for catalogue copy. OK, sez me, but I used the catalogue copy from the first two books as a model, and neither has one. So, no visual reference. Can you send me a sample?
She does:
"With its wildcatting spirit, The Rogues' Game is a high stakes novel and an exquisite quest for revenge."
and
"A sophisticated contemporary novel written in the classic tradition of Dorothy L. Sayers and Agatha Christie, The Young Widow is the debut of a fresh new voice on the mystery scene."
and
"With vivid details and quirky but down-to-earth characters, Christine Poulson evokes the rich academic life of Cambridge, England with masterful strokes."
So, I write back, hmmmm, tricky, this being book number three, and
neither of the first two having had one of those blurbs. Would something like this work?
"The Murder, Music and Ghosts series, with its clean, evocative writing and engaging characters, melds everyday modern life with the echoes of history, and the acts - and consequences - of days now gone."
Says Toni: That's WONDERFUL!
Boy, are these folks easy to please.
What cracked me up in another direction was that, at the instant I was writing all this - catalogue copy at my publisher's request, for Matty Groves - I get an email from my agent, answering a query I'd sent about how much she wanted on Cruel Sister before we pitched to Ruth. Says Jenn, well, not sure what the protocol is for pitching before the last option book is officially accepted. I haven't heard anything back from Ruth in Matty Groves yet, have you?
Other than having just been asked the write the catalogue copy for fall 2005 for that very book? Nope.
Publishing is weird.
Serial, but I need to say WHOOOOOOOOOOT!
From Toni Plummer to my agent:
Matty Groves is currently scheduled to come out in Fall '05 (which we are just launching next week). I believe Ruth has accepted the ms. as is, but I will check with her on Monday.
No edits. As is. No changes, it would appear, other than the occasional dropped comma, misspelled word, line edit from the future pass pages, and whatever changes I might choose to make myself, otherwise.
Bounce. Bouncebounce. Bouncebouncebouncebounce.
And now I can finish up another two chapters on Cruel Sister and pitch it. Yes!
Go deb! You deserve to see '04 out with triumph.
Yay Deb!
t Shakes pompoms. Realizes that she doesn't know any "editor accepted your book" cheers.
