January 19, 2006
I review crime novels regularly for The Oakland Press in Michigan. About once a month, give or take, I pick a book and author, and set up an interview with the author and write a little longer review/author profile. Tends to run about 1/3 or 1/2 a page with the author photo prominent and the book jacket. It's fun. It pays a whopping $25 more than my regular book reviews, but my editor offered it to me because she loves doing it. I actually do, too, after I got over the initial stage fright.

I've interviewed Sue Grafton, John Sandford, Paul Levine, JA Konrath, Vince Flynn, Randy Wayne White, Nelson DeMille, Rick Riordan, PJ Parrish and several others.

I've noticed something about the bestsellers, by and large. They're ambitious. It just comes off them in waves. It's in their attitude; in the amount of work they do to research and write and promote their work. I noticed this especially with Sue Grafton and John Sandford and Joe Konrath (not a bestseller--yet). Vince Flynn spends a huge chunk of his time traveling around the world researching his books, then another huge chunk promoting them. It seems like he's got a dollar amount in his head that he plans to hit before he eases off a bit. He hinted at that.

Paul Levine comes off as kind of laid-back, but since this is a guy who was an enormously successful attorney before turning to novels, who then turned successfully to TV writing (JAG, etc), and I see how he's handling his new series Solomon v. Lord (with "The Deep Blue Alibi" coming out soon, and I recommend it highly), it's safe to think he's probably pretty ambitious, too.

I've never interviewed Dick Francis, but in his books his characters are often jockeys, amateur and pro, and he talks often about whatever that factor is in a winning racehorse that makes them want to surge to the front of the pack. Dick, in interviews, seems like such a proper gentleman. Yet, if you look at his life, he was a successful air force pilot in WWII, a very successful jockey, and a bestselling author.

I don't know how ambitious I am. At some level, very. You can't make a living as a freelance writer without being ambitious at some level. It requires too much work and too much persistence. Yet compared to some people, I'm probably not all that ambitious. Or, perhaps, I feel that there's a cut-off in which my ambitions start to have negative effects on my marriage and family, and I value those more, so I pull back. Or perhaps that's just my nature. I like to be at the front of the pack, but not necessarily THE front of the pack. Or, I think this is more accurate, I prefer to run alone and not treat life as a competition.

Still, from a very straightforward business point of view, writing--nonfiction and especially fiction--is a very tough business with a great deal of competition ... much of it for readers' attention. But if you think of novel writing as a job application for a limited number of slots available (You've never thought of it that way, have you? But it's true. More true than you can imagine), then you can see just how competitive and ambitious you may have to be.

Bad Intentions received a pass from Bantam with a "I like his writing, but the book's just not strong enough in today's competitive market" comment, which may or may not be true. Reading editor's rejection comments is roughly equal to fortune cookies and tea leaves--they tell us more about the reader of the rejection comment than the editor's actual opinion. It is a good book. It's still out there and I hope it'll get picked up. It's well written (I'm told and have a track record to suggest that statement is true), the character's likable (or so I'm told) and I think it's a good story. But it's a tough, tough market.

So, decide for yourself. Are you ambitious?

Best,
Mark Terry