キャミー・タング著「戌年」連載小説 プロのドッグトレーナーであるマリ・ムトウは、厄年を迎えている。 犬小屋と訓練所の改築をしながら、いつも不服そうにしている家族と同居することになった。母と姉に言わせれば、犬の毛とよだれかけにまみれる仕事は、家族にとって恥ずべきものだという。彼女は元カレを説得し、数ヶ月間犬を預かってもらうことにした。しかし、彼の兄は、数週間前に彼女が誤って車に追突した、怒り狂ったセキュリティ専門家であることが判明する。 アシュウィン・ケイトウは十分な問題を抱えている。叔母が玄関先に現れ、同居を希望している。彼は彼女にすべてを借りているので、断ることができません。母親が家を出て行った後、ネルおばさんはアシュウィンと弟を引き取り、愛のあるキリスト教の家庭で育てた。しかも、弟のダスティもアパートを追い出され、居場所を求めている。しかし、彼は犬を飼っている。そして、その犬の飼い主は誰だと思いますか? しかし、旧友でオアフ島のノースショアでデイスパを経営する私立探偵のエディサ・ゲレロから依頼を受ける。マリの施設で奇妙な破壊行為があり、3年前に失踪したエディサの妹の財布を発見する。エディサはマリが危険な目に遭っているのではと心配する。警備の専門家であるアシュウィンがすでにマリを知っていることを知ったエディサは、忙しい若い女性を密かに監視することを彼に依頼する。 アシュウィンは、活発でのんびりとしたドッグトレーナーに不本意ながら惹かれていく。彼女は、幸せそうな母親を思い出させる。その母親の裏切りによって、彼は人と距離を置くようになったのだ。マリは、アシュウィンの冷たい外見を見抜き、彼が家族に忠実な男であることを認める。彼は、彼女のキャリア選択を批判するだけの母親や姉とは違う。 マリのバラバラな家庭とアシュウィンのバラバラな家庭の中で、過去を隠そうとする人たちから、彼らの周りに危険が迫ってくるようになる。彼らは、影で動く秘密に光を当てることができるのか? 過去に発表されたパートへのリンクはこちら。 *** 第8章 - 恐ろしくも真っ白な不動産書類 『みんな仲良くできないのかな?』 マリは無用に力を込めて箱に本を投げ入れた。最近、なぜ彼女は人生の中で全員と言い争いをしているのだろう?もしかすると、これは本当に悪いアイデア
Captain’s Log, Supplemental
Blog book giveaway:
My Monday book giveaway is DIVINE STORIES OF THE YAHWEH SISTERHOOD edited by Michelle Medlock Adams and Gena Maselli.
My Thursday book giveaway is WEB OF LIES by Brandilyn Collins.
You can still enter both giveaways. Just post a comment on each of those blog posts. On Monday, I'll draw the winner for YAHWEH SISTERHOOD and post the title for another book I'm giving away.
ICRS, part 6 (continued from part 5):
My senior editor Sue Brower made time to see me and introduce me to the senior public relations manager, Karen Campbell. We had a great lunch meeting.
Sue talked with me about marketing and publicity that I could do—for example, connecting with my reader demographic in the Bay Area. I work with 20-something Asian Christians at the church youth group, and I can hit them up for publicity ideas and also for valuable input to make sure I’m hitting my reader target—that I’m not talking down to them, that my writing is in line with the age group.
Sue also talked about ways to increase my newsletter Yahoogroup membership. She suggested maybe an iPod contest. I said, SURE!
Sue mentioned fiction shorts in a newsletter for my series, and I told her about ideas I had for a character blog where all four cousins from the series AND Grandma would put up short blog posts. I’ll have to work on developing that. It’ll also take a lot of work to write the content.
What I found very intriguing was when Sue started talking about when she first met me in Denver two years ago at the ACFW conference. She said that one of the things that caught her attention was that I had a definite genre/sug-genre—Asian chick-lit. It had marketability because it was unique and definable.
At the time, Sue had been the Senior Marketing Director and so she’d been thinking like a marketing person, not necessarily an editor. She looked at the whole package, not just the story idea.
Her comments made me realize that as writers, maybe we should be looking at the whole package, too. I’m not talking about tag lines, but I am talking about Branding.
My agent Wendy said something similar—basically, to find your genre niche and run with it. By “niche” I think she was also talking about making sure you write in a sub-genre or with a style that other people haven’t—something unique and original. Like non-humanoid science fiction, or humorous Biblical fiction, or time-travel prairie romances!
Okay, I guess we shouldn’t get carried away—not too original. But I realized that as writers, we can make it easy for the publishers to market us—that “whole package” which extends beyond just good writing.
Sue and Karen also talked about the marketing and publicity for my series. They admitted that they’re taking a risk with me, because they’re marketing to an age group and demographic they’ve never targeted before, and they’re going to use different marketing tactics—not the standard things like getting in the catalog, etc. I’m the guinea pig.
I guess that’s a good thing. I have a feeling God wants to test my faith in a major way. I just wish it didn’t involve the $100,000 cost/gamble to produce a single trade paperback book. Ai-yah—I’m starting to sweat already.
Karen is totally nice, and she’s also young—right in my reader demographic. She seems very excited about the campaign for my book, which is terrific. I think it’s a God thing that she’s the senior PR manager right at this time that Zondervan is publishing my series.
Next: The Adventures of Camy on the ICRS Floor.
The Shirlee and Sabrina Show: Two of my favorite people, Sabrina Fox and Shirlee McCoy, have teamed up in an interview on Sabrina’s blog here.
Blog book giveaway:
My Monday book giveaway is DIVINE STORIES OF THE YAHWEH SISTERHOOD edited by Michelle Medlock Adams and Gena Maselli.
My Thursday book giveaway is WEB OF LIES by Brandilyn Collins.
You can still enter both giveaways. Just post a comment on each of those blog posts. On Monday, I'll draw the winner for YAHWEH SISTERHOOD and post the title for another book I'm giving away.
ICRS, part 6 (continued from part 5):
My senior editor Sue Brower made time to see me and introduce me to the senior public relations manager, Karen Campbell. We had a great lunch meeting.
Sue talked with me about marketing and publicity that I could do—for example, connecting with my reader demographic in the Bay Area. I work with 20-something Asian Christians at the church youth group, and I can hit them up for publicity ideas and also for valuable input to make sure I’m hitting my reader target—that I’m not talking down to them, that my writing is in line with the age group.
Sue also talked about ways to increase my newsletter Yahoogroup membership. She suggested maybe an iPod contest. I said, SURE!
Sue mentioned fiction shorts in a newsletter for my series, and I told her about ideas I had for a character blog where all four cousins from the series AND Grandma would put up short blog posts. I’ll have to work on developing that. It’ll also take a lot of work to write the content.
What I found very intriguing was when Sue started talking about when she first met me in Denver two years ago at the ACFW conference. She said that one of the things that caught her attention was that I had a definite genre/sug-genre—Asian chick-lit. It had marketability because it was unique and definable.
At the time, Sue had been the Senior Marketing Director and so she’d been thinking like a marketing person, not necessarily an editor. She looked at the whole package, not just the story idea.
Her comments made me realize that as writers, maybe we should be looking at the whole package, too. I’m not talking about tag lines, but I am talking about Branding.
My agent Wendy said something similar—basically, to find your genre niche and run with it. By “niche” I think she was also talking about making sure you write in a sub-genre or with a style that other people haven’t—something unique and original. Like non-humanoid science fiction, or humorous Biblical fiction, or time-travel prairie romances!
Okay, I guess we shouldn’t get carried away—not too original. But I realized that as writers, we can make it easy for the publishers to market us—that “whole package” which extends beyond just good writing.
Sue and Karen also talked about the marketing and publicity for my series. They admitted that they’re taking a risk with me, because they’re marketing to an age group and demographic they’ve never targeted before, and they’re going to use different marketing tactics—not the standard things like getting in the catalog, etc. I’m the guinea pig.
I guess that’s a good thing. I have a feeling God wants to test my faith in a major way. I just wish it didn’t involve the $100,000 cost/gamble to produce a single trade paperback book. Ai-yah—I’m starting to sweat already.
Karen is totally nice, and she’s also young—right in my reader demographic. She seems very excited about the campaign for my book, which is terrific. I think it’s a God thing that she’s the senior PR manager right at this time that Zondervan is publishing my series.
Next: The Adventures of Camy on the ICRS Floor.
The Shirlee and Sabrina Show: Two of my favorite people, Sabrina Fox and Shirlee McCoy, have teamed up in an interview on Sabrina’s blog here.
Comments
Good to see a publisher taking a risk.
For instance, we get a lot of Asian students here and in many universities across Canada. I don't know too many people that work with that age group but we do have, at least we've always had, Asian students at our church. We also have a number of Canadian-Asian couples who might know more people to market to.
During my year in residence at my university, at least half of my friends were Asian. That's why I still have a friend in Hong Kong. I don't think she is a believer the way we are but her son was married in a Church and I do write to her about what God means to me though I don't know if I've gotten into the Salvation story. She has a daughter in her late 20's, early 30's who just got engaged. Somehow after trying to read Diann's book and not being able to relate to the fears her character has, I have a feeling that it's probably easier for more people to relate to chick lit, because everyone has gone through that stage, than for singles to relate to wife-lit if you haven't gone through that. Certainly, as we age we do go through some of the same stages, but "Cold Cream, etc" related more to being a wife than just being an older woman.
Anyway, if you can, e.g., find out some of the churches that have Asian or half Asian members or ditto universities to target them specially somehow. I think a lot of non-Asians will be interested too if they have Asian friends as I do. The rest of it is just the same as African-American books. I read those too because I want to know what makes them different from me as well as the things we share, especially as Christians.
Oops. Talking much more than I intended.
E-mail coming sometime today.
; )
Let me know how I can help. I live in the community with the "Japanese Band School." My church is in the same area and we have a ton of Asian singles.
Also the assistant manager of Logos is the sister of a member and a really cool person. She's always looking to expand their inventory. :)