{"id":683,"date":"2008-11-15T23:27:16","date_gmt":"2008-11-15T23:27:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/mindthegap\/2008\/11\/15\/in_which_books_are_judged_by_covers\/"},"modified":"2008-11-15T23:27:16","modified_gmt":"2008-11-15T23:27:16","slug":"in_which_books_are_judged_by_covers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/mindthegap\/2008\/11\/15\/in_which_books_are_judged_by_covers\/","title":{"rendered":"In which books are judged by covers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Many years ago when my first novel Experimental Heart<\/em> was in the process of being repeatedly rejected, editors would tell my agent that its main problem was one of categorization: What cover would we put on this?<\/em> At the time, the bookshops in Amsterdam were awash with geisha covers. A year later it was all Renaissance portraits of demure young ladies in pearls, hopelessly falling in love with the painter on the other side of the palette. Pink, lavender and mint-green signaled chick lit, while lad lit fiction sported primary yellows and blues. Fads came and went as my manuscript passed by desk after desk, the covers seeming to chase an elusive dream of best-sellerdom as if they could possibly disguise the quality \u2013 or lack thereof \u2013 of the words inside. Are readers really so shallow? <\/p>\n

\n\"\"
\nTangible euphoria<\/strong> My advance copy finally arrives<\/p>\n

\nWhen most people think of science or scientists and fiction, ‘science fiction’ seems to be the only category that exists. In such a climate, a non-SF novel about scientists \u2013 lab lit \u2013 doesn’t stand a chance. Or at least, that’s how it was when I started. I’ve been making a lot of noise with LabLit.com<\/a>, which is finally starting to have an impact, and others, like Carl Djerassi<\/a> and Anne Lackie<\/a>, have been promoting similar causes for many years. With the rise of serious funding for ‘sci-art’ as a public engagement incentive, there have been numerous efforts to bring writers and scientists together. But is that enough to bulk up the number of lab lit novels out there (which currently stands<\/a> at about a hundred ever written)?<\/p>\n

\nThe thing is, categorization and facilitation are not the only obstacles. Publishing professionals, who are usually arts and humanities trained, are not shy about confessing their aversion to science as a topic. In the past, these people have exerted sole control over what the rest of us get to read \u2013 and there was nothing that lab lit authors could do about it, except for the occasional one (usually already established in non-science topics) who got lucky and found an editor with a more open mind.<\/p>\n

\nBut this is starting to change. Technology is now giving opportunities to niche authors that never before existed. Just as musicians can circumvent the traditional recording industry by producing, distributing, advertising and selling music themselves, the new affordability of digital print-on-demand, coupled to websites and social networking, has made it feasible for anyone to be a published author. The chance of these authors producing a best-seller is probably as remote as a MySpace garage band reaching the top ten, but the possibility is nevertheless there, and such successes are becoming increasingly common. <\/p>\n

\nSo how did I get published in the end, when the traditional route of the agent gateway failed, when even getting shortlisted for the Dundee International Book Prize greased no wheels? To be entirely frank, it was all through hard work and self-promotion. I founded LabLit.com to raise awareness of the issues, toiling over it almost single-handedly for years with more time and money than I could really spare. Through this, I gained enough cachet to convince Waterstone’s to run an experiment<\/a> with marketing lab lit, and to convince Phil Campbell to let me write about it<\/a> in Nature<\/em> (after meeting him at a science\/media party I blagged my way into via various contacts). This article brought in hundreds of emails, including one from John Inglis of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press. We stayed in touch and discussed possible projects for several years until eventually \u2013 just when I was on the brink of publishing it myself via CreateSpace \u2013 he offered to buy the book. <\/p>\n

\nThe rest may be history, but the story is by no means over. Most publishers have a slim marketing budget, so even authors at megalithic imprints have to do a lot of their own legwork to get the word out. Again, I believe the internet is key here: the blogosphere is word-of-mouth writ large, and I am hoping to make more than just a few ripples. If there is any useful lesson here for lab lit authors, it is to never give up, to keep chasing every opportunity that arises. And do visit LabLit.com \u2013 we can serialize your novel, publish chapters as short-story excerpts, listen to your angst on the Forums, and do whatever we can to promote you.<\/p>\n

\nMeanwhile, the book should ship any day now!<\/p>\n

\nAmazon.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n

\nPublisher<\/a> (If you register for free as a Gold Member, CSHL Press will give you a 10% discount)<\/p>\n

\nAmazon.com<\/a><\/p>\n

\nAmazon.de<\/a><\/p>\n

\nAdvanced praise for ‘Experimental Heart’:<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n“It is terrific…I was gripped from the first page to the last, which is unusual for me…[ the author has done] a brilliant job of weaving in so many aspects of science – experimental, social, and political – without making them intrusive.”
\n– Martin Raff, Molecular Biology of the Cell<\/em><\/p>\n

\n“Science as it is practiced today can be conceptualized as a mystery story, or a love story, or a thriller. In EXPERIMENTAL HEART Rohn has made a brilliant synthesis of these three modes, resulting in a page-turner with depths, exploring the hope and danger of both bio-medicine and lab romance. In short, a true novel. Scientists who gave up reading fiction about science because it’s never right\u2014check this out. Non-scientists wondering what goes on it in that weird culture\u2014find out here. By the end you’ll be reading as fast as you can.”
\n– Kim Stanley Robinson, Hugo- and Nebula-award winning author of Red Mars, Antarctica<\/em> and Forty Signs of Rain<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Many years ago when my first novel Experimental Heart was in the process of being repeatedly rejected, editors would tell my agent that its main problem was one of categorization: What cover would we put on this? At the time, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-683","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/mindthegap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/683","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/mindthegap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/mindthegap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/mindthegap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/mindthegap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=683"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/mindthegap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/683\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/mindthegap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=683"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/mindthegap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=683"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/mindthegap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=683"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}