debut novel

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Writing Tip #89

What you didn’t know won’t hurt you. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in the past few years as a novelist, it’s that there are few truly original ideas.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve read a book and stumbled upon an idea or location description or character trait that resembled something or someone in my debut novel, Baby Grand — something that I thought, fool that I am, was totally original and never seen anywhere else before. I mean, how could it not be original, right? It was an observation that I had come up with out of thin air.

Well, apparently, the air is thin for a lot of writers. Just today, I was reading Andrew Gross’ The Blue Zone, and about midway through a suspicious looking fellow was introduced who, as Gross describes, wore “a large gold cross” around his neck. Guess what? The villain of Baby Grand, Don Bailino, is also first seen wearing a large gold cross.

When this kind of thing first started happening, and my book — although written — was yet to be published, I’d get a bit distressed: Does this mean that I have to rewrite the passage or description or rethink the character because a novel was already published with a similar idea?

I realized that was silly. I mean, if we tear apart our books every time we see something similar someplace else, our books would never get written. There will ALWAYS be something similar someplace else. Especially if you read a lot. (And, as a writer, you should.)

So now I just sort of smile and think to myself, Great minds…

This kind of thing actually reminds me of a friend whose son just graduated from high school today. I remember when her son was a baby, and she had to work and leave him with a babysitter — something she hated doing, but needed the extra income — she instructed the babysitter that if her son were to say his first word or take his first step, not to tell her. This way, when her son said his first word or took his first step with her, it would be the first time as far as she was concerned, even if in actuality wasn’t. What she didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her.

I guess that’s my motto when I come across these novel similarities: What I didn’t know won’t hurt me. Nor should it.

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Bryan Adams and ‘Baby Grand’

So I’m doing what I do every morning, checking out various social media sites for news and trends, and I come across the new song “Don’t Look Back” from Bryan Adams, one of my all-time favorite recording artists (his was my very first concert when I was a teenager):

http://twitmusic.com/embed/songs/don-t-look-back

And I think to myself, Hey, this is perfect for BABY GRAND. “Don’t look back” is a recurring theme in my debut thriller. And the song’s opening line, “Look into the eyes of a child,” made me think of little Charlotte Grand, who is at the center of the story.

So I ask Bryan Adams — via Twitter, of course — if I may declare “Don’t Look Back” the unofficial theme song of Baby Grand and he says yes.

How cool is that?

So there you go. New theme song. Next on the list is to get Robert De Niro to agree to play Gino Cataldi. Hmmm…

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Let the BABY GRAND-palooza Blog Tour Begin!

One of the most important — and challenging — aspects of publishing a book today, whether you self-publish or traditionally publish, is marketing. Getting the word out. I just came across a sobering article that says that half of all self-published authors earn less than $500 a year. Holy cow!

That’s why when my novel was published last week on Amazon, I revved up the marketing machine immediately and reached out to bloggers to see if they might need some help writing posts this summer (as a blogger, I know how difficult it can be to come up with new material regularly) and would like a guest blogger or an eager interviewee. The response has been wonderful.

Today is the first stop on what I’m calling the Baby Grand-palooza Blog Tour. Thank you to Belinda Frisch, who was kind enough to interview me. You can check out the interview here and here. Of course, while I’m looking to promote my debut novel, I also want to be able to provide useful insight into the writing, editing and publishing process. Hopefully, I succeeded. :)

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It’s a Book! ‘Baby Grand’ Available on Amazon Kindle

It’s finally here! My debut novel, Baby Grand, is available on Amazon Kindle for the promotional price of $1.99.

It will be available on the Nook and other devices and as a print-on-demand paperback later this year.

Right now, I am completely overwhelmed and exhausted and excited and cannot think of anything clever or interesting to say. Just know that this book is what it is because of your support over these past two years — through all the writing, procrastinating, editing, more procrastinating, promoting and more.

Thank you. Truly.


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Advance Praise for ‘Baby Grand’

Here’s a sampling of some of the advance praise for Baby Grand. Thank you to all of you who took the time to read my debut novel. I am grateful for your kindness and humbled by your kind words.

  • “A perfect thriller from Dina Santorelli—heart-stomping, emotion-packed and utterly surprising. Readers will be gripped by the tightly woven story and richly layered characters. A terrific read!”
    —Ellen Meister, author of The Other Life
  • “What an enjoyable read! It pulled me in at the beginning and didn’t let go until the last page. Very difficult to put down! I’m already looking forward to the author’s next book.
    —Joseph Mugnai, publisher, Family magazine
  • “A superb debut for Dina Santorelli. A well-crafted novel that’s also a page-turner. Baby Grand’s a winner; you won’t want to put it down.”
    —Julia Markus, critically acclaimed biographer and winner of the Houghton Mifflin Literary Award for her novel Uncle
  • “Dina Santorelli has the gift of a natural storyteller, and Baby Grand sweeps along at a frantic pace, plunging the reader into a tale with wonderfully real characters you care about. It’s very human, very exciting, and absolutely engrossing.”
    —Chris Nickson, author of the Richard Nottingham series of historical mysteries
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Writing Tip #78

If feeling uninspired, convince yourself that you’ll only sit down and write for 10 minutes… With all the preparations for the publication of Baby Grand (big cover reveal this week!), I found myself stumped for a writing tip for today, so I called upon my 14-year-old son Griffin, who happened to be sitting next to me eating lunch, to see if he might have any ideas up his sleeve.

Griffin became focused for a moment, kind of like Jeopardy! contestants do when they’re asked to spell something, and then said, “Why don’t you suggest to your readers that if they need to start writing but don’t feel like it, they should tell themselves that they’re only going to do it for 10 minutes. Then, after 10 minutes, they’ll be into it and they’ll be willing to keep going.”

Wow. What a great idea. I mean, I knew the kid was brilliant, but still… I asked him how he came up with it so quickly.

“From you,” he said.

“Me?”

“Yeah, that was one of the tips I read back when you were doing WHY magazine.”

Was it? And suddenly a vague memory came back to me, and I knew he was right. And I had to give myself a tiny pat on the back — not for the tip, which actually is very helpful, but for giving birth to this amazing young man who not only retained some interesting nugget of information he had read back when he was merely 10 years old, but for being interested enough in his Mom’s career to even read WHY in the first place.

Have you ever tried this tip? Did it work for you?

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Why I’m Self-Publishing ‘Baby Grand’

Why am I self-publishing my debut novel Baby Grand? In short, because it feels right.

As many of you know, I’m no stranger to the commercial book world. In addition to being a professional writer/editor for more than 20 years (I’ve had freelance articles written in Newsday, CNNMoney.com, etc.), I served as the “with” writer for the nonfiction title Good Girls Don’t Get Fat (Harlequin, October 2010), authored by Dr. Robyn Silverman, contributed text for the upcoming dessert cookbook, Brown Betty (Wiley, October 2012) and am currently editing a book for a 2012 release. Traditional publishing was something I had always considered for my first novel, simply because that’s the world I worked in professionally.

In January 2010, Stonesong in NYC signed-up Baby Grand, and, after I finished the first draft of the manuscript and three rounds of revisions, we started querying selected publishers last year. When the rejections started trickling in, as they do (as a freelance writer who’s spent many years querying editors, although rejections always sting, you learn that they’re part of the business), I found the nature of the rejections intriguing – some editors just weren’t crazy about the book for one reason or another, which is fine, and others really liked it, but blamed other factors (genre-crossing, etc.) in their reluctance to sign it, which is fine too.

But I have to tell you: The process was frustrating me, especially the waiting. And there’s lots of waiting involved in traditional publishing, mostly because agents and editors have to read your manuscript – and they’ve got lots of manuscripts to read. The thing is, I was willing to wait, had been planning on waiting (although it’s kind of like parenting – you know it’s going to be hard, but don’t really know how hard it is until you’re there, in the middle of the night, wiping up vomit). But I started to question exactly what I was waiting for.

Continue reading →

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Breaking News: ‘Baby Grand’ to be Released as eBook

Well, it’s official. My debut novel Baby Grand will be released as an eBook through Amazon’s KDP Select program. Final draft and cover should be ready for upload by mid-April with publication in late April/first week of May. I’ll keep you posted on the details.

And I’m happy to announce that throughout the publishing process I will continue to work with Stonesong – the New York-based literary agency that signed-up Baby Grand back in January 2010 when the manuscript was merely a third completed. I don’t know what I would do without the support and dedication and amazingness of Judy Linden and the entire Stonesong team who have been staunch supporters not only of this book, but of me, and I am so happy to be doing this with such a dynamic group of women.

In the coming weeks, as we get closer to Baby Grand’s publication date, I will be answering questions you may have regarding this announcement, such as why I chose to self-publish, why I chose to go with Amazon’s KDP Select, etc. And, as always, I will share with you the ins and outs of the process, from copyediting to price-setting to making myself nuts watching sales stats (and I will!).

Expect the big cover reveal in the coming weeks as well as advance praise for Baby Grand!

What’s more, I have plans to make Baby Grand available as a print-on-demand paperback for those of you who like to read books the old-fashioned way (I know you’re out there!). I would include my Mom in this group, but she just told me last week that she would read my novel anywhere, even if it were written on a napkin. :)

I look forward to sharing all the exciting news surrounding the release of this book. Thank you to all of you who have supported me since I started writing this blog (my two-year anniversary is March 30) and for your support of authors and reading.

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There’s Nothing Like Your First Time

We talk a lot about debut authors around here. As a freelance journalist looking to publish her first novel, I’m interested in hearing about the first-timer’s road to publication. (Yesterday, Kathleen Rodgers told us about hers.) Today, Carol Garvin posted a list of debut novels on her blog, many of which I’ve read and enjoyed. I remember when I read A Time to Kill, the first novel written by John Grisham — I read it after The Firm, the book that launched Grisham into the stratosphere. In his author’s note to A Time to Kill, Grisham wrote something that always stuck with me: “This one came from the heart. It’s a first novel, and at times it rambles, but I wouldn’t change a word if given the chance.”

Although my mind right now is focused on another round of revisions, my hope is that when Baby Grand (fingers crossed!) is published one day, I will feel the very same way.