But, important as sales are, that’s not my sole criterion in assessing how After the Auction is “going.” I am intrigued by the reactions of readers and SHOCKED that many I’ve heard from like/love it.  Why am I shocked?  Let’s face it–this is a new venture for me–writing fiction.  From the trials and tribulations I’ve had–for instance, not hooking up with any of the myriad of agents I queried–let’s say that I had considerable self-doubt.

Some very nice things are happening in the wake of the book.  Tom Freudenheim, an icon in the world of Jewish and non-Jewish cultural circles, is writing a review in The Forward.  Tom’s career has included management or curatorial positions at such institutions as the UC-Berkeley Art Museum, the Smithsonian, the Jewish Museum in Berlin, and the Gilbert Collection in London, and he’s  a frequent contributor to publications including, lately, the Wall Street Journal.  I’d met Tom years ago at a conference of the Foundation for Jewish Culture, of which he was board chair at the time.  We’ve kept in touch on and off, which put him on my email list when I announced the book publication.  He wrote that he’d ordered it, and sent me a message with the subject line WOW!! after he read it–and the next thing I knew he wrote that he pitched The Forward for a short review–that I think will be good??

Getting the attention of the media–everything from even my local Jewish paper, J Weekly, to the New York Times (woke up one morning last week and remembered–oh, yeah, my kid works for the Times–not that it’s likely to help!  We’ll discuss this week.) is a challenge for any writer.  For one not published by a so-called mainstream publisher it’s really an uphill battle.  So, while The Forward is NOT the Times, it has a name in certain circles and will give me a blurb to parlay onto the next potential PR outlet.

Finally, one review that really means something to me is that of the aforementioned kid, Jonathan Ansfield, who flew home to the US yesterday from his Beijing residence (notice I say “home” to the US and Beijing “residence.”  I can dream–right?).  Jonathan and Amy arrived in Milwaukee last night.  On the phone he mentioned that he read the copy I’d sent them on the flight.  He seemed impressed with his mother’s written sex scene–but also said he could really see it as a movie (not the first to mention that) and will give it to someone he knows whose mom writes “treatments” (pitches for films).  Pretty cool when your grown kid thinks you’ve done something cool.

What else do I need?

Now, for those of you who haven’t bought or read it yet, doesn’t that make it more urgent?

But, no, I will not tell you what page it starts on. The book’s not that long. Even if you’re a reader who hunts straight for “the good parts,” it won’t take you that long to get there.

What might be construed as unique about the sex in my novel is that it’s sex for the after-60 set, a demographic I know intimately. And, at least in the opinion of one (unnamed) friend in the same demographic who read the book on a train, it was good enough to be a turn-on. On the other hand, a male friend of ours told my husband he thought it was pretty far-fetched and over the top (excuse the pun) to be realistic for our age group.  This being a guy-guy conversation, my husband said “writers only write what they know.”  Ahem…

So, you ask, what was it like writing this?  Did I think, perhaps worry, that it would reflect on my personal life experience? Mmm…a little (though, given reactions, that’s not a bad thing–certainly not for my husband, a self-described consultant on the sex text).  What was somewhat weird was working on this section with my developmental editor, Alan Rinzler, a gentleman of a certain age (roughly a year older than my husband), a veteran in the book business and, no doubt, in personal “experience.”  We had the most interesting exchanges via computer tracking/comment technology applied to my text.  I hesitate to be too graphic, but here is the gist of a few of Alan’s points along the way: “too mechanical,” “sounds painful,” “if she were facing…, it would be the  (YEAR I–Linda–GRADUATED FROM COLLEGE)  position.”    He used the number.  I remember thinking, “Yes, Alan, I know.”

So, in this process you want to be cool, hip, knowing, but how knowing?  Are you trying to impress your editor, for starters?  Are you hoping to turn on your readers?  And what determines success in sex scenes?

Ah, Google, the fount of all key words, even “writing sex scenes.”  This elicited a potential response of about 15 million entries.  I happened on one on the first page from writer Steven Almond.  It’s a 2003 piece in which he offers ten guiding principles.  Here are the first and the last.

#1 “Stop having sex. This is very important. Remember that the sexiest thing about sex is really desire, which is just a fancy word for not getting laid.”

And #10: “It is okay to get aroused by your own sex scenes. In fact, it’s pretty much required. Remember, part of the intent of a good sex scene is to arouse the reader. And you’re not likely to do that unless you, yourself, are feeling the same delicious tremors. You should be envisioning what you’re writing and — whether with one hand or two — transcribing these visions in detail.”

You can read the intervening eight tips on your own (but, trust me, I picked out “the good parts”).  As for what I wrote, I ran into Dr. Ruth Westheimer, whom I know as Miriam’s mother, and her longtime collaborator and publicist, Pierre Lehu, at Book Expo in May, and I’ve asked her to  take a look and approve!

In the meantime, I hope my sex scenes work for my readers, whatever their definition of that is.

is:

The biggest exhibitors are the major publishers–the MacMillans, Random Houses, Knopf–of this world, despite their b…… and moaning about how tough the business is.  These exhibit areas are lavish, with video, state-of-the-art signage, giant logo-ed carpeting. Not surprisingly, Google was there too, and Amazon and Barnes & Noble–as well as major distributors to independent bookstores, including Ingram and Baker & Taylor.    There were whole aisles–several of them–of displays by university presses, as well as hundreds on lesser known small publishers.  Plus, the e-book and audio book people.  And printing companies, collective promotion companies, foreign publishers (from Belgium to Israel to Saudi Arabia), and the San Francisco Writers Conference, the only entity like it I saw with a booth.  Attendee categories range from exhibitor to agents to booksellers to librarians author to book club member (how Eli registered: husband of published author was not a category!)

Since I’d self-published, so to speak, I didn’t have a publisher’s site to feature me at a signing.  Those that did included some big names, such as best-selling mystery writer  Michael Connelly, who was actually there signing books for a line of devotées that even Eli, a fan, thought was too long.  His patience, or lack of same, didn’t even respond to the free book  which came with the signing.  There were also huge lines for signings at Harlequin (romance) publishers.

Ah, the free books–that was an amazing phenomenon that I hadn’t expected.  (And we succumbed to a few more than we should have, considering that we’re schlepping them back to San Francisco this weekend, despite our limited luggage space for this Denver-New York-Chicago-Milwaukee odyssey of friends’, book, business, family, and reunion events strung one after another.) I’ll let you know what I like when I read the few I picked up.  Just like at the Jewish Book Network event–so many interesting books (so little time to read).

AFTER THE AUCTION did get some visibility at Book Expo.  I had signed up for a spot on a new titles showcase that was prominently positioned in the Javits lobby outside the exhibit areas–well placed near food, restrooms, newsstands, and seating (a much appreciated commodity after traipsing through the Expo).  And, networker/worker of a room (even a giant one like Javits) that I am, I met quite a few “relevant” people.

Like other self-publishing companies, Lightning Source the resource I used, was represented–as part of the massive Ingram exhibit (Ingram owns Lightning Source, one reason I chose it, as Ingram is a major book distributor). Sadly, I had no advance clue that some of their self-published products would be on display at that exhibit.  I asked the rep, who said, “Who’s your Lightning Source sales rep?”  So, I know now, if this happens again, that this is one more area of self-promotion–my self-publishing company sales rep!!  The key to a shot at exposure at the company’s exhibit.

So, I had my moment (or days) in the sun at Book Expo.  But for me, it was a learning experience, part of the totality of the learning experience that is publishing a book.

But maybe the next book will be displayed at one of the biggie publisher’s sites, with a queue for my signing.  It would be nice for Eli to have the patience to stick around for that one!

I’d really targeted this year’s JBN meeting as my timing goal for getting my book published.  And I was amazed at how many other authors apparently had, too.  The sessions run like a well-oiled machine: Each author gets two minutes to speak, and the next speaker sits in an “on deck” seat.  While the timekeeper doesn’t exactly use a hook or play Oscar night music, her bright red signs announcing 1 minute, 30 seconds, 10 seconds and her ultimate times-up rise from her seat are pretty effective in keeping the speakers in line.  That is, except for a couple–including at least one prominent novelist, Cathleen Schine, whose latest book, The Three Weissmanns of Westport, only got a great front-page review in the NY Times Book Review (which she did mention, but who wouldn’t?).  It surprised me that such a relatively well-known writer would appear for this try-out session; maybe it surprised her, too, but that was no reason for her to disregard the rules and ignore the timekeeper trying to be polite but firm.

There were other higher profile writers either there last night or presenting at one of the other JBN sessions.  The range of subject matter was from cookbooks to novels to religion to memoirs to history to a  single Jewish woman’s guide to life “between Bat Mitzvah and babushka.” (Age-wise, that talk put me in the babushka category, I think.)  From 5 pm to after 7–bang, bang, bang–there must have been 35 presentations with a few quick stand-up and stretch breaks (I don’t think anyone even got up to go to the restroom).

Afterward there was a kosher wine and hors d’oeuvre reception (the site was the Park Avenue Synagogue on the upper East Side of Manhattan) which was a chance to network with the Jewish Book Network.  Cathleen Schine may be a literary star, but this is where  neophyte novelist Linda Frank shines!  Armed with my new business cards (book cover on the back), I made the rounds and tried to talk with a representative of every city there.  Of course, my peripatetic life gave me a head start, as there were people from Milwaukee, Denver, and the Bay Area, and I already knew a few of them, as well as a friend’s daughter who runs the Jewish Book Festival in Austin and an old friend who’s an active volunteer and donor at the West Palm Beach JCC.

Will I get any speaking gigs from this?  Who knows?  Budgets are tight across the country, so flying in an unknown from San Francisco might not be a slam dunk.  In Austin they only bring in one fiction writer per festival.  I’m assured of Bay Area appearances, I’m told, and possibly as “home town girl” in Milwaukee.  Maybe Montreal, DC, New Orleans. But I got myself and the book out there.

And I’ve got some great tips on new books I want to read!

After a way too long absence, I’m back to the blog at an auspicious time: it’s almost Passover, when we use a Seder plate, which is the object of my protagonist’s search.  Okay, I’ve got relevance covered!  My husband and I are here in Beijing for Passover with our son and daughter-in-law here, the third time we’ve done Seder here.  Despite the super long winter they’ve had this year, with a few interspersed days of springlike dust storms, we’ve had a first day+ of sunny, 60-degree weather.

And why the long absence from blogging?  As is well known to many of my friends and family, I’ve been chair of “Jews in Modern China,” an exhibit running from February 24 to May 16 at the Presidio Officers’ Club Exhibition Hall in San Francisco. This exhibit depicts the three streams of Jewish settlement in Shanghai, Harbin, and other cities in China from the 1840s to 1949: Baghdadi Sephardim who came for commerce, Russians fleeing first czarist pogroms and later the Bolsheviks, and Central Europeans escaping the Holocaust. So far, this has been the Presidio’s most well attended exhibit, we’ve had great PR, docent tours, special lectures and events, and it’s consumed my life for months.  It’s a miracle–oh, wait, Chanukah is the miracle holiday–that we managed to get away for this trip.  But spending Passover with kids–priceless, especially when they live in China.  Fourteen people are coming to the Seder at Amy and Jonathan’s on Monday.

Interestingly, today we’re going to Tianjin and see Amy’s widowed father and his significant other.  Tianjin is one of the cities where Russian Jews lived, and just in the past several hours I’ve been in touch with a woman there connected with the Jewish museum in Tianjian.  She’s trying to get it open for us, though it’s closed on weekends.

Now for the big news: THE BOOK is in the works for publication!  It’s got a new title, which will be announced on and reflected by the web site ASAP.  Yes, faithful friends and blog readers, as previously promised 2010 is the year.  THIS YEAR IN BEIJING and THIS YEAR FOR THE BOOK.

More soon…Chag Sameach!  Happy Passover!  Wherever THIS YEAR finds you!

An e-publisher is courting me.  We had a long talk a few weeks ago during a week in which there was so much e-publishing buzz that I felt very cool and with-it in today’s world.  William Styron’s family was making news about the fact that his longtime publisher, Random House, didn’t have rights to e-publish.  E-publishing rights weren’t even thought of in Styron’s heyday. In December Media Bistro sponsored a New York City digital publishing summit in led by Jane Friedman, a publishing industry luminary formerly with Harper Collins, who’s made the leap to e-publishing (of old titles, such as Styron’s) in a start-up, Open Road Integrated Media.

But e-publishing is not a perfect answer and hardly a universally accepted concept.  Personally, my patronage of and concern for book stores (especially independents) notwithstanding,  I have to confess to the Kindle as a guilty pleasure.  We bought them in preparation for this fall’s Africa trip that didn’t happen; you’re not allowed much luggage on safari, and the long plane trips mandated lots of reading.  With six books downloaded, I’ve used the device, despite not going to Africa.  It’s fun and SO easy to read print adjusted to my eyesight and to carry around (downside is it’s one of the electronic devices flight attendants want you to turn off for take-off and about 20 minutes before landing).

But my potential market for Secrets of the Afikomen will mandate a physical product.  And, if a book succeeds through some form of self-publishing, there’s a chance a big name might pick it up later.  Not likely with e-publishing. Publishers aren’t going to let those rights slip away for long.

Good segue to self-publishing, which is what I’m really pondering here.  I’m beginning to explore this option and fighting to conquer the ego part of succumbing to it.  Is it for losers in the formal publishing world?  Is the caché of a “real” publishing deal still worth the struggle? The reality is that a newcomer, even with a book deal, is not likely to be showered with big publishing perks like a goodly advance, a book tour, or much marketing help.  There’s a lot I’d have to do myself either way, and I’m prepared for that (this web site is the beginning).  But distribution to book stores is a problem with self-publishing.  Here in San Francisco we hardly have room for that proverbial garage full of books to load into the car and schlep around the country.  Yet, I’ve seen at least one self-publishing “house” advertise its products in the New York Times Sunday Book Review section, which is a good sign of the potential for this route.

Lots to uncover and discover.  But this is the year.  Time to embrace the Chinese New Year Tiger and make it happen!

Blogging is amazing, to be sure, but it’s not the most worthwhile or even the most thrilling of my life’s experiences.  Certainly not. My work with the Monuments Men–now, that was work that made me proud.  One would say I was a Monuments Woman, although we women did not get the credit we deserved.  Yet another recurring theme in the story of my life.  Yet, living the life has made up for it.

I’d finished up at Cambridge in the late 1930s and gone up to London to study at the Courtauld Institute. Back then some called the Courtauld a finishing school for young women whose parents wanted them to acquire a basic knowledge of art–one requisite, or useful tool, toward the goal of becoming a proper wife.  I, of course, having read art history at Cambridge, scoffed at this and instead applied myself with great determination; I yearned to be a curator, you see.   The Warburg Library, Aby Warburg’s vast art trove, had shifted from Germany to London when the Nazis surfaced, and its relationship to the Courtauld lent more gravity to the courses and reputation.  And Anthony Blunt, then young and promising but not yet seasoned enough to be the Courtauld director, had begun to influence the direction of the institute, which was founded in 1932 with the grand gift of Sir Samuel Courtauld’s collection.  No doubt, you’ve heard of Blunt?  The gifted teacher and curator that I knew–it is hard to imagine him as a spy for the Russians all the time.

Anyway, I do go on…so sorry.  The war was coming, and we knew it, of course, for weeks ahead, that summer of 1939.  It was no secret that Hitler had already looted the great collections of every country where his legions had stomped their boots.  And a vicious air assault was expected. Everyone attached to a museum pitched in to evacuate the national treasures out of London to the countryside.  Like sending the children away, which was called Operation Pied Piper.  Fortunately, the paintings didn’t bawl as much as the children.  That work consigned me straight into the military as an attaché in the cultural section.  By 1943 we were actively preparing our own landing on the Continent to search out the troves stolen and hidden along the Nazi path of tyranny and destruction.  Within months after D-Day we art historians arrived in France, as well.

We veered in and out of the boundaries of enemy lines until the war’s end the following spring.  Then we plunged in, especially in Germany and Austria, the last hold-outs of the Nazi regime.  Imagine the sight of an American G.I. carrying up an El Greco from an underground cave in the Alps?  Or a priceless Greek sculpture?  This was routine.  The Nazis, of course, were unfailingly systematic, what with their lists, so we could tell which cities and even which families items came from.  The tricky part, alas, was finding the people, if they didn’t make claims.  Were we to assume that they perished?  Sadly, yes, that was so often the case. Our procedure then was to return art to its country of origin, not that the Russians went along with that, of course.

Important and high-level as that work was, it didn’t matter when I returned to Britain.  Who was I to think that a Jewish woman who had served her country so nobly would qualify for a curator position?  My only option was teaching art history in a girls’ school.  In doing so, I became yet another cog in the process of imparting to young women that scintilla of culture that would make them proper society matrons.  My revenge: a few really latched onto it, told me I’d inspired them, and went on to open galleries and even land museum positions.  Times had changed, you see.

But the Monuments Woman work stayed with me.  We hadn’t solved all the mysteries or safely returned everything to rightful owners.  We’d disbanded only two years after the war’s end; there was only so long for art to remain a priority.  There were war criminals to be tried, displaced persons to be settled, countries to be rebuilt, the Cold War–and just plain cold, hunger, and austerity all over Europe, especially here in England.  It was easy to push empty-handed art owners away.

Yet, I knew survivors and their heirs would resurface looking for their treasures.  I hoarded as many documents as I could, kept my ear to the ground among collectors and curators I knew and remained in contact with my cohorts among the Monuments Men.  Once I retired from teaching, in 1984, I parlayed this into working as a consultant to people seeking looted art still missing.

Which is how Lily Kovner came to ring me up and make me a character in Secrets of the Afikomen.

The column I’m citing, timed during the baseball championship games leading to the World Series, focused on the the fancy new baseball stadiums in New York, including the Mets’ new home named for its corporate sponsor, Citigroup, of federal rescue funds fame.  Herbert makes the point that, even for many families not desperately hurt by recession and unemployment, a jaunt to these new palaces of sport is an expense worthy of considerable thought.  Between tickets and concessions, baseball has priced itself out of the ballpark.  Herbert, recalling his childhood when “even the scalpers’ tickets were affordable,”  regrets that today’s youngsters of modest means have no access to America’s pastime, and people sleep on the street while one magnificent, luxury box-lined field after another opens.

This commentary juxtaposed with the news of the book price wars made me think that, while the price of one pastime has skyrocketed, the price of another is up for grabs.  My first take: this devalues reading.  But a closer look at the wars that ensued in advance of this holiday shopping season revealed that the wars really centered on big name best sellers–the likes of Dan Brown and, G-d help me, Sarah Palin–that Wal-Mart and Target pegged as discountable “loss leader” they could sell in quantity as their shoppers rampaged through the stores toward the bigger-ticket items on their lists.

Independent booksellers professed to be nonplussed by this move; after all, they’ve been under relative siege for years (thanks to Amazon, B&N, Borders, et. al.), and the big-box stores were unlikely to cater to their more literary- and service-minded clientele. Here in San Francisco some local bookstores weren’t even stocking Going Rogue.  So, if they weren’t worried, why should I?  I just find it hard to view books–any books–as a loss leader commodities.

Pronunciation: \ˈzhän-rə, ˈzhäⁿ-; ˈzhäⁿr; ˈjän-rə\
Function: noun
Etymology: French, from Middle French, kind, gender — more at gender
Date: 1770

1 : a category of artistic, musical, or literary composition characterized by a particular style, form, or content
2 : kind, sort
3 : painting that depicts scenes or events from everyday life, usually realistically

As the protagonist in Secrets of the Afikomen, I should be uniquely qualified to answer this question about the book my friend, Linda, has written. Ah, yes, we are friends–we’ve spent a lot of time together over the years as she’s worked to tell my story. Some in the book business strive to pinpoint a genre within fiction. Let’s go over some of the choices: mystery, thriller, literary, science fiction, romance, historical, women’s, spiritual. Then there are a couple that are new to me: chick lit and hen lit. And the “biz” categorizes uses the terms commercial and trade book, too. I understand commercial; trade fiction????

Where does Secrets of the Afikomen fit?

Like many people–Linda and me, to name two (OK, at least one of us is a real person)–it’s not a round peg in a round hole. The book transcends genres. It has elements of mystery, historical, women’s hen lit (sometimes called matron lit or granny lit, when referring to authors and female protagonists over a certain age), and I get a nice romance, too, though it’s not the bodice-ripping type. Linda and I admit we’re not literary here. But we’ll take commercial!

So, genre-wise, we’re a hybrid.

Does genre matter? Not to us. What matters is that people enjoy the read and that they get the chance to read Secrets of the Afikomen. Getting published would be a good way to accomplish this, of course. But these days there’s even not just one definition of getting published. More on that soon…

My story–the quest to find my Seder plate–was complicated enough. The vagaries of the book business these days serve up yet another mystery (but no romance).

Well, here goes: I’m nothing if not adaptable.  Warsaw.  London. New York.  Israel.  I’ve made my way for 96 years.  Pretty successful in business.  Personal life?  A few relatives, friends, a lot of acquaintances.  I stayed busy.  After I lost Elisabeth, no one could compare, so there was never a wife, no children.  But at least I had Lily; I could be like a father to her.  And a grandfather to her kids.  Such a blessing that’s been in my life.

So, that night, when Lily came over to the house and told me, who could believe it?  I was stunned.  All of a sudden, after so many years, the di Salamone Seder plate shows up in front of her eyes at an auction?  Then–poof–just like that, it’s gone again?

Such memories came back to me, memories of Elisabeth, Lily’s mother, my darling Elisabeth.  That Seder at her house in 1937, the night I brought the Seder plate.  What do they call it now?  A hostess gift?   That Jack, her obnoxious husband, thought it was for all of them, but, no, only for Elisabeth.  That jerk didn’t know what a prize he had in her.  A Seder plate?  I would have given her the world, if only…

What could I do?  One thing you learn when you’re 96 years old: you can’t look back–it’ll drive you meshuggah.  You don’t make it to 96 looking back.

Lily came to me a wreck.  She wanted me to help her.  What could I do?  I’m nobody in the collector world now, a has-been.

We sat down, we had some Chinese, I listened.  She wanted to go after the Seder plate.  I thought it was a bad idea, dangerous even. She doesn’t know  what it was like–those Nazis.  Of course, she saw them take away her father and the Seder plate. Granted, her parents and grandparents were killed in the Holocaust.  But she thinks that’s ancient history now, all wiped away.

Me, I’m not so sure.  One thing I could offer was to connect Lily to Simon Wiesenthal.  Now, there’s a guy totally wrapped up in the past, but doing something about it.  Personally, I don’t know how he can stand it: embroiling himself day after day in those files, following up on leads, hearing people’s stories.  I admire the guy. But I could never do it.

I’m not usually a paranoid type, but the whole Nazi connection–the art looting, this Bucholz name, Wiesenthal’s report that Bucholz vanished after the war–it scares me.  I don’t want Lily getting mixed up in this.  I couldn’t stand to lose her, too.  I warned her, “This isn’t child’s play like looking for the Afikomen,” I said.  So, what does she do?  She says, “Great, Uncle!  Afikomen.  That’ll be the code name for my search.”  A code name she has to have!

OK–so I can’t stop her.  She’s sixty years old.  I’m glad she met Simon Rieger.  Maybe he’ll go with her on this wild goose chase. At least maybe she’ll have a little romance out of this, if nothing else.  She’s too wonderful to sit home alone every night.  Young, vibrant, like her mother.  If I were 30 years younger…