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On Tuesday and Wednesday, I was in Atlanta, Georgia, with my daughter and friends at the American Girl doll store.

If you’re not familiar with the American Girl line…you must not be an American resident with an almost-9 year old girl. :)

Each doll represents a different time period in American history. The dolls have their own book series, movies, accessories, outfits, and furniture that you can (if you have lots and lots of money) opt to purchase.

My daughter is only slightly interested in hearing about writing conferences and signing that I go to (she’s even gone to a couple and ended up buying up half the bookstore while I was at the signing table), but she was fascinated when she heard I was on a panel with an American Girl author at Malice Domestic.

There aren’t that many doll stores for American Girl. Usually you order everything online. So this was a special trip. The store also has a beauty parlor for the dolls where you can choose a hairstyle and the stylist does the hair right there in front of you (the dolly is in a salon chair.)

There’s a restaurant at the store, so we booked dinner there. You have it with your dolls (they sit in booster seats…see pic at top of post.)

Then the hotel we stayed at offered a tea party for the dolls. So the girls took the dolls down to the hotel lobby for cookies and milk (and empty tea cups for the dolls.)

My daughter and her friend were in heaven.

And the whole time the other mom and I were looking at each other and saying, “These folks are marketing geniuses.”

The hook? This is all designed with an older girl in mind—the dolls are specifically marketed to the 9-12 year old range. This was a completely untapped market when the company was founded in 1984. Parents like them because each doll has a story that ties into a historical time period.

Hooks drive writers a little crazy. We’d like to write things without even thinking about hooks because hooks are frequently thrown back at writers by agents and editors as a reason for a rejection—and they represent the commercial side of the business. We’d rather not think about the commercial side when we’re being creative.

I think you can pin down your hook either before you write your book, or after you write the book. Afterwards is harder, but at least you haven’t messed up your creative mojo.

But, if you’re querying, you’re going to need to have a selling point, or hook. Here are some questions to ask yourself when you try to determine what your hook is:

Who is our intended reader?
Why will they read our book instead of other books in the genre?
And, two questions that are opposites:
What sets our book apart?
What traits does it share with other successful books in its genre?

How do you find your book’s hook when it’s time to write your query letter?

It’s a whole new world for writers—the world of marketing. It’s usually not an area that comes naturally to us, either…we’re creative people, not salesmen. Crime writer Martin Edwards asked if I could give an overview of different marketing strategies for writers. Hope you’ll pop over to “Do You Write Under Your Own Name?” and take a look.

How can we convey a sense of place to our readers—help them feel like they’re actually visiting the region we’re writing about–without overdoing it?

Hope you’ll join me on Margot Kinberg’s blog, Confessions of a Mystery Novelist, where I share some tips for writing your region.

People sometimes think of writers as being sensitive types.

I have to snort when I hear that. Writers can’t be sensitive types. Oh, I think that we’re naturally pretty emotional people.

But to make it in the publishing world and not completely have a breakdown, we have to develop a really, really tough skin. And lose a lot of the sensitivity.

Criticism starts early in the process: from us. We’re sometimes our own worst enemies—comparing our writing negatively to others or telling ourselves that we don’t know what we’re doing.

Then comes our first readers or critique groups. This is where we first hear that the manuscript we’ve slaved over has some problems.

Then come agents or editors or both—either we’re getting rejections from them or we’re getting editorial change requests (something wasn’t right.)

Then comes reviewers—both print and online. And readers.

All the criticism or rejection can feel pretty overwhelming, if we let it.

What I try to tell myself is that everyone is entitled to their opinion. There are plenty of great books out there that I’ve heard friends rave about that I actually didn’t enjoy—and it wasn’t the book, it was me. Maybe I wasn’t in the mood to read something serious/silly/thoughtful. Or maybe the narrative voice just didn’t resonate with me.

This past week, an article from The Morning News got a lot of buzz. The article listed some of Time Magazine’s picks for the 100 best novels from 1923 to the present day—and gave their 1-star Amazon reviews.

Here are a couple of excerpts to show that if you’re getting reader criticism (from crit groups, agents, editors, or readers), you’re not alone:

The Grapes of Wrath (1939)
Author: John Steinbeck
“While the story did have a great moral to go along with it, it was about dirt! Dirt and migrating. Dirt and migrating and more dirt.”

The Lord of the Rings (1954)
Author: J.R.R. Tolkien
“The book is not readable because of the overuse of adverbs.”

Mrs. Dalloway (1925)
Author: Virginia Woolf
“The only good thing to say about this “literary” drivel is that the person responsible, Virginia Woolf, has been dead for quite some time now. Let us pray to God she stays that way.”

The Sun Also Rises (1926)
Author: Ernest Hemingway
“Here’s the first half of the book: ‘We had dinner and a few drinks. We went to a cafe and talked and had some drinks. We ate dinner and had a few drinks. Dinner. Drinks. More dinner. More drinks. We took a cab here (or there) in Paris and had some drinks, and maybe we danced and flirted and talked s*** about somebody. More dinner. More drinks. I love you, I hate you, maybe you should come up to my room, no you can’t’… I flipped through the second half of the book a day or two later and saw the words ‘dinner’ and ‘drinks’ on nearly every page and figured it wasn’t worth the risk.”

How do you handle criticism? Any tips to share?

Hope you’ll join me later today/tomorrow when I guest post on Margot Kinberg’s great blog, Confessions of a Mystery Novelist.

Hi everyone! Hope you’ll pop by and join me today at Hey, There’s a Dead Guy in the Living Room where I talk a little about social media—how different forms of social media differ from each other and how we can keep track of and limit the amount of time we spend online.

And today at Mystery Lovers’ Kitchen, my funny mystery writing friend Deb Sharp (who guest posted here a couple of weeks ago) is sharing her recipe for Mama’s Nuptial Nectar Punch—and a really interesting picture of herself in a wedding veil. :)