Notes From the Shamus Awards (Or, What Publishers Don't Do)

 

(Disclaimer: My experiences with the publishing industry have not been such I wish to repeat them. Take my comments below as honest appraisals from an admittedly biased point of view, which doesn’t make me wrong.

 

That said, the five books we selected were all worthy of winning the award and might have won in a year when the competition was not as strong.)

 

I was recently a judge for the Private Eye Writers of America Shamus Awards; the results will be announced at Bouchercon in Calgary. Our panel received 34 novels, several of which reminded me that, while my experiences with small publishers were less than optimal, the big boys aren’t much better.

 

I’ll leave aside marketing campaigns, or the lack thereof. We all know that ship has sailed and sunk. The big boys are sloppy even with the most targeted of marketing, such as submitting for awards.

 

Here are the requirements to qualify for a Shamus Award:

Eligible works must feature as a main character a person PAID for investigative work but NOT employed for that work by a unit of government. These include traditionally licensed private investigators; lawyers and reporters who do their own investigations; and others who function as hired private agents. These do NOT include law enforcement officers, other government employees, or amateur, uncompensated sleuths.

 

Succinct and clearly written. Yet half a dozen publishers sent books that didn’t qualify. One book overtly stated the protagonist was a government employee, though this was left murky until the last few pages. Is reading the requirements too much to ask? Or maybe they didn’t read the book? Or ask the author?

 

The most egregious example of sloppy work came from the publisher of a well-known author whose name often appears on award lists. We were tasked with evaluating books published in 2025; the publisher’s cover letter indicated a January 2026 release. I suspected a typo, so I checked. Sure enough, January 2026. This is your job, people. At least pretend to make an effort.

 

One day each judge received a box, sans cover letter or packing slip, with 12 books in it. Maybe that was all we were supposed to get; maybe not. There was no way to know. Another box arrived the day before the deadline containing two books and a cover letter that mentioned three. I sent him an e-mail to point out the error; he apologized profusely and overnighted the missing book. It worked out, but why wait until the day before the deadline?

 

A friend I trust recently pointed out that my cover descriptions could be better. Since I had 34 examples written by experts sitting in my reading room, I figured I’d not get a better resource.

 

This is why I don’t get paid to figure.

 

Almost without exception they give away too much of the story, including the first big reveal, which spoils whatever tension the author intended. The prose is too often not just purple but lurid, leading people unfamiliar with the author to potentially false conclusions about the style and quality of writing inside. Several have spelling, usage, and grammar errors. I can’ t decide if the people writing them were incompetent, or if the text was produced by AI and not proofread; I also can’t decide which is worse. A publisher’s lifeblood is clever and literate use of the written word. Such amateurish dust jacket blurbs are akin to Weyerhaeuser setting forest fires.

 

Things aren’t much better inside the book. Authors who write hardcover novels are under enormous pressure to meet deadlines and word counts; rarely is what they turn in isn’t as clean as they’d like it to be. That shouldn’t be a problem, as the publisher who pushed them so hard for the deadline has editors and proofreaders to tidy up after them. The author’s job is to be creative and on time.

 

Well, Maxwell Perkins* is dead and his descendants aren’t doing so hot themselves. Many of the books I read were filled with

·         The same word used too often and too close together.

·         Flabby writing. I realize not everyone wants to write as sparely as I do, nor should they; that’s a stylistic decision. Still, the amount of time spent on things that do not matter – say, two full paragraphs describing a waitress who will take an order and never be seen again – is mind numbing. Readers are busy people. Don’t waste their time.

·         Unnecessary repetition. I was taught, if I wrote the same thing three ways in hope of getting through to the reader, to pick the best and cut the others. This no longer appears to be the case, as the practice is clearly endorsed by publishers who must believe their readers are so stupid they need things explained multiple times.

 

The philosopher Tom Waits once said, “The world is a hellish place, and bad writing is ruining the quality of our suffering.” There is a lot of good writing out there. There’d be even more if the publishing industry held up its end.

 

(* - If you don’t know who Maxwell Perkins was, or have not seen the movie Genius, rectify the situation immediately.)