A stalking cat and the dilemma of publishers, booksellers, and authors

My cat, at age 17, has become a stalker. He's always been affectionate and used to get on my desk and rub on my arm until he got a little love, but now he stalks. He sits on the end of the desk and stares intently at my dinner while I'm eating--as though willing the food to jump off the plate and to him. Tonight I locked him out of the study and enjoyed my supper in peace. When I'm in the kitchen he stares at me accusingly. He skulks around under the kitchen cabinets, looking for crumbs. The whole thing is he's hungry. His teeth are so rotten that he can no longer eat the dry food I used to leave out all the time. Now he eats the special kidney-diet canned food from the vet--read expensive there. Now I would give this aging friend all the food he wants--he deserves it at his ripe old age--but he wants fresh food every time. It's a delicate balance to give him enough but not too much--if it's left in his dish, even for an hour or two, he scorns it. My Scottish genes are too strong. I'm not going to throw out a perfectly good hunk of expensive food. So we're at war. I've won the early morning battle, I think by kicking visciously when he started to stalk me in the bed. Now he waits until the dog gets me up, and his dish is always cleaned of every little bit. So I know he can do it. Meantime, I alternate between feeling angry and guilty.
The Sisters in Crime blog is very informative and educational, and it's gotten me to thinking it's hard for both publishers and authors. Something I read last night made me think it's not wise to publish with the first independent small press that shows an interest--just when I was thinking okay, if a press likes my mystery and will do a decent job, I just want to see it in print. Agents don't want to look at you after you do that, and bookstores likely won't carry your book because it's probably nonreturnable. Ah, returns, there's the rub.
Bookselling is the only business I know where retailers can return unsold stock. My son Jamie is in the toy business, and the man who mentored him in that business, married to a publisher, used to rant, "Returnable! That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. Once something is sold, it's sold." But it isn't. Returns are a long-standing tradition in publishing, and since "big chain" stores rely on them, we're not likely to get it to change. But the blog mentor today, a bookseller, pointed out that if a publisher tries to push a book on non-returnable terms, he reads that as a signal that the publisher doesn't have real faith in his title. But for publishers, returns are a nightmare, especially in January or February and midsummer when stores clean out their shelves to prepare for a new season.
And what does this mean to an author? Well, a publisher may be reluctant to take on a new author, envisioning cartons of returns. And if you publish with a small, independent press, your book will probably be sold nonreturnable and bookstores won't be anxious to carry it because who knows if they can sell it
Writing the book is the least of the problems, but it's where I'm stuck. I have one mystery ready to go, featuring a real estate agent who renovates old houses. It's out right now to one agent and one indie publisher. Should I work on the sequel? Should I start a new book--maybe I could achieve more depth, and it seems logical with my background and interests that I write about cooking--but there are so many mysteries about cookiing, what can I do to make mine stand out. A dilemma.
I'm reading a lot of fiction right now.

Politics and feminism, and some bookselling thoughts

I just watched an interview with Letty Cottin Pogrebin, the outspoken feminist, and her daughter. Pogrebin is for Clinton, the daughter for Obama. Pogrebin seems to feel that we're so close to having a woman as president we must elect Hilary; the daughter sees, as I think many young people do, the emotional argument of hope and change. Pogrebin, like a lot of her sisters, has spent much of her adult life hoping to see a woman as president, and she's dismayed that it's so near and yet so far. There was a sentiment of "It's her turn; he should wait his turn." It reminds me of a friend who, with truly female logic, pointed out that he's younger, so she should go first and then he could have his turn and we Democrats would have the White House for 16 years. I told her I don't think it works that way. But Pogrebin made me think about my own stance, and I don't think the feminism angle enters into my support of the Clinton campaign. If I were thinking in terms of diversifying our government, I would be equally for either candidate (and truth be told, I will be happy with either). But my support of Clinton is based on the experience argument. I think I can say that honestly. It reminds me some of twenty years ago when a friend said you had to vote on a single issue--whether or not a candidate supported women's rights and abortion. I don't think government is that clear cut.
Hillary Clinton was in Fort Worth today, and Melinda really wanted to go see her. She said it would be impossible to park but we could take a bus downtown. I felt like a wimp who was letting her down when I said, "It's too cold to stand on a bus stop, and I don't want to be with thousands of other people." Well, of course, it turned out tragically. With the death of the Dallas policement who was part of her escort, Clinton cancelled the rally and went back to Dallas. That act--and her obvious distress--answered, to me, some of the critics who find her hard and controlled.
Yesterday, it turned so cold between the time I went to work and the time we went to lunch, that I got chilled and stayed that way all day. Today I bundled up in heavy clothes and was almost too warm. But sitting with friends from church in a restaurant, we got chilled again every time the door opened. This is Texas though--60s tomorrow and 70 by Sunday.
Grace & Gumption: Stories of Fort Worth Women was the lead review on the book review page of Southern Living--I picked up a copy in the grocery today. That's a real coup. The problem of marketing books is always with us. We haven't had time to post books on amazon's Search Inside the Book, and yet we all feel it's essential. Then today we got hit with a request to join Microsoft's Live Books Search program--to me, it sounds like their answer to amazon, but they're in partnership with the wholesale distributorship Ingram. So it too seems important--lots and lots of booksellers buy from Ingram. I remain baffled that the university wants us to increase sales but won't give us the personnel to do the necessary marketing.
We have an author who hand sells his book with a vigor that astounds me (especially since he's 80). But he's gone all over South Texas and also up into Oklahoma (where his memoir begins) taking the book to libraries, bookstores, and the like. When libraries say they've never heard of it or booksellers say our rep hasn't mentioned it, he thinks we not doing our part. In truth, it's not possible for us to give that kind of publicity to every book--librarians are overwhelmed with catalogs and mailings, reps have too many books to mention each one individually. The author is absolutely the best salesman. I think Ill write something on that, to be given to each author when his or her book comes out.
Enough. I'm going to see if I can play with Google Reader and figure it out.