The Vampire Craze

An editor once told me one of things she worried about at every writing conference was underestimating the abilities of someone who really didn't look like their notion of a writer. Someone with a bad perm, wearing old sneakers, stained polyester pants and a saggy T-shirt. This happened to her once, and she never forgot it.

Because the lady turned out to be one of the most successful romance writers ever. By dissing her the editor lost a lot of credibility with her publishers. Sending editors to a writers conference isn't cheap. They are supposed to spot rising talent. 

The editor's comment has stayed with me because writer's conference are by nature--well, exhausting. They just are. I can just imagine an editor spending an entire afternoon listening to pitches and having someone show up announcing they have written a book about vampires. Does that sound promising? Probably not. I'll bet the editor's first reaction is that it's been done for goodness sake.

I'll bet more than one editor regrets not paying attention to that pitch. 

One of my favorite books was The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova. Our own Type M'er, Mario Acevedo, has a vampire series. A student of mine at Fort Hays, Morgan Chalfant, wrote a vampire western, Youngbloods. Steven King's Salem's Lot  isn't at all like Anne Rice's The Vampire Chronicles. The Teen series, The Vampire Diaries, was a huge success, in print and on the screen.

 So what is it about vampires that inspires writers to come up with books so different from one another? What is there in the human psyche that connects to such a bizarre creature. I'm not only speaking of writers, but the readers who devour them. No pun intended. I really am not enthusiastic about vampire books, nor am I inclined to believe a word. And yet, and yet. When I first read Salem's Lot I wore a crucifix around my neck for days. I wore it when I slept too.

The Historian is such a terrific book I began to doubt my disbelief.

I searched for vampire books in Amazon Some of the covers were a little too interesting. You want blood? There's blood aplenty. There were over 100 pages of Vampire titles. That has to be a category record.

My first mystery in the Lottie Albright series, Deadly Descent, was originally titled Bound by Blood. I intended to make it the Bound by series. Bound by Murder, Bound by Death, etc. My editor objected. She said that clerks don't have time to read all the books and would stock Bound by Blood in the Vampire section. Then the series would be placed there forever. 

If you are starting out in this business, don't ever let someone tell you that your book won't be published because another writer has already written a book on the same subject.