Writing Companions, Suitably Stuffed

A time-and-a-half ago I decided to buy some dolls representing famous figures. These were offered for sale at our local art museum gift shop. Along with satisfying my scientific side (Einstein), and my wife's artistic side (Da Vinci, Rembrandt, Van Gogh with a detachable ear, and Frida), I bought some literary luminaries including Shakespeare and Poe.

Right now Poe stares my way: his soulful sad eyes unblinking, a raven perched on his shoulder. I could initiate a staring contest, but maybe the raven is waiting for the opportunity to fly over and peck out my eyeballs, something Poe would approve of.

My modest collection inspired me to explore the world of literary figurines. In doing so, I have returned from my venture dizzied by the choices and coveting many of the wonderful creations. How has my writing survived without this plenitude of muses?

There is this Jane Austen action figure. It's poseable. Surely, Jane Kick-Ass Austin would inspire and transform my writing.

Jane Austen Action Figure
All the pride and 30% less prejudice!

The same company sells a Poe action figure, complete with raven on his shoulder, naturally.

On Etsy, the online shopping market for all that is artisan, CELEBRITYwithYOU sells this set of Agatha Christie and Hercule Poirot. I am not a clothing fiend, my general attitude is just find something in the closet that doesn't smell funky, but these dolls are worth the price for their costumes alone. They also make custom-made dolls to order, in case you want to inspire yourself with yourself.

The people (person?) at UneekDollDesigns, also an Etsy site, lists 175 male author and 69 female author dolls. They include a wide range of writers. Some examples:

Here is Dorothy L. Sayers.

I doubt that it took nine tailors to make her outfit.

It is difficult for me to hold back from screaming out: I need a Jorge Luis Borges doll and I need it now!

Labyrinth-ific!

In case you need warning against writing too florid of sentences, perhaps you need an Edward Bulwer-Lytton doll. Or maybe it's Rasputin.

 A dark and stormy doll.

Paul Coelho. I enjoyed his book: Meditations on Being a Gazillionaire.

The Poe doll that I own. Made by The Unemployed Philosophers Guild.

And that Raven never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting,
On that woeful doll of Poe, full of cotton balls and gloom.
And its eyes, so darkly gleaming, held by stitches soon un-seaming,
While a teapot over-steaming, sounds its scream throughout the room,
And so imbued my squeamish dreaming thrills with chills from Usher's tomb.
Hill Ortiz - nom de plume.

Never Kill A Friend, Ransom Note Press

Never Kill A Friend is available for purchase in hard cover format and as an ebook.
The story follows Shelley Krieg, an African-American detective for the Washington DC Metro PD as she tries to undo a wrong which sent an innocent teenager to prison.

Hard cover: Amazon US
Kindle: Amazon US
Hard cover: Amazon UK
Kindle: Amazon UK
Barnes and Noble 

Martin Hill Ortiz is also the author of A Predator's Game. His epic poem, Two Mistakes, won second place in the Margaret Reid/Tom Howard Poetry Competition. He can be contacted at mdhillortiz@gmail.com.

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New York Times Bestsellers: A Look At The Authors

The New York Times Adult Fiction Bestsellers List is a surrealistic reflection of America, where Nobel Prize winners rub shoulders with manic typists, a landscape of Don Corleone and werewolves.


The Authors

Between the years 1960 and 2015, 204 authors account for the 598 novels in the number one position on the weekly lists. This includes fifteen co-authors who did not appear separately with novels of their own. Ninety-four authors made one appearance. This means that the authors with multiple entries averaged 5.2 novels.

The top ten leaders account for 221 of the novels and 668 weeks:

1. James Patterson, 49 novels, 93 weeks. Average length: 68,565 words.
2. Stephen King/Richard Bachmann, 31 novels, 125 weeks. Average length: 188,688 words.
3. Danielle Steel, 27 novels, 105 weeks. Average length: 98,024 words.
4. John Grisham, 23 novels, 117 weeks. Average length: 108,214 words.
5. Nora Roberts/J.D. Robb, 23 novels, 27 weeks. Average length: 122,307 words.
6. Janet Evanovich, 20 novels, 29 weeks, 68,019 words.
7. Patricia Cornwell, 18 novels, 42 weeks, 114,096 words.
8. Mary Higgins Clark, 16 novels, 44 weeks. Average length: 86,339 words.
9. Tom Clancy, 14 novels, 71 weeks. Average length: 266,228 words.
10. Dean Koontz, 13 novels, 29 weeks. Average length: 130,127 words.

The leader for most weeks with a number one novel goes to James Michener, 9 novels, 195 weeks. Average length: 437,463 words.

Books with co-authors.

Seventeen different pairs of author/coauthors accounted for 49 books.

These are:

• James Patterson plus one of ten coauthors. 33 books.
• Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins. 7 books.
• Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson. 3 books.
• Stephen King and Peter Straub. 2 books.
• Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus. 1 book.
• Clive Cussler and Paul Kemprecos. 1 book.
• Tom Clancy and Grant Blackwood. 1 book.
• Tom Clancy and Mark Greaney. 1 book.

Both Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson have had number one novels independent of each other. For the rest, the second author is present on the list only with his or her partner.

Male Versus Female Authors.

When I approached an analysis of a previous list, that of the top 100 mystery novels by the British Crime Writers' Association, I naively imagined male and female authors would be equally represented. On the female side, I thought of such greats as Agatha Christie, P.D. James, Dorothy L. Sayers and the recently departed, Ruth Rendell. In fact, only 17 of the authors were female.

In putting together the database of New York Times bestsellers, I had the opposite expectation. Patterson and King and Grisham crowded my mind. So which gender accounts for the bestsellers and has this changed?

Overall, 71 female authors writing on their own account for 222 (37.1%) of the 598 of the novels, one female-female collaboration and three females collaborating with males account for an additional fourteen (2.3%). Alone or in co-authorship, women account for 780 weeks in the number one position.

One hundred and five male authors writing on their own account for 336 (56.2%) of the novels. In collaboration with another male, this number increases to 373 (62.4%). Alone plus in collaboration, males account for 1972 weeks on the list (71.7%).

Let's look how that has changed over the years. For those novels written in collaborations between a male and female author, I counted the books for both sexes. For those novels on the bestselling list spanning two decades, I included their presence in both decades, but divided their weeks.

From the 1960s through the 1980s, female authors accounted for 33 novels on the list, totaling 280 weeks. Over the same period, male authors accounted for 118 novels for 1181 weeks. Newspaper strikes and non-novels comprised the remaining portion of this time period.

In the 2010s, a near parity has been achieved. While male-written novels outnumbered female-written novels 80 to 65, the female-written novels have been in top position for 150 weeks compared to 124 weeks for male authors. Four out of five of the novels with the longest runs were written by women: Water for Elephants, Sara Gruen; The Girl on the Train, Paula Hawkins; The Help, Kathryn Stockett; and, Fifty Shades of Grey, E. L. James.

 Martin Hill Ortiz is the author of one novel, A Predatory Mind (2013) from Loose Leaves Publishing. His mystery, Never Kill A Friend, will be available June 15th from Ransom Note Press. The sequel to A Predatory Mind is set to come out later this year.

The blue bars are the percent of novels in the number one position on the New York Times Adult Fiction Bestseller lists in the given decade which were written by females. The green bar is the equivalent measure for males. The red bar is the percentage of weeks in the number one position by females. The purple bar is for males. In the 1980s, women had bestsellers in the number one position for 18% of weeks (a dramatic difference between the red and purple bars). In the 2010s women have had bestsellers in the number one position for more weeks than males (red higher than purple).

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