Giving back

by Jane

Perhaps it’s because it is the Jewish New Year or maybe it’s due to a recent experience, but I have been thinking about “giving back” and mentoring.

Writing is such a solitary and difficult thing to do and when an opportunity to obtain support from an established writer presents itself, it is always very inspiring. Recently, however, I saw this work in reverse and it really made me sad and angry.

I have a client who received some good national publicity, which resulted in my signing him to do a book proposal. The publicity also attracted a well known TV personality and book author who would have been a wonderful support to my client and his project. I’ll call him Mr. P. Mr. P approached my client and offered his help, so the two had lunch. Mr. P promised that if the proposal were sold, he would provide an introduction and, based on that statement, my client added Mr. P’s promise to his proposal. It turned out this particular proposal wasn’t easy to sell, but finally we received a small offer partially based on the promise of a foreword from Mr. P. When my client went back to him just to make sure that, indeed, the promise would be fulfilled, Mr. P agreed but said he would charge a fee that was three times the advance—a totally outrageous amount! Needless to say, the client turned down the publisher’s offer and the project is now dead. What really makes me sad about this situation is that I know Mr. P well, and when he was just starting out, many, many people gave him their support—one of the main reasons he is so very successful today.

On another occasion, some years ago, I remember my client and good friend Gus Lee wanted to get an endorsement for his first novel from Amy Tan. His editor made an introduction between the two and Amy generously provided a quote for China Boy which helped the book to sell. Since then, the two have become very good pals.

I think it is so important to remember, once you are successful as a writer, that supporting others who are coming up only enhances what you are doing. It is incredibly mystifying to me when people who achieve fame and success forget where they came from.

I wonder if you have any thoughts on this subject. I would love to hear them.

Check yo shelf

by Rachel

We don’t mind a bit of rap here at DGLM, as Lauren pointed out in her recent blog entry. So, if you are a fan of rap and literature also, you’re in for a real treat! Margaret Eby over at Flavor Wire has put together famous rappers and their 20th Century literary doppelgangers. From Ja Rule to Jay Z, Hemingway to Nabokov, you can see which rap artist matches up to which writer. Eby seems to hint that rap is on the rise and reading will soon be outdated by the new tech age, but I disagree—I think there’ll always be just enough space in our world for rap and reading!

So, can any of you match some of my favorite rap artists with their literary doppelgangers: Snoop, Lil Kim, Eminem?

The Good, the Bad, and the Sideburns

by Lauren

As Michael already pointed out, it’s awfully quiet out there this week, so I was pleased to stumble across this piece at The Millions on books penned by celebs. If I had a copy of Courtney Thorne-Smith’s novel, I feel like my day might be much more fun. Have none of the 90210 gang been struck by the literary muse? Surely they wouldn’t go down without a fight to the likes of Melrose Place. Luke Perry and his sideburns could write an excellent western, no?

I also really loved learning that Katie Price has a ghostwriter because she doesn’t have time to write the books herself. Yes, time. That’s the only thing standing between you and the Booker, Katie. But hey, anything that keeps her in the spotlight is OK by me, because I find British celeb culture totally fascinating, and she’s by far my favorite tabloid staple.

As for me, I think I’ll do myself the favor of not reading novels, poetry, and short stories written (or “written”) by celebrities I actually like. (Needless to say, I’m also skipping the ones by the celebs I can’t stand.) It might be awfully hard to respect someone who feels “Speak to me not of food, for I am soon to die” is reasonable dialogue, even if he’s brilliant in The French Connection.

Another outlet for a Franzen review

by Michael

It's another slow week in publishing, with Labor Day and Rosh Hashanah causing a great calm before the storm. But even in this slow week, there's big news: The Wall Street Journal will launch a weekly, stand-alone book review section later this month. With so many other papers closing down their book reviews, this is great news. The more book coverage, the better, and I'm eager to see how the Journal will compare with the New York Times Book Review.

Form rejections

by Jessica

Rejection got you down? Have a look at Judson Merrill’s post, which made me chuckle. Although JM’s waggish rejoinders to his assorted rejection letters are not, perhaps, the very model of gracious behavior, they do reflect a certain fighting spirit, plus an understanding of the absurdity of the submission/rejection process that is psychologically indispensable to any aspiring writer. That rejection is part and parcel of the writing life does not make it any less painful. Composing clever responses to form letters is not likely to advance an author’s cause or career, but it can offer a measure of comfort, humor, and a very necessary reminder that these letters, which are necessarily brief, impersonal, and devoid of actual, specific feedback, should be taken with a grain of salt.

Dear Mid-American Review,

Thank you for your recent rejection. I appreciate your taking the time to read my story. I understand how careful you must be in selecting a cohesive body of work to present in the MAR.

Your communiqué, however, did leave me with a few concerns. You write, “We have decided your submission is not a match for us at this time.” I assume this means I should submit my story again at a more convenient time. I don’t want to be a pest, though, so please provide a concrete timeline. Would you like to review the story again for your next issue or next year? Anything’s fine, just let me know.

Also, confusingly, you close that same paragraph with, “We wish you the best of luck placing your story elsewhere.” Typo?

Thanks,
Judson Merrill

How do you cope with rejections? How do you maintain perspective?

Typophobia

by Miriam

If, like me, you’re the kind of annoying person who corrects your friends when they use a word inappropriately or find yourself taking a pen to typos in restaurant menus, you’ll have fun with this top ten list. Some typographical/grammatical errors, in fact, are so egregious that they cross the line into delightful. I don’t know about you, but I always find myself cackling at stories of misspelled tattoos. I mean, if you’re going to permanently etch something onto your body….

What are some of your favorite grammatical bloopers?

Small-scale publishing

by Stacey

This piece about the successful online magazine Rumpus becoming a publisher is pretty interesting. Because they have a built-in readership, and members through their book club, it seems to make sense to go this route for them. But my question is with such limited resources (a staff of two), wouldn't it be more efficient to go with a traditional publisher for better marketing, sales, and distribution channels? I'm not sure if they tried this and for some reason it didn't work out, or maybe they want to fully be in control of the product they are releasing, but this seems like the kind of thing that if it works for them to publish successfully on their own, traditional publishers will be knocking on their door to try to get in on their built-in audience and make the stakes even higher and the numbers even bigger.

I think as an idea, this small-scale publishing has merit, but in actuality will be difficult to manage successfully, and to build on and grow at a sustainable level. And I know that at least one of the Rumpus writers is working on her own book project, and my guess is that she, and others affiliated with the mag, will be going the more traditional publishing route. I'll be curious to see how it all plays out.

FAHRENHEIT 451 redux

by Miriam

I was on vacation last week, trying to keep off e-mail and the internet, and failing on both counts. When I found myself needing a break from the non-stop thrills of The Hunger Games trilogy, I’d wander over to the computer and check out my favorite news sites to see what or who was going to hell now. Paris Hilton banned from Vegas? Jan Brewer smiling idiotically at the camera for an hour and a half or so in the worst debate ever? Stephen Hawking jumping on the Christopher Hitchens bandwagon and dissing God? (Well, it does seem to sell books….)

But then my pleasure reading dovetailed nicely with my need to keep up with the relentless news cycle. I was still savoring Collins’ wonderful referencing of Fahrenheit 451 in Mockingjay when I read about the Florida pastor who seems to think it a novel and fine idea to burn the Quran as a 9/11 protest and I was once again struck by the thought that it’s amazing that our civilization has managed to survive our seeming inability to learn anything from history. And, why is it that religious and political zealots always seem to vent their general hatred of humanity on books? From Savonarola to Hitler to all those crazy fundamentalists who feel threatened by the dictionary, it seems that every time someone’s pissed off about something, there’s a marshmallow roast at a literary bonfire.

Now, we here at DGLM try to stay out of the political fray as much as possible. One of the tenets of our business is the freedom of ideas and expression. Most of us who work in publishing understand that no matter how loathsome an idea it is necessary to defend its author’s right to communicate it. As readers, we can choose not to buy the book. Or, we can choose to debate and counter that author’s arguments and defeat his/her position with rational and well-conceived rebuttals. Everyone who has been a publishing professional for any length of time has occasionally had to be involved with the publication of a book whose message or viewpoint s/he did not agree with. And most of us are appalled when certain groups rally together to boycott or ban a certain title on political, religious or moral grounds.

The Florida pastor planning the latest book burning is just following in a long tradition of intolerance and ignorance. Clearly, he doesn’t understand that books, like phoenixes, rise from the flames of censorship. The Quran, the Bible, and the Torah, have survived many of these gory ceremonies and come back stronger than ever. As have Anne Frank, Toni Morrison, Kurt Vonnegut, and Webster’s dictionary (last I heard they keep adding new words, some of them objectionable). Of course, that kind of attempted repression often (and perversely) makes for the premise of great literature.

What do you think? Is it ever okay to burn books?

Talk to me not of blasphemy

by Stephanie

Okay, show of hands: who can honestly say that they’ve read the big classics—think War & Peace, The Canterbury Tales, etc—whether assigned in school or otherwise, thoughtfully and cover-to-cover? I’m just going to assume there aren’t many hands up, and the ones that are…I think you might be lying a little bit. But only a little bit.

I nonchalantly accuse you of lying today after reading this piece at the Huffington Post. You see, there’s this weird thing that happens with the classics, where people insist on having read them, but for whatever reason never really did. Personally I find this intriguing, because if there are enough rogue scholars amongst us who insist on having read certain classics when they haven’t, does this, in some part, contribute to keeping certain titles in the literary canon over others? Maybe that’s pushing it a bit, but either way, I enjoyed looking through the thirteen titles the piece offers. As for me, I can honestly say that I’ve read Moby Dick and A Christmas Carol cover-to-cover, but that’s about it. Though I’d happily assert having read them all to impress people. See how nicely that works?

Yikes!

by Lauren

As we leave you for the holiday weekend, a cautionary tale:  Apparently Penguin is suing an author to recover the signing payment on a contract they've canceled for failure to meet a deadline.  It must be said, that deadline was in 2007, and there were presumably multiple extensions that got them here, so Penguin has been quite accommodating.  And that signing payment is not exactly chump change.

As a person who is ever so slightly panicked at the prospect of finishing my to do list before leaving for the holiday weekend, the notion of breaking a contract for non-delivery strikes fear into my heart, but for those of you who need that extra bit of danger before something seems real, it seems this might just be it.

But hey, a three day weekend is a great time to hunker down and write, right?

Location, location, location

by Rachel

One of the things I loved about living in San Francisco was its close proximity to Steinbeck country. No more than two hours south of the city lies Monterey, where Steinbeck set the scene for his novels Cannery Row, Tortilla Flat, Of Mice and Men, East of Eden—the list goes on. Walking along Cannery Row while smelling the ocean and hearing the gulls, or driving half an hour inland to Salinas (where the National Steinbeck Center is located) was an exciting pilgrimage for me, because, if I haven’t mentioned it before, John Steinbeck is my number one literary hero.

So, I found it fascinating to read Alison Flood’s article from the Guardian, on literary book tours. What a thrill it is to visit locations mentioned in your favorite novels! I have a few favorite New York literary hotspots I like to visit on occasion: The carousel in Central Park (J.D. Salinger’s Catcher In The Rye); Macy’s Santaland (David Sedaris’ Holidays on Ice); Pete’s Tavern (O. Henry’s Gift of The Magi), and Chinatown, Tiffany & Co., and The New York Public Library (Truman Capote’s Breakfast At Tiffany’s).

What are some memorable locations from your favorite books you’d love to visit?

Blogging is hard!

by Michael

Especially on the Thursday before Labor Day! I’ll admit, part of the problem is that I’m distracted getting some great submissions together for Fall and, of course, by the action at Flushing Meadows. It’s my favorite two-week stretch of the year! Sad to see Roddick and Oudin lose yesterday, but I’m happy to cheer on the many Americans still left in the draw. I actually like so many tennis players that I often get confused about who I really want to win. But today, I’ll say I’d like to see Clijsters and Fish win. Just don’t expect the same answer tomorrow.

In e-book-ish news, Samsung finally admitted what the tech world already knew, that they’ll be releasing the Android-powered Galaxy Tab tablet later this year. It looks like a nice device, with that front-facing camera (and a less interesting rear-facing one) that everyone expected the iPad to have. The book reader is powered by Kobo, and it looks quite nice. As the Engadget video review mentions, the pixel density is better than the iPad, so I’m curious to see it in person. Let the tablet wars begin!

Ok, enough of my rambling. Hope everyone has a great Labor Day weekend. Enjoy!

From the Vault: A model for memoirs

Happy summer, everybody!  For the next while, there are going to be some absences from the blog as we take vacations, but we'd hate to leave you guys hanging.  It's no secret that we blog much more now than when we started this baby, and there are far more of you reading than there were way back when.  So we thought we'd bring back some blog entries of days gone by that you may have missed if you just joined us in the last year.  We've cued up enough, but if you have any favorites you think your fellow readers might enjoy, give us a shout below!

by Jessica

Recently I was poking about on the website for This American Life, the altogether brilliant public radio show and now HBO television show that is one of the only things that tempts me toward faithlessness--in thought if not deed--toward book publishing. (Book publishing and public radio—apparently I don’t even fantasize about career-cheating with a high-paying job). In any case, I happened upon their submission guidelines. Although these are tailored to the demands of a radio show with a very distinctive sensibility (anyone who’s never listened should give it a try) they struck me as pertinent to book projects, especially memoir.

Memoir is a tricky category, one that I love but one in which the bar for writing is high and the demand for platform still higher. If you’re not already famous, or a participant in the Real Housewives/Dancing with Stars/America’s Top Model franchises, persuading a publisher to take a chance on your own story can be challenging. Despite the ubiquity of reality shows, not every person poised to write a personal narrative has a tv deal (yet), which means that for those people brave enough to wade into a sodden market that editors politely call “saturated,” not only had you better write very, very, very well, but do so in service of a story in which the whole is somehow greater than the sum of its parts. So how, exactly, does this mathemagical equation work?

I thought This American Life’s submission guidelines came up with a pretty good answer: They write:

"The material we most often reject is writing that lacks a narrative. A lot of it is good, vivid writing, but without a real story to it. Often it's recollections about some person the writer knew, or some time in their own lives. Often there are interesting anecdotes, but without any driving question, or real conflict. There's nothing bigger at issue and nothing surprising revealed. In many of these stories, the characters are all the same at the end of the story as they were at the beginning. No one learns anything. No one changes.”

Why yes, I thought.

Elsewhere on the site, in an amusing essay in which she talks about having her own work rejected repeatedly from This American Life, regular contributor Hilary Frank writes; “Specifically, This American Life is looking for stories with two main elements: the narrative action, or plot (in which one thing happens to the characters, and then another, and then another), and moments of reflection (where someone says something surprising about what the story might mean).”

Yes again.

Like most every piece of writing featured on the show, this is well said. They want work that has drama, that surprises, that toggles between the personal and the universal, and is also very, very well written. The fact that many of their contributors—David Sedaris, Sarah Vowell, Shalom Auslander—are successful published writers seems to indicate that these parameters translate well to the printed page.

Perhaps the model above is not the only one that works for memoirs, but the advice seemed to me well worth sharing. You can check it out in greater (perhaps excruciating) detail at http://www.thislife.org/About_Submissions.aspx.


Originally posted in May 2009.

From the Vault: Don't quit!

Happy summer, everybody!  For the next while, there are going to be some absences from the blog as we take vacations, but we'd hate to leave you guys hanging.  It's no secret that we blog much more now than when we started this baby, and there are far more of you reading than there were way back when.  So we thought we'd bring back some blog entries of days gone by that you may have missed if you just joined us in the last year.  We've cued up enough, but if you have any favorites you think your fellow readers might enjoy, give us a shout below!

by Michael

It’s most authors’ dream, isn’t it, writing for a living? Being able to leave the grueling, monotonous nine-to-five grind for the glamorous world of publishing; sitting at home in a bathrobe, warm cup of coffee in hand, ever expanding manuscript at foot; calls about sequels and movie options; big packets about promotion and publicity arriving daily. It’s a nice dream, even if it doesn’t reflect the reality of most stay-at-home authors, many of whom will tell you that it’s often lonely, nerve-wracking, and just as soul-crushing (if not more so) as a “normal” job. (For a cheerier take on this subject, see Michael Prescott’s blog entry.) But let’s ignore the plight of those who write for a living for a moment, and focus on the other 95% of authors.

Very, very few novelists get to stay home writing all day. The truth is, many people get one book published, and then find that if the first book doesn’t work, the second becomes very difficult to sell. And, with advances for first books seemingly getting smaller every day, one book sale isn’t enough to live off of for a year, much less retire on. I know my view of things is colored by the rather high cost of living in New York, but even authors in the smallest towns can’t survive on $5,000 a year.

So what’s a first-time author to do? My advice is to keep the day job--the benefits are more than financial. Let’s go back to the writer sitting at home. Publishing is not glamorous; it’s hard work. The full-time writers I know work harder and longer than their peers. They spend much more than eight hours a day writing, thinking about their writing, wondering what their agent is thinking, pondering the loss of yet another editor, desperately trying to refrain from e-mailing their publicist again about that review in the Sioux City Herald, talking with other writers (about their agent, editor, and publicist), blogging, and generally praying that they won’t have a coronary before the end of the day. Authors who have day jobs are often able to put things in perspective: there’s more to life than their book(s). They get to leave a large part of the worrying to us agents (it’s part of what we’re paid to do – see Jane’s latest blog entry here), and that’s as it should be.

My take on this aside, I decided that I would speak to somebody who actually did leave work to write rather than just commenting from up here on my perch. Sara Zarr, the author of the forthcoming Story of a Girl, quit her job as an administrative assistant a few months after we sold her book. She had a lot to say. "If you get a book deal and are thinking about quitting your day job, there are a lot of factors to consider. Of course, it depends on what your day job is. If it's a career job, if you've invested years of time and energy into it and it fulfills some part of you that writing can't, keep it. If it's a minor job that you don't care too much about (or you hate), and you're reasonably hirable in the current job climate, quit and try the full-time writing thing. You can always go back into the job market if you need to or if you find you don't do well sitting home all day. Quitting does free you up to travel and promote your book if you need to, which is nice, but not mandatory." Her last piece of advice struck me as particularly important. "It's not necessarily all or nothing. My employer let me scale back my hours while I was working on revisions. You might be able to arrange something more flexible at your current job or find part time work."

I know it’s tough to write and work at the same time while also keeping up with family and social commitments. I understand that working full-time as a writer seems glamorous, but writing for a living is something that only a handful of people are able to do, both for financial and psychological reasons.

When that final offer comes in from the publisher of your dreams and your excitement is tempered by the fact that you can’t quit counting beans, don’t panic. Your book is going to be published, and you’ll get to keep your sanity. It’s the best of both worlds.

I really welcome comments from authors about this one.

Originally posted in November 2006.

From the Vault: Critical response

Happy summer, everybody!  For the next while, there are going to be some absences from the blog as we take vacations, but we'd hate to leave you guys hanging.  It's no secret that we blog much more now than when we started this baby, and there are far more of you reading than there were way back when.  So we thought we'd bring back some blog entries of days gone by that you may have missed if you just joined us in the last year.  We've cued up enough, but if you have any favorites you think your fellow readers might enjoy, give us a shout below!

by Miriam

I hate it when I’m wrong. My type-A tendencies and absolute certainty that I know everything are not a good combination when it comes to taking criticism. Soon after I started working with Jane Dystel (sometime in the Paleozoic Era) she pointed out to me that my editorial memos were mean. I was affronted. I was trying to help authors by giving them the benefit of my brilliant insights and I really didn’t have time to soft-soap my comments! I’m sure Jane was laughing internally when she suggested that maybe I should start my missives with a positive comment or two about the work and then offer my honest opinion in a thoughtful, sensitive way without showing off or trying to make the recipient feel like a no-talent slob. She was right, of course, and I learned that if the goal is to have an author improve his/her work, I needed to be nicer when I offered my feedback. Jane made me realize that we are more likely to digest and respond well to criticism if it’s offered with kindness and sensitivity rather than relish and disdain. It was, for me, an invaluable lesson.

The fact is that a big and important part of our job as agents is to offer constructive criticism that will take a proposal or manuscript to the level it needs to be at in order to maximize our chances of selling it. All of us here at DGLM spend a great deal of time on our clients’ projects helping authors to clearly communicate their message, smooth over rough prose, beef up a weak marketing section, etc. Sometimes, it’s our unpleasant task to tell someone that their work is simply not good enough and that no amount of fixing is going to change that.

In my experience, the best, most talented authors are the ones who take their criticism neat. They knock it back with a big gulp, thank you for your time and effort in reviewing and critiquing their materials, take a little while to process what you’ve told them, and do their best to incorporate your comments and suggestions into that piece of fiction or nonfiction they thought was perfect when they sent it in to you with the expectation that you’d be able to immediately sell it for six figures. These authors put their egos and bruised pride aside (no matter how successful they are) and get to work. They ask follow-up questions and evenly discuss why they think they might or might not agree with one or more of your edits. The result, more often than not, is a much improved proposal or manuscript that has a much better shot at the big time and an author who is genuinely grateful for the help.

Then there are those authors who never get past their anger and disappointment and whose reactions range from the merely childish, “I’m taking my marbles and going elsewhere,” to the unprofessional, “You suck and you don’t know what you’re talking about.” Recently, an author suggested that both his editor (someone who’d been successfully plying her craft for over a decade) and I were mistaken in our critique of his work, strongly implying that neither one of us had understood his category well enough to be able to comment intelligently on his novel. His words were offensive in a way that our criticism had not been. We were both trying to help him.

I sincerely believe that authors (or any artist for that matter) must be able to defend their vision of and approach to their work. But, they should also have the ability (and humility) to look at the manuscript they’ve slaved away on for months or years and see it as a living, evolving thing that is never going to be absolutely perfect and that will probably benefit from an informed and caring review. They should also understand that in this agent/client partnership it’s in no one’s interest to purposely give bad advice and that only a sadist takes pleasure in inflicting pain. Over the years, I’ve come to the conclusion that knowing how to take criticism with grace is an indicator of success in our business. It’s often what separates those who have thriving writing careers and those who just sit around darkly muttering over their rejection letters.

Almost twenty years after that enlightening conversation with Jane, I’ve figured out that I don’t, in fact, know everything, and so I rely on instinct, experience, my skills as a lifelong, passionate reader, and hard-earned knowledge of our business when I offer authors criticism of their work. The whole point is to sell their novel or nonfiction and to set them on the path to successful writing careers. Ultimately, we, as agents, don’t succeed unless our clients do.

Originally posted in February 2007.