Congratulations, Jessica!

by DGLM

Our warm congratulations go out to Jessica on the birth of her son! As you might imagine, she’s got her hands a bit too full to be blogging, but you’ll see her back here soon!

The persistence of memory?

by Jessica

Yesterday someone asked me what novels I’d read while on vacation. I thought for a moment and rattled off three: Kiran Desai’s The Inheritance of Loss; Zoe Ferraris’ City of Veils; Evelyn Waugh’s Men at Arms. Hours later, I realized that I’d completely forgotten two others: Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell and Aiding and Abetting by Muriel Spark. It’s true that I liked both and loved neither, but they were not so forgettable as to merit oblivion. I wish I could blame my literary amnesia on the impending arrival of a second baby (I am mightily pregnant and soon to deliver) but my ability to forget plotlines, characters, surprise endings, etc. predates the lethe-like mix of hormones now coursing through my bloodstream, and indeed motherhood period.
The year I moved to Cairo, I kept a journal that for some six months included a running tally of the books I read. Perusing the list, it is clear that the recall problem is not a recent one. It seems I’ve been forgetting books for much of my professional life. (Books I read as a child or in college/graduate school, however, have proven to be stickier.) And yet ironically, before I paused to remember all the books I forgot, I believed I had a good memory. Perhaps I’ve conveniently forgotten all evidence to the contrary.

Which is why I was so relieved to read James Collins’ essay in this past Sunday’s NYTBR, “The Plot Escapes Me.”  Like Collins, there are books I clearly remember loving, and yet when I am called upon to reconstruct the storyline, or a particular character, I’m at a loss. The good news is that at least one expert believes that the experience of reading is not so evanescent as we might fear, that the books we devour, adore and forget are not simply lost. Collins quotes Marianne Wolf, professor of child development at Tufts, who says that although we may not have instant recall, “The information you get from a book is stored in networks. We have an extraordinary capacity for storage, and much more is there than you realize. It is in some way working on you even though you aren’t thinking about it.”

I’d like to believe this is true, that some legacy of what we read persists, but rather worry that it isn’t. What do you think? Do the books we read affect us, even if we can’t remember them?

On Reading Urban Fantasy

by Jessica

As my colleagues have mentioned at various points, DGLM has its own bookclub. Every couple of months we choose a general category of fiction—for example, Booker Prize winners, young adult novels, debut novels, etc.—and each of us reads a representative work, usually something fairly recently published. It’s a good way to stay in touch with the market, keep tabs on the trends, and broaden our exposure to writers we might not otherwise gravitate toward. This go-round was urban fantasy, a category that I’ve not read, and despite the fact that I had to hide the book’s crimson cover from my always inquisitive four-year-old: “Why, mommy, does that man have such big teeth? And why does that lady have blood on her neck?” I was glad to finally get a glimpse of a genre that has, as we all know, proven tremendously popular. The last vampire novel that I read was Elizabeth Kostova’s The Historian, and before that I’d wager that it was Bram Stoker’s Dracula, neither of which offer much insight into the present paranormal trend. After reading my bookclub selection, I did some further investigating—not least trying to figure out why the genre is called “urban fantasy,” which strikes me as an odd and imperfect sort of label. I’ve read a few explanations, but again: Why urban? The fantasy part I get.

So obviously I’m far from expert, but I find it interesting that the romantic tropes are fairly similar to non-paranormal romance: the heroine must discover her own heart and secure the love of a brooding, mysterious, slightly-threatening-but-ultimately-good man. The surrounding stakes, however, are a good bit higher (and where the undead are concerned, sharper). Here the conflicts are cosmic in scope. To proceed to her happily-ever-after, the heroine must dispatch demons, fight the armies of evil, and often save the planet. The domestic space that was once the usual canvas for women’s fiction is not quite big enough to contain the kind of challenges these women face, nor are these ladies simply resilient—they are physically powerful, sometimes lethal, and pretty much undaunted by gore. At risk of reading too much into the present trend, I wonder if the epic nature of the conflicts in which these fictional women triumph does not, in some small way reflect the way real women view their own less fantastical, but perhaps no less challenging, lives. Indeed, there’s something appealing about the notion of seeing myself as the action hero of my own story. In which case, I’m off to battle the forces of darkness, one pitch letter/contract clause at a time.

If you are a reader of urban fantasy, I’d love to hear what you love about it.

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?

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.

Gender bias?

by Jessica

Apropos of Miriam’s post on the euphoric reception to Jonathan Franzen’s new novel, at least two novelists have cried foul. Not about Franzen’s book per se, but the case, advanced by Jodi Picoult and seconded by Jennifer Weiner, that the NYT Book Review favors writers who are “white and male and live in Brooklyn.” Good news for this fairly sizeable demographic; Brooklyn boys with literary leanings can now rest easier knowing that their eventual literary efforts will receive proper critical attention.

I’ve followed the ensuing discussion over the last week with interest. In the Atlantic, Spiegel and Grau editor Chris Jackson weighed in with “All the Sad Young Literary Women.” A female colleague asked him to name some female novelists whose work he had read recently, and he confessed that for a moment, he couldn’t think of any (turns out, however, that he had read at least one). This prompted me to go through my own recent reads, seeing how I measure up.

I tend to read plenty of books by women authors, but I’ve never bothered to quantify or implement a quota system. In the last couple of weeks I’ve been in something of a Y chromosome rut, reading Evelyn Waugh, whose books, aside from Scoop, I’ve not read before—Brideshead Revisited, his World War II Trilogy. Fine writer, that Waugh, but something of a snob. I did, however attempt to balance the scales by reading some Muriel Spark, in order to get a female perspective on the foibles of British bluestockings.

How about you? What do you think of Picoult’s charge? How does your own reading compare?

Intellectual Property vs. "Cultural Commons"

by Jessica

Some years ago, shortly after I moved from New York to Egypt, I was invited to participate with fellow publishing professionals in a seminar on intellectual property rights, hosted by the Cairo Book Fair. The discussion swirled around licensing translations into and out of Arabic, the plight of authors in the Arab world (who, no matter how successful, rarely make enough money to give up their day jobs) and the importance of combating piracy. Therefore it caught me by surprise when one of the participants—presumably a fellow publisher—raised his hand and pointed out, with all due respect, that intellectual property law in general, and copyright law in particular, was just one more way in which wealthy first-world nations turned a profit at the expense of poorer developing ones.

I was thunderstruck.

Although I’d heard folks in the United States—generally my tech-savvy acquaintances—bat around the notion that “knowledge wants to be free, dude,” I imagined that this applied mostly to shareware, assorted wikis, and other Wired magazine fare. Somehow, up until that moment, I’d failed to see the connection this notion has to the business in which I work, which is, of course, predicated on the idea that knowledge, at least in book form, does not wish to be free. It wants a retail price, a percentage of which (7.5% for trade paperbacks, 10-15% for hardcovers, and still tbd as far as e-books are concerned) should be given to the author.

At that seminar in Cairo, it had never even occurred to me that copyright could be regarded as anything other than capital-G Good. Intellectual property law is, after all, what allows writers to write—the knowledge that their material is protected, that they can profit by its success, that their words or ideas cannot be distorted or stolen, that writing for a living is, in fact, possible. Not easy, not likely, but possible. I’d never so much as imagined that a counter-argument existed, much less thought about ways in which intellectual property law might be seen as vehicle of exploitation. But in developing markets, the cost of commissioning a translation and paying even a modest licensing fee can make publishing a given project untenable. And of course, the issue is not just with books: Powerful pharmaceutical companies control the patents to drugs that are most acutely needed in desperately poor countries, the same is true for most all scientific and creative output—much is controlled by relatively rich entities—whether countries or corporations.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not looking to toss out the baby with the bath water. I’m a staunch defender of copyright; it goes with the territory of being an agent. But I’d like to think I’m a little more critical—or at least open-minded--about the role intellectual property law plays in a complex, global, and (with apologies to Tom Friedman) not entirely flat world. Which is why I have been particularly interested to dig into Lewis Hyde’s Common as Air: Revolution, Art and Ownership. There’s a great (and unusual) graphic review in the Barnes and Noble review , plus an excellent non-graphic discussion in the New York Times Book Review. Hyde cites copyright law (which presently stands at the author’s lifetime, plus 70 years) as an area in which “enclosure,” i.e. fencing off areas of science, literature, innovation, etc. for commercial gain, has won at the expense of our “cultural commons,” areas of shared knowledge that are essential to the growth of a society. He does believe that artists should own their work (whew!), but questions how long that period should last. He illustrates his point with true stories drawn from agribusiness, pharmaceuticals and even the music industry. He is particularly keen to cite the ideas of the founding fathers, who, he argues, were more or less in agreement with Thomas Jefferson that "ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man."

Sounds good in theory, but how does this play out in practice? How do we see that writing, or creative output in general, is both fostered and rewarded? That the publishing industry does not collapse? I sure don’t have the answers, but given the fact that e-books (and initiatives like Google Books and Project Gutenberg) can aid and abet the Jeffersonian spread of ideas in unprecedented ways, it’s worth mulling over.

What do you think?

Missed boats

by Jessica

I spotted this post on Little, Brown editor Reagan Arthur’s blog, and I thought it was well worth sharing. I always tell writers that this business is a subjective one, and that the alleged “gatekeepers,” agents, editors, etc. are by no means infallible, and although we are immersed in the book industry, our judgment is necessarily colored by our own our interests, predilections, and the myriad of other factors, both profound and ridiculous, that compose taste. Superimposed upon this is our professional experience with “similar” books (none of which are precisely alike) and our own understanding of the publishing successes and failures of the recent past.

There are published, successful and much celebrated writers whose skill I admire but whose work I fail to adore—had their manuscripts arrived in my inbox, I would likely have turned them down. Sometimes it’s the style, sometimes the subject matter, very rarely it’s the setting. But usually it’s an inchoate jumble of things, at which point I, (and most every publishing professional whom I know) tend to resort to opaque and sometimes maddening phrases like “I just didn’t fall in love.” Since, by virtue of being an agent, I am not only in a position to employ this phrase, but also on the receiving end of this very rejection, I encounter such demurrals with both frustration (i.e. how can editor X be unmoved?) and also a measure of grudging recognition. Both agents and editors must be determined advocates for the projects they champion, so most tend to be highly selective. The acquisition process is an imperfect science, one short on objective criteria and rife with mistakes in judgment, missed boats, and tales of the “one that got away.” Reagan Arthur’s post, coming as it does from an editor well known for her terrific taste—injects a good dose of humanity and humility into a process that many writers feel is short on both.

Literary karma

by Jessica

There’s a funny article from debut novelist Matt Platt (The French Revolution) on the eye-opening experience of publishing a first book. Platt writes that whereas he once believed himself a "decent member" of the literary community, he has since had a series of epiphanies that he’d “been doing a whole lot wrong.” Included on his list of karma-correcting, right behaviors: “Read books from living authors only;” “channel jealousy into solidarity;” “shut up and buy books from people you know.”

Whether or not you agree with them, Platt’s epiphanies appear to occur more or less surrounding publication of his novel (and his essay is a fairly graceful piece of self-promotion) but it seems to me that many of my own clients and the writers whom I know report experiencing a similar road-to-Damascus moment even earlier in the process. Thus, I’m curious to know if and when your involvement in the writing life has changed the way you buy books, think about fellow writers, or indeed, persuaded you that such a thing as literary karma exists.

Typos

by Jessica

Some time ago I was horrified to note that I had inadvertently switched off the spell-check on my e-mail application, and after many attempts, still could not manage to turn in back on. I am a reasonably competent speller, but I’m an idiosyncratic typist at best, prompting properly instructed touch-typists around me to blanche when they see me at my keyboard. I can, however, type with one hand like nobody’s business—a skill developed from propping my head up during late-night editing sessions, and later holding my son (who believed in sleeping on people, not cribs) when he was an infant. I could, I realize, go back and learn to type properly, but I never quite have the time. Plus, I worry that I will suffer a similar fate as an acquaintance of mine, a man who logged in many hours with a golf pro to “unlearn” his poor technique, and promptly took his game to a new, and seemingly irreversible, low. My typing could not tolerate such a setback. I’d be corresponding via crayon.

In any event, I was in the midst of looking through the contents of my “sent folder,” cringing at the assorted errors I made—including spelling my own name Hessica—when I came across this article in Salon. The authors of The Great Typo Hunt traveled across the country, logging misspellings as they went, with delightful results. As we know, I hardly live in a glass house as far as mistakes are concerned, but that doesn’t reduce my pleasure in typo-spotting. “Affect” and “effect” are probably my favorite, followed by misplaced apostrophes, “it’s” and “its,” and “I” for “me,” all the classics. When I lived in Egypt (where as a functional illiterate in the local language I had zero right to judge) I was still delighted with the English language menus, signs, and packages—the latter imported from China—that were chock full of errors and weirdly wonderful turns of phrase. On a package for an action figure called “Bat Knight,” a shameless if not entirely successful clone of the Caped Crusader, the tag line read “Get Ready To Crumble Obscure!” There was a kind of found poetry in the phrase.

Any of you spot some memorable misuses of the language? Also, if anyone knows how to turn spell check in Outlook back on, I’d be grateful.

All's well that ends well

by Jessica

Last weekend I saw Inception, a film that I mostly enjoyed; I could have done without the alpine fortress/firefights on skis, the relentless soundtrack, and the director's obvious desire to offset tricky ideas with cool special effects (Thinking got you down? Watch this!) but unlike many audience members, I did like the ending. It was, I thought, a niftily ambiguous conclusion, and it called to mind a polite but on-going discussion I’m having with a writer I know, whose novel features an ending that I find indeterminate but unsatisfying. How a book ends matters to me—if the resolution feels forced, artificial, or worse yet, phoned in, I feel cheated, and perfectly entitled to hurl the offending volume across the room.

While mulling over endings, both ideal and infuriating, I noted that The Millions has a terrific article on this very subject. This is the wonderful thing about the internet, one need not go far to discover that the same ideas you’ve been kicking around in an inchoate, undisciplined sort of way have been thought-through, researched, and then recorded, in clear, lively prose. Or such was my experience with Literary Endings: Pretty Bows, Blunt Axes, and Modular Furniture.  In it the, author creates a taxonomy of possible endings, cites examples of these different approaches, and offers up some of her favorites. To my her list I’d add: Nadine Gordimer’s July’s People; Daphne DuMaurier’s Rebecca, Scott Turow’s clever twist in Presumed Innocent; Ian McEwan’s Atonement; Clea, the whole fourth installment of Lawrence Durell’s Alexandria Quartet, in which all manner of hazy details snap into sharp and shocking focus. My husband offered up Evelyn Waugh’s A Handful of Dust and Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms. Bleak, but kick-in-the-stomach effective.

Your favorite endings? Least favorite endings?

Celebrity writers and forgotten authors

by Jessica

Apropos of Jane’s post earlier this week, in which she discusses advising a client to turn down an offer from a major New York house in favor of an offer from a smaller company far from the epicenter of publishing, I’ll add another note of praise for the small press. In the following series, indie publisher Melville House discusses “How do you market a book written in a foreign language by an author who’s now dead, that was originally published 60 years ago, and has been overlooked by mainstream publishing ever since”. Good question, and it’s fairly extraordinary that they venture to ask it. Conventional wisdom has it that exhuming a forgotten title (one in translation no less) is about as effective as attempting to resuscitate its dead author. Unless there was some extraordinary circumstance involved, few mainstream commercial houses would take this kind of chance.

The campaign that Melville House came up with is thoughtful, innovative, and in this era of celebrity-dominated book publishing, (check out this article in The Daily Beast and pray that this era is ending)  exceedingly rare. There are scores of reasons that books are seldom re-launched, but one oft-cited problem is that book releases are treated like “news,” and getting traditional media coverage for older books can be all but impossible. Most media outlets are also desperate for readers/viewers, so from a sales perspective, lavishing coverage on juicy, star-studded stories makes more sense than writing about old, forgotten books.

Are there any obscure/overlooked books that you’d point to as worthy of a Melville House-style campaign? What do you think of celebrity books?

What drives us to buy books?

by Jessica

Last week I discovered that many of you who responded to my post about blurbs don’t actually place much stock in them, so now I’m offering up another of publishing’s sacred cows to see whether (and how) it’s barbequed. I’m curious about the publicity or promotion that is most likely to convince you to buy a book. NYT Book Review, appearance on The Daily Show, Oprah segment, Salon, Slate? Although I ought not play favorites, the book publicity to which I most respond has to be the NPR interview, in particular, Fresh Air’s long form, in depth, almost-always-memorable conversation with an author. Somehow, even more than a lengthy review, this format—which is capacious enough to allow a writer not only to discuss her thesis, but explore her ideas in detail—succeeds in piquing my interest.

I listen when I can, and download the podcast for times that I can’t tune in. This past Tuesday’s interview was with psychiatrist and author Daniel Carlat, whose new book Unhinged, The Trouble with Psychiatry, has just been added to my to-read list. My fondness for NPR in general and Fresh Air in particular may border on the unhealthy, but mine is a functional addiction, and enables me to participate willingly in any number of otherwise tedious chores/activities: running on a treadmill, folding laundry, doing dishes, even, on occasion, cooking. My husband refers to NPR as “the drone” and teases me mercilessly regarding its dangerous propensity for inducing catatonia, but as far as books are concerned, and sometimes music, I find NPR tremendously convincing.

What sort of promotion/interview/feature captures your attention?

Effusive encomia

by Jessica

I’m a great believer in the value of blurbs, and I pay careful attention to who has weighed in on the cover copy of any given book, but, thanks to Galley Cat, I could not help but chuckle at The Guardian’s contest, which was spurred by Nicole Krauss’s glowing-to-the-point-of-incandescent endorsement of David Grossman’s new novel To The End of the Land. Grossman’s book is on my to-read pile, and I am now keen to see the degree to which I agree with Ms. Krauss rapturous praise.

To what degree do endorsements matter to you? Will you read a new writer based on the recommendation of a beloved author? Can you offer any examples?

The unsympathetic protagonist

by Jessica

I just finished reading Ian McEwan’s Solar, which is smart, spare and unlike most McEwan novels, funny. At its center, however, is a pompous, self-absorbed, appetitive Nobel Prize winning physicist, whose faults are many and endearing qualities few. That he is painted as such a unredeemably selfish guy, a serial philanderer (five wives, countless affairs), flagrant plagiarist, and a monstrous—even criminal—liar, means that readers are not encouraged to develop much of a rapport with this great man of science. Instead, his weaknesses and flaws are anatomized with devastating accuracy. His self-justifications, moral elisions, and robust self-esteem are completely recognizable. That a man who is a poster child for all seven of the deadly sins does not come across as a caricature of Vice in a morality play is impressive. Yet much as I admired McEwan’s mordant wit and obvious flair for satire, Solar points up the problem of the unsympathetic protagonist. Though I don’t require my main characters to be likeable—the prickly, the badly-behaved and the wicked are usually more interesting than their more blameless counterparts—when the point of view rests entirely on the limited perceptions of the Unsympathetic Protagonist, it takes a skilled writer to craft a satisfying, engaging, emotionally resonant novel. The thought of spending so much time in the company of so unpleasant a person (even when said person is imaginary) can be off-putting.

This is a conundrum that agents and editors encounter most every day. An agent or editor’s inability to connect with or “root for” a main character is one of the most frequently cited reasons that he or she will pass on a submission, so be advised that placing a thoroughly awful person at the center of your narrative will likely make your job even tougher (though mostly awful can work). Even a critical darling like McEwan seems to have trouble managing his creation—most reviews were lukewarm at best, and while McEwan’s thieving glutton was not the novel’s only problem, most critics cited his odious personality as a considerable hurdle, so keep an eye on your own Frankenstein’s monster.

This is not to say that fiction should be peopled by the virtuous; there are plenty of wonderful, awful characters that carry a novel. Becky Sharp from Vanity Fair, Tom Ripley from The Talented Mr. Ripley, Max in Where the Wild Things Are. Fans of Lolita point to Humbert Humbert, or Bret Easton Ellis’ titular American Psycho, though these two fellows leave me cold. What do you think? Is an unsympathetic heroine a turn off? Who are some antiheroes worth getting to know?

Newsstand cows

by Jessica

Although this is not directly connected to book publishing, how about this McChrystal flap?

Obviously, there are grave issues at stake here—people’s lives, and the prosecution of a very long, costly war—but at risk of sounding flip, this whole debacle seems to demonstrate that perhaps old media is not so toothless as its many eulogizers have proclaimed. Rolling Stone magazine is culturally relevant in way it hasn’t been for a good long while, and finds itself in the position of not simply breaking news but making news, as US foreign policy is reshaped in response to tales told out of school.

Once upon a time, however, readers would have had to go out and purchase an actual magazine from a newsstand to hear one of McChrystal’s advisers call Joe Biden “Bite-me.” That the full article is (now) but a click away, available for free on-line, must be both good and bad news for Rolling Stone, who apparently delayed posting the piece, perhaps in hopes that their refusal to give away the milk for free might prompt readers to buy a few cows. Of course, with so much of the buzz online, the delay was ill-advised, as their site missed out on some considerable traffic.

I’m curious to get your take, not so much on the General’s ouster (though that is fascinating) but whether you think that the instant access that most people had to the article—as well as the furious on-line discussion that ensued--amplified its effects? Or would this story have played out similarly in the slower days of old media?

Despite the fact that this is unfolding in the world of magazine, and not book publishing, I suspect that my book industry colleagues are taking note; there are certain parallels to the on-going e-book debates. As you probably know, some publishers advocate delaying their publication of a less expensive e-book edition so it will not undercut sales of a front-list hardcover. There are others who believe that making content freely available on-line is the best way to build an audience, and that simply drawing traffic is crucial. I'm not sure that the lessons from the Rolling Stone incident are yet manifest, or can be applied directly to books, but again, I'm interested to know what you think.

P.S. Last week, Publishing Perspectives put out the heads up that Project Gutenberg has made a number of public domain classics available in a variety of e-reading formats for free. Fun!

Sizing up the competition

by Jessica

 

“Know your market” is surely one of the Publishing world’s commandments—the “Though shalt” omitted but implied. When I go to conferences, when I read query letters, when I speak to writers about their books, I am always keen to get to the comparison titles, and understand from the author where she sees her book fitting in to the present marketplace. (FYI: Comparison titles, “comp titles” for short, are the books you come up with in answer to the question: “Readers of what books/writers might enjoy your work?”) I encounter such a wide variety of responses to what I believe is a softball of a question that I thought I’d pass on a few thoughts.

 

• When looking for comp titles, choose successful books. Pointing out books similar to yours that had low or disappointing sales is the best argument against your project. Most houses will interpret the cluster of bad sales as a commentary on the weakness of the category/subject matter.
• But not so monumentally successful that their track record is sui generis. For example, EAT PRAY LOVE is so often used as a comp that it has become meaningless.
• Be cognizant of the delayed publishing timeline. I run into many writers who, after studying the competition, tell me that their own writing is at least as good as (insert name of published author here) and if that (name of book sold) surely their own can too. Unfortunately, such reasoning seldom works. Bear in mind that what is being published today was likely acquired the better part of two years ago, and the lackluster reception/performance of the titles in question may be the very reason that your book (or query letter) is rejected. For example, memoir is now an exceedingly difficult category, thanks in part to the sheer quantity of memoirs that have been published. Booksellers are being very, very, choosy about what they buy. So a cursory survey of recently published personal narratives is not necessarily going to tell you what publishers are buying now, and in fact, may reveal why your book faces an uphill battle. For this, you need a subscription to Publishers Marketplace. Remember, most books do not earn back their advances, or sell in any significant numbers, so the odds are stacked against you from the get-go.
• I thought that name sounded familiar.  Pay particular attention to who the author is. Even in narrative (as opposed to prescriptive non-fiction, where the emphasis is on the writing as much as the information) platform is all. All things being equal, a publishing house is far more likely to take on a book from someone with an established public profile than an unknown author. In some cases, understanding the author’s marketing abilities helps explain why a particular book was bought.
• Think twice when there’s no competition at all. Every so often, I hear a pitch in which an author is absolutely correct when she tells me that there is no book like hers out there. This may be a terrific opportunity, the oft-looked for “hole” in the market. But it also may be because publishers are convinced that a particular subject won’t work. An editor I know recently bought a book on dealing with bedbugs, a widespread and awful scourge about which no book had been published. It may be that the book will go on to sell thousands upon thousands of copies to the itchy and unhappy victims of bedbug infestations, or it might be that this is info that people can get from the internet, or via their exterminator—I suppose we’ll wait and see.
• Too close for comfort? In surveying the competition, be mindful that a book need not be exactly like yours to constitute competition. Despite the fact that you have your own distinct take on doing business in China or parenting oppositional children, baking vegan cupcakes or greening the work-place, houses with similar books under contract or on their backlists see little reason to cannibalize their own lists. If you are wading into a crowded marketplace, then it is incumbent on you to: actually read the competition; make certain that your book is both different and better; communicate that difference; and bear in mind that most consumers rarely but multiple titles on a single subject. (Note, this applies almost exclusively to nonfiction).

Summer reads

by Jessica

I’m just back from a glorious, albeit brief, not-quite-summer vacation, so have very few substantive publishing insights to share. I was, however, fortunate enough to head out with a few good books tucked into my suitcase. First, The Imperfectionists, which is an arresting and impressive debut novel from former foreign correspondent and editor Tom Rachman. Set at an international English language newspaper based in Rome, something like a second rate International Herald Tribune, each chapter tells the story of a staffer (plus one avid, eccentric reader) ranging from a would-be stringer to a bitter copyeditor to the paper’s miserable CFO. Although these are essentially linked short stories, together they tell a larger tale about this paper in particular and the newspaper business in general (both sliding into oblivion), and the bittersweet, utterly recognizable lives of the men and women who labor on its behalf. The Imperfectionists has garnered terrific reviews—perhaps in part because the people who review books are very often journalists who delight in reading about themselves. But whatever the case, the clever, unorthodox, non-linear structure was refreshing, and for me, a good omen.

There is a fear that the book world is becoming homogeneous; I often hear people complain that the books “out there” are somehow cut from the same cloth. While I hardly think that present publishing climate is some Panglossian best of all possible worlds, I’m still struck by the sheer variety of the books I encounter, personally and professionally.

Indeed, two other new books that vacationed with me—both Book Expo handouts—were also unusually shaped. Neither Antonya Nelson’s Bound—a character driven novel of two disintegrating families, nor The Midnight Choir, by Gene Kerrigan a terrific, gritty Dublin crime novel that weaves together the stories of assorted police and criminals in the now bygone era of the Celtic Tiger, were quite so short-fiction-ish as The Imperfectionists, but each work was expansive and sprawling enough to push the boundaries of the conventional novel.

I also read an ARC for The Thousand by Kevin Guilfoile, a smart but preposterous thriller in the DaVinci Code vein that Knopf is publishing. The premise, that the world is run by warring cults of Pythagoreans (who are involved in more than just geometry), hits all the right notes—arcane ancient knowledge, secret cabals of powerful elites, plus a dose of speculative fiction—but it’s not my cup of tea. I must lack the conspiracy theory gene. I can’t bring myself to believe that any society, secret or otherwise, is so remarkably organized.

I would however, like to know what you’re reading, or planning to read, on vacation. Like Chasya and Stacey, who recently posted on the subject of summers reads, I welcome recommendations.

Authors behaving badly

by Jessica

Abandon all high-mindedness all ye who enter here.

This week the Daily Beast has a gallery of literary feuds, which is as appalling as it is entertaining. How did I miss that Richard Ford spat on Colson Whitehead at a 2004 Poets & Writers event in retaliation for a bad review? That the always pugnacious Norman Mailer head-butted Gore Vidal in the green room of the Dick Cavett show may not be too surprising, but whenever events allow us to spy that (sometimes significant) gulf between an artist and his or her creation, I cannot help but marvel: how is it that the same people who possess such extraordinary insight into human behavior can acquit themselves so poorly? On one hand, given that most of these featured feuds took place before digital media existed to fan the flames, I suppose it’s reassuring to see that people were petty and peevish even before they had recourse to blogs or tweets.

Interestingly, there are those who complain that the current literary landscape has become too genteel and booster-ish, that punches are pulled for fear of censure. (Dale Peck, apparently, missed this memo. So too Paul Berman). In a 2006 article in the NYT Book Review, columnist Rachel Donadio wrote about the literary feud as an endangered species “To some, the paucity of feuds is connected to the larger state of literary culture. ‘It’s not because we no longer have feuds,’ said Fran Lebowitz, the writer. ‘It’s because we no longer have literature.’ "  This strikes me as somewhat dire—I’m not convinced that there is clear and direct relationship between literary merit and public sniping. What do you think?

Have you any favorite literary feuds?

A poor get-rich-quick scheme

by Jessica

My father, who worked in the newspaper business, was especially fond of quoting the New Yorker writer A.J. Liebling, who remarked that “freedom of the press belongs to the man who owns one.” Book publishing may not suffer from quite the same issues (not least because most publishing companies are now owned not by individuals, but conglomerates) but it’s a still a business in which it does not hurt to arrive equipped with your own funding.

As we all know, in the present market, publishing houses are looking for authors with well-established, and ideally national, platforms. For non-fiction writers especially, this translates into having the resources to spearhead their own publicity and promotion. Such resources may not necessarily be monetary—authors may possess celebrity, the backing of a large and well-known organization, media connections, or all of the above. These, mind you, are in addition to credentials and the ability to write well (or hire someone who can). Being an expert in your field is rarely enough. You need to be able to demonstrate that you can drive sales. Sometimes you need the wherewithal to actually deliver sales. Nothing sweetens a deal like a letter of commitment for the purchase of 10,000 books.

The business of building platforms, including putting together websites, blogging, networking, doing p.r. (on your own or with the help of a freelancer) is costly, whether in terms of cash or time. It’s true that on-line media may mean that publishing, unlike politics, is not solely a rich man’s game, for it offers to the intrepid and web-savvy a relatively cost-effective means of building a following. But it’s also real and time-consuming work, work that comes in addition to your professional and personal obligations, not to mention the actual writing. I can understand why many writers find the demands of the publishing industry onerous, a bit like the to-do list Cinderella's stepmother commands her to complete before heading to the ball. In addition to being talented and credentialed, writers must be marketing whizzes, masters of social media, twitter adepts with legions of followers. If it sounds a little crazy, it is. The demands are many and the rewards few. For many published authors, writing is less a revenue stream than a long term investment. And sometimes it’s solely a labor of love.

Publishing a book is perhaps the worst get-rich-quick-scheme imaginable, but it seems that few of us—writers, booksellers, agents, editors, designers, sales reps, etc.—are in it for the money. Although there are always a few exceptions who prove the rule (and it’s true that publishers must make enough money to publish another day, and satisfy the media conglomerate of which they are a part) the book business still tends to draw people who are passionate about books, those for whom writing, or working with writers, is something of a calling. What keeps you in the publishing orbit? For me, it’s the constant opportunity to learn. Plus the ability to lose myself in a terrific novel and call it “work.”