Glass gives guidance

by Stephanie

Today, I wanted to pass along this brief interview from Morning Media Menu with Julia Glass, the National Book Award winning novelist. In the nine-minute-long interview, Glass reinforces the qualities that every aspiring writer must possess—first and foremost, determination. Before winning the National Book Award for her debut novel, Three Junes, Glass encountered the same repeated rejection—including the dreaded form letter—for quite some time. She admits surprise at not giving up after at least seven years of sending out her writing, only to have it rejected. Seven! She emphasizes the important lessons that a rejection can teach you, and the persistence and patience one must have in order to not be worn down by the system.

I feel like this is one of those things that can’t be stressed enough. Sometimes, it really does take countless rejections to find that one pair of eyes who is looking for and falls in love with what you’ve written. It may sound far-fetched but it does happen, and Julia Glass’s case is no exception.

The biographer as fan

by John

Back when I was an editor at Putnam Young Readers, I had the pleasure of helping National Book Award-winner Nathaniel Philbrick adapt his adult bestseller In the Heart of the Sea for young readers. It’s often tricky to translate adult work for a younger audience, but In the Heart of the Sea had a clear hook: One of the two main characters from In the Heart of the Sea was 13-year-old Cabin Boy Thomas Nickerson, to whom any young reader could relate.

However, after reading Nat’s review of Geoffrey Wolff’s The Hard Way Around: The Passages of Joshua Slocum in this Sunday’s New York Times Book Review,  I realized there’s another key reason why his book translated so well for young readers: Nat’s a big fan of his material, and his personal feelings permeate the entire work. I love Nat’s idea that you can take a nonfiction topic and show what you think of the story, actively involving yourself rather than approaching it as a non-judgmental author/reporter. I also love his suggestions that a) you can work within the existing record, rather than having to dig up little new minutiae that don’t really add much to the basic plot, and b) that well-known stories are still worth telling, especially if you give them a personal slant.

This fan-boy narrative style is one that Russell Freedman and Elizabeth Partridge have used successfully in their nonfiction work for kids, and I wish I saw more of it out there. So to all you nonfiction writers, here’s a simple plea: Get off the sidelines and get into your books!

Books I couldn't sell

by Jim

For a conference I’m going to next year, I was asked to answer a series of questions about myself and agenting—what the most exciting part of the job is, how I landed in publishing, and what my first sale was. Those were easy. Then I hit the question about who the first client I ever signed on was. That was less easy. Not that I didn’t know the answer. It just required me to publicly admit that the first project I signed on never sold. You know what? Eight years later, it still stings.

I thought about lying, but that’s really not my style, so I answered instead that I had signed on a wonderfully fun novel in a Valley of the Dolls vein that I still think deserved to be published. It was really good! And then in a slightly defensive moment, I jotted down that I almost immediately thereafter signed on Victoria Laurie who has sold 24 books with me since then. Well, it’s TRUE.

The thing is, every time something doesn’t sell, it hurts a little. The happy fact of the matter is that the number of projects that don’t sell becomes smaller and smaller as you carry on as an agent—you learn what you’re better with, understand markets better, and come to know the perfect editors for certain projects. But sometimes things don’t work. And it suuuuucks. Especially when you’re head over heels for a project.

I was at a release party for Lee Houck’s Yield a few weeks back, and in his incredibly kind remarks, he mentioned the moment I called him to offer him representation. Apparently I told him something like, “I don’t know if I can sell this. But I can try.” Apparently I remembered to put on my honesty shoes that day! I didn’t remember that I had said it, but I remember that I had thought it! It was a literary novel about gay characters and themes that was at best going to be challenging to place. It was also amazingly heartfelt and beautifully written, so I gave it a shot knowing it would pain me if I didn’t place it. Happily, that one worked out.

The novel about a juvenile prostitute in Newark that was written in dialect? That one didn’t sell. It was just as brilliant as Lee’s novel but even more challenging. I still hate that it didn’t work. I also hate that an editor called me to ask if the author had been a hooker in Newark, adding that the novel would be more marketable if so. That led to the single most awkward phone calls of my entire career. “I was just wondering if maybe you ever happened to, ummm…”

In the end, no agent can guarantee a sale. The most they can ever promise you is their best efforts. But if it’s any consolation, they’ll still be kicking themselves years down the road if they aren’t able to usher you to success.

The publishing lunch

by Jane

One of the “legends” of book publishing is the publishing lunch. In fact, this has traditionally been a time for publishers and agents, or editors and agents, or editors and editors, or agents and their clients (or potential clients) get together and talk about ideas and industry gossip. It can be very productive and it can be fun. It can also be educational.

This week, I decided to go down memory lane and describe some of my more interesting publishing lunches (unfortunately for my readers, those with whom I broke bread will not be identified by name, to protect the innocent—and me).

Years ago, there were those editors who as part of their employment contracts had “accounts” at The Four Seasons restaurant, one of the most exclusive in New York. I remember being invited there a number of times by various editors who had such arrangements. Unfortunately because the “Grill Room” where we sat was so filled with celebrities, I was so busy gaping that I could rarely concentrate on business talk.

Then there was the lunch I had with one of the icons of the publishing industry. This happened many years ago and I was delighted that he had invited me after I had sold a novel to one of his editors for quite a large advance. But, I was so tongue tied and he was so unforthcoming that I wound up spending most of the lunch telling him how I had stopped smoking. (It didn’t help—despite numerous health problems, he still smokes to this day.)

There was a lunch I had early in my publishing career with the head of an imprint at a large publishing house where my host proceeded to have seven drinks. I was astounded, especially when he easily managed to exit the restaurant without passing out.

There was the bestselling restaurateur and cookbook author who begged me over lunch to introduce her to one of our hugely successful celebrity clients so the cookbook author could learn the secrets of the celebrity’s success (they had actually met several years earlier before the celebrity client was a celebrity but the restaurateur had not thought to pay attention to her at the time).

A week after my lunch with one of the top editors at a major publishing house, she called me to make a lunch date having completely forgotten that we had just had one. Nice!

There was the lunch I had with a good friend and wonderful editor at a major publishing house who told me ruefully that he could no longer take me (or anyone) to lunch as his t&e budget had been all but eliminated. (How silly, I thought, the lunch expenses have to be the least of a publisher’s worries.)

And then this past week when I lunched with one of the top executives of a major publishing firm who predicted the end of bookstores and publishing as we know it by this time next year (nice and cheery).

But hey, there are also hundreds of wonderful lunches where solid ideas are cooked up and good business is done It all goes into the mix of making our business so much fun.

It’s really just that I so very much like using rather superfluous words.

by Rachel S.

For my very-first-ever real blog entry, I thought I’d have to look hard to find something both relevant and personally interesting to write about. Surprisingly (to me), it took under 5 minutes before this Huffington Post article, written by Linda Silversten, came to my attention. I jumped on it immediately in a guilty rush to see what she had to say about writers who use too many unnecessary words in their prose. Noting that in recent years published writing has become more and more conversational, Silversten took it upon herself to pick two recent bestsellers and count the number of taboo “filler” words peppering the pages for comparison. While Elizabeth Gilbert and Seth Godin didn’t err too far to overuse, Silversten still found an overwhelming amount of ‘thats’ and ‘sos’ in the portions of text she chose to tally.

I’ve known ever since in-class essays became a normal testing method in grade school that I have a strong tendency to write far too much and use more words than are necessary to convey a point or image. While this was a point of pride in school (I was always a little bit smug, though I tried to hide it, when I asked the teacher for more paper during every exam), I’ve eventually come to understand that MORE writing doesn’t necessarily make for BETTER writing. I’m still working on the short sentences thing, though. I don’t think that these little filler words that this article brings up are as much of a problem in my own writing as are an overabundance of adverbs and split-infinitives (the phrase still sends me running to the dictionary every time someone tells me I have too many). Are Linda Silverton’s taboo words just as much a problem for you as they seem to be for most writers, or do you have words or tendencies of your own that you work to suppress?

Perspective, dinosaurs, and death machines

by Lauren

I was so happy to read this post on PWxyz about a new book co-edited by Ryan North of Dinosaur Comics, who you already know I love.  Machine of Death is an anthology of stories from a variety of incredible contributors (including xkcd's Randall Munroe) spawned from a particular Dinosaur Comic about a machine that tells people how they're going to die.  I can't believe I'm only hearing about it now, but I'm about to order my own copy.

There are a few things about the PWxyz post that warmed my cold, cynical NY heart.  One was the editors' appreciation of the efforts of people who tried to move the work through the great traditional publishing machine.  The anthology's editors worked really hard, produced what is surely a fabulous product, and found people who'd go to bat for it.  It didn't work out, so they self-published.  But rather than complain bitterly about how broken publishing is and how all authors should abandon it, they didn't take it personally:

This isn’t some vanity-press sour-grapes effort. The simple truth is that we probably can’t compete on the shelves at Barnes & Noble alongside every other book in the world. The agents and the publishers are right; it might not work for a mass market. That’s okay. We don’t need to sell it to everyone. We don’t need to sell 100,000 copies; we don’t have the rent on a New York office to pay for.

I don't think all authors should self-publish.  In fact, I don't think most authors should self-publish.  But for the right project, with the right platform, at the right time, it can be the right way to get a book to the audience that wants it, as long as you can put together a team of people who know how to get all the right pieces in place. 

The second thing I loved was how well this demonstrates that people who are truly dedicated to a great idea can build a community supportive enough to make their projects economically viable.  Sure, MOD-Day benefitted from the existing platforms of the people involved, but those people built their platforms online from the ground up through hard work, great content, and presumably a little luck.  No one says it's easy, but I love seeing the proof that it's possible if you're willing to make it happen.  The internet isn't a cornfield baseball stadium, but if you build it, and you work really hard to get people to see it, especially people with influence, and they like it, people are gonna come.


P.S.  This is a great excuse to link you to a delightful recent Dinosaur Comic.  You're welcome!

Travel

by Michael

Now that I live on the West Coast, I do a lot more traveling than I used to. Previously, I'd go to a couple of conferences a year, travel for the holidays and vacation, and that's it. Between Labor Day and Christmas this year, I'll be taking six trips to three different locations, so I'm suddenly paying more attention to travel news, books and apps.

The New York Times yesterday ran a review, of sorts, on travel apps, the gist of which is: books are still better than apps. And, in fact, they recommend that the iPad is actually a better travel companion that the iPhone, if you want the right app for the job. This surprised me a bit, considering my previous blog post about the usage of the iPad. But it makes sense: more screen real estate can be a huge advantage, not just because it can display more information, but because it's much easier to navigate. But the lesson learned here isn't that books are better travel companions or people should take their iPads everywhere they go (not everyone is me!). Rather, the book publishers and their app developers need to work harder to make the travel app experience a better one. From the review, it seems like the fixes could be quite simple. And, as apps mature, I think we'll see that the apps can actually do a better job of showcasing guidebook information on the fly.

But until then, I'll still carry my beat up, dog-eared guidebooks when I travel. How else would I have ever found the Mütter Museum? (Sorry, I couldn't resist linking to it!)

via PWxyz

Writing to extremes....

by Miriam

Life at DGLM has been so hectic today with back-to-back meetings and important literary agent things to do that I’ve not had time to come up with a blog topic, much less write one for your amusement, annoyance, and/or edification. So, in desperation, I looked up writer’s block in Google Images and I found the following from AmazingSuperPowers by Wes & Tony:

A little extreme, but I get it. Haven’t you ever gotten a little crazy when a deadline’s looming and you’ve got bubkis?

Books on food

by Stacey

I've been really into food and cookbooks lately, as I've mentioned, both because I represent a lot of them and because I love to eat (plus I'm trying to cook more, in my dreams at least). There is a lovely little indie bookstore in San Francisco, Omnivore, that a couple of my clients have done events at, and that I visited when I was in SF last spring. It's totally adorable and they have a wonderful, eclectic, well-curated selection of classic and contemporary books about all things food and wine. They get great authors to visit, even though the store doesn't hold more than a couple of dozen people and even then it's tight quarters. It's worth checking out if you're in SF, or even if you're not, you can subscribe to their newsletter, which is always a lot of fun to read. Enjoy!

The Austen question

by Stephanie

As a former college undergraduate who majored in English literature, I was never too far removed from the world of Jane Austen. Hers are novels that are firmly situated in the literary canon, and rightfully so. Her writing is more than well-known for its ability to weave elegant moral thought with comically ironic plot turns that prove to be not only witty but profound as well.

So I was interested to see this article at BBC News regarding a three-year-long study that suggests that someone else was heavily involved in the editing process of Austen’s manuscripts, namely an editor who worked for her publisher, John Murray II. This is a pretty big revelation, and indeed one that could incite both discussion and derision. Some could argue that the claim diminishes Austen’s prowess, making her writing not the product of her own talent, but rather something from an editor’s red pen. In other ways, as the article suggests, it could stand as an indicator of Austen’s openness to trying new things with her writing.

Either way, it’s interesting to think that new discoveries can still be made two hundred years after a book is published.

I Know, It’s Only Rock N’ Roll…

by John

...But I haven’t been this excited for a book in years! Of course, I’m talking about Keith Richards’ LIFE, which officially goes on sale today. And even if the excerpt from Rolling Stone didn’t live up to the hype (which it does), or if Michiko didn’t give it a rave review in the Times, I’d still be first in line to get my copy.

As a new agent, I’ve done several interviews over the last few weeks, and one of the usual questions is what did you read as a kid? Typically, my answers reference grade school or middle school, because once high school hit my pleasure reading pretty much dried up—except for rock bios, which aren’t exactly considered high literature. But looking back now at my well-thumbed copies of No One Here Gets Out Alive, Hammer of the Gods, and ‘Scuse Me While I Kiss the Sky, it’s fun to remember how I devoured these sordid tales of excess, and also to recognize the profound effect they had on me—no, I’m not talking about a raging heroin addiction, but how Beatles biographies like Peter Brown’s The Love You Make made me want to learn guitar almost as much as their music did.

So now that Keef has made the plunge, I can’t wait to dive in with him—partly because it promises to be an amazing story, but also I’m eager reconnect with that teen reading experience. By the way, if anyone wants a primer on rock bios/memoirs, check out this slideshow from The Wrap. And is anyone else as excited for LIFE as I am? Who else had their teenage world “rocked” by books as much as music?

Halloween horror

by Jim

Less than a week to go until Halloween, the best holiday of all time. Keep your fireworks, July 4th. I don’t need your candy canes, Christmas. I just want some candy corn, a scary movie, and the chance to see people wear crazy costumes and wander around.

I love a good scare. Admittedly, I go from zero to terrified pretty quickly and have been known to sleep with the lights on for days at a time when something really gets to me. But that’s never stopped me from going back for more.

I’ve said before (and maintain) that I’m looking for great horror novels. They’re not easy to find for a few reasons. There are no cheap scares in books—you can’t have a “gotcha” moment. So the suspense needs to be built, the discomfort seeded, and the terrifying aspects need to develop fully enough to stay with you as you turn each page.

As many folks know, House of Leaves is one of my favorite books. As the narrator begins to come apart, the narrative itself does as well. The author removes the safety net, and you realize that anything could happen. I still remember the act of reading one passage—how scared I was, and how hard it was to shake the feeling of being watched that the book implanted.

I’m also a big Shirley Jackson fan. Whether it’s the horror that people do in The Lottery or how convincingly spooky We Have Always Lived in the Castle is, she’s a master of unsettling.

Stephen King was pretty much my hero growing up. Looking back, some of his books don’t hold together as well as others. Let us never speak of Gerald’s Game. But when he’s on, no one can come near him. He has such an exceptional eye for what people are afraid of, and he can zero in on the most disturbing of our feelings. Whether it’s the viral fallout of The Stand, the killer clown of It, or the psychopathic fan of Misery, his great talent is in exploring (and exploiting) just what it is about these things that we find so terrifying.

What are your favorite scary books? And what’s the scariest?

Who would you want to be?

by Jane

So October 31st is a date I can never forget because it is my father’s birthday. It’s also Halloween, though, and a time when we all, young and old, at least think about who or what we might want to dress up as. Last week I saw a list of the most sought after costumes for this coming Halloween and guess who was at the top? Lady Gaga, of course.

But that and these two blog entries that Lauren forwarded to me made me think about what literary character from a book—fiction or non-fiction—I would want to be if I were to don a costume this year.

It didn’t take long for me to choose Cleopatra. After all with Stacy Schiff’s upcoming book Cleopatra: A Life being touted everywhere and given the queen’s fabulous make-up and clothes, becoming her for a few hours would be great fun. The question would be whether my husband, Steve, would agree to be Mark Antony?

I wonder what literary characters our readers would like to be and why; so please join the Halloween fun and let me hear from you.

Apology from a pedant

by Lauren

Courtesy of my friend Leila, I bring you this amazing video from Rogers Creations.  Apparently it's called kinetic typography animation, and it features the oh-so-wise and entertaining words of Stephen Fry, who you all already know I adore.  When I can sneak some pleasure reading in around the metaphorical pile of work reading, I'm currently enjoying Moab Is My Washpot.  Genius, as expected.  So in the spirit of Fry's words—which I can't argue with even though I want to, because he came up with cogent counterarguments to every point I would have made—I apologize for being so uptight about other people's grammar and punctuation.  I know I'm not above reproach in that regard in general or likely even in this very blog entry. 

To be honest, I'm probably still going to snicker at errant quotation marks and sigh aloud at inarticulate comments strewn across the internet.  Just please don't tell Mr. Fry!

Better titles!

by Jim

Jessica Regel tweeted this wonderfully entertaining blog today that gives some books slightly more accurate titles. Can anyone argue that Franny and Zooey could be retitled Wealthy and Mopey?

And wouldn’t it be easier to choose books if their titles were pithier and more to the point? British Battle Royale…that’s not just a title—that’s a book pitch!

Of course, there’s the immortal My Teacher Ruined This, which here stands in for Wuthering Heights. But don’t we all have a book that a well-meaning English teacher somehow overanalyzed to the point where the reading of it became a deep, dark slog? I still need to try reading The Great Gatsby again outside of the tortured process of high school English class. How about you? Any books that were tortured beyond recognition in your past?