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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!
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?
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?
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?
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.
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.
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.
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?
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?
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?
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?
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
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.
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?
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.”
by Jessica
I ran across
this article in
Salon (which also has
a good continuation of the why men don’t read story—see
Stacey’s post) in which the author lauds the therapeutic value of the mystery novel, and goes on to recommend several that she promises to have salutary effects. I’ve always been partial to the notion that a book can be the cure for what ails you (or at the very least, provide an excellent distraction). Years ago, a good friend assembled her own book-based survival guide to break-ups; I can’t recall the precise titles, but I remember that it was a blend of commiseration, distraction, and gritty nonfiction--designed to make her unhappiness pale by comparison. Fortunately, I’ve no present need of such heavy duty meds, but when I’m feeling weary of negotiating contracts or listening to the latest Cassandra prophesying doom for the written word, I reach for a work that reminds me of the joy inherent in a great book. I’ve not quite come up with my own diagnosis-driven reading list, but it seems there are those who have: indeed, there is a whole discipline called “Bibliotherapy,” dedicated to the idea that reading carefully selected books can promote physical and psychological healing—have a look at
this Guardian article. Interestingly, the books that the bibliotherapists prescribe are not self-help books per se, but serious novels. For a marvelous hybrid of literature and pop psych, check out Alain de Botton’s
How Proust Can Change Your Life.
So my question is this: What books do you use to self-medicate? Won’t you kindly share your prescriptions?
by Jessica
At long last I have seized the opportunity to read the
Atlantic fiction issue, which has sat neglected on my coffee table, patiently awaiting my attention, for far too many days. Much as I hate the fact that the
Atlantic no longer serves up a short story a month, their dedicated fiction issue
almost makes up for it . This year’s line-up does not disappoint: there’s a refreshingly cranky piece by Paul Theroux on e-books and the future of reading, a creepy T.C. Boyle story and a piece by Joyce Carol Oates (
one blogger waggishly wondered if including stories by Boyle and Oates is some kind of lit-mag requirement), and Richard Bausch’s essay
“How to Write in 700 Easy Lessons: The Case Against Writing Manuals.” In it, Bausch argues that despite the success and proliferation of books that promise to teach you how to write a [fill-in-genre-here] novel in 15 easy steps or offer to share the “secrets” of successful novelists, writing is not a skill that can be taught in the manner of model airplane construction or home repair. The whole essay is well worth a read, but I’ll cut to the chase:
“My advice? Put the manuals and the how-to books away. Read the writers themselves, whose work and example are all you really need if you want to write. And wanting to write is so much more than a pose. To my mind, nothing is as important as good writing, because in literature, the walls between people and cultures are broken down, and the things that plague us most—suspicion and fear of the other, and the tendency to see whole groups of people as objects, as monoliths of one cultural stereotype or another—are defeated.”
I don’t disagree with Bausch’s recommendation that aspiring writers should be broad and assiduous readers, and I nearly stood and cheered at his last line; good writing
does undermine cultural stereotypes. But on further reflection, the whole polemic, well-crafted and funny as it was, rang a bit hollow. I somehow doubt that books that peddle “shortcuts” to being a good writer are exerting an especially malign influence on the world of letters. It’s unlikely that novels written solely according to the literary equivalent of paint-by-numbers get published, much less endure (though there are, I realize, exceptions to every rule). Most aspiring writers are readers (right?) and most writers figure out that the path they’ve chosen is not only devoid of the kind of shortcuts Bausch deplores, it’s uphill over brutal terrain. If books on writing are useful triggers to imagination/discipline, are they deserving of scorn?
Since the vast majority of the folks who read this blog are writers, I’m interested to know what you think: are there writing guides that you swear by? Manuals you recommend? Do you agree with Bausch that that how-to books foster cookie cutter writing? Do you think, more broadly, that good writing can be taught at all?
by Jessica
Last week demonstrated that few people note, or especially care, about the publisher behind a given book, which means that it is a distinct minority that pays attention to the colophon, the little logo printed on a book’s spine. Knopf has a sleek borzoi, Harper a torch, and Random House a rather distinctive house. For anyone who has ever puzzled over where those symbols originate (or fans of generally useless trivia)
here is the provenance of the little house on the big books.
by Jessica
Two recent stories in
Publishing Perspectives caught my eye:
first, that the number of self and micro published titles has risen to the staggering figure of 764,448 in the last year;
the next was a story about whether consumers feel a sense of allegiance (or actually notice) the name of a book’s publisher or imprint.
Taken together, the stories seem to capture two countervailing impulses in publishing. For many writers, the decision to publish without backing from a major house--whether by choice or necessity--expresses a fundamental confidence that it is the author, not imprint, who is the “brand.” The latter article (which is more impassioned argument for than clear demonstration of) points to imprints that have built for themselves a recognizable brand identity. The articles cites Knopf, Vintage, and Penguin Classics as imprints that readers may deliberately seek out, or at the very least, spot and have a baseline assurance of quality.
So, I’m curious to know: How often, or have you ever, bought a self-published book? Have you self-published a book yourself? To what degree to you pay attention to a book’s imprint? Are there imprints that you swear by?
by Jessica
I was chatting with some colleagues about assorted misconceptions about publishing, and I thought I’d pass along three.
1) In the name of writing an arresting, throw-down-the-gauntlet type of query, insult the agent to whom you are writing. Every so often I get a query that dares me to look past my own evident myopia/mediocrity/corporate co-option and read a project so mind-blowing that it will challenge everything I presume to know. Although it’s true I am near sighted (and entirely open to earth-shattering literary experience), I’m always a little astonished that anyone imagines contempt might be an effective conversation starter. I do wonder whether the writer in question started out composing less strident letters, and has simply grown bitter over time. If so, I get it. Rejection is excruciating, and who wouldn’t love to craft some cutting cri de couer? Satisfying? Certainly. Self-sabotaging? Probably. Calling an agent a tool seems a poor way of hiring one, but perhaps even Pyrrhic victory can be sweet.
2) I often hear it bandied about that it is harder to get an agent than a publisher. Comforting as this may seem, I feel fairly certain it’s not true. To find representation, you must convince only one person that your story is well-crafted, saleable, and worthwhile. To get a book into print, you generally need to convince a battery of people with disparate tastes and interests, a long, highly particular history of success and failure selling books, and improbably high sales targets that your work is worthy and commercially viable. Most slots on a given list are carefully guarded, and awarded to people who can play some active role in rounding up readers. In the case of business books, an “active role” might take the form of a “buy-back” in which a company or foundation commits in advance of publication to buy ten or fifteen thousand copies. Quite a deal sweetener, also something like the publishing equivalent of Stone Soup. The house brings the stone, but the author brings all the other ingredients, including a baseline of sales. Getting an agent means recruiting a single (albeit tenacious) ally; getting a contract means winning over a whole team.
3) Once you have a publisher, your book will be available in bookstores throughout the country. Not always the case. Publishing houses, even those with great distribution, are not solely responsible for the number of copies shipped. They may announce an ambitious first printing, but the bookseller accounts have a say in how many copies they will take, how many stores will stock it, and for how long.
Any misconceptions that you have encountered/discovered? I’m happy to add to the list.
by Jessica
(For details on Slush Week, see
Chasya's introduction.)
We'll start with the query on its own, then the response after the jump:Dear (Agent's name):My dad made his living off people's inability to keep on living. Dad, who called himself Digger O'Dell, was the gravedigger and cemeterycaretaker in small-town Waseca, Minnesota. Death was our family business,and I spent long summer days in cemeteries. I wandered graveyards, readingnames off tombstones and wondering about the people in the ground. Iabsorbed the stories and images of those who had gone before me: a motherand her six kids killed by a train, a rosy-cheeked 15-year-old girl, acounty sheriff shot on duty. Yet, as I write in my memoir, We'll Be the Last Ones to Let You Down, astrange silence about death pervaded our lives. A large divide existedbetween working with death each day and actually understanding grief. Dadand Mom were no strangers to mortality-they bought their own giant tombstonein their early 40s, and they knew death intimately through the loss of lovedones. But in this stoic Midwestern place, our stories were not ours to tell,and I sought answers and explanations through the stories of others. Aftermy dad died from a fast-growing cancer when I was 15, the silence in myfamily grew exponentially. But I realized that just as the stories I grew upwith kept the dead alive, words would be the only way to prove that myfather walked this earth. Our stories must be ours to tell. Eight excerpts from my 68,000-word memoir have been published in print andonline literary journals. A short chapter earned first place in creativenonfiction in the 2009 Missouri Review audio competition. Another chapterwas selected runner-up for the 2006 Bellingham Review Annie Dillard Awardfor Creative Nonfiction. It was published in the Spring 2007 issue andsubsequently nominated for a Pushcart Prize. My memoir earned me a spot inthe competitive mentorship program at The Loft writing center in Minneapolis
18 Comments on Jessica's Slush Week entry, last added: 3/6/2010
by Jessica
I didn’t actually make it to the O’Reilly Tools of Change Conference, which took place here in New York earlier this week, but between assorted bloggers, tweets and handy You Tube posts, plus the actual eyewitness reports of colleagues and friends, I was something of a virtual attendee. No doubt actual conference-goers will say that I missed the frisson of excitement coursing through the event (so many smart people assembled to discuss the publishing’s digital future must mean that there is money to be made!), but I feel I’ve gained reasonable insight into the discussion, and if you are so inclined, said insight can be yours as well. For a handy overview
have a look at this PW article.
You might then check out social media guru Chris Brogan
discussing on-line audience building for authors, or Ariana Huffington, delivering a keynote address entitled “Publishing is Dead, Long Live Publishing.” She makes a good, albeit not entirely new, point that the digital space allows readers a heretofore-unimaginable degree of engagement with the written word. Thanks to the magic of the Internet, readers are now able to join the conversation, to participate in the greater cultural discourse in a direct, visible and sometimes influential way. All to the good, I say, though I must admit that for all the reading I do online, I rarely comment on articles, even those that move me to paroxysms of delight or fits of fury. (Theoretically, these fits should no longer happen, as my on-line reading choices should, as studies indicate, lead me into an echo chamber of like-minded thinkers. I must be following the wrong links, because I still find plenty to infuriate.)
And while I know this question is necessarily self-selecting for its respondents, I wonder how often you weigh in on your favorite sites? Where? I’ve no shortage of opinions, but somehow, aside from this blog, I’ve not developed the habit of expressing them in any google-able format. I suppose I’m a reader/lurker, but in keeping with the exhortations of the Tools of Change cheerleaders, I plan to make a more concerted effort to enter the fray.
by Jessica
As the week begins, I am feeling decidedly under the weather; last night, I was flipping through magazines in a somewhat desultory fashion, rereading the same sentences again and again, watching paragraphs swim before my eyes, and otherwise making little actual headway. The time I failed to spend reading, however, I devoted to looking at pictures. Namely, book ads. Which are, along with the
New Yorker’s weird assortment of sterling silver pet pins/pendants (who, I ask, buys the “European Beret?”), of particular interest. Book ads—whether placed in publication local or national—have long been a staple of publishers’ promotional arsenal, but I’m curious to get your take: has an ad ever driven, or even heavily influenced, your decision to buy a book?
I’m not sure that I can point to a time when an ad alone propelled me to the bookstore (or the library) though February’s
Harper’s boasts a full page ad for
36 Arguments for the Existence of God that may well do the trick. I was pleased to spot a
New Yorker ad for Simon Mawer’s superb
The Glass Room, and I hope that it will drive other readers toward this very smart novel. But it’s difficult to measure the impact of traditional advertising—no click-throughs, no totting up eye-balls or page views. Which is why I’d love to hear your opinion. Do you pay attention to print book ads? Where do they have most impact? Do they influence your choice? And if not, what does?
Publishers, as you probably realize, do not run ads for every book they publish. Advertising and marketing dollars are carefully allocated, with big names generally commanding the biggest budgets (and sometimes the budgets, period) and usually, ads are given to books that are: 1) lead titles 2) already working 3) or have garnered such astonishing reviews that it makes sense to pay to shout it from the rooftops. Publishers rarely count on ads to get the ball rolling, but rather to build or maintain existing momentum. So perhaps an ad alone would not motivate a sale, but a good review, and interview on NPR, capped off by an effective ad in a favorite magazine (one that quotes the other review you might have missed) these might create some sort of tipping point.
Not everyone agrees with this hypothetical; indeed, there are plenty of people who think ads are essentially useless (or worse yet, expensive ways of appeasing agents and big-name authors). Whatever the reason, publishers have certainly cut back. The
NYTBR is still the
sine qua non, but even there, the costs of a full page ads has fallen precipitously.
When, for better or for worse, publishers decide that the traditional ad model doesn’t work (too much money for too little gain) it has unintended ripple effects across the publishing ecosystem. Falling ad revenue shuttered both the
Washington Post Book World and the
LA Times Book Review, which in turn means fewer influential places to be reviewed. There are, of course, many book-related sites online, but so far, none have quite the reach that publishers are hoping for.
I’m curious to know how you weigh in.
by Jessica
As Valentine's Day approaches and retailers redecorate in shades of crimson and Pepto Bismol, I thought it fitting to look at book publishing and the language of love. As an author I know pointed out, romance--not the genre, but as metaphor--seems to govern the acquisition process. When editors pass on a project they say they “just didn’t fall in love,” or admit they were “not sufficiently passionate,” or (and this is something that I myself have been known to say) “admired but did not adore” the work in question. What’s this all about? In what ways is landing a book contract like falling in love?
I’d say two things; first, that to some degree, the metaphor is not wholly disingenuous. Publishing is driven, to a surprising degree, by gut feeling and genuine enthusiasm, and in order to pitch a project to colleagues, collect second reads (so that others will also fall in love), parry the inevitable skepticism of the sales and marketing team, and otherwise assert that this book should occupy one of the finite slots that each imprint is allocated, editors do need to be engaged. Publishing love, does not, however, exist in a vacuum, nor is it blind.
In order to summon--and sustain--the abovementioned passion, an editor must believe that a project fits in with the mandate of the house. A commercial house best known for its big name thrillers is probably not going to open its heart to a literary stream-of-consciousness narrative, no matter how brilliant. Past performance also plays a role. An editors’ capacity to love is distinctly dampened by the whiff of failure. So if your book falls into a category that has proved disappointing for the imprint (their last two travel memoirs tanked) or across the industry (for example general parenting titles), or is perceived as difficult to sell, romance may be elusive. And of course, if you are a published author, your own track record, unceremoniously retrieved from Bookscan, is taken into consideration. Downward trending numbers can cool the most ardent infatuation. Finally, published or not, who you are plays no small role in the courting ritual. Famous, well-connected, possessed of a national media platform? You grow more loveable by the minute. I don’t wish to sound cynical, because, in truth, I’m not. I don’t regard the contemporary publishing landscape as an intellectual wasteland dominated by celebrities--on the contrary, I’m haunted by all the excellent books I may never read. I also meet with editors and publishers of formidable taste and professional conviction. But for some odd reason, book publishing (again like love) is something we tend to romanticize, wish to see as “pure,” impervious from calculation, profit-motive, self-interest. Which, of course, it’s not. But however you prefer to think about love, the book industry is not best perceived through rose-colored glasses.
By: DGLM,
on 9/30/2010
Congratulations Jessica!
Congrats!
Oh, a baby! Congratulations! What joy! Wishing you all the best and a good sleeper. :)
I'm delighted Jessica has had a son. Like all readers, I wish them both good health and happiness, and I hope Jessica is able to devote the time and attention to the baby that it should have.
But:
In the meanwhile, my crass question is:
What happens to the unanswered enquiries directed to her?
Congratulations, Jessica! :)
Great news. Congratulations Jessica.