Consult the Editor

Awards Time

2011-12-22T08:14:00.000-05:00

Carla Jablonski is very proud to have been asked to be a judge for the 2012 Scholastic Art and Writing Awards, sponsored by The Alliance for Young Artists and Writers. This organization is dedicated to supporting young writers and artists through college scholarships.

You see? Sometimes it actually DOES pay off!

2011-12-20T16:56:00.000-05:00

I just want to congratulate client Andrew Davis for the publication of his informative and entertaining book, Baggy Pants Comedy: Burlesque and the Oral Tradition, by Palgrave/Macmillan. It took him awhile to find the right home, but he did -- and the book looks fantastic!

Agents As Publishers--Is It Legit?

2011-09-07T06:39:00.000-04:00

From Sandi Gelles-Cole: "I was fascinated by this piece in Publishing Perspectives about the conflict of interest of agents now acting as publishers. Read it if you have a minute."

Your Unsolicited Manuscript Is A Sign That The End Is Near

2011-08-10T07:18:00.000-04:00

Appalled by declining morality and expanding chaos, people have been predicting the apocalypse since time immemorial--incorrectly, of course. But this dire forecast from an Assyrian clay tablet dating back to 2800 BCE offers an unusual twist:

“Our Earth is degenerate in these later days; there are signs that the world is speedily coming to an end; bribery and corruption are common; children no longer obey their parents; every man wants to write a book and the end of the world is evidently approaching” [my italics].

I can only assume that the Assyrian soothsayer was a freelance editor wearied by the constant stream of mediocre manuscripts--clay tablets, I mean--dropped on his doorstep by would-be authors . . .

Remembering Carol Southern

2011-08-02T07:21:00.000-04:00

It has been a steamy summer of unsettled weather here in New York as well as a time of stubborn recalcitrance and lack of progress in the economy and in politics. But for us in CEA it will always be remembered as the summer we lost our friend Carol Southern. In her years at Clarkson Potter she was known for editing beautiful books, finely designed and filled with colorful images drawn from life, which actually is a reasonable accurate description of Carol's personality as well. Not only was Carol a long-time sweet and generous presence in our conversations, she also graciously hosted many CEA meetings in her West Side apartment filled with memories of life with her husband, the dangerously witty Terry Southern.

We miss her already.

Not Quite A Publisher In A Box, But A Step In That Direction

2011-07-30T09:50:00.000-04:00

This is really interesting: From Seth Godin's Domino Project, successfully self-published author Jenny Blake provides her Excel spreadsheet listing the dozens of steps she takes from launch through publication and marketing of a new book. It looks as though it would need quite a bit of customization to fit your individual needs, but I suspect this could be a valuable tool for someone getting started in the complicated world of self-publishing.

Maybe Everything Old Really Is New Again

2011-07-25T15:48:00.001-04:00

Back in 1922, DeWitt Wallace was recovering from shrapnel wounds he'd received in World War I when he got the idea that the flood of information being published was just too great for the average person to manage. He got a pair of scissors and a pot of glue and made up a sample of a new magazine by piecing together the best bits of all the articles and books being published elsewhere for quick, easy reading by a busy person. By the time Wallace's concept celebrated its 40th anniversary, Reader's Digest had 23 international editions and was the most widely-read magazine in the world.

Today, apparently, the same concept looks like this:

Gis.to is an aggregator of abstracts for the long-form web. It is a venue for the crowds to share the valuable nuggets of information held within long-form non-fiction content which often gets overlooked or ignored due to the massive amount of information produced by our society each day. . . .

Solution

A directory of well-written abstracts (or Gists) that summarize the key points of information within long-form articles that offer readers a glimpse into what a further investment of their reading time will yield without skewing the original source article with a great deal of editorial opinion.

Sort through the jargon and you quickly see that Gis.to is basically a Reader's Digest for the twenty-first century . . . with readers writing the "condensed" contents themselves. If you find this idea compelling, visit the website and you'll have an opportunity to donate money to the people who are launching this thing--and who I bet are hoping to become millionaires in the process.

Fame Makes Best-Sellers . . . Usually Not Vice Versa

2011-07-12T11:39:00.001-04:00

An entertaining and fact-filled review of the history of American best-sellers (or as she corrects the term, "fast-sellers") by Ruth Franklin. Most sobering observation: "A novel by a new writer has a smaller chance of becoming a best seller today than at any other time in history." Of course, it helps if you are someone like Tina Fey or George W. Bush, famous from non-literary activities (in the case of President Bush, extremely non-literary). The book business, much as we may love it (and with occasional huge exceptions as with the Harry Potter phenomenon), is increasingly an appendage to broader American culture rather than its core.

"And Thanks To The Editor Who Tortured Me Mercilessly"

2011-07-10T08:37:00.000-04:00

I was amused by this article by Emily Gould offering do's and don'ts for author acknowledgment pages, although I must note that some of her tips (e.g., "Rule #2: Don't thank a deity") seem more broadly applicable than others ("Rule #7: Don't swing madly from throwaway jokes to forced gravitas").

Personally I judge the acknowledgment pages in books I've worked on based solely on how effusively the author praises me. More effusive = better, in case you are wondering--although in my experience the level of authorial thanks I receive tends to be negatively correlated with my actual role in enhancing the book. When I do little but spruce up the grammar and correct a misspelling or two, I generally get warm accolades; when I transform an unpublishable mess into a clear, interesting read, I often get tepid thanks or none at all.

In retrospect, of course, that's not surprising. The dentist who discovers I have half a dozen cavities and spends three hours fixing them all does me more good than the one who gives me a quick, painless cleaning--but I certainly don't savor the process. So I guess that when I tear apart and rebuild someone's painstakingly crafted manuscript, it's unreasonable of me to expect gratitude. Yet of course I do, such is human perversity.

The Genius Of M.O. Braschi: Authorship As Mashup

2011-07-09T19:03:00.000-04:00

I used to think I was a reasonably productive writer--but that was before I heard of Manuel Ortiz Braschi, author of no fewer than 3,255 e-books. That is, "author" in the same sense that I "wrote" the music for West Side Story, since I downloaded the album from iTunes. Click here to read about a weird byproduct of the rise of electronic publishing . . .

Note To Self For When I Write My Publishing Memoir

2011-07-05T20:07:00.002-04:00

Remember to include plenty of "vaginal ectoplasm" (if I want a positive review from the Jewish Daily Forward, that is!).

Philip Roth: "I Wised Up"

2011-06-26T11:56:00.000-04:00

I enjoyed this interview with Philip Roth (from the Financial Times, via Slate). My favorite moment: When Roth says that he doesn't read fiction anymore, and when the interview asks why, Roth replied, "I don't know. I wised up." A cryptic answer that Roth declines to explain further.

Perhaps I like this exchange because it might seem to validate my own strong preference for reading non-fiction rather than fiction. Although I am willing to make an exception when the fiction is by Philip Roth.

Eek! Get Me Copy Editing!

2011-06-20T15:53:00.004-04:00

As the writer (not the author) of a book, I recently sent the manuscript along to the editor, Judith Jones, at Knopf. The author’s agent commented that we could look forward to the book actually being edited. “So many editors today just send manuscripts straight to copyediting.”

I was not so surprised—we hear this sort of thing all the time—but then I read Ian Frazier’s review of John Darnton’s terrific memoir, Almost a Family. Frazier’s praise for the book was unqualified, but he closed with a paragraph expressing his disappointment with the editing of the book:

“Are books more carelessly edited than they used to be, or is it just my imagination? In general this book is not so bad in that regard. However, I was discouraged to see that Knopf’s copyeditors seem not to know the difference between “poured” and “pored” and “clamoring” and “clambering.” He goes on to note that the copy editors let “eek out subsistence livelihoods” slip by. “Eek!”

There is one obvious explanation: spell check. Whether the publishers are skipping real copyeditors and relying on that function or if lazy copyeditors are to blame, letting the computer do the job is an obvious factor. It isn’t enough. Spell check is great—for spelling—but writers, editors and copyeditors still need to be sure that the word itself is the right one.

Frazier closes with the hope that the next editions of Darnton’s book are corrected. And I suggest that more reviewers help by pointing out at least the most egregious flaws. Or is the age of shame also behind us?

The Literature of the World in a Warehouse in Richmond, California

2011-06-15T12:45:00.000-04:00

I love this story about Brewster Kahle, who has taken it upon himself to create an archive for hard copies of books scanned, digitized--and then mostly discarded--by Google. Ultimately he hopes his collection will include some ten million books.

Is there a point to Kahle's mission? There will be if, by some quirk of history or technological evolution, we arrive at a moment when the Internet is no longer available or useable, and we suddenly realize that one of those old tomes we uploaded decades ago contains information we actually need or want.

Digital technology is great, but I for one wouldn't want to bet our entire cultural patrimony on the continued viability of any single electronic data storage and recovery system.

The Gap

2011-06-12T15:40:00.004-04:00

And I am not talking about jeans.

Since I have launched an independently published novel into the blogosphere of book reviews and book bloggers I have come across an interesting phenomenon. I am sure it will straighten out eventually but for the moment, I am reminded of what our guest, Laura Von Wermer said about techgeeks scaring the book people away from our territory and how we have to take it back (I'm paraphrasing).

Reviews, a basic tool -- you send an ARC out to a list of time honored media representatives and they assign the book. Either the reviewer likes it or not, but there are givens: they know that the book is not proofed so they don't point out typos; there is the understanding that the font of a novel is probably not something to review.

More important-who gets the ARCs--if you are dealing with a virtual PR agency, as I am, this is wild. We are definitely not in the same world. I have been the host blogger on a mommy blog for a novel about Marilyn Monroe. I believe the thinking for where a book should go is fundamentally different. Rather than to a MM site, or dead celebrity, or Hollywood, the thinking goes in multiple directions. Blogs can take you deeper and sideways rather than staying on topic.

It's all a learning experience and once I've mastered it I am sure the entire landscape will change. C'est La Guerre.

A book of and for the ages

2011-06-09T17:05:00.003-04:00

I am telling everyone these days about A TIME FOR EVERYTHING, by Karl Ove Knausgaard, translated from the Norwegian by James Anderson. I have not been so moved and awed by a book in years. The time you give this book will be repaid a thousand fold in honest emotion (one of the rarest things in art), spellbinding imagery, and profound ideas.

"Why Is Someone Else In My Book's Author Photo?"

2011-05-26T07:44:00.000-04:00

Check out this story from Salon to read about one of the weirdest publishing snafus I've ever heard about (and believe me I've heard about quite a few).

Incidentally if any of the publishers I work with is looking for a new photo of me to use on a forthcoming book, I'd suggest the shot to the left. It might generate a few extra sales . . .

The Big Seven

2011-05-23T15:49:00.007-04:00

re the back and forth between Karl and Toni about allowing consumers to vote on covers--Galley Cat reports that author Max Barry has convinced his publisher to allow the Reddit community to vote on cover for his latest book.

While this is not what we seem to be now referring to as the big six, it is a step towards democratic selection.

More important-How do we feel about Amazon hiring Larry Kirschbaum, the world's greatest publisher, to head their publishing group? I think this means that we will have a big seven. I wonder if the publishing arm will start to interfere with what Create Space and other printers put on their site? Hmmmm-Frankly, this worries me -- it feels like a blow to the Indie Publishing movement. But it probably is time to do some sort of weeding.

The Only Advertisement Most Books Ever Get

2011-05-19T07:16:00.001-04:00

I enjoyed the feature in the Times Book Review last week showing rejected book cover designs, but this version is so much better, since it presents the "winning" designs alongside for easy comparison.

The next logical step: Publishers should present two or three alternative designs online and let prospective readers choose their favorite. Better still, the publisher could count the "votes" by inviting readers to click on book covers for more information or to pre-order the title. The image that draws the most clicks would be the one to get printed.

This is such an obvious use of social media that I am baffled as to why it hasn't already been done. Unless it has, in which case I would love to hear about it.

Why Go To A Bricks-and-Mortar Bookstore? Here's A Reason

2011-05-18T17:11:00.000-04:00

Sign of the times: This afteroon I went to my nearest physical bookstore (a Barnes & Noble fifteen minutes away from my home by car) for the first time in months. And why did I make the trip? Because the author of a book I'm editing wanted to quote a passage from a book she'd read on her Kindle--which meant she didn't know the number of the page on which the passage appeared. So I volunteered to drive to B&N to look at a printed copy of George W. Bush's Decision Points and ascertain that the endnote should refer to page 427.

Which proves I guess that you can't do everything on Amazon. Yet.

The Next-Generation E-Book

2011-05-16T18:41:00.000-04:00

Wow--you need to check out this presentation by Mike Matas of the interaction digital book for iPad and iPhone that he and his creative team have developed. And be sure to watch the last thirty seconds of the four-and-a-half minute video, in which Matas explains the business model. We live in exciting times.

Let's Debate In The Public Square, Not In The Courtroom

2011-05-07T07:00:00.001-04:00

Whatever you think of the Arab-Israeli conflict, Zionism, apartheid, or former president Jimmy Carter, the rebuff to the lawsuit against him over alleged "falsehoods and misrepresentations" in his controversial book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid is unalloyed good news. (Full disclosure: I am not unbiased in this matter since I have worked with President Carter and am an admirer of his, though of course I don't agree with everything he has ever written or said.)

Can anyone really imagine that the public debate over tough issues like the road to peace in the Middle East would be improved by the prospect of having every controversial book become the subject of a multi-million-dollar lawsuit?

Bookish Is Coming

2011-05-06T15:21:00.001-04:00

And what is Bookish? you ask. It's a new social networking website, launching this summer, that will be built around the book reading experience, with members sharing their favorite reads, garnering recommendations based on their past preferences, getting news about authors, and so on. Think of a literary version of Pandora, one that provides links to books for avid readers rather than links to audio files for music fans.

Sounds like a good idea if it is done well. And the resources and connections will be there to support it, since Arianna Huffington's AOL, Hachette, Penguin, and Simon and Schuster are all behind it, as this press release explains.

Full disclosure: A close family friend has been part of the team working part-time to help create Bookish for the last few weeks. Much to my frustration he has been utterly faithful to his non-disclosure agreement and so today is the first time I've even heard the name of the furshlugginer thing. But I promise the minute he is authorized to disclose anything more the readers of this blog will be among the first to hear it.

University Press Publishing: "This Is Madness"

2011-05-05T17:33:00.000-04:00

Under the headline "Adventures in Deadweight Loss," blogger Matt Yglesias laments the nonsensical economics of academic publishing, citing the case of an important new book on political philosophy that is priced on Amazon--with a discount!--at $82.40. Key quote: "I do wish people working in the academic world would think a bit harder about this economic/scholarly model. Professors employed at research universities are getting public and charitable funding because we think the production and dissemination of knowledge is important. That means it’s important to think about what’s actually a good way of disseminating knowledge."

Amen. Here's how the university press "model" has been described by one expert: "We publish the smallest editions at the greatest cost, and on these we place the highest prices and then we try to market them to the people who can least afford them. This is madness."

Who said it? Chester Kerr of Yale University Press. And when did he say it? In a once-famous report about university presses . . . published in 1949.

La plus ca change, etc. etc.

Marketing Books at the Bronx Zoo

2011-05-01T06:26:00.002-04:00

Visited the Bronx Zoo with the grandkids on a beautiful spring Saturday and encountered commercial giveaways and promotions for a variety of businesses and products, from Fisher-Price toys and Chevy Volt cars to New York Life insurance and Stonyfield Farms yogurt . . . as well as books. The Zoo is working with publishers to publicize children's books on animal themes, including a recent alphabet book by our artist friend Matt Van Fleet.

Can't help having mixed feelings about it all. On the one hand, it's annoying to find the capitalist urge pushing its way to the forefront of yet another once-noncommercial public institution. On the other hand, if kids are going to be indoctrinated into buying stuff, I'd rather have it be books than most other things.

SPAWNPUNK

2011-04-26T10:53:00.002-04:00

Wait, I mean STEAMPUNK. Does anyone have any idea what this genre refers to? Now that Penquin is starting their Book Country line, whatever this material is has been formalized, along with Alternative History, into a bona fide slot. Oh to be in paperback publishing in the old days, looking for the right book to shove into the rack.

Seriously, does anyone know what this refers to?

A Kindle Issue

2011-04-23T14:01:00.002-04:00

Don't get me wrong, I heart my Kindle! But I was recently reading Inside of a Dog and saw that the author said she had fed her dog raisins. Since raisins are known to be toxic to dogs, I found this upsetting and actually e-mailed her (a first for me). She answered almost immediately saying that I wasn't the only one to have remarked on this and she was surprised because there was a footnote right there saying that more recently raisins had been found to be dangerous for dogs. I looked again, and the note wasn't there. Turns out that on the Kindle all notes are given at the end of the book, and since you can't flip around the way you do the pages of a book, you don't really see them until you've finished reading the whole thing. Even more problematic, because there are no page numbers, it's almost impossible to go back and find out what each of the notes refers to.

This is not going to cause me to give up my Kindle, but it seems like a technological issue that would be relatively easy to fix--Amazon, are you listening?

A PROPOS

2011-04-23T12:40:00.005-04:00

I am a technological idiot so if this link does not work forgive me. Galley Cat published the top 20 apps for books and here's the link.

Honestly I have no idea why people use apps. For starters, how do they see the screen? I suppose that's the point--I'm a dinosaur, quickly eating up all the vegetation because I am huge and unsustainable.

Happy Holiday

Is This The Future of Publishing?

2011-03-27T06:49:00.000-04:00

Intrigued by self-publishing? Looks to me as if Joe Konrath's blog, Newbie's Guide to Book Publishing, is a must-read. Joe is a thriller writer who is selling thousands of self-published books (in both print and e-book editions) on Amazon. He has also built up a substantial body of expertise in producing and marketing e-books, and quite a collection of followers who are using his methods. I'm just getting into his work--there is a lot to absorb on his blog and it will take me a while to read it--but this looks like the real deal.

I'm surprised to hear myself saying this, but Joe Konrath may well be the future of publishing--at least one important piece of it.

The Last Chapter Problem

2011-03-26T09:17:00.000-04:00

Ever since the topic was broached in a Times Book Review article by David Greenberg a couple of weeks ago, there has been a lot of buzz about the Last Chapter Problem--the apparent need for every serious nonfiction book to end with a chapter that offers solutions to the problems described.

Why is this a problem? Because the proposed solutions are usually hopelessly inadequate to the problem. After all, as blogger Kevin Drum wrote, "[A]ny social or political problem that’s hard enough to be interesting is also hard enough to have no obvious solutions." What's more, the typical writer is better at describing situations than improving them--otherwise he or she would be a political leader or social reformer rather than a writer.

It's not easy to know what to do about the Last Chapter Problem. Simply omitting the last chapter is usually not the answer, since editors and publishers generally insist on offering the reader a bit of hope rather than concluding with the implicit message that the problem portrayed in the book--global warming, endemic poverty, child abuse, or whatever--is basically insoluble. And they are probably right to do so; it's hard to imagine many readers enthusiastically urging friends to read a book that is fundamentally a downer.

Perhaps the only real answer--one that only applies in a few happy cases--is when it's possible to describe the problem with such clarity and insight that, even before arriving at the obligatory Last Chapter, the nature of the solutions has been strongly implied throughout. For me, that was the case with Lewis Hyde's wonderful new book Common As Air, which deals with the growing tension between corporate control of intellectual property and the freedom and openness needed to encourage and facilitate further creativity.

Although Hyde does indeed write a traditional Last Chapter, I found that his vivid stories about how creativity really works--including, for example, his account of how Benjamin Franklin relied on inspiration, advice, and information from fellow scientists around the world in devising his famous kite experiment and the theory of electricity that grew from it--made Hyde's preferred approach to creating an "intellectual commons" for all to share and protect was abundantly clear even before I read it. In fact, Hyde's detailed arguments and supporting narratives were so compelling that by the time I came to his policy recommendations in the Final Chapter, I just nodded my head and said, "Of course, of course."

If you're smart and creative enough to pull this off, this seems to me to be the ideal solution to the Last Chapter Problem. But that's a big if!

Writing Groups: Help or Hell?

2011-03-22T14:33:00.006-04:00

Have you ever been in a writing group, or thought about joining or starting one? This post about it got me thinking. I was in a writing group years ago, and it fizzled (first for me; then eventually for them). My fizzle was my fault, I'd say, for:

a) not having enough current writing to make it worth going, and worth the group's time to critique me;

b) not realizing that there's limited value in having critiques from people whose writing expertise is based in entirely different markets or styles of writing (unless they are very eclectic readers and/or very astute critiquers), and

c) not being willing to commit the time to prepare pieces that are polished enough to benefit from critique and set aside time for the meeting itself.

And although I didn't find competitiveness an issue in that group, I think that also has to be part of the process when deciding whether to join a group or figuring out membership if you're starting one.

It seems that while writers long to break the isolation and yearn for meaty feedback from people who aren't our "bosses" (our agents, our editors, or others for whom we work) or our friends/family (who may be biased and/or tired of hearing about it), finding people you can learn from, and who can learn from you, is not an easy thing.

If you've ever participated in a writing group that worked well for you, what do you think made it succeed? And if you've been in groups that tanked or weren't at all helpful, why?

But My First Chapters Aren't the Best Ones

2011-03-20T22:23:00.005-04:00

Recently I received a query from a friend of a friend who has just start submitting his novel to agents. He explained that the tone and rhythm of the first chapters of the book are not representative of the novel as a whole, because for reasons related to plot and character development, the protagonist is quite passive early on. Later, the protagonist becomes more active and the tone and energy of the writing change. His problem: the agents he has queried all want to see the first chapter or two before requesting the whole manuscript. But the friend of a friend believes that the early chapters would give a reader the wrong impression about what to expect from the rest of the book, and because they're more passive, he's afraid no one will ask to see more. Here's how I responded:

The opening pages are considered to be of paramount importance. There's even a book about them by agent Noah Lukeman called THE FIRST FIVE PAGES. The reason for their importance is obvious: 1) You need to interest editors and agents, who may see fifty to a hundred queries and proposals a month. If they're not hooked immediately, they're going to stop wasting their time and move on to the next one. 2) Just as important, it's a general belief in the publishing world that readers are not as patient as they were in times past, and so you need to engage them right away.

You need to find a way to make the first chapters as compelling as the later ones. The character can be passive early on and then undergo changes to make him more active, but there has to be something in the opening that commands our attention, even if it's not a lot of action. Perhaps it's that we're compelled by a confounding character, or a really interesting situation -- one that we don't entirely understand, with some unanswered questions that pull us forward. If you absolutely believe that the first chapter doesn't represent the rest of the book AND that it is as compelling as the rest of the book, then you might send the first chapter, as requested, and include a later one, too, saying that the tone (or whatever) changes, and in the interest of full disclosure, this is what most of the rest of the book sounds/feels/reads like. No matter how good the rest of the book is, it's the first pages of the book that have to make us (agents, editors, readers) want to read more. It's that simple.

Every book is unique, like its author. All they same, there are a few rules that apply almost universally -- to novels, at least -- and one of those is that the first few pages have to give readers a reason to keep turning the pages.

Really? What year is this?

2011-03-18T14:01:00.000-04:00

Sadly, we actually DO still need to discuss the difference between reporting on male achievement vs. female. Still.

WAIT WAIT DONT TELL ME

2011-03-18T12:11:00.003-04:00

Author Penny Vincenzi is a personal favorite and I haunt the V section periodially until I find one of her new books. She is a UK author, published first there by Orion then here by Overlook.

Look, I know women's fiction--I read it, I edit it, I love it. Once I pick up one of her books I can't put it down. Last three nights I pretended to go to sleep with Ken, my husband, waited until he was out, then turned on the light to read some more. For the life of me, I don't understand why this author of ten titles, two of them composing a saga, does not make as much noise as any of our women, from Belva Plain to Luanne Rice to Danielle Steel.

My question-Have any of you reading this heard of her? If her name was the answer to a question on the NPR showv "WAIT WAIT DON'T TELL ME" or JEOPARDY if you prefer would you get it?

The mystery that defies publishers then, now, always-What makes it sell. Obviously we still don't know.

Interview about collaborating on Graphic Novels

2011-03-10T07:26:00.000-05:00

CEA member Carla Jablonski and artist Leland Purvis discuss how they worked together on the graphic novel trilogy RESISTANCE, including suggestions for people starting out.

For All YA Lovers!

2011-02-23T08:32:00.000-05:00

The line-up for the Teen Author's Festival has been posted! Panels, readings, and signings abound. (and yes, I'll be signing my graphic novel Resistance at Books of Wonder on March 20th.)

Would-Be Book Banners Are Feeling Their Oats

2011-02-22T08:39:00.000-05:00

Depressing news--the adoption of new, more aggressive organizing tactics by people who want to censor books in schools and libraries. In the words of an ALA spokesperson: “Traditionally, when books are challenged, it’s usually a single parent. But we have found that groups are organizing around the principle that professional librarians don’t have the expertise, that they’re pushing porn on our kids.”

Most of the new book banners focus on works that relate to sex (especially of the gay variety), although I was particularly appalled to read about efforts to ban Barbara Ehrenreich's important social-economic book Nickel and Dimed on the wholly spurious ground that it contains "anti-Christian themes." I guess if you think Jesus would be a big fan of forcing poor women to work under degrading conditions for minimum wage in order to maximize the income of chain-store companies, then, yes, Nickel and Dimed could be considered anti-Christian . . .

One more thing. The author of the linked article succumbs, unfortunately, to the widespread habit of throwing in a criticism of liberals, in an apparent attempt to make the article feel "balanced." In this case, he refers to Huckleberry Finn as "long a target of the left." But this assertion turns out to be evidence-free. Follow the link to the supposed source article and you discover that it describes the exclusion of Huck Finn from the library in Concord, Massachusetts, in 1885--more a matter of Victorian squeamishness about "coarseness" than any "left-wing" political objections. The article goes on to mention subsequent bannings in Des Moines, Denver, Omaha, and Fairfax, Virginia--not exactly a list of liberal strongholds.

Let's get real about this. The danger to intellectual freedom in America comes overwhelmingly from the right wing, not the left. That's the truth, and saying so reflects honesty, not "liberal bias."

Who Will Pay for the Cheese Sandwiches?

2011-02-20T12:11:00.005-05:00

Hilarious, charming, with an edge of perception. How many people can couple childlike drawn images of dead pantaloon-clad authors, blood-dripping knives, and a puffy-topped "publishing pie" with references to Elvis's shoelace, cheese sandwiches, and "the anchovies are restless"--and make a serious point about publishing, books, writing, and the future of it all--and what it means for authors, traditionally published and self-published alike? Only Margaret Atwood, in her talk "The Publishing Pie: An Author's View" at last week's O'Reilly TOC Conference/Tools of Change for Publishing.

Turow, Shakespeare, and Copyright Law: Huh?

2011-02-19T14:58:00.002-05:00

I join blogger Matt Yglesias in finding this op-ed piece by Scott Turow, which invokes the ghost of Shakespeare to defend copyright, quite bizarre. (Check out some of the many all-over-the-map comments Yglesias received in response to his blog post and you'll see that lots of other people found Turow's comparison confusing too.) Turow writes about how men with moneyboxes stood outside the playhouses in Shakespeare's day, collecting a penny admission from audience members. Then he continues:

Money changed everything. Almost overnight, a wave of brilliant dramatists emerged, including Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Kyd, Ben Jonson and Shakespeare. These talents and many comparable and lesser lights had found the opportunity, the conditions and the money to pursue their craft.

The stark findings of this experiment? As with much else, literary talent often remains undeveloped unless markets reward it.

Okay, I guess . . . except that Turow uses this historical circumstance to highlight the importance of copyright law--which didn't exist in Shakespeare's day--and to decry piracy of texts--which was plentiful then. (Printers or their assistants would attend plays at the Globe, take copious notes, memorize speeches as best they could, and then print the haphazard scripts that resulted, vexing Shakespeare scholars centuries later.)

So if Turow's historical analogy proves anything, it is that the great Elizabethan playwrights were amply rewarded and "incentivized" in the absence of copyright and despite widespread piracy--precisely the opposite of the cause-and-effect relationship Turow tells us to expect.

Funny, I had the impression that attorneys were supposed to be experts at logic . . .

Financial Reporting, Book Promotion--Or Both?

2011-02-17T12:51:00.003-05:00

I saw something in yesterday's New York Times that I've never seen before. In a fascinating article by Diana B. Henriques, a financial correspondent for the Times, Bernard Madoff said, among other things, that some banks had to have been at least passively complicit in his Ponzi scheme.

But what really got my attention was the information—right there, in a paragraph all its own--that the piece, which was based on an in-prison interview and a series of e-mail messages, is part of the reporter's research for her book on the scandal. That's one thing. But the book's title, publisher and that it will come out this spring all were included. I was torn between feeling that this is somehow unseemly—there was a whiff of quid pro quo about it—and wishing that other worthy authors could be so lucky: free advance promotion on the front page of the NYT. Wow. The only thing missing was a link to Amazon for pre-ordering.

The Secret Of Our Brilliance Is Out

2011-02-17T07:53:00.000-05:00

Via Boing-Boing, here is "The Secret of the Million-Dollar Briefcase"--an old comic-book style public service announcement about the wonders of books and their most convenient and affordable source, your public library. A nice reminder that, in these days of budget cuts and anti-government mania, our libraries deserve and desperately need our support.

A Light in the Dark?

2011-02-12T10:24:00.006-05:00

Every month, more indy bookstores close their doors for good. Recently it was Cody's in San Francisco and Davis-Kidd in Nashville, and soon it will be Bethel Avenue Book Co. in Port Orchard, WA, and The Muses Bookstore in Morganton, NC. But not all news from the world of independent bookselling is bad.

Oblong Books, a small bookstore in picturesque Rhinebeck, NY, was the subject of a front-page feature story in USA Today last Thursday. The 2,600-square-foot store is being increased by 1,000 square feet to make more room for children's books, educational toys, and touring authors. Suzanna Hermans, co-owner of the bookstore with her father, Dick Hermans, reports that 2010 revenue for both Oblong stores (the original, founded by Dick Hermans in 1975, is located in nearby Millerton, NY) was $2.5 million, up 2% from 2009. "We'll happily take that," the younger Hermans says. She credits customer service and her stores' popularity as a community gathering spot for the stores' strong sales. A growing "Buy Local" movement doesn't hurt, either, nor do the stores' vibrant series of author readings; last fall Stephanie Meyer visited Millerton for an Oblong-sponsored event.

In a forward-thinking and perhaps counterintuitive move, Hermans is embracing e-books. Her customers are able to buy them via a link on the stores' websites to the Google eBookstore.

The e-book offering is certainly something that could never have been foreseen when her father opened the first store thirty-six years ago and its stiffest competition was the Book-of-the-Month Club and other mail-order book clubs. "Back then, Amazon was only a South American river, Barnes & Noble sold college textbooks in New York City, and Borders was an independent bookstore in Ann Arbor, Michigan started by University of Michigan students and brothers Tom and Louis Borders."

While she is clear-eyed about the growing popularity of e-books and the ever-present shadow of Amazon (which accounts for an estimated 22.6% of the book market, according to Albert Greco, a Fordham University marketing professor who studies book retailing), Hermans is also clear about the role of the physical bookstore in today's world. "People may think they can live online, but in reality they live in real towns and cities, and physical bookstores help enrich those places."

No doubt the people of Rhinebeck and Millerton would agree.

Book Publishing By Subscription: Everything Old Is New Again

2011-02-05T13:12:00.000-05:00

Here, via Boing Boing, is a new/old twist on the self-publishing model: Fantasy novelist Diane Duane has financed her latest book, The Big Meow ("third and last in the Feline Wizards sequence") by soliciting advance subscriptions from readers. The completion of the book was delayed by health and other problems, as Duane explains on her website linked above, but it has now been written and will be made available to subscribers, primarily in ebook format, after it has been edited and designed. I can't tell from her site how much subscribers were asked to pay, and Duane hasn't disclosed how many individuals took her up on the offer, so there's no way to know how successful the venture was.

This way of publishing books, in which the "author's advance" is generated by direct sales to readers without the intervention of a publisher middleman, goes way back: Samuel Johnson's Dictionary was financed this way in the eighteenth century, and Mark Twain raised money for the publication of U.S. Grant's autobiography by sending salespeople door to door to sell advance subscriptions.

Today, of course, marketing, payment, and delivery of the finished product can all be handled electronically, which saves time and money. But it would seem that attracting a sufficient number of readers willing to fork over cash months or even years before the product is ready will be a difficult challenge, except perhaps for the handful of authors who already boast an avid fan base.

In the years to come, we'll be seeing more and more experiments with new business models for publishing, and I for one am hesitant about predicting with any assurance which ones will work and which won't.

O My

2011-01-27T15:58:00.000-05:00

Wow. If this story is correct, all I can say is: If you were looking for someone to write a savvy, gossipy, insider's take on Barack Obama, would you pick a former aide to John McCain as the most appropriate candidate?

Will Publishers Get Better at Incubating Talent and Selling the Niche??

2011-01-26T10:12:00.013-05:00

I'm unaccustomed to coherent thought before the second cup of coffee, but reading Publishers Lunch's recap of one of yesterday's panels at the 2011 Digital Book World Conference & Expo, "A CEO’s View of the Future," might have triggered a neural blip.

Lunch quotes Perseus CEO David Steinberger as saying that he "sees a giant wave [coming] where the book that has a more modest audience is going to reach people in a way that's more seamless than ever before."

Much has been written about self-publishing as an increasingly viable alternative to fruitlessly banging on traditional publishers' doors as they've become preoccupied with the "big book" for lots of reasons, some of their own making and some in response to marketplace pressures and profit demands of conglomerate owners.

Two things publishers brought to the table for physical books were distribution machinery and major media connections. If publishers can become as good at mining niche markets through online marketing for e-books as they became at distribution and major media for p-books, they could become once again a fertile ground where the so-called "midlist" or "niche" book can succeed and contribute to everyone's bottom line. Maybe there could be a renaissance of sorts, where publishers could return to a cherished earlier role of incubating talent rather than buying it at nosebleed prices that don't do the industry or the next crop of talent any favors.

Maybe others have had this thought - I take no ownership for its originality. It arrived, as I said, before my second cup of coffee.

It Takes a Village to Make a Book

2011-01-23T18:09:00.015-05:00

Imagine you've spent years laboring over your novel. Your publisher is waiting. Your agent is waiting. Your spouse is waiting. You finally send the first 80 pages to your agent. Next thing you know, your agent is standing on your doorstep. And the news is not good.

This, according to a recent article, is what happened to Tom Franklin when writing his bestselling novel Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter (described in the article as "an ultimately sweet tale of two half brothers--one white and one black...a crime novel with a little mystery thrown in, a meditation on race and relationships, and a character study" titled after "the way children in the South learn to spell Mississippi").

To me, Franklin's process is a story of the village it takes to make a book--which includes an agent's tough love, a publisher's patience, a spouse's wisdom--but which begins and ends with a writer's absolute persistence and willingness to:

stop

listen

argue

learn

chuck stuff out

move stuff around

plow ahead

find and refind that knife-edge balance between trust in self and trust in others regarding one's work

..and then, if necessary, do it all over again. And again. And... .

And delivering the manuscript, in some ways, is just the beginning. Myriad minds, hands, and hearts engage with a book as it moves through the publishing process: being edited, copyedited, designed, typeset, proofread, indexed (if nonfiction), catalogued, sold in, printed, bound, shipped, and published. Every book, successful or not, embodies this massive exertion of time and will. Hats off to the writer, and to the village.

Jason Epstein on Self-Publishing

2011-01-22T10:14:00.003-05:00

The February 10 issue of The New York Review of Books contains a timely review (subscription required to follow link) of a book by British sociologist John B. Thompson, Merchants of Culture: The Publishing Business in the Twenty-First Century. Jason Epstein's review provides a capsule history of the publishing industry (of which he was a notable member) over the past fifty years, and also looks ahead to a dramatically different future. Among other developments, he cites "the rapidly growing self-publishing industry."

Epstein believes the self-publishing industry, "relying on print-on-demand technology, has created infrastructure that groups of sophisticated editors might adapt to create their own lists for worldwide sale online while arranging with traditional distributors to market physical inventory to traditional retail accounts." He thinks these editors could be incubating the next Random House. From the man who invented the trade paperback, these might be prophetic words.

Epstein also points out in a footnote that "Self-publishing has an illustrious history. Milton published Areopagitica himself and Whitman self-published Leaves of Grass. When he could not find a publisher for his first novel, Maggie: A Girl of the Streets, Stephen Crane published it himself." Epstein also mentions Ulysses (published by Joyce with bookstore owner Sylvia Beach), The Joy of Cooking, and such recent bestsellers as In Search of Excellence and Christmas Box. Self-publishing has a distinguished past and the possibility of defining publishing's future.

"Don't Have Children" And Other Rules For Writers

2011-01-22T08:26:00.000-05:00

From Britain's Guardian newspaper, a fun collection, in two articles, of "rules for writing fiction" offered by a potpourri of leading novelists. Some sound useful, others idiosyncratic, many mutually contradictory. "Don't have children" is from Richard Ford. A few other samples:

"If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it."--Elmore Leonard.

"Hold the reader's attention. (This is likely to work better if you can hold your own.)"--Margaret Atwood.

"Do give the work a name as quickly as possible. Own it, and see it. Dickens knew Bleak House was going to be called Bleak House before he started writing it. The rest must have been easy."--Roddy Doyle.

"Have regrets. They are fuel. On the page they flare into desire."--Geoff Dyer.

"Read widely and with discrimination. Bad writing is contagious."--P.D. James

"If you have to read, to cheer yourself up read biographies of writers who went insane."--Colm Toibin.

The first installment can be found here, the second here.

"Bookshelf Porn"

2011-01-19T15:54:00.000-05:00

And on a very different note, if your idea of a beautiful room is one with lots of books, you will enjoy this website.

The Waiting Game

2011-01-18T18:51:00.005-05:00

One of my authors recently forwarded the link to this piece by Scottish writer A.L. Kennedy to me. Her subject is waiting -- specifically, waiting for word back from one's editor. Thumbs up or thumbs down? Will the patient need major surgery or just a few band-aids? Kennedy, who has won numerous awards for her novels and short stories, describes the experience of waiting for her editor's response to her most recent book over the Christmas holiday:

I have never met anyone who even remotely enjoys this part of the book-producing process. I've been writing professionally since 1989, but this will only be my 13th book. (And let's ignore the implications of 13.) This is only the 13th time that I have footled about, gone for walks, tried to start other things, sketched hollow-sounding plans for the coming months, stared blackly at the ceiling and generally failed to avoid the constant, low-level nausea generated by waiting to hear. I woke up in the morning and waited, I prodded at lunch and waited, I watched [Sherlock] Holmes ... and still I waited. For those of you unfamiliar with the heady emotional tumble drier which is the post-handover-pre-verdict hiatus, try to imagine one of those insultingly-lengthy TV elimination round pauses which somehow elongates over days or weeks, blends with your driving test outcome, the announcements of every important exam result upon which you have ever relied, every time you've asked someone lovely to have a coffee, or hold you hand, or subject you to intimate forms of relaxation and every naked-on-the-roof-of-Sydney-Opera-House-while-your-parents-and-in-laws-and-primary-school-teachers-render-you-in-watercolours anxiety dream you've ever had. Only it's less pleasant than that.

Only 13 books? Oh, my.

Kennedy's piece (the above is a small excerpt) started me thinking about all the periods of waiting that each finished manuscript demands of a writer. There's waiting for word back from whatever trusted readers you show it to for feedback; waiting for word from your agent -- or from the many agents to whom you submit it if you don't already have one; waiting for word back from all the editors that your agent submits it to; waiting to hear how the acquiring editor likes all the rewrites he or she undoubtedly suggests; waiting to hear what reviewers and the world at large (not to mention your mother, spouse, college roommates, and old flames) think of the finished book. And those are just some of the Major Milestones of Waiting. There are plenty more.

Which adds a whole new layer of meaning to "It's the journey, not the destination."

The Shrinking World of Public Domain

2011-01-16T10:36:00.000-05:00

Most writers and editors have at least a general awareness of how copyright law has been transformed in recent decades. But for a down-to-earth sense of the practical implications of the change, check out this site created by the Center for the Study of the Public Domain at Duke University Law School.

Among other things, the site lists some of the thousands of works--books, plays, films, songs, and so on--that would have gone into the public domain as of January 1, 2011, under traditional (pre-1978) copyright law, but which will remain under legal control by the creators' estates or some corporate entity until 2050 under current law. The list includes copyrighted works published during the year 1954, ranging from William Golding's Lord of the Flies and the classic films Rear Window and The Seven Samurai to the plays Waiting for Godot and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. (Traditional copyright law protected works for 28 years after their creation, with a possible extension for another 28 years upon request. The full 56 years of protection would have expired for these works at the end of 2010.)

The copyright law has been rewritten (most recently in 1998) to lengthen the period of protection up to a maximum of 120 years after creation in the case of corporate-owned "works for hire." The 1998 copyright law is sometimes referred to as "The Mickey Mouse Protection Act" because one of the major forces behind it was the Walt Disney Company, which was eager to prevent films featuring its famous rodent from entering the public domain.

Opinions may differ, but I for one would like to see a return to the traditional standards of copyright protection. Publishers have long been free to create new editions of classics like Pride and Prejudice and the works of Shakespeare, with the result that these works are available at very low cost in dozens of formats and styles. To me, there's no reason why the same shouldn't be true for classic works of the twentieth century as they gradually pass the old 56-year yardstick. Wouldn't our cultural heritage be enhanced by (for example) making it possible for high school, college, and community theatre groups to stage Waiting for Godot and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof as freely as they can The Importance of Being Earnest?

Remember, the purpose of copyright law is to encourage artistic creation. If copyright protection were abolished, or limited in some very draconian fashion--trimmed back to five years, say--it would clearly have a detrimental impact on writers' incentives to produce. But does anyone really believe that Samuel Beckett or Tennessee Williams would have felt motivated to write more or better plays if only they'd known that their heirs would still be collecting royalties into the 2040s?

We'll Miss Manie Barron

2011-01-15T07:52:00.000-05:00

How sad to learn about the passing of Manie Barron--a talented book salesman, editor, and literary agent; one of the leading African-Americans in an industry where minority groups are still sadly under-represented; and, most important, one of the sweetest guys you could ever hope to know.

I met Manie years ago during my days at Random House. His insights and advice were helpful to me when I worked on projects like Jimmy Carter's faith-based memoirs--and I quickly found myself turning to Manie during marketing and editorial meetings, knowing that he would usually have something smart to suggest. Chris Jackson has written a thoughtful appreciation of Manie's legacy which expresses a lot of what many of us are feeling at this time.

Manie will be honored in a memorial service at St. Bart's Church on Park Avenue on Saturday, February 5th, at eleven a.m. His family has established a college scholarship fund for Manie's daughter Veronica; details can be found here.

Resistance Isn't Futile

2011-01-12T21:25:00.007-05:00

Congratulations to CEA member Carla Jablonski, whose first graphic novel, Resistance (illustrated by Leland Purvis and published by First Second Books, an imprint of Macmillan), was just named a Sydney Taylor Award Silver Medalist. The Sydney Taylor Award is given by the Association of Jewish Librarians to books with Jewish themes. What's particularly exciting about Carla's book receiving this honor is that there's not a separate graphic novel category. Resistance, the first volume of a trilogy, was read with all the other books in the age group.

In addition, and equally impressive, Resistance was just selected for the American Library Association's Great Graphic Novels for Teens list.

Way to go, Carla. Your colleagues salute you!

And The Final Word on Huckleberry Finn

2011-01-12T19:35:00.001-05:00

. . . has to go to this hilarious episode of the online comic strip "Tom the Dancing Bug." Follow the link to enjoy the whole thing. The art is taken from the first edition of Huck Finn--with a few slight and obvious emendations.

A Word by Any Other Name...

2011-01-12T12:55:00.004-05:00

Among the defenses of his cleansing of the "n word" from his edition of Huckleberry Finn (posted on line today by Publishers Weekly) Twain scholar Alan Gribben states that "it is hard to open Huckleberry Finn without encountering the institution of slavery and the unsavory racial attitudes of the 1840s." In other words, by removing a single word he has not removed the offensive attitudes held at the time the book was written. Which begs the question: Why would removing the word make the novel acceptable? Is it only the word and not the attitude it represents that makes Twain's work unworthy of being taught in schools today? Does that strike anyone else as ridiculous as it seems to me?

"What Went Wrong at Borders"

2011-01-12T07:56:00.000-05:00

That's the name of a column by my friend Peter Osnos (link available here) that offers a concise overview of the story behind the financial troubles of America's second-largest bookstore chain--troubles that threaten the economic status of many publishers as well. The crucial graf is the final one:

Len Riggio, Jeff Bezos of Amazon, and the successful independent proprietors, whatever their other business virtues and flaws, really have a deep attachment to books and the people who read them. But when Borders expanded, they brought in executives from supermarkets and department stores (all of whom insisted they were readers), and the result was a shuffle of titles and more downsizing against a backdrop of financial engineering, which only seemed to make matters worse. Ultimately, a successful bookstore, on any scale, depends on a specific understanding of how to make the most of the outpouring of books and the digital transformation that will attract readers. Whatever else Borders does in the months ahead, it needs to recover its belief that real bookselling is an art (with all the peculiarities that entails), as well as a viable business.

I've worked on a lot of books about business strategy, and an unresolved tension in that world surrounds the question of whether a great leader can run any kind of business. On the one hand, it seems simplistic to say that selling books is exactly the same as selling soap, cars, or cement. But on the other hand, I am skeptical of publishing people who say "Our industry is so unique that we have nothing to learn from other companies."

I think in the end the right answer for book companies (whether publishers, retailers, distributors, or what have you) in these challenging times is to seek a tricky balance: Hire "book people" with a deep knowledge and love of the things readers value, but make sure they are willing to study and learn from the most creative minds in other businesses. It sounds as though Borders had difficulty finding that balance. Here's hoping they can find a way to survive.

A Glimpse of the Little-Known Prehistory of the E-Book

2011-01-08T08:03:00.000-05:00

If you think the e-book was born with the Kindle, think again--and check out this cool slideshow (care of Fast Company magazine) which presents some of the many precursors to the Kindle that failed to trigger the not-so-inevitable revolution.

I'm Bowdlerized Over

2011-01-07T12:27:00.004-05:00

Just to start let me say I have tried posting a few times to keep up and often my attempts fail because I am so technologically impaired--so please know, my colleages, that I am with you in spirit.

I actually heard about the HF bowdlerizing on MSNBC. I didn't think much about it because TV doesnt allow the time and accessability that the printed word does (for example, I did not remember what bowdlerized meant and if I heard it, I would not have had time to look it up).

Now having followed it in Karl's two blogs and the NYT twice, I grasp the horror in its entirety. The Times reports the origin of bowdlerize--really the original horror story concerning what editors can do to eviscerate iconic works. If anyone doesn't know, in 1807 a writer named Thomas Bowdler and his sister (she goes unnamed) tried to make Shakespeare more PG rated by expurgating double-entendres eg: in Romeo and Juliet Mercutio's line "the bawdy hand of the dial is now upon the prick of noon" to "the hand of the dial is now upon the point of noon."*

What horror this!! Editors beware. Authors' blood will not be wiped from our hands if we Bowdlerize

*This material is paraphrased from NYT Jan 7, 2011

That Book You'll Write "Someday" (Right!)

2011-01-06T16:08:00.011-05:00

Having not nearly the discipline of Anthony Trollope as cited in Karl's post about the website devoted to notables' daily routines, I recently lost myself in said site's attractions.

The ambitious writer side of me was, of course, was drawn to bestselling author John Grisham's description of how he approached his work in the early days: "The alarm clock would go off at 5, and I'd jump in the shower. My office was 5 minutes away. And I had to be at my desk, at my office, with the first cup of coffee, a legal pad and write the first word at 5:30, five days a week." His goal: one page per day, after which he'd pick up his lawyerly life.

Most interesting, I thought, was his comment about this earlier routine compared to the present: "So I was very disciplined about it," he says, then quickly concedes he doesn't have such discipline now: "I don't have to."

It's not clear from what's cited whether he doesn't "have to" because of his success as a writer or because he has more time to devote to writing (or both). Either way, it got me thinking about the compression of time, which Trollope also used (writing with his watch in front of him), and how useful that is for producing forward momentum.

It appears possible to be most productive as a writer when one feels least able find a spare moment to write.

So there really is no excuse not to write that book that's been kicking around in your head for years, which you haven't gotten around to writing because of your day job, or because you're "so busy."

Right?

Sam Clemens Weighs In

2011-01-06T08:38:00.000-05:00

Once again, on the notion of deleting the word nigger from Huckleberry Finn: My friend Jane sent me this link to a story in the Christian Science Monitor that quotes the reaction of Samuel L. Clemens to the news that the Brooklyn Public Library was considering banning Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer because of their "coarseness, deceitfulness, and mischievous practices." Clemens wrote:

"I am greatly troubled by what you say. I wrote 'Tom Sawyer' & 'Huck Finn' for adults exclusively, & it always distressed me when I find that boys and girls have been allowed access to them. The mind that becomes soiled in youth can never again be washed clean. I know this by my own experience, & to this day I cherish an unappeased bitterness against the unfaithful guardians of my young life, who not only permitted but compelled me to read an unexpurgated Bible through before I was 15 years old. None can do that and ever draw a clean sweet breath again on this side of the grave."

What a trouble-maker.

Huckleberry Finn and Truth in Labeling

2011-01-04T16:31:00.004-05:00

Political blogger Kevin Drum picks up a report from Publishers Weekly about a forthcoming edition of Huckleberry Finn in which all 219 uses of the word "nigger" will be replaced with the word "slave." The idea, of course, is to get Twain's classic (back) into classrooms in communities where the book has been deemed too offensive, in large part because of its use of the "N-word."

Somewhat to my surprise, the liberal Drum is okay with this, on the grounds that a bowdlerized Huck Finn is better than no Huck Finn at all: "[T]he only realistic alternative," he writes, "is that Huckleberry Finn vanishes from high schools and becomes a book taught solely at the university level. Maybe that's better. But I doubt it."

Not being a school teacher, I can't comment intelligently on the political pressures teachers face or on the maturity level of today's high school kids. But I do have a problem with the bowdlerization plan on the grounds of its dishonesty. The book students will read under the title "Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain" will not be the book Clemens wrote, and it does a disservice to students--not to mention the author--to falsely label it as such.

If we lack the nerve to confront our society's racist roots even in the pages of a book, then it's probably better to let Huck Finn vanish from the high school curriculum. Anyway, it will likely have a greater allure for young minds if they first encounter it on the shelf of "prohibited books" rather than on a list of required texts.

Catching Up with the Critics

2011-01-04T13:49:00.003-05:00

I've just finished reading the six essays on the role of literary criticism in last Sunday's Times Book Review, and once I got over groaning about the critics' self-congratulatory self-absorption, it got me thinking.

The first point that struck me was that literary criticism is the only type of criticism that discusses a particular art form in its own medium. Dance critics don't dance; music critics don't perform; critics of the visual arts don't paint--or maybe they do, but their criticism isn't presented in the same form as the thing being critiqued. Undoubtedly that's one of the main reasons critics seem to be so self-involved in the first place. They have to be concerned about their own writing since they're criticizing someone else's. That's really sticking your neck out and begging to have your head chopped off!

The second thing I started to think about was that there seems to be an essential difference between the role of the book reviewer and the role of the literary critic. In fact, we tend to call those who review books "reviewers," wheras we call those who review other art forms "critics." We don't say that so-and-so is the dance revewer or the theater reviewer, do we? So, in the end, it seems to me that the role of the book reviewer is to pass judgment on the style and subject of a particular piece of writing, while the role of the literary critic may be broader--to talk about a particular work or group of works in the context of other works to which they can be compared in some way and also to set them within a particular historic or personal context.

Am I getting too self-involved here? Have I fallen prey to having the aha moment that to everyone else is a duh?

The Great Book Giveaway--World Book Night!

2011-01-03T00:59:00.012-05:00

There’s an exciting publishing event about to happen in England. According to an article in The Guardian, on the night of March 5, 2011, one million books will be given away to one million different people on one night.

Twenty thousand book lovers will have the chance to choose the title they most want to give away. Anyone can apply to be a giver, and each giver will be able to donate forty-eight copies of the book they love best to anyone they think might love the book too. Givers will choose from a list selected by booksellers, authors, and librarians.

The event is being backed by such prestigious authors as Margaret Atwood, John le Carre, JK Rowling, Dave Eggers, and Seamus Heaney, as well as well-known musicians, actors, and artists. Jamie Byng, chief of publisher Canongate, is the chairman of World Book Night.

Le Carre’s book, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, is one of the books that will be given away. Le Carre is quoted as saying, “No writer can ask more than this: that his book should be handed in thousands to people who might otherwise never get to read it and will in turn hand it to thousands more. That his book should also pass from one generation to another as a story to challenge and excite each reader in his time—that is beyond his most ambitious dreams.”

Besides Le Carre’s book, a few of the other selected books are The Killing Floor by Lee Child; The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon; Selected Poems by Seamus Heaney; Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez; A Life Like Other People’s by Alan Bennett; The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid; Life of Pi by Yann Martel; Beloved by Toni Morrison; and All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque.

The printed book lives! Or as Robert McCrum says in a December article in the Guardian, “The printed word remains in rude good health, despite the merchants of doom.”

Organizers hope to go global in the future. First England, next America?

A Libertine Christmas

2010-12-26T12:53:00.001-05:00

Christmas is a good time to remember Jean Shepherd, the iconoclastic radio raconteur of the 1950s and 60s who is best remembered today as the author of the stories on which the holiday film A Christmas Story (1983) was based. But he was also the driving force behind the most hilarious hoax in book publishing history, the "best-selling novel" I, Libertine.

Back in the mid-1950s, the Times best-seller list was based not only on actual book sales but also on reader requests for new and forthcoming books. Shepherd always had an eye for the ridiculous, and one night on his radio program he not only talked about how odd and prone to manipulation this system was, but also suggested to his listeners that they do something about it. He urged them to visit their local bookstore and ask for a copy of I, Libertine by the noted British author Frederick R. Ewing. If the manager asks for a description of the book, Shepherd suggested, say it's a bawdy tale of life in eighteenth-century London.

Of course, neither the book nor the author really existed. But Shepherd's prank, abetted by his thousands of loyal fans, caused an uproar. Soon booksellers everywhere were contacting distributors and demanding deliveries of I, Libertine. Publishers Weekly was flooded with inquiries about this hot new title. Gossip columnist Earl Wilson boasted about having lunch with "Freddy Ewing" to celebrate the success of his novel.

Eventually the publisher Ian Ballantine, himself a colorful iconoclast, decided this situation was too good to pass up. He took Shepherd and a mutual friend, science-fiction novelist Theodore Sturgeon, out to lunch and convinced them to actually write I, Libertine. Sturgeon reportedly tried to finish it in a single marathon session but fell asleep on the Ballantines' couch, whereupon Betty Ballantine wrote the final chapter. The book was published in 1956 with a suitable paperback cover by Kelly Freas, best known as one of the creators of Alfred E. Neuman for Mad magazine.

It has been too long since we had a really entertaining publishing hoax. (Anyone remember Naked Came the Stranger?) Where is Jean Shepherd now that we really need him?

A Christmas Story

2010-12-25T14:54:00.004-05:00

This has nothing to do with Christmas but I am writing it on Christmas Day so Merry Xmas to one and all.

For those of you who actually read your PW you must know that they have added a seperate section to cover self-publishing, seems to be the 'S' section. This week my client, Cathie Beck, and a few other authors who made the "leap" from self publishing to a conventional publisher are covered.

Ironically the cover of the magazine features Robert Kiyosaki's (RICH DAD, POOR DAD) latest book which is published by Plata, which has to be his own or a very limited imprint. The book is distributed through Perseus, a distributor available nation wide and used by many small publishing house.

What's the point? You are asking. The point is that PW, just like all the rest of the retro aspects of conventional publishing still believe that being published by a huge publisher who takes 85%of your royalties and does not promote your book should be the end of the rainbow for authors.

I protest. I will continue to protest until independently published products achieve statehood rather than being kept as territories.

Enjoy the eggnog if people still drink it. Up here in Woodstock one of the the volunteer fire men or women dressed as Santa came out of the sky on the village green at about 5:30 last night to throw candy. They do it every year. I live in Paradise.

For Trollope, Writing Novels Was No Different Than Laying Bricks

2010-12-19T06:40:00.000-05:00

Here's a favorite new website I've discovered--Daily Routines, a collection of descriptions of the daily work routines of well-known architects, artists, filmmakers, musicians and composers, philosophers, scientists and mathematicians, statesmen, and writers. I love this kind of shop talk and have often found it a source of useful little ideas and tricks that help me overcome writer's block and enhance my productivity.

Here's an awe-inspiring example involving the Victorian novelist Anthony Trollope:

Every day for years, Trollope reported in his “Autobiography,” he woke in darkness and wrote from 5:30 a.m. to 8:30 a.m., with his watch in front of him. He required of himself two hundred and fifty words every quarter of an hour. If he finished one novel before eight-thirty, he took out a fresh piece of paper and started the next. The writing session was followed, for a long stretch of time, by a day job with the postal service. Plus, he said, he always hunted at least twice a week. Under this regimen, he produced forty-nine novels in thirty-five years. Having prospered so well, he urged his method on all writers: “Let their work be to them as is his common work to the common laborer. No gigantic efforts will then be necessary. He need tie no wet towels round his brow, nor sit for thirty hours at his desk without moving,—as men have sat, or said that they have sat.”

Unlike Toni's cat, it doesn't sound as though Trollope set aside much time for stretching or napping. What's that saying about different strokes--?

Everything I Know About Writing I Learned from My Cat

2010-12-16T13:01:00.006-05:00

Perhaps you've had animals who've taught you lessons--about loyalty, love, and what's really important in life. So perhaps you can be persuaded that the title of this post, while admittedly exaggerated, is more than just whimsical.

As I write this, my dainty black cat Lucy is curled up in her fleece bed, head tucked under paw, snoring so loudly I can hear her from across the room. She has no idea how much writing advice she has given me. And of course, being a cat, doesn't care. But since we aren't cats and need to live to write another day, I thought I'd share some of Lucy's Lessons for Writers:

Be True to Your Nature: You are your own animal. Find that writing self. Don't try to be other animals. It never works. They won't thank you. And you'll feel crappy.

Staring Is Good: Observation (external, internal) is the foundation of all good writing.

Keep Your Business in the Box: Separate your writing time from your business-of-writing time. They don't mix. One is a marathon; the other a sprint. Some writers even hire people to sprint for them.

Get Up and Stretch. A Lot.: You'll breathe easier, think better, and in general be more tolerable company for all, including yourself. Corollary: While you're up, pet your cat. Repetitive motion is soothing.

Editing, Like Licking, Should Be Thorough, Though Not Obsessive: Just when you think you can't stand any more, do one more round, nose to tail (including under the hood). When you realize you're going over the same wet ground, stop.

Practice Active Napping: When you take time off, really take it off. Tuck your nose under your paw and lose yourself. Don't worry, the blank page (and maybe some ideas to fill it) will be there when you get back.

Although You Did Nothing Today, You're One Fine Specimen: Do you ever see cats express self-doubt? Wonder what they've done with their nine lives? Think they don't deserve treats? I thought not.

Happy writing.

What Books Are You Giving This Year?

2010-12-09T15:13:00.009-05:00

With holidays upon us, I was reminded that a literary agent friend once told me that every few years, he makes it a "books-only" Christmas. Even while writing this I feel the excitement of browsing a favorite bookstore (online or bricks-and-mortar--or even LinkedIn's program where people share what they're reading), trying to match a lusciously tempting book with the recipient most likely to relish it. What fun! For all the brouhaha over the fate of book publishing and of books themselves, I think there's still no argument that books in all their forms (physical, electronic, enhanced e-book, and audiobook) remain among the best values for the money spent. I'm perpetually late with my shopping, but the start I've made is, so far, books-only. If you're buying books as gifts this year, what are you choosing, and why?

Outsourced to India?

2010-12-08T13:12:00.002-05:00

Last night I had dinner with a friend who is the managing editor of a major New York publishing house. In the course of our discussion of all things publishing, she mentioned that her company is now having some of its books composed, that is "set into type" electronically, in India! This results, not surprisingly, in ludicrously small typesetting costs. Indians, as we know, make pennies on the dollar. Publishing seemed like the last industry that would be sending jobs overseas, yet it's happening. What's next? Editors working from call centers in Mumbai? The mind reels.

Don't Mess with Oprah

2010-12-06T13:41:00.003-05:00

The current issue of The American Scholar carries a very good piece (“Unauthorized, But Not Untrue”) by Kitty Kelley that touches on her most recent biography, on Oprah Winfrey, and the power of her subject to block publicity for the book. Some of our leading intellectuals, Larry King and Barbara Walters among them, banned the author, and Charlie Rose somehow did not think a biography of, arguably, the most influential woman in the country was worth a sit-down. Given the immensity of the subject, the negative impact on book sales was huge.

Kelley addresses the curious criticism now routinely hurled at books like hers: that they are “unauthorized.” Frank Sinatra tried to stop her book about him by filing a goofy lawsuit that claimed that only he and he alone or someone that he authorized had the right to write his life story. Kelley says unauthorized now seems to mean something nefarious, as if the writer was being charged with “breaking and entering.” “Authorized” biographies can have value, but Kelley points out that they also frequently are sanitized and homogenized and cites valuable “unauthorized” books like Robert Caro’s on Robert Moses or Seymour Hersh’s on Kissinger as examples.

The piece is not simply a laundry list of complaints nor a rant; Kelley’s tone is fairly good-humored. She is a really good journalist, if not a literary biographer, diligent and comprehensive. I was at Simon & Schuster when her biography of Nancy Reagan was published and I remember that the legal vetting process was exhaustive. Nevertheless, once the book was published, Kelley was criticized and accused of fabrications, including that she had made up sources (sources, fearful of the subjects, sometimes lied afterward), but no lawsuits followed. The reach of the powerful did: Barbara Bush was so incensed—her husband did not come off well—that once she achieved the White House, she was able, apparently merely by striking fear, to have Kelley’s books on Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and Nancy Reagan removed, so far permanently, from a display on First Ladies at the Smithsonian.

Convincing the public that “unauthorized” when applied to a book is the same as illicit, even criminal, is a kind of propaganda. Readers can decide for themselves if the “private” part of the life of a presidential candidate should be off-limits even when, say, a false impression of family harmony is purposefully constructed to create an attractive image.

What matters most in all this is the power of unhappy subjects to control, by intimidation, the publicity, and thereby the discourse. It gets worse when the press self-censors. I know of one editor who thought the Kelley-Winfrey story a good one but laughed off the possibility of running a piece about it: it seems there are reporters who write books or may one day write books and who might like to get some really great exposure on a certain daytime program…

And the Award for Most Dramatic Publishing Event Goes To...

2010-12-03T23:21:00.014-05:00

OK, I admit it. I've fallen behind on my publishing industry reading. So although I, like most publishing folk, had a ringside seat at the showdown between the "Big Six" publishers and Amazon over e-book pricing (including the high drama of Amazon's removal of the buy buttons for Macmillan books), I missed the memo that went around explaining, in uber-simple terms, how it all played out in the end, what the "agency model" means as regards book pricing, and why that is such a BIG DEAL for authors, publishers, and retailers.

In case, you, too, missed the memo, here are two excellent posts from longtime publishing pro and observer on the digital publishing scene Mike Shatzkin. One posits the Big Six/Amazon showdown as "the most dramatic publishing event of 2010." There you'll find an explanation of the agency model compared to the wholesale model of pricing, why it matters, and the challenges it has presented (and likely will present). The other (which you can link to from that post or from here) gives you the royalty math comparing print, wholesale, and agency models.

I'm sure I won't be able to debate this over lattes anytime soon, but I found these to be excellent summations. I'm hoping they'll ground me for future showdowns--of which I'm sure there will be quite a few.

Books Versus Soup

2010-12-03T12:46:00.001-05:00

Here's a link to “Books After Amazon,” an article by Onnesha Roychouduri about the economic and cultural impact of the growing power of Jeff Bezos, online selling, and the Kindle. It's an interesting article about which I may have more to say when I get time, but for the moment let me just quote the words that are used throughout the article as a kind of indignant, wounded refrain: "You can’t sell a book the same way you sell a can of soup."

Of course, we've seen this metaphor many times before, but I must say it rubs me the wrong way. What exactly is so demeaning about selling a book like a can of soup? Soup is food. It nourishes people, sustains life, and when well-made it provides significant physical and esthetic enjoyment. Producing and selling soup provides an important and valuable service to humankind.

Maybe we in the book business like to imagine that our work is far more noble, exalted, and high-minded than selling soup. If so, we should get over ourselves. (And maybe we would sell more books if we spent as much time and energy thinking about the needs and wants of readers as soup companies spend thinking about the nutritional requirements and flavor preferences of their customers.)

MFA vs. NYC

2010-12-01T12:01:00.008-05:00

So many books, articles, and screeds have been written about the perils of MFA creative writing programs that, any day now, someone is going to pen an attack piece called “The Decline of the Anti-MFA Jeremiad.” Chad Harbach’s article in N+1 magazine, excerpted in Slate, starts by discussing Mark McGurl’s new book The Program Era: Postwar Fiction and the Rise of Creative Writing and then changes the terms of the standard indictment of the MFA mentality--the academic-based system of literary professionalization that critics claim has marginalized and enervated contemporary literary fiction. He gives the back of his hand to just about all kinds of writers out there, whether MFAer’s or not—except his heroes Jonathan Franzen and David Foster Wallace. But the essence of his article is his distinction between fiction from what I'll call MFA World and fiction from Literary Commerce World (i.e., the realm of New York publishers).

I’d argue with much in Harbach’s premise, but I do confess that in my own editing and teaching I’ve seen a difference between writers with an MFA mindset and those more fiercely ambitious for mainstream Manhattan publication. Writers from MFA World, whether they are teaching in it or have graduated from it, tend to focus on short stories because that is what can easily be taught and published in literary magazines; Harbach makes much of this. I find that when they venture into novel-writing, their fiction can be diffuse, admirably subtle yet underpowered. They are writing for a default audience of other writers. As a result, their fiction can be hermetic, derivative, domestic, polite. Novelists aiming for the Literary Commerce World see their audience as readers, not writers. While this is admirable of them, it also means that they can pander to those readers (and to their publishers) with easy effects. Too early in the writing process, they can envision their novels via the 10-word tagline by which all books are pitched today and end up with predictable fiction. (As Frost said, no surprise for the writer, no surprise for the reader.) They gain readers at the risk of resonance, of art.

Whether you’re a flyover-country MFAer or a Manhattan boldfaced name—or neither--somewhere in here is happy balance between writerliness and readability, texture and suspense, craft and commerce.

Chad Harbach himself may have found that happy balance. An unpaid editor at N+1, he had been laid off from his job as a copy editor when his agent sold his novel to David Foster Wallace’s editor Michael Pietsch at Little Brown for $650,000. No word on whether he has an MFA.

The Best Lack All Conviction, So American Publishers Prefer the Worst

2010-11-29T14:45:00.001-05:00

In this article from the Financial Times, journalist Gillian Tett describes a difference between British and American book marketing that she encountered after writing a book about the financial crisis:

Initially I planned to start the book by admitting that I was not a true expert on high finance: instead I crashed into this world in 2005, after a background spent in journalism-cum-social anthropology – making me a well-intentioned amateur, but without complete knowledge.

My friends in the British publishing world loved that honesty; in the UK, self-deprecation sells, particularly for “well-meaning amateurs” such as the writer Bill Bryson. But my American friends hated it. In New York, I was sternly told, absolutely nobody wants to listen to self-doubt. If you are going to write a book – let alone stand on a political platform or run a company – you must act as if you are an expert, filled with complete conviction. For the US version, the preface was removed entirely.

Based on conversations I've had with publishers, marketers, and publicists, this rings sadly true to me. Which raises discouraging questions about the long-term future of book publishing in America. After all, what are serious non-fiction books for if not to explore the subtle nuances of complex topics? If Americans have little tolerance for the uncertainty and ambiguity that is inherent in such exploration--preferring, I suppose, the shout-'em-down self-righteousness of cable-TV "debates"--then why bother reading books at all?

Longtime Associations and Loyalty

2010-11-28T22:15:00.004-05:00

Sandi's November 19 post celebrates the fact that this year's NBA winner, Lord of Misrule by Jaimy Gordon, was published by Mcpherson & Co., an independent press located in upstate New York. That in itself is exciting -- and here's more. A second in the group of five finalists, I Hotel by Karen Tei Yamashita, was also published by a small indie. And both authors have relationships with their publishers that go back decades -- twenty-one years in the case of Yamashita and Coffee House Press, located in Minneapolis, and forty in the case of Gordon and McPherson.

Bruce McPherson and Jaimy Brown first met at Brown in 1970. When, in 1973, Brown couldn't find a publisher for her wildly inventive comic novel Shamp of the City-Solo, McPherson decided to publish it himself. Apparently he hadn't really planned to make a career of publishing novels, but that didn't stop him. Subsequently, Gordon went on to be published by both Algonquin and Sun & Moon. She didn't have an agent until Lord of Misrule's nomination, which came about solely because McPherson encouraged her to let him publish it in time for an NBA nomination. We know what happened next.

In 1989, Allan Kornblum of Coffee House Press received a query and first chapter from the previously unpublished Tei Yamashita. He published that novel, Through the Arc of the Rainforest, and three more by Yamashita. And then another: the NBA-nominated I Hotel.

Had the two authors been able to get contracts from larger houses, would they have accepted them? Maybe. And maybe after a book or two that didn't meet sales expectations, they would been been graciously or not-so-graciously dumped. Hard to know. But clearly, there's something to be said for both longtime associations and loyalty.

Authorship: A Winner-Take-All Game

2010-11-27T16:58:00.003-05:00

Ever heard of the Gini Coefficient? Invented by Italian statistician Corrado Gini in 1912, it's a mathematical tool used to measure the inequality of a statistical dispersion. When a group of numbers has a high Gini Coefficient (approaching the theoretical maximum of 1.0), the numbers are widely scattered from very high to very low. By contrast, when the Gini Coefficient is low (approaching the theoretical minimum of zero), it means that the numbers tend to cluster close together.

The most common use of the Gini Coefficient is to measure income inequality within a population. In a country with a low Gini Coefficient, very few people are either really poor or really rich; instead, most people are middle-class. Sweden happens to have the world's lowest Gini Coefficient, at 0.23. By contrast, a country with a high Gini Coefficient has a few very rich Haves and a lot of very poor Have-Nots. The high end of the scale today is Namibia, with a Gini Coefficient of 0.70.

What does all this have to do with the book business? I'm so glad you asked.

I just read this 2005 study about the economics of book authorship in the U.K. and Germany, sponsored by the Authors Licensing & Collecting Society (ALCS), which is in charge of gathering copyright fees due to book authors as a result of, for example, photocopying (a system which if course we don't have in this country). The ALCS study surveyed some 25,000 professional writers and came up with some rather depressing but predictable information--for example, that "The typical income for a professional author is one third below the national average wage," and that "The earnings of a typical writer are deteriorating in real terms."

But what I found most interesting, because I'd never seen it calculated before, was the Gini Coefficient among book authors. It stands at 0.74--higher even than Namibia and basically off the scale as far as inequality is concerned. (For a comparison, among metal and electrical workers, the Gini Coefficient is 0.22--even more egalitarian than Sweden.) This reflects the fact that, as the report's authors say, "The top 10% of authors earn more than 50% of total income, while the bottom 50% earn less than 10% of total income."

In other words, we have here hard data supporting what you may have long suspected--that a relative handful of authors enjoy the bulk of the rewards of the profession, while thousands of others labor largely in vain. And this situation seems to be intensifying over time: ALCS found that the Gini Coefficient had actually increased from 0.60 to 0.74 in just five years (from 2000 to 2005).

I'm not aware of any similar study of American authors, but I wouldn't be surprised if our Gini number was even more extreme, especially since recent Census data show that the overall distribution of assets in our society is now more heavily skewed toward the wealthy than at any time since the 1920s.

Link-a-Palooza

2010-11-26T20:09:00.000-05:00

In the last week or so I've accumulated quite a collection of links to interesting articles about books and publishing without having time to write posts about them. To deal with the backlog, I've decided to write this omnibus post describing them all briefly. I bet you will find something worth reading here--perhaps several somethings!

If you're interested in the current state of American fiction, check out this article by Chad Harbach (from n+1 via Slate) on "the two literary cultures of the US"--one based in New York City, the other centered in MFA programs around the country.

For a personal, rather touching account of what motivates an unpublished fiction writer, see this piece by Alix Christie from The Economist.

To learn how the savvy Mark Twain manipulated twenty-first century readers from beyond the grave, read Craig Ferhman's Slate piece about the arrangements he made for the generations-long embargoing of his autobiography.

For instruction in "how to write" all kinds of things, from a Mamet-esque TV drama to a sentence that might have been penned by David Foster Wallace, look at this charming collection of pieces on The Browser website.

And finally, if you're a Norman Mailer fan, you might like reading this account of a visit to his house in Provincetown and the case of writer's block it induced in the visitor, Amy Rowland.

Hopefully this will keep you pleasant busy over your computer as you recover from your tryptophan-induced Thanksgiving weekend stupor . . .

Book Recommendations on Practically Every Topic Imaginable

2010-11-24T07:04:00.000-05:00

Here's a great idea for a website: FiveBooks, which interviews experts about the five books they would recommend to someone who wants to learn about their subject. The array of topics covered is quite amazing, ranging from the straightforward (Opera, The Enlightenment, Investing, Wonderful Cookbooks, Military History) to the surprising (Pioneers of Intelligence Gathering, Uyghur Nationalism, Chaos in the Seventeenth Century Mediterranean, Why We Live in a Mad World). Most of the experts appear to be British and the site is written in British rather than American English ("Maths" for "Math," for example), but there are plenty of American topics and experts, including even Karl Rove selecting his five favorite books on the topic of Compassionate Conservatism (I skipped that one).

Visit FiveBooks sometime when you have half an hour to waste--I bet you will enjoy it.

Up Late with Liebowitz

2010-11-23T09:11:00.002-05:00

Let me say right now that this isn't going to have anything to do with editing, collaborating, or the trials of freelancing--deadlines, waiting for payments, getting people to get back to you... It's just about the simple pleasure of staying up past my normal weekday bedtime last night to watch Fran Liebowitz's documentary Public Speaking and laughing out loud all alone (except for the dog) in my room while said dog dozed contentedly with her head draped over my shoulder. It strikes me that real wit--albeit of the acerbic New York variety--is thin on the ground these days. There were no barbs based on current events--the kind of humor best left to late night talk show hosts--just the deadpan delivery of pithy truths about the large and small "facts of life." One observation was that Dorothy Parker's movie reviews are still funny more than half a century after they were written, even if you've never heard of--much less seen--the movie. That seems like a good litmus test for true humor. We could do with a lot more of it in these parlous times. If you didn't see the program, try to catch a rerun (there are always reruns on HBO) or look for it on HBO on Demand. Meanwhile, have a great Thanksgiving.

Quantity, Not Quality?

2010-11-20T22:59:00.003-05:00

I wonder how many of you knew that this month, November, is National Novel Writing Month (also known as NaNoWriMo). The aim is for writers to crank out about 1,500 words a day in order to complete a novel by the end of the month. In other words, the emphasis is on quantity, not quality. Most writing manuals will tell us that the essence of writing is revision. But here we have, as the NaNoWriMo website explains, "a kamikaze approach {that} forces you to lower your expectations, take risks and write on the fly." The site even has a Procrastination Station that gives advice like "Plot while driving," which prompted the New York Times Book Review to question "Is that legal?" But the big surprise is that this crazy writing competition has actually given birtto at least one huge best-seller, Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen. Go figure!

A Huge Indie Success Story

2010-11-19T13:05:00.004-05:00

Unless you have gone into hibernation with the black bears (I hate when the Style Section does this because I never know what they are talking about) you now know that Jamie Gordon's LORD OF MISRULE, published by an Indie publisher, McPherson, won the NBA for fiction.

I have lived in the Woodstock area on and off since 1978, that is about ten minutes away from Kingston, twenty tops. Never heard of McPherson. I would have noticed them. All I know about is Overlook because Peter Mayer is famous. So what have we here?

I looked them up online and for certain McPherson is a highly literary press but so is Godine (where is Godine anyway, has anybody heard?). My point is that since Indie publishing now has a brand the folks involved are more apparent, no longer flying below the radar. It's like when lace up shoes move from Florsheims to whichever designer it is that puts skulls and bones on them. No longer nerdy, now hip.

Congratulations to this author. I am going to buy the book. Everyone should support Indie publishing.

I hope this blog actually gets posted but I have no idea if it will pass the cyberbar.

Endless Editing

2010-11-18T16:45:00.008-05:00

A while back I tweeted something I often have to remind myself when I'm writing: There comes a point where you're not making it better; just different. Knowing when you've done enough is sometimes as hard as admitting you need to do more. Once my editor's hat is on, I can endlessly dither about whether I've found precisely the right word or phrase to do the job...or whether this metaphor is more affectation than apt comparison...or whether any of this is any good at all, and whether the fundamental problems I always feared lurked at the bottom of the piece might actually be there, and glaringly evident now that it's been polished (in the way that a drawing, poorly blocked in, just looks more and more wrong the more you develop it). Eventually either the deadline snaps me out of it or the cycle of anxiety collapses on itself and I come back to, "Just bang it out for now; move on through; trust yourself; you can fix it later (maybe); don't dither!" or any of the other prods that work from time to time. I'm curious what other people do to break that "endless editing" cycle???

Re: The Cream of This Year's Fiction According to NBA

2010-11-16T13:08:00.002-05:00

I've already commented in demurral to Karl Weber's argument that a cost-benefit analysis supports ignoring contemporary fiction and reading only the classics of the past. Although I find little of interest in contemporary fiction, I would be sorry to miss the occasional, mind-blowing encounter with present greatness that may be ratified into a classic by future readers. To add two living fiction writers to those I mentioned in my comment on Karl's post, I am glad to be able to engage immediately, with no bridge of time to cross, with writers like Thomas Pynchon and Alice Munro.

To speak mathematically, the shrecklich ratio of greatness to dreck is a shallow curve that never rises far above, but also never sinks to, zero. The electric excitement of encountering a writer of my own time who speaks to me honestly and deeply makes periodic sampling of contemporary fiction a worthwhile experiment.

Why I Love Memoir

2010-11-16T09:34:00.004-05:00

I was understandably intrigued by the cover line on this week's New York magazine that reads "James Frey's Fiction Factory". Turns out the piece wasn't about Frey's own venture into fictionalized memoir (which he continues to defend), but it once more reminded me that I've been telling people for at least a couple of years that, for me, memoir seems to have become the new fiction.

I don't mean that I consider all memoir fiction, and I certainly don't condone making stuff up, but if one reads fiction to be transported into a world different from the one in which one lives, then memoir has been doing that for me on a fairly regular basis--with the added fillip of knowing (or at least assuming) that it's true. And no, I don't expect memoir to provide the same level of fact as biography (that's why they're two different genres), but, to me, there's an added level of emotional content that derives from the writer's having actually lived what he or she is writing about. Maybe that's why fiction writers are advised to write about what they know.

In fact, many years ago, I edited a wonderful collection of loosely linked short stories only to discover purely by chance and well into the editorial process that there was a lot of fact to this fiction, and the names of the characters were actually the names of the author's living relatives! Luckily we were able to change those names before it was too late.

The Cream of This Year's Fiction According to NBA

2010-11-16T08:20:00.005-05:00

If like me you haven't gotten around to reading the finalists for the National Book Award in Fiction, you might find this article handy.* It's a kind of crib sheet with impressionistic descriptions and brief excerpts from each book, as well as the author's own opinion as to which book should win (it's one of the long shots). The winner will be announced tomorrow.

* Truth be told, I rarely read contemporary fiction because I am acutely aware that there is so much of Henry James, Charles Dickens, and Philip Roth that I have yet to touch--to say nothing of Thomas Mann, Edith Wharton, and F. Scott Fitzgerald. Since life is short, I keep getting pulled back to this calculus: Why invest X hours in a book from 2010 that has a 1 in 500 chance of being truly great when I can instead read a classic that has already passed that test? Honestly I have yet to hear a truly compelling counter-argument--although I feel guilty about the fact that, if everyone followed my logic, the impact on the royalty earnings of my fellow Authors Guild members would be devastating.

The Ultimate Vanity Book

2010-11-14T07:48:00.003-05:00

Looking for a few new menus to spice up your family dinners? How about buying a new cookbook? Here's one that'll soon be available, and it costs only $625 (a mere $500 on Amazon). I know it sounds like a lot, but the money buys you six lavishly illustrated volumes totaling 2,400 pages and described by Tim Zagat as "The most important book in the culinary arts since Escoffier."

I'm thinking I can't afford not to buy it.

But if you're wondering who on earth would publish a book like the massive Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking, the answer is the author--Nathan Myrhvold, a billionaire who used to be in charge of technology for Microsoft and has now devoted a large fraction of his free time to mastering contemporary cooking techniques. This article from BusinessWeek describes the amazing process by which Myrhvold created the book, which he admits cost "millions" and included hiring as many as 36 experts in cooking, technology, photography, design, and other fields. Publication is planned for March, 2011, unless the author dreams up some new material to include which could increase the book's size and price still further. (After all, when you're both author and publisher, who's going to enforce a deadline?)

This all may sound like wretched excess and a classic illustration of what happens when someone has too much time and money on his hands. But Myrhvold is apparently very serious about cooking and is making a conscientious effort to produce a book that will be a genuine contribution to the field. And anyway, writing and publishing a book, no matter how eccentric, is one of the most harmless ways I can think of for a billionaire to disburse some of his wealth. I wish more moguls would take on projects like this rather than (say) financing TV campaigns in support of tea party politicians. So I say, Go, Nathan, go!

A Canon For Generation X

2010-11-13T07:41:00.004-05:00

Reacting against the idea that there is no more literary canon of must-read books, one writer offers his own list of the ten most significant books of the last twenty-five years--or, as he puts it, a canon for Generation X. His list starts with Cormac McCarthy's The Road and ends with Dave Eggers's Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. It's all fiction, too--unless you count James Frey's Million Little Pieces as non-fiction.

Which raises two questions. (1) If you're a voracious reader of fiction, what do you think of this list? Any egregious omissions or outrageous inclusions? (2) If like me you are more interested in non-fiction, what titles would you nominate for the non-fiction canon of the past twenty-five years? My list might start with Taylor Branch's Parting the Waters, which was published in 1988, 22 years ago. What about yours?

Schadenfreude-Women's Books?

2010-11-12T14:18:00.003-05:00

I am reading the new translation of Madame Bovary, this one by Lydia Davis. The introduction tells us that the book is based on two actual stories, one woman a shopaholic and the other an adultress. The novel was really "faction" for Flaubert's time.

Certainly it is this book as well as Camille, Anna Karenina, The Bell Jar, novels and memoirs of women with big trouble that shaped my early career as an editor of women's fiction. Also these suffering women's stories that sold over time for lots of money formed my overarching theory of commercial publishing. Other people's problems make for great escape. And top sellers.

Over the summer I walked into the local Barnes & Noble and there in front was a table labeled Books of Affliction. Substance abusers practically back from the dead; eating disorder horror tales; victims of sexual and physical abuse; survivors of horrible incidents and illnesses. And all of them were women.

I am not sure when memoirs overtook the tales of fictional women in trouble. Perhaps it was the publication of Barbara Gordon's I'm Dancing As Fast As I Can, the story of the high powered TV exec's descent into valium addiction so terrible she had to be tied to a chair by her lover to constrain her anxiety, but it seems to me that was when other people's real problems began to be the winners in the melodrama competition. Or maybe that is just my marker. Anyway the point is they are all women.

So why women? Is it still true that men don't like to share their feelings? Or am I missing something? Enlighten me.

An "Orphaned Book" Success Story

2010-11-11T16:13:00.007-05:00

The UPS guy delivered a package today containing a book I'd asked a friend at HarperCollins to send. Inside was a double gift: the book I'd asked for, and another "newborn" book that this proud and happy editor wanted to share: The Secret of Chanel No. 5: The Intimate History of the World's Most Famous Perfume by cultural historian Tilar J. Mazzeo. It was a proud and happy moment for me, too: I, too, could call Tilar one of "my" authors. And there'd been an editor before me who could, as well.

I had, in the parlance of the trade, "inherited" Tilar's previous book--The Widow Clicquot: The Story of a Champagne Empire and the Woman Who Ruled It, about the shrewd, passionately determined, inventive grand-mere of champagne Barbe-Nicole Ponsardin--when the enterprising editor who had acquired the project left the company. I came on the scene at a delicate moment: just as Tilar was poised to deliver her manuscript. Fortunately, we hit it off, and what followed was not so much an editing process as a stimulating conversation between author and editor as stand-in for the reader. I saw the project through that stage and the initial set-up to publication. When I left Harper, my friend came on board as editor No. 3, shepherding the book through production and into publication, where thanks to the efforts of Tilar and many others who had a hand in the process, it hit the New York Times Bestseller List.

Writing conferences and blogs abound in stories of the traumas visited upon authors by the business of publishing, including stories of "orphaned" books that slip between the cracks. I'm not here to say that disappointments don't happen (I'm an author, too). But there are many, many people in publishing who work with care and dedication on behalf of authors and their books. In that spirit, from having been fortunate to have had a ringside seat at a happy ending, I offer this example. Congrats, Tilar. Can't wait to read this!

E-Books Will Get Their Own List in the Times

2010-11-11T07:01:00.002-05:00

The latest breakthrough for e-books: The New York Times says it will publish best-seller lists for fiction and non-fiction e-books beginning early next year.

The fact in the article that gave me pause: the Times already publishes fourteen different best-seller lists! I'd never bothered to count them and I was faintly amazed that the number was so high. With that many options, I guess I should feel mildly embarrassed when one of the books I work on fails to make any of those lists . . .

How's Your Attention Span?

2010-11-09T21:19:00.004-05:00

I had an interesting discussion with a friend recently, during which she asked if I was seeing a shift in the kinds of books that people are reading and writing. We eventually got around to the question of whether attention spans have gotten shorter, and if so, did that translate into the reading and writing of shorter books, or books that could be read quickly even if they were long because they didn't require deep thought.

"No," I said pretty quickly myself. "I'm not seeing that." I was thinking of the gorgeous 162,000-word novel that I worked on last spring. "I see plenty of long, complex novels." But then I got to thinking about it. Actually, I don't see plenty of long, complex novels. As usual, I'm seeing plenty of good books with plenty of good writing, but for the most part I'm not seeing novels that create a spacious, compelling world and then sustain story, depth, and elegance of writing for many hundreds of pages. Nor am I reading many of them after publication. It would be too simplistic to say that people aren't reading and writing roomy, complicated novels because attention spans have gotten shorter, but I have to wonder if that's part of it, if indeed there are fewer of these books being written.

Two exceptions come to mind: The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski, published two years ago.

The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver, published last year. Kingsolver's The Poisonwood Bible, published in 1998, fits into the ambitious-in-scope-and-achingly-beautiful category, too, but I'm really looking for more recent titles.

On Beauty by Zadie Smith (2005) is a possible addition to this list. Ultimately, however, the scope of her story is not quite as quite as broad, and there are too many unsympathetic characters for my taste -- but boy can Zadie Smith write.

Does anybody have any other ambitious and relatively recently-published books that I can add to my reading list?

Linotype: The Film

2010-11-08T18:57:00.004-05:00

We've been spending a lot of time on this blog lately debating the long-term impact of the e-book, but if you (like me) are fascinated by the story of how old technologies revolutionized publishing, check out this trailer for a movie now in production: "Linotype: The Film" (link via Boing Boing).

BTW did you know that Mark Twain went bankrupt investing in the Paige Compositor, a rival to Linotype that Twain was convinced would quickly conquer the world of automated typesetting? I'm guessing that if Twain were alive today he would have turned down the chance of investing in Google and would have sunk all his money into AOL instead . . .

Read At Your Own Risk

2010-11-07T11:00:00.002-05:00

If you're considering writing that novel for National Novel Writing Month, you might want to read this first . . .

Sex and the Single Moomintroll

2010-11-06T06:33:00.006-04:00

Sex may be sublime, but writing about it is hell, or so novelist Jojo Moyes claims in this charming little article from Britain's Telegraph. Best graf:

As the Literary Review’s Bad Sex Awards testify, the more “literary” the book, the more determinedly unlyrical the descriptions. Anyone for a vulva as a “gorgon’s head, a motionless Cyclops”? (Jonathan Littell)? Care to linger in Tom Wolfe's decidedly unerotic “otorhinolaryngological caverns”? Norman Mailer may well have been America’s Finest Novelist, but I am haunted by his description of a penis “as soft as a coil of excrement”, as I am by David Mitchell’s climaxing woman who “made a noise like a tortured Moomintroll.”

(That's a Moomintroll in the picture. Don't ask.) Thank God I write mainly about business and politics, where the jargon may be soporofic but at least it doesn't make you squirm with embarrassment . . . !

Freeing Hostages

2010-11-05T13:29:00.005-04:00

Recently I had dinner with a literary writer friend. She has slipped, so to speak, from Little Brown to another mid size publisher until finally her last book was published by a small press known for literary fiction. It never appeared in paperback. In fact, none of her books have. And forget about digital availability. We were talking about the possibility of her letting me reprint one of her books on my new tiny publishing list. But her agent is about to market her new work and the possiblity of annoying the publisher with the right of first refusal nipped the conversation in the bud.

Recently the estate of Ian Fleming refused e-rights to his publisher (whichever flag Penguin flies). Agent Richard Curtis is buying back his authors' e-rights and publishing the digitals (is that a word?).

My literary writer friend doesn't have these options though she has representation. She is powerless. My kneejerk reaction is to admonish conventional publishers for their abuse of power over the meek and mild. I once worked for a publisher who accused me of "being on the authors' side" (!). Whose side was a publisher supposed to be on, I wanted to ask. Instead I resigned.

I guess that's why I am an independent editor. Free Writers Rights. I wonder if I can sell the tee shirt.

Another e-book Rant

2010-11-02T08:34:00.002-04:00

I know; I'm beginning to sound obsessed. Plus, I seem to be talking out of both sides of my mouth. I've already extolled the virtues of my Kindle, and now I'm about to go off on the new color Nook from B&N. But it's not the device itself, it's what B&N so proudly claims it will do that bothers me. They associate the introduction of this new product with their ability to now provide e-versions of picture books for little kids. That really upset me.

Will this generation of kids be growing up without knowing what it's like to hold a book, turn the pages, carry it around, keep it forever? Yes, I know, I've said that I'm getting over that need myself. But I grew up with books. I've spent my entire adult life working with books. I already know the value of the book as object. It's not something I'm likely to forget. (And I still have the beautifully illustrated copy of Heidi given to me and inscribed "To Judy, Love Nini, 1947.")

To me, the book as object is far more than the words; it's typeface, design, paper, binding, top stain, ragged right, jacket design--do I need to go on? I think there's a correlation between learning to love reading and loving the thing itself. Am I right about that or am I just trying to stop the flow progress by sticking my finger in the proverbial dike?

I mean, after all, the typewriter was a pretty nifty object, too, but I never regretted the loss of my Royal electric portable, changing the ribbon, using White Out (a relatively recent innovation in itself), or making carbon copies once I got a computer.

So, does anyone else feel this potential loss as I do? I'd love to know.

Affordable Market Research for Authors Via Google

2010-10-31T07:59:00.004-04:00

I was blown away by this story. Timothy Ferriss was writing a self-help career book and wondered which of several titles would appeal to the greatest number of readers. Most authors (and publishers) make such decisions by gut instinct or, perhaps, by soliciting opinions from a few friends. Ferriss decided instead to take a leaf from "real" businesses and actually conduct market research.

He created Google Adwords campaigns for several possible titles, including "Broadband and White Sand," "Millionaire Chameleon," and "The 4-Hour Workweek." By running each of these campaigns on Google for a week and seeing which title attracted the most click-throughs, he determined that "The 4-Hour Workweek" was a potential winner. He published the book with that title, and it went on to be a major bestseller.

Cost of this research program? $200.

In book publishing, we tend to assume that success is a matter either of luck or of sheer ineffable instinct, which you either have or you don't. Stories like this suggest to me that we could probably achieve success a lot more often if we used our ingenuity to find ways of pre-testing our ideas.

Writing as Gardening

2010-10-30T09:54:00.003-04:00

I recently heard a great interview with Barbara Kingsolver in which she compared the difference between writing fiction and writing nonfiction to the difference between gardening in the desert and gardening where it's lush.

When you garden in the desert, you point to a spot on the ground, bring in soil, fertilizer, and seeds, and you water, water, water. Basically, you supply everything yourself, creating something from nothing. Like you do when you write fiction.

When you garden where it's lush, you point to a spot on the ground and then get rid of everything you don't want or need -- vines, leaves, and weeds, weeds, weeds. Then you plant your garden and continue to do battle with those pesky weed intruders, which are always competing to share space and nutrients with your flowers and vegetables. This is like writing nonfiction -- I'll narrow it to narrative nonfiction, though it could apply to all nonfiction if we used different vocabulary -- when you look at everything that happened in the universe of the story you want to tell, and then you get rid of each thing that doesn't support that story. You eliminate things that weaken or don't serve your narrative arc, your character development, and your theme. Even if something's interesting and it really did happen (honest it did), if it doesn't support or add to your story, you pull it out. Because ultimately it's a weed, even if it's a really nice one.

Indie Publishing Success Story

2010-10-29T14:48:00.004-04:00

I tell this story often but new information has come in for CHEAP CABERNET so for those who have heard it, put your ear plugs in. One of my clients worked with me on a memoir for ages and then got a great agent. The agent attempted to sell the book, shopping it for a year. No luck.

The client decided to take matters into her own hands and published the book herself. One month later three conventional publishers cherry picked the book from the net, bid on it. Hyperion published it.

I learned today that it has been picked as one of the top 15 Books For a Better Life award sponsored by the National MS Society.

You can't keep a good book down. I truly believe cream will always rise to the top and that is why book publishing will go on and on no matter how many generations of doomsday cynics think it is doomed.

The Paris Review Interviews

2010-10-27T13:09:00.002-04:00

Dwight Garner in the Saturday 10/23/10 New York Times wrote about the latest issue of the Paris Review. It has a new editor, and he was assessing the latest issue. But the important information he provided is that its famous interview series--all the interviews with writers published since the magazine's founding in 1953--are now available (free) on the magazine's website. And as he says, they "long ago set the standard, for better and occasionally worse, for what well-brewed conversation should sound like on the page." He continues: "They're so tangled, funny, and unexpectedly revealing that they could be mounted on Broadway ..." The authors range from E.M. Forster, Dorothy Parker, and Ernest Hemingway to Mary Karr and Ian McEwan. As he says, the Paris Review's website "feels, for now, like the best party in town." One example: About the notion of a writer explaining how he writes, Philip Larkin said, "It's like going around explaining how you sleep with your wife." But as Garner comments, "Then again, Larkin never married."