Buzz, Balls & Hype

Art/Business - Part 2

On Writing is an art. Publishing is a business. What is the number 1 business rule you want authors or publishers to rethink, or to understand better. Or what is the rule you feel is most misunderstood.

Today's essay from Dan Harvey, Director of Marketing -Trident Media Group

In the best of all possible worlds, book publishing is a partnership between author, agent, publisher and bookseller.   In order to be smart for the book, this team needs to be willing to risk new tactics to grab the public’s attention, while holding on to some traditional, tried-and-true golden rules.  Each member of the team should be willing to do a degree of heavy lifting; they should also flex their imaginations to find the one thing that has been overlooked or forgotten.  This is a daunting obligation, given the number of new books we launch into the world every year.

Our common goal: to find the magic.  There is nothing more satisfying in this business than to find the ingredients that make a book a success; we are obligated to tap into our past experience (and, hopefully, some newfound wisdom) to nail the readership for each book. Sometimes we do it well; often we simply follow a playbook and reap modest or disappointing results.

But in the cases where the magic formula is found we get to experience the heady pleasure of seeing a book actually reach the predicted audience—and beyond.  We see firsthand the fruits of our labors: that books can make headlines; spark important discussion and new thought; be terrifically entertaining; bring hope, comfort and courage; even change lives.   To be part of that creative process is why we do it.

Art/Business - Part 1

I've asked a few friends in the biz to take on a specific question and I'll be posting some interesting essays on the subject over the summer. (If you'd like me to publish your take, email me your response at MJRoseAuthor@aol.com)

Here's the question:

Writing is an art. Publishing is a business. What is the number 1 business rule you want authors or publishers to rethink, or to understand better. Or what is the rule you feel is most misunderstood.

First up NYT Bestselling autho, Linda Fairstein

Writing is a creative art.  Publishing is a business.  As I often say to writers, if you're just doing it for 'the craft' and the pleasure of writing, then carry on.  Keep the pages in a drawer or under your pillow, and read them to yourself or to the wind.  But if you choose to be published, remember that you have entered the marketplace.  Don't whine about it. Learn it. Learn everything there is to know about it so that you do it well.  Find out from your publisher what role you can play in the process, and talk to the great handselling booksellers as well.  If you choose to be published and sell books, then try to sell as many as you can, and keep on writing.

 

THE DOCTOR IS IN

If you will be in the Boston area on July 6, please stop by

Borders Back Bay, 511 Boylston Street, at 12:30 pm. Career advisor and radio host Mel Robbins will interview me as part of her Live at Borders: Advice for Living program.

WHY WE DO THIS

On Tuesday evening, I took part in a reading of essays from Jessica Berger Gross’s anthology About What Was Lost: Twenty Writers on Miscarriage, Healing, and Hope at McNally Robinson NYC.

The reading was scheduled to begin at 7. At 6:30, my husband and son and I met Andi Buchanan, as planned, at the bookstore’s café, and sat down to catch up. We were soon joined by Jessica, and shortly afterwards, Caroline Leavitt and Rochelle Shapiro and her husband came in. We made short work of the agenda, and spent most of the remaining time before the reading catching up on personal and professional news. Andi had come from a meeting at HarperCollins and showed us the dazzling promotional material for The Daring Book for Girls. I had just received advance copies of Getting Unstuck without Coming Unglued, and a copy was passed around and admired. “The colors are great—it will pop right off the shelf!” was said more than once. The more accomplished writers (pretty much everyone) gave me advice about promotion and tips for calming my nerves about upcoming readings and interviews.

We worried about the small turnout. It was raining. Miscarriage is not the “sexiest” topic imaginable. There was a reading of Victoria Zackheim’s The Other Woman a few blocks uptown that several of our friends were participating in, and others were attending. (I would have loved to go myself, if only cloning were perfected. And Caroline had had to make a difficult choice because she has an essay in both anthologies.) We wondered whether the reading would be at all profitable for the bookstore.

I had never met Jessica before, but we had exchanged so many emails discussing important life events that I immediately felt I had known her for years. Andi, Caroline, and Rochelle are “real-life” friends. Whenever I am with them I feel lucky to know such brilliant, empathetic, supportive and fun women.

And yet it occurred to me, as we chatted, that we could have been any group of small-scale entrepreneurs talking shop. We were exchanging stories and advice about pushing a product. We were concerned that our joint project might end up on the red side of the ledger. Aside from the relative puniness of the profits under consideration, we might have been discussing screwdrivers, or widgets. Rachel Zucker, the last reader to arrive, presented Jessica with two of her beautiful poetry books, and I found myself considering their lush covers from the standpoint of “packaging.” Did these books, too, “pop right off the shelf”? Was that the point?

Then, it having been decided that the sparse audience represented everyone who was going to show up, Jessica took the microphone and began reading from her introduction to the book, about her own miscarriage and its life-changing impact.

From that moment on, there was a palpable hush in the room. This was not polite attention, nor was it the respectful silence nice people accord someone who is relating a painful personal experience. It was the sort of stillness I have been part of on a few other occasions: at particularly charged and focused Quaker Meetings; at a performance of a Bach partita by Yo-Yo Ma; on a tour of Anne Frank’s house. At all of these events there was a sense, not just of empathy or appreciation, but of deeply shared experience; of an invisible golden thread connecting everyone present, one heart to another. These essays were not talk-show exploitations of personal pain; they were beautiful, honest, thoughtful explorations of an issue that is too often ignored and turned away from, and important reflections on the meaning of loss.

The quiet was broken sometimes by laughter, more often by sniffles and nose blowing. By the end, many were weeping openly, including the readers. The “Q & A” included intimate sharing by audience members as well as more abstract, though still intense, discussion of the reasons for the silence surrounding the topic of miscarriage.

This was not screwdrivers. It was not widgets. This, I realized, once again, is the point, the reason we plug away at this insane, rarely profitable "business": to distill our most deeply felt experiences, our most personal vision; to express these as authentically, purely, and beautifully as possible; and to share them, one heart to another. What a privilege.

Susan O'Doherty, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist with a New York City-based practice. A fiction writer herself, she specializes in issues affecting writers and other creative artists. Her book,  Getting Unstuck Without Coming Unglued: A Woman's Guide to Unblocking Creativity, has been shipped and will be available in bookstores later this month. Send your questions to her at Dr.Sue at mindspring dot com.

A Hand Yell for The Chess Machine

This is a fascinating book and by far one of the best covers I've seen in the last five years. Kudos to the author for penning such an original tale and to the art director to doing it justice.

The book got a star from Kirkus -which sure is something.

Here's a good plot summary from PW: German writer Löhr resurrects a chess-playing automaton in his generously imagined debut novel. Set in 1770, Baron Wolfgang von Kempelen of Hungary, anxious to win the favor of Empress Maria Theresia, builds an engineering marvel: the Mechanical Turk, a chess-playing automaton. The Turk, though, isn't exactly as it seems; hidden inside is Italian chess prodigy (and dwarf) Tibor Scardenelli, hired by Kempelen to secretly control the contraption during its debut match in front of the empress. Tibor, a devout Catholic, is hesitant to partake in the scam and insists he will quit after the match. The game goes off without a glitch, but Court Mechanician Frederich Knaus is suspicious of the Turk and convinces his lover, Galatea, to spy on Kempelen. Tension mounts as the Turk gains notoriety and is requested to perform at a ball celebrating the union of Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI. Tibor agrees to a repeat performance (at a higher fee), but when a baroness is found dead after the match and traces of her rouge are found on the Turk, rumors of the "Curse of the Turk" spread and may be Kempelen's undoing.

How Lucky Can You Get? Part 3.

The last part of the Poets & Writer's Article:

Other than luck - ten things you can do for your career

1. Bonnie Hill Hearn, author of The Intern, who in her capacity as features editor for the Sacramento Bee has been working with writers for over twenty years suggests that as authors we should set the tone of the relationship with our agents and our publishers in the beginning.

"It’s like a romantic relationship. The problems you’ll have down the road show themselves in the beginning; we just ignore them. An agent or editor who doesn’t return your phone calls or e-mail in the first month of the relationship isn’t going to improve."

Self-esteem is at the bottom of the way we let ourselves be treated by those who earn their money from us. "I often wonder if we writers spend so many years learning to live with rejection, that we accept shoddy treatment as our due, just grateful to have any attention," said Hearn.

As in any relationship, remember: you can leave, you can move on. Don’t play games. If you say you’re going to walk, you have to be willing to do that and not look back.

2. Amy Bloom suggests authors ask potential agents about the other books he or she is handling and listen hard. Are they selling too hard? Are they talking about plans that are too big and unrealistic?

3. Elizabeth Benedicts advises authors that they should do more than write books.  "Write book reviews, short stories, essays, travel pieces, anything that gets your name out and keeps it there before your book comes out and after.  It'll make the publisher's job easier, if you've gotten some literary attention before. "

Jonathan Franzen did this with his now infamous Harper's essay. Other examples of this include Francine Prose's career as a journalist, novelist, and essayist.

4. It also helps to keep some perspective. " Writing books is a career, not a one-time hit-the-jackpot-or-else pursuit, even though a few people a year do hit the jackpot with their first book.  That's rare and it's okay if it doesn't happen to you.  What I mean by this is: pick yourself up off the floor and-- after you've tended your wounds -- keep writing," said Benedicts

5. Gretchen Laskas, whose debut novel Midwife's Tale says that you need do more than just know who the people are in the editorial and publishing process. "You need to know who these people are as people, and why they are doing what they do.  You need to know things that have nothing to do with your individual book (which is hard for writers, or at least it was for me)."

To this end, Laskas suggests that there is nothing better (and nothing to substitute) for going and meeting with your editor and agent in person.

"If you are going to be in New York for ANY reason, let them know and ask to take THEM to lunch or coffee.  Ask them to talk about why they got into this business, or a book they really enjoyed reading, or what book they are most proud of producing (and do NOT expect them to say your book.)  In fact, you won't learn as much about them if they say your book."

6. Lisa Bankoff, a Literary agent at ICM suggests that new authors chat with other published writers.  "There's nothing like hearing it from someone a step or two of three ahead of you in the process, provided you listen with both ears and can discern the difference between legitimate gripes and sour grapes.

7. Before you choose an agent, Bankoff suggests authors learn what sort of track record the agent has in handling his or her type of book.  "If you've written a proposal for a nonfiction work of substantive and critical merit, and then given it to someone whose experience is largely in self-help and diet books, they're less likely to know the best editors for your book and less likely to be familiar with how the market will value it."

8. Bankoff also says to pick an agent who suits your temperament.  If an author is the type who needs to know where and when the manuscript is being submitted, to be kept abreast of responses along the way, and to make sure the agent is receptive to this sort of interaction.

9. "You want an agent with sufficient experience to bring to bear on helping understand how they (those publishing professionals) approach decisions regarding allocation of marketing dollars," Bankoff advises.  An author wants an agent who "can make sense out of a business that's still less science than art, a person who will be candid and not cagey about why sales are disappointing." 

10. Contact a few of the agent's current clients, advises Bankoff.  "Their comments are the litmus test.  It's easy to talk the talk,
but let's see what happens when it comes time to walk the walk."   

Things they don't tell you - (A side bar by Two Anonymous Writers with five books published between them.)

∑ They don't tell you that they really only have time to market, promote, push and get behind a few of their titles per season.

∑ They don't tell you what your true print run is. (The announced number isn't the same thing as the real number.) And they don't tell you that a lot of your returns get pulped. (Even as there might be a shortage of books and they can't fill orders.)

∑ They don't tell you that your book is out of stock just as major reviews are appearing, which they could see coming but didn't do anything about. They tell you they have gone back to press and you're elated -- woo hoo! Another printing! But they don't tell you that the press run is only a thousand copies.

∑ They don't tell you that they never sent out most of the books to people on your "big mouth" list because they couldn't be bothered or they didn't want to spend the time and money to do it.

∑ They tell you when a review is coming...but then they don't tell you it's been killed and will never run, even though they know it.

∑ They tell you they have a plan to run an ad, or to include your book in a group ad.... but then they don't tell you that it isn't happening after all.

∑ They don't tell you that your publicist is leaving, has left.

∑ They don't tell you that your new publicist is still too young to rent a car and has never heard of Somerset Maugham.

How Lucky Can You Get? Part 2.

Part 2. Continued from Yesterday.

In Their Defense.

John Glusman, Exec VP, Editor in Chief of Farrar, Strauss & Giroux sympathizes with authors and blames a marketplace that is more competitive than ever. "As a result of consolidation in the industry there is less of an emphasis on quality more attention paid to the bottom line. That makes the stakes higher and puts more expectation on certain books to perform."

Publishers aren't out to destroy writers, but publishing a successful book is very much a guessing game. Agents don't mean not to return our calls, they are just overworked. And publicists aren't the devil's spawn who think we are lunatics. They are for the most part overburdened with too many books to push each month and review sources have been truncated from 25% to 50% in the last year alone. There isn't time to do a good PR job on every book (which is why writers should learn to do some of their own, or save some of their advance to hire an outside PR firm.)

Glusman reminds authors that things that sometimes seem personal aren't. There are actual problems in publishing today. "There is less and less media attention for books and everyone is becoming anxious. The shelf life and book review space and the attention span of the general public is shorter. And the relatively long time it takes to produce a book makes it even more difficult."

Author Elizabeth Benedicts (Almost) said that while your book is the center of your world, to an editor it's one of two dozen books she's working on that season, and she knows that not all of those books are going to be smashing successes.

"I imagine that editors keep some distance between themselves and writers so that if a book doesn't take off, the editor can retreat a bit more gracefully, instead of having an author who feels as though the moon has been promised but not delivered.  Maybe this feels to some authors as though the publisher wants them to feel "grateful" instead of involved," she said.

One way to combat this feeling as an author is to have realistic expectations.

Simon Lipskar, a literary agent with Writers House Literary Agency suggests that when a publisher has paid a modest sum to publish a first novel, it's foolish, no matter how great one's fantasies, to hope that the publisher will print 50,000 copies in hardcover, run an expensive (and often pointless) ad campaign, send the author on an expensive (and often pointless) author tour, etc.  "It's the author's part of the bargain as a professional to know that, in most cases, these things will simply not happen.  Asking for them, begging for them, demanding them: this is part of what leads publishers to react with an attitude that implies that the author should shut up and take what's being given. "

If an author can instead balance expectations against the realities of what the publisher will or won't do for his or her book, then the cycle that leads to feelings of resentment and frustration can be put off from the start. 

Lipskar is not suggesting that authors should simply stand back and let publishers do what they're going to do. Rather, he says, one has to be realistic about what the publisher is going to bring to the table and then say to oneself, "Okay, so what I am going to do to sell copies of this book?"

Authors who are less frustrated with the process and their publishers are usually of two camps, the bestsellers and those who simply force the issue and get beyond this us vs. them mentality.

These last group of authors -- who do take control, realize that a book is NOT dead after three months as publishing wisdom dictates, and they get creative. The authors who do rely on luck tend to have more positive publishing experiences and feel less angry at the outcome.

"What's healthy is to do something about all of this--even if sometimes the only thing you can do is write. I've had to learn that I do have a right to nag my publisher to get back to me in a timely fashion, that I do have a right to nag my agent. It's important to talk. I just had a conversation with my new agent who told me I don't call her enough--I don't complain enough, that it's her job to do these things for me," said Ada L.

What To Do?

Ultimately, we all have to realize this basic truth: if writers don't write publishers have nothing to publish. And if they don't publish they don't have a business and we don't have a career.

They can't do it without us and we can't do it without them.

"Without the fruits of your labor, none of us would have jobs," said Bankoff. "I'd have no deals to commission, editors would have time to do nothing but refine their own prose, and the legion of promotion, marketing, publicity and sales people would be forced to invest their energies in other pursuits."

The editor and the agent, Bankoff said, are on a shared quest and it's one only the writer can satisfy. And yet all too often what should be a partnership is just not treated as such.

It begins with the very way that authors communicate (or rather don't communicate) with their publishers: an author deals with an agent who deals with an editor. The editor in deals with the rest off the house and then reports back to either the agent -- if it's business -- or to the author if it's editorial.

The channels are not very clear.

Glusman suggests that author rely on his or her agent to make this process go more smoothly.  "It's a big universe with a lot of different players in it," he said. The process it self is fairly simple but there is a lot of competition and every author feels it. An author's agent should be his or her champion, run interference and get involved when there are issues."

Amy Bloom, (Normal: Transsexual Ceos, Crossdressing Cops, and Hermaphrodites With Attitude) suggests we not be fooled by the nice stuff that proceeds signing a contract and that we should proceed through the publishing process with the right attitude. "One can be appreciative without being subservient. Objectively this is a business and publishers are not our parents our friends, We sell them our goods and they pay for them. We all need to concentrate on doing business in a positive and supportive way. In a way that does not causes pain. "

Whoever you talk to: authors, publishers or agents, everyone agrees. It all goes back to the agent: you must have an agent whom you trust.

Being grateful is a two-way street

If all the parties involved can have respect for the others' roles, then the idea of being grateful doesn't seem as onerous or troublesome.

In an ideal world editors and publishers would be genuinely grateful to be publishing and authors should be genuinely grateful to be published by the people and companies who publish them, and agents would be genuinely grateful to be working on behalf of the talented authors they represent.

In fact, many people are. Lipskar for one says he is. "Yes, relationships sometimes get strained, and I certainly know high-handed editors, agents and authors who all thing they're bigger than the process.  And authors should absolutely be on the lookout for agents and editors who from the outset treat them with disdain.  But 'being grateful' can be a positive way of approaching a process that is often fraught with tension as opposed to a sign of codependency and weakness."

Afterword

I have never written an article and had so few authors and publishing people willing to go on the record or be interviewed. Over 50 agents, editors and authors, all refused.

We are in the business of communicating and so this silence is alarming. Widespread hesitancy to speak about issue is almost as interesting as the issue itself.

"I don't think I have any right to complain about the things that are wrong -- and there is a lot wrong -- because I've been so lucky with how my career has gone," said one best selling writer whose name every reader and every bookseller knows. "I'd be afraid to jinx it," he added.

Not enough said, but as clear a communication as I've ever read.

Tomorrow Part 3- Ten Things You Can Do. And The Ten Things They Don't Tell You

How Lucky Can You Get? Part 1.

I've been asked over and over to reprint two articles I wrote for Poets & Writer's magazine.

This is the first and it was published in 2003.

Other than John Glusman now working at an imprint of Random instead of FSG, nothing else has changed. If anything it's more intense now than it was then.

How Lucky Can You Get? By M.J. Rose

No question about it, Carl P. was one lucky writer. At least for a while. At 33, he finished his first novel - Lucky Boy - sent out two dozen queries and got an agent within four weeks.

Let's call her Lucy. Typically, Lucy gets over 200 queries a week, so this was indeed a lucky break for Carl. Within a month of signing with her, Lucy had an offer for Lucy Boy with one of the better publishing houses for $75,000.

His editor, let's call her Pandora, took him to lunch at Michael's (where everyone in publishing lunches) and spoke of her vision of the novel, how much faith she had in his talent, and how excited she was to launch his career.

Carl was promised that the imprint was devoted to "building a writer's career," not just "buying one book." Pandora told him that the marketing and promotion budget was high and designed to build him a readership.

And then they talked about how hard it is to get published. Tens of thousands of  manuscripts a year go unsold. Over 70,000 authors have self published in the last two years or have just given up because they couldn't get that one big break that Carl had been handed on a china platter along with the roasted free range chicken.

He felt as lucky as the boy in the title of his book. But Carl's luck was about to change.

The first sign came three months later when Pandora's assistant called him to discuss the edits on his manuscript.

"I thought I was going to be working on this book with Pandora," he complained to his agent when the first few working sessions with the twenty something junior assistant went badly. 

Lucy calmed Carl down, convinced him that the assistant was Pandora's pet and not to worry. "Not a word goes out without Pandora's approval," she promised.

As time went on, it just became more and more clear that the assistant didn't understand the book. Most of the changes she wanted didn't make editorial sense to Carl.

And then Carl saw his cover, which he felt, misrepresented the book.

Lucy agreed but convinced him to accept the cover, saying he was lucky that the publisher was excited about cover and it wasn't smart to make a fuss at this point in the process.

Two months later Carl saw his book in the publisher's catalog. It wasn't the full page that Pandora had told him he'd be getting. Nor did it list the ten-city tour or the national advertising campaign that also had promised at lunch

Lucy didn't return his phone call or email for two days and when she finally did it was to tell him not to panic. Everyone at the house loved the book and he was worrying for nothing.  This is a tough business, you are so lucky. Now's not the time to complain."

It was not the last time he'd hear that in the next eight months. No matter what the problem -- the publisher only making 100 ARCs instead of the 500 promised, the book's launch being postponed to the next quarter, yet another edit from the junior assistant -- no matter how upset he got, the refrain he heard over and over was: "But you are so lucky. Your book is being published. That's what you need to remember."

Except he didn't feel lucky anymore and when he pleaded with Lucy to get on the phone and call his editor and straighten out the various messes, Lucy finally admitted that she couldn't put her relationship with Pandora in jeopardy.

When the book out came out there was little review attention and the initial sell through was less than stellar.

Carl felt anything but lucky. " I turned into the red headed step child and my book just disappeared."

As authors, are we just so lucky to be published that we should shut up and stop complaining? Or should we be angry? Or is there a more productive way to navigate this strange land called publishing that does not resemble any other business model out there.

What’s the Problem?

Part of the problem is the fact that it is so damn hard to get published.

"I not only felt a groveling attitude toward my first publisher but toward my first agent, a woman who sold every one of my novels, but who nevertheless told me at every turn that I was lucky to be published at all, let alone have an agent," said Ada L., a six time published author.

It took Ada years of prodding from writer friends to ditch this agent and find a new one. Why? She was literally afraid to call because the agent couldn't have a conversation with without getting that in that "luck factor" phrase at least once.

Is it any wonder that our primary attitude is one of being grateful when we hear from countless other writers who are all desperate to be published, how lucky we are?

Even seemingly positive news reemphasizes the luck factor. When Oprah picked a book for her book club, other writers talked about how lucky that newly anointed author had been to be plucked from obscurity.

When the Today Show and Good Morning America choose a book every month for their Book Clubs every publicist and editor -- and again every writer  -- talks about how lucky that singled out author is.  After all, with over 130,000 books published a year you have to more than a damn good writer to be anointed by reviews, you do have to be lucky to get noticed.

Ada L. suggested that writers don't always feel empowered because we aren't really in on the process. "We don't negotiate, we  don't go don't know which editor is looking for which product. We're removed.

One way to empower ourselves is to forget the rules!

"I was told I would never get a review in a major newspaper and not to even try," Jane T, a mid list author, said. " I tried anyway, contacting the paper myself, and when I got the review (a rave) guess what I was told by my publicist?  I was lucky. And please don't do it again because I was making the publicist's job harder."

ICM literary agent, Lisa Bankoff, points out that there is also a fear factor that exacerbates the problem. She reports having phone conversations with dissatisfied authors who complain about unresponsive publicists, ill-conceived book jackets, or a lack of advertising.

"Often, they're absolutely right to feel that the publisher could be doing a better job of it, paying closer attention, offering more meaningful consultation.  That said, I've had many of those same phone conversations end with the client BEGGING me not to repeat any of it to the editor.  God forbid the squeaky wheel might get replaced instead of oiled."

That fear is part of why we crawl away convincing ourselves we should be grateful instead of acting on our anger.  If we get any thing -- one ad in a major newspaper, a four city tour, three weeks of decent coop in the chain -- we consider ourselves blessed. We've heard of too many cases where books are dropped or just die from lack of a publisher's interest despite a big advance. 

So like abused children we're thankful for every small favor.

TOMORROW PART 2.

THE DOCTOR IS IN

If you will be in the NYC area on June 12, please drop by McNally Robinson NYC, 52 Prince Street, at 7 PM. Andrea Buchanan, Caroline Leavitt, Rochelle Jewell Shapiro, Rachel Zucker, Miranda Field, Jessica Berger Gross, and I will read from our essays in About What Was Lost: Twenty Writers on Miscarriage, Healing, and Hope.

Susan O'Doherty, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist with a New York City-based practice. A fiction writer herself, she specializes in issues affecting writers and other creative artists. Her book,  Getting Unstuck Without Coming Unglued: A Woman's Guide to Unblocking Creativity, will be published by Seal Press in June and is now available for pre-ordering. Send your questions to her at Dr.Sue at mindspring dot com.

Dear Dr. Sue,

I write and have had a few articles published--small successes. There is no way to know if I'm good at writing. Some days I fear I am mediocre, at best. When I listen to others' writing in my critique group, I sometimes feel inadequate. It would be nice if I could believe in myself, but rewriting and revising only serve to show me how much work I need to become really good at what I love to do. I sometimes fret over one sentence for a half hour. Many times I revise 10 or 12 times. I have strong points, but I have weak points. One of my very real weaknesses is the fear that I am fooling myself into believing I can evolve into a great writer.

I am told all writers feel this way from time to time. Maybe.

F.E.

Dear F.E.:

I wonder if you have considered taking a writing class or tutorial with a teacher you trust. Many writers definitely do feel the way you described from time to time, and often this has to do with a very rich imagination. Because there aren't set standards for writing (the way there are in, say, marathon running, accounting, or carpentry) it's hard to tell how well we are working, and when we don't have concrete information our imaginations tend to run wild--often in the worst possible direction.

It's not so much that a teacher can tell you whether you're a good writer or not, but that getting specific feedback and suggestions (again from someone you trust) can sometimes keep the demons away by providing a reality check (reminding us that we are neither the best nor the worst writers who have ever lived and that while we do have areas of weakness, these can be addressed) and by focusing our attention on the steps we can take right now to improve. Critique groups can do that as well, of course, but during periods when we're vulnerable to self-doubt it's easier to fool ourselves into thinking that our peers are just being tactful when they praise our writing, and that they're shaking their heads in pity behind our backs. A teacher who gives strong, clear criticism, both positive and negative, is harder to dismiss. You may decide not to follow all of the teacher's suggestions, but simply receiving them can be enough to recall us from the hell of ambiguity (which one of my clients described, memorably, as a planet whose atmosphere is composed of lime Jell-o) and deposit us back in the realm of oxygen, carpentry, and accounting.

I would also suggest relieving yourself of the burden of the word "great." In the first place, it is such an ambiguous standard that it's impossible to tell whether you've met it or not. Second, it's irrelevant. Your job is to express your personal vision as fully as possible. Nobody else can write the way you do.

We can allow the writers we admire to intimidate us, or we can enjoy their work and study their technique in the service of our own. I may never write as well as my personal "greats" (Shakespeare, Jane Austen) but they couldn't write my stories, either, because they don't have my particular sensibility or experience. This is true of your "greats" as well, whoever they may be. They are not you, so there is no basis for comparison.

Susan O'Doherty, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist with a New York City-based practice. A fiction writer herself, she specializes in issues affecting writers and other creative artists. Her book,  Getting Unstuck Without Coming Unglued: A Woman's Guide to Unblocking Creativity, will be published by Seal Press in June and is now available for pre-ordering. Send your questions to her at Dr.Sue at mindspring dot com.

Letter to an MFA - Part 3

Part 3 of Letter to an MFA by Josh Henkin

Publishing

    Throughout the semester, I try not to talk too much about publishing; my job is to teach my students to write, and publishing can get in the way of writing.  But then my students graduate and they want to know about publishing, and they turn out to be woefully unprepared.  Part of the blame lies with the MFA programs, many of which don’t offer courses on publishing or on navigating life after the MFA.  A good number of the professors are ignorant of how different it is to emerge from an MFA program now than it was even a generation ago.  I’m only ten or fifteen years older than most of my students, but a year and a half after I graduated I was offered a contract by a major publishing house based on only fifty pages of a novel.  This is almost unheard of now.

    But part of the problem lies with the MFA students themselves.  They seem to think they should graduate with a book contract.  But why should they?  Why should anyone get a book contract?  Many of my students believe being published just happens to you, and they sneer at the idea of marketing themselves, as if doing so is beneath them.  They expect Maxwell Perkins to come knocking.  What they need to understand is that if they want their work to be read they must make it so good the reader can’t resist it, and they must market it so well a publisher will be forced to publish them.  This may feel unfortunate to some and unseemly to others, but it’s the reality, and the sooner young writers realize it the better.

Short Story Collections

    Most of my graduate students write short stories.  Stories are tailor-made for writing workshops in a way that novels aren’t.  But publishers aren’t interested in short stories.  I say this as someone who loves the story form, who has written many stories himself, who is often perplexed by the lack of interest in stories since they seem perfectly suited for short attention spans.  And I would never tell a student to stop writing short stories.  I haven’t stopped writing them myself.  But no one should pretend they can do anything for a young writer’s career.

    Take the case of the recent Pen/Faulkner awards, which would seem to be good news for short story writers.  Four of the five finalists were story collections.  But only one of them—Edward P. Jones’s All Aunt Hagar’s Children—sold more than 25,000 copies, which was still only a tiny fraction of the sales for Jones’s Pulitzer-Prize-winning novel The Known World.  Amy Hempel and Deborah Eisenberg, two of the other finalists, sold 10,000 to 15,000 copies each, but both Hempel and Eisenberg are long-time short story writers who got their start when publishers were more forgiving of short stories, and of low sales numbers in general.  Far more typical is Charles D’Ambrosio, whose book of stories, The Dead Fish Museum, also a Pen/Faulkner finalist, sold only 3,000 copies.

    Will someone publish D’Ambrosio’s novel?  Probably.  He’s a terrific writer and has an established reputation; many of his stories have appeared in The New Yorker.  But my students may not be as lucky.  They enter their story collections in university-press competitions, and occasionally, despite the tremendous competition, one of them wins.  This is certainly reason for celebration.  But it’s also a double-edged sword.  A book of stories published by a university press may sell a thousand copies.  And that number goes into a computer.  And the computer spits out that number when the writer tries to sell his next book.

     But my students tend to ignore this.  By and large, they write story collections for their theses, and in a nod to publishing they link these stories, reintroducing a character or a place, because they’ve been told that linked stories are more likely to be published, that a story collection that gets dressed up as a novel might get invited to the ball.  But aesthetically speaking, these links are cursory (the stories don’t feel linked; they feel like the work of someone who asked himself, How can I pretend these stories are linked?), and even when they are linked they’re not a novel, and these days even novels are hard to sell.  My students like to talk about Jhumpa Lahiri and Nathan Englander, whose debut story collections, The Interpreter of Maladies and For the Relief of Unbearable Urges, were critically celebrated and sold incredibly well. 

  But these are exceptions, and it seems to me that through no fault of their own Lahiri and Englander have done more to delude young writers about the publishing world than almost anyone else.  Though literary agents share some of the blame.  They’re quick to tell MFA students that story collections don’t sell, but they will also, in wooing young writers, call attention to the story collections they have sold, as if to say there is hope when there isn’t any.   

Finding an Agent

   It’s often said that finding a good agent is even harder than finding a good publisher.  This may be so, but my students should remember that without writers an agent can’t survive.  And while many established agents don’t take on new clients, often the best agent for a young writer is a young agent herself who may be hungrier than an established agent.

    Why, then, don’t my students approach these agents?  Often they seem to be  waiting for others to help them out.  And while writing professors should help their students, ultimately it’s up to the writer himself.  Besides, connections are overrated.  When I began to look for an agent, I queried nine of them, two of whom I had a connection to.   But neither of those agents agreed to take me on.  Of the three agents who offered to represent me, none of them had ever heard of me before my query letter arrived.  I found them by looking up the agents of writers I admired.  This is public information; you can call the publisher to find out; oftentimes, a writer thanks her agent in the book’s acknowledgments page.  Then I spent several weeks working on a letter that would convince the agent she had to read my book.  Young writers think this isn’t their job, that it’s the agent’s job to sell their book.  But it’s the writer’s job to sell his book to the agent.  If he can’t do that, how can he expect the agent to sell it for him?

Work or Volunteer in Publishing

   The year after I graduated from college, I interned for a magazine where I was the first reader of fiction submissions.  It was the best thing I’ve ever done for my writing career.  Prior to that, I had written some fiction and wanted to be a writer, but I thought I wasn’t good enough.  Seeing how bad the average submission was gave me courage:  if others were willing to try and fail, I should be willing to try and fail, too.  But more striking was the sheer number of submissions.  And among them were some very good ones.  This taught me two important lessons.  First, don’t take rejection personally.  So much is luck; you have to keep entering the lottery.  I know this first-hand.  Both my novels were rejected many times before they found a publisher.   The short story of mine that has done the best, that has been performed on “Selected Shorts” and anthologized in Spanish translation and cited for distinction in Best American Short Stories, was rejected by more journals—over forty—than any other short story I’ve written.   

   The second lesson I learned is that an editor will do anything not to read your work.  Every sentence has to be perfect and essential.  This is true for aesthetic reasons, certainly, but also for publishing ones.  If you think an editor will read to the tenth page, which is when your novel really begins, you don’t understand what publishing is like.  A typo in the second sentence, a spelling mistake, and your manuscript goes in the rejection pile.  It astonishes me how often a student will send work to an agent or editor that hasn’t been properly proofread.  A writer needs to treat her work like she cares about it if she expects others to care about it, too

   And while my students are at it, I suggest they consider leaving New York.  I’ve had many talented graduate students who are too busy trying to make a living either to write or sell their work.  True, if you move to Idaho, you’re unlikely to run into an agent at a party.  But a lot of people have met a lot of agents at a lot of parties, with little to show for it.  I went to graduate school in Michigan and stayed there for another six years.  I doubt I’d have finished my first novel, much less sold it, if I’d been living in New York.  The odds are so stacked against the young writer that he needs to do everything he can conceive of to give himself a chance.  So conceive of Michigan, or Idaho.  Write your book.  Spend time on it.  Then spend time marketing it.  It can be done from far away.  There’s email now, and Fax machines.  Then, if you get lucky and you’re so inclined, you can move back to New York.

Joshua Henkin’s novel Swimming Across the Hudson was a Los Angeles Times notable book of the year.  His new novel, Matrimony, will be published by Pantheon in October.  He teaches creative writing in the MFA programs at Sarah Lawrence College and Brooklyn College.  He can be reached at http://Joshuahenkin.com.
   

The Ad Man Answers #10

Thursday + Gregory Huffstutter = The Ad Man Answers

  Q:  I'm an infrequent reader of your blog and would like to ask: What would you estimate the CPM for Online Video (TV-shows on-demand etc) to be?

We're currently developing a peer-to-peer technology for online video distribution. One of the main reasons online TV-shows aren't booming as quickly as User Generated Online Video (UGOV as at YouTube) seems to be that the CPM currently is lower that the cost of distribution.  In writing our business plan, I'm trying to determine what the CPM for online-video should be, in order analyze what cost of distributions must be to support the current CPM?

 

-- John Sjölander, Sweden

A: First of all… ‘infrequent reader’?  That’s no way to butter up a corporate desk jockey.  The Ad Man demands nothing less than slavish obedience!  Gift baskets, Lakers tickets, bridges dedicated in our honor, or fan sites... that’s how we roll in the U.S. advertising biz.

Now to your question. 

Online video – usually in the form of ‘pre-roll’ that automatically loads before the desired content – currently falls in a bit of a gray area. 

Advertisers have watched live broadcast TV ratings steadily decline due to the proliferation of cable, video games, movies-on-demand, DVRs, and the internet.  With video content proliferating on the web, advertisers see a new way to re-capture those missing eyeballs.

Online video is generally seen as more desirable than a simple banner ad – sight, sound, and motion helping combat ‘banner blindness’ – and can extend the reach of a standard television campaign.

The problem is that instead of placing ads with a traditional network like CBS or NBC, the internet offers seemingly infinite possibilities.  Nowadays, you’ve got video content available on websites for newspapers, radio stations, local news channels, sports teams, lifestyle enthusiasts, and even gossip columnists. 

On-line TV ‘networks’ are cropping up – like Joost, ManiaTV, and HavocTV – aggregating content in the quest for ‘broadcast-like’ audience numbers.

So from the advertiser’s point of view, the bottom line is WHY would our potential customers seek out your content.  We don’t automatically believe content providers when they say: “If I build it, people will come.”

When ABC archives episodes of “Lost,” that show has a built-in following of fans that might’ve missed an airing.  When American Idol offers “behind the scenes” videos, that’s an extension of a global brand that includes the TV property, concert tours, podcasts, magazine articles, etc.

The more OFF-LINE extensions that give relevance to the content and drive potential audience size, the higher the advertisers are willing to pay on a CPM basis. (Refer back to Ad Man #4 for CPM definition).

If the property you’re selling solely exists online, like an internet-only comedy troupe, it will be hard convincing advertisers that you can generate enough viewers to make it worth our effort.  That’s when you see low CPMs – in the $5-$10 range – for online video content.  Advertisers won’t pay higher, because we feel like we’d be reaching viewers by the dozens, instead of by the millions.

But if you’re repurposing content that has already aired on broad reach networks or are providing additional footage to popular programs, then you may be able to start creeping your asking CPMs into the $10-$15 range.

You probably won’t be able to get your CPM in the $20s – matching television – until online video is more widespread, has better measurement tools, and can be easily viewed on your living room plasma screen, instead of your laptop.

Hope this helps… and The Ad Man is pleased he’s developing a fan base in Sweden.  If you can’t send Lakers tickets, some IKEA furniture or a dozen meatballs would be an acceptable alternative.

 

Gregory Huffstutter has been punching Ad Agency timecards for the past decade, working on accounts like McDonald's, KIA Motors, and the San Diego Padres. He recently finished his first mystery, KATZ CRADLE. The first 100 pages of his novel are linked here. For general advertising questions, leave a comment or send e-mail to katz @ gregoryhuffstutter dot com with 'Ask The Ad Man' in the subject line.