The Publishing Contrarian

You and I owe Frederick G. Kilgour a big THANK YOU. Because of this recently deceased librarian’s pioneering work, just a few days ago we became able to go directly to www.worldcat.org and locate the library closest to home or office that has any given book, CD or video we would like to checkout, download or view directly, even if the closest copy is 1000 miles away––or even a continent away. It’s that simple! All we have to do is type in the name of the book, CD or video AND our ZIP code. The library network we tap into links 55,000 institutions in 110 countries!

It works. I tried it! I typed in the title of one of my old, out-of-print books. Worldcat reported one copy in a library about 20 miles from where I am right now. There were no copies in my local branch of the library. Interestingly, there were copies in other languages in other countries. Yes, it’s the magic of computers once again! The intra-state library database has gone global. 

Let’s Go Worldcatting!

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What a great idea to have Novel Night at the library in East Hampton, New York. An estimated 250 author groupies showed up at the cocktail party held on a lush grassy patch of lawn behind the library and approximately 375 deeper-pocketed benefactors/patrons/sponsors headed over to “one of 22 lovely East Hampton private homes” for dinner later that night where authors would hold court.

Of course, it is very busy in The Hamptons this time of year and I was torn about which of five big events to attend. Former President Bill Clinton and Junior Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton were in town for two very pricey fundraisers. I thought about going, but I just couldn’t see how I could force down $1000 worth of scrambled eggs at breakfast and knock back $2000 worth of margaritas at the cocktail hour, and still be able make it to my event of choice, Novel Night, at 6:30 pm—where all those local authors were corralled and captive under the big tent.

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If you are sitting holed up in a dark corner working on the magnum opus that will rock the literary word and catapult you into the stratosphere of book publishing, but are lamenting your pitiful inability to get a literary agent or editor to appreciate your genius, and you think there is nothing wrong with your query letter, synopsis and sample chapter, then shelve The Writer Magazine, shut down your computer and step out into the sunshine and start networking your way to a literary agent or editor. 

Meet One New Person A Week

One of the biggest mistakes I made when working as a young director of sales and then a group publisher of developmental product at A/S/M Corporation (former publishers of AdWeek magazine) was that I spent too much time on the actual business of publishing and not enough time on the business of lunch. “Lunch” should be a 24/7 event. Lunch means getting out, being seen and elbowing your way around the publishing industry whenever and wherever you can: front door, side door, back door.

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The hiring of George L. Jones amazes me. What a smart move to bring in someone with such an action-packed, diverse background. Unless he’s been blowing his entire paycheck on clothes at Saks Fifth Avenue every Saturday, I know he didn’t take the job just for the money. (According to Salary.com, his total package last year alone from Saks Department Store Group was, gasp, $2,286,695!) So he’s accepted the challenge of trying to turn Borders Group around. Is it possible he is not afraid of new ideas that involve the pain of doing things d.i.f.f.e.r.e.n.t.l.y? I’m thinking he might just be riding into Borders and Walden Books on a white horse, six-guns holstered right now, but capable of making a lot of people “start dancin’.”

He’s from Arkansas, which for a girl from Connecticut, is impossible to find on the map (yet another state somewhere on the other side of the Delaware), but he has made his friends and enemies as President of Worldwide Licensing and Retail for Warner Bros. and by overseeing Warner Bros. Worldwide Publishing, Kids WB Music, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, WB Sports and Warner Bros. Studio Stores. He was also Executive VP-Store Operations and Sr. VP-Merchandising at Target.

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There was a slightly different cast of characters in the multiplex Chelsea Cinema in New York City this weekend when I plopped down in a leg-stretching aisle seat to see The Devil Wears Prada. Usually the seats are 95% empty at the 11:30 a.m. show, but yesterday there was a clutch of girly men and the fashion-conscious and moi all sharing the theater with my early bird buddies—the snoring, wind-breaking, mumbling senior citizens escaping the stifling heat of their unair-conditioned, rent controlled apartments. I, too, just love the blast of icy air that blows my hair straight back when I wrench open the doors to the entrance of the movie theater. Nothing I like better than seeing my breath in the frosty air of a movie theatre and having ice particles form on the tips of my eyelashes in July. Pass the coke, popcorn and forbidden candy bars!

The Devil Wears Prada was the first novel written by 26-year-old Lauren Weisberger. Whew! What a stir that book and now the movie have caused. The movie is such a hoot because it caricatures Anna Wintour, Editor-in-Chief of Vogue. Miranda Priestly, the character Meryl Streep plays, is so awful, she’s wonderful. Weisberger’s brief (though it may have seemed quite LONG at the time!) employment as an “insider” fetching lattes for Wintour (sometime from 1999 to 2000) gave Weisberger a one-way, do-not-pass-go, ticket to a literary agent and book contract with Doubleday. So quickly did Weisberger pound out The Devil Wears Prada that Doubleday got it edited, printed and distributed to bookstores in 2003. You’ve just got to know Weisberger wrote in a fury and probably an indignant rage from the moment her “clacker”-self hit the pavement, either ceremoniously or unceremoniously. (Was she fired or marginalized until she quit? I don’t know.)

What does Weisberger’s experience placing a book tell you about how to get published quickly and smoothly?

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On impulse I walked over to The Irish Repertory Theatre in New York City to see John B. Keane’s The Field. Had I known the subject of the play would so closely parallel my experiences of the past few years, I don’t think I would have gone to see it. I wasn’t prepared to witness a variation of what happened to me, happen to the characters in the play any more than someone who had recently lost a loved one would want to subject himself to sitting through a play about death, or than someone who had just broken up with a true love would want to be penned in by an audience and watch a relationship between a man and a woman disintegrate from 8 pm to 10:30 pm.

The Playbill presented the drama as being a battle over a four-acre patch of land and “the challenges upcoming generations of Irish will face as economic progress comes into conflict with time-honored tradition.” I settled in for a slice-of-life conflict awash in Irish brogues and Irish humor. Instead, within 10-minutes I knew this play was only superficially about cows grazing on a field that might be lost to an industrial site, or about the end of a way of life in Ireland. No, this play was about losing your moral compass, about opportunism, and about clutching what you already have at the cost of losing your soul. 

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I’m still laughing! The cover story of Newsday.com on May 29th had me in stitches. Jeff Pearlman’s article, “Pulp friction, or hey, buy my book!,” is an hilarious account of his efforts to try and promote his newly released biography of Barry Bonds, Love Me, Hate Me: Barry Bonds and the Making of an Antihero. I can see the image of a rain drenched Pearlman, drops dribbling off the end of his nose and ear lobes while handing out promo flyers for his book outside AT&T Park in San Francisco, home of the Giants.

Jeff, I am assuming that the book was so offensive to the stadium/team that your publisher, HarperCollins, was unable to strike a deal with them to buy thousands of special-order copies for free distribution to the fans holding tickets to the worst seats in the stadium? Not free binoculars, but a nice perk for them. (Strike one!) Nor were they able to convince the Bonds promo machine to buy your book in bulk, customize the cover, and offer it along with the Barry Bonds 715 Women’s Logo Cap-Sleeve Baby Doll T-Shirts and Authentic SBC Park Infield Dirt Coins that he hawks in his Web site store. (Strike two!) So let’s assume Bonds is huffy about the book. Too bad. Who said, to paraphrase someone, that any publicity is good publicity, even if it’s bad publicity?

I don’t think it’s coming as a big surprise to many authors anymore that, as Kim Lionetti, a literary agent with Book Ends, LLC, says in the same article, “There’s a real demand for creativity.” She means, of course, on the part of the author to sell his own book! We know that, I think.

Jeff Pearlman, you are not the roundheel you claim to be! You were wearing sensible shoes, not teetering on hooker high heels outside that park. You were showing the requisite characteristics of a successful author. You were building momentum for your book, while risking pneumonia for the cause. (Where was your editor that day? Having a power lunch in a posh Manhattan restaurant and discussing Updike’s Terrorist and the current state of fatwas?) I’m sure everyone outside the stadium remembers that pathetic author with his waterlogged, unreadable flyers. Some might even be talking about it right now on the way to the bookstore. I give you CREDIT, but buy some foul weather gear.

Jeff, you were smart enough to write about a very popular (okay, now notorious) figure in a national pastime sport. And yes, even though you have a lot of competition from Game of Shadows by Mark Faina-Wada and Lance Williams, I wouldn’t worry too much about a book that was released one month ahead of yours (although I am sure William Shinker, President & Publisher of Gotham Books in New York City is cartwheeling). There are plenty of rabid baseball fans who, once they finish reading Game of Shadows, will pick up your book.

Nope, I don’t think you are quite as hapless as you paint yourself in the Newday.com article, so I’m not going to worry about you and your book. Not at all. In fact, despite skulking about Barnes & Noble and moving your book to a more prominent position—while no doubt bumping into lots of other lurking authors, and letting your high school alumni association know you have another book out (ah, the glory!), I actually think you are pretty savvy when it comes to the P&P of book marketing—promotion…and prostitution.

• Somehow you wrote a book. (Home run!) 
• Somehow you created a promo Web site. (Home run!)
• Somehow you managed to be published by HarperCollins. (Home run!)
• Somehow you got ranked on Amazon.com with 4.5 stars. (Stand-up triple!)
• Somehow you goosed your book from Amazon Sales Rank of 5,427 yesterday to 2,982 today. (Line drive through the shortstop’s legs!)
• Somehow you managed to write the cover story for Newday.com. (Yet another home run!)
• Somehow you wrote an article that was forwarded to The Publishing Contrarian and the Wicked Witch of Publishing blogged about you. (Out of the park!)

I’d say you’re batting .700! 

Not only am I laughing, I’m impressed. You are doing what every author should do: Exploiting any and all opportunities, while moving steadily away from the minor leagues and into the majors.   

Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing ™: I’m trying to think of the worst possible, most debasing thing I have done to promote my books! Let me think about this. Meanwhile, thank you David Buda for emailing me the link to this article!

“Scan this Book!” was the title of Kevin Kelly’s feature article and “manifesto” in the The New York Times Magazine on May 14th. The article was about Google’s hell-bent-for-leather scan-athon of the books from five major research libraries and what this massive effort portends for the world (a digital universal library), for publishers (business model implosion) and for authors (books as loss leaders).

• For the world at large, the digital Universal Library will rescue long-neglected, long-lost, and long-forgotten books: that’s good. I’m all for the UL or DUL. The scope dazzles me. Even though I am one of the “well-booked” per Bill McCoy, GM of Adobe’s e-publishing business, I want the info of the world a click away and I want to be able to drill down until the bit snaps. Beyond my own egocentricity, I empathize with the “billions of people world-wide who are underserved” by having limited or no access to books, but can boot up a computer. Here, let me contribute my old books, those written by me and those on my shelf. Let me read the “marginalia” (is that a word you can say in mixed company?) that Kelly predicts will make my books even more valuable to the world. Let me click away madly and locate 32 million books, 750 million articles and essays that humans have published, as the article says, “since the days of Sumerian clay tablets.”
• As a result of the impending business-model implosion, the inflexible, traditional publishing industry will be sidelined: that’s their personal problem. Free online books on Web sites, in publishing blogs and in The Universal Library will require that the industry trash its stone-age business model and stop throwing good money after bad to shore up the crumbling status quo. All the free books online right now — not to mention the prospect of 32 million free books online — should have Peter W. Olson, Jane Friedman, Jack Romanos and David Young, Presidents and CEOs of Random House, HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, and Hachette, respectively, marshalling the troops, not circling the wagons. “Publishers, be very, very afraid,” the editor of The New York Times Magazine warns on the front cover.
• Authors will now have the opportunity to capitalize on having written a book, rather than being forced to rely exclusively on paltry royalties: that will be reward enough, and those rewards can be enormous. “Digital technology has now disrupted all business models based on mass-produced copies, including individual livelihoods of [authors].” The publish or perish crowd in science, medicine and academe write books for credibility building and ivory tower scaling. Business people who write books about their industry want a published “leave behind” to get a leg-up on the competition. Sure, they’d like to make money off the sale of individual copies of their book, but that is a secondary goal. As free online publishing spreads and The Universal Library grows, the author who writes a book with the primary goal of selling tens of thousands of copies is going to find a smaller and smaller paying audience. But writing books has its rewards, even if not one copy of the book is sold. For some authors like Val Landi, selling the movie rights to his book A Woman from Cairo may be the biggest and best payoff. Cathy West, a Bermudian author who writes for the Christian market and has bimonthly chapters of Just a Little Walk on her Web site, may or may not make money directly from sales of her book, but she may be rewarded in some other way, tangibly or intangibly, in some manner or another, as she casts her bread upon the water. Steve Clackson, although he was absolutely pilloried by a few writers critiquing his novel, Sand Storm, two weeks ago after he posted a few chapters of his book online, may not ever find a traditional publisher, but writing a book and self-publishing online may get his book picked up by the Universal Library, eventually, and who knows, maybe his fortune lies in some anti-terrorism-related venture or screen writing assignment in Hollywood. The Wicked Witch of Publishing is happy to have written three nonfiction books ages ago and to have been “well-published” by HarperCollins, St. Martin’s Press, Pocketbooks, Berkley Books and a variety of foreign publishers, because it helps her land big contracts for big bucks in the corporate world, and it makes her, shallow creature that she is, so bewitching at cocktail parties.

Perhaps it is time to demand a reversal of rights right now for midlist, backlist and deadlist books that publishing companies have dismissed, neglected, forgotten and allowed to go out of print. These old books and still new books languishing in the bowels of some distribution center, could be freely and generously given to the Universal Library for scanning (copyright waived!) and be one-click-available to all potential readers, literally forever.

Perhaps ignoring the traditional publishing companies as they skip merrily along their own well-trod path to who knows where is the best approach.

Perhaps all those writers who faced the patient blank page everyday and nevertheless created a living, breathing book, but couldn’t find a traditional publisher, should self-publish right now online, and reap some of those rewards that are just out there ready to be discovered. 

Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing: Leave your email address if I don’t already have it! I try to send a quick email out when I put up a new posting. Also, the Wicked Witch of Publishing is up to no good! Again! If you are a first-time author with a manuscript languishing in the slush pile, definitely leave your email address so the Wicked Witch can get in touch with you to help you with a new service she is offering in a week or two. (Click on “Email” under “Pages” on the sidebar).

Something memorable happened to me years ago in a bookstore in the ocean resort of East Hampton, NY. No, it wasn’t meeting Peter Mathiessen (a founder of ”The Paris Review” and recipient of the National Book Award for The Snow Leopard) rearranging the display of his amazing trilogy Killing Mr. Watson, Lost Man’s River and Bone by Bone. Nor was it bumping into Billy Joel in the addictions section. I encountered what I think is that rare bird, a “handseller.” Why so memorable? Because if that’s what it was, I haven’t seen one since.

It was summer and I decided to read as many books as I could about the Vietnam War while rotating in the sun at Georgica Beach. I’d pushed through Winston Groom’s Forrest Gump and Better Times Than These, John Del Vecchio’s The 13th Valley, Philip Caputo’s A Rumor of War, Tim O’Brien’s Going After Cacciato, Michael Herr’s Dispatches, and was searching the local bookstore for Francis Fitzgerald’s Fire in the Lake. At some point a young woman, who had been sorting and shelving books when I walked in, turned to me and offered to help. When I mentioned Fire in the Lake, she knew immediately that the bookstore didn’t have a copy. After we chatted briefly about the books in which I was interested, she offered to order Fire in the Lake or any other book I thought I might like to read on the subject of Vietnam, and she made some recommendations about additional titles. I told her not to bother to order Fire in the Lake. I thought I’d just pick up a copy at the B&N on Fifth Avenue and 17th Street in New York City. 

About three weeks later, I walked back into BookHampton. This same woman was sitting at the cash register. When she saw me, she lit up, reached under the counter, pulled out a book and waved it at me. You guessed it: Fire in the Lake! She hadn’t known my name. She hadn’t known if I’d ever be back in the store, but she had special ordered this book and reserved it for me: “Save for tall woman with great tan.” I bought the book. Handseller? 

Before I switched over to the business side of publishing, I’d just finished my third nonfiction book and completed a 16-city tour organized by St. Martin’s Press. No matter how tired and disoriented I was on this tour—running from TV show to radio station to local newspaper to airport—I managed to locate the local bookstores and do what every other author does: sneak around, look for my titles, and turn them cover face out. (Guilty, as charged!) Not once during that entire process did anyone ever walk up to me and offer to help me find a book.

Lo, these many years later, I can honestly say my experience in quaint BookHampton remains unique, unless you want to count the time I stumbled across a shelf filled with employee recommended books in Barnes & Noble on Sixth Avenue in New York City. Each book had a brief, handwritten synopsis and a few personal comments about why this book was so liked by the employee. I bought Mikal Gilmore’s Shot in the Heart through the recommendation of what I’ll describe as a variation of handseller. Shot in the Heart was a gripping book and a real page turner. It was written by Gary Gilmore’s younger brother. You remember Gary Gilmore? He requested a firing squad for his execution…and he got just what he asked for. Last time I looked, that shelf was gone.

Wandering a bookstore, clearly looking like I am browsing for something appealing, should bring a handseller trotting over. (I’d even welcome a recommendation for another book at point-of-sale.) I’m just not sure what one looks like because sightings are as rare as those of the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker in Arkansas. I’ve heard they exist, but the sightings are suspect. I don’t come across them in the independent bookstores and I certainly never see them in the bookstores like Barnes & Noble or Borders. In fact, I have to track those guys down and wrestle them to the floor if I want help, then it’s: ”Let me check the computer to see if we have it…. Next customer.” 

Actually, come to think of it, I was a handseller once! I was nosing through the display of new fiction titles at B&N alongside two women about my age who were trying to figure out what to buy for one of their mothers. I reached for Isabel Allende’s Daughter of Fortune and said, “My mother just loved this book.” Sold!

Frazer Dobson of Park Road Books in Charlotte, North Carolina, may disagree with me, as might Robert Gray, formerly of Northshire Bookstore in Manchester, Vermont. I don’t doubt that these extraordinary book buyers epitomize the definition of handseller, but my personal experience leads me to believe that handsellers are on the endangered species list, and very close to extinction.

Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing: Leave your email address if I don’t already have it! I try to send a quick email out when I put up a new posting. Also, the Wicked Witch of Publishing is up to no good! Again! If you are a first-time author with a manuscript languishing in the slush pile, definitely leave your email address so the Wicked Witch can get in touch with you to help you with a new service she is offering in a week or two. (Click on “Email” under “Pages” on the sidebar).

What a beautiful place, I thought, as I walked into The Carnegie Club in New York City. Great selection for a quiet meeting to “dis” and “dish” about online publishing, writers, editors, authors, the publishing industry, independent bookstores, Barnes & Noble and Borders. What better source of insider information is there than Ron Hogan, all 6’4” of him? He and his colleague Sarah Weinman crank out the kind of information that has made them the first click in the morning for those who know and those who want to know what’s going on in the publishing industry right now.

From about a half-a-block away I saw Ron waiting politely outside The Carnegie Club. Thank goodness, I thought. It’s always a relief to me not to walk into a bar alone and decide whether to stand self-consciously by the coat check or slip onto a bar stool and hope (particularly at 4:30 in the afternoon) that no one thinks I’m there for a jump on happy hour.

“Funny kind of a smoky smell in here,” I commented to the waiter as he escorted Ron and me to a cozy, quiet corner near the windows overlooking West 56^th Street. “That is because,” the waiter said, “you’re in a cigar bar.”

That’s a “second,” I thought, having wandered into my first cigar bar recently with a cigar smoking friend in Sag Harbor, NY. I actually love the smell of most cigars and my head snaps up at the scent of that cherry tobacco with which men used to fill their pipes before pipe smoking fell out of favor and cigarette smoking was banned almost everywhere—except cigar bars.

So Ron and I hunkered down, with him smoking his cigar and me smoking by proximity, drawing in all the second hand smoke I could get.

Ron and I talked about a lot of things, many of which I plan to blog about. He’s headed for Washington, DC and BEA–BookExpo America—which is billed as “the largest event serving the book market in the world.” I’m thinking about going. I have it on good authority (Ron’s) that press passes are given out liberally to bloggers who blog about books and the publishing industry. I might ride the rails from NYC to DC and spend a few days networking and loading up on free books, though you can only carry and then read so many books. Frank Wilson, The Philadelphia Inquirer’s book review editor and Books Inq. blogger, also asked if I am I going. So, I’m thinking about it. I’m tempted.

We also talked about the Indian princess who has fallen from grace. I still feel so bad that the disgrace of this will haunt Kaavya Viswanathan for the rest of her life. She didn’t think about that when she cadged more than a few lines from Megan McCafferty’s books. Kaavya is much too young to understand the stigma of being caught cheating. She should have a chat with Senator Ted Kennedy about his Harvard experience. (People may not talk about it, but they always remember, and if they forget, believe me, someone will remind them, whether it’s one year or thirty years from today. Look, I just mentioned Senator Kennedy. If you don’t know what I am talking about, it won’t take you long to find someone who does.) And call me just too empathetic, but I can only imagine what her family is going through: Higher than high one minute on the glory brought to the family and then ….

We talked about “real” salaries in publishing and how much people really make given the hours editors, for example, spend working in the office and working at home at night and over the weekend. I have it on good authority (mine) that in the city most senior editors max out at about $75,000 or $6250/month and then fall into the 25-28% tax bracket. (That’ll make you borrow receipts from a friend!) Seventy-five thousand, by the way, is considered a very good salary in publishing. I’m not talking about the publishers and I’m not talking about the “star” editors making a few hundred thousand or several hundred thousand dollars a year. I’m talking about someone who has an adequate track record of successes and has been around for a while, doing creative quitting along the way to squeeze a two- or three-thousand-dollar raise out of the next publishing company. I don’t know any editor who works only a 38 or 40 hour week. My guess is that many editors work a 50-60+ work week. How much are they making when you factor in all those hours? How much do they have to live on? In New York City a one-bedroom apartment is renting for about $2300 - $2500/month. Throw in a garage (outdoor or indoor, side street, not avenue) and you can add $350-$400/month. No wonder editors walk around with the lining of their pockets hanging out and eyes dialated and fixed from exhaustion.

Ron and I talked about driving traffic to websites and blogs. Mediabistro’s Galleycat.com has the publishing industry pacing outside its door at dawn each morning.  Thousands of people drop by each day. I do, too. I’d be interested to know how galleycat.com and publishersweekly.com compare in unique hits each day. (Notice I am saying unique hits, not just hits. There’s a difference: the former being someone entering the blog, the latter being the number of pages viewed by the former.) Of course, it’s none of my business, but that doesn’t usually stop me from asking!

Nice chat with Ron! Two drinks (Ron), two diet cokes (the Wicked Witch of Publishing), two cigars (Ron) and an entire bowl of mixed nuts (the Wicked Witch of Publishing) and we parted at the corner of 56^th and Seventh avenue. Ron headed uptown and I headed for the play Shining City with Oliver Platt on Broadway.

The next morning when I woke up, I thought: WHAT IS THAT STINK! I sniffed around the apartment, but the stink was everywhere. Actually, it seemed like it was following me. Of course, it was my hair! It reeked of cigar smoke and the pile of clothes thrown on the chair in the corner of the apartment stank, too. No wonder people seated next to me at the play were leaning as far away from me as possible and seemed to have hankies over their noses much of the time. No wonder on the subway ride home people slid a little bit away on the seat.

Next time, Ron, I’m picking the place–a juice bar.

Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing: Leave your email address if I don’t already have it! I try to send a quick email out when I put up a new posting. Also, the Wicked Witch of Publishing is up to no good! Again! If you are a first-time author with a manuscript languishing in the slush pile, definitely leave your email address so the Wicked Witch can get in touch with you to help you with a new service she is offering in a week or two. (Click on “Email” under “Pages” on the sidebar).