Prithee, Inform Me: Where Are You in Your Career?

Every once in awhile, meine Autoren, I grow weary of hearing the sound of my own melodious voice (astonishing, but true), so I'd like to take a moment to ask you: where are you in your literary career?

Whether you're a fresh-faced college freshman writing your first novel or a seasoned author with a dozen novels under your belt, you know one thing: writing is hard work. Tell us what you're working on, whether you've got representation, how many years you've been writing, what genre you prefer, how and why you became a writer, &c, &c. No, really, let's talk about you.

Go nuts!

Round 1: Random House

Sorry for the Friday silence, mes auteurs, but thankfully the technical problems that canceled last week's round-up have been resolved. Onward and upward!

If you haven't heard, the Wylie Agency has lost its e-book battle with Random House, meaning that thirteen of the twenty contested e-titles are back under Random House's control. While I'm sure this has soured both Wylie and Amazon (with whom Wylie made the exclusive sales contract) on The Big House, it's an important victory for the publisher and, I think, for their authors. Also, Amazon gets to sell those e-books (via Random House) regardless, so I'm not sure how upset they really are.

What does that mean for you, gentle readers and writers?

First and foremost, it means that you need to be more aware than ever about e-rights: what your contract says about them, what your royalty rates are, under what conditions those rights can revert, &c, &c. Electronic rights are going to be immensely important over the next five years, and if you and your agent aren't on top of your game, any mistakes you make can and will come back to bite you.

Second, as I've mentioned before, I do think that electronically native imprints and sales models that more closely knit the acquisition and sales forces are the way of the future. That is to say: while Wylie went about this project the wrong way, I think their idea has merit and may represent the prevailing sales model in the next decade or two (smaller agency/house hybrids with more emphasis on e-books).

Finally, it signals (to me, at least) the necessity of editorial, computer-savvy, and legal input into the publication process, meaning that regardless of where e-books go in the next few years, you're still going to want someone on your side to edit, format, and sell your book.

What do you think, bros and she-bros?

Why This is a Returnable Business

As I've mentioned before, back during The Great Depression (as opposed to today's Great Recession), a lot of things (surprise!) weren't selling, including (surprise again!) books. In order to get book stores to carry their stock, publishers allowed them to return any unsold merchandise for credit. Not surprisingly, this worked pretty well. Very surprisingly, the industry has continued this practice for the past eighty years, boom or bust, recessions, depressions, and rapidly expanding bubbles be damned.

As Jeffrey Trachtenberg points out (albeit in a Wall Street Journal article from five years ago), returns are "crippling inefficiencies of an antiquated business" and "The book industry... has been saddled with this system since the Depression." Around forty percent of books are returned (my estimate would be slightly higher in today's economic climate), comprising hundreds of millions (if not a billion or more) dollars per year in lost revenue. Many of these books are remaindered; the rest are pulped. Sad but true, mes auteurs.

So: why does the industry maintain this astoundingly inefficient business practice?

First, there's a sort of institutional singlemindedness I've discovered in which publishers seem to believe that because something has worked in the past, it will 1.) work just as effectivley now, and 2.) continue to do so indefinitely. As you can see: not the case (although, somewhat ironically, the returnable stock structure probably saved more than one book store when the recession hit in 2008). How things are done is how things are done, and this is more or less the end of it.

Second (and this sort of ties into the above), publishers are expected to demonstrate healthy growth year-on-year in terms of their sales numbers. Any year in which a publisher converts from a returnable to a non-returnable model will immediately see a 40% (or more) reduction in gross sales, and even though they'll recoup a lot of this by not having to print, package, ship, and warehouse books that will never pass through the register to the consumer, it would cause enough of an accounting and financial nightmare that most publishers will (and do) balk at the prospect, myopic as that practice may be.

Third, as mentioned in Trachtenberg's article, publishers have been steadily increasing the prices of books for years in an attempt to (among other things) compensate for the revenue lost to returned, remaindered, and pulped books. A conversion to a returnable model would almost certainly require a reduction in price point, which is great for consumers but bad for the publisher's bottom line (at least in the short term). I think there's something to be said about e-book pricing here, but that's another post for another day.

Finally, as I've mentioned in some of my co-op posts, brick-and-mortar retailers order more copies of would-be bestsellers than they really need, since they need to make those elaborate hardcover towers at the front of the store to attract consumers' attention. In a non-returnable model, they would be stuck with these books until they could either sell them at a sufficient discount or destroy them; this would in turn disrupt the co-op system as retailers and publishers scramble to reset the bar for promotional quantities.

This is all assuming a perfect world with a perfect supply chain, and as we all know, neither of these exists. Even if a publisher were to reach maximum efficiency in terms of getting books to retailers' warehouses, they would still need the cooperation of the retailers' supply chains and sales forecasting in order to make a non-returnable model work. It was easy back in the '30s to convert from a non-returnable to a returnable model when there were no superstores or Amazon; these days, converting back would be a Herculean task (though I think it would be enormously beneficial in the long-term).

What say you, meine Autoren?

We Regret to Inform You: The Form Rejection (Rerun)

Another hectic week, meine Autoren, so here's another classic from the PMN vault. Enjoy! — E

Episode: "We Regret to Inform You: The Form Rejection"
Originally aired: Monday, November 2nd, 2009

For those of you in the know (and there are more of you than you might think), there have, over the past several months and years, been periodic imbroglios re: the use of the form rejection by literary agents. I don't usually foray into this territory, but I thought a patented PMN Analogy® might be of some use. It's actually not my analogy—I'm shamelessly appropriating it from a guy I was talking to last week—but I find it too good to pass up.

Remember when you applied to college? Fun, right? The standardized tests, the trips to the guidance office, the teacher recommendations, the thrill of victory, the agony of defeat, &c &c. The point being: remember when maybe you didn't get into that one college? Did they send you a personalized four-page essay on how you were super great, but they just didn't have room for you? Or did they send you a one-page "thanks, but no thanks, better luck elsewhere"?

Aha.

As I've said before, you, gentle (though as-yet-unrepresented) readers, are not any given agent's primary focus or responsibility. Their time and efforts go first and foremost to their clients, and only after they've negotiated contracts, calmed down their own hysterical authors, sat through endless rounds of auctions, and attended every known (and many an unknown) conference on the planet do they have time to sit and read your query. This is why said query has to be good, and this is why you can't be upset with a form rejection. Not only does an agent not have time to respond to every individual person who queries him or her, but to be completely honest, he or she wouldn't owe you a personal rejection even if he or she did have the time. Disheartening, perhaps, but true.

Caveat: this doesn't mean I wholeheartedly endorse the form rejection for, say, partials or fulls, and I've never been a fan of the idea that no news is bad news (i.e. no response means rejection). And I do realize that most (if not all) writers view their work as reflections or extensions of themselves, and often (perhaps subconsciously) equate rejection of their work with rejection of their overall abilities as writers, or even with rejection of themselves, period. But this is not the case, bros and she-bros. It's simply a rejection of your novel, not an indictment of your character.

I don't mean to sound harsh here. I write, you write, we all write, and we all get rejected. None of us likes being rejected, and I'm sure agents don't relish the opportunity to reject us. But it's a necessary evil of the system, cats and kittens, and if you want to graduate from the Publishing School of Hard Knocks, you've got to be able to take a form rejection or two. Or ten. Or two thousand.

All I can say is: soldier on, dear readers. Never give up! Never surrender!

The Battle for Barnes & Noble

Barnes & Noble (BKS) announced a first quarter loss today, falling short of the company's forecast and underscoring not only booksellers' ongoing struggles in a soft market, but Barnes & Noble's particular battle between Ron Burkle and Leonard Riggio.

First, some background. Leonard Riggio is the chairman and largest stockholder of the company, which has been trying to sell itself (on its own terms, more or less) for awhile now, given that their sales are declining and (in my opinion) they want to attract fresh capital for their reinvention as a cutting-edge digital media company. Ron Burkle is a mega-rich investor who has accumulated almost 20% of BKS's stock and, despite his comments to the contrary, is widely believed to be attempting a takeover of the company.

Barnes & Noble, however, has what's called a "poison pill" defense (named for a spy's last resort should he or she be captured by the enemy) that makes it prohibitively expensive for Burkle to reach 20% (Riggo himself owns almost 30%). (If you're interested, you can read the details here.) Long story short: Burkle wants Barnes & Noble, which comes with the ability to unseat Riggio and to add his own people to the company's board of directors. Riggio, of course, is fighting back.

Talks have repeatedly broken down this summer, culminating with a Delaware judge's ruling that BKS was not being unreasonable in its defense against Burkle. This resulted in a proxy fight that, if successful, will accomplish the same thing: eliminate Riggio and add Burkle to the board.

This doesn't mean a whole lot for Barnes & Noble in the short term (at least, not in an operational sense); business will continue as usual despite the mounting legal fees. While some have speculated that the battle against Burkle is partially responsible for BKS's 1Q decline, I'm more inclined to think it has to do with slumping hardcover sales and reduced consumer spending in general. In short: Barnes & Noble is, à mon avis, far from doomed, but they certainly have their work cut out for them.

What do you think, mes auteurs?

101 Form Rejection Projects for a Rainy Day

I hope you enjoyed last week's guest posts, readeurs and readeuses, and that a little more of the publishing world (particularly the non-sales aspects) has/have been illuminated for you as a result.

It's Monday, which means I'm going to ease into the blogging week with a frabjous discussion of the myriad uses for form rejections.

I like to pin up my tiered or personalized rejections above my desk, but the form ones, being both a) more copious and b) neither near or dear to my coal-black heart, require something more involved/vindictive. Therefore—in patented (call the U.S. Patent Office if you don't believe me) Bullet-o-Vision™—the first 10 of my 101 Form Rejection Projects for a Rainy Day:

· Cathartic papier-mâché. Make a tiny replica of you sitting on a stack of your bestsellers! Make a tiny replica of you winning the Pulitzer! Do not make a tiny replica of you strangling all the agents who rejected you. Bad karma.

· A crackly quilt for super hot nights. Staple (or sew, if you're sufficiently crafty) your form rejections together to make a blanket. Note: crying yourself to sleep on said blanket may cause the ink to run and is not recommended. Additional note: crying over form rejections in general is not recommended.

· Fancy coasters. Glue your rejections to pieces of cork and drink (something alcoholic) off your rejecters! (Rejectors?) If you're fancy: Laphroaig. If not: Jack Daniels.

· Origami. Try and make a thousand paper agents! (See #1, above, regarding treatment of said paper agents.)

· Use the backs to write The Great American Novel. Be green and emulate Thomas Wolfe at the same time!

· Agency trading cards. Collect them all! Trade them with your friends!

· A flipbook. Remember: no violence! Images of you winning multiple Nobel Prizes for Literature or receiving a $1,000,000.00 advance are permissible (and, in fact, encouraged).

· Make a fire. Preferably in your fireplace. Not as imaginative, but definitely cathartic.

· Pretend traffic tickets. Put them under the windshield wipers of cars parked on your block. Hide in the bushes and observe people's reactions.

· Confetti. Throw yourself a party! You're one rejection closer to representation.

Add yours in the comments!

Guest Post: Inevitable Envy

People are loathe to admit it, but envy is an inevitable (and unenviable) part of the writing life. I have been on both sides of the envy seesaw, and it’s no fun either way. Envy has always seemed to me such a sticky-feeling emotion, the kind of thing where you need to shower just after you admit to yourself that you’re feeling it. No wonder we call it by so many other words.

But Shakespeare felt professional envy, probably directed toward Kit Marlowe—in fact, he wrote sonnets about it. Fitzgerald and Hemingway had a famously rivalrous friendship—as did Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath. Melville got tired of playing second fiddle to Hawthorne, and I just read that Virginia Woolf, after reading glowing reviews of the “The Four Quartets” by TS Eliot, went out to walk in the fields and tell herself “I am I, and must follow that furrow, not copy another.”

So here’s the bottom line on professional envy. If you feel it—or rather, when you feel it—first of all, take comfort that you’re in the very best of company.

Second, use it as an impetus to write. You can’t let your friend get that far ahead of you, can you?

Thirdly, remember that this is a street which goes both ways and that at some point, if you keep writing, you will be on the receiving end of someone else’s envy. It might just be a well-turned phrase in a writing workshop, or it might be the Pulitzer. Either way when you notice it you’re going to feel… a little sticky. Because here’s the weird thing about envy: it feels no better to be envied than it does to envy other people.

When I sold my novel, my friend Dawn said, “the publishing process will be full of surprises. And one of them is that your friends are not going to be particularly happy for you.” It’s a harsh realization. For years you and your friends are lolling around in the same muddy pasture of despair. No one can get an agent, much less published. It doesn’t seem possible. It seems as far away as if you were sitting there saying, "some day one of us is going to fly.”

But then it happens. Someone sells her book. And the reaction is not just envy but surprise. Wait a minute. She sold her book? Actually sold it, and she has an agent and an editor and a title and a cover and all that sort of stuff? The land shifts beneath you all a little bit and it’s hard not to have a jumble of emotions, with envy certainly among them.

Now here’s the conundrum. If your group is full of good writers and you’re committed to helping each other, the news that the first of your group has published is both an occasion for envy and, on the other hand, a boon for everyone. There’s a little more of a crack in the gate. Maybe your friend will ask their agent to look at your book. Maybe they’ll help you when it’s time to negotiate your own contract or publicize your own book.

But even if the stars align and you’re able to help each other beautifully—and indeed it has happened among me and my writing friends—you still have to go through that gate one at a time. Some people have to hang back and watch their friends precede them into the land of the published and that hurts. So I guess the fourth point about envy is…

Accept it as a rite of passage. And in some ways, evidence of how far you’ve come. Melville envied Hawthorne because he knew him. Ditto for Shakespeare and Marlowe, Sexton and Plath, Fitzgerald and Hemingway, Woolf and Eliot. We envy people who are nearby, who seem just a step or two ahead of us in the process. The language of envy begins with “It could have been me…”

We don’t feel that about people who are far above us. You don’t lie on your couch and re-read Pride and Prejudice for the 700th time and envy Austen. She’s Austen, for God’s sake. It would be like feeling envy for an angel. So when your friends begin to improve in their writing, to publish, to win awards or be admitted into colonies, your envy is a sign that you’re not that far behind them. Painful as it is, you’ve moved a step closer to publication.

Because if it could have been you, someday, it will be.

Kim Wright has been writing about travel, food, and wine for more than 25 years and is a two-time recipient of the Lowell Thomas Award for Travel Writing. Love in Mid Air (www.loveinmidair.com) is her first novel and the book trailer can be found here.