Update on last week's William Morris Endeavor Agency event

I've been running around all week with no time to blog (mostly working on the article, and blog posts will come soon), but I had to stop and say what an amazing time we had on Thursday with Eric Lupfer as our guest. The praise has continued to pour in for his candid talk and his accessibility afterward, waiting patiently to speak with a line of faculty and guests. Thank you to everyone who came and made it such a full house, and thank you to Eric who was such a great sport.

William Morris literary agent Eric Lupfer at Booklab

Eric Lupfer of the William Morris Agency will be my guest for a Georgetown University faculty book talk at noon on October 15. If you are a Georgetown faculty member and would like to attend for lunch, chat and a Q&A, by all means let us know by sending e-mail at the right or contacting me in person.

If you are not a faculty member but would still like to attend, non-faculty can participate in all Booklab offerings on an academic/course fee basis. Please contact us for more details!

Thoughts on submission for 2009

Now that I'm back at Booklab after some decidedly non-bookish time in the Florida sun, I've had a chance to think about some of the odder aspects of publishing. The oddest for me personally is the submission process, as I have blogged before. The word "submission" carries strange overtones, primarily one where the writer is the supplicant and the agents and editors -- who supposedly hold all the power in the submission process -- are the grantors. Over time, a sensible soul might logically step back from the gatekeeping process and ask if this is really the only way to the page. It isn't.

The sane writer (whether of books and essays, or a singer/songwriter, or a playwright, or a poet) learns to thrive on internal validation, and understands that creative output is a God-given gift and right, not a gatekeeper-dictated privilege. It is not dependent on age (in fact, most bestsellers come to authors over the age of 55), it does not favor youth and innocence, and it need not stop if one gets what some people love to sneeringly call a "real job." Wallace Stevens was an insurance executive. Rita Mae Brown was once a bricklayer. (I've always found that really cool.)

If I could impart one useful phrase to everyone who visits Booklab discouraged over rejection, it would be this: "Who are these people?" Submission is often necessary, and I believe in heeding wise agent or editor counsel, but submission does not overturn the essential authority of you as an author. You're the one who chooses when you start, how you progress, when you stop, and -- even if it has been decades -- when you start again. No other person -- parents, teachers, mentors, employers, agents, editors -- controls a bit of it.

I guess this is the part of the post where I sum things up in a pithy way, and then add an image about perseverance. But I'm feeling too contrary for that. After all, some people really aren't good writers and never will be. Yet who am I to decide? I can think of five or six people on the bestseller lists right now who write books that I find problematic in the extreme, with issues ranging from poor writing to "ew" subject matter to aimless execution, and I can name a host of wildly talented people who aren't published and possibly never will be. Far be it from me to say your good work will prevail in the traditional submission process if you are diligent. Maybe it won't.

But you still get to decide. It's still your life and your ride. And if you silence yourself because you didn't get one over in an arbitrary, power-laden process called submission, you may deprive me and others of your breakthrough work.

Here's an interesting quote from Spike Lee when he learned that Barack and Michelle Obama went to one of his movies on their first date in Chicago: "Actually, Barack told me the first date he took Michelle to was Do the Right Thing. I said, “Thank God I made it. Otherwise you would have taken her to Soul Man. Michelle would have been like, ‘What’s wrong with this brother?’ ”

Lee made that movie, and all the others, without asking anyone for permission. In fact, Lee never really participated in the submission process as it is traditionally defined. Read his bio here, and you won't see one word about how he offered his work to someone else and silently begged for validation.

Blogger bait part two

My second "I took the bait" post about this month's Poets and Writers concerns the cover. P&W gives them this front-cover line: "Four next-generation agents reveal what they love, what they hate, and ten things writers should never do." The list enumerates glitches that are hallmarks of the uninitiated, such as sending letters addressed "Dear Agent," gushing about how Oprah will love this book, sighing about how many times they've been rejected before, etc.

But why would anyone in publishing complain about this? Such mistakes are harmless enough, and it's not as though we don't all see them. Can't people be given room to learn? In fairness, I think the agents were just answering the question (after a bit of wine... it was a dinner interview). It was P&W's editorial decision to go the classic "never-ever," ruler-on-knuckles direction.

I have always loved the words of that great man of letters, Lewis Lapham, who once said that he received submissions to Harper's "with gratitude." I suggest that is how the literary profession should treat the submission letters or e-mails that come our way. Instead of instructing them on how they should dare approach the throne (the belly crawl? or perhaps the miserable grovel with a flourish?), we might consider remaining ever grateful that would-be authors think well enough of us -- and of their art -- to even try. If they get it wrong, we could simply bless them with the kindest words we can muster. (After all, even the least likely may become bestselling authors one day -- and here I think of Tennessee Williams, who legend says began with few social skills and spoke like a yokel when he first approached super-agent Audrey Wood, and who was known to write dialogue on cocktail napkins.)

We don't live long, any of us, and our relationships would benefit from more mutual ease and forgiveness, and fewer "don't" lists, especially from writer-focused magazines.

Should you tell your agent your new book idea?

Yesterday I had brunch with an author colleague and his wife at their beautiful home in DC. He has published books before -- to considerable praise -- and he worked with me to get a literary agent for his most recent project. Now he has a new book idea, and he wanted to know if I thought he should run it by his agent.

Without even thinking about it, I put down my fork and said "Be careful!" Then I backpedaled. What I meant to say was "Of course you can run it by her, but (I suggest) only after you've worked it through." I urged the author to work with me to develop the idea and make a wonderful case for it. The art of writing a full-featured nonfiction book proposal and sample chapter would help the author determine whether he loved this particular idea enough now to take it all the way to a book, and it would also demonstrate that book's essentiality in document form that an agent could then see.

In my experience, agents can be professional naysayers when it comes to new literary projects. For them, new books mean more work with little hope of monetary reward unless the project is highly commercial or fits a specified niche. "No" is the easiest answer in a world where "yes" means having to babysit the author through an idea that may not get off the ground. Yet by definition, most work-in-progress is just that -- embryonic, shape-shifting, uncertain. Innocent authors call their agents when they get new ideas, only to hear some variant of "It will never work."

I listened to my then-agent over a decade ago when he nixed a project I was working on about having been born into a family that lost a child, and what it meant to be the child who was specifically conceived to take the place of another. Personally I have liked the role fine (we are all born in unusual circumstances, yes?), but I thought it would be worth exploring my own family and others where a devastating loss is followed by a planned new arrival. "Too much of a downer," said my agent, and it wasn't until years later that I stopped to remember that his first book -- a bestseller -- had an equally bleak theme. His "no" wasn't the considered wisdom of a literary guru at all. It was the knee-jerk response of an agent being an agent. I don't blame him for this, because now that I work with scores of agents I can see that most of them do it.

One famous agent is known for taking client calls on his cell phone that never last more than one minute, during which time he usually barks "Don't do it!" and hangs up. No fewer than three of his clients have come to me distressed over phone calls with him that went exactly the same way. Once I detected the pattern, I was able to warn the third one about him, but she didn't believe me. So she called him, and of course the same thing happened. She then came to me and said "How can he earn a living if he says no all the time?"

Neither do I, but then, maybe he knows something I don't, because he has landed a lot of bestsellers in his day. I'm curious how, and why.

Stephen Coonts at Booklab

Steve Coonts stole the day by making an audience of Georgetown faculty laugh... he is quite funny! Yes, he talked about book publishing, and yes, the outlook was bleak for fiction writers (it is as tough or tougher now than ever), but he offered some heartening statistics. Did you know that almost half of the books published in the U.S. today are fiction? Granted, much of that is by established writers, but it's still a good number. At one point he said "Remember this, class, because it will be on the quiz: trade publishing is a for-profit business!" He stamped his foot on each of the last three words for emphasis. Authors like to come to trade publishers with artistic work, but publishers like (and need) to turn a profit. Genre writing isn't the only way to do it (just ask Anne Tyler, A. S. Byatt or Paul Auster), but there has to be some consideration of what will make the book successful.

Coonts is convinced that it's all about characters. He does not believe that strictly plot-driven or gimmick-driven fiction can last long, although he acknowledges that it sometimes makes it out there. He emphasized both how he draws his own characters, and how he suggests that authors think about them. He prefers fiction with larger-than-life characters to that which reflects reality too faithfully, and he has a resistance to heroes who too closely resemble the author him or herself. I've heard debates on this either way, and I think it boils down to the artistry and skill of the author. Some can pull off autobiographical main characters and some can't, but for Coonts's money it's better to look outside oneself. As realistic as he was about how hard it is to get an agent these days for fiction, he also added that most manuscripts bobble not for lack of an agent, but because their authors need to learn their craft. He's also a big fan of writer's conferences (this was a surprise to me, as he seems a bit iconoclastic for that sort of thing), and he believes valuable author-agent relationships can be forged there.

The above photo was taken later yesterday evening at Book Fair.

Whose book is it, anyway?

A scholar I know is struggling with the pitch for her fourth book. She was energized for years with an idea she had for an offbeat history, and she was excited that her career was growing to the point where she could do her book her way. Then her agent stepped in and pointed out how much more money she could get if she entered the national conversation at a different level, writing a different kind of book entirely. Since my scholar colleague just lost a lot of money in the stock market, she's cash-sensitive right now, so she took the agent's suggestions.

During this back-and-forth on the proposal (which I have been privileged to view in each stage) I've seen the book morph from the scholar's original vision to something the agent thinks would sell. And now I have a pointed question for the author: whose book is it? Seriously. Is the agent the true author, and does that agent simply speak through you? Are you an author-for-hire who realizes the agent's dream and vision in words? Or is it your book and are you the author? Another way of asking the question is "does the agent work for you, or do you work for her?"

Movie poster from the entry for "Whose Life Is It Anyway?" at NYTimes.com.

The book journal, part seven: Knowing editors and agents as people

Getting involved in the book industry is one way to establish yourself as an author. Even if you have already published a book or several, I find that authors can sometimes be book industry loners when it is just as easy to make these vital connections. This linking can mean going to academic conferences and meeting successful editors in your scholarly field (I'll share my trademark pub meeting method later), or hosting university press editors at your campus for book talks. However you go about it, there's no substitute for befriending members of that group of superb professionals before you need them. Of course, friendships alone won't get you an academic book deal, but once you have a scholarly product worth selling, these esteemed colleagues can be pure gold when it comes to helping you take the next step.

This worked for me in an interesting way. This weekend I signed with an agent, and I wasn't even looking for one. She is actually my second agent -- my first was a wonderful man who represented me from the mid-1990s to the early 2000s when my writing was going a completely different direction. Back then I dreamed of mainstream media success (newspapers, radio, television), but when it began to happen I discovered that I missed the academy and traditional scholarship, so I completely switched direction (name change, all of it). The agent remains a good friend, but he manages a different type of literary career than the one I'm building now. We let each other go in the kindest way possible -- and I have since sent him other authors.

This new agent as of two days ago is an industry veteran just like the first, but she is more on the scholarly side of the aisle, and she represents a number of academics. By coincidence she is also very good friends with the previous agent. Usually scholarly books don't make money, which is why I didn't expect to find representation, but she has always kept a few of us on her list for (I guess) the prestige factor (something quite valuable in its own way).

The most interesting part of this, however, is that I didn't ask her to represent my book. I didn't even ask her to read it! We met through this business and bonded as colleagues and eventually friends. We enjoy one another's minds and spirits outside of work-related matters, but of course we also see eye-to-eye on most of those. When she asked to read the sample chapter and proposal of the book I've been blogging about here, I sent it to her thinking she'd have a glance and tell me what university press editors might want it. When she actually offered to represent it, as the Brits would say "I was gobsmacked." Add to that I was honored, pleased, shy about it, you name it.

Surprise connections like this one are what I also want for some of you as readers of this blog -- literary friendships that may grow into wonderful partnerships (I'm well aware that others of you have more industry connections than I could ever hope for... but I'm speaking to those of us who can be more reticent about such matters). So often book writing devolves to an exercise in jumping university press hoops for tenure or full professorship, or trying to satisfy trade editors in order to make money, but books can connect people in larger ways -- they can link authors, presses, agents, and editors, all of whom (we hope) love books and the creation of them. The best agent will care about your career, and that can only happen if she or he gets to know you dimensionally. The nervousness and sometimes neediness that so often accompanies agent submissions can be antithetical to a comfortable and easy collaboration.

I highly recommend it this way instead -- get to know many editors and agents as people, and develop your book at the same time. Then when you have something to share, you'll have a number of colleagues from whom to choose, and one of them might just step forward and say "Please, allow me . . ."

"Dear Agent: I got your "Dear Author" form letter . . .

. . . and frankly you're embarrassing yourself!"

One of the funniest things about working in an office where we submit work on behalf of authors is seeing some of the correspondence that agents send out. No wonder authors get discouraged. Maybe the agents mean well, but to our ear some of these letters are really bad. Here is one we received today on behalf of an author, from the automated mailbox of an agency with which we have had quite a bit of personal contact (and we will have none in the future):

*****

Dear Author,

[Blah-blah paragraph about how good it is but we don't want it anyway...]

Sincerely,

The XXX Literary Agency

PS. Since you did not include postage with your materials, we were only able to respond to you via email. In the future, please send us a self-addressed stamped envelope with the proper postage.

*****

My response to this? "Dear Agent. This could not have sounded more like a form letter if you had used a rubber stamp to send it. You claim you gave it 'ample attention,' but you can't be bothered to communicate with a fellow professional about her author in any manner other than this one. Why not just send a polite one-line e-mail that says 'Thanks, but this isn't right for me now,' especially given that your office was just on the phone with mine last week telling us how much you want to see what our authors are working on?

Oh, and what's with the P.S. about self-addressed-stamped envelopes? This isn't the 1970s! We don't need our typescripts back. Welcome to the 2000s, where printing is cheap and we never enclose SASE with anything because if you don't want it, you should roundfile it (we handle 98% of our submissions electronically anyway, because it makes more sense for both parties). In the future, we will submit to agents who communicate with us personally (however briefly), and who lose the SASE rhetoric. Much love, the OSLP."

And a real PS to our authors: don't let these agent form letters get you down. :-)

PS to agents: if you send these stupid letters, we stop giving you author submissions. Period.

Mildred Marmur visits Booklab!

Booklab has a new mentor -- literary agent Milly Marmur, who has generously offered to hold a Q&A with faculty on Tuesday, April 15 from 3-4 p.m. Milly was president and publisher of Charles Scribner's Sons before founding the Mildred Marmur Associates Ltd literary agency in 1987. Prior to that she was Vice President and Director of Subsidiary Rights at Random House Adult Trade, and she previously held the same position at Simon & Schuster. Whew!

In 1974 at Simon & Schuster she auctioned paperback rights for ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN for a then-record $1,000,000. At Random House the following year she did the same for E. L. Doctorow's RAGTIME, earning a record $1,850,000 for a literary novel. During her leadership at Scribners, she published Ernest Hemingway's last novel THE GARDEN OF EDEN, 25 years after his death, and Barry Lopez's ARCTIC DREAMS, both of which became best-sellers. As an agent, she has represented food scientist Harold McGee (ON FOOD AND COOKING), David Bornstein (HOW TO CHANGE THE WORLD), Ethan Bronner, Middle East correspondent for The New York Times, Lawrence K. Altman, M.D., medical writer for the Times, Georgetown adjunct law professor William Taylor (THE PASSION OF MY TIMES), and stage and screen actor Theodore Bikel (THEO: An Autobiography). Mr. Bikel, an Academy Award nominee, is of course in residence here at Georgetown this week with Serendipity4, including Grammy-nominated conductor Tamara Brooks, accordionist Merima Kljuco and Yiddish folk singer Shura Lipovsky.

Besides her work as a publisher and then as a literary agent, Marmur has a master's degree in French literature, and has published a number of translations from the French. Her translation of MADAME BOVARY, edited by E. L. Doctorow, is available as a Signet Classics paperback and was issued in audio with Claire Bloom reading. Her translation of Moliere's THE IMAGINARY INVALID has been performed in many states, and most recently at Columbia University.

Milly will field questions from faculty members and offer a glimpse into publishing as she knows it so very well.