The political tome as a university press niche

Here's an interesting trend I've found at university presses -- many of them publish tomes from politicians in their home regions, whether memoirs or prescriptions for political change. The first time I noticed it was during a wonderful visit to the University of Arizona Press when Senator Dennis DeConcini: From the Center of the Aisle was in press, written with Jack L. August. Then this season, while I've been working as Chair of the 2008 Centennial Book Fair at the National Press Club, I was pitched Fritz Hollings's new book Making Government Work from the University of South Carolina Press, written with Kirk Victor. Ten years ago the University of Illinois Press published a recently discovered memoir by legendary Senator Everett Dirksen (the Dirksen Senate Office Building is named for him).

Late to the wine party

Well, after that last post I did a search on the University of California Press so that I could call an editor to talk about wine, and I found this L.A. Times article instead. It seems as though I stumbled on a story that has already been news... instead of taking down or editing the post, however, I'll let it stand and do a follow-up interview with the editors.

Making wine scholarly (or making the scholarly popular)

A new title from the University of California Press caught my eye this month, Wine Politics: How Governments, Environmentalists, Mobsters, and Critics Influence the Wines We Drink. Cal has a small industry going with its wine titles, for this year it also offers a revised edition of The Wines of Burgundy by Clive Coates, and I counted at least 30 other wine titles from past years. (NB, many university presses have regional publishing specialties).

Wine seems to work for a number of other fine UPs: just this year alone Cambridge University Press offers Grape vs. Grain: A Historical, Technological and Social Comparison of Wine and Beer by Charles Bamforth; the University of Nebraska Press will bring us Corkscrewed: Adventures in the New French Wine Country by Robert V. Camuto in November; the University of Georgia Press will serve up Pioneering American Wine: Writings of Nicholas Herbemont, Master Viticulturist next February; and Oxford will pour the second edition of Wine and Conversation by Adrienne Lehrer that same month.

Yet another reason to love university presses...

... is this quote from Yale UP Director John Donatich in Publishers Weekly for June 30: "...a midlist author at a trade house can be a star for us." Yes! Fantastic. And precisely the reason that I sometimes encourage academic authors who seek a wider audience, and who are thinking of jumping to one of the respected trade houses, to re-consider certain university presses.

Think about it this way. 35,000 copies at a major trade publishing house is respectable but nothing to issue press releases over. Although not every top author sells in the millions (and you'd be surprised how many books on bestseller lists only sell in the mid five-figures or slightly above), 35,000 books usually means "midlist," which is another word for "fine, but no guarantee of a publishing future." Depending on where you publish and what the book was, it's either just solid, so-so, or the dreaded kiss.

But at a university press that same 35k is just wonderful. Many UP books only sell a few hundred copies, so authors cracking 5,000, let alone breaking into the five figures, are stars. Of course the discussion may come back to money again (it usually does). It's true that literary advances (if they come at all) can be . . . well . . . "modest" is a polite way to put it. But there are ways to structure the contract so that you do well if the book sells. I have often observed that book sales and subsequent royalties are more under the author's control than most are prepared to admit anyway.

Go down the list of bestselling authors over the last twenty years, and you will find person after person who took exceptional responsibility for their own book promotions, their own speaking engagements, their own careers. Fluke bestsellers do happen, but the majority are more often the result of hard work and learning how the book business works. (Don't believe me? Then read John Bear's aspirationally titled The Number-One New York Times Bestseller. It's a roster of authors who made their own magic.) That "magic" can happen at a university press just as easily as it can at a trade house, since there is nothing stopping the book from breaking out from either source.

The Publishers Weekly article celebrates Yale University Press at 100. Who knew (I didn't) that it is the home both of the classics Life With Father (1936) and A Long Day's Journey Into Night (1956). Happy centennial!

Why didn't I post for a month?

Because I went to Africa and now want to think about it before posting anything about it...

Instead of book websites, book videos

Although this isn't entirely new, HarperCollins Canada has added an interesting fillip to the idea of having a video presence for a book. You can view a teaser for a new title on YouTube. I found this while reading Liesl Schillinger's New York Times Book Review coverage of Rivka Glachen's first novel, Atmospheric Disturbances.

What do I think? Kinda promising, actually, although two caveats immediately come to mind:

(1) Just like music videos, book videos do much imaginative work for the reader, replacing our own mental theatre with pre-chosen images that may be less interesting, relevant, or psychologically satisfying than what we might have crafted on our own. These video images are generally so colorful and loud that they tend to override and obliterate the mental wonders that preceeded them.

(2) The music on this choice is sooooo self-important in that arthouse "We're lit'ry" way. I would have preferred something more laid-back. It reminds me of the trailer for Everything Is Illuminated where the Significance of it quickly edged into self-satire.

HOWEVER

(3) This medium still feels promising to me. There are so many books out there, and so much blather accompanies those books. This feels refreshing and hopeful. Plus, the video did its job -- now I do want to read the book and perhaps post something about it here (e.g. whether or not it "feels" like the trailer, how I feel the anticipatory drumroll stacks up against the artistic delivery, etc.). Any publicists out there want to send me a review copy? ;-)

Book publishing grants, part one

Wow. There are a lot of book publishing grants available out there! Some are highly specific (books about Singapore written in Japanese), but others are looser. For example, Brigham Young University has a grant that will enable university press publishers to lower the cover price of books about the Mountain West. The Association for Asian Studies offers a subvention grant for first-time book authors who are hit with a big subvention from a university press. While you are in the planning stages of your book, be sure to stop by the OSLP to learn tips and tricks for searching these grants. Many people do not apply for the smaller ones (less than $10,000), which increases your chances of landing one. When I asked one of our librarians about the availability of these grants, she said they're everywhere. When I asked how many of our faculty apply for them each year, she said "Hardly anyone does."

"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.

Are you an old friend, and are you googling me?

I ask because I google people from the past, sometimes for the oddest reasons. They don't have to be people I miss, or even people I knew very well. But if their names stick with me, especially the unique names, searching for them online becomes an odd, repetitive habit. It can bring back heavy memories.

I feel as though in a more natural world we ought to be able to move on from the past without it haunting us in vivid words and pictures, but the internet floats it up like debris on a river after a storm. Also in a more natural world we wouldn't constantly move on from people and be forced to meet new ones all the time -- we'd be more geographically stable.

Wouldn't we?

Ah, what difference does it make? Why can't I let it alone?

This isn't a literary question, really. Back to the publishing stuff next.

PS: If you are googling me from the past and you're the kid in the painting, please drop me a note.

Competition, part two

After that post about competition and art, I remembered judging the Maryland Writers Association fiction competition again this year... it is either my third year or my fourth, and the entries are always great. Some are publishable, and they are all worth reading! MWA is such a supportive and smart organization. I spoke at their annual writers conference a few years back, but didn't tell them them a little secret -- that was my first writers conference ever! Normally I'm highly allergic to the usual writer-industry stuff (and a later visit to another gackawful conference reminded me why), but the MWA is different/better. Visit them, and if you have a few Andrew Jacksons burning a hole in your chinos, make a donation...

Stomach aches and contest entries

Oh the resistance I have to the concept of "competitive" art. Whether it is writing, painting, music -- the notion that art wins prizes, and that there is good, better, and best expression rubs my fur backward just a bit. I acknowledge that certain accomplishment is genuine, and should be rewarded. But what if three wonderful novels are entered into competition, and they are all quite different? How is one the "best" of the three? And even more complex, what about the politics of the competition? Once I walked off of a journalism judging committee because first-, second- and third-place votes were all given the same weight, and since we each voted for a different first-place work but we all voted for the same third-place work, that author won the grand prize! It was absurd, and the institutionalization of mediocrity. I complained to the head of the awards committee, who shrugged and said it wasn't worth her time to weight the votes and try again. So several excellent journalists who had earned our various first-place votes walked away thinking they didn't make the cut, and one obvious third-placer is out there now putting "Grand prize winner" on his c.v.

So why after all that kvetching did I choose to enter the Arts Club of Washington's first-ever playwriting competition this year? First because I admire the organization. Founded in 1916, it is the oldest arts club in a city that desperately needs more focus on the arts in general. It has been tireless over the years in promoting opera, cultural programs, photography, and overall cultural literacy. Washington is a city of vast artistic treasures, yet not nearly enough practicing artists of national or international acclaim. There is room for many, many more, and in a city this financially flush there should be generous funding available as well.

I've heard some fanciful souls refer to Washington as "Paris on the Potomac," and it can sometimes resemble that city in its L'Enfant design if you stand in just the right spot, sip enough vin rouge, and squint. The Arts Club of Washington is doing what it can to make that hazy half-vision a full-fledged reality, so I wrote a play just for them, and submitted it, and prayed...

Dr. Laura Benedetti wins the Flaiano Prize!

Contratulations to Dr. Laura Benedetti of Georgetown's Italian Department for winning the Flaiano Prize for her latest book, The Tigress in the Snow (Toronto 2008). It is named for Italian playwright, poet, and screenwriter Ennio Flaiano, most famous to film lovers as the co-author of such Federico Fellini screen classics as La Strada and La Dolce Vita. Flaiano was also a prize-winning novelist, and a noted journalist.

Why did Starbucks hire the William Morris Agency?

I'm still scratching my head over the relationship between William Morris and Starbucks. If a proprietor (Starbucks) wanted to find the most interesting projects that were great matches for its stores, why would it enter into a relationship with an organization for whom recommendations would seem to pose such a clear conflict of interest? As a corporate leader, I would personally prefer an unbiased literary partner, not one for whom obvious and inherent biases would seem almost overwhelming. This is no jab at William Morris. I'm neutral about most literary agencies -- they do good things, and they are over-rated at other things, but mostly they're fine, and I recommend that all of my academic authors who move out of the university press publishing realm seek competent representation, preferably from agents who have also worked inside the publishing industry at the highest level. Still, how can any talent agency do such a job without consistently preferring its own properties and projects? Anyone with industry insight is welcomed to comment.

For those who read this occasional blog for its bits of literary industry detail (what few I know, being an 'umble Washingtonian), sales in a store like Starbucks are known as "special sales" (i.e. book sales outside of traditional literary outlets such as bookstores). I suppose the classic special-sale example is a cookbook bundled with a bread machine, so that every sale of the bread machine results in an automatic book sale as well. But there are other cool special sales opportunities, and getting your book picked up by a national coffee chain is certainly one of them. So what happens if you're the author/client of another agency? Do you have a prayer?

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.

The "Impact Academic Book"

I learned a new term while visiting Oxford University Press in New York two weeks ago. Books that successfully cross the line from purely academic to trade, and that do well in trade bookstores as well as in library and institutional sales, are sometimes known as "impact academic" titles. It sounds kinda slick, so of course it made me edgy, but I have to admit the term does sum up something I've been trying to say with more words. After all, how do you define a book that stands up to scholarly scrutiny, but that also speaks to a larger audience and sells well outside of the academy? "Impact academic" will do for now, I suppose.

So how doth one write an impact academic book? Answers vary, but one way is to examine the fate of other books that accomplished this feat. We discussed many during my visit, and I took some home, including Caroline P. Murphy's Murder of a Medici Princess. It's a beautiful book with a fetching, reader-friendly cover painting of Felice della Rovere, the princess in question. Oxford priced it at $24.95, not the usual hundred or so that so many university press publishers love to insist upon. "Murder" in the title is always good for a glance or two in a busy bookstore, and the book is written in accessible style, sans criticalese or unnecessarily complicated sentences. But it's not watered down, either. Endnotes carefully document everything, the prose is still a challenge (possibly too much so for readers who devoured books like Random House's huge hit Georgiana: Duchess of Devonshire a few years ago), and it is quite comfortably an Oxfordly title, but it promises to sell far beyond the usual academic libraries.

Will Murder of a Medici Princess really be able to have it all -- that is, be taken seriously in academic circles while sustaining trade sales? It is just peeking out now along with the first spring blossoms, so it's hard to tell, but I'll watch this title with interest and report anything exciting that I may learn about its progress.

The Box of Paperbacks Book Club

This book club sort-of-parody charmed me, because it goes right to one of my fondest habits: finding old, forgotten books in odd places like the Salvation Army bookshelves, and actually reading them. I'm happy to hear that others do it as well. We know the books we know by happenstance anyway, a curious mixture of publicity, collective memory, memes, and chance. I've discovered talented authors by doing such counter-intuitive things as buying 50-cent hardcovers by publisher only -- without looking at titles or authors other than to reassure myself that I had never heard of them -- and then reading a bit to see if the books were any good. This led me to the odd discovery that (besides its many bestsellers) Knopf has for years taken risks and published fiction that never sold very much, but that is still wonderful to read. I'll now pick up an old, no-name Knopf novel at almost any yard sale and be guaranteed an interesting time with it. Knopf had a spate of these in the '80s and early '90s that were engaging, smart, worthy novels, and for some reason mostly forgotten. I also enjoy exploring all the books in a two-foot length of library shelf space (reading, for example, every novel within a foot on either side of one that I enjoyed, simply because their authors are near mine in the alphabet), or seeing what I can discover at those take-a-book-leave-a-book shelves in coffee shops. I always give myself permission to bail out if the book is bad, or (sometimes worse) a waste of time, but good books hide in the oddest places, and these can be ways to discover some of them.

Now the Onion A/V Club, an online feature I have rearely read in the past, as I usually found it somewhat like that arty, depressed, noirish kid you knew in high school who smelled like pot and really wasn't even all that talented, has launched a gem, and I hope it means more to come. A/V Club editor Keith Phipps is running an engaging series that I hope to continue following. The Box of Paperbacks Book Club is Phipps's effort to read and review all of the paperbacks he bought second hand, organized under no other rationale than that they were all thrown together in the same box. The cover above is for Earth Abides, a novel by Berkeley professor George R. Stewart.

We think we know things (the 100 best books of the 20th century, the five most important poems in French, the superbest this, the most influential that), but we actually know very little, as our collective "forgettories" can be so powerful, chewing up, deleting and erasing far more than we ever manage to keep. Efforts like the Box of Paperbacks Books Club offer charming push-back to all that, and a glimpse into a dusty pile of things people cared about in the past, if only for a while.

Know how a publisher views its niche

There are many ways of identifying a potential publisher for your work, but one of the most interesting is by ascertaining how that publisher views its niche. 95% of the authors I meet think about themselves and their needs, focusing on what they want to write, and why. But that rare 5% who have the insight to consider what various publisher need to publish are often rewarded.

Studying the publisher's catalogues is vital. One catalogue is helpful, but a series run from two or three years back yield exceptional insights to the scope of a publisher's list. What sorts of books is the publisher always interested in? What nonintuitive choices did its editors make? What books succeeded best for that publisher over time? What awards has the house won, and what kinds of starred reviews or other industry recognition has it enjoyed?

After thinking about the house as a corporate entity, it is also fun to look at individual editor lists. Every editor is different, even if she or he took over from another editor with ostensibly the same specialty. It's helpful to try to understand as much as you can about how and why individual editors make the choices that they do. Sometimes they'll tell you themselves ("I'm looking for more narrative nonfiction now," or "I'd love something with an emphasis on Eastern Europe because my list is lighter there" . . . ), other times you have to intuit it from the track record and what seems to be missing.

I'm not suggesting writing just to fill a publishing gap, or twisting what you do to meet some imaginary publishing need, but rather to try as an author to perceive how and why certain publishing houses make their choices. This involves publisher research, dialogue with interested editors (conferences are good places for this), and following the paper trail of what has done well in the academic marketplace for that particular house.

Bestselling author Thomas Moore comes to Booklab

Last fall Sebastian Junger, author of The Perfect Storm and A Death in Belmont came to Booklab for a faculty lunch and roundtable on nonfiction book publishing. Now we have another bestselling author on the way! On Tuesday, March 11, Thomas Moore -- author of The Care of the Soul among many others -- will be here to discuss his new book A Life at Work. This lunch and roundtable for Georgetown faculty will focus on publishing works of faith, and how authors who write about spiritual matters might think about their work for mainstream audiences. Moore will join us at the John Main Center for Meditation at 12:30, and then his talk will begin at 1:15 p.m. in the Provost's conference room on the 6th floor of ICC. RSVPs are an absolute must because of space limitations. This promises to be just as informative and one-on-one as the Junger event, so please reserve early.

"Where was the editor...?"

Today I read yet another book review that lamented the author's dry style in an otherwise excellent book, and asked mournfully "Where was the editor on this?" The short answer is that editors -- even the most gifted of them -- don't re-write authors' books. Not only is it not their jobs, it can't be. Can you imagine how much time it would take to laboriously re-write chapter after chapter for an author who would then immediately "fix" it all back to the terrible way it was, because he or she lacks the fundamental literary ear to recongize superior writing? This sort of back-and-forth can take months if not years, and sharp editors learn early in their careers not to engage in that sort of unproductive labor.

There are indeed line editors available to authors for a fee, and some of them are excellent. A few are retired publishing house editors who earn a fine post-career income doctoring books. But anyone good will charge a minimum of around $10,000 for a 100,000-word book, and will be worth every penny. And once again, there is nothing to stop a determined author with a tin ear from "fixing" half of it back again, simply because clunky writers can't tell the difference between their prose and the professonal's.

Frequently when reviewers ask "Where was the editor," what they should really ask is "Why didn't this author hire a ghostwriter?" Ghostwriters are the unsung heroes of readable literature, and they rarely get their due either in credit or in pay. They deserve much more of both.

More James O'Donnell on radio . . .

This is a fun one: the radio show Philoso?y Talk, "the program that questions everything... except your intelligence." From Stanford University, it is hosted by Ken Taylor, the chair of the philosophy department, and John Perry, a philosophy professor.

Hear JO'D on the BBC

Georgetown's Provost, James O'Donnell, recorded a piece about St. Augustine for BBC Radio 3’s new 12-part series The Essay: Greek and Latin Voices. (I was the producer on the Georgetown side, and then handed it off to a BBC producer in the U.K.) Since this office specializes in recorded pieces for radio, his BBC invitation provided an excellent opportunity to showcase our new capabilities, and to think about the spoken word and books.

You can hear the audio online here.

Books and radio are a natural pairing. For example, we know from audience analysis that public radio listeners and book buyers are almost a 1-1 match. If an author finds a public or news/ talk radio audience, book sales very often follow.

If you're an author, how can you get your pieces on radio? Drop a note to booklab@georgetown.edu and ask about a radio consultation. You may not start out on the Beeb, but there are public radio stations all over the country where your voice very well might be welcome.

A "Wee Reversal" at the Library of Congress

I laughed upon reading that the Library of Congress even briefly pondered lumping all of Scottish literature as "English literature" recently. What it succeeded in doing was gaining international headlines for itself in what surely must have been a highlands uproar! We applaud the decision to back down (after intense lobbying, as reported in today's Washington Post) and put Scotland and its wonderful authors back where they belong.

Writing and re-writing in 2008

Writers and New Year's Resolutions go together like cats and cream, and many of the Booklab authors are making lists. But how do you go from constructing a list to actually doing some of the activities on it? How can you make it out of January and into the rest of the year with your resolutions intact? Many authors have excellent suggestions for making your goals reality (see Brian Tracy's Goals! and Jack Canfield's The Success Principles for great ideas), so I won't repeat their wonderful advice here. But I will suggest that in addition to putting actual dates on your goals, and on learning to voice your wishes as though they were reality, there is nothing quite like a creativity partner to help you on your way. When we team up with others who share similar goals, we create a powerful aura of both accountability and healthy competition. I'm whiff-sensitive to the other kind of competition (one-upsmanship disguised as collegial behavior), but there is a healthy kind that involves reaching farther out of respect for the individual or group you've recruited to help you along. This is also one of the finest cures for writer's block I know... it is part of why in-person classes work better than online ones. We often work harder when we know someone's watching.

Amazon advanced search changes

For those of us who relied on the hidden "advanced search" feature -- the great one that almost nobody knew about -- at Amazon.com to do book research, it's over. Amazon switched to an idiot-proof advanced search that only allows you to select from drop-down categories. Gone are the glories of typing in complex statements (subject: "political theory" NOT science AND title: energy AND publisher: "university press"). Basically -- for my purposes -- Amazon is now a little better than useless.

Heavy sigh.

UPDATE December 18, 2007. I'm thrilled to report that Barnes & Noble does a much better search job, far more flexible than the new Amazon interface. It's still not possible to do the more complex searches that made Amazon so helpful before, but at least you can drill down to a sufficiently narrow category to do some serious book research. For example, if I need all the foreign affairs titles on North and South Korea, Amazon forces searches to start with all nonfiction, and then will only let you get to a certain level of detail before it insists on a keyword search to pick out the Korea titles. Given that just about EVERY foreign affairs book these days has Korea somewhere in the text, that's pretty much useless.

Barnes & Noble, however, groups things as follows:

Level 1: Politics & Government
Level 2: International Politics
Level 3: Asia - Politics & Government
Level 4: North & South Korea - Politics & Government

Much, much better. For those of us who spend much of our days researching comparison titles for books to propose to agents and editors, this is by far the better tool.

Congratulations

A colleague from the English Department (where I taught from 1997-2003) has won a literary award! Gay Gibson Cima won the 2007 Barnard Hewitt Award for her 2006 book, Early American Women Critics: Performances, Religion, Race.

Theatre review: Mojo Mickybo

It was always in the plan to include theatre reviews in this blog, but the year got away from me. Mostly I want to focus on plays based on books (to stay with the publishing theme), but I can't resist starting off with an Owen McCafferty gem that was written as a play: Mojo Mickybo. You can watch an interesting preview here, and this is a link to the theatre and a slew of reviews.

It is an absolute must that you have seen Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid before attending this play... some of the wittiest parts including the music will make absolutely no sense unless you do! I don't know why they don't emphasize this more in the play's materials, but since the story is about two boys who love the movie and transpose its hipster outlaw themes to their war-torn world in 1970 Belfast, it surely makes sense to have experienced the movie yourself. Perhaps the playwright thought everyone has seen it, and I'll grant that it was a cultural phenomenon when it came out, but many people born after 1980 probably missed it, even on video or DVD.

Overall I felt that Mojo Mickybo is less a play than an extended riff: it's a way of putting the audience in the minds of the children of Belfast. But could it or should it have been more? The actors, Christopher Dinolfo and Mike Innocenti, are spot-on, even with simulated accents (an affectation I normally loathe, but they handled it well), and director Eric Lucas demonstrates cleverness beyond mere technical skill... he drew children out of these grown men on the stage, and we seldom remembered that we were watching actors at least 20 years older than the boys they portrayed. But why did the playwright stop there? At a mere 85 minutes we have some laughs and a poignant portrait of McCafferty's Belfast to stand alongside Brian Friel's fictional Ballybeg, Roddy Doyle's Dublin, or (perhaps) Frank McCourt's Limerick (albeit with many of the same, tired stereotypes of Ma at the ironing board and Da at the pub). Now I would love to see a richer play with two full acts and substance beyond mere interest.

Should you see the play? Absolutely, if only for the great buzz of watching two talented actors in the hands of a gifted director fully embody these boys. Also, the charming and comfortable Church Street Theatre in Dupont Circle charges an entirely humane $25 rather than the nosebleed ripoff prices of some other DC theatres I could name, and that sanity in pricing should be rewarded with full houses. But what will you get out of it besides a sense that the playwright is really onto something, and ought to expand that idea? Please see it and comment here with your thoughts.

There is no such thing as literary competition

When creating trade book proposals, it is standard to include a "competition" section examining other similar books in the marketplace and demonstrating that there is room for yours. The concept of competition is an especially keen one in the university press world, where scholars are supposed to make original contributions to their various fields. Authors are urged to check Forthcoming Books in Print and make sure that nothing too close to their topic is on its way. A gap in the literature is supposed to indicate room for a new title.

I beg to disagree, however, and now Harvard University Press has offered some backup. According to Publisher's Weekly, HUP originally planned to publish Jeremi Suri's Kissinger and the American Century this fall. But last Spring they moved the pubdate earlier. Why? To capitalize on the appearance of a HarperCollins title by Robert Dallek, Nixon & Kissinger: Partners in Power.

Conventional wisdom would say "Oh no! Competition! Two Kissinger books in one season!" But HUP knew better. Books tend to sell each other by demonstrating the viability of a market. Interested readers may want to pick up both titles. Booksellers have an easier time displaying multiple titles, and so-called competing publishers can even team up and share the cost of in-store displays. Apparently HUP also hoped that Suri and Dallek would be invited onto the same talk shows. You can even buy the books together at a combined discount on Amazon.com.

.

If you have a big book planned and then you learn to your horror that another one is coming out from a competing publisher, relax. Or better yet, pop some champagne. No two scholars will ever write the same book anyway, and literary company is a fine excuse to make a new friend of the other author and combine your resources to promote your books together.

Orhan Pamuk, the follow-up

Okay, so I was trying to think of what to say to a Nobel Laureate who just received an honorary doctorate, and not sound like a dork or like some bah-hah academic or something. I closed my eyes for a moment and remembered what it looked like to see him walk down the aisle in Gaston Hall with all those be-robed colleagues, ascend the stage, and receive the honorary doctoral hood. It kinda looked like getting married! I asked him about that, and he laughed and said yes, that's exactly what it felt like. He said the moment is surreal, and over very quickly, before you realize what is happening.

He was so laid-back and he seemed to have fun, like he does this all the time (which perhaps he does). His beautiful daughter Rüya was with him. I have met enough famous authors by now to be tired of the thrill. Most are okay, some are awful, but overall writers are better on the page than in person. Orhan Pamuk was an exception to that. He's a bit more interesting in person.

He snapped a photo of the three of us with his digital camera, and I regretted not having one myself, but I didn't know if it would be appropriate. D'oh. I hope he reads this and decides to send the image. Booklab at georgetown dot edu.

A wacky quote in PW, and a mystery

Okay, now here's a news tidbit that made me wonder whassup at university presses. This is from Publisher's Weekly a while back (June), but I just now found it and marveled. Joseph Esposito, who is listed as the founder of a firm called "Portable CEO," and a former executive at Simon & Schuster and Random House, is quoted in the following context: "In an age of diminishing university subsidies to their presses, . . . Esposito emphasized the value of being self-supporting, partly, in Esposito’s words, 'to stay one step ahead of the ax,' but also, he said, 'to make money available for other central activities at the university.'"

Excuuuuuse me? Isn't it enough that universities have put their presses under tremendous pressure to make money, even while charging them with the crucial mission of continuing to publish scholarly work? This nearly impossible task is what gave us those awful faculty subventions in the first place! So now am I correct in reading that some critics say beyond this, university presses should try to earn enough to actually give back to their home universities, rather than having the university subsidize the press? What will happen to scholarly publishing if this is true?

I find this sufficiently hard to believe that I will contact Esposito myself and ask him to clarify. Maybe PW got it wrong (that wouldn't be the first time, although I am a loyal reader). Maybe the quote would sound more sensible in context.

Watch this space for details.

Literary conferences can and should be more encouraging!

Okay, today my rant is about literary conferences. Authors go to them seeking support and professional guidance. What they often get is institutionalized discouragement packaged as "no-nonsense advice," usually in the form of literary agents looking over the authors' sample work. Some authors report that they have actually paid money at conferences to meet with an agent for 15 or 30 minutes in person. I simply have to ask, "For what?"

Agents can be great, and I know some of the best in the business. For the most part, though, these wonderful agents are not out scouting the conferences. They tend to send their more junior colleagues instead (there are notable and noble exceptions to this, but not that many). I have dealt with the emotional aftermath of these unwitting bloodbaths. Authors have been in my office in tears, describing how an agent at a conference pronounced the work unpublishable, or said that there is no market right now for books of this kind. When I recount the wonderful authors who heard such news in the past and who soldiered on to publish books that did very well, my authors are encouraged, but the wound only heals when the author finds a great agent and a publisher.

Herewith a word to all authors, both academic and trade: you should only listen to agents with amazing personal track records (who cares what the name of the agency is... follow the individual), and even then, in the words of Bob Dole, "Reasonable minds may differ." Many's the project that failed to captivate any agent anywhere, but that sold to a publisher straightaway. Learn who the best agents are -- this office only works with exceptional ones who know the business and who have decades of experience -- and focus on getting your work in front of these professionals. And stay away from literary conferences! Your time would be better spent researching your next bestseller.

In warm memory of Brooke Stauffer

One of Booklab's (and my) earliest literary supporters has died tragically, and I'm deeply shaken. Brooke Stauffer hired me to help him sell a novel he had written, and he also took my nonfiction book proposal seminar in 2004. He was such a gifted writer that I eventually brought him on board as a ghostwriter, and I nominated him for membership in the National Press Club, where we served together on the Book and Author Committee. Brooke was the author of many technical books, but his true gift was for fiction. He was beyond talented.

On August 24, 2007, he sent me an e-mail titled "Greetings from Mackinac Island." We had been writing back and forth about the ghostwriting assignment, and he said he'd contact me when he returned. I knew he was there with his fiancée, Karen Dodds, who was a private pilot. He was so proud of the fact that they could travel to so many great places in her plane. According to The Washington Post, Brooke and Karen died later that same day when their plane vanished in the Straits of Mackinac, near Bois Blanc Island, Michigan. Karen's body has been found; Brooke's has not.

Although I hadn't heard from him after that e-mail, I didn't worry. Brooke and I sometimes wouldn't communicate for weeks or even a couple of months when we were busy, but we usually found time to catch up, or else I'd get one of his famous hand-written postcards (apparently he sent them regularly to family and friends) with his large, block writing, explaining where he was and what was up. When a mutual friend contacted me this morning to point out the very late obituary (although they died in August, in ran on November 4), I could barely speak.

Farewell Brooke Stauffer -- magnificent and sexy-voiced writer, urbane beer companion (especially Belgian Chimay), literary friend and all-around charmingly odd duck. It doesn't make sense that you only got 56 years, and frankly, I thought you were a good bit younger than that. I believed you would publish your novel. I believed you and Karen would get married. I believed the book you were ghostwriting for me would win the Pulitzer Prize.

Maybe I still believe all of it.

Love,

Carole

Does being around too many literary stars make you feel small?

Comparisons are funny things. Healthy comparisons between/among people can lead to either self-acceptance or change. Unhealthy comparisons can lead to competitiveness, jealousy, and even worse, undermining.

This week I was around so many literary stars that I had to take a nap. First there was the Orhan Pamuk event in Gaston Hall, that was much more fun than I expected. Giving someone an honorary doctorate can be a recipe for snoozy, safe speeches and lots o' pomp, but this ceremony was brief and elegant, plus the author seemed genuinely moved. I've gone to the Folger for the PEN/Malamud awards and seen the other side... where the author treats it as something akin to a living canonization. Mr. Pamuk was different. He seemed rather shy about it. Afterward, I asked him what it's like going through the ceremony, because it looked a little bit like getting married. He said it did sort of feel that way, and that it's over so quickly you hardly know what happened.

Later in the week on the day of the National Press Club's annual Book Fair, Booklab brought Sebastian Junger to campus to talk to faculty about his kind of publishing. This was for an audience almost all of whom had published, some in a highly distinguished way, so it wasn't a "how to write" chat at all... more of a master's round table. But the guy has done more than I have -- much more -- and that following on the heels of meeting a Nobel laureate felt a bit heady. Deborah Tannen was there (more amazing literary firepower), plus some of our stars like Charles King and John Glavin.

Then on to the Press Club to meet Stephen Hunter from the Washington Post, Hannah Rosin who now writes books all the time, John Prendergrast, plus Barbara Mujica and Bernie Cook from Georgetown. I was beginning to wonder (a) if I'd ever write again; and (b) if I'd get a bad case of "this sucks" every time I got started. Jealousy's not usually my main problem, and I'm not starstruck, either (they're people and they write books...). But then there's that whole other thing... that sense of feeling small.

Do you ever get a case of this? How did you handle it? Write to Booklab with your thoughts for dealing with "They're so big and I'm so dinky"-itis.

See Orhan Pamuk Live at Georgetown University

The 2006 Nobel laureate will be at Georgetown University's Gaston Hall Monday, October 29, at 5 p.m. to receive an honorary degree. The event is free. They aren't planning to sell books at the event, so if you want a book signed, bring it along! Also, you need a government-issued ID to get in, and they won't allow backpacks, bags or purses (ah, security...). These things really fill up, and there will be a line, so I strongly suggest getting there by at least 4:15 for a good seat. Doors open at 4 p.m., which is when I'll be there.


(There are many photos of him on the web, but this one is my favorite. Does anyone have a photo credit line for it?)

The Key to Authors' Hearts? The Books They're Pushing NOW

Ah, the curse of a big bestseller, especially if it comes early in a career. For those of us who have never had one it might seem like a ridiculously desirable problem to have, but think with me here. Imagine you're Sebastian Junger, and you wrote The Perfect Storm. Huzzah. Light bulbs flash. Movie stars want to be in the picture. Publishers send you fat checks, and you can light your cigars with hundred-dollar bills and buy a half-interest in a popular New York bar. But then suppose you try to follow it up, and you do with a book that is (a) gripping, (b) based on something that really happened to you (meeting a serial killer who later claimed to be the Boston Strangler, no less!), and (c) cool enough that even if there had never been that damn storm, you still would have gotten on the bestseller lists. But when you go on tour, everybody wants to ask you about George Clooney.

A Death In Belmont is Sebastian Junger for the connoisseur. Not only does it have the extra-creepy real-life connection of the author's mother actually hiring Albert DeSalvo as a carpenter, and the killer being alone in the house with mother and young son for hours at a time, but it also reflects narrative skill that Junger originally developed as a field reporter, built in The Perfect Storm, and has now taken to the next level. The book did really well in hardback and now in paper, yet wherever Junger goes, the Andrea Gail is sure to follow.

So you wanna impress the guy when you meet him in person on the night of November 1 at the National Press Club's annual Book Fair (or, if you are Georgetown faculty, when you have lunch with him earlier that day here at Booklab)? Then swagger on up to his table, buy a signed copy of A Death in Belmont, wink and tell him it's a holiday gift for a friend because you already bought and read yours, and then proceed to talk about serial killers. You'll have his attention.

Georgetown professor emeritus publishes his first novel

The Office of Scholarly and Literary Publications is pleased to announce that Professor Emeritus Eusebio Rodrigues has published his epic about Goa, India in the early 1500s. Love and Samsāra is filled with adventure, romance, suspense, and intrigue, all set against the backdrop of India in late medieval times.

The novel will be published by New Academia Publishing, and debut on November 1, 2007, at the National Press Club's annual Book Fair. For more information about Book Fair, please contact Carole Sargent (booklab@georgetown.edu). Everyone is invited to visit Book Fair and greet the author and Anna Lawton, the publisher, who also teaches in the School of Foreign Service and works for the World Bank. Roberto Severino (Professor Emeritus, Italian) and Richard Stites (Professor, History) are also on the board, along with other scholars at universities worldwide. Here is a link to the book at the New Academia website. You can click on the book to get more information, and to read an excerpt.

Early in the Spring semester the English Department and the Office of Scholarly and Literary Publications will co-sponsor an event to honor Professor Rodrigues, and announcements will go out at that time. Meanwhile we want to extend our warmest congratulations to him and to New Academia Publishing for bringing this literary work of a lifetime to the page.

"Scent of Desire" at the National Press Club

A new book about the psychology of the olfactory by Dr. Rachel Herz of Brown University is to be the subject of a five-course wine dinner at the National Press Club on Thursday night, October 11. This promises to be one of the most intriguing and enticing dinners the club has hosted yet. For those of you who don't know about them, the NPC's wine dinners are usually chances to meet, mingle, and dine with famous chefs who have new books. I met Anthony Bourdain there at a wonderful dinner that featured robust and meaty fare; Baltimore chef and PBS host John Shields with a seafood-based meal focusing on Chesapeake Bay specialties; and the club has also hosted Jacques Pepin, Bobby Flay, Giada De Laurentiis, and many more. But a university professor who studies scent as an academic discipline? This is surely a first!

Here's the blurb: "Executive Chef Jim Swenson has created a multi-sensory journey through a rare six-course scent dinner. Each spectacular course will be paired with a different scent tailored to its unique properties and thus showing the direct link between scent and food. Join us for this interactive, luxurious, and unique dinner that will show you how food plays a great role in the development of fragrances."

To reserve a place (Members $67 Non Member $89 -- price includes tax and gratuity), call 202-662-7638 or e-mail fourthestate@press.org. And if you want to meet the Book Blogger, I'll be there!

If your booth is about your readers, they'll love you

Book Fair at the National Press Club is coming up on November 1! Given the recent post about BookExpo America, I thought I'd take this opportunity to issue a public service announcement to published authors. If your booth is only about you, it's boring! The typical booth is a "Hooray for me" or "cheer for our press" or "look, aren't we wonderful" affair that seems egotistical, and also fails to move copies.

So what goes into a successful booth? Plenty for the visitors! After all, a book is all about its readers, and a press is about these readers times several hundred. Readers buy books, review books, recommend books, and award authors. Every critic, every contest panelist, every bookstore chain buyer, every sales rep, and every customer is first of all a reader. If your booth is about your readers and their interests, they'll love you.

Vicky Moon, the author of a book about Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis's life as an equestrian, gave out horseshoes at her table. Elin McCoy, who wrote a biography of ubiquitous wine judge Robert M. Parker, Jr. offered communion-sized wine samples. Humorist Art Buchwald told jokes and posed for photographs, always focusing on his visitors rather than himself (and his humor was often self-deprecating). My friend Eleanor Herman, author of bestselling books about royal paramours, dresses in full Elizabethan costume at her book events, and makes sure everyone goes away entertained.

It's also great to have conversation starting ice breakers at your table. Haul in some artifacts from your book, especially if you have something visually captivating. Pietra Rivoli brought the actual tee shirt that her book was about. Even though a hundred conversations probably started with "Gee, is that really the shirt?", so what? It was a great way to give otherwise shy Book Fair patrons something to talk about. (NB on booth gifts: think beyond typical convention junk. The old, inexpensive standbys such as bookmarks and keychains are rarely as interesting as food and drink, or something the visitor can handle and talk about even if you aren't giving it away. Giveaways can be highly effective, as long as they avoid the trap of being cheesy or too cheap.)

Pre-conference planning, How We Closed a Deal

(This is the fourth in a series of posts on fun ways to work an academic conference in advance rather than just going there to ambush editors and probably coming away disappointed)

Here's the scenario: a professor I worked with was panic-stricken. She had a contract with a prestigious university press that fizzled after her editor left. The contract had all sorts of loopholes in it, including that pesky "time is of the essence" phrase that I advise authors to strike. Anyway, she was now contractless before tenure.

Fortunately, BookExpo America was going to be in Washington, DC for the first time in 17 years, so I suggested to her that we put together an amazing promotional package for her book and go trolling the University Press Pavilion for a new deal.

Before you roll your eyes, I know that everybody in the book world knows that selling your manuscript is not actually what BookExpo is for. It is primarily a showplace for publishers' wares. Reps and bookstore buyers go there to see what's new, hot, different, or (more typically) just the same as last year and the year before. But over the years writers started glomming on, so much so that BookExpo started its own pre-Expo writers conference just to give them something to do besides bother the publicists. I also figured enough actual editors would be hanging around the booths that if we were lucky we would charm the dickens out of 'em. We also e-mailed all of our target presses and editors ahead of time to get that all-important "Sure, I'd be happy to say hello" response that makes pre-conference planning so powerful.

Reader, it worked. I canna' fully believe it even to this day, but we took a stack of about 20 artfully prepared packages (including a masterful-if-I-do-say-so prospectus, and two beautifully prepared sample chapters, plus the whole thing on CD in case the editor preferred -- as most do these days -- electronic), and we went to the booths of our correspondents. We made sure to be friendly, funny, and willing to end each conversation before any editor had to start humming and looking over our shoulders for salvation in the form of a plausible distraction ("Oh look! An eagle!")

The professor landed an amazing publisher (it was one of these -- Stanford, Duke, Penn, MIT, Cambridge -- but I won't say which for fear of creating a stampede) from one of the editors who had previously responded to our pre-conference e-mail with a friendly note.

Pre-conference planning is the best. So is a warm and engaging attitude, humor, and the big-picture understanding that while getting a book deal is certainly important, it is not exactly high up there on the list of international human rights priorities... so we relaxed about it.

While we're obsessing about money, what's up with David Sedaris?

I don't necessarily have a problem with this, but I'm curious how an author on book tour manages to command $35-$40 a head just to read, answer questions, and sign books. Apparently David Sedaris will be at Lisner Auditorium tomorrow night doing and charging just that. Meanwhile, uptown, you can see Chris Matthews at Politics & Prose for free, and the National Press Club book events -- where I've met Michael Crichton, John Irving, and Sebastian Junger, among others --are always free. Now the head-scratcher for me is whether I think these events should all be free, or if it is ever appropriate to charge moola.

One of the great things about living in Washington, DC is that every famous author -- including all the good ones you'd get in New York -- comes here. It never fails. If an author is smokin', Washington is on the list. We may be late getting movies, and we may usually have to settle for the touring cast of interesting plays (although I'd rather go to NYC for plays anyway), but dagnabbit, we get authors while they're hot.

So hmmmmm. Is it worth that much just to see another barbaric yawper? And how many people will show up?

Quiz: Name the famous author on Craigslist who doesn't want to pay a college student intern.

Here is an dryly diverting tidbit from last week's Craigslist. I regularly check the writing jobs there, and sometimes post them. On September 28 this appeared:

NYT bestselling author (currently on hardcover fiction list) needs an intern to assist for winter semester with editing and research. This is an unpaid internship but a wonderful resume item. We will work with your college, if applicable, to make sure the internship benefits your program of study. Must own computer, cell phone, have email and AIM, and be adept at research. We will consider covering cell phone and internet access fees, if needed. (Emphasis added)

I just have to ask: what NYTimes hardcover fiction bestselling author can't manage to scrape together enough to pay a college student to work for him or her? This office always pays students, and we always will. If anyone has any guesses as to who the supposedly cash-strapped bestseller could be, by all means let us know!

Flash! (Although this shouldn't be news...) Many editors don't do their own manuscript screening.

An article in this week's Chronicle of Higher Education confirms what I have known anecdotally but have never before seen admitted in print: some university press editors do not screen their own manuscripts. The article writer describes her duties thus: "[M]y job was to read manuscripts and write reports giving him reasons to reject." This is someone who is comfortable telling us that her sole preparation for this extremely sensitive task was a bachelor's degree, and some previous experience at other publishers. (And lest you think this is unusual, I'm seeing a lot of it at university presses... people who worked their way up in the ranks, but do not have education beyond a bachelor's degree, and yet are paid to judge the work of specialists with doctorates.)

The next major quote brought me up to a full stop: "Once I felt that I understood what the author was trying to do, and where the work fit into the scholarly terrain, deciding whether or not to recommend publication was an even greater burden. After all, these were manuscripts that had been toiled over for years by professors at the top of their fields who taught in some of the best universities in the country. Was this breaking new ground or was it just filling another post hole? Would the book get trade review attention? Would it 'back-list' and end up selling for years in the course adoption market? Would the author's second book be the one we really wanted to publish? I was a fresh-out-of-college English major. What did I know?"

Sigh. Extremely heavy sigh. I'll post my opinion here, in print, for anyone to read who happens upon these pages. Fresh-out-of-college English majors have absolutely no business judging the work of trained specialists, and I strongly, profoundly, and specifically disagree with any university press editor anywhere who uses this method of culling manuscripts. I applaud this article's author for going ahead and saying in print what many of us in literary consulting know is true, but I'm also horrified by it. How many worthy manuscripts didn't make this young English major's cut, because in her infinite wisdom she deemed them an insufficient contribution to a field of which she is happy to tell us she knew nothing?

I recently visited a university press in the Midwest where I asked to meet the person who opens the mail. He was 19, and still an undergraduate student at the university for whose prestigious press he toiled. I asked him what he did when he opened the manuscript submissions. He explained that he sorted them into three piles. One was for manuscripts addressed to individual editors. Those got sent through to editorial assistants for a screening process like the one above. The second pile was for manuscripts addressed to the press, or to "submissions" that he considered worthy to assign to an editorial assistant for pre-screening. It was up to him to decide what editor got what submission (and if you have ever dithered over which of two editors to choose at a publisher when your field has elements of each, you'll know what skills this actually requires).

"And the third pile?" I asked, afraid of what I might hear.

"Oh," he replied, "those are for the obvious rejects. You know, not very good English, doesn't even know what we publish, that kind of thing. I put rejection letters on them and send them right back."

I shuddered as I thought of the brilliant scholar for whom English is a second language who would not make his cut, or for the author who submitted work that a trained editor might be willing to consider, even though it was beyond the specifically stated publishing needs of the press (and yes, presses publish outside the lines all the time). All of these authors would receive one of this kid's thick stack of form letters. None of their submissions would ever see an editor's desk, or even an editorial assistant.

In this office we work together to skillfully avoid such front-desk weed outs, and yes, to get past the fresh-out-of-college editorial assistants, too. It usually involves personal contact with a talented editor long before you're ready to make your submission. The better an editor knows you as a scholar, the less chance that you'll wind up in the hands of someone who means well, but just does not -- and I believe cannot -- understand.

Pre-conference planning, Three Things to Do

(1) Get the conference brochure and study it. Figure out the short list of who you want to meet at that thing, and more important, why. Get copies of their publishing catalogs ahead of time and study them, finding out what individual editors have done. It's one thing to say that you'd like to meet the biggest editor in your field. It is quite another to stand there in real life and think quickly why this person should speak to you. Coming up with the why is the most challenging part of all of this. HINT: A really good why will have to do with that individual, not you. As a well-known career coach recently said when counseling a job seeker before a meeting, "Remember, it's all about them!" Can you pre-arrange a speaking invitation at your campus? Did you learn enough about the books on their lists to congratulate them on specific awards, or to ask on-target questions about why that editor's recent bestseller did so well? Does your research dovetail with their publishing interests to the point where a post-conference follow-up (initiated by you) would be genuinely beneficial to the editor? If you are interested in publishing a book similar to others on their lists, can you think of a way to express it that sounds flattering rather than competitive?

(2) Once you have a list of these people, a collection of their catalogs (at least three per publisher), and a smart set of whys, think about how you can meet without trying to corner a poor editor on an elevator. One easy and time-tested method is to send a pre-conference note asking for a meetup in the bar either for coffee or a drink (on you, of course). Depending on the star wattage of the person you're trying to contact and the importance to that person of what you have to say, this could be quite successful. Oddly, some of the biggest names are the most approachable simply because everybody assumes they're booked. If the person claims to be too busy, it's probably true, but if you query enough target editors, you should have at least two or three meetings lined up, perhaps more.

(3) Understand the powerful problem of shyness and conferences. Even the most outgoing professionals can feel awkward at conferences. There's just something about all that mingling and all those strangers . . . sometimes really warm people seem cold, rushed, and even snobbish. Many quiet people get unfairly categorized as aloof or arrogant anyway, and conferences only make it worse, so don't assume there's an attitude problem if someone acts distant. Instead, go to the conference with simple ice breaker techniques that will get people talking. My favorite one went over fabulously at a particularly dull conference where a panel offered mis-information about book publishing. I photocopied a simple handout with a skull and crossbones that said something to the effect of "We renegades will hoist the pirate flag and hold our own mini-conference in the bar. Meet us next to the fireplace, 5:30 p.m." I announced a topic (counterintuitive facts about scholarly book publishing), and said that the first round was on me, and arguments and contrarian opinions were welcome. Then I gave it to several dozen people who looked powerful and/or interesting. Eleven people came, and we had a wonderful time together. One of them was a major publisher at the conference! Person after person thanked me for offering that oasis in the lonely desert.

Pre-conference planning, A Better Way

If you read the two previous posts, you'll know that I consider a cold approach to an agent or editor at a conference to be the hardest way to meet someone, not the easiest. A simple e-mail at a non-conference time is far more efficient!

But if you do want to make personal acquaintances (which can be powerful if done right), a better way to approach agents or editors at conferences is to make yourself an insider before you arrive at the conference gates. Conference organizers are almost always overwhelmed, and if you volunteer your services several months in advance (for example, handling a mass e-mailing from your office, offering to pick up dignitaries at the airport and escort them, or hosting a reception for a select subset of attendees), you'll become known to the top people quickly. This is triply important if the conference will be in your city or especially on your campus, giving you even more opportunities to assist. By faithfully performing these limited duties in service of the conference, you will stand out in a dramatic way. As a "friend of the conference" (or -- if you can swing it -- one of the organizers who gets your name in the program), you'll enjoy access that the sheep can't muster. You'll get the conference equivalent of the backstage pass, and you'll be able to have conversations with visiting editors in a more casual way before the conference proper begins.

I usually get much more out of the pre-conference setup time and the night-before cocktail events than out of the panels themselves. Conferences -- for me -- are simply grand excuses to meet people in person and bond without the distance of e-mail or "Dear Dr. so-and-so" letters. For example, I go to the Wiley-Blackwell seminar at the National Press Club every year, and I've learned a great deal about journal publishing because of it. But the very best part is always the reception the evening before at the Marriott next door, where I can chat with journal editors in person and find out what's on their minds. They love to tell me about their own particular preferences, their goals, and their dreams for their journals -- which are rather like their children. In a very real sense you could say that at any given conference, my "office" is in the restaurant or the bar.

There are three great tricks that I use to encourage people to open up at these events and talk to me about what they do. I'll discuss them in the next post.

Pre-conference planning, Part Deux

The basics of pre-conference planning came to me one of the first few times I spoke at a conference. I greatly enjoyed meeting scholarly authors who were in various stages of book manuscript preparation. Afterward, however, attendees rushed up to me, forming lines and attempting to give me portions of their manuscripts to read and evaluate. This was especially interesting, as I am not a literary agent and I make that clear, but they didn't seem to mind. They just wanted help... desperately. I felt overwhelmed, ending up with an armload of submissions -- so many that one of the conference organizers kindly offered to take them out to my rental car during a break.

For the most part, the submissions were extremely professional. Authors usually gave me either an envelope or a folder with the usual stuff those how-to-write books tell you to provide: a cover letter, a writing sample, and a proposal of some sort, followed by that cursed self-addressed, stamped envelope that hasn't been necessary for almost two decades, but people usually enclose anyway (why the heck would anyone want a dog-eared pile of papers back?). Even though I prefer electronic submissions, I was touched that people would try so hard.

There were only two major problems with this scenario if you set aside the fact that I really did not want to lug home a pile of manuscripts from would-be authors, and I'm not an agent anyway (I do consult privately -- for money -- but that's not what they were asking). First, it was flattering, but simply too much. Everyone wanted a connection, and they wanted it now. People tried out their "elevator pitches" on me (and yes, even in the elevator), they gamely recited their matchbook-cover-sized synopses, and they sang and danced through all the moves those silly writers books tell you are smart things to do when you meet editors or agents in public places. It was ever so sweet, but impossible to navigate. I couldn't wait to get to the bar and sit quietly with a nice glass of wine, either alone or with someone who wasn't trying to sell me something. Second, 95% of these submissions were not right for me anyway. I haven't any guess what to do with a fantasy manuscript, for example, and ditto your mystery series. No notion. My area of professed expertise is nonfiction, period, and even then you have to have a substantial scholarly or professional background in a field related to the book in order for me to know what to do next.

So who were the winners? Of all the people who approached me, who made the strongest impressions? Whip out your parents' dog-eared, musty copies of Dale Carnegie, folks, because the answer will either surprise you or not, depending upon how closely you have attended to his timeless words. (If you haven't experienced his mid-20th-century widsom, do read How to Win Friends and Influence People forthwith!) The answer is simple: I responded best to people who showed friendly interest in me and my work, rather than insisting on talking about themselves and their books. I met with folks who wanted to hear more of what I had to say about publishing, and who were happy to buy me a glass of wine and offer an interested ear. The people who were the most memorable were the ones who took the time to understand what my philosophy is, what kind of books I can help with, and then where their efforts fit in. Out of the scores who approached me over two days, I can count the members of this worthy and interesting group on one hand. Some of them I continued to correspond with for months after the conference ended. To this day I would be happy to help any of them in any way I possibly can.

In the next conference post I'll write more about how you know who will be at these conferences, and how you can set up helpful opportunities to get to know them very well beyond a handshake and a hurried "Will you read my manuscript?" You'll be amazed how many publishing professionals would be delighted to know you -- and help you -- once you master the right conference approach.

A Jesuit, an essay, and the "where" of publication

One of the many interesting things about working with authors at Georgetown University versus a state university or a secular private one is the fascinating extra layer of Catholic studies and publications. Catholic publishing is a thriving literary world all its own within mainstream publishing. It even has its own industry identity through the Catholic Book Publishers Association.

Given this robust state of Catholic letters generally, it would seem to make sense that when Georgetown's Jesuit faculty or its Catholic lay faculty want to publish articles, essays, or books related to the Catholic faith, that they would turn to a faith-based publication. However, I'm going to argue just the opposite. This logical and understandable impulse -- for example, to submit an essay on faith to the Jesuit magazines America or Company, or to send a book proposal with a Catholic perspective to a Catholic publisher -- can ironically result in fewer acceptances rather than more. Why? Well, it's the old coals-to-Newcastle effect. These journals are regularly inundated with Catholic material. There's so much for them to choose from that they won't regard your submission as particularly special, even if you have excellent credentials, and even if the piece is inspiring and well-polished.

Instead, what I often recommend is taking this work out into the world where it can shine a light and do some good among literate folks who don't get to consider Catholic points of view all the time, but who might want to. After all, isn't the evangelical aspect of faith part of the Good News? And doesn't the word "news" itself suggest that the content might be fresh and revelatory to some readers?

Father Bill Blazek and I discussed this one day with his essay "Finding God on the Metro." He had been turned down when he submitted it to a Catholic publication, but it was a wonderful essay. He came to me to brainstorm what other Catholic publications might want it. When I suggested that this was a piece of particular interest to Washingtonians, and that The Washington Post might like a crack at it, he was skeptical but open-minded enough to give it a try. Then we did a little research and found the Post's section "On Faith," where the editors indicated an interest in readers' personal faith stories. Fr. Blazek submitted the piece there, and it was accepted. "Finding God on the Metro" found a home where it could minister both to Catholics and to more general readers as well. Fr. Blazek's essay appeared on Washingtonpost.com/Newsweek Interactive on August 13, 2007.

Of course Catholic authors should still support and write for Catholic publications. I'm all for it, and this office is set up to explore uniquely Catholic publishing opportunities. But sometimes it makes sense for Catholic authors to take their words to the world, and see who out there in the secular publishing realm might also have ears to hear, and might have a greater need to appreciate the Good News.

Pre-Conference Planning: How to Brilliantly "Work" a Conference

One topic of endless interest for authors seeking a university press book deal is whether and how to approach editors at conferences. Should you? Will editors be receptive? Is it pushy to corner an editor in an elevator when you are holding a manuscript? Are those "meet the editor" ten-minute evaluation events worth it, or is that just speed dating under a different name? All of these questions come to mind when academic authors contemplate hitting the conference circuit.
To answer, let's get one fact out of the way early. Neither the personalities of editors or authors are particularly suited to this kind of schmoozing. Most people report an inordinate amount of anxiety when even thinking about having to make small talk and then "get down to business" at an academic conference, especially when something as important as a book is involved. Most people in academic professions, whether on the university side or with the university presses, lean a bit toward the librarianish... generally we're all introverts or something close to it, with little patience for or interest in cocktail chatter, large crowds, or tooting our own horns. Those of us who are outgoing can still feel appropriate reticence when it comes to throwing ourselves at unsuspecting editors without so much as a proper third-party introduction.

There is a way to work a conference brilliantly, though, and in such a manner that you will never again feel the slightest anxiety before attending one. It's called Pre-Conference Planning, and when I learned about it I felt the excited tingles that come with discovering something absolutely priceless, and almost unknown to 90% of the academic population. In the next five posts I will cover the details of pre-conference planning, and I'll guarantee that you will henceforth regard conferences as exciting -- even thrilling -- professional opportunities rather than anything to be feared or dreaded.

Why do well-published authors use this office more than unpublished ones?

(Just asking!)

Of the scores of faculty members who have requested literary consulting over the last two years, the overwhelming majority are already published, and some have multiple books in print. My guess is that once most of us have been through the mill that is contemporary American publishing, we all understand just how much we don't know, and how much we can benefit from the assistance and advice of others who have also been through it.

It is a stunningly consistent characteristic of many of the unpublished, however, to try and go it alone. I actually had one young assistant professor sniff to me in a snobbish tone that her tenure committee would never approve of an academic author who needed (harumpf) help with her manuscript, or assistance in finding a publisher. Meanwhile I didn't have the heart to tell her that I was already working with two of the tenured members of her committee-to-be on their books (she is in a narrow field and some of the players are obvious), and that each had asked me in separate conversations if I had any success convincing more of their department's pre-tenure faculty to seek the guidance they so obviously needed.

Oh sure, there are superstars who don't need me, God, or anybody. I've watched them and their brilliant trajectories, and they are glorious things to behold. But you know what? Many of them come to my office as well, even though they've published more and better than most of us can ever hope to match. Why do they come? Because the best authors are collaborative in every good sense of the word. These fine scholars come to teach me. I listen to them carefully, and I count myself fortunate to benefit from their wisdom. They are the éminences grises of this office, and I couldn't do my job without them.