BookAngst 101

[Submitted to BookAngst 101 by an Anoymous Reader/Writer, via email, with the subject head "AN UNPUBLISHED WRITER'S RANT":]

Admit it... you’ve stopped listening already!

You saw “unpublished writer” and your eyes glazed over and you quickly clicked over to Bookslut before defiling yourself with the anxious whining of a new writer.

Therein lies the rub... I can’t get your attention without being published, and I can’t get published without your attention. For the unpublished writers amongst us who are sans MFA, short on contacts, and long on aspirations, the obstacles to a publishing career are daunting. The work's not good enough... so write better... but the only valuable feedback is locked behind those doors marked “only Pros need apply.” I get no feedback from a form letter saying, “this material isn’t right for us.” Sure, it’s easy to write another book, but will it be better? Oh sure, I’ve taken writing classes from nobodies, and I’ve been told I can write. So can a million others, apparently, as well as the Shakespeare-typing-chimpanzees.

How do you pluck that one possible out of a big stack of impossible? Is it possible that you’ve made your mind up before you’ve even resigned yourself to the icky chore of dispensing your slushpile?

I’m just sayin’.

***

To which Max responds:

Sorry, but this is self-pitying crap. Yes, you're right: I did shy away from your subject line--because (even before there was a Mad Max Perkins) I get dozens of unsolicited emails a day from writers wanting me to read their masterpieces. I recognize you're just trying to get through to somebody--but this ain't the way to do it. And it's not because you don't have an MFA or took "classes from nobodies": trust me on this, I delete them all without prejudice. [And--personally?--I'll be much less inclined to give you a open-hearted read if you've got an MFA than if you don't. Not a big fan of the production-line industry responsible for so many More Fucking Artistes...]

If you're not getting published, it sure ain't because you're not part of the "In Crowd." This conspiracy-theory gobblety-gook is a favored excuse for people who haven't got the talent or haven't got the drive, or both. The world is lousy with literary agents; and literary agents only get paid when they make a sale; so they're a competitive and fast-acting group. From my perspective, there are basically two reasons why a writer doesn't have an agent: either the writing's not quite good enough, or the writer hasn't applied himself seriously--doggedly--to finding one.

Whether or not publishers should have a responsibility to read material submitted to "Dear Slushpile," the reality is that most no longer accept unsolicited manuscripts. If you think this reflects the hard-heartedness of today's market place, you're right: publishers are enormously understaffed relative to yesteryear, which means that there are far fewer sets of eyes per submission than used to be the case... Another reason why your initial focus should be on getting your work to agents: they might actually read it.

This week's inspiring story about a writer discovered on the slush pile strikes me as the exception that proves the rule--and my guess is that his/her career began perhaps two decades ago.

“Only Pros need apply”...I get no feedback from a form letter saying, “this material isn’t right for us.”

First of all, damn right: pros ONLY, please! The business of writing, and of publishing the work of serious and talented writers, is, indeed, a matter of PROFESSION in the profoundest sense. If you write as a hobby, that's wonderful for you--but I have no place in that experience, and it's naive of you to expect me to be reassuring if your work fails to engage me. My professional responsibility is to find writers and books that I feel have literary and commercial merit (and it's not coincidence that there's often a strong corrolation between the seriousness and professionalism with which writers approach their craft and the extent to which I'm likely to be impressed). I have neither time or motivation to engage in feel-good correspondence for its own sake.

Finally: I accept the charge that this is a low blow, an easy shot--but, to my mind, anybody who says "it's easy to write another book" probably isn't putting nearly enough time and energy--enough professionalism--into the work in the first place.

[Tomorrow: FINE WHINE? OR RANT? YOU BE THE JUDGE]

[This author's comments arrived yesterday in response to a January post on the topic of realistic advances. I don't know which I find more astonishing, the arc of the career or the fact that this happy story begins with--and didn't end on--the slush pile. Whoever you are: congratulations, and thanks for sharing this.--Max]

My first advance was $10K from a major NY publisher. (This was also, BTW, an unsolicited, unagented submission.) I earned back that first advance, landed myself an agent, and received a contract for a second book for $35K. In subsequent years, deals for my third and fourth novels followed, and each time my advances increased. Each time I earned out. For my fifth and sixth novels, I received my first 2-book deal and six figure advance. I am currently under a three-book contract for which I received a mid-six figures advance.

Perhaps most people would look at my early miniscule advances and sneer, and it could be said that a larger advance might have earned me more attention from the marketing department. However, I always made a profit for my publisher, and they stuck with me as I gradually built an audience. I've still never been on the Today show or had my publisher run a national ad, but my last two books both spent several weeks on the NYT extended bestseller list.

I give all the credit to my wonderful editor, agent, and in-house publicist who had faith in me and allowed my career to gradually build momentum. Would it have been great to receive a huge advance and publicity campaign for my first book? Well, maybe. I'm not so sure. I ended up at the same place; it just took a little longer.

No advance of any size could buy me what I have today: a great relationship with my publisher, an editor whom I adore, and the ability to continue to do the work I love.

After two books at a midsize house established suspense novelist RICHARD as “one to watch” (relatively modest advances, and a high success-to-expectations ratio), a bigger house came calling. He’d been pleased with the efforts of Publisher #1—when the publicist he’d hired (at his own expense) got some traction, they responded nimbly to the opportunities by increasing distribution and extending (substantially) the co-op spend. Both books earned out their advances, and there was good feeling on both sides.

But Richard’s editor left, and other changes were anticipated as well. Publisher #2 came forward with a larger offer (a two-book deal) and a promise to position Richard’s third book as its lead title—major promotional support whose stated goal wasn’t just to break Richard out but to establish him as a brand-name author and get him “on the lists.” Given the change underway at his original publisher, the move to Publisher #2 seemed a no-brainer.

As it turned out, it nearly ruined his career.

RICHARD:
Six months after the deal was struck, my new publisher signed an established bestseller for a huge sum of money. You think: this can’t possibly have an impact on my situation, since the publisher’s goals for me are the same now as they were when they signed me. You tell yourself—thinking like a business person (how naïve…)—that they really do have to keep at least one eye toward the future; and so while a big-name author helps them in the short run, and perhaps even raises the visibility of the imprint for the good of the rest of us, in the long-term they understand that if my career takes off, there’s an even greater upside for them. And if not me, then another writer at my level: point is, surely they understand that they’ve got to continually restock the pond, make sure they’ve got fresh brands on the rise as the old ones lose steam. They do, right?

They do not. The arrival of the big name changed completely how they viewed me, and apparently made it OK for them to bail out on all of their promises to promote me and my books. The marketing budget, the tour, the co-op—all out the window. From Book 2 (Publisher #1) to Book 3 (Publisher #2), my sales dropped 60%. And this for a book (which was finished when they bought it--in other words, they knew exactly what they were getting) that everyone agrees, even today, is the best I've written.

The worst part of it is that I had no clue about any of this—about their change in attitude, or priorities—until the die was cast. I don’t know what we’d have been able to do if they’d been honest with us, or that the additional efforts (and money) I might have expended in the service of doing the publisher’s job would have stopped the bleeding entirely; but I’m certain I could have had an impact, because I’d done some of that with Publisher #1, to good effect.

But the promises that convinced me to move publishers in the first place had been so emphatic that there seemed to be no doubt about their vision both of what my future might hold and what they’d need to do to get me there. So I stupidly buried the paranoia and doubt that any sensible author has about such promises, and trusted “the plan” without having any sense—until it was far too late—that they’d effectively pulled the plug on my budget (and those of others too) so as to shift that budgetary pool to their new, already-established bestseller.

Yes, of course: in hindsight I wish I’d stayed w/ Publisher #1, despite the departure of my editor. But there’s no lesson to be drawn from that, really, because you never know how things will turn out. The bigger mistake, the one I beat myself up over, was taking for granted that anything my publisher promised would come to pass without endless vigilance on my part.

That’s the lesson I draw from this: that as a writer, it’s my responsibility (I mean mine and my agent’s, jointly) to make sure the details are being attended to. To know what the right questions are, and to never underestimate how early I should be asking them, nor how persistently. I’m not saying that you should anticipate having an antagonistic relationship with the publisher per se. But approach the endeavor with a clear-eyed professionalism, and don’t be afraid to ask questions and require answers to those questions—make it clear through your demeanor and responsiveness A) that you’re not going to give them a reason to go anything but all-out; and B) that they’re not going to be able to bullshit you.

Which doesn’t mean they won’t. Nor does it mean, of course, that one’s success is guaranteed—obviously the odds are always against us, even under the best circumstances, we all know that. But the bottom line is, I also know, now, that I’ve got to work every bit as hard at all facets of the publishing process—including marketing myself—as I do on the writing itself. I hate doing it—but I can’t risk the possibility that somebody else might not come through. And so I don’t.

Far be it for me to take someone else to task for anonymity; but I found one recent anonymous post (in response to Vol. II of the Mad Max Survey: Keith, the thriller writer) especially wearying, spouting as it does received wisdom about the lock-stock correlation between the size of the advance and the extent to which a book will (or won’t) be well published.

If this writer thinks his publisher didn't do much for him after receiving his large, life-changing advance, he should consider that the effort would have been far less if his advance had been small … I've heard this "I got too large of an advance" story before and it defies logic. Sure, he didn't earn out. But who's to say he would have earned out with the smaller advance? Smaller advance would have certainly meant smaller effort by the publisher, smaller interest by the media, and smaller sales all around.

As an editor in good standing who has paid seven-figures for books, and who has far more frequently paid five figures, I’m here to dispute, emphatically, the claim that publishers never publish well books they don't pay a ton for. And before anyone accuses me of striking a pose designed to contradict the ingrained cynicism/skepticism with which publishers are viewed—after all, people so enjoy demonizing the ugly for-profit instincts of publishers, and have such uncanny insight into the ways this ugliness motivates us, above all other things—I’ll speak not of art, or of supporting the little guy, but as the bottom-line capitalist I am. Because here’s the truth about what a “small” advance represents to me: it’s a chance to earn a profit—

To turn a (relatively) modest investment into a (potentially) lucrative return… From the Latin lucrativus—from whence comes the rallying cry of investors since time immemorial:

“Hey, man—
let’s make us some
FILTHY LUCRE!”

Do publishers pay tons of money for books sometimes? Yes. Do they sometimes support such investments aggressively? Often, yes. But it's specious (and down-right illogical) to suggest that the inverse is true—that books bought “small” are necessarily doomed to be published that way. Again, I won’t play the “for the love of literature” card; rather, it stands to reason that, if we buy a book for $50,000 (a “small” advance, according to some), and publish it well, there’s a far greater likelihood of

Getting…into…the BLACK

The failure of a book for which a small advance has been paid is no more guaranteed than is the success of those seven-figure mega-deals that get headline ink in the trades. Are there publishers whose eyes, as a matter of course, glaze over when they see such books on their publishing grids? Yeah: stupid ones. Smart publishers are opportunistic. Sometimes opportunity presents itself in the form of bestselling authors for whom huge sums are paid based on the expectation that huge quantities will be shipped out, generating a stream of receipts that, even when not profitable by every conceivable measure, can nonetheless make a huge contribution to operational overhead. But nothing represents a greater (theoretical) opportunity for publishers than a book bought low that can be sold aggressively. These situations represent the ultimate win-win for author and publisher alike.

What does this outcome require? It requires vigilant activism on the part of editors, and it requires the trust of the people managing/supervising those editors. As the number of publishers shrinks; as the remaining publishers grow in size; and as the number of titles being published on each list increases, especially relative to the number of people needed to publish them well; it is, of course, inevitable that those charged with overseeing those lists focus greater and greater portions of their resources on titles & authors that have a proven track, or on which large bets have been placed—this is what Anonymous means by “chasing the money.”

But under these circumstances, editors have opportunities to be mini-publishers, even—no, especially—for these relatively smaller titles. Their managers are counting on them to do precisely that. And at the end of the day there is nothing so satisfying, so thrilling, so rewarding—for everyone involved—as putting the right book into the right hands at the right time, and turning a project for which expectations are modest into a lead title. Is part of that thrill the realization that you may have earned a terrific return on your investment? Well, this is a business--what do you think?

PATRICK, a literary novelist, published his first book with a prestigious New York house, then published his next two with a university press.

BIG ......For my first novel, there was a generally good vibe leading up to publication. I had some issues with the publisher, though—the corporate behemoth and so forth—issues that seemed all the more clear-cut when my publicity director was fired the week before publication. The new pub director knew little about the book and as a result very little happened. Despite good reviews and moderately good sales (plus a good sub rights deal), the experience led me to want to explore other options.

SMALL ......I wound up publishing my next two books with a university press. I was drawn in that direction initially because I had heard they kept books in print and cared deeply about literature. In fact, I thought the editing was vastly superior with my faceless NY publisher. I'm not sure my editor at the university press ever read the book. They went into publishing fiction with the idea that they' make a lot of money to support scholarly monographs but they had no idea how to market fiction. Again, good reviews and even a minor prize, but low sales, due in part to lousy distribution and p.r.

I did a second book with this press, thinking we had all learned something from the first. In this case, I worked very hard for the book and sales were modestly better but many of the same problems remained. And while they sold out of their first edition within six months, they weren't willing to go back for a second printing. Another minor complaint is that while there was some movie interest, the publisher had no idea how to handle this, and fumbled the opportunity. Sub rights is a major problem with small press and university presses. Every so often they get a paperback deal but it's purely by accident, in my opinion.

BIG v. SMALL ......At the time I felt I’d been lost in the shuffle with my New York publisher; on the other hand, there's just no question that their professionalism and attention to detail made a huge difference. One small example: with my last book with the U.P., I almost didn't get noticed in PW or Kirkus because the press didn't get advance copies to them in time. This despite having gotten good notices on my previous novels—very annoying, given the importance of these publications to bookstores, libraries and the trade. On the other hand, while the first book was pulped within six months, my university press books are still in print. That means a lot to an author.

THE WORK ......Looking back on twenty years of frustration and some limited success, I think the most important thing is perseverance. Too many writers are willing to give in to pessimism because of the problems all mid-list writers face these days. For me, it's really always been about the writing, and that's what has saved me in the end. If I didn't love to write, I'd be in trouble.

I think that book tours and other publicity gimmicks are largely a waste of time. I know all the arguments for them, how they encourage booksellers, etc, but few things in life are more dispiriting that standing around in some bookstore in some distant place addressing five or six people and a pile of your books. Okay, you get to sign stock and sell a few that way, but in my view it's not worth it, especially in view of the way NY publishers view these kinds of sales. Ditto with interviewers, most of whom are clueless and have little idea of who you are and what you've done. A special place in hell should be reserved for these nitwits.

WHAT I KNOW NOW ......I just sent a new novel to my agent and have decided that unless I can get a decent deal with a NY publisher, I'm not going to publish it. For me, it's all about distribution and publicity. With the decline of review markets, it's just very difficult to get your book in front of the public without a big NY house behind you. Having said that, I'll also say that I think these literary blogs are the most interesting and exciting thing I've seen in publishing in twenty years. I have no idea what the audience is but I'm always impressed with the energy and intelligence of the bloggers.

______________________
PREVIOUS INSTALLMENTS:

• OVERVIEW: A BAKER'S DOZEN
• VOL I: PAPERBACK WRITER
• VOL II: THRILLER WRITER (The Trouble With Big Advances)

THE TROUBLE WITH BIG ADVANCES.
KEITH: A thriller writer.

Keith’s career opened like a television ad for a European sports car: Zero to Sixty in Under Five Seconds. He was “an absolutely unknown 28 year-old” when his novel caught the attention of a powerful literary agent. The novel—an upmarket thriller featuring a female protagonist—went out to key New York editors. Keith was a publisher’s dream come true: a young, attractive thriller writer with commercial storytelling instincts, literary chops and—Halleluiah first novelists!—absolutely no prior sales track to have to contend with.

The submission generated instant buzz; an auction date was quickly set; and in the end, seven U.S. publishers came to the table. Novel #1 sold to a top editor at a venerated house for a hefty six-figure advance, along with “heady marketing promises”: an extensive tour, end caps at major chain bookstores, and national media appearances. The book quickly sold in numerous foreign countries. It seemed almost too easy—a dream score

KEITH:
Here's my story. I call it a cautionary tale about the trouble that big advances can lead to.

BOOK ONE:
Though the editor under whose imprint I was to be published was one of the pillars of her house, I was assigned to her assistant, who was just beginning to come into his own. He was very excited about the book, and worked, I honestly believe, his hardest to promote it in house. (How much weight he had to throw around, however, is less clear.)

The book received a two-page spread in the catalog, and the first printing was in keeping with the sizeable advance. Yet there were problems from the start. The cover my publisher finally settled on was hideous—and though I had approval of the cover art written into my contract, the process was so belabored and fractious that by time the final cover was decided, it was way too late to do anything about it.

The book came out to stellar reviews, and many—from a starred PW to a glowing NYTBR, and pretty much everything in between. Yet the cover was so hideous that the major chains refused to feature it. In the end, despite the glowing reviews, my sales were disappointing. The mass market team (the publisher's sister house) took its cues from the hardcover performance, didn’t position it aggressively etc., and the results were exactly what you’d expect. r.

[For the record, I was sent on a book tour for the hardcover—an absolute waste of time and money, in my opinion.]

BOOK TWO
The same publisher acquired my second book as well, with the advance being a third less than the first advance; I saw it as a vote of confidence that they wanted to stick with me. But with the lackluster sales of the first book dogging them, the marketing department decided to position the next book less as a thriller than as a mystery, and focusing their promotion exclusively on mystery book stores. They said it was their way of finding a niche. Again, my book came out to perfect reviews—we picked up PEOPLE this time, one of the few who’d given us a pass on Book One. But they shipped a much smaller number; I went on a dismal book tour to mystery book stores; and hardcover sales were even lower than for the first book. At the time I didn’t grasp just how significant this downward track would prove to be. As before, there was zero marketing on the part of the paperback house, which made its (dismal) publication a self-fulfilling prophecy.

BOOKS THREE AND FOUR
My original publisher offered me a two book contract for books three and four, though once more at a diminishing advance: I got the same advance for books three and four combined as I’d received for book two. By now the junior editor had moved on to greener pastures, but I’d formed a close relationship with the woman under whose imprint I was published, so we decided to proceed without another editor, with the implicit understanding that I wouldn’t get quite the same level of attention regarding the day-to-day as I had in the past.

Again, there were the same stellar reviews, the same dismal tours to mystery bookstores and appearances at Bouchercon, the annual mystery writers' convention. Only now the focus on the mystery world was seeming more and more like a bad idea: I write political thrillers, not mysteries. My third book was published just after 9/11, as we were poised to go to war with Iraq. This may sound heartless, but the fact remains that my book couldn’t have been more topical; had it been nonfiction, it might well have been a bestseller. The publisher made absolutely no attempt to tie the marketing in with current events; on the other hand I can't blame marketing entirely, as distribution was by now my real enemy.

Everyone—authors and editors both—has a story about how 9/11 took the legs out from underneath a promising publication. Yet unlike so many, I continued to get terrific media—all for naught. Here’s an example: one of the stops on my book tour was Minneapolis, and came immediately on the heels of three separate articles about me and the book in the Star-Tribune (a review, an interview, and a profile). But my publisher had managed to book an event in the Twin Cities; instead I wound up a tiny mystery bookstore thirty five miles away. Worse yet, the bookstore had NO STOCK. So my escort and I had to go to every bookstore in the area and buy them out of their few copies.

My fourth book also dealt with timely, trenchant subject matter, and had a terrifically exotic setting—and received no marketing support whatsoever. It was only now that I came to realize that my editor, fantastic though she was on the page, and as a human being, had little interest in or grasp of the ins and outs of marketing a book, or even generating excitement for it in house. As my British editor once remarked, "J. is from the old school, and sees marketing as something altogether vulgar." Had I known then what I know now…

BOOK FIVE
What had been obvious to my agent for some time now became plain to me: I had to find a new publisher. Yet this would prove much easier said than done. Many top editors at large New York houses were itching to read my manuscript, and I traveled to New York to meet with potential new editors, who were consistently "blown away" by the book, and "very excited to work with me." However, not a single one of these editors would be allowed by their marketing departments to make an offer, because of my sales track.

Moral: there really is such a thing a too-high an advance, and mine is a case in point. Had I started smaller and earned-out, it's possible that, in the aggregate, I wouldn't have made quite as much money. But I wouldn't be in the insane position I find myself in now. I've been published in a dozen different languages. All four of my books have received near perfect reviews. My European sales are respectable enough that I have made two promotional trips abroad this year alone. I have a contract with a major British publisher for two books. And yet if I'm going to continue publishing in this country, I'm going to have to do so under a different name.

PREVIOUS INSTALLMENTS OF
THE MAD MAX SURVEY:
A BAKER'S DOZEN: OVERVIEW
VOL I: PAPERBACK WRITER

“For me, it’s always been about the writing, and that’s what has saved me in the end.”—Patrick, novelist

In the very early days of BookAngst101, I asked writers to share with me their publication histories. 13 authors replied to my survey, giving frank and detailed accounts—not many happy tales here, I’m sorry to say—and then generously answered my follow-up questions. I’d like to thank Keith, Kitty, Lynn, Richard, Patrick, Allison, Rachel, Calvin, Elliot, Jesse, Mary,Willa and Carla* for being so trusting, and so forthcoming. (It’s especially valuable, I think, because your backgrounds represent a perfect cross-section of the business: writers of fiction and nonfiction, across the span of literary-to-commercial; adult books, childrens' and YA; published by major New York publishers, university presses and a variety of small regional presses....)

I’d intended to use your experiences as a database from which to sketch out a composite of the writing-and-publishing life. But as I sifted through the details I came to see that there weren’t a lot of larger lessons to be drawn that we didn’t mostly know already:

Editorial turnover breaks authors’ hearts and leaves them compromised in ways the consequences of which are sometimes never undone... Overwhelmed and/or inexperienced publicists—the closest thing to “marketing in action” that many authors ever come into contact with—rarely seem to be up to, or invested in, the task of promoting mid-list authors... On the other hand, be careful what you wish for: almost to a person, these authors came to the conclusion that the book tour, on virtually any scale, is not simply a waste of time & energy but, in fact, an exercise in public humiliation... To top things off, it appears there really is a special ring in hell for the nitwit radio and newspaper personnel who purport to be working the “book beat” yet fail to read the books (or sometimes even the press material) by the authors they’re interviewing.

These are all real and significant concerns, but I suspect they’re not much of a surprise to professionals on either side of the aisle. It’s taken me rather a long time to recognize that the larger value of your replies isn’t so much in the aggregate “data” they provide, but in the narrative particularities of your experiences, and in the way you expressed them.

Seven months, in fact. In retrospect I wish I’d crafted my “survey” so as to invite a more discursive approach: I asked for nugget-sized details and got them, but the form of my questions elicited replies that, in some cases, don’t translate well for a larger narrative. And so, while pieces of all 13 interviews have informed various aspects of this blog for months now, and excerpts from many will appear in a series of “survey recap posts” I'll run over the next couple of weeks, fewer than half of your replies have translated effectively into stand-alone entries. I apologize to those of you whose stories aren’t reflected here, or in much depth, despite your having taken the time and effort to give such full reports. But seven months is too long, already, to have held onto to these; and it seems it’s better to put out some of these narratives than to keep them all on ice because of my inability to frame the others in a fashion that does you justice.

Watch this space for more Author Survey posts in the near future.

--Max

P.S. Don't forget, folks--we're still accepting applications for the Rant Room. space is going fast, though, so get yours in soon!
____________

*For the record: with the exception of self-proclaimed “Paperback Writer” Lynn Viehl (whose response to the survey was posted back in January), all the other writers are presented by alias, and in some cases with a detail or two changed, in order to safe-guard anonymity.

A reader of this blog recently suggested the need for

"a forum where publishing insiders can vent (anonymously) about the challenges of their industry, and maybe offer/get some sympathy and support."

I don't know about the sympathy/support side of the equation, but I can attest to the psychic benefits of ranting. And then there's the confidence boost that comes from deceipt: by posing as a publishing insider as I've done, and posting pseudonymously, I've come to see myself as being more steeped in the pubishing process than most mailroom employees can claim.

And so I thought it might be interesting to open up the gates a little--to give you (Dear Reader) not just a chance to vent but also to bask in the glory that comes with being a part of the glamorous blogging community at this particularly glamorous moment in time. Think of it (as I do) like being Super Hero for a day--the chance don the brightly-colored cape & costume, and to demonstrate to all the world the full range of your genius [sic], your keen insights, your ability to take a bullet for the good of human-kind. Sure, there's the risk of public humiliation--on the other hand, what if you emerge from the experience not just alive but with a broader, stronger sense of your own self-worth?

[In my own case, there's little doubt that my time at BookAngst 101 has contributed directly to my best performance evaluation ever, and I'm currently on the short list to be promoted to Assistant Manager, Mailroom Operations. (Keep your fingers crossed, will you? I'll let you know how it turns out...)]

Remember the ad for the 96-pound weakling who, sick of getting sand kicked in his face, turns to Charles Atlas for guidance? That used to be me...except that my dyslexia prevented me from getting Charles Atlas's phone number right, and my apathy prevented me from trying again... As you can well imagine, this inaction (combined with many others, of which this was but one example) contributed to a low self-image and a predilection toward conspiracy theory, fast food and video games. And so, for much of my adult life, I've had the rather unsatisfactory experience of being a 96-pound weakling stuck inside a MUCH larger body. Think Ignatius J. Reilly. Think Gilbert Grape's mom.

But that all changed when I became a pseudonymous blogger. Donning the Mask of Max is the opportunity for the office-bound to (as the ad says) "Be all that you can be." To vanquish, in this newly (if only metaphorically) buff and bodacious state, those bullies who tormented us on the personal beaches of our respective pasts.

And now, for a limited time only, you too can share in this liberating experience! Here's how!!!

1. Pick a topic about which you feel strongly, and draft a "rant" of whatever length works for you.
2. Send it to me via email.
3. If I like it, I'll post it to BookAngst 101.

Now for the fine print:

Mad Max, that is, the original Mad Max Perkins, distinct from potential "Max for a Day" candidates, reserves the right to make all final decisions about content to be posted at BookAngst 101. Max is not so much worried about sloppily constructed arguments as he is about someone having something of genuine insight to say, which could reflect poorly on Max's perceived expertise. Max is willing to edit/comment on topics that strike him as worthy or serious or cogent or exceedingly silly, but warns in advance that there's a inverse corrolation between the amount of work to be done on a piece and its likelihood of getting posted. This offer is subject to alteration or cancellation without warning.

Let the venting begin.

P.S. Anonymity is optional.

Sorry for the hiatus. Right now I don't seem to have the juice to be posting regularly, and have decided neither to force it nor to force a decision about when--or whether--BookAngst 101 will be back in session.

So for now I'm setting my solar panels in the yard and letting them recharge awhile.

Thanks to you e-mail pals who've checked in w/ me to offer good cheer and make sure all's well. All is well, and is better still because of your good wishes.

--Max

Books, books, everywhere you look! Stacked to the rafters, high on the hip; on the front page of the New York Times, in high-rotation ads on Fox TV, in obits and litblogs and AP Wire postings. Suddenly the book biz has a personality again. Watch out, Teach for America: you'll have to fight a lot harder for those young Yale Dartmouth & Amherst grads next year.

Here's Judith Regan announcing her move to Los Angeles, promising Left Coast culture a shot in the arm--and my favorite kettle-calling-pot comment, from an unidentified Hollywood exec, who said, in the Daily News:

"Judith has succeeded by going for the lowest common denominator...While that makes her a standout in the book-publishing industry, it's not really so special out here."

Here's Pamela Anderson giving a boost to our collective silhouette in STACKED, the sit-com (premiering tonight) that the Calgary Sun describes as "FRASIER with boobs" [Headline: "Stacked not a bust"] and showing Middle America just how much fun reading can be. Speaking of fun, producer Steve Levitan compares (perhaps optimistically) STACKED's potential for romantic high-jinx with CHEERS's Sam-and-Diane [with Elon Gold in the "Sam" slot], and admits he had another sexy, literate, laff-riot couple in mind:

"I thought a lot about the Marilyn Monroe-Arthur Miller dynamic when I was writing this," Levitan said [in the NYTimes]. "Here was this blond bombshell who surprised a lot of people by being with this New York intellectual and vice versa. That's always been a fascinating relationship to a lot of people."

Here's Saul Bellow, resplendent in death, coming across not as egghead-genius but as hip-cat Jimmy Stewart, inspiring financial brokers across three continents to whisper a single word of investment advice: "TWEED." [Methinks I see a t.v. movie on the horizon... Bellow, Hunter S. Thompson, Arthur Miller--A Bookish Brat Pack of the Dead, with a made-for-t.v. amalgam of Andrea Dworkin and Gloria Steinem as protofeminist sidekick.]

Here's the launch of the Litblog Co-op, offering at least the possibility that serious, unhyped literature isn't doomed in the marketplace.

Here's the Iowa Writers' Workshop conducting an American Idol-like search for a new director to replace the legendary Frank Conroy, bringing beloved-but-not-bestselling writers Richard Bausch, Jim Shepard and Ben Marcus an extra measure of attention before ultimately selecting Lan Samantha Chang.

Here's Harvey and Bob, given the opportunity to slip free, blameless, of the book trade, and chosing not to.

Here's Jonathan Burnham and Rob Weisbach and Carole Baron and Ivan Held and Lee Boudreaux and Jennifer Hershey taking on new gigs, new challenges, and sending an energizing ripple through the industry.

Smirk if you will--and the opportunities are numerous--but can this really be a bad thing? Sure, Pamela Anderson's co-stars in STACKED are sure to be chubby, cross-eyed dorks. Sure, if there's reason to celebrate Judith Regan's move west, it probably has more to do with the notion of "addition by subtraction" than with culture per se. And--sure--the shifting of leadership players of late doesn't address, in any way, the more fundamental concerns of the industry.

But you can't have everything. Meanwhile, there's always this low-tech 19th century truism that is no less a rallying cry today, nor any less true:

Change is good.

"Marking a departure from the solitary life of reading and writing, about 20 independent literary bloggers announced Friday that they will begin working together in hopes of drawing readers to books they feel deserve more attention, while seeking to generate more and deeper public discussions of literature....Mark Sarvas, who drew the project together, described the effort as less an awared program than a conversation starter.

"We want to shine a light on literary fiction likely to get overlooked and lost in the shuffle...The mission is to see what happens when 10 to 20 lit bloggers get behind a title and push hard. Does it make a difference?"

--L.A. Times article [April 9, 2005] on the Litblog Cooperative

Scribes in tights...super-duper lit-kits--except, hey! Where are the washboard abs?

Let's face it: when you need somebody to see behind the mask? To comprehend what (dr)evil lurks in the hearts of men?

Call a woman.

Patricia Storms has BookLust. Pass it on.

Y'all must be feeling pritty darn good about yerselves, you super-cool revolutionary sweethearts of the blog, eh? Am I right? Written up on consecutive days in the Times...getting your names in bold-face (I won't name you, but you know who you are) on Tuesday, March 28--just a day after the same paper credited you with putting Liz Smith--the One, the Only, the Barbra Streisand of bold-face--out of business...

Hey, hotshots--a word of advice from someone who's been there, eh? Liz Smith's story--and, indeed, my own--demonstrates just how devastating the fall from great heights can be, and how fast it can occur. So keep that in mind as you turn your backs on the likes of Liz & Me.
***
Let's start with Monday's NYT Business section. The title says it all: "In the Blog Era, Liz Smith Wonders if There's Room for the Pro."

[An aside, if I may: is there such a thing as too exact a title? Should that particular NYT editor get a raise for precision? or a good talking-to about how, readers being scarce enough as it is, we don't want to make it too easy for them to skim past the article itself whilst walking from the kitchen to the den before they log onto Gawker?]

Tell the truth, cruel-hearted 21st century techno freak: the INSTANT you saw how Liz, that doyenne of discretion, but also the face of old-school gossip, had admitted defeat, what did you do? You dropped to one knee and performed that classic Tom Cruise "celebration of one's own greatness" maneuver, didn't you?

[You know the one, don't pretend otherwise: Clenched fist jerked crisply, Kung-Fu style, to shoulder, elbow pulled tight against your side-

HOLD IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Listen up, blogmeisters! Before you get all gussied up for that TIME MAGAZINE TREND OF THE CENTURY cover photo, let's look at the facts. Nirvana, you're not. Sure, you represent the chaos and freshness of revolution, but in fact you graduated from a fancy college just like the rest of us--

[worse, you probably even have an M..F..A..!--]

and, sure as shootin', you didn't have to work an on-campus food service job, struggling madly to keep up as wave upon wave of blue dining-hall trays marched toward you with conveyor-belt doggedness; were never put in the position of having no choice but to dig, with your own sorry fingers, into the depths of those scratched-plastic juice glasses to retrieve from their bottoms the soggy, half-eaten remains of tapioca pudding, + innumerable cigarette butts; all this for $1.25 an hour, just to make ends meet...

C'mon, admit it! You're living in Park Slope or Hoboken, Berkeley or Ann Arbor or Toronto, with a bijillion-dollar sci-fi rack of computer gadgetry to make your blog smooth and shiny. You've got a cushy day job--OK, maybe you even work hard, and even like it (sorta), or at least like the bon-bons your paycheck pays for; or else you're milking the interest on Grand-Mama's inheritance; either way, this is a secret you keep from your blogroll regulars so that you can present as a Terry Malloy down-the-docks scuffer ("I coulda been a contenda," you bellow with anguish at your 84" flat-screen t.v.)

(But I digress...)

We were talking about my close personal friend, the lovely Liz Smith, who at 82 looks better than I did at 22--and about how all you Dave Eggers-trained smarty-pantses cluck dismissively at the old values--sweat kept secret, secrets held close, true to yer school, et cetera. And about the little snicker you won't admit to at the thought that you & your gang are taking over the world... Same as the way you pshaw publicly every time the NYT or some other establishment rag tries to get a "handle" on you and your funknographic gaggle, which of course they always, like, get so wrong... And yet if a Cool-Factor judge were to issue me a warrant to search your place of fiction commission--that is, the place you do your blogging, the place where you assume your Alt-Shift personae--I guarantee we'll find you've got a secret scrapbook of printed mentions that you keep under your floorboards, and this week's Times' articles will be right on top.

***
Oh, Liz--I feel your pain! Like you, I'm too principled to play the Nasty Nellie game--and look at the cost. They email me; they say, Hey Max--serve us some Dish or we're gonna cut you off. They want the nitty-gritty on why Y got fired; how M maneuvered around A to wind up with J's job; which literary agent is consumed with Reefer Madness; and which top editor swizzles the spit between her teeth, driving her assistant mad. I know all this stuff, of course I do--but I've never forgotten your advice: when in doubt, imagine the shoe on the other foot. What if this were said about you?

So I stay between the white lines--and because of this, they turn away. Oh, Liz! In the beginning it was magical! We here at BookAngst had no business plan, we were operating by the seats of our pants. But it worked, Liz! And, oh, the accolades! We went from 0 to 60 in no time flat. Suddenly NPR was calling, Oprah was calling; Publishers Weekly wanted to do a profile; there was a whole blog devoted to trying to figure out our true identity. [No, they never did get it right.] Meanwhile, at BookAngst 101 we had 6,000,023 hits in a single day. That's a lot of hits!

But it doesn't last, does it? (Though your run has been far, far longer than most.) Quite recently I was having lunch with an agent, and we were talking blogs. Unaware of my own pointed interest in the conversation, he was raving about all those po-mo lit-crit tech-head groove-sters, Marvelous Maud and Bookslut and Sarah the Idiosyncratic and ElVar and Beatrice/ix and Nathalie the GalleyCat and--well, pretty much everybody in the known lit-blog universe... except... AHEM...

"Sure, sure," I said, "But what about that, whatzit, BookAngst, the publishing blog?"

He squinted a moment as though trying to concentrate in a loud restaurant. (OK, it was a loud restauant.) I prompted him further: "You know--that Mad Max guy?" Finally the squint gave way to a flicker of recognition--and then

He. rolled. his. eyes.

"Oh, God, yeah, I know that one--isn't it such a bore? The guy obviously doesn't know anything about publishing; maybe if he had some good gossip or something it'd be worth it--instead he goes on and on about the dullest topics. Reaganomics, corporate mergers, blah blah blah."

That night I dragged myself home and discovered that I'd had nine--9!--hits in the previous 24 hours; and two of them were come-ons from porn sites.

***
Well, Liz, at least they're still writing about you. Whereas Tuesday's lit-blog-fete made no mention of....well.... Anyway, now that the writing's on the wall, Liz, I depend on your example to show me the way to a graceful exit. As to all you hot-shot blogsters riding high atop the crest of the moment, just remember:

Payback's a bitch!

A Two-Parter:
1. Those of you urbanites (readers, writers, riders, writers who read, riders who read, etc) who travel by mass transit (subway, bus, light-rail, barrel-rolling-down-hill, etc):

A. Do you pay attention to the adverts that one sees in subways, on the sides of buses, etc. --1-800-LAWSUIT ("You, too, may want to sue the producers of VIOXX"), e.g.?
B. Have you ever seen BOOK ads in such places?
C. If yes, has an ad ever (even just once) caused you to say (to yourself), Oh, I didn't know that was out--that is, did it register in a favorable fashion?
D. Have you ever, even just once, bought a book because of such an ad?

2. Those of you publishers (editors, editorial assistants, marketeers, publicists, persons working in the mailroom, actual publishers, etc) who've ever been involved with a book that included mass trans adverts in its marketing bundle:

A. Have you ever had the experience of someone saying (aloud), Hey, I saw your book ad on the M1 bus uptown, on Madison? [That's just an example; answers need not be limited to viewings on Madison Avenue.]
B. Did you feel that the ads played a role in increasing the book's visibility?
C. Would you do it again? If so, what did you like about it? If not, why not?

As always, feel free to respond to me directly (via email: madmaxperkins@hotmail.com) and/or anonymously.

So I bought this novel recently: a foreign publisher gave me a tip, long story short, the agent and the author and I, it's one of those love-at-first-sight things... Thing about it is, you know from the first clause of the first sentence of the first page that you're in the hands of someone great, a real god-damn talent. So we do a deal, I could not be happier, and I know for sure the feeling's mutual.

Life's hard in some ways, though, so despite the good vibe, it takes me a little while to edit the manuscript (yes, even love-at-first-sight things get all scuffed up in the margins, at least the ones I edit), so now I've read it, close, two times. I call her up, tell her all over again how great the book is, that the ms. is on its way, just a few minor things. She says great, look forward to seeing your comments.

Yesterday, 6:07 p.m., I realize I've got a phone message from herself, this writer I mentioned earlier. I call her; she's gone through the manuscript now, has some questions. We talk through a couple of points, then we get to this one note I scribbled up the side of a page. She says, I have no idea what you're talking about here. I laugh, I re-read it, re-orient myself, finally figure it out. Oh, OK, I say, she can't do it that way because back here on page...

...and suddenly it occurs to us--her first, then me--that even though I'd given this book two pretty close readings, and knew it to be a thing of genius, there was one thing I didn't know: what the book meant. Turns out that I'd totally misread something really important--which meant two things at once. First, yes, that I'm a dumb-ass; but second, that maybe she hadn't built her scaffolding quite so cleanly as she needed to to avoid dumb-asses like me from maybe missing something really important.

OK, I can hear you writer-folk out there: OUCH! You wanna know how bad things are in publishing? An editor, and a supposedly stand-up guy too, buys a book HE DOESN'T EVEN UNDERSTAND! The only thing that could be worse is if he then tried to get her to change it to fit how he'd (mis-)read it in the first place--Oh, please God don't tell me he...

Well, OK, it does sound bad, I admit it. Especially since about 30 minutes of our one-hour conversation was, indeed, spent on my trying to sell her a line of bullshit about how, even though it wasn't the ending she intended, she should give her subconscious the benefit of the doubt, one knows not how worketh the creative process, et cetera.

Yeah: sounds really bad. But--know what? It was actually fantastic. Two pros, a writer and her editor, working together on a thing they're both profoundly invested in. You wanna talk creative brainstorming? What's that old-saw college textbook essay about the writing process, the one that includes the actual marginal doodles, and the doodling reveals a moth, and thus Annie Dillard wrote "The Death of The Moth"--remember that one? Well, let me tell you: we had a whole goddamn room full of moths. Except they're not moths, thank God, they're bricks, and we're figuring out how to build a house, from scratch, just the two of us.

And, sure--say what you will about how this whole thing started with some dumb-ass editor misreading the work of an author he supposedly admires utterly--but as the dumb-ass editor in question, I'm here to testify that for the hour we were on the phone, dropping our plumb-lines and positioning our cinder-blocks, I was the happiest man alive. Because we were in it together. GOD what a great job I have sometimes, to crawl inside with the master crafters; and not just watching, either: for some inexplicable reason, I'm afforded the opportunity now and again to work alongside...

***
We knew we'd had a productive session--easy for me to say, because all I did was say, "What if?"; when we get off the phone at about 7:00 last night, I get to go home; she's the one who has to do the actual work. I tell her to give a yell when she's ready, figuring it'll be a couple of weeks, maybe more.

***

Tonight--the time-stamp reads 10:17 p.m.--she emails me back. Here's a new crack at the ending, she says. When you get a chance, she says. "It's still a little rough," she says. "But you'll get the general idea."

So I open the attachment and start to read, and it's l.a.f.s. all over again. In one try, she nailed it--solved not just the problem of, shall we say, my little misunderstanding, but in twenty pages (and 27 hours, no less) she amplified and intensified all of the central emotional currents. I was stunned, elated--moved nearly to tears a couple of times. In my reply (time-stamp: 11:36) I told her (in not quite these words) the simple truth, which is that she's a genius, and that she's turned a brilliant book into a masterpiece.

And then I wrote "this is what makes it all worth while." And then I hit "send." And then I felt so god-damn good that I sat down here to tell you all about my incredible good fortune. To give an example, in case anyone ever asks, of why someone might ever want to be an editor.

Time-stamp: 12:46 a.m.