book publishing

Man, Twitter has taking some serious hits in the media this week. First Barbara Walters tries to explain Twitter to her cohosts and provokes an explosion of eye rolling and insults, then Jon Stewart mocks not just the Twitter posts themselves but shakes his fist at those who dare to tweet.

Go ahead, joke it up, I’ll just say this: We mock that which we do not understand, friends. And also this: I think Twitter is brilliant—especially for anyone who wants to be published.

One of the biggest worries I hear from aspiring authors is that they don’t have contacts in the publishing industry. Sure, I understand that, it definitely helps to be at least on a name-recognition basis with someone before asking her to take you and your blood, sweat, and tears seriously.

That’s the part where Twitter comes in: In less than 10 minutes, you can connect directly with agents and editors, authors and publicists, all in a socially egalitarian and non-hierarchical kind of way. You can read their comments on the industry and their jobs, and you can comment right back, no sweat, no formality. (My mom recently exchanged tweets with Rachel Maddow, how cool is that?) It won’t be long before you’re on each other’s radar, your name on their computer screens and theirs on yours. It’s not intimacy, or friendship even, but there’s no denying it — you’re in contact.

Twitter is more immediate than Facebook, but with less of a need to encounter irrelevance and overshare, especially if you’re using it as a professional conversation starter. Not only are you in contact with others who have like-minded interests, but you can learn about your contacts’ lives in a way that will personalize them to you to your advantage. Consider: You’ve just finished your book proposal and are ready to query literary agents when you see that Lucy Agent, whom you’ve been following on Twitter, has posted a comment about a client of hers who just won a prestigious book award. Now, instead of querying her with a standard query form letter, you can write something far more personal, and more likely to get her attention: “Dear Lucy Agent, Congratulations on your client winning the Prestigious Book Award! Entirely deserved—I found the book both beautifully written and insightful. I have a book on a similar topic I’d love for you to consider representing … ” You’ll show that you’ve done your due diligence in learning what’s important to her as a professional, which is bound to earn you some take-me-seriously credit in return.

You can also read tweets (posts, to the uninitiated) from a range of agents about what they love and hate about queries from other writers, so you’ll know what mistakes not to make yourself. Here’s a snippet from agent Colleen Lindsay (@Colleen_Lindsay), who’s worth joining Twitter for alone:

Query #1: 1st paragraph talks only about the multiple themes in the book. There is no second paragraph. Reject.

Query #2: Great query, but book is too similar to something I already represent. Personalized rejection, ask to see other work.

Query #3: YA fantasy, 175,000 words. Reject with educational note about word counts.

Query #4: Loves me. Loves my blog. Has MFA. Won contest I’ve never heard of. Three paragraphs in and it’s still not a query letter. Reject.

You can follow book publishers (@ChronicleBooks has the best book giveaways), book editors (follow me! I’m @lauramazer) and anyone else who tweets about subjects that interest you, from indie crafts to your local elected officials. (On my faves list: @threadless, @iphonenovice, @freakonomics). There’s a long list of pub industry Twitterers, and you can follow as many as them as you like.

And if you’re worried that using Twitter is confusing, well, yeah, OK, it actually really is — for about five minutes, and then it all becomes clear. I’ll remind you that my mother Twitters (@thelmasan, follow her, she’s a rock star! And I bet @maddow thinks so too). Here, I’ll shame you into it: If you can write a book, surely you can figure out a social network that 50 million Elvis fans have already mastered.

I’ll be looking for your tweets, peeps.

We’re extremely pleased to give you a guest post from Allison McCarthy, who is offering a unique addition to Girl with Pen with author discussions on recent books with a feminist twist. Allison is a freelance writer based in Maryland and a recent graduate of Goucher College. Her work has been published in The Baltimore Review, ColorsNW, Girlistic, JMWW, Scribble, Dark Sky, and The Write-Side Up. –Kristen

Leora Tanenbaum is a full-time writer and the author of classic contemporary feminist texts such as Slut! Growing Up Female With A Bad Reputation and Catfight: Rivalries Among Women–From Diets to Dating, From the Boardroom to the Delivery Room. She worked for ten years at the Jewish Education department of the National Headquarters of HADASSAH: The Women’s Zionist Organization of America. Her new book, Taking Back God: American Women Rising Up for Religious Equality (Farrar, Straus & Giroux), explores the complex relationships between American women and faiths such as Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. Drawing on a wide variety of sources, including many historical texts and personal interviews, Tanenbaum analyzes the dynamics of religion and feminism with skillful insight and nuanced sensitivity. In a recent phone interview, Tanenbaum discussed her work with this groundbreaking new book:

1.) Although this book may seem like a departure from the themes of your previous two books, it still carries a strong current of secular feminism. Do you see this book as continuing the work of your previous books?

It does on the face seem to be very different, but everything I write is ultimately about the same concern: to improve the lives of girls and women. Obviously, if we improve the lives of girls and women, it will improve the lives of boys and men. [My books] share in common the ways females are socialized in our culture and certainly in our culture, religion is chock-full of socialization of females to behave in certain circumscribed ways.

2.) Have you always self-identified as an Orthodox Jewish feminist? Were there any conflicts in your life that fractured these two identities?

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In a happy arrangement with our friends over at the blog and editorial collective Feminist Review, GWP is pleased to start offering MORE feminist reviews, courtesy of crosspost!  Here is the first, a review of Letters from Black America (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux), edited by Pamela Newkirk.  The review is penned by Brittany Shoot. Here we go…And a big fat shout out to Feminist Review!  –Deborah

While it would help to appreciate and admire the historical importance of preserved letters, you don’t have to be history buff or correspondence enthusiast to delight in Letters from Black America.  In a time of quickly typed emails and SMS, tangible letters hold weight for many who value thoughtful, deliberate communication. In this compendium, Pamela Newkirk skillfully compiles an assortment of missives from the past three centuries that shine a light on the humanity and continued struggles of ordinary and exceptional African American men and women.

Divided into seven sections, the collection of 200-plus letters examines family dynamics during and after slavery, education as a locus for social activism, and Black military service from the Civil War to Iraq. In everyday yet often poetic language, details are revealed about married couples separated by the slave trade and babies born without the presence of their fathers. Open letters previously published in newspapers are included to showcase a wide range of letter writing and how it can be used as a tool to promote public discourse. Prominent Black artists and academics correspond and share visions of hope. One man proposes marriage and later asks to set a date, confirming his lady’s affirmative answer, though the reader never knows what else was actually said.

While the collection does include an interesting cross-section of letter writers and receivers, many are notable figures in Black history, and many—like W.E.B. Du Bois, Langston Hughes, Derrick Bell Jr., and Booker T. Washington—have letters included in several sections. This is not without merit, but letters to and from prominent, highly educated Black leaders are more common than those passed between ordinary citizens. This does not diminish the significance of the selections. At times, it is rather helpful—if not necessary. The often-lengthy writings of Frederick Douglass, for example, comprise a significant part of the letters about politics and social justice. This is not a burden, but an opportunity. Many of these letters are not easily found, even in a time of ubiquitous technology and information. Each letter is introduced with background about the writer and recipient, and these small but critical details make Letters from Black America an incredible reference guide.

While many of the book’s sections are enthralling—love letters from Martin Luther King, Jr. to Coretta Scott (King) and a coming out letter from Joseph Beam to his parents are particularly noteworthy—the climax of the compilation is the third section, “Politics and Social Change.” Some of the most formative communication of our time is found here, including letters between Shirley Du Bois and Langston Hughes, Bayard Rustin and Eldridge Cleaver, and Toni Morrison to then-Senator and Presidential candidate Barack Obama.

To address the changes in communication over time, the book ends with letters from “Across the Diaspora.” Communiqués between Pan-African leaders of the last hundred years, across oceans and decades, remind us that even as we move into a time when travel and the Internet make our work easier, we have come very far and yet have so very far to go.

–Brittany Shoot

(Crossposted at Feminist Review)

8:25 am. Drive to the office after dropping off preschooler and third grader at respective schools. Discover abandoned baggie of stale cereal on passenger seat under pile of manuscripts. Resist urge to eat. Feel bad that manuscripts are riding shotgun instead of getting read.

8:46 am. Arrive at office. Turn on computer. Read email from accountant, who needs to reschedule appointment (again) but meanwhile wants to know if I have any contacts in children’s publishing who might want to see a book she’s written … Delete. Read email from agent wanting to know if I’d like to look at a proposal for a book about Zen golfing. Close. Read an email from a friend of a friend who met me at a party who has a book that’s just like Eat, Pray, Love only different, would I like to publish it …

9:11 am. Read my google alerts: six about the company, seven about authors or books that are pubbing, one about me. Click on the one about me. Discover there’s another Laura Mazer who took first place in her high school district’s 100-yard dash. Delete all.

9:25 am. Get coffee. Eat Luna bar. Scan RSS feeds. Read Romanesco. Twitter a link to an article that pronounces indie publishers to be the future of literature. Feel smug.

10:00 am. Editorial meeting. Title brainstorming—once again, can’t help but wonder if we’d have better ideas if there were alcohol involved. Listen to debate over whether or not a novel needs to say “A novel” on the cover. Keep a tally in the margins of my agenda of how many times the editorial director mentions books I haven’t read but should. Realize how poorly read I am. Feel crappy about it. Try to redeem myself by offering to ask a past author for a blurb for a new author. Present new cover for lead fiction title. Consensus is it’s perfect but could use some changes.

11:55 am. Meeting over. Three tally marks. Not bad!

12:04 pm. Back in office. Open mail: four brochures from stock agencies, two from photographers, one from an indexer, three invoices from freelancers, and five submissions, including a hand-drawn children’s book with an SASE and a typewritten letter that begins “Dear Mr. Mazer.”

12:18 pm. Read pitch letter from agent for a sports anthology with recipes.

12:25 pm. Go to kitchen to microwave frozen Lean Cuisine for lunch and reheat coffee. Add a little sugar so I can think of it as dessert.

1:18 pm. More email: Manuscript arrives from supercool new author. Read revised intro. Love it. Write effusive email saying so. Delete some adjectives so I don’t sound fawning. Make notes for copyeditor (“Please retain all instances of the word vomitudinal.”) Glance at last page to see if I am included in the acknowledgments. (I am!) (Not that it matters or anything.)

1:35 pm. Phone rings. It’s the cover designer working on the lead fiction title. Tell her we love her design and we want very little changed, in fact she should pretty much keep it exactly the same, maybe just play with the type and the color scheme, and possibly experiment with the cover image, and could she change the title treatment hierarchy? But really, that’s all, it’s gorgeous just as it is …

1:50 pm. Launch Excel so I can start charting out editorial schedules for the fall titles. Set deadlines for each stage of each book, taking into account authors’ schedules, copyeditors’ schedules, proofreaders’ schedules, cover designers’ schedules, interior designers’ schedules, sales reps’ schedules, printer schedules, shipping schedules, national holidays, religious holidays, three-day weekends, and Mercury’s chances of going retrograde. Get halfway through before computer crashes. Resist urge to cry.

2:55 pm. Take Alleve. Eat another Luna bar. Tell myself it’s OK because they’re healthy.

3:08 pm. Read email from agent shopping a self-help memoir with recipes.

3:45 pm. Get intern to recreate my excel doc. Spend more time explaining how to recreate it than it would take to actually do it. Give her a submission from slush pile to review for the rest of the afternoon as reward for babysitting me.

4:10 pm. Work on catalog copy for new acquisition. Won’t have a manuscript until after catalog goes to press, so will have to crib from proposal but sexy-up the language. Wonder if “breathtaking narrative” is too generic. Wonder if it will have a breathtaking narrative.

4:18 pm. Take call from copyeditor wondering if she should apply standard or secondary rules pertaining to endnotes in reference to works in the public domain, and by the way do I prefer to hyphenate standard vernacular compound phraseology? Make up an answer to the first, tell her to use her judgment for the second, and offer her another project since she clearly knows CMS better than I do.

4:27 pm. Read query letter from author shopping a book of essays about her “musings, meanderings, and observations on life—with recipes.” She is sure it’s perfect for Oprah.

4:48 pm. Remember page proofs needed to go to author overnight, also realize FedEx pickup was an hour ago. Crap! Email author, asking if he could print the pages from an emailed PDF. Make vague reference to “working green” so he’ll think it’s for the environment.

5:22 pm. Run out the door for school pickups, late as usual. Drive a block, remember manuscript for tomorrow’s author call is still on desk. Curse at steering wheel. Risk illegal U-turn, run inside office, grab MS, get back in car. Add MS to pile on passenger seat. See cereal baggie. Eat cereal on way to preschool, wondering if there are any recipes in the passenger seat that might be good for dinner.

* Several months ago, Publishers Weekly printed a very funny piece called “A Day in the Life of a Book Publicist.” Thanks go out to the author of that piece for inspiring this post.

Just saw this over at Feministing and wanted to spread word:

On Monday, Yes Means Yes co-editors Jessica Valenti and Jaclyn Friedman will be livechatting on Feministing with contributors Miriam, Samhita and Cara from the Curvature and Feministe about the book.

The chat begins at 3 pm EST, here and, as all things Feministing, promises to be lively!

Buy the book, here.

And if a GWP reader would like to review it, please do email me, here: deborah (at) girlwpen (dot) com .

Today, another bookish post from the awesome Allison McCarthy!  Enjoy.  -Deborah

My knowledge of Isadora Duncan was previously limited to what I had learned in college, which is to say that I recalled a few vague details delivered in a 200-level dance/theater course.  Although there were no assigned textbooks in that class, I probably would have loved a class discussion on Sabrina Jones’ new graphic novel, Isadora Duncan: A Graphic Biography. At the very least, I’d have paid more attention.

Jones covers both the major milestones and the smaller details of Duncan’s life, career and love affairs.  From an early age, Duncan explicitly rejected traditional forms of dance like ballet in search of a looser, more natural technique based on, of all things, her study of how the ocean crests and waves.  Known by admirers as “the barefoot dancer,” Duncan is famous for her groundbreaking performances and free-spirited approach to touring; she danced in Soviet Russia, as well as all over the U.S. and Europe, eventually founding multiple schools for young women to learn her methods.  Throughout the book’s 125 pages, Jones effectively captures Duncan’s fanciful dance movements with precise, dazzling black-and-white illustrations.

Although Duncan never explicitly identified as a feminist, it’s clear that Jones views her as one: in the typical shorthand style of graphic artists, she recounts Duncan’s financial savvy, high level of education and her independence of thought, including her forays with the male intellectual elites of her time (F. Scott Fitzgerald, François-Auguste-René Rodin, and Abraham Walkowitz are among the most distinguished in her circle of friends).  Her detractors labeled her as a “Bolshevik hussy,” yet Duncan never once censored her art, opting instead to find new venues and audiences who would embrace her challenging works.  Entangled in several passionate affairs, Duncan ignored the nay-saying of her family and actively pursued younger men, older men, and other heterosexual relationships that were often seen as controversial in the early twentieth century.  Equally unconcerned with her society’s imposed duality of being a dancer and mother, Duncan was both, even in the face of enormous tragedy that includes the death of her two children in a tragic accident and the stillbirth of her third child.

The reading level of the book says ages 9-12, so older readers may breeze through the bold illustrations more quickly than the intended audience will.  This may also explain the tepid nature of the novel’s love scenes.  Unlike 2007’s Dangerous Woman: The Graphic Biography of Emma Goldman by Sharon Rudahl, Jones includes no nudity or adult language, which leaves some scenes with a softened, YA-romance feel rather than a mature rendering of Duncan’s oft-discussed sexuality.  Overall, however, this book presents a fascinating account of Isadora Duncan’s life and earns a strong position in the growing canon of literary graphic novels.

–Allison McCarthy

Those of you who know me know that Daphne Uviller is my beloved friend/sister-type whose backyard I got married in and who coedited the anthology Only Child with me.  So it brings me HUGE pleasure to spread word this morning about Daphne’s new novel, Super in the City, which goes on sale TODAY.

I seriously love this book, and not just because Daphne is my friend.  A comic mystery about a young woman who becomes the superintendent of her parents’ Greenwich Village brownstone, Super is, well, super. Publishers Weekly called it “…gleefully unpretentious… undoubtedly smarter and funnier than most other girls-in-the-city novels,” and Kirkus called Super “a funny, enjoyable caper.” The lovely and talented Elizabeth Gilbert christened it “intelligent candy.”  But find out for yourself. You can buy Super on Amazon and wherever books are sold.

For those in NYC, join me at Daphne’s readings, which you can learn about here.

A confession: I was so geeky excited about this friendlaunch that I took myself to the Border’s at Columbus Circle last night to see if the book was on the shelves.  And there it was, smack on the New Paperbacks table, as pictured here. When a friend as dear as Daphne publishes a book, it’s nearly as fun as when it’s my own.

Actually, maybe moreso.

Twice the fun and half the fret?!

(Congrats, my coed, YOU DID IT!!!!!!)

I’ve seen books that teach you how to apply lessons from private life to leadership in the office, but this one  takes leadership skills from the office and applies them to the home. The whole premise of Jamie Woolf’s Mom-in-Chief: How Wisdom from the Workplace Can Save Your Family from Chaos is that “being a mom means being a leader,” and the foreword is by none other than CEO of Working Mother Media Carol Evans.  While I have yet to pass judgment on whether business strategies that work in the workplace transfer to parenthood, what I’m most interested in here is the way the author has fortuitously capitalized on the Michele Obama moment to promote her book–a book that was finished, I am sure, long before Obama won the election.  Ingenius, I say.

Here’s from the promo material:

Michelle Obama Has What It Takes to Be Mom-in-Chief:
5 Lessons in Leadership That Mothers Can Learn From the New First Lady

Michelle Obama has stated that her focus when her husband takes office Jan. 20 will be serving as “mom-in-chief” to her daughters, Malia, 10, and Sasha, 7. Leadership expert Jamie Woolf, author of Mom-in-Chief: How Wisdom from the Workplace Can Save Your Family from Chaos (Jossey-Bass; 288 pages; $22.95) examines how Obama will lead her family through this challenging transition.

When President-elect Barack Obama moves into the White House, his aides and supporters will celebrate his historic achievement. His wife and kids will be glad he’ll finally be home for dinner. 
Michelle Obama, a high-powered lawyer and executive administrator, values family life and says she will strive to give her daughters as normal a life as possible despite their being in the pubic eye. While she intends to use her platform as first lady to be an advocate for women’s issues, military families and national service, her priority will be her children, not policy–especially in the first transition year.

Jamie Woolf, whose book teaches moms how to use “best practices” from the workplace to make family life run more smoothly, says that adopting business leadership strategies can make the difference between a smooth and a chaotic transition for any family. Here are the lessons she draws from Michelle Obama:

Lesson 1: Motherhood is a leadership job: By calling herself “mom-in-chief,’ Michelle Obama sends a message that being a mom means being a leader, giving her job a status not usually afforded mothers. By celebrating her role rather than apologizing for it, she connects the notion of leadership beyond the walls of corporate suites and presidential mansions to the homes of average parents. The best leaders, like the best parents, strive to provide the proper conditions in which others can grow and reach their highest aspirations.
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Hi and a happy January to all! I, for one, am having a very good month so far. My authors are all getting good reviews, my Fall 09 catalog copy is almost finished, and I’m close to acquiring a project I’m especially jazzed about. I’m a happy editor.

Still, I keep hearing that I should probably be more nervous about my job stability than I am. Maybe so. But then again I’m a not as distressed as many others are about the state of affairs in my beloved, yet admittedly whiplashed, industry, either. I figure, hey, sometimes it takes a good crisis to shake things up so they can settle back down in a better place. And if, in the middle of the hurricane, you end up making lifelong friends with your neighbors because you have a flashlight and they have bottled water and together you can find your way to the Dixie cups, then all the better for everyone in the end.

When things do settle, I’m hopeful that this is pretty close to what will shake out:

— The recognition that books are intellectual property and not just merchandise. Now, Borders Inc. doesn’t seem to buy into this theory—the new CEO just hired to orchestrate a turnaround comes from Pathmark grocery stores, the ultimate in big-box shopping models—but the rest of the publishing world seems to be gleaning the notion that a book isn’t just black letters on a white page—a story can be digitized, contextualized, reproduced, reconfigured, and repackaged to best serve the audience and the author. Anyone out there in love with a Kindle, or an iPhone, or even a fake twitter character’s storyline? That means more products, more ideas, more opportunities for authors.

— Fewer middle(wo)men. As the social networking capabilities become and better equipped to lead us to the content that most interests us, the less we’ll need to rely on Barnes & Noble product placement and big-budget publicity promotions to connect reader to author. As Richard Nash, the editorial director of Soft Skull Press, said this week in the Harvard Business Publishing online magazine: “For most of human existence, the output of art could never keep up with the demand. I believe that is now changing, and that’s why we’re seeing the great intermediaries in this process—record labels, movies studios, book publishing companies, Borders, etc.—start to shrink, or even fail. They relied on demand being so pent-up they didn’t really need to work very hard to match tastes, to connect artist and audience. But now that demand can in fact be sated, their lack of connection to either artist or audience may doom them.” As they say, ad posse, ad esse.

— More books, and better books. Independent publishers have long been able to produce quality books on thrifty budgets, and big houses are quickly going to have to pick up these think-small skills as well. With all this low-cost, efficient publishing, there should be more room, not less, for great ideas to reach their audiences. In other words: It’s OK if your book isn’t going to sell 60,000 copies, because your publisher won’t need it to to recoup the cost of its creation. You’ve got a 5,000-sales niche-driven book idea? Let’s hear it.

See you in February,

Laura

Thank you to those who responded to my question about what helps you stay on track with long writing projects the other day! The collective wisdom out there always humbles me. Writing can be so isolating, but I think it helps hugely when we share our difficulties and, importantly, our strategies for keeping it going. So in that spirit, here’s what some of you said:

Sez Dawn, of This Woman’s Work:
“Sanity comes from accepting that my life doesn’t have a neat, predictable schedule and not fighting that too hard. Writing around kids and clients (and currently without childcare) means missed opportunities and making myself crazy about that just makes me crazy — it doesn’t help. So acceptance. (sigh) Which is hard.”

Sez Anniegirl:
“Setting word counts and periodic deadlines for myself is helpful but sometimes taking a day or two away from the project lets me recharge or think or mentally reboot myself when I am wondering who the hell will I ever sell this to. I recall a writer who recommended physical activity as a way to literally run or walk yourself past the low spots or over the humps. I find I do my best writing while thinking during a workout. All I need is about 4 miles under my feet to get back on track.”

Sez Alison Piepmeier, of Baxter Sez:
“A little more than three years ago, I was at the beginning of writing my book on zines by girls and women….I couldn’t figure out what I wanted to say, and I got to the point of realizing that my writing days were done. Unbeknownst to me, I had already written the last intelligent thing I was ever going to write. The semester was about to start, I hadn’t finished a chapter, and I was sliding into a pit of despair.
Fortunately, I encountered Conseula at a campus meeting on a day that I was trying not to cry, and she, too, was feeling pretty despairing about her own writing project. So we decided to start a writing group. Claire, Conseula, and I have been a writing group ever since. It’s fantastic. The group buoys us emotionally, keeping us from staying long in those places where we feel like we have nothing to say, and it helps us to be productive: all three of us have finished book manuscripts in the time we’ve been together.”

Alison posts guidelines for starting such a group right here. Really great guidelines. I second them all!

Got more suggestions, wisdom to share? Keep it coming, GWPenners! I learn from you.