Posts
It was the date that caught my eye in a headlined story in the April 28 issue of Publishers Weekly: Crown Sets November 9 Pub Date for Bush Memoir, since that’s also my birthday. The article went on to say that Crown, one of many subsidiaries of Random House, announced that George W. Bush's forthcoming memoir, Decision Points, will hit stands that day and called it a "groundbreaking new brand of memoir” that will explore the 14 most important decisions in the author's life. Decision Points will be available simultaneously in hardcover and e-book (as well as audio) and be priced at $35. Crown is also planning to publish 1,000 cloth-bound signed copies of the book, available at $350. The book, Crown promises, not only “explores Bush's personal life—from the discovery of his faith to his decision to stop drinking—but also pivotal moments in his political career and presidency, from the tense time before the 2000 election result was announced, to the moments in the Situation Room before the start of the Iraq war, to the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.” The publisher says Bush "writes honestly and directly about his flaws and mistakes, as well as his historic achievements."
MY QUESTIONS ARE why the breathless, redundant prose and promises that are not likely to be realized? Is there such a thing as a “groundbreaking old brand of memoir?” Doesn’t the Crown publicist realize that Laura Bush, in her just released biography, takes credit for getting George to give up drinking? As for George Bush’s “historic achievements,” it’s hard for me to think of one, let alone plural achievements. Okay, they can’t expect our former president to discuss his “historic blunders,” but surely some other pitch would be more palatable. And finally, who is going to write this book for him since his mastery of the English language has never been one of his strong points or historical achievements?
A similar question arises again in the just released Spoken From The Heart, by Laura Bush. At the end of April, Michiko Kakutani reviewed her biography in The New York Times (reprinted days later in The Houston Chronicle), describing it as “really two books. The first is a deeply felt, keenly observed account of her childhood and youth in Texas — an account that captures a time and place with exacting emotional precision and that demonstrates how Mrs. Bush’s lifelong love of books has imprinted her imagination. The second book is a thoroughly conventional autobiography by a politician’s wife — a rote recitation of travel, public appearances and meetings with foreign dignitaries that sheds not the faintest new light on the presidency of the author’s husband… filled with the sort of spin and canned platitudes common in political autobiographies.”
THE BIG QUESTION HERE IS WHOSE “LIPS” DID THIS “HEART” SPEAK THROUGH? No hint on the cover, but Kakutani writes that Mrs. Bush acknowledged that Lyric Winik “helped me put my story into words.” It so happens that Winik, a 44-year- old award-winning writer, is a Phi Beta Kappa magnum cum laude graduate from Princeton, has a Masters degree in history from Johns Hopkins University, was the Washington Correspondent for Parade Magazine for eleven years where she wrote major profiles of key Washington figures, including Nancy Pelosi, Dick Cheney, Laura Bush, Ban Ki Moon, Condi Rice, and others, as well as in-depth reporting from Washington DC. Winik is under contract to Crown for her next book about Magellen’s voyage. Hardly your run-of-the mill helpmate, one can’t help but wonder who should get credit for this “deeply felt, keenly observed account of her childhood and youth in Texas — an account that captures a time and place with exacting emotional precision and that demonstrates how Mrs. Bush’s lifelong love of books has imprinted her imagination.”
In the old days, autobiographies written with the help of accomplished writers, would read, on the cover, “as told to…” But truth in advertising is no longer required when it comes to memoirs by celebrities.
Another random thought—a deeply disappointing one—comes to mind concerning Random House which once-upon-a-time set the standard for quality fiction. But since Crown, their subsidiary, also has its own imprints, it was sad to read another headlined story in PW on April 29: Crown Restructured Into Distinct Groups; Shaye Areheart Books Closed (“restructuring,” being polite double talk for “not profitable enough”). On their website, Areheart described themselves as specializing “in quality fiction, both literary and commercial, and feature a list of seasoned authors including Chris Bohjalian, Alice Hoffman, Lisa Unger, Gillian Flynn, Mary McGarry Morris, Katharine Weber, Allison Winn Scotch, Alicia Erian, Keith Donohue and debut novelists.” Yet that’s the increasing story over the last few decades: celebrities, the all consuming meat and potatoes of what big time publishing (and most big-time reviewing is about).
It makes me think of the common root shared by “celebrity,” whose prime definition is “fame,” and people who are “celebrated,” in the sense that they are honored for accomplishments regardless of how well known they are. This distinction arises since we’ve just released Michael Zitz’s Giving It All Away: The Doris Buffett Story. Warren is justly famous, while Doris is not, though his older sister is celebrated by thousands of people whose lives she has changed. One of the great pleasures of publishing this biography is letting the larger world know how significant her contributions have been, how she not only Speaks From The Heart but Puts Her Money Where Her Mouth Is. There is a remarkable four minute and 40 second video featuring Doris taken at Davidson College this past January, and everyone I know who has watched it came to the conclusion that people like Doris represent the very best instincts human beings are capable of—and what can be accomplished if heart and mind are in synchronicity. I hope you’ll take the time to watch this video and share your thoughts with me.
You’ll also have a chance to see Doris on Good Morning America on Monday, June 7, and again on Nightline that evening. The National Enquirer issue that goes on newsstands on May 5 (but has an issue date of May 17) devotes a full page to Doris Bufffett in their bi-monthly “Acts of Kindness” feature as well.
This May we have a second book to celebrate: Chris Knopf’s stand-alone thriller Elysiana. Will Chris get the wider coverage he deserves after having written five previously acclaimed mysteries in the last six years (four in his Sam Acquillo/Hamptons series that we published and another mystery for Minotaur, an imprint of St. Martin’s). Or will reviewers, such as Janet Maslin, continue covering thrillers by better-selling authors regardless of quality— like Harlan Coben’s Caught and Linwood Barclay’s Never Look Away—two novels she disliked in her double review in the Times, back in March. Or perhaps that’s part of Maslin’s job assignment: whenever possible review fiction from one of the six major publishing conglomerates, craftsmanship be damned. But for any discerning mystery reader who is reading this blog, here are links to two fine reviews of Elysiana, one from The Richmond Times Dispatch in a May 3rd posting and another from Small Press Reviews.
Which brings me to The Donkey Awards (see January 1, 2010 posting ANNOUNCING THE DONKEY AWARDS). On Saturday, June 5, the first Award for the “Best Abuse of Space for the Least Deserving Book” will be given out. Our six judges (Joan Baum, Bill Henderson, Dan Rattiner, Marc Schuster, Daniel Klein,and myself), all of us writers of published books, three of us publishers, and one a critic for National Public Radio, have narrowed the list of deserving reviewers to five finalists. As one judge, Danny Klein, best-selling author of Plato and a Platypus Walked into a Bar: Understanding Philosophy through Jokes and other fiction and non-fiction titles, points out: “Each year, 175,000 new titles are published in the USA. The New York Times receives upwards of 1,000 books for review consideration each week and publishes approximately 30 reviews (counting the Sunday Book Review). So we’re talking reviews of fewer than 1% of the books published. This would suggest that those selected for review should be in the top 1% of importance for the general reader. They should, above all, serve to alert the reader to new and significant ideas in print and major new works of literary fiction. Not so. Not even close. Overwhelmingly, The New York Times chooses to review books of or about popular culture: celebrity biographies and mysteries by bestselling authors. Rarely reviewed are new voices in literature, philosophy, or translations by significant foreign authors.”
The Donkey Award (Equus Asinus) is intended to highlight this absurdity. The finalists include Nellie McKay for her review of John Lennon, Walter Kirn for Solar, Stanley Fish for Going Rogue, and Janet Maslin for two reviews: her double review mentioned earier and for her review of Star. All finalists will be issued an invitation to join us for the award ceremony here in Sag Harbor, where the winner will receive an inscribed donkey trophy from our jurists. A live donkey will also be present.
Be sure to check out The Permanent Press web site, where our Newsletter will have further updates, as well as information about other titles.
Marty
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
WHAT MAKES A GOOD NOVEL...AND KINDRED MATTERS
Posted April 1st
Before going to Virgin Gorda on our annual vacation in mid-February, I made a trip to the Sag Harbor dump (officially called a ‘recycling center’) to leave our house-sitter, Georgeann Packard, empty garbage pails. On a ledge were two Robert B. Parker thrillers—his first two Sunny Randall novels—discards from the Peconic Library. Since Chris Knopf’s Sam Acquillo series was frequently compared to Parker’s Spencer series, I wanted to read Parker and see what he was about.
It’s been said that vacations can give one perspective, and this trip was certainly true for me, insofar as getting a handle on what makes a book special. I found Parker spellbinding and could easily see the comparisons: start off with a three dimensional narrator, toss in a colorful cast of other characters, offer up great dialogue, add dollops of humor along with the tension inherent in any great thriller, make sure there are surprise twists, and there you have it. Knopf and Parker could have been brothers separated at birth. So now I’m adding his oeuvre to my reading list (having read more than three fourths of Elmore Leonard’s novels—the other writer critics frequently cited when reviewing Chris’ first four Sam Acquillo books: The Last Refuge, Two Time, Head Wounds, and Hard Stop).
Then I read Stieg Larsson’s The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo that Lon Kirschner, our cover artist, sent along for me to take. A bit of a slog (it could have been trimmed by 25% and been even more effective), long on sadomasochistic scenes—three of them, as gruesome as any James Patterson might concoct—and at the end of the novel there was a fourth one, advertising the next in his posthumous series, The Girl Who Played with Fire. Despite two interesting protagonists, Lisbeth Salander and Mikael Bloomkvist, I’m not likely to read the next in the series.
After going through and rejecting a manuscript, I ran out of reading material, yet had another week left on this island paradise. So I searched some other units at Mango Bay, where we were staying, and picked thrillers written by several best-selling writers. There was David Baldacci’s Divine Justice and Ken Follet’s Jackdaws. Baldacci’s hero was as two-dimensional as flattened cardboard, his thoughts and actions straight out of a third rate television film. As for Follett, an interesting plot premise but, again, the characters out of Hollywood casting: a handsome Nazi, a beautiful British resistance fighter dropped behind the enemies lines in occupied France, and her handsome resistance fighter husband. Baldacci I was able to put down after the first dozen pages. I went two dozen pages before returning Follett.
And then I was saved by discovering Carl Hiaasen’s Double Whammy. Again, a good protagonist, excellent side characters and villains, an improbable yet inventive plot, and very funny scenes, while Hiaasen’s environmental concerns came through.
When I was a psychiatric resident at Mt Sinai Hospital many decades ago, someone asked one of the attending psychiatrists what the difference was between psychoanalysis and psychotherapy. He replied, “Psychoanalysis is what I do. Psychotherapy is what you do.” I enjoyed the humor of his remark, and that same pecking order comes up when defining the really good books. It’s tempting to say “Good books are what we publish,” but what is the second punch phrase? Because every publishing house comes out with some good books. It’s just that the conglomerates do so many schlocky books as well. One of the paperback editors we deal with (I think it was Rebecca Hunt at Penguin) said that this second category is what enables them to do some literary fiction. How, then, does one define an exceptional book—a question Judy raised as we sat watching a sunset on the beach. The best I could come up with after reading these novels was this:
If the major character is someone you want to know better—admire, have compassion for, want to spend time with or even someone who simply excites your curiosity in some way—this is the bedrock for a good novel. The same holds true for certain non-fiction too. Surely, there are other criteria that come into play as well (a good plot, a way with words, good dialogue and, when possible, some sense of humor), but without this affinity for/admiration of a character, these additional measuring sticks count for little. While this is entirely subjective, I could not see myself spending time with John or Elizabeth Edwards, Sarah Palin, or Karl Rove. And certainly not with the major protagonists in fiction written by Follett, Baldacci, Patterson, or Larsson no matter how many mainstream media reviews they get.
Thus, when ForeWord magazine announced after we returned stateside the finalists in their 2009 Book of the Year Awards (the finalists representing 360 publishers, selected from 1,400 entries in 60 categories), it was most heartening to discover that seven of them were novels we published. In the literary fiction category there are 15 finalists—five of which are ours: The Year Of Cats And Dogs (by Margaret Hawkins), Houri (Mehrdad Balali), Seducing The Spirits (Louise Young), The Disappearance (Efrem Sigel), and The History Of Now (Daniel Klein). In the mystery category there are 17 finalists and two of ours are among them: Every Boat Turns South (Jay White) and Hard Stop (Chris Knopf). And the one thing that every one of these novels had in common was that not only did Judy and I feel this strong affinity for the characters in these books but, quite obviously, so did the jurists.
Which brings us up to the excitement of launching two books in May where these criteria also hold. First, there is Elysiana, Chris Knopf’s fifth mystery for us. After winning countless praise and awards for his Sam Acquillo/Hamptons thrillers, which have been translated around the world, this is his first stand alone novel that takes place 40 years ago, at a beach resort off the Jersey coast. A pre-publication review in Publishers Weekly noted that “Smart dialogue and sharp social observations distinguish this stand-alone thriller from Knopf.” A starred review in Booklist adds that “A full baker’s dozen major characters swirl and collide as if in Brownian motion, moved by elemental forces. Signs and portents hint that something life changing, if not quite apocalyptic, will affect them all. Elysiana is a departure for Knopf, whose Sam Acquillo mysteries have won reviewers’ raves, but he nails it.”
Then, there is Michael Zitz’s Giving It All Away: The Doris Buffett Story, which will come out on the first of May when brother Warren’s Berkshire Hathaway Convention begins in Omaha, where both Doris and Warren will be signing copies of her biography. How we obtained this book—and the unique way we are marketing it—was the lead article in Publishers Weekly on Thursday, March 25. As for Doris, she is someone Judy and I fell in love with after reading the manuscript, for she is a philanthropic alchemist who has turned personal pain into joy by virtue of her giving away her fortune to individuals who, through no fault of their own, needed help to overcome adversity. Doris is a great example to anyone who cares about the biggest things in life—compassion, caring, and helping.
Nor does this affinity for characters end here. Two exceptional first novels that we’re publishing this year, Georgeann Packard’s Fall Asleep Forgetting, which appears in July (the same Georgeann who house sat for us while we were in Virgin Gorda to work on her second novel), and Liza Campbell’s The Dissemblers, due out in October, are also rich in people we found fascinating. We’ve nominated both for the $10,000 Flaherty Dunnan First Novel Prize awarded by the Center for Fiction.
Kindred Matters:
Overprinting and Returns vs. Non-returnables:
One of the banes of the publishing business has been the fact that nothing “sold” to bookstores or wholesalers is actually “sold,” since returns are allowable. In no other manufacturing business is this allowed. Clothing, groceries, alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages, games, pharmaceuticals, appliances, cars, music, electronics—you name it: once a store has purchased your product, they sell it, discount it as it ages, or accept a loss. In book publishing in general overall return rates are close to 50%, which means that there is much wasted work (shipping books back and forth, crediting returns) and money. Among conglomerates, huge returns can mean that even a Best Seller can lose money because of overprinting. Notorious for returns are the chain bookstores. Barnes & Noble is happy to accept thousands of books knowing that there is no liability for over ordering. In a sense, they can “paper the store” with selections, filling up bookshelves as a decorator would paste wallpaper in a home. In an earlier blog posted one year ago (May 12), entitled, WHERE I LEFT OFF, I documented how Barnes & Noble returned 90% of an order they placed with us after they selected one of our novels for their Great New Writers Program—and did this as well with a book published by Jill Schoolman’s Archipelago Press. It was a wake-up call in two ways: making us decide never to try selling our titles to the chains and also planting the seed that one day it would be nice to test the non-returnable market.
With the forthcoming release of Giving it All Away: The Doris Buffett Story, I felt we had the ideal book to try this with. After all, the chains no longer hold sway. Most consumers go straight to Amazon.com for the best deals. Plus, anything kept out of the chains is a help to the independent bookstores that the chains have helped eviscerate. So we’ve set up a non-returnable system, in conjunction with Amazon.com, the wholesaler Baker & Taylor, and independent bookstores who order five copies or more—giving them a 60% non-returnable discount, while offering the chains nothing at all. So far, this experiment is off to a good start with over 5,000 copies already sold and paid for in advance of publication.
An Update on The Donkey Awards:
In my January 1st blog post, ANNOUNCING THE DONKEY AWARDS, I listed a distinguished panel of writers and critics who would choose a winner for the Equus Asinus Award , given for the “Best Abuse of Space for the Least Deserving Book.” Janet Maslin, one of the three daily New York Times reviewers had several reviews on the list of submissions, but has clearly catapulted into the lead based upon her review in the March 26 issue, covering not one, but two crappy thrillers—Harlan Coben’s Caught and Linwood Barclay’s Never Look Away (I assume they are crappy because Maslin had nothing good to say about either of them, yet still gave them ample coverage): Dan Rattiner, humorist, writer, and founder of Dan’s Papers commented “Snide, stupid, condescending. A winner.” A second jurist, Joan Baum (an NPR and newspaper book critic) wrote “I agree. JM gets the Equus Award—schlock and crock.” We still have three more jurists to hear from.
It made me appreciate the usefulness of this award, How does a book critic who takes herself seriously ignore a Chris Knopf and cover such common trash? Is it because these titles come from Dutton and Random House imprints respectively, while Chris is published by a small press? Or did her years of being a film critic just get her in the groove of seeing a very high percentage of bad films which she felt obliged to cover.
In any event, I don’t mean this as a further knock on The New York Times. There are, actually, some very good reviewers working there. Dwight Garner, in my opinion, is atop the three daily critics by far. He seems to choose books that are frequently off the beaten path, writes about them in ways one would want to read them, and doesn’t go off the deep end in savaging anything; he clearly chooses to review books he finds interesting. New novelists published by small presses would likely get a decent hearing from him were he not restricted to doing non-fiction reviews. Marilyn Stasio does an excellent job of covering mysteries she likes no matter who publishes them (she reviewed the first three Chris Knopf mysteries in her Sunday Book Review column). Nor does Amy Virshup, in her short review column, Newly Released, that appears periodically in the weekday Times, waste space on pop-trash either, choosing, instead, books that she also likes, including some from true independent publishers. My regret is that Amy doesn’t do full length reviews.
I look forward to hearing your definition of what makes a good novel, feedback on The Donkey Award, or any other topic expressed in this blog. If you haven’t yet signed up to receive notification for subsequent blogs, I hope you will do so now. And do check out our ever-evolving and changing website, where our Newsletter is also updated monthly.
Marty
Before going to Virgin Gorda on our annual vacation in mid-February, I made a trip to the Sag Harbor dump (officially called a ‘recycling center’) to leave our house-sitter, Georgeann Packard, empty garbage pails. On a ledge were two Robert B. Parker thrillers—his first two Sunny Randall novels—discards from the Peconic Library. Since Chris Knopf’s Sam Acquillo series was frequently compared to Parker’s Spencer series, I wanted to read Parker and see what he was about.
It’s been said that vacations can give one perspective, and this trip was certainly true for me, insofar as getting a handle on what makes a book special. I found Parker spellbinding and could easily see the comparisons: start off with a three dimensional narrator, toss in a colorful cast of other characters, offer up great dialogue, add dollops of humor along with the tension inherent in any great thriller, make sure there are surprise twists, and there you have it. Knopf and Parker could have been brothers separated at birth. So now I’m adding his oeuvre to my reading list (having read more than three fourths of Elmore Leonard’s novels—the other writer critics frequently cited when reviewing Chris’ first four Sam Acquillo books: The Last Refuge, Two Time, Head Wounds, and Hard Stop).
Then I read Stieg Larsson’s The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo that Lon Kirschner, our cover artist, sent along for me to take. A bit of a slog (it could have been trimmed by 25% and been even more effective), long on sadomasochistic scenes—three of them, as gruesome as any James Patterson might concoct—and at the end of the novel there was a fourth one, advertising the next in his posthumous series, The Girl Who Played with Fire. Despite two interesting protagonists, Lisbeth Salander and Mikael Bloomkvist, I’m not likely to read the next in the series.
After going through and rejecting a manuscript, I ran out of reading material, yet had another week left on this island paradise. So I searched some other units at Mango Bay, where we were staying, and picked thrillers written by several best-selling writers. There was David Baldacci’s Divine Justice and Ken Follet’s Jackdaws. Baldacci’s hero was as two-dimensional as flattened cardboard, his thoughts and actions straight out of a third rate television film. As for Follett, an interesting plot premise but, again, the characters out of Hollywood casting: a handsome Nazi, a beautiful British resistance fighter dropped behind the enemies lines in occupied France, and her handsome resistance fighter husband. Baldacci I was able to put down after the first dozen pages. I went two dozen pages before returning Follett.
And then I was saved by discovering Carl Hiaasen’s Double Whammy. Again, a good protagonist, excellent side characters and villains, an improbable yet inventive plot, and very funny scenes, while Hiaasen’s environmental concerns came through.
When I was a psychiatric resident at Mt Sinai Hospital many decades ago, someone asked one of the attending psychiatrists what the difference was between psychoanalysis and psychotherapy. He replied, “Psychoanalysis is what I do. Psychotherapy is what you do.” I enjoyed the humor of his remark, and that same pecking order comes up when defining the really good books. It’s tempting to say “Good books are what we publish,” but what is the second punch phrase? Because every publishing house comes out with some good books. It’s just that the conglomerates do so many schlocky books as well. One of the paperback editors we deal with (I think it was Rebecca Hunt at Penguin) said that this second category is what enables them to do some literary fiction. How, then, does one define an exceptional book—a question Judy raised as we sat watching a sunset on the beach. The best I could come up with after reading these novels was this:
If the major character is someone you want to know better—admire, have compassion for, want to spend time with or even someone who simply excites your curiosity in some way—this is the bedrock for a good novel. The same holds true for certain non-fiction too. Surely, there are other criteria that come into play as well (a good plot, a way with words, good dialogue and, when possible, some sense of humor), but without this affinity for/admiration of a character, these additional measuring sticks count for little. While this is entirely subjective, I could not see myself spending time with John or Elizabeth Edwards, Sarah Palin, or Karl Rove. And certainly not with the major protagonists in fiction written by Follett, Baldacci, Patterson, or Larsson no matter how many mainstream media reviews they get.
Thus, when ForeWord magazine announced after we returned stateside the finalists in their 2009 Book of the Year Awards (the finalists representing 360 publishers, selected from 1,400 entries in 60 categories), it was most heartening to discover that seven of them were novels we published. In the literary fiction category there are 15 finalists—five of which are ours: The Year Of Cats And Dogs (by Margaret Hawkins), Houri (Mehrdad Balali), Seducing The Spirits (Louise Young), The Disappearance (Efrem Sigel), and The History Of Now (Daniel Klein). In the mystery category there are 17 finalists and two of ours are among them: Every Boat Turns South (Jay White) and Hard Stop (Chris Knopf). And the one thing that every one of these novels had in common was that not only did Judy and I feel this strong affinity for the characters in these books but, quite obviously, so did the jurists.
Which brings us up to the excitement of launching two books in May where these criteria also hold. First, there is Elysiana, Chris Knopf’s fifth mystery for us. After winning countless praise and awards for his Sam Acquillo/Hamptons thrillers, which have been translated around the world, this is his first stand alone novel that takes place 40 years ago, at a beach resort off the Jersey coast. A pre-publication review in Publishers Weekly noted that “Smart dialogue and sharp social observations distinguish this stand-alone thriller from Knopf.” A starred review in Booklist adds that “A full baker’s dozen major characters swirl and collide as if in Brownian motion, moved by elemental forces. Signs and portents hint that something life changing, if not quite apocalyptic, will affect them all. Elysiana is a departure for Knopf, whose Sam Acquillo mysteries have won reviewers’ raves, but he nails it.”
Then, there is Michael Zitz’s Giving It All Away: The Doris Buffett Story, which will come out on the first of May when brother Warren’s Berkshire Hathaway Convention begins in Omaha, where both Doris and Warren will be signing copies of her biography. How we obtained this book—and the unique way we are marketing it—was the lead article in Publishers Weekly on Thursday, March 25. As for Doris, she is someone Judy and I fell in love with after reading the manuscript, for she is a philanthropic alchemist who has turned personal pain into joy by virtue of her giving away her fortune to individuals who, through no fault of their own, needed help to overcome adversity. Doris is a great example to anyone who cares about the biggest things in life—compassion, caring, and helping.
Nor does this affinity for characters end here. Two exceptional first novels that we’re publishing this year, Georgeann Packard’s Fall Asleep Forgetting, which appears in July (the same Georgeann who house sat for us while we were in Virgin Gorda to work on her second novel), and Liza Campbell’s The Dissemblers, due out in October, are also rich in people we found fascinating. We’ve nominated both for the $10,000 Flaherty Dunnan First Novel Prize awarded by the Center for Fiction.
Kindred Matters:
Overprinting and Returns vs. Non-returnables:
One of the banes of the publishing business has been the fact that nothing “sold” to bookstores or wholesalers is actually “sold,” since returns are allowable. In no other manufacturing business is this allowed. Clothing, groceries, alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages, games, pharmaceuticals, appliances, cars, music, electronics—you name it: once a store has purchased your product, they sell it, discount it as it ages, or accept a loss. In book publishing in general overall return rates are close to 50%, which means that there is much wasted work (shipping books back and forth, crediting returns) and money. Among conglomerates, huge returns can mean that even a Best Seller can lose money because of overprinting. Notorious for returns are the chain bookstores. Barnes & Noble is happy to accept thousands of books knowing that there is no liability for over ordering. In a sense, they can “paper the store” with selections, filling up bookshelves as a decorator would paste wallpaper in a home. In an earlier blog posted one year ago (May 12), entitled, WHERE I LEFT OFF, I documented how Barnes & Noble returned 90% of an order they placed with us after they selected one of our novels for their Great New Writers Program—and did this as well with a book published by Jill Schoolman’s Archipelago Press. It was a wake-up call in two ways: making us decide never to try selling our titles to the chains and also planting the seed that one day it would be nice to test the non-returnable market.
With the forthcoming release of Giving it All Away: The Doris Buffett Story, I felt we had the ideal book to try this with. After all, the chains no longer hold sway. Most consumers go straight to Amazon.com for the best deals. Plus, anything kept out of the chains is a help to the independent bookstores that the chains have helped eviscerate. So we’ve set up a non-returnable system, in conjunction with Amazon.com, the wholesaler Baker & Taylor, and independent bookstores who order five copies or more—giving them a 60% non-returnable discount, while offering the chains nothing at all. So far, this experiment is off to a good start with over 5,000 copies already sold and paid for in advance of publication.
An Update on The Donkey Awards:
In my January 1st blog post, ANNOUNCING THE DONKEY AWARDS, I listed a distinguished panel of writers and critics who would choose a winner for the Equus Asinus Award , given for the “Best Abuse of Space for the Least Deserving Book.” Janet Maslin, one of the three daily New York Times reviewers had several reviews on the list of submissions, but has clearly catapulted into the lead based upon her review in the March 26 issue, covering not one, but two crappy thrillers—Harlan Coben’s Caught and Linwood Barclay’s Never Look Away (I assume they are crappy because Maslin had nothing good to say about either of them, yet still gave them ample coverage): Dan Rattiner, humorist, writer, and founder of Dan’s Papers commented “Snide, stupid, condescending. A winner.” A second jurist, Joan Baum (an NPR and newspaper book critic) wrote “I agree. JM gets the Equus Award—schlock and crock.” We still have three more jurists to hear from.
It made me appreciate the usefulness of this award, How does a book critic who takes herself seriously ignore a Chris Knopf and cover such common trash? Is it because these titles come from Dutton and Random House imprints respectively, while Chris is published by a small press? Or did her years of being a film critic just get her in the groove of seeing a very high percentage of bad films which she felt obliged to cover.
In any event, I don’t mean this as a further knock on The New York Times. There are, actually, some very good reviewers working there. Dwight Garner, in my opinion, is atop the three daily critics by far. He seems to choose books that are frequently off the beaten path, writes about them in ways one would want to read them, and doesn’t go off the deep end in savaging anything; he clearly chooses to review books he finds interesting. New novelists published by small presses would likely get a decent hearing from him were he not restricted to doing non-fiction reviews. Marilyn Stasio does an excellent job of covering mysteries she likes no matter who publishes them (she reviewed the first three Chris Knopf mysteries in her Sunday Book Review column). Nor does Amy Virshup, in her short review column, Newly Released, that appears periodically in the weekday Times, waste space on pop-trash either, choosing, instead, books that she also likes, including some from true independent publishers. My regret is that Amy doesn’t do full length reviews.
I look forward to hearing your definition of what makes a good novel, feedback on The Donkey Award, or any other topic expressed in this blog. If you haven’t yet signed up to receive notification for subsequent blogs, I hope you will do so now. And do check out our ever-evolving and changing website, where our Newsletter is also updated monthly.
Marty
Monday, March 1, 2010
APPLAUDING/APPALLING
Applauding: Herb Simon and Marc Winkelman
Much applause is due to Herb Simon, who has acquired Kirkus Reviews. Simon, who is the owner of the National Basketball Association’s Indiana Pacers, is also Chairman Emeritus of Simon Property Group, an S&P 500 corporation. It will operate under the name Kirkus Media and be led by Marc Winkelman—a colleague with an extensive background in the book business. Better yet, both Simon and Winkelman are co-owners of Tecolote Books, an independent bookstore in Montecito, California.
To quote Simon: “I love books and have long subscribed to Kirkus. At a time when even the definition of a book is changing, my love of books makes me want to be part of the solution for the book publishing industry.” Winkelman noted that “we want to serve the whole range of readers including librarians, booksellers, publishing professional’s, and entertainment industry insiders.” That the 77 year old Kirkus will be headed by these two people—where an interest in books is the primary reason for taking on this task—is cause for rejoicing for those who appreciate quality fiction and artful non-fiction. Other than Publishers Weekly, there are few publications left that are still functioning on that level, and Kirkus, with its 3,000 reviews a year—is vital in calling attention to new and talented writers who are largely ignored by mainstream media.
Appalling: Bill Keller
First, some background about 61 year-old Bill Keller, son of George M. Keller, former CEO of Chevron Corporation, the world-wide conglomerate formed after Standard Oil acquired several competing companies way back when. Bill became a journalist immediately after graduating from Pomona College in 1970, working for various newspapers as a reporter before coming to The New York Times in 1984 as a reporter in the Washington D.C. bureau. Then it was on to the Moscow bureau in 1986, which he headed by 1988. In 1992 he became Bureau Chief in Johannesburg. His next post was as Foreign Editor in 1995, Managing Editor by 1997, and then, after serving as Op-ed columnist and senior writer, he became the Executive Editor in July, 2003, where he still serves today. Clearly an impressive career. If you read the masthead of the Times, it becomes apparent that Bill Keller is the most powerful person at the newspaper, his name coming right below that of Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, the publisher. Keller also won the Pulitzer Prize in 1989 for covering the collapse of the Soviet Union. He’s obviously made many of the right moves, but his gifts as a journalist did not prevent him from making several clunkers to my mind—like being a “liberal” supporter of George Bush’s invasion of Iraq, calling for the resignation of Colin Powell for pursuing a diplomatic solution at the UN that he thought ineffective, and defending reporter Judith Miller for failing to tell prosecutors who, in the Bush White House, fed her a story that resulted in the outing of Valerie Palme—the CIA spy whose husband was a formidable critic of the invasion of Iraq.
Politics aside, less than six months after becoming Managing Editor, Bill Keller—a man with no known literary background—announced changes in the way that books would be covered at the Times. For those who value good books—and there are many of us out there—his decisions have had a profound effect on what is worth covering. I quote from an interview he gave to Margo Hammond and Ellen Heltzel on January 21, 2004. In his defense, I praise Keller for his honesty; far preferable to the run-arounds given by Jon Landman, head of the Culture Desk at the Times and Kate Bouton who, before retiring, insisted in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, that the Times tries to achieve a balance between high culture and low. Still, I would have been embarrassed to talk so openly about disinterest in books of quality and to show such ignorance when it comes to his assessments of what is out there. The same could be said for Steve Erlanger, also quoted in this interview, who—like Keller—had journalistic assignments all over the world before he became Editor of the Culture Desk between 2002 and 2004. Here, too, I applaud Erlanger’s great honesty regarding the crap he reviewed positively.
I quote from the interview, which was entitled The Plot Thickens at The New York Times Book Review:
Publishing insiders have watched nervously since Steven Erlanger became cultural editor at The New York Times and began altering the focus of the daily "Books of the Times." Well, they ain't seen nothin' yet. When we sat down with executive editor Bill Keller last week, he promised "dramatic changes" in the Sunday section now that head honcho Chip McGrath is stepping aside. He also indicated that the top brass is rethinking book coverage top to bottom. And which way are the winds blowing?
Well, if you write non-fiction, review non-fiction, or prefer to read non-fiction, break out the champagne. "The most compelling ideas tend to be in the non-fiction world," Keller says. "Because we are a newspaper, we should be more skewed toward non-fiction."
What's more, if you're perplexed or simply bored with what passes for smart fiction these days, the Times feels your pain. More attention will be paid to the potboilers, we're told. After all, says Keller, somebody's got to tell you what book to choose at the airport.
And who will carry out this mandate? Regarding McGrath's replacement, Keller won't name names yet. But he did say that they're down to three or four finalists, none of them inside staffers. An announcement is just weeks away.
A big step in this process—and the one that may have sent the higher-ups into brainstorming mode—involved inviting about a dozen of the most promising candidates to write "diagnostic essays" on how the Sunday section ought to change. The consensus: Reviews need to be more varied in length, and more contentious. But that's just tinkering around the edges. The bigger news concerns what will be covered. Author interviews, a column on the publishing industry, a decrease in fiction reviews and more about mass market books—this appears to be the recipe for making the NYTBR less formulaic and more vital.
Although Keller's ascendancy has brought plenty of reshuffling at the Times, in the case of the Sunday book review, perceptions in and outside the paper seem to have meshed. Critics have dunned the section for dullness. Even while praising McGrath's exceptional editing skills, Keller made clear that he has different priorities. "I love that Chip championed first novels," he says, then offers the rhetorical question: But why take up 800 words when a paragraph will do? The conclusion was that contemporary fiction has received more column inches than it deserves.
"Of course, some fiction needs to be done," Keller says. "We'll do the new Updike, the new Roth, the new Jonathan Franzen or Zadie Smith. But there are not a lot of them, it seems to me." He gets no argument from Erlanger. "To be honest, there's so much shit," the new leader of the daily arts section observes. "Most of the things we praise aren't very good."
Traditionally, chief critic Michiko Kakutani has handled most of the literary fiction for the daily. Her star remains untarnished; Keller refers to her appreciatively as "queen of the hill." Former movie critic Janet Maslin has shown a predilection for commercial fiction, a taste the Times endorses. As with most newspapers, management is obsessed with attracting younger readers and sees mass market titles as one entry point—as long as they're done, Keller says, in a "witty" way appropriate to the Times' sophisticated reader.
Regarding daily coverage, under Erlanger "We need to do more policy and history," he says. "We need to be more urgent and journalistic." For him, this means assigning books with hopes of eliciting some sparks. Example: He asked Max Boot, a conservative on the Council of Foreign Relations, to review "Freedom on Fire: Human Rights Wars and America's Response," by Clinton Administration veteran John Shattuck. "I like to mix it up," Erlanger says. "If I could start another Mailer/Vidal fight, I'd gladly do it."
Some of the non-fiction books he reviews for "urgency" are poorly written, he admits, but for him this is less important than the book's contents. He and Keller, both prize-winning former foreign correspondents, see books as a launching pad for discussion. "Book reviews are partly a consumer service," Keller says, but they also "should be written for people who don't have any intention of buying the book."
So there's the recipe: Emphasize non-fiction books. Demote literary fiction. Promote (judiciously) commercial novels. Cover the book industry more and individual titles less.
Given its pivotal role in the marketing of books, the Times is likely to accelerate trends already apparent in book publishing. The potential implications are huge, suggesting bigger advances for blockbusters and celebrities, including those who wish to exploit their "public service" in the nation's capital, and scaled-down high-brow fiction lists, based on the assumption that if such books can't get ink in the toney Times, they won't have a prayer in USA Today or Entertainment Weekly.
Whether or not the Times' analysis of the market and its readers is correct, it's based on Keller’s reasoning. In the views expressed by its decision-makers, too few works of fiction rise to the level of a "novel of ideas"—that is, stories that express the concerns and issues of the day as Dickens did. And given these odds, the Times would rather devote resources to fostering debate than discovering and nurturing imaginative writing.
Enough quoting and time for reflection:
Finally, it’s become clear to me why the Times reviews books as they do, and why coverage of the Sunday Book Review has changed substantially since Chip McGrath left and Sam Tanenhaus replaced him. And why the book reviews in the daily Arts and Culture pages read as they do. Critiquing reviewers, their choices, or advertisers is akin to blaming a junior officer for the war in Iraq, when it’s the people at the top who give the marching orders.
My final questions are these: How have these journalists become the high priests of fiction? And do we not have novels of ideas, expressed cogently, imaginatively and skillfully that reflect life in our times? Or has this all disappeared with the death of Charles Dickens? I’d welcome your comments.
So might Bill Keller and the publisher of the Times, Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr. The phone number at the Times is 212-556-1234; the mailing address is 620 Eighth Avenue, New York City 10018.
Marty
Much applause is due to Herb Simon, who has acquired Kirkus Reviews. Simon, who is the owner of the National Basketball Association’s Indiana Pacers, is also Chairman Emeritus of Simon Property Group, an S&P 500 corporation. It will operate under the name Kirkus Media and be led by Marc Winkelman—a colleague with an extensive background in the book business. Better yet, both Simon and Winkelman are co-owners of Tecolote Books, an independent bookstore in Montecito, California.
To quote Simon: “I love books and have long subscribed to Kirkus. At a time when even the definition of a book is changing, my love of books makes me want to be part of the solution for the book publishing industry.” Winkelman noted that “we want to serve the whole range of readers including librarians, booksellers, publishing professional’s, and entertainment industry insiders.” That the 77 year old Kirkus will be headed by these two people—where an interest in books is the primary reason for taking on this task—is cause for rejoicing for those who appreciate quality fiction and artful non-fiction. Other than Publishers Weekly, there are few publications left that are still functioning on that level, and Kirkus, with its 3,000 reviews a year—is vital in calling attention to new and talented writers who are largely ignored by mainstream media.
Appalling: Bill Keller
First, some background about 61 year-old Bill Keller, son of George M. Keller, former CEO of Chevron Corporation, the world-wide conglomerate formed after Standard Oil acquired several competing companies way back when. Bill became a journalist immediately after graduating from Pomona College in 1970, working for various newspapers as a reporter before coming to The New York Times in 1984 as a reporter in the Washington D.C. bureau. Then it was on to the Moscow bureau in 1986, which he headed by 1988. In 1992 he became Bureau Chief in Johannesburg. His next post was as Foreign Editor in 1995, Managing Editor by 1997, and then, after serving as Op-ed columnist and senior writer, he became the Executive Editor in July, 2003, where he still serves today. Clearly an impressive career. If you read the masthead of the Times, it becomes apparent that Bill Keller is the most powerful person at the newspaper, his name coming right below that of Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, the publisher. Keller also won the Pulitzer Prize in 1989 for covering the collapse of the Soviet Union. He’s obviously made many of the right moves, but his gifts as a journalist did not prevent him from making several clunkers to my mind—like being a “liberal” supporter of George Bush’s invasion of Iraq, calling for the resignation of Colin Powell for pursuing a diplomatic solution at the UN that he thought ineffective, and defending reporter Judith Miller for failing to tell prosecutors who, in the Bush White House, fed her a story that resulted in the outing of Valerie Palme—the CIA spy whose husband was a formidable critic of the invasion of Iraq.
Politics aside, less than six months after becoming Managing Editor, Bill Keller—a man with no known literary background—announced changes in the way that books would be covered at the Times. For those who value good books—and there are many of us out there—his decisions have had a profound effect on what is worth covering. I quote from an interview he gave to Margo Hammond and Ellen Heltzel on January 21, 2004. In his defense, I praise Keller for his honesty; far preferable to the run-arounds given by Jon Landman, head of the Culture Desk at the Times and Kate Bouton who, before retiring, insisted in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, that the Times tries to achieve a balance between high culture and low. Still, I would have been embarrassed to talk so openly about disinterest in books of quality and to show such ignorance when it comes to his assessments of what is out there. The same could be said for Steve Erlanger, also quoted in this interview, who—like Keller—had journalistic assignments all over the world before he became Editor of the Culture Desk between 2002 and 2004. Here, too, I applaud Erlanger’s great honesty regarding the crap he reviewed positively.
I quote from the interview, which was entitled The Plot Thickens at The New York Times Book Review:
Publishing insiders have watched nervously since Steven Erlanger became cultural editor at The New York Times and began altering the focus of the daily "Books of the Times." Well, they ain't seen nothin' yet. When we sat down with executive editor Bill Keller last week, he promised "dramatic changes" in the Sunday section now that head honcho Chip McGrath is stepping aside. He also indicated that the top brass is rethinking book coverage top to bottom. And which way are the winds blowing?
Well, if you write non-fiction, review non-fiction, or prefer to read non-fiction, break out the champagne. "The most compelling ideas tend to be in the non-fiction world," Keller says. "Because we are a newspaper, we should be more skewed toward non-fiction."
What's more, if you're perplexed or simply bored with what passes for smart fiction these days, the Times feels your pain. More attention will be paid to the potboilers, we're told. After all, says Keller, somebody's got to tell you what book to choose at the airport.
And who will carry out this mandate? Regarding McGrath's replacement, Keller won't name names yet. But he did say that they're down to three or four finalists, none of them inside staffers. An announcement is just weeks away.
A big step in this process—and the one that may have sent the higher-ups into brainstorming mode—involved inviting about a dozen of the most promising candidates to write "diagnostic essays" on how the Sunday section ought to change. The consensus: Reviews need to be more varied in length, and more contentious. But that's just tinkering around the edges. The bigger news concerns what will be covered. Author interviews, a column on the publishing industry, a decrease in fiction reviews and more about mass market books—this appears to be the recipe for making the NYTBR less formulaic and more vital.
Although Keller's ascendancy has brought plenty of reshuffling at the Times, in the case of the Sunday book review, perceptions in and outside the paper seem to have meshed. Critics have dunned the section for dullness. Even while praising McGrath's exceptional editing skills, Keller made clear that he has different priorities. "I love that Chip championed first novels," he says, then offers the rhetorical question: But why take up 800 words when a paragraph will do? The conclusion was that contemporary fiction has received more column inches than it deserves.
"Of course, some fiction needs to be done," Keller says. "We'll do the new Updike, the new Roth, the new Jonathan Franzen or Zadie Smith. But there are not a lot of them, it seems to me." He gets no argument from Erlanger. "To be honest, there's so much shit," the new leader of the daily arts section observes. "Most of the things we praise aren't very good."
Traditionally, chief critic Michiko Kakutani has handled most of the literary fiction for the daily. Her star remains untarnished; Keller refers to her appreciatively as "queen of the hill." Former movie critic Janet Maslin has shown a predilection for commercial fiction, a taste the Times endorses. As with most newspapers, management is obsessed with attracting younger readers and sees mass market titles as one entry point—as long as they're done, Keller says, in a "witty" way appropriate to the Times' sophisticated reader.
Regarding daily coverage, under Erlanger "We need to do more policy and history," he says. "We need to be more urgent and journalistic." For him, this means assigning books with hopes of eliciting some sparks. Example: He asked Max Boot, a conservative on the Council of Foreign Relations, to review "Freedom on Fire: Human Rights Wars and America's Response," by Clinton Administration veteran John Shattuck. "I like to mix it up," Erlanger says. "If I could start another Mailer/Vidal fight, I'd gladly do it."
Some of the non-fiction books he reviews for "urgency" are poorly written, he admits, but for him this is less important than the book's contents. He and Keller, both prize-winning former foreign correspondents, see books as a launching pad for discussion. "Book reviews are partly a consumer service," Keller says, but they also "should be written for people who don't have any intention of buying the book."
So there's the recipe: Emphasize non-fiction books. Demote literary fiction. Promote (judiciously) commercial novels. Cover the book industry more and individual titles less.
Given its pivotal role in the marketing of books, the Times is likely to accelerate trends already apparent in book publishing. The potential implications are huge, suggesting bigger advances for blockbusters and celebrities, including those who wish to exploit their "public service" in the nation's capital, and scaled-down high-brow fiction lists, based on the assumption that if such books can't get ink in the toney Times, they won't have a prayer in USA Today or Entertainment Weekly.
Whether or not the Times' analysis of the market and its readers is correct, it's based on Keller’s reasoning. In the views expressed by its decision-makers, too few works of fiction rise to the level of a "novel of ideas"—that is, stories that express the concerns and issues of the day as Dickens did. And given these odds, the Times would rather devote resources to fostering debate than discovering and nurturing imaginative writing.
Enough quoting and time for reflection:
Finally, it’s become clear to me why the Times reviews books as they do, and why coverage of the Sunday Book Review has changed substantially since Chip McGrath left and Sam Tanenhaus replaced him. And why the book reviews in the daily Arts and Culture pages read as they do. Critiquing reviewers, their choices, or advertisers is akin to blaming a junior officer for the war in Iraq, when it’s the people at the top who give the marching orders.
My final questions are these: How have these journalists become the high priests of fiction? And do we not have novels of ideas, expressed cogently, imaginatively and skillfully that reflect life in our times? Or has this all disappeared with the death of Charles Dickens? I’d welcome your comments.
So might Bill Keller and the publisher of the Times, Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr. The phone number at the Times is 212-556-1234; the mailing address is 620 Eighth Avenue, New York City 10018.
Marty
Sunday, January 31, 2010
JAMES PATTERSON, DWIGHT GARNER, and DORIS BUFFETT
Months ago, taking household garbage to the dump in Sag Harbor, I found a paperback of James Patterson’s 1ST TO DIE lying on a ledge for the taking, which I did. I’d never read him, and thought it might be worth reading on the plane when heading for our annual vacation in Virgin Gorda in February. Then, on January 24, The New York Times Magazine ran a cover story, James Patterson Inc., about the author who will be publishing nine books this year with Little Brown, an imprint of Hachette, one of the “Big Six” conglomerates. I was told by two people to read this article before posting this blog, and so I did. Rather than be put-off by this profile, I was impressed by it. Here’s a guy who started out wanting to be a writer and went, eventually, from a extremely successful ad man to an author whose first mystery won an Edgar Award. I liked the fact that he had a very rich reading background; that many of the writers he read as a young guy were the same ones I’d read and admired. I appreciated the fact that he’s written in many different genre’s, including books for kids, to help encourage reading. Also, the fact that he didn’t care what most critics had to say about his work, because his audience was vast: one out of every 17 adult trade hardcover books sold in America was written by him. I was intrigued by him saying that his thrillers were characterized by dialogue and action, as opposed to lots of background and painting scenery—that they were page turners, since the three writers of suspenseful novels I treasure the most—John le Carré, Elmore Leonard, and Chris Knopf—all write exceptional page turners that feature excellent dialogue and action. So what if Patterson employed 9 “assistants” who helped flesh out his plots and whose writing he supervised? Didn’t Michelangelo also employ assistants to paint the Sistine Chapel? And so I decided to start reading his recycled paperback four nights ago.
At which time the bubble burst and a different appreciation appeared. For the dialogue could have been written by an undistinguished high school junior, the characters had no depth, and the action was gore, violent and scary, like a Freddy Krueger film: slash, frighten, and terrorize… the very stuff of pop culture. What I came to appreciate was not Patterson’s writing (I put it aside at page 41, for it was a book that would have joined the other 5,000 rejects we turn away each year had we seen it in manuscript form), but how he fit so perfectly into what the largest corporate publishers have evolved into and increasingly desire; emphasizing the lowest cultural denominator—books that provide the largest audiences in both fiction and non-fiction that favor celebrities, gossip, scandals, and frivolous political coverage. The sort of books that are regularly reviewed by critics and are not very different than what one hears and sees on television’s nightly news cycles plus Entertainment Tonight. In America, the big political debate is about Main Street versus Wall Street, while in book publishing and publicizing there is no debate at all because it’s all about Madison Avenue.
There is a tale told about a middle-aged American from Kansas who, visiting Jerusalem set off to see the sights. When he got to the Wailing Wall he came upon something he’d never seen before: a thin young man in a black coat, with long curls growing where sideburns would be, wearing a yarmulke, rocking back and forth and bringing his head into contact with the wall while chanting in Hebrew. When he was finished, the American asked what he was doing. “Praying,” he answered. “Praying for what?”
“World peace,” came the answer. The Midwesterner asked if he thought it was working, to which the Israeli replied “It’s like hitting your head against a brick wall.”
It reminded me that in my last blog I noted that many guest reviewers started to appear in mid December in the daily Arts section of The New York Times, and that this might signify a change in coverage. But with the New Year it was apparent that Kakutani, Maslin, and Garner were absent only for a Christmas vacation and were now back in full force. In order to avoid a headache by praying for a different approach, I’m taking a bye from criticizing the critics. But I would like to send you one distinguished critic’s take on his profession that appeared in Salon.com in 1996, entitled CRISIS IN CRITVILLE: Why You can’t Trust Book Reviews. What follows are relevant excerpts:
In a tart and clear-eyed essay he titled "Confessions of a Book Reviewer," George Orwell once wrote that it is "almost impossible to mention books in bulk without grossly overpraising the great majority of them." And he added, perhaps unnecessarily: "Until one has some kind of professional relationship with books one does not discover how bad the majority of them are.”
Q: If Orwell's thesis about critics "grossly overpraising" books is still true, how can I test it? The next time you bump into a book critic at a party, ask what he or she has read in the past six months that's really blown their hair back, that they've really admired. Chances are they'll be stumped—at least long enough for you to refill your drink— even if they've written a heap of glowing reviews during that time. (In print, they purred about the new Edwidge Danticat or Thomas Beller book. In person, they get cagey.) I propose a new rule: Critics may only praise books they're willing to force their friends to read.
Q: Why do I keep buying highly-praised books that turn out to really suck?
Three words: literary grade inflation. Critics read so much gray, mealy, well-intentioned schlock that anyone who is halfway readable—T. Coraghessan Boyle! Barbara Kingsolver! Gish Jen! —begins to seem like a Writer for the Ages. Another word: laziness. It's far easier to write a positive review than a negative one. (Think about the mash notes you've written. Now think of the break-up letters.) Certain plummy phrases—"deeply-felt first novel," for instance, or "one of the best young writers of his/her generation"—practically come pre-programmed on the junior reviewer's laptop. Dissent, on the other hand, requires a deft touch, a nice high style, and enough knowledge and vigor to make your opinions stick.
Q: Are there any great, eagle-eyed, up-and-coming attack dogs out there?
Not really. Walter Kirn, the regular book columnist for New York magazine, isn't exactly a critical hero of mine, but he had a nice run going last year, grandly letting the air out of a whole pile of overpraised novels (including Cormac McCarthy's "The Crossing" and Howard Norman's "The Bird Artist"). You felt that, among the critics writing in the glossies anyway, Kirn was at least reviewing as if books really mattered.
Q: So, then, are there any reliable young critics I can hitch my reading to?
Nope, sorry. Kirn's fine for high, inside hardballs, and he's always a pleasure to read. But he's not remarkably erudite—and he surely doesn't have the world of literature spinning in his palm the way, say, John Updike does. (Updike is, hands down, the most reliably probing critic currently writing for a popular audience.) Lit crit, sad to say, doesn't seem to be a real calling for young writers any longer. Maybe the potentially great book critics are out in the ether, writing music or film reviews. Or maybe what used to be called belles lettres simply aren't as valued as they once were. In today's literary culture, the authors of grindingly second-rate novels are far more revered than first-rate essayists. Wasn't always so.
Q: Is the literary fame game rigged, as James Wolcott implied in his bruising Wall Street Journal review of the "The End of Alice," the new novel from that New York media darling A.M. Homes?
Not entirely, but probably more than you want to know. Anyone who's toiled at a women's magazine (I have, briefly) knows that it's far easier to pitch a novelist's new book if that novelist happens to wear a size 6 and look great in Anna Sui. Similarly, if Richard Avedon has ever happened to photograph you, even if you just wandered into the background of one of his street shots in the '60s, your chances of being profiled in The New Yorker are immediately doubled.
Q: Should there be term limits for daily book critics?
Four years maximum, given the track record of the critics at the New York Times and most other dailies. Daily critics, with the Washington Post's Jonathan Yardley as a possible exception, have the half-life of snow tires. They calcify quickly. These days you can count on Michiko Kakutani to swat at anything (Phillip Roth, Nicholson Baker) that—sexually, morally—puts some sweat on her brow. And reading the Times' other critics, Christopher Lehmann-Haupt and Richard Bernstein, it almost doesn't matter whether they're writing pro or con; the tone doesn't vary. (Their earnest, straight-on, eight-paragraphs-of-plot-summary prose is the equivalent of what used to be called, in football, "three yards and a cloud of dust.") No one's regularly throwing sparks. Anywhere.
The entire article can be seen here. Two years later another Salon.com article of his appeared in Salon.com in which he had some not very nice things to say in a 1998 profile of Michiko Kakutani, where he quoted one book critic after another on how she didn't deserve her Pulitzer Prize. Months later this observant and sharp critic, DWIGHT GARNER, was appointed to join Kakutani and Janet Maslin as one of the three daily critics.
Ten years later Garner understandably recanted, denouncing his own articles in an e-mail to Media Mob, saying that "I wrote that article for Salon more than a decade ago, and its chest-thumping, know-it-all tone makes me cringe today. Michiko Kakutani is an enormously talented literary critic, and I'm honored to be writing on the same culture pages.” I can understand that, just as I can understand why Galileo Galilei recanted his belief that the earth revolves around the sun in his 1610 book THE STARRY MESSENGER (only 550 copies printed, by the way, which wouldn’t have made it in today’s publishing world, though it did get wide public acclaim) with evidence that the Copernican theory was wrong—when the Church insisted that the opposite was true. Galileo was also seen as having a youthful know-it-all attitude with his other observations before that time which had already cost him various teaching positions at universities. But, like Garner, I believe these first observations were the truest.
Before moving on to my heart’s current passion, Doris Buffet, let me add that I consider Dwight Garner by far the best weekly reviewer at the Times. Most everything I’ve seen him write shows a keen intelligence behind it, he isn’t focused as much on books by or about celebrities, and he doesn’t go in for covering so many books he dislikes—as do Maslin and Kakutani. My only disappointment is that he restricts himself to non-fiction.
I would also like to ask—as others have—that with such reductions of review space, why would the Sunday Book Review so often re-review books covered in January’s weekly Arts section—or vice-versa? Is there no coordination between the two? In their January 31 Sunday Book Review, there was a two page review, starting on the cover, of Patti Smith’s THE NIGHT BELONGS TO US, about the love between two celebrities—Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe (both Maslin and the Sunday reviewer, Tom Carson liked it). Then there was a full page review of Robert Stone’s story collection FUN WITH PROBLEMS, enjoyed by Antonia Nelson and dismissed by Michiko Kakutani in her daily review (Unfortunately for the reader, Fun With Problems is a grab-bag collection that’s full of Mr. Stone’s liabilities as a writer, with only a glimpse, here and there, of his strengths.)
And, finally, a full page review of 36 ARGUMENTS FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD: A Work of Fiction by Rebecca Newberger Goldstein (Maslin liked it but her review mimicked her criticism of the book, expressed by comments like The plotting is so irrational and structure is not Ms. Goldstein’s strong suit, and neither is narrative urgency, while Sunday’s reviewer, Liesl Schillinger, goes on and on about the plot, stating near the conclusion, that The chronology floats back and forth across two decades according to no particular scheme; some characters are less developed than others; and the insertion of e-mail correspondence and inside jokes strike the reader as unhelpfully random. Curiously, for a novel that asserts the irrelevance of God, the unifying thread that knots all pieces together, however loosely, is Orthodox Judaism. I personally, can’t see anyone rushing out and buying a copy of this book based on these reviews, so how does on account for this? Does the author, as in Garner’s Q & A article, “wear a size 6 and look great in Anna Sui?” Or are either of these reviews potential candidates for The Donkey Awards, announced in my last blog? (Incidentally, a fifth jurist is serving on the Awards Committee, the Best Selling writer Daniel Klein, and I particularly liked a comment posted on my January blog by Gayle Carline, author of FREEZER BURN, who wrote A very good, thoughtful post, albeit depressing, especially as a debut novelist with an independent publisher. I only have one complaint—sounds like the winners of the Donkey Award have done a disservice to donkeys everywhere.)
Finally, on to something bright and beautiful to talk about: Doris Buffett, a non-celebrity who deserves to be celebrated. We’re in the process of putting together a biography, GIVING IT ALL AWAY: THE DORIS BUFFETT STORY, written by Michael Zitz, an award-winning newspaper reporter and columnist for The Free Lance-Star, a Virginia daily, who has known Doris since 1992, before she started to do philanthropic work with her Sunshine Lady Foundation. To me, she is the epitome of Mother Teresa in sweat pants.
At 82 years young, Doris, big sister of billionaire Warren, is on a mission. When she inherited millions in Berkshire Hathaway stock from a family trust in 1996, instead of clinging to it like a security blanket, she dedicated the rest of her life to giving it away—all of it—mostly to individuals in trouble through no fault of their own. So far she’s given away $100 million of her own money. She says she wants to give it all away; that she wants the last check she writes to bounce due to “insufficient funds.”
She began the Sunshine Lady Foundation, helping battered women, sick children, and at-risk kids who otherwise would never have had the chance to go to college. She’s also funding college programs for prison inmates, lowering recidivism. And she does it through “retail philanthropy,” often making personal phone calls to those who need help, one by one. But she still has a lot of work left to do, because each person requesting help must be checked out by the small, but dedicated, crew of her foundation.
Brother Warren also asked her to help out with the thousands of letters he receives requesting help, and supplies millions that Doris can channel to the worthy among that group. “She’s good at this,” Warren said. “She really cares about the underdog.”
The book, written with her full cooperation, begins with her growing up as the primary target of an abusive mother’s rage, goes on to talk about her having to watch every penny to take care of her family as a young wife and mother, and how, years after becoming one of the first investors in an early Warren partnership and making a fortune, she found herself $2 million in debt and almost lost her home in the 1987 stock market crash. It’s a life of many trials from which she has only gained greater strength and more magnanimity, a life in which she’s been estranged from her three children and endured four horrific marriages and divorces.
So much bad luck and pain would harden most hearts, and Doris has suffered through bouts of depression. Yet, she has kept her heart open, focusing on the needs of others. In 2007, The Wall Street Journal quoted Melissa Berman, president and CEO of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, as saying Doris’ personal approach and reliance on friends and non-professionals is unique, adding that most private foundations keep those they are helping at arm’s length, never getting involved in people’s lives.
That same year, Harry Smith of the CBS Early Show called Doris and her crew of middle-aged women volunteers a combination of “social worker, private detective and life coach.”
While the Buffett name has not meant a life of ease for Doris, it has created a sense, not only of responsibility, but of urgency to help others, and to get involved in a very personal way. She’s been knocked down repeatedly, only to get up, brush herself off, and go on. So there’s no greater joy for her than knowing she’s given someone else a hand up.
This biography fell into our hands through “marriage brokers” Howard and Karen Owen. We’ve published six of Howard’s novels over the years and a seventh, THE RECKONING, is due in December. Judy and I have become close friends of the Owens, starting in 1992 when we published his first novel, LITTLEJOHN. Both Howard and Karen are editors at Fredericksburg’s Free-Lance Star, where Mike Zitz’s columns appear. Right now we are working hard with Mike and Karen at editing so as to get our print run underway in order to ship somewhere between 3,000 to 5,000 copies to brother Warren’s Berkshire-Hathaway Convention, beginning on May 1st, where 35,000 people will be in attendance.
The links below will tell you more about this remarkable woman (a Wall Street Journal article and two videos).
Wall Street Journal
CBS News
CBS Morning News - Doris Buffett Goes for Broke to Help City
One final bit of great news: Kirkus has survived!
I’m grateful to so many of you who have been spreading the word about this blog. Close to 900 hits on the January posting, Announcing The Donkey Awards, and nearly 3,200 for the last three blogs. If you haven’t signed up yet on Notifixious to receive notice when March’s blog is posted, I hope you’ll do it now. If you want more information about how our new fiction is faring, go to our website and click on the Newsletter.
Marty
At which time the bubble burst and a different appreciation appeared. For the dialogue could have been written by an undistinguished high school junior, the characters had no depth, and the action was gore, violent and scary, like a Freddy Krueger film: slash, frighten, and terrorize… the very stuff of pop culture. What I came to appreciate was not Patterson’s writing (I put it aside at page 41, for it was a book that would have joined the other 5,000 rejects we turn away each year had we seen it in manuscript form), but how he fit so perfectly into what the largest corporate publishers have evolved into and increasingly desire; emphasizing the lowest cultural denominator—books that provide the largest audiences in both fiction and non-fiction that favor celebrities, gossip, scandals, and frivolous political coverage. The sort of books that are regularly reviewed by critics and are not very different than what one hears and sees on television’s nightly news cycles plus Entertainment Tonight. In America, the big political debate is about Main Street versus Wall Street, while in book publishing and publicizing there is no debate at all because it’s all about Madison Avenue.
There is a tale told about a middle-aged American from Kansas who, visiting Jerusalem set off to see the sights. When he got to the Wailing Wall he came upon something he’d never seen before: a thin young man in a black coat, with long curls growing where sideburns would be, wearing a yarmulke, rocking back and forth and bringing his head into contact with the wall while chanting in Hebrew. When he was finished, the American asked what he was doing. “Praying,” he answered. “Praying for what?”
“World peace,” came the answer. The Midwesterner asked if he thought it was working, to which the Israeli replied “It’s like hitting your head against a brick wall.”
It reminded me that in my last blog I noted that many guest reviewers started to appear in mid December in the daily Arts section of The New York Times, and that this might signify a change in coverage. But with the New Year it was apparent that Kakutani, Maslin, and Garner were absent only for a Christmas vacation and were now back in full force. In order to avoid a headache by praying for a different approach, I’m taking a bye from criticizing the critics. But I would like to send you one distinguished critic’s take on his profession that appeared in Salon.com in 1996, entitled CRISIS IN CRITVILLE: Why You can’t Trust Book Reviews. What follows are relevant excerpts:
In a tart and clear-eyed essay he titled "Confessions of a Book Reviewer," George Orwell once wrote that it is "almost impossible to mention books in bulk without grossly overpraising the great majority of them." And he added, perhaps unnecessarily: "Until one has some kind of professional relationship with books one does not discover how bad the majority of them are.”
Q: If Orwell's thesis about critics "grossly overpraising" books is still true, how can I test it? The next time you bump into a book critic at a party, ask what he or she has read in the past six months that's really blown their hair back, that they've really admired. Chances are they'll be stumped—at least long enough for you to refill your drink— even if they've written a heap of glowing reviews during that time. (In print, they purred about the new Edwidge Danticat or Thomas Beller book. In person, they get cagey.) I propose a new rule: Critics may only praise books they're willing to force their friends to read.
Q: Why do I keep buying highly-praised books that turn out to really suck?
Three words: literary grade inflation. Critics read so much gray, mealy, well-intentioned schlock that anyone who is halfway readable—T. Coraghessan Boyle! Barbara Kingsolver! Gish Jen! —begins to seem like a Writer for the Ages. Another word: laziness. It's far easier to write a positive review than a negative one. (Think about the mash notes you've written. Now think of the break-up letters.) Certain plummy phrases—"deeply-felt first novel," for instance, or "one of the best young writers of his/her generation"—practically come pre-programmed on the junior reviewer's laptop. Dissent, on the other hand, requires a deft touch, a nice high style, and enough knowledge and vigor to make your opinions stick.
Q: Are there any great, eagle-eyed, up-and-coming attack dogs out there?
Not really. Walter Kirn, the regular book columnist for New York magazine, isn't exactly a critical hero of mine, but he had a nice run going last year, grandly letting the air out of a whole pile of overpraised novels (including Cormac McCarthy's "The Crossing" and Howard Norman's "The Bird Artist"). You felt that, among the critics writing in the glossies anyway, Kirn was at least reviewing as if books really mattered.
Q: So, then, are there any reliable young critics I can hitch my reading to?
Nope, sorry. Kirn's fine for high, inside hardballs, and he's always a pleasure to read. But he's not remarkably erudite—and he surely doesn't have the world of literature spinning in his palm the way, say, John Updike does. (Updike is, hands down, the most reliably probing critic currently writing for a popular audience.) Lit crit, sad to say, doesn't seem to be a real calling for young writers any longer. Maybe the potentially great book critics are out in the ether, writing music or film reviews. Or maybe what used to be called belles lettres simply aren't as valued as they once were. In today's literary culture, the authors of grindingly second-rate novels are far more revered than first-rate essayists. Wasn't always so.
Q: Is the literary fame game rigged, as James Wolcott implied in his bruising Wall Street Journal review of the "The End of Alice," the new novel from that New York media darling A.M. Homes?
Not entirely, but probably more than you want to know. Anyone who's toiled at a women's magazine (I have, briefly) knows that it's far easier to pitch a novelist's new book if that novelist happens to wear a size 6 and look great in Anna Sui. Similarly, if Richard Avedon has ever happened to photograph you, even if you just wandered into the background of one of his street shots in the '60s, your chances of being profiled in The New Yorker are immediately doubled.
Q: Should there be term limits for daily book critics?
Four years maximum, given the track record of the critics at the New York Times and most other dailies. Daily critics, with the Washington Post's Jonathan Yardley as a possible exception, have the half-life of snow tires. They calcify quickly. These days you can count on Michiko Kakutani to swat at anything (Phillip Roth, Nicholson Baker) that—sexually, morally—puts some sweat on her brow. And reading the Times' other critics, Christopher Lehmann-Haupt and Richard Bernstein, it almost doesn't matter whether they're writing pro or con; the tone doesn't vary. (Their earnest, straight-on, eight-paragraphs-of-plot-summary prose is the equivalent of what used to be called, in football, "three yards and a cloud of dust.") No one's regularly throwing sparks. Anywhere.
The entire article can be seen here. Two years later another Salon.com article of his appeared in Salon.com in which he had some not very nice things to say in a 1998 profile of Michiko Kakutani, where he quoted one book critic after another on how she didn't deserve her Pulitzer Prize. Months later this observant and sharp critic, DWIGHT GARNER, was appointed to join Kakutani and Janet Maslin as one of the three daily critics.
Ten years later Garner understandably recanted, denouncing his own articles in an e-mail to Media Mob, saying that "I wrote that article for Salon more than a decade ago, and its chest-thumping, know-it-all tone makes me cringe today. Michiko Kakutani is an enormously talented literary critic, and I'm honored to be writing on the same culture pages.” I can understand that, just as I can understand why Galileo Galilei recanted his belief that the earth revolves around the sun in his 1610 book THE STARRY MESSENGER (only 550 copies printed, by the way, which wouldn’t have made it in today’s publishing world, though it did get wide public acclaim) with evidence that the Copernican theory was wrong—when the Church insisted that the opposite was true. Galileo was also seen as having a youthful know-it-all attitude with his other observations before that time which had already cost him various teaching positions at universities. But, like Garner, I believe these first observations were the truest.
Before moving on to my heart’s current passion, Doris Buffet, let me add that I consider Dwight Garner by far the best weekly reviewer at the Times. Most everything I’ve seen him write shows a keen intelligence behind it, he isn’t focused as much on books by or about celebrities, and he doesn’t go in for covering so many books he dislikes—as do Maslin and Kakutani. My only disappointment is that he restricts himself to non-fiction.
I would also like to ask—as others have—that with such reductions of review space, why would the Sunday Book Review so often re-review books covered in January’s weekly Arts section—or vice-versa? Is there no coordination between the two? In their January 31 Sunday Book Review, there was a two page review, starting on the cover, of Patti Smith’s THE NIGHT BELONGS TO US, about the love between two celebrities—Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe (both Maslin and the Sunday reviewer, Tom Carson liked it). Then there was a full page review of Robert Stone’s story collection FUN WITH PROBLEMS, enjoyed by Antonia Nelson and dismissed by Michiko Kakutani in her daily review (Unfortunately for the reader, Fun With Problems is a grab-bag collection that’s full of Mr. Stone’s liabilities as a writer, with only a glimpse, here and there, of his strengths.)
And, finally, a full page review of 36 ARGUMENTS FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD: A Work of Fiction by Rebecca Newberger Goldstein (Maslin liked it but her review mimicked her criticism of the book, expressed by comments like The plotting is so irrational and structure is not Ms. Goldstein’s strong suit, and neither is narrative urgency, while Sunday’s reviewer, Liesl Schillinger, goes on and on about the plot, stating near the conclusion, that The chronology floats back and forth across two decades according to no particular scheme; some characters are less developed than others; and the insertion of e-mail correspondence and inside jokes strike the reader as unhelpfully random. Curiously, for a novel that asserts the irrelevance of God, the unifying thread that knots all pieces together, however loosely, is Orthodox Judaism. I personally, can’t see anyone rushing out and buying a copy of this book based on these reviews, so how does on account for this? Does the author, as in Garner’s Q & A article, “wear a size 6 and look great in Anna Sui?” Or are either of these reviews potential candidates for The Donkey Awards, announced in my last blog? (Incidentally, a fifth jurist is serving on the Awards Committee, the Best Selling writer Daniel Klein, and I particularly liked a comment posted on my January blog by Gayle Carline, author of FREEZER BURN, who wrote A very good, thoughtful post, albeit depressing, especially as a debut novelist with an independent publisher. I only have one complaint—sounds like the winners of the Donkey Award have done a disservice to donkeys everywhere.)
Finally, on to something bright and beautiful to talk about: Doris Buffett, a non-celebrity who deserves to be celebrated. We’re in the process of putting together a biography, GIVING IT ALL AWAY: THE DORIS BUFFETT STORY, written by Michael Zitz, an award-winning newspaper reporter and columnist for The Free Lance-Star, a Virginia daily, who has known Doris since 1992, before she started to do philanthropic work with her Sunshine Lady Foundation. To me, she is the epitome of Mother Teresa in sweat pants.
At 82 years young, Doris, big sister of billionaire Warren, is on a mission. When she inherited millions in Berkshire Hathaway stock from a family trust in 1996, instead of clinging to it like a security blanket, she dedicated the rest of her life to giving it away—all of it—mostly to individuals in trouble through no fault of their own. So far she’s given away $100 million of her own money. She says she wants to give it all away; that she wants the last check she writes to bounce due to “insufficient funds.”
She began the Sunshine Lady Foundation, helping battered women, sick children, and at-risk kids who otherwise would never have had the chance to go to college. She’s also funding college programs for prison inmates, lowering recidivism. And she does it through “retail philanthropy,” often making personal phone calls to those who need help, one by one. But she still has a lot of work left to do, because each person requesting help must be checked out by the small, but dedicated, crew of her foundation.
Brother Warren also asked her to help out with the thousands of letters he receives requesting help, and supplies millions that Doris can channel to the worthy among that group. “She’s good at this,” Warren said. “She really cares about the underdog.”
The book, written with her full cooperation, begins with her growing up as the primary target of an abusive mother’s rage, goes on to talk about her having to watch every penny to take care of her family as a young wife and mother, and how, years after becoming one of the first investors in an early Warren partnership and making a fortune, she found herself $2 million in debt and almost lost her home in the 1987 stock market crash. It’s a life of many trials from which she has only gained greater strength and more magnanimity, a life in which she’s been estranged from her three children and endured four horrific marriages and divorces.
So much bad luck and pain would harden most hearts, and Doris has suffered through bouts of depression. Yet, she has kept her heart open, focusing on the needs of others. In 2007, The Wall Street Journal quoted Melissa Berman, president and CEO of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, as saying Doris’ personal approach and reliance on friends and non-professionals is unique, adding that most private foundations keep those they are helping at arm’s length, never getting involved in people’s lives.
That same year, Harry Smith of the CBS Early Show called Doris and her crew of middle-aged women volunteers a combination of “social worker, private detective and life coach.”
While the Buffett name has not meant a life of ease for Doris, it has created a sense, not only of responsibility, but of urgency to help others, and to get involved in a very personal way. She’s been knocked down repeatedly, only to get up, brush herself off, and go on. So there’s no greater joy for her than knowing she’s given someone else a hand up.
This biography fell into our hands through “marriage brokers” Howard and Karen Owen. We’ve published six of Howard’s novels over the years and a seventh, THE RECKONING, is due in December. Judy and I have become close friends of the Owens, starting in 1992 when we published his first novel, LITTLEJOHN. Both Howard and Karen are editors at Fredericksburg’s Free-Lance Star, where Mike Zitz’s columns appear. Right now we are working hard with Mike and Karen at editing so as to get our print run underway in order to ship somewhere between 3,000 to 5,000 copies to brother Warren’s Berkshire-Hathaway Convention, beginning on May 1st, where 35,000 people will be in attendance.
The links below will tell you more about this remarkable woman (a Wall Street Journal article and two videos).
Wall Street Journal
CBS News
CBS Morning News - Doris Buffett Goes for Broke to Help City
One final bit of great news: Kirkus has survived!
I’m grateful to so many of you who have been spreading the word about this blog. Close to 900 hits on the January posting, Announcing The Donkey Awards, and nearly 3,200 for the last three blogs. If you haven’t signed up yet on Notifixious to receive notice when March’s blog is posted, I hope you’ll do it now. If you want more information about how our new fiction is faring, go to our website and click on the Newsletter.
Marty
Friday, January 1, 2010
Announcing the Donkey Awards
After posting my November blog, The New York Times, Publishers Weekly, and Book Bloggers, I bought and read André Schiffrin’s The Business of Books: How International Conglomerates Took Over Publishing and Changed the Way We Read, published in 2000. Not only did I discover that Schiffrin’s charges preceded my own by a decade, but his account of how publishing changed, from the mid fifties when a plethora of small but prestigious houses that valued ideas and content as much as profit were transformed into five behemoths that by 2000 wound up sharing 80% of the market. The early acquisitions started innocently enough when the founders aged, fell ill, or died, as when Bennett Cerf at Random House acquired Alfred A. Knopf in 1960 because of Knopf’s deteriorating health. With that merger, Random House did not even control 1% of the market. Nor was it very different when, a year later, Cerf acquired Pantheon, after Andre’s father—a co-founder of Pantheon—passed away and the other partners fell into disagreements. By then André was asked to join this growing conglomerate and, for the next 30 years, as a corporate insider, witnessed the changes.
More amalgamations followed which were then swallowed by even larger media corporations. Random House, taken over by RCA in 1965, was later sold to Si Newhouse, who demanded an increase in sales and circulation by appealing to a wider, more common audience. Newhouse arranged for Random House to pay Nancy Reagan a three million dollar advance for her memoir. Like Rupert Murdoch, Newhouse was one if a handful of Multi-Media billionaires who owned a string of profitable newspapers of little editorial merit, enabling him to purchase the Conde Nast magazine dynasty, Vogue, The New Yorker, and valuable cable stations. Though these publishers and magazines never lost money, they were seen as not profitable enough. He also gave another huge advance to his old friend Roy Cohen, Senator Joe McCarthy sidekick, for his memoir, believing that celebrity would sell more copies. Never mind that millions were lost in unearned royalties. The solution for that was to push for even more titles by or about celebrities…and to insist that every book they printed should earn back its advance.
By 2000 Rupert Murdoch and his News Corporation, having purchased HarperCollins in 1987, went the same route. Commercial books were linked to Murdoch’s entertainment holdings and his conservative political beliefs. Harpers changed when the new non fiction lists, written by the likes of Oliver North, Newt Gingrich, and other figures who shared Murdoch’s conservative political beliefs, made their appearance.
Simon & Schuster was taken over by Viacom, owners of Paramount Pictures, and that imprint became increasingly tied to the entertainment industry, where the styles and values of Hollywood became dominant. Viacom also decided that celebrity books are the titles that will make or break firms, and both Michael Korda, at S&S, and his boss, Richard Snyder, were more than happy to carry out Viacom’s wishes.
Eventually, the multinationals stepped in: Germany’s Bertelsmann, Hachette in France, Pearson in the UK, and AOL Time Warner in the USA. By then the publishing world had largely rid itself of literary people from its golden age and replaced them with business men. Mass culture replaced literature and profit was paramount. Now every title was expected to make a significant contribution to both corporate overhead, profit, and growth leading everyone to seek the same “successful titles.”
Schiffrin said that by 2000, these corporate publishers had pretty much decided that if they couldn’t see themselves selling a base of 20,000 copies, it did not pay for them to take on a book. As he pointed out, when Pantheon introduced Franz Kafka to American audiences, it had a first printing of only 800 copies. As for Bertolt Brecht’s first work, only 600 copies were sold. In today’s market place, neither of these renowned writers would ever have seen the light of day in America.
By March of this year, this insistence on celebrity books became something the conglomerates were proudly raving about, when Harper Collins sent out this press release: HarperCollinsPublishers, one of the largest English-language publishers in the world, today announced the launch of It Books, a new popular culture imprint dedicated to entertainment, music, fashion, design, and sports. The first books in the new imprint will be published in September 2009. It Books will be directed by Carrie Kania, Senior Vice President and Publisher. The editorial team for the imprint will be led by Mauro DiPreta, Vice President/Associate Publisher, and Cal Morgan, Vice President/Editorial Director. Ms. Kania and Mr. Morgan are currently the Publisher and Editorial Director of Harper Perennial respectively, and will retain those roles. "It Books will be a new way for us to reach readers like us--people with an endless appetite for pop culture, who live for music and film and art and fashion and the Internet," said Carrie Kania. "An It book should be fun. It should be interesting. It should be cool. It should look great. Working with Cal and Mauro, we're going to have the chance to publish some great books and market them in new and interesting ways. I'm really excited about this opportunity."
It Books certainly made an impression on Janet Maslin, who reviewed her first one on December 28, Alanna Nash’s Baby Let’s Play House: Elvis Presley and the Women Who Loved Him. Fascinated by this “long, repetitive and dirt digging version of that dramatic tale… Some details invoke the bottom-feeding biographical style of Albert Goldman,” Maslin plowed on extensively about its 684 pages, with photos, which she pointed out was larger than most presidential biographies. When I read this review I thought of how deeply depressed the state of Culture was at the Culture Desk. Just as critics have their lists of Awards—best books of the year, etc. it led to a decision to start a new award for critics, called The Donkey Awards (Equus Asinus) for the “Best Abuse of Space for the Least Deserving Book.” I’ve placed Maslin’s review as the first nominee for this Award. Joining me on the judges panel are Bill Henderson of Pushcart Press (and author of Rotten Reviews), Joan Baum, a newspaper critic and commentator on NPR, “Baum on Books,” Dan Rattiner, founder and executive editor of Dan’s Papers and an author in his own right, and Marc Schuster, novelist, English teacher at Montgomery County Community College, and founder and editor of Small Press Reviews. I welcome any other nominations—from those of you reading this blog—of print reviews from the Times or any other newspaper or magazine. As with other Awards, we will choose five finalists, with the winner to be honored at an appropriate ceremony; date and place to be decided. To nominate all you need do is send me a printed or electronic version of the review you think hits new lows. No entry fees are required.
Which brings me back to my last blog which was highly critical of the crappy balance of coverage in the weekday Arts section at The New York Times, because of their near total abdication of reviewing books from small presses, discrimination against first novelists in general, their overwhelming preference for “pop” nonfiction over literature (in perfect alignment with what the largest corporate publishers were putting out), and the fact that nearly 90% of the books they reviewed come from the largest conglomerates. It apparently struck a nerve throughout the industry, for it more than doubled any previous posting with more than 1,600 hits—1,300 in the first three days—helped enormously by one prominent critic at a major newspaper who twittered many others about it, resulting in a GALLEYCAT article entitled Indie Publisher Dissects NY Times Critics Favorite Books List, as well as another article that same day in Publishers Weekly’s on-line issue. Among the many email responses I received on was one from Sallie Bingham, a distinguished writer who was once in charge of book reviews at another mainstream newspaper. Here’s what she had to say:
A further thought on your excellent and well-deserved criticism of the NY Times book reviewing: they are almost certainly choosing which books to review, and to review favorably, according to the amount of advertising they receive from the publisher. If you have the time to go through a few issues, you will certainly see the connection, and if you go further and tally the amount of money these ads cost, you will probably receive even more illumination. Local book pages, like the one I edited at the Louisville Courier-Journal, were killed because the publishers refused to advertise in them. The conclusion: whatever the arguments of the editors may be, they are simply covering for the fact that they are controlled by their advertisers. Of course the same kind of shenanigans explains the so-called Best Seller List. I wish I saw hope for change. With best wishes, Sallie Bingham
I took Sallie’s advice and discovered that the cost of running advertisements was astronomical. Hachette for example, ran two full page color ads that cost $36,100 apiece, plus an additional $8,900 for placement on a preferred page, the full cost coming to $45,000 for each ad. Random House took one full color page and five smaller ones in black and white. Penguin ran ten smaller ones, one in full color, while Houghton Mifflin also ran two full color pages. I’d say that Simon & Schuster were cheapskates as I only saw one ad that covered about a sixth of a page. But this, of course is just the tip of the iceberg for I never tracked the ads in the Sunday Book Review section, which are usually extensive, and all go into the same kitty. It’s very likely S&S spent more there, but I can’t vouch for it (if not, they may be in trouble). While their rate card indicated that if more than three ads are placed there is a 25% discount, I also realized that, not having a few hundred thousand dollars to spend, this would not be a likely approach to getting book coverage for the quality fiction we publish.
However, one of my beefs with the Culture Desk is not that they accept advertising from the people they are most likely to review. It’s that they don’t show sufficient respect for literature any more, at least by Webster’s definition of literature, which is: “Written works which deal with themes of permanent and universal interest, characterized by creativeness and expression, as in poetry, fiction, essays, etc, as distinguished from works of journalistic nature.” And literary is defined as “versed in or devoted to literature.” A careful reading of their book pages last month verifies these charges: there were 25 reviews in the weekday editions, 17 by the Big Three. Michiko Kakutani wrote five, one a novel, three of non-fiction, and another bogus novel, an Autobiography of Fidel Castro by a Cuban exile who wanted to paint an abysmal portrayal which Michiko didn’t like all that much (but it does fit in with Kakutani’s slippage from once being considered a literary reviewer to one who has devloped an obsession for reviewing political non-fiction as evidenced by her having written reviews for three books about Obama’s campaign in the later part of 2009 and another concerning Sarah Palin’s campaign). Janet Maslin wrote seven reviews: six of non-fiction and one autobiographical novel by a celebrity novelist. Dwight Garner reviewed five books, all non-fiction (just as his ten favorite books of 2009 were all non-fiction). Thus the Gang of Three reviewed three novels, one autobiographical novel and 17 non-fiction titles, clearly qualifying this group as “journalistic book reviewers,” and not “literary critics.” In all, the Arts section reviewed 25 books in that time, 17 coming from the six largest conglomerates that have 58 different trade imprints between them. Five more came from major independents. Of the other three, one came from Indiana University Press—The Years Work in Lebowski Studies (academic essays about The Big Lebowski, now a cult film). Another came from New Directions (not a small press on our scale, but certainly an independent committed to quality writing), and a third from Applause Theater & Cinema Books for The Play that Changed My Life.
Like Sallie Bingham, I too hope for change at the Times. Is it possible? Who knows? For change to occur, however, it has to start at the top. But who is in charge? Jon Landman is the overall editor at the Culture Desk, and while charming and whimsical in our email exchnages, I’ve no sense that he believes anything is amiss. He’s told me that they try to achieve a balance between widely read “popular” books and more serious stuff. But so far this has not been in evidence. In their restaurant reviews, the Times covers the good ones—large as well as small. When it comes to cooking as an art form, their reviewers appreciate good taste. If they decided it was more important to cover the most popular eateries in this country, good taste would go out the window and they would be writing about Burger King, McDonald’s, KFC, Jack in the Box and IHOP.
Katherine Bouton, who took a buyout last month, was the editor in charge of assigning books. I take that as a positive sign, in that she thought Minatour was a small press instead of part of Macmillan. Is it possible that other reviewers or editors at the Times have similar thought processes, believing that they are reviewing books from 58 different publishers when all are part of the largest six conglomerates? Before stepping down, she posted a comment on my blog that I was wrong about their coverage of first novels, claiming that in the preceding six months, 11 first novels were covered. In fact, she was likely referring not to any major reviews but probably to Amy Virshup’s column, “Newly Released,” which I hope Amy will be able to continue. It featured short, Publishers Weekly style synopsis. In her December 17 column Amy covered six books: five from the major conglomerates (two from Random House, two from Macmillan, one Hachette) one from a true smallish independent, Soho Crime, and five of them were fiction. These are better percentages than those exhibited by their major reviewers and, now that Amy has replaced Katherine Bouton, perhaps this might indicate positive changes to come.
I also noticed that, starting on December 21, the remaining eight major reviews were written by “outsiders”—Barry Gewen, Simon Winchester, Charles McGrath, Robin Henig, Larry Rohter, Patrick Healy, Edmund White, and Katha Pollitt. Among these reviews only five were non-fiction and three were fiction. Five came from the major conglomerates, another from Oxford University Press (a powerhouse in its own right as Oxford sells as many books as the rest of all the American University presses combined—and they also occasionally advertise in the Times). And two of these reviews were actually from smaller independents.
If this is an indication that the Gang of Three might be phasing out, that would be a cause for celebration. On the other hand, if Maslin, Kakutani, and Garner are the Chief Executives here (and only taking their holiday vacations), I despair of any improvements. Let’s face it: the New York Times is America’s only national newspaper that a thinking person can respect; their only major failure being in their book review policies and personnel. When GM’s management was canned for failing to produce quality cars, does it make sense to keep on a staff that fails to produce quality reviews?
If any of you share these opinions, there are two things you can do about it: pass this blog on to anyone you think of who might feel similarly (as well as registering for future monthly postings if you've not already done so) AND make your feelings known by contacting Clark Hoyt, the New York Times Public Editor (public@nytimes.com), just as Ivan Goldman did in his following email.
From: Ivan G. <catch20two@yahoo.com>Subject: 10 Best Books
To: public@nytimes.comDate: Wednesday, December 23, 2009, 11:53 AM
Dear Mr. Hoyt:I was distressed to see the Book Review section list what it called "The 10 Best Books of 2009" in its Dec. 13 issue. It was a claim that brings to mind such idiotic articles published from time to time in second-rate glossies that claim to tell us, for example, "The 100 Most Interesting People in America." Obviously you can't name them if you don't know everybody. Likewise it's a virtual certainty that you're missing some of the best books because you haven't read even a defensible sample, much less all of them. Is this semantics? No. These are hard facts, and your Book Review section is exaggerating beyond the range of acceptability. Liars often claim that their lies are close enough to the truth to approximate truth. Don't you think the Times should do better? Naming Notable Books is clearly acceptable, so why put your paper in the same category as run-of-the-mill liars? Yes, I had a novel come out in 2009 and so I have a personal stake in this. No, it was not reviewed by the Times. Yet it was nominated as a Notable Book by Booklist and the American Library Association and received fine reviews elsewhere. I presume no one in the Books section read it. It was deemed unworthy even of the negative review splashed all over Pages 18 and 19 of that same Dec. 13 issue, a book someone read but disliked.
On a closing note: In Motoko Rich's report last month in The New York Times that Kirkus Reviews would be closing down by year’s end, an editor at one of the conglomerates shed no tears because, as he told her, “reviews in Kirkus don’t move unit sales.” A close friend told me today that, while Kirkus’ parent company, Nielsen, in divestiture mode (the same folks who advertise themselves as “A Global Leader in Media Information TV, Mobile and Online Intelligence” and who also claim to track 70% of domestic book sales ...a great exaggeration that I've written about before), managed to sell off other papers, like the Hollywood Reporter and Billboard, and were willing to toss Kirkus into the deal for free, it wasn’t of interest to the buyer. Why not? “Because it only earned Nielsen $250,000 a year and that wasn’t enough profit to make it worthwhile.”
To me this underscores what the new publishing business is all about. If “unit sales” don’t increase, there is no respect given by the conglomerates to the fact that Kirkus—like Publishers Weekly, Booklist, and Library Journal—provided vital information about good books that the mainstream print media regularly ignores. And if it doesn’t earn sufficient profits, it’s not worth the time it would take a new buyer to keep it going.
Let us hope that somehow Kirkus will survive and that we won’t need to report a burial come February. Like the other pre-pub reviewers, advertising was not a prerequisite for getting reviews.
Marty
PS: If anyone out there is looking for an extraordinary cover artist, Lon Kirschner, who has been doing book covers for us for over 15 years, is definitely the man to call. A creative guy who reads the manuscripts he's assigned, Lon invariably comes up with something that both captures the mood of the book and also references a key element of it. You can see examples of his work, and get in touch with him, by going to his website: www.kirschnercaroff.com
More amalgamations followed which were then swallowed by even larger media corporations. Random House, taken over by RCA in 1965, was later sold to Si Newhouse, who demanded an increase in sales and circulation by appealing to a wider, more common audience. Newhouse arranged for Random House to pay Nancy Reagan a three million dollar advance for her memoir. Like Rupert Murdoch, Newhouse was one if a handful of Multi-Media billionaires who owned a string of profitable newspapers of little editorial merit, enabling him to purchase the Conde Nast magazine dynasty, Vogue, The New Yorker, and valuable cable stations. Though these publishers and magazines never lost money, they were seen as not profitable enough. He also gave another huge advance to his old friend Roy Cohen, Senator Joe McCarthy sidekick, for his memoir, believing that celebrity would sell more copies. Never mind that millions were lost in unearned royalties. The solution for that was to push for even more titles by or about celebrities…and to insist that every book they printed should earn back its advance.
By 2000 Rupert Murdoch and his News Corporation, having purchased HarperCollins in 1987, went the same route. Commercial books were linked to Murdoch’s entertainment holdings and his conservative political beliefs. Harpers changed when the new non fiction lists, written by the likes of Oliver North, Newt Gingrich, and other figures who shared Murdoch’s conservative political beliefs, made their appearance.
Simon & Schuster was taken over by Viacom, owners of Paramount Pictures, and that imprint became increasingly tied to the entertainment industry, where the styles and values of Hollywood became dominant. Viacom also decided that celebrity books are the titles that will make or break firms, and both Michael Korda, at S&S, and his boss, Richard Snyder, were more than happy to carry out Viacom’s wishes.
Eventually, the multinationals stepped in: Germany’s Bertelsmann, Hachette in France, Pearson in the UK, and AOL Time Warner in the USA. By then the publishing world had largely rid itself of literary people from its golden age and replaced them with business men. Mass culture replaced literature and profit was paramount. Now every title was expected to make a significant contribution to both corporate overhead, profit, and growth leading everyone to seek the same “successful titles.”
Schiffrin said that by 2000, these corporate publishers had pretty much decided that if they couldn’t see themselves selling a base of 20,000 copies, it did not pay for them to take on a book. As he pointed out, when Pantheon introduced Franz Kafka to American audiences, it had a first printing of only 800 copies. As for Bertolt Brecht’s first work, only 600 copies were sold. In today’s market place, neither of these renowned writers would ever have seen the light of day in America.
By March of this year, this insistence on celebrity books became something the conglomerates were proudly raving about, when Harper Collins sent out this press release: HarperCollinsPublishers, one of the largest English-language publishers in the world, today announced the launch of It Books, a new popular culture imprint dedicated to entertainment, music, fashion, design, and sports. The first books in the new imprint will be published in September 2009. It Books will be directed by Carrie Kania, Senior Vice President and Publisher. The editorial team for the imprint will be led by Mauro DiPreta, Vice President/Associate Publisher, and Cal Morgan, Vice President/Editorial Director. Ms. Kania and Mr. Morgan are currently the Publisher and Editorial Director of Harper Perennial respectively, and will retain those roles. "It Books will be a new way for us to reach readers like us--people with an endless appetite for pop culture, who live for music and film and art and fashion and the Internet," said Carrie Kania. "An It book should be fun. It should be interesting. It should be cool. It should look great. Working with Cal and Mauro, we're going to have the chance to publish some great books and market them in new and interesting ways. I'm really excited about this opportunity."
It Books certainly made an impression on Janet Maslin, who reviewed her first one on December 28, Alanna Nash’s Baby Let’s Play House: Elvis Presley and the Women Who Loved Him. Fascinated by this “long, repetitive and dirt digging version of that dramatic tale… Some details invoke the bottom-feeding biographical style of Albert Goldman,” Maslin plowed on extensively about its 684 pages, with photos, which she pointed out was larger than most presidential biographies. When I read this review I thought of how deeply depressed the state of Culture was at the Culture Desk. Just as critics have their lists of Awards—best books of the year, etc. it led to a decision to start a new award for critics, called The Donkey Awards (Equus Asinus) for the “Best Abuse of Space for the Least Deserving Book.” I’ve placed Maslin’s review as the first nominee for this Award. Joining me on the judges panel are Bill Henderson of Pushcart Press (and author of Rotten Reviews), Joan Baum, a newspaper critic and commentator on NPR, “Baum on Books,” Dan Rattiner, founder and executive editor of Dan’s Papers and an author in his own right, and Marc Schuster, novelist, English teacher at Montgomery County Community College, and founder and editor of Small Press Reviews. I welcome any other nominations—from those of you reading this blog—of print reviews from the Times or any other newspaper or magazine. As with other Awards, we will choose five finalists, with the winner to be honored at an appropriate ceremony; date and place to be decided. To nominate all you need do is send me a printed or electronic version of the review you think hits new lows. No entry fees are required.
Which brings me back to my last blog which was highly critical of the crappy balance of coverage in the weekday Arts section at The New York Times, because of their near total abdication of reviewing books from small presses, discrimination against first novelists in general, their overwhelming preference for “pop” nonfiction over literature (in perfect alignment with what the largest corporate publishers were putting out), and the fact that nearly 90% of the books they reviewed come from the largest conglomerates. It apparently struck a nerve throughout the industry, for it more than doubled any previous posting with more than 1,600 hits—1,300 in the first three days—helped enormously by one prominent critic at a major newspaper who twittered many others about it, resulting in a GALLEYCAT article entitled Indie Publisher Dissects NY Times Critics Favorite Books List, as well as another article that same day in Publishers Weekly’s on-line issue. Among the many email responses I received on was one from Sallie Bingham, a distinguished writer who was once in charge of book reviews at another mainstream newspaper. Here’s what she had to say:
A further thought on your excellent and well-deserved criticism of the NY Times book reviewing: they are almost certainly choosing which books to review, and to review favorably, according to the amount of advertising they receive from the publisher. If you have the time to go through a few issues, you will certainly see the connection, and if you go further and tally the amount of money these ads cost, you will probably receive even more illumination. Local book pages, like the one I edited at the Louisville Courier-Journal, were killed because the publishers refused to advertise in them. The conclusion: whatever the arguments of the editors may be, they are simply covering for the fact that they are controlled by their advertisers. Of course the same kind of shenanigans explains the so-called Best Seller List. I wish I saw hope for change. With best wishes, Sallie Bingham
I took Sallie’s advice and discovered that the cost of running advertisements was astronomical. Hachette for example, ran two full page color ads that cost $36,100 apiece, plus an additional $8,900 for placement on a preferred page, the full cost coming to $45,000 for each ad. Random House took one full color page and five smaller ones in black and white. Penguin ran ten smaller ones, one in full color, while Houghton Mifflin also ran two full color pages. I’d say that Simon & Schuster were cheapskates as I only saw one ad that covered about a sixth of a page. But this, of course is just the tip of the iceberg for I never tracked the ads in the Sunday Book Review section, which are usually extensive, and all go into the same kitty. It’s very likely S&S spent more there, but I can’t vouch for it (if not, they may be in trouble). While their rate card indicated that if more than three ads are placed there is a 25% discount, I also realized that, not having a few hundred thousand dollars to spend, this would not be a likely approach to getting book coverage for the quality fiction we publish.
However, one of my beefs with the Culture Desk is not that they accept advertising from the people they are most likely to review. It’s that they don’t show sufficient respect for literature any more, at least by Webster’s definition of literature, which is: “Written works which deal with themes of permanent and universal interest, characterized by creativeness and expression, as in poetry, fiction, essays, etc, as distinguished from works of journalistic nature.” And literary is defined as “versed in or devoted to literature.” A careful reading of their book pages last month verifies these charges: there were 25 reviews in the weekday editions, 17 by the Big Three. Michiko Kakutani wrote five, one a novel, three of non-fiction, and another bogus novel, an Autobiography of Fidel Castro by a Cuban exile who wanted to paint an abysmal portrayal which Michiko didn’t like all that much (but it does fit in with Kakutani’s slippage from once being considered a literary reviewer to one who has devloped an obsession for reviewing political non-fiction as evidenced by her having written reviews for three books about Obama’s campaign in the later part of 2009 and another concerning Sarah Palin’s campaign). Janet Maslin wrote seven reviews: six of non-fiction and one autobiographical novel by a celebrity novelist. Dwight Garner reviewed five books, all non-fiction (just as his ten favorite books of 2009 were all non-fiction). Thus the Gang of Three reviewed three novels, one autobiographical novel and 17 non-fiction titles, clearly qualifying this group as “journalistic book reviewers,” and not “literary critics.” In all, the Arts section reviewed 25 books in that time, 17 coming from the six largest conglomerates that have 58 different trade imprints between them. Five more came from major independents. Of the other three, one came from Indiana University Press—The Years Work in Lebowski Studies (academic essays about The Big Lebowski, now a cult film). Another came from New Directions (not a small press on our scale, but certainly an independent committed to quality writing), and a third from Applause Theater & Cinema Books for The Play that Changed My Life.
Like Sallie Bingham, I too hope for change at the Times. Is it possible? Who knows? For change to occur, however, it has to start at the top. But who is in charge? Jon Landman is the overall editor at the Culture Desk, and while charming and whimsical in our email exchnages, I’ve no sense that he believes anything is amiss. He’s told me that they try to achieve a balance between widely read “popular” books and more serious stuff. But so far this has not been in evidence. In their restaurant reviews, the Times covers the good ones—large as well as small. When it comes to cooking as an art form, their reviewers appreciate good taste. If they decided it was more important to cover the most popular eateries in this country, good taste would go out the window and they would be writing about Burger King, McDonald’s, KFC, Jack in the Box and IHOP.
Katherine Bouton, who took a buyout last month, was the editor in charge of assigning books. I take that as a positive sign, in that she thought Minatour was a small press instead of part of Macmillan. Is it possible that other reviewers or editors at the Times have similar thought processes, believing that they are reviewing books from 58 different publishers when all are part of the largest six conglomerates? Before stepping down, she posted a comment on my blog that I was wrong about their coverage of first novels, claiming that in the preceding six months, 11 first novels were covered. In fact, she was likely referring not to any major reviews but probably to Amy Virshup’s column, “Newly Released,” which I hope Amy will be able to continue. It featured short, Publishers Weekly style synopsis. In her December 17 column Amy covered six books: five from the major conglomerates (two from Random House, two from Macmillan, one Hachette) one from a true smallish independent, Soho Crime, and five of them were fiction. These are better percentages than those exhibited by their major reviewers and, now that Amy has replaced Katherine Bouton, perhaps this might indicate positive changes to come.
I also noticed that, starting on December 21, the remaining eight major reviews were written by “outsiders”—Barry Gewen, Simon Winchester, Charles McGrath, Robin Henig, Larry Rohter, Patrick Healy, Edmund White, and Katha Pollitt. Among these reviews only five were non-fiction and three were fiction. Five came from the major conglomerates, another from Oxford University Press (a powerhouse in its own right as Oxford sells as many books as the rest of all the American University presses combined—and they also occasionally advertise in the Times). And two of these reviews were actually from smaller independents.
If this is an indication that the Gang of Three might be phasing out, that would be a cause for celebration. On the other hand, if Maslin, Kakutani, and Garner are the Chief Executives here (and only taking their holiday vacations), I despair of any improvements. Let’s face it: the New York Times is America’s only national newspaper that a thinking person can respect; their only major failure being in their book review policies and personnel. When GM’s management was canned for failing to produce quality cars, does it make sense to keep on a staff that fails to produce quality reviews?
If any of you share these opinions, there are two things you can do about it: pass this blog on to anyone you think of who might feel similarly (as well as registering for future monthly postings if you've not already done so) AND make your feelings known by contacting Clark Hoyt, the New York Times Public Editor (public@nytimes.com), just as Ivan Goldman did in his following email.
From: Ivan G. <catch20two@yahoo.com>Subject: 10 Best Books
To: public@nytimes.comDate: Wednesday, December 23, 2009, 11:53 AM
Dear Mr. Hoyt:I was distressed to see the Book Review section list what it called "The 10 Best Books of 2009" in its Dec. 13 issue. It was a claim that brings to mind such idiotic articles published from time to time in second-rate glossies that claim to tell us, for example, "The 100 Most Interesting People in America." Obviously you can't name them if you don't know everybody. Likewise it's a virtual certainty that you're missing some of the best books because you haven't read even a defensible sample, much less all of them. Is this semantics? No. These are hard facts, and your Book Review section is exaggerating beyond the range of acceptability. Liars often claim that their lies are close enough to the truth to approximate truth. Don't you think the Times should do better? Naming Notable Books is clearly acceptable, so why put your paper in the same category as run-of-the-mill liars? Yes, I had a novel come out in 2009 and so I have a personal stake in this. No, it was not reviewed by the Times. Yet it was nominated as a Notable Book by Booklist and the American Library Association and received fine reviews elsewhere. I presume no one in the Books section read it. It was deemed unworthy even of the negative review splashed all over Pages 18 and 19 of that same Dec. 13 issue, a book someone read but disliked.
On a closing note: In Motoko Rich's report last month in The New York Times that Kirkus Reviews would be closing down by year’s end, an editor at one of the conglomerates shed no tears because, as he told her, “reviews in Kirkus don’t move unit sales.” A close friend told me today that, while Kirkus’ parent company, Nielsen, in divestiture mode (the same folks who advertise themselves as “A Global Leader in Media Information TV, Mobile and Online Intelligence” and who also claim to track 70% of domestic book sales ...a great exaggeration that I've written about before), managed to sell off other papers, like the Hollywood Reporter and Billboard, and were willing to toss Kirkus into the deal for free, it wasn’t of interest to the buyer. Why not? “Because it only earned Nielsen $250,000 a year and that wasn’t enough profit to make it worthwhile.”
To me this underscores what the new publishing business is all about. If “unit sales” don’t increase, there is no respect given by the conglomerates to the fact that Kirkus—like Publishers Weekly, Booklist, and Library Journal—provided vital information about good books that the mainstream print media regularly ignores. And if it doesn’t earn sufficient profits, it’s not worth the time it would take a new buyer to keep it going.
Let us hope that somehow Kirkus will survive and that we won’t need to report a burial come February. Like the other pre-pub reviewers, advertising was not a prerequisite for getting reviews.
Marty
PS: If anyone out there is looking for an extraordinary cover artist, Lon Kirschner, who has been doing book covers for us for over 15 years, is definitely the man to call. A creative guy who reads the manuscripts he's assigned, Lon invariably comes up with something that both captures the mood of the book and also references a key element of it. You can see examples of his work, and get in touch with him, by going to his website: www.kirschnercaroff.com
Monday, November 30, 2009
The New York Times, Publishers Weekly, and Book Bloggers
Following my last blog, The Cultural Divide, where I faulted the weekly book coverage at The New York Times for lacking balance, I had some spirited email exchanges with Jon Landman, the editor of the Culture Desk, as well as with Katherine Bouton who assigns books for review and Motoko Rich who reports on the New York publishing world. They all talked about how they are very aware of trying to keep a balance between literary culture and popular culture, and between the dozen or so giant corporate publishers who dominate the market place and smaller independent presses that are largely ignored. As an example I pointed out that we’ve not had a review for one of our novels from them since the first one appeared in January, 1980, despite a plethora of awards and honors, listed in my July 13th blog, What Pisses Me Off. That was 7,000 reviews ago.
In our email exchanges my impression was that that they were pretty well satisfied with the job they are doing. Katherine Bouton mentioned, as an example of small press coverage, that they did a review of a Minotaur book recently, apparently not realizing that Minotaur is an imprint of one of the giants: Macmillan. Jon Landman wrote that they had given us coverage, citing an article about Judy and me and the Permanent Press which appeared 15 years ago, neglecting the fact that this was not a review for one of our books and that it appeared in the Metropolitan Section, which at that time was circulated only in New York City and Long Island. Motoko Rich suggested that she'd be glad to consider a news story, but couldn't guarantee she would do anything because there were so many suggestions she received. Having read her news stories, and finding many of them read like elaborations on press releases written by publicity directors at the major publishing houses, I greeted her offer with skepticism. Instead I told her that I posted a monthly blog where she might find things in it newsworthy, and mentioned that I'd be writing about a book blogger this month whose novel we would be publishing.
I can understand these responses on three levels: one being that it is hard to take criticism, and defensiveness frequently follows. The other being an attempt to "make nice" that lacked sincerity but might get someone off your back. And, finally, realizing that nobody likes being told by those outside the club how they should run their business. My initial response to outsiders taking me to task about our work would likely be similar. Still, it’s possible that starting a dialogue plants seeds that could, ultimately, take root.
On November 2, Susan Dominus wrote a column in the Times entitled “Lament on the Fading Culture of the Printed Word,” in which she talked about the changes in the literary world over the past couple of years—the loss of jobs, the inability of aspiring writers to find publishers, and what the future holds. “I went back and reread Joan Didion's essay “Goodbye to All That” the other day…a catalog of Manhattan’s enervating clichés, and, implicitly, a rejection of the New York literary scene she inhabited… Ms. Didion tired of the same faces at the same parties, the gossip about book advances, the uneasy courtship of press and publicists, the endless cycle of aspiration and pretense. [It’s] been reverberating through my mind on a regular basis. I hear it every time I go to a party and run into a writer or editor I admire who has recently been laid off. 12 or 20 years ago if anyone with a flair for stringing sentences together lost a job, it was a given that he would land quickly on his feet at another publication or a small publishing house. But now, goodbye to all that.
“Newspapers, including this one, are shedding jobs, too, but it is the world of magazines and publishing houses that constitutes a culture specific to New York. Part of what is gone, perhaps appropriately, is the glittering, gluttonous self-indulgence — content that took itself too seriously, or associate market editors who did the same, a bad case of the press believing its own press. But what is lost, along with a lot of image packaging, is that expansive home for good writing. Philip Roth recently predicted in The Guardian of London, that in 25 years, the number of people reading novels would be akin to the numbers now reading Latin poetry; it will be a curiosity, certainly not a profit center. This is painful gospel for anyone who reads Philip Roth, or other great writers, the way other people read religious texts — to make sense of the world, to be humbled or inspired by the power of language.”
Were this article in the Arts and Culture section of the Times, it might have caused some reflection on how they covered books. But Susan Dominus’ columns appear in the Metropolitan Section, to be read only in New York City and environs.
On Friday, November 27, the entire front page of the Arts section was devoted to books; the headline article penned by Janet Maslin, a “Holiday Gift Guide,” was entitled “Unforgettable Books For Those You Remember.” She started out by saying “There’s a good reason why the three daily book critics for The New York Times don’t make 10-best lists at the end of the year. None of us has read everything [italics mine]. None of us has an objective overview of the year’s best and most important books, but this is what we do have: favorites…books we have not only admired in the abstract but have also enjoyed, recommended, and given to friends. Of the tens of thousands of books published each year, the daily Times reviews about 250. Each of us chose his or her share of those titles for review. Now Michiko Kakutani, Dwight Garner and I further narrow down those choices and each of us can tell you which books we’ll remember best.” She also adds, before getting to these 30 favorites, that “It’s been a bit of an off year, and the must-read milestones have been rare…And if it’s been a disappointing year for certain major novelists, it has also brought a couple of unexpected career-capping accomplishments from fiction writers in the mainstream [italics mine].”
Obviously they can’t “read everything,” but do these three doyens ever choose to read a novel from a small press—or are they limited to those released by the biggest players? Do they assume that only the biggest corporations publish writers worthy of coverage? Might they consider the conglomerates as major leaguers and the independents as farm teams?
The IBPA (Independent Book Publishers Association) has over 3,000 members. Are any of them considered “mainstream?” Or are only the dozen or so conglomerates considered mainstream? When one examines where these 30 favorite imprints come from, lo and behold, they are all produced by eight conglomerate publishing houses; there is not a single small, independent press among them.
Listed below are the eight corporate giants that these “favorites” of Janet Maslin, Michiko Kakutani and Dwight Garner came from:
Random House published 10 favorites from among these imprints: four from Knopf, and one each from Ballantine, Crown, Dial, Doubleday, Pantheon, and Vintage.
Hachette had five: four from Little Brown and one from their Twelve imprints.
Macmillan had five: three from their Farrar Straus & Giroux imprint and one each from St. Martin’s Press and Metropolitan Books imprints.
Penguin had five, three from Penguin and two from Viking.
Simon & Schuster had two, both from their Scribner imprint
Harper Collins had one from their Harper imprint.
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt had one under their own imprint
Perseus had one, from their Basic Books imprint.
Does one need more substantiation of the charges that small publishers are at a major disadvantage and are playing on an uneven field? And what is true at the Times is also true at nearly all other mainstream newspapers and magazines.
I think it’s time for readers who desire broader coverage and want a larger window to choose from, before deciding what books to read, to consider three things:
1. Subscribe to Publishers Weekly, a trade journal, but one which will appeal to any serious reader for it offers over 7,000 short, thoughtful reviews of books yearly in all major categories—along with publishing news, trends, articles, profiles, and interviews with authors and others in the business. There is no other publication in America of greater importance in this industry or to those who love books. Nor is there any discriminatory coverage between conglomerate and small independent presses. This lively, informative publication is also very affordable; it costs less than the Sunday edition of The New York Times. Dan Brown, Ed Doctorow, or books about Obama or Sarah Palin get no more review space than will a first novel by an unknown author from a relatively unknown press. It’s what librarians and bookstores read before placing orders for books. 51 copies of Publishers Weekly can cost anywhere from $3.29 to $4.32/copy by subscription. The Sunday Times costs $5, which includes their Book Review section, which last Sunday reviewed five novels and ten books of non-fiction, while Publishers Weekly reviewed 83 books in all: 50 novels (28 straight fiction, 9 mysteries, 6 sci-fi reviews, 4 mass market reviews, and 4 comics (previously known as graphic novels), 31 non-fiction titles, and 19 children’s book (12 of them picture books): 100 reviews in all. You can order from Amazon.com (click on magazine subscriptions) or from PublishersWeekly.com which offers subscriptions to the magazine itself or their online edition alone. I would add that if it were not for the thoughtful book people at PW, we would never have survived for 31 years. And I am sure that many other independent presses would say the same thing. So this is a publication well worth reading, enjoying, and supporting.
2. Write to the New York Times, and give your feedback to Jon Landman (joland@nytimes.com) and Katherine Bouton (bouton@nytimes.com) and let them know what you think you might want to see there. Jon did say in one of his emails that he was open to suggestions. One proposal I would make to him and Katherine Bouton would be to have a fourth reviewer added to the gang of three, a reviewer who has covered small presses and has the background to introduce a new and broader perspective. And my candidate would be Marc Schuster. His site is http://smallpressreviews.wordpress.com/
Marc is a 36 year old who earned his PhD in English from Temple University. His dissertation was on 20th Century American fiction. Since fall, 2005, he’s been on the faculty of Montgomery County Community College in Blue Bell, Pennsylvania, just outside Philadelphia, where he teaches College Composition, American Literature and Creative Writing. He’s reviewed about 100 books on his site since November, 2007. It’s a lot of work, reading and reviewing nearly a book a week while teaching full-time, writing his own stories, helping out at Philadelphia Stories, volunteering at Writers Conferences at his school and Rosemont College (also outside Philadelphia) where he recently interviewed Maxine Hong Kingston. Small Press Reviews is obviously a project motivated by passion, not income. Propelled by curiosity, I asked him how and why he started his book blog.
“I had a number of friends whose writing I respected and who were published by small presses—as well as admiring books from small presses that I bought at bookstores. All had trouble finding anyone to review their work. And so I decided to do something about it. For a long time now I’ve thought that the most interesting writing is coming from small presses, as they are not as concerned about the bottom line as they are about literary aesthetics. They accept books based on loving them. At a big press it’s because they think it can make money.” What started small, with Marc’s buying books to review, has caught on so well that he’s getting over 400 hits a month and is, at times, overwhelmed by the number of submissions he receives from small publishers.
3. Read good Blogs, for that’s where the action is. I’ve mentioned many of them before and will do a future listing on my next posting. The increased coverage one can get from these bloggers more than compensates for the decreasing space available from newspaper and magazine book reviews. In some ways I think newspaper reviews are in danger of becoming a dinosaur given the way they limit themselves to books written about celebrities or by celebrity authors, while avoiding the excitement and discovery of talented newcomers. As Rania Haditirto, our only full time employee who does so many things so well for us, puts it “GoodReads, LibraryThing, and independent bloggers have revolutionized the way in which books are talked about. Most people buy books because a friend talks passionately about something they’ve read, and these sites provide new friends who recommend books to one another. It’s like an on-line ongoing Book Club.”
Reading a good blog is how I met Marc Schuster. Charles Holdefer, a novelist we published, was a guest speaker at a Writers Conference at Rosemont in 2008. Charles had recently written "The Contractor." Marc had read and loved his novel, reviewed it, and was squiring him about. Afterwards he bought a couple of other Permanent Press books and enjoyed and wrote about them as well. I was always much impressed with his reviews; he had a knack for finding threads that escaped me and Judy, my wife and co-publisher, but were artfully observed. Since one of the joys of publishing is making contact with people who share your aesthetics and write beautifully—and since I noticed that on his website he listed a novel he wrote, "The Singular Exploits of Wonder Mom and Party Girl"—I wrote to him saying that since he’d read so many of our books, I thought it only fair that I read his. It arrived shortly afterwards, was published as a paperback by PS Books—a regional publisher and a division of Philadelphia Stories. Judy and I were impressed. It was both funny and dark, a tale for our times with unforgettable characters, narrated by a young super-Mom who, after her husband leaves her for a younger version, is introduced to cocaine and slides into addiction while her mothering goes haywire. What was also interesting is that it hadn’t been reviewed anywhere. We also thought it needed editing and I wrote back saying that if this book were available and if he wanted to do rewrites and some reorganization, we’d be interested in publishing it. “I’ll think about it,” he said, and two weeks later returned a masterfully reworked manuscript. While we’ve signed it up for mid 2011, we’ve already ordered bound galleys, a year and a half before publication date, as we want editors, agents, scouts, and film producers to see it well in advance of publication.
So hail to the book bloggers who have played a significant role in spreading the word about the novels we’ve published this year, which has resulted in a 66% increase in book sales over those in 2008…with still over a month to go. And to Publishers Weekly, who have always treated us so well.
Marty
P.S. If this blog proves of interest to you, I hope you will pass it on to others and also subscribe with Notifixious in order to be informed when next month's post comes out.
In our email exchanges my impression was that that they were pretty well satisfied with the job they are doing. Katherine Bouton mentioned, as an example of small press coverage, that they did a review of a Minotaur book recently, apparently not realizing that Minotaur is an imprint of one of the giants: Macmillan. Jon Landman wrote that they had given us coverage, citing an article about Judy and me and the Permanent Press which appeared 15 years ago, neglecting the fact that this was not a review for one of our books and that it appeared in the Metropolitan Section, which at that time was circulated only in New York City and Long Island. Motoko Rich suggested that she'd be glad to consider a news story, but couldn't guarantee she would do anything because there were so many suggestions she received. Having read her news stories, and finding many of them read like elaborations on press releases written by publicity directors at the major publishing houses, I greeted her offer with skepticism. Instead I told her that I posted a monthly blog where she might find things in it newsworthy, and mentioned that I'd be writing about a book blogger this month whose novel we would be publishing.
I can understand these responses on three levels: one being that it is hard to take criticism, and defensiveness frequently follows. The other being an attempt to "make nice" that lacked sincerity but might get someone off your back. And, finally, realizing that nobody likes being told by those outside the club how they should run their business. My initial response to outsiders taking me to task about our work would likely be similar. Still, it’s possible that starting a dialogue plants seeds that could, ultimately, take root.
On November 2, Susan Dominus wrote a column in the Times entitled “Lament on the Fading Culture of the Printed Word,” in which she talked about the changes in the literary world over the past couple of years—the loss of jobs, the inability of aspiring writers to find publishers, and what the future holds. “I went back and reread Joan Didion's essay “Goodbye to All That” the other day…a catalog of Manhattan’s enervating clichés, and, implicitly, a rejection of the New York literary scene she inhabited… Ms. Didion tired of the same faces at the same parties, the gossip about book advances, the uneasy courtship of press and publicists, the endless cycle of aspiration and pretense. [It’s] been reverberating through my mind on a regular basis. I hear it every time I go to a party and run into a writer or editor I admire who has recently been laid off. 12 or 20 years ago if anyone with a flair for stringing sentences together lost a job, it was a given that he would land quickly on his feet at another publication or a small publishing house. But now, goodbye to all that.
“Newspapers, including this one, are shedding jobs, too, but it is the world of magazines and publishing houses that constitutes a culture specific to New York. Part of what is gone, perhaps appropriately, is the glittering, gluttonous self-indulgence — content that took itself too seriously, or associate market editors who did the same, a bad case of the press believing its own press. But what is lost, along with a lot of image packaging, is that expansive home for good writing. Philip Roth recently predicted in The Guardian of London, that in 25 years, the number of people reading novels would be akin to the numbers now reading Latin poetry; it will be a curiosity, certainly not a profit center. This is painful gospel for anyone who reads Philip Roth, or other great writers, the way other people read religious texts — to make sense of the world, to be humbled or inspired by the power of language.”
Were this article in the Arts and Culture section of the Times, it might have caused some reflection on how they covered books. But Susan Dominus’ columns appear in the Metropolitan Section, to be read only in New York City and environs.
On Friday, November 27, the entire front page of the Arts section was devoted to books; the headline article penned by Janet Maslin, a “Holiday Gift Guide,” was entitled “Unforgettable Books For Those You Remember.” She started out by saying “There’s a good reason why the three daily book critics for The New York Times don’t make 10-best lists at the end of the year. None of us has read everything [italics mine]. None of us has an objective overview of the year’s best and most important books, but this is what we do have: favorites…books we have not only admired in the abstract but have also enjoyed, recommended, and given to friends. Of the tens of thousands of books published each year, the daily Times reviews about 250. Each of us chose his or her share of those titles for review. Now Michiko Kakutani, Dwight Garner and I further narrow down those choices and each of us can tell you which books we’ll remember best.” She also adds, before getting to these 30 favorites, that “It’s been a bit of an off year, and the must-read milestones have been rare…And if it’s been a disappointing year for certain major novelists, it has also brought a couple of unexpected career-capping accomplishments from fiction writers in the mainstream [italics mine].”
Obviously they can’t “read everything,” but do these three doyens ever choose to read a novel from a small press—or are they limited to those released by the biggest players? Do they assume that only the biggest corporations publish writers worthy of coverage? Might they consider the conglomerates as major leaguers and the independents as farm teams?
The IBPA (Independent Book Publishers Association) has over 3,000 members. Are any of them considered “mainstream?” Or are only the dozen or so conglomerates considered mainstream? When one examines where these 30 favorite imprints come from, lo and behold, they are all produced by eight conglomerate publishing houses; there is not a single small, independent press among them.
Listed below are the eight corporate giants that these “favorites” of Janet Maslin, Michiko Kakutani and Dwight Garner came from:
Random House published 10 favorites from among these imprints: four from Knopf, and one each from Ballantine, Crown, Dial, Doubleday, Pantheon, and Vintage.
Hachette had five: four from Little Brown and one from their Twelve imprints.
Macmillan had five: three from their Farrar Straus & Giroux imprint and one each from St. Martin’s Press and Metropolitan Books imprints.
Penguin had five, three from Penguin and two from Viking.
Simon & Schuster had two, both from their Scribner imprint
Harper Collins had one from their Harper imprint.
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt had one under their own imprint
Perseus had one, from their Basic Books imprint.
Does one need more substantiation of the charges that small publishers are at a major disadvantage and are playing on an uneven field? And what is true at the Times is also true at nearly all other mainstream newspapers and magazines.
I think it’s time for readers who desire broader coverage and want a larger window to choose from, before deciding what books to read, to consider three things:
1. Subscribe to Publishers Weekly, a trade journal, but one which will appeal to any serious reader for it offers over 7,000 short, thoughtful reviews of books yearly in all major categories—along with publishing news, trends, articles, profiles, and interviews with authors and others in the business. There is no other publication in America of greater importance in this industry or to those who love books. Nor is there any discriminatory coverage between conglomerate and small independent presses. This lively, informative publication is also very affordable; it costs less than the Sunday edition of The New York Times. Dan Brown, Ed Doctorow, or books about Obama or Sarah Palin get no more review space than will a first novel by an unknown author from a relatively unknown press. It’s what librarians and bookstores read before placing orders for books. 51 copies of Publishers Weekly can cost anywhere from $3.29 to $4.32/copy by subscription. The Sunday Times costs $5, which includes their Book Review section, which last Sunday reviewed five novels and ten books of non-fiction, while Publishers Weekly reviewed 83 books in all: 50 novels (28 straight fiction, 9 mysteries, 6 sci-fi reviews, 4 mass market reviews, and 4 comics (previously known as graphic novels), 31 non-fiction titles, and 19 children’s book (12 of them picture books): 100 reviews in all. You can order from Amazon.com (click on magazine subscriptions) or from PublishersWeekly.com which offers subscriptions to the magazine itself or their online edition alone. I would add that if it were not for the thoughtful book people at PW, we would never have survived for 31 years. And I am sure that many other independent presses would say the same thing. So this is a publication well worth reading, enjoying, and supporting.
2. Write to the New York Times, and give your feedback to Jon Landman (joland@nytimes.com) and Katherine Bouton (bouton@nytimes.com) and let them know what you think you might want to see there. Jon did say in one of his emails that he was open to suggestions. One proposal I would make to him and Katherine Bouton would be to have a fourth reviewer added to the gang of three, a reviewer who has covered small presses and has the background to introduce a new and broader perspective. And my candidate would be Marc Schuster. His site is http://smallpressreviews.wordpress.com/
Marc is a 36 year old who earned his PhD in English from Temple University. His dissertation was on 20th Century American fiction. Since fall, 2005, he’s been on the faculty of Montgomery County Community College in Blue Bell, Pennsylvania, just outside Philadelphia, where he teaches College Composition, American Literature and Creative Writing. He’s reviewed about 100 books on his site since November, 2007. It’s a lot of work, reading and reviewing nearly a book a week while teaching full-time, writing his own stories, helping out at Philadelphia Stories, volunteering at Writers Conferences at his school and Rosemont College (also outside Philadelphia) where he recently interviewed Maxine Hong Kingston. Small Press Reviews is obviously a project motivated by passion, not income. Propelled by curiosity, I asked him how and why he started his book blog.
“I had a number of friends whose writing I respected and who were published by small presses—as well as admiring books from small presses that I bought at bookstores. All had trouble finding anyone to review their work. And so I decided to do something about it. For a long time now I’ve thought that the most interesting writing is coming from small presses, as they are not as concerned about the bottom line as they are about literary aesthetics. They accept books based on loving them. At a big press it’s because they think it can make money.” What started small, with Marc’s buying books to review, has caught on so well that he’s getting over 400 hits a month and is, at times, overwhelmed by the number of submissions he receives from small publishers.
3. Read good Blogs, for that’s where the action is. I’ve mentioned many of them before and will do a future listing on my next posting. The increased coverage one can get from these bloggers more than compensates for the decreasing space available from newspaper and magazine book reviews. In some ways I think newspaper reviews are in danger of becoming a dinosaur given the way they limit themselves to books written about celebrities or by celebrity authors, while avoiding the excitement and discovery of talented newcomers. As Rania Haditirto, our only full time employee who does so many things so well for us, puts it “GoodReads, LibraryThing, and independent bloggers have revolutionized the way in which books are talked about. Most people buy books because a friend talks passionately about something they’ve read, and these sites provide new friends who recommend books to one another. It’s like an on-line ongoing Book Club.”
Reading a good blog is how I met Marc Schuster. Charles Holdefer, a novelist we published, was a guest speaker at a Writers Conference at Rosemont in 2008. Charles had recently written "The Contractor." Marc had read and loved his novel, reviewed it, and was squiring him about. Afterwards he bought a couple of other Permanent Press books and enjoyed and wrote about them as well. I was always much impressed with his reviews; he had a knack for finding threads that escaped me and Judy, my wife and co-publisher, but were artfully observed. Since one of the joys of publishing is making contact with people who share your aesthetics and write beautifully—and since I noticed that on his website he listed a novel he wrote, "The Singular Exploits of Wonder Mom and Party Girl"—I wrote to him saying that since he’d read so many of our books, I thought it only fair that I read his. It arrived shortly afterwards, was published as a paperback by PS Books—a regional publisher and a division of Philadelphia Stories. Judy and I were impressed. It was both funny and dark, a tale for our times with unforgettable characters, narrated by a young super-Mom who, after her husband leaves her for a younger version, is introduced to cocaine and slides into addiction while her mothering goes haywire. What was also interesting is that it hadn’t been reviewed anywhere. We also thought it needed editing and I wrote back saying that if this book were available and if he wanted to do rewrites and some reorganization, we’d be interested in publishing it. “I’ll think about it,” he said, and two weeks later returned a masterfully reworked manuscript. While we’ve signed it up for mid 2011, we’ve already ordered bound galleys, a year and a half before publication date, as we want editors, agents, scouts, and film producers to see it well in advance of publication.
So hail to the book bloggers who have played a significant role in spreading the word about the novels we’ve published this year, which has resulted in a 66% increase in book sales over those in 2008…with still over a month to go. And to Publishers Weekly, who have always treated us so well.
Marty
P.S. If this blog proves of interest to you, I hope you will pass it on to others and also subscribe with Notifixious in order to be informed when next month's post comes out.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
The Cultural Divide
Merriam-Webster’s dictionary has two distinct definitions of culture; the first being “acquaintance with and taste in fine arts; developing intellectual and moral facilities; enlightenment and excellence of taste acquired by intellectual and aesthetic training.” For my purposes, lets call this “Culture” with a capital “C.” The second has to do with “the customary beliefs, social forms of a racial or social group; the characteristics of features of everyday experiences.” Let me write about this “culture” using a lower case “c” for sake of argument in talking about this cultural divide
The International Divide:
After our first Frankfurt Book Fair nearly three decades ago, Judy and I looked at one another and asked “Does the world need another book?” This year there were 7,300 exhibitors from around the world, scattered throughout 10 three story exhibition halls, with 500,000 visitors reported. It was a good fair for us, with unexpected visits from German, Russian, Italian, French, Canadian, Turkish and UK editors who wanted to see some of the nearly two dozen novels we brought to the fair and they had heard about. It buoyed us, this cultural divide, reaffirming that there is keen interest in well written novels abroad, whereas editors at the major domestic publishers have, over the last three years or so, shown little or no interest in either reading or acquiring reprint rights for quality fiction.
The Domestic Divide:
Returning from Frankfurt we had dinner at the home of Warren and Barbara Phillips on October 23, who started Bridgeworks. The other guests were Bill Henderson of Pushcart Press and his wife, Genie, and the publishers of Oceanview Press—Bob and Pat Gussin—who started their imprint in 2006 and are now doing 12 thrillers a year. Four small publishers, talking books, and wondering about the shifting obligations and standards among mainstream reviewers and columnists, as they inexorably drifted away from “Culture” to “culture.” Bill thought that it had to do with the increasing cult of celebrity in America, aided and abetted by the print media, pandering to what they assumed the public was interested in reading about.
We were discussing The New York Times Book Review of October 11, where only three novels were reviewed. There was a front page (in all a two page) review of Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol, which was artfully eviscerated by Maureen Dowd. That was followed by a full page review of The Suicide Run by William Styron, a masterful writer who died three years ago, but remains a superstar even if this collection of five previously published stories about Marine Corps warriors were originally written years ago. The final novel, The Children’s Book, featured another full page review by another superstar novelist, A.S. Bryant, concluding that “the novel’s encyclopedic ambition slows even the most absorbing story line to a stutter.”
Yet, with all their financial pressures and shrinking space, The Times Book Review still remains somewhat open to smaller books and other issues do better, balance wise, between fiction and non-fiction. This is not at all the case in the Arts section of the weekday Times, where Jon Landman, the editor of the Culture Desk, is in charge. And so on October 28, I sent this email to Jon.
“As co-publisher, for the last 31 years, of one of the most respected literary presses in America, I wanted to share some observations about how differently your coverage of books varies from coverage of all the other forms of entertainment in the Arts section.
“In writing about or reviewing dance, theater, films, or music there is a fair amount of space devoted to off and off-off Broadway plays and small out-of-town theater, as well as showcasing new playwrights. Similarly, aside from big productions from major studios or films with star-power actors or directors, there are plenty of small independent films that are also showcased. The same is true of music and dance. And yet, the reporting about books does not follow that model at all, but is largely restricted to books written by celebrity authors or focused on sales figures reported by the large corporate publishers. In my last blog posting on September 29, Conventions, I raised these issues across the board—including the fact that the daily Times book review section will not, according to Katherine Bouton, consider first novels, as these authors ‘have not yet proven themselves.’ Among the comments I received from this posting was one from one of the best online critics I've encountered, Marc Schuster at Small Press Reviews:
"I enjoyed your recent blog post on book conventions, particularly the reference to ‘name brand’ authors. As you can imagine, I've long been of the opinion that the mainstream book market, such as it is, has a tendency to reduce authors to commodities and, in general, flatten the entire canon of popular literature into a dull smear of sameness. Which explains why, frequently, the only thing mainstream media outlets can discuss in relation to books is number of units sold (or something equally tangential to books themselves). As a result, we get stories about how Harry Potter and Twilight sold however many millions of copies in much the same way McDonald's boasts ‘Billions and billions served.’ In the final analysis, it's all hamburger.
“His comments were underscored in Motoko Rich's column on October 8, entitled Booksales Are Down Despite Push, which was all about sales and returns of celebrity authors and their books, from Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol, to Ted Kennedy’s True Compass, and how book sales were down about 4 percent compared with the same weeks last year, suggesting that neither of these titles nor any of the other big fall books from heavyweights like Mitch Albion, Pat Conroy, E.L. Doctorow and Audrey Niffenegger were helping booksellers to overcome the sludgy economy. Motoko then went on to quote comments about sales figures from Ellen Archer of Hyperion, Suzanne Herz at Knopf Doubleday, buyers at Borders, Powells, and others with the focus, as always, on sales. Frankly, I think most of her articles on the book business belong in the business section, not the culture section of the Times. But, as Marc Schuster says, hamburger is hamburger. ‘How many thousands have we sold today?’
“Even when it comes to constantly decreasing sales figures among the dozen or so conglomerate publishers, there seems to be no awareness that there are things going on culturally among smaller presses—a fact I mentioned in an email to Motoko that was never answered—since our sales last year were 23% higher than those in 2007, and this year we are running 45% higher sales with two months still to go. I realize our sales are in the hundreds of thousands, whereas Random House's are in the multi-millions, but when you restrict yourself to a dozen artfully written novels of ‘Cultural’ interest, I do know there is significance here.”
I asked Jon if he’d care to comment before this blog was released. I was told by his assistant, Andrea Stevens, that he’s just back from traveling, and may not be able to respond in time. In which he can always post a comment or get back to me by email. which I’d surely feature in next month’s blog. Or, like emails I’ve sent to others at the Culture desk of the Times, he might not get back to me at all.
Sometimes I feel like I'm morphing into the Michael Moore of the book publishing world when it comes to raising issues of the sort I've been blogging about. The Michael Moore identification comes about because when I'd query Katherine Bouton to make sure she meant it (about not covering first novels) there was no response. And when I emailed Motoko after her October 8 column I accidentally hit the send button before I included the text (similar to what I just sent to Jon Landman). She immediately wrote back letting me know there was no copy to respond to. But after apologizing and sending her the text, I was ignored. Isn't it funny? When you say nothing you get an answer, but when you say something serious you are ignored. It's doubly odd since our executive editor, Rania Haditirto, pointed out that in Motoko's column she quoted "Mitchell Kaplan, owner of Books & Books, a chain of independent stores in South Florida and the Cayman Islands, who said the biggest successes were often books from unknown authors that built slowly by word of mouth." Ironic, since these are exactly the same books that are largely ignored in the Arts section. Well, Michael Moore has made many telling points in his films when he’s asked questions of officials at Guantanamo, or Health Care providers, of bank executives and is ignored. And, as Michael said at the end of his latest film, Capitalism, I'm not going away and am determined to keep raising questions of this sort.
Thus, it is a great comfort to know that the December issue of The Independent (the publication of the IBPA—the Independent Book Publishers Association)—will feature a column edited by Judy Applebaum that combines aspects of my last two blogs which should serve to enlarge this dialogue, for The Independent will be mailed to 3,500 IBPA members across the country (plus a few overseas) and also to wholesalers, retailers, librarians, media people and others interested in the book business. This will certainly expand the discussion of these issues.
A Last Minute Validation:
For those skeptics who doubt the claims I’ve made about the success to be had by doing fiction in the service of “Culture” as opposed to “culture,” I pass on this email, just received as I post this blog, from Suzie Tourscher at the Merchandising Department of Baker and Taylor, concerning the first three quarters of 2009:
“Hi Marty. I wanted to pass on your 2009 third quarter sales report as I realized that I hadn’t given you one of these reports in a while. So far you are up by 71% for the year, which is unheard of in this economy. You are experiencing the biggest growth in the Public Library market and Retail Internet markets; your sales are up by 82% and 36% respectively in those areas.” Also passed on was the fact that our returns rate over the past three years has been in the mid-teens…an exceptionally low rate among book publishers.
Coming Up Next Time:
I hoped to tell the story of how, after sending out countless copies of books to bloggers, we acquired a gem of a novel, The Singular Exploits of Wonder Mom and Party Girl written by a blogger, the aforementioned Marc Schuster. But rather than take up more of your time with this, let me start next month’s blog with this exceptional tale.
Marty
The International Divide:
After our first Frankfurt Book Fair nearly three decades ago, Judy and I looked at one another and asked “Does the world need another book?” This year there were 7,300 exhibitors from around the world, scattered throughout 10 three story exhibition halls, with 500,000 visitors reported. It was a good fair for us, with unexpected visits from German, Russian, Italian, French, Canadian, Turkish and UK editors who wanted to see some of the nearly two dozen novels we brought to the fair and they had heard about. It buoyed us, this cultural divide, reaffirming that there is keen interest in well written novels abroad, whereas editors at the major domestic publishers have, over the last three years or so, shown little or no interest in either reading or acquiring reprint rights for quality fiction.
The Domestic Divide:
Returning from Frankfurt we had dinner at the home of Warren and Barbara Phillips on October 23, who started Bridgeworks. The other guests were Bill Henderson of Pushcart Press and his wife, Genie, and the publishers of Oceanview Press—Bob and Pat Gussin—who started their imprint in 2006 and are now doing 12 thrillers a year. Four small publishers, talking books, and wondering about the shifting obligations and standards among mainstream reviewers and columnists, as they inexorably drifted away from “Culture” to “culture.” Bill thought that it had to do with the increasing cult of celebrity in America, aided and abetted by the print media, pandering to what they assumed the public was interested in reading about.
We were discussing The New York Times Book Review of October 11, where only three novels were reviewed. There was a front page (in all a two page) review of Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol, which was artfully eviscerated by Maureen Dowd. That was followed by a full page review of The Suicide Run by William Styron, a masterful writer who died three years ago, but remains a superstar even if this collection of five previously published stories about Marine Corps warriors were originally written years ago. The final novel, The Children’s Book, featured another full page review by another superstar novelist, A.S. Bryant, concluding that “the novel’s encyclopedic ambition slows even the most absorbing story line to a stutter.”
Yet, with all their financial pressures and shrinking space, The Times Book Review still remains somewhat open to smaller books and other issues do better, balance wise, between fiction and non-fiction. This is not at all the case in the Arts section of the weekday Times, where Jon Landman, the editor of the Culture Desk, is in charge. And so on October 28, I sent this email to Jon.
“As co-publisher, for the last 31 years, of one of the most respected literary presses in America, I wanted to share some observations about how differently your coverage of books varies from coverage of all the other forms of entertainment in the Arts section.
“In writing about or reviewing dance, theater, films, or music there is a fair amount of space devoted to off and off-off Broadway plays and small out-of-town theater, as well as showcasing new playwrights. Similarly, aside from big productions from major studios or films with star-power actors or directors, there are plenty of small independent films that are also showcased. The same is true of music and dance. And yet, the reporting about books does not follow that model at all, but is largely restricted to books written by celebrity authors or focused on sales figures reported by the large corporate publishers. In my last blog posting on September 29, Conventions, I raised these issues across the board—including the fact that the daily Times book review section will not, according to Katherine Bouton, consider first novels, as these authors ‘have not yet proven themselves.’ Among the comments I received from this posting was one from one of the best online critics I've encountered, Marc Schuster at Small Press Reviews:
"I enjoyed your recent blog post on book conventions, particularly the reference to ‘name brand’ authors. As you can imagine, I've long been of the opinion that the mainstream book market, such as it is, has a tendency to reduce authors to commodities and, in general, flatten the entire canon of popular literature into a dull smear of sameness. Which explains why, frequently, the only thing mainstream media outlets can discuss in relation to books is number of units sold (or something equally tangential to books themselves). As a result, we get stories about how Harry Potter and Twilight sold however many millions of copies in much the same way McDonald's boasts ‘Billions and billions served.’ In the final analysis, it's all hamburger.
“His comments were underscored in Motoko Rich's column on October 8, entitled Booksales Are Down Despite Push, which was all about sales and returns of celebrity authors and their books, from Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol, to Ted Kennedy’s True Compass, and how book sales were down about 4 percent compared with the same weeks last year, suggesting that neither of these titles nor any of the other big fall books from heavyweights like Mitch Albion, Pat Conroy, E.L. Doctorow and Audrey Niffenegger were helping booksellers to overcome the sludgy economy. Motoko then went on to quote comments about sales figures from Ellen Archer of Hyperion, Suzanne Herz at Knopf Doubleday, buyers at Borders, Powells, and others with the focus, as always, on sales. Frankly, I think most of her articles on the book business belong in the business section, not the culture section of the Times. But, as Marc Schuster says, hamburger is hamburger. ‘How many thousands have we sold today?’
“Even when it comes to constantly decreasing sales figures among the dozen or so conglomerate publishers, there seems to be no awareness that there are things going on culturally among smaller presses—a fact I mentioned in an email to Motoko that was never answered—since our sales last year were 23% higher than those in 2007, and this year we are running 45% higher sales with two months still to go. I realize our sales are in the hundreds of thousands, whereas Random House's are in the multi-millions, but when you restrict yourself to a dozen artfully written novels of ‘Cultural’ interest, I do know there is significance here.”
I asked Jon if he’d care to comment before this blog was released. I was told by his assistant, Andrea Stevens, that he’s just back from traveling, and may not be able to respond in time. In which he can always post a comment or get back to me by email. which I’d surely feature in next month’s blog. Or, like emails I’ve sent to others at the Culture desk of the Times, he might not get back to me at all.
Sometimes I feel like I'm morphing into the Michael Moore of the book publishing world when it comes to raising issues of the sort I've been blogging about. The Michael Moore identification comes about because when I'd query Katherine Bouton to make sure she meant it (about not covering first novels) there was no response. And when I emailed Motoko after her October 8 column I accidentally hit the send button before I included the text (similar to what I just sent to Jon Landman). She immediately wrote back letting me know there was no copy to respond to. But after apologizing and sending her the text, I was ignored. Isn't it funny? When you say nothing you get an answer, but when you say something serious you are ignored. It's doubly odd since our executive editor, Rania Haditirto, pointed out that in Motoko's column she quoted "Mitchell Kaplan, owner of Books & Books, a chain of independent stores in South Florida and the Cayman Islands, who said the biggest successes were often books from unknown authors that built slowly by word of mouth." Ironic, since these are exactly the same books that are largely ignored in the Arts section. Well, Michael Moore has made many telling points in his films when he’s asked questions of officials at Guantanamo, or Health Care providers, of bank executives and is ignored. And, as Michael said at the end of his latest film, Capitalism, I'm not going away and am determined to keep raising questions of this sort.
Thus, it is a great comfort to know that the December issue of The Independent (the publication of the IBPA—the Independent Book Publishers Association)—will feature a column edited by Judy Applebaum that combines aspects of my last two blogs which should serve to enlarge this dialogue, for The Independent will be mailed to 3,500 IBPA members across the country (plus a few overseas) and also to wholesalers, retailers, librarians, media people and others interested in the book business. This will certainly expand the discussion of these issues.
A Last Minute Validation:
For those skeptics who doubt the claims I’ve made about the success to be had by doing fiction in the service of “Culture” as opposed to “culture,” I pass on this email, just received as I post this blog, from Suzie Tourscher at the Merchandising Department of Baker and Taylor, concerning the first three quarters of 2009:
“Hi Marty. I wanted to pass on your 2009 third quarter sales report as I realized that I hadn’t given you one of these reports in a while. So far you are up by 71% for the year, which is unheard of in this economy. You are experiencing the biggest growth in the Public Library market and Retail Internet markets; your sales are up by 82% and 36% respectively in those areas.” Also passed on was the fact that our returns rate over the past three years has been in the mid-teens…an exceptionally low rate among book publishers.
Coming Up Next Time:
I hoped to tell the story of how, after sending out countless copies of books to bloggers, we acquired a gem of a novel, The Singular Exploits of Wonder Mom and Party Girl written by a blogger, the aforementioned Marc Schuster. But rather than take up more of your time with this, let me start next month’s blog with this exceptional tale.
Marty
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