Pre-publication Schpilkes

Josh Getzler

In 23 days, my client Nancy Bilyeau's Tudor-era thriller The Crown will be published. It's been some ride for this debut novel, which I've talked about here before both explicitly and obliquely (please see "bad-ass nun" from last week).

Things are starting to come together. Reviews are beginning to stream in, bloggers are requesting copies of the book for future mentions. Nancy, who has been in the magazine world for years but is still a newby at this part of the business, is being advised how to behave when interviewed or reading in public or blogging or tweeting or commenting or breathing.

We received our finished copies of the book last week and inhaled the incomparable aroma of freshly-baked novel--I almost felt I needed to buy the book flowers after I caressed it gently for...well, longer than I should have.

Nancy and I have become inveterate refreshers of the Pub Lunch Book Tracker (emails fly--"Hey, did you see that you dipped below 6,000 in ebooks for 15 minutes last hour--High Five!"), and worriers that someone's going to miss something. ("Hey, didn't they send out ARCs to that independent bookseller in Wisconsin? Why didn't we hear from them?" "Oh, you mean the one behind the strip mall 60 miles out of town?" "Right." "Oh damn, you're right--we should get on that--could affect our standing.")

This is not, incidentally, a column about neurotic authors. Hardly. It's actually about my own pre-pub jitters. I'm using The Crown and Nancy as examples because The Crown is one of the books happening now (and because I know Nancy reads this blog and will laugh at me--(and you were at 6,435 on ebook when I started this, btw)). And because she's been very active in the best possible way in helping herself build up to publication day.

But I will tell you, every time a book I represent comes out, I get what my grandmother called Schpilkes. I'm looking over our blog lists, making sure I've retweeted appropriately whenever my author mentions casually that it would, you know, be nice if you pre-ordered her book, maybe, if you feel like it. I start asking editors (casually, of course--which is Agent for "transparently") if they've gotten any pre-pub buzz from the sales force.

Oh, and I have to do this while being the very Rock of Gibraltar to the author, who is either freaking out or pretending not to be freaking out, particularly when every high school classmate and third cousin is coming out of the woodwork asking, not WHETHER the author is going to go out on tour (which they almost always are not--tours are expensive, often sparsely attended, and quite inefficient, unless you are Stephanie Meyer and can sell tickets), but rather how many stops. "Oh, no? You're not? My sister's boyfriend went to 37 cities with his xeroxed shapeshifter erotic memoir and said it was...blahblahblah." (Slaps forehead).

And now, in this particular situation, I am about to go to Florida for Christmas week with my family and come back in the homestretch (which is actually nothing compared to this spring, when my client Geoff Rodkey's middle grade debut Deadweather and Sunrise will be published three days before my son's Bar Mitzvah). Most of publishing is either shut down (publishers) or consumed with holiday specials (retailers).

But there is one place that doesn't sleep, and where conversations continue and reviews land and jitters can be allayed, and that's the online world. For all its faults, the internet is always open. It gives us something to do, another blog to comment on, another reviewer's opinion to analyze (is "stately" good when referring to pace?). We'll have plenty of time to obsess in the 10 days leading up to pub--and then beyond, when we'll be able to stop speculating and deal with real data!

And yes, Schpilkes happens all the time, to varying degrees. And in the end, I rather love it. It's like the hot stove league in baseball, or the presidential campaign (which I love less these days)--an opportunity, before the fact, to speculate, to worry, to almost vibrate with  excitement. To have Schpilkes. We'll see what happens on January 12. I feel pretty good.

Happy Chanukah and Merry Christmas, and next week from Miami for a year-end wrap-up.  

 

Comments

[Tudorscribe]

Oh thank you Josh! I love reading about the schpilkes (this is now my word of the MONTH) from your perspective. Last time I made it into Dead Guy was when we walked the floor of BEA and I told you about the Tudor twitterverse and facebook excitement. I was so proud when you shared on Dead Guy the discovery that there is a facebook group called We Who Are Rad Enough to Detest the Conniving Bitchface Who was Jane Seymour. ROTFL. Guess what--they still haven't admitted me?! My application is "pending."

Three immediate responses: Now that close to 100 bloggers have requested the book or are reviewing or mentioning the book, I feel like I'm falling into the warm bath of the Internet. This part isn't scary. You know I've been a facebook addict for years; in the last six months I've "cracked" twitter, I think. I have three email accounts and I check them ALL, all day. So even though some of the reviews may be mixed or some snark may emerge, it is exciting because these are my people. It feels like "Freaks": "One of us, one of us, one of us..."

The book tour obsession among my friends and relatives--that I don't quite get. Where is this coming from? You've been helpful in handling this, and it occurred to me when reading this column how dimensional your job is. Soon after I signed with you, or maybe even before I signed, you told me a big part of being an agent is "managing expectations." Now you're helping me manage the expectations of my friends and family. I've had three offers of help in setting up my own tour and two demands that I man up and tell the publisher to free up the travel money now. OY.

Finally, this is exciting and rather harrowing along with being wonderful. I keep thinking about notes I once received from a screenplay consultant on my first script, about the feminist Mary Wollstonecraft: "It is so great to read this after reading hundreds of screenplays with the line of dialogue 'This is the mission we've trained for.' " That was such an awesome note, with many aspects to it, but I want to say to you, Josh, that as this writer of the "bad-ass nun thriller" looks down the long cold barrel of the gun of prepublication--you know what? Josh, this is the mission we've trained for!!

[Jeff Cohen]

Have a lovely holiday in Florida, Josh, and best of luck to Nancy! By the way, Steven Spielberg said in a recent interview that he always gets "shpilkes" before he shoots a movie. So you're in good company.

[Nancy Bilyeau]

Thank you Jeff! If it's good enough for Spielberg, it's good enough for me. :)