Hey, There's A Dead Guy in the Living Room

Hail and Farewell

Jeff Cohen

So that was it. We hope you liked it.

This is the 3464th post on HEY THERE'S A DEAD GUY IN THE LIVING ROOM, and unless someone else parachutes in and decides to add some thoughts, it is the last. We've had quite a good run here but it's time to shut off the lights and lock the doors before we stop saying anything anyone wants to hear.

For me DEAD GUY has been any number of things. It started when Deni Dietz and I defected from Murderati a long, long time ago and thought we'd start our own blog, but we didn't want to examine crime fiction strictly from an author's point of view. So we recruited editors, publishers, readers, librarians, reviewers, agents and booksellers, among others, to provide perspective we as writers couldn't offer. 

I'll continue to post blogs every now and again (look next Tuesday for sure) and hope you'll look for those moments, but as for DEAD GUY, this is the end of the line, and that's because we have all agreed it's better to go out while we're still wanted and not overstay our welcome.

But it wasn't all about publishing. The rule among us at DEAD GUY was that there were no rules. If you wanted to post about your section of the crime fiction world, great. If not, go for it. I have personally posted about digitizing my vinyl record collection, interviewed my daughter, had my dog write a guest post, talked about my health issues (ad nauseam), ranted about having to master barre chords, introduced a pseudonym, shamelessly promoted my work, bragged about blurbs, discussed the importance of making attractive letters when filling in a crossword puzzle, mentioned comedians I especially admire and occasionally made dives into such popular subjects as religion and politics. I recall once explaining how to deal with the atheist on your Christmas card list.

This blog has been more than a simple repository for my random thoughts. I've made good friends here. I've managed to blow off steam or express emotional truths when I had to. It served as a steam valve when I needed it. And a couple of times it served to let me write silly song lyrics. 

The most gratifying part of the weekly post was to connect with those who decided to visit us here. Hearing from readers and other writers, among many others, was a great comfort and sometimes an ego stroke when it was most needed. Writers write because we want to communicate something. Knowing that people were taking notice was a very large help at times.

For me the schedule forced me to write whether I had a great idea in mind or not. Some of my favorite posts were those that came when I was backed against a deadline wall. 

Everyone who has ever posted here will tell you that coming up with a post every week could be a trial. It's not easy to keep going and not repeat oneself. There have been nights that I've sat here looking at a blank screen for an hour wondering what would appear on the blog page at 12:00 a.m. that Monday. The closest I've ever come to believing in "Writer's Block" has been related to these posts. But I still don't believe.

The people with whom I've been part of DEAD GUY are amazing, smart, funny, warm and dedicated. I am grateful and honored to have been associated with each and all of them. I won't mention all the names here because I'm certain to forget some and that would bother me deeply even if it wouldn't rankle those I failed to cite. But assume if you've read a post here and it wasn't one of mine that it was written by someone I admire greatly, someone who inspires awe in me. I thank each of them. 

For those who have chosen to check in here every day or every week or once a year, we can't possibly thank you enough. It has been wonderful being part of your lives. Don't mourn the DEAD GUY. We stopped because we didn't want to disappoint you. You deserve our best. We hope we've given it to you. Thanks for everything.

 

 

Oh. And pitchers and catchers report in 44 days.

A Fond Farewell From DEAD GUY Alum Josh Getzler!

Josh Getzler

As I have four or five times in the past, I am writing this post from Florida, where I spend my winter break each year. In previous years, I’ve used my final post before New Year’s to look back at the year, and to project where I might be next year this time.

This post, however, is a bit different, and somewhat bittersweet, because this is the last time I’ll be writing for Hey, There’s A Dead Guy in the Living Room. I think the decision to end the blog was correct—it’s hard to find something new to discuss every week, particularly when trying to keep it at least vaguely within the box of crime fiction or publishing, and I know all of us have deviated at different times over the years.

But for today, I’d like to discuss not the past year, but rather the past eleven. And while Jeff tells me that 2,500 words is awfully long for a typical blog post, given that it’s the second-to-last entry of the whole thing, I hope you will indulge me. So sit down, y’all, as my 14 year old daughter says; it’s Story Time With Josh.

I re-entered publishing in January of 2007, and at that time I thought the industry had been revolutionized by technology since my first foray into the business of books a decade earlier. In 2007 submissions and edits had all become digital, and conversations among agents, editors and authors had become rapid-fire exchanges of emails. As an (aging) assistant, I was no longer spending days Xeroxing manuscripts and putting them into boxes, but organizing inboxes and learning to use electronic databases to monitor editor moves.

Then, as I thought I was getting the hang of the new paradigms, another innovation/disruption happened: Amazon decided to turn its gaze to publishing, and created the Kindle. The decisions Amazon made in entering this world have certainly had the most affect on the publishing industry in this past decade—far beyond any other single aspect of the business. From the pricing models, through its competition with Barnes and Noble and WalMart, through its Agency Model contracts and legal battles with publishers to its decision to enter the scrum as a non self-publishing publisher (and its systems of paying royalties), Amazon beats out Publisher Consolidation and the near-demise of browsing in brick-and-mortar bookstores as the Biggest Thing of the 2010’s.

From a personal standpoint, I started in 2007 as an assistant to two (outstanding) agents, having just leapt from a business where I’d been the boss, with three children 8 and under, where I woke up every morning at 5:00 to read queries, and where I spent four months line-editing a 700 page thriller (that never saw the light of day).

As 2017 ends, I’m a partner of the six-year-old agency I co-founded in 2011 with Carrie Hannigan and Jesseca Salky. We have all seen our books hit the NY Times (and many other) best seller lists, including Carrie’s client Vashti Harrison’s amazing middle grade book about black women who made history, Little Leaders, which was #3 last week. We are up to seven people in our agency, and have reached financial stability. I represent more than 60 authors, and hit my 100^th deal announced on Publishers Marketplace this past year. My oldest child (who’s contributed to Hey Dead Guy several times) just completed his first semester of college, while my toddler girls from 2007 are now both in high school. If I tried to wake up at 5 AM to read a manuscript, I’d be asleep by 8 that night, which isn’t practical.

When I started back at Writers House in 2007, my expectation was that I’d be The Mystery Guy. I’d edited mysteries in the 90s at Harcourt, read more of them than any other kind of book, and figured I’d find my lane in that world. And while I’ve done that (expanding into pretty much all aspects of crime fiction, from cat mysteries to horror to historical thriller to contemporary spy novels to near future dystopic police procedurals), I realized pretty quickly that I needed to expand my sights to…Anything That Will Sell. But nine years after starting to take on clients, I’ve been able to consolidate into a few different genres that make up most of my submissions. As a way to discuss the past decade in publishing, I’ll include commentary while discussing each part of my list.

• Crime fiction, as above. This takes up probably half of my energy—or more, at different points when I’m flush with projects. I’ve sold more crime fiction than anything else, and it remains dear to me. I’m also seeing the most extremes of highs and lows with it at the moment. The low points began a couple of years ago, when Berkley and St. Martin’s Press—two of the most significant mystery publishers in the business—contracted their lists by ¾ and ½, respectively. Now on one hand, that was probably necessary: The shelves at B&N were filled with donut shop mysteries and knitting mysteries and knitting mysteries set in donut shops (with cats, of course), and the market was so glutted that it was difficult for many new authors to find their audience and break through. Additionally, while we thought that ebooks were going to replace mass market paperbacks--where mysteries typically found their audience--on a one-to-one basis, that didn’t happen AND the lower price of ebooks didn’t make up for the lost revenue (and many publishers began to release their mysteries in hardcover and trade paperback, which caused its own pricing issues and lowered sales figures—but that’s a whole different discussion for another time.) So there needed to be a bit of a correction. We are just beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel now, though not without quite a bit of pain. Many well-published authors found themselves without homes after many books. Many well-seasoned editors found themselves out of work after many years at a home. This caused a great deal of backup in the ability of the fine publishers still (or newly) publishing crime fiction (like Midnight Ink or Crooked Lane or Severn House or Henery House) to take chances on new writers, as they were populating their lists with veterans.

The upside was that these publishers DID work very hard to take up the slack. Additionally, for the first time, we were able to see digital first or digital only imprints of the big publishers begin to get traction. Whether Witness (HarperCollins) or Alibi (Random House) or Thomas & Mercer (Amazon) or several others, we have started to see real sales come from these imprints. (Of course many of these imprints compete very strongly on price deals, which sacrifice revenue per sale for quantity of downloads adding up to a decent stream. 1,000 books downloaded at $1.99 with a 25% of Net Revenue rate don’t match up to 1,000 books sold at $7.99 with a royalty rate of 8% of list price. ($250 vs $640, after a number of assumptions.))

Also, we are beginning to see the re-emergence of the mass market paperback, which will come as a boon to mystery readers who don’t like to use e-readers. The market, I suspect, won’t have the same share as it used to, but there are clearly many readers and large number of terrific writers, and even an industry as difficult to shift as publishing will respond to those needs.

Finally, we are seeing an increase (as all content providers are) in unusual deals in mystery stories, particularly where production is concerned. The number of new outlets for video has allowed mystery and crime fiction stories to be optioned, produced, and even reverse-engineered in record numbers. Hallmark Mysteries and Movies has become the Berkley Prime Crime of television, and Acorn TV (or ITV3) its source for British cozies and procedurals.

OK, so that’s a bit of a digest on crime fiction. For me, that’s a significant amount of my energy. The others are:

• Middle Grade children’s books. When I started back in 2007, I had a kid just entering the middle grades, and two bosses who represented terrific middle grade novels. But it took a chance conversation with a film producer who knew a guy with a book described as Harry Potter with Pirates (which turned out to be more like The Princess Bride with 13 year olds) to start me on the road to a strong list of books for tweens. I’ve grown to love these books, with their spunky heroes and heroines who are not yet jaded (much) but still can Get It Done. I like the humor and the Feels, and the fact that there is a greater breadth of story permitted there than in almost any genre. Funny thing to me was that I thought that once I got the hang of middle grade books, I could also rep Young Adult, but I found out that I simply didn’t have the same eye. So I now rarely look at books for older teens, but am definitely actively continuing to work on the middle grade.

The frustration on this side is that it is INCREDIBLY difficult to market these books. The intended market does not buy its own books, but needs to have parent approval and participation. And the lack of brick-and-mortar bookstores is preventing the kind of browsing with kids that led to finding the book NEXT to the book one is looking for (whether as an adult or a kid). And the old way for authors to get to their audience directly—by visiting schools and libraries—has been discovered by everyone, and it’s now more difficult to get those gigs and be considered special.

• Historical Fiction. I realized a couple of years ago that I was at a place in my career where I could start to concentrate on the kinds of books I really love. And being married to a history teacher for 21 years has made me more and more interested in learning about times and places I don’t already know about. And so many historical novels either cross over into crime fiction or deal with either politics or Royal Courts or Ecclesiastical issues that so I’ve spent a considerable amount of time finding and working on books set in times and places as disparate as 12^th Century Ireland, 16^th Century England AND France, 19^th Century Italy, pre WWI Russia and pre WWII Vienna, as well as Israel, Mongolia, Japan, Pre-Revolutionary New York and…you get the idea.

The issues here are that historical fiction is either crowded with titles (Henry VIII) or “too strange for the market” (even if it’s in the same location 100 years later). There is also a tendency for publishers to get gun shy when they have taken a big risk on an historical novel that doesn’t pan out, when there is popular wisdom that only a certain number of these titles will hit in a given year, and if one flops then every other book seen by that publisher will be compared to that one. Additionally, I’ve found in the past year that the pacing of so many of the historical novels I rep make for somewhat long books—it’s necessary not only to set the place but the time and where it is in history, and often a different voice. And as a result, editors will need to spend a longer time reading than they might with shorter books in other genres (or proposals in nonfiction). As a result, there is often a longer than comfortable time between submission and response to these books, which can play havoc on the rhythm of a sale. I’ve had more long-wait submissions in historical fiction than in any other genre, and it’s become a source of terrible frustration to my authors. Doesn’t mean it’s not worth it in the end, but it requires more patience and fortitude than in most kinds of books.

• Nonfiction: I got into nonfiction for two reasons: One old friend of mine came to me with her Work-Life Balance proposal, and because my authors tend to be both smart and in possession of day jobs they can write clearly and compelling about. These are the most straightforward books to work on, and their submissions tend to be of more reasonable length. If you had told me ten years ago that I would have a vigorous list of prescriptive books for (mostly) women about professional satisfaction, parenting, and small-I-inspiration, I would have been surprised. But not as surprised as if you’d told me that I would be pitching a proposal about the mission to Pluto—by the brilliant scientist who ran the mission—on the DAY his spacecraft flew by the Heart of Pluto and a photo of his mission would be above the fold on the front page of the New York Times.

So that is my list, with some relevant commentary on the market.

The past ten years have been fascinating. When I entered Writers House, after being in Baseball—with the Yankees (for God’s Sake), many people asked whether I was going to find publishing as exciting or interesting. And the truth is, while there were many great moments in baseball, the everyday life of my career in publishing has been more consistently happy and satisfying, even when I may be frustrated with a submission or displeased with an offer or wanting to tell off someone who may deserve it. The variety of books I’ve read, the fascinating people I’ve been able to interact with, the talent of the writers and editors and publicists and other agents. Man, it’s just so impressive.

And one of the places I was able to find a voice and meet people in has been Hey, There’s a Dead Guy in the Living Room. Even if there were times I had to throw together a quickie couple of paragraphs on Tuesday at 11:30 after a long day at work and a night out, I had a great time talking mysteries and writing and business (and occasionally Bruce Springsteen). I get queries that talk about my columns, and I use both my own archives and some from my fellow Dead Guys in my class on publishing at NYU. So to Lynn, and Jessy, and Terri, and the many others, and most of all to my friend (and client) Jeff Cohen (hey, I get to acknowledge YOU for a change!), thanks so much for letting me be part of this terrific experiment in multiple-contributor blogging. I can’t wait to see what the next ten years bring—maybe we’ll have to have a reunion run, like an 80s metal band, and see where we’ve all landed. We can call it Mostly Dead. Which, as we all know, is still, if you work on it, alive.

Don't Be Sad... It's Just a Blog

First: Our most fervent hopes that everyone in the path of the recent terrible storms is okay and that life will return to normal soon.

But now a bittersweet announcement: Every day here at DEAD GUY we try to bring you something that can add to your day. Most often that something has to do with crime fiction publishing, as our lineup of bloggers has been constructed to know about that category. And over the past 10 we have done our best to provide every possible viewpoint on the subject.

But, as they say, whoever they are, all good things (and the rotten ones too, truth be known) must come to an end. 

As much as we've all loved being DEAD GUY bloggers, we've agreed it's time to close the proverbial doors around here. Coming up with useful, entertaining content every day has gotten to be a little too much after all this time and we want to go out while we're still at the top of our game. 

So the December 31 post will be the last one here at DEAD GUY. While it's a little sad to think this is coming to a close, we prefer to focus on the idea that we've done good work here, people have enjoyed it, and we've kept it going since January 2007, which ain't bad. 

The cast of characters has changed over the years, but never the mission: To provide perspective on writing, publishing, reading, editing, promoting and enjoying books, mostly in the crime fiction area. We're all still committed to that concept and we'll keep expressing our opinions when we feel they're relevant. Just not here at DEAD GUY after 2017 becomes 2018. 

In the ensuing months, please know we'll keep posting as we have before, so don't tune us out of your daily web scan just yet. And along the way, we'll be hearing from some DEAD GUY alums who have graciously agreed to come back for one more visit before the lights are put out and we group-hug our way to the end of the Mary Tyler Moore Show. 

Keep reading. That's what this has always been about.

Stairway to Heaven (The Last Dance)

Josh Getzler

 

It happened this morning like it happens every year. The emails started at 3 AM—Happy New Year! Welcome Back! So…about that manuscript. By 10 in the morning, there were eight; by noon, 14. Today is the first business day of the new year, and everyone wanted to get rolling.

 

Publishing is such a cyclical industry that anyone who’s been involved in any aspect of it knows the rhythm of the year—which is kind of like a school year: Business gets going right after Labor Day, with a peak right before and after the October Frankfurt Book Fair and a frantic burst of dealmaking right after Thanksgiving as agents and editors try to finish their calendar years with ONE LAST DEAL before everyone starts to depart for winter break.

 

Then there are crickets for two weeks, as authors finish their NaNoWriMo edits, agents write their new pitches and look through the Fall’s subs that didn’t quite get traction, working to inject new energy. There is a sustained energy to the industry through March, when it begins to be Fair Season—Bologna (for children’s books) leads to London (for everything), then a break for six weeks or so, then the big BEA convention that begins the summer season.

 

Summer is a crap shoot. Back in The Day, it was a dead zone, with editors disappearing to the Hamptons and nothing getting done. Nowadays, however, the industry slows, but doesn’t stop. Everyone takes a break, but it’s rolling. Consecutive rather than simultaneous. So sometimes it’s possible to make things happen, and sometimes it’s not.

 

But everyone knows about the first workday after New Years. We’ve all had a vacation, and had slowed down for a couple of weeks before we left. Authors get itchy—they know that they can’t expect much for around four weeks, so by the time Christmas break is over, it’s TIME.

 

Hence, 14 gentle nudges in the first morning of the new year. And I’m fine with that (as long as “Hi, yes, I’m on it” is an acceptable response).

 

I’ve been blogging on Hey, There’s a Dead Guy in the Living Room pretty much every Tuesday for five and a half trips around this publishing cycle, from the very beginning of Hannigan Salky Getzler in 2011 until today. And it’s been fascinating to explore this industry—as well as music, politics, parenting (sometimes), sports, and other arts. I’ve had three assistants. Approximately 20 interns. Three offices. One New York Times Best Seller. Two USA Today Best Sellers. A bunch of successes, and some books that never caught the public’s fancy the way I thought they should.

 

All three of my kids became teenagers during this time period, and they, as well as my wife, Amanda, have dealt with my Tuesday evening freakouts, where we’ll be watching TV or reading at 10:30 at night, and all of a sudden I’d say “Oh NO, it’s TUESDAY!” and run into our bedroom where the desktop sits.

 

I’ve written blog posts in Florida and Prague, London (a bunch of times) and assorted conferences. Sometimes I punted, and posted a photo with a caption. Sometimes, though, I’d spend a thousand words on an esoteric topic within the publishing world.

 

This blog definitely helped me improve my visibility—my Q rating, as it were—and many prospective clients cite the blog in their queries. And the most popular blog post of my tenure here was about “The Modifier Zone,” where I go through a few first pages to show how writers sometimes frontload their manuscripts with adjectives—presumably to show me that they know big words—before settling down to their true styles. (The fact is, though, that probably the TRULY most popular posts of my time were written not by me, but by my son Joe, who can continue on his own blog at Skidmore next year.)

 

But I started to realize this year that I needed to wind down. I’ve really written a lot the past five years, and found that I was boring myself. I didn’t want to write another post about queries, or marketing ebooks, or the changing bookselling attitudes in the UK. It’s not that I was not enjoying writing, but that I wasn’t enjoying the deadlines, the relentlessness of time passing. And I kind of want to write different things—maybe more about being a parent, or about music, or even some fiction…but that’s really not what Dead Guy is about. Mostly, I need to recharge the batteries and start over in a different way.   

 

When I was a teenager, and went to camp, the weekly socials (we had socials) always ended with Stairway to Heaven, so the party could end...but slowly, over 8 minutes. That's really what I've been doing the past weeks--wrapping up slowly, so I didn't actually have to turn on the lights and go back to my bunk. But it's time. So…thanks for reading! I’ve loved the feedback, the friends I’ve made through the blog, the challenge of consistent writing, the way it’s let me organize my thoughts. It’s probably made me a better agent. It’s definitely made me a better writer.

 

And particular thanks to Jeff and Lynne (whose thumbnail always seemed to appear on my Facebook links to my posts) and Terri and Jessy and the rest of the Dead Guys. Hopefully Jeff will let me guest post once in a while if I ask nicely, when something relevant comes up. I look forward to reading everyone’s posts, and to hearing how the NEXT Dead Agent Guy analyzes the publishing industry.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pPvNqOb6RA

 

An Agent-Blogger Continues to Wrap Up: Agent-Client Relations

Josh Getzler

 

I’m going to start this week’s post, as I typically do each year at this time, with a recap of my year with respect to clients and deals. But this time, as I’m winding down this blog, I’m going to add a little about the way my relationships with writers have evolved over the ten years I’ve been in publishing. It’s been interesting to mark this evolution, as it’s reflected everything from what stages of my career I’ve hit, to the backgrounds of my clients, to what kinds of authors I’ve attracted based on the genres of books I’ve requested on my website or announced deals for on Publishers Marketplace or discussed on Hey Dead Guy. OK, but first, the numbers:

I currently represent 53 authors actively, meaning if you were to ask them “who’s your agent?” they’d say me. I also have six former clients whose books I still have meaningful ties to. During the past year I’ve added eight clients, while subtracting six (which sounds more ruthless than it was—a couple left me, a couple began working with Danielle instead of me, and a couple were simply cases where, after not being able to sell their projects over an extended period of time, we decided it wasn’t working and they’d be better served finding someone new).

I made approximately 15 deals in the past 12 months (9 are up on Publishers Marketplace; the rest are awaiting announcement because we are finishing contracts or for other reasons). Another six are in the “final waiting” period, where I’m anticipating an offer with a better than, say, 75% chance that it will come through, but it hadn’t happened before everyone left town for Christmas. I currently have 11 manuscripts out on submission to at least three editors (so, not renewals of contracts). Of these, six are authors who have previously published books, where we are trying to move houses; four are first-time authors; and one is an artist who has published his art before but is not trying to be published in the trade publishing world. Eight of the eleven are novels; four of those are historical. Six of the books are set completely or mostly in other countries.

Additionally, I have 11 books not already under contract where I am expecting my authors to deliver their manuscripts in 2017 (again, this is in addition to clients with contracts who need to deliver their contracted books this coming year). So I anticipate that they will go out on submission during the course of the year.

If I sell all of them, along with the ones I mentioned before as being in “final waiting,” I’ll have an outstanding 2017 without anything else. The reality, of course, is that I’ll probably sell some of these; pull a few back for revisions; get less money than I was anticipating for some (and more for others); and simply not ever get traction with a few. It also doesn’t count any unanticipated projects—new clients, existing clients with different projects, or proposals from publishers or production companies for reverse-engineered books (where the author gets the idea from the publisher, rather than the other way around—“IP projects,” we call them).

The picture I’ve just painted for you is that of an agent in mid-career. I’m selling books consistently, have projects in all stages--from awaiting a first draft of a first book to publishing a ninth in a series. I’m now able, after 10 years, to choose to take on a narrower range of book—concentrating more on adult books, on historicals and crime novels and workplace dramas and ones with particular themes. I’m doing more nonfiction now, and while I represent middle grade children’s books, I’m doing much less YA.

I’m also getting my clients from somewhat different sources from how I did when I started out—fewer from the proverbial slush pile and more from referrals by other clients and members of the publishing world. (Doesn’t mean I am not still combing the unsolicited queries; merely that the bar is higher.)

As a result of these factors, I’ve found that what I need to do with the manuscripts I take on has changed quite a bit. I do less line editing than I did at the start of my career, and much more in the way of detailed editorial letters, followed by long phone calls.

And my relationships with my authors—and my conversations with them—have evolved as well since I began building my list in 2008. Because I have worked with several of my clients for upwards of seven years, my conversations with them are more personal, and also deal with different questions from what they did at the start. Instead of discussions of will we get the next one published, it’s should we go back to the same publisher or try to change. With my mystery writers, the contraction of the cozy market by (particularly) Berkley and St. Martin’s has meant a game of musical publishers.

And with a number of my clients, it’s a different conversation. I’m now far along enough that several of my clients are through their first or second contracts and haven’t always had the best experiences (or simply haven’t been lucky), and are now looking for new publishers. That is a point of great stress for them (also for me, but much more for them), and my job becomes part best friend, part shrink, in addition to financial advisor, as I need to keep them on track without destroying their livers or (God Forbid!) going off message on social media.

I’m also offering them new opportunities—ones that didn’t exist when I started out, and which, quite frankly, fascinate me. I’m working with a couple of clients on IP projects like I mentioned before; and guiding us through a new kind of Agreement, and new way of getting Out There, can be a challenge. I’ve also begun to work more with clients who have a real sense of the film and television worlds, and we are able to see how both exciting and difficult it can be to succeed there.

But there is nothing more gratifying—and this has been true from the first time I did it, with Jerry Elias in 2008) than to be able to make The Call to a client to say that there has been an offer on his or her manuscript. The satisfaction of knowing that the book was good enough, the editor and publisher were the right ones, that the fit was correct and the potential for success, great; is the highlight of my job. And when I make a guest Dead Guy post in five years to update these stats, I can’t imagine that this particular highlight will change overmuch.

And now I need to end this—we are in London and it’s dinner time. We have to get a good night’s sleep though—tomorrow afternoon we are meeting my client Elaine Powell and her husband Jon and daughter Angela, and spending the day together. Our kids are friends even though we live across continents, and Elaine and I try to see each other each time we are even close to the same neighborhood. I can tell stories like this about several of my clients, who’ve become more than business associates over the years. At the end of the day, it’s why I love my job.

An Agent-Blogger Wraps Up: Publisher/Agent Relations

Josh Getzler

 

As I get ready to give up my Dead Guy slot in January, I’m going to spend the next three weeks looking back on the past ten years in publishing. As I thought how to do this in a limited amount of time, I decided to devote this week to some changes I’ve seen in the ways editors and publishers relate to agents; then talk about agent/client relations next week. Then, to wrap up, I’ll give some figures about my own journey from sports executive to partner in a growing literary agency.

 

Ten years ago, when I joined Writers House as a very old assistant to two excellent (and patient) agents—Simon Lipskar and Dan Lazar—Viking Penguin and Random House were years away from merging. There was no such thing as a Kindle (or ebooks in any real form). We still periodically submitted manuscripts in printed form, via mail or messenger (though most of it was by email, to be sure). There were really no restrictions to speak of in terms of how many editors at a house an agent could submit a book to—if you thought six editors in different imprints at Random House could like a book, you could send to all of them and if more than one liked it, they would fight it out to see who would buy it.

 

Ten years ago, there was also just the beginning of a sense by publishers that literary agents could be productive forces in the process—that we were not simply sharks looking to gum up the works. More and more agents had editorial experience (as I did), and more and more agencies had active internship programs, so the population of English majors thought of both the buy and sell sides when trying to figure out how to enter publishing and not make any money. But there were also still many editors who treated me with skepticism—I remember a pretty venerable editor at a literary imprint of one of the Big Six ask me what, exactly, I thought I was adding to the publishing process beyond trying to fleece him for a ton of money for substandard novels. On some level, I thought of publishers as my opponents, and my assumption was that I was looking to defeat them.

 

As I left my office this afternoon almost ten years later, with 60 clients and a group of seven working together at the agency where I’m a partner, Publishing has undergone several intense disruptions. Digital publishing emerged, first as an existential threat to print book publishing and brick-and-mortar bookstores, then eventually as an incorporated and accepted form of distribution and format. The financial disasters in 2008, just as I was submitting my first list of manuscripts, meant that publishers were forced to cut what was probably a bloated population of editors and support staff—logical and probably necessary from the business side, but incredibly difficult to watch when those layoffs meant that a quarter of my friends lost their jobs in numbers squeezes. The folks who remained, as advances went down for many (though certainly not all) books, Borders went out of business, and contraction took hold, actually became substantially more congenial and collaborative.

 

After the financial crisis, Publishers also became more selective about how agents were permitted to submit books. Instead of unlimited access to the editors at Random House, for example, we were restricted to three: One each from the Crown, Knopf, and Random House Groups. (Again, this was probably logical, but made life somewhat more difficult for us, and limited competition—I’ll come back to this.)

 

Also, as time has passed, publishers established digital imprints in (mostly) genre books (mystery, science fiction, romance), closing imprints and establishing new models of paying authors, sometimes with low or no advances but slightly better royalty splits, to mixed success. (To be fair, in the past year or so, I’ve started to see these models begin to catch hold, so while the initial forays were pretty meager, there is greater hope now.) I am not going to get into the seismic changes that the Amazon/ Agency Model lawsuits caused to contracts and the business side of the industry as a whole, since there are many people (most notably Mike Shatzkin, Hillel Italie, and Michael Cader) who have done it brilliantly.  Finally, I’m not going to get into self-publishing in any detail. When HSG began in 2011, we thought it possible that we would be spending a significant amount of our energy assisting our clients in independent publishing efforts. While we’ve done some, with different levels of success, it’s not emerged as a significant aspect of our business.

 

But the biggest difference I’ve found in the past ten years has been my relationship in the editorial and marketing aspects of my clients’ publishing experiences. Rather than being the guy who picks out a book, formats it, sends it to a publisher, negotiates a contract, and gets out of the way, agents need to play a very different role with publishers: that of partner.

 

Because lists have shrunk over the past ten years, but the barriers of entry to submitting manuscripts have been lowered to almost nothing with email subs, publishers now rely on agents to be true first layers of defense. We must be that much more selective because publishers will be even MORE selective. We must get manuscripts into extremely clean form—most of the time I do two or three significant reads of a book, with either a detailed editorial letter (with accompanying calls to explain and discuss) or full-on line edits before I will consider starting to submit a manuscript that starts out extremely strong. And once I sell a book, I am much more involved in the strategy sessions for publicity and marketing. And instead of a suspicious or antagonistic relationship with my counterparts at publishing houses, there is much more of a spirit of collaboration.

 

Now before we all sit in a circle singing Kumbaya, there are also some less-exciting aspects of the process which have evolved. I certainly miss the days, for example, when if an editor began to read a book and enjoyed it, she would call me and say “Don’t you DARE do anything without telling me first,” or “Oh my God, this is amazing—I’m taking it to ed board next week.” More often, I’m getting lovely, polite passes after long waits, with regretful statements like “Well, I had three reads, we were really excited, but just couldn’t get it through Acquisitions.” This serves to a book’s detriment in two ways: It means I can’t help an editor answer potential challenges that come up in editorial meetings; and not knowing that an editor is interested means that I can’t tell OTHER editors that there is action, thus allowing there to be momentum to the submission. It works against excitement to keep cards too close to the vest. That’s really a significant issue I’ve seen.

 

Another is a growing insistence, in the interest of a “360-degree worldwide business,” for publishers to insist on retaining foreign and translation rights for smaller books with little potential of being sold abroad by the overwhelmed foreign rights pros at publishing houses—who are going to make their nut on the big books. If agencies had greater opportunity to retain those rights, we could concentrate on them more explicitly—we have smaller lists, and each title is a bit more of a special individual flower than at most publishers.

 

This is a half mile wide and an inch deep, but it does illustrate in its own small way just how dynamic the relationship has been over the past ten years between agents and publishers. It’s only speaking from my own journey, and others surely have had different experiences and feelings about these aspects of the business. But hopefully it gives you a little idea of this piece of the job of a literary agent in late 2016.

Wrapping Up

Josh Getzler

 

The first week of January will mark 10 years since I rejoined the world of books and began working as an apprentice literary agent at Writers House. A ton has changed over the ten years, and I'm going to use the next three weeks to analyze some of these changes. I'm going to divide it into agent/editor relationships, agent/author relationships, and how the industry as a whole has evolved, particularly after both the advent of digital publishing and the near apocalypse of 2008-9.

 

I'm also doing this because, after several years as the Tuesday Dead Guy, I'm going to step back after my column on January 3, and pass on the reins to a new blogger. I've found myself struggling in the last year or so to write interesting, fresh material, and I think a new perspective will be beneficial to this spot on Dead Guy. It's been wonderful writing (nearly) every Tuesday, and I will miss it. But it's definitely time.

 

In the meantime, though, I'm excited to explore where we've been, how the book world has changed, and, perhaps, think a bit about where it might go. 

Around the Corner

Josh Getzler

 

This is the first week in...a couple of months...that I've felt that the publishing industry has been truly awake. I had a day today without a lunch, with only one phone call, and the entire rest of the day filled with email catch-up. And it was excellent. Editors and clients were around and responsive. My nudges were received with good humor and promises of action. And there was a sense, even as the calendar hurtles to December, that there is one good last chance for action.

 

And I really shouldn't be that down about how work had gone. I've been able to submit books this autumn, and close deals, and guide my clients through the writing and editing process, and think about new clients as well. But the tension of the election (as well as my own personal tensions involving our son applying to college, our kids getting through school, breaking in a new assistant, etc etc etc), has been...difficult to get through. Again, it's not exactly the paralysis of writer's block, or a systematic depression. Just a kind of torpor. And it's not even that things are resolved, really--just that I feel like, right after Thanksgiving Week, everyone kind of pulled up their skirts and said "OK, let's make something of this semester."

 

And so we shall. Should be interesting.

One More Week

Josh Getzler

 

I think one of the reasons I've been blocked the past couple of months, and my posts have been mundane and insignificant (and for which I'm terribly sorry) is that it's felt just that--mundane and insignificant, rather than the enormously important event occurring next Tuesday (and I'm already going to say, next week's post will have one word: VOTE). I sit with my wife each evening and watch the news, trying to avoid upsetting or stressful reports about one side or the other. Truth has been so much stranger than any of the novels I've worked on. And in a week, it'll be over, and one large part of the country will be ok with the result, and everyone else won't (and honestly, even many of the folks who will be ok will be convincing themselves). I've got my horse in the race, and I'm biting my nails. And my great hope is that by the time I write this post in TWO weeks, we will be in a better, more peaceful place. Not holding my breath on that last part, but I can hope.

 

If you are in a state with early vote, do so. And tell your friends to do it.

 

Back to publishing after this extended nightmare is over. 

My Dystopic Inbox

Josh Getzler

 

As I was looking through my posts from the past couple of months, I realized that between Jewish holidays, the end of the summer, and parenting three teenagers, my posting on Hey Dead Guy has been pretty weak. It's been pretty rough--to the point where I have been describing my inbox, which has been deluged during my absences the past couple of weeks, as "dystopic."

 

But it's done now. My Senior is completing his first quarter and his college apps. The Jewish holidays concluded this evening and I'll actually have 7 straight work days uninterrupted. The puppy is slightly less insane. All good.

 

The question for an agent with a dystopic inbox is this: where to start?  Do I begin by answering the "please update" emails from clients? Or by thanking editors who have passed on my submissions? Do I look at the contracts that have arrived the past couple of days? Or do I continue my Fall manuscript submissions? Do I write the editorial letters to prospective clients? Or to current clients? Or do I read the second draft of a manuscript when I am already behind on the manuscripts I SHOULD be submitting already? Plus a couple of clients have new opportunities in different projects.

 

And the World Series is on.

 

And the election is in two weeks.

 

I need a new Holiday.

A Few Short Takes

Josh Getzler

 

It's been a hectic day, filled with meetings, submissions, taking kids to the doctor for their checkups (which confirmed that they are, indeed, teenagers, but didn't offer any solutions). I don't have the head space for a full topic, particularly since the main one I could think of is politics and that's just giving me anxiety. So here are a few short takes.

 

1) The summer is about editing, but the fall is about submissions. I spent the summer reading and working on manuscripts, with many fewer submissions than I've had the past several years. Editors seemed to be doing less new-author reading, and much more solidifying lists with new books by authors already in the stable. Now I'm in the process of submitting...a LOT of books. It's huge fun, but there's a different feel.

 

2) Whither Rio? I saw report on BBC World News last night about the aftermath of the Paralympics, which were held on the heels of the Olympics, which were held on the heels of the World Cup. For more than two years, there's been a focus on Brazil and its beauty and enormous problems. Now the athletes and the fans and the press are leaving. But the corruption scandals and violence and poverty remain.

 

3) Nobody has solved the problem of how to reliably move the dial of book sales. You may have been able to advertise in the NY Times Book Review and expect a bump; or get a book in the front table of Barnes and Noble and assume that the money would inevitably cause increased sales; or go out on tour and expect to speak to full houses (nah, that never worked as much as people said...). But now we have such individualization of sales, and such contraction of retail outlets, that it's extremely hard to move the dial unless you have established yourself either as a YouTuber before the book comes out; or as a franchise author before the internet; or simply catch fire somewhat randomly (maybe by overwhelming critical acclaim; or a particular topic that simply works; or...well, that's why we play the game). There was a short time when social media moved the dial--now it's necessary, and good, but only to stay on par. There is still the chance to sell a lot of books by being chosen for a Kindle Daily (or Monthly, or hourly) Deal. But it looks like Amazon may be glutting the market with price-driven deals as much as some cozy mystery imprints glutted the mystery market with books about murders involving knitting needles and cupcakes--sometimes simultaneously. Part of the value of marketing is increasing discoverability, to rise above the white noise. That's becoming ever harder.

 

4) The NY Football Giants are 2-0. Here's a GIF of Victor Cruz's touchdown dance. Stay happy!

 

 

 

 

 

Another Year Without Bouchercon

Josh Getzler

 

(Before I start, one quick response to Jeff Cohen: You NEVER bother me. OK, I'm done.)

 

So for three straight years, I went to Bouchercon: San Francisco, St. Louis, Cleveland, I followed the roving conference of crime fiction around the country. It was wonderful. I caught up with my growing stable of clients (particularly fun when we engaged in a smack-talk filled bowling contest against Stacia Decker's crew--who had SHIRTS, dammit...). I met with as many editors as a good month of lunches in NY. And I heard panel after panel of writers talking about their craft.

 

Oh, and the bar, which is REALLY the room (or lobby) where it happens.

 

But fundamentally, I enjoy going to Bouchercon because in one intense weekend I can reset my expectations, hear where the industry might be heading (or at least one slice of it) and reconnect with a lot of friends I communicate with via email and phone.

 

Then the bat mitzvahs started. 2014: my second child; 2015: my third. Both bat mitzvahs taking place the week after Bouchercon (which had to be scheduled a month different from each other!). This year, I thought OK, no more kids--I'll get to go to New Orleans! But then a couple we are about as close to as close cousins, and whose daughters are basically nieces, told us that their older daughter's bat mitzvah was the week of September 17. So now we wait until Toronto. Danielle is coming to NOLA, and will serve ably as my surrogate (and perhaps watch her amazing client Ausma Khan win an Edgar?). I will pray for your liver at Emma's bat mitzvah.

 

And watch out if you go bowling against Team Decker!

 

Have fun, everyone--let me know what I need to know!!!

 

 

So Good They're Bad

Guest Post by Joe Newman-Getzler

Recently, I watched a video by movie reviewer The Nostalgia Critic (ne Doug Walker). It was an editorial called “Can a Film Be So Good It’s Bad?” This caught my eye immediately. Naturally, there’s the old adage that a product that isn’t technically well-made but is still enjoyable is “so bad, it’s good.” This can apply to silly songs like Psy’s “Gangnam Style” or infamously poor movies like Troll 2. They aren’t necessarily good, per se, but there’s still an undeniable charm that those who take them at face value might miss. So, how do you reverse that? If a film provides no reasons for complaint, how can you reasonably say you dislike it?

The Critic explains, using films like Cinema Paradisio, The Truman Show, and E.T. as personal examples, that sometimes there are films that he can’t argue are bad, but which are so pristine that it almost provides a disconnect between the film and its audience. It’s not to fault the films’ creators for a good product, but sometimes the combination of a uniformly great film and boatloads of praise is enough to keep him from forming an emotional connection with the movie, which is an important distinction. (For the curious, here’s the video: https://youtu.be/KJhGSRJhWcU).

I was intrigued. I realized that this has actually happened to me more than a few times; that feeling of “I know it was great, I think it’s great…but why am I not inclined to see/hear/read it again?” The most recent time this happened to me was when I was discussing the book All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr with my grandmother. I had read it as a summer reading book and she had read it before I did. Now, just to be clear: All the Light We Cannot See is a terrific book. The characters are interesting and the cliffhangers each chapter ends on make the book’s 530 or so pages go by all the quicker. It won the Pulitzer. So it’s got that going for it.

And yet, when I finished it, I realized I had nothing to say about except, “It’s great.” Suddenly, all that intensity I felt while reading the book was drained from me the moment I put it down. My grandmother said the same thing (besides feeling that some of the character arcs were unfinished), and we had both felt the same way after reading another much-praised book, John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars. While I was reading it, the travails of Hazel and Augustus were absolutely world-consuming, but when I finished? “It was great. Nothing about it that was bad.”

Therein lies the problem: that lack of an emotional connection Nostalgia Critic pointed out. I’ve read a lot of books that are roughly on par with the two I’ve mentioned, quality-wise, which I could say wholeheartedly I’d read over and over again. Part of why I connect to the things I connect to is because they’re great for very specific reasons. Why is Purple Rain one of my favorite albums? Because of the music’s infectious energy, the fact that it’s an aural carnival where you’re invited and Prince’s slinky charm bursts through on every perfect track. That’s specific, right? So, why is All the Light We Cannot See a good book? Well, the two leads are both very sympathetic for very similar reasons, and the atmosphere is very evocative. It’s easier to be specific about great things I personally enjoy. Works that are “so good, it’s bad” tend to be good for very general reasons, and pinpointing what makes them enjoyable just leads to adjectives that you can apply to any number of other works.

You might say that if a work is “so good, it’s bad,” that makes it overrated, right? You see what everyone else likes, but it doesn’t speak to you personally. Well, that disconnect is definitely a part of it, but I don’t necessarily think that’s the case. If something’s overrated, that means its significance has been grossly overstated (such as, say, “Hotel California,” to me). With “so good, it’s bad,” you like it while it’s going on and can recollect enjoying it afterwards, but there’s just something that keeps you from going back for more. There’s nothing overblown about its reputation, but somehow that reputation also keeps you from being sucked in.

How does one avoid this? Well, I don’t think you really can. There was a time where I thought things were in black and white. It’s either got to be bad or good, and everyone has to agree that it’s bad or good. When I was a huge Disney buff (a huger buff than I am now, at least), I thought that there was nobody out there who didn’t like Beauty and the Beast. It’s impossible! And yet, the internet proved me wrong quite quickly. Sometimes you wonder if you’re watching the same thing as everyone else, but in the end, everyone has different tastes, and it’s the most minute distinction that separates a fan from a dissenter. So, you’ll never please everybody, and that’s okay.

If anything, being “so good, it’s bad” should almost be an honor. In a way, it’s almost saying that something is too great. The greatness is so overpowering that even people who don’t want to watch or read it again still say it’s fantastic. It’s so good, you’ll be overcome by its goodness.

And isn’t that just the mother of all backhanded compliments?

Joe Newman-Getzler is a rising Senior at York Prep School in New York City. He watches a LOT of YouTube, and occasionally learns something from it.

Olympic Fever

Josh Getzler

 

Didn't have time tonight, between

 

 

and

 

 

it was all about the Olympics.

 

And it made me not have to think about

 

A Return to the Modifier Zone

Josh Getzler

 

A few years ago I wrote a post for Dead Guy about authors who use adjective after adjective because they think it beefs up their work. You can find it here: The Modifier Zone

                               

(If you can't click on this, let me know and I'll try to deal with it...)

 

The past few months I’ve seen a recurrence of this trend, but I’ve noticed an element I hadn’t seen before: Authors have been front-loading their modifiers, putting all the ten-dollar adjectives in the first few pages—usually first five, sometimes simply in the Prologue. Might be because they assume (correctly) that if we aren’t impressed we’ll just stop reading. And this is true. The mistake is that so often this over-writing is covering up what might otherwise be very competent. I can’t tell you how many times—particularly when the author seems qualified but then I need to wade through three pages of ochre sand and jouncy, bouncy curls the color of honeysuckles but without the staman, etc etc...only to go to Chapter 1 and see “When Smith left his house, he didn’t expect to see a dead body.”

 

When I see that, I understand, and I want to scream “THAT’S how you write! OWN IT! Don’t think you need pyrotechnics on page 1! What you need is a real voice, a sense that you are in control, the start of a plot. You don’t need to modify rain or footsteps (other than, at times, “quiet” or “loud”) or EVER use the word “Turgid,” really. And do write with a consistency of voice and pace.

Summer Reading

Josh Getzler

 

 

So this morning we said goodbye to our girls, off for seven weeks at camp in the Berkshires. Sunday, we will drop The Boy at Skidmore for a pre-college program. As usual, I will list everyone's summer reading--a pretty good, well-considered list, from which they chose strong books. They are:

 

Ita (rising 8th grader): The Chosen, Chaim Potok

JJ (rising freshman): Soul of an Octopus, Sy Montgomery

Joe (rising senior): Between the World and Me, Ta-Nehisi Coates

Layla (failed Dogwarts): Working on Go Dog Go, PD Eastman

 

 

 

Special Guest Post: Bryon Quertermous: AGENTS: CAREER MAGICIANS OR THE DEVIL'S RIGHT HAND?

Note from Josh: Author (and edior, and friend) Bryon Quertermous takes over this space this week. Bryon's in an interesting position, as both an experienced editor and a novelist, he sees the publishing world from several angles. Here, he is discussing the relative merits of author representation. I suspect you know which side I come down...

 

Bryon's book, RIOT LOAD, is out from Polis Books, and is available on Amazon, B&N.com. and from your indie retailers. his website is http://bryonquertermous.com/)

 

 

by Bryon Quertermous

 

 

I just returned from a week of touring for my new novel, RIOT LOAD, and by far, the most common question I was asked was some sort doc variation on who my agent it or how I found my agent. The answer was always the same: I don't and I didn't. 

 

This was met almost always with one of two reactions. Some folks gasped and went wide eyed at the revelation, like I had just told them time travel or faster than light travel was possible, while others nodded in a knowing way like I had just shared a secret with them and we were the only two people who really knew what was ups and that agents were a waste. The truth, of course, is somewhere in the middle.

 

I've mentioned numerous times that I never had any thought of MURDER BOY getting published. After years of writing novels I thought I should write I finally wrote the novel I wanted to write. And it was too short and too weird to really be of interest to most people, I thought, including literary agents. But when Jason launched Polis as a digital imprint I thought that seemed like a fine place for it and boy was I right. At the time I made the deal with Jason and Polis, I was also working as an editor and any of the agents I would have wanted to represent me were also representing authors I was working with as an editor and that seemed like a big conflict of interest to me so I represented myself.

 

I was lucky there in two ways. One, I'd done enough negotiating contracts to know what to be on the lookout for and two, my publisher had also been an author and knew how to write a fair contract. Most other authors won't have that particular mix of situations though, making an agent more necessary. And even with my knowledge and a fair boilerplate, there are still a few things I see after the fact that I would have negotiated differently and that would have been done differently if I'd had an agent at the time. 

 

One of the reasons I went with Jason and Polis rather than publishing the book myself as I had long considered was because I didn't wants to have to do the work of mph listing the book on top of doing the work to write the book. Jason hired a great cover artist and a great copy editor and he gave me a great developmental edit. Jason got the book into the distribution system making it easier for stores to sell the book and for people to find the book and for the press to promote the book. 

 

But when it came to the business side, I was doing more than I really wanted to do and would have liked to hand that aspect off as well to an agent. Because no matter how much experience I have negotiating contracts and how fair a contract Jason puts together, I will always be too close to my work and too emotional to make proper business decisions all of the time. I think for the author-editor and author-publisher relationship to really work best, there needs to be a buffer between the author and the editor and the author and the publisher. Again, I was lucky in that there were never any major issues between myself and Jason or Polis. But there were a few times were I realized had I not been with a publisher like Jason and had not been dealing with a friend, things could have very easily turned out poorly if I didn't have a knowledgable and fierce advocate on my side. 

 

So even in my unique situation that makes representing myself as workable as possible, there are still areas I'm too close or too disinterested in to make it work completely to my advantage. Agents like Josh, who was kind enough to to lend me his space here today, and his colleague Danielle, and other great agents in the mystery field will always be better prepared for the current marketplace and its volatility than any single author will be. Even those authors with no interest in the traditional publishing world will find benefits of working with an agent. I have several savvy freelance clients who work with agents to secure foreign deals and audio deals or who handle film rights for them. 

 

I always hear then advice in forums and other places that all a writer needs to do is have an entertainment lawyer look over a contract but I disagree. A good agent certainly works with a great contracts department or attorney but also has scouts in the field who keep them up to date on the world marketplace in publishing. Having an agent isn't just about making sure you don't get screwed in your contract, it's about having someone you can hand off the heavy business lifting to and who can work as an objective buffer between the author and the various publishing professionals involved in bringing a book to market.

 

So will I be looking for an agent anytime soon? Who knows. Maybe, maybe not. I've always been better about giving advice to other people than I am about taking it myself. Maybe I should ask my agent...

Incognito at the Book Club

Josh Getzler

 

This past Sunday evening, I went to a book club. That's not unusual. What was unusual, however, is this: The club was discussing one of the books I represent, The Yid by Paul Goldberg; and the head of the club had not told the members of the club that I was involved in the publication of the book.

 

It was fascinating--one of the most interesting hours I've spent in ages. I got to do what I almost never get to do: Hear a true focus group of readers discuss a book I worked on without censoring themselves because of any fear of saying the wrong thing or offending me.

 

It was great. First, it was nice--most of the people liked the book without reservation. And the ones who had concerns, were mostly discussing elements we knew were either challenging or had caused the book to be rejected by a good number of editors before Picador took it on: It has a lot of characters, all of whom speak in weird combinations of English, Russian, and Yiddish. Some were frustrated that the storyline was a bit hard to follow at times, that it wasn't always linear, that it veered occasionally into magical realism. One reader wished the book had been written in the original alphabets, so there would be long swathes in Cyrillic and Hebrew letters. I could see our editor blanch.

 

But more often, they praised the writing, the unusual storytelling style, the ambition of the prose, the historical accuracy. I found myself wanting to thank them--or answer the complaints.

 

At the end of the hour, the leader of the club introduced me, and I talked a bit about the publishing history of the book, and asked a couple of questions of my own (Can a book about a group of Jews who reject Judaism; where the only person who says Kaddish is an African-American communist, and the only True Believer a Christian woman; could that book be considered a Jewish book? The answer, unhesitatingly, was yes, which made the author, when I told him, both pleased and kind of bemused.).

 

Then, because it WAS a Jewish book club, reading a Jewish book, we went into the dining room and ate dessert.  

In Praise of Efficiency in Baseball

Josh Getzler

 

I just returned from watching the New York Mets play the Washington Nationals at Citifield with my lovely wife Amanda and my lovely client, the urbane ESPN anchor Adnan Virk. The game was a matchup of stud pitchers--Max Scherzer for the Nats (who had struck out 20 batters in his last outing) and Noah "Thor" Syndegaard for the Mets (who had hit 2 home runs in HIS last outing, and actually entered the game with a lower ERA than Scherzer).  We knew we were going to see a true old-fashioned pitcher's duel, and my over/under for total hits for both teams combined was seven (turned out it was 9). I thought the game would end 3-1; it was in the end 2-0 Mets.

 

Most important though, was the time of game. So often, major league baseball games run 3:15, 3:20. This is simply too long. Endless pitching changes, long innings, general inefficiency. The great thing about tonight's game is that even with two plays where the umps reviewed tape to determine the call, the game lasted a highly manageable 2:40. We still had time to talk and take in the atmosphere, but the game never became oppressive. And watching a game with a person who makes his living watching sports is a treat. Adnan's observations are effortless and still trenchant, with great background.

 

We got home at 11--and now it's time for bed. And thanks to Thor and Scherzer for their efficiency.

 

 

The BEA Blues

Josh Getzler

 

So this week, the Booksellers Expo (BEA) moves from New York City to Chicago, and for the first time in many years, I won’t be attending. Danielle has a client—the marvelous Mimi Cross, speaking on a panel—so she wins, and will be flying off to Chicago on Thursday.

 

I think it was a huge mistake by the BEA to move the expo. I know it’s the way it was done for many years—like Bouchercon, it moved around the country, giving different areas the occasional opportunity to host the publishing industry. It allowed booksellers from the local region to come and spend less money than if they travelled all the way to New York. It’s fair to do it that way.

 

But it’s going to make for a far less interesting fair than when it’s held in New York; and it will have a detrimental effect on the professionals in the publishing houses and agencies based in New York—the vast majority of the industry.

 

Since BEA settled into the Javits Center, publishers and agencies have used the conference not simply to put up booths and showcase their books for the sellers and librarians, but also to allow their employees to walk around the fair and see what the competition has to offer. If only the most senior editors and publicists are attending the fair in Chicago this year, in the past I would walk around Javits and see everyone from editorial assistants on a half-day excursion to four or five mid-level folks standing around and schmoozing. It’s old home week, and it lets the less experienced (if they are paying attention) to get a real sense of the scope and breadth of the industry.

 

And you could get a sense of how Publishing was doing as a whole, too, by the tenor of the floor. Right after the big layoffs of 2008-9, and for a few years following, BEA was tentative and uninspired. Everyone was looking over at the Amazon booth the year it arrived, and walked stealthfully by the digital publishing companies. It wasn’t really until 2014 that I started to see a bounce in the collective step. In Chicago, only the highest-ranking officials will be there, and they will be on message. Booksellers and librarians can create their own buzz, but it’s only a segment of the real story, which will be missing.

 

Booksellers and librarians (and authors), too, enjoyed the excuse to come to New York for a few days, even if they spent half their time either commuting to the Far West Side to the Center or complaining about how horrible Javits is. But publishers feted them, and they got to go see where the pulse of the business in the US really emanates from.

 

This takes nothing away from Chicago itself—I’m really bummed I’m not going to go see my friends there. I’d be writing the same post if it were in Los Angeles or St. Louis or even (God Forbid) Philly. (I joke.) I simply believe that the most valuable locale for the most significant book fair in the US ought to be where the vast majority of people who work in that industry are located.

 

So to everyone on their way—have fun! Post and blog and take pictures and tell me I’m wrong! With all this complaining, I’m insanely jealous. I hope it’s amazing (and if you’re going to be there, go to Mimi’s section!

 

I’ll look forward to next May 31, when BEA returns to New York.

Guest Post: Deafened By The Boss

Joe Newman-Getzler

(Note from Josh: 35 years ago, my cousin Glen took me to the Brendan Byrne Arena somewhere in the swamps of Jersey to see Bruce Springsteen in concert on his tour supporting The River. I had heard about the experience of a Springsteen concert--the energy, the ferver of the fans, the way Bruce left it all on stage. And I left the Meadowlands in awe. This winter and spring, Springsteen has been on the road again, now 67 years old, still playing The River--and so much more. When my son Joe, who's almost 17, was infuriated that my wife and I got tickets to a show without him, we figured out a way to get him a ticket to another concert. We went last night. Here's his report.)

 

      You can only hope to make so many people happy and on such a large scale. On Monday night, I caught Bruce Springsteen on the final stop of his The River tour, in which he and the E Street Band played the entirety of the 1980 double album followed by an hour and a half of bonus goodies. I was accompanied by my dad and some friends from our synagogue who were courteous enough to invite us. Barclays Center was packed to the gills with men and women of all ages (including Chris Christie, apparently), setting an attendance record for the venue. Aside from The River, it was nothing but crowd-pleasing classics and covers. Aside from the ones from The River, there were no bummer tracks to be found - nothing from The Rising, no “Born in the U.S.A.” The Boss came to please, and boy did he.

            Before I proceed with the review itself, let me just add that this was something of a coming-of-age experience for me. It felt almost ceremonial having my father take me: he was a Bruce Springsteen fan years before I was even born, and he was ready to make sure this budding music enthusiast could share in that experience with him. Getting to discuss music with Dad has helped us bond a lot, so getting to share music with as big a venue as this was an experience I’ll never forget.

 

            In short, this was a classic rock fan’s dream come true. Nothing but the hits - “Born to Run,” “Rosalita,” “Thunder Road,” “10th Avenue Freeze-Out,” and lord knows how many others. There were moments of Bruce grabbing his sidemen by the shoulders and having them belt into the microphone with him. He thrust the mic into the crowd, knowing full well that he’d be greeted with a thousand voices knowing each song by heart. Crowd-surfing! Selfie-taking! Covers of The Isley Brothers and John Lee Hooker! Even a transcendent Purple Rain. Inviting fans onstage to dance and sing along. If he was tired, he didn’t show it: it was his last U.S. tour stop and he aimed to please.

            Truth be told, I only heard The River for the first time right before the show. In his opening remarks, Bruce^[1] said it was his attempt at being more mature and introspective following his grittier early records - an album encompassing a thousand emotions and styles at once. Honestly, hearing it live helped me appreciate this a lot more than I did just listening to it. His melody skills evolved, incorporating his earlier Phil Spector-influenced sound while also taking some clear influence from the changing musical trends at the time (Songs like “I’m a Rocker” or “You Can Look [But You Better Not Touch]” would fit in well with the slowly emerging garage rock of the ‘80s). Certainly, it’s got a pretty wide range of styles: slow ballads (“Independence Day”), down-home honky-tonk (“Cadillac Ranch”), gospel (“Fade Away”), and, of course, the tales of troubadours in love/dealing with life that are so very Bruce Springsteen (“The Ties That Bind, “Jackson Cage”). Not every song is created equal - the slower ones tend to drag (note from Josh: One day you'll like them more...)- but with the way the Barclays crowd shouted along with all of them, you’d figure every they were all standards by now.

            Bruce just feels like a guy who's so happy to be doing what he’s doing. For the roughly three and a half hours of non-stop performing, he always had a huge grin on his face, playing his tracks with gusto and palling around with the band and the audience. One especially adorable moment came when, during the requests, he brought up a 10-year-old girl whose sign declared she knew every word to “Blinded by the Light” and put her to the test. Everyone sang along and cheered in encouragement, and it was capped off with her getting her poster signed and the Boss admitting she knew the words better than him. After a while, it felt less like a concert and more like a family reunion. All of us were united by a love for Bruce and his music, so whether we came from New York or New Jersey or Mars, we all shouted along and screamed our lungs out because you can only experience something like this once in a while. He’s a Kennedy Center Honoree and inductee into both the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Songwriters Hall of Fame, but most importantly, Bruce Springsteen is a happy, nice guy who wants to put on a show for us. As long as he has that ability, I say we let him and I hope you can all have an experience like this (with Bruce or otherwise) at some point in your life. Sometimes, the idols are idols for a reason.

            Thanks, Dad!

^[1] For he is Bruce (or The Boss), not Springsteen. Doesn’t matter if you’ve met him or not; it feels like he’s on a first-name basis with everybody.

London Summary

Josh Getzler

 

So another London Book Fair is in the rear view mirror, and I’m sorry to be done with it. This was the most energetic and active of the three Fairs I’ve attended, and the optimism of the professionals there gave everyone a spring in his or her step and a bit more patience for the crowds and the espresso lines.

From the HSG side, we had a busy and productive couple of days. To show you the pace, I’ll just give you a sense of our schedule:

Monday evening: Leave JFK at 8:30 PM

Tuesday morning: Arrive Heathrow at 8:30 AM (In between, read 450 pages of manuscripts, drink a nice red wine, and sleep…45 minutes or so). Speed through Passport Control, crawl through West London in a cab, get to the hotel, shower and change, and arrive at the Olympia in time for a 1 PM meeting. One note: This year, we made two extremely important decisions, which ended up making a huge difference in the experience of the Fair: We rented a table in the Rights Center, so we had a place to sit and meet people, rather than having to run around the room to everyone else’s tables; and Danielle Burby came along. Danielle has taken over our Foreign rights sales, and by tag-teaming the meetings (and occasionally taking simultaneous meetings), we were able both to meet more foreign agents and not do all the talking. So we were fresher at the end of each day, and were able to bounce conversations between us.  

One thing to know about Book Fairs as different from Conferences or gatherings like Bouchercon or Thrillerfest: While those are all about authors meeting each other and agents and editors, this is really a Trade Show. Everyone we met with was either a co-agent from a foreign territory, an editor, or a client. A few (lost) authors approached us to try to pitch us their books, but this (or Frankfurt or Bologna or BEA) is not the place for it. Danielle spent two months coordinating the week, and every minute was pretty much scheduled out.

So anyway, we had our first meeting at 1 on Tuesday, after getting the first of…many coffees. We then had eight meetings. Then went to a reception from a film company. Had a beer, met three old friends in the film world, and had Curry #1 at Woodlands, the best veggie Indian restaurant in London. Then to the hotel, crash, and…

Up on Wednesday. Meeting #1 is breakfast at the hotel with Emad Akhtar, editor extraordinaire at Michael Joseph, who has been working with our client Chris Mooney on going-on three thrillers now. Emad is a fascinating, smart guy—both committed to traditional publishing AND wanting to see it push forward into the modern age. We walked over to the Olympia—a nice 15 minutes, bracing ourselves for the crowds and the chaos.

And for me, the rest of the day was taken up with 14 more meetings, ranging from our brilliant German co-Agent Tilo to an exploratory discussion with a software developer based in Spain with a program designed to make our agency more efficient. Then drinks at a local pub in Notting Hill and another reception. And the day is really taken up with a combination of pitching to co-agents the books we’ve retained the translation rights to, and convincing publishers to do more marketing for the books they’ve already bought. These days, so much of the discussion is about discoverability that it dominates discussion.

Finally we were talked out. And that happens, almost every day, and requires a real unwinding. For me, I often walk the streets of London, just looking around, trying not to think about the day but rather to just relax. I realized I was hungry, found Curry Joint #2, and had a delicious second supper. It’s not that I don’t eat terrific Indian food in New York. It’s just that I really always want to eat it in London. Also fish and chips, although there’s an Irish pub on the Upper West Side that solves that the rest of the year.

The hotel I was staying in had a lovely small bar, and I ended my evening with a solitary nightcap—that Wednesday was one of the most satisfying days of my career—it felt sometime mid-morning that Danielle and I had really hit a stride, and the agents and editors were listening to us, and we just knew we were making our points with clarity and emphasis. We’ll see how that bears out in the next few months, but it was a cool feeling.

Thursday was a sprint—early wakeup and pack, another breakfast, another nice walk to the Olympia, this time dragging my suitcase. Then only four meetings—Danielle had four more after I left—and it was off to the airport (and Duty Free chocolate and booze). We leave with so many new contacts, so much more business, so much follow-up.

Here’s the tally:

30 meetings in 19 hours

15 territories, from Brazil to Russia to Korea to Spain (which has gotten off the canvas to start publishing books again)

Nine coffees, black

12 bottles of water, carbonated

4 sandwiches to complement the rest of our meals

Two receptions

Two Curries

Four different beers

Three different whiskeys

Four NYU Publishing Students who found me on the Floor of the Rights Center and even called me Professor Getzler!

Three changes on the Tube from Piccadilly Circus to Kensington High Street

One great Fair

 

 

Dispatch from Blighty

Josh Getzler

One of my favorite weeks has arrived—greetings from Kensington, where I write with a belly full of curry, a whisky by my side, and the first 8 of 26 meetings during the London Book Fair under my belt.

This year, I’ve been joined by Foreign Rights Manager Extraordinaire Danielle Burby, and for the first time we have taken a table at the Fair in order to be better organized (and not spend half the day running around like chickens with our heads cut off…) While next week I’ll be able to give a better indication of international trends based on our conversations, on our first day Danielle and I were both surprised (pleasantly) by the desire expressed repeatedly for books with feminist themes—or at the very least strong female protagonists. Considering the eye-rollingly sexist backlash to the latest Star Wars trailer that indicated the presence of another female leading role, we were delighted to hear several editors request feminist science fiction or fantasy novels.

Generally, the mood is more optimistic about sales possibilities than the past couple of years, even though particularly European publishers still say they aren’t really out of the woods yet. Our vantage point—the GOOD part of Siberia, as we called section 28V—allowed for excellent people watching, and you really can see the value of a convention like this one—it’s old home week, but not a boondoggle. EVERYONE has days packed with meetings.

We saw a couple of authors who conceivably mistook LBF for Thrillerfest attempt to pitch editors or agents, who really were having none of it. When we were sitting looking straight ahead, we were simply girding ourselves for the next hour and a half of meetings. There really wasn’t even much time to wander the main publisher booths on the Floors—we’ll do that during an hour off tomorrow.

And once the day was over, it was time for a stop-off at a film-world party in Soho (not in the rain) and a supper of dosas and chana masala at Woodlands, my favorite restaurant in London. We know that before we blink twice we will be on the plane back to NYC. Our hope is that we will bring home some knowledge and the prospects for deals with us, along with magazines featuring 1D, coffee from Fortnum and Mason, and perhaps a duty-free Macallan. More next week.

Cheers!

Opening Day

 

Josh Getzler

 

So for the past couple of months, my posts have either been brief or nonexistent. That’s because, for the second straight spring semester, I’ve taught The Role of the Literary Agent to the terrific students at the NYU School for Professional Studies. It’s on Monday nights until 9, there are preps and grades and all manner of work that ended up crashing the party of my time. (Also the new puppy was—and is—insane, and I found myself on very long walks most evenings.) Oh yes, and the only thing more insane than #Layla is the election, which also heats up on Tuesdays.

 

So now the semester is over, the dog is (slightly) more manageable, and the election…well…no. And hey, as my dear friend and client and co-Dead Guy Jeff Cohen has pointed out more than once, this week has included Opening Day for baseball, where optimism reigns. So let’s think of this week as a new Opening Tuesday for this Dead Guy. I’m back, and I’m starting every seventh day.

 

Next week I’ll be in London for the London Book Fair (Interleague Play?), and that’s usually one of my favorite posts of the year. I’m totally jazzed up when I’m at the Fair—I love the experience of 15 meetings a day in a weirdly-configured convention center, followed by cocktails and socializing with people who are usually identified by email tone. I feel like I understand my job and industry much better. It’s funny, though: The first time I went to LBF I left kind of depressed—people seemed to be uncertain where the business was going. Last year, though, whether because I understood the lay of the land better or had more books to pitch or…something…I left feeling excited and optimistic.

 

And this year, for the first time, two members of HSG will be going, and the indomitable (and on a selling hot streak!) Danielle will be coming as well, now in her role of Foreign Rights Manager. And that’s the other thing about this year—and this time of year, when I often take stock of where we are as a company—we’ve grown. A couple of weeks ago, the insanely talented photographer Michael Soluri came to our office and took new photos for our website. He sent us our proofs today, and the group shot of the now SIX of us made me look twice. I said to my partner Carrie, “Hey, we look like a Firm all of a sudden.” And it’s true. And very cool.

 

 

 

So I look forward to the next several months, where I’ll be writing about publishing; some music, probably; the experience of seeing a child of mine look for, apply to, and (hopefully!) find a college to attend; and most likely some discussions of how people treat each other. That’s been on my mind lately, and I think it bears analysis. By the way, if there is anything you’d like to see from this blog in the coming weeks, please just let me know.

 

But in the meantime excuse me--#Layla needs to go for a #walk.

 

When Tragedy Strikes

Josh Getzler

Well, my plan was to write a nice, light post about the end of my semester at NYU, where my students were excellent and my teaching felt a lot more comfortable than last year...and I woke up to another terrorist attack, and terrible, stupid, politicized reactions to it in the US.  So I'll hold off a week, kiss my family, and think of the good in people.

 

A Rainy Night in February

Josh Getzler

 

And yet I just wrote a memo indicating that June 1 was too early to expect something to happen because "Publishing at its best isn't that efficient."

 

Spring is around the corner. Pitchers and Catchers have reported. And just think: By the time June 1 comes around, the primary season will be over and the torture that is this political winter will be over.

 

In the meantime, here is an onion ring that is in the shape of the Obama logo.

 

 

On the Road, With the Boy, Looking at Colleges

Josh Getzler

 

Doesn't get better than this...3 days, 19 mixtapes, 3 colleges, 2 movies, a LOT of restaurant food (much of it greasy or Italian or both), 8 hours of Info Sessions or tours, 28 hours of rain, 10 1/2 hours off driving, 2 guys, talking about stuff.

 

The No Fun...Week

Josh Getzler

 

So in the past week...

 

...Two of my daughters got the Norwalk Virus and we did a lot of head-holding and commiserating...

 

...The dog developed a parasite (didn't hold head...lots of tummy-rubs)...

 

...Oldest Child realized he was a second-semester junior in high school and freaked out a bit...

 

...the Super Bowl was unwatchable...

 

...as was the political campaign...

 

BUT...

 

...Next week, the dog goes to obedience school (we call it Dogwarts)...

 

...my wife and I will spend Valentines Day night watching a Smiths cover band called the Sons and Heirs (because that's how we roll)...

 

...and then the Boy and I get to go visit colleges together. He's preparing 19 hours of mixtapes...

 

...and then we will have a book party at Book Culture in NYC for The Yid (where there ought to be vodka, or at least borscht)...

 

Life will be sweet.

A Shout-Out

Josh Getzler

Sometimes, you can have a terrific book--beautifully written, compelling plot, interesting topic--and it is published...and nothing happens. Sometimes it's the wrong time for the genre, sometimes it's the wrong time of year, sometimes there has been transition in the publishing house and the project falls through the cracks. And sometimes everyone does everything "right" and you simply don't get the love.

 

And then, every so often, you get an editor who gets the book, positions it correctly, and has some magical power to make the universe align and the dominos fall.

 

This morning, Paul Goldberg's novel of Soviet Russia, THE YID, was published, to great acclaim in the New York Times, New Yorker, NPR, Washington Post, and many other Name Brand outlets. And the person responsible for that magic (beside Paul, who is an insane genius), is Picador's Director of Publicity--and Paul's editor--James Meader. From understanding how to pitch this unusual book to booksellers and his own sales force, to keeping a periodically frantic agent under control, James has been an incredible force for good the past year.

 

So congratulations to Paul--this was a marathon project, and we've crossed the finish line. And Thank You to James, for everything.

 

 

 

 

And Nastrovia to both of you.

 

More than the Mystery Guy

Josh Getzler

 

When I interviewed to work at Writers House in January of 2007, I told my bosses that my specialty was crime fiction—that if they gave me a job, I’d be their Mystery Guy. And that worked out. The first book I recommended from the slush pile that was ultimately published was a book combining the stories of Jack the Ripper and Sherlock Holmes. (It turned into Lindsay Faye’s fabulous debut novel Dust & Shadow.) The first author I represented, Gerald Elias, wrote (and continues to write) mysteries set in the world of classical music.

 

As time passed and I took on more clients, my tastes broadened. I took on a wider variety of crime fiction—thrillers and cozies, historical and contemporary, with all kinds of protagonists. I also found myself with a new sublist in a genre I had never thought I’d represent: nonfiction projects written by and—largely—for women. Parenting books, inspirational tales, and work-life balance. Much more prescriptive, and very far away from crime fiction. I still did—and do—more mystery representation than anything else, and any time I think I’m going to pull away from it, I get five great submissions and it just pulls me back. I can’t help it.

 

At the same time, though, I worked on some literary fiction, several young adult novels, even a little bit of science fiction. But then I took on Geoff Rodkey’s marvelous, hilarious, middle grade series The Chronicles of Egg, sold it at auction…and all of a sudden I was getting a ton of middle grade queries. And liking it. The stories of clever kids trying to Work Things Out appealed to me—and still does. I worked a bit up the age-chain a bit to YA, but my children’s book sweet spot was more in middle grade.

 

Five years ago, when Carrie Hannigan, Jesseca Salky and I started HSG, growth and breadth of list was vital to me and to the company. We wanted to have our fingers in as many cookie jars as possible, and we have been able to make sales across many genres. It’s been rewarding, and fun, and I’ve found myself working on books I would never have thought I’d be even interested in, never mind passionate about. I mean, I sold a book about Pluto and it was marvelous.

 

Over winter break, though, I started thinking about my list, about what I had a lot of and what I wanted to see more—and less—of in the coming months and years. Part of that had to do with the need to rework the HSG website, which we are going to be doing shortly; and my Publishers Marketplace page, where many authors go to see what deals I’ve made.

 

I realized, for example, that while I love young adult fiction—and the authors I represent—the amazing Danielle Burby has a better sense of it than I do (and she’s been invaluable in helping me choose and work on the YA I do represent).  I also saw that while I read a ton of books about history and politics, I don’t represent much of it. I want to build my list in that direction, as well as boosting even further my historical fiction and mystery list (I need some Italian historical fiction—or something from a country I haven’t thought of). Finally, I’ve been seeing and enjoying more literary and upmarket commercial fiction. I have several projects in that space right now, and would look for more. Workplace novels, domestic drama, fiction set in Europe or China or India or the Middle East, all grounded in reality.

 

And mysteries. The bit of my description of my taste that is repeated to me in queries more than any other is that I want your ruthless doges and impious cardinals, and kill off your Uncle Mortimer in the process. That still holds, and always will.

Out Came The...

 

Josh Getzler

 

It started the second day we were in Florida over break. My son Joe went to Hot Topic (!) in the Aventura Mall (!!) and came back with 13 new t-shirts. He was very proud of himself—he could wear a different band every Friday at school for the next three months, and never have to think about it.

 

To me, though, the fascinating thing was the selection of groups he chose—there was Nirvana, Bob Marley, Morrissey…OK, also Imagine Dragons, but you can’t have everything. (Full disclosure: I’m just trying to be snotty—we saw Imagine Dragons in concert last summer and they were a lot of fun, if man-bunned.)  

 

Then my wife Amanda texted me from the gym:

“My Alternative radio station just played Rancid. Have you ever HEARD THEM???”

 

“LA Clash.”

 

“OMG buy them NOW.”

 

Then we were trying to decide what to watch on New Year’s Eve. Second choice was When Harry Met Sally, but we ended up going with…Rocky. ONE. The first time I saw Rocky I was seventy blocks down in Miami Beach with my parents and Joe’s namesake, my grandfather, who needed to take a Nitro pill during the fight scene.

 

Was this 2016? Or 1976? 1985? 1997?

 

Then I looked over at the couch, and there were my daughters, one earbud each, watching Tyler Oakley or Todrick on Youtube, littlest in her new Panic! At the Disco t-shirt, and I knew that I hadn’t gone through a wormhole.

 

May everyone have a great 2016. And if you have a black coat, black shoes, black hat, Cadillac, so much the better…  

Gone Fishin'

Josh Getzler

 

Well, not actually, since I don't fish, which is kind of ironic, Alanis, since my middle name is Grilse, which is a young salmon my father used to fish for; but I went once and didn't like it and then married a vegetarian (who turned vegan) and had two more of them (vegans, not wives). Why did my folks do this to me? Had to do with my Hebrew name and not wanting to saddle me with Gershon. So their solution was...Grilse. Whatever, you own it. Autocorrect always makes it Grille though, which I suppose could've happened if he enjoyed barbeque more than fishing (and lived in England).

 

In any case, I'm doing more golfing (and reading, and playing tennis and hanging with the family) than fishing, but I'm on vacation nonetheless. So happy New Year everyone, and back atcha in 2016.

 

 

Grilse    

 

Editing in December

Josh Getzler

During the past two weeks, even a hint of wanting to discuss a submission has garnered me severe side-eye from editors around New York. So it’s allowed me to spend some quality time doing one of my favorite parts of the job of a literary agent—helping my clients make their manuscripts better. I’m a hands-on editor, and am, um,  not shy about letting them know when I think a manuscript or proposal still needs work before being in sufficiently clean shape to be submitted.

 

I get a lot of one particular question at the beginning of this process: “So why does it need to be THAT close to ready? Don’t editors, you know, edit?” (And that same question, incidentally, is asked with even greater despair every time an author gets a pass from an editor who says “I liked this and that and the other thing, but just felt that the pacing was too slow (or one character out of twelve was too weak, or something was preventing her from relating to the protagonist…whatever).”

 

So here’s the thing: We’re in a simple situation of supply and demand. Editors get tons of manuscripts. The ones that have really been worked on, are really polished, have really addressed as many questions as we can possibly anticipate will have the best chance of getting through. (Of course there are the exceptions that prove the rule—the proposals on the napkins, the novel bought on three pages. But, you know, that’s not a terribly good bet, and REALLY bad policy for an agent to run with.)

 

This month, therefore, I spent quite a bit of time digging into text. And I found I could divide my editorial process into three kinds of edits: The in-person (or call), the letter, and the line-edit. This month I did ‘em all. One of my clients, who has written a terrific contemporary novel that’s already gone on one round of submissions, needed to tweak aspects of three of her characters’ personalities, and also beef up her ending. A full-on edit wasn’t necessary, but a conversation was. She came into the office and Danielle and I went through the issues editors had had with her. We had a number of ways to make them more relatable, some of them more sympathetic, humanize one who was just too nasty. We took notes, our client took down her own, we agreed on a course of action, and she went home with a plan.

 

The second—the letter—was to a new client, a middle-grade adventure author with a wonderful voice and a great idea, but whose book was really 2/3 of book 1 and 1/3 of book 2. Here again, a line edit wasn’t necessary, but a serious letter was. We needed to get into Big Issue Stuff, about where to start and stop sections. It wasn’t a granular edit, but rather plot guidance. And when the author indicated that he understood what we were getting at and didn’t need more detailed explication, we were able to move on.

 

The third manuscript was one I have great hopes for—it’s topical, timely, a great idea. But the author and I had gone through some very serious changes to the book, including changing some truly intrinsic pieces that affected the book nearly sentence by sentence. The protagonist’s character had fundamentally changed; the time the book was set was made more vague; even the setting was different. And I was so specific about it (and the author very busy for his own particular reasons) that the most efficient way to deal with it was for me to dig into the text, make corrections inline, and comments in the margins. It takes much longer on my end to do it that way—and it’s invasive, for sure. But at the end of the day, there are times when spending a lot of hours earlier on will eliminate the need for twice as much work later, if it’s still not right. It’s not my first choice of tactic when going through a manuscript. But sometimes it’s the correct way to deal with it.

 

And at the end of the day, every time I take on a client, my commitment is to work with him or her to get the manuscript right. What’s good now, eight years into my agenting career, is that it’s become clearer to me each time whether a manuscript needs a call, a letter, a line edit, some combination…or what…to get it into shape. And it’s completely satisfying when I read a revision and go over to Danielle’s desk and say “Oh MAN, so-and-so GOT IT!” A great feeling.

 

Now it’s on to the next batch. We’ll see what IT brings. But on the plus side…I’ll be reading it by the pool.

 

Merry Christmas to those celebrating!

 

 

Funny, it doesn’t Look…

     

Josh Getzler

 

This past weekend, I participated in a conference sponsored by the Jewish Book Council. I spoke to some writers and a guy who might want to become an agent, and I participated in a panel discussion with two other agents about the usual topics—how we really evaluate query letters, how much money can a first-time author really expect to make, and how quickly do we read. There was one fun question of “what two books would you love to have represented, and not Harry Potter?” (The Martian and Wolf Hall were the two that came to mind, and I might write a whole other column about that one.)

 

But the most unusual question, and the one most specific to this particular conference, came toward the end: What makes a book Jewish? Does it affect a book’s marketability if it is?

 

I thought this was a particularly good question because to my mind there are at least three different kinds of Jewish books (which, oddly, are different in feel from in particular specifically Christian (as a genre) novels, which often are considered Inspirational and somewhat proselytizing, and aren’t as often considered Mainstream. There are quite a large number of publishers and agents who put out or represent Christian books. Not so many who specialize in Jewish ones. (And let me be clear, I’m referring not to bibles or prayer books or commentaries on scripture. I mean novels.)

 

So as I thought about that questions, I came up with three different kinds of books. All in their own way Jewish, all different. So there’s nuance here, and a bit of knowing when we see it.

 

The first book is the most obvious—it’s when you have a book where the characters are Jews, where, their Jewishness is their reason for being in the story—The Chosen, as a famous example, The Counterlife by Philip Roth for another. If you aren’t interested in exploring what it means to be Jewish (whether because you know a ton about it, or nothing), it’s not going to be satisfying.

 

The second is much more cultural, and modern, and uses characters’ Jewishness perhaps as a spice, or a setup, to make a more general point. A good example of this is Jonathan Tropper’s This Is Where I Leave You, which takes place at a Shiva—a week of mourning where Jews gather after someone dies. But the book is less about Jewishness than about being part of a family, and how people deal with each other.  So it’s a framework, but it’s not the raison d’etre.

 

 The third kind of book is, to my mind, exemplified by Paul Goldberg’s forthcoming The Yid, which takes place in 1`953 in Soviet Russia and is about four people who go off and try to kill Stalin. While the title itself would indicate that this is a Jewish book From Word One, there’s an argument to be made that its Jewishness is actually virtually subconscious—the eponymous Yid is an old Jewish actor who also is a fierce warrior. There’s a Jewish doctor too. But the other two protagonists are gentiles—an African-American Communist (Think Robeson) and an almost feral Russian girl.  And while they speak Yiddish to each other at times, there is little talk of God and no prayer for this Yid. There is violence and danger and heartbreak and theater.

 

Yet the book is, at its core, utterly Jewish. That’s because it informs the author—a nonobservant Jew who himself fled Soviet Russia in the early 1970s—in his core. He writes a Jewish book because it would be impossible to do otherwise. His heritage, his experience, infuses his writing in every word. I suppose it’s closer to the way some of the African-American writers say that they have to write Black Fiction because they would feel incapable of writing anything else.

 

I felt pretty satisfied at the end of my answer to the question (although I felt like I might have gone on too long—but I just simply Got Going!).

 

And also by the way, I decided to talk about this not because I had a particular yen to talk about this because I’m myself Jewish or because I typically discuss religion. But rather because I feel like it is applicable to thinking about any genre, whether crime fiction (where a police procedural, a racetrack noir and a cat cozy are all under the same umbrella) or science fiction (similar differentiations) or romance. Sometimes a book is a kind of book because…it just is.

Here Comes the General

Josh Getzler

The past couple of months have seen something unique happen in my house. My wife the history teacher, our three teen/tween kids and I actually agree on how we wish to be entertained. With the exception of an occasional foray into the new One Direction album or a belly rub for Layla the Puppy, our home is All Hamilton, All The Time. At any time of day or night, when one of us is angry at the kids we will threaten to “send a fully-armed battalion…to remind you of my love…da da da DA da, da da da da Daaaai da da.”

 

Hamilton of course is the perfect intersecting area of our family’s Venn Diagram of Interest, where there is history, brilliant writing, hip hop (and almost every other genre of music you can think of) and politics all wrapped into a two hour musical. (Hey, maybe I love it so much because it is at any moment more interesting and inspiring than anything happening in the real politics of the present, but I promised myself I wouldn’t talk politics on the blog until March.) It’s gorgeously acted, a lock to win a clutch of Tonys, and is the brainchild of the guy from The Heights, Lin-Manuel Miranda.

Miranda, who at 35 is ridiculously accomplished (look him up), is also the cousin of a kid at my two older children’s school. The headmaster there locked him in to speak to the students early this fall, before the soundtrack to Hamilton was number 1 on the Rap charts and Miranda had  Freestyled with Jimmy Fallon and the show sold out until NEXT October. They let parents attend, and so last week Amanda and I went to hear what a theatrical genius would say to a bunch of teenagers.

Turns out that Miranda has his finger on the pulse not just of 18^th Century American history, but on the psyche of the 21^st Century Teen as well. He spoke without a note for almost an hour about getting to where he is now by surrounding himself with smart people, figuring out what he wanted to do, and then doing it, over and over, improving and tweaking and keeping his Ass in the Seat.

Our son the Artsy Theater and Music and Animation kid, was enthralled. He’d been into Hamilton since he saw it with Amanda over the summer when my back was out and he took my place. Miranda is a role model to him of the best sort, and when he heard that Miranda was going to be speaking at school, he stayed up until midnight for three nights drawing a cartoon of the cast of Hamilton entirely comprised of Looney Tunes characters. It was inspired, and he had the opportunity to give it to Miranda backstage (and then have his life made when Miranda tweeted a photo of the picture).

 

 

But what Miranda said and Joe understood, and what I thought was so cool and relevant for so many of the people I work with in my life in publishing is this: If you figure out (early, much of the time; but whenever) what you want to do—whether that’s writing a novel or composing a song or swimming fast or trading derivatives—you need to immerse yourself in it with great passion and intensity. You need to practice, even if you are gifted. You need to figure out the best ways to meet the right people, to put yourself in the most advantageous position possible, even if that is difficult and requires tremendous patience. (To paraphrase one of his most famous lines—possibly so inspiringly used because it is so much about his own ambitions—you need to figure out how to be in the Room Where It Happens.)

And it’s not that this is completely new advice, for sure (although it was interesting that his view was so not about being well-rounded, but rather about being expert in your field of passion first, then smoothing out the edges). But what held Joe’s attention, and all 600 others’ in that room that day, was that this kid from Washington Heights, who made the first Secretary of the Treasury Hot in 2015 by making him a rapper, was saying it and was his own best example.

Notes from the Washington Mall

Josh Getzler

I was in Washington, DC last week to see some clients and meet about a couple of projects. A couple of things occurred to me as I wandered the streets of the Capitol on a ridiculously gorgeous Thursday in late October, on one of the first clear-headed and not sleep-deprived days I’ve had since the summer ended and I’d gone from Jewish holidays to a bat mitzvah to, almost inexplicably, adopting a puppy (who is beautiful and one day will be a perfect child, but right now is a gorgeous brown menace).

The first thing I realized was just how portable my job is. I was out of the office but had spaced out my meetings in such a way that I was pretty much able to resemble my usual email protocol without needing to put up an Out of Office message. I have a Surface tablet, which might as well have been made for a literary agent or editor—it allows me to use Office in full, read portably, see my email (which is Google based, so therefore looks the same whether I’m in Chelsea or on Connecticut Ave) and edit manuscripts in a smaller and lighter package than even a laptop (and has a detachable keyboard—it’s outstanding…). I spent several hours a day in my hotel room, by myself, better able to concentrate because I had nothing (beyond the internet and, say, solitaire) to distract me (and the wifi was iffy, so even that went better than usual). I submitted manuscripts, held calls (I use my cellphone a lot anyway), and the change of venue did me a world of good. Not that it’s not good to be back to the kids, dog, and general chaos of NYC, but that was a nice breath.

The second thing that was pretty stark was the way we now think of ebooks. One of the meetings I was in dealt with a graphic novel. All of a sudden, one of the non book-people in the meeting said “Wait a minute, is there even going to BE an ebook of this?” “Of course,” I said. “Well, do we need to negotiate rates or anything?” “No, it’s done in the boilerplate.”

Nobody even needed to say more. And the interesting thing to me was that the conversation was, in point of fact, all about maximizing the print edition through product placement and general branding. It was incredibly old-school thinking—and for this project, it will clearly be the driving force of sales. Now, part of our conversation dealt with the fact that the book part was only one of four separate pieces of a multi-platform brand that will ultimately have digital games, at least two apps, and (if we can clear a bunch of hurdles) a television series. So lots of screens. But the book drove the bus.

So I guess what I took out of the trip is that while the digital world enables me to do my job better, more efficiently, and from anywhere, our industry is getting comfortable, at last (at last? It was pretty quick…but that’s another story) with the place of the digital world alongside the traditional one.

And then I got home and saw that Amazon is opening a traditional bookstore. And we’re off to the races…

 

P.S. Here's where to give money to help Erin pay ridiculous medical bills.

 

We're Really Not Kidding. Help!

Josh Getzler

I'm away from my desk today, so I asked Jeff to put up again his post looking for support for our fellow Dead Guy, Erin Mitchell. It's plenty important enough that you can wait a week to hear about why you shouldn't write in the passive voice or curse in middle grade books, or whatever else I was coming up with today. Back next week. Go Mets (Yes, I said that--maybe my next post will be defending my right to say that after having worked with the Yankees for 9 years--or maybe it's obvious from that!)

We here at DEAD GUY are taking today to urge you to donate to what we believe is the worthiest cause on the planet.

Our very own Erin Mitchell.

As she has documented quite eloquently, Erin's been having some pretty serious health issues, and as anyone in the United States knows about such things, it has not been inexpensive. She is self-insured, so the bills are mounting pretty staggeringly. We believe Erin should not have to shoulder the burden alone while she's dealing with so much at the same time.

So there is a grassroots (that is to say, crowdsourcing) movement to try and help, which was set up by Ellen Clair Lamb. Many have contributed (including some on this blog), and if you are able to do so, we'd urge you to send what you can.

Anyone who has read Erin's posts here or encountered her elsewhere know she is an amazing woman, one whose wit and general good humor coexist with strong views and a sense of right and justice. She is being dealt a hand she doesn't deserve, and the overwhelming cost of health care in America should not be something she has to contend with when she's fighting a much more important fight. 

If you can spare a few bucks, we'd appreciate it if you would take a look. If you can't, why not comment below and let Erin know how much you like reading her here on DEAD GUY or elsewhere. In fact, why not do both?

She's already overwhelmed with a situation. Let's overwhelm her with how much people care.

We do. You get well soon, Erin. We want you back here on Fridays.

Mi-chael Kay is On The Radio To-Day!

Josh Getzler

 

So now for a quick response to Jeff Cohen’s column from yesterday, since what I need to be thinking about as I go in for the most solemn evening of the year for the Jews is sports talk radio and traffic on the Gowanus. But sometimes you have a calling…(which reminds me—how ‘bout the traffic planned in NYC for the Papal visit—should be huge fun!).

 

Back when I was running the Staten Island Yankees, I drove to work every day, On the way out to SI I listened to Mike & Mike in the Morning on ESPN Radio, and after a couple of years I would know whether I was running late based on what street I was on when different commercials would come on. They were fun, had good guests (particularly during football season), and they were the alternative to Imus, Stern, and the Z Morning Zoo.

 

In the afternoon, when I’d go home over the Verrazano Bridge and through the Belt Parkway, I’d listen to the Michael Kay Show on the local part of the ESPN Radio day. And Jeff, while I think he has gotten a little stale, and obvious, I consistently found him to be smart, intelligent, snarky but not obnoxious, and much, much calmer and less condescending than Mike and the Mad Dog, his competition. Plus, he had a theme song by (JOEY SAL-VI-A!) that you could hum.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w167-2k3Vwo

So while I prepare to ask for Forgiveness and forsake coffee (and only incidentally food), I suspect that while I’m hearing “Who By Fire” I’ll be humming “And every 20 minutes you get SportCenter with Don LaGreca, he's a heck of an anchor…” 

Back to the Modifier Zone

Josh Getzler

 

So my back is so bad that I can't sit for any length of time. As a result, I'm reprinting one of my favorite Dead Guy posts, which four years later remains quite relevant. I take you back...to the Modifier Zone.

 

“Josh stretched his tired arms and wearily dragged his calloused, tapered fingers through his curly, tangled hair as he struggled to rouse his overworked body out of his comfortable bed, the tinny chirps of the chrome iHome alarm clock mocking him…chirpily. He staggered blearily past the cluttered wood desk and opened the white door to the beige bathroom, where he splashed cold water on his scruffy cheeks and shook himself awake as the minty toothpaste shocked his sleepy tastebuds into awareness. He trudged heavily into the book-lined family room, past the herringbone sofa and the orange chairs, stopping at his dark brown Jack Spade messenger bag to take out his red Dell laptop. It is 5:15, and you have entered…The Modifier Zone.”

One of the more common flaws I’ve found in the queries I read is the Modifier Dump, when an author—whether in looking to be absolutely sure that the reader knows precisely what the room looks like or the character feels, goes adjective and adverb crazy. A tree is not a tree—it’s a green, leafy tree. A person doesn’t walk down the street—he walks down the wide, car-filled, green-leafy-tree-lined, newly-paved highway.  At times it’s an excuse to show off SAT words: “The perspicacious toddler lugubriously imbibed the apple juice, perspiration trickling over his bloated digits.”

Regardless, it’s the sure way to make me stop reading. When I am looking at the beginning of a book, I want to be hooked. That’s not a revelation—everyone wants to be hooked at the start of a book. It either needs to have action that draws the reader in, or a description of a place or character that makes you want to continue because that character or place is going to do something or be the site of something interesting. And you don’t need a lot of words to make that happen. (And you sure don’t need to describe the weather. Weather, unless we’re talking about, say, the moors or the desert or the ski slopes or the Islands, is rarely relevant; and when it is, it’s often self-evident.)

Rather, in a short space, you (typically) need to place the reader in time and location, and indicate something about the person or people involved, and what they are doing.

I was talking to my assistant, Maddie, yesterday, about an exciting query which had come in through the weekend. It had many of the elements I salivate over—foreign, historical setting, crime, class issues, badass proto-feminist protagonist, and author with a great background and the chops to pull off an ambitious novel of this ilk.

“How’s the writing?” Maddie asked.

“Marvelous,” I said, and read the first sentence to her. “On the night I delivered Mercy Harris of a bastard child, the King’s soldiers burned the city’s suburbs and fell back within its walls to await the rebel assault.”

There is so much good about this—in 29 words, the author managed to convey so many things—let’s see how many:

1)      The narrator delivers babies. So the protagonist is a doctor or a midwife. Not an amateur, or it would have been “The night I helped Mercy Harris deliver her baby.”

2)      More than that, the narrator delivers bastard babies, which means that the story takes place during a time where that is important.

3)      It’s set in a city.

4)      With a wall.

5)      It’s set during a time and place where there is

1. A king
2. A rebellion

So the reader immediately knows that there are big things going on—a civil war of some kind—and also local dramas of childbirth. We don’t know where it’s going, exactly, but we want to continue. And in these 29 words, there is one modifier—bastard—and it’s vital, and evocative. It would say something very different about the book if the adjective were “illegitimate,” right? And it wasn’t necessary to say that the night was dark or rainy or dangerous, because the details given are more than sufficient to pique our interest. I don’t know if the author will be able to sustain the prose or the story, but I do know that I want to read on, and I’m inclined to like it.

So the takeaway on this I suppose is that for me the best writing is careful writing, where the pyrotechnics can be subtle, the adjectives minimal and always germane, and the weather implied. Many agents and editors talk about wanting to be transported to a different or unfamiliar time and place, with unique characters and gripping plots. That’s an incredibly tall order, and one whose difficulty is only magnified when it is burdened with unnecessary modifiers.

What's in a Name?

Josh Getzler

Several weeks ago, Catherine Nichols wrote an essay for Jezebel describing her experience submitting a novel with a male vs female name (you can read the essay here: http://jezebel.com/homme-de-plume-what-i-learned-sending-my-novel-out-und-1720637627). It was fascinating to me, and a bit baffling. Her Male nomme de plume, George, received 8 ½ times more responses than the same book did under her own name.

I was surprised at the results reported in Ms. Nichols’s essay because, for the life of me, I could not recall looking at an author’s sex as a help or a hindrance, except in certain very specific circumstances—some cozy mysteries, some parenting nonfiction, erotica from a woman’s perspective—but in each of these cases I would have been more leery of a man’s name on the query than a woman’s. (And to be sure, I’ve had a devil of a time selling some rights to a mystery, written by a man, in the first person perspective of a woman.) I currently have 47 clients, 26 of whom are women and 21 of whom are men. I represent books encompassing many genres, both fiction and nonfiction (though 75 % fiction), and with a bit of a bias toward adult books vs children’s (30 out of 47 are adult book authors). I looked through my list for trends, tendencies…and found none. Not at all. I look at background, certainly, particularly for historical fiction and all nonfiction. But I have twice as many female Ph.Ds (4) as male (2), and the same number of women writing thrillers as men.

So what is it? I mean, I realize I am particularly interested in signing, for example, female thriller and mystery writers because the editors I talk to tell me they are interested in the next big female-driven thriller or police procedural. But I just. Don’t. Think. About. It. (At least not much.)

I decided to speak to some folks in the industry and had several conversations about this after I read the essay. The two most notable were with one male editor from a major publisher, the other with my colleague Danielle, who is the first reader on many of the submissions that come to me.

The editor said that the thing that the article did for him was to make him assess the books he’d taken on, and what he found was that some of his “project” books, which he’d really had to fight for and which at times were books he’d spent quite a bit of time nurturing, were in fact predominantly by men. He said as well that there were many times he felt (purely anecdotally, and speaking only for himself and not making generalizations!) that it was easier to squeak a book through Ed Board if it weren’t obvious, if it were by a guy. He wasn’t sure why, and the idea disturbed him tremendously. And he said that it made him want to think carefully about whether this is true the next time he brought something up.

My conversation with Danielle really dug through a lot of layers. Because ultimately, I think what the author of the essay was doing, and indeed what so much analysis of books and authors is ultimately about, is dismissing genre fiction—and indeed “commercial” fiction—which is ALL predominantly read by women, and lonely thinking about “literary fiction”—in other words the kinds of books that men read too. Of course I have more female clients than male, and don’t think about the author’s sex, she said; you represent mostly genre fiction. Crime, YA, women’s commercial fiction, parenting nonfiction. (To be fair to myself, in the literary fiction I represent, I have an equal number of male and female clients, but the point is well-taken since it’s only a few books.)

So really, Danielle pointed out, the sexism that Nichols encountered had as much to do with her audience as with her name. And there are certainly all kinds of statistics to back up these findings, when you think of the percentage of Booker nominees or National Book Award long-listers any given year that are male vs female (and it’s not a question of who wins; just how many are nominated); or books on the Times year-end lists of best books, or are reviewed in any given year. All overwhelmingly male (and white, for that matter).

But why is THAT? Is it that any smart novel written by a woman is automatically placed as “commercial women’s fiction” while a smart novel by a man is considered “literary?” Is it that women who write about domestic dramas are taken less seriously than men who write about Tortured Men?

I realize these are lots of questions that get to the very core of literature and generations of reading and writing and publishing habits (I’d be interested in hearing what a female editor of literary fiction thinks, and whether she has thought this way before. Has the ascendance of women to higher levels within publishing houses caused any change? Nichols would say not.) . It left the male editor rather depressed and surprised.

Unfortunately to Danielle, it was obvious.

To me, it might explain a bit why some of my books failed to Pass Ed Board (sometimes multiple times). It won’t make me change who I take and why I take it. I go to work each day looking for the best possible book, regardless of genre, regardless of who the author may be. The bar is high regardless.

It seems, though, in our industry, that if you are a woman you have to jump that much higher.

Radio Silence

Josh Getzler

My wife and I spent much of the last week on the road. We went from New York City to Newport, Rhode Island; then went up to Boston(-ish) to pick up our son from his summer program; back down to New York. So we had several extended drives where we were alone in the car (or with a sleeping kid, who had stayed up till 2 AM with his friends and could barely put two words together).

We were around 45 minutes from the Henry Hudson Parkway on the way home when we turned on the radio for the first time—and then only to listen to the traffic report.  We hadn’t intended to have a non-radio-oriented trip, but it happened.

If you knew me at, really, any time of my life, this would seem really weird and out of character. I’ve been a DJ, an inveterate mixtape creater, and never without music. If I knew during college that I was going to have 10 hours in a car, I would have made seven mixes with different themes, each with a name describing, say, the counties I wanted to be in while the mix was playing. (Yes, I was impossible.) Not making any mixes—or even putting on the radio to see what is hot on campuses in, say, Connecticut—would have been inconceivable.

Amanda and I remarked on the silence of our trip—and, in fact, how welcome it was. Our lives are so hectic, so filled with voices, with ambient noise, that without thinking of it we used our trip to decompress, to detox ourselves. We solved assorted problems in our lives; organized our autumn a bit; thought about what we needed to do to help our kids. We didn’t need to sing along to Vampire Weekend or Steely Dan or the Pogues or whatever. We got to reconnect and reset ourselves, and to have a little quiet for ourselves. And it was good.

Complex, Please; Not Just Strong

Guest Post by Danielle Burby

(Note from Josh: After Thrillerfest last week, Danielle and I were sitting in my office discussing the pitches she received in the 3 1/2 hours of Pitchfest. As she was describing her frustration with the trope of "strong women" protags in fiction these days, vs "complex women" I realized her differentiation was both interesting and very instructive for authors looking to write female characters effectively. I asked her to put it out on the blog--Enjoy! JG)

I have represented HSG at Pitchfest for a couple of years now and it is always a whirlwind. There’s something energizing about looking authors in the eye while they pitch, especially because you can ask questions and engage them in conversation. It’s a nice change of pace from reading queries on a computer screen. It’s also a really good chance to see what the upcoming trends will be. This year brought a rise in the number of medical thrillers and, surprisingly, vampire books. There is another theme that emerged, however, both this year and last, that I find particularly interesting. And it likely isn’t what you’d expect.

For the past two years, I’ve had author after author sit down, look me in the eye, and confidently inform me that they chose to approach me because I’m looking for Strong Female Protagonists. Without exception, when a writer pitched a novel helmed by a woman, the character’s gender was paired with the word strong. Let me say that again. Every single time I heard about a female protagonist, the writer rushed to assure me that she was strong. Authors were so assertive about what I was looking for that I found myself actually turning around during a break to double check the description of my tastes taped to the wall behind me. I was relieved to see that my wish list reflected what I actually wanted to see—complex female characters. It was a word I had chosen intentionally.

On the surface, this may seem like a silly little thing to harp on, but, from where I’m sitting, the strong female character trope is flooding my query folder and I’m ready for it to slow to more of a trickle. I don’t want strong—I want nuanced. I want your female characters to have the same depth and dimensions as your male characters. I want them to be people.

I understand where the strong female character came from. She came from a good place. The idea was to give female characters more space to maneuver, to give them the chance to move past love interest and damsel in distress. The strong female character was allowed to be hard and powerful. She was allowed to do more than love and be loved. She had her own adventures instead of being a prize in someone else’s. But she is just as limiting, in her own way, as every other female archetype. She is still the product of a society that values masculinity above femininity and allows very little room for complexity when it comes to women.

It’s the same feeling that I have about Lean In, which tells women, ‘if you can’t beat them, join them.’ Don’t be soft, be hard. Don’t be sweet, be assertive. Femininity is bad. Masculinity is good. It’s a simplistic approach that paints the world as flat instead of round. We are more than that. We, as an industry can—and do—accommodate more than that. For example (since we’re focusing on thrillers at the moment), there are a lot of different opinions out there about The Girl on the Train, but, personally, I adored it. Rachel is pathetic and repulsive and unreliable and I loved her for it. She was a person not a trope. And, clearly, she thrived in the marketplace. 

But the authors at Pitchfest and, beyond that, the ones who query me, don’t seem to trust that. One author at Pitchfest had written what sounded like a wonderful novel, but she rushed to assure me that her protagonist was strong. She wrinkled her nose in disgust as she said, “She isn’t girly and feminine and silly; I can promise you that.” I wanted to reach across the table, place my hands on her arms, and say, “Feminine is not synonymous with silly. There is nothing wrong with femininity. Your character can be both girly and strong.”

Don’t get me wrong, I love a badass lady at the helm of a novel as much as the next person, but I want more from her than just that. I think we are in a growing place in fiction right now. We are in a place where we can push ourselves harder to give all of our characters more depth. So don’t give me strong—give me real. Give me complex.

Princess Spike and the Idiot Plot

Guest Post by Joe Newman-Getzler

Note from Josh:

One day last week, I was sitting calmly at home when Joe, my 16 year old son familiar to readers of this blog as my periodic stand-in (and current HSG intern), came in, outraged. “I can’t believe what happened!” I thought perhaps the Supreme Court had ruled on something. But it was better. “My Little Pony just used the Idiot Plot,” he said, sputtering, and then gave me a 10 minute explanation. It was fascinating and cogent. He has agreed to summarize it below, and I thought it has somewhat surprisingly strong relevance to our readership. JG

Before I begin, I should warn you: this is an essay about the significance of a writing trope found in My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. Yes, the show about cartoon ponies with names like Princess Twilight Sparkle and Pinkie Pie going on adventures where they learn about friendship and being nice to each other. If thinking about this undermines the overall message of the essay for you, bear with me. I actually have something to say here. If it’s too distracting, turn back now. It’s only getting more ridiculous from here.

Of all the writing tropes and clichés that can be commonly found in media, the one I can’t stand the most is one called “The Idiot Plot.” The Idiot Plot, a name coined by the late film critic Roger Ebert, is the kind of plot where a misunderstanding arises that could be solved in minutes if the characters weren’t idiots. Say, in a romantic comedy, a girl spots her boyfriend from afar huddled up with another girl, making her believe he is having an affair. In actuality, he was just showing this other girl a video, and when he gets home, he is bewildered to see his girlfriend so mad. In the world of regular humans, a situation such as this would be resolved by him explaining the situation to her, with the other girl backing him up. It might be hard to believe at first, but if he’s sincere enough, they can hook up again and live happily ever after. But, being the Idiot Plot, he now has to jump through hoops to regain her love (ideally through several misunderstandings that make him look like a clod).

The biggest problem with The Idiot Plot is that it is so completely out of touch with how humans actually act. It can work in the right hands, but most of the time it’s just a frustrating cliché.  You feel as though the writer is shutting his brain off to prevent himself from thinking of a logical solution. Following The Idiot Plot’s logic in the real world would be, well, idiotic. If you accidentally send someone a text where autocorrect has made it say “Someone took my whale” instead of “Someone took my wallet,” you wouldn’t need to beg their forgiveness and stand outside their window playing Peter Gabriel. It can be dismissed with a “WALLET, not WHALE. LOL. Damn autocorrect” and forgotten.

That being said, let’s talk about Friendship is Magic…I kinda like it. Not just on a guilty pleasure level, either; I find this a genuinely well-crafted show with interesting situations and characters. I’ve been following the show for about 5 years now, and while it’s not the next The Wire or anything, it’s still perfectly harmless, and quite enjoyable if you allow yourself to be sucked into the world of Equestria and overlook the silliness for a while. That being said, I’m not treating this as anything more significant than what it is. But I hold it to a pretty high standard because of its solid craftsmanship, but I’m not trying to make it out to be the animation event of the century. Just a good show.

Part of those high standards stems from the writing. Despite having to deal with some pretty silly stuff (if I ever tried to write anything that contained a sentence like “Twilight Sparkle and her friends use their Elements of Harmony to destroy the evil Nightmare Moon and release the banished Princess Luna,” I’d probably lose my mind), the writers of the show make it all sound natural and interesting, building the world of Equestria and coming up with creative adventures to send the gang on, as the show is very inspired by Greek mythology and pop culture. The morals can sometimes be stupid (one episode says that you should blindly accept things if they satisfy a friend who believes the same thing) but they never talk down to the viewer, which might be why the show has such a large fanbase of adults. I often like examining the episodes for how the writers develop the plots and keep the characters developing, and it just makes the skill with which the writers balance out kid-friendliness with emotion and adventure all the more impressive, as it shows they have respect for the audience.

Of course, there have been missteps. The last episode I saw was particularly flawed. It’s called “Princess Spike,” and I must warn you that it has an unbelievably silly-sounding plot.

In the episode, the four princesses – Celestia, Luna, Candence, and our heroine Twilight – are holding a royal summit in Canterlot, where delegates from all areas of Equestria are gathered to discuss the important issues of the day. Spike, a little purple dragon and Twilight’s assistant, needs to make sure she gets her beauty sleep, as she has been preparing for the summit all night and is exhausted. When the delegates start bringing up problems they want Twilight to resolve, Spike tries to take things into his own claws so as not to wake her. Shenanigans ensue.  

While I was watching the episode, I slowly began to realize that it was an ideal example of The Idiot Plot. Kids’ shows in general thrive on The Idiot Plot, and “Princess Spike” has it in full force. Imagine you are in Spike’s place, and two delegates have just arrived to have a dispute settled over which one gets to have space for a conference. They demand to see Twilight and won’t take no for an answer. If it were me, I’d remember that there are three other princesses in Canterlot who are currently awake and perfectly fine at resolving conflicts, and I’d tell the delegates to see one of them because Twilight is asleep. Being reasonable adults, they’d accept these terms. Problem solved. It’d take about a minute. Any further issues could also be brought up to the princesses, such as the leaky water main whose fixing is prevented due to being too loud for Twilight to sleep.

This isn’t cool with The Idiot Plot. After all, there are 22 minutes to fill. So, rather than seeing the princesses, Spike has to make orders in Twilight’s place without conferring with anyone beforehand, which leads to disaster that can only be resolved with a heartfelt speech and a lesson about not getting carried away with responsibility. Is it worth all the mess? Who cares, problem solved. It pains me to have to use a show I enjoy as an example of a writing trope I really hate, but I feel it’s important to get this across: using The Idiot Plot is a bad idea. Unless it is a last resort, a story’s conflict should stem from an actual, legitimate problem. Hinging a conflict on something as light and easily-resolvable as a simple misunderstanding is silly. If we, the reader/viewer, are supposed to sympathize with the main characters, they should generally be intelligent. If your audience pities your character’s intelligence level rather than envies it, you’ve done something wrong.

That’s why it’s so odd that Friendship is Magic used it. These are smart writers! They’ve made great episodes that had smarter plots. I mean, what about “Pinkie Pride”? That was a great episode! Or how about “Sonic Rainboom” or “Sisterhooves Social,” those were very deep, interesting –

            Hey, where’d everybody go?

My morning with Connor, Joey, Shane and iJustine

Josh Getzler

I’ve been meaning to write this post for several weeks, but it kept getting shelved. But now that my girls are going to camp tomorrow, and I won’t be able to fact-check with them for two months, my hand is forced.

So as I was doing my annual tour through the Booksellers Expo (BEA) extravaganza in May at the Javits Center, I was struck by one of the huge banners hanging from the ceiling above one of the entrances. It was from the new KeyWords Press imprint of Simon and Schuster and featured the faces of four young, good-looking people: Shane Dawson, Connor Franta, Joey Graceffa, and Justine Ezarik. These four authors were going to appear on the Sunday following BEA at BookCon, which is part of the ComiCon-like piece of BEA that is open to the public.

I immediately took a photo of the banner and sent it to my daughters.

You see, the four authors are among my daughters’ favorite YouTubers, video bloggers who have created huge followings by bypassing traditional avenues of discoverability and appealing directly to…whomever by looking at a camera, smiling sheepishly, and talking. Then posting the monologue on YouTube and seeing who will respond.

To my daughters, these people are friends and idols and role models (but with excellent hair). To me they seemed charming and slightly inarticulate.

Thirty seconds after sending the photo to them with “Want to go on Sunday?” attached, I got the following text from the 12 YO:

YAAAAAAAASSSSSSSSaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh Shwag Daddy!

And the following email from the 11 YO:

 

So clearly we had to go see them on Sunday.

When I bought the BookCon tickets, I received an email that contained, among other things, a link to a set of instructions as to how to deal with attending the panel with Joey, Connor, Shane, and (as she’s known) iJustine. There were paragraphs about getting there an hour in advance, which room to go to to get your wristband, then which line to wait in; also where to buy books, which would be the only way you would be able to take a photo with the authors.

Hmm. It was very John Green/Stephanie Meyer in feel, and I couldn’t imagine it being THAT bad. I mean, Joey has almost 5 million subscribers, and Connor 4 and a half million. But would anyone go OUT to see them.

Well, yes.

When Jessie, Ita, Ita's friend Avigail and I got to Javits, and made our way downstairs to the holding pen, we were 45 minutes early and around 400^th in line. And it was fascinating. EVERYONE coming to see them was a teenage girl (except for the occasional boyfriend and sporadic grey-haired chaperones). They were all drinking hot pink Frappuccinos  and looking…happy. On their cell phones. Posting photos of the line on Instagram that looked kind of like this:

 

We waited a long time. And every time someone Official came by to announce that everyone needed to stay patient, there were screams. Like, rock concert screams. The vibrations built.

And I need to say something: If it seems like I’m rolling my eyes at this, it’s because the bare description of the event was utterly the cliché of a parent taking a group of tweens to an event he’s not wanted at. But here’s the cool thing: It was at a BOOK convention, and it was SWEET. Everyone was totally well-behaved. There were nerds and cool kids side by side, and there was no drama beyond the vibrations.

Then they opened the door, and the thousand 11-17 year old girls went BATSHIT. I’d been to this room before for some events at BEA so I ran the girls to the far end and we found reasonable seats. A DJ was playing pretty loud music (for 10 in the morning) that everyone knew, and the place filled up within moments. The moderator came out, the lights went down, the YouTubers shuffled into the room…

And the place exploded like it was the Beatles (or maybe 1Direction). Girls were SOBBING, screaming, shouting incoherently, for a really long time. At that point I was bemused, because there was no way the next 45 minutes could live up to the anticipation.

And then I learned about the YouTube zeitgeist and why it’s cool.

You see, while so much of the internet is negative and dangerous and filled with predators and trolls, these folks (and a number of other vloggers) are People Positive. They are kind and understanding (and snarky but in a nice way) and empathetic. They were bullied and weird and nerdy and closeted, and when they turn on their cameras and just talk about their day, with their success and newfound life satisfaction, their audience gets a sense that they can succeed as well. Joey and Connor and Justine and Shane appreciate their success and LOVE their community. They give time and imprimatur to worthy  causes. And while they’ve certainly figured out a way to make a living talking on the internet, their message of tolerance and collective support is simply undeniably positive.

At the end of the formal interview, the moderator allowed a few questions from the fans. I had been, again, skeptical of the kinds of questions we would get. But the girls said I’d be surprised. And again they were right and I was…old. The kids asking questions were well-informed and articulate, and were asking questions more philosophical and less “ConnorIWannaMarryYou.” And the YouTubers took them seriously (even if they were funny and pretty vague in their answers), and everyone left empowered.

When we left the room, we knew that the rest of the day would be anticlimactic. We wandered the booths, which were beginning to be disassembled anyway at the end of a long convention. But all the girls could talk about was how amazing it was to see these people in person. We didn’t get to have our photos taken with them—the line for books was as long as the line was to get into the auditorium, and life had to go on. But I left feeling like I learned something good about society, at the very time when so much of our lives is taken up with analyzing tragedy. There is a community out there, of tweens who read and feel and want to be happy and can’t always figure out how to make that happen. And they are led by a pretty impressive group of near-peers, who reach out through their cameras and help a bit to show them how to Make It Through.

Wait till…

Josh Getzler

For the past four years, my family has bought season tickets to see the New York Liberty women’s basketball team. We were hooked in the end of the 2010 season, when the Liberty made it to the WNBA playoffs behind guard Cappie Pondexter, and 14,000 fans chanted “MVP, MVP” in Madison Square Garden even as the hated Atlanta Dream beat them in heartbreaking fashion.

What followed was exile followed by decline. The Dolans of Cablevision, who own MSG, the Rangers, Knicks and Liberty, decided to renovate the arena during WNBA season for three years. So the family bought our tickets and schlepped out to Newark, where we watched the team get older and more injured and eventually dropped out of contention.

Dolan even hired the (formerly) hated Bill Laimbeer of the 1980s and 90s Detroit Pistons “Nasty Boys” to coach the team, and…it just didn’t work. Even a return to MSG last season with a new star—Center Tina Charles—to work with the ever-intense Cappie, saw a tired and fractured club. They didn’t make the playoffs, and then, in typical New York basketball fashion, didn’t win the ping-pong ball draft lottery to get a top-two draft pick.

And then they did an extraordinarily odd and unaccountable thing: They hired Laimbeer’s former teammate and ex Knicks coach Isiah Thomas to be President of the Liberty and part owner. While that was a head-scratching decision to begin with on merit—Thomas’s reign with the Knicks was risible—it was his departure amidst a sexual harassment scandal that made his Liberty hiring so tin-eared. The Liberty has an executive in waiting in Teresa Weatherspoon—T-Spoon, a former Liberty Star, has been in the front office for years now. She is of the team, and beloved by the fans. Instead they hired a man to run the team whose tenure with the Knicks was so poisonous that there were pages of depositions that described his disrespect for the women who worked for him. On opening night there were 20 people in “Liberate the Liberty” t-shirts picketing outside the Garden calling for his ouster. How could this possibly work?

We decided in the end to keep our season tickets. We love the games. The players, as I’ve said in this space many times, are extraordinary role models for both our daughters and our son; and the fan base is much more relaxed and diverse that the fan base of the Knicks or Rangers. And tickets are around a third as pricey. And the game, as years have passed and more and more players come from big-time women’s college basketball programs, has gotten better and better.

So tonight was our first game of the season. Over the past off-season, in a sad but probably strategically advantageous move, the Liberty traded away Cappie and several other core players. It was a new bunch, and they had been blown out of their preseason games. Our expectations, I will tell you, were low.

And then the Liberty went out and blew out the Indiana Fever. Tina Charles was outstanding. But what gave us hope, what made us want to come back not just because we are fans and that’s what you do, is that the young players, drafted out of Cal Berkley (Brittany Boyd) and U Conn (Kiah Stokes), were extraordinarily strong, gifted, and energetic. There is depth and talent, and it was without Epiphany Prince, the star on the other side of the Cappie Pondexter trade. The players were bouncing down the court, rather than wheezing. And the Garden was rocking more than it did through the entire wretched Knicks season (there is a reasonable chance that the Liberty, in a 34 game season, will win more games this year than the Knicks did over 82 games this year).

I know this isn’t a publishing column. But on the other hand, it’s about passion and entertainment and family and the business of leisure. There are similar challenges in marketing the WNBA to trying to sell mysteries or middle grade fantasies. And in the same way that I want my column to make people read books, I want them to watch women’s basketball. I’ve got the season tickets—if you want to come with me (and I know you! Yes, that’s important too…) let me know. I’ll buy the beer.

BEA Week--just kind of sneaks up on you!

Josh Getzler

Last week, as we were cramming everything possible into Thursday and early Friday before Memorial Day weekend, I suddenly realized that the short week was going to be even shorter. Or, in some ways, endlessly long. It is BEA week, which I love on one hand (as I've said in this space many times I LOVE trade shows. Have since my baseball days, when we used our tote bags to pick up t-shirt designs and bobblehead dolls instead of ARCs and publisher catalogs...); and also know that it's going to be unexpectedly inefficient.

That's because unlike the London Book Fair or Bouchercon, BEA is on US Publishing's Home Turf, so there's no packing, and we just sort of say "OK, who has what meetings on what days?" We never take into account that the schedule gets packed, and that it takes 45 minutes to get to or from the Javits Center from anywhere. Including, say, Los Angeles.

Which is not to say I'm looking forward to the BEA's upcoming move to Chicago etc--I LIKE being able to take the kids to school and then schlep over to 11th Avenue. And I know my friends reading this in their hotel rooms are not at all sympathetic to these (really halfhearted) complaints. But that's the fun of BEA week--NY publishing professionals get together to complain. Largely about everything related to the Javits Center, from the lines for coffee (long) to the distance you need to walk everywhere (long) to the wait on the wifi for your email to load (long). Sarah Weinman tweeted it well last night:

Sarah Weinman     ‏@sarahw                   12h12 hours ago               

Tomorrow is the first day of officially complaining about BEA

 

Have a fun conference everyone, if you are able to go. And go to see Geoff Rodkey and Toni LoTempio sign books on Friday (not together, but simultaneously), and pick up lots of cool tchotchkes. And celebrate books.

Some thoughts on the state of Foreign Rights for books

Josh Getzler

First, please allow me to apologize for my odd and not always timely posts the past few weeks. I’ve managed to go from Passover to the London Book Fair to having my back go out to a death in the family, so the juggling of life and work and writing and generally being efficient has been…challenging. The fact is, this particular post has been percolating since I was in London, in the middle of April.

Three years ago, I went to the London Book Fair for the first time. HSG had just begun, we wanted to announce our presence (with Authority—kind of like Nuke LaLoosh in Bull Durham). And while I met with lots of fascinating people, the overwhelming feeling I had when I returned was that there had been an atmosphere of great apprehension around Earl’s Court. European publishers were unsure how stable American publishers were; how the emergence of digital media was going to cut into international sales (if they were); and with growing economic instability in some of the larger European countries (Spain, Italy, Greece), whether folks who were having trouble putting food on the table would be overly interested in a paranormal romance.

So I was curious as to what the atmosphere was going to be this year, in a new venue (with its rights center tucked away in a corner approximately ten miles from the entrance to the Olympia) with continued economic unrest in Europe but the publishing world somewhat more stable. E-books have begun to be more predictable; the latest mergers and squabbles have been completed and resolved. I know our business at HSG has improved in the past two years, with more sales and a sense that business was rebounding. The issue on everyone’s minds has more to do with marketing and discoverability than whether publishers would survive to next year.

And while I certainly heard some difficult news from a number of territories—Spain wanted only books that already came with enormous buzz and preferably a film deal attached, for example—it was heartening to hear from the Japanese market, many of my British colleagues, and even the French. A little. Between espressos. And only reluctantly.

And then there were the Germans. First of all, I’m incredibly fortunate to work with one of the great people in publishing, Tilo Eckardt at Mohrbooks (whose name we at HSG have, almost inevitably, shortened to the less accurate but hipper T-Lo.). And it appears that my clients’ writing has dovetailed with the German market’s needs. Or perhaps, the German economy is simply strong enough that their publishers are willing to take greater risks than many other places. Regardless, in the past six months I think we have sold eight or nine projects there, far more than in any other territory. And this week, we were the beneficiaries of an auction between two houses on a book by one of our Dead Guy bloggers that had been bought by another of our bloggers…but I’ll let our writer make that announcement…very early next week.

Notes from back spasm

Josh Getzler

Well, I had one really great blog post planned today about CrimeProm 2015, otherwise known as the Edgar Awards, which took place last week and were extremely cool (even though I ended up being The Guy You Don't Want to Sit Next To, since both my Client Steve Hockensmith and my seatmate on the other side Ben Winters didn't win their categories. But they were lots of fun to schmooze with nonetheless, and congrats to everyone who did win. The Death Montage with the song Warren Zevon wrote while he was dying was a little macabre, but, you know, crime fiction...)

 

Then this afternoon the New York Liberty, the women's basketball team my family is obsessed with (particularly my tween girls), hired Isaiah Thomas to be its president, in an extreme case of Tin Ear. Let's see: Zeke has been such a disaster as a coach and talent evaluator that I probably wouldn't let him near the Ramaz Middle School Girls Soccer Team which has been outscored 39-4 in its four games this year. But then there's the sexual harrassment suit that ran him off the Knicks the first time. Just what you want, PR wise (never mind in the workplace) for a team that is striving to be a group of badass role models for future female athletes. It's horrible. See this article for details : http://www.sbnation.com/2015/5/5/8553115/isiah-thomas-new-york-liberty-knicks-raptors-pacers-cba-fiu

But then I got home, said hello to my son...and couldn't straighten up. So I'm writing this like Marty Feldman in Young Frankenstein, and need some Advil and scotch to loosen it up. Daughter #2 offered to rub my back, felt the spot of the spasm and said "Holy" and then a word that is unbecoming for a 12 year old. So On to next week. When I'll talk more about books and less about basketball or backs.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CB8Q3ywwAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DdNTToXKgwZc&ei=jG9JVaXCMpKWyATNi4DoDA&usg=AFQjCNF2WkdBjAXFKCc4OSiDScrEhRcmiA&bvm=bv.92291466,d.aWw

 

A '69 Chevy with a 396

Josh Getzler

 

Last night, our son came into our room and made a pronouncement. He does this occasionally, and I always wonder what THIS one will be. “Guys,” he said, kind of ominously, "I’ve thought a lot about it and decided that…my favorite music…” he paused. Dramatically… “is funk from 1960s and 1970s. And even a little ‘80s.”

OK. I mean, there are many things a 15 year old boy can pronounce that would be much more worrisome than an abiding passion for Parliament, Stevie Wonder, George Clinton, and Prince. And it made me think back to when I was a little younger than Joe is now. I knew I loved all different kinds of music. But there was that one day, when I was on the Jersey shore during the summer, and my parents took me for ice cream at Carvel, and we walked down the street past the local record store.

It was a shrine, to a gaunt, serious, curly-haired guy with a guitar. All over the store there were white posters. There might have been other albums for sale, but none were displayed. It was all about two words. BRUCE. And DARKNESS.

 

Over the next several years I listened to a lot of music, from the Grateful Dead to the Replacements to the Talking Heads and (even) Styx. But from that moment in that store with my ice cream cone and BRUCE. DARKNESS…there was something special about Springsteen. I saw him in the good times (The River tour) and the...less good (The Juliana Years of Tunnel of Love) and the epic stadium shows. I spent hours trying to memorize his patter before Growin' Up and listened to a bootleg from my cousin Glen on a cassette in my parents' car the day after our dog Missy died on my watch when I was 18.

I thought about that this morning as I got on the subway on the way to work. I thought about Joe’s passion for Superstition and Mothership Connection, and how wonderful it is to discover something and to love it. And I wondered whether one day when he's 46 he'll turn on his music and skip over whatever his kids have turned him on to, and go to Give up the Funk.

And I turned on my iPod and spent the next 30 minutes back in New Jersey as a pre-teen, listening to BRUCE. DARKNESS.

(Tired) Thoughts from the London Book Fair

Josh Getzler

I got into London at 9:30 this morning and had my first meeting at 12. Yep, it’s London Book Fair time again, when everyone says to me “Oh you lucky man, you get to spend the better part of a week in London.”

I, on the other hand, say “Oh, you mean I get to have 28 meetings in 48 hours in a crowded zoo of a Rights Center, trying to remember if my next meeting is with Spain or Germany, whether I’ve met with this person or not, and am I ever going to eat?

Yes, it’s fun, and I love it. I mean, I’m beat—I have slept two out of the past 36 hours and my first meeting stood me up. But I started my day with a lunch with my wonderful client Elaine Powell, ended my workday at a cocktail party for a publisher, and am writing this at a pub with a pint of Trinity Pale Ale. So, I mean, life doesn’t exactly suck.

And I got to spend my day talking to people who spend their days the way I do—thinking about the best books they’ve read recently and how they can convince the most people to buy those books. They just do it in Portugal or the Netherlands or Israel, which is the point of the London Book Fair—it’s a gathering of book folks from around the world who want to figure out what’s Out There.

Publishers advertise their lists in Trade Show booths, sure. But everywhere you look people are sitting across from each other with notebooks or tablets, talking about their books—how certain markets can’t sell paranormal romance while others are dying for dark domestic dramas; which countries need a hardcover publication to show you are serious, while other countries have basically frozen their market until their fiscal situation improves.

There is an abundance of air-kissing and cardboard espresso cups, of eye-rolling and shrugging and tweeting. When I worked in baseball, my wife always said that I enjoyed the Winter Meetings trade show more than I had any right to; I believe the same is true of the London Book Fair. It’s part class reunion and part convention, with elements of speed dating and fraternity rush. But with books. In London. Where you can end your day with a pint of Trinity.